Climate change:
Tamas Calderwood writes: Re. “Hamilton: we need a new brand of environmental radicalism” (yesterday, item 14). Clive Hamilton tells us the environmental movement is “the only force standing between us and massive climate disruption”, but then immediately goes on to detail three reasons for “the failure of mainstream environmentalism”. But … but … if it’s failed, how can it be the only force standing between us and … oh, never mind.
Still, at least Clive understands that “some environmentalists find it hard to accept what the climate scientists are really saying”. Things like using “tricks” to “hide the decline”, manipulating the peer-review process and the unaccountable lack of warming since 1998, I presume. No wonder so many environmentalists find it all so hard to accept.
No such doubts from Richard Farmer though. He supports Sir John Beddington by equating climate sceptics with racists and homophobes, which is pretty pathetic really.
I get that it’s the greatest moral challenge of our time and all that jazz, but how does pointing out zero global warming for 13 years make me the same as a racist? How are homophobia and observing that the three warming spurts over the past 150 years were all the same magnitude (which combined led to a devastating 0.7C of warming… now stopped) even in the same ball park?
Nice way to conduct a debate, Richard.
Media and politics:
John Dobinson writes: Three weeks ago Julia Gillard was perceived as wooden and uncaring and her popularity was down, while Tony Abbott was doing OK.
Enter the media: a bit of spin sees Gillard made human and, Abbott uncaring — led by a Channel 7 journalist making capital out of the death of a poor soldier, and a journo on the Insiders with his usual dreadful affectation, calling Mr Abbott bizarre.
This place really is a backwater colony when you have media manipulating politics.
Separated at birth?
“Skink” writes: Re. “Rundle: Libya? Libya?? Libya??? Oh shut up.” (yesterday, item 2). The died black hair, the sunglasses, the rock star poses … Gaddafi is not in Venezuela, he’s hanging out in LA disguised as Gene Simmons…
Couldn’t agree more with John Dobinson.
I don’t care much what “the media” says about politicians – take it or leave it – as long as they apply the same standards to both sides, and don’t try to influence voter perceptions for or against one party or the other, in order to enhance the electoral chances of that one party over the other. Trying to influence the electorate’s perceptions of “competence” and thus influence electoral outcomes, to suit their own agenda, to further their own ends.
That perception of “wooden and uncaring” Gillard (as well as “those ears” and her dress sense?) – what was driving that perception, as “portrayed”?
“Abbott : shit happens”? Or that laundry service devoted to Howard’s image, for that 11+years, from “70%” of our press? What about “Utegate”? All those tantrums of Rudd’s that “never(?)” came from any coalition member?
All the other matters as “coloured in by the media” owned and operated as it is with their various “semi-monopolies”?
What about the way “Morrison” has been caught too – even if that all his own work? And Abbott’s history, on that subject, being ignored?
Still we could be worse, consider ours against what we could be getting, the sort of “super-sized political meddling” the US gets from “FUX News”, what? Ours isn’t quite that bad, yet – “Media Ownership Laws” and all.
Gaw’d, don’t tell me Tamas Calderwood is still around. I’d stopped subscribing to Crikey for a year because I’d got tired of his ‘skepticism’. It looks as though I’ve renewed my subscription too early. A gentle hint, Tamas, skepticism involves questioning everything, even arguments supporting something that you accept, whether global warming or it’s absence. The climate scientists warning about human induced global warming aren’t doing it because they’re gullible or because they’re in it for the money, it’s because they think they’re right and will gain fame for being right. Einstein spent years on developing the general theory of relativity just for the fame, Florey has the fame for discovering penicillin, the chemist who developed tetraethyl lead and CFC (I forget what his name was) has no fame.
“Pointing out” that there has been zero warming in the last 13 years, Mr Calderwood, is actually misconstruing that particular piece of data,and in effect betraying a fundamental ignorance of statistical analysis. Please, just run a trend analysis, a correlation, a regression – something – on the data series for the last 100 or 150 years, and interpret what those calculations tell us. Picking out an individual high temperature early in a very short series and comparing it to all other observation in that short series , which is what you have done, tells a statistician or indeed any researcher who uses quantitative data nothing – absolutely nothing. The more climate change deniers try to pull this stuff, the more damage they do to their own credibility.
Mr. Calderwood, I am not going to call you a racist, or homophobe, or anything like that. But I most certainly am not going to call you a sceptic either: No sceptic worthy of the name would use your conclusions – he/she would do exactly as I have suggested, and then make up their own mind – not snatch up someone else’s spurious analysis and proclaim it as truth no matter how many responses in the negative from people who know are received.
At least Tamas is civil.
Could Tamas somehow be stopped from perpetually recycling the same wrong arguments, which have been shown to be wrong many, many times?
It has warmed since 1998, 13 years ago.
Exactly what Tamas is trying to prove by saying that there have been previous warming “spurts” is unclear, but the causes behind each of those increases is well understood: they have to do with relative levels of solar emissions, volcanic activity, and human emitted aerosols. CO2 is not going to decline as volcanoes and aerosols declined, so the current warming “spurt” is not going to stop spurting.
The “climategate” email comments, which Tamas persistently misrepresents, have been examined by numerous committees of enquiry and found not to indicate any wrongdoing whatsoever.
Please, Crikey editors, make Tamas come up with some original lies next time you publish him – or hotlink all his letters to the skeptical science page showing how they are wrong.