Thread: EV general discussion

Originally Posted by PhilipA

Consensus is not science.
Regards PhilipA

You seem to be confusing the colloquial meaning of "consensus" and the meaning of "scientific consensus".

To recapitulate, the scientific consensus is an inevitable consequence of scientists operating within a strict system that demands a standard of excellence coupled with evidence gathered across the breadth of the sciences. I say “inevitable” because if we embrace the philosophy (i.e., empiricism) that there are scientific facts about the world around us, then they should be capable of discovery through the application of the scientific method. Moreover, given enough time and routine application of the scientific method across varying domains of expertise, the confluence of all the evidence should then point to this scientific fact. This convergence upon a scientific fact is the scientific consensus.

Scientific Consensus — Critical Thinking | Intelligent Speculation

Originally Posted by PhilipA

Perhaps you should read more widely. I try to read both points of view and then make my own decisions.

Or do you believe Al Gore, Greta Thunberg, Michael Mann etc without reservation.

In this case the article quotes that a German Minister tabled this proposal and had to withdraw it . This appears to be a fact. if you have evidence to challenge that fact please publish it.
Regards PhilipA

Oh, I read very widely and I used to debate, on a different website, one of the key actors behind client denialism (and who's also involved in Watts Up apparently).

Edit: So:

- Watts Up is notoriously biased;

- Tichys Einblick, who they quoted from, is a right wing populist German blog that is politically aligned with Alternative for Germany (and if you don't know who they are, perhaps do a google search) and is a German equivalent to Breitbart News.

Oh, and Tichys were reposting from another German blog which appears to be even further to the right. As an example:

environmental activists, politicians, climate alarmists and pseudo-experts decided they could do a better job at generating power in Germany and eventually passed the outlandish EEG green energy feed-in act and rules.

Making up your own mind is fine but that presumes you're going to be able to discern and filter out the deliberate distortions that sites like Watts Up present as fact.

Originally Posted by PhilipA

Perhaps you should read more widely. I try to read both points of view and then make my own decisions.

Or do you believe Al Gore, Greta Thunberg, Michael Mann etc without reservation.

In this case the article quotes that a German Minister tabled this proposal and had to withdraw it . This appears to be a fact. if you have evidence to challenge that fact please publish it.
Regards PhilipA

This is a more credible article:

Winds of change push German power grid to brink | Business| Economy and finance news from a German perspective | DW | 11.03.2020

The headline is a bit alarmist and misleading - uou'll note that the issue is not that the grid is about to collapse but that their national grid isn't in fact very national.

So you quote an article which does not refer to the energy minister in any way and quotes wind generator manufacturers.( who have no "vestad" interest of course)

So really no relevance but does support the premise that the German distribution system is being stretched. The thrust of the article I quoted was that there were 33000 EVs in Germany now and that looks to increase greatly due to
government policy. The proposed fact that the energy minister had drafted a proposal to ban charging of EVs during peak load hours was not in any way discussed in the article you referred to.

The definition of scientific consensus is very wordy but looks to me again to be a person's opinion of what it is.

How does that explain the deviation from the actual figures to the average of the many "scientific Consensus" computer simulations, which AFAIK do not include any reference to water vapour. Could it be they are wrong?

This 97% consensus crap was put forward by A Qld Uni undergraduate who at the end of the day had 86? responses to his survey.

The scientific consensus was that polar bears were dying out. A bit embarrassing that they have grown in number greatly, after the Inuit stopped shooting them.

The Scientific Consensus is that the Great Barrier Reef is dying. The science first said that it was runoff from farms but whoops recent studies show that this isn't so. Peter Ridd is alone in saying that it isn't necessarily so but is being ruthlessly attacked by The scientific consensus '"cancellers"
the BOM uses momentary figures for temperature that do not meet World standards and then has the gall to suggest their temperature figures are 'Scientific Consensus"


And so on.

I was surprised to stir up such a hornet's nest with what is a pretty uncontroversial article, but again it resulted in "ad Hominem" attacks or attacks on the most visited Climate Change website in the World.
Regards PhilipA

Originally Posted by Arapiles

Making up your own mind is fine but that presumes you're going to be able to discern and filter out the deliberate distortions that sites like Watts Up present as fact.

does the same apply to reneweconomy.com.au ?

Methinks autocorrect may have pointed to a new reality!

Originally Posted by Tombie

And there lies more cost - those of us at the moment may well be paced to profit crime developing systems.

Those beyond during implementation phase are going to start lying through the nose.

Originally Posted by Eevo

does the same apply to reneweconomy.com.au ?

Provide an example? I'm not aware of Renew distorting any science.

About 30 years ago I did a meteorology subject as part of a Science degree. At that time the science of global warming was well known, accepted and had been for decades. We had lectures on it. It really wasn't controversial. Then the Koch brothers came along and they pumped hundreds of millions into climate denialism using the same PR companies that had helped the cigarette companies. Because a low carbon economy was a threat to their businesses, which is based on petrochemicals. And now what was simply a science issue is a political issue? Do the climate change deniers also have positions on evolution? Is there a left-wing / green view on gravity that needs to be rebutted?

I then spent years advising insurance and reinsurance companies both here, in Japan and in Europe, and none of those companies, who have their own teams of highly qualified researchers are in any doubt about climate change being real. I remember a very large Australian insurer showing me - in 1997 - a chart of how the peak of their storm claims in Melbourne had shifted from late Winter to late Spring and the comment was "and they say that climate change isn't real". And their records went back a long way.

So you'll forgive me if I'm a sceptic about sceptics.


A little reading on the Kochs for you:

Inside the Koch Brothers' Toxic Empire - Rolling Stone

Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine - Greenpeace USA

Koch family - Wikipedia

According to a report by American University's Investigative Reporting Workshop, the Koch brothers have built "what may be the best funded, multifaceted, public policy, political and educational presence in the nation today."^[28] Opposition to the government spending any money on climate change is among this network's activities.^[29][28] Anthropogenic climate change skeptic Willie Soon received more than $500,000 from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and a trust used by the Kochs.^[30] The primary recipients of Koch contributions, including Americans for Prosperity, The Heritage Foundation, and the Manhattan Institute, actively oppose clean energy and carbon legislation and are skeptical of climate science.^[31] In fact, the Koch brothers were involved in the first known gathering of climate change skeptics in 1991. Organized by the Cato Institute, the meeting shifted the position of the Republican Party on climate change. While George H. W. Bush had still supported research into global warming under the Global Change Research Act of 1990, acceptance of scientific evidence on climate change began to weaken due to the Koch family's influence.^[32]

Originally Posted by jspyle

Methinks autocorrect may have pointed to a new reality!

Good grief, what happens when you’re typing a post, get interrupted and throw the phone in your pocket!