Ridd loses: Federal Court rules that science is whatever the JCU Vice Chancellor says it is.

JCU wins the appeal on all 17 points that Justice Vasta scathingly awarded to Peter Ridd.

If, hypothetically, fraud was happening at JCU and a staff member reported it, the Australian Federal Court decision has just declared that its fine for JCU to sack that whistleblower for being uncolliegiate.

As I said, this is a case so pointless that even if JCU wins, it loses. And it has spent a fortune to win the legal battle and prove that we cannot trust anything anyone says from JCU.

This win doesn’t just tarnish the VC and admin, it taints everyone who works there.  No matter what any good academic says at JCU, the world will wonder what they didn’t say. We can’t know whether they would have preferred to say something else, but couldn’t out of fear that they will be sacked because the VC might not like it.

To recap Peter Ridds crimes: he said “for your amusement” in an email once. (Illegal satire). He said “ We can no longer rely on our science institutions.” He talked about the replication crisis in science, […]

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July 22, 2020 at 12:05PM

By Paul Homewood

While I was away cycling (again!), the BBC ran this report:

Polar bears will be wiped out by the end of the century unless more is done to tackle climate change, a study predicts.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53474445 

Dr Susan Crockford has quickly demolished both the study and the story:

Apparently, a prediction that polar bears could be nearly extinct by 2100 (which was first suggested back in 2007) is news today because there is a new model. As for all previous models, this prediction of future polar bear devastation depends on using the so-called ‘business as usual’ RCP8.5 climate scenario, which has been roundly criticized in recent years as totally implausible, which even the BBC has mentioned. This new model, published today as a pay-walled paper in Nature Climate Change, also did something I warned against in my last post: it uses polar bear data collected up to 2009 only from Western Hudson Bay – which is an outlier in many respects – to predict the response of bears worldwide. The lead author, Peter Molnar, is a former student of vocal polar bear catastrophist Andrew Derocher – who himself learned his trade from the king of polar bear calamity forecasts, Ian Stirling. Steven Amstrup, another co-author of this paper, provided the ‘expert opinion’ for the failed USGS polar bear extinction model featured in my book, The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened.

Well, these authors and their supporters got the headlines they crave, including coverage by outlets like the BBC and New York Times (see below) but I have to say that the combination of using out-of-date Western Hudson Bay information on when polar bears come ashore in summer and leave for the ice in fall (only to 2009) to make vague projections (‘possible’, ‘likely’, ‘very likely’) about all other subpopulations in addition to depending on the most extreme and now discredited RCP8.5 climate scenario (Hausfather and Peters 2020) for this newest polar bear survival model is all that’s needed to dismiss it as exaggerated-fear-mongering-by-proxy. Why would anyone believe that the output of this new model describes a plausible future for polar bears?

Meanwhile, polar bear populations worldwide continue to thrive despite declines in sea ice. And as I have pointed out on numerous occasions, the ice free period for WH has not continued to decline since 1998 but rather has remained stable (with yearly variation) at about 3 weeks longer than it was in the 1980s (Castro de la Guardia et al 2017). Moreover, for the last five years at least, including this one, the ice-free season for WH bears has been better (only 1-2 weeks longer than the 1980s), although no official data on this phenomenon has yet been published. Oddly, this more recent data for Hudson Bay was not used for the Molnar model.

Susan’s full account is here.

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July 22, 2020 at 11:57AM

Tsunami warning in effect for the Alaskan peninsula and south Alaska. “The Homer spit is being evacuated.”

A shallow 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit at 6.12am Wednesday, about 500 miles (804km) southwest of Anchorage, the US Geological Survey said.

“Based on the preliminary earthquake parameters … hazardous tsunami waves are possible for coasts located within 186 miles (300km) of the earthquake epicentre,” the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said.

“For other US and Canadian Pacific coasts in North America, the level of tsunami danger is being evaluated.”

One person wrote on Twitter:

The #homer spit is being evacuated. There’s been a massive #earthquake to the south and the tsunami sirens are blaring. Cars are streaming up Skyline, one after the other outside my window. #Alaska

From AFP, news.com.au, July 22, 2020 8:21pm
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/breaking-news/tsunami-warning-as-78magnitude-earthquake-hits-off-alaska/news-story/4ea8f0848b90b6fbba6087ae128b6b92

Thanks to Laurel for this link

The post Tsunami warning issued as 7.8-magnitude earthquake hits off Alaska appeared first on Ice Age Now.

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July 22, 2020 at 10:09AM

German expert scientists, geologist Dr. Sebastian Lüning and chemist Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt, need funding to get out climate realist message, which the well-funded activists don’t want you to hear.

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German climate video site: asking for donations

By Kalte Sonne
German text translated/edited by P. Gosselin)

Dear readers,

On television and on YouTube, climate warnings dominate. As normal citizens it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with who is unjustifiably stirring up fear of climate and who is trivializing relevant dangers. The YouTube channel “Climate Change Crash Course” is committed to a fair and technically sound presentation.

The first two information videos have already been uploaded there. In these pilot videos, technology was tested, a lot of improvisation had to be done. Computers crashed, hard disk space became scarce, sound cards failed – the usual stuff.

For this reason we decided to upgrade technically and to buy a suitable video editing laptop. In addition, an external sound card and microphones are needed, a camera is to be repaired. Furthermore, we would like to license a professional editing software in order to work without crashes. For all who want to help, there is the possibility to donate here (recipient: Seven Continents):

Please donate via Paypal here.

If you prefer to transfer the sum by bank remittance, please write us: spenden@kaltesonne.de

Also help us with content

In addition to your support in setting up the basic technical equipment, you can also help us with the content. Which statements made by prominent climate protagonists appearing in TV programs or on YouTube do you find particularly remarkable and so be made a subject of discussion? Within the scope of the right of quotation, we are allowed to integrate short scenes into analysis videos and comment on them there. Please send us a link if you are aware of relevant statements and suggest them for analysis.

Furthermore, we are considering offering webinars. Would this be interesting for you? Recordings of the webinars could then also be made available on the YouTube channel. We would be pleased to hear your feedback.

Best regards,

Die kalte Sonne team

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July 22, 2020 at 09:53AM