all right

Occasionally adding corroborative details to add verisimilitude to otherwise bald and unconvincing,
but veridicous accounts
with careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination.

03 June, 2014

If Other Experts Were as Qualified as “Climate-Change Scientists”

On the ABC’s “QandA” an awarmist, scamming cretin, Bahareh Sarah Howard*, asked Sen. Cory Bernardi a stupid question:
Senator Bernardi, last week you said it was “good news” that the Federal budget had abolished the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and that the government was “still committed to abolishing the Climate Change Authority and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation”.  As a researcher in climate change and renewable energy, I presume that when your car mechanic, your dentist, or your plumber tells you there is something wrong with your car, your teeth, or your pipes, you listen and act.  Why is it that you ignore the advice of climate change experts, from every corner of this planet who are urging us that climate is changing and we must act to reduce CO2 emissions now?  Australia is per capita the largest emitter in the world.
The silly cultist and aspiring hierophant fails to recognise that, currently, car mechanics, dentists and plumbers don’t duplicitously predicate their remedies on a scamming, self-serving, pseudo-scientific conjecture.  We may, however, imagine what a wonderful world it would be if tradesmen, medical specialists and various other experts were as qualified and as proficient as she and her fellow hoaxers:–

Visiting the new-age car mechanic:

Mechanic:  How may I help you?
Customer:  My car just needs a tune-up, I think.


Mechanic: Ho! So you think you’re the expert, eh?


Customer: No, I just—
Mechanic: We’re the experts here; now, your car obviously needs a new, non-polluting electric engine and, of course, a nice new, non-polluting, heavy battery will just fit into your boot very snugly.


Customer: How much will that cost? And where am I going to put the family’s luggage when we go on holiday if you put a great big battery—which is surely not as non-polluting as you say—in the boot?
Mechanic: First, apart from a few charges, imposts, dues, tariffs and levies, and a series of weekly payments, the engine is completely free—


Customer: Free?


Mechanic: Courtesy of the taxpayer, through the engine-change levy and the renewable energy subsidisation tax; and, as for holidays, you ought to know by now that going on holidays is very bad for the planet, so don’t.


Customer: But I can see from all the photos around this garage that you regularly fly overseas for—


Mechanic: That’s different.
Customer: How?


Mechanic: It just is.


Customer: Well, I don’t want to insult you or anything but are you a qualified tradesman?
Mechanic: Of course; I have an associate diploma in automotive studies from the Australian Climate Institute.


Customer: Right, well, I think I’ll drive away and have the car fixed later. You see, it wasn’t anything urgent—


Mechanic: Too late, under provisions of the engine-change legislation I’ve had to seize your vehicle and we’ve already started replacing your old, wicked, fossil-fuel engine.  Trust me, I’m a automotive-change expert.
Visiting the new-age dentist: 
Dentist: Before we begin, just sign these consent forms here, here and here.  Good, well done.  Now, what seems to be your problem? 
Customer:  My upper left premolar smarts, and I think it could do with a filling.  All my other teeth, thank heavens, are fine.

 
Dentist:  Ah, yes, they must be removed.

 
Customer:  They? 
Dentist:  Yes, all of them. 
Customer:  Don’t you need to take an X-ray or something first? 
Dentist:  No, modern dental-change science is beyond nasty, ancient and dangerous techniques now.  I’ll just ring the nurse and she’ll take you and your forms to the dental-change facility.

 
Customer:  Hell, what did I just sign?

 
Dentist:  This is permission to hold you in detention for six months on an anascorbic diet; that one’s garnisheeing your wages for the next fifty years; and that one’s subscribing to a monthly recipe service for nutritious vegetable smoothies.

 
Customer:  Hey, what?  What, what’s an anascorbic diet when it’s home?

 
Dentist:  Well, we remove Vitamin C from your diet so that you develop a therapeutic form of scurvy, which allows all your diseased teeth to fall out naturally and relatively painlessly.  Then, if you recover, you’ll enjoy for the rest of your days slurping nutritious vegetable smoothies or soups without ever having to chew like a beast of the field ever again.

 
Customer:  What about false teeth?  What if I want to eat a steak?

 
DentistAll teeth (97% of dental-change scientists agree) are bad for the planet, and so is eating meat:  it’s murder. 
Customer:  Look, are you a qualified dentist? 
Dentist:  Of course; I have an Bachelor of Arts in Dental Studies from Swinburne. 
Customer:  Who were your teachers there? 
Dentist:  An accountant, an archæologist and a career politician.

 
Customer:  Look, I think I want a second opinion. 
Dentist:  Too late.  The science is settled and, anyway, you’ve signed all the forms already.  Bye.  Take him away, nurse.  Next!
 A visit from the new-age plumber: 
Plumber:  Here I am at last. 
Customer:  Good, there seems to be a leaking pipe somewhere, because our garage has been flooded for the last couple of—

 
Plumber:  Wait, I’m the plumbing-change expert; I tell you what’s wrong. 
Customer:  Plumbing-change expert?  So you’re not an actual plumber with a trade certificate? 
Plumber:  Ah, far better than than that, I have a masters degree—in the media’s acceptance of global plumbing change.

 
Customer:  So you’ve studied the history of plumbing rather than learn how to mend broken pipes and such? 
Plumber:  Who said anything about history?  We studied models at the Institute for Plumbing Change!


Customer
:  Okay, so how will you mend my pipes?
Plumber:  Mend them?  I’ll get a team of young migrants to pop by in a few weeks and they’ll tear out all the current plumbing and install new stuff.

 
Customer: Why? 
Plumber: Well, just looking at this sink here I can tell you that it has to go. 
Customer:  Why? 
Plumber:  It’s made of stainless steel, you fool!  Do you know how wicked it is to source the components of a stainless steel sink?  My god, man, it even has carbon in it! 
Customer:  I should have thought you’d support a carbon sink.  No?  Anyway, you’ll replace it with ceramic or plastic—

 
Plumber:  Ceramic? Plastic? What are you, a lobbyist for the evil mining or fossil-fuel industries?  Wood, man; the sinks, basins, pipes, sewers and all the rest must be replaced by ethically-sourced, sustainably-harvested wood products.

 
Customer:  Wooden products?  How will they last?  Stainless steel is used precisely because it doesn’t corrode, and the same goes for plastic pipes; what will stop the wood rotting? 
Plumber:  Since you’re so bloody well-educated, can’t you think of anything else which doesn’t corrode? 
Customer:  Don’t tell me that wooden pipes will be gold-plated? 
Plumber:  Ethically-sourced, of course.  Look, trust me:  I’m a plumbing change expert.
who intends to “develop scenarios to determine carbon dioxide emissions involved in the transition to a 100 per cent renewable energy sector in Australia and the world”, whose “passion is in social and environmental entrepreneurship, which has the potential to have a broader, multidisciplinary positive impact on the global level.”  Ah, yes, researchers no longer have boring old interests or specialities but, being so unscientific, irrational, eager and fervid, they have passions.
†  a lie:  see “Australia the Highest Emitter of Carbon Dioxide?” at Impact of Climate Change.

UPDATE:  see also by “Dean, King, Krauss and Bernardi on Q and A” by Matt Hayden.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Matt. Interesting attempt at initiating a mud-slinging match. Typical skeptic response from someone that failed to see the analogy proposed by Bahareh, or rather, a response that is predicated on a twisted-contorted version of such analogy in a flawed straw-man argument against a legitimate question that was raised in a forum where the typical audience is perhaps representative of a broad spectrum of people, backgrounds and education levels. Perhaps you have been spending too much time in the bowels of WA being brainwashed as to the nature of reality influenced by the self-serving economic machine of the mining sector. Or perhaps not, as to make such an assertion is no worse than to ascertain whether some individual is a 'cretin' based of an instant in the spotlight. So seeing as though three-quarters of your ludicrous rant is tantamount to a fiendish attempt at discrediting Bahareh's analogy, the point being made was that when educated professionals raise concerns time and time again, concerns that are based not of conjecture, but rather substantiated and evidence based research, findings and empirical evidence, then it is worth considering, no matter how difficult the news is to bear. After all, no patient enjoys being broken the news that they are riddled with cancer.

Deadman said...

Perhaps, Anonymous, if you address Matt, you might consider posting on his blog. You might also consider learning how to punctuate some time, if you would like people to bother to read your awarmist silliness.

Assessing “some individual is a 'cretin' based of an instant in the spotlight”? No the assessment was based on the evidence shewn in the footnote. Do pay attention; notes are supplied for a reason.

“After all, no patient enjoys being broken the news that they are riddled with cancer.”
Even less so, I warrant, would a bloke enjoy being told that he was riddled with cancer if the opinion came from some idiot with a certificate in Reiki healing who based her diagnosis on overhearing that he felt a little sluggish on some mornings after a night on the tiles.