“Sure, our emissions are 1.3% of the global total. But our population is 0.3% of the global total…” (In other words our per capita pollution is vastly higher than it should be! Then if you add in our coal exports to other countries we are at "…4% rather than 1.3%. This would make Australia the world’s sixth-largest contributor to climate change.”
http://theconversation.com/how-to-answer-the-argument-that-australias-emissions-are-too-small-to-make-a-difference-118825

Not only that, there are 20 other countries at or around our level of CO2 emissions taking the smaller countries up to a quarter of all emissions. In other words, if we don't do our bit because it's too small, why should they? Then a quarter of the world's CO2 emissions just keep on polluting.

The World Bank has said a world of 3 or 4 degrees of warming is incompatible with civilisation as we know it. Read: agricultural disruption and excessive storm damage and geopolitical tension over fresh water and immigration.

Max Green's post is just flat out wrong. As the air temperature increases the atmosphere can hold more water. The extra water doesn't come from space, it comes from the oceans, melted ice-caps, rivers and the soil.

The scary increase in temperature that the IPCC models predict is driven by this increase in atmospheric water vapour. They call it a forcing.

If you don't understand the basic mechanism, you're not equipped to denigrate other people as "deniers", or to insist people should follow "the science", because you are clearly not expert enough to have an opinion.

Mr Green might also like to take onboard the fact that the CO2 effect is logarithmic, and most of the CO2 greenhouse effect is already in the system. Additional CO2 has a minor influence on temperature. Not none, but not much either.

Ho Humm, it doesn't matter anyway !

Hi GrahamY,
if you re-read my post you'll see that I agree with you 100%.
*AS* the air temperature increases, the atmosphere holds more water vapour. That's what I read the IPCC experts to be saying!

I didn't say extra water came in from space. I said "The extra water doesn't come from space". My point was there's no extra water entering the system to warm it up in the first place. What causes the INITIAL warming that then kicks off the water vapour feedback?

WARMING => INCREASE IN WATER VAPOUR => EVEN MORE WARMING!

The logarithmic nature of CO2 is already included in the IPCC initial calculations that lead to about 1.2 degrees per doubling, which is multiplied by their Climate Sensitivity factor involving water vapour feedbacks to be about 3ish degrees for the first CO2 doubling.

It is dismaying to see former senior fire officers and climate alarmists grinding that axe in this context. There is nothing unprecedented in our current drought or heat. If the BOM published a standard statistical analysis of its own records it would be evident that present drought and temperature are well within the range to be expected in Australia.

However, there is a real way in which more CO2 does affect bushfire behaviour, namely by extra growth. As the 28-year-long study by CSIRO and NASA published in 2013 showed, more CO2 brings more plant growth – the ‘greening’ of the Earth. The massive upside is that we have ample food to nourish the ever-growing global population. A downside is that fine fuel on the forest floor accumulates faster - about 15% faster now than in 1970. This 15% greater fuel load means that the fire front travels about 15% faster, that spot-over embers carry about 15% further in front of the main fire and that the main fire burns with about 30% greater intensity.

This underlines the necessity for forest-floor fuel load reduction. Since Mankind has been in Australia this has been done by hazard-reduction burning. It is important to make best use of age-old Aboriginal methods and to ignore all Greenie whinging. But even when this has been done, experience shows that there is no realistic prospect of fire alone being able to achieve the reduction required.

The vital additional element is mechanical collection and recovery of the fine fuels – especially in areas close to homes, schools, powerlines, phone towers and such. Mechanical collection has minimal weather constraint, makes no smoke, has no risk of an escaped fire, etc. Marvellous modern forest machines make the task routine. The forest-floor fuel load which powers bush fires can equally well power a thermal electricity plant. The 3,900 MW DRAX plant in UK runs on (imported) pelletised timber and residues.

Even if hazard reduction is done ideally, established fire-fighting methods, putting the wet stuff on the red stuff, remains vital. Resources for this have been commendably increased and this should continue

Come off it Max, "Yes, water vapour IS the most powerful greenhouse gas, but the amount of it isn't changing. There's no rain coming in from space or anything. So why is the planet warming up?"


Water vapor is absolutely critical to the garbage global warming scam. Remember all those so called tipping points Max. With out them, mostly claiming increased water vapor as a major cause, CO2 can't ever, at any concentration cause more than 2.0C warming, even if you believe it causes warming. Of course you have to believe in the honesty of the UN to believe any of it.

Can't you people ever get inconstant in what you claim? Of course not, you need a new argument every time the current one is shot down.