Bolt's gay-baiting, homophobic base

But he's not having any of it.

No really, in a Darwin was a Christian thread today, Andrew Bolt let slip that he thinks his conservative Christian readership 'base' is 'gay-baiting' and homophobic, when asked why he promotes Christianity as an agnostic.

Andrew, aren’t you an agnostic? So why are you coming out swinging for the Christian faith?
AJFA of Moorooka
Mon 30 Jun 08 (02:05pm)

Andrew played a straight bat.

Have I? I’ve simply let someone state some facts, and added a logical conclusion of my own. Nothing more can be inferred than that I prefer facts over propaganda, regardless of what side of the argument main gain or lose.

Andrew Bolt
Mon 30 Jun 08 (02:42pm)

But another commenter smoked Andrew out of hiding.

Tom replied to AJFA
Mon 30 Jun 08 (03:04pm)

To AJFA

Andrew has claimed to be agnostic, but is also very careful not to offend his Christian conservative base by pushing it too hard.

In the same way he accuses artists of lacking courage in attacking Christianity rather than Islam, so too Andrew himself generally attacks the easier targets (which around here is Islam) whilst playing to his base.

Then something bizarre happened.

ANDREW REPLIES: Wow. Suddenly I understand myself. Everything I thought I said because I believed it is now revealed to me as the merest populist positioning. I’m so ashamed I think I’ll just retire right now. One thing still puzzles me though.
Why, given my crude pampering of my “base”, am I so damning of gay-baiting and homophobia? Why not simply announce I’ve found God? Why criticise so strongly The Passion of Christ? But you’ll have a theory for that too, right?

And, then it was too late.

Nick replied to AJFA

Mon 30 Jun 08 (03:36pm)

Who suggested Andrew’s base was gay-baiting homophobes? Looks like a very convincing response... to the wrong argument.

You know you’ve hit a raw nerve when the sarcasm-meter hits 11!

Cheers

Tom replied to AJFA
Mon 30 Jun 08 (04:01pm)

LOL

Good point Nick...it seems Andrew has a very narrow view of this “base” that he apparently doesn’t go out of his way to appeal to...no-one else identified them as gay-baiting homophobes

His own words have damned him (or in this case them)...reminds me a little of this anti-Obama rant a couple of months ago

Dave replied to AJFA
Mon 30 Jun 08 (04:03pm)

Why, given my crude pampering of my “base”, am I so damning of gay-baiting and homophobia?

Did Andrew just throw his base under a bus?

Ooooppppssss.

Andrew's indication he hold parts of his readership in contempt, "damning" is his description, could also explain why he is so sloppy with logic when pimping for big fossil-fuel.

But of course: hiking prices of such a necessity to “stop” a warming that actually stopped in 1998 and would be unstoppable anyway is hardly something a sane person could support.

In passing off multiple yet contradictory positions on AGW as an appeal to sanity, AB is also saying that he thinks his readers are a bunch of dumb-arses who won't notice so he can get away with laziness.

And they don't. And he does. But, if someone does highlight the contradiction, they are derided by the pink dot skeptic gang as a lefty, Al Gore / Castro lover, or the like.

Don't mean anything by any of this... I'm just saying...

Pell' bells toll for thee, AGW denier

Nexus 6 confesses that he has no faith in Cardinal George Pell's capability to analyse observed earthly phenomena, i.e. data.

Writing in The Sunday Telegraph yesterday, Dr Pell highlighted what he says are inconvenient facts for the climate change bandwagon. These included the declaration by more than 100 international scientists, some of them members of the UN Intergovernmental panel on climate change that attempting to control climate was "ultimately futile".

I understand that the church has a mission to reach out to the marginalised and unfortunate, but it's a sorry church that needs to recruit climate change deniers to fill it's pews. George, a hint, some low-hanging fruit is so low that it's soiled.

Climate Resistence is futile

Climate Resistance is a blog in denial. They claim to be 'Challenging climate orthodoxy' in their banner line, but the only thing challenging about their latest post is typographic taste.

$IR NI¢HOLA$ $T£RN, the torturers' headline reads.

In the text, they render Sir Nick and waterboard him, all because he wrote the Stern Report over 2005/2006 — and now has the temerity to back those conclusions by launching a carbon credits ratings agency last Wednesday.

Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the UK’s Stern report on climate change, will launch a new carbon credit ratings agency on Wednesday, the first to score carbon credits on a similar basis to that used to rate debt.

Back to the Climate Resistance camp, and from what I can work out, this is the nub of their complaint.

The fact that Stern has been instrumental in creating the idea of mitigation serving that greater good must, by the very standards demanded by the environmental movement, surely raise questions about his profiting from it.

Like, why shouldn't a man back his own impressive prescience? That's how movers shake it. If the guy is wrong about the science backing his commercial bet, then he fails soon enough. If Stern is right, he stands to win large and long by being an early mover. All speed to him.

The weakness in their attack was pinged and laser-pointed out to the Climate Resistance Commanding Editor by guerrilla commenter talisker:

I hate to deprive your charming readers of any opportunity for the foam-flecked ranting they so obviously enjoy, but there is a gaping hole in your argument here.

Stern was not connected to IDEAcarbon/IDEAglobal at the time he wrote his report on climate change, or indeed when he served as chief economist at the World Bank. If he had been, or if his report had been funded in any way by companies that stood to gain from its findings, then there would have been a conflict of interest. As it stands, the comparison with Exxon's funding of climate denialists doesn't hold up to a moment's scrutiny.

As smear campaigns go, this one is well below even your own usual standards.

27 June 2008 11:23

Nice. talisker's point remains unaddressed by the Commanding Editor; transmission over.

Technorati Tags: global warming, climate change

Impacts of a Warming Arctic

From the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) 2006 report, Impacts of a Warming Arctic.

click image to enlarge

This record of temperature change (departures from present conditions) has been reconstructed from a Greenland ice core. The record demonstrates the high variability of the climate over the past 100 000 years. It also suggests that the climate of the past 10000 years or so, which was the time during which human civilization developed, has been unusually stable. There is concern that the rapid warming caused by the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases due to human activities could destabilize this state.

Pass onto anyone who dismisses AGW by saying climate change has always been happening. That stable period from the last 12,000 years? That's what we don't want to interfere with. They've been good years for us.

If you want to learn more, here's the 22 page ACIA pdf: Impacts of a Warming Arctic; A Wikipedia oveview: Arctic Climate Impact Assessment; The skeptics' criticisms of Impacts of a Warming Arctic are examined by RealClimate.org; and of course, the ACIA website itself.

Technorati Tags: global waming, arctic, climate change

California goes down hydrogen highway

Look to California for leadership on climate change action, says John Addison in CleanTechBlog:

On April 20, 2004, after 40 years of fighting it was all smiles between auto executives from Detroit and the regulators of California’s health and emissions. That day a new governor signed the historic California Hydrogen Highways Executive Order.

Two years later California has it's first hydogen refuelling station. Terry Tamminen, an energy and environmental consultant to governments and author of Lives per Gallon drives a Honda FCX hydrogen fuel cell vehicle:

The car is an electric vehicle that uses an electric motor, not an engine, and captures braking energy into advanced batteries. The car also has a fuel cell which takes hydrogen from the onboard storage tank and makes continuous electricity. From his home in Santa Monica, Terry can drive almost 200 miles then pull into a hydrogen station and refuel. Terry leases the car from Honda for $500 per month. The lease includes all maintenance and collision insurance. In the future, he may lease Honda’s latest fuel cell vehicle, the FCX Clarity for $600 per month, and get a range of almost 300 miles.

Unlike most places in the United States, Terry can find over ten hydrogen stations in the nearby Los Angeles area for a fill-up. Conveniently nearby is a new Shell gas station that also includes a hydrogen pump. The hydrogen is made from H2O at the station. Yes, water is split into hydrogen and oxygen. Customers like Terry can fuel their hydrogen vehicles in five minutes then drive off, an advantage over battery electric vehicles that are typically charged overnight.

With his zero-emission vehicle, Terry gets convenience while staying true to his environmental values.

I want one. C'on Sydney.

Technorati Tags: global waming, climate change

Put big fossil fuel on the dock

James Hansen wants oil executives who sponsor the PR war on climate science to go to jail.

Monboit says it's not a crime, but then sheet the potential blame for runaway climate change to the fossil-fuel funded effort to sow doubt about what scientists are telling us.

But the culpability of the energy firms the climate scientist James Hansen will indict in his testimony to Congress today is clear. If we fail to stop runaway climate change, it will be largely because of campaigning by oil, coal and electricity companies, and the network of lobbyists, fake experts and thinktanks they have sponsored.

It would be a crime, if we weren't all addicted to oil. Part of the reason for the ongoing addiction has been the misinformation campaign. And its something I can't just shrug my shoulders at, as Monboit seems to.

I strongly feel that news organisations who publish climate change material that does not source the peer-reviewed literature should face public censure.

Technorati Tags: global warming, climate change, james hansen, big oil

Guide to Greener Electronics now captures carbon

The 8th edition of Greenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics has expanded it's criteria to include both the direct and indirect carbon footprints of a manufacturer's products. An indirect footprint includes emissions from the embedded energy that goes into manufacturing and distributing a product.

Only two companies - Sony Ericsson and Sony – score above 5/10. The overall score of the ranked companies has plummeted as Greenpeace tightened requirements on electronic waste (e-waste) and toxic chemicals and adds new requirements for evaluating companies’ impact on global warming.

“Electronics giants pay attention to environmental performance on certain issues while ignoring
others that are just as important,” said Casey Harrell, Greenpeace International Toxics Campaigner. “Philips, for example, scores well on chemicals and energy criteria but earns a zero on e-waste since it has no global take-back policies. Philips would score higher if it took responsibility for its own branded e-waste and established equitable global take-back schemes.”

Many companies score well on energy efficiency as their products comply and exceed Energy Star standards. The best performers on energy efficiency are Sony Ericsson and Apple, with all of their models meeting, and many exceeding, Energy Star requirements. Sony Ericsson stands out as the first company to score almost top marks on all of the chemicals criteria. With all new Sony Ericsson models being PVC-free, the company also has met the new chemicals criterion in the ranking, having already banned antimony, beryllium and phthalates from models launched
since January 2008.

Stop now. Or we're toast: Hansen tells Congress

Well, they didn't get it when he explained the science, the first time.

Exactly 20 years after warning America about global warming, a top NASA scientist says the situation has got so bad that the world's only hope is drastic action.

James Hansen told US Congress today that the world has long passed the "dangerous level" for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and needs to get back to 1988 levels.

He said Earth's atmosphere can stay this loaded with man-made carbon dioxide only for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises.

"We're toast if we don't get on a very different path," Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences, who is sometimes called the godfather of global warming science, told The Associated Press. "This is the last chance."

He's the head of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies. We'd be stupid not to listen.

Technorati Tags: global warming

Wind power blowing nuclear away

Desmogblog is onto a Wordwatch Institute report that says new wind power installations are outpacing new nuclear plant constructions by 10 to 1.

Much of it in China.

"The biggest surprise is China, which was barely in the wind business three years ago but which in 2007 trailed only the United States and Spain in wind installations and was fifth in total installed capacity. An estimated 3,449 mega­watts of wind turbines were added in 2007, bringing China's provisional total to 6,050 megawatts and already exceeding the govern­ment's target for 2010."

Technorati Tags: global warming, wind power, nuclear energy

Intelligent Intelligent Design

Chris H of denialism has a crack at selling ID.

"Intelligent Design does a better job explaining the fundamentals of how life first appeared on Earth and how a creator could have fashioned all the species in such a way that allowed microevolution to flourish. The Creationism Museum assembles the scientific evidence and philosophical evidence, much of which derives from liturgical sources, to make the case for Intelligent Design. The Evolutionists have to coordinate this event, because they are threatened by the Kuhnian revolution now underway that increasingly supports the maxims of Intelligent Design."

The Kuhnian revolution? Cor blimey.

Technorati Tags: denialism, Intelligent Design

AGW quake link not all it's cracked up to be

CBC News picks up some loony science:

New research compiled by Australian scientist Dr. Tom Chalko shows that global seismic activity on Earth is now five times more energetic than it was just 20 years ago. The research proves that destructive ability of earthquakes on Earth increases alarmingly fast and that this trend is set to continue, unless the problem of "global warming" is comprehensively and urgently addressed.

Maria Brumm puts it down:

Cursory examination reveals that Dr. Tom Chalko is a complete wackaloon! Even if you do not know the first thing about seismology, consider the warning signs that this "research" may actually be an attractive organic fertilizer:

• Research article is published in a journal where 5/5 articles in the current issue are authored solely by... Dr. Tom Chalko!
• Research article cites Wikipedia
• Research article uses Observable Weird Capitalization for emphasis
• Associated Press reporter was too lazy to call up any respectable seismologists for a second opinion, and probably did not alter Dr. Tom Chalko, M.sc., Ph.D.'s press release. Which would explain the Observable Weird Capitalization in the news article.

CBS (and any other news outlet that reprints this story) should be ashamed.

They were, observes Tim Lambert. Not The Drudge Report though who, unlike CBS did not pull the story.

Tim's found Chalko's research plan for 2001-2005 (he's a mechanical engineer) at Melbourne University:

If gravity is a special electromagnetic field - why can't we generate
it? If generation of gravity is possible - it should be also possible,
under certain conditions, to overcome gravity.

He wanted five years to develop his theory. He got nothing.

Technorati Tags: global warming, alarmism, climate change

Just Bolt? Or wingnut too?

Falling asleep over a poor whine, I almost missed the latest climate research findings of Andrew Bolt.

But of course: hiking prices of such a necessity to “stop” a warming that actually stopped in 1998 and would be unstoppable anyway is hardly something a sane person could support.

So, the warming that actually stopped in 1998 is unstoppable anyway?

What that about a sane person again? Andrew Bolt does not want to debate Al Gore, or Hansen, or Oreskes, Flannery, Phillip Adams, Monboit, Stern, Wong, or even Rudd.

He only wants to debate himself.

Bolt has fashioned his chi into an iron-pretzel to perfect a devastating one-man debating technique. Only he can argue (with himself) — unstoppable warming stopped in 1998 and thus remains unstoppable, even if it could be stopped — and win.

Technorati Tags: global warming, skeptics, denialists

Tsvangirai chokes

I can't believe it. With 5 days to go Moragan Tsvangirai pulls out of the election run-off, handing victory to Mugabe. What a let down. Mugabe is going to go on a murderous rampage. It's a fucking disaster.

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe

Garret must rock Oz, and not Japan

When Peter Garret walks into The International Whaling Commission meeting in Santiago, Chile this week, he will be carrying the weighty electoral expectations on his shoulders. Eighty seven per cent of voters thought Australia should take legal action against Japan to stop whaling and of these, 91 per cent said it should be done even if it meant compromising our relationship, according to Essential Research.

Then there is his job as a politician. That 91 per cent would more likely read 19 per cent if the relationship with our second biggest trading partner really was compromised once all the emotion dies down. The realisation he can't be a rock-star activist in Rudd's cautious government have caused his groupies to fall away and grumble he has 'sold-out'.

Even on this, Garrett has something to prove. A recent Essential Research poll found 71 per cent of people thought he was not doing a good job in trying to stop Japanese whaling.

So, if he doesn't deliver on the whales, but keeps the relationship good with Japan, he's in trouble. And, if he does brilliantly on the whales, but pisses off Japan too much, he's in trouble.

Oh the power and the passion, oh the temper of the time
Oh the power and the passion
Sometimes you've got to take the hardest line

He's got to do brilliantly on the whales, and make Japan happy about it. Good luck.

One thing going for him though, is the government's recent decision to freeze IWC legal prosecution and let diplomacy work. As Michell Grattan points out, we could be acting out of Australia's self-interest than for diplomatic relations.

This could be partly due to the risk of the case failing. Campbell says that in 2006, he and then attorney-general Philip Ruddock examined this course and found it was highly unlikely such an action would succeed. Failure of the court action would help the Japanese. Australia would hardly want to dramatically escalate the whaling conflict with Japan, only to end up giving legitimacy to its activity.

All is can say is that guy is lucky to be bald going into this meeting.

Technorati Tags: whaling, IWC

James Hanson — hero

Worldwatch Institute is partnering with Grist to bring you this three-part series commemorating the 20-year anniversary of NASA scientist James Hansen's groundbreaking testimony on global climate change next week.

Part 1 — A Climate Hero: The Early Years
Part 2 — A Climate Hero: The Testimony
Part 3 — A Climate Hero: An Outspoken Truth

Great reading.