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The Forum > Article Comments > Warming takes centre stage as Australian drought worsens > Comments

Warming takes centre stage as Australian drought worsens : Comments

By Keith Schneider, published 6/4/2009

With record-setting heat waves, bush fires and drought, Australians are increasingly convinced they are facing the early impacts of global warming.

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To quote John McEnroe, "you cannot be serious!"

To declare that the 2007 Federal election was about climate change is frankly ridiculous.

If the 2007 Federal election was fought on any issue, it was industrial relations; specifically, Work Choices.

More than anything, though, Australians did not vote for change. The 2007 Australian Federal election was not the 2008 US Presidential election. In 2007, Australians basically voted for more of the same, just with a reassuring new face. The underlying message of the ALP's campaign was all about "we're just like the Liberals, only a bit nicer".

The new water management regime was likewise largely cemented during the Howard era. The only thing that stopped it during Howard's time was Victorian Labor's party-political spoiling. To claim that a new era in the management of Australia's water magically appeared with election of the Rudd government is frankly foolish.

To blame the parlous state of Australia's rivers entirely on climate change is also misleading, although it does comfortingly deflect any examination of Australia's appalling history of mismanagement of its scarce water resources.

On the issue of the 2009 bushfires, the role of climate change is of much debated. Certainly, one suspects perhaps in order to avoid any uncomfortable reflection of their own role, some politicians were inordinately quick to claim that climate change was responsible, but this is as foolish as blaming the devastation of Hurricane Katrina on climate change. As Freeman Dyson noted, "with Katrina, all the damage was due to the fact that nobody had taken the trouble to build adequate dikes. To point to Katrina and make any clear connection to global warming is very misleading.”
Posted by Clownfish, Monday, 6 April 2009 11:11:18 AM
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Interesting article. However, I think the point about the destruction of the Murray Darling basin resulting in Australia not being able to feed itself is misleading. Government reports suggest that Australia exports around two thirds of its agricultural produce. One of the reasons for the demise of the Murray Darling region is the excessive drainage of the river system and clearing of the land for agricultural production for export, as opposed to domestic consumption - which is inferred in the article.

Some information about agricultural production in Australia:
http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/trade_in_agriculture.html
Posted by craig scutt, Monday, 6 April 2009 11:57:02 AM
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"Australians are increasingly convinced they are facing the early impacts of global warming."

My experience is that the reverse is true, scepticism is increasing.
Posted by Faustino, Monday, 6 April 2009 12:14:27 PM
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It was refreshing to see the article at least cite a different opinion by quoting William Kininmonth, the former head of Australia's National Climate Centre, but I did not find much else to agree with.
First off it is clear that there has been a shift in rainfall patterns, combined with a major drought. No-one knows why the rainfall pattern has changed, but such changes are known to have occured before. In South Australia, for example, parts of the state's North was used for sheep farming in the 19th century only for the areas to be abandoned due to changes in rainfall.
Temperatues are generally higher than they were a few decades ago (when many city reservoirs were planned) so perhaps that has something to do with it, but the relationship between temperature, cloud cover and rainfall is a major unknown. (This has not stopped some scientists from trying to claim there is a link.)
then we have the problem that temperatues actually have not increased in a past decade or so. They have declined. those who doubt the point are welcome to look at the Hadley site's record
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/climon/data/themi/g17.htm

to get better resolution over the past 20 years use the data in the ASCII file in an excell spread sheet to make their own graph of temperatures since 1990 (the Kyoto year)
Posted by Curmudgeon, Monday, 6 April 2009 12:49:09 PM
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This bloke's at least 30 years out of date.

He referred to the CSIRO as if it was still a research organisation to be admired, & respected.

Perhaps he doesn't know that it's now an organisation to be bought, & paid for, by anyone with a few quid to spend.

Of course he does, he's a fellow traveller.
Posted by Hasbeen, Monday, 6 April 2009 2:43:06 PM
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If Australians voted to replace the last government with an ALP government because the latter had “promised action to reduce global warming”, then they will be mightily disappointed. As Prof. Bob Carter said recently in “A New Policy Direction For Climate Change”, the currently proposed taxing of carbon is a “non-solution to a non-problem”. This is because the climate change is natural, and there is nothing to be gained by fiddling with CO2 emissions.

Carter says that global temperature is now about the same as it was in 1940! And that there has been a lack of warming over the past 68 years despite a 20% increase in CO2. But, thanks to the media’s ignoring of any scientist but those in the main climate lobby, Rudd and company are intent on blundering along the route to expensive losses of jobs and production for Australia.

Carter sees the not debate about climate, but “… a shrill campaign to scare citizens into accepting dramatic changes in their way of life in pursuit of the false god of preventing global warming.” The election of President Obama has seen a 300% rise in global warming lobbyists. They now reckon they have more chance of feathering their nests with a Leftist, I suppose. Funny how the numbers didn’t increase under Bush if they sincerely thought that there was a real problem.

This unknown Keith Schneider claims no scientific qualifications; Prof. Carter has them in abundance, and he believes that we DO need to introduce “… adaptive policies to deal with NATURAL CLIMATE CHANGE rather than the government’s “expensive and ineffectual plans…”. He writes that “The failure of both Mr. Rudd and Mr. Turnbull to respond to this need by confronting ecosalvationist hysteria about imaginary global warming, and at the same time to deal sensibly with the real threat of natural climate change, now bids fair to undermine their leadership positions.”
Posted by Leigh, Monday, 6 April 2009 3:21:36 PM
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