In a news story in The Australian Christian Kerr claims:
Former US vice-president turned climate crusader Al Gore has used footage of the Queensland floods from earlier this year as proof of climate change, contradicting the findings of the Gillard government's Climate Commission.
A new video posted on YouTube, narrated by Mr Gore to promote his Climate Reality Program, opens with footage of the wall of water that swept through Toowoomba in January. In the video, Mr Gore says "big oil and big coal are spending big money" to distort debate on climate change.
Yet he has ignored the findings of the Climate Commission, which says the Queensland floods were probably not a product of climate change but instead a natural part of climate variability.
Commissioner Will Steffen wrote in the May report The Critical Decade: "The floods across eastern Australia in 2010 and early 2011 were the consequence of a very strong La Nina event and not the result of climate change."
Unfortunately for Kerr, the report is available online, so we can see how Kerr quote mined it:
Sea surface temperatures (sst) have warmed nearly everywhere over the
past century, including around Australia (figure 31).This additional warmth in the upper ocean - SSTs in the northern
Australian region are currently at or near record levels and are much
warmer for this La Niña event than for previous strong La Niña events
(Figure 24) - may possibly have enhanced precipitation and led to an
even more intense precipitation event than would otherwise have
occurred, although such enhancement has yet to be demonstrated.
So the report says that while global warming didn't cause the floods, it may have made them worse. Kerr deliberately omitted the second part to make it seem like the report contradicted Gore.
Furthermore, if you look at the video, you will see that Gore isn't say that this particular flood was caused by climate change, but rather that climate change is making extreme weather events like floods more common.
On that point, the Critical Decade states:
On a global scale, several analyses point to an
increase in heavy precipitation events in many parts
of the world, including tropical Australia, consistent
with physical theory and with projections of more
intense rainfall events as the climate warms.
Needless to say, Kerr did not mention that part of the report either.
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Unsurprisingly, Andrew Bolt latches onto it too.
I used to encourage Christian in his Hillary Bray phase; he did a very good job of forensic political reporting for the then promising new media start-up (Crikey).
It's a shame he's not proven bright enough to realise that when it comes to conflict between his ideological leanings and Nature (represented by science), he should listen more and bray less.
There is no evidence that weather has gotten more extreme. For example, compared to the 1930s recent weather has been very mild.
It's not just the waves, but the winds that are leading to climate change in Australia, including flooding.
As usual the expense account churnalists and blaggers are pushing back against Al Gore, trying to bring him down. Rather than tsking Al for some small issues, the bunnies better bring the hammer in his defense.
Steven Goddard, are you saying that it's OK to quote mine because ooh, the 1930s?
-- frank
The 2011 floods reached half the historical highs of floods of the 1800s. Are you blaming AGW for those floods as well?
http://www.bom.gov.au/hydro/flood/qld/fld_history/brisbane_history.shtml
Hmm, why do inactivists such as Steven Goddard and MarcH insist on ignoring the blatant quote-mining that the Australian is engaging in?
-- frank
I have a take similar to that of frankis, on the matter of Christain Kerr.
Kerr has a regular once-a-week gig on Late Night Live with Phillip Adams. Back in the Crikey days Kerr's commentary was insightful and unbiased by any particular political leaning. However, since his migration to the Australian, Kerr has become ever more noticably affected by the philosophical inclinations of Newscorp.
Whether they have a cosy little indoctrination process, or whether it's just a subliminal osmosis of ideology once a new hack joins the Family, this shifting seems to be a significant risk for those who sign at the bottom on a Newscorp dotted line.
I'm just glad that Phillip Adams himself appears to be immune.
There's plenty of evidence of the effect, Steven. [That's if you're a SCIENTIST, anyway](http://www.skepticalscience.com/linking-extreme-weather-and-global-warm…).
Besides which, temperatures drive the weather. Temperatures are rising. Please prove that the weather has decided to break this causal link.
If you think that hurricanes aren't dependent on a high SST, please explain why not or why SSTs won't go up any more when the air above it gets warmer.
It really is the whole smoking and lung cancer thing all over again, isn't it?
You can't conclusively prove that any particular case of lung cancer is caused by smoking, some non-smokers get lung cancer, and correlation is not necessarily evidence of causation, therefore we can definitely conclude that there is no link between smoking and lung cancer, and anybody who claims otherwise is either an alarmist or a communist, doubtless driven by a pathological hatred of free enterprise, Mom, and apple pie.
The really depressing bit is how well this strategy works...
> Are you blaming AGW for those floods as well?
No.
Lightning has caused forest fires in Australia. Are you blaming lightning for the [Black Saturday fires](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Saturday_bushfires#Arson). Are you going to campaign to have these humans who didn't cause forest fires 200 years ago released, MarcH?
Cue: denialists popping up here and talking about anything except how the quotes have been carefully selected to misrepresent the findings of the report.
So we are going to tax the air to make the weather colder? âWhat century was this?â, is the question history will be asking.
I'm not the only former believer urging prosecutors to lay criminal chargers to the leading scientists and news editors for knowingly inciting this needless panic of CO2 climate crisis and REAL planet lovers donât WANT this misery to have been real. Climate change wasnât stewardship, it was a CO2 death threat to billions of children and a criminal exaggeration rationalized with political correctness on steroids. All the scientists studied effects of a crisis that never happened and called it consensus. This is a dark our for civilized humanity.
Meanwhile, the UN and the entire SCIENCE world had allowed carbon trading to trump 3rd world fresh water relief, starvation rescue and 3rd world education for just over 25 years of climate control instead of the obviously needed population control.
I confess to being a believer for many years and I see now that my liberalismâs dark side embraced climate blame for its sacred cows failure, envy and misery. Climate Change was our Iraq War folks. We looked our kids square in the eyes and told them they wouldnât have kids if they didnât start turning the lights out more often. This was progressive and loving? No wonder Glen Beck and the other neocons make fun of us. We need to back off of the CO2 mistake and reverse course to lead responsible environmentalism with courage and optimism, not fear of the unknown like heartless fear mongers.
And there's another one.
Stream of consciousness denial-o-babble and a million miles away from the issue of quote mining to misrepresent the science.
So we are going to tax the air to make the weather colder? âWhat century was this?â, is the question history will be asking. If I still believed this comet hit of an emergency, Iâd be marching in the streets warning the world but even the scientists are silent now, even as Obama never even mentioned the âcrisisâ in his last state of the union address. The myth of thousands of scientists is shown clearly as the scientists vastly outnumber the climate change protesters. Be happy. We have avoided a crisis.
*Scientific âCONSENSUSâ was NOT true and real planet lovers are happy about that fact, not disappointed. PROOF: It couldnât have been consensus when every one of the âcountless thousandsâ of scientists had their own different definition of climate âcrisisâ. It was a consultantâs w*et dream and while we hated the giant oil corporations, climate blame wasted billions on what could have gone to good social reform. Remember this: Scientists polluted the planet with their pesticides and chemicals in the first place donât forget.
I'm not the only former believer urging prosecutors to lay criminal chargers to the leading scientists and news editors for knowingly inciting this needless panic of CO2 climate crisis and REAL planet lovers donât WANT this misery to have been real. Climate change wasnât stewardship, it was a CO2 death threat to billions of children and a criminal exaggeration rationalized with political correctness on steroids. All the scientists studied effects of a crisis that never happened and called it consensus. This is a dark our for civilized humanity.
Meanwhile, the UN and the entire SCIENCE world had allowed carbon trading to trump 3rd world fresh water relief, starvation rescue and 3rd world education for just over 25 years of climate control instead of the obviously needed population control.
I confess to being a believer for many years and I see now that my liberalismâs dark side embraced climate blame for its sacred cows failure, envy and misery. Climate Change was our Iraq War folks. We looked our kids square in the eyes and told them they wouldnât have kids if they didnât start turning the lights out more often. This was progressive and loving? No wonder Glen Beck and the other neocons make fun of us. We need to back off of the CO2 mistake and reverse course to lead responsible environmentalism with courage and optimism, not fear of the unknown like heartless fear mongers.
Climate inactivists apparently believe that offence is the best defence: when shown that the 'skeptical' Australian has been quote mining climate scientists, they respond by carpet-bombing this thread with irrelevant bullshit.
-- frank
>Cue: denialists popping up here and talking about anything except how the quotes have been carefully selected to misrepresent the findings of the report.
Way to call it.
Back to the topic: Most people who quote mine this badly either don't know enough about to subject to know what is relevant and what isn't (ignorant), or are knowingly misleading others about the information (lying).
The denialists don't care, as long as it agrees with what they what to hear.
You remaining climate doomers WANTED this misery to have been real!
What else do you misery loving doomers do besides frightening kids with "SAVE THE PLANET!"? Do you rubber neck car accidents, pull fire alarms too and yell "FIRE!" in the theater?
You climate cowards and fear mongers are the new NEOCONS.
> So we are going to tax the air to make the weather colder?
No.
> even as Obama never even mentioned the âcrisisâ in his last state of the union address.
[Meh](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/us/politics/19climate.html)
But so what? he never mentioned copyright infringement either, yet ACTA part 2 is being pushed.
> It couldnât have been consensus when every one of the âcountless thousandsâ of scientists had their own different definition of climate âcrisisâ.
So climate change isn't happening because people think the results are all the way from "quite bad" to "BLOODY NORA!". I guess paedophilia doesn't exist either, since people have differing ideas on exactly how bad it is.
But you've been a great sport (as in something to hunt) and thanks for that extremely varied and pointless bullshit.
The inactivist idiots continue to 'defend' the Australian's quote-mining by carpet bombing irrelevant bullshit.
Or are they actually the same idiot? Tim, can you see the IP address(es) of the idiot(s)?
-- frank
I speculate that we are being treated to this influx of denialist hysterics merely because Tim mentioned Al Gore.
Here is PROOF you remaining faded doomers of CO2 gloom don't care two hoots about the planet. In fact, you misery loving practitioners of blame hate humanity with your mud bath of misery and "envy". YOU DONâT ACT LIKE ITâS A CRISIS.
What could be worse than CO2 climate crisis? NOTHING! (Except a comet hit maybe.)
I'll believe you believers still believe in your crisis fantasy when you start acting like itâs the worldâs worst emergency EVER! Itâs a âclimate crisisâ after all.
Get signs that say THE END IS NEAR and show some genuine commitment, not your car accident rubber necking mentality. Join the other END OF THE WORLD freaks doomers. History is judging you now for the CO2 mistake and blunder and criminal exaggeration.
That confirms it.
Is this a spambot at work?
I'm not convinced the above comment is actually Al Gore.
Or it's a sock, John. Someone who got so royally reamed they don't want to appear here again and yet harbour a great seething resentment that His Special Purpose (tm) wasn't recognised.
Climate Change Crisis Believers:
You dare call yourselves radicals and rebels and activists? Your God is a fat American politician promising to lower the seas and make the weather colder with taxes and YOUR sacrifice of lifestyle? You bow to authority like domesticated cattle and you want to hand over the management of the climate to giant carbon trading stock markets, giant energy corporations and politicians? You call yourselves progressives as you condemn billions of children to a CO2 death and then have the nerve to call out neocons as fear mongers?
Climate Change Climate Crisis Belief is so transparent it is laughable and until you phony planet lovers start ACTING like this is the greatest emergency ever, history will have a special place for you modern day omen worshippers and witch burners.
Come on, folks, Meme Mine is a Poe. Or a bored 15 yo who just discovered the keys to his dad's booze cabinet. (School hols in Aussie land.)
Oh, and Kerr jumped the shark a while back. Ignore.
> as you condemn billions of children to a CO2 death
Weird.
What CO2 death? The fossil fuel industry is killing the future generations with their CO2 pollution and their denial of the consequences, but this load of cod seems to be thinking that not drowning or starving is somehow killing kids.
Meh.
Looks like "mememine69" a.k.a. "Meme Mine" a.k.a. "George Theplanetlover" a.k.a. "Al Gore" has run out of sockpuppet handles to use.
-- frank
MarcH may have a point.
After all, in in 2011 floods caused by a line of thunder storms, with heavy rain in just two areas of the catchment caused a flood which was lower than the 1974 flood which was caused by a cyclone of the coast of Queensland, and the only thing that had changed was the construction of a flood mitigation dam with the capacity of two Sydney Harbours, and the dredging of the Brisbane bar to greatly increase outflows to Moreton Bay. Clearly those are trivial differences that no self respecting "skeptic" would pay any attention to.
Of course, the presence of two flood mitigation dams, and dredging the Brisbane bar would surely have made no difference to the height of the 1893 floods at all.
http://bybrisbanewaters.blogspot.com/2011/03/reporting-on-wivenhoe.html
http://bybrisbanewaters.blogspot.com/2011/02/2011-and-history-how-big-w…
I object to the post of July 14, 2011 11:23 AM.
Not to the typical climate denier drivel. Nor yet that the poster did not have the courage to put his own name to his opinions. Given those opinions, who would want to be associated with them.
But I seriously object to their putting somebody else's name to their drivel. It is both dishonest and unethical.
It doesn't matter, Al Gore is still fat and I point to countless blog comments as evidence.
What is Tom Curtis sniffing? Apart from not making sense the two links he points to don't provide any support to his witterings (perhaps he thinks Al Gore is fat).
Jeremy C: adjust your sarcasm meter. Tom Curtis was rebutting MarcH - and doing it well.
MarcH et al are in terminal denial and can't be reached, but I'd like to see Kerr pop in and try to defend this blatant quote mining.
Imagine the outrage we'd find in the pages of The Oz if scientists faked the science the way it's journalists fake the reporting on the science.
Christian Kerr was always an aspiring member of the club Monbiot describes here.
In fact, he'll be president of it before you know it! And Phillip Adams will keep on being genially polite to him and bring him back each fortnight as long as he'll deign to come.
Why is it that so many deniers just can't do paragraphs? Is it because they can't group their ideas logically, and have no grasp of nuance or the flow of an argument?
Trust we've seen this?
We have the reverse problem here - the arses just turn up uninvited!
[This](http://www.facebook.com/groups/10150105268275183) gave me a laugh.
We can't be too surprised at this sort of stuff getting a pass in The Oz.
As the NOTW scandal is demonstrating very clearly, News Ltd has not prioritised integrity in the people it chooses to lead its media groups, and naturally that effect filters down.
@MarcH
"The 2011 floods reached half the historical highs of floods of the 1800s. Are you blaming AGW for those floods as well?"
No one has claimed that any event was caused by global warming, but that such events are more frequent and likely. Your rhetorical question means Zip.
Meme mine, mememine69, or variations of that name show up on various blogs, spouting standard denier nonsense.
"Do you ... pull fire alarms..."
When there's a fire, yes.
"...and yell "FIRE!" in the theater?"
Again, when there's a fire, yes.
"You dare call yourselves radicals and rebels and activists?"
I prefer the term "honest", as in, I don't deliberately mangle quotes to push an agenda like Kerr did at *The Australian* because that wouldn't be *honest*.
"You call yourselves progressives..."
I know I don't speak for most people here, but I'm mostly libertarian. I just happen to accept what the evidence is showing; believe me, my ideological leanings made it a hard sell, but what's the point in ignoring reality? The world is as it is, whether I wish it or not.
Accepting reality doesn't involve lying about what other people said, like Kerr did.
"There obviously can't be global warming because the kinds of weather events we have aren't of a different kind than what we've had in the past."
As in, supposedly, we need to have literal cats and dogs come down during heavy rains. Or from the way the corrupt carbon extracters are pushing it, they expect actual showers of gold!
Well I downloaded the report and on page 42 it said this
"The floods across eastern Australia in 2010 and early 2011
were the consequence of a very strong La Niña event, and
not the result of climate change. That is, the underlying
cause of the floods is a natural part of climate variability,
which is part of the reason why Australia has always been
a âland of droughts and flooding rainsâ."
Looks like Kerr quoted the report correctly
Neil:
How dumb can you get. Tim Lambert already pointed out Kerr quoted that part of the report correctly.
Well he did not quote mine then. Kerr quoted the findings of the report.
Kerr did not mention hypotheticals because they were hypotheticals and not findings.
>Well he did not quote mine then.
Neil, Neil, Neil...
Logic ain't one of your thangs, ays it? Comprehension ain't eiver, by the looks.
When one selectively quotes, and in doing so disconnects the subject matter from its greater context, one is quote mining.
Why are climate change denialists, almost to a person, so singularly stupid?
From page 42 of the report:
Regardless of whether this is a hypothetical or not (and it doesn't look like it), quote mining means leaving out the parts you don't like to create a false impression of what the report is saying. The report then goes on to say:
This is one finding that Kerr quote-mined out.
Did you see the size of the report??? He quoted one of the findings. Kerr did not quote the could be/may be/might be possible stuff.
And we should be glad that he didn't.
"may possibly have enhanced precipitation and led to an even
more intense precipitation event than would otherwise have occurred, although such enhancement has yet to be demonstrated."
This is scientific BS. Although with future research it may be found to be correct.
In case Neil is still too dumb to realize:
is not a hypothetical.
>Well he did not quote mine then.
Neil, Neil, Neil...
Logic ain't one of your thangs, ays it? Comprehension ain't eiver, by the looks.
When one selectively quotes, and in doing so disconnects the subject matter from its greater context, one is quote mining.
Why are climate change denialists, almost to a person, so singularly stupid?
"is not a hypothetical."
No, but whether the large rain they received in Queensland is. Since the topic of the article was the Queensland floods I see no reason to mention hypotheticals. From the same paragraph
"However, there is no consistent evidence of an observed increase in heavy precipitation events over most parts of Australia at this time."
Why should we mention something there is no evidence for???
>Well he did not quote mine then.
Neil, Neil, Neil...
Logic ain't one of your thangs, ays it? Comprehension ain't eiver, by the looks.
When one selectively quotes, and in doing so disconnects the subject matter from its greater context, one is quote mining.
Why are climate change denialists, almost to a person, so singularly stupid?
There is evidence and even if there wasn't, selective quotation is still quote mining.
"There is evidence and even if there wasn't, selective quotation is still quote mining."
I will quote some evidence again from the paragraph you quoted from
"However, there is no consistent evidence of an observed increase in heavy precipitation events over most parts of Australia at this time."
Kerr quoted the finding that the floods were due to la Nina and not AGW. The other evidence worth quoting is that there has been no increase in heavy precipitation events in Australia.
I see no reason to quote hypotheticals.
""may possibly have enhanced precipitation and led to an even more intense precipitation event than would otherwise have occurred, although such enhancement has yet to be demonstrated."
This is BS not worth quoting and not even worth talking about in a short article.
Neil you just quote mined the original quote mine. Meta.
Neil, as in Neil Craig?
-- frank
"selective quotation is still quote mining"
Yeah. Kerr selectively quotes the facts but not the hypotheticals and this is called quote mining.
Right.
Fact is according to the report there has been no increase heavy precipitation events over most of Australia.
Lambert is the one being deceitful.
I will quote the hypotheticals when the hypotheticals are shown to have some evidence.
Serious junk reporting going on. I wonder is the Newscorp tribulations will start to trickle down into changing actual reporting. As long as a vocal cadre of inactivists feel they can cheer misinformation on without challenge, and with the support of a political party, it may go for a while.
Neil - what do you think that 'no increased heavy precipitation events over most of Australia' might mean? That the Queensland floods may not reflect flooding in Adelaide? How are water levels on the Murray these days? Perhaps floods in one part of the country might not imply floods in every other part of the country, even though the underlying weather process might be consistent. Just a thought, supported by science, rather than debate-club noises.
This reminds me - it seems we're experiencing a debate between those using science (relying on data, match and mismatch to theory, and the accumulation of evidence over time), and scholasticism, relying on received perspectives, parsing old writings for hidden meanings, lack of reference to the factual world, and emphasis on specific words or phrases. Do others see this? In that style, 'quote mining' is a search for esoteric meanings, rather than misrepresenting the underlying ideas. But seeing as we are discussing the real world, science is the right approach.
Neil:
> Yeah. Kerr selectively quotes the facts but not the hypotheticals and this is called quote mining.
> Right.
Using the same logic as yourself, let me quote you:
> Well I downloaded the report and on page 42 it said this
> "The floods across eastern Australia in 2010 and early 2011 were the consequence of a very strong La Niña event, and not the result of climate change. That is, the underlying cause of the floods is a natural part of climate variability, which is part of the reason why Australia has always been a 'land of droughts and flooding rains'." [...]
> Did you see the size of the report???
I omitted the rest because it's merely your opinion.
* * *
stewart:
> This reminds me - it seems we're experiencing a debate between those using science (relying on data, match and mismatch to theory, and the accumulation of evidence over time), and scholasticism, relying on received perspectives, parsing old writings for hidden meanings, lack of reference to the factual world, and emphasis on specific words or phrases. Do others see this?
You're not alone. You may remember that, when another goon tried this sort of thing, I responded by using the same 'methodology' back at him, at which point he whined that I was being "pedantic". :)
-- frank
So, to continue using Neil's methodology, let's just focus on the facts as expressed in Neil's postings:
1. He downloaded the report.
2. He quoted a portion of p. 42 of the report.
3. He complained that the report was too long.
Based on these 3 facts, we can conclude that Neil is a lazy bum who's fixated on one portion of the report and doesn't want to read the rest. According to his methodology of 'quoting only facts and not hypotheticals', we can safely ignore everything else he says because it's just his opinion, not fact.
-- frank
" He complained that the report was too long."
No. The point I was trying to make was there is only so much of a large report you can put into a small article.
Kerr put in the findings of the report and left out the hypotheticals. Furthermore one of the findings of the report was "However, there is no consistent evidence of an observed increase in heavy precipitation events over most parts of Australia at this time."
Kerr presented the science and left out the hypotheticials.
Well done Mr Kerr
Neil:
Following your own 'methodology' of 'quoting only the facts', I'm going to ignore everything you said in the last comment because that was only your opinion.
You said,
> Did you see the size of the report???
Is that an accurate quote, or not? This is a very simple question. Yes or no? No 'yes, but...' Just yes or no.
-- frank
Frank
I am not going to play your game. With a 72 page report it would be hard to present everything in a small newspaper article.
The important thing is that Kerr got the science right.
Queensland floods were not a results of AGW. Furthermore there is no evidence for increased heavy precipitation events in Australia.
You want Kerr to make stuff up. You want him to say the hypotheticals are most probably true.
Well done Mr Kerr for sticking to the facts.
Neil, nobody is saying the floods are the *result* of AGW. But with 4% extra water vapour in the air, is it not possible that it could have made the floods *worse*?
Does not more work need to be done in this area to ascertain whether there *is* a link?
As the answer to both questions is a resounding "yes", then the paper was misquoted.
Let's not forget that Cut & Paste doesn't allow for grey. It's black and white. They pit "sides" against each other. By excising the bit that doesn't support their opinion and taking the rest totally out of context, they wrongly lead people into think Kerr's report is all black, when it is, in fact, grey.
That is misleading and wrong.
Neil:
That's exactly the point. Someone's opinion of what is worth quoting is a quote mine. Kerr uses his quote mine to accuse Gore of ignoring the findings of the Climate Commission while he himself is ignoring other evidence stated by the Climate Commission. How does he know Gore didn't consider the other evidence from the Climate Commission as well?
> Furthermore there is no evidence for increased heavy precipitation events in Australia.
That seems like a subtle goalpost shift. Compare and contrast with [my emphasis]:
> ... several analyses point to an increase in heavy precipitation events in many parts of the world, including **tropical** Australia,...
The difference seems likely to be relevant...
I do like The AUstralian's unashamed re-interpretation of what it is to be a journalist: to carefully select and present facts that are in line with the in-house Newscorp delusion that climate change is crap.
Hilarious.
And amazingly self-destructive - just watch The Australian over the next three years as their credibility plunges to the level of The News Of The World's. If they last that long.
MarcH - They didn't have the Wivenhoe Dam in the 1890's either, genius!