Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Despite a hostile audience and a panel stacked with climate advocates, One Nation Federal Senator Malcolm Roberts did a credible job of holding his own, when questioned about his climate skepticism.
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4499754.htm
My favourite Roberts quote at 4:02 in the excerpt:
I’m absolutely stunned that someone [Brian Cox] who is inspired by Richard Feynman, a fantastic scientist who believes in empirical evidence, is quoting Consensus.
Brian Cox attempted to embarrass Roberts with a copy an unnamed “Global Land Ocean Temperature” graph. Unfortunately for Cox, Roberts has expert knowledge of climate datasets. Roberts challenged the validity of the graph on the basis that it showed 1998 as being significantly cooler than 2015/16, and challenged Cox to provide details of the dataset, and the original unadjusted temperature records.
In my opinion Brian Cox came across as arrogant and unprepared – he obviously thought he would effortlessly trample Roberts with the help of some half baked assertions, an appeal to his authority as a “Physicist”, and a sympathetic audience. I doubt Cox will make the same mistake twice.
Also Cox seems to be operating under the delusion that James Hansen landed men on the moon. Always thought that Cox was an idiot – much like his tv colleague Lawrence Krauss – and both of them reveal their deep and abiding lack of any real scientific understanding outside of their chosen specialisations. The pair of them are buttock-clenchingly embarrassing ambassadors of physics and will in the course of time be buried without trace.
as will we all
Cox ignored the references to Dr Feynman.
“Cox ignored the references to Dr Feynman.”
Rightly so. Appealing to Feyman isnt science.
no evidence that changes in atmos or oceanic CO2 are related to fossil fuel emissions
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2642639
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2669930
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2654191
chaamjamal says: no evidence that changes in atmos or oceanic CO2 are related to fossil fuel emissions
I have studied your papers and find your approach is interesting because the rationale is similar to that for cointegration in econometrics. The conclusions are also similar. However, your approach is easier to understand and apply.
Based on an econometric technique called polynomial cointegration analysis an Israeli group concluded, “We have shown that anthropogenic forcings do not polynomially cointegrate with global temperature and solar irradiance. Therefore, data for 1880–2007 do not support the anthropogenic interpretation of global warming during this period.”
Beenstock, Reingewertz, and Paldor, Polynomial cointegration tests of anthropogenic impact on global warming, Earth Syst. Dynam. Discuss., 3, 561–596, 2012
http://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/3/173/2012/esd-3-173-2012-discussion.html
Jamal Munshi,
For the nth time: the relationship between two variables in cumulative values may be spurious, but detrending does remove any real cause and effect if there is little variability in one variable and a lot of variability in the other one, while both show an increasing trend and variability is only small around a huge trend…
SImply add two independent trends together: a slope without variability and a sinusoid without a trend. The sum of both is a sinusoid with a trend. If you detrend the result, there is obvious no correlation between the sinusoid and the trend which caused the trend in the sum of both…
Panels like this always make the embarrassing error of believing that our planet was at ‘optimum climate’ in the 18th century. Not long ago, Cox would have proudly held up Mann’s graph – now one of the most discredited artefacts in science.
Cox, as if we didn’t know, is a watermelon – green on the outside, red on the inside. The methodology used to collect the evidence he produces, the analysis of the evidence or the conclusions are not important to him. He chooses his props from a target righ environment to confirm his political bias.
Genuine science bows to no authority, Brian, and it is not based on consensus; that’s the job of politics. Advances in science are not made by consensus: advances are made by the brave paddling upstream. If a theory does not agree with validated evidence, then the theory must abandoned and reconstructed. If the predictions, projections, scenarios, or whatever you want to call them are wrong, the science is wrong. It’s scepticism that underpins science, not the cosy comfort of consensus.
The house of climate cards will eventually collapse, but until then, the world’s poorest people – the ones Cox and his ilk claim to champion – will be denied life saving energy and continue to die in their millions. If Cox wasn’t a watermelon, he would be celebrating the lack of climate sensitivity. But his is. So he won’t.
It’s high time these people were publicly challenged to a series of live expertly moderated global televised debates. If the science is settled, and if CAGW is the deepest threat to our planet, they should welcome it, but it will ever happen. They has far too much to lose.
“Genuine science bows to no authority” So Malcom’s appeal to steve goddard failed in your eyes?
good argument..
About time someone brought down this Mancunian twerp!
You see the mess the bedwetters get themselves into when they try to debate with someone who has half an idea what they are talking about?
Mann and Schmitt are right: you should NEVER debate with sceptics, a very dangerous practice.
It’s like playing chess with a pigeon, he’s just going to shit on the board then strut around like he won.
You are right. He had half an idea…. but he needed more I think. He was made to look out of his depth in anyones book.
Senator Roberts missed an opportunity to point out that correlation is not causation when Professor Cox held up the two graphs. He should have hammered on the point that the Central England data set from the late 1600s shows faster warming than the most recent, and that the period from 1910 to 1940 had warming just as fast, both obviously without human influence. If those periods can demonstrate natural warming at that rate, why should we assume that increased CO2 is causing this current warming?
I don’t believe that point can be made too often or emphasized too much. The Senator asked for empirical evidence that human influence was causing the warming, and Cox only showed evidence of the warming. He should have called attention to that point immediately. When Cox showed the plateau on the chart that was the recent pre-El Nino pause and got his big laugh from the audience, Senator Roberts should have pointed out that during that pause (whose existence Cox did not deny) CO2 continued to rise unabated, yet temps did not rise correspondingly, and why was that?
Most of the alarmists’ creed now presumes the cause of the warming and emphasizes the warming alone. We need to keep dragging them back to make them provide evidence that CO2 is the cause of the warming, which is impossible to do when all of the world’s historical temperature records are taken into account.
Agree
I’m afraid Cox let becoming a ‘media personality’ go to his head. It probably went to his bank balance too you see.
There’s money to be made as a ‘science personality’ now. It’s a fine balance between being scientifically rigorous and intelligible to the general public.
I”m not sure how much money there is to be made being a Physics Professor and a climate skeptic, however.
Nothing like dissing your colleagues’ funding streams for making you unpopular in academe, the Royal Society and other places of scientific old-boys-clubbery…….
Wasn’t that second graph with the HUUUUGE CO2 spike shown by Brian Cox from Gervis et al? How can that piece of junk be held up as ‘evidence’ of anything?
It’s also nothing short of astonishing that Brian Cox (and people of his ilk) are ‘unaware’ of alleged data manipulations and adjustments that completely skew the debate.
I’m increasingly of the opinion that they’re not “unaware” of the alleged (or actual) data manipulations, nor of the fallacy of the “97% consensus” (consensus for goodness sake, from supposed scientists!!!! I can barely credit that Cox actually referred to Cook on that, it’s headshakingly stupid and ignorant!) It’s the 21st century, we have this internet thingy now, the information is all over the place, there’s no excuse. They do know, yet still they pedal the lies. The only question is – Why? I’d like them to answer that one, truthfully.
Malcolm Roberts appealed to the blog “Steve Goddard” as his authority. Nuff said.
Roberts came over as a fcuktard nutjob. Like most of the pathetic fat american middle aged males on this blog 🙂
Hey Matt, looked in the mirror, lately?
I know it’s not advised to feed the troll, but I’m guessing Matt just used up his daily allotment of critical thinking brain cells. Why do the trolls with nothing to say think posting their stupidity for all to see will impress. And where are the young people that used to distrust the government? The world is backwards.
Anger management seems to be in order.
Mr. Smith,
Will you elaborate as to why you use “tard” as an insult?
So if you teach mentally challenged children, and one of them is late for are you a allowed to call them a little tardy ?
Life of Brian (Cox)
Man in audience : I think it was, “Blessed are the model-makers”!
Man’s wife: What’s so special about the model-makers?
Man: Well, obviously it’s not meant to be taken literally. It refers to any manipulator of climate data.
Chair: [reading prepared statement] “We, the People’s Front of Climate Alarm, brackets, official, end brackets, do hereby convey our sincere fraternal and sisterly greetings to you, Brian, on this, the occasion of your martyrdom. ”
Brian: [holds up a graph]
Chair: “Your testimony will stand as a landmark in the continuing struggle to liberate the planet from the hands of the capitalist aggressors, including those concerned with energy, medicine, roads, housing, education, agriculture, transportation and any other capitalists contributing to the welfare of humans of both sexes and hermaphrodites…”
Brian: [holds up second graph] “I am the Climate Messiah!”
Green Panellist: “Yes, you are the Climate Lord, and I should know. I’ve followed a few”.
Brian: [to the audience] “Look, you’ve got to follow the model! The model has spoken and you should surrender all free thought to the model! You’ve got to stop thinking for yourselves! You’re not individuals!”
Audience: [applauding and howling in unison] “We’re not individuals!”
Brian: “You’re all slaves to the model! The model has spoken!”
Crowd: [in unison] “Yes, we are all slaves to the model!”
Man on panel: “I’m not…”
Crowd: [howls of laughter] “Heretic!! Stone him!!”
So when the esteemed Senator comes up with allegations that Nasa faked the data in the interview and when you hear that asked earlier this month if he still believed the UN was trying to impose a worldwide government through climate change policy, Mr Roberts answered: “Definitely”, people still give this man credibility?
It is not good enough to take one bit of this confrontation and claim Cox got taken to the cleaners without addressing the credibility of someone who is alleging fraud and advancing conspiracy theory…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-37091391
well the UN IS trying to get a one world government
and they admit it clearly..and climate is the most recent excuse used
priorly they have used a range of others.
so Griff..maybe YOU better reread their agenda
Griff
do you deny that NASA has been adjusting the datasets remorselessly upward ? – and without supplying the rigorous methodology for that adjustment? I mean really…. have you looked at what has been indisputably done and the explanations proffered ??
It is very instructive to look at the treatment (or rather lack thereof) of OCO-2 CO2 mapping from NASA whilst they simultaneously are still pushing the model simulations that OCO-2 shows to be fantasy?
Prof Cox is actually not doing himself any favors by indulging in this sort of advocacy – it’s like a dentist or a podiatrist holding forth on brain surgery. Perhaps he can do some programs on particle physics?
NOAA does the adjustments.
not NASA.
ding dongs..
Tomo
So have you read what Mosher just wrote? Nasa don’t adjust the data. Hello… Are you there? So it appears that was another thing Roberts made up/got wrong/didn’t know.
Yawn, all Malcolm had to do was ask Cox if the data was adjusted. Most people are unaware any adjustments have been made.
Looks like Mosher is wrong again. NASA GISS does make adjustments.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/FAQ.html
“Q. Does GISS do any data checking and alterations?
A. Yes. GISS applies semi-automatic quality control routines listing records that look unrealistic. After manual inspection, those data are either kept or rejected. [NASA] GISS does make an adjustment to deal with potential artifacts associated with urban heat islands, whereby the long-term regional trend derived from rural stations is used instead of the trends from urban centers in the analysis.“
Not the UN, but some people in a high position inside the UN have been openly doing that.
I loved the clip. Cox just doesn’t know does he?
Doesn’t know what. That he is talking to a guy who makes stuff up? I think he does, which is why he looked so incredulous.
Ummm..any of you have advance degrees in science?
Stupid question. There are a lot of PHD’s commenting on this website on both sides of the debate. Many more just choose to read the articles and comments without commenting. It is the expertise shown here that causes it to be one of the most heavily trafficked science sites on the internet.
Not me, but I did look at the NASA web site and they have a chart that shows how much they distort, sorry, adjust the temperature readings they get that just happens to make things look warmer now and cooler in the past.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_urb-raw_pg.gif
From: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ushcn.html
Too FUnny
A) that is NOAA…… NOAA… Not hansen… Not NASA… NOAA. look at your fricking LINK
B) That is USHCN version 1…. version 1…
1) USHCN is NOT THE WORLD
2. This data ( version 1) isnt even USED BY ANYONE
Was I watching the same show?
Malcolm insists on data which Brian patiently explained to him is the basis for the consensus which Malcom insists is 0.3 % being hidden by the global
conspiracy which includes
NASA.
On top of this is his repeated assertion that a cabal of prominent banking families (wink , wink ) is behind it all.
And you seriously think he owned Brian ?
@fredcehak, is the data adjusted or not? If it is, Brian Cox didn’t even understand the basics.
The data is not adjusted by Nasa.
Actually NASA GISS does make adjustments.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/FAQ.html
“Q. Does GISS do any data checking and alterations?
A. Yes. GISS applies semi-automatic quality control routines listing records that look unrealistic. After manual inspection, those data are either kept or rejected. [NASA] GISS does make an adjustment to deal with potential artifacts associated with urban heat islands, whereby the long-term regional trend derived from rural stations is used instead of the trends from urban centers in the analysis.“
Irrelevant of the data the misleading graphs still don’t explain to me why a 1.5 degree increase in temperature in 100 years is a problem. Even on a steady weather day the temperature ranges between 4-6 degrees as a minimum. I just can’t believe there are people gullible enough to believe that a rise of 1.5 degrees is the pointer to a global disaster. The dishonest and deceitful way that warmists argue is actually quite embarrassing.
Does anyone have a graph of temperature highs and lows for… lets say the last hundred years that shows the trend line? I would be interested to see how that looked compared to the very short graph only showing a couple of degrees on the top. I would guess it wouldn’t look all that scary. All the talk is about the hot side and historically over time the temperature goes up and down. It is so obviously a political issue.
According to Yahoo News, Cox did very well. It’s just that [SNIP] like Roberts refuse to believe facts.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/physicist-explaining-climate-change-skeptic-030641735.html?nhp=1
The link to Gavin Schmidt’s Twitter feed getting all righteous about his team being accused of fraud is priceless. I do not believe that I ever said that the GISS team was committing fraud. I did not hear Roberts saying that either. I do know that James Hansen adjusted temperatures so that older temperatures were cooler and later temperatures were warmer. He did this more than once. The problem is not only that he adjusted temperatures, but also that he over wrote the earlier data with the adjusted data. Whether this is fraud or not is something a court would need to decide. I never saw any scientific proof by Hansen or his team that justified their adjustments. I saw excuses and rationalizations for the adjustments, but no scientific proof.
“I do know that James Hansen adjusted temperatures so that older temperatures were cooler and later temperatures were warmer.”
err no he didnt
get the code. I did.
Hansen does not adjust the temperatures.
He IMPORTS data from NOAA.. NOAA adjusted data.
ding dong
Cox was not owned at all. Cox got emotional betraying his rather irrational attachment rather than a rational, objective scientific position. Cox showed ignorance on a number of issues.
Malcom Roberts did a good job toward the end making the attribution case which Cox did not have an answer to apart from some arm waving. But that was about it. When people treat scientists as priests of the truth you end up with what happened in the clip; everything Malcom said could be dismissed.
Personally, Maclom could have taken him apart:
1) In terms of the records he should have made the case about adjustments for temperature pollution from things like UHI effect (a structural error that cannot be solved statistically).
2) He should also have highlighted the divergence between the global records and that NASA is the outlier.
3) He could have also highlighted Cox’s poor skills as a scientists when interpreting data. The ice-core to modern day record mixes data with different resolutions so you get aliasing in the palaeo-record (and smoothing) so that peaks like the modern day are lost.
Problem is- he looked like he knew, and played it perfectly to his crowd. That audience wasn’t interested in any other point of view and Cox was playing to the home team. I don’t agree with Mr Worrall that Roberts ‘owned’ Cox. I think Cox won- unfortunately.
It was a political show. It isn’t about science neither is AGW. AGW is a political movement more than anything Cox just didn’t like the fact that a lowly layperson would not take has word as Gospel.
Agree almost entirely but I think Malcom did do enough to leave some doubt, in at least some of the more rational in the audience, as to Cox’s authority in this area.
Forrest I don’t think he won the argument on scientific grounds but then neither did Cox. It just left doubt in Cox’s credibility which was the reason he reacted as he did – he did not like his “authority” being questioned.
well, duh- it was no debate.
it was an auto da fe.
there is no debate. there is a tar baby. engage and be quagmired.
the correct response to all of it is FOF.
“Cox won the propaganda. ”
Don’t be too sure.
The points Malcolm made about NASA “adjustments” and UN one world government are being aired around the world.
He didn’t win anything because he talked like a goofball pushing tortured claims without scientific merit.
A couple of years back a fellow Hi Fi fan, mate of mine emailed me to say that Brian ‘pretty boy’ Cox was also a hi-fi nut and had just tweeted boasting about his valve amplifier. I re tweeted Mr Cox pointing out that he was a well known AGW protagonist and he should know that although valves do have a very sweet lush sound they also burn up most of their wattage in serious amounts of wasted heat. I also pointed out that ironically as a sceptic I couldn’t justify the waste . He pathetically tweeted back saying that he only used renewable electricity sources of the national grid.Yeah right Brian.
Okay a small thing , but it does sum up the hypocrisy of these people. Brian ‘pretty boy’ Cox is the pin-up of the BBC and they send him on the BBC tax income AKA a licence fee, to all four corners of the globe . Cox himself is such a believer in catastrophic climate change that he prepared to fly anywhere in the world to get the message across that human caused C02 needs to be stopped. Have these people no shame?
There’s an awful lot of ad hominem butt-hurt on this thread to be honest…
“consensus” ..it is one of the trigger words of progressives and liars …well I see that I repeated myself.
@ur momisugly 2.46 min Brian Cox says “absolute consensus” !!
: absolute = total, complete, supreme :
The Cupid Stunt.
Cox is a legend in his own mind.
I would say Cox is a d!ckhead…but that would be unkind…so I won’t. (:-))
Unfortunately I do not share your assessment. I think that even though Cox and the rest of the panel and audience were extremely rude, Roberts came off second best.
Roberts needs some media training, urgently.
He was far too polite, and of course the ABC (global warming groupthink central) let Cox ramble on for half the show, whilst Roberts only got in a few words here and there.
Roberts needs to recognise that this battle has to be fought without claims that NASA has fudged the data, even if they have.
Take along your own charts, Malcolm, showing the unadjusted temperature data, the sea level and the model temp predictions.
Explain how the ice cores can not capture spikes in CO2 due to diffusion in the firn.
Explain the heat island effect, the siting problems with temperature stations in urban areas and at airports.
Explain how CO2 is a poorly mixed gas and how the highest concentrations are above non industrialised areas.
Use simple historical examples: for example Hannibal invaded Italy by taking elephants over passes in the Alps now covered by glaciers. Vine street in London is named because…
Defend your own qualifications. As a mining engineer, I studied physics, chemistry, mathematics, statistics, earth sciences, and computer modelling at university level and apply them in my working life every day. As did you I presume. These disciplines are at the core of climate science, which is a multidisciplinary field.
Finally, give up on the stuff about corrupted data. It may be true, but it is inadmissible in the court of public opinion. Focus on the correct data sets. Get the warmists to explain why RSS and weather balloon data is wrong. Get the warmists to explain why the Central England temp data is wrong. Get them to explain why your evidence is wrong.
Agree totally he definitely needs some media training. He may have an important message to get across, but he did not do it here on the QandA. He needs to drop radical ideas like “humans have not caused CO2 rises” and references to dodgy Steve Goddard claims etc. Also back up claims with graphs like Cox did.
I suspect Brian Cox has never looked at any climate observation data at all, but rather just repeats the consensus mantra from his fellow model loving academics. I also suspect many other scientists take climate scientists opinions as gospel without checking the data. Why would they? They have their own research to do and if the consensus around the research centre coffee table or conferences is all about AGW being true and dangerous, then why check? In fact they are probably afraid to check for fear of stepping on a colleagues toes. I am sadly one of those who just listen to others opinions around that coffee table or conferences without checking any of the claims, but now I have. I find it astonishing some of the claims being made without any solid observed evidence to back it up. Not all mind you. Some of the science is sound, but there is a hell of a lot that is flakey as hell.
No I noted that Roberts was allowed to ramble when he was caught off-guard and cut short when he was making good points. I think Cox didn’t cover himself in glory though. He did sound like he was waffling at times – that can’t be good for his image as a serious scientist. Cox’s arguments were mantra-like. The other guests only offered platitudes.
Yes, and expect only to be allowed one or two spaces of just a few seconds to make the killing points, and expect to be shut down. Media training essential. Roberts may be an engineer, and thus broadly, a person of science, but he is against rhetoricians who have no regard for science. He needs to learn the methods of their craft so that he is doubly armed – with science plus the art of argument – while they have only the art of argument.
He was too polite. Tony Jones (the “host”) is well known for his interruptions -so much so that one Aussie blog has a game every week called “interruption lotto” where people who frequent the blog site guess on the number of interruptions for that week’s show that Jones will make. Usually in the order of 50-100 interruptions.
It’s only ever the conservatives who get interrupted, and usually as they are about to make a salient point. Jones has it down to a fine art.
gosh … now that is a shock….not.
It takes a special skill to deal with that sort of thing – I always enjoyed the presence of satirist PJ O’Rourke on the BBC since he loosened the bowels of goons like Jones and usually skewers them neatly and leaves them speechless 🙂
Sad to say the tactic is now to give (quarantine?) O’Rourke his own program when he wanders across the pond….