UPDATE: Veteran Australian cartoonist Pickering weighs in, see below. (h/t to Dale Stiller)
There’s yet another scare coming from Australia’s Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery hot of the heels of his failed drought predictions. And who could forget Flannery’s “quote of the millennium” immortalized by Josh?
Junkscience.com reports that: Slippery when wet – Tim Flannery’s climate warnings questioned after recent flooding
Flimflam is probably worth the $180K/yr this government pays him for his part-time position. He’s an implacable liar. Absolutely relentless with his climate hysteria, audacious and unrepentant. Definitely delivering all that this government asks.
FIVE years ago, Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery predicted that the nation’s dams would never be full again and major Australian cities would need desalination plants to cater for our water needs.
Yesterday, in his latest report, he said “climate change cannot be ruled out” as a factor in recent flooding rains, which led to some of those dams overflowing.
The apparent contradiction accompanies predictions that heatwaves, made worse by concrete, asphalt and buildings, will cause deaths and violence in western Sydney.
So he’s given up on climate change and now blaming UHI? I like it.
Jennifer Marohasy finds that the broader Sydney climate data shows another grandiose cherry pick to define the start of the trend in “hot days”.
Climate Commission Fudges Hot Day Data
IF you believe Australia’s Climate Commissioner, Tim Flannery, it is getting hotter and hotter in Western Sydney.[1]
But scientist Basil Beamish noticed that in the Climate Commission report they only show the trend of the number of hot days from 1970-2011. There is data for Sydney, measured at Observatory Hill, back to 1890.
…
Dr Beamish noticed that if you use all of the hot days data back to 1890 it is clear there is a different long-term pattern in play (see blue line in chart). In fact the year with the greatest number of hot days for Sydney is 1926 (12 days) and this has not been beaten since.
But instead of reporting on the long term trend for Sydney as measured at Observatory Hill from 1890, Professor Flannery has chosen to just focus on Western Sydney and in particular use only the data for Parramatta North (see orange line in chart). This data set begins in 1970, which was a low point in the hot days cycle. By choosing Parramatta and beginning in 1970, Professor Flannery can make the upward trend in hot days look dramatic.
Parramatta is further inland than the Observatory Hill site and so the summers are warmer and the winter’s colder. But if there were data for Parramatta back to 1890 it would almost certainly show the same pattern as Observatory Hill. Indeed it was almost certainly hotter in Parramatta, in Western Sydney, in 1926 than anytime since.
Once again the observational data does not support the nonsense claims made by Australia’s Climate Commissioner, Professor Flannery.
******
Basil Beamish provided the chart and many of the words. Thank you.
1. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-14/heatwaves-bushfires-predicted-to-hammer-nsw/4009006
=========================================================
UPDATE: WUWT reader Dale Stiller writes
“The very funny, veteran Aussie cartoonist Pickering has drawn a classic about Flim Flan’s utterances.”
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Jimmy Haigh says:
May 14, 2012 at 11:01 am
Kaboom says:
May 14, 2012 at 9:13 am
“In the Old West they had a rail, feathers and some tar around for his ilk.”
Careful now. Some may read this statement as a death threat…
___________________________
NAH, just a bit of decoration so we know who is who.
The very funny, veteran Aussie cartoonist Pickering has drawn a classic about Flim Flan’s utterances. To view follow this link.
Gail Combs: A further telling point just occurred to me:
Each of us realists came via independent thought to our non-CAGW conclusions,
whereas each Warmista came to their pre-determined AGW conclusion
via rote-thoughts highly channeled from official dogma, no independence there.
It’s a general pattern with the Left, which comprises an army of mind-clones marching in lock-step chanting their mantras, while their heterogenous opponents each have their own reasons to oppose Leftist insanity, which has numerous injurious components in its avalanche-like onslaught. Every aspect of civilization is under withering attack, and CAGW is but the tip of their spear.
Who needs a conspiracy when Group-Think works so well? Self-deceit is the essence of Alarmist sincerity, with Mann, Hansen, et al. impenetrably convinced of their rectitude and our villainy, whereas every one of us has sometimes wavered, however briefly, and considered ‘What if I’m wrong and there is a problem?’. This is because we are truth-seekers first and group-joiners second. I, for example, stand with WUWT because I believe that one of humanity’s supreme achievements, science itself, has been coopted and steered horribly wrong, and only the Internet can counter it.
I remember the very first Hockey Stick, the population bomb, appearing on the cover of Science as ‘Doomsday 2026’, back in the early Sixties. That fraud sailed right by and never was debunked, nor was Carson’s DDT fraud or Rowland’s deliberate overlooking of volcanic fluorocarbons. Whoops, globally rampant malaria and a trillion dollars wasted pointlessly throwing away Freon, and they don’t have to admit there was even the tiniest mistake, let alone a pair of history-scale frauds, with an even worse one half-hatched already.
If only that natural warming had continued another 20 years and we didn’t have that pesky Internet…
Betapug says:
May 14, 2012 at 9:58 am
“As part of the endowment conditions, Dr. Flannery reports to Panasonic executives on “emerging consumer attitudes towards environmental products”. ”
In other news, Panasonic hopes to return to profitability in 2013.
Maybe that’s when they fire their CEO.
I always refer to him as Tim ‘Ghost Metropolis’ Flannery.
Interstella Bill has pegged it.
“These credulous miscreants are True Believers all, much more dangerous than con men. When you pop up all three shells to reveal there’s no pea, the con man will instantly flee, but the Warmista will sit there and innocently insist the pea is invisible and intangible, and won’t fully materialize until 2100.”
Here I was hoping that in the face of repeated non-events and outright prediction failures, some of these people would actually give it up as a bad job. But they’re really just not going to, are they? Their hides must be a foot thick.
Gail Combs says:
May 14, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Jimmy Haigh says:
May 14, 2012 at 11:01 am
Kaboom says:
May 14, 2012 at 9:13 am
“In the Old West they had a rail, feathers and some tar around for his ilk.”
Careful now. Some may read this statement as a death threat…
___________________________
NAH, just a bit of decoration so we know who is who.
*
You mean, they already strut like turkeys so we ought to decorate them the rest of the way? Probably totally unnecessary (the “gobble gobble” will give them away every time). Kinda cute, though. 🙂
Isn’t this the same guy that gave us this?
http://youtu.be/Ts3gaehtt0g
I watched an Australian TV news programme (SKY) last night (I live in NZ). The lead items were:
(a) The Government’s advertisements for “carbon tax” compensation to voters, which are costing tens of millions of dollars, and manage not to mention the tax at all. This was emphasised by the news reader. Opposition spokesman prominently featured.
(b) The latest report from Flannery and his cohorts. The news reader was struggling to keep a straight face, and was close to open ridicule. Bob Carter had a cameo appearance on his verandah saying the models are wrong.
This is a big and welcome change from the style of reporting on the issue not long ago.
“climate change cannot be ruled out”
If that is CO2 climate change, there needs to be evidence why we should accept this explanation over natural causes. Climate Science may offer an explanation, but it is only able to be scientifically valid if it can discount other causes. In Tim Flannery’s case, previous false predictions of continuing drought rule him out of the scientific arena.
Before people give excuses for Flannery, they should look up the severest problem for real empirical science.
Quote from Kuhn vs Popper – Steve Fuller 2003
The first step on the path the supremacy of a particular theory is to make novel predictions. Predicting prolonged drought is Australia is not novel, neither is that there will be floods in future. It is predicting something radically different.
henrythethird says: @ur momisugly May 14, 2012 at 9:23 am
Marble Bar pre homoginised. Only goes to 2008
http://members.westnet.com.au/rippersc/mbar.jpg
I neglected to mention that the Australian Climate Change Commisioner, Prof. Flannery’s Science Communication courses at Maquarie Univ. are first year undergrad courses where young students learn (from unbiased World Wildlife Fund staff!) all about media strategies to communicate “Science” before they have learned very much of it. http://www.envirogeog.mq.edu.au/research/sci-communication.html
His multiple income streams as simultaneous government policy advocate and University prof, amongst others, have allowed Flannery to purchase big waterfront properties in areas sure to be inundated and worthless in the coming 8-story sea rise.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/prof-tim-flannerys-waterside-getaway/story-fn6b3v4f-1226104010903
Fast on his feet, he seems to be one of the first to have leveled the “Breivik” accusation against critics.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/crikey-its-time-to-set-the-record-straight-tim/story-e6frezz0-1226205215165
Again I point out that with 38,000 students to impress at a University ranked seventh in Australia, (out of 21) and a huge majority of sympathetic minds on the other 20, Flannery can act like a clown, but it really does not matter.
It really does not matter except for Australians who will be paying a premium for the desalination plants that will not be operating from sometime when the decision makers decided to take tim Flannerry’s projection and scare.
Some more Pickering cartoons on the same theme (WARNING – some of them are a little bit rude):
http://www.chedda.com.au/uploads/7/8/1/2/7812968/3739448.png?600
http://www.chedda.com.au/uploads/7/8/1/2/7812968/802583_orig.jpg
http://www.chedda.com.au/uploads/7/8/1/2/7812968/2017527_orig.jpg
http://www.chedda.com.au/uploads/7/8/1/2/7812968/1911393_orig.jpg
http://www.chedda.com.au/uploads/7/8/1/2/7812968/3250662_orig.jpg
http://www.chedda.com.au/uploads/7/8/1/2/7812968/8631542_orig.jpg
http://www.chedda.com.au/uploads/7/8/1/2/7812968/1594990_orig.jpg
http://www.chedda.com.au/uploads/7/8/1/2/7812968/3877670_orig.jpg
http://www.chedda.com.au/uploads/7/8/1/2/7812968/4316548_orig.jpg
http://www.chedda.com.au/uploads/7/8/1/2/7812968/3025964_orig.jpg
Of course he is a warmist – he admitted in his latest bit of video nonsense “Two men on the Great Divide” (An exploration of Australia’s Great Dividing Range) that he was actually much happier not wearing any clothes and would much prefer a warmer climate.
Flannery ADMITS lying about it all!! (He would call it exaggeration!) Careful who you talk to Tim…
http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/climate-change-and-the-crisis-of-communication/
See quote “So here’s the real news. Scientists don’t actually believe heatwaves will send us all mad. They’re just saying stuff like this because they’re desperately fumbling for new ways to grab the public’s attention. How do I know this? Because Tim Flannery himself told me (and a small room of other people) pretty much exactly that this very weekend. “
Flannery is a moron.
We call it the Schweppervescence Tax in Australia now (Schweppes advertises that their drinks are bubblier than other brands because they contain more ‘schweppervescence’ ie carbon dioxide)
I wonder if the greenies have ever read ‘The Boy who cried Wolf’?
All very funny…except for the AUD$1.9B spent on an unnecessary desalination plant. Unfortunately, this is a serious topic which makes it even more outrageous that FlimFlam thinks its a communications challenge for his pet theory.
Poor Tim is suffering from sunstroke after Dr. Jim pinched his hat at their last love in.
I pay taxes so this charlatan can get paid to prognosticate on stuff he knows nothing about. There is nothing funny at all about the way this government has adopted a concerted propaganda campaign to try to sell its carbon tax and nothing that these intellectual prostitutes won’t say in order to push the party line.
I am disgusted by this man and his sidekick Ross Garnaut and I wonder how they can sleep at night given their premeditated program to mislead the Australian public.
I have no doubt that these two who are both quite bright are fully aware of the contradictory statements they have made over the years and are quite aware when they are speaking on topics that are well outside their area of expertise.
This guy is a palaeontologist, so what would he know about interpreting the recent meteorological record? Nothing.
Meanwhile Garnaut who is an economist thinks he had something valid to say about extreme weather and climate.
my only hope for justice now is that Flannery’s earlier alarmist garbage about sea level rise actually occurs so that the drains in his sea side house back up and he ends up drowning in his own excrement
“This guy is a palaeontologist, so what would he know about interpreting the recent meteorological record? Nothing.
Meanwhile Garnaut who is an economist thinks he had something valid to say about extreme weather and climate.”
Tut tut! That’s not true Goldie. They may both have something important to say on the topic irrespective of their particular speciality. As to whether they do or not, depends entirely on the science and the veracity of their predictions as a result. There aint no such thing as a ‘climatologist’ in capital letters, anymore than I’m a self appointed humanologist.
King of Cool says:
May 14, 2012 at 4:09 pm
Some more Pickering cartoons on the same theme (WARNING – some of them are a little bit rude)
Considering the subject matter, not rude enough…
Ally E.</b< says:
May 14, 2012 at 2:09 pm
Here I was hoping that in the face of repeated non-events and outright prediction failures, some of these people would actually give it up as a bad job. But they’re really just not going to, are they? Their hides must be a foot thick.
As are their skulls.