It's likely that Biden doesn't know much about Australia, but if he does, he could learn from another leftist leader, Bill Shorten, who also thought that climate change was the "number one priority". Shorten and Labor, their wacky supporters (even here on OLO) thought the election would be a shoo in for them because of the importance of climate change. The electorate disagreed, and Shorten is history, at a much younger age than Biden.

Don: most of the people dying from the China virus are elderly, not "some". 99.9% of people who catch the China virus do not die, often experiencing mild flu symptoms only. Leave the inaccuracies to people who enjoy scaring others.

Climate change is an event, not a "problem". Lies are told. Power is grabbed. Money is made. A new religion has dawned. End of story.

ttbn,

I detest people who deny that the burning of fossil fuels is behind global warming and its consequential climate change.

They are on the same level as Holocaust deniers.

Holocaust deniers are disgusting and the anthropogenic global warming deniers are a cancer to life on our planet.

Had to happen sooner or later. I (partly) agree with DA.

I agree that "climate change" and "net zero" have become religious manias, with prudent or realistic policy left far behind. If 1.5-2 degrees warming really is the end of the world, then that's what we face.

I don't agree the world is "greening". There's serious and sustained decline, all due to the two-legged lemming. Relentless logging and land clearing, vast habitat and species losses, profligate water guzzling, overpopulation and overconsumption.

Steve S,

1.5 - 2 degrees warming is only the beginning. (I believe we are at just over 0.8 degrees above pre-industrial level).

It's the 6 degree above pre-industrial level that is the killer. Parts of the planet will actually start to boil when it reaches that point but we will probably all be dead before it does.

Hey, don't stop listening to the deniers. Just keep burning fossil fuels to drive the mean temp of the planet up to the 6 degrees plus point.

The faster the better so that I can witness all the effects predicted by science come true. Might as well go out with a bang!

My, my, Don,

"In the second place, no one has yet died from climate change, and the day of reckoning, so to speak, has been pushed well into the future."

So, no refugee crisis, no droughts killing thousands of livestock and thousands of people from starvation, no calls from the UNHCR for donations desperately needed to support starving masses in Sudan and so many refugee camps, no horrific bushfires in Aus in 2019/20 Summer and now in California, and major exceptional floods and storms displacing and killing?

Nothing to see here - just the 'new normal'?

It seems we may never fail to be amazed by the 'failures' of the supposedly 'educated' to recognize 'the obvious'.

Is there a 'model' to actually 'prove' that the world is a lot more than 6,000 years old?
Or, that dinosaurs predated Homo by millions of years?
That many 'Suns' were born and died long before our own Sun and solar system were born?

Why be surprised then that there is no 'model' which can fully explain Climate Change in our time?

200 hundred years of combustion of fossil fuels - which were generated over millions of years, millions of years ago - no possible impact on geophysical phenomena, either in coincidence with or in competition with other 'natural systems'?

Modern mass population increase and mass consumption increase - engineered largely by mass environmental destruction and remodeling - could not possibly have had any significant impact on climate, or on biodiversity or species extinction, could it?

Judaism was usurped by Christianity, and which is now challenged by Islam (but which already has problems of Sunni/Shia disunity) - in the never-ending human impulse for 'supremacy' both of the physical and of the intellectual.

Was there ever an era of true 'Enlightenment'?

For we are now seeing and experiencing an emerging Western liberationist religion gaining massive strength and following 'by stealth' - the religion of 'Entitlement'.

Best not to bury one's head in books and formulae or 'models' when 'the truth' is so clearly visible just beyond the tip of one's nose.

None so blind....?

Mr. Opinion,

Feel free to detest me as much as you like. It won't stop me knowing that climate change is a natural phenomenon over which petty little humans have no influence.

Our coal and gas markets will cease to exist in around 30years time or sooner and given we are ruled by elitist troglobites. Who have been struck by an advanced case of Sergeant Shultz's syndrome? That has not limited their ability to serve up endless spin, verbal vomit? Just has blocked their ears and blinded their eyes, willfully?

And have us looking down the barrel of stranded assets/ unpalatable sovereign risk!

Without the aforementioned anchormen holing us back for all they're worth, with every means at their disposal, we could become an energy-exporting superpower if we could isolate the dumb bums and or, powerful vested interest, who want to chain us to coal and gas! And privatise everything not nailed down!

Simply put, if the goal is to reduce the carbon in the atmosphere? Then the most expeditious way is to stop using those fuels that create it!

And replace it with those that don't and stack up financially as unsubsidised energy provision. Even Forest Gump understand that!

Every western-style economy rests solely on just 2 support pillars, energy and capital. Capital has never ever been cheaper and privatised, corporatised energy has never ever been dearer!

Why? Because like water and the other utilities, is carrying way too many parasitic passengers and much too much lead in the economic saddlebag! Way too many and way too much!

More later and I know you know where I'll be heading with this!
Alan B

Steve S, whether the world is greening or not depends on who you listen to.

Here's one link that says the world has been greening for a few decades now: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/144540/china-and-india-lead-the-way-in-greening

Here's another that says it hasn't: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-stopped-getting-greener-20-years-ago/

Note that both articles are from the same year from web-sites of established and well regarded institutions.

Mr Opinion

We've already established by agreement that you don't understand what you're talking about, remember?

Emoting, and dishonest evasion of disproofs, is not "science".

You need to understand that you've been brainwashed. How you can tell, is by the fact that your garble-yarp is just a jumble of illogic that you can't defend but by instant descent into passionate personal abuse. Obviously you don't understand what science is. (Hint: its proofs can't rest on mere personal disparagement.)

Logic doesn't magically DISAPPEAR because some people want to steal from others and use the state as their instrument.

All one has to do, is state your unstated assumption that government has no interest in the topic, to see how absurd is your unstated theory of knowledge that "It must be so, because the government tells me so". Real clown-world stuff.

With *real* science, you can defend it with rational argument. What you've got is religion.

Okay? You need to understand that.

If you want, I can teach you how to un-do your brainwashing and actually use your brain for critical thinking.

But if you don't - and let's face it, you don't - then there's nothing to be done with you.

But squarking your hateful anti-human slogans doesn't make them true.

Anyway, you call yourself an "environmental sociologist", even though you don't understand the first thing about it, which I prove by your inability to answer this question on climate policy:
"What is the relevant data set?"

Go ahead. Answer.

Yes it's a no brainer. Obviously we should be focused on maintaining the lowest cost reliable energy supply currently available.

Lack of hardship for so long is probably a factor in today's skewed thinking. The danger reduced city environment with all it's convenience must have an effect on perception as well. Plus there's a larger than ever percentage of the population living on other than the physical production that naturally fosters rational thought.
Conditions are there to create susceptibility to the claims of doomsday prophets. Prophets for profit included.

Arguably it's always been a bit this way. Scriptures warned of armageddons to lure listeners out of savagery. Meant for good the same's been deviously used to gain wealth and power.
I suspect this climate change thing's much the same. Someone came up with a story about the world coming to an end and it's all gone on from there. Perhaps meant for good, true or false, fear of the story's bringing a great deal of harm not the least being the subversive preying on the fears of the innocent.

Over these years on these and other pages, I've mentioned and promoted the importance of a calculated figure called the ECS - “equilibrium climate sensitivity”.

The linked article explains it more fully, but basically its the estimated increase in temperatures following a doubling of CO2 levels.

http://www.cfact.org/2020/10/20/crisis-looms-in-alarmist-climate-science/

(Yes yes I know. Its CFACT. So those so disposed will ignore the underlying data but stillpretend to be following the science.)

The article shows that there is growing uncertainty about what the actual ECS is, with many calculations showing an ECS of less than 1.5C. That is, even if the CO2 levels double to 560ppm, the temperature would rise by less than 1.5c as compared to 1850. These new lower number are based on actual observational studies rather than climate models.

The point is that the whole issue is highly uncertain. Its possible that if we ever get to a CO2 doubling (highly unlikely) then temperatures will rise dangerously. OTOH its possible that they'll rise by such a small amount that we'll barely notice. (eg temperatures are already 0.8c over 1850. If the ECS of 1.2c is correct then the next century would see rises of only 0.4c, or less, due to increased CO2).

The upshot is that far from the science being settled, there is such uncertainty that economy disrupting policies ought to be delayed until the uncertainty is resolved.

mhaze,

You AGW deniers are exactly like the Holocaust deniers.

The only difference between the two is that one denies the past and the other denies the future.

I’m not personally susceptible to the effects of fear mongering witch doctors thankfully.

My opinion on this subject hasn’t changed over the years. It bores me to tears.

I’ve concluded both sides are reliant on hyperbolic argument, and remind me of two problem gamblers laying bets on two flies crawling up the wall.

Dan

Re the greening of the earth, there is a report on the NASA website
on this and states that green areas as seen from space have expanded.
Second hand info as I have not looked there myself.
However BOM has info on Cyclones (Hurricanes etc) that are
lower in frequency and intensity contrary to AGW theory.
The graph was there about a year ago.
So many predictions have failed it must put the whole thing to question.

Yep Bazz that is one of the articles/reports that I linked to in my previous post. However as I previously said, there are others that say that the earth has not greened. So who does one believe?

Here's the two links again (both articles are from 2019):

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/144540/china-and-india-lead-the-way-in-greening

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-stopped-getting-greener-20-years-ago/

Mr Opinion

But according to you, it's already too late, remember?

We're all going to boil!

The temperature fall from the Medieval Warm period to the Maunder
Minimum would have been more than 2 degrees I believe as just 1 deg
would not have caused the Vikings to pack up on Greenland and leave
in the 14th century about half way through the AGC.
They were a pretty tough bunch of Norwegians and had been there for hundreds of years.
So what is the change from the Maunder Minimum till now ?
That info must be available as highly accurate thermometers were
available in the early 19th century.
Wikipeadia does not help it does not realise that sunspots and solar
cycle are quite different cycles. One is hundreds of years and the
sunspot cycle is eleven years.

They keep repeating follow the science but I suspect the science is
starting to leave them high and dry.

being hearing the same gw gc c ap for 50 years. As societies morals declined so did the rise of this virtue signalling religion that teaches we can change the climate by not burning coal. I never thought so many could be so dumbed down. I was wrong.

Bazz,

I reckon Mon-Fri you're an AGW denier and on the weekends you fill in a Holocaust denier.

You must live a full life.

Added floaties to my Y2K survival kit.

Struth, a million deaths inside a single year from a single cause?

And the politicians, most of them are listening to the expert advice, albeit even there the deniers are screaming, hoax, conspiracy etc. Want the economy and borders reopened and the devil take the hindmost! We'll live with the obligatory collateral damage they say. After all is only the old farts who are past their use-by date, like the antiquated Don, who are in covid-19's crosshairs!?

But not it seems (they think) in the crosshairs of cancer, which takes 2+ million annually via bismuth 213, treatable cancer.

Treatable cancer which makes annual billions for big pharma? First with their toxic chemo, then even more with the palliative care that eventually kills you, as the medicos try to make your final days from mostly treatable cancer, comfortable?

Treatable with the alpha particle, miracle cancer cure, bismuth 213, as a virtually free by-product of MSR thorium. Read the literature, Children.

MSR thorium cannot meltdown, given it is designed to operate in a molten state, very safely. As was demonstrated between the fifties and the seventies at Oak Ridge Tennessee.

Ivy league economist Professor Robert Hargraves, contends in his book, Thorium cheaper than coal, that the median price of reticulated electricity, the price per KWH, could be as low as 1.98 PKWH.

And just pushes the economic argument alone on merit, rather than the fact that MSR thorium also happens to be carbon-free!

Finally, there's the fact that MSR can use nuclear waste as fuel and that that fuel could be unspent fuel we could be paid annual millions to store! Annual billions that would pay for all the requisite R+D and the build cost of a couple of dozen SMR, MSRs! And all associated infrastructure!

MSR thorium could be used in a recovery on steroids and quite massively turbocharge regionally economies, given we use the bismuth 213 created to underpin massive medical tourism in our outback!

What prevents it? Politicians serving self-interest or worse and coal lobbyists! No names no pack drill, given we know who you are!
Alan B.

There is always one Fwit that feels the need to go OTT and compare something to the Nazis or the holocaust.

Today that prize goes to the Swamp Donkey.

Because almost everyone believes that CO2 is the cause of "Global Warming"
Additionally tens of thousands of newly indoctrinated voters appear on
the voting rolls every year.
I am coming to the belief that the majority belief will prevail.
That is how it should be in a democracy.
So let the government finance all the solar & wind until the money runs out.
Because countries like Japan and New Zealand are too small to have a
range of wind systems to keep enough turbines spinning they will be
forced to nuclear or in NZs case thermal springs.
Australia is probably geographically big enough to do it if the money does not run out.

The most likely scenario is that the economy will collapse because of overspend on energy.
A further cause of collapse will be evacuation of buildings over three floors and the financial loss.
It will make the Corona Virus look like a pleasant picnic.

Alan B.,
It would be nice if Bi 213 were a miracle cancer cure, but it's not. It's merely one ingredient of a rather expensive cancer treatment, and its radioactivity ensures there are side effects. Not as bad as beta or gamma emitters, but still significant.

Palliative care isn't very profitable for anyone, let alone big pharma. And when cancer treatment fails, patients typically don't stay there long anyway.

And by the time the technology has advanced enough for thorium power to produce electricity as cheap as you say, what makes you think solar panels won't be producing it for half that cost?

________________________________________________________________________________

Bazz,

There's a good reason almost everyone believes CO2 causes global warming: physics!
And as for spending "until the money run out", it won't. Since 2008 the problem hasn't been too much money being spent, but too little.

Renewable energy has a very different cost to fossil fuelled power. Upfront costs are higher, but ongoing costs are much lower. And we've reached the stage where it's cheaper overall. Ultimately it will be good for the economy. Of course many people on this board are unable to comprehend that, and can't accept that costs have changed much in the last decade.

shadyminister,

:-) hehehehehehehe .........

China continues to laugh at the fools in the West destroying their economies based on a myth and virtue signalling.

Psycho-runner,

What are you talking about?

PS Did you like the song I wrote for you? Catchy title? "Psycho Runner yeah yeah yeah yeah ..........."

shadyminister,

What's up, don't like being grouped with your kind?

Swamp donkey,

Your kind are loathsome toads and your ilk (Corbynistas) are far more likely to be anti-Semitic and Holocaust deniers than anyone else on this site.

shadyminister,

You and your fellow deniers are the ones who are trying to make out that the scientific community is being dishonest and untrustworthy about AGW / climate.

Swamp Donkey,

Once again you are just lying. I have never denied that AGW is occurring. Once again you are just talking out of your arse.

If you just responded to what I post rather than posting unsubstantiated bollocks you might not look like such a twat.

shadyminister,

Good.

So you support what the scientific community is saying that the adverse current climate change is the result of anthropogenic global warming which is produced by the burning of fossil fuels.

Swamp donkey,

I know that atmospheric CO2 causes heat retention and that increasing levels increase global heat retention and temperature. And if you had read my previous posts you would realize that.

Instead, like a complete moron, you make wild and unsubstantiated claims. You would understand science if it bit you on the arse.

shadyminister,

Now you're telling me you believe the scientific community is wrong in saying that the adverse current climate change is the result of anthropogenic global warming which is produced by the burning of fossil fuels.

So you are an AGW / climate denier.

Which is saying that you believe the scientific community is dishonest and untrustworthy.

Reason: All you care about is money and yourself.

Mr Self-Opinionated

Blind faith in government is not a scientific method, so you obviously don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about, you Holocaust-denying Nazi genocidal totalitarian fascist science-denialist.

Whee! This climate stuff is easy!!

We've already proved, with your agreement, that you don't understand what you're talking about, remember, which is why you can't answer what is the relevant data set for any given climate policy, and hence cannot establish the rationality of what you are talking, or rather brain-farting about.

Besides which, you think human beings are a plague of pests who for the most part should be exterminated, remember?

Your support of totalitarian fascism and genocide does not somehow confer moral superiority on you.

And your unstated assumption that government has no interest in the ideology it produces is obviously laughably stupid, which is why you slither and evade an open question directly on that point. Because you lose either way, which is why you choose dishonesty instead.

But in any event, according to you, it's all too late, so you lose the policy argument on that ground.

In short, intellectually speaking you are having the proverbial arse/elbow problem; and this fact invalidates your entire load of brainwashed garble-yarp.

Swamp donkey,

Each time I think you have hit the limits of human stupidity, you set new records. What I said is exactly what the scientists are saying.

shadyminister,

That's good.

So you support what the scientific community is saying that the adverse current climate change is the result of anthropogenic global warming which is produced by the burning of fossil fuels.

Swamp Donkey,

And there I was thinking that you were completely illiterate.

shadyminister,

What do you think of the AGW / climate deniers?

Swamp donkey

Pretty much the same as I think of Climate change alarmists

shadyminister,

My research focuses principally on what scientists and scholars are saying about AGW / climate change and I can tell you that they are alarmed about the situation and the adverse effects on the environment (and of course the impact on humans).

It sounds like you represent those that do not think.

Which is pretty much what I would expect from an engineer.

Mr Opinion

So how do you work out whether any given climate policy is justified, as against the downsides?

If a given climate policy were otherwise meritorious, but would involve a cost of 6 million human lives, could you CATEGORICALLY DENY that it might still be justified?

Yes, and you are dragged kicking and screaming to admit that you need, and lack, some rational way to take human values into account, and therefore lose the whole policy argument for that reason?

Or no, and you admit the ethical incoherence and bankruptcy of your entire argument, or rather, brainwashed assumptions?

Which?

The fact is, you are way out of your depth, and have failed to understand what you're talking about.

The problem can't be solved by mere temperature data, as you have cluelessly assumed.

Your failure to reply, or any reply by your usual method of shrieking "Nazi!" proves that you agree you cannot defend or understand your own argument, and are, in short, a just a babbler.

You too, SR. Answer the question.

Cumberland,

You are not a scientist.

You do not have a working knowledge of science.

You are just guessing about the science.

You have no scientific credibility.

Swamp donkey,

It's clear from your earlier replies that you haven't clue of the actual physics behind global warming and blindly accept whatever the "scientists" say, even when it is not the scientists saying it.

Your approach to AGW is like a religion based on faith, not understanding as clearly you don't have the IQ to think for yourself. You are a sheep that merely follows the flock bleating on OLO.

shadyminister,

My research focuses principally on what scientists and scholars are saying about AGW / climate change and I can tell you that they are alarmed about the situation and the adverse effects on the environment (and of course the impact on humans).

I am a scholar not a scientist so I am not in a position to debate the science of AGW / climate.

Outside of my scholarly training in the Arts things like history, sociology, archaeology, anthropology, philosophy, etc. (things which you don't know anything about) I also have a degree in mechanical engineering where I was extensively trained in maths, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics inter alia so I can follow what the scientists are saying.

Which is good because to do the research in the area of environmental sociology that I specialise in one should have the expertise in the Arts things and be able to follow the discourses of the scientists.

My research is showing that the scientific community has no doubts that the adverse climate change we are seeing is being caused by anthropogenic global warming produced by the burning of fossil fuels.

You are an obvious AGW / climate denier for whatever reason you have for taking that stance.

I think you as an engineer yourself can follow what the scientists are saying but where you and people like you fall down is that you don't have any knowledge of the scholarly Arts things like history, sociology, archaeology, anthropology, philosophy, etc. which would allow you to see the big picture.

Swamp donkey,

Once again you are lying. Not only do you have no clue as to the simple mechanism of atmospheric warming, but like all religious zealots in history, you are calling everyone that does not believe as you do a heretic and are probably one of the morons that think a retarded teen Greta T is the messiah in despite much of what she says is wild hyperbole.

That you have researched climate change and the best you can come up with is that the scientists are unhappy shows once again that you are as useful as tits on a bull.

shadyminister,

The main thing is that I'm happy.

I don't think anyone could say the same about you.

I think you're unhappy because you are not highly educated, not being a scholar and knowing anything about the Arts things like history, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, etc.

Swamp donkey,

Firstly, you really don't sound happy. The fact that your deep-seated insecurities from general incompetence at work have driven you to collect a series of meaningless qualifications in a vain attempt to give your life meaning is pitiful.

As for my life, once again you have made assumptions about me without knowing a single thing.

I am in a high powered job that I love and can afford a beautiful house with a spectacular view. I have a wife of 30+years and two children, one in medicine and the other in marketing, and pretty much everything I could want.

Shadow Minister,

"In modern use, retard is a pejorative term either for someone with a mental disability or for someone who is stupid, slow to understand, or ineffective in some way."

Your prissy hissy fits really don't give you licence for this rubbish. Please desist.

shadyminister,

So you have a household full of vocationally trained people. That's nice.

Too bad none of you are what I regard as highly educated. For that one needs to be a scholar with degrees in the Arts things like history, anthropology, archaeology, sociology, philosophy, etc. All the stuff you - and from what you just said your family too - don't know anything about.

It's good to see that my BA and 2 x MAs make you think I am unhappy and I must let you know that am going to do another MA. There, feel better now?

PS. Are the members of your family also AGW / climate deniers like you?