The Australian's War on Science XIV

The Australian welcomes the draft Garnaut report by reprinting an error-filled article from the Wall Street Journal. Their editorial even repeats one of the most glaring errors:

In proceeding with caution, governments need to be alert to all the facts, including arguments such as those noted by the Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens reprinted in Inquirer today. NASA, he points out, confirms that the hottest year on record was not 1998, as previously believed, but 1934, and that six of the 10 hottest years since 1880 antedate 1954.

And their columnist Janet Albrechtsen repeats it a third time

And much of the media fell dutifully into line, failing to analyse climate change as an unsettled science that must move as the data moves. As Stephens points out, NASA now admits that the hottest year on record was 1934, not the previously reported 1998, and six of the 10 hottest years since 1880 occurred prior to 1954. Accordingly, there was plenty of room for the media to keep an open mind on the science. By and large, that has not happened.

Certainly not at the Australian. It doesn't look like anyone there has ever seen a graph of global temperatures. There's one in the draft Garnaut report, but here's NASA's:

i-1b943873d017f8f464acd94b6e0e88aa-gisstemp.png

I expect that next they'll combine this with their other favourite falsehood ("global warming stopped in 1998") and start claiming that global warming stopped in 1934.

Hat tip: Nexus 6.

More like this

Hey Jake,

You might want to find a better source than The Register (the Internet's version of a supermarket tabloid). El Reg is for geeks who like cheeky and contrarian better than accurate.

Before making idiotic posts like this, try doing some research:

funny one. it turns out that the two thermometers are Hadcrut an GISS temperatures. and "the register" is stupid to notice that there isn t any significant difference. case closed.

http://tinyurl.com/54jml9

funny one. it turns out that the two thermometers are Hadcrut anD GISS temperatures. and "the register" is TOO stupid to notice that there isn t any significant difference. case closed.

(sorry, typos..)

So in other words... NASA retracted their earlier claim that the hottest year was 1998, and even if they didn't retract their earlier claim, GISS data are still pwnt by HadCRUT data, and even if GISS aren't pwnt by HadCRUT, we should throw out both and use UAH anyway and by the way UAH shows long-term cooling, and even if UAH doesn't show long-term cooling... argh you filthy Communists are serial murderers!

Iterative backpedalling, one of the inactivists' favourite sport.

You might want to find a better source than The Register (the Internet's version of a supermarket tabloid). El Reg is for geeks who like cheeky and contrarian better than accurate.

El Reg has been devoting a hell of a lot of time in the past few months to publishing the bullshit of such as Tim Worstall and those Living Marxism creeps - and without having any actual climate change scientists on to refute this codology, either.

Granted, they're a news 'source' which registers (heh) rather large to myself on account of my own IT-centred worldview, but some pushback on the Register's bizarre campaign of global warming denialism (pistols at dawn with Andrew Orlowski?) by the better-known Brit or US science bloggers would be welcome to a lot of people. How about it, folks?

I'm a bit busy this week, but I'll be available to lay down covering fire next week.

For those who can't be bothered following all the links, the WSJ claim is based on data for the continental US, which is about 2 per cent of the earth's surface area.

This kind of parochialism is unsurprising in the most reactionary of US journals. But what can you say about a paper that calls itself "The Australian" and prints this kind of thing.

By John Quiggin (not verified) on 06 Jul 2008 #permalink

"continental US"

Actually it is for the contiguous US. If you throw in Alaska, 1934 is not even in the top 5.
(insert something about how global warming is most pronounce in the arctic and how the denialists are dumb as posts)

Michael Costa, the NSW Labor treasurer, is thinking with his mates' wallets rather than with his head, or with the heads of his Government's scientific advisors. Having moved from NSW several years ago I haven't been close enough to the action to confirm my suspicions that he is a denialist, but the 7 July edition of the ABC's "The World Today" is quite clear where Costa stands.

Media, politics - whichever way one looks at the Denialist dog, Vested Interest seems to be holding the lead.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 06 Jul 2008 #permalink

BTW, that link probably won't be up for another day or so. Until then, start with the front page for TWT and go from there to find 7 July 08.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 06 Jul 2008 #permalink

Gaaawd, Timmyboy lives here so what about replying to my post on OLO to you about your "science"?

Timmyboy, the IPCC may have been set up initially with the best of intentions but unremarkably it has mutated into a religious faith. It simply operates mechanically with belief in belief alone where it can only always be a fact free zone/playpen. When one sees obviously dodgy assumptions, biased data manipulations, absurdly selective modeling schemes, etc all coupled with an aggressively enforced consensus group mindset with inhouse peer review processes ....... then it deserves the utmost skepticism. For myself, i'd describe it more accurately as top shelf insanity indicating a complete lack of imagination ........... but certainly not a lack of insecurity nor a lack of self-interest.

Your very own comments about Dr Vincent Gray are aimed to demonstrate this unimaginative belief/need for total consensus within the IPCC playpen. If this is the priority then it speaks of insecurity and a need to arrogantly fudge the data/evidence to fit some perceived moral high ground. Whilst this may be observed as a perfectly fitting product on the surface its underbelly is phony. My point is that your "science" is exposed as simply belief in belief for its own sake rather than belief derived from some factual information which is where intelligence evolves. Applying consensus to science means there is no thought of reason, humility, free inquiry, dignity, participatory democracy or the true achievement of human potential, because it is this systematic manipulation free of discovery.

Timmyboy, care to enlighten all how you became so infected and why you cannot progress from the notion that you only do what's right because someone bigger than you will slap you around if you don't?

Oh goody, another troll.

Keiran, you might try reading this, and then have a look in the mirror.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 06 Jul 2008 #permalink

so, keiran, why so negative? why not give us the benefit of the truth, as you see it. there is no reason somebody who has a mindless belief in AGW might not switch to a mindful (or even mindless) opposition to it.

with that in mind, it would be polite to introduce yourself here: to make it simple for you, rather than needing to go type up what you believe, here's a bingo card; feel free to tick off more than one, of course. do you believe that
there is no warming
the warming has stopped
the warming is caused by the sun
the warming is caused by cosmic ray fluctuations as we pass through the galactic plane
the warming is an artifact of sloppy measurement practices
there was warming but it's stopped
the arctic is melting due to undersea volcanoes
the arctic is no longer melting
carbon dioxide is rising due to natural processes
carbon dioxide is not rising
carbon dioxide is rising because it is warming, not the other way around
water vapor is more important than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas
warming and more carbon dioxide will improve agriculture
scientists are inflating the risk of AGW to get grant money
more research is needed
we can't afford to do anything about AGW anyway
we could afford it but it would be cheaper to fix the results
we shouldn't have to do anything until china and india do
it's a socialist attack

i'm serious; just posting negative stuff is boring. give us something positive you believe in. feel free to add anything i missed, of course.

I'm a big troll and your worst nightmare ... you may like to go to OLO and find out Z. Actually i'm really just a NOBODY. If NOBODY is perfect then that makes me perfect.

As far as alarmist AGW is concerned then i view it as a paradox. A paradox can only be found in the human mind because it is based on faulty initial assumptions. Alarmist AGW is a particularly nasty mind virus ... anti life and arrogantly ignorant ... existing in a fantasy realm that is separate from our biology and seeing humanity more like a parasite living on a host.

However my post here is to Timmyboy and about his "science". Feel free to put in your thoughts on the matter.

feel free to add anything i missed, of course.

You forgot the most important of all:

Al Gore is fat.

Keirannyboy at#15.

So, one out of three. That ain't great.

You're definitely a troll, but hardly a big one, and you're certainly not in my nightmares at all, let alone having a place in the top ten.

Either show us some intelligent discussion to support your claims, or admit that you're just in it for the contrariness or because you're incapable of dispassionate, objective analyses.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 06 Jul 2008 #permalink

"Actually i'm really just a NOBODY."

what a perfect proof of the Stopped clock principle.

Masochists like me who read past the first line of Keiran's twaddle will note that the claims that the IPCC is based on pure belief and ignores factual evidence - are presented are pure assertion totally lacking in supporting evidence.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 06 Jul 2008 #permalink

Yep, i'm NOBODY and this NOBODY is perfect.

Bernardo wants "dispassionate, objective analyses" which is fair enough but from my point of view it's unscientific and quite impossible to prove a negative. You can't. I do not need to prove anything against AGW because it is the AGW bandwagon that NEED to constructively/positively prove it correct or abandon this perception as false.

This IPCC can only operate as a belief in belief system where the WILL to believe is easy and the exacto opposite to the WILL to find out. Belief addicts are easy pickings for big business because there simply is an endless supply of deadheads that can only be sold the thizzle and not the sausage.

My question to Timmyboy is about seeking "dispassionate, objective analyses" not this IPCC pseudo science trying to force/fudge raw data to conform to something that is expected to be seen. All that can be expected as a result of enforced consensus is the fiction that they find themselves as the weather maker. Honest science is all about discovery. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

Now where is your Timmyboy?

I reckon Keiran doesn't pass the Turing test.

Keiran,

"...from my point of view it's unscientific and quite impossible to prove a negative."

Absolute tripe. It is entirely possible to prove a negative e.g. "I am not a snake". By definition snakes do not have limbs - I have limbs - therefore I am not a snake.

The myth of not being able to prove a negative is often trotted out by the scientifically illiterate...

From

http://tinyurl.com/6o96to

comes the following truly bizarre comment from NewTroll Kieran:

I just find it beyond belief that an entirely beneficial gas, the very reason for life itself, is now being blamed for catastrophic climate with projections of death and destruction. This belief in Algorean science is quite simply the basis of all religious pathology. It can only truly register as madness on a global scale.

[snip]

I say, if you really want to save life on earth with all the long-term environmental benefits then burn fossil fuel.
Keiran, Sunday, 6 July 2008 1:28:08 PM

Wow. Tiny little domain of belief you have there.

Amongst much other tripe, Irekan (well, he is a little confused it seems) said:

The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

Consensus breaking as a metric of scientific greatness? Utter bollocks!

Consensus breaking is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for measuring greatness in scientists.

Are the likes of DH Kenyon and R Milton, the would-be consensus breakers of that father of all consensus breakers, to be considered great scientists?

Becquerel, Boyle, Curie, Dalton, Ohm, Schrodinger, Volta, ... hardly consensus breakers, though still excellent and, some would say (some), great scientists.

And if breaking the consensus is the metric by which scientific greatness and credibility are to be measured, then this must make the likes of Hansen, Wigley and Jones amongst the best scientists who have ever lived, since they were amongst the few who "broke with the consensus" in the 1970s and 1980s. Their siren whispers have reached a consensus crescendo amongst their peers, and it is only their peers that really matter.

Another killfile-room resident looms I think. Bye-bye Areink.

[PS. Now in the right thread!]

I just find it beyond belief that an entirely beneficial gas, the very reason for life itself...

When I was a young teen, I used to love to read tales of US Submariners in the Pacific War, who, when lying low preserving power and maintaining silence, often on the bottom of shallow areas within the China Sea towards the end of the war, found that this "entirely beneficial gas" limited the amount of time they could stay underwater. Chemical scrubbers were only of limited effectiveness. They wrote of wandering about trying to do their duty in an intellectual fog, fatigued, battling the ever-increasing concentration of this "entirely beneficial gas, the very reason for life itself" ...

Just think ... if only Kieran had been there to educate them, to help them break the chains of science through his creative redefinition of physiology, just as he is doing us such a great favor today by overturning basic physics ...

Nobel is in the mail, Kieran.

Clive Hamilton has anounced his withdrawal from OLO The sad demise of 'On Line Opinion' by Clive Hamilton, posted Wednesday, 2 July 2008 over the "balance" there and the outrage is palpable. I guess Keiren is inviting Tim over to a warm welcome. Graham Young who earlier said Tim and John Quiggin were "web activists who practice brown-shirt tactics" responded very negatively to the withdrawal in Silencing dissent, by Graham Young - posted Friday, 4 July 2008

Tim,

Sure there are some real knobs at The Australian, but there have been some quite reasonable articles on climate change lately as well.

Kieran.

The IPCC is one tiny part of a global scientific consensus on climate change. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of independent individuals, groups/laboratories, and organisations that all turn their seriously sharp scientific acumen to the issue of climate change. And there is sufficient rivalry and one-up-man-ship within this community that any chink in the body of knowledge would be exploited and publicised widely - that's how the process works and how it is built upon.

That the effort of denialists makes not a dent in the consensus is not a reflection of some scientific conspiracy (they're intelligent people and would not stay aboard a sinking ship) but simply that the denialist evidence does not stand serious scientific scrutiny.

You have not provided one whit of evidence, not one iota of contradiction, nor a single skerrick of data to support your sanctimoniously venomous harangue. Is there any point to your vituperous rant, aside from the obvious fact that you have an emotional issue with the science that is telling you that our species isn't exactly God's gift to the sustainability of the environment?

Before you open your mouth again you would be well advised to garner for yourself a basic understanding of the fundamentals.

One woefully glaring problem in your world-view is your fawning admiration of CO2. Yes, it is a substrate for photosynthesis, but its utility is not as wonderfully concentration-independent as you unquestioningly believe it to be. By your logic, a 40% oxygen atmosphere would be better than the current atmospheric concentration, but I think that you would find it doesn't work like that in practise. I invite you to try it for yourself - you may learn something...

And your feeble game of pretensions to perfection just goes to show how firmly you have your hand on both the thizzle and the sausage. You're a very sad little troll indeed, and you really need to get a much better grip.

Do yourself a favour and grow up little troll. Really.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 07 Jul 2008 #permalink

Keiran posts:

Alarmist AGW is a particularly nasty mind virus ... anti life and arrogantly ignorant ... existing in a fantasy realm that is separate from our biology and seeing humanity more like a parasite living on a host.

How is AGW in a "fantasy realm," Keiran? Care to give any specifics?

Which of the following do you think is non-factual:

1. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas.
2. Carbon dioxide is increasing.
3. The new carbon dioxide is from artificial sources.

You see, if all three of those propositions are true, then AGW is true. For it to be a "fantasy" would require one or more of those propositions to be false. Which one or more do you disagree with?

Gaawd, i've wandered into some yellow submarine bubble full of consensus loving, anti life infected anthropocentrics that don't know the difference between themselves and a snake nor a negative from a positive nor the thizzle from the sausage.

One sees a need here to spray some liberal doses of disinfectant on all these poor sods with their wealth of funny stuff and subroutines that I get to play with that otherwise would never be tried. Love it but where is their cheerleader, Timmyboy?

Put your science on the table, Kieran.

Can you do that, little troll?

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 07 Jul 2008 #permalink

Definitely a troll, and a particularly vicious loony-tunes one at that.

Bye bye troll.

[KillFile]

Keiren has made an amazingly fact-free contribution so far.

I wonder how many posts he can manage just on invective?

For those of you with Firefox you may obtain Greasemonkey here and a killfile script here. Don't worry, it's so intuitive even Reekin can use it! Not that he ever would, being drawn to controversy like shit to a shoe.

Keiran,

"Gaawd, i've wandered into some yellow submarine bubble full of consensus loving, anti life infected anthropocentrics that don't know the difference between themselves and a snake nor a negative from a positive nor the thizzle from the sausage."

But we can tell the difference between a troll and a scientist...

"Gaawd, i've wandered into some yellow submarine bubble full of consensus loving, anti life infected anthropocentrics that don't know the difference between themselves and a snake nor a negative from a positive nor the thizzle from the sausage.

One sees a need here to spray some liberal doses of disinfectant on all these poor sods with their wealth of funny stuff and subroutines that I get to play with that otherwise would never be tried. Love it but where is their cheerleader, Timmyboy?"

Translation:

"I dummy."

I thought Marion was posting excerpts of the Unabomber's manifesto again.

Boris,

I think that I just broke a rib.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 07 Jul 2008 #permalink

"I reckon Keiran doesn't pass the Turing test."

too true.
high marks on the Wagstaff test:
"I don't know what they have to say,
It makes no difference anyway --
Whatever it is, I'm against it!
No matter what it is or who commenced it,
I'm against it.

Your proposition may be good
But let's have one thing understood --
Whatever it is, I'm against it!
And even when you've changed it or condensed it,
I'm against it.

I'm opposed to it --
On general principles I'm opposed to it!

Chorus: He's opposed to it!
In fact, in word, in deed,
He's opposed to it!

For months before my son was born,
I used to yell from night till morn,
Whatever it is, I'm against it!
And I've kept yelling since I first commenced it,
I'm against it! "

The song here at the Deltoid playpen may well be "we all live on a yellow submarine, yellow submarine" and my "nowhere man" appearance be seen as a threat to the colourless worship of consensus but i come with the message of "All You Need Is Love". i.e. the love to find out or in other words discovery.

Love is not related to a need for worship so what is this complete acceptance and promotion of worship that i see here at Deltoid? Isn't worship how people learn to be stooopid and get proselytised by being relieved of their commonsense? Isn't it all about shutting the eye of reason and forgetting the only and the right thing to do which is using our intelligence to break from this consensus cocoon so that we may discover something?

Lesson no1 don't become a worshipper because worship can only misinterpret or ignore or deliberately distort evidence.

Now for the funny stuff that i'm so fond of playing with where there is a need to spray liberal doses of disinfectant hoping for rehabilitation.

PLewis. When a person discovers something new it always breaks with the consensus that previously existed. ALWAYS ... even from Warnie's leg spin technique to Picasso's cubism, to James Cook's voyages, to Halton Arp's discovery of the intrinsic redshift of galaxies as quantized which spells the end of the big bang nonsense. A discovery always overcomes the inertia of consensus to expand our consciousness. Scientists must believe in causality else they are NOT scientists and if they can make no discovery to expand our consciousness in this respect then they can hardly be referred to as a great scientist. When you mention diminished integrity Hansen, we find he hasn't made any discovery of significance which clearly means he hasn't broken with consensus.

Lesson no2 Discovery always breaks with the inertia of consensus.

PB Levenson offers 3 points he considers factual to prove alarmist AGW as true.
1. CO2 is a relatively minor greenhouse gas getting all the early work of earth's temperature to 0 degrees C. It then defines itself as of the present as a non-event greenhouse gas.
2. CO2 increases and decreases over historical time.
3. CO2 increases in minuscule amounts from "artificial sources" if you regard humanity as artificial or as parasitic which i do not.
Alarmist AGW can only exist in some people's minds, usually due to faulty data and modeling but also due to successful climateering propagandists.

Lesson no3 Alarmist AGW is but another mind virus.

DPetley i presume you exist and know a snake exists. If the snake did not exist you would need to prove nothing at all. When something obviously doesn't exist it's pointless/impossible trying to prove a negative.

Lesson no4 The material universe has no negatives ... no credit card facility.

IGould is about the best example here of an alarmist AGWer. Congratulations. but how maladaptive, inconsiderate because it seems your mind is separate from your biology. lol However, I must confess that I just LOVE CO2 because it grows better roses, bigger tomatoes, greens the environment and even leads to stronger, healthy people. As long as plants have three basic things, water, energy and CO2, and enough of the nutrients they need, they will keep growing, and pumping out oxygen. Boy, am i appreciative that plants discovered the trick of turning water, energy and CO2 from the environment long ago, into complex carbohydates and with that extra special spare bit of oxygen. Alternatively, if i was even some "obnoxious little weed" with this neat little trick to offer, i'd be appreciative of any extra free CO2 fertilizer that would allow me to grow healthier, bigger, stronger and greeener.

Lesson no5 So far every last scrap of existing scientific evidence confirms overwhelmingly that CO2 enhances the biosphere/environment.

Finally, there are many compelling reasons in life ...... political, pragmatic, economic, health and environmental, for improving our environment and life, for conservation of energy and water, for developing alternative fuels to finite fossil fuels, etc, but human contributed global warming with its CO2 fear mongering is not one of them.

But remember, Keiran, don't become a worshipper. Never worship. It is love that always maintains the critical functions of the mind and does not cripple life but worship certainly does a pretty good job with various degrees of destructiveness and depression where we see it can only create false versions of the world that clash with the reality.

Can one be a nutcase and a fruitcake?

Seems so.

[kill-file]ed

But remember, Keiran, don't become a worshipp

Hi Keiran
Your last post finally showed some sort of revelation. While I disocer a few wise points in your speech, I give you a warning: You ARE a worshipper! You worship yourself, your own little free spirit above anything else. Watch out!

Sincerely, CP

Kieran.

Quite frankly, your diatribes contribute nothing to any rational discussion, and indeed they only serve to advertise to the world how completely out of touch with reality you are. Can you not engage for a single second in a discussion that is actually founded upon evidence, rather than upon a baseless blather that is less decipherable than the craziest spoutings of L. Ron Hubbard?

Tell us, if "CO2 is a relatively minor greenhouse gas", what do you think would happen to the planet's climate if its atmospheric concentration increased to somewhere between 8 times and 16 times (at the outside) of current levels in the atmosphere?

Just a bit of science please, with some basic documentation.

And Kieran, if you keep embarrassing yourself with garbage like:

So far every last scrap of existing scientific evidence confirms overwhelmingly that CO2 enhances the biosphere/environment.

you will prove to all but the raving loonies who wear alfoil hats that you are completely ignorant of the basics of CO2 effects on biological processes. Have you actually reviewed every last scrap of existing scientific evidence?! You've been given a few clues above, but a 30 second search in Current Contents, Biological Abstracts, or JStore - or even Google Scholar for heaven's sake - would completely and embarrassingly show your drivel for the childish nappy-bomb that it is.

I used this link a couple of months ago to demonstrate the significant negative impacts of increased CO2 in a context relevant to current world circumstances. And it is merely one - ONE! - example of countless thousands that you will find that contradicts your fantasy, if you have the nouse to seek them.

Kieran - either grow up, or start taking your medication again, or bugger off and come back when you have learned how to have a real conversation based upon fact rather than delusion.

You surely take the prize for being a very sad, very ignorant little troll.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 08 Jul 2008 #permalink

Meanwhile, in a Kieran-free zone, I was interested to read the comments to the egregious WSJ op-ed. Initially, all commenters agreed with the piece and even began to recite z's list in #14. Then, the Kool-Aid abstainers began to show up and torpedo (nod to dhogaza in #26) very effectively. The tripe (actually gives tripe a bad name) in the WSJ piece is a collection of half-truths and outright falsehoods. But where does one start with such a bunch of claptrap? Where did the IPCC ever say that the trends would always be up every year without fail? Where did any IPCC document state that there had never been any fluctuation in global temperatures before 1900 (i.e. not caused by rising greenhouse gases)?

By David Graves (not verified) on 08 Jul 2008 #permalink

If the byproducts of humanity aren't artificial, then what is "artificial." That word has a definition. Look it up.

Every scrap of evidence shows that increasing CO2 dissolved in the ocean will lead to the collapse of those ecosystems. If you are algae, the extra CO2 will be great. If you're a coral reef, then it's a death sentence.

You can't just assume away a snake's appendages, man. That aggression will not stand. Man. Kerian, just tell these CO2-worshiping dark-art-practitioning, no-iris-or-pupil-having, climate con dudes that this aggression will not stand. Beverage-holding-yellow-submariner: out.

By Majoratreehorn (not verified) on 08 Jul 2008 #permalink

I'll go out on a limb: The Register was never reliable on tech issues, business issues, economic issues, the sun is shining or the sky is blue issues .... so being unreliable on climate science is in fact the Register being the Register. Geeks who rely on it were misguided.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 08 Jul 2008 #permalink

As a public service:
a) Seriously consider, when a new and especially silly troll appears, killfiling them before replying even once.

b) Do not get incensed about WSJ OpEds, it only raises the blood pressure and is useless. Read the news articles instead, which are often pretty good reporting. Sometimes, within a day or two will appear an OpEd calling AGW nonsense and an article matter-of-factly assuming it and examining its effects in specific cases, like increased wine-making around Lake Okanagan in British Columbia.

We discussed the WSJ here, a while ago, see especially comments #3 and #8.

By John Mashey (not verified) on 08 Jul 2008 #permalink

Mr Mashey summarises in his amazingly poorly thought out and stupid advice "Reporters are human and are normally-distributed by abilities. Find average-or-better ones and help them, and don't expect goodness to happen overnight."

WOW - profound words from a AGW religious desciple to spread the word of the Biblegore about AGW "goodness". Maybe he should spend some time studying Earth sciences.

Keep up the good work Keiran
depp=true
notiz=[Bored now]

"The song here at the Deltoid playpen " etc.

Oh, you're crazy. Why didn't you say so in the first place, we'd have cut you some slack?

JMashey comes out with ... "As a public service: a) Seriously consider, when a new and especially silly troll appears, killfiling them before replying even once." I always thought a troll was a fictional character that lived under a bridge as in some children's literature. Because there was some confusion here with this comment from JMashey it aroused my curiosity so i followed his link and found Timmyboy praising his article as it "offered some good advice in a comment"

In this article, JMashey has his brain all twisted up in religious mind control techniques, as he discusses the most appropriate and effective means to bake a person's brain within a religious alarmist AGW incubator. Charming people these alarmist AGW theologians with their proselytizing schemes in the media. For him it has never been how best to present the truth to the public but instead it is spin and how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving this group more money or more power.

For the AGWer worshippers especially, we certainly see that they will need to be controlled, prepared and repeatedly warned, be well armed with entrenched avoidance behaviours like pulling down the shutters, disconnecting and walking away from highly plausible arguments. i.e. Keep the blinkers well and truly on and as I say, I simply find this arrogance profoundly disquieting.
depp=true
notiz=[Bored now]

Bernard J of course also 'knows it all' because Bernard J is immensely qualified in 'immunology/oncology/biochemistry' prior to changing to 'ecology and population biology'. Bernard J is an excellent example of Keiran's (#53) blinkered AGW worshipper who seems to trot out the same misleading claptrap provided by Gore, Hansen and the AGW church of scaremongery.

The main tactic of AGW worshippers on this site is to use bullying and name calling (e.g. 'troll') of anyone who queries the AGW bible.
depp=true
notiz=[Bored now]

Sigh...

Kiren. At the risk of egging you on, as others have asked, please provide some evidence to support you claims.

Repeating sometihngs (eg. "Timmyboy, the IPCC may have been set up initially with the best of intentions but unremarkably it has mutated into a religious faith" ... "his IPCC can only operate as a belief in belief system where the WILL to believe is easy and the exacto opposite to the WILL to find out" ... "alarmist AGW theologians with their proselytizing schemes in the media", ... "For the AGWer worshippers especially") does not make it true.

As for your claim:
"I do not need to prove anything against AGW because it is the AGW bandwagon that NEED to constructively/positively prove it correct or abandon this perception as false."

you should perhaps open a book. There is a vast amount of evidence pointing to the relaity of AGW. So much so, that the vast majority of scientists/engineers working in relevant fields have accepted it. Hell, the WMO is even nice enough to bundle it together for you in the IPCC reports (which, contrary to popular belief, do not contain independant research of their own, but are a glorified literature survey).

So...I repeat. Provide counter evidence or go away.

ChrisC....Why not start with this graph which shows the temperature variations over the 20 year period NASA's Dr James Hansen predicted 'a long term warming period'.

http://www.climateaudit.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/june2037.gif

Notice that it does not use the manipulated and false data of the James Hansen graph shown at the top of this blog and which is dragged out at almost all of the AGW worship meetings on Deltoid. Red dots mark the start and finish of the 'warming period' predicted by Hansen. Since Hansen 'raised the alarm' (and during the preceding 9 years) there doesn't appear to be much warming. All this time CO2 levels were steadily rising but apparently without a corresponding increase in temperatures.

The IPCC has corrupted the "reporting process" so thoroughly that it makes the oil-for-food scandal look like someone stole a kid's lunch money.

They have modified the science as needed to fit their predetermined conclusions. The IPCC has decided the conclusion first, then solicited "opinions" on the reporting, ignoring any science which does not fit thier predetermined conclusion while falsifying data to support unrealistic models.

Lank,

Constant assertion isn't a substitute for reason.

The two dots on the graph you linked to are pretty irrelevent if you're trying to suggest something about the trend.

Lank...yawn.

ChrisC, your cheerleader will not indulge in debate on OLO or here at his yellow submarine. I'll just leave you with my message again ... "All You Need Is Love". i.e. the love to find out or in other words discovery.

Lank.

I do not have the enthusiasm nor the patience to piece together your post at #54 that Tim decided warranted disemvowelling. The gist though, as I understand it, is that I am 'religious' in my apparent zeal for global warming.

If this is your claim then it would appear that illiteracy is a part of the vast array of undercapacities that you seem determined to demonstrate. I have said above, and previously on many threads, that I am happy to accept any evidence that contradicts AGW, if said evidence stands the same scrutiny as the evidence that I currently accept is indicative of climate warming. I am a true sceptic, and I always querie the evidence, but you have not provided a shred of defensible evidence of your own to substantiate your claims. And that graph is, as Tim points out, an exercise in cherry picking.

If you can't understand why, then you are simply making it ever more obvious to the readers of this thread why you do not have the intellectual faculty to sensibly engage in a serious debate about the science.

And it is serious science. Your little spiel

The IPCC has corrupted the "reporting process" so thoroughly that it makes the oil-for-food scandal look like someone stole a kid's lunch money.

They have modified the science as needed to fit their predetermined conclusions. The IPCC has decided the conclusion first, then solicited "opinions" on the reporting, ignoring any science which does not fit thier predetermined conclusion while falsifying data to support unrealistic models.

shows beyond doubt that you subscribe to paranoid conspiracy theories. If so, my quip about alfoil hats seems to rather close to the mark after all...

Kieran, you've yet to make any sense at all.

I like to counter trollshit for the benefit of unsuspecting bystanders so that they might see the dung for what it is, but I think that the two of you have left such a sorry trail of rubbish here that even the most nasally-challenged fence-sitter would smell the reek. I reckon that I can safely heed John Mashey's advice and leave you to flounder in your own bilge, and I have no doubt that others will keep you in line if you get too silly to be left sitting in the road by yourselves.

Good luck in your own personal little war on science.

You'll need it.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 08 Jul 2008 #permalink

Notice that it does not use the manipulated and false data of the James Hansen graph shown at the top of this blog...

All these accusations of scientific misconduct on the part of climate scientists, an accusation, which, if true would cost Hansen dearly as an employee of NASA.

Yet, outside of the blogosphere and the press ... nothing.

No attempt is made through official channels to indict and punish the man for his conduct.

I wonder why?

dhogaza:

It's a conspiracy! Sometimes Hadley Centre is also part of the conspiracy, sometimes it is not. You can tell when Hadley Centre is part of the conspiracy by when the HadCRU data shows warming according to your particular method of data selection as of your blogging.

Actually, the question that really interests me for all of you Australians out there is "How much are you prepared to incur as additional power, water, and petrol bills each year" to support the Garnaut recommendations? I guess most would be happy if it cost only $10 or $100 per year extra, but I wonder how they would feel if the initiatives cost an extra $5000 or $10000 for every household in Australia.

Would you then begin to ask "Why am I paying this?" "Will it make any difference to the global AGW situation?" "Why should I pay this when nobody else out there is paying it?"

And (the real doozy in my view) "How can I be sure of the "science" that is being invoked to support the Garnaut recommendations?".

My point, of course, is that we are all very happy to recommend and participate in "save the planet" initiatives, but we are likely to have second thoughts if it begins to cost us all real money.

For the record, I am of the view that the impost on Australian households could easily exceed $5000 per year pretty soon. But thats OK, isn't it guys.

By fair and balanced (not verified) on 09 Jul 2008 #permalink

Lank @ 56 says:

Notice that it does not use the manipulated and false data of the James Hansen graph...

The highlighted phrase is a clear accusation of scientific fraud, and is highly defamatory.

Got the courage of your convictions to put your real name to your accusation?

Keiran posts:

Isn't worship how people learn to be stooopid and get proselytised by being relieved of their commonsense?

No, that's "being a global warming denier."

Halton Arp's discovery of the intrinsic redshift of galaxies as quantized which spells the end of the big bang nonsense.

Gosh darn that nonsensical Big Bang! Take that, Olbers's Paradox! Take that, cosmological microwave background!

PB Levenson offers 3 points he considers factual to prove alarmist AGW as true. 1. CO2 is a relatively minor greenhouse gas getting all the early work of earth's temperature to 0 degrees C. It then defines itself as of the present as a non-event greenhouse gas.

Your second sentence here doesn't even parse. What are you talking about? Do you, or do you not, accept that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas? Mind answering yes or no?

2. CO2 increases and decreases over historical time.

Duh. What does that have to do with the present global warming? CO2 is way up since the industrial revolution began.

3. CO2 increases in minuscule amounts from "artificial sources" if you regard humanity as artificial or as parasitic which i do not.

Artificial means manufactured, made by hand or with tools. And the "miniscule amounts" accumulate over time, which is why 27% of the carbon dioxide now in the air around us is artificial.

However, I must confess that I just LOVE CO2 because it grows better roses, bigger tomatoes, greens the environment and even leads to stronger, healthy people. As long as plants have three basic things, water, energy and CO2, and enough of the nutrients they need, they will keep growing, and pumping out oxygen. Boy, am i appreciative that plants discovered the trick of turning water, energy and CO2 from the environment long ago, into complex carbohydates and with that extra special spare bit of oxygen. Alternatively, if i was even some "obnoxious little weed" with this neat little trick to offer, i'd be appreciative of any extra free CO2 fertilizer that would allow me to grow healthier, bigger, stronger and greeener.

"Greening" with CO2 doesn't really work, Keiran. It can only increase growth when it is the nutrient present in least supply -- Liebig's Law of the Minimum. The actual nutrient in least supply for most plants is water, and since global warming causes increased droughts in continental interiors, it will lead to less plant growth and, more to the point, less food. It has already started. Ask the Australians.

But remember, Keiran, don't become a worshipper. Never worship. It is love that always maintains the critical functions of the mind and does not cripple life but worship certainly does a pretty good job with various degrees of destructiveness and depression where we see it can only create false versions of the world that clash with the reality.

Are you exhibiting "love," Kieran? Do you understand what the word means? Does "love" incorporate viciously insulting a bunch of complete strangers and making false accusations against them? This must be some strange new definition of "love" I've never run into before.

And you're not someone who never worships, Kieran. It's pretty plain that you worship yourself.

Can't help but think that, by and large, correspondents with nom de claviers like "fair and balanced", "Skeptical Peer Review" (or whatever it was), etc. are to science and its discussion as were/are countries like the former German Democratic Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, etc. to the notion of democracy.

"fair and balanced" (cough) posted:

Actually, the question that really interests me for all of you Australians out there is "How much are you prepared to incur as additional power, water, and petrol bills each year" to support the Garnaut recommendations? I guess most would be happy if it cost only $10 or $100 per year extra, but I wonder how they would feel if the initiatives cost an extra $5000 or $10000 for every household in Australia.

As you asked...

I gave up a well-paid career in biomedical science over a decade ago to work in ecology, because I was convinced by the data I saw that indicated the damage that humans are doing to the biosphere. This includes damage to the climate, and although I had just taken on a mortgage I put my (sudden lack of) money where my mouth is.

I estimate that I have forfeited upwards of $400 000, Australian, in making this career change to follow my beliefs.

Six months ago I stopped driving my car, which now sits in the drive gathering dust whilst I decide the best fate for it. I have halved my power bill, and I use only rainwater. I use public transport and car-pool. Where I don't grow my own, I buy only food grown in Australia, and largely from local market gardens. I only drink beer made in my state, and mostly (boutique, lucky me) tap beer made 20km away. I do all the reduce/reuse/recycle things, and much more, and it takes no inconvenient effort to do so.

And you know what? My quality of life is better than it has ever been, even with kids, and quite frankly I grind my teeth when I hear the middle (and higher) classes bleat about the cost. And to top this off, I reckon that I can reduce my footprint by another 50%, with a lot of (enjoyable) sweat working on my house and garden.

For the record, I am of the view that the impost on Australian households could easily exceed $5000 per year pretty soon. But thats OK, isn't it guys.

Well, if you're asking me - yes. The cost to me is at least eight times that in 'lost' salary, although with conservation of my personal resources I get a little back. And as I said above life has never been better.

"Impost", huh? To me it's not an impost at all. Think about your impost upon the non-Western world, upon the non-human world, and upon unborn generations of humans across the planet. Your use of this word is mendacious (in my opinion), and seeks to appeal to the reflexive lizard brain rather than to reason.

I've learned from my own experience how much fat we have in our lives, that we believe that we can't live without. And before you invoke the poverty-stricken in our society, I have spent most of the last decade technically in that category, and I still managed it with no hassles. One thing I will say though - it seems that the fatter the turkeys are, the more they try to make those lower on the dung-pile pay for the belt-tightening. It's almost enough to turn a soul into a (gasp!) socialist...

For the record I think that it needn't cost the average household $5000/year; but whatever the cost, if we don't get it right, it'll cost future generations much more than that. Whatever the final magnitude of climate change, the combination of peak oil, food and water shortages, and biosphere degradation is going to go Club-of-Rome sooner or later and come home to roost. Whether you like it or not, and infinity-pixies notwithstanding.

But that's an argument for another thread.

Anyway, this post should whip the right-wingers here into a seething frenzy.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 09 Jul 2008 #permalink

In addition to the usual public service announcements, I urge reasonable people to study the Dunning-Kruger Effect:

truly-incompetent (in some specific area) people:

-- don't know how incompetent they are

-- vastly over-rate their own competence

-- and are unable to evaluate the competence of others

It is possible for someone to improve if they want to, but if someone is DK-afflicted and does not wish to improve, arguing endlessly with them is fairly useless, because ignorance can be invincible.

Oddly, higher-competence people often underrate their own competence. I have no data, but I conjecture that higher-competence people have much more awareness and contact with the very-most-competent, which sets their calibration.

It is well-known in organization-building, that if you hire the most competent people you can, they try to do that as well, whereas if you hire turkeys, they tend to hire even turkey-er subordinates. Example:

Google: FEMA turkey farm

Entire organizations can become turkey farms, and not even realize it, if they don't have any calibration by frequent contact with competent people.

Napoleon said:
"Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence."
(I think he slightly over-stated the case, but not much.)

In this light, back to the original topic: is The Australian's activity pattern malice or incompetence?

By John Mashey (not verified) on 09 Jul 2008 #permalink

Mashey, from the US bible belt preaches religious consensus worship, timmyboy is impressed and science is reduced to theology.

Bernard and BPLevenson, your yellow submarine Deltoid, is full of bilge water. No science here ... bye bye
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Yeah, yeah, Kieran, those scientists are ever so impressed with their damned "scientific method." I suppose it's worth pointing out the irony that Mashey is not from the "bible belt," but rather from the geographical area and technological sector without which there wouldn't be an internet or a computer for Kieran.

By Steve Bloom (not verified) on 09 Jul 2008 #permalink

SBloom is it possible for you to spell Keiran correctly? Not that it really matters of course but yes i know Mashey has been heavily involved in computer language design but seems now concerned with designing consensus models for science turning it into his theology and for being arrogantly accorded the privilege of designing earth's climate. What next? Design how you should think? Design people's behaviour? Design clever mind viruses for religious playpens? Design madness in the world? Design the universe perhaps?

i.e. A fictional view of life implies fictional people so why do people need the real world when they can have an inexorable and schemingly designed fake one with its designer as a perpetual broadcaster?

However, there resides in many people a will to truth driven by a curiosity as well as an altruism. i.e. The will to not allow ourselves to be deceived as well as the will not to deceive. Hence I don't live in some cosy playpen, am not arrogant to the natural world but have well developed crap detectors when it comes to much of human behaviour. Why should we allow some arrogant designer to codify their domination by trying to take these abilities from our lives?
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re: #74 (which led me to a killed #73):

This (Bible Belt comment) is truly amusing. Actually, besides working in computing in Silicon Valley, there are some closer connections with people's computers and the Internet:

COMPUTERS

All {UNIX, Linux, Mac, Windows, and some other} operating systems have environment variables.

One of those variables, usually called $PATH or %PATH%, specifies the search path, i.e., list of directories to be searched in order for a program.

These (and some others) derive originally from PWB/UNIX shell changes that I proposed in February 1975, from experience in using the existing shell as a scripting language. "Using a command language as a high-level programming language" was slightly odd at the time, but became quite popular and was one of the early ancestral roots of widely-used current programming approaches.

Later, Dennis Ritchie, Steve Bourne, and I designed the more general environment variable mechanism for Seventh Edition UNIX, from which it spread elsewhere.

INTERNET

Many of Cisco's routers run on 64-bit MIPS chips, whose architecture I helped design, and helped convince Cisco to select, during an all-afternoon meeting, ~1992.

MIPS-architecture chips are used by many other vendors of Internet gear, partly as a result of Cisco's choice. Hence, I'd guess it's fairly rare for a packet to get any distance through the Internet without being handled at least once by such chips.

By John Mashey (not verified) on 09 Jul 2008 #permalink

Oh well... I thought, perhaps, I may get some kind of intelligent response. Instead I got Keiran repeating himself. I should have known...silly me.

Mashey, well perhaps a five iron not my favourite golf club. lol But if it's not so much the "bible belt" then it's the US of A, where many would say "freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose" in the home of the unthinking slave... where this notion of an unconnected freedom is about the worst sucker bait.

But congratulations on your outstanding computer/internet/language design efforts. I mean this sincerely because you have contributed in a major revolution. e.g. From 1995, with the birth proper of the www it now makes sense that "postmodern" has mutated the modern to reflect a change into the movement it always wanted to be ...... i.e. a hyperlink to the 360 degrees of an infinite meta-narrative with its global network of moderators and always connected. (lateral plus lineal and neither a system but an environment). We have now a communications medium unlike others that were one to many forms. The internet is communications many to to many. I find this truly significant. The internet is interactive, democratic with a deeper realism and our new enlightenment where the word is not with some some overbearing omnipotent designer but with the people.

However science is simply not about consensus nor designing control systems. Science is about discovery .... essentially inductive in nature. It always breaks with consensus. This should be one of your initial assumptions but it is not what you actually practice. Care to explain?
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Hey Bernard J.

Thank you for your detailed post. I respect the position that you adopt, and can see that you hold your views with considerable commitment and integrity. There is no reason for me to challenge your decisions.

I think where we might differ is in our understanding of the problems we are seeking to solve and the strategies that we might adopt to solve them. For my part, I have a view on the problems, and I am adopting my own personal strategies to make a contribution to solve them.

Peace.

By fair and balanced (not verified) on 10 Jul 2008 #permalink

fair and balanced.

I tip my hat at your considered response. After all, I did have a bit of a dig at you in my post.

As to the collective responses to the problems, I agree that they are not simple, especially in terms of blanket application. My underlying point is that solutions exist, and it is really a matter of our commitment (or lack thereof) that will dictate how successful our society will be.

Cheers, and as you said, peace.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 10 Jul 2008 #permalink

Hey, Keiran, wanna buy a vowel? I've got Vanna's e-mail address if you're interested

When every scientific expert tells you how something is, that's almost certainly how it is. So insisting they are all wrong sounds a lot like a cult belief. Sure climate science can be hard to understand and may difficult to believe - that makes it easy to cultivate the kind of cultish disbelief Kieran typifies.

Thanks Kieran but I'll take the opinions coming out of the worlds leading scientific institutions over anyone you could point me to. Science has a proven track record of unravelling the workings of a complex world and every peak body of every relevant science agrees. But I think it will take a strong el Nino year - some hot noise in the signal -to puncture the inflated credibility of the cult of climate change denial.

But I think it will take a strong el Nino year - some hot noise in the signal -to puncture the inflated credibility of the cult of climate change denial.

Oh, they'll just resurrect the "natural variability" theme that they've so conveniently forgotten in the current La Niña conditions.

L0ve 1s 0ll v00 n33d.

"Oh, they'll just resurrect the "natural variability" theme "

there really is a remarkable correlation between "conservativism" as it's currently practiced, and lack of long-term memory.

Tim, thanks for dis voweling the likes of Kerian. I was a regular at one time till it became too difficult to wade past the trolls. Your making Kerian's post into babble is really appreciated so I can come back more often and learn more without the annoyance of trolls.

Interesting, Kerian has many posts after his vowells went AWOL, slow learner I guess.

Good, right on!

By richCares (not verified) on 11 Jul 2008 #permalink

dhogaza, I expect nothing to change the minds of the hard core climate denial cultists but observable impacts are likely to be more noticeable next time there is some hot noise and far more difficult to explain away. Even an absence of cool noise will see real world effects. Whilst I know that any single year is not proof of any trend, extremes do sound a warning that laypeople will notice. More emphasis on real world effects - which are becoming clearer - will be more convincing than arguing about statistical methodology of surface temp graphs or the workings of GCM's - phenological effects, borehole temperatures, accelerated retreat of glaciers and ice sheet loss might work better.
Ultimately doing much about GHG emissions is dependent on the rollout of low emission technologies - and that isn't happening on a scale that's even slowing the rate of acceleration of emissions. The Denialism cultists are winning by default, feeding the fears of the costs of doing something, which are considerable, even if they are ultimately failing to convince people that AGW is not true.

Mark @ 88,

I'll kick off.

I note that David begins by implicitly smearing his scientific colleagues by asserting they were all jumping aboard the band-wagon in hopes of jobs and "big budgets". Well, maybe that was his motivation.

On David's point 1: RealClimate addresses the troposphere hot-spot problem here: http://tinyurl.com/6xtwc3 and here: http://tinyurl.com/2qduzk . In a nutshell as I understand it, the radiosonde data has systemic bias and very large uncertainty.
Point 2 is just a flat statement of denial. It's hard to know what he counts as evidence. We observe rising CO2 (and other greenhouse gases), we observe rising temperature, we observe a correlation and have a robust theoretical framework to explain the correlation. What more does he want?
Point 3: Warming ended in 2001 now? I thought it ended in 1998? Taking short term fluctuations as long term trends is stupid and a numerical modeller should know better. See skeptical science for a discussion of the problems here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Global-warming-stopped-in-1981.html
Temperature is dropping a bit now because we are coming into the La Nina cooling from the El Nino warming that peaked in 1998. Wait till the next El Nino. That is going to be bloody awful.
Urban heat islands are a) not that significant and b) well understood and corrected for: http://www.skepticalscience.com/surface-temperature-measurements.htm

Point 4: Again, a numerical modeller should understand positive feedback loops and overlapping causes: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores/

"If there really was any evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming, don't you think we would have heard all about it ad nauseam by now?" - what does he think the IPCC have been doing?

I do note that David expands some of his dubious points here: http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2007/04/climate-skeptics-guest-post… He's been willing to put money on warming slowing and doesn't seem to have fossil fuel links. So I will give him credit for being a sincere skeptic who is unconvinced. But I don't think his arguments stack up.

By James Haughton (not verified) on 17 Jul 2008 #permalink

Mark Hill:

We already know your reaction to the article, which is simply to brainlessly regurgitate the link.

That's all.

James - thank you.

"So I will give him credit for being a sincere skeptic who is unconvinced. But I don't think his arguments stack up."

That's just it. I think he is sincere. Scepticism isn't the same as denial.

bi whatever you are - I hope you can appreciate the irony of your reply one day.

Msrk Hill:

What irony? What you mindlessly regurgitate, I can mindlessly dismiss. It's not my responsibility to give a detailed answer to every URL that's being brainlessly thrown out.

bi - you seem confused. You don't want to respond to every URL "mindlessly" thrown up but you are happy to waste your own time in a flame war with someone who wants a second opinion on climate change scepticism from an audience who want action taken.

Do you have an opinion of Dr Evans or not?

> someone who wants a second opinion on climate change scepticism

Brainless link regurgitation is brainless link regurgitation, no matter how you spin it.

And inactivist bias is inactivist bias, even if you keep trying to portray yourself as "balanced".

You're a political activist, as your own home page URL so clearly shows.

bi - I have been upfront and honest. Please stop with the ad hominem attacks. Tim probably doesn't want me to discuss my preferred policy here - needless to say it accepts AGW but is simpler and more conservative than Garnaut's proposal. Jeffrey Sachs is a renowned economist who has a point of view more like mine.

I don't need to justify myself to you, only Tim.

Now, do you have an opinion of Dr Evans or not? If you don't then I will stop asking you the question.

> I don't need to justify myself to you

Then I don't need to justify myself to you either.

> Jeffrey Sachs is a renowned economist who has a point of view more like mine.

Why do you keep lying, Hill?

I'm not lying.

"like" infers similarity, not congruence.

Sachs has criticised an ETS and said there would never be a global agreement, and a tax should be used by Australia not cap and trade. This is basically where I stand, except that the energy sector should be a level playing field, the tax applied at a flat rate and compensated against income tax and welfare payments. I don't know what Sachs has to say about specifics.

Sachs' comments are here:

http://www.theage.com.au/environment/alarm-on-carbon-trading-scheme-200…

I will graciously accept any apology you make to me.