Factual errors concerning both science and economics are legion in this article.

I’ll start from the top. For one, Des more quotes the productivity commission. However, in cherry picking statements, Des neglects the paragraph:

“It is in Australia's interest to participate in the design of a multilateral framework - for example, pressing for:
-emission caps for all major emitting countries that are supported by strong verification arrangements, and can react flexibly to new information;
-allowance to gain credits for emission reduction projects in other countries and also flexibility in rules on land cover change.”

While the commission states that

“Independent action by Australia … would deliver barely discernible climate benefits, but could be nationally very costly” the commission follows with

“Facilitating transition to an impending lower emissions economy is the strongest rationale for independent action, but it is contingent on the imminent emergence of an extensive international response”
(See www.pc.gov.au/research/submission/emissionstrading/keypoints.html)
In cherry picking, Des misrepresents the commission’s aims in the submission, which is a call for international uniformity in an emissions trading regime before unilateral action is taken.

With regards to the science, Des is guilty of both misrepresentation and misunderstanding. For a start, he immediately launches into an attack on the state-of-the-art of climatology by repeating the mantra of “uncertainty”, claiming that this makes climate science an insufficient base for policy.

For one, Des doesn’t seem to understand scientific uncertainty. When crystal ball gazing, as climatologists and meteorologists do, predictions will never be 100% accurate. However, scientific uncertainty. Primarily, uncertainties in the models reported in the Fourth Assessment Report (FAR) come from 2 sources:

- Aerosols, which reflect radiation and cool the plant;
- The uncertainty in emissions;

Also, unlike the economic modelling, scientific modelling is based on the laws of physics, chemistry and , basic laws from dynamics, electromagnetics and quantum mechanics. Models are validated statistically against past climate. To date, it’s true, they don’t get everything right, hence uncertainty. However, most good models have been remarkably good at reproducing the general trend for the last hundred years, PROVIDED, that CO2 forcings are included.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/11/19/51921/827

Part II

In science, uncertainties are generally reported as probabilities and bounds. Eg, the FAR reports that, based on the model, the temperature will be 1.8-4C higher than today’s, with a likelihood >90% of warmer days and fewer cold nights over land. The fact that the predictions report finite levels of uncertainty doesn’t make them useless. They give us an estimate of what is in store. So far, our guesses have been pretty much on the money.

It must be noted that climate science is not based upon only computer models. As I stated before, there is physics involved here. Detection and attribution studies (see http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/025.htm#e1) have concluded that later 20th warmth is due anthropogenic causes.

If modelling is ignored completely, we still have the basic physics and observations to fall back on (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/what-if-the-hockey-stick-were-wrong/)

In short, finite uncertainty does not imply zero risk. While we cannot eliminate uncertainty, our best guess is that things are heating up, because of human activities, and the outlook is not good. Uncertainty is no reason for inaction

Des also mentions that the Stern review has it’s critics. True enough. Howver, he fails to mention that Stern (and others) have responded. See

http://rabett.blogspot.com/2007/01/stern-gang-eli-has-noted-that-there-are.html

and

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/sternreview_index.cfm.

also
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/01/stern-science/

In short, many of the claims made by critics are without merit, particularly in the science section, where notable contrarians Bob Carter and Richard Lindzen flog a few dead horses, and make a few silly errors

http://n3xus6.blogspot.com/2007/01/stern-reveiw-crushed-hmmmmmaybe-not.html

Finally, Des seems quick to dismiss carbon trading. I agree with Des that without a unified, international approach, Carbon trading is unlikely to work. However, emissions trading has been used in the past successfully. In the US

“Some experts argue that the "cap and trade" system of SO2 emissions reduction reduced the cost of controlling acid rain by as much as 80% versus source-by-source reduction”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading

I won’t deny that cap and trade systems have their problems. However they are one of only two possibly measures I know of to put a cost on CO2 emissions (the other being a carbon tax). Notably, Des has not even touched this later approach.

Some Measure of Care

Part 1: Uranium

Part 2 : Retreat from Reason

“Sleepers wake” – we are on the cusp of a tipping year.
This is a clarion call, global warming – the Trojan horse

We live on a majestically dynamic planet with intertwining complexes.
Presently we are in an inter-glacial period with relatively minor warming cooling.
The variability in the Sun’s intensity is the controlling factor in Earth’s climate.
Cosmic rays can facilitate the production of clouds -
coupled with sunspot peak frequency,
cycles of global warming and cooling pulse like ocean waves.
Periods of Earth warming and cooling occur within small-scale cycles of about 40 years
existing within larger-scale cycles of 400 years,
which in turn exist within ice age cycles of 20,000 years.

Scenarios for future climate involve natural equations of infinite variables.
To assume human induced carbon emissions alone will significantly alter predictions is pretentious pseudo-science.
Advocating carbon change will change the way you live, but will not change future climate.

Climate environmentalism is a political mission,
offering disciples the delicious prospect of being in the right
and running things under the motherhood banner of saving the planet.
Superior morality supersedes factual argument and confers instant authority on disciples.

To accept the mantra of evil carbon is to invite the death of nationalism to dinner.

Belief in man-made global warming is also a religious phenomena.
In the battle between nature and humankind,
scientists and media have connived to make a good story,
and politicians of all colours have not been slow to see the advantages.

Future climate is not about your “belief”.
Science does not work by consensus (IPCC).
The process trickles incrementally, independently verifying facts.
The Greenhoax science will unravel by Xmas.

Human impact on future climate is a matter of degree
and needs to be assessed with “Some Measure of Care”.
Scaremongering sensationalism will result in the wrong measure.
Good environmental decision making means maximising future choice.
The decarbonisation road will end in a dead end, limiting individual and social choice for well into the future.
Wake-up and be counted this year.

To anyone sensible
left out there

Some Measure of Care

Part 1: The Uranium Story

I address my remarks to the Labor left and other god-like creatures.
If the truth can be told, so as to be understood, it will be believed.

Ideology like climate is dynamic.
Do you have the balls for it?

There’s blood in the water and you can taste it …
The delicious prospect of being in power and morally right.
Something the Liberals have only ever wondered on!

With all this global warming debacle,
the elephant in the room is uranium.

The masters of minerals have always been the masters of their age.
Today’s master mineral is uranium.
These masters will not sit on their hands much longer…
To deny them, runs the risk of forcing them to come and get it.

The developed world is not going to cripple itself to iron-out injustice.
The edifice of global warming science is an exercise in retreating from reason (see Part 2).
It’s being used as a vehicle to convey the left to the middle of the future – uranium... And (due mainly to your high moral passion) it’s working a charm.

As a stable (politically and geologically) first world country –
we are the prime suspect to supply, enrich and dispose of the nuclear fuel cycle - by leasing our products.

We are in the box seat to take a leading role
in achieving this important transition
between the energy sources of today and the new technologies of the future.

Accept the well endowed wealth of this lucky country.
But do it with secure safeguards based on real science –
not the superstition connived to corner you into this direction.
Be part of the march forward – with “some measure of care”.

"Do it with secure safeguards based on science."

Do you know anything about the "secure safeguards based on science" in the uranium industry in this country, Sir?

May I suggest you cease your condescending, inane sophistry and do some real research.

Commence with the articles on the Australian uranium company who was prosecuted last year and find $150,000 for supplying drinking and bathing water to workers which contained radiation 400 times greater than the "safe" level. Will these workers now be monitored for the rest of the lives? They haven't in the past - I doubt they will in the future. Then discover how many spills and leaks there have been in this industry.

Do you know of the disgraceful state the Yeleerie uranium mine was left in after it was abandoned with locals unwittingly swimming in the tailings dam?

Perform some real research into how incompetent the regulators are in this country where they consistently fail to "secure safeguards based on science" for the people of this nation.

Perhaps you'd also like to reflect on the abestos victims. Or what about those who died a painful death from silicosis (including my father) where the "regulators" knowingly considered these deaths as "collateral damage" whilst they shared their beds with "clients" from the big end of town.

It's a little late for you to advise those victims to: "Accept the well endowed wealth of this country."

"Be part of the march forward - with some measure of care."

Your naivety is part of the problem Eddy Lumpit - not the solution!

It will be your opponents embracing "the new technologies of the future" - not the old ones you are promoting!

Ahh..... speaking of the devil. Here's another thread posters may be interested in reading.

Call up "Perthnow" and click on "Defence Force covered-up radiation leak."

By the way, tomorrow is the start of a parliamentary enquiry in Western Australia, into why DEC and the DOH failed to protect citizens and the environment from the catastrophic lead and nickel fall-out in Esperance.

These frauds couldn't detect a beer in a brewery let alone safely regulate the uranium industry or a nuclear reactor!

Little wonder the equilibrium of CO2 is out of whack!