Catalyst: climate religion and propaganda

Excellent essay detailing ABC's abuses of reason when it comes to climate coverage from Dr John Happs at Quadrant online....

The climate of bias at Their ABC

Conclusion...

Unfortunately, when it comes to reporting on climate change, Catalyst does not offer its audience balanced science. Neither does it offer good investigative journalism. What it does offer is climate religion and taxpayer-funded propaganda.

ABC's catastrophists

Over at Bunyip's lair....Take a number, ABC catastropharians

Meanwhile last night on lateline Mark Colvin's fellow alarmist presenter EMMA ALBERICI, failed to press alarmist economist Chris Hope on the likelihood a mass injection of natural gas in the near future that would cause $60 trillion damage to the world's economy. Dr Evil asked for less!

The paper Emma forgot to mention, also missed Colvin's attention. Here it is again:
The criticism that Mark and his forgetful reporter Stephanie Smail forgot to mention (one of many, but this the most succinct):

Methane mischief: misleading commentary published in Nature

By Jason Samenow

A catastrophic release of the potent greenhouse gas methane in the Arctic could cause a sudden warming with massive economic consequences says a commentary published in the esteemed scientific journal Nature Wednesday. Yet most everything known and published about methane indicates this scenario is very unlikely. This piece should never have been published without discussing this critical point.

snip

And, here’s the kicker: Nature, the same journal which published Wednesday’s commentary, published a scientific review of methane hydrates and climate change by Carolyn Ruppel in 2011 which suggests the scenario in said commentary is virtually impossible. The review states:

Catastrophic, widespread dissociation of methane gas hydrates will not be triggered by continued climate warming at contemporary rates (0.2ºC per decade; IPCC 2007) over timescales of a few hundred years. Most of Earth’s gas hydrates occur at low saturations and in sediments at such great depths below the seafloor or onshore permafrost that they will barely be affected by warming over even [1,000] yr.

Which Pm's partner first in a war zone?

27/11/2013 See UPDATE
On the weekend ABC tripped up over claims that Therese Rein was the first PM's partner to visit a war zone. Seems she was not the first, that "honour" going to Bettina Gorton.

The following excerpt from the National Australia's Prime Ministers site of interest on this....

http://primeministers.naa.gov.au/primeministers/menzies/in-office.aspx#section1

While in Britain, Robert and Pattie Menzies both experienced first-hand the devastation caused by German air raids. They were deeply moved by what they saw and visited a number of provincial British cities and war factories to help boost morale. But Menzies was unable to achieve an increased commitment from Britain for Singapore’s defence. With the blitz still in progress and the threat of German invasion not yet passed, Churchill promised only to keep Australia’s concerns in mind.

So it seems the "winner" is Dame Pattie! That is of course if the National Archives are correct. Contemporary newspaper accounts and Mr Menzies Diary indicate otherwise. Still remarkable the experiences of Mr Menzies while in Britain during the Blitz.

From Menzies Diary...

21 March

…through Bristol (with its main shopping streets blitzed—no possible military objective) and by Bridgewater, Taunton, Exeter to Plymouth, which had a doing last night. Many ruins still smoking. Meet Lady Astor at her house on the Hoe. Windows broken, and therefore sent to Admiral’s Residence, after visiting a shelter for homeless & speaking there.

At dinner we are warned that Hun arrives two nights running. Sure enough, just as the port arrives we are hurried into the cellars, into a corridor whose floor is some feet below ground level but whose walls are pierced by window sandbagged outside. A frightful bombing breaks out. Twice the window swings right in with the force of the blast. Twice I don my tin helmet and creep out to see the sky red with fire, to hear the sound of the planes overhead, to hear the ping of falling shrapnel, to see fires all along the city, and nearby houses and a church spire standing out as clearly as in an aquatint of moonlight.

Nancy Astor ² and I keep the company entertained below, but the business is not really funny. The windows in the front of the house are broken. After midnight, all clear sounds...A frightful scene. Street after street afire; furniture litters the footpaths; poor old people shocked & dazed are led along to shelter. Buildings blaze and throw out sparks like a bush fire. There are few fire appliances and firemen. Picture Melbourne blazing from Flinders to Lonsdale, from Swanston or Russell to Elizabeth Streets; with hundreds of back street houses burning as well.

Every now & then a delayed action bomb explodes (two were so close as to make me duck) or a building collapses. Millions of pounds go west in an hour. I am in a grim sense glad to have seen it. I am all for peace when it comes, but it will be a tragedy for humanity if it comes before these beasts have had their own cities ravaged. The Hun must be made to learn through his hide; for sheer brutality this kind of thing is beyond the imagining of those who have not actually witnessed it. I thought it horrible, but Billy Rootes ³ said “Nothing to Coventry!!”

Tarin Kowt seems somewhat benign by comparison.

We sent the following query to National Archives:

Dear Sir/madam.

There has been some recent discussion in the media concerning which PM's partner was the first to visit a war zone. Your page http://primeministers.naa.gov.au/primeministers/menzies/in-office.aspx#section1 gives the impression that Mrs Menzies may hold that honour.

The text reads..."While in Britain, Robert and Pattie Menzies both experienced first-hand the devastation caused by German air raids. They were deeply moved by what they saw and visited a number of provincial British cities and war factories to help boost morale. But Menzies was unable to achieve an increased commitment from Britain for Singapore’s defence. With the blitz still in progress and the threat of German invasion not yet passed, Churchill promised only to keep Australia’s concerns in mind."

Contemporary newspaper reports (and Mr Menzies Diary indicate that Mrs Menzies did not accompany Mr Menzies on the PM's world trip in Jan-May 1941. Can you please clarify the text? Or provide a link to documents that put Mrs Menzies in the UK in early 1941.

Brain donation required

Help save the Colvin engine. Critical components missing in action. 

ABC's Mark Colvin was fortunate to have recently been donated a kidney. Can anyone help with a brain? In our opinion it seems Mark's is a little defective. Based on PM's uncritical broadcast of the news item below one can only surmise that Mr Colvin's "critical thinking" lobe has worn out and is in need of replacement or repair. Will someone assist before Mr Colvin's lost capacity of critical thinking becomes permanent? Or is it too late already?

Arctic melt damage bill could hit $65 trillion: study.

MARK COLVIN: New international research has put a hefty price tag on the effects of global warming in the Arctic. A group of researchers has worked out that methane releases in the East Siberian Sea could speed up global warming and create a damage bill of up to $65 trillion.
The research paper published in the science journal 'Nature' says the impacts of a warming Arctic are largely being ignored.

The criticism that Mark and his forgetful reporter Stephanie Smail forgot to mention (one of many, but this the most succinct):

Methane mischief: misleading commentary published in Nature

By Jason Samenow

A catastrophic release of the potent greenhouse gas methane in the Arctic could cause a sudden warming with massive economic consequences says a commentary published in the esteemed scientific journal Nature Wednesday. Yet most everything known and published about methane indicates this scenario is very unlikely. This piece should never have been published without discussing this critical point.

snip

And, here’s the kicker: Nature, the same journal which published Wednesday’s commentary, published a scientific review of methane hydrates and climate change by Carolyn Ruppel in 2011 which suggests the scenario in said commentary is virtually impossible. The review states:

Catastrophic, widespread dissociation of methane gas hydrates will not be triggered by continued climate warming at contemporary rates (0.2ºC per decade; IPCC 2007) over timescales of a few hundred years. Most of Earth’s gas hydrates occur at low saturations and in sediments at such great depths below the seafloor or onshore permafrost that they will barely be affected by warming over even [1,000] yr.

UPDATE. For alarming climate stories ABC often has several incarnations of the same story. We left a comment at the environment site for this one but somehow comment are now closed. 
The story published July 25, 2013. Our comment made this morning. There is an editorial comment that reads as follows:

COMMENTS

Comments for this story are no longer available. ABC policy is to delete comments on stories three months after they are published.

UPDATE: Mr Colvin pushes another scare story, this one to do with sea level on his twit account. Looks like it is indeed too late! That "ïsland"now completely man made:

A new dam was built seven years ago near the mouth of the river Couesnon, close to the Mont. The dam captures river and tide and expels the water in a series of great flushing actions which have freed the isle from the silt and mud. Within 10 years, it is anticipated the Mont will be encircled by the high tide up to 90 times a year.

science show thumbs its nose at the IPCC

Unchallenged comment on this week's program that featured an alarming story about Matsungan Island (off northern Bouganville):

"Given scientific sea level rise predictions on the order of 1 to 2m this century...."

1 to 2m? hang on....

Just what did the IPCC say in 2007?

Figure 10.33. Projections and uncertainties (5 to 95% ranges) of global average sea level rise and its components in 2090 to 2099 (relative to 1980 to 1999) for the six SRES marker scenarios. The projected sea level rise assumes that the part of the present-day ice sheet mass imbalance that is due to recent ice flow acceleration will persist unchanged. It does not include the contribution shown from scaled-up ice sheet discharge, which is an alternative possibility. It is also possible that the present imbalance might be transient, in which case the projected sea level rise is reduced by 0.02 m. It must be emphasized that we cannot assess the likelihood of any of these three alternatives, which are presented as illustrative. The state of understanding prevents a best estimate from being made.

What regional tide gauges say...

Still an improvement. Recall dear Robyn feels a rise of 100m is a real possibility...

Andrew Bolt: I ask you, Robyn, 100 metres in the next century...do you really think that?

Robyn Williams: It is possible, yes. The increase of melting that they've noticed in Greenland and the amount that we've seen from the western part of Antarctica, if those increases of three times the expected rate continue, it will be huge, but the question...

Andrew Bolt: I'm scared that you think that because the latest studies in Greenland suggest that little spurt of warming that you base some of this has stopped, and it just depresses me that someone like me, I come on...I haven't said anything here that's wild or anything, I get the grilling, but someone like Tim Flannery is treated like God and made Australian of the Year for saying the most absurd things that are laughed at, even by climatologists.

UPDATE The photo the ABC use to accompany their piece comes from a 2008 report put out by World vision. Readers may be familiar with the image that appears on page 54.The appearance of Ursus Bogus a sure sign of propaganda in action.

ursus bogus

The leech returns

The Leech returns for more free publicity paid for by your taxes!

No Round up

Still too much on...

But Media Watch Dog will fill the gap.

Catalyst-no sense of history

Heat waves that kill tens of thousands. Apocalyptic floods. Blizzards in the Middle East.  ....in this report we explain the mechanisms behind some of the most catastrophic events of the decade.

Opening lines from last week's Catalyst. The links we added above go to the decade 1940-1949 when CO2 levels were about 100ppm less than now.

It's that history thing again. 'Nuff said.

No round up this week

Too busy with other things at present. Make sure you check out Gerard Henderson's latest Media Watch Dog. He does this so much better than anyone else!

MEDIA WATCH DOG

Taxing Air: The book the ABC Banned?

Back in May 2010 ABC was quick to plug eco-catastrophist Bill McKibben's book Eaarth. McKibben has enjoyed easy access to the ABC for quite some time to spruik all sorts of nonsense without being questioned by ABC's gullible reporters (see Round up four for a recent list of soft appearances).

In early July 2013 a group of Australian Scientists and a cartoonist release a new book "Taxing Air". How long will ABC choose to ignore it. Will it be received with the same doe eyed reviews that ABC provides for those with whom it agrees?  Will the authors even be interviewed? One suspects this book might be so dangerous that ABC's wilful ignorance of it will effectively mean it is banned from being mentioned on the public broadcaster. The book?

The Blurb:

In this accessible and beautifully produced full colour book The Age's brilliant political cartoonist John Spooner and leading environmental scientist Professor Bob Carter combine with colleagues to answer a series of critical and highly controversial questions about the politics and science of climate change.

Are human industrial carbon dioxide emissions causing dangerous global warming?

If it is so then climate change surely is one of the great moral challenges of our time.

But is it possible that the so-called consensus science around global warming produced by lavishly funded research institutes and with its own international political lobby organization - the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - is wrong?

Could it be that the emperor has no clothes?

Accessible, clearly written and illustrated with simple scientific illustrations, and accompanied by Spooner's brilliantly wry and telling cartoons, Taxing Air answers - without the spin, evasions or propaganda that pollutes most official writing on climate change - every question you have about global warming but have been too intimidated by the oppressive 'consensus' to ask.

All you ever wanted to know about the science and politics of global warming - but were afraid to ask.

No round up this week

No round up this week!