Rodney “The Hood“ Hide is taking an Aussie break during the current Parliamentary recess — popping over to Melbourne and Sydney to act as warm-up man for Bob Carter at the launch of Carter’s magnum opus, Climate: The Counter-consensus – a Scientist Speaks. And it appears Hide is as happy to allow his hosts to misrepresent his qualifications as he is to mislead Parliament. The flier for the “Quadrant dinner” in Sydney says:
Rodney has a degree in environmental science, and is a powerful and well-informed public speaker.
He may be a powerful speaker, but Hide does not have a degree in environmental science, and he is woefully ill-informed on climate matters. Hide has Masters degrees in economics and resource management (Wikipedia, NZ Parliament bio), and as this comment at Hot Topic two years ago suggests, he could have completed the latter without encountering any science at all. But he’s good for a bit of rabble-rousing, and I expect his “ditch the ETS” rhetoric, liberally laced with attacks on NIWA’s stewardship of the NZ temperature record and chanted lines from the climate crank catechism will make the Quadrant dinner worth every cent of the A$74 being charged…
Meanwhile, Carterist science is finally getting the recognition it deserves, and the Heartland climate con is on its way to Sydney. Carter’s been appointed Chief Science Advisor to the International Climate Science Coalition.
Here’s Carter welcoming his appointment:
“Working with ICSC as Chief Science Advisor is a welcome opportunity to counter the widespread but erroneous belief that dangerous global warming is occurring, and that it has human causation”. Professor Carter continued: “Science has yet to provide unambiguous evidence that problematic, or even measurable, human-caused global warming is occurring.
So, do we have ambiguous evidence of problems caused by that unmeasurable warming, or is Carter just repeating standard climate crank nonsense? I think we know the answer to that one…
In one sense, however, Carter is breaking new ground in crank thinking. The title of his book (Climate: The Counter-consensus – a Scientist Speaks) suggest that a “counter-consensus” is assembling. For there to be a counter-consensus there first has to be a consensus in mainstream climate science to counter, but for years sceptics, deniers and cranks have been claiming loudly that there is “no consensus“. Indeed, point 5 of the “core principles” of the organisation that has just appointed Carter its chief science advisor says:
Claims that ‘consensus’ exists among climate experts regarding the causes of the modest warming of the past century are contradicted by thousands of independent scientists.
But if there is no consensus, how can a counter-consensus assemble? Does Carter support the ICSC’s core principles? And what about that modest warming? According to Carter it’s not measurable, or not happening. At this point, dear reader, you will forgive me if I pour another glass of wine and ponder the many contradictory things you have to believe at the same time if you are to be a true climate septic…
Finally, the Heartland Institute is holding a one-day climate sceptic conference in Sydney next Friday, October 1st. Carter’s talking, of course, and Chris de Freitas is popping over to talk about Developments in Climate Science: Potential Drivers of Emissions Policy Beyond 2012 (at a guess, wishful thinking will be involved). Interestingly, the climate day follows on from two days of “workshops and brainstorming with free market advocates from the Pacific Rim” at the Pacific Rim Policy Exchange: chief sponsors Heartland, Americans for Tax Reform (a Koch & Scaife funded lobby group), the Property Rights Alliance (an ATR spin-off), and Australia’s free market Institute of Public Affairs. And NZ’s pulling its weight on the agenda, with the Business Roundtable’s Roger Kerr on a panel considering free trade, and (somewhat more surprising, to me at least) Kiwiblogger and National party stalwart David Farrar taking part in a “working lunch” on “getting the message out”. Interesting to see he’s happy to take the Heartland shilling…
The resemblance between Rodney Hide and that puppet (Thunderbirds or Joe 90?) is uncanny.
Thunderbirds (are go!). Remarkably, they even have the same taste in clothes — click on the link under “The Hood” in the first sentence.
“Hide does not have a degree in environmental science”
Neither do you Gareth…
You should go Gareth. I am sure Chris de Freitas would love to hear you say some of the abusive things youve said about him face to face.
Or are you a coward?
The difference, David, is that I do not claim (or acquiesce in the claim) to be an “environmental scientist”.
As for de Freitas, I have said no more about him than is justified by his own statements and writings. I’d be very happy to discuss with CdF some of his actions, such as playing fast and loose with the responsibilities of acting as an expert witness.
What a contemptible remark. de Freitas has abused mainstream climate science and scientists for a long time now, and if anything has been treated too leniently. As for you – I suspect that you’re the religious fundamentalist who used to pollute the feedback columns on Weather Watch, until the moderator cut off your obnoxious, abusive, conspiracist diatribes. Not from New Brighton by any chance are you?
It’s interesting how the network of think tanks fuel and support the denial movement: Heartland and IPA organise and promote conferences and publications denying climate change. And yet according to the ordinary “sceptic” there is no conflict of interest… after all, they’re just pursuing the truth. Cognitive dissonance?
I’ll be monitoring the Aussie press to see if “counter-consensus” talking points pop up.
Gareth, as far as the inconsistencies of the deniers (science consensus does/does not exist, ….) go, perhaps they’re trying to take shelter via the Boolean logic tautology 0 ==> x = 1 (a falsehood validly implies anything)? Given their self-contradicting set of starting axioms, they can then say whatever they like…
AKA if you throw enough mud at the wall, some will stick…
Interesting use of the word “Drivers” above… hmnn. Tells of who reads whom and so on.. a sort of known by one’s associates.. hanging offense I’ m afraid to say..
Wonder if any more Australiasian usage comes to hand..
Silly of me I know, but I can’t quite get this sort of thing straight.
I assume Rodders is having his airfare and expenses paid by Exxon. But is he still having his wages paid by me while he is in Oz? (Or are his wages being docked at $10 per day?)
And I too have a collection of CdF press releases and writings that it is difficult to describe with any word other than mendacious.
The real question is who is paying Rodney’s airfare? Is he perhaps turning up with an expense account at one of the public purses of NZ? Parliamentary travel? Supercity? Is the taxpayer funding climate denial?
Who will check?
“Is the taxpayer funding climate denial?”
ACT openly campaigned against climate catastrophism and the ETS in 2008 and as such have every right to expect that their elected representatives will continue to advocate such.
That doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve to be called on and humiliated for it!
Advocacy? Perhaps. But flying to Australia to act as Bob Carter’s warm-up man? I think there’s a legitimate question to be asked as to who’s paying for his trip. It most certainly should not be the NZ taxpayer.
And who paid for the NZ mob to be flown to the Copenhagen circus? Who paid for Steve Chadwick to fly to the UN “Gender Disaster” conference for “…Making disaster risk reduction a tool for climate change adaptation from gender perspective”? As we speak I am being robbed to fund the climate alarmism that saturates the education system and classe politique, as well as paying ETS charges to a new class of ticket clippers.
In such a context your grizzling about ACT MPs doing what they have a mandate to do rings particularly hollow.