In defence of climate science denier!

Update: Science of Doom has responded to the feedback his article got. You can read his comment here. It's very good and not just because he acknowledges that not everyone views the term as he did. (h/t verytallguy)

Sou 8:16 pm 5 February 2015

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Science of Doom has a great blog explaining many aspects of climate science, with an emphasis on the underlying mathematics (and some of the physics). If you want to learn the maths and physics underpinning the greenhouse effect and lapse rates and adiabatic processes, you'll probably at some stage come across an article by Science of Doom.

A day or so back, for some very strange reason (ostensibly because he was reading a book), Science of Doom decided to fan the flames of climate science denial, unwittingly I would think.

More denier weirdness: scientists are not real people...

...according to one science denier

According to HotCopper's Hanrahan, now scientists aren't REAL PEOPLE.  Here are some excerpts from a thread on Hotcopper (in which I got a mention):

Hanrahan, who has been actively denying global warming for years, doesn't seem to know that:

• the IPCC reports list contributors who are real people, or that
• each IPCC chapter has a list of references like this with each paper written by real people, or that 
• Google Scholar allows you to search papers on climate change that are authored by real people , or that 
• SkepticalScience has a facility to search for abstracts and authors of scientific papers of the past twenty years or so, written by real people.  

He writes in HotCopper's S&M club (subs req'd), making sure he gets his denial in early in case someone responds:

To sceptics the consensus is non-existent and meaningless even if it were so.  I am asking for something more like NAMES of who comprises this so-called consensus.  You cannot even prove there are more than a few fanatics. I can show thousands who disagree. Over to you.

Tinnitus does respond and writes:

Well you could ring up each of the authors of the 32.6% of the 11944 climate abstracts that endorsed AGW in the Cook survey. I am sure that will keep you busy for a while. Or you could ring up the authors of the 0.7% of the 11944 climate abstracts that didn't endorse AGW.
That will not take you long at all.

To which Hanrahan replied - but scientists aren't PEOPLE:

Tin, you talk about statistical analysis of papers I am talking PEOPLE.

A consensus comprises people and I claim you don't actually have many. You have dodged this for years PRETENDING you don't need real people.

Here ya go Hanrahan.  These people are REAL climate scientists:

These media reports are REAL, too, and prepared by REAL people:

This is REAL as well:

Visit The Consensus Project

And a bonus for Hanrahan who, despite having had the case proven to him over and over and over again, also wrote earlier in the same thread:

If you think it is getting hotter, prove your case, don't try to censor me.

A real global land and sea temperature chart, based on data collected and analysed by real people and plotted by a real blogger:

There is plenty of other evidence for young Hanrahan, if only he wanted to see it!

Free Speech - HotCopper Style

Got this today.  Seems a few people have been stepping close to the line and HotCopper sez "it's not fair".  According to HotCopper, speech should be free (no matter what?)  - except perhaps when they don't agree with it.

Anyway, what chance do you think I have of dipping into the HotCopper Fighting Fund to fight the arguably illegal restriction of my speech on HotCopper?

Dear (name withheld),
You are probably aware that from time to time people take issue with comments that are made on HotCopper. Indeed, sometimes legal action is threatened or taken against members because of statements they have made here. You may have even seen this article in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Sometimes, we think that when this happens it is unfair, and a restriction on the right of Australians to engage in free speech. We know a lot of you think the same way because you've been contacting us and telling us so.

In fact, some of you have asked is there a way that you can donate money to a fund that can be used to help members in financial need to pay for lawyers' fees.

We have therefore set up a discretionary trust called The HotCopper Fighting Fund. If you wish to donate to the fund, see the details below:

Nice to see HC has a pet and very tame journo at SMH.  I wonder if this means HC's G-M isn't going to move to the USA (where Ron Paul lives) after all, to try to escape the 'relentless pressure from lawyers'?

Dissecting Denmor's Denial

Denmor drags out a climate science disinformer

I haven't posted any of the nonsense from HotCopper in a while.  So, courtesy of denmor, a science denier from HotCopper's science and medicine S&M club and the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition this is what passes for 'science' among the share trading science illiterati from Australia.  Denmor (who's been featured here before) and Clifford (Cliff) Ollier present a Gish gallop but not so much that we can't cover most issues touched on.

It makes for a long-ish post so if you arrived via HotWhopper's home page, click 'read more' below or click here.  (If you just want to see a pretty neat animation of CO2, jump down here.)

(Subs req'd to read the original thread. Access is free. Head vice recommended.)

As science-loving Tinnitus observes about denmor's 'contribution':

Wow A polemic paper on climate from a prof that doesn't work in climate science....Do people understand actually what a polemic paper is?

 Anyway, here goes....

Digging in ...

And he furiously proceeded to dig a much deeper hole for himself ...

...from acting like a plain vanilla MCP to acting like a creepy MCP.

The Monkey Takes the Mickey

A humorous diversion courtesy HotCopper...fluffymonkey taking the mickey...
(Click image for larger version)

What fluffynymph really meant ...(click here for translation)

Australia's Angry Summer

The Climate on Steroids

From Ten News (of all places!)

The report from the Climate Commission

Here is a link to the Climate Commission report, "The Angry Summer".

Key facts: 

1. The Australian summer over 2012 and 2013 has been defined by extreme weather events across much of the continent, including record-breaking heat, severe bushfires, extreme rainfall and damaging flooding. Extreme heatwaves and catastrophic bushfire conditions during the Angry Summer were made worse by climate change. 
2. All weather, including extreme weather events is influenced by climate change. All extreme weather events are now occurring in a climate system that is warmer and moister than it was 50 years ago. This influences the nature, impact and intensity of extreme weather events. 
3. Australia’s Angry Summer shows that climate change is already adversely affecting Australians. The significant impacts of extreme weather on people, property, communities and the environment highlight the serious consequences of failing to adequately address climate change. 
4. It is highly likely that extreme hot weather will become even more frequent and severe in Australia and around the globe, over the coming decades. The decisions we make this decade will largely determine the severity of climate change and its influence on extreme events for our grandchildren. 
5. It is critical that we are aware of the influence of climate change on many types of extreme weather so that communities, emergency services and governments prepare for the risk of increasingly severe and frequent extreme weather.

Let's repeat one critical sentence:

The decisions we make this decade will largely determine the severity of climate change and its influence on extreme events for our grandchildren. 

This is The Critical Decade!

I believe it's fair to say that this decade has seen more record-breaking  and more extreme heat, fires, drought and floods than any similar length period in the past century in Australia, with accompanying loss of life, property, distress and chaos.  If we combine all this century's events, it would come close to the devastation wreaked by weather in the whole of the last century combined.  The Canberra fires; the Black Saturday fires; the Lockyer Valley floods; many places experienced two or more 100 year floods in a single year; the big drought and more.  And this is just the beginning.

The reaction by some people is dismissive.  Some will even point to a single event 70 years ago.  "What about the 1939 heatwave?", asks Ronsterm on HotCopper.  The answer is that the 39 heatwave wasn't part of the overall hotter temperatures we're seeing today.  These days we keep seeing records tumble year after year.  Look at a temperature chart for Australia over time - the answer's in the mean temperature for Australia from the Bureau (click here for other trends, such as the trend in maximums) (click image for larger version)

Here again is an animation of part of the Big Aussie Heatwave (click image for larger version):

Others like HotCopper's Watso make inane comments like: "it's colder in the northern hemisphere".  Does he think the arctic ice is melting so dramatically because it is colder? Did the USA just have its hottest year on record because it's colder?  Did upwards of 50,000 people die in the 2003 European heat wave, or 15,000 or more in the recent Russian heatwave because it was so cold?  (Watso could be simply referring to the fact that it's winter in the northern hemisphere while it's summer in Australia - now that would be inane!)

A Shift in the Climate

No - what's happening is that climates are shifting and we are experiencing the effects in day to day weather.

Deniers resort to picking random one-off weather events going back decades to match any one of the destructive weather events that have become more and more frequent in the past thirty years so and are commonplace this century.  

Disaster Fatigue

It's not just that we are experiencing heat, fires, floods and droughts it's that they are no longer one off events.  They are becoming so common that they no longer get the news coverage they used to get in times gone by eg the latest massive floods in Queensland and NSW.  The news outlets figure people down south are suffering flood fatigue.  Imagine what the poor people living in places like Gympie feel.

“I don’t think any other place in Queensland has had five floods in two years, four in 12 months, and two of those back-to-back in the last four weeks,” 

Dumbest Post Comp on HotCopper

Is there a competition among deniers on HotCopper to see who can win the dumbest post award?

Two examples from a single thread in the HotCopper science and medicine S&M club.

There's astrayalien (he already has one dumbest post award plus a dishonourable mention) who, in response to a post reporting the BoM announcement of Australia's record hot summer, asks:

Why is the Bureau of Meteorology changing past data?

Astrayalien thinks a day somewhere = summer all over Australia

Apparently astrayalien has Watt's disorder and doesn't know the difference between the Australian national aggregate for an entire summer season and a local daily maximum at a single site.

The 'evidence' he submits, presumably originating from BoM itself, is a list of places and the date they set a high temperature record.  His point apparently being that not every single individual location in Australia had its temperature record (for the hottest day or longest heat wave) broken this past summer.

Going by astrayalien's comment, he thinks a single day is equivalent to a summer.  And he thinks a single site is equivalent to a nationwide aggregate of sites.

Here's a gif animation of the record-smashing January heat wave that covered the continent:

Ronsterm compares a denier blogger with some of the world's leading experts in a miscellany of fields

Ronsterm tries to compete for the worst denier, by asking why Jo Nova (a holder of nasty conspiracy theories and science denier blogger) should not be considered as 'credible' as this assortment of renowned and highly respected leading academics, political leaders and government advisers (most of whom do not have any relationship with the Bureau of Meteorology).

• Algore (sic) (I think Ron might have meant Al Gore, past vice-President of the USA, who advocates for action to reduce global warming; rather than algor or algorithm)
• Professor Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, UK and one of the world's leading experts on the historical surface temperature record and paleoclimate.
• Professor Michael Mann is Distinguished Professor of Meteorology and Director, Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, and one of the world's leading paleoclimatologists.
• Sir Nicholas Stern is a leading economist who has held a number of posts in government and academia.  He is also a Member of the House of Lords in the UK. Prof Stern led the Stern Review, an examination of economic implications of global warming.
• Dr Rajendra K Pachauri is Chief Executive of TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) and holds numerous other academic and directorial positions internationally, including Chairing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 
• Professor Tim Flannery is Chief Commissioner of the Australian Government Climate Commission, Chair of Environmental Sustainability at Macquarie University and has held numerous other positions nationally and internationally.  In 2007 he was honoured by the then Prime Minister of Australia, Mr John Howard, as Australian of the Year.
• Jo Nova is the pseudonym of a climate science denier and paranoid conspiracy theorist.

None of the above work for the Bureau of Meteorology. Professor Tim Flannery would have close dealings with the Bureau, particularly in his role as Chief Commissioner of the Australian Government Climate Commission.

More Sexism from Moderators on HotCopper: Breast-feeding is Arrogant!

On The Arrogance of Whipping Out Boobs In Public

To think HotCopper nearly appointed a new female moderator following my complaint.  Didn't they have a lucky escape.  I expect HotCopper management had second thoughts, figuring any woman, even one of their preferred ideological position, might try to create a female friendly environment and scare away all their current patrons.  (The bread and butter of HotCopper's preferred business model is misogynistic men from the extreme end of right wing nuttery).

The right to 'pop out a breast'?

Here is a comment from the moderator they chose instead - labelling as 'arrogant' women who breast-feed their infants in public. (Of course, Play2Win could be a woman who conforms to the recommendation of the HotCopper Administrator, that women should pretend to be men while on HotCopper's share trading discussion board.)

Source: HotCopper.com


Incidentally, the first poster in the thread (LJsilver) is apparently completely unaware that the female of all mammalian species (not just the human kind) suckle their infants with milk secreted from glands.  (The words 'mammal' and 'mammary' as in mammary gland are both derived from same Latin root.)

The OP implies that breast-feeding is instead some sort of strange and new politically correct fashion sweeping the western world of the human species.

Arrogant Tony pops out two breasts!

Let's take bets on HotCopper mods' 'opinion' of their darling, Tony Abbott, whipping out his boobs in public. (Another case of men wanting to set different 'rules' for men and women, no doubt!)

Image source: ThePunch.com.au

Breast-feeding mother - arrogant, eh?

Image source: Wikipedia

Update: Acknowledgement and Repentance?

Looks as if Play2Win has since used his powers of moderation to not simply delete the content of his comment (as seen above), but consistent with the HotCopper's inconsistent approach to 'openness and transparency' (ie only when it suits them) has erased all trace as if it never existed.  The other sexist (and islamophobic) comments in the thread are still there.

(Normal policy is for moderators to replace the post they find offensive with an explanation, leaving a record in place.  Not necessarily a rational explanation and at times not even a relevant explanation but it's some attempt to be open at least.  At other times, particularly with their favourites who 'err', they will simply erase all record of the comment as has happened here.)

On the plus side, maybe it's a sign that Play2Win recognises his post was sexist, which would be a (baby) step in the right direction.

Update 2:

Play2Win did not repent, he's doubled down on sexism.  He has resurrected his post word for word in another more recent thread about breast-feeding.  One in which HotCopperites all pile on with more sexism.  They even manage to use the thread (on breast-feeding) to air their racist bigotry.

What an ugly intolerant environment HotCopper has created and continues to cultivate. Disgusting in any circumstances, but especially so for a commercial business operation!

Update 3:

Play2Win clarifies his position in the comments below: It's not just arrogant to breastfeed in public, it's arrogant and disrespectful.

(Sadly, not even baby steps in the right direction.)

Update 4:

Among other attributes, Play2Win is a tad inconsistent, for example, he seemed irate that, following his suggestion order, I have advised people there is a maximum comment size (which, since most people write well within the character limit, I didn't know about, and thought was a worthwhile suggestion.)

Given this inconsistency, I can only hope the following is an accurate representation:

Play2Win clarifies his position further in yet another comment below: Breastfeeding women (and presumably their infants) are not just arrogant and disrespectful in putting the newborn's need for sustenance above the needs of others, they are also selfish and indulgent. ("...when being arrogant is putting your own selfish, indulgent actions above anyone elses").

Edging ever closer to this.

Play2Win is particularly concerned about "Sunday service", which going by the day chosen is probably a Christian service.  Perhaps he could look to Jesus and his mother to guide him.

Nursing Madonna (Madonna Lactans) by anonymous master of Bruges, 16th century. Museu de Aveiro, Portugal. Photo: Alvesgaspar (March 2012)

Click here for other images of the Nursing Madonna.

Update 5:

Play2Win writes: 'I will test the notion. The next time I see a woman breast feeding I will sit right next to her. I won't perve. I just sit next to her like I would with any member of the public. The reaction will be interesting. If she flinches one iota then I rest my case.'

Ugh - creepy. With the discussion board run by people like this is it any wonder this goes on?

HotWhopper of the Week: Feminism is a Lysenko plot

More misogyny anyone?

Just when you thought you'd seen it all.

We all know that the ghost of Lysenko is sending climate science deniers to the gulag, when he's not putting them to death.  Now it looks as if that stalinist bureaucrat has risen from dead once more, this time to send sexist men to the gulag.

Source: HotCopper.com

Oh No! Women are rejecting their biological role and getting paid to work

HotCopper regular, Rembrandt, says "good article" and elaborates:

All fems are directed by dogma to that of adopting sublimation .. rejection of their sex and biological roles for the supposed higher goal of self-actualisation = nihilism...

... In other words, the fems strident cries for more FREEDOM AND CHOICE today is as the article proclaims nothing more than more demands by Me, with Me and for Me !!
Source: HotCopper.com

If I interpret correctly, in his mind, women who aspire to anything in their lives other than unpaid labour and popping out babies one after another for twenty or thirty years are unutterably selfish.

Women shouldn't have choice - slavery is their proper destiny

Slippin chimes in, observing dour faced women who he reckons would have been better off had they chosen to be destitute from the outset and stuck in a sour marriage slaving (unpaid) for their 'man'.

Having recently re entered the workforce after a 5 year hiatus I can attest to the above. I have never seen or worked with so many dour faced 40 years plus women. ...

...Most of these women have ditched their husband (or been ditched) and are chasing something that only exists in glossy womens magazines. Their desire can be boiled down to one word...choice. The ability to choose your destiny. However the glossies failed to mention one thing...choice is no choice at all. Keep working honey cos one day you might get the pension and be able to live in a crime ridden neighbourhood where you may find your choices severely restricted.
Source: HotCopper.com

No-one disagrees with any of them - that's HotCopper.

Does sound like sour grapes, doesn't it.  Did their wives eventually choose a 'life' over them?

Only men are allowed to reject their biological role?

And what about the 'biological role' of men?  How do these three justify men's 'choice' of paid employment instead of devoting themselves 100% to their biological role?

Maybe on the basis that men often have to pay to pursue their biological role (so they have to earn the $$ to do so somehow or other), whereas women can get paid for pursuing theirs.

Or maybe, despite this being the twenty first century, these three genuinely believe men have an innate right to 'choose' and women, being lesser creatures, don't.

HotCopper Proud to Award Gold Stars for Sexist and Racist Posts

By the way, slippin won a gold star for that post above.  It was considered by HotCopper share traders to be a 'top rated post'.

Slippin's post didn't do quite as well as those who jumped to the conclusion that an asylum seeker raped a student - HotCopper handed out lots of gold stars to all the people who jumped to that conclusion (based not on any arrest, nor any police report, nor anything at all except speculation by shock jock Ray Hadley, who I guess hates asylum seekers even more than he hates women).  In keeping with HotCopper's misogynist code, the brightest gold star was given to kozzie who was able to have a dig at both asylum seekers and women in one short comment.  Kozzie reckons it was all the fault of PM Gillard and Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.

Going by past experience, if anyone said that slippin and other bigoted posters on HotCopper were being sexist or racist, they'd probably get banned from the forum.  (As if to underscore the tone preferred by HotCopper management, about the only poster to voice an objection to the ugly tone of the asylum seeker thread had at least two posts deleted by the moderators.)

As HotCopper Management will tell you, it's sexist to call out sexism, if you are a woman.

Another scientist banned from HotCopper: Younglogga

HotCopper is going great guns in its ongoing efforts to stifle discussion of science.  It’s banned another poster who tried to make the HotCopper Science and Medicine S&M forum about science instead of remaining a troll-infested meeting ground for the anti-science illiterati.

True to form, mods seem to be deleting any posts commenting on his disappearance.  This is in keeping with the HotCopper Omertà (selectively applied), so we’ll probably never know why he was banned.  (Evidence suggests that on HotCopper freedom of speech is a prerogative of redneck males only – see here.  Mods would probably all quit if HotCopper introduced a more open moderation policy.)

Younglogga was always polite, made fact-filled posts and would have been considered a treasured asset of any healthy discussion board.  His posts were very rarely moderated, except when the mods took sides with the trolls who make incessant complaints that some people post about real science instead of anti-science on the science and medicine forum.

Fare thee well, Younglogga.  You brought clarity and science if briefly to brighten the gloominess of that arid block of cyberspace.

This old Irish blessing is for you, though we’ve never met. (I’m not religious but I’ve always liked it.)

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face; the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

HotWhopper Classic: Misogyny and Sexism

As anyone who's done any work in organisational development knows, the norms and values are established by those in charge.  If an organisation is broken it's extremely hard to fix without changing the leadership.  New brooms sweep the cleanest.

If you run a discussion board it's easy to make sure the subscriber base reflects your own values, if that's what you want.  Select moderators who are as sexist as yourself and they'll get the message across loud and clear.  If an errant subscriber doesn't conform and makes the mistake of standing up for women (or science), you can rely on your pet moderators to gang up and ban them forever. (Bricks and mortar businesses have to be a bit more discrete about their misogyny and sexism.  If they are small enough they can usually get around this problem by making sure they don't hire women in the first place, except to make the coffee, 'man' (yes, 'man') the front desk and answer the phone.)

Judge for yourself - compare the votes in the examples below!

Woman - how dare you intrude on the 'Domain of Men'!

Here are some posts from a classic sexist thread (subs req'd) on the HotCopper discussion board.  You can see for yourselves the type of people the operators aim to attract and, unsurprisingly, succeed.  Golfzoner starts a lively discussion with this:

Golfzoner was was roundly applauded by HotCopper-ites for telling it like it is.  So much so that thirty one more people agreed with him than disagreed!  Full-blooded male HotCopper-ites believe the world would be so much better if women weren't such brazen hussies.  A woman's place is barefoot and pregnant and in the kitchen.  She should be subservient to her 'man'.   Woman's sole purpose in life is to slave over a hot stove and keep her master comfortable.

Battle-Hardened, Command-Barking, Brick Out-Houses with a Vagina

The discussion thread was very long.  Here are a few more snippets:  No battle hardened, command-barking, brick out-houses with a vagina for Sonpa:

The 50kg Clubber

One can only marvel at the sort of mentality of HotCopper moderators who unanimously agree that writing about climate science research is far too 'outspoken' to be tolerated on HotCopper, but seem happy enough for someone to write about their suspect sexual proclivities - from Linebacker (yes, really!).  You couldn't make this up.  Although it was buried in the discussion it still attracted six more 'thumbs up' than 'thumbs down':

The Men Pile On

The discussion went on and on for more than two weeks. I could show you any of dozens of other misogynistic or sexist comments from different HotCopper subscribers.  Men who didn't pile on with outright sexism indicated they thought women who objected were over-reacting and should 'lighten up'.  

But not all men agreed.  A few were as disgusted as we women were.

Too "outspoken"

Here's a comment from Dogby that most subscribers didn't like.  Unlike golfzoner and linebacker, it looks as if dogby must have been too 'outspoken' for HotCopper - he's been banned:

What about the women?

Yes, some women are bold enough to venture into the Men's Playground. Kate dismissed the thread with this sharp comment:

And Oxy came straight to the point:

In fact I made a few comments myself and this must have been about the only time that Oxy and I agreed. (IIRC she has libertarian leanings, which forbid her from accepting climate science.)

Get off your soap box!

HotCopper moderators tell people who protest sexism to 'get off their soap box'.  Interesting to be reminded of the sort of soap boxes they prefer.

PostScript: This article and subsequent comments may help explain why so many people with twisted views are attracted to HotCopper and why so many ordinary people find it repugnant. Not merely unnaturally prudish or sexist but arguably bordering on intimidation of women.

HotWhopper of the Week - A Gutful of Brainless!

If you've ever wondered how climate science deniers can keep getting it so wrong, this might give a clue.

           Source: HotCopper.com S&M forum

Caution: Going by the number of 'thumbs up', most amateur share traders on HotCopper agree the gut is their organ of choice for intellectual exercise.  Pays to treat any discussion on HotCopper with a big pinch of (epsom) salt.

Unfortunately high school physics doesn't cut it when it comes to anatomy.  Now if astrayalien (who is currently leading the pack when it comes to hot whoppers) had also studied biology he might have learnt that the gut is used for digestion of food, not digestion of science.  (You've got to wonder how astrayalien went in his physics class!)

If he had thought to exercise his brain instead of his bowel, he might have questioned some of those 'predictions' he talks about.

If he'd used his eyes as well, he would have seen that earth's temperature keeps rising.  Note: The original video I had here has since disappeared so here's something else instead. Sou 27 Jan 2014:

How to be a Denier Troll

Another lesson in the crude art of trolling from Hanrahan, the resident expert on HotCopper's Science and Medicine S&M forum.

These are the only posts of Hanrahan's (to date) in a thread that began with a copy of this article on climate change from the Washington Post.

You will note the absence of: a) science and b) any reference to the substance of the original post.

(Hanrahan has been by far the most prolific poster on the thread making six posts so far.  I'll leave it to the reader to decide the value of his contribution except to point out that 6 x 0 = zero.)

1. Religion and Al Gore

Post an inane comment, carefully avoiding anything that could be construed as 'scientific'.  Throw in religion and Al Gore for good measure:

Source: HotCopper.com S&M forum

2. The Sky is Falling 1 

Check a map to see where in the world is China.  Observe that air quality elsewhere is improving.  (Remain unaware that it was strong environmental regulations that led to cleaner air and that sulphur emissions can mask warming.)  Finish off with labelling as 'fools' anyone who understands science.

Source: HotCopper.com S&M forum

3. The Sky is Falling 2 

Note the accolades that your previous post drew.  Repeat the last line hoping for more applause.  Finish off by having a go at the farmers whose cherry crops were badly damaged in the Big Aussie Heat.

Source: HotCopper.com S&M forum

4. Return to Religion - with No Sense of Irony 

Happy that your previous comment got lots of applause, return to the 'religion' refrain.  Then proceed to call scientist Younglogga a 'clear liar' - while at the same time complaining about imagined insults and about being called a troll.

Source: HotCopper.com S&M forum

5. Shift the topic to guns

Keep shifting the topic away from the original one about climate change, this time to guns:

Source: HotCopper.com S&M forum

6. It's all about ME

Finally (maybe or maybe not), Hanrahan gets to the crux of the matter.  It's all about him.  (Bemoaning the fact that his post number 4 above was moderated).

Source: HotCopper.com S&M forum

End of lesson.

HotCopper Whopper: Dead Heat!

The heat is affecting deniers on HotCopper, new ones keep climbing out of the woodwork as more extreme events are reported.

Dead Heat

Speaking of dead heat, Muzzarati and Nihilism seem to want to head in both those directions!

500 million years ago...

First off, Muzza (of Dog's Breakfast fame) yearns for the hot lifeless deserts of more than 500,000,000 years ago when CO2 levels were 7000 ppm.  Life did start to flourish in the late Cambrian - just not on land.  It wasn't till CO2 dropped and oxygen increased in the atmosphere that the land was colonised with plants and animals.

Source: HotCopper.com

It was later in the Cambrian Period after atmospheric CO2 dropped a lot and the air filled with oxygen that evolution picked up a pace (before being set back by subsequent glaciations).  While there still wasn't any life on land, in the ocean there evolved all sorts of different multicellular organisms, including the precursors to insects and spiders.  Needless to say all this took place over millions of years, not a few centuries, so there was plenty of time for evolution and adaptation.

Muzza says people who know science are 'human haters'.  Muzza's willing to let CO2 surge to levels that virtually no current living organism could survive - not on land certainly.

You'll have noticed that muzzarati is also a 'communist-socialist-cultist' conspiracy theorist.

...or 5,000 years ago

Nihilism on the other hand knows the earth is at least 5,000 years old, might even be much more if you 'trust the science' like he does ...

Source: HotCopper.com

adding in a later post...

...psst even creationism says 10000 years.

Neither of them will entertain the idea that it's most unwise to keep pouring huge amounts of waste CO2 into the air day after day, year after year.

So who wins the HotWhopper of the week award?  The Cambrian Period enthusiast who wants to send us back 500,000,000 years, or the Young Earther who knows nothing existed till 5,000 years ago?

I'll call it a dead heat!

HotCopper Deniers - Spinning on the Sun

As if to underline the well-known fact that climate science deniers don't read any climate science, denmor, on HotCopper, posts an article by John O'Sullivan suggesting that NASA has just discovered the sun.  This is the same John O'Sullivan who, if you will remember, has very whacky ideas.  Only a year ago he was blogging about how he doesn't accept basic atmospheric physics of the greenhouse effect, which was first demonstrated 150 years ago in the mid-nineteenth century.

Typical of climate science deniers, John O'Sullivan mustn't read climate science either.  He put his own spin on a climate science workshop, which was held to: 

... examine the state of knowledge regarding the climate response to solar variability and will explore some of the outstanding scientific issues that might guide future research thrusts.

John's spin is that NASA has suddenly discovered the sun has a role in regard to our climate - duh!  (Yes, this is the same NASA that launched Voyager 1 thirty five years ago.)

If denmor or John O'Sullivan had ever read an IPCC report they might not have made such fools of themselves.  Even if they'd merely scanned the reports they would have realised that scientists have long  been aware that the sun exists and has a role in the energy balance on earth.  For example, look at the first two paragraphs in the box on page 14 of the IPCC Second Assessment Report, published in 1995, which shows, as any scientist will tell you, that the understanding incoming radiation (ie from the sun to earth) and outgoing radiation (ie from the earth to space) is fundamental to understanding climate:

Box 1: What drives changes in climate?
The Earth absorbs radiation from the Sun, mainly at the surface. This energy is then redistributed by the atmospheric and oceanic circulation and radiated to space at longer ("terrestrial" or "infrared") wavelengths. On average, for the Earth as a whole, the incoming solar energy is balanced by outgoing terrestrial radiation.

Any factor which alters the radiation received from the Sun or lost to space, or which alters the redistribution of energy within the atmosphere, and between the atmosphere, land and ocean, can affect climate.

In fact, they can't have even read anything about the greenhouse effect.  Is there an image explaining the greenhouse effect that doesn't include the sun?

What we're doing is slowing the outgoing radiation by putting our waste greenhouse gases into the air.  Roughly the same amount of radiation is coming in from the sun but there's less going out because there's a lot more greenhouse gases like CO2 absorbing it, so earth is heating up.





Misogynistic thalweg doesn't read science either.  He writes:

Source: HotCopper.com

No, thalweg.  You've got it wrong.  If the sun were emitting ever more radiation (ie at a rising rate) then the warming would be worse.  But it's not.  Here is a chart showing the relative contributions to global warming:

You've got to wonder what is it that makes people like HotCopper's denmor and thalweg and blogger John O'Sullivan make idiots of themselves in public.

A Whopper of a Heatwave II: HotCopper Deniers

Australia's heat wave is getting some attention.  Not just here in Australia, we can't ignore it, but from elsewhere as well.  It's a real doozy.  You can read about it on MotherJones, and in the UK Guardian, The Telegraph and in many places on the blogosphere, like here and here.

One of the big problems is that we've had a lot of rain this past year or two - aka the 'big wet', when large areas of the continent were covered in water - to the north, south, east, west and in the centre of Australia.  2010-11 was the wettest summer on record in Victoria and in Darwin and no-one can forget the tragic loss of life in the Lockyer Valley when Queensland flooded in the same season.  Once the water evaporated, sank into the ground or flowed to the sea the plants started growing again.  (If you remember, the 'big wet' followed the 'great drought', which didn't end till 2010.)  That means lots of fuel for fire.

In 2009 more than 179 people died in a fire that started in catastrophic conditions on a day known locally as Black Saturday.  Most of us knew some of them or knew people who knew some of them.  It was a bad day that affected the whole nation.

Now it's 2013 and in this 'big heat', fires have taken hold, burning out almost entire small towns and hamlets in Tasmania and continuing to rage in our island state as well as in many parts of the mainland.  NSW had the worst fire danger conditions on record - and fires took hold and are still burning out of control.

Reaction from deniers

This blog pokes fun at the silliness that pervades a share trading site, HotCopper, from top management down.  (It's a microcosm of the world that science deniers and conspiracy theorists inhabit, seeing the conservative old white male as its target market.)  But there's nothing silly about the weather extremes in Australia over the past few years.  There have been too many tragedies.  Yet there are still a few people who simply cannot accept that our climate is changing.  While the continent has been sweltering in a record heat event, they write things like this, in response to a post about this article from The Age about the record heat (bear in mind that these are posts on a Science and Medicine forum):

You can grow things in 'Hot-Houses'... But you can NOT grow things in a Deep-Freezer. Birdman29

What a waste of bandwidth this thread is, started I notice by an alarmist, one of the group who tell us that science rules. Hanrahan, the resident troll, dismisses the freak conditions and its consequences as not worth writing about, as well as flaming the poster and denying science in the same keyboard attack.

Ever thought of simply making your point without denigrating those who don't accept your gloomy outlook? And more: Grow up, stop sulking, learn how to debate civilly. Troll Hanrahan again, king of denigration who often has sulking fits and will never learn how to 'debate'.

Do you think that it being summer could have anything to do with it? BenBradley, resident paranoid conspiracy theorist, disagrees with the Bureau of Meteorology.  He thinks this freak heat wave is normal summer weather.

The Earth's climate varies. We need to adjust. astrayalien, recent winner of the HotWhopper dumbest post award, who thinks our atmosphere cools the planet rather than keeping it warm, but nevertheless thinks we will need to adjust.  Yes we do!

People who go on about global warming because its hot outside during summer just show thier (sic) extreme ignorance re climate change. Idiots. From 'CO2 is plant food' muzzarati, who thanks god for poor, much maligned CO2.

That sums up the majority of HotCopper S&M-ers.  Not merely ignorant but wilfully ignorant and proud of it!

HotCopper Dumbest Post Award

This week astrayalien receives the dumbest post award for a thread he started on HotCopper science and medicine S&M forum.

An alien view?

Astrayalien promotes beliefs alien to science.  He provides a link to John O'Sullivan (another denier crank) who believes that the atmosphere has a cooling effect and that without it, earth would be 121 degrees Celsius.  (Yes, that's actually on his website!)  O'Sullivan's ideas are so ridiculous that I doubt anyone has ever bothered to refute them. (I stopped reading once I got to the bit about the atmosphere having a 'cooling effect'.)

And if you were in any doubt about the collective IQ on HotCopper, six more HotCopper-ites agree with astrayalien than disagree.

Source: HotCopper.com S&M forum

Not only that, but astrayalien also links to the website of a software developer, Christian evangelist, wedding photographer called Douglas Cotton, who he believes has overturned more than two hundred years of scientific research by 'proving' there is no such thing as a greenhouse effect. Doug doesn't publish in peer reviewed journals but that doesn't deter astrayalien.

Younglogga gallantly tried to restore credibility to HotCopper and bring the thread back to some semblance of scientific decency by referring people to skepticalscience.com and its links to peer-reviewed science, but to no avail.  Astrayalien thinks such peer-reviewed science is "complete drivel".  He only accepts 'science' from evangelical wedding photographers/software developers.  Anyone who accepts peer-reviewed science suffers 'cognitive dissonance' according to astrayalien.  (Does he know what cognitive  dissonance is?)

Resident troll Hanrahan supports astrayalien, referring to skepticalbloodyscience.com.  (Young Han cannot abide the site because it uses science to refute the 'arguments' of his mate Bob Carter.)

Genericmicrobe can't understand skepticalscience.com and wants HotCopperites to explain it!

Denmor says science is 'alarmist claptrap'.

Denial from HotCopper seems to be keeping pace with Earth's temperature. Correlation does not necessarily mean causation, but ...

A Whopper of a Heat Wave (Updated again)

What happened last year

The Bureau of Meteorology has released the Annual Climate Statement 2012.  Some of the main points are:

...Australia had near-average rain and above-average temperatures during 2012, but the average annual values conceal a year of contrasts:

• La Niña brought above-average rain early in 2012
• Reduced rainfall in winter and spring was associated with a warm central Pacific Ocean and positive Indian Ocean Dipole
• Annual nationally averaged rainfall very slightly above average, with 476 mm (1961–1990 average of 465 mm).
• A warmer-than-average year, 0.11 °C above average 2003–2012 the fifth-warmest 10-year period on record.

Enter 2013 - with a whopper of a heat wave

2013 has started with a whopper of a heat wave extending over most of Australia.  And this looks like being record heat despite no El Nino.  This animation derived from the Bureau of Meteorology temperature charts shows how the heat wave moved across the country from New Year's Day to Saturday 12 January Thurs 10 January yesterday (click for larger version).  The forecast predicts it won't be stopping for a while yet, with temperatures in some parts projected to be more than 50C (122F) next Sunday:

Burning Up

Hot weather means Australia is burning again.  Particularly dangerous are the windy conditions experienced in south eastern Australia last Friday.  As reported by Watching the Deniers, the results were tragic and the ABC reports it is looking very bad again today.

Tomorrow, NSW is facing it's "worst ever fire danger day".

Here's a video about the Tassie fires from ABC 7.30 report, with incredible tales and images of people who survived by huddling in water under a jetty, including the story of a young mother from Dunally who'd just left her children with her grandparents while she went to a funeral in Hobart.

Here is today's record from Sentinel.  You can see the horrific fires in Tasmania still going plus fires all over the country.

The red flames are the most recent 12-hour satellite sweep and the yellow flames are from the previous 12 to 24 hours.

HotCopper Delusions of an Ice Age

Despite this some HotCopper deniers, like Chrysalis here, think we're on the verge of an ice age.

The stupid it burns ...