Sunday, May 26, 2019



Greenie hate

An email to Marc Morano copied to many climate skeptics:

From: Tim Remple tim@remple.us

Date: Thu, May 23, 2019, 20:07

Subject: FUCK YOU! DROP DEAD MOTHERFUCKER!!

Whereas you appeared on public at the recent House Natural Resources Committee, and

Whereas you said things that indicate your guilty of Crimes Against Humanity and Ecocide,

You are hereby official and irrevocably CURSED:

May you live long enough to see the collapse of both the climate and the eco-system on Planet Earth,

May you live long enough that your children and grandchildren likewise see the end of ALL LIFE on Planet Earth,

May they, when they understand what they YOU have done,

Ask you, "How the FUCK could you have done this to us??!!??

And may they then kill you!

May you die by their hand!

Looking them in the eye as THEY end your miserable life!!!!!

Curses are the recourse of people who have no actual power so this should bother nobody. It does however show how deep is the personal inadequacy of the curser.  He desperately needs to  be seen as heroic when he is in fact a nobody.  He has tied his own self-esteem to the climate myth.  To doubt global warming is to insult him personally. A couple of centuries ago he would have been burning witches -- JR.

Joe Bastardi comments:

"Greg Whitestone and David Legates witnessed a PSU climate ethics professor  trembling he was so upset while accusing me of leading to the deaths of millions even as I pointed out graphics that showed climate deaths were plummeting. One chart after another was systematically denied as it showed the opposite.  They are committed zealots and will not listen to reason"

Tim and Ruth Remple are anti-fracking activists who live in Longmont Colorado. That would fit with the email. And a Tim Remple is a Senior Software Engineer at NetApp SolidFire in Longmont, Colorado. Likely the same guy.

There is further nuttiness from him in a comment here of July 6, 2016. He lives in a fantasy world.  He seems to think that the Nazis are  coming to get him





In Another Reversal, Apple Allows App Countering Climate Alarmism

Apple’s on-again, off-again relationship with an online smartphone application that challenges global warming alarmism is back on.

The app, Inconvenient Facts, is available again in Apple’s App Store, much to the delight of the geologist who inspired it.

“I thought that it was entirely political,” Gregory Wrightstone, author of the book “Inconvenient Facts: The Science That Al Gore Doesn’t Want You to Know,” said of Apple’s original ban of the app in March. “I still don’t know, but we are back up and available.”

The book by Wrightstone, who has more than three decades of experience as a geologist, serves as the source of information on the app.

As The Daily Signal previously reported on Apple’s decision to backpedal on offering the app, Wrightstone points out that the board of the California-based tech giant includes former Vice President Al Gore, a leading proponent of the view that mankind’s activities propel dangerous climate change.

Apple initially approved the Inconvenient Facts app for sale on its iPhones on Feb. 3, then reversed itself and pulled the app March 4.

“In their rejection, Apple blamed several factors,” Wrightstone said in an email to The Daily Signal. “One was lack of compelling content. Another was limited functionality and use of the iPhone features.”

“The limited functionality meant that it was an app that could be web-based,” he said. “So, we added the phone component so that you can take a picture using the app and your camera, and we added an I LOVE CO2 banner at the bottom of the photo. My app developer and partner thought that might do the trick.”

The Daily Signal sought comment from Apple’s media relations office by phone and email, but the company had not responded by publication time.

For more than two months, the app remained available to Android users through the Google Play Store, where it has been downloaded about 16,000 times.

Apple reinserted the Inconvenient Facts app into its App Store on May 17, making a total of 60 facts about the climate change debate from Wrightstone’s book available to Apple users as well as Android users.

Complete with data, charts, and videos, the facts challenge the premise of alarmist theories linking man-made carbon dioxide emissions to dangerous levels of global warming or climate change.

Gore’s campaign to convince the public that rising levels of carbon dioxide could trigger catastrophic global warming was the subject of the 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” and the 2017 follow-up “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.”

The Daily Signal also sought comment from Gore via Delaware-based Carthage Group LLC, with which he is associated, and from the Climate Reality Project, which he founded. Neither organization had responded by publication time.

Users of the app simply tap on it to activate the features, including these “inconvenient facts”:

—“First and foremost, CO2 is plant food.”

—“140-million-year trend of dangerously decreasing CO2.”

—“Recent inconvenient pause of 18 years in warming, despite rise in CO2.”

—“The current warming trend is neither unusual nor unprecedented.”

—“Cold kills far more people than heat every year.”

—“There are more polar bears now than we’ve had for 50 years.”

Information about Wrightstone’s book and the app may be found at inconvenientfacts.xyz and on YouTube and Facebook.

SOURCE






India’s Coal Output To Grow 4.3% A Year Over Next 10 Years

Fitch Solutions Tuesday said India’s thermal coal output is projected to grow at an average annual rate of 4.3 percent by 2028.

“In absolute volume terms, China and India will have the largest impact on the global coal market balance,” Fitch Solutions Macro Research said in a report.

It further said the surge in Chinese imports that occurred over 2015-2017 as a result of dramatic domestic production curbs was a temporary phenomenon.

“We forecast thermal coal production in China to stagnate at 0.5 percent growth per annum from 2019 onwards, but not decline, as new coal mines in Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces offset mine closures in the rest of the country,” it said.

It further estimates that production by state-owned Coal India (CIL) — which accounts for around 90 percent of domestic output — will underwhelm the government expectations.

“We forecast India’s thermal coal output to grow by an average annual rate of 4.3 percent over 2019-2028,” it said.

Along with weaker Chinese and Indian demand, South Korea and Japan will also see coal consumption slowing down in 2019 due to heightening environmental concerns, it added.

“We maintain our thermal coal price forecast for 2019 at [$85/ton] as our previous belief that prices will be pressured downwards in 2019 due to lower seaborne demand from China and India, while global production will remain buoyant, is playing out,” the report noted.

SOURCE






EU Top Court Throws Out Climate Lawsuit

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has rejected a case brought by 10 families against the European Union.

The families claimed that the bloc’s inaction on climate change was harming their homes and livelihoods, lawyers said on Wednesday.

Plaintiffs from the EU, Kenya, and Fiji had filed the case in May of last year, saying climate change had already seriously impacted their lives and damaged their ability to make a living.

The plaintiffs included a family from the German island of Langeoog, who said those living on small islands would be the first to lose their homes to rising sea levels.

There was also a family from the Italian Alps who said that a shorter winter was leading to fewer tourists coming to the region for winter sports, a Swedish reindeer herder, and a Portuguese forester who lost a large portion of his property to wildfires in 2017.

Lawyers for the “People’s Climate Case” have said they will appeal the decision by the ECJ that individuals cannot sue the European Union for its environmental policy.

The judges found that “every individual is likely to be affected one way or another by climate change,” but that this was no legal grounds to file a complaint against the EU.

SOURCE





James Cook University head in trouble over firing of Prof. Ridd

Ridd is an honest scientist who had the daring to call out fake Greenie science at the university.  So they hate him with a passion.  In an old, old strategy, they thought to protect the Greenie crooks by attacking the whistleblower

If the vice-chancellor of James Cook University thinks she can keep a low profile, she is mistaken. Sandra Harding’s management of the sacking of physics professor Peter Ridd is under the microscope for good reason. The buck stops at the top. And much is at stake, with JCU facing international reputational damage over the scandal, huge legal costs, cost-cutting pressures from falling student numbers and staff discontent.

“The bottom line is Sandra Harding should go,” says a former member of the university’s 15-member governing council. “It’s in the interest of everybody that she retires.” Speaking to The Weekend Australian this week, the former council member says if Harding doesn’t retire, she should be sacked.

Ridd, an esteemed physics professor respected by students and staff, was sacked by JCU using a bogus claim of uncollegial behaviour that was rejected by the Federal Circuit Court last month. He questioned the quality of science about coral bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef. JCU spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending its right to sack Ridd, rather than encouraging a healthy debate about the claims he made.

So much for JCU being a bastion of academic freedom in the search of the truth. “Ridd is a decent man,” says the former council member who has had a long association with JCU, adding that Ridd did not want this fight. “He never set out to hurt anybody. But he did believe in what he was saying, he had evidence, and it’s proper to call out your colleagues if that is needed, to get to the truth. JCU took the nuclear option against Ridd, and that was crazy.”

Sacking Ridd was squarely a management issue for the VC, but the former council member says that JCU’s governing council should now be far more involved given the fallout from this debacle.

Still in close contact with JCU staff, including academics, the former council member says staff are upset and “whether or not they agree with Ridd is a separate matter. This court case probably cost the university a million bucks, which is money JCU cannot afford.”

The Weekend Australian has been told JCU is cutting about $20 million each year over its forward estimates due to financial pressures because the university is not meeting its own student enrolment targets. The former JCU council member confirms that is “one of the reasons why the staff across campus are very unhappy”.

“They know that there will be further redundancies coming. Those redundancies have already been chosen, but the staff haven’t been told who they are.”

According to the ex-member, the other reason the governing council should be more involved is that “the sacking of Ridd is being watched around the world. It is damaging JCU’s reputation in an area where JCU leads the world. In marine science, JCU is the top dog. To have that reputation damaged is extraordinarily worrying.”

The Weekend Australian also has been told JCU’s governing council has received briefings but otherwise has had little hands-on involvement in the Ridd matter. Given that council members have fiduciary duties similar to board members, some are asking why the governing council is not more involved with issues of reputational damage to JCU and the big bucks spent on court battles with Ridd.

The Weekend Australian sought an interview with Harding. She declined. A spokesman provided some answers by email to a list of questions, and a link to a statement by JCU provost Chris Cocklin after the Federal Circuit Court found against the university last month. The Weekend Australian also rang and left a message with JCU chancellor Bill Tweddell, who chairs the council. He did not return the call.

Though Harding has tried to keep her head down, the focus will remain on her. And it is not just her handling of the Ridd case that is causing consternation. “One of JCU’s current council members has been precluded from taking part in any council discussion involving Ridd because they reckon he has a conflict of interest because he knows one of the lawyers acting for Ridd,” says an insider.

“That’s not a conflict of interest,” he says, clearly frustrated by the erosion of council oversight, adding that “the council member didn’t want to rock the boat, so he has agreed not to attend meetings when the matter is discussed. She (Harding) might fight the battle, but she won’t win the war and there was never a need for the war in the first place. (JCU’s) campus is a very unhappy place right now.”

All this when Harding, in her 60s, might be planning one more career move. Her term as JCU boss expires at the end of 2021. She has been mentioned as a future Queensland governor. Some say she has her sights on one of Australia’s grander Group of Eight universities. But the controversy over her handling of Ridd won’t make either promotion easy.

“This is a significant bump in that road to a bigger and better position,” says one insider, who has been involved in the governance of JCU.

According to the former member of JCU’s governing council, Ridd has more support on campus than he realises, including from fellow academics. Something for Harding to keep in mind.

This month, Ridd told The Weekend Australian that none of his colleagues had defended him publicly. He suggested the need for “kamikaze academics”, academics who are older and established enough to resign in the noble cause of defending academic freedom. A few days later, JCU adjunct associate professor Sheilagh Cronin resigned from her unpaid position at the university. “After reading that, I thought ‘that’s me’,” she told The Weekend Australian this week.

Cronin wrote to Harding, resigning from her role at JCU and outlining her concerns over Ridd’s treatment: “I believe his treatment by yourself and your board is completely contrary to the philosophy of open discussion and debate that should be at the heart of every university. It saddens me that the reputation of JCU is being damaged by the injustice of Professor Ridd’s case.”

Cronin told The Weekend Australian she is also concerned about the scale of money spent on litigation against Ridd, and more still if JCU appeals.

“When the federal government gives us money, we are very closely scrutinised and so we should be. These are precious dollars that could be used elsewhere,” says Cronin, a doctor who has overseen a $23m budget to provide health services through the Western Queensland Primary Health Network. It is the same at JCU, she says, where the governing council has oversight duties.

“I’m not looking for a row with JCU, but I think there is an important principle of openness and transparency when you’re handling taxpayer dollars.”

Cronin is troubled by the lack of introspection at the highest levels of JCU: “They’re putting all the blame on him and they aren’t looking at themselves.”

Cronin has not received a response from Harding.

A few weeks ago, former JCU dean of science John Nicol wrote to each of JCU’s council members expressing his concern that “the university’s reputation as an honest broker in the field of marine science has been trashed”.

“I am writing to express my concern and disappointment at the worldwide unmitigated adverse publicity, which the university management has brought to bear on James Cook University’s fine reputation, through its inaction in ensuring the integrity of all of its research output and its un-conscienable (sic) treatment of Professor Peter Ridd who sought to encourage the university to restore such integrity.”

Nicol concluded his letter to council members as follows: “James Cook University now needs your direct intervention and support.” He has not received a response to his concerns from any council members.

The Weekend Australian asked Harding whether, given the dismal fallout from the Ridd saga, JCU intends to commit to the set of principles about academic freedom recommended by former High Court chief justice Robert French in his recent report to the Morrison government.

Harding had nothing to say. A spokesman referred back to the provost’s April statement, adding this: “JCU strongly supports the principle of academic freedom and notes that the French review found there was … no evidence, on the basis of recent events, which would answer the pejorative description of a ‘free speech crisis’ on campus.”

Pulling a single line from the lengthy French review has further disappointed Harding’s critics. “Harding is making a huge mistake in the way she’s managing this whole issue,” the former council member says of the university’s attempt to justify the Ridd debacle and fob off the French review.

French appealed to university vice-chancellors to embed a culture of academic freedom on their campuses: “A culture powerfully predisposed to the exercise of freedom of speech and academic freedom is ultimately more effective than the most tightly drawn rule. A culture not so disposed will undermine the most emphatic state of principles.”

French’s recommendation for a model code of academic freedom was released by the Morrison government barely two weeks before JCU’s attempt to sack Ridd was rejected by a court at first instance.

Harding might re-read the whole 300-page French review before deciding to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting the respected physics professor in another round of expensive and damaging litigation.

SOURCE 

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