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How to pretend to debate climate change

James Delingpole is certainly leaving his mark in Australia.

The ABC, in a much publicised stunt to “debate” climate change, with warmist Tony Jones and QandA, and titled I Can Change Your Mind About Climate Change, had its traditional stacked panel and the inevitable planned gotcha moment:

an outrageously parti-pris greenie moderator,  a greenie “social researcher” (whatever that is), a greenie youth activist, the head of the ultra-greenie, even-worse-than-the-Royal-Society CSIR[O] and two more greenie plants in the audience.

The critical “gotcha” moment came when Tony Jones went to an audience member — Oceanographer Matthew England  — who happened conveniently to have already been given a lapel microphone.  Jo Nova gives a brilliant account of the ABC perfidy. To compound it all, Tony Jones’ collusion is amusing when he pretends to wait for a microphone to be passed to the scientist. [Watch from 36:00]

To top off Delingpole’s visit, he himself experiences the depth of the ABC’s bigotry in an interview with one of the lions of left orthodoxy in Melbourne.

The only fly in the ointment so far has been a beardie, leftie irritant on Melbourne radio (ABC: where else?) called John somebodyorother who kept interrupting me and protesting – rather too much I thought – what a consummate professional he was. I keep forgetting his name.

Hint for James.  John is spelled JON.

Shamelessly, the interviewer in question insisted he was just bravely and fiercly going about his professional duty to question all sides of the debate. Yeah, that’s right. Just like he did with one of his favs last year. 

It is instructive to listen to both interviews, just to compare how even-handed and professional he is with his interrupting.

A distaste for competition because it is not inclusive

UK journalist Rodd Liddle points to the aversion in Western society for competition in the name of inclusiveness. It comes, he says, from a Left liberal confusion between the terms elitism and privilege, as when recently Trenton Oldfield, “the smirking Australian”, confused his own privileged position with elitism, mindlessly interupting the Oxford Cambridge boat race.

Liddle gives us a personal example of this “grotesque dumbing-down of standards” at his own daughter’s school.

At my daughter’s school last year, the 50m sprint took the following form: all the kids lined up and ran as fast as they could to the halfway point. Then they waited for the fatties to catch up and, holding hands, all walked or trotted to the finish line, where everyone received an identical token.

He says this attitude cannot auger well for the British Olympics.

The official propaganda insists that this costly jamboree is not about the physical excellence of the elite competitors but is instead an ‘inclusive’ event, something in which we can all take part and all be winners.

And it is not just the weather

Never let it be said again that Margaret Thatcher was bad for Great Britain.

Yet another example of the Left not understanding the issues and being blinded by ideology.

It would be amusing to do a similar survey here in Australia; not that our Julia takes any notice of polls and people’s opinions.

[Thanks to reader Andrew R]

How Gillard intends to shame Australia internationally

This is either self-destructive madness or cynical tokenism to buy into the UN Security Council. Not content with attempting to undermine Australia with the introduction of a carbon tax — a deeply unpopular policy — the Gillard government is wanting us to be hauled before the International Court of Justice to shame her own country. This is quite insane and irresponsible and clearly not in Australia’s national interest. It shows the Prime Minister is prepared to betray Australia for her own policy goals.

 FOREIGN Minister Bob Carr has volunteered Australia to give evidence on behalf of poor nations that want the United Nations to investigate if big emitters – potentially including Australia – have a legal responsibility to keep their greenhouse gases from hurting other countries.

Australia would give evidence supporting a push led by Palau for a UN resolution asking the International Court of Justice to assess how much countries were responsible for the damage their emissions did overseas.

Climate law experts said that if the resolution was successful, it could be the first step by worst-affected nations in seeking reparations from countries such as the US, China and Australia.

The dangers of untying tethered elephants in the Middle East

I have expressed concern in several previous blogs about the lack of incisive and critical reporting about the situation in Syria.

As if to confirm my suspicions, this detailed piece in Quadrant by Paul Stenhouse, makes me feel no less comfortable with the great big denial going in the West.  What is it about our press that lacks the curiosity to explore alternative views?

A delegation of foreign journalists went to the Alawite neighbourhoods of Homs. Expecting to see peaceful demonstrations, they saw security forces under siege from unidentified gunmen, and impact damage from rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). They were able to gather testimonials from the local populace who had suffered atrocities at the hands of the insurgents, but “they did not publish these facts on their return, fearing they would be criticised by the mainstream media for breaking with the generally accepted narrative”.

The Syrian model of an Arab society offends extremist and closed Muslim societies. It now seems to offend the USA and its allies. If they have their way, it will disappear along with the Assad regime. That will be a sad day for the Middle East, and a worse one for the Western powers, who will have unleashed an uncertain future on millions of defenceless non-Muslims and non-extremist Muslims.

                  ALP      GREENS      ABC  

Following the commentary on the Labor rout in the Queensland elections, I find the earnest discussion and entrail analysis by the ALP, the ABC and the Greens something to behold.

Whether it be on the various current affairs programmes, interviews with ALP pollies from the Prime Minister down, or the Greens,  or most  ABC commentators, none are able to articulate, let alone allow themselves to think about why Labor is on the nose.

It certainly has nothing whatsoever to do with communicating better, or working harder in the interests of Australia, or Julia going for more visits to Queensland.

My father taught me fifty years ago that people judge you not on your apologies — although with the ALP there is precious little of that — but on your performance.  It is almost a year ago that an ACCI survey revealed that nearly 60 percent of Australians were against a carbon tax and only half that amount supported it. Over 70 percent felt it would have a negative effect on the cost of living.

Six months later in October a Newspoll confirmed these figures, revealing that even amongst young voters — 18 to 34 year olds — there was overwhelming opposition. Out of blind faith, Gillard and her ideological followers of the Left believe that once the Carbon Tax is passed then people will see that the sky has not fallen in; even though it did precisely that for the ALP in Queensland last Saturday.

Since then, of course, the weather has not helped, and all the wrong predictions and exaggerations by Flannery, CSIRO, Wong and scientific “experts” and politicians, have come home to roost.

Tony Abbott made the point yesterday that if Gillard wants to keep the ear plugs in then good luck to her. His comment reminded me of Oddesyus, who blocked the ears of his sailors with wax but with prescience and curiosity had himself lashed to the ship’s mast to be able hear and understand the empty attractiveness of the call of the Sirens. After avoiding the fatal call, he then saw the bleached bones of previous sailors who had not heeded the warning on the beach.

We can now see the bleached bones of Anna Bligh’s sailors. The problem for Gillard and for Labor, and for the Left generally, is that they have never been curious about reality and are congenitally incapable of self-understanding.

 Alberici shows fearlessness and fights for the truth with discredited warminist

Surely a Walkely award should be rewarded to Emma Alberici for her sharp, analytical and challenging questioning of Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann in an interview on Lateline this week. It should be recalled that Mann has been thoroughly and completely discredited for his hockey stick graph, a complex story that has been covered in detail in many places. The idea that Alberici may have even read or knows about these other points of view is open to question.

One can only dream of such questioning of Ian Plimer or Bob Carter on the subject of their writing on the same topic. Maybe it was this style of  biased Dorothy Dixer type questioning that inspired the government to get Ray Finkelstein to enquire into the Australian media.

EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: The Climate Commission’s latest report says global average temperatures have continued to rise over the last decade. It’s all part of the research that started more than 20 years ago in the United States. The lead climate scientist in much of that work was Michael Mann. Mann says he’s the central object of attack in what some have characterised as the best funded, most carefully orchestrated assault on science the world has known.

EMMA ALBERICI: Much of the modern debate around climate change can be traced back to your 1998 graph, what was known as “the hockey stick”. Now, that was made famous in Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth. It showed temperatures dating back 1,000 years. In your book you concede that thermometer readings don’t reach much further back in time than a century, so how reliable is this graph as a measure of climate trends?

EMMA ALBERICI: Back in 1998 a television interviewer asked you if your research proved that humans were responsible for global warming. Your answer was that it was highly suggestive of that conclusion, but you wouldn’t go further than that back then. At what point were you finally convinced that that link did exist?

EMMA ALBERICI: Your critics refer to what’s known as the medieval warming period of around 1,000 years ago when there were no coal-fired power stations, no motor vehicles and other modern phenomena that could explain the temperature rises as you suggest, and yet the planet was going through an extended heat spell between that period of 11th and 14th centuries. How do you explain that?

EMMA ALBERICI: Now you’ve just published a book called The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars and I have to say it’s a book that reads much more like a thriller than a scientific textbook. You’ve had death threats and charges that you misappropriated funds. On one occasion you went to work and were greeted by the FBI. Tell us what happened there.

EMMA ALBERICI: Who are these vested interest groups?

EMMA ALBERICI: Now recount for us the events on that most pivotal day in November, 2009.

EMMA ALBERICI: Can I just pick you up on that because of course it became known, as we know, as “Climate-gate” and it’s been picked over extensively. Much has turned on the word “trick” – Mike’s nature trick, which we assume you were the Mike that’s being referred to in that particular email from the University of East Anglia in the UK. In anyone’s language, trick implies some kind of deception.

EMMA ALBERICI: If I can just pick you up in that same passage where “Mike’s nature trick” was used, there was also the unfortunate term “hide the decline”, which many people have assumed meant hide the decline in temperatures when you were trying to advance a thesis that temperatures were rising.

EMMA ALBERICI: Now given your research shows a recent increase of almost one degree Celsius across the globe, a rise unprecedented, as you say, during at least the last thousand years, what do you think are the implications of your research for Australia in particular of doing nothing to stop carbon emissions that are linked to those rising temperatures?

EMMA ALBERICI: Michael Mann, thank you very much for your time this evening.

More Green ideas prove to be silly disasters

This UK idea sounds even better than the useless windfarms.

So, in order to reduce our CO2 emissions, we subsidise power companies to burn wood which ends up emitting much more CO2 than the fossil fuels it replaces.

But of course, why didn’t I think of that.

CSIRO continues to confuse fantasy with reality 

Professor Richard S Lindzen, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, addressed a seminar at the House of Commons Committe rooms in London on 22 February. He gave a sober and clear assessment of the state of climate science at the present moment. 

As a counter to the persistent and ongoing propaganda shamefully promoted by our own CSIRO and Met bureau, this simple summary in so few words by Professor Lindzen, indicates the major flaws in the orthodox scare campaign: it should be read, marked, learnt and inwardly digested:

BRIEFLY, I will simply try to clarify what the debate over climate change is really about. It most certainly is not about whether climate is changing: it always is. It is not about whether CO2 is increasing: it clearly is. It is not about whether the increase in CO2, by itself, will lead to some warming: it should. The debate is simply over the matter of how much warming the increase in CO2 can lead to, and the connection of such warming to the innumerable claimed catastrophes. The evidence is that the increase in CO2 will lead to very little warming, and that the connection of this minimal warming (or even significant warming) to the purported catastrophes is also minimal.

The arguments on which the catastrophic claims are made are extremely weak and commonly acknowledged as such. They are sometimes overtly dishonest.

His preentation to the House of Commons can be seen here.

 

[Thanks to Andrew Bolt]