Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Ray the Moderator

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THIS blog now has a moderator. In time we might even have some rules.

Ray grew up on a farm along the Tweed River in New South Wales. He started, but never completed, a degree in earth and biological sciences at the University of New England, Armidale. He’s had a few jobs over the years, including in the computer industry. Ray currently manages a residential complex on the Gold Coast which he describes as like being semi-retired. Ray the Moderator

Ray enjoys watersports including dragon boating, kayaking, snorkeling and plain swimming. He is married to a wonderful woman and has two grandchildren.

He would like to see this blog develop comment threads where respectful discussions of issues concerning Earth’s environment and human politics can occur. Ray doesn’t like Twitter because it encourages instant responses rather than thoughtful ones.

Here’s to more thoughtful comments.

Welcome Ray the Moderator.

Climate4You Update June 2014: Ole Humlum

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“ALL five global temperature estimates presently show an overall stagnation, at least since 2002. There has been no increase in global air temperature since 1998, which however was affected by the oceanographic El Niño event. This stagnation does not exclude the possibility that global temperatures will begin to increase again later. On the other hand, it also remain (sic) a possibility that Earth just now is passing a temperature peak, and that global temperatures will begin to decrease during the coming years. Time will show which of these two possibilities is correct.”

That’s according to Ole Humlum, Professor of Physical Geography, University of Oslo, writing in his latest monthly Climate4You Update.

While Professor Humlum is confident we will be able to see the cooling trend once it establishes. I’m increasingly of the opinion that with the algorithms now used to systematically adjust the thermometer temperature record, any cooling will be increasingly obscured in the global temperature record. Of relevance, none of the global temperature records have been stable over time. Two of the global surface air temperature records, National Climatic Data Center and Goddard Institute for Space Studies, show apparent systematic changes creating an administrative upsurge in temperatures. The difference between January 1915 and January 2000 temperatures was 0.39 degree C in 2008, it is now 0.52 degree C in the direction of warming. This is illustrated on page 7 of the June 2014 Climate4Your Update.

The most relevant chart in the latest update from Professor Humlum for Australians, particularly Murray Darling farmers, is perhaps the 12-month running average sea ice extensions in both hemispheres since 1979, page 24 and reproduced below. According to Kevin Long, a Bendigo-based long-range weather forecaster, higher sea ice averages in the Antarctic signal below average rainfall for eastern Australia and heavier late season frosts.

sea ice

Most Unsuccessful Tax in History: Marita Noon on Repeal of the Carbon Tax

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THE Wall Street Journal states: “The public hates it.” The (UK) Telegraph calls the tax: “one of the most unsuccessful in history” and points out that it is “unique in that it generated virtually no revenue for the Australian Treasury due to its negative impact on productivity; contributed to the rising costs that have taken the gloss off the country’s resources boom; and essentially helped to bring down Ms Gillard’s former Government.” The Telegraph, in an article titled: “Australia abandons disastrous green tax on emissions,” adds that the tax failed in “winning over voters who faced higher costs passed on by the companies that had to pay for it.” In Slate, Ariel Bogel claims the 2011 bill required “about 350 companies to pay a penalty for their greenhouse gas emissions.”

I’m quoting from an article by Marita Noon, Executive Director of Energy Makes America Great, inc. just published online by RedState.

The article goes on to quote me on the need to now repeal the Renewable Energy Target and also gives something of a round-up in terms of where other countries are with such policies…

Marohasy says: “In short, repeal of the carbon tax is a big symbolic win. But it’s mostly just window-dressing: to appease the masses. In the background, proponents of anthropogenic global warming who dominate our political class still very much control the levers of government and intend to continue to terrorize the population with claims of catastrophic global warming, while consolidating their rent-seeking through the RET.” She explained: “Money collected from the carbon tax went to government, money collected through the RET largely goes to the global warming industry.”

While Australia is, as the Wall Street Journal put it: “the world’s first developed nation to repeal carbon laws that put a price on greenhouse-gas emissions,” it is not the only one to back away from such policies. New Zealand has weakened its emissions trading scheme; Japan has retreated from its pledges to cut greenhouse emissions and instead committed to a rise in emissions; Canada withdrew from the Kyoto protocol in 2011; England, where “the bill for green policies is rising,” has “so far resisted calls to expand tax on carbon emissions”; the European Union carbon emissions trading scheme­—the biggest in the world and the heart of Europe’s climate-change program—is in dire straits; and, just the day after Australia’s news was announced, South Korea—whose planned 2015 emissions trading market launch would make it the world’s second largest—hinted at an additional delay due to projected costs to businesses.

Read the entire article here or at least go and ‘like’ it.

Open Thread

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From the poem Desiderata:grass flower

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

by Max Ehrmann, 1927.

Open Thread

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THIS THREAD IS ALREADY CLOSED.

According to Larry Fields: I really like the Open Thread. I don’t have the energy to keep up with the long articles at WUWT and elsewhere. Commenters who provide links in the Open Thread help me prioritize my reading.
first step

In Search of a Moderator

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GROUPS of people, by their nature tend to seek out a consensus, but groups are more resilient and more likely to get closer to the truth when they are open to new ideas and when they confront dissent with rational argument.Nothing Great

So, I’ve been very tolerant at this website of what many would call trolling.

Wikipedia defines a troll as, “a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.”

While trolling is not generally productive, every group should encourage the presence of a devil’s advocate, or two.

Wikipedia defines a devil’s advocate as, “someone who, given a certain argument, takes a position they do not necessarily agree with (or simply an alternative position from the accepted norm), for the sake of debate or to explore the thought further. In taking this position, the individual taking on the devil’s advocate role seeks to engage others in an argumentative discussion process. The purpose of such a process is typically to test the quality of the original argument and identify weaknesses in its structure, and to use such information to either improve or abandon the original, opposing position. It can also refer to someone who takes a stance that is seen as unpopular or unconventional, but is actually another way of arguing a much more conventional stance.”

It can be surprisingly difficult to both encourage critical thinking, particularly on the internet and with such an emotive topic as climate change, while also progressing understanding because devil’s advocates can be perceived as troll, and trolls mistaken as devil’s advocates.

Then there are others who simply want to defend their perspective at all costs, and who will go to great lengths to both undermine alternative perspectives, and new ideas, and in the most insidious of ways.

I’m looking for a moderator, to work with me to try and ensure this blog is more than an echo chamber for scepticism, but also a place that can nurture the best from different perspectives.

If you are interested in this unpaid position, please email me jennifermarohasy at gmail.com

This blog will be 10 years old on 14th April next year. As of this morning 3,415 articles had been posted attracting 132,643 comments. Over the last month there were more than 15,000 sessions with users spending more than 2 minutes on average at the blog during any one session. The most popular post this month was Corrupting Australia’s Temperature Record posted on 17th May.