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Monday, June 1, 2015

The Climate IS Changing

Yes, winter is upon us at the Tavern and the days as well as the nights are cooler. Cold evenings in most pubs. And a cold wind is blowing through the Public Opinion too regarding Climate Change.

The several decades-long scare about the world's climate changing so that everyone can have more of the sort of 
'Beautiful one day, Perfect the next', 
that Queenslanders enjoy and seem to thrive in, has recieved more than enough critique and scoffing to put any other political policy out of the door.  

But it hasn't.

Many of the Tavern's customers enjoy the sunshine and would welcome a few more degrees. Some dropped by to tell.

One can take a more rational approach and since all of the scandals and data-mugging that have been going on since the University of East Anglia fiasco several good tries have been made.

Bjorn Lomborg, for example published his 'Skeptical Environmentalist' quite a few years back and has built up a sound reputation in Europe. He has a fine Research Centre and his string of Asscoiates include Nobel Prize winners.

Bit of a wrong choice of words by his publisher.

When he offered to provide his and his colleagues' expertise to Oz he met with fierce resistance from the usual suspects, all 'Tolerance' and' Diversity' claimants, of course, but not really as open to enquiry as one would hope.

This below from a pay-walled 'Australian'.
Uni backs out of $4m Lomborg-led research unit

The University of Western Australia is backing out of its commitment to establish an Australian Consensus Centre with $4 million of Commonwealth funds, announcing the strength of opposition from its own staff to the involvement of controversial academic Bjorn Lomborg made the venture impossible.
The Abbott government had committed to the funding over four years, about one-third of the cost of the centre.
In a statement of “deep regret” on the university’s website tonight, UWA vice chancellor Paul Johnson said he believed the centre would deliver robust, evidence-based knowledge and advice and the involvement of Professor Lomborg was appropriate.
Perhaps if he had been a Muslim.....

“Despite all this, there remains strong opposition to the Centre. Whilst I respect the right of staff to express their views on this matter, as all universities should be places for open and honest sharing and discussion of ideas, in this case, it has placed the University in a difficult position,” he said.
“Therefore, it is with great regret and disappointment that I have formed the view that the events of the past few weeks places the Centre in an untenable position as it lacks the support needed across the University and the broader academic community to meet its contractual obligations and deliver value for money for Australian taxpayers.”
Professor Lomborg has been labelled a climate sceptic by the Greens and his involvement with the centre was opposed by the UWA student guild and by academics within the UWA Business School where the centre as to be established.
Professor Lomborg accepts the science of human-induced climate change
He has attracted controversy because he argues the risks of climate change have been overstated and that problems such as malaria deserve priority.
Lomborg has been accused of cherrypicking data to understate the threat of climate change, most recently saying the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report was alarmist citing the IPCC’s Representative Concentration Pathway 2.6 degrees, a measure for projected emissions, which predicts as little as a 1-degree rise by the end of the century.
However, that scenario is based on governments implementing greatly enhanced emissions reduction policies - such as widespread carbon pricing - for which Lomborg has argued against.
Lomborg actually believes in Climate Change, but not 'enough', it seems. There is far too much money and far too many academic reputations at stake to permit even a hint of skepticism or seeking a 'diverse' approach. They would not 'Tolerate' him. 

Now another even more high-powered voice has come along. Rafe Champion, who occupies a seat at the Catallaxian table in the P&B told us of a new book that a senior member of Obama's own Environmental Protection Agency has just finished writing.
Alan Carlin, “Environmentalism Gone Mad”. 
A must read
In case people missed this link in a recent Roundup, and the reference to Carlin's book that went with it, I read most of the book on the train to Melbourne and it is a stunning contribution to the climate science debate. He retired a few years ago and this book is the first fruits of that time spent out of the US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). 
He has a bundle of credentials that make him very hard to sideline.
He took on first rate academic training in physical science to doctoral level (Caltech) and training in economics (MIT) with publications in both economics and climate/energy science. As a lifelong environmentalist (and active camper, hiker and white water rafter) he was in the Sierra Club in the 1960s as an activist and Chapter Chairman. 
He always thought that there could be win/win outcomes for the environment and economic development if scientific and economic analysis and good will came together at the negotiating table. He applied those principles in 39 years as a manager and senior analyst at EPA.
After the turn of the century (and the millennium) he began serious investigation of the idea that the release of carbon dioxide by modern civilization will lead to catastrophic global warming. He brought to bear his scientific knowledge, his skills in economic analysis and his decades of experience in the bureaucratic procedures of the EPA. 
In recent times he observed how the EPA (loaded with environmental activists) took up President Obama's agenda to decarbonize (and impoverish) the US with an impending tsunami of regulations on CO2, ozone and any other emissions that might be controlled to hamstring energy intensive industries.
This is his account of his personal journey of discovery that concluded that the claims are based on invalid science and are being pushed by a far left wing conspiracy that tolerates no skepticism, that their solution will result in disastrous price increases and reduced reliability for electricity in the US, as it already has in Western Europe, and reductions in economic growth and living standards around the world, particularly for the less affluent.
One of his most telling criticisms of the alarmists is the way they do not practice the scientific method of rigorous testing (attempted falsification) of their hypothesis. 
As Richard Feynman explained, channeling Karl Popper, science works by guessing at a law, then deducing what you should be able to observe, then checking to see whether the expected actually happens. And if it does not happen, the guess is problematic or suspect and you need to rethink, refine, revise and re-test. 
In contrast, the climate alarmists practice "confirmation bias", taking account of anything that appears to support their position but refusing to take seriously evidence that points the other way. That is most apparent in the response to the 18 year halt to warming and the way that the dozens of models used to predict ongoing warming have been clearly falsified but are still used to frighten the horses and the politicians and the gullible mass media.
The book has many strengths: his clear commitment to protecting the environment (in reasonable ways), his combination of qualifications in hard science and economics, his experienced at the sharp end of analysis and his intimate exposure to the ever-increasing unreality of the warming fundamentalists. Plus his wide-ranging knowledge of the full range of possible explanations of climate change, notably solar activity and several other influences apart from CO2 which much more adequately account for the modest variations in global temperature of recent times.
As he looks at the way the climate debate has gone, driven by tens of billions of dollars of government funds, 
fed to "normal" (opportunistic but docile and uncritical) climate scientists and passed on to the pubic by scientifically illiterate journalists in the mass media, he wonders whether this should be seen as a false alarm, a hoax or an outright scam of epic dimensions. 
Maybe a bit of all three.
Meanwhile  that has not stopped President Obama, of course, who has told the American Coastguard's up-and-comers that they are on the front line of defence.



As for the rest of us, a nice cool pint is in order.

Or even a wee dram.


Pax.

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The Tavern gets rowdy visitors from time to time. Some are brain dead and some soul dead. They attack customers and the bar staff and piss on the carpets. Those people will not be allowed in anymore. So... Be Nice..