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The Forum > Article Comments > So now Kyoto is a reality, will it get cooler? > Comments

So now Kyoto is a reality, will it get cooler? : Comments

By Jennifer Marohasy, published 16/2/2005

Jennifer Marohasy argues climate change is an ongoing process, regardless of carbon dioxide emissions.

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Just to add one point ... Temperatures since 1998 have not been exceeded despite all the carbon dioxide emitted in the last six years, an amount equivalent to almost 20% of the total emitted since 1960.

Last week Reuters reported James Hansen, the director of NASA's Goodard Institute for Space Studies trying to explain this by saying that the warm temperatures of 1998 were due to severe El Nino conditions in the Pacific. He then said that weak El Ninos contributed to warming in 2002 and 2003.

In other words Hansen, a long-time believer in carbon dioxide as the major cause of warming, is now saying that even weak natural events can influence temperature.

I dare say that some "expert" will tell us that a computer model says X amount of warming is due to natural causes but don't forget that every model contains assumptions and these may be be inaccurate or completely invalid.

It is clear that (a) the uncertain correlation between carbon dioxide and temperature undermines the basis for the Kyoto Agreement, and (b) that more knowledge is desperately needed in the field of climate science.
Posted by Snowman, Wednesday, 16 February 2005 11:43:40 AM
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That's a brave prediction that another cool period will arrive 'some time soon'. A 10,000 year wait for example is not helpful. Once the planet Venus was relatively cool but got hotter and stayed hot. Unusual cold weather doesn't mean it is cold everywhere else; inside the fridge is a pocket of cold air but around the back is a flow of warmer air that we don't notice.
Posted by Taswegian, Wednesday, 16 February 2005 12:46:05 PM
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Jennifer Marohasy is the Director of the Environmental Unit at the Institute of Public Affairs, the same organisation that employs Alan Moran, the Director of the Deregulation Unit, who recently published an article on OLO dumping on environmental concerns about global warming (January 20 2005).

Jennifer distinguished herself a few years ago by arguing that there is no need for concern about the environmental degradation of the Murray-Darling system. Wonder why?

The Institute of Public Affairs is a right-wing "think-tank" funded by undisclosed commercial and business interests, and regularly publishes feature articles in the media in support of big business, particularly energy and mining interests, and against the scientific consensus on global warming and the Kyoto Protocol. The Institute of Public Affairs has been described as follows:

"Founded in 1943 by Charles Kemp (father of the Howard Government’s David and Rod), the Institute of Public Affairs calls itself 'Australia’s oldest and largest private-sector think tank'. An IPA form letter, dated soon after John Howard’s election as prime minister, stated: ‘Although measuring success is difficult in our business, IPA’s influence is clearly significant. Our views appear frequently in the media. We are regularly asked to write for newspapers and other publications, to comment on radio and television, to give public talks (with over 100 delivered in 1995), and to make submissions to public inquiries..Our publications are distributed to Federal and State politicians, to many educators and libraries, and to 4500 subscribers.’

"Long associated with the ‘dry’ end of the Liberal Party, IPA’s primary concerns have always been economic. From the mid-1980s however, it began pushing ‘family’ issues as well, with regular opinion columns in Rupert Murdoch’s Australian that argued for more durable marriage and more difficult divorce, for example..." (Marion Maddox, "God under Howard: The Rise of the Religious Right in Australian Politics", Allen & Unwin 2005, p 210).

On page 254 of her book, Maddox further informs us that the IPA, being a Non-Government Organisation or NGO, jealously guards its special influence with the Howard Government, and enjoys the quid pro quo that follows. In 2003 the IPA, as an NGO itself, received a $50,000 contract from the Howard Government to investigate "the relationship between government and NGOs."

Maddox continues, "..the fact that the government had skirted the usual sources of background information and research, and gone instead to an organization with a long history of ideological campaigning on topics such as the environment, overseas aid and indigenous issues..in ways that have generally helped conservative governments against more progressive groups, gave the move a look of paying to get the advice you want."

In other words, Jennifer Marohasy, Alan Moran and the IPA have a clear vested interest, not least through their direct contract funding by the Howard Government, in dumping on environmental NGOs like Greenpeace, and publicly advocating the position of the Howard Government in relation to the Kyoto Protocol (which comes into effect today, with the USA and Australia as non-signatories.) Money sings.

In my view, Jennifer's article should be read as political propaganda in support of the Howard's government block-headed recalcitrance on the Kyoto Protocol at the behest of big energy business interests (including Rio Tinto, who supplied the Howard government with its Chief Scientist). Science it ain't.
Posted by grace pettigrew, Wednesday, 16 February 2005 1:13:26 PM
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Grace Pettigrew should learn to play the ball and not the player. She makes no useful comments about the arguments put forward by Marohasy but rather tries to discredit her by saying she is from the right wing side of politics. Even if this were true, it implies that if you are from that side of politics you are by definition wrong.

Pettigrew should read the argument. Even if anthropogenic warming is a reality and we stop all CO2 emmision today, the geological record says the climate will change by a degree or so on time scales of a 100 years (it has done so continuously in the past)with occasional rapid and masssive falls and rises. We had better be prepared for climate change no matter what.
Posted by Ridd, Wednesday, 16 February 2005 1:27:37 PM
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Maybe grace is just reminding you to read between the lines and not just accept the article at face value. Just as you would if reading an article written by someone from Greenpeace. Jennifer has her motivations for writing the article too.
Posted by Mr_Torch, Wednesday, 16 February 2005 2:19:55 PM
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I think it would be more useful to debate the evidence for climate change, than what motivates Jennifer Marohasy. However, given there appears to be more interest in Jennifer, than the issue, let me tell you what motivates her.

At heart she is fascinated by the natural environment and natural history (why she studied both at University in the early 1980s).

She also has a fundamental interest in the truth. She believes that if we really care about the environment we will take a disciplined approach to issues and seek to really understand what is happening - including the exact nature and magnitude of enviromental issues so that we are in the best possible position to put effective solutions in place.

Jennifer is a fan of evolutionary biologist Michael Ghiselin who once wrote something along the lines of: "Man's brain, like the rest of him, may be looked upon as a bundle of adaptations. But what it is adapted to has never been self- evident. We are anything but a mechanism to perceive the truth for its own sake. .... In order to so imperfect an instrument as the human brain to perceive the world as it really is, a great deal of self discipline must be imposed."

Jennifer believes more discipline needs to be applied to the 'science' of climate change - so we can get to the truth of the various issues.

Cheers Jennifer (Marohasy)
Posted by Jennifer, Wednesday, 16 February 2005 2:52:18 PM
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