Climate Resistence is futile

Climate Resistance is a blog in denial. They claim to be 'Challenging climate orthodoxy' in their banner line, but the only thing challenging about their latest post is typographic taste.

$IR NI¢HOLA$ $T£RN, the torturers' headline reads.

In the text, they render Sir Nick and waterboard him, all because he wrote the Stern Report over 2005/2006 — and now has the temerity to back those conclusions by launching a carbon credits ratings agency last Wednesday.

Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the UK’s Stern report on climate change, will launch a new carbon credit ratings agency on Wednesday, the first to score carbon credits on a similar basis to that used to rate debt.

Back to the Climate Resistance camp, and from what I can work out, this is the nub of their complaint.

The fact that Stern has been instrumental in creating the idea of mitigation serving that greater good must, by the very standards demanded by the environmental movement, surely raise questions about his profiting from it.

Like, why shouldn't a man back his own impressive prescience? That's how movers shake it. If the guy is wrong about the science backing his commercial bet, then he fails soon enough. If Stern is right, he stands to win large and long by being an early mover. All speed to him.

The weakness in their attack was pinged and laser-pointed out to the Climate Resistance Commanding Editor by guerrilla commenter talisker:

I hate to deprive your charming readers of any opportunity for the foam-flecked ranting they so obviously enjoy, but there is a gaping hole in your argument here.

Stern was not connected to IDEAcarbon/IDEAglobal at the time he wrote his report on climate change, or indeed when he served as chief economist at the World Bank. If he had been, or if his report had been funded in any way by companies that stood to gain from its findings, then there would have been a conflict of interest. As it stands, the comparison with Exxon's funding of climate denialists doesn't hold up to a moment's scrutiny.

As smear campaigns go, this one is well below even your own usual standards.

27 June 2008 11:23

Nice. talisker's point remains unaddressed by the Commanding Editor; transmission over.

Technorati Tags: global warming, climate change

Stern view of global warming deniers after IPCC report

Sir Nicholas Stern take a dim view of the remaining global warming denial objections in the wake of the IPCC report. :::[SMH]

"I have heard three kinds of argument claiming that it is not necessary to combat climate change," Sir Nicholas told a conference in Paris on Friday."

Myth 1: The scientist are wrong about global warming

The assessment by the IPCC said global warming was almost certainly caused by humans, and carbon pollution disgorged this century would disrupt the climate system for a thousand years.

Myth Busted: The scientist are wrong about global warming

"After the report of the IPCC [UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] released today, this position is untenable," the former World Bank chief economist said."

Myth 2: We needn't change because Science (clean-coal, saviour technology) will save us

The familiar logic of the favourite rationalisation of the adolescent smoker, that advances in medicine will save them from cancer in time, is recruited to carry this argument by such esteemed notables as our own prime minister, John Winston Howard. It's ironic that such science-defying thinking can place such faith in future science.

Myth Busted: We needn't change because Science (clean-coal, saviour technology) will save us

"That is an irresponsible position, because it does not take into account the real risks linked to a very high rise in temperatures, for example in the case of a world where temperatures rise by five or six degrees.", said Sir Nicholas. Five or six degrees Celsius is nine to 10.8 Fahrenheit.

Myth 3: Global warming is not our problem - it's a long way away

This is similar to the related 'global warming as plant fertiliser' myth that increased carbon dioxide will fuel increased crop growth. It also feeds myth 2.

Myth Busted: Global warming is not our problem - it's a long way away

Those who dismissed the consequences of global warming as a remote, long-term problem were "indefensible from an ethical point of view," he said.

In a report commissioned by the British government last year, Stern warned that without urgent action, the fallout of climate change could be on the scale of the two world wars and the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Singling out current and rising economic powerhouses the United States, China and India, he said the world must be prepared to pay now -- in the form of green taxes or emissions trading schemes -- to prevent economic disaster.

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Will Bush propose carbon dioxide emissions surge in State of the Union speech?

Chief executives from Alcoa Inc., PB America Inc., DuPont Co., Caterpillar Inc., General Electric Co., and Duke Energy Corp., and executives of Lehman Brothers, PG&E Corp., PNM Resources, FPL Group and four leading environmental organizations have signed a letter asking Bush to announce big emission cuts on the eve of his State of the Union address: :::[Yahoo! News]

WASHINGTON - The chief executives of 10 major corporations and business groups, on the eve of the State of the Union address, urged President Bush on Monday to support mandatory reductions in climate-changing pollution and establish reductions targets.

"We can and must take prompt action to establish a coordinated, economy-wide market-driven approach to climate protection," the executives from a broad range of industries said in a letter to the president.

Big business has the big picture. Does Bush? Or will he continue to regurgitate policy and climate-science formulations arrived at deep in the bowels of fossil-fuel funded thinktanks like the Competitive Enterprise Institute? Hmmm?

He shows no sign of learning from the Baker Report recommendations on an Iraq exit strategy and, in fact, is doing the opposite and proposing a surge of troops. So why should the Stern Report findings have sunk in for him? Sir Nicholas was only a World Bank economist and Chancelor of the Exchequer, after all.

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Regime change in the US and Australia (a winning coalition needed)

With the first ominous sniff of federal elections hanging in the Australian air like a distant bushfire, and with the US presidential elections due in less than half a term, the question has to be asked.

How do we get carbon dioxide emissions regime friendly governments into power into these two countries, the only non-signators of the Kyoto Protocol?

Well, let's knock over the easier case first; the US. Unless the Democrats completely bugger-up their majority control of the senate and the house, it's hard to see them not winning. But, the burning issue of Iraq risks sucking all the oxygen from other issues, like global warming. So it it would be useful brand the issue of Iraq with its opportunity cost that arises from not combating global warming earlier (and for less in the long-term). Or developing energy independence, self-relience and sustainability. The issues are linked, and those links should be drawn out for voters to consider.

I calculated the opportunity cost using the rule suggested by World Bank economist Sir Nicholas Stern in his recent recent report: That the total cost of combating is 1% of global gross domestic product per year. I worked out the yearly average of the cost of Iraq from www.costofwar.com and US GDP from the CIA Factbook.

It turns out that the cost of fighting in Iraq is 1.4 times the cost of what Stern says is needed if the US were to effectively fight global warming, if I am right.

$35.5 billion is a lot of spare cash. Keep in mind the opportunity cost of not combating global warming is calculated at 20 times the cost of combating it by 2050.

The other high ground to stake a claim on is as the party that believes in science. The failures of Bush's 'faith-based' initiatives in not finding the WMD they 'believed' they had, for example, or the Supreme (court) Failure of Intelligent Design to viraly replicate itself in the science class-rooms alongside The Theory of Evolution makes science more reassuring whether one has a faith or not. Even if religious there still is something unsettling about Bush saying that God told him to go into Iraq.

The censoring of top NASA climate scientists like Hanson is well documented, as is the relationship of the Republican Party to the oil industry and its dirty disinformation program.

You don't need to be Rove (Karl) to make hay with all that sunshine, being as saturated with co2 as it is. The way to do this is make the case that climate science is what will lead us out of the global warming desert. And the renewable energies will be our chariots.

And Australian opposition parties should do the same.

1. Claiming the high-ground in science-informed climate recovery.
The only way we are going to combat global warming is by comprehensively understanding the entire body of interrelated science. Voters need to know this. While the Howard government is busy placing our scientific institutions at the service of commerce they must be exposed. Science is not advanced by forcing scientists into predicting what discoveries they will make when they apply for grants based on potential comercial merit.

2. Turning Iraq into an isssue of oil independence.
America is an important ally and trading parter, so we need to stay in synch with their
politics. Our opposition politicians should hear the US voters verdict
at the recent US mid-term elections as keenly as any American
conterpart. We import all our oil. If we grow our own biodiesel we cut down on climate distorting emissions, and don't have to join in on every loser mission in the middle-east.

Finally, we should accept any help from outside interested parties. Like US Democrats who might want to test market this political strategy in Australia. We are a test market for everything else. And like the rest of the world that is attempting to pull its weight under the Kyoto Potocol. From their point of view - hey, the US and us are free-loaders on the global economy. It's in the interest of Germany, France, Italy and the rest of continental Europe to get a Kyoto Protocol friendly government up in Australia, and especially up in the US.

Some say that that is what the British were up to with the politics behind the Stern Report. :::[From Economist's View]

Stop the free ride, by Philippe Sands, Commentary, The Guardian: The Stern report concludes that reducing the adverse impacts of climate change is highly desirable and feasible. ... One of the main barriers to ... change is the failure to stigmatise the industrialised states that have decided not to join the Kyoto Protocol ... Australia and the US. Putting it another way, these two states derive economic advantages by not joining Kyoto: their producers do not have to pay the short-term costs of implementing emissions reductions. The companies and their producers are free-riders, benefiting from the environmental actions of others without meeting some of the immediate costs.

It is time to start the ball rolling against this unfair subsidy. It is time to start thinking about using economic instruments to encourage Australia and the US to sign up to Kyoto. That means trade measures: levying climate duties - and perhaps even import restrictions or outright bans - on products from these two countries...

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British Treasury hard astern, Stern steams ahead.

Sir Nicholas Stern, the globally coolest economist and the author of the world's most influential recent report on climate change is exiting the good ship British Treasury. Clashes with Chancellor Gordon Brown have been rumoured. There seems to be something of principle at stake for Sir Nicholas Stern. :::[SMH]

The news came a day after Mr Brown made a pre-budget statement that embraced virtually none of the recommendations of the Stern report, and dashed hopes the Blair Government would move swiftly to a new environmental agenda.

Brown had been trying to sideline Stern by commissioning him to write the report, but this came back to bite him on the bum. There will be more in the future as the reality of global warming keeps bumping into the rhetoric of the denialist and skeptic.

Sir Nicholas issued a statement saying he had planned the move for some time and had hugely enjoyed working with Mr Brown. But relations between the two men are widely known to be tense, a Downing Street policy adviser said. It was understood that Mr Brown had initially asked Sir Nicholas to write his report in order to sideline him, and that it only achieved global prominence because of its timeliness.

The report says that fighting climate change will save, not cost, the global economy money, and has been hugely influential around the world. Many environment ministers quoted it in addresses to the global summit in Nairobi last month. The Guardian described Sir Nicholas, 60, as the first climate change rock star.

He will leave in March to take a chair at the London School of Economics. The Government lured him from the World Bank, where he was chief economist, in 2003.

The Stern report recommends using carbon and other green taxes as part of a comprehensive response to global warming. Its most significant finding is that the cost of effectively fighting climate change is just 1 percent of GDP. Just 1 percent.

Mr Brown's proposed new air tax on 75% of of flights increases amount to just 0.1 per cent of GDP. From £5 ($A12) to £10.

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Worldcoolers: Canada shamed, Stern summarised

I've just joined up to Worldcoolers, a grass-roots Internet network that's spreading the news on developments covering global warming, a field that's moving at a cracking pace now. It's essentially a news-alerts collective, a networked human aggregator. Here are the first two articles I spotted via their desktop application:

There's a story about Canada's pitiful attempt at reaching their Kyoto targets :::[Worldcoolers]

Kyoto committed Canada to cutting emissions by 6 percent from 1990 levels by 2012. Emissions are now 35 percent above that target and are set to rise more rapidly as oil-rich tar sands are opened up in western Canada, which happens to be the Conservatives' power base.

And a BBC At-A-Glance Stern Report Review. :::[Worldcoolers]

Extreme weather could reduce global gross domestic product (GDP) by up to 1%

A two to three degrees Celsius rise in temperatures could reduce global economic output by 3%

If temperatures rise by five degrees Celsius, up to 10% of global output could be lost. The poorest countries would lose more than 10% of their output

In the worst case scenario global consumption per head would fall 20%

To stabilise at manageable levels, emissions would need to stabilise in the next 20 years and fall between 1% and 3% after that. This would cost 1% of GDP

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