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.

The embedded journalist part 2.

Earlier in the year we reported that AM reporter Tony Eastley had taken up a role as MC for the Climate Commission's public forums. The Australian covered the matter in this story under the headline "ABC defends host's climate gig".

Today Eastley gave Climate Commissioner Lesley Hughes a very soft interview on AM (see Health imperilled by climate change: Report).

It would have been interesting to see how Lesley Hughes would have handled questions relating to the absence of references in the commission's report to the work of Paul Reiter on mosquito borne diseases that contradicts the climate commission's alarmist narrative. Also of interest the exchange between Hughes' co-author Tony McMichael and Mike Hulme in relation to Reiter as featured in recently released climategate emails.

ABC's new Editorial Guidelines no longer mention the phrase "conflict of interest". However section 1.3 of the new guidelines state:

1.3 Ensure that editorial decisions are not improperly influenced by political, sectional, commercial or personal interests.

On face value it appears Mr Eastley's interview puts him in breach of this clause. We have asked the ABC for an explanation.

Lies of the Climate Commission part 9-the cargo cult continues

The government's climate propaganda unit, its climate commission, has released a new report on the Health Impacts of Climate Change.
The report was written by Lesley Hughes and epidemiologist Tony McMichael and reviewed by the Commission's uncritical reviewers.

Tony McMichael features in a Climate gate email exchange (see below) with Mike Hulme commenting about the work of respected epidemiologist Paul Reiter. According to his Wikipedia entry Paul Reiter is a specialist in the natural history, epidemiology and control of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever, West Nile Virus, and malaria. He has been critical of the IPCC process. In a 2005 statement to the UK Select Committee on Economic Affairs Reiter outlined problems with the IPCC health assessments and concluded: The natural history of mosquito-borne diseases is complex, and the interplay of climate, ecology, mosquito biology, and many other factors defies simplistic analysis. The recent resurgence of many of these diseases is a major cause for concern, but it is facile to attribute this resurgence to climate change, or to use models based on temperature to "predict" future prevalence. In my opinion, the IPCC has done a disservice to society by relying on "experts" who have little or no knowledge of the subject, and allowing them to make authoritative pronouncements that are not based on sound science. In truth, the principal determinants of transmission of malaria and many other mosquito-borne diseases are politics, economics and human activities. A creative and organized application of resources is urgently required to control these diseases, regardless of future climate change. 
Despite his expertise, surprisingly no work by Reiter was cited in the climate commission's  report on Climate change and health. The commission has presented only one side of a complex argument.
The lies of omission are the greatest lies of all. The commission's report is another example of cargo cult science in action. It is clear that the commission has no intention of fulfilling its charter to Explain the science of climate change and the impacts on Australia. It is purely a political body. I have no doubt the ABC in its coverage of this report will once again fail in their duty to ask the hard questions.

From the Climategate emails (note I have trimmed the email addresses and phone numbers)
http://di2.nu/foia/foia2011/mail/4931.txt

cc: 
date: Sun, 23 Jun 2002 04:23:10 +1000
from: "Tony McMichael" 
subject: RIF: Paul Reiter
to: "Mike Hulme" , "Sari Kovats" 

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
 -----Messaggio originale----- 
 Da: Mike Hulme [mailto:m.hulme@xxx.xx.xx] 
 Inviato: ven 21/06/2002 1.25 
 A: Tony McMichael; patz@xxx.xx.xx; Sari Kovats 
 Cc: 
 Oggetto: Paul Reiter
Tony, Jonathan, Sari,
 
 I engaged in robust conversation with Paul Reiter last night at an
 Institute of Ideas debate on climate change - he is clearly very unhappy
 about the IPCC health chapter and contributed to the public debate a rather
 dismissive comment about IPCC in general as a process of 'citizens science'.
 I've not come cross the guy before.  Is there something I need to know?

 Mike

Hulme's inquiry followed this email from Paul Reiter that explains some issues related to human health and climate change (note the difference in tone from Reiter). 

http://di2.nu/foia/foia2011/mail/3691.txt
date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 15:33:49 -0400
from: Paul Reiter 
subject: Climate change and mosquitoborne disease
to: m.hulme@xxx.xx.xx
Dear Mike,

Enjoyed meeting you last week.

Attached are a couple of papers I mentioned.  The review in 
Environmental Health Perspectives is the most comprehensive.

As an example of the sort of thing I tried to explain to you, try the 
paper by Harvell in Science, June 21.  I have never heard of any of 
the authors, yet they write with authority on dengue and malaria.

I ran the bit on bird malaria past my Director, Duane Gubler. He 
worked on bird malaria in Hawaii in the 1960s.  Even then it was a 
major cause of death in wild birds.  He agreed: there is no reason to 
believe that climate change has been relevant in recent years.

Then there is the bit in the Conclusions: The most detectable effects 
of directional climate warming on disease relate to geographic range 
expansion of pathogens such as Rift Valley fever, dengue ...

I assure you, there is absolutely no evidence for either.  RVF shows 
no change in range.  Pandemics of dengue (and yellow fever) were once 
common in the USA and Europe.  The first epidemic of dengue ever 
described was in Pennsylvania in 1780 (it was colder then!) and the 
disease occurred as far north as Boston.  YF has been transmitted in 
Dublin and Swansea.  Dengue has expanded in range since the 
1950s-60s, when there was a major effort to eliminate the vector by 
DDT treatments.  As the vector has returned, so has the virus.

So, as I tried to explain, in my field there is a lamentable 
dissemination of unsubstantiated statements that are not supported by 
any observations.

In answer to your questions re the IPCC: I dont make comments on the 
climatology, but if the statements are in any way of the same ilk as 
those in my field, then I think the situation is lamentable.

Hope we get a chance to discuss some more.

Best wishes

Paul

Attachment Converted: "c:\eudora\attach\Reiter_clim_chge_mos_dis.PDF"

Attachment Converted: "c:\eudora\attach\Shakespeare.pdf"
_________________________________
Paul Reiter
CDC West Nile Project
Harvard School of Public Health
_________________________________

McMichael reveals his political leanings as he responds to a request to lobby the Australian Government about the IPCC head.

http://di2.nu/foia/foia2011/mail/0453.txt

date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 18:37:24 +1000
from: "Tony McMichael" 
subject: RE: Bob Watson
to: "Mike Hulme" , "Andy Haines" 

Andy and Mike,

I plan to speak with Ian Noble about this this evening. Ian has good political connections here (but remember, ours is routinely the first government to endorse whatever Bush says/does on climate change!). 

I will be meeting with the Acting Director of the Australian Greenhouse Office next week, and will explore a bit further.

Tony 

Prof. A.J. McMichael
Director, National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health
Australian National University
Canberra
ACT 0200
AUSTRALIA
Website: http://nceph.anu.edu.au/


-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Hulme [mailto:m.hulme@xxx.xx.xx]
Sent: 08 April, 2002 6:33 PM
To: Andy Haines; Tony McMichael
Subject: Re: Bob Watson


Andy/Tony,

I have followed the news, and seen a copy of the February 2001 memo from 
Exxon to Bush that started this thing rolling.

I take a rather relaxed view of this.  Watson does not have an unalienable 
right to chair IPCC and a change may be good anyway.  Pauchari from TERI in 
India, anyway, seems unlikely to me to 'let USA off the hook'.  The 
upsetting thing of course is the lobbying by Exxon and the giving way to it 
by Bush, but we have known this all along is a problem with the Bush 
administration.

Susan Solomon who is likely to end up chairing WGI from the USA is a top 
quality scientist and will let the 'science speak loud and clear' I believe.

The outcome of all this should be known after the Geneva Plenary in 10 days 
time.

All the best,

Mike


At 19:56 05/04/02 +0100, Andy Haines wrote:
>Dear both,
>
>You will no doubt have seen the news about the intention of the Bush
>administration not to support Bob in his role as chair of IPCC
>apparently as a result of lobbying by Exxon Mobil. Tony , can you lobby
>the Australian govt and major scientific bodies in Australia to express
>their concern about and opposition to this action? Mike , I will contact
>Ian Gibson and Robert May but you may have other suggestions
>
>
>Regards
>
>Andy

ABC: activism not journalism

ABC's refugee, climate crutches getting wobbly

The Australian's Chris Kenny looks at ABC's handling of climate and refugee news and finds activism rather than journalism. We reported similar findings in our series on ABC's climate coverage.

Some extracts below, read the rest via the link (Paywall protected).

To search for climate change references in the ABC archives is to drown in a rising tide of fear and loathing. To say the public broadcaster has campaigned on climate is now uncontroversial; even its outgoing chairman Maurice Newman spoke about the extent of its "groupthink".

With annual public funding of more than a billion dollars, it is incumbent upon our ABC to tackle significant national policy debates with an appropriate sense of objectivity and detachment and to play its part in encouraging sober, evidence-based discussion and analysis.

Missing News: Climategate 2.0

We wonder if ABC will provide any substantive coverage this time around, they  largely missed the first installment.
See
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/climategate-2-0/

Mainstream coverage via BBC:

'New release' of climate emails 

Lies of the climate commission Part 8

Another error from expert Climate Commissioner Will Steffen. On yesterday's Bolt Report he blamed recent flooding rains in southern Australia on "El Nino"...at 4:04 "The recent El Nino driven rain not withstanding..."

I guess he meant to say "La Nina".
"The term La Niña refers to the extensive cooling of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. In Australia (particularly eastern Australia), La Niña events are associated with increased probability of wetter conditions."

Once again the climate commission demonstrates it is not a reliable source of accurate information about climate change.

ABC's Man from Snowy River

ABC Environment's impression of the Man from Snowy River

With this in mind Banjo Patterson's Man from Snowy River may have had a slightly different ending...

The man from Snowy River is a household word today, 

And the stockmen tell the story of his rice.

Missing News: lower climate sensitivity

WUWT reports on a paper reportedly "in press*" in the journal Science that finds climate sensitivity to increased CO2 is less than previously thought. Seems those predictions about extreme events our climate commission is so fond of may require some re-thinking. Let's see how long it takes for the ABC to cover this important result.

Schmittner, A., et al., 2011. Climate sensitivity estimated from temperature reconstructions of the Last Glacial Maximum, Science, in press*,http://www.princeton.edu/~nurban/pubs/lgm-cs-uvic.pdf

ABSTRACT
Assessing impacts of  future  anthropogenic carbon emissions is currently  impeded by uncertainties in our  knowledge  of  equilibrium  climate sensitivity to  atmospheric  carbon dioxide doubling. Previous studies suggest 3 K as best estimate, 2–4.5 K as the 66% probability range,  and non-zero probabilities  for much higher values, the latter implying  a small but significant chance  of  high-impact climate changes that would be difficult to avoid.  Here, combining extensive sea and land surface temperature reconstructions from the Last Glacial Maximum with climate model simulations we estimate a lower median (2.3 K) and reduced uncertainty (1.7–2.6 K 66% probability).  Assuming paleoclimatic constraints apply to  the future as predicted by our model, these results imply lower probability of imminent extreme climatic change than previously thought.


*According to the authors

Alice Springs faces propaganda onslaught

ABC breathlessly report on the climate commission's tax payer funded holiday to the red centre.
According the ABC, Klimate Kommissar Lesley Hughes has stated: "Alice Springs could have almost a month more of weather above 35 degrees."


No mention by the ABC or the Klimate Kommissars that climate models used to provide this prediction are hopeless at forecasting future climate states. No surprise given the ABC and the Government's climate propaganda unit, its climate commission, continues to ignore anything in the scientific literature that does not fit its world view. 

According to the BOM Alice has about 90 days per year above 35. The graph below shows the current average (in green) compared to the period 1941-1970 (red). Not much there; a slight increase in winter temps, but nothing over the summer months that would suggest a dramatic increase in the number days above 35. On face value it appears there has been no significant climate change in Alice since records were established!

ABC NEWS: June 2011 productivity report-update

ABC published their annual report for 2010-2011 back in October. The final staff figures for the news division allow us to finalise this year's productivity survey.
In July we predicted ABC News staff levels for 2010-2011 to be 961. The actual figures as reported in the annual report (p.231) were 963.14, so there is little change in final figures and none at the first decimal place. A dismal result!

One wonders how this justified performance pay for 282 ABC employees.
Appendix 13—Performance Pay (p.230)
The ABC paid bonuses to 161 executives totalling $749 666, an average of $4 656 per executive.
It paid bonuses to 121 non-executive employees totalling $298 387, an average of $2 466 per employee.

ABC NEWS PRODUCTIVITY SURVEY TO 2010-2011
Year  Total Stories 
2003      7230 
2004      6920 
2005      6899 
2006      6995 
2007      7988 
2008      8894 
2009      7134 
2010      6666
2011      5908

Staffing:  Figures are based on ABC annual reports.
Year   Staff 
2003   766.24 
2004   735.04 
2005   756.6 
2006   770.68 
2007   842.37 
2008   865.59 
2009   913.14 
2010   947.36
2011   963.14

Productivity: With stories at a record low and staff at record highs, it comes at no surprise that ABC news productivity is at a record low of just 6.1 stories per staff member for the month. 

Year  Stories per staff per month 
2003      9.4 
2004      9.4 
2005      9.1 
2006      9.1 
2007      9.5 
2008     10.3 
2009      7.8 
2010      7.1
2011      6.1

We're all going on a summer holiday

ABC's annual summer break seems to be starting earlier and earlier:

 John, Tony and Kerry start their summer holidays,

No more working for the next three months.

Fun and laughter on their summer holidays,

provides a break in the Groupthink in so many ways,

but only for the next ninety days. 

They're going where the sun shines brightly

Perhaps attending a climate conference or two.

Watching repeats of Al Gores' Movie,

can't believe they think that crap is all true?!

Everybody wants an ABC summer holiday,

It's three months off thanks to their old Aunty. 

They get three months break for their summer holidays, 

it's same as long service leave for you and me.

But just another well earned break for John, Tony and Kerry.

Out of the taxes paid by you and me, 

I'm sure they'll have a drink or three.

(Sorry Cliff)

4 Corners 7/11/2011: This is the final Four Corners for 2011. We will return in on Monday 6 February, 2012. 


Media Watch 7/11/2011.  Gerard Henderson finds the oh so high productivity perhaps behind the early on set of summer.

"Last Monday, Jonathan Holmes announced that next week’s edition of the ABC1 Media Watch program would be the last for 2011.  Just how much the Media Watch staff deserve a well-earned break is evident from Andrew Murfett’s sympathetic piece titled “Watchdog has his day” which was published in The Age’s “Greenguide” on 27 October 2011.  Holmes told Murfett:

We have six well-paid journalists working on 2000 words a week. We have three full-time researchers, a producer, a story editor and executive producer.

And then there is Jonathan Holmes himself – who is the seventh left-wing presenter (out of seven) to present Media Watch since it first went to air in May 1989.  His predecessors are the lefties Stuart Littlemore, Richard Ackland, Paul Barry, David Marr, Liz Jackson and Monica Attard.

So Media Watch has seven full-time staff producing 2000 words a week to occupy 13 minutes on-air time for the nine months or so in which the program is shown each year. ABC management and staff are invariably whinging about not receiving enough taxpayer funds. Yet, according to Jonathan Holmes, seven well-paid full-time staff are flat out at Media Watch producing 2000 words between them each week – which works out to less than 60 words per working day."

Q and A 7/11/2011: For the final show of 2011, host Tony Jones is joined by Liberal MP, Malcolm Turnbull; Jessica Rudd; Ray Martin; Labor MP, Kate Ellis; and Former Howard Government Minister, Peter Reith.