The Australian Abbott government has granted Bjørn Lomborg $4 million, to set up a “consensus centre” at the University of West Australia.
According to The Guardian;
The Abbott government found $4m for the climate contrarian Bjørn Lomborg to establish his “consensus centre” at an Australian university, even as it struggled to impose deep spending cuts on the higher education sector.
A spokesman for the education minister, Christopher Pyne, said the government was contributing $4m over four years to “bring the Copenhagen Consensus Center methodology to Australia” at a new centre in the University of Western Australia’s business school.
The spokesman said the “Australia Consensus Centre” was a proposal put forward by the “university and Dr Lomborg’s organisation”.
Sources have told Guardian Australia the establishment of the centre had come as a surprise even to senior staff in the business school, who were unaware that the centre was being established until shortly before it was announced this month.
The Guardian’s description of Bjørn Lomborg as a climate “contrarian” seems a little strong – in my opinion Lomborg is more of a lukewarmer. Lomborg is concerned about CO2, but he is highly critical of climate scaremongering, and regularly receives favourable coverage on WUWT for his moderate views.
The decision to site the new centre at the University of West Australia is interesting. Professor Lewandowsky was based in the University of West Australia, before he moved to Bristol in England. In 2014, Steve McIntyre accused the Vice Chancellor of UWA of violating the Australian Code of Conduct for the Responsible Practice of Research and the UWA’s own code of conduct, over a refusal to release some of Lewandowsky’s data.
Former chief commissioner of the defunct Climate Commission, Tim Flannery and his private climate council seem furious over the Lomborg grant, calling it:
“A $4 million dollar insult to the scientific community“
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Insult to the scientific community? Which one? Climate, of course.
The pseudo scientific community. The one that had Australia spend $70 billion on now mothballed desalination plants which are each costing around $900,000 a week to maintain in a state of hibernation. Well done Tim.
And even if they do end up using these plants, then the cause is inadequate development of new dams, water holding reservoirs and pipelines to transfer water from regions of rainfall to regions of drought. Because the average rainfall for the whole of Australia seems to be steadily increasing. So, whilst there are and always have been severe droughts, these are the result of regional weather patterns and not the overall trend for the continent.
“The rainfall graph shows an increase in annual rainfall averaged across the continent over the reporting period 1900 to 2004. The increase from the mid 1970s is more pronounced. This is interesting given that the area affected by decreased rainfall seems to be greater than the area affected by increased rainfall. It also contrasts with the data relating to the Southern Oscillation Index, which shows that there have been more frequent and severe El Nino events (drier periods) since the mid 1970s.”
http://www.environment.gov.au/node/22392
Stupid is as stupid does
I agree with your sentiments but those money numbers can’t be right.
Ship them to Spanish Sahara or some such place
http://www.environment.gov.au/sites/all/themes/enviro/logo.png
http://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/pages/8c3a8097-744b-469f-9479-6bb3b429f3b2/images/a02rainfalltrendsannmean.gif
Wow! The governments own records show rainfall increasing over Australia, but good old Tim says there will be less rain, so the government wastes $70 billion. Now Tim is complaining that the government isn’t spending the $4 million on him so he can make more mistakes.
A warming world is predicted to be a wetter world. Clearly dear old Tim didn’t get the memo.
Anything that gets on Tim Flannery’s goat can’t be all bad …
ferdberple,
‘memo’ what is a memo dude? Clearly neither Tim nor BOM are on twitter.
Tim Flannery has been the “Insult to the scientific community” for years!
In his 2005 book “The Weather Makers” he produces a graphic (page 35) that he claims is the Keeling Curve. But his version is corrupted in that it clearly masks the (Agung & Pinatubo) volcano related interruptions in CO2 growth, and the casual reader cannot question the fact that the rise is not consistent and even, because the dips ARE NOT shown.
If one does become aware of these trend discontinuities that do not fit the “inexorable rise due to AGW” scenarios popular in the press and literature, then the sole CO2 increase attribution to fossil fuel burning comes into question, and it is a question that AGW proponents do not want to answer.
Hopefully, the Bjørn Lomborg “Consensus Centre” will serve to expose the shameful Flannery data alteration and let all come to see the perfidy behind the AGW curtain of deceit.
In his book, http://www.amazon.com/Here-Earth-Natural-History-Planet/dp/B0076TM254, “Here on Earth: A Natural History of the Planet”, he says that carbon dioxide produces Carbolic Acid in the oceans. He repeated it again here:
‘Climate change is a threat to our civilisation’
“Speaking at the Tata Business Excellence Convention 2012 on ‘Reversing people induced climate change’ the best-selling author of The Future Eaters and The Weather Makers stressed the need to take immediate action in this critical decade to prevent further environmental damage and to leave a more acceptable inheritance for our children.
http://www.tata.com/article.aspx?artid=tut2YR29NNU=
Sometimes the issue of climate change does seem overwhelming and there are fears about acknowledging climate change and what it means. It means that we are responsible for changing conditions on the surface of the earth. However, much of the science is self-evident.
One example is the issue of coral reefs. In Australia we have conducted a series of experiments where we have taken sea water, reduced its acidity and temperature to create conditions as they were 200 years ago and then put coral in that; the coral thrives in that water. We can take sea water as it is today and coral does not grow so well.
We can put coral into water with conditions as they will be in 10 years’ time and we will see that the coral is stunted and dying. We can see that this will happen — carbon dioxide in the atmosphere produces carbolic acid in the ocean, the ocean becomes acidic and things die.
Flannery was not alone in this, as I discovered here!
http://epoca-project.eu/index.php/who-are-we.html
The EU FP7 Integrated Project EPOCA (European Project on Ocean Acidification) was launched in June 2008 with the overall goal to advance our understanding of the biological, ecological, biogeochemical, and societal implications of ocean acidification. The EPOCA consortium brings together more than 100 researchers from 27 institutes and 10 European countries.
There is a blog linked directly to the project site:
http://oceanacidification.wordpress.com/about-2/
This blog was started in July 2006 as a “one man” effort. It is a product of EPOCA, the European Project on Ocean Acidification since May 2008 and it is sponsored by the IMBER and SOLAS projects since January 2010.
This blog is coordinated by:
Jean-Pierre Gattuso, CNRS Senior Research Scientist
CNRS-Université Pierre et Marie Curie Paris 6, France
AR5: The list of authors and review editors of IPCC Working Group II, 5th Assessment Report included Jean-Pierre Gattuso from EPOCA. If this blog is really co-ordinated by Gattuso, a lead author on AR5 WGII, you would assume he would read what is written there:
http://oceanacidification.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/ocean-acidification-audio/
“Too much carbon is flooding the ocean with carbolic acid, with devestating (sic) effects on life in the sea.” (no wonder!)They have a video series which you have to subscribe to, in order to view.
“A stand-alone segment of the Planet Warning series. Each segment can be downloaded separately. The series theme is that the world is in a dangerous position, just as the US was when it was bombed at Pearl Harbor. Each segment is embedded in WWII audio and music. This segment reports on “global warming’s evil twin”, ocean acifidication, which results from too much carbon in the water.”
Then they have other contributions, such as this one from the Australian Academy of Science:
“Chemists have known for a long time that a beaker of water sitting in a lab will absorb carbon dioxide from the air and turn acidic.
Would it happen at a larger scale? If we greatly increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the world’s atmosphere, for example, would the oceans become a vast acid bath? What would be the ecological effects?
Over the next century or so, we are going to find out.”
He likely meant “an insult to the Government supported, politically correct community”: He thinks all taxpayer money is to be distributed to rent seekers in Academia.
Head explosions pre-programmed.
Lomborg’s methodology (finding consensus on threats facing mankind and rating the same by priority, particularly which ones humans can affect), is wise.
I prefer random head explosions, and don’t forget steam coming out the ears, that’s my favorite.
As for Lomborg, the thing I like is his calm insistence that people answer one simple question; “how do you know that?”
Same question I always rant/ask …..
It was very telling when he appeared before the US Congress.
It was a packed auditorium for Al Gore who appeared before him.
Crickets, Republicans and empty seats were left for Dr. Lomborg.
He does have a novel concept, address the most pressing issues where we
can do the most good and get the best return on investment.
I don’t know if he is a lukewarmer or just accepting AGW for sake of argument.
Ok, it is because of CO2, we still need to choose the best places to invest our
children’s future. (and CO2 isn’t it.)
A nice start. Now audit the Climate hype organizations that have been siphoning off billions..
Tony you have redeemed your recent gaffe in Germany…almost..
Good on yer Ozies!
Bjørn Lomborg is one of the most reasonable voices out there. His books are a good read. Very glad to hear this news.
His ‘Skeptical Environmentalist’ is one of the most influential on my own thinking about environmental issues. I recommend it.
Weel said. The “Skeptical Environmentalist” is REALLY a suggested reading. When he published the book, he was subjected to a really heavy attack by the green mafia…..
If you don’t have time to read the entire book, just the preface is great. I give copies of it to those who I think will read it.
+ several
Anything that upsets Flim Flan must be a positive.
Agreed. I was unsure at first but then reading that he hated I thought it must be a good idea then.
How’s his geothermal experiment going? I believe the Rudd government loaned him $90 mill. Aren’t we taxpayers due for an update?
They blew the holes up and could not afford to drill new ones. The steam could not escape quickly enough.
It also caused a minor earth tremor.
Flannery is upset because his Stalinist education tour of Australia has been stopped. All were welcome to come to the halls and ask questions. Only if the questions confirmed his warming bias. So he sees a Climate trough and he can’t get his snout into it.
The University of Western Australia just shut down its water research department much to the consternation of many. It had world class researchers as clean water is as important as energy to poor countries and even more important in developing countries. Developed countreis take clean water as a given but the Millennium Drought in Australia exposed the vulnerability of water supplies.
That was why the desalination plants were established as the left wing government tried to cover up its bans on water infrastructure and the green tape built up by State governments too block dams.
He is good buddies with the UK’s Lord Deben, (John Gummer), chairman of the UK Climate Change Committee. They are both members of the Prince Albert of Monaco Foundation: http://www.fpa2.com/gouvernance.html#
He also works with Pachauri’s buddies, the Tata’s. The GlobalMail now appears defunct but it’s still on wayback.
http://web.archive.org/web/20121101024843/http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/coal-its-over/448 October 29, 2012
“I’m pretty close to what happens in India; I serve on the [giant Indian industrial conglomerate] Tata power sustainability advisory board. And my gut feeling is the big expansion of coal in India is not going to happen, and they are going to leapfrog into renewables, because of declining cost and all the land-use issues in India.”
Seems he got that wrong as well,
http://www.thegwpf.com/india-to-overtake-china-as-biggest-coal-importer/
Getting Dr. Judith Curry on board would finish off the extremists.
Yeah, I’d like to see Curry and Lomborg take on McKibben, it would be a contrast between calm adults and children on a sugar buzz.
In true Aussie vernacular I shout from the rooftop “Go you good thing”
Still my beating heart,
Onya Bjorn!,
Christopher Pyne, for a poodle, you really MINCE dude,
and
AbbottAbbottAbbott,
Oi! Oi! Oi!
Aussies will get the above, other may require to refer to Google. (Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk)
😉 +1
Or. even more so..
“you li’l rippa!”
As an Aussie, I was getting a little worried that (a) Abbott was going to be rolled and (b) Oz was losing its way dealing with the climate alarmist drivel. Perhaps this UWA a change to redeem itself after the Lewandowsky debacle.
Tony Abbott is not as stupid as he would like everyone to think he is!
Hardly anyone could be.
damn. this UWA = this gives UWA
Unfortunately, all he will get is criticism from left-wing rags like Fairfax and the Grauniad because he in not a Believer.
But few people are reading those rags lately.
Another stone on the scales. Very good. Let the CAGW crowd evaporate, at worst we could just end up with AGW and a nice world to live in.
True believers can not be deprogrammed they can only be put aside and asked to keep it down for a bit or else be mercilessly shamed by observation, until they go quiet once more.
I love this sooo much!! Go Tony😄
UWA faculty is warmist to the max. I suggest a bit of warmist gatekeeping on anything Bjorn wishes to publish.
They can’t. Academics deal directly with the publisher when publishing academic work. They don’t need to get approval. There is no space in the process for the University to interfere.
Because Flannery is offended, it must be a reasonable appointment and initiative.
‘reasonable’!
How about absolutely perfect!
How about the 101st AIrborne telling the Whermacht “NUTS” at Bastogne, perfect!
As a former student at UWA I have had to carry a sense of shame at the moronic carry on of La Lewny. So how about ‘redemption is at hand, perfect!!
December 22, 1944 – The Americans were surrounded in the Belgian city of Bastogne. The Germans sent a note demanding that the Americans surrender. The Americans replied:
The Americans were able to hold on until they were relieved by Patton on Dec. 27. There were many notable performances including that of the remnants of the widely disrespected 333rd who were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation.
More a case of flimflam being disappointed he got no cut of the $4 million pie, I suspect.
🙂
Lomborg’s approach is definitely an enormous improvement over Tim Flannery: the flagrantly deceitful, Gaia loving, ideologue of the previous Far Left government’s Climate Commission. However, for all of his contributions to balanced debate, Lomgborg is still vested in many ludicrous aspects of the pseudo science proffered by the world’s largest cult of “Climate Doomsday Preppers”, otherwise known as the IPCC.
Lomborg is off to an unfortunate start with the reference to “Consensus Centre” while dealing with a topic that has been so grossly damaged because of the distortions caused by policing the manufactured consensus.
The name concerns me too, but Dr Lomborg, while generally inclined to CO2 reduction, has been eminently reasonable in his approach for actions. He can be reasoned with and won’t do anything harmful to the economy or the environment in the name of CO2 reduction, and he can also be trusted to not spend years piddling away doing nothing. I’m holding out hope that this is going to be for the best
Tim Flannery is just spitting the dummy. What juvenile behaviour.
He had a six figure salary for part-time job and the ear of the leader of the country to get his ideas made real while being someone that had no electorally mandate , you bet his spitting his dummy.
Flannery is one amongst the many who are ‘climate activists ‘ that share planet sized egos .
Make that “whacko ideas”
He was also on the board of a Geothermal power company.
Or you could do a course in Climate Denial from the other side of Australia.
https://www.edx.org/course/making-sense-climate-science-denial-uqx-denial101x
I’ve signed up. Perhaps they will have students’ question and answer segments.
I, too, have signed up. Not optimistic about the course materials.
Greg; you shouldn’t be. Check out the instructors on the same page.
Proving the falsehoods behind the fake 97% will be extremely difficult to the 97% fabricators and fantasists.
Not forgetting that the course will set your math skills back decades if not centuries.
I just checked out their page. Is that for real? Not a April fool’s day joke? I always thought that education had to educate, not just indoctrinate victims, I mean students, in your own religion…
It’s for real. Cook et al. are pretty sure of themselves that the 97% is settled science fit as main argument for education.
And not just any education. This is a MOOC – a massive open online course where anyone can join. The word “massive” implies there is no limit to how many can attend. This in turn implies there is very limited possibilities from the teachers to provide any qualified and direct discussions/feedback with students; almost all course material, lectures, reading material, is pre-made as videos and slideshows, and simple testing methods such as multiple choice. Examinations must be automated as far as possible as manually checking test results from thousands from students would be very time consuming. This in turn implies that disputed content should be avoided as far as possible.
The fact that the prerequisites are “basic high school science” means this course is aimed at the general public and as such it expected that basic content will be covered with a safe margin to any research frontiers where evidence are inconclusive and debated.
Furthermore a main objective for any university to provide a MOOC is advertising. You don’t see high profile celebrities such David Attenborough, as seen in the course teaser video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RedrutZ_G3Q
in your regular guest lecturer list.
It is supposed to attract interest in the university and showing off the qualities of the education provided. Even higher then, the incentive to uphold academic educational principles of objective and relevant information.
It would be interesting if someone took the course and reported back here at WUWT on University of Queensland idea of academic education qualities.
You must have never seen Ghostbusters.
Dean Yeager: This university will no longer continue any funding for any of your group’s activities. Doctor… Venkman. The purpose of science is to serve mankind. You seem to regard science as some kind of dodge… or hustle. Your theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, your methods are sloppy, and your conclusions are highly questionable! You are a poor scientist, Dr. Venkman!
Dr. Peter Venkman: But the kids love us!
The author says:
“The Guardian’s description of Bjørn Lomborg as a climate “contrarian” seems a little strong – in my opinion Lomborg is more of a lukewarmer.”
This is true. Some time ago suggested that Lomborg should meet with Svensmark – as I recall, they were both in Copenhagen, Denmark, a country so small it would almost fit into the two largest towns (by area) in Canada. To my knowledge, that meeting did not happen.
Still, Lomborg is a decent guy who is generally pointed in the right direction..
Denmark 43,094 km2
La Tuque, Quebec (Ville) 25,104.59 km2
Senneterre, Quebec (Ville) 14,887.03 km2
Amazing, that’s even smaller than Tasmania (68,401 square kilometres), a state so small it only survives by leeching off the rest of Australia.
It’s not the size that has left Tasmania leeching off other states.
It was doing fine before the Greens devestated electricity generation and the forrestry, mining, woodchip and paper manufacturing industries.
Now much of the state, particularly the Northwest is as depopulated as if we’d lost a war.
The “top of the List State” Highest Illiteracy, highest number of people on some form of benefit, highest amount of GST take, All Thank You to the Green blob policies!
The size of the country says nothing about the IQ of the country. I’d like to compare the achievements of the Canadian cities with those of Denmark.
Dear Climatologist,
My comment was that Lomborg and Svensmark both work in Copenhagen, and probably could walk to a meeting with each other. – and I suggest they should have met. Perhaps they did, but our correspondence never so indicated.
I suggest that Lomborg’s luke-warmist position is highly questionable, because there is NO evidence that increasing atmospheric CO2 will cause dangerous global warming. Equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) if it exists at all, is very low – and ECS may not even exist in the practical sense because atmospheric CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales.
As we published with confidence in 2002, “There is no global warming crisis”.
While we do not know for certain at this time what is causing the recent increase in atmospheric CO2, whether it is primarily humanmade or primarily natural, it is clear that this increase in CO2 can only be beneficial to humanity AND the environment. Atmospheric CO2 on Earth is clearly low, and dangerously so – the next Ice Age or a subsequent one will, in all probability, be an extinction event for terrestrial carbon-based life on this planet.
Regarding the comparitive intellectual achievements of the good people of Denmark versus those of the good people of La Tuque and Senneterre, I suggest that is an irrelevant comment.
Regards, Allan
I will ask the German chancellor to return Schleswig Holstein immediately!
It seems that “Consensus” has become a good word in science, while “Skepticism” has turned into a bad word. Strange times.
I do not like this consensus science title. It sends the wrong message about science. Otherwise this is a sensible initiative.
How is it sensible? This is merely incremental narrative correction from what I can tell.
Tim Flannery seems to have accidentally given away the Climate Council’s motivation when their Facebook page says “. When someone is unwilling to adapt their view on the basis of new science or information, it’s usually a sign those views are politically motivated.”. Now who was he referring to again? Maybe time for a good look in the mirror.
For everything you wanted to know about Flannery’s Climate Council, but were afraid to ask, see
http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2015/04/profits-doom/
Very nice. The quote from Amanda, welcoming Tony to the Council, is perhaps indicative of the quality of their data.
“Dear Tony, I wanted to write to say – thank you.Your donation today[2] is powering Climate Council to cumulatively reach hundreds of millions of Australians with vital information on climate change, changing hearts and minds on this important issue. If you can share the fact that you have taken action and donated today it’s likely to inspire others to join you. We are only as strong as you make us.” Amanda McKenzie,Climate Council CEO, 10/4/15. (Amanda’s emphasis).”
Hundreds of millions of Australians? What? The bureau of stats projects that our population is 23,792,741 on18 April 2015 at 04:16:28 PM. Did she get the hundreds of millions from a computer model or was someone cutting and pasting a letter they’d used somewhere else?
‘Australia’s decision comes after the Danish government cut its funding for Lomborg’s Copenhagen center in 2012. Lomborg had then moved to the U.S. and relied on private donations.’
International Business Times
———-
The gods are smiling on us, its also a smart move by the Abbott government.