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The Forum > Article Comments > Will the Emissions Trading Scheme be our next Republic? > Comments

Will the Emissions Trading Scheme be our next Republic? : Comments

By Carol Johnson, published 17/4/2009

We have a situation where both the left and the right are combining to oppose the Rudd Government’s emissions trading scheme.

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An excellent appraisal of the situation Stormbay.

I do not believe the ETS will see the light of day and even if it did, it will make no difference to the state of the environment, in fact it has the potential to lead to its destruction.

Some forty years ago in Australia, legislation was enacted in various states as an Act:

“to provide for an Environmental Protection Authority, for the prevention, control and abatement of pollution and environmental harm, for the conservation, preservation, protection enhancement and management of the environment and for matters incidental to or connected with the foregoing.”

Included in the preambles are “The polluter Pays Principle,” “The Precautionary Principle,” “Environmental Harm,” “Material Environmental Harm,” “Serious Environmental Harm,” etc etc. Whole chapters are dedicated to “Enforcement,” “Environmental Regulation,” “Legal Proceedings” and “Penalties” for polluters.

Society continues to be duped while the Act is breached, ignored, abused and manipulated by regulators, governments and industry, to protect polluters.

Taxpayers have paid billions over 40 years to prop up affiliated agencies to “protect” their environment (and their health) – agencies such as EPAs, Departments of Environment, Departments of Health, Appeals Convenors, MARPOL, various farcical conventions, Ministers for the Environment and massive costs for the ongoing remediation of thousands of contaminated sites which had been trashed by pollutant industries, who continue to pollute with impunity.

The present economic reality prizes the accumulation of profits over human well-being and environmental sustainability. As such, it is illegal, in fact criminal and hypocritical, and definitely not the way to “regulate” our fragile environment. The proposed political trend is increasingly giving the agents and institutions of capital a free hand to threaten our survival.

Astonishingly, pollutant industrial barons have been awarded the highest accolades in society - even knighthoods for fouling the environment.

Citizens should lobby state and federal governments to enforce the existing legislation to include emission limits in the conditions of licence(currently, a convenient loophole!) and without cost to the taxpayer. If polluters breach the Act – prosecute! After all, how far would Joe Citizen get by driving around with a smoking exhaust pipe?!
Posted by Protagoras, Monday, 20 April 2009 1:36:23 PM
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This threads original theme was about the scale, divisiveness and passion surrounding the ETS in relation to the republic debate. If these posts are anything to go by as a sample of how people feel then the case is clearly made, it is on a similar magnitude.

We do however, need to separate some of the key issues and remember that the ETS is just our governments’ response to AGW, regardless of whether we as individuals agree with the case for AGW or not. The problem remains one to be determined by scientists if they are to be successful we need to fund them and get off their backs. The human generated “noise” whipped up by often ill informed media and vested interests have become a massive distraction. In my view this is also leading to dangerous politicization and demands for action, any action.

I cannot find any scientific commentary from either side that does not support the view that “the complexity is the single largest factor limiting our understanding”.

My journey is about trying to separate the “noise” from uncontested science in order to try to understand the key issues. The global “howling” seems to be winding everyone up with levels of righteous indignation well beyond those of our paltry republic debate. This to me is a human phenomenon and has taken on characteristics of mass hysteria or religious zealotry. Its origins seem to have little to do with AGW since we respond in the very same way to any number of vexatious subjects. That is why it is dangerous.

I’ve satisfied myself, (and no I don’t need any more links at the moment thank you) that something is happening to our biosphere, the uncontested scientific data shows it is working harder today, by a factor of 12.8 times harder that it was in 1850.

That said my only interest is to see sufficient “scientific” understanding for “scientists” to produce a “scientific” solution to a “scientific problem”.

Political/economic solutions tell me only one thing. We don’t have an answer yet.

Q&A, likewise.
Posted by spindoc, Monday, 20 April 2009 6:48:47 PM
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I agree with the views expressed by Professor Johnson. After all, we have a global problem and the solution (if it is going to be solved) is premised on the vagaries of social, political and economic pundits across the globe converging – a big ask given the diminutive response to climate-change at the recent G20 meeting.

Spindoc, your comments:

<< Whilst I have never found any correlation between atmospheric carbon content and the near earth temperature measurements (both uncontested research) ... >>

Déjà vu? Maybe you haven’t really looked (see my response to Ono below). The research is not uncontested, btw.

<< What I cannot find evidence for is any direct correlation between ACC and the global temperature measurements. >>

Again, see my response to Ono below.

<< ... rapidly decaying AGW case >>

I think you would have to back this statement up with some very substantial evidence from many other sources.

<< We can clearly evidence that when faith based concepts are challenged, the responses get more convoluted, making less and less sense to realists, as evidenced by religious theology, political dogma and social ideology. >>

In your context of AGW, this is a false dichotomy, spindoc. You are comparing “religious theology, political dogma and social ideology” with science. You are also inferring (by extension) that scientists are not realists.

<< Just how and why so many of us devour such a variety of ever more complex faith based, mystical mumbo jumbo is a mystery. >>
Again, it is wrong to compare the scientific process to “faith based, mystical mumbo jumbo” of “religious theology, political dogma and social ideology”.

<< That said my only interest is to see sufficient “scientific” understanding for “scientists” to produce a “scientific” solution to a “scientific problem”. >>

I guess that’s where we differ spindoc. The scientific problem/solutions have been canvassed widely. The real problem/solution is no longer scientific – it is a social, ideological and economic problem ... I am not optimistic.
Posted by Q&A, Monday, 20 April 2009 7:24:15 PM
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Apologies to all

Ono

In one paragraph you confuse “attribution” with “sensitivity” and ‘probability’ with ‘proof’.

In terms of climate sensitivity: about a 3 degree (C) change for a doubling of [CO2] +/- a bit.

Here’s an original:

Arrhenius, Svante (1901). "Über die Wärmeabsorption Durch Kohlensäure und Ihren Einfluss auf die Temperatur der Erdoberfläche." Förhandlingar Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens 58: 25-58.

Ok, that too was facetious.

Skipping a few years (and volumes of papers):

Manabe, Syukuro, and R.J. Stouffer (1993). "Century-Scale Effects of Increased Atmospheric CO2 on the Ocean-Atmosphere System." Nature 364: 215-18.

Murphy, J.M., 1995: Transient response of the Hadley Centre coupled ocean-atmosphere model to increasing carbon dioxide. Part III: analysis of global-mean response using simple models. J. Clim., 8, 496–514.

Gregory, J.M., et al., 2002: An observationally based estimate of the climate sensitivity. J. Clim., 15, 3117–3121.

Allen, M.R., and W.J. Ingram, 2002: Constraints on future changes in climate and the hydrologic cycle. Nature, 419, 224–231.

Sausen, R., et al., 2002: Climate response to inhomogeneously distributed forcing agents. In: Non-CO2 Greenhouse Gases: Scientific Understanding, Control Options and Policy Aspects [van Ham, J., A.P.M. Baede, R. Guicherit, and J.G.F.M. Williams-Jacobse (eds.)]. Millpress, Rotterdam,
Netherlands, pp. 377–381.

Joshi, M., et al., 2003: A comparison of climate response to different radiative forcings in three general circulation models: towards an improved metric of climate change. Clim. Dyn., 20, 843–854.

Boer, G.J., and B. Yu, 2003: Climate sensitivity and climate state. Clim. Dyn., 21, 167–176.

Johns, T.C., et al., 2006: The new Hadley Centre climate model HadGEM1: Evaluation of coupled simulations. J. Clim., 19, 1327–1353.

Stainforth, D.A., et al., 2005: Uncertainty in predictions of the climate response to rising levels of greenhouse gases. Nature, 433, 403–406.

Lock, A.P., et al., 2000: A new boundary layer mixing scheme. Part I: Scheme description and SCM tests. Mon. Weather Rev., 128, 3187– 3199.

Soden, B.J., A.J. Broccoli, and R.S. Hemler, 2004: On the use of cloud forcing to estimate cloud feedback. J. Clim., 17, 3661–3665.

Annan, James D., and Julia C. Hargreaves (2006). "Using Multiple Observationally-Based Constraints to Estimate Climate Sensitivity." Geophysical Research Letters 33: L06704 [doi: 10.1029/2005GL025259].
Posted by Q&A, Monday, 20 April 2009 7:26:31 PM
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Q&A - just one paper that proves that increased CO2 relates to global temperature, not all these links to barely related science.

You've just assembled the usual collection of modelling discussions (which are hardly proof are they? They are more about the modelling techniques used.) and some related papers that mention CO2 and temperature, but don't provide the proof. (Are all these from some favourite "how to deal with sceptics" website?)

Classic obfuscation, there is no proof in these papers, nor the German one by the way.

I believe if you could prove it with one paper, you would have?

Thank you for trying, but in the end it's the same confusing methodolgy that is used to try to silence anyone who questions the faith and is typical of religious rhetoric.

end.
Posted by odo, Tuesday, 21 April 2009 12:00:32 AM
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Q&A, my last post not very specific, let me clarify.

<< ... rapidly decaying AGW case >>, <<comparing “religious theology, political dogma and social ideology”>>. << Again, it is wrong to compare the scientific process to “faith based mystical mumbo jumbo” of “religious theology, political dogma and social ideology”. with science. You are also inferring (by extension) that scientists are not realists. <<

Any reference to the above comments was specifically intended to exclude scientists, by extension or otherwise, from the religious zealotry being generated by both sides of this debate. Sorry for not making that clear.

The way I see it we have multiple levels of input to this debate.

Level 1, uncontested scientific measurements. 1.1 ACC in PPM. 1.2 Global near earth temp. measurements, only contested insofar as there are other related measurements and 1.3 Total FFC since 1850.

Level 2. Scientific interpretation. Where scientists attempt to interpret the data in level 1. (Both pro and anti but mostly peer reviewed)

Level 3, Scientific predictions/Modeling. Where scientists attempt to forecast outcomes.

Level 4. Political interpretation. Where politically affiliated organizations attempt to interpret the data in level 1, 2 and 3. Political expediency.

Level 5. Journalism, non peer reviewed articles, news and current affairs production, documentaries. Books/publications. Where media and entertainment industries make money by spinning the results from 1 – 4 and generating political influence.

Level 6. Public domain. Mostly people scared witless by the fear, uncertainty and doubt mongers. Those who have formed a view and are fiercely defending it, others who genuinely seek answers.

I embrace Levels 1 & 2, but I have professional experience in Level 3 “modeling”, and know that it is neither real nor evidence.

Levels 4 thru’ 6 are the areas driving the debate and form the great diversion of hysterical proportions.

My “scientific” questions remain, please help. If the total Fossil Fuel Consumption since 1850 has increased by 1,280%, why has the ACC only increased by 30% and what does that logically tell us about the proposed ETS? Level 1 data only please.

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/
Posted by spindoc, Tuesday, 21 April 2009 10:55:52 AM
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