Australian talkback radio host John "Cash for comment" Laws on global warming:
Yeah. It's interesting to note that in the last 17 years there has not been the slightest increase in temperatures in the world. Over 100 years there's been less than one degree of temperature rise. Over the last 17 years it hasn't risen at all. Where's the climate warming? ...
Prior to 1940 the world was warmer than it is now and there were certainly less CO2 emissions prior to 1940. We didn't have too many cars. We've got plenty of those now. So how could that happen? ...
Julia the scientists that Al Gore wants to listen to are certainly saying that. The scientists that Al Gore doesn't want to listen to like Professor Bob Carter from James Cook University are saying exactly the opposite: it's simply cyclical, it was much warmer in the Middle Ages for God's sake and we didn't have any motor cars then to my knowledge and we hadn't even invented the wheel. ..
Gee, even the Young Earth Creationists think that wheels predated the Middle Ages. See Exodus 14
And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen.
Maybe Laws thinks they were hover-chariots?
And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the LORD looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians, And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the LORD fighteth for them against the Egyptians.
I guess not.
Laws, of course, got his other facts wrong as well. If you look at this graph of global average temperature (from CRU) you'll see that there has been strong warming over the last 17 years and that it is warmer than it was in 1940.
As for the Middle Wages all published reconstructions show that current temperatures are warmer.
Come off it Tim. We all know that the internal combustion engine was only invented last year, so how can mankind be responsible for global warming?!
Never took you for an old testament type, Tim. Always thought you were a new testament dude.
There's one thing about that reconstruction that I hadn't really noticed before; how well the post-1980 slope matches the pre-1940 slope.
I admit I hadn't noticed the slope-matching either. Thanks for pointing it out.
B.t.w., where is this John Laws character getting his "facts" from? Ignoring the nonsense about the wheel--which is so hilarious is hard to ignore--the rest is apparently also so completely out-to-lunch I'm baffled what sources, evidence, etc., he's using? If any?
Remember:
The denialists have nothing. They have to make sh*t up.
Best,
D
You're not grappling with giant intellects here, Dano's right. It's perfectly conceivable that minds of the calibre of Laws, Carter, and let's give Tim Blair a dishonourable mention too just for fun and because he earns it on this score at least a couple of times a day, aren't really capable of accepting the truth of scientific facts that they "can't see with my own eyes". That would make something of a contrast with the biblical stuff that some of them do swallow whole - the Elysian fields, 72 virgins in heaven kind of things - of course. In that case it'd seem that the churches are selling something these characters really do want to buy.
If greenhouse gases were smog-coloured it might help their challenged imaginations but although they're older now they're no smarter today than they (or their denialist peers) were say in the 60s and 70s when Western cities were still cesspools of dirty, choking air and they were the schoolkids chanting their daddies' mantras in the playground:- air quality regulations to get motor vehicle and industrial emissions under some kind of control would be the death of bright life as they knew it, cleaner air would ruin the economy, represent the triumph of communism over all that was true and good, blah blah blah. They still can't see the woods for the trees, or understand things they can't poke with a stick.
"You're not grappling with giant intellects here, Dano's right."
Tis true. The basic argument is, "No!"
Come off it Tim. We all know that the internal combustion engine was only invented last year, so how can mankind be responsible for global warming?!
Last Thursday. Last Thursday.
"although they're older now they're no smarter today than they (or their denialist peers) were say in the 60s and 70s when Western cities were still cesspools of dirty, choking air and they were the schoolkids chanting their daddies' mantras in the playground:- air quality regulations to get motor vehicle and industrial emissions under some kind of control would be the death of bright life as they knew it, cleaner air would ruin the economy, represent the triumph of communism over all that was true and good, blah blah blah."
And before that it was the eight hour work day (and earlier the sixty hour work week); government regulation of food quality and sewerage systems - all dirty commie schemes to undermine the capitalist system.
virtually every single social and environmental advance is going to destroy the capitalist system until it actually passes - and when the proposed disaster doesn't occur, the reactionaries move on to the next "threat" while denying that anyone ever opposed, for exammple, the US Clean Air Act.
Just read the "cash for comment" wiki entry. One thought. We have Fox News, but you Australians seem to have it worse.
Oops! I forgot about that shill Steve Milloy.
Tim,
I read somewhere on the internet (I couldn't site the location) that you once found a bunch of errors in a paper that Ross McKitrick wrote. If I remember correctly, he had written a program that analyzed data using Excel. Seems that his program incorrectly treated cells with no temperature data like they were cells with a value of 0 (zero) for the temperature. All of those false zeroes had the effect of driving him to the wrong conclusions and you proved that his paper was invalid. Is that true?
If it is, it seems odd that you would site a guy who has publicly stated that he wouldn't share data or methods with someone because they just want to find faults with it...
How many more times will you post the unreplicable CRU graphic on your blog, Tim? There will certainly be a lot of crow for you to eat if that chart turns out to be bogus, don't you think?
Maybe you prefer the GISS charts, nanny? They show a slightly higher degree of warming.
'There will certainly be a lot of crow for you to eat if that chart turns out to be bogus, don't you think?"
Of course if it isn't, you won't have to eat any crow since your opinions are based on the sacred Revealed Truth of Libertarianism and not anything as tawdry as mere fact.
"It's perfectly conceivable that minds of the calibre of Laws, Carter, and let's give Tim Blair a dishonourable mention too just for fun and because he earns it on this score at least a couple of times a day, aren't really capable of accepting the truth of scientific facts that they "can't see with my own eyes"."
Ever hear the story about Galilieo dropping the two different-sized metal balls off the high building. Reputedly some people didn't believe their own eyes. So even when some people "can see with their own eyes", that still doesn't necessarily mean they will believe it.
Note that Laws said "...we hadn't even invented the wheel. Perhaps he and his friends will stumble upon this clever device in the next 20 years or so, along with other things that others have long known about.
Chris, how about The Pizza, round (except in Chicago where it is square) and tastes good.