That’s the title of my Fin column for Thursday 11 March 2010, which naturally picked out The Australian newspaper as a prime vehicle for these attacks. The Oz replied next day, with characteristic mendacity, pointing out that, on the same day they
ran an opinion piece by climatologist James Hansen, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies chief who also happens to be known rather snappily as the “father of global warming”.
Only problem was, they weren’t running Hansen to defend science against their attacks, but because his policy views (he opposes an ETS and supports nuclear power) could be used in their continuing wedge campaign. The piece (can’t find it to link ran under the headline “”Only carbon tax and nuclear power can save us”
Anyway, here’s my piece
Science the victim of dishonest attacks
It is a commonplace to observe that Australia’s scientific institutions and organizations, have played a central role in promoting Australia’s prosperity and in maintaining our country’s place as a leading contributor to the growth of knowledge.
In city and country alike, we rely on the predictions and analysis of the Bureau of Meteorology, predictions that have grown steadily more accurate over time. The prosperity of our rural sector has been built to a substantial extent, on the work of the CSIRO and other organizations devoted to agricultural science and natural resource management.
Universities have also played a crucial role. My own University of Queensland includes among its alumni such great scientists as Peter Doherty, whose work on immunology won him the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1996.
In recent years, science and scientific institutions have come under increasingly vociferous attack, with accusations of fraud, incompetence and even aspirations to world domination becoming commonplace. These attacks have mostly focused on environmental and public health issues, but they are gradually coalescing into an attack on science itself
A few examples
* In November 2003, Quadrant magazine published an article by Ted Lapkin blaming environmentals scientists for a supposed ban on DDT that had, he claimed cost millions of lives. DDT was never banned in anti-malarial use, and the claim Lapkin repeated had been cooked up by a tobacco lobbyist, who sought to put pressure on the World Health Organization, then campaigning against smoking in the Third World.
* On March 5 2006, Miranda Devine wrote that ‘Environmentalism is the powerful new secular religion and politically correct scientists are its high priests … It used to be men in purple robes who controlled us. Soon it will be men in white lab coats. The geeks shall inherit the earth.’
* On March 26th 2009, Jennifer Marohasy, then a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs, accused the Bureau of Meteorology of tampering with weather data to fake evidence of global warming
* Andrew Bolt of the Sun-Herald has repeatedly asserted that climate scientists are conscious frauds, motivated by a desire for government grant money, most recently a few days ago in a blog post entitled ‘That buys a lot of Baas’.
* The Australian newspaper has campaigned against science and scientists so consistently that picking a single example would be misleading. Blogger Tim Lambert, who maintains a running series on The Australian’s War on Science is now up to instalment 46
All of this has reached a crescendo in the wake of the so-called Climategate affair in which a group of ‘sceptics’ harassed climate scientists at the University of East Anglia with a campaign of deliberately vexatious form-letter Freedom of Information demands, hacked the University’s email system to obtain the email files generated in response and then published distorted versions of those supposedly proving that global temperature records had been fudged in a ‘trick’ to ‘hide the decline’. Subsequent inquiries showed that the selectively quoted phrases referred to perfectly legitimate methods of data analysis, but the enemies of science had a win in the media.
Scientists have been constrained in fighting back by the fact that they are ethically constrained to be honest, whereas their opponents lie without any compunction. A striking example was the response of Phil Jones, the main target of the Climategate hack, when presented with deliberately loaded question about the statistical significance of global warming trends over short periods.
Jones answered honestly, and proceeded to explain the problem with this kind of analysis. The Daily Mail promptly ran a headline stating ‘Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995’
As the Economist observed, this was a flat-out lie, noting that ‘anyone who has even a passing high-school familiarity with statistics should understand the difference’ That did not stop dozens of anti-science commentators from passing it on.
Now, however, science is pushing back, at least in Australia. Along with other scientific institutions, Universities Australia is organizing a national policy forum on climate change to be held in Parliament House next week which will not only restate the findings of science on this issue but respond to the stream of attacks on science.
Australia can, if need be, do very well without Quadrant, the Institute of Public Affairs and The Australian. We cannot do without science and scientists. The time has come to make a choice.
John Quiggin 
Today a “State of the Climate” report will be issued jointly by the BoM (Bureau of Marxists) and CSIRO (Conspiratorial Socialist & International Revolutionary Organisation).
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-snapshot-reveals-things-are-heating-up-20100314-q67h.html
Guess which national broadsheet isn’t reporting this on its website?
Speaking seriously, the non-reportage by certain media outlets of a scientific report on a matter of public importance by the two leading government bodies responsible for scientific research in the area – especially considering the space accorded to cranks and charlatans by the same outlets – would very much vindicate the point made by JQ in his op-ed.
Although in fairness, I should report that the Courier-Mail and Daily Telegraph have reported on the issue.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/features/scientists-accuse-climate-change-sceptics-of-smokescreen-of-denial/story-e6freowx-1225840714348
I’d just finished a comment in the Deltoid v the Thunderer thread mentioning the tendency for MSM’s to trivialise climate change as well as the lack of reporting on the ongoing campaign of attacking the credibility of science. Nice to know that I wasn’t completely right. Of course those determined to disbelieve won’t be getting their information from actual reports from actual scientific institutions such as the CSIRO-BoM one.
I’d like to think that those who are engaged in policy are more influenced by the science than by the volume (in both quantity and noise level sense) of the denialist dupes but I’m not really convinced that it’s the case. Australia still looks unlikely to have even watered down policy get through into legislation before it’s next election and no sign that it will be a matter of great importance to whoever wins, there are signs we’ll have more coal fired power plants proposed and planned in NSW at least – our agriculture and energy minister Burke has made it clear coal is the energy source of choice for the future; having a public that’s in denial would make that easier to get through. Coal exports are in an expansion phase too and royalties are a huge contributor to government coffers; hardy a need for that sector to even bother adding big political donations to convince them that phasing out coal should get serious considertion but they are so flush that it would be pocket change to do so.
Having a public that is in denial about climate change just doesn’t look like a problem for those in power right now so I don’t see that they’ll be motivated to strongly favour science over denialism. Unless they get a sudden attack of real responsibility, integrity and statesmanship. I just can’t see that happening myself.
Correction – should have typed ‘…phasing out coal should get no serious consideration…’ Mmm, in a sane world our energy sector would be the most serious and proactive in developing alternatives to fossil fuels. Instead they’ve put their weight and wealth behind climate change denialism.
Paul Norton, the News Ltd tabloids may very well have reported on the issue (although it reads to me like a transcribed press release), but the “comments” from readers following the article are rather depressing to read: 89 “experts” who are secure and contented with their total lack of knowledge about the subject they’re discussing…
@Bush bunny
Well Bush bunny, here I am about to cut my wrists at all the drivell I have been reading then you come along and as far as I can see, the only shinning light in this whole discussion.
This poor soul, complaining about coping some heat for the crap that so called science has dished out on climate change/global warming or is that the other way around. The goss exagerations, the shutting down of healthy debate, the use of the derogetary term “denialist”, the withholding of data requested by FOI even though most of the science is paid from the public purse and generally just the disdain that those who do not believe are held in.
I do not believe that science and scientists as a whole are being denigrated but their are certainly those that need a good belting and we all know who they are
Hopefully we can now get back to the truth.
I’m somewhat amazed at the lack of understanding by ‘the establishment’ as to why they are all of a sudden standing on a sinking ship, and why articles like this don’t help.
I started taking an interest in this field, as luck would have it, a day or two before ‘Climategate’ hit. Obviously at that time an inordinate amount of money was about to be thrown ‘at the problem’.
I’ll admit to being somewhat skeptical about the whole matter. It seemed to be a bit too much like the Y2K issue – something that diverts a lot of resources from real problems to deal with a possibly catastrophic scenario.
So I started wandering around the web trying to find information on the topic. I found a very divided world. But heres the thing. One side appeared to be made up of people like me; intelligent, technically minded engineers, scientists and programmers trying to understand what was going on for themselves. Asking rational questions and trying to come up with answers, finding themselves frustrating short of being able to gather the information they needed to be able to do so. The other side was made up of scientists trying to work, greenies trying to take advantage of that work, and generally people who wanted to keep their knowledge private.
Then climategate happened and the pretense of scientific integrity in that field simply collapsed.
See, technical people ‘know’ how the scientific process works. And what was revealed was not science at work, but manipulation, intimidation and self belief.
And I don’t extrapolate that to other scientific fields. I still expect that other areas are done properly. There was enough horror expressed by scientist out of field that other areas have basically not been tainted by the corruption revealed by climategate.
What the IOP has done in their submission to Parliament in the UK is in my mind exactly the right approach. Corruption like this needs to be first accepted for what it is, isolated, cleansed, and a fresh start made. Everything on the other side of that line is automatically now suspect.
People who support what is now ‘unclean’ science are now suspect.
People who exaggerate beyond what even the ‘unclean’ science suggests for the purposes of manipulating the public are anathema.
What I want to know, and see, is scientists starting from scratch, explaining why they believe what they do. With data that has either been ‘cleansed’ or can be shown not to be unclean.
At the moment there is precious little of that going on. I’ve found a couple of websites that are somehow sitting in the middle of this whole thing, slowly making sense through investigation and analysis of both the exaggerations of the ‘true believers’ and the blundering scratchings of the ‘skeptics’.
Time to move on to stage two of the grief process. Stop denying that climate science is now tainted beyond the point of inherent public belief. Get angry about it. Isolate the problem. Cleanse it from the field. Start afresh.
@Christopher Polis
So Christoper – you delved into this with your fabulous research skills two days before climategate erupted and you think your understanding is complete.
Thank goodness you dont work as a climate scientist.
@Alice
Please Alice do share your expert qualifications to make such a derisive comment towards someone (Christopher). This is the problem of Faith versus facts, models versus observations. As soon as someone disagrees with the mantra they are labelled and dismissed. This is why the public is turning away they are seeking and finding answers that just don’t gel with what we are being told.
I hope you can be a bit more tolerant and less smug in your future dealing with people whom you dont agree with
@truthseeker
Alice makes a fair comment. Those who swallow the mantra propagated by denialists, arrogantly think their casual ‘research’ and thin qualifications trump those of specialists who have devoted their lives to the various aspects covered by research into climate change. Denials hold such high opinions of their own ‘research’ skills when they are unable to conduct the simple research required to find out the truth, that there was no ‘climategate scandal’ and ‘trick’ and ‘hide the decline’ both had nothing to do with doctoring evidence.
I find I generally agree with the scientific studies that indicate that global warming IS taking place. Most of these studies are being done with proper data and proper methodology. The science reporting in the newspapers (both for and against the global warming theory) is dire.
I’m also convinced we should aim to change our way of life to a sustainable life style. And the stimulus people react best to is tax.
But it would be a stretch for me to say that any of the remedies currently suggested actually WILL prevent or mitigate global warming. I don’t think that’s a definite yes. Neither do we exactly know what the consequences will be of global warming. I think there will be significant negative effects on life on earth. Possibly even mass extinctions.
But at the same time I don’t think life on earth is doomed by global warming, nor do I think global warming is the only issue we should worry about. There are a lot more threats to the earth and humankind that are much easier to compute with relative certainty.
Freelander/Alice Snark is not valid commentary.
Spent the last hour on the site and have yet to see any science. Proclamations but no science. Marcvdb has the most reasonable comment. a) because he doesn’t claim any great truth and b) because he confines himself to the part of climate science where anyone with common sense is qualified to comment..i.e. what should we do about it. I don’t agree with him but it is his opinion and he is entitled to it. It might be helpful for you to read climate audit or TheAirVent or Lucia’s or Lubos Motl. I think you will be surprised. Quite smug free people trying to ascertain what is correct and what isn’t. No final answers or big truths but lots of very good questioning of what is remarkably shaky evidence.
“In recent years, science and scientific institutions have come under increasingly vociferous attack, with accusations of fraud, incompetence and even aspirations to world domination becoming commonplace.”
Dr Quiggin, scientist have been under constant criticism for as long as science exists. Actually, permanent skepticism is the foundation stone of science. If you are not ready to face the data and hypotheses your critics bring out, you are not cut for this job.
Now, you sound as if scientific debate is making you sick. Being an MD as well as a PhD, I recommend you take a break and let others do the screaming.
@Alice
If I thought my understanding was complete, I wouldn’t be asking for scientists to do some rational explaining, would I? My understanding is developing, and changing as discussions and investigations happen.
I’m happy with that; it people who seem to have made up their minds and closed them off to any discussion that raise the level of my BS meter.
“John Quiggin is an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow in Economics and Political Science”
If only we had more real scientists and less post-normal and political scientists in climate research then climate-science wouldn’t be the laughing stock it has become.
‘Climate science’ has become all about economics and politics and nothing to do with science. Quiggen has found his niche.
It is not the job of scientists to answer the inquiries or refute the hypotheses of every ‘skeptical’ nitwit. Dumb questions and hypotheses are far to easily generated to expect that. Neither is it reasonable to expect taxpayer dollars to be wasted in paper based ‘denial of service’ FOI requests. Reasonable requests when someone has a serious basis for making an FOI request are completely different to orchastrated efforts by denialists with ideological objections who are simply attempting to stop serious scientist’s research.
Science isn’t democracy; its based on merit. If it were simply based on the weight of ignorant opinion we would be living in a radically different world. Skeptical nitwits already have had far more by way of response than they have ever merited. The vast quantity of material they already have access to and their poor use of that material to date, demonstrates their inability to make sensible use of anything more. Rather than dishonestly asking for more, they ought to actually read and make a serious attempt to understand what they have already been given.
@Manny
This is precisely the point. Those attacking the science are repeatedly challenged to produce evidence and failing to meet those challenges. The denialists are overwhelmingly stacked with people whose confidence in their abilities massively exceeds their actual abilities.
@freethinker
With due respect, freethinker, you come across as a bit of an idiot because:
Climate research, as understood in climate science, hasn’t become a laughing stock. However, Christopher Monckton, lord, has introduced a lot of entertainment in the so-called ‘climate-science debate’, run by “sceptics” (ie fake sceptics), though he is neither an economist nor a political scientist. His qualification is in Classics. I know this is funny. I just don’t know why you don’t seem to see it.
You complain about non-scientists being involved. Good point. Why do you post? Why are there anonymous commenters who want to tell the readers of this blog-site how they learn. These people have apparently no idea how bloody boring their personal stories are. They waste time and space. And, it seems, one has to spell it out for them.
You say: “Climate science’ has become all about economics and politics and nothing to do with science.”. This is a very stupid sentence. It is stupid because the findings of climate science have direct implications for economics, both on the theory level and in practice. To give you a clue, non-trivial externalities, such as green house gas (ghg) emissions means that the assumption of ‘free disposal’ in theoretical models can no longer be maintained on empirical grounds. To deal with non-trivial externalities in societies requires legislation. This is how politics enters.
The BoM/CSIRO report is now out and is commented on here.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/03/16/bom-and-csiro-report-on-the-state-of-the-climate/
There are quite a few Nobel Prizes in the offing for Russell, Bush Bunny, Christopher, Freethinker, abracadabra, truthseeker and Manny if they can show that the BoM has been getting its temperature records wrong for several decades.
Freelander,
You are quite right that scientists need not “refute the hypotheses of every ‘skeptical’ nitwit”. It is, however, the job of every scientist to maintain complete and accurate records concerning all aspects of his or her research and make them available to anyone. Failing to do so invites “dumb questions and hypotheses”. The taxpayer dollars have already been provided to do the job properly and the results belong to the public rather than the scientist. Now, those responsible will have to backfill information that should have been readily available in the first place.
@Paul Norton
Doubtful, as “they” are very probably “he” or “she” and thus could only get one, assuming the improbable that (s)he could do that.
Why a person who could do that would bother posting nonsense here is also an answer I’d like.
Such as?
Is this realistic? Do these lay people who may have “technical minds” have the requisite knowledge and resources to figure it out for themselves? How are their conclusions to be tested? Shouldn’t there be some process, perhaps the scientific method to verify their research. They could even publish it in a peer reviewed journal.
Have you tried? What data can’t you get? What attempts have you made? How many FOI requests have you filed that have been refused?
The evidence on this point is contested. How much of the current science is tainted by “manipulation, intimidation and self belief”, please share your evidence.
Why not? Perhaps because it doesn’t suit your ideological position and it would make you look like a crank. How does climategate effect all the other institutions involved in climate research? Were is the evidence of mass collusion.
You sound like a sophisticated concern troll. You start out with the classic identity testimonial about coming to the debate late and go on to make unfounded claims about the entire climate science field being suspect. The idea that ALL climate science should be suspended and go back and start from scratch is implausible and ridiculous. There is nothing stopping anyone from contributing to the science and publish their research whenever they so choose. Fundamental tenants can be challenged anytime if you can demonstrate results and have them replicated.
Fundamental tenants (should be tenets) can be challenged anytime if you can demonstrate results and have them replicated.
How does climategate effect (should be affects) all the other institutions involved in climate research?
Thanks Fran for pointing that out in the other thread.
“The vast quantity of material they already have access to and their poor use of that material to date, demonstrates their inability to make sensible use of anything more. Rather than dishonestly asking for more, they ought to actually read and make a serious attempt to understand what they have already been given.”
Dr. Phil Jones said it is not possible to replicate his work because the raw data and programs have not been made available. This is not acceptable. It does not suffice to offer the data or methods of another’s research. That wouldn’t be replication, would it.
Only if climate science wants to win back public support.
The anthropic global warming “science” is collapsing not because of attacks but because it is a political house of card marketed as science.
John Quiggin’s cheap scapegoat rhetorics would bring him no new AGW supporters. It only helps him to be remembered by his children & grand children as a die-hard supporter of pseudo-science.
Fresh from another thread where I’d been contemplating Miss_Magoo’s fears that scientists may sometimes lack a little in the social graces I arrive here to find engineer Christopher Polis – he who wanders “intelligently”, unprejudicially, around the web honestly seeking climate science enlightenment (unlike most of you social creatures only out there for fun and fantasy), preaching as he goes – and Christopher reminds us painfully well that the capacity of the engineer for social maladroitness may approach that of the scientist, and in special cases may actually trump it. Vale Chris!
Christopher Polis :
I’m interested to know what you prioritise as the other “real problems” that resources are being diverted from. Can you supply specifics about this diversion?
I am interested to know what evidence you have that the issue of people “finding themselves frustrating short of being able to gather the information they needed to be able to do so” is a real problem extending beyond “denial of service” FOI campaigns.
@Laurie
There is no dispassionate attempt to seek the truth with you fellows and because you denialists are pushing a particular barrow, and are generally unqualified, you are hardly the people to be taking it on yourselves to be auditing anyone’s science. If Jones’ results are in error, then others ought to be able to demonstrate that by doing their own research. They certainly wouldn’t have to rely on Jones (because that is how science works). However, to do their own research they would need to have some clue where to begin.
Well Qig;
Seems most of Canada has seen your site. We think you’re an idiot.
Wonder if Steve will launch a civil suit. He’s fron Toronto….I hear his neighbour is a laywer.
Have a good day
I came here from Bolton’s rant. I saw the familiar smears, but Quiggin’s unsubstantiated claims that “McIntyre done it” are just appalling.
Then, I realised I’d read one of Quiggins articles “Uncertainty and Climate Change Policy”, 2008. It is simply useless stuff. The best bit was his “equation” where he says:
“Emissions = Population * Output / Population*Energy/Output*Emissions per unit Energy”
Or calling Emission “X” so as not to confuse with Energy “E”, we have X = P * O / P * E / O * X / E
Shuffling we get X = P / P * O / O * E / E * X or X = X.
Yes, proof that 1 = 1 is really helpful. And that in an Economic Journal too!
No, Quiggin’s article had no science in particular and made me certain that Aust Research Council Federation Fellows need to have enough AGW publications to guarantee next year’s round of funding.
Sadly, I had hoped there might some some real stuff about uncertainty, like how uncertain are the assumptions in the models, how are uncertainties handled when modeling a complex system over 50 or 100 years or so, and even the simple stuff, like do the models use arbitrary precision arithmetic or do the rely on the known, imperfect system of floating point calculations (where is it easy to demonstrate the (A – B) – C does not always equal A – (B – C)) and if they *do* use the basic floating point system, do they carry error estimates through the course of the calculations? Nope, no answers in Quiggin’s world of “Uncertainty”.
(BTW – The CRU code to calculate the world’s temperature over time uses the simple floating point representations and does no calculation of uncertainty nor does it handle intrinsic floating point errors (rounding, representational, etc).
It is also clear to me that Quiggins has not read many of the emails, nor has he looked at the code in the CRUtapes. My mouth was agape at almost every single email in there. If you have not done so, you must spend an hour or two simply dipping into the emails. They are appalling.
If you have read the HARRY-READ-ME.TXT file, then it seems much more likely that HARRY or someone near him *inside* CRU is the whistleblower, they got sick of the sloppy “science” surrounding Phil Jones and his collaborators.
Finally, you can not accept the “trick” of grafting the dendro record to the recent temp record because we don’t understand why the recent dendro does not match the recent temp and just say “oh, some unknown but unimportant reason makes them deviate”. That is precisely the loose reasoning that makes anyone with two brain cells turn away from the alarmists propaganda.
I wonder if the UofQ has rules regarding conduct of profs.
Man Quig must have been a real catch for the UofQ!!!
He should stick to his economics and stay away from science.
I wonder if the UofQ has rules regarding conduct of profs.
Man Quig must have been a real catch for the UofQ!!!
He should stick to his economics and stay away from science.
@David Ross
Shows how much you know about Mathematics. I suppose when you do maths, both sides of an equation would not be equal?
@Freelander writes:
Ah – an issue of whom to trust. So when the science, such as it is, is dependant upon statistical analysis, it might be pertinent to check with a few statisticians that it’s been done correctly. They might run a sensativity analysis and find the stats have been badly done. Oh wait – that already happened, didn’t it? Yeah – McIntyre found some bad stats and was pilloried and derided for his work even when Wegman agreed he had a point.
But the “body of evidence” shows it’s right anyway, doesn’t it? That didn’t seem to matter when the body of evidence was that the MWP and LIA were real and global – MBH9X was a “smoking gun” regardless of the fact it disagreed with most previous studies into paleoclimatology; the antarctic is warming paper that made the front page of Science (or was it Nature?) went against all previously published studies on the matter and relied on statistical procedures that are at best questionable in terms of application and methods. Of course, since I’m a “denier”, I’m cherry picking – but hey, that’s ok because guess who said “You have to pick cherries if you want to make a cherry pie”?
Hypocracy – look it up. Then take a good look at climate science and especially the IPCCs “review” of it.
@Freelander
Shows how much you know about Mathematics.
X = P / P * O / O * E / E * X
P / P = 1
O / O = 1
E / E = 1
So, X = 1 * 1 * 1 * X
What is that saying, X = X!
What does that tell us about X and any relationship to P, O or E??? Absolutely nothing!
Emissions equals, well, damn it, emissions!
Population, Output and Energy are just fillers in the equation to make you think they have some relationship to emissions, but there is *no* relationship at all in Quiggin’s “equation”.
Change any one of O or P or E and there is no change in X.
Freelander, that is the problem, it is a trivial statement dressed up as “maths”.
Well. Someone had to have voted for Steve Fielding. Creationist. Young Earther. AGW denier. Dumber than a flatworm. And here they are. Look at the surprise when two sides of an equation (that uses an equals sign) turn out to be equal. All depends on who you trust. That is the dilemma of the Faith-based individual.
i keep asking what the AGW conspiracy is and no-one answers,
at least if you ask a 9/11 skeptic what they believe they have an alternative narrative,
can someone tell me?
@Freelander
That’s true. (2500 or so) 0.08% of Victorians voted for Fielding, meaning that 99.92% didn’t.
@David Ross
” Population, Output and Energy are just fillers in the equation to make you think they have some relationship to emissions, but there is *no* relationship at all in Quiggin’s “equation”. ”
What would happen if the rate of emissions per unit of energy was zero? Would the equation still make sense? (Would it be the case that emissions would then be zero?) If there is no requirement for energy to produce output, or no emissions produced when producing energy would any emissions be produced? To someone smarter than an flatworm the equation says a lot. It says that the volume of emissions produced depend on the emissions produced per unit of energy and the amount of energy used per unit of output and so on. To those of us smarter than an flatworm and thus capable of interpreting the equation rather than simply manipulating symbols like a Turing machine the equation is quite informative. Probably even informative to the occasional reflective flatworm.
I suppose if you are dumber than a flatworm you wouldn’t know when you have humiliated yourself? That must be the cost of entry to the denier club.
That equation is known as the Kaya identity after Japanese energy economist Yoichi Kaya.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaya_identity
It helps me to understand the problem more – what we want to do is drive carbon intensity of energy to zero. The other parameters are much harder to control, and in fact we wish for global per-capita GDP (G/P) to grow, and driving F/E (carbon intensity) to zero allows for this.
And both sides of the equation are indeed equal – this is good – (a trick at high school maths and physics is to make sure your units on either side of any equations do equate and this makes passing those subjects much easier)
Great article JQ, ta. I wonder if some the comments here indicate a poor level of education we have to overcome or if it’s just a small vocal mob.
@Neil Fisher
Hypocracy. I looked it up. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hypocracy One definition not there but apt is: a Democracy where most voters are dumber than a flatworm.
@smiths
Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_conspiracy_theory
It’s usually a incoherent mish-mash about a global government, socialism, anti-industrial hair shirt hippies, more money for lying hysterical scientists and higher taxes. I’ve found a few posters before who advanced multiple, and mutually exclusive, claims in the same post. It’s also just fragmented enough that anyone advancing it can jump from place to place, one day criticising the raw data’s validity, then the science, then the effectiveness of the solutions, next the politics and conflicting interests of proponents. It never gets consolidated into any coherent message.
Questions of global coordination, taxes and funding for research are central to the whole debate, but I don’t get how it could be a coordinated (conscious or otherwise) conspiracy.
I can understand how certain people can mis-use climate change to advance their own agenda, no problem. Happens all the time from all sides and we have to watch out for it.
I don’t get how all these differing sections could have gotten together and made up data and analysis that then proves a false means for their ends.
Further to Foib’s comment, @smiths could also find some fascinating examples of AGW conspiracy theorising at this link:
http://www.hinterlandvoice.com.au/
thanks foib and paul
paul, that site is bloody crazy, unbelievable stuff
its quite interesting that wiki page Foib,
most of the people named in connection with one-world government are without doubt interested in such things, but the connection to climate science in this context is quite bizarre i think
Yes, smiths #47, it certainly is – and the local Liberal-National Party State MP uses it to communicate with his constituents!
paul, that is unbelievable, i cracked up laughing when i read that