Saturday, April 25, 2015

In which the pond narrowly avoids humbug alley ...


(Above: by golly that's some rabbit, and more Pope here).

Truth to tell, the pond thought twice about getting out of bed today.

Look at this humbug alley, this gasoline alley row of blather and hypocrisy:


Thank the long absent lord, there was Nikki Gemmell carrying on the sacred crusade with a bit of murderous creed bashing.

No wonder the pond, inspired by Popish jokery, resorted to reliable old tune for a bit of light comedy.

You see, in amongst their many patriotic duties, the reptiles felt the rousing call to arms and stepped up to defend Bjorn Lomborg against the cruel slings and arrows of outrageous fortune:


 Oh indeed, indeed, it's just so unfair. Do go on:


In short and fundamentally what to do with taxpayers wanting to know who decided to stump up the taxpayer cash and give it to me consensually so we could have a little consensus fun ....?

Well they can kiss my ass ...

As for Paul Johnson, the second refuge of the scoundrel is academic freedom:


A deep believer in climate science? Suddenly science has become a matter of deep belief?

Oh roll the jaffas down the aisle...

He's saying we can reduce emissions?

 Like this?

I helped organise something called the Copenhagen Consensus on Climate where we have got some of the top climate economists to look at what is the smartest ways to tackle global warming. And they basically say, don’t try to cut carbon emissions. Even if you do it effectively it’s going to cost a lot. And it’s probably not going to happen and even if it does it won’t do very much. But if you spend money on research and development into green energy. Essentially make sure it becomes cheaper than fossil fuels over the next 20 to 40 years. We’ve solved global warming. If we could make solar panels cheaper than fossil fuels by say 2030/40 we’d have done, we’d be done. Everyone would buy them not just rich well meaning westerners but also the Chinese and the Indians. (here in pdf).

Courtesy of the reptiles, the pond has had a long introduction to the fuzzy thinking and dissembling of the Lomborg, which much suits the reptiles since it's at least a degree warmer than Screaming Lord Monckton.

Yes, on any day of the week, you can find Lomborg saying that there's no need to reduce emissions. Of course on any other day of the week, he might be saying something entirely different, provided it suits the coal industry and his funding patrons ...

Others have written about the climate confusionista's unique capacity to tell the emperor what he wants to hear about his brand new set of clothes - back in December 2014 for example in Is Bjørn Lomborg writing Australia’s climate and energy policies?

The joys of fracking, the blessings of coal, the need for research on solar rather than actual expenditure on solar or other useless RE, and so on and so forth ...

Lomborg the professional confusionista, smoke screener and paid humbug is your man ...

More to the point, Lomborg is also the Bolter's man.

Now on the surface it might seem odd that a profound climate denialist should be at one with a "deep believer" in climate science, but that's the cleverness of Lomborg's confusionista strategies.

So it almost goes without saying that the Bolter is outraged, outraged the pond tells ya, at the treatment dished out to his deeply believing hero ...

But it does produce some great comedy stylings ...

This is disgraceful - a real indictment of Australian academia - and shame on the journalists encouraging this intellectual McCarthyism.

Now if ever anyone had wanted the pond to nominate the best top notch intellectual McCarthyist doing the rounds in Australia at the moment, it would have been the Bolter, as rabid a populist demagogue as has done the rounds since the grand old days of Father Coughlin.  Closely followed by the reptiles of Oz, who can only be considered and counted as a pack because of the baleful influence of the hive mind ... (Of course on the world stage they'd be considered small beer against the best of the Faux Noise Murdochians).

The entire point of the confusionista exercise is to dissemble and to delay, to fudge and to conflate, to confuse and produce inertia, and that's why the Bolter and the Lomborg can be as one, and the Bolter knows just who to quote:

Eco-realists contend that for the bulk of the world’s population, energy poverty is the immediate concern that must be resolved before climate change action can hope to deliver the desired results.The question remains whether ambitious early action will foster long-term change or squander the opportunity for a more considered solution.


Eco-realists? Oh the endless stream of jargon and cant, it's too much ...

So let's just kick the can down the road.

But if that's the solution, why does Lomborg need four million dollars of Australian taxpayer money to line up the can?

That's the thing that gets the pond. There's the Bolter out defending the government lavishing cash like a drunken sailor on a man who can't raise two bob in his home country, and there's Johnson talking about academic freedom when he's really defending the right of blow-ins to raise a bit of government cash, so he can do a little scavenging and temple-building on the sidelines:


And that's at the heart of this story:


And so on, in Australian taxpayers funding climate contrarian's methods with $4m Bjørn Lomborg centre.

And that surely is the nub of it. At a time when the federal government has slashed and burned the CSIRO, sundry other scientific research activities, and bodies dealing with climate science matters, pleading desperate, dire poverty, and a budget emergency of the first water, does anyone think that blather about academic freedom and McCarthyism can hide the giant double dose of political hypocrisy ... as a monorail spruiker, abandoned in his own country, rides into town to take the rubes for a ride?

Dr Eric Feinblatt, an honorary research fellow with the department of engineering, said as he left the meeting the centre “would not happen anywhere but Australia”. 
 “The only reason it’s happening in Australia is because the policy of the Abbott government makes it a favourable environment,” he said. 
“This is just a proxy for the Abbott government. And for the administration of the university not to admit that, to deny that, is ridiculous.” (here).

But where would the pond be without the ridiculous?

Down humbug alley with the scoundrels ...

(Below: and more Wilcox here)


And here's a bonus for Lebowski lovers, and more cartoons here.


13 comments:

  1. This site points out Lomberg's numerous mistakes and misrepresentations.

    http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2015/02/03/bjorn-lomborg-did-not-get-facts-straight/

    And the Copenhagen Consensus Centre is registered in the US and is a 501(c)(3) “shell” to transfer money from mostly-dark sources in the US to Lomborg. See "The Millions Behind Bjorn Lomborg."

    For more history behind the tactics, see https://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/lomborg-long-game/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Anon, good one. Does the loonpond fisk or deconstruct the reptiles and humbuggerers et al? Bit of a new verb to me, 'fisking'.

      From the comments at your link:
      http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2015/02/03/bjorn-lomborg-did-not-get-facts-straight/

      #26
      @Greg Laden ; They call this “fisking” now? Always thought the word was ‘deconstruction’ before. (Mumble, mumble, semiotics, old philosophy class , mumble.) Either way, great take down and well writ! Thanks for this.

      #27
      Greg Laden
      February 6, 2015
      Deconstruction is a useful approach when there is a somewhat more complex construction. In this case, Lomborg lists a number of “facts” (every one of which is wrong) with one layer of structure on them (here I go deconstructing) which leads from a fake to the left (the CO2 comment) to a series of no-no comments (this and that that the Alarmist Leftgazi have wrong) and eventually to the usual end point … children, poor people, or puppies … where entirely pro-economy measures are recommended, and any decision with a green tinge is abhorred as anti puppy. That is his pattern.

      Fisking refers to going line by line through a simple text like this and addressing each point, or most of the points (named after frequent target Robert Fisk). It’s more like counter-bullet points than bullet points.

      Some day a deconstruction would be fun but I’m kind of busy doing my hair.

      Delete
  2. Well, the elephant in the room of Lomborg's climate centre is what China does. They buy the most of our coal, and for a variety of reasons are likely to wind back on its use over the next few decades. So however much money the government throws at such centres is probably not really going change much. But Mr Lomborg will probably end up with a nice retirement fund...

    ReplyDelete
  3. How much proof do we need that Miranda Devine is forever with foot in mouth. This is being circulated on twitter at the moment:

    Miranda DevineVerified account ‏@mirandadevine
    @SydneyWaterNews why doesn't yr twitter-feed trumpet the giant pink condom you allowed on the Hyde Park Obelisk in time for Remembrance Day?
    3:24 PM - 9 Nov 2014

    Sydney Water ‏@SydneyWaterNews Nov 9
    @mirandadevine we have been supporting ACON and NSW Health's important public health and safety campaign through our FB page 1/2
    18 retweets 23 favorites

    Sydney Water ‏@SydneyWaterNews Nov 9
    @mirandadevine the Hyde Park Obelisk is not a war memorial site, it is one of our first sewer vents, which is no longer used 2/2
    113 retweets 102 favorites

    JLaw ‏@jefff_30 Nov 9
    @mirandadevine @SydneyWaterNews looks like Miranda has learnt the difference between a dildo and a condom. #SlowLearner

    https://twitter.com/mirandadevine/status/531588099600424961

    ReplyDelete
  4. Another example of Devine with foot in mouth and only yesterday:

    Miranda Devine ‏@mirandadevine 22h22 hours ago
    Did David Pocock actually do jazz hands when he scored a try?!!! What a tosser

    5:05 AM - 24 Apr 2015 • Details


    David PocockVerified account ‏@pocockdavid
    @mirandadevine it was actually Auslan/sign language for clapping. I have a friend who's first language is Auslan so it was for her...


    Miranda Devine @mirandadevine • 8h 8 hours ago
    Can't believe vitriole over my @pocockdavid #jazzhands tweet. What's wrong w u people? I didn't realise it was Auslan. I apologised. Move on

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "I cannot believe people are upset just because I ignorantly offered personal abuse to someone for doing sign language!".
      Miranda Devine truly is a repulsive creature.

      Delete
    2. Did she write 'vitriole?' What language is that?

      Delete
  5. Lomborg is easily found on the net. It's not hard. There's now heaps of related content there, but there's not much at all about him personally. There's the professional stuff, let's just agree to call it that, yes, but the personal, no.

    There's something looney about Bjorn, something hidden. Oh yeah, there's the dark funding alright, but what about him, the things that make him tick other than his apparent lust for filthy lucre. On examination of his product it's been found and been said often that his distortions are so frequent and well chosen and well put together that it is all beyond chance, that it is too careful and far too crafted to be done by someone who doesn't appreciate the validity of climate science, nor understand the implications. If it's too improbable to be due to random errors then Lomborg's practice is one of witting, cunning, and labourious deceit. That, despite what he told the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty in 2003. His chief defence against a finding of dishonesty there was to make a claim of his own lack of competence. He claimed he lacks the expertise to be expected to be accurate. He's a wanker. He said it.

    How is it he's a wanker? What weird reality adjustments go on in Lomborg's head? Where's it likely come from? I did find this snippet:

    THE LOMBORG STORY:

    AN ACCOUNT OF THE LOMBORG CASE

    as understood by biologist Kåre Fog, Denmark

    Latest revision: 14th August 2012. (20 chapters, available also in doc format, beginning..)

    The person Bjørn Lomborg

    Bjørn Lomborg was born on January 6 1965. Both his parents were engaged in alternative religious/philosophical thinking (theosophy). After a few years, they divorced, and Lomborg moved with his mother from Copenhagen to Aalborg in North Jutland. Here, his mother worked as a healer. She became acquainted with a man who was a musician and the priest of a new-age type of Catholic community, and they moved into his house, where the church room of "Philosophical Society" occupied the first floor. His mother and stepfather brought him up to respect for all living beings, and he has remained a vegetarian to this day. His mother´s and stepfather´s "very alternative" way of thinking made Lomborg used to have and defend points of view very different from those of others...


    Count the ways: Theosophy, healer, new-age, Catholic, priest step-father, "Philosophical Society"... uh-uh, that could do it amidst all that holding on and defending.
    Study Shows Children Raised With Religion Find It Challenging To Judge Fact From Fiction

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/21/children-religion-fact-fiction_n_5607009.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063
    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cogs.12138/abstract

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And Lomborg's degrees are in Political Science. Not Economics or anything remotely to do with Climate. And his revolutionary approach to economics is cost-benefit analysis. As one outraged Prof at UWA said "That's just Economics 101". Methinks the Uni of WA has been sold a pup.

      Delete
    2. Ahh! Theosophy! and M. Blavatsky. Now we are in serious loon territory. And as for Bjørn being a wanker, Helena B. couldn't abide the very idea of sex. That explains a lot.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_Petrovna_Blavatsky

      Delete
  6. In anticipation of the Fall of Lomborg, I recommend the List of inventors killed by their own inventions.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inventors_killed_by_their_own_inventions

    ReplyDelete
  7. Bjorn Lomborg is just as bad for the poor as he is for the climate;
    From the Monthly essay - "Spreadsheets of Power" by Richard Denniss:

    "Most economic modellers do not assume that all human lives are equal. Bjorn Lomborg, for example, one of the world’s most famous climate sceptics, uses modelling that assumes the lives of people in developing countries are worth a lot less than the lives of Australians or Americans. While the US Declaration of Independence may declare that all men are created equal, most economic models assume that all men (and women) are worth a figure based on the GDP per capita of their country.

    Late last year, Bjorn Lomborg asked to meet me, and I wondered whether talking to him would be good fun or a waste of time. It was neither: it was scary and illuminating. After 15 years as the smiling face of climate inactivists, Lomborg had raised his sights. His new mission was to ensure that governments also deliver inaction on global poverty alleviation, public health and gender inequality.

    When we met, Lomborg proceeded to explain how his team of economists at the Copenhagen Consensus Center had decided that a number of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals weren’t worth pursuing. His tool of choice for defending such a position? Economic modelling.
    […]
    His cost–benefit analyses had found that more effort should be put into free trade and less money spent on tackling poverty and climate change."

    And of course Dorothy has already reported on the UWA's announcement of the centre:

    "The new centre will focus on applying an economic lens to proposals to achieve good for Australia, the region and the world, prioritising those initiatives which produce the most social value per dollar spent."

    ReplyDelete

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