Copenhagen was locked down as Obama fled after essentially putting nothing new on the table, and leaving the signing ceremony to an aide. Basically the Danish COP President had to pull some 25 ‘representative’ countries aside to break the deadlock. The Conference is about to go to back into plenary to discuss the ‘accord’ they came up with. There should be jostling on monitoring, reporting and verification clauses of the climate accord, but the headline messages are pretty well established: 2 degrees, the promise to establish a panel to look into financing and meta-aspirations on brave new acronyms like ‘NAMAs’. When quizzed on what was new in the Accord – 2 degrees and figures on financing were established well before Copenhagen – the Swedish EU President just told press that “We have been fighting not to go backwards.”
Update 3:34am: Tuvalu, Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba immediately oppose accord. Looks like no deal after all.
3:41am: Rasmussen again proves his incompetence in controlling proceedings. All the plenary members are laughing at him. Looks like Ed Milliband picked it.
Update [by MB]: John Quiggin’s verdict.
Update 2 [by BB]: The final text of the Copenhagen Accord.
How depressing. We’re fucked.
Tuvalu, Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba immediately oppose accord. Looks like no deal. Sorry folks.
Re No. 1
Nothing better than a depressed commie.
Watching this on the box. Hilarious, you cannot make this sort of stuff up.
Three socialist hell-holes and a bloke who has lived in Queanbeyan (he did go to Tuvalu once, though) are enraged by not being given free money.
Wen and that incredibly incompetent retard obamessiah are fighting over who takes the blame.
Wen wins!
Well, he’s the competent and hard-nosed leader of a global power, the obamessiah is a corrupt incompetent community organiser from Chicago, it was no contest, really.
I think they need more clowns on stilts and giant papier mache heads to make Mexico City 2010 a success. Oh, and more smelly hippies dressed as poley bears.
Now, please exuce me, I need another beer as I kick back and watch this hilarious farce continue. Better than Fawlty Towers!
MarkL
canberra
Not unexpected at all, of course. DI (nr) @ 1. Agree absolutely.
Laugh all you like MarkL & JoeBlow. What just happened in Copenhagen makes future tyrannical government a more likely prospect, in the long run.
The wingnuts have been telling me for months that COP15 was a World Government in the making and the watermelon Greens were coming to take away all our beautiful, beautiful money and ban us from flushing the toilet more than once a day.
What happened, wingnuts? Did George Soros run out of cash to drive the great global warming conspiracy? Did the World Government crash because of your mad email hacking skillz?
OR could it be that we’re just witnessing normal human FU’edness at work?
The tragedy here is that the Copenhagen Crash makes tyrannical government more likely, in the long run, because when the easily-gotten resources run out, we’ll be hit with a level of central planning and rationing that’ll make the WWII economies look like the Feast of Bacchus.
Get ready wingnuts, the last best chance for long-term preservation of liberal democracies just took a gutshot that’ll turn septic by around 2050.
I’m still boggling at the ‘Copenhagen failed, therefore AGW is crap’ line of, erm, reasoning. But I’m sure we’ll see a great deal more of it in the coming days.
PC,
The wing-nuts I can put up with . Just. (well, I say that now, but after a couple of days of reading/hearing their garbage I’ll undoubtedly change my tune. Right now I just don’t want to hear news of any kind. Its too bloody depressing.
Its those other implications, Merc, that scare the bejasdus out of me. (I never wanted to live to 110, anyway.)
We’re going to rue this lost opportunity.
Fun times ahead, people.
We’re definitely in for a dystopic future. Life will be brutish, nasty and short.
Update [by MB]: John Quiggin’s verdict.
… much of the plot of which, of course, involved a tall English guy pushing around and bullying a little brownish skinned guy.
And here’s something for our wingnut friends to celebrate to, as Santa has definitely come early for them this year: The Jingle Bells Rock
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itcMLwMEeMQ&feature=related
As for the rest of us, I’m dunno about you lot, but I’m gonna get pissed the season and console myself with the thought that their kids are goanna be just as fucked as mine will be a few years down the track.
Merry Christmas, you tossers.
PC, I don’t think we’re arguing that line. Whether or not one accepts the AGW hyothesis, it was always very unlikely that the nations of the world, riven as they are by east-west, north-south, rich-poor divisions and tensions, would ever be able to achieve anyh kind of workable consensus. Especially when the instrument of reaching and then acting upon any such consensus would be the most corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy in the history of humanity (the UN).
What is of great interest and concern is that the countries of the Third World have been handed a platform of perpetual moral backmail with which to assail the west. That’s what its representatives did at Copenhagen. We saw the the likes of Chavez, Ahmadinejad and Mugabe attacking the west for its immorality and its capitalist basis – large chunks of which they then coolly demanded the west hand over to the developing world as compensation for not being able to industrialise, since the west was chewing up the carbon quota.
We can expect to see a lot more of this in the coming years.
The yes-it-is, no-it-isn’t debate about AGW is a separate issue.
Well, mercurius, that’s not been a view I have ascribed to – and you can check that via the usual means.
However, according to the left’s fellow travellers and various other bedwetters of the apocalypse over the last 30-40 years, I am already supposed to have starved due to over population, been fried medium rare due to the ozone hole, glowed in the dark due to nuclear power, frozen to death due to glowball cooling, cooked due to glowball warming, become a mutant due to GM modified crops, dried up in the glowball desert caused by loss of all plant life due to acid rain, and died in about twenty other horrid ways.
And every time – yup, it was for the kiddies! (and a pile of cold hard cash in the watermelon’s bank account)
Funnily enough, the answer every single time was that it was all the fault of capitalism and the evils of industrialisation, and that the only solution was to de-industrialsie, go soclaist and give away free money to watermelons and third world despots.
Multiple fantasies, same solution, same narcissists. Same reality-denying charlatans and con-men making money (Gore and flannery are nothing new). Same horde of watermelons fervently and avidly believing every hysterical prediction of doom. Same retards saying only they can save the world.
And every time, there was some group of watermelons who made a fortune off the scam.
This is no different.
What is different is that I can watch an incompetent buffoon like the obamessiah giving hilarious press briefings, live. SO the amusement value of this latest envirodoomscreamer scam is relatively higher. So watching this hysterically funny farce is making me feel quite chipper!
Cheers!
MarkL
Canberra
I take the Reverse Spinoza position on this issue.
As every schoolboy knows, Spinoza opined that it was prudent to believe in God because if God didn’t exist then belief is irrelevant in the eternity of non-existence that follows one’s death. However, if God does exist, He might be in a vengeful mood towards non-believers, in which case the rest of eternity may be a trifle uncomfortable.
The Reverse Spinoza?
If global warming isn’t important, then life will go on regardless.
But is global warming is dangerous, then any reforms coming from meetings like Copenhagen will merely delay, not prevent, a catastrophe.
I may not live long enough to witness a delayed catastrophe. Out of curiosity I want to see what this catastrophe will be like. How much more horrible could my death be during a catastrophe than it would have been anyway?
So until meetings of concerned persons enact provisions to actually prevent the catastrophe that they fear, they ought to STOP SPOILING MY FUN!
Onya Mark,
It’s all good fun until someone loses an island.
MarkL @15, I don’t think you and I should live on the same planet. Like the recent tobacco smoking laws, where you have to go outside to indulge in this filthy unhealthy habit, you should get off the planet if you want to insist to shit on this planet. How can you have respect for yourself if you have non for your kids future and the fundamental life forces that support your existence?
It is not not about $$$$ get it? It is about life as we know and experience it. This is no TV or cheesy doco, this is reality, a reality that has teeth and can bite like our ancestors in not too distant past have experienced. I am not a doom and gloomer, as I have been facing my share of scary big things in my interesting life time. So I am not worried about it myself, I can take care of myself in any situation. But can you and your ilk, fat, lazy thinkers with no morals? At least I can wear the badge of being a human with pride and try to do it justice. What are your aspirations, go for Growth ($)?
Well then have a Merry GFC!
Ootz
on a tropical creek up north!
this is an insane proposition. people in the future are going to be significantly better off even under the worst case scenarios the IPCC have come up with. this just confirms my belief that climate change concern is just naked status seeking. climate change concern beats the hell out of other things to care about because the effects can only be evaluated 50-100 years in the future.
Ootz @18 says
“MarkL @15, I don’t think you and I should live on the same planet. How can you have respect for yourself if you have non for your kids future and the fundamental life forces that support your existence?”
MarkL, not only should you live on this planet, but those of us who are “fat, lazy thinkers with no morals” should live together and Ootz and ilk can live together.
Remember, think about the fundamental life forces that support your existence!
Hey, Reverse Spinoza. Quit taking credit for my ideas!
Well, I am a scientist… and have been following the science around Climate Change for about 20 years now. Unfortunately what it seems some still do not realise is that we are past “it will happen in 50 years” and we are into the here and now! It is happening faster than predicted.
What is ? Permafrost is melting releasing methane which is of course a greenhouse gas itself. The oceans are becoming measurably more acidic- resulting in difficult environments for shellfish and corals ( yes CO2 dissolves in water to make carbonic acid). At 450ppm, our scientists at AIMS (Australian Institute of Marine Science) agree there will be no Barrier Reef. Climate Scientists of the CSIRO agree that the prolongued drought and extreme fire events are unprecedented, and are consistent with human caused climate change. THese events have major impact on anyone living in Australia…. on anyone who eats…
I could go on, there is plenty of real solid science out there to say that this is no trivial issue…. and those who insist on focusing on the political circus are missing the point.
“Life will be brutish, nasty and short.”
What, even more than it is now…???!
Mercurius – name one.
OOtz – always entertaining to see a true believer in the goreacle. Send him money, he likes that and will bless you with carbon credits from his very own for-profit carbon credit trading company. No conflict of interest there, is there? You can believe all teh fairy tales you want, and I can laugh at you for doing so.
Suez – no sign of your being a ’scientist’ if you do not follow the scientific method, believe in ’scientific consensus’ and do not demand raw data and teh abiloity to replictae their experiments so you get the same results. If you are what you say you are, then closely examine the CRU code (not the emails, they just prove that they knew exactly what they were doing in falsifying the raw data and building their fraud), look at the code, and see for yourself how they perverted the data until it supported their fraud. No wonder the CRU whistleblower released the FOI response they had been hiding.
As for CO2 at 450ppm – what utter piffle. We evolved as a species when it was over 1000ppm, and there have been global glaciations (yes, ice at the equator) when it was over 4000ppm and over 2000ppm.
MarkL
Canberra
Oi! Each-Way! Try saying that to Marguerite Périer. You just toyed with those ideas.
Try getting ex-communicated by Rabbis. (Actually it wasn’t such a bad thing.)
As we are now heading into a period of environmental thumd twirling, here is a thought to while away the time.
Where does the CO2 in the Coca Cola bubbles come from globally? Is it produced as a byproduct of industrial gas generation, is it extracted from the chimneys of power stations to be cleaned/compressed for Coke, or is it produced in CO2 generators by burning bunker fuel?
Wingnut wrote:
” look at the code, and see for yourself how they perverted the data until it supported their fraud…”
Umm no. But certainly enjoying a denialist in full flight. Or should that be kiddie cooker?
MarkL is correct. Mammals did begin to evolve when the concentration was 2000ppm. Of course that was a mere 50 million years ago.
By then, the stromatolites were dead. A tragedy and an atrocity.
Carbon dioxide is very good for you.
4000ppm is for pussies.
Well, yes, Useful Idiot etc. And it was over 1000ppm when we evolved a few million years ago.
This all being admitted, why all the hysterical bedwetting of the apocalypse over a minor increase in a CO2 impoverished atmosphere?
Last I checked, the laws of physics have not changed. Hence my deriving tremendous amusement from watching all the empty kerfuffle and deranged predictions of doom. Oh, I understand that people like a good case of apocalyptic prediction, it’s all in good fun, people love to pretend that cursing CO2 will save the world and all that twaddle, but surely it’s worth paying somewhat jaundiced attention when the carpetbaggers move in to rip you off on the basis of the scare?
Anyhoo, should not someone be dreaming up the next scare, now that this one’s deflating? There’s taxpayer’s money to be filched, after all!
MarkL
canberra
Excellent MarkL!
I don’t think anyone noticed you moving the goalposts.
With a bit more practice, you could be one of us.
Here’s the text of the Accord in pdf, including the annexures with each nations’ ‘pledges’
Australia’s ‘commitment’ is pretty soft.
Copenhagen Accord
What to make a difference to CO2 levels? Can we please export uranium instead of coal to China and India? Can we please start work on our own nuclear power generation program now? How about some local uranium enrichment facilities to add value?
Lots of green jobs there
Right, MarkL, all we need to do is get our population down to the same levels it was when there were 1000ppm and we’ll be laughing. No worries.
The denialists speak and act only from selfishness. They resent all taxation and consider any collective action as socialism, which they regard as a political program for taking from them, specifically. They are beneath contempt.
The denialists speak and act only from selfishness. They resent all taxation and consider any collective action as socialism, which they regard as a political program for taking from them, specifically. They are beneath contempt.
Projecting Greg?
The celebration of socialist despots in Copenhagen confirms what we all thought – that there is an ugly political agenda associated with the AGW debate which serves only to cloud the issues.
Socialism is the politics of envy and the absence of personal responsibility – and it always fails when implemented.
Hello. I stumbled on this site looking for demonic possession but have been informed it’s a site for lawyers or something. Same difference, right. Different spelling.
MarkL, you have the kind of dismissive arrogance that only comes with being really, really good looking. Unfortunately, not as effective in cyberspace … Still, more effective than the wishy washing tree-hugging armageddon set that have given school children everywhere a ready made excuse not to study/do their own homework. What’s the point, right? The world’s gonna end? Well, apparently, it can wait another year kiddies – so go and finish that report on why Twilight is more meaningful than Catcher in the Rye.
People are acting surprised about the lack of agreement on this issue but nothing surprised me less. Ever tried to plan a get together with a group of friends? Easier to get peace in the middle east than get consensus on what restaurant you are going to, what time, method of payment … And it’s just phucking dinner, for Christ sake. And remember, you all agreed in principle that it was a good idea to go to dinner. So people, imagine a situation where we’re not talking friends or dinner but you all basically agree that you don’t want the end of the world or something but don’t want to pay anything for it. Please. And Australia is particularly committed to this? Bullshxt! The world’s biggest emitter gets its fossil fuel to emit from where exactly? So, anyway, the world’s gonna end. Nothing’s more certain. And it’s gonna be horrible. I learned that in Terminator II and possibly from the Mayans. The only thing that’s uncertain is the timing. I’m thinking of starting a cult involving a lot of alcohol and Colin Firth worshipping. If you’re interested, send money!
What’s with the double-barrel name, MarkL Canberra? Are you related to Peter Harvey-Canberra?
Why not explain your position to the leaders of Tuvalu & Kiribati? I’m sure they’d be greatly reassured by your theories of ever-deferred apocalypse.
You remind me of a guy in free-fall out of a plane…so far, it’s a total rush! Parachutes are for pussies!
I hope you have many children, and they all turn out just like you: smug and insufferable.
Mark L said:
Nonsense Mr Addinall. (I claim my cyber spotting point)
As you should know atmospheric CO2 was never at 1000ppmv duiring the late miocene. It might have been as high as 650ppmv but in any event it dropped rapidly to around the current level by about 3Myr BP, assuming one wants to talk about the period of the immediate antecedents to homo sapiens.
Mark,
It may be true that life evolved at higher levels of CO2, but the stable period of climate we have enjoyed which facilitated the development of civilisation as we know it only occurred at around 200ppm. Sure, the world will go on, but it will be very different and much more chaotic than the one you are used to.
As for your climategate scare-mongering…
So please enlighten me of the aspects of the Scientific method again?
The development of a hypothesis which stands the test of repeatability and peer review? So you consider yourself up to the task of peer review? Unfortunately many in the non-scientific community have forgotten ( Or never learned) about statistics, and try to apply averages to exponential data…. big layman mistake… one of many. That’s why peer review is open to the broader population of published scientists ( who- by the way- after 20 years of debate- finally agree climate change is here)
WHo are these so called climate conspirators of Climate-gate? Both scientists I am aware of who were “implicated” via email were quite open about their oppinions and published them in scientific journals. ( Not very good conspirators) These publications were intended to continue improving our understanding and therefore improve the quality of future modelling and testing. These scientists were absolutely following the scientific method…. pitty many lay people only cherry pick out of context to make their point rather than taking science as the process of integrity it is.
Even if there were 2 corrupt scientists ( that’s all they could come up with when reviewing years/ thousands of emails?) it does not diminished the fact that thousands of other scientists are accummulating mountain of evidence supporting the existance of climate change.
It is pretty difficult to believe that a conspiracy could be that well orchistrated.. that the CSIRO, NASA, oh hell, every national scientific body on the planet (apart from those owned by the Fossil fuel companies) have their own little pieces of the evidence which all point to climate change… but it’s all a really fantastic conspiracy.
Research in various completely independent fields are comming up with their own little pieces of evidence about tipping points we are reaching. They range from biologists looking at changes in biodiversity, to epidemiologists looking at changes to vector-borne diseases, to marine biologists looking at changes to the composition of sea water and impacts on fish populations, to physicists/ meteorologists looking at changes in climate.
Lastly, let’s jsut assume all those scientists are wrong….. well we move away from diminishing fossil fuels to renewables, and we preserve some biodiversity… no one is hurt. No let’s suppose they are right and we do nothing……
Hmmm.. makes for an easy risk assessment doesn’t it?
You’ll be pleased to read this, then!
MarkL @15, you know your’e being an idiot for the sake of a good story dont you.
The food problem has been solved at the expense of the natural world. You would have been fried by the ozone hole if the world didn’t act on CFC’s. Maybe you do glow in the dark, check your vain self out sometime. Acid rain was largely solved by the world acting. There are still problems with GM crops.
I give you what I consider the quote of the year by an American
“We’re a nation built on leverage — oil leverages the distant past, capitalism leverages the resources of distant lands, and debt leverages the future. Unfortunately, we’re set to de-leverage on all fronts.”
By Paleocon about the USA.
Stop being an idiot and start thinking about your contribution to the world’s environmental problems and how it will affect future generations. You remind me of some vacuous teenagers I recently tried to communicate with.
Fair point, Mark L. That simple fact shows that all the hand-wringing by the 192 chicken-hearted nations at Copenhagen this week is a moment of pure mass hysteria.
If the climate turns to shit; even if it goes to 1000ppm – we’ll still be able to evolve. And stuff.
And that’d be fun. Dinosaurs might make a comeback. Which kid won’t love that?
And there’d be no land bridge between North and South America. That’d win the War on Drugs.
It’s win win wherever you look – all upside – blue sky potential. As Tony Abbott says : Bring it on.
Oh, Peter, did I hurt your feelings? Sorry, didn’t know you had any. Please continue to confirm my characterisation, however, for as long as you like.
This is also a description for sociopaths and contrarians. These describe MarkL perfectly.
MarkL is not just a moral contrarian. He is also a scientific contrarian. MarkL has been around LP for many years and is well known for his Christian conservatism. Anything he has to say on scientific matters is automatically suspect.
My interpretation of events: Climate change is the new war on terror, the issue which frames international relations. The world is going to stumble along for years in a dysfunctional-looking way. And it will only end when nanotechnology has advanced enough to make geoengineering easy, at which point nanotech itself, and not climate change, will be the major threat, and the issue which (along with artificial intelligence) compels another reorganization of world politics.
Just to let you know that this site is for sensible people to discuss matters relating to climate change amongst other things. I reckon we’ve had major thread derailment and while I’m awake I’m going to delete further nonsense. (Ive just deleted two.)
Brian – all threads like this get derailed unfortunately.
Perhaps you could set up a generic thread where people who want to debate the science itself from whatever warped perspectives they like can go for their lives…..Just post something that points to that thread and then says that any attempt to post similar things on other threads will be immediately deleted….
LO, good suggestion, but honestly I don’t have time and it’s not why we’re here.
Tim Flannery reckons Rudd played ‘outstanding’ role in Copenhagen climate talks, Christine Milne has a different view.
Lenore Taylor and Peter Wilson look at what went wrong. For one thing it seems the conference organisation was just dreadful:
Certainly 2008 was wasted because Bush was in the White House and now Obama has not yet come to terms with the issue. Much will be said about the arrival of the Chinese as a force to be reckoned with and the role they played to preserve their right to pollute their way out of poverty.
But for me the conference took a wrong turn when it refused to discuss Tuvalu’s proposal that we should be adopting a 1.5C limit and aiming for 350ppm. The Australian in an editorial was gross enough to see the stance of the poor countries as “an opportunity to extract more aid from the developed world.” Rudd saw them as grandstanding. The rich countries chose to ignore them, but in fact they were distinguished from most countries by taking the science seriously.
The first version of the so-called Copenhagen Accord I saw retained that stuff about reducing global emissions by 50% by 2050, showing ignorance of the recent work done on stabilisation pathways.
So far this document is only supported by 27 countries. So it will be interesting to see whether some real leadership emerges to take the matter forward.
I guess they see the Chinese way of life as not negotiable, Brian. I mean that has been pretty much best political practice until recently. I wonder if the US or Australia are prepared to negotiate on their ways of life either.
Well Rudd said on TV tonight that Australia would wait to see what everyone else did before deciding on our targets.
It is very easy to appreciate how the Chinese might consider it gross hypocrisy for the US continuing to pollute at 18 tonnes per capita while at the same time asking that China reduce its 5 tonnes per capita.
Actually I don’t see why it isn’t hypocrisy. The Chinese might conclude that they are wiser letting their people industrialise on a fast-track so that they can better defend themselves from climate catastrophe in the future. China may be afraid that if it agrees to retard their economic growth & climate crisis then still arrives, due to insufficient global action, they will have left their population more vulnerable by denying it resources.
Just like we did.
I think you’ve pretty much hit on it, Brian.
Unfair!
While we in Australia preserve our right to pollute at a much higher rate to preserve our wealth.
The world asking China to take an economic haircut to save our skins ain’t going to cut it.
Not just China. Indeed, why are we talking about ‘nations’ when the real culprits live in the developed world.
If we are talking about what I think, well, I think the Chinese position is ethically defensible except for one problem. If you look at the ‘remaining emissions budget’ approach worked out by the people at Potsdam et al (see Figure 4 in the earlier post) China is already emitting more per capita than we have space for if we want to have a 75% chance of staying within 2C. But they plan to double their emissions by 2030 (what Robert M worked out if they improve energy efficiency by 40% while maintaining robust economic growth). It’s just not compatible with a safe climate.
I reckon the Chinese insistence that the developed countries should reduce emissions by 40% by 2020 is reasonable, though insufficient if you want to continue emissions growth by the developing countries. If you want to apportion blame then the lamentable lack of ambition on the part of the US is probably the biggest problem by a fair margin.
Not sure I made myself clear, but I think we need to recognise the population growth problem and look at emissions in a per capita manner, with a contraction and convergence approach, but within the framework of a limited budget of allowable emissions for the whole planet.
That’s the basic scheme. You could build variations on top of that by mutual agreement.
Measuring the problem on a national total emission basis is useless.
For example this list of countries
USA
Australia
Canada
Saudi Arabia
Taiwan
South Korea
Japan
Germany
Italy
UK
has 0.6 times the population of China – but 1.8 times the CO2 emissions.
The countries listed above need to cut their emissions by 66% before they can even go talk to China.
Indeed! Seems to me we have an indefensible ‘moral’ position.
Thanks Brian. That’s the piece of very bad news I needed to know. (btw – I’m pretty sure we weren’t talking about your position above!)
So we are in real trouble, then. Acceptance of cuts to living stds even in very wealthy countries like Australia doesn’t exist. Not even on the table. So unsurprising that China doesn’t accept it either.
For millions of Chinese living in huts they may decide to take their chances with the climate and instead upgrade to a two room house with water and power.
There’s too many of us; we took too long to see this coming; we don’t have the international relations required; we are all kidding ourselves.
The only slim chance we have is for those with wealth ie those who have a lot to lose and yet the means to also do something – we have to unilaterally go really hard now – and hope we can carry the rest with us later.
But talk to them we must, wbb, and before we cut our emissions by 66% or we are not going to get out of this thing short of a helluva panic when the penny drops down the track.
But I do think we need to show we are serious about the problem before we talk. On the evidence right now the Chinese could make a better case than we could in that regard.
Agreed! And BTW, I was in no way being critical of Brian.
While I agree, I think that’s way beyond the bounds of what is politically possible.
Yes, Brian. We need to talk to them. While we cut.
But Copenhagen has proved to be a distraction. Much of the world was, with child-like innocence, waiting for Obama to pull a rabbit out of the hat. When he didn’t the tantrums started.
The US for its part is 8 years behind everybody else mentally due to the long & retarded Bush reign. They went there, it seems to me, with a half-hearted approach. They wanted to box China in first and foremost.
The US needs to get into lockstep with Europe – that’s a quorum for now – everything else comes next. Why, when we know we have to cut eventually, do we all insist on waiting for someone else to go first?
I think it has as much to do with the fact that not enough people really believe the science. Nobody wants to look like the sucker out front running away from a phantom while everybody else stands behind laughing.
wpd @ 61, no arguments from me about our “indefensible ‘moral’ position”. The only party that comes close is the Greens.
wbb @ 62, cross-posted @ 63. I said somewhere else that Brazil, Norway and France seemed to show promise in recent weeks, apart from the Maldives who are going for zero carbon.
There’s no chance we’ll change our approach through rational argument. It will take a pretty nasty life experience to concentrate the mind.
I think images help a bit, which is why I keep using them, but we are going to need a ‘Pearl Harbour’ to shift the Americans.
No problems, wpd. wbb @ 65, I think the Copenhagen Accord was drafted in the end by five countries – the US, China, India, South Africa and the fifth I think Brazil, but it could have been Mexico. five is about the largest size, in my experience, for a productive working group with all members contributing. Having the first three of those agree on anything was an advance and they did resolve the transparency thing, it seems.
The US of fixated on the great sucking sound of jobs going to China.
The other positive from Copenhagen was the intransigence, frankly, of the poor and the island states in refusing to let themselves be pushed around.
Yes, so a shame the fallout of Katrina was so heavily skewed toward Bush mismanagement – rather than root causes.
We in Vic had a Pearl Harbour in February. Well, emotionally – across the state, it felt like it. I don’t notice Brumby cutting our world beating emissions since. It’s all about the CFA and the Dept and how this agency or that agency could have operated better on the day etc etc.
Frogs in a pot.
Neither of those was dramatic enough, it seems.
BTW it was Brazil. The Copenhagen Accord was drafted by the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa. The Conference of the Parties took note of it.
Gordon Brown done good according to Al Gore.
Agree with MarkL, why should we care?
Wbb, I’d imagine then you read the irritable piece from the AGE’s Paul Austin, a couple of days ago, concerning the level and intensity of collusion between developers, loggers etc and the government itself, now employing the police organs of Victoria as bag men, go betweens and as sources for free tuition to corporations against any dissent from the public or activists attempting to protest some of the worst developments .
MarkL@4: it has been a long time since anyone of my acquaintance has used the word retard offensively. In fact it has pretty much dropped out of use eveywhere. I guess you’re proudly unreconstructed, huh? Fearlessly abusive of any minority or differently abled group. A real man’s man when it comes to abuse. Do you go the whole hog in other arenas: nigger, spick, wog, boong? Coz retard is right up there in offensiveness. And I bet you got some real beauties for women? Don’t hold back. I mean, it is a blog, isn’t it? It is not as if you might have a real live person breathing in your face demanding an explanation or an apology, is it? Your safe wet boy. Speak up.
As for the results of Copenhagen then wot Mercurious sez @6:
“…we’ll be hit with a level of central planning and rationing that’ll make the WWII economies look like the Feast of Bacchus.”
Exactly.
The world’s 3 largest emitters, Australia, Canada and the USA cutting emissions by 40% by 2020 would just about cover China’s projected rise by then. I think those 3 could cut more without affecting any living standards that mattered by reconstructing to a fairer society. Such cuts would have to have an influence on China’s determination to pollute with abandon. A lot will happen technology wise in the next ten years which will make it much easier not to pollute.
Also, the developed world must be running out of room in houses and garages for Chinese products and population growth will run aground soon so one would think the demand for ’stuff’ made in an energy intensive China will drop off.
Salient: you are correct in my view. We need to push on and sharpen our actions on the domestic front. I’ve wondered for some time what peak oil will do to the cost of shipping goods from China to everywhere? Surely this will take a big edge of the competitive advantage it currently has and that it achieves by discounting wages, conditions and ecology?
Salient Green I’m not sure that China is polluting “with abandon”. They are gearing up to be at the head of the pack with renewable energy. It’s just that the whole world has to peak in emissions by 2020 at the very latest and to have such a big emitter peaking at 2030 at the earliest, and probably closer to 2040, is difficult to accommodate, when they are already emitting at a rate higher than is needed to stay within 2C.
I heard this morning that more than half of the countries have agreed to sign up to the Copenhagen Accord. Impressive perhaps until you factor in that funding assistance seems to be contingent on same.
Oh, those dreadful radical nations like Venezuela and the Sudan who wouldn’t buy Rudd’s bull-shit. Now Wong’s trying to tell us its all their fault. More lies.
Useful Idiot etc – I try.
Sasha – thanks for the accolades, pity about the incoherence.
Mercurius – over twice the national average number of kids, and rational, scientifically literate conservatives all. Even better, they have turned most of their friends into fine upstanding conservatives as well. (Hey, it’s a family gift)
Suez – love the causal link you attempt to draw between low CO2 levels and human civilisation. You’re projecting on the conspiracy rubbish. It’s just greed, hypocrisy and arrogance in action.
The Wbb-Brian conversation is fascinating for its fundamental irrationality.
What is really striking about the commentariat here is the sheer self-importance, humourlessness and hubris of some. What is striking about the nature of the AGW apocalypse scammers is their open fascism, so clearly displayed at Copenhagen. Richard Fernandez said it better than I could:
It’s significant that few at LP seem able to laugh at themselves.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, the Chinese won this hands down. They will continue to do exactly as they please, economically. Obviosuly, they treated the whole AGW scam with the open contempt they think it merits. They imposed their views on that cretinous fool obama, and clearly illustrated that he is a bumbling amateur, in hock to them. The optics of the image of the obamessiah begging a calmly dismissive Wen are playing very strongly in PRC media right now.
Intersting times.
MarkL
Canberra
See MarkL – you are a coward. Content to use abusive and dismissive language about people with impairments or disabilities (retard, remember?) but incapable of explaining or defending yourself. Wet boy.
The world’s 3 largest emitters, Australia, Canada and the USA
When a post starts with that sort of nonsense, you just know that what follows will be rubbish.
For the record, Australia has a high per capita rate of emmisions – which could be brought “back to the pack” if we used our natural uranium resources (like many European countries) to generate electricity. China, by most reckoning, is already the world’s largest CO2 emitter – and also of real atmospheric pollution.
Now that MarkL has had his right of reply can we talk about climate change instead of about each other, please?
I’m now inclined to the view that if the collective political will of the world’s elites cannot converge in the most optimal way or anything resembling it in mitigating catastrophic climate change then it follows that a sub-optimal approach mustr be taken.
Since Copenhagen seemed like an excercise in playing policy chicken in which everyone lost, the way to build on this is to take it to its logical consequence — instead of trying to get everyone onto the same page and coming up with a whole bunch of nothing, maybe we should aim to get everyoneinto their own chapter with a synergistic cast of characters, who, from their own set of cricled wagons, can spit bile at the other “chapters” (sorry about the mixed metaphor) in a scale that reflects their distance and lack of complementarity.
People think trade wars are a bad thing, but if in relative terms, trade war is the least bad thing, then perhaps it should be what we accept, at least until everyone (or enough) agree that it’s a greater evil than something else.
If a trade war reduces trade and growth then we get a cut in emissions. If the individual trade blocs reduce their own emissions in ways that protect their own economies from free-riders then the policies will achieve local support. Eventually, the incentive to reconcile with others will kick in, and instead of endless rounds of talks about talks we would make progress that in the interim would probably add up to more than in any other mode.
He’s been breathing oxygen that has escaped the custody of carbon.
As you can see, free oxygen is very dangerous.
But his heart is in the right place.
Thanks MarkL. My editor at the Washington Post made the same point but published it anyway. All’s I’m saying is that you have to be open to the idea that there are shades of grey in all this. And name-calling, although cathartic, ain’t exactly a substitute for a persuasive argument.
PeterTB @81 I prefer to think of emissions in terms of ‘per capita’ as it assigns blame where it is due, and forget to explain this sometimes so for you and any others who didn’t get what I meant (probably no one) – The world’s largest per capita emitters, Australia, Canada and USA…
Fran, If a trade war reduces growth that’s a good thing in my opinion but probably the last thing developed world leaders want.
@ 84 an 85, I think you are referring to a comment I deleted for two reasons.
Firstly, it was purporting to be MarkL, but I checked the email addresses and they were different.
Secondly, it was a pointless remark.
SG@86
I suspect you’re right, but if this is where their choices lead, and the result improves, then what they want is moot. Getting what you want and wanting what you get aren’t at all the same thing.
“The Truths Copenhagen Ignored
by Johann Hari
So that’s it. The world’s worst polluters – the people who are drastically altering the climate – gathered here in Copenhagen to announce they were going to carry on cooking, in defiance of all the scientific warnings.
They didn’t seal the deal; they sealed the coffin for the world’s low-lying islands, its glaciers, its North Pole, and millions of lives.
Those of us who watched this conference with open eyes aren’t surprised. Every day, practical, intelligent solutions that would cut our emissions of warming gases have been offered by scientists, developing countries and protesters – and they have been systematically vetoed by the governments of North America and Europe.
It’s worth recounting a few of the ideas that were summarily dismissed – because when the world finally resolves to find a real solution, we will have to revive them.
Discarded Idea One: The International Environmental Court. Any cuts that leaders claim they would like as a result of Copenhagen will be purely voluntary. If a government decides not to follow them, nothing will happen, except a mild blush, and disastrous warming. Canada signed up to cut its emissions at Kyoto, and then increased them by 26 per cent – and there were no consequences. Copenhagen could unleash a hundred Canadas.
The brave, articulate Bolivian delegates – who have seen their glaciers melt at a terrifying pace – objected. They said if countries are serious about reducing emissions, their cuts need to be policed by an International Environmental Court that has the power to punish people. This is hardly impractical. When our leaders and their corporate lobbies really care about an issue – say, on trade – they pool their sovereignty this way in a second. The World Trade Organisation fines and sanctions nations severely if (say) they don’t follow strict copyright laws. Is a safe climate less important than a trademark? ………..”
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/19
(Also in the UK Independent.)
The question is – where to next?
Richard Black of the BBC – not a sceptic, obviously – puts it like this:
Yes and yes, I suspect.
Been waiting for reference to contraction and convergence in Australian debates for some time. Those arguments were first put forward years ago (1998)and marginalised. see Aubrey Meyer Global Commons Institute. With the g77 and Copenhagen the importance of an approach that has an eye to some justice in apportioning shares of a global common may belatedly make headway. Business as usual is an article of faith for all too many in Aus. So much of their identity is wrapped up in their ‘business’ lives that too contemplate any change is impossible. It is quite something to continually see them deny the science that so much of their wealth is ultimately derived from. The poor level of Australian education standards and the narrowness of curricula have made considerable contributions to this situation, whereby people with power and influence neither notice nor care about their inconsistencies. Elimination of history from many peoples education and the malign American doctrine of post modernism, half understood, has made even educated parts of population lacking confidence in assigning appropriate weight to differing authorities. So no lead from them.
Reading in the above posts about life nasty brutish and short, the Hobbes reference and the various know nothing wingnuts is concerning. Our way of life sadly incubates and allows such mentalities to flourish, indeed I expect civil war to be the outcome in Australia; there is an element in “Know Nothing Party’ that will always refuse any external constraint on their behaviour. There were hints of the tendency in aus past, but with whats coming in terms of dangerous climate change its only a matter of time when the political shit hits the fan. Not that much time either.
Brian:
Thanks, and sure.
the climate changed proposed under the AGW hypothesis (glowball warming, tipping points of ultimate doom and all that malarkey) is demonstrably wrong. Even its core proponents knew this while puffing up teh scam.
All that aside, one of the good impacts of their scam was that a large body of serious work was done, probably 60-70% of the total.
What that work reveals is that the solar inertial motion hypothesis explains first expressed by Fairbridge as an explanation for sudden eustatic fluctuations during the Holocene actually explains the un-perverted observations the CRU/IPCC frauds like Hansen, Briffa, Jones etc did not get to, and also works on modelling the events of the very recent past (the last million years).
Note this is something the failed AGW hypothesis and all its GiGo models has never been able to do.
SIM gives us a view that over the next century we have a reasonable probability of enduring something akin to the Maunder Minimum/mini-ice age. Such an event would have a serious impact on humanity – we know that because we have good records of the impacts that occurred the last two times. Nearly all were negative, unlike the Medieval and Roman warm periods, when impacts were nearly all beneficial. Cold is far more lethal than warm, and history illustrates this quite clearly.
Now that the scam artists and con-men of the AGW scare have been revealed as the charlatans they are, perhaps we can get on with actual fact-based, rational planning for what stands a predictable chance of actually occurring.
MarkL
Canberra
Ive been away and off the nets, so been frustratingly unable to contribute. Its a total failure, but it seems like the UN and most of the world wont even give it the fig leaf of approval – which is something at least. It sounds like big-dick standoff between the US and China has rooted the whole thing. We should have cut them out of a deal just to embarass the losers.
Astounding result: still no deal covering devloping countries, and now Copenhagen has “acheived” the end of a developed country deal as well.
Can someone more in touch with info than I am at present pls tell me:
1. Did the REDD forest deal still get up? and
2. Why dont the Kyoto Annex 1 countries just return to their deal, strike a new modest cut deal for say 10-15%, and keep the moral pressure on the US, China, India and other Kyoto reclancintrants? Any info on how the annex 1 countries are responding?
I understand a scam to be an act of deliberate deceit — a confidence trick.
I’d be pleased to read of some evidence of deliberate deceit by thousands of scientists.
Let’s take just one. Paul J. Crutzen, 1995 Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist, demonstrated the dangerous effects of CFCs on the ozone layer in the face of denialism from — guess who — the aerosol industry.
As an eminent atmospheric chemist with a powerful track record of being right, Crutzen is alarmed by the build-up of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere. This issue appears to be very closely related to the core of his professional expertise. (And no, he never asserted that CFCs were greenhouse gases.)
MarkL, please reveal your evidence of Crutzen’s dishonesty. If the dishonesty is so patent this should be easy for you to do.
CFCs are GHGs, whether Crutzen said so or not
MarkL – you’ve been invited outside by me to justify your offensive hate speech. No reply. Either justify your bigotry or try and find the words to apol … apola… apolag … Oh, don’t bother. Get back to me after watching Daniel Siegel’s talk on Slow TV at The Monthly. It is titled “We feel therefore we learn: the neuroscience of social emotion”. You’ll be out of your depth but I want you to feel exactly how far.
Oh, please, Katz. You are normally more insightful than this.
The logical fallacy is in conflating the now-known dishonest actions of a few with the actions and hypotheses of all.
This is why this ‘global conspiracy by thousands meme’ is so damned ridiculous irrespective of who says it. It’s as idiotic as those stupid 9-11 truther clowns.
While I understand it as a rhetorical defence for those whose fantastical worldview has been proven false by reality, it really is just a strawman.
By this ‘reasoning’, acceding to peer pressure, or just wanting to get on with the job, or just linking one’s valid research to some dumb AGW meme to help get the funding because that’s the idea de jour that has political attention right now (for a few examples)is the same as fraud.
This is just not so.
If Crutzen makes his data freely available to all who ask for it, and openly states his methodology, and happily debates with persons of a contrary view, then fine: either people can replicate his results, or they cannot. If they can, it adds weight to his argument. If they cannot, it may disqualify his argument (or lead to his developing a better/more sophisticated hypothesis), and all of that is fine.
The dishonesty of a few as revealed in the CRU coding should not taint anyone who follows accepted scientific and research methodology. Hell, even if they have gilded their own research lily a touch to help their argument for funding, that is human nature, yes? I’ll not condemn anyone for that – would you?
There is some superb science that has flowed from the fraud and deceit sparked by the guilty at NASA, CRU and IPCC. The Argos float project for example, was purpose designed to measure the ‘warming’ of the world-ocean. It is fabulous science – even if it does show that the world-ocean is cooling somewhat. It got the intended result of telling us what the biosphere’s heat sink was doing, even if the outcome was the exact opposite of what various bedwetters of the AGW apocalypse wanted. We have obtained deep insights into global currents, heat distribution, the IODO, salinity variations, turbidity etc etc. This is good.
Would you condemn researchers for being so human? Would you condemn good science outcomes from all the spending? Would you throw the baby out with the bathwater? I would not.
The scammers here refused to reveal their data, refused to reveal their methodology, perverted the peer review process, throttled off critical reviews, and knowingly made false representation to obtain extraordinary funding. So they deliberately deceived to make money from their actions. We now have the smoking gun which proves this, the code, and the data they misused.
Did Crutzen do ANY of this?
If he did not, why should anyone condemn him?
At heart, you postulate a massive global conspiracy. I do not agree with that postulate.
MarkL
Canberra
Part of the problem is that much of the emission data assigns the emissions to the country that produced them instead of the country where final products are consumed. For this reason countries like Australia China and Australia look bad because a lot of their emissions come from the production of exports or the construction of the infrastructure required to produce these exports. Has anyone got a reliable set of data that takes account of consumption instead of raw emissions?
Another part of the problem is that too much emotion was wasted on final targets vs the more practical issue of what could be done in the next 5 to 10 years. What we urgently need is for more countries to demonstrate that emissions can be reduced significantly without destroying economies. At the moment there is simply too much fear of the short term economic unknown while fear of the longer term ecological unknown is gaining less traction or simply being shut out because we survive by ignoring the things we feel unable to do anything about.
Another part of the problem is that too many people trying to impose legal targets without having any sympathy with the countries that might be damaged by these targets if forced too fast.
We have to take the effort to understand the fears and concerns of the countries that must act if we are to have any chance of cutting emissions. We have to show empathy for key developing countries that are concerned that the are going to be locked into much lower standards of living than what is enjoyed by developed countries. We also need to ask ourselves whether the WTO is a help or a hinderence when we expect countries like the US would probaly benefit from the economic benefits of climate action if they were allowd to do it using internal resources.
MarkL, you’ve moved from just being wrong (as usual) to complete incomprehensibility. I tried reading your post @ 97 several times, and I’m no longer even sure it’s written in English.
However, MarkL, 50 million or so years ago, frogs were thriving. That is not the case now, frogs are vanishing. This does not bode well for our planet and its inhabitants.
Not me, John Davidson. However the USA takes 16% of global imports. That is $7106 worth of imports for each American. They export $4189 per head.
So American per capita emissions are only going to rise, of course, if consumption is counted in. (As it should be and as you say.)
China exports more than it imports ($1075 > $866) – so their per capita emission are reduced.
The USA, Australia et al are climate free-loaders.
Here is a C&C-scenario image with: –
[1] numbers for fossil fuels only
[2] for all-regions/all-years 2000-2050,
[3] contracting globally to near-zero by 2050 and
[4] converging to equal per capita globally by 2020
http://mbf.cc/A59e [it'll be there for 28 days only]
Use Acrobat ‘tools’ ’select and zoom’ then ‘pan and zoom’ to get big-picture and detailed numbers as-above simultaneously . . .
C&C can be shown this way at any rates specified – it is my impression that something like this is now the next step.
Mmmm … Colin Firth … seems the only really sensible solution to imminent catastrophe … lead on.
Just watching SBSnews and the shameful statement from Penny Wong trying to slip blame for the Copenhagen failure onto the third world countries.
To think that I once had so much emotional capital tied up in this woman, in anticipation of the emergence of a honest prospective reformer.
Sorry last- minor error- this was the ABC news, I think. The station whose news is so dumbed down that it leads with five minutes of sentimental eyewash over Mary Mckillop, rather than something relevant.
The striking thing in Aubrey Meyer’s very clever pdf is Bangladesh. No wonder they’re pissed off.
david irving – your comment does not surprise me one whit.
But I was talking to Katz, not you.
MarkL
Canberra
Paul @ $104 … “Just watching SBSnews and the shameful statement from Penny Wong trying to slip blame for the Copenhagen failure onto the third world countries.”
It’s a simple case of “Blame the victim” – the old story of our self-proclaimed and infantile “right” to our so-called “way of life” is greater than anyone else’s right to life – perversely including that of our own future generations.
Just as long as we don’t have to confront any sort of change as confronting this raises too many fears – fears inculcated in our national and consumer-centric psyche and enmeshed with our self-righteous need to remain at the top.
There’s an interesting comparison between the Netherlands (funny name when you think of the artificiality of so much of the country being under existing sea levels!) and Bangladesh. The former, having established an industrial and affluent life-style on the backs of its’ non-white colonies, can afford to engineer massive schemes to try and keep erratic climate “water events” under control. And hoping like hell – even in the face of what climate change may bring – that their pre-eminent affluence will carry the day.
Bangladesh, on the other hand – having been terminally impoverished by hundreds of years of western greed – will just be inundated. Huge numbers of people stand to be obliterated both by sea events from the Bay of Bengal (as is already happening), but also by flooding from the melting of the Himalayan ice cap.
The “white man’s burden” is an aweful heavy cross to bear – even if many of the protagonists promoting it – are no longer “white” or “men”. Which clearly highlights that it comes down to the rich world against the poor; the born to rule mentality up against those ungrateful enough not to realise we – and only we – deserve a life-style based on opulent and wasteful consumption, regardless of the consequences on everyone else – even our own children and their children!
Mate, it certainly is a shameful statement – and it is bedrocked by a shameful and belligerent attitude towards others.
Mervyn@108 – I agree, basically, with most of your sentiments. One thing to be said in defense of Penny Wong is that she was referring to Hugo Chavez et al rather than a place like Bangladesh. Chavez carried on like a pork chop and didn’t help the cause of Bangladesh on iota.
The art of the possible can be a trite sentiment when confronted with policy issues like Climate Crisis, which don’t defer to what may be politically possible.
Nevertheless – going in guns blazing against all & sundry on the basis that they are white or capitalist or whatever else – is not helpful rhetoric in trying to gain consensus. Chavez is stuck in the old mode of them and us – the non-aligned etc. Climate Crisis requires universal cooperation. Like it or not. From all sides.
He did speak like an “extremist”. I understand where he’s coming from – but he made zero attempt to work to a solution. He was more interested in grandstanding and playing to the crowd. His “I still smell sulphur” quip as Obama left the stage was pathetic in a forum like that.
A few years ago I wrote that AGW, regardless of the extent to which it will affect the human race, is beyond the capacity of human institutions to deal with.
The responses to MarkL demonstrate this in spades. He is not to blame – certain kinds of people have always hugged themselves with glee at the opportunity to revel in smug patronising pig-ignorance – but the fact that so many others feel obliged to indulge him by treating his offensive drivel as if it deserves mature consideration; this is what has destroyed efforts to deal with AGW and was always going to.
It’s now a political issue in the worst sense of the words, like gay marriage or unfair dismissal. Just another game for the bored chattering classes, totally divorced from the actual human costs and consequences.
paul a @ 104, I’m not sure whether she was talking about Venezuela and Bolivia who want to get rid of capitalism or poor countries generally. Either way, she has been a major disappointment.
Lefty E @ 93, the US came with a bucket of money but it was contingent on an external inspection/verification/transparency arrangement, which China had been holding out against, and some commitments fro the developing countries. If he didn’t get those concessions he wouldn’t have any chance of getting his climate change bill through the Senate and would have been effectively locked out of the international game.
Whatever the story behind the Copenhagen Accord (I think it’s got Obama’s fingerprints all over it) you’d have to say that it gathered in the limited points of agreement (you can negatively call it the lowest common denominator) and made them into a success for the conference, with a path to the future, instead of an abject failure. At the same time he satisfied the requirements of his domestic constituency.
In that light it was a pretty awesome achievement.
Table 1 of the Copenhagen Accord is worth a look. Amongst the Annexe 1 countries, Norway stands out. For the rest there’s Costa Rica, The Maldives and Mexico especially, with some significant commitments against BAU by some major emitters.
So it’s not all bad and can be built upon. I’m glad they dropped the 450ppm and retained the 2C, as it leaves the way open to acknowledge that the likely implication of 450ppm is more than 2C. I would have preferred Tuvalu’s suggestion of 350ppm and 1.5C to be taken up, but that would have required more rethinking than is possible at a conference of this kind.
I understand the REDDS got up and that Australia stumped up $130 million.
I believe the EU have fallen in with the Copenhagen Accord because it’s the only ball in play and most of the other Annexe 1 countries seem likely to follow.
Obama knows and has said that it is only a beginning. The lead in the saddlebag is the benighted US political class and I suspect the public, no thanks to the sceptic/denialist mob.
Ken, that’s probably right until the threat is perceived as existential, as it is by The Maldives and other similarly placed countries. The fact that they were not taken seriously and were just seen as grandstanding is a tragedy.
Mervyn,
This is not climate-related, but I think a detailed and honest accounting of Netherlands accumulation of wealth would likely show that the vast majority was internally produced by a liberal and inventive and cohesive society with centuries of strong intellectual and trading development, before it became a colonial nation.
For example, the Netherlands took in Portuguese and Spanish Jewish refugees fleeing merciless Catholic oppression; thereby granting safe haven to many folk and benefiting from their wealth, expertise and industriousness. What a pleasant, enlightened society it was, within a Europe with so many semi-feudal and dictatorial systems.
Not perfect of course, but relatively decent and open.
groetjes!
Does anyone know what Norways emissions reduction strategy is? In some ways they are analogous to us, wouldn’t you say? They don’t have nuclear, a quick Google reveals they are researching thorium. I guess they would have hydro potential. Can anyone direct me to some info?
Brian the crucial question is existential to whom? I’m reminded of the Iraq invasion, which to this day remains a subject of supercilious verbal game-playing by the millions of MarkLs of this world, oblivious to the hundreds of thousands who died and the millions who were immiserated.
Rich countries will adapt OK to global warming, except for a comparatively small number of citizens who will be either bought off or otherwise silenced. The peoples who are most at risk lack power and therefore can be ignored. Sooner or later they will act out of desperation, whereupon they can be demonised as terrorists or illegal immigrants or whatever other label the government of the day decides to bestow upon them.
Along the way we’ll probably lose the ridiculous pretence of moral superiority we’ve wallowed in for 100 years but it’s a small price to pay for 5 car families and aircon in every room.
for furious balancing – wikipedia says: “Hydroelectric plants generate roughly 98–99% of Norways electric power.”
I am cheered indeed by the acerbic comments of Ken Lovell @110 and 115 above who characterises MarkL’s comments as “supercilious verbal game-playing and “offensive drivel” that is undeserving of mature consideration. What has not been adequately brought home is that Copenhagen is a disaster. Many did not expect anything else. However, while there was a faint hope then we were prepared to suspend judgement. The agreement, in so far as it is anything at all, is a death warrant for the world’s poor not least the inoffensive people of Tuvalu. The issue is not merely to preserve an inhabitable planet but to consolidate a world worth inhabiting. The two are different. All we have got so far is a future world in which we have obliged our kids to be co-signatories to genocide and ecocide. It is possible that Australians can “survive” at the level of material needs but we will be surrounded by a sea of blood and that, for me, is not an acceptable outcome.
Brian @111: how much worse things would have to be to qualify as an “abject failure”?
MarkL, I reckon I’m smarter than you. I’m a mathematician, and we tend to arrogance, but there you are. We know we’re clever, and most other people aren’t.
anthony n @ 117, the Copenhagen Accord rescued something out of the ashes. But I readily concede that it may have been better just to let it fail.
In the draft text we have (para 12):
In the final text this becomes “consideration of strengthening the long-term goal.”
The UK Met Office told the conference in the first week that if you want to limit to 1.5C you have to peak emissions next year or it’s too late.
So on that basis you are perfectly right.
Heh.
anthony nolan, COP15 was better than the 14 previous COPs.
the world’s leaders attended
the world’s media paid it full attention
there is bitter disappointment at the COP15 outcome
etc
All these are signs of growing climate consciousness that didn’t exist prior to 2009.
Not saying it is enough; not saying it is not too late – but the thing is going in the right direction – if perhaps not on the right trajectory yet. We can’t measure what the acceleration of our response is – but all is not lost yet – there is perceptible acceleration. I’m a pessimist too, but am not prepared to say it’s a lost cause.
Ken L @ 115, I’m talking about an event or events that are so catastrophic and clearly climate-related that everyone will get the message.
My favourite has been a Katrina-like inundation through storm surge of New York killing a few million.
John D @ 98, ‘consumer pays’ is good in principle if it could be made to work. We had a look at carbon labelling back in June and decided, I think, that it was impractical.
Thanks Brian for the links to the text differences. Oh well. New strategies needed. This looks to me to be the most significant imaginable crisis of political legitmacy. Parliaments all over the world have just torn up the rule book.
Markl = = you really have to stop this – its like shooting fish in a barrel
Mervyn Langford, the best single comment here comes from Mark, #50.
Particularly note his terse dismissal of the obnoxious and callous “Oz” editorial.
He was gentle. I was curious enough to check it out and it is indeed “gross”; an utter disgrace.
Apart from offering a gratuitous insult to the intelligence even of its readership, it serves as an indictment of whatever anonymous, gormless, callous piece of s–t who wrote it and executives and editors who ran it.
Apologies again, Brian at 50- Freudian slip.
Could be the same Mark L that once haunted Bartlett’s blog.
Two clues.
Firstly, a content-free zone as to his posts.
Secondly, the one at Bartlett always did this “Canberra” BS as well.
No – don’t stop. It is better than watching Fremantle Dockers get flogged, again.
You’re enjoying seeing MarkL get outflanked, Razor? I thought you were a glibertarian.
MarkL, it’s not impossible that some scientists take the dishonest approach to their career that you describe. But you have done Paul Crutzen a grave disservice.
In your response to me, that is precisely what you have done. I explain your attempt to disavow your own arguments below.
But isn’t that exactly what you accuse AGW proponents of doing when you claim that they are all part of a scam (Note, not a series of smaller scams)?
In Crutzen’s case this cannot be further from the truth. He is an aging, eminent figure in his field. As head of a major division of the Max Planck Institute he is at the end of his career. His work on ozone required him to combat entrenched opinion and some major deniers. Yet he stuck to his guns. It beggars credibility that he would change his ways of a lifetime at this point in his career.
Crutzen, as far as I know, has done no original research in this area. Yet in his position he would have refereed countless papers on this issue. Without his ok, these papers would never have seen the light of day. This is how academia works. If you dispute its ability to sift gold from dross most of the time, you may as well burn every chemistry journal in every library in the world. Your claims on this issue puts you in the same category as the truther conspiracists whom you so rightly condemn.
You are making a completely unwarranted assumption that because one group of scientists has been caught being less than candid in their professional practice, therefore every scientist whose findings conform with theirs must also have achieved their results in a fraudulent way. This is an illogical assertion that also makes you sound like a truther.
Yet the vast bulk of this work has proven the opposite. You appear to have taken an a priori approach to deciding what is valid and what isn’t. This is at odds with the scientific method that you claim to respect.
No. My hypothesis is that a large number of honest, though fallible, human beings have devoted their careers in a search for important truths. Independently, and critically, they have pieced together a consensus view of the state of the world’s climate. They may be wrong, but most aren’t confidence tricksters. Paul Crutzen is among the most eminent of these persons.
By claiming these scientists have been part of a scam (“Even its core proponents knew this while puffing up teh scam”) you have questioned their honesty.
Based on your evasions in declining to answer a simple direct question, it appears to me that you cannot justify your wild claim and have used verbal legerdemain in a failed attempt to conceal that fact.
Save your breath Katz, MarkL is likely away doing his behavioural research on you and others like minded:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2005/08/08/the-question-on-everyones-lips/#comment-19213
Of course PK.
But on the other hand “[i]f [MarkL] makes his data freely available to all who ask for it, and openly states his methodology, and happily debates with persons of a contrary view, then fine: either people can replicate his results, or they cannot.”
Nevertheless “I have not shared this activity with anyone, of course” suggests that he is taking a less than candid approach to the reporting of his researches.
I doubt that anyone will bother to attempt to hack into his emails, however.
Wbb @121: you are right and it was kind of you to bring the improvements to my attention. Thanks.
Go MarkL! If I can make a request, given that you’re giving them such a flogging here can you explain if the earth is cooling, possibly flipping over into an ice age why the hell is the North Pole shrinking? Why are the glaciers melting?? Or are these false reports?
I hope that you are right MarkL. In the meantime feel free to keep your lifestyle. I’ll sitck to my Pascal’s wager and resist the big TV, air con and car for now.
Sasha@37 – does your cult do music and dancing? I think we need a Carbon Celebration Cult where large fires are lit to celebrate the liberated carbon as it assumes its rightful place floating around in the atmosphere. Then, under the evil light of said flames we can all copulate madly and bring forth a new wave of humanity to wash away the taint of negativity and doubt that plagues the modern world.
I got to Brian’s post @66
and decided enuff was enuff. I have been avoiding any news for weeks because the thought of Copenhagen was just too damn depressing. We were never going to get anything, be it world government or collective action out of Copenhagen for reasons most elegantly described by Sasha @37. When you add the immensely powerful and growing self interests of China and the US to the mix, then all the rest of the world can squawk about floods and fires and droughts as much as they like because these two players with their economies and carbon footprints pretty much determine what the rest of us have to put up with.
It’s good to see the optimists out in force proclaiming this as a win for common sense as I am utterly fascinated by the world view that says our current consumption of resources and exploitation of the natural world can continued unabated. The only logic they seem to understand is “I’m ok and phuck you”. So I think some paganistic celebrations camped under the light of a full moon might be the only answer since rationality can be so easily defeated. Longer term I guess we just have to carry on waiting for the real world body shocks to bring about the totalitarian rule we just have to have.
enjoy the solstice.
Katz @132 “I doubt that anyone will bother to attempt to hack into his emails, however.”
No, but I did a bit of profiling .
As to the author of MarkLs favorite “educated guess”,the SIM hypothesis, Rhodes Fairbridge is a champion of guess who.
On your V8 (@34) MarkL in Canberra, go and have your juvenile ‘big bangs’ somewhere else.
May peace be with you, it is the holy season after all.
Ootz
Copenhagen failed because rich countries don’t want to stop their excessive consumption and polluting ways. Developing nations continue to be shafted. The Chinese aspire to the developing nation paradigm, albeit with a greater commitment to renewable and clean energy.
The framework and architecture of the Copenhagen negotiations was flawed and very likely to fail – which it did.
We must set and achieve goals to ensure a safe climate future such as limiting per capita carbon emissions to 2 tonnes per person, limiting global temperature increases to 1.5C, and reducing atmospheric C02 to the range of 300 to 350ppm.
It is clear that global and national political and economic systems are failing to address climate change and associated ecosystem collapse, even though we have the technology and opportunity to move to low carbon economies and lifestyles. [link]
The Copenhagen Accord was cobbled together to avoid the appearance of total capitulation to greenhouse gas intensive national and industrial interests.
Suggestions on how to embrace a new paradigm? How about a global vote where everyone on the planet gets a say?
Brian @ 122:
Even this would be denied as natural variation, a one-in-a-hundred-years event, and not something we can, or should, do anything about.
I think we need to see repeated inundation of major cities, relentless heatwaves, an endless drought where a major city runs dry … that kind of thing. It needs to be more than a one-off catastrophe like Katrina, it needs to happen again and again and again, and there needs to be an undeniable connection with human carbon emissions.
carbonsink – I think if the AGW “debate” has shown anything it has shown that everything can be denied when it comes to carbon emissions
Contrary to the doom sayers I think we are on our way however falteringly towards global agreement. Regard this as a process of learning in a large high stakes prisoners dilemma scenario.
the outcomes so are limited, fragile and progress and far from a first best solution. But the issues are firmly on the table things are starting to move and the US may have got enough movement from China on the measurement issue to be able to get relevant legislation through the US Senate.
Progress towards a better outcome will not be helped by the use of disaster language eg Bob Brown. Strategically I think that is the wrong way to set the rhetoric.
Contrary to the attitudes of the AGW denialists the issues of climate change are firmly on the global agenda and they are not going away. Policy commitments and directions are being set that however inadequatley shift the policy debate on to a different plane.
Nederlanders @ 113
I’d agree, the Dutch were pretty “progressive” towards fellow Europeans, at a time when my english ancestors were happily burning people they hated at the stake.
…”What a pleasant, enlightened society it was, within a Europe with so many semi-feudal and dictatorial systems.”
I’m sure the many, many peoples of the “Dutch” (!) “East Indies” (those dozens of cultures and societies that we just lumped together as it was an area we were able to grab hold of), would have agreed wholeheartedly with you – throughout those centuries of enlightened liberalism foisted on them by pleasant and enlightened Dutch Europeans.
I suppose that’s why they fought so hard against de-colonization!
Mate, I think this is part of the crux of why it is so hard to find a way to construct a fair and equitable agreement on how to proceed, re-configuring a world worth living in: throughout the centuries of colonialism, we had a racist view of how good we were, taking these poor heathen and ignorant people under our (enforced) protection – in exchange for ripping them off endlessly for their natural heritage and resources – all at our discretion and for our benefit.
Now our rascism is hidden more in a glad-bag of rationales: “level playing fields”, “carbon trading / offsets” (who can financially afford to buy what?), etc – but it comes only at our discretion – albeit decided in “open” meetings, bedrocked by what we’ll accept as their contribution to our welfare!
And by golly! – their “right” to live or die will be decided by us – the “developed” nations – because we think it best for us, and we will include “them” – we need at least some of “them” in their little niche corner: either to make the trinkets we crave so badly, or as curiosities for us as tourists.
Well, carbonsink, you could be right. Barry Brook reminded us last year that with a 30cm sea level rise once in 100 years storm surge events become once on three years events.
So once might do it if the water is pouring off Greenland, the Arctic becomes ice-free in summer and chunks keep falling off Antarctica etc. But even then by the time what’s happening becomes bleeding obvious to the most recalcitrant it will be desperately late in the day.
Doug @140 – perhaps. Realistically there was never going to be anything more than public tokenism from Copenhagen but I think the larger question is, given the idea that action on climate is now on the policy table, will catastrophic climate change arrive before public policy produces an quantifiable reduction in carbon emissions?
Problem is Carbonsink those heatwaves are going to kill those of us with air conditioners. In other words the poor and those denying ourselves aircon for the greater good.
Leaving behind the “I’m allright jack” crowd.
They might have a point.
Dave
Agree with you – we do not know if we can get through the learning process on policy change in time – but we have no chance at all if everyone adopts the “we’ve all been roon’d said Hanrahn” approach.
The realities of the issue are coming close to home. In the Koori Mail this week there is a story about the impact of rising sea level on islands in the Torres Strait. The AGW denialists need to be confronted resolutely with the real impacts that are here now. Abstract arguments about statistics – its getting a bit late for that. Real people with real faces whose lives are being impacted now ,that’s where we have to go.
To get some perspectives on the significance of what was and wasn’t achieved at Copenhagen it is worth browsing some overseas papers. The Independent proved a variety of perspectives ranging from David King http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/david-king-there-is-a-way-ahead-after-copenhagen-1845709.html reflection on the significance of the emergence of the newly developing coutires as key interlocutors to Johan Hari’s call for mass democratic engagement and non-violent action.
Doug, it is the world’s scientists making these predictions. Bob Brown and Christine Milne happen to be the only politicians who appear to be taking them seriously at present.
Are you suggested that the frogs (us) not be told who warm the water is getting?
Exactly what policy commitments and directions are you referring too? There were not of any consequence in the Copenhagen Accord – it is all voluntary, non-binding aspirationals stuff. Similar to Australia’s voluntary code of conduct for advertisers.
I found it interesting that the denialists didn’t get traction on their cause, yet I suspect they would be mostly very happy with the failed outcome.
Meanwhile, Wong and Rudd are continuing to bang on about an ETS (CPS) that won’t do anything either. And kick Abbott. And those countries who opposed the Accord.
By the way, does anybody know which countries actually signed on to it? It is curious there is no published list. There were 29?
Peterc @ 137
Limiting CO2 to two tonnes per person, ok. BUT also making sure that that includes any kids people choose to have.
Otherwise someone can have four kids so the household can have twelve tonnes per year – probably get some nice aircon and a SUV on that.
I reckon if one wants to have kids, then one has to do it within one’s own 2 tonnes.
Finally – given the comprehensive failure of talkfests etc, of which Copenhagen seems merely to be the last, can we start moving toward technological solutions – that we know will work, and stop hankering after market based ‘holy grails’ which in the end will still finish up needing technology to actually have any effect.
I mean solutions for acid rain, and ozone depeletion were technological – all the pollies had to do was decided to apply them.
Same for our present problem – we have enough technology to make a substantive start on massive carbon cuts – all our pollies have to do is to decide to apply it.
We have been talkfesting for so long now that much of this technology is mainstream and ‘business as usual’. I suspect that for some politicians, talking and pretending to belielive in the need for a low carbon future means less cost than applying well known technological solutions.
So to be positive, how about two streams of action? Stream 1 can be technology and political facilitation of that technology, and stream 2 can be the politics and economic holy grail seeking of market solutions. Maybe both streams might come up with a combined solution that exceeds our wildest dreams.
That way we have a better chance of success, than putting our eggs in the politix/exonomix stream, whose culmination so far is, well, um, Copenhagen.
Peterc @ 137
Limiting CO2 to two tonnes per person, ok. BUT also making sure that that includes any kids people choose to have.
Otherwise someone can have four kids so the household can have twelve tonnes per year – probably get some nice aircon and a SUV on that.
I reckon if one wants to have kids, then one has to do it within one’s own 2 tonnes.
Finally – given the comprehensive failure of talkfests etc, of which Copenhagen seems merely to be the last, can we start moving toward technological solutions – that we know will work, and stop hankering after market based ‘holy grails’ which in the end will still finish up needing technology to actually have any effect.
I mean solutions for acid rain, and ozone depeletion were technological – all the pollies had to do was decided to apply them.
Same for our present problem – we have enough technology to make a substantive start on massive carbon cuts – all our pollies have to do is to decide to apply it.
We have been talkfesting for so long now that much of this technology is mainstream and ‘business as usual’. I suspect that for some politicians, talking and pretending to belielive in the need for a low carbon future means less cost than applying well known technological solutions.
So to be positive, how about two streams of action? Stream 1 can be technology and political facilitation of that technology, and stream 2 can be the politics and economic holy grail seeking of market solutions. Maybe both streams might come up with a combined solution that exceeds our wildest dreams.
That way we have a better chance of success, than putting our eggs in the politix/exonomix stream, whose culmination so far is, well, um, Copenhagen.
Whoops. Apologies for the double post.
tssk @ 134 – if you think that Pascal’s Wager is worth taking then I am interested to know which religions you have also decided to deem worthy of supplication to – Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Taoism, Bhuddism, Hinduism??
Peterc – the projections of scientists about the impact of failure to act is one thing, I was not referring to that. My criticism of Bob Brown relates to the use of the rhetoric of failure to refer to the outcome of Copenhagen – what we need from Bob is some articulation of how we move forward from where we are in a way that gets us moving and gives us an opportunity to avoid the outcomes that will arise if we continue to do nothing. Simply saying failure, failure, failure does nothing to move things foward.
The denialists will wrongly take that as encouragement and they don’t need that rhetorical space. What we need are people saying loud and clear there is international agreement on the need to work to a global warming target of two degrees. Copehagen is not a sign that there is a movement to reject the issue and that point needs to be made.
I would draw attention to John Quiggins take on this:
The 2 degree target has been controversial, with lots of countries calling for a 1.5 degree target. But it’s important to remember that only a couple of years ago, the Stern Review was focusing on a 550 ppm stabilization target, which would most likely be associated with long-term warming of 3 degrees. If we can get agreement now on a 2 degree/450 ppm target, there’s a reasonable chance, given technological progress, of bringing concentrations back down to 350 ppm or even to pre-industrial levels (about 280 ppm) by 2100 and that trajectory would have a fair chance of avoiding any sustained period of temperatures more than 1.5 degrees above 1900 levels. Even that trajectory implies significant environmental damage, but it minimises the risk of large-scale climatic catastrophes
http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2009/12/19/glass-half-full-department-2/#more-8142
@ Razor. I’m a lapsed Catholic. (Still follow some of the beliefs but don’t go to mass as required by the Pope.) Environmentally Pascal’s Wager is an easy ask for me. Could be trickier once I have kids though. I’m willing to risk my health for one or two weeks of heatwave a year. Do I even have the right to deny my children air conditioning on ideological grounds? Or would that be tantamount to abuse? These are questions I will have to answer in the next two years.
Re technological solutions.
Ironically every skeptic I know in real life is quite happy with a massive build up of nuclear power – for reasons other than global warming ( cleaner, more reliable, less reliance on ‘the ragheads’ etc. ) and is quite familiar with some of the newer technologies such as thorium. On the other hand every AGW proponent I know is totally opposed to nuclear power in any form. Go figure.
Peter@154
The climate skeptics are mostly from that part of the political spectrum that is really happy with the police state, the radioactive waste that they will dump in working class areas and the nuclear proliferation that are an essential part of the nuclear power paradigm. Those that profess to be leftish as well supporters of nuclear power are mostly really dumb ivory tower academics who will sacrifice the whole world to be kept in the soft sinecures to which they have become accustomed.
Huggy
Peter said:
Oh dear …
So you don’t visit Professor Barry Brook’s Brave New Climate?
The Nuclear Green Blogspot is also worth a look.
Along with Brian I am one of those here who avows the mainstream science on climate change and favours very robust action, including, where apt, resort to nuclear power — especially GenIV thorium and fast spectrum reactors.
This is an interesting take from Robert Gottsleiben on climate action. He say that
It will be interesting to see what the government does now. The figures Brian@ 111 links to for the accord suggest that Australia should stop waffling around and commit to the 25% reduction by 2020. When over 95% of 2007 world emissions from the burning of fossil fuel came from countries with lower per capita emissions that us we can’t keep poncing around being all self righteous while awaiting for lesser emitters to commit. If Abbot really wanted to win the climate action wars he should get in and announce a commitment to this target before Rudd gets around to doing something.
It is also about time the government explained how its emasculated CPRS is going to be able to drive the required changes by 2020.
Actually I suspect that support for nuclear power amongstthe filth merchant fraudsters and the reactionaries more generally reflects their insight that nuclear is controversial/unpopular with leftists and will in consequence push most of us to advocate policy settings which would underpin more fossil fuel usage using renewables as a figleaf.
There are all sorts of ways to win policy debates and wedging your opposition is certainly one of them. Truth be told, the fossil fuel spruikers would be appalled if nuclear power became accepted on the left and would dump it in a heartbeat as a giant leftist porkbarrell/tax scheme. After all, the value of coal and oil would plummet. There’s nothing like the largesse in uranium or thorium sales or the manufacture of plants to compensate the wealthy for loss of those fossil fuel asset values.
Interestingly, the biggest supporters of windfarms within the corporate world are sellers of natural gas.
John Davidson @ 157: Gottsleiben is a denialist. View everything he says from that perspective. What he’s advocating here is direct action, direct investment by government, and picking winners. Its a completely anti-market view which is a little odd coming from a financial commentator, to say the least.
I believe Greg Hunt did his PhD thesis on emissions trading schemes, and concluded that an ETS is the least cost way of reducing emissions. Trust me, Hunt is lying through his teeth everytime he opens his mouth now. He must be torn apart inside.
The only reason for supporting direct action over an ETS or carbon tax is political. Direct action will cost more in the long term but its more political palatable because it doesn’t involve a “Great Big New Tax”.
Carbonsink said:
Not only that, but it is, ironically, more conceptually popular with large swathes of left-leaning people precisely because it is a non-market solution, and we lefties are suspicious of big business. It thus allows the promoter to wedge his opposition with an unholy anti-state/pro-state alliance under the banner of “common sense”. Realistically, as with nuclear power, the coalition knows the government isn’t going to take him up on the idea, so the incoherence of the position will never be tested.
We might also so “tinkered with” market solutions.Some Senators in the US are proposing a different system.
“Cantwell and Collins fear a cap-and-trade system would create a new commodity market ripe for speculation that could cause volatile price spikes that would harm consumers and the economy.
Their alternative would instead create what has been called a cap and dividend structure.
The government would still cap emissions and sell carbon permits, but the polluters could trade the credits only among themselves. There would be no outside market for trading the emissions credits.”
http://theland.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/agribusiness-and-general/general/alternative-us-carbon-trading-scheme-unveiled/1706119.aspx
As mentioned on a thread at Club Troppo Australia could also ban coal and coal derived product exports.
That is one way direct action would work.
Apparently coal exports are worth 3% of GDP so their exclusion wopuld take us back to mid 2008 levels.Not a tremendous imposition.
The link is http://clubtroppo.com.au/2009/12/11/circus-time-in-kopenhagen/
You do realise don’t you that 3% of GDP is probably about 200,000 jobs?
Chances of wearing that politically? Zero.
It is rare that I am drawn to say this because it is rare that it needs to be reinforced but this is so big I just gotta:
Told you so.
On the other hand, if anyone is really bothered by Chinese, Indian or other emissions and likes the idea of “direct action” one can always stop buying the stuff they offer.
That costs very few jobs here and if everyone who was bothered did that, their emissions would fall.
Doug, I agree that positive articulation of how we move forward from where we are is vital. The 2 degree target is progress, but remember it is still non-binding.
Marks, allowing for kids in the 2 tonnes per person is up for discussion. Maybe all 6 billion of us get our 2 tonnes that can then be allocated on as appropriate, but additional allocations not allowed?.
Implementing solutions is critical – talkfests like Copenhagen are not – if they don’t yield good outcomes. The market-based mechanisms like the CPS are just a distraction if they don’t agressively reduce emissions. Direct regulation would be much better. Like Malcolm Turnbull banning incandescent globes but much much more.
The problem we have is our pollies won’t go down this path as their industry masters currently won’t let them. And nobody else is represented.
Your suggested 2 streams of action sound good.
What was it you told us Razor? That Copenhagen would be a washout? Colour me surprised. It’s a (temporary, I hope) victory for the rentseekers, but that was always on the cards.
Razor …
You didn’t need to be a genius to work out that the challenges of getting a binding agreement here were going to be insurmountable — herding cats really. What’s more interesting is that the tougher concept — restitution for past emissions — is now firmly on the policy agenda.
I’m reminded a bit of that sci fi book the Garden of Rama where despite being in a closed environment a mob boss manages to win over the use of resources to run casinos at the expense of neccessaties. The lone voice of reason ends up on death row and eventually the writer has to resort to grand Deus Ex Machina to sort out the mess.
Just saying.
Life imitates art, tssk. As Chavez said, if the climate were a bank, it would have been fixed by now.
Of course even converting existing coal fired power stations to gas would have a massive effect.
Given that many of the existing coal fired power stations are getting to the end of their economic life, it is not a very painful, or divisive technology.
It could have been done years ago, but for the ‘waiting to see what the future regulations are going to be’ tripe.
You don’t have to enter the nuclear debate just to stymie carbon reduction strategies. That’s a red herring that needs sidestepping.
(It might do better than gas, for those who are really really serious, but not orders better).
It costs $10 billion to build a nuclear power plant. France has 58 of them. We would need about 20 of them to account for all our electricity needs. That’d cost $200 billion. Could be all done by 2020. In a dictatorship.
What are the figures for wind & solar?
Fran @ 156:
I said people I know in real life. I realise that a number of commenters here also support nukes. As does Barry.
However amongst those I actually know, the HuggyBunny type ignorance on display @ 155 is much more common.
As an aside we should be willing to take all this so called waste for a fee. We can then sell it back at a huge profit. This ‘waste’ is worth trillions.
Bob Brown says he’s open to negotiation on targets. The Greens favour 25-40%. The Government will contemplate 5-25%. The answer is obvious.
Peter said:
Yes, but not because we could sell it back but rather, because we could use it to generate power and relieve other states wanting to develop nuclear of a political obstacle. We would be making a direct contribution to worldwide abatement and a reduction in proliferation risk.
Winners all round.
tssk @ 153 – just as I thought.
Those that quote Pascal’s Wager in relation to the theory of catastrophic human caused climate change are unwilling to apply it in it’s original usage – although many aspects of adherence to the theory of catastrophic human caused climate change are easily interpretted as religious.
Yeah, I’m gradually coming around to the Nuke option and mainly because I see a market opportunity which is to enter contracts to store the waste and then send it illegally to be dumped in Siberia which is where France ’stores’ a lot of nuke waste. Usually in leaking drums. Money to be made there. Maybe even more if I can link up with the industrial waste disposal companies operating out of Napoli.
Nah, phuck it, why not send it to Tuvalu instead. Or Bikini Atll as the place is already rooted.
If South Australia can legislate a 33% MRET by 2020, why can’t other ALP states do the same?
South Australia is hosting the CleverGreen Conference in Adelaide in February. Maybe John Brumby should attend. (Or will he be too busy fighting bush fires?)
Inhofe goes to Copenhagen, gets called “ridiculous” by Der Spiegel
Inhofe at Copenhagen
wbb, Brumby is too busy riding shotgun on $20b PPPs to deliver greenhouse belching desalination plants that will operate 24 X 7 and top up Melbourne’s water reservoirs so that water restrictions to be lifted.
And reclassifying woodchips from our destroyed native forests as sustainable biomass for burning for electricity.
And banning the creation of any more forest National Park to stop those peskies greenies from stealing from the logging industry’s free cookie jar.
If it was a Cleverbrown conference he would attend.
while we are on the topic of increasing trade barriers we could also stop importing people from poorer countries. we could start with the refugees. most people who come from poorer countries to Australia will increase their emissions.
Woah Razor! That’s shown me up! I shall atone by voting for Abbott as a sign for my repentance!
Seriously though. I’m not for nuclear power at all. But it’s the only option we have left now.
Start building the reactors now.
Actually scrooge, that’s either a fallacy or a rationale for misery.
Australia’s emissions reflect demand for energy but each new person doesn’t demand the same per capita energy as all the others any more than a person who moves into a house with three others will use more of the house’s embedded energy, cause the fridge to run harder or the lights to demand proportionately more light or the TV to use more power due to the extra person. Maybe less of the household food will be wasted or they will cook more at home.
If the person gets onto public transport he or she isn’t going to affect the demand for energy by anything more than the weight he or she adds to the train or bus.
Much of Australia’s energy is tied up in smelting aluminium for export which has nothing to do with migration, regardless of source.
Maybe this is what the nuke dupes want?
http://www.jstor.org/pss/4313067
Will give the Pacific a nice green glow??
Huggy.
BBC News September 16 2009:
“A shipwreck apparently containing toxic waste is being investigated by authorities in Italy amid claims that it was deliberately sunk by the mafia.
An informant from the Calabrian mafia said the ship was one of a number he blew up as part of an illegal operation to bypass laws on toxic waste disposal.
The sunken vessel has been found 30km (18 miles) off the south-west of Italy.
The informant said it contained “nuclear” material. Officials said it would be tested for radioactivity.
Murky pictures taken by a robot camera show the vessel intact and alongside it are a number of yellow barrels.
Labels on them say the contents are toxic.
The informant said the mafia had muscled in on the lucrative business of radioactive waste disposal.
But he said that instead of getting rid of the material safely, he blew up the vessel out at sea, off the Calabrian coast.
He also says he was responsible for sinking two other ships containing toxic waste.
Experts are now examining samples taken from the wreck.
Other vessels
An official said that if the samples proved to be radioactive then a search for up to 30 other sunken vessels believed scuttled by the mafia would begin immediately.
For years there have been rumours that the mafia was sinking ships with nuclear and other waste on board, as part of a money-making racket.
The environmental campaign group Greenpeace and others have compiled lists over the past few decades of ships that have disappeared off the coast of Italy and Greece.
Processing waste is highly specialised and is supposed to be an industry where security is the top priority.
If tests show that there is nuclear material on the seabed it will prove that the mafia has moved into its dirtiest business yet.”
Well, of course, that is Europe. I mean, we Aussies would do a far better job at handing toxic materials, wouldn’t we? Maybe we could give the contract to James Hardie’s – I mean they are trustowrty, aren’t they? And it could all be supervised by the happy folk at ANSTO who managed to store radiocative material at Lucas Heights for sooo long and sooo well.
Katz
Hmm. You raise good points, Katz. I’ll address this below.
No. I am not making a blanket accusation against all AGW proponents. There are too many distinct many categories of such – that approach is simplistic. At the core of the current interpretations of the AGW hypothesis is a small group of people critical to the IPCC case. These include Hansen, Jones etc – the CRU etc crowd who we now know deliberately perverted the processes and the data. Then there are the activists/politicians (IPCC/Greenpeace etc, Gore/Flannery etc) who profit directly from leveraging off the fraudulent work of the core.There are then the smaller time grifters who run various green cults etc.These are the ones I mean when referring to the AGW scam. There is a clear divide between them and the mass of the gullible, those who follow the cultic aspects of it and all the other flavours of folks involved etc. Some of these are exploited by con-men like Gore and the smaller time grifters attracted by the hordes of gullible marks he and others attract. Others have been convinced by carefully cherry-picked data, and again there are all sorts of categories involved. Off to one side are scientists who have accommodated themselves to the reaility that this hysteria exists. A small number of them may be tring to profit directly, but most simply keep on doing their work in a changing environment.
As for Crutzen, does he not fall into this latter group? If he has come to his views openly and honestly, and is willing to hear opposing views and argue the case on its merits, why would I have the slightest issue or quibble about him? The core of academia is the free exchange of views and the willingness to be open to new information. That is what condemns Jones etc at CRU – they deliberately perverted the peer review process and stifled opposing views. What is Crutzen’s view of the activities of those at CRU condemned by the whistleblower’s release of the FOI package Jones etc illegally withheld (especially the coding)?
No, I am not making this assumption. That is clear in what I wrote earlier. There are lots of shades of grey here. My glaciologist acquaintance linked her early research to glowball cooling, to help get her first grants. She linked it to glowball warmenating to help get her last set. She does hard science not related to either scare, but ‘had to add the mandatory forelock-tug to the current ecological panic the greenies are running to scare the politicians in to giving them power and money ‘. Her words. Her work on the Antarctic peninsula’s cap (~3% of the total) has been cherrypicked by AGW hypothesis proponents to support their case. Her work on the continental cap (~97% of the total) does not support it, and they ignore that work. AGW supporters used the former, and did not use the latter. Any imbalance there is certainly not hers, is it?
As you have done here, I note. Because the ‘vast bulk’ of such work does not support AGW. As in the example above, only the ‘vast bulk’ of work picked by AGW believers as supporting their hypothesis falls into this category. Most actually does not – look at the latest Journal of Coastal Research for examples.
Here we agree.
With the exception of the use of the term ‘consensus’ (the term is inaccurate in science), we generally agree here too. And this delineates frauds like Jones and Hansen from people working on their own research/hypotheses/theories who may indeed, be found wrong/incomplete, accept that, know there is value anyway, and accept all that as the price of progress.
No such generic claim was made. Such a specific statement was made about Jones, Hansen etc, the core IPCC group who we now know falsified the data
Cheers:
MarkL
Canberra
MarkL @ 187 re: the work of your glaciologist mate – show us the data, cite the reference, give us sources because otherwise your claims are rhetoric only and lack authority. In fact I suspect you of making it up.
Good stuff, MarkL and Katz. I tend to be in the MarkL corner but Katz is always a challenging and thought-provoking interlocutor. Some of the shriller voices around here should take note: this is the way you might win over your opponents. Civil discourse, even sharpened by the odd touch of snark, works (or at least it very possibly might). Dogmatic insistence escalating into figuratively screamed abuse doesn’t, and won’t.
Katz, I still owe you some responses to your questions over on the other threads. I’m very tired now but I will try to get to them.
Brian @122: I am not talking about putting carbon labels in the supermarket but ranking countries in terms of the emissions generated producing the goods and services that they consume rather than what they emit. I don’t think it is impractical to make reasonably accurate estimates of how much emissions from conversion of fossil carbon to greenhouse gases goes into exports and arrives in imports. Ideally, these figures should take account of the emissions resulting from the building of the factories and infrastructure required to produce these products.
There are of course some interesting questions such as which country is responsible for tourism related emissions. Gibraltar has over 7 times the Australian per capita emission level – I suspect that the reason is that most of the people on the island at any one time don’t get counted as “population”.
Rob, that’s malicious. Clearly designed to give Ken Lovell heart failure.
Most people do the crossword to make sure their brain is still working. Katz however likes to argue the point – any point – with the deluded.
And in fact Mark L offers cerebral health effects of greater benefit than either of the crossword formats.
He offers the stretched obscurity of the cryptic crossword with the ease of the quick crossword. Flexibility and speed combined. Mark L should charge Katz gym fee.
Hotly contested of course by denialist’s testickooler emissionating…
Carbonsink@159: Can you give me one example where CPRS will actually produce smaller price increases than direct action? All the cases I have looked at show that appropriate direct action is a much smarter way of driving change.
John D @ 190, I guess what’s exercising my mind is how is consumption behaviour going to change if carbon is not priced into the production and is not available as information. But I must confess to being tired at the moment, so I won’t attempt to think it through.
Rob@189: I’m still waiting for your explanation of what other scientific orthodoxies you are sceptical. You are all show and no go mate. Same with MarkL: where is the reference to the published data or paper? You two put me in mind of a terrific story about Menzies in which he was heckled by a nong from the audience who kept singing out “Waddaya gonna call it?” and was clearly alluding to Menzies girth, implying that he was pregnant. Tiring at last of the nuisance he paused and replied “Well sir, if it is a boy I shall name him after the King and if it is a girl I shall name her after the Queen but if, as I suspect sir, it is all piss and wind I shall name it after you”.
Brian @ 194
Crude example.
Just make diesel and brown coal produced power no longer tax deductible business expenses.
You can of course finesse it as much as you like.
However, it is a very simple matter to change the tax regime by making high carbon inputs non tax deductible.
Make competing imports similarly non tax deductible if they are from a high carbon source.
Direct action.
John D – how about a simple adoption of all measures?
While trying to legislate a price on carbon, which is politically difficult in Australia right now, the government should be doing direct action regulation where it can – eg double the insulation requirements of new houses, increase the fuel standards of new cars; strengthn land management laws; ban native forest logging etc.
Then once the initial pissweak ETS is finally in place, we should go back and fix the loopholes and raise the bar on the first round of direct action regulations; and work on getting through the next tranche of regulations.
All the while the government should be actively picking winners in renewables with subsidies on establishment of new plant and grants for R&D. Strengthening non-car transport options etc.
I don’t think we should worry that an ETS is going to mean no direct action etc – a price on carbon simply needs to be one arrow in a bristling quiver.
Thanks for the info above Brian – appreciated. Fact is, any conference with the REDD deal in it cannot be called an abject failure. Its pretty close to a revolution in global resource management – getting paid to conserve. Thats a credible breakthrough.
Aside from that, its a poor result. But Im inclined on reflection to believe on balance it was worth getting the major polluters onbaord with 2 degrees goal, and push from there. Now we’ll have too see what the promised reductions tally. Im not optimistic there, but we wont be able to grade copenhagen properly until february. It might get up from 3/10 to 4.
Oh and denialists or inactionsist having a gloat: enjoy it, because it aint going to last long. Getting US and China to report and acknowledge the science and 2 degrees is actually a devaststing blow to your cause. The failure to legally bind the agreement dilutes that for now. But the global momentum will continue, and continue, until a legally binding effective deal is struck. Its only a matter of time. We’ll be back here next year, and the year after, aand after that. It aint the republic.
Thats why Abbott wont get any mileage – he’s picked a losing cause and will go down with it. Its a short-term strategy when he hasnt got a short term hope in hell. The 2010 election is gone already. By 2013 Abbottt will look like a fossil peddling that nonsense. Rudd has his own problems- the CPRS cant deliver real cuts. These will be needed. 5% is already dead in the water.
MarkL, I’m still struggling to map your utterances back to English. I don’t think it’s possible at the moment.
Could you please make an effort to be coherent in future? Some factual content would be helpful (although only a necessary, not a sufficient, condition).
wbb @ 197, I think it’s going to be direct action and tax and an ETS in the long run. 4WDs and big cars should be taxed through higher registration fees to cover the extra CO2 emitted.
marks @ 196, the problem is how do we here in Oz take responsibility for the emissions generated in making all the bumph we import from countries outside the Annexe 1 net?
Ben Eltham @ Mew Matilda: “Will Rudd Pay A Price For Climate Failure?”
That’s a good thought.
How about : the CPRS works by asking Big Polluters to pay for their carbon permits. Treat imports as a Big Polluter (which clearly they are), so while those imports are coming through the front door and getting their OZ safety standard certificate and whatever other red tape imports already have to satisfy – slap a carbon rating on the imported product – for which emission permit then required.
This is basically the carbon tariff idea that is already being mooted – but without the loaded language – and applied universally no shame attached.
Katz and MarkL: It’s possible you both could find this concept to be of some interest in your interesting discussion.
On a completely different note…
David Irving (no relation) says: “MarkL, I reckon I’m smarter than you. I’m a mathematician, and we tend to arrogance, but there you are. We know we’re clever, and most other people aren’t.”
So, I don’t get it. “David Irving” is the name of a well-known (or problematic, if you prefer) writer/historian. So if someone comes along online calling themselves “David Irving”, then I am not at first glance concerned about whether or not they are related to that writer — my first thought is to wonder whether they are the selfsame or different people. I might wonder about the relation question if your moniker was, say, “Bill Irving”, but “David” not so much. To be clearer, your moniker should therefore be something like “David Irving (no, not that one).” Unless when you say “David Irving (no relation)” you mean that you are not related to, say, Penelope Felicity Caldwell Irving, or Augustus Waldo Irving or some such. In which case then it would make sense.
So, which group are you in again — the clever group, or the other group? Because it’s not clear to me.
Grimble Grumble, I reckon he calls himself David Irving because that’s what his mummy called him. Betcha!
Thanks for your thoughtful response, MarkL.
The model you are proposing here:
Is a description of a particularly pronounced example of Thomas Kuhn’s “normal science”.
And then you discuss a specific example of how this “normal science” works:
If this process does represent how a significant amount of the AGW science is done, then it does raise serious questions about the validity of the science.
To what extent is MarkL’s characterisation of the cherry-picking nature of AGW research correct?
And I have an historical question: how did AGW evolve from a fringe position in scientific thinking to one that is now a quite powerful orthodoxy? My suspicion is the it wasn’t led by con artists but rather by honest scientists. But it is nevertheless true that later political considerations have influenced the way in which science was done and the way in which the results have been reported. I may be completely wrong and am happy to be corrected on this point.
It’s a joke, Gnome (but Brian is quite correct).
Brian @ 200
“marks @ 196, the problem is how do we here in Oz take responsibility for the emissions generated in making all the bumph we import from countries outside the Annexe 1 net?”
This is an interesting one philosophically. I ruminate sometimes about how can we compete with countries that have slack work safety regimes, and poor social support, and high carbon emissions – all of which are effectively trade subsidies by those countries.
Personally I think that for all of the above, their exports to countries which do have good work safety and social support and low carbon emissions should be tariffed so that there is a level playing field set around decent work safety, social support and low carbon status. (And you might add child safety, no prisoner or indentured labour as well).
The basis of the ‘level playing field’ would be existing conventions on all those things, so it would not be hard to set the rules.
Of course there would be plenty of work for the economists around to set the actual $ levels of tariffs, but given that Aust exporters would then have a much fairer competitive environment, and those countries with poor work practices and human rights would get a smack in the chops, I cannot see it as a bad thing.
Oh, and the money thus collected should be then diverted back to those countries in toto, and directed at improving conditions. eg building and staffing of hospitals and rehab programs for injured workers, green R&D, private investigation and prosecution of child labour offenders, outreach and training for those kids etc. Then those profiting from the exploitation could not claim that ‘Aust tariffs only hurt the people they are trying to help’ – as is usually the dry argument.
If Rudd did that, maybe he would get to be Secgen of the UN…or then again, maybe not.
Are Climate Denialists just Attention Seekers?
Climate denialism is, in principle, a pointless cause. A pointless cause because, if correct, nothing will happen with our environment. Everything will continue as ever before. Ever before, at least, if the world’s population of human beings becomes stable, and oil resources prove to be endless. But a strategic climate denialist would state her/his case then sit back and wait for the proof. With the world’s governments now aligned with a determination to prove that climate denialists are in fact correct, that proof will surely come. Or not. If climate correction works the good climate denialists can rise vindicated in their belief that there was nothing wrong in the first place and the international effort was a waste of time. In the event that glabal warming runs away despite the international effort then a good denialist could fade into the shadows to re-emerge with an entirely new cause.
The megavocal climate denialist on the other hand, I suspect, has a very different agenda. Such people, I believe, are not at all interested in the issue content, just the conflict. If the issue was toilet paper anal chafe, such people would argue that it was not at all real. Such people are driven by the attention, and are as are happy with the prospect of fame, as they are delerious with the probability of infamey. Climate action failure for an extreme denialist is the stage layout for endless scorn which is also an attention seekers Heaven.
It is always possible we are experiencing an incident of the Captive Mind syndrome.
But evidence for that is lacking. Trawling the internet for work by escapees from the (inadvertent or not) conspiracy, one finds the same few names, the same reasoning again and again. The anti-AGW position is very flimsily supported.
So for the moment – as a non-scientist – it would appear to be taking an inordinate risk to suspend judgement on the prudence for taking action to counter the greenhouse effect.
There are two main anti-AGW schools :
– Believe global warming is not occurring or has ceased
eg Robert Carter
– Believe global warming is primarily caused by natural processes
eg Ian Plimer
The trouble with the anti-AGW position is that it is not a single theory – but a number of different theories. If all the anti-AGW scientists could first agree amongst themselves and manage to produce a unified line of argument – then they’d stand a better chance of convincing governments not to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As it stands they are a motley crew.
You are on the right track Bilb. It’s most useful to see those seeking to engage in this agnotological campaign as largely culture warriors. Although they feel bound to appeal to scientistic jargon and borrow the mantle of the persecuted sceptic this is really little more than a figleaf and performs in exactly that way — for it hides what in most cases would be seen as at best, embarrassing. Nobody is fooled though — any more than Prince Phillip was fooled some years ago when someone thoughtfully sought to hide the genital appendage on the Statue of David from him by draping it with a piece of cloth. I wonder if that was a ‘decline’ worth hiding?
But I digress.
The enemies of action on AGW are driven by a kind of anomie and angst which I’ve dubbed SSA or socio-spatial anxiety. Again and again you hear the refrain that they don’t want other people running their lives. Their complaint is against government in general, bureaucrats, busybodies, greenies, do-gooders and indeed anyone who would presume against their personal right to a free ride at the expense of others. In their ideal world, they’d have a giant bubble about them and their ’stuff’ which nobody could touch or impede and yet in which they’d somehow avoid suffocating. Yet as they look about them, people with grubby fingers are pressing up against their bubble and threatening to puncture it and enforce sharing through regulation and taxes and those bastards at the UN.
But if that were the beginning and end of the claim of these putative hermits, they would simply be laughed at by the vast majority of the polity and as they7 looked at themselves in the mirror, even they might flinch at the visage staring back — being a selfish sociopath isn’t most people’s idea self-image — so they have to press-gang policy concern and ’science’ to their service.
This is the key to understanding their delusion. Like other variants of reactionary cant, it’s simply a form of words to suppress the misgivings they hold about the nature of the social world that presses insistently upon them.
wbb,
I think there are two main anti-AGW schools:
1. Believe global warming is not occurring or is not an issue. E.g:
- it is not happening (the world is getting cooler!)
- it is happening but within natural variations/cycles (sunspots, middle ages warm period etc)
- is not caused by CO2
- others . . .
2. Believe climate change is happening but are paid to spread misinformation about it to:
- confuse the general public
- influence government policies and legislation
- allow polluting big business to continue as they are
- like the hired guns of the tobacco industry did . . .
I have seen the first category in action at first hand and have noticed the following demographic.
- a high proportion are male and middle aged
- angry and bombastic
- not listening to arguments or evidence; fixed in their beliefs
- a proportion are professionals who have worked in areas close to or tangential to climate science (geology, IT, statistics, public service etc). Many of these claim to be climate scientists when they are not.
I think their world views and belief structures are challenged and they are reacting to this stress by clubbing together, executing media strategies, writing books & letters, blogging, sending emails etc. Denial and irrational behaviour is observable too.
Unfortunately I think we will see more of this type of behaviour as more people become directly challenged the climate change that is happening to and around us right now.
And some of the second category may be active on this and other blogs.
Assuming MarkL has accurately reported the statements of his glaciologist friend, I’d suggest she is imaginary.
Or perhaps we could be given a link to some of her output? A list of the journals in which she has been published? Anything?
MarkL, just so your friend doesn’t have to out herself and possibly fall off the gravy train she’s currently enjoying, I’ll pose a few questions which you can put to her.
1) What was the research topic linked to global cooling?
2) Where and when were the results of that research published?
3) You write on her work on the “Antarctic peninsula’s cap”. What does she mean by this – was this work on the Larsen Ice Sheet, The West Antarctica Ice Sheet, or the Pine Island Glacier?
4) When she said, “AGW supporters did not use the latter” did any of her results disprove AGW?
5) What is her explanation for the retreat of glaciers around the world?
I await her answers with interest.
Katz
You and I have held rational, civil and valuable conversations here before – valuable because I find that different viewpoints provide insights otherwise unavailable. It is a tad difficult to develop intellectually without this sort of discussion, IMHO.
Yes.
Agreed. And this is the issue hidden by the various partisan ‘camps’, each of which pretends to an ‘absolute truth’. Gore is the best known example of this (I freely acknowledge that there are others on the opposite side of the ideological divide – I use Gore simply because he is the best known). He made his initial money in the oil industry, but now pretends to oracle status regarding AGW.
In doing so he has raised his personal fortune to nearly $1,000,000,000, indicating something of a conflict of interest in my view. Following the money is a useful indicator.
I’d propose as a useful example (of cherry-picking) the use of his well known movie. Another (maybe more useful) example might be the CRU feeds into the IPCC reports. A third one might be the apparently deliberate injection of artificial warming ‘adjustments’ into terrestrial data: the frankly astonishing modifications to Darwin Airport’s data is a case in point.
A useful example here might be the consistent treatment of Antarctica as one climate zone. It is actually two such zones, the maritime (peninsular) zone and the continental zone. The former is ~3% of the icecap, the latter ~97%. The former is warming for reasons not understood, the latter cooling, again for imperfectly understood reasons. Comparing the frequency of the ‘Antarctic is warming’ meme to the structure of Antarctic research outcomes might be interesting.
This is a useful question and one too few people ask. I suspect that the answer may well involve ‘concept capture’. This is a pretty well known process where a valid concept originating in one milieu (a scientific hypothesis in this case) is ‘captured’ by entities from another milieu and used for their political, economic or ideological purposes/advantages. (The classic example of this is the German NSDAP ‘capture’ of traditional central European anti-semitism and its use by them as an ideological tool to push their perverted mix of socialsm, paganism and ultra-nationalism. There are other examples, of course, as this is quite common in bureaucracies.)
Unfortunately, this also brings out the conspiracy theorists.
I started off in this debate away back when global cooling was all the rage. The two competing hypotheses were AGC (global cooling), and SIM (solar intertial motion). The latter explained what was being observed better than the former. Today, some of the same players in AGC are promoting AGW. To me, this is an adverse indicator.
SIM still explains observable reality better than AGW, indeed somewhat more so now that the issue has shifted back to AGW and SIM has been so much better researched. The current cooling trend was predicted mid way through last decade, whereas the AGW modelling failed to predict it.
While routinely described in emotive and perjorative terms as a ‘denier’, I simply accept that SIM explains the observable results much better than AGW or AGC. I routinely ignore those who have used such emotive terms in this discussion. It’s nothing personal, merely that they have self-identified as not yet being able to hold this sort of civil and rational discussion, having an emotional tie to either AGC or AGW.
MarkL
Canberra
Do you have any good references Mark L? I can’t find much about Solar Inertial Motion. Not even a wikipedia entry.
And the below suggests the concept is yet to capture much attention.
Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue 50, 2007
Hi MarkL,
From the political intensity of your language about climate change
I doubt that you are very interested in the Scientific arguments
surrounding it at all, except insofar as you are able to leverage
it for your real objective.
That goal I judge to be defence of Capitalism against the challenge
that threatens Capitalism’s validity as an economic system – AGW.
In this way you are a fellow traveller with people like George Pell
and Lord Monckton who present loquaciously on anti-AGW, stress Scientific
arguments, say ‘I know Scientists who…’, present superficially
plausible anti-AGW arguments, but whose real motivation for fighting AGW
is defence of ideological positions they see as threatened by AGW.
For Pell its Catholic positions on fertility, for Monckton its fear
of a Communist-led One World Government.
Let’s review your use of political language to attack AGW
Science:
@4
socialist hell-holes
that incredibly incompetent retard obamamessiah
@15
the left’s fellow travellers
a pile of cold hard cash in the watermelon’s bank accounts
Funnily enough, the answer every single time was that it was all
the fault of capitalism and the evils of industrialisation, and that
the only solution was to de-industrialsie, go soclaist and give
away free money to watermelons
reality-denying charlatans and con-men making money (Gore and
Flannery are nothing new). Same horde of watermelons fervently
and avidly believing every hysterical prediction of doom.
Same retards
And every time, there was some group of watermelons who made a
fortune off the scam.
latest envirodoomscreamer scam
@29
There’s taxpayer’s money to be filched, after all!
@79
and rational, scientifically literate conservatives all. Even better,
they have turned most of their friends into fine upstanding conservatives
as well. (Hey, it’s a family gift)
What is striking about the nature of the AGW apocalypse scammers is their
open fascism
cretinous fool obama
the image of the obamessiah begging a calmly dismissive Wen are
playing very strongly in PRC media right now.
@215
‘concept capture’. This is a pretty well known process where a valid
concept originating in one milieu (a scientific hypothesis in this case)
is ‘captured’ by entities from another milieu and used for their political,
economic or ideological purposes/advantages. (The classic example of this
is the German NSDAP ‘capture’ of traditional central European anti-semitism
and its use by them as an ideological tool to push their perverted mix of
socialsm, paganism and ultra-nationalism.
The overall picture from your comments is that you are an evangelical
Conservative convinced of the superiority and goodness of Capitalism
and the inferiority and evil of socialism. To the Left you ascribe qualities
of fascism, fraud, deceit and doomsaying which qualities they are deploying
in regard to AGW for the purposes of ‘concept capture’ so as to
push a perverted ideology on wider society. This will contain two of the
elements of the other hideous ‘concept capture’ group the NSDAP, namely
socialism and paganism.
Your third-party reference to Paganism I found significant in the context of your
favourable quotation of Richard Fernandez IRT ‘fallen nature’ @97, the
supplementary information that you have empathy for the teachings
of Jesus (as I do) and George Pell’s specific concerns about the relationship
of AGW to Paganism.
In a similar vein, your reference to the left’s agenda for the
de-industrialisation of the West immediately brings to mind Minchin’s
identical views on the issue.
Your references to humourlessness are closely correlated to your comments
on Fascism and are then applied to the Lavartus Prodeo commentariat. You think
the left are Fascists.
Finally, I would guess that your reference to Obama hopelessly begging Wen
for favour, which Wen impassively waves away, is your statement of fear at the
passing of Global Domination from the USA to China, emblemetic of the Left.
In the end MarkL I say you are another Cold War Warrior fighting the old
and good fight using AGW as a proxy.
Sure you like and enjoy Science but its not your primary concern here.
If AGW is real, Capitalism has killed the planet. This would mean you,
like Minchin, have been worshipping an idol with feet of clay. But you guys
have too much personally invested in the fireside stories of the goodness
and greatness of Capitalism as well as the stupidity, unreality and hypocrisy
of the Greens. That a Green issue should have successfully killed Capitalism
represents the success of a heresy of the weak, cloud-cuckoo Greens over
the good, great and rational true faith.
The Death of Capitalism to persons so invested in its myths such as yourself
represents a death of self.
For this reason there is no way that you can allow AGW to be real.
AGW must be denied
denied its victory
so that your ego may live.
baraholka, I dips me lid.
I reckon that MarkL is either as dumb as a bag of sand, a compulsive liar, or seriously deluded and psychotic. There really aren’t any other choices.
Id say its an inability to adjust to changing reailty, a desire for certainty, combined with the feeling that their life work (victory over teh left in 1991) is being threatened by the abundantly clear need for state regulation, and internationalist action. Among many, there’s also an element of narcissim: these huge global issues are all about some lefty they once knew, who they now imagine nyah-nyahing them about the fleeting victory that was the unregulated growth, minimal state model of the 1990s. But it was already dead, killed by sub-prime.
Id say its only a very small minority who actually believe the shite they peddle. Its just that they quite like annoying the left, and also would rather die on a dead arid earth than admit the world has to move on from the Washington consensus. I dont know why anyone imagines its about the science for these ideologues.
Well said Baraholka.
One clarification – I think the Death of Capitalism has two grim reapers
- the planet reacting to the surplus of greenhouse gas emissions
- those greedy rich bastards who engaged in criminal fraud and unbridled greed to create the GFC, including banks, brokers, investment advisors etc.
Zoot’s questions:
Are good questions.
Indeed they are Katz, but are most unlikely to be answered due to the fact that his glaciology friend like his Emeritus Professor friend (remember that?)and numerous military friends on every base in every corner of the world: is imaginary.
MarkL has an imaginary expert friend for every occasion and if you don’t watch out: tactic #2357, he’ll get them to laugh at you!
(The only ice sheet research that MarkL is likely to be aware of, is the time taken for an ice cube to dissolve in his glass of whisky.)
Some cats are best skinned slowly, PK.
Stop harrassing MarkL. I was waiting for him to expplain the melting of glaciers and/or ice sheets. (Note, come on Mark, it’s dead easy. Just ask me if I’ve ever actually been to the North Pole with a tape measure and it’s arguement won.)
Sometimes I’m reminded of a line from a They Might Be Giants song.
“I don’t want the world.
I just want
Your half”
Yeah, give him a break. Poor sod, as a lapsed lefty he is just externalising his internal turmoil. Unfortunately these troubled characters are attracted to major social issues like moths to the light, to fight their demons. If he has done any military, surely he would have come across some risk assessment and contingency principles. I particularly would hope so if he is in charge of any of these big bangs he is so fond of. So what is the problem with using the cautionary principle in the AGW case I ask? Or spending some money on it, if we can afford to prop up financial institutions and digest their bad investment decisions?
Katz, Tssk, Ootz, OK, fair enough, although I must caution that normally at this point of the discussion when his rant pants are on fire, Marky advises he’s catching an Airbus 380 for a military conference in the USA (nah_nah_di_nah_nah lefties, eat your hearts out.)
Over to you MarkL?
Peterc@220 said
As culturally as emotionally satisfying as it would be to agree with you, I cannot.
While the environmental crisis we face amounts to market failure on an epic scale and threatens misery on about the same scale or worse, it’s unlikely that these circumstances will see an end to the usages we commonly put under the rubric capitalism. Indeed, the worse it gets the more likely capitalism is to survive, precisely because there are no better mechanisms for effectively and efficiently allocating relatively scarce goods. Some capitalists, perhpas most, will be worse off, but enough will be better off to fend off all challengers — and from their POV, that’s all that matters. The latitude to depart from scarcity-based pricing is correlated strongly with relative abundance. If times become tougher, there will be even less talk of socialism or willingess to innovate than now.
That really is the best answer to those who say that AGW-mitigation is a left-wing plot. It’s really a “plot” to save capitalism from the consequences of the epic market failure they have authored so that labour productivity can continue improving and lay the basis for equitable and sustainable societies composed of people living in dignity.
Googling for “limate Change Deindustrialise The West” I immediately found this page Eco-Economic Warfare And The Planned Collapse Of Western Civilisation”
It contains this couplet…
…which is pretty much MarkL verbatim @15 And every time – yup, it was for the kiddies!
The page contains other MarkL themes: fear of China, Paganism/Climate nexus, socialism=fascism.
I would say MarkL has imbibed a good deal, if not yet all of this philosphy, which happens to be a New World Order scare page.
Which makes me wonder, how much of it does Minchin agree with ?
Minchin looks mentally ill to me. That fixed, sweaty smile and stilted demenour: he always looks like he’s self-consciously trying to play act at being normal. I would love to spend a few days with Minchin share a snifter or three of – wassat stuff ? – Cognac and listen to what Minchin really thinks of the world.
It’d be rivetingly hilarious and spine-tinglingly chilling I reckon.
Katz
I am careful of discussions here: essentially I trust none of the normal denizens. I have my friend’s permission to use the examples I have, I do not have her permission to openly identify her. In view of the tenor here, and the specific tenor of this debate over the last few years, what guarantee is there that she will not be subject to accusations of some kind?
I have emailed my friend and asked her to look at this thread. I’ll post any parts of her response which she gives me permission to. Last night, their satellite link was up.
However, if people are interested in SIM (wbb 216), the references below will give a pretty solid grounding (Wikipedia? Oh please). Fairbridge, of course, was the original who developed the hypothesis as he sought an explanation for the very rapid eustatic fluctuations during the Holocene which he discovered in the 50s. What is very interesting now in this field are the linkages being found between solar and extra solar influence, and climate. So even the astrophysicists are now getting involved in fascinating ways.
Wbb, SIM is not ‘fashionable’, but you’ll find a heck of a lot of research being conducted in relation to it and to solar and extra-solar influences on the biosphere. This is one of the major advantages of the ocean of money poured into research due to the AGW hypothesis being used in the way it has.
Baraholka (217). Good grief! I think you have wasted much time on that deconstruction. Pity it’s a laod of nonsense. I find the SIM hypothesis explains observed events, and AGW does not. I find the various ideologically inspired types, the obvious frauds like Gore, and the opportunist pollies who have hitched themselves to the AGW ‘scam’ (qualified as above in conversation with Katz) to be contemptible. That’s it.
“The overall picture from your comments is that you are an evangelical
Conservative convinced of the superiority and goodness of Capitalism
and the inferiority and evil of socialism.”
“Evangelical conservative”? Evangelical? No. Conservative, yes.
“convinced of the superiority and goodness of Capitalism?”. Naturally, as it has lifted more people out of poverty than all other economic systems combined. (two generations ago my own family were dirt-poor agricultural labourers, right now, I am half way through my doctorate and my kids are at uni. Thanks, capitalism!)
“convinced …of…and the inferiority and evil of socialism” Of course, that’s what history shows – look at 20th century history, witness the mass slaughter inflicted by such regimes, their oppression, murder and impoverishment of the unfortunates ruled under such systems, their automatic decline into totalitarian/authoritarian states (where they did not start as such), and their utter inability to generate economic outcomes anywhere near the capitalist model despite their efforts to do so. Socialism lies where it deserves to lie, on history’s ‘ash-heap’, a monument to inhuman barbarity. May I present Comrade Mugabe’s Zimbabwe? Comrade Pot’s Kampuchea? Comrade Kim’s DPRK? The Gulag Archipelago? May I present Comrade Wen’s PRC, which has chosen to save it’s Imperial ruling elite by abandoning its socialist ‘economy’ and replacing it with a capitalist one? Baraholka, even the Chinese Communists know socialism does not work. That’s why they dumped so much of it.
Amusing that you are still a believer.
Glaciers: the usual Wikipedia level of knowledge is being displayed. get back to me after reading up. Start with Braithwaite, R., 2002, Glacier mass balance: the first 50 years of International Monitoring, Progess in Physical geography, 26, 76-95. Then start on Braithwate’s references.
MarkL
Canberra
PS: SIM related papers: enough to be getting on with, anyway.
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BOCHNICEK, J., HEJDA, P., BUCHA, V., AND PYCHA, J., 1999.Possible geomagnetic activity effects on weather. Annales Geophysicae 17, 925-932.
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For anyone who is interested, I came across this article which provides a reasonable overview of the competing scientific claims regarding global warming.
Global Warming and Climate Change, Chemical and Engineering News
December 21, 2009 Volume 87, Number 51 pp. 11 – 21
Frank Barlow,
Capitalism is dead – but it has been reborn as Corporate Welfare – where erstwhile sidelined governments suddenly threw huge amounts of their constituents money – more than would be required to solve the climate crisis – at the failed institutions.
What also makes me think MarkL is a hired gun was his blog contributions on Israel’s last Gaza invastion/war/war crimes, where he (and a “Rob) trotted out Mossad’s propaganda quite relentlessly. Him being a military fanatic might fit to. Its a culture war out there . . .
His content is cut and pasted, and is really just trolling.
Peterc @ 230. I’m interested in your comments about “hired guns”.
I have often wondered what are the motivations behind some of the extreme hatred and personal abuse that comes to the fore in some of the threads on LP.
I thought perhaps it was just ranters who hide behind their nomme-de-plumes. That, like most bullies, they were unwilling to engage in actual person to person / eyeball to eyeball interactions and in this case, to show their faces in the harsh light of day – and who enjoy knowing that many of the people they are spewing at, have a real and identifiable name and location – unlike themselves.
In years of living in places like Kingaroy, I became very used to the pure bigotry of many, otherwise apparently engageable people (if you were chatting with them at a farm auction, or on “Pig and Lady Day”), who – when really challenged and all their rational arguments had been dismantled – would revert to a fanatical and unbending, one-eyed and highly emotional repetition of rigid ideology – or at least their interpretation of it.
I don’t want to distract this thread, but it has bothered me as it all seems to have some of the same underlying determination to intimidate people from contributing and to undermine contributors’ ability to focus on the immediate discussions.
Baraholka’s recent comments also draws it together in a comprehensive and accessible way.
I had the below comments from “GregM” on LP in a thread about Afghanistan not long ago. At one point it was deleted by the Moderator (at least I assume it was deleted, but then it re-appeared – maybe there was another explanation, but I can’t think of what that might be).
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/11/19/afghanistan-one-soldiers-story/
Nov 21st, 2009 at 8:11 pm
“Mervyn, thanks for your reply.
Having read it closely I realise that I have been wrong in describing you as an idiot.
You have now informed me that you are a complete and utter idiot.
The allied campaign in Afghanistan in which Australia participates can be characterised in many ways (folly, misconcieved, incoherent, whatever) but not as a genocide. Only a complete and utter idiot would say that.
However what the allied campaign has put an end to, by the very criteria you cite for genocide, is the genocide of the Hazara people, an ethnic and religious minority in Afghanistan, by the Taliban.
Implicitly you support this by opposing the allied campaign which has brought an end to this war crime. Therefore as a supporter of war crimes you are a war criminal as well as being a complete and utter idiot.
Nasty piece of work though you are I cannot say that I would happily see you torn from your wife and children (although I cannot imagine that any woman would want to have sexually congress with you, yet alone leading to children) to stand trial for war crimes as you have despicably proposed for a decent Australian citizen who has joined our armed forces and who is obeying the lawful directions of our government and who will be participating in the suppression of the war crimes of the Taliban.
Instead I hope that under the Mental Health Act of whatever State you live in you will be compulsorily detained in a secure unit for the mentally incompetent who can’t look after themselves and who are a menace to others.”
(Posted to LP 23/11/09)
Now I didn’t bother telling “GregM” that I discuss this topic sometimes on a daily basis with a wonderful Hazari friend of mine who was able to simply dissect some of “GregM”’s inaccuracies, nor did I bother mentioning I have spent years holding the keys in a number of high security institutions, incarcerating more apparently reasonable, straightforward and street smart people.
I don’t believe my objecting to rants like that is an indication of an inability to have a worthwhile exchange of ideas.
Such personal abuse, which is undoubtedly fodder for a liable action, can only be dished out from the pseudo-secrecy of an isolated, hard to find computer – and if your suggestion is accurate, with some aura of protection as offered by whoever the key-strokers’ supporters may be.
For me, it also goes to show that in many ways the discussion on climate change and the vicious wars in the middle east, are in fact different frames on the same spinning, mirrored ball. And it highlights to what extremes some people will go to, to avoid rational discussion, to prevent hesitant people from voicing an opinion, to avoid their privileged positions being confronted, to revel in the supposed “power” their anonymity provides and to keep their fingers in the dykes of history.
Peterc @ 231.
“(and a “Rob)”
That would have been me. Nice to be remembered.
Hiya MarkL,
Evangelical Conservative ? Evangelical ? No. Conservative Yes.
@79 you plainly stated that you are an Evangelical Conservative to wit,
your children have been successful in converting their friends into
conservatives and that this ability to convert others to Conservatism.
is a ‘family gift’.
I am not a Socialist, though I don’t blame you for assuming that I was.
I agree that Capitalism is very efficient at getting people to work
and is much better in this regard than Socialism.
But you may have forgotten that Capitalism, when associated with
Imperialism, is also very good at deindustrialising societies and
regions (e.g. Destruction of particular Indian Pre-British Raj
industries by British), impoverishing peoples e.g. any Nigerian
farming village in the path of a Shell Oil pipeline
and also coexists very happily with totalitarianism as US-Dominated
Central and South America amply demonstrate.
The vicious history of Soviet Eastern Europe and Communist
China displays a strong tendency for Revolutionary Communism to end up in
thought-control dictatorships, while an examination of the USA shows
that Capitalism associated with Democracy is forced to commit its crimes
in the neo-colonies or in co-operation with compliant local elites
(e.g rendition of political prisoners to various Arab dictatorships
for torture) or must brainwash its population by propaganda in order
to manufacture consent for killing inconvenient unpersons (like Iraqis)
who happen to float on a sea of oil.
Most economic ‘isms’ produced by fallen humanity have the same effect of
producing terror, fear, fraud, deceit and death. Communism and
Capitalism have each produced their horrors, but because Capitalism is often
associated with Democracy the horrors are generally avoided within the
Capitalist state itself unless it contains rogue populations such as Australian
Aboriginals which may need to be exterminated, herded into Concentration Camps,
or trained for domestic servitude until the basis of the economic
relationship is understood.
Later, Pluralist Democracy will enable progressive actions such as education
to occur which will allow equitable participation in the economic system.
In short MarkL, I think you’re picking the wrong champion. Its Democracy
you should be cheering, not Capitalism per se.
So returning to the original discussion, could you please expand on your
theme of ‘concept capture’ as it applies to AGW?
If I understand you at @215 AGW began as a scientific hypothesis created
by honest scientists, but it was pounced on by a Leftist Pagan Fascist
cabal for their own ends. What are those ends ? Deindustrialisation Of
The West ? Installation of Leftist Regimes in every country ?
And I would assume the East Anglia crew, who are knowing frauds, are either
part of this or in it for their own purposes, I guess to get money for
research grants. Or are they also part of the Concept Capture group ?
Also in relation to SIM, have the IPCC ever considered it ?
If so what did they say ? If not why haven’t they considered it ?
All patriotic Australians should be strongly opposed to any proposal to levy imports on the basis of the emissions generated in their manufacture. These proposals would put all our exporters at a real disadvantage – Australia produces some of the dirtiest electricity in the world and is happy to sit around doing very little about it. When we have cleaned up our act it may be worth revisiting this idea but it might be smart to see what the rest of the world is doing first.
Brian @194 and 200, wwb@197: My attitude is that we have the best chance of getting serious climate action if we go about it in ways that minimize costs and the risk of economic disruption. In particular, we shoudl be careful about minimizing the effects of those near the bottom of the pile – which used to be one of the core beliefs of the left. A price increase that is nothing more than a minor irritation to most of us can be a crisis for some poor sod trying to live on the pension.
I am willing to accept that there may be cases where a targeted price increase may be the most effective way of driving a specific change – but artificial price increases should be seen as a last resort, not he preferred option. (For example, I do think that the use of an ETS was an appropriate response to the acid rain issue.)
NOTE: Direct action doesn’t have to be “picking winners” as some commentators claim. Direct action might include seeking competitive tenders for the reduction of net carbon pollution. Such an approach gives plenty of scope for innovative proposals.
Heaven forbid MarkL!
Backing up a little:
I’ll get in with a pre-accusation question, is it Dr EP your mate who’s coming, with a tale of Eskimo Nell/stolen genetic material in the Arctic?
Re-reading this thread is like walking into a madhouse.
Do you really think (even leaving the science aside) that the world is going to do what you guys demand it should?
I mean, consider for a moment what you are expecting.
That all the countries of the world should agree to peak GHG emsissions by 2020. That all the countries of the world will reconfigure their industries to do so within ten years. That democracies will ignore the pain it inflicts on their people. That brutal AGW mitigation won’t spur a hundred Abbotts to challenge a hundred governments from opposition. That such governments will not fall or their policies be reversed. That some cosmic coalition of the virtuous will be able to trump the election cycle. That the despots who were given the floor at Copenhagen – Ahmadinejad, Mugabe, Chavez – are going to give up their local and malignant ambitions for the greater good of the planet.
That a universal regime will be majicked into existence to reduce all emissions from all nations from a date that to be fixed – the emissions upon which their prosperity and the content of their people depend. That such a regime can be held in place for at least a hundred years while the world’s population grows exponentially, with concomitant demands for food, fuel and power.
That all of this is going to be led and implemented by the the United Nations, which is by some measure the most corrupt and inefficient organisation ever devised by humanity.
It’s just not going to happen.
If you didn’t learn that from Copenhagen, you’ll never learn anything.
Mervyn Langford,
Sorry to see such vitriol directed at you. It is clear breach of LP protocol. As such should either be captured by the automatic spaminator and left there or deleted by one of the moderators.
I have had some stoushes with GregM on this blog, but not as bad as yours.
When you see such personal attacks the attacker has either lost it or is trying to goad you and/or derail the thread. I think there is a good chance some could be paid for this type of trolling – but only on matters of import to someone.
Best not to engage, or just call them on it.
Back on Copenhagen, looks a reformation of the G20 is on the cards. Don’t need the little guys in the tent. They are too pesky and will all be swimming soon anyway. And they keep insisting we reduce emissions, which is contrary to our fat and unhappy lifestyle.
The politics is despicable. Wong is alternating between beating up on the Pacific nations who dared to point out they are in a survival situation, beating up on Abbott for his denial, stating “they wanted to go further than the accord”, and that they “can’t negotiate with the Greens due to there outrageous targets”.
Funny though – as somebody else posted, Labor is 5% to 25%, Greens are 25% to 40%. So it is obvious that Labor never had any intention of going to 25% (ACF and Don Henry take note), else they would cut a deal tomorrow. Fielding would oppose it due to his newly found climate change denial, but a couple of Liberals would cross the floor.
I don’t think the crappy ineffective CPS should get up – even at 40% – but I would like to Barnaby Joyce’s dummy spit if it did.
The other spanner in the works is now “business is unhappy” which is code for even more rent seeking and concessions. Gosh, what a mess.
Rob, that’s exactly what they believe.
Most of them still believe in socialism (grimly funny in a Pythonesque gallows humour sort of way) considering the oceans of human misery and mountains of corpses it generated last century. And indeed continues to generate today. (They refuse to see the ongoing economic collapse in Venezuela, which Chavez is orchestrating as his Swiss bank account balloons.)
As for reality, they prefer their personal fantasies to that. Hard to pretend you are a glowball warming super hero saving the world from Evil Capitalism if you accept the fact that the planet is cooling due to reduced insolation, in a natural cycle which has existed for billions of years.
Hence all the mincing and pouting above over the hilarious collapse at Copenhagen.
Generally, such narcissists prefer their fantasies. And if it results in continued extreme poverty and early death for hundreds of millions in the third world, they just don’t care. It’s a hard-wired form of deeply embedded racism: most of them have it. The only ones who have used overtly racist language here have been LP denizens, in projection mode.
I prefer the company of a hard-driving capitalist any day. An expat, Indian or Straits Chinese businessman makes no difference – he’ll eliminate more poverty in a decade than all the socialists in Australia in their worthless lifetimes. Action counts, not blather.
Witness what has happened in Medan since 1998! Or the Riau, or Da Nang: let alone Singapore, Malaysia or Taiwan since the 70s.
MarkL
Canberra
MarkL – your hard-driving capitalists are above all a pragmatic lot. They’ll work out how to make big bucks in green tech or greener versions of their own industries quick as you can say price signal. They are the original radicals, after all, full of energy and adaptable to constant change.
Whereas denialists are just conservative, risk-averse reactionaries, who couldnt cut it with the big boys in a zillion years, and never could have adapted like a true capitalist to the end of whale oil, steam engines, gas lamps, manual accounting etc etc. Havent you noticed the essence of capitalism is constant adaptation and change? And the old-tech losers get left behind. They laugh at your lot of sticks-in -the-mud. One born every day
You dont appear to understand capitalism at all.
AS for the UN – yes, it points to the present weaknesses of state-based internationalism. But popular pressure will continue, as its life or death for too many. This story only ends in an international deal – its just a matter of time.
I keep my word, but you guys know how to put your best face forward, eh? She looked the thread over, shall we say you made an impression? It was not favourable, little’uns.
Received a rather incandescent reply.
Extract
End Extract
I am off to bed – long watch last night, and more tomorrow. The real world does not stop for Christmas.
MarkL
Canberra
MarkL’s 1st hand hearsay evidence:
Loads of methodological naturalism there, and that word kiddies again!
2nd hand hearsay evidence from “Alex”:
That is so utterly unconvincing and answers none of Zoots 5 questions: a smoke, mirrors and disappearing act par excellence. The appeal to unnamed, non citable nebulous authority so redolent of a creationist “proving” evolution wrong:
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-scientists.html
Familiar story, familiar denialists: just change the word evolution(ism) to AGW.
MarkL @241
I’ll take that as confirmation that your “friend” doesn’t exist.
Unless MarkL’s “friend” is Alex Cockburn from Counterpunch I’d say that’s fair:
But the CRU emails graphically undermine the claim of the Warmers … (from @241 above)
Hmmm I thought I’d read that someplace else.
An interesting thought for Christmas Eve, welcome or unwelcome (depending).
It turns on the nexus between ClimateGate and Copenhagen.
Along comes CimateGate, which told the world that which many of us had thought for a long time – that the science was a crock. More surprisingly, it also told us the science was corrupt.
Then came Copehagen, which told us, in no unambiguous terms, that the chances of the world agreeing to do anything about climate change, anrhtropogenic or not, was absolutely zero.
In a strange symbiosis, what ClimateGate and Copenhagen tell us is this: that AGW is not happening, and that there’s not a ghost of a chance that we could do anything about it if it were.
We should all heave a huge, heartfelt sigh of relief.
ClimateGate and Copenhagen don’t tell us anything about AGW. Neither are science.
No it didn’t.
Not a logician, are you Rob?
AGW may not be happening politically.
AGW may be happening where it counts in the long term.
There are several imaginable outcomes that may arise from this possible contradiction.
And one unimaginable outcome.
Do you want to expand on that a little bit, Katz? I found it completely opaque.
Thanks for engaging again, zoot. As long as we can talk (shout….?
Indeed Rob, that if you gave all individual denialists an enema, you could bury their remains in a matchbox.*
(* Citation: Christopher Hitchens re Jerry Falwell on Hannity.)
You never fail to amuse, Peter.
I was curious of “climategate”’s timing and the attempted crescendo of denial that was apparently supposed to discredit climate change and stop the alleged “great global conspiracy” of the world’s scientists from reaching fruition.
Seems like the only ones interested with the Saudis; no vested in interest there!
It was the perceived national self interest of a few developed nations, and China and India, that derailed global agreement to reduce emissions.
So now we have a dilemma. No path to global action. I guess it comes back to the grass roots. We need to succeed where the politics has failed. Maybe things need to get a bit worse before they get better.
The fire season is upon as early and with a vengeance. That might do it.
Well thanks Rob: “Nice to be remembered”.
Re:
Any comments on his appeal to the authority of an apparently fictitious friend?
I mean, solidarity and all that amongst Birds of a feather, but really, is there a another foot in perverted Canberra that we don’t know about?
That was good, Peter. Pay that one.
Oh dear, Rob @249. Not only a troll, but a dumb troll.
FYI poking the village idiot with a stick is not engaging with him.
Yes, well, have a good Christmas anyway, zoot. I hope your next New Year is as happy as the last.
I’ll keep working on the Barbara Cartland stuff. Strangely addicting, that.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/19
Why don’t the world’s poorer nations, led by China, retaliate against Canada, which has defaulted on its Kyoto obligations, by “stealing” all the intellectual property that comes out of Canada. That would suitably punish Canada in the absence of an International Environmental Court, and help redistribute the wealth to the poorer nations.
Obama say the Copenhagen Accord is a crock too. [link]
Who does actually support it? It is still not clear who has signed on to it.
Ah, that’s work over for a while. I see our poor intellectual midgets of the left have built a lovely new little conspiracy theory about why I don’t break my word to my friends. Enjoy your little fantasies! And please try to weave the international zionist conspracy and the Rosicrucians in there somewhere, eh? I remember a time here a while back where one of you guys came to the conclusion that I was some Victorian Minister or religion (?) – that too was highly entertaining.
meanwhile, a Belmont Club commentator really has the last say on the AGW garbage:
And a happy and Holy Christmas to you all!
MarkL
Canberra
A really interesting take on Copenhagen from Alexander Cockburn, editor of CounterPunch and a very long way from being a right-winger.
Read the rest.
More smoke and mirrors which illustrates yet again MarkL, your ongoing contempt of rational argument/use of proper quotations/links/citations*.
The imaginary vicarious utility of appeals to the expert authority of imaginary friends is not persuasive however, to say the least.
*Your academic work footnotes must be easy though. (You might like to cut and paste these for future reference):
(1) Fred
(2) n1, Fred above.
(3)
IbinIbid, Fred.(4) Bloke from ASIO whose name I can’t reveal.
(5) Google.
(6) Army bloke who I met in a pub who agreed with me about Lefty intellectual midgets.
(7)www
(8) n7, above.
(9) http://www.answersingenesis.com
(10) Ted somebody 2007, ‘AGW Liars‘, Jerry Falwell Publications, Virginia.
MarkL has been exposed as a fraud, and nothing he says can be taken at face value ever again.
So, Rob now gives weight to Alexander Cockburn because he a leftie? When did you change your politics, Rob?
Rob in that link he says:
…huge core problem: that “greenhouse” theory violates the second law of thermodynamics, which says that a cooler body cannot warm a hotter body without compensation. Greenhouse gases in the cold upper atmosphere cannot possibly transfer heat to the warmer earth, and in fact radiate their absorbed heat into outer space.
In the case of radiation from the sun, it’s surely not a question of what the greenhouse gases and other gases/particulates are absorbing, so much as what they are allowing through or reflecting back into space. Greenhouse gases as I understand it let the sun’s radiation through but prevent a significant proportion of the radiation of heat from the earth escaping back into space.
Cockburn says that because the temperature of the upper atmosphere is so cold (standard adiabatic lapse rate I seem to recall from my aviation days 1.5 degrees Celsius reduction per 1000 feet going up) that heat from the gas molecules cannot be transferred from that “cold” to a hotter earth, by convection and/or radiation, per the 2nd law of thermodynamics, and in that he would be correct, BUT he’s ignorant it seems, of the fact that it’s not a question of the 2nd law at all, it’s what the gases block or reflect back, (incoming from the sun or outgoing from the earth) in the form of radiation, not a question of the heat that gas molecules absorb and then radiate/convect.
The energy those molecules contain in any event would be miniscule at say 100,000 feet (temperature about minus 120C–standard adiabatic lapse rate) compared to the energy in the radiation zipping past.
Would any scientists here confirm or correct me?
And BTW Rob, the left can be bamboozled with science as with the right. I’m sure Cockburn could be converted but not some others we both know.
Mervyn @ 232, I’m sorry that happened to you. I’m not sure how it did.
Peter K I’m not a scientist, but I think it goes something like this. The incoming radiation is higher intensity short wave-length and is mostly not captured by the CO2 molecule. The outgoing radiation (mostly at night as the earth cools) is longer radiation, not so vigorous, and more is captured by the CO2 molecule. The CO2 isn’t a big storage tank, but immediately re-radiates the heat in a 360 degree pattern. (So the mirror analogy is invalid.) So some proceeds to outer space, some goes back to earth and presumably (I’ve never heard this said explicitly) some of it hits other CO2 molecules. Some heat, but not much, stays in the troposphere (there’s water and stuff there too).
Now I’ve never heard this bit as such, but I’d suggest that for the very small time the CO2 molecule captures the radiation it is in fact hotter than the surrounds. My assumption though is that it’s more about agitation than heat. My other suspicion is that what Cockburn says applies to conduction. If one end of a piece of metal is in the fire the other end will get warm and the heat will flow into your hand.
I find that when someone goes “Aha, gotcha” it’s easiest to just note it and wait. Don’t bother checking it out. Sooner or later you’ll come across information that tells you it’s shite and why. Denialists presume scientists are really dumb and don’t think about things, or understand basic science at all. Or they are really dumb themselves and don’t know what they don’t know, or are playing us for suckers.
Not more than a week ago it was put to me that if CO2 reflected radiation on the way out it must reflect it on the way in. Hence AGW was a scam and a hoax! Two problems there. They didn’t know about different wave lengths and assumed it was a mirror effect. But total confidence in all climate scientists being crooks and frauds.
BTW the Antarctica is usually considered in three parts – the Antarctic Peninsula, West Antarctica and East Antarctica. There are some pretty competent glaciologists who say that the whole continent is losing ice and increasingly so. We do know that West Antarctica has substantially melted and rebuilt about 60 times in the last 5 million years. And we do know that about 3 million years ago when the CO2 was roughly where it is now the sea level was 25 metres higher, plus or minus 5, than now. And we do know that there is a devilishly tight relationship between CO2 levels, temperature and sea level in the long haul.
25 metres can’t happen without some of East Antarctica melting.
So just note what MarkL’s friend says and wait. No need to say she’s imaginary. If she’s onto something it will come out sooner rather than later. Or possibly she’s so bitter and twisted that she can’t write anything without insulting everyone. If so someone else will write it up if there’s anything we should know.
Meanwhile all we have is a tendentious rant, sorry, so we can’t be expected to take it real seriously.
Thanks Brian that was most informative. I’d forgotten about the wavelength factor of the radiation. What particularly struck me was Cockburn’s appeal to breaking the 2nd law of thermodynamics, a common theme sometimes peddled in relation to rubbish arguments against evolution.
Thermodynamics is a difficult subject, I did a unit of it at Sydney Uni in 1970 or 71 and one of the few concepts that stuck in my mind was regarding black body radiators and that radiation heat loss was proportional to temperature (of the body) cubed. (That’s why you put the milk in a cup of tea if you are going away for 10 minutes and want it to be the hottest possible when you come back.)
BTW, I agree that the CO2 molecule would be temporarily hotter and would then radiate but at higher altitudes, with less molecules per M3 conduction would be minimised and the major transfer of heat would be by radiation I suspect. That kind of heat capture I also suspect is not highly significant given that the temperature at 100,000 feet (my example above) is minus 120C.
Point taken re “imaginary friends” however, I suspect the wait might be eternal, imaginary until proven otherwise perhaps. And the polemics of the “friend” is not a good look for application of the scientific method.
Re where I said “That kind of heat capture I also suspect is not highly significant” I mean in terms of the CO2 being a heat sink.
Peter, sorry I missed the 100,000 feet bit. I think the idea is that heat gets trapped in the lower atmosphere and the stratosphere actually gets cooler. But I’d rather a real scientist explained all that!
BTW, I think it’s about 95% of the extra heat ends up in the ocean. Most of the rest would be in the land and objects thereon and some in the atmosphere, I forget the numbers.
Peter@265 Kemp Dec 25th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
The Sun – the ultimate source of the radiation that is heating the atmosphere – is a hotter body than the Earth. So thankfully the 2nd Law of TD is saved.
Thanks Brian. The 100,000 feet was just an arbitrary altitude I chose for the purpose of some rudimentary heat analysis–the standard adiabatic lapse rate “SALR” says the temperature at that altitude is about minus 120 degrees C,(1.5C [SALR] x 100 – 30C) which is an indicator that the total energy present in all the gas molecules there in that rarified atmosphere is pretty minimal.
Interesting part of the mix is water vapour:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrail
That’s a weird one, expenditure of fossil fuel creates condensation clouds which are reflective and keeps the earth cooler, remove the condensation trails for a few days (over the US at least) and the temperature slightly rises. Denials have probably seized on that already but the long term effects of that CO2 input from jetliners is the more relevant question, and as the quote says the weather was unusually clear at that time. So many variables and feedbacks/reverse feedbacks.
Correction: “Denialistas”
That’s correct Jack, for once we agree on something
Peter Kemp paraphrases Rob@#261 quotation from Aleander Cockburn
This betrays Cockburn’s total misunderstanding of the problem. Greenhouse gases are “forcing” rather than conducting agents. They trap energy rather than directly transmit it.
The warming of the Earth’s lower atmosphere is not caused by direct energy transfer from the sun, by downwards convection from the upper to lower strata of the Earth’s atmosphere. It is caused indirect energy transfer from the sun, through upwards reflection of infrared radiation back off the Earth’s surface.
Most of the energy the Sun transmits to the Earth is in the visible part of the spectrum. The Earth’s atmosphere is generally permeable to this form of radiation. It allows light to be directed onto and reflected off the earth’s surface without interference from GHGs. (Atmospheric aerosols do cause a cooling “shading” effect).
However some of the Sun’s energy that hits the Earth’s surface is transformed from visible into invisible part of the spectrum ie infrared radiation. It is then reflected back upwards into the atmosphere.
Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) are called “forcing” agents because they act as an atmospheric barrier trapping infrared radiation that is reflected off the Earth’s surface. An increase in GHGs tends to increase the amount of total energy trapped by the Earth’s atmosphere, thereby heating up the Earth’s various meteorological systems.
Alexander Cockburn has performed an estimable service in being the first Lefty to turn on Christopher Hitchens. However I would not rely on him for climate science.
This is very mysterious.
I don’t understand why a glaciologist writing to a person with strong anti-leftist views would refer to Alexander Cockburn, a well-known liberal essayist who is neither a scientist nor resident in Australia, by a familiar contraction of his first name only.
Are both reader and writer personally acquainted with Alexander Cockburn?
Ha ha: found it
MarkL above @241:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/turning-tricks-cashing-in-on-fear.html
And the real author, non glaciologist student, non scientist—none other than Alexander Cockburn, alleged “research student” pupil of MarkL’s glaciologist “friend”!!!
Busted MarkL,
And thanks to Rob for steering us towards Alexander Cockburn, and Katz for putting in the second last nail
Fran Bailey on another thread points to this defence of of Phil Jones by Ben Santer.
One of the best summaries remains this one in the New Scientist. There’s nothing much in it apart from the issue of suggesting that emails be destroyed and the handling of FOI requests, where a reluctance to co-operate is understandable given their volume and nuisance value.
The last East Anglia thread was here.
Oh, Peter, the titanic nature of your gargantuan, nay, brobdignagian leftist ‘intellect’ is astounding. Why, it quite compares to that of the average gecko.
You missed this bit in her email fragment, yes?
“Check the last sentence of Alex’s latest, below.”
You also missed the quotation marks on the quote itself, yes?
That’s quite amusing. But I understand where you are coming from, ‘busting’ the ‘conspiracy’ is so much better for your ego, eh?
It could never possibly be two people discussing a familar subject, of course, not in your fevered imaginings.
But thanks for spending your time and effort to show her quote was accurate. I am a little disappointed though, that you lacked the wit to work the global Zionist Conspiracy and the Rosicrucians in. Hmm. I guess I should not be, if you don’t understand what quotation marks are for…
Katz – what’s the mystery? We both like and admire Cockburn’s writing. Same with the late Stephen Jay Gould. Why are you puzzled at the use of contractions? We know what is meant when one refers to ‘Alex’, or to ‘Jay’, or to ‘Chris’ if referring to Monckton, or ‘Al’ to Gore. Alex’d be about No.3 on my list of people I’d like to have around for dinner.
Alexander Cockburn (I’ll spell it out for the touchingly simple-minded like poor little Peter) writes well and has interesting viewpoints. He has seen through the AGW kabuki theatre. As he is a man of ‘progressive’ views, this is very interesting indeed. We’ve been discussing that since he made the comments.
Surely you don’t think that I just read ‘one side’ of the debate? How can one get a balanced understanding of events by doing that?
I understand that it makes the simplistic labelling so favoured by simple folk like Pete difficult, but I care not a fig for that.
MarkL
Canberra
MarkL, my glaciologist friend says your glaciologist friend is a liar.
MarkL @241 quotes from an “extract” purportedly from his glaciology friend:
The direct unerring inference is that Alex is a student of the alleged glaciologist, reinforced by Alex’s last sentence within the quotation marks of the second half of the extract, of what we now know to be a quote of Alexander Cockburn. ie:
All of that was an appeal to authority, including Alex as a directly implied student of the glaciologist, which MarkL never corrected, in fact he blathered on about protecting his friend’s identity, along with Alex’s (logical assumption).
So now MarkL’s appeal to authority has gone the way of the Titanic, has been sunk–to the bottom this time,–(apt word, thanks for raising it): he’s now saying it seems, that an opposite inference must be drawn, that we should have recognised who Alex was:
No we didn’t know MarkL, and to suggest that we should have now is self serving and bs.
But, if that quote had been linked to Alexander Cockburn or advised as from Cockburn (a US citizen), it would have negated the logical inference that Cockburn was a student of the glaciologist.
At best, use of the “extract” with no link (or identification of the author), as an appeal to authority (especially Alex) was sloppy, but being aware of MarkL’s modus operandi, it is much more likely to be a deliberately misleading representation, hence, busted.
So now we have a “glaciologist” allegedly, who cites a liberally minded author of Counterpunch, whose comments (Cockburn) therefore have no merit whatsoever from a scientific perspective: which leads to the reasonable conclusion that the friend of MarkL is likely not to be a glaciologist.
Katz @ 277 is right to point out that the usage “Alex” shows too much familiarity. This familiarity is borne out by the fact that the Prison Planet piece cited is from December 23rd, only the day before MarkL’s post @ 241. Evidently MarkL’s “friend” is an avid reader of Prison Planet, a well-known conspiracy site.
One of the questions we have to ask is: Why is Alexander Cockburn writing on such a disreputable site as Prison Planet? (Besides the more obvious question: Why is the supposedly left-wing Alexander Cockburn regurgitating all the right-wing denialist talking points about global warming?)
MarkL’s denial @ 281 that the familiar usage of “Alex” is normal seems a little over-defensive and contrived (as does his attempt to smear the left with anti-semitic conspiracy thinking). I think you’re onto something there, Katz.
And Peter Kemp makes a good point about MarkL inferring Alex is a student of the alleged glaciologist.
Another interesting point in MarkL’s concocted drama is the reference to a Bible verse at the beginning of his “glaciologist friend’s” epistle to him – Job 38:11, which reads “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.” This verse was made famous in The Da Vinci Code movie; it is also quite popular amongst fundamentalists and creationists; it has been quoted on placards at Glenn Beck-inspired Tea Parties.
What possible relevance could this verse have to global warming?
A Google of “global warming” and “Job 38:11” throws up a small number of sites, most of which are faith sites, which view global warming as some kind of conspiracy or delusion by secular scientists. Countermeasures against global warming are seen as an illusion by secular scientists who think they can control Nature. They are an illusion because only God can control Nature.
No scientist in their right mind would use any Bible verse to bolster their case, so what is going on? MarkL’s “glaciologist friend” is evidently as deluded as MarkL himself, being of the same religious and political persuasion as he, i.e., Christian conservative. On the other hand, it is still possible that this “friend” is an invention of MarkL, and part of his continuing anti-Left “experiment.”
Sorry guys, laughing too hard to write too much. The way you boys compile your conspiracy theories out of thin air and spin fantastical webs of purest bullshit is killing me.
Ockham’s razor, kiddies, Ockham’s Razor… ever heard of it?
Thought not.
Job 38:11 “Thus far, and no further…”, as in I do not have permission to go further than I have in discussing my friend’s views. Non-conspiracy theorists might understand that widely read and literate folk frequently use.
See if you can divine the true meaing (when cross-pollinated with ‘glowball warming’ and ‘the whichness of the why’ of the following biblical reference.
John 11:35
And at last, silky has brought in the conspiracy theorisers favourites! Yay Silky!
Please keep this up. The self-parodying you lads are doing is absolutely hysterical.
Now, please pay really close attention to my words above. Pore over them. Deconstruct and analyse them most carefully, never foretting the words of Zazek (and of course Ashurbanipal and Marx). There are more secrets of the “vast, right-wing conspiracy” embedded within, in sooper-seecrit code!
MarkL
Canberra
Use of Occam’s Razor would suggest you were bullshitting, MarkL. (After all, you have form.)
dave, who would bother with this much trouble?
You would, Mark.
MarkL’s pathetic retorts after (metaphorically) having arms legs removed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhRUe-gz690
That’s a great link Brian, still trying to absorb it all.
“Jesus wept.” I have no idea what you are trying to say. Why don’t you speak plainly like the rest of us instead of hiding behind cryptic comments?
I’m wiling to acknowledge that the “Alex” referred to in the glaciologist’s email was not meant to be understood as a student but to be someone else. But who?
I gather that MarkL’s glaciologist friend wrote the email in question from some remote location.
Perhaps earlier in the email in question Alexander Cockburn was referred to more fully by the glaciologist correspondent. Then the use of the familiar “Alex” would be understandable.
I read Alexander Cockburn quite frequently and regard myself as being moderately well acquainted with his literary style and with the subjects that he writes about. Yet, I had no idea that the “Alex” referred to was Alexander Cockburn until PK pointed it out.
Yet, as I said earlier, the tone of the email struck me as unusual.
Perhaps MarkL edited the matter identifying “Alex” in the email for the sake of brevity.
However, I get no sense from the language of the extract that this reference to Alexander Cockburn was not the first in this email. I may be wrong about this.
The sudden appearance of “Alex” in this context appears odd. Perhaps there are more examples in her correspondence of this unusual literary trait?
Everyone take a deep breath, please.
Cockburn’s column appeared in Counterpunch. “Prison Planet” is just reprinting it.
There is nothing intrinsically bizarre about MarkL, an AGW skeptic with an interest in specific alternative models of climate, having managed to find a glaciologist skeptic to correspond with; or that they should both be reading Alexander Cockburn, another AGW skeptic, and talking about him in a familiar way.
It is a shame, though it is also understandable, that she would wish to keep her identity secret. It’s understandable because to be a climate skeptic makes you a villain in the eyes of certain people. The post-Climategate populist attack on people like Mann and Jones is far far harsher, but the other side gets its drubbings too, and I can understand that someone might wish to avoid even that level of hostile attention.
It’s a shame because I’d like to know more about this: “not one field researcher recognizes any of the warmist nonsense as anything but an assload of crap”. It’s certainly statements like that which made people here think this quote from correspondence was a fraud – its vehemence, and the use of the word “warmist”, is something one sees from angry lay web-critics of climatology, not from scientist skeptics. So it’s interesting to hear that coming from someone who is (perhaps, for example) a field glaciologist for the Australian Antarctic research program. Who are the field researchers being described? Are they the correspondent’s immediate colleagues? Or is it an assessment of the state of opinion in glaciology as a whole? Or perhaps among Antarctic field researchers in general?
Mitchell, how do you know that Mark’s friend was copying Cockburn’s Counterpunch article rather than the Prison Planet reprint? Have you been corresponding with her too?
Silkworm, why?
I have no motive. Worse, I’d have to take records of the lie and maintain the fiction for as long as I post here or anywhere else where this is mentioned. Lies take careful maintenance, the truth does not.
That’s the problem with conspiracy theorists: they assume enormous, high-maintenance complexity for no logical or rational reason (look at those Truther clowns). And would anyone here at LP be more convinced by such a lie by me, when such a vast mass of scientific as is available is routinely ignored?
So how does it make sense when, no matter what I say, no matter how many references I post, no local ‘true AGW believer’ denizens could be convinced out of their religion anyway?
That is why I have been open in mocking such foolishness.
I have spent about 40 minutes here today all up, laughing quietly at all of this. The rest of the day has been spent most profitably: reloading, listening to music, splitting firewood and reading Andrew George’s brilliant ‘The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts’ , Vol II, OUP 2003. I rcommend it very highly. to anyone interested in early ancient history. It has the Akkadian text in alphabetic transcription with a literal tranlation on facing pages. So reading it simultaneously with his freer translation in his The Epic of Gilgamesh: A New Translation (1999) really allows one to get into the epic.
That’s a hell of a lot more stimulating than engaging critters like Pete, although he has provided some rather nice light entertainment.
Cheers!
MarkL
Canberra
silkworm, I didn’t actually say that. Perhaps it would have been clearer for you if I had said the column first appeared in Counterpunch. For all I know, she got her copy of Cockburn’s essay as part of a Christmas airdrop carried out by Lord Monckton’s secret polar patrol vessel, the Admirable Crichton. The point is just that an erroneous inference was being made.
“Cockburn says that because the temperature of the upper atmosphere is so cold that heat from gas molecules there cannot be transferred a hotter earth.”
Cockburn has it arse-backwards. Don’t know why we are looking to him for the science.
The thinnest coldest top layer of the atmosphere is warmed by the next lower warmer level of the atmosphere.
That level is warmed by the next lower level. etc etc
The warming starts from the surface of the earth where the infrared radiation originates.
As we add CO2 to the atmosphere all layers become thicker and warmer. Each layer traps more infrared radiation. Each layer becomes warmer.
Cockburn conceptualises it wrong. He visualises a warm earth at bottom – a single colder layer of atmosphere above. The “greenhouse” could be better viewed as trillions of layers deep – each layer interacting with the one above and below. CO2 is mixed through all layers.
Basic Radiation Calculations
Thanks for the link wbb and I like the trillion layer concept.
Re:
We’re not, except MarkL and his alleged glaciologist friend who seem to think his polemical (non) science is brilliant.
And Jack Strocchi@272 puts Cockburn’s fallacy out of its misery quicker for those disinclined to work thru a trillion layers!
I think it was Brian above somewhere who said it is astonishing how denialists believe they can prove the work of thousands of scientists is wrong with a quick one-liner of their own.
Denialists worth their salt know the basics of greenhouse are unassailable – and have been for 100 years. They concentrate on quibbling about the impact of the effect.
Charlatans like Cockburn, MarkL & friends are in flat-earth territory with their random musings. Their objection is a priori. Political or religious. The science for them is cannon fodder.
Or as “jostpuur” said in a discussion about the paper from which Cockburn got his one-line rebuttal of global warming:
Cockburn was demolished in 2007, here:
http://www.socialistaction.org/frank8.htm
It would appear to me that any professional glaciologist who lauds “Alex” for his complete misunderstanding of the difference between convection and forcing (H/T Jack Strocchi) is having a very bad day indeed.
I can’t begin to speculate on how a glaciologist would decide to make such an endorsement when doubtless she is aware of so many more credible critiques of AGW.
Perhaps the email got garbled in transmission…
Katz, I think you’re reading too much into this. Remember MarkL suggested applying Occam’s Razor? (Condemned out of his own mouth, if you like.) He was bullshitting, and got caught out.
Blimey, still trying to distill a conspiracy.
Separately, Katz, look at the section she excerpted please:
“..the CRU emails graphically undermine the claim of the Warmers – always absurd to those who have studied the debate in any detail – that they commanded the moral high ground. It has been a standard ploy of the Warmers to revile the skeptics as intellectual whores of the energy industry, swaddled in munificent grants and with large personal stakes in discrediting AGW. Actually, the precise opposite is true. Billions in funding and research grants sluice into the big climate modeling enterprises. There’s now a vast archipelago of research departments and “institutes of climate change” across academia, with a huge vested interest in defending the AGW model. //It’s where the money is. Scepticism, particularly for a young climatologist or atmospheric physicist, can be a career breaker.//”
What is interesting about Alex is that he’s of the left, yet he has seen through the AGW propaganda and clearly sees what it is. It’s ‘authority’, it’s vested interests, “It’s where the money is.” Alex has left the normal left-wing circle and is doing his job as a journalist.
That is uncommon. Most journalists are AGW whores and true believers in the cult. Look at dear George and the rest of them.
So Alex, as a journalist who is doing his job properly in respect of the AGW garbage despite his personal political bent, is worth looking at because of that. His personal knowledge of the science is neither here nor there, his recognition that the hard core of IPCC ’scientists’ have perverted the process, and falsified the science for money is what matters.
Anyhoo, I am off to the Annual World Domination knees-up where we all get together; the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, the Knights Templar, the Global Masonic Conspiracy, the International Zionist Conspiracy, the Judean People’s Liberation Front, the Loyal International Conspiracy Order of the Rosicrucians and Associated Oddfellows, and the Georges River Oyster Grower’s Association. Elvis is giving the keynote address, which should be a hoot. The International Zionist Conspiracy is hosting this year, in their HQ in Pyongyang. (Joe Vialls was right, Pete!)
MarkL
Canberra
His personal knowledge of the science is neither here nor there…
Says it all really. The licence to peddle bullshit throughout the ages. Formerly a monopoly held by various theistic dictatorships, but revived recently by creationists and other ideological fraudsters with confected outrage at their “victimhood.”
MarkL,
You left out the Global Leftwing Fossil Fuel Preservation for Future Generations Executive, I am sure that they are to attend AWD knees up as well.
Cockburn attended the Heartland Institute’s International Conference on Climate Change last March.
Well, silkworm @ 306, he’ll be judged by the company he keeps (and rightly so, in this case). He’s a flat-earther.
Got a mate who had a look at the thread, he’s a scientific expert in certain fields of denialism. Got this scathing reply back.
EXTRACT
MarkL: if you are a lay science reader maybe instead of reading Gilgamesh you could read Chalmers short text “What is this thing called science?” and get back to us on where you stand in relation to models of doing science which would be infomative.
BTW: I followed Ootz’s link profiling you and note that you’ve done military time and note also that you are sufficiently younger for me to be aware that you are well too young to have seen service in Vietnam. But I wonder whether or not you accept the Pentagon Papers as an accurate record of a conspiracy? The reason being that the conspiracy of the ruling industrial and political classes in the US is the benchmark for genuine consiparacies. Here then is homework: compare and contrast the concept of conspiracy as exemplified by the Pentagon Papers with the conspiracy, as you see it, of science around AGW.
wbb296,
Also, Global Warming in the atmosphere is more visible in the average night time temperature rather than the day.
MarkL @303
MarkL 17/02/07
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/02/17/off-message/#comment-348029
Shorter MarkL: If the journalist is anti AGW it’s of no importance that he/she understands the science. If pro AGW… that’s a different story.
Busted, again.
BilB
Bugger! The actual leaders of the Council of Global Conspiracies (The Georges River Oyster Growers Association) are going to be seriously ticked off.
There goes another small to middling sized country…. those blokes get shirty about things like that. The GLFFPFFGE were supposed to be the human sacrifices at the Almighty Sesterces ceremony! Now we’ll have to use virgins again.
Tony N
Man, it’s Christmas. I’m on holidays. Time for to catch up on the fun/entertaining reading, yes?
Little Pete
You really are the gift of laughter that keeps on giving. Lemme get this straight.
You reckon that discussing the unusual event of a left-leaning journalist not agreeing with the glowball warmenating bollocks put out by the CRU is the same (in your ‘mind’) as believing journalistic true-believer bafflegab about the science.
Nice to see you taking the mickey out of yourself… oh wait… you are serious!
Dude…..
MarkL
Canberra
Well, Peter, no-one said the denialists had to be consistent. (In fact, if they were, their brains would explode from a build-up of cognitive dissonance – most of us aren’t like the Red Queen, after all. Of course, the denialists are usually like Humpty Dumpty. Words mean nothing more or less than what they want them to.)
Oh, and the denialists lie, and lie, and lie.
As the late great Hunter S. Thompson said of Richard Nixon, they’re so crooked they need a servant to screw their pants on in the morning.
Mark @294,
I have been reading Andrew George’s brilliant ‘The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts’ , Vol II, OUP 2003. I rcommend it very highly. to anyone interested in early ancient history.
Impressive. It would appear that you can read Akkadian Cunieform Script.
As the Bryn Mawr Classical Review” put it:
Unless you’re gilding the lilly a bit and are really reading the 1999 work while merely enjoying the pictures in the 2003 edition and there’s nothing wrong with that.
175 Pounds for the Two-Volume Set – nice Chrissy present !
Look Mark – you wouldn’t just flamin’ cut and paste a review of some high-falutin’ academic book and present it as your own views would you ?
David @ 314,
It’s funny you mention Nixon. Just the other day for the hell of it I flicked over to Fox News and they were busy defending the Nixon legacy. I bet Mark L “Canberra” likes that channel being a flat-earther and all.
This evening I watched Band of Brothers in which an American platoon discovered a concentration camp full of starving Jews abandoned by the Nazis near the end of the war. The platoon commander struggled with the fact that the local townspeople knew nothing about the camp, and reluctantly came to the conclusion that they in fact knew, but were in denial. This set me thinking about the nature of denial, and the fact that climate change denialists, as I have been calling them, have objected to being called “deniers” because it makes them sound like Holocaust deniers. The more I think about it, the more I realize how similar they are.
Even today Holocaust deniers have had evidence of large-scale extermination shoved in their faces, and they still go on denying it. Climate change deniers are the same. Science is shoved in their faces, but they still go on denying it. The hacked CRU emails were stolen, but they are in denial about the criminal intentions of the hackers. Plimer was exposed on national television as a fraud, but the deniers won’t admit their case is fraudulent. They are blinded by their screwy right-wing politics and their hatred for the environment and environmentalists. Just look at Andrew Bolt’s recent attack on Avatar for its strong pro-environmental message. Many of them are sociopaths and bullies, resorting to personal attacks and insults at every turn. Well, if the truth hurts, so be it. I’m going back to calling them deniers.
I finally clicked on the link and read Alex Cockburn’s piece. It’s an inconsequential rant. Adds nothing to the sum of human knowledge. A waste of key strokes.
Perhaps a person who endorses the conclusions of an ignoramus simply because those conclusions correspond with her own is the kind of person who will concoct counterfeit correspondence to achieve the same purpose — dumb compliance of the gullible.
No I don’t MarkL. But your self serving inconsistency on different occasions is as plain as day.
Indeed David Irving, they aren’t expected to be consistent, on many things. Including racism within Islamophobia:
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/63319/20061009-0000/www.leftwrites.net/2006/09/16/papal-bull/index.html#comment-3354
Comment 3362 by Jeff Sparrow:
“The one thing sadder than a racist is a racist too stupid to know that he’s racist.”
And you wonder why my friend found the denizens here repellent. This is a reason why sensible, rational people leave lefty blogs to the moonbats.
I invite you to look at the comments made: I have been civil – if openly mocking towards the hilarious little pete and various other amusing AGW cultists – throughout this.
You ‘nuanced’ lefties, on the other hand, have been precisely the opposite, Katz being a partial exception. Openly abusive, openly using racist terminology, openly comparing scepticism for your AGW religious beliefs with Holocaust denail (I invoke Godwin’s law at this point), and closed minded.
How many of you would bother to read any of the references I posted?
But most of all, it’s the invention of perceptions that most illustrates how you ‘think’. We find it intersting that a left-wing journo, who does write well, has broken with the AGW cult: no more, no less. Amusingly, this is called “endors[ing] the conclusions of an ignoramus” : but that is your view, not mine. Ascribing it to me and then attacking it reveals the depth of the fundamental inability to grasp reality, narcissism – and shallowness of thinking – here.
As the AGW IPCC/CRU scam continues to unravel over the coming years, watching the squirming here will be most entertaining. I am looking forward to it.
Baraholka: this is his life’s work, a true labour of love. I no more read Akkadian than you do: so what? It has what, six fluent speakers at present? The volumes are truly beautiful works of scholarship. I’ve been fascinated by the period of history from Sumer to Mycenae since childhood: I even have Hormuzd Rassam’s ‘Asshur and the land of Nimrod’, which cost a fortune and took nearly 20 years to find. I am still searching for a mint first edition copy of his “The Mission to Theodore, King of Abyssinia”.
I’ve also got the brilliant, tragic George Smith’s ‘Assyrian Adventures’ and his ‘The Chaldean Account of Genesis’ and much of Layard.
Thanks to Kessinger, Rassam’s Asshur is now available print-on-demand. I highly recommend it, and the price is very reasonable.
What the classical review might not have told you about George is about the introduction: it is almost book length on the text, its history, Gilgamesh and his times. It alone makes buying this set worthwhile. And look at current exchange rates: British books are cheaper than they have been for many years.
If you are after rare or antiquarian British books, start haunting Abebooks. Now is the time to buy them.
MarkL
Canberra
@321, emphasis added…
I notice you’re still here, however.
Mercurius, MarkL is still here because he’s trying to change our minds.
I note his cognitive dissonance has a fractal quality – he thinks he’s been civil, as well as being deluded in more important ways.
Right after the word “friend” is where rational people stop “wondering.”
Really?
Most likely none. But reading your bibliographies @229 was never compulsory, and risks wearing out people’s scrolling wheels. Quotation of bibliographies like that doesn’t necessarily mean you have read them either.
Remarkable insight, for yourself, but sadly projected to others.
Re all the books, as always you conflate data “in your possession” with analysis, and then some. In your case, for all the good the books do you, you might as well put polished bricks on your bookshelves.
“Demolition” of another denialist (who is too ignorant to realise he’s been demolished) is complete. Let’s move on folks.
No, MarkL. You misunderstand me on this point.
I wasn’t accusing Alexander Cockburn of “endors[ing] the conclusions of an ignoramus”. (In this case, Alexander Cockburn was the ignoramus in question*.)
The author of the quoted extract (your good self) was the subject of consideration.
I was asking a question (quite civilly, I believe) whether a person who endorses the conclusions of a writer simply because they tend to support her own conclusions regardless of the truth content of that writer’s piece* can be viewed as trustworthy.
*It does appear to me that Jack Strocchi knocked Alexander Cockburn’s arguments regarding convection versus forcing into a cocked hat. As I suggested above, there may be more cogent reasons for rejecting AGW. It therefore ill-behoves any responsible person to mention Alexander Cockburn on this point.
He’s interesting on the Copenhagen jamborree (sp?), though (the subject of this post), which is why I linked his article.
For the second time on this thread, but more explicitly and slowly to allow the dull comprehension of MarkL to catch up:
“‘Retard’ literally means slow. It is used to describe someone with a learning disability, mental retardation, a significantly low IQ, or some other learning or developmental disability); this term “retard” is used as a vulgar term and is not used, unless it is deliberately used as a term of offense. Since there is no other connotation other than negative, it is always offensive.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disability-related_terms_with_negative_connotations
In contrast the following describes that which characterises civil conversation:
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Courtesy of Aretha.
Hi Mark,
I have been Googling Solar Inertial Motion and discussion on it
is not easy to find outside anti-AGW websites.
However, after some poking around, SIM seems like a particular
case of the Sunspot explanation for climate change, i.e. that
changes in Solar Output explain Global Warming and Cooling.
Here’s Fairbridge in his article The “Solar Jerk”, The King-Hele Cycle,
and the Challenge to Climate Science”
…so causing sunspots.
Fairbridge’s work is briefly discussed in comments on the pro-AGW WebSite
Skeptical Science in the post “Global cooling: the new kid on the block” with contributions by a proponent of SIM. The Skeptical
Science moderator responds:
and links to a page with this summary, well-known to anyone with an interest in the AGW debate:
Do you agree that the above is a fair summary of Fairbridge’s SIM
hypothesis ?
From the above it appears that the reason SIM is not in lively discussion is that
it is already discredited. Solar forcings do not correlate to recent
temperature data. CO2 does.
I have noticed the same effect when I Google for programming helps. If I can’t easily Google what I want to do, chances are I’m going up the wrong track.
SIM looks to be in the same category.
Let’s face it tho, ML has come a long way. For someone to turn from verbal sprays of vomit to discussing the merit of the rare book section of Abebooks. I came to belief that MarkL is really a frustrated fiction or screenplay writer. So he makes all this stuff up, cut and paste, pushing buttons and generally acting out this pent up and yet constipated fictional world. So I have my doubts that he is actually actively participating in “The ‘Skeptic’ Email Spammination of Pollies Brigade”. Thus, he is only really a harm to himself and therefore I don’t mind sharing the planetary space with him anymore. Might even have a drink with him, as long he can stay civil.
So back to @1 “How depressing. We’re fucked.”
Aren’t we underestimating human ingenuity somewhat. Will it all end so unprosaic? What likely endings have fiction and movies to offer us, how would you write “The End”?
Just askin.
Ootz, a lot of people who think human ingenuity’s going to get us out of this hole we’ve dug ourselves turn out to be closet cornucopians – they just substitute infinite human inventiveness for infinite oil in the hope we’re still going to be able to keep all those cars on the road.
We’ve run out of stuff, and hit the limits of growth.
David Irving: that we’ve hit the limits to growth is a precise expression of the problem. I wonder though whether we’ve hit the limits of growth in particular areas of the economy rather than absolute limits. Human services, which are by definition low energy input areas requiring mainly the application of embodied human intelligence and labour, is a potential growth area: education for all, human health and welfare care, equitable food distribution, housing for all, equal access to the resources of cultural production are all areas in Australia that have immense capacity for growth. Elsewhere too.
I think your way of putting it is correct in so far as we have “run out of stuff” as well as havng run out of room to put stuff, the headspace for stuff and the intellectual interest in stuff. Another dick thickening 4WD for those in need of it? Oh please. Virgin aerospace tourism? Branson is a hick and so will be his customers. Another F1 race. More product (yawn) but wake me up if anyone starts talking performing arts theatre complexes with associated staff in every urban area with a population greater than 300,000 or decent housing and jobs for the thousands of australians who sleep rough every night as a way to sustain economic growth.
Yeah, we have gone through all those details ad adsurbum, I am asking like, is our contemporary civilisation going to make it. If not, what would it evolve into, say like the dark ages following the decline of the roman empire? And where in this would Copenhagen be situated, to put it into context.
I’m trying to imagine the future.
We are coming to the end of the Age of Hydrocarbons.
Doubtless human ingenuity will find ways to substitute some uses. However, there are some applications for which hydrocarbons are incomparably the best product in terms of its current cost, transportability, storability and calorific value. Any substitutes will be more expensive, more volatile and/or less calorific value.
Take just one example.
An enormous proportion of world agriculture is totally reliant on various hydrocarbons. Food will be less plentiful and more expensive. Inevitably, this fact will force major change in asset allocation, lifestyle choices and the absolute availability of food.
Is an apocalypse inevitable? Probably not.
More likely, the developed world will be slower, sparser and darker — a bit like New Zealand in the 1950s.
Elsewhere, millions will die miserably and anonymously just as they had pullulated — miserably and anonymously — for much of the second half of the 20th century, during the heyday of the Age of Hydrocarbons.
No apocalypse — just one damned thing after another.
One advantage might be things will slow down a bit. Maybe we should seriously go back to the horse.
I’ll miss the internet, though.
It doesn’t take much energy to drive the internet.
I think the internet, or its unimaginable successors, will get even bigger and more important as physical travel becomes more expensive.
Ootz, the ‘dark ages’ (Europe only! Islamic and Chinese civilisations were doing very nicely, thank you very much) were as dark and as long as they were primarily due to a collapse of knowledge infrastructure. That is unlikely to re-occur, even if our economic infrastructure takes a hit. There will probably be a re-centering of civilisational gravities towards the more northern latitudes in that hemisphere. Russia, Canada and the Nordic states could be in for a very prosperous century if the high-end warming predictions eventuate.
But it doesn’t look good for the low-lying equatorial states, or the countries that will become destinations for tens if not hundreds of millions of climatic refugees, including Australia.
As fresh water and food production become more difficult to sustain, my bet is an increase, not a decrease, in strong-arm government, accompanied by a curbing of individual freedoms. In a resource-constrained economy (think wartime), state apparatus gain strength and control over civil freedoms.
My recommendation: marry a Canadian, buy land in the tundra, and wait 50-100 years. Your grandchildren will thank you.
And Copenhagen will remain ’situated’ exactly where it is now, albeit closer to the seashore
Mercurius, why not head towards New Zealand (South Island)? A decent piece of land about 25 metres or more above sea level should do it.
By 2100 we should have the climate fairly stabilised and by then we will have discovered unlimited sources of energy. But other resource constraints remain a problem and we are going to be in for a really rough stretch along the way with food production, fresh water, as you mention, and other resource crises.
Alternatively Mercurius, marry one of Putin’s daughters get citizenship, get a government grant to set up a vodka factory in Siberia (with Nabs as a business partner “Nabakovodka Pty Ltd” ). When the oil runs out turn the vodka factory into manufacture of biofuel ie pure ethanol. Grandchildren will be ecstatic.
(335) “It doesn’t take much energy to drive the internet.”
What makes you believe that Katz? It runs counter to what I’ve read, though I’m still on the lookout for a definitive study, any refs appreciated.
Last year ‘frinstance ” Research bureau McKinsey reported that data centres are responsible for more CO2 emissions than all the factories, aviation and road traffic in the Netherlands combined. The emissions are mainly caused by the high energy use and the large amounts of waste the sector produces. This is expected to quadruple in the coming years…”
and
A Fraunhofer institute report “Energy Consumption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Germany up to 2010″ reckons
“the total electricity demand for the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in Germany amounted to .. almost 11 % of the overall final electricity consumption in Germany or the electricity generation in seven big power plants.”
If this is the case in the somewhat more enevironementally aware European countries, what must the situation be like in the Energy Profligate States?
This report quotes:
If correct, is 2% a little or a lot?
You decide.
Dear God Katz I’ve heard some bleak forecasts from dystopians about the future but never anything so dismal as the prospect of enzed in the 1950’s. Some thirty years ago I lived for a while on Stewart Island (that’s off the bottom of the sth island) and the people were umm, idiosyncratic shall we say. I arrived on the day of the funeral of a local notable and the corpse was solemnly transported to the cemetry on roof racks atop a very early model Morris Minor. At the wake the entire island got legless before initiating a communal attempt at increasing the island’s population. And the rain, my god the rain.
Yes, there are Morrie Minors in all our futures!
(Nice story AN. You have draped flesh on to a vision that is pretty close to the image of the future I had in mind.)
But, AN, on a global warming map on one of these threads last week or so, NZ was the one place in the world not affected by global warming. Nice story about Stewart Island. I gether its very cold down there.
Maybe Tasmania would be ok?
Merkur, which ones will be the equivalent to Islamic and Chinese civilisations of the middle Ages, in this globalised world of the present? Love him or hate him, George Friedmans assessment in ‘The next 100 Years’, that it will be China and a few surprises like Poland and Mexico.
An interesting civilisational reset event is the Bronze Age Collapse that brought on the isolated village culture of the Ancient Dark Ages. In as much it too is punctuated by a mayor resource and technological change, from Bronze to Iron as well as some other environmental and cultural cursors. The end of the golden Age, an event I suspect we may even now recount as in the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. However, it also was the precursor to the Celtic or Hallstatt culture and peak thereof in the La Tene.
“And Copenhagen will remain ’situated’ exactly where it is now, albeit closer to the seashore.”
It’s just that on my train ride through this present interesting landscape of human history I’d like to now what station we have arrived at, and whether it is worth while taking a picture of it or to get out and have a piss before the train leaves again.
As to myself, I took note of the closing lines of Felipe Fernandez-Armesto’s Civilizations
katz
Again, what ‘endorsement’?
As already said, it is the leaving of the normal left-wing circle that is the interesting thing in Alex’s article: the vitroil of the local denizens towards Alex shows the cost of this.
His comments on ‘that uis where the money is’ are easily verifiable fact. The atatcks on non-believers by teh CRU frauds is also easily verifiable fact.
It’s intersting that what you accuse me of is precisely what the denizens here routinely do themselves.
Baraholka – start with the references I posted. Your local uni library should have most of them. The basic concept is that the sun’s energy output is the driving force behind planetary climates across the solar system.
MarkL
Canberra
I don’t detect much vitriol against Alexander Cockburn in this thread.
I can’t imagine why MarkL wants to perceive vitriol against Cockburn in this thread.
Instead, his arguments have been held up to critical scrutiny and demonstrated to be scientifically ignorant. Strocchi’s comment is particularly cogent.
This is par for the course. It cannot be denied that Cockburn writes entertainingly and engagingly. However, his prognostications on a wide gamut of issues have proven to be incorrect at a level considerably higher than random expectation.
But vitriol? Pffft.
MarkL, this is your worst fail ever.
Stop digging, dude.
FDB, what are you referring to – the email from his friend? The advocacy of “solar inertial motion”? Or just continuing to talk with a hostile audience?
Mervyn @ 141
I support and applaud merdeka freedom & independence in Java, Sumatera,….
I was only suggesting that the wealth of the Netherlands was not primarily won by exploiting the colonies. I don’t say the white folks should have colonies. But I do think the economic importance of colonies was sometimes over-stated.
Did the British exploit our merinos and gold mines?
MarkL @ 345:
Yes, but how do you explain why the earth cooled in the last 50 million years while the sun became hotter?
The main driver for change, we are told, was changes in trace gases at the margin for most of the time until about 3mya when it became changes in the earth’s orbit as the main driver. Now it’s changes in trace gases again, but about 20,000 times faster than for most of the last 50 million years.
The science behind AGW makes sense in the broad, whereas there is no coherent alternative body of knowledge.
I can understand if people want to question the legitimacy of the science on AGW. However, what is frustrating is how long it takes those skeptical people to figure out the magnitude of environmental and social repercussions of AGW and its relation to scale of risk associated to it. Thus, even with a low probability for AGW science to be right, the scale of its impact, if true, would warrant to be extremely prudent in our decisions and actions we are going to take about it.
Ootz, quite so, and that’s how Malcolm Turnbull explained it to his recalcitrants when he was leader. One in 100 should scare the bejesus out of anyone with a brain, but 90 plus out of 100…
Mark,
As the linked page @328 “Solar activity & climate: is the sun causing global warming?” shows, there is an excellent correlation between solar output and global temperature until the 1970’s at which point solar output plateaus yet global temperature keeps climbing.
Solar output does not explain recent global warming.
This is explicitly agreed in at least some of the exact articles you cite
in your own post (which I doubt you have read). These articles
are available on-line at the link above e.g.
SCAFETTA, N. and WEST, B. J., 2006a. Phenomenological solar signature
in 400 years of reconstructed Northern Hemisphere temperature record.
Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L17718, doi:10.1029/2006GL027142.
“since 1975 global warming has occurred much faster than could be
reasonably expected from the sun alone”
SOLANKI, S.; USOSKIN, I. G.; KROMER, B.; SCHUSSLER, M.; and BEER, J., 2004.
“Unusual activity of the Sun during the recent decades
compared to the previous 11,000 years.” Nature, 431, 1084 – 1087.
“solar variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the
strong warming during the past three decades”.
SOLANKI, S. and KRIVOVA, N. A., 2003a. Can solar variability explain
global warming since 1970? Journal of Geophysical Research, 108, (A5),
1200 doi: 10.1029/2002JA009753.
“the Sun has contributed less than 30% of the global warming since 1970″.
By the way, it is interesting that your list @92 is in alphabetical
order and terminates at the letter ‘T’.
I will wager that if your cut and paste had continued to the letter
‘U’ we would have found this article by USOSKIN (also Solanki, Schussler and
Kromer – all frequent authors of your cited articles) “Solar Activity Over The Past 1150 Years: Does it Correlate With Climate ?”
“during these last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV
irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular
trend, so that at least this most recent warming episode must
have another source.”
So Mark, every article of yours that can be easily cross-checked contradicts
the hypothesis that Solar Forcings explain recent global warming. The linked page
above contains many other articles investigating solar forcing which come to the
same conclusion.
This does not mean that solar output is irrelevant to global temperature, just
that other factors are at work.
You are making the same lazy and possibly intentional error made by most deniers
with a special interest in solar forcings. You are cherry-picking solar output data
and ignoring the results over the past 35 years.
As Skeptical Science puts it:
Solar output does not explain recent global warming.
You tell me what does.
Brian – the very short term changes we are seeing now (like the current cooling trend and the previous warming trend) are the ones being discussed. These are influenced by a lot of variables. The major influence is short-term variations in the sun’s overall energy output.
Over the longer term (the 65my of your wikipedia graph for example) other variables come in to play, such as plate tectonics and the resulting changes to heat transfer mechanisms.
Terrestrial climate is extremely complex. We do not understand it well. This is one reason I find the panicky AGW believer prognostications of doom the denizens here prattle on with so very funny – for their actual ignorance is even more clearly clearly displayed.
Of course, if one (like most here) an AGW believer, then the Goreacle hath spoken and CO2 is a simple climate thermostat control. All dollars to the Goreacle and his believers!
That’s about the depth of understanding most here have.
I find a lot of this sort of extreme over-simplification and zero-sum game outlook here – it’s an entertaining site in so very many ways – but it also acts to provide the very occasional valid and considered differing viewpoint – there is one I have obtained from this thread. There are the odd flecks of value in this particular ocean of ordure. The ‘hostile audience’ Mitchell Porter notes is simply expected: it’s really just a demonstration of the usual, banal leftist bigotry and bile towards anyone who does not think exactly like them. Nearly all minds here are firmly closed. This would normally be a cause for pity, true, but as it’s wilful it just generates amusement value instead. So comments like FDB’s I tend to find very funny indeed, Pete is hilarious entertainment etc, and I have a lot of fun here when I have the time available.
Cheers, and have a great new year’s day.
MarkL
Canberra
MarkL the sun factor is well-measured and relatively insignificant. There is an issue about cosmic rays and clouds, but it doesn’t seem to amount to much and is not a good prospect when you already have a identified causal factor that is based on solid science and makes sense in accounting for observed phenomena.
It’s not a matter of having a closed mind. The anti-AGW crowd leap on a factoid, outright lie or minor problem in the data and over-hype the claims that it destroys the whole scientific paradigm. It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.
I’ll say a bit more about Gore when I have some time tonight.
Furthermore, to be so certain and cocky that AGW is junk in the face of the implications for risk management if there is even a slight chance that AGW is on the money seems monumentally foolish, to put it mildly.
Not funny at all, I’m afraid.
Spotto fallacy of the single cause.
Baraholka @ 353, sorry I missed your detailed comment. Well done!
MarkL is in company with Ian Plimer in citing sources as saying the opposite of what they in fact say. If I’d been exposed like that I’d crawl under rock and not put my head up again.
“Thus, even with a low probability for AGW science to be right,….” – Ootz
“….if there is even a slight chance that AGW is on the moneyt..” – Brian
I may be misreading you both ere, and if so, I apologise. But if these concessions are what they appear to be – that the ’science’ is a long way from being ’settled’, I can’t see the public buying into a program that would damage the economy and their own lifestyles. If you could say that AGW is certain, imminent and catastrophic you might persuade them, but not otherwise. I wonder what an actuary would make of that kind of risk management.
Rob, let me be clear. The IPCC (work done mainly in 2006) said “very likely” which in their terms means 90% plus probability. I believe that working climate scientists in a secret ballot would now vote 95% plus in favour of AGW as the main factor driving global warming in the industrial era. That makes it “virtually certain”.
Some respected scientists are now saying that there is something like a 1% chance that the earth will heat to the extent that we lose the atmosphere entirely (ec Vicki Pope of the Hadley Centre) and the oceans boil away. But the BAU scenario for 3C by 2100 as a midpoint has almost universal scientific support. The implications are so negative that that only a utter fool would not support mitigation as an urgent priority.
Relying on adaptation rather than mitigation is similarly a fool’s option.
Well,I would have to politely disagree with you. I understand (wrongly?) that the IPCC reports were rigorously edited to remove any expressions of doubt or uncertainty, especially from their Executive Summaries, which are the only bits most people would read. I remain impressed by the fact that Tim Flannery, no less (and some of the CRU scientists) has conceded that we have entered an unpredicted and so far unexplained cooling period, and the science was complex and not well understood – which got him into a lot of trouble with fellow-warmist Clive Hamilton. I don’t think that can be dismissed as a ‘minor problem in the data’.
I think it would be immoral, not to mention self-destructive, for a government to visit such privations as are anticipated on its electorate with the science so – well, let’s say requiring clarification. At the least, governments should do nothing until the British Met Office has completed its re-survey of data from the world’s weather stations – a decision no doubt taken in an ‘Oh my God’ moment in the wake of the ClimateGate revelations.
Bravo, Baraholka!
I believe I perceive an embarrassed red glow on the horizon in the general direction of Canberra.
See what happens when you rely on that very undependable Mr Cut’n'Paste?
Let’s face it, mark l specialises in monumental idiocy. When the Iraq war was the issue of the day he was spruiking the benefits of this little adventure in his personal crusade against rationality. Same modus operandi, different issue. Same prat, different spat.
BTW speaking as LP Vietnam correspondent I can report that the good people of the Mekong Delta must be part of the great GW conspiracy, since they are concerned about rising tidal levels that threaten their way of life.
I find denialists usually aren’t worth bothering with. On another forum I frequent I got this response after asking the guy what he thought of Ian Plimer’s humiliating performance on Lateline recently in trying to muddy the waters:
“I thought the other guy was doing that by focussing on any small errors of fact he could find rather than looking at the overall geophysical science of the issue.
That is a standard technique – if you don’t like a book search it for a few errors that make little or no difference to the main argument and focus on criticising those errors to try to make the whole thrust of the publication look to be in error to the ignorant. With luck you can get the baby thrown out with the bath water…
Pilmer obviously made some errors, in misquoting a few references, but he was right not to be diverted into debating those side issues instead of the broad picture.
Talking about muddying the waters, how about the guys on the grant bandwagon who altered their own findings and got caught.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/scien … .html?_r=2
Ever since university funding started coming with strings, and the focus was shifted from funding pure research to funding “teaching” and pumping out graduates with “qualifications” under the Hawke/Keating regime, science has been able to be perverted in the pursuit of grants from politicians and from commercial interests.
The quality of education has declined, so that Universities are hardly worth the name.
Students are given lots of superficial projects to complete and turning out stuff your lecturer likes determines their results.
Once upon a time you spent more time reading and getting to know your subject in depth and demonstrated you did in independent examinations without the text books next to you.
That way you were tested on your knowledge not on your conformity to your lecturers’ bias.
This bred graduates whose primary goal was Science, not just producing publications their seniors would approve of.”
These people operate in an alternative reality to the rest of us and now consider it a battle of egos that they can’t/won’t lose. They are to be derided for the flat-earthers & crackpots they are because no amount of scientific evidence will ever be enough for the likes of these people.
Rob perhaps you have been suckered by Andrew Bolt’s propaganda? La Bolta essentially reported that Flannery didn’t believe in AGW anymore at the time Abbott was elected leader of the Liberals.
(audio file near the end re Bolt)
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2009/12/bst_20091203_0741.mp3
Flannery made some reference to the last few years being slightly cooler on Lateline about a month ago, but the trend is upwards. The La Nina cooling has something to do with the minor cooling from 2007.
http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/infonotes/info_44_en.html
I think you should change to “unimpressed” with what appears to be La Bolta’s dirty tricks Rob, unless there are some links that demonstrate otherwise?
Since COP 15 left a lot to be disired I have written to the Queen in order to galvanise support for a Commonwealth approach to tackling climate change.
Madam,
Response to the Christmas Speech 2009
Whilst your Majesty borrowed twenty pounds from Mohamed Al Fayed for the gas bill and spent Christmas with a blanket and corgi on your legs we were roasting hot here in Australia, trying to keep the lobsters cold. Is there a better real-life example of the economic effects of climate change on our lives and the global challenges we face?
Pausing from peeling prawns to hear your Majesty’s Christmas speech you stated that
“In many aspects of our lives, whether in sport, the environment, business or culture, the Commonwealth connection remains vivid and enriching.”
On the matter of the environment, I would like to propose that the Commonwealth lead the world again to tackle climate change through the management of emissions reductions and technology transfer through the Commonwealth Development Mechanism or CDM.
Under the CDM, large, wealthy nations with high emissions and marginal abatement costs such as Australia and Canada could assist smaller, poorer, developing island states such as Trinidad and Tobago and England.
With predicted sea level rises many of these island nations are under threat and we could see climate change refugees from such places as Fiji and London. It could again fall upon the wealthy, larger nations of the Commonwealth to house such displaced persons. One of the vivid and enriching connections is that we drive on the left hand side of the road, we could give English people jobs driving busses or micro credit to open corner shops.
Naturally when the floods come you could evacuate Windsor Castle and take the family back to your native Germany where there are many mountain top refuges suitable for teutonic royals. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor inspected one such property in 1937, the Berghof, and by all accounts they were quite happy to relocate.
Such a program would require inspirational leadership; we have just the man for the job in Malcolm Turnbull, one of your most loyal subjects and famous suppporter of climate change adaptation and mitigation. I suggest that your Majesty invite him to the next CHOGM meeting to discuss our vivid and enriching Commonwealth connections as they pertain to climate change.
Yours faithfully,
Matthew Reddy.
I’d like to take issue too with Brian’s assertion, viz:
This, and the assumptions underlying it, is wrong on any number of grounds.
It is clear that the science is not ‘clear’. If it were, the BMO would not be undertaking a three-year project to verify the base-line data. We will have to wait and see what the results of that project are. If those data are wrong, the wrong AGW hypothesis is wrong.
Furthermore, the dip into cooling was not predicted by the computer models on which AGW belief is based. It’s a simple scientfic principle that if the observed data do not confirm the models, then the models are wrong, and any hypothesis that relies of the models being correct must also be wrong.
But it goes further. Suppose, against the data, that the AGW hypothesis is correct. That is a possibility which we should be prepared to allow, subject to further scientific investigation. Any risk management or containment strategy needs to be subject to the best kind of analysis – actuarial? – available.
But leaving that aside, let’s say that Brian’s assertion is correct – that we must mitigate, not adapt. Who’s going to mitigate? Well, the whole world, of course. Otherwise it won’t work. But we saw, just recently in Copenhagen, that the whole world will not mitigate. There is no way that India and China, respectively pre- and proto-superpowers, in economic terms, are going to do anything to slow their rate of industrial growth and the rescue of their beleaguered peoples from poverty. That is a given. Barack Obama made not the slightest dent in their determination during his intervention in Copenhagen. And he won’t. No-one will.
So even apart from China and India (and the US), where does that leave us? Again, we saw that at Copenhagen. It leaves us with Iran’s Ahmadenijad, Venesuela’s Chavez and Zimbabwe’s Mugabe. They were given the stage, and won the most applause. It is quite safe to assume that none of these give a flying rat’s about climate change. What they want is to beat up the west and extort money from it. Copenhagen gave them a perfect platform and they took it. They will probably get what they wanted, and will come back for more. The reservoir of political, psychological and moral blackmail – ‘you did it to us, so you have to pay!’ – will prove inexhaustible. The west will capitulate, and it will pay; it’s only money, after all, and we’ve handed so much over before. The despots will pocket the money, and carry on as they always have.
So the prospects of a global response to AGW (if it is in fact occurring), in such hands, are infinitesimally small. And it will be in their hands. Copenhagen told us that. Even if it weren’t, the idea that a UN which cannot even organise a conference to discuss what to do about AGW, and fail to do even that, despite Obama’s magic bullet, will actually be able to do anything concrete about it (as opposed to talking about it – and that ineffectually) is simply preposterous.
So mitigation is off the table. It’s absurd even to think about it. That leaves adaptation. And that’s where we may, perhaps, be able to do something (subject, of course, to ‘the science’).
Peter @ 365 – on various other threads I did no more than quote Tim’s actual words, and those of the relevant CRU climatologists, which speak (eloquently) for themselves. As did la belle Bolta.
So Rob, Newton’s gravitational mathematical models were wrong (in part, low velocities: much less than the speed of light) and should have been discarded until Einstein came along with general/special relativity?
In any event, I would imagine, (and Brian might be able to assist) that if there is a blip downwards due to La Nina cooling, actually predicting the timing of La Nina would be part of the modelling, but a partial error there (with observed data that the cooling occurred earlier or later than predicted) does not invalidate the model. It would simply mean the model needs improving for the improved prediction of the El Nino/La Nina cycle.
Babies/bathwater methinks. In Rob’s case, if the model was developed by the IDF, it would be infalliable.
!?!?!?!
Rob @ 365, can you find and post the links where Flannery says in effect, he’s now a sceptic? Or some “cooling effect” which he cites which negates AGW?
Well, Peter, you’re a lawyer, I believe. If you were appearing for the defence, and two or three witnesses for the prosecution made substantial concessions which unexpectedly contradicted the essence of prosecution’s case, wouldn’t you tell the jury they could not find the case proved beyond reasonable doubt? I think you would.
Rob @68:
“It is clear that the science is not ‘clear’.”
Not in my view. You, however, continue to prance around as a ’sceptic’ at the same time as avoiding the invitation issued to you, by me, weeks ago in my recall, to offer a disclosure as to what other scientific certainties you are sceptical. I made this offer, which you have ignored but which act is clearly a matter of desparation on your part, on the basis that genuine philosophical scepticism is a frame of mind that extends to all areas of knowledge and inquiry. Scientific scepticism is the preserve of scientists andyou don’t read as a scientist to me.
One of the good things about blogs, unlike dibber parties, is that there is a record. So what about it? In the previous offer I suggested that in the absence of an explanation as to your broader sceptical views you expose yourself as a humbug. nice old fashioned concept akin to a public nuisance. But things have been worsened by your silence regarding scepticism. You’ve less credibility than Madonna singing ‘Like a Virgin’. In fact I’m rather put in mind of the scene from Luhrmann’s ‘Moulin Rouge’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1izj13P9ys
Yep, your scepticism is definitely virginal.
A ‘dibber party’ BTW, is a superior form of drunken dinner party.
It’ll be on Lateline, Peter, because it was in an interview with Tony Jones, or Bolt will have a link (if he does that sort of stuff, I don’t read him). Flannery made a point about how a trend doesn’t imply constant warming, etc, and didn’t put it in quite the words he might have chosen, and it was seized on by the Boltaholics, with their usual specious illogic, as either a slip of the tongue indicating conspiracy, or proof of whatever position against the science is currently fashionable in such circles.
Flannery later clarified his position, and explicitly rejected the interpretation which Bolt et al had sort to put on his words, which you really need to acknowledge, Rob, if you want to argue in good faith.
“….prance around as a ’sceptic’ at the same time as avoiding the invitation issued to you, by me, weeks ago in my recall, to offer a disclosure as to what other scientific certainties you are sceptical.”
But what on earth is the point of that, Antony? I once quite happily subscrivbed to the scientific consensus that gastro-intestinal ulcers were due to poor diet. Turns out they were caused by a virus. What’s that to the purpose?
You’d need to tell me what was the substance of the concessions Rob. (But if those witnesses were Blot and MarkL with all their inconsistencies and misrepresentations, I’d say that the judge would probably direct the jury to a not guilty verdict!)
@371 – Peter, the comments in question from Flannery were made in this interview:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2751390.htm
Tim Flannery – “I am not a climate sceptic”:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/climate-sceptics-and-the-liberals-negotiating-in-bad-faith-20091203-k8pr.html?comments=81
Thanks, Mark, I was trying to find it.
The money quote:
That’s what got him into trouble – not that he’d said he was a sceptic, but that he said warming had stopped.
Rob, with respect, that’s not what he meant, as he explained in the article in The Age which I’ve quoted and cited.
But Flannery’s whole purpose in that Age article was to deny he was an AGW sceptic which no-one (certainly not I) has ever claimed. Inadvertently, he admitted that the world had cooled for the past few years. He did not deny (1) that it had, or (2) that he had said it.
It was either (1) an extraodinary faux pas, or (2) ‘an inconvenient truth’.
Rob, the words you have highlighted are not equivalent in meaning to the claim that “the warming has stopped” which you seem to want to put in Flannery’s mouth. As I’ve previously commented, what he was trying to explain was that a trend is not the same thing as constant warming, which is what he is undoubtedly referring to in the Age article when he talks about having sought to explain the complexity of the science.
Good grief. I mean, *really*.
Like a man once said, Shit — You go away for a couple of days, and the crabgrass just takes over.
This is quite easily one of the most intellectually and morally embarrassing threads I’ve ever read at this site — and believe you me, that’s saying a bit. If I’d wanted an adaptation of “Welcome to the Monkey House” I guess I could just link to this thread and then go home early for a change. I mean, as you chaps like to put it, *FFS*! Or as we used to say in these parts, Good f—kin’ golly!
As usual, Brian and Rob are to be commended for their exemplary civility and commitment to intelligent and reasonable discussion. MarkL (whom I generally have had a lot of time for in the past) disappoints through evasion and failure to answer reasonable questions, thereby giving succor to weak arguments by providing still weaker counters. But that’s almost nothing compared to the massed chorus of shrieking hyenas and thugs on display here at large, violating willy-nilly the standard LP rules of debate in nearly every other comment (though since I’m surely not deputized in that regard, I merely offer the data as an observer, if you will) and violating the rules of basic intelligent discussion at virtually every turn. Some of the stone stupidest things I’ve ever read on this site (and again, we luv you chaps to pieces… but seriously, one friend to another, check yer bloomin’ heads) have appeared on this thread. It’s friggin’ Spinal Tap country. No foolin’. And I’m not even talking about the sciencey parts, which after all I’m not qualified to evaliuate anyway. I wonder how many others join me in that capacity.
Honestly, if I didn’t know better, I’d think this thread was COINTEL ops. That’s how bad you monkeys sound.
So… Off to bed without any supper, the lot of ye. Except for Brian and Rob. Why don’t you two lads come into the library for a glass of sherry. There’s a gentleman waiting there named Holmes, whom you may find engaging; and also a gentleman named Lestrade, whom you may sort of recognize.
Thanks for the link Mark and the excerpt Rob.
That’s not what he said Rob. He said “slight cooling trend”. It’s relative–a “slight cooling trend…but that does not negate the overall warming trend.” Slight cooling trend does not necessarily mean warming has stopped.
Seeing as you raised the legal scenarios:
Your consistent interpretation of that Rob would be: “Ah, that means he was not guilty.”
So what do you now say about:
I’m impressed for his honesty but unimpressed for an interpretation that it negates AGW.
Peter, here’s the thing as I see it. No, Flannery didn’t say ‘a slight cooling trend’ obviated AGW. Of course he didn’t; he’s a believer. It’s what we say – the unbelievers. It’s the logical consequence of his admission; we can see it, he can’t. AGW ‘reality’ is based on computer models; AGW belief is predicated on their being accurate; they did not predict a period of cooling; ergo, they are not accurate.
This does not mean, definitively, that AGW is not happening; but it does mean that its advocates are going to have to come up with better arguments and/or evidence.
And in any event, the whole matter turns on what can constitute a climate trend.
30 years is a trend. 2 or 3 cherry picked years is not.
To say that a few cools years means that warming has stopped is akin to saying that summer is over after a few cool days in early December.
@386 – Rob, you really do need to bone up on what the scientific understanding of a trend is. It’s not the same as the ‘common sense’ one.
It depends on where you start the trend from, Fran. Suppose we started with the Medieval Warm Period?
- which the IPCC tried to ‘hockey stick’ out of existence.
Rob a warming trend is represented by a graph with movements up and down with temperature data but a line through the centre, representing the mean (average) shows the upward trend. What you seem to be saying is that (if) the science cannot predict a particular cooling dip, then AGW is false? That is so illogical.
Whether the model is accurate or not in predicting future temperatures, the simple fact remains that the “data” shows a warming trend upwards since 1970 when the proportional linkage between solar output and earth temperatures was broken.
I’ll repeat. AGW relies on the data since 1970 showing an upward warming trend (which the majority of the research indicates is caused in most part by the increase in CO2).
AGW deniers need to prove (and they can’t) that there is a big conspiracy among 10,000 or so scientists to falsify data. Rabbiting on about some skulduggery of a few in the UK does not falsify the work of the rest. Imperfect models do not necessarily falsify the AGW theory/fact.
Charles Darwin never had a genetic mechanism/model for evolution because he never had access to Mendel’s work in his lifetime. That did not disprove Darwinian theory by natural selection. Imperfections in any predictive models of AGW do not falsify the fact of an upward trend in temperature.
Have you been reading your Ian Plimer, Rob?
On his farrago of claims about the implications of a ‘medieval warm period’, etc:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/08/plimers-homework-assignment/
I understand that this is a reputable source on this stuff:
Bradley, R.S., Hughes, M.K., and H.F. Diaz 2003. “Climate Change in Medieval Time.” Science 302, 404-405.
So – there wasn’t a WMP, Mark? And no, I’ve not read Plimer. I’ve read lots of stuff about how the hockey stick was dodged up to conceal the WMP and the Little Ace Age, however.
Oops – MWP. (How could that have happened?)
Rob, I’ll leave you to it. I’m afraid find this sort of discussion rather tiresome. I’d suggest if you want some rigorous discussion of medieval climate trends, you visit a library and check out the article I’ve cited. I don’t propose to spend my evening debating it.
Sorry to be tedious, Mark.
Peter, a cursory inpsection of the posts at La Belle Dame Sans Bolt will acquaint you with the fact that the climate has gone up and down like a yo-yo for past several decades. It’s been hotter than it is now; it’s been cooler. We’ve coped.
j_p_z @ 384 has the rights of it, I think. Maybe Brian should close the thread.
Oops – millennia. Clearly not my millennium.
@397 – no need, Rob. I wasn’t saying you were being tedious, just that I found this sort of discussion tiresome.
The very last place (“Blot on the Landscape?) I’d be looking for scientific evidence Rob, notwithstanding that temperatures have gone up and down and there have been mini ice ages etc.
We’ve only been around for about 100,000 years. Our ancestors of various kinds did not cope as about 99% of all species that ever lived became extinct, and a highly significant part of those extinctions was of course climate change.
As we come to the end of probably the hottest decade on record, self confessed time waster Rob insists we’re in a cooling trend.
Don’t waste your energy folks, he gets off on being tedious.
Rob @376:
“I once quite happily subscrivbed to the scientific consensus that gastro-intestinal ulcers were due to poor diet. Turns out they were caused by a virus. What’s that to the purpose?”
Ah, I understand. Your faith in science was shattered subsequent to a bad experience of stomach ulcers. OK. The old treatment was ineffective because it wasn’t designed to treat a chronic gut ulceration.
But it doesn’t do with science to feel sheepish having been wrong. Scientists work to what is collectively endorsed as the best available theoretical model (theory) at the time. When another theory arises that replaces the old model it is rationally tested against the best available models of testing and accepted if it disproves the earlier theory or answers questions that unanswerable by the prior theory. Once a new model is adopted the scientists associated with the old one don’t commit ‘hari kiri’ out of intellectual shame. They adopt the new model. Some put up a politicised rearguard fight and the whole process is political and politicised. But the general process is pretty rational.
So being wrong about stomach ulcers is no biggie and certainly ought not to be enough to have created your scepticism of science. The problem is that medicine has more spivs, carpet baggers, shysters, crooks, frauds and snake oil specialists than any other branch of the sciences. The companies are worse. So you’ve mistaken your experience of medicine with science. Hence the scepticism. I knew there had to be a rational explanation for your scepticism.
Maybe instead of science you could read some seneca. He was big on enduring.
That’s what it is.
With respect, zoot, I don’t think you’re quite getting it. I’m not saying it. Tim Flannnery is saying it. I believe him. Don’t you?
Peter Kemp @392: perfect.
anthony, I could go to town on Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions, but I won’t, except to say that it applies fairly neatly in this case.
A decade or so ago, when climatic warming was trending upward, it seemed a reasonable hypothesis – though the relevant science was disputed from the very start – that human activity had something to do with it. Given the temperature trends over the past 15 years, that hypothesis is now in serious doubt. In Kuhn’s terms, then, the paradigm is changing. Either the established (orthodox ) hypothesis comes up with better and more persuasive evidence or argument, or – more likely and logically – it has to be replaced with another.
The analogy with stomach ulcers is complete.
Have a look at this Rob:
http://www.aussmc.org/documents/waiting-for-global-cooling.pdf
Peter @ 400:
Bad news, Peter. Nothing we could do about it then (pre-industrial); nothing we can do about it now (post-industrial).
Get used to it
Rob,
What is driving all this AGW madness ? Greedy research scientists looking for Grant monies ? Ex-Communists attempting to establish a One World Government via the UN ? Something else ?
Not at all, Baraholka. A perfectly understandable attempt to erect desperate wind-breaks around what has turned out to be a very vulnerable house of cards.
We’re all human, after all.
Nice try, though.
Rob,
Sorry, don’t get what you mean.
What’s driving this AGW madness ? Greedy research scientists looking for grant monies? Ex-Communists trying to create a One World government via the UN ? Something else ?
Rob @405: there is no accepted and plausible alternative explanation other than AGW to expalin the data we’re seeing. No paradigm to which to shift, yeah? There are people who are advocating for another theory and agitating for it but no-one has one. The people who want such another theory are corporations and other s who quite literally own the earth. They’ve got the title deeds to show it.
Then there are people like you who, as Baraholka has captured much earlier @217, are so deeply captivated by the origin myths of neoliberalism that to face the reality that the critics of capitalism might be right is for you to face existential extermination. You will have been proven monumentally, historically wrong if AGW is real and your entire irrational belief system will be worth nothing. None of it. This possibility is so endangering to you that I believe that you would rather sacrifice the ecological conditions of existence for all beings on this planet than abandon your rapturous, indeed ecstatic, belief system in which you and humans like you are the centre of all existence. I’ll leave you to your raptures for now.
That’s a very strange comment, Anthony @ 412, and I can find nothing to say to it. You might want to reflect on it for a while. Me, I’m going to listen to some blues. Very sane, the blues. Very. Sane.
Looks like nothing is being salvaged from the wreckage of Copenhagen, The blame game on which countries caused it is escalating.
China, U.S., Australia, India? Take your pick, or maybe all four & some more?
Any developed nation that didn’t have 40% emission cuts on the table is a culprit. That means most of them I think.
Nice hot 38C day in Melbourne today and fires raging in the Western Australian wheat belt. The climate (and weather) sure is changing. I wonder if we will get a 49C day this summer?
“Coping” sounds like an evasive way of acknowledging that AGW is broadly correct.
Well, yes, Rob. Welcome to sanity.
I happen to believe that humans will cope and adapt. I guess that’s where I part company with apocalyptic wing of the AGW proponents. The sky is falling but it’ll take a good long time to land.
A lot of folks are going to live miserable lives before they die prematurely as we adjust. But on the other hand, there is nothing that the greenest of green nostrums can do to prevent that from happening in one way or another.
So strap yourselves in. If you are young enough (about 20) the last part of your lives are likely to be quite turbulent.
Stomach ulcers are caused by a bacterium, not a virus.
“I once quite happily subscrivbed to the scientific consensus that gastro-intestinal ulcers were due to poor diet. Turns out they were caused by a virus.”
Rob, 30-50% of the world’s population harbour H. pylori in their stomachs.
Yet only 16% of those people will develop ulcers.
Poor diet was and remains one of the causal factors in the incidence of ulcers.
Before their cure was recently discovered (eliminate H. pylori), advising to improve your diet did reduce your likelihood of developing ulcers, and mitigate their effects if they developed.
It would have been irresponsibly foolish and wrong of you to ignore that advice. It was by far the best advice you had available at the time.
There are always good and sound reasons for scientific consensus on a given theory. If, and when, a later discovery successfully challenges and redefines that theory, it would be far more unusual than not for those good and sound reasons to become utterly meritless.
But, by all means, continue to advocate that we should play actuarial russian roulette with the lives and future lives of trillions of living creatures, because you have the faintest and foggiest of hopes *you* might someday be proved right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions
So I guess Plimer et al are in with the bold. Supported by Rob, MarkL and numerous others.
What I find extraordinary are similiarly minded skeptics or denialists of evolution or the big bang theory, and for the latter, including Birdy (a prolific but unreadable denialist) I have a question: the Big Bang Theory was first propounded by:
Madonna
James Bond
The Mayor of Hiroshima when he said “WTF was that?”
Other.
Rob, you are incorrigible, by which I don’t mean the primary meaning given in my Australian Oxford Dictionary of “incurably bad or depraved” but something akin to the second meaning given – “not readily improved.” In my words, I’d say you are simply unable to be corrected.
On Flannery, Mark gave you quite accurately @ 375 what happened (and very civilly, please note j_p_z @ 384) later confirmed by the actual words, but you come up with this:
Please get it into your head that Flannery is talking about a few years at the most. If you look at this graph, please attend to the 5-year running mean and the green bars indicating uncertainty estimates. In view of the wobbles in the past 100 years you have to be particularly deluded to get excited about what the mean has been doing in the past few years.
Then you switched to that old favourite the MWP and the hockey stick. Mark linked to what the dudes at RealClimate had to say about it. Turns out they agree with me. Zero relevance on a scale of 0 to 5. Get that? Zero relevance. Read their comment to understand why.
At 391 you said that the IPCC tried to ‘hockey stick’ the MWP out of existence. What happened there was that in the first IPCC report there was a graph that showed the MWP. Subsequent investigation indicates that it was probably a hand-smoothed version of a graph that dated from 1965. And guess what! It wasn’t a graph of the global temperature, but of central England! In 2001 they included the hockey stick because the were simply reporting the latest refereed science, as they do. They weren’t trying to get rid of anything.
On another thread Roger Jones said that as a Northern Hemisphere measure they made rather too much of the hockey stick, but there you go. BTW Will Steffen’s report – pdf (Figure 35) has a tentative Southern Hemisphere version, albeit from 1450. It looks a bit hockey stickish too as do later studies of the NH one.
I’ve always argued that in order to reveal the trend above the noise you need at least a 10-year average. Turns out that a couple of Australian scientists have applied an 11-year average. Result – no recent cooling whatsoever.
When Peter Kemp provided that link @ 406 you should have said, “Thankyou Peter, I see clearly now”, but you didn’t. I do hope you missed Peter’s comment, otherwise you are not commenting here in good faith, IMHO.
On trends I’ve previously pointed out to you that Garnaut (see his final review document) gave the last 100 years of temperature data to a couple of ANU mathematicians with expertise in the interpretation of time series data. They found that there was an unbroken warming trend right through to the end.
How much more do you need, Rob? In this post I reported that modeller Mojib Latif reckons that we need more data and a bigger computer to make really useful decadal predictions. We aren’t even sure what triggers El Ninos yet. There is some thought that changes in the Northern Atlantic are implicated.
There are still many mountains to climb, but AGW doesn’t stand or fall on decadal weather predictions, which is what you are asking of it. Given that the Younger Dryas caused a big dip for 1,300 years in Greenland (which scarcely registered in the Antarctic) a couple of cooler decades would not completely surprise, as long as there was an explanation for them compatible with AGW.
Now I’m going to bed. (I had some kip earlier. BTW I’ve seen too many new years to get excited about them. Sad perhaps, but true.)
Rob, you should have a read of this post at Climate Progress. Three times it is stated that his modelling by which he attempts to predict the weather 10 years ahead has no bearing on AGW. It takes warming as its base assumption and attempts to model internal variations in the climate system around that assumption. Hence he assumes that if we have a cooler or static decade there will be a catchup period later.
Secondly, he deals not in individual year temperatures but in 10 year means. Hence when he says 2015 he means the average of 2010 to 2020. What Flannery was talking about in the “slight cooling trend” was no more than 2-3 years of annual data, which you may be able to discern here (within a warming pattern for the past 15 years) if you get out your microscope. Frankly I think Flannery misspoke in using the word “trend” at all.
The third thing that really hits you is the appalling and unconscionable efforts on the part of sceptics to misquote and distort. You are keeping very strange company.
BTW if you insist on looking at micro intervals in climate terms, it seems we’ve got a bit of an uptrend going in 2009.
Brian’s excellent summaries at 419 and 420 should put paid to Rob’s quibbles, even if it his objections were also covered by other posters patiently.
“I once quite happily subscribed to the scientific consensus that gastro-intestinal ulcers were due to poor diet. Turns out they were caused by a virus.”
Nick later discredied that example
Oops! accidentally posted halfway through.
Continuing that 421 post …
If for a moment we assume that Rob was right and the ulcers were not related to dietary choice … maybe we should look at the broader picture. A better diet selection will almost certainly improve your ability to cope with heart, diabetic, blood pressure and various other bodily ailments. So a better diet will certainly help your overall health regardless of its impact on ulcers.
If Rob still finds global warming science hard to digest, could he at least look at other implications? To reduce it to Australian conditions can he not concede that there is something serious amiss with our major waterways? That addressing that and other major concerns like forests will have major benefits to our future?
Rob, I believe, attempts to address AGW from a non-scientific point a view, which is also where I come from. If you look at it from an historical perspective, the great engineering era starting from the Age of Enlightenment seduced us to many assumptions which are now looking at least suspect.
One assumption was that water was cheap and plentiful. Another was that there were no known limits to mineral resources and to agriculture, or to continued economic and population growth – at least none that science and engineering could not find an answer for.
We are now learning that there are limits. As that dawns we need to change that paradigm that we’re in a throwaway world of plenty.
Brian, my apologies for not respondong sooner – I’ve been out of internet touch over the New Year.
We seem, don’t we, to have reached a terminal impasse. For every AGW authority you cite, I could cite a counter-authority. To your RealCimate, I would oppose Watts Up With That. Ah, you will say, but they aren’t counter-authorities, they’re polemicists, propagandists. And I would say exactly the same thing about your own (counter-) authorities.
There is no possibility of agreement. But this is science, you will say. But science – or rather then state of then current science – has been both an instrument and a victim of socio-political currents in the past. Think eugenics, witchcraft belief, or the Piltdown Skull. The debate about AGW is hopelessly polarised as between right and left. It wasn’t always; once it was a matter of ’science’. But after 25 years of politicisation, it cannot be recovered to ’science’. A common ground is unreachable; we each believe our own authorities, and disbelieve our adversaries’.
This is, despite appearances, no bad thing. The last thing we should aspire to is ubiquitous belief in a single prescription. Whether we understand a prescription in Millsian terms (as dogma), Foucauldian (as discourse) or Barthesian (as mythology) – or even Hegelian, as thesis – we cannot prevent the emergence of dissonance, of dissent. The more strenuously a dogma, or discourse, or mythology, or thesis, strives for hegemony, the more impossible it becomes to achieve it because of the inherent ambiguity of its foundational elements, be they presented as facts or interprtions. The philosophical reality is that they could always mean something else; that is the epistemilogical foundation of heresy. What you are seeing today is evidence of that penomenon: resistance – not to the science, but to the dogma (etc.).
Why is this a good thing? Because a ubiquitous belief in a discourse (etc.) would lead to a donation of trust and power to those who congtrolled the discourse (&c.) which would – and the lessons of history are pretty well unambiguous about this – be betrayed, abused, corrupted or otherwise misused.
In fighting the forces that oppose the dogma (&c.) of AGW, you are not just fighting one or two commenters on a thread at LP. You are fighting the vast numbers of people who instinctively understand the price of ubiquitous subscription to a dogma (irrespective of whether it be ‘true’ or not: the donation of unlimited power to people who want nothing better than to control what we do, what we say, what we think and how we behave; in other words, those who seek to regulate the choices native to us, and impose their own on us – even though, as is depressingly apparent (private jets to Earth Hours, anyone?), they do not impose them on themselves.
The extent of AGW scepticism has genuinely surprised me. Even on such outlets as the BBC and the ABC, whose spokespeople have been sedulously pro-(selytising), I’ve read comments threads where the overwhelming majority of respondents have been anti. Maybe they weren’t typical. Or maybe the oil companies have paid them all off. But the same has been true of MSM outlets in the UK which have covered the ClimateGate story. It’s a scam, just a plot to take our money, is a very common theme. Forget it, Clive, was a common response to a recent post by AGW hysteric Hamilton on The Drum; it’s over.
You may say, Brian, that these poor souls – and I and some few others here – just don’t ‘get’ the science. But I would say that you just don’t ‘get’ the social psychology. To most people, the sight of billionaire pop stars basking in the glow of their own self-righteousness whilst conspicuously refusing to conform to their own expectations of other people is a rather repellant spectacle. People don’t fail to ‘get’ the moral point. So they say: they are just self-regarding hypocrites, and the platform from which they proclaim their virtues is so much crap. They may be wrong; but there’s nothing you or I can do about it. Yes, they do believe their ‘lying eyes’, not ‘the facts’.
Now, I’m no less a victim of this process than anyone. I don’t believe AGW to be happening, because I believe my authorities as you believe yours. But I may be wrong, as may my ‘authorties’. Maybe they really are the puppets of Big Oil and Big Pharma. And even if that were to be the case, and AGW really is happening, I would reiterate what I think is the essential bottom line: there is absolutely nothing we can do about it, unless we ceded more power to governments and unelected international bodies than any democracy could ever allow – and even then it would still fail. It’s too big, our capabilities too slight, our human nature too frail. Copenhagen proved the world cannot even agree to a position, let alone a course of action – let alone program for effectively executing such, let alone achieivng such.
As Katz said:
That’s the wood, Brian, that I respectfully suggest you may be unable to see for the trees.
“‘true’ or not..”
Parenthesees should close there. I hate it when that happens (blame Hotmail’s execrable text editor).
The problem with Rob’s position is that it is subjectivist. It is, as Mackintyre pointed out, all of a piece with the problems of modernity in so far as “[t]here seems to be no rational way of securing moral agreement.” Citing Bakaoukas on MacIntyre: “(he) believes that what we are left with is a modern, liberal conception of morality, in which individual free agents possess the option of choosing their own set of virtues. In this system, termed emotivism, ‘moral judgments are nothing but expressions of preference, expressions of attitude or feeling, insofar as they are moral or evaluative in character.’
Exactly. Rob therefore states:
“I don’t believe AGW to be happening, because I believe my authorities as you believe yours.”
This effectively reduces belief in science to an act of faith. Personally, I take good science at face value and am sceptical of that science that is performed at the beck and call of corporate sponsors as, for example, in the pharmaceutical industry. There just is no evidence of concerned climate scientists acting corruptly and plenty of evidence of red neck corporate ideologues paying minions to do crap anti-AGW science (see Hamilton on that). So who does Rob think he is kidding?
Rob asserts a moral point of view in fact. AGW denialism or scepticism, according to his subjectivism, is a moral choice because the the stakes are so high should his faith based beliefs be wrong. Prudence would be morally laudable. Rob’s position is in fact immoral in so far as it is prepared to wager the ecological conditions of existence against a faith based belief in a bunch of corporate shonks who are fuelled by nothing more than old fashioned class interest.
Ah yes, anthony. Big Oil. Big Pharma. How I await their cheques (the bastards. They never pay). And class interest? Fancy that. I never knew, I never knew.
Don @ 421 & 422:
My references to the causes of stomach ulcers was merely an attempt to expose the emptiness of anthony’s challenges to (my) arguments against unthinkingly buying the AGW scare stories – and, of course, the fallibility of established scientific theories. Let’s not pursue that red herring.
That is something I can readily agree with. But it has nothing whatsoever to do with the rightness or wrongness of the AGW hypothesis.
Seems to me like the most sensible thing to do is understand that arguing about AGW is basically a distraction from the real issue. We need huge gobs of clean reliable and cheap electricity. The only way to do that is go nuke – preferably thorium based. Convince people that replacing coal with nuclear power is a good idea for lots of reasons other than AGW and the problem solves itself.
Peter @ 428 – I agree. If we care about the planet and the environment, let’s do what we possibly can; not what commit to to what we plainly can’t. We may be able to fix up the environment; we”ll never be able to fix up human nature, which is what AGW advocates are really all about. We need clean air, clean earth, clean water, clean power. Fix the planet, not the people. With an effort, and without distractions, we may be able to do that, and the world’s electorates might even go with it, and pay for it.
For its part, AGW is a busted flush.
@429
And precisely what are you doing Rob?
I’ll rephrase that:
And precisely what are you doing to fix the planet Rob?
It’s not about me, zoot.
Or are you just poking a stick at the village idiot again?
Way back in the 1950s those friendly foks at Ford promised us nuclear-powered cars.
Maybe this thorium stuff will finally make this dream come true! */end sardonic humour!
When this dream proves to be another mirage, the experience of multiple breakdowns in ecological systems won’t necessarily change human nature (whatever that is) but that experience will necessitate major changes in behaviour for the usual reasons of perceived self-interest.
Just what those changes in behaviour might be are far beyond my ken. But I’m willing to bet that future behaviours will be very different from what is regarded as normal in today’s developed world.
Probably I won’t be alive to collect on that bet, however.
Rob, to me you have just demonstrated @ 423 that you can’t accept correction. You’ve been shown that there is an unbroken warming trend and, further, that whether climate scientists can predict the weather a decade out has no bearing on whether AGW is right or wrong. As plain as the nose on your face.
Instead of accepting this with grace we now have a side-step and a whole lot of words setting new hares running.
Well I’m not going to play. I can’t see the point. Nor can I see your contributions to discussion on climate change matters as constructive.
(Smiley omitted intentionally.)
Rob @ 433; Well if it exposes him as a true idiot why not? Given the gravitas of subject matter of this discussion there is no place or time for idiots here nor juvenile bullies nor psychopathic manipulators.
BTW you were quoting me out of context @ 359. Not only did you not address my argument about prudence in relation to the magnitude of the potential problem but you used it for your own twisted logic. In terms of Personal Psychology I don’t think this would make you a genuine idiot but it leaves a few other options open.
Sorry jpz to do the Hyena thingy again! Just keep in mind, the Hyena, despite its ugly looks, unearthly voicing and fierce and persistent demeanor has a very important role in the dog eat dog environment of the African Savanna.
Brian, I know my post-modernist tendesncies are trying (to be honest I find them so myself).
To put it more simply: we don’t believe you. We think AGW is tosh.
Rob @ 437, I’ve read you comment and make no response.
But we can still be friends, Brian (Smiley intentionally included
)
Rob “….(to be honest I find them so myself)”
As a matter of fact, same here.
We don’t believe you. We think your honesty is tosh!
Although it occurs to me, Brian, to be frank, that this is the expression of the true totalitarian:
Despite the commissars.
Damn right.
I’m not angry in the slightest, Rob, and some day if we ever meet I’m sure we could find something else to talk about!
Just today after cutting grass (grass doesn’t know about public holidays) for a guy I’ve worked for for 17 years we were having a beer. He said, the rain is just like old times. I tried to explain that we did actually have an El Nino going on and that a Korean guy called Modoki had discovered that if the warming is in mid-pacific then he’s found that it rains in Dec and Jan, but is dry for a couple of months before and after. He went straight into his anti-AGW rant. I said, calmly and with a bit of a smile, “It has nothing to do with global warming. Listen up for a minute, and you might learn something” to cheers from his wife.
He did, kind of, barely, but enough to hear my point, while still getting in the odd anti-AGW rant. It was all good in the end.
Don’t know why I said all that, but I seldom get angry these days. Not out of virtue, just run out of puff, I think. But things go a lot better than when I used to get stirred in my youth.
Hyperbole much, Rob?
That something might even be postmodernism, Rob, which I regard as the dopiest form of non-philosophy yet invented
OK, Brian, I get the point. You’re a decent bloke. I never doubted it. We just don’t agree.
Mark: you too, but I didn’t get yours @ 444.
I retract @ 442.
Rob, just to be clear about 442, I think you have a problem absorbing real world information. To go way back to your comment about Hadley reviewing their temperature recording stations, if they come up with a genuine cooling trend, then we deal with it. What you seem to do when presented with evidence you don’t like is to question the genuineness of the information and/or the motivation of the measurers.
To blame someone else when one finds oneself at the bottom of the hole that one dug oneself, does not provide for a learning experience.
Thanks Rob @447, did not see your retraction early enough, so gladly retract 449 myself.
Every so often I have to stop to check what the acronyms mean on the day. Some time ago, in the Bush era, AGW meant “anti global warming”. Apparently now, in the Obama era, AGW means “antropogenic global warming”. Oops, I missed the day when that switch occured. But AGW also stands for “atmospheric gravity waves”. Take a look….
http://www.tiimes.ucar.edu/highlights/fy06/gravity_waves.html
http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/atmos/gj_science.html
Rob,
So what’s driving this AGW madness ?
Greedy research scientists looking for grant money ? Ex-Communists seeking a onw world government ? Something else ?
RoB: await yr reponse to baraholka’s challenge @452 with interest. How explain AGW proposition by leading scientific authorities? Conspiracy theories unacceptable. Account emphasising error of normal scientific process only plausible explanation but this remains to be done.
There’s nothing wrong in principle with adducing a conspiracy-based theory about AGW. The problem in practice however is one which filth merchant agnotologists flippantly trot out when denying the role of CO2 in forcing — the lack of a measured and measurable mechanism to act as the forcing factor.
Like most conspiracy advocates, they want to keep the mechanisms vague and ill-defined — follow the money is popular. No need to specify which money, which flows between which people over which time period and with which end. That in turn allows anyone to do anyone else’s bidding for any purpose and to map any new “scandal” onto any person or his or her associates so that one can believe anything at any time and thus agree with any advocate of “it’s a global scam”. Nihilists, grant grubbers, obsessive taxers, socialists, greenies, lovers of gaia, scientific fraudsters, ascetics — pretty much anyone can be in on it, whether they know it or not, and the beautiful thing is that the only people who see the whole thing in its totality are people like Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck and the crusading truther who happens to be venting.
If Rob is to be believed even POMOs are now with the truthers.
Rob @ 372, Flannery has accused Bolt of lying about the cooling assertion (on RN Breakfast a while back – you can look for the link, I can’t be bothered educating you).
You’re on a hiding to nothing here.
If this has already been covered, btw, I apologise. I’ve been in Mt Gambier without adequate intertubes for the last few days (and in any case wanting to spend quality time with my son rather than shout at people who are wrong on the internet), and haven’t yet had the energy to read the whole thread.
Why are you all hammering on about conspiracies? Of course there is a conspiracy. It is a conspiracy to do nothing, to spend no money, to keep burning coal, to keep polluting, to maintain control, to obtain huge “management” bonusses. That is the conspiracy. That is the money. A bunch of boffins getting together to maintain grants for salaries? sure that happens too, but a global conspiracy of scientists? That is something only Hollywood could dream up.
The difference in conspiracies is that a bunch of scientists will advance the knowledge base with their grant money salaries because that is what they do, a bunch of industrialists will pollute until they get caught and pocket massive personal wealth in the process because that is what they do. Take your pick as to which is the greater threat to your own personal well being.
Being “corrected” aint oppresion if you’re flat out wrong Rob.
Cruising the intertubes (LP TM) I found this interesting link:
Trillionth tonne.org
Enjoy …
Fran, that’s scary! By my rough count it’s 1,000 tones* about every three seconds.
BilB some say the business on the whole is on board with global warming and it forms part of their definite long term planning strategy. It’s just that some are planning to pollute as long as possible and strategising accordingly.
The forward defence planners also take it for granted.
[* Tonnes, obviously, thanks Fran below.< ?em>]
1000 tones? Oh dear … maybe Abbott will win after all?
Seriously, it really is scary if you consider the “long tail” of CO2 perturbation.
NB: Time for a new thread I think. This one took so long to load that I could type it out in the text box before I saw any of my text beyond the first character.
Brian @459 What about insurance industry, any indication where they place their bets?
BTW Brian, I tip my hat to you and your patience and calmness when pointing these misguided or irrational souls above into the right direction. You are right it is not worth getting angry, it uses up valuable personal resources which could be applied more productively. This could be almost a topic by itself, how to hold a civil discussion and bring about a just social change on a unprecedented scale.
Rob’s post #423 is the most profound and overdue post on AGW that has ever appeared on LP. Until about 12-18 months ago, LP was Australia’s brightest bulb attracting the moths of the postmodern sneer at “science”. The recent flight of these sneering posts and their authors has been as telling as it has been sudden.
Perhaps coincidentally, the flight of Foucault, let alone “discourse,” “the privileging of ’science’”, and “the o/Other” from this blog, has intensified as the discourse of AGW skeptics as “loopy, deluded right-wing/neoliberals, fossil-fuel industry filth-merchant shills” has intensified.
So just where has LP’s postmodernist/structuralist base fled to? From reading this site recently, it is clear they have fled to shibboleths such as “THE science”, despite having shunned the Bunsen burner, petri dish, and the math not long after their first pimple appeared.
Regardless of the “reality” of the AGW hypo/thesis, Rob’s post is a profound expose of the shallowness of not so much those who have continued to this day with their Bunsen burners, petri dishes, and equations, but to their yapping, hypocritical stormtroopers whose new jackboots are soled with the discourse of “THE science”.
We do live in interesting times.
I thought I had already answered Baruhalka @ 452 -
“So what’s driving this AGW madness ?
Greedy research scientists looking for grant money ? Ex-Communists seeking a onw world government ? Something else ?”
– somewhere upthread, anthony @ 453.
But anyway, although I recognise that Baruhalka’s ‘challenge’ was not entirely free of disingenuousness, let’s give it another go. I think the answer is probably: ‘all of the above’.
I don’t think AGW is a conspiracy. I think it started innocently enough, around 20 years ago, as a hypothesis which seemed, at that time, to have potential legs. The world was warming, and it was feasible that humna activity had something to do with it. There were problems from the beginning. For example, some scientists objected that the AGW models did not take into account the behaviour of clouds, which were known to have profound effects on climate, but about whose dynamics almost nothing was known. From the start, too, there were suspicions (I certainly shared them) that the whole thing was a glossed-up post-modern version of medieval apocalyptic: we have sinned (against the new God, nature); we are being punished; we must repent our sins; else we will die. In short, a modern version of the sandwich-board man, who wears on his front the message, ‘The End is Nigh’, and on his back, ‘Repent Ye of Your Sins’.
The Greens, and more broadly the radical (i.e. non-rational) left, were eager and early adopters. They had been dismayed by the failure of the 20th century’s light on the hill – socialism – as evidenced by the collapse of the Soviet Union and, later, its unfortunate victim/satellites. They needed another beacon to light on another hill to demonstrate just how bad for us capitalism really is, if we only but realised it. If socialism wouldn’t do it, what would? The AGW hypothesis, appearing at exactly the right historical moment, was fully fit for purpose. So, enthusiastically, they built the bandwagon, and piled on board.
After ten years, the engine – ‘the science’ – ran out of puff. The world stopped warming. What on earth to do? The bandwagon had grown to gargantuan proportions, and was obviously unstoppable. But the tracks had faded out, or the road was occluded by mist. I’ll give the CRU scientists the benefit of the doubt. Some of them, at least, were genuinely dismayed. They recognised that they had built a house of cards, and the unsympathetic winds of reality were picking at its edges. A young and immature science – climatology – had emerged from obscurity, been hugely funded as the world’s salvator, and now, doggone it, it had all gone terribly wrong. Careers built were going to be ruined; funding, once secure, was in peril; whole departments and power bases, built from the sand that now appeared to be AGW, might be de-institutionalised. ClimateGate broek – and was desperately ignored. Political leaders had nailed their colours to the AGW mast – what would happen to them? The answer was: press on regardless. The result? Copenhagen, where all the skeins unravelled.
Why the madness, Baruhalka asked? For the Greens and the irrational left, it was all so simple. You got the ultimate warm inner glow: you were saving the planet. Who could oppose you? Never since chanting against apartheid in South Africa did you have such uncontested moral high ground. Nobody wants to destroy the planet, and you were going to save it. What a buzz it was! You recovered the sense of moral rectitude destroyed by the uncomfortable collapse of socialism, because you could save the world from greedy capitalists in another way. And (as you may have secretly admitted to yourself) you could do it all without pain. Sure, you could ride a bike to work; sure, you could use the bath water to water your garden. But you knew that was not the main game. You knew it would be down to someone else at the end of the day. Someone else would have to build the wind-farms. Someone else would have to uproot the electricity grid and provide an alternative. Someone else would have to re-configure industry and the economy. And, most wonderfully of all, someone else would have to pay for it. Taxes might have to go up, but you didn’t care about that, because progressive taxation would ensure that it was mainly the rich who would pay, and it served them right. And if you were a pretty well-paid activist (not all of them are, obviously) you could always get another grant.
And, going from the individual to the global – if it meant the end of democracy, the surrender of national sovereignties, the universal hegemony of the UN and its dutiful scientists, it’d be worth it, wouldn’t it, to save the planet?
No. It. Wouldn’t.
Anybody up to disentangling the above for me?
Are you trying to disentangle QED or Rob, anthony?
In any case, I can’t help – I don’t want any of the stupid to rub off on me, as it’s too hard to wash off.
David: QED actually. However, if reading it leaves you feeling as enervated as it does me then please don’t worry.
Some things, Anthony are best left tangled.
Rob’s post is one long exercise in Piling Pelion upon Ossa.
What it does not do is take the most important question — what the basic science actually tells us — and deal with that.
For the filth merchant types, it’s as if they have been given a cast of characters, and been asked to invent a rollicking Da Vinci Code-style potboiler. For each, the bit players’ significance to the plot varies, but they can all agree that a secretive order of scientific illuminati is pulling the strings, or at least playing pizzicato with them.
I’m reminded of that scene from The Life of Brian …
except this lot go on as if it can all co-exist in the same paradigm.
Rob @463: a very interesting and highly paranoid account of political devlopments from an outsider. For it to be genuinely plausible, however, it would need to account for the work of people like Rudolph Bahro who, as both a marxist and an environmentalist, was equally critical of socialism as he was of capitalism and the industrialism that underpins both western nations and the the newly democratised soviet bloc nations.
bahro was a genuinely independent thinker. Sorry about the length of the block quote that follows but I think that this sort of (rare) intellectual and personal independence actually informs many more people than you imagine:
“Bahro’s position was firmly against the economic and spiritual basis of “industrialist” civilization. In a famous phrase he claimed that the disintegration of the industrial world “is the best thing about it and…we must say ‘yes’ to it and assist it as far as possible”.[4]
In Bahro’s view, both the Capitalist and Communist blocs had pursued policies aimed at promoting unlimited economic development on a planet with limited resources. “One cannot have an essentially expansive development of humanity that is governed by the multiplication of money on a finite planet,” he told an interviewer for the Berliner Zeitung.[5]
The Irish TD Trevor Sargent summarized Bahro’s contribution to both ecological and socialist thought this way: “Rudolf Bahro was an East German Marxist who later became a leading figure in the West German Greens. He shows [in The Alternative] how Eastern Europe’s ‘non-capitalist’ road to industrialisation has been shaped by the same growth-based ideals and methods as Western capitalism. He also shows how the working classes of both West and East have the exploitation of nature and the “Third World” in common. Defending their own societies’ privileged positions on the world market, they add to global inequality. Bahro sees the division of labour as the key to oppression at work and at home, and examines ways of breaking it down and rebuilding society from the bottom up, starting with self-governing neighbourhoods and workplaces.”[6]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Bahro
In other words what has happened is no mere bandwagon. Here we go.
Thanks, anthony, for underlining the seamless segue from Stasiland to Green-land. You make my point for me.
#463 is a perfectly-timed exemplar. Fran the flâneur, flitting from fad to fad; ever alert to any flint of inequality (oops, “equity issues”) that might ignite revolution.
For now the Zionists and financiers can sleep easily at night, for Fran – the talisman of Trotsky – has found some new ‘Others’ to sacrifice on the stake of her ressentiment. Death to the filth merchants and the kulaks of skepticism!
But what to do about those pests – the Australian people – who have laughed at, and flicked away every reincarnation of Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, and Rosa Luxemburg. For you see, over the past 12 months, these pests have identified another reincarnation anthropomorphized in Fran and the Hairshirt Hamiltons. For both “THE science” and the global warming discussion, these yapping peddlers of misanthropy are to be lamented. And ignored.
Point well missed (again), Rob. As usual.
I’d never heard of this Bahro bloke, anthony – he sounds extremely interesting. (Obviously the reason I’ve never heard of him is because the GDR had much the same view of him as Ueberkapitalisten like Rob.
QED @470:
“these yapping peddlers of misanthropy are to be…ignored.”
Yes, well, if we’re so insignificant perhaps you’d do the decent thing and take your own advice.
You probably would be able to ignore us if you weren’t so alone.
I think this thread has strayed along way from its purpose, which was to discuss the outcome of Copenhagen, and to share information. Those who turned it into some sort of discussion about the reality of climate change and/or ostensible political motivations for climate change activism have been engaged in trolling. So I think it’s time to end it.
I’d also remind people that imputation of motives to others is against our comments policy, which carries sanctions for breaches.
For anyone who’s interested in continuing the discussion about the aftermath of Copenhagen, you may wish to comment on whichever of my ‘After Copenhagen’ posts seems most germane. But I give fair warning I will just delete any comments which I consider to be off topic or trolling.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/12/22/after-copenhagen/
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/12/22/after-copenhagen-ii-whither-progressive-politics/
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/12/22/after-copenhagen-iii-the-domestic-politics/