Good article.

The author: "While 2C doesn't sound like much, it is often cited by scientists as a dangerous threshold which we should not cross."

Such a change would indeed be devastating to the environment and to agriculture and would hit us with a huge economic and humanitarian cost. Forests and farm lands cant just grow legs and move to follow the climate. Alpine and coastal areas in particular have nowhere to go.

a. Garnaut is an economist giving advice to Government. He is not a leader, and does not have to “show leadership” or spout his “belief in social change” – if he has such beliefs.

b. Who says the IPCC is made up of “the world’s best scientists”? The true believers? The media?

c. How is it that scientists with qualifications and experience equal to the presumed world’s best, and who don’t hold the human cause view of climate change, are totally ignored, or sneered at, by the media and politicians?

d. The planet has cooled for the past 10 years.

e. “… preventing climate disaster…”? What arrogance! Nothing humans can do will prevent climate change, whether or not that change is ‘disastrous” to humans or beneficial.

f. “Australia must reduce greenhouse pollution as quickly as possible to the lowest levels possible…” is the typically naïve call from young lefties who have never had responsibility for anything, including themselves. What will they do if they get their way, and the Australian economy is wrecked because of the myth of human cause, and the hardship caused by mad scientists and their CO2 obsessions makes absolutely no difference to the climate ? They will, of course, do nothing and go onto their next silly cause, and let others try to clean up the social disaster brought on by panic-stricken politicians who listen to whoever talks the longest and loudest.

Climate change is real; the ‘solutions’ are absolute rubbish. The CO2 waffle is an excellent example of the well known fact that, if the same material is repeated often enough, most people come to believe it.

Mr. Right: "What will they do if they get their way, and the Australian economy is wrecked because of the myth of human cause, and the hardship caused by mad scientists and their CO2 obsessions makes absolutely no difference to the climate ?"

Mad scientists? I'm sorry, but the following top-level science institutions, which include the national science academies of the G8+5 nations, agree that the current regime of climate change is human caused:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, NASA, CSIRO, InterAcademy Council (IAC), the national science academies of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States, National Research Council (US), European Science Foundation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Federation of American Scientists, World Meteorological Organization, Royal Meteorological Society (UK), Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, International Union for Quaternary Research, Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, International Union of Geological Sciences, European Geosciences Union, Canadian Federation of Earth Sciences, Geological Society of America, American Geophysical Union, American Astronomical Society, American Institute of Physics, American Physical Society, American Chemical Society, Engineers Australia (The Institution of Engineers Australia), Federal Climate Change Science Program (US), American Statistical Association, International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences, American Association of State Climatologists, The Network of African Science Academies

So you have to ask: who is mad here?

What the business lobby (howling doom and gloom over the small impost of a new cost of doing business and scuttling any chance we might of had at some kind of measured and reasoned response) don't seem to understand is that the economic impacts of climate change within a short space of time without decisive action will rent asunder their profits as well as the planet's climate and ecosystems. Where is smart business in all of this? They need to bring to heel those voices that have their own profits in mind rather than the greater good. At times like this one can't help but think the old prophecy about the meek inheriting the earth may well come to pass and that perhaps the planet will be much better off without those who care more about profit than think carefully about loss - in all its forms. It's about perspective and relativity. And business, in the big picture and longer term with 550 ppm E + scenarios, is small fry indeed. Talk about soiling/despoiling ones own nest. Perhaps in the next age, if humans are still around, there'll be some changes to the way we do things.

The latest Garnaut Review is a closer reflection on the reality of the situation.

The 1% that Australia works on reducing will have absolutely no effect unless the rest of the world comes on board, and so the targets of 550ppm is a reflection of the futility of unilateral action.

The "small impost" on business that Angela B refers to, will have the effect of making manufacturing in Australia uncompetitive, and so will move off shore to where there is no carbon tax and have no effect on climate change.

I guess if an opinion piece was from someone funded from an oil company, you could only expect a bias.

Since you're both from the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, is it fair to ask what your motives are, since you seem to be almost in a panic about Garnault's latest announcement? It was meant to be good news wasn't it? (I'm probably wrong about that, often am I'm told.) It's kind of middle of the road news, neither extremely good or extremely bad.

It sounds like you're dissappointed that the speech was not really bad news and the world's going to end and we're all going to die tomorrow. Would that be fair?

Will this speech of Garnault's take the wind out of your sails so to speak, and reduce the membership prospects and growth of your organisation? You're both founders of the AYCC is that correct?

I guess the cynical amongst us could say this(extreme?)bias is expected from your side of the AGW industry.

Oh dear. The Great Green Hope, Prof Garnaut, has reneged on the global warming fanatics by preaching a little bit of common sense and restraint. This, of course, will happen more and more as time goes by and it becomes increasingly clear that climate change is natural, normal and no great threat to anyone -- that is unless we get the Little Ice Age that the absence of sunspots and the last ten years of global cooling seem to suggest. People like Garnaut with careers and reputations to save will quickly distance themselves from the hysteria like survivors pulling away from the Titanic. But regardless of what happens, you can be sure of one thing: nobody from Garnaut and the PM down will ever say "I was wrong". 'Revising the models' sounds much more respectable...

more oz-speak: "the government must..."

or you'll do what?

the government listens to a different drum, it's a simple rhythm, "get elected, get elected, get elected,..."

they run the nation to achieve that aim. the next election is their horizon, no farther. it must be, or the other mob would get in.

it's too bad oz doesn't have citizen initiative, but there you are, history is going to destroy us.

Mr Wrong: << The planet has cooled for the past 10 years. >>

This bulldust is an excellent example of the well known fact that, if the same twaddle is repeated often enough, most dunces come to believe it.

Full credit to Sams, but I for one don't have the patience to bother with what passes for debate about climate change at OLO.

The best that Sams and CJ Morgan can do is to make references to some higher authority and ad homiem attacks on anyone who disagrees with them.
There is a lot of mis-information,exaggerations and lies from both sides of this debate and the science is far from being conclusive.Remain sceptical.

"Climate change" may or may not be a challenge, but nothing will be achieved by introducing carbon taxes to reduce "greenhouse pollution".

It will merely drive up the cost of energy, feed into the price of nearly everything, reduce our standard of living and future economic growth, and move jobs overseas. Australia would be stupid to join the lemmings. The impacts will all be negative without any positives.

It is delusional to consider carbon dioxide to be pollution. It is plant food. Some of the world top scientists have said, in the Manhattan Declaration of March 2008, that human emissions of carbon dioxide does not cause climate change.

Garnaut does not even question the flawed IPCC "science" of anthropocentric global warming. In contrast to the often-repeated assertion that the science of climate change is “settled,” significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming. There is no evidence that increased atmospheric CO2 forces an increase in temperatures,or changes the climate. The data is ambiguous or missing, the science uncertain and absolutely no one understands the carbon cycle. Recent observations indicate that the Earth's temperatures are not rising, the ice isn't melting, the oceans are getting cooler, not warmer, and sea levels are falling. None of of these changes has been shown to lie outside the bounds of known natural variability.

The entire ETS is based on flawed science and is a detriment to future generations. It is being pushed by political activists with dangerous agendas.

I have come to realise that it does not matter if human caused global
warming is real or not.

It will not be possible to get *world wide* CO2 emissions down to the
level required to stop increasing temperatures required by IPCC.
There is just too much development in progress in countries like China
and India as well as Africa. It will be almost impossible to get
Australia's emissions down to required levels without crushing the economy.

Considering that global warming may be happening without human help
anyway, would we not be better off harbouring our resources and wealth
to mitigate the effects of global warming instead of wasting them on
trying to turn back the tide ?

We could be hit with global warming and be left with nothing in
reserve to mitigate it.

Bazz, that's one of the best comments I have seen anywhere in this whole debate, well it's a debate if you have an open mind about it.

The authors of this little gem are clearly part of a social networking group whose reason for existing is propagating more of the same. Not for solving problems or rational thinking.

There is a theory that a lot of folks join cults and belief systems, like this, so they can "belong" to a group of like minded people, whether they understand it or whether it makes any sense. Have a look at the little glee club of happy, like minded, self important people on their website, wonderful stuff.

I was just about to post a comment that says exactly what Bazz said above, namely that it will be politically impossible to achieve what the Warministas claim is required to "fix" the problem.

In that light We should not even try and instead we should be looking at how to adapt to a changing world.

Cheers Comrades

Sams,

So you have the patience and time to write a huge list of organisations. So what? Just naming them doesn't mean they are right.

Mr Right,
This is the third time in ten days that Sams has posted that list on the On Line Opinion Forum, so it doesn't cost him any time to keep recycling it. As you say, the fact that many organisations believe something doesn't make it right - and it certainly doesn't mean that all members share the organisation's view.

Sams can now add the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS) to his list because that body, which presents itself as the peak representative body of 60,000 Australian scientists and technologists, issued a statement on climate change last week. As a member of the Statistical Society of Australia for the past 22 years, I'm one of those for whom the Federation claims to speak. I've often disagreed with FASTS' statements: at one stage they were promoting a fatuous 'technology clock' from which they thought they could predict the future exchange value of the Australian dollar.They said they'd keep monitoring it, using Australia's expenditure on R&D as the indicator of the dollar's strength. They thought the $A would be worth around 30 US cents by about 2008. It's now above 80 US cents.

Mr. Right: "So you have the patience and time to write a huge list of organisations. So what? Just naming them doesn't mean they are right."

This is not just a huge list of organisations but a list including the top-level science organisations of the entire developed world, and more.

We can at least say that it is very unlikely that they are wrong.

Mathematically speaking you are correct, there is no way that they can ever prove the absolute truth of human-caused global warming, or any other scientific fact (such as the existence of gravity) for that matter. Because such a thing is impossible. Science is evidence-based (except perhaps for pure mathematics).

If we were to take the stance that we wouldn't pursue any course of action until everything was proven to 100% mathematical certainty, we would never do anything about anything.

The old "you can't prove anything" delaying tactic is childish in its naivety. I don't know why deniers keep parroting it.

Whatever,not IanC, I am tired of hearing excuses from the 'do-nothings'.

There is everything to be gained with living and working towards a less polluting more sustainable future irrespective of where you stand regarding AGW.

"there are personal lifestyle changes that you can make too that, in some combination, can help reduce your carbon impact. Not all are right for everybody. Some you may already be doing or absolutely abhor. But implementing just a few of them could make a difference.

...so try to employ alternatives when possible—plant-derived plastics, biodiesel, wind power—and to invest in the change, be it by divesting from oil stocks or investing in companies practicing carbon capture and storage."

For the full list of what can be achieved at a grass-roots level please read:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=10-solutions-for-climate-change

There is no excuse for continuing the 'business-as-usual' ideal, when there are already practical technologies available and a lot more we do than what is happening currently - which is nada.

Wills
You seem to be saying that adapting to a wetter and warmer world or reducing our dependency on a fossil fuel economy should cost nothing. What econometric world do you live in?

You don’t see any positives ... really? Ok, keep your head stuck in the mud.

“The Manhattan Declaration.” Do you mean the one set up and funded by the Heartland Institute? The political activist group pushing their own agenda?

“Flawed IPCC science.” Have you even read the science behind the IPCC reports? Or do you just troll the denialosphere? Why don’t you just come out and say all the governments in the world are behind the global warming conspiracy?

“No evidence ... recent observations indicate ... ice isn’t melting ... oceans getting cooler ... sea levels are falling ... blah, blah.” Why don’t you just link to your sources of scientific endeavour? At the very least why don’t you reference them ... surely these gems are not your own? You’re the one who is sounding delusional.

And that web site of yours ... what's your agenda again?

Bazz
Disagree with some of the details but good post! A global problem requires a global solution.

Mr Right
So all the international institutions and science academies that Sams name are involved in a global conspiracy? There are people you can talk to, or stress pills you can take ... classic symptom of paranoia IMO.

Ian Castles
You are starting to sound like someone with ADHD ... or a statistician who (like many approaching emeritus status) spit the dummy and spruiks mantra like ... I told them so, I told them so.

Why don't you just pick up your ball and go home, or better still ... write a paper with DS and get it published in a journal of known repute.

Then wait at the post box for your Fields!

Hello Q&A (whoever you are),

Some weeks ago you ‘popped in’ to this Forum to suggest to Sams (whoever he is) that he might wish to look at a thread on ‘a site run by a statistician.’ You said that you’d ‘prefer to look and learn from someone like Tamino, particularly when it comes to climate change issues’ (‘Scientists, politicians and public policy: Comments’, http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7736&page=7 , 11 August). Earlier you’d told Don Aitkin that you preferred Tamino (whoever he is) to Lucia (she makes no secret of the fact that she is Dr. Lucia Liljegren), because of Tamino’s ‘proper analysis’ (‘An initial reaction to Garnaut: Comments’, http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7639&page=8 , 18 July).

In the light of this history, I thought I’d alert you to a recent development that might affect your assessment of Tamino’s statistical expertise and judgement.

In a characteristically ill-mannered attack on other scientists on his website earlier this year ( tamino.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/pca-part-4-non-centered-hockey-sticks/ , 6 March),Tamino argued that ‘You shouldn’t just take my word for it, but you should take the word of Ian Jolliffe, one of the world’s foremost experts on PCA [and] author of a seminal book on the subject.’

Unfortunately for Tamino, Professor Jolliffe has now written to Tamino's blog to say that his views had been misrepresented, and that he had not endorsed ‘decentred PCA [principal components analysis]’ as had been implied in the article in question. He’s also written to Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit to say that Steve’s work with Ross McKitrick accurately reflected his (Jolliffe’s) views.

Sams, as you have boasted on this Forum (‘Scientists, politicians and public policy: Comments’, http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7736&page=4 ,10 August) that you don’t read Climate Audit ‘or any other amateurish crank blog that comes along’, I assume you haven’t seen Professor Jolliffe’s letter to Steve McIntyre or the ensuing discussion at that blog. In the hope that you can find the time to pay CA a visit to read Jolliffe’s expert views on this important statistical issue, I’ll paste in here a link to his letter and the related discussion: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3601 .

Prof. Jolliffe: "I am by no means a climate change denier. My strong impressive is that the evidence rests on much much more than the hockey stick."

Sam
your quote proves nothing except that teh professor has an open mind. The fact that he contacted Steve MacIntyre says much more than the minor reservation that you so desperately cling too here Sam.

Global Emissions can be reduced to zero or less and the world will be richer simply by investing in renewables.

There is another approach to encouraging investment in emissions reducing technology than the one of increasing the price of emissions or putting a charge on carbon.

The approach is to pay people zero interest money if they consume less energy and require them to invest those payments in renewables or energy saving infrastructure.

This will REDUCE inflation, cause no economic crisis, and it can be adjusted to get whatever reduction we need as fast as we can build renewable energy systems. The cost of running renewable energy plants is less than the cost of burning fossil fuel and the capital cost of renewable energy systems will be the same as fossil fuel power plants within 5 doublings of renewable capacity.

There is an abundance of solar thermal sites and geothermal sites in Australia to supply the whole world let alone Australia with all the energy it needs.

Electric cars will soon become cheaper and more efficient than petrol driven cars and we will rapidly move away from burning oil and coal and turn to using them for higher valued products.

Very simple and easy to implement.

Well, hello to you too Ian.

Thanks for the alert to the Tamino/Jolliffe dialogue (and a review of my OLO history ;-)

As others may be interested in following (you haven’t provided a link), here-tis:

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/open-thread-5-2/#comment-21873

WARNING, those not familiar with Principal Component Analysis (PCA); un-centred and doubly-centred, decentred and non-centred; or multi-scale PCA, non-linear PCA, kernel PCA ... well, you get the drift.

Basically (for others) it ‘centres’ (pun intended) around the so called ‘Hockey Stick’ (again).

It’s probably worth following the thread to its conclusion, but what Tamino goes on to say is;

“... the hockey stick remains when using centered PCA, AND when using NO PCA at all (my emphasis) ...

The case for global warming rests on a mountain of evidence, of which the hockey stick is only a small (and far from crucial) part. It's the denialists who focus on the hockey stick to the exclusion of all else, in an attempt to discredit climate science in general.”

Notwithstanding, there are many ‘hockey sticks’ – to make a whole team no less!

Mann et al (MBH98) is not the only proxy reconstruction of past climate. In any event, he has recently published an update, unlike some critics that don’t publish – unless of course you include populist denialist blog and shock-jock web sites as akin to peer reviewed science journals of well known repute.

Oh, I find Steve Mac's site intriguing, if not beguiling.
__________

Off topic but since you raised it ... I have to succumb ... my real is Ilya Borenchenkovitch.

I am currently employed by the combined Fijian and Lichtensteinian intelligence service (part-time). Hobbies include US elections, coupled-bingo and lawn bowls. I'm now engaged in an MI9 assignment to infiltrate the OLO fraternity and report on un-Ozzie activity.

I can no longer carry on this pitiful ruse, and intend to pledge my life to the goal of healing the wounds that divide global warming deniers/believers.

Seriously Ian – my family have endured real ‘hate threats’ on previous occasions. OLO, after all, is just an opinion site.

Wow, after a mild absence not much has changed. Worshippers at the altar of denial spruik more of the same.

I agree that Garnaut doesn't go far enough. Scientists are typically conservative in their estimates. Garnaut has taken those estimates and made further concessions. Rudd will take those concessions and water them down some more. Leaving no change required.

Nevertheless, the uneducated and self serving will wail "my poor economy, the sky will fall!!". Andrew Bolt will confuse his graphs, and his followers will think his faeces the perfume of roses.

I'll check back again in a few weeks. Just to see if any who sup of the chalice of denial can bring a reasoned argument to bear. Toodeloo!

IanC ... and others.

Have you been following Professor Jolliffe's dialogue at Tamino's site?

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/open-thread-5-2/#comment-22080

Please read carefully to what he is saying.

Would anyone else like to comment on Ian Jolliffe's post?