COP15 Copenhagen — What the...

Poorer nations walk out yesterday because they are afraid that Kyoto will be abandoned, India tell Kevin Rudd he is the ayatollah for his drive to abandon Kyoto in favour of a new deal; an African representative says his actions are those of a climate change sceptic. The US is balking at prematurely cutting emissions. Protesters clash outside. Two separate deals are now mooted. No takers. Chairperson of the conference, Connie Hedegaard of Denmark, resigns. Many complained there was no progress. She is also fighting with her prime minster. With time running out and little progress, the best headline the official website can come up with is "COP15 among the largest summits in the world ever" — Great, imagine the carbon footprint being the only outcome. Confusion reigns. There are no agreements on size of emissions cuts; and their is no real money on the table to help smaller nations mitigate this. Nor is there a plan. The money that is on the table has not moved the Nigerian representative. The Tuvalu representative, Stephen Fry, publicly cried for his beloved sinking country yesterday. Today he stood up and said that the Titanic is sinking, and it's time to deploy the lifeboats, not reconvene more meetings. China has said they won't take any money for mitigation from the developed world - it should go to poorer nations. Good on them. Danish PM has taken over the Chair to try and get things on track, but maybe that was the plan from the start as the heads of states start arriving. No journalist seems to know. Compromise deal keeping elements of Kyoto is now said to be waiting in the wings.

That's after nine days.

And there are only three days to go...

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Monboit vs Plimer: We've had the debate, finally

Watching Lateline on ABC tonight was a treat. Host Tony Jones has immersed himself in both the science and politics of climate change, and it is great to see a mainstream journo so well across the on-again, off-again, much threatened debate between Guardian science journalist, George Monboit and retired geologist turned avid AGW denial megaphone, Ian Plimer, that he managed to get them both on his show to bash it out in public.

I am always wary of reducing a complex area like climate-science to a televised debate format, so I settled into the debate with some apprehension.

So how did it go? More to the point, who won?

Jones opened asking Monboit to explain why he recently pessimistically claimed that AGW deniers are 'winning' ("There is no point in denying it: we're losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease..."), which he did by elucidating the profound irony that poll after poll shows that, as the scientific evidence hardens (e.g., the IPCC says that they are 90% confident that man is causing dangerous global warming), the public is more and more gripped by climate change doubt. He believes this is because people simply don't want to face "the writing that's now on the wall".

Jones made the interesting point that the very conference Monboit was joining the debate from, COP15 Copenhagen, shows that world leaders are out touch with their faltering public. Monboit agreed, and made the equally interesting point that this is because governments are taking their lead from their scientific advisors, so they know they have to do something.

Plimer parried this, claiming that it is because governments can't resist the idea of a tax, and went on to accuse their scientific advisors of being "dodgy", citing the recent University of East Anglia so called 'climategate' hack. Monboit agrees that he as been let down by what he says the emails show in terms of keeping certain papers out of the IPCC process. But he pointed out that this did not make the science a "hoax or a con". Not taking Plimer's bait, he made the fair point that Phil Jones' indiscretions (in private emails I might add) do not debunk the consistent message coming from tens of thousands of peer-reviewed scientists.

Plimer argued that the two or three CRU scientists involved in using "mafia-style tactics"were the main people the IPCC relied upon. Further cracks in Plimer's credibility appeared, when he claimed this is the "biggest scientific fraud in history". What about the work of your intellectual antecedents Ian, the pro-smoking, 'no link to cancer' lobby?

The rest of the debate was devoted to Monboit successfully taking Plimer to task over inaccuracies in his Plimer's book, Heaven + Earth, and his subsequent evasiveness over his real "scientific fraud". He mentioned two specifically — Plimer's claim that the world has cooled since 1998 (page 383 of Plimer's book referring to the Charles F.Keller paper), and that volcanoes emit more co2 than mankind.

Once presented with the the facts, that the WMO claims the last decade to be the hottest on record yet, and the US Geological Survey claim Pilmer to be wrong by an order of magnitude of 130 times, Plimer ducked and weaved. When asked to detract or stand by his claims, Plimer squirmed and distracted, obfuscated and attacked. But he just would not answer the question. Oh, look, a unicorn!

After it was clear that Monboit was not going to let him off his left-hook, Plimer jumped out of the ring to run away, and Tony Jones pulled him right back into it by his scruff. It was like watching an exorcism; his charm gave way to smarm, and viewers witnessed a denier being expertly dissected.

When Plimer accused Monboit of being rude for interjecting (when trying to get a straight answer out of Plimer), Monboit returned by pointing out it was rude to wittingly lie on television, and bad manners to not answer the question.

Monboit kicked Plimer's arse between Heaven + Earth, hell and high water. Deniers will pick on Monboit's aggression, but that's because they cannot fall back on Plimer's arguments. I was left with the impression that Plimer is aware and unconcerned about the irony of the full title of his book, "Heaven + Earth: The Missing Science of Global Warming" — it's clear that it's his book that is missing the science.

In short, Plimer got pwned.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Joyce hoist on his own petard

One of the most useful sayings that French, that fabulous language, has given us is 'hoist on his own petard' - to be blown up by your own bomb (pronounced 'bembh' for ze Pink Panther fans).

Petard also handily translates to 'fart' -- the same noise emanating from Malcolm Turnbull's opposition backbench whenever he tried to push the Coalition's promised bipartisan message on climate change action. One of the main culprits was the National's climate change denier-in-chief, Barnaby Joyce, and for his noisy efforts in the plot to install Tony Abbot as the new opposition leader in his recent climate denier coup, he has been promoted to the shadow cabinet.

You would think Barnaby would now conduct himself with polite restraint, but no. He wasted no time farting in the general direction of China, and America, only to be told by Abbot to now stop his public emissions.

Ironically, one of the best outcomes of promoting Barnaby to the front bench, is that he may finally prevented from airing his more off-tune, odorous odium.

UPDATE - it ain't gonna work out...

Phillip Coorey on the dillema facing the retail Liberal party:

Joyce rose with the full imprimatur of Minchin and Abbott but he drove a hard bargain. He wanted the key portfolio and demanded the shadow ministry be expanded by one so his entry did not result in a fellow National being punted. There are 14 Nationals in Parliament - nine MPs and five senators. Nationals make up 15 per cent of the Coalition caucus and 20 per cent of its shadow cabinet.

If the idea of promoting Joyce was to get him into the tent to curb his excesses, it failed miserably in week one.

....

There will be no reining in of Joyce. As he told the Herald on Tuesday: "It's not as though you have a personality transplant when you go into cabinet."

Being a practical peoples, I think Australians would just settle for a brain-transplant.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Andrew Bolt: liar, denier, and father

Andrew Bolt really is a piece of work, of the guilty, paranoid kind:

Today he is having a go at Clive Hamilton for trying to "trying to turn my children against me":

Leave my children alone, Hamilton

This is seriously creepy. Is Green extremist Clive Hamilton now trying to turn my children against me - and by warning them I’m a corrupt killer?

Hi there,

There’s something you need to know about your father.

Your dad’s job is to try to stop the government making laws to reduce Australia’s carbon pollution. He is paid a lot of money to do that by big companies who do not want to own up to the fact that their pollution is changing the world’s climate in very harmful ways.

Because of their pollution, lots of people, mostly poor people, are likely to die. They will die from floods, from diseases like dengue fever, and from starvation when their crops won’t grow anymore. The big companies are putting their profits before the lives of people.

And your dad is helping them.

There is something sick about a man who, having failed to convince the adults, feels his best option is to terrify their children

When you read all of Clive's piece, you realise that there is no mention of Andrew Bolt. But, Bolt is so convinced that Clive is specifically writing to his children, he dedicates his headline to the notion.

Wondering why he protests too much?

Maybe this can explain it--here is Andrew Bolt over a year ago:

ANOTHER week, and another student tells me of a teacher who’s turned preacher instead.

This student, a very honest boy, tells me he was asked on Tuesday to give a summary on global warming.

Naturally, he included one plain fact: the planet hadn’t warmed since 1998, according to satellite measurements.

Check with Britain’s Hadley Centre. Or with Dr Roy Spencer, US head of the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer on NASA’s Aqua satellite.

No, no, no, said the teacher, brought in by the school to give a few lessons on learning techniques. You mustn’t believe such a thing. That was just put out by that Andrew Bolt, and, ha!, he was in a room of his own.

“Really?” replied my son.

Putting aside the obvious deception of using atmospheric measurements to make claims about the entire planet, to me this is clear evidence that Bolt not only sees himself as an AGW denial propagandist, but he also propagandises same to his son.

That he takes such umbrage at Hamilton's piece, yet takes his foul future-eating work home with him, just shows me how rank a hypocrite he is. That he doesn't dispute "he is paid a lot of money to do that by big companies who do not want to own up to the fact that their pollution is changing the world’s climate in very harmful ways" is his loudest admission yet.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Ex-CIA director wants oil to go the way of salt

Over 100 years ago world powers fought over salt. True - salt preserves meat. Then they invented refrigeration, and the salt wars stopped.

Is refrigeration one reason why Gandhi dodged the British bullet for his salt satyagraha (not to take anything from the fact that he was a brilliant strategist)? Just a thought.

Anyhoo, that's what we need to happen with oil, say James Woolsey, ex-CIA director from 1993 to 1995, and now a partner in clean-energy group, VantagePoint. So goes the history lesson.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Opposition now opposes Australian people's will

How's that for an election strategy when staring down the barrel of an anytime-now double-dissolution election?

With 66 per cent of Australians supporting the emissions trading scheme, according to the Herald's Nielsen poll on Monday, and only 25 per cent supporting it, the Liberal party elects a hard-right, stem-cell research stopping, God-bothering wacko, preferred by only 25 per cent of Aussie voters. Did I already say he is against stem-cell research?

?

??

I just don't get the Liberals. Did big Fossil Fuel quietly promise to feather-bed the retirements of the ETS rejectors? Or did they have a communal brain-fart of frustration as a result of not being in power after countless years of having it?

To prove he is monkish mad when it comes to science, after Tony Abbott won the leadership by one vote (43 to Malcolm Turnbull's 42) he immediately called for a secret ballot on the fate of the ETS (CPRS) bill. Secret, I guess, so the electorate won't know who to take it out on come election time. Here is the verdict on whether to back or defer Rudd’s great green tax: Defer - 55, Back - 29. But we all know 'what' defer means. It means 'ship the CPRS bill off to a committee out the back and then put the bullet into it'.

Which, all in all, sounds like a recipe for a double-dissolution election, now that the Liberals have handed Labor a weapon, fully loaded. The same Nielsen poll shows that 57 per cent of voters, also support the Government calling an early election if the scheme is blocked. Let's hope Rudd throws off his conservative insticts about living out your full-term, and takes the opportunity to drive the stake thought he heart of this reality-avoiding Liberal opposition.

Bring it on. I really want to see these words of Tony Abbott come back to haunt him: "man-made climate change is crap". Yep, he said it, only to back peddle today after becoming leader, and claim that he was being hyperbolic at the time. Hyperbolic or hyper colic?

Anyway, if you want to know why the Liberal who spoiled their vote in the party room by writing "no" did so, Punch has just happened upon the secret diary of the offender.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

A pox on your house

The Liberal National Coalition of the Welching is in good form today, with "Mad Monk" Tony Abbott now reneging on his Friday pledge to not contest the leadership spill tomorrow if consensus-candidate, "cuddly" Joe Hockey, steps into the ring. Commentators are saying that Hockey will have made a Faustian pact to gain the loyalty of the brain hemorrhaging right wing of the Liberal party by sinking the CPRS bill in the senate.

But now it seems that Opposition Leader Hockey would allow a free vote on the CPRS bill, effectively getting the legislation through because all Labor need are seven votes. What a development, this story has more twists and turns than a cross-dressing snake.

So Abbott calls all bets of? This is the guy who is putting himself up for alternative PM, who is from the same party that welched on their deal to vote on the CPRS bill at 3:45 last Friday.

Electorally, the Liberals now are pink mist in-waiting. I honestly think Malcolm is their only chance to regain any credibility with the electorate, as he is their only guy who has shown he gets climate change, and has the strength of character to lead.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Dissecting the brain of an AGW denier #2

This brain belongs to Cory Bernardi:

They said ...

Senator Cory Bernardi, Liberal, South Australia: "This ETS [emissions trading scheme] will also fundamentally change the way our legal system operates. It reverses some important legal concepts such as presumption of innocence, the right to remain silent, the burden of proof and protection from self-incrimination." Altogether after me: Huh?

Peter Fitzgerald

OK, this is the same CPRS bill that has practically caused the once proud Liberal opposition to split in two as they try to process it. Pretty strong magic, huh? Imagine what it can do if enacted? Maybe gradually help us gain control over the rate of co2 we put into the atmosphere? Just a passing thought.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

I hope ILoveCarbonDioxide.com readers also love methane

Someone put a few denier dollars up and presto, the world now has ilovecarbondioxide.com for the time-capsule we should leave for aliens. Let's hope they merchandise plastic bags for their CO2-devoted readership. Huge mark-up potential -- how much does a plastic bag cost? Good for the environment too.

Has anyone told ilovecarbondioxide.com that the permafrost is melting, releasing the GHG, methane, into the atmosphere. This feeds back to accelerate global warming.



They are also giving the CRU hack oxygen, (so I'm calling them out as more vegetable than animal or mineral). Transpiring bastards.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Dissecting the brain of an AGW denier

I have a lovely little email from Miranda Divine, a SMH opinion writer, that gives great insight into how the mind of a denier works when challenged by inconvenient truths.

It's not lovely: it is down-right rude, as was mine that prompted her response. But I had resisted the idea of publishing it on GWW due to the one-on-one nature of the correspondence.

That's until I read this from her latest column, commenting on the CRU hack:

And now damning emails leaked from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia have implicated some famous climate scientists in a conspiracy to manipulate data and suppress evidence to exaggerate the case man-made ''runaway'' global warming is threatening the planet. We see clearly the rotten heart of the propaganda machine that has driven the world to the brink of insanity on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit.

More than 1000 emails and 3000 documents, covering correspondence between climate scientists for more than a decade, was (sic) posted on a Russian website with a link to the climate sceptic blog Air Vent on November 17, by someone using the name FOIA (presumably after the Freedom of Information Act). FOIA wrote: ''We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents. Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it.'

Miranda's wheels spin from the start. A mail-server hacked by cyber-criminals who then publicly post-up private correspondence between scientists, is not the heroic whistle-blowing act of 'leakage' that Devine seeks to portray. Rather, it's a bastardly act, yet she is oblivious to the tainted provenance of those emails. She has no evident moral compass at work here.

No consideration is given about the real-motivation of the hacker(s), one month before Copehenhagen. That would be venturing into journalism the other part of her job description. Instead she reward the criminals and publish extracts from the private emails to build-up false allegations of foul play by the community of climate sciences.

We knew but never before had seen such proof of bad faith, overwhelming in its small detail, its shameless dishonesty, its meanness, its totalitarian tactics, pouncing on every deviation from The Word, as handed down by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Yet her examples of cherry-picked and context-stripped extracts from private emails do nothing to support her hyperbolic claims of conspiracy.

The good thing is people can now see the tactics of the alarmists and their army of bovver boys. You can read the emails online and then you can read the sly attempts to explain away the misdeeds. Despite their feigned reasonableness and world-weary calm over the email scandal, climate alarmists are in a mad fumbling panic. They are exposed as dangerous megalomaniacs, foolish, but with enormous power.

Nowhere is there the acknowledgement that people express themselves more loosely in email, especially between friends and colleagues, than they do in making formal pronouncements. Nowhere is there an attempt to understand any context or background. Nor, as said before, is there an inkling that Miranda understands the unethical nature of how these emails were obtained and then published.

Rather, she gleefully piles on.

So how would Miranda Devine like it if I published her email so the world can judge for itself whether she is willfully blind to facts, and informed only by her prejudices?

The background is her follow-up article, "Going berko over a bipsycho", Miranda wrote in reaction to the overwhelming deluge of complaints about her provocative article entitled "Roads are for cars, not Lycra louts".

RE: Your "Going berko over a bisycho"
Sat, 31 October, 2009 9:06:13 AM
From: miranda Devine
To: XXXXX@yahoo.com.au

: You are either delusional or a liar. The respones were easily split 50-50 - and I'm being generous. You need to go back and actually read them. I can add to those the roughly 400 personal emails I have received, the majority of which agree with my point of view. There is a groundswell of resentment against the arrogant behaviour of so many cyclists. I never had any intention of retracting anything I said. And pretending that my column will incite murder is a pathetic tactic which just exposes the poverty of your argument.

Miranda Devine - The Sydney Morning Herald - 1 Darling Island Pyrmont 2009 (02) 9282 1102
twitter.com/mirandadevine

And here is what I initially wrote to her to deserve hers. In judging me, keep in mind I commute by cycle whenever the weather permits. I admit to exaggerating my claim a tiny bit, but nothing like that evidenced by the willful denial that Miranda seems to suffer under.

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:02:03 -0700
From: XXXXX@yahoo.com.au
Subject: Your "Going berko over a bisycho"
To: devinemiranda@hotmail.com

Dear Miranda,

Your above article is nothing more than a transparent exercise in displacement.

I read every single one of the 478 responses to your inciteful piece. 474 of them pointed out you had no right to suggest that roads are not for bikes, one way or another. The other four were your regulars.

For your stupidity, you got pilloried, Miranda.

Rightly so; Imagine trying to turn one part of society against the other taking on a heated subject that boils down to survival on the road for cyclists?

Though you identified yourself correctly in that piece as a coward, it's not for not riding your bike (people can choose how they commute/recreate), but for not directly and clearly retracting your extremist comment that roads are for cars only. Right now there is a freak out there who read your piece, and is armed with the self-righteousness you promoted, driving a weapon weighing up to a tonne, who might reflect on your jaundced words and take it out on the next cyclist they see.

I suggest you explain more clearly how wrong your piece was.

Regards,

Wadard

Check out the comments under the second link and confirm for yourself whether they are split 50-50. Is she really being generous or mean?

So now you know you know how an AGW denier, and Miranda Devine is one too, can believe there is nothing to the message that climate scientists have been telling us for over 20 years. They just blank out the inconvenient truth and keep bleakly pushing their barrow.

Now you know they have no credibility.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Send world leaders at Copenhagen your thoughts

A penny planet for your thoughts.

Send a digital postcard with your personal climate greeting to the world leaders. Greetings will be displayed on the official website of cop15.dk and on screens in the conference area during COP15.

And if you have a blog, link the website and the greeting facility; as we already know from the carbon pollution pickle we find ourselves in -- every little bit counts.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Who is who in the Coalition zoo

Further to my post below, you might like to know who supports the CPRS and negotiated amendments, and who doesn't. The never-learn-from-an-election Liberals/Nationals look like rabble:

Among the Coalition party room speakers in favour of the bill were Richard Colbeck, Judith Troeth, Andrew Laming, Simon Birmingham, Gary Humphries, Sue Boyce, Mal Washer, Bruce Billson, Barry Haase, Marise Payne, Scott Morrison, Judi Moylan, Don Randall, Jo Gash, Russell Trood and Steve Irons.

Those opposed included Alan Ferguson, Judith Adams, Brett Mason, Michaelia Cash, Matthias Cormann, Alan Eggleston, Alby Schultz, Cory Bernardi, Andrew Robb, Guy Barnett, Nola Marion and Luke Simpkins

If anyone of those is your senator, 'cos it's in the Senate where the rubber will hit the road, let them know where you stand, dear reader.

PS. Andrew Robb - what a clown. Anyway, Lateline Tonight should have the outcome.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Don't let evil flourish...

Calling all good men and women of Australia.

Malcolm Tunbull and the human chainsaw, Macfarlane, finally have negotiated their CPRS amendments with Penny Wong et al. Finally. The Liberal party has reconvened after dinner break to vote on supporting the bill. It looks like the doers might just trump the deniers and vote to push the bill though to the Senate for the vote to turn the bill into law.

Now is the time to come to the aid of your party, and let them know where you stand. Contact your Senator, below. That is all it takes:

Senator Abetz senator.abetz@aph.gov.au

Senator Adams senator.adams@aph.gov.au,

Senator Arbib senator.arbib@aph.gov.au,

Senator Back senator.back@aph.gov.au,

Senator Barnett senator.barnett@aph.gov.au,

Senator Bernardi senator.bernardi@aph.gov.au,

Senator Bilyk senator.bilyk@aph.gov.au,

Senator Birmingham senator.birmingham@aph.gov.au,

Senator Bishop senator.bishop@aph.gov.au,

Senator Boswell senator.boswell@aph.gov.au,

Senator Boyce senator.sue.boyce@aph.gov.au,

Senator Brandis senator.brandis@aph.gov.au,

Senator Brown senator.carol.brown@aph.gov.au,

Senator Bushby senator.bushby@aph.gov.au,

Senator Cameron senator.cameron@aph.gov.au,

Senator Carr senator.carr@aph.gov.au,

Senator Cash senator.cash@aph.gov.au,

Senator Colbeck senator.colbeck@aph.gov.au,

Senator Collins senator.collins@aph.gov.au,

Senator Conroy senator.conroy@aph.gov.au,

Senator Coonan senator.coonan@aph.gov.au,

Senator Cormann senator.cormann@aph.gov.au,

Senator Crossin senator.crossin@aph.gov.au,

Senator Eggleston senator.eggleston@aph.gov.au,

Senator Evans senator.evans@aph.gov.au,

Senator Farrell senator.farrell@aph.gov.au,

Senator Faulkner senator.faulkner@aph.gov.au,

Senator Feeney senator.feeney@aph.gov.au,

Senator Furguson senator.ferguson@aph.gov.au,

Senator Fielding senator.fielding@aph.gov.au,

Senator Fierravanti senator.fierravanti-wells@aph.gov.au,

Senator Fifield senator.fifield@aph.gov.au,

Senator Fisher senator.fisher@aph.gov.au,

Senator Forshaw senator.forshaw@aph.gov.au,

Senator Furner senator.furner@aph.gov.au,

SenatorHanson-Young senator.hanson-young@aph.gov.au,

Senator Heffernan senator.heffernan@aph.gov.au,

Senator Hogg senator.hogg@aph.gov.au,

Senator Humphries senator.humphries@aph.gov.au,

Senator Hurley senator.hurley@aph.gov.au,

Senator Hutchins senator.hutchins@aph.gov.au,

SenatorJohnson senator.johnston@aph.gov.au,

Senator Joyce senator.joyce@aph.gov.au,

Senator Kroger senator.kroger@aph.gov.au,

Senator Ludlam senator.ludlam@aph.gov.au,

Senator Ludwig senator.ludwig@aph.gov.au,

Senator Lundy senator.lundy@aph.gov.au,

Senator McDonald senator.ian.macdonald@aph.gov.au,

SenatorMcEwan senator.mcewen@aph.gov.au,

Senator McGauran senator.mcgauran@aph.gov.au,

Senator McLucas senator.mclucas@aph.gov.au,

Senator Marshall senator.marshall@aph.gov.au,

Senator Mason senator.mason@aph.gov.au,

Senator Milne senator.milne@aph.gov.au,

Senator Minchin senator.minchin@aph.gov.au,

Senator Moore senator.moore@aph.gov.au,

Senator Nash senator.nash@aph.gov.au,

Senator O’Brien senator.obrien@aph.gov.au,

Senator Parry senator.parry@aph.gov.au,

Senator Payne senator.payne@aph.gov.au,

Senator Polley senator.polley@aph.gov.au,

Senator Pratt senator.pratt@aph.gov.au,

Senator Ronaldson senator.ronaldson@aph.gov.au,

Senator Ryan senator.ryan@aph.gov.au,

Senator Scullion senator.scullion@aph.gov.au,

Senator Sherry senator.sherry@aph.gov.au

Senator Siewert senator.siewert@aph.gov.au,

Senator Stephens senator.stephens@aph.gov.au,

Senator Sterle senator.sterle@aph.gov.au,

Senator Troeth senator.troeth@aph.gov.au,

Senator Trood senator.trood@aph.gov.au,

Senator Williams senator.williams@aph.gov.au,

Senator Wong senator.wong@aph.gov.au,

Senator Wortley senator.wortley@aph.gov.au,

Senator Xenophon senator.xenophon@aph.gov.au,

Don't hold back, now. Consider your kids' and grandkids' quality of lives

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Following myself

I just did it to see if I could, honest. I clicked on Google Followers to check out the widget functionality, and was promptly invited to befriend my own site. Sure - one can't have too many friends.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Hadley Center CRU hack confounds deniersphere

The part of the blogosphere where politics informs science is abuzz with the conspiracy-busting exploits of a hacker who allegedly broke into the UK Met Office Hadley Center Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia mail-server and downloaded 1079 emails and 92 documents in a file called FOI2009.zip. (Warning: I cannot vouch for the safety of that link - I stole it from Andrew Bolt's blog).

The hacker supposedly posted the files on an ftp server, and it was not long before it was downloaded and reposted on WattsUpWithThat, and other AGW denier sites.

But have deniers jumped on the information with the alacrity you would expect? No. From Andrew Bolt to The Blackboard and beyond, most deniers are appearing very cautious.

You have to be wonder why, though. This is allegedly the very climate-conspiracy they have been claiming for years. Maybe, they are surprised to find the alarmist conspiracy turn out to be 'true'.

Someone somewhere is having fun.

UPDATE: Bloody Anthony Watts had me initially believing Hadley was hacked. It was CRU. You just cannot believe a word this denying clown says.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

How to tell your child about global warming

I've been grappling with how and when to tell my six years old about man-made global warming, its claimed effect on his climate, and the implications for his world when he is my age.

He has natural interest in weather events, and can tell me the geographic differences between tornadoes, cyclones and hurricanes, for example. Knowing he has gleaned all this under his own steam, driven by his own curiosity, I feel it won't be long before the asking interesting questions, so I'm inclined to wait and see where this will go, naturally.

Media talk about global warming makes kids anxious, so some reports say. I don't want my boy to get the notion the world is not a benign place, but it's hard to argue it mostly is, when something so fundamental as the climate that sustains us, is amiss.

As he gains more understanding, so he does not become overwhelmed, I want to couple that with teaching him actions and behaviours that empower him. This is why we recycle, that's why we switch of lights, let's walk to the shops, not drive, etc.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Shrinking ozone hole heralds success of global treaties

In 1987 the world came together via the UN, and signed the historic Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer. The participating countries passed legislation banning industry from using chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), hydrochloroflourocarbon (HCFC) and other ozone depleting substances. CFCs, scientists told us in peer-review research, gobble up the ozone layer by releasing chlorine when breaking down, letting more of damaging UVB light reach earth.

Since 1989, when the treaty came into effect, there have been no attributable:

• massive job losses
• transfers of wealth from rich countries to the developing world
• One World Government run by the UN
• take-over by international socialists and their grant-tamed scientific elite.

Nor has the wheels fallen off the science. Rather there has been nine revisions signed; a dramatic reduction in the amount of CFCs and HCFCs released; and a leveling off or reductions in atmospheric concentrations of these substances; a new industry for ozone-friendly refrigerants and aerosol propellants, and most importantly, this year's Antarctic ozone hole appears likely to level out below the worst 2006 benchmark. This confirms predictions that repair is likely, though distant.

So we see Copenhagen can work; we have proof in precedents — we just need the will.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

All power to you, Google!

My leprechaun friend, below, tells me that it's motivated, grass-root ideas that are going to create the groundswell needed for meaningful change at the level where it has to happen — the consumer.

I would rather throw my lot in with a market-signalling coalition of the good-willing than all the vapid international treaties and lobby-bruised politicians in the world. And Google PowerMeter now offers me a practical way to participate (assuming Google in Oz offers same). Here's their spiel:

Google PowerMeter allows you to:

Access
See your electricity use from any Google Powermeter enabled device.

Learn
Understand more about how you use electricity throughout the day.

Save
Reduce your electricity use and lower your monthly bills.

Since Google are currently exhausted from Doing No Evil, they are Doing This Gratis, participating leprechauns, and their offspring, get to keep their saved gold:

Google PowerMeter is a project of Google.org, Google's philanthropic arm, which aspires to leverage the power of information and technology to address global challenges.

May de road roise up to greet you!

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

About f'king time, Mr Rudd

Respectfully, you should have been using this sort of hard language to publicly out and route these most insidious AGW deniers (not sceptics ~ sceptics form their views based on the peer-reviewed evidence) in the Liberal party, a lot earlier. We've already seen how many political cowards in the Liberal Party snuck across into the denier camp as the public bought your you-are-doing-something and climate change concern dropped in its priorities.

But, these words are as pleasing on the eyes as the drought-breaking rain is on the parched face of a cockie:

"These do-nothing climate change sceptics are prepared to destroy our children's future,"

"The do-nothing climate change sceptics are still alive and well in the coalition,"

"The argument that we must not act until others do is an argument that has been used by political cowards since time immemorial, both of the left and the right.

"They are reckless gamblers who are betting all our futures on their arrogant assumption that their intuitions should triumph over the evidence.

"You are betting our jobs, our houses, our farms, our reefs, our economy and our future on an intuition, on a gut feeling, on a political prejudice you have about science."

Well put, sir. Though, technically speaking, you just pinged them Do-Nothing Deniers. Now route 'em hard, and route 'em for good. Take the best damned deal you can to Copenhagen. We want 25% emissions cuts below 2000 levels, minimum.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Thought Experiment: Getting hot feet over cool headedness

In response to this:

Sydney is warm in theory, though
Andrew Bolt
Monday, November 02, 2009 at 12:09am


Still waiting for that warming:

SYDNEYSIDERS are repacking their winter woollies after the coldest October in 17 years.

I left this:

Imagine getting into a bathtub half filled with water at body temperature. Turn on the hot water tap so there is a little pressure, but not enough to scald you and lay back, so your ears are in water.

After a minute or so, as your feet and calves start to warm up, ask yourself whether your average body temperature has gone up.

Of course, it has gone up. You know that more heat has entered the bath, and the law of thermodynamics tell us the heat is going to transfer to our now relatively cooler body.

It would be pretty silly to argue that because our head is relatively cooler than our feet that the warming (increase in average body temperature) isn't happening.

Wonder how it will go? Will the snippers come out, or will I be given the the big B? Or will my proposed thought experiment be greeted with the vigorous curiosity of the open minded?


Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Last 10 years period warmest on modern record

The AGW denier canard that the earth has been cooling since 1998 is taken apart by Seth Borenstein in AJC.

The case that the Earth might be cooling partly stems from recent weather. Last year was cooler than previous years. It's been a while since the super-hot years of 1998 and 2005. So is this a longer climate trend or just weather's normal ups and downs?

In a blind test, the AP gave temperature data to four independent statisticians and asked them to look for trends, without telling them what the numbers represented. The experts found no true temperature declines over time.

"If you look at the data and sort of cherry-pick a micro-trend within a bigger trend, that technique is particularly suspect," said John Grego, a professor of statistics at the University of South Carolina.

No more cherries now, deniers.

Global warming skeptics base their claims on an unusually hot year in 1998. Since then, they say, temperatures have dropped — thus, a cooling trend. But it's not that simple.

Since 1998, temperatures have dipped, soared, fallen again and are now rising once more. Records kept by the British meteorological office and satellite data used by climate skeptics still show 1998 as the hottest year. However, data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA show 2005 has topped 1998. Published peer-reviewed scientific research generally cites temperatures measured by ground sensors, which are from NOAA, NASA and the British, more than the satellite data.

The recent Internet chatter about cooling led NOAA's climate data center to re-examine its temperature data. It found no cooling trend.

"The last 10 years are the warmest 10-year period of the modern record," said NOAA climate monitoring chief Deke Arndt. "Even if you analyze the trend during that 10 years, the trend is actually positive, which means warming."

The AP sent expert statisticians NOAA's year-to-year ground temperature changes over 130 years and the 30 years of satellite-measured temperatures preferred by skeptics and gathered by scientists at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Statisticians who analyzed the data found a distinct decades-long upward trend in the numbers, but could not find a significant drop in the past 10 years in either data set. The ups and downs during the last decade repeat random variability in data as far back as 1880.

Saying there's a downward trend since 1998 is not scientifically legitimate, said David Peterson, a retired Duke University statistics professor and one of those analyzing the numbers.

Whammo, some ammo for the noggin of the next denier dumb enough to pull the "but, it's-cooling" caper on me. Some other useful links to load up on:

• Skeptical Science: Did global warming stop in 1988? (#8 in the Hottest Skeptical Arguments list). A great primer that also covers the role of oceans, and what happens if you remove the ENSO signal from the temperature record. That is, if you take the variable weather signal out of the climate signal.
• Coby Beck's How to talk to a climate skeptic: Warming stopped in 1988. Coby has broken down the various deniers' arguments into a fascinating taxonomy.

H/t: Climatespin

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Glasses charged for Copenhagen

I don't like admitting it because I'm a glass-half-full guy, but, right now, the political climate change world is wobbling some.

In Australia, we have a Government that is finally negotiating Carbon Pollution Reductions Scheme bill amendments with an opposition determined to destroy itself for their claque of Carbon Pollution Freedom Scheme lobbyists, in an agonisingly slow-mo train crash over climate change.

Because of aforesaid recalcitrants and a Government determined to win the politics of climate change, but not take the real leadership science says is needed, and because we export 80% of the world's coal, the worst of it is that the best we can hope for.

The high side of Government's proposed 5 to 25% targets (depending on what the rest of the world signs up to at Copenhagen) are on the low side of what climate models tell us are necessary if we are going to control warming by 2C, where a 25% to 40... 60, some say 80% reduction in co2e emissions from 1990 levels is counselled.

On the bright side, politically we are many miles down the road from where we were eighteen month ago, although popular concern about climate change is dropping priority as the economy bites. This, and a concerted campaign by sceptics who, no doubt have had some wins, as well as a sense that, 'well since the Government is doing something we can worry less', all contribute to this drop in priority, I believe.

Will the Government hold the line on what is a weak commitment anyway, or will they give the polluters bigger exemptions to avoid a double dissolution election? The point of the CPRS is that there has to be pain for some.

In the US, Obama's election turned the US from climate change bad guy, to most important player in creating a post Kyoto world. An amazing transformation that even got China making some very positive noises about fighting climate change. And then,... nothing. Obamania ended, leaving the US hung-over, the GFC bit, and Obama's political capital started getting chewed up in health-care reform. What kind of country gets itself torn up over basic universal health-care? Unchecked climate change is going to be so much more expensive, people.

Here's how Jim Hoggan sees it on Desmog blog:

A new poll released by the Pew Research Center has found the number of Americans who believe that pollution is causing climate change declined 20 percent over the past two years. Only 57% of Americans believe there is solid scientific evidence that the global climate is warming.

Some pin this decline on the economy, arguing that Americans have other things to worry about and climate change has drifted off their radar screen.

He goes on to point the finger at the dark influence of Big Denial, all explained in his new book, Climate Cover Up — The Crusade to Deny Global Warming.

It remains to be seen whether the political climate change world is in a death wobble, or we recover our sense of purpose, and straighten up in time for Copenhagen.

You'll forgive me now, if I finish this half-full glass. Then drink another.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

What's the worse that could happen?

Greg Craven is the guy who injected himself into the AGW deniers propaganda war two years ago, with a simple risk analysis grid pointing out the obvious — that, if the scientists are wrong, the worst that could happen is that we move to a carbon free economy sooner in our history than otherwise, but if the AGW deniers are wrong (ie. the scientists are right), we are toast.

Then he did not sleep for the next two years, dealing with the objections to his YouTube piece, below:



Those two years of objections and Greg's defenses have been distilled into his book:

What's the Worst That Could Happen?: A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate

The perfect gift for that stubborn climate change action denier friend or family member.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Climate changlings news

The climate blogosphere is ticking over: At Deltoid, Tim Lambert takes Chilinger and Pielke (Sr) to task for their latest crimes against deductive reasoning and statistics, respectively. Marvel at the desperation of the deniers' arguments, all relying on the poor scientific understanding of the average person to sound plausable, none of it on hard science.

With usual eruditon, Barry Brooks covers off how the returning El Nino and resumption of sunspot activity bodes of deep drought in SE Australia, at Brave New Climate. It's also Arctic Summer Melt time, and Barry hat tips Hot Topic's June Sea Ice Outlook forecasts pick-up from SEARCH an international effort to provide a community-wide summary of the expected September arctic sea ice minimum.

Eli Rabett lists the best of the worst climate papers published in "otherwise-plausible-looking journals (I.e., not E&E, or JSE, etc.)", proving peer-review ain't perfect. And James Annan, a climate scientist working in Japan, gives up the good oil on the latest corporate greenwashing trend in Japan.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Who would have tipped that Tip would tip?

Staunch to the last:

Andrew Bolt

Monday, June 15, 2009 at 02:53pm

Nice profile on the (perhaps) next member for Higgins. I suspect, however, that Peter Costello will make the impressive John Roskam wait.

UPDATE

No sooner predicted than contradicted. Roskam is as startled by the news as am I:

PETER Costello has finally put an end to speculation about his future, confirming he will not contest the next election. The former Treasurer announced this afternoon he would not renominate for party endorsement in his seat of Higgins.

Andrew must have had a late lunch. His bloggers started rolling in with the tragic news at 02:02pm:

Peter Costello will be the sitting member that gets pre selected. Anyone that thinks different is off with the fairies.

Daniel of Sydney (Reply)
Mon 15 Jun 09 (12:56pm)

Tracey Conlan replied to Daniel
Mon 15 Jun 09 (02:02pm)

After announcing he will not contest the next elecion, do you feel a little silly ?

Dont worry. Mr Bolt was wrong as well!

Stu Morgan replied to Daniel
Mon 15 Jun 09 (02:08pm)

Unfortunately, the fairies are very real. :(

polytickle replied to Daniel
Mon 15 Jun 09 (02:08pm)

Daniel,

Looking forward to you posting a picture of yourself in your “fairy tutu”

Aslan replied to Daniel
Mon 15 Jun 09 (02:09pm)

According to his website, he has announced that he will stand down and leave politics.

Bugger!

Janine I replied to Daniel
Mon 15 Jun 09 (02:10pm)

I suspect, however, that Peter Costello will make the impressive John Roskam wait.

Costello just said differently.

Shaun replied to Daniel
Mon 15 Jun 09 (02:18pm)

Oops.. ha ha. Sorry, your messiah is gone.

Alan of Sydney replied to Daniel
Mon 15 Jun 09 (02:19pm)

Hey Dan, maybe there really is fairies at the bottom of your garden....

Rudi replied to Daniel
Mon 15 Jun 09 (02:22pm)

How about them fairies hey Daniel?

LH replied to Daniel
Mon 15 Jun 09 (02:27pm)

You were saying, Daniel?

Valleys Boy replied to Daniel
Mon 15 Jun 09 (02:29pm)

Daniel,

You were saying?

rob of glen iris replied to Daniel
Mon 15 Jun 09 (02:35pm)

Well, I guess it takes a fairy to know one. When it comes to getting things wrong about PC, you and AB stand out!

Bill O Tas replied to Daniel
Mon 15 Jun 09 (03:05pm)

Daniel, you deserve some kind of prize!

bennoba replied to Daniel
Mon 15 Jun 09 (03:08pm)

Janine I is back!

If Andrew Bolt has been so wrong about Peter Costello for so long, is it possible he could be wrong about other things he campaigns for... like anthropogenic global warming.


Global Warning Climate Change Energy