The intolerance of the doomsayers
I personally believe that the IPCC is basically right with its conclusions that, if nothing else changes, ever increasing levels of greenhouse gases will lead to a rise in global temperatures. It is pretty basic science.
I think there is uncertainty about the “if nothing else changes” because we don’t know for sure how the rest of the climate system reacts to the increased warming from greenhouse gases – does it exacerbate the problem (as IPCC thinks) or does it mitigate the problem (as some believe). On issues such as this, there is little hard data – it is mainly forecasts and theories.
Overall I think prudent steps to reduce emissions is sensible. However the notion that if we do not act with a few years the world is doomed is hysterical scaremongering – the IPCC itself forecasts an increase in sea levels by 2100 of only 19 to 69 cm.
The Herald reported on a recent consultation meeting on what our emissions target should be. And I just detest those who try and demonise those with a contrary viewpoint. It is like modern day witch burnings – but without the fire.
In another moment of silliness, electricity consultant Brian Leyland – seemingly the only climate change sceptic in the room – was heckled by Mr Lee, the man who was supposed to be keeping the meeting in order. “We have a flat earther here,” he joked.
Great. The so called neutral chairman insults and denigrates someone who has taken the time to turn up and have their say. What fucking arrogance.
For a minute it seemed Mr Leyland might have a saviour – climate scientist Jim Salinger protested that the sceptic should be given his chance to speak.
But seconds later Dr Salinger, too, put the boot in, comparing his opponent to a Holocaust denier. “And I can say that because of my ethnicity.”
No you can’t. You should be ashamed of yourself to compare someone debating forecasts and predictions of future climate change, to neo-Nazi racist hate filled Holocaust deniers. If you do not know the difference between a massively well documented and witnessed historical event, and forecasts and predictions of future change, then you are stupid or malicious.
Most people in the packed meeting room at the Hyatt Regency hotel had turned up to say they supported Greenpeace’s target of cutting emissions 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 – likely to be considerably bolder than what the Government ultimately commits the country to.
Of course the Government will not commit to 40% by 2020 – they are not suicidal. This is barely ten years away, and as we are already 20% or so over 1990 levels, it is really calling for a halving in a decade.
Now half of our emissions come from agriculture. So if a Government was stupid enough to sign up to 40% reduction by 2020, it would either need to totally eliminate agricultural emissions (which can only be achieved by shooting every cow in NZ) or totally eliminate non-agricultural emissions – yes in just a decade every power source that emits carbon would need to be replaced. Or some combination of the two.
You think 8% unemployment is tough. You just try and reduce our emissions by 50% in a decade. And think how proud we will be with 20% unemployment but hey we reduced our contribution to global emissions from 0.2% to 0.1%. But in the meantime China (which will not sign any reduction agreement) has doubled its emissions. I would have to check but I think the weekly growth in China’s emissions is more than our 50% reduction would be.
Again, I support reducing our emissions – both for reasons of trade, but also to contribute to reducing global emissions. But the 40% target by 2020 is simply not achievable without a huge reduction in output – or in other words a massive reduction in income levels and employment.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:19 am
I hope the meeting came up with a solution to stop the main atmospheric polluters – volcanos.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:21 am
You say “ever increasing levels of greenhouse gases” DPF. Which ones?
July 14th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Rah! etc
July 14th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Reducing Carbon?
Won’t someone think of the trees???
July 14th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Prof Ian Plimer, from the Spectator:
“It points out, for example, that polar ice has been present on earth for less than 20 per cent of geological time; that extinctions of life are normal; that climate changes are cyclical and random; that the CO2 in the atmosphere — to which human activity contributes the tiniest fraction — is only 0.001 per cent of the total CO2 held in the oceans, surface rocks, air, soils and life; that CO2 is not a pollutant but a plant food; that the earth’s warmer periods — such as when the Romans grew grapes and citrus trees as far north as Hadrian’s Wall — were times of wealth and plenty.”
I’m off to the beach – at least I would be, if it weren’t freezing and pissing with rain.
More here:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/3755623/meet-the-man-who-has-exposed-the-great-climate-change-con-trick.thtml
July 14th, 2009 at 10:30 am
When there are opposing sides to any issue then generally the truth (or best path) is somewhere in the middle. We should at least pay lip service to the climate change issue so as not to endanger our trading prospects, but let’s hope we can avoid increasing taxes, increasing unemployment and decimating our primary export industry to do so.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:32 am
I personally believe that the IPCC is basically wrong with its conclusions that, if nothing else changes, ever increasing levels of greenhouse gases will lead to a rise in global temperatures. The science is derived from the construction of theoretical models that have been proven to be fallible.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Al Gore I want my global warming!!!!!!!
July 14th, 2009 at 10:39 am
National and international science academies and professional societies have assessed the current scientific opinion, in particular recent global warming. These assessments have largely followed or endorsed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) position of January 2001 that states:
An increasing body of observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system… There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.[1]
Since 2007 no scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion. A few organisations hold non-committal positions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
July 14th, 2009 at 10:39 am
DPF – The herald story is a bit different?
“In another moment of silliness, electricity consultant Brian Leyland – seemingly the only climate change sceptic in the room – was heckled by climate scientist Jim Salinger. “We have a flat earther here,” he joked”
July 14th, 2009 at 10:41 am
But David:
You caught the essence of what really goes on in this debate. The global warming hysteriests (new word: I made it up) resort to abusing and mocking those who disagree.
That tells me they know, deep down in their heart of hearts (and perhaps not too deep down) that they know their position is really bankrupt.
It’s like this: if you’re right, and you know you’re right, then the facts will speak for themselves. You don’t have to sneer and mock at those who disagree with you.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:42 am
The same wankers who have declared that the climate change debate (con) is over are the same low life who believe in the concept of one world government.
Almost without exception these are the same vermin who have an unshakeable belief in the thoroughly useless United Nations and see the UN as the ruling power in the one world government concept.
Climate change is simply the trojan horse that these scum use to smuggle in communism/socialism, do not trust any of them, question everything they say and everything they do but most of all do not stop fighting them, their greatest allies in New Zealand are political correctness and our bloody annoying “shell be right” attitude, while we get on with out lives the bastards are slowly chipping away at our social norms, traditions, customs and way of life.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:42 am
On a more serious note. I read Bryan Leyland’s piece in NZCPR yesterday and was struck by the fact that the AGW believers behave like a small child when you try to explain something to them. Fingers in the ears screaming “I can’t hear you, you just smell” and that is the basis of their argument. I for one believe they are suffering from a “God delusion” for it must be delusional to believe that we ants on this planet can control the weather.
I don’t deny the climate changes but very much doubt man’s impact on the planet.
As for the greenies, this one is for Toad. Please explain which industries will be wiped out by your demands and how YOU plan to offer those affected permanent future employment. Please don’t answer green jobs as I have noticed that all the workers at West Wind here in Makara seem to be disappearing as we get more turbines installed ergo thejobs are not permanent.
At no stage in human history have we ever gone back but the argument from these luddites seems to be, here we have built an insulated dwelling but you have to live in a cave. It is just nuts.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:43 am
“..the IPCC itself forecasts an increase in sea levels by 2100 of only 19 to 69 cm..”
that forecast is ‘best case-scenario’..and way out of date/super-ceded..
how about ..if the arctic ice-shelf melts..
..ocean level rises will be seven metres..?
you have long been a denialist on this issue..dpf..
..and now you are trying to be a cheerleader for the incrementalist/do little school of (non)-thought..
the iraq war still a good idea..?
..the intelligence case for that war still ‘sound’..?
the economic meltdown a ‘fantasy’ still..?
..global warming a ‘con’..?..(oh..!..that’s tight..!..you (sorta) accept the science/realities..but you’ve become an ‘incrementalist
..the economic-wisdom of ‘the shrub’ still worthy of your fulsome praise..?
..fuck..!
..you’ve been ‘wrong’ a lot..
..eh..?
..so how can we give you any shred of credibilty/gravitas on this one..?
..(given your ‘record’..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
[DPF: It is not best case scenario. Read the IPCC reports. 19 cm is best case, 69 cm is worst case]
July 14th, 2009 at 10:43 am
The science is missing from Ian Plimer’s “Heaven and Earth”
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/04/the_science_is_missing_from_ia.php
July 14th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Plimer again:
“I’m a natural scientist. I’m out there every day, buried up to my neck in shit, collecting raw data. And that’s why I’m so sceptical of these models, which have nothing to do with science or empiricism but are about torturing the data till it finally confesses. None of them predicted this current period we’re in of global cooling. There is no problem with global warming. It stopped in 1998. The last two years of global cooling have erased nearly 30 years of temperature increase.”
Torturing the data till it finally confesses.
One of the great lines. Bless him.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:49 am
You’ve just seen an excellent demonstration of why NIWA was right to sack the arrogant prick.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:52 am
RightNow is probably partly right – the problem somewhere in between. Those that say “there is not problem, carry on as we are” are flat earthers. No one can say “x is happening, we must do y to prevent z” with anything close to certainty.
But we do mess things up, and it will keep causing more problems. And either way it will cost us. We can’t have no cost, even now we chose cost, it would be cheaper for councils not to provide sewereage systems, and we could have septic tanks, or pour our shit buckets on our gardens, or out the window if you live in an apartment.
Air pollution and greenhouse gases aren’t as obvious but they must have some sort of shit effect on our environment, especially if we keep increasing how much we emit.
On the other hand we can’t shoot all the cows. World population projections are scary, real scary – they need to be factored in to calculations of pollution and food and other needs. How the hell do we reduce emissions by 50% and the same time as the population increase by 50%.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:54 am
The more I read about Salinger’s utterances, the more I like his sacking by NIWA.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:55 am
DPF – the say that your claim about greenhouse gases is basic science.
It may be basic science, but not when carbon dioxide is targeted as the main greenhouse gas.
Carbon dioxide is a potent greenhouse gas at low concentrations but it runs out of puff as the percentage increases at an exponential rate. So you can double the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now and the change in temperature will be undetectable.
It is NOT a linear relationship. So the basic science of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas is somewhat more complicated than the alarmists would have us believe. It is like painting a window to keep the light out. The first coat makes a big difference but each extra layer makes less and less difference until further coats have no impact on the totally opaque window.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:55 am
hey..!..let’s just get the poor countries to ‘do it’..!
http://whoar.co.nz/2009/the-rich-can-relax-we-just-need-the-poor-world-to-cut-emissions-by-125/
..and of course..we can always ‘carbon-trade’..eh..?
..(now..is that a ‘gallows-trade..?..or what..?)
..(d.p.f. is casting himself firmly in the camp of the ‘new-luddites’..
..(their logo..is a fat businessman/politician..with his head in the sand..)
..and how about the faux-outrage of the rationalty of deniers compared to holocaust deniers..
..dpf..the most recent work shows 87% of scientists accept the dictates of climatechange..
..whaddayaneed..?
..100%..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
July 14th, 2009 at 10:57 am
TypeWryter: “It’s like this: if you’re right, and you know you’re right, then the facts will speak for themselves.”
Well, the majority of scientific opinion are in agreement anthropogenic climate change is real. And that is a fact.
http://www.grist.org/article/there-is-no-consensus/
http://www.grist.org/article/series/skeptics/
July 14th, 2009 at 11:00 am
You guys have to understand that DPF is still running around preparing for the millennium bug, oh no sorry, the bird flu, oops no, uhm nostradamus prophecies oh no…maybe the coming of Christ in 1989, 92, 96, 99, 2000, 200…… oh no the world being wiped out by the swine flu . Ah fuck it we are all going to die!!!! Run!
here is a very simple test for you DPF. You say that it is simple science. Okay I’ll believe, show me one (and only one) Scientific study that has not been debunked, that proves 1) Green house gasses are increasing abnormally, and 2) CO2 has an effect of global warming. or 3) That the earth has not cooled over the last decade or even that the IPCC predicted the cooling over the last 10 years.
Do that an I’ll believe. Or just believe the populist crap fed to you by the alarmists.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:01 am
still getting funding/support from those exxon-funded climatechange denial groups..?..there owen..?
..y’know..those ones that got ‘experts’ to peddle their falsehoods/denialist-bullshit..?
shit..!..i thought you’d be hiding in the corner on this one..by now..eh..?
..you must have testicles the size of the moeraki boulders..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
July 14th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Phil until you stop torturing animals, you have no real say in environmental issues, piss off.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:04 am
so..it’s bok..vs 87% of the worlds’ scientists..
whoyagonnabelieve..?
..oh.!..hang on..!
..he’s got that other ‘great thinker’ manolo..on-side..
..will that swing it his way..?
doyareckon..?)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
July 14th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Why is all these Greenpeace activist fuckwits got to spoke at the meeting anyway?
Was nobody else even told about it?
July 14th, 2009 at 11:06 am
And you can say that, because of your ethnicity.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:06 am
bok..you commit the ultimate ‘torture’..
..you eat them..
(and hey..!..you obviously belong to the school of thought that ‘repeating something makes it so’..eh..?)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
July 14th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Phil
Not content with your psychopathic torturing of animals, you make up shit.
Show me where you find 87% of scientist believing this stuff.
But hey the great environmentalist has spoken.
DPF yep just about underlines that statement of your as a real stupid one. If you have
people like Phil in your corner, you are on a winner.
[DPF: Actually Phil is attacking me as much as you are. That indicates to me I am probably right on an issue when I get attacked by both sides on it
]
July 14th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Bok, you rock. As do you Owen, that point you just made is what I was elluding to when I asked DPF:
You say “ever increasing levels of greenhouse gases” DPF. Which ones?
But, as ever with scientific issues, you explain it better than me.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Yep you just starve them to death Phil.
You sicko.
At least your son can one day kick your arse for what you did to him,
but picking on defenseless animals?
Man that is just …
Pah , not wasting any more time on you.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:10 am
emmess said: Was nobody else even told about it?
Well, they were at frogblog emmess – it’s been a sticky post there since July 5. Nobody’s fault but yours if you choose not to read it.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:11 am
The zealots who follow the religion of climate change will always have a tantrum when someone proposes an alternative view. That’s because their “science” simply does not stack up to scrutiny. Nice quote, Auberon “…torturing the data till it finally confesses…” Kind of similar to “There are lies, there are damn lies, then there are … ” theoretical models.
There is definitely more than a touch of Ayman al-Zawahiri in the way the High Priest Al Gore delivers his sermons. The hysteria, the inflection, the doomsday scenarios. Brilliant. And, like al-Zawahiri, High Prest Gore has millions of unthinking zombies who follow him.
Theoretical models are brilliant. We can thank them for the GFC. We can thank them (in the form of the flawed “science” of “carbon dating” – damn, it’s that carbon again – the sooner we rid the world of it the better-off we’ll be) for that other brilliant God-complex “science” … evolution (ha!)
In fact, every time man has fucked something up, it is because (surprise surprise) we’re not omniscint. We can’t predict the future (or recall the past with any great degree of accuracy) and our models are simply that … models constrained by our own prejudices and theories.
If we’re going through global warming, then how come it’s so fucking cold? Oh I forgot, global warming turned out to be bullshit so we now have to call it “climate change”.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Yep Bok, you know they’re in trouble when Fool You swoops in to help.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Bok, there are two issues about climate change for NZ. First, whether it is really caused (or assisted) by humans, and second whether it will damage NZ to not be seen to be taking it as real. While the arguments around the former may go on unsettled for decades, the latter is something we have to take seriously. IMO the best approach is to be seen to be doing something, but for that something to not damage our economy or our trading prospects.
Certainly we shouldn’t be at the bleeding edge of any ETS or carbon tax schemes. Being late adpoters of policies we’ve seen working well in other countries would be best I think.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:16 am
“..[DPF: It is not best case scenario. Read the IPCC reports. 19 cm is best case, 69 cm is worst case]
um..!..yes..!..but no..!
“….Scientists like him are more than a little astonished at the rate at which our planet’s frozen frontiers seem to be responding to global warming.
The crucial question, though, is what will happen over the next few decades and centuries.
That’s because the fate of the planet’s ice, from relatively small ice caps in places like the Canadian Arctic, the Andes and the Himalayas, to the immense ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica..
.. will largely determine the speed and extent of sea level rise.
At stake are the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people..
.. not to mention millions of square kilometres of cities and coastal land..
.. and trillions of dollars in economic terms.
In its 2007 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecast a sea level rise of between 19 and 59 centimetres by 2100..
.. but this excluded “future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow”.
Crudely speaking, these estimates assume ice sheets are a bit like vast ice cubes sitting on a flat surface, which will stay in place as they slowly melt.
But what if some ice sheets are more like ice cubes sitting on an upside-down bowl..
.. which could suddenly slide off into the sea as conditions get slippery?
“Larger rises cannot be excluded but understanding of these effects is too limited to assess their likelihood,” the IPCC report stated.
Even before it was released, the report was outdated.
Researchers now know far more.
And while we still don’t understand the dynamics of ice sheets and glaciers well enough to make precise predictions..
.. we are narrowing down the possibilities..”
http://whoar.co.nz/2009/sea-level-rise-its-worse-than-we-thought/
..(i have more evidence/links..if you need it..
..just think back dpf..on all those things you have been wrong on..and i have been right on..
..and think on..!
..eh..?..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
July 14th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Rangi, Papa and Raumoko will build a net to calm Tama Nui te Ra if the temperature gets to high.
Anyone who doesn’t believe this is a racist who is stomping over the beliefs and culture of the indigenous peoples of this country.
The Greens just continue in the Imperialist “we know better than you” traditions.
It is their kind that kills our babies. Haters, Haters, Haters.
(this nonsensical villification of opposing views is actually quite good fun. I see why the AGW morons do it)
July 14th, 2009 at 11:19 am
emmess said: Was nobody else even told about it?
There was about a weeks notice (or less for the Wgtn meeting) by the Govt which I think is poor, I couldn’t make the meetings due to the short notice. It is just that Greenpeace and other organisations, 350 etc. are far more organised and got the message out. Even made a youtube viral ad. These people care a great deal about this issue, as do I, so keep their ear close to the ground.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:19 am
philu, you are to science what L Ron Hubbard is to religion.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Still getting lots of readers over at that blog of yours Fool? How are the comments coming? Ever thought of getting a job?
July 14th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Basic science David? What science? Oh I forgot those cute little computer models.
You are out of touch DPF the IPCC etc are no longer preaching ‘global warming’ cause the temperatures not rising it is now climate change get with the programme DPF.
Of course until reasonably recently the climate never changed? It was static (evidence of Ice ages and warming periods throughout history are just a lie made up by those evil deniers) then along came modern man and hey presto they became so powerful that they now can do what King Canute couldn’t and manage the climate (G8 says it will not allow the climate to raise more that 2d)
Climate change is not man made it HAPPENS and man cannot control it. Man needs to learn how to live with it.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:22 am
im sure there was a mini medieval warming followed by a mini medieval ice age..
i wonder what happens to the sea temp when the ice melts into it?
surely there are more pressing global issues….
like our consumption of resources to fuel current economic models based on never ending growth…. or
how half the world is obese and the other half are starving.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Number of people who say “It’s too cold in NZ, I think I’ll move to Queensland”: Several hundred thousand.
Number of people who say “It’s too hot in Queensland, I think I’ll move to NZ”: Zero.
Why are the politics of fear crowd so scared of warmer temperatures? We’d need an extra 5 or so degrees to give us a climate like Sydney and we’d have a much better lifestyle. It’ll probably be a wintry 30deg in Darwin today, and I bet there isn’t a single person there wishing they were wrapped up like an Eskimo in Wellington.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:23 am
While nothing is 100% predictable, it is – as DPF notes – pretty basic science.
CO2 in the atmosphere increases the rate at which the earth captures heat from the sun. Ice at the poles decreases the rate at which the earth captures heat from the sun. Increased heat reduces the surface area of the ice at the poles. Greenhouse gases trapped in ice will be released when temperatures rise to a certain level. That will in turn increase temperature, which will decrease ice, which will increase temperature further.
One of the best ideas I’ve heard for tackling the problem came from the pseudo-infamous Nick Keesing. It’s an ambitious plan, but seems sound to me, and doesn’t require immediate massive changes to industry and the like. I’m fairly certain he wouldn’t have a problem with me briefing it here, if anyone’s interested.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:24 am
ive always thought we could put some dust into the atmosphere to block the sun for a bit.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Because First World countries will weather (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH) climate change just fine. It’s developing nations that will see (and increasingly are seeing) devastation as a result.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:26 am
“..# Offshore_Kiwi (16) Vote: Add rating 1 Subtract rating 0 Says:
July 14th, 2009 at 11:19 am
philu, you are to science what L Ron Hubbard is to religion..”
and i guess you would be with that 13% of scientists who are denialists..?
..eh..?
..good luck with that one..!
..eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
July 14th, 2009 at 11:26 am
CERIUM is right…….World population was 5billion in 1990 and is projected to be almost 8 billion by 2020 all of them breathing in oxygen, emitting carbon dioxide, and farting methane, yet only China is confronting the problem, or is prepared to admit there is one.
BIG BRUV…….also gets it right the whole scam is a Socialist driven conspiracy to establish a o0ne world government financed by by levies (taxes) on successful nations to subsidise the others through the guise of saving the planet. Every time we sign up to a ridiculous U.N. Declaration we surrender part of our sovereignty.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:26 am
I have one question for the proponents of man-made global warming theory:
When, in however many months, years, or decades it takes, anthropogenic global warming is shown beyond any doubt to be completely false, what will you say? Will you stand up and admit that you believed in this false god? Will you tolerate with equanimity the scorn that I and others like me will heap upon you?
I am so very pleased that so many idiots have bought into the AGW hype. Revenge will be all the sweeter.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:29 am
I’ll say I was wrong, and look at where I went wrong.
Oh, man, we’ll have to hide behind the gym at lunchtime to avoid you until, like, five minutes after the bell rings. I’ll be late for social studies!
July 14th, 2009 at 11:29 am
“The zealots who follow the religion of climate change will always have a tantrum when someone proposes an alternative view.”
There are plenty of alternate views. The majority of them (by far) happen to be pointing towards us having a problem – and the possibility our grandkids will have a bigger problem. And most are very much aware it is a work in progress, with new data and understanding on an ongoing basis.
Some dissenting opinions make valid points that merit consideration.
Those that dismiss it all as a con, a conspiracy, a world takeover etc, what “model” do you have to back up your assertions? So far that sort of thing seems to be nothing more than hot air. Bugger, that will make things worse.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:31 am
“..(i have more evidence/links..if you need it.”
Whoar, you useless parasite, get a job before you earn the right to comment here.
Idlers of your ilk are at the heart of all social problems in NZ. People without ambition, loafers whose only objective is to get a free ride at the expense of others.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:33 am
The moves now being made by the world’s political establishment to lock us into December’s Copenhagen treaty to halt global warming are as alarming as anything that has happened in our lifetimes. Last week the G8 and G20 agreed that the world must by 2050 cut its CO2 emissions in half. Britain and the US are already committed to cutting their use of fossil fuels by more than 80 per cent. Short of an unimaginable technological revolution, this could only be achieved by closing down virtually all our economic activity: no electricity, no transport, no industry. All this is being egged on by a gigantic publicity machine, by the UN, by serried ranks of government-funded scientists, by cheerleaders such as Al Gore, last week comparing the fight against global warming to that against Hitler’s Nazis, and by politicians who have no idea what they are setting in train.
In Australia, independent Senator, Stephen Fielding put three questions to the climate change minister. How, since temperatures have been dropping, can CO2 be blamed for them rising? What, if CO2 was the cause of recent warming, was the cause of temperatures rising higher in the past? Why, since the official computer models have been proved wrong, should we rely on them for future projections? The written answers produced by the minister’s own scientific advisers proved so woolly and full of elementary errors that Fielding’s team have now published a 50-page, fully-referenced “Due Diligence” paper tearing them apart. In light of the inadequacy of the Government’s reply, the Senator has announced that he will be voting against the bill. (from a Telegraph, UK article – more here http://tinyurl.com/legqem)
July 14th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Rightnow
I totally agree. Like genetic engineering, I believe the benefits is on a global scale, immense, yet for NZ to allow genetic engineering of crops is simply stupid.
NZ does not deliver enough food surpluses where GE would significantly impact on world shortages and as such the benefits of allowing GE is minimal (Only really monetary on a small scale) but the loss of tourism dollars because of damage to NZ’s (false but high profile) “clean green” image would be quite significant. So it is a no brainer. However the AGW science is starting to crack and like the hysteria that swept the world pre 2000 when planes would crash and the world would stop, this will also fairly quickly die. About another 10 years in it perhaps.
The problem is the actual human and environmental costs in the mean time.
Case in point. The animal torturer and his mates were jumping up and down that biofuel was the answer. Now very few of them would own up. Why. Because forests and native plants were destroyed to plant crops to make useless biofuels.
http://www.worldmigratorybirdday.org/2008/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=45&Itemid=60
http://www.securitymanagement.com/news/biofuel-production-causes-food-shortages-scientist-says
Fuels that produced more pollutants than most other processes. Now we have people starving and species habitat destroyed. This was predicted, it became true, and the IPCC rubbished it in 2003. They were proved wrong.
By all means pay lip-service to the media driven frenzy, but just remember that the more you give ground with stupid statements like “it is basic science” the longer this dangerous little side show to international politics continue.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:35 am
“..Bok (583) Vote: Add rating 2 Subtract rating 0 Says:
July 14th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Yep you just starve them to death Phil.
You sicko…?
talk of ‘starvation from a man who is (self-admitted) ‘obese’..but has ‘good functioning organs’..
that’s a bit cheap..eh..?
..and as low some sink around here..
..there is a general agreement that attacks will not be made against commenters families..
‘cos..’that’s a bit cheap..eh..?’
phil(whoar.co.nz)
(it’s quite hard walking this tightrope in this ad hominem-free month..my tongue is bleeding..)
July 14th, 2009 at 11:35 am
The IPCC has it WRONG. Full stop. The AGW ‘scientists’ will get no research funding if they break from the AGW theology.
There is NO scientific EVIDENCE that supports AGW. Oh and for the AGW cultists who are no doubt apoplectic at this point, a scientific model is not scientific evidence.
Follow the money, look at who is wanting to clip the ticket, then you will see what is really driving the new fundamentalist religion that is AGW.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Ross, you come up with some gems.
“In February 2009, Fielding told a Senate hearing that he believed divorce added to the impact of global warming because it resulted in people switching to a “resource-inefficient lifestyle”
July 14th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Interesting that Toad links to the Frogblog site, until recently one could discuss the issue of climate change with the watermelons but as the evidence mounted against the climate change con they have gone the same way as all of the other hard left blogs and banned or censored anybody that does not agree with their lies and bullshit.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Phil
Open the window. Your chimpanzee appears to have flaked out on the keyboard again.
July 14th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
TripeWryter:
“But David:
You caught the essence of what really goes on in this debate. The global warming hysteriests (new word: I made it up) resort to abusing and mocking those who disagree.”
Everyone does, especially on here. For instance, immediately after you posted this, we received this gem from big bruv:
“The same wankers who have declared that the climate change debate (con) is over are the same low life who believe in the concept of one world government.”
Mmm. Delicious coincidence.
July 14th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
DPF said (quoting the NZ Herald): In another moment of silliness, electricity consultant Brian Leyland – seemingly the only climate change sceptic in the room – was heckled by Mr Lee, the man who was supposed to be keeping the meeting in order. “We have a flat earther here,” he joked.
That’s not what the report says DPF. Or at least not what it says now.
i.e. it was Salinger who heckled Leyland (they have a longstanding and friendly rivalry) – not Lee.
[DPF: If the original Herald report was wrong, then obviously the comments about Lee do not apply. I maintain that any comparison to Holocaust denial is offensive]
July 14th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
PhilU wrote:
There is no arctic ice shelf. Do you mean the arctic sea ice? If that melts, the sea level rise will be exactly ZERO. Archimedes, and all that.
July 14th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
its already been pointed out Toad
do keep up
July 14th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Patrick Starr said: its already been pointed out Toad
Oops, you did Patrick. Missed that.
July 14th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
(DPF) get over it…. its not even a debate anymore… the doomsayers have won the argument… the same as Kate Wilkinson has put Nationals creadibility into question… You just can’t defend the the indefensible.
Whats that song… You got to know when to fold em.
July 14th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
People could just acknowledge man made global warming and offer an alternate solution >.>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars
July 14th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
I’ll repeat this bit as it will make readers better understand doom sayers.
In 1891 following huge growth in the city of London doomsayers were predicting the demise of the city.
At present growth rates horses will be depositing five thousand tons of manure on city streets within fifty years.
The city’s ecology will not be able to tolerate that amount of offensive refuse.
The end is nigh. This is the end of civilisation as we know it.”
Doom sayers, go and get phucked, said the philosopher.
July 14th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
RightNow
I’d prefer we didn’t budge at all to the lockstep AGW zombies but seeing how the movers & shakers have bought into the bullshit, your suggestion is the only option we should follow. This is an issue for us not to be the lab rats for the rest of the world but stay firmly toward the rear of the field and only pay lip service to the global pushers of this global warming poo!!!
July 14th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Tauhei Notts
Maybe they were right about London as it is still full of horse manure no -one knows what to do with
but they are wrong on this
July 14th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Children are no longer frightened by God’s wrath. Telling teenage kids that masturbating will see them burn in hell is no longer a deterrent. We need a new bogie-man. I know, lets convince people they are super important and that they control the climate. Then we can appeal to the super ego humans have, to their natural tendency to think they are in command of everything they see. Shit once we have them thinking they are in control we can make them feel responsible and once they feel responsible we can use guilt to control their behaviour all over again.
Praise be the Global Warming evangelists – they are the new prophets for the age where religion is no longer the opiate for the masses.
July 14th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
While DPF’s post is fairly entitled “The intolerance of the doomsayers”, the comments thread should be entitled “The intolerance of the denialists”
July 14th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
DPF: “…insults and denigrates someone who has taken the time to turn up and have their say. What fucking arrogance.”
ROFLMAO
[DPF: If you do not know the difference between being Chairman of a public meeting held to consult on Government policy and a blog discussion, then you really are sad. Are you defending the behaviour of the Chair. I've chaired dozens of meetings and have always accorded respect to people speaking who disagree with me.]
July 14th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Tauhei Notts 12:28 pm
The Doomsayers were right with that amount of horse poo over time.
it would have been the end of civilisation as we know it.” in London at that time. But civilisation did change to motorcars… and at this rate cars will end of civilisation as we know it.”
Maybe your point should be civilisation changes and adapts to its environment.
July 14th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
If climate scientists can’t get the next days weather right, how do we know that the science based upon computer similations are correct.
We’ve had a billion years of global climate change. Man has only been around for 50,000-100,000 years or so.
In that time we have had a major iceage come and go, and many mini iceages. That suggests we should listen to historians more than scientists about weather projections.
Now, if I had a balloon, and heated it up, the air inside that balloon will expand and in doing so cool down. The Atmosphere is like that balloon in that gravity is like the rubber pressing the air back in to the earth, but much like the balloon as it expands it cools. Now the computer similations I have seen described are called closed system and don’t factor in the expansion of the atmosphere when heated.
I am also not convinced that wild weather conditions are fully man made, or that we are heading for catastrophic enviromental disaster. Having read a bit about the worlds history, we have had climate change that is more extreme than anything man has or likely be able to do to the world, and the sun is still the biggest influence of all.
Meanwhile all this worry about carbon dioxide, takes away the attention on other forms of pollution.
July 14th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Burt, do you think fear of climate change will stop teenagers from masturbating?
A problem with your argument is that those likely to be suckered by an evangelical type climate god thing are already suckered by an older god.
Are evangelicals more likely to think it is a counter evangelical plot? Do they fear competition? Was it not foretold in Genesis so it can’t be true? What’s the bet someone could come up with an interpretation that it is in the bible. What caused Noah’s flood? Could it happen again?
July 14th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Cerium
If the eb and flow of the tides was a 10,000 year cycle (rather than circa 12 hours) then every time the tide started to come back in people would find a way to blame the generations before them for causing it to happen.
The world has been hotter and colder than it is today. It is never static and we are not in control.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Like I said.
(No I am not defending the purported actions of the chair. Though it is not something I take much interest in.)
IMHO it would be good if you DID run these threads more like a chaired public meeting. They might generate a body of discussion that anyone could look at and a glean worthwhile view of public opinion from. Instead of “You’re an idiot.” “No, YOU’RE an idiot.” “F**k off, you’re the idiot.” “F**k you, YOU’RE the idiot” which is normally par for the course…
(edit: delete “idiot” substitute “socialist”)
[DPF: If you want to pay me a salary to sit here all day moderating and chairing threads, then I'll be happy to do so. My rate is $120 an hour so let me know once you have the money]
July 14th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Burt, the global warming bogeyperson is a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, and scares all the horses in the process.
If it is necessary to stop children masturbating, then surely we could just threaten to show them a photo of Klerk’s teeth.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
thedavincimode
Stopping kids masturbating was a vitally important duty of parents in years gone by. It made them blind… Of course now we have grown up a bit about it and really it’s just a nonsense to suggest bad things happen because of it.
It was an example to illustrate the fashion aspect of “must control things” which is part of human nature.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Oh ‘biter. A typical Granville Glum. Just doesn’t want anyone to have fun.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
The planet is pretty bloody annoying all the same, the bloody thing won’t stay static and allow us to plan things around the state it is in today. We need a V2 of Earth, one without all the fickle shit like ice ages and fluctuating sea levels decimating prime real estate.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Indeed Burt. Coventionally however, it is a practice undertaken in private, but regrettably it occurs publicly on the opposition benches.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Phil U said…
still getting funding/support from those exxon-funded climatechange denial groups..?.
Here Phil. I am keen to be funded by any Oil company because I am a skeptic, but to be truthful, I haven’t had any cent at all from Oil companies yet. One of the great scientist of recent history, the Physics Nobelist Richard Feynman stated the following when he gave a talk at CalTech in the 1970s about Cargo cult science, regarding of how Physicists were pressured to conform to the majority thinking, even though it was wrong. Feynman referred of how, the measurement of the electronic charge was first conducted by Millikan, was adopted by mainstream Physicists, even though it was found to be wrong. Some suspected at the time that the electronic charge that Millikan came up with in his experiment was wrong, but no one dare to question it, since it was viewed that to question the great Physicist at the time (Millikan) is akin to denouncing Einstein or Newton, so they kept on using the wrong value of the electronic charge.
Feynman quoted:
===========
We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It’s a little bit off because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It’s interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of an electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bit bigger than Millikan’s, and the next one’s a little bit bigger than that, and the next one’s a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher.
Why didn’t they discover the new number was higher right away? It’s a thing that scientists are ashamed of – this history – because it’s apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan’s, they thought something must be wrong – and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number close to Millikan’s value they didn’t look so hard. And so they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that. We’ve learned those tricks nowadays, and now we don’t have that kind of a disease.
If Feynman is still alived today, he would probably call the IPCC as cult science, since other scientific publications of recent years have pointed out to inconsistencies in their findings. But the mainstreamers are afraid of upsetting the majority consensus exactly as Feynman quoted , because in his view , science should be about majority consensus.
Finally, NIWA was correct after all in sacking Dr. Salinger, because he became more of a mouthpiece for the Greenpeace rather than doing scientific R&Ds for NIWA.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Correction to my message:
Should be:
science should NOT be about majority consensus.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
“The world has been hotter and colder than it is today. It is never static”
No one argues with that.
“and we are not in control.”
There is not much argument with that either, except that many scientists contend that we are potentially having an effect on it and that could bite is on the bum (or our kids/grandkids).
There have been plenty of horse shit in London stories over the millenia. But, one day in the future, humans won’t invent something in time to overcome a previous man made problem. The major worry at the moment – compared to the past – is rate of change of:
Population increasing
More of the population wanting more
Resources dwindling
Pollution increasing
Possibly accelerated climate change
Any of these could feasibly get us to a tipping point. And if any combine forces it could be sooner and/or more drastic.
We could just carry on as we are, eventually the shit will hit the fan one way or another.
We could race in all directions trying to address problems in isolation.
Or we could aim at as much minimisation, moderation and mitigation as is achievable and practical.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
I personally believe that the IPCC is basically right with its conclusions that, if nothing else changes, ever increasing levels of greenhouse gases will lead to a rise in global temperatures. It is pretty basic science.
Thank the Good Lord for “greenhouse gasses because without them we would freeze to death every night and roast alive during the day.
This horse radish is just the latest scam elite parasites have come up with to gorge themselves at everybody elses expense.
Basic science, my ass, basic double talk more like.
The climate is changing, always has, always will – get over it.
And anybody who thinks BIG GOVERNMENT can do anything to change this is just a fool.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
If Cliff Curtis, Robyn Malcolm, Lucy Lawless and Kiesha Castle Hughes say there is there is man made climate change – then stop the press, it must be true.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Cerium
Get us to a tipping point – you mean the hockey stick ?
July 14th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
“Possibly accelerated climate change”
So if the accelerate climate change is a cooling pattern, does that mean I can drive a bigger car and burn more coal?
July 14th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Yes, we would. But do you not think it’s possible to have too much of them – to the point where they cause problems?
July 14th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
The only “tipping point” we have seen so far, is the tipping out of the alarmist’s (and their sycophants) brains.
Who would have thought that in this modern, sophisticated society, that a story like The Emperor’s New Clothes would take in so many otherwise intelligent people? – (“oh, what a nobel mind is here o’erthrown! – Hamlet)
July 14th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Facts:
1. Antarctic sea ice is at record extents.
2. Arctic sea ice has recovered from the low in 2007 to reach typical time of year extents
3. June global surface temperature as measured by satellites was at the average for the 30 years of satellite measurement.
4. Sun spot activity is at record low levels
5. The “hockey stick” is a fraud. The medieval warm period was real, large and world-wide. It had natural causes.
6. The ground-based surface temperature record is totally inadequate in reliability, length and coverage to validate the climate models.
7. The affordable measures to control CO2 will have an utterly insignificant impact on CO2 levels. They amount to political posturing and nothing else.
There is very strong evidence that the IPCC models totally misrepresent the impact of clouds and that the assumed amplification of CO2 forcing does not occur.
Feynman was brilliant. One of his relevant quotes was “Science is the system of disbelieving experts.” In other words, do the experiments and measure the facts. The rest is b.s.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
“you mean the hockey stick ?”
More like a sledgehammer, once it hits we could be flat earthed.
For those who think it is a big con which scenario is most likely?
- government/s planning on controlling the world and enslaving us all to taxes
- big business creating another artificial market so they can cream us again. and when the market collapses if we have anything left we can bail them out
Keep in mind that the common consensus is that politicians are so inept they couldn’t organise a prayer in a convent.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
“does that mean I can drive a bigger car and burn more coal?”
- see other points.
“…that a story like…” The Ostrich?
July 14th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
To begin with Cerium, the basis of the Climate Change argument centres around the effect of CO2 on our climate in 100 years time. So with that in mind I will answer your other points.
Population increasing – CUTTING CARBON EMISSIONS ISN’T GOING FIX THAT – MOST PEOPLE LIKE SEX AND HAVING KIDS
More of the population wanting more – HOW IS CAP AND TRADE GOING TO STOP PEOPLE WANTING MORE
Resources dwindling – RESOURCES ARE DWINDLING BECAUSE OF POINT 1 AN 2 – I SAY AGAIN HOW IS CAP AND TRADE GOING TO STOP PEOPLE HAVING KIDS AND WANTING MORE
Pollution increasing – THAT IS YOUR ONLY RELEVANT POINT – ENVIRONMENTALISM SHOULD BE ABOUT PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT NOT SCARING PEOPLE INTO A FUTURE ECONOMIC CRISIS BOUGHT ABOUT BY BOGUS SCIENCE
Possibly accelerated climate change – ACCELERATED CLIMATE CHANGE IS ASSUMED TO BE ABOUT HEATING, WHAT IF IT IS COOLING?
July 14th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
The IPCC, the UN intergovernmental scientific body and the world’s foremost authority on climate change, considered in it’s fourth assessment report (2007) that:
Warming of the global climate system is ‘unequivocal’ (0.76°C since 1850)
90-95% confidence that most of this warming is due to humans causing the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere to increase (i.e. the greenhouse effect)
Climate change will cause severe adverse environmental, economic, and social impacts (e.g. water, agriculture, disease, sea level rise, extreme weather events, species extinctions etc) with severity dependent on the emissions scenario
Developed countries will collectively need to reduce emissions immensely to avoid climate change of less than 2°C (beyond which is considered ‘dangerous’) by:
• 25-40% by 2020 relative to 1990 levels
• 80-95% by 2050 relative to 1990 levels
July 14th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
The warming of the global warming system is “unequivocal” (0.76C since 1850. The error term is + or – 1.5 deg C.
You might want to consider the full statement including the error term.
July 14th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Bullion, can you explain in detail the statistical basis for that 90-95% confidence assertion?
It will be very surprising if you can, because there is no foundation for it at all.
Likewise the rest of your presumptions.
July 14th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Owen McShane (760) Vote: Add rating 0 Subtract rating 0 Says:
July 14th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
“The warming of the global warming system is “unequivocal” (0.76C since 1850) The error term is + or – 1.5 deg C.
You might want to consider the full statement including the error term.”
Sure, you can have a look at actual observations measured against climate change models taking into account anthropogenic forces and models without. From IPCC’s fourth assessment report:
http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/syr/fig2-5.jpg
July 14th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Siobhan, I wasn’t saying carbon trading will address those other problems. I was trying to say that we have a number of large scale, complex, inter-related issues.
Population increase makes it harder to reduce emissions (more likely increases them), increases consumption and pollution.
If we run out of fossil fuels it could put greater pressure on renewable fuel resources, and that impacts on food production (it already has).
If we increase pollution it can impact on food and renewable fuel production.
Climate change (hotter or colder), and resulting environment change puts pressure on populations regarding relocation and production or resources WHETHER OR NOT THAT CHANGE IS HUMAN INDUCED.
Of these climate change is the hardest to prove, especially in a short timeframe, and to have any effect on.
Through spiralling population, consumption and pollution we are putting our environment under stress. If any of a number of things turn to custard – wars caused by overpopulation and dwindling resources, we don’t invent sufficient technology to replace fossil fuels, we have insufficient safe water, or the climate changes one way or another we may have no margin for error, no escape margin.
And if you add to that the possibility of a major natural effect like volcanic or meteor impact etch and we may have no room to escape.
Having said that, I’m a natural optimist. We could all survive happily by just boxing on, our kids could be fine, and our grandkids etc. But the accelerating change of all of these things means the risks of something major going wrong increase like, say, a hockey stick.
July 14th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
There is very high confidence that the global average net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming, with a radiative forcing of +1.6 [+0.6 to +2.4] W/m2:
http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/syr/fig2-4.jpg
July 14th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Bullion, there is a high confidence that human activity has been in the direction of warming.
There is no reasonable basis on which to assess the magnitude of that impact within a factor of five let alone with 90-95% confidence limits because:
a) we don’t understand cloud feedbacks
b) we don’t understand natural climate variability
c) we don’t understand apparent drivers such as El Nino, PDO
d) we don’t understand local surface use change impacts
e) as stated, the surface temperature record is totally inadequate in reliability, extent and coverage to validate any models.
In short, the IPCC “90-95%” claim is pure b.s.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Thanks for the clarification Cerium.
I think it is fair to say this thread alone shows that there is no concensus.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Yep, and if a group of experts like us can’t agree you can hardly expect a group of rag tag scientists to agree can you.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Scientists make their money from science. Therefore, they are biased. This is why you should never use the Cancer Society’s sunscreen. If it worked, it might put them out of business.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Senator Steve Fielding is trying to arrange a face-to-face meeting with Al Gore to have him justify his views on climate change. Fielding visited the US to research AGW – he is now a sceptic Rudd needs his support in the Senate to put thru climate change policy.
http://www.stevefielding.com.au/climate_change/
Is Al Gore a new age crusading Billy Graham? I see young people from NZ are travelling to OZ to be trained to spread the Al Gore gospel.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Alan Wilkinson,
The total temperature increase from 1850–1899 to 2001–2005 is 0.76°C [0.57°C to 0.95°C] with numbers in square brackets indicating a 90% uncertainty interval around the best estimate of 0.76°C, i.e. there is an estimated 5% likelihood that the value could be above the range given in square brackets and 5% likelihood that the value could be below that range. (Ref IPCC WG1 SFP, p5)
The IPCC states that there is very high confidence that the global average net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming, where the IPCC uses the term Very High confidence to express that there is at least 9 out of 10 chance of being correct (Ref IPCC WG1 SFP, p3)
The IPCC 2007 WGI The Physical Science Basis is available for download at
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf
July 14th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
RKBee (88) Vote: 8 1 Says:
July 14th, 2009 at 12:
“Maybe your point should be civilisation changes and adapts to its environment.”
What a novel thought. Oh wait, this is what civilizations have always done to survive.
The question therefore, has to be – do those who advocate this new religion want civilization as we know it, to survive?
July 14th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Bullion
The temperature record is unreliable with sketchy coverage (and almost none of the oceans) and has been continually adjusted for undocumented reasons almost all of which involved increasing recent temperatures and reducing older ones. It is subject to urban heat island impacts and a large number of station records have been arbitrarily discarded. All this is well documented in Anthony Watts’ blog and his project work on the US surface station audit.
No-one I have read disputes that the direction of human activities has been towards increased temperature but that is of no use whatever in assessing the risk of global warming. The question that is relevant is to what extent human activities affect temperature compared with natural causes and in particular how much does CO2 affect it. The answer to that question is essentially completely unknown and the answers given by current climate models are almost certainly wrong.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
OK it’s been a while (sadly, I work for a living and can’t devote all day to this fun)…
Point 1: I knew Salinger wasn’t clever enough to have an original thought. He got kicked out of NIWA for being Greenpeace’s carpet-bagger so it isn’t a surprise that he’s picked up the High Priest Gore’s comparison of AGW/Climate Change to the fight against Nazis. Fuck me, NIWA got it right. The guy’s just a muppet.
Point 2: Alan Wilkinson (1.50 pm) says “1. Antarctic sea ice is at record extents; 2. Arctic sea ice has recovered from the low in 2007 to reach typical time of year extents … 4. Sun spot activity is at record low levels” Any chance of a correlation (or even a causal effect) between point 4 and points 1 & 2?
Point 3: Bullion (2.12 pm). The UN Human Rights Council is run by some of the most evil, rights-abusing nations on earth. The UN Development Fund has appointed the worst hater and wrecker, the most anti-private-anything, the most anti-development dictator in New Zealand’s political history. And the IPCC is what? “…the world’s foremost authority on climate change…”? All UN organisations are fundamentally corrupt and the antithesis of what the espouse to be.
Point 4: Go Steve Fielding I say. I occasionaly listen to the Senate on ABC News Radio here in Melbourne and seriously, he’s one of the few that can string a coherent sentence together. Where is our equivalent (and yes, although I am currently serving a sentence in the wide, brown land I am still a Kiwi through and through) or are our parliamentarians just a bunch of lemmings? Who is standing back and saying “this looks like a duck, it walks like a duck, it smells like a duck and I just stood in a pile of duck shit. Maybe it’s not AGW after all, maybe it’s a duck?”
July 14th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Falafulu Fisi Quote
“Finally, NIWA was correct after all in sacking Dr. Salinger, because he became more of a mouthpiece for the Greenpeace rather than doing scientific R&Ds for NIWA”
My thought exactly. He looks like a card carrying, sandle wearing Greenie. I just can’t see him being other than one eyed on this subject. If we have Dr Salinger, I am sure the rest of the world has Greenies clogging up there climate departments just like us.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
We (mankind) didn’t start taking temperature measurements until 1860.
They use that temperature measurement as a basis for AGW.
Trouble is, we (the earth) was still emerging from the mini ice age (I think 15th. – 19th century) so the base is wrong.
The medieval warm period was warmer than it is now, as was the Roman period, as mentioned above.
Who caused all the CO 2 for those warm periods?
How did it change to a cooling period?
Does science have any answer? If so, lets hear it.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
[DPF: If you want to pay me a salary to sit here all day moderating and chairing threads, then I'll be happy to do so. My rate is $120 an hour so let me know once you have the money]
Smartarse. Why even have comments threads if you are not interested in genuine suggestions?
[DPF: I'm serious. I have to earn money to survive. My blog probably already costs me tens of thousand of dollars in lost income. When you suggest that I should spend even more hours on it, I will respond accordingly. Suggestions that do not involve lots of time on my part are welcome. Suggestions that cause me to become penniless are less welcome]
July 14th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Ryan Sproull with all due respect, where did you get t his from?
CO2 in the atmosphere increases the rate at which the earth captures heat from the sun. Ice at the poles decreases the rate at which the earth captures heat from the sun. Increased heat reduces the surface area of the ice at the poles. Greenhouse gases trapped in ice will be released when temperatures rise to a certain level. That will in turn increase temperature, which will decrease ice, which will increase temperature further.
From your statement there must be figures that show an increase in CO2 and a correlating increase in temperature. Or else it is just made up.
Now the measured facts are that there has been a cooling in the last 10 years. And I am, for the sake of argument, willing to accept that it is a blip and an anomaly as the alarmist wants us to believe (warming becomes change) But according the first part of your stated fact we should have seen a sharp decrease of CO2 (note not decrease in the growing emissions but in actual emissions.) over the last decade. Yet that is also not true. The problem is people believe fake scientists or experts such as Gore. Like so many have said. Follow the money.
Now according to your theory the last ice age should have been perpetual. In fact if we take your theory, we should be living on a solid block of ice. Because the only major catastrophic events that we know changes climate radically is in fact geared to the negative.
For instance earth quakes and volcanoes put huge amounts of dust into the air that stops the suns rays and accelerate cooling. There is no evidence at all that the opposite is true. So using your argument, during the ice age more and more greenhouse gasses and in fact you name CO2 got trapped and the cycle just spirals down. Did not happen.
So there must have been a shit load of ice people running steam and coal factories and stuff to get us out of that spiral.
The fact remains that CO2 and the heating and cooling does have a relationship, but CO2 is the follower not the leader. It has been proved over and over again that the levels of CO2 rises long after a heating sequence.
July 14th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Ratbiter:
You’re not seriously expecting DPF to sit around all day monitoring comments are you?
If you’re looking for a comment thread, and a blog host who invites feedback, why not click over to No Right Turn’s blog. Oh hold on…
July 14th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Cerium:
The major worry at the moment – compared to the past – is rate of change of:
Population increasing
More of the population wanting more
Resources dwindling
Pollution increasing
Possibly accelerated climate change
The first four are all to do with population growth. I really think it’s time to let natural selection help us out here. If we would just stop keeping people alive who can’t survive unassisted then everything would sort itself out within a generation.
July 14th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Bok,
So your assertion is that CO2 in the atmosphere does not cause the atmosphere to retain heat from the sun? And that when the earth heats through other means, CO2 concentration increases a while afterwards?
July 14th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
DPF:
“I personally believe that the IPCC is basically right with its conclusions that, if nothing else changes, ever increasing levels of greenhouse gases will lead to a rise in global temperatures. It is pretty basic science.”
If this really IS what you think, then I’m not quite sure what your concern with Mike Lee’s comment about “flat earthers” is, or why this constitutes the “neutral chairman insult[ing] and denigrat[ing] someone who has taken the time to turn up and have their say. What fucking arrogance.” Just ’cause you are in the chair of a meeting doesn’t mean you have to treat the views of everyone who wishes to speak as if they have equal merit … what if a REAL flat earth advocate had come along and claimed there’s no need to worry about global warming, ’cause we can just tip the face of our flat earth on an angle to the sun and this will dim its rays? Should Mike Lee have had to seriously nod and say “yes – good point – it should be given equal consideration with all the others expressed today”?
No. Because a flat earther is wrong in her/his claims about reality. And, as you yourself say DPF, those who deny AGW are ignoring “pretty basic science” and (frankly) ought to be shut out of public policy debate (cf those who dispute the rate/impact of AGW, or how best to respond and counter it … but that’s not Leyland’s game). Simply put, we’re past the point of “all views on AGW are equally valid”, so expecting Mike Lee to treat Leyland with a straight face and full respect is – I put it to you – unnecessary.
Salinger, on the other hand, sounds like a bit of an arse. Plus on Godwins Law, he forfeited.
July 14th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Alan,
I have already posted this information earlier but to reiterate my point to you:
The IPCC shows the extent of natural relative to human caused warming in the following graph – you can see that natural causes are insignificant relative to human caused ones
http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/ar4-wg1/jpg/spm2.jpg
The IPCC has also modelled it’s climate change estimates based on only natural influences, and those also using natural & human influences. For every continent, the observed temperature matches that which the models predict using human & natural influences, and do not for those models that only include natural influences on climate
http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/ar4-wg1/jpg/spm4.jpg
July 14th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
As I understand it, Godwin’s Law does not mean forfeiting – that’s a later corollary. Godwin’s Law is just that eventually someone will bring up Hitler or Nazis.
Lawyer’d.
July 14th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Not the same thing at all. I am saying the increase in CO2 does not directly affect warming. Some-one gave a great explanation earlier
July 14th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
ficticious cold war ficticious ww1 ficticious ww2 ficticious UN, ficticious war on terror, and ficticious global warming, lets see whats the biggest new industries in the US, SECURITY and Climate change,, Links and issues, the worlds termites produce millions of tons in methane, now the stock market is selling fresh air and polluted air hahaha,
July 14th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Can you point me at it? I was under the impression that CO2 concentration causing heat retention was pretty much established. Obviously not the only factor at play, but a factor nonetheless.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
The irony is that the real flat earthers are the IPCC. Their models assume the earth is a flat plane. They cannot cope with a spherical earth.
Also they assume that the earth is statistically flat in that they talk of a global average temperature and global average sea levels and perpetuate the myth that the earth is stable, and identical and unchanging whereas it is actually dynamic. So the island that Gareth Morgan identifies as suffering from rising sea levels actually has this problem because it is sliding underneath one of the Pacific Plates.
Similarly the sea level along Poverty Bay is falling because the plate is grinding its way up over the Pacific Plate.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
The ice cores do show that increases in CO2 follow warm periods by about 800 years.
The last warm period ended around 1200 and we went into the little ice age so it would be reasonable to find C02 increasing now.
And given that the Little Ice Age ended “officially” in 1850 it would be surprising if the 20th didn’t show some warming.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Ryan,
It was me quoting just about every atmospheric scientist in the world.
The claim the warming effect of GHSs is basic science may be true, but not when carbon dioxide is targeted as the main greenhouse gas.
Carbon dioxide is a potent greenhouse gas at low concentrations but it runs out of puff as the percentage increases, and its impact on global temperatures decreases at an exponential rate. So you can double the present concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now and the change in temperature will be undetectable. CO2 has long done its bit.
It is NOT a linear relationship. So the basic science of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas is somewhat more complicated than the alarmists would have us believe. It is like painting a window to keep the light out. The first coat makes a big difference but each extra layer makes less and less difference until further coats have no impact on the totally opaque window.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Bullion, that is not information, it is the output of a model. Also, the claim that “for every continent temperatures match the model …” is simply absurd.
The global temperature has decreased for the last decade while CO2 emissions have been at record levels.
The model doesn’t match for ANY continent unless you are prepared to accept a degree of uncertainty that can’t even predict whether temperatures are going up or down.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
The first time I ran into Salinger was at a presentation by Prof Lindzen in Orakei probably about fifteen years ago.
Dr Lindzen gave his presentation which was highly persuasive and naturally included the statement that H2O is the major greenhouse gas.
Salinger then gave the speech in reply ie to refute Lindzen.
He happened to reject the claim that H2O was the major green house gas and I well remember Lindzen rolling his eyes to heaven.
I was still neutral at that stage to waited to hear the evidence from Salinger.
His opening slides were slides of grapes growing in the South Island and gave this as evidence of Global warming.
THe problem was the audience of fairly well off and well informed business folk included many who could recognise reisling grapes when they saw them and were not surprised to find reisling grapes growing in the South Island just as one is not surprised to find them growing on the lower mountain slopes of Germany.
The next time was at a conference in Wellington were he put up the Hockey Stick – the first time I had seen it.
At question time I asked what had happened to the Medieval Warm Period and the little Ice Age. He replied that they never happened and were just local weather abberations.
That is when I became a skeptic. I have about 5,000 books in my library and would guess that at least half of them make some reference to the warm period and the Little Ice Age. After all the black death was caused by the cold and that cold caused the Maori to stop migrating to New Zealand and generally halted the great Polynesian migrations over the Pacific. All the great civilisations flourished during the Minoan Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period and the cold periods in between were pretty miserable for everyone concerned. If you cannot read go into any decent art gallery and trace the climate changes through the painting of Europe and of Greenland. Warm is good. Cold is bad.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Ah, I see.
What kind of impact does methane have?
July 14th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
DPF: “My blog probably already costs me tens of thousand of dollars in lost income. When you suggest that I should spend even more hours on it… etc”
That does surprise me because you always seem to have time to refute people like Sonic, Mickeysavage, Philu and myself (let alone genuinely influential blogosphere lefties e.g. Frog, Russell Brown et al) whenever the party line is questioned.
ANYWAY I should clarify that I am suggesting working differently, not harder. If the focus of your moderation was more on the quality of the debate and less partisan, the example set might result in discussion threads more illuminating than the ad nauseam repetitions we see now of:
(1) The left are like SOOOOOO corrupt. Typical.
(2) What do scientists know about it anyway?
(3) Ivory tower academics can’t tell me anything about anything. I’m a (trade) and my common sense tells me…
(4) He’s an idiot!
(5) No HE’S an idiot!
(6) I don’t like (woman’s name). So she must be a lesbian.
(7) F**k off you dirty socialist.
Anyway it’s up to you. Your blog, your bit of fun. Kinda your legacy too. End of rant.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Until all the cows in India are eradicated we are wasting our time!
Oh wait they are exempt…………… How very convenient!
Utter bollocks. A fabrication to circumvent Religious objections hardly saves the Planet.
Total Bullshit from the Enron ScamMeisters
July 14th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Alan,
I am sure that you can see that there is a level of uncertainty in the models, and it is clearly shown for both natural only and natural + anthropogenic forcings. The actual observations fall within the uncertainty of the natural + anthropogenic forcings models. Clearly showing that the models are accurate in showing anthropogenic forcings have had an affect on observed temperature increases.
http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/ar4-wg1/jpg/spm4.jpg
And to counter your argument that global temperatures have decreased in the past 10 years, according to NASA 2005 was slightly warmer than 1998
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/140894main_BlueMarble_2005_warm.jpg
You also need to look at trends. You could choose to examine the last 30 years — that is when both surface and tropospheric readings have been available. We have experienced warming of approximately .2 degrees C/decade during this time. It would take a couple of decades trending down before we could say the recent warming ended in 1998.
You could choose to look at the entire period of time since the end of the last ice age, around 10,000 years ago. Then the conclusion is that GHG warming has reversed a long and stable period of slight downward trend, and we are now at a global temperature not experienced in the history of human civilization — the entire Holocene. It will be many centuries until such a long view of today’s climate is available. The situation is a bit more urgent than that!
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Holocene_Temperature_Variations_Rev_png
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison_png
http://www.grist.org/article/global-warming-stopped-in-1998/
July 14th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
The fact is, the majority of the comments on this site have no political relevancy what so ever. The ridiculous comments ‘proving’ there is no anthropogenic global warming just don’t get listened to those making the decisions in Government.
The National-led Government is clear climate change is happening and they will be setting targets for Copenhagen.
For those who want to read some of the latest authoritative science check out: http://www.anu.edu.au/climatechange/content/news/copenhagen-synthesis-report-released-today/
At the moment it is Greenpeace and its http://www.signon.org.nz campaign, and the 65,000 people they’ve signed on in the last six weeks that’s setting the agenda and putting the pressure on the Government to sign up to ambitious targets.
Even Stephen Tindall and National Party supporter Geoff Ross have signed on. New Zealand needs to get with the times and protect our clean and green brand and build jobs and the economy through embracing climate action: 100% renewable electricity, better public and personal transport options, and low-input smart farming solutions.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Those actions should have nothing to do with AGW but everything to do with innovation and good business practice. We are doomed if we force, by compulsion, businesses to do these things at extreme cost for a notion that somehow CO2 is a pollutant and warms the Earth.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
The fact is, the majority of the comments on this site have no political relevancy what so ever. The ridiculous comments ‘proving’ there is no anthropogenic global warming just don’t get listened to those making the decisions in Government.
Since when did the arrogant pricks in Government listen to the people? Never.
BTW the arrogant pricks in charge in Portugal went along with the ridiculous assertion that jews and homos were responsible for the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and dealt to them accordingly which just goes to show that the ruling class has never been notable for logical reasoning.
Burning Jews doesn’t stop earthquakes any more than trading carbon credits will determine the future climate
July 14th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
http://www.nzcpr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32&sid=c06134f42108d374ae329f15aec80b08&p=22928#p22928
King Canute at the G-8
World leaders tell the Earth’s temperature not to rise.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124718309166920285.html
When King Canute of lore wanted to teach his citizens a lesson, he set his throne by the seashore and commanded the tides to roll out. Canute’s spirit was back in business this week at the G-8 summit in Italy, where the assembled leaders declared that the world’s temperature shall not rise: “We recognize the scientific view that the increase in global average temperature above pre-industrial levels ought not to exceed 2 degrees [Celsius],” or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, said the summit declaration.
So let it be written, so let it be done.
As for how they will achieve this climate-defying feat, well, the leaders were somewhat less definitive: “we will work . . . to identify a global goal for substantially reducing global emissions by 2050.”
Translation: Since the heads of the world’s leading economies couldn’t agree on an actual policy on climate change, they opted instead to command the clouds, the seas and all of the Earth to cool. Or maybe they were finally admitting that this whole climate business is getting too expensive, so let’s just throw out a goal that everyone knows is beyond the reach of kings, much less democratic leaders.
The politics of climate change have always been long on apocalyptic rhetoric but short on policy realism. But a global economic crisis does have a way of shearing away illusions about the price people and their leaders, elected or otherwise, are willing to pay in higher taxes, higher prices and economic competitiveness to perhaps make a fractional dent on the temperature.
Concerns about high costs and lost jobs have already threatened or killed carbon-emissions control schemes in enviro-conscious Australia and New Zealand. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, another sunshine environmentalist, insisted on exemptions for German industry, including cement and steel, from last year’s EU climate deal, which pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2020. Italy engineered its own escape clause, requiring the EU to renegotiate its climate policy after a U.N. climate change summit in Copenhagen later this year. That probably kills the European deal, since China (the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases), India and other developing countries showed this week that they are unlikely to agree to any draconian emissions cuts.
European politicians have been wondrously adept at signing on to climate pacts, like the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which they have no real intention of honoring even as they enjoy taking the political credit. But really binding agreements are becoming harder to reach this time around, thanks to mounting opposition from businesses and labor unions.
Philippe Varin, chief executive of Corus, Europe’s second-largest steel producer, told the London Independent in December that the cost of carbon credits and new technologies needed to reduce emissions would destroy European steel production, forcing manufacturers overseas. Poland’s Jaroslaw Grzesik of the Solidarity trade union estimated last month that the EU’s climate policy would cost 800,000 European jobs. The London-based Open Europe think tank has estimated the climate package would cost European economies over a trillion dollars in the coming decade.
Meanwhile, the supposed economic benefits of “green technologies” are evaporating. In Germany, government subsidies for installing solar panels — and, it was presumed, thereby creating domestic manufacturing jobs — backfired when it turned out that it was cheaper to make solar panels in China. A recent paper from Spanish economist Gabriel Calzada Álvarez noted that since Spain started investing in a “green jobs” policy nine years ago, the country has lost 110,500 jobs in other parts of the economy. That amounts to 2.2 jobs lost for every green job created.
European leaders still do pray to the climate gods, and they would love to see the U.S. burden its own industries with the kind of cap-and-tax bill just approved by the House. But even Senate Democrats are getting wise to the political risks they run for tying the economy down with regulatory schemes that America’s competitors in Europe and Asia will either flout or ignore.
In the legend of Canute, the king, after failing to stop the rising tide, told the assembled crowd: “Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth and sea obey by eternal laws.” If a medieval monarch could draw the right conclusion, how hard can it be for his sophisticated 21st-century successors?
July 14th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
3239 posts at NZCPD.com on Global Warming. Lots of information either way.
and this the first post from October 2006 (yep nearly three years ago),tells why the above post explains it all.
http://www.nzcpr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32&sid=c06134f42108d374ae329f15aec80b08&p=22928#p22928
July 14th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
“New Zealand needs to get with the times and protect our clean and green brand and build jobs and the economy through embracing climate action: 100% renewable electricity, better public and personal transport options, and low-input smart farming solutions”
The above quote sums up all that is wrong with those who push the climate change con.
NZ does NOT need to “get with” anything.
July 14th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Bullion, I hardly know where to start on that lot but let’s start with some facts.
The satellite temperature record is here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
You can make any trend you like from it if you choose the right start and end points, but looking at the whole data set you have to say that there is simply no meaningful short term correlation between CO2 level and temperature. You will also observe that there is nothing like 0.2 deg per decade. Neither is there in this alternative satellite series:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6540
July 14th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Furthermore over two millenia the picture is similarly obscure and certainly doesn’t suggest either any correlation with CO2 levels or the sudden interruption of a stable cooling trend:
http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/AGW/Loehle/Loehle_McC_E&E_2008.pdf
Neither are current temperatures unprecedented as that reconstruction shows, confirmed by contemporary reports of the medieval warm period, Romans growing grapes in northern Britain and the Danes farming in Greenland.
July 14th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
big bruv – “NZ does NOT need to “get with” anything”.
Actually NZ does, even from a purely capitalistic and economic point of view. Never mind if the climate change issue is a con or not. (I haven’t formed an opinion yet, too much conflicting information).
A basic 100 level SWOT analysis shows that this country’s main point of difference and strongest marketing tool is the “clean green” image. I know we have some clever people and industries, but realistically this country is a big farm. The one thing that puts us up there is the image of grass fed sheep and cattle, sparkling water, free range chickens and pigs etc etc. Now we all know that a lot of this image is a crock but sssshhhhhh, don’t let the rest of the world know!
Purely from a marketing perspective we need to push this harder and ensure we keep (and enhance) this image of clean green organic “real” food. We should keep our agriculture as organic and clean as possible. Also our countryside. People are happy to pay a premium for a premium product. Anything we can do that makes us look “greener” is positive, whether it changes the world or not!
July 14th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
kaya, what utter rubbish. There is nothing more stupid than doing something stupid because other people are doing it.
Likewise behaving fraudulently is commercial death. Which is what you are advocating.
July 14th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Kaya,
Marketing is bullshit
I suppose you buy things just because you like the ads
July 14th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
I personally believe that the IPCC is basically right with its conclusions that, if nothing else changes, ever increasing levels of greenhouse gases will lead to a rise in global temperatures. It is pretty basic science.
…for the scientifically illiterate. It most certainly is NOT basic science, and any appearance of “consensus” is borne of our incomplete understanding coupled with self-serving scientists promoting increased funding for themselves on the back of politically-motivated alarmism. The destruction of that consensus is inevitable since, as we come to understand more, the false claims of the self-promoters – political or scientific – are inevitably shot down. This is happening now.
Btw the idea we can reverse some increase in planetary temperatures is even more unlikely than the idea we have caused them in the first place. The Kyoto Protocol and any other measures to “save the planet” can only ever reduce a small fraction of so-called greenhouse gases; any more is pure fantasy unless you want to ban industrialisation itself and destroy the world economy. Even the sum total of decades of emissions had produced no constant increase in overall temperature. How less likely is controlling a small fraction of emissions (s/t like 5% in the Kyoto Protocol) going to reduce warming? If the warming is non-existent the answer is zero point zero; otherwise it is almost as much as roughly zero.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
After reading this post and all the comments, It would appear by far the majority of do not believe in AGW
Which is too be expected as you are all right wing and therefore inherently selfish and blinkered. Its not your fault its the way you brains are wired.
So there is little point in posting you screeds of links showing your rejections and arguments are wrong because you are incapable of changing your POV even when presented with overwhelming evidence. preferring to think that AGW is some overwhelming conspiracy by the majority of the worlds scientists to turn us all into marxists.
Hmm Who to believe ? You lot or the cream of the world Scientifically literate? Its a tough one
.
Wankers the lot of you
July 14th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
I hope this link is okay with DPF, flick towards the end for climate change stuff… or read the whole article, its certainly worth it. From an article on Goldman Sachs in a recent Rolling Stone issue…
quote:
“And instead of credit derivatives or oil futures or mortgage-backed CDOs, the new game in town, the next bubble, is in carbon credits — a booming trillion- dollar market that barely even exists yet, but will if the Democratic Party that it gave $4,452,585 to in the last election manages to push into existence a groundbreaking new commodities bubble, disguised as an “environmental plan,” called cap-and-trade. The new carbon-credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that’s been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won’t even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance.”
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/the_great_american_bubble_machine/print
July 14th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
@ emmess – you know what they say about sarcasm. Just because I used marketing terminology doesn’t mean I approve of it.
I know marketing is bullshit but lots of stupid people fall for it, if it didn’t work there wouldn’t be any ads on tv, in newspapers, on radio, on billboards plastered all over the country – or on the edges of this blog ffs!!! No I don’t buy shit because of the ads, I buy shit when I need it. However I do understand the concepts of marketing and I understand the perception of NZ to people overseas. It is a brand whether you like it or not. Now get off your high fucking horse and pull your head in.
Alan Wilkinson – I obviously haven’t explained myself very well, it’s late, I’m tired. I take it you presume I am pro the carbon trading/Kyoto bollocks, if so you are wrong, read what I said. Nor do I propose lying about our food etc. I said:
“We should keep our agriculture as organic and clean as possible. Also our countryside. People are happy to pay a premium for a premium product.”
Our lamb and dairy products are highly sought after. It is because they come from a country with an image of being pure and natural. We need to ensure it stays that way or even improves. That means where possible reducing additives, farming naturally, keeping the place clean, minimising pollution. All the common sense stuff. I used marketing terminology as most people understand it, especially those who are “blue” in their political leanings. As for marketing? I aced the subject but detest the concept. It is bullshit but a lot of people like bullshit, bit like McDonalds really……..
July 14th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
VIKING 2 july 14th 2009 King canute at g8 summit
hey you have obviousely researched this subject very well, as you state all these inconvinient consequences from these laws and changes brought in by climate change policys around the western world, and see how ficticious it all is , you must be able to come to a conclusion from your research what is the real hidden agenda behind all this, and who stands to bennefit, CAN YOU MAKE ON COMMENT ON THIS ……
July 15th, 2009 at 6:55 am
“..Anything we can do that makes us look “greener” is positive, whether it changes the world or not!.”
kaya…can i suggest you join the national party..?
..that would appear to be your ‘natural’ political ‘home’..?
phil(whoar.co.n)
July 15th, 2009 at 7:38 am
How exactly do we have a “consensus” amongst scientists when we have this http://petitionproject.org/ ?????
July 15th, 2009 at 9:16 am
“Now half of our emissions come from agriculture. So if a Government was stupid enough to sign up to 40% reduction by 2020, it would either need to totally eliminate agricultural emissions (which can only be achieved by shooting every cow in NZ) or totally eliminate non-agricultural emissions – yes in just a decade every power source that emits carbon would need to be replaced. Or some combination of the two.
You think 8% unemployment is tough. You just try and reduce our emissions by 50% in a decade. And think how proud we will be with 20% unemployment but hey we reduced our contribution to global emissions from 0.2% to 0.1%. But in the meantime China (which will not sign any reduction agreement) has doubled its emissions. I would have to check but I think the weekly growth in China’s emissions is more than our 50% reduction would be.
Again, I support reducing our emissions – both for reasons of trade, but also to contribute to reducing global emissions. But the 40% target by 2020 is simply not achievable without a huge reduction in output – or in other words a massive reduction in income levels and employment.”
As Knustler says we have evolved a certain way so it isn’t just a matter of stop, change direction without severe consequences. But we can start changing and start thinking; do we still have cute little kids driving 4×4′s across our screens? Do we still idealise the suburban house with the 4 car garage? Do we side with Julian Simon (growth can continue forever; the only limiting factor is the human mind) or Herman Daly (we must learn to live sustainably)?
July 15th, 2009 at 9:21 am
Opinion: 10 ’steady state’ solutions for a successful economy
http://www.interest.co.nz/ratesblog/index.php/2009/07/13/opinion-10-steady-state-solutions-for-a-successful-economy/
July 15th, 2009 at 9:22 am
The latest.
Global warming: Our best guess is likely wrong
Unknown processes account for much of warming in ancient hot spell
HOUSTON – (July 14, 2009) – No one knows exactly how much Earth’s climate will warm due to carbon emissions, but a new study this week suggests scientists’ best predictions about global warming might be incorrect.
The study, which appears in Nature Geoscience, found that climate models explain only about half of the heating that occurred during a well-documented period of rapid global warming in Earth’s ancient past. The study, which was published online today, contains an analysis of published records from a period of rapid climatic warming about 55 million years ago known as the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum, or PETM.
“In a nutshell, theoretical models cannot explain what we observe in the geological record,” said oceanographer Gerald Dickens, a co-author of the study and professor of Earth science at Rice University. “There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models.”
During the PETM, for reasons that are still unknown, the amount of carbon in Earth’s atmosphere rose rapidly. For this reason, the PETM, which has been identified in hundreds of sediment core samples worldwide, is probably the best ancient climate analogue for present-day Earth.
In addition to rapidly rising levels of atmospheric carbon, global surface temperatures rose dramatically during the PETM. Average temperatures worldwide rose by about 7 degrees Celsius — about 13 degrees Fahrenheit — in the relatively short geological span of about 10,000 years.
Many of the findings come from studies of core samples drilled from the deep seafloor over the past two decades. When oceanographers study these samples, they can see changes in the carbon cycle during the PETM.
“You go along a core and everything’s the same, the same, the same, and then suddenly you pass this time line and the carbon chemistry is completely different,” Dickens said. “This has been documented time and again at sites all over the world.”
Based on findings related to oceanic acidity levels during the PETM and on calculations about the cycling of carbon among the oceans, air, plants and soil, Dickens and co-authors Richard Zeebe of the University of Hawaii and James Zachos of the University of California-Santa Cruz determined that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased by about 70 percent during the PETM.
That’s significant because it does not represent a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Since the start of the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide levels are believed to have risen by about one-third, largely due to the burning of fossil fuels. If present rates of fossil-fuel consumption continue, the doubling of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels will occur sometime within the next century or two.
Doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide is an oft-talked-about threshold, and today’s climate models include accepted values for the climate’s sensitivity to doubling. Using these accepted values and the PETM carbon data, the researchers found that the models could only explain about half of the warming that Earth experienced 55 million years ago.
The conclusion, Dickens said, is that something other than carbon dioxide caused much of the heating during the PETM. “Some feedback loop or other processes that aren’t accounted for in these models — the same ones used by the IPCC for current best estimates of 21st Century warming — caused a substantial portion of the warming that occurred during the PETM.”
To see the complete study, visit http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ngeo578.html
July 15th, 2009 at 9:25 am
Further back someone said that Bryan Leyland should be ignored because he is a skeptic.
Actually the topic of the meeting was what target we should aim for. Not the validity of the IPCC etc.
Bryan is an international expert on electricity generation and pricing. This year to date he has advised governments in India, Thailand and I think, one of the arab states.
He was talking about the costs imposed by attempting to meet these different proposed targets. He was probably the only one talking to the topic.
July 15th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Owen, if anything that study supports the most alarmist positions, ie. that there is the potential for positive feed-backs that lead to warming way beyond that which IPCC forecasts.
July 15th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Kapital – “Wankers the lot of you”
He yells, with fingers in ears whilst stomping his feet…
Gold!!
July 15th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Kaya, I may have misread you – I don’t know what is sarcasm and what is serious in your comment.
However, I am serious. The only way to have commercial success in anything but the short run is to act consistently and intelligently. Never do stupid things for any reason and never fake anything to do with the quality of your products and services.
New Zealand will gain far more from taking an intelligent and principled stand on climate change than it would from corrupting our principles to go along with the crowd in acts of unmitigated stupidity and futility.
That is always the case.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Alan
There were no humans on Earth around 55 million years ago so whatever those feedback loops are they have nothing to do with us.
And certainly nothing to do with us burning fossil fuels.
July 15th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Owen, I think you meant Andrew.
Anyway, this is pretty funny:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/14/real-climate-gives-reason-to-cheer/
The High Church of Global Warming in panic mode. Planet fails to obey model predictions for two decades.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Owen seems to pay little attention to detail these days.
Thanks for that link Alan, Vibenna puts forward a similar forecast based on the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO):
http://vibenna.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/global-warming-a-skeptic-recants-part-two/
July 16th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Alan W and Andrew W – not a difficult error to make, especially when I was intending to respond to both of your posts but got a phone call half way through.
July 16th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Andrew, I thought the vibenna reference rather naive and superficial. There is no question that surface temperatures are affected by the ocean oscillations. However the question is what drives the latter, and whether we are seeing simply a redistribution of heat or a change in the overall retention of heat.
Roy Spencer who heads one of the satellite temperature measurement programmes has made some useful posts recently:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
July 16th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Alan, I note that the temperature reconstruction you and Dr. Spencer are relying is the one from Loehle that was published in E&E, there are many others that you could have used:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
These do not show the MWP to be as warm as today.
Now, if Loehle’s methodology had been sound his study would have been snapped up by one of the reputable scientific journals, the fact that it wasn’t, and that he resorted to publishing in E&E, demonstrates that his paper is crap, perhaps you’re one of those conspiracy theorists that are convinced that the scientific community is suppressing the truth?
July 16th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Andrew, I am convinced by Steve McIntyre’s statistical analyses that Mann’s “hockey stick” from tree proxies is crap – both because of the gross statistical errors in the analysis and because tree ring proxies for temperature are obscured by other major factors such as rainfall and nutrients.
That is why Loehle used non-tree ring proxies.
Journals such as Nature have lost all scientific credibility in my view over their hysterical and prejudiced treatment of climate science. Obviously if Loehle’s paper had flaws they would have been speedily refuted in the many journals controlled by the AGW industrial cabal.
If you want to see some of the world-wide evidence for the medieval warm period published in journals you approve of, go here:
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php
July 16th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Alan, the existence of the MWP is not in dispute, please stop building strawmen. The reason the the paper received as little attention from the science community (as opposed to blogs) as it did would have been because it was never published in a reputable journal, RealClimate did address it here though:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/past-reconstructions/
Even after the tree ring data is removed from other studies the MWP is still cooler than the late twentieth century.
July 16th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Andrew: “The reason the the paper received as little attention from the science community …”
Oh, rubbish. RealClimate is the epicentre of the AGW cabal including Mann. They obviously knew all about it.
And I notice your preferred chart is published by “Global Warming Art” – nuff said.
July 16th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
The various papers that the graph is based on are listed Alan.
July 16th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Yes, Andrew, and obviously those ignored as inconvenient truth are not listed. Most of those listed are from Mann and his cohorts.
July 16th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Alan, this is getting boring, but perhaps you could provide climate reconstructions published in reputable scientific journals that show temperatures in the MWP to be higher than those of today?
July 16th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Andrew, I already did that above. Follow the link to CO2Science I gave you.
Here are the graphic summaries of those papers:
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/quantitative.php
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/qualitative.php
The papers are grouped by continent in the original link and classified level 1, 2, or 3 as to whether they quantitatively or qualitatively compare the MWP with the current period or whether they merely show the MWP was a global event.
Now we all learn something every day, don’t we?
July 16th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Alan, papers such as Mann’s and the others in the graph I linked to are typically based on a thousand or more of the studies you point to, so the blog CO2 science can cherry pick 50 or so studies at localities that show the MWP as being warmer than the CWP, so what?
If the claims on that blog had any merit the people at CO2 science would have gotten somewhere with them.
July 16th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Mann’s papers are statistical garbage, Andrew, and his data selection is a large part of the problem. If you haven’t studied and understand that there’s little point in continuing discussion.
CO2Science merely reports other scientists’ work. It isn’t trying to get anywhere. If you read more widely than RealClimate (a website set up by a PR firm to promote global warming alarmism and run by the fanatic Hansen and his sidekicks) you would have a much more balanced view.
July 16th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
philu – I don’t have a “natural political home”. Unlike you I don’t believe in blindly following any political party. I support people and parties whose ideas and acts I believe will be beneficial to society as a whole. I don’t care which side comes up with the idea.
For example, I agree with what you said in your post “Can the economy recover?” (no it can’t), but your absolute support for everything left of centre is pathetic.
It’s hilarious being labeled “commie” one day and the next a “national hack”. The extremists in the different camps are good a giggle I have to say.
July 16th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
I’ve studied the hockey stick controversy for over four years Alan, from M&M, to Barton’s initiated Wegman report, to the NAS report.
After all the study that paper was subjected to the only changes were that the uncertainties for the earlier period the paper covered were widened, there was no significant changes made to the shape of the temperature graph.
I think this Wiki page is a fair reflection of what happened. If you have any understanding of politics you’ll know that politicians don’t ask for a report on a controversial matter without knowing the conclusions of the report, Wegman did his best to deliver what he was asked for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy
Are you seriously suggesting that CO2 science is impartial in it’s views on the AGW debate?