Resisting Climate Hysteria

basilio said:

THAT IS NOT TRUE. Clearly the climate change deniers are not interested in what actually happened but in fact the globe was warming through that period. The article below explains what happened.

A global warming pause that didn’t happen hampered climate science​

The supposed blip in warming fueled climate skeptics and distracted researchers​

View attachment 156578

There’s no doubt that global temperatures are on the rise – a heat-up that is contributing to melting ice (icebergs in Ilulissat Icefjord in Greenland are shown), rising sea levels and extreme weather.

Mario Tama/Getty Images

By Alexandra Witze


It was one of the biggest climate change questions of the early 2000s: Had the planet’s rising fever stalled, even as humans pumped more heat-trapping gases into Earth’s atmosphere?

By the turn of the century, the scientific understanding of climate change was on firm footing. Decades of research showed that carbon dioxide was accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere, thanks to human activities like burning fossil fuels and cutting down carbon-storing forests, and that global temperatures were rising as a result. Yet weather records seemed to show that global warming slowed between around 1998 and 2012. How could that be?
View attachment 156579

After careful study, scientists found the apparent pause to be a hiccup in the data. Earth had, in fact, continued to warm. This hiccup, though, prompted an outsize response from climate skeptics and scientists. It serves as a case study for how public perception shapes what science gets done, for better or worse.

A global warming pause that didn’t happen hampered climate science

Trying to explain why global warming appeared to slow down in the early 2000s distracted scientists and shook their confidence.

www.sciencenews.org

Ian Plimer and his theories on why CO2 follows rather than leads global warming ? Sorry he is totally out on a limb there. If one wants to highlight the effects of various global warming tipping points then certainly the initial warming cause by extra CO2 will create additional warming.

For example warming up the Arctic tundra will release billions of tons of methane currently trapped in the perma frost. A warming planet that kills off large areas of forest will reduce CO2 retention and release more CO2 from decaying forests. But on all the evidence to date extra CO2 and other GG in the atmospehere will in itself increase temperatures.

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Your link ultimately leads to a firewalled article so you didn't even read the original piece. Nice try.

Global Warming changed to Climate Change due to this period of hiatus. You know that.

It's quite a mystery how the temperature goes up and down and sideways, with and without CO2 influence. Maybe some natural variation is involved.

The lowest temperature ever recorded at the South Pole was – 82.8°C on the 23 June 1982. It is warmer on the coast. The warmest temperature ever recorded in Antarctica was 15°C on 5 June 1974 at Vanda station.

WMO has recognized a temperature of -69.6°C (-93.3°F) at an automatic weather station in Greenland on 22 December 1991 as the lowest ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere. The temperature record was uncovered after nearly 30 years by “climate detectives” with the WMO Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes.
On 6 February 2020, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recognized a new high temperature record for the Antarctic continent: 18.3°C, which breaks the record from 24 March 2015 with 17.5°C.

Sean K said:

Your link ultimately leads to a firewalled article so you didn't even read the original piece. Nice try.

Global Warming changed to Climate Change due to this period of hiatus. You know that.

It's quite a mystery how the temperature goes up and down and sideways, with and without CO2 influence. Maybe some natural variation is involved.

Click to expand...

Not sure why you were unable to access the story. I'll copy it full for your benefit
( And anyway how did I not read it previously when I copied and pasted the introduction ??)

Temperature going up and down. During the 20th Century one of the substantial factors cooling the climate was fossil fuel caused air pollution. The millions of tons of sulpher dioxide, particulates and other rubbish pumped into the atmosphere did have a cooling effect which for a time masked CO2 impact on temperatures.

Clean Air Acts in the 70's reduced these emissions. Rapidly increasing CO2 emission then intensified later heating of the atmosphere.

As far as global temperatures goes the graph highlights just how much impact global warming is having on the climate. I don't know where your surface global temperate data comes from but it substantially understates the three different data banks from Hadcruts, NOAA and Nasa

A global warming pause that didn’t happen hampered climate science​

The supposed blip in warming fueled climate skeptics and distracted researchers​

There’s no doubt that global temperatures are on the rise – a heat-up that is contributing to melting ice (icebergs in Ilulissat Icefjord in Greenland are shown), rising sea levels and extreme weather.

Mario Tama/Getty Images

It was one of the biggest climate change questions of the early 2000s: Had the planet’s rising fever stalled, even as humans pumped more heat-trapping gases into Earth’s atmosphere?

By the turn of the century, the scientific understanding of climate change was on firm footing. Decades of research showed that carbon dioxide was accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere, thanks to human activities like burning fossil fuels and cutting down carbon-storing forests, and that global temperatures were rising as a result. Yet weather records seemed to show that global warming slowed between around 1998 and 2012. How could that be?



After careful study, scientists found the apparent pause to be a hiccup in the data. Earth had, in fact, continued to warm. This hiccup, though, prompted an outsize response from climate skeptics and scientists. It serves as a case study for how public perception shapes what science gets done, for better or worse.

The mystery of what came to be called the “global warming hiatus” arose as scientists built up, year after year, data on the planet’s average surface temperature. Several organizations maintain their own temperature datasets; each relies on observations gathered at weather stations and from ships and buoys around the globe. The actual amount of warming varies from year to year, but overall the trend is going up, and record-hot years are becoming more common. The 1995 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, for instance, noted that recent years had been among the warmest recorded since 1860.

And then came the powerful El Niño of 1997–1998, a weather pattern that transferred large amounts of heat from the ocean into the atmosphere. The planet’s temperature soared as a result — but then, according to the weather records, it appeared to slacken dramatically. Between 1998 and 2012, the global average surface temperature rose at less than half the rate it did between 1951 and 2012. That didn’t make sense. Global warming should be accelerating over time as people ramp up the rate at which they add heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere.
Today’s ocean-monitoring buoys (a NOAA buoy southeast of South Africa is shown) provide measurements of ocean surface temperatures that are more accurate than previous approaches.D. MacIntyre, NOAA
By the mid-2000s, climate skeptics had seized on the narrative that “global warming has stopped.” Most professional climate scientists were not studying the phenomenon, since most believed the apparent pause fell within the range of natural temperature variability. But public attention soon caught up to them, and researchers began investigating whether the pause was a real thing. It was a high-profile shift in scientific focus.

“In studying that anomalous period, we learned a lot of lessons about both the climate system and the scientific process,” says Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist now with the technology company Stripe.

By the early 2010s, scientists were busily working to explain why the global temperature records seemed to be flatlining. Ideas included the contribution of cooling sulfur particles emitted by coal-burning power plants and heat being taken up by the Atlantic and Southern oceans. Such studies were the most focused attempt ever to understand the factors that drive year-to-year temperature variability. They revealed how much natural variability can be expected when factors such as a powerful El Niño are superimposed onto a long-term warming trend


Then in 2015, a team led by researchers at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published a jaw-dropping conclusion in the journal Science. The rise in global temperatures had not plateaued; rather, incomplete data had obscured ongoing global warming. When more Arctic temperature records were included and biases in ocean temperature data were corrected, the NOAA dataset showed the heat-up continuing. With the newly corrected data, the apparent pause in global warming vanished. A 2017 study led by Hausfather confirmed and extended these findings, as did other reports.

Even after these studies were published, the hiatus remained a favored topic among climate skeptics, who used it to argue that concern over global warming was overblown. Congressman Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas who chaired the House of Representatives’ science committee in the mid-2010s, was particularly incensed by the 2015 NOAA study. He demanded to see the underlying data while also accusing NOAA of altering it. (The agency denied fudging the data.)

“In retrospect, it is clear that we focused too much on the apparent hiatus,” Hausfather says. Figuring out why global temperature records seemed to plateau between 1998 and 2012 is important — but so is keeping a big-picture view of the broader understanding of climate change. The hiccup represented a short fluctuation in a much longer and much more important trend.

Global average temperature change, 1850–2021​

E. OTWELL; SOURCE: NASA, NOAA, MET OFFICE HADLEY CENTRE. HADCRUT5 DATA WAS SET TO A BASELINE OF 1850–1900. NOAA AND NASA DATA WERE VERTICALLY ALIGNED WITH IT USING A REFERENCE PERIOD OF 1981–2010.

Long-term climate datasets show that Earth’s average surface temperature (combined land and ocean) has increased by more than 1 degree Celsius since preindustrial times. Temperature change is the difference from the 1850–1900 average.

Science relies on testing hypotheses and questioning conclusions, but here’s a case where probing an anomaly was taken arguably too far. It caused researchers to doubt their conclusions and spend large amounts of time questioning their well-established methods, says Stephan Lewandowsky, a cognitive scientist at the University of Bristol who has studied climate scientists’ response to the hiatus. Scientists studying the hiatus could have been working instead on providing clear information to policy makers about the reality of global warming and the urgency of addressing it.

The debates over whether the hiatus was real or not fed public confusion and undermined efforts to convince people to take aggressive action to reduce climate change’s impacts. That’s an important lesson going forward, Lewandowsky says.
“My sense is that the scientific community has moved on,” he says. “By contrast, the political operatives behind organized denial have learned a different lesson, which is that the ‘global warming has stopped’ meme is very effective in generating public complacency, and so they will use it at every opportunity.”

Already, some climate deniers are talking about a new “pause” in global warming because not every one of the past five years has set a new record, he notes. Yet the big-picture trend remains clear: Global temperatures have continued to rise in recent years. The warmest seven years on record have all occurred since 2015, and each decade since the 1980s has been warmer than the one before.


Questions or comments on this article? E-mail us at feedback@sciencenews.org | Reprints FAQ

This article examines the impact of aerosols on global temperatures in the mid 20th Century

Mid-century cooling was primarily anthropogenic​

Nah, a trace gas at ⁴/10,000ths of the atmosphere is the real problem

wayneL said:

Nah, a trace gas at ⁴/10,000ths of the atmosphere is the real problem

Click to expand...

Very profound Wayne ..

But did you realise CO2 levels are 4.16/10,000th of the atmosphere ? I'm sure wherever you got that figure wouldn't have bothered to be so specific. And anyway 4/10,000 is the rough figure

Yeah it is small. And what is even more interesting is that if this 4.16/10,000th were to be, say 2/10,000th, the planet would be in an Ice Age. Mile high glaciers in New York. Europe under ice. The full caboodle.

That is the effect of this "measly" greenhouse gas. Too little and insufficient heat is trapped to keep the world from rapidly freezing. Roughly the right amount and we see the broad climate parameters of the past 10,000 years.

But the increase in CO2 levels by the amount we have done in the past 100 years is trapping far more heat than ever before. That is why global temperatures have increased to record levels (for the last 10k years) so sharply in just 50 years. And the full effects of the current CO2 levels have yet to be felt.

Check out this link for an in depth scientific explanation on how CO2 effects temperatures on Earth. I have quoted a small section.

Why does carbon dioxide let heat in, but not out?​

Energy enters our atmosphere as visible light, whereas it tries to leave as infrared energy. In other words, “energy coming into our planet from the Sun arrives as one currency, and it leaves in another,” said Smerdon.

CO2 molecules don’t really interact with sunlight’s wavelengths. Only after the Earth absorbs sunlight and reemits the energy as infrared waves can the CO2 and other greenhouse gases absorb the energy.

How can CO2 trap so much heat if it only makes up 0.04% of the atmosphere? Aren’t the molecules spaced too far apart?​

Before humans began burning fossil fuels, naturally occurring greenhouse gases helped to make Earth’s climate habitable. Without them, the planet’s average temperature would be below freezing. So we know that even very low, natural levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases can make a huge difference in Earth’s climate.

Today, CO2 levels are higher than they have been in at least 3 million years. And although they still account for only 0.04% of the atmosphere, that still adds up to billions upon billions of tons of heat-trapping gas. For example, in 2019 alone, humans dumped 36.44 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, where it will linger for hundreds of years. So there are plenty of CO2 molecules to provide a heat-trapping blanket across the entire atmosphere.

In addition, “trace amounts of a substance can have a large impact on a system,” explains Smerdon. Borrowing an analogy from Penn State meteorology professor David Titley, Smerdon said that “If someone my size drinks two beers, my blood alcohol content will be about 0.04 percent. That is right when the human body starts to feel the effects of alcohol.” Commercial drivers with a blood alcohol content of 0.04% can be convicted for driving under the influence.

“Similarly, it doesn’t take that much cyanide to poison a person,” adds Smerdon. “It has to do with how that specific substance interacts with the larger system and what it does to influence that system.”

In the case of greenhouse gases, the planet’s temperature is a balance between how much energy comes in versus how much energy goes out. Ultimately, any increase in the amount of heat-trapping means that the Earth’s surface gets hotter. (For a more advanced discussion of the thermodynamics involved, check out this NASA page.)

basilio said:

Very profound Wayne ..

But did you realise CO2 levels are 4.16/10,000th of the atmosphere ? I'm sure wherever you got that figure wouldn't have bothered to be so specific. And anyway 4/10,000 is the rough figure

Yeah it is small. And what is even more interesting is that if this 4.16/10,000th were to be, say 2/10,000th, the planet would be in an Ice Age. Mile high glaciers in New York. Europe under ice. The full caboodle.

That is the effect of this "measly" greenhouse gas. Too little and insufficient heat is trapped to keep the world from rapidly freezing. Roughly the right amount and we see the broad climate parameters of the past 10,000 years.

But the increase in CO2 levels by the amount we have done in the past 100 years is trapping far more heat than ever before. That is why global temperatures have increased to record levels (for the last 10k years) so sharply in just 50 years. And the full effects of the current CO2 levels have yet to be felt.

Check out this link for an in depth scientific explanation on how CO2 effects temperatures on Earth. I have quoted a small section.

Why does carbon dioxide let heat in, but not out?​

Energy enters our atmosphere as visible light, whereas it tries to leave as infrared energy. In other words, “energy coming into our planet from the Sun arrives as one currency, and it leaves in another,” said Smerdon.

CO2 molecules don’t really interact with sunlight’s wavelengths. Only after the Earth absorbs sunlight and reemits the energy as infrared waves can the CO2 and other greenhouse gases absorb the energy.

How can CO2 trap so much heat if it only makes up 0.04% of the atmosphere? Aren’t the molecules spaced too far apart?​

Before humans began burning fossil fuels, naturally occurring greenhouse gases helped to make Earth’s climate habitable. Without them, the planet’s average temperature would be below freezing. So we know that even very low, natural levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases can make a huge difference in Earth’s climate.

Today, CO2 levels are higher than they have been in at least 3 million years. And although they still account for only 0.04% of the atmosphere, that still adds up to billions upon billions of tons of heat-trapping gas. For example, in 2019 alone, humans dumped 36.44 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, where it will linger for hundreds of years. So there are plenty of CO2 molecules to provide a heat-trapping blanket across the entire atmosphere.

In addition, “trace amounts of a substance can have a large impact on a system,” explains Smerdon. Borrowing an analogy from Penn State meteorology professor David Titley, Smerdon said that “If someone my size drinks two beers, my blood alcohol content will be about 0.04 percent. That is right when the human body starts to feel the effects of alcohol.” Commercial drivers with a blood alcohol content of 0.04% can be convicted for driving under the influence.

“Similarly, it doesn’t take that much cyanide to poison a person,” adds Smerdon. “It has to do with how that specific substance interacts with the larger system and what it does to influence that system.”

In the case of greenhouse gases, the planet’s temperature is a balance between how much energy comes in versus how much energy goes out. Ultimately, any increase in the amount of heat-trapping means that the Earth’s surface gets hotter. (For a more advanced discussion of the thermodynamics involved, check out this NASA page.)

How Exactly Does Carbon Dioxide Cause Global Warming?

CO2 molecules make up only a small percentage of the atmosphere, but their impact on our climate is huge. The reason comes down to physics and chemistry.

news.climate.columbia.edu

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Very profound too, Grasshopper.

You do realise that ⁵/100,000 less than your ²/10,000 and all life on planet earth dies?

You do also realise that effect of CO2 is logarithmic? Yes, profound effects at lower levels, less so as it increases... Bill Happer has a cool analogy about painting sheds.

Then there is that problem I've posted about before regarding that bright thing up in the sky... Icarus noted that profundity to his detriment (it's a metaphor, ok?).

A cute little vid that came across my timeline this morning for ya: (nuffin' to to with co2 or the sun, but very interesting palaeoclimatology )

Why not check this story on ice cores ?

OK 150 years ago was the bottom of recent temperature ranges. So one could expect some upward movement. But really what we have seen is WAY beyond any other changes. That's why additional factors have come into play - Billions and billions of tons of human produced GG in the 20/21st Century.

CAGW alarmists have been trying to debunk this graph below for some time and their argument is that correlation does not equal causation, because of a multitude of other factors affecting global climate. Like....the sun....etc, etc.

It only takes a second or two to consider this with contemporary arguments that CO2 going up = increased temperature to realise there might be something wrong with this argument.

And, even though we have very clear historical scientific examples of CO2 and temp not being correlated, like the CET in the early 1700s and ice cores, the CAGW alarmists still don't want to use the scientific method to disprove their hypothesis.

There is no possible way of scientifically proving CO2 is the climate control knob.

Sean K said:

CAGW alarmists have been trying to debunk this graph below for some time and their argument is that correlation does not equal causation, because of a multitude of other factors affecting global climate. Like....the sun....etc, etc.

It only takes a second or two to consider this with contemporary arguments that CO2 going up = increased temperature to realise there might be something wrong with this argument.

And, even though we have very clear historical scientific examples of CO2 and temp not being correlated, like the CET in the early 1700s and ice cores, the CAGW alarmists still don't want to use the scientific method to disprove their hypothesis.

There is no possible way of scientifically proving CO2 is the climate control knob.

View attachment 156897

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Nuh.. Clever try but seriously incomplete.

No one is trying to prove CO2 is the climate control knob. It is a very significant factor but scientists will point to massive volcanic activity, a cooler sun and movements in the earths tilt as examples of other factors that have affected climate.

Green house gases retain heat on earth. Increases in greenhouse gases, everything else being equal, will result in an increase in retained heat. The last 150 years of the industrial revolution has increased CO2 levels from 280 to almost 420 PPM . It is this remarkable increase that is currently the biggest impact on global temperature increase. The effect of the current CO2 levels is still percolating through our environment.

This short analysis is worth checking out.

A Graphical History of Atmospheric CO2 Levels Over Time​

by Owen MulhernAug 12th 2020 3 mins


As the second most abundant greenhouse gas in our atmosphere (after water vapor), carbon dioxide (CO2) has become a direct proxy for measuring climate change. Its levels have varied widely over the course of the Earth’s 4.54 billion year history, partly driving swings in our planet’s average temperature.

A Graphical History of Atmospheric CO2 Levels Over Time | Earth.Org

As the most abundant greenhouse gas in our atmosphere, CO2 levels have varied widely over the course of the Earth’s 4.54 billion year history.

earth.org

Sean K said:

CAGW alarmists have been trying to debunk this graph below for some time and their argument is that correlation does not equal causation, because of a multitude of other factors affecting global climate. Like....the sun....etc, etc.

It only takes a second or two to consider this with contemporary arguments that CO2 going up = increased temperature to realise there might be something wrong with this argument.

And, even though we have very clear historical scientific examples of CO2 and temp not being correlated, like the CET in the early 1700s and ice cores, the CAGW alarmists still don't want to use the scientific method to disprove their hypothesis.

There is no possible way of scientifically proving CO2 is the climate control knob.

View attachment 156897

Click to expand...

What probes did they use in the 1700’s?

Did they compensate for the methodology?

Asking for a friend ?

IFocus said:

What probes did they use in the 1700’s?

Did they compensate for the methodology?

Asking for a friend ?

Click to expand...

I think they licked their fingers and held them in the air. Much like the BOM's current methodology.

Say hi to your friend for me. ?

These 'extinction rebellion' people must be short few IQ points. They like to cause traffic disruption to highlight environmental damage.

Today in Adelaide a member of the extinction group caused two major roads to be closed and diverted, causing travel time to increase by up to 2 hours. Local radio stations were flooded with calls from angry people trying to get home from night shift and others trying to get to work or drop off family.

How much damage did these extinction crowd cause today? Thousands of cars idling for up to 2 hours tons of emissions dumped into the atmosphere and fuel wasted. Thousands of people inconvenienced, late for work or a critical appointment, maybe missed saying goodbye to a loved one.

It appears that they like to use the labour of retired people, because the police and courts go easy on them.

From what I hear, extinction rebellion lost a lot of support today.

JohnDe said:

These 'extinction rebellion' people must be short few IQ points. They like to cause traffic disruption to highlight environmental damage.

Today in Adelaide a member of the extinction group caused two major roads to be closed and diverted, causing travel time to increase by up to 2 hours. Local radio stations were flooded with calls from angry people trying to get home from night shift and others trying to get to work or drop off family.

How much damage did these extinction crowd cause today? Thousands of cars idling for up to 2 hours tons of emissions dumped into the atmosphere and fuel wasted. Thousands of people inconvenienced, late for work or a critical appointment, maybe missed saying goodbye to a loved one.

It appears that they like to use the labour of retired people, because the police and courts go easy on them.

From what I hear, extinction rebellion lost a lot of support today.

Top cop blasts 'selfish' traffic-stopper - InDaily

indaily.com.au

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Photo and name of the peanut has been released. This is her third offence.

First one was May last year, she glued their hands to Flinders Street in front of Santos House, but reiceved neither a conviction or penalty.
Three months later she climbed the roof of Rundle Mall Plaza and glued her hands to the veranda, received a 6 month good behaviour bond.
Yesterday she was charged with obstructing a public place and disturbing the peace, released on $500 bail. Police Prosecutor objected to the leniency of the bail and quick release.

Extinction rebellion protester Meme Thorne is arrested after disrupting Adelaide traffic by abseiling from the Morphett Street Bridge

Ms Thorne, 69, of Willunga, said she engaged in the dangerous stunt to draw attention to issues surrounding fossil fuels.


Extinction Rebellion protesters near Morphett Street Bridge this morning. Picture: Facebook

Energy minister Tom Koutsantonis, who spoke at the conference this morning, slammed the actions of protesters.

“They’ve chosen to protest on a feeder road that leads to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, there are people probably going into day surgery, change of shift, let alone the way ambulances are getting in and out and the inconvenience they are putting on the people of South Australia is by far the most insulting thing they’ve done,” he told ABC radio.

Mr Koutsantonis said the protesters were welcome to protest outside the conference and had to right to do so, but their methods were “reckless”.

“They should know better. If you care about your fellow man and your fellow woman, then you care about our state.

“You don’t block roads leading to hospitals. You don’t keep ICU workers in a car when they haven’t slept for 24 hours. You don’t inconvenience them from going to work or going to school, it’s silly.

“Hanging off the Morphett St bridge doesn’t do a thing to decarbonise the state, nothing.”

Multiple ICU workers told how their travel times were impacted due to the protest.

Dean, who had finished a night shift in ICU at the North Adelaide Hospital, said he had been awake for 24 hours.

Extinction Rebellion spokeswoman, Kate Mettam, 67, defended the extreme protest stunt.

“Meme’s life is hanging by a thread, by a lifeline, and we say that the future of the planet is hanging by a thread.”

“Our state government declared a climate emergency last year and (now) they’re holding a coal and oil gas conference.”

Ms Mettam said the traffic delay was a “minor inconvenience,” compared to the irreparable damage of climate change.

“What is coming and what is already happening is major disruption,” she said.

“Disruption is fleeing from a bushfire, disruption is what’s happening in the Congo with people dying in floods. Disruption is what is happening in Siberia. Elderly people cannot leave their house in time and they’ve been burned to death in their house.”

The group of protesters were heard chanting: “No more gas, no more oil, keep the carbon in the soil.”

https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/woman-dangles-from-morphett-st-bridge-in-extinction-rebellion-protest-stunt/news-story/7d53f36da003739f801046de9cca6c41

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JohnDe said:

Photo and name of the peanut has been released. This is her third offence.

First one was May last year, she glued their hands to Flinders Street in front of Santos House, but reiceved neither a conviction or penalty.
Three months later she climbed the roof of Rundle Mall Plaza and glued her hands to the veranda, received a 6 month good behaviour bond.
Yesterday she was charged with obstructing a public place and disturbing the peace, released on $500 bail. Police Prosecutor objected to the leniency of the bail and quick release.

Click to expand...

When you get given the name 'Meme', I guess this is the result.

On Wednesday they promised that there would be no damage caused by their orderly protest scheduled for Thursday. Somehow paint was spilled on the front of Santos House and a police officers $2000 leather kit.

​

Three Extinction Rebellion protesters have pleaded guilty to damaging the Santos building with paint – and to spraying two police officers as well.

In the Adelaide Magistrates Court on Friday, Sarah Edwards and Bradley Homewood pleaded guilty to a number of counts arising from the protest on Thursday.

Homewood, 50, of Williamstown in Victoria admitted using a fire extinguisher filled with paint and water to spray the building.

Edwards, 49, of East Lismore in NSW, pleaded guilty to the same charge.

She also admitted “recklessly” spraying two SA Police officers with her “diluted” paint-filled extinguisher, causing $5346.28 damage to their leather and Kevlar armour.

Meanwhile, one of the protesters released on bail on Thursday returned to court seeking to alter her release conditions – then opted to plead guilty instead.

Edwards, Homewood and Heinke Weber said they would split the $5345 damage they caused to the building three ways, meaning each will pay Santos $1781 compensation.


Extinction Rebellion protester Bradley Homewood outside the Santos building on Thursday morning. Picture: Supplied.


Police arrest an Extinction Rebellion protester outside the Santos building on Thursday morning. Picture: Supplied


Extinction Rebellion protester Heinke Weber is released on bail after being arrested. Picture: NCA NewsWire/ Naomi Jellicoe.

The duo were arrested alongside Ian Fox and Heinke Weber on Thursday during an Extinction Rebellion protest outside Santos Place.
It was the third day of action by the group, following the abseiling-stunt blocking of North Terrace and Morphett St on Wednesday.

Actor Meme Caroline Thorne was arrested and eventually bailed over that incident.

Extinction Rebellion protester Meme Thorne is arrested after disrupting Adelaide traffic by abseiling from the Morphett Street Bridge. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Brenton Edwards


Ian Fox outside court after being released on bail. Picture: Sean Fewster

On Friday, a police prosecutor said both Edwards and Homewood had long histories of protest action interstate, and multiple convictions for disorderly behaviour.

He said Edwards was currently serving a good behaviour bond for like offending in NSW, involving a protest that disrupted traffic on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

“She has come into SA with the clear and sole intention of protesting in a manner that causes large-scale damage,” he said.

“Given this offending and her interstate history, we say it may certainly be that imprisonment is now appropriate.”

Homewood, he said, had shown a “clear intention to continue to offend” despite “having received leniency” in the past.

“The community needs assurance the courts will hold people accountable for this type of offending,” he said.

“If little or no penalty is given, it does nothing to stop this occurring.

“It’s not the aim of SA Police to stop anyone from exercising their lawful right to protest, but his was criminal behaviour, not a peaceful protest.”

James Caldicott, for all three protesters, said Edwards was a community-minded registered nurse whose offending could not be compared to “ordinary” cases of property damage.

He asked she be sentenced to compensation and time served, and not banned from participating in future Extinction Rebellion events.

“This was not a criminal enterprise, this was not delinquency, but an act intended to bring light to an important issue,” he said.

“They’re trying to bring attention to a noble cause but have stepped one step too far.

“That does not excuse the conduct and does not mitigate it in that sense, and none of what’s been said here excuses the behaviour.”

Magistrate Michael Barnett replied: “Why mention it, then?”

https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts-sa/three-extinction-rebellion-activists-plead-guilty-over-damage-outside-santos-building/news-story/599dfb53d027020e478bc4043e5e85d7

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JohnDe said:

From what I hear, extinction rebellion lost a lot of support today.

Click to expand...

I'll accept that's probably true, but it's only due to the ignorance of the majority.

This lot and certain others haven't been serious about this issue for years now. It's a big game and nothing else - protest and demand that x be done, then protest again because x is being done.

Everyone does realise that it's less than a decade ago that environmentalists were campaigning for gas, right? Nuclear, hydro and indeed electricity in general = bad. Gas = better. That was the message until not long ago. A load of nonsense, but it was the message nonetheless.

I say that as someone who's firmly in favour of moving to actually sustainable energy systems as a priority. I'm just not in favour of doing it by means of obstructing the work of hospitals and their medical staff or of making a career out of protest. What we actually need, if it's to be done, is really quite simple:

Electrify everything that can be electrified.

All out construction of wind, solar, hydro and, not overly relevant to Australia but it certainly is in some places, nuclear and geothermal.

Plus supporting infrastructure, that is electricity networks, to support the above.

Some debunking of the nonsense and myths surrounding it all wouldn't go a miss either. Among others - no transmission lines won't make cows and crops radioactive, yes heat pumps are proven technology indeed it's how your fridge works, yes Australia has quite a number of viable hydro sites, no batteries aren't suitable for deep storage at present and so on. Teaching high school science students some proper physics wouldn't go a miss either, indeed gravitational potential energy and nuclear fission are both perfectly legitimate topics of real world relevance.

This nonsense of demonising the solutions, advocating gas, then protesting about gas is just a game for the sake of it. Having a laugh and nothing more.

For anyone who doubts that environmentalists promoted gas, I'll simply say this. Find anything on the subject from the 1970's, 80's, 90's, 2000's or even well into the 2010's and you'll find it's there. Anything from how Europe should generate electricity to how someone in Melbourne should heat water you'll find that was the standard advice - go for gas and the big name organisations put their name to it at the time. Such a pity they took society down a dead end path - we need electrification not a dash for gas.

Smurf1976 said:

I'll accept that's probably true, but it's only due to the ignorance of the majority.

This lot and certain others haven't been serious about this issue for years now. It's a big game and nothing else - protest and demand that x be done, then protest again because x is being done.

Everyone does realise that it's less than a decade ago that environmentalists were campaigning for gas, right? Nuclear, hydro and indeed electricity in general = bad. Gas = better. That was the message until not long ago. A load of nonsense, but it was the message nonetheless.

I say that as someone who's firmly in favour of moving to actually sustainable energy systems as a priority. I'm just not in favour of doing it by means of obstructing the work of hospitals and their medical staff or of making a career out of protest. What we actually need, if it's to be done, is really quite simple:

Electrify everything that can be electrified.

All out construction of wind, solar, hydro and, not overly relevant to Australia but it certainly is in some places, nuclear and geothermal.

Plus supporting infrastructure, that is electricity networks, to support the above.

Some debunking of the nonsense and myths surrounding it all wouldn't go a miss either. Among others - no transmission lines won't make cows and crops radioactive, yes heat pumps are proven technology indeed it's how your fridge works, yes Australia has quite a number of viable hydro sites, no batteries aren't suitable for deep storage at present and so on. Teaching high school science students some proper physics wouldn't go a miss either, indeed gravitational potential energy and nuclear fission are both perfectly legitimate topics of real world relevance.

This nonsense of demonising the solutions, advocating gas, then protesting about gas is just a game for the sake of it. Having a laugh and nothing more.

For anyone who doubts that environmentalists promoted gas, I'll simply say this. Find anything on the subject from the 1970's, 80's, 90's, 2000's or even well into the 2010's and you'll find it's there. Anything from how Europe should generate electricity to how someone in Melbourne should heat water you'll find that was the standard advice - go for gas and the big name organisations put their name to it at the time. Such a pity they took society down a dead end path - we need electrification not a dash for gas.

Click to expand...

Granted that gas is not the long term future, but it will be needed in the short to medium term yes ?

One thing that annoys me is that the Greens keep saying that gas is as dirty as coal when all my readings indicate that gas is significantly cleaner than coal in terms of co2 emmissions for the same energy output.

Would any experts care to confirm or reject this ?

Smurf1976 said:

I'll accept that's probably true, but it's only due to the ignorance of the majority.

This lot and certain others haven't been serious about this issue for years now. It's a big game and nothing else - protest and demand that x be done, then protest again because x is being done.

Everyone does realise that it's less than a decade ago that environmentalists were campaigning for gas, right? Nuclear, hydro and indeed electricity in general = bad. Gas = better. That was the message until not long ago. A load of nonsense, but it was the message nonetheless.

I say that as someone who's firmly in favour of moving to actually sustainable energy systems as a priority. I'm just not in favour of doing it by means of obstructing the work of hospitals and their medical staff or of making a career out of protest. What we actually need, if it's to be done, is really quite simple:

Electrify everything that can be electrified.

All out construction of wind, solar, hydro and, not overly relevant to Australia but it certainly is in some places, nuclear and geothermal.

Plus supporting infrastructure, that is electricity networks, to support the above.

Some debunking of the nonsense and myths surrounding it all wouldn't go a miss either. Among others - no transmission lines won't make cows and crops radioactive, yes heat pumps are proven technology indeed it's how your fridge works, yes Australia has quite a number of viable hydro sites, no batteries aren't suitable for deep storage at present and so on. Teaching high school science students some proper physics wouldn't go a miss either, indeed gravitational potential energy and nuclear fission are both perfectly legitimate topics of real world relevance.

This nonsense of demonising the solutions, advocating gas, then protesting about gas is just a game for the sake of it. Having a laugh and nothing more.

For anyone who doubts that environmentalists promoted gas, I'll simply say this. Find anything on the subject from the 1970's, 80's, 90's, 2000's or even well into the 2010's and you'll find it's there. Anything from how Europe should generate electricity to how someone in Melbourne should heat water you'll find that was the standard advice - go for gas and the big name organisations put their name to it at the time. Such a pity they took society down a dead end path - we need electrification not a dash for gas.

Click to expand...

Although it's a bit off topic, the gas advocates of the day proposed that as the least worst solution when we principally had only FF as energy sources.
When we connected rooftop solar less than 15 years ago it was only really affordable with the government incentives, and was about 3-4 times more expensive than a similar installation today. If I recall correctly, geothermal was being strongly touted as a new energy source at the time, but has largely ran out of steam as wind and solar costs continue to decline.