Of course like the good expatriate folk of Singapore in 1939 and 1940 we could all just go on over consuming, having western style parties making us fatter (which one POW called ‘Rosie’ wrote about actually), and deny ‘the invasion’ meaning climate change massive disruption will ever arrive. And suffer infamous misery like those POW chaps because complacent arrogant colonialists believed ‘it will never happen’.

The lesson of history: Like then militaristic Japanese invasion of Singapore there’s a first time for everything. Time for us fat westerners to get on the tread mill and get in shape on energy usage and coherent global policy on emissions before it’s too late regarding 100M plus refugees are on the move. God have mercy.

Bernard Keane joins Tony Jones in the avant-garde of this neo McCarthyistic fearmongering.

The sea level rise has been between 1-3mm/yr (depending on who you believe) for over a century and probably some millenniae with no evidence of any increase in the rate.

But Bernard won’t allow the facts get in the way of some ‘healthy’ scaremongering for the benefit of the stupid masses who need to be ‘prodded’ in order to do the ‘right’ thing.

For a completely contrary view from another ‘journalist’:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5067351/Rise-of-sea-levels-is-the-greatest-lie-ever-told.html

What evidence is presented here that storm surges in the Pacific are due to AGW (or AGCC now that there has been no noticeable warming this century)?

A report from Oxfam!

Is the fixation on causation a way of avoiding responsibility??????

I mean, look at the variables!

See: http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/reg/cli_chg/extreme_timeseries.cgi

@ Pamala: “Why are fires raging in Europe as they raged in Oz but a few months ago?

Why why why?”

Yes Pamala, why indeed? Are you assuming that Global Warming does this? Temperature is a factor, but so are available fuel, winds and moisture. There are many factors. Plus, a warmer globe would result in more rain not less.

@ The OXFAM brochure : “Projected sea-level rise and increases in the intensity of natural disasters like cyclones will exacerbate these problems. Scientists have also projected an increase in diseases such as malaria and dengue fever, together with significant soil and coastal erosion as a result of climate change … Australia and New Zealand must reduce their emissions by at least 40% by 2020, and at least 95% by 2050.”

The glossy brochure from OXFAM says that there are many vulnerabilities of Pacific Islanders to climate and weather and admits that they are natural and have always existed. But no evidence is presented that there is a mass exodus coming from the islands now nor that there are events occurring now that can be attributed to human carbon dioxide emissions. The references offer nothing new to the well-aired claims from “scientists” about theoretical events … the could be would be should be possible sea level rises happening maybe in the very near to mid-term future or possibly longer.

The IPCC invents positive feedback mechanisms to amplify the effect of CO2 in their models. But history shows that the Earth has an incredible negative feedback temperature control, a thermostat that varies but has stayed within reasonable limits for life to exist for 3.5 billion years.

A lot of people make their living from impending doom and gloom and disaster. But you’ve got low sun spot activity and rising CO2 levels with no accompanying rise in average temps. Another few years and the climate change industry could be wrapped up, hence the need to “act now”.

I think the climate is going mental. The primary causes are natural like the sun or volcanoes but could we be contributing to the vulnerability to these primary causes by deforesting the land and polluting the oceans? These are all bigger factors than human CO2 emissions, surely.

any rise in sea level will wipe them off the map.

no govt that i can recall, has done one single solitary thing to lessen the risk to them.

no government has the remotest idea about baseline data such as mean sea level around the islands (the nature of the wind, tides, currents and a whole lot of other factors in the straits means that you need to know the specifics around each island) on which to base predictions and any activity that they might eventually get around to taking.

the most basic data, such as the location and height of each island is inaccurate, out of date and totally useless.

these are the voiceless, defenceless people that turnbull, joyce, fielding and the rest of the denialist lunatics are happy to make the first australian victims of climate change.

when did you last see turnbull, joyce or fielding visiting the torres straits?

OK, say that your personal survival and happiness depends on knowing the cause of it, John.

Looking at it while squinting, its pretty easy to see that there’s going to be no clear consensus on what is causing it. That’s a fact. So what then? What would you do if you could conclude that you will NEVER know what the cause of it is? Ever. Huh?

What would you do???

Last summer in Victoria we had the hottest day ever, smashing all previous records by a massive margin, plus an unprecedented extended heatwave which killed 400 people. Victoria’s in now a 14 year drought.

You say its not AGW.

What. Is. Causing. It?

Evan, that you would rely fact-challenged cyber-rag Wikipedia as your information ‘source’ says more about you than you probably would like.

Do you even know the difference between weather and climate?

Even Al Gore was PWNED by the NOAA for lying about the ‘link’ between a single WEATHER event and alleged man-made climate change.

As your AGW ‘theory’ is further dismantled, why do you continue to struggle with the insurmountable evidence that you are wrong?

It appears to be quite clear, you are the one in denial.

According to the University of Colorado graph, sea level rise has averaged 3.2 mm a year since 1993. Yes, that’s right - 3.2 MILLIMETRES a year. Is this really a climate catastrophe leading to total evacuation of the islands??

Yes, alarmists predict the rate will increase, but that is hypothetical, not actual, and since 2006 it has in fact shown a tendency to moderate even further.

See: http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global.pdf

No, really, The progression of these climate change trends will test our Western liberal ethic to the extreme. Do we ‘all’ really have the ‘right’ to happiness etc., or is it just ‘us’ - Australians/whiteys/etc.?

The GFC has a) concentrated wealth at a quickened pace, and b) given Government a Lot More Power. What will all this change mean to our Pacific Island neighbors?

The Govts stance on boat people shows how that might pan out. …

James, I’m actually guessing a bit, but here’s the logic. Average tides are measured as the mean between high and low tide. Someone reports that ‘the average has increased by XXmm’. I’m not sure if that means both the min and max increase by XX, or if the range spreads a bit more; that the increase is percentile, meaning that if the number is bigger, then the increase is bigger. I’ve never actually bothered looking into it.

But on the cyclones, this is a very well understood phenomenon. Have a look at the Storm Surge article on Wiki for a start. The bigger the cyclone, the lower the low pressure system and higher the wind. Local low pressure makes the sea locally higher, on-shore winds pile the water up against the shore. Add all this together and more things are under water.

How does a small sea level rise get amplified by big tides and a super-duper cyclone ?

Wouldn’t a 6inch rise in sea level just result in a 6inch increase in the effect that a big tide and a big cyclone would have anyway ?

And if so , So What ?

Are they Pamela?

You believe what you want to believe. Others deal in facts.

Please provide evidence to support your ‘observations’.

“Give it to me straight, are we all going to die or not? Yes or no?”

Dear Evan, always with a sense of the over-dramatic…a regular Sarah Bernhardt, eclipsed only by your arrogance.

If Noah was building a Climate Ark you’d be pushing to the front insisting on being taken aboard, however the answer to your question is an emphatic NO.

Sure, these things are happening, they’re proper observations and are indisputable. Their cause though is up for debate. Long term farming trends changing are a fairly reliable indicator, but gross sea level is not. It is possible that the increase in (at least some) of these incidents is improved record keeping. As the accuracy of our observations has improved with time, it is difficult to say with any certainty that this isn’t just ‘noise’. Sea level hasn’t gone up very much at all (yet), so it’s difficult to imagine huge instances of land loss. However, the double whammy of a small sea level rise (which would be amplified at the Big Tides) and a bigger than normal Tropical Cyclone would lead to much worse events on land.

My point is that causation is incredibly difficult to detail with proper science. As an old mate used to say “science is good at what, not why.” I would rather see these organisations use more reserved language such as ‘it appears that…’ or ‘a possible cause is’. The sceptics are jumping all over the absolutes in the CC discussions when the truth is that it is, and always will be, a numbers game, an enormous statistical mechanics problem where the whole world plays. Problem is, the media, and their reading public don’t understand this sort of language, and require the debate be bought to the lowest common denominator (the Tele).

“Give it to me straight, are we all going to die or not? Yes or no?”