Comment of the Month (October/November)

We've been a bit tardy at Climate Spectator providing some highlights of the extensive comments made on the website - some absolutely brilliant and some downright delusional. So rather than a comment of the week, we've decided to provide some highlights over the past month.

Firstly the title for comment of the month goes to Dave Smith for a rather interesting juxtaposition of words in response to the rant by Labor's Joel Fitzgibbon against the Climate Change Authority's recommendation that the large-scale RET remain unchanged. Fitzgibbon stated to parliament for those who missed it,

“Have a think about that for a moment. I ask all members to think about that. Fossil-fuel-rich Australia is now seeking to source one-quarter at least of its energy consumption from renewable sources.”

For those not familiar with assessments of Australia's renewable energy resources it turns out we also have some of the best wind, solar, biomass and wave resources in the world too. This inspired Dave to play slightly with Fitzgibbon's words to come up with this gem,

"I ask all members to think about that. Renewables-rich Australia is now seeking to source almost three quarters of its energy consumption from non-renewable sources"

Another gem of a comment was inspired by our article on how Abbott had gone off half-cocked claiming that a huge rise in the electricity bill of pensioner, Hetty Verolme was due to the carbon price, when it fact it was largely due to a huge spike in the pensioner's electricity consumption. The reader, Paul Peg, observed in relation to Hetty's rather large rise in electricity consumption,

Looking at Hetty's consumption, I hope she is not indulging in dubious indoor hydroponics.  

Sometimes our best comments are inspired not by Climate Spectator itself but by the myriad of climate change denier trolls that seem to swarm over our site providing interesting tidbits of half-truths they've picked up from the blogosphere of non-peer reviewed literature.  One of our regular trolls, Barry Hanson, claimed,

Climate Change 'true believers' are melting away faster than the Antarctic Ice. Wait a minute, the Antarctic ice mass is increasing. Go figure

To which George Takacs responded,

Barry,

You might want to give a source for your figures. A recently published paper in Nature, reported on and linked to here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/11/weighing-change-in...

suggests a net mass loss rate for Antarctica of 70 Gt/yr, averaged over the period 2002-2010. This is comprised of a gain in ice mass for East Antarctica of 7-89 Gt/yr, and an ice mass loss for West Antarctica of 103-128 Gt/yr.

-George.

And our article from yesterday, Wind Turbine Delusionalitis, which critiqued the campaign to ban wind power based on supposed health effects, was especially good at provoking the trolls.

Philip Impey in a post entitled, Caution is needed, stated in protest to the critique,

“And what bout the birds? Some statistics indicate anything up to 1,000 bird/bat kills / turbine/year- this figure is subject of conjecture, as further studies and research needs to be done. Using the precautionary principal, all production and further use of wind turbines should be stalled until such time as the full facts are known. The precautionary principal has been used by countless green advocacy groups to delay and to shut down many a resource project for decades, so let's be consistent here.

 But why stop here thought James Hendry who in response posted,

Ban Windows 

I pick up five to ten birds a year that fly into windows.

And with so many comments spilling in, Chris Fraser felt compelled to share,

While we are sharing stories, I want to relate what my good friend (who is very rational and lucid) said about windfarms. She was relating a story from her friend about the radiation given off by turbines from kilometres away. I suggested to her that she might mean EMR, but “No”, she said. “It was radiation” (Like how many sieverts of it ??) Suddenly all her friend's plants stopped growing, and she had to buy this magical box to put in the centre of the garden to make them grow again. The friend doesn't know what the box does, but the vendor advises against breaking the seals on the box in case its effect was neutralized. All you can say after that is the box is very effective for what it is meant to do. This story-spreading among intelligent people is an allegory for getting sneezed on and catching a cold. I'm now more guarded and ensure actions speak my attitudes.

Apologies to the numerous other excellent comments we've received over the last few weeks that we've failed to highlight. If you see a good comment or think yours is worthy of Comment of the Week or even month then please nominate it via our contact form.