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The Forum > Article Comments > Atmosphere of trust needed for effective action on global warming > Comments

Atmosphere of trust needed for effective action on global warming : Comments

By Krystian Seibert, published 6/4/2010

Australia's ability to address policy challenges such as climate change depends on restoring trust in government.

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>So how can this problem of trust be overcome?

How about some personal accountability to restore trust? Any citizen should be able to sue politicians personally for damages resulting from their actions. Take the pink batts fiasco as an example. That's governments idea of doing something to improve the climate. If any private corporation did what the government has done, with so much misleading and deceptive conduct, so little due diligence, and so much negligence, loss of life, and loss of property, the directors would be facing very long terms in prison. Rudd, Wong, Garrett - they should all have lost their hosues and all their personal wealth and been bankrupted for their part in that criminal stupidity. That would go some way to restoring a measure of trust in the government.

At present, misleading and deceptive conduct is illegal, but only 'in trade or commerce'. The law should be changed so as to include 'in politics or government'. The very claim of government to have the competence to do what it is claiming it can do - fine-tune the temperature of the globe - is false and misleadging. It should result in the long-term imprisonment of the entire Federal Cabinet. That would restore at least a little trust that the next troupe of clowns might not offend so egregiously.
Posted by Peter Hume, Tuesday, 6 April 2010 10:36:58 AM
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Seibert has got the story the opposite way around. Since the failure of Copenhagen, the public has started to realise that a CPRS without an international agreement in place is an extremely expensive ideological gesture. Greens still push the concept as a way of "showing leadership" in this area but that ignores the critical problem that no country is likely to follow where Australia leads. The public is not keen on paying for ideological gestures, hence the decline in support for the CPRS. If the general public's decline in trust in the government can be linked to this issue - its not clear that it can - then its because the government is still pushing this dead concept. No one wants governments, or policy analysts, who not only refuse to face basic realities, but insist on writing articles saying its all really about a lack of trust.
Posted by Curmudgeon, Tuesday, 6 April 2010 1:52:31 PM
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"If any private corporation did what the government has done, with so much misleading and deceptive conduct, so little due diligence, and so much negligence, loss of life, and loss of property, the directors would be facing very long terms in prison."

A complete fallacy since private corporations in Australia have poisoned whole towns with lead, mercury, cyanide and hazardous waste with impunity and never ever face "very long prison terms."

Meanwhile, particularly in the state of WA, the uranium industry's massive land grab of some 180 tenements, for mining and exploration is soon to contaminate our lands in perpetuity, pollute our air and our groundwater with radioactive fallout and displace surrounding communities.

I would recommend that a government trust be set aside to enable citizens to sue corporate polluters who kill people, are trashing our soils, our rivers, our forests, oceans, human and animal health and indeed the entire biosphere.

It's scandalous that 250 Australians were forced to lodge a law suit in a supreme court in the US against Alcoa for contaminating their residential areas with dangerous pollutants, causing illnesses and even death. This polluter is freely chopping down our Jarrah forests to get at bauxite, while Departments of Environment and Health in this nation defend and protect the culprits and not the victims.

The "pink batts fiasco" was a well intentioned project and implemented for the common good including protection of the environment. Alas, the Federal government failed to anticipate that the corporate cowboys who got in on the act never flinch from an opportunity to make a quick buck at humanity's expense.
Posted by Protagoras, Tuesday, 6 April 2010 1:53:09 PM
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A first step towards restoring trust would be to send a memo to the ABC, pointing out that one-eyed AGW propaganda is self-defeating and only encourages further scepticism. The Fairfax Press, too, could be gently reminded that typecasting half of its remaining readers as 'deniers' and 'ostriches' is only going to accelerate its steady decline into irrelevance. Let us have our own Royal Commission into AGW claims -- not stacked with AGW profiteers, like the recent British enquiry, but genuinely balanced. And how about an apology from Rudd -- he's good at those -- for his offensive language, and an admission that 'the greatest moral issue of our time' actually has two sides?

In short, treat the electorate like rational adults and they will generally behave that way.
Posted by Jon J, Tuesday, 6 April 2010 5:09:34 PM
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It's no wonder we get such dreadful policies, when we get clowns like this one doing the research for policy lobbies.

I wonder if he has any idea of the real world, he obviously doesn't live in it.
Posted by Hasbeen, Tuesday, 6 April 2010 9:52:50 PM
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The author shows his gullibility by stating that "Climate change is an environmental, economic and social challenge that can only be addressed through government action." He adopts the erroneous assumption that there is global warming, and that it is human-caused.
The IPCC, the political body that has been searching unsuccessfully for 20 years for such evidence, nevertheless has conned politicians and policy researchers such as the author into believing in anthropogenic global warming. The IPCC's main weapon has been to use climate computer models to project alarming outcomes. It has managed to keep the lid on the fact that these models have not been validated, and consequently cannot be relied on for projection purposes.
Even Phil Jones, the scientist at the centre of the Climategate scandal, admits that there has been no statistically significant global warming for the last 15 years. Even if global warming were proved, there is absolutely no proof that it is human-caused.
Governments are kidding themselves and gullible voters by proposing policies to control climate change.
Posted by Raycom, Tuesday, 6 April 2010 11:27:36 PM
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Err... How about "Tell the truth. The whole truth. And nothing but the truth"?
Posted by Herbert Stencil, Wednesday, 7 April 2010 2:54:21 AM
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Protagoras
How come people couldn't sue the polluters for their torts and crimes in Australia?
Posted by Peter Hume, Wednesday, 7 April 2010 9:58:42 AM
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I'm more concerned that those who develop policy have a greater degree of trust in the scientific advice they both commission and recieve. The science is there and it has a solid, credible scientific basis (despite the volume of climate science denialists on endless repeat) but we have mainstream political parties that are more concerned with expansion of coal and gas exports than in any policies that might genuinely lead to significant reductions of their use.

It's a failure of mainstream politics of both left and right who ought both be absolutely determined to face this problem head on but haven't and won't. In spite of failure to deal with emission not being optional they are more interested in keeping the mining royalties rolling in (Labor and LibNats), pandering to the popularity of climate change denial (LibNats) or in avoiding a flow of votes to the Greens by making the failure of their policy the LibNats fault (Labor).
Posted by Ken Fabos, Wednesday, 7 April 2010 4:11:30 PM
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Ken Fabos states that "The science is there and it has a solid, credible scientific basis..." This is pure assertion, as neither the IPCC, nor any other party, has been able to table any irrefutable evidence for AGW. If perchance he has some hard evidence, let him table it and share it with us.
Posted by Raycom, Wednesday, 7 April 2010 10:34:56 PM
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“Protagoras How come people couldn't sue the polluters for their torts and crimes in Australia?”

Peter Hume – the speculative reasons could be:

a) Alcoa’s head office is based in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania where the writ was lodged

b) Erin Brockovich, assisting Shine Lawyers in Australia with the Alcoa case, is an American and works with law firms, Girardi and Keese and Weitz and Luxenberg in the US

c) Shine lawyers work pro-bono and perhaps realise that the American judicial is far more sensitive to (and knowledgeable on) the global human misery and environmental carnage caused by Alcoa but which has been covered up by Australia’s sycophantic 'regulators' attached to state governments, equally culpable of the wilful and deliberate environmental carnage caused and for also using humans as cannon fodder!:

http://google.brand.edgar-online.com/EFX_dll/EDGARpro.dll?FetchFilingHtmlSection1?SectionID=7065727-125624-174539&SessionID=nrPGHF6350xDtA7

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11872
Posted by Protagoras, Thursday, 8 April 2010 2:00:26 PM
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Raycom - No evidence? What complete rubbish - from the emission and absorbtion characteristics of gases, through the way they and the energy circulates to the combined running calculation of all known significant influences that are climate models, there's so much evidence that only those who buy into the quasi-religious belief that what we do to the atmosphere can't change our climate can believe there is no evidence. You want links to data try http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/ or try any of the leading institutions that study climate like NCAR, NOAA, NASA, NCDC, NSIDC,Hadley CRU, CSIRO, BoM or any - every - major university.

As long as people who want emissions driven climate change to stop existing go to sources that tell them there is no evidence it does and, like suckers, you believe them, people such as yourself will insist there is no evidence. And perhaps insist the warming (if you are capable of admitting there's been any despite every indicator showing a clear trend) must be due to absolutely anything but human emissions with no 'evidence' required.

I suggest your belief that there is no evidence is based primarily on not looking for any or perhaps on some illusion that only some kind of absolute proof that the completely untrained (maths, physics and chemistry illiterate) can be absolutely convinced by is adequate. Or by exclusive focus on the very few bits that can be construed (with bias) to be wrong at the exclusion of the vast body of work that shows it to be true. Try a bit of self education direct from the sources rather than filtered by the high priests of climate science denial. Maybe include some on the topic of risk which climate science denialists avoid more assiduously than actual climate science from actual climate scientists.
Posted by Ken Fabos, Sunday, 11 April 2010 10:26:25 AM
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It does not really matter whether AGW is real or not.
Would you trust the government to administer the ETS scheme ?
On performance you could not possibly do so.

In any case the ETS schemes are badly flawed,
The European scheme has collapsed from E30 to E1 a credit unit.
They are easily open to fraud and that is what has happened in Europe
when expired units were recirculated from Hungary.

It is impossible to protect the system when you are selling something
that can neither be seen or measured. Why do you think the dealer
spivs are all lined up ready to go with derivatives and all the other
Credit Default certificates, err Indulgences ?
Where are you Martin Luther ?
Posted by Bazz, Tuesday, 13 April 2010 12:01:23 PM
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The simple fact is that www.realclimate.org (or any other website for that matter) and the institutions listed by Ken Fabos do not provide proof that global warming has been caused by human activities. All have one thing in common: belief in the religion of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), i.e. they treat AGW as a matter of faith.
AGW assertion is not science. AGW assertion is not evidence.
Climate models are not science. Climate models are not evidence. Climate models are not proof. In any case, none of the climate models has been validated as representing actual climate experience. Consequently, the outcomes predicted with these models are at best speculative.
Despite increasing CO2 emissions, there has been no global warming this century. In fact, Phil Jones of the CRU agrees that there has been no statistically significant global warming for the last 15 years.
Climate change has always been the norm.
Posted by Raycom, Tuesday, 13 April 2010 10:03:30 PM
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Raycom,

Roy Spencer and Dick Lindzen are well known AGW contrarians, they employ climate models in their research to advance their case against AGW. Do you think they should stop using them?

You infer that various scientific institutions:

National Centre for Atmospheric Research
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Climatic Data Center
National Snow and Ice Data Center
etc

are somehow analogous to churches because you think AGW is, asserted?

Raycom, without relying on "any other website for that matter" (joke), can you please explain both radiosonde and satellite evidence showing that the troposphere is warming while the stratosphere is cooling?

I ask this because atmospheric physicists/chemists say that this is evidence of AGW, particularly when they couple it to the isotopic signatures of carbon dioxide and oxygen.

You also say "none of the climate models has been validated as representing actual climate experience" - is this your assertion, if not, whom?

I am assuming you know the difference between hindcasting and projections - but how much do you know of the validity of the SRES?

I am also assuming you don't know much about time series statistical analysis (you have taken Phil Jones comment out of context) - would I be right?

Of course climate changes, it always has and always will. However, what makes you think that releasing vast amounts of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere can't significantly contribute to it this time?
Posted by qanda, Wednesday, 14 April 2010 12:11:32 AM
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Thank you Qanda – You beat me to it. Could those who refute the global climate measurements of climate scientists, provide evidence to substantiate their refutations? No I thought not so why persist? These unsubstantiated squawkings have grown so very tedious and have been done to death.

Last year denialists were parroting the rubbish the sun was causing the warming. Then they pitifully tried to exploit the MWP. Now an ice age cometh and global warming has stopped. So where is the evidence? Come on gentlemen - show us the money!:

http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=70256&CultureCode=en

http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/now/

When some 6,000 meteorological stations around the planet submit data to climate institutes, there can be no doubt about average global temperatures and no margin for fudging unless of course you are sufficiently gullible to believe in pathetic old Monckton's conspiracy theory of a "New Vorld Order."

There is no dispute among scientists anywhere on the warming abilities of CO2 and other GHGs and when scientists estimate that humans emit 130 times more CO2 than volcanoes, sensible humans become concerned.

The GISS’ latest analysis for global surface temperatures revealed that the past year tied for the second warmest on record and the warmest year on record in the Southern Hemisphere.

Globally, January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record.

Those who harp on about 1998 are simple fools desperately trying to support a vacuous argument since GISS found that 2005 was the warmest year on record, though the difference between the Hadley and GISS record was so minute it was of no consequence, however, it exposes the appalling lack of integrity among denialists.

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/jan/HQ_10-017_Warmest_temps.html

The big polluters who have brought the planet to its knees and continue to do so may find that bludging off the environment is no longer acceptable – with or without an ETS.

Those who object to an ETS need to offer an alternative for mitigating anthropogenic pollution. How about a "Polluter Pays" policy rather than the demands for a 'business as usual' scenario to pump up the obscene profits of corporate cowboys who are plundering the planet?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/18/worlds-top-firms-environmental-damage
Posted by Protagoras, Wednesday, 14 April 2010 1:58:59 AM
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Re: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10243#168040

While we're listening to crickets chirping, this report:

http://tinyurl.com/y42lzfz

may not restore our trust in government/s, but it may go some way to restoring trust in the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia following various external assertions - not least those made by the likes of Raycom.

Unfortunately, there will still be some who will claim the panel conspired to hide a conspiracy, or something similar.
Posted by qanda, Thursday, 15 April 2010 4:13:21 PM
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