E = mc2

Einstein's theory of relativity. It led to the belief nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

This has been the undisputed science of physics for nearly 100 years.

Well well you'd think that science was well and truely settled, wouldn't you?

But maybe not so, experiments with the Large Hadron Collider show neutrinos travel at 60nanoseconds (One 600th billion of a second, and yes it was measurable) faster than light.

Was Einsteins theory wrong? Who knows? Einstein also said strange things happen at the speed of light.

My point?

Is climate science settled? If the very basis of modern physics can be challenged and over turned, justs as some of Newton's theories were overturned by Einstein, then it is a very brave person who maintains the science of climate is settled and that the planet is warming because of human activity.

Me, I'm currently swayed by new experiments, literature and empherical data from climate science.

1.A Large Hadron Collider experiment that lends empherical evidence in support Henrik Svensmarks theory of the influence of cosmic rays on climate.

http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/global/CREC.html

2. The work of Phil Watson, Principal Coastal Specialist, NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water. His peer-reviewed work released empherical data showing rises in sea levels are "decelerating".

Journal of Coastal Research: Volume 27, Issue 2: pp. 368 – 377 .

http://www.jcronline.org/doi/abs/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-10-00141.1

I'd say both these which are based in actual evidence do call into doubt the old Climate Science theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Tony Abbott not wedded to a hugely costly scheme which attempts to limit climate change ... hmmm I think that is very sensible.

In response to the article, I have to wonder also whether John Howard's ETS which was promised at the '07 election would have received so much ignorant public opposition as Labor's has. Alan Jones and the rest of the mainstream media didn't seem to have a problem with theidea when their pin-up boy was putting it forward.

Abbott supported the ETS until he became opposition leader and quickly went into "no" mode. Then he was forced to provide an alternative. If what he came up with is representative of the quality of abbotts policy ideas and budgeting, I have to wonder how inept the rest of the party are that he's considered their best person for the job!

But in today's democracy, it's not the quality of policy that counts. Thanks to a lazy journalism industry, it comes down to what Murdoch and other big players want voters to think counts that counts.

I think if you want to look at the facts TrashcanMan, Abbott only became Opposition leader because he opposed the ETS. He knew the general public had woken up to the global warming scam thanks to the dishonesty of the IPCC, the hopelessly failed predictions of the gw High Priests and a few people demanding real science. Abbott had been quoted as saying that man made climate change is c_ap. He now being nearly as dishonest as Gillard when he says he believes in it. Gillard now believes in anything as long as she can cling to power. She now believes in the Pacific solution, marriage between man and woman and even democracy when it suites (except for the carbon tax).

Nutter,

You've been deceived. Phil Watson, who you reference, completely disagrees with you and his department disputed the claims made about his paper. Maybe you should change your sources of information. The New Weekly would be an immediate improvement on The Australian for a start.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/07/the_australians_war_on_science_67.php

http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/media/DecMedia11072205.htm

And there is a hell of a lot of debate over the extent of effect of Svensmarks theory on global warming.

Déjà vu TrashcanMan

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12356#213729

[Deleted for abuse.]

Come on now, only the ratbag greens, the gravy train riders, a few pollies, [in public only], & journalists still believe in global warming.

Hell, even most of them are so embarrassed they are trying to change the name of their con, almost monthly.

It's about time they threw in a math & physics strand, to all journalism courses, to try to get at least a few with some common sense.

I suppose that would result in them all failing at uni. Still that would be better than them all failing in print.

...Does not matter a "tinkers damn" what Tony thinks ,does or says, he is in with a grin! Thats politics!

Hasbeen,

i like your idea of journo's possibly having a specialist major to go with their degrees, such as physics/maths, or politics or whatever. Then we might get some educated reporting on events and issues, instead of the lazy regurgitation of media releases that we are all so wonderfully misinformed by in this day and age.

Of course, if journalists did have a clue and were less controlled by the whims of Murdoch and co, you wouldn't be so massively ignorant about the real facts and science on climate change. That would really make my day. But go back to your murdoch press and internet blogs, they know better than the scientific community, surely.

'But go back to your murdoch press and internet blogs, they know better than the scientific community, surely.

The same consensus scientific community who predicted we were in for an ice age only about 40 years ago. How quickly the consensus changed. How quickly the doomsdayers who predicted the end of us due to the hole in the ozone layer only about 20 years ago. Keep up the faith TrashcanMan but don't forget to jump ships when the consensus changes. What would the ignorant public know.

There are several other problems with Tony Abbotts proposal which he has never responded to, probably because he can not:

1. Direct Action is unable to adequately cope with reducing Australian emissions to 5% below those of 2000. So how would it cope with a larger reduction were that called for?

2. Direct Action is to be funded by an impost on individual taxpayers whether directly - by a tax hike, or indirectly – by reducing expenditure in other areas. Either way taxpayers will be asked to cough-up the money needed to pick winners and encourage emitters to reduce their emissions.

3. Direct Action outcomes are dependent on voluntary action by emitters to reduce their emissions and they will only do so if it is in their commercial interests (not environmental interests) to do so. There is no compulsion or penalty for not doing so and no certainty of reduction targets being achieved.

4. Direct Action excludes generating a pool of funds for use in promoting development and application of new technology aimed at replacing energy generation from fossil fuels with clean energy sources. So it slows, even discourages that replacement, making reduction targets even harder to achieve.

5. Direct Action fails to provide investors with the encouragement and certainty needed for them to fund new technology and clean energy generation, making Australia’s transition slower than that of other nations and placing it at an economic disadvantage.

Given enough political spin (lies and distortion), Direct Action can be made to look superficially respectable. It might even get Tony into The Lodge but will it best serve the National Interest, protect the taxpayers hip-pocket or bring about meaningful reduction of greenhouse gas emissions? No, No and No.

A short word which I am told Mr Abbott is familiar with.

Runner,

There was never a consensus 40 years ago about an impending ice age. In fact there was more support in the sciences then for global warming than the ice age theory. It was quickly debunked by further research.

And there has been no change to the science on the ozone layer. The consensus is still as it was. However the threat to human health posed by it has been reduced thanks to effective action from the world's governments (based on advice from scientists, not priests).

It would seem that, if your statements represent public understanding of the facts, Joe Public is very poorly informed indeed.

The earth has not warmed since 1998.What's the hurry? Dr David Evans says the facts stopped supporting the theory of AGW in 1996 when even he was a believer.

Who finances The Australian Institute?

'There was never a consensus 40 years ago about an impending ice age'

Oh so the Science teachers at my school told me lies just like the young ones are being lied to today. I must of been dreaming also when Mr Flannery predicted that much of the Eastern States would not receive the rain it once did. As for the snow England was never going to get again of well! Manipulated models and idiotic prophecies seems to be the çonsensus 'science'instead of obvious observations. No wonder so many have to fiddle with the figures to fit the consensus. Your faith is strong TrashcanMan.

Abbott is out of step on everything. His agenda has got nothing to do with politics. Thanks to the hung parliament.
He is running a scare campaign, that is the extent of liberal politics.

'He is running a scare campaign, that is the extent of liberal politics.'

Funny how it is the gw alarmist who scream what dreadfull things will happen to us and the planet if we don't embrace this ridiculous tax who are peddling so much fear. The doomsdayers are those responsible for the most fear not those opposing PM Brown's agenda.

Why is Juliar proposing the biggest carbon tax in the world after promising not to? Why does the carbon tax modelling assume that our competitors also have a similar carbon tax?

Answer, because, Juliar is out of step on the carbon issue.

Tony Abbott's carbon plan has only one advantage over Julia Gillard's; it can be quietly dismantled later without attracting too much attention or destroying anyone's political future. For that reason alone we should all pretend to back it for all we're worth.

Absolutely right Jon J. Unravelling an ETS would be a nightmare.
The investment banks who would be "managing" the market with options and futures contracts would be in court suing any government which tried to remove an ETS.

Hey Trashcanman

Phil Watsons published and peer reviewed historical data shows what is actually happening. He details actual recorded sea levels.

Here is how the NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water attacked reports on Watsons research.

'Watson's research looked only at measurements of historical data. It specifically did not consider predicted linkages between sea level rise and global warming predicted by climate models.'
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/07/the_australians_war_on_science_67.php

You'll note they didn't say the data was wrong, all they said was their 'Modelling' re future levels wasn't in dispute. ie that past measurements and records have no bearing on their predictions of future rising sea levels.

Correction there was once dispute, in 1998, by climate change advocates about Henrik Svensmark's theory. Then they ignored it.

But now that the emperical evidence from the scientific experiments with the Hadron Collider lends support to the hypothesis ... well ... that somewhat changes things.

But if you want to deny science, that is totally up to you but the results of the scientific experiments does undermine the view the science is settled.

'In fact there was more support in the sciences then for global warming than the ice age theory. It was quickly debunked by further research.'

Which is exactly what the science is doing to global warming theory now. ie providing debunking.

There Bonmot goes off again. lol

oops. correction the second last sentence should read

Which is exactly what the science is doing to Anthropogenic Global Warming theory now. ie providing debunking.

A nice argument, Matt ... but I’m not convinced. Good policy isn’t necessarily the one with the most ‘friends’.

Sure, centre-right EU governments have adopted an ETS. They’re also dealing with major rorts in their sophisticated permit system; success is not a given. Being contiguous, it’s straightforward for EU members to buy nuclear-generated power from France, hydroelectricity from Norway, excess capacity wherever it’s available, etc. It’s a costly system ... and their capacity to pay for it is presently under a nasty financial cloud. If we had an Asian Union, maybe ... but we still couldn’t buy electricity from PNG, or sell it to NZ. It’s not a viable model for Australia.

Both Howard and Rudd backed an ETS ... until Copenhagen. The ‘inevitable’ international consensus never eventuated, putting paid to everybody's best laid plans. Without a stable, well-policed global permitting system, it’s simply not possible to establish a viable trading system. Gillard’s been deviously vague on this point: if the ‘market’ includes permits offered by Burma, Ivory Coast, Laos ... who vets them? China’s big enough to buy up so many permits that no one else could afford to compete ... if they wanted to. Australia’s not well situated to generate our own carbon credits; as Abbott correctly asserts, Gillard’s system commits Australia to sending billions overseas for other countries’ carbon offsets, in perpetuity. These aren’t problems Gillard’s ‘market-based system’ can leave until later -- they have potential to drive carbon permit prices sky-high, or make them worthless.

Australia depends on coal for energy. There are no other base-load options ... yet. If we seriously want to do this, we need a setup to support mega-billion-dollar investment in plants with a 40-year lifetime, stable ROI over that period, and a trustworthy market-based mechanism to create, sustain, and drive evolution of new technologies. I can’t see how this will happen without both Direct Action AND market-based approaches.

One thing I'm very sure of: viable solution(s) won’t self-assemble simply because we declare a ‘carbon market’ open for business. Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ isn’t attached to a magician.

You are indeed, as you claim, a nutter.

You were using watson's paper to claim sea level rises were slowing, although Watson's own department emphatically insists that is a complete misrepresenatipn of the report.

Then you provide evidence that "lends support" to the theory of Sun's effect on global warming (despite the fact the sun itself is cooling).

Sure, it lends support to the theory, but it does not debunk over 100 years of climate science theory and thousands of other pieces of evidence that point the other way. You say it "somewhat changes things". "somewhat" is a gross overstatement in the overall scheme of things.

When the overwhelming majority of the worlds relevant scientists are saying something, I think it is the responsibility of everyone to take seriously. The tide is not turning on this in scientific world, only in the make-believe world of mainstream "journalism" and the blogosphere.

Lazy and/or commercially driven journalism is undermining the quality of democracy in this country and I think globally. This could come at a great cost.

Donkeygod asserts….”Australia depends on coal for energy. There are no other base-load options ... yet”.

No longer true.

Solar-thermal with heat storage is a developed technology used in Spain and available in Australia. The 3 solar power stations now being built in Australia do not use the Spanish technology, though I understand that investment in this technology will be made as soon as the governments’ carbon tax becomes law.

More importantly, Australia is endowed with some of the hottest, most accessible hot rock deposits in the world. Over 30 companies are now engaged in heat mining these deposits with a view to using it to generate electricity. Geodynamics Ltd expects to be generating electricity from hot rocks within 6 months.

Both of these systems produce base load electricity – that is they are able to generate electricity 24/7. Both are in use in other parts of the world and both can generate electricity at a price which is competitive with the price charged for electricity generated from coal.

Oh dear trashcanman. Still the rude trashcanman.

Didn't you read what I wrote?

All you've done is misintrepret what I've said, either through poor comprehension or sheer deceiptfulness and then argued poorly and pointlessly your strawman arguments.

Sigh ... such is so typical of you global warmers.

Firstly I never said the science of climate was debunked, nor did I say the science supporting Athropogenic Global Warming was debunked.

I did on more than one occassion claim the science wasn't settled. Now what you should have done is argue that point. But you can't, can you?

Secondly I never wrote of the newspaper reports. I happen to agree the reports did not accurately show Watson's conclusions and distorted his study.

I have no interest in Watson's research nor conclusions. They relate to the current climate science modelling. That modelling is not new and not factual, it's guesswork.
I do however have great interest in and agree with Watson's compilation of the historical emperical data, which shows the rate of rise of sea levels is decelerating.

That is fact.

That has not been denied by Watson nor his manager.

And I might remind you, that manager like the reporter never wrote anything peer-reviewed. He also never presented literature debunking Watson's empherical historical data. He wrote a letter to the editor.

Your arguments also show you are ignorant of the scientific method and the peer review process.

You made a fool of yourself by presenting absolutely trashy strawman arguments, best consigned to your trashcan.

Nutter,

Of course the science isn't settled. No-one's claiming it is. It is, however, overwhelmingly pointing in one direction, to the point where it is completely foolish to wait around 100 years to "settle" the science with such obvious risk to human populations. You may not be claiming the science is debunked (my apologies), but you are way too willing to ignore and look for reasons to disbelieve the masses of evidence that are impelling scientists to call for immediate action on this matter. You want to vote for Abbott and his "I'll sit on the fence until I know what I have to say "no" to" politics, go ahead.

The science isn't settled on smoking and cancer, but governments aren't sitting back and waiting for it to be 100% bullet-proof before they take action.

And I do have plenty of understanding of the peer review process, I don't see how in any way my arguments show that I'm so ignorant. I am in no way questioning Watson's research. Your interpretation of it is flawed, however. CSIRO explains thus:

"The confusion around the Watson study appears to have arisen from the particular statistical curve that he fitted to his data. This quadratic curve does not represent the behaviour of the observations in the latter part of the record when sea levels have been rising particularly quickly, and in fact this curve shows a decelerating trend whereas the data itself show an accelerating trend"

The data itself therefore proves the opposite of your claim that this questions climate change theory, as the data is doing the opposite of what the statistical curve predicts it should be if there were no interference from non-natural influences.

It is you who make a fool of yourself by trying to belittle me as a last ditch attempt to draw attention away from your weak arguments.

"The science isn't settled on smoking and cancer, but governments aren't sitting back and waiting for it to be 100% bullet-proof before they take action."

What rubbish .. what action are they taking, putting up taxes to increase revenue .. you call that action ?

If there was a proven link, then smoking would be BANNED!

That's action. The government does bugger all apart from whining about smoking, because it brings revenue.

A carbon big new tax will bring revenue, so regardless of the science being for or against, if they can bring in a great big new tax with any semblance of justification they will .. it has zero to do with the planet's climate.

See the government wants to embed the great big new tax in a way it cannot be undone, so it keeps on giving, and I expect, like the Victorian Desal plant .. some good old mates get to make a few $ out of it. Let's see if the trade unions invest superannuation funds into carbon ventures ..

I don’t want to disagree with Agnostic — solar thermal for power generation look like a good option (geothermal, no: not enough, and in the wrong places). Solar thermal tech isn’t ready yet, but we could change that. Question is: will that option thrive automatically if we adopt Gillard’s carbon tax? Ultimately, the ‘market’ will certainly prevail -- lord knows we don’t want the energy equivalent of Telecom or the NBN powering out homes and factories! But, if we’re to develop solar thermal to levels which can rival and eventually replace coal for power generation nationally, I think we need Direct Action as well.

Without getting too technical, we'll need High Temperature Solar Thermal, i.e., operating temperatures in the 800-1000 degree C range. That’s optimal for several reasons (higher efficiency is one, lower water consumption is another). Spain has done good work in the area, but the tech is not so well developed that it’s ready to power a whole nation.

We’ll need to manufacture several hundred square kilometres of sophisticated reflectors. Expertise in handling testy molten salts. The plumbing isn’t exactly straightforward. An efficient distribution system needs to be designed and built (some weeks ago, OLO gave us a useful article on HVDC -- it’ll be a consideration). How do we ensure competition and avoid a monopoly? Nobody’s ready to manufacture the hardware on scale we need -- shall we grow our own suppliers? Export? Lots of R&D needed.

The cost to convert to solar thermal from coal will make the NBN look cheap as chips. Investors will need to see stable ROI for half a century before they ante up. An international market for carbon permits might help, but only on the periphery. If we’re serious about this, we need Direct Action on multiple fronts. State and national governments needn’t provide funding, but they WILL need to create certainty: on tax, pricing, market access, regulation ... the lot.

Will a Carbon Tax make this happen? No. Only Direct Action by government can create and sustain an environment supportive of such a massive and long-term goal. Wouldn’t you say?

Trashcanman, you're making outrageous claims.

1. 'Of course the science isn't settled. No-one's claiming it is.'

The Australian Federal Government Green Labor Coalition, their advisers and acolytes position is the exact reverse of this.
Perhaps you might try advise them if you feel differently.



2. 'The science isn't settled on smoking and cancer.'


'Smoking statistics - Smoking and cancer

More than half a century ago, the causal link between lung cancer and tobacco smoking was established. ... Today, tobacco consumption is recognised as the UK’s single greatest cause of preventable illness and early death ...

... the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) states that tobacco smoking can also cause cancers of the following sites: upper aero-digestive tract (oral cavity, nasal cavity, nasal sinuses, pharynx, larynx and oesophagus), pancreas, stomach, liver, bladder, kidney, cervix, bowel, ovary (mucinous) and myeloid leukaemia.'

http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/types/lung/smoking/

Perhaps you'd like to enlighten the WHO of your evidence.

3. 'Watsons data shows an accerlating trend.'

Really! Where? Where did you dig up your quote?

To help you show me where your claim can be proven, here's a complete copy of Watson's research.

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/1125_journal1.pdf

You might read the Conclusions section, where Watson says

'These recent post-1990s short-term accelerations (Which you reference) fit within the overall longer term trend of deceleration evident in these long Australasian ocean water level record'.

ie similar accelerations have occurred before in the 100 year analysis and they don't negate the overall decelerating trend... as you and your 'source' claim.

And hey there is apparently numerous other sources, quoted by Watson, that show the same deceleration. Read them!

'I don't see how in any way my arguments show that I'm so ignorant.' (of the peer-review process and the scientific method ... presumably?).

Well one or two simple statements should clarify this.

Neither the scientific method nor the peer-review process rely on popularity nor modelling for their legitimacy. Both rely on analysis of established data.

You grizzling about me belittling you is another of your strawman arguments. It's your inability to discuss reasonably the topics raised that cause belittling of yourself.