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Of cabbages, kings and a meeting of Blog war protagonists
Leon Bertrand and I have a face to face meet up with Scott Bridges planned for today which should be quite interesting to say the least, because how often do you get a chance to meet up with your online “enemy ” after a decade long blog war?
Hold on comrades this could be an interesting ride
Is the future a skate on thicker ice?
I found this piece in the Oz due to an Irate Warminista on twitter:
This is utterly idiotic http://t.co/Nz4nfhQklf That this person is an Abbott advisor speaks volumes. Newman is unstable at best.
— Evan Keith Beaver (@evcricket) August 13, 2014
So naturally I checked out the link only to find a quite interesting argument suggesting that the evidence supports the notion that its variation in solar activity that drives climate change rather than changes in the composition of the atmosphere:
Yet during the past 20 years the US alone has poured about $US80 billion into climate change research on the presumption that humans are the primary cause. The effect has been to largely preordain scientific conclusions. It set in train a virtuous cycle where the more scientists pointed to human causes, the more governments funded their research.
At the same time, like primitive civilisations offering up sacrifices to appease the gods, many governments, including Australia’s former Labor government, used the biased research to pursue “green” gesture politics. This has inflicted serious damage on economies and diminished the West’s standing and effectiveness in world affairs.
University of Pennsylvania professor of psychology Philip Tetlock explains: “When journal reviewers, editors and funding agencies feel the same way about a course, they are less likely to detect and correct potential logical or methodological bias.” How true. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its acolytes pay scant attention to any science, however strong the empirical evidence, that may relegate human causes to a lesser status.
This mindset sought to bury the results of Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark’s experiments using the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. For the first time in controlled conditions, Svensmark’s hypothesis that the sun alters the climate by influencing cosmic ray influx and cloud formation was validated. The head of CERN, which runs the laboratory, obviously afraid of how this heretical conclusion would be received within the global warming establishment, urged caution be used in interpreting the results “in this highly political area of climate change debate”. And the media obliged.
But Svensmark is not alone. For example, Russian scientists at the Pulkovo Observatory are convinced the world is in for a cooling period that will last for 200-250 years. Respected Norwegian solar physicist Pal Brekke warns temperatures may actually fall for the next 50 years. Leading British climate scientist Mike Lockwood, of Reading University, found 24 occasions in the past 10,000 years when the sun was declining as it is now, but could find none where the decline was as fast. He says a return of the Dalton Minimum (1790-1830), which included “the year without summer”, is “more likely than not”. In their book The Neglected Sun , Sebastian Luning and Fritz Varenholt think that temperatures could be two-tenths of a degree Celsius cooler by 2030 because of a predicted anaemic sun. They say it would mean “warming getting postponed far into the future”.
If the world does indeed move into a cooling period, its citizens are ill-prepared. After the 2008 financial crisis, most economies are still struggling to recover. Cheap electricity in a colder climate will be critical, yet distorted price signals caused by renewable energy policies are driving out reliable baseload generators. Attracting fresh investment will be difficult, expensive and slow.
Only time will tell, but it is fanciful to believe that it will be business as usual in a colder global climate. A war-weary world’s response to recent events in the Middle East, Russia’s excursion into the Crimea and Ukraine and China’s annexation of air space over Japan’s Senkaku/Daioyu Islands has so far been muted. It is interesting to contemplate how the West would handle the geopolitical and humanitarian challenges brought on by a colder climate’s shorter growing seasons and likely food shortages. Abundance is conducive to peace. However, a scenario where nations are desperately competing for available energy and food will bring unpredictable threats, far more testing than anything we have seen in recent history.
I don’t know if this line of argument is correct but it does suggest that when it comes to addressing any future change in our climate that we would be better served by not assuming that the climate is going to be hotter into the future if it were to swing the other way though what would it mean for this country? I don’t think that we would have too much trouble in terms of our agriculture but we may have to change what we grow where. In terms of our energy sources we are quite well placed because we do have extensive reserves of fossil fuels but on the downside much of our housing stock in the northern parts of the country are not well suited to the cold. The thing is though no matter which way the climate may change we have to be prepared to cut our coats according to the cloth and the most important thing that will enable us to do that is flexible minds that are good at problem solving. The trouble with so many AGW true believers is that they are utterly inflexible in their thinking and they feel very threatened even by the possibility that their profits may be wrong so how do you think that they would go in a cold future rather than a hot one?
Cheers Comrades
Is the future a skate on thicker ice?
“Bob Hawke and Paul Keating’s brutal verdict on the Rudd-Gillard years “
click for source
Responses Comrades?
The latest from the IPCC
As is my want I have been dabbling with commenting at the Guardian and its an interesting game of cat and mouse to see just what I can get past the moderators who are quite amusingly incredibly politically correct. They have a most incredibly biased moderation and they give free reign to the Millenarian catastrophe fans of the parsimonious Green persuasion. its the sort of challenge that I enjoy a great deal . Quite predictably they are having a sort of masturbatory online orgasm with the releases of the IPCC and treating this political document as if its John Smiths golden pages or the stone slabs brought down from the mountain by Moses but from what I have seen its very much a case of “same old same old” tosh that they have been peddling for years. About the only tick that I can give the document is that it does seem to contain a tacit concession that mitigation can not be made to work at a global level. Considering how long they have had to prepare this political document it don’t amount to much. James Delingpole has a lovely satirical take on it:
click for source
The really scary thing about James piece is that many of the misanthropic Greenies are dreaming of the predicted apocolypse with a sort of sadomasochistic delight at the prospect that their predictions will mean millions dead dying or suffering unremitting misery. I am only surprised that they have not yet decided that things like the Ebola outbreak in Africa is a good thing and that it may just be a damn good idea to propagate similar pandemics around the world to cure the planet of the human disease
Cheers Comrades
are you ready to fight the horrors of the climate apocalypse?
Evan Keith Beaver , RET and Twitter
I never wanted to be the sort of blogger who writes about their Tweeting stoushes but the exchange that I had yesterday was both amusing and revealing about the nature of the devotees to the Green religion,
Evan Keith Beaver
@evcricketWe’re in a democracy, so now to hold the LNP to account we get organised and stick a fork in them. If you want renewables TELL THEM LOUDLY
@evcricket why should I be paying for your renewables through my power bill
@evcricket because if you want them then you should pay for them
@evcricket Why am I wrong?
@theiainhall You know why
@evcricket Now you are copping out! Either justify the subsidies for renewables or admit its unfair to bankroll the Green vanity
@theiainhall Or option 3: don’t debate obstinates on twitter.
@evcricket You assume that renewables are a virtue if so what do they even need subsidies?
@theiainhall Look, you don’t think carbon pollution is a problem so I really couldn’t care less what you think of energy policy
@evcricket whay should what I do or don’t believe oblige me to pay for Green vanity?
@theiainhall Iain, are you impaired? I think I’ve made it pretty clear I’m not going to waste my time on you
@evcricket In the last decade my energy bills have more than doubled, some due to gold plating & Green subsidies. Zero effect on climate
@theiainhall Okay you won’t answer the question. Thanks for playing.
@evcricket What Question?
@theiainhall Just stop now Okay?
@evcricket Evan, the collapse of renewables energy subsidies coming for a long time, it has become too popular&expensive and unsustainable
@theiainhall Whatever. Like I said, I don’t care what you think of energy policy
@evcricket but you still want ME to subsidize renewables??
@theiainhall Exactly. Same reason you pay for cancer research yet know nothing about it. Experts do, let them make decisions
@evcricket your faith in “EXPERTS” is so delicious in its naivete, If an expert suggests you suicide for the sake of the planet would you?
@theiainhall What is a suicide expert Iain? Anyway, can you answer my question?
@evcricket your “question” is no question btw
@theiainhall retweeted. it is a question.
@evcricket A question has to have a particular form and your tweet is no question
@theiainhall ok I get it. Being a dickhead just comes naturally.
@evcricket 13h@theiainhall What evidence would convince you that we need to do something about CO2 emissions?
@evcricket AT Last! Strewth that was worse than pulling a bad tooth with rusty pliers!
@evcricket Firstly I would need to know what that “something” is and that the act would be more than just symbolic.
@theiainhall yep I’m blocking you now
@evcricket secondly I would need to be convinced with empirical evidence that the “something” would be cost effective.
Iain Hall
@theiainhall
@evcricket Thirdly that enduring global cooperation for the next millennium (or longer) could be achieved
Isn’t the attitude of my interlocutor just so cute? He really believes that everyone should be happy that policies like the Renewable Energy Target raises the cost of energy for ordinary people, I have no doubt from previous writings of the author that he believes that the Carbon Tax is the best thing since sliced bread and its immanent repeal will be a terrible sin against Gaia. But most sadly amusing is his intense faith in “Experts” and is total suspension of any reasoning when it comes to what they say. Its what the faithful used to say about the clergy when they held far greater sway over the lives of the people the sad thing is we are consonantly told by the trendies and social media wonks that this is the age of the individual who is both connected and contribution to our collective wisdom through the wonders of social media. To the likes of Evan Keith Beaver though all that matters is that those with the “correct” political orientation, the cultural elite that he sees himself as part of, should impose their ideas and values upon the rest of us. Notions of social democracy go straight out the window so his “experts” are to remain unchallenged.
I actually like the idea that social media can be an important tool in a vibrant and active democracy but it saddens me that so many of the leftists who have been its early adopters now think that it should forever be their instrument of control, that their clicktavissm should be supreme and anyone who dissents from their orthodoxy is to be derided and ignored. The irony is that the review of the Renewable Energy Target has been scheduled since before the last election, in fact its part of the legislation under which the target was created in the first place so there is no reason at all to think that it means that this article of faith for the Green religion is, of necessity , going to be abolished. Personally I think that having a diverse variety of energy sources has great virtue. However the quest to achieve this through subsidies and overly generous feed in tariffs and other incentives has had some rather nasty consequences for those who are least able to afford them. I am talking about those who rent, those who can not afford to put the solar panels on their roof, the poor who struggle to pay their energy bills all of these people subsidise the likes of Evan Keith Beaver ‘s religious belief in Climate Change while he and his Latte sipping cronies think that they are “doing their bit” for climate change the poor and downtrodden in our country are struggling to pay those ever increasing energy bills. Its not just , its not fair and the hypocrisy of minions of the left who think like this is just breathtaking.
Cheers Comrades
Pay for your own bloody renewable energy!!!
Thrift-shop Rudd
Ray has been rather fond of suggesting that I keep watching the polls since the Rudd revival show began and like a dutiful friend I have been doing just that. To be entirely francis I have been a little concerned that the Rudd euphoria may be sustained for longer than I, as a conservative, would like. Each new poll lauded by the true believers has made me rather worried that this shambolic government might just mange to con its way back into office, a prospect that I consider to be a disaster for the country. Thankfully my watching the polls has been made worth while by the latest Newspoll in today’s Oz:
click for source
From my perspective that is a beautiful set of numbers, it could of course be better but it does suggest to me that Labor have already peaked and that the Rudd factor will not be enough to return Labor to office as some desperate minions of the left have dared to dream over the last couple of weeks. Instead its getting back into the “lifeline zone” where some of the shabby furniture may be saved or replaced with op-shop bargains. You see after Gillard just doing that will be enough to make Rudd a party hero to ALP stalwarts Like Ray so in one sense he can not loose at the next election even as he hands over the keys to the lodge he will be a winner ( of sorts) for saving the party from the fate that Gillard’s incompetence had booked for them.
Just a thought about the changes wrought by Rudd to the leadership of the ALP to finish on. Simply put as I understand the party rules and teh way that such organisations work there is likely to be no obstruction to his much vaunted rules about removing leaders being revoked by a simple vote at the party’s national conference and once the rule is gone then so to is the leader’s invulnerability to a coup or removal from office by a simple majority… just saying …
Cheers Comrades
He thinks he can but we had better hope that he can’t
And there will of course be the damage to the budget, with a fall in the carbon price to $10 reducing revenues to 2016-17 by about $14bn. There must be a likelihood that loss will be partially offset by extending the scheme’s coverage, further cutting the diesel fuel rebate and slashing the number of free permits. But all of those amount to tax increases, imposing distortions of their own; and with mining and many other industries already reeling, how can those increases be justified?
Ultimately, the only certainty that emerges from this ever-moving fiasco is that the government’s climate change policy is anything but a “market mechanism”. After all, markets, to work effectively, require meaningful property rights and price signals that allow decision-makers to weigh the costs and benefits of alternative decisions. Having trashed those, the policy has degenerated into a random tax, liable to be changed at each turn of the polls and (through its dependence on the EU carbon price) captive to the follies of European politics.
No doubt, Rudd will brush all these issues aside. No doubt too, as in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, new modelling, showing massive gains, will be released; and as in Orwell’s Ministry of Plenty, the officials compiling those estimates will comfort themselves with the thought that it is “not even forgery: merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another”, as the adjustment to “the constantly changing party line” requires updating “statistics that were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version”.
Long forgotten is “the greatest moral, economic and social challenge of our time”. And forgotten with it is the virtue of taking commitments seriously. Instead, all that remains is the truth Peter Garrett blurted out in 2007: “once we get in, we will just change it all.” Indeed they have, and indeed they will.
Here at the Sandpit I have been entirely consistent in cynicism about any efforts to “change the climate” because it strikes me as being utterly stupid and impossible on a political level even if the alarmists are correct in their claims about the science, which is dubious enough to start with. When our new again Dear Leader announced that the much reviled carbon tax will be converted a year earlier into a trading scheme than originally planned I could not help being very sadly amused. Its all straight from the empty promises play book. In essence what the new dear leader is promising is to lessen a burdensome tax that his own ideology and party has itself imposed on a long suffering nation. Worse yet he expects to be lauded and to receive electoral advantage from this empty promise.
Further our new again Dear Leader seems to think that the utter failure of the overseas ponzi schemes to make a bind bit of positive difference to the climate or economic behavior (apart from encouraging scammers ) can be safely ignored because there is still an aura of credibility to the notion that “market mechanisms” are the best way to address “the greatest moral challenge of our generation” . None the less it seems that the short memories of the voters is what our new again Dear leader is relying upon but I don’t think those memories will remain immune to the truth once the campaign proper from the coalition begins. Then the voters will be reminded that the negative carbon tax effects for which our new again Dear Leader is claiming credit are all a product of the devils alliance made by his own party under Gillard and the Greens.
At present the “floating” price of emissions is between $6 and $10 a tonne and the way that Europe’s economy is going there is no reason to believe that this is as low as it will go. To my mind the whole thing is pointless and that an honest government (the last thing that we can call the Labor administration) would just admit that indirect economic “tools” like ” market mechanisms” are a crock of shit and they never work as their proponents claim. All the while we long suffering energy consumers are paying more for or electricity due to the Carbon Tax and nothing being offered by the new again Dear Leader will make certain that this unjust impost will be removed if the scheme is converted early to a trading scheme .
The politics of the compensation package are interesting here and you just have to admire the political smarts of the opposition in deciding to continue the largess when they abolish the tax. Our new again Dear leader is thus forced to retain the compensation himself even if the change to an ETS lessens the raison detre of the payments because he can not afford to look so mean to those on low incomes or government benefits. What the whole thing turns on is just how much our new again Dear Leader can be believed when he makes new promises and on that I think the coalition can make big dents in his credibility by reminding the voters just how wrong his calls in the past have been as they do in their new ads:
Add to that the calm sensible and dare I say it “Grown Up” tone of this ad:
Personally I think that the opposition are going for the right balance here reminding the voters of Labor’s very poor record and presenting the positives of their policies. Our new again Dear Leader certainly has the Kardassian factor at present however like the feelings that silly woman love can turn to hate in the blinking of an eye so do we really want our government chosen purely on the celebrity of its leader? During the course of the last three years Labor have stuffed up so much that they have to distance themselves form just about every action and policy that they have enunciated so I want know; just what are its policies? We really have no idea at all apart from Rudd assuring us that he is all for “Positive politics”:
Of course its fine to want see a plan but what Rudd is offering is no plan , its only a plan to get a plan which amounts to Fuck all in the real world sadly to quote a friend of mine says it all:
I simply observe that whilst you can’t polish a turd, you can roll it in glitter, and that is all Rudd is doing: it’s all bullshit, but covered in fairy dust and dressed up with a story, he’s betting just enough people might buy it.
Cheers Comrades
Kevin is NOT a really useful engine
Iain Hall's SANDPIT 