Dealing with False Prophets of Doom.

"Love thy Neighbour" does not mean hanging on the word of every looney that shrieks out doom while nicking the coins from your pocket. In my experience there are more con-men than evil folk and more stupid folk that intelligent ones.

Unfortunately the first three still vastly outnumber the last. So, we have to shove a bloody big Pin in their fat Balloons.

Allowing stupid people, bigots, scare-mongers, etc to say their piece at least enables us to hear them coming. In 'set-up' TV audiences they make a lot of noise and as statistically every second person is on the dim side of average, they can very often be found on the TV.

And where are the Good? We have to look for and emphasise them.

Last week saw one con-man, 'Professor' Tim Flannery, get deafened by the almighty 'BANG' when his balloon was burst and that will leave more money to spend in the Tavern helping people 'get good'.

We cannot sit by and let the False Prophets of doom make Profits from our pockets.

James Delingpole, who can spend up well buying Grace by the bucket, introduced Jo Nova to the bar customers with this:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100236795/australia-shows-us-all-the-way-by-sacking-its-useless-pointless-climate-commissioner-tim-flannery/
As Jo Nova notes, while it may be a good day for the Australian taxpayer, it is far too late now to recoup the Billions which have already been wasted on the "expert" advice of Flannery and his alarmist chums David Karoly and Will Steffen.

        (Jo)   This agency propped up billions of dollars in pointless futile government spending trying to change the weather. Nothing will bring back money spent on desal plants that were mothballed when the floods came that real scientists predicted. Likewise the money burned on solar panels and windfarms is gone for good too, and still going.

As you'll see  one of the few things that Flannery is indisputably brilliant at is making idiotic statements and alarmist, pseudo-scientific predictions which seem to bear no relationship whatsoever to observed reality. So what, exactly, were his qualifications for taking on this supremely well-paid gig?  

We-e-ll, Flannery is that most dangerous of things – an English literature graduate.  

Yes, I know I'm an English literature graduate too, but I'm the exception to the rule: on the whole, it would not be unfair to say, English literature graduates have done more to promote the cause of climate alarmism than any other category with the possible exception of "University" of East Anglia environmental "science" graduates.

Now, as it happens, I consider the cult of credentialism one of the curses of our age.

Just because you've got some initials after your name  

doesn't mean you're not a pillock. 

And as we saw with the Climategate emails, being a qualified "climate scientist" is no guarantee of expertise on – or even entry-level understanding of – the science of climate.

No argument from me about any of that. But Australia has not been cursed only by the home-grown Flannery et al. We import them too. And pay taxpayer-coerced funds to them. And they can be even thicker than Flannery and spout the 'overseas persons' flannel that too many little-ozzers bow to.

Joanne Nova is 'home-grown' climate skeptic and is a more than welcome guest here at the bar. She can hold an audience like a Queen. When the Tavern boasts that it is a place fit for Heroes and Saints, Jo is right up there on the top shelf.

Not that she always was. Jo used to be a Greenie.

Yup! A genuine tree-hugger and whale fancier. She still likes trees and whales - and why not - but she ceased worshipping them some years ago when the Beam and Mote blinkers fell from her eyes and she exclaimed "WTF !" or perhaps some slightly more well chosen words.

Since that moment of conversion, well known to Christians who suddenly discover what it is really all about, she has become a zealot. And a damn fine one too. She is noted as one of only a few people who make it to the right column of this blog where you can see her blog continually updated.

(I will leave a note about her and her blog at the end).

Here is some of what she told us when Canadian 'Environmental Super-Star'

David Suzuki

was treated like a Messiah on the ABC's Q&A program the other night.

He is a multi-millionaire

from his many films and documentaries, TV shows and writings. He is 'Famous'. He is quoted and cited and his face and sound bites turn up supporting any green of climate change nonsense around.

So the ABC invites him, at public expense (although they won't say what they paid him from our pockets) to be a guest - the SOLE guest- on a program that usually has a panel of five or six people. The 'one-person' slot is usually only for Heads of State.

Suzuki is Global Warming Royalty.

David Suzuki bombs on Q&A, knows nothing about the climate
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/09/david-suzuki-bombs-on-qa-knows-nothing-about-the-climate/#more-30839


David Suzuki’s performance on Q&A last night was extraordinary.    (Said Jo)

I was knock-me-over amazed that he has not heard of UAH, GISS, HADcrut and RSS, and knew nothing of the pause in global surface temperatures that even the UK Met Office and IPCC lead author climate scientists like Hans von Storch are discussing. 

"Watch me gaze into the dismal future that's ALL YOUR FAULT, -
for just $30,000 an hour."

How afraid is Suzuki about man-made global warming? So afraid, it doesn’t occur to him to check the data, incredibly he doesn’t even know what the data is. Tony Jones had to rephrase the questions to explain them to Suzuki, who doesn’t even understand them. 

How much is his reputation as a scientist worth when he doesn’t even bother to check the evidence for a cause he stakes his reputation on? 

"I can look like I know stuff. See the leaves?"

Three times in Q&A he admitted he didn’t know — he didn’t know there was a pause in warming for the last 15 years, he didn’t know how global temperatures are measured, and he didn’t know that cyclones were not increasing over the Great Barrier Reef. He wants politicians jailed for “denying the science”. “You bet!” he exclaims, but then admits he hasn’t thought that through either. 

The cartoon-like responses were incongruous. Should we go nuclear to reduce emissions? Suzuki tosses numbers, evidence, and cost-benefits down a deep well of ignorance: “It’s just crazy”. “What the hell is going on”. “You’ve got sunlight!” “Solar farms could be spread everywhere”.  “There is plenty of sunlight beyond anything humanity needs”. The audience member who asked then pointed out we don’t have the batteries to cope with sunless cloudy days.  

Even Tony Jones asks how realistic solar is. At this first prod, Suzuki throws his hands up in the air, “I don’t know”. 

The man is emphatically an activist who might as well be innumerate.  

He is unburdened by data, evidence  

or logic.  

Why is the ABC giving him such a hallowed space, which is usually only given to PM’s? 

One can whistle for info on how much he was paid for this gig. He certainly does not care about the carbon footprint of flying from his multi-million dollar home although he is happy to excoriate others with homes larger than their grand-dad's and who drive a car.  'Don't know - Don't care, just gimme your money'.

Credit to the ABC for allowing Bill Koutalianos and Professor Stewart Franks to ask the first two questions and to respond. The event quickly became the “Professor Stewart Franks versus Professor Steve Sherwood Show”, because it was obvious it was a waste of time asking Suzuki a scientific question.  

The two of them, for a short while, were debating by proxy, and Suzuki was sidelined. He simply didn’t know enough to keep up. Even Tony Jones knew more about climate science than Suzuki did. 

Suzuki’s research on our atmosphere amounted to reading Naomi Oreskes, Jim Hoggan and DeSmog.  

"Look up there at the Atmosphere, while I pinch your wallet and frighten your kiddies."

He promotes the smear campaign  

against senior scientists but apparently has never read anything those senior scientists have written.  

This is living in a fishbowl, where Suzuki made a religious decision years ago to believe in the evil of corporate polluters and only ever reads people who agree with him.  

It leaves him completely naked in any science debate,  

knocked over by the average reader of any skeptical blog. 

Credit to Tony Thomas for asking if Suzuki still thought politicians should be jailed for denying the scientific consensus, thus exposing the inner-totalitarian.  

For a man who argues that consensus is a reason to be alarmed about the climate, it’s a tad hypocritical that Suzuki later discussed GM, where he disagrees with the consensus. He later  talks about how the Canadian government is building new jails and seems to be afraid of being jailed himself:  

“I’m wondering whether our Prime Minister thinks he is going to be creating new categories of crime, like eco terrorism or, as he calls us, environmental radicals, radical extremists.”  

Righto. Talking power to truth again David. He hasn’t noticed that all the power and money is on the climate consensus side.  

His principle seems to be “jail them if they disagree with me”. 

Suzuki’s world view is simplistic: “Government good, corporations bad”.  

He says ” …big corporations are bigger than most governments on the planet, they have the ability to fund political campaigns…” .  

There go the numbers again. The US Government has a $4 trillion annual budget, while the largest corporations in the world have less than $500bn annual revenue each. The US Government also has that slight military advantage over those scary corporations, who may wield malevolent cheques, but not so many missiles. 

When I was a student of science communication we were wheeled out to see David Suzuki speak as a  

hero of the field.  

That says it all really.

Andrew Bolt stepped manfully in while Jo took a well deserved deep draught of gin and tonic.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/suzuki_revealed_as_complete_know_nothing_by_very_first_question_on_qa/
Challenged from the floor by Professor Stewart Franks, Suzuki admits he might have been mistaken in claiming global warming was causing more cyclones,  

which he blamed for killing the Great Barrier Reef.  

He blames some Australian for “suggesting” it to him. The truth, as I’ve noted before, is easily found on the Bureau of Meteorology website:

A researcher into GM bananas, putting in more eyesight-saving vitamin A for countries where bananas are a staple, asks again about Suzuki’s irrational attacks on GM crops.  

Suzuki now denies this is “bad science”. But keeps saying we don’t know enough. “What’s the rush?” he demands.  

It’s been driven by money, complains multi-millionaire Suzuki, who charged a college more than $30,000 to give a speech.  

Something tells me no information whatsover would ever be enough for this alarmist. Let the kids go blind.  

The Professor says this “rush” is actually 30 years. He then whacks Suzuki on his DDT alarmism.  

Suzuki again trots out his old conspiracy that the GM crops are just about money and are too expensive and are not developed to do good.  

The Professor whacks him again, noting several examples of GM technology being given away for free to feed poor countries.  

“I don’t know,” says Suzuki.  

In my opinion he is a complete phoney.

 

 Mollie also had a say:

I was struck by the worshipful expressions of the audience.  They regard suziki as some sort of high priest whose every word is a golden drop of wisdom.  a very select and worshipful audience.

 And John from Canberra piped up with...

I am reminded of a certain religion which has to remain nameless where the mantra is “there is no god but one god and Mohammed is his messenger”, What Suzuki showed last night was an inability to deal with an audience which was other than sycophantic.

The question is:  If Suzuki doesn’t know what HadCRUT, GISS, RSS and UAH are when they are cited to support the assertion that the world hasn’t warmed in 15 years, what exactly are his references to say the opposite?

 Clownfish also was unimpressed.

I’ve forced myself to watch it, and I’m just gobsmacked at how appallingly bad Suzuki was.

He repeatedly demonstrated utter ignorance of the current state of climate science, touted studies into GMOs that have been repeatedly debunked as scientifically worthless, and every time he was cornered, retreated into a mealy-mouthed argument from ignorance - hand-waving away challenges to his claims with, ‘oh, we just don’t know enough about that yet’.  

Suzuki is a disgrace to the word ‘scientist’.

Now. I said I was going to leave a note about Jo and her blog. Here goes, in her own words:

http://joannenova.com.au/2013/09/10-million-pageviews-1-6-million-visitors-new-media-reaches-an-influential-audience/
Statistics show 1.67 million unique visitors from 225 countries have come to the site.  From the extraordinary comments on Monday’s thread many readers are highly qualified in Engineering, Geology, Physics, Law, Medicine, Accounting, Architecture, Agriculture, Chemistry, Ecology and Education. From personal contact I know readers also include three national cartoonists, several members of the Australian and British Parliaments, State MPs, staffers to elected representatives, IPCC lead authors, journalists and at least six well known columnists. Readers include a professional full time carbon trader and several major investors, at least one of which I know has made quite a lot of money shorting renewables in Europe. I feel honored. humbled and grateful. Thanks to all who have supported me this year, to make this work possible. I still owe many of you a personal email. 

And my thanks to her splendid work.

Now that the intelligent skeptics, the evidence-demanders, the scoffers at mendacious thieves who steal from the public purse and curse the good and the faithful, have got the Global Warming Scammers on the run, perhaps we can turn some attention to the even more scurrilous wreckers of society and bane of taxpayers everywhere -
the man-hating, family-destroying, baby-murdering FEMINISTS.

Raise your glasses.

By the way, the Tavern is fortunate in that very few of the really stupid make their way up the hill to our doors. It is usually quite 'switched-on' and knowledgeable, even sceptical folk who know of this place.  They leave comments. But who knows, those that are not, - the thick and cons and even the really bad- might make it here and might leave a comment too.

Look out for them.