Quadrant article by Bob Carter, David Evans, Stewart Franks and Bill Kininmonth - how confusing

Here is a summary of the points raised by Bob Carter, David Evans, Stewart Franks and Bill Kininmonth in an articlepublished online in Quadrant yesterday (link below). I've loosely grouped the points they made into topics for clarity.  The statements are not direct quotations.  They represent a summary of the main points made by these eminent men in their short article.  I've put my added interpretation in brackets.

What they say about global temperature trends

1. The temperature is level - neither cooling nor heating.
2. The earth is cooling.
3. There has been late 20th century warming.
4. So what if 2010 was the hottest year on record?
5. The earth is not warming, or maybe it is warming (but we don't want it to be warming so it isn't).
6. The sun is quiet so it shouldn't be warming (therefore it isn't).
7. The Minister has just made it all up.
8. We don't believe any temperature record that includes the Arctic (and anyway, we don't like Dr Hansen of NASA; he's a bit of a pessimist).
9. All the thermometers are wrong.

What they say about reducing CO2 emissions

1. Even cutting CO2, it will take a long time to come out of the atmosphere, (therefore we should keep adding it instead).
2. Cutting CO2 would stop the rise in temperature and even cause it to decline slightly. (Therefore we shouldn't cut it.)
3. Increasing atmospheric CO2 is good for the environment.
4. Australia doesn't pollute any more than anywhere else with the same environmental regulations.

What they say about evidence
There is none.  Tell us, where is the empirical evidence:

• that warming is caused by CO2 emissions
• of an increase in weather disasters

What they say about terminology

• We don't like the term 'carbon pollution', (it's not nice; our friend Carbon would find it offensive).

What else they say

1. Other things have been the main cause of global warming in the past (therefore it can't be CO2 this time around).
2. It's a cycle (temperatures don't need a cause to go up and down)
3. Forty years ago, some scientists thought the world was cooling (therefore it is still cooling, even though forty years ago more scientists said it was going to warm).
4. We're not sure if global warming is a dangerous problem or not.

Summarised from this article in Quadrant.

Believe it or not, one of the authors is an active academic, two are retired academics and one was once a government employee (now a conspiracy theorist).  Will the current academic hold his job after this?  (Probably yes, unfortunately.)

Which companies will advertise on Andrew Bolt's new show on Channel 10?

How about telling the Channel 10 advertisers what you think of them supporting Andrew Bolt.

Glen Beck, infamous for spouting ultra-right wing views, has been effectively fired from Fox News. It appears that a large number of high profile advertisers pulled out, not wanting their products to be associated with his unAmerican sentiments. (You'd think the son of Lachlan Murdoch might have learnt a lesson from this.)

It will be interesting to see which companies support Andrew Bolt. So far he has been able to survive on the ABC Insider's program, which doesn't have advertising, and with a blog buried in a newspaper that has a lot of different journalists, some quite sane and rational. He has never been exposed out on his own before.

I might even watch one of his television episodes (with the volume turned off) just to see which businesses support him - and write to these advertisers letting them know what I think of their support for him and his opinions. Hopefully a few other people will do the same.