Came across a new very sobering website recently - its titled Nature Bats Last.

Lyn, humans, faced with a choice between grabbing a bucket of money and saving their planet from global warming, will opt for the money every time.

They ignore the increasingly destructive weather events and the melting of the ice caps and, instead, watch television soapies and their share portfolios.

Dumb, dumb, dumb!

>"Whatever happened to climate change? It seems to have disappeared in a puff of smoke. "

Climate change is dying as an issue because it was taken over by ideologues to promote their agendas. There has been massive exaggeration and misinformation by all concerned including IPCC, the research establishments, CSIRO, BOM, AAS, Royal Society, NAS and the leading, high profile climate scientists and leftist think tanks in Australia.

The policies advocated by these organisations, the NGOs, and our Leftist government are economically irrational. If allowed to continue, Labor's climate policies would cost Australians $22 billion per year in 2019 (according to Treasury figures). That's $1000 per year for every man woman and child - $4000 per year for a family of four. It's more than we spend on Defence and much more than the governments recent commitments to Disability Care and Gonski.

What do we want? Do we want programs that can improve our productivity so we can sustain the programs we want in the future, or do we want to waste our money on programs like ETS and renewable energy which will provide zero benefits.

I refer reader to this article to understand what an enormous mistake is the ETS: http://jennifermarohasy.com/2013/08/why-the-ets-will-not-succeed-peter-lang/

In another article I explain the per capital cost of ETS, renewable energy targets and other climate policies the government has committed us to:http://joannenova.com.au/2013/08/in-the-next-37-years-labor-will-spend-60000-per-australian-to-change-the-weather/

Lyn, you are dead on target but unfortunately you are trying to get through to closed minds.
It is all going to end in tears one day because we are able to shut our minds to what we do not want to know.
We are well down the path to unfixable AGW in fact past the point of no return now and no political movement is going to be able to make people see what is approaching rapidly.
It is interesting that one of the two replies has come from a denier, with a link to a denial website. With people like this able to input their head in the sand attitude there is no chance that the real message will ever get out.
So we are heading for extinction at full speed and we are going to enjoy life while we can.

Lyn - you cite a figure of 12 per cent of people rating climate as an issue of concern.. sorry, that was from a 2010 poll. As reported in today's Aus Financial Review (page 8) the figure is now down to 6 per cent. And that's the reason it doesn't figure much in the election. Public interest in the issue has slipped badly.

One problem is that the issue was badly over-sold during the mega-drought in South-East Aus with promises that dams would never be full again and rains would never come, just before they had two years of floods. There have been other reasons such as a lengthy pause in temperature increases (more than a decade) which even the activists have grumpily acknowledged, and even the general public have now become vaguely aware.

Best be thankful its still on the agenda..

Curmudgeon,

You said "Public interest in the issue has slipped badly."

I'd suggest that rational analysis and commonsense is prevailing. Climate sensitivity is coming down. We have virtually no understanding of the damage function (i.e. the damages per degree climate change) and there is little credible evidence to support the doomsayers beliefs. They've gone from talking about the oceans boiling off (James Hansen) and Manhattan and London being inundated, to now arguing there may be more bad weather in the future. What a joke.

Returning to your comment about "public interest in the issue has slipped", the 'Activity Chart' here demonstrates it: http://climatechange.carboncapturereport.org/cgi-bin/topic?. This chart shows the level of activity in the English speaking media, world wide. It includes news articles, news stories, blogs, Youtube videos and twitter.

At the current rate of decline in interest, the climate change scare will be all over in 2014.

That's the facts. The doomsayers who stick to their religious like beliefs are the same types of people who have been falling for the doomsayers' stories since humans first began to communicate. All they have left in their arsenal now is to repeat mantras, pejorative comments and name calling like "Deniers". My retort is to refer to them as "doomsayers". I'd suggest they drop the ad hom attacks, open their minds and read more than just what supports their beliefs.

For example, the commenter who made the ad hom comment about "Deniers" above could start by pointing out any serious errors in the two links I posted above, rather than just dismissing them on the basis of they are posted on sites he doesn't like. What an ignorant argument that is.

Hi Lyn,

The reason CAGW has collapsed is because the science was rubbish. Many suspected this but on November 19 2009, Climategate confirmed it.

Since then it has been in decline along with public interest. Public interest has been lost because the “predictions” have failed.

If either the science or the predictions had any merit CAGW would still be where you want it to be, but it isn’t and never looks likely to be.

It should be relatively simple for you as a psychologist to understand that falsehoods have a limited shelf life. So all you have to do is get the science and the predictions correct so that we can get back to alarmism.

Either you are not a real psychologist or you “suspend” all your training, common sense and experience in order to “socialize” this topic. But hey, you are in great company

Lyn – The problem is that it’s early days yet. You and the pollies will have to wait until extreme weather events become so frequent that they threaten our ability to grow the food we need, maintain communications or sustain our way of life – particularly our small narrow suburbian life. But not to worry. We don’t have long to wait now. Maybe 6 or 7 years at most in which we can try to pretend that its all, well, no sweat.

Unfortunately, by the time people wake-up to the realities of global warming effects it will be too late to take remedial action, even though we might want to. It’s rather like the LNP policy of Direct Action to deal with this increasingly difficult and intransigent problem. Slug household taxpayers with a tax which can be paid to bribe commercial greenhouse gas emitters to reduce their emissions.

That’s an ideological approach and doesn’t really concern me – I earn too little to be taxed, even to reduce CO2 emissions! But what is a concern is that while Direct Action just might be able to reduce Australia’s emissions by 5% below 2000 levels (doubtful), if it is necessary to make a larger reduction (it is), then DA is completely useless. Perhaps that is why the Shadow Minister is now referring to it as a “stop-gap” measure?

The author is assuming there is a problem (the world is warming rapidly because of the increase in man-made carbon dioxide) and that solution is for mankind to stop producing man-made carbon dioxide.

The difficulty with this hypothesis is that one third of all the carbon dioxide produced by mankind has been emitted in the past 15 years but the world’s temperature has stayed stable. Also predictions by “experts” such as Tim Flannery, our Climate Commissioner, that the dams of Australia would never again be full have unfortunately proven to be totally wrong.

Therefore one can only be doubtful about the so-called “science of climate change”.

The writer should reflect on the words of Tim Minchin: “Science adjusts its views based on what’s observed. Faith is the denial of observation, so that belief can be preserved.”

Secondly the author argues that because Canada and Australia were on the winning side in World War II but made only a small contribution they should same with CO2 emissions. The important thing about the contribution made by Canada and Australia was not its size but that they were on the winning side. While there was a climate change bandwagon building until 2009 during Copenhagen it started falling apart. Obama flew out after 24 hours, China sent along fourth level officials to meet with Rudd. Now in 2013 Germany, supposedly the most environmentally sensitive country in the world, has announced it is going to build 20 new coal fired power stations. As the author correctly notes the tide of public opinion on climate change is receding.

To quote Warren Buffet: When the tide goes out, you get to see who is swimming naked.

What's interesting is that the global insurance industry and other looney left institutions such as the Pentagon and the CIA all recognise climate change as a threat but there are still deniers popping up here saying that the majority is out of step. As I see it we can either take our collective feet of the carbon and population accelerators or we will, eventually, crash. I'd like to see future generations having the opportunity to live well. On our current trajectory we could not only become the shortest lived species on the planet but the only one to have engineered its own demise.

If nature Bats Last, I like out chances. Everyone knows how hard it is to bat on a last day pitch.

Lyn, love, you tell us climate change "seems to have disappeared in a puff of smoke".

What the hell did you expect. Any issue that is nothing bur smoke & mirrors to start with, is bound to disappear in that way.

I think you should go back to that novel, after all novels are the place for fiction.

This is your 3Rd article on this subject I think. Please go find some world shattering problem of which your training gives you some understanding. You obviously don't have a handle on this one, despite the efforts of many posters to help you.

If the domestic economy was paramount, we would mine the Great Barrier Reef for its probable bonanza of extremely low carbon products, which in common commercial use, would create four times less total carbon, than those products we import and use.
If carbon is killing the reef, then surely the very first response of genuine environmentalists, would be to select the lowest possible carbon producing products!
i.e., Traditional Australian sweet light crude, which in common commercial use, produces four times less TOTAL carbon than current imported highly refined products.
If carbon is contributing to climate change, then surely reducing it by 75%, would be a very useful first step, and indeed, provide us with a means to pay for a conversion to a carbon free economy, far sooner than would otherwise be possible.
Currently, and thanks largely to the efforts of the author and or fellow travelers, we simply don't have that choice, but continue to remain the captive market of foreign cartels!
Look, we most of us, can't ride bikes, much beyond the urban environment.
And public transport, is simply not an option for most urban dwellers.
Who have no other choice but to live where it's still affordable.
Living costs have remained largely static or have gone down, except for housing.
A decade ago the median house cost around four times the average salary, now its better than seven times!
A factor that forces people further and further out, and more and more dependent on the family wagon to get to work, transport the kids to school, take care of the weekly shop, and remain the only reliable means to transport a family member to hospital, in the event of a sudden emergency.
If we could have the so called greens just face facts, we could progress this conversation and what remedial action is actually available to us, far faster!
Rhrosty.

Good article Lyn. I ask the same questions and lament your point "Rudd urged us to celebrate that the move from the carbon tax to a floating ETS will save families from $380 to $430 a year. This amounts to one dollar a day!"

Too many of us are 'frogs in warm water', and tight arsed ones at that. When it gets too hot and we start to die off in heat waves and climate disasters it could well be too late to cut off our energy guzzling habits and coal exports.

But don't lose heart, there's enough of us who care and see the truth. We still have a vestigial carbon price and there'll be a slim but growing majority who'll back ramping it up as the weather gets worse and the 20 or so countries with carbon pricing grows to hundreds.

To all who care, just don't vote Liberal for the Senate!

Peter Lang
Played with the timeline in the item you linked.. very interesting.. tnks for that.. However, I think its a bit optimistic that it'll be gone by next year.. some of AGW stuff is so deeply entrenched that nothing short of a major, obvious change in the physical system - ie, global temperatures clearly going down - will shift it. This may yet happen, but until it does there will always be someone talking about climate..

Roses1
well when we do start to die off in heat waves and climate disasters then you'll be able to say I told you so .. in the meantime consider this - that the strength of storms and temperature of heat waves are just factors in determining death rates, and may not even be the most important factors.. other factors include changes in building codes, use of air conditioning and changes to procedures for caring for elderly people.

I hear the feral unicorn problem isn't getting a whole lot of attention either... why is that?

A MILLION YEARS OF CLIMATE CHANGE WITHOUT HUMANS AND CO2
http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2013/07/17/a-million-years-of-climate-change-without-humans-and-co2-ian-ruthrford-plimer/

“Okay, here’s the bombshell.
http://www.accuweather.com/en/home-garden-articles/earth-you/study-less-climate-change-glob/16194684

The volcanic eruption in Iceland ,

… Since its first spewing of volcanic ash has, in just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet – all of you.

Of course, you know about this evil carbon dioxide
that we are trying to suppress – it’s that vital chemical compound that every plant requires to live and grow and to synthesize into oxygen for us humans and all animal life.

http://intellihub.com/2013/08/09/us-military-caught-manipulating-social-media-running-mass-propaganda-accounts/
http://earthchangesmedia.com/?wysija-page=1&controller=email&action=view&email_id=133&wysijap=subscriptions

http://www.antigmofoods.com/2013/05/monsanto-buys-leading-bee-research-firm.html?m=1

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/08/12/un-announces-that-0-00c-warming-since-the-year-2000-is-unprecedented/

http://www.naturalnews.com/041592_scientific_fraud_research_papers_junk_science.html

http://www.naturalnews.com/036756_depopulation_agenda_eugenics_survivor.html#ixzz2bCQoRBBI

Lyn,
I have difficulty understanding the attitude of all the climate change deniers on this (and other) sites.
There is any amount of good conservative scientific evidence available to confirm the causes of global warming.
Even the most elementary observations such as melting ice caps, glaciers, ocean acidification and comparison of ancient ice cores should cause alarm.
I don't think carbon trading or carbon taxes go anywhere near solving this problem.
We should stop all immigration and get our population down as well as measures such as taxing road transport and diverting resources to railways.
I would have to share your despair at achieving any action with commentators such as we have here.

Give me a break! Climate change is not the problem future generations need to worry about, its population expansion. We can all survive a few extra degrees heat easier than we would if the climate change was going cold. The problem our children face is third world countries, many of which are Islamic, over breeding and looking south for new lands to take over.

The author can see by the replies as to why. Then we have jaw dropping stuff like this:

"We can all survive a few extra degrees heat easier"

Were even if people do have a sense of the issue, they think a "couple degrees" warmer is easy to handle. 2 degrees is what, possibly 15 warmer in New York, changes in the oceans currents seeing a UK more like Russia, several meters increase in Sea Level etc. The debate is in the sensitivity (how long it takes) not the cause, these sorts of changes are already virtually locked in.

Not to take away the significance of over population but being anti immigrant is as nonsensical to that debate as denying AGW is an issue , they're both global issues. We can do our bit to reduce population by leading with policy change eg removal of tax subsidies for having children add tax penalties for having more than 2, free vasectomies, free condoms, free over the counter access to the pill.

From there you move to those that understand the Science and the consequences and do nothing themselves, aside from shouting loudly for others to do something. These people will always put the "economy first" but often use nonsense like a "green economy"

On to the small minority that understand the consequences and have reduced their footprint considerably for the very same reasons your metaphor of Canada/Aus in WWII applies to them individually, as it does our nation in the climate debate.

Politics follows, people lead, that parts simple. Look more closely, the issue can't be easily solved or it would have. Try and halt your own C02 output (be mindful of your C02 inputs as well as outputs, how far away did your eggs come from, even if you cycled to the store to get them) for a week, then you will understand why politicians will never go down that path, unless the public lead.

We're on that reduction journey but it takes a quantum shift in lifestyle. We try and be more like H.D Thoreau then A. Gore :)

Valley Guy,

The latest IPCC estimates for the projected temperature rise over the next 100 years are on a par with the known figures for the global temperature rise over the last 100 years. Once you can explain all the terrible catastrophes and disasters that didn't happen as a result of climate change since 1913, you can go on to tell us why they ARE going to happen by 2113, given exactly the same process.

Nothin' to see here, the gravy train has moved on. All you unproductive rent seekers will have to find some other host, how about "social licence"?

We are still here. We are still talking about climate change. You must not be looking in the right places.

If you want your kids to grow up with the same opportunities you had, the time for solving climate change is now. http://clmtr.lt/cb/wep0bJd

Climateguy links to reality drop and the mission is "destroy denial".

Fair dinkum arguing with alarmists and as the very polite Peter Lang says, doomsayers, is like arguing with petulant children whose sense of reality is non-existent.

A dose of no power for a week or 2 will not bring the alarmists to their senses because they have none to come to. But if the alarmists have their way that is what the rest of us will have to put up with.

The people promoting AGW and especially renewable energy should be sued.

Facing taxes, Spaniards tear down their solar panels
By: malterwitty
http://www.salon.com/2013/08/14/facing_taxes_spaniards_tear_down_their_solar_panels/

The Spanish government is in debt to its power producers to the tune of 26 billion euros, the results of years spent regulating costs.

To make up the difference, it’s imposing a levy on rooftop solar panels — effectively negating the economic benefit of generating clean energy.

The tax will more than triple the time it takes for consumers to recoup their investment in rooftop panels, reports Reuters. It will also prevent people from selling any extra energy they generate that way back to the grid.

Those who leave their panels up without connecting them to the grid, which is how the government will monitor and tax their energy production, face a fine of between 6 million and 30 million euros.

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/coldest-arctic-summer-on-record-keeps-getting-colder/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/08/16/global-sea-ice-area-far-above-normal-in-2013/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/08/16/nasa-massively-tampering-with-the-us-temperature-record/
http://imgur.com/a/w5iuG

Lyn, you state (correctly) that "governments need to be planning well into the future for infrastructure that will be impacted upon by a warming world, rising sea levels and more frequent extreme weather events". The cost of such infrastructure will be measured in the trillions of dollars and the best way to be able to afford such expenditure is to have an expanding, export-orientated economy that sells what the worlds wants to buy at present, including coal, iron ore and natural gas. But all of these exports, when used, produce greenhouse gases which, if you're a believer, will make the world warmer and hence will demand more money to mitigate against the resulting sea level rise and other impacts.
Something of a vicious circle, isn't it? So maybe the way around this problem is to actively work to stabilise global population (which should happen by about 2050) and to provide the technology and economic strength to the 3 or 4 billion people living in developing countries so that they don't make the energy-consuming mistakes that we've made as we've moved from developing to developed country status. In other words, Australia shouldn't waste billions and billions of dollars reducing its minor greenhouse gas emissions but instead strengthen its economy to be able to live in a warmer world while also helping developing countries do the same.

Bernie Masters,

You say: "The cost of such infrastructure will be measured in the trillions of dollars".

The cost of the proposed mitigation policies - like carbon pricing and renewable - exceeds any benefits of the proposed mitigation policies by a factor of at least 10. If the projected benefits are realised, the costs exceed the benefits by 10:1. If the benefits are not realised, the costs exceed the benefits by 10:0. The benefits can be realised only if Australia's mitigation policies, like ETS, are part of a global carbon pricing scheme. But this will not happen. the reasons are explained here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/2013/08/why-the-ets-will-not-succeed-peter-lang/

Sea level rise is often used as the example of the high cost of GHG emissions. But the global cost of projected sea level rise is negligible compared with global GDP growth. But reduceing GDP growth - as irrational mitigation policies would - would do significant harm to human well-being.

Global cost of projected sea level rise:

0.5 m in 2100 = $200 billion
1 m in 2100 = $1 trillion
"The economic impact of substantial sea level rise"
Anthoff, Nicholls and Tol (2010)
http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs11027-010-9220-7.pdf

Lyn & others;
Even the IPCC acknowledges that the earth has not warmed for 17 years.
Then on top of that there is not enough fossil fuels economically
available to cause the temperature rises the inaccurate models suggest.

I say inaccurate because they use too high a value for fossil fuels to
be burnt.

It really is as simple as that.
Have you not noticed that US oil consumption has fallen by some 15% ?
That is just one symptom.So it is not climate stupid it is energy stupid !