…
What’s scarier than an Endless Global Drought? The fear that the public might… hear from a skeptic. Skeptical arguments are so dangerous that even the whiff of one will kill a $4million dollar project stone dead at conception. Be Gone Freak! Guess who has no answer to the questions skeptics ask? How they do advertise the dire state of their intellectual ammo? You might think I’m exaggerating. Bjorn Lomborg believes the IPCC science 100%, and uses the “denier” term to distance himself from the scientific skeptics. It’s like cloaking himself in garlic, except it doesn’t work — true believers still hate him and seek to shut him down. Lomborg wants to stop fossil fuel subsidies, the arch-enemy in the believers world, and that’s not enough. Furthermore he wasn’t going to work at the Australian Consensus Centre and it wasn’t going to discuss the climate, but two steps of purification is not enough. Lomborg commits the unforgivable sin of wanting to spend enviro-gravy in ways that actually help the poor and protect the environment. He wants measurements and accountability. And that makes him “repulsive” — just ask the students of Flinders University. The modern University needs no logical reason, hate-mail is enough:
FLINDERS University students are “repulsed” by the prospect of a new policy centre associated with controversial Danish academic Bjorn Lomborg, who has long been accused of downplaying the dangers posed by global warming.
The university has been in talks with the Federal Government about establishing the Australian Consensus Centre, which would come with $4 million funding and base its work on Lomborg’s methodologies.
The University of Western Australia was to host the think tank, to be aligned with Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Centre and work in areas ranging from food security to social justice, but reversed its decision amid howls of protest from students and staff.
Flinders University Student Association general secretary Grace Hill said students would launch a campaign immediately against having “a climate change denial centre on campus”.
“I’m pretty repulsed by it,” she said.
“At this stage there seems to be no student or staff consultation. It’s right-wing junk. It was excellent to see him booted out of WA so hopefully the same will happen here.
— Flinders Uni Students Vow to Rebel against Bjorn Lomborg policy centre: Daily Telegraph
Only purity of thought will do behind the fortress walls of Australian Universities. The panic caused by the possibility of a skeptical argument is so strong that Global Repulsion is called for, even against believers who dare suggest the IPCC are not Godlike in all their aims and decrees. I think all universities in Australia should be offered the Lomborg Test. Let’s send an offer to host the Consensus Centre at their University, and cancel future government support for all who refuse to allow diversity of opinion and debate on campus. What’s the scariest thing that could happen — the Lomborg Consensus Centre might issue a press release? But the howling at UWA was so successful in cancelling the Lomborg Consensus Centre, that it’s happening again. What chance would a skeptical scientist have of working at an Australian University? Right now the best thing that can happen to Australian Universities is for them to be privatized and a few new institutions set up. Without some serious academic competition here to show them up, the backward behaviour will go on. We need one sensible university to show the others what “Sensible” looks like.
The students would do well to read the words of Hitler’s henchman, propagandist Dr. Paul Joef Goebbels
“This is the secret of propaganda
The saturation of a group of people
With propagandist ideas without their noticing it
Of course it has a goal but the goal must be so clever
And so brilliantly conceived
That the people who it influences don’t notice anything.”
What does the average student at Flinders know about science, but they are willing to do anything to conform, even against someone who agrees with them. This is how tyranny starts.
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Read this carefully folks!
Grace Hill?
Have a look folks! (Scroll down to last entry).
=> http://fusa.edu.au/education-collective/
Note her details…
Let me repeat what drives her…(Her own words!)
One more time people!
* Marxism
* Student Rights
* Social Justice
…Her own words!
Modern day, cookie-cutter Leftist!
=> Worthless degree? => CHECK!
=> Student Union? => CHECK!
=> In a position to potentially indoctrinate First Year students? => CHECK! (ie: “Get them while they’re young!”)
=> Future career as a taxpayer-funded parasite? => CHECK!
=> Mind filled with Marxism and Social Justice? => CHECK!
So of course she’s fiercely against Bjorn Lomborg! She’s a Leftist protecting a Leftist issue (Climate Change)!
=> Anything that runs counter to their narratives is a threat! It must be denied and silenced!
SIDE NOTE:
If you’re curious as to what is Bachelor of Government and Public Management, take a look yourselves!
=> http://www.flinders.edu.au/courses/undergrad/bgpm/
You know what is sparking off my red flag?
This part:
“…was developed after consultation with senior public sector leaders.“
I’ve never been to South Australia, so who were these senior public sector leaders?
Why don’t they say the worthless degree is an indoctrination-recruitment program used to produce more future bureaucrats for South Australia?
Seriously, let’s be direct and straight-forward about this!
We have a Leftist who is doing a degree in being a future bureaucrat. What a bloody surprise!
(I feel sorry for South Australian taxpayers.)
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South Australia changed its electoral boundaries before the last election to be fairer. Labor won 23 seats to the Liberals 22 but with only 47% of TPP votes.
Highest unemployment rate in Aus.
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The opposite of diversity is university …
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Even with my limited experience, I know of at least four different ways in which a public service can be structured. There is nothing in the stated objectives about a comparative discussion of the respective merits of each.
Also, from my experience, the political system in each country has a significant bearing on how the public service actually operates within that country. New Zealand is different to Australia, and both are different again, when compared to the UK, although they all use “The Westminster Parliamentary System”. All are different again, when it comes to the USA. But, there is apparently no comparative discussion of the operational differences in the policy, regulatory, and service-delivery roles of the public sector, in the various political systems, either.
So my first reaction was, “This isn’t an academic degree course, it is a polytechnic certificate course, that is designed to produce pen-pushers who can be productive clerical units within Australia at State (and perhaps Federal) levels.
But something still didn’t feel right, so I read the course description again, and then I got it. My problem, is the phrase, “advanced understanding of the values and processes of governance, policy [and] regulatory …”.
They are the role, and the responsibility, if the elected politicians, and their respective staff. It is the values upon which the politicians are theoretically elected, that determine the type of governance applied by the government of the day, and the policies that flow from that governance, and the regulatory requirements that then sets the boundaries for, and directs the operations of, the Public Service.
It would appear that Ms Hill, doesn’t understand the principles of governance, and as a result, has the principles of Democracy, “base over apex”.
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Great post aussieguy.
I don’t usually recommend litigation. But this Hill person has impugned Lomborg and there is manifest damage.
Alarmists do not know boundaries or consequences and this Hill person would be a suitable candidate to give this bunch of parasites a dose of consequence.
Lomborg should consult a defamation lawyer.
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Great post aussieguy!
As I type this it has 79 “likes”. I wonder if that is a record?
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Quite a few members of parliament and the front bench fit this part. Paint a pair of red speedos or a blue tie on them and the picture is complete
35
Gee Aye,
99.8% of the world’s politicians and 98% of the bureaucrats fit the part.
If you have an open mind, you might be interested in 9,000 years of anarchy in Ireland
We have all been convinced by the ‘Thugs and Thieves on Horseback’*** that we NEED THEM. That civilization can not exist without them. It is probably the longest running con job in the history of mankind. (It sure had me fooled for decades.) Now the ‘Thugs and Thieves’ want to put in place ‘World Governance’ that makes sure our enslavement is permanent and they can extract every last drop of wealth from us.
This will help explain why ‘anarchy’ worked Collectivism vs. Voluntaryism
***“And, indeed, what is the State anyway but organized banditry? What is taxation but theft on a gigantic, unchecked, scale? What is war but mass murder on a scale impossible by private police forces? What is conscription but mass enslavement? Can anyone envision a private police force getting away with a tiny fraction of what States get away with, and do habitually, year after year, century after century?” —- Murray N. Rothbard, For a New Liberty
……………
Definition of anarchist society
“I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of any individual.” —- Murray N. Rothbard
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I define anarchist society as a society where any person or property can enjoy coercive protection only by vigilante justice.
20
Propaganda is more advanced since Goebbels. Now it involves the use f constructivism in K-12 education and creating a subjective mode of comprehension. Student never recognizes they are being trained to perceive the world emotionally through false or manipulated beliefs.
I have been focusing on the US, but am familiar with the global ramifications via the OECD and UNESCO. Mustn’t let someone like Lomberg pierce the carefully constructed neural net with noncompliant facts. Tracing what I refer to as the cybernetic vision of how the brain can be redesigned to work as politically desired, I discovered one of the great US pushers of this vision doing professional development a few months ago for Australian teachers.
Beware! http://files.hbe.com.au/hbpls/flyers/EV20150309A.pdf
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Robin,
I want to thank you for all the great work you do.
I send as many people as I can to your website.
http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/
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The more I read, the more I hear echoes of a form of eco Brown Shirts rising up…..
If this thing devlops to its fullest level, no wonder the Socialists want peoples right to own firearms removed….one thing Socialists love is gun cotnrol – it means people cant defend themselves.
This is not “out there” but rather looking at how far the mess has devloped so far. In Lomborgs case, its already a bared teeth snarl at any one who would disagree with them.
I foresee a form of anti-skeptic “Krystal Nacht” occurring …. in some ways Sceptics are already barred from holding office, from being allowed to speak in education circles, hounded and harassed…..
Socialists want power and we know from history how this happens – first its a propganada war, then it moves into the physical realm.
If Climate Change is the Socialist Trojan horse, then we are already far down the road.
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After the referendum on whether Australia should change its system of government to a “republic” (which we already have, so what are they on about?), Kim Beastly declared that it would take another ten years to get the population educated to accept the change.
I have no doubt that he meant exactly, literally, what he said. This was calculated on the basis of how long it would take to get the numbers through the education system.
When an honest question backed by honest intent would have scored a yes vote at the referendum anyway.
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Sorry there, Kim Beazely. Does spellcheck do that to you often? It seems to be getting worse.
70
I once had to sit behind him when he was speaking at the podium.
50
Ha ha!
40
For the majority of CAGW believers, CAWG is a social construction. It has nothing to do with facts, but everything to do with one’s social circle.
Not surprising when putting kids in groups to discuss their opinions, without giving them any knowledge upon which to base their opinions, passes for education.
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The perceived problem with Lomborg is that his ideas will make people think.
And to the “progressive” Left which dominates academia, thought is nothing less than a hate crime as it tends to lead to an objective sense of values.
This is anathema to the Left’s goal of mindless indiscrimination.
Allow someone with provocative ideas into a university and who knows what horrors may ensue.
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Have you read Evan Sayet?
10
The reaction of the student leaders is utterly predictable and ultimately irrelevant. The government could announce that some kangaroos would be housed in a free range zoo on campus and the student body would be outraged.
What is interesting is whether the Flinderes staff form a united front against receiving government money, a form of academic hari kari. For South Australia, a financial basket case powered by windmills and run by Green public servants, it would be consistent.
My point about propaganda is that many people are against everything with no idea of why, if their leaders say so. In this case against someone who really believes in Global Warming. That is the power of the unthinking mob and convinced of their own intellectual superiority, young students are really the easiest to fool.
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Actually there was a bit of controversy about wild geese on the Flinders uni campus. If I remember correctly, a student was attacked by one, so the plan a to have them removed. Honestly I can’t remember the official position by the student union, but i know there was a lot of outrage on both sides of the argument.
I thought the geese and ducks around the lake at the centre of the campus were nice, and saw no problems with leaving them there to do whatever it is geese do, but I think they were all removed.
10
It’s a sad day for academic pursuit in Australia when university leadership and student union politics are now so dominated by Green-clad marxists.
It also highlights the shallowness of conviction of CAGW alarmism in university enclaves. Surely the intellectual challenge, nay anticipatory delights, of exposing the weakness of “deniers” in front of national and international audiences would be irresistible for superior minds.
The longer that this anti-Lomborg charade is played out by today’s university bunker dwellers in Australia, the stronger the public recognition will be that CAGW is simply a scam and a smokescreen for activists to pursue myriad international socialism causes.
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Actually nothing has changed, except that the Marxists wear Green.
I still remember one school student in the late 1980s complaining that he wished he grew up the 1960s so he could have enjoyed the excitement of protesting about the Vietnam war. His complaint was there was nothing for a young activist to enjoy. Really, Global Warming is so passe, almost the last generation’s problem, Rudd and Gillard stuff and there is the really embarrassing bit that there is no actual warming and none of the other predictions have come true either. In fact it is a bit cold this year.
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Must say he’s got a point. 1960s music was much better than 1980s.
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There are tons of things for activists to oppose- he makes the mistake of having any positive position or slightest balance. Probably too many things for them to oppose is the problem for these lunatics- 1960’s gave them a few focused things to oppose.
20
Which Flinders University students?
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Flinders and Uni of WA have many students who are repulsive.
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It’s a sad day for academic pursuit in Australia when university leadership and student union politics are now so dominated by Green-clad marxists.
It also highlights the shallowness of conviction of CAGW alarmism in university enclaves. Surely the intellectual challenge, nay anticipatory delights, of exposing the weakness of “deniers” in front of national and international audiences would be irresistible for superior minds.
The longer that this anti-Lomborg charade is played out by today’s university bunker dwellers in Australia, the stronger the public recognition will be that CAGW is simply a scam and a smokescreen for activists to pursue myriad international socialism causes.
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God forbid that debate and diverse opinions be allowed to flourish at a university. My mind is so boggled now I’m not sure how to unboggle it (apart from visiting islands of sanity such as this).
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That’s basically what I was going to say Ceetee.
It’s especially ironic when you compare Student Association general secretary Grace Hill’s knee-jerk response with her officially stated values and objectives (as dug up by aussieguy above):
It seems Flinders students do not have the right to be educated in diverse schools of thought by being given challenging work. By Miss Kelly’s actions, the students don’t have the right to academic and intellectual freedom.
As for social justice, spare me the Marxist redistribution of intergenerational equality please Miss Hill. How much must people who really exist suffer so that people who don’t exist can be predicted to suffer slightly less? The Future Generations mantra is a ghost story.
Lomborg’s recommendations arguably reduce inequality between groups of people that are actually alive today, but somehow that isn’t enough “social justice” for the warministas; ghosts must get an equal share of resources.
Strike me dead, I might get a bigger slice of the pie.
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Nicole Hasham sums it up in one sentence.
‘Dr Lomborg is a contentious figure because he argues that the risks of climate change have been overstated and it is more important to tackle problems such as malaria and poverty – though he accepts the science of human-induced climate change.’
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/students-and-staff-warn-of-angry-backlash-if-sceptical-environmentalist-bjorn-lomborg-sets-up-research-centre-at-flinders-university-20150724-gijmlz.html#ixzz3gtmfk4bj
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Somewhat relevant is this video by Stefan Molyneux on the burgeoning higher education industry. Take the hour to watch it. It’s US-centric but looking below that layer, one finds common factors such as the expectation for everybody to get a higher education and the classification of mediocrity as excellence.
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Of note about the Higher education scam in the USA is the low down on education loans. US citizens can declare bankruptcy and shed massive debt burden but normally student loans are NOT included.
Anyone being able to get rid of the burden of student loans through bankruptcy is a new development still evolving.
A bit of the history…
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Via Judith Curry’s Climate etc blog
From; The London School of Economics and Political Science
How Academia Resembles a Drug Gang
[quoted ]
In 2000, economist Steven Levitt and sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh published an article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics about the internal wage structure of a Chicago drug gang.
This piece would later serve as a basis for a chapter in Levitt’s (and Dubner’s) best seller Freakonomics.
The title of the chapter, “Why drug dealers still live with their moms”, was based on the finding that the income distribution within gangs was extremely skewed in favor of those at the top, while the rank-and-file street sellers earned even less than employees in legitimate low-skilled activities, let’s say at McDonald’s. They calculated $3.30 as the hourly rate, that is, well below a living wage (that’s why they still live with their moms).
If you take into account the risk of being shot by rival gangs, ending up in jail or being beaten up by your own hierarchy, you might wonder why anybody would work for such a low wage and at such dreadful working conditions instead of seeking employment at McDonald’s.
Yet, gangs have no real difficulty in recruiting new members.
The reason for this is that the prospect of future wealth, rather than current income and working conditions, is the main driver for people to stay in the business: low-level drug sellers forgo current income for (uncertain) future wealth.
Rank-and file members are ready to face this risk to try to make it to the top, where life is good and money is flowing.
It is very unlikely that they will make it (their mortality rate is insanely high) but they’re ready to “get rich or die trying”.
With a constant supply of new low-level drug sellers entering the market and ready to be exploited, drug lords can become increasingly rich without redistributing their wealth towards the bottom.
There is an expanding mass of rank-and-file “outsiders” ready to forgo income for future wealth, and a small core of “insiders” securing incomes largely at the expense of the mass.
We can call it a winner-take-all market.
Academia as a Dual Labour Market
The academic job market is structured in many respects like a drug gang, with an expanding mass of outsiders and a shrinking core of insiders.
Even if the probability that you might get shot in academia is relatively small (unless you mark student papers very harshly), one can observe similar dynamics. Academia is only one example of this trend, but it affects labour markets virtually everywhere.
An important topic of research for labour market scholars at the moment is what we call “dualisation”.
Dualisation is the strengthening of this divide between insiders in secure, stable employment and outsiders in fixed-term, precarious employment.
Academic systems more or less everywhere rely at least to some extent on the existence of a supply of “outsiders” ready to forgo wages and employment security in exchange for the prospect of uncertain security, prestige, freedom and reasonably high salaries that tenured positions entail.
&
How can we explain this trend?
One of the underlying structural factors has been the massive expansion in the number of PhDs all across the OECD.
&
So what you have is an increasing number of PhD graduates arriving every year into the market hoping to secure a permanent position as a professor and enjoying freedom and – reasonably – high salaries, a bit like the rank-and-file drug dealer hoping to become a drug lord.
To achieve that, they are ready to forgo the income and security that they could have in other areas of employment by accepting insecure working conditions in the hope of securing jobs that are not expanding at the same rate.
Because of the increasing inflow of potential outsiders ready to accept this kind of working conditions, this allows insiders to outsource a number of their tasks onto them, especially teaching, in a context where there are increasing pressures for research and publishing.
The result is that the core is shrinking, the periphery is expanding, and the core is increasingly dependent on the periphery.
In many countries, universities rely to an increasing extent on an “industrial reserve army” of academics working on casual contracts because of this system of incentives.
[ lots more ]
—————————–
As proposed above, there is more than a passing resemblence to drug gangs in both structure and the similarity of academia of today’s outlook, the destroy if he/she opposes you mentality that now seems to permeate academia everywhere in the western academic system particularly in Australia’s third grade, quaintly named academic establishments that try to pass themselves off as universities.
It is a free fall in academic freedom of thought and expression, leaving just a mirage and chimera of freedom of thought and expression that is still hypocritically quoted in hushed tones of great reverence by today’s academians of every political stripe and colour.
Followed almost instantly by a bellowing livid onslaught against ANYBODY WHO DARES to even suggest a very mild alternative to the accepted and rigidly enforced academic ideological status quo.
A despicable mentality that we now see as extending into what were once highly respected institutes of science and learning for which we, the tax payers are forced to increasingly and lavishly sustain through our taxes without anybody outside of academia [ free speech so valued by academia as we are seeing in the case of Lomborg is not permitted unless academia says so ! ] having ANY say or input at all in the operation and the standards of these universities .
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It could be that as a University professor (as opposed to the adjunct faculty that actually teaches) one receives a fine salary for a modest workload- within which one is unaccountable and get to play god. Did it for a decade. Great gig if you can get it. This was enough years ago that a few political conservatives were tolerated, in the hard sciences.
In the US, many schools have passed my Litmus test of complete capture, which is more administrative staff than teaching. In the US, again, I see none of the poverty around a University that one sees around a drug gang. One doesn’t move back with one’s parents until after graduation with a useless degree.
160
The ‘more administrative staff’ is also higher paid than the teaching staff and that is driving the cost of ‘higher?’ education through the roof. Useless courses in basket weaving and African women studies doesn’t help either. Especially when the graduates find themselves unemployable.
(Unless they are employed writing such papers as The Complex Lives of Skin Bleachers and the Self-Hate Polemic )
50
Survey shocker: Liberal profs admit they’d discriminate against conservatives in hiring, advancement — ‘Impossible lack of diversity’ reflects ideological intimidation on campus
130
“Liberal Profs “?
That is confusing, particularly in the context of this blog post about academic intolerance.
I thought I was a Liberal because I value the importance of the individual in society, indivual freedom of thought and actions, small Goverment, free markets etc.
How can left leaning, socialist, Marxist professors be called Liberal?
50
How can left leaning, socialist, Marxist professors be called Liberal?
Because the Fabian/ Socialist/Marxists sullied their ‘brand’ and per usual stole the ‘brand’ of the Classical Liberals. Now they are stealing the ‘brand’ “science” to hid their nasty agendas.
The Fabian shield has a Wolf in a sheepskin as the emblem. “Liberal” and “Science” are just two of the sheepskins they hide under.
Fascism BTW has now been rebranded ‘The Third Way’
See Chiefio’s great comment
30
Because of the constant exposure of their true aims of change by stealth the have dropped the wolf in sheep’s clothing in favour of a turtle, representing its goal of gradual expansion of socialism.
10
turtle, tortoise.10
Bob they have used both for years and that tortoise sure looks like a snapping turtle:
Also the Fabian stained glass window was just installed in the London School of Economics by Tony Blair (with Bill Clinton in attendance) That window has the Fabian wolf in a shield just behind and above Sidney Webb and George Bernard Shaw striking the Earth with hammers to “REMOULD IT NEARER TO THE HEART’S DESIRE,”
At this point I think it is a wee bit late for the Fabians to try and back pedal on that wolf.
20
This is the result from decades of unchecked Marxist socialist indoctrination, spoilt children who actually believe they are the higher functioning percentage of society and will scream until passing out just to have everything as it should be in their genius vision.
The vilification of one of their own is of no surprise those who know the history of leftwing politics, all it takes is the threat of someone being held in higher regard to unleash a night of the long knives or beer hall putsch type of reaction, thankfully for now we only endure the annoying intellectually unadorned whose actions are the equivalent of throwing toys out of the cot.
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Gawd. Lomborg’s a warmie who just wants a better class of white elephant. What do they do to hardcore skeps who don’t want any white elephants? The Iranian crane or the Syrian jump?
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“All balance has been lost, there is no dissent allowed over anything. It’s a monolith, a one party state, a one think, one viewpoint, one permissible opinion, a North Korea of the free intellect and since there’s no credible opposition surviving within the institution to somehow regain some equilibrium, the list to port now threatens to capsize the whole damn ship.”
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2015/05/30/achtung-spitfeuer/
The days of Western universities producing any big ideas are fast closing. That chalice will be passed to the developing nations.
Pointman
270
Jo, that link to the Telegraph at the end of the 6 bullet points is broken.
P
60
ROM –
for a moment i thought your comment referred to Unions!
ALP conference 2015: Labor backs 50pc renewable energy target
The Australian- 50 minutes ago
Unions have spelt out their conditions for backing Bill Shorten’s ambitious new target for renewable energy, demanding compensation for jobs lost in mining and energy.
setting aside exorbitant Union members’ fees which might or might not be invested in CERTAIN renewables, how insane is it for Unions to be throwing away jobs in the present economic climate (excuse the pun!)?
similarly, how is it Uni students of the CAGW cult type that undoubtedly make up the opposition to Lomborg are so dumb they don’t realise they are merely pawns in the game?
what percentage of students know anything about Lomborg? what percentage are against him?
MSM writing ‘FLINDERS University students are “repulsed”’ is meaningless unless we know the numbers.
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I would suggest 200 activists (on a warm sunny day) out of 9,000, with perhaps 400 gullibles.
I agree with Jo, pass the Lomborg test or shut down the University until new staff can be found.
180
Didn’t they also agree to create a new department of employment (more jobs, more public servants) to help workers who lose their jobs to find an equal or better job, or to assist them to look after themselves and their families (welfare at taxpayers expense)? The answer to an already shrinking job market. I don’t think so.
40
Unis should have the balls to ignore the tiny minority of students who indulge in politics, they do not represent the majority who know they need to get educated to get more than a job flipping burgers.
During the UK recession the Unis, once hotbeds of revolution, were as quiet as lambs.
The staff are a major problem though, we now seem to have Professors of Anything, such as Golf Course Management, and Energy Policy, the latter being Climate Change Zombies in disguise.
191
Forestry and Death Management?
The latter meaning Undertaking.
20
It is a general incompetence among scientists today. Behind the politics and the Left-Right ideological war lies the failure of the widely-accepted paradigms of scientific procedure. Climate “science” is showing any with eyes to see that a generation of scientists hooked on “modelling” that, seemingly as a matter of course, confuses correlation with causation (and so tends to reverse cause and effect, on every level of “explanation”), and will not take notice of definitive contradictory evidence against their proud but mistaken theories, is worthless. And I have seen no academics with eyes to see, for a long time.
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this is what the likes of Grace Hill are facilitating.
further to the 64-page report posted on jo’s previous thread from The Economist Intelligence Unit, The Cost of Inaction: Recognising the value at risk from climate change, Sponsored by Aviva:
24 July: BusinessGreen: Madeleine Cuff: Aviva commits to £2.5bn low-carbon investment push
Insurance giant to invest £500m every year until 2020 in low-carbon infrastructure
The investments will be made in renewable energy and energy efficiency infrastructure in Europe, according to Aviva’s chief executive Mark Wilson. They will include investment in ***solar PV and wind power, designed to build on the company’s existing renewables portfolio…
The commitment was revealed today at the launch of a new Aviva-commissioned report from The Economist Intelligence Unit investigating the financial risk that climate change poses to the world economy…
Aviva said its low-carbon investment strategy will focus on the European market, because the region has the most established market supported by a “clear and relatively stable climate change and energy policy framework”.
The company revealed it will also work with the UK Green Investment Bank to pilot a Green Investment Handbook, which will outline its investment methodology…
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2419204/aviva-commits-to-gbp25bn-low-carbon-investment-push
good old Aviva has been in the news recently!
20 July: UK Telegraph: Kyle Caldwell: Property fund freeze leaves investors with two-year wait to get money back
Investors in Aviva fund told of move in note that revives unhappy memories of 2008 commercial property freeze
A property fund run by insurance giant Aviva has suspended dealing after losing two of its biggest investors.
Savers left in the fund, called Aviva Asia Pacific Property, now face a wait of two years or longer to get their money back.
This is the second time in less than a week that Aviva has taken action to limit the damage from investors exiting its property funds. Last week it increased costs for those selling out of the £2bn Aviva Property Trust…
Aviva said it took the decision to freeze the fund because two of the biggest investors, accounting for 75pc of the fund’s assets, have asked for their money back…
But the bad news is Aviva said investors face a long wait – 12 to 24 months – for their money to be returned.
In a note to investors, seen by Telegraph Money, the firm said: “We are negotiating the sale of all the properties. Due to the complexities of selling commercial property and dismantling the legal structures of the fund, it is difficult to accurately forecast how long this process will take.
“However, we expect it to take 12-24 months for us to be able to return the proceeds of your investment to you, but it could potentially take longer.” …
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/funds/11751077/Property-fund-freeze-leaves-investors-with-two-year-wait-to-get-money-back.html
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If the true feelings of all the students are —
Then the religion of Faux Climate Sɔıǝuɔǝ has seeped deep into this academic establishment, and shows that an open debate on real science is badly needed.
TM
111
And of course the sad old dears in the Guardian report the matter, finishing with a line from the greens —
70
How dare he.
50
read all…and hopefully Maurice Newman will see this too:
25 July: Yorkshire Post: David Davis: Hold firms liable for blowing an ill wind
(David Davis is the Conservative MP for Haltemprice and Howden who tabled a Bill in Parliament this week on the wind farm industry)
My Parliamentary Bill takes no side in that debate. It is narrowly defined to one aspect of public interest; it requires the operators of wind farms, who are in receipt of £797m of public subsidy a year, to organise their affairs so that they are able to meet the costs of any nuisance imposed on people living near them.
In 1995 the World Health Organisation recommended that to prevent sleep interruption low frequency noise should not exceed 30 decibels. However, in 1996, the Government’s Energy Technology Support Unit – ETSU – set the noise limit for wind turbines at 43 decibels. That is an enormous difference; on the logarithmic decibel scale it is approximately double the WHO limit. We still use those standards today.
In the last five years no planning application was refused on noise-related grounds, but there have been 600 noise-related incidents arising from wind farm operations. The majority of complaints arise as a result of amplitude modulation, which is the loud, continuous thumping or swishing noise regularly described by those living near wind farms.
Numerous studies have identified that sleep is disturbed on a regular basis even at distances over one kilometre away from turbines, yet under the ETSU standards turbines can be installed just 600 metres away from residential property. The wind farm companies are acutely aware of this, and all the more so since a member of the public, Jane Davis, sued a wind farm near her home for noise nuisance. The matter was settled out of court, and there is a gagging order preventing us from knowing the details, but the settlement is rumoured to have been in the region of £2m…
Since this case, some dubious measures have been taken by the industry to obstruct perfectly legitimate claims for nuisance. The use of shell companies in the wind industry seems to be the commonest trick. The parent company provides a loan to a specially-created subsidiary to set up the wind farm, then leaves it in control of operations…
The subsidiary is left as a financial shell, with very few liquid assets and total liabilities greater than total assets. That makes it impossible to bring litigation against a wind farm, simply because there is nothing to win from them. Even liquidating them would generate no cash…READ ON
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/debate/columnists/david-davis-hold-firms-liable-for-blowing-an-ill-wind-1-7376535
25 July: Kiii TV News: Chapman Ranch Wind Farm Project Not Approved by FAA
CORPUS CHRISTI (Kiii News) – It’s a big setback for those looking to build a wind farm on the southern part of Corpus Christi near Chapman Ranch Road. The Federal Aviation Administration ruled the project would have a negative impact on air navigation radar.
The ruling came from a recent FAA study of the Apex Energy project. They said the wind farm would affect the equipment planes use for direction and landing…
Officials at the Corpus Christi International Airport said the ruling validates concerns they originally had about the project. Another group against the project, Citizens for Responsible Growth, said they are also pleased with the decision…
http://www.kiiitv.com/story/29628996/chapman-ranch-wind-farm-project-not-approved-by-faa
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“low frequency noise should not exceed 30 decibels. However, in 1996, the Government’s Energy Technology Support Unit – ETSU – set the noise limit for wind turbines at 43 decibels.
The measurement depends on whether the increase is a measure of absolute power, or perceived volume increase, for although decibel is used in both cases they mean very different things.
See this link for the technicalities of a 13dB increase being nearly 20 times (in absolute power), or between 2-3 times (in perceived loudness, or volume).
A decibel is one-tenth of a bel, which is the logarithm of the ratio of any two energy-like quantities or two field-like quantities. To make any sense of the figure the standard should be given. For the measurement of sound it should be SPL (Sound Pressure Level) given after the deciBel figure.
To be honest the decibel (ratio) scale could be used for anything, but a 3dB increase in pay does not look impressive until you realize it is a doubling in renumeration (as money=power).
90
I am an alumni from Flinders and I completely oppose Lomborg being given a place and funding there – mainly because, regardless of Lomborg’s position on anything, he is an incredibly poor academic. If we are to further the skeptical position, then we need to actually get better scientists to take the mantle.
Now, by poor academic, I mean that his academic history is very weak. He has reached conclusions that are not supportable by the evidence, he jumps all over the place logically, he has misused citations, and has received this funding without appropriate due process. He is being given funds to satisfy a political agenda – one which as an academic, he is very poorly positioned to address.
If someone who had his views could actually do a decent job of it, then they would have my support. But until we can find such a person, he is not a stopgap.
56
I don’t think Lomborg himself would work there, but anyway it is probably unwise for a research centre to be associated with a particular person or “position”, it should stand or fall according to its aims and methods, and avoid preset “positions” like the plague.
43
he is an incredibly poor academic.
He has reached conclusions that are not supportable by the evidence,
he jumps all over the place logically,
He is being given funds to satisfy a political agenda
Sounds like a typical AGW believer, which he claims to be.
——
we need to get better scientists.
Great Idea, how do they get employed at Flinders Uni?
121
I think that Lomborg is an economist, not a scientist.
really!
. If so he would not be the only one.
I did not know that.
when?
That could be correct. What process should be followed?
51
A. Stogy @ #20
So from that we can take that as Lomborg “is an incredibly poor academic” he is a perfect fit and a most suitable candidate to take his place with most of the rest of climate alarmist scientists and economists and wombat biologists and etc and etc.
By that criteria he should have been snapped up by the University of NSW where the tax payer funded, Antarctic research program destroying “Ship of Fools” Turney doesn’t seem to have suffered any strictures for his utter stupidity and his gross academic incompetence at all or Queensland University where even identity thieves like John Cook are apparently welcome and given tenure and quite free to continue their nefarious activities without any restraint by his peers or the university administration.
At least Lomborg wants to direct the slush funds that those” incredibly poor academic” climate alarmist scientists are so busy troughing for themselves and their mates in the renewable energy industry and the organisers of the lavish, exotic location , extremely expensive international climate conferences organising business into areas where it will actually help those who are in dire need of assistance to raise their own living standards and health standards and get access to reliable energy supplies and who only ask that they would like to live their lives as those “incredibly poor academic” climate alarmist scientists live.
There doesn’t seem too be much of an “incredibly poor academic” performance to be seen in wanting to direct those slush funds from “incredibly poor academic “climate alarmist scientists to where the money can actually help people instead of it being used to create entirely spurious climate scenarios in climate models that supposedly foretelling “the end of life as we know it” when it warms up as the modellers have repeatedly promised but which is yet to be seen at even a fraction of the levels those “incredibly poor academic” climate modellers have persistently predicted.
All this whilst demanding that the public hand over even more money to those “the Incredibly poor academic “climate alarmist scientists and modellers who haven’t yet got one climate prediction right nor have they even got an accurate figure at any level on the amount of warming that the nefarious “carbon” will supposedly create.
And thats after nearly 30 years of research into the climate sensitivity number and of a few hundreds of billions of dollars world wide being channelled to the climate scientists and modellers to supposedly establish that number, the climate sensitivity number, the key number that will define the actual amount of warming to be expected, if any, from the increase in CO2.
Yeh! Lomborg might be “an incredibly poor academic” but he is streets ahead both academically and most importantly, streets ahead ethically of most of the other so called climate “alarmist” scientists which is an excellent indication of the level of standards they have achieved and operated at in their own climate science discipline.
91
Alumni is plural; you are an alumnus .
00
Im in Calgary at the moment and just finished a two week Rotary exchange. With one exception all I ve talked to are sceptics. Admittedly Calgary is an oil gas and cow town and most here are well educated and in their fifties and sixties. In other words mature. The older folk have seen the great ice age scare and have also experienced the unprecedented floods dry spells tornados ice storms of the past. It also gets to minus 40 here so they appreciate warm weather.
110
Sounds like a job for Bond. Uni (Bond).
60
I emailed Grace Hill. I think we all should.
60
This is an interesting post Jo.
I agree with most of the things about our universities being captured by Marxist and extreme intolerance of all kinds in everything from diversity of thought, racial and ethnic discrimination for the favorite “classes of people”, scientific bias and intolerance, and all on the taxpayers’ backs.
Having said that and given your statement ” Bjorn Lomborg believes the IPCC science 100%, and uses the “denier” term to distance himself from the scientific skeptics.” Something does not compute.
1) Why is he so anxious to get out of his own country and into Australia?
2) Could he be trusted if these are really his beliefs?
3) If these are not really his beliefs, just falsehoods, could he be trusted?
4) All these things just don’t add up in my opinion and something seems wrong. I cannot say what it is, but it just does not all seem on the up and up.
43
Lomborg is a rational economist, not an environmetalist or anything like that. He accepts the IPCC’s position on climate change, just not many of the policies being implemented.
I think you missed this bit:
181
In other words Lomborg commits the unforgivable sin of thinking some of the gravy train should be diverted to useful projects and therefore takes $$$$$ from the entrenched troughers.
He also is not on board the ‘Global totalitarian government is the ONLY solution’ train.
This panic by Aussie Universities reveals they are NOT about education or science, they are about Marxist indoctrination as Grace Hill made clear.
161
Backslider. Perhaps I didn’t give this statement enough consideration. I will think about it.
But I still do not know why he is trying to get out of his country? And why he wants into an Australia University?
It is only a gut feeling, but something is bothering me about these two questions. I agree what has been said about Australian Universities, we have the same problem, but perhaps worse, in US universities.
Thanks.
21
I don’t think he will actually be coming to Australia. Australia wants him, or collaboration with his thing in Denmark, because he is a leading expert on the economics of climate change solutions and the environment, not the other way around.
50
I got one of my degrees from Flinders University, a B.Sc. in geology and geophysics, as it happens. I was a student there when the Howard government cut all kinds of funding to universities (eventually resulting in me transferring to another university to continue studying what I wanted to study). I was at a lot of the anti-Howard, well, anti-Vanstone protests, partly for the principle, but mostly for the social life.
If I was a rebellious teenage student there today, as a product of an education system seemingly designed to indoctrinate rather than educate, maybe I would agree with Grace Hill, or maybe i wouldn’t, who knows… from my current perspective, I certainly don’t agree with her now.
80
With warmists it’s black or it’s white,
To dissent is to not see the light,
To be lukewarm or pink,
Might mean one can think,
Is for warmists a step to the right.
132
But why is it “sceptics” are standing up for Lomborg if he’s only half pregnant? The reason is obvious and for the same reason that people like Nova and Watts will accept anybody from the other side, whether they’re rabid anti-science loonies or just mild doubters – their numbers are so low they’ll take anyone that looks a little like them so that they don’t feel so alone and silly.
And then there’s the other reason Nova won’t turn anyone away – no matter the lunacy of their views – they might just be paying customers, right Jo?
213
The reason is obvious, but not to a conspiratorial mind overcome with hate, eh?
We stand up for free speech and debate. It’s about the principle not the man. He’s called us names and I roasted him for it. When hypocrisy and blind emotion are used against him, I live up to my principles and point that out. This is all too hard for a simplistic brain that categorizes people as “Good person:Bad person” and nothing more complex, so you concoct some kind of fantasy about me earning money from it. Bizarre.
You know I like to publish you because it helps skeptics don’t you? Your denial of reality (that 50% of the West are skeptics and you call that “low”) and blind hate is useful. Thanks. Keep em coming.
182
Is it me, or is the intelligence level of the trolls declining?
Granted they can’t grasp that there is no proof that CO2 causes “Global Warming” or that there even has been any substantial amount of warming, but they still keep repeating the old scares, stupid assumptions ad slurs without either checking to see if they could be true, or even in many whether they are possible.
70
Here’s a test for you,Nova – Graeme No. 3’s comment is clearly utter rubbish and something you’ve claimed you disagree with – that the world is warming is unable to be denied by anyone with a brain – why don’t you tell them so? Why do you keep allowing your commenters to make obviously misleading and false statements on your blog?
16
There are plenty of smart readers here who will correct misleading lines and mistakes. Just because I publish a comment doesn’t mean I endorse it (I publish you don’t I?). Discussion and debate is the point of a conversation. Anytime you want to show you have an IQ above 80 go right ahead and start commenting that way.
If Graeme is so wrong, a smart commenter would just stay calm and post up the evidence. Others waste all their comments on howling insults, which help skeptics by showing that I do publish critics, but some critics are emotionally immature, bear ill-will and can’t manage to get over their hysteria long enough to hold a polite discussion.
Good question. Why do I bother to publish you? See if you can figure it out.
PS: Looks to me like Graeme’s comment depends entirely on how you interpret “significant” so think about accurate definitions, and the normal variations and iceages when you try to answer. Cherry picking the last 130 years (or the last ten) won’t convince anyone.
71
Hilarious.
03
Got nothing else eh?
20
You’re too silly and dishonest to realize the irony, so let me spell it out: Your friend and sometime houseguest is none other the most regal Lord Monckton who has made a series of posts at WUWT where he cherry picks a period of 15 years of data that everyone know commences with the outlier El Niño event of 1997/8. Hence the so-called “pause”. I’ll assume that you condemn him for that based on your statement – but not openly of course – which proves my original point.
03
Wow. Just Wow! You call me a liar scores of times and I ask for ONE example. This is it? The best you can do is that someone I know said something you disagree with on a different blog. Hot Stuff!
TJ, this is boring, it is too easy. You are vacuous bluster and puffery — with not even one single example to back up all your gullible pumped up emotion.
I’m really sorry, (this is serious) if you keep boring us, your one useful role here will be over. This is timewasting.
30
Hello Joker,
I see that you are aggrieved by by a comment,claiming quoting you: “Why do you keep allowing your commenters to make obviously misleading and false statements on your blog?”
If they are so obvious in your eye,it should be real easy for YOU to point them out to the rest of us,however it appears you are too angry with more than just Jo and Graeme No.3 to do that.
Have you tried anger counseling,to help you unblock mental channels that are filled with pseudo scientific rubbish, that clearly prevents you from calm rational thoughts from flowing freely?
I see that after 12 years of being attacked by people like you with all that seething anger and hate, Mr Lomborg continues to publish reasonable arguments that it is better to help fellow human being have a better infrastructure in place to help them deal with common problems mankind face,whether is from malnutrition,Disease, potable water,poor housing and so on than to waste it on pie in the sky nonsense like “renewables” and other ideas that have very limited value.
What I am saying here Joker, is try the rational approach,it will make you feel better, be better informed and have better and calmer conversations with others here.
51
You lie, Nova – you have my posts in moderation and you filter them. That is not free speech. Doesn’t it bother you that someone *knows* you tell lies? Or does the sociopathy take care of that?
Gutless.
And your usual comment of projection – your whole blog is one of conspiracy theorizing and hatred of scientists that don’t see the world your way. You’re so utterly deluded.
But I’m glad you are recording yourself digitally by blog. Something your children and their children will have to live with.
19
Like I said, keep that Hate coming. Published for all to see just how rational you the anonymous guy/girl who will not put their name to their own comments. There are no “lies” documented, just rabid insults and whining complaints that I won’t let your hate mail go up unleashed and without reading it.
120
Jo – you say I hate you because you think that makes you some sort of hero. I have not a shred of hatred for you. I come here to laugh at you and your Group Think blog. I do the same with WUWT. I read your stuff because you take yourself so seriously and yet you have nothing. not a thing. You’ll never admit the irony but you’re all just a bunch of believers who come together here to reassure one another of your faith that you’re right in your war against the Greenies. It is very funny and amusing. And you even get them to drop money into the offering box. Which Jo relies on to continue her ministry.
Just drips with irony.
04
Joker, just here for the laughs eh? How much good natured fun can you have?
“You lie, Nova”
“You’re so utterly deluded”
“does the sociopathy take care of that?”
“gutless”
Who’s in denial then? Like I said, Keep the hate, denial and the projection coming :- )
It’s obvious you have no scientific evidence, can’t document a single “lie” and you know your comments are not worth putting your name too.
30
We already know that you believe what you want to believe, Jo – if believing I hate you makes you feel better about yourself, fantasize away. I feel sorry for you that your life has become so meaningless that you’ve had to concoct this whole fantasy for yourself being an heroic Saviour of science – while you actually do zero science yourself. It is comical.
Yeah yeah yeah, more insults, more of your fantasies, no links, no evidence, no argument. Welcome to the best that climate-crisis trolls can offer. Thanks, but can you ask around and find someone better? We are bored. This is too easy and too repetitive. — Jo
00
My my, the anger is quite impressive, yet this immature child fails to stick with the topic and tell us why you are here in the first place.
Was there something in Jo’s post you have a problem with?
You terrified of skeptical thoughts being published?
40
Well said Jo. Some people can’t help projecting their deep fear of feeling lonely and silly onto others. I guess for sheep overcome by such fears, CAGW belief is a safe place to hide: with the herd.
70
Perhaps the Joker is just coming to terms with the fact that the earth is not flat, after all, and heavier weights do not fall any faster than lighter ones, and lightning is not the gods throwing spears, and you cannot cure somebody of a fever by draining off large quantities of their blood.
All of the above, was settled science, and a consensus in their day, and all proven to be wrong by … guess what … people who were sceptical of the status quo, at that time.
I think the Joker is angry, because he is heavily invested in the current paradigm, and is scared that it is all going to go to mush when enough people realise that the Emperor is not wearing any clothes.
80
Every so often I start to wonder if some of the ‘trolls’ may have a point, and there is another way of looking at an argument.
Then people like Joker come along and argue against the point you are trying to make by giving an example of the point you are trying to make.
Thank you Joker, people like Jo make the observation that people like Lomborg are rejected outright by people who fail to understand or discuss the argument, that Lomborg needs to be shut down and that disagreeing with them is an outrage. The observation is then made by people like Jo that people with that mindset are a sorry reflection on society. Then people like you come along and reject outright Jo’s argument by claiming their own argument is being shut down and that disagreeing with them is an outrage.
Somewhere, in the houses of Joker and scores like, is a huge pile of irony under the fridge that hasn’t been seen in decades. It is growing.
50
Joker,
was there something Mr. Lomborg said that terrifies you?
I have yet to know what it is about Mr. Lomborg, that has you raving with anger and hate here,why can’t you explain your objection ABOUT HIM instead, and leave the commenters here alone?
30
Someone’s accusing sceptics of murder: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/11762680/Three-scientists-investigating-melting-Arctic-ice-may-have-been-assassinated-professor-claims.html
60
That is some talented assassin(s)!
100
Yes, assassination by lightning – pretty neat trick!
40
I think you need 3 witches, a bubbling cauldron and a remarkably gullible fool to bring that one off.
Witches and bubbling cauldron are easily had from Central Casting, but where, oh where, would you find a fool so gullible, so naive, so dumb ….?
Apart of course from Cook, Lewandowski, Mann, Thejoker (whoever that is) and perhaps that bloke Viner who predicted no snow in the UK by 2010. No, I’m afraid none of them, dim as a candle in a hurricane as they are, aren’t quite the necessary standard.
To fill the post we need super gullible man.
10
You also need an assassin who can actually drive a lorry AND would be invited to a party that is inhabited by climate scientists.
(A New Years party and a flight of stairs? Can anyone say DRUNK???)
20
Not at the moment, I am (hic) too tipsy.
30
More here
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/25/cambridge-professor-big-oil-funded-death-squads-tried-to-murder-me-because-i-knew-too-much-about-global-warming/
70
AHHHh yes the VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY. Didn’t Mike the Man write about that in his book and how poor me was being harassed as he sued the crap out of others?
I really love how it is always nasty den1er groups well-funded by ‘Big Oil’ that is the boogeyman of the activists since Big Oil (Shell and BP) have been a driving force behind CAGW from day one.
Enron, joined by BP, invented the global warming industry [in the USA]. I know because I was in the room.
Shell, BP and Standard Oil (Rockefelller foundation) funded CRU.
Shell VP Ged Davis was IPCC lead Author of Scenarios. The Climategate e-mails have his draft of the scenarios and they all replace coal with natural gas –SURPRISE!
The Climategate e-mails reveal another Shell Oil exec., Doug McKay, was also at the IPCC scenario meetings. McKay was also Senior Financial Analyst with the World Bank.
“Former President of the international subsidiary of Shell Oil” Marlan Downey, now works for Muller of BEST temperature data set fame.
David Hone is not only SHELL OIL’S Senior Climate Change Adviser he is also Chairman of the International Emissions Trading Association.
“Besides lobbying the UK Parliament to strangle Shale Gas by insisting that CCS be deployed – in which venture he’s succeeded- he and his mentor James Smith. SHELL OIL’S previous UK Chairman took SHELL very deeply into Carbon Trading.”
The Dutch royal family is still reportedly the biggest shareholder in the Dutch part of Shell Oil, although the size of its stake has long been a source of debate. The Queen of England is also a major stockholder as is the Rothchild/Rockefeller group — The Rothschild Investment Trust was formed in 1988 becoming RIT Capital Partners. SEE (wwwDOT)cnbc.com/id/47609610 “Rockefellers and Rothschilds Unite”)
Prince Bernhard of the Dutch Royal Family was the Founding President of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
HRH The Duke of Edinburgh served as International President of WWF for 16 years until his retirement at the end of 1996…
John H. Loudon, Better known as “the Grand Old Man of Shell”, headed Royal Dutch Shell from 1951 to 1965. He was President of WWF from 1976 to 1981.
Donna Laframboise has shown how much the IPCC relied on WWF literature in their support for chapters.
Heck even our buddies at the Guardian align Shell oil with CAGW!!!
40
Is it possible that the cause of CAGW Panic is simply an outbreak of paranoid schizophrenia at universities?
51
I have a theory …
The dog did it.
You see, the dog had read the book, “Time to Eat the Dog, the Real Guide to Sustainable Living,” and, when the time was right …
Stranded dog rescued from High Arctic sea ice
Husky was travelling with two Dutch researchers, now presumed drowned
40
… or eaten by hungry poly bears.
30
Where would the money come from to fund the new Union Labor Greens dream, our worst nightmare?
40
The fury from the left is as one would expect. For those who are convinced that the true “truth” cannot be known. Specifically because it cannot be known without processing the information gathered by our senses and process by the use of logic applied to experience and experiment (aka reason). Since our senses are fallible, they “know” they cannot know anything about the real world. All they can really know is the content of their own mind (or whatever it is they use for a substitute for mind (ie unexamined emotion). It is interesting to note, the question about how they know this is never asked. Their answer is an unspoken “somehow”.
However, this is not good enough for them. The “truth” becomes true only if everyone believes the “truth” is true and think, speak, and act accordingly. All without deviation from the that original reveled “truth”. Naturally, the original reveled “truth” was reveled by a consensus of core believers in that “truth”. They dedicate their lives to spreading that “truth”. It is equivalent to a snake feeding on its own tail while expecting to get fat from his feasting. There is no there, there.
Since the process of discovering “truth” is the establishment of a consensus agreement as to its content, any disagreement to its content is a much feared destructive power. Disagreement is the antithesis of agreement. All one must do to destroy their fragile “truth” achieved by the consensus of believers is to disagree with it. Hence, disagreement must be banned by whatever means necessary up to and including violence, mayhem, vandalism, massive protests, murder, and, ultimately, genocide. That this has never worked, doesn’t work, and will never work is only a motivation for them to do more of the same.
At their core, they are at war with reality. They are enraged that reality does not bend to their whims. It is reality’s fault for not being cooperative and it is those who disagree with their infallible “truth” who are to be blamed for that lack of cooperation. Both reality and those who disagree with their sacred “truth” must be destroyed, they cry. That they themselves will be destroyed by that effort has no impact upon their thoughts, words, and actions. It is not so much that they want to live, they simply don’t want YOU to live.
It is that empty dark core of their being that drives them on with a hunger that cannot be fed. Get out of their way and stop feeding them. They will soon pass because they cannot feed themselves.
130
celsius guru:
Staff and students at Flinders University have warned of an angry backlash if controversial Danish academic Bjorn Lomborg is allowed to set up a research centre at the Adelaide institution.
. . .
Angry Backlash?
What will they do, refuse to learn? Smart move.
Maybe they could burn some books they disagree with?
90
And this is the test. All students who considered that appointment of Lomborg would besmirch the university’s reputation, could move to the University of Adelaide or the University of South Australia. Easy.
00
I wonder how much our power station carbon emissions would drop if we disconnected all universities from the power grid, permanently?
80
Don’t know about power but the drain on intelligence would be greatly reduced. 🙂
60
I shouldn’t assimilate the entire university system with eco-Marxist dullards, I’m sure there’s plenty of critical thinkers still existing in our great institutes of learning.
On the upside I’m confident of a future with a sustainable Unicorn population due to current critical thinking.
11
University of Queensland should be fine because we (the taxpayers) have bought them a solar power plant
http://solar-energy.uq.edu.au/about
20
I doubt the power requirement would go down much as the student go home and fire-up PC and games machines.
As for power station ‘carbon’ emissions, there is no such thing.
30
Exactly right! With a coal or gas fired power station the carbon is going in, not coming out.
30
You cut power to the entire town/district so it includes the homes of the profs and off campus housing.
With Smart Meters you can even apply it to individual homes.
Shall we all vote that ONLY wind and Solar is used to power the homes and businesses of CAGW activists and universities so when the sun is down and the wind is still their power is cut-off?
30
They could generate electricity by burning all of the useless degrees they grant, and all of the shoddy “peer reviewed” research papers published by their faculties.
40
Students at Flinders University are in favour of convergent diversity. They wouln’t object if Lomberg followed the crowd and become Lubos Motl.
30
Wadhams’ tale is picked up in the Booker article comments:
25 July: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: How Arctic ice has made fools of all those poor warmists
The belief that the ice was vanishing has been for the warmists the ultimate poster-child for their cause
In 2007, with the aid of scientists such as Wieslaw Maslowski and Peter Wadhams, the BBC and others were telling us that the Arctic would be totally “ice free by 2013” (the Independent even cleared its front page to announce that the ice could all have disappeared within weeks).
By 2011, the BBC’s science editor Richard Black was telling us that the ice would “probably be gone within this decade”. In 2012, his colleague Roger Harrabin was reporting that the sea ice was now melting so fast that more had vanished that summer than “at any time since satellite records began”…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11763272/How-Arctic-ice-has-made-fools-of-all-those-poor-warmists.html
WUWT has a scan of the Times’ version, juxtaposed with an article headlined: “This year likely to be hottest on record”. subtle, what?
41
23 Jully: Iceland Review: Alex Elliott: Coldest Summer in Decades
The first 13 weeks of summer have not been colder in Reykjavík for around 20 years, and for around 30 years in Akureyri…
Trausti says that the cold spell which began on the official First Day of Summer has now been going on for three months—the first 13 weeks of summer, using the old calendar. He draws this conclusion by comparing average temperatures in Reykjavík, Akureyri and Egilsstaðir over the last 67 years…
http://icelandreview.com/news/2015/07/23/coldest-summer-decades
22 July: Wednesday’s Papers: Finland
(SCROLL DOWN) To weather, and the already record-cold mid-year months show absolutely no sign of letting the sunshine in. That is if you believe what Iltalehti reports: more than an entire month’s weather forecast, all the way up to the end of August. The weather is notoriously difficult to predict even some days in advance, let alone weeks, so many IL readers may be left wondering whether or not to plan their picnics on, say, August 30 based on Iltalehti’s prognosis of “sunny” weather.
“Where are the heat waves hiding?” one of the paper’s sub-headings reads, and answers it in the ingress: 850 kilometres to the south, in Poland. The other Nordics aren’t faring much better than freezing Finland, and the so-called “helle” limit of 25 degrees Celsius is something, says Iltalehti, that Finns have “probably already accepted” they won’t be seeing this year at all…
http://yle.fi/uutiset/wednesdays_papers_greek_price_explosion_whole_months_forecast_plastic_recycling_begins/8172447
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if it will provide jobs, why are the Unions asking for compensation for job losses (as per Australian posted above) & why would Labor to promising to assist workers affected?
never mind, it’s only an “aspirational” target!
25 July: Australian Financial Review: Labor moves on emissions, adopts 50pc renewable energy ‘goal’
Environment spokesman Mark Butler said Labor would take a 50 per cent ‘goal’ to the election “because we know renewable energy will be part of the industrial and ***jobs base” as well as a worthy environmental goal.
The difference between goal and target reflects the fact that Labor has not locked itself in to policies which aim to buy substantial increases in renewable energy, or adopt tough prescriptive measures, as has happened in the past…
There was no clearer difference between the two parties now than on the question of climate change, he said.
“There are some who say we cannot win this argument”, he said, as a result of a combination of vested interests and some sections of the media”…
The conference has committed that a future Labor government would set up an agency to assist workers in affected regions and carbon polluting industries to make the transition to new jobs and industries…
The head of the CFMEU mining and energy division, Tony Maher said that the reality was that old power stations were already in the process of closing as a result of an over-valued dollar in the past decade and that the focus must be on assisting workers redeploy through retraining and income support. He emphasized that renewable energy ambition was an ***”aspirational goal not a mandatory target”.
http://www.afr.com/news/politics/labor-moves-on-emissions-adopts-50pc-renewable-energy-goal-20150725-gikfau
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check the photo, exploiting children again:
25 July: AAP: Karen Sweeney: Labor supports higher renewables target
PHOTO CAPTION: Climate supporters say Australia should be leading the transition to renewable energy
The target is aspirational, rather than mandatory…
http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/hundreds-rally-for-new-renewable-target/story-e6frfku9-1227456560332
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I saw that picture flashed up in a news report while down pub on Saturday night.
Even with a couple of jars inside me the fact the footage didn’t actually seem to show the ‘hundreds’ claimed was pretty obvious.
Looking at the still photo and the clearly professionally printed poster the child on the left is holding shows this ‘rally’ for what it is – a preorganised ALP rent a crowd brought in especially for the occasion.
Yet news.com class this in their ‘breaking’ section.
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‘One-quarter of all the food in the world is lost each year, owing to inefficient harvesting, inadequate storage, and wastage in the kitchen. Halve that waste, and the world could feed an extra billion people – and make hunger yesterday’s problem.
‘The extent of food loss is particularly galling in view of a new global study on food security from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. According to the FAO, 57 developing countries have failed to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of hungry people by this year. One in every nine people on the planet – 795 million in all – still goes to sleep hungry.’
Bjorn Lomborg
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Most of that loss of food is due to outdated methods, prehistoric equipment and lack of a decent distribution system.
For example: As crops rot, millions go hungry in India
USA engineers solved the storage problem 60 years ago.
Harvestore Silo – A brand of oxygen limiting (air tight) upright silos with bottom unloading.
Of course the US government at the request of the international grain traders has now taken down the US government grain storage silos (“Freedom to Farm Act” of 1996) and by 2008 the USDA reported “the cupboard is bare” That legislation, the biofuel idiocy plus Goldman Sachs playing in the commodities market cause the 2008 food crisis with riots in 60 countries.
The lack of US grain reserves is something to be gravely concerned about. At one point the USA produced about 25% of the world’s grain. Ironic how China has been buying the living daylights out of grain, especially over the last few years..They’ve been buying grain…and guns…and cement, and scrap iron, and farmland in Africa and South America and even here in the USA.
Russia of course has it’s eyes on the breadbasket of Europe, the Ukraine. Meanwhile the EU is chasing farmers off the the land.
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I should also mention Chiefio’s essay on a simple set of improvements that was proven to take marginal arid land and make it productive. These changes can be done by anyone in Africa.
Leucaena leucocephala collection of links
Given all the evidence, I do not think it is bad luck that the third world countries are still third world countries. I think it was deliberate.
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Re Harveststore silos.
Not necessarily a solution for grain storage for human consumption.
Designed for silage… anaerobic storage and fermentation of high moisture cut pasture and high moisture grain for usage as animal (primarily ruminant) feed.
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I understand that, but it shows that good storage facilities can be easily engineered. Cement silos go back to the 1800s This farm has working cement silos from that time period. That farm also uses the Harvestores to store shelled corn
The key to storage of grain is level of moisture (low) air tight and pest free. Aeration of the grain while it is drying is critical to prevent the heat/fermentation that makes silage.
Adapting Silage Silos for Dry Grain Storage – Purdue University (Where I first saw those blue silos at the homes of my college friends.)
From the Farm Show (They do a great book of yearly innovations)
Even simple cement/ brick silos for storage after drying would be an improvement for third world countries. Heck ANY space that is dry and pest free would do to store dried grain. (I use plastic barrels with lids with a lever lock torque ring for storage of feed grain since storage bins are too big for my small operation.)
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I have a suspicion that the reason that so many universities, and university academics in general, are more aligned to the extremist left, and moreover why this is becoming worse and worse over time, is because we are still, technically, a colonial outpost of the British Empire.
What this means, in effect, is that it tends to allow a bureaucratic rent-seeking elite to gravitate to, and poison, academia, because it is one area where our colonial tradition and social structures still allow such privileges to be misused and abused. Academia is essentially a non democratic institution/process, and people who don’t want scrutiny often gravitate to it simply because they can’t do it within the political arena, which in this country is essentially democratic. So one can vote out a carbon tax, or bad climate policies, but it is much more difficult to vote out/reason with academics who hold such views.
Over time, political opportunists gravitate to areas where they can’t be touched-academia is just one of those areas, and in what it technically still a colony, this can become a refuge who don’t want representation from the people.
I suspect, but I’m not sure, that academia is just one of those areas where not becoming a republic is ultimately a negative thing for the Australian people.
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I would imagine that the same would be the case in the USA and Europe. So a Republic will make no difference.
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The Five Pillars of Socialism
Churches (Check)
Unions (Check)
The MSM (Check)
Academia (Check)
Most Politicians (Check) (We call the Republicans RINOS for a reason)
The “permanent underclass” was deliberately created by the Liberal [Socialist] Class via regulation and taxation.
It is now ILLEGAL in the USA for a kid to set-up a lemonade stand or for granny to sell pies and cakes at a church bake sale. Any business more complicated then that is an insurance and regulation nightmare. For example the Dollarhite family faced $4 million in USDA fines for selling bunnies! (wwwDOT)breitbart.com/big-government/2011/05/20/family-facing-4-million-in-fines-for-selling-bunnies/
If you can not accumulate the wealth to set up a small business because of wealth confiscation via tax. If you can not LEGALLY, without lots of fuss and FEAR, set up a small business then you can not take care of yourself and are reduced to a ‘wage slave’ dependent on the whims of the government/corporate complex.
If you can’t get a good paying job then sit on your butt and pop out the kiddies. It pays better than any minimum wage job and you get to vote socialist and whine that the government isn’t doing ENOUGH for you.
If you are male just create the kiddies and take part of the welfare. After all you are bigger than the woman you got pregnant. In the state of MA the social workers have to make an appointment to check on a welfare mother so you have plenty of time to vacate the joint for a few hours and she has plenty of time to get her sister’s kids so she can claim them too. (And no I am not making it up. That is straight from a co-worker who rented out 1/2 of his duplex.)
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The fact is that no “university” has the right to term itself such, if it does not permit debate and a full range of opinions. After all, that’s what the “univers-” bit means. It’s a fact lost on pretty much all university administrators (a species that can give Polar Bears a run for their money in the recent proliferation stakes), on many academics and on a lot of students, too.
I sometimes think of today’s university populations that some are born stupid; some acquire stupidity and some have stupidity thrust upon them. It’s hard to tell which predominates. I’d like to imagine that most incoming students aren’t born stupid, but who knows what the acceptance policy is in the kind of department where independent thought is synonymous with “heresy”, where the quasi-Jesuitical teaching policy is “stack ’em high and sell ’em thick”?
The word “indoctrination” derives from “doctrina“, the Latin word for “learning”, but the meanings have diverged. Talking of etymology, “divergence”, “diversion” and “diversity” have virtually the same ancestry, except that the first two imply a choice of two, with the emphasis on the second, while the third is routinely, now, used to suggest an infinite choice, but still with the first choice essentially ruled out. “University” means, or should mean, an infinite choice, with no such prejudice.
Slightly OT, but not completely: Oxford University has a statue of Cecil Rhodes, inconveniently located quite a long way above street level. Slavishly following recent events in the United States, a few students have started campaigning to get it pulled down (Rhodes was a colonialist, you see). They demand the “de-colonisation” of teaching. One of the more vocal activists is a classicist, i.e. a student of the Ancient Greeks, who sort-of invented the concept of the colony, and of the Romans, who actually thought up the word. On the other hand, the activists’ leader is a Rhodes Scholar (yes, that Rhodes).
The Sleep of Reason Brings Forth Monsters.
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The fact is that no “university” has the right to term itself such, if it does not permit debate and a full range of opinions. After all, that’s what the “univers-” bit means. It’s a fact lost on pretty much all university administrators (a species that can give Polar Bears a run for their money in the recent proliferation stakes), on many academics and on a lot of students, too.
I sometimes think of today’s university populations that some are born stupid; some acquire stupidity and some have stupidity thrust upon them. It’s hard to tell which predominates. I’d like to imagine that most incoming students aren’t born stupid, but who knows what the acceptance policy is in the kind of department where independent thought is synonymous with “heresy”, where the quasi-Jesuitical teaching policy is “stack ’em high and sell ’em thick”?
The word “indoctrination” derives from “doctrina“, the Latin word for “learning”, but the meanings have diverged. Talking of etymology, “divergence”, “diversion” and “diversity” have virtually the same ancestry, except that the first two imply a choice of two, with the emphasis on the second, while the third is routinely, now, used to suggest an infinite choice, but still with the first choice essentially ruled out. “University” means, or should mean, an infinite choice, with no such prejudice.
Slightly OT, but not completely: Oxford University has a statue of Cecil Rhodes, inconveniently located quite a long way above stretet level. Slavishly following recent events in the United States, a few students have started campaigning to get it pulled down (Rhodes was a colonialist, you see). They demand the “de-colonisation” of teaching. One of the more vocal activists is a classicist, i.e. a student of the Ancient Greeks, who sort-of invented the concept of the colony, and of the Romans, who actually thought up the word. On the other hand, the activists’ leader is a Rhodes Scholar (yes, that Rhodes).
The Sleep of Reason Brings Forth Monsters.
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Sorry, the Sleep of Reason also Enables Me to Duplicate Posts.
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Hi Jo. You asked:
What chance would a skeptical scientist have of working at an Australian University?
From my experience there are plenty of skeptical scientists, at least in the earth sciences, working in the University system who do not speak out due to fear of losing their jobs, research funding, of having their lectures disrupted by hippy protesters, having their cars vandalised or worse.
I think that you might be right that the only way to change the situation is by privatising the university sector, unfortunately I doubt there would be enough private funding that could support the current numbers of campuses around the country. Maybe a smaller, stripped back, lean and efficient system would serve the country better.
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Bjorn Lomborg’s bio shows his essential academic qualifications are in political science.
Political science has always intrigued me for its oxymoronic nomenclature.Nothing could be further removed from the scientific discipline than politics.
In evolutionary classification (Carl Linnaeus-like) terms, political science’s close relative must surely be climate science.
But I digress!
Lomborg has been acknowledged by global commentators as one of the world’s contemporary leading thinkers.
That he is not a back-room researcher simply intent on publishing papers has been criticised of sorts by some posters in this blog. I find his intellectual challenge to conventional thought (by that I mean that I believe that CAGW alarmism has become entrenched in academia) most interesting.
So called “progressives” in UWA, Flinders and no-doubt other universities are damning their own credibility as searchers of knowledge by their CAGW “group think”.
That the Abbott government has offered universities funding for a Lomborg think-tank is surely a major motivator to the sour rejection of the proposal by UWA and now Flindersl. As the old adage goes, it says more about their university leadership than about Lomborg.
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On RT Sputnic, the pope’s man sells climate change and champions the fight against the ‘mammon’ deniers – using simple, forceful and misguided rhetoric to appeal to the emotions without proper attention to science.
Starts at 14 minutes.
http://www.rt.com/shows/sputnik/310732-evo-morales-chile-argentina/
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She’s going against the policy of the Group…
“As such it is imperative that FUSA conducts its self in a non-partisan manner. While it is acknowledged that student organisations in general and FUSA as a student union in particular is by its nature a political organisation that runs campaigns and has positions on a range of matters, these campaigns and positions should always be furthering the interests of Flinders University students. These campaigns and any activity or impression that FUSA gives should never be conducted or presented as a means to simply further partisan interests”
http://fusa.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/FUSA-AGM-Minutes-5-August-2014-Web.pdf
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maybe worth emailing her a reminder. what the hell is happening in australia that is creating so many young people that are willing to stifle freedom of thought and speech. you guys have a problem,a big problem.
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