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Climate of discontent : Comments
By Des Moore, published 21/4/2011Julia Gillard's change of course has raised serious questions about both her leadership capacity and community support for policies to reduce emissions.
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"The only available science is that human emissions have no measurable effect on climate" says Leo Lane. It is clear from L Lanes's other posts that he or she is probably not susceptible to reason or evidence, and that he or she is remarkably gullible - for example, quoting the utterly discredited hoax petition of thirty-one (or -two, or whatever) thousand "scientists", known as the Oregon Petition. However the statement that human emissions have no measurable effect is simply wrong. There are some more or less reputable climate scientists (eg Spencer, Christy) who assert that human emissions have a trifling effect on climate. Their arguments are not well supported within the climate science community. But there are hundreds if not thousands of research papers, published in reputable journals, which lay out the evidence for the effects of human emissions on climate. This research has been going on for decades, long before the establishment of the IPCC, and quite independent of the UN. See for example the hundred or so papers in Greenhouse: Planning for Climate Change, ed. GI Pearman, which were presented at a conference at Monash University in 1987. If L Lane really believes that there is no evidence, and has evidence to back this view, he or she could certainly achieve fame by publishing his or her research results and so refuting mainstream science.
Posted by nicco, Saturday, 23 April 2011 4:24:54 PM
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Thanks for your comment nicco.
It is dishonest claims such as yours, that the Oregon Petition has been “discredited”, that make the alarmist claims so suspect. Added to that is your claim:”But there are hundreds if not thousands of research papers, published in reputable journals, which lay out the evidence for the effects of human emissions on climate”. There are papers which set out effects of global warming, but no evidence that it is caused by human activity. It is generally acknowledged that human emissions have an effect. What I asserted is that the science shows no measurable effect. Human emissions have not been shown to have any significance in any effect they have on climate. Just give us one paper, nicco, which sets out such evidence. It will be news to the IPCC, too, as the best that they have come up with is that it is “very likely”. If you can do that nicco, and have evidence to back your view, you could certainly achieve fame by publishing the research results and so refuting the settled science, that natural cycles continue to govern climate, as they have always done, leaving no room for the asserted effect of human emissions. Posted by Leo Lane, Saturday, 23 April 2011 7:45:42 PM
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Leo Lane again wants a single scientific paper, again showing that he (or she) simply doesn’t understand how science operates. There have been hundreds upon hundreds of papers, addressing aspects of the evidence for human influence on climate change, published in the past few decades. Go to Google Scholar and do your own homework.
At the same time there has been no refutation of the theory by any reputable climate scientist. There is active and robust debate about How much? When? Where? – but the debate, insofar as it is a debate, comes from another quarter. It comes from individual and organisations with a political or economic agenda. There’s no reason of course why people should not have a political or economic agenda, but to dispute the science because (for example) one doesn’t like a tax shows a failure to appreciate the logic of the situation. Dispute the science on scientific grounds, dispute the doings of government on political grounds. But before telling the government what to do, it is as well to try to understand the science. As for L Lane’s other views: to call the Oregon Petition “discredited” is putting it mildly. Again, Google it and do your own homework. It’s a hoax. It’s a purely political document, masquerading as something with scientific credibility. And (like evolution, or relativity) it’s the Theory of human influenced climate change. It’s a scientific theory, and researchers have been working to prove (or disprove) it for decades. What they have stated is that, based on the observed and measured evidence, it is “very likely” true. They define “very likely” as more than 90%. And yes, researchers have taken into account solar variation, orbital variation, cosmic rays, and all the other factors which might have some influence on the real observed warming. Posted by nicco, Sunday, 24 April 2011 11:31:43 AM
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"There have been hundreds upon hundreds of papers, addressing aspects of the evidence for human influence on climate change,"
No nicco, there are not - there are hundreds of papers on the effects of climate change .. You misunderstand effect for cause, a typical refuge of alarmists. Just because the paper mentions "climate change" does not mean it is about attribution to human activity, but i'm sure it is warm and comfortable in that space. Leo is correct and you are like so many others, not getting the point of the debate, you think it is about masses of paper which contain the words "climate change" Posted by rpg, Sunday, 24 April 2011 1:37:52 PM
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A comment by a real scientist may assist:
“It seems that the human global signal is small and lies submerged deeply within the noise and variability of the natural climate system.” http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2009/4/a-new-policy-direction-for-climate-change Worldwide expenditure in the order US$50 billion since 1990, and the efforts of tens of thousands of scientists worldwide, has failed to distinguish any human input into climate. This is because 97% of the CO2 in the atmosphere is natural, with 3% produced by human activity. With a natural variation of 10%, it is not surprising that the human contribution cannot be distinguished, and its effect is negligible. You should consider what you are saying nicco, and stop repeating silly mantras, like ”hundreds upon hundreds of papers”, when there is not one paper which upholds your incorrect assertions. The IPCC is a political organisation, and its summaries are political documents, full of misrepresentations. It does not have science to back its assertions on climate, nicco, and neither do you. There were 7 independent scientists who backed the IPCC’s assertion of “very likely”, but 2 later withdrew their endorsement, leaving 5. There were 55 conflicted scientists who backed it, the equivalent of being backed by the Climategate gang. Posted by Leo Lane, Sunday, 24 April 2011 3:00:33 PM
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It is a pity that every time there is mention of carbon tax we get into a debate about global warming.
I wish we could just address greenhouse gas emissions, as a start point. This at least is something which can be, and has been, measured empirically over time. Studies of ice cores have apparently shown significant fluctuations in atmospheric CO2 levels, coinciding with climate movement to and from ice-age events, and correlated with geological evidence of such events by carbon dating, particularly of sites of earlier human activity. Humans have after all been active on this planet for at least a million years (if you believe in evolution and in carbon dating), and we are told that the last ice-age ended only 10 thousand years ago. A recent ice-core study made a conclusion that, were it not for human activity, the earth should now be in an ice-age. That is of course based on previous cycles measured over several million years of earth's history, as revealed in ice-core studies. The inter-glacials were found to coincide with increased CO2 levels in the ice-cores, and vice-versa. Can it really be sensible to dispute ice-core records dating back thousands and millions of years? Whether current CO2 levels are due to human or other activity is a distraction from the primary considerations: i) Are current CO2 levels (with other greenhouse gasses) within acceptable limits, or are there already signs of harm to the environment? And ii) If the answer to i) is that levels are too high, then, what could or should be done to reduce those levels to acceptable limits? In partial answer it appears that current levels of CO2 dissolved in the earth's oceans are reaching a point where the ocean ecosystem is at risk of compromise, with potentially substantial detriment to our food and oxygen supplies. The answer to ii) is greatly dependent on whether humanity can objectively assess i), but I doubt that a carbon tax is the answer. I think the article also give us cause to question our government's approach in this matter. Posted by Saltpetre, Sunday, 24 April 2011 3:38:08 PM
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