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Carbon prices have plummeted in the US.
(So they are that much closer to their true value…)
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative sold 40.7 million permits for $1.88 each, 19 cents lower than the last auction held in March and 2 cents above the minimum allowable bid, the cap-and-trade program said on its website today. Each permit in the carbon trading program for power plants from Maryland to Maine represents one ton of carbon dioxide.
Why are prices so low? On the one hand, people have doubts about Congress creating a national market for them. Fair enough. But on the other hand, “Tim Cheung, an analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance said: “Demand for power hasn’t increased with the economic recovery…”
Since people aren’t buying as much electricity there are spare “permits to pollute” all over the place. But it begs the question of what kind of economic recovery it is, if it doesn’t need … power?
Can I sell you some air over China?
Meanwhile some NGOs are waking up to the scammability of permits for invisible unverifiable goods. CDMWatch was set up by a group of NGO’s and has found the firms that sell the […]
Rajendra Pachauri and that Bible-thingy
How do you deal with ignominious defeat on a global scale?
If I were a sit-com writer, I’d scoff at the idea of a fictional character as preposterous as Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC. This is the man who refers to skeptics as “flat-earth-deniers who use voo-doo science“. He graciously hopes we skeptics will rub asbestos on our faces (and daily), and in his spare time he writes soft-porn novels.
Six months after the credibility of his favorite lauded scientists was shredded with climategate, and after his own agency was slogged with more scandals than anyone can number (we’ve run out of -gate prefixes), he’s finally realized the pain won’t go away.
Feb 3 this year, he said: Skeptics “are people who deny the link between smoking and cancer; they are people who say that asbestos is as good as talcum powder – I hope that they apply it to their faces every day…I’m totally in the clear. I have absolutely nothing but indifference to what these people are doing.”
So this was it, a few days ago, the big BBC moment when he does some damage control, but as far as big […]
Image thanks to Andri Krychok
Who knew Nigel Calder’s father was a skeptical reporter who was drawn into writing war time propaganda to help the Brits in World War II? Nigel Calder, a former editor of New Scientist (back before it became Non Scientist), and author of The Chilling Stars, is one of the few science journalists I really admire. So I was delighted when readers here told me Calder had started his own blog, and very interested to read a recent piece by him describing the parallels between World War II propaganda and official Climate Science gloss productions.
My story was about a discovery in the physics of the weather. To find anything comparable you have to go back to the 18th Century. That was when the postmaster of Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin by name, flew a kite in a thunderstorm. He proved that lightning is just a big electric spark. To be precise, he described how to do the experiment, and let the French try it first. They lived to tell the tale, so Franklin repeated it for himself. A very prudent postmaster.
In 1996, in Copenhagen, the climate physicist Henrik Svensmark made another discovery just as amazing. […]
Poor writing can throw up a fog to hide dubious claims.
Prasad Menon
The Extravaganza of the Deakin Lectures is taking place at the moment in Melbourne, and Des Moore on Quadrant Online accused them of being a one-sided propaganda machine paid for by government money (though not in those exact words).
In response, the Wheeler Centre defended themselves on their blog*, and claimed that Quadrant’s missed the point: They don’t need to do the debating thing because bloggers do that (and they link to moi).
So the Wheeler unit, which is supported by the Victorian Government, EPA Victoria, Carbon Innovators Network, The Age, and the ABC et al defends a policy position taken by Government Departments, and minor clubs like, y’know, the UN, and yet it’s OK, there’s no fear of government funds being used to propagate a one-sided message, because JoNova is discussing the science (with no government funding, no industry sponsorship, and no university support). So that’s what they call balance.
The rest of us call it government advertising. It’s just a different form. A government-funded unit gets to use taxpayer dollars to prop up a government policy and help large investment funds and a […]
Our PM’s rapid descent is described as due to the failure of the carbon trading scheme tonight on the 7.30 Report. To make it so much more pointed, on top of that, there’s the suggestion that Rudd is driven by anger, and that his latest attack on the Mining Industry (with the massive new tax scheme) is about beating the same forces that succeeded over him on the Emissions Trading Scheme.
Author and journalist David Marr spoke with the 7.30 Report‘s Kerry O’Brien about the psychological make-up of the Prime Minister and his collapse in public approval.
Apparently it all boils down to the carbon trading scheme that failed.
The point he started to unravel was not the Global Financial Crisis, an ongoing war, or the weak outcome of his feted hospital plan, it was about the carbon scheme:
9.5 out of 10 based on 2 ratings […]
David Archibalds new book
by David Archibald
David will be speaking with the Anthony Watts Tour in Australia. I’ll be buying a copy of his book.
June 1, 2010
This is a shorter version of the Quadrant Online extract.
Edited extract: “Why did so many scientists get it wrong?” from David Archibald’s book – The Past and Future of Climate:
If the data and forecasts in this book are correct, then the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, the Royal Society in the United Kingdom, the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO in Australia are all wrong. How can this be? Firstly, there aren’t that many scientists involved in the IPCC deliberations. The inner core is possibly twenty souls. Secondly, they were untroubled by the necessity to concoct fraudulent data to get their desired results. The only unknown question regarding the IPCC scientists is “Did they actually believe in the global warming that they were promoting?”
It turns out that they did, and possibly still do. That is shown by the Climategate emails released on 20th November, 2009. The Climategate emails are a selection of emails amongst members of […]
Hate Crime legislation is the last resort of those with no real case. It’s the last resort in the “shut-up” campaign that Team-Carbonari have been running against the free world for two decades. The unverifiable, unknowable crime of intent. (Anyone have one of those Handy-Hate-Meters that reliably measures the dreaded Evil-Score to two decimal places? No? It’s a matter of time…)
A couple of months ago, I wrote a post called Evidence What Evidence? where I dismantled the words of a famous Australian science journalist for parroting bureaucrats and not investigating the evidence. What I wrote is not a recipe for building a better bomb with your Mazda, but Ben E took issue with my pointed discussion in the comments:
“Sad, but scarcely surprising. Sites like this one will eventually be shut down in future updates to hate crime legislation, as they are well on the way to inciting violence and hatred towards scientists and science communicators.”
Willis Eschenbach popped in with a devastating reply that deserved to be repeated.
“Well, let’s review the bidding regarding “violence and hatred” …
10 out of 10 based on 14 ratings […]
New Scientist plumbs new lows. The magazine has become its own self-parody. Do they see the irony of inviting a PR expert to accuse groups of committing the crime of, wait for it, … using a PR expert?
…he’s the advertiser being offered free editorial space within the one-sided propaganda that masquerades as journalism
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hold any elitist ideas that only people with science degrees can write for New Scientist (the magazine and its staff have pretty much proven how useless a science degree can be). My issue with them is that Richard Littlemore (a PR expert) has essentially written a smear-by-association piece, which should have no place in a real scientific magazine. It’s not like Littlemore is just an unhealthy part of a big healthy debate — instead he’s the advertiser being offered free editorial space within the one-sided propaganda that masquerades as journalism.
New Scientist may think climate science is a moral imperative, but they don’t have room for the climate scientists who have published peer reviewed criticisms of their favorite theory. Nor do they have space to tell the extraordinary story of the grassroots independent retiree scientists who’ve busted […]
Round 5 of my debate with Andrew Glikson Dr Andrew Glikson and I have been debating the evidence first through Quadrant, and then here. Kudos to him for following this up in a polite, diligent manner. This kind of open debate is extremely rare, and I am happy to encourage it. I will post a reply in a few days. For the moment I think the many able commenters here can discuss its merits. The only thing I’ll say now is that in each of my four previous replies I ask for evidence that the models are right on the magnitude of the feedbacks. Is it half a degree or 3.5oC? Part I: AG / JN; Part II: AG / JN; Part III: AG / Part III & IV: JN (& AG). (Part IV took place in the comments below Part III). Yes, this is the first time I’ve had a guest post from a scientist who disagrees… My reply is here. — Jo
Guest Post by Andrew Glikson
Earth and Paleoclimate scientist Australian National University, 18 May, 2010
Dr Andrew Glikson ANU
Unique among the terrestrial planets, occupying an intermediate position between Venus, with […]
The Australian Department of Climate Change
People have asked me if the Rudd Government’s postponement of the ETS means we’ve won, as in game over, time for that beach holiday in Broome? But the end of the game is nowhere in sight while our government still has a Department of Climate Change stacked with high paid executives that soak up $90 million a year. The gullible guys who leapt in with both feet are still top-dogs. The end is not even close while two of our largest daily papers don’t realize they are the real Deniers they disparage, or when the second in charge of our opposition still thinks we need to trade carbon. Joe Hockey (our shadow treasurer) said this week that “a carbon price is inevitable”. He used the same old line: “scientists say blah”, as if a consensus of “scientists” is either (a) faultless and incorruptible, or (b) in control of the weather.
Carbon trading, “inevitable“? How about “inane”? Even better: perilous, fraud-prone, and serpentine. It boils down to forced markets trading fake goods that nobody would willingly buy. It’s not a “carbon” market, it’s a Permit Market. And a permit (especially to something unmeasurable) is […]
Gullible Rudd steps right in it
Rudd let slip a line in his frustration this week that reveals how little he knows about the topic he holds so dear. He has so completely swallowed the PR on climate science, that when poked, he reflexively fires back exaggerated scientific claims that would make even the IPCC blush. In 2007 the IPCC and Gore et al offered Rudd the perfect Election-Wedge-on-a-Platter. They’d primed the audience with propaganda; trained the crowd to recite: Carbon is pollution. It looked like a no-brainer. Yet having based his leadership and campaign on it, it’s obvious he had not done even the most basic of checks (and still apparently hasn’t).
It’s an abject lesson in the importance of doing some homework before rewriting a nation’s economy.
Toga's don't keep you warm
Last week Tony Abbott (the Australian opposition leader) told school children that it was warmer ”at the time of Julius Caesar and Jesus of Nazareth”. This banal line set off a flurry of denial and bluster.
Rudd was incredulous in the Parliamentary Hansard record to the opposition members last week:
…how is it that, in the 21st century, you could support this Leader of the […]
Thanks to the NSF for the image of sea ice in the Bering Sea
New Scientist doesn’t have enough column space to tell you that Briffa’s Yamal tree ring series depends heavily on just one freak 8-standard deviation tree in Northern Russia, and that multiple temperature reconstructions use that highly dubious series, but they do have time to warn the world about the effect of melting sea-ice on global sea levels.
If you want to see the Climate Debate discussed from both sides, see a real debate, and contrast it to the irrelevant minutiae of propaganda pushed by magazines like New Scientist.
Melting icebergs boost sea-level rise
Because sea ice is fresh water, it has a lower density than salty ocean water, so even though floating ice won’t raise water levels by melting, the fresh water in the ice blocks can apparently make a small difference. “Small” being the word.
“…they estimate that about 746 cubic kilometres of ice are melting each year, overall. The ice melting is diluting the oceans, decreasing its density and raising sea levels as a consequence,” says Shepherd.
Watch out for that extra twentieth of a millimetre. Literally 0.049 mm per year.
Imagine, […]
It’s unsubtle, twice as long as it needs to be, it’s unashamedly smug, and worth watching.
Be patient with the start. (Click on the pic to go to PJTV)
Betrayed By Climategate, …
PJ TV
“It was supposed to be hot dammit!”
“I just had faith that everything wouldn’t work out…”
“This is how I knew was better than other people”
This is gratuitous “rubbing-it-in”.
10 out of 10 based on 2 ratings
Ad hominem Unleashed on the ABC
On our ABC there’s lots of talk “about evidence” but next to nothing of actual evidence. (The empty homage to “evidence” is handy though, it keeps the pretense alive that it’s a scientific conversation). Stephan Lewandowsky is still doing his Picasso-brain-best to search in all the wrong places for enlightenment.
Is the planet warming from man-made CO2? Lewandowsky “knows” it is. Why? Because the 9/11 truthers are conspiracy theorists (and conspiracies are always wrong). O’ look, a few people ask odd questions about an accident in a building years ago, and sometimes those people are also the species Homo Sapiens Climata Scepticus (!). So it follows (if you are insane) that because some people still doubt the official story of an unrelated past event, man-made global warming will contribute 3.7W/m2 in the year 2079, and we’ll all become souffles in the global Sahara.
I’m not making this stuff up. I’ve tallied up the obvious errors from both articles. His power to confuse himself with red herrings is … “impressive”.
Lewandowsky scorecard for logic and reason
Argument from authority 4
[…]
Australian polls have plummeted, and the credibility gap I mentioned earlier has already translated into votes. Whether people agree or disagree with the Emissions Trading Scheme, no one is impressed when a leader hypes something in the most hyperbolic and inflammatory terms, then bails suddenly, as if it was not a big deal.
The front page of The Australian today:
KEVIN Rudd’s personal standing has taken a hammering after his decision to dump his climate change policy last week, and for the first time since 2006 the Coalition has an election-winning lead.
Curiously, while the Labor Party dropped 8%, the Greens primary vote (10%) didn’t pick up a single point. The Coalition (the main opposition) gained just 3% (to 43%), so most of the rest of the disillusioned voters went to “others and independents”. All the commentators are writing it up to the “Climate” issue.
It may have taken a long time to come, but eventually things based on bullying and bluster crash to Earth. Both sides of politics could have stood taller in this if they had bothered to get a forum of advocates and skeptics together in the same room (perhaps a Royal Commissioner’s room) to politely […]
Thanks to Glenn Beck, we get bit more insight into the tangled web that The House of Global Warming was built on.
Who would have thought? Goldman Sachs has been working hard to save the environment for years.
Generation Investment Management (GIM) was founded by Al Gore, and a few friends, which included David Blood (former Goldman executive), Mark Ferguson (Goldman) and Peter Harris (Goldman). They are the fifth largest shareholder in the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). Then in 2006, when the CCX needed some extra funding, who should step up to buy 10% of the company – Goldman Sachs.
CCX is an exchange that won’t be doing a heck of a lot if carbon trading doesn’t become mandatory. All of these players have a vested interest in Cap N Trade legislation.
10 out of 10 based on 2 ratings […]
Dr Andrew Glikson (an Earth and paleoclimate scientist, at the Australian National University) contacted Quadrant offering to write about the evidence for man-made global warming. Quadrant approached me asking for my response. Dr Glikson replied to my reply, and I replied again to him (copied below). No money exchanged hands, but Dr Glikson is, I presume, writing in an employed capacity, while I write pro bono. Why is it that the unpaid self taught commentator needs to point out the evidence he doesn’t seem to be aware of? Why does a PhD need to be reminded of basic scientific principles (like, don’t argue from authority). Such is the vacuum of funding for other theories that a debate that ought to happen inside the university obviously hasn’t occurred. Such is the decrepit, anaemic state of university science that even a doctorate doesn’t guarantee a scientist can reason. Where is the rigor in the training, and the discipline in the analysis?
Credibility lies on evidence
by Joanne Nova
April 29, 2010
Reply to Andrew Glikson
Dr Andrew Glikson still misses the point, and backs his arguments with weak evidence and logical errors. Instead of empirical evidence, often […]
Sigh. Time to party right? Heigh Ho and ra ha ha and all that. Yes, forgive me for not cracking open the champagne. Rudd (Australia’s PM) has finally admitted what skeptics have known for two months, that he doesn’t have the courage of his “convictions” and that all the pious rhetoric was a bluff.
A week before the National Budget comes out, he’s announced he’s shelving the Emissions Trading Scheme that was a defining part of his election campaign for Kevin ’07. It shocked some of the pundits.
Naturally, it’s not bad news, but let’s face it, a green tax is still on the agenda, literally billions of dollars is still being wasted in government programs, we’re still “signed up” for UN agreements worth gadzillions, and to top that off, we have a Prime Minister who’s so unprincipled that in his own words he’s a donothing delayer, an inactivist, a man who gambles recklessly with our childrens future. He’s a political coward, and a failure as a leader, and he’s acting against what he believes is Australia’s best economic interests. He said all that, and all the quotes of his faux anger (see below) come from just one speech.
[…]
The Spectator gave me an unusual assignment. An open-ended request to gather thoughts over a couple of weeks and note them in a diary. It’s an interesting genre because it brings out messages that might not come to life otherwise. This was printed in the Australian Edition of The Spectator Magazine, out today.
Jo Nova opens her diary
Another friend, Troy, has had that transformation: not from a climate ‘believer’ to ‘sceptic’, but from being only vaguely interested to being hopping mad. Friends like Troy know my husband David and I are sceptical of man-made global warming, and have listened (if only politely). Then one day they’ll call us, suddenly very interested in details of missing upper tropospheric patterns or Vostok Ice core data or some other unlikely topic. It’s always the same pattern — no matter whether they’re an accountant (like Troy), a lawyer, or our high school babysitter. They’ve admitted some doubt in public, and then been shocked at the force of the response. The sneering derision — Oh My God! How could you? — is over the top. It has an extraordinary effect, as if a fuse has been lit […]
A joint post with Baa Humbug
It’s all about audacity.
Michael Mann’s contribution to modern science may one day be remembered as the guy who made it statistically possible to get a thousand year temperature graph using any local telephone directory as a data source. (Who needs tree-rings?)
If you were a guy who’d been caught producing scientific work so inept that people could pour in random data and get the same “curve”, then you might take a satirical video on the chin (or crawl into a hole). But if you’re Michael Mann, and you also used the wrong proxy, you hid your data, used graphs upside down, and invented deceptive “tricks” to hide declines, then you might call your lawyers.
The Minnestoans for Global Warming (M4GW) made the hilariously popular Hide The Decline video, which has now been removed from YouTube. Mann claims they defamed him “by leaving viewers with the incorrect impression that he falsified data to generate desired results in connection with his research activities”. The Minnesotans said “please do”, and responded undaunted by producing a new version (see below).
10 out of 10 based on 4 ratings […]
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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