BREAKING NEWS: Top Aussie climate scientist goes feral on skeptics and fellow scientists

One of Australia's most outspoken scientists has this week rubbished the team behind the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, describing the project as nothing more than a "nuclear billiards machine" and saying the money should be devoted to paying for more climate change research instead.

Ian Lowe, emeritus professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University in Brisbane, has been in New Zealand for a low-profile crisis meeting on how to get climate change back on top of the public list of concerns.

The meeting brought together not just climate scientists from New Zealand and Australia, but also social scientists who've been asked to come up with strategies on how to manipulate public opinion. Additionally, key sympathetic business leaders like Air New Zealand's Rob Fyfe are understood to have attended.

As part of the conference, the NZ Government funded Science Media Centre, a climate change propaganda unit, organised for select invited media to attend a briefing from Professor Lowe, and NZ government social scientist Karen Cronin.

The briefing is a unique insight not just into the mindset of the climate science propaganda units, but in the sychophantic media willing to push their message unquestioningly.

During the hour long media briefing, Lowe

• ridiculed the scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider, saying money would be better spent by climate scientists
• argued that for propaganda purposes the media should hype-up individual weather events - such as floods in Mozambique - as proof of climate change
• claimed Hurricane Katrina was clearly caused by climate change
• claimed a conspiracy of white, Anglo Celtic elderly males was behind the skeptic movement
• with NZ government social scientist Karen Cronin advocated researching how to foment enough anger in the public that governments who refused to take climate action could be "pushed out of the way" in a political upheaval

To hear Lowe ridiculing the LHC, click here (or right click and download):

Lowebilliards1

NZ Press Association reporter Kent Atkinson asked this leading question, "I’d like to hear about the fickleness of public opinion, it will surely take only one or two major catastrophes directly attributed to climate change to change public opinion and the willingness of politicians to take a longer term view of sustainability and issues such as climate change?"

This prompted Lowe to agree, arguing weather is climate, for the purposes of propaganda, and that Katrina was definitely caused by climate change, click here:

Lowekatrina1

Given that Katrina was not caused by climate change, and that peer reviewed studies have shown Saharan dust has a much bigger role on Atlantic hurricane activity (and I quoted those studies in Air Con ), one can only surmise Lowe is either woefully misinformed or he doesn't care about the facts that get in the way of his fairy stories.

To hear Lowe's conspiracy theory about Anglo-Celtic males, and the media buy-in courtesy of NZPA reporter Kent Atkinson, click here:

LoweAnglo

To hear Lowe and NZ government scientist Karen Cronin advocating some kind of people-power revolution if necessary, click here:

LoweRevolution

Staggering stuff. Not content with merely doing the science and presenting facts, inconvenient or otherwise, these people are now actively trying to brainwash the public into a "Berlin Wall" type of political backlash against politicians who stand in the way of the new climate order.

It has often been said that allowing people like this access to schoolchildren in the name of "environmental education" was a stupid idea. Evidence of that can also be found in this clip where a Dunedin climate educator admits her students are now exhibiting "climate rage" that needs to be harnessed:

FlemingRage

That such a discussion can come out of taxpayer-funded Government scientists and communicators is incredible. They seem to forget that we elect politicians to make policy, we have no power to elect scientists. Their jobs are safe from public whim precisely because they are supposed to be non-political, in the sense of not abusing public position to advance a political agenda.

If they want to change that...then let's see what the public mood really is...

 

Comments

[Shane Ponting]

Just you try to reassure us on this one CM.

[Kapow]

Re Katrina;
What about the Galveston Hurricane of 8 Sept 1900 - completely destroyed a major part of the city, thousands of residents lost their lives.
There is even a book written about this event - "Isaac's Storm - the Drowning of Galveston".
This guy is just following the usual MO of his type - make an outlandish claim, leave out the nasty little facts that dont suit your story, use the magic words "climate change" and then it will be believable.

[Falafulu Fisi]

Prof. Lowe should stick to his expertise in rubbish collection science. Yep he is not a physicist; know nothing about particle physics, yet making a comment on LHC as if he knows fu*k all about the science.

We used to joke at varsity for people who couldn't make the cut to enrol in physics courses by telling them that there is always environmental science papers if they wanted to add up their credits in order to complete the requirements for their undergrad degrees or master’s programs, since in environmental science you go to lectures and fall asleep there everyday all week through out the semester, and you're guaranteed to pass the final exam at the end of the semester. The reason was obvious. You didn’t need a brain to do environmental science.

Prof. Lowe's comment as a non-expert on something that he has no clue about such as LHC’s operation was pathetic & unjustified. I don’t understand why a sociologist as Dr. Karen Cronin who knows nothing about science, get involved in the deliberate manipulation of public opinion.

If prominent theoretical physicists such as Prof/s. Lisa Randall, Michio Kaku, Joseph Polchinski , Peter Higgs including hundreds & thousands of others who are collaborating with researchers at CERN's LHC, are to hear ( have heard of) Prof. Lowe's pathetic comment, they would probably take a snipe at Prof. Lowe by telling him to stick to his expertise in toilet cleaning & rubbish collection branch of science (i.e., environmental). Hard core physicists, have branched out to non-core branches, from modern economics theory (econo-physics), socio-physics (application of statistical mechanics physics to sociology), to cell biology complex system's modelling and so forth.

Hard core physicists are everywhere these days. In fact they can learn any branch of science if they wish since they can apply sophisticated theoretical physics methods from their field of work to any domain. For a non-physicist as Prof. Lowe to take a swipe at the important work of theoretical physicists who're currently involved in the LHC project was pathetic and uncalled for.

[Maxx8864]

This is nothing more marxist activism disguised as science. He gives examples of 'critical thresholds' that led to the collapse of the Berlin wall, Apartheid and the Shah of Iran all of which are examples that led to greater freedom. I suspect what he really wants is the gunshot that started the Russian revolution or Mao's cultural revolution.

[AcidComments]

"This guy is just following the usual MO of his type - make an outlandish claim, leave out the nasty little facts that dont suit your story, use the magic words "climate change" and then it will be believable."

Yep.

The Climate Change Industry are some of the biggest Spin Doctors, Propagandists, Cherrypickers, Incompetents, fraudsters, Voodoo Astrologers and Money Grabbing Charlatans
of the 21st Century!

[Angus]

Climate change was never about science, it was always about politics. Eventually those pushing this fake environmental religion will get over the damage done to their egos and move on.

[Johnnieboy]

"This prompted Lowe to agree, arguing weather is climate, for the purposes of propaganda, and that Katrina was definitely caused by climate change".

Absolutely brilliant. A bob each way- weather is not climate when record snowfall hits the US and UK, while Katrina is climate "for the purposes of propaganda".

[oakgeo]

Wow, just wow. Activists like Lowe terrify me. Anti-science radicals and porpagandists.

It's not enough that they already get the lion's share of public funding for climate reasearch, now they want to shut down the Large Hadron Collider and take that money too? What else do they want to shut down? Oh, yeah. The economy.

[Sean McHugh]

Falafulu Fisi wrote:

"Prof. Lowe should stick to his expertise in rubbish collection science."

As Phil Jones can tell you, that can get a bit messy, so one then needs to lose some of the collected rubbish.

Falafulu Fisi later wrote:

"Hard core physicists are everywhere these days. In fact they can learn any branch of science if they wish since they can apply sophisticated theoretical physics methods from their field of work to any domain."

Though not a scientist, I have observed the difference. The physicist would be able to do climate science but the reciprocal would unlikely apply; the climate scientist would be able to do gender studies.

Lowe's ridicule of the LHC could backfire, as it could get physicists onto the climate case. That is something I would really like to see, a team of volunteer physicists examining AGW and its scientific method.

[Sean McHugh]

This is from 'Australian Climate Madness', which provided the link to the above:

http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/

"Just to put this in perspective, Ian Lowe is the president of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), which is an extremist environmental pressure group. It is famous for being the Australian wing of Al Gore's despicable "Climate Project", whose sole purpose is to disseminate to the unsuspecting public the lies and propaganda contained in An Inconvenient Truth."

[anonymous]

This is outrageous! Now I am angry, really, really angry. Questions need to be asked about this misuse of taxpayer funds. Email this to every MP and tell them you don't support taxpayer funds being used for a meeting that is so deceptively dishonest.

[Paul Clark]

Very suspicious that the LHC broke after only a few days operation. Sounds like a good cover story for something that doesn't work.

There must be a size limit to these particle accelerators. We can't create a perfect vacuum on Earth so collisions with gas molecules will increase with the length of the track. It doesn't matter how powerful the constraining fields are. My guess is that the LHC doesn't work but these scientists lied to keep the gravy train going and give them time to cook up some faulty data to please the lawmakers.

There's a whole bunch of predictions about finding Higgs bosons and new particles predicted by supersymmetry.
What have they actually found? Nothing. Why do they have to wait to crank things up and really try it? Is it like a car that needs warming up? No. It either works or it doesn't.

So I go to look at the latest developments on their research results and guess what? Surprise, surprise they are shutting it down for another year of repairs.

What a bunch of baloney. I say it's doesn't work and never will.

[Lord Stansted]

Someone should tell Ian Lowe that physics is what real science is about. It gets truthful answers, backed up with rigorous theory. Try conducting "climate science" the same way - if you can!

[CM]

>>>Prof. Lowe's comment as a non-expert on something that he has no clue about such as LHC’s operation was pathetic & unjustified. I don’t understand why a sociologist as Dr. Karen Cronin who knows nothing about science, get involved in the deliberate manipulation of public opinion.<<<

Would it be like a journalist attempting to manipulate opinion via a climate change blog?

>>>Just you try to reassure us on this one CM.<<<

I'm not here to 'reassure' anyone of anything.

[Peter Bickle]

Bit like a chump like CM standing up for the religion. You are as easily fooled as a Brian Tamaki devotee. CM does not know the first thing about science I suppose, climate change advocates do not either.

[Falafulu Fisi]

Paul Clark said...
Very suspicious that the LHC broke after only a few days operation. Sounds like a good cover story for something that doesn't work.

You’re a conspiracy theorist aren’t you?

Paul Clark said...
There must be a size limit to these particle accelerators.

And you think you know? On what basis that your knowledge of this is based on?

Paul Clark said...
We can't create a perfect vacuum on Earth so collisions with gas molecules will increase with the length of the track.

Again, you think you know? Have you designed a linear accelerator before? If so, then tell us which one?

Paul Clark said...
It doesn't matter how powerful the constraining fields are.

It is not the magnetic fields that it's responsible for creating the vacuum in the (vacuum) chamber of the linear accelerator. The nucleon beam of proton (can be neutron) is created in a different chamber (highly charged). Hydrogen gas is pumped into this chamber which comes into contact with a moving highly charged conveyor belt (+ve charge). The +ve charged conveyor belt strips the electron from the monatomic hydrogen gas when they get in contact, thus leaving the bare proton from the hydrogen available to be guided by magnetic field to the main linear accelerator vacuum chamber itself. Once it enters the accelerator then they (protons) are energized and accelerated to any desired energy level depending on the experimenter's target level.

Paul Clark said...
My guess is that the LHC doesn't work but these scientists lied to keep the gravy train going and give them time to cook up some faulty data to please the lawmakers.

So, you're guessing, huh? In other words you're just fibbing. Making assumptions as if you know better than theoretical physicists who are involved with LHC makes you look like a warmist idiot (even though, from your blog, you're an AGW skeptic).

Paul Clark said...
There's a whole bunch of predictions about finding Higgs bosons and new particles predicted by supersymmetry.

Huh, your statement is redundant. That's why LHC was built for, to do exactly what you've just stated. Didn't you know that everyone already knew that? There's more to just predicting sparticles (from super symmetry) from experiments that they're going to conduct at LHC but also see if there are some indirect telltale sign that Joseph Polchinski's M-Theory & multidimensional/parallel universe may be correct. Prof Lisa Randall's theory (again in higher multidimensional universe) can also be tested for indirect experimental observations where Kaluza–Klein particles could be traveling in those higher dimensions. See a short Youtube vid clip of Lisa Randall here about LHC and what's it's intended purpose (i.e., what sort of experiments they're going to conduct over the next few years in there).

Lisa Randall talks about the Large Hadron Collider

[Falafulu Fisi]

Paul Clark said...
What have they actually found? Nothing. Why do they have to wait to crank things up and really try it?

LHC wasn't aimed to have the capability to do all intended experiments from the moment it begins it's operations but just to get it off the ground so that some theories can be tested straight away. More complex experiments will need add-on functionalities to the LHC itself (i.e., more engineering & equipments are to be built and incorporated into LHC facilities). Similar thing happened to other well known but smaller accelerators (compared to LHC), such as SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center), which was built in 1962, but experiments to find tau-lepton weren't conducted after decades from when it was built & completed. WHY? Because the technology wasn't available during design & construction time but when it became available years later they built those technologies into the facility order to conduct such experiments.

Paul Clark said...
Is it like a car that needs warming up? No. It either works or it doesn't.

Look idiot. A nuclear accelerator is not a fu*king car. It is much more complex than a car. You built it at the beginning with the aim that it can do certain experiments, then you add on technologies after years or decades later to be able to test existing theories which were already proposed at the time of construction of the accelerator but the technology & engineering didn’t exist back then.

Paul Clark said...
So I go to look at the latest developments on their research results and guess what? Surprise, surprise they are shutting it down for another year of repairs.

Ha, I anticipated correctly a few years a go (before LHC was ready) that there will be a period where they have to stop or shut down the LHC in order to fix some design faults. You don't need to know differential calculus to anticipate that. WHY? LHC is probably the most complex engineering project that mankind has ever built to date. Common sense tells us that we shouldn't be surprised if a complex project like that doesn’t function 100% from day one. Did you remember Hubble? What happened? It was faulty when they first launched it? Then what? Well, scientists and engineers worked hard on technological hurdles on how to fix the problem. And then what? The problem was fixed, and we have been getting amazing pictures/images of the universe/galaxies after the flaws were fixed.

Paul Clark said...
What a bunch of baloney. I say it's doesn't work and never will.

Now, you're making a daft comment perhaps even worse than Prof. Ian Lowe sniped against LHC scientists.

How about you stick to debunking conspiracy theories because it seems that you're good at it. Leave the science and engineering to those who know how to do it, even there were design faults that weren't detected at the beginning. They will fix it and LHC will be running smoothly afterwards.

[Falafulu Fisi]

CM said...
Would it be like a journalist attempting to manipulate opinion via a climate change blog?

CM, as others have pointed out here. You're repetitive again here on this blog with irrelevant arguments. There is a huge difference between a government agency trying to manipulate the opinions of the public and people going to a blog on their own volition to read about a topic they love and make up their own mind. A government that tries to manipulate public opinions was frequently practiced in the former USSR.

Do you see the difference? FFS, stop trolling. Say something original.

[CM]

>>>CM, as others have pointed out here. You're repetitive again here on this blog with irrelevant arguments.<<<

Nah that's what people say when they don't have a decent response to the substantive nature of my post.

>>>There is a huge difference between a government agency trying to manipulate the opinions of the public and people going to a blog on their own volition to read about a topic they love and make up their own mind.<<<

I agree.

>>>Bit like a chump like CM standing up for the religion. You are as easily fooled as a Brian Tamaki devotee. CM does not know the first thing about science I suppose, climate change advocates do not either.<<<

Say something original or Falafulu will be on your case.

[Bammbamm]

Being the only one here who has worked on several beam lines of a nuclear accelerator, and designed experiments for high field helium cooled fission/fusion product detectors ....

I have also designed other nuclear weapons systems which are illegal in NZ under the present laws, and could technically have me arrested and imprisoned.

I'm going to say my bit. Again.

Griffith is a 'Cow college' in the middle of no where. They promote their Professors for NOTHING.
This guys is purely delusion, and is in urgent need of psychological and psychiatric assessment.
His beliefs are purely delusional, and he should be up for clinical evaluation and medication, through a compulsory treatment order.

If Mr Wishart were to check the sanity dipsticks on his motley crew of 'CO2 believers', he would be in for a real shock. They would surpass computer programmers for 'obsessive compulsive' diagnoses ...

As for me, I'm out of nuclear research, and into biotech.

I wouldn't piss down the throat of 'climate research' even if all their arseholes burst into flames.

I'll check in here later ... if anyone has any questions - feel free to ask.
I suspect it will be the usual crowd in here pushing MMGW?