According to Clive Hamilton, Alan Moran is one of Australia's greenhouse Dirty dozen:
As the head of the Regulatory Unit at the Institute for Public
Affairs, a right-wing think tank with close ties to greenhouse
sceptics, Moran's role has been to support the Government and the
fossil fuel corporations with anti-environmental opinions about
climate science, the costs of emission reductions and the pitfalls of
renewable energy. As a bureaucrat in the Kennett Government he played
a major role in stopping, for a time, the national adoption of energy
performance standards for home appliances that had been agreed by all
the states. The IPA has assisted the anti-wind lobby in Victoria, a
move that appears to be driven by hatred of environmentalists and a
relentless scepticism about climate change.
At Desmogblog, Richard Littlemore writes about Moran:
the Melbourne Age, embarrasses itself today with a piece by Alan Moran, director of the Australian Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) deregulation unit.
We have written before on the IPA's status as a mining and energy industry front group. The Age, like so many credulous newspapers, should be ashamed of itself for publishing this kind of confusing and scientifically suspect material from industry backed lobbyists who are presenting themselves as climate change experts.
And sure enough, Moran misrepresents the science:
Yet, the only solid measure of the warming, the NASA satellite data, shows that over the 27 years that data has been available, warming has been at a negligible rate of 0.13 degrees Celsius per decade. This level is engulfed by the statistical variation for reliability.
By no stretch of the imagination can the satellite data be described as the only solid measure. The warming rate for the satellite data keeps getting revised upwards as errors in the methodology are corrected and more data becomes available. Nor is is certain what the trend is from the satellites since there are different analyses available. And you can probably guess that Moran cited the lowest one he could find. The more consistent surface record and some analyses of the satellites, find that it is warming at 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade. This is not negligible and will have some serious consequences if allowed to continue.
Tim
And you don't misrepresent the science?
Anyone who has been following this debate must see by now that these climate change "skeptics" are unable to make an argument without misrepresenting the science. If they refrained from misrepresenting the uncertainties, and denying the logical consequences of the well-established evidence, they'd have precious little to say. And then the fossil fuel industry would wonder where al it's PR money is going.
So, Louis did you ever work out why its colder at the poles than at the equator?
After all, if the heat flux from the Earth's core dwarfs the heat from insolation then obviously differences in insolation can't be the cause of the greater than 100 degree kelvin difference between the holdest and coldest parts of the Earth's surface.
"So, Louis did you ever work out why its colder at the poles than at the equator?
After all, if the heat flux from the Earth's core dwarfs the heat from insolation then obviously differences in insolation can't be the cause of the greater than 100 degree kelvin difference between the holdest and coldest parts of the Earth's surface."
Well, obviously all the ice at the poles keeps it colder. Duh.
God made it cold so the ice would form and keep it cold. God is the first cause of everything. God put coal in the ground to bring the End Times.
it's funny watching Australian leaders try to "out-Bush" the US Repukes in their zeal to be right-wing anti-scientific blowhards.
Ian Gould,
are you as stupid as we assume you are or are you being especially so with that post above?
It is pure messenger shooting.
I presume you scientific espertise in the natural science is zero, your knowledge of history - zero, and intelligence..
Ian, plz aplogize to Louis for making him cry - your zero-science answer lacked the obvious reason why it's colder at the poles: there's a big cozy just below the surface holding the heat in.
Best,
D
Re: "are you as stupid as we assume you are or are you being especially so with that post above?"
and
"I presume you scientific espertise in the natural science is zero, your knowledge of history - zero, and intelligence.."
Louis, I believe Ian was being sarcastic in his comment above. You don't have to go about blurting ad hominems in response to this.
'It is pure messenger shooting.'
As opposed to your 'And you don't misrepresent the science?'
I pointed to a particularly ludicrous past misrepresentation of science by yourself. You failed to point to ANY misrepresentations by Tim.
So tell us do you still insist that the surface temperature of the Earth is determined primarily by radiogenic heat from the Earth's core and not insolation? If so, how DO you explain the temperature difference between the poles and the equator or, for that matter the existence of seasons?
'your knowledge of history - zero' Demonstrably false since you may recall I was forced to correct your equally ludicrous claims about significant variations in the length of Earth's day in the relatively recent past by a mini-lecture on the history of Chinese astronomy and the role of eclipse prediction in Chinese history.
But I forget, you used to work for an oil exploration company and are therefore a world-class expert on all matters scientific.
And once again Louis slinks off like a whipped cur.