Tuesday 1 December 2009

extreme views (political climate change)

I see this morning that being a skeptic is now being an extremist

The Government has attacked Tony Abbott as a climate change sceptic after its hopes of getting the emissions trading scheme (ETS) through the Parliament this year appear to have been dashed

My my ... how the worm turns. Not so long ago saying "climate change" branded you as a heretic and an extremist. Now your an unbeliever if you dare to question.

I start to think that Parliment will soon begin to look like this ...

parliment

and ministers will be sworn in ...

newMinisters

forming the new front bench ...

frontBench


sworn to their role of holding up the belief against questions and against the heretics who seek to ask questions.

You know its funny, some years ago I went to a public meeting held at the University of Queensland where Bjorn Lomberg gave a presentation on his book "The Skeptical Environmentalist" there were howls of "foul statistics" in the audience and I too felt challenged by what he said.

But in the post analysis (heated discussion on the way back to the car) I said to my friends that if we can't properly criticize his argument, perhaps his points are valid (you can bet that wasn't a popular view).

What is more striking is his present view:

...that we should instead adapt to short-term temperature rises as they are inevitable, and spend money on research and development for longer-term environmental solutions ...
sounds reasonable to me ...

(PS: whatever my personal religious beliefs, I believe strongly that Church and State should remain separate)

5 comments:

Charles Maclauchlan said...

Very interesting entry, quite astute. Much of the "Scientific" information on climate change which has been spewed around the world better fits into the category of Dogma.

Hard scientific studies, statistical analysis and an inclusion of other contributing factors don't reinforce or even validate the current junk science views so they've been decried as heresy. Not good for mankind but historically effective...for a while.

Coming to light now like wildfire in what's called the Blogosphere, but stonewalled by mainstream media, is what's being referred to as "Climategate." It's looking like the smoking gun.

obakesan said...

Charles

I tend to agree, the issue is we are looking at changes happening, but no one is really looking at adapting. Perhaps I'm too cynical but it just looks like Governments have worked out a new way to tax people and make it look like they're doing something.

Noone in Government is ever thinking more than 2 years ahead anyway.

Noons said...

Absolutely!

I've been collecting a few links of late:
http://tinyurl.com/yauqogh
http://tinyurl.com/yh9t9j8
http://tinyurl.com/yf68nta
http://tinyurl.com/yjljs6u

I'm sorry, but: the data the climate change "science" is based on has been DESTROYED and no one else can verify it?

WTF????????

How can ANYONE claim this is "science"? This is an utter JOKE!

Of course here in Australia the politically correct pollies have decided to go with this crap: it's a perfect match to their utterly baseless claims on anything.

Marriage made in heaven!

The drama in all this buffoonery is of course that environmental degradation and unrestrained pollution in a global scale is taking a back seat to all this "climate change" utter nonsense!

Once again, what is really important is thrown into the background and dismissed as not relevant while other "more important" problems are "resolved"!

A perfect way for pollies to "make a difference" while not having to commit to anything and still grabbing more taxes!

I for one point blank refuse to pay ONE CENT to this ETS madness, approved or not!

What: they gonna throw me in prison?

It'll be akin to shooting themselves in the foot: good or bad, the taxes I pay are a LOT more than they could ever squeeze out of me on an ETS tax - throw me in prison and they lose that on top of the ETS!

Enough is enough! And I think this very sentiment is behind the over-reaction resulting in Abott's win this week.

obakesan said...

the problem with the ETS scheme is likely to be that avoiding it will be as difficult as avoiding the GST

(which is another TLA for EWV ... which is short for:
Extra
Wank
Value
)

obakesan said...

I notice that the NYTimes has the following to report

Professor Jones, in a statement issued by the climate research unit, said, “What is most important is that C.R.U. continues its world-leading research with as little interruption and diversion as possible.” He added that “the best way to achieve this is by stepping aside from the director’s role during the course of the independent review.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/science/earth/02scientist.html

personally I would think that the C.R.U. needs to reassert proper open scientific practices to their data and methods.

Proper open and honest research on this is critical. No matter how "big" it is the results must be based on truth not "witch hunts"