Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for May 2012

The Climate Play

By

THE Heretic, a play about climate change by award winning British playwright Richard Bean, is currently on at the MTC Summer Theatre in Melbourne.

Outspoken warmist Clive Hamilton has reviewed the play with comment:

Richard Bean has swallowed, without chewing, all of the climate denier talking points favoured by the Tea Party. He must have spent a long time clicking from one denier website to the next, without ever bothering to look at any real science — you know, the science endorsed by every scientific academy in the world…
Diane Cassell is presented by playwright Richard Bean as the lone figure of integrity who has the courage to stand up to the climate science establishment, scientists who are cravenly manipulating their research to stay on the gravy train.

Today the play was reviewed by blogger and sceptic Andrew McIntyre at Quadrant Online:

http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2012/05/on-with-the-play

Mr McIntyre concludes with comment:

But how will Australian audiences react? As mentioned above, in the performance I attended last night, there were some long spots and not as much laughter as I thought it deserved. There was one saving grace. A long-standing warmist friend I happened to encounter at interval said that it “made her think”.

That is an improvement on being offended.

Live Near a Wind Project?

By

DARRYL Read is a fourth year psychology honors student at the University of New England in Australia. His research project involves surveying citizens near proposed or established wind developments, worldwide. His interest in this area of research began after speaking with rural residents living in Crookwell, New South Wales (NSW), which has the oldest wind project in Australia.

According to Mr Read the conversations enabled him to gain an understanding of the range of issues surrounding wind developments. Following those talks he says he began to read wind articles in the media and most of these stories failed to identify the issues and genuine concerns of the residents:

“IN the beginning my study was designed to gain an understanding of the structure and strength of both positive and negative attitudes toward wind energy developments. The initial plan was for the survey to be distributed throughout the renewable energy precincts in NSW. Following the launch of the questionnaire earlier this month, the study has caught the attention of various pro-wind organizations and individuals who have attempted to discredit the study.

[Read more…] about Live Near a Wind Project?

Trends: Hot Days West of Sydney

By

YESTERDAY his Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that Australia’s Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery has studied the climate record and discovered that the number of hot days are increasing in western Sydney, more koalas are falling out of trees, and people sitting in traffic jams are forgetting to turn on their air-conditioning. You can read everything here:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-14/heatwaves-bushfires-predicted-to-hammer-nsw/4009006

My name is Mr Koala Bear and I’ve been studying his report.

Naughty Tim has NOT told the whole story.

There are a lot of problems with relying on Parramatta for hot days for western Sydney. Parramatta is not a high quality site according to the Bureau of Meteorology, Parramatta only has temperature recordings from 1970 and Parramatta is jammed with more and more cars and especially air conditioners making it even hotter.

Luckily, I’ve found a high quality site west of Sydney with temperature recordings back to 1923. A much better site if we want to know about hot days and climate change.

I split my counts of hot days at Bathurst into 10-year intervals and counted the number of days in each decade above 35.0 °C.

Now I will tell the story of two Tims.

Tim 1 was busy playing his vinyl Beatles records back in the swinging ‘60s when he looked at his data and became very alarmed because it showed that the number of very hot days for each decade had fallen from over 60 to about 20 in just 4 decades! The trend was very bearish.

Tim 1 was convinced that a new ice age was setting in and by the end of the century everyone in Australia would be living in igloos! Imagine koalas living in igloos!

Nearly 50 years later, Tim 2, the Climate Commissioner, was listening to Lady GaGa on his iPod, when he saw that the number of very hot days over the past 4 decades was rising very steeply. Tim predicted that EVERY day would be over 35C by the end of the century. The trend was very bullish: very scary for a bear.

Both Tims just looked at the last five decades and were alarmed.

The real story is that the climate changes.

Be careful not to fall into the Tim-trap of just following a trend for a short period and thinking that this will go on forever. It just does not happen that way with our climate.

Climate Commission Fudges Hot Day Data

By

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 red 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

Counting More Tornadoes in the US, & Heat Waves in Western Sydney

By

THOSE committed to catastrophic global warming can keep finding new evidence for global warming while those sceptical keep attempting to debunk the new claims.

For example, the number of tornados in the US is increasing.

But the increasing count is due to better weather tracking technology recording more low intensity events, according to Alan Cheetam.

The charts are from Alan Cheetham’s website. Its a trove of information and data that helps puts the dire warnings about tornados and much more in some perspective. It can be accessed here: http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/
Tornado information here: http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/GW_4CE_Precipitation.htm

*********
Monday May 14th

After posting that those committed to global warming keep finding new things to scare us with, I wake up to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation claiming:

[Read more…] about Counting More Tornadoes in the US, & Heat Waves in Western Sydney

Who filmed the video clip of Australian cattle in the Indonesian abattoirs?

By

IN June 2011 the Australian government halted all live cattle exports to Indonesia after ABC Four Corners broadcast disturbing footage of Australian cattle being mistreated in Indonesian abattoirs. 

Australians were lead to believe that this footage, that shocked the nation, was typical of what occurs inside many abattoirs in Indonesia: that the footage was real.

We were told the footage wasn’t taken by Four Corners or the ABC.  Lyn White from Animals Australia is the face of the campaign against live cattle export and she starred in the documentary. She was at pains to tell us it was easy enough to get the footage. So we were lead to believe she had taken it herself.

Of course professionals could have staged something like this. The footage could have been totally contrived. We could have been looking at a work of fiction: a setup, a horror film.

Interestingly there is an organisation that specialises in film production for environmental, conservation and animal protection groups. In the ‘Tracks Investigations, Annual Review 2011-12’ the UK-based directors, Gem and Ian, claim responsibility for the footage shown on ABC TV. They boast that their work was “aided” by the screening on “Australia’s main TV station ABC in May”. They also claim it was their most successful project in their 18 year history:

“Some 40,000 media stories followed, sparking massive public opposition to the live export trade and awakening the consciences of a nation to the plight of animals.”

What I’m curious to know is: if it was so easy to get the footage as claimed by Lyn White, why did Animals Australia contract Tracks Investigations to do the work? And if it was indeed Track Investigations, and not Lyn White, who were responsible for the shocking video clips, why wasn’t this declared in the ABC Four Corners program?