Jennifer Marohasy

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No Scientific Forecasts to Support Global Warming

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YESTERDAY, a former chief at NASA, Dr John S. Theon, slammed the computer models used to determine future climate claiming they are not scientific in part because the modellers have “resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists”. [1]

Today, a founder of the International Journal of Forecasting, Journal of Forecasting, International Institute of Forecasters, and International Symposium on Forecasting, and the author of Long-range Forecasting (1978, 1985), the Principles of Forecasting Handbook, and over 70 papers on forecasting, Dr J. Scott Armstrong, tabled a statement declaring that the forecasting process used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) lacks a scientific basis. [2]

What these two authorities, Drs Theon and Armstrong, are independently and explicitly stating is that the computer models underpinning the work of many scientific institutions concerned with global warming, including Australia’s CSIRO, are fundamentally flawed. 

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Iron Sulphate to be Dumped in Southern Ocean

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GERMANY gave the green light on Monday to a controversial plan with India to drop six tons of iron dust into the Antarctic Ocean. The experiment is the biggest trial ever of iron fertilization, a technology which could stop global warming at very little cost.  Read more here.   I have previously suggested that your concept of nature is almost certainly going to influence whether you support the idea.  Read more here.

Former NASA Boss Declares Himself a Sceptic and Slams Climate Models

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IT used to be common for global warming activists to claim that anyone who disagrees with them must be in the pay of “big oil” – remember Al Gore said this in his documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’.   More recently the accusation has been that anyone who disagrees with them doesn’t understand the science and therefore does not have an informed opinion.

Marc Morano, the communications director for the Republicans on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, has made collecting and collating the names of dissenting scientists something of an obsession.  Last December he launched an updated report in Washington claiming, “Over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe challenged man-made global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore.”

Yesterday Mr Morano added a particularly high profile scientist to this growing list, Dr John S. Theon. [1] 

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Editor Removes Comment by Climate Sceptic (Part 2)

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AUSTRALIA’s national broadcaster, the ABC, has a science unit dominated by a fellow called Robyn Williams. Mr Williams is an advocate for the campaign against global warming and has even suggested on air that sea levels could rise by 100 metres in the next century; the United Nation’s IPCC suggested at worst just 59cms. [1]  Mr Williams is also on the public record indicating something verging on contempt for meteorologist and climate change sceptic Bill Kininmonth.[2] 

It may be difficult for those journalists at the ABC who want to ensure the alternative perspective is put on contentious and highly politicised scientific issues like climate change, particularly given Mr Williams standing and very definite opinions.  

On January 22, 2009, ABC reporter Nick Lucchinelli interviewed Bill Kininmonth for an alternative perspective on an article in ‘Nature’ suggesting Antarctica is warming.   Lead author Eric Steig and biologist Barry Brook were also interviewed.   That part of the interview with Mr Kininmonth was subsequently expunged from the transcript and podcast.  [3]   That is, at some point after the broadcast the comment from Mr Kininmonth was edited out of the interview.    At first blush this has all the signs of ABC censorship in favour of the bias of the science unit.   

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Bond University Dismisses Climate Change Sceptic

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IT is common for Australian academics to publicly express an opinion on climate change including in our newspapers; think Tim Flannery, Ian Lowe and more recently Barry Brook.  

A couple of weeks ago Jon Jenkins, an Adjunct Professor at Bond University, had an opinion piece published by The Australian newspaper.  [1]

The piece was critical of the accepted dogma on anthropogenic global warming with a focus on how global temperatures are recorded and ended with a comment on sustainable development:

“Science is only about certainty and facts. The real question is in acknowledging the end of fossil fuels within the next 200 years or so: how do we spend our research time and dollars?

Do we spend it on ideologically green-inspired publicity campaigns such as emissions-trading schemes based on the fraud of the IPCC, or do we spend it on basic science that could lead us to energy self-sufficiency based on some combination of solar, geothermal, nuclear and renewable sources? The alternative is to go back to the stone age.”

Interestingly Bond University has a new name for its business and IT faculties, The Faculty of Business, Technology & Sustainable Development, but apparently didn’t like Professor Jenkins’ very public opinion on the subject of sustainable development.   For his opinion, Professor Jenkins received an official reprimand from the Bond University Registrar and then was informed last Friday that his adjunct status had been revoked.

No doubt he has contravened some rule or other at the University and no doubt this would have gone unnoticed if Professor Jenkins had a more popular opinion on these most politically charged subjects. 

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Update: January 30, 2009

The university has now clarified its position:

“Dr Jenkins was a member of staff here for some considerable time and resigned to enter the NSW Parliament. Dr Jenkins was asked to keep an association with University as an adjunct but indicated in 2008 that serious health problems would probably prevent him taking an active role. As a result Dr Jenkins was removed from the adjunct staff in 2008.

An administrative oversight resulted in Dr Jenkins not being informed of this change in status.”

That is, an administrative oversight resulted in Dr Jenkins not being informed of his change in status until after he published the controversial opinion piece in The Australian newspaper.

Perhaps if the piece had been more politically correct his name could have just been added back onto the list? 

I understand he has received an apology from the Vice Chancellor for the misunderstanding.  

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Notes and Link

1. The Warmaholics’ Fantasy.  The Australian January 6, 2009.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24876451-7583,00.html