Chris Pearce's Blog, page 7

Short story: All that glitters

Here’s a short story I wrote sometime ago …

It was my first job after university. I had worked hard for three years. And now this. No explanation, no farewell lunch, no gift, just a slip of paper in my pay packet. I’d copped a bad appraisal, but so had most other staff. I sat at my battered little desk, stunned. My heart sank. The lump in my throat got heavier. How could they?

I lit a cigarette. You could still smoke in the office in those days. I drew long and hard, tossed my head back and exhaled. In front of me, my reports and notes on interest rates and customer service and the housing market were suddenly like distant memories. I had been a good employee. Sure, I’d stuffed up once or twice, like the time I caused the computer system to collapse. Staff couldn’t get into their databases. Customers couldn’t withdraw their money.

Perhaps it was all a big mistake, I thought.

“It’s no mistake,” my boss Jim Henderson said. “The chief told all managers to cut back.”

“But why me? My pay’s next to nothing.”

Henderson slouched in his leather chair and gazed out the window. His view of the city and across the suburbs to the bay was unsurpassed. An original oil painting hung on the wall of his office, a room bigger than most lounges. The top of his huge mahogany desk was empty except for a box of cigars and a fake gold astray. I had never seen him do much work. But his job seemed safe.

“The market’s so competitive these days. We’ve got to reduce our costs,” he said, shrugging.

I stood next to the door, ankle deep in plush maroon carpet. “But that’s what I’ve spent the last three years doing,” I said to him, “finding ways to cut costs and get more business. I’ve saved millions and made millions for this place and that’s the thanks I get.”

“Let’s face it,” he said, “most of those things were my ideas.”

What! I could hardly believe it. What an a###hole My hackles rose. “Let’s just say you took the credit for them,” I said.

He glared at me. “You can finish this afternoon. Your final pay will be in your account.”

“Then I may as well finish now,” I said, and stormed out of his office. No use arguing with him. He had an answer for everything. Gift of the gab type, he was.

“Suit yourself,” he called out as I hurried along the corridor and back to my desk.

I wish I’d told the chief about him ages ago. But all the managers were the same. And they stuck by one another.

I tidied my desk and packed my bag. Two other blokes working in my area got redundancy slips too. We consoled each other. One had been there twenty years. At least I was single and didn’t have a mortgage.

I decided to jam the computer again, this time on purpose. They wouldn’t suspect me. They’d think it was just another breakdown. The system was old and falling apart. But they worried about costs too much to replace it. I knew what to do to stuff it up so no one here could fix it. My mate in the computer room had shown me how. They’d have to fly a contractor up from the capital. And it was too late to do that until next day.

Just as I was about to tap the relevant keys on my terminal, Henderson strolled in. “I thought you were going,” he said.

“Er, yes, I am,” I said. “I’m tidying up a few computer files and I’ll be gone.”

He folded his arms and stood behind me. I sensed him looking over my shoulder. Did he suspect? I doubted it. He didn’t know the first thing about computers. But I’d got him wrong before. So I fiddled around swapping files between directories. He stayed put. Damn him. I swivelled from side to side in my rickety old chair, hoping the squeaking would send him away. It didn’t. He picked up Business News from the next desk and started to read it. Didn’t he have a meeting or something to go to? He was probably making sure I wasn’t going to nick anything before I left. Or did he want the personal satisfaction of actually seeing me out the door for the last time?

He was soon engrossed in the newspaper. I arranged the shutdown for half past six that night. Just before sunset. Staff would be long gone by then. It’d give Henderson and the other managers something to do, I thought, while they stayed back till all hours for the sake of it, trying to impress the chief by being last to leave the car park.

The very moment I finished, he threw the paper aside and said, “Come on, I want you gone, now.”

Phew! I’d made it. “Alright, alright, I’m going. Can’t you see I’m packing my stuff.”

There wasn’t time to photocopy any of my reports to take with me. He wasn’t even going to give me a chance to sign the underneath of my desk. I grabbed my bag and left.

“Good luck,” Henderson said. “I’ll give you a reference if you need one.”

What! He gives me a lousy appraisal, fires me, and then says he’ll give me a reference. He was just trying to soften me up, the useless b##tard, scared I’ll dob him in to the chief.

I got into the escalator, yanked off my tie and pressed ‘B’ for basement. The contraption grated and wobbled its way down. Henderson’s gleaming white Fairlane and other executives’ cars were parked in large well-lit bays. I walked down the ramp to the lower basement. No lifts to this level. I ducked under the air-conditioning pipe and fumbled in the darkness to get the key into the door of my trusty old Datsun. I opened the door as far as the concrete pillar would allow and squeezed in.

I drove up to the exit and spoke into the speaker. I’d already handed in my swipe card needed to open the huge iron gate to the outside world.

“Wait a minute and someone will come,” a voice said.

I lit a cigarette and waited a few minutes. No one came. I activated the speaker and spoke into it again.

“Name please, sir,” a different voice said.

I gave my name.

“Sorry, sir, there’s no one by that name on my list. Are you a visitor?

They’d struck me off already! Proof they could do things quickly when they wanted to. “No, I’m not a bloody visitor. I’m a long-suffering inmate trying to escape once and for all,” I yelled into the thing.

Before anyone came, another car appeared from the lower basement. I reversed and let it through, following closely behind. I glanced in my mirror as the gate shut. Freedom.

I needed some food and things to take home, so I drove to the public car park. At least I’d be able to exit when I wanted to. I trudged toward the main shopping area, sweating under a broiling sun. Dust rose from the roadway as cars sped past. In the distance a heat haze blurred the hills. I went to the ATM to get some money. I keyed in my details and waited. “Balance $6.28,” it said. The mongrels hadn’t put my pay in. Or had the computer failed a few hours too early? I stood aside and watched as the next person withdrew a wad of twenties. The ATM was in order. That meant the computer was working. I withdrew five dollars and bought some takeaway. I’d been too busy sorting out one of Henderson’s stuff-ups to have lunch.

I rang the pay clerk from a public phone. She told me she hadn’t received any advice about my leaving, and so far as she knew my normal pay would go into my account later that night as usual. She’d make enquiries and sort it out as soon as possible. She said she wished she’d got a slip too.

Great. No job and no money. And I was low on cigarettes. I sat on a bench near the mall and watched the world go past. I stared at the steel and glass monstrosity a block away, where I’d slaved every day to make Henderson and his cronies look good. It was the tallest building in town. Gold-coloured windows glowed as they reflected light from the sun. They became brighter as the sun got lower, almost blinding. The windows on the second floor, where the computer was, wavered like a mirage. They were brilliant yellow, with a tinge of orange, blazing. There was a fire in the computer room. Flames leapt high, rapidly engulfing the building. Fire engines wailed, but they couldn’t do much. It was a towering inferno. By dusk it had faded. The building was gone. Nothing was left.

I got my money though, later that night. When I set the shutdown time, I had switched my account to the off-site computer, just in case.

Australia: Don Argus incorrectly blames Labor

An article appeared in The Australian on 12 December 2016 in which former National Australia Bank CEO Don Argus accused the Labor government of 2007 to 2013 of spending up big and putting a “dead weight” on the country’s finances. He complained about the government’s “cavalier approach to spending” in 2008. Not a scrap of data was provided to back up the claims. See http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/don-argus-says-ruddgillard-spending-weighs-on-economy/news-story/a89fdbb6f0a4c3b6d94bcd192eaafc05.

For a start, the stimulus packages were not announced until February 2009. They totalled about $52 billion and the reason for them was to keep the economy out of recession in the face of the global financial crisis. Australia’s GDP growth fell to about 1% and without the stimulus packages, the economy would have contracted by around 2.5%. This would have resulted in many more businesses going broke or being in trouble and a considerably higher unemployment rate.

Expenditure as a proportion of GDP in 2007-08 (Labor was in office for the last seven months) was 23.1 %, the lowest it had been since 1989-90. It rose to 25.1% in 2008-09 and 26.0% in 2009-10 with the stimulus packages. It then fell to 24.5% in 2010-11, 24.9% in 2011-12 and 24.1% in 2012-13. Since mid September, the right wing Coalition government has been in office and expenditure rose to 25.6% of GDP in both 2013-14 and 2014-15 and 25.8% in both 2015-16 and 2016-17 (projected).

When the GFC hit, revenue went through the floor. It had been 25-26% of GDP in the years before the GFC. It then fell to 23.3% in 2008-09, 22.0% in 2009-10, 21.4% in 2010-11, 22.1% in 2011-12 and 23.0% in 2012-13. This is the main reason for the deficits and debt in that period rather than the extra expenditure to keep us out of recession. It is sometimes thought that mining and exports to China saved us from recession (rather than the stimulus packages). But gross value added by mining grew by about $3 billion in 2008-09 and exports to China by around $12 billion, which together was about 1% of GDP.

Australia came out of the GFC with the third lowest government debt to GDP ratio of the 34 OECD countries. Many commentators have applauded the Labor government’s efforts during this time. Nobel prize winning professor of economics Joseph Stiglitz of New York said: “You were lucky to have, probably, the best designed stimulus package of any of the countries, advanced industrial countries, both in size and in design, timing and how it was spent – and I think it served Australia well,” http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-08-06/stimulus-served-australia-well-despite-waste/935002 The article also stated that Stiglitz felt that such programs are “preferable to the waste of human and capital resources that would have resulted if there was no stimulus.” The packages weren’t perfect at such short notice but they did the trick.

Expenditure has risen under the Coalition government. Also, it doesn’t seem to think there is a revenue problem, which we’ve had since the GFC. It was 23.5% of GDP in 2015-16, still a couple of per cent below pre-GFC. The Coalition wants to give corporations a $50 billion tax cut, which Argus and others support. But consumer demand for goods and services isn’t there, which means that tax cuts will be unlikely to go to business investment. They will more likely go to shareholders, which is likely to result in more money spent on overseas holidays and more residential investment properties. Any tax cuts will also make the deficits even larger. The UK and Canada have reduced corporate tax rates half a dozen times over the last eight years. The US and Germany hasn’t, but if anything their economies have done better than the UK and Canada.

Overly generous tax concessions (negative gearing and capital gains exemption) to investors in residential property have been another major problem in Australia and an important reason the economy is underperforming and the deficits are larger than they should be. Our housing prices are among the highest in the world and first home buyers have been priced out of the market by speculative investors in property pushing up demand, prices and rents.

Don Argus also said we are “becoming one of the highest-taxing economies in the OECD”. This is simply not true either. We are one of the lowest if company and personal taxes, GST type taxes and others are taken into account. Our GST rate is especially low. He mentions Donald Trump proposing to reduce the corporate tax rate to 15%. This will have a devastating effect on the budget. Deficits and debt will grow. Services such as health, education, law and order, and roads will decline, and the economy will struggle even more than now.

If Argus and a few other commentators on the right had a look at the facts and figures, they might not come up with such outlandish and incorrect statements.

Donald Trump: the system got him there

Yesterday, an article appeared in The Conversation in Australia: ‘A flawed system delivered Trump victory – and now we brace ourselves for what’s next’. I wrote the following comment …

Yes, I think it was a flawed system that delivered Trump. It took 16 months to find someone that a minority of people voted for. If you win California or Florida or New York by one vote, you win the whole state. The system goes back to 1787 and is crazy in 2016.

Non-compulsory voting tends to bring out the right with their stronger views than those on the left, and also those with transport, the time and the physical mobility, which again tends to be those on the right.

The FBI is partly to blame, for bringing back the email saga and then once again deciding there isn’t a problem.

I think there is also a lack of education which sees people voting in a person with no idea about economics, budgets, climate change, government policy, or much else. It’s perhaps a cultural problem too. A lot of the thinking away from the east and west coasts is from the 19th century: Bible in one hand and gun in the other [or that’s the impression we often seem to get in Oz].

The polls got it right; people wanted Clinton. But the system gave them Trump. It’s anyone’s guess what will happen over the next four years as Trump is all over the place and doesn’t have a clue.

See https://theconversation.com/a-flawed-system-delivered-trump-victory-and-now-we-brace-ourselves-for-whats-next-69142?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20November%2024%202016%20-%206151&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20November%2024%202016%20-%206151+CID_8b701dfc28e82e3a56f52016c4d173fa&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=A%20flawed%20system%20delivered%20Trump%20victory%20%20and%20now%20we%20brace%20ourselves%20for%20whats%20next

Malala Yousafzai

(updated from the original published to Bubblews writing site a few years ago, now gone)

Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize at 17 years of age, the youngest person to win a Nobel prize. She has also won Pakistan’s National Youth Peace Prize, which has been renamed the National Malala Peace Prize. And she has won the International Children’s Peace Prize, as well as the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, and numerous other awards. She was on the cover of Time magazine and listed as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. She spoke at a United Nations session on her 16th birthday; I saw the entire speech and was very impressed.

She started campaigning for the education of girls when she was 11 after her father nominated her to write anonymous blogs about life under the Taliban for the BBC, after other, older girls had declined through fear of reprisals. In her home district of Swat, Pakistan, the Taliban had been banning female education, blowing up numerous girls’ schools, as well as banning television and music and preventing women from shopping. At the time, Malala spoke against the Taliban on a Pakistan current affairs television program.

What an amazing young person to stand up to a force such as the Taliban. Seems they are still after her. Let’s hope her minders can successfully protect her from these thugs and that Birmingham, UK is far enough away from them. Her efforts are sure to make the world a better place.

 

Is one’s astrological sign based on actual or due birth date?

(originally published to Bubblews writing site, now gone)

I’m not particularly into astrology but whenever I’ve read a general description of personalities and traits, I seem to belong much more to the sign I was supposed to be born under than the one I was actually born under. Yet when I checked a few forums such as Yahoo answers, I’m told that your sign is based on your actual birth date.

I was born on September 26 which makes me a Libra (Sept 23 to Oct 22), but I was 10 days late and was supposed to be born on September 16 which, on this basis, would make me a Virgo (Aug 23 to Sept 22).

This is some of what the Virgo page at astrology.com (http://www.astrology.com/article/zodiac-signs-virgo-sun-sign.html) has to say, together with my comments:

“picky and critical.” Yes. Those who knew me on the Helium forums would probably agree.

“born to serve.” I was in the public service for 25 years.

“industrious, methodical and efficient.” I would like to think so.

“work for the greater good.” Yes, I’ve always been more interested in this than making a heap of money.

“modesty and humanity.” Yes.

“enjoy indulging their practical and logical side and poring over their projects to the nth degree.” Yes, both in the workplace and outside.

“good at fact-finding.” Yes.

“exacting (… pedantic) behavior.” Often.

“asset in the workplace … no detail will be overlooked.” I think I had a reputation for this.

“brain is in overdrive most of the time.” Seems to be much of the time.

“prone to skepticism.” Yes.

“studious.” Six and half years’ full time equivalent at university.

“careful analysis.” Yes.

“enjoy studying a situation in great detail.” Yes.

“perfectionism.” Often. Hey, I’m an editor.

“extremely health conscious.” Maybe “quite” or “very” rather than “extremely.”

On the other hand, the Libra page (http://www.astrology.com/article/zodiac-signs-libra-sun-sign.html) says this:

“first and foremost focused on others and how they relate to them.” Well, not really.

“do not want to be alone.” I work, study, research, analyze better alone.

“everything is better if it’s done as a pair.” I’m happily married, but we each like our own space and time for a portion of the day.

“true team players at work.” I did better work by myself. Teams sometimes frustrated me (as member and leader) as they often seemed to get bogged down or go in circles.

“abhor conflict.” I wouldn’t say that.

“strategists, organizing groups with poise and getting the job done.” Yes for the first and third parts, but perhaps less strong at organizing groups (though could still do this).

“companionable, sociable.” Maybe not all the time.

“do so well at cocktail parties.” Not really my scene.

“suave.” Doesn’t really sound like me.

Thus I seem to fit much more into the Virgo mold than I do Libra. But then I had a look at a couple of other sites looking at true star signs, such as livescience.com article, “Astrology: Why your Zodiac sign and horoscope are wrong”, at http://www.livescience.com/4667-astrological-sign.html. They indicate that conventional star signs accord with constellation positions over 2000 years ago. The star signs and birth dates according to this web page are now (I’ve added the number of days as they vary a lot):

Capricorn – Jan 20 to Feb 16 (27 days)

Aquarius – Feb 16 to Mar 11 (23 days)

Pisces – Mar 11 to Apr 18 (38 days)

Aries – Apr 18 to May 13 (25 days)

Taurus – May 13 to Jun 21 (39 days)

Gemini – Jun 21 to Jul 20 (29 days)

Cancer – Jul 20 to Aug 10 (21 days)

Leo – Aug 10 to Sep 16 (37 days)

Virgo – Sep 16 to Oct 30 (44 days)

Libra – Oct 30 to Nov 23 (24 days)

Scorpius – Nov 23 to Nov 29 (6 days)

Ophiuchus – Nov 29 to Dec 17 (18 days)

Sagittarius – Dec 17 to Jan 20 (34 days)

According to this, I’m a Virgo. But it seems this version of star signs is far less commonly used than the conventional one. So where does this leave us? Perhaps I should continue to not worry about astrology too much and just get on with things. Anyway, it was an interesting little project.

Family history

(originally published a couple of years ago to Bubblews writing site, now gone)

Anyone into family history? I’ve been researching mine on and off for a few years and am finding it quite interesting. I’ve gone back to the 1400s on a couple of lines on my father’s side and one on my mother’s side, as well as several lines back to the 1500s and 1600s on both sides. [I’ve possibly since tracked one line back to William the Conqueror.] 

One line on my father’s side were Huguenots from France, migrating to London in the 1600s to escape religious persecution. A line on my mother’s side also escaped religion persecution by moving from Germany to London around the same period, but London wasn’t taking refugees at the time and large groups were forwarded to Ireland! 

I haven’t stumbled across any royals as yet, but apparently just about anyone from Europe, including the UK, is related to royalty. Once you find one, it means you’re related to all the others because all the royals are related. [see above]

Records can be sketchy the further you go back and I’ve come across a lot of family trees on ancestry sites that go off in wrong directions due to 1 or 2 people in there that don’t actually belong. Many trees include royals, but I suspect that a lot of them can’t be proved.  

Some trees include a lot of the ancient royals and other famous people, including biblical characters, but again I suspect most are inaccurate somewhere along the line, mainly in getting from the commoners to the royals around the 1000s to the 1500s. One tree has various biblical characters right back to Noah and Adam and Eve and starts with God! 

During my research, I’ve found a number of third and fourth cousins and a sixth cousin who I communicate with.

Today’s cotton wool kids

(originally published in 2014 to Bubblews writing site, now gone)

In our Sunday Mail newspaper here in Brisbane, Australia, there was an article on today’s cotton wool kids and all the safety rules and regulations and so on. I wrote a letter to the editor for possible publication next week (it got published), below:

I refer to the article on today’s cotton wool kids (SM, Feb 2). In the early 1960s in Melbourne, the 200 or so grade 3-6 boys at my school spent morning play, most of lunch break and afternoon play on a rough, uneven field of dirt and clumps of grass up to a foot long, about the size of a soccer field. There was footy (kick to kick for each grade), a cricket “pitch” in each corner, marbles, chasey, brandy, British bulldog, and general running around.

None of these were organised, other than by the kids. No teacher was ever on duty there. The area couldn’t be seen from any classroom or staff room. Very occasionally, a teacher would join in kick to kick. I can’t recall any serious dust-ups, abuse or injuries, although there were a few bloody scratches and bruises, and plenty of dirty knees, elbows and hands.

And of course nearly everyone walked or rode their bike to and from school. From my second day onwards as a five-year-old, I walked to school, until age 10 when I rode my bike.

It used to be pink for boys and blue for girls

(originally published to Bubblews writing site, now gone)

These days, we think blue for boys and pink for girls. But it wasn’t always this way. Until the late 19th century, white dresses were the norm for boys and girls up to the age of 5 or 6. Longish hair was in fashion for children and you could hardly tell boys from girls.

New chemical dyes meant colors gradually became more popular in the 19th century as they no longer faded when washed. Pink and blue were worn by both boys and girls up to about the time of World War I (1914-18). Around this time, pink became more popular for boys and blue for girls. In 1918, trade magazine Earnshaw’s Infant Department said:

“The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.”

This rule seemed to be promoted by magazines and stores in the 1920s. There were exceptions, such as blue sailor suits for boys, which had been popular since the late 19th century.

By the 1940s, manufacturers and retailers were pushing blue for boys and pink for girls. The main influence may have been French fashion, which was predominant and had traditionally used pink for girls and blue for boys.

Climate denier Malcolm Roberts on Q&A

In Australia, new senator and climate denier Malcolm Roberts appeared on television on the ABC’s Q&A program last Monday, 15 August 2016. I posted the following comment on his Facebook page but it got deleted and I got tossed off (haha). I guess the truth sometimes hurts …

After watching Q&A, I think I’m figuring out why Malcolm Roberts keeps saying there is no empirical evidence for warming or AGW [anthropogenic global warming] despite abundant evidence. He just doesn’t believe in any of the data that shows warming. Brian Cox [physicist and television presenter] showed a graph of NASA data that clearly shows significant warming since the 19th century. Roberts said not true as the data is corrupted and manipulated, by NASA. His reason for this: a well known denier, Steve Goddard showed that the 1930s were allegedly warmer than the current decade and that 1930s recordings were reduced and latest decade inflated, and that BOM [Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology] did the same.

For years, Goddard has been picking off bits of data and declaring there’s no warming. Sometimes, he admits he’s wrong but not always although his claim that NASA and NOAA were fabricating data was even rejected by fellow denier Anthony Watts. For an account of the whole silly saga, see http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/06/noaa-and-temperature-data-it-must-be.html.

Seems that much or most of the problem was Goddard’s failure to understand that raw data is adjusted to give a truer picture, including estimates of missing data. Statistics of all sorts are adjusted for seasonal and other impacts. It means the data gives a more accurate representation of what is actually happening. All official statistical agencies around the world do it for all sorts of collections. Temperature data are also adjusted. Weather recording stations move and this can have a big effect on temperature; moves from a post office to an airfield have been common. Adjustments are also made due to changes in measuring instruments and their accuracy over the years. Another reason is that a weather station may become more closed in, such as by additional nearby buildings, which can affect temperatures. These things are taken into account by all weather bureaus around the world.

Hunt [Greg Hunt, ex-environment minister, now industry minister] wasn’t buying Roberts’ argument for no warming either. He pointed out that weather bureaus, scientific organisations and leading universities all come to the same conclusion: global warming is real. Serna [Lily Serna, mathematician and television presenter] couldn’t believe we were still having this conversation, that there was overwhelming consensus from scientists who are the experts in their field, and that we should be getting on with mitigation and adaptation. Roberts said consensus isn’t science and that he still needs empirical evidence. Cox tried to explain the scientific process to him, including measuring temperature and CO2 and making predictions. Roberts said the numbers have been hopelessly wrong.

My conclusion was that Roberts doesn’t understand scientific or statistical processes and just looks for any odd bit of data that supports his case for no warming and especially no AGW. I’ve looked at statistical adjustment above. On models, we can get an idea of what might happen, but it’s impossible to know exactly how hot it will be or how far sea levels will rise in however many years’ time, just as it is impossible to know what the economic growth rate will be: there are just so many variables. On consensus, the following is probably the best empirical evidence there is for warming and AGW, i.e. looking at the metadata:

– In 2013, John Cook et al looked at about 12,000 academic papers on climate change / global warming, covering all sorts of issues. They found that 66.4% of abstracts had no position on AGW, 32.6% supported it, 0.7% didn’t and 0.3% were uncertain. Thus about 97% of papers with a view on AGW supported it. According to Roberts on Q&A, the figure for support was 0.3%, which is strange given that most scientific organisations have a statement supporting AGW [and most governments accept it too].

– In 2004, Naomi Oreskes analysed 928 papers published between 1993 and 2003. About 75% went with the consensus view of AGW, 25% were about methodology and paleoclimatology, and 0% opposed the consensus view.

– In 2007, Harris Interactive took a random sample of 489 members of the AMS and two other relevant bodies and found that 97% agreed with global warming, with 84% saying it was AGW and 5% said there wasn’t AGW.

– Bray and von Storch found that 40% of climate scientists agreed with AGW in 1996, 53% in 2003 and 84% in 2008.

– Doran and Zimmerman in 2008 found 97% agreed with AGW.

– A National Academy of Sciences study in 2010 put it at 97-98%.

– James Powell in 2013 found 24 of 13,950 articles disagreeing with AGW. In 2014, Powell found 1 author out of 9136 rejecting AGW.

And of course all national and international scientific organisations believe there is warming and most of it is due to our activities except a handful of geology groups that are still sitting on the fence.

Some conspiracy, like thousands of scientists around the world study in areas relevant to climate science and undertake careers in science to be involved in a scam; ditto all scientific organisations; and governments of all major countries. Yeah, and the world is flat too.

Man-made global warming deniers are back

Here in Australia, one of the new senators, Malcolm Roberts, denies anthropogenic global warming. He and/or one of his staff plus a few other deniers have been busy posting odd things refuting AGW on his Facebook page, including various odd explanations and selective bits and pieces, old quotes, etc, to declare that AGW is all a hoax by scientists, scientific organisations and governments around the world. I’ve been picking the deniers to pieces over there but they don’t give up. I posted this comment on his video which he posted to his page a few days ago (although all I get in response is that I’m talking rubbish and more odd comments and selective quotes as the deniers continue to try and support their position) …

This video is misleading and gives totally the wrong impression. Carbon dioxide might be a small percentage of the atmosphere and man-made CO2 a smaller percentage still. But I think he’s mixing up his stocks and flows. He’s right in saying that man-made CO2 is only 3-4% of all CO2 but he seems to be saying that this is the level (stock) of man-made CO2 when in actual fact this is the percentage of man-made CO2 emissions (flow).

The problem is that only about two-fifths of this additional CO2 is absorbed and the rest stays in the atmosphere, building up steadily over time. Roberts seems to forget this. Before the industrial revolution, the CO2 absorption and release sides were pretty much in balance. Since then, we’ve had additional CO2 released by humans in ever-increasing volumes through all our various activities. It may seem small overall but, as I said, it builds steadily over time.

CO2 is now at about 400 parts per million or 0.04% of air as per the video. But over the last 400,000 years and up to the industrial revolution, CO2 varied between about 180 and 280 parts per million, in natural cycles. It was around the top of this cycle at the start of the industrial revolution and is now 40-45% higher at 400 ppm. Normally, it takes 5,000 to 20,000 years to increase by 100 ppm; this time, it has taken perhaps 150 years to increase by 120 ppm. The extra CO2 acts like a blanket, or a thicker blanket, enveloping the earth and keeps the heat in, thus the steadily increasing temperatures. This causes the ice the melt, sea levels to rise and an increase in wilder weather, with increasingly severe storms, larger tidal surges and more coastal flooding, causing damage and displacing people, often in the poorer parts of the world.

He then seems to compare Australia’s CO2 with the world’s total air. His subsequent statistics and analysis are therefore quite flawed.

I’m not sure where his carbon dioxide tax figures come up: $72 billion in five years. This was the estimated cost over this period of an American scheme in the 1990s. Emissions fell when we had carbon pricing in place, they rose before that and have risen again since. Also, getting rid of carbon pricing was estimated by the PBO to cost the budget $18 billion over four years, adding extra pressure to the budget. We now have the useless Direct Action policy.

Roberts says that temperature changes come first and then CO2 levels follow. It actually works both ways. In other words, changes in carbon levels both cause, and result from, changes in temperature. For example, when ocean temperatures rise, more CO2 is released into the atmosphere making the air warmer which means more CO2 is released. We have to also consider the rapid increase in temperatures this time around, much faster than historically. Graphing temperatures and CO2 levels since the 19th century, we can see a very high correlation over this period, which makes sense because the large increase in CO2 acts as a blanket keeping the heat in. To say that nature alone determines CO2 levels not humans, as Roberts states in the video, is simply wrong.

He doesn’t seem to offer any explanation for the increasing temperatures. It can’t be solar activity as that has fallen if anything since the 1970s, nor volcanic eruptions (these are low historically), nor Earth’s orbit (variations and effects on temperature are long term). That leaves greenhouse gases, which includes CO2 which causes up to a quarter of the greenhouse effect. Water vapour has a larger effect but it’s CO2 levels that have easily changed the most. Or does he think scientists use faulty thermometers, or are fudging the numbers?