Australia's Victorian government creates seminar to "deal with denialism"

So the Victorian government has sponsored a seminar to instruct people how to stifle public debate?
Wow.
Are the public coffers so overflowing in Australia that spending on this kind of one-sided advocacy doesn’t raise the hackles of the electorate?
And this doesn’t even address the anti-scientific nature of such a “seminar”.

Robustness, yes.
Rigour and Credibility, that’s a joke!

I registered. Here is the content of my email:
===================================
You must be really worried about all the non-peer reviewed literature in IPCC report if you have to resort to propaganda meetings to support your political position. Did Tony Blair donate any of the 5 million pounds a year he says he needs to live in the style to which he has become accustomed? Did Al Gore? How bout the WWF or Greenpeace? Or are you just ripping off your local tax payers to brainwash them with unsubstantiated power point slides? Maybe you could invite Lord Monckton or Bjorm Borg to bring some rationale discussion to your circus.
From Wayne Delbeke from the Great White North (Canada) …. and getting whiter … forecast is for snow in Alberta this Friday. Where is that Global Warming that is supposed to increase my crop production? Oh yeah. That’s just weather.
Enjoy.

Gandhi remarked to the effect of:
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
He also said this too:
“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.” — Mohandas Gandhi

Somewhere over the rainbow…
Dealing with Climate Change Ignorance, with Captain Tuttle
(Commonwealth Scientific Ignorance Research Organisation)
Key themes:
*Why using the word “attribution” is stupid
*How the stupidity spreads
*Is Real Climate to blame?
*Difference between “Science” and “Scientists”
BBQ Lunch!

Show valid data and everyone will shut up and get on with resolving the problem, if any.

The NZ government seems to be beginning a new PR campaign to justify our ETS, because their own coalition partner ACT has begun making some headway in convincing farmers of its true cost and stupidity. There was an article in the paper attempting to rubbish ACT’s claims and spouting the same old ‘compelling evidence for AGW’. They even accused ACT of scaremongering, imagine that. I couldn’t find an electronic version unfortunately. We recently had a goods and services tax increase (GST) and the public seems to have forgotten about the ETS coming into effect on July 1, most are probably still unaware of it.

evanmjones says on May 26, 2010 at 11:02 pm

Mechanics: D
Content: F
As much as I’d like to ding them for mechanics, it won’t do.
Outside the US, English collective nouns take the plural, not singular. As in, “The crowd are loving it.” Or, “The government are crooks.”

Hmmm, I grew up in Australia, and I would say: The crowd is loving it. As for the government, while I agree with the sentiment, I would probably say “The government is a bunch of crooks.”

Richard Sharpe: May 26, 2010 at 11:40 pm
Hmmm, I grew up in Australia, and I would say: The crowd is loving it. As for the government, while I agree with the sentiment, I would probably say “The government is a bunch of crooks.”

Canadians say things that way too – particularly the last sentence. ☺
/dr.bill

“Dealing with climate change denialism with Paul Holper, CSIRO”
Denialism? As in Holocaust Denialism? You know by neo-fascist groups? Hey, what’s the difference? Every one should know that to doubt that CO2 is “pollution” is just like denying 6 million Jews were systematically exterminated by the Nazis. Right Paul Holper?
Dehumanization through contemptuous labeling is a technique reserved by authoritarians to oppress ‘the other,’ by distinguishing them from the tribe, it’s meant to legitimise brutish rhetoric and coercion…leading to… That’s why slanderous labels for minorities – religious, racial or ideologically – is called hate speech.
There’s little difference in the reason that Paul Holper uses the d-word to describe CAGW scepticism than a demagogue politician in 1954 Atlanta, Georgia used the n-word at a city council meeting. It’s all about hate, invidious labeling and intimidation. One difference is that Holper is using hate on the Internet – the greatest free market of ideas ever created – where he will be named and judged by history.
A government funded agency engaging in the hateful labelling of a legitimate and rationally plausible interpretation of scientific data as equivalent to Nazi denialism of the Holocaust is an act of government oppression of (what they imagine is) a minority opinion.
To Aussify Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, “They told me if I voted for PM Howard that minorities would be targeted and my civil liberties would be violated. And they were right!
Bit surprised, though, that the CSIRO now qualifies as a hate group under the UN Charter of Human rights.

As a Victorian I am aghast at this anti scienc totalitarian mind set. Time to revisit Karl Popper’s ‘Open Society and its Enemies.’ I intend to spread the word. I look forward to Anthony Watt’s visit in July.

The words “Dealing with” are quite Orwellian. Truly evil.
Some of these sad buggers need to get a life.

The organisers of this seminar might care to read this, from today’s Express:
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/177422/Climate-change-battle-wastes-billions-of-pounds-
____________________________________________________________
CLIMATE CHANGE BATTLE “WASTES BILLIONS OF POUNDS”
Thursday May 27, 2010
By John Ingham
BILLIONS of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being “wasted” in fighting climate change as other nations are hell-bent on development, a new book claims today.
Engineer Christian Gerondeau says in “Climate: The Great Delusion” that cutting carbon dioxide emissions in the West will not reduce them globally because of the expansion of China, India and Africa. He said yesterday: “The money being spent by our governments to reduce our emissions is being wasted.”
And another new book, “Climate: The Counter Consensus,” by Australian scientist Professor Bob Carter claims computer models used by the UN to forecast climate change are “wrong, and flipping a coin would be just as accurate.”
The books were launched as the European Commission unveiled a feasibility study into increasing the EU’s cut in CO2 emissions from 20 per cent of 1990 levels by 2020 to 30 per cent, putting the extra cost to Europe at £28billion. But yesterday the director of the Energy Intensive Users Group, Jeremy Nicholson, said that a unilateral move “would damage the European economy at a time when we can ill afford it”.
However, Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne said Britain has to fight climate change.
The Met Office, one of the world’s leading climate modelling centres, said it rigorously tests predictions.
Its head of climate change advice, Dr Vicky Pope, said: “We all know that climate modelling is difficult but we have very strong confidence in the key results such as that the warming in the last half of the 20th century is very likely due to man’s activities.
“We are able to test the predictions of our computer models by comparing them with past events. We are also constantly checking our computer models by using a wide range of data including that from satellites.”
____________________________________________________________
Of course, Ms Pope left out mentioning the only climate model that matters, the Earth itself, which is getting steadily colder.

The UK Met Office is back on the attack too:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/7767998/Met-Office-predicts-a-return-of-the-summer-of-1976.html

To deny implies refusing to change views which are not compatible with the evidence.
Scepticism means only accepting what can be supported by the evidence.
On the whole the sceptics are just that: sceptics just as all scientists should be. In contrast those who simply deny their views should be changed just because there isn’t any evidence to support their view are those who believe in the doomsday scenario of man made global warming.
So whilst I think it is a good idea to try to reduce denialism amongst the believers … where would you stop? Because all religions are essentially denial of the “truth” as supported by the real evidence – and as so many people find religion to be an essential and usually benign part of their life I think we should just live with the variety of life and let the believers believe what they want. So long as they don’t force their nonsense on the rest of us!

It seems to me that the establishment has rallied and is now returning to the attack after the various -gates, convinced that the same old arguments and outright lies will do as well as they always have done. Repeat it enough and people will believe again – which, sadly, I suspect may be the case. When the entirely discredited UK Met Office is asking us to believe their predictions for 100 years in the future, when they can’t even predict the weather for next week accurately, that may well indicate that they are entirely undeterred by the progress us crazed denialists have seen in the last 6 months. The general public have a short attention span, have very little interest in what constitutes good science and are willing to accept the authority of these organisations. How utterly depressing it all is.

Jack Simmons says: May 27, 2010 at 12:51 am
“Only way to stop me from questioning AGW is to break my thermometer.”
Soon the only thermometers available will only have coloured bands that say hot, warm, cool and cold. The paint will only last a couple of years, you will frequently need a new one to know the temperature. Only one company will be licensed to make them. Older thermometers will be baned because thay contain harmful chemicals.
You will be conditioned over the years to feel warm when you now feel cool. They need only change the frame of reference, remove the past and control the present.
If you still fell hot when the themometer says warm, then you will be deemed to have a chill and need medical intervention.
Once that is done, it on to the rain gauges.

Note the patronizing quote marks: “debates”. They just can’t help it, can they, they are so far gone?
Naughty, naughty! The press are encouraging “debates” with climate scientists! Whatever is the world coming to? Oh, the very idea that the press should try to present both sides impartially and should do proper investigative journalism is just so abhorrent to these politico-religious fanatics.
Of course, for the brainwashed, it couldn’t possibly be a debate, it would have to be a “debate”. Clearly this shows a religious and partisan zeal. It reminds me of the Communist Chinese English language newspaper that refers not to the Taiwanese government, president or republic, but to the “government” and “president” and “republic”, giving the readers the impression that such things cannot exist in actuality.
This shows that such people (including Paul Holper and the Victorian Government) are the real denialists. Because they dislike the reality, they deny its actual existence, and their use of words and punctuation betrays them.

With so much money on the table why am I a denialist when I could be a climate change activist and have all my bills paid for by the taxpayer?
Or rather, why did I not remain a rabid climate change activist?

Just Unbelievable !. But understandable as the Ozzie public is becoming more and more skeptical by the hour.
Well what do you do when your funding is threatened. But more frightening – what does it say when you truly believe what your preaching.

Several posts have remarked on how Western governments have embarked on a strategy of ignoring the climate science, and have become deaf to anyone who disagrees with their “climate change” policies. This is the implementation of Obama’s latest strategy which was leaked in March:
A leaked document has revealed the US government’s strategy in the UN climate talks.
Titled “Strategic Communications Objectives” and dated 11 March 2010, it outlines the key messages that the Obama administration wants to convey to its critics and to the world media before the UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico in November.
Top of the list of objectives is to: “Reinforce the perception that the US is constructively engaged in UN negotiations in an effort to produce a global regime to combat climate change.” It also talks of “managing expectations” of the outcome of the Cancun meeting and bypassing traditional media outlets by using podcasts and “intimate meetings” with the chief US negotiator to disarm the US’s harsher critics.
But the key phrase is in paragraph three where the author writes: “Create a clear understanding of the CA’s [Copenhagen Accord’s] standing and the importance of operationalising ALL elements.”
[….”operationalising”? What’s that?]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Text of the leaked document:
Strategic communications objectives
1) Reinforce the perception that the US is constructively engaged in UN negotiations in an effort to produce a global regime to combat climate change. This includes support for a symmetrical and legally binding treaty.
2) Manage expectations for Cancun – Without owning the message, advance the narrative that while a symmetrical legally binding treaty in Mexico is unlikely, solid progress can be made on the six or so main elements.
3) Create a clear understanding of the CA’s standing and the importance of operationalising ALL elements.
4) Build and maintain outside support for the administration’s commitment to meeting the climate and clean energy challenge despite an increasingly difficult political environment to pass legislation.
5) Deepen support and understanding from the developing world that advanced developing countries must be part of any meaningful solution to climate change including taking responsibilities under a legally binding treaty.
Media outreach
• Continue to conduct interviews with print, TV and radio outlets driving the climate change story.
• Increase use of off-the-record conversations.
• Strengthen presence in international media markets during trips abroad. Focus efforts on radio and television markets.
• Take greater advantage of new media opportunities such as podcasts to advance US position in the field bypassing traditional media outlets.
• Consider a series of policy speeches/public forums during trips abroad to make our case directly to the developing world.
Key outreach efforts
• Comprehensive and early outreach to policy makers, key stakeholders and validators is critical to broadening support for our positions in the coming year.
• Prior to the 9-11 April meeting in Bonn it would be good for Todd to meet with leading NGOs. This should come in the form of 1:1s and small group sessions.
• Larger group sessions, similar to the one held at CAP prior to Copenhagen, will be useful down the line, but more intimate meetings in the spring are essential to building the foundation of support. Or at the very least, disarming some of the harsher critics.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You will notice a number of important elements that are missing in this strategy. For a start there is no science involved, and no scientific justification for all these new global warming (carbon dioxide) taxes. Then there is the blatant disregard of any democratic processes. Nobody outside of the political and bureaucratic machine will ever get a say in any of this process. I don’t recall anyone from the WWF or Greenpeace seeking or winning any sort of democratic mandate, yet they are at the heart of this process as are Lord Stern, George Soros and Maurice Strong. Also missing is any idea that carbon dioxide taxes might be morally wrong, be counter-productive, inflict massive pain on the poorest people, lead to unimaginable levels of fraud and corruption, and all without “tackling climate change” in the slightest.
The only “climate change” will occur in our financial climate, and the suffocating bureaucratic climate under which we will all have to live in order to regulate every aspect of our lives so that these carbon dioxide taxes can be extorted from us in the first place.
The document reveals five key objectives:
1.) Brainwash the public about the urgency of the coming climate change disaster. If the MSM won’t play ball, then sideline them and use the internet to carry this message to the public.
2.) Set up a bureaucratic framework to monitor and regulate all activities that generate carbon dioxide.
3.) Set up a mechanism to tax all carbon dioxide-generating activities, worldwide.
4.) Work out an international agreement on how the trillions of dollars generated will be dispersed, and to whom.
5.) Embed this mechanism into a UN Treaty, which will legally bind all countries and their governments to the mechanism for ever. No future elected government will be able to stop paying carbon dioxide taxes because of the Treaty which was entered into by a previous head of state or representative.
By the way, a whole series of inter-governmental meetings are scheduled this year to try and ram this down the public’s throat before too many of the public realise that they are being lied to and swindled on a gigantic scale by their own government.
____________________________________________________________
…Any similarities between the actions described in this document and what you are experiencing at the hands of your Government are purely deliberate.

I had a friend who worked at CSIRO. He was a computational physicist
who loved doing physics.
He had a job at CSIRO. He quit in 1989 (actually I spoke to him in 1989 on
this topic) because there were certain results in this field that more desirable
than others.

They have cause to worry for even the MSM are beginning to hedge their bets (They would call it balanced reporting). In todays UK Daily Telegraph, Louise Gray the Environment Correspondent has a big page 3 piece “Met Office predicts a summer of ’76 (i.e. hot) every decade”. So far business as usual for Louise but at the end she has a comment from Jonathan Powell of Positive Weather Solutions “Not long ago the Met Office were saying summers would be wet and cloudy over the next 80 years so it seems like a complete reversal, I would take anything they say with a pinch of salt.”!

National Academies Press put out this paper, which can be downloaded:
‘On Being A Scientist: A Guide to Responsible Conduct in Research: 2009’
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12192#description
‘The scientific research enterprise is built on a foundation of trust. Scientists trust that the results reported by others are valid. Society trusts that the results of research reflect an honest attempt by scientists to describe the world accurately and without bias. But this trust will endure only if the scientific community devotes itself to exemplifying and transmitting the values associated with ethical scientific conduct.’
It seems trust is a key issue, as highlighted in the response from Geoff Sherrington on the cherry-picked Australian Treasury Budget graph. Trust would be difficult to develop in the absence of sound debate.
Public servants are employed under a Public Service [Ethics] Act at either State or Commonwealth level (CSIRO is a Commonwealth agency). They should provide fact [not evidence] based information for decision making.
Australia’s National Competition Policy inquiry (2005), with changes to the Trade Practice Act for government (pg XIV) may be viewed as limiting the current energy market while allowing the government to regulate, legislate and extensively market green energy options through ‘market opinion surveys’ while receiving funds (both grants and employees) in the energy arena.
I doubt private enterprise has the same opportunities. Let alone sending their employees to [in-house] lectures in the absence of attending broader market-based lectures.
http://www.pc.gov.au/projects/inquiry/ncp (go to Inquiry Report link as all others have an ‘error’]

Peter Miller says:
” A couple of things come to mind:
1. I guess we will soon all be sent off to re-education camps.
….. ”
_____________________________________________________
Too late, too many beers ;-).

Because of my location, I got a Google AD asking me to participate in the CSIRO survey.
Here’s the link for those that didn’t get the opportunity to express their thoughts in this AUD15 Million program.
http://www.cse.csiro.au/coastal-survey

So much media bias is with anything AGW but very little is reported the other way.
Politically motivated? Yes, if they want to keep subsities flowing and being on the incrowd to access to government matters.
Pretty hard for government and religion to be separate when the church still has a great deal to loose.
Governments have spent a great deal in the last couple of years and NEED a new tax to help get out of the huge debts. The easiest way is to fool the public into a crisis for the sake of tax money to fight the crisis. By using inadequate and inefficient wind turbines on the excuse of helping the environment, they create a small base of “look at what we are doing to save the planet” hype. The IPCC is a big part of this propaganda machine as an excuse. Does not matter about the science at all, just the ability to have the background to back new policies.
I had to find my own truth of science and had a great deal of garbage to sift to find the answers many of us having been looking for about how this planet was created, why we are here, and how these many systems interact together.
It just happened that climate also falls into this and 95% of it is incorrect.

“Dealing with climate change denialism with Paul Holper, CSIRO”
– – – – – – –
Pretend and extend will be the main theme of the seminar. The “Big Lie” must be repeated loudly and often.
I’d expect there to be many empty chairs in the theatre. Those occupied will be mostly by hard-boiled warmists seeking to learn the latest methods of psychological warfare and political chicanery that will be used against the skeptics.

OT, but John Stossel (Foxnews ) has a special on tonite examining the whole Green agenda/alt fuels, etc. biz. Should be interesting.

“Opinion often waivers…” you’d think if the Vic govt was going to squander its funds on this piffle they’d at least get the poster done by someone who can spell.

I can’t see them getting the climate change genie back in the bottle, I can see them sloping off on the back of the economic downturn – never getting to the bottom of the story and coming up with another scam a couple of years from now. Expect them to have new powers to halt blogs next time around – probably on the back of anti-terror legislation.

As a person born and raised in Victoria (Sandringham), a grad of U of Melbourne (civil engineering), an Australian and a Canadian citizen, resident of Canada, currently in Malaysia, I feel uniquely qualified to comment on this.
This is complete crap – the socialists have been in power so long that they have lost touch with reality.
“Denialists”? What about answering our questions? What about a bit of reality?
Fortunately they will be preaching to the converted who know far less about what’s going on than the average “denialist”.
This is something that Goebbels or Stalin might have come up with.
It is difficult to quantify my contempt for these people.

It is interesting that the first thing the fear mongers do is to insult the people they claim to wish to speak with.

juanslayton
Too right! Bureaucrats can’t spell and know no grammar. At least, that’s the case in Australia.
I was wondering what the 408 bureaucrats in the Department of Climate Change are doing in their brand spanking new office block now that Prime Minister Krudd has delayed acting on (read “dumped”) the “Greatest moral imperative of our time” that it would be “political cowardice of the highest order” and “display a lack of moral leadership” to delay.
Now I know. They pay $15 million a year to Joseph Goebels’ successor to preach to the captive converted in Victoria. Then they spend the rest of the year talking about who will be the next recipient of their largesse with our money.
Makes me want to puke.

Our biggest mistake in science is that we use snap shot in time science. Day to day, minute by minute snap shots of readings, history, events, science, etc. All individualized into categories with very little interaction overlap.
Many us and them mindsets have created much disputing and a great deal of mistrust. Our social structure will fail as greed and corruption for monetary gain or social status is a balancing act.
Our food supplies rely on dependable weather that we think we can forcast and when that fails, unrest and civil disobedience will fall apart.
We think we know how the climate works but it incorrect to what this planet has accomplished and achieved. Time travel, demonsional shifts, fiction are our crutches that have no place in science.
Science is a joke of pick and choose the outcome and not follow the pathes that actual science has taken.

How about a conference on dealing with climate change alarmists….these guys just don’t get it….it’s over..
Ian

RichieP says:
May 27, 2010 at 1:05 am
The UK Met Office is back on the attack too:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/7767998/Met-Office-predicts-a-return-of-the-summer-of-1976.html
“In a report published yesterday, meteorologists said extreme droughts will be ten times more likely from 2100 because of climate change. ”
I thought the Met Office had abandoned long range forecasts as they kept getting them spectacularly wrong but I guess this is so far ahead that I’ll be dead by then so won’t be able to point the finger at them when they get it wrong. It’s so easy to “predict” something in 90 years time, isn’t it?
My hopes were up before I read the article as I thought I’d get a chance to swim in our pool this summer. I didn’t go in it once last summer and possibly only twice the year before. The kids are a bit hardier than me but I don’t think they went in much more than I did.
I’ll keep an eye out for a similar seminar here in the UK. There are so many seminars organised for local government here that if you were of a mind you could attend one every day of the year. I hope the new coalition will put a stop to this sort of hanging on to the Government’s coat tails and save a few bob in the process. I’m fed up with seeing the sort of indictrination that occurred during “New” Labour’s 13 year grip on this country. Thank goodness ID cards and the Child Register are going to be scrapped. Time to smash some of those CCTV cameras and stop us being the most watched (free?) country in the world.

Orkneygal and Michael Lewis on CSIRO Coastal Survey. I started answering the survey questions but stopped when I realised that they were so loaded towards giving the Rudd Government a further excuse to waste ever-increasing billions on the AGW scam led by the hapless Penny Wong and former Australian (Alarmist) of the Year, Professor Tim Flannery. Sadly, I am old enough to remember when the CSIRO stood for real science and innovation and their scientists had an enviable reputation world-wide for truth and integrity. They are now just a puppet of their political masters.

Orkneygal says:
May 27, 2010 at 3:35 am
http://www.cse.csiro.au/forms/form-survey-sea-level.aspx
Thanks for the link – I filled in this obviously biased survey – it’s more like a petition to justify their jobs. It does show their hand a bit regarding the scheme to have coastal property owners relinquish their land as sea levels rise. What a power grab! I made the comment in the survey that the property owners should also get the right to extra land if/when sea levels dropped.
Deaf ears, methinks.

Here is something how I envision their little “Seminar” as going:
“Dealing with climate change denialism”
Problem: Skepticism Denialism is on the rise.
Solution: Continue with the usual tactics, but with heightened urgency. “No more Mr. Nice Guy”. Re-double the ad hominem attacks, smears, and straw man arguments. Always remember the immortal words of Stephen Schneider: “We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
Remember, the Public are dumb, and easily led; almost child-like, in fact. Show them how easy, painless, and even fun fighting climate change can be. We can do this, people. It’s not rocket science. We simply must try harder! We are talking about our Jobs Planet’s future here! Thank you, you’ve been great. There’s plenty of klimate kool-aid punch in the back, and before we open our bag lunches, please join me in the following prayer;
“Our Consensus, which art in…”

I took that survey, too. Here’s an example question (to which you were to mark a series of buttons ranging from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree:
“Homeowners should be compensated if their property is acquired by the government due to sea level rise”
I’m trying to wrap my mind around that one. Are they saying the government can just step in and acquire your property if the sea level rises (i.e., it becomes part of the ocean shelf and you abrogate any ownership?) Wow… how bizarre is that?

Pamela Gray
“So they are having a seminar on how to talk to folks who don’t believe. What do they call that? Can’t remember. Apologetics? No. Hermeneutics? That’s not it. Exegetics? No.”
Pamela, maybe your first thought–‘apologetics’–was best. ‘Evangelism’ targets the uninformed; ‘apologetics’ targets the unconvinced. See also ‘escatology.’ : < )
But I suspect the syllabus involves something less benevolent. 'Excommunication' comes to mind….

“RockyRoad says:
[…]
“Homeowners should be compensated if their property is acquired by the government due to sea level rise”
[…]
Wow… how bizarre is that?”
Al Gore smuggled the question into the survey.

MikeA: “It is our job to inform people of the risks involved in climate change. We would be negligent in our duty not to do this”
Tis a pity that no one (being paid to do so) is informing people of the economic disaster which is certain to occur because of heavily taxing carbon based fuels and wasting taxpayer money on “alternative energy” schemes which are hugely more expensive (and producing energy only intermittently) than carbon fuels. Not imaginative risks that “might happen” but a certain outcome with this foolhardy “solution” to what is at this present time certainly a total non-problem.
It would be far easier and far less expensive to adapt to whatever climate changes might occur.
“Doing our duty” really sounds familiar to an oldtimer such as I. Unpleasantly so.

MikeA says:
May 27, 2010 at 2:46 am
Well I live in Victoria, and I have worked for the government as a contractor; to declare my interest. It is our job to inform people of the risks involved in climate change. We would be negligent in our duty not to do this.
___________________________________________________________________________
SO what are you telling people about preparing for the coming ICE AGE?
Given the 1974 CIA report on preparations for the coming Ice Age and the simultaneous “global Warming craze, I sometimes wonder if the whole craze is just a sleight of hand. Is it a deflection of attention while the elite move the earth’s wealth into their hands and towards the equator so THEY and theirs will survive in style in case an Ice Age does happen? Or is it just greed for power?

#
#
Expat in France says:
May 27, 2010 at 2:57 am
The climate change “battle” reminds me somewhat of all those other battles, which will never really be won, but which money and resources will be thrown at hand over fist, because nobody has the strength of purpose to declare them unwinnable, and just walk away – Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan spring readily to mind. How much has all that cost so far, with no real discernable result?
___________________________________________________________________________
How much has all that cost so far, with no real discernable result?
Of course there is a discernable result. The waste of more and more federal money and the increase of the federal debt.
” “100% of what is collected is absorbed solely by interest on the Federal Debt … all
individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services
taxpayers expect from government.”
-Grace Commission report submitted to President Ronald Reagan – January 15, 1984″
The interest on the federal debt is of course paid to the private Corporation the Federal Reserve.
As usual just follow the money trail. It is amazing how often it leads back to the same group.

RockyRoad says:
May 27, 2010 at 7:00 am
I took that survey, too. Here’s an example question (to which you were to mark a series of buttons ranging from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree:
“Homeowners should be compensated if their property is acquired by the government due to sea level rise”
I’m trying to wrap my mind around that one. Are they saying the government can just step in and acquire your property if the sea level rises (i.e., it becomes part of the ocean shelf and you abrogate any ownership?) Wow… how bizarre is that?
_________________________________________________________________________
Not bizarre at all.
Several miles of ocean front property worth billions is “condemned” and acquired by the government. In the first scenario the owner is paid nothing, in the second he is paid a pittance. The government then sells the land at auction and a big hotel chain acquires the land at a pittance plus bribe and build a mega hotel, the rest is turned into a wildlife park making the hotel a more lucrative investment…..

@Jimbo (May 27, 2010 at 1:35 pm ):
Thanks for the linkage. Probably my most detailed writeup is this one:
http://borepatch.blogspot.com/2009/12/should-you-be-global-warming-skeptic.html
Or you could skip over the science analysis and jump straight to snark (the Global Warming Clippy and Blue Screen of Death):
http://borepatch.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-happens-when-you-run-climate.html
Not trolling for traffic (nice as that is), just these are probably a better starting place if you’re looking for climate stuff at my place. My approach is more focused on su7mmary explanation for a general audience than original research.

We wanted to include this as part of a piece on recursion (and politicization) in science but the links on this are all … recursive. The theater has no web link and no one answers the phone number, the DSE has no record of it and CSIRO doesn’t list it as being an event.
It’s nice that it has an element of truthiness to it but has anyone actually confirmed this beyond a poster everyone links to?

Victorians refer to the DSE as Department for Smoke and Embers as a reference to the Black Saturday bushfires.
Others say its Department of Scorched Earth for the same reason.
I think its Department for Social Engineering.

Nick Stokes – “This isn’t a CSIRO seminar”
Correct, but the flyer mentions CSIRO four times and it is made clear that Mr Holper is an employee. Is the Department of Sustainabilty and Environment paying for this presentation and if so, how much and to whom. Mr Holper as a private citizen or CSIRO as his employee? Is it in his own time or work time? Perhaps if these questions are answered and CSIRO are shown to have no involvement whatsoever then you may be a little more entitled to bleat “This isn’t a CSIRO seminar”