The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Some inconvenient facts > Comments

Some inconvenient facts : Comments

By Ben-Peter Terpstra, published 6/6/2007

Global cooling out - global warming in. A basic understanding of history will enrich students of science, and protect us all from alarmists.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. All
Lots of diatribe but not much "Facts". Quoting the Tora or Old Testament as historical sources doesn't help much either!

It is becoming increasingly apparent that those wishing to deny our ongoing environmental interference/destruction are reverting to mockery and personal attacks rather than presenting numbers and solid data. I suppose that they feel that if they see their own words in print then it carries some weight against the pressing reality of our situation. The human capacity for denial appears to be one of the most powerful forces on Earth!
Posted by michael_in_adelaide, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 9:36:56 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The natural weather is alays changing but how can humans be having no effect when we burn sixty tonnes of fossil fuel each year for every square kilometre of the earth's land area. Check the arithmetic. Of he 510 million square kilometres of the earth's surface area about 143 million are land. We burn about 8500billion tonnes of fossil fuel each year and the earth is replacing almost none. Sooner or later something has to give and shouldn't we prepare for that eventuallity by conserving valuable resources for future generation and even allowing the poor in undeveloped nations their share. Or was George Bush senior right when he said "America's standard of living is not negotiable" (at least until everything is gone and the world economy collapses). Of course john Howard has been taking the Bush position for Australia.
Posted by Foyle, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 9:54:10 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Maybe this smart alec can tell me why my roses are still blooming in June and why spring bulbs are flowering now. This has not happened before in my long lifetime. When we can observe the change at first hand we don't need to listen to the ostriches and the climate change deniers - or to those who work surreptitiously for the fossil fuel lobby.
Posted by kang, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 10:38:34 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
At last some commonsense. Whatever changes (if any) humans may be responsible for, it has to be recognized that the climate has always been changing (eg the ice ages). Let's get rid of the hysteria and namecalling and look at this topic in its entirety with objectivity.
Posted by baldpaul, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 10:59:12 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Any scientist who does not understand that the GRAVITAS of climate change is caused by human wastewater emissions floating within the top 50 mtrs of ocean surface layers is NOT a scientist. The notion that a COMPLEX system like the biosphere/atmosphere can in any way be compared to a static fixed dimensional GREENHOUSE is absurd. It flies in the face of basic thermodynamic principles and begs the questions that we have yet to even ask of atmospheric, ice and hydrological sciences.

Further, that climate change is placarded as the greatest problem for mankind is nonsense when overpopulation is causing that problem. In the end, bums-with-guns on toilet seats will destroy mankind, NOT climate change.

Sea Height Anomaly (SHA) maps of the NSW coast http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/trinanes/tmp/sha1181091076.gif I show persistent large scale disturbances (red and blue patches) that correlate with billions of litres a year of sewage, industrial and farm waste being dumped from major metropolitan areas around Sydney, the Sth coast, the mid Nth coast and the Nth coast of NSW.

That the CSIRO has failed to make this connection is more to do with internal political appointments geared to boosting immigration than with any science. Even High School students are taught the Second Law Of Thermodynamics (2LT). If you build an area of HIGH entropy (disorder) then it will attract all the LOW entropy (heated air and soil) from the nearest heat source. If that heat source happens to be a parched NSW interior then these SHA anomaly patches will cause and sustain PERMANENT drought as heated air, soil and moisture are stripped off NSW and blown out to sea. The last thing you want under that circumastance is to build more slums and immigrate more bums on toilet seats to fill them and make fat profits for a few elite political power players.

continued-
Posted by KAEP, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 11:54:51 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Continuing-

An example: Morris Iemma, and his Euro-megalomaniacs in their haste to put NSW in their back pockets have given themselves a mandate to build a DESAL plant. Not to service exiting populations but to service THEIR future voters and consumers, most of whom seem to be arriving from Sthn Europe. With this desal get rich scheme Iemma is creating low entropy fresh water and dumping high entropy brine in coastal waters and by the 2LT this will worsen the drought. Every litre of fresh will induce 1 litre of drought in NSW while Morris keeps developing slums and ghettos, makes a fortune on power and wealth for a few buddies and ruins the lives of the majority of NSW citizens. Not that NSW citizens don't deserve it. After all THEY voted for him didn't they?

And the ALP? They have been taken for a ride. If Kevin Rudd wants to prove he cares about climate change he has to show he understands the science and stop the political machinations in the NSW ALP that are overcrowding Sydney in an unjust and inequitable way both for citizens and the ENVIRONMENT. If he wants to be PM then he must at least show he can put pressure on NSW ALP factions to stop the desal plant. Better still, put up the FULL sign over Sydney and concentrate on recycling wastewater streams that can reduce coastal SHA anomalies, reduce Tasman sea entropy and put an end to NSW drought.

As for John Howard. Lost cause is too mild a term. Immigration is his long suit to the old days of Menzis power and glory. That the immigration program is overcentralised, and causing irreversible congestion in metropolitan service infrastructure across the nation and particularly in NSW and sth Qld is evidence of its failure. It is evidence of John Howard's failure. There are other ways to make Australia a great nation than turn it into a festering melting pot with a tap for dollars to come out at the bottom
Posted by KAEP, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 11:57:30 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
This topic is boring at best. The GW High Priests have made their money and the manipulation of temperature data continues on. In 10 years time we will have another group of alarmist cashing in on the latest hollywood scare. The weather will change from day to day, from week to week like it always has. Australia will be the sunburn't country most of the time as it has been for a long time. The earth worshippers will continue to cash in on the gullible and use 'science' as their weapon.
Posted by runner, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 12:10:12 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I find much to commend this article. Whilst our nest fouling activities are undoubtably having some effect on the planet's weather patterns the main outcome of on-going atmospheric pollution, greenhouse gasses etc. is the adverse effect on universal human health and well-being rather than any macro scale climatic change. Uninformed comment only serves to distract attention from this most significant issue. We have to clean up our act - not for the planet's sake but for our own. The earth doesn't care - another hundred million years is nothing to the earth. The earth will be here when we have all gone, ice ages and all, and hosting any number of future evolved species. Either we clean things up, or we perish as a viable species. It is as simple as that, although we can always take the John Howard option which is to do nothing and pray for rain.
Posted by GYM-FISH, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 12:50:25 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
We don't know enough about the earth and its real climatic cycles to be making truly informed judgments about what's happening and causing increasing temperatures. Our human experience and record keeping is simply far too short for a planet that has seen changes over billions of years.

At the same time, we cannot absolve ourselves of some effect on the environment. Our high and aspirational living standards and consumerist attitudes are without doubt fueling effects on the climate and the environment. We need to take personal stock of what we do in our lives at home, at work, on the way to and from work, and in government offices and businesses that may be having a detrimental effect on, most especially, but not emissions alone.

Humans are growing in numbers, while all other species seem to be shrinking. Diversity is decreasing. That's telling and worrying in itself.

I'm fed up with hearing from people and groups who blame government for the cause of global warming. I do expect governments to have their collective fingers on the pulse of the environment and the people they are supposed to represent. But government is not the cause of the problem, but representative of our collective problem.

Change in attitude, habits and practices starts with individuals in their daily lives and the decisions and choices they make, not just for the present but for the future. I'd like every individual or organisation to state what they're doing, or, even better, what they've done to not just have a nil effect, but that they have actually improved the environment in their daily lives, before they accuse governments of not doing enough.

Saying a government has not done enough is silly, unless the accusers are so dependent, or believe that everyone ought to be so dependent on government that they're waiting on government to act or to tell them what to do. In Australia, that doesn't work. Australians don't like being told what to do. We don't need more regulation, but more individual and co-operative efforts to have positive effects on the climate and the environment.
Posted by Derek@Booroobin, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 1:25:15 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Terpstra claims that there was little opposition to the round earth concept - he doesn't go into much detail about the imprisonment of Copernicus there...

runner: "The earth worshippers will continue to cash in on the gullible and use 'science' as their weapon."

Yeah. God's a much better weapon to use against the gullible.

Sorry to other christians if that sounds a little insulting, but so too does blanket condemnation of science - why not just trek back to the dark ages when all was fine and dandy.
Posted by TurnRightThenLeft, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 3:29:23 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Derek@Booroobin,

While consumers certainly bear some responsibility, you are far too quick to let government off the hook. All else being equal, greenhouse gas emissions are approximately proportional to the number of people, and there has been bipartisan agreement on the part of the major parties to boost the population. Originally this was through mass migration, but now the Coalition has introduced the baby bonus as well. The politicians maintained the mass migration when polls showed that the public was overwhelmingly against the very high numbers. Our current 1.3% growth rate gives us a population doubling time of 53 years. From ABS figures, total household energy consumption increased by about 50% between 1975 and 1995, but only a quarter of it was due to growth in per capita consumption. All the rest was due to there simply being more people. Howard and Bush can't sign up to Kyoto or anything similar because population growth will make it impossible to meet the targets.

It is only fairly recently that government has woken up to the need for houses that have good passive solar design and for informing consumers about which appliances work efficiently. They could also do more to limit standby features that waste power and to discourage planned obsolescence.
Posted by Divergence, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 3:55:46 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
TurnRightThenLeft,

'Sorry to other christians if that sounds a little insulting, but so too does blanket condemnation of science'

Your conclusion that I give science a condemnation is totally wrong. The point is that the 'science' used by many in the GW has nothing to do with true science. It is simply a manipulation of facts. At best it is error and at worst deceitful.
Posted by runner, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 4:19:15 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
runner - I took your post to mean science is misleading - evidently you mean it to be an alternative, where science is being used to mislead.

Quite frankly, I don't have the expertise to assess most of the global warming science. Most people don't.

Though I see a massive weight of scientific evidence favouring global warming as a contributor to climate change and I see much less on the other side - though there are some denying it.

I do have difficulty with your notion that science is being used to mislead the debate - for starters, presumably science is also being used to defend against it.

Discounting science altogether, it is obvious our climate is changing, regardless of whether it's caused by CO2 emissions. You only need to observe the fact that Southern Queensland is suffering it's longest drought on record while north Queensland had record rainfalls this year. Either one alone could be an anomaly, but both? When weighed up with everything else, it's unlikely.

So back to the 'science.'

More scientists support global warming than those who don't. An overwhelming number in fact. So you've got to ask, why?

In these cases, you always follow the money. I've heard the claim that perhaps scientists who support global warming do so because it means more money for research.

Put simply, there are so many holes in this theory it's laughable. For starters, it either requires a global conspiracy, or massive numbers of scientists deciding that their life's work is going to be gunning for their next grant.
It can be contemplated in theory, but really - these are everyday people in huge numbers, and for all of them to overlook the facts to get a quick grant is unlikely. Plus, I'm sure they could alternatively go to the oil companies.

It's churlish to deny climate change is occurring - look around you. The issue then becomes whether it's caused by man - and I'd rather err on the side of caution and the majority of scientists.
Posted by TurnRightThenLeft, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 4:31:25 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Divergence,
People have babies, not governments. Governments might encourage or coerce people to have children with too much tax income at their disposal. People make the choice, and then need to take responsibility for their choices.
People build houses, not governments. Governments provide a little information, but it's an information rich world, and anyone can research and find out about solar passive house designs, alternative energy, solar hot water, wind turbines, etc.
People want to immigrate to Australia. Governments set or lift limits on population growth through immigration. People come to Queensland, because of the climate, not because of, or most likely in spite of, the government.
People in Australia, who have relatively high disposable incomes love to spend (after all they don't save). People are intelligent enough to realise or research the more money they spend on and throw away consumer goods the greater the effects on the environment.
Look first to the people and individuals, and what they do in their lives. Give people the respect for their intelligence. They can work out the effects they're having.
Posted by Derek@Booroobin, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 4:34:17 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Derek@Booroobin,

People may want to come to Australia, but that does not create a corresponding obligation on our government to let them in.
Posted by Divergence, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 5:03:10 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Giving space to this drivel severely compromises the creditability of this site
Posted by PPS, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 5:28:32 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
This poster is a total d!ckhead, is he seriously suggesting that Al Gore is a socialist, and that Leonardo is any sort of an authority on global warming, he is just an actor with a website and a point of view, but I doubt that the millions of people around the world who are concerned about global warming would even be aware or care that he had either and I very much doubt the 2500 scientists who are concerned about global warming would either.
If I used the same sort of logic this w@nker uses, I could argue that melting of snow on MT Kilamanjaro in 18whenever was the first sign of global warming,it might have been, it might not have been, who knows.
As for the Artic there are dozens of indicaters that it is melting faster than normal.
I can't believe anybody takes this crap seriously enough to bother debating it.
Posted by alanpoi, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 10:32:13 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Terpstra's another ignoramus who wouldn't know a VOC from a sock or of their impacts on all living species on this planet!
Posted by dickie, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 11:32:41 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I am pretty sure that what Terpstra was trying to point out is that in the past is that scientist have got some things wrong, but the public opinion is driven by emotive debate.

There have been doomsayers around for a long time, predicting the end of the world, which as living proof, has yet to happen.

It like the right kind of prediction made at the right time and pitched to appeal to the public emotion, it then developes a life of it's own and any evidence to the contray is ignore, ridiculed etc.

Sadly once the emotiveness is engaged any attempt at logic is lost and the debate has to run it's course over a few years, until the emotive steam begins to dwindle or a more fashionable fad comes along.
Posted by JamesH, Thursday, 7 June 2007 12:49:02 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Rains hit Sydney as large (blue SHA anomaly) wastewater plume expands from the coast

Original June 5 SHA map:
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/trinanes/tmp/sha1181091076.gif

June 6 SHA map, several hour after my post on NSW wastewater emissions:
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/trinanes/tmp/sha1181179503.gif

The stunning extension of the blue low SHA anomaly( high entropy/low potential energy) in less than a day and the subsequent rains over Sydney are interesting.
The proximity of this sudden SHA extension feature to the coast allows low entropy moisture to condense as rain on adjacent coastal areas because of the second law of thermodynamics. Hence the rain. But this stunt does not allow inland rainfalls as it only affects coastal areas. Further this useless coastal type precipitation has been a long term feature of the drought.

Whether there has been some state or federal government conspiracy to experiment with these SHA anomalies off Sydney is conjecturable. I have reason to believe such experiments were initiated in october 06.

But if I am correct, this stunning event not only shows what is really causing NSW drought but its secrecy also shows the dictatorial attitude that has crept into our so-called democracy.

>

Don't you worry about that. Here in Australia .......The Seven Commandments of nation building are written on the wall of a barn in Peter Costello's Canberra for all to read. The most important is "all Australians are equal only some are MORE equal than others.
Posted by KAEP, Thursday, 7 June 2007 2:54:09 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Some professor said the other day that we, in Australia, are over populated and consuming too much etc etc. He should fly over this country from East ot West , the over population is strangely non existant in most part of this country, no bustling cities, no satanic mills, zero, nothing, nil but a great emptiness.
Our small population clings to the edges of a vast country that is for the most part uninhabitable.
How can we have any influence on a global warming scale.If the earth is warming, it is because that is what it does-when it isn't cooling.
This has become a trendy bit of nonsense and nothing more.
Posted by mickijo, Thursday, 7 June 2007 3:41:21 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Well Mickijo

We could save ourselves by pollutant industries in Australia, acting responsibly and implementing pollution prevention technology (readily available) These industries are regulated by industry aligned bureaucrats, who conduct their operations by third world standards - unmitigated, uncontrolled industrial pollution.

Clearly, you don't live in a heavily industialised area in Australia.

We could also contribute to other countries, by reducing our pollution, thereby preventing transboundary pollutants leaving our shores to dump on other nations, as well as a mitigation of the pollutants we are dumping into our oceans and on the ecology where these chemicals return to invade the entire food chain.

It's not about climate change actually, it's all to do with anthropogenic pollutants vs human and ecological health.

Mother Earth will survive a climate change - humans are already dropping from man-made hazardous air pollution! And our depleted and contaminated ecological systems are just hanging in by a thread!

Oh dear....I omitted to mention Mr Howard's stirling effort in reducing pollution. All as a result of a reduction in land-clearing. Now that will keep the recidivist polluters happy in the big end of town won't it?

Anyone for a benzene sandwich - followed by an arsenic pie? The lead latte's really nice!
Posted by dickie, Thursday, 7 June 2007 5:04:10 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
There have been significant changes to Sea Height Anomaly patterns off the NSW coast over the last two weeks of wet and stormy weather.
These changes cannot be validated when referenced to other high population density coastal areas such as the US, Japan, China, India and Sth Africa. Any El Nino changes, for example, ought to affect all areas equally, including NSW. This has not been the case.

What that means is that there is a high probability that politicians (particularly the NSW ALP) are playing with effluent discharges off the NSW coast in order to garner much needed winter rains. They have succeeded with stunning changes to emissions from deep sea effluent outfalls off Sydney (blue streaks on the SHA maps starting at June 6, 2007) which have allowed rains to penetrate the NSW coastline. But the lack of public consultation is of great concern. Especially given the ALP is hell bent on immigrating an unassailable foreign power base in NSW whilst not having a 'Costa' of a chance of creating PERMANENT solutions to ever increasing coastal effluent fluxes and thus drought that rising populations are creating.

But let some ancient Chinese wisdom serve as a warning to the NSW ALP:

"Progress does not follow a straight line; the future is not a mere projection of trends in the present. Rather, it is revolutionary with an intensity proportional to population density. It overturns the conventional wisdom of the present, which often deliberately conceals or ignores the clues to the future."
Posted by KAEP, Wednesday, 20 June 2007 9:10:17 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy