It seems that whenever prominent CO2-driven folks condescend or blunder into making falsifiable statements about the climate system, the system duly responds by revealing them to be false. Real Science has this beauty, using quotes from the Sidney Morning Herald:
January 4, 2008
IT MAY be time to stop describing south-eastern Australia as gripped by drought and instead accept the extreme dry as permanent, one of the nation’s most senior weather experts warned yesterday.
“Perhaps we should call it our new climate,” said the Bureau of Meteorology’s head of climate analysis, David Jones.
March 13, 2012
Changes to the system are almost certainly due to human activity.
The past two years have been Australia’s wettest two-year period since at least 1900
Yet the show goes on. They have the money, the politicians, big agencies, big finance, big green, and of course virtually all of education from nursery schools upwards. Their scandals are numerous - the list at NoTricksZone is now up at 129 items, and is surely incomplete. I suspect there are also many thousands more on smaller scales, within and around all the uncounted initiatives on the climate crisis bandwagon.
But thoughtful teachers everywhere must be asking themselves how long they must go along with this madness. On the one hand are to be found agitated activists and all the power that effective PR (such as the IPCC) and financial prizes can win, and on the other, are calmer citizens and all the integrity that careful observation and reflection can bring.
It is clear to me which side has won the financial and political battles. It is also clear which side has won the moral and intellectual ones. Which side should teachers best be on? The educational battles have also been lost, but the war is surely not yet over. I think it is in the field a war between irresponsible adults who cannot contain or cope with speculations about CO2-driven catastrophe, and responsible ones who are dismayed by over-the-top reactions to something so poorly supported by observation and experiment.
Note added 14 March 2012: Real Science has more examples here of stupid, irresponsible, and subsequently refuted claims by scientist-activists.
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Friday, 9 March 2012
Climate Week UK - a weak week weaker than ever in 2012?
That time of year again, and here I nearly missed it. Climate Week, 12-18 March 2012. It must be getting harder and harder to stir up enthusiasm for it.
It has as ever a list of supporters that would provide a decent resource for any sociologist researching into the spread of climate madness through a society. Here's how it starts, with a few politicians, one a reformed terrorist, and how it continues with various 'eminent individuals' such as Al Gore and Nicholas Stern, two famous alarmists, and a star of the 10:10 terror film 'No Pressure', Gillian Anderson:
The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg
The First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond
The First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones
The First Minister of Northern Ireland, Peter Robinson
Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, Martin McGuinness
The Leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband
Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General
Lord Anthony Giddens, sociologist
Lord Nicholas Stern (author of the Stern report)
Sir Paul McCartney
Michael Palin, presenter
Gillian Anderson, actress'
The whole, far longer, list can be found here.
It does not seem to include CRU, but it does have the Royal Society and the Foundation of Holistic Therapists on board, to name but a few. On the business front, alternative energy companies and the like are well-represented, the Prince's Mayday Trust is there, as is the UK Rainwater Harvesting Association and the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership. Climate Week is not just about scaring and misinforming people, not least the very young, but there is money to be made through promotions and image-building events.
One construction company, possibly in a time warp, is proposing to run public showings of the notorious and ludicrous 'An Inconvenient Truth'. Another company is encouraging their employees to have good lunches that week:
'Each day during Climate Week, Sunvil Holidays will be providing our staff with a daily buffet of local and British produce.
On Thursday 15 March, all staff are encouraged to bring in their own local/British dish and the office will hold a lunchtime picnic.'
In Devon, students are helping out with a cider and ale festival. Well, who said CO2 was all bad?
Chester Zoo on the other hand is more mainstream - it seems they might be going to shut themselves down for a week: 'We are having a Big Switch Off at Chester Zoo'
We shall have to hope for good sunny week for any tropical beasties that may be there. Chilling children is bad enough, but imagine the uproar if animals were to be so mis-treated.
On the education front, what do we see?
One school in Surrey announces 'During lunchtime break,members of the Green Team will be offering a ‘plant your own sweet pea’event.' Now that does not show much in the way of self-sacrifice, self-criticism, and general flagellation that this great 'crisis of a trace gas' calls for. They might wish to learn from National Star College where 'Students & staff are being asked to focus on switching off lights, computers & electrical items on standby as well as turning down heating.' That's more like it. Next year, they might like to try boarding up any north-facing windows, or perhaps just try sitting still in classes while volunteers put ice cubes on their heads to symbolise both the disappearing icecaps and the gross indulgence of past students wanting to be warm all day. Meanwhile near Glasgow another school is being even more ambitious - their charges are being encouraged to control the very cosmos:
We are holding two competitions within our school. The infant department are completing a climate-related dot-to-dot challenge. The upper school are to design inventions to help reduce climate change. We are excited! I'd be excited too, if I could somehow convert my dismay into something more positive.
So what will it be like, this 'Climate Week'. In last year's post on it, I added this footnote when it was all over:
'...hard to get data for an overview, but my impression is that Climate Week has been a low-key, low-profile, low-impact event. Thank goodness.'
Same again this year?
It has as ever a list of supporters that would provide a decent resource for any sociologist researching into the spread of climate madness through a society. Here's how it starts, with a few politicians, one a reformed terrorist, and how it continues with various 'eminent individuals' such as Al Gore and Nicholas Stern, two famous alarmists, and a star of the 10:10 terror film 'No Pressure', Gillian Anderson:
'Political leaders
The Prime Minister, David CameronThe Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg
The First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond
The First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones
The First Minister of Northern Ireland, Peter Robinson
Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, Martin McGuinness
The Leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband
Eminent individuals
Al Gore, former US Vice PresidentKofi Annan, former UN Secretary General
Lord Anthony Giddens, sociologist
Lord Nicholas Stern (author of the Stern report)
Sir Paul McCartney
Michael Palin, presenter
Gillian Anderson, actress'
The whole, far longer, list can be found here.
It does not seem to include CRU, but it does have the Royal Society and the Foundation of Holistic Therapists on board, to name but a few. On the business front, alternative energy companies and the like are well-represented, the Prince's Mayday Trust is there, as is the UK Rainwater Harvesting Association and the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership. Climate Week is not just about scaring and misinforming people, not least the very young, but there is money to be made through promotions and image-building events.
One construction company, possibly in a time warp, is proposing to run public showings of the notorious and ludicrous 'An Inconvenient Truth'. Another company is encouraging their employees to have good lunches that week:
'Each day during Climate Week, Sunvil Holidays will be providing our staff with a daily buffet of local and British produce.
On Thursday 15 March, all staff are encouraged to bring in their own local/British dish and the office will hold a lunchtime picnic.'
In Devon, students are helping out with a cider and ale festival. Well, who said CO2 was all bad?
Chester Zoo on the other hand is more mainstream - it seems they might be going to shut themselves down for a week: 'We are having a Big Switch Off at Chester Zoo'
We shall have to hope for good sunny week for any tropical beasties that may be there. Chilling children is bad enough, but imagine the uproar if animals were to be so mis-treated.
On the education front, what do we see?
One school in Surrey announces 'During lunchtime break,members of the Green Team will be offering a ‘plant your own sweet pea’event.' Now that does not show much in the way of self-sacrifice, self-criticism, and general flagellation that this great 'crisis of a trace gas' calls for. They might wish to learn from National Star College where 'Students & staff are being asked to focus on switching off lights, computers & electrical items on standby as well as turning down heating.' That's more like it. Next year, they might like to try boarding up any north-facing windows, or perhaps just try sitting still in classes while volunteers put ice cubes on their heads to symbolise both the disappearing icecaps and the gross indulgence of past students wanting to be warm all day. Meanwhile near Glasgow another school is being even more ambitious - their charges are being encouraged to control the very cosmos:
We are holding two competitions within our school. The infant department are completing a climate-related dot-to-dot challenge. The upper school are to design inventions to help reduce climate change. We are excited! I'd be excited too, if I could somehow convert my dismay into something more positive.
So what will it be like, this 'Climate Week'. In last year's post on it, I added this footnote when it was all over:
'...hard to get data for an overview, but my impression is that Climate Week has been a low-key, low-profile, low-impact event. Thank goodness.'
Same again this year?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)