A Thorn In The Side

There have been some interesting pieces on the Autonomous Mind and EUReferendum blogs about taking positive actions to assert a degree on control in local politics. The starting point in both cases is a wish to exert direct, democratic control in opposition to the current ruling elites (both at the national and trans-national level). While it's part of established political conversation to bemoan the political apathy that is a persistent feature of the scene in this country, the establishment seeks only to address this through means which are largely symbolic and designed to further entrench it's power.

We see, for example, discussions about the central funding of political parties - as though this is anything but a means of securing the continued existence of political machines structured to protect the current system. And, as we see in Europe, central funding of political parties leads not to a renaissance of political activity in the broader population, but to increased levels of fraud, nepotism and corruption. At the same time there are suggestions that the key is to make political involvement easier - through postal voting, reducing the voting age, electronic voting etc. Again, rather than leading to greater involvement, it creates more scope for electoral fraud and serves again to entrench the current cosy system. The same goes for things like proportional representation or the alternative transferable vote - another fix that ignores the fundamental problem - our political class sits above the rest of us and treats us all as voting fodder.

Barnet Shale Bonanza

Yet another in our compare and contrast series...

This time compare the myth of 'Green Jobs' propagated by the entire political class on both sides of the Atlantic, from Obama to Cameron to the many and varied functionaries of the EU politbureau - along with their allies in the bloated NGO sector, with the reality of job creation and economic activity surrounded shale gas in the United States. Look at the Spanish experience:

The internal report of the Spanish administration admits that the price of electricity has gone up, as well as the debt, due to the extra costs of solar and wind energy. Even the government numbers indicate that each green job created costs more than 2.2 traditional jobs, as was shown in the report of the Juan de Mariana Institute

Now take a look at the report high-lighted by the Global Warming Policy Foundation:

The Barnett Shale natural gas field has generated $65.4 billion in economic activity and created more than 100,200 jobs over the 24-county area since 2001, according to a new study commissioned by the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce.

The full report can be found here: http://www.fortworthchamber.com/BarnettShaleStudy11.pdf

This should be cause for celebration in the UK. Given the scale of recent discoveries of vast shale gas deposits in the UK, we too should be looking forward to a major boost to jobs and economic activity. This really is a no-brainer. You'd have to be totally ideologically blinkered and/or have some personal financial stake in "renewables" not to see this. Not that we would suggest that David Cameron's father-in-law or Chris Huhne's wife would have much of an influence, despite their financial profit from wind farm subsidies and the like.

It's such a no-brainer in fact, that it really begs the question, yet again, of why our leaders believe what they do.

Weather Is Consistent With Climate Change

Leading scientists revealed today that weather is consistent with climate change. In a stunning vindication of climate models, the scientists have revealed that there is a very high probability that increasing CO2 is causing weather every day. In what is widely seen as a major set-back for climate change denialists, the models give clear and unambiguous results that weather will appear almost every day.

Dr Kevin Trenbeth interrupted his search for missing heat to state that: "Our model's show that weather is almost certain to happen on most days, even weekends when you'd think it was resting. Only CO2 and an atmosphere can explain this unexpected finding."

When pressed as to what type of weather the models predict, his response was clear: "What kind of weather you got?"

Whether it's hot, cold, wet, dry, snow, drought, sort of starting nice and then getting grey in the afternoon, it's all weather and so consistent with the models.

Leading researcher, Dr James Hansen, was also clear on the importance of these results. Fresh from a court appearance for trying to stop stores selling toy "death trains", Dr Hansen stated: "Look out of the window. Look now. See that weather. You did that. Think of your grandchildren. Go on, think of them. OK, you don't have grandchildren, so think of your grandparents. OK, so you've only got one. Think of someone else who has grandchildren or grandparents. Now, do you really want to inflict weather on them? Shame on you. Shame."

With these new results to hand, the IPCC will make another push for a globally binding and stringent agreement to limit CO2 production. Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC and former "death train" engineer, was in strident mood. "This is a damning indictment of the skeptic position. There is no room for voodoo science any more. We can predict that there will be weather, therefore give us the money. It's that simple."

IWCA and the riots

For a long while now it has been clear that what passes for the 'radical left' in this country have been a spent and demoralised force. The anti-cuts activity that has been organised by the unions has largely been about public sector workers protecting their special interests and have pretty much failed to mobilise other sections of the population. But this hasn't stopped the left from dusting off their old slogans and getting those anti-Thatcher badges down from the attic. The recent riots were yet more evidence of the decline of the left - who were completely side-lined by what went on and have largely chosen to ignore it as if it never happened. Compare and contrast with the riots in the 80's, which saw anarchists and other on the frontlines, but also triggered considerable organising and campaigning afterwards.

Just about the only 'left' group that seems to be doing any actual thinking is the Independent Working Class Association, which largely grew out of the Red Action side of Anti-Fascist Action. The IWCA has just posted an article on the riots entitled The Lumpen Rebellion. While I have no time for the formulaic pronouncements against 'neo-liberalism', the article is worth reading, in fact it's one of the few articles on the riots that shows any signs of having understood the forces at work during the riots.

A cloudy day for the IPCC

Anthony Watts over at Watts Up With That draws attention to a new paper that looks at the effects of cloud cover on climate. The paper (Combining satellite data and models to estimate cloud radiative effect at the surface and in the atmosphere, by Richard P. Allan and published in the journal Meteorological Applications), appears to support the Spenser and Braswell paper, which has been such an active example of 'redefining what peer review is'. Should we expect the ritual Seppuku of the journal's editor? Or will the BBC front page the story and pepper it with quotes disputing the consensus?

Perhaps they'd care to quote Anthony Watts:

The cooling effect is found to be -21 Watts per meter squared, more than 17 times the posited warming effect from a doubling of CO2 concentrations which is calculated to be ~ 1.2 Watts per meter squared.  This -21 w/m2 figure from Richard P. Allan is in good agreement with Spencer and Braswell.

For the IPCC this comes at a bad time. A successful hatchet job on Spencer and Braswell will mean that it can be safely side-lined in AR5, but what about this one? With sceptics highlighting the existence of the paper, it's not going to be possible to pretend that this new result doesn't exist.

In the rest of the news, the direct results of global warming hysteria are there for all to see. Increasing energy costs are causing pain, and so we see the despicable Chris Huhne yet again attempting to shift the blame anywhere but himself and his colleagues in the political classes.

Destroy the EU

The EU is the ultimate expression of crony capitalism. It is by nature an undemocratic body that is an alliance of unelected bureaucrats, favoured companies and bought-off NGOs. It has no natural constituency and engenders no loyalty from those of us unfortunate enough to fall under its jurisdiction. Instead it follows a single over-riding directive - to perpetuate and expands its powers. To do this it channels funds - which are derived from unwilling populations - into those projects that are most politically expedient:

• subsidies to favoured companies, NGOs, and local 'governments'
• constant encroachments on local sovereignty
• expanding the size of the central bureaucracy
• furthering of its favoured agendas (climate change, green regulation, political union)
• political cronyism (national politicians that toe the line are rewarded with well-funded EU jobs)

From the ground up it is a body that is staffed by a patrician class that believes democracy is an impediment to its grand visions and views local democracy as intrinsically suspect. It has co-opted politicians from 'left' and 'right', as if those fictions are still meaningful categories.

The recent spate of Eurosceptic maneuvering in the UK is largely a symbolic activity - more political panto, like the arguments over the 50p tax rate. It will seek to channel anger into activities that ultimately do not pose any real challenge to the EU.

The lesson is simple. The EU cannot be reformed, reworked or remade, any more than the old Soviet block could be reformed from within. The EU needs to be destroyed. It's that simple.

Just imagine if...

Just imagine if a Nobel prize-winning physicist announced he was leaving a major scientific body, (say the American Physical Society), because their stance on climate change was too sceptical. I know, you need to try really hard to do this, but just do you best to imagine that such a scientific body exists. Now, what kind of reaction would we expect to see in the mainstream media? Now this is something far easier to imagine. The BBC, for example, would elevate this to headline news. There would be quotes from other warmist scientists, our resignee would be feted as standing up for scientific truth and there would be attacks on sceptics as being neanderthal flat-earthers.

Now lets stop imaginging and turn our attention to the case of Dr. Ivar Giaever, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1973. Dr Giaever has resigned as a Fellow of the American Physical Society (full story here). In his resignation letter he states:

In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this 'warming' period.

And the response of the BBC et al? Zero, nil, zilch. Instead we are treated to routine denounciations of sceptics as being anti-science...

Update:
Compare and contrast this to the coverage of Wolfgang Wagner's resignation as editor in chief of the journal Remote Sensing...

Global Warming Education

Offspring #3 (aged 12), arrived home from school yesterday to tell us that during that day's Citizenship lesson (and yes, how we managed without that when we were at school I don't know), the teacher had been waxing lyrical about global warming. In particular the teacher had talked about those who deny the reality of what they can see with their own eyes - higher temperatures, melting ice caps etc. These deniers, the teacher said, were denying because they didn't want to change their own selfish ways of life.

Forget the fact that the teacher is an English teacher, with no apparent scientific understanding of the issue. Forget the blatant propaganda for what is at best a hypothesis - and an increasingly ropey one at that. What is interesting is the response of the kids. Nobody, not even our offspring, dared venture a contrary view.

Why not, we asked? Because nobody wanted to be seen as different. At age 12 peer pressure and the need for conformity are very powerful forces. And, in a boy's comprehensive at the rougher end of the borough, standing up to argue that AGW is an unproven hypothesis that is not accepted by every scientist in the world is a tough call. In the past our offspring have tried various tactics, including appeals to authority ('both my parents have PhDs and they don't believe in global warming, sir'), outright denial or pointing to contrary evidence ('but temperatures aren't going up, miss'). All to no avail. The objections are ignored for the most part, and most of the kids either don't care or think our children are weird.

50% Tax Rate - Political Panto

The issue of cutting (or not) the 50% tax rate is the latest episode in the political panto that passes for discourse in this country. We are led to believe that this is an ideological issue that pits 'heartless Tories' on one side, and their 'heartful LibDems' on the other, urged on, of course, by the Labour Party looking on from the side-lines. In reality it's another non-issue that obscures the reality of an entrenched consensus that likes to offer us the illusion of choice. There's more choice in Coke vs Pepsi than there is in our political class.

Rather than being an ideological issue, it ought to be one of empirical economics. The evidence shows that cutting taxes works - it increases the overall tax take. We need to do more than just cut the 50% rate, we need to cut rates across the board and to take low-income families out of the tax system completely. But that's not going to happen because that requires a decrease in the size of the state - and for all their fine words, none of our politicians believe that is a good thing. Instead we have the political theatre of arguing about the 50% rate in isolation.

You'll notice that the issue is never placed into a broader context that looks at how the public purse is pilfered by large corporates and large landowners in the guise of fighting climate change. There is no linkage to the reverse flow of money from our taxes into the pockets of those building subsidy farms across the country. Why should there be? All our politicians think this is a good thing - and it makes no difference whether this is for venal reasons or an unthinking belief in the goodness of the cause.

It would be interesting to compare the figures - the tax take from the 50% rate versus the cost money that goes into feed-in tariffs and other green taxes.

The Corporate Enemy

Richard North at his EUReferendum blog has an interesting post entitled the 'Corporate Enemy'. The direct trigger for this is an article in the New York Times reporting a speech by Sarah Palin (the reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher in the minds of our liberal media here in the UK). Dr North states:

The New York Times has it that some Palin's ideas cross the political divide, but the real issue is that the nature of the political divide has changed. We no long have the left-right divisions, or the distinction between state and free market.


What has happened, as I argue in the third of my pieces, is that the line has moved from vertical to horizontal, the upper part occupied by the political classes and the corporates – with no distinction between private and public sectors.


That is in fact, where the battle lines are now drawn, something which Palin understands. If the sensitive little souls from UKIP got over their wounded feelings and used their brains, they too might realise that. The EU is only a tiny part of the overall problem. It is one corporate amongst many.


On top of the political classes, therefore, our enemies are the corporates. The battle is to be fought with them as a whole. And that is going to need a lot more than a referendum, or any of the other ideas we've seen coming from a eurosceptic camp that seems unable to comprehend that the battle has moved on.

Obama Is Insane

There's a famous quote attributed to Albert Einstein:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

By this definition Barack Obama is insane. His stimulus packages have failed to deliver. The deficit is up. The economy is largely stalled. Unemployment refuses to budge. So what's his latest and greatest plan? More stimulus.

Why should it be different this time? What magic ingredient is there in this package that isn't in the others?

The deficit will continue to climb. Consumer confidence will continue to stagnate. Unemployment won't shift.

If he wants to boost demand then the measures are simple:

• cut taxes all round
• cut climate-related programs
• quit foreign wars
• stop supporting lame-duck banks and auto manufacturers
• just leave the economy to right itself

Mind you, Obama doesn't have a monopoly on insanity. The entire political class in Europe is infected with the same madness - witness the increasingly desperate closing of eyes and hoping for the best around saving the Euro....

Attack of the Monbions

What is it about Penn State University? Home to Michael Mann, Mr Hockey Stick, it is also home to a certain Shawn Domagal-Goldman, Astrobiologist and NASA affiliated scientist. Dr Domagal-Goldman has been speculating on how humans and extra-terrestrials might make contact in the future. In one scenario our alien neighbours are climate alarmists. They detect rising CO2 levels (presumably they have the technology to differentiate between anthropogenic emissions and natural sources such as out-gassing from the oceans), and, alarmed at our industrial civilisation they take action to wipe us out.

According to the Guardian, these scientists say:

"Green" aliens might object to the environmental damage humans have caused on Earth and wipe us out to save the planet. "These scenarios give us reason to limit our growth and reduce our impact on global ecosystems. It would be particularly important for us to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases, since atmospheric composition can be observed from other planets," the authors write.

What does this prove? It proves once and for all that people like Al Gore, Prince Charles and the like are not of this Earth. The Daily Mash has alrady jumped in with the collective terms for them: Monbions. Yep, that's what they are alright...

I love my model

In this post I want to discuss an aspect of climate change research that is not often explicitly addressed, and that is the activities of the mathematical modellers who construct the complex models which are key components of the whole IPCC process. The outputs of these models are what lead to projections of looming disaster in climate change, biodiversity, population explosions, financial meltdown and all manner of doom-laden predictions that find their way to the front pages of the popular press (and to the front pages of Nature, Science et al). Given the importance of these models, it’s worth spending some time looking in some detail at the incentives of modelling.

Firstly, I need to point out that mathematical modelling is a key part of my day job. I write complex models in the finance and IT operations industry. I can’t go into detail because these models are considered to be major parts of my employer’s intellectual property, and details are shrouded by strict non-disclosure agreements. The content of the models I design, and which I and others code, give my employer a competitive advantage that it does not want to lose. However, I can say some fairly generic statements: our models are empirical models of operational activities in different domains. Some of these models are highly complex and contain tens of thousands of input variables, hundreds of thousands of data points, are multi-dimensional, contain tens of thousands of equations and produce tens of thousands of results (not as data cubes). We use specialised modelling tools and languages. This is anything but a couple of worksheets in Excel. These models have been developed and revised over a number of years and continue to evolve to take account of changes in the business landscape. As an aside, my PhD thesis was in using machine learning to generate data validation models, so aside from the day job I have also studied and researched the topic.

Criminal Stupidity

No, not the rioting and looting, which was way beyond stupid. No, what is criminally stupid is the sentencing now being imposed on those convicted of rioting. Custodial sentences for people convicted of the most trivial of offences is ludicrous. It’s destroying lives, costs us all a fortune and doesn’t rebuild the communities that were trashed. How is this supposed to help? People are not stupid, they can compare and contrast with the derisory way politicians who filch from the public purse are treated. We’re not talking about having sympathy for those who committed acts of violence or arson, but putting people in prison for posting messages on Facebook or picking stuff up that had been looted is madness. Not only will many of these sentences be reduced on appeal (at yet more expense to the taxpayer), it will clog up the so-called justice system even more.By all means punish those convicted, but do it sensibly so that it can make a real difference, not make things worse.

The more time goes on the more I wonder about the intelligence of the political class. It’s not just suicidal policies on windfarms and climate change, it’s everywhere. The harder I try to see signs of intelligence at work, the less I find of it. Where are all the smart people in government? It’s a scary thought that the answer is that there are none.

Thank you so much...

For all those brain dead Anarchists who'll applaud any violent protest so long as it's not by racists or fascists, a big thank you. Next time you mask up for a black bloc protest, the police will beat the shit out of you. Next time you get out of hand the police will be able to call on water-cannon and baton rounds. Next time you use social media to co-ordinate an action, the police will block it or grab the records to trace the messages.

I know it's the rioters who've given the excuse to the police and our politicians who were looking to clamp down even harder on protest. The anti-terror line was getting weak recently, but now there's a new scare tactic that can be employed by statist politicians looking to take away the tiny space left to us to protest. What took hundreds of years of protest to achieve is being steadily chipped away - first in the guise of stopping Islamist terror, now in the guise of stamping out rioting.

And you, brain dead Anarchists, are there on the side-lines applauding the rioting scum who've destroyed their own neighbourhoods and who preferred to steal trainers or TVs to attacking political targets. Rioters who liked the idea of mugging people because they could rather than taking on the politicians who've screwed us all. And before you give me any of that moral equivalence bullshit - trashing and looting shops is not some anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist, anti-anything protest. It's nicking stuff because you can and you don't give a shit for the livelihoods or the jobs of the people who own or work in those shops.

Crimes, Punishments and Riots

I must admit to more than a sneaking sympathy for those who want to cut the benefits of anyone convicted of riot related crimes. It goes without saying that the majority of those who will be convicted who are currently in work won’t be in the future. There’s also probably a case for saying that the parents of anyone under the age of 13 ought to lose their benefits if their child is convicted. I know that 13 is an arbitrary cut-off, but once kids are into their teens it gets harder to keep a lid on what they get up – particularly when the entire welfare system seems to exist to give them free reign.

However, I’m also not convinced that prison is the right punishment for some of the less serious offences. It seems to me that we ought to be thinking of putting some of these kids to work – and it should be unpaid. . And this should be real work – a proper working day, no bus fares being paid, no social workers on hand to soothe the ruffled feathers of teenagers who actually have to do as they are told. It should be real work with some value, not ‘make-work’. How about repairing the damage they’ve committed. Or fixing up some of the estates that are most run down. For this to work you need to have penalties in place. For every day that you are late a day is added to the sentence. For every day that is missed you add two days. If offenders repeatedly don’t turn up then it’s automatically a custodial sentence.

As a corollary, if we’re cutting benefits from offenders, then what do we expect them to do instead? Something like this calls for some radical action. Firstly, waive minimum wage rules for them. If they have to work for less than minimum wage then that’s tough. If they stick to their jobs then they can move on to somewhere that will pay better. Secondly, we have to do something about the gang culture that is a cancer in large parts of our inner cities. I never thought I’d see the day when I’d be agreeing with Diane Abbot, but there you are. The police will have to come down really hard on the gangs. Loss of social housing, loss of benefits, custodial sentences – the full gamut of punitive options should be used. It’s gone too far already – now we need to take the opportunity to kill it off for good.

Nobody wins

Our feral politicians do not have the moral weight to criticise rioting – they are venal, corrupt and deserve our contempt. The media, immersed in navel-gazing and reporting celebrity gossip, similarly carry no moral weight. Our education system has systematically undermined the authority of parents and others. It exists to boost the ‘self esteem’ and greivance culture that exists among sections of the poor (black and white). It too has lost the authority it might once have had.


The only people who can criticise are those of us who get up and work. Those of us who want to stand on our own two feet and not to have to depend on a welfare state that seeks to make us addicted to hand-outs. Those of us, black and white, who have raised kids to know what’s right and wrong, and to make sure our kids stay on the straight and narrow. We’re the only ones who can criticise, and we need to make sure our voices are heard above that of ‘hug a hoodie’ Dave and the rest of the parasites.

Nobody has done well out of this sorry mess. Least of all those people who's lives have been destroyed by their neighbours and the criminally stupid kids in their areas. The costs of doing business in places like Tottenham, Croydon and so on will go through the roof. Shops will be boarded up and left to rot. This effects everyone in those areas, including the morons who smashed, burned and looted. In time people will complain that their communities are not being served and no doubt some will blame racism or seek some other explanation that ignores the facts of what has just gone on.

Just about the only people who win from all of this are the BNP. Who will ignore the fact that a huge number of the victims of the riots are black, Asian, Kurdish and others. They will ignore too that in some places there were as many white faces under the scarves and hoodies as black.

An intelligent voice

Internet Explorer, Intelligence and Climate Change

The recent and much-publicised story about Internet Explorer users and intelligence casts an interesting light on the parlous state of journalism in much of the mass-media. On the odd chance that you missed it the story goes as follows: a psychometrics company releases a study that looks at browser usage and IQ tests, the results show that users of Internet Explorer score significantly lower on the online IQ tests than users of other browsers, the results are picked up and trumpeted right across the world and in all the big media outlets (both in print and online), finally the study is shown to be bogus and the whole thing turns out to be a hoax. Apart from the great Daily Mash headline ‘If you're using Internet Explorer, this is called a 'website'’, is there anything especially noteworthy to report?

I think there is, and it is directly relevant to much science reporting, particularly, but not exclusively, with respect to climate change.

The hoax was not especially elaborate. It appears that it consisted of little more than a purchased domain name, a plausible looking web site and some skills in crafting a press release. The media received the press release, look at the site and then went to print. Instant headlines across the world. Cracks began to show in the story, however, when careful readers and bloggers started digging deeper. It turned out that the domain name had only been recently purchased. The web site contained images stolen from another company. Nobody could be contacted directly at the fake company. This isn’t rocket science, it’s just basic fact checking and it fell to readers and bloggers to do the job that the journalists should have done in the first place.

Climate Change In Black and White

Although this isn’t a new story, this Guardian piece on ‘conservative white males’ being more likely to be climate change sceptics  is worth discussing in a bit more detail. The conjunction of race and climate is an interesting one, combining two of the key planks of current liberal/left orthodoxy.

Firstly, Judith Curry, who is decidedly not a climate change sceptic quite rightly points out what a pitiful piece of work this as in terms of research. There appears to be no clear definition of what a ‘denialist’ is, as she states:

Because of the mounting political and economic stakes of dealing with climate change, this global environmental problem has become extremely controversial in the US, and American efforts to deal with it have provoked a significant degree of denial—both of the reality of climate change and of its status as a problem deserving amelioration.

JC comment.  The above is the first para in the paper.  It is the only place where they come close to defining climate change denial.    Do you know anyone that denies the reality of climate change?  I sure don’t.   Many people on their “denier” list probably also agree that the problem deserves some attention.  It seems that “denier” really means people that don’t support emissions targets.  This whole group of sociologists working in this area seems not to have given much thought to what actually characterizes “deniers.”

It would appear then, that in the absence of a clearly articulated definition, ‘denier’ is essentially a short-hand way of saying people who we disagree with. Note that there is not even an attempt to outline a set of criteria against which we might be able to assess degrees of agreement or disagreement. It’s all or nothing, completely binary thinking that does not allow room for manoeuvre (see the post on the Climate Quadrant on one possible approach to classifying a wider range of views on the subject). Indeed, one has to wonder whether Dr Curry herself wouldn’t qualify as a ‘denier’ as far as many people on the left are concerned – because despite her adherence to the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis she is critical of the idea of a climate change ‘consensus’, of the practices of some of her colleagues (particularly in the light of Climategate), and of the conduct of the IPCC.