Climate change opportunists aim to hijack Australia's bushfires crisis

The last two decades have not been kind to Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) believers. They are desperate to proof their evangelical predictions. AGW believers support model predictions not based on science and raw climate data, but on theoretical computer simulations which require "homogenised" (i.e. altered to remove "erroneous data") data to enable them to run smoothly. "Climategate" exposed the 'underhand' activities of these activists, yet our pro-AGW media ignore their significance.

For AGW believers, the key impacts have not manifested themselves.

• Coral reefs have not disappeared
• Greenland has not turned green
• Antarctic ice cover has not collapsed
• Agricultural crops have increased not failed
• Polar bears have not become extinct and populations grow
• Coastal suburbs haven't been abandoned due to coastal sea rise
• Pacific Islands have not disappeared and have increased in total area
• Dams have refilled, while causing desalination plants were mothballed for 10 years
• Hurricanes have not increased but actually declined in numbers

Our own chutzpah of AGW Tim Flannery has been a hero to Australian CCC'ers, and his count of failed prophesies over the last 2 decades stood reached 47 in 2019. Despite this, AGW believers have one rising star in their list of failed predications, namely bushfires.

During the 2017-19 fires in California, AGW believers and its Hollywood luvies slammed the fires on climate change. However, the experts who reviewed them say "20% to 25% of the wildfire damage resulted from climate change, and "75% is the way we manage lands and develop our landscape". A century of Australian bushfire inquiries has also emphasised management practices, excessive fuel loads and a need for more prescribed burning.

Enter the 2019/20 "MEGAFIRE crisis" and AGW believers are focused on Australia, and US singer Rihanna tweeted "devasting" with a fake satellite image of Australia on Fire. Ross Garnaut, has awoken to claim he predicted these fires back in 2008! His 680 page report actually said "During 1973–2007, there was a general increase in the Forest Fire Danger Index across the east and south-east of the country" – not quite the amazing prediction he is spruiking to the media today. Now the media is starting to publish "expert" opinions from 'visiting' AGW academics. One such master of this publicity is Michael Mann, creator of the infamous and challenged "hockey stick" graph that made Al Gore's world tour a blockbusting money maker. AGW believers now have one on their "big-guns" in town.

Mann's work used techniques to find patterns in past climate change, and to isolate climate signals from "noisy" data. In 1999 he co-authored a paper containing the now infamous "hockey stick" graph, so favoured by Al Gore. The IPCC acknowledged that his work, along with that of the many other lead authors and review editors, contributed to the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, which was won jointly by the IPCC and Al Gore. Game over, AWG is a done deal and the science is settled! Not quite so.

Since Al Gore's/IPCC promotion of Mann's "hockey stick" graph, his work has attracted significant criticism. Some relate to the suitability of the tree species used in Mann's tree ring data used, others question the statistical analysis used, while many questions the data manipulation highlighted in Mann's intimate involvement in the "Climategate" scandal. One (McIntyre and McKitrick,2003) offered a that identified 17 issues with Mann's work and include the statement:

…principle of replicability is of particular importance where scientists such as Dr Mann are lobbying and campaigning for costly regulations and taxes on the basis of their published research conclusions.

In Climategate, senior players in AGW were found to be colluding to remove data that did not support their climate model predictions, in particular they discussed the removal or massaging inconvenient data (the so-called "medieval warming period"). Essentially, this 1200-1600AD data showed the temperature to be similar to today's current AGW warmed temperatures. In one of the emails, the head of the influential UK Climate Research Unit wrote:

I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from1961 for Keith's to hide the decline.

As Mann et al became more political outspoken and more influential, it provoked some to examine the "hockey stick" and the "advanced statistical techniques". Public insults ensued and when the Competitive Enterprise Institute and National Reporter labelled Mann's work was "Fraudulent", he litigated against them. After nine years, their defence failed, and litigation costs were awarded to Mann.

In his 2012 book entitled "The Hockey Stick and Climate Wars" Mann attacked a Dr Tim Ball who opposes AGW by calling him "perhaps the most prominent climate change denier in Canada". In a 2011 interview, Ball jokingly quipped that Mann (a Prof at Penn State University) "should be in the State Pen, not Penn State". Not prudent or polite pun on words! Mann sued Ball and this case continued until November 2019, the court dismissed Mann's case due to his refusal to produce his detailed methods/datasets and awarded costs against Mann.

Mann's original "Hockey-Stick" workings remain undisclosed and remain contested. Historically, scientists disagree. These can be bitter and long-standing arguments that last lifetimes. In todays' litigious and media driven world, reputations are now tested in court, on the airways and in social media. Now some of you may think this article is aimed at discrediting Michael Mann. It is not. Every scientist's contribution to testing Plass's 1956 theory is welcome. But AGW is not about science and is all about politics, and Michael Mann chooses to be political. The pro-AGW media, commonly promote AGW experts like Mann, while equally qualified experts are labelled as luddites, deniers, dinosaurs!

Michael Mann is here on sabbatical and has already been weighing in on our bushfires. I suggest you take time to listen to his views in a US media blog to get a flavour of his views on our fires and Australian politics. Let's hope others with alternative views to his will not be bullied or sued into silence. Mann's first big-gig will be the National Climate Emergency Summit in February, where a 2-day love-in will develop a future action plan for Australia. Opening Speaker Mann will be supported by co-stars Peter Garett, Lenore Taylor, Clover Moore, Keryn Phelps, Adam Bandt to name but a few. Expect disruptions Melbourne!

AGW believers like Michael Mann, use litigation. In a recent global review by the Grantham Institute (UK), Australia is currently topic of the litigation table for using climate change, although thankfully most cases are dismissed. Litigation against those who question AGW is not a healthy development. As Art Spitzer, legal director of the ACLU said about one of Mann's recent lawsuits:

Today it's unacceptable to deny climate change, but yesterday it was unacceptable to deny that homosexuality was sinful, and tomorrow it may be unacceptable to deny that robots are better parents than humans. Society can't progress unless people are free to express and consider heretical ideas, because there's no way to predict which heretical ideas will be tomorrow's truths.

Another Royal Commission should be of value, but if it is highjacked by AGW believers, we are in big trouble. The inaction of a century of recommendations to address fuel loads is bad enough. The evangelical AGW movement may push to ignore fuel loads. If so, Groundhog Day bushfire "megafires" will return.