It may be possible to kill two birds with one stone; revive the economy and mitigate climate change. Instead of trying to stimulate discretionary retail spending it may be better to invest in slower payback infrastructure like clean energy and conservation. Some of the people made redundant from the finance or retail sectors could help install solar water heaters, home insulation and smart meters. Perhaps the present economy is top heavy with finance and services and underweighted with respect to the basic necessities.

As to a long run of deficits the prevailing view seems to be that it will get back to normal in time. Maybe it won't. Therefore if there is only so much spare cash it should be used prudently. Even retailer Gerry Harvey questions the merit of one-off income boosts. Therefore the only economic fix may be a slow one and while the end result may seem lacklustre it will be more sustainable.

The drivel coming from those who believe in man-made climate change and what the government should do about it is certainly moralising from a bunch self-righteous, holier than thou ponces.

Well, here’s one in the eye for them: the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration has found that “a dramatic reduction in carbon emissions, would fail to repair changes in surface temperature, rainfall and sea level.”

The NOAA believes that climate change is irreversible!

It is probably not irreversible, as it wasn’t caused by CO2 emissions in the first place. The climate will probably change again, sometime in the future, as it has for aeons. But at least another body has thrown further doubt on the whacko idea of costly measures to ‘make climate change go away’.

It's not easy to criticise 'moralisers' without doing a bit of 'moralising' yourself and I can't really see how pointing the finger in this direction furthers the broader debate in any way.

Scientists and activists who criticize Rudd for not going far enough are hardly 'moralising'. They're simply responding to the ever increasing urgency of the data, which is indicating that changes are occurring much more rapidly than previous forecasts predicted.

Even if Leigh is correct (and it's a very big 'if') in stating that climate change is irreversible, there are other compelling reasons for us to reduce wasteful consumption and fossil fuel dependency. The earth's resources are being stretched to the limit as it is. There is no way the earth can support increasing billions of people living a profligate western lifestyle.

Oil reserves are finite and we need to switch to alternative renewable sources of energy if we're to avoid being held to ransom by oil rich states and the resultant oil wars which will ensue. The pollution of our oceans and rivers and loss of habitat caused by mining, heavy industry and agribusiness are also creating enormous health and environmental problems. The storage of waste, both nuclear and landfill, is another pressing problem.

So, quite apart from climate change abatement, these reasons and others make the option of continuing on with business-as-usual completely out of the question. A fundamental and universal change of direction is required.

I totally agree with Taswegian's comments. The way of the future is to tie our financial recovery to climate change mitigation. Governments must avoid where possible handing out untied money and tax cuts to consumers and bailing out corporations for them to continue on with more of the same. Wise and targeted public spending is needed in areas such as public transport, renewable energy, water and soil conservation, health and education. Not only will this provide much needed employment but also a sound investment in our future.

And if that sounds like 'moralising', so be it. I'll wear the tag proudly!

The end result of fear and earth worshiping is that you create some silly ideas in your head, find some 'science' to validate your idea, brainwash the young and gullible and classify all who disagree as heretics. Not since the YK2 'bug' has there been so much unfounded hysteria. If you want to do something constructive about our environment we should come down heavy on those acting like pigs in leaving rubbish wherever they decide to get drunk. Governments who focus on this gw crap show they want to draw attention away from the real problems that we face on this planet. Gw certainly is not one of them (at least not until some crazy Arab State nukes Israel). I suppose its easier to solve a problem made up in one's head than doing something constructive. It does seem to give the crusaders that feel of moral superiority.

I looked carefully, but I couldn't find this in Nick Gruen's article: does he accept the climate science of manmade CO2-e emissions causing most of the global warming over the past 200-odd years, as set out in the 2007 4th IPCC report, and the Stern and Garnaut reports?

I hope his answer is yes, because I've always understood Nick to be a serious public commentator.

Tony Kevin

Leigh, read the report carefully

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090126_climate.html

You have misunderstood (therefore have misrepresented) what Solomon has said.

You have taken this quote out of context:

"The study examines the consequences of allowing CO2 to build up to several different peak levels beyond present-day concentrations of 385 parts per million and then completely halting the emissions after the peak. The authors found that the scientific evidence is strong enough to quantify some irreversible climate impacts, including rainfall changes in certain key regions, and global sea level rise."

Why?

It never ceases to amaze me why people cherry-pick data or 'mine quotes' to distort what the science shows or what the researcher/s are saying.

Are they doing this intentionally, or do they really not understand?

Susan Solomon was the lead author of the IPCC's AR4 report, specifically the Working Group I co-chair.

Gruen backs - even admires, it seems - people like Soros. Gruen backs the massive bail-out scams too (in "moderate" packages for "good" publicity effect, of course). Gruen accepts the bizarre neolib fantasy that World Bank monetarists like Stern and Garnault should somehow be viewed as scientific authorities on planetary climate.

But like the above-named too, Gruen makes his name and fortune from usury a.k.a. "money from nothing" except working people's miserable enslavement and the nasty crushing of their higher potential - a potential much higher than that of their exploiters and oppressors.

Furthermore, Gruen cites the British East India Company's Adam Smith and his imperialist "free trade" quackery as an authoritatively serious, ancestral ideological basis for studying economics.

Of course Gruen backs AGW. Of course he pooh-poohs any discussion of morals in the contexts of both the bail-out heists and the AGW scam. We should not be surprised if some political guts, with proper investigation and legal reform, brought threat of jail for those same people who gave us us that other major, causal crime in the derivatives' debt-farming scams, underlying all of this ongoing systemic implosion.

Now Gruen would almost certainly ridicule such legal retribution as "empty moralising", perhaps "old fashioned". Why would that be? Ah, his vested interest: "discount mortgage broking"...

"Would you like some 'carbon offsets' with your (state-subsidised) toxic MBS?"

Bronwyn,

Nobody could rely on you to report the facts. I did not state that climate change was irreversible. I merely reported what the NOAA said. In fact, I said that it was UNLIKELY that it was irreversible because the climate would change, as it always has, when it was ‘good and ready’.

I really wish that you could overcome your habit of criticising people without reading what they actually said.

Q & A,

Thank you for your gratuitous advice.

For starters, the article you have referred to is not the one I read; it was in The Australia.

Don’t you dare to tell me that I have “misrepresented” anything, you pompous twit. If I did not read the article you think I did, you little smart aleck, I cannot have mis-quoted it either!

Don’t bother to apologise; it wouldn’t mean anything from a person like you.

Q&A .. maybe it's the font used on this site, but can you tell me which if these is correct

"specifically the Working Group I co-chair" (as in I, myself Q&A chair.)

or is it ..

"specifically the Working Group I co-chair" (as in 1 (0ne) co chair)

because if it's the first, you would seem to have a vested interest in defending your position and funding, much like those accused of Big Oil funding. Which would explain your lack of objective view, nothing more needs to be said.

if it's the second, then you really got pwned by Leigh didn't you, because you really were gratuitous and belittling in your response. We see now just how petty and small minded yet another AGW fanatic is when dealing with dreaded heretics (with open minds).

So you cherry pick from the wrong source when accusing someone of cherry picking, and get caught out .. dear oh dear !

Ok, that explains it ... you read the popular press and don't go directly to the primary source. I suppose you subscribe to Andrew Bolt in the Herald-Sun as well.

No wonder there is confusion, distortion and misrepresentation - it seems some people would rather get their info from anyone but those directly involved.

Taswegian has it about right I reckon. Never let a crisis go to waste.

Leigh and runner conform to the pattern of anti-GW folk being aggressive, rude and totally deluded. (Why always rude?)

I am fairly sure that we will not make the cuts in time...but we need to make changes anyway. Killing two birds with one stone is a good policy. Trouble is the stone suppliers (to push the analogy) don't like this and see "two birds, one stone" as a moral position instead of just a thrift issue.

Making a bunch of uber-rich Lords even richer is not only silly, it is unaffordable. Surely now we can see the "totally free market" emperor has no brain, let alone clothes!

The silence of the Right on the economic follies of PPPs, banking, insurance, etc shows their true "moral" stance. The Left may be useless bleeding hearts at times, but at least they try and be virtuous. Being "do gooder" is used as an insult by the Right, which again indicates the direction of their moral compass.

Seems to me the Left can get bogged down in many contradicting issues, and can be confused by the trade-offs required to balance things. The Right on the other hand is less confused because the focus is much tighter: "what is good for me and mine". Trouble is, this stance means shifting morality depending on circumstances.

Personally I prefer idealistic stupidity to selfish stupidity.

rpg

ROFL ... yes, it’s OLO’s font. You may have seen the IPCC’s reports referred by the various working groups as WG I, WG II and WG III.

I was referring to WG I ... and no, I am not Susan Solomon. The report she co-chaired can be found at:

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html

If you do have an “open mind” you would have read WG I (notwithstanding its length or required bandwidth). If you do have an understanding of global warming, you would also know it does not mean “each year would get successively warmer” or “every year gets hotter and hotter” ... as you have recently claimed.

As to Leigh’s post, he said he merely reported what NOAA said.

No he did not – he reported some of what he read (so he says) in The Australia(n). He did not say this in his original post (which I was responding to), he certainly did not cite the source.

What I linked to was NOAA itself, in full (so I certainly did not cherry-pick as you claim). If anyone was doing the selective picking, it was he.

It’s worth repeating, if anyone wants some kind of rational discussion about global warming issues, it would help if they at least read the AR4 and any primary research source. Most don’t.

They acquire their “expertise” from media shock-jocks who thrive on controversy, or glean it from ideologues that have a vested interest in delaying action at best, or denying what the science is telling them altogether.

Have you ever wondered why governments, oppositions and businesses around the world are taking global warming seriously, from whatever side of politics they come from?

Q&A: "Have you ever wondered why governments, oppositions and businesses around the world are taking global warming seriously, from whatever side of politics they come from?"

Nope, never caused me any wonder at all. Disgust? Plenty, but certainly not a bit of wonder.

Q&A's question could replace "global warming" with "privatization/PPPs", "Iraq WMD", "user-pays education", "collapsing and neglected infrastructure", "collapsing and neglected public health care", "domination by financier-speculators and their affiliates in IMF/World Bank", "free trade lies", "abandonment of protectionism", "the Afghanistan War" - the list goes on.

So AGW is just the same. May as well ask why such thieves and extortionists as Macquarie or Goldman Sachs get to plunder public reserves "from whatever side of politics". Or should we just ask Bob Carr and Malcolm Turnbull?

Tony Kevin,

I always thought you were serious too.

You want to take oaths now do you? Always a good way to keep the witches at bay. For the record, I am assuming the scientific consensus on climate change and I regard it as the great moral, economic, environmental and scientific issue of our time. (Although it is still possible it will be a false alarm, we should be prepared to make substantial sacrifices to reduce the risks of climate change).

How you can be so tone deaf in reading the article, is beyond me.

An insight into the way some of the (few) really legitimate doubters feel when they get subjected to this nonsense.

How it feels? Like sitting on a fence, but holding a placard saying: "AGW will kill us! ETS now!" with a banner stating the condition: "make sure you get the developing countries in on it too!"

Of course, on the placard's and banner's reverse are different comments for 'insurance': "I always had my doubts" and "the science isn't 100% in yet".

A sinking upper-middle class ship? Oh well, the state will keep trying to look after (most of) you, using the sweat and taxes from myself and co-workers.

Thanks, Nick

I think you have now answered my question. Readers of OLO Forum might like to compare the ambiguous tone of your reply on 4 February - to my question whether you accept the climate science of manmade CO2-e emissions causing most of the global warming over the past 200-odd years, as set out in the 2007 4th IPCC report, and the Stern and Garnaut reports - with this clear statement at the start of Chapter 2 (“Understanding Climate Science”) of the Garnaut Review (accessible on line):

“The Review takes as its starting point, on the balance of probabilities and not as a matter of belief, the majority opinion of the Australian and international scientific communities that human activities resulted in substantial global warming from the mid-20th century, and that continued growth in greenhouse gas concentrations caused by human-induced emissions would generate high risks of dangerous climate change”.

Your choice of phrases like “I am assuming ..” and “Although it is still possible it will be a false alarm” and ‘some of the (few) really legitimate doubters’, confirm my sense of an underlying degree of climate change scepticism in your original piece. I don’t believe I am tone deaf in reading texts, and this is too important a subject for semantic sitting-on-the-fence games.

I do urge you to spend more time familiarising yourself with the relevant basic climate change science. It’s readily accessible in Wikipedia subject files

That Garnault Review statement quoted by Tony Kevin (like its IPCC master templates), does not describe a hard science at all.

The first obvious point of serious contention is its sweeping claim about "the majority opinion". Even if some actual polling had been conducted - a bizarre notion for testing scientific theory and hypothesis anyway - what of the adamant and very scientifically reputable dissent against it? What of 103 dissident climate scientists from 17 countries in their uncompromising anti-AGW protest letter to UN Sec-Gen Ban Ki Moon at the Bali conference? See: http://www.nationalpost.com/most_popular/story.html?id=164002 and http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=164004

The second problem with the statement is its assertion about "the balance of probabilities" - a concept quite compatible with that vague reliance on a presumed "majority opinion". Such purported scientific validation-by-probabilities is really the stuff of bookmakers and punters (more the latter), especially when uttered by neolib economists from the World Bank, with past form on a conveyor belt from one mining tycoon seat to another (Garnaut). The very term "probabilities" is misleading there too, because it implies some statistical rigor beyond just superficial associations between (some) temperature variations and industrialization.

AGW has long become a secular, pseudo-leftist pagan fundamentalism sponsored by influential monetarist usurers and imperialist Malthusian misanthropes. Tony Kevin is merely patrolling the rear areas for trench dodgers, and identifying Nicholas Gruen as an AGW waverer and "defeatist".

Yes mil-observer, that "hard science" letter trotted out time and time again from our very own Lavoisier Group:

http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/climate-policy/garnaut/GarnautsubappxB.pdf

Even His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI gets a mention!

The office of the UN Secretary General has advised that no reply was given (I am not surprised) but you may have information to the contrary.

Sorry to tell you mil, science is about the balance of probabilities. The theory of AGW is very robust, but it only requires one robust counter-theory to debunk it. This hasn't been done.

Oh wait ... now I understand, you want 100% absolute certainty. mil?

We all wish they would, but they haven't. Until such time they can, it would be wise to take active measures to adapt to a warmer and wetter world (it will take decades) and take measures to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels and the ways we utilise our energy resources. Don't you think, mil?

Ah, so that's the tactic: do not respond to posts that debunk the disinformation (in this case on the sinister-sounding Lavoisier scare/conspiracy implication), but troll it about instead on related threads.

You seem either quite paranoid, obsessed or plain dishonest with this Lavoisier distraction. What's its sinister connection to 103 dissident scientists in 17 countries?

Treatment of ice core data was 100% absolutely correct in refuting the silly notion - indeed lie - that CO2 increases were a causal precedent for global warming.

Mil-maaate... seems you are the one a tad paranoid - I’m the neurotic one, remember? Or is it early on set?

Every time there is a meeting, conference or event of some sort (either nationally or internationally) on climate change the ‘deny-n-delay’ brigade roll out the “dissident scientists” from, what is it now, 17 countries?

Just watch, it will be trotted out again in New York at the Heartland Institute’s annual convention. Guess good ol’ Ray will be there too, with an entourage made up of Bob (“born again”) Carter and his steadfast groupies, Marohasy included.

Tony,

I'm disappointed. Deeply disappointed.

What I said was the same as what Ross said. We each take the existing state of the scientific orthodoxy as our starting point. Both of us think it could be wrong. Both of us think that we should take strong measures on risk management grounds even so.

Looks like you want a 'form of words' - and a form of words that makes sure people don't mention that there's a large degree of uncertainty (however much they affirm that action is warranted even given that there is).

Anyway, I'll leave you to it - looks like you have the matter well in hand.

Dear Nick

We may not be so far apart after all. If you had time to become more familiar with the underlying science of climate change, we could be quite close.

Yes, there is real scientific uncertainty, but please be clear where it resides.

There is certainty that over the past 650,000 years (covering the presence of homo sapiens and his antecedents), CO2 atmospheric concentrations have varied between around 180 ppm and 300 ppm. The pre-Industrial Revolution level was 270ppm. The current concentration of CO2, in the 380 range, is 40% higher. That is certain, and seriously disturbing.

Second, there is certainty that rising CO2 concentrations are associated with rising global average temperatures. This correlation has been theoretically explained and laboratory test-verified. It has also been factually confirmed in nature, by data over geological time (polar ice cores) and contemporary time (e.g., half a century of data from Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii). The correlation is certain, and very strong.

The scientific uncertainty resides in how quickly this is happening now. There are both large masking and negative feedback (buffering) effects that delay the flow-through, and large positive feedback effects that speed it up. The 4th IPCC (2007) tried to strike a majority scientific middle ground as to the net effect of all these hard-to-quantify factors. Many climate scientists now consider the positive feedbacks are accelerating to the point that the IPCC4 predictions have become too conservative, and that the earth is warming more quickly than IPCC4 anticipated. So as Garnaut explains, it becomes a question of risk – see his graphs in Chapter 2.

I have low tolerance of risk where my children’s and grandchildren’s futures are concerned. I would rather work on the latest more pessimistic climate science scenarios than the IPCC4 scenario. These suggest a need to decarbonise the global economy very rapidly indeed, if we are to avoid much of the planet becoming unsustainable for human life within a few generations.

Tony,

I'll take my scientific advice from scientists thanks. I have no problem with making large sacrifices. The risks scare me too.

But I think the moral effort that's required needs to take into account the human propensity to be discouraged from contributing in the presence of too much free riding.

Perhaps you could consult the science - such as it is - on this topic. If you haven't I suggest you put ["public goods games" "behavioural economics"] into Google and have a hunt around.

[Tony Kevin]: "...there is certainty that rising CO2 concentrations are associated with rising global average temperatures. This correlation has been theoretically explained and laboratory test-verified. It has also been factually confirmed in nature, by data over geological time (polar ice cores) and contemporary time (e.g., half a century of data from Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii). The correlation is certain, and very strong".

A re-affirmation of the faith and a withdrawal of harsh excommunication - or was it a bull denouncing heresy?

In alluding to ice cores, Tony Kevin's claim is fatally incorrect in associating "rising CO2 concentrations" "with rising global average temperatures". The actual results of ice core analysis of CO2 revealed that such "rising CO2 concentrations" appeared centuries AFTER the rising temperatures. That error of comprehension appeared in Gore's Nobel Prize-helping film, in a devastating "own goal" for the AGW cause.

It is a false and ultimately cynical scare - as is green opportunism over a heat spell and bushfires in Victoria. Here in Melbourne the heating is back on in my dwelling, just as it was on through November and December. While the northern hemisphere continues its record stretches of cold and ice.

Hmmmm ... records being broken all over the world - heat spells, dry spells, rains/floods, snow/ice, blizzards and dust storms, loss of biodiversity, desertification, ice shelf break-up, retreating glaciers, ocean acidification, water resource loss in 'food bowls', add your own.

Sheesh, even mil-maaate is turning his heater on in the middle of summer - just down the road from all those fires!

If this isn't an indication of more intense and extreme weather events I don't know what is.

Don't worry folks, there is a solution!

Dig a hole ... stick your head in it then hold your breath.

Yeah, when "Global Warming" was clearly bunkum, it had to be called "Climate Change".

When "Global Warming" was demonstrably proven false by the facts, the imperialists and other extortionists had to refer to "extreme weather events" to cover the simple fact that actual warming was over, and that cosmic patterns showed that the earth was likely re-entering a cold age.

Sophistry: it's worse than lying, because it constructs elaborate props and shields on dishonest foundations.