Australia’s chief climate liars (to use Alan Jones’ favourite pejorative) have been exposed yet again peddling demonstrably wrong propaganda to support their contention that they are right and thousands of scientists are wrong.
Let’s deal with Bolt first.
Bolt claimed that David Suzuski was “pig ignorant” in two answers he gave to questions on ABC’s Q&A.
The first question was from Bill Koutalianos. He’s president of the No Carbon Tax Climate Sceptics Party.
He asked: “Since 1998 global temperatures have been relatively flat, yet many man-made global warming advocates refuse to acknowledge this simple fact. Has man-made global warming become a new religion in itself?”
Suzuski responded: “Yeah, well, I don’t know why you’re saying that. The ten hottest years on record, as I understand it, have been in this century. In fact, the warming continues. It may have slowed down but the warming continues and everybody is anticipating some kind of revelation in the next IPCC reports that are saying we got it wrong. As far as I understand, we haven’t. So where are you getting your information? I’m not a climatologist. I wait for the climatologists to tell us what they’re thinking.”
Koultalianos: “UAH, RSS, HADCRUT, GISS data shows a 17-year flat trend which suggests there may be something wrong with the Co2 warming theory?”
Suzuski: “Sorry, yeah, what is the reference>”
Koutalianos: “Well, they’re the main data sets that IPCC use: UAH, University of Alabama, Huntsville; GISS, Goddard Institute of Science; HadCRUT. I don’t know what that stands for, HADCRUT; and RSS, Remote Sensing something. So those data sets suggest a 17-year flat trend, which suggests there may be a problem with the Co2.”
Suzuski: “No, well, there may be a climate sceptic down in Huntsville, Alabama, who has taken the data and come to that conclusion. I say, let’s wait for the IPCC report to come out and see what the vast bulk of scientists who have been involved in gathering this information will tell us.”
Andrew Bolt said in his column: “Fancy Suzuki not even knowing what the world’s main temperature data sets say about global temperatures…a complete know-nothing, citing false claims.”
Here’s what the full Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released here on Tuesday, says: “The GMST (global mean surface temperature) trend over 1998–2012 is estimated to be around one-third to one-half of the trend over 1951–2012... Even with this “hiatus” in GMST trend, the decade of the 2000s has been the warmest in the instrumental record of GMST…Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850.”
Suzuki was 100 per cent right. Koutalianos was wrong to assert there has been a 17-year flat trend in temperatures. Temperature increases have slowed down but the warming continues. Bolt was completely wrong. In his own words: “Fancy not even knowing what the world’s main temperature data sets say about global temperatures…a complete know-nothing, citing false claims.”
Another question came from fellow climate sceptic Stewart Franks who asked: “In an opinion piece last week you wrote that the Great Barrier Reef was threatened by the increasing frequency of cyclones...you know, the Great Barrier Reef does have environmental threat, but cyclones ain’t one of them.”
Here’s what the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the University of Wollongong found in a study released in October 2012: “The Great Barrier Reef has lost half its coral cover in the last 27 years. The loss was due to storm damage (48%), crown of thorns starfish (42%), and bleaching (10%)…Intense tropical cyclones have caused massive damage, primarily to reefs in the central and southern parts of the Reef.”
I reckon Suzuki comes out on top in that exchange.
Bolt asked: “How in God’s name could people take this man seriously?”
The evidence is clear – and using his own invective it’s Bolt who is pig ignorant.
How on earth can anyone believe the drivel Andrew Bolt writes, especially about climate change?
Next Alan Jones, who describes the scientific findings about climate change to be a “hoax”, “witchcraft” and “ignorance”.
Jones said on a recent program: “The 2007 (IPCC) Assessment Report said the planet was warming at the rate of .2 of a degree centigrade every decade. Well, the update now says the true figure was .12, almost a 100% error. The IPCC for a week has been denying it’s locked in crisis as they talk to scientists and don’t know what to do about the fact that their former theories of climate change have been disproven.”
Jones – as is always the case on climate change – was entirely wrong. The true figures are 0.12 and 0.13 – a difference of 0.01 – a hundredth of a degree. What a hoax!
His problem was that he was so anxious to decry several thousand scientists that he took his information containing the appalling error from another section of the media which frequently publishes articles pouring doubt on climate change science, The Australian.
And The Australian took the information from the UK’s Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph, both of which are intent on opposing the science of climate change.
The problem with these denial-driven media outlets is that there is very little to support their agendas because a 2013 study which reviewed 11,944 abstracts of scientific papers on climate found 4,014 which discussed the cause of recent global warming and reported that 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.
So what Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones and The Australian tend to do is wheel out the same old “expert denialists” to agree with them. It’s very incestuous. The trouble is, none of them are climate scientists.
There’s Christopher Monckton, a journalist who was found by Professor John Graham to have falsified the findings of scientific papers on climate change. Monckton has confessed to lying that he had been forced to sell his house.
There’s Ian Plimer, a geologist, who has set himself up as an expert on climate science but could not defend claims he had made in his book Heaven and Earth when questioned by journalist George Monbiot. Plimer’s claims that the effects of undersea volcanoes had not been included in scientific research have been rejected by the United States Environment Protection Agency.
And there’s shellfish and sediment scientist Bob Carter who is the chief science advisor for the International Climate Science Coalition. Sounds impressive, eh? But the coalition was founded by former journalist, commercial printer and head of the New Zealand Wine Institute Terry Dunleavy. Executive director is engineer Tom Harris. Energy issues advisor is Bryan Leyland, an energy engineer.
In 2012 it was revealed that Professor Carter received a "monthly payment" from the Heartland Institute of $US1667 as part of a program to pay "high-profile individuals who regularly and publicly counter the alarmist [human-caused global warming] message".
Wikipedia says Heartland has worked with the tobacco company Philip Morris to question the serious cancer risks of secondhand smoke. The New York Times says Heartland is best-known for its attacks on climate science.
And Wikipedia also says oil and gas companies have contributed to the Heartland Institute, including over $600,000 from ExxonMobil between 1998 and 2005 – and Greenpeace reported that Heartland received almost $800,000 from ExxonMobil.
There is a parallel between the war waged by tobacco companies against scientists who battled to convince the public and governments that smoking causes cancer and the war now being waged by vested interests against climate scientists.
Another self-initiated climate-change denying organisation, the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), has worked closely with the Heartland Institute. Wikipedia points out: “Unlike the IPCC, the NIPCC examines literature published exclusively by climate contrarians who are paid to contribute their findings to NIPCC reports, according to leaked internal documents of the Heartland Institute. The 2009 NIPCC report Climate Change Reconsidered had two lead authors, (NIPCC founder) Fred Singer and Craig Idso, and 35 contributors.”
It’s ironic that many people who don’t believe there is a climate problem suggest that there is a conspiracy among climate change scientists to fabricate results in order to gain funding whereas the only evidence I have seen of payments being made relates to the denial “experts”.
Yet Alan Jones criticizes the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as the purveyors of a gigantic hoax, witchcraft and ignorance.
Jones, Bolt and many other opponents of the IPCC refer to it as though it sits around inventing fictional horror stories about the end of the world.
The fact is, the IPCC is only the messenger. It does not conduct any research itself. Its task is to review and distil the work of thousands of scientists.
For this latest report it arranged for 1089 experts to review more than 9,200 scientific publications with more than two million gigabytes of numerical data from climate model simulations.
The IPCC says its reports undergo multiple rounds of drafting and review to ensure they are comprehensive and objective and produced in an open and transparent way. Thousands of other experts contribute to the reports by acting as reviewers, ensuring the reports reflect the full range of views in the scientific community. Teams of Review Editors provide a thorough monitoring mechanism for making sure that review comments are addressed.
The experts are not paid for their work.
For this latest report the IPCC considered 54,677 comments about the results of the research.
Witchcraft? A hoax? Ignorance?
If Bolt, Jones, The Australian, the UK Daily Mail and UK Daily Telegraph abided by the first tenet in the Journalists’ Code of Ethics they would be duty bound to present balanced information. The code says journalists should: “Report and interpret honestly, striving for accuracy, fairness and disclosure of all essential facts. Do not suppress relevant available facts, or give distorting emphasis.”
A recent column in The Australian by Gary Johns appeared to fulfil this standard by quoting a variety of sources. They included scientist Judith Curry, the NIPCC, an article by Matt Ridley in the Wall Street Journal and scientist Richard Muller.
Judith Curry is on record as saying: “Since 1998 there has been no statistically significant increase in global surface temperature.”
The NIPCC we have already examined.
Prof John Graham, who exposed Christopher Monckton, exposed Matt Ridley’s article in the Wall Street Journal as “error-filled” and “so egregious that readers deserve a correction.”
Richard Muller was a denialist but last year he completely changed his views. Comments he made about the IPCC were correctly reported but Muller complained that on other points “I can’t imagine how he misquoted me so badly” and “Maybe he is quoting something I said several years ago, before I found a reasonable solution.”
The main point is that there was not one representative from the mainstream of the world’s climate scientists who say they are 95% sure that the global warming is predominately caused by mankind.
Who should we believe in this debate – the unscientific, bigoted views of writers and broadcasters who don’t abide by the journalists’ code of ethics or the scholarship of thousands of dedicated climate scientists?
Let’s deal with Bolt first.
Bolt claimed that David Suzuski was “pig ignorant” in two answers he gave to questions on ABC’s Q&A.
The first question was from Bill Koutalianos. He’s president of the No Carbon Tax Climate Sceptics Party.
He asked: “Since 1998 global temperatures have been relatively flat, yet many man-made global warming advocates refuse to acknowledge this simple fact. Has man-made global warming become a new religion in itself?”
Suzuski responded: “Yeah, well, I don’t know why you’re saying that. The ten hottest years on record, as I understand it, have been in this century. In fact, the warming continues. It may have slowed down but the warming continues and everybody is anticipating some kind of revelation in the next IPCC reports that are saying we got it wrong. As far as I understand, we haven’t. So where are you getting your information? I’m not a climatologist. I wait for the climatologists to tell us what they’re thinking.”
Koultalianos: “UAH, RSS, HADCRUT, GISS data shows a 17-year flat trend which suggests there may be something wrong with the Co2 warming theory?”
Suzuski: “Sorry, yeah, what is the reference>”
Koutalianos: “Well, they’re the main data sets that IPCC use: UAH, University of Alabama, Huntsville; GISS, Goddard Institute of Science; HadCRUT. I don’t know what that stands for, HADCRUT; and RSS, Remote Sensing something. So those data sets suggest a 17-year flat trend, which suggests there may be a problem with the Co2.”
Suzuski: “No, well, there may be a climate sceptic down in Huntsville, Alabama, who has taken the data and come to that conclusion. I say, let’s wait for the IPCC report to come out and see what the vast bulk of scientists who have been involved in gathering this information will tell us.”
Andrew Bolt said in his column: “Fancy Suzuki not even knowing what the world’s main temperature data sets say about global temperatures…a complete know-nothing, citing false claims.”
Here’s what the full Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released here on Tuesday, says: “The GMST (global mean surface temperature) trend over 1998–2012 is estimated to be around one-third to one-half of the trend over 1951–2012... Even with this “hiatus” in GMST trend, the decade of the 2000s has been the warmest in the instrumental record of GMST…Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850.”
Suzuki was 100 per cent right. Koutalianos was wrong to assert there has been a 17-year flat trend in temperatures. Temperature increases have slowed down but the warming continues. Bolt was completely wrong. In his own words: “Fancy not even knowing what the world’s main temperature data sets say about global temperatures…a complete know-nothing, citing false claims.”
Another question came from fellow climate sceptic Stewart Franks who asked: “In an opinion piece last week you wrote that the Great Barrier Reef was threatened by the increasing frequency of cyclones...you know, the Great Barrier Reef does have environmental threat, but cyclones ain’t one of them.”
Here’s what the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the University of Wollongong found in a study released in October 2012: “The Great Barrier Reef has lost half its coral cover in the last 27 years. The loss was due to storm damage (48%), crown of thorns starfish (42%), and bleaching (10%)…Intense tropical cyclones have caused massive damage, primarily to reefs in the central and southern parts of the Reef.”
I reckon Suzuki comes out on top in that exchange.
Bolt asked: “How in God’s name could people take this man seriously?”
The evidence is clear – and using his own invective it’s Bolt who is pig ignorant.
How on earth can anyone believe the drivel Andrew Bolt writes, especially about climate change?
Next Alan Jones, who describes the scientific findings about climate change to be a “hoax”, “witchcraft” and “ignorance”.
Jones said on a recent program: “The 2007 (IPCC) Assessment Report said the planet was warming at the rate of .2 of a degree centigrade every decade. Well, the update now says the true figure was .12, almost a 100% error. The IPCC for a week has been denying it’s locked in crisis as they talk to scientists and don’t know what to do about the fact that their former theories of climate change have been disproven.”
Jones – as is always the case on climate change – was entirely wrong. The true figures are 0.12 and 0.13 – a difference of 0.01 – a hundredth of a degree. What a hoax!
His problem was that he was so anxious to decry several thousand scientists that he took his information containing the appalling error from another section of the media which frequently publishes articles pouring doubt on climate change science, The Australian.
And The Australian took the information from the UK’s Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph, both of which are intent on opposing the science of climate change.
The problem with these denial-driven media outlets is that there is very little to support their agendas because a 2013 study which reviewed 11,944 abstracts of scientific papers on climate found 4,014 which discussed the cause of recent global warming and reported that 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.
So what Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones and The Australian tend to do is wheel out the same old “expert denialists” to agree with them. It’s very incestuous. The trouble is, none of them are climate scientists.
There’s Christopher Monckton, a journalist who was found by Professor John Graham to have falsified the findings of scientific papers on climate change. Monckton has confessed to lying that he had been forced to sell his house.
There’s Ian Plimer, a geologist, who has set himself up as an expert on climate science but could not defend claims he had made in his book Heaven and Earth when questioned by journalist George Monbiot. Plimer’s claims that the effects of undersea volcanoes had not been included in scientific research have been rejected by the United States Environment Protection Agency.
And there’s shellfish and sediment scientist Bob Carter who is the chief science advisor for the International Climate Science Coalition. Sounds impressive, eh? But the coalition was founded by former journalist, commercial printer and head of the New Zealand Wine Institute Terry Dunleavy. Executive director is engineer Tom Harris. Energy issues advisor is Bryan Leyland, an energy engineer.
In 2012 it was revealed that Professor Carter received a "monthly payment" from the Heartland Institute of $US1667 as part of a program to pay "high-profile individuals who regularly and publicly counter the alarmist [human-caused global warming] message".
Wikipedia says Heartland has worked with the tobacco company Philip Morris to question the serious cancer risks of secondhand smoke. The New York Times says Heartland is best-known for its attacks on climate science.
And Wikipedia also says oil and gas companies have contributed to the Heartland Institute, including over $600,000 from ExxonMobil between 1998 and 2005 – and Greenpeace reported that Heartland received almost $800,000 from ExxonMobil.
There is a parallel between the war waged by tobacco companies against scientists who battled to convince the public and governments that smoking causes cancer and the war now being waged by vested interests against climate scientists.
Another self-initiated climate-change denying organisation, the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), has worked closely with the Heartland Institute. Wikipedia points out: “Unlike the IPCC, the NIPCC examines literature published exclusively by climate contrarians who are paid to contribute their findings to NIPCC reports, according to leaked internal documents of the Heartland Institute. The 2009 NIPCC report Climate Change Reconsidered had two lead authors, (NIPCC founder) Fred Singer and Craig Idso, and 35 contributors.”
It’s ironic that many people who don’t believe there is a climate problem suggest that there is a conspiracy among climate change scientists to fabricate results in order to gain funding whereas the only evidence I have seen of payments being made relates to the denial “experts”.
Yet Alan Jones criticizes the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as the purveyors of a gigantic hoax, witchcraft and ignorance.
Jones, Bolt and many other opponents of the IPCC refer to it as though it sits around inventing fictional horror stories about the end of the world.
The fact is, the IPCC is only the messenger. It does not conduct any research itself. Its task is to review and distil the work of thousands of scientists.
For this latest report it arranged for 1089 experts to review more than 9,200 scientific publications with more than two million gigabytes of numerical data from climate model simulations.
The IPCC says its reports undergo multiple rounds of drafting and review to ensure they are comprehensive and objective and produced in an open and transparent way. Thousands of other experts contribute to the reports by acting as reviewers, ensuring the reports reflect the full range of views in the scientific community. Teams of Review Editors provide a thorough monitoring mechanism for making sure that review comments are addressed.
The experts are not paid for their work.
For this latest report the IPCC considered 54,677 comments about the results of the research.
Witchcraft? A hoax? Ignorance?
If Bolt, Jones, The Australian, the UK Daily Mail and UK Daily Telegraph abided by the first tenet in the Journalists’ Code of Ethics they would be duty bound to present balanced information. The code says journalists should: “Report and interpret honestly, striving for accuracy, fairness and disclosure of all essential facts. Do not suppress relevant available facts, or give distorting emphasis.”
A recent column in The Australian by Gary Johns appeared to fulfil this standard by quoting a variety of sources. They included scientist Judith Curry, the NIPCC, an article by Matt Ridley in the Wall Street Journal and scientist Richard Muller.
Judith Curry is on record as saying: “Since 1998 there has been no statistically significant increase in global surface temperature.”
The NIPCC we have already examined.
Prof John Graham, who exposed Christopher Monckton, exposed Matt Ridley’s article in the Wall Street Journal as “error-filled” and “so egregious that readers deserve a correction.”
Richard Muller was a denialist but last year he completely changed his views. Comments he made about the IPCC were correctly reported but Muller complained that on other points “I can’t imagine how he misquoted me so badly” and “Maybe he is quoting something I said several years ago, before I found a reasonable solution.”
The main point is that there was not one representative from the mainstream of the world’s climate scientists who say they are 95% sure that the global warming is predominately caused by mankind.
Who should we believe in this debate – the unscientific, bigoted views of writers and broadcasters who don’t abide by the journalists’ code of ethics or the scholarship of thousands of dedicated climate scientists?
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