Resisting Climate Hysteria

[IFocus]

When the political discussion of the Queensland floods gets under way, it will be portrayed as an extreme weather event due to climate change and hence further justification for a carbon tax.

The reality however is that we are experiencing a La-Nina of similar magnitude to the summer of 1973/74. That's the summer to which this flood is being compared.

Global warmimg was supposed to result in an increasing trend towards El-Nino's.

The only political speak so far has been about dams by you know who...... but just out of interest wasn't 74 and current floods 100 year events?

 

[drsmith]

More dams makes more sense than more tax.

 

[Smurf1976]

The only political speak so far has been about dams by you know who...... but just out of interest wasn't 74 and current floods 100 year events?

Two years ago lack of water was the problem, now the reverse is true.

Fixing such extremes is precisely what dams do and a very good reason to build some more. Store water when it rains for use when it doesn't.

The most immediate question that comes to mind is the practicaility or otherwise of raising the Wivenhoe dam? That would serve both flood control and water supply purposes. Then building some additional dams in other catchments would increase water supply and, depending on storage capacity, may also offer flood control benefits.

Building such dams would be an important step toward ending the use of desalination, a very worthwhile objective that directly cuts greenhouse gas emissions. It's nothing short of madness to be burning coal to desalinate water when we've got more than enough water running to waste because we're too short sighted to store it.

 

[noco]

Explains the AGW alarmists logic perfectly...

OzWaveGuy, what a brilliant piece of work. That sums the Greens up to a tee. They try to cover every angle no what the circumstances maybe.

 

[macca]

Since we settled Victoria about the 1830's we have cleared 80% of the bush. The 1939 bushfire actually destroyed much more across Victoria than the recent one (not including deaths of course, but the extent of the blaze .

Your answer is a bit simplistic and little more than green bashing that is not going to help us all get our attitudes together for constructive change.

As a youngster I used to help my Dad with the local firebirgade burning off along all of the two chain roads. Later in big fires I witnessed them jump these breaks as if they were not there. A lot of people living in the bush is the idea that is wrong. The bush is for farming, not for lifestyle in my view.

Bushfires are not the problem with weather change. Almost everyone having a motor car may be though.

Some of this doesn't quite read correctly but the point I am trying to make is that if you allow a build up of fuel, then one day it is going to burn, usually at the worst possible time ie: when the weather is most conducive to burning things.

In my area we used to burn off regularly then it was all stopped by the "powers that be" We used to use a wet bag as a fire beater and we never lost houses or animals. Now because of the fuel build up when it eventually burns we lose lives, people and dozens of animals, all very sad and unnecessary.

Huge amounts of money are spent with helicopters trying to put out a fire that should never have been allowed to have so much fuel.

So many people these days don't seem to think things through to an end conclusion or consider the consequences of their actions, they read the headlines of the latest media beat up and think that it is all true

 

[Logique]

More dams makes more sense than more tax.

Indeed so Doctor. Many questions will be asked when the time comes for post-mortems. As you have pointed out elsewhere, with earlier floods in southern states, in a La Nina year it wasn't rocket science to release more water from QLD dams during December.

Economics: stark choice highlighted - three X $1.5B dams, or one X $5B desalination plant? Let's ask QLD'ers what they're thinking now. And by the way, how (underwater) do you switch on the (coal-fired) mains electricity to run the desal plant? Coal-fired vis-a-vis the renewable and carbon free hydro-electricity from dams.

Climate models = fail. Neither the warmist mob nor the Bureau of Met predicted or warned of the severity of the Jan 2011 SE QLD flooding.

'Dams no good because the'd never fill up' = a now discredited notion.

 

[IFocus]

More dams makes more sense than more tax.

Don't you need tax to pay for dams?

What happens if you lot end up like WA where it stops raining, this year we recived no run off for our dams.
I wonder if this event sets up the eastern states into building the wrong water infrastructure

 

[drsmith]

A carbon tax won't make it rain.

 

[>Apocalypto<]

A carbon tax won't make it rain.

I think the rain argument has been answered. unfortunately with deadly repercussions in Queensland.

Considering this time last year I am others in Vicco where getting really worried about water levels. my main question is is climate change a natural order???

 

[OzWaveGuy]

OzWaveGuy, what a brilliant piece of work. That sums the Greens up to a tee. They try to cover every angle no what the circumstances maybe.

It does, and with the elephant in the room, the AGW extremists continue to push the most bizarre ideology onto the masses. Remember the ads on TV that asked everyone to reduce their meat intake to "save the planet" from that deadly CO2 (sponsored by the Australian Gov - aka your tax dollars).....now here's the solution:

The AGW alarmists should instead be eating bugs to save the planet and cooking them on a solar cooker at 2pm in the afternoon - if the sun's out! If not, you need to read the paper to ensure you can effectively switch to bug menu.​

In fact, they shouldn't even be on this forum as computers need electricity and infrastructure to run - creating "deadly CO2". However, with AGW warmists like Al Gore, Oprah, John Travolta etc leading the way, indulging more than anyone else on the planet with multiple private jets, cars, luxury accomodation, first class dining, private runways among them, then the average AGW alarmists need not bother to curb CO2 as the warmists "priests" aren't concerned afterall. Meat is therefore ok too.

 

[Smurf1976]

Don't you need tax to pay for dams?

What happens if you lot end up like WA where it stops raining, this year we recived no run off for our dams.
I wonder if this event sets up the eastern states into building the wrong water infrastructure

Your argument as I take it is basically that inflows to dams are variable, and that some other source of water would be more reliable.

Now, that doesn't just apply to water. I can assure you that anyone who has dealt with predominantly renewable energy systems, from small stand alone solar to large scale hydro, has learnt at least one thing. And that is that coal and oil (but not necessarily gas) are inherently more reliable than any form of power that depends on what the weather is doing.

If it is not valid to build dams for water supply on the basis of unpredictable inflows then it is equally not valid to rely on renewables for electricity supply given that inflows (sun, wind, water) are unpredictable and in general terms far less reliable than water from a dam (given that non-hydro renewables involve essentially no storage).

 

[white_goodman]

Floods, bushfires and droughts are now everyday news events. Anecdotaly years ago such reports were now and again.

Yeh I know, its all happened before, blah blah blah

So you would say we do nothing. We will just take a punt that everthing is normal and fine.

its always the worst its ever been in the present... short memories

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

It does, and with the elephant in the room, the AGW extremists continue to push the most bizarre ideology onto the masses. Remember the ads on TV that asked everyone to reduce their meat intake to "save the planet" from that deadly CO2 (sponsored by the Australian Gov - aka your tax dollars).....now here's the solution:

The AGW alarmists should instead be eating bugs to save the planet and cooking them on a solar cooker at 2pm in the afternoon - if the sun's out! If not, you need to read the paper to ensure you can effectively switch to bug menu.​

View attachment 40833

In fact, they shouldn't even be on this forum as computers need electricity and infrastructure to run - creating "deadly CO2". However, with AGW warmists like Al Gore, Oprah, John Travolta etc leading the way, indulging more than anyone else on the planet with multiple private jets, cars, luxury accomodation, first class dining, private runways among them, then the average AGW alarmists need not bother to curb CO2 as the warmists "priests" aren't concerned afterall. Meat is therefore ok too.

Pure golden wisdom owg.

It's a beaut day in Townsville this morning, a touch of rain last night, but we still have 12-14 weeks of cyclone season to WEATHER yet.

gg

 

[IFocus]

A carbon tax won't make it rain.

True but then nor will building dams

 

[IFocus]

Your argument as I take it is basically that inflows to dams are variable, and that some other source of water would be more reliable.

Now, that doesn't just apply to water. I can assure you that anyone who has dealt with predominantly renewable energy systems, from small stand alone solar to large scale hydro, has learnt at least one thing. And that is that coal and oil (but not necessarily gas) are inherently more reliable than any form of power that depends on what the weather is doing.

If it is not valid to build dams for water supply on the basis of unpredictable inflows then it is equally not valid to rely on renewables for electricity supply given that inflows (sun, wind, water) are unpredictable and in general terms far less reliable than water from a dam (given that non-hydro renewables involve essentially no storage).

To be honest Smurf I don't know the definitive answer.

To do that we have to reliably forecast the future weather cilmate............and we all know about the disagreement about that

So like you have said we will be dealing with consequences what ever they will be rather than taking pro active action.

To maintain water supply to the increasing population I think the answer is we use less water along with dams if they are viable and decel.
WA draws a large % of its water from aquifers which we are surely killing slowly but surely. Dams wont work here we just don't get the rain any more which has been a trend for decades hence we are madly building decel plants.

The eastern states have just come out of drought to a 100 year + event (except the last one was only 40 years ago)
Why wont we just go into another drought?
Will next year will be fine?

Will the Murray / Darling be truly rooted due to irrigation getting the green light as we now have mega floods

I don't know the answer but suspect that this flood could set the seeds for some really poor decisions.

For flood mitigation clearly there is a need for dams or works to allow flood water diversion.

Or don't build in known flood plains.

To combine water storage dams and flood mitigation dams I don't know the civil engineering area enough for an opinion.

 

[wayneL]

<trivia> One of the radio stations over here just ran a phone poll on the cause of the Qld floods

1/ It's a media beat up - 1%

2/ It's all to do with climate change - 17%

3/ It's just a flood, floods happen - 82%

</trivia>

FWIW

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

<trivia> One of the radio stations over here just ran a phone poll on the cause of the Qld floods

1/ It's a media beat up - 1%

2/ It's all to do with climate change - 17%

3/ It's just a flood, floods happen - 82%

</trivia>


FWIW

Interesting data.

Is this guy in the 1% or the 17%?

gg

 

[Smurf1976]

So like you have said we will be dealing with consequences what ever they will be rather than taking pro active action.

To maintain water supply to the increasing population I think the answer is we use less water along with dams if they are viable and decel.
WA draws a large % of its water from aquifers which we are surely killing slowly but surely. Dams wont work here we just don't get the rain any more which has been a trend for decades hence we are madly building decel plants.

The eastern states have just come out of drought to a 100 year + event (except the last one was only 40 years ago)
Why wont we just go into another drought?
Will next year will be fine?

Will the Murray / Darling be truly rooted due to irrigation getting the green light as we now have mega floods

I don't know the answer but suspect that this flood could set the seeds for some really poor decisions.

It's sad but you're right. Some silly decisions will almost certainly come out of this situation just as they did with the drought.

Dams - my basic thought is that sometimes we have floods, the rest of the time we have drought. Now, if we could just capture and store some of that flood water for use the rest of the time then that fixes a lot of problems. The water is there, it's just that it falls from the sky very intermittently.

Weather records - nobody in the water / dams / hydro industry likes doing anything without at least 30 years of river flow (as distinct from rainfall) records and more is always better.

As for 1 in 100 year events etc, I don't know what the practice elsewhere is but in Tasmania the Hydro uses 20 in 1000 as its reliability criteria. That is, 20 failures over a 1000 year period. Obviously that analysis is based on synthetic data since 1000 years of actual records aren't available.

Actual failures over the past 94 years of operation has been 1951 (though you could argue that since construction delays caused by WWII were the ultimate cause it wasn't really a system "failure" as such), 1967 and a very near miss in 2008. So that's pretty much within the 20 in 1000 criteria thus far.

As for WA, I'm not really familiar with anything in WA apart from the fact that run-off into their water supply dams has outright crashed since the mid-1970's. Are there any local factors, such as land clearing, that contribute to this? Something must be going on surely?

 

[OzWaveGuy]

Wherever you see "cooling" in this video, substitute "warming" and hey presto - you have the same basic scary messages being peddled by AGW alarmists...



How's the bug menu coming along? tasty?

 

[Sean K]

Good piece on the back page of the Fin today along these lines.


Andrew Bolt
Monday, January 17, 2011 at 02:42pm

Greens leader Bob Brown thought it was too soon to (correctly) blame soft boat people laws for luring people to their deaths:

Andrew Bolt’s call, while bodies were still in the ocean, for Julia Gillard’s resignation ... lacked human decency. He should resign.

But Brown did not think it too soon, when the fires were still burning, to blame global warming for the deadly Black Saturday fires in Victoria last year:

Greens leader Bob Brown says bushfires like the ones raging across Victoria and New South Wales this weekend will be more frequent if climate change continues…

“Global warming is predicted to make this sort of event happen 25 per cent, 50 per cent more,” he told Sky News. “It’s a sobering reminder of the need for this nation and the whole world to act and put at a priority our need to tackle climate change.”

And he does not think it now too soon, with bodies still being recovered, to blame coal miners for the Queensland floods, either:

Senator Brown says the coal-mining industry should foot the bill for the Queensland reconstruction efforts, claiming their operations are partly responsible for the floods.

”It’s the single biggest cause, burning coal, for climate change and it must take its major share of responsibility for the weather events we are seeing unfolding now,” he said.

Bob Brown is a hypocrite as well as a fool.

(Thanks to readers Peter, Owen, Simon, Kevin, Anton, John McLean and astonished others.)

UPDATE

Four years ago, Bob Brown claimed global warming could give us a “permanent drought”:

From melting polar ice to the spectre of permanent drought in previously productive farmlands, the report makes clear that climate change is not just a future threat, it is damaging Australia now.

He was also warning of possibly no water at all in the Murray-Darling system:

Already, (Ross Garnaut’s) daunting data of a 10 per cent chance of no flow at all in the Murray–Darling river system in future years is being overtaken by data indicating that drought is the new norm across Australia’s greatest food bowl.

But when drought is replaced by floods, and rivers meant to be empty are overflowing, well, global warming caused that, too.

(Thanks to reader Simon.)

UPDATE 2

Brown rebuked:

Minerals Council of Australia deputy chief Brendan Pearson accused Senator Brown of ”rank opportunism”, unworthy of a serious political leader.

And Australian Coal Association director Ralph Hillman said domestically-mined coal made a tiny contribution to global carbon emissions.

Liberal Senator Eric Abetz said the Greens leader should apologise for his “insensitive” comments.

“Senator Brown’s comments expose the Greens and his leadership as shallow and cynical; willing to peddle political propaganda in the face of a natural disaster,” Senator Abetz said.

UPDATE 3

Tony Barry has a question:

Where’s Bob Brown? Every national leader (including Julie Bishop) has been to Brisbane and Queensland except, as best I can ascertain, Bob Brown.

UPDATE 4

Emeritus Professor Cliff Ollier, a geologist and geomorphologist, explains why Brown should be laughed out of town:

There are at least three arguments against relating the Queensland floods to Anthropogenic Global Warming.

1. Even other people in the Global Warming game realize there is no relationship between broad disasters and carbon dioxide…

2. The second problem is that this is not an isolated event. There was another flood of about the same dimensions in 1974. There was no peak of CO2 at that time. It was not an especially warm year, so Global Warming cannot be invoked (1998 was a hotter year, but no flood).

But there were even greater floods in 1841 and 1893. This is well before any possible Anthropogenic Global Warming, which began, according to its adherents, in 1945…

3. A third problem is that just a few years ago, global warming was blamed for causing droughts. This opinion was extolled during the last drought especially by Tim Flannery, another non-expert.

In 2003 Professor Karoly published, under the auspices of the World Wildlife Fund, a report that claimed that elevated air temperatures, due to CO2, exacerbated the drought.

“...the higher temperatures caused a marked increase in evaporation rates, which sped up the loss of soil moisture and the drying of vegetation and watercourses. This is the first drought in Australia where the impact of human-induced global warming can be clearly observed...”
and
“This drought has had a more severe impact than any other drought since at least 1950.... This is the first drought in Australia where the impact of human-induced global warming can be clearly observed.”

So Anthropogenic Global Warming can apparently be used to explain any current disaster. Any hypothesis (like AGW) that uses the same mechanism to explain opposite effects is untestable, and therefore not science.