All the current 'green' energy solutions are local and cannot provide for industrial level society base-load. For that you need nukes, coal, maybe gas, big hydro

Nearly all current renewable operations require heavy subsidisation from the taxpayer or consumer - Germany's pathetic energy policy for instance requires subsidies that are so onerous that their consumers pay more in subsidies for their electricity than American consumers pay in total - that's socialism

Anyone should be allowed to build any power system that they want - as long as they don't take one cent of taxpayers or consumers money. The exception to this is nuclear as this fantastic base-load sources requires massive cost and their are national security implications

Just to point out that unsubsidised solar is now cost competitive with coal - and that coal & gas are subsidised to the tune of $4bn every year via spending and tax breaks.

Australian coal, oil and gas companies receive $4b in subsidies: report - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Mega $1 billion Darling Downs solar farm approved

Ha! See post #5!

This is a great step though.


S

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What I find really interesting is the psychology of the denial faction.

I can understand - obviously not agree with - the fossil fuel industries putting hundreds of millions into faux institutions that employ scientists to rubbish the work of the vast majority of *relevant* scientists, and to plant the seeds of doubt. (Read Oreske's book on how the tobacco industry realised it couldn't deny the evidence on smoking and diseases, so spent millions just planting doubt about science, same with acid rain, same with the ozone depletion and same with CO2. Several of the tame scientists were involved with all these doubt-placing campaigns.)

I can understand the average Joe being unable to follow the physics, maths, statistics, chemistry, etc etc - climatology is probably the most complex science of all - but what I cannot comprehend is the sheer vitriol and ad hominen attacks that come from such a large number of them, and the way they invariably change the subject whenever any of their propositions are shown to be false.

Booker is one of those that consistently picks up incorrect (to put it mildly) information from other non-scientists and promotes it to his coterie.

As for the "falsifying" of temperature measurements, a couple of minutes on google will show his lack of understanding.

Temperature measurements go back almost to the industrial revolution, and until recently were never intended to be used for anything but contemporary forecasting. Climatology requires extremely precise measurements over long periods, since trends are what is being investigated. Over decades instruments are changed, locations are moved, urban areas encroach, methods of measurement alter and even the time of day of readings are moved. Any science that ignored all this would be junk. So various methods are used to put all the decades of readings into the same framework. In the case of Patagonia (St Christopher's chosen "fraud" case) there were several abrupt changes in the averages - and these coincided, when researched, with changes in instrumentation and methodology of the Patagonian met office. All sorts of statistical methods, and comparisons with other local sites were used to bring the measurements into a common framework. In some cases the resulting trends were downwards (not mentioned by St Christopher) and in many cases upwards.

Over the years he has written large numbers of junk science articles: each and every one is shown to be fabrication or mistaken but no matter - the debunking is ignored and he just moves on to the next one.

He constantly bangs on about the "global conspiracy", but never comes up with even a single morsel of evidence, nor explains how thousands of scientists in every country working in literally dozens of specialisms, and every single scientific institution such as the RS, could organise - and keep secret - a fraudulent conspiracy through half a century.

Now THAT would be a scoop!

Indeed. Missed that one post.

Thanks for the Booker link: it sums the man (robot?) up perfectly!

I hadn't seen it - I don't read the grauniad - but the DT (which I do read online) is getting more and more like a poor copy of the News of the World/Sun by the day and St Christopher is like a Page Three to his accolytes.

Ever since the Barclay brothers bought it out The Daily Telegraph has been on a long decline from right-leaning quality broadsheet to The Daily Mail for people who send their children to a private school.

From memory if the web editions are to base it on, all the broadsheet papers in the UK have gone slightly tabloid - it's all Top 10 reasons to go to Glynebourne, Where to get Strawberries at Wimbledon etc...it started about 10 years ago when the papers did actually go tabloid of course...in size.

The Daily Mail has gone from a very curious paper to Hello magazine (online anyhow).

Wol, when I was a child we got the Times - as in my parent's view, it had letters from people who they thought actually had some influence.
We did occasionally get the Telegraph, and actually, I didn't mind it. I read it online for years as it was free.

Calm down - there is debate about measurement of data right now at the BoM. Some people will tell you the methods they used are fine, others will disagree. If people start changing data it makes things interesting. I didn't say anyone was denying climate change.

Got a citation for that 'debate about measurement of data' within Bom at this moment?

The Daily Telegraph starting to go really downhill when Bill Deedes died. I only read the The Independent or The Times these days if I can help it.

Garry, I'm a lazy poster so even if I had one, I'd let someone else post it.
It was reported last year in the press and there were some editorials in the national press. A mate of mine works there at the Bom - might ask him about it. He spends alot of his time stuffing around with data within their models.

As far as I am concerned, measurement is key. If we start changing past data then it muddies the empirical data and doesn't help the debate.
I am not a scientist Garry and happily defer to you on this one.

first one out of google

http://theconversation.com/no-the-bu...her-data-31009

http://joannenova.com.au/2014/08/hid...nd-to-warming/

A very timely BBC article on the subject.

BBC News - Who are the Barclay brothers?

Badge: Here's just one explanation of (a) why and (b) how temperatures are adjusted in the records:

Kevin Cowtan Debunks Christopher Booker's Temperature Conspiracy Theory

Basically, historical measurements were never intended to be used for other than daily records. And also the instruments, times od day, procedures, were sometimes changed over the decades. It would be junk science to use the unaltered figures as a TREND since calibration might not be done for example when the method was changed.

The video is explicit on how the alterations are made and as importantly, verified against surrounding stations. Also how a bit of detective work discovers the "blips" correspond to instrumentation/ procedural changes.