tlambert | October 27, 2010Georgina Robinson in Sydney Morning Herald reports:
[An Inconvenient Truth] will be used in the English curriculum as part of studies around the theme of sustainability, a spokesman for the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority said.
It is not a required text but will be used by English teachers to "analyse the way language and emotion can be used to convince viewers of a particular position", the spokesman said.
Students may also be directed to undertake their own research on the film's claims, he said.
This sounds like a good idea. The SMH has one of those unscientific…
tlambert | October 25, 2010The WikiLeaks Iraq archive, while incomplete, reveals many more previously unreported violent deaths in the Iraq war -- Iraq Body Count say that the archive reveals 15,000 people shot, blown up, had the heads cut off or killed in some other way that they had not recorded. So Tim Blair, who claimed that the Iraq Body Count was way way too high (and predicted that the coalition would suffer "below 50" casualties) has posted a correction. Ha ha, just kidding. Blair has a post claiming that the WikiLeaks archive, which is, as I have already noted, incomplete, proves that the Lancet study on…
tlambert | October 21, 2010Henry Farrell, prompted by Clive Crook's claim that climate scientists' understanding of climate science is "hardly any better" than that of non-experts, tells the story of Crook's graceless withdrawal of his accusations of fraud against climate scientists:
Hence, Crook's imputation that the "trick" was surely employed toward dishonest ends, was not only potentially libelous, but a clear demonstration that he simply didn't know what he's talking about. He had no expertise on the topic, and under his own rules, should have shut up about it. If he had, it would have spared him some considerable…
tlambert | October 18, 2010Andrew Dessler sends me a link to his debate with Richard Lindzen. I agree with Dessler's assessment that Lindzen's case was very weak. Watch it and make up your own mind.
Dessler also sends me a link to his new paper that demonstrates that the claims of Paltridge et al (2009) (touted at Climate Audit) that specific humidity was decreasing in the the mid to upper tropical troposphere were spurious.
tlambert | October 17, 2010Jennifer Marohasy, who inspired LOLdenialists, will be on Q&A tonight. You can use the link to post a question for her.
Hat tip: James Haughton.
tlambert | October 15, 2010
Art Robinson, of Oregon Petition fame is running for Congress. Peter Sinclair has Robinson's interview by Rachel Maddow. Robinson comes across as more than a little nutty -- rather than elaborate on his views on hormesis (radioctive waste is good for you!) he just insisted that quotes from his own writing were lies in some unspecified way.
Also of interest is Sinclair's latest Crock showing a simple experiment to demonstrate the effects of CO2 on the atmosphere.
tlambert | October 9, 2010Dan Vergano in USA Today reports:
Officials at George Mason University confirmed Thursday that they are investigating plagiarism and misconduct charges made against a noted climate science critic.
"I'm very well aware of the report, but I have been asked by the university not to comment until all the issues have been settled," Wegman says, by phone. "Some litigation is underway." Walsch confirms that the university has asked Wegman not to comment.
"Clearly, text was just lifted verbatim from my book and placed in the (Wegman) report," says Bradley, who is also one of the authors of the 1999…
tlambert | October 7, 2010Bob Ward on the Science Show says:
I looked at one example by Bob Carter, it was published in an Australian economics journal a couple of years ago called Economic Analysis and Policy. And I noted first of all that it had a quote in it, attributed to John Houghton who was a senior member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It includes a quote in there that John Houghton has never said, he's never written and never said, yet it is in this paper by Carter. So that was wrong, I knew.
But the more I looked at the paper, almost on every sentence there was a question over its accuracy…
tlambert | October 2, 2010Well, I thought that video was funny (though they flogged the joke to, err, death), but I also think this Monty Python sketch is funny:
That said, the idea seems more like something that Baldrick would have come up with than Baldrick's creator, Richard Curtis. Many people aren't going to find it funny, merely offensive, especially since it's not in the context of a comedy show. The resulting outrage from right wingers is something to behold, with the makers of the video called fascists and Nazis who are advocating murder and genocide. For example, the reliably crazy Lubos Motl (warning:…
tlambert | September 29, 2010The Australian sure can't take criticism. Tim Dunlop gently mocks them for their latest temper tantrum where they outed an pseudonymous blogger who dared to criticize the media. See also John Quiggin.
Note to excitable journalists working for The Australian reading this - the title is a reference to the The Australian's editorial stating that The Greens "should be destroyed".
tlambert | September 29, 2010David Karoly is giving a free talk on climate change in Sydney on 11 October. Details:
Climate change: Do you want the good news or the bad news?
Professor David Karoly will separate the truth from the spin on climate change, telling it how it is.
There are fascinating good-news stories about real world solutions that have already been implemented, globally, in Australia and in other countries.
But how far do we have to go to avoid dangerous climate change? What is Australia's fair contribution to a global response on climate change? How bad might climate change get if we decide to continue…
tlambert | September 27, 2010... is not just plagiarism. John Mashey has written a 250 page report on the Wegman scandal.
tlambert | September 27, 2010
The Australian breathlessly informs us that:
The UN is to appoint an astrophysicist to be the first contact for any aliens ...
Mazlan Othman will describe her potential new role next week at a scientific conference at the Royal Society's Kavli conference centre in Buckinghamshire.
But Matthew Weaver at the Guardian has spoiled the fun by contacting Othman:
Finally an email from Othman herself would have prompted our Martian to trudge back to his spaceship. "It sounds really cool but I have to deny it," she said of the story. She will be attending a conference next week, but she'll be…
tlambert | September 24, 2010On top of the 21 climate scientists correcting the numerous errors in Christopher Monckton testimony to Congress, we also have Rachel Pinker and Ellsworth Dutton correcting Monckton's misunderstanding of Pinker, Zhang and Dutton (2005):
1 Viscount Monckton attempts to directly link the change in surface solar radiation to a change in temperature. He states:
"What, then, caused the third period of warming? Most of that third and most
recent period of rapid warming fell within the satellite era, and the satellites
confirmed measurements from ground stations showing a considerable, and
naturally…
tlambert | September 23, 2010Heartland already had one of their Climate Change conferences this year, but they are holding another one in Sydney on Friday October 1st and it's FREE.
Speakers and topics:
Chris de Freitas: Developments in Climate Science: Potential Drivers of Emissions Policy Beyond 2012
Robert Carter: The Reconstruction of Past Sea-Level Change: Policy Implications
Senator Cory Bernardi: The Political State of Play of Climate Change Policy in Australia
David Evans: Is the Western Climate Establishment Corrupt?
Alan Moran: Lower CO2 Levels: Costs, Benefits and Possibilities
Barun S. Mitra: How Domestic…
tlambert | September 21, 2010I detailed a couple of the serious factual errors in Monckton's testimony to Congress back in May. Now John Abraham and others have organised a comprehensive rebuttal to Monckton, with corrections to Monckton's many errors from 21 climate scientists. Leo Hickman summarises in this story in the Guardian.
tlambert | September 19, 2010Not only was the Wegman report plagiarised, three of Wegman's PhD students committed plagiarism in their theses. Deep Climate has the report.
tlambert | September 15, 2010Ed Darrell points to a WUWT post by Indur Goklany which promotes the use of DDT to fight malaria instead of more effective measures. As with most of the DDT promoters, Goklany carefully avoids mentioning the way mosquitoes evolve resistance to insecticides. For example, here's what he has on Sri Lanka:
For instance, malaria incidences in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) dropped from 2.8 million in the 1940s to less than 20 in 1963 (WHO 1999a, Whelan 1992). DDT spraying was stopped in 1964, and by 1969 the number of cases had grown to 2.5 million.
Now compare this with what really happened in Sri Lanka:…
tlambert | September 11, 2010Judith Curry has started a blog.
Michael Tobis has written Tom Fuller off. Been there, done that. See ThingsBreak for the details.