The Oz is running an editorial today entitled Climate Change Facts, which has the cutting edge, well reasoned analysis I’ve come to expect of conservative punditry about controversial science. It goes like this:
- Kyoto has a theistic basis
- Its signatories don’t really matter to climate change - coz, y’know, it’s mostly Old Europe
- Fossil fuels may or may not contribute to warming
- Greenies hate freedom, particularly the freedom to burn coal
- “In the long term geo-sequestration, which buries carbon dioxide pumped from power plants, may be a solution” (to a problem that doesn’t really exist, but we’re doing something about because we love freedom. And capitalism. And facts. Not because we’re ideologues. Only Greenies are ideologues.)
- There’s nothing we can do about climate change anyway - because Lomborg said so, not that we have a shrine to him or anything. I mean, he’s from Old Europe.
- But that means we should embrace nuclear power, because Old Europe does too.
I think they should stick to not giving a dumb damn about this and let the adults sort it out.
Elsewhere: Mark Vaile makes a new and exciting appropriation of this classic column. AP6 we bow to you, salute you, welcome the chance to participate in your open, democratic forum, errr … think you represent all the values facts we need to take this country in the right direction!
In the meantime, I’m going to turn the air conditioner back on.
Update: John Quiggin comments on AP6. Jennifer Marohasy notices the Oz editorial too.
I love comments in the article like this.
No one seems to have informed the Australian that science isn’t just a matter of two competing opinions it can actually resolve things and in this case has resolved it fairly conclusively.
I actually given the thrust of it they may have plagiarised my RWDB day piece!
Prescient, Steve.
But you’re forgetting RWDB rule of engagement #4: Lomborg trumps everything.
Yes, last election plenty of money went into painting the Greens as ‘whacky’ and ‘loopy’. Their policy? Reduce greenhouse gas emissions and foster alternative, sustainable energy sources.
But no, far more sensible to, erm, bury it. Is there any environmental stance more freakin’ bizarre? Perhaps this could be done while turning the rivers inland.
Anyway - the ridiculous Oz line aside, climate denialists are now a small rump of fringe whackos and paid whores -file under ‘ignore’.
…
Indeed.
The finding that plants emit significant amounts of methane does throw calculations out a bit. It could mean rethinking of Kyoto.
However the process is also a positive feedback loop. The more the world warms the greater the natural methane emissions. Deforestation also contributes methane emissions.
The reaction I find puzzling is the ‘Its a natural warming. All part of nature’s cycle. Don’t worry.” I’d like to see Ian Plimer tell the people of Tuvalu that it doesn’t matter if sea levels rise a few metres. Humans dominate the planet now. Climate change of a few degrees or metres is going to matter for a hell of a lot people never mind the root cause.
I thought the government had conceded global warming as a fact. Is the Australian white-anting our Great Leader from the Right?
Like many a deranged rant from our fellows blogging from the Genghis Khan Memorial Bunker and Tanty Room, this editorial has almost abandoned the use of paragraphs.
Lucky for us the sub made a stand on CAPS!!!
Those quotes are from Tim Flannery’s The weather makers. He tells us that for geosequestration a power station has to be specially designed. It can’t be retrofitted. Running such a power station takes 25% of the energy they produce. The captured CO2, which is vast, must then be transported to the geosequestration site. It takes a further 20% of the energy produced to condense the gas into liquid form.
At some stage finding suitable sites will be a problem and the notion of dumping it in the deep ocean, thereby turning those sites into a desert, is problematic (I think nutty.)
It seems to me that Howard’s agenda is to keep the coal industry running and to keep China buying our coal. We ourselves could probably get away without it as we have a hot rocks site that could supply all our grid energy for 70 years.
That is not to say that geosequestration will not form part of a range of strategies. But the problem is serious.
People talk about 2 degrees as though it’s not much. But for most of the last 10,000 years we have only been 5 degrees above the last ice age. And as Flannery points out the warming is now happening 30 times as fast as it did coming out of the last ice age.
It seems to me that most of the real scientific doubters like Ian Plimer are geologists who would be well aware that a short 700m years ago or so the earth was a snowball. It makes them think they know better than the climatologists what’s happening in a relative micro time span now.
Well said re Plimer Brian. What I find interesting is that I first came across Plimer in his battles against creationism. I liked his approach is it didn’t pander to the pseudo-respectability that creationists craved. I must admit I find his stance of climate change puzzling to say the least.
I’d like to clarify that the AP6 pretentions of “20% less emissions” are based on a “do-nothing” baseline where emissions will actually increase by a factor of 2.5-fold between now and 2050, and on the assumption of temperatures increasing by 4 degrees Celsius. This is double the rise projected about a decade ago. So it is all smoke and mirrors deliberately designed to mislead the public that the Howard regime is actually committed to doing something about the environment.
To put that into perspective, in an age where I most likely will still be living and working, Melbourne’s climate will be about the same as the Gold Coast’s is now. Sydney’s climate would resemble that of today’s Hervey Bay. Tasmania would be like present-day Sydney. Say goodbye to all the ski fields and cool temperate rainforest. Goodnight Great Barrier Reef as well. Just wanting to let everyone know what sort of a difference four degrees actually is.
Yes, Max, and the flora and fauna need to adapt. Flannery points out that coming out of the ice age the conifers migrated from Florida to Northern Cananda. The problem now is that things are moving very much faster and there are things like cities and vast areas of land denuded of natural habitats through agriculture in the way.
I agree with Max, but you can also kiss goodbye Apples, Pears and many other fruit that require at least 100 chill hours to promote fruit set.
Also cereal crops will have to be moved according to their growth requirements.
Perhaps Antarctica would be suitable by then?
An even greater quandry, what will we call Tasmania, because it won’t be the Apple Isle!
I disagree with your paraphrase of the Australian editorial…
# Kyoto has a theistic basis
No, the editorial said the reponse from the environment lobby was theological…
# Its signatories don’t really matter to climate change - coz, y’know, it’s mostly Old Europe
No, it stated that the European strategy was to shift the blame for emissions to other countries…
# Fossil fuels may or may not contribute to warming
Fossil fuels contribute to global warming but by a tiny amount indetectable within natural climate variablility…
# Greenies hate freedom, particularly the freedom to burn coal
Yes I’d agree with that…
# “In the long term geo-sequestration, which buries carbon dioxide pumped from power plants, may be a solution” (to a problem that doesn’t really exist, but we’re doing something about because we love freedom. And capitalism. And facts. Not because we’re ideologues. Only Greenies are ideologues.)
No, 30 years of greenie scaremongering has frightened marginal voters and political polling has revealed the poor sods might change their votes if the party isn’t appearing to do something. It’s called ‘creating demand’ something greenie sales and publicity executives are good at…
# There’s nothing we can do about climate change anyway - because Lomborg said so, not that we have a shrine to him or anything. I mean, he’s from Old Europe.
No, Lomborg said there are higher priorities for scarce investment. He proposes eliminating European trade barriers and investing in the productive capacity of underdeveloped countries rather than more fuel efficient BMW’s.
# But that means we should embrace nuclear power, because Old Europe does too.
Thankfully the left’s efforts to nationalise industry has failed and the natural response of free agents to reduce CO2 emissions is to switch to a non-CO2 emissions power generation, nuclear is one of them.
#I think they should stick to not giving a dumb damn about this and let the adults sort it out.
I agree, the greenies should go and get a haircut and a real job…
#In the meantime, I’m going to turn the air conditioner back on.
Enjoy it while you can still afford it, unlike those grannies in France…
Forester
I think all of you are getting a little head of yourselves, just as most of the Left are apt to do.
Really, why should we sacrifice economic growth for climate change when it will be reversed anyway? I’m sure in 40 years time with research expanding at an ever increasing rate, that we will find the technology to reverse temperature rises. Humans will also, with DNA technology also be able to bring back extinct species at will. I have faith in God that He will allow that to occur. Why should we waste short term economic growth and risk our prosperity?
Our immediate threat isn’t the natural variation of temperature, it’s TERRORISTS in IRAQ which could one day wipe out ALL LIFE - NEXT MONTH EVEN.
Brian wrote:
So it would seem. Roger Pielke Jr. calls air capture/sequestration the third rail of climate policy so the former denialists and hacks like the Oz grabbing it with both hands was never going to be a pretty sight. Moreover, as David Keith has suggested, without the talk of crisis we probably wouldn’t be doing much about the issue anyway. And John Quiggin’s very good on the political division of labour in future decision making.
I’ve just read the editorial. It really is rubbish.
Well that settles it, again!
BTW do you think the branches will be restacked in Ferguson’s seat?
Who writes these editorials? Didn’t they get the talking points? The Liberal party is meant to be appeasing, not attacking, the environmentalists so that they can make uranium mining look like an exercise in conservation and not a quick money grab.
I’ll assume that BushRules! is not a joke. BR wrote:
“Really, why should we sacrifice economic growth for climate change when it will be reversed anyway? I’m sure in 40 years time with research expanding at an ever increasing rate, that we will find the technology to reverse temperature rises.”
This shows a confidence in the somewhat random developments in technology that very few people involved in the development of knowledge and technology have. It’s an absurd approach.
The thing is, that people involved in climate science think that humans are influencing the climate, but that no-one can actually know this - it’s too difficult. So what do you do?
There was an interesting article in new scientist or scientific american in the last 8 months or so just on this. I don’t remember the details, but it was talking about how a different approach. I wish I could remember it’s content but if people search for it they can probably find it.
Sacha, John Quiggin declared the scientific debate over on January 4th, 2006. To be honest, I haven’t had time to check out the 463 comments (so far) but I assume that not everyone agrees. Quiggin reckons that the question now is how best to ameliorate the effects of climate change.
I took BushRukes to be a joke, but you never know. I have heard that some people near to him reckon that there is no problem because Jesus will be coming back any minute now. And that’s not a joke!
Brian, the problem is that people who aren’t involved in scientific work don’t always appreciate that things are not so cut and dried when it comes to these things. It’s always a best guess.
It seems to me that humans are influencing the climate, but my scientific training does not allow me to make these judgements. As for other fields, I have to rely on what people who work in them say, and always be open-minded to alternatives, as any good scientist should be.
At first glance, the precautionary principle seems reasonable here.
Sacha, I’m not a scientist but I totally agree. There are almost always degrees of uncertainty. But the case for anthropogenically caused climate change is firming, IMHO. And, yes, the precautionary principle.
I’m amazed when people (eg the Jon Jenkins in the NSW upper house) definitively state that humans are NOT influencing the climate. How can they know?! They can’t. They make statements like “the percentage of greenhouse gasses created by humans is so small, it couldn’t possibly have an effect”, which is absurd reasoning, especially as the climate is not necessarily linear!
Forester wrote:
“# Fossil fuels may or may not contribute to warming
Fossil fuels contribute to global warming but by a tiny amount indetectable within natural climate variablility…”
I’d like to see the justification for the phrase “but by a tiny…” - is it based on knowledge or supposition?
Brian, I might sound like someone who isn’t interested in environmental things - but that’s not the case. I think that people should behave in a way which preserves the life support systems of Earth, and if that means economic retardation, then so be it.
Am I condemning a huge number of people to a very poor life while having a fabulous and well-paid life in Sydney? No - people naturally want to have a reasonable life. I just think that the best ideal is to behave in a way that preserves the life support systems of Earth.
This is what is so annoying about some right-wingers in discussions on climate. They’re not interested in life on Earth, they’re self-interested and potentially very short-sighted.
Sacha, you always sounded like a sensitive, concerned, intelligent scientist to me.
Jared Diamond and company say that civilisations crash because the power-possessing elites can isolate themselves fro the adverse effects of their misdeeds to the environment in the short-term. I think they are right, which is depressing. Our hope is that governments intervene to incentivise the capitalists to do the right thing.
I have heard it said, authoritatively, that the incentives already available in Kyoto are causing American capitalists to lobby their government to join and moreover that whoever is the next prez the US will then join.
When this happens, they’ll forget their little mate from down-under. We’ve annoyed the Europeans so much on this and other matters that they won’t miss when they get the chance. We’ll have to expect very harsh and uncomfortable targets, and trade sanctions if we try to go it alone.
Unfortunately Jared might be on the right track here. One of the beauties of governments is that they can use carrots and sticks to encourge less short-sighted behaviour. Alas, “can” is not “will”.
I’d like to read Jared’s ideas moreso - in amongst all the other things I want to do!
Interesting discussion.
You might find the following discussion on realclimate.com about an absurd editorial in the wall street journal on climate change interesting:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=167
the http://www.realclimate.org web-site is a fantastic web-site run by real climate scientists. It’s particularly interesting given the right-wingers in Australia who follow lines like the wall street journal (eg on the “hockey-stick controversy”.
I feel like working in earth-system science - the thing is that I’d have to adapt whatever pure maths skills I have to earth-system science…
Last night I bought a book “Climate Change - Turning up the heat” by Barrie Pittock, formerly of the CSIRO Climate Impact Group, which attempts to lay out what is known/unknown and ways of dealing with climate change.
From just the small part I’ve read, I can thoroughly recommend it.