(This is a repeat of a Gus article on climate change and the dangerous denialists...)

There is a very powerful network of conservative information — websites, journals and spruikers — all working hard to promote the denial of global warming, while bashing the science, day in day out...

In this framework, science is not for scientists but for industrialists, gold-watch makers, oil cartels, car makers, miners of coal and iron ore, and developers — and can I mention many lawyers... All of them jovially compete with each other for your small buck and use you as slaves at the same time — because you are prisoners of comforts, including the clutches of credit... 

These conservative outfits are well equipped. Pure science — such as the science associated with global warming that produces contrary results to the endless capitalistic dream — is thus evil, and is promoted as such as much as possible. 
This promotion, frothed up deep in conservative circles, is deliberately transferred onto the average uneducated punter by maintaining an apparently serious debate that floods the market with doubt of the science. In the end it's quite easy to deny something that we cannot see — or something that is measure in tiny parts per millions or in 0,03 variable increments — measurements that mean zilch to the common man (I use the word "man" here because most of the battles in regard to global warming are fought out by dicky men, apart from the leader of the "abominable" greens and their carrot cakes. I don't mean this image literally but this is the thought that underpins conservative thinking).
The stock market is far more important and exciting than CO2 fluctuations in the atmosphere... There is no money to be made on the CO2 levels, but mostly there is no possible gamble on the climate to be had between gentlemen at the gentlemen's club. Not even the best computer and super whiz weather forecaster can tell you what the weather will exactly be in three days time... 

The Liberal (conservative) use the commercial media — which most of them, the conservatives, own or control — a media overrun with fat lazy journalists, with scientifically ignorant opinionators, with newly graduated conservative journalists barely out of university who believe their work is done when republishing a press release with their own by-line on a front page — and by spruikers who are paid in golden bullions for spreading false information... And doubt... Let's not forget the doubt... The reasonable and truly investigative journalists are also obliged to be of "balanced" views, thus giving the denialists still another half-voice...

As well, conservative forces make sure that even the national broadcaster, bound by "ethics", has to be balanced, thus has to present the doubt and the rubbish about climate change in the same amount as the 99 per cent of the scientists who know their boring, yet very accurate stuff. One has to know that emotions have always been more creative of beliefs than understanding... And the emotions on both side of the fence stirred by the denialists induce the battle of beliefs rather than the understanding of reality... This, of course, is the result the conservatives want.

Thus from the onset we are drowning in this sea of misinformation and doubt — and serious scientists have little voice outside there sphere of research. Even there, they are constantly under attack. Scientists always doubt what they do... It is the nature of science to know more precisely and question in a world of statistical anomalies and reactive chemistry. 
Even scientists and theorists always try to disprove (or improve upon) the theory of relativity by Einstein — touted by denialists as a brilliant glorious non-peer reviewed theory — while most conservatives would have no clue about the mathematics nor the meanings of this theory... It's just a historically-held promotionally ingrained belief that bamboozled them since they were kids. Yet should Einstein be alive today and promote as he should the concept of global warming theory, he would be hit by a ton of bricks...

The conservative themselves have their own intense and purposely driven information network.
The Quadrant for example is a one-sided Liberal (conservative) intellectual magazine representing a think-tank that will pan anything that has a whiff of social conscience if it means human equity — in opposition to financial "equity" — a term which relates to ways to invest money with better return and lower tax rates, than equality for all... The Quadrant has not a skerrick of any acknowledgement of Aboriginal worth nor of Aboriginal independence of thoughts, outside the subservient framework decided by the white shoe brigade — or complete assimilation. It is the place where the Keith Whindshuttles of this world write elegantly in subtle undertones about the glory of white Australia. It is the place where "global warming is crap" is written in elegant literary manner without raising the voice, which would be impolite... There too, "renewable" energy is front-ended with a mining caterpillar truck and is being blamed for an "unecessary" rapidly rising electricity cost to consumer ... 

One of the conservative trick is to associate "quality" with conservatism... This is not new in the exclusivity domain of the rich, where if one can afford it, one will acquire the best car available — some for show, some for speed, but this "conservative-quality" association is now penetrating the "mass" market... Even people such as David Flint will blame the fall of Fairfax squarely on its "liberalism" — that is to say not having been conservative enough because "conservatism is where quality resides"... It's a very underhanded and significant but sophistical argument... meaning that it is totally meaningless in a full context.

There is the Australian Conservative — another well-linked Liberal (conservative) outfit that publishes without any critique, all of Abbott's uttering as if it was golden river. These magazines of course are created for the benefit of "leaders", of capitalists, of money men and conservative decision makers who own stuff — you included... We are looking at the high end of town — the pharaohs and their courts of our time.
Even on Sundays, when time is dedicated to relaxation while reading the Financial Review (a red-rag to these high powered men barely reading about what others lesser financial beings think) and to the commiseration about the Labor Carbon Tax — which of course their saviour Tony Abbott will repeal while giving them the tax cuts they so richly deserve on resurrection day after the next elections— the shorts and the T-shirts are unblemished cream designers brands pressed to perfection...
Strangely, more often than not, the sausages and the meat, cooked on the most expensive Webber one can find set in a corner of the marble patio, under the perfectly umbraged veranda — are often the cheapest cuts.

To these rich conservative, a Labor government is total anathema... The conservatives are born to rule, thus democracy is anathema too. But they cleverly know how to manipulate the mood of the proletariat by turning the proletariat against itself... They know they can tickle the fancy of poor struggling individuals by promises of gold — fool's gold as it may be — but the trick works, when the words are falling from conservative politicians's mouths as well...

Then there is the CO2 Climate Scientific, another conservative outfit dedicated to damage the established science in Australia by claiming to know better— while being mostly ignorant and highly manipulative. Its main targets include the Australian Academy of Sciences. The CO2 Climate Scientific writes columns after columns of pseudo-philosophical need for scientists to be doubtful (which most scientists are anyway — that's what science is about: questioning constantly and reviewing results) and also about government wasting money by giving grants for climate change research, which the writers of CO2 Climate Scientific point out will only produce the "slanted" desired results...
One has to admire the gall of the title of this outfit: In one line, one has "CO2", the controversial item at the centre of the debate about climate change, the word "Climate" (the controversial issue itself) and the world "Scientific" as to inform its readers that this outfit is a serious scientific unit — where science takes precedence — or in this case has the final say. But the CO2 Climate Scientific does not do any research, and only picks into the basket of denialists' slanted and false information to promote doubt about anthropogenic climate change...  

One of the subtext, here lies in the psychology of how to promote and maintain happiness, by the destruction of "negative" thoughts... Thus the denialists attitude is deemed as a positive force designed to combat the "negative" effect of a problem which has the potential to stop us from burning carbon in a carbon-based rich economy... Burn baby burn.. Be happy in ignorance or in falsehoods...

The Friends of Science is another group reacting in a similar vein... "Friends of Science" What a name!... A very clever name for an outfit that basically promotes some "science" and pseudo-scientific views designed to defeat the global warming alarmists, with many a false argument and deliberately wrong data.

I have already mentioned The ACSC, where some of its principals have massive interest in mining and carbon intensive industries. I have also mentioned its association with the ICSC, a US based denialist outfit that does not hesitate to parallel global warming alarmists with murderers and Bin Laden (now defunct) on large advertising panels.

Most of these published "magazines" or on the net are of course well presented to appear "at a serious most", while being scientifically illiterate at best and total garbage at worse... But to the capitalistic mind, these restrained graphics represent serenity, sunsets, peace, quality and seriousness of thoughts and the understated intrinsic value of money... I know the tricks, I worked in advertising for more than twenty years... 

Of course, the "business" people have their own "Woman's Day/weekly/Cosmo" magazine called BRW. It's where some of the rich and their lieutenant can shine and show their capitalistic skills such in investments, shares and financial wares — but little production is shown there... It's all all about the whizzes of the market... One has to go to specialist magazines, where engineers and other Liberal (conservative) professions such as developers can show off.

Any cent that is spend on welfare (public science is similar to welfare in the mind of conservatives) is resented as it comes out of taxes painfully extracted from their grand fortunes in the making — the leftover after they have managed to stash away the better part of it in "trusts" and "offshore accounts" (see treasure islands). Conservatives don't mind charity — especially when it's tax deductible and when one can meet like-minded persons at glossy functions with white tablecloths and full silver service...
There, one can outshine other rich bastards by gloriously bidding on a dinner for twelve with the leader of the opposition Tony Abbott or such. Sure some of these charities will do-good as long as the poor don't get a cent of it, since most of the dosh raised goes to rich doctors doing research on the diseases of the rich, such as heart-attacks or obesity from rich food and/or the development of new drugs in which later investments in a company that buys the patent cheap will bring in riches....I am very unfair here as a lot of good is done for kids as well, but rarely at conservative charity events, poor kids of other countries are ever mentioned, unless a feat of medicine can be used as promotional material... 
So the Liberals (conservatives) don't really read the newspapers — They own them. Nor do they watch much "entertaining" television. They dine with the networks CEOs, mind you... In a sexist spray, I will indulge to tell you their wives do not read "Houses and Gardens" either, but they pluck the latest Mercedes or Cartier magazines to see what they could buy next in order to be up to date with the latest fashion. No, not the Dior fashion in Women's weekly for the plebes, but that fashion that is exclusively available to those with a black American Express Card and a 160 foot yacht in the Mediterranean.

Thus global warming is like an annoying fly they've been trying to swat for too long at a champagne cocktail party. Actually they don't do the swatting themselves. They delegate the spray. That's the privilege of the rich. One can delegate. They delegate the swatting to the Alan Jones, the Janet Albrechtsen, to the Andrew Bolt, and to others down the food chain to whom they throw crumbs as long as the beneficiary does the job of denigrating the scientists... Or denigrate those annoying do-gooders who want to regulate gambling... Gambling of course is good, since the entire edifice of capitalism is anchored on gambling debts with peers. The CDSs and the Derivative markets are giant gambling pits. Most of the rich of course do not play with their own moneys, but yours and mine and that of many other little retired scrooges and penny-pinchers — dollars and cents which when put together amounts to tidy big sums. 

I have witnessed (by accident — I was in the wrong place at the wrong time) a mighty Liberal (CONservative) conference, once, where the white-shoe brigade  turned up in R M Williams creams and fine stripes, with brown leather belts coming from 2-ton cows. The ten gallon hats would have made Bob Katter blush with envy... 
Meanwhile as long as the real science and the Aborigines are kept at bay, one can sleep easy... People like Alan Jones are doing a wonderful job at that, but in order to appear righteous, they are also charitable to a fault... Look, the man brought Lord Monckton of Brenchley, a grand-master of scientific fudge... But is it fudge? That's the great effect of the swindle here, they don't really care one way or the other as long as the seeds of doubt are sowed to all compass points... and as long that no one tells them where they can't dig. Of course conservatives are born to rule and in that hierarchy there are sub-networks of allegiances that sometimes can come undone... but this is another topic...

One of the major problem is to properly assess the damage done by "global warming" in proportion to the "normal" amount of natural disasters... For example, in the US this year, that country has experiences in the first six month about three to four times the normal amount of "natural disasters"... (NOTE: this article was written before Sandy)... Is this due to "climate change"? One could ask this fair question... Of course there is an indication of climate change... But is this climate change linked in some way to human burning of carbon...?

There are scientific experiments that can tell us that CO2 is a moderate "greenhouse gas" by studying its absorption and scattering of some of the infrared spectrum of light. But is it enough to induce global warming? The denialists claim this is negligible. The denialists also claim that CO2 rise in the atmosphere is due to increase temperature and not the other way round. This view point is similar to saying that the sun rotates around the earth...

Methane is a strong "greenhouse gas" but it only exist for a limited time and in small quantity (increasing mind you) in the atmosphere. The denialists will claim that this is also negligible.

Water vapour is deemed a "greenhouse gas", but its behaviour is quite "erratic" due to air density, temperature, atmospheric pressure and quantity thereof. This is the province of meteorologist who predict the weather including long range weather. They have an array of precise instrumentation from thermometers to hygrometers and barometers... In some parts of the world — like cities — they also have dust particle counters. Yet the weather gods are often wrong, so how can scientists could right about global warming? That is a question often placed at out feet by the denialists... The answer to this is very complex and one day I will tackle it. Meanwhile the conservative denialists will simply claim that "global warming is bullshit"... End of argument...

This erratic behaviour of water vapour was the reason why Arrhenius took the decision to concentrate of the carbon dioxide conundrum to analyse the ice age inductors, thus what would have been the proportion of CO2 during the ice ages. His very comprehensive analysis let him to calculate that CO2 presence in the atmosphere was around 40 per cent lower during the last Ice Age... Much of these calculations and analysis have been re-performed and re-confirm with small bracketed variations, quite a few times, — including recently by a very serious scientific outfit.

In the end, the science of global warming is correct. 

It is the effects of global warming that are the subject of controversy and it is a philosophically hot potato.

Global warming trends tell us we are moving towards more extreme weather patterns, more extremes of heat and cold in some places, more intense in climate oscillations. And rising of sea levels.

For example in the past, it would have take several years for the US weather to experience a complete array of phenomena such as those of the last six months: 

Warm winter, early spring, 240+ tornadoes, wild fires in Colorado being frothed up by record temperatures and winds, and more recently a devastating "storm event" that was not even predicted by the smartest of all weather forecasters. Several days later, about one million people are still "in the dark", the emergency services are down and more high temperatures are on the way with stifling humidity... and there is more "storms and hurricanes to come"

I will end up this article on the way disinformation works:

There is no evidence that mermaids exist, a US government scientific agency has said.

The National Ocean Service made the unusual declaration in response to public inquiries following a TV show on the mythical creatures. It is thought some [many] viewers may have mistaken the programme for a documentary.

"No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found," the service wrote in an online post.

Blimey... But then this is a happening the land where 60 per cent of the folks there still do not subscribe to the theory of evolution because it is contrary to the scriptures...

We're on a loosing streak trying to fight scientific ignorance and conservatism in a world where emotions and denial rule... and where the power of the rich prevails in controlling the commercial emotional debate.

As well, our national media is pushed to be "balanced":

Q&A on ABC TV is an emotional debate and this is why I hate it...

The conservative denialists are cleverly destroying our trust in science... Their tactic is to increase and control the proportion of doubters... In this context, they are succeeding in a 54/45 ration which is about the same as Liberal (conservative)/Labor-Green ratio... But in Labor there are also many doubters influenced by the conservative machine...

In the end, Summer will tell us a bit more about the future...

(This article was written before summer 2013 in Australia broke 123 climatic records)...