Resisting Climate Hysteria

[Whiskers]

Listening to the news (abc24) and cries of concern about new research claiming a 1m sea rise by end of century and flooding in Brisbane etc, regardless that the worst case scenario is being substantially degraded every few years because the previous trend forcasts weren't holding up in reality... What are we really supposed to do!?

If, we completely stopped human CO2 emissions, ie completely shut down industry, can they guarantee the world won't warm a bit more and sea levels won't rise anyway!!!

How many of you are so dedicated that you will go without air conditioning and heating and not own a motor vehicle to lead by good example to save our planet?

PS: Maybe I've missed something, but what are the current estimates of how much CO2, temp rise and sea rise will be averted if we do something you suggest?

Eg, say we taxed a billion dollars per year, how, ie by what physical, chemical or other process is that going to lower all these things and by how much?

 

[Logique]

Guru Flannery is out on his figurative ear, and the 'Salary-Change' Commission to follow. As one blogger remarked, "Gaia heard Australia’s prayers".

New Environment Minister Greg Hunt makes a major contribution to climate science, in his first week!

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/...aldsun/comments/flannery_sacked/#commentsmore

PROFESSOR Tim Flannery has been sacked by the Abbott Government from his $180,000 a year part time Chief Climate Commissioner position with the agency he runs to be dismantled immediately.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt called Prof Flannery this morning to tell him a letter formally ending his employment was in the mail…

All other climate commissioners will also be sacked with the move to save more than $500,000 this financial year and $1.2 million next financial year.

The Coalition will now take advice on climate change from the Department of the Environment..

 

[basilio]

Listening to the news (abc24) and cries of concern about new research claiming a 1m sea rise by end of century and flooding in Brisbane etc, regardless that the worst case scenario is being substantially degraded every few years because the previous trend forcasts weren't holding up in reality... What are we really supposed to do!?

If, we completely stopped human CO2 emissions, ie completely shut down industry, can they guarantee the world won't warm a bit more and sea levels won't rise anyway!!!

How many of you are so dedicated that you will go without air conditioning and heating and not own a motor vehicle to lead by good example to save our planet?

PS: Maybe I've missed something, but what are the current estimates of how much CO2, temp rise and sea rise will be averted if we do something you suggest?

Eg, say we taxed a billion dollars per year, how, ie by what physical, chemical or other process is that going to lower all these things and by how much?

From all understandings the current levels of greenhouse gases will cause extra warming. It just takes time for the effects to follow through. So your quite right in saying that if we stopped all industry right now we would still see extra warming.

The relevant question however is "What will be the consequences of doing nothing and allowing greenhouse gases to continue increasing " Again from current understandings by almost all climate scientists global temperatures will increase dramatically. Certainly nothing of our current ecosystems would survive.

So what is required to turn the ship around ? Some very quick work in moving to renewable energy sources almost certainly stimulated by pricing carbon based fuels; very large efforts at pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere through agriculture, carbon capture whatever.

If this is all too much to think about we can just decide to enjoy the next 30-50 years and Que Sera Sera.

 

[springhill]

Oh dear further inconvenient truths.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...r-fact-Earths-temperature-risen-15-years.html

 

[drsmith]

Guru Flannery is out on his figurative ear, and the 'Salary-Change' Commission to follow. As one blogger remarked, "Gaia heard Australia’s prayers".

New Environment Minister Greg Hunt makes a major contribution to climate science, in his first week!

Someone last year made the appropriate tribute to Guru Flannery.

 

[Whiskers]

Oh dear further inconvenient truths.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...r-fact-Earths-temperature-risen-15-years.html

Published next week, it is expected to address the fact that 1998 was the hottest year on record and world temperatures have not yet exceeded it, which scientists have so far struggled to explain.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...temperature-risen-15-years.html#ixzz2fPHPevWz
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

I seem to recall hearing of this news some time ago. Very inconvenient indeed that the temp escalator stopped before it even got a head of steam up... and the correlation between CO2 and Temp is therefore badly wounded and sea levels were to rise by something north of 2 meters, no the best worst case argument is 1m.

On their own projections by another decade, well be back to zero sea rise and a decade after that, hell... sea levels will be falling and we'll be starting a new ice age.

From all understandings

No offence basilio, but what you say is true, it's much more poor understanding and populous opinion and much less hard, reliably understood and consistent data.

Dr Dennis Jensen MP, BAppSci, MSc, PhD, FAIP explains the logic quite brilliantly.

"In the climate area there is appeal to authority and appeal to consensus, neither of which is scientific at all," Dr Jensen told Fairfax Media on Thursday.

"Scientific reality doesn't give a damn who said it and it doesn't give a damn how many say it."

It was wrong to accept the view of the 97 per cent of climate scientists who agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely caused by human activities, because "the argument of consensus . . . is a flawed argument," Dr Jensen said.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...ce-minister-20130912-2tltt.html#ixzz2fPLoeihr​

If this is all too much to think about we can just decide to enjoy the next 30-50 years and Que Sera Sera.

While I do advocate doing better to clean up the environment generally, I'm afraid with CO2 it will largely be Que Sera Sera. It increasingly appears nature has it's own carbon sinks and will get things done in it's own ways of recycling in it's own time.

I know some of these scientists have ridiculed the prospect of algae for example taking it's time to play a significant role in recycling CO2, but that ridicule is further dismissed the more they overstate the problem and nature underperforms their dire expectations.

 

[Calliope]

Guru Flannery is out on his figurative ear, and the 'Salary-Change' Commission to follow. As one blogger remarked, "Gaia heard Australia’s prayers".

New Environment Minister Greg Hunt makes a major contribution to climate science, in his first week!

The climate sceptics' job is made much easier when the loony left pay homage to crazy global catastrophe advocates such as as Flannery and Suzuki. They may be darlings of the ABC, but that is par for the course.

 

[Mickel]

As Professor Curry has received "some curry" from Knobby recently, I thought I'd give her a right of reply. This is her summation of her article in the Weekend Australian today on the soon to be released 5th IPCC Report. Seems very scientific to me.

"SCIENTISTS do not need to be consensual to be authoritative. Authority rests in the credibility of the arguments, which must include explicit reflection on uncertainties, ambiguities and areas of ignorance, and more openness for dissent. The role of scientists should not be to develop political will to act by hiding or simplifying the uncertainties, explicitly or implicitly, behind a negotiated consensus. I have recommended that the scientific consensus-seeking process be abandoned in favour of a more traditional review that presents arguments for and against, discusses the uncertainties, and speculates on the known and unknown unknowns. I think such a process would support scientific progress far better and be more useful for policymakers.

The growing implications of the messy wickedness of the climate-change problem are becoming increasingly apparent, highlighting the inadequacies of the "consensus to power" approach for decision-making on such complex issues.

Let's abandon the scientific consensus-seeking approach in favour of open debate and discussion of a broad range of policy options that stimulate local and regional solutions to the multifaceted and interrelated issues surrounding climate change.

Judith Curry is a professor and chair of the school of earth and atmospheric sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US, and president of Climate Forecast Applications Network. She is proprietor of the blog Climate Etc.

judithcurry.com

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...-climate-picture/story-e6frg6zo-1226724019428

No PHD's for guessing that the 5th IPCC Report WILL NOT " include explicit reflection on uncertainties, ambiguities and areas of ignorance, and more openness for dissent."

 

[Mickel]

An interesting item I discovered today about Edmond Halley of Halley's Comet fame. From Wikipedia-

"In 1676, Halley visited the south Atlantic island of Saint Helena and set up an observatory with a large sextant with telescopic sights to catalogue the stars of the southern hemisphere.[4] While there he observed a transit of Mercury, and realised that a similar transit of Venus could be used to determine the absolute size of the Solar System.[5] He returned to England in May 1678. In the following year he went to Danzig (Gdańsk) on behalf of the Royal Society to help resolve a dispute. Because astronomer Johannes Hevelius did not use a telescope, his observations had been questioned by Robert Hooke. Halley stayed with Hevelius and he observed and verified the quality of Hevelius' observations. The same year, Halley published the results from his observations on St. Helena as Catalogus Stellarum Australium which included details of 341 southern stars. These additions to contemporary star maps earned him comparison with Tycho Brahe: e.g. "the southern Tycho" as descrbed by Flamsteed. Halley was awarded his M.A. degree at Oxford and elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society.

In 1686, Halley published the second part of the results from his Helenian expedition, being a paper and chart on trade winds and monsoons. In this he identified solar heating as the cause of atmospheric motions. He also established the relationship between barometric pressure and height above sea level. His charts were an important contribution to the emerging field of information visualization".

In more recent years, some scientists view solar flares (or a lack of them) as more a cause of climate change than CO2.

 

[Calliope]

A courageous decision from a politician? I don't think so. :headshake

What seems clear is that whatever our response to climate change, whether it is geoengineering or replacing fossil-fuelled electricity generation with low-carbon power stations and wind farms, the bills are likely to be astronomical. As long as public confidence in climate science is falling, it would take a brave political leader to sanction spending on that scale.

See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...limate-sceptics/story-fnb64oi6-1226724567322?

 

[basilio]

Slashing the Climate Commission to save $5m over years and give Tim Flannery , The Greens and the ALP a collective kick in the xxxx ? Great move - particularly when Tim and co decide to relaunch it with public support and on a pro bono basis.

I was particularly interested in the comments from Rear Admiral Barrie on the value of the papers they produced.

I can see the new Climate Council having even more effect as a non government funded body that essentially promotes the research of the CSIRO and BOM - assuming of course these bodies will be allowed to continue collecting data and doing research in the climate change field.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-24/tim-flannery-to-relaunch-climate-commission/4976608

 

[Whiskers]

Slashing the Climate Commission to save $5m over years and give Tim Flannery , The Greens and the ALP a collective kick in the xxxx ? Great move - particularly when Tim and co decide to relaunch it with public support and on a pro bono basis.

I was particularly interested in the comments from Rear Admiral Barrie on the value of the papers they produced.

I can see the new Climate Council having even more effect as a non government funded body that essentially promotes the research of the CSIRO and BOM - assuming of course these bodies will be allowed to continue collecting data and doing research in the climate change field.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-24/tim-flannery-to-relaunch-climate-commission/4976608

basilio, while I don't agree entirely with your views on climate change, or flannery, this highlights the lack of wisdom of egotistical and impetuous slash and burn for political expediency that I've been referring too.

To put a fine point on it... extreme intolerance and treatment of an opposing point of view will always lead to political terrorism.

If one chooses to win by playing the person rather than playing the ball, one risks empathy flowing to the opponent even if one wins the game, unfairly.

Since the LNP appear not to strengthen alternative scientific analysis sources, they could have changed the terms of reference of the Climate Commission to do away with the preconceived notion of the cause and effect of global warming and write in a new terms of reference akin to a true scientific research organisation to supplement the CSIRO and BOM.

Then, they would have maintained control of the vehicle and occupants boots and all.

It's worth remembering a lesson from the Iraq war... the US didn't appreciate that people joined Saddam Hussein's political party because it was a prerequisite to getting a good job, not that they were necessarily egotistical supporters of him.

Similarly, in political parties and government agencies, especially where there is a written policy, one tends to abide by those rules if one wants to keep the job.

 

[wayneL]

basilio, while I don't agree entirely with your views on climate change, or flannery, this highlights the lack of wisdom of egotistical and impetuous slash and burn for political expediency that I've been referring too.

To put a fine point on it... extreme intolerance and treatment of an opposing point of view will always lead to political terrorism.

If one chooses to win by playing the person rather than playing the ball, one risks empathy flowing to the opponent even if one wins the game, unfairly.

Whiskers, was the irony intentional? If so, that was brilliant.

 

[Whiskers]

Whiskers, was the irony intentional? If so, that was brilliant.

Maybe!

“If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.”
― Harlan Ellison

 

[Mickel]

From The Aus today, a different view on sustainability-



Profitable path to sustainability

Dennis Jensen •
The Australian •
September 27, 2013 12:00AM

"BJORN Lomborg has stated "if it is not economic, it is not sustainable". That single statement encapsulates all that is wrong with the climate change debate. It also points to a potential solution. For those who know me, don't be confused. I have not changed my view that human activity is not a major driver of global warming. Indeed, the more than decade-long lack of warming, opposed to the warming predicted by the global circulation models referred to by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, simply reinforces my view. The problem is the debate has become polarised. Perhaps what is needed is refocusing on how a position can be reached where there is benefit to people on all sides of the argument. Looking at the past, punitive measures have been recommended and put in place. First the carbon tax, followed by emissions trading the last government put in place. The latter is the worst of all worlds, as it ends up with the effective payment of "indulgences" to overseas carbon traders for shonky carbon credits while emissions in Australia continue to increase. "

and

"By putting money into energy research, many benefits will follow. For those concerned with global warming, it provides potential for a real energy solution globally that conforms to Lomborg's statement and would have global energy consequences. For Australia, it provides a realistic prospect for large windfalls as a result of the intellectual property generated, giving a positive return on the investment put into the research, unlike the other methods of trying to solve the anthropogenic global warming problem, which are a financial burden to Australians. Last, but by no means least, it provides a means of reinvigorating our struggling science sector, giving realistic prospects of careers in scientific research and improving the quality of the intake of those aiming for a science-related profession. Win, win, win - plus the prospect of coming up with a path on the climate change issue on which most, if not all, could agree. ''

Former CSIRO research scientist and defence analyst Dennis Jensen is the federal Liberal member for Tangney in Western Australia.

- See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...y-e6frgd0x-1226727881468#sthash.zi8WndLn.dpuf

 

[Whiskers]

Dr Jensen, regardless of being a Lib MP, is a very logical and knowledgeable mind on this issue.

If I can summarise;

1. The warming trend is erratic, not a clear linear trend as we were initially led to expect. It has flat lined for quite awhile.
2. The association between global warming and increased CO2 emissions is becoming more questionable, less clear than originally speculated.
3. The association between Global Warming, CO2 and sea level predictions have become less clear, with most recent predictions halving initial sea level predictions.
4. The issue of whether human activity is causing or just hitching a ride on climate change seems to be leaning more to the latter.
5. Is there any real prospect of stopping a natural global warming cycle anyway, whether it be micro or macro, and why would we want to waste our time and resources trying?

Having said that, I'm certainly not dismissive of cleaning up our human footprint for sustainability reasons if nothing else.

 

[Mickel]

Yes, good points Whiskers.

This reference below, from Prof Judith Curry's blog gives a detailed description of the rejection by the IPCC, of a reasonable scientific paper twice, the second time after an original reviewer joined as a co author. Why, you ask ? Because it didn't fit in with the IPCC's "so called consensus".

Judith Curry sums up- "Three years later, it seems pretty obvious and widely acknowledged that climate models have been unable to correctly capture the earth’s surface temperature evolution over the past several decades. Lucia continues to do good work on this subject; head over to her blog for a technical discussion on this topic and the Michaels et al. paper.

And we see where ‘pause denial’ has led the IPCC, potentially to a crisis point in the AR5. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out in Stockholm next week.''

http://judithcurry.com/2013/09/19/peer-review-the-skeptic-filter/

No wonder many people are finally waking up to the folly of the extreme predictions of the IPCC.

 

[Calliope]

The IPCC is a sick joke.:bad:

 

[explod]

The ippc report is not only watered down to fit with the oil lobby it is also reporting from figures and measurements that are now more than six years old.

You deniests are a joke and so far up it that you will be under water and still sticking to you narrow minds.

 

[Calliope]

The ippc report is not only watered down to fit with the oil lobby it is also reporting from figures and measurements that are now more than six years old.

You deniests are a joke and so far up it that you will be under water and still sticking to you narrow minds.

:screwy: