19 July 2016, Renew Economy, Frydenberg’s choice: Make a big step forward, or a big step back. The make-up of Australia’s new parliament cut a depressing vista on Monday. There was Pauline Hanson, demanding royal commissions into Islam and climate science, who along with other minor party and independent Senators will most likely hold the balance of power in the Senate, with as many as 7 seats but a minimum of 3. In the government, the Coalition led by Malcolm Turnbull has elevated more conservatives to the front bench. Zed Selseja, a conservative who opposes gay marriage and weekend penalty rates, is minister assisting social services.Hanson gave us a taste of what is to come in an extraordinary debate on ABC’s Q&A, which was punctuated with the sort of ignorance and ideology we often see in the energy sector – see South Australia. Matt Canavan, a conservative who dismisses climate science, is appointed resources minister responsible for the coal industry and building dams in northern Australia. Be under no doubt about Canavan: the only energy that matters to him, he has said often, is cheap energy, dirty or not. Read More here
Tag Archives: Denial
7 July 2016, Renew Economy, How an extreme form of climate science denial has found a home in Australia’s Senate. Australians went off to vote in a general election last week, but five days later and the country still doesn’t have a result. As things stand, there appears to be every chance that neither of the two main party groupings — Labor on the left and the coalition of Liberals and Nationals on the right — will win enough seats to form a government in their own right. But one result in the country’s upper house has sparked a wave of discontent, reflection and rage — the election of the right wing anti-Muslim, anti-Halal, anti-vaccination firebrand Pauline Hanson. Hanson, who leads her own One Nation party, has won election to Australia’s Senate and, as counting continues, she could bring more candidates with her.But as well as pushing xenophobia and division, the Queensland politician will also take a most extreme brand of climate science denial with her into the Senate. As I wrote on The Guardian, Hanson’s party has been taking cues on climate science from one of the country’s most enthusiastic and relentless pushers of climate science denial, former coal miner Malcolm Roberts. Roberts is the volunteer project leader of the Galileo Movement, a Queensland-based project launched in 2011 to fight laws to put a price on greenhouse gas emissions…..Conspiracy climate. If you hang around the climate change issue for long enough, then at some point you’ll likely come across the extreme end of science denial and the conspiracy theories that Roberts represents. It goes a bit like this. Humans are not causing climate change. Government-paid climate scientists and their agencies are corrupt. The United Nations is in league with international bankers to defraud the world. It’s all about control. Read More here
14 January 2016, Yale Connections, Experts Fault Reliance on Satellite Data Alone. Over-reliance on satellite data to the exclusion of other data can amount to ‘confirmation bias,’ say scientists urging analysis of numerous different data sets. This month’s “This is Not Cool” video focuses on an ongoing, and again festering, climate science controversy, the value and reliability of satellite-derived global temperatures. And of that data at the exclusion of – or as a surrogate for – other data. Independent videographer Peter Sinclair sought reactions of leading climate scientists to points made in a recent hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, chaired by Texas Republican Senator and presidential nominee hopeful Ted Cruz. “According to the satellite data, there has been no significant global warming for the past 18 years,” the senator said.In the hearing, Senator Cruz emphasized that “The satellite data are the best data we have,” an often-echoed point made by those generally scornful of much of the so-called consensus climate science. Climate scientists Michael Mann, Kevin Trenberth, Andrew Dessler, Carl Mears, and Ben Santer, David Titley, and others voice what they see as limitations or shortcomings of the satellite data. They point to a history of documented errors and mistakes that have often caused satellites to underestimate climate warming.Among these errors are a failure to account for “orbital decay,” changes measuring in the diurnal cycle, and faulty calibration of satellite sensors. Most of all, they discourage over-reliance on any single set of data and instead urge consideration of numerous authoritative data sets. Remote Sensing Systems scientist Carl Mears points to inherent problems in reviewing data only from a particular point in time, especially the often-chosen 1998 starting point, which was characterized by a strong El Niño. “If you start driving at the top of a hill, you’re going to go down, at least at the beginning,” says Mears. Andrew Dessler of Texas A&M says he sees in all this an example of “confirmation bias,” with climate contrarians often looking only at data that “tells them what they want to hear.” Read More here
4 January 2015, Washington Post, Here’s how scientific misinformation, such as climate doubt, spreads through social media. Social media is no doubt a powerful force when it comes to the sharing of information and ideas; the problem is that not every article shared on Facebook or Twitter is true. Misinformation, conspiracy theories and rumors abound on the Internet, helping to propagate and support sentiments such as climate doubt and other forms of environmental and scientific skepticism. Figuring out how such ideas diffuse through social media may be key to scientists and science communicators alike as they look for ways to better reach the public and change the minds of those who reject their information. A study published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences sheds new light on the factors that influence the spread of misinformation online. The researchers conclude that the diffusion of content generally takes place within clusters of users known as “echo chambers” — polarized communities that tend to consume the same types of information. For instance, a person who shares a conspiracy theory online is typically connected to a network of other users who also tend to consume and share the same types of conspiracy theories. This structure tends to keep the same ideas circulating within communities of people who already subscribe to them, a phenomenon that both reinforces the worldview within the community and makes members more resistant to information that doesn’t fit with their beliefs. Read More here