Hi Ian, great to have you on OLO.

As you are about to find out, there are many warmers here who are hanging on by their fingernails and are setting our teeth on edge as they slide them down the blackboard.

There seems to be an inversely proportional risk for the warmers, the higher your public profile the less your opportunities to jump ship. Those not in the public domain can quietly abandon their warmer faith however, for those in academia, sciences, media and government, their best options seem to be a “bob each way bet” or an “exit plan”. The “please god let me be right” option is rapidly evaporating.

Your article starkly highlights the dilemma faced by those who have backed “forecasts by scientists” rather than “scientific forecasts”. What we need to hear much more of is not the how and what we got ourselves into, but more about the consequences of this collapsing phenomenon internationally.

Neither our media nor our politicians will tell us about the unfolding collapse of all things CO2. Sure, for those of us interested we can see that energy costs in Denmark and Germany are the highest; we know that Germany’s primary energy fuel is now brown coal, up by 3.2%, we know Denmark exports its wind generated electricity at low or no cost and uses German coal generated electricity for peak demand and backup, we know that Spain is carrying a 27Bn Euro energy debt, we know that Germany is legislating the removal of emission caps for coal power stations, we know that seventeen renewable energy companies have now collapsed with the further twelve on the brink, that the carbon trading market has collapsed, that Germany is facing CO2 based de-industrialization, that each “Green Job” costs 2.2 real jobs, and that most of the so called benefits we are force fed are not just spin, they are self evident lies.

What the public needs now is exposure to the grief and damage this has done to the nations that have already tried this destructive path.

Many thanks, more please

Professor Plimer, this article is a shocker.

You are way off on the wrong track here, for these reasons:

1. You cannot assert that there is no connection between CO2 and climate change or that AGW is not real. In doing this, you are just as much at fault as those you are criticising. We don’t know!

2. But we do know that it would be a damn good idea to err on the side of caution, when we see the atmospheric CO2 content going steadily upwards at the same time as we witness glaciers and polar icecaps melting.

3. It should be deemed to be a damn good move for our government to strive to do something about it, in line with international opinion and efforts.

4. There are very good reasons for striving to pull back on our addiction to oil and fossil fuels overall, quite apart from climate change. Peak oil is a much more important reason for implementing incentives to develop alternative energy sources.

5. The carbon tax really is only a token effort. We need a much stronger policy framework.

6. Yes it will add costs to business and households, in an uneven manner. But it is just one factor (and for most, a very small factor) in amongst many that are changing in cost, up and down, all of which is constantly changing household and business budget balances. But if it engenders some level of change towards are greener energy regime and makes us a little less addicted to fossil fuels, then it’s got to have a net positive effect.

7. It really is a crying shame that some esteemed professorial people such as yourself have joined the vested-interest lobby and poo-pooed the carbon tax, when you really should be espousing it or at least suggesting alternatives to achieving the same desired outcomes.

continued

I implore you to set climate change aside and think about peak oil and the development of a sustainable society.

If you do this, you will see that policies are badly needed to get us to move away from oil in the first instance and all fossil fuels in the somewhat longer term.

That doesn't mean abandoning oil, it just means changing the balance somewhat so that we are so totally addicted to it for out energy requirements.

Whether a carbon tax is the right way to do this, I don't know, but I do know that we need a decisive government that will implement a strong policy regime... and we need it urgently!

Yair, as soon as you become the slightest bit slack about thorough proof-reading, you are going to have pissy little errors creeping into your posts. It’s unavoidable.

So to reiterate a very important point from my last post:

That doesn't mean abandoning oil, it just means changing the balance somewhat so that we are NOT so totally addicted to it for ouR energy requirements.

the carbon tax was so important that Gillard advised Rudd to postpone it for years. THe tax is about doing a sleazy deal to appease the Greens. Everyone except the naive and deceitful know its got nothing to do with climate change. Unfortunately industry, councils and mums and dads are going to pay for this nonsense while the Government hands back money to burn more emissions in order to try and win a few votes back for after loing many for their deceit.

The carbon tax will add between 1 & 2 cents / KWH to the power bill depending on which state you live in. It was a good idea from the coalition to have it separated on the bill.
This is hardly breathtaking, price rise.
Some want to do nothing, and some want to er; on the side of caution, when it comes to climate change.
The drop off of employment and business, can be blamed on a host of reasons, online shopping being just one.
Mr Abbott has told everyone the sky is going to fall in on the 1-7-2012.
His prophesies may not happen. It is just a prediction.
What is worse is when educated people believe such predictions.
The need to lower our dependance on fossil fuels is now, or do we wait until we are like Europe, before we even begin to think about it.
Abbott has one agenda, and that is to gain power, at any cost.
As yet his attempts have been futile, and i say just as well for AU.
The introduction of the great big carbon tax, will fall into a composted heap of crap.

I wonder who 579 thinks pays for Council Rates, electricity used by Government Departments, schools, shopping centres etc etc. I wonder who 579 thinks is going to pay for the increase in food albeit modest and every other item in the supermarket. I wonder who 579 thinks is going to pay for small business increases in power bills which will be quite substancial (around 8%) Oh well some people are to blinded by their alliengances to think with any rational. And all this just so the emissions can be released overseas with no penalty.

There is some substantial evidence for one aspect of the climate debate. The BOM sea level measurement data from around the Australian coast is readily accessible and shows that over the last twenty years the average rate of sea level rise on the east coast between Portland Victoria and North Queensland is 3.5mm per annum. The west coast is about twice that rate but I am not aware of an explanation for the difference.

How much of the rise is due to the melting of land ice mass and how much to lowered water tables due to irrigation (any water extracted from aquifers ends up in the ocean eventually) is never discussed but none of it appears due to sea temperature change.

The climate researchers now talk of ocean heat content rather than temperature change (0.0007 degrees per annum is unimpressive compared to a massive number of Joules) but the figures I have seen, and used for calculations, indicate that at the present rate at which the ocean heat content is increasing the oceans will be one degree warmer fourteen centuries hence. That seems about right considering that there is about 290 times as much ocean water as there is atmosphere.

<<the carbon tax was so important that Gillard advised Rudd to postpone it for years.>>

Great point Runner. It's funny how many of the laborites now screaming URGENT, URGENT, URGENT were prepared to put it off till later!

Even if climate change is not real ocean acidification is.
The ocean produces two thirds of our oxygen and is described as the lungs of the planet. In some places the ocean has recorded a 2C temperature increase. We do see ice and glacier melts and a navigable north west passage during the northern hemisphere's summer.
We need to reduce our Co2 emission, if only to reverse ocean acidification! I don't expect my house to burn down any time soon, but won't cancel the insurance, while I draw breathe.
I think we could approach a carbon tax from a very different perspective, which would ensure everybody paid for their own carbon footprint, small or large. This could be done if we simply completely jettisoned the current convoluted tax system in its entirety, and replaced all that with a single stand alone expenditure tax.
The single tax could be set at around 4.5%, with a 0.3 component added as the price we pay for our own carbon emission, which is most accurately reflected in our own consumption/expenditure patterns.
The fact we would make significant savings through no longer having to fork over current taxes, plus their compliance costs, would more than offset any carbon tax component.
We could use the need to impose a price on carbon as the logical and vastly overdue premise, to completely reform, simplify, and rationalise the way we pay tax.
The fact that an expenditure tax is entirely unavoidable, will not please the biggest avoiders/minimisers. Pseudo religions and or, a few international corporations,with budgets larger than many sovereign nations?
Nor will it please the 20,000 strong ATO, or a similar number of equally unproductive tax practitioners.
But, the simultaneous creation of a brand new and franchised poeples' bank, would create vastly more productive career pathways and or wealth creation opportunities, for all those made redundant by the proposed two tiered reform package. What else should we do with the large new surpluses we would create, other than to reinvest them in our own people and their better ideas. Carbon tax? What carbon tax? Rhrosty.

Ludwig, the imperative you raise as always, is that we are running out of “things”, thus you are able to scare us all with peak oil, peak population, peak food production, peak sea levels, peak polar bears and peak polar ice.

Then you dive straight into your favorite scientific assertions which is, “it’s CAGW”

Your problem remains that after 20 years plus and all the pseudo-science from public pseudo-scientists you are left with what you started out with, RETORIC.

After that you have to fall back on the “Cult Rhetoric Hand Book”, May I point out just a few?

Your cult responses; 1. through 7.

1.
13. Attack Independent Thought - Critical thinking is discouraged as prideful and sinful, blind acceptance encouraged.
(Yes, the skeptics are attacked as hard and as often as possible by the believers)

2.
8. Crisis Creation - They employ tactics designed to create or deepen confusion, fear, guilt or doubt.
(The created and overstated impending doom of Peak everything)

3.
9. All The Answers - Provide simple answers to the confusion they, themselves, create. Support these answers with material produced or "approved" by the group.
(Yes, it’s all so simple, cut carbon emissions and switch to renewables and just look at “our” supporting international opinions and efforts). Just what are these Ludwig?

4.
2. The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, the group and/or the leadership has a special mission to save humanity.
(Yes, Saving the Planet)

5.
33. No alternative belief systems viewed as legitimate, good, or useful.
(Yes, the single orthodoxy reigns supreme)

6.
12. Guilt and Fear - Group dwells on members' "sinful nature"
(Yes, you are evil and destructive polluters who must seek absolution)

7.
16. Motive Questioning- When sound evidence against the group is presented, members are taught to question the motivation of the presenter.
(Yes, shoot the messenger and accuse them of being in the pay of “Big Oil”)

Your predictability is directly proportional to your gullibility.

BOTH SIDES OF POLITICS WILL GIVE US A CARBON TAX.

I'll enlarge on what runner said about the Greens.

The Greens threatened Labor that unless Labor pushed through climate change legislation Labor would be out of office.

It has to be said the Coalition (Turnbull and Abbott) floated a climate change policy in an attempt to entice the Greens into helping them form Government.

While the Greens have the balance of power climate change laws (amounting to a carbon tax) will be implemented by both sides of politics.

Pete

Ian Plimer is one of the very few who had to courage and integrity to call this idea into question and the scientific credentials to support his argument. He needs to be congratulated for his stance which was essentially for the retention of dispassionate, scientific logic in the global warming debate; nothing more, nothing less.

Despite this, he was and continues to be harangued and pilloried by journalists, particularly from the ABC, whose knowledge of science, is by comparison is virtually zero. Their sheer gall, to argue with a scientist about things about which they knew nothing, was brought on by a nothing more than a sense of moral superiority and religious fervour and little else.

Remember, Plimer is the man who took creationists to task on scientific grounds long before others. The Left subsequently did too, but only as a means to attack religion.

The whole Carbon fantasy is slowly falling apart in front of our eyes just as Ian Plimer said it would.

Foyle - it is not surprising you are puzzled by BoM's results on sea level increases, so are the scientists. But its no matter.. If you look at the University of Colorado site which collates satellite measurements,
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
The rate of change measured there is about 3.1mm a year over nearly 20 years with no change of any kind. If that increase is maintained for a century it works out to an increase of a bit under third of a metre or about a foot in the old Imperial scale for the century. In other words nothing is happening. However, as its only for 20 years it is not considered reliable enough.. sea level increases are known to vary between decades..

Rhosty
"Even if climate change is not real ocean acidification is".
Sorry, no, it isn't.. or at least the situation is proving far more complicated than anyone first imagined.. Ocean temperatues have an effect on CO2 levels (warmer water holds less CO2), but this is too complicated for a post..
However, suppose for a moment that this effect is happening. Would this have an effect on sea life? As scientists have been forced to conceed, the change itself isn't important .. the crucial point is the rate of change. They have been arguing that it will change too fast for sea creatures to adapt, but to date it just hasn't been changing that fast..

Spindoc, thanks for the comprehensive response…I think! ( :>|

Don’t know whether to respond in a serious manner or to just say; have a nice day!

D’Oh alright, I’ll proffer a serious response…

<< …the imperative you raise as always, is that we are running out of “things… >>

Oh…. and you would assert that we are not running out of oil, eh?

It is not so much that we are running out of it, it is the changing economics. It is getting harder to obtain and consequently more expensive.

Then of course there is the population factor and the China/India factor, which means that the demand is still very rapidly increasing, while the supply rate is constant or decreasing.

And there is the possibility that when oil supplies become a bit stressed, the big and powerful nations will bully the supplier countries into reducing or cutting out supplies to the smaller nations.

As I have said numerous times, the rising price of oil will hit us very hard indeed long before any actual shortages of supply, in all probability.

<< Your cult responses... >>

Can’t you see that the use of silly terms like ‘cult’ just undermines your credibility immediately?

Now, all this stuff that you have listed as coming from your imaginary Cult Rhetoric Hand Book is just bizarre.

Rhetoric is right! Talk about spinning off on some completely useless tangent!

So, let’s get back on track. What do you suggest we do? Just keep up rapid population growth, keep up our addiction to oil, make no efforts to develop renewable energy sources, and just deal with the consequences when they hit us like a ton of bricks, with no forward planning?

I can’t respond now until tomorrow morning as this is my fourth post on this thread today.

The worlds biggest Carbon Tax is 36 days away. Everybody will be bankrupt. How are we going to pay.
What about the carbon tax on beer, and haircuts.
1.5 c / kwh average, any normal house will use around 12 / day, now that is 18 c / day $ 65/ yr.
You are being compensated to the eyeballs.
Now that is not bad to clean the place up.

Ludwig, if oil & coal become too expensive for us, we will have to change our usage. There is no reason for the ratbag fringe to force us to change before we reach this point. We have adequate hydrocarbon reserves for our needs into the medium, [hundreds of years], future.

Rhrosty, quite obviously this greeny change of tack, to try to drum up another scare campaign, based on ocean acidification, is a de facto recognition of the fact that Global Warming has stopped, & is likely to reverse. See the recently released Russian findings.

If you want to claim ocean heating, please state which Argo buoys show this.

The attempted change from global warming to climate change, & the attempt to climate disruption is all rather funny. Anyone with half a brain can see your retreat from the earlier garbage, as it becomes obvious that the whole thing is just another blind alley of science.

It is actually fun watching you trapped warmests, twist & turn as you try to fight your way out of the dead end you've got yourselves into.

It must be dreadful to see the bottom of the pot of gold, & realise the jigs up.

I'll watch with interest to see what you come up with, when you realise this ocean acidification rort won't cut the mustard either.

Ludwig, thanks for your response. I’ll respond on the serious basis you intended.

The issue of finite resources is well encapsulated in Agenda 21. The principle being that for Sustainable Development to carry any weight, two pre-conditions are required.

The first principle is that those who “have” should give to those who “do not”.

UN Environment Program (UNEP) produced the report called Our Common Future:

<< “Sustainable global development requires that those who are more affluent adopt life-styles within the planet’s ecological means- in their use of energy, for example. Further, rapidly growing populations can increase the pressure on resources and slow any rise in living standards; thus the sustainable development can only be pursued if population size and growth are in harmony with the changing productive potential of the ecosystem”>>

So sustainable Development is defined as “a systematic approach to achieving human development in a way that sustains planetary resources, based on the recognition that human consumption is occurring at a rate that is beyond Earth's capacity to support it. Population growth and the developmental pressures spawned by an unequal distribution of wealth are two major driving forces that are altering the planet in ways that threaten the long-term health of humans and other species on the planet”.

So far so good however, I’m sure you can see that unless someone actually defines (or fabricates) the “limits” of available resources, this whole concept collapses in a heap because there is absolutely no traction for the SD case if you cannot show what the limits are. Since we cannot show these (unless you know different) we have to “pretend” by alluding to “Peak Something’s” as you do.

Most skeptics will not respond to the “Peak whatever” syndrome because the warmers invented it, therefore it is up to you to justify it, your call, which should be interesting.

Lastly, the 34 analogous attributes of Cult Indoctrination (Self Indoctrination of CAGW) are a precise match to CAGW. Your role in this is just your compliance with these attributes because you have no choice.

Cont’d

Cont’d

One of the greatest challenges the warmers face is that increasingly they are seen to be just a part of the Sustainable Development mantra. This is due to the increased scrutiny to which the whole phenomenon is being exposed. The more the skeptics learn and demonstrate, the more you are seen to be the “useful idiots” of the movement.

Let me demonstrate my point.

Let’s be absolutely clear: this “sustainable development” is not the wholesome, cozily innocuous thing a succession of glossy magazine life style articles have persuaded us it is. It is born of the pessimistic Weltanschauung (“worldview”) the Club of Rome, UNEP and Agenda 21 where we humans are described as “parasites”, a “disease” and “swarming masses”.

Sustainable Development depends entirely upon Steady State Economics, Degrowth and Managed Recession. All of which I might add are totally dependent upon the definition, upper limits and rationing of all the physical resources upon which humans depend for growth and development, “Peak anything and everything”.

You and people like you, are convinced that the game is all about CAGW. When in fact according to those who created it and drive it;
Statement from IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer before Cancun :
“… we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore...”

So you and the warmers are left to cuddle the empty shell of an ideology that has been sold to you by greater intellects. The skeptics on the other hand have the intelligence to see it for what it really is; a monumental political scam.

So you end up just like the Gordon Tallis “eunuch at the orgy” who was always first with the gossip, but being forced to realize that he doesn’t really know what’s going on, his knowledge is not real and that far from being the centre of things, he is forever on the margin.

Hi Foyle, I was having a bit of trouble easily finding the dataset on the BOM website, but I found this instead http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/sea-level-rises-are-slowing-tidal-gauge-records-show/story-fn59niix-1226099350056 which suggests sea level increases of around 1.5 mm p.a.

You'll find that the difference between the east and west coasts is because the continent is tipping to the north-west, which means it is rising in the south-east. You'll also find that the increase in volume of the oceans due to heat is the largest contributor to ocean height as there is not much water melting off glaciers that doesn't get precipitated back again. I saw reference to ground water the other day, but suspect that is a furphy. I'm not sure that anyone really knows how much ground water is being used and not replenished. Our hydrological models of that part of the cycle aren't too complete at the moment.

Air temperature is driven by sea temperature, so if the sea is storing energy but not getting appreciably hotter, then the global warming catastrophists have a problem as they have to explain why the air temperature was increasing up until 1998.

Professor Plimer, could you please clarify your statement -

"... when scientific fraud by those claiming to be climate scientists was repeatedly exposed..."

Who are the people you imply have falsely claimed to be climate scientists?

What scientific fraud did they commit?

@Elaine McKewon,

<<What scientific fraud did they commit?>>

Far be it for me to talk on behalf of Professor Pilmer, but perhaps he is referring to things like this:

Here are the predictions/conclusions:

1) “Tropical storm and hurricane frequencies vary considerably from year to year, but evidence suggests substantial increases in intensity and duration since the 1970s”.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-3-3.html

2) Al Gore states in his book and movie – An Inconvenient Truth – “major storms (hurricanes) spinning in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans since the 1970s have increased in duration and intensity by about 50 percent.”

And here is what is actually happening:

"More trouble looms for the IPCC. The body may need to revise statements made in its Fourth Assessment Report on hurricanes and global warming. A statistical analysis of the raw data shows that the claims that global hurricane activity has increased cannot be supported."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/15/hatton_on_hurricanes/

"Equally clear is that those who continue to talk in certain terms of a future blighted by more severe tornadoes as a result of climate change are failing to heed all the available evidence"
[The Truth About Twisters --NewScientist 5 May 2012]

Ian Plimer is a very welcome voice to this debate.Just the other day I was reading Dr Rima Laidbow's rendition of Agenda 21 put out by the UD in 1992.They said then that logic would be determined by consensus.This is exactly what we have now.Climate science was and is being determined by consensus.2+2 does not = 4 anymore.By consensus it can equal 5.

<< Ludwig, if oil & coal become too expensive for us, we will have to change our usage. There is no reason for the ratbag fringe to force us to change before we reach this point >>

Hasbeen, you have beautifully encapsulated the nub of the issue here. Those on your side of this debate hold the ‘she’ll-be-right-mate’ mantra as sacred while those on my side believe that forward planning is essential.

I couldn’t disagree more strongly with your basic premise.

Spinny, in your double post on sustainable development, you didn’t…

1. Address my questions at all

2. Add anything useful to our debate whatsoever!

What is the point of your posts? Surely you are not just completely denouncing the principle of sustainability and the desire to achieve sustainable societies, are you??

I’ll reiterate my questions in an attempt to get us back on track:

What do you suggest we do? Just keep up rapid population growth, keep up our addiction to oil, make no efforts to develop renewable energy sources, and just deal with the consequences when they hit us like a ton of bricks, with no forward planning?

579, yes the world’s biggest carbon tax is 35 days away. World’s biggest! Wow.

And yet it is a piffling token effort, compromised by compensation and hated by most people. It should be the first little step towards a much greener style of politics and the development of a sustainable society. But it appears as though it is as far as we are going to go in that direction.

Well, I think spindoc, Hasbeen and the like are going to get their wish; no meaningful forward planning and only a mad highly disorganised very haphazard and unfair rush to adapt when the sh!t h!ts the f@n, where the richest and the most aggressive and ruthless people will win the day, and the vast majority of us will suffer enormously.

Hi Ludwig, a crucial marketing tool is the “educated customer”. We have all met one over dinner. He might have just bought a new BMW 325i AMG. He can bore you stupid with all aspects of the non-linear torque curve and the value of the fluidic final drive in reducing transmission losses. In such circumstances we know not to mention the Mercedes 350 CLK AMG.

He will not mention the Mercedes, nor will he ever visit their web site because he is “self indoctrinated”. He sees the main game as his new car, but for the salesman the real game is his sales bonus!

Imagine you are a fish. You discuss with your mates the relative technical and nutritional values of the different baits on offer and the debate becomes intense as your beliefs are tested and reinforced by this discovery process. All this effort fails to recognize that the person with the fishing rod is the main game, because he has dinner in his mind.

I can’t put your predicament any other way; you’ve been had by people much smarter than you.

The IPCC themselves now tell you the main game is international wealth redistribution not CO2; they tell you quite clearly that you must “free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy”.

I’m not asking you to believe me but you do need to go back to those who “sold” you the product. You need to ask yourself just how you became an “educated customer” of CAGW? How on earth did one of the most complicated geo-science topics come to be debated in the public domain by people without any qualifications on the topic? Just well intentioned people making themselves into pseudo-scientists trading political pseudo science.

I have never seen the “algorithms for the wing lift coefficients” for the A380 Airbus published for comment on the internet and nor would I ask you to fly on a plane built on “consensus”.

Why must those of us who saw right through this phenomenon, be abused because you and many more like you didn’t

There are so many people now who have their monetary umbilical cords connected to this flawed science,they will not relent and admit the truth because their livelihoods depend upon it.

Labor needs the carbon tax because of their socialist bent and wasteful spending.The CO2 tax is better than the GST because no one can escape it.Labor are treacherous liars who have betrayed their own followers.

I love this quote concerning some of Plimer's claims, by Michael Ashley:

"It is hard to understate the depth of scientific ignorance that the inclusion of this information demonstrates. It is comparable to a biologist claiming that plants obtain energy from magnetism rather than photosynthesis."

Also, after claiming consistently that CO2 has little effect on climate, Plimer claims that undersea volcanoes produce more CO2 than human activity, and that these gases are 'vastly under-represented in climate models'.
(?)
Actual climate scientists (as compared to 'virtual' climate scientists like Plimer) have pointed out that since the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are higher than levels of the dissolved gas in the oceans, this hypothesis is simply not credible.
And as for “snouts in the trough”, is Plimer suggesting that monetary considerations can unduly influence scientific objectivity?
Such as perhaps being a director in a number of mining companies, including coal miners?

Hi Grim,

FYI

"No one knows exactly how much Earth's climate will warm due to carbon emissions, but a new study suggests scientists' best predictions about global warming might be incorrect. The study, which appears in Nature Geoscience, found that climate models explain only about half of the heating that occurred during a well-documented period of rapid global warming in Earth's ancient past...'In a nutshell, theoretical models cannot explain what we observe in the geological record,'said oceanographer Gerald Dickens, a co-author of the study and professor of Earth science at Rice University. 'There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models.'"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090714124956.htm

Hi Ludwig, sorry, I thought I’d addressed your specific questions although I did frame them as part of your problem in an earlier post. I’ll restate my case.

<< What do you suggest we do? Just keep up rapid population growth, keep up our addiction to oil, make no efforts to develop renewable energy sources, and just deal with the consequences when they hit us like a ton of bricks, with no forward planning? >>

I think these are the questions you meant?

These are all questions related to an “assumption close”, which is “that CAGW is happening” so here are your options and your sins against Gaia.

In fact, your issues of population, addiction to oil, failure to go renewables and of course the implied threat of “just deal with the consequences when they hit us like a ton of bricks” are just another slant on the tired Peak anything mantra. I’ve already made the case as to where these fit in the CAGW phenomenon.

Ludwig, these are the very same fabrications I drew your attention to as part of the Peak, this, Peak that and Peak everything. These are the fabrications without which the UN IPCC’s “imperative to act” flounders.

I’ll say again.

Sustainable Development = Degrowth + Managed Recession + Steady State Economy + Rationing (of all physical resources based upon artificial limits or PEAKS)
See UNEP - Agenda 21.

What is it about references to artificial resource peaks or limits do you not understand?

So when you ask what would I suggest we do? My answer is bugger all. These are your fabrications, you deal with them. Skeptics do not need excuses because we do not have the problem of justifying anything, we are the skeptics, get it?

As I said earlier, most of the warmers can quietly get on with something else but those with high public profiles have left it far too late to jump ship, lucky you.

Alternatively you can keep playing pseudo-science, hurling your favorite pseudo-scientific links at the opposition and generally trying to get that poor dead cat to bounce

G'day SP...
thanks for an interesting link; although I note it's a little dated.
Mate, I consider myself a genuine sceptic; not a denialist, like Plimer or our local Spindoc, and not a 'warmist'. In my experience, predicting the weather has always been dodgy... Although I admit, they are getting better.
Bottom line: I think the chances of my house burning down are vanishingly small... but I still carry insurance.
May I once again state my position. Oil has proven to be the 'miracle resource' of the 20th and 21st centuries. We make everything from surfboards and safety helmets to fertlisers, panty hose, toilet seats and cortizone.
What's the absolute dumbest thing we could do with such a valuable resource?
Well, we could always burn it...
We are literally in the position of some some smartarse proving how rich he is by lighting Cuban cigars with $20. bills.
That might be the image that you want your grandchildren to remember you by, but it sure ain't mine.

This must be attack Ludwig day, so just to show it's not personal, I'll add Grim in mine.

Ludwig please get off the peak oil rubbish. We can use coal, & gas for all those "other" applications of oil, if we actually needed to, & we now have about 400 years supply of them, without trying too hard. Yes we should be controlling population growth, but not for any lack of energy.

Back when I was in the plastics raw materials industry, we were getting quite worried about the advances in using cellulose to produce a material very similar to our ABS. The technology to do this is sitting in the wings, ready to step in to mass markets if our existing plastics become too expensive.

All we need is a long chain molecule, in which we can control the cross linking, & we have our synthetics, & cellulose will do nicely.

Then our fuel. Sure coal will do nicely, as will the hundreds of years of gas, but there is another back up being explored. A US/Japan consortium has recently started proving a method of harvesting some of the massive reserve of methane clathrate. They are only working in just one deep trench off Japan, which alone could supply all our energy requirements for a century at least.

So mate stay with your main point, or you will sound like one of these global warmers, who are trying another con with ocean acidification, now their first fraud attempt is collapsing.

Hi Grim,

I probably stand close to you with regard to management of resources and pollution (and conservation of the natural environment for that matter ).
But little progress on those fronts is likely to come from/through the IPCC.

<<Bottom line: I think the chances of my house burning down are vanishingly small... but I still carry insurance.>>
However, I would NOT characterize the CARBON TAX as "insurance"!
It might be better characterized as charging your kids for food and board but allowing the neighborhood kids to eat free.

Cheers

Here’s a deal for anyone on this blog. I’ll make some statements about the CAGW phenomenon and you all get the chance to take me down.

Yep, you get to gang up on me, hit me with your best shots and publicly humiliate me.

A few basic rules outside the normal blog rules.

1. No science
Two reasons, one, it is the ownership and application of the two main scientific perspectives that are vexatious and two, most of us are not scientists and cannot therefore claim science as a valid currency.

2. No IPCC rhetoric.
If cases are made based upon the IPCC’s “rhetoric engine’, it is because you have no response of your own. I have to identify it specifically and post it as evidence of rebuttal along with the equivalent “Cult Indoctrination” attribute, In which case I win, If not you win.

3. If you do not participate you lose by default.

If you cannot demonstrate the capacity for original thoughts rather than adopting those of someone else you cannot claim a win based on borrowing someone else’s opinion.

(Example, This from Grim Saturday, 26 May 2012 10:57:55 AM “I love this quote concerning some of Plimer's claims, by Michael Ashley:”
Grim if you want some cred. for your intellectual capacity, take it up directly with Ian Plimer, don’t abuse professional scientists by proxy through the borrowed opinion of Michael Ashley, this is utterly gutless and brainless).

My assertions for your rebuttal are:

• The only official orthodoxy in the world is CO2 based CAGW.
• The UN has exclusive authority and governance.
• The application of only the science that supports the UN’s single orthodoxy is permitted.

The main players in this public alarm phenomenon are; political sponsors, advocacy scientists, progressive media, sociological academics (Arts and Humanities), industrial opportunists, NGO advocates and public advocates.

Responses may need to be grouped due to posting limits but it should be manageable.

So, any takers?

Alright spindoc,

1. No science
No science? Ok, you may think that this gets around the 'you're not a climate scientist' cliche that gets bandied around, but it also gets around the fact that the scientists themselves have come to the conclusion that AGW exists by looking at the data.

2. No IPCC rhetoric.
Of course the communication of scientific conclusions are 'rhetoric' in your world. If one comes to the same conclusions as the IPCC, you can be disqualified from this 'debate'.

3. If you do not participate you lose by default.

If you have a life, you lose. That almost guarantees 'victory' doesn't it?

What you have done here (you and pretty much everyone who doesn't like the 'science') is assumed how policy based on science is determined. You assume that the top down approach of policy---->science (policy/government leading) is what is happening and that all the gravy train riders fall into line behind. Take out the science because it is only used to support the party line.

Except that policy is made in a variety of ways, many in dialogue with science and scientists. The conclusions may seem like 'orthodoxy' to you because it is what the data is telling us, and the great majority of scientists agree. You can argue the science of course, but it does tend to make one look a bit of an idiot, especially when one quotes some of the unsupported things people like Plimer say. Maybe this is why you don't want it in the dialogue.

What scientists do not agree upon, is the policy response. That is understandable, as it isn't science. So, no discussing science, which means that we are left discussing policy. That is s discussion that I decline to enter, as I find that exceedingly dull and would not add anything that hasn't already been discussed.

Therefore, you 'win' by rule 3.

Well done you.

Professor Plimer is a Geologist, who'es actual knowledge of climate science could probably be written on the back of a postage stamp using a crowbar for a pen?
As a geologist, he and his ilk earn most of their income from the fossil fuel/mining industry? His so-called scientific OPINION is probably priceless, but particularly to the 4+trillion dollar a year fossil fuel industry, in which he and his ilk have a profound vested interest.
His opinion is therefore, extremely likely to be highly biased?
Thus far, most of the ice melt is that of floating ice. As every one knows, when floating ice melts the water levels can actually drop; given water is actually denser than ice!
Ice reflects radiant heat, water conversely absorbs it!
The ice is melting far more rapidly than that predicted in any of the models and when all the ice melts, the ocean could be as much as 70 metres higher.
Yes life can adapt up to a point. But the time required for that adaptation is millions of years, not hundreds or a few dozen decades.
An interesting science based experiment places a frog in cold water, which is very slowly brought to the boil. At no stage does the warm and comfortable frog jump to save its life; and its goose is usually pretty well cooked before it reacts. It's hard to observe the actual, [if routinely denied,] changes taking place, if the head is buried in the sand or somewhere else more fundamental.
Professor Plimer would arguably be well advised to return to his core knowledge discipline, if only to discern the true nature of the rocks in his head?
I watched The Professor at one of his now legendary Lectures.
His frequent reliance on extremely complicated mathematical models, seemed to confuse rather than enlighten the lay person/journalistic audience?
I was impressed by one interesting feature,inasmuch, at no time during the entire dissertation, did his bug eyed head, actually leave his shoulders, and would have been very funny had the subject matter not been so serious. Rhrosty.

G'day Sp.. It seems we agree on all fronts then. I too think the Carbon Tax is an ill thought response. Sadly, it appears our wonderfully imaginative representatives are capable of only 2 responses to innovation or unprecedented problems; tax it or regulate it.
Hey Spindoc, enjoy your little hissy fit? Perhaps you should take a Bex and have a good lie down.
Saying that I love a quote by Michael Ashley is merely an observation, and as such perfectly permissible (I believe) on a forum called 'online OPINION'.
Hardly an attack, I would suggest.
As for being 'gutless', well, I Peter GRIMley, still love the quote, and I just don't feel like being cowed by a terribly courageous -if completely anonymous- bully.
Wanna meet me behind the toilet block?
Brainless? I thought Ashley's quote was rather clever. Ashley, BTW, is an astronomer who as far as I am aware, has never published anything on climate change, for either side. The quote concerned a comment by Plimer in his book regarding his 'scientific opinion' on the composition of the sun.
As for your little rules, by all means make up as many as you like, if that lights your fire.
Just don't expect anyone to care. I certainly don't.
Hasbeen, you're probably right about the 400 years. Not because this much touted figure isn't based on current energy usage, or that it ignores the right of the Chinese and Indian populations to enjoy the same standards of living that we and Americans enjoy -which would on current trends see their individual energy expenditure increase 10 and 20 times; a fair whack for 2 billion people.
No, the reason we may still have 400 years is largely because we are -slowly- using less and less energy to enjoy our standards of living.
This drive towards energy efficiency is of course entirely due to the efforts of the so-called 'warmists', bless their panicky little hearts.

BTW, found an interesting PDF:
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/en/climate-change/understanding-climate-change/response-to-prof-plimer.aspx
Of course, being a Gummint document, it could hardly be as reliable or objective as something written by a director of a coal mining company.
It claims to offer answers to the 101 questions Plimers asks in his most recent book
“How to get expelled from school: a guide to climate change for pupils,parents and punters (2011)”
Apparently a recommended read for all true disbelievers, who aren't too worried about genuine peer reviewed science.
(Oops, did I just break one of your little rules, Spindoc? I forgot to check.)
Despicable of me to mention peer-reviewed science in a discussion about Plimer, I know.

Bugsy, Grim, Rhosty, thanks.

Not one of you lost by default as per condition 3. So you are home and hosed because you responded. As with the great race or MKR, you are now through to the next round, now that wasn’t too hard was it?

Between the three of you there were about 1,000 words. This is curious because all you needed to do was respond to my three main assertions with either agree or disagree, true or false, whatever.

Perhaps you could explain why the collective 1,000 words were needed yet still failed to respond to anything? We didn’t notice your substitute of volume for content, really?

Just to remind you that not one of you tackled the three assertions I presented, which were;

• The only official orthodoxy in the world is CO2 based CAGW.
• The UN has exclusive authority and governance.
• The application of only the science that supports the UN’s single orthodoxy is permitted.

So without another collective 1,000 words, where do you all stand on these simple points? Perhaps you could all work together on a response?

Surely such simple, concise and direct statements cannot be THAT hard to respond to?

The answer to the universe according to Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy used to be 42. Actually it’s 28. (Based on the primary vote that the ALP can expect at the next election, 28%). So you get 28 goes before you get to walk away from this thread without losing face and taking your wickets home. This is a sensational offer never to be repeated. On past form we expect you all to bail out at about 3 or 4.

You can now demonstrate to fellow OLO’ers that you do have a response, you do not need to invoke either of the divisive and contentious scientific perspectives you borrowed to establish your case and that you do not need to rely upon the rhetoric of a retired railway engineer to make your case.

Or you can do a Grim, “Look at this Unicorn, I’ve found an interesting PDF”

Door Bell!

Or perhaps the reason we didn't respond to you is because we think you are a dill.
"Never argue with a fool. They will drag you down to their level, and beat you with experience".

touché

Bugsy, you came closest to a response, albeit based upon rhetoric. I think you deserve a separate response.

One, I did not refer to “climate scientists”, you did, please re-read. There is no such thing as a climate scientist, unless of course you can point to the qualifications and definition of same. It is NOT a cliché as you suggest and if it is “banded around” it is done so by you.

When you say “but it also gets around the fact that the scientists themselves have come to the conclusion that AGW exists by looking at the data”. You have the small (sic) problem of definition, this can be corrected by the words “some scientists” themselves have… To which we are entitled to ask, which scientists are those Bugsy?

When you say “of course the communication of scientific conclusions are 'rhetoric' in your world”. If one comes to the same conclusions as the IPCC, you can be disqualified from this 'debate'”. You mean if you follow your rhetoric and reach your conclusions; your rhetoric is not at fault? Please explain?

What you mean is if you come to the same conclusions as the IPCC based upon the stuff you accept from the IPCC you will inevitably reach the same conclusion as the IPCC. Correct! And your point is?

The rest of your post is about those who do not like “your science”. I think this pretty well sums up your position. You imply that you “own” some sort of scientific perspective and that those who do not are the “opposition’.

You need to accept that those who sold you on CAGW have now stated that this is not about CO2 or environmental policy, it is about international politics. The scientific rug has been pulled; stop looking for a soft landing. It ‘aint going to happen, you are going down with the rest of the warmertariat. The longer you leave it to bail out, the harder your landing.

Brace yourself.

Grim, “and beat you with experience”. Yep, you are getting warmer, as a useful idiot that is.

Rhetoric much?

The data is what it is, the IPCC doesn't 'produce' it. It is generated independently by researchers globally in multiple scientific units, then the IPCC synthesise it (alongside other organisations), i.e. in scientific terms, they put it together and come to a conclusion. As this is the 'scientific consensus' (an often misunderstood term), so of course it is the 'orthodoxy', i.e. the state of being commonly accepted. If it wasn't, I would be very surprised.

I see you writing the same rhetoric over and over about no soft landings, 'warmertariat' going down etc., don't be too disappointed when what you seem to think will happen (or has already happened?) doesn't actually happen or have the effect you seem to think it does. But we have all seen what happens when predictions are made on faulty premises haven't we?

It's telling that Plimer condemns Labor in the only terms that matter to him and his cohort; money. The minimifidianists have retreated finally to that since the science increasing leaves them no other sanctuary. Economics is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

If you are going to tell a lie, tell a big one; and if possible incorporate a few vestiges of truth: that is the big lie of AGW, with a few truths; ie CO2 is photoluminescent.

Every shibboleth of the alarmism of AGW has no scientific validity; from ocean 'acification', a misrepresentation in itself, to such essential but non-existent elements as the tropical hotspot, no predicted effect of AGW has occurred.

All that is left is the irony of the precautionary principle, or the insurance, "give Earth a chance" idiocy; these forms of argument are all progeny of Pascal's wager which is discussed here:

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/43878.html

These arguments, the precautionary principle and the insurance approach, are what you use when you have NO evidence to back up a rational argument.

You don't insure against non-existent problems and you don't insure if, after a cost benefit analysis, it is cheaper to do nothing rather than spend resources and money on 'insurance' even if there is a problem. And that is exactly what is happening with the AGW scam.

Spindoc, wow you are powering along on this thread!

Harking back a few posts – after defining sustainable development, you wrote;

<< I’m sure you can see that unless someone actually defines (or fabricates) the “limits” of available resources, this whole concept collapses in a heap because there is absolutely no traction for the SD case if you cannot show what the limits are. >>

No no no no!

Fundamental flaw in reasoning here!

We do NOT need to be able to define the limits of resources in order for us to advocate and strive for SD.

We can see perfectly well that some resources are finite, others will just get harder and harder to obtain and will thus be more expensive and others are potentially renewable but are being overexploited, a la; fisheries and forests.

At the same time we can see the demand for all of these resources is still rapidly increasing with no end in sight.

This highly obvious imbalance is all we need to advocate SD.

SD is an eminently logical concept, in the absence of exact knowledge of what the limits are.

<< One of the greatest challenges the warmers face is that increasingly they are seen to be just a part of the Sustainable Development mantra >>

You feel as though you have somehow debunked SD. You haven’t at all!

Incidentally, I'm not a ‘warmer’. I’m a skeptic. I don’t know if AGW is real or not, but I am willing to err on the side of caution that it is.

You would call yourself a skeptic. But you’re, not. You’re a denialist! Yes?

"You would call yourself a skeptic. But you're, not. You're a denialist! Yes?"

Ain't that the truth....

Bugsy, Grim, Rhosty et al.

Just to remind you that not one of you has yet tackled the three assertions I presented, which were;

• The only official orthodoxy in the world is CO2 based CAGW.
• The UN has exclusive authority and governance.
• The application of only the science that supports the UN’s single orthodoxy is permitted.

Now this is getting interesting. Since I posted an invitation for you to challenge the above three simple assertions, not one person has gone anywhere near them. Why?

This the core of your belief system, it is the source of all your public alarm stories, this is where the carved tablets of the orthodoxy are stored, this is where your high priests collate and distribute the output of the “rhetoric engine” and yet you will not recognize it?

The UNEP, UNFCCC and the IPCC are in deep strife, they have sustained your warmertariat for 30 plus years and now, as they rapidly hemorrhage the last vestiges of public credibility you will not come to their aid? You refuse to step forward and be counted.

A dozen or so more posts, thousands more words and yet not one of you will speak to these three facts.

You all seem to be circling the issues from the shadows, bulging eyes, knuckles dragging along the ground, glaring at the issues, chanting and hissing more of the same mantra.

“Consensus” hiss, “denialist” hiss, “the science” hiss, “big oil cohorts” hiss, “97% of scientists agree” hiss, “save the planet” hiss, “save our grandchildren” hissssss.

Just three very short sentences and you have all freaked out! WHY

spindoc,

I thought I'd sit this one out since I've had a busy weekend.

but....

"...bulging eyes, knuckles dragging along the ground....chanting and hissing more of the same mantra...."

Tell me where the above does not apply to the denialist/skeptic camp?

Wow Spinny, you’re having a real hissy fit this morning!

So can you now admit that you are firmly and squirmly in the ‘denialatariat’ camp…. and that this is a just plain silly place to be, coz you cannot meaningfuly assert that AGW is not real. We just DON’T KNOW!

Most of what you write is just incorrect, for this reason. It seems as though you are really squirming and desperately trying to convince yourself that AGW is not real.

WHY??

Why is it so important to you that it not be real?

spindoc,

I obviously don't perceive the same things in the same way as you do. Ramping up the metaphoric imagery doesn't help either. It makes you sound desperate to get someone to engage with you.

If you believe what you say is true, why do you need us to refute it? What does it matter what we think? Are you looking for some sort of validation?

Here is a link to the tide mark at The Isle of the DEad at Pt Arthur
in Tasmania.

The mark was established in 1841 and has been said to have been set
44.5 mm above mean sea level. It now sits 31.5 mm above the mean.
Quote:
However, the man responsible for putting the mark there, explorer
Sir James Clark Ross stated explicitly and several times in his 1846
book [3] that the mark was placed at MSL (as he estimated it to be),
not at a point 44.5cm above, near the high tide point, as claimed by the study.
Unquote:

In 1888 the then government meteorologist recorded the level as
34 cm above the mark and since then and 2.5 cm different to its present position.

So there is good record that the sea level has hanged 2.5 cm since
1888.
Here is the link and google of tide mark Pt Arthur gives others.

http://www.john-daly.com/deadisle/index.htm

So it has risen 2.5 cm since 1888 or risen 13 cm since 1841.

Oh well, I just thought I'd chime in and say...

Of course it's important to ensure that scientific rigour is achieved in pursuits such as the demonstration or disproving of the global warming hypothesis.

But one of the constitutive elements of scientific rigour is to keep an open mind in the face of any doubt or dissenting opinion whatsoever.

Not to mention that the ability to live with uncertainty (otherwise known as skepticism) is an important marker of emotional maturity, and that we would all do well to factor the possession or otherwise of such a virtue into our perception of other people and our consequent propensity to regard their statements as worthwhile or not.

Nobody has ever said that global warming is a fait accompli, just as no scientist worth a damn would look at the data that is available to us at the moment and make an unequivocal judgement that it is not occurring.

So given that an open question remains we can do one of two things - we can prepare for what we think might happen, or we can deal with the consequences if they arise (which might not be that bad really... I mean, if say Bangladesh, the Mekong delta, the Shanghai basin, and vast areas of northern Europe and and western USA go underwater, we might at least become less misanthropist as a society, and thus more accepting of asylum seekers).

But if the latter scenario did eventuate, then I would expect people such as Ian Plimmer and spindoc to be the first to volunteer their spare rooms and half of their earning capacity to compensate those disenfranchised by inaction.

Wow, you have all really got worked up about this AGW etc.

Here is a thought for you all.
The Uppsala study has shown that the lowest of the three projections
of the IPCC is too high and that the available CO2 generation is much
lower than the lowest IPCC prediction.

Here is another thought for the economics conversant of you all.
GDP is shown as related to the total increase in economic activity.
When the CO2 tax comes into being, will it be added to the GDP
calculation as an increase in productivity ?
Are all government turnover, taxes etc part of the numbers going into
the GDP calculations ?

Assuming taxes increase GDP.
How do taxes increase GDP, considering the overheads involved.

Assuming taxes decrease GDP.
My question is, will the CO2 tax increase GDP or decrease it ?
As world GDP is very low and falling due to increased energy costs
will CO2 taxes push us into contraction ?

My reason for posing these questions is that I suspect that because
our GDP is so low, in common with most countries, the CO2 tax could
push our GDP down below zero percent into negative levels.