climate alarmism

This site is dedicated to a moral principle, which I call the Principle of Goodness, and as such I have largely refrained from direct political comments. But world conditions have so worsened since this site was first created that I think this policy must change. One of the things I warned of back in 2010 was the danger of descent of our entire civilisation into a new dark age. Now, many commentators are coming to the same conclusion. I warned of how leftism, political correctness, neo-marxism, call it what you will, is actually a religion, and a false one at that. And I specifically added that the global warming cult is not science, it is just one more branch of bad religion. Once more, many others have added their voice to the same opinion.

So, it is certainly time that I directly applied the Principle of Goodness to these situations, not only to illustrate the Principle, but also in the hope of changing the bad situation. And solar thermal is one of the very worst.

Start of open letter to Jay Weatherill:

I write to you today in your capacity as Premier of South Australia, and in light of your announcement to build a massive solar thermal power plant in your state. Now I do not know whether you are a "typical politician", whose only interest is to count "for" and "against" voters, or whether you genuinely care and will change your views depending on evidence and ethics. If the former, count me as "against", but note that I live in Queensland and, therefore, stop reading. But I assume you are the latter, and so I write on.

I do not know whether you are aware that these plants are bird-killers. Not only that, but they are bird-torturers. Any bird that flies into the path of the beam (which is huge) is instantly blinded, then its feathers catch fire and its skin is burned off. It is likely that it then falls out of the path of the beam onto the ground, in writhing agony but still alive, to slowly die in excruciating pain over several hours.

I was struck by a comparison of this week's flooding, South Australia's power failure, and the talk not even a year ago (15 Dec 2015) on "their" ABC: [update: link added]

Is drought the new normal for the once lush south-east of SA?

Yet here we are today with much of south east Australia in flood. It's a great pity they listened to climate "scientists", when the facts have been known almost from the beginning. Or, at least, since 1911 (from Dorothea Mackellar's My Country):

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

But regardless, on the ABC drones:

Climate change: droughts more severe and frequent

Hmmm.. I wonder. Here's what the Bureau of Meteorology has to say about it:

Something amusing (or perhaps absurd?) that I noticed the other day.

An old article in The Australian from October 10, 2013: Climate change tipping point revealed by study published in Nature.

THE dreaded climate-change "tipping point", when changes to weather patterns will become irreversible, has been identified. And it is terrifying.

Starting in about a decade, Kingston, Jamaica, will probably be off-the-charts hot - permanently. Other places will soon follow. Singapore in 2028. Mexico City in 2031. Cairo in 2036. Phoenix and Honolulu in 2043.

Australia will not be far behind, with dates ranging from 2038 in Sydney to 2049 in Adelaide.

Virtually the whole world will have changed by 2050.

This, as usual, is all based on computer models:

To arrive at their projections, the researchers used weather observations, computer models and other data to calculate the point at which every year from then on will be warmer than the hottest year ever recorded over the past 150 years.

So how well are they doing? They give a long list of cities and the dreaded year when all h*** breaks loose in the poor blighted district. Examples:

Melbourne 2045

Sydney 2038

Perth 2042

Adelaide 2049

Conveniently far enough out that we'll all have forgotten this piece of idiocy when the prediction fails to come to pass. But someone didn't do their proofing well enough! They let slip one near-term prediction:

Manokwari (West Papua) 2020

Well we're nearly half way there. Things should be getting pret-ty sticky in poor Manokwari by now. So how is it panning out?

We voted (clearly!) against a carbon tax when we elected Tony Abbott as our PM is 2013. But now our plain-speaking, introvert, somewhat politically clumsy, but honest, devoted to the welfare of his country, courageous protector is now an ex-PM. In his place we have a populist waffler who knows how to say all the right things (meaning the things that will get him fine sound-bites on the ABC) and who says nothing of importance until he works out the "popular" thing to say - and who, under no circumstances, ever takes a decision on principle.

Apparently "The Turnbull government will “probably” allow emission reduction permits to be bought from overseas, giving Australia flexibility to increase the targets it pledged at the Paris climate conference..."

The more I see of this man, the more I am convinced he is a willing member of the kleptocracy that seems to be in universal rule throughout the western "democracies". Let me explain why an ETS is infinitely worse than a merely impoverishing carbon tax...

NOAA's climate.gov PR effort is designed to deceive us, but it would be nice if they would at least try to do so by twisting the truth, rather than tell outright porkies. On the page https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/global-warming-frequently-asked-questions under "What is the 'greenhouse effect'?" we find this audacious display of dishonesty:

While it's not a perfect analogy, some say the atmosphere works like a greenhouse. The sun's rays (shortwave energy) enter a greenhouse through its glass ceiling and walls to warm the interior. The glass makes it hard for the heat (longwave energy) to escape, and heat builds up inside the greenhouse until the heat can escape fast enough.

Certain naturally occurring gases in Earth's atmosphere have a similar warming effect on the surface. This warming is referred to as the "greenhouse effect," and the gases that trap heat are called "greenhouse gases." The most important greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and ozone. Earth's surface must warm to an average of about 59°F (with present-day concentrations) until enough energy can be emitted by greenhouse gases and escape to space to balance the energy being absorbed from the Sun.

Though these important greenhouse gases occur naturally in the atmosphere in varying concentrations, human activities are directly and indirectly increasing their abundance. In addition, other greenhouse gases not normally found in nature are being added to the atmosphere. The net result is to intensify Earth's greenhouse effect, causing Earth's surface to warm.

Let's pull it apart in detail:

I've been trying to get raw temperature date from the BOM website. Remember, this is data whose collection we as taxpayers have financed over the years: from thermometers behind old post offices in one-horse towns in the 19th century, all the way to modern computerised weather stations. But we paid for it, just as we pay the salaries of the alarmists who populate what is laughingly called a bureau of "meteorology".

So let's see what the site looks like:

When I read People Starting To Ask About Motive For Massive IPCC Deception by Dr Tim Ball, I found much I agreed with. Tim’s argument is, IMHO, a useful contribution to the question of how the climate alarmists have got away with foisting this mistaken theory upon the world. Then I read A big (goose) step backwards, by Prof Richard Betts and Dr Tamsin Edwards.

And I’m disappointed.

What the fuss is all about:

Ball quotes Adolf Hitler’s explanation of how to successfully tell a lie and get it believed. He makes his case that the IPCC and climate alarmism as a movement, effectively puts this method of deception into practice. In that, I believe he is (1) correct, and (2) saying something that is long overdue. In fact, I include this same statement in my own book, Carbon Is Life, when I try to explain what has been happening in the world of late.

Now what would a suitable response to that argument by Ball look like? I would hope it would argue, somehow, that the publicity methods of the alarmist camp do not follow Hitler’s deception methodology. What I would not hope for is a response like that of Betts and Edwards that tells an untruth about Ball’s post in the very first sentence: “Dr Tim Ball’s blog post “People Starting To Ask About Motive For Massive IPCC Deception” – drawing parallels between climate scientists and Hitler – doesn’t do anyone in the climate change debate any favours: in fact it seems a big (goose) step backwards.”

Ball does not draw any parallels between anyone and Hitler. (If you disagree, please follow the Eschenbach principle – quote the words.) He draws the important (and IMHO, correct) parallel between the propaganda techniques of the IPCC et al, and the “big lie” technique as explained by Hitler. Are they the same? Ball states his case in detail, and Anthony has made the forum available for B&E or others to publish their best attempt to rebut Ball’s case.

But instead, B&E’s response is as far as I can see, completely fact, and argument, free. It is (yet another) attack upon Dr Ball, upon both his professionalism (“pointless, playground insults”) and his character (“Tim sink to a new low, with Mein Kampf quotes and snide misrepresentation of the IPCC reports”). Not a syllable about whether he was right or wrong!