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The Forum > Article Comments > Climate change, science and cricket > Comments

Climate change, science and cricket : Comments

By Michael Rowan, published 7/3/2011

Uncontroversial concepts in cricket are hotly denied in the climate change debate.

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So climate change science has all the compelling logic of cricket! Well, THERE'S your problem!

Honestly, is this the best the alarmists can do now?
Posted by Jon J, Monday, 7 March 2011 6:09:18 AM
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You don,t have to believe in climate change to believe we have to get off oil. Pollution is killing this planet slowly. There needs to be change in the way we live. We are living in the fast lane, and that needs to be curtailed.
Posted by a597, Monday, 7 March 2011 6:29:48 AM
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If you find that the selectors are betting against the team or that the selectors never include spin bowlers in the team then you might have cause for concern.

If the selectors lost the key records of previous matches you might have cause for concern.

If the new coach starts touting for a massive payrise because form appears to be up at the moment but it's also obvious that the same players have had better form at times in the past you might doubt that it's not all about the coach.

I don't like cricket so maybe that put me off to start with.
Attributing the recent Brisbane floods to climate change does not help when you look at flood history for the river
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane_River
* 14 January 1841 (Highest flood level to date)
* March 1890
* February 1893, a sequence of flood peaks over some three weeks saw the highest recorded flood level in the Brisbane central business district.
* February 1931
* 27 January 1974 (Largest flood to affect Brisbane City in the 20th Century).
* 11 January 2011

You might also look at the cyclone record for Queensland
http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/about/cyclones-eastern.shtml
There have been 207 known impacts from tropical cyclones along the east coast since 1858. Major east coast tropical cyclones impacts include 1890 Cardwell; 1893 Brisbane; 1898 NSW; 1899 Bathurst Bay; 1918 Innisfail; 1918 Mackay; 1927 Cairns and inland areas; 1934 Port Douglas; 1949 Rockhampton; 1954 Gold Coast; 1967 Dinah, Southern Queensland; 1970 Ada, Whitsunday Islands; 1971 Althea, Townsville; 1974 Wanda, Brisbane; and 2006 Larry, Innisfail.

The Queensland region of the Gulf of Carpentaria region has been hit by several disastrous tropical cyclones. These include The 1887 Burketown cyclone, The 1923 Douglas Mawson cyclone, The 1936 Mornington Island cyclone; the 1948 Bentick Island cyclone and Ted in 1976.

If you want to attribute specific events to global warming based on form what do you do with the 1890's and 1930's?

Global warming may well be a very serious risk, understanding that risk is not helped by weak claims.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Monday, 7 March 2011 7:39:09 AM
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I agree, R0bert.

>>Global warming may well be a very serious risk, understanding that risk is not helped by weak claims.<<

My biggest issue with "climate change" is the amount of hot air it generates, as the protagonists vie with each other for command over the "facts".

Articles like this don't help.

In fact, the "form/performance" analogy fails completely.

Batting history - "form" - counts for nothing when the player is at the dawn of their career. Michael Clarke scored 151 in his first Test against India in Bangalore, despite having a first-class average at that time of less than 40.

And towards the end of a career, selectors may decide to overlook a player whose form is apparently good, on the balance of probabilities that their performance may fail at a critical juncture.

Taken at another level, however, cricket itself can be an excellent mentor for the folly of any performance prediction, at any time, ever.

The 2011 World cup has already given us England vs India (Tie), England vs Ireland (Ireland win) and England vs South Africa (England win).

If you had had a ten dollar accumulator on those three, you'd be set for life.

But in order to do that, you'd have had to have thrown the form book out of the window.
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 7 March 2011 8:05:59 AM
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Pericles "My biggest issue with "climate change" is the amount of hot air it generates, as the protagonists vie with each other for command over the "facts". "

Thanks you for putting that so well. Both sides of the debate put me off with the twists, dishonesty and spin applied to try and get their case to the fore. So much BS that it's hard to really take either side seriously.

As has been pointed out elsewhere there are things we should be doing anyway to reduce dependance on non-renewable energy sources and to reduce the risks associated with natural climate cycles which tie in with some of the AGW concerns.

Perhaps more focus on those aspects would be a far better tactic than trying to pin specific weather events (or even current weather patterns) to climate change esp AGW climate change.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Monday, 7 March 2011 8:31:51 AM
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If the author was trained as a philosopher, then he should have recognized that his article proceeded from a false premise.

1.1 'because all we should and do care about is the weather'

Perhaps I missed it, but I'm not aware that many of the more rational skeptics (there are the loons, of course; there always are, and I just wish some folk weren't on my 'side', as it were) arguing such at all.

1.2 'it is not possible to attribute any particular weather event, no matter how unusual, to climate change'

No-one (again, that I'm aware of) is arguing that studying climate change is 'useless' *because* of this. It is simply pointed out as a basic fact, one that even the more rational alarmists concede.

2. 'expert peer review ... is corrupt or unreliable'

Again, no-one is saying that this is *inherently* true, just that it is *possible*, especially in a field that draws on a relatively small pool of 'experts'. This is not a claim without foundation, either: incidents such as the climategate emails and the recent Steig furore provide compelling evidence that a small clique of activist scientists are indeed trying to influence the process of peer review.
Posted by Clownfish, Monday, 7 March 2011 9:35:41 AM
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