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The Forum > Article Comments > Much needed due diligence on climate change > Comments

Much needed due diligence on climate change : Comments

By Don Aitkin, published 10/4/2008

An 'Archimedean' Royal Commission might help us focus on real problems rather than global warming.

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Don

Global warming is a problem, whether you believe in human induced climate change or not.

The UN Security Council are concerned enough to put it on their agenda. If they see it as a problem, Australia should as well.

You don’t have to believe in AGW (many don’t) – However, many governments, business and religious leaders do. Have they all been ‘hoodwinked’, are they all that irrational or stupid as you imply?

The science is complex. It is very disingenuous to challenge the science on a blog-site and hope to have reasoned and rational debate in a public domain where opinions run rampant with misunderstandings and deliberate distortions – from both sides.

The Gores and Carters of the world sensationalise and promote fear in the minds of the untrained, and both alarmists and those from the ‘deny and delay’ camp are at war. This can’t be good.

IMHO, I think the problem is more about ideology (rather than the science) and this is where the debate should be focussed, a Royal Commission won’t help.

In any event, scientists can’t ‘simply’ explain the science in an open debate, it can be very confusing to the layperson, as you would understand when expert witnesses are called into court.

If you want another enquiry, why not call on ‘the education system’ to make science more easily understood? Just a thought, have we the time?

Senior Victorian

You say ‘Due diligence’, from whose or what perspective?

Royal Commission? The problem we have is global.
No matter what a RC finds, we are still part of the global community. Is not the UNFCCC (a ‘commission’) hard enough without locals muddying the water?

On the contrary, the British court still found Gore’s assertions based on fact. Gore is a politician turned actor after all.

You put energy into a system: - it warms; water evaporates, moisture falls out as rain/sleet/snow. It’s a warmer wetter world Sen Vic.

The BAS were premature in their pronouncements, but collapsing ice shelves are a symptom of warming waters surrounding them. The Wilkins collapse still has to be investigated thoroughly.
Posted by Q&A, Thursday, 10 April 2008 2:20:37 PM
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As far as I understand Don Aitkin is qualified in poltical science not physical science. Could we have a critique of the global warming hypothesis by a climate scientist and not by economists, politicians business people or anybody else with irrelevant qualifications, I'll pay attention then. I'll agree, however, that our leaders seem to be ignorant of the fact that we live in a marginal desert and are alarmingly dependent on imported oil.
Posted by mac, Thursday, 10 April 2008 3:44:15 PM
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Paul.L repeats the nonsense about the climate not having warmed in the last 10 years. Paul (and Don and all the others who parrot this rubbish from the likes of Bob Carter) please look at the graphs on NASA's website http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ and tell me warming has stopped! 2007 was about the same as 1998 despite the fact that 2007 was at a solar minimum and a La Nina year and 1998 was a solar max and an El Nino year. So IF you must look at short term trends, then you have to conclude the Earth is warming. The simple fact of the matter is that weather is very variable. That the record maximum was 10 years ago does NOT mean that the average is not increasing, any more than that because today was hotter than yesterday, tomorrow will be hotter again.

The only reasonable way to look for climate (not weather) trends is to look at longer term averages – and they are inexorably increasing. See RealClimate 11 Jan 2008 for example: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/01/uncertainty-noise-and-the-art-of-model-data-comparison/#more-523
1998 was an exceptionally hot year for that time. Now, however, that sort of temperature is quite 'normal' (2007 was about the same as 1998 but was not nearly as 'exceptional').

Why is it that the sort of recycled, but thoroughly discredited arguments that Don Aitken is putting forward continue to surface in some of the media? Is it an attempt to get balance? In that case you would need about 100 articles confirming global warming for every sceptic! A relatively kind explanation would be that the media likes to stir up a controversy. The cynic, however, might suggest that there are more powerful influences at work here.
Posted by KeithB, Thursday, 10 April 2008 5:17:46 PM
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Q&A's comments illustrate exactly what I mean by the difficulty in finding a common basis of fact. The British Government in the High Court case conceded 9 errors of fact in the Gore film, of which one was the claim that increased atmospheric CO2 levels precede periods of global warming. The British Government conceded that for the past 600,000 years increased atmospheric C02 followed rather than preceded periods of global warming.

Another factual issue relates to whether the world is actually warmer and wetter. It depends on your point of reference. The world has been warmer in the past than it is now and wetter in the past than it is now - and sometimes both at once. Interestingly, NASA lists the warmest years of the 20th century as being in the 1930s and 1940s.
Posted by Senior Victorian, Thursday, 10 April 2008 5:37:24 PM
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Slowly the voices of moderation will be listened to.Man is a greater threat to himself via over population rather than this alarmist talk of Global warming.

The struggle has begun already with China trying to buy our resource companies.We seemed to have forgotten that China is still a totalitarian communist Govt and small minorities don't count.The power of their centralist Govt is paramount.

I was really surprised that Kevin Rudd has taken them on.It will be interesting to see if he backs down under the weight of China's wrath,since they keep us in a manner that is not sustainable.
Posted by Arjay, Thursday, 10 April 2008 6:57:12 PM
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What about the evidence of rising sea levels? Almost stable for three millenia prior to 1900 (0.1 to 0.2 mm per year), currently at over 3mm per year. If you dont dispute this evidence, then why didn't sea level show a similar during the Medieval Warm Period, or other warm periods during these past millenia? How much did it fall during the Little Ice Age?

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

And if the oceans have not been warming, then wouldn't the only cause of sea level rise be melting ice? And isn't this indicative of a warming Earth?

I'd be interested to know what those pro and con the argument for AGW make of this? How might the validity and rate of sea level rise affect an opinion?
Posted by Fester, Thursday, 10 April 2008 8:41:21 PM
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