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Once upon a climate

John Izzard

Mar 22 2010

5 mins

Jack and Jill and a bucket of weather 

It is rather sad, and pathetic, that we have to go to the British press to find robust investigative reporting about the theory of man-made global warming. Apart from this country’s national newspaper, The Australian, you could almost believe that the mantra that “the science is settled”, is true. If you follow the line of the ABC and much of the mainstream press, to question the science of climate-change is to be un-Australian and un-Earth. Well, the science isn’t settled — not by a long shot — and the battle continues. 

Having been mugged at Copenhagen, embarrassed out of their wits by the scandal that was Himalaya-glacier-Gate, and facing a planet that doesn’t seem to want to respond to the dire predictions of the most learned­ — the lads and lasses at the IPCC have been desperate in their attempts to block the rising tide of public sceptisism. So we have waited, with our breath bated, for a indication as to how they will deal with a growing, non-believing public. 

Apart from the “science is settled” spin, which is code for “don’t question us”, the other side of the debate has been the “Outrageous-Claims Department”. This is where the dedicated followers of climate let pass for science any outrageous claim made by any of their front-line “experts”. Al Gore, Tim Flannery, James Hansen, Penny Wong, Kevin Rudd and Dr Pachauri. What do you do when scientists and political leaders blindly allow false claims to go uncorrected. When they must know that there isn’t a “new” change-in-climate because the climate has always changed. It’s what climate does. Sea-levels have always risen or dropped, ice-caps have always built up or shrunk, river systems have always developed, and in certain periods in history, just simply disappeared. 

Living things on planet Earth have done what the have always done as climate changes naturally— adapted. 

In Australia there have been suggestions, during the last month or so, that the scientists need to be more scientific and less alarmist, so it was a bit of a surprise to listen to one of the country’s most aggressive climate scientists on the ABC’s The World Today program. Asked by reporter Simon Lauder, “Could there be some unknown element [about climate change] that you couldn’t possibly have ruled out?” Dr David Karoly answered, “It is possible that aliens from Mars have got heaters that are warming up the Earth around Melbourne, but that’s pretty unlikely.” Now there’s a Popeye approach. Pow! 

In Britain the climate-warriors are taking an entirely different tack. 

The British government has just spend 6 million precious pounds Sterling on a campaign of climate-change fear. And who better to undertake the task but the advertising industry. The campaign involved roadside billboards, newspaper advertisements and TV commercials. Climate change is going commercial, or at least the debate turned to new climate-warriors —creative directors of advertising agencies.

 

Unfortunately for an embarrassed British government the Advertising Standards Authority have banned two of the ads for being misleading. The government was told that “It’s a requirement that global warming predictions reach a strict standard of TRUTHFULNESS and SUBSTANTIATION." Ouch! The advertisements centre on a nursery-rhyme-themes such as Jack and Jill. In the TV ads a father is on a bed reading from a book to his terrified daughter with changing images flashing by like a sign saying “The World’s End”. It is really great stuff for young impressionable minds. 

Another states “Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub, and a necessary cause of action due to flash flooding caused by climate change”. No wonder that the British Advertising Standards Authority found the advertisements so dodgy and lacking in truthfulness and substantiation. With inquiries going on in the US, Britain and even by Ban Ki Moon at the UN, about the conduct of certain climate scientists, and their complicit government establishments, is the battleground now shifting from suspect science to false advertising? 

Strangely, back here in Australia, our climate-man, Dr Karoly, might have inadvertently got onto something when he suggested, with a frustrated hint of sarcasm, his imagined “aliens from Mars” with giant heaters. 

Actually, the elephant in the room regarding the climate change debate should read “the radiator in the room”, and that radiator is the Sun. How often do you hear climate-fear scientists refer to the Earth’s climate in relation to what the Sun has done or is doing.

Not often, rarely…never! 

In his book, Heaven +Earth, Professor Ian Plimer says in the opening paragraphs in the chapter, "The Sun": 

The Sun is the primary driving force of climate. The Sun provides Earth with a staggering amount of energy. It drives weather, ocean currents and evaporation and provides the energy for life on Earth. The Sun also prevents the oceans freezing and boiling. 

Global warming occurs on other planets and the moons in our Solar System. It cannot be related to human emissions of CO2 on Earth. Planets orbiting stars outside our Solar System also show global warming resulting from orbital variations and changes in energy emitted from the parent star. 

Jack and Jill’s dad should be reading to them a chapter of Heaven + Earth each night. They might really learn something. 

From memory Jack and Jill came tumbling down!

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