No regrets on the road from
Copenhagen
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The outcome of Copenhagen is whatever you want it to be, really, and I’m not referring to Kevin Rudd’s unenthusiastic endorsement of it as “a solid, strong step forward”. For right-wingers, it’s an opportunity to exclaim “I told you so”. For the Greens it’s the basis for a call to be dealt back into the Senate game on the CPRS. Sinophobes can pin the blame on China (not unreasonably, actually). Some on the Left have used it to push their new-old meme of attacking Barack Obama for somehow, well, failing to be the Messiah. Quite what people expected of a UN conference if not a debacle and a face-saving but otherwise fairly pointless piece of paper is a mystery, but that’s OK, we’ll all just fit it into our pre-prepared worldviews and keep going. But the UN process remains irrelevant for Australian policymakers at this point. Let me explain that in some detail. It is not irrelevant to Australia per se, because we’ll be the earliest and hardest-hit developed economy when it comes to climate change, and we need the rest of the world to do something about it, because we can’t stop it ourselves. We were, out of developed countries, the biggest loser from Copenhagen because we’re already suffering the impacts of climate change and they are simply going to get worse until the rest of the world gets its act together. That’s an important reason why the failure of Copenhagen should be of particular concern to Australians. But for policymakers, who are charged with making decisions about the things they control, rather than what the rest of the world controls, it is irrelevant. We are one of the world’s biggest carbon polluters per capita. What the rest of the world does isn’t especially important now because eventually it will start moving to a low-carbon economy, and we have further to go than pretty much anyone else. There is little danger that somehow we will accidentally do ourselves a disservice and drastically cut our emissions below those of the rest of the world. As Ross Garnaut said, people worried about Australia acting unilaterally should not worry — there is no danger of us being a leader. In fact we have much work to do even to get back to the average emissions level of most of the developed world. Australia can afford a “no regrets” emissions abatement policy — that is, we just need to cut, and start cutting as soon as possible, with no real risk that we’re going to overtake the rest of the world in curbing emissions. Indeed, with the failure of an international process, that merely gives Australia more time to exploit its skills base, educational levels and bountiful renewable resources to try to regain an edge in low-carbon technologies in areas such as energy and transport. But if the reality is that Copenhagen would never have changed the task ahead of Australia, Kevin Rudd insisted that in fact it was crucial. Eager for a reason to bring back the CPRS Bill before the end of the year and maximise pressure on the coalition, he made Copenhagen the key to Australia’s path into a low-carbon future. The coalition is now returning the favour, using the failure at Copenhagen as justification for inaction. The Prime Minister is therefore stuck with defending Copenhagen as a “solid, strong step forward”. He deserves no sympathy. Tony Abbott may be cynically exploiting events, but it is no more cynical than the Prime Minister and Penny Wong’s determination to use climate change as a political weapon, and if Abbott turns around and uses it as a weapon right back at them, that’s entirely fair. Copenhagen was not, of course, any kind of vindication of the coalition. Given it started from the basis that climate change is real, it directly contradicts the view of Abbott that climate change is “crap”. It also locked in a two-degree temperature rise as a goal, which would require of Australia emission reductions many multiples of the tiny cuts achievable through Abbott’s magic pudding solution of land use management (minus tree-planting, which the Nationals don’t like, and plus vegetation clearing, which the Nationals love) and turning off more lights. Worse, it established a framework for climate aid from developed countries of, eventually, up to $100 billion a year, to help developing countries curb their own emissions as their economies grow and to enable them to adapt to climate change impacts. On the face of it, there’s nothing but political pain in that commitment for Rudd. Abbott has already declared he thinks the money could be better spent in other environmental areas (handouts to Australian farmers, presumably). Ron Boswell has been running a xenophobic campaign against climate aid for months. Alan Jones has been touting it as evidence of his Dan Brown-style conspiracy theory that climate change is some gigantic UN plot to tax us. Conditions are ripe for a populist campaign against handouts to bludging foreigners under the guise of “climate aid”, even if a lot of Australians might think that, having spent a century causing the problem, Western countries have a greater responsibility for doing something about it. But if an Abbott government insisted on being the only developed country not prepared to contribute to climate aid, it would isolate Australia, particularly from the UK and the US, which have committed to substantial contributions to developing countries. And if Abbott decided to face down the likes of Boswell and agree to any climate aid in order to keep onside with the Obama Administration and a Cameron government in the UK, it would have to come directly from the Budget, whereas the government can draw on its CPRS revenue, even if it doesn’t come back into positive revenue territory for many years. I suspect how the climate aid issue is played by both sides will become as important politically as any other aspect of the climate change issue next year. Let’s see if Abbott is smart enough to realise the trap in a populist campaign against it. Where to from here for the government? It is committed to the reintroduction of the Rudd-Turnbull version of the CPRS as soon as Parliament returns. There’s a summer break to go before we get to that point. “Living on the Earth’s driest and hottest continent, we are already seeing the harsh impact of climate change with devastating droughts, heat waves and bush fires,” Malcolm Turnbull wrote in the pages of one of his old employers, The Times, on Saturday. The perspective on climate change might look very different six long, hot weeks from now. |
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77 Comments
“Living on the Earth’s driest and hottest continent, we are already seeing the harsh impact of climate change with devastating droughts, heat waves and bush fires,” says Turnbull (and Breathless Bernard).
There’s no evidence for this assertion whatever. The harsh routines of Australian climate may well get worse because of AGW, but these pronouncements on current weather are hyperbole. You can’t have it both ways- the present ten-year plateau in global warming is probably just weather (“noise”, “natural variability” as climate scientists have it), so don’t grandstand on bushfires and droughts. You might as well mention the excellent rains much of the north and inland have had recently, not to mention Victoria and Tasmania. And remember that Black Saturday was by no means unprecedented.
“…The perspective on climate change might look very different six long, hot weeks from now…”
Meanwhile those in Melbourne will shiver through a freezing and ice-cold 20 DEGREES on Christmas day.
Jesus Frank you’re a one eyed bugger.
Surely we should be doing better than using words like “cutting” emissions. It seems to be as empty of promise as the well-worn phrase “reducing emissions”. How about replacing emissions instead?
For that matter, there seemed to be no reports from Copenhagen about commitments to “replace” energy sources. No, you can’t count photographs of windmills. We need replacements in the order of thousands of gigawatts, covering baseloads evrywhere. Giles did speak of Steven Chu, but we didn’t hear if his grand schemes are going to get funded.
For that matter, where is this 100 G$ going to go? Is it committed to a new fleet of oceanographic ships with a thousand temperature-profiling buoys to deploy? How about a constellation of CO2-monitoring satellites? How about a demonstration smart grid that miraculously converts a fairyland of loony ideas into a reliable electricity grid? How about cheap, lightweight, non-toxic batteries for energy storage? How about a demonstration fast neutron reactor, ready for mass production?
I have been worried to hear repetition of the vague phrase “compensation to developing countries”, remembering the more familiar “offsets”, which amounts to buying rights to pollute. Did anyone ever have a right to pollute?
If blood money is to be squeezed from the guilty, let’s pray that much of it is directed towards replacements instead of appeasements.
Living In South Australia, I keep hearing this “Driest state on the driest continent” trotted out regularly. It sounds like people are proud of it - but it has just been used as an excuse for doing nothing. If someone said “Driest state on the driest continent, but we fixed it with technology and brains” then that would be worth hearing.
What we get is “Driest state on the driest continent, we have known this for many years and done absolutely nothing about it, aren’t we clever”
Australia may have the lowest rainfall , or the fewest rivers per square kilometer, but I find it hard to believe that Australia is the driest continent per person, which is what counts.
“…I suspect how the climate aid issue is played by both sides will become as important politically as any other aspect of the climate change issue next year… “
Climate ‘Aid’.
Such a vacuous concept filled with hollow rhetoric and feelgood nothingness.
Now with added unaccountable goodness.
A metaphor for the farce that was Copenhagen.
Who was their Bob Geldof?
….Al Gore?? [LOL]
And then there’s the stellar plan to knobble the First World to cure the financial woes of the (sinking/rising/insert catastrophe) Third.
You can’t have both Bernard.
Time for you to choose.
Choose between what Mama? Why not knobble the First world to save the Third?
Bernard Keane’s articles have become so utterly farcical that no significant criticism is warranted.
A critique might imply he provided an argument or even an argument based on some sensible premise.
This leftist claptrap now speaks more for common sense through guileless irony than any criticism could hope to achieve.
I find it particularly odd that our Prime Minister as recently as last month pronouncing the heatwave in Adelaide and Melbourne the fault of Climate Change, i wonder what he thinks is going on in the Northern Hemisphere currently? Blizzards, Snowstorms, Ice and freezing cold temperatures are all over Europe, Russia, China and North America. -12c in Oslo, -13c in Helsinki, -20c in Moscow today! A bit warmer in Nuuk where it is only -5c today. Santa might not get out and about on Christmas eve due to the conditions. So our mad PM believes when it gets hot it must be Climate Change and when it is cold he just thinks it’s bad weather. The Chunnel is closed, people are are dying from the cold and Winter only began yesterday for these folks!
Was today your Christmas Party Evan?
Mama Mia. I believe you have become my heroine.
What a superb response to that inanimate object (Bernard)
Can we copulate kid?
We’ll produce well rounded little neo-cons.
Daily weather conditions are not the frigging climate. For goodness sake. Daily weather conditions are what happns within a particular climactic region.
Changes to the climactic region over all cause changes in daily weather patterns. Didn’t any of you study Geography and weather/climate at school?
100 years ago the region I was born in was a scrubland with average rainfall of 20 inches per annum. That is 500 mm’s in new language. It had black loam soils and was perfect for growing large areas of lucerne, legumes, fruit and so on.
By the 1960’s with Bob Menzies demand for strip clearing of the scrub to grow wheat on marginal wheat land, the rainfall average was halved, the soils are now saline and the area is desertified. It is generally hotter and drier and growing anything much is difficult without tonnes of fertilisers each year.
That is what is meant by climate change, not wether or not it’s going to be bloody cold on Christmas Day.
Are you a left foot or a right foot Marilyn?
You’re just like Rundle, Evan…avoid argument, just insult. (By all means combine the two)
Grade V in Crikey is crowded…Guy de Botton, Johnfromplanetearth, Evan, kdkd…
My guess is that most people eventually just give up on all this web punch and judy head-banging. Boring. Not good news for Crikey or similar sites. Look at Bolt- who bothers to read the hundreds of moronic “comments”? Answer: other head-bangers. The sheer numbers may please the Hun, but they’re all bottom-feeders. This isn’t political discrimination- right, left and green all have asylums full of tourettic addicts, rocking back and forth…
The real problem to gaining an effective agreement is simply this: The Cartel Paradox.
A global agreement on emissions is merely a de facto cartel arrangement, where higher prices for energy are mutually agreed upon. But, like all cartels, the incentive to cheat on the arrangement - and thereby derive a price advantage - is high.
Indeed, China’s baulking at external auditing appears to signal its intentions very clearly.
Similarly, the behaviour of the the rest of the Third World - in refusing to accept emission limits for themselves - has all the hallmarks of those who want to game the system for their personal benefit.
So if the incentive is high, is the same true for opportunity? Yes and no. Differing accounting standards could be used to show anything. Disagreements about the role of land clearing and the arbitrary (and extremely Euro-friendly) benchmark date of 1990 are also factors. Then there are those who may just opt out, and the negative consequences of which are, well, what? A bad reputation? Tell that to Falung Gong supporters. Force? What sort and from whom?
The simple fact is that cartel are inherently unstable at the best of times, i.e. when produces derive a long-term economic benefit out of it. But when the cartel is actually detrimental to their economic interests? Gimme a break!
And that is why any agreement is doomed to failure. You may hate Marshall’s supply and demand curves, but you cannot ignore them.
@Johnfromplanetearth:
Do you even understand the science behind Climate Change (regardless if you believe the AGW theory)?
It doesn`t mean that the Earth will necessarily be either extremely hot or extremely cold (although that is a possibility): it means weather patterns increase in severity and frequency/infrequency.
Not defending Rudd`s opportunism btw, just stating what even most AGW skeptics would consider uncontroversial.
Go get ‘em JohnFPE.
What is truly frightening is the fact that most members of this jolly forum are journalists.
I mean how scary is that?
To get an unfettered insight into the thought process of Australia’s journalists and witness first hand what drives this process does not help one have faith in the Fourth Estate or the future of our Nation.
“…: it means weather patterns increase in severity and frequency/infrequency…”
And just what are you basing such an incontrovertible conclusion on?
Al Gore blamed AGW for Hurricane Katrina et al. until he had his ass handed to him by the NOAA.
What’s your excuse?
Let me guess…the models predict it.
@MPM:
Not claiming to be an expert just from the material I have read. But you seem to know with certainty the other way, care to prove that?
Never claimed what I was saying was incontrovertible, only that this is climate change scientific predictions.
You done your own peer reviewed studies? If so link them and I will read it.
Rollo asserts flagrantly incorrectly:
“It[Climate Science] doesn`t mean that the Earth will necessarily be either extremely hot or extremely cold (although that is a possibility): it means weather patterns increase in severity and frequency/infrequency.”
From where did Rollo get that fanciful misinformation?
That he is so blithely confident in his ignorance is instructive.
It is this foolish and unquestioning acceptance that Mr. Rudd and the MSM leftist fearmongers rely on and which answers the question.
^ Don’t feed the troll.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology sums it up thus:
“Australia and the globe are experiencing rapid climate change. Since the middle of the 20th century, Australian temperatures have, on average, risen by about 1°C with an increase in the frequency of heatwaves and a decrease in the numbers of frosts and cold days. Rainfall patterns have also changed - the northwest has seen an increase in rainfall over the last 50 years while much of eastern Australia and the far southwest have experienced a decline.”
…and is full of temperature maps for anyone with eyes to see.
Just what authority have any of these dimwits like MPM got to prove otherwise?
I’ll take the conclusions from the BoM, CSRIO, the IPCC and the clearly disturbing reports of glacial melting around the planet as ample proof that the rising CO2 levels are involved in a fairly dramatic change to this planet’s weather patterns.
Puerile ranting from the likes of MPM and Johnfromsomeotherplanet are just that, gibberish.
@Rollo
“…Not claiming to be an expert just from the material I have read…”
And what material is that?
An IPCC report penned by Phil “hide the decline” Jones, peer-reviewed by his merry band of fellow travelling carpet-bagging scientist sell-outs?
Editorials from the vast and influential Fairfax Media Empire?
A shrieking apocalytic paen to our future children penned by our former AoTY Tim Flummery or Creakeys’ own “anarcho- communist” in residence Clive Hamilton?
Maybe it’s all that CRU peer-reviewed literature that has been busted wide open as compromised and most likely fraudulant?
Or was it like most of the dribble that comes from denialist trolls like ‘Bullmore’s Ghost sourced from realclimate.org?
Provide a source for your literature and I’ll judge it on it’s authenticity, accuracy and plausability. Remember in order to have any scientific credibility at all the burden of proof lies with you not me.
Yours in anticipation.
@ChristopherDunne - I’m happy to take the DATA from BoM, CSIRO or even the IPCC but am a long way from happy with the conclusions they come to. Glacial melting is proof that its wam enough for the ice to melt not that co2 is the cause of the increase in temperature.
@Jamesk:
Learn to read you illiterate f***stain. Bet you will have a whinge now about the resorting to personal abuse of the loony left (to which I would say, buy a new bloody record you moron, you`ll only wreck your stylus if you keep playing the one you always play + harden the f*** up). Your whinging has merit though, I am guilty as charged. Now, when you cry, don`t forget to dab a Kleenex round your eyes, for there is only one thing more unseemly than a f***stain, and that is a f***stain with big, blobby, bloated red eyes.
N.B. I have noted the irony in your assertion that I claimed certainty, at the very same time you inferred certainty for yourself.
N.B. (ii) Don`t forget that tissue now, ya hear?
@CHRISTOPHER DUNNE
“…ample proof that the rising CO2 levels are involved in a fairly dramatic change to this planet’s weather patterns…”
Yet another example of the failing of our school science education system.
Let me make it easy for you:
Show me where, in ANY reputable scientific literature, there is conclusive data that shows ANY demonstrable and/or quantifable relationship between observed global temperatures and global CO2 levels.
Go on then.
Peter Phelps, you’ve got the same problem I have ie there’s no way 192 countries can reach an agreement on any bloody thing, let alone curtailing emissions. And it is, as you say, open to gaming if we put a price on CO2 and someone else doesn’t.
Maybe trade controls will do it; no verifiable certificate, whopping tariff. It’s not fashionable to talk this way in this era of globalisation, but it’s either carrot or stick, and maybe some punitive response is needed.
For those who think the Copenhagen debacle is the finish of an ETS, or the end of the issue; think again.
MPM, you should address your childish questions to the BoM, CSRIO and the scientific bodies of 192 nations who attended Copenhagen. They’ve concluded the evidence is sufficient, even if “MPM” has not.
The physics is elementary, and has been known since the 19th century.
You are nothing but a big mouth, a nasty mind, and a very, very, small brain.
@MPM:
I would love to but there is one thing I know for certain, that any link or info or reports I have read you will say that it isn`t proof.
If you have read any of my posts on this issue you will know I have never claimed certainty. The IPCC doesn`t claim %100 certainty, most climate scientists do not claim absolute certainty. All I have ever said is that if AGW is caused by CO2 emissions, and there is, despite any claim to the contrary, a strong case that Climate Change has a human component as well as a natural component, then if choose not to act but have the ability to do so then that is both irresponsible and possibly dangerous.
Even if it turns out it is one great big hoax, what skeptics like yourself never concede is that we will, in the next 100 years need to move to renewable energy sources, as fossil fuels dwindle to a level that it becomes no longer commercially viable to extract them as an energy source.
We have had this same argument many times before. I don`t care what you believe; believe it, be true to it; just don`t patronise to me by implying certainty for your skeptic argument, while implying that I have certainty about AGW. I will say again, I do not. Although I find the AGW theory to be more convincing than flat out denialist claims that the climate is not effected by human activity.
Undoubtedly you find it frustrating arguing with those that lean towards the AGW theory, as we find it frustrating arguing with you. So I just won`t anymore. It is waste of both of our times.
Basic history, basic physics for the retards who don’t bother to read it:
The greenhouse effect is the heating of the surface of a planet or moon due to the presence of an atmosphere containing gases that absorb and emit infrared radiation.[1] Thus, greenhouse gases trap heat within the surface-troposphere system.[2] This mechanism is fundamentally different from that of an actual greenhouse, which works by isolating warm air inside the structure so that heat is not lost by convection. The greenhouse effect was discovered by Joseph Fourier in 1824, first reliably experimented on by John Tyndall in 1858, and first reported quantitatively by Svante Arrhenius in 1896.[3]
The black body temperature of the Earth is 5.5 °C.[4][5] Since the Earth’s surface reflects about 28% of incoming sunlight[6], the planet’s mean temperature would be far lower, about -18 or -19 °C.[7][8] Along with the added contribution of the greenhouse effect, it is instead much higher, roughly 14 °C.[9]
Global warming, a recent warming of the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere,[10] is believed to be the result of an “enhanced greenhouse effect” mostly due to human-produced increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases.[11] This human induced part is referred to as anthropogenic global warming (AGW).
… it takes a fraction of a second to find it on Wiki.
So, for the dull minds of MPM and it’s ilk, this planet would be MUCH colder if it were NOT for the ‘greenhouse’ effect.
Furthermore, these basic facts of physics were described and proven in the 19th century.
Furthermore, levels of Co2, one of the major gasses in the group, has been rising sharply since industrialisation, and so has average global temperature.
Now, I know it’s difficult for you, but joint the dots MPM….
MPM is such an unenjoyably ridiculous figure. The tone is that of the relentlessly aggressive but derided and ignored schoolboy. You sense that he would want to challenge everyone to a fight behind the toilet block but nobody turn ups because who would bother to fight such a loudmouthed tosser?
Christopher Dunne asserts: “I’ll take the conclusions from the BoM, CSRIO, the IPCC and the clearly disturbing reports of glacial melting around the planet as ample proof that the rising CO2 levels are involved in a fairly dramatic change to this planet’s weather patterns.”
What “fairly dramatic change to this planet’s weather patterns”?
Funny, David S, but as I went to check the lamb roast (ah, sorry Barnyard Joystick, it will never be costing $100! LOL) I wondered what kind of sad little deformed creature MPM is, and how maybe at Christmas we should be careful not to push it over the edge, but on the other hand….
Another fantastically biased piece Bernard; you are a fine political lobbyist indeed!
As it’s Christmas, dear choir, We’ll sing the following, to the tune of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”…(one, two, three…)
“You are nothing but a big mouth, a nasty mind, and a very, very, small brain.”
“MPM is such an unenjoyably ridiculous figure.
The tone is that of the relentlessly aggressive but derided and ignored schoolboy.
You sense that he would want to challenge everyone to a fight behind the toilet block
but nobody turn ups because who would bother to fight such a loudmouthed tosser?”
“Learn to read you illiterate f***stain.
Bet you will have a whinge now about the
resorting to personal abuse of the loony left … there is only one thing more unseemly
than a
f***stain, and that is a f***stain with big, blobby, bloated red eyes.”
“That he is so blithely confident in his ignorance is instructive.”
“What a superb response to that inanimate object (Bernard)”
“Puerile ranting from the likes of MPM and Johnfromsomeotherplanet are just that,
gibberish.”
“This leftist claptrap now speaks more for common sense through guileless irony than
any criticism could hope to achieve.
“Bernard Keane’s articles have become so utterly farcical
that no sig-nif-ic — — -ant criticism
is waaaaaaaaaaaarranted.”
(Thank you choir. I think that covers everything.)
What’s up Frank, the basic physics too complicated for you?
You and MPM share a brain cell? Your turn was it?
Frank….
I have posted a message on the telegraph site in response to your obvious saviour……Akerman.
I know it won’t ever be published, or appear on the telegraph site…….seems that “cane toad” akerman selects what gets listed.
I would be very happy for yourself, akerman, mccrann, abbott, fielding, minchin, conroy, (K) keneally, bishop and any other people of your small-minded ilk (do you get my drift??) to debate some of these issues in a neutral forum.
Bet none of you have the “balls” to do so…….(yes….i think Bronwyn probably does have balls…..the rest of you probably don’t).
@CHRISTOPHER DUNNE
I knew you couldn’t answer the question.
Or provide any evidence.
Instead you default to your inner child.
At least Rollo can engage like an adult even if he has been gullibly stooged by a complete lack of evidence.
At least he’s man enognh to admit his beliefs a
Then you send me to wikipedia as your reference source.
BWAHAHAHAHA.
You. Are. A. Joke.
Tell me what percentage of CO2 comprises the greenhose effect?
Take your time…I’m still laughing at your last response.
This one wqas particularly priceless:
“Furthermore, levels of Co2, one of the major gasses in the group, has been rising sharply since industrialisation, and so has average global temperature…”
Copy that from your ‘science’ ‘wiki’ too.
@Horace
“…Bet none of you have the “balls” to do so…”
Instead of sounding stupid just provide us with some conclusive evidence.
You talk the talk yet can’t walk the walk.
How predictable.
Over to you tough guy.
It is a waste of time to respond to hysterical halfwits like MPM but I will make this simple point. It is not actually necessary to understand the detailed science behind climate change to accept that it is real. Let me explain by analogy: if the consensus among engineers is that a particular office design is not structurally sound then it is sensible to accept that consensus. It is not necessary to do an engineering course before you accept that consensus because you understand that they have the training, expertise and experience to make such a judgement.
Equally with climate change it is not necessary to have a detailed understanding of the science to accept the reality of climate change. In fact even if your scientific knowledge is absolutely negligible it still makes sense to accept the overwhelming consensus because you know that they have training, expertise and experience to make the judgement. To imagine that these these thousands of scientists are part of a vast left-wing conspiracy is to leave your good sense behind and retreat into an infantile sense of grievance.
I don’t expect this argument to be accepted by raving fools such as MPM but it is accepted by most ordinary people who are capable of giving this issue any thought.
Ah Bernard; your suggestions are based on an unsound premise - that climate change (read global warming) is a sure and certain fact, and that this supposed fact must mean serious trouble for the environment and for us.
Every suggestion that flows from this premise is therefore unconvincing; especially this one:
a lot of Australians might think that, having spent a century causing the problem, Western countries have a greater responsibility for doing something about it.
You live in a better world than your parents and grandparents lived in at a corresponding age. Each successive generation has seen the key indicator of a healthy, well managed environment - life expectancy - substantially improve. So where’s the ‘problem’? We are all living off our inheritance from past generations . . and what we enjoy today many of us would like those in developing countries to also enjoy.
Life expectancy has risen sharply over the past 100 years - in developed countries. For example, in the U.S. in 1900 it was 49 years; by 1939, it was 63. Today, it somewhere to be about 71. These sorts of increase are reflected around all the developed countries.
So, where is the problem ?
watched an interesting documentary (part 1 of 4) on the BBC last night called ‘Man on Earth’ which was hosted by Tony Robinson. The rational of the documentary was that humans have adapted and confronted climate change for 200,000 years.
I certainly and proudly call myself a climate change sceptic but take the path of many other sceptics that it is worthwhile giving the earth the benefit of the doubt.
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/man-on-earth
BEAUTIFULWORLD - Pangloss has got nothing on this bloke. He wouldn’t recognise a serious problem if it hit him in the face and told him what a fool he is.
A leftist UN organisation (now there’s a antonymous tautology) set up to do exactly what it is doing and headed by the dubious Railwayman Rajendra Pachauri is the authority that the even more dubious David Sanderson fallaciously thinks we should accept.
That’s despite many of the IPCC’s most most fervent critics are IPCC scientists.
The other usual suspect fallacious argument he uses are to some sort of populism among climate scientists (less than 150 in terms of IPCC atmospheric climatology)
You need to be a raving fool/leftist progressive to be so unquestioning.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574567423917025400.html
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/2514-what-consensus-public-scientists-doubt-climate-crisis
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/a-climate-scientist-on-climate-skeptics/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/27/uea-climate-scientist-possible-that-i-p-c-c-has-run-its-course/
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/a_climatology_conspiracy.html
“Prof. Hulme leads a group of CRU scientists who believe that the extraordinary political importance placed on their research, and the activist, ideological way that research has been used by the IPCC, has put scientists in the position of being the authors of policy – a position that distorts the role of science in society.
“If we simply believe that science dictates policy, then I’m afraid we’re living in an unreal world,” Prof. Hulme said. “If people are arguing that science policy should flow seamlessly from the science, then science becomes a battleground, where people start saying that we must get the science on our side. We have lost an openness and a transparency that leads to good science.”
Prof. Hulme is one of several scientists calling for the raw data of climate-change research to be made available to everyone, including climate-change skeptics, on the Internet. That, he says, would allow genuine research to proceed unhindered. Some of his colleagues also say the IPCC now does more harm than good and should be disbanded. “
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/climate-change/breach-in-global-warming-bunker-rattles-climate-science-at-worst-time/article1389842/
apologies, it was ‘Man on Earth’ on Channel 4… download it if you can, very interesting.
Every single article on climate change draws in the same windbags - JamesK, JohnfromPlanetEarth, and MostPeculiarMama - spouting outrage, denial, and lies. You three inhabit an alternate reality where opinion is fact. And because the science disagrees with your political world view, you desperately pick at the threads trying to unravel some kind of paranoid conspiracy.
You’re so quick to jump on any blog derived factoid that validates your existing views, and keep asking the same stupid questions over and over, ignoring the correct answers. There’s no difference between you three and the nutjob anti-evolution brigade. Faith trumps reason.
Every media article on AGW seems biased to you because AGW is the mainstream position supported by the science, and supported by the global community.
Cut the outrage already, it makes you look like childish fools.
I think people like JamesK & co are well within their rights to dispute the science behind the current world wide debate, and believe it or not, they aren’t the only people if you are brave enough to knock on every door on your street..
I have a foot in each camp but prefer to sit with Abbott on this issue i.e lets give the globe the benefit of the doubt. If we feel the need to take out landlords and income insurance, I can’t see why mitigating environmental degradation risk is such a bad thing…
notwithstanding, climate change is a natural occcurring phenomenom… question is, are we contradicting mother natures pre determined weather cycles…
THE DUKE - this is the same clown and charlatan who claims to be both an “advisor to a top 5 investment bank” in London and a part-time academic supervising Australian PHD (his ‘spelling’) students.
It is no surprise that a charlatan would be a supporter of charlatan science.
shouldn’t you be taking coffee orders by now Sando? you are extremely aggressive to anyone that does not support your view.
As I said, we should give earth the benefit of the doubt. If climate change is so unnatural, how did the last ice age end? fool.
I plead guilty to aggression against fools and frauds. Anyone who is neither I have no problem with but you, Duke, are most definitely a charlatan and a fraud.
typical, playing the man and not the ball…
predictability is a flaw and my question remains, how and why did the ice age end?
we should give the earth the benefit of the doubt.
I have no hesitation about playing the man when that man has shown himself to be an absurd liar and fraud. Such a person is a time-waster and pollutant of any debate and I have no intention of engaging with someone who simply should not be here.
now, now, now…… the question remains…. and, your boss is wondering where his coffee is… my christmas will also be somewhat hollow without your love… your middle stump is also completely missing, I guess you hadn’t noticed.
whilst I can’t say I agree with all of what MPM, JamesK et al are saying, there is a place for them within the global debate. But, they differ from your view so straight to the gallows.
There there young Jeebus don’t fret. Ignore those nasty libertarians. Turn to authority……such as respected IPCC climatologists:
“A Climatology Conspiracy?”
By David H. Douglass and John R. Christy
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/a_climatology_conspiracy.html
“What Consensus? Public, Scientists Doubt Climate Crisis”
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/2514-what-consensus-public-scientists-doubt-climate-crisis
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/a-climate-scientist-on-climate-skeptics/#more-11377
“The Climate Science Isn’t Settled”
By Richard S. Lindzen DECEMBER 1, 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703939404574567423917025400.html
Oops……
Jeebus!…….Can you not see the Light?
There is no place within a debate for a pathetic fraud. You cannot tell ridiculous lies about yourself, in an attempt to boost your credibility and standing, and then continue to hope that others will engage with you.
You ought to have the decency to leave but as that appears unlikely I will continue to remind others of your fraudulence every time I see you making an appearance.
David Sanderson
You fearless warrior for righteousness.
The Pauchuri IPCC and climategate scientists are safe in your hands
What the trolls can’t deny is that the entire world has spent decades coming to the conclusion that climate change is real and caused by human activity.
That’s a fact.
What MPM contributes is nothing but childish dribbling and tantrums.
The adults have reached a conclusion based on long arguments about the science, but the children are still throwing their faeces around here because no one believes them.
Sad little creatures.
SHEPHARDMARILYN: I love it when the alarmists say the weather is not climate, i roll around on the floor. The point is what is happening in the Northern Hemisphere is nothing unusual for this time of year, it has been cold, wet, snowing and iced up in December for thousands of years!! call it bad weather or whatever you want, it is a perfectly normal occurance. My point is can someone tell our Primenutcase the difference wbetween bad weather and climate? Check his interviews in November this year and you will see him sprouting off about the effects of Climate Change on Adelaide and Melbourne during the heatwave. So it’s Climate Change when it’s hot and just bad weather when it’s cold…..Bollocks!
There’s enough for an entire new hymsult in the last 20 posts. You’re all incorrigible. (It seems to have escaped some insulters that both sides contributed to the hymsult…)
Quality insults are a joy to behold, but these “comments” sound like a noisy night at Taronga Park.
Why do you all bother? There must be a deep-seated tribal urge which eliminates any possibility of a middle between any two extremes. Red-arsed Baboons flashing on a rock.
Question is, there’s only a tiny number of head-bangers like MPM and Sando- but what effect do they have on Crikey readers and therefore Crikey’s bottom line? Do Crikey and similar sites end up as repositories of intellectual suppositories? A handful of simians who’ve driven everyone else away? I don’t know. Maybe people just read the articles and skip the zoo. Note that the Keanes, Hamiltons and Rundles almost never join in (true, Rundle does interject at times, but only to chuck primary school insults).
On the other hand there are usually some thoughtful posts on both sides of whatever argument. There’s real benefit in these. But there aren’t many.
Horace: Amusing to be listed with Abbott and the feral Right. Apparently you haven’t read much of what I’ve been banging on about on Crikey for months. Check the polls- even 11% of my fellow Green voters are critics of the climate cult. Both sides of it.
CHRISTOPHER DUNNE
“What MPM contributes is nothing but childish dribbling and tantrums.
The adults have reached a conclusion based on long arguments about the science, but the children are still throwing their faeces around here because no one believes them.”
See what I mean?
Frank, all I can say it does get annoying when the overwhelming consensus of people who know what they are talking about is ignored or traduced by people who have no idea of what they are talking about. To avoid repeating myself I refer you to my 9.59pm post.
Sando: but this is a democracy and the web even more so…demanding silence or capitulation from those who disagree with you is ummm…totalitarian. Justifying this by reference to an “overwhelming consensus” doesn’t excuse it. I can think of a dozen times when the “overwhelming consensus” was wrong, in science and elsewhere.
Your analogy of engineers condemning an office building as unsafe is false. Of course we rely on their judgement in that case, even though they may be wrong. It’s even possible that their physics is wrong (early tower blocks were often expensively over-engineered, just as the Twin Towers erred in the other direction), but we still avoid the risk. One can argue that AGW is a risk and therefore we should act (as I do)- but without being convinced of “the science”. The question is not physics and chem, but the application of basic science to extremely complex and poorly understood real-world systems. Buildings are now well understood, so no one will argue with the engineers (not even architects, who continually have to be rescued from impending disaster by engineers, because architects often have a weak grasp of the physical sciences), but there is no such confidence about immature, previously ignored and underfunded areas like climate science. Reading every one of the hacked emails will take me weeks, but virtually every email is evidence of the intense struggle by the scientists to comprehend the data, model it, pursue anomalies etc etc. It’s a work in progress.
@TheDuke - The issue here and the root of the problem here is that arrogant idiots and laymen believe it is within their rights to dispute science with opinion.
We are entitled to our own opinions, but we are not entitled to our own facts.
The denialist campaign won’t accept that the peer reviewed scienctific facts are in, and based on the overwhelming evidence, the vast majority of climate scientists support AGW.
A thousand monkeys writing a thousand blog posts selectively quoting data to show why climate science is a conspiracy does not change the science. Believing something does not make it true.
@JamesK, you prove my point.
@Jeebus - what are “scientific facts”? Are they different from ordinary facts?
Are you aware that there is a difference between facts and theories?
ROLLO: There is no consensus is science, i understand more than you think. My point is our ‘mad’ PM stated in November in the media that both Adelaide and Melbourne heatwaves were due to Climate Change. Take it up with our PrimeNut not me, he is the one who doesn’t understand anything at all, he has believed those who have been proven to have fudged the figures. The point is it’s cold in the Northern Hemisphere EVERY year, it’s -20c in Moscow like it always is, it’s freezing in northern China like it always has been. The US Captiol building steps are snowfilled and it’s freaking well hot here in Summer NOW!! I say the Planet is just fine! Why do people wish to interfere with what nature does all the time? Has done for thousands of years with and without us. It never ceases to amaze me, you know Santa might just get stuck in the snow this christmas, that’ll scare the children!
@stiofan - Of course I am aware of the difference between fact and theory. I said the facts are in and based off that overwhelming evidence the vast majority of climate scientists support AGW (the theory).
The denialists do not have an equivalent body of Scientific fact to draw from, so they create, selectively quote and misrepresent facts to reach their desired conclusions. How can people who do not conduct scientific research and have no qualifications in climate science be taken seriously?
That they take themselves seriously shows them up pompous, ignorant, fools.
I endorse Jeebus’ rebuttal and would like to finish up with what is the legitimate area for debate. How we respond to climate change - ie how we reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change - is the area for meaningful debate and disagreement. Expert knowledge from economists and the like should be taken seriously but as we are all affected by the chosen policy then it is appropriate that we think through the issues and make our views known.
However, this has to be done in a genuine fashion with serious targets and costings and the early indications from the Abbott camp are not encouraging in that regard.
@johnfromplanetearth:
Apologies if I came across as patronising. I agree that the PM saying a hot day is due to Climate Change is ridiculous and doesn`t help the debate. And just because he does this does not mean that Climate Change doesn`t have a significant human component. Human`s have had a fairly detrimental impact on the environment since industrialisation - deforestation, agricultural mismanagement, over-fishing, toxic air and sea pollutants etc. - it is not beyond the realms of possibility that CO2 emissions from human actions is making the greenhouse effect worse.
To state, outright, that it is not possible implies indubitable certainty.
Relating to your point that the southern/northern hemispheres are behaving in an historically climatic accord, I would be willing to concede this maybe the case. But it doesn`t disprove the general claim that if average global temperatures keep increasing that this could have adverse side effects of varying severity. Nor does it disprove that AGW is not happening. You seem to be willing to wait and see, I believe we should act even if it turns out humans have nothing to do with it.
— -
In the spirit of Christmas I apologise for any abuse a poster may have received. But if a person is genuinely seeking a debate, and they disagree with my position but disingenuously mis-state my position without any clarifying questions, then in the New Year I won`t respond. It is a sign of trolling not to ask questions then deliberately misrepresent a position in an effort antagonise. A humorous, obvious troll I will pay, trolling to anger will receive nothing in return.
— -
Merry Christmas y`all: stay safe, enjoy your loved ones (even the nutty uncle - you never know if you could one day be considered the same), drink but not injuriously, and if you have to DUI try not to hit anyone : P
Amazing. The power of Christmas. Just look at the last dozen posts…
We may have witnessed a miracle. But there’s already a St Francis. Bugger.
ROLLO: Merry Christmas to you, i appreciate your willingness to debate without the usual easy way out insults. I may not agree with you, but i do respect your right to express your opinion and that after all is why we love living in Australia.
I don’t even know why we bother to have these international conventions when it’s clear the world doesn’t want to do anything substantial about man-made warming, or any other environmental issue. It’s just talk and window dressing for the most part.
If you forget the talk and look at the activities of humans over the last 100 years or so - it seems probable that we’re just going to continue polluting and overpopulating the planet until fossil fuels are exhausted.
The fact is that little or nothing is being done to address the real issue behind so much of the current destruction - overpopulation.
Why do we pretend to care, when the reality is that we probably don’t?
Well now that Global Warming has been proven “statistically manipulated” and “inconclusive” and Al Gore has tarnished the the title “Nobel Prize” to the point its now considered slightly more important than a cheap Kmart doorstop, maybe we can get to the point WHY they even bother holding these stupid conferences (apart from them being brainstorming sessions - or lack thereof - on how to flog us all with a new “green friendly” tax).
…CRAP and TRADE…For example…
….Its also funny how terms have changed..”Global Warming” is now called “Climate Change”…Fact of the matter is that the earth’s climate fluctuates and changes anyway…I agree that we do contribute to a small part of it, but to say the human race is the MAIN cause is just B U L L S H I T !
Zaphodity, where did you get your climate science degree - Bovine University?
Post-Copenhagen and pre-Mexico City, the most constructive path that Rudd, Abbott/Minchin and Brown can take to have Australia play a lead role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, without a big new tax, without undermining the coal industry is to select vast areas of Australia’s native forests earmarked for forestry and set them aside as National Parks.
Givenm deforestation was flagged at Copenhagen as a key contributor to Greenhouse Gas Emmissions, a massive increase in national Parks would be Australia’s international leadership move. Of course, financial compensation to the forestry industry would be the cost. But the cost woudl be less than the new big tax and the demise of Australi’s fossile fuel industry.
Australia would have shown leadership with this as step 1.
Followship is head-in the sand and we are then as a first world country with choice, worse than China.