The Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change, or more accurately the UNFCC Conference of Parties 15 (COP 15) will get under way about 11pm our time today. The conference has its own website which features a positive message from UN climate chief Yvo de Boer. He’s the bloke who cried in Bali two years ago.
The news section of that site actually has a good roundup of recent articles on climate change. If there is good news out of Copenhagen, I’m sure you’ll see it posted there.
In recent good news India has declared a target adopting a similar approach to the Chinese. India aims to “reduce its emissions intensity by 25 percent per unit of gross domestic product from 2005 to 2020″, which means that, like the Chinese, they will reduce their proportional dependence on fossil fuels while their emissions overall will still rise.
The UNFCC has been stressing that countries should come with concrete commitments, not vague aspirations. Minchin and company have ensured that Australia will fail in this regard.
But the bad news is that the folk at Potsdam and Ecofys have done the sums on the commitments brought to the table. These are the people who look at our remaining budget of emissions to stabilise at 450ppm and a presumed 50% chance of staying within 2C of warming.
Read it for yourself, but they reckon the current level of ambition will see us peak about 2040 and total GHG concentrations by 2100 of close to 800 ppm CO2 equivalent. Temperature rises in prospect are 3.5C or beyond. In practical terms we are looking at only 8% reductions by 2020.
In other words, we are simply not serious. This is ending civilisation as we know it stuff. We are rapidly departing the Holocene, which has been so kind to us as a species and heading towards Perdition.
As Hansen said:
“We’re toast if we don’t get on a very different path,” Hansen told The Associated Press. “This is the last chance.”
Perhaps not the last chance, but we are getting close. As John Holdren said via Climate Progress:
Indeed, it is, as the current Presidential Science Advisor and physicist John Holdren has said many times, too late to avoid dangerous anthropogenic warming of the planet. Now the only question is whether we can avoid unmitigated catastrophe.
Wow, no less than Holdren and Hansen as supporting arguments. Both living proof that no matter how wrong you are, how often, you can still fake a career in science.
Nothing like a bit of slanderous nonsense to kick off the thread
I’m just surprised it took him so long, Brian. He’s usually a bit quicker off the mark.
On a more relevant topic, if we’re headed for 800ppm by the end of the centruy, I’m glad I’ll be long dead by then.
Brian, I think there’s a question here about tactics.
Both domestically, with the broad environment movement disgusted with the CPRS targets, and internationally, with Hansen disparaging the weak Copenhagen commitments and hoping for no deal, is the position that a weak deal is worse than none at all.
The question, to me, is not whether we get a weak or a strong deal now – a strong enough deal now is sadly not going to happen – but whether a weak deal now helps getting a better deal later.
I think there’s an arguable case that even a weak deal now a) buys time, and b) will push the development of technologies so that we collectively find out that the sky doesn’t fall when we restrict greenhouse emissions.
Robert, I agree with you. The impressive thing in the last few weeks is the momentum towards an agreement. I think the “common but differential responsibility” principle is important rather than the locked in rigid targets, with everyone more or less in step, approach that was attempted in Kyoto.
At the same time we need the constant reminder from scientists like the bunch at Potsdam who quantify what our commitments mean.
I agree Robert Merkel. We need to put our foot on the first step, rather than waiting vainly for the end run. The Greens disappoint me domestically in this regard too.
We haven’t even bought the entire CC argument yet. We need to build political momentum and precedent. That comes from having political infrastructure in place. Get a goddamn agreement in place. Get a cap legislated and/or institute a tax. Then we can move to the phase of arguing over the size and extent of those things. Let’s get to best first-base we can. Another twelve months of inaction will not see a global epiphany. The politics of change will grind on. The populace is not going to storm the bastille on this issue. They are uncertain and confused. Leaders need to lead. As quickly as they can, but always forward.
I’m running a COP15 watch of sorts. Latest is:
Tony Abbott’s Climate Plan B: The Ark (Thanks to The Avaaz.org Action Factory)
For other posts see: Climate Change
Another important piece of news: the American EPA is going to declare CO2 a public danger, meaning that it can regulate emissions.
The thought of piecemeal regulation of CO2 might scare enough Senators to help push through Waxman-Markey or something akin to it.
That EPA move is hopeful, Robert.
Me, being me, I have long had an itch to set up a prominent coal burning installation with sole purpose to produce CO2. Gratuitously. So that those who believe CO2 to be an invisible, odourless gas essential for human life can have their bluff called. And also to provoke authority to do something along the lines the EPA is now proposing.
Seeing as we are so keen to be more integrated with China and India I think we should do the same as them – agree to increase or CO2 output but become more efficient at it over time. Brilliant idea and we even get international kudos for “setting targets”.
And – no one is allowed to check the data except us. Works for the Chinese.
Robert Merkel@4 said:
That’s the key question for me. I’m less interested in the initial target than the integrity of the architecture, so if I had to compromise it would be on the cap rather than on the structures of control, the activity purview, the ubiquity of the scheme and so forth. Structures that appear weak or quixotic can be more easily attacked by those who would sooner do nothing than can scehems that fairly and rationally distribute burdens — albeit ones that are probably inadequate in quantity. That said, I think we need at the very least a scheme with a low enough cap to give people asense of the urgency of the matter. Again, to say that our children’s future is at risk if we don’t act and then have everyone pay 10 cents per MwH extra with the aim of reducing world emissions by some piffling amount would threaten to bring us into disrepute.
People should feel that they personally are doing their bit, not the least because a sense of personal sacrifice tends to strengthen resitance to free riding and porkbarrelling.
@Kevin Rennie: Are you sure you don’t mean the B Ark?
Zarquon
It has certain irony. I like it! Don’t think we can all hitchhike our way out of this one. The answer is 350!
I welcome your competitively-priced base-load to the grid wbb. Every kW counts!
Agree RM and Wbb – time to make a start regardless. (I didnt personally regards the Wong/ McFarlane ETs as meeting the minimum threshold for a “start” – but thats for another thread)
One reasons to be hopeful: ANY mechanism that promotes investments in renewable baseload will likely have kick-on effects. As long as its not window dressing, a moderate scheme can achieve technology that has the ability to outstrip the reduction framework it was set up in. eg if affordable renewable tech is invented, countries will be a lot quicker to sign up to bigger target next time.
Aside from that, I agree it looks grim for 450 – lets alone 350. But time to decelerate at least, and hope for a flow-on.
The Age and the Herald decided to not publish a joint editorial co-published 56 other newspapers in 20 languages to kick off Copenhagen According to David Roffey’s post at webdiary the reason for their withdrawal is that “”… both the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age dropped out of the project after climate change convulsed Australian politics, demanding, they felt, a more localised editorial position.”
The common editorial commences:
“Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.
Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year’s inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world’s response has been feeble and half-hearted.”
Sorry, Craig Mc. My plant won’t be hooked up to a generator. It’s going to produce CO2 only – not electricity.
Wow Anthony- I didnt know that. Cheers Oz media for the spine FAIL. Just cos we’re cursed with especially demented politicians on one side is hardly a reason to drop the Fourth Estate’s commitment to the enlightenment, is it?
“Jusqu’à présent, la réponse internationale a été faible et timorée.”
Bloody French – denouncing Global Warming as a Timorese legend.
Well, we all need a hobby. Yours is odd, but it’s still better than golf.
On the off-chance you aren’t speaking tongue-in-cheek wbb …
to date, the international response has been weak and timorous …
I am hoping to pick up my registration today. With 14,000 observers, 5,000 media, all of the negotiators, 100 heads of state, and a conference centre with a capacity for 15,000 people, things will get a little hectic…
LeftyE @ 18: yeah, they squibbed it big time. Sheehan (SMH today) reckons that the emails to the Libs re AGW during the spill were all authentic and not mass mailed. Maybe the majors are worried about losing readership? They certainly have reflected the confusion and outright cowardice that characterises the public policy debate (notable exception being Turnbull, FFS).
There is a psychodynamic element, one that is particular to Australian history, at play here. I’m not sure what it is but, speculatively, I’d hazard that the cleavage around AGW follows the fault lines around dispossession and apology. AGW refuseniks are being supremely irrational and that is the pointer to deeper fears than can be accoubnted for in terms of the rational calculus of individual or collective self interest.
Hardin’s lifeboat ethics might inform this. We are in a vessel at peril but haf of the passengers want to keep on partying as if there is no problem. Our problem is that if they are correct then there is no generalisable penalty. If we are correct then we are all sunk. What approach, then, do we take with those passengers?
Peter, I’ll be following your blog with interest!
Ignore them and take over the ship Anthony. Pretty much as we are already doing.
Pity we can’t just toss them over the side, anthony.
Yes, I’m inclined to the old heave ho myself. If Copenhagen really is a dismal fail then it is mass movement stations. Again. I’ve been digging out old copies of Peace Studies and literally dusting off stuff on how to do non-violent DA.
Maybe it’s time for a litttle balance? To this (cheerfully admitted) sceptic, the situation seems quite clear. The world may be warming; or it may not. In either case, science does not know why. The AGW hypothesis has failed because the models on which it is based are in conflict with real-world data, which show an unpredicted cooling. If the models are wrong – and they appear to be – the hypothesis fails.
If the world is warming, because the overall trend is upward, despite the recent cooling (as Tim Flannery has asserted, in the same breath as he admitted the cooling), then the warming is not occurring for the causes advertised, and the science must try other hypotheses and come up with another explanation.
But whether it’s heating or cooling, it seems frankly insane at this juncture, when the science is clearly in doubt (and oh yes it is – why else would the British Met Office be planning to re-validate the baseline data from global wather stations over the next three years?) to damage our economies with carbon taxes and sequester a proportion of the developed world’s GDP to provide a fund reservoir for the too-often tyrnnaical regimes of the developing world to pocket and promptly put to the same purpose they have put all the other money they have received from the west.
Shorter Rob @ 28: I’m a clueless idiot.
That’s a hypothesis I’m happy to entertain, David. Are you?
Rob, you’re either a liar or a fool. I have no way of knowing which, but those are the only alternatives, given that you are repeating one of Andrew Bolt’s claims (that Flannery admits there’s been cooling).
Had you been listening to the radio the other day, you would have heard Flannery deny he’d ever said there was cooling, and pretty much accuse Bolt of lying.
So, are you a used car salesman, or a computer salesman?
Teh transcript is there for anyone to find, David.
blockquote>These people work with models, computer modelling, when the computer modelling and the real world data disagrees you have a problem, that’s when science gets engaged.
….sure for the last few years we have gone through a slight cooling trend, we saw it in the 1940s the same sort of thing, but that does not negate the overall warming trend.
I have been playing with emissions from the burning of fossil fuels for energy data for the period 2003 to 2007. This data has to be treated with caution because it doesn’t take the effect of the import or export of goods that were produced by the burning of carbon. However, they do give a feel for what countries must act if the growth of emissions is to be reversed. To quote a few figures for emissions from the burning of fossil fuel:
World emissions grew by an average of 3.5%/yr during this period. By comparison, Australia grew by 4.6%/yr China by 10.5%, the US by 0.5% and the whole of Europe by only 0.2%/yr.
The 6 countries that contributed most to this growth were China 55.9%, India 9.3%, US 3.2%, Iran 2.7%, Saudi Arabia 2.2%, and Australia 2.0%. The world needs to slow down the growth of emissions in these rogue nations if we are to have any chance of reversing the growth of emissions.
These 6 countries between them were responsible for 75.3% of the growth and 50.4% of the world total during 2007. In per capita terms Australia was the worst with The US, Iran and Saudi Arabia being well above the current world average, China slightly above and India far enough below to already be well below the per capita required to meet the 2050 target.
I guess the message is that we need to start discussing what needs to be done about specific fast growers, high per capita countries and countries making major contributions to the world total.
David Irving @26, why toss them over the side? Let them party on as the ship sinks…
Meanwhile the rest of us quietly collect some warm clothing, climb into the lifeboats, lower them and paddle clear of the sinking party ship. They want their choice and we want ours…
Perhaps, this isn’t a lifeboat dilemma? It might be a single ship with no lifeboats dilemma. Oh bother!
On the other hand, I would make a case for a partial lifeboat analogy. Those of us that are convinced that things are going to go increasingly pear-shaped, will be making their own arrangements.
We will be assuming that the world will hit crisis point, and it will become glaringly apparent to all but the laggard rump of humanity (the last 20% or so; probably mostly LNP!) that we have a problem.
Then a massive effort will swing into action, at huge cost due to a compressed timeline. Ask any construction manager what happens when you extensively delay a project, then belatedly try to meet the original deadlines…
Wait for the stampede and you may not be able to buy renewable power systems, energy storage systems, electric cars, water storage and recyling systems, etc, with the bank balance of the Sultan of Brunei. The only ones available will be on the black market, if at all.
Start making your own arrangements guys, and don’t wait for everyone to finally “get it” and stampede in a crush for the remaining lifeboats!
More optimistic forecasts?
I wish we could all say it ain’t so sometimes, but that’d be bullsh*t
Earth’s temperature more sensitive to carbon dioxide than previously thought
Press release (Bristol Uni) issued 6 December 2009
In the long term, the Earth’s temperature may be 30-50 per cent more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide than has previously been estimated, reports a new study published in Nature Geoscience this week.
The results show that components of the Earth’s climate system that vary over long timescales – such as land-ice and vegetation – have an important effect on this temperature sensitivity, but these factors are often neglected in current climate models.
Dr Dan Lunt, from the University of Bristol, and colleagues compared results from a global climate model to temperature reconstructions of the Earth’s environment three million years ago when global temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations were relatively high. The temperature reconstructions were derived using data from three-million-year-old sediments on the ocean floor.
Lunt said, “We found that, given the concentrations of carbon dioxide prevailing three million years ago, the model originally predicted a significantly smaller temperature increase than that indicated by the reconstructions. This led us to review what was missing from the model.”
The authors demonstrate that the increased temperatures indicated by the reconstructions can be explained if factors that vary over long timescales, such as land-ice and vegetation, are included in the model. This is primarily because changes in vegetation and ice lead to more sunlight being absorbed, which in turn increases warming.
Including these long-term processes in the model resulted in an increased temperature response of the Earth to carbon dioxide, indicating that the Earth’s temperature is more sensitive to carbon dioxide than previously recognised. Climate models used by bodies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change often do not fully include these long-term processes, thus these models do not entirely represent the sensitivity of the Earth’s temperature to carbon dioxide.
Alan Haywood, a co-author on the study from the University of Leeds, said “If we want to avoid dangerous climate change, this high sensitivity of the Earth to carbon dioxide should be taken into account when defining targets for the long-term stabilisation of atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations”.
Alan Haywood, a co-author on the study from the University of Leeds, said “If we want to avoid dangerous climate change, this high sensitivity of the Earth to carbon dioxide should be taken into account when defining targets for the long-term stabilisation of atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations”.
Nature Geoscience
My take on the target question is that it is very difficult to come up with a fair way of setting targets. The year chosen as a base, whether tourists should be included in “population” specifics for particular countries etc. all complicate the picture and favour different countries. Anything that depends on complicated measures of performance will also create difficulties.
It may be more productive at this stage to start by identifying actions that most countries can agree about. Efficiency standards are an obvious possibility. We might also get widespread agreement to stop building coal fired power stations.
It may also help if the need for complicated measurement was reduced by countries committing to tangible action that is easily check-able. For example, Australia should commit to the building of so much gW of extra clean power generation by 2020, limiting the average fuel consumption of new cars etc.
We need to get the easy things in place first instead of holding everything up until we have sorted out all the hard issues.
Elise @ 34, I’m preparing a doomstead that’ll see me out. It’s unlikely I’ll still be alive in 2030, so the rest of my life will be … adequate.
I’m worried about my sons, though. They’ll be old when things get really ugly.
Yeah, I read that transcript quite carefully, Rob. Flannery said it was cool in Sydney the other day.
So, are you a liar or a fool? Or do you just have extremely poor comprehension of plain English? (I guess that would mean fool.) I’m too old to have a great deal of tolerance for wilful stupidity.
rob, I don’t know how we’ve gotten along without you! Here’s the full quote, which you clipped.
David was referring to Flannery’s Breakfast interview with Fran Kelly (see from 6.30 mins in) where he refers to “slightly cooler years for two or three years”.
Two or three years don’t make a trend, so what Flannery said was slightly wrong, but excusable in the context of an interview.
Garnaut in his final report (Box 4.1) gave the problem to Trevor Breusch and Farshid Vahid at ANU, two of the best in the statistical analysis of time series. They found that there was a warming trend over the last century which was not broken from the late 1990s on. From other evidence in the report I think they were given the HadCRUT record.
Personally I’d be looking at at least a 10-year running average.
This is how NASA GISS sees the last 15 years. Unlike HadCRUT they include the Arctic. Their summary for 2008, one of the “cool” years, the coolest since 2000, says:
rob, the models are not designed to predict what happens from year to year, nor with any accuracy from decade to decade. That’s what Trenberth was griping about. It’s the bit that science doesn’t know yet and he’d like to find out.
AGW was found in the IPPC AR4 as very likely, that is with a probability of 90% plus. That was 2007. I think it has firmed since then. You can’t just bowl up and say something different and be taken seriously.
Brian,
Tell all that to David, who reckons one day will do it.
Riiiiiighht.
As to trends, it all depends where you pick the kick-off point. If we take the Medieval Warm Period, for example, we still have a ways to go before we start farming on Greenland again.
Rob, you’re clearly too stupid to breathe.
Yeah, thanks, David, a devastating comeback.
Hansen was haggard on Lateline tonight. How many times will he have to go through the same stuff. Again and again.
He did slip at one stage with a “that’s the screwiest objection to the science — everyone should know that” – in context of H20’s role as a greenhouse component. His resulting explanation was too quickly glossed and would not have stuck in the minds of too many viewers.
Tony Jones got the job done by asking all the right leading questions – but the take home was to show an exasperated scientist on the edge rather than one of clear concise compelling elucidation. Not Hansen’s fault, but we need more people permanently convinced – rather than temporarily discomfitted. Who can do that? Primary schools are teaching the kids – but sadly they won’t get a chance to have a shot at solving this.
Quoll @ 35, that’s exciting news and very significant, I think. My understanding is that by looking at the paleo record they have been able to take into account long term feedbacks not included in the current climate models and not included in the notion that climate sensitivity is 3C, give or take a bit.
So effectively they are seeking to verify Hansen’s notion that climate sensitivity is actually 6C with long term feedbacks. We should be grateful that they have come in under Hansen’s number.
I notice that one of the authors was Gavin Schmidt of NASA GISS.
I think you’ll find that the CO2 levels they were looking at are similar to the present. Recently it was found that sea levels were 25 metres higher then than now, plus or minus 5.
Bugger. I wasn’t going to engage again, but needs must.
Rob, if there is a trend, it’s irrelevant where you start.
I thought I’d actually expressed myself quite clearly. Brian understood what I was saying, so why didn’t you?
Are you thick or mendacious? I’d really like an answer.
It’s going to to dawn on you one day, Brian, that you’re not convincing anyone but yourself. The polls are showing around 60% scepticism in the US and the UK. The great common sense of ordinary folk wins the day. The planet warms, the planet cools; it’s been that way forever. There’s nothing anyone can do about it.
Keep digging, David. “Thick or mendacious?” You pick.
Why does the planet warm, Rob?
I’ve checked with the scientists, wbb, and they can’t tell me. Nor why it cools, either.
David @ 41, a bit of civility, please.
Rob used to comment here in the early years. He’s as annoying as all get out, but not stupid.
Rob @ 46, that isn’t an answer. See Fran on the other thread. Can you come up with contrary science?
Could they, I dunno, give you a forecast for the weekend then, Rob?
Yeah, and from memory, he peaked out in the Medieval Warm Period.
I’ll be reverting to dk.dk for the next couple of weeks.
I managed to get my accreditation last week. There’s currently some jostling about the Danish text – it’s been suggested that Rasmussen’s plenary speech was so weak that it might not even see the light of day.
Basically the Danes though they’d provide an alternative negotiating text to kick things off. This has been responded to some other countries, but it’s fairly weak and vague.
wbb @ 43, I have this feeling we may have seen the best of Hansen. I believe he has just recovered from prostate treatment, which may have knocked him around a bit (having been there).
Thanks, Brian – and I apologise if my comment @ 46 was rude.
My problem is that I’m not a scientist. For every compelling argument in favour of AGW, there is an equally compelling counter-argument. But it’s obvious now that too many scientists have come out against it, and too many have changed their minds (towards the anti camp) for it to be plausible to claim there is a consensus. AGW may at some stage be established to be a fact, but it clearly is not established yet. The models on which the hypothesis is based – and, note, it was only ever a hypothesis, it was never proven – have failed, because they did not predict a cooling period. They predicted exponential warming. Let’s leave aside hockey sticks and such, though volumes could be written on the subject.
So what is the non-stupid observer to think? Inevitably, that there is much more left to be done, more to be found out, to be measured and evaluated. There are hypotheses to be formulated, tested, falsified or confirmed. That’s just ordinary science.
Against that background, and in light of the ClimateGate revelations, it ought to be simply inconceivable that governments should be contemplating, with every appearance of seriousness, the disbursement of trillions of dollars (farmed from their electorates) to mitigate the effects of a climatic phenonomenon that is either not happening, or stopped by itself several years ago, and in neither case can the current state of scientific understanding provide an adequate explanation.
We would be mad to commit to anything substantial at Copenhagen.
You might like to go up and explain those equally compelling counter-arguments to these Australians, Rob: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/07/2764406.htm
Its already happening. And ordinary people realize something is very wrong. That’s why the science, and scientists, are actually being listened to.
We’d be barking mad not to take precautionary action – since the economic cost of not doing so is incalculable.
And once the world is acting, we be even stupider to open ourselves to “non-participant” sanctions, which major economies will certainly adopt to protect their investments in lower carbon industry.
Its over Rob: contribute to the debate on reductions, or lose. Sit at the table, or end up on the menu.
Rob @48:
Which scientists were those? With the greatest respect Rob, you can’t have checked with climate scientists.
Brian@53
I saw Hansen on Lateline last night. Paraphrasing someone earlier, while I have nothing but respect for his ability to analyse the relevant science, his grasp of the working of public policy leaves a lot to be desired. He was a Reagan-appointee who said he would have voted for McCain in 2000, which may tell us something relevant here.
Exactly zoot@56 – that’s a straight out lie – what we’ve come to expect from deniers and misrepresenters
(My apologies if I’m contributing to the attention Rob craves, I will crease. Although I’m certain he won’t. Try not to bite DI(NR), like Hannas Dad’s dog, he’ll be back with more ‘facts’ on how satellites have it wrong on ice sheet mass loss etc etc and with his published (would be but for the global scientific conspiracy) paper refuting Tyndall)
“But it’s obvious now that too many scientists have come out against it, and too many have changed their minds (towards the anti camp) for it to be plausible to claim there is a consensus.”
Which scientists are those, Rob? The ones who are apparently censored or suppressed all the time? In Oz, about the only ones we hear from are Carter and Plimer and both have been shown to be flawed and not climate scientists anyway. I don’t think the international scene is much better. Where is this growing number of changing scientists?
I was also interested in your claim that a majority of US and UK voters ae now AGW sceptics. I’d be interested in the poll and its reliability, but even then a bit wary on the result. Not long before the Iraq invasion a majority of US punters believed Saddam was behind the 9/11 attack, and the majority of both US and UK polls believed the claims about WMD. They can fool most of the people some of the time.
Rob@ all above: it may be the case that you do not class yourself as a sceptic but for current purposes I will treat you as one. Philosophical scepticism is more than doubt about the legitimacy of argument or evidence on any side of an issue at contention. Philosophical scepticism is a frame of mind in which the overarching belief is that reason has no capacity to come to any conclusions at all. The founding figure of Greek skepticism was Pyrrho who, according to my old philosophy notes, held that “we must suspend all judgement, committing ourselves to a non-committal silence about everything”.
Is that too much to ask of you?
If this is impossible you are hereby invited to unpack your scepticism and outline all other knoweldge about which you do not share dominant certitude. In other words tell us what other accepted factual knowledge you doubt. In the process please leave aside religious uncertainty, which is the traditional field of sceptical inuiry, and focus on scpticism about established sceince not related to AGW.
If you cannot or will not do this then you are a proven humbug even in your scepticism.
I find it interesting that we have non-scientists commenting on the veracity or otherwise of graphs showing an upward trend in temperature. They show a complete lack of understanding of how trend lines in graphical data work. There is always natural variation within a time-series data set (ie values go up or down). These variations are natural and to be expected in any real-world system. To draw any long term conclusions based on 2, 3 or 4 data points however is completely misleading. If we look at the Figure 3 in the Copenhagan Diagnosis report by the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre (2009) we see that over the last few years ther has indeed been a few data points that are lower than the previous years. This may have been what Tim Flannery was referring to when he said there was some cooling present in the data.
What is interesting is to note that these lower data points are higher than data points in all years from the mid 1980’s to early years in the graph. That is the temperature now is still hotter than it was in previous decades. What is also eveident throughout the data set are similar data points moving in the upward direction (see the data points in the 1890’s period) as well as downward (see the 1940’s time points). If I used these few data points to imply a trend in one instance I would say there is evidence to indicate warming and in the second there is cooling. Both arguments would be specious in the extreme.
What is more important, and this relates to how trendlines are calculated, is that despite the natural variation inherent in the data, the long-term trend is towards higher temperatures. This trend is evident in the dataset from the 1970’s to the present. To deny otherwise is to show the ignorance of an individual to interpret corecctly scientific data.
Webcasts ( live and archived ) from COP15 are available
Rob, I’m not sure whether you are interested in increasing your knowledge, but accepting that you came in late here is the link to The Copenhagen Diagnosis Mark C referred to. Figure 3 is quite instructive.
You may also not have heard of Hannah’s balls which you keep serving up.
Also you should check them out at Monash University and Skeptical Science before you serve them up.
Other than that Hansen reckons there are three main kinds of climate knowledge – (1) from direct observation, (2) from paleo climate studies, and (3) from models, in order of importance. I’m not a scientist either, but my understanding is that AGW doesn’t actually depends on models as such, but talk of what models can and can’t do is definitely better left to those who understand fully how they work.
Swifthack.com is an excellent resource named after the campaign of malicious slander against 2004 Democratic Presidential contender, John Kerry by the 2004 Bush campaign known as “Swiftboat”. That campaign was ultimately successful in ensuring a prolonged stay in Iraq and a continuing flow of public funds to Halliburton and other war profiteers linked to the then Bush Administration.
It is a matter of no small irony that what the filth merchant spruikers have dubbed climategate itself alludes to dirty dealing by their side (in this case the aptly named “CREEP” which saw Nixon defeat the liberal McGovern) after a break-in at the Watergate hotel.
Here one sees how, even as these reckless slanderers in the service of filth merchant profit project their own ethical standards onto others, they can find no better term than one relating to their own past criminal conduct. Swifthack.com is thus an entirely apt (albeit a more contemporary) name for a portal covering these events.
Bangladeshi delegation when asked if they are worried that not enough funds will be allocated to adaptation rather than just CC mitigation:
Well, I think the world realises they either pay for adaptation in Bangladesh now – or they pay for our adaptation later when we arrive on their shores.
Thanks for the references, Brian @ 63. Good spins from Monash, but not convincing, on my reading. Too much of “not really relevant anyway”. Well, we’ve only got your word for that, believers of Monash. But then we are all the victims of what we read and what we (want to) perceive. I don’t think there’s any way around that.
Here’s a piece from American Thinker that puts a contrary view, with particular reference to hockey sticks.
But there’s not much point in duelling with blog posts, I guess. We’re never going to persuade each other.
Antony @ 60. Interesting point; but let’s not personalise the debate.
Why are we wasting time arguing with Rob who is unlikely ever to be convinced until he’s either drowning himself or watching his family and home reduced to ashes? “Perpetual motion going nowhere” from hannah’s dad describes the sort of discussion he wants to generate.
I’m coming to this thread to read about the Copenhagen process, outcomes and comment thereon as well as the really helpful leads to other MSM articles and reports, not to read a another debate with climate change deniers and sceptics.
The background on Robert Hansen was helpful since I found him difficult to follow last night, and finally not even directly answering Tony Jones’ question. I gave him benefit of the doubt and thought him sleep deprived. Not surprised to learn how ill he is. Poor guy, what a load to carry that fatal knowledge all these years and be unable to convince those in power who should have heeded him of all public scientists.
Is it possible though that his own single minded clarity of what he thinks should be done and frustration at not getting through is blinding him to the possibility of achieving more by compromise? Better to enable and accept the best possible outcome rather than outright rejecting anything less than the (for him) ideal and only solution.
That’s actually a very fair point, Paricia WA. Whatever the outcomes of Copenhagen, the debate on this blog isn’t going to make any difference. Spoilers like me are annoying, I know, and you quite understandably don’t want to encounter divergent opionons – it’s not what the post was about. So I’ll keep quiet; but I remain puzzled by this absolute refusal to admit the legitimacy of doubt, or the possibility of error. It seems strange, and oddly discomfiting.
A bientot.
Copenhagen is a conference of hypocrites. IPCC is a bunch of UN fat cats. They have contracted out research to con men (I cannot call them scientists) like Dr Phil Jones and Michael Mann. So a number of idiots are overawed by this event. But Australian people are smart; they can smell a rat from a mile. KRuddy your time is up
.. and we’ve just jumped the shark, Houston.
As Danny said, webcasts ( live and archived ) from COP15 are available
“it’s not what the post was about. So I’ll keep quiet; but I remain puzzled”
Perhaps, then, we could (altho I am suspecting not) get a Climate Denial/Sceptics” open thread? – where Rob and those with the stomach for it can idle away a few harmless hours in homeopathic catharsis.
A good idea, wbb. But why would you be ’suspecting not’?
Let’s Imagine, as the immortal John once said:
Imagine the scene:
Marc Sheppard, elegantly attired, coolly examines his duelling pistol whilst casting an interested eye at the light cloud mass above his head and pauses to jot a couple of quick anti-warming notes on his starched cuff, checks the nearest temperature guage, and detours for a quick biff or two (or three) with the attendant – and respendant – ladies-in-waiting. Michael Mann, meanwhile, saturnine and scowling, huddles black-cloaked under a vibrant larch, whose evident health he observes with equally evident dismay (“You ought to be dead”, he snarls, “haven’t you heard of global warming? Don’t you care about your kids?”), his pistol clutched obstinately under his arm, as he mutters in one breath the rules of the duel, desperately clutching the pit in his stomach, and in the other intones the mantra: “the hockey stick is real….the hockey stick is real….the hickey stock is real….”
Sorry. Sorry!
Rob, why won’t you answer my question @56?
Sorry, zoot, I thought it was one of those posts whose irony sort of advertised itself – I was wrong. I just meant I had read the likes of Tim Flannery and not found an explanation.
How did you like my shirt-sleeved Mills and Boon’ish Marc duelling with the believers? Not by much, I guesss. So much for humour.
Mark @ 61,
Talking of temperature data the latest info on “Watts Up With That” for Darwins temperatures is an interesting read.
The science is becoming more unsettled by the day!!
By the way, zoot, haven’t we crossed swords before? Ah well, so much for romance.
(No offence. Can’t greenies ever get a smile on their faces?)
Ah Rob – this is where you’re showing your slip. It’s not greenies anymore who are pushing the climate change barrow. It’s everybody with a clue. Even Ralph Hillman.
(.. and I suspect not – because it might be considered too pointless an exercise to waste emissions on – tho I would [guiltily, of course] enjoy it.)
I am not optimistic that rich polluting countries like Australia and the US are willing to cut back on their emissions in any significant way. It seems we are addicted to our gluttony consumption of energy resources.
So I am not optimistic that COP15 will yield anything other than political platitudes and non-binding political agreements that simply won’t be honoured.
CO2 emissions per capita seems to be the fairest measure – with Australia being one of the worst performers on this measure. And we can stop burning and exporting coal if we choose too. We are clever enough to transition off 19C technology to options that are cleaner and greener.
A couple of graphs which tell a stark story that the CPRS avoids: [link]
EU delegation saying that their ETS is working well and their emissions have declined for 4 years in a row. They have brought commitments to Copenhagen but crucially they have also brought results. (Unlike the US.)
@274: The “only joking” defense; how p*ssweak. Well Rob (or are you really Barbara Cartland in drag?), nice to have your admission you are merely a troll. I certainly won’t waste any time engaging with you again.
Rob, could you please do as you promised @ 68? There are areas of relative certainty, there are areas of doubt. But this thread is to share information about the Copenhagen conference.
The Guardian has leaked to proposed “Danish” treaty text.
Thanks, Peter. Peter’s reports will appear on his blog.
From a link there:
That’s a very powerful grouping. It is said that the Danish text proposes to take the running away from the UN. I think we can assume that the poor countries won’t allow that to happen. So it is a question of what games are being played.
Russia has made its increased commitment (from 10-15% to 20-25% reduction on 1990 levels, an increase on present emissions) offical. This takes the total Annex I 2020 reduction (not including the US) up to approx 18-25% on 1990 levels (not including the US).
Rob: still waiting for some response to the issue of philosophical scepticism. As you are a now self confessed “spoiler” I’m wondering if anyone is paying you?
Folks, don’t feed the troll.
From the The Age online…
“The UN climate talks in Copenhagen descended into acrimony overnight after the leaking of a draft “Copenhagen Agreement” that would require developing countries to take on targets as the world cut emissions in half by 2050.
Control of climate change finance would be passed to the World Bank.”
Meanwhile their are still people who think climate change can be tackled while capitalism is still around…tsk…
Chav@87
It’s not so much that everyone thinks that is the case. Those of us who see capitalism as utlimately irrational and an obstacle to human freedom set no store at all in the probability that the capitalist classes of the world will act with the coherence necessary to avert catastrophic warming. There can be little doubt (at least for us serious leftists) that rational planned economies based on inclusive governance would stand a far better prospect of mobilising the material and human resources necessary to secure humanity’s interests in the ecosystem. The persistence of capitalism is thus a mortal threat.
Nevertheless, the circumstance for implementing planned economies based on inclusive governance do not obtain, and are unlikely to arise on any timeline of pertinence to dealing with AGW. Worse yet, AGW, and the scramble for dwindling natural resources as well threaten to reduce civilisation to something like the barbarism we socialists have always anticipated. Such a development would massively set back the interests of working humanity and consequently the scope for rational societies. Self-evidently, it would be politically criminal if we simply threw up our hands and declared ourselves unwilling to press the capitalist classes to act, on no more basis than that they were probably not going to do what was required. Were we to do so, what could we say to those picking their way through ther ruins of civilisation and seeking a new course, who asked us why we stood to one side when it might have made a difference? We must be able to say that we not only saw the danger, but pressed for action to be taken, and hold those classes and their system accountable. Only then will we be able to howl with the wolves.
The reality is that we can use only those tools that are ready to hand — and if proletarian ones are not available, then we must use the next best tool that is … to abstain would be to share responsibility for the results.
If yuu need any proof that AGW has morphed from bad science to superstition to plain insanity, check out Clive Hamilton here.
Do you guys really buy this stuff?
Sorry, Brian, couldn’t resist.
Zoot: sorry too for the ill-judged attempt at levity. Not my strong suit.
Anthony Nolan: there’so point personalising this, but if you want a post-modern appreciation of AGW, I’d be happy to oblige; but it would take some bandwidth.
It really seems the likes of Rob need to troll at blogs like this (and elsewhere), is actually because they are so worried about the concordance between global warming theory and the lived experience of probably the majority of Australians (at least) currently. That they feel the need to visit and engage with the likes of those who write and post here.
I’ve given a few hours to various denialist blogs, but they are in the most completely sycophantic or slanderous ill-informed nonsense, that is self-evidently a waste of time.
If this blog and the knowledge, insights, ideas and humour wasn’t a worry to them in terms of influencing public discourse, they simply wouldn’t bother to come visit and comment.
Seeing as these kinds of pointless grandstandings and space filling examples of wilful ignorance (they can’t find any evidence?) seems almost a social fixture these days anywhere where sound science and social analysis is raised (who’d have predicted that?).
It seems that it could be taken as a backhanded compliment (at least subconsciously) that they feel that some information, ideas, opinions and data presented here counts for something, and needs to be scuppered in some way.
They are actually here, it seems to me, because they find some informed and intelligent debate compared to many other places. Perhaps they just addicted to the devils advocate position…
Seems to have been a bit of a (heat)rash of such posters, here (not very regular myself, but looks like it to me), and at numerous other forums and comments pages. Some people certainly appear to have more time to pontificate about the world than such a lack of critical and research skills would normally suggest.
I can actually sense that the discordance between reality and the so-called denialist camp is growing further with time (in Aust, as we watch the country die in places), and they’re understandably more anxious about their place in the world. Though can’t admit it to themselves probably.
Guess the Copenhagen hype is almost like the ultimate torture for them, a new bunch of stories in every medium concerning a real phenomena unfolding around the world. That they simply do not believe in…
Welcome to human life boys and girls I’d say.
If it comes to surviving, fighting for life and surviving in the cracks, the poor of the world are still vastly better prepared than the majority of the now relatively soft populations of industrial developed societies.
Though it’s sure to be messy if let to go to that point.
I’m with Patricia.
I hope aside from following the story about the leaked new treaty text (which Rudd had a hand in) people are also following the actions of the island and poorest nations. They are standing their ground in demanding a legally binding treaty with meaningful targets.
If you have not seen the video of the Sudanese (and lead negotiator for one of the developing nations groups) breaking down in tears when he saw the leaked text, and stating “they are asking us to sign a suicide pact”, or read the speeches of the President of the Maldives, or seen the stance taken on behalf of Pacific Island nations led by chief negotiator for Tuvalu, Ian Fry, please check them out.
You can also find some interesting commentary at the official climate thinkers blog – Christine Milne has a post there fyi.
“The reality is that we can use only those tools that are ready to hand — and if proletarian ones are not available, then we must use the next best tool that is … to abstain would be to share responsibility for the results.”"
I guess if you had looked to the Stalinist bureaucracies of Eastern Europe rather than the working masses that they oppressed as the source of liberation from capital then this would be your perspective. I guess it also follows that you would support the following actions of the Danish state…after all, paint bombs are far more dangerous than the photocopiers that were banned in the Eastern Bloc…
“Police raids
Meanwhile, Danish police raided an apartment complex housing a group of climate campaigners detained 200 activists.
About 200 police carried out the raid in the centre of Copenhagen in the early hours of the morning.
Activists were locked in the building for two hours while officers searched the premises and seized items they claimed could be used for acts of civil disobedience.
Campaigners say the police confiscated a power drill, an angle grinder, some pieces of timber, paint bombs and 193 riot shields.
The accommodation centre is one of a handful provided by the Danish Government for the protesters.
About 30,000 or 40,000 protesters are expected to arrive in the capital over the next week.
Police fear an international extremist group may also be on its way to Copenhagen to commit acts of violence.”
Thanks for that link myriad74. One to keep an eye on. QU reef specialist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg at Climate shifts is also posting from the conference.
That Sudanese bloke means business. The developing countries are sick of being pushed around. Several WTO grouping have come together with large players like China and India, which are always going to be at the top table now, in a block of 133 countries. It also includes the small island states for whom the crisis is immediate and existential. In Portugal they showed they are ready to walk out if there is a lack of seriousness.
I heard on Breakfast a few minutes ago that they are questioning the 2C guard rail. In the first paragraph of this article by Stefan Rahmstorf he tells us that 2C was first put forward by WBGU, an official German advisory body. From there it was adopted into European climate politics in 2005. The WBGU in an admirably clear pamphlet has not moved from 2C, but Rahmstorf says it is the absolute upper limit and in itself involves risk. He points out that the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) has adopted 1.5C which, because of the delay involved climate momentum, means we are as good as already there in terms of emissions.
Many think that Copenhagen would be successful if 2C was adopted and realistic program of staying within it adopted. For many poorer states that would be failure, though it’s hard to see how places like New York will cope with the sea level rise inherent in 2C.
One of the problems is that Obama has simply not had enough head space to deal with climate change, which is down the list compared to health and Afghanistan.
Information and download link for the leaked draft Copenhagen agreement that would further disadvantage poor and developing countries is here: [link]
Concerns raised by some developing nations about the draft agreement include that they could be forced to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement.
And that they would not be allowed to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, while rich countries would be allowed to emit 2.67 tonnes.
Chav @ 92 started:
Let me know as soon as some Pabloites or other Stalinophiles hove into view. Until that happens, and some Stalinist bureaucracies reassert themselves, perhaps a more contemporary analysis might be better.
Note: Your post sidesteps a discussion of the substantive question — in what ways and in the company of which fractions of which classes can revolutionaries act to support the interests of the working people of the planet?
Myriad if you’ve got any links, I would love to read them, I’m reading everything I can about this right now.
Brian, could I suggest we start a second copenhagen thread? This one has been hijacked by idiots and there’s too much noise to filter out now. I would really really support strict moderation should a second thread be created.
Um, I think my use of the M-word landed me in the filtered bin.
Brian@83 “the Danish text proposes to take the running away from the UN. I think we can assume that the poor countries won’t allow that to happen”
The “group of 77 and China” press conference
http://www3.cop15.meta-fusion.com/kongresse/cop15/templ/play.php?id_kongressmain=1&theme=cop15&id_kongresssession=2356
response makes it pretty clear they aren’t happy about it one bit, they know what it’s about:
The riot act is read to the UN secretary and Obama, and the PM of denmark cops a special serve: (he) “is desparate for success at any price.. he needs to distinguish two things, his political career and ambition and the need for successful deal”
Desmond Tutu’s powerful meme, ‘Climate Apartheid’ – “wherein the poorest and darkest-skinned pay the highest price — with their health, their land, and, in some cases, with their lives — for continued carbon profligacy by the rich,” should go viral. With enough of that particular Naming getting thrown around by the right people, it could make the baracking of that famous Kenyan, Obama, for the
CabalCircle of Committment ( did our Kev think that one up, it has the right sort of try-hard copycat backwardness, which I’m sure the French have a word for, and Kev will undoubtedly know it) a tad difficult: THe good ex-Bishop may as well just come out and say it: Obama is a global Uncle Tom.Laughing Lennie C. puts it best: ‘Old Black Joe’s still pickin’ cotton for your ribbons and bows, And evrybody knows”
patrickg, a new thread is a good idea. If one of the others can do it that would be fine. I have to plunge out into 38C heat for the rest of the day. I had in mind to go through and pick out all the useful links, which I can’t do in a rush.
danny, the poor got organised and stopped the WTO in it’s tracks at the WTO meeting at Cancun in 2003. There’s been a stalemate ever since.
The seasoned negotiators from the rich countries try tactics fair and foul, but the poor have simply had enough. Most of the rich are endemically hypocritical and don’t seem capable of learning.
B@100″Most of the rich are endemically hypocritical and don’t seem capable of learning.”
Or as Galbraith put it
Hey Patrick
I’m getting most of my linky goodness via facebook feeds; there I am signed up to 350.org and the climate pool. Oh and also the Australian Youth Climate Coalition
A lot of the issues with the ‘danish text’ were posturing, it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the Guardian article made it out to be. Some of the countries participating in the negotiations (esp. some of the more developed developing countries such as Saudi Arabia) do not want anything legally binding to arise out of the LCA text.
The intervention by Tuvalu drew out a big split in the G77 grouping. The formation of a contact group to discuss their proposal was supported by quite a few G77 countries from the Sahel region, but opposed by China, India, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and a bunch of other OPEC countries.
I am not optimistic that Copenhagen will deliver anything better than non-binding political agreements (waffle).[link]
I think we need to consider adopting a binding per capita carbon emissions target. This would make the playing field level, poor developing nations can increase their emissions up to the level, while developed nations must make very big cuts. China would need to make some cuts and stop their raised emissions trajectory.
The chairs, and some of the Parties (including Australia) are getting worried about lack of time. Tomorrow (Monday) will be a long and interesting day. I expect to be liveblogging some of the contact groups (especially ‘numbers’).
The Wall St Journal is reporting that Canada has announced a new target of a 40 percent reduction on 1990 levels by 2020. Go Canada!
Sadly Peter Wood above, it is a Yes Man hoax.