Thursday, October 27, 2011

Cardinal spots the green sins against reason

Cardinal George Pell can recognise a religious movement when he sees one:


The complacent appeal to scientific consensus is simply one more appeal to authority, quite inappropriate in science or philosophy...Claims of atmospheric warming often appear to conflict and depend upon the period of time under consideration. 
- The earth has cooled during the past 10,000 years since the Holocene climate optimum. 
- The earth has cooled since 1000 years ago, not yet achieving the temperatures of the Medieval Warm Period. 
- The earth has warmed since 400 years ago after the Little Ice Age three centuries ago. 
- The earth warmed between 1979 and 1998 and has cooled slightly since 2001.

The following facts are additional reasons for scepticism. 
- In many places, most of the 11,700 years since the end of the last ice age were warmer than the present by up to 2C. 
- Between 1695 and 1730, the temperature in England rose by 2.2C. That rapid warming, unparalleled since, occurred long before the Industrial Revolution. 
- From 1976 to 2001, “the global warming rate was 0.16C per decade”, as it was from 1860 to 1880 and again from 1910 to 1940
My suspicions have been deepened through the years by the climate movement’s totalitarian approach to opposing views. Those secure in their explanations do not need to be abusive
The term “climate change denier”, however expedient as an insult or propaganda weapon, with its deliberate overtones of comparison with Holocaust denial, is not a useful description of any significant participant in the discussion



   

Monday, October 24, 2011

No comment

The thought of anonymity makes Andrew (57) nervous. "As an intern you can easily ask for help, but as a journalist, I feel I should be constantly dog whistling to attract attention" 
Mastering life on the Right is just one more of life’s hurdles for Andrew. His story is incredible. 
Andrew was born in Singleton and grew up in a housing commission place in Stockton. His white mother struggled with five children and life was difficult at best. When he was 15, Andrew left home and put himself through the rest of high school, the only child in his family to do so. He didn’t get a great finishing mark - struggling to get his facts right at exam time - but when a friend suggested he pretend to be a white middle class male he agreed and was encouraged to start blogging. When people actually read his inflammatory copy, Andrew says “I nearly fell out of bed.” 
Andrew was admitted to journalism after pretending to be part of the old boys program. He went to Southbank from 8am until 9am and then worked on radio until 9.30 am to make ends meet. In his first year he became engaged and had to cope with learning opera as well.
Andrew is now deciding between climate change denialism or racial profiling as his specialty.

(No comment for legal reasons)

Friday, September 30, 2011

Why can't I be free to speak?

I am the son of journalist parents who came to Australia the year before I was born.

For a long time, I have felt like an outsider here, not least because my family moved around so very often.

You know how it is when you feel you don’t fit in. You look for other identities, other groups, like climate change deniers, to give you a sense of belonging, and perhaps some status.

So for a while I considered myself a Journalist, and even worked for a newspaper.

Later I realised how affected that was, and how I was borrowing a group identity rather than asserting my own. Andrew Clot’s.

So I chose to refer to myself as a defender of  free speech, as one of the many on the Right who claim that any criticism or inconvenient fact checking of our claims is an attack on our freedom of speech.

Yet even now I fret about how my free speech is being silenced here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

So that’s the background to the calamity that hit me yesterday.

That’s why I believe we can choose and even renounce facts, because I have done that myself.



Tuesday, August 30, 2011

No politics


No politics until further notice. Principles to selectively weigh up. Petulance to maintain. Self-righteousness to keep. Sorry..



UPDATE

After discussions, I now feel free to slander without reference to accuracy. So I shall. In tomorrow’s column. I apologise for the conceit, but I wanted to feign indignation before matters had been resolved. I had to be churlish with my employer and to my readers, and I apologise if you think I’ve had the balance wrong over the past 10 years.

Thank you to everyone who has telegraphed, rung, faxed, offered their children or commented on this post, here and on radio.


 

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Where is the sea level rise?

Many readers have sent me this graph from Nils-Axel Mörner completely debunking the warmist meme that sea levels are rising;







Reader Professor Bob tells me you won't find this graph anywhere in the IPCC reports - or indeed any graph "back tilted to its uncorrected original". Once more it is left to the professionalism of climate skeptics to provide the public with unbiased data and analysis. 



Sunday, August 14, 2011

Cameron's announcement on crime expert

British prime minister David Cameron's decision to appoint a US street crime expert as an adviser after recent riots is a "slap in the face", a police body said on Saturday:







William Bratton, credited with curbing street crime as police chief in New York, Los Angeles and Boston, said he would help the British government develop strategies on dealing with widespread rioting and gang culture. 
The move comes after hooligans, arsonists and looters seemingly took control of streets with ease in parts of England's major cities during four days of riots. 
But a leader of the Greater Manchester Police Federation, which represents police interests', said Britain did not need somebody "who lives 5,000 miles away", and said the police had the situation under control.