Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Excuses, But No Good Reason for Murray River Barrages

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I have received a barrage of excuses as to why the Lower Lakes at the bottom of the Murray River should remain fresh rather than removing the barrages and letting the area fill with seawater, as suggested in ‘Basin barrage of bad ideas” (The Land, November 4, pg. 26). 

And I’ve made a few enquiries, to understand why, for example, the government and the opposition remain silent on the issue.

Advisors to both major political parties tell me that the barrages are far too contentious an issue, even for discussion, and that advocating the removal of the barrages could cost them important votes in South Australia.  

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Confirmation Bias at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (Part 2)

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THE Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) admits it was wrong about urban heating effects as a professional statistical analysis by Andrew Barnham exposes a BOM claim that “since 1960 the mean temperature in Australia has increased by about 0.7 °C”; the BOM assertion has no empirical scientific basis.

Read more here:  http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/11/new-retreat-from-global-warming-data-by.html

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Second Open Thread

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It’s unknown how far the average, white, male, polar bear can swim because they’re always hitching rides on passing ice floes, according to Schiller Thurkettle.

National Broadcaster Refuses to Apologize to Bob Carter

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SEVERAL weeks ago on the Science Show, broadcast nationally by our ABC, the host Robyn Williams interviewed a journalist, Bob Ward, masquerading as an expert on climate science.    Mr Ward proceeded to make various inaccurate statements and false claims including that he had systematically reviewed the literature on climate science.    As a consequence of this systematic review the listener was lead to believe that Mr Ward had accurately identified a paper by Professor Bob Carter, James Cook University, as the worst paper ever published on climate science. 

In fact Mr Ward has made no systematic review, and the focus on Professor Carter and a paper he published two years previously was not news.    Furthermore Professor Carter was not invited onto the program to debate Mr Wards as suggested in the following letter, but rather to make a pre-recorded comment.

The real news that week was that Professor Carter’s new book, The Counter Consensus, was to be launched at a small function in Melbourne – something the program failed to mention.  

I complained to the ABC about the interview which I construed as a spiteful attack on Professor Carter’s credibility orchestrated by host of the science show, Robyn Williams, a well known hater of so called ‘climate sceptics’.

I received the following official reply yesterday which is complete nonsense.  Indeed the program violated the ABC’s various codes because while purporting to be factual, was inaccurate and not in context. 

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Is The Western Climate Establishment Corrupt? Asks SPPI

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THE Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) continues raising serious concerns for policy makers and the public as to whether the “adjustments” that government-funded employees continue making to raw surface and ocean temperature data sets can be trusted.   In a new collaborative paper, Is The Western Climate Establishment Corrupt?, Dr. Dave Evans has gathered substantial evidence that corruption has become endemic within government-sponsored climate units.  Dr. Evans finds that, “The Western Climate Establishment has allowed egregious mistakes, major errors and obvious biases to accumulate — each factor on its own might be hard to pin down, but the pattern is undeniable.” Evans asks, “How many excuses does it take?”

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