"The sky is falling! We're all going to die! How do I know? Someone told me so."

Mike, you do understand, don't you, that "science" cannot consist of appeal to absent authority, or rely on logical fallacies? Answer the question directly please, because I know you have trouble understanding this.

It is dishonest drivel to say that your policy wishes are indicated by "science".

All your claims about climate policy and science have been exhaustively demolished and exploded into vapour here:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16680&page=0
here:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16726
here:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16753&page=0
here:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12886&page=0#222828
and here:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16757&page=0

There is nothing left. You have nothing.

The fact that you now pop up re-running the same failed nonsense when you know it's wrong, just proves once again that the global warming hysterics are using the religious, not the scientific methodology.

AFTER you have
a) understood, and
b) answered
the arguments proving you have nothing, THEN you will be in a position to resume your squark-fest.

But GUARANTEED there will be no answer from any warmist but what consists of appeal to absent authority (not science), endlessly and circularly assuming what is in issue (not science), and personal argument (not science).

Pathetic really.

I find it amazing how many sarcasticly dismiss proven prophecies in Scripture and then believe this gw religous nonsense. Oh well dont let truth get way of a good story.

Yes. This is 'climate refugee' business is as silly as all the other climate alarmism

Jardine,

You don't understand that at the current rate of sea-level rise, in barely a thousand years, some atolls and reefs will be a foot more under water than they are now ! After all, Fiji's highest point above the threatening seas is only about 1400 metres. So, in less than six million years, all of Fiji will be under water ! Think about it !

My elementary understanding of atoll development is that they are constantly sinking. More efficient means of removing ground-water makes them sink, I would imagine, faster. Building closer to the edge of the water means that, not surprisingly, some buildings are more likely to be hit by cyclones and high tides. But I think it is important that, if we want to shove a stick up the West, we should ignore all these factors and champion the rights of Pacific Islanders to move here as economic migrants. Sorry, refugees.

I look forward to more TV shots of water lapping over pier supports and slipways, proving that tides come in. And more shots too of lumps of ice, obviously the remnants of huge icebergs whittled down to almost nothing by global warming, as icebergs move away from the Polar areas. Ideally with a polar bear on one of them, demonstrating conclusively the shrinking of their natural habitat.

Joe

Lol Runner, exactly what 'prophecies' have come true from the bible?
That book is the biggest book of fairy tales I know.

One thing is definitely true...there will always be climate change.

ALol Runner, exactly what 'prophecies' have come true from the bible?

Actually you are one of the clearest examples Susie.

It's hardly worth wasting good pixels on this nonsense.

Mike Pope says: Over the next three decades it is likely that our maritime borders will become increasingly porous and more difficult to defend because of a massive increase in the number of refugees seeking to enter our country by boat. The vast majority are likely to be climate refugees forced from their homeland by coastal flooding and food scarcity.

That's a great line in scaremongering, of course, up their with the best, or worst, of fantasies. But your evidence, Mike? What is the evidence for that, since we've had 18 years of slight DECLINE in global average temperatures?

"James Hansen and colleagues" you say? On the basis that they've "published a paper"?

Get a life, Mike.

Hi Calwest,

Thanks, I hadn't thought about 'food scarcity'.

As I understand it, Pacific islands are in the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Ocean contains quite a bit of water, in which there are fish. People from those islands used to catch fish in abundance, in fact, they pretty much used to live on it. Oodles of it. Yes, admittedly, with modern fishing techniques, there are probably fewer oodles than there used to be, but maybe the best aid Australia can give to the islands is to pay for the down-payments on a few fishing boats.

From faulty memory, I think there used to be a fish-processing factory on at least one of the islands - Nauru ? There are meat-processing factories in Fiji - so why not a much more co-ordinated fishing industry across the islands, capturing every step in the value chain, from catching, boat-building and repair, up to canning and transport ?

You know it makes sense.

Joe

BTW everybody,

Just a pedantic point: the people flooding into Europe at present are not "economic refugees". Refugees flee AWAY FROM a threat.

These people are, for the vast majority - and they say so themselves on the TV news most nights - economic invaders. Invaders more TOWARDS their objective, which is the relatively easy life in Europe.

Loudmouth, nothing of what you say provides any justification of climate policy. To do that, you need to understand and answer the arguments that you have just ignored. Merely *repeating* false and half-arsed assumptions and beliefs doesn't make them true.

Mike, why do you bother writing articles when you aren't interested in the fact that what you're saying is demonstrably untrue? I know that you know it's untrue, because I have shown you multiple complete categorical demonstrations that you are wrong, even in your own terms, and you have no answer.

You know, don't you, that science:
1. does not supply value judgments?
2. cannot consist of appeal to absent authority?
3. cannot rest on assuming what is in issue?

Admit that, and you will have shown that you agree that your arguments are false.

Don't admit it, and you will have shown that you don't understand what science is. You are confusing it with religious orthodoxy and mere herd-bleat, which is what you're putting forward.

Hi Jardine,

Who said irony wasn't wasted on the young ?

There are three examples of fraud that I listen for, when I hear someone talk about sea-level rise: the Nile Delta, Bangla Desh, and Pacific Islands.

Thanks, Mike.

Joe

Mr Jardine, it does not appear that you have understood or even read the Paper cited in the article and authored by some of the worlds leading climate scientists and specialists in their fields. You may feel that your own knowledge is superior to theirs and you are of course entitled to that view – though others may not share it.

Without naming any particular matter, you claim that my views are wrong but offer no evidence of this published in an authoritative scientific Paper. With regard to the various “authorities” you cite as supportive of your position, I note they all include you. They appear to be OLO commentators expressing a personal view

Not sure about bible prophesies, but I can certainly believe that another Sodom and Gomorrah episode is on the way, thanks to the Left nutbags.

Loudmouth - you are quite right. There are fish in the sea but that is no consolation to those who find the land on which they live either submerged by rising sea level or ruined for cultivation by salt water incursion.

Hi Mildly Concerned of Mittagong,

Let's go through it again, slowly.

Atolls sink (hence the perception of sea-level rise), and corals build up in pace with the subsidence.

More population, and increased water use for production, mean that more ground-water is pumped out. Hence, ground subsidence. Hence, the perception of sea-level rise.

Building closer to the water-line, say, on the beach, gives the perception of sea-level rise, especially amongst those living closer to the water-line.

I hope this is useful. By the way, the fish are still out there. It's a big ocean.

Joe

Loudmouth – A bit off-topic. However, Average Global Sea Level is rising according to measurements by satellite and ground observation. For your argument to be valid all land masses with a coastline would have to be subsiding at a similar rate to account for sea level rise. Do you have empirical evidence that this is occurring?

The usual explanation for average global sea level rise is because additional water is entering the ocean as a result of the melting land based ice due to global warming and loss of albedo. This too is confirmed by satellite and terrestrial observation.

glad to see Tony and Dutton also having a good laugh at the fantasy. Of course the regressives are outraged but it won't stop them flying around the globe trying to deny a decent living standard for all.

Mike Pope

Stop trying to squirm out of it, and just answer the questions directly on point without evasion:

Do you, or do you not understand that science:
1. does not supply value judgments?
2. cannot consist of appeal to absent authority?
3. cannot rest on assuming what is in issue?

Adding more of your tactic of open-ended credulity, blind faith in government authority, and attempting to reverse the onus of proof, only proves my point, not yours.

What's your answer to the three questions?

Mike

Don’t you realise what a complete clown you’re making of yourself, and everyone who agrees with you?

It’s like, checkmate in one move. As soon as you’re called on your implicit premise that the principles of logic don’t apply to science, you’re left floundering, and gaping like a goldfish.

And we haven’t even got to any substantive issue yet, because you have to be dragged kicking and screaming to forego your facile technique of pretended ignorance and blatant dishonesty.

So you try to pretend it all isn’t happening by ignoring my questions, as if by this obvious evasion you can attain your hope that rationality won’t apply to the discussion, and you can just carry on your usual rhetorical bumf just circularly assuming everything in your own, and the State’s, favour.

Since you obviously haven’t understood the most basic concept of rationality, it minimally means something *in relation to something else*, fool. Unless you can account for the costs side of the equation - both in the status quo and your preferred counter-factual - you’ve got nothing but irrationality.

You have lost the argument before you got to square one, because even if you did admit that the principles of logic must apply to science, you will thereby admit that your methodology is false.

But quite apart from that, you will still face the impossible further hurdles of:
1. Showing by some impartial rational criterion that the downsides of global warming necessarily outweigh the upsides, and in particular how you took account of the ecological variables worldwide; and the human evaluations involved in both the status quo, and your proposed counter-factual, and
2. Showing that policy can necessarily do better, using some rational criterion, and showing how you took account of the all-critical human evaluations either way.

You haven’t even understood what the argument is about, and appear to be under the false impression that fashionable pious posing is what clinches the argument. But that’s not science and you know it.

So, come on. What are the answers to my three questions?

Mr Jardine, Thank you for your views but I comment on article content not distractions or facile posturing.

We already know why "refugees" need to flee their own countries, Mike Pope. They are fleeing the consequences of their own multi cultures failure to create prosperous, stable, and economically viable countries. The cultures of the North European Protestant people is renowned for building successful communities everywhere in the world that they have gone. And the ever increasing numbers of people from failed cultures see their immigration into our societies as the only hope they have, to ever acquire economic security.

Those countries which enriched their own cultures by taking the very best aspects of North European Protestant culture are doing just fine. Those priest, witch doctor, and mullah ridden societies which refused to adopt any aspect of North European culture, or who were not bright enough to acquire it even if they wanted it, went backwards into the future.

Sixty years ago, many of these failed states were sneering at the "colonialists" who had bestowed upon their societies stable and usually fair governments, the rule of common law, education, technology, and commerce. After demanding that the whites get out of their countries and leave them alone, they spiralled back down into barbarism. Then they got an idea. Hey! Lets go and live with whitey! The Euros will give us houses and money! They have this "asylum" policy, and all we have to do is say that we are "oppressed", and we are in like Flynn!

Of course, one would have thought that such people might be grateful for being admitted to advanced societies, and would repay their hosts by having a much lower crime rate than that of the host population. But that was a forlorn hope. With crime rates committed by "refugee" ethnicities multiple times higher than the host populations, it just goes to show why most "refugee" ethnicities can not create viable and stable societies themselves.

Get it through your overly thick cranium, Mike, that "refugees", unless carefully vetted, and capable of assimilation, are a danger to your own people and society. As an Australian, the safety of your own people should be your prime concern.

u summed it up well Lego however unfortunately by allowing the socialist to take over all education institutions most of our young have been taught to despise what has given them such an easy life. Those that came here and worked hard now have to listen to this c-p which more often than not comes from people who have known nothing but to suck on the public purse.

Mike

Do you, or do you not understand that science:
1. does not supply value judgments?
2. cannot consist of appeal to absent authority?
3. cannot rest on assuming what is in issue or other logical fallacy?

Thank you Lego – but I think we are talking about different things. The article postulates an influx of climate refugees around mid-century, while your comment relates more to present day ‘immigration’ facilitated by people smugglers.

I broadly agree with your sentiments that Australia should control its borders firmly and resolutely. It is doing so - but will it be able to continue doing so in the face of climate related disasters affecting Australia and countries to its north?

Loudmouth there is one real problem in the Pacific atoll communities, & that is population. Since our entrance to the area with health care, & better imported food supplementing the fish, coconuts & swamp taro, about all an atoll produces, the people are living longer, & breeding more successfully. The huge population growth I could see must be outgrowing the food supply capacity

I recently had a Google earth trip over many of the atolls I have visited & worked on in the past. I was horrified by what I saw. One atoll, Nuguria, about 130 nautical miles north of Bougainville is a prime example.

Even with 52 islands on the reef there is not much land. 35 years ago the entire population of about 225 lived on the home island, about half a mile in diameter, it easily accommodated the village.

Now a large population has moved to the large island, previously only used for the copra plantation, the airfield & the taro plantation. Today there are about as many canoes as there were people 35 years ago, the airstrip is gone, trees appear to have taken over the coconuts, & I couldn't find a taro patch.

They will probably be looking for a new home pretty soon, if not already.

Agnostic,

You assert: " For your argument to be valid all land masses with a coastline would have to be subsiding at a similar rate to account for sea level rise."

Well, no: there are myriads of other factors involved. Some coastlines are always rising slightly - the east coast of Australia for example, Scandinavia, due to the 'bounce-back' from the Ice Age. Some regions are subsiding or rising, depending on the movements of tectonic plates - the Bengal area for example where the tectonic plate is tilting, slowly sinking in the east (around Bangla Desh) and rising in the west (around Bengal in India).

As well, the sea may be encroaching on low-lying areas for man=made reasons other than climate change: for example, the building of the Aswan Dam on the Nile fifty-odd years ago deprived the Delta area of the usual flow of silt from upstream, as far as Ethiopia and Uganda, being deposited in the Delta. Hence the sea encroaches. Extraction of vast quantities of oil in the Gulf of Mexico has caused the nearby coastlines to subside. Reduced river flows due to irrigation schemes would lead to either the encroachment of the sea in estuaries or the blocking of river mouths, such as the Murray. And so on.

Actually, it must be far more difficult to measure actual sea-level rise accurately, in the face of so many confounding forces, and it must be especially misleading to think it can be done by simply measuring 'effects' on coast-lines. And I suppose if only the water would stay still for a while, and tides cease, then satellites could measure changes down to the last milli-millimetre.

I hope you have found this useful.

Joe

Thank you Loudmouth. Quite right. I am aware of these factors and others such as isostatic rebound causing coastlines to rise. As you say, many factors contribute to sea level rise but the most significant and rapid is undoubtedly ice mass loss, particularly from the polar ice caps, primarily due to atmospheric and ocean warming. That rate of loss is more than doubling per decade. It is a serious and continuing problem initiated by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, the effect of which can no longer be controlled by human action.

Where do you get this garbage Agnostic?

Arctic ice has expanded rapidly in the last 2 years & is now near the average for the satellite era. Satellite is the only acceptable way of measuring ice volume, as so called climate scientists have proved there is very little they say with any resemblance to the truth.

There has been an increase in Antarctic ice of over a billion square kilometres over the last 10 years, again measured by satellite, so reasonably accurate, being much harder to fudge by corrections.

You need to get out more Agnostic, & stop reading only propaganda, if you want the truth.

To Agnostic.

With only 350 words per post, I tend to concentrate upon the salient points, and often do not have enough word space to respond to all of the points raised by a topic's author.

After ten years of jousting with opponents on debate sites, I am aware that some people use high sounding causes as Trojan Horses to conceal their real agendas. My opinion about Human Induced Global Warming (HIGW), is that it may have a minor basis in fact, but that it is greatly exaggerated. I would like the world to cut down on our fossil fuel emissions, and that is why I support nuclear power generation.

But I think that HIGW is a Trojan Horse primarily supported by evangelists who have an agenda, which they know the public will never accept, unless they can scare the crap out of them. Like claiming that the Earth is going to turn into Venus unless we adopt their ideology. We even had one puritan topic author on OLO angrily claim just that. Some people advocate HIGW because they equate modern living with democratic capitalism, and they want to create socialist multicultural states where everybody does what the "intelligent" educated elites tell them to do. Other geezers want the western world to become one with nature and live our lives of some sort Amish rural poverty existence.

I think that Mike Pope is just another self loathing westerner with a burden of guilt over the fact that his people are prosperous and happy, while most of the people in the world is in real trouble. HIGW is just his means to an end. Mike thinks that the greedy western world must do something to alleviate poverty, by allowing any poor person to just enter their countries. Since that will not go down well with his own people, Mike has to think up a moral reason to justify it. So he supports Human Induced Global Warming. Since HIGW is presmubaly the western world's fault, we therefore, we have a moral obligation to let every third worlder flood into our countries.

Hasbeen – what you are talking about is polar sea ice and what I am talking about (as I have made clear in my comments) is polar land based ice, two quite different things with very different effects on sea level.

Sea ice is merely the solid form of seawater. It seasonally changes form from liquid to solid to liquid but has no significant change on sea level. Arctic sea ice volume has been contracting and is well below the 1979 extent. Antarctic sea ice has been expanding in both volume and area covered. However, neither of these changes significantly effects sea level.

Land based ice is formed from water in the atmosphere falling on land in liquid or solid form (sleet/snow) and being compressed under its own weight. It forms glaciers and ice sheets. When these melt, liquid water flows from them or chunks of ice fall off them into the ocean and this does increase the volume and so the level of seawater.

Glaciers world-wide are in retreat and the liquid water they produce flows to the sea. The Polar Ice Sheets are also loosing ice, resulting in water and ice flowing from the land into the oceans, increasing their volume and level at an accelerating rate. Evidence for this is clear and unequivocal.

Mike Pope

You see what's happened, is that we've just demonstrated that you don't care that what you're saying is untrue. You cannot defend any climate policy and you know it.

Any discussion of science presupposes that the principles of logic and falsifiability must apply to any hypothesis or theory.

Yet you are trying to conduct the whole discussion on the basis that you will just tell everyone what the problem and solution are, based on authority that you can't defend from critical examination, and that any question will be met by telling people they're too stupid to understand. This is the religious not the scientific intellectual methodology, and this is the method of all global warming alarmists everywhere.

When you are in your alarmist echo-chambers, everyone is doing the same thing, all nodding their heads with each other, and that's what you're calling "science".

Then when you come out into the real word, and are confronted with the actual falsfiability of your claims, you want to pretend the whole nightmare is not happening.

But it is.

It is actually disgraceful that proponents of the idea of catastrophic man-made global warming have to be dealt with by first getting their explicit acknowledgement that what they say could possibly be proven false by rational means, and even more shameful that you resist and evade, and you should be ashamed of yourself.

But it didn't work.

Now. What part of me asking you the following questions is "distractions" or "facile posturing":
Do you, or do you not understand that science:
1. does not supply value judgments?
2. cannot consist of appeal to absent authority?
3. cannot rest on assuming what is in issue?

Hi Agnostic,

As an agnostic on sea-level rise, I have to point out that

(a) the entire North Pole ice-mass is sea-ice: whether it melts or doubles in volume, it will make no real difference to sea-level anywhere;

(b) the sea-ice around the South Pole is not appreciably shrinking, it grows and shrinks: but are you suggesting that the South Polar land-based ice-mass is, what, melting, and pouring into the ocean ? If more of it is reaching the sea as ice and then breaking off as icebergs, couldn't that be more like a consequence of more deposition over the past few hundred or thousand years ? And after all, the part of it at the land-sea interface starts floating once it hits the sea, and its breaking-away and melting also won't make any difference to sea-level, except as a result of higher depositions eons ago ?

More on tectonic lifting and subsiding: even the Australian Plate is subducting under the Pacific Plate to the north, under Papua-New Guinea and Indonesia, and slowly rising along the southern coast, hence the cliffs along the Bight are slightly rising, and I would guess, the submergence of islands in the Torres Strait is and always has caused problems.

I suppose something similar is happening with the Indian Plate, subducting along the Himalayas, so that the land on its southern tip is slowly rising out of the sea ? I don't know, just guessing :) If so, then Bangla Desh is in double-trouble.

Sorry, these are the questions of an idiot. I'm also mystified about how sea-level can be measured. Satellite measurements, you may say. That's sound quite scientific really. But measuring what ? Oceans and seas have waves, tides, swells, storm surges, etc. None of it sits still long enough to be measured. So how do they do it ?

Forgive my ignorance :)

Joe

Hi Loudmouth. You are smart enough to ask relevant questions, so I don’t think you are ignorant at all – far from it.

LAND ICE.
In the Arctic land based ice includes the massive ice sheet which covers most of Greenland, the Canadian Archipelago and mountain ranges in the Arctic. All of it is melting and doing so at an increasing rate. Water from these sources is pouring into the ocean BUT, at present, this does not cause a dangerous rise in sea level. The trouble is that the rate of melt is increasing and if it keeps on increasing for the rest of this century (scientists think it will) sea level will definitely rise, possibly by as much as 2 metres by 2100.

Antarctic land ice is divided into two – east and west Antarctica. The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) covers over 90% of the continental land mass of Antarctica to a height of over 3 kms. It has begun melting on its lower and coastal slopes.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) covers all the Antarctic islands west of the Antarctic continent and has built up a huge area of ice most of which rests on land now beneath the sea-surface.

Much of the WAIS resting on the seabed is being melted by relatively warm water reaching the Antarctic from the tropics. The rate of melting is accelerating so quickly that ice and water pouring into the Southern Ocean, particularly into the Amudsen Sea could result in a 2-3 metre sea level rise by 2100.

Continued …

Until recently the EAIS was thought to be in balance, that is gaining as much ice as it was loosing – but recent satellite data shows that it too is now loosing ice more rapidly than it is gaining it. I don’t know how this will affect sea level but it has the potential to increase it.

PLATE MOVEMENT
Quite right: Tectonic Plate movement can have an effect on sea level but it is a very, very slow process compared to the melting of land based ice.

ISOSTATIC REBOUND
When huge land masses like Greenland or Antarctica become covered in ice the weight of the ice pushes the land down into the earths crust but when the ice melts, the weight on the land is reduced and the land rebounds or rises and this contributes to change is sea level. However the process is very slow, so the effect on sea level is very small.

SATELLITE MEASUREMENT
Instruments on satellites measure changes in earths gravity. Those changes show a change in the mass of ice covering the Poles - a change which occurs because ice is added or subtracted to existing ice cover. If ice is added, instruments record an increase in gravity and if ice is lost, it shows a decrease. Measurements made by instruments on satellites and on the ground agree with each other on the rate at which land based ice is being lost from the Poles.

They show that land-based ice is being lost and that it is melting at a rate which is more than doubling every decade.

Hope this assists. Lot of stuff on Google.

This is a conversation for 200 years for now. At about 1m per century, the people of today will be a distant memory before this becomes a problem.

Thanks, Agnostic of Mittagong.

2-3 metres ? Ten foot ? An inch a year or so ? Forgive me, but I'm still agnostic on that one.

Waters pouring off Greenland and Canada's north ? Sounds pretty drastic. Do you mean, more than usual ? More pouring off than is deposited ?

So basically, the motors of sea-level rise around the world are the Antarctic Ice-Sheet and Greenland and Canada (and presumably northern Siberia) ?

Joe

What allways surprises me about these climate change catastrophe theorists is that they never give any consideration to what would happen if we did switch to a carbon free economy. A few moments of thought shows that it is better to stick with fossil fuels until a cheaper energy source becomes available (Eventually, at some point other energy sources will be cheaper, but that hasn't happened on a broad scale yet).

Here's a few simple sums to highlight this
Let's assume that the article is right that that mass migration will result from rising sea levels. The article doesn't give a number but let's say that 300,000,000 people have to be resettled on higher ground by 2055. ie: the world has to move the *whole* population of Bangladesh, the Low lying island countries (eg: Maldives, Tuvalu, etc) and an extra 100,000,000+ people in the next 40 years (this is an extremely unlikely event but let's play along anyway).
So, let's give each of these people $200,000US dollars each to pack up and move to higher ground. Note that this is more money than most Bangladeshies make in a life time, ie: vastly more than adequate compensation. That would cost the world 300e6*200e3 = $60 trillion dollars.
Now, compare this to the case that we stop using fossil fuels within the next few of years and switch 100% carbon free. At a very, very, very conservative guess it would cost 10% of the global economy (I actually remember reading somewhere that the current renewables push has already cost more than 1% and we are nowhere near 100% fossil free- in fact carbon fuel use has still been increasing over the last few years). The current global economy is about $75trillion US per year. So, 10% over 40 years is $300 trillion US. ie: 5 times the cost resettling 300 milion people above.

--continued below--

--continued from above--

Another way to rework the sums is to calculate how much of the world economy would it cost to move these people over 40 years: ie: $60e12/(40*$75e12) x 100% = 2%.
That is, to give the economies of the low lying countries a *massive* boost by injecting $200,000 for each person so they can move to higher ground would only cost a measly 2% of global production. (Indeed, it would possibly even cost less, because the $200,000 that we give them would allow them to buy better educations, more goods/services for improved standards of living and it also provides capital for them to start up businesses-- thus dramatically increasing their current productivity and consumption).

So in summary, we could alleviate poverty in these countries by simply continuing to use carbon fuel and donate some of our money that has been created due to the cheap cost of the fuel. As opposed to drastically contracting the world's economy and causing massive global poverty, lower standards of living and increased violence by switching to renewables. I know which I would want the world to chose if I were a Bangladeshi or Tuvaluan.

Hi Thinkabit,

And much of that presumes that the world's technology etc. will stay pretty much the same as it is now.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that global warming seems to be affecting the northern hemisphere more than the southern hemisphere. The northern hemisphere covers a lot more land than ours does, especially at higher latitudes - there's not a lot of ocean at, say, 45 degrees North, its mostly land, maybe twenty million sq. kilometres of it above 45 degrees. Every degree rise in world temperatures pushes grain-growing possibilities maybe 100 km north - someone surely knows about this. If this is so, that might be an extra million square kilometres for every degree rise. So maybe one degree warming means, ultimately, an extra annual production of perhaps two hundred million tonnes of grain.

So global warming may be one way to rapidly increase the world production of grain ?

As a Scotsman was heard to say about global warming in a recent winter, ' ....... ' Sorry, I couldn't understand a bloody word he said.

Joe

If so many countries are "full" of people and can't cope with losing some land from rising sea levels, how many are taking family planning seriously?

Sounds to me like something else is happening. Europeans reduced the number of children they have, so now some countries where people continue to breed like rabbits despite family planning, are invading Europe, as they are a soft touch.

If anyone wants me to take climate change seriously, wake me up when you have done something about the ever rising human population. Another billion added in the last 12 years, is where we are at and "our" Catholic religion still does whatever it can to stop family planning being implemented in the third world. Shame on them.

"A few moments of thought shows that it is better to stick with fossil fuels ..."

Thinkabit, you have to remember that the global warming catastrophists proceed on the basis that it doesn't matter if what they're saying doesn't make sense. You can show them, by their own standards, what they're saying is illogical, and they don't care. They're not interested in discussing the issues. They're just interested in propagating their viewpoint. They just want to keep banging away with their anti-human belief systems, and their "if only we could vest more open-ended power in government to control anything and everything, wouldn't society be wonderful?". That's honestly what they think. They have learnt nothing from the last 100 years.

In fact they haven't caught up with intellectual developments of 2,300 years ago, because
Mike Pope is still having trouble coming to terms with the idea that if something is not logical, it's not science. He can't bring himself to admit that, because he knows that if he does, he immediately invalidates his entire argument.

These guys are genuinely operating at the mental and moral level of an infant, and all we're hearing from them is the mid-brain expressions of herd-bound hierarchy that we have in common with the herd animals. He's bleating and lowing, that's all. Ask him to defend the logic of what he's saying, ask him how he has taken account of the human evaluations of what he's talking about, and he's got nothing. You might as well argue with a Jesuit about the efficacy of the liturgy.

Watch this. I'll prove it to you.

Hey Mike! Got the answer to these three questions there yet, feller?

Do you, or do you not understand that science:
1. does not supply value judgments?
2. cannot consist of appeal to absent authority?
3. cannot rest on assuming what is in issue?

Still skulking? Still haven't worked out that science rests on rationality, fool?

Hi Loudmouth

Yes, the largest areas of land based ice are located at or near the Poles. There is ice cover in other areas (Andes, Himalayas etc) but these are nowhere as large as ice in Polar Regions.

Water and ice is pouring into the oceans particularly from West Antarctica and Greenland, at a rate which is far greater than the amount gained from snow and sleet. However, the amount entering the oceans is not sufficient to cause more than minor sea level rise, at present about 3.3 millimetres per annum – hardly noticeable except in bad weather when a storm surge is created and not an immediate threat.

The problem is that the rate at which land based ice/water is flowing into the oceans is more than doubling every ten years, so within a decade from now the rate of sea level rise will be at least 6.6 millimetres per annum. Ten years after that it will be 1.3 centimetres per annum and a further ten years on, by 2040, it will be around 2.5 -3.0 centimentres per annum So, in the ten years 2040 to 2049, it is possible that sea level will rise around 30 centimetres on top of all the rises which have occurred prior to 2040.

The net result: By 2050 rising sea level will have become a serious problem for anyone living on or near the coastline – and most of us do.

Well just as well we've got you to fine-tune the hydrological cycle of the globe, and the level of the oceans, through policy isn't it Mike?

Clown. Do you realise what a caricature of vanity and stupidity you are painting of all warmists?

Technology is making some remarkable advances. These are already helping us to reduce our use of fossil fuels and so reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

Twenty years ago, solar cells which converted 15% of solar energy striking them were considered a wonderful advance. To-day, the University of NSW has researched and developed solar cells which convert 40% of sunlight into electricity. Really leading edge technology which, when it becomes commercially available will have the potential of making households completely self-sufficient and generating all of Australia’s electricity needs from the sun at a cost far below that of coal.

What this means is that countries which must now rely on burning coal to generate electricity will no longer need to do so. They will erect solar panel power stations to serve individual towns and villages which are cheaper to build and maintain or, as in Australia, houses will have their own high-powered solar panels and no longer need to buy coal fired electricity from the grid.

Yes, I know the sun doesn’t shine at night but in the USA batteries have been developed which enable households to store sufficient electricity to meet household needs for several days and these will be on sale within a year or two. Competition and new technology will then get to work improving these batteries, making them cheaper and more efficient.

To be continued ...

Continued ...

Electric cars able to travel up to 500 km on a single charge are already available though they are far too expensive for the average car owner. If they stay so expensive few people will use them. But with new battery technology now being developed, the price of electric cars is going to become cheaper than our present fuel guzzlers which use petrol and diesel. Within less than 20 years, electric cars will become the norm and will be recharging their batteries from solar power stations.

But some people think they are living in the 19th century and urge us to stick to being dependent on fossil fuels. But nothing will resist the advances being made by human ingenuity. The future is clean energy from sunlight. Its going to be cleaner and its going to be cheaper. And its already happening!

"But nothing will resist the advances being made by human ingenuity."

Then there's no need for any policy to force adoption of any such technology, is there? People will do it voluntarily because the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? Yes? You're contradicting yourself? Oh that's right, logic doesn't matter. Just as well the people developing the advances in technology don't share your intellectual method, isn't it?

Hi Agnostic,

You correctly assert that "nothing will resist the advances being made by human ingenuity." [That's going to come back to bite you :) ]

By the same logic, technology will be developed which can suck the CO2 out of the air, and/or capture it at the smokestack, so in the meantime, what does it matter how much coal we burn ? If it can provide poorer countries with the means to produce the range of infrastructure that we take for granted, as soon as possible, then why not ?

Your statement above would be fully supported by Bjorn Lomborg, I suggest. And fair enough.

Thanks,

Joe

This a long thread for a non-event.

Agnostic, you'd be funny, if you weren't dangerous with your propaganda, that some fools might fall for.

The last I heard, the majority of the ice sheet in Greenland & the Antarctic are actually gaining thickness. Bet those greenhouse trolls must hate satellites, & their accurate measurements that resist adjustments.

Do you remember the famous lost squadron? That is the group of P38s & B17 that in July 1942 were forced to crash land on Greenland's east coast land bound ice sheet.

You must know, with all your knowledge, that when they looked for them in 1988 they were hard to find. That was because no one had expected them to be under 75 meters, [yes 250 Ft] of compacted ice that had covered them in that 46 years. The experts reckon that requires about 15 feet of snow a year to give that thickness of compacted ice.

That kind of agrees with those satellite measurements that tell us Greenland, & Antarctic icesheets are increasing in thickness, not diminishing.

Of course you can cherry pick a few areas of ice loss, particularly where volcanic activity underlies the ice pack, & that is exactly what we are used to you warmists doing.

Agnostic, the only reason that an electric car go 500 km is
only because it uses a very large battery.
Other electric cars normally have a range up to about 150km.
The batteries do not seem to have come down in cost and so far there
has been no breakthough in battery/size/cost capacity.

It is this factor that makes solar and wind backed up by batteries the
reason that wind and solar are not the solution to our energy problem.
If someone can come up with a battery at a very much higher energy
density and much lower cost, then our worries will all be over.
Remember that a normal days charge of the battery may have to support
three, four, perhaps five 24hr cold days and have enough left over
to start the next sunny day.

Anyway, the IPCC's computer models are working on the wrong amount of
fossil fuels. known as GIGO !

Hi Bazz

Well, yes and no. The latest Tesla gets its range due to improved increase in the ability of its batteries to store energy, not an increase in their size. On the other hand you are right that the cost of those batteries is very high and has yet to show signs of coming down. Until Elon Musk completes his mega factory and begins mass production of these batteries (expected in 2016) price will not come down and significant competition with other battery producers will not begin.

Battery technology has some startling advances in the works and yes, there may be years between research/development and mass production but it will come and, as you rightly point out, when it does, it will be the final nail in the coffin of fossil fuels. I don’t think we will have to wait more than another 3-5 years for this to become reality.

Hi Loudmouth

No, I do not agree with Lomborg who thinks CO2 is good for plants and us and we should concentrate on coping with increased emissions rather than attempting to reduce them.

Technology to capture CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels has been developed, known as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) has been developed at a cost of billions. The problem is that its use is so expensive that its makes coal fired electricity generation and metal smelting prohibitively expansive and, by comparison, makes solar power that much cheaper as an energy source.

Affordable technology to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere has not been developed BUT trees and oceans do suck CO2 out of the atmosphere. Two problems: When oceans absorb CO2 they become more acidic and this threatens the survival of fish species; Trees are being destroyed much faster than they are being planted, so their ability to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere is falling while, at the same time our CO2 emissions are increasing.

The problem with trees is made even more problematic by increasing global temperature which causes droughts and bush fires – both of which kill huge and increasing numbers of trees. When trees die, instead of absorbing CO2, they release it.

Fellow-Agnostic,

Why do you think they call it 'greenhouse gas' ? Because growers pump CO2 into their greenhouses, to encourage growth - and also to economise on water, since more rapidly growing plants use proportionately less water.

I think you misinterpret Lomborg very badly. As well, you sort of answer your own question - if trees absorb CO2, as of course they do, and as all vegetable growth does, then why not plant vastly more trees ? It can't be rocket science to organise tree plantings across the North, say a million a year to start with ? Aboriginal people could be trained up to operate the necessary nurseries and pumping stations. Problem solved. Piece of cake.

Joe

Hi Loudmouth

Lomborg approach is that he thinks CO2’s promotional effects on plant life justifies an increase in CO2 emissions. The problem with this approach is that it ignores two very serious effects of allowing atmospheric CO2 to rise further:
(1) it increases ocean acidity which reduces survivability of plankton on which fish species depend and this threatens fish species on which we depend and,
(2) it causes average global temperature to rise to very dangerous levels which will produce very severe climate conditions characterized by droughts, heat-waves and fires which life-forms, animal and plant alike, can not survive.

The very real threat of climate becoming so severe that it destroys human habitat is the reason why we must curb Carbon emissions and keep average global temperature below 2°C above the pre-industrial. If we fail to achieve the latter, we are simply not going to be around to debate Lomborg’s attitude – or anything else.

Fellow-Agnostic,

I still think you misinterpret Lomborg: as the Arch-Devil Incarnate, he's not praising CO2, demanding more of it; simply that he sees its reduction at the cost of economic development of poor counties as a problem which can wait, solutions to which will probably be found in the process of technological innovation generally. As I think they will, and as you inadvertently conceded.

As for plankton, etc., I vaguely understand that the southern Southern Ocean is now seen again as a giant CO2 sink, taking in 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2 each year. Could it be that the plankton and krill etc. are using CO2 as a food, like plants do ?

I suppose that shows just how ignorant I am :)

Hi again Fellow-Agnostic,

About your declaration that CO2 ".... causes average global temperature to rise to very dangerous levels which will produce very severe climate conditions characterized by droughts, heat-waves and fires which life-forms, animal and plant alike, can not survive."

I'm assuming you're not going to claim that the Californian fires are a result of global warming ? That you are a bit better than that ?

Good. Now, why do you think global warming will, on balance, create more droughts ? With most of the Earth's surface covered by water, why not assume that global warming will massively increase evaporation from the oceans and heavier rainfall ? Isn't that supposed to be happening in our North ?

Global warming will/does extend growing seasons, so crops can be grown where previously there was simply not enough time for them to mature. How is that a negative ? As well, wouldn't global warming push the potential areas for growing further up into the higher latitudes ? Say, by 100 km for every degree rise ? How is that a negative for, say, Canada or Russia ? Every degree rise, at that rate, would open up perhaps millions of square kilometres for production around the world, wouldn't it ?

Certainly, every degree rise in regions like the Middle East would make life that much more unbearable. But on balance, would winters be MORE bearable in, say, Britain ? Scandinavia ? Russia ? China ? Korea ? Canada ? No more being snowed in across Scotland ? Fewer drunks freezing to death in Moscow ?

There are those of us, thick as two planks, who buck when we suspect some con-job. Being somewhat superior [only one plank thick], I'm not one of those, I do think GW is probably occurring, maybe, and that, on balance it may be having negative consequences, if not now then maybe in the future. But it doesn't help to over-gild the lily.

Joe

Agnostic has been asked on numerous occasions over the years of his support for climate fraud to refer us to science which demonstrates any measurable effect of human emissions on climate.
He cannot do so, because the human effect is trivial, and not measurable, so it is not scientifically evidenced. as it would be if the effect could be measured.
Agnostic is aware of this, so his support of the climate fraud, which calls for lowering of human emissions, with no scientific justification, is based purely on his dishonesty.

One thing that puzzles me is why the migrants get on boats and cross
the sea to Greece from Turkey when they could just walk across the
border or perhaps just get the bus from Instanbul to either Greece or
Bulgaria.

Seems to be a very silly thing to do.

Thank you Mike for that display of mendacious dishonesty and snivelling evasion.

There's only one thing you haven't done: established any rational justification for any climate policy.

All anyone needs to know about the so-called "science" that Mike is referring to, is that the global warmists are everywhere using the same completely failed methodology as Mike:
a) assume their conclusion in their premises
b) misrepresent what the data say by self-interested facile biased manipulations - the warmists' corrupt culture of doing this, is what these idiots are calling 'science'
c) seek to confirm rather than to falsify their hypothesis
d) take as proof that other people are saying it - yes, it's literally that bad, isn't it Mike?
e) ignore the established vested interests in the zillions
f) ignore the human evaluations which completely disprove their entire stupid theory
g) act as if they know everything in the world, including how much water should be in the oceans, I mean this amount of stupid hurts
h) treat any question of the truth of their gabblings as a "distraction". When you don't care that what you're saying is untrue, and only want to propagate your ideology, then yes, logic is a distraction I guess.

Why does OLO keep publishing this irritating dishonest twaddle? There is no debate. The warmists have been challenged to justify their argument, and have simply failed to join issue since the very beginning. All they have ever done is what Mike just did, over and over again. It's completely pathetic. He's openly telling us he thinks the truth is irrelevant!

Dear Agnostic of Mittagong.

I have no way of verifying if your statistics on sea ice are accurate or not. For one thing, we have on record the evidence of the boys and girls in the East Anglia Climate Research Institute's fiddling of the figures (Climategate) which tends to suspicion and deep mistrust of climate scientists claims. Scientists are supposed to be above self interest and ideology, but I don't buy that. I still remember the "scientists" that the tobacco companies used to put before the TV cameras who claimed that smoking did not cause cancer.

On the other hand, I can definitely vouch for the incident where an entire ship of scientists went to Antarctica (the Ship of Fools) to prove that sea ice was shrinking, and they got trapped in sea ice that did not even exist 100 years ago.

Faced with choosing between "scientists" claims I do not trust, and the direct evidence from the "Ship of Fools" incident that sea ice is growing, not shrinking, my reasonable assumption is that sea ice is not shrinking.