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Category Archives: Climate change
Global warming/climate change is a con in which half the population are taken for absolute fools
“I have tested Uri Geller in my laboratory at King’s College, London University, with specially-designed apparatus.
“The Geller effect – of metal bending – is clearly not brought about by fraud. It is so exceptional that it presents a crucial challenge to modern science, and could even destroy the latter if no explanation becomes available.”
Professor John Taylor of
King’s College, London
I was chatting to the friend who had sent me Hanrahan’s doom-laden words which are summarised in Wikipedia as follows:
The poem describes the recurrent natural cycle of droughts, floods and bushfires in rural Australia as seen by “Hanrahan”, a pessimistic man of Irish descent.
The question we were discussing was how to deal with people who actually believe global warming and climate change are genuine problems. He is looking for arguments to help others see the light. I, on the other hand, long ago reached the conclusion that there is absolutely no reason for the slightest concern, and have therefore stopped arguing with people, other than just for fun, partly because there is nothing for me to learn, other than to further confirm for myself that these people are unbelievable fools who may yet create havoc on a grand scale across the Western world. The main reason, however, is because these people are deaf to reason. I am always open to persuasion should some forecast actually turn out to be accurate and the seas really do start to rise, which to me is a .001% probability. In the meantime, I think anyone who treats global warming as a genuine problem has some emotional deficiency in their lives that need to be propped up by these fantastic beliefs. I do not doubt their sincerity.
There is, of course, an actual problem, which is that people really do believe that global warming is a genuine issue. This is in and of itself a major political problem since because of these beliefs, governments are putting in place all kinds of idiotic policies that will make us much worse off. As for the supposed problem that works them up so much, I think of these people as naive, scientific innocents, who have not done any genuine research and in any case do not know how to investigate such issues properly. I do not doubt there is more carbon in the atmosphere than there had been a few years ago, and that for a time there had been a gentle upturn in global temperatures which may even be continuing. But I do not believe they are related in any way that matters. More importantly, nothing that will ever happen to the weather will cause the seas to rise or in any way threaten any of us, other than in the ways weather has always affected us in the past – see Hanrahan.
My way of arguing with global swarmists is, in part, to remind them of Uri Geller and his supernatural ability to bend spoons, an ability that had been verified by scientists. And by chance, after we parted I came upon in a secondhand bookshop Uri Geller’s 1975 personal account of his life and abilities, My Story. And there, as the opening quote on the very first page, set off all on its own, is the quote you see above. Not only had his abilities been authenticated at the University of London, more famously he had had his abilities assessed and validated by scientists at Stanford University. As you read the passages below from Geller’s book, bear in mind the notoriously bogus “97% of scientists” statistic. By the way, anyone who quotes the 97% stat who has not examined its origins through the eyes of sceptics is asking to be fleeced. But back to Geller:
“I had been going through scientific tests in the United States at the Stanford Research Institute at Menlo Park, California. The first results had confirmed that something strange and new was happening, both with the metal objects involved and with telepathy experiments. The researchers there had indicated that, if the tests continued to check out as they had, they would have a serious effect on modern science.” (Geller 1975: 14)
That really was the case which I vividly recall. Geller had been examined by a bunch of scientists at the SRI and they were ready to write a new chapter in the history of physics. So how did the public react to all this? Geller describes a poll undertaken by the Daily Mail. You ready?
“The tabulation showed that 95.5 per cent of those voting believed I had genuine psychic powers, and only 4.5 per cent indicated they thought I was just using showman’s tricks. In announcing the results, the Daily Mail said: ‘Time and time again in the many letters sent to us, readers say that while they were skeptical at first, it was the Stanford Research Institute evidence which finally convinced them.'” (Geller 1975: 68-69)
He had a great magic act, fooled lots of people, has recently been inducted into the Magicians Hall of Fame, and has a net worth of $20 million. Not bad for a magician who has essentially only four tricks in his repertoire.
Meanwhile, the same gullible fools across every level of society – rich or poor, educated and dropout, politically left and right – buy this global warming idiocy, which is making many an entrepreneur far more than a measly $20m. It has become a way to academic fame and fortune. It will eventually disappear when nothing ever happens, and more important issues come along, such as the coronavirus, or perhaps something worse. I suspect that for a lot of people there is a level of embarrassment in discovering how gullible they have been. In the meantime, there is the real Geller-effect – being conned into believing absolutely anything on the authority of “science”, unlike the original Geller effect which is a zombie-like belief that if a scientist says something, or is reported to have said something, then it must be true.
Below are videos surrounding Geller’s appearance on the Johnny Carson show in the 1970s. Two things are particularly noteworthy. First is that when the props were set up by a professional magician – in this case Jame Randi – Geller’s abilities absolutely failed. Second, and this is for all you young folks out there, Johnny Carson was smoking during the show!
First, here is James Randi explaining how so many are tricked.
This is a straight up excerpt from the show.
And if you are interested in seeing the whole thing, here’s the full show.
I think of the belief in global warming as equivalent to believing that Uri Geller could bend spoons with the power of his mind. The science is never settled.
And for added interest in how acute scientists can be, here is the link to the recording of the experiments at Stanford in 1974.
Not supported by facts
He’s 93 so probably no longer compos mentis, but as it says here:
He melodramatically proclaims…that “what we do in the next few years will determine the next few thousand years.” If we don’t take action, he declares, “the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.”
The Walter Cronkite of climate change. Sounds plausible, inevitably wrong when it matters. And to round this out, let me add this:
Swarbrick [swȯrbrɪk] noun – a believer in cataclysmic anthropogenic climate-change
Reprinted in The Oz from The Economist was an article on how English lags behind in climate change word creation. It’s about how across many linguistic groups but unlike in English new terms are being coined in relation to climate change. There we find this:
Van Dale, a dictionary publisher, lets the Dutch-speaking public vote on its word of the year (in separate contests in Belgium and The Netherlands). For 2019 Belgians chose winkelhieren, or “buying local”. The Dutch went with an imported word that has a good case for being the winner in English, too: “boomer”.
As Chloe Swarbrick, a 25-year-old member of New Zealand’s parliament, was giving an impassioned speech on the impact of climate change on her generation, she coolly dismissed a heckling older MP with a curt “OK, boomer”. The phrase was already an internet meme; Swarbrick made it the talk of the offline world as well.
I’m not sure I can actually think of anyone lower on my list of authorities on anything than “a 25-year-old member of New Zealand’s parliament” but let that be. And myself being one of these baby boomers, whose generation has done so much to lower the collective common sense of the planet, I will remind Ms Swarbrick that what she thinks she knows she learned from us, from us baby-boomers, her teachers and professors at every step along the road of her education.
But what struck me even more in the search for a collective term to describe “a believer in cataclysmic anthropogenic climate-change”, now all so common everywhere, is that in her honour such people should be referred to as a “swarbrick”. It’s the brick part that I find so accurate, as in “thick as a brick”, but also because of how lacking in melody and sweetness the term itself seems to be. You’re just a swarbrick, you climate change ninny. Like Victoria was turned into “Victorian”: we would have swarbrick turned into “swarbrickian” in its adjectival form.
I imagine that Ms Swarbrick would take this usage as a badge of honour.
Others like Craig Kelly needed even more than ever
Yesterday I put up a post on Craig Kelly standing up for sense in the face of the climate change idiocies we are forced to endure. I titled the post, More like Craig Kelly needed. I am coming back to it only because it has been brought up again somewhere else.
I hadn’t seen Craig Kelly’s original interview on ITV but Gerard Henderson had: Interview more about ‘look-at-me’ Piers Morgan than Craig Kelly. First the bad news, which I had not known:
Early on, Morgan put this question: “Do you accept the planet is heating up at a dangerous level — yes or no?” To which Kelly replied “yes”.
It’s almost certainly untrue, but during the times in which we live, that is the only answer a politician, other than Donald Trump, is permitted to give. There was then more. The gullible self-harming fools who watch Morning Television on ITV in the UK are not part of Craig’s constituency. So what followed next only matters here in Oz:
Within minutes, [the pommy weather girl] Tobin entered the discussion by accusing Kelly of burying his “head in the sand”. She added: “You’re not a climate sceptic, you’re a climate denier.” This, despite the fact that Kelly had accepted Morgan’s proposition that the planet is heating at a dangerous level.
This would suggest that Tobin was more interested in stating her case than listening to what Kelly had to say.
Of course they’re not interested in listening – we’re talking about the ABC and their like-minded cohorts. They are just part of the liars-squad who for reasons already well-known, are the actual deniers, the ones who deny there is no problem.
Although Henderson thinks there is nothing to be gained by putting the case that global warming “science” is almost entirely fraud, there is, in fact, a great deal to be gained. Someone in a position to actually be interviewed needs to say these things in public or they will never be said where others can hear. Good for Craig Kelly and tough luck for Britain if that is the level of their understanding about climate change.
Of course Uri Geller can bend spoons with the power of his mind, you bloody morons.
More like Craig Kelly needed
There is then the Turnbull wing of the Coalition which seems to cover around half the party. Which brings us to this in the Oz today: Bushfires: Scott Morrison courts states for fire inquiry. What exactly was the “trainwreck”here?
Amid international media criticism of Australia’s emissions policies, Mr Morrison also warned his MPs off interviews with overseas media outlets — a reference to Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly’s trainwreck British TV interview in which he was attacked as a climate change denier.
This is the trainwreck:
Mr Kelly traded barbs with Laura Tobin and co-host Piers Morgan on the Good Morning Britain television program on Monday where he was accused of being a “climate denier” by the hosts over his views on the effect of global warming on Australia’s bushfire crisis.
Mr Kelly accused Tobin of being an “ignorant Pommy weather girl” in the now-deleted post and said that he “might have to send her some of the published peer-reviewed scientific papers on Australia’s weather.”
She sounds like just another standard-issue cookie-cutter climate alarmist. They are everywhere with nothing to show for it other than a failure to deal with actual environmental problems that have made the bushfires this year so devastating. She would be absolutely impervious to any peer-reviewed scientific papers or indeed, any evidence at all. Happily blighting the lives of billions across the planet because of some conjectures about the future trends in the weather. We need more Craig Kellys around to put the acid on to see if we can prevent a collapse of our economies while the cost of energy goes through the roof.
Noble and self-sacrificing for the common good of humanity
An update on We are the most virtuous country in the world. I have now been informed of the following:
Multiple Facebook posts shared thousands of times contain a list of purported active and under construction coal-fired power plants in several countries around the world. The figures in the list are out of date; the numbers in the misleading Facebook posts were taken from a 2015 report; the current figure for active and under construction coal-fired power plants in the selected countries is less than half the total count listed in the misleading posts.
I never trusted Facebook anyway. The revised figures nevertheless don’t change the point, that it would be insane for Australia to do anything to ruin its standard of living in some kind of noble sacrificial decision to rid itself of coal-fired power stations as part of some non-existent global effort. It’s good to have more accurate data, but the conclusion remains. And even on the new list Australia is the only country not building any others at the present time, although we are apparently considering adding two others.
The Global Coal Plant Tracker provides summary statistics for the number of coal-fired power plants per country here, as well as by region here.
As of July 2019, the Global Coal Plant Tracker shows:
- Within the 28 European Union countries, there are 268 coal-fired power plants in operation, with 7 in construction and 8 in pre-construction.
- Turkey has 29 plants in operation, with 2 in construction and 31 in preconstruction.
- South Africa has 19 plants in operation, with 2 in construction and 5 in preconstruction.
- India has 291 plants in operation, with 33 in construction and 41 in preconstruction.
- Philippines has 21 plants in operation, with 8 in construction and 19 in preconstruction.
- South Korea has 24 plants in operation, with 3 in construction and 1 in preconstruction.
- Japan has 83 plants in operation, with 15 in construction and 5 in preconstruction.
- China has 1032 plants in operation, with 126 in construction and 76 in preconstruction.
- Australia has 20 plants in operation, with 0 in construction and 2 in preconstruction.
Excluding Australia, the countries listed have 1767 operational coal-fired power plants and a further 196 under construction, for a total of 1963.
A list of the 20 coal-fired power plants in operation in Australia can also be found on the Australian Clean Energy Regulator’s website here, which was published on March 25.
Australia houses 1.1% of the world’s coal-driven power stations. It’s insane anyway, but let’s not lead the pack over the edge of the cliff.
We are the most virtuous country in the world
Or something ….
TO CONTINUE: I can see it. I’m sorry if it doesn’t come up on some screens. I wasn’t suggesting we should all learn to code.
The heading is “World Wide Coal Plants”.
The next seven lines mention how many coal-powered plants there are in different countries and how many they intend to build. The second last states, “China has 2363 plants building 1171 more – total 3534”.
The final line of the chart says, “Australia is planning to shut down its remaining 6 plants in order to SAVE the World”.
Perhaps I should have said “We are oh so self-sacrificing” rather than virtuous, or something.
An actuary looks at record temperatures and random chance
| # records days | Probability |
| 0 | 10.1% |
| 1 | 23.3% |
| 2 | 26.7% |
| 3 | 20.3% |
| 4 | 11.5% |
| 5+ | 8.1% |
I have asked an actuary to look more closely at the data I put up on Record temperatures and random chance. Based on a few assumptions, the probability that in any year a weather station will not produce a single record event is 10.1% so that the probability there will be at least one is 89.9%. What is therefore very unlikely is that there will be no such event in any year, and that is with weather stations that have been around for more than a hundred years. The more recent a station has been set up, the more likely there will be a record event in any given year. Given how many stations there are, there will be thousands of such record events in any given year, and for many of those stations, there will be more than one such event. In 8.1% of stations there may be five or more.
Record events happen all the time. There is ZERO information about whether the planet is heating by noting that a record high temperature has occurred in some place or another. If this were Uri Geller bending spoons with the power of his mind, it wouldn’t matter. A few dummies get conned and that would be the end of it. That we are dismantling and refusing to build coal-fired power-generating installations is a form of insanity that is making some very undeserving people very wealthy while threatening the future prosperity and living standards of many many others.
“Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe” we were told 20 years ago
According to experts, climate change will result in “millions” of deaths, major European cities being sunken, nuclear war and global environmental riots…all within the next 5 days.
That’s because they made the prediction back in 2004 and said all that would happen by 2020, which is just 5 days away.
“Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters,” reported left-wing newspaper the Guardian on February 22, 2004.
“A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world,” the report added.
The alarmist document went on to claim that nations would resort to using nuclear weapons to protect dwindling food supplies, a situation that would “bring the planet to the edge of anarchy.”
All from The Ministry of Truth as the clock strikes thirteen.
Law of Markets 