…because you might be accused of participating in conspiracy ideation. Here’s the premise from Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.:
The occasion for their update is a recent report by the Australian Climate Commission, a government body put established to advocate for action on climate change. The report — The Angry Summer — provides a tabulation of various weather records broken Down Under during the remarkable summer that has just ended. The report makes a number of very strong claims, including this one:
Australia’s Angry Summer shows that climate change is already adversely affecting Australians. The significant impacts of extreme weather on people, property, communities and the environment highlight the serious consequences of failing to adequately address climate change.
Bjørn Lomborg writes on his Facebook page
Normalized property damage in Australia 1966-2012. At least when it comes to property damage, climate has *not* made it an “angry summer”.
But clearly you’re not allowed to point this out, according to the Australian Climate Commission. (You can read their attack-heavy/data-absent comment here: http://climatecommission.gov.au/media-releases/correction-misrepresentation-the-angry-summer/)
The numbers are normalized by adjusting for changes in dwelling numbers and values and applying a building code adjustment to tropical cyclone losses, according to peer reviewed science.
You can see the article and graph here: http://theconversation.edu.au/weighing-the-toll-of-our-angry-summer-against-climate-change-12793
And hat-tip to Roger Pielke for putting the story in context:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2013/03/thou-shall-not-critique-australian.html
Here in the UK of course Gaia is “somewhat upset”. Stiiff upper lip old boy don’t ya know.
In reply to:
A C Osborn says:
March 19, 2013 at 9:23 am
Jo Nova has really done a good job on those claims here,
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/03/hottest-summer-record-in-australia-not-even-close-says-uah-satellite-data/
here,
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/03/mystery-black-box-method-used-to-make-all-new-australian-hottest-ever-records/
and here,
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/03/not-the-hottest-ever-summer-for-most-australians-in-sydney-melbourne-or-brisbane-not-extreme-heatwaves-either/
and Warwick Hughes here
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=2152
William:
It does appear the BOM manipulated the Australian temperature data to create a record high average Australian temperature to provide material for what appears to be a propaganda department.
Quoting from Joanne Nova, see link above.
“This summer the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) invented a whole new metric to measure average national heat, which might be all very well except no-one (other than the BOM) seems to know what it is.
On January 7th the BOM claimed Australia set a new “average maximum daily temperature record”. Now the headlines are about the “hottest” Australian summer.
With both records, no one outside the BOM team has access to the methods or data. This post is about the new “daily” temperature of Australia used to declare Jan 7th was a record, but the same point applies to the “hottest summer” records, even though they may be a different data set. Where is the data? Where are the methods?
Is the BOM a science agency or a PR bureau?
How many thermometers have 100 year records? Just 16.
The brutally simple average of all the temperatures recorded at 721 weather stations on Jan 7th was 35.1C, not 40.3C. The extra 5 degrees is produced by a form of area weighting to average the thermometers over the entire nation. Most thermometers are located on the cool outside edge of Australia, not the hot middle of the country where hardly anyone lives. So there are not many thermometers with long records to average across the center.
The BOM team, quite realistically, needs to make up for the non-random way those thermometers are placed. But there are many ways to “average” the numbers and different datasets to use (like HQ, ACORN, AWAP). No-one suggests that the BOM ignored the 382 cooler stations within the 721 known to the audit team, but the average of the hottest 339 stations is 40.3C. Curious.”
Martin says
Not sure that the people who’s homes and business burnt down, or the Queensland families who had their homes and businesses inundated by floods four times in a year would be much comforted by the fact that their property isn’t valued as high as the Sydney real estate that got damaged in the hail storm.
Still, if it makes you feel better…
Do we have to value things according to your priorities now then? How very “climate science” (TM). That is, make up values according to what you think they should be rather than what they are.
Sydney houses can go for ten times what one in the northern bush might go for. That’s just a fact of life. Regretting it doesn’t make it untrue. “Feeling better” doesn’t really come into it.
Your real problem, presumably, is you don’t like the fact that the recent disasters are less disastrous than they are being purported to be. Are you commiserating with the Queenslanders, or you are peeved that the summer wasn’t actually that angry?
Others have noted the title “Angry Summer” in relation to Gaia and as a demonstration of the primitive.
Whilst the first (or continuing) response may be to be amused or bemused, it is overtime to actually look at these sorts of things seriously.
Tim Flannery recently, I think in some manner in reference to this publication or at around the same time, referred to the atmosphere as a “sensitive organ”.
Forget the attempt to fit such beings into categories such as poor/incompetent scientist, or noble cause victims.
These are actually beings that do not qualify as fully human. I mean that in all seriousness. To be homo sapien is not equivalent to being human. Humanity has characteristics distinct from the functioning of an organism.
These do not include the compulsion to reduce by generally unspecified means the world population by a dramatic amount as is actually the desire of a significant part of these beings.
They do not include the abasement of human capacity to a degree required to live in a manner subservient to unknowable physical forces directed by an inconceivable power completely unrelated to human experience.
These being have separated themselves by whatever means from humanity. They intend to impose their will on humanity and effectively destroy it.
They do so for their benefit as they see it.
In the past they would have been described as evil.
Whether that is preferred to primaeval does not matter, it is the same thing.
It is time to stop seeing these beings as misguided or opportunistic in an ordinary way. They are something altogether different. And they are a threat to humanity.
Meanwhile, the Australian government is making plans to place restrictions on freedom of the press
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/media-changes-may-breach-human-rights-laws-committee-20130319-2gd4k.html
The newspapers might be less willing to criticize government agencies is this proposed legislation passes.
We are fortunate to have the first amendment here.
If it’s permitted to post such things here, this reminds me of an particularly good Iowahawk piece:
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2010/04/top-scientists-warn-sea-gods-angry.html
PEW!
Oh, my – today, I had a strongly worded discussion in the forum of SPIEGEL.DE, which claims to be THE german investigative news mag, about the actual state – or. rather: non-state – of Gobal Warming, Climate Change, Climate Disruption (you name it)…
I was named everything from braindead idiot to criminal liar – while – Here! Here! – the forum’s mods DID NOT silence me in the course of the raging, hour-long digital battle.
Miles to go, before I sleep, friends. But step by step, the cold truth (pun intended) seems to be raising her head, at last…
“The report draws upon the latest research by bodies including CSIRO, Bureau of Meteorology, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ”
————————————————————————————————————
I wasn’t aware that the IPCC did any research, I thought they were a selective collating service?
@RHL –
Sounds very much like the censorship being carried on here in the US by our news media and the Obully Administration.
And among other “benefits” of the Australian carbon tax are 10 times as many business failures as before the tax, due toi the increases in energy costs. Oh, but those 25,000 jobs destroyed by the tax had to be sacrificed for “the Cause.” One can only assume the Australian Climate Commission will salivate more than ever when people start droipping dead because they can’t afford to air-condition their homes during an “angry summer.” Mass murder, here we come
The only thing I can see ‘angry’ about the summer just gone is our lousy cricket team.
(insert appropriate smilie here)
The Oz C Commission and parts of the BOM are just blantant bloated propaganda arms of the current Federal Government. Equivalent to the Yes Minister Series hospital without patients. The CC needs to be closed down this September and the BOM shaken up. They have lost all credibility in my opinion with their weasel reporting.
@T-Bird –
Your link provides proof, if ever there were any doubt of it, that CAGW is religion and not science.
mogamboguru says:
March 19, 2013 at 1:00 pm
“I was named everything from braindead idiot to criminal liar – while – Here! Here! – the forum’s mods DID NOT silence me in the course of the raging, hour-long digital battle. ”
Der Spiegel has delegated warmism from their political machine to Bojanowski. The political machine will therefore not use it anymore. The followers will soon notice and hop on the new bandwagon. Maybe anticapitalistic; or maybe the Bilderbergers and CoR need their propaganda machine to save the EU now.
I can see the benefit in replacing the obsolete concept of “temperature” with “angriness” while dealing with climate. The latter is measured in whatever way you see fit, while the former one by unyielding thermometers.
/sarc off
The very term ‘Angry Summer’ is pure ‘advertising’ or PR. (Indeed it would be interesting to see if paid professionals came up with it.)
In literary terms it is a good example of what we call ‘personification’, in that it contains and conveys the implication that the ‘Summer’ like a person, has ’emotions’, is aware of ‘our bad behaviour’ and is responding. A bit like Gaia.
This document/campaign is targeted at young, ill educated people (who are the last prize to play for in this game) and I would have to say that up to a point it works. It’s catchy, resonant and has got public attention. However it highlights the ever more infantile and magical nature of ClimateThink.
In the early days of the Climate Hoax I was asked by a London PR company to provide written material for a PR awareness raising campaign. Thankfully I didn’t get the job!
I’m a KIWi and don’t follow Aussie politics AND this is kinda OT. I heard on the radio this morning that Gillard is very unpopular with the public and that the public want Rudd to lead the party. However what the public want is unlikely to happen because there is a strong core in the ruling Gillard’s Labor Party that wants to keep Gillard in power AND its in the best interests of Tony Abbot (the leader of the opposition Liberal Party) to keep the very unpopular Gillard as leader. Seems to me a very fine example where politics usurps the democratic process.
In Brisbane I thought it was a terrific summer. Thankfully I’m living high up on a hill, not like the idiots living on a natural floodplain, wondering why it floods.
Of course its not really their fault – despite strenuous denials, the CSIRO prediction that Australia would be “hotter and drier” was not only used to justify the white elephant desalination plants, it was also used by unscrupulous developers and councils to build houses in what were effectively dry river beds. So when heavy rain hit, the river came back, and washed away everything in its path.
Lunatic environmentalism in government also played a part – Peter Garrett, the socialist serial incompetent who is now in charge of Australian education, was in charge of environment policy before the floods, and vetoed several flood mitigation measures on the grounds it would kill a few fish. http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/peter-garrett-on-why-he-rejected-the-traveston-dam/story-e6frerdf-1225796586203
What the Aussies need is an Angry Election Season where they boot the chuckleheads out of office, followed by an Angry Administration where all of the usual (and useless) suspects from the pro-carbon tax wing of the government are returned to civilian life.
Horse Hockey Sticky.
I am sure that Lewandowsky and Cook will join the chorus of criticism. After all, they begin The Debunking Handbook with
Then again, the real intention of this work might be the corruption of science.
There are only for levels of ‘alarm’ in Oz:
1. No worries.
2. She’ll be right.
3. Strewth, we may have to cancel the barbie!
4. We had to cancel the barbie!
To date, level four has never been reached.
(full apologies and sympathy in advance to all those who lost property and even more this last year, this is only a joke)
A recent poll of scientists revealed 97% believe that the angriness is unprecedented and mostly caused by man. Another science settled.
Regarding a few comments about the current political climate here, Labor are history in the federal parliament just like the are in all state parliaments so far. Add for Gillard, what a bloody fool trying to restrict the actions, or even ownership, of the press just a few months before the election! That had to be a ‘D’oh’ moment if ever the was one. She is being crucified, and I am happy to watch it.
Criticism of the Angry Summer Report provokes an Angry Authoritarian Retort.
Nolo Contendere, rest assured, on the current polls this dishonest and incompetent government will be no more within 2 hours of the closing of the polling places later this year.