Quite so.. the climate commission was an activist body, publishing overtly activist material while claiming it was informing the public. It may continue to publish activist material but now does this without costing the taxpayer anything.

The quotes are useful in that some of the activists may actually glance at them. My belief is that the vast bulk of the people who decry skepticism have not the faintest idea of any of the counter arguments, or have entirely the wrong idea. They dismiss it, because other activists have dismissed it.

For those who like expanded reading lists (aka, real sceptics):

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/on-mismatches-between-models-and-observations/#more-15652

Thanks Don

Overturning paradigms easier said than done,especially one concocted to give credibility to UN notions of "climate debt", etc, and developed-developing world wealth transfer on an unprecedented scale.

Another "promised land" paradigm has survived for over 2,000 years, despite its first prophet failing to re-appear - as promised - in the lifetimes of his disciples.

On Flannery of the Overflow's canny Climate Council, surprised ASIC allows registration of (grandiose) business names with words ‘Council’ - and ‘Institute’ - in them.

http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2012/06/grreat-flannery-poem

For its gives public a misleading impression they are some kind of official - or quasi-official - authority.

Neat irony to hear Climate Institute’s John Connor – a lawyer heading up an advocacy group funded by a substantial private bequest – complain this week about potential “competition” from Flannery's Council.

"The ABC had a news item the other night about the abolition of the Climate Commission, but the whole tenor of the report was how shocking and bad this decision was, and how the next IPCC report would tell us how wrong we were - or something like that. Not a word that the Climate Commission had published some dodgy stuff, or that the IPCC had a real problem."

Surprisingly, at least one Coalition MP is still in full agreement with the ABC's view on man-made climate change. Following is what the politically correct Malcolm Turnbull -- who disregards the laws of evidence taught in his university education-- had to say on last night's ABC 7.30 Report (http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3855659.htm ) :

LEIGH SALES: Before you go, I just want to ask you as somebody who is very knowledgeable about climate change and interested in that area. The Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change will release its 5th assessment report next week and we know the planet is warm bug the pace of warming has slowed over the past 15 years or so. Does that mean that we should be less concerned about climate change?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well no, I think we should be always be concerned about climate change and, you know, the government, the Abbott Government is concerned about climate change. And we have a commitment to cut our emissions, which was a bipartisan commission to by five per cent as against 2,000 levels by 2020.

Cont. in foll. post

Cont. from previous post

LEIGH SALES: If it's slowing why do we need to be as concerned about it?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Let's read the IPCC report. We're talking about a document that hasn't been published yet and as we've seen in the media, there have been some inaccurate accounts of what's in it already.

LEIGH SALES: Do you think the IPCC is still a credible body, there's obviously been a lot of controversy around it in recent years?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: I think it's very credible. It's not immune to criticism. It certainly would be, I wouldn't agree with those who say it has no credibility. I think there are many voices in the climate change debate, some of them have more or less credibility. I think the IPCC has a great deal of credibility because it is, after all, simply gathering together the collected research of hundreds if not thousands of scientists and trying to present a distilled consensus view. There is an argument, and a legitimate one, that trying to draw a consensus out of all of these different opinions is, in itself, distorting. But there's certainly the qualifications of the people on the IPCC are very high and very distinguished.

I have complete faith that ultimately the science will be sorted out by the normal processes of research, publication, criticism and so on. The notion that some kind of conspiracy or perhaps herd behaviour could in the long term prevent the best science from prevailing is nonsense. Scientists like nothing more than to prove their peers wrong. That’s the driving force that will ensure ultimate acceptance of a common view of the relevant climate science. Unfortunately, in the mean time we have to put up with rank amateurs all having ‘opinions’ about this or that aspect of the science. What a waste of everyone’s time! Of course simple statistics will ensure that some of those amateurs will turn out to be ‘right’. I hope they feel appropriately good.

I do not wish to downplay the real problem, which is the potential waste of massive resources if the climate activists have their way. But that’s a different problem that has little to do with the current science or with possible changes in future scientific understanding regarding climate. Response to potential climate change is a political, not scientific, issue. One could fully accept all the dire warnings issued by the Climate Commission etc. and still argue that Australia should not try to reduce emissions, on the grounds that we cannot possibly affect future climate except in concert with all or most major economies. That political debate is totally independent of the minutiae of the IPCC report.

As Robert Pindyck, recently explained in US National Bureau of Economic Research working paper 19244, "Climate Change Policy: What do the models tell us?": “the physical mechanisms that determine climate sensitivity involve crucial feedback loops, and the parameter values that determine the strength of those feed-back loops are largely unknown.”

And “when it comes to the impact of climate change, we know even less. IAM [integrated assessment model] damage functions are completely made up, with no theoretical or empirical foundation. They simply reflect common beliefs (which might be wrong) regarding the impact of 2C or 3C degrees of warming, and can tell us nothing about what might happen if the temperature increases by 5C or more."

For me, perhaps the biggest deception here is notion that we can concoct statistical artefacts – more accurately “arte-fictions” - like “global temperature” and hoodwink public into believing it can be “measured” to two decimal places, with an accuracy of less than one-tenth of a degree.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/what-ocean-heating-reveals-about-global-warming/

"Ideologically motivated “climate skeptics” know that these data contradict their claims, and respond … by rejecting the measurements...."