The debate is only just starting.
Try this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/05/nosplit/nwarm05.xml

"After 20 years of mounting evidence, climate change is becoming a political and economic issue as important as interests rates and inflation."

Laugh. The mounting evidence is only mounting when you ignore all contrary evidence.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=the_real_climate_change_catastrophe&ns=PaulDriessen&dt=10/21/2006&page=full&comments=true
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/chancy_business/
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/oct/06102301.html

Or how about when a climate change evangelist changes into a global warming skeptic
http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264777
That's definitely a link you need to read as it has links to all sorts of evidence that doesn't agree with the climate change doomsayers.

And if you want to see a response to the dodgey sensationalist fear mongering in the stern report, go no further than
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009181
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009182

This global warming thing is a crock. There is no scientific way you can test it. Far too many variables that we can't control to have any confidence that it is true.

Well said, Andrew. Oxfam has a daunting job at the present, and it promises to get more difficult.

If we are not all to be refugees, we must look directly at the causes of the problem, and interventions which make an immediate difference.

In the interest of brevity, I will leave causes alone and look at just a few intervention strategies.

Sequestration of CO2 has been suggested, but I am surprised that no experts appear to have written it off as an unproven technology - does anyone know of any successful and economic programs? We would be better off to look at decreasing CO2 production now, fast.

This is not so impossible as it may seem. No-one has to freeze in the dark. Much valuable conservation-oriented work was done in the 1970's, in the few years immdiately after OPEC raised its prices.

Several very interesting approaches are discussed in the ABC Background Briefing program aired yesterday (Sunday 5 November. The program is currently posted on Backround Briefing's website). Below, find the blurb, and the links:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/
Sunday 05 November 2006Listen Now - 05112006 |

Electric shocks
The cost of electricity will soar in coming years - and the biggest culprit is the air conditioner. In South Australia, 90 percent of homes use them. At present, whether you have one or not, your electricity bill is higher because their cost is spread among all electricity users. Reporter: James Panichi.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2006/1777438.htm

Intelligent electricity use, generation and metering strategies are currently being trialed in Australia, and deserve far wider publicity. By cutting electricity grid demand through currently available conservation measures and strategic co-generation, we can reduce the minimum amount of coal and gas which must be burnt to assure reliable electricity supply.

I urge all readers to visit the above link and take the time to listen to the program.

I would hate to think we have to wait ten years for unproven, dubious and/or vastly subsidised technological fixes to be up and running.

Meanwhile, we are all candidate refugees, even in Oz

We have to grasp the nettle of coal exports.

That is one of the pillars of Australia's current prosperity and also what is killing the planet. Both this country and the countries to which our coal is exported coal must drastically reduce their dependence upon coal.

Of course their are obvious and serious political obstacles to winding back coal exports. However the choice we face is simple: either we confront those obstacles or we destroy the planet for ourselves, our childeren and grandchildren.

We have to find other means to keep our economies running. The costs of winding back coal exports must be shared fairly throughout the whole community starting with the most prosperous. Other livelihoods have to be found for those who now work in the mining industry or who are dependent upon it.

We can change the way our economy works to make far better use of the reduced quantity of non-renewable natural resources we will choose to consume, however this will require that our governments begin to act to confront the problems we now face instead of taking the back seat as requied by the ideology of economic neo-liberalism that has taken control of the national political agenda in the past three decades.

Obvious ways in which our use of natural resources could be improved dramatically include:

* Use of public transport rather than private motor vehicles

* Effective town planning controlled by governments rather than property developers and land speculators. This would make it possible for more people to live close to work and ameinities and reduce the need for people to travel in the first place.

* Adoption of permaculture to enable food and other necessities to be grown locally without the use of fossil fuel based fertilizers.

* Use of the Internet to reduce the need to travel. However, this option has been made far more difficult as a result of telecommunications deregulation and the privatisation of Telstra now under way (see http://www.citizensagainstsellingtelstra.com/resources/cast-senate-submission-Oct-2003.html#footprint).

Also we have to stop growing our population in order to reduce this country's need to consume resources.

Thanks for the link Owen. The hysteria surrounding the Stern report borders on the ridiculous. Simply because a man is paid by the British Government to come up with a report of doom and gloom doesn't mean we should all jump on the bandwagon. Just last Sunday morning on the ABC's Insiders, Andrew Bolt was waving around a thick A4 sized report that was done by British scientists commissioned by the Blair Government prior to the Stern report that states very much the opposite to what Stern has said. Apparently there wasn't enough taxpayers money or votes in the original scenairo and so the Blair Government ordered another using not recognised scientists, but an economist connected to the World Bank which is a shifty organisation at best. I haven't as yet been able to find any Online reference to the previous report and have written to Mr. Bolt asking where I might obtain it. Look, I'm as environmentally friendly as anyone, but I'm not about to be hoodwinked by someone like Stern who is beginning to be revealed as someone joined to the Current British Government's hip. Something's amiss here people. Let's not join the hysteria in Australia simply because the effects of a prolonged drought are beginning to bite. When you read that ocean stocks will disappear within 50 years unless something urgent is done, well, we've got bigger fish to fry, pardon the pun. The World's population is spiraling out of control placing an ever increasing strain on our ability to simply feed ourselves. Maybe it's issues like population control that need to take first priority, but that won't happen until it's way too late. Without an ever expanding population, we can't have wealth creation and would have to live without the fancy toys that make our boring little lives on Earth livable. The World Bank that's allowed Stern to become a recognised figure in this one sided debate is one of the main beneficiaries of increased growth and wealth (for them).

Stern may be right, of course; humans have disturbed our benign and stable climate and all we can now expect is more and more warming, unless China/India curtail their coal use - and that won't happen. Sceptics may be right; the Sun drives our ever-changing climate, future solar eruptive activity can be predicted, and the next Little Ice Age cold period is almost upon us. No-one knows right now; but we should be able to tell within a decade - so let's not impoverish the world just yet. Precautionary principle, you say? But, the next "Quiet Sun" period will be fuly developed by 2030. How then will governments keep their people warm and fed ? By starting to plan right now, is the answer. Doesn't the precautionary principle work both ways?

Andrew Hewett writes, "The debate about whether climate change is occurring is over. The question now is how do we respond?"

Me - LAUGH OUT LOUD!

And for the simple reasons that are presented in the sensible, logical and scientific arguments presented above by Owen and Grey. I never thought I'd see the day that the story of Chicken Little would come to life for real - especially not on global scale.

How can so many so-called educated people get so-sucked in to a such a so-so-so-obvious political scam over the control of energy?

LAUGH OUT LOUD again.

Wildcat,
I believe the report you are referring to is the Report by the House of Lords Select Committee chaired by Lawson. It was a sane reasoned report and hence totally unnaceptable to the fear-mongerers. You can read it, and responses to it, at
http://www.climatescience.org.nz
This is a group of New Zealand, Australian, South African and UK scientists, economists and policy analysts who remain sceptical.
We are unique in that we have a science panel, an economics panel and a policy analysis panel because all three require their own expertise.
Stern's report is extraordinary if only because it reports on two "parallell" universes. In one universe all developed nations have become as wealthy as America and hence generate an extreme emissions scenario. But these same nations simultaneously occupy a parallel universe in which the women remain so poor that their "gender inequality" is increased because they have to spend more time carrying water and toiling in agriculture - just like all those American women!

Let me get this straight. A former banker delivers a report on climate change that supposedly ends the debate on human induced global warming. And in this report the banker ignores the very existence of double entry bookkeeping.

There is no more fundamental tool to the bankers arts than double entry bookkeeping. It ensures that we record both losses and gains so our decisions can be based on a "true and fair" view of the matters under consideration.

And more than 1000 years of case law on fraudulent dealing have highlighted the fact that those who would seek to influence a debate by only mentioning debits, without off-setting credits, are clearly trying to impair the debate, not win it.

Stern calculated a total cost but failed to calculate a total benefit. But what else could one expect from someone who has worked for a bank that has spent the past 50 years lending obscene amounts of money to dictators, watch as it is syphoned off to Switzerland, and then turn the screws on the luckless citizens to maintain the interest payments on money they never saw.

Just another day in shonk city.

Andrew Hewett just needs to relax.

The Monckton 'Battle of the Graphs' picture puts it in perspective.

Sixty leading climate scientists write to Canadian PM putting climate change in perspective.

Notice this wasn't reported and run with like the hype around enhanced greenhouse.

http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/canadianPMletter06.html

The debate is certainly not over.
See these comments by Dr Mike Hulme who is Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, and Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in this article from Auntie BBC:
“I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama and exaggerated rhetoric.
It seems that it is we, the professional climate scientists, who are now the (catastrophe) sceptics. How the wheel turns.”
This is not all he says.
Please read the link before getting swept up in the hysteria.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6115644.stm

Interesting to look in more detail, at two of the quotes from the above replies:

http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/canadianPMletter06.html

""Climate change is real" is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause ... We need to continue intensive research into the real causes of climate change and help our most vulnerable citizens adapt to whatever nature throws at us next."

and

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6115644.stm

"I believe climate change is real, must be faced and action taken. But the discourse of catastrophe is in danger of tipping society onto a negative, depressive and reactionary trajectory."

"[author] Mike Hulme is … Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research"

Clearly no "consensus", but both quotes acknowledge climate change.

The question is how much time do we have to reach a consensus?

All of the relevant arguments, the concerns and "yes-buts", are reasonably canvassed and updated in the Wikipedia article to be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

The article also mentions 5 categories of interventions:

"Reduction of energy use (conservation)
Shifting ... to alternative energy sources
Carbon capture and storage
Carbon sequestration
Planetary engineering to cool the earth"

Of these, the most immediate is energy conservation. This seems preferable to expensive, subsidised solutions like carbon sequestration, nuclear electricity or a cloud of sunlight-reflecting mirrors fired into orbit (“A Sunshade for Planet Earth” (Science Now Daily News 31 October) see http://blogs.physicstoday.org/newspicks/.

Practical, market-based energy conservation strategies are already here to implement, for those of us who want to move on, using the precautionary principle. See, for example, www.rmi.org/ - the Rocky Mountain Institute.

The graphs of CO2 increase in the Wikipedia item show an abrupt pattern of great increase, that forbodes catastrophe. We can choose to promote and implement immediate proven conservation measures, or we can scoff and deny and wait for "scientific proof". Denial will not fix the problems that we can already attribute to fossil fuel pollution and anthropogenic climate change.

John Howard held out as long as he could. So did Ian Macfarlane. Even they can no longer ignore the mounting evidence, much as they would like it to go away.

Forget the few remaining climate sceptics. Like a residual bacterial culture, they reside in tiny numbers only within the confines of a safe medium, such as Internet forums.

Going out into the street, it is hard to find a climate sceptic anywhere. Sorry guys and gals, if you try to defy unanimous scientific consensus with your semantic quasi science you are going to end up pretty bitter and twisted.

I was a climate sceptic once, and can identify with your fervent wish that it is not all happening. Relax. The game is over.

The climate challenge, as immense as it is, will energise society in many positve ways. Live positively, meet the challenge, help change society so that it can cope, learn about new elegant technologies, lobby for sustainable political solutions, develop a more sustainable lifestyle in your own home.

For those who want to do something about climate change, forget the energy sapping sceptics, there is so much positive stuff to do.

<b>I am rather fond of this from the PDF filehttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2006/11/05/warm-refs.pdf;jsessionid=V3BRRQCKCNNTRQFIQMFCFGGAVCBQYIV0
that expands upon the piece that Owen links too. it sums up the problems with the "consensus" makes the case brigade.</b>

ALL TEN of the propositions listed below must be proven true if the
climate-change “consensus” is to be proven true. The first article considers the first six of the listed propositions and draws the conclusions shown.
The second article will consider the remaining four propositions.
Proposition Conclusion
1. That the debate is over and all credible climate scientists are agreed. False
2. That temperature has risen above millennial variability and is exceptional. Very unlikely
3. That changes in solar irradiance are an insignificant forcing mechanism. False
4. That the last century’s increases in temperature are correctly measured. Unlikely
5.
That greenhouse-gas increase is the main forcing agent of temperature. Not proven
6. That temperature will rise far enough to do more harm than good. Very unlikely
7. That continuing greenhouse-gas emissions will be very harmful to
life. Unlikely
8. That proposed carbon-emission limits would make a definite
difference. Very unlikely
9. That the environmental benefits of remediation will be cost-effective. Very unlikely
10. That taking precautions, just in case, would be the responsible course. False

Remember that the essence of the scientific method is the testing of a hypothesis by experiments that are able to be repeated for verification. That is just not possible with the claims about global warming. Christopher Monckton goes back to first principles and looks at the data that underlies the extravagant claims of AGW and show clearly that the emperor has no clothes at all.

What really pisses me off, is that we're sitting here debating whether or not global warming is caused by emissions.

Look - can we just agree the climate is changing, regardless of whether man created this phenomenon?

Yes? Great.

Setting aside the topic of emissions for the moment, can we focus on actually doing something for the areas which will be worst affected?

But is the climate changing – ie warming?
And what if it is cooling?
It might be warming in some places but the South Pacific appears to be singularly unaffected.
The non urban weather stations in NZ show no warming and indeed temperatures in 2002 were lower than in 1865.
Have a look at the Norfolk Island temps and tell me where the warming is?
Then check out the non-urban stations in Australia. They are all on the Daly page.

And sea levels have not been rising around Australia or anywhere else in the Pacific except as a result of normal plate and volcanic dynamics.
Tuvalu is certainly not sinking and Tuvaluans are not migrating to NZ in spite of Gore's goring of the truth.

So tell me where the temperatures have risen and sea levels have risen at an alarming rate in Australia and New Zealand and maybe we can do something about it.

Thirty years ago we were told to expect an ice age. Now we are told to expect warming.
The Earth's climate is variable. In the Jurassic and Cretaceuous periods the world was a lot warmer and wetter than it is today. There were no ice caps for example. Yet there was an abundance of life.
As the climate changes, mankind will adapt, as he always has. If not he will die.
I see no reason to believe that mankind will not continue to adapt.
Notice that virtually nobody lives in the Sahara.
Man can move around.
In fact our capacity for adaptation has probably increased after the last 150 years,as a result of technology.
So I see no real cause for alarm; certainly no need for "Big Brother" to impose new taxes, regulations etc.

climate change what a goer.

This hasnt just occured since we have been here, its been happenening for the last 10,000 years and something changed about 8,000 years ago.

Yes i know in the last 200 years co2 has increased but instead of temp going down which should have already happened and say another 7,000 years have a very cold period.

Just because change is happening doesnt mean we have been the whole cause of it.

Maybe we should look up during the day sometimes, there are many variables to a problem.

Iain,


A Google Advance Scholar search for Christopher Monckton provides no evidence of your expert's expertise (see below).

If he is an enthusiastic amateur, then he is on the same footing as myself, though it appears that his boots are brighter polished.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=+%22C+Monckton+%22&btnG=Search

"C Monckton "
Tip: Try removing quotes from your search to get more results.

[CITATION] An investigation into the spatial structure of error in digital elevation data

“Shoe-fit”-a computerised shoe print database

[CITATION] Last days in New Guinea

[CITATION] AnInvestigationintotheSpatialStructureofErrorinDigitalElevationData

[CITATION] Progress towards standards for spatial metadata

[CITATION] An Investigation into the Spatial Structure of Error in

Digital Elevation Data, Innovations in GIS

Prenylation-dependent Association of Protein-tyrosine Phosphatases PRL-1,-2, and-3 with the Plasma … -

Burial Ceremonies of the Attah of Idah: Part I

HIV transmitted by kissing

Burial Ceremonies of the Attah of Idah: Part II

BURIAL CEREMONIES OF THE ATTAH OF IDAH

A Useful Cover-slip Container.

[BOOK] European Monetary Union: Opportunities and Dangers

[CITATION] The effect of kallikrein on platelet aggregation

A slide method for demonstrating soluble haemolysin. -

CONTRACTION BANDS AT SHORT SARCOMERE LENGTH IN CHICK MUSCLE -

Regulation of protein tyrosine phosphatase 4a1, B-cell translocation gene 2, nuclear receptor …

SARCOLEMMAL SCALLOPING AT SHORT SARCOMERE LENGTHS WITH INCIDENTAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE T TUBULES -

Interaction of Farnesylated PRL-2, a Protein-tyrosine Phosphatase, with the &#946;-Subunit of … -

Running title: Association of the PTP PRL-2 with Rab &#946;GGT II

New lessons from knockout mice: the role of serotonin during development and its possible … -

Serotonin-Induced Increases in Adult Cell Proliferation and Neurogenesis are Mediated Through … -

Mutational Analysis of the Serotonergic System: Recent Findings Using Knockout Mice -

5-HT1A Receptors, Gene Repression, and Depression: Guilt by Association -

" Shakespeare" and the Codes of Empire in India
N Bhatia - Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, 1998 - JSTOR
... 18 C. Monckton, an Englishman and a student at Fort William College at Calcutta,
did the first translation of Shakespeare into Bengali. ...
Web Search

Well Iain, which C Monckton is your man?

“Put simply - climate change has gone mainstream. Something else has happened too - the debate about whether climate change is occurring is over.”

Agreed Andrew.

However the nature of the changes are still wide open to conjecture.

The question is now how do we respond?”

Well, I don’t think there is much of a question here at all....

You say; “All Australian companies and organisations - including my own - need to act now … and promote sustainable development and growth.”

Absolutely! (although I think sustainable growth is a nonsensical term).

No matter what the nature of climate change, even if it has no discernible impact, the broad direction that we must steer ourselves in is surely the same; directly towards sustainability, and away from the continuous growth paradigm.

Sustainability is the essential bottom line. Weaning ourselves off of our fossil fuel addiction is important, but far less so.

.
Owen, Grey, Maximus and others

Have you seen ‘An Inconvenient Truth’? Have you any intention of doing so? It is absolutely not to be missed, for anyone even remotely interested in climate change.

Ludwig,

Before you recommend that people take the Gore movie seriously, if that is indeed what you are recommending, it might be a good idea to check out the following review:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4938

In essence, Mr Gore's movie is not what many people think it is. Like the Stern report, the movie is much more propaganda than science.

Kathy

Cathy

If you can call ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ propaganda, I think you could brand just about anything propaganda.

The whole movie is about the factual basis behind the conclusions, about explaining where the evidence is for climate change, and just what that evidence really means.

Now of course Bob Carter was going to poo-poo it. We would have expected nothing less from him.

You’ve got to wonder just where Carter is coming from. I mean, he admits that the raw data that Gore chooses is “mostly correct”, and of an elementary nature, put in such a manner that practically anyone can understand.

The receding ice shelves of the Antarctic, ice sheets of Greenland and glaciers around the world, are hard data indicative of a very big change afoot, as are many other things that Gore presents.

Anyway, as I said last time, no matter what the nature of climate change, even if it has no discernible impact, the broad direction that we must steer ourselves in is surely the same; directly towards sustainability, and away from the continuous growth paradigm.

Sustainability means living well within the limitations of our resource base and well within the limitations of our planet to absorb and recycle our waste products without leading adverse consequences.

Part I

I'm a little concerned about the quality of research being conducted on this post.

"Sea levels have not been rising around Australia or anywhere else in the Pacific except as a result of normal plate and volcanic dynamics.
Tuvalu is certainly not sinking and ."

A bold statement, given that numerous studies of the islands' sea level have been made in recent years. The current estimates indicate that the sea level has risen 20cm over the past century, and various sources give the rise in sea level at between 1-2mm per year. According to an Australian/Canadian study (which claim to be the most accurate) gives a rate rise of 1.8mm/year plus or minus 0.3mm.

http://www.agiweb.org/geotimes/sept04/NN_sealevelrise.html

I don't want to be presumptuous and state that this is due to global warming, but to say that there is no observed sea level rise contradicts observations.

Wikipedia actually has a good summary on sea level rise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise

There is also a strong case for stateing that at least SOME of the observed rise is due to global warming. This is included in abridged form in the IPCC report. A very in depth discussion on it is given at
http://www.agu.org/revgeophys/dougla01/dougla01.html

If you've got the time, I suggest reading it.

"Tuvaluans are not migrating to NZ"
Yet.
http://www.tuvaluislands.com/warming.htm

Now:
"The Earth's climate is variable. In the Jurassic and Cretaceuous periods the world was a lot warmer and wetter than it is today. There were no ice caps for example".

While true, this statement is misleading. This is primarily because the warming to the mesozoic period occured over geological time scales. From the antartic ice core project (and to a lesser extent the Greenland ice core project) the fastest observed warming was about 1 degree per millenia. Today, we face a rate 30 times faster than this (at best). Most of this analysis is found in the Weather Makers
and Jones et al (2001, Nature).

Part II

Now onto Christopher Monckton. He is not a climate scientist (for the record, neither am I). However, his primary claim to fame is the development of a (very clever) puzzle.

My first critism is that he doesn't seem to understand the definition of consenus. From dictionary.com:

1. majority of opinion.
2. general agreement or concord; harmony.

Is there consensus? I point specifically to the now famous essay by Naomi Oreskes, who surveyed 928 scientific articles (keyword:climate change) from 1993-2003, and found that 75% dealt with the topic, and 100% of them supported the consensus view. Now, I will point out that her study was flawed in many ways (not cross referencing for example). But the fact that the support of the man-made global warming theory was so high, it is quite telling.

Now, consensus does not mean that other avenues are not explored. It does not mean that science is perfect. What it does indicate, is the current paradigm in research at the time.

Monckton also seems to harp on about the sun a fair bit. All well and good. I spent a good deal of time in a solar physics department, and I like the sun. However, as shown by Thomas Crowley(2001)
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/289/5477/270

the sun can not account for all of the observed warming. In fact, Crowley deduces, based on models, that the temperature of the planet should have cooled were natural forces only in play. Since 1950, there has been little to no increase in the average solar activity (this from real climate):

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=153

The global situation is more complicated. Both the sun and CO2 are causing the planet to warm. Not one or the other, but both in tandem

Now, finally, a quick note on the tale of two graphs. The second graph (non-hockey stick) is from the IPCC in 1990. It is purely qualitiative and is not based on paleo climatic reconstructions. It was included in the IPCC pack in 1990 as a schematic in order to show the trend known as the medievil warm period.

Phew! I'll leave everyone in peace now.

Mongcton's main claim to fame was as a policy adviser (specialising in science) to the Thatcher government. There were pre web days and of course most reporting in confidence but I understand from commentaries that he was regarded as one of the best policy advisers to serve any Government.
I think if you read both the essay and the back-up you would have to admit that we would be well served by such quality advise in this part of the world.

He has been retired because of serious ill health for some time and I am surprised he remains able to make such a contribution at this time. We should all be so lucky.
Science does not make policy. That is why Governments depend on policy advisers to supplement the science.

Sea level rising of from 1.5 to 2 mm per year are lost in the coastal "noise" and of course at that rate most coastlines respond with a mix of erosion and accretion. No cause for action. After all, what action has Australia taken over the last 100 years?

Hi ChrisC, thanks for your input.
However, I take issue with what you say about rapid global warming. Professor Bob Carter, who probably knows a lot more about the subject than us, says:
”Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).” Also the articles about sea level rises, to which you referred us, if you read them in their entirety, are equivocal and it is difficult to draw any firm conclusions from them.
The whole science of climatology is so impenetrable for the average layman that we have to rely on experts. The experts do not all agree, despite the claims of the “climate change alarmists”.
The more I see and read of the "Anthropogenic Climate Change" activists, "Stern report" protagonists, the more they remind me of those other fantasists, the religious movements of the world.
They believe because they want to believe, and go around preaching at the unconverted pagans whom they call "climate change sceptics" (even though this is wrong as most "climate change sceptics" acknowledge that the world's climate changes over time - they simply don't agree with the alarmism spread by these great moralists).
With messianic zeal and religious fervour, they castigate all who dare to disbelieve their pronouncements, accusing them of all sorts of base motives, while never acknowledging their own equally base motives. Gore is their High Priest, perfectly suited for the job, as an ex-politician.
None of this means that we shouldn’t try to minimise, within reason, man’s impact on the planet. However, I am not personally convinced there is cause for alarm.

It is obvious climate change is real. From the NSW 1 in 1000 year drought to the horrendous 2005 US hurricanes to the 2006 lack of US landfall hurricanes, climate is NOT as stable.

However the notion that climate change equals greenhouse warming is not proven.

The implicit linking of the two by political opportunists is a calculated ploy that is clearly wearing thin. Hopefully there will be public backlash on this NOW-all-important-issue to sort those politicians out at the polls.

Why? The 2006 US hurricane season is proving greenhouse warming false while its economy and CO2 emissions are booming.

Before May 11 this year, SST maps were showing considerably more heat in the Gulf of Mexico and the TWA (Tropical Atlantic) than 2005. There were GREAT CONCERNS and the US was trying anything to prevent another Katrina. One thing they tried was a wastewater mitigation program. US authorities had been warned that colloidal matter from US outfalls was altering the heat capacity of the top few metres of the ocean surface. The concept was to reduce the colloidals, increase evaporation and remove built up heat on a more regular basis, denying hurricanes fuel to develop into Katrina monsters. I have no doubt that US authorities were flying blind with this.

Deference to organisations like NOAA and the NHC is why the great success of this exercise has not been advertised.
However there is a clear audit trail of wastewater mitigation in the SHA (sea height anomaly) maps between late May and late September when the danger period was deemed to be over.

Further proof of these observations will occur in 2007 when the SHA and SST maps will be scrutinised more closely in their correlation to fewer hurricanes and more storm events.

The point is, hotter and colder versions of climate change are real, independent of greenhouse warming and dependent on human coastal demographic changes.

Mounting evidence from the US EXPERIMENT will indicate that simple alterations to wastewater management can mitigate climate changes over periods from 2-7 days if regular management regimes are properly policed year round

For those who haven't yet read Naomi Oreskes' essay, in Science Magazine (published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, I offer the caveat she included:

The Scientific Consensus
on Climate Change
Naomi Oreskes
3 DECEMBER 2004 VOL 306 page 1686 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org

"The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that we understood
the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it."

Fact is, whether you wish to disagree, or merely post to forums saying you disagree, the world is warming.

The following succinct summary of the essay is included, in easily read blue text of a different font:

"Without substantial disagreement, scientists find human activities
are heating the Earth’s surface."

It doesn't matter whether you are disagreeing, or disagreeing about what substantial disagreement may mean, or counting angels on pinheads. You are wasting your own time, maybe pleasurably. Meanwhile, the earth is warming.

Immediate, practical, market-driven energy efficiency strategies can decrease the amount of energy we are using, increase our use of solar input, (light, heat and wind) and decrease our electricity base and peak load requirements and other fossil fuel commitments. These same necessities were identified over 30 years ago, well before the Stern Report was published.

If you are young enough, you can think a worst-case scenario with you as an environmental refugee. I am at retirement age and consider myself maybe young enough. I am more concerned for my children.

A more optimistic scenario has "us" using limited energy resources efficaciously and thus cutting back on CO2 production. And the skeptics could keep saying anthropogenic global warming was never real anyway.

Would the skeptics call that a win-win solution?

Sir Impossible,

"Fact is, whether you wish to disagree, or merely post to forums saying you disagree, the world is warming."

What a load of rubbish. You just haven't looked at the Sea Surface Temperature maps (SST) for the Tropical Atlantic between May and October this year.
Despite increased US economic and CO2 output this year the bloody ocean started to COOL down during the most dangerous time of the season thereby stalling hurricane formations. This can only have been human induced and shows climate can be controlled and climate has little or nought to do with CO2 levels.

That shows you to be WRONG!

Look at the data! If you don't know how to extract the SST maps I will explain it for you. Do not be so lazy. This is far too important!

Grandchildren indeed!

Ludwig, it has taken a lot of waiting for one of the CO2 flux clan to let slip the actual volume of ice melt each year. And this has enabled us to determine that at the current rate of ice sheet melting it will take 11,000 years for the greenland ice sheet to melt away.

And after all the scare mongering about a 7 metre rise in sea level from loss of the greenland ice sheet that has been implied to be just around the corner, we find that the actual risk over the next century is marginal.

Even you could handle the maths. You just divide 7000 millimetres of sea level rise by 11,000/100 and we discover that we can expect 7 centimetres of sea level rise from greenland by the year 2107.

This assumes that it all continues and we don't go into an ice-age before then.

But the problem with the greenhouse spivs is not the fact of their gonzo science. The real problem is that they have consistently resorted to deceptive conduct to sell their product. Once a shonk, always a shonk.

I have been watching this thread for some days.

Owen, the Daily Telegraph, my favourite daily read when I was in UK.

Personally, “Climate Change and Global Warming” is a product of the greens obsession with controlling what the rest of us are allowed to do. Probably a result of the entryism by the extremist left into the environmental movement, following the collapse of the socialist governments in previous decades.

The issues are not about global warming and if they were the sunspot activity graph would suggest warming will continue, regardless what we do.

The issue is about economic control. The left continue to denounce (although they have already lost) the efforts of deregulation of the trade markets because it is against their interests in demanding to control the rest of us.
Leaving people to get on and trade freely without quotas, tariffs and duties which reduces the opportunity for governmental interference and social engineering (you can almost feel the shudders of withdraw wracking the corpse of socialism).
The rabble who burn and riot at every WTO meeting are just the weevils trying to despoil the free trade harvest, the mindless face of the debunked forces of Socialism, Marxism and Trotskyism.

Certainly the world has a lot of issues to face, deforestation, land degradation, water limitations, land, air and sea pollution and fish stock erosion.

All these problems are real and all are urgent but they are all solvable by a single action.

The action required is population control.

Fix the explosion of population and the “stress” we place the planet under will evaporate.

These real problems disappear, forests and fish stocks recover, air land and water quality improve.

Developed countries are at zero population growth.
Underdeveloped are not. Part of their reason for burgeoning population growth is the efforts of “developed world” folk to reduce mortality rates without balancing their efforts to reduce birth rates.

Lets talk about fixing the real problem and leave this climate sideshow to the pixies and others who are happier wandering around at the bottom of the garden.

Pers, your use of ‘mathematics’ on this forum on numerous occasions has not exactly helped support your causes. All it has done is show how easily very selective and often very woolly figures can be used to support just about any conclusion, especially when you start adding and multiplying several of them together, thus compounding the error margins and giving end-of-the-spectrum results.

Obviously, Al Gore's projections of the depletion of the Greenland ice sheet are vastly different to yours.

I have faith in Al Gore and the message presented in “An Inconvenient Truth’, for these reasons;

He presents a lot of basic irrefutable evidence, as Professor Bob Carter, an arch anti-climate-change advocate admits,

He has been concerned about this issue for a very long time and is not just jumping on some current band-wagon,

US politics works and squarely within the pro-expansionist paradigm, and yet he is advocating real caution and awareness in ways that run strongly contrary to this. What motives could he have if they weren’t based on a deep and sincere concern for the direction we are heading in?

Up until recently at least, he hasn’t won many influential friends with his environmental concerns, compared to what he would have won if he’d followed the good old buddy of big-business line that GWB follows. Clearly, just about all other politicians at anywhere near his level, would have found success in taking an opposing line and abject failure in following his line.

And more recently the fact that the likes of Howard and many big business 'dinosaurs' have come to admit that global warming is real, partly as a result of his efforts, is surely indicative that his message is pretty close to rock solid.

continued

But even if you are right Perseus, so what?

Surely we have to do what we can to be prepared for the worst-case scenario, or at least a scenario well up there in the bad part of the spectrum.

Ludwig “Surely we have to do what we can to be prepared for the worst-case scenario, or at least a scenario well up there in the bad part of the spectrum.”

Why?

Why not "best case scenario" or “Most likely scenario”

It is pursuing the “most likely case” which the real problems lies. When there is no consensus over what is the likely scenario or even worst case, it is very difficult to decide what action to take to rectify it.

Kyoto and a lot of other “strategies” are exercises in playing socialist politics with the problem and represent solutions to nothing, other than giving the social engineers and manipulators a rod to beat the rest of us with.

Suggesting we all walk around in second hand clothing, ride bicycles or travel in horse drawn carriages or worse be forced to wait around for public transport services to get their performance standards back up to fourth class is not a “solution” to anything.

Innovation and inspiration is only present in those who have the energy and countenance to see beyond the present. Those who cannot project or envision are left to prepare for the worst.

I have lived through several revolutions. Not military revolutions but economic, technological and social revolutions. I see more in the future than the past. I see people being valued more for being different than the same.

I see and work toward an environment where people have greater opportunity to distinguish themselves and which we will benefit from greater innovation and invention than we have ever seen before.

Problems which are seen presently as insurmountable are simply challenges waiting human ingenuity.


Al Gore is a failed politician who has nailed his final thrust for power to an evangelical three ring circus starring a doomsday disaster act. Don’t get mugged by him, he is wrong.

KAEP, you haven’t carefully examined your argument. Read this +aloud+ to yourself :

“Despite increased US economic and CO2 output this year the … ocean started to COOL down during the most dangerous time of the season thereby stalling hurricane formations. This can only have been human induced and shows climate can be controlled and climate has little or nought to do with CO2 levels”

Doesn’t your argument sound to you, on reflection, a bit like someone giving credit to a rain dance because it’s followed by rain?

(1) How do you rule out all other possible causes for your interpretation of Tropical Atlantic SST temperatures?
(2) Why can the pattern you have observed +only+ be “human induced”? How can you rule out other causes or coincidences?
(3) What mechanism (or technological fix) are you suggesting has “solved the problem”?
(4) What evidence can you offer that your mechanism may be relevant to other sea surface areas?
(5) What systematically gathered and peer-reviewed evidence can you offer to support your claim “that climate can be controlled”?
(6) What is it about your argument that allows you to conclude that “climate has little or nought to do with CO2”?

KAEP, if you read my posts carefully and follow the links, you may appreciate more fully that I am interested in market-driven energy conservation measures.
Listen to the Background Briefing program linked in my first post. Visit the Rocky Mountain Institute website linked to my second post.

By the way, I have no direct or indirect association, or financial interest, in with Rocky Mountain Institute (rmi), beyond my interest in useful energy conservation strategies. Nor do I have any direct or indirect financial interest in any specific commercial ventures marketing energy technologies. I wonder how many of our fellow contributors are willing to declare their vested interests?

Perhaps I should declare my children and their children as a vested interest - - -

Vivor,

"Doesn’t your argument sound to you, on reflection, a bit like someone giving credit to a rain dance because it’s followed by rain?"

Pomposity doesn't make SCIENCE.

OBSERVATION and EXPERIMENT are what makes SCIENCE.

All the GW evidence you so slavishly adhere to has been stymied for many years now, bound up in controversies that are well documented.

Your stance on the subject is thus nothing more than a reflection of your own prejudices and fears and is not scientific at all.

What is necessary here is new data and new EXPERIMENTS to determine what is causing climate changes and what can be done about it.

I am in the process of a geophysical experiment that involves oceanic surface pollution and its impact on climate change.
Results so far from SST and SHA maps of the TWA this year indicate a corelation between wastewater pollution reduction and the absence of hurricanes and the increase in large storm events.

The Australian cyclone season and US 2007 season will further test these ideas. Based on 2006 results I have every confidence there will not be any 2007 US hurricanes.

Now its up to you to look at the data I presented before making your assertions.
You have not done so and thus your assertions are just vanity and your questions are meaningless.

Meanwhile the EXPERIMENT continues. With or without your lack of curiosity.

Col

“Why not ‘best case scenario’ or Most likely scenario’ “

I don’t understand. Isn’t it just obvious that we need to err on the side of caution? Being prepared for worse things than we might expect is a very sensible and very basic principle.

Of course I agree with you that population growth and overall size is a huge part of the problem. But…

“Fix the explosion of population and the “stress” we place the planet under will evaporate.”

No. It isn’t anywhere near as simple as that. Especially with per-capita consumption continuing to increase rapidly in China, and with India to follow.

“Developed countries are at zero population growth.”

No. Not by a long way. Australia and the US continue to grow pretty rapidly, and when this growth is combined with very high and still increasing per-capita consumption, growth rates in overall environmental impact are substantial. The US has just reached a population of 300 million and won’t be stopping its growth any time soon….unless perhaps if Al Gore becomes president!

“Al Gore is a failed politician who has nailed his final thrust for power to an evangelical three ring circus starring a doomsday disaster act. Don’t get mugged by him, he is wrong.”

He was vice president for 8 years, and won more than 50% of the vote in 2000, only to be denied the presidency by a very dodgy court decision….and you call him a failed pollie?!!

Col, there seems to be a real contradiction in your complete dismissal of anthropogenic climate change while being very concerned about population growth and various other huge environmental issues.

Why do you see global warming in a different way?

Where is my favorite anti global warming warrior Andrew Bolt when you need him?

F**k the science - it is counter intuitive and just plain silly to not believe that as the species that engineers so much of the built environment and mnipulstes the rest as best we can we are not impacting on the environment

And it is prudential to believe that the impact is probably, if not negative, at the very least altering the status quo and rearranging weather patterns for example - at best we can take cold comfort in the knowledge that if we dry up, some where else will be blooming and fertile where once dust was the order of the day.

It is almost bizarre to witness the ALMOST Pauline Conversion of John Howard on this matter - it is as if he has been visited by God (but is still a bit of a doubting Thomas) in the true spirit of the Oakshott conservative he leads by intimation - from behind.

If all we do is develop a national policy and ethos on water conservation we are back in the game - but when you have irrigators farming marginal land - using in excess fo 97% of available water - you have to wonder - and wonder still more when some of them say if we take measures to save water the best application for what is saved it is to use for more irrigation! For many the root of the problem are city folk using dishwashers and having the temerity to water a lawn - when metro/regional town use of available water is a mere drop in an ever rapidly emptying bucket

If we cant get that right - I am investing in copmanies that make hats and sunblock - I expect to die a rich and thirsty ma

Ludwig
Australia/NZ, the UK and the US (as well as parts of Europe) are only growing because of massive immigration, which I suppose must be helping to relieve the situation in second and third world countries.

As for Al Gore, he does have an interest in the promotion of the global warming scare:
“Gore has become a Neo-Green entrepreneur, taking his messianic faith in the power of technology to stop global warming and applying it to an eco-friendly investment firm.
The company, Generation Investment Management, which he co-founded nearly two years ago, puts money into businesses that are positioned to capitalize on the carbon-constrained economy Gore and his partners see coming in the near future.”

The full article from “Wired” is here: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/gore.html

I don’t think it is a bad thing that he invests in business, but on the other hand his over blown promotion of the “global warming” scenario, which can only assist these businesses, reduces his credibility somewhat.

“Australia/NZ, the UK and the US (as well as parts of Europe) are only growing because of massive immigration”

Froggie, I’m afraid its just not true! For example, about half of Australia’s population growth is due to our birthrate. This is where scoundrels like Costello are deliberately misleading us, with their message that the fertility rate desperately needs to be raised.

Have you seen ‘An Inconvenient Truth’? Can you indicate what in it you think is “over blown promotion of global warming”?

I’m not understanding why quite a lot of people on this forum think that global warming is not real, especially now that many big business CEOs and government figures accept it….and let’s face it, they wouldn’t if they didn’t feel as though they had to.

“[Gore]…puts money into businesses that are positioned to capitalize on the carbon-constrained economy Gore and his partners see coming in the near future.”

Well, of course he does. He has great faith that we are going to have to head in that direction. His actions in these ways are not a matter of vested interest, they are highly indicative of his firm belief that the world is warming anthropogenically, and that we are all going to have to acknowledge it and start adapting big-time. He has invested his money where his mouth is.

I see any arguments that brand him as ‘vested-interest’ in this way as being fundamentally flawed.

Incidentally, I don’t see anything wrong with the ‘Wired’ article. It seems quite neutral and reasonable.

NOAA has caged all its birds

Either that or it has taken its bat and ball and gone home.

Today's SHA map shows no anomalous regions ... anywhere ... at all.

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/trinanes/tmp/sha116 [...]

Maybe its the second (Democrat) coming and the world is now in perfect harmony!

PS This is a crucial time for the SHA maps are enabling me to determine how Autralia's summer drought and bushfire season will pan out.

I hope NOAA can get the maps back on track soon.

Ludwig
Thanks for the response.
Yes, about half of Australia’s growth rate is from natural increase and the other half from net migration. I would have thought that half the population increase coming from migration was pretty massive, but then that is a subjective thing, and you have every right to believe it is not.
I know that if it weren’t for massive immigration in the UK (I understand they have had approximately 500,000 Eastern Europeans migrating there in the last few years) the population would be static or falling. The indigenous populations in most of Western Europe are in decline.
www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/pop918.doc.htm
According to the above link, “- In terms of annual averages, the major net receivers of international migrants are projected to be United States (1.1 million annually), Germany (204,000), Canada (201,000), United Kingdom (133,000), Italy (120,000) and Australia (100,000). The major countries of net emigration are projected to be China (-333,000 annually), Mexico (-304,000), India (-245,000), Philippines (-180,000), Pakistan (-173,000) and Indonesia (-168,000)”
I have not seen the film, but I have seen the trailer, and I must say it is a pretty slick piece of work, full of dramatic music, voice-overs in suitably grave tones and spectacular scenes. The Americans are quite good at that sort of thing. Must have cost quite a bit to put together, although the main actor came free of charge!
As for Gore, it is a classic marketing ploy to identify (or in his case, exaggerate) a problem, and then (just by chance, of course!) come along with a solution.
The problem with Gore’s spruiking of the climate change/global warming scenario, is that he wants solutions to be LEGISLATED, so you would then have no choice but to pay Mr Gore’s companies. Maybe even better than the Microsoft near-monopoly.
Quite a cunning trick, if he can achieve it.

Kaep

Who else is doing research similar to your own?

Fester,

NOAA still has a total blackout on its SHA data.

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/trinanes/tmp/sha1163235773.gif

This may be a knee jerk to the Democrat wins in the US.

Stand by!

Owen, Cathy, Froggie, Col, Ludwig,

Have you read “Chanticleer” in the Australian Financial Review, back page (84), Friday 10 November?
First para of the second article:

“Global warming flagship bearer [how do you bear a flagship? Is it made easier by rising sea levels? - But seriously,] Al Gore will be in Australia sharing his views with backers of his US-based Generation Investment Management Fund.”

The last two paras note “Fund managers are getting excited about risks flowing from climate change”, and “big accounting firms” are influencing customers toward reporting climate-change detail for market value assessment.

Plainly Gore has vested interests. So do Bush, Cheney, and the rest of us. You can view him as a slick, self-interested promoter, adding to his fortune, or as a player in the game of influencing corporate policy toward more environmentally sustainable outcomes.

Those more deeply interested in global warming may already know about “environmental accounting”, a discipline influenced, by H. T. Odum, an American systems ecologist. Any realistic model of a corporate or national pattern of energy, resource, materials and information flow must be based on a sound and proven methodology which has testable links, both within itself and also to the wider world. Odum’s method is described in his textbook “Environmental Accounting” John Wiley and Sons, 1996.

For a more immediate and accessible introduction, see:

Environmental Accounting Using Emergy: Evaluation of the State of West Virginia
which is at:
www.epa.gov/nheerl/publications/files/wvevaluationposted.pdf

The abstract says:
“Historically, questions related to environmental policy have been difficult to solve, because solutions depend on accurately balancing the needs of both human and natural systems. In addition, there has been no good way to express the socioeconomic and environmental effects of policies in common terms.”

West Virginia is an interesting case to us because it is a coal mining state and those with more detailed knowledge can appreciate or dispute its systemic resemblance to Australia, as an economy strongly influenced by extractive industries.

Emergy is “embodied energy” - all the energy inputs leading up to a product or activity. See Wikipedia for more, as I’ve about reached 350 words.

Absolutely 'Sir Vivor', HT Odum is the one guru we need to resurrect. Ditch fiat-money economics in its entirety and make Odum & ecological economics compulsory would be my first edict as emperor, at least we'd then have a better idea of how fast things are going backwards.

Big step forward coming, as usual, from the EU:

EU directive on energy-using products could force monumental changes
..EuP will require manufacturers to calculate the energy used to produce, transport, sell, use, and dispose of almost every one of its products. It will require that the manufacturer go all the way back to the energy used when extracting the raw materials to make its product, including all subassemblies and components. And in time, it will set limits on a product-by-product basis of how much energy can be used in a product’s entire lifecycle. ..
http://energybulletin.net/22156.html
(stand by for hysterical bleating about communist plots from the 'free market' fundamentalists & other corporate apologists)

Froggie

You can guess what I’m going to say;

I very strongly recommend you see Al Gore’s film. It is essential for you to do so in order to confirm or counter your beliefs.

“I must say it is a pretty slick piece of work, full of dramatic music, voice-overs in suitably grave tones and spectacular scenes.”

Well of course it is. It has to be. As a former US vice president, Gore would get laughed out of town if the production quality wasn’t up to scratch.

“Quite a cunning trick, if he can achieve it.”

Well I say, good on him. He is just playing the same game that everyone on the other side of the argument is playing, and thus levelling up the playing field a bit.

Anyway, as I said before, he is putting his money where his mouth is. So the whole accusation of vested-interest behaviour is entirely dodgy. His financial situation should be seen as a positive thing in support for his arguments, because if he is not right, his investments aren’t going to work.

Andrew hasn't understood Stern's report correctly. Stern said that the cost would be 20% of the world's economy in the year in question (2050, I think). Which is equal to 2% of the world's economy over a 10 year period or 0.2% over a 100 year period.
Sure, there's a lot of money involved if you had to spend it all in just one year but the cost is tiny when considered over a realistic time scale. Which means that there are even fewer reasons for not acting NOW to reverse GHG emissions.