“In other words, to meet the level that Garnaut sees as necessary, Australia would be emitting less than quarter of its present level of CO2. That degree of self discipline is possible only by accepting returning living standards to similar as those currently experienced in the developing world.”

It would be interesting to watch the Volvo socialists and eco-nuts coping with that!

It’s good to see a realistic contribution to a ‘debate’ in opposition to the loudmouthed windbags who’ve never been involved in the production of wealth for society – people who want to get their hands on our money to fiddle with childish, unrealistic experiments which will have no effect on climate change

Laugh or cry as you please but fossil fuels are going to run out soon enough anyway. Subtract tar sands and ethanol from world liquid fuels production and we are in a steady decline. The price of coal ex Newcastle rose 70% in 2007 and now China is facing tight supplies. Perth may not have enough gas because of export LNG commitment. Australia may appear to have adequate coal and gas but we will be under pressure to supply the rest of the world so we'll run out early too. Since we will soon become a net oil importer it looks tempting to make liquid fuel from coal; shame about the double CO2 emissions unless we were never really fair dinkum about cutting back.

I think the mission impossible is not cutting carbon 60% or 90% by 2050, but finding enough energy period. Oh yes, solar energy will save us...which shows the dreamers are on both sides of the debate.

The argument predicates that global warming (GW) is an incontrovertible fact. That GW is the consequence of anthropogenic CO2 emission from industrial activity. The consequence of GW will be catastrophic for mankind. How catastrophic is the threat of GW? This is the subject of science fiction.

There are several hundred of signatures some from very eminent scientists have subscribed to documents questioning the GW hypothesis. A list of these signatures can be found in the Lavoisier Group submission to Ross Garnault.

It is fashionable in some quarters to dismiss the GW sceptics with semi derogatory terns such as “deniers or contrarians.” Name calling does not add to understanding.

A rigorous review of GW should be undertaken outside of the IPCC network. I understand that a joint Australian and New Zealand royal commission has been suggested.

It is my view that no action should be taken in respect to GW until sufficient time has elapsed; so as to determine if the predictions from climate models are accurate in regard to actual climatic events

In response to Anti-Green
If you were facing a raging bush fire approaching your house do you:-
(a) Assume that the weather forecasters are wrong and wait for an amended forecast.
(b) Take the recommended actions to save your property or vacate (not an option in the GW debate)
(c) If option (a) proved to be right would you feel indignant and self righteous knowing you had spent time and effort to potentially save your property?
(d) Have you ever heard of insurance?

Hi Alan,

Good to see an article recognising the economic consequences of reducing CO2 production. The "good" news is that nature will be forcing this on us anyway. E.g. see Aleklett's article on online opinion: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5933

So the Australia of 2020 will be a far different place from today - but the goverment will not admit to that - no votes in reality so lets stick to fantasy and dream about a wealthy Australia at the 2020 summit. Someone I know recently sent a letter to Senator Wong regarding cycling and peak oil and climate change etc. and her reply came back and seemed to pointedly avoid talking about peak oil. Yet they all know about it since McNamarra in Qld has been informing his party. (Kate Ellis told me as much last year.)

Solar may not be able to help the nation as a whole cope with electricity price rises, but, in the meantime, I'm glad I have ordered my PV panels (cost to me with installation for a 1kW system is under $5000 and the goverment is chipping in $8000 - thanks gov!) and since we are frugal with electricity in any case, this should mean no more electricity bills. Nice!

Hay thylacine, in just a few years we will all be able to see that you have been chasing chicken little around the chook shed.

Is this due to your gullibility, or do you have an ulterior motive?

If the forma, don't forget this rubbish comes from the UN, the most disfunctional, & corrupt organisation yet devised by man.

Garnaut is an economist/banker who recognises that the control of CO2 is a dream-come-true .... i.e. a new swindle to make money out of thin air. It is not surprising to see that that this spiv might be creating a sense of urgency, provoked by the possibility that warming has ceased for ten years and in fact that we are actually seeing the sharpest single year temp drop in the entire GISS temps records. i.e. Global cooling is now being blamed on global warming and you had better believe it. Hence the need to aggressively act now before the ill informed public appreciates the situation that they are being duped bigtime.

Just what is the agenda? Even wildly speculating that CO2 emissions were the sole factor affecting surface temperature, then human sinfulness could only have been responsible for less than 0.01 deg C of warming over one hundred years. For the Rudd government to contemplate betting our future on odds like this, is an exercise in useless, reckless and senseless speculation. e.g. Even if Australia theoretically stopped all its CO2 emissions to the atmosphere in response to this bogus alarmist AGW, our ability to affect the growth in temperature over the next century is limited to something like 0.0028% of whatever warming takes place, or, put simply, nothing at all. It's a ridiculous notion and to give jokers like Garnaut any platform or credibility is monumental foolishness.

Production of wealth! That's interesting. Only through natural absorption and reducing human activities will only stop co2 increasing further. The time it will take to put this element back into the ground is going to take hundreds of thousands of years.

With new technologies, and if i can be hypothetical for a moment, giant atmospheric co2 cleaners placed all around the earth in there thousands wont even touch the surface and even with this, it will still take hundreds and hundreds of years. Then storing it!

But wouldn't it be fair to say, we going to put more time into saving our ass, rather than making money? We will just drain our further profits to fix what we have caused. WOW! That's a great idea! isn't!

This part is called winding back the clock.

1/ population must be brought down to 3 billion. The happiness that will be experience by the people of the time, will be out standing.

2/ Death rate must over ride the birth rate. 9 billion! Well if that's what you want, just imagine a world where everywhere you go there will 10 to 15 people, and i am taking about going for a walk into mountains, but don't count on there being anything there, like trees or wildlife. ( I hope you don't like privacy)

3/ Were tuning the planet back into a toxic swamp! Well I guess that where we started from and the world repeats its self once more.
Evolution is a amazing thing, just when you thought you have counted and mapped all of life's creations, a new one appears. THE VIRUS! Yes that micro world we don't think about. 9 billion people! do the maths on that one.
4/ Going smaller is the only logic way to go, but the problem is, we don't want to surrender our little world we have made, and this is the equation. Put up with a little less now or loose it all in the future. Its your choice.

All the best.

Even if Australia achieved Garnauts targets it will only make 0.00043 C per annum difference to the global temperature figures.

Only economists would have numbers coming out their backsides, and few of them connected to reality.

fortunately, there is a natural resolution to the twin crises of resource exhaustion and global warming. first, we accept that both are the result of over population. then, we reduce population. it's late and drastic measures are called for. ideal would be specific diseases like small pox, released from many distribution points simultaneously.

see, war unnecessary, new technology unnecessary, and if the desirable people are first immunized, what a wonderful world would emerge!

thylacine,

But is GW a raging bush fire? It is well accepted that electromagnetic radiation at certain frequencies is absorbed by CO2, methane water vapour etc. It is also known that the absorption curve is logarithmic so for example a change in CO2 concentration from 50 to 100 ppm would have a greater effect then say between 400-500 ppm.

The claim that increased atmospheric CO2 is due entirely to human activity is speculative. The further claims ignoring negative feed back mechanisms and over playing positive feedback is in the realm of junk science.

The exaggeration of supposed calamities unless a prescribed action is taken is the stock in trade of the green and environmental lobby. Rubbery figures are advanced to frighten us into submission. Professor Ansley Kellow has coined the term “virtuous corruption to describe the process. [ABC Counterpoint 4 Feb]

The left are attracted to GW warming because of their dislike of large corporations, free markets and capitalism. GW affords an opportunity to impose controls on the energy market, slow production and is a move in the direction of a command economy.

A GW moratorium is justified. Anti GW arguments abound on the internet for example:

http://climatedebatedaily.com/

This is a timely response to Garnaut. The change necessary to get anywhere near 90% reductions in CO2 by 2050 are enormous. The pressure on coal supplies from India/China and the pressure to liquify coal for transport as peak oil bites will be unavoidable for Australia. Lets face it, we either sell coal to the emerging economies or they come and take it. In the short term I believe the social dislocation caused by skyrocketing fuel prices will become very apparent in Australia's vast surburbs and our very economic structure threatened by the spiralling cost base of our logistics industries. It is very difficult to be optimistic given the comparitive urgency of our situation and requires nothing less than a world war like footing across all countries and unprecedented cooperation to address what threatens to be run away global warming and its consequences.

It is interesting to see how the ostriches all come out and put their heads in the sand so quickly.

Global warming is only a part of the reality which we have to face. We need to realise that we live in a closed system, and that we have finite resources, particularly of coal, oil and gas, so that we should be doing what we can to conserve them for future generations, instead of using them up as though there were no tomorrow.

Even if global warming turns out to be a myth, we should be doing something to reduce our consumption of energy down to a level which is sustainable in the long term. That undoubtedly means that we should be doing something to reduce the world population back to a more realistic level, because if we don't, than as sure as Hell, nature is going to do it for us.

Might I suggest a careful reading of

http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/malthus/malthus.0.html

Just to throw some light on the subject.

David

VK3AUU is right.

I'm somewhat bemused by the commentators who are presumptuous enough to think they know more on global scientific matters than the vast majority of the scientific establishment.

I know that predicting the outcomes of global warming is a near impossible task given the complexities of the situation, but there are clear trends that can be observed, and they're quite compelling.

What is clear, is that any action has an equal and opposite reaction. Whether it's global warming or something else, there's only so much you can affect any given ecosystem - be it our atmosphere or a garden pond - before its equilibrium is thrown out of whack.

There can also be no denying we live in a world of limited resources and sooner or later these chickens will come home to roost, whether it's a few decades or longer.

Ultimately, putting global warming aside, the author is speaking about the difficulty of reducing consumption.

And yet, I see no appraisal of the difficulties we will encounter once we inevitably run out of these finite resources.

Are we to assume everything will be fine and dandy?
I can only assume that with growth having a tendency toward acceleration, the sooner you begin to take action, the easier it will be as you're not consuming as fast.

Whether you're a global warming skeptic or not, you can't deny that accelerating consumption of finite resources will inevitably result in catastrophe.

So to the author and the naysayers, all I can say is it's quite apparent you're only concerned for the present, not the future.

Some comments have switched the issue to one of resource scarcity or "peak oil". This is a different matter from the difficulty of achieving the targets being discussed.

For Australia there is no issue of supply shortages - we have hundreds of years of coal and an almost infinite amount of uranium available. When shortages emerge - as they may have done with the world oil supply, the price will gradually rise stimulating a search for new resources and an economy in the usage of the existing resources. Adjustments take place on a gradual basis. This bears no similarity to the forced sterilisation of resources that a carbon tax/cap imposes.

At present Australia has no means of shifiting from a level of about 16 tonnes per capita of co2 emissions to the 2.5 tonnes by 2030 that would be required under a 20 per cent global reduction with an equal per capita level of emissions. Even total nuclear wold only get us half way there.

Within the last few weeks a number of internationally known and respected research organisations published on the internet updated average global temperature data sets that reflected the findings from 2007.

These organisations are;

• The NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS),
• National Climate Data Centre (NCDC) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
• Hadley Climate Research Unit (HadCRU) of the UK Meteorological Office

Each organization reports a global average temperature anomaly for each month. HadCRU data began being collected in 1850; GISS and NCDC began in 1880.

The link below superimposes the three separate data sets on the one graph over the last 30 years.

http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/trend1.jpg

A regression line from actual data has been plotted on the graph to show the trends.

Now, some people on this thread (and others) would say that GW stopped in 1998 – they signify their ignorance about linear regression and trend analysis.

Using their arguments, they would have to say GW stopped in 1976, 1982, 1988, 1991 and 1998. I ask you all, which is it?

Putting it another way, have a look at the following graph from NOAA. It depicts the global average temperature since 1880.

http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2007/ann/global-jan-dec-error-bar-pg.gif

Is there anyone who does not understand this graph?
_________________________________

Anti-green,

You know very well my thoughts on right-wing/left-wing ‘think tanks’ … if you can not see the false dichotomies in such ideological or socio/politico agendas then I am can not hope to have a rational and logical discussion with you.

Senator Inhofe and his ‘list’ does contain some luminaries, but if you had bothered to go to the sources themselves and to ask the pertinent questions, you would have realised that his actions were just a political stunt – the Pope for heavens sake!

Inhofe (and subsequently the Lavoisier Group) are doing all they can to ‘deny and delay’ so as to maintain the power and wealth of their respective groups.

Science is telling us we have issues to deal with. It is the political ‘right/left bun-fight’ that is the problem, as you so clearly demonstrate in your posts.

Cont’d

Cont’d

TRTL,

GW is a symptom of Unsustainable development – we can do it better, no matter what side of the fence we lean on.

Some people have their head in the sand, their arms flaying around in the melting permafrost, their feet stuck in the mud and their rear end pointing to the sky emitting a potent GHG – this is the real problem.

Bigmal says,

“Only economists would have numbers coming out their backsides, and few of them connected to reality.”

Now it’s the economists (before the scientists) – you’re coming across as telling everyone that you are the only one on this planet connected to reality – sounds ‘sus’ to me.

Hasbeen,

Get over it – forget the IPCC if you wish – understand the science!
BTW, see other thread (later) for an understanding of climate/weather (sorry for the delay in responding – been busy).

Keiran,

No, you have got the numbers wrong, see other thread (later) – ditto as for the ‘been’ above – been busy.

Anti-green,

Please don't distort or misrepresent the science. NO ONE is saying "increased atmospheric CO2 is due entirely to human activity" - cite your source please.

"It is also known that the absorption curve is logarithmic so for example a change in CO2 concentration from 50 to 100 ppm would have a greater effect then say between 400-500 ppm." What exactly are you trying to say?

What "rubbery" figures please? Cite your source.

Of course there are denier/sceptic/contrarian/whatever websites - they have an agenda to push.

_______________________

It is obviously a difficult problem humanity faces, it's about time people realised this and started to work together on solutions

I haven't gone through most of Garnaut's report yet, and I accept that it's an interim report inviting debate, but there seems to be no attempt to assess the costs and benefits of adapting to changed climate (if the changes assumed by Garnaut occur) and the Herculean efforts proposed for Australia to reduce emissions, which will have negligible impact on global climate except in the surely fantastic scenario that all other nations are morally inspired to follow our lead, no matter what the cost.

Garnaut is an excellent economist, and in my experience a man of high integrity, but there seems to be an element of unrealistic idealism in his report. To an extent (though this doesn't seem to be his intention), he is demonstrating the tremendous costs involved in making very little difference to global warming. I have previously argued that there will be few if any countries in the world that will bite the bullet and face the political cost of massive cuts in emissions - cf the holier-than-thou EU, which has a much worse record on containing emissions than pariah Australia.

Is not the real problem that we want to achieve stable and sustainable CO2-e without any sacrifice?
The possibilities are:
1 reduce population, more realistically jettison those whom we do not need, more goodies particularly, oil for us.
Already with the current slowing of population growth rates in the west complaints that we will not have a work force to supply the tax to support our increasing proportion of older folk.
2 Reduce consumption
But we have an economic paradigm dependent on consumption which will collapse if we do not consume.
Our very reason for existing defined by ownership will be at risk. By how much can we impose frugality on the many whist saving the riches for the few. The same as now the hype about equality is sufficiently believed as to prevent civil disobedience.
3 Everyone of us maximise on energy efficiency,on the avoidance of need for energy. Makers of heaters and coolers become designers of housing. But the laid off workers?
They become the builders of decentralised alternative and current energy producing centres.
Or they become the many needed for biofuels, decentralised, and charcoal which part of the team bury on farms increasing the production of biomass for fuel. Buildings are made increasingly of wood etc and so on. We still suffer, two or three changes of clothes, walk or bike to work which is decentralised for biofuels can only provide so much without impinging on food resources.
Entertainment becomes local we produce much of own food. The rich no longer import out of season whatever. People of Africa suffer!

I am sure the picture is clear we have a number of tools at our disposal and a number of strategies but without sacrifice on the part of each of us_?
Will America have enough fuel to bring about control of all, energy stock and of all countries as their denial of ratification of many treaties shows they are inclined, so as to teach us the ways of democracy and living? Not if the third world pulls the plug on their borrowing and current get rich stupidities.

People are going to believe what they are told.

The "green" brigade now has huge bucks for spreading "the word". They are looked at as the saviors of the world and with about as much skepticism as newborn puppies.

The fact is that business has caught on very fast to the new green-washing techniques. The know where the big subsidies and tax breaks are. But....name me one coal plant that has ever been displaced by wind power. Impossible. Wind power has never proved itself yet you are a scum if you question anything about it.

These "solutions" preached by many are giant boondoggles and it's only a matter of time before it all comes to light:

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080224/NEWS/802240324/1001/NEWS”

"In other words, to meet the level that Garnaut sees as necessary, Australia would be emitting less than quarter of its present level of CO2. That degree of self discipline is possible only by accepting returning living standards to similar as those currently experienced in the developing world.”

This is untrue in just about any scenario. The FACT is that with today's technology both solar thermal and geothermal power plants produce electricity at 24 hours per day for running costs of 1 cent per kilowatt hour versus 2 cents per kilowatt hour for coal fired stations. Go look at http://www.ausra.com/ and http://www.geodynamics.com.au/IRM/content/home.html and to see a new powerplant at http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/77596.php

The difficulty is that the price charged for energy is dominated by the capital cost which is about 3 times the cost of a coal fired power station, plus taxes (40%+), profits and distribution charges. It turns out that a Rate of Return of 4% per annum on capital makes renewables competitive. So the problem is an investment problem and in the way we calculate rates of return and tax energy. Running costs are a minor part of the 10 to 14 cents per kilowatt hour charged for domestic electricity.

We know new technologies of this type reduce in capital cost by 10% per year for the first few years of mass deployment. How much capital are we talking about? About 45 billion per year for 10 years will give Australia enough energy to replace ALL fossil fuel burning including heavy industry and transport. How much is $45 billion? Australians get loans of $240 billion each year just to buy existing second hand houses.

How many square miles of solar thermal plants do we need - about 50 by 50 kilometers worth for Australia. This is all doable and if we made a little more effort we could indeed create CO2 cleaners that would take CO2, CH3 a little bit of H2O, mix them together add a little energy and produce liquid fuel or plastics or carbon fibre products.

It seems to me that there is a significant discontinuity in proposed
action on CO2 and an expected result with global warming.
All discussion assumes a linear relationship between CO2 ppm and temperature rise.

However the system is not linear, and as it is logarithmic have we
already reached the point where the effect of CO2 has clipped ?
Can anyone refer me to a graph of CO2ppm vs radiation transparency ?

If we have already reached the point where very large increases in CO2
are needed to produce a noticeable temperature rise, then what the hell
are we arguing about ?

It seems to me that you all should read;

http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3657

As far as Australia is concerned, we are arguing about the wrong problem.
How we manage the depletion of the export of oil of our suppliers
is our biggest problem as five years time is where we need to plan.

One correspondant here said we have hundreds of years of coal.
Not true, we have a lot but if we continue exporting peak will occur
in about 25 to 30 years.

Until I can see that the CO2/GW graph is near straight to at least
1000 ppm then I won't worry about global warming.

Garnaut is not qualified and in any case this whole carbon emmissions trding and the whole reduction strategy is based upon political correctness for socialist lefties who are out of work and have no ambulance to chase after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
For big business it represents a great stride in their corporate hypocrisy as the world does not face a crisis as Al Gore is saying.
It is all about cutting wages by closing down the West and moving industries to the third world.
New technologies in each generation will naturally improve the environment witout the need for Kyoto or emmissions targets and carbon trading schemes.

The situation with Garnaut is that in accepting the gospel from state governments and Fed Labour, he recognises AGW as a fact in his own mind. It is after all simply a mind virus which can only be found in the minds of infected unfortunates. Well his website says "The Australian economy must adapt to the impacts of climate change, and the existence of a price on greenhouse gas emissions." In effect he has been elevated to a position with remunerations coming from somebody's (taxpayer?) money to manufacture support for the faith and how best to fund this religion by projecting carbon sin and guilt on everyone ... punctuated with plenty of "the end is near" talk of course. Oh the horror of it.

As far as his "review" is concerned he makes some pretense at it being open and public, but in reality the non infected from little ol me to our giant ball of plasma, sunnyboy, will be deemed heretics, marginalized and punished. The Papal decree is that CO2 is a very dangerous pollutant and therein we have one of the most fraudulent concepts ever perpetrated by people.

Garnaut filled with the self-righteousness that facts can be bent or ignored to fit a theory, has a mission. There is no moral purpose here with this joker. In order to expiate your carbon sinfulness and thereby minimise your time spent in Purgatory, he will be planning for the guilty to engage in a monetary exchange with members of the AGW clergy to offset their sinful deeds. Very pre-Copernican I must say because it is all in the mind.

There is a report by four different climate organisations that there has
been about a 0.6 deg drop in temperature from January 2007 to January 2008.

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-months/

Now that is a pretty big drop and I thought such a change would be shouted
from the roof tops. Well announced with relish on TV anyway.

Perhaps it is not politically correct.

No one has produced a graph with a straight line to 1000 ppm CO2.

Without the Catholic Church , people seek out causes of their own( dubious) or more often jump on any media or ideological university set bandwagon or Hollywood actors and actresses who are all becoming buddhists or kabbalists or saving some plant or grissly bear.

Notice how the environmental issues never includes the greatest environment that God has revealed to us through the Gospel by His Catholic Church, the female womb. This is the most unsafe place for many unborn babies to actually be with 100,0000 abortions in Australia each year.
Do we see any non cartoon cutout Aussies standing up for unborn kids and crying like they do over their inner city chardonnay and vegetarian crepes when discussing grey water useage? Nah. Wonder why.
Don't wonder too long folks. We Aussies are not a tough bunch; we need some good home grown division over this issue; we need to either start loving white Aussie babies ( any babies in fact, I just used the term white to make your ears prick up with inner city outrage !).
If we wish to kill 100,000 MAINLY WHITE Aussie unborn babies, I propose that we call on Canberra to invite Indonesia or Malaysia to come on in and have the kids( and they do !) for us and settle in the predominantely white Catholic/Christian hating inner city suburbs of Melb and Sydney and take over. We might as well help defeat the Catholic hating trendies who laugh at The Chaser on the ABC and other pc prickly one way humour and do it via targetted immigration.

Webby, one of the reasons why we have overpopulation in the world is because of the Catholic Church. The Muslim religion also has to take its share of the blame.

Until the world universally embraces the idea of negative population growth, we are going to continue to have increased pollution, famine, AGW and all the other consequent problems.

We cannot rely on new technology to save us while we continue to move inexorably toward depletion of all our natural resources. We probably have less than 100 years before the whole planet grinds to a halt at our present rate. Then we will really know what pain is.

Wake up, before it is too late.

David

Without faith in the Triune God( Father, SOn and Holy Spirit) people end up posting as do you with poker faced, pessimistic frowns of gloom and doom about the world coming to an end.
Guess what. The world is not coming to an end. All the false prophets( non or former Catholics as well as secualrists and atheists) have cried far far too often that the sky is fallen. It never has.
The catch cries fro corporations and governments is an unscientific bandwaggon. It is all self serving. The socialist left get in on the act for the sake of having a cause. If they ever control a nation the cause goes away as totalitarians are the greatest fo the environment wreckers. For the corporate businesses it makes for their usual insincre intranet and internet and tv a ad poseur reputation lies to make them appear warm and fuzzy and 'nice'.
Level headed people, usually the good mums, dads, aunties, uncles and grandparents who go to Mass and are traditional people as well as the good Protestant people too who go to Sunday services but are upset by the silly 1970s trendy clergy, are getting on with living and loving.
All are optimists.
Smile and cher up mate. Have a cold Hahn or reschs lager on tap, smile and forget about the left and the corporate right. They are telling you bs. Best thing for us Aussies to do is to snub them and not give them an SATISFACTION.
DO NOT, REPEAT DO NOT JOIN THEIR SILLY CIRCUS.

Bazz
Unless you come from a different planet, January 2008 has been the wetest in years if not decades. Why would'nt it be cooler!

Rehcub, has it occurred to you that a higher temperature not only causes more evaporation of water from the seas, but also enables the atmosphere to carry more water as vapour, so that when the monsoon arrives there will naturally be more rain.

If it cooled down to freezing level, there would be no evaporation at all, the air would be dry with no clouds at all and therefore no rain. Just consider the climate in such places as Siberia and Mongolia, very cold and dry in the winter months.

Webby, I am afraid your faith in the Almighty is somewhat misplaced. Why should our civilization be any different to those civilizations which in the past have flourished and then died? We have no more claim to being God's chosen people than they did, even though they had no knowledge of the concept of a Triune God. I suggest that you review the logos of your faith.

David

I have lived in Central Victoria for 30 years.

Our local waterway, Deep Creek was nearly the site of my drowning 20 years ago. Now it is merely a shallow dribble. Platypus, even water rats are nowhere to be seen. The reservoir is down to a puddle, and up at the headwaters where I fly-fished for trophy trout seven years ago, there is not a drop of water to be seen. Even the ancient springs that leaked from under the vast basalt plains have disappeared.

Six years ago, my garden grew enough tomatoes for a year's supply of tomato and spaghetti sauce. This year, I'll be lucky to get enough for a couple of salads. The vegetables seem to be confused. A few behave as you might expect, but most rush to seed or wither prematurely. Some have barely grown since I planted them months ago.

The huge Orb Spider's webs are conspicuous by their absence. No more do I hear the moths and beetles banging around the outside light and on the window panes. Butterflies are down to the odd Cabbage White, and dragonflies don't visit any more. I am no longer required to scoop up invading spiders and deposit them back outside. I haven't heard a frog for ages.

The only thing which hasn't diminished is we humans, but it feels like we are all holding our breath to see what will happen next.

- I'll keep you posted.

Chris, climate change and variability is the natural condition of the Earth. The issues are - have human actions led to accelerated global warming? If so, will it continue; is it harmful? Is so, can we slow/reverse the change? Might there be a natural reversal (global cooling) which would render such action counter-productive? Either way, what are the costs and benefits of action to reduce change versus inaction/adaptation? Ad hoc accounts of your locality throw no light on these issues, none of which have, in my view, been fully determined.

And whatever the facts, it is indisputable that Australia's actions will have little or no effect on future climate.

Good call David.

How do you explain 1974 floods while following your theory?

There will always be years in which we have either extreme wet or dry periods, probably connected with the El Nino. These will occur regardless of whether we have AGW, warming or cooling or whatever.

Although I am concerned about AGW, I think the more important concerns should be about the growth of global population, resource use and food production which directly or indirectly effect AGW as well as the long term survival of mankind.

As I said in another post, we have no a priori claim for our civilisation to be everlasting. I believe that some previously quite advanced civilisations disappeared because they used up all the resources which were then available. We are inexorably heading down the same path, driven by economists who insist on following the dogma of "Growth, Growth, Growth." Unless they can come up with a new paradigm the slope will get more slippery as the years roll by.

David

Rehclub;
You have obviously misunderstood what the reports were saying.
The temperatures under discussion are global averages, not whether the
summer was hot or cool in NSW or cold in Alaska or hot in Spain.

Thats not what we are talking about at all. It is the global average,
that has fallen by 0.6 deg.

To complicate matters there is a scientific argument about where in the
atmosphere the temperatures should be measured.
Some say at ground level some say at a different altitude.
Some say satellite measurements are the best some not.

It makes it difficult for us, but it appears that there has been a
significant fall in the last year and everyone will wait and watch to
see if it continues falling or will remain at the lower level.

Bazz

I think you miss the point of their argument, although it is somewhat anecdotal.

Even I can remember the regular morning frosts in Sydney 30/40 yrs ago … night time minimums are creeping up!

I have a sister in Dorset UK, last Feb she phones and says its snowing on the friggin beach … unheard of she says.

My son travelled to Germany last year (their mid winter) and hoped to do a spot of skiing – no friggin snow and had to travel yonks (Switzerland) to find it!

My daughter was in Malaysia one month later visiting extended family … their hometown of 42,000 people were evacuated due to unheard of local flooding!

Most people do have anecdotal evidence of these “extreme” weather events – indicative and predicated of ‘climate change’.

However, anecdotal evidence is not science, and ‘weather’ is not ‘climate’, see;

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7051#107218

Nevertheless, you are right, global temperatures have fallen and it remains to be seen if it continues, and more importantly for how long.

I suspect once ENSO shifts back to ‘normal’ we will continue to see the upward trend in global averages.

Yes, it is difficult … and it is complex.
Therefore, don’t you find it strange that some people who don’t have any expertise in the science are more than willing to say it is all crap?

Just because ‘deniers’ don’t want to believe in GW does not make it not so. How’s that for a triple negative?

Yes, Q&A the problem is so complex that the likes of myself cannot
make much contribution.
However, while the IPCC wants to insist that the science is settled
there are many very qualified people in the appropriate sciences that
are saying it is not settled.

However one point, no one has produced a graph, as I requested, that
shows radiation transmission vs atmospheric CO2 for 0 to 1000 ppm.

When I see the graph that shows close to a straight line around 400ppm
then I might believe in man caused global warming.

I don't think that is an unreasonable request.
If it does not exist then man made global warming probably does not
exist, or it has already reached the point where any further CO2 will
have no noticeable effect.

We have had the coldest winter in decades. The US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration have said that in January 2007 the 13 million sq km in the polar ice caps of the Artic had shrunk to 4 million sq km however are almost back up to 13 million again this year January 2008.
In the Antarctica there is now nearly one third MORE ice than is usual for THIS time of year (ie January 2008).

There is no such thing as global warming.
Mr Gore, please retire.
Aussie top 200 listed companies; please remove the global warming hype from your intranet for staff and also remove from all your internet and public relations material please.

Bazz, I have seen charts and evidence that shows that most CO2 associated atmospheric warming occurs up to 50ppm, the relationship is non-linear and projected increases in CO2 will have little warming effect. If I can track it down, I'll post it.

In a submission to Garnaut, the Lavoisier Group noted that since 1998 lower tropospheric have remained steady or dropped slightly while CO2 concentrations increased by 4 per cent. In addition, the IPCC modellers' results show, and dependent on, tropospheric warming in tropical latitudes, which has not occurred as predicted.

http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/GarnautFinalSubmission.pdf

Webby, I suggest you look at the graph at
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.jpg
particularly look at the trend of the minima.

Looks like a strong possibility of global warming to me.

I hope you don't live at the seaside.

David

No problems at Maroubra Beach.
Last two nights in Sydney have been a bit chilly.
These nightmare scenarios are for people into political correctness and unreasonable people who are without faith in God.

Back in the 1970s a global ice-age was all the rage.

All lies, all futile fear.
Smile and get yourself to Holy Mass Sunday morning.
For those who have inordinate fears, usually do not beleive in God's Providence which means that at their core are without faith in God and do not believe in God.

Webby, any inordinate fear arises from ignorance, from not understanding that the essence of life is change, that we suffer from not accepting what is, from craving "good" experiences and having aversion to "bad" experiences, from seeking to control the world rather than realising that it is beyond our control. Whether or not there is accelerated global warming, we know there is happiness, we know there is suffering, we know that this will continue to be the case, let's learn to deal with it. (The latter is a general remark for all rather than a comment on/for Webby per se.)

And there will be lot more needless suffering and unhappiness if we don't do something about reducing the world's population and in consequence reducing the pollution of the biosphere.

David

Needless suffering is caused by human selfishness and excessive consumerism and materialism.
Europe's population is declining due to the very low birth rate of white local Europeans. Muslims are having the children. Bears and other animals are returning to many parts of Europe as population in towns declines. Avergae of one child per couple in Spain right now.
Lower population is not the answer to biosphere which is not endangered; and an increase in population doesn't cause increased suffering. Problem as always is corruption, lack of Judeao-Christian derived legal systems as we have in the West and in Commonwealth nations ( albeit currently being undermined since the 1970s with easy divroce laws, political correctness and other aberrations that actually increase suffering).

Bazz,

The IPCC is not insisting the science is settled. For anyone to suggest this (usually the media, AGW alarmists or miscreants) indicates lack of understanding of the IPCC process and denigrates all scientists in general and the scientific method in particular.

Science per se does not work by consensus; this too is widely misinterpreted.

As far as your requested graph goes, I am still perplexed as to what you want.

Ergo, what do you mean by, or define as, “radiation transmission”? Do you mean radiative forcing, or radiative properties of CO2, or climate sensitivity, or total radiation incoming to outgoing in W/m2, or GHG-e irradiation, or what?

And a straight line 0 to 1000 ppm [CO2]; when zero means the planet would be frozen and life as we know it would be non-existent; and 1000 is going to push humanity to the envelope? You want a point of no return somewhere on that straight line?

And “a straight line around 400 ppm” … then you “might believe in man caused global warming.” What the hell does that mean? And why is 400 ppm so important in determining whether you believe in global warming or not? Why not 500, or 600, or 700, or doubling from pre-industrial levels, or tripling?

Bazz, the science is telling us we have a problem – you don’t have to believe it and that’s ok, for whatever reason. But sheesh, why don’t you contribute more to non-scientific debate – you know, the subject of this article.

What do you think can or can’t be done in adapting to ‘climate change’? Are there better ways to manage energy and our finite resources?

Q&A, I suspect that you and I are wasting our time in this debate. The deniers are not interested in looking at the physical evidence which is confronting them. Real science has no meaning to them because they have no understanding of it, even in a peripheral sense.

Webby, the Lord looks after those who help themselves, so that if you have no desire to help the world overcome whatever are the consequences of AGW, then you will be the loser, despite your belief in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. When your time finally comes, may your dear departed soul rest in peace, although I suspect that it will more than likely be a case of,

"Ashes to ashes,
Dust to dust,
If the white ants don't get you,
The Devil must."

David

VK3AUU

There is no point in worrying about "believers" unless their opinions are forced on the rest of us and I have long ago stopped worrying about them but have got on looking for solutions. They would also say there is no point in talking to you and I as long as our opinions are not forced on them.

This leads us into the prisoners dilemma or the tragedy of the commons. Fortunately there are cooperative solutions appearing where we can all agree to disagree but still change the way our economic systems operate to solve the greenhouse emissions problem.

Q&A & VK3AUU,
I will try and explain.
My understanding is that the greenhouse effect of CO2 in the atmosphere
varies with the amount of CO2.

However this effect is not "linear", ie if you double the amount of
CO2 you do not double the greenhouse effect.
The effect follows a logarithmetic curve.

My reason for selecting 400 ppm is because I understand that we now
have something like 350 ppm in the atmosphere.

The curve will start off rising steeply and then curve over becoming
closer and closer to horizontal.

VK3AUU, the same as a time constant charge of a capacitor.

If 350 ppm is on the straight rising part of the curve, then a man
made increase in CO2 will have a proportional increase in greenhouse effect.

However, and this is the point, if 350ppm is on the part of the curve
that is becoming horizontal then an increase in CO2 has no detectable
effect on greenhouse effect.

Another way of explaining it is like this;
You have a thin mix of black paint.
You want to paint a clear piece of glass.
The first coat cuts back some light, the next cuts back more light.
The more coats you put on the more light that is cut back, but each
time there is less light cut out until finally it is totally black
and nor more light is cut out no matter how much paint is put on.

Thats the best I can do without drawing a graph.
It has been suggested to me that the atmosphere becomes "black" to
CO2, (the curve starts flattening) at 50 ppm then
man made CO2 cannot make global warming worse and any increase
thereafter MUST be natural.

If 50ppm is correct then it is impossible for man made warming to be
taking place, no ifs no buts, it is impossible.

Now this is what raised my question; is there a graph anywhere showing
the transmission of radiation through the atmosphere vs CO2 ppm ?

Whew, I can see why there is so much controversy about GW !

de Baz

de Baz,

This is an *extreme* over-simplification.

To obey the fundamental laws of physics; if you put energy into a system, the system heats up.

For some time now we have been releasing (exponentially) much more energy into the system at a rate greater than the system has been able to absorb.

For a very much longer time, the concentration of CO2 in a component (atmosphere) of the system hovered around 280 ppm. Today, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 385 ppm, an increase of about 40% over pre-industrial levels (it’s the mass that matters, but we won’t go into that here). There is a vast body of research that attributes most of this increase to the burning of fossil fuels and poor resource management practices.

Measurements have shown that we are adding CO2 at a rate of about 2 ppm per year. However, where people get really confused is in their misunderstanding of the IPCC’s emission scenarios (SRES). This is the nub of Garnaut’s interim findings.

You are right (in simplified terms) that the forcing of CO2 is logarithmic (~ 5.3 log [CO2]/[ CO2_init]) and in terms of temperature, it equates to about a 60% increase in warming for a tripling of [CO2] than that of a doubling from pre-industrial levels (for example) … this is where I think you get confused.

Another problem; because oceans take a long time to warm up, there is more ‘warming’ to come (from previous CO2 emissions). So, on top of the 0.7 ºC we have already experienced since pre-industrial times, there is another 0.5 ºC in the pipe-line.

At the concentrations we are looking at, measurements and observations show the planet’s global average temperature is increasing at a rate of about 0.2 ºC per decade with ‘climate sensitivity’ at about 3 ºC for a doubling of CO2.

When you factor in forcings from the other GHG’s (and deforestation practices) into the SRES’s *business as usual* scenario, the additional warming would be about 2 to 5 ºC.

This is BIG in our scheme of things.

Bazz, start here:

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

Back to topic,

Again simplistic, but what say anyone to this?

To stabilise atmospheric CO2 at 560 ppm will require a 75% reduction of emissions from business-as-usual (currently about 8 billion tons per year) to a rate of about 2 billion tons per year.

The largest GHG emitting countries in the world emit about 75% of the global total. They can reduce global emissions by 75% if they reduce their emissions to zilch … methinks not.

OTOH, if these same countries reduce their emissions by about 60%, then all the remaining countries’ emissions would have to be zilch … methinks not.

We are told 560 ppm equates to about 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels.

Following the above logic, the planet will have to adapt to a *warmer* world.

It would be prudent to reduce GHG emissions as much as we can – 90% seems ‘off-the-planet’.

Ok then to all of you who keep saying that we must stop the population growth.

1. How many of you have children of your own?

2. Of these how many wish for thier children to provide them with grand children?

3. If any one of you answered yes to both questions, then which side of the fence do you realy sit on?

The to the anti-progress posters.

1. Are you comfortable participating in this debate with the knowledge that progrees has allowed you to do so?

2. Would you be happy to sell your car, turn off your air-con on a 30deg+ day or walk to work provided your workplace provided 60% less lighting.

With the risk of sounding like a broken record, we must learn to deal with CO2 rather than just try to reduce it to unachievable levels.

1. No kids
2. N/A
3. N/A

1. Yes
2. Live out of town so need car. No Aircon. House designed to be cool in summer, warm in winter.

David

I am sorry to be an optimist but there is a solution and it will make us richer (which will reduce the population) and we can do it in a couple of decades.

Think of the problem as one of investment rather than one of cutting emissions. How much investment in renewables do we need to reduce our emissions to zero and then to start to take gases out of the atmosphere.

Take the total energy output (including transport, industrial processes, agriculture) of Australia, divide by the number of people, and you get between 70Kwh and 90kwh depending on whose energy numbers you start with.

If we use existing technology (solar thermal or geothermal) then it costs us about 3000 to produce about 9000 kwhs so the investment needed for each Australian is about $30K at existing technology prices. We know that large scale industrial processes improve their efficiency in the early stages of development by about 10% per year so it will probably cost about $20K over ten years or about 40 billion a year. 40 billion a year is 1/6th the amount we currently spend buying existing houses.

At the end of the time we will have zero net emissions and energy at half the current wholesale cost.

This is not a doomsday scenario it is an economic growth scenario.

Let's keep burning coal until the science on other forms of eco-friendly alternatives is more advanced, viable and cost efficient.
The Green Movement, and political parties of the Green persuasion, are often made up of former socialists and Communists.
The Green Movement , like Communistic type movements and political parties often come up with issues that are relevant but are also often short on viable solutions and often the 'solutions' are wrong in therory and practice from common sense and objective moral and economic norms.( economic norms that is that spring from objective morals, not to be confused with economic rationalism that sadly is ruining many of our industries, moving them offshore and closing them down.

Fickle Pickle.

It is good to hear someone putting up a reasonable suggestion for a change. The government would be better off spending the money that they were going to give back in tax relief, on just that sort of thing. After all, the previous mob managed to squander more than 1 billion on a helicopter fleet which won't do the job.

You just need to convince Kruddy that it is both good politics and good management to invest in the future. I won't hold my breath though.

Greenies and Green political parties and various hangers on eg trendy non doctrinal 'Christians' ( cough, cough), large businesses and the media- all seem to have not a care in the world when it comes to the actual PRICE, ie HIGH PRICES to be charged to ordinary families for ' eco- friendly' energy alternatives.

Even the ALP is focused on the obsessions and reputational PR depts within Australian corporations who want their slice of reputation enhancement based on dubious green 'science'; but ultimately the corporations want to make an unfair and too high profit. Profits are a good thing however the HIGH profit margins that corporations demand, whether it be energy companies ( when privatised) or non energy companies as a whole, is criminal.
Greenies, the ALP, the Coalition parties are silent on this important aspec. Families and their breadwinners are treated badly in this whole debate by secular political ideologues and business greed who are united for different reasons.