Moaning about the demise of Maurice Newman, Australia's high profile climate conspiracy theorist

On Anthony Watts' climate conspiracy blog WUWT, Eric Worrall is moaning about Maurice Newman (archived here). In another move showing that he does take climate change seriously (albeit within political constraints), Australia's new Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, will not be re-appointing Maurice to the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council, which he chaired under Tony Abbott.

Maurice Newman is an uber conspiracy theorist of the Tim Ball kind. I've written about his wacky ideas on a number of occasions. He's not just a denier, he's a hard core conspiracy nutter who thinks, for example, that the sustainability action plan, Agenda 21, is some sort of evil plot. Eric Worrall couldn't be more wrong when he writes:

Releasing outspoken skeptic Maurice Newman from his advisory role seems unlikely to help Turnbull’s credibility on climate issues. 

Contrary to what Eric thinks, it will be a relief to almost everyone. I'd say most especially to the other members of the council. And it will lift the PM's credibility in regard to climate.

Maurice Newman, the Australian Prime Minister's business adviser and favoured conspiracy nutter

Did you know that our Prime Minister gets his science advice from a science-denying cleric, and his business advice from a "black helicopter"-style conspiracy theorising nutter.

Sack Australia's biggest laughing stock, Maurice Newman! His denier wackiness is resurrected at WUWT

This year, April, May and June were each the hottest April (tied), May and June on record according to NOAA. You'd not credit it if you believed the nonsense from science deniers.

Maurice Newman is probably Australia's most "senior" deluded denier. I've written about his nonsense before - here and here. I don't expect he's the oldest denier in Australia but he's the highest ranking denier who advised the Australian Government. He's also one of the wackiest deniers. A right ratbag - assuming he actually believes the rubbish that pours out of his mouth.  Eric Worrall happily copied some of his idiocy at WUWT (archived here).

I say pours out of his mouth because Maurice is of an age and background that makes me doubt he knows how to use a keyboard. And goodness knows when he last put pen to paper, except to sign his name. He'd be of the era of secretaries of the typist kind, and failing that of dictaphones.

Is Maurice Newman telling Tony Abbott he should fire him?

Maurice Newman is a "big nob" in Australia.  Or so I'm told.  He used to be Chair of the national broadcaster, the ABC.  The Prime Minister thinks so highly of our Maurice that he made him Chair of his Business Advisory Council.  I don't recommend anyone taking any advice from Maurice.

Maurice behaves like a fool, a clown, an ignorant nutter when it comes to climate science.  He's done it before.  Let me quote Maurice's own words back at him:

"...if I had financial advisers who were 98 per cent wrong I'd fire them." 

Emma Alberici interviewed him on ABC's Lateline this week for a comedy special and here are a few snippets.  See what you think.

Maurice Newman doesn't pay any attention to empirical evidence

EMMA ALBERICI: It's no secret that you don't agree that man-made CO2 is causing global warming. Given there is now consensus among 97 per cent or so of climate scientists across the world that the view - around the view that human activity is responsible for climate change, what would it take to convince you?

MAURICE NEWMAN: We know first of all that the survey which came out with the 97 per cent number was flawed in the first place. So we don't pay any attention to that. What we do look at...

EMMA ALBERICI: There have been roughly three that have come up with that.

MAURICE NEWMAN: They all come up with flawed methodologies. So we don't pay any attention to that....

Maurice Newman is a greenhouse effect denier

MAURICE NEWMAN: ...So the 97 per cent doesn't mean anything in any event because science is not a consensus issue. Science is whatever the science is and the fact remains there is no empirical evidence to show that man-made CO2, man-made emissions are adding to the temperature on earth. 

That's not what he facts show.  Maurice, keep up why don't you.  There has been empirical evidence for the greenhouse effect since Tyndall's experiment way back in the middle of the 1800s.  It even hit Australian newspapers at least as far back as 1884.

Maurice Newman says "it's the sun"

MAURICE NEWMAN: ...If you want a correlation between global climate, don't look to CO2, look to the sun's activity, there will you find a very close correlation.

Okay, let's look at the correlation between the sun and global surface temperatures:

Source: SkepticalScience.com

Oops-a-daisy.  Maurice's sun is going in the opposite direction to temperature. Will he change his tune? Unlikely. He's one of those "utter nutter" deniers who'll just say he won't "pay any attention to that... "

Maurice Newman tells a whopper of a lie

MAURICE NEWMAN: I just look at the evidence. There is no evidence. If people can show there is a correlation between increasing CO2 and global temperature, well then of course that's something which we would pay attention to.

Not true, Maurice.  There is a lot of evidence and you don't pay it any attention and don't appear to have ever done so.  In fact, it was only a minute or so back that you dismissed three separate pieces of evidence you didn't like and said "we don't pay any attention to that"!

Maurice Newman rejects scientific projections and opts for unsubstantiated "predictions"

MAURICE NEWMAN: ...And as I said, we look at the climate models, 98 per cent of them were wrong. In my old business, if I had financial advisers who were 98 per cent wrong I'd fire them. 

He's flat out wrong about the models, but he's correct that he himself should be fired.  Maurice says the sun is "highly correlated" but the scientific models are wrong?  We'll take a break and see just how "wrong" those models are and compare them to his sun:

If you were to pick between models and the sun, which would you pick?  Here they are as an animation - you decide:

If you're like Maurice and picked solar, do you realise there's been a sharp divergence since around 1980?  That's right - around 35 years ago!  If you complain the models don't fit observations you'll have notice they are pretty darn close - with only a small divergence since 2005.  (That's in part because the models weren't aware that this solar cycle would be so weak.)

So let's go back to Maurice who doesn't like "models". (Does he take a brolly when BoM forecasts 70% likelihood of rain?)

EMMA ALBERICI: That it's a pause. I guess that's what scientists say. It's a pause. They look back 800,000 years as I understand it, so 17 years in the scheme of things isn't an enormous amount of time.

MAURICE NEWMAN: I agree, but then you've got scientists, climate scientists now in Norway, in Germany, in Russia, in America, saying we're now going in for a period of 30 or 40 years of increasingly cool climate conditions.

Ha ha ha.  Maurice "clown" Newman doesn't agree with carefully constructed, physics-based scientific models that have been remarkably close to observations so far.  He dismisses the work of generations and thousands of climate scientists, but he's happy to take the solemn predictions from a handful of denier shysters from places like the Heartland Institute and EIKE!  What a nutter.

All the world is mad, but Maurice Newman

Emma takes another shot to see if Maurice will explain why he's decided that all the world is wrong but him:

EMMA ALBERICI: I'll only ask you one more questions on this because I do want to talk about other things, but both Marius Kloppers and his successor at BHP Billiton Andrew McKenzie agree that climate change is human induced. So what if those 97 per cent of climate scientists and all business people across the world, like the likes of Bill Gates and Richard Branson and the miners here in Australia, what if they're right and you and the scientists you quote are not right. Doesn't it make sense to have a policy that at least transitions Australia to cleaner fuel sources?

MAURICE NEWMAN: Emma, let's not confuse the issues. Cleaning the atmosphere, which is what carbon pollution is about, not CO2, CO2 is not a pollutant. But cleaning the atmosphere, being more efficient, all of that makes sense. That's got nothing to do with climate. That's to do with economics and being efficient. 

Oh? So carbon pollution is about cleaning the atmosphere, not about CO2!  That's definitely weird. [Late edit: Someone on another forum surmised Maurice Newman was talking about soot!  That could be it.  Maurice wants a chimney sweep! Is there no-one in his inner circle who's game enough to tell him he's nuts? Sou.]

MAURICE NEWMAN: But I would say to all of those people who are arguing that CO2 creates global warming and man is adding to the global warming to show the empirical evidence of where this is so. Because I'm saying to you that where this originates is from models. Computer models which are wrong. Now, if you can show me where there is some sort of correlation that proves beyond doubt that what we have is global warming as a consequence of CO2 and man's contribution to CO2 in the atmosphere, well then we can have a different conversation.

Hmmm, he wants empirical evidence.  He's not happy with all the empirical evidence he's been spoonfed with over the years.  Let's see if we can distil it down for him.

• CO2 is a greenhouse gas, it's what keeps Earth warm and allows species like ours to exist.  We wouldn't be here if not for CO2.
• Adding more CO2 makes the earth warmer.  It's like if you add more sugar to your cup of tea it makes it sweeter. Or adding more petrol to your car lets you drive further.  It's all about supply.

So that's the theory in a nutshell. Let's see what the evidence shows:

IPCC AR5 WG1

You can click the chart to enlarge it. What it shows is the Northern Hemisphere temperature went up when CO2 went up.  It also shows that when a volcano of any size erupted, temperature dropped. It also shows that when the sun wasn't as active then temperature dropped a teensy bit, but nothing like the reaction to adding more CO2.

Maurice Newman isn't just 98% wrong, it's virtually certain that he's 100% wrong! So will Tony Abbott follow Maurice's suggestion?

"...if I had financial advisers who were 98 per cent wrong I'd fire them." 


Maybe it's a bit unfair of Emma to take advantage of poor old Maurice Newman's failed intellect, letting him make a complete and utter idiot of himself on national television.  Lateline is meant to be for current affairs, not comedy.

If you want comedy, try Clarke and Dawe from seven years ago in 2007 (or it might have been from 2006). Back in the days when John Howard, Tony Abbott's patron, was Australia's Prime Minister. Just before he lost not just the election but his own seat.

Maurice Newman: A Self-Portrait of an Utter Nutter Science Denier

Warning to newcomers to climate science

I owe readers a warning. I don't normally highlight people who comment here because I like to encourage discussion.  However there are a number of somewhat complex issues that have been touched on in the comments below that could confuse someone who isn't familiar with science in general (and geology and climate science in particular).  In the comments below there is a lot of nonsense being posted by Greig, who rejects the greenhouse effect among other things.  He claims to understand science but he doesn't know the first thing about geology or climate. His comments are unadulterated pseudo-science at best.  Just as Maurice Newman did a self-portrait of himself as a science denier, Greig has done the same.

Sou Friday 17 January, 2014 9:00 pm AEDST

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Australia's Maurice Newman comes across as a first order climate disinformer.  He's a plain vanilla climate science denier of the WUWT kind.  An embarrassment to the nation.  A shameful product of the right wing establishment.

Maurice Newman has held high profile positions in Australia.  Until recently he chaired the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.  Tony Abbott has just elevated him to chair the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council.  You'd think that our PM could find a less nutty person to lead that group.  (I hope that Tony Abbott gets turfed soon - and you never know.  A week is a long time in politics.  As each week passes our political leaders do worse and worse.)

Today the Climate Council announced a report that shows how heat waves are getting longer, lasting longer and getting hotter. As an almost complete contrast, yesterday, Maurice Newman followed up his previous climate science denial with more - and just as silly.  In effect it's his own self-portrait of himself as an utter nutter science denier.  Here are some excerpts from yesterday's Australian.

GIVEN the low-grade attacks on me following my piece "Crowds go cold on climate cost" (The Australian, Dec 31) readers of Fairfax publications and The Guardian may be shocked to hear I believe in climate change. I also accept carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. The trouble is, I cannot reconcile the claims of dangerous human CO2 emissions with the observed record.

Maurice is probably referring to articles like these ones by Graham Readfearn in the Guardian and by climate scientist David Karoly in the Sydney Morning Herald.  Maurice is saying he's a lukewarmer denier and "accepts" that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.  He's one of the "it's not bad" science deniers.  He doesn't accept science but he doesn't want to be seen as an utter nutter.  However read on - he is just another nutter and this little protest doesn't change that fact.

Maurice "I'm not a climate scientist" Newman says he knows better than climate scientists

Then he makes excuses saying he's not a climate scientist - as if that wasn't bloody obvious!

I admit it. I am not a climate scientist. 

Well, these climate scientists are climate scientists, Maurice.  You should listen to them.

Maurice "not a climate scientist" continues:

That said, I have closely followed this debate for more than two decades, having been seasoned originally by the global cooling certainty of the 1970s.

What debate, Maurice?  There is no debate about the fundamentals of climate science and greenhouse warming.  You are just making that up

Maurice - your ideology is showing

Oh, so he's not a climate science but he says the IPCC is "dominated by politics not science".  I bet you he hasn't ever read an IPCC report.

The climate consensus of the 70s, like the period since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was established in 1988, was dominated by politics, not science. I was reminded of how deeply political awareness has infected today's academies when I received an apology from a respected climate scientist who corrected his own public cheap shot at me. He said, "I attempt to be politically even-handed ... I try to steer a middle course as a scientist."

Is Maurice Newman an evolution denier too, I wonder?

Despite saying that science is about evidence, Maurice quotes evolution denier Roy Spencer and disregards the other 99.99999% of climate science.

Really? Surely science is not about neutrality? It is about evidence and conclusions which fall where they will. So when an internationally acclaimed climatologist like Roy Spencer from the University of Alabama at Huntsville dispassionately analyses climate models covering 33 years and concludes that both the surface and satellite observations produce linear temperature trends that are below 87 of the 90 models used in the comparison, he does not politically neutralise his findings. They are empirical fact.

Maurice Newman doesn't check facts 1

Maurice Newman wouldn't know empirical fact if he fell over it.  Just see what I mean:

They eventually become political because the models he demonstrates to be seriously flawed are the bedrock on which the IPCC's global warming case is built. As Spencer said recently, "The modellers and the IPCC have willingly ignored the evidence of low climate sensitivity for many years ... The discrepancy between models and observations is not a new thing ... just one that is becoming more glaring over time."

Now if Maurice Newman had cared about fact, he would have checked this claim.  Let's look at this supposed discrepancy - without error bars:

In recent years up to 2005 the models could scarcely be closer to observations.  You wouldn't think so if you accepted Maurice Newman's disinformation.  The question is, why does Maurice Newman take the word of a known contrarian who disregards a lot of climate science because of his pseudo-religious beliefs?

Maurice Newman doesn't check facts 2

Wait a minute, Maurice has found another contrarian to quote.  Again he discounts virtually the entirety of climate science to quote from someone who's left the field of climate science.  Someone who was unable to "prove" his hypothesis about clouds counteracting global warming. (His Iris Hypothesis).

Spencer is joined by celebrated Massachusetts Institute of Technology climatologist Richard Lindzen, who says: "I think that the latest (AR5) IPCC report has truly sunk to a level of hilarious incoherence. They are proclaiming increased confidence in their models as the discrepancies between their models and observations increase." He is "willing to take bets that global average temperatures in 20 years will in fact be lower than they are now". Any takers?

Any takers on that bet?  Well, first of all, Lindzen claims he was misquoted.  And it looks as if he is still being misquoted nine years later by Maurice Newman.  If Maurice Newman won't bother to check a quote from one of his contrarians, what does that say about his ability to tell the truth when it comes to anything else?

For the record, Lindzen's challenge (that he denies making) was made/not made in 2004.  In the nine years since then, every year bar one (2008) has been hotter than 2004.  I bet Lindzen is glad that no-one took him up on it in the end - there's still eleven years to go - but just the same....

Maurice Newman falls back on old denier memes

Maurice Newman is full of denier memes. (I wonder what nickname he uses when he comments at WUWT.) Take this next bit for example:

The lengthening pause in global warming is influencing the political climate. The language has changed from the specific "global warming" to the more general "climate change" and now to the astrological "extreme weather events" where "I told you so" can be almost universally applied.

Maurice doesn't even know what the letters "IPCC" stand for!  And he has the gall to pontificate on climate science.

Maurice Newman Climate Disinformer

Maurice continues with some straight out disinformation by omission, writing.

For example, we are to believe the recent cold spell in the US and the heat wave in Australia are both examples of global warming. Yet 2013 was one of the "least extreme" weather years in US history.

It was the "least extreme" weather in US history?  What does Maurice base that on?  Not on drought records, that's for sure. Nor on flood records. And why doesn't he mention the fact that 2013 was the hottest year on record for Australia? Or that 2012 was the hottest year on record for continental USA?

Who's to blame for the lack of political will?

And then Maurice Newman has the cheek to write about "political will", saying:

Political will is also flagging. The Copenhagen summit was almost five years ago, yet there is still no global, legally binding international agreement on emission reduction targets. Only talk.

If it wasn't for loudmouth deniers like Maurice Newman, Tony Abbott and others, then political will might have done the right thing.

Shoddy Maurice Newman is unravelling

Maurice Newman is a fine one to talk about shoddy.  He writes this - note his reference to Donna Laframboise.  I mean Donna "in the dustbin" Laframboise for goodness sake!:

What we now see is the unravelling of years of shoddy science and sloppy journalism. If it wasn't for independent Murdoch newspapers around the world, the mainstream media would be almost completely captured by the IPCC establishment. That is certainly true in Australia. For six or seven years we were bullied into accepting that the IPCC's assessment reports were the climate science bible. Its chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, told us the IPCC relied solely on peer-reviewed literature. Then Murdoch papers alerted us to scientific scandals and Donna Laframboise, in her book The Delinquent Teenager, astonished us with her extraordinary revelation that of 18,000 references in the IPCC's AR4 report, one-third were not peer reviewed. Some were Greenpeace press releases, others student papers and working papers from a conference. In some chapters, the majority of references were not peer reviewed. Many lead authors were inexperienced, or linked to advocate groups like WWF and Greenpeace. Why are we not surprised?

Maurice Newman's UN Conspiracy Theory

If you were starting to think Maurice Newman is just another nutter you'd be right.  Read this bit, where he talks about the UN and a "cartel".  Oh, he mightn't be quite as obvious about it all as Tim Ball (here and here) - but all the ingredients are there, simmering away under Maurice's tin foil hat.

The IPCC was bound to be captured by the green movement. After all, it is a political body. It is not a panel of scientists but a panel of governments driven by the UN. Its sole purpose is to assess the risks of human-induced climate change. It has spawned industries. One is scientists determined to find an anthropogenic cause. Another is climate remediation. And, naturally, an industry to redistribute taxes to sustain it all. With hundreds of billions of dollars at stake, this cartel will deny all contrary evidence. Its very survival depends on it. But the tide is turning and Mother Nature has signalled her intention not to co-operate.

Maurice and his childish attacks

Finally, Maurice does a bit of concern trolling - complaining about "childish personal attacks".

In the meantime, childish personal attacks on those who point out flaws in IPCC reasoning and advice only increase scepticism. They are no substitute for empirical evidence and are well into diminishing returns. The party's over.

This is after he's labelled all the world's climate scientists (except for Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen) as being political not scientific, of doing shoddy science and of bullying.  Well, whoopy doo, Maurice.  You are the one spreading disinformation.  You are the one who is denying climate science and promulgating disinformation. You've got to expect "personal attacks" and people questioning your motives.