Mark Thompson submits this story:
Now that we have a majority Conserviative government in Canada and the past history of Liberal obfuscation is being erased, the Canadian and the broader world public is now getting a chance to hear the truth on climate issues.
The video link provided is two hours of testimony before a Canadian Senate Committee from December 15, 2011. Most who have a skeptical viewpoint will have already heard of some or all of the four presenters.
The presentations and follow-up questions are both excellent! Interesting to note the avoidance of some of the alarmist bullying seen in some of the U.S. Senate hearings from the likes of Clinton and Boxer. Of course, you’ll see the odd Liberal senator make the typical noxious commentary around thousands of scientists and ‘consensus’ but it doesn’t matter, they are only looking increasingly foolish.
View it all here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMQk-q8SpBU&feature=related
Info on the Love Guru and his BP connections one need only look at the last comment on this thread over over at Steve McIntyre’s site…what is it called…oh yeah “Climate Audit”….
http://climateaudit.org/2010/01/30/return-to-almora/
The comment dated Feb 7, 2010 links to this piece in the Telegraph…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7177323/Questions-over-awards-given-by-worlds-top-climate-scientist.html
Didn’t BP twist a few arms at Whitehall…or wait was it the Scots that let al-Megrahi free…remember Lockerbie…Pan Am 103…I don’t know if anything was ever proven…
Where is 60 Minutes when you need them…(sarc)…or maybe Bob Woodward…it could happen…
Andrew
MrX says:
January 2, 2012 at 4:59 pm
Jeff Wiita: “If you guys create a free market health care system, my family will move to Winnipeg.”
It already is. Only basic coverage is offered by the government. I get most of my coverage from work.
Sorry MrX. That is not a free market health care system. Who is John Galt?
Maybe go give a google +1 to this ‘old’ WUWT thread…and reread it while you are at it!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/18/pachauri-used-corporate-teri-email-account-to-conduct-official-ipcc-business/
…I am just saying…this aint Rocket Science…even a Climate Scientist could connect some of these dots…
David Davidovics says:
January 2, 2012 at 5:41 pm
Jim Cripwell;
I like the way you think. I doubt much would change, but has anyone tried filing a formal complaint against the CBC?
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Yes – but it goes through and incredibly circuitous routing – like complaining about the David Suzuki Foundation advertising that this year has the lowest amount of ice ever and we need to contribute to save Santa ….. Of to the broadcasting approval agencies to decide if a complaint is valid – disappears into the ether for years. And yes, Bob MacDonald of Quirks and Quarks is incredibly frustrating … good topics always get a “twist” to conform to the dogma.
On Canadian Senator Grant Mitchell’s blog are some posts of his which help explain the Senator’s thoughts on Climate Change.
“3. The jobs argument is invoked as an endless mantra in defence of all things big oil. But what about all the jobs that will be lost due to climate change and are already being lost? Why can we not work to protect both energy jobs and other jobs hurt by climate change, like forestry, agricultural and fisheries jobs?”
From Senator Grant Mitchell blog on Paradigms…
He provides no reference for nor count of these lost jobs.
Cheers,
Big Dave
Ooooh, the Canadian senate is doing it’s American counterpart proud. Lol
Brian H says:
January 2, 2012 at 7:06 pm
“….As for the McKitrick tax proposal, it has a stinger in the tail: It’s conditional. It goes up if the temperature does, and down if the temperature sinks. As he says, that way the politicians can’t go wrong, an amazing prospect.”
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Maybe Brian, but I say never give those blackbeards a new tool to work with. Besides, to be fair, perhaps the pay scale should be reversed if the disasters do not happen and more food is produced due to additional benefits of CO2. The supposed, maybe , “what if” harm of CO2 decreses exponentially, while the known benefits actually increase at more then a linear rate.
Geoff Smith says: WHO CARES IT IS NOT…… NOT BEING BROADCAST IN CANADIAN NEWS!!!!!!!
Reminds me. What started Steve McIntyre was when he received a little leaflet (as did every Canadian) on… AGW… headed-up by the Hockey Stick.
Perhaps a similar action for a different reason may now be possible? -how to bypass your MSM
oh, and Ross was superb.
BTW when enough of the AGW nonscence is fumigated, IIRC Ross has published something on a number of other scientific issues getting similarly bad treatment. Shall look it up.
OK Eastern Canada has been warm, but Australia has had its coldest summer in Historia its not “global” its regional wind patterns duh
Am I the only one who noted that there were no biologist invited to explain what CO2 is?
Was that because that they were already educated about it, or because they are totally uneducated?
“David Davidovics says:
January 2, 2012 at 5:41 pm
Jim Cripwell;
I like the way you think. I doubt much would change, but has anyone tried filing a formal complaint against the CBC?”
Yes, I have, on at least two occasions; as has, to my certain knowledge, The Friends of Science (Arthur Jacobs if I recall correctly). It was some years ago. I went through the CRTC, and after several months, ended up corresponding with the CBC ombudsman (Vince somebody). He turned out to be, IMHO, a toothless lapdog. After this sort of experience, I limit my effort to just writing an email complaint. It is not much effort, and gets the same result; namely nothing happens. That is why I hope the Senate may have more success; they have teeth that can bite if they want to.
Once upon a time man believed that the sun revolved around the earth. Climate alarmists believe the earth revolves around man.
“As for the McKitrick tax proposal, it has a stinger in the tail: It’s conditional. It goes up if the temperature does, and down if the temperature sinks. As he says, that way the politicians can’t go wrong, an amazing prospect.”
There is no way the government can base revenue and govern based on the weather. And who decides if it is warmer or cooler in any given year? The opposing party would provide evidence of false temperature readings in an election year, it would open an endless can of worms, gad I don’t want to go there.
Besides, it looks like the provinces will bring in their own carbon taxes.
As Canadians, we have to ensure provincial carbon taxes stay off the table. If we don’t speak up, this is going to be rammed down our throats.
@Duncan Binks says:
January 2, 2012 at 2:43 am
“Good stuff. It prompted me to do this…..”
Looks you’re going to need it…. badly
Read “Carbon Democracy
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2012/01/carbon-democracy.html
It was good stuff, but unfortunately it won’t go anywhere. The Canadian senate is a toothless tiger.
Ted
The Chair had a sense of humor: “Thank you, Professor Mitchell.”
Thanks to the four presenters.
Ted Cooper says:
January 3, 2012 at 11:54 am
It was good stuff, but unfortunately it won’t go anywhere. The Canadian senate is a toothless tiger.
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Are you kiding me? Bills must pass the senate before they can become law in Canada.
See: Senators kill climate bill passed by House:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/tory-senators-kill-climate-bill-passed-by-house/article1802519/
The fact that these Canadian Senate hearings have had no MSM coverage is of little consequence as the MSM is an endangered species. For years now I have watched no TV, read no newspapers aside from the occasional glance at the National Post, and obtain all of my climate news from blogs such as WUWT. Kate McMillan, of Small Dead Animals, has an amusing Not waiting for the asteroid series of posts where she documents the self destructive nature of the MSM and their increasing lack of relevance in an age where truth finds its own means of digital expression. Why anyone would waste any time on a low information bandwidth medium such as TV news is something I’ll never understand. I’ll wait for the transcripts of the Senate hearing to come out as it will only take me 10 minutes or less to read them compared to 2 hours of watching video.
Prime Minister Harper has shown himself to be an excellent strategist waiting patiently till that time he could form a majority government in Canada and then undertaking a major series of changes. Anyone who has read Prime Minister Harper’s early publications from his days in the Canadian political wilderness knows that he was then profoundly skeptical of the CAGW hypothesis. He’s simply waited until the time was right to start moving Canada away from the road to eco-suicide.
The Canadian MSM were blindsided by the results of the last Canadian election since it was a truism on their part that no party in Canada can form a majority government without Quebec and Stephen Harper did so. The primary population and economic growth in Canada over the last 20 years has been in the western part of the country and the oilsands are a major part of this. There’s a lot more work to be done in Canada to dismantle years of CAGW idiocy and Prime Minister Harper is likely the best man for the job. It wouldn’t surprise me if a plan to defund the primary CAGW propaganda arm in Canada, the CBC, is in progress and the greatly truncated broadcaster can then perform it’s only useful function which is to broadcast Hockey Night in Canada. For those who still insist on viewing TV, Sun TV has taken off in Canada satisfying a Canadian hunger for news programming done from a non-watermelon perspective.
But still the ad hominem attacks on “skeptics” continues unabated in all kinds of circles. Two examplescan be found in the October 2011 issue of Physics Today, which generally goes out to all members of the American Institute of Physics, and it’s affiliations such as the Optical Society of America.
The first of two “feature” articles is authored by someone named Steven Sherwood, who is a “codirector” of the Climate Change Research Centerof the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
His paper is lamely titled: Science controversies past and present.
Present (controversy) is of course the refusal os skeptics to accept the concensus view on CAGW, those inconvenient truths from Physics.
Except the revailing data literature from the purveyors of CAGW, seems to show that CAGW simply isn’t true. Oh yes it has warmed of the last 10k years or so, and humans have changed the face of the planet, simply by existing; but it doesn’t seem that anyone in their lifetime really notices anything much; well at least about the weather.
Well for his past science donnybrook, Sherwood conjures up the Ptolemaic versus Copernican view of the solar system, and berates the late adopters for their pig headedness, in not accepting what was obviously true.
Well Sherwood fails to note a couple of things. First off, the Copernicus/Galileo view versus the Ptolemy view was NOT a difference of science. It was the clash between an observed apparent Physical view of the solar system, and a purely religious view of the heavens, dictated by the then all powerful Catholic Church.
So Sherman errs in relating today’s climate view debate to that ancient religion versus science issue.
Equally important, it is apparent, that BOTH the Ptolemy and Copernican views were quite correct; they both described the correct relationship between the sun and planets. Now one view was mathematically simpler than the other; but both were correct; well actually both were equally wrong, since the sun doesn’t revolve around the earth, nor the earth around the sun. Both move with respect to some intermediate point, that isn’t the center of either object, and furthermore, as Einstein pointed out, there simply isn’t any absolute frame of reference, so Sherman is grasping at straws in trying to draw a parallel beteen that religious/scientific disagreement of long ago, and the science versus science of today’s climate debate.
But Sherman relies heavily on the presumed absurdity of the earth centric epicyclic view of the solar system, to paint climate skeptics as equally idiotic.
It’s a lame argument, and Sherman leads us through the tired old John Tyndall/Svante Arrhenius/Callendar to the modern world of CO2 spectroscopy, until apparently just after 2,000, “Anthropogenic” warming becomes evident. Well we all know the history of the blame CO2 game, and we acknowledge the discoveries and researches of those early workers; but even with all our modern satellite trappings, we really haven’t advanced the peg very much.
Well yes, bilions of dollars have been spent keeping generations of otherwise unempolyable “scientists” well fed, and convinced that they were the salvation of at least the planet, if maybe not of humanity. Too bad that just a small fraction of that giant slush fund has not been spent, developing more efficient ways of running our affairs.
Well some has; I’ve been working at that all my life; but doing it for profit making enterprises, who progress by making life more beneficial for all who wish to take part; and I’m still working at that aim after more than 50 years. but Sherman just lathers obvious ancient history onto his anti-science ad hominem thesis. No he doesn’t call for the guillotine for science dissenters to the party line; but maybe it would be more honest if he did, than write this piece of drivel.
Well luckily, Sherman is not to be outdone by the duet authors of the second “feature article”
Communicating the science of climate change. by Richard C.J. Somerville and Susan Joy Hassol
Well Somervilel is a professor at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, and also some non profit Climate Communication in Boulder Colorado. Apparently Colorado is a great place for climate “scientists.”
So Susan Jay Hassol “works with climate scientists to communicate what they know to policymakers and the public.” And she is THE director of Climate Communication.
Well the two of them once again launch into an ad hominem attack on the purveyors fo the “disinformation campaign”
and as we all know, these disinformation rascals are all well funded by big oil corporations, and other enemies og the planet.
Well I’m sorry Susan; but I know of no larger well funded cadre of special interest folks, than those who aspire to make a name for themselves in the science of CAGW.
No I’m not going to accuse them of deliberate falsification, of results or conclusions; I believe that many of them are dedicated scientists eager to learn the truth; But they can hardly be unaware that their gravy train would dry up, if it was shown that basically nothing untoward was happening, and that the planet was simply adapting as it has always done.
Well the article gives us no clue as to the science credentials of Ms Hassol, let alone her climate scien ce credentials. I assume she likely has some “communication” credentials, since that seems to be a popular major for people with no particular career path in mind; maybe next to “Education” or “Political Science” in college popularity. But I’ll assume that somebody paying the bills of thois non profit, is satisfied with her communication credentals. Hopefully they too will read this “feature article”.
Meanwhile I will ponder why two such “feature artcles” grace the pages of Physics Today, which is intended for serious scientists; not politiicians.