An above average performance

John Quiggin22 Comments

Andrew Bolt links to the latest satellite data from Roy Spencer at UAH, shown below

and states that “Global temperatures in February remained below the long term average, thanks to the La Nina – but despite decades of allegedly catastrophic man-made warming.”

As can easily be seen from the graph, the zero line is not the long-term average, at least in the ways in which this term is usually used (the average for the instrumental record going back 150 years, or else the estimated pre-industrial average). It’s the average for the UAH satellite data set, which only started in 1979, when warming was well under way. Since there has been a steady long-term warming trend over the thirty years of data, the average of the data set corresponds to the average temperatures prevailing in the mid-1990s, as you can easily see by eyeballing the data, or, if you prefer, confirm by statistical analysis. (The National Academy of Sciences did this a few years ago IIRC).

So, what Bolt doubtless meant to write is that the effect of this La Nina, one of the strongest in the historical record, was sufficient to offset about 15 years of the warming trend – I guess one-and-a-half decades counts as “decades” in some sense.

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Changing places

John Quiggin67 Comments

As long-term readers here will know, I argued for quite a few years that, of the possible ways of putting a price on carbon, an emissions trading scheme was preferable to a tax (I set out my position here). But following the collapse of the Rudd government’s ETS deal with Malcolm Turnbull, and Rudd’s ultimately disastrous failure to call a double dissolution on the issue, I changed my mind.

This was partly because of changed circumstances, and partly because of a reconsideration of the politics surrounding compensation. In both cases, the driving force was the massively complicated set of free permits, exemptions and cash handouts with which the final ETS was saddled, nearly all of these going to large-scale emitters. I had seen the possibility of a limited issue of free permits as an advantage of an ETS, but now I think it was actually a weakness. And in political terms, the inordinate complexity of the CPRS made a strong case for something simple and comprehensible, where everyone understood that consumers would ultimately pay the price of carbon. Unlike with emissions permits, everyone understands that a tax on producers will be passed on (partially in the short run, and totally in the long run) to consumers, and therefore that any offsets or compensation should be directed primarily at consumers.

So, I now think a carbon tax is the best short-run option. There’s even a case, which a plan to discuss later, for leaving the tax in place when we come to introduce an emissions trading scheme, which is still the desirable outcome in the long run.

While I’ve come to support a carbon tax, John Humphreys, who formerly thought it the best (or perhaps least bad) option, is now vigorously opposing it. His change in position coincides with a change in political alignment, from the libertarian LDP to the Liberal Party, for which he was briefly an endorsed candidate last year. A few observations over the fold

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On the Internet, pretending to be a dog doesn’t help

John Quiggin23 Comments

As I mentioned below, I had an email discussion with Gerard Henderson regarding the proportion of alarmist cranks in the Coalition parties (he says 75 per cent, while I think a near-majority of Liberals and perhaps even some Nats are pro-science). The whole thing has now been posted at his Media Watch Dog site, but with an odd twist.

The conceit of the site is that the material is posted, not by Henderson, but by his dog. As if to demonstrate this, the item (taken directly from our emails) has my name repeatedly mis-spelt as “Quiggan”.

Weekend reflections

John Quiggin6 Comments

It’s time again for weekend reflections, which makes space for longer than usual comments on any topic. In keeping with my attempts to open up the comments to new contributors , I’d like to redirect discussion, and restatements of previous arguments, as opposed to substantive new contributions, to the sandpit(s). As always, civilised discussion and no coarse language please.

Bolt vs the Bureau

John Quiggin13 Comments

Following my piece in yesterday’s Fin, Andrew Bolt wrote in to deny that he had ever accused the Bureau of fraud or dishonesty. More precisely, he concedes that he did once, presumably a reference to this piece, a direct accusation of dishonest against the Bureau and the CSIRO. But wait, there’s more.

The first Google blog hit under Bolt + Bureau is this letter from Joanne Nova and others, calling for an audit of the Bureau, and beginning with the claim that “The BOM claim their adjustments are “neutral” yet Ken Stewart showed that the trend in the raw figures for our whole continent has been adjusted up by 40%.” The letter is full of accusations of dishonesty and political bias. Presumably Bolt is going to claim that he is just reporting here, and again when he repeated this claim by Nova here

Maybe the same for this suggestion that “warmists” at the Bureau have rigged the rainfall figures for the MDB, run under the title Why did the Bureau remove the rain? (note that, unlike a journalist, Bolt gets to pick the headlines for his blog items).

And perhaps this, where he relays a claim by Warwick Hughes, that the “warming-evangelist” Bureau is “smudging” rainfall data to tilt the case in favor of global warming.

Alarmists

John Quiggin17 Comments

My column from today’s Fin is over the fold. I had a generally positive response, and also an interesting email exchange with Gerard Henderson. Gerard disputes my view that voting for Turnbull in the leadership election constituted evidence of a pro-science viewpoint, preferring to count only those who voted against Abbott’s subsequent abandonment of the ETS deal. And, he points, out the Nationals are uniformly anti-science. On this basis, as he observes, 75 per cent of Coalition parliamentarians are alarmist cranks. (At least, that’s the view he thinks I’m committed to, given the premise that only cranks believe in scientific absurdities and conspiracy theories like those of Monckton and Plimer – he appears to disagree, but it’s not clear why).

In any case, I prefer the more optimistic view stated in my conclusion that there is still time for pro-science conservatives to act.

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Monday Message Board

John Quiggin54 Comments

It’s time again for the Monday Message Board to resume. Post comments on any topic. As usual, civilised discussion and no coarse language. Lengthy side discussions to the sandpit, please.

How are people finding the site’s response time at present. It seems to me to have improved, but I’m still looking at options

After the Sauds

John Quiggin19 Comments

The downfall of the Gaddafi dictatorship now seems certain, despite brutal and bloody attempts at repression. The failure of these attempts kills off what was briefly the conventional wisdom, that dictatorships in the region can hold on if they “don’t blink“. At this point, Gaddafi and his remaining supporters will be lucky if they can make it to The Hague for their trials, rather than sharing the fate of the Ceaucescus.

Now a new conventional wisdom seems to be emerging, at least according to this article in the NY Times. The central idea is that while dictatorships (more accurately perhaps, tyrannies, in the classical sense of monarchs who have seized their thrones with no prior hereditary claim) are doomed, but that monarchies can survive with cosmetic concessions. In particular, on this analysis, the US relationship with the House of Saud can go on more or less as before.

There’s an element of truth here, but the central claim is wishful thinking

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The Bureau fights back

John Quiggin37 Comments

The idea that the Bureau of Meteorology is part of a global conspiracy to destroy Australia’s economy impose communist world government (or in some more prosaic versions, to increase its funding[1]) sounds like the basis of a bad comedy sketch. But, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, this claim is put forward, in apparent seriousness, by numerous anti-science advocates in Australia (Andrew Bolt, Jennifer Marohasy, and Warwick Hughes are leading examples) and implicily accepted by many others.

Now, as Graham Readfearn (h/t Tim Lambert) points out, the Bureau is fighting back.

Back in October last year, the Senate’s Environment and Communications Legislation Committee agreed to table a letter from Cardinal Pell which quoted heavily from Heaven and Earth to claim there were “good reasons for doubting that carbon dioxide causes warmer temperatures”.

The Director of the Bureau of Meteorology Dr Greg Ayers has now responded at an estimates hearing, demolishing Plimer’s bogus claims and pointing to numerous scathing reviews of his trashy and dishonest book. Ayers is great value, but the real fun in reading the Hansard transcript comes from the frantic attempts of Senators MacDonald and Boswell to stop him talking.

Update This post was critical of the Australian Academy of Science for what I’ve seen as a “missing in action” response to the attacks on climate science in Australia. In response, Martin Callinan of the Academy points me to this ABC Radio Interview with AAS President Kurt Lambeck, in which he gives a very critical review of Plimer’s book. I’ll also link to the AAS pamphlet, which is very good. That said, I don’t retract my main point which is that the Academy needs to take a much more vigorous line against the attacks on science and individual scientists which have become a pervasive feature of Australian political commentary.
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