Dear Loudmouth,

Absolute crock mate. This is what you claimed; “I'm just going by the change from one record temperature in Adelaide (in 1939) to the latest earlier this year: 80 years, and half a degree rise, if that.”

No you were not. This is what you said;

“Average world temperatures have risen by about half a degree Celsius in eighty years, or about three degrees in the next five hundred years if we do nothing”

Anyway God strewth mate, are you really comparing a single record in Adelaide to the Berkley datasets on yearly averages?

We really don't have anything to discuss do we.

And no my examples are entirely appropriate as the rainfall predictions for SW Victoria set 15 years ago have married completely with what we are experiencing. Now you might go and search for alternative causes but global temperatures are rising, predicted rainfall deficits in areas like ours are being realised, environmental damage is being done and I can tell you one thing for sure any neanderthal on climate change tends to get short shrift down our way and rightly so.

individual
It's not a matter of curbing activity, but of making it environmentally sustainable.
The first moves have been made more than twenty years ago, both here and overseas. But we have done much less than most developed countries, and other countries (including China) have used our inaction as an excuse to do less.

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Joe,
I thought I answered your question before: wind towers and solar farms produce NOWHERE NEAR as much CO2 in construction and maintenance than they use in their lifetime. It used to be a sensible question, as back in the 20th century they were both less efficient to manufacture and less effective in producing electricity. But the technology's moved on, and nowadays the CO2 in construction and maintenance isn't even in the same order of magnitude as the amount saved.

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runner,
>GW theology is totally heretical and unscientific.

What is this "GW theology" that you refer to?
Is it the concept of stewardship? If so, why do you regard it as heretical?
Or is it that you think the idea that God doesn't micromanage the climate (but instead leaves it to the laws of physics) is heretical?

It's not a matter of curbing activity, but of making it environmentally sustainable.
Aidan,
How do you then propose to sustain without curbing ? My idea is to reduce emission spewing sport by 50% now. Motorsport will be more enjoyable over two or three hours instead of 24.
Reduce food plastic packaging now to an only necessary level not a frivolous one.
Another big reduction in emission could be achieved by reducing unwarranted Public Service travel. Create a more effective long haul rail freight network to reduce road transport emission.
There must so many good ideas for alternatives out there if only people brought them up in forums like OLO.
We all know that so many of the present practices are so inefficient so why do some people insist we continue to use them ?

Adan,

So presumably it would be cheaper to make wind towers and solar panels etc., using renewable energy ? Is that actually happening yet ?

Steele,

Good point. Adelaide is not the world. It doesn't even have much of a Heat Island Effect :)

Joe

individual,
There are great efficiency gains to be made in many areas, packaging being one, and switching to rail transport being another. But we certainly don't want arbitrary travel bans, and your motorsports comments are downright silly (24 hour races are rare, and changes to how the industry operates are a matter for the industry; they shouldn't be externally imposed)

Rather than curbing what we can do, we should include the price of taking CO2 out of the atmosphere in every activity that puts CO2 into the atmosphere. That's not something we could do immediately (it's too expensive with current technology) but it's something that should be done before 2050 (and if we fail to make big emissions cuts soon, the need for such a policy is much more urgent).

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Loudmouth,
>So presumably it would be cheaper to make wind towers and solar panels etc., using renewable energy ?

There are two problems with that presumption:
Firstly, when electricity is generated it goes into general supply; it's not really a case of "electricity from here is used for this; from there it is used for that" though it's possible for contractual arrangements to simulate that situation.

Secondly, most of the CO2 produced in their manufacture does not currently come from the generation of electricity.

Aidan,
Motorsport is a sport that goes on for two or three days on end, so yes, we can confidently say 24 hrs.
It's not only the hour meter of the engine that counts, it's the producing of the vehicles etc is so polluting as is the production of windmills & solar panels.
We DO have some very frivolous yet highly polluting activities where not a single thought is given to the environment.
We need to sit back as a society & work on changing our mentality & only then can we make progress in arresting the progressives' regress !