Make a Difference
Astronomers have discovered a planetary system containing at least five planets that orbit a star called HD 10180, which is much like our own Sun.
The star is 127 light years away, in the southern constellation of Hydrus.
The researchers used the European Southern Observatory (Eso) to monitor light emitted from the system and identify and characterise the planets.
They say this is the “richest” system of exoplanets – planets outside our own Solar System – ever found.
This is worrying.
Reason magazine reports an investigation of South Carolina’s state forensic science lab has found that:
.. though the crime lab’s results were presented to juries with the authoritativeness of science, laboratory procedures were geared toward just one outcome: putting as many people in prison as possible..
The report found that SBI agents withheld exculpatory evidence or distorted evidence in more than 230 cases over a 16-year period. Three of those cases resulted in execution. There was widespread lying, corruption, and pressure from prosecutors and other law enforcement officials on crime lab analysts to produce results that would help secure convictions.
The article raises questions about whether it is even possible for state crimes labs which work with prosecutors to be impartial.
I was reminded as I read that article of an aquaintance of mine, Henry Keogh. Henry was found guilty of the murder of his fiance, and in 1996 was sentenced to 26 years in goal . I have spoken with Henry in goal a number of times.
His conviction was based almost entirely on the evidence of now discredited chief forensic pathologist Colin Manock.
Despite this, he is now in his fifteenth year in goal for a crime it can no longer even remotely be claimed ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ he committed .
Incidentally, Henry Keogh is also quite an accomplished artist:
Beggar by Henry Keogh
I find these guys annoying. There is far too much pointless swearing – it’s intrusive and sometimes offensive. So you couldn’t show this a to a group of students, or your Rotary Club, which is a pity. And Penn and Teller are often arrogant and sometimes wrong.
But there is enough good research and good argument in this episode to make it worth watching (the three video segments linked below make up a single half-hour episode).
Best line? About halfway through the second segment, when Penn says ‘Ahh.. subsidies. That’s when the government takes tax money from you by force, and spends it on something you wouldn’t be willing to pay for..’ ‘Governments tell you to recycle because it saves money and resources. But if it saved money and resources, you’d be paid for doing it – that’s the way money works.’
Instead of which, of course, recycling costs governments and local communities millions of dollars each year ($8 billion per year in the US), precisely because it costs energy and resources.
The argument that recycling creates jobs is also well handled. Jobs created by recycling programs are pointless ‘make work’ which have to be funded by additional fees and taxes which reduce cash flow and consequently reduce funds available to employ people in work that creates useful goods or services.
Enjoy!
I believe there is genetic influence on human behaviour. Call it human nature if you like.
In between theology and philosophy I had time for a little bit of science. One of the units I took was Sociobiology – a branch of population genetics devoted to understanding genetic influence on animal behaviour. There is no doubt this is real and that certain behaviours are ‘inbuilt’ in certain species, eg dogs turning around before lying down to sleep, bees dancing messages, etc.
But I have been amused by the frequent media claims that scientists have discovered a gene for, take your pick, being fat, being gay, being an alcoholic, being outgoing. There is no one gene that accounts for any human behaviour, and in any case, one of the things that makes us human is that we can stand back from our instincts and make choices based on reason.
Too often the ‘it’s my genes’ argument has been used to justify a refusal to take responsibility. I didn’t choose to want to do that. So it must be in my genes. So it must be natural. So it must be good. So you have no right to criticise me for what I do. Or even, this is part of who I am, so it must be part of God’s plan for who I am, so you should support me and celebrate my gayness, laziness, whatever it is.
So I enjoyed this post on Maggie’s Farm. A collection of news headlines from the last three about the latest fat gene, friendly gene, bad driving gene.
Here are a couple:
Fat Gene
Lonely Gene
Sleep Gene
One of the things this demonstrates is how easily, if it makes good headlines, a mere suggestion by a group of scientists can suddenly become ‘settled science.’
From James Delingpole at the UK Telegraph:
One of the great lies told us by our political leaders in order to persuade us to accept their swingeing and pointless green taxes and their economically suicidal, environmentally vandalistic wind-farm building programmes is that if we don’t do it China will. Apparently, just waiting to be grabbed out there are these glittering, golden prizes marked “Green jobs” and “Green technologies” – and if only we can get there before those scary, mysterious Chinese do, well, maybe the West will enjoy just a few more years of economic hegemony before the BRICs nations thwack us into the long grass.
This is, of course, utter nonsense. The Chinese do not remotely believe in the myth of Man-Made Global Warming nor in the efficacy of “alternative energy”. Why should they? It’s not as if there is any evidence for it.
There is much more. And it is all interesting.
China, after all, is the world’s future dominant economic power and, this being so, it makes an absolute nonsense of attempts by the EU and the US to hamper our industrial growth by imposing on our economies eco-taxes and eco-regulations which the Chinese intend to ignore completely.
This truth hasn’t hit home yet: not in the EU; not in the Cleggeron Coalition; not in Obama’s USA. Here’s my bet. The first to see sense on this will be whichever Republican administration takes over from Obama’s one-term presidency in 2012. From that point on – by which time we’ll have had two more exceptionally cold winters to concentrate our minds – British and European environmental policy will look increasingly foolish and irrelevant.
And so will Australian Labor or Greens environmental policy, along with any compromise carbon deals by the Liberals.
A big group of scientists whose funding depends on continuing to scare people about climate change have produced a report saying climate change is scary.
This is news, apparently.
Older news is that Phil Jones still can’t find the data on which much of the warming warnings were based.
But Phil and the other scary scientists still insist the similar warming from 1975 to 1995 must, absolutely, really, have been caused by human activity and nothing else.
So please keep giving them billions of dollars or otherwise really horrible things will happen, like maybe Greenland being green again, and being able to grow grapes in Britain.
Right. Sure.
Computer gaming and Facebook cause rickets.
Well, no.
There seems to be a a widespread rise in vitamin D deficiency. This could be a lack of sun or shortcomings in diet.
It is a long stretch to say that gaming or Facebook are responsible, expecially when rickets usually starts to appear before age two. Most online gamers and Facebook users are a little older than this.
Even in very young children vitamin D deficiency can be caused by lack of sun as well as diet. But if computer games are not to blame, what is?
Last night I saw on TV a terrifying ad that showed a young man at a beach. As soon as he took his shirt off, deadly rays from the sun struck his skin. As the rays penetrated inside, one skin cell turned black and then began taking over other cells and turing them black. A stern voice said something like ‘A tan is your body’s way of protecting your skin against cancer. There is nothing healthy about a tan.’
This was a government sponsored announcement to warn people that even the smallest amount of exposure to the sun will give you melanoma and kill you. You never know, so it is better to wear a burqa every time you go outside.
That was the message I got, anyway. And incidentally, vitamin D deficiency is a major problem for women in Saudi Arabia.
No wonder people are scared to go outside without ‘slip,slop,slapping’ themselves or their children to the point that not one bit of ultra-violet gets through. As a consequence of which the body cannot manufacture any vitamin D.
Half the advice given by doctors and scientists is wrong and should be ignored.
The problem is working out which half.
According to Monday’s Australian:
The peak UN body in climate change has been dealt another humiliating blow to its credibility after it was revealed a central claim of one of its benchmark reports – that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 because of global warming – was based on a ‘speculative’ claim by an obscure Indian scientist.
The 2007 IPCC report included a claim made several years earlier in New Scientist by Syed Hasnain.
Hasnain’s claim was not subjected to any checks. The IPCC did not refer to any other glaciologists before publishing it, nor did they talk to Hasnain.
At the beginning of this year Hasnain admitted the claim was an off the cuff remark made in a telephone interview, and that it was not based on any research.
Nonetheless, Hasnian’s off the cuff remark became a central plank of the IUPCC’s 2007 report. The chief writer of the relevant section, Professor Lal, followed the WWF, which had picked up the original New Scientist story, in claiming the predicted glacier melt was ‘very likely.’ In IPCC parlance, that means a likelihood of greater than 90%.
All this on the basis of no research whatever.
Glaciologists including Julian Dowdeswell of Cambridge University say the claim is inherently ludicrous – no possible level of warming could result in that level of melting – and asked how such an egregious error could have appeared in the report. Professor Lal has admitted he knows nothing about glaciers.
Like Rupert Wyndham at Climaterealists, I have had some clashes with senior clergy over social issues including climate change.
However, I don’t think I have ever written to an archbishop in tones quite like this:
And, dare it be said, for those such as yourself, in the vanguard of so called “faith communities”, who arrogate to themselves the role of moral leadership, this gives rise to serious questions, does it not? Indeed, in many ways, “Climategate” is less about the “science” – which anyway is garbage – than it is about the integrity of the scientific process, an issue of immensely greater ethical significance for all who value truth as well as democratic accountability. AGW science has been exposed as a fraud, by far the gravest in the entire history of science. The AGW hypothesis itself is no better than a glib and distorted misrepresentation of a 100 year old speculation relating to the so-called Greenhouse Effect allied to invented evidence concocted within the guts of a computer by individuals with a predetermined agenda coupled with huge personal vested interests – financial and otherwise …
That, of course, leaves you in a quandary, does it not? Either you repudiate this ethical obscenity and, in a spirit of Christian repentance, exercise moral authority or you continue to promote it and abrogate moral auhority. Although religious leaders often seem to find the concept seductive, what you cannot do is both to wolf your bun and hang on to your penny. Your predecessor thought he could. He was wrong.
Ouch! But quite right.
It is one thing to have gangs of scientists saying ‘We’re scientists. The world is ending. Give us billions of dollars and we’ll fix it.’
It is another thing entirely to have religious leaders telling people they are stupid or immoral if they disagree.
Yeah, yeah. I know. Weather is not climate. Unless it’s warm, then it is.
But the National Snow and Ice Data Center (University of Colorado) reports that Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 (via Watts Up With That).
And compare a photo image of current Northern Hemisphere snow and ice cover with an image of the same area a year ago.
When will the world listen to science that works, as opposed to what does not work?
That is the question posed by astrophysicist and long range weather forecaster Piers Corbyn:
It is certainly hot in South Australia – over 40 degrees on Kangaroo Island. Adelaide is even hotter – about 43 degrees.
One or two very hot spells in a season are not unusual, however. The hottest day I have ever lived through was 46 degrees in the early 80s, also in Adelaide.
Has the last decade been the hottest on record in Australia, as Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology says? I noted a couple of days ago that even it were, this is no reason to assume that human activity is responsible.
In fact, there is no correlation between human production of CO2 and changes in climate, but very strong correlation between solar activity and global temperature change.
I also noted that there have been no new temperature records, hot or cold, in the last decade.
Warwick Hughes has shown that in the case of Darwin and Alice Springs, the temperature data do not supprt the BOM’s claim.
There is also considerable doubt that the BOM has adequately taken into account the Urban Heat Island Effect.
These graphs, also from Warwick Hughes, demonstrate the IPCC orthodox warming of about 0.6 degrees in large Australian cities over the 20th century, but no warming at all in rural centres:
Australian Capital City Temperatures 1882 -1982
Australian Regional Temperatures 1882 -1982
Then there is the fact that data has been carefully ‘corrected’, almost always so that older temperatures are lowered, and more recent temperatures increased.
This graph from Watts Up With That shows adjusted data versus raw data for Darwin over the period 1880 to 2000:
Darwin Raw vs Adjusted Temperatures 1880 to 2000
Then there is the fact the even the warming alarmists at East Anglia CRU found the Australian temperature records so poor they are almost incomprehensible. A couple of quotes from the Climategate emails:
I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar coordinates. I know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that’s the case? Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight… So, we can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!
OH F%*# THIS. It’s Sunday evening, I’ve worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I’m hitting yet another problem that’s based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform data integrity, it’s just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they’re found.
Getting seriously fed up with the state of the Australian data. so many new stations have been introduced, so many false references.. so many changes that aren’t documented. Every time a cloud forms I’m presented with a bewildering selection of similar-sounding sites, some with references, some with WMO codes, and some with both. And if I look up the station metadata with one of the local references, chances are the WMO code will be wrong (another station will have it) and the lat/lon will be wrong too.
So how much confidence can we have in the BOM’s claim that this has been the hottest decade since records began?
Very little.
According to the Australian BOM the last decade has been Australia’s hottest since record keeping began.
Even if this were true, this in itself is no reason to jump to the conclusion it is all our fault and the world is going to hell in a handbasket. No matter what the ever amusing Minister for Rabbits Peter Garrett has to say.
In fact, as I noted a couple of posts ago, there is no evidence this is the case at all.
But the BOM’s clams are doubtful for a number of reasons.
I’ll say more about this tomorrow, but for today I just note that not one Australian temperature record, high or low, has been set in the last ten years:
AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY
Highest Recorded Temperature:
Canberra 42.2 C (108.0 F) on the 1st February, 1968
Lowest Recorded Temperature:
Canberra -10.0 C (14.0 F) on the 11th July, 1971
NEW SOUTH WALES
Highest Recorded Temperature:
Wilcannia 50.0 C (122.0 F) on the 11th January, 1939
Lowest Recorded Temperature:
Charlotte Pass -23.0 C (-9.4 F) on the 29th June, 1994
NORTHERN TERRITORY
Highest Recorded Temperature:
Finke 48.3 C (118.9 F) on the 2nd January, 1960
Lowest Recorded Temperature:
Alice Springs -7.5 C (18.5 F) on the 12th July, 1976
QUEENSLAND
Highest Recorded Temperature:
Birdsville 49.5 C (121.1 F) on the 24th December, 1972
Lowest Recorded Temperature:
Stanthorpe -11.0 C (12.2 F) on the 4th July, 1895
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Highest Recorded Temperature:
Oodnadatta 50.7 C (123.3 F) on the 2nd January, 1960
Lowest Recorded Temperature:
Yongala -8.2 C (17.2 F) on the 20th July, 1976
TASMANIA
Highest Recorded Temperature:
Hobart 40.8 C (105.4 F) on the 4th January, 1976
Lowest Recorded Temperature:
Shannon -13.0 C (8.6 F) on the 30th June, 1983
VICTORIA
Highest Recorded Temperature:
Mildura 47.2 C (117.0 F) on the 10th January, 1939
Lowest Recorded Temperature:
Mt Hotham -12.8 C (9.0 F) on the 13th August, 1947
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Highest Recorded Temperature:
Mardie 50.5 C (122.9 F) on the 19th February, 1998
Lowest Recorded Temperature:
Booylgoo Springs -6.7 C (19.9 F) on the 12th July, 1969
Figures from an amateur site on world temperature extremes. Some readings not yet verified.
I have ‘un-stickied’ the article about the Easy Guide to the Politics and Science of Global Warming.
You can still find it by clicking on the link.
It is clear to all except the most violently irrational or funding dependent warming alarmists that there is no correlation between human produced CO2 and changes in global temperature over the last century.
However there is general agreement that there has been some warming, about 0.6 of one degree Celsius, over the last century.
If human activity has not caused this temperature increase, what has?
If we can learn what has caused past temperature change, we should be able to predict future change, and prepare for it.
Neither the UK Met Office nor the Australian Bureau of Meteorology have had much success in predicting recent seasonal changes.
This is because both Met Office and BOM predictions are based on ideology – theories about what the weather should be doing – rather than observations of what the weather really is doing.
Has anyone got it right?
Yes. In a letter posted on Jon Ray’s Greenie Watch, astrophysicist Piers Corbin writes:
Further to Newsnight tonight (7th Jan 2010) where the Met Office and BBC so-called expert lied about the reality of long-range forecasting:
We at WeatherAction predicted this very cold weather SIX months ago using solar activity (nothing to do with CO2) and added extra detail weeks ahead. Our forecasts of EXTREME events are consistently 85% reliable.
There is no need for the UK and Europe to be unprepared and run out of salt. The consequent suffering and road deaths are a direct consequence of the Met Office and BBC failed science and litany of lies.
Would the BBC care to hear from us as to why the Met Office fail, fail and fail again in medium and long range forecasting and when this cold weather will end and then return? I Suspect not. Would you care to consider the following –
1. The Met Office statement on Newsnight that they ‘verify’ their climate forecasts against past dates
2. That the said past data was fraudulently produced by, for example, the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia and exposed in the CLIMATEGATE files..
3. It is therefore unsurprising that the Met Offices climate and season ahead forecasts fail fail and fail again. They are rooted in failed science and falsified data.
– The world has been cooling for at least 7 years while CO2 has been rising – contrary to their foreacst.
– The floody ‘non barbecue’ summers of 2007, 2008 and 2009 and the cold winter 08/09 and now 09/10 were ALL the opposite of the Met office forecast and ALL as predicted by WeatherAction months ahead. Met Office scored 0/5 and WeatherAction scored 5/5.
4. The failed Met Office forecast for this winter and the consequent unnecessary suffering and road deaths should be laid at the feet of the University of East Anglia, the Met Office and the BBC — and charges of collective manslaughter be issued.
Piers is understandably angry. Accurate forecasting, that is, forecasting based on observation rather than ideology, saves lives.
You can check the accuracy of Pier’s own predictions at Weather Action.
Piers uses ‘predictable aspects of solar activity – particle and magnetic effects from the Sun – as the basis for forecasting weather many months and even years in advance.’
This works for two main reasons. More solar activity means the sun produces more heat and light.
More solar activity also means fewer cosmic rays reaching Earth.
Cosmic rays encourage the development of clouds. Clouds reduce the temperature. So more solar activity means less cosmic rays, which means fewer clouds, which means higher temperatures.
There is no meaningful correlation between human production of CO2 and changes in temperature. There is a very close correlation between decrease in cosmic rays and increase in temperature:
Cosmic Rays and Global Temperature
Research shows the small amount of electro-magnetic radiation from mobile phones may help prevent Alzheimer’s Disease.
So that’s yet another failed science scare.
Although, to be fair, I’m not sure it was ever scientists who were behind the mobile phones will fry your brain theory. I think that was Richard Branson. The same guy who made a fortune selling mobile phones.
But never mind, even if mobile phones aren’t scary any more, and no one believes the global warming stuff any more, new science scares can always be found.
But scientists in Britain have really excelled themselves with this one.
A star called T Pyxidis 3260 light years away might explode in a supernova some time in the next 100 years. Maybe.
If it does, it might explode with force of a billion billion billion megatons of TNT. Some good highlights to look forward to in the MTV best explosion category that year.
If it does, the explosion could, possibly, in about four or five thousand years, strip away the ozone layer from the Earth.
And then we’ll all die. Perhaps.
Plenty of funding opportunities there, chaps.
Sadly, the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way is not chewing its way through the galaxy as quickly as previously thought.
Ah well, there’s still the Large Hadron Collider to worry about. Or use as an excuse for sex.
© 2024 Qohel