Flannery: the flaw in Nelson’s climate thinking
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Until recently Brendan Nelson argued that Australia should not get too far in front of other countries in the battle to control carbon pollution but rather, that we should await an effective global treaty, agreed to by China and India, before introducing our own pollution control. There are still many politicians and members of the public who believe that this is an appropriate course of action. In fact it’s deeply flawed thinking. Anyone who is waiting for developing nations to agree to a target for a reduction in their emissions will be disappointed in the short-to-medium term. Many such countries are starved of electricity, and for some time must source it from wherever they can get it. China’s situation highlights their general dilemma. With a population growing at a million per month, and economic growth running at nearly 10% per annum, demand growth for electricity is unstoppable. There is just no way that old coal-fired plant can be decommissioned at any scale under these circumstances. Furthermore, emissions per person is tiny compared with our own. The only practical option at present is for the developed world to decarbonise as swiftly as it can while allowing China’s per capita emissions to grow until they have reached an agreed point, after which they must fall along with ours. The nonsense of the Nelson view is even more starkly evident if you picture yourself at the negotiating table in Copenhagen in December 2009. Can you imagine anyone taking Australia seriously, as we argue for global reductions, if we’ve done nothing to limit our emissions? Under those circumstances we’d have no chance at all of playing a positive role in the negotiations. The truth is that our authority will be proportional to our efforts to limit our pollution. Our Prime Minister could be a critical player on the global stage in Copenhagen, but only in Australia’s carbon pollution reduction scheme promises to be bitingly effective and poised to take off by December 2009. |
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12 Comments
Dr Harvey M Tarvydas says: ‘Scienctst’ & ‘expert’ can be almost mutually exclusive. Flannery has earned recognition & respect for both.
Te first sentence cannot reasonably be argued against; the second can very easily be disagreed with and indeed has in many quarters.
I reconise Flannery’s laudable campaigning for the environment. With respect to AGW he has made many dramatic pronouncements some of them just plain silly and often at variance with the IPCC computer modeling he uses to base his belief in AGW .
Would someone explain why Tim Flannery, an expert on prehistoric mammals, is to be taken seriously on climate change. Has he devised or used mathematical models to test the supposedly consensual science of the IPCC? Has he the necessary skills of any good physicest to validate opinions on climate science authoritatively? And even if he can explain why the influence of the Jovian planets on the Sun’s meridional gas flows is not more important to global warming than any increase in atmospheirc CO2 from the atmosphere or why the latter matters when there is already 400 ppm in the atmostphere, can he explain why Australia is going to be better off in any sense if it causes economic damage to itself in reducing CO2 emissions? Why does he think the rulers of billions of people are going to take the sltightest notice of what the government of 20 million does or says about its own or anyone else’s CO2 emissions. And why should we do what some might regard as our fair share of emssion reductions if , in the end, it is not going to make any difference to what happens to our climate or the world”s?
Tim is right in the socio-political concepts he profers.
Nelson gets sympathy from Australians by stamping his foot as he declares Aus emissions are JUST 1.4% to 1.6% of global, less than 2% which sounds so small.
Its mathematical nonsense. 2% is huge? And1.4% is just as huge in the Global warming stakes.
How many times has the media transmitted this political information on ‘climate change’ to the Australian citizen “Australia produces only 1.4% to 1.6% of the global carbon emissions so what good will it do anyone especially us if we forge ahead with all the noble action to drop our emissions by as much as possible if the US, China and India don’t.”
The scientific & mathematical conceptual incompetence of silly desperate opposition pollies and their media fans and many significant others, from a range of eclectic groups, leaves thinking Australians floundering in disbelief as the mathematics is high school standard.
Yesterday I heard the airline industry claim emissions as a tiny 2% for the whole global industry (the interviewee’s words).
Well that leaves about 46 to 48 tiny 2% bits (that don’t make any difference) to distribute to how many countries, how many big industries on the planet before you’re over 100%. **
How big is 2% now????
Insanity (logically and mathematically) has unthinkingly pervaded this most important discussion/issue to which Australians are tremendously willing to engage with tremendous good will according to the polls.
Lets not damage such a wonderful public resource.
Here’s the insanity.
** 9 lots of 2% for China, 9 lots for USA, 4 lots each for UK, Germany & France and 5 lots for Russia, 1 lot for Australia (not completely used up),1 lot for the global airlines, 3 lots for global transport, and now you have 10 lots of the innocent 2%’s to pass around to the rest of the world and industry to circumscribe the insanity
Harvey Tarvydas
Psychology, psychology, psychology is everything
Why do we take Tim Flannery so very very seriously? We wouldn’t trust a meat eating vegetarian or a gun toting pacifist. Why do we listen to a jet setting environmentalist?
The nonsense of the Flannery view is that the world as we rich people knew it in the last part of the 20th century has come to a horrible end. The only option, therefore, is for privileged individuals from developed countries to set a decent lifestyle example and thereby give hope to the world that another way is possible.
Consider George Monbiot who is seriously worth taking seriously. He is one of the very very few contemporary thinkers who is willing to set an inconvenient example when it comes to his own carbon footprint.
KRATOE for the same reason as you should be taken seriously.
Some of your very reasonable ‘why’ questions contain questionable presumptions just like ones of which you’re complaining.
‘Scienctst’ & ‘expert’ can be almost mutually exclusive. Flannery has earned recognition & respect for both.
“Furthermore, emissions per person is tiny compared with our own.” (sic) This is a lunatic argument, yes lunatic. Why? Because the per capita comparison is idiotic (apologies for the vitriol - but) 0.001% of 2billion cannot be compared with say 1% or even 10% of 20 million when calculating CO2 emissions and its environmental impact … basic kindergarten maths Mr Flannery. Regardless of what we do about climate change it is ridiculous to mention us (Australia) in the same sentence as a country with a population of more than 100 times our own. If we can recognise and bear the inevitable economic pain that comes with doing the right thing about “emissions” then we should do it and accept the social and economic burden regardless of what other nations are doing or not doing. Sadly it’s a no win situation, by doing what needs to be done we penalise all our citizens but not the corporations, who will simply pass on all associated costs and then some, or the politicians who only seek election and then re-election without providing any tangible solutions, whatsoever. The climate change gravy train makes the Olympic gravy train look amateurish and miniscule by comparison.
Nelson’s stance was not based on logic, but on political expediency. He saw it as means to wedge Rudd.
All Australians should be very, very, angry at this type of stupid cynical response to an issue with such potential risk to the future of the planet and our kids.
The basis of Nelson’s argument is that Australia is somehow ‘ahead’. In fact, we are very, very far behind. The average Australian emits about 4 times what the average non-Australian emits every year. And that only takes into account current emissions. Historical emissions have just as much impact on the climate as current ones, and since we have emitting so much for so long, our responsibility is even higher.
The argument that, because a person emitted more than others in the past they have a right to continue to emit more than others into the future is nonsense. If anything it should be the other way around. But at least we should come from a position where we acknowledge we are almost the worst performing country on the planet, and that we need to fix that before we go lecturing countries performing better than us. A previous commenter talked about meat-eating vegetarians and gun-toting pacifists. That is exactly what we would be if we were to tell a developing country to reduce their carbon-emissions while each of us continues to contribute four times more to the problem than each of them.
The goal of the IPCC and UN to lower global atmospheric CO2 levels below the present 380ppm may not be possible to achieve even with China, India and USA but it certainly is not without them. In fact atmospheric CO2 is certain to continue to rise into the medium term.
Australia will have an ETS but how much will Rudd or Nelson be willing to tax carbon?. The answer will be far short of a level that would give us “authority” but certainly at a level which could harm our economy.
It could all well be both pointless and expensive.
I agree with Tim Flannery’s that the developed world to should begin to lower CO2 emissions but with agreement from Chna and India that allows their emissions grow until they have reached an agreed point, after which they must fall along with the develped world’s. However this seems likely to be both pointless and expensive. it will all depend on Copenhagen round and the signs are not good.
What would the public’s reaction be if our Olympic athletes adopted the mind-set of our climate policy makers - “we won’t run any faster than the other countries - why should we throw the discuss further than they did - do we really have to swim all the way to the other end of the pool”
There is no need for Australia to fear being first out of the blocks in this race - the 25 member countries of the European Union are already half-way around the first turn. It is now up to us to catch them before we run out of track.
The trouble I have with all of this is that a trading scheme is not a means to reduce emissions at all, no matter what they call it. Instead it postpones the responsibility to do something useful into a bewildering maze of assigning value, swapping it with others and having arguments about whether or not emissions are actually reduced.
Does Tim really believe that setting targets is going to achieve them. (e.g. check the War on Drugs)
In order to actually reduce emissions we need at least some major structural changes (e.g. where and how we live) and some successful and effective new technologies that deliver the energy that our society needs.
These characteristics are the result of action and successful research and development, none of which is necessarily stimulated by an economic ‘scheme’, and much of which will now be postponed until the ‘trading scheme’ is ‘bedded down’.
Understanding and controlling the climate is not something that we can claim, we particularly cannot claim those abilities in fields like economics and finance, both abstract studies. Yet we have delivered the whole approach to climate change to economists and financiers (e.g. Treasury)
Where is the evidence that a trading scheme will reduce planetary temperatures, reverse current rainfall patterns or deal with the risks of sea level rises?
The whole mess looks more like a scam than a scheme, and one for making our major polluters even wealthier, increasing the size of government and impoverishing voters.
Would someone explain why Tim Flannery, an expert on prehistoric mammals, is to be taken seriously on climate change. Has he devised or used mathematical models to test the supposedly consensual science of the IPCC? Has he the necessary skills of any good physicest to validate opinions on climate science authoritatively? And even if he can explain why the influence of the Jovian planets on the Sun’s meridional gas flows is not more important to global warming than any increase in atmospheirc CO2 from the atmosphere or why the latter matters when there is already 400 ppm in the atmostphere, can he explain why Australia is going to be better off in any sense if it causes economic damage to itself in reducing CO2 emissions? Why does he think the rulers of billions of people are going to take the sltightest notice of what the government of 20 million does or says about its own or anyone else’s CO2 emissions. And why should we do what some might regard as our fair share of emssion reductions if , in the end, it is not going to make any difference to what happens to our climate or the world”s?