First Dog socks now in stock at the Crikey Emporium!
A cautionary tale…
The Libs are far from finished with Turnbull
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In the legendary “Entirely a matter for you” sketch in which Peter Cook savaged the judge’s summing-up in the notorious 1979 Jeremy Thorpe trial, he invited the jury to disregard the evidence presented by a hit-man entirely on the basis that he was “unable to carry out the simplest murder plot without cocking it up, to the distress of many”. The words perfectly sum up the Liberal Party of 2009. They are such staggeringly inept assassins that their plots are as much a danger to themselves as to the intended victim, one Malcolm Bligh Turnbull. You had to shake yourself yesterday, pinch yourself to make sure you weren’t experiencing the effects of some powerful hallucinogens, or that David Lynch hadn’t taken over directing Australian politics, or that we hadn’t slipped into some strange parallel universe. We’ve all grown used to the Prime Minister insisting that the CPRS will address climate change, a statement palpably, ludicrously wrong but apparently accepted with equanimity by the opposition and much of the media. But that was as nothing to Kevin Andrews, a man whose career of public service remains admirably untainted by evidence of competence or common sense, offering himself as a serious candidate for the leadership of his party, complete with a half-hour long doorstop in which he put forward his formidable claims for the position. I repeat, Kevin Andrews. Do not adjust your set. That he didn’t even get to enter the ring with Turnbull, because there wasn’t enough votes for a spill, was further demonstration of the frightening levels of incompetence among Turnbull’s would-be killers. Instead, we got a sort of de facto contest, won by Turnbull/let’s not have a spill 48 to Andrews/yeah bring it on 35. Five would have been a triumph for Turnbull. 15, not too bad — just the denialists and fanatics such as Jensen and Tuckey. 25 — ouch — that would have been damaging. 35 is confirmation Turnbull, probably the most brilliant and certainly the richest man ever to lead a federal opposition, won’t be with us for much longer. 35 is demonstration that it’s not merely the climate denialists, it’s MPs and Senators genuinely angry about Turnbull’s handling of the CPRS, regardless of how they feel on the issue. Turnbull has intimated he will change, that he will be more consultative and inclusive. What he really needs, one suspects, is a complete personality transplant, because Turnbull, a near force of nature who has swept all before him in careers across the media, law, merchant banking and IT, seems unable to stop those brain snaps that routinely derail him. The CPRS Bills are now making their way through the Senate. The bells are regularly ringing here in APH, and Liberal senators are routinely crossing the floor. It’s now almost a non-event, in the same way the permanent opposition of the Nats is no longer even newsworthy. But the next challenge for Turnbull is the reshuffle, which cannot be delayed much longer. The reshuffle is an opportunity to promote new talent such as Simon Birmingham and Jamie Briggs but it is also an opportunity to reconcile with party conservatives, to try to heal the gulf that grew wider yesterday with Matthias Cormann, Brett Mason and Mitch Fifield resigning their shadow parliamentary secretaryships. A frontbench line-up that punishes conservatives will virtually guarantee trouble from the get-go. The reshuffle is therefore a test of just how committed Turnbull is to trying to rebuild his party’s cohesion. The biggest question mark is over Andrew Robb, and whether he will return to the frontbench when he recovers. It is hard to see how Turnbull would have him back, and yet how could he not — Robb adds much-needed ballast to a lightweight leadership group (Joe Hockey, Julie Bishop) and leaving him on the backbench risks turning him into a leader-in-waiting around whom conservatives can gather. Robb has something that neither Tony Abbott nor Joe Hockey can provide — he can reach out to those on the other side of the moderate-conservative divide that is entrenched in the party. Robb is a conservative, but not painfully so like Abbott (and certainly not when it comes to the monarchy). He’s also got more policy grunt than both men put together, with a strong economics background. Both healing and some substantial policy are desperately needed by the Liberals. Robb’s only, and major, problem is that he’s a politician’s politician, and unlikely to find while appeal or recognition in the electorate, although his battle with depression will have lifted his profile. All three men know it’s a poisoned chalice but someone has to get them back to Plan A, which was always to avoid going backwards at the coming election so that 2013 is a real contest against what will be by then a middle-aged Rudd government. This time last year Turnbull took a savage hit in the polls after the Nationals and some Liberals defied him to cross the floor. It was during a late-night Senate sitting that bordered on farce and exposed real tensions not just in the coalition but within the Liberals, especially around Nick Minchin, who famously declared he had been in the toilet during the crucial vote. Exactly one year later and the coalition, far from progressing from that point, has gone backwards. The Nats are defying the Liberals, and there are far more Liberal Senators prepared to cross the floor. The Liberals have promised to get their act together — again — but it has all the authenticity of Turnbull’s assurance that he’ll turn into Mr Nice Guy. Just when you think they’ve hit bottom, the Liberals surprise by finding new ways to tear themselves apart. Who seriously thinks they have finished? |
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76 Comments
This wasn’t 35 votes for Andrews. In a way, it wasn’t even 35 votes against Turnbull, so much as 35 votes against participation in the 21st century.
Maybe they can hire FAUX NEWS to lie for them, Bolt and Ackerman and Devine to shill for them (which they do now) or better still borrow Palin and Beck,now there’s a winning combination.
A nice piece, Bernard. I enjoy your writing, the more so when I come across lovely sentences like this one: “But that was nothing to Kevin Andrews…” Beautiful.
Oddly enough, this was never about removing Turnbull per se. He has made it thus. Therein lies so much of his ineptitude. I notice the premier of WA today quoted as also lambasting Turnbull for effectively making this appaling CRPS scheme his own.
JR what about O’Reilly?
Bernard
totally agreed a very ‘altered states’ Lynchian hyperreal slow motion banal day for OZ polititcs.
Kevin Andrews the anal in banal was fabulous how he try to convince himself and others that a vote 48 to 35 equalled a difference of only SEVEN between him and Turnbull ( Mark Simkin took on Andrews dodgey maths holus bolus) 48 - 7 = 35 ???
I think he was so out of his mind on endorphins he did the maths on 45 to 38 which of course does equal seven.
But it was interesting how that wasn’t newsworthy in itself, i.e. that it was a difference of 13 votes when Andrews said it was seven?
Evidently:
35+7=42
48-7=41
42>41
I’m afraid Andrews is correct.
Well it’s the article that a political journalist who isn’t would write.
And he did.
Twin Peaks red roomed midget with the speech impediment and tortured rhetoric reminds me of someone but he doesn’t lead the Liberal Party.
The only redeeming feature about the past 2 days and it is not a minor one, is that Turnbull owns this stinking CPRS but not necessarily the Libs per se.
And he’s not going to be around for long.
The question is whether Turnbull is more Jeff Kennett or Mark Latham?
As you say he is potentially a force of nature. He’s incredibly capable. But he’s going to stamp on some toes on the way through.
As for a reshuffle. Promote anyone with talent who supported you. Find someone talentless who caused trouble and banish them.
Does anybody, apart from himself, seriously think that Kevin Andrews has Prime Ministerial electoral appeal?
The guy looks and talks like the spokesman for the morticians association.
Peoples is applying the screws.
When will Turnbull do the right thing?
Conservatives, the poor bast@rds. If they can’t win, they need to bring anybody they can down with them, childish really! Look at what they did to the dumocrats. In the coalition, they hide ignorantly behind a Liberal banner. This mental disorder is only treatable with open mindedness and small dosages of intellect. The Nationals, well they’re just a luddite throw-back joke. Now, let’s find a way to get them all into one party. Throw in a few old lefty hacks from the ALP and the Greens, sterilize them so they can’t breed or infect others, let nature and time do its thing and the rest of us can get on with making this country and the world a better place to live.
Abbo has resigned from the shadow ministry! Hear the drum beat. Its coming.
Kevin Andrews was just a John Redwood-type stalking horse…
Well I disagree that the Libs will be decimated - there is a chance that the public might see this as a conscience vote where those of conscience won’t be compromised.
There are plenty on the other side who would like to join them belive me. Both Rudd and Turnbull are globalists - they’re just a bit before their time and the public is still capable of smelling a rat.
It may be that the Australian people have decided to wake up and support a new party which represents their intersts rather than those of global banks and corporations that couldn’t care ess whether we lived or died. A party that is truly representing the public and not the UN and the global groups who own it. This isn’t about global warming as much as global governance. It is against those who would submit to the unilateral decisions of an unelected intenrational elite in favour of those who believe we as humans, have the capacity to make our own way.
Ha! I note Keane on the blog is lamenting Turnbull’s loss already.
The hypocrisy is as laughable as it is predictable.
According to Bernard, Turnbull was just too “moderate” for the Liberal base. ‘Ya think Bernard or maybe he was too ‘progressive’ a leftist liberal?
So ‘progressive’, in fact, he acted against the interests of his party and his nation.
He needs now to do the right thing.
MAD MONK MAKES MOVE.
The HeraldSun seems a little confused: “Tony Abbott posed to resign from Liberal Party”
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/tony-abbott-posed-to-resign-from-liberal-party/story-e6frf7l6-1225804266670
EnergyPedant, Malcolm will be the new Jeff Kennett. JK also had a long haul as Opposition Leader. And heaven knows, we will need a Jeff Kennett after one or more terms of this Labor government!
John James, Abbo has no credibility. He has changed his position on the ETS on an almost daily basis.
” because there wasn’t enough votes for a spill, ” BK, that would be “weren’t” but otherwise spot on.
This is better than Xmas & Hogswatch & Beltane rolled into one - as much as i wanted K Android to lead the tories into oblivion, the prospect of the Mad Monk doing so, with his jesuit scourge, is too delightful to contemplate.
Pass the popcorn, somebody…
The Mad Monk is electoral poison, full stop. Even before his double about face (with pike) over the ETS, he was toxic to the electorate. If Hockey won’t stand (and why would he?) and Abbott is silly enough to stand in front of this rabid rabble they will be annihilated at the next poll.
For once, just this once, I actually feel some sympathy for Turnbull…but I’m sure it will pass, as will he.
Should anyone care to watch the humorous Peter Cook sketch the redoubtable Mr Keane mentions at the head of the article, you can find it here.
Robb is the stand-out man of substance on the Liberal front bench. But I agree he is not obviously agreeable enough to pull in the votes. Hockey is the mirror image.
How can we avoid politics becoming a beauty contest?
^ “How can we avoid politics becoming a beauty contest?”
A: Elect Charles Wilson Tuckey.
I think I’ll go with the beauty contest. There are some prices that are too high to pay…
What Mr. Rudd?
I can choose to be a denialist and murderer of my own and my fellow Australian’s children and grandchildren or I can choose virtue over evil and vote for your lifesaving legislation?
And it’s a matter entirely for me?
Thank you Mr Rudd. Thank you Mr Keane.
Oh and thank you Mr Stilgherrian……
O.K. Mr Rudd……
You can shove your simultaneously futile and obnoxious legislation up your jumper
JamesK,
“When will Turnbull do the right thing?”
Malcolm has done the right thing all along.
What I suppose you really mean is “When will the anti-Turnbull forces get their act together?”
The answer to that is that they have no plausible leader.
Malcolm is the one to drag the party into the 21st century.
Ben, good pick up: “Tony Abbott posed to resign from Liberal Party”.
Maybe he has realised that he is not a liberal and he wants to go and start his own party.
Whoever wrote the headline should have read the article.
The correct headline should have been “resigns from front bench”.
Even that misses the bigger picture - according to the Australian, “up to a third of [the] frontbench” have announced an intention to resign.
Yes, my comment was purely ironical.
I read somewhere that out of the Liberal members who hold marginal seats, the vast majority are supporting the ETS. If the supposed community backlash against the ETS were really that bad, the marginal seat holders would not be supporting it.
I’m probably preaching to the converted here.
Someone just tweated “If you’re going to war the only exit plan is to come home when you won!” An American, so probably not talking about us, but it feels relevant somehow.
It sounds like another discussion of when to get out of Iraq.
I quite liked him too Jillian.
But passing this legislation before the US ratifies similar targets is nonsensical.
He could have unified sceptics and believers alike and done the right thing by the country. His arrogance has brought this on. Nothing else.
If he had resigned tonight, he might yet have been a future leader but his press conference has sealed both his short-term and long-term future.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the conservatives within the Liberal party gained control of the agenda as the Howard Govt entered its last term and saddled the party with policies such as Workchoices. Prior to that, Howard was a very pragmatic leader (hence his success), some may say cynical (but aren’t they all).
It was all too late to “turn the ship around” when Howard himself put forward his own plans for an ETS….and therefore attempt to win back some of the middle ground.
The conservatives are now exerting their significant muscle and it looks increasingly likely that they will take the whole party a few steps to the right and effectively leave the middle ground to Labor. This may allow them to be “true to themselves” but the electoral consequences of departing the middle ground are well known. They seem to be preparing themselves for several terms in opposition.
Mike,
There is a large number of former Liberal voters who will not want to vote Liberal (or Labor) if what you describe occurs, which looks very possible. Ironically, when Howard put forward his plans for an ETS, Malcolm was the Environment Minister. This extreme behaviour we are seeing is not about climate change. It is about control of the party.
@Jillian. Could be. I was thinking Afghanistan, given that Vietnamification seems pretty much complete in Iraq. Could be both.
I think Howard’s problem was success.
Getting control of the Senate meant he no longer needed to listen to those outside the party.
And he’d gotten rid of pretty much anyone inside the party who was both prepared and competent to tell him anything he didn’t want to hear.
That’s two problems Malcolm doesn’t have to deal with in the immediate future.
You can see now why Costello left, fancy tying to lead that bunch of luddites.
The silence of the usual rightard luddites that frequent this forum is deafening.
Joy to all and have a very merry Christmas. It’s shaping up to be a beauty, no, it already is a beauty.
I beg your pardon Phil. Either you are blind or you’re not including me in your “usual rightard luddites” category.
It would disappoint me greatly if an extreme partisan twit like you failed to appreciate the meaning of my posts on this thread.
Perhaps I’ll have to dumb down my message so even you can understand?
I notice that also JohnJames and RichardWilson gave dissenting voice to the usual inane leftward rabble commentary.
The ever pathetically predictable Phil Coorey in the SMH reckons “Joe Hockey is preparing himself to take the leadership of the Liberal Party by abandoning his support for Labor’s emissions trading scheme.”
Apparently this was because Joe tweeted:
“Hey team re The ETS. Give me your views please on the policy and political debate. I really want your feedback.”
I notice that The Australian and the Fairfax /Age lot continue to avoid publicising the mounting firestorm over Climategate indicating to me that they are still supporting the Rudd/Turnbull clique on climate change. Get a load of the headlines below from various papers and media around the world which has got to be one of the reasons the Libs are gettin’ out. My suspicions are that Rudd made promises to the global climate trading cabal about delivering Australia, from which they would be able to leverage a global trading scheme. But it’s looking more like he is not going to be able to deliver even with the career ending support from fellow globalists on the other side of the chamber. Fortunately there are not so many lemmings in the Senate.
George Monbiot – UK Guardian – November 25, 2009
Pretending that this isn’t a real crisis isn’t going to make it go away. One of the most damaging emails was sent by the head of the climatic research unit, Phil Jones. He wrote “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” […]
Manufacturing consensus: why Climategate hurts the warming faith
Andrew Bolt, Herald-Sun
Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 08:31am
Ilya Somin, associate professor at George Mason University School of Law: I thought that global warming was probably a genuine and serious problem because that is what the overwhelming majority of relevant scientists seem to believe, and I generally didn’t doubt their objectivity. At the very least, the Climategate revelations should weaken our confidence in the above conclusion. The New Atlantis agrees:
The evidence of scientific dishonesty supplied by these communications is so copious it’s hard to know where to begin an attempt to describe them.
The Skeptics Are Vindicated
By David Warren. The Ottawa Citizen, November 23, 2009
By releasing into the Internet about a thousand internal e-mails from the servers of the Climate Research Unit in the University of East Anglia — in some respects the international clearing house for climate change “science” — he has (or they have) put observers in a position to see that claims of conspiracy and fraud were not unreasonable.
More generally, we have been given the materials with which to obtain an insight into how all modern science works when vast amounts of public funding is at stake and when the vested interests associated with various “progressive” causes require a particular scientific result.
What Is — and What Isn’t — Evidence of Global Warming
November 25, 2009 - by William M. Briggs, Pajamas Media
“Climategate” has everybody rethinking global warming. Many are wondering — if leading scientists were tempted to finagle their data, is the evidence for catastrophic climate change weaker than previously thought? Actually, the evidence was never even evidence.
News Flash! The latest on the last whereabouts of the missing last known rightard woodworm. I’m Sorry to have to inform you all that it’s body was found today, yes like all his kind, dead in a brick! Authorities expect no foul play.
My view.
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The science is solid. If Hansen et al were so careerist they would never have stood against W Bush regime so long.
East Anglia a clearing house for NASA? Oh yeah pull the other one playing jingle bells.
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The fear and loathing and suspicion of the Coalition is most definitely ramped up by the congenital choreographical spin and pathological wedging and co-option practised by the ALP against the Coalition, exploiting the idealism, science and facts applied by the green movement. When an issue as important as global warming comes along the ALP can only see as far as their corporate self interest to maintain power in government. Way insufficient.
That’s sad, and unworthy, and leads to the mad tit for tat in the big media.
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It is totally unsurprising of Wong after the NSW Forests debacle of 1998-2000 - with 1/4 saved, 3/4 locked into 20 year logging contracts contrary to scientific advice - to promote a hopelessly weak ETS and argue constantly, tediously she has invented sliced bread. If she really believes her rhetoric that’s even sadder for our country and planet.
…………………….
And as for the rednecks, this hopeless claim Australia is only 1.4% of global emissions is just pathetic. Around 1/3 of total global emissions are all made up by countries of about 1% or less. If we can’t reform, no one can or will. We have to lead the SME countries or never look in the mirror again for shame.
@Tom McLloughlin
You gave your opinion and as always provide some argument to back it up. I don’t agree with your opinion and that’s ok.
But I completely reject your assertion that “(t)he science is solid”
What evidence have you for that assertion other than the facile one you gave?
Your argument that Hansen argued his case when Bush was President is bunkum. His funding was no less under Bush. Furthermore all the leftwing pundits predicted an easy Kerry win in 2004. Furthermore the Republicans lost control of the Congess in 2006. Furthermore Ronald Reagan was still in power when Hansen nailed his flag to the mast in June 1988.
Here are some other types of flags……. red ones in the behavior of mainstream scientists that could be used as prompts for examining more carefully the ‘consensus’ science position.
1 Increasingly frequent ad hominem attacks toward those challenging their positions - some not even necessarily sceptics.
2 Refusal to make data public available or even to those suitably qualified entities willing to do the leg-work to check the data and the meta-data and statistical methodologies to develop that meta-data.
3 Refusal to engage in discussions of the actual science, on their
assertion that it is too complicated for others to understand.
4 Questioning and arrogantly demeaning the credentials of those challenging the consensus position.
5 Refusal to make computer code being used to analyze the data public.
We now have more than this long history of appalling rhetoric and behaviour going back at least 2 decades.
We now have evidence of conspiracy, illegality and evidence of massaging data to support their pet theory rather than massaging or changing theories to support the data.
Moreover there is a strongly self-aggrandising motive.
Those old chestnuts of power, prestige, position, possession and permanence.
This Tom……… this is absolutely not how science works
JamesK
Those annoying scientist, some of them still think the bible is the word of god. Go figure that!
As I was saying “My view”. What can I say, I’m a zoology grad. I’ve considered green politics full time for about 17 years. I’ve won some big ones and lost a few. I’ve dipped into the scientific writing a little. I’m impressed with scientist Andrew Glickson (spelling?) on crikey here. The glacier melt is a hammer blow.
I personally think as an amateur global dimming via particulate aerosols from huge, truly unprecedented air pollution over China and also India will have reduced warming a little over the last few years, without altering the trend of forcings to borrow the jargon.
Another hammer blow of concern is the reduction in size of the calcium carbonate carapace of microscopic critters/algae by about 1/3 compared to historical metrics, indicating a change in ocean chemistry, at the base of the food web.
The increased rate of sea rise, as distinct from the tiny change, is truly alarming suggesting the start of an exponential pattern.
I do imagine there will be traffic on detail in both directions but I trust the intense scientific competition amongst academic scientists to get this generally right. The academic journals are seriously tough forums. I think it would very very irresponsible not to take their advice seriously.
As a lawyer now, I don’t find the latest ‘scandal’ email strings sufficiently probative. That some scientists are being presented as partisan or engaging in the political aspects of this is not really so surprising. More surprising that they aren’t more political like me, having felt frustrated at big science self censorship in critique of govt policy for a long time: The sixth historical extinction in 5 billion years apparently.
On a rhetorical point, if CSIRO can prove to so much fanfare they invented wireless internet technology, under major corporate legal duress recently, then again I think we can trust the organisational integrity of the CSIRO here generally also on such as climate policy.
I have to tell you I attended the second half of a community debate of high quality in Bega NSW church hall last weekend. It was a very moderate and thoughtful crowd and standing room only. The skeptic speaker Rob High, local developer, was witty and articulate but he was up against compelling graphs and data from local MD doctor Matt Nott, not one from the IPCC he said. Mr High was beaten on the perceptions and likely the content. Dr Nott has pioneered solar on 6 local surf clubs - conservative places.
With respect Tom there is a scientific expert in each of the issues you describe who would disagree with you.
Your acceptance of IPCC reports is not unusual.
It’s your view that “(t)he science is solid” is what is objectionable.
The single most laughably disgusting statement of thei IPCC is that their computer models are correct with an 90% certainty. It’s a joke. Their models keep getting it wrong despite their constant corrections of the different wighting of various variables.
They can’t account for 8 years of global cooling nor of the absent ‘hot spot’ in equatorial troposphere.
The critters:
http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2009/11/25/78355_local-news.html
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Ocean_acidification
http://www.co2science.org/subject/c/summaries/calcificationother.php
http://www.co2science.org/subject/c/summaries/calcification.php
The glaciers:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/10/new-geologic-evidence-of-past-periods-of-oscillating-abrupt-warming-and-cooling/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/29/study-glaciers-defied-hotter-temperaturs-9000-years-ago/
http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/aug102009/309.pdf
In terms of the CRU files:
1.Australian temp manipulations:
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=317
2Other than merely the extraordinary emails
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/22/cru-emails-may-be-open-to-interpretation-but-commented-code-by-the-programmer-tells-the-real-story/
I’m scientifically trained and these cowboys are no scientists.
Their scientific methodology of computer generated predictions isn’t really akin to traditional science.
This isn’t the end of this. It is only the beginning of the end.
Expect to hear more revelations in the months ahead as the data is examined. There may even be more illicit releases.
RichardW - how come you omitted the lead article from Hogfart Bugle & Advertiser “Human Tools found in Dinosaur Nest”?
Let me tell you a story AR….
A psychologist by the name of Leon Festinger wrote a book in 1956 called When Prophecy Fails in which he describes reading an item in his local newspaper headlined “Prophecy from planet Clarion, call to city: flee flood.” Michigan housewife, Marian Keech, claimed to have received messages from alien beings on the planet Clarion in the form of “automatic writing”. The messages revealed that the world would end in a great flood before dawn on December 21, 1954. The Keech group was strongly committed to this belief. Group members had left jobs, college, and spouses, and had given away money and possessions in preparation for their departure in a flying saucer at midnight on December 20. The saucer was being sent by those from Clarion to rescue the true believers.
Come midnight there was a no show on the saucer. After almost five hours and with dawn approaching, another message by automatic writing appeared to Keech stating that the God of Earth had decided to spare the planet from destruction because of the devotion to cause of the little group.
That same afternoon of December 21, Mrs. Keech called the local papers and the group began an urgent campaign to spread its message to as broad an audience as possible.
Festinger called this effect “cognitive dissonance” which he said was brought about by the failed prophecy. Altering the belief he argued would be difficult because Keech and her group were committed at considerable expense to maintaining it.
He argued “if more and more people could be persuaded that their system of belief was correct, then clearly it must after all be correct.”
If Keech could add consonant elements by converting others to the basic premise, then the magnitude of her dissonance would be reduced. Festinger and his colleagues predicted that the inevitable disconfirmation of the prophecy would be followed by enthusiastic proselytizing to seek social support to lessen the pain of a “disconnect” in the belief system.
Festinger concluded five conditions needed to be present, if someone is to become a more fervent believer after a breakdown in the belief system:
• A belief must be held with deep conviction and it must have some relevance to what the believer does or how he behaves.
• The person holding the belief must have committed himself to it and taken some important action that is difficult to undo. In general, the more difficult the action is to undo, the greater the individual’s commitment to the belief.
• The belief must be sufficiently specific and concerned with the real world so that events may unequivocally refute the belief.
• Such undeniable conflicting evidence must occur and be recognized by the individual holding the belief.
Do these approximate your present situation AR?
I agree Brian. Most people are not as invested in environmentalism as people who sell everything and join a cult.
People with a very strong pro or anti stance on any contested issue risks have reached the point where they are mentally filtering out all evidence that suggests they could be wrong, and they give too much importance to any evidence that supports their case. And that can be a slippery slope because it means that all the evidence that does get processed reinforces the existing stance, and leads to demonising the ‘opposition’.
And if you are completely sure that I’m talking about ‘the other side’ of this issue, then, well, nuthin.
I agree Ben. There are so many agendas involved here and the reality of climate change is only one of them and maybe not even the main one in the minds of a lot of people.
Brian/Jillian - thanks, i thought that i’d slipped into some alternative universe with DickW’s
putative parable. I’ve no idea why he specified me as recipient. Anotherone to add to the lists of James’s, methinks.
@AR: At a guess, RW is trying to explain why you don’t accept what he thinks is obvious. It’s because you are suffering from contagious cognitive dissonance.
@Ben Aveling
The nub of the scientific method is rigorous honesty.
All potential and even unconscious personal influence on interpretation of data and recording of data is minimised. How it is minimised forms a significant chunk of any scientific paper in peer reviewed literature.
These AGW science promulgators have several problems.
1. Some like James Hansen have described coal mines as “death trains”.
That means I read his paper with his declared bias in mind. It lowers the credibility of his work. As do many other known facts about James Hansen.
2. This crazy annd intense belief is now clearly ingrained in many of what is in fact a clique.and this clique have demonstrated their willingness to doctor data.
3. They refuse to share their codes to make what is known as metadata. They even refuse to disclose raw data. They refuse to delineate their computer codes. They refuse to demonstrate their weightings of various dataset variables in their computer models.
These people are scientists in name only.
In respect of your argument about “very strong pro or anti stance on any contested issue”. That anti-science.
Moreover political moderate can also mean wishy washy. It can mean a willingness to merely “make what you can out of politics” because moderates are not strong on ideals nor conviction. They are the ones most likely to be corrupt.
What I don’t seem to understand is the denialist’s lack of common sense on this issue. If they’re right about climate change and turns out to be a furry then all we have done is weaned our economies of fossil fuels which will run out at some point anyway, what’s the problem? There’s no argument that the sooner we do that the better for us and the planet. As Turnbull and others who have a grasp on this issue have said, “we need to give the planet the benefit of the doubt”.
If on the other hand, if the denialists are wrong and nothing is done, then it seems that a fair bit of suffering will occur without most of us lifting a finger to prevent it at best, at worse, well I don’t need to go there.
I also see at the heart of this problem is the rights parasitic connection to the fossil fuel lobby with their well resource hand in the political rights pocket. Let’s not forget the fundamentalists in religion which also has deep connections on the right as well, which also clouds their foresight and dictates their judgment. It even looks as though a religous nut will be the next leader of the coalition, says it all really.
You would think though that anybody that puts that much faith into the proven myths of the past written by the ancients in ignorance of their world, would be screaming and running to the hills with the body of evidence science is turning out daily it seems on climate change these days. Maybe we need a Noah to come forth with his fix it proposal.
@Phil
What I don’t seem to understand is the catastrophist’s lack of common sense on this issue………
The CPRS will cost our economy, damage our international trade
competitiveness, cost jobs, put our future energy security at risk and hurt regional Australia. It will make the average punter poorer, bankers,dealers and lawyers richer and the government more interfering in citiens’ lives than ever before in history.
Living under the Sherrif of Nottingham was better than what Rudd’s proposing. All that without helping to achieve the real objective – a reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.
And I wouldn’t be boasting about the “body of evidence science is turning out daily” if I were you:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703499404574558070997168360.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_RIGHTTopCarousel
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-its-the-totalitarianism-stupid/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/27/uea-climate-scientist-possible-that-i-p-c-c-has-run-its-course/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8383713.stm
@jamesk
It’s a wonder you don’t have a Fox news as a reference as well. Your case is based on some reportedly stolen emails from where, East Bumcrack or somewhere, great work detective.
@Phil
No my case is not based on that at all.
You are floundering without an argument Phil.
One of my ‘bumcrack’ references above was a call from Mike Hulme for an end to the IPCC.
Mike Hulme is listed as the 10th most cited author in the world in the field of climate change, between 1999 and 2009.
I see many climate scientists including Eduardo Zorita, Scientist at the Institute for Coastal Research, specialist in Paleoclimatology, Review Editor of Climate Research and IPCC co-author and Dr. Hans von Storch Director of Institute for Coastal Research of the GKSS Research Centre in Geesthacht are now calling for Michael Mann, Phil Jones and Stefan Rahmstorf to be removed from the IPCC process.
I see that there will be US Congressional and British Governmental inquiries into the scandal. Another of my bumcrack references.
But you say in effect: ‘move along nothing to see here ..’
There there Phil, you don’t need to let reality interfere with your delusions if you just don’t want it to…..
@JamesK
You are loud and prolific. I can tell that just by your waffling. Are you right? I don’t know. But it takes a real ‘denialist’ to be able to watch a coal-fired power station for 24 hours, 7 days a week etc. and somehow conclude that the intensity of that pollution will not cause irreconcilable damage to the environment.
For me the recorded/modelled science is somewhat contradictory. The facts of demographics, power generation, manufacturing etc. are not. Exponential growth in these areas is simply not sustainable - if you argue against that you’re deluded. I’ll explain: the size of the earth is finite, water resources are finite and so is the capacity for the earth’s natural environmental systems to cope with gross chemical imbalances. To have the nerve to believe that the earth can cope with the sort of human activity prevalent over the past 200 or so years is bewildering.
Thanks Ed.
Do you believe governments can manage the planet’s climate?
If the industrial revolution never happened then would you be happy?
Are you suggesting we have polluted air in Australia as a result of coal fire generators?
If so, provide the evidence.
Provide evidence for irreversible damage as a result of coal fired generators here in Australia.
It is not that I speak for pollution.
Funnily enough I want a healthy environment for the ensuing generations.
Who but a psychopath wouldn’t?
Is it the land?
Do you want Rudd to halt immigration?
Do you, like Clive Hamilton, want a totalitarian government to lower CO2 emissions?
Do you, like John Holdren, want to add a contraceptive to the water supply?
Do you believe that the millions whose lives improve as they obtain electricity for the first time this year and the next 50 years because of coal should be prevented from getting it?
If you want to reduce Australia’s CO2 emissions considerably then why not simply pay to help the owners of Australia’s two brown coal generators in the LaTrobe Valley to change over to LPG/LNG.
No need for government taxation and interference in every aspect of citizens’ lives. No need for an ETS/CPRS (dishonest version of the same thing). And a fraction of the cost.
I am at a loss to understand why the people attacking James K want to label him a friend of the polluters as Turnbull has been labeling the rest of the Liberal Party. Surely there are more than two positions on the continuum of belief? There are now many thousands of scientists and well as those with a background in scientific method who are saying “show me the evidence” and, it is just not there. Well, if it is, no one’s showing or telling.
I’ll tell how ridiculous this has become. Rudd and Turnbull are now saying that if we don’t go to Copenhagen with this bum tax plan for Australia ratified, this country will burn up by next February. Just look how hot it was today for example!
Well even the non- scientific public smells a rat.
Think past your rhetoric all you ad homonym attack dogs for just 30 seconds. Don’t you ever ask yourselves “Why so anxious Two Dogs?” Doesn’t it strike you as a bit odd? Why is the Australian tail wagging the UN dog unless that is what Rudd and Turnbull have promised to deliver to their UN masters. An agreement; any agreement. I cannot explain the vituperation otherwise.
Before you turn your barbarous tongues on me and start with that incessant ni! ni! ni; let me state for the record that while I hate all manner of chemicals, chemical dyes, fumigants, artificial colours and flavours, sprays, fumes, soot and traditional carbon particles, poisons and petroleum based products (which pretty much keeps me out of supermarkets), and just about anything that damages the planet; I ask that we leave the C02 for the plants because they need it.
By the way, the same global governance Nazis who a pushing this global tax cr@p, have been busy selling off the world’s lungs, polluting the rivers and oceans and doing just about anything they can to screw the place while ensuring that they get little argument from the locals. But the Third World isn’t as willing to buy into this charade as they once did and many are saying nyet.
Anyway back to Turnbull; who seems to me to be determined to drag down the entire parliamentary system as if it were his alternative brief, if he can’t deliver to the hidden hand on the big climate scare campaign.
You have to wonder why it is not possible to allow that half of the party who are really not convinced about the perils of C02 to have their senate enquiry, especially given all of the new material that has come to light, as well as the polls which show most people just don’t understand. Well, they’ll understand soon enough when they get additional taxes slapped on everything that will make the GST look like a library fine.
Not a word about that from Mr. Turnbull, just scare mongering about how if Australians don’t do this and that, we will disappear into the flames of hell by tomorrow or next week at the latest. People believed these jokers as if they were somehow trustworthy.
Never trust the State if you want your children to wake up free tomorrow. Since Federation, the State has acquired more and more power at greater and greater cost to us in return for less and less – just ask the Aborigines what they are getting for the money being spent? In this latest charade, you are witnessing the handing over of the last of our sovereignty to the UN.
Who do you want to run this country? The Australian people or the UN? I think we already know Malcolm Turnbull’s and Kevin Rudd’s answer.
Sorry James, I’ve ignored a lot of your rambling recently, but this is nonsense. I read your ‘references’ above and find them all utterly without backbone. From pajamas.media (a reputable scientific journal)
“The good news is that “anthropogenic global warming” — the most costly and widespread scientific fraud in history — just crumbled to fairy dust. We have emails from some of the biggest malefactors to prove it.”
Crumbled to fairy dust? That seems a little premature to me, a little shrill perhaps. Like the way Turnbull tried to prosecute the Grech email affair. He recognised he only had one chance before the true nature was revealed and went for it, all guns blazing. The right recognise this for what it is; inconclusive unrelated email traffic. They’re trying everything they can to gain some points from this.
Explain this. How do a bunch of ambiguous emails disprove chapter 1 here, which contains a summary of 29,500 observations that the climate is being changed by human actions.
Not that I diagree over closing the LaTrobe valley generators. Would cost less and give more benefits than the CPRS.
The scientists on the IPCC Panel are at each others throats Evan. They don’t argue there is no climate change but they argue about what may be producing it how the scientific process should work:
See below from Eduoardo Zorita’s site:
http://coast.gkss.de/staff/zorita/myview.html
Why I think that Michael Mann, Phil Jones and Stefan Rahmstorf should be barred from the IPCC process
Eduardo Zorita, November 2009
“Short answer: because the scientific assessments in which they may take part are not credible anymore.
“A longer answer: My voice is not very important. I belong to the climate-research infantry, publishing a few papers per year, reviewing a few manuscript per year and participating in a few research projects. I do not form part of important committees, nor I pursue a public awareness of my activities. My very minor task in the public arena was to participate as a contributing author in the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC.
By writing these lines I will just probably achieve that a few of my future studies will, again, not see the light of publication. My area of research happens to be the climate of the past millennia, where I think I am appreciated by other climate-research ‘soldiers’. And it happens that some of my mail exchange with Keith Briffa and Timothy Osborn can be found in the CRU-files made public recently on the internet.
“I may confirm what has been written in other places: research in some areas of climate science has been and is full of machination, conspiracies, and collusion, as any reader can interpret from the CRU-files. They depict a realistic, I would say even harmless, picture of what the real research in the area of the climate of the past millennium has been in the last years. The scientific debate has been in many instances hijacked to advance other agendas.
These words do not mean that I think anthropogenic climate change is a hoax. But I am also aware that in this thick atmosphere -and I am not speaking of greenhouse gases now- editors, reviewers and authors of alternative studies, analysis, interpretations,even based on the same data we have at our disposal, have been bullied and subtly blackmailed. In this atmosphere, Ph D students are often tempted to tweak their data so as to fit the ‘politically correct picture’. “
Read it for yourself!
I understand that the process of producing the IPCC documents is no doubt heated and under review. But I there’s no way you can look at those results, then look at the emails, and assume the whole thing is completely wrong. The theory might be wrong in some specifics, but it is not utterly false in every way. Further, I don’t think these sorts of ‘tell-all’ statements have very much weight; in either direction. It’s easy to imagine a jilted-lover style rebuke to the IPCC if some of your work was rejected; it’s also difficult to imagine an IPCC that works seemlessly and in which everyone agrees 100%.
But the point stands; all this talk of emails and Average Global Temperature trends are the worst type of straw men. Anyone that mentions average global temperature trends doesn’t know what they’re talking about. It’s the almost 30,000 observations that the climate is warming that is the problem Regardless of the politics of the IPCC and how this plays out as an average global temp graphs, these observations can not be refuted with rhetoric. Someone needs to go through and prove that all of these studies were wrong.
I think the reason we even talk about Ave temps and the Hockey Stick is because the denialists realise they can’t actually get their teeth into this, without something to rail against. Hence the focus on the Hockey stick and the ‘cooling since 1998 meme’. The Climate Change theory is not ‘is putting more CO2 in the atmosphere making the global average temperature go up every year’; which seems their goal to disprove. Anyone even remotely familiar with the IPCC work will realise this is but a Red Herring. The actual theory is more like ‘is changing the chemistry of the atmosphere fiddling with natural systems in a bad way’. The evidence supporting this theory is enormous, and virtually impossible to disprove.
@ Evan Beaver
As usual and as I’ve alluded to many times before, you attack the references rather than the argument I made that I used the references specifically for. It broadens the opportunity to dishonestly attack the messenger rather than the message. In fact you don’t even bother with the message at all.
But heh ok…. I’ll bite:
Pajamasmedia is an internet news organisation. It has reporters, internet tv news and opinion interviews, internet radio and the usual written op-eds and reports. The reporter here was actually a scientist to boot. What’s your problem Evan?
For instance what part of :
“All the manipulation, distortion and suppression revealed by these emails took place because it would seem these scientists knew their belief was not only correct but unchallengeable; and so when faced with evidence that showed it was false, they tried every which way to make the data fit the prior agenda. And those who questioned that agenda themselves had to be airbrushed out of the record, because to question it was simply impossible. Only AGW zealots get to decide, apparently, what science is. Truth is what fits their ideological agenda. Anything else is to be expunged. … [W]hat we are dealing with here is the totalitarian personality. One thing is now absolutely clear for all to see about the anthropogenic global warming scam: science this is not.”
…..do disagree with and why?
In terms of your question, I have to say I’m staggered with your ignorance. This is the heart of this scandal. Indeed the IPCC AR4 report more than any other IPCC review is called into question with this data and email released by a whistleblower.
Among the IPCC elite embarrassingly, if not criminally, compromised is Phillip D. Jones, a Ph.D. climatologist at the University of East Anglia whose work figured prominently in the IPCC Third Assessment Report of 2001. Jones also contributed significantly to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 (AR4), but he failed to follow through when skeptical investigators asked to review raw data associated with that report. They announced intent to use UK Freedom of Information laws to obtain the data, so Jones sent the following e-mail to one of his collaborators: “Mike, Can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise…. Can you also e-mail Gene and get him to do the same?… Will be getting Caspar to do likewise.” The Mike in this message is Michael Mann, professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University, whose influential “hockey stick” graph warning of pending global warming eco-catastrophe was found by a congressional investigation to be fraudulent. In another correspondence about AR4 labeled HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL, Jones contacted Mann regarding research critical of their global warming platform. “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report,” wrote Jones. “Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
Now Evan Beaver. This “bunch of ambiguous emails” may not quite “disprove chapter 1” but it certainly casts a pall of, dare I say, scepticism. Does it not?
Mind you if you rely on Crikey, The Age, SMH and ‘Your’ ABC you would be ignorant of these matters. And you are.
Perhaps the internet Evan? You could start with Pajamasmedia………..
I agree James, all it does though is place scepticism on their work methods and behaviour. It doesn’t mean every aspect of climate change science is wrong though, which the PJmedja quote I included alludes to.
It means these guys might be shonky operators. Fair enough. It means some of their conclusions should be re-compared to the data. But, unlike what a lot of excited internet commentators state, there is nothing in here that can overturn the whole theory. The number of observations is outrageous.
I agree Evan.
Meanwhile Rudd/Turnbull are in cahoots to pass legislation that will cost the Australian people a min of $124 billion over the ensuing decade with no benefit to be had, in isolation, for the environment even if you accept Jones and his colleagues hook, line and sinker.
Imagine the practical environmental good that a quarter of that money invested wisely could do?
And now confidence has to be restored or created in the consensus scientific view of anthropogenic gases being the cause of a runaway warming before passing similar legislation anywhere.
It is not that I do not believe in climate variation one way or another Evan - However, I am not sure that I am resposnsible and should be taxed as punishment. Lets have a better non political look at this stuff and come up with a reward based system rather than a medaevil “so tax the serfs” catch-all akin to King John. More below from your favourite source:
Vincent Gray on Climategate: ‘There Was Proof of Fraud All Along’ (PJM Exclusive)
IPCC expert reviewer Gray — whose 1,898 comments critical of the 2007 report were ignored — recently found that proof of the fraud was public for years.
November 27, 2009 - by Vincent Gray
“Nothing about the revelations surprises me. I have maintained email correspondence with most of these scientists for many years, and I know several personally. I long ago realized that they were faking the whole exercise.”
Here is the link if you can be to click it.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/vincent-gray-on-climategate-there-was-proof-of-fraud-all-along-pjm-exclusive/
RW, the taxation is not punishment for causing climate change, if we are the cause, it is merely post payment for all the luxuries you have had during your life, the provision 0f which could be the cause of climate change. The reward based system you desire is proposed in the legislation. The problem is that those who cause the highest pollution receive the greatest reward.
Greed and overpopulation are the main causes of the degredation, including climate change, of this planet. Perhaps we could solve both problems by culling the greedy, the flat earthers and
man-made climate change denialists.
Brian Kelly presumably works for Clive Hamilton.
We know Brian’s insane response to what were rhetorical questions posed to and addressed in response to Ed.
Yes to all the following and a few even more extreme questions:
“Do you want Rudd to halt immigration?
Do you, like Clive Hamilton, want a totalitarian government to lower CO2 emissions?
Do you, like John Holdren, want to add a contraceptive to the water supply?
Do you believe that the millions whose lives improve as they obtain electricity for the first time this year and the next 50 years because of coal should be prevented from getting it?”
Personally I find the Brian Kellys of this world and their mouth foaming hateful insanity thoroughly sickening.
Hmmm. This is a valid rhetorical question:
“Do you believe that the millions whose lives improve as they obtain electricity for the first time this year and the next 50 years because of coal should be prevented from getting it?”
But, the answer is going to embarrass Australia. China are going hard on their renewables program, and even barring the 3 Gorges (which lots of people view as a wild ecological disaster) they will lead the world in renewables installed in the next few years.
Australia on the other hand is paying their coal generators to stay open.
Anyone actually punched the numbers? How much could we buy all the brown coal generators (and that one in Adelaide, Hazelwood?) for, close them and replace with peaking gas turbines?
Thanks James SK you’ve made my day and proven what I’ve always thought about your ilk
While the apparently unaware Australian media rail against anyone with an alternative opinion to Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull, across the other side of the world, the English woke up to a number of articles in the Times alerting them to the fact that the whole thing is probably a scam as the Czech President advised us in January when he was head of the EU.
From The Sunday Times, November 29, 2009
“Climate change data dumped” tells us that the East Anglia clique have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based; which means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.
In another feature entitled “The great climate change science scandal” The Times talks of “leaked emails that have revealed the unwillingness of climate change scientists to engage in a proper debate with the sceptics”; while in another piece, “The great climate change science scandal” the paper talks about the original computer hack of East Anglia’s CRU emails that suggest that CRU boss Phil Jones and some colleagues, may have become so convinced of their case that they crossed the line from objective research into active campaigning ha! Ha! ha!
Why is this information not featured in our debate here? Why is it not splashed all over the papers, on the ABC news shows ? And why is the case of the Opposition being misrepresented?
If the public knew that there was a cloud over all of the data then surely they would be wondering why Turnbull and Rudd must have a result before Copenhagen at which time the whole farce is likely to have been exposed.
OMG! Thanks for the update Richard. I’m glad an Important Newspaper in England has realised this whole Global Warming thing is a farce. That’s a huge load off my mind.
JK, RW
Great work guys. You should be on more money. Your efforts won’t go unnoticed.
It surprises me the lengths to which the AGW lobby will go and that seemingly intelligent people such as yourselves can be roped in, hope the monies good. Great campaign guys.