Congrats to John Cook of SkepticalScience.com

Congratulations, John, on winning a Eureka prize. Well done and very well deserved.

Send him your best wishes, everyone.

Cadel Evans - You're the Winner of le Tour de France - You bloody beauty!

Cadel Evans - a heart bigger than Pharlap!


You are brilliant! First Australian Winner of le Tour de France.

Congratulations!!!!!

Building on the shoulders of Oppie and the great Phil Anderson, championsRobby McEwen and Stuart O'Grady, cyclists Brad McGee, brilliant Mark Renshaw and all the other great Australians - more here.

And congrats as well to Richie Porte from Tasmania Australia = great ride.

Now for the champion - Cadel Evans - formerly from the Northern Territory now a fellow Victorian.

With congratulations from mountain bike country - the beautiful Mount Beauty Victoria.

BBC to improve science reporting

The BBC is going to improve its reporting on science, following a "review of impartiality and accuracy of the BBC's coverage of science" - as reported in The Guardian:

The BBC is to revamp its science coverage after an independent review highlighted weaknesses and concluded that journalists boosted the apparent controversy of scientific news stories such as climate change, GM crops and the MMR vaccine by giving too much weight to fringe scientific viewpoints.

The wide-ranging review found the network's science reporting was generally of high quality, and praised the BBC for its breadth, depth and accuracy, but urged the broadcaster to tackle several areas of concern.

Commissioned last year to assess impartiality and accuracy in BBC science coverage across television, radio and the internet, the review said the network was at times so determined to be impartial that it put fringe views on a par with well-established fact: a strategy that made some scientific debates appear more controversial than they were.

The criticism was particularly relevant to stories on issues such as global warming, GM and the MMR vaccine, where minority views were sometimes given equal weighting to broad scientific consensus, creating what the report describes as "false balance".

The review comprised an independent report by Professor Steve Jones, emeritus professor of genetics at University College London, and an in-depth analysis by researchers at Imperial College London of science coverage across the BBC in May, June and July of 2009 and 2010.

In his report, Jones lamented the narrow range of sources that reporters used for stories, poor communication between journalists in different parts of the organisation, and a lack of knowledge of the breadth of science.

"The most important aspect is a vote of confidence in what BBC science is doing. It is head and shoulders above other broadcasters. As always, though, there is a but," Jones told reporters on Wednesday.

Jones likened the BBC's approach to oppositional debates to asking a mathematician and maverick biologist what two plus two equals. When the mathematician says four and the maverick says five, the public are left to conclude the answer is somewhere in between.

The report will disappoint some climate change sceptics who hoped it would find the BBC at fault for promoting a green agenda. "There is a consensus in the scientific community that anthropogenic climate change exists," Jones said. By failing to move the debate on, the BBC was missing other stories, he added.

Another bit of fluff from political denier & campaigner for devastation by climate, Bob Carter

The Sydney Morning Herald today printed another bit of fluff from the political denier and campaigner for devastation by climate, Bob Carter. It was a response to an article by Australia's Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb. Let's hope SMH will now provide 'balance' by making sure the next 99,999 articles it publishes on climate are from climate scientists. (My comments are in dark blue and italics.)

Carter starts with a reference to the editor's lead in to Professor Chubb's article:

IAN CHUBB says the climate change debate is not about politics but science. Would that it were so.

The lead in was wrong - editors seem to get stuff wrong often. This the only time Ian Chubb mentioned debate:

Is the debate, or critique, confined to experts? No. But if ''non-experts'' want to be part of the debate, they have a responsibility to respect the science that has led to the knowledge that we have at hand. In order to make a considered intervention, they need to understand the scientific process and the robust contest of ideas and interpretations that are part and parcel of civil scientific inquiry and which lead us to where we are.

There is no place for deliberate misrepresentation of data either by expert or by commentator. It is easy to make a dollar or two by being the instant expert on everything and substituting decibels for substance.

If only Carter took heed of Chubb's words, particularly the part about misrepresentation and substitution of decibels for substance. But he doesn't, so Carter continues:

But it is not that simple, for there really are two matters at hand, namely the science relevant to global warming and the principle of sound empiricism and calm rational thought to determine important affairs of state (politics).

Alas, in the public debate about global warming, these principles of sound science and sound governance have become entwined with political self-interest by well-funded lobby groups of both the ''save the world'' and ''let's make money'' variety. How's the IPA going for funding these days, Bob?

First, the science. The scientific method is a brilliantly successful technique for discovering, understanding and managing the world around us, born out of the fire of the European Enlightenment. Don't you just love his poetic turn of phrase :)

Sound science is based upon observation, experiment and the testing of hypotheses in the context of the principle of simplicity (often termed Occam's Razor). Simple is nice but the world isn't always simple, is it.

Carter then moves into areas about which he knows zilch and understands less:

The unvalidated computer models that now dominate the public face of climate ''science'' are a jungle of complexities, and represent speculative thought experiments not empirically tested science.

The above statement is completely false, whether he is discussing complex general circulation models or simpler models to calculate global temperature. The former are based on known physics, not speculation and thought experiments. The latter are based upon measured temperature observations. Models can be simple or complex. They are not 'thought experiments' - at least not in climate science.

In support of these methods, the former director of the British Meteorological Office, Professor John Mitchell, has said that ''people underestimate the power of models. Observational evidence is not very useful … Our approach is not entirely empirical''.

I tried to track down this 'quote'. It seems to have originated in a report of a session held in May as viewed through the eyes of a journalist. I did a search and the quote has flown around all the denier website with the usual lightning speed and is roundly misunderstood by all. It is a snippet of a quote, not necessarily accurate, and with no context. Given the source it is not clear a) whether or not it is accurate, or b) to what Prof Mitchell was referring. In any case, the emphasis appears to be on the power of models - which to most people would be self-evident. Maybe Carter is still using pen and paper for everything.

Carter himself misunderstands it and emphasises the - well I don't know what he is referring to in this bit. Maybe someone else can help me out here.

The last part of this statement is only too true, and leads to the discomfit expressed by those such as the British engineering professor John Brignell: ''The ease with which a glib algorithm can be implemented with a few lines of computer code, and the difficulty of understanding its implications, can pave the path to cloud-cuckoo land.'' What is Carter on about? Anyone?

From this point on Carter shows how little he knows about ordinary science that any high school student should understand, and most primary school students should probably know:

Climate science is not primarily about modelling, albeit a powerful tool, but about testing hypotheses against key empirical facts, including:

• Atmospheric carbon dioxide is a mild greenhouse gas that exerts a diminishing warming effect as its concentration increases; True that the effect diminishes as concentration increases - it's a logarithmic relationship. Not true that 'it's a mild greenhouse gas'. CO2 is known as earth's thermostat. Dial it up and the temperature goes up and causes all sorts of other responses to make the temperature go up even more. Dial it down and the temperature drops, and water condenses and all sorts of other responses that cause the temperature to drop even more. CO2 is not mild, it is very powerful.
• We live in a carbon dioxide-starved world (levels 15 times higher having been reached about 500 million years ago and diminishing since); Patently false. If the world was starved for CO2 why are we alive and how did the earth survive for the last few million years?
• Carbon dioxide is a vital plant fertiliser; and the point is? (So is nitrogen, phosphorus and a number of other nutrients.)
• The world warmed in the earlier and latter parts of the 20th century; True and
• The world has cooled slightly over the past 10 years despite a 5 per cent increase in carbon dioxide.False: 2010 was the equal hottest year on record and the temperature trend continues to rise. The 2000s were hotter than the 1990s, which were hotter than the 1980s, which were hotter than the 1970s, which were hotter than the 1960s.

These facts are consistent with the conclusion that enhanced levels of carbon dioxide are good for the environment , and do not cause dangerous global warming. Wrong again. First they are not facts, and second even were they facts they are not sufficient to prove what is contended. The biggest risks are from the rapid pace of accumulation of greenhouse gases. We just don't have time to adapt. The weather this past decade has caused the loss of many lives, shifts of climate, loss of biodiversity. The oceans are rapidly warming and acidifying. It is all happening much too quickly and will be devastating if we don't stop it.

Professor Chubb claims: ''Ross Garnaut has summarised the state of climate science in his recent report.'' But what Professor Garnaut in fact summarised were the official findings of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an undeniably political body. Professor Garnaut also said that IPCC views are supported ''by the learned academies of science [all disciplines] in all of the countries of scientific accomplishment''. Which invites the obvious response, ''Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?''

The IPCC is an independent non-political organisation. Carter is talking through his hat.

The ''IPCC and most academies'' line is, of course, the argument from consensus, which raises the question: When did you last hear a scientist say ''there is a consensus that the sun will rise tomorrow''?

Is Bob Carter questioning whether the sun will rise tomorrow or is he saying there is no scientific consensus that the sun will rise tomorrow?

Never, of course, for the very use of the phrase ''consensus'' in science tells you that a matter is not settled. Global warming science is not just unsettled but profoundly uncertain and controversial.

Aah - he's trying on a 'gotcha'. I wonder how Carter goes with the evolution 'debate' in the good old USA?

Consensus is a political, not scientific, concept. As Michael Crichton wrote: ''There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.''

Now he is quoting a writer of popular fiction (and climate change denier), who, despite studying biological anthropology and medicine, reportedly believed people created their own illnesses, had astral spirits and other nonsense. So if there is consensus there isn't science. Okay, there goes gravity, relativity, genetics etc etc down the tube. We've got to start all over again from, maybe, Aristotle?

Returning to real science, Professor Chubb said that when ''science is conducted properly, and interpreted after extensive, and critical, analysis, knowledge and understanding is increased and improved. We shift [our views] or confirm what we think.''

Quite so, and nothing about consensus there. But the problem remains of improper science, which is now widespread. Oh?

In particular, the IPCC - which was set up to advise only on the climatic effect of human greenhouse emissions - has shown repeatedly that it is not in the business of shifting its beliefs, whatever the evidence; instead, facts contrary to its convictions are either ignored or neutralised by adjusting the models.

For example, the sun recently entered a quietude unknown since the Little Ice Age. Accompanying this, planetary warming has ceased despite still increasing carbon dioxide emissions. Some solar physicists have issued warnings that strong cooling may be imminent.

I see. Because neither the evidence nor the physics suggests that the world is or should be cooling like 'some solar physicists' think it should - then the evidence and the physics must be wrong? But the world isn't cooling is it, and not showing any signs that it's going to do so. So where does Carter get his odd ideas? Even if the sun were to go very quiet, like a Grand Minimum, it would hardly make a dent in the medium term rise in temperature.

Has the IPCC revised any of its views as a result? Fat chance.

Carter doesn't understand how the IPCC operates. He seems to think there is an organisation that writes reports independently of the latest scientific papers and observations. He doesn't realise that what it is is a coordinating body which, though lots of volunteer effort from experts all over the world, pulls together the latest knowledge based on scientific papers (WG1) and other information (the other working groups).

Professor Chubb also points out the impossibility of waiting for certainty (Godot arrives more quickly) before setting climate policy, and the need for insurance against climate change, two points with which I entirely agree. I doubt Prof Chubb cares tuppence for what Carter thinks.

Good governance on scientific issues is based on the twin principles of prudence and do no harm, especially to society's most disadvantaged. Everything that we know about climate change tells us that it is both dangerous and uncertain. The appropriate insurance is a national policy based on preparing for and adapting to all climate events as and when they happen, irrespective of their cause.

Sounds good, doesn't it. But then Carter contradicts himself:

If, instead, political pressure from lobby groups defeats contestable scientific advice, then Australia will get a swingeingly (sic) expensive, regressive and environmentally ineffectual carbon dioxide tax - and live to regret it.

Carter just said to prepare and take action, now he says don't take action. What gives? We will never know, because that's where the article ends.


Professor Bob Carter is a geologist, a fellow of the Institute of Public Affairs and author of the book, Climate: The Counter Consensus. Which means he is a denier of the first order, not a climate scientist, and aligned with the political right wing.

Addendum: For an excellent critique of Bob Carter's recent 'presentations' and the misinterpretations and misreprentations and disinformation he provides as charts - Click here for a post from Tamino on Open Mind

Canadian Tar Sands Means Game Over - Silence is Deadly

James Hansen writes that exploitation of the Canadian tar sands could be catastrophic. He writes:

...Although there are multiple objections to tar sands development and the pipeline, including destruction of the environment in Canada and the likelihood of spills along the pipeline's pathway, such objections, by themselves, are very unlikely to stop the project. An overwhelming objection is that exploitation of tar sands would make it implausible to stabilize climate and avoid disastrous global climate impacts. The tar sands are estimated (e.g., see IPCC AR4 WG3 report) to contain at least 400 GtC (equivalent to about 200 ppm CO2). Easily available reserves of conventional oil and gas are enough to take atmospheric CO2 well above 400 ppm. However, if emissions from coal are phased out over the next few decades and if unconventional fossil fuels are left in the ground, it is conceivable to stabilize climate. Phase out of emissions from coal is itself an enormous challenge. However, if the tar sands are thrown into the mix it is essentially game over. There is no practical way to capture the CO2 emitted while burning oil, which is used principally in vehicles....

The Critical Decade

Yesterday, Australia's Climate Commission released a new report with important messages:

The following points highlight the key messages arising from the accompanying report The Critical Decade:

1. There is no doubt that the climate is changing. The evidence is overwhelming and clear.

• The atmosphere is warming, the ocean is warming, ice is being lost from glaciers and ice caps and sea levels are rising. The biological world is changing in response to a warming world.
• Global surface temperature is rising fast; the last decade was the hottest on record.

2. We are already seeing the social, economic and environmental impacts of a changing climate.

• With less than 1 degree of warming globally the impacts are already being felt in Australia.
• In the last 50 years the number of record hot days in Australia has more than doubled. This has increased the risk of heatwaves and associated deaths, as well as extreme bush fire weather in South Eastern and South Western Australia.
• Sea level has risen by 20 cm globally since the late 1800s, impacting many coastal communities. Another 20 cm increase by 2050, which is likely at current projections, would more than double the risk of coastal flooding.
• The Great Barrier Reef has suffered from nine bleaching events in the past 31 years. This iconic natural ecosystem, and the economy that depends upon it, face serious risks from climate change.

3. Human activities – the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation – are triggering the changes we are witnessing in the global climate.

• A very large body of observations, experiments, analyses, and physical theory points to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere - with carbon dioxide being the most important - as the primary cause of the observed warming.
• Increasing carbon dioxide emissions are primarily produced by the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, as well as deforestation.
• Natural factors, like changes in the Earth’s orbit or solar activity, cannot explain the world-wide warming trend.

4. This is the critical decade. Decisions we make from now to 2020 will determine the severity of climate change our children and grandchildren experience.

• Without strong and rapid action there is a significant risk that climate change will undermine our society’s prosperity, health, stability and way of life.
• To minimise this risk, we must decarbonise our economy and move to clean energy sources by 2050.
• That means carbon emissions must peak within the next few years and then strongly decline.
• The longer we wait to start reducing carbon emissions, the more difficult and costly those reductions become.
• This decade is critical. Unless effective action is taken, the global climate may be so irreversibly altered we will struggle to maintain our present way of life. The choices we make this decade will shape the long-term climate future for our children and grandchildren.

Murray Darling Plan turning into a fiasco, with the Wentworth Group of Scientists leaving the process

Late last year the then Chair of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, Mr Mike Taylor, quit because the Government made demands that were not only in conflict with the Water Act but were impossible to achieve.

Now the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists have left the process on the grounds that the plan is proposing to let the river die by not ensuring sufficient flow. (A paper on the Murray-Darling by the Wentworth Group can be found here.)

A group of leading scientists contributing to the development of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority's (MDBA) plan has pulled out of the process, calling the plan to fix the ailing river system seriously flawed.

The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists says it can not be part of a plan which it says will fail to fix the river system but waste billions of taxpayer dollars.

The group says no less than 4,000 gigalitres must be returned to the Murray-Darling river system in order to fix it, but says it appears that will not happen under the draft plan so it has resigned from the process.

"There's no point in us being part of a process if the process is fundamentally flawed, and unless there is an independent review of the science then we believe it is a fundamentally flawed process," Wentworth member Peter Cosier said.

The group says the MDBA is now aiming to return less than 3,000 gigalitres to the system following angry protests by irrigators when the initial figures and cuts to water entitlements were released last year.

More on the ABC website.