Climate spin at The Con

ABC's academic arm The Con. have an article by Communications and Media Studies lecturer David Holmes titled: Climate change and the politics of consensus. The article is accompanied by a picture showing what appears to be a group scientists in white coats (see below). Now who could argue with that authority?

A close look at the photo shows the banner was provided by AVAAZ an online activist group. A quick web search reveals a Yahoo news story where we find the "scientists" are actually AVAAZ protesters!

The caption reads: Members of the non-governmental organisation AVAAZ take part in a protest on the side of a giant 12m seesaw, outside the conference centre Munchen brewhouse where the U.N. IPCC climate report was presented. 

http://news.yahoo.com/climate-panel-warming-extremely-likely-man-made-081442244--finance.html

Use of activist propaganda imagery by a tax payer funded site does little for the credibility of The Con, or the author. We made a note and asked some difficult questions. The image preserved at Webcite.

In a tiz

Meanwhile the other arm of the ABC, The Conversation is in a tiz about the loss of the Climate Commission. So concerned about dissent it has closed one article after just one comment, and that was removed. Having a conversation with yourself, is that the first sign of madness?

A wake up call at The Conversation

ABC affiliate The Conversation have posted an article by climate commissioner Lesley Hughes titled "Australians can’t ignore the health impacts of climate change".

I added the following comment...

In the climate commission's latest report I note that the section on mosquito borne diseases does not reference the work of epidemiologist Paul Reiter. Wonder why? Perhaps Lesley Hughes or co-author Tony McMichael would care to explain.

Here's Paul's background from wiki...
Paul Reiter is a professor of medical entomology at the Pasteur Institute in the city of Paris[citation needed], France. He is a member of the World Health Organization Expert Advisory Committee on Vector Biology and Control[citation needed]. He was an employee of the Center for Disease Control (Dengue Branch) for 22 years[citation needed]. He is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society[citation needed]. He is a specialist in the natural history, epidemiology and control of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever, West Nile Virus, and malaria.[1]

Lesley's co-author Tony McMichael had this to say about Paul in one of the recently released climategate emails dating from 2002. To Mike Hulme...

Mike,
You've probably already had colourful comment from Sari and Jonathan. Paul Reiter is, in my view, smart, confrontative and inflexible. He has been leading the charge of the (mostly US) professionally-affronted field epidemiologists, who think:
1. That if IPCC says that climate change is likely to affect VBD transmissibility, then it is also saying that this is happening already; and
2. That if climate is invoked as a causal influence, then it seems that the silly IPCC epidemiologists don't understand that there are a few other influences that are more important.
Paul's documentation that, historically, malaria was often more serious in Europe during relatively cooler times is very interesting - but is essentially irrelevant for the second reason above. Those historical times also coincided with other major shifts in social, economic, nutritional and political circumstances.
Well, it helps to keep us on our toes.
Tony

For the context see the rest of this email http://di2.nu/foia/foia2011/mail/4931.txt, and the civil email from Reiter to Hulme that prompted the response.
http://di2.nu/foia/foia2011/mail/3691.txt

Based on the omission of Paul Reiter's work from the commission's report it seems the so called consensus being promulgated by the climate commission has little to do with scientific evidence and more to do with maintaining Groupthinking networks, ego and undeserved reputations. Lesley Hughes suggests the report is a wake up call, I think Richard Feynman would have called it Cargo cult science.

Adjust your predictions to match the facts

The CONversation this morning posted an article by ABC's favourite Coral whisperer Ove Hoegh-Guldberg. The post is titled "Drowning out the truth about the Great Barrier Reef". It certainly lives up to the headline, for it seems the truth has been well and truly drowned.

I posted the following comment, that survived until about lunch time before being removed by the editors:

Doesn't help the media, Ove when you make ridiculously overblown statements about coral mortality. Your recent failed predictions made on your blog about coral armageddon on Ningaloo, following higher than normal water temps is a classic case in point. While bleaching occurred, mortality was no where near as severe as you predicted.

I suspect if you tone down the rhetoric and hyperbole and get some predictions correct you may find the media more inclined to listen 

As to your claims of being a "humble" scientist-pull the other one mate, I believe it plays Narcissus.

My comments regarding failed predictions of coral mortality at Ningaloo were based on a dramatic prediction made by Ove in a post at his blog Climate Shifts titled Mass mortality of corals on West Australian reefs. The prediction was apparently made on May 6, 2011 (see screen shots below). There is an update on reef conditions at Ningaloo and based on this it seems that the predictions of coral mortality made by Ove are in error by a factor of 3! 

The updated information (not dated) reads:

UPDATE-2:  Looks like the Ningaloo reefs are likely to escape major mortality given they have remained just outside the main hot spot.  These reefs are likely to lose about 10% of their corals. Things still remain serious in this analysis for the Houtman Abrolhos Islands (well inside the hotspot – see map and Tyler’s comments).  We will have to wait for the results of the surveys to be completed and analysed.

Looking at the prediction as it reads today, and the update above,  it seems that while the coral mortality predictions were way off the mark, (Ove predicted coral mortality of 30%, the update suggest actual figures of 10%), Ove may have been correct about one part of his "prediction":  the effect of bleaching on the Houtman Abrolhos Islands. However when I downloaded the webpage containing this prediction in May this is how Ove's "Prediction" read:

PREDICTION: We will see large-scale mortality of reef-building corals (30% or more) and many other organisms on reefs from Exmouth to Shark Bay along the West Australian coastline (300 km or more).   This will occur over the next 1-3 months.  Reefs in this region will take more than 10 years to recover (see screen shot below).

Nothing about the Houtman Abrolhos Islands in this early version. Here's how the "Prediction" currently reads:

PREDICTION: We will see large-scale mortality of reef-building corals (30% or more) and many other organisms on reefs along parts of the West Australian coastline.  This will occur over the next 1-3 months.  Reefs in this region will take more than 10 years to recover. Coral reefs around the Houtman Abrolhos Islands look particularly vulnerable.

If only we could all change our predictions to match the facts! Ove is welcome to post an explanation.

To add to the insult at The CON, after my factually correct comment was removed by the editors, they let through this comment, without providing further explanation:

"It would seem our geologist friend who posted earlier this morning has deleted his comments." 

As indicated above my comment was removed by the editors. Seems the truth has been drowned, then cremated!

In his book Future Babble journalist Dan Gardner takes a critical look at expert predictions and the psychology that explains why people believe them even though they consistently fail. Based on the failed predictions at Ningaloo, and the apparent attempt to later change the prediction to match the outcome, it seems ABC's coral whisperer is in fact a coral babbler.

Here's what Ningaloo Atlas says about the bleaching event...(seems 10% will probably be incorrect as well)
http://ningalooatlas.org/2011/05/23/ningaloo-coral-bleaching-update/

Screen shots from Climate shifts,click to enlarge:

1. Downloaded May 18,2011

2. Downloaded today, August 30,2011