A is A, is there anything you would like to say about the Science journal report from 2004 in my earlier posting?

Grace,

You claim now that you are interested in reality and yet you rely entirely on others for what you believe to be reality?

You are unwilling to support your assertions with any evidence. Saying that others believe something and you believe them is not evidence.

Being sceptical is all very well but having that attitude to just one side of a discussion makes it impossible to form a rational judgement based on evidence.

My earlier use of religious consensus to question the assumption that consensus provides the correct answer seems most appropriate.

Your attitude to global warming is nothing short of a religious - beliefs based solely on faith, refusal to examine evidence which might undermine your beliefs, attempts to ridicule those who don't agree with you and blind acceptance of the word of your leaders, "the experts".

If your attitude is fixed, then what are you doing in this discussion or any other discussion about global warming ?

It is clear that you don't want to learn or you would be interested enough to look at the evidence. Is your sole purpose in being here to attempt to denigrate those who don't share your faith in your "experts"?

The thing about global warming, "Climate change" is that it we know how it is caused. We also know what will happen to the planet if it continues at its current rate.

There are only two things that we should be doing right now. We should be re-forresting the planet quickly. Paper should cost 10 to 100 times what it does now, to slow down wood chipping etc.

We should be using alternate energy sources. Sola panels could be made for a few dollars a each if there was demand and competition. With that, hydrogen could be manufactured by solar/wind energy to drive our vehicles.

The solutions are not difficult. It primarily the greed of our governments that is killing our planet.

The global warming debate has been running on OLO for the past couple of months, with opinions from Alan Oxley and Alan Moran arguing the case against global warming and the Kyoto Protocol, and opinions from Des Griffin and Gareth Walton arguing the case for global warming and the Kyoto Protocol. As I understand it, the position adopted by Griffin and Walton is supported in general terms by world-wide scientific consensus that global warming is already upon us, that is is probably due mainly to human activity, and that we should do something to rein in our environmental destruction.

By contrast, as I understand it, the position adopted by Oxley and Moran is that this scientific consensus on global warming is based on bad science and bad politics and that any actions we might take in deference to the “precautionary principle” would be a waste of time and money.

Oxley and Moran have two strong advocates for their case in the comments forums. Snowman and A is A challenge the scientific consensus on global warming on the basis of “bad science” (Snowman), and it would appear, “bad politics” (A is A). Both have challenged my position, which is to generally accept the evidence and arguments put by the majority of scientists world-wide, until I am otherwise persuaded. So far, Snowman and A is A have not managed to persuade me to their point of view, and I have been variously accused of being lazy, stupid and irresponsible. In line with Snowman’s extensive 15 page posting of his arguments on a previous forum, here are a few more pointers in support of my own position.

In essence, I am very sceptical of economists with vested interests in support of big business dumping on a world-wide scientific consensus on the basis of fictionalized accounts of the real world (Oxley and Moran), and very sceptical of anonymous commentators who, on the one hand appear to harbour a grudge against any notion of scientific consensus (Snowman), and who on the other hand, put forward unscientific, but highly rhetorical arguments that sound very much like the the authors they support (A is A).

On Dec 31 2005, an article was published on OLO by the economist Alan Oxley entitled “Howard Vindicated on Kyoto strategy”. Oxley is a well-known public advocate for big business and untrammeled free trade, and a part of the anti-Kyoto Lavoisier lobby group, together with Hugh Morgan, former CEO of Western Mining Corporation. Oxley’s article made approving mention of a book of fiction called “State of Fear”, written by Michael Crichton, the same novelist who bought us Tyrannosaurus Rex incarnate in “Jurassic Park”. According to Oxley, Crichton’s novel provides a “full vindication of the position taken by the Howard Government on Kyoto”. So that’s all right then.

In commenting approvingly on Oxley’s article, A is A relied on testimony to a US senate committee last year by a certain Prof Zbigniew Jaworowski, which an internet source describes as an expert on nuclear explosions from Poland, and his evidence on Upper Carboniferous, Lower Permian and Quaternary and present day CO2 levels, and then concludes with this statement, “To ignore evidence from the earth’s long history, and to be mesmerized by computer generated fantasies is to be deliberately obtuse.” Such a finely-wrought scientific argument on the basis of one pro-Bush administration testimonial from Poland made me wonder whether A is A might be Alan Oxley himself, or perhaps Alan Moran...

On 20 January 2005 Alan Moran, Director of the Deregulation Unit at the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), and an economist with an energy industry background, published an essay on OLO entitled “The earth’s power and might”. Again, Michael Crichton’s book of fiction, “State of Fear” was approvingly cited as providing evidence of the “blind fanaticism” of “a number of environmental activist organizations and their supporters” and “mendacious scientists playing on fears to improve their case for research grants”. Amazingly, “Crichton is his novel even predicts a tsunami”, and Moran concluded with the reassuring words, “The earth is a massive and stable structure…”. A is A made no comments on Moran’s article.

It is notable that the arguments presented by A is A in his postings in support of Oxley and against Walton are highly rhetorical and contemptuous of dissent, not to mention scientifically questionable at the most basic level. For example, A is A posted a comment earlier in this forum about the activities of Greenpeace in Norway, and ended his posting on a separate note as follows: “Earlier this year, the journal Science published evidence that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet had not only stopped shrinking but was growing at a rate of nearly 27 billion tons a year.”

In querying his comment, I posted a report of a Science journal article from 2004 showing not only that glaciers in West Antarctica have substantially increased their rate of shrinking, but that they are moving faster. Instead of explaining the apparent contradiction, A is A responded by announcing that he had clearly indicated in his earlier posting that the increase in the Antarctic Ice Sheet reported by him occurred in 2002. In fact, his earlier posting said no such thing.

This was followed by another posting from A is A which repeated some of the details about Greenpeace in Norway, but failed to mention his apparently fraudulent Antarctic Ice Sheet claim. And I was then pompously advised to take on the responsibility of doing my own research (in the Antarctic?) rather than relying on the noisy assertions of others (such as his own?). What is going on here? But lets be generous: in effect, the noisy opinions of A is A carry no more weight than my own.

As I understand it, neither Alan Oxley nor Alan Moran are scientists. They are both economists and hard right-wing, pro-business advocates of market deregulation and free trade. Oxley writes opinion columns for the SMH where he never misses a chance to boost the Howard Government’s economic platform, to pour scorn on environmental concerns about the state of the planet and to complain vociferously about the activities of non-government organizations such as Greenpeace, the World Wide Fund for Nature and others. Moran is employed as Director of the Deregulation Unit by the IPA, which is funded by undisclosed commercial and business interests, and which has been described as follows:

“Founded in 1943 by Charles Kemp (father of the Howard Government’s David and Rod), the Institute of Public Affairs calls itself “Australia’s oldest and largest private-sector “think tank”. An IPA form letter, dated soon after John Howard’s election as prime minister, stated: ‘Although measuring success is difficult in our business, IPA’s influence is clearly significant. Our views appear frequently in the media. We are regularly asked to write for newspapers and other publications, to comment on radio and television, to give public talks (with over 100 delivered in 1995), and to make submissions to public inquiries…Our publications are distributed to Federal and State politicians, to many educators and libraries, and to 4500 subscribers.’

“Long associated with the ‘dry’ end of the Liberal Party, IPA’s primary concerns have always been economic. From the mid-1980s however, it began pushing ‘family’ issues as well, with regular opinion columns in Rupert Murdoch’s Australian that argued for more durable marriage and more difficult divorce, for example…” (Marion Maddox, “God under Howard: The Rise of the Religious Right in Australian Politics”, Allen & Unwin 2005, p 210).

On page 254 of her book, Maddox further informs us that the IPA, being a Non-Government Organisation or NGO, jealously guards its special influence with the Howard Government, and enjoys the quid pro quo that follows. In 2003 the IPA, as an NGO itself, received a $50,000 contract from the Howard Government to investigate “the relationship between government and NGOs.” Maddox continues, “..the fact that the government had skirted the usual sources of background information and research, and gone instead to an organization with a long history of ideological campaigning on topics such as the environment, overseas aid and indigenous issues… in ways that have generally helped conservative governments against more progressive groups, gave the move a look of paying to get the advice you want.”

In other words, Alan Moran and the IPA have a clear vested interest, not least through their direct contract funding by the Howard Government, in dumping on other NGOs, particularly environmental NGOs, and publicly advocating the position of the Howard Government in relation to the Kyoto Protocol (which comes into effect at the end of this month, with the USA and Australia as non-signatories.)

And let’s not forget how closely the Howard Government (and the IPA and the Lavoisier Group) follows on the coat-tails of the Bush administration in relation to the science behind the Kyoto Protocol. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find any hard science at all in Howard’s policy position. It is more a case of doing as we are told by the Bush administration and their business cronies. As Des Griffin referenced in his essay, Paul Harris reported in The Observer on 21 September 2003 as follows.

White House officials undermined their own government scientists' research into climate change to play down the impact of global warming. Environmental campaigners claimed that efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions were sabotaged because of President George W. Bush's links to the oil industry. Emails and internal government documents obtained by The Observer showed that officials sought to edit or remove research warning that the problem is serious. They enlisted the help of conservative lobby groups funded by the oil industry to attack US government scientists if they produced work seen as accepting too readily that pollution is an issue.

Central to the revelations of double dealing was the discovery of an email sent to Phil Cooney, chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, by Myron Ebell, a director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The CEI is an ultra-conservative lobby group that has received more than $1 million in donations since 1998 from the oil giant Exxon, which sells Esso petrol in Britain. The email, dated 3 June 2002, revealed how White House officials wanted the CEI's help to play down the impact of a report by the government's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in which the US admitted for the first time that humans are contributing to global warming.

The email discussed possible tactics for playing down the report and getting rid of EPA officials, including its then head, Christine Whitman. Both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are former oil executives; National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was a director of the oil firm Chevron, and Commerce Secretary Donald Evans once headed an oil and gas exploration company. Other confidential documents obtained by The Observer detailed White House efforts to suppress research that showed the world's climate is warming.

A four-page internal EPA memo reveals that Bush's staff insisted on major amendments to the climate change section of an environmental survey of the USA. Some of the changes include deleting a summary that stated: "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment." Sections on the ecological effects of global warming and its impact on human health were removed. So were several sentences calling for further research on climate change. A temperature record covering 1,000 years was also deleted, prompting the EPA memo to note: “Emphasis is given to a recent, limited analysis [which] supports the administration's favoured message.”

I would like to know what price Australia will pay in the longer term for blindly supporting this sort of self-interested and irresponsible fiddling with the scientific facts at the behest of giant energy interests who have a vested interest in ignoring global warming.

To continue, as pro-business and pro-Howard economists, neither Alan Moran nor Alan Oxley have any professional credentials in any area of science as far as I can discern, and have no particular understanding of the laws of nature, or the nature of scientific experimentation, scientific evidence or scientific consensus. Yet they are both keen to promote a fictional account of the global warming debate, because it happens to fit with their jaundiced view of global politics, and their bogeyman theory of environmental activism undermining economic growth at all costs.

Further, as economists they both believe in the God of the Free Market and the Wizard of Deregulation, human constructs based on human assumptions about human behaviour. The economic theories that they promote, many of which depend on highly complex and esoteric modelling far from the realities of our lives, are not scientifically testable or refutable, but ultimately dependent on selective hypotheses about human nature, to the effect that we are all competitive, individualistic and greedy. These selective hypotheses or conjectures about human behaviour operate at the level of faith, because they are not amenable to any rigorous scientific testing or refutation.

On the other hand, scientific theories about global warming and the complex computer models that support these theories, are based on real world observations that are testable and refutable in the longer run. Computer modeling of global climate systems is necessary in order to deal with the huge amount of observational data, evidence and information that is available to the scientists around the planet.

While it is easy to dismiss such modeling as “computer generated fantasies” (as does A is A), this suggests a lack of understanding of very large steady-state systems and the value of cybernetics in understanding how relatively small perturbations in such systems can result in larger perturbations through negative feedback. This is not something that can be easily visualized or experimentally tested in the real world in an immediate sense, because it would require a planetary laboratory, but mathematical theory, such as catastrophe theory for example, tells us that “the butterfly effect” is worth attention. This also suggests that anomalous observations on different parts of the planet, which produce such heated disagreements on the “evidence”, are to be expected, but the larger perspective should be kept in focus.

In summary, the highly rhetorical opinions of Oxley, Moran and A is A on the global warming debate appear to me to be based more in faith-based economic theory, the vested interests of big business, particularly big energy and mining interests, right wing political agitprop in support of Bush and Howard, and a single published work of fiction by Michael Crichton, than on any real understanding of global climate science and environmental concerns. All of which cautions me to be very sceptical about their opinions, however noisily expressed.

I continue to find the consensus of professional and independent scientific evidence and opinion around the world more persuasive in the global warming debate, and hope that our government will consent to listen and act before we, and our children and grandchildren, reap the whirlwind

Mark, give it a break.

Scientists have very little idea what causes climate change!

If you think it is carbon dioxide then why is it that temperatures have not equalled or passed their 1998 values? That's 6 years ago and a whole lot of carbon dioxide has been added to the atmosphere since then.

You'll be pleased to learn that deserts have been shrinking in the last 10 years ... and a lot of scientists put that down to the extra carbon dioxide acting as plant fertiliser.

If carbon dioxide isn't causing much warming then why do we need alternative energy such as solar and wind power? Look, they're fine for remote areas that are damn expensive to connect to the elctricity grid and perhaps for buildings that aren't used very often but right now their cost compared to their efficiency is pretty poor.

In principle I'd love to have a solar energy farm because we have plenty of sunlight but the cost of the solar cells and the cost of their maintenance (eg. washing) make it financially not worth doing - at least not yet.

cheers

Des Griffin and Gareth Walton aren't scientists either.