SMH The Age Asbestos Error

SMH and The Age have an inforgraphic about Asbestos on their website today, not sure if it made the printed version. The relevant bit is reproduced below:

In fact Asbestos was mined in Australia from at least 1880 through to 1983. It seems SMH forgot about the small asbestos mines like the Jones Creek Mine near Gundagai that produced 72t of tremolite asbestos between 1880 and 1921. It also seems to have omitted the largest asbestos mine in Australia, the white asbestos (chrysotile) mine at Barraba in northern NSW. This was the Woodsreef mine that produced 550,000t of asbestos between between 1972 and 1983. Australia's second largest asbestos mine was at Wittenoom in Western Australia which produced 152,466t of blue asbestos between 1937 and 1966.

We realise that ABC rely heavily on the SMH and The Age for information so perhaps our correction will some how reach them before they repeat the error.

For further information on Asbestos occurrences in eastern and South Australia click HERE and HERE.

Missing views: the Lewandowsky affair

Ben Pile at Spiked Online has an interesting essay about the flawed research behind recent attempts to smear climate sceptics as conspiracy theorists. The author of the flawed research, Stephen Lewandowsky, was recently "grilled" by ABC's Science Guru Robyn Williams. This is how Robyn introduced the story:
"What if I told you that paedophilia is good for children, or that asbestos is an excellent inhalant for those with asthma?" 

How positively Charming! Somehow Robyn missed the mistakes that Ben Pile outlines in detail in his essay, and this is someone ABC thinks is competent to present a Science Show (ed. perhaps those brain cells rusting with age?). The problems with Lewandowsky's research were widely covered on the internet (see Climate Audit) but somehow this important news failed to make the ABC's News Desk.

An extract...

A culture of intransigence has developed in the shadow of the compact between politics and science, which can be seen in the Lewandowsky affair in microcosm. Lewandowsky’s work unwittingly demonstrates that what is passed off as peer reviewed and published ‘science’, even in today’s world, is no more scientific than the worst ramblings of the least qualified and nuttiest climate change denier on the internet. It looks like science, certainly, but the product only survives a superficial inspection. The only difference being the institutional muscle that Lewandowsky has access to, but which unhinged climate change deniers do not. The object of the professor’s study is really his own refusal to debate with his lessers.

ABC at the movies, where duplication is part of the service

Some questions...
Seen a movie lately?
Did you see it based on a review?
Was that review one you saw, or heard, or read on the ABC?
A review you paid for out of your taxes?
How many times do you think your taxes should pay for a movie review?

• Not at all, I'd rather see my hard earned taxes spent on medical research.
• Not at all if someone wants an opinion about a movie there are plenty of independent reviews available for free on the internet.
• I'd like Margaret and David to review the movie, they seem to know what they are talking about.
• I want every Local and National ABC medium to conduct their own review, regardless if this represents gross duplication of government services or not. After all the ABC is about diversity-the more views the better (except on climate change where only one view is required).

So how many movie reviewers part, full time or casual does your ABC employ or engage?

Here's a short list of some recent ABC movie reviewers, some are employees, some are not.
Gabrielle Rumble
Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton
Marc Fennell
Nick Dent
Mathew Bates

CJ Johnson

Lisa Hensley
Michael Clarke

Briony Kidd

Jason Di Rosso
Courtney Carthy

Elizabeth Green

Nick Feik
Paul Serratore

Julie Rigg

Jonathan Dawson and Leon Compton

Jeff Sparrow

Dominic Knight

Robert Simms

Joel Rheinberger and Andrew Hogan

So with so many reviewing is there a risk of duplication? For instance how many times did ABC provide a review of:

The Great Gatsby: at least 10 times?: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7(music), 8, 9, 10 (1974 version)

The Hobbit: at least 4 times?: 1, 2, 3, 4

Skyfall: at least 9 times?: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
Star Trek Into Darkness: at least 8 times?: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 

Final question: Does this represent good use of tax payer resources? 

The Greek Government recently took the knife to the budget of its public broadcaster. Based on the above it seems there is plenty of fat to carve from our own.

Lies of the Climate Commission: Part 17

Another report, another piece out of the old propaganda book.

The basis of this image:

is based on a lie.

The reality immediately above shows our children are already on that bright green pathway because the government's flaky Klimate Kommissars have exaggerated the climate's sensitivity to CO2.

This despicable piece of propaganda unquestionably reported by the government's other propaganda arm: your ABC.

The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that's also a hypocrite!

Tennessee Williams

ABC in the News Round up 4

This week ABC provides adoration to Tm Flannery rather than tough questions, Greece throws its ABC under a bus-why can't we follow suit, there's still no one yet to accompany Amanda, and more...

Part 1: Journalism 101 - Asking the difficult questions.
Australia's expert on Tree-Kangaroos, Possums, and Penis Gourds Tim Flannery (who also doubles as a self proclaimed climate guru) has been telling us for a quite some time that we are all going to dry up and fry. ABC even paid for a woeful TV series featuring Tim and fellow alarmist John Doyle taking their Tinnie down the Murray Darling to promote flights of fancy. This week ABC's World today interviewed Tinnie Tim who said: "We'll see an increase in flooding frequency, we'll see the number of people exposed to flooding go up somewhere between four-fold and 17-fold. So there's just a lot more people are going to be exposed to the dangers of flooding." Of course a few years back Tim was heard to expose a different opinion to Maxine McKew:

TIM FLANNERY: Well, you can't predict the future; that's one of the things that you learn fairly early on, but if I could just say, the general patterns that we're seeing in the global circulation models - and these are very sophisticated computer tools, really, for looking at climate shift - are saying the same sort of thing that we're actually seeing on the ground. So when the models start confirming what you're observing on the ground, then there's some fairly strong basis for believing that we're understanding what's causing these weather shifts and these rainfall declines, and they do seem to be of a permanent nature. I don't think it's just a cycle. I'd love to be wrong, but I think the science is pointing in the other direction.

MAXINE McKEW: So does that mean, really, we're faced with - if that's right - back-to-back droughts and continuing thirsty cities? 

TIM FLANNERY: That's right. That looks to be the case. We'll know probably within two or three years, I suppose, how this is going to play out, particularly for Sydney, because its water supply is limited to that sort of scale, but it is my fear that the new weather regime is going to be a much drier one, and while we may get the odd good rainfall event, they're going to be much less frequent than in the past, and we'll just be in a different climatic regime.

Tim would love to be wrong and based on these very sophisticated computer tools. Well he is!Tim lives up to his trademark line. Let's review...Hurricanes can be tied to climate change

TONY JONES: Now, with America still reeling from these hurricanes, Rita and Katrina, to what extent do you believe these extreme events could be linked to global warming? 

DR TIM FLANNERY: Look, I think that there is a clear link.

Well the IPCC says there ain't: from Chapter 4 of IPCC Special Report on Extremes

• "There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change"
• "The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornados"
• "The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses"

When will a journalist (ed-what they have them?) at the ABC think to look over Flannery's record and ask some tough questions?

Part 2: Spot the conservative presenter. No change from last week.
1. Amanda Vanstone on Counterpoint

Part 3: Environmental beat ups for the week. No beat ups just excessive cheer leading. Seems ABC has got the hots for US environmental activist and alarmist preacher Bill McKibben. Here are just a few of the ABC's articles Bill appeared on or garnered a mention, all at your expense and without critical comment (and some of these people consider themselves journalist, others are activists-yes that's you Fran and Sara):

ABC Environment Blog 1: Profiting from the wreckage of our planetl

ABC Environment Blog 2: How climate campaigners are protecting the economy

ABC Environment Blog 3: Preventing a carbon bubble crash
ABC Environment Blog 4!!!: Who is the ugliest in the beauty contest?

RN Breakfast

PM

Radio National

Lateline1

Lateline 2

Lateline 3

The World Today

Q and A

National Press Club Broadcast

That's just recently. A search of Google for "Bill McKibben" at site  www.abc.net.au yields 85,900 results. By comparison a search for a real expert an the ABC, let's say "Richard Lindzen" yields 35,500 items and most of these ain't long winded cheer leading posts. Seems ABC has some catch up to do. Does the word diversity appear in that charter?

Part 4: What to do with your National broadcaster?

Greece leads the way!  Greek government to close ‘wasteful’ state broadcaster to save money, axing 2,500 jobs. We could axe 5000!

Part 5: Missing News: Some good news for corals published in a recent edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences missed by ABC Science. I guess a science journalist would have covered these interesting results. Global warming activists on the other hand...well you know the story.

Part 6: Sucker of the week. See Part 1. For reporting that should make them blush with embarrassment this week's Gullibull goes to The World Todays' ELEANOR HALL and ALISON CALDWELL. Congrats ladies.

Eleanor with friend. 

Apologies - no photo of Alison as all the photos we could find on the net are just too boring.

ABC News fail on timely delivery of facts in menu hype

The Australian reports on the very slow response of the ABC to report on facts emerging in the over-hyped menu "scandal".

The broadcaster repeated the original 'menu' story after it was debunked

In the meantime it's interesting to compare ABC's treatment of jokes about Gillard with jokes made about Tony Abbot's chief of staff PETA Credlin at a union function attended by senior ALP members including Wayne Swan. This Lateline report covers the Credlin abuse as a footnote, but for Gillard its all hands on deck and batten down the hatches, lest any new facts get in the way. 

The bias of ABC is all pervasive and endless.  The Greek solution to public broadcasting looking like a real option. 

ABC in the News Round up 3

This week ABC provide a case study in biased reporting, provide free publicity to activists, provide no one to join Amanda, and more...

Part 1. Case study in biased reporting.
An Op Ed in The Australian compares reporting of stories pro and against the climate consensus with predictable results. The elevator version: if you are pro - "here are the keys to Ultimo". If you are against - "there's the cross we will nail you to and no wishy washy ed policy will spare you, you denier scum bag". Seems the limp wristed management style of MD Mark Scott has done nothing in the last 3 years to balance the bias of his staff. 0/10 Mr Scott.

Part 2: Environmental beat ups for the week
This photo essay and free add and promotion for The Climate Institute (now that would seem to be a problem for the ABC's Editorial Policies-see section 11!) is replete with factual errors and misrepresentations. It's this weeks winner! The photo's by climate change activist Michael Hall.
We have provided some alternate captions to a few of them:

Another lame attempt to link extreme weather to CO2.

Bird coleslaw anyone?

Part 2a. A close second was this report by ABC's Caddie Brain. Caddie left her brain at home when she wrote it. It covered a recent report that based health projections on "CSIRO climate models that indicate that remote parts of Australia could be up to 7 degrees hotter by 2100."
7 degrees! a little alarmist perhaps? And how reliable are those models? Let's see Caddie...Hint note the difference between the models and observations. Now view this Feynman video. "If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong; that's all there is to it!"

Part 3: Spot the conservative presenter. No change from last week.
1. Amanda Vanstone on Counterpoint

Part 4: Some bananas stay forever. 
Seems B1 and B2 will get the axe a month short of 21 years. In the meantime those other ABC fruits: Clarke and Dawe plod through year 25. What colour tie will Brian wear this week?

Part 5: Your taxes at work. See Part 2a. Your taxes paid for crap models, crap analysis and crap reporting. That's one big load of crap.

Part 6: Missing News:
Some local science goes unreported:
New research suggests seaweed species may adapt to higher temperatures

The ability of Hormosira banksii, commonly known as Neptune’s necklace, to tolerate higher temperatures suggests that this habitat-forming alga has an intrinsic capacity to cope with climate change.

Part 7: Moth balled
ABC's web pages are a hive of broken links and lost information, like the "earth" page which provides Google Earth links to news from July 2011. Now that's innovation for you!


Part 8: Sucker of the week. SARAH CLARKE for not asking a single question of activist Bill McKibben that would suggest she had completed a degree or cadetship in journalism. Well done Sarah you win this weeks GULLIBUL.

That's Sarah on the Left (of course)