Copenhagen Climate Change Conference = The League of Nations

[mick]

Don't worry true believers, if Julia wins and the Greens have the balance of power we'll get the ETS.
Polluting will continue, but we'll all pay a disguised tax to fund buying offsets, so we can all feel we've done something.
Oh for a government that would actually support [and help fund] real change to cleaner technology that can produce an adequate base load.

Hear Hear! The idea of the raving looney party holding the balance of power in the senate is the stuff of nightmares

[redandblack]

mick, the Greens have held the balance of power in the senate many times and we all survived OK.

As for the raving looney party, the Liberals had an absolute Senate majority not long ago - a majority they totally abused and which was in large part responsible for their demise as a government.

[Psyber]

mick, the Greens have held the balance of power in the senate many times and we all survived OK.
As for the raving looney party, the Liberals had an absolute Senate majority not long ago - a majority they totally abused and which was in large part responsible for their demise as a government.

I agree there R&B.
The absolute majority encouraged them to take things like WorkChoices a step or three too far - the few who raised objection inside the party [like me] were not really heard.
They may have even held office again had there been a restraining influence in the upper house to stop them doing that and shooting themselves in the foot.
That situation reinforced John Howard's dominance, and allowed him to take the whole party too far from the middle ground.

What worries me, now, is that with the Greens holding the balance of power in the upper house will encourage and strengthen the ALPs left and there will be less restraint than there may have been had it still been the Democrats. So, I fear we may see the John Howard effect happening in reverse.
I'd rather see a move toward consensus government than a wild Yoyo ride.

[fish]

Meanwhile the latest global climate data confirms that the past decade is the warmest on record:

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/worl ... 5898649331

SCIENTISTS from around the world are providing even more evidence of global warming.

"A comprehensive review of key climate indicators confirms the world is warming and the past decade was the warmest on record," the annual State of the Climate report declares.

Compiled by more than 300 scientists from 48 countries, the report says its analysis of 10 indicators "clearly and directly related to surface temperatures all tell the same story: Global warming is undeniable".

Concern about rising temperatures has been growing in recent years as atmospheric scientists report rising temperatures associated with greenhouse gases released into the air by industrial and other human processes.

I'll be interested to hear what Messrs Bolt, Fielding and Abbott say about this!

[Psyber]

Fish, you still seem to be focussed on the idea that people are denying that climate change itself is occurring.
I don't think anyone significant is "denying climate change" - just disputing the conclusions drawn from the short-term records that it is proven to be caused by human activity.

Those records, coinciding with industrialisation over that short period, prove nothing.
That recording started in relatively recent times - mostly since the late 19th century, as the world recovered from the short cooling phase that occurred between about 1100AD and the late 19th century.
There are much older historical records, ice core data, and evidence of ocean level fluctuations in the longer term past, that all indicate the world has many times been warmer than it is now.

[purch]

Spot on Psyber.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VDDNgl-UPk

[fish]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VDDNgl-UPk

That video is so mindnumbingly boring I'd rather watch a replay of the 2002 Grand Final.

[Psyber]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VDDNgl-UPk

That video is so mindnumbingly boring I'd rather watch a replay of the 2002 Grand Final.

Well it was meant to be educational and present factual data, not be a fantasy drama with appropriate hysteria..

[fish]

I had to laugh when I saw that the Climate Deniers only polled 0.45% in the SA Senate, and substantially less in other states.

[auto]

Fish, you still seem to be focussed on the idea that people are denying that climate change itself is occurring.
I don't think anyone significant is "denying climate change" - just disputing the conclusions drawn from the short-term records that it is proven to be caused by human activity.

Those records, coinciding with industrialisation over that short period, prove nothing.
That recording started in relatively recent times - mostly since the late 19th century, as the world recovered from the short cooling phase that occurred between about 1100AD and the late 19th century.
There are much older historical records, ice core data, and evidence of ocean level fluctuations in the longer term past, that all indicate the world has many times been warmer than it is now.

To fully prove that global warming is caused by industrialisation would take thousands of years of data as well as accurate data that stretches back tens or hundreds of thousands of years.By the time we know definitively one way or the other itll be too late. Fix shit now while we can. If global warming IS caused by modern society we can save the planet. If its NOT caused by modern society well we can do something nice for the planet anyways and get a warm fuzzy feeling for doing it.

[Psyber]

To fully prove that global warming is caused by industrialisation would take thousands of years of data as well as accurate data that stretches back tens or hundreds of thousands of years.By the time we know definitively one way or the other itll be too late. Fix **** now while we can. If global warming IS caused by modern society we can save the planet. If its NOT caused by modern society well we can do something nice for the planet anyways and get a warm fuzzy feeling for doing it.

I agree, and I have repeatedly said I am in favour of cleaning up our polluting now anyway.
I just object to the hysteria, and to everyone who disputes the issue that human causation is proven being accused of denying that there is any climate change.
These are totally separate issues.

I objected to the ALP's ETS because it just created another speculative trading scheme, passed the cost on to the end user, and thus stripped any pressure to change off the backs of the polluting industries.
It, also, did not offer any active financial support for changes to industrial processes that would actually reduce pollution output.
That is, it was tokenist, poorly thought through, and in effect just a disguised tax.

[mick]

Fish, you still seem to be focussed on the idea that people are denying that climate change itself is occurring.
I don't think anyone significant is "denying climate change" - just disputing the conclusions drawn from the short-term records that it is proven to be caused by human activity.

Those records, coinciding with industrialisation over that short period, prove nothing.
That recording started in relatively recent times - mostly since the late 19th century, as the world recovered from the short cooling phase that occurred between about 1100AD and the late 19th century.
There are much older historical records, ice core data, and evidence of ocean level fluctuations in the longer term past, that all indicate the world has many times been warmer than it is now.

To fully prove that global warming is caused by industrialisation would take thousands of years of data as well as accurate data that stretches back tens or hundreds of thousands of years.By the time we know definitively one way or the other itll be too late. Fix **** now while we can. If global warming IS caused by modern society we can save the planet. If its NOT caused by modern society well we can do something nice for the planet anyways and get a warm fuzzy feeling for doing it.

Very good sensible analysis

[Gozu]

"Top climate change sceptic does U-turn":

AN ECONOMIST dubbed the world's most prolific climate change sceptic finally admitted global warming was the biggest threat to the world and called for a $US100 billion ($112 billion) fund to fight it.

Bjorn Lomborg previously accused scientists, campaigners and the media of exaggerating the rate of global warming and argued that resources should be spent on more immediate crises such as fighting malaria and Aids.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/brea ... 5912567924

[Psyber]

Global warming is a threat to our coastal cites and infrastructure, regardless of whether it is a natural process or caused by industrialisation.
We need to tackle both, but we also need to not rely entirely on the idea that cutting our pollution output will fix it.
If it is dominantly part of the natural cycles we need to stop kidding ourselves we can prevent it, and start looking at working out how to live with it.

We need to cover both bases!

[Trader]

Global warming is a threat to our coastal cites and infrastructure, regardless of whether it is a natural process or caused by industrialisation.
We need to tackle both, but we also need to not rely entirely on the idea that cutting our pollution output will fix it.
If it is dominantly part of the natural cycles we need to stop kidding ourselves we can prevent it, and start looking at working out how to live with it.

[Gozu]

I thought some might find this interesting and as it's for Crikey subscribers only I can't just link to it.

"Rundle: Bjørn again? Reshaping the climate change debate":

by Guy Rundle

These are strange times for climate change sceptics/deniers. The science is gradually overwhelming them, and more and more sensible people in the centre-right have come to accept it as something which must be treated as real. A broad swathe of the general public now see it as a clear priority and punish a party like Labor which does not follow through on a commitment to doing something about it.

Yet at the same time, the sceptic/denial position has lodged forcefully amongst a section of the public, and one larger than it might have been a few years ago. Climate change scepticism/denial at this level is equally shared out among people who hate Greens/The Left/etc so much that they will simply refuse to admit they were right all along; by rural people with their folksy ‘nature goes in cycles’ stuff, and by a third section of people who are so terrified by what climate change might do to their grand-children that they don’t want to admit the possibility of it.

Put together, it’s not a social coalition of much durability, and its nadir has probably been the recent tour by Christopher ‘Lord’ Monckton, whose belief that global warming was a plot to create a world Nazi government even the conservatoriat felt necessary to apologise for.

So it’s fair to wonder what the effect on them and their sceptic-denial ideologues who lead them of the sudden change-about of Bjørn Lomborg, a prize trophy in the sceptic/denialist cubbyhouse. Lomborg, whose Sceptical Environmentalist of 2001 claimed that climate change was happening but not a high priority, has now announced that, waddaya know, that climate change matters a lot:

“If we care about the environment and about leaving this planet and its inhabitants with the best possible future, we actually have only one option: we all need to start seriously focusing, right now, on the most effective ways to fix global warming.”

The quote is taken from the end of Lomborg’s new book; the title — Smart Solutions to Climate Change: Comparing Costs and Benefits — a good deal less insouciant than his previous effort, entitled Cool It, in which he suggested that everyone should just stop worrying and learn to love the warm. Lomborg claims that he hasn’t changed his position, but a few quotes would suggest otherwise. The blurb of Cool It, for example, suggested:

“Lomborg argues that we should first focus our resources on more immediate concerns, such as fighting malaria and HIV/Aids and assuring and maintaining a safe, fresh water supply which can be addressed at a fraction of the cost and save millions of lives within our lifetime.”

And in the Wall Street Journal’s Opinionjournal section in March 2006, reviewing the Stern report he noted:

“Faced with such alarmist suggestions, spending just 1% of GDP or $450 billion each year to cut carbon emissions seems on the surface like a sound investment. In fact, it is one of the least attractive options. Spending just a fraction of this figure — $75 billion — the U.N. estimates that we could solve all the world’s major basic problems. We could give everyone clean drinking water, sanitation, basic health care and education right now. Is that not better?”

Evidently not, for Lomborg now proposes spending $100 billion a year to combat climate change, through the expansion of renewable energy, tree planting, methane reduction and cloud whitening. Indeed, Lomborg now mutters various things about “something really bad lurking around the corner” in climate change processes, which seems to evoke the James Lovelock notion of a self-accelerating temperature rise that would make large parts of the earth uninhabitable.

Of course Lomborg has had his fair share of criticism: there are several books claiming that his use of statistics is shoddy, his evidence selective and his conclusions illogical, the most recent of them being The Lomborg Delusion. Then there’s the clearing house website, http://www.lomborg-errors.dk.

The criticism has cut no ice with his adoring fans, but what will they think of his call for a trillion dollars over a decade devoted to the only one option of seriously addressing global warming? Green alarmists don’t want to hear Lomborg because he says that far from making a “big mess” of our environment, statistics show we’re doing all right. Monsignor Christopher Pearson wrote in 2008:

“About the beginning of 2007, maintaining a sceptical stance on human-induced global warming became a lonely, uphill battle in Australia. The notion that the science was settled had gathered broad popular support and was making inroads in unexpected quarters. In recent weeks, articles by NASA’s Roy Spencer and Bjørn Lomborg and an interview with the Institute of Public Affairs’ Jennifer Marohasy have undermined that confident Anglosphere consensus.”

Meanwhile in The Spectator the same year, arch-skeptic James Delingpole confessed to a man-crush:

“Gosh, I do hope Bjørn Lomborg doesnt think I was trying to pick him up. I’ve only just learned from his Wikipedia entry that he’s openly gay which, with hindsight, probably made my dogged insistence that we conduct our interview in his cramped hotel bedroom look like a cheap come-on…

“But it’s OK, Bjørn… The reason for my awe is quite simply that I believe you are one of the heroes of our age.”

One will watch with interest to see how the Lomborgers — including the IPA, which has hitherto brought him out here — treat him now. I suspect that for them, there will be no Bjørn Again. After all, this was the guy who could reliably wind up people like Rajenda Pachauri, head of the UN climate change panel, by being flip about the massive geographical changes to be wrought by climate change … and who now has, in pride of place on the cover of his new book, an endorsement from Rajenda Pachauri.

Ah well, somebody get ‘Lord’ Monkcton on the phone…

[Psyber]

I read the other day that we are currently in a rising period of solar activity that occurs on an 11 year cycle and will hit the peak of this cycle in 2012.
However this is only one of many cycles involved.

[Gozu]

"The intellectual laziness of climate skepticism":

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/09/05/th ... kepticism/

[Psyber]

"The intellectual laziness of climate skepticism":
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/09/05/th ... kepticism/

However there are those like me, who are not sceptical about the fact of climate change, but only about the alleged proportion of current human contribution/causation.
Some of us have read carefully some of the science on both sides as well, and thought about the issues.
And, as I have posted elsewhere, I am concerned that we may get too carried away with the rather comforting idea that cutting pollution will fix climate change.
Then we may be in real trouble when it goes ahead anyway, for the reasons it has been happening for thousands of years, and we have done nothing to prepare for that!

[purch]

Global warming, and cooling (the Icehouse effect - no Iva Davies jokes please) has been occurring for billions of years. If we are really serious about stopping it then I suggest we spend a couple of 1000 trillion bucks on learning how to control the energy output of the sun, our trajectory around the galaxy, our proximity to supernovae and volcanic eruptions. The Earth is a dynamic place. The Black Sea never used to be there, neither did the Grand Canyon or the mid-Atlantic ridge and the African rift valley. Just wait until Mt Erebus farts, and just wait until a good chunk of Hawaii slides off into the Pacific. Then we'll all have something to worry about.

People now need to think independently & eschew the hyperbole that has been offered by unknowing and uneducated politicians and celebrities.