Do you remember when smoking was healthy?

[Flip]

Younger punters will no doubt won't believe back in the day, Tobacco Companies advertised smoking was good for you but eventually:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/copyranter/the- ... t-ads-ever

Yet we know this now:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/10566.php

‘Dark money’ funds US climate deniers

January 6, 2014 in Climate deniers, Transparency, USA


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Now you see it... The ExxonMobil Foundation no longer publicly supports the climate counter movement Image: Billy Hathorn via Wikimedia Commons
Now you see it… The ExxonMobil Foundation no longer publicly supports the climate change counter movement
Image: Billy Hathorn via Wikimedia Commons

By Tim Radford

Most of the many millions of dollars channelled each year to US organisations which deny that climate change is an urgent problem come from sources which cannot be identified.

LONDON, 6 January – Approximately three quarters of the hundreds of millions of dollars that go to US climate change denial organisations is from unidentifiable sources, according to new research in the journal Climatic Change.

Robert Brulle, a sociologist at Drexel University in the US, set himself the challenge of trying to identify the financial backers who bankrolled more than 100 US organisations that make up what he calls the “climate change counter movement”.

He did so, he reports, because in the US the level of understanding of climate change as a serious and imminent problem remains low, despite urgent pronouncements from national academies and international agencies.

“In response to a survey question in the fall of 2012: Do scientists believe that Earth is getting warmer because of human activity? 43% replied no, and another 12% didn’t know. Only 45% of the U.S. public accurately reported the near-unanimity of the scientific community about anthropogenic climate change. This result reflects a broad misunderstanding of climate science by the general public”, he writes.

One major factor driving this misunderstanding was what he calls a “deliberate and organised effort to misdirect the public discussion and distort the public’s understanding of climate change.”

Opting for anonymity

So Brulle compiled a list of 118 important climate denial organisations in the US: many of them conservative think tanks, advocacy groups, trade associations and so on.

He then obtained Internal Revenue Service data from 91 of these organisations, and matched it with information from the US National Center for Charitable Statistics and the Foundation Center, a source of information on US philanthropy, fund-raising and grant programmes.

In his final analysis, he found that 140 foundations had made 5,299 grants worth $558 million to the 91 organisations between 2003 and 2010.

A number of free market and conservative trusts and foundations had openly funded the climate change counter movement, but more interestingly, once-prominent backers such as the ExxonMobil Foundation were no longer making publicly traceable contributions. Funding had shifted to untraceable sources.

For example, one foundation called the Donors Trust now provided 25% of all traceable funding used by organisations engaged in promoting systematic denial of climate change. But those who in turn funded the Donors Trust could not be traced.

Deniers’ megaphone

In fact, Brulle reports that most funding for denial efforts is untraceable: only a fraction of the hundreds of millions in contributions to such organisations can be accounted for in public records. Approximately 75% was “dark money” from unidentified sources.

In effect this “dark money” served as a megaphone to amplify the voices of denial, and leave many US voters with the impression that man-made global warming had doubtful scientific support, or was at least in scientific dispute. In fact, the illusion of uncertainty had been staged.

“To fully understand the opposition to climate change legislation, we need to focus on the institutionalised efforts that have built and maintain this organised campaign. Just as in a theatrical show, there are stars in the spotlight”, writes Brulle.

“However, they are only the most visible and transparent parts of a larger production. Supporting this effort are directors, script writers, and, most importantly, a series of producers, in the form of conservative foundations.” – Climate News Network

Now if 97% of Scientists say something shitty is happening I tend to believe that something shitty is happening.

So if I can go into your home and install Voltage Optimisation, Last man out switch to turn of non essential items, install Solar/Domestic Wind Powered (non propeller) Electricity generation, add European heat pump HWS which costs nothing to run and the until you come back, plus, plus, plus, plus and then add battery back up and storage with Genny back up.

...who is going to be shitty?

Coal and Huge Power Generation Companies who have assets which have huge down sides and hold massive risks....which no one wants to buy. Check Chinese forward estimate coal orders FY 2015/16. Down. Why? Because they are building massive Solar Farms and investing in billions in renewables. And introducing Carbon Pricing.

Wonder why? Australia.....going in the opposite direction. We are the laughing stock of the world given we are the 2nd strongest economy in the world not achieved in 3 months. Here is hat Europe in general thinks of us:

http://uknowispeaksense.wordpress.com/t ... newspaper/

And then;

http://inagist.com/search?q=Tony Abbott

Who funded Phoney's campaign? Apart from the rapidly falling Von Murdoch? The above and all the 1% who own 80% of YOUR assets and are laughing at you.

Imagine running your own home or your rental property investments and charging for it and relying on wind and sun to power which costs you SFA and a 3-5 yr Payback if it that is at all relevant (because it is a BS negative) and telling the Power Company to f**k off.

And who is Phoney supporting? Not you punters....only his masters and puppeteers.

Good luck

[rockhole]

I think I'll kick back and light up a Salem!!

[BenDoolan]

Ninety Seven Percent Is Not What You Think

By Art Horn

I have given many lectures about the myths, misconceptions and outright lies in the global warming arena. After an hour of graphs, charts and pictures detailing how a tiny trace gas, carbon dioxide, has no relationship to whatever warming and cooling has occurred I get the inevitable statement from someone in the audience. “How can you deny that man made global warming is real when 97 percent of climate scientists agree that it is true?” At this point I have to explain that the 97 percent figure is not what it appears to be.

Let’s start with where this number comes from. One of the most quoted sources is the result of an online survey that was published in 2009 by Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman from the University of Illinois. The survey was sent to 10,257 scientists. It was intended to be very easy to respond to and was supposed to take only two minutes to complete. As a result 3,146 scientists responded to the survey.

There were nine questions in all but the two primary questions in the survey were these. Question number one: When compared to pre-1800 levels, do you think mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant? Of the 3,146 respondents 90% said risen. Herein lies one of the flaws in the survey. This is a loaded question. During the past 2,000 years the earth has had well documented swings in average temperature. At the beginning of the Roman Empire the earth was as warm or warmer than today. This warm spell is known as the “Roman Warmer Period” and extended from about 250 BC to 450 AD. Rome fell during an era when the temperature was turning colder, know as “The Dark Ages Cold Period” from about 450 AD to 950 AD. This cold spell finally gave way to a more agreeable temperature rebound known as the “Medieval Warm Period” from about 950 AD to1400 AD. Hundreds of peer reviewed papers have confirmed that this warm period was as warm or warmer than today’s temperature. After this warm spell the earth cascaded into a prolonged cold era know as “The Little Ice Age” that lasted from about 1400 to 1850 AD. Studies indicate that the bottom of this cold period was around 1700 AD. Since that time the global average temperature has risen. I know of no meteorologist, climatologist or anyone involved in the study of the earth’s temperature who would argue this point.

The survey question: When compared to pre-1800 levels, do you think mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant, was intentionally worded to elicit the response the authors wanted to hear. It was the intent of the question to get a response of “risen”. A loaded question if I have ever seen one. Amazingly the response was not 100%! In fact only 90% of the 3,146 answered “risen” to question one.

Question number two is even more suspect. The question is: Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures? Of the 3,146 respondents only 82% answered yes to this question. This means that taken together the percentage response to the survey was not 97% but 86%, a significant majority but not nearly as impressive as a 97% figure.

Question two has several vague areas. First is just what constitutes “human activity”? The burning of fossil fuels to make energy is one. The changing of land surfaces to make cities, farmland and deforestation is “human activity” that can change temperature as well. Changing mean temperature can be accomplished by changing the environment around a climate recording station. This is also “human activity”. As rural climate recording stations are gradually surrounded by urban sprawl and eventually larger buildings and infrastructure, the temperature of the site will warm due to the “Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. This has nothing to due with fossil fuel use increasing the efficiency of the green house effect but is a significant “human activity” that can change the temperature of a recording station over time. The results from the survey do not address the variety of just what constitutes “human activity”. A “yes” response to question two implies the responder is referring to fossil fuels but that is not necessarily the case. It is however, what the survey likely wanted to convey.

Question number two also does not address what the word “significant” means to each individual respondent. What constitutes “significant” can be very different from person to person. To some a 50% human influence on the temperature increase of the last 150 years would be significant. To another scientist a 25% human contribution to the temperature increase would be significant. And to another a 10% increase in the global temperature due to human activity would be significant. This range of possible interpretations to the word “significant” makes the 82% response more suspect.
The 97% figure from the survey comes from a whittling down of the accepted number of responses from 3,146 to 79. The 79 scientist are those that said they have recently published 50% of their papers in the area of climate change. Of these, 76 of 79 answered “risen” to questions one (96.2%). How this number is not 100% is very strange. As to question two 75 of 77 answered “yes” (97.4%). As I have shown above this response does not necessarily mean that the respondent was attributing the significant human activity to the use of fossil fuels. Additionally a “yes” response does not quantify the degree of significance that human activity has on climate change. This can range significantly from person to person.

It is interesting that of the 36 meteorologists who responded to question number two, only 23 of 36 or 64% thought that human activity was a “significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures”. The authors dismiss this group of trained atmospheric scientists outright even though their size is almost half of the 79 climate scientists used in generating the 97% figure! Apparently the 64% number was not convincing enough. If the authors of the survey had combined the results of the meteorologists and the climate scientists the “yes” response to question two would have been 98 out of 113 or 87%. That number just doesn’t have the same impact as 97%.

The Global Warming Petition Project has been signed by 31,487 scientist including 9,029 with PHDs in their fields. The petition states that: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that the human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth”. It would appear that there are many well educated people who do not agree with the survey and its 97% figure.
This year, 2012, is a critical period in the history of the United States. The choice of who will lead us to or from energy freedom and economic prosperity will come this November. If we go in the wrong direction or in other words, the direction we are heading in now, by 2016 it may be too late to recover. The fear of man made global warming is being used to shape a dangerously flawed energy policy. If voters make their choices based in part on misleading surveys like the one above we will fail. The result will be national and world wide upheaval that could have devastating effects for everyone. We must be allowed to develop our fossil fuel resources here at home. Abundant, affordable energy is the key to prosperity and peace

[Sismis]

Charles Darwin is one of the 30K scientists signing the Global Warming Petition Project along with Dr Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce and Darth Vader. But one dodgy survey clearly cancels out another one.

The 97% stat as i understand it does not even come from the survey listed. it comes from a study of over 11 thousand PEER REVIEWED articles published from 1991–2011.

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article

"We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming."

[tonysoprano]

Charles Darwin is one of the 30K scientists signing the Global Warming Petition Project along with Dr Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce and Darth Vader. But one dodgy survey clearly cancels out another one.

The 97% stat as i understand it does not even come from the survey listed. it comes from a study of over 11 thousand PEER REVIEWED articles published from 1991–2011.

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article

"We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming."

It says 0.3% were uncertain, while 66.4% expressed no position. Possibly 2 out of 3 perhaps were uncertain?

[boncer34]

Charles Darwin is one of the 30K scientists signing the Global Warming Petition Project along with Dr Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce and Darth Vader. But one dodgy survey clearly cancels out another one.

The 97% stat as i understand it does not even come from the survey listed. it comes from a study of over 11 thousand PEER REVIEWED articles published from 1991–2011.

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article

"We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming."

Hang on.

Does that mean that 97.1% of the 32.6% that endorsed AGW endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing it?

Coz to me Sismis that says 66.4% expressed no position.

Which to me says that only 31.65% endorsed the consensus. (97.1% of 32.6%)

Probably way off the mark so feel free to correct mate.

[Sismis]

The 97% includes all of the articles that expressed an opinion one way or the other. 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% uncertain.

As breakdown, (rounding down to 11K).
'
7304 had no opinion on AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming aka MMCG Man Made Climate Change).
3586 endorsed
77 rejected
33 uncertain

The study was of articles matching the topics 'global climate change' or 'global warming'. An article was put into the ""no opinion" category if it did not "address or mention the cause of global warming".

[Flip]

http://www.independentaustralia.net/lif ... ected,6045

[BenDoolan]

Yes, and Moses parted the Red Sea with a stick of carbon, and Noah was forced to build his Ark because of all the industrial emissions back in 1092 Anno Mundi. That's what the scientists from Sodom and Gomorrah said anyway...

[Flip]

Benny, please explain the following:

http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/2014/0 ... thecharts/

[Rover 7]

Australian Temperature Records–Not What They Seem
April 2, 2013
tags: Australia

By Paul Homewood

Nobody would question that Australia has just experienced a very hot summer, and, in particular, one that unusually has affected pretty much the whole continent.

Nevertheless, as we have already seen , in not one single state was this summer the hottest on record. For instance, NSW was probably the most affected by the heatwave this year, yet their summer was only the 7th hottest on record, much cooler than 1938/9.

This has not stopped the Australian Climate Commission labelling it “The Angry Summer”, (hardly a scientific term, but we’ll ignore that). To ram home their message that this summer has somehow been utterly unprecedented, they have relied heavily on “records broken”.

In particular, they claim 43 new maximum temperature records. But, analyse these “supposed” records, and you end up with quite a different picture.

Out of the 43 stations, only 5 have measurements dating back to before 1950. The full list of stations is shown in Appendix A, but these 5 are

Year first operational
Nyngan AP 1927
Tibbooburra 1910
Sydney AP 1939
Sydney 1858
Hobart 1885

So not only are there just 5, but two are large cities, and 2 others are airports sites. Nobody could seriously argue that UHI had not affected these sites substantially since the 1930’s. That leaves just one station, Tibbooburra, that can genuinely claim to have set the highest temperature since 1950 and before.

Should we be worrying about how hot it was before 1950? Surely, with “rising temperatures”, it could not have been hotter back then? The simple answer is yes, it definitely was.

January was the only month this summer ranked as hottest, but it was only marginally hotter than 1932, with 1939 not far behind.

NSW, where 23 of the 43 records were set, was certainly one of the most affected areas. Yet January 1939 was 1.18C warmer, and the top three state record temperatures all belong to 1939 and 1912. Exactly the same picture can be seen in other states such as South Australia.

Temperature records set at stations with such short histories are not just meaningless, they are positively misleading and dishonest. Indeed, one station, Grove in Tasmania, has as little as 9 years’ worth of data.

However, none of this seems to matter to Will Steffen and the Climate Commission, who seem more interested in making sensationalist headlines than objective science.

But I suppose a headline that read “ One Record Broken ” would not have looked as impressive!

References

All data from the Australian BOM

http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/c ... 1&ave_yr=5

APPENDIX – LIST OF ALL TIME TEMPERATURE RECORDS

Station Year Opened
Wiluna 1957
Giles 1956
Eucla 1962
Lenora 1956
Yeelirrie 1973
Nyngan 1927
Trangie 1968
Paynesfind 1979
Walgett 1993
Thargomindah 1999
Tibbooburra 1910
Curtin Springs 1964
Leigh Creek 1983
Kimba 1967
Windorah 1963
Cunnamulla 1957
Mugindi 1965
Prospect 1965
Adelaide 1955
Murrurundi 1965
Newcastle 1957
Williamtown 1950
Gosford 1983
Lostock 1971
Parramatta 1974
Bankstown 1974
Hay 1957
Brewarrina 1965
Scone 1990
Oberon 1983
Dunedoo 1968
Sydney AP 1939
Sydney 1858
Camden 1971
Tumbarumba 1968
Hobart 1885
Grove 2004
Bushy Park 1960
Richmond 1993
Nowra 2000
Larapuna 1957
Hobart AP 1957
Meekatharra 1950

[BenDoolan]

Benny, please explain the following:

http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/2014/0 ... thecharts/

Yeah, all caused by carbon emissions. Nothing to do with earth's orbit around the sun or earth's tilt.

Haha, great evidence Flip. You've convinced me.

Wonder what our coldest January on record is going to be blamed on? Melbourne must be in a twilight zone....

[Sismis]

From a scientific point of view you cannot draw a link to a single event or even a single year and point the causative finger at global warming. It is as much pseudoscience as pointing to the record freeze on the other side of the planet and saying it doesn't exist.

[tonysoprano]

From a scientific point of view you cannot draw a link to a single event or even a single year and point the causative finger at global warming. It is as much pseudoscience as pointing to the record freeze on the other side of the planet and saying it doesn't exist.

never a truer word was written.

[boncer34]

The 97% includes all of the articles that expressed an opinion one way or the other. 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% uncertain.

So wait wait wait. 32.6% endorsed AGW but 97% endorsed man made global warming?

Dude I'm so confused.

[Sismis]

The 97% includes all of the articles that expressed an opinion one way or the other. 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% uncertain.

So wait wait wait. 32.6% endorsed AGW but 97% endorsed man made global warming?

Dude I'm so confused.

AGW and man made global warming are the same thing.

36.7% of the total articles surveyed.This equates to 97% of the articles remaining when the 66.4% expressing no position are removed.

Any clearer?

It is understandable to be confused, it is also a good example of how easily selective quoting can misrepresent the findings.

[boncer34]

The 97% includes all of the articles that expressed an opinion one way or the other. 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% uncertain.

So wait wait wait. 32.6% endorsed AGW but 97% endorsed man made global warming?

Dude I'm so confused.

AGW and man made global warming are the same thing.

36.7% of the total articles surveyed.This equates to 97% of the articles remaining when the 66.4% expressing no position are removed.

Any clearer?

It is understandable to be confused, it is also a good example of how easily selective quoting can misrepresent the findings.

So I was right. 36.7% of scientists have attributed GW to the man made Carbon Emission theory?

[tonysoprano]

In other words, the "97% is not what you think" headline is pretty much spot on.

[Sismis]

This is where media reporting on Science falls down. They try to dilute a complex finding down to one line.

The 97% is definitely misleading, however the article analyses the survey bias of one article then does not apply the same analysis to the one it is relying on to support it's argument.

36.7% directly attributed GW to man made effects in their articles. Carbon is only one element of this.

There was also a second element to this study, part one was looking at articles that had already been written the second part contacted the authors themselves and asked them their opinion directly.

The results for the 2142 authors who responded:

Endorse AGW Part 1: 791 (36.9%) Part 2: 1342 (62.7%)

No AGW position or undecided Part 1: 1339 (62.5%) Part 2: 761 (35.5%)

Reject AGW Part 1: 12 (0.6%) Part 2: 239 (1.8%)

[boncer34]

The 97% is definitely misleading,

Which is what BD's original point was and what you've been arguing against the whole time.

Now you concede he's right.

No wonder my bloody head hurt.