Tuesday, August 21, 2018

In which the pond gets around to the Caterist ...


As everyone should know by now, truth isn't truth, and so there's no point reading the Caterist in the hope of finding truth, because there's no truth in the Caterist world, just the warm, cosy feeling of government cash in the paw …


Now that little sugar hit is way better than truth, and surely a path to some kind of epiphany …

The pond had to put aside the epiphanic Caterist earlier in the day in the hope of witnessing a slaughter, but even though the near death experience has passed for the moment, his piece reads as a piece of sublime irrelevance, as if the NEG still had some kind of life and substance …


To be fair, the Caterist was blessed with a Krygsman, thereby guaranteeing cult status, though the pond was torn between seeing Dave and the mutton Dutton in the picture …

As for the rest, it's the usual sly innuendo of Caterist climate science denialism at work. The way this goes down is that the furtive sociology student and van driver slinks around, never actually tackling the science, but instead muttering about HAL, computers, modelling, and dropping waggish hints here and there ...


Of course out in the real world, there's such a thing as field work and field observation … you know things that don't involve assumptions or modelling …


But because Caterist truth isn't the truth, he'll just keep rabbiting on about computers and all the rest of the garbage, and not bother to indulge in a cursory check at Axios here …and if Axios is considered a little too superficial, why there's always the Donald's NASA here


And so on and so forth, and so back to the Caterist, still imagining he could have a chat with Dave, or Malware, about the NEG ...


Well talking up all those saucy doubts and fears, and all that climate science denialism, has finally worked its magic …and Malware and his NEG seem to have hit an onion muncher wall ...

Now, to wrap things up, who to quote? 

An actual climate scientist, perhaps recently returned from the field and able to report on the situation at the poles or in the centre, or somewhere else, or a Scottish poet?

So silly of the pond to ask ...


The pond should be astonished at the level of stupidity on display in any Caterist piece.

Never mind the ever-changing, to the point of rigor mortis, NEG, check out the logic embedded in the Caterist's scribble …

Apparently climate change isn't an issue or a problem - you know silly HAL and all that stuff - and yet the Caterist still tips the hat to the notion of reducing carbon emissions …

Why bother with that farcical dissembling?

Surely an honest scribbler would have written "there is no point in seeking out cheaper and less damaging ways of reducing carbon emissions, because there's no point reducing carbon emissions, because, let's face it, HAL and his fellow computers are a bunch of left-wing greenie stooges concocting climate hysteria and alarmism…"

But then the pond remembers that truth isn't truth, and logic isn't logic, and the real Caterist aim is to score cash in the paw, and peace returns ...

Luckily it was Cathy Wilcox who worked out the real reason for the increase in planetary temperatures …

Apparently it's been caused by excessive burning off for power, with Wilcox tweeting away here ...



4 comments:

  1. "Victorian government decisions effectively maximised the public cost of subsidising aluminium, to a total of $4.5 billion on some estimates." https://insidestory.org.au/deja-vu-all-over-again/

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  2. Goosebumps Cater quoting Richard Denniss: "Economic modelling can be useful, he writes, but is only as good as the data that backs it and the assumptions that underpin the model."

    Wau, that's entirely radical and unheard of, isn't it. No economist has ever said anything remotely like that ever before, have they. You can confirm that with Nassim Taleb, yes ? And of course, not Cater, nor any single wingnut or reptile has ever paid even the slightest attention to such fragile ideas, have they.

    And now, Goosebumps quoting Jim Stanford: "The consequences of the loss of the Portland facility would be regionally devastating and nationally significant. Its closure would have meaningful impacts on national output, employment and export performance. It would undermine commonwealth, state and local government revenues."

    Oh wau, that's cataclysmic, isn't it ? Well, maybe, how about this:
    1. "The bailout of Alcoa’s ageing aluminium smelter in the Victorian coastal town of Portland is possibly the dumbest thing that the Andrews Labor government has committed to, and could cost more than half a million dollars per employee per year."
    https://reneweconomy.com.au/portland-smelter-rescue-deal-cost-victoria-1-1-billion-4-years-86101/
    And
    2. "Victorians have already tipped in billions of dollars over 30 years to keep Alcoa afloat. While Chris Grayland and his colleagues say it is a worthwhile investment, wider Victoria might reasonably ask, what price the Portland jobs?"
    https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/alcoa-insight-cover-shell-20170105-gtm63l.html

    Yeah, that really is some effect on revenues, isn't it. Does anybody know definitively whether or not Cater can read ?

    And just a wee small comment on the 'record hot July', DP. As I'm sure we all know, the Earth's orbit around the sun is elliptical, not circular. Just at the moment, there's about a 3% difference between the distance to the sun at aphelion (152,095,566 km) and perihelion (147,097,233 km and that means a 6% difference in the intensity of solar energy reaching Earth. In short, July - the time of aphelion - is actually the coldest month of the year. ( And at present the orbital eccentricity is nearly at the minimum of its [Milankovitch] cycle).
    http://www.indiana.edu/~geol105/images/gaia_chapter_4/milankovitch.htm

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  3. "Does anybody know definitively whether or not Cater can read?" Probably not, or at least he cannot interpret what he reads. Cannot read a chart either I would guess.

    I like to revisit historical predictions from time to time, just to see how much street-cred I should give to a forecaster's current predictions. The climate models are disturbingly on-target. There's no end of data if you want to dig into it but this is a simple take on just one study.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jun/25/30-years-later-deniers-are-still-lying-about-hansens-amazing-global-warming-prediction

    Cater seems to think it is self-evident that the models are inaccurate, I think it is self-evident that Cater never checks anything (rather like his hydrological insights).

    We have discussed the subsidies to aluminium smelters before but it is well worth asking if the hat full of jobs is worth the enormous cost. Solar subsidies seem to get thousands of feet scampering across rooftops but, like the Great Barrier Reef, the employment doesn't tend to get noticed if it doesn't involve a big building and lots of smokestacks.

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    Replies
    1. And talking about Cater and hydrology, it's getting closer and closer to September.

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