The real reason I’ll fight in the Senate on climate change

Posted by Senator Steve Fielding on July 16 2009 | 426 Comments

Climate change is real. Yes that’s right, contrary to the misreporting in the media, I do believe in climate change.

That might come as a shock to some of those on the left side of politics, but it’s the truth.

The question that concerns me, however, is what is driving it? Is it increasing levels of human made carbon dioxide emissions, variations in solar radiation or something else?

Around three months ago one of my advisors pulled me aside and asked me what I thought was driving climate change. I smiled and said automatically that it was obviously a result of increasing carbon dioxide emissions.

I had never really looked at the science and just assumed what was reported in the media to be true. Well wasn’t I in for an enormous shock.

My advisor presented me with data and some comments from a number of scientists which suddenly had me asking many questions. This led me to do some further reading and I ultimately decided to head over to Washington on a self funded trip so I could find out more about the science behind climate change.

In the US I met with numerous scientists on both sides of the debate. Some media outlets would have you believe that I met only with climate skeptics who they accuse of being paid off by the fossil fuel industry. These claims are wholly inaccurate.

Moreover, I strongly believe in giving everyone a fair hearing even if it isn’t the most popular view. I believe it’s my role as a a politician, to wade through all of the spin and come up with my own conclusions after hearing all of the facts.

Some of the data led me to question whether the Rudd government had got the science right. I then took some of the information and questions I had to the White House where I met with one of President Obama’s senior climate change advisors. While these discussions were fruitful, I was left at the end with even more questions than when I had started.

In an effort to try to get to the bottom of the issue I started to talk to a number of scientists based in Australia to get a feel for what their views were on the subject. Amongst the many presentations, one item really stood out. I was presented with a graph based on data that IPCC use which showed carbon dioxide emissions sky rocketing over the last 15 years while global temperatures had remained steady.

This graph left me nothing short of flabbergasted. Up until this point I had truly believed that human made carbon dioxide emissions were responsible for climate change.

However, this graph basically said otherwise. I was left asking myself how I could vote for a carbon pollution reduction scheme if it appeared as though carbon dioxide emissions were not driving climate change. It is important to point out that the IPCC had predicted in their models that there would be a direct correlation between increasing carbon dioxide emissions and increasing global temperatures. However, if you look at the graph it is obvious to everyone that this correlation simply does not exist.

Armed with this information I sat down with Minister Wong, the Chief Scientist and Professor Will Steffen of the ANU to hear their explanation. After an hour and a half I left none the wiser.

I received a written response to my questions from the Minister a few days later which had me even more uncertain. According to the Minister, air temperature, a measurement relied upon by the IPCC and the Rudd Government to justify its emissions trading scheme was irrelevant.

Instead, I was told that I should really be concerned with the variability in ocean temperatures. Not only did this contradict all of the information which the Minister had provided me with only a few days earlier but I was also aware of an IPCC report which stated that the measuring of ocean temperatures was not reliable.

I went back to the government with this question but was met with a wall of silence. They had clearly decided it was safer not to engage with me because I had legitimate questions which they probably were unable to answer.

I was left feeling that the only responsible thing to do was to vote against this legislation. At the end of the day, it would be a betrayal of my duty to the Australian people to put at risk the national economy and many thousands of jobs on what is clearly inconclusive science.

But then enter Al Gore. Here was a man who had a lot of power and went around the world preaching about climate change. I thought he might have the answer for me, the ones I couldn’t extract from the Rudd government.

I briefly met Mr Gore at a breakfast in Melbourne attended by more than a thousand people. He was aware of the important role Family First plays in the senate and was keen to catch up.

After a series of phone calls I was met with a stonewall of resistance. I offered to meet Mr Gore at any place at any time but had no luck. Here we had the former Vice President of the United States, a self proclaimed climate change preacher running away from me over a few simple questions. I could hardly believe it.

I would have thought if Al Gore was really committed to the cause he would want to meet with all senators who had concerns about the science if it would help ensure that the CPRS legislation would pass. Obviously I was wrong.

I have written to every senator urging them to look at the graph and ask themselves the key question - what is driving climate change? If they can’t answer that simple question they shouldn’t be voting for a CPRS. This decision is the biggest economic decision in this country’s history, one which is too important to vote along party lines.

I call on the government to answer my question with a straight answer. If they’re not prepared to do so, I’m happy to fight the lone battle in the senate until those senators who are honest with themselves break party lines.

Comments

Hi Rosco,

No one pays me anything. And my super fund doesn’t pay me enough

I certainly do not want a CPRS to raise the cost of energy, when I believe it will make no difference whatsoever to the climate.

I think you may have mis interpreted the post you replied to.

Comment by Havequestions on 19 December 2009 at 09:31:12 PM
Hi I have questions

Seems like your one of the ones who wants us all to belive your B.S. how much are the they paying you to keep pushing this stuff after all those emails hackers have posted on the net.

At least I can think for myself.

God I’m greatful I never went to university, where they kill your thought process and only belive what is written within their text and what ever they say is right and no one questions anything.

Comment by Rosco on 06 December 2009 at 09:38:41 PM
Jason BSc

I refer to your comment to me on 2 December.

The first thing to establish before we go much further is whether you want to discuss evidence or belief. If you want to refer to the IPCC as an authority and to ‘consensus of scientist’, then I have no interest in such a discussion. If you want to discuss the evidence then, I am very interested. If you know as much as you say you do, I hope you will answer my questions below. But, please, answer with evidence, not with spin as most Alarmists seem to resort to.

Q1 Can you provide a link to a succinct summary of the most persuasive evidence that increasing CO2 concentrations are the main cause of the warming that occurred last century?

I am not interested in the evidence that the planet warmed last century, nor that CO2 concentrations are increasing, nor that the increase is mainly due to man’s activities, nor that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, nor that the ‘without feedbacks’ climate sensitivity is roughly 1 degC for a doubling of CO2 concentrations from 280 to 560 ppm. I accept all that.

It is the lack of evidence of a causative relationship between CO2 and global temperature that would give a sensitivity of 2 to 6 degC per 2X CO2 that I find unconvincing.

Also, the very weak evidence that global warming is dangerous or catastrophic.

Comment by Havequestions on 05 December 2009 at 08:47:01 PM
Jason (BSc Chemistry), I think that without realising it you hit the nail on the head when you said QUOTE: Again, your paper and my link above .. differ considerably on that point. … UNQUOTE.

The reason that the interpretations of the evidence by supporters and rejecters of The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis differ is UNCERTAINTY. As I keep repeating, the scientists involved (and having expertise) in the many different sciences contributing to our (poor) understanding of climate processes and drivers acknowledge the enormous uncertainties that exist. It is only a few, such as those involved in the “Climategate” scandal, that claim that our understanding is adequate for the computer models to forecast future global climates. These models are designed on the basis of this poor understanding and require “prompting” to produce results which match experience, They cannot predict what is going to happen and the IPCC’s AR4 WG1 report fully acknowledges this in Chapter 8.

Have you bothered to read other than the Summaries for Policy Makers, which are nothing but political interpretations of that report and are worthless because of that.

Best regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnos(cep)tic

Comment by Pete Ridley on 05 December 2009 at 12:03:54 AM
Pete Ridley,

Just read Prof William Happer (not Harper as I wrote in the earlier response). Hmmm…no scientific data, just opinion really - and illegitimate use of analogies. As a piece of rhetoric, it might sound good. But as a solid argument, it’s got substantial holes.

Take this, for example: [Quote]Research papers with scientific findings contrary to the dogma of climate calamity are rejected by reviewers, many of whom fear that their research funding will be cut if any doubt is cast on the coming climate catastrophe.[Unquote; p10]

Now, how many research papers have been rejected? How many reviewers ‘fear that their research funding will be cut’? Does he have that on record, or is that his opinion. Great rhetorical strategy to convince people, but you can drive a bus through the holes in that argument alone.

Enough for now. Got to do other things.

Comment by Jason BSc on 03 December 2009 at 10:50:49 AM
Pete Ridley,
Had a look at your link No. 1. Interesting stuff. If it’s intended to overwhelm me with equations etc, just type in “The Schrodinger equation” and scroll through Wkipedia’s entry. Now, that’s scary (and yes, I had to do that sort of stuff in quantum mechanics).

What the paper in Note 1 says accords somewhat with this link (in a broad descriptive sense):

http://geoflop.uchicago.edu/forecast/docs/archer.ch4.greenhouse_gases.pdf

However, the magnitude of the effect of CO2 concentrations on absorption and radiating heat back towards the Earth’s surface is different. And this is obviously the important point. At issue is the role of convection, and heat being radiated through to space. Again, your paper and my link above (if it’s the same one I read last week - I’ve read so many recently, it may not be) differ considerably on that point.

Be careful not to claim too much from your source, because the author himself is suitably circumspect about his conclusions:

[Quote]**No attempt** has been made here to construct *a model of atmospheric behaviour* which relates in any way to the detailed structures of modern GCMs. The emphasis has been to try to understand the possible processes which *can* take place according to the well established laws of physics, beginning with the absorption of radiation by a selective gas and the subsequent, physically necessary, redistribution of that energy which may lead to increases in the temperature of the earth because of such absorption. [Unquote - page 26; emphasis via use of asterisks is mine]

The difference is, my link *does claim* to provide a model/description of atmospheric behaviour.

Comment by Jason BSc on 03 December 2009 at 10:34:17 AM
Pete Ridley,

Thanks for the links. I’ll have a look. I also did some quantum mechanics in my degree - started off as a physics major, but preferred chemistry. Believe it or not, chemistry degrees also include some degree of quantum mechanics (Physical chemistry) - obviously not to the degree of quantum mechanics. It also includes spectroscopy

I note a lot of sarcasm in your post. I’m not “the person we need”. I never have claimed to be that person. Get rid of the ad hominem arguments and stick to the topic, eh?

I was simply combatting assertions - again ad hominem - about my ability to make judgments on climate change science that ‘Havequestions’ (yes, a pseudonym) made.

By the way, it’s irrelevant that Prof William Harper of Princeton has produced 200+ peer-reviewed papers on Physics. Good on him. What IS relevant is how many peer-reviewed papers he has produced on Climate Change!

Further, is it the method of AGW sceptics to take a quote out of its full context to provide a comment that is misleading? (Re: your last quote of one of my posts).

Comment by Jason BSc on 03 December 2009 at 08:51:03 AM
Jason (BSc), you say QUOTE: I have enough knowledge of science to know when methodology is crap, when scientific argument is wanting, and when there’s no attribution of sources or peer-review process ... I can say that I do trust what the IPCC says, but I have enough knowledge about science to evaluate whether their arguments make sense with what I know, and having examined some of their detractors, I have enough to know when they have holes in their presentations, too. UNQUOTE.

This is wonderful. You are obviously the person we need to show the flaws in two papers by sceptics which purport to use fundamental physics when proving that the IPCC is wrong in the assumptions that it makes about climate processes and drivers. We are very lucky to have stumbled across you because we have been trying for many months to have this done.

The papers to which I refer are:
- “Climate Change (A Fundamental Analysis of the Greenhouse Effect)” by Dr. John Nicol, June 2008 (Note1) and
- “Net Feedback in Global Warming Calculations” by Roger Taguchi, November 29, 2009 (Note 2).

Only the Abstract of the latter is available at the moment - see my 30th November submission to that blog - but it will give you some time to prepare yourself for reviewing the whole document. Since your degree is in Chemistry you may need to brush up your knowledge of quantum physics, interactions of radiated energy with gasses and spectroscopy.

When you’ve done that I’m sure that Professor of Physics at Princeton University, William Happer, would love to enjoy the benefit of your knowledge. This misguided sceptic told the US enate Environment and Public Works Committee on 25th Feb (Note 3) that QUOTE: I believe that the increase of CO2 is not a cause for alarm and will be good for mankind … But what about the frightening consequences of increasing levels of CO2 that we keep hearing about? In a word, they are wildly exaggerated .. UNQUOTE.
Poor fellow must be loosing it, possibly overdid it producing those 200+ peer reviewed papers in scientific journals. He’s obviously out of his debth as far as climate science is concerned. Let’s face it, expert knowledge of physics hasn’t anyhting to do with climate science, has it! What’s needed is experise in chemistry, economics or - better still - politics. Professor Happer can’t have studied chemistry to the level that you have Jason. Can you give him a helping hand, eh?

As we all know QUOTE: The problem many anti-AGW’s and sceptics have is one of improperly constructed assumptions about what can and can’t be proved from different periods in the Earth’s climate. Many operate on the very simple assumption that what happened in the distant past is relevant to what will happen in the present and in the future. UNQUOTE. It’s obvious, isn’t it.

NOTES:
1) see http://www.ruralsoft.com.au/ClimateChange.doc
2) see http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/consequences-of-being-over-concerned/#comments
3) see http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/629.pdf

Best regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnos(cep)tic.

Comment by Pete Ridley on 03 December 2009 at 07:33:34 AM
It doesn’t mean that I don’t care about our enviroment.

I want it cleaned up too. But the way the governments are going about it, I feel it’s wrong. Why, they are making us pay for something that has been out of our control.

Big busness on the other hand has seen to it we stay on this mery go round for there profits, these are the people who should be paying NOT US.

They are the ones who pollute our enviroment, our cities, work places, forrests, water ways ETC, ETC.

We can have free energy but people will have to give up alot. Until people are willing to change and use geothermal power, solar, wind, electomagnetic energy to name a few.

We also have to go for more natural products and get rid of nylon and things like that. We in Australia should turn to hemp farming, not only is it the strongest natural fiber in the world, but yields more than cotton, uses less water, make housing and cement from it.

This is what we need to do.

Comment by Rosco on 02 December 2009 at 11:53:38 PM
You have missed very important points, the Vikings lived through a warm period (5 degrees) warmer than now. England were abel to grow certain crops they can not at present.

then came the little ICE AGE where we had femmine, failure of crops etc. All been documented in the UK.

It seems to me you only belive what the authorities want you to see and not look at the whole picture.

The sun at present is doing some strange things at the moment, not making any sunspots 2 thirds of the year. If this trend keeps up we may actually slip back into another mini ICE AGE.

We all should rejoyce for the time we live in and embrace it. We don’t know how long we have left, Despite how much carbon dioxide we poor into our atmosphere.

Over the past 1000 years our planet has gotten hotter then cooler and hotter again, it’s only a matter of time before it gets colder again.

I hope you can see that.

Comment by Rosco on 02 December 2009 at 11:40:13 PM
Havequestions,

Nope, you’re wrong. I’m not running on belief (entirely), but on the knowledge I acquired while studying my science degree. As I’ve stated before, I’m not by any means an expert in climate change, but I have enough knowledge of science to know when methodology is crap, when scientific argument is wanting, and when there’s no attribution of sources or peer-review process - all of which your blog sites and websites exhibit. I can say that I do trust what the IPCC says, but I have enough knowledge about science to evaluate whether their arguments make sense with what I know, and having examined some of their detractors, I have enough to know when they have holes in their presentations, too.

BTW, what’s your expertise that you marshall to judge the evidence presented on any website?

Further, you attribute a quote against Prof Plimer’s book to me that actually comes from another Professor at UNSW. I included the majority of the quote for context, but the key part I was drawing your attention to is this:

[Quote] Foremost among the misleading is his assertion that in the deep past the Earth experienced much higher air temperatures and much higher CO2 than we have today. Yes, this did occur at various times, for example 40 million years ago during the Eocene. But does Plimer tell his readers that at this time sea levels were 50 metres higher than today?? [Unquote]

The problem many anti-AGW’s and sceptics have is one of improperly constructed assumptions about what can and can’t be proved from different periods in the Earth’s climate. Many operate on the very simple assumption that what happened in the distant past is relevant to what will happen in the present and in the future. And they do so in a reductive sense. This is where Prof Matthew England’s quote above is important - Prof Ian Plimer has overlooked crucial inter-related aspects of climate change.

Comment by Jason BSc on 02 December 2009 at 07:14:12 PM
Jason,

I get the impression you are simply running on belief. You clearly have not read IPCC, AR4, WG1, Chapter 6 carefully. That is where the evidence should be. But It is not there.

The links I gave you are for generalists, like yourself. As you said in an earlier post, you do not have the expertise to understand the scientific papers from which the material is summarised. If you simply want to accept the IPCC, as the vast majority of non-sceptics do, then of course you are free to do so.

This statement of you sums up for me, that there is little point discussing the evidence with you:

“All of what he had to say was either patently untrue or horribly misleading.”

This is simply a statement of your belief. It is also a clear indication that you do not have a clue about the paleo-climate nor of its significance to the evidence for “dangerous AGW”.

You might want to post your comments on the “Climate Change” thread of Steve Fielding’s web site - to do so go to the menu item “Have your say”, then General Discussion and then select “Climate Change”.

Comment by Havequestions on 02 December 2009 at 04:54:27 PM
Havequestions,

Here’s a doosy of a quote for you. It’s in response to Prof Ian Plimer’s book challenging human-induced climate change. It can be found here: http://www.aussmc.org/IanPlimerclimatebook.php

[Quote]Professor Matthew England is an ARC Federation Fellow, and Joint Director of the University of New South Wales Climate Change Research Centre.

“In 2008 I debated Ian Plimer on one of Sydney’s top rating radio stations about the facts and fiction surrounding climate change. All of what he had to say was either patently untrue or horribly misleading. Foremost among the misleading is his assertion that in the deep past the Earth experienced much higher air temperatures and much higher CO2 than we have today. Yes, this did occur at various times, for example 40 million years ago during the Eocene. But does Plimer tell his readers that at this time sea levels were 50 metres higher than today?? Certainly humanity did not yet exist and importantly all of our cities, agriculture and infrastructure were millions of years from being built. In fact, the building of our cities, infrastructure, and the location of modern farming have all been set during a very stable climate era – the Holocene [...]” [Unquote]

So much for the “nothing unusual about current warming” rhetoric. You, and your wonder-bloggers, haven’t factored in sea levels over the past 600 Million years. As I said, bad science.

Comment by Jason BSc on 02 December 2009 at 10:44:59 AM
Havequestions post #3,

Your third site - http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/co2-temperatures-and-ice-ages/ - doesn’t in fact “show” (ie., demonstrate) anything at all about CO2 concentration lagging temperature. It simply asserts it on the basis of some nice looking graphs. Have you checked the data source the author uses to justify his assertions? Is it reliable? Are the author’s graphs an accurate representation of the information? Where is the author’s attribution of sources - that is, where does he get his information from and who agrees with his opinions, and where is the contrary evidence to his assertions? This is simply an opinion piece by a civil engineer - big deal; it has no more weight than my comments (except, I’d suggest I’ve done more pure science than your average civil engineer, and therefore have a better understanding of the processes involved in CO2’s influence on the atmosphere - even though I’m not anywhere near an expert). What we need is robust, peer-reviewed science on these sites, not backyard jobs by people who haven’t done the work in the field of climatology. It’s lazy science - pseudoscience, more like it - and very, very sloppy as a method for determining the truth of an argument. It’s no better than your average Tabloid opinion piece.

Let’s get rigorous people. I’m sick of people peddling blog and web sites as if they’re gospel - blog and web sites that don’t submit themselves to the scrutiny of experts in the field of climatology, sites that don’t present the experimental data, but simply lift the nice pictures from other sites, and sites that don’t attribute sources of information - like normal academic arguments ought. Even Wikipedia attributes sources on good articles where anyone can check out the information for themselves.

On the other hand, take a site like RealClimate who are happy to supply extensive information on their contributors (see http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/category/extras/contributor-bios/) and include in-text citations of publications that are explored or relevant to the discussion.

Comment by Jason BSc on 02 December 2009 at 10:26:37 AM
Havequestions post #2,

Take this quote from your second site,

“Our planet has mostly been much hotter and more humid than we know it to be today, and with far more carbon dioxide (the greenhouse gas) in the atmosphere than exists today. The notable exception is 300,000,000 years ago during the late Carboniferous Period, which resembles our own climate and atmosphere like no other.”

There is one, very important difference between our climate and atmosphere and 300 Million years ago - there are now 6.7 Billion human beings on earth using masses of fossil fuels that produce CO2. These periods in the Earth’s history are not comparable at all, except on the most basic of levels. Further, if you take evolutionary biology’s timescale, then a good number of species have developed considerably since 300 Million years ago. So what’s going to be the impact on those species that have evolved over that time-frame to survive in current temperatures and weather conditions? It also contains the same nonsense graph of the first blog site.

Comment by Jason BSc on 02 December 2009 at 09:50:07 AM
Havequestions,

This blog site…

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_0oNRupXJ4-A/SANF6KvP1sI/AAAAAAAAATQ/FP8y3DPkssY/s1600-h/image277.gif

...is absolutely useless as a piece of information on which to make decisions about climate change in this last 150yrs.

C’mon, trying to graph global temperatures over a period of 600 MILLION YEARS and then drawing a conclusions about whether we’ve impacted the current climate change - get real. Total nonsense as a useful piece of scientific data. Let’s have a look at what I’m talking about. Let’s say that for 1000years the average global temperature is 15 deg C. Then let’s say, human induced climate change influences average global temperatures by 2deg C - to 17deg C for 150yrs. Do you think that 150yrs of higher temperature is going to make much of a difference to average global temps over the period of 1000yrs (do the calculations yourself and see). Now extend that situation to this a 50yr period (say 1960-2010) and tell me that a the warmest decade in recent history (1998-2008) is going to show up on a graph when the graph is measure in HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF YEARS. Utter nonsense.

Comment by Jason BSc on 02 December 2009 at 09:31:35 AM
Jason BSc (Chemistry)

In answer to your most recent post, I wonder if you understood these four links I poseted for you previously:

This simple schematic shows that over the past 600 million years there is no evidence that CO2 caused temperature change.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_0oNRupXJ4-A/SANF6KvP1sI/AAAAAAAAATQ/FP8y3DPkssY/s1600-h/image277.gif

This explains the cause of the three ice ages that have occurred over the past 600 million years. We are currently in the third.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html

This shows that CO2 concentration change follows temperature change during the glacial-interglacial swings.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/co2-temperatures-and-ice-ages/

This suggests there is nothing unusual about the current warming.
http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025

Comment by Havequestions on 02 December 2009 at 08:44:51 AM
Rosco, “So tell me is climate change a thing Kevin Rudd is trying to cash in on.” - not only Rudd but many more politicans and others driven by self-interest, not least the UN.

Comment by Pete Ridley on 02 December 2009 at 01:32:14 AM
Hi with climate change, can someone please tell me if climate change is man made, why was the earth 5 degrees warmer 1000 years ago.

In the UK they were abel to grow some plant species they can not grow now because the temperature is too cold.

So tell me is climate change a thing Kevin Rudd is trying to cash in on.

Rosco

Comment by Rosco on 01 December 2009 at 10:54:28 PM
Havequestions,

I find it passing strange that you’re so willing to say human-induced climate change has been propagated by some grandiose political agenda, but at the same time you’re not willing to think that the anti-human-induced climate change folk, and those who don’t believe in climate change at all aren’t political? Also, can’t you see the irony of the fact that you’re commenting on a *politician’s website* when you claim that the climate change agenda has been hijacked by politicians?

I’ll see your dodgy website and raise you one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Public_Policy_Institute

http://www.activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/oid/512

Everything’s political to some degree.

Comment by Jason BSc on 01 December 2009 at 10:31:58 PM
Jason BSc,

This might help:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/Monckton-Caught Green-Handed Climategate Scandal.pdf

Comment by Havequestions on 01 December 2009 at 08:11:49 PM
Congratulations to:

• The Liberal Party

• The National Party

• Steve Fielding (an enormous ‘thank you’)

• The participants on this web site (including those from overseas – thank you!!)

• Australians for changing bad policy through the active expression of their common sense

This is what I would like to be included in the Terms of Reference for the Senate enquiry:

1. To what extent are man’s activities affecting the climate?

2. How dangerous is climate change, irrespective of whether it is mostly natural or mostly man made?

3. How much difference will the CPRS make to the climate?

4. What are the costs and benefits of the CPRS?

5. What will be the effect on Australia’s economy of the CPRS?

6. Is there a better way to manage energy security and improve environmental outcomes for the decades ahead?

Comment by Havequestions on 01 December 2009 at 10:14:34 AM
G’day Havequestions and Pete Ridley,

I have to run, so a quick response will have to suffice. I take your point that those scientists with higher degrees (PhDs) are agnostic or sceptical about the cause of climate change. My point wasn’t about them having Yr10-12 science at maximum. My point was that lay people who do their own research are often ill-equipped to do so and make decisions based on a view that suits their personality rather than coming to grips, at a deep level, with the data and arguments.

Havequestions - Exxon is a private company and is under no obligation (also it is not in their interest) to dedicate significant funds to climate change research. Governments, on the other hand, do have a responsibility for public good, and are required to dedicate taxes in a way that serves the public good. If you think that it’s nonsense that oil companies are engaged in propaganda that “human global warming is nonsense”, let me remind you about the cigarette companies that had scientists argue, “Smoking is good for you”, and still send their poison into developing countries to shore up their profit base. Also, let me remind you of the Pharmaceutical companies that exploit people in developing world and have been known to suppress data for the sake of their profit margins as well. I’m not saying that governments are above lobbying, but to suspect that all the governments around the world are duped - doesn’t cut it for mine.

Pete Ridley - we’ll pay for climate change (man-made or not) through higher energy bills (requiring cooling of our homes), greater investment in water infrastructure, cleaning up after extreme weather events, trying to preserve ocean species vulnerable to increased ocean acidity, sea level rises etc. We’ll pay for it, that’s for sure. So, we have a vested interest in finding out whether it is man-made, because if it is, then we may have some chance at mitigating the effects.

Must go.

Comment by Jason BSc on 01 December 2009 at 07:57:21 AM
I have never challenged the greenhouse effect and nor do many of those of us who are sceptical of The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis, however, not everyone agrees. Try having a read of “Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis Violates Fundamentals of Physics” by Dipl.-Ing. Heinz Thieme (Note 1) and “Falsication Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics” by Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner (Note 2).

Jason, you may be interested to know that Gerhard Gerlich and Heinz Thieme have more than QUOTE: at most Yr 10 or Yr11-12 science as their highest level science knowledge. UNQUOTE. One’s a Physicist of the Institute of Mathematical Physics at the Technical University Carolo-Wilhelmina in Braunschweig, Germany, an other is a Professor of Physics and the third is a professional engineer.

Why are you so certain that QUOTE: we will pay for climate change one way or another in the end UNQUOTE? You seem to think that all climate change is a bad thing. I for one am delighted that nature chose to swing us out of the last ice age and keep temperatures reasonably comfortable for so long, I wouldn’t mind a bit more warmth and am sure plenty others would be happy too. Also, if those computer models can be trusted (which I have no confidence in whatsoever) then plenty others will be happy to enjoy more rainfall. But whatever nature does, we have to get on with it and survive. We have to enjoy any benefits and mitigate the rest as best we can. Life on earth has had to do this since the start. What’s new pussy cat?
BTW, you talk about climate scientists and “trust” but fail to mention “Climategate”. I wonder why?

NOTES:
1) see http://freenet-homepage.de/klima/indexe.htm
2) see http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v2.pdf

Best regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnos(cep)tic

Comment by Pete Ridley on 01 December 2009 at 02:57:21 AM
Hi Steve, I want to congratulate you once again on your stance against global warming being a man made disaster.

I read earlier that you want a debate against climate change with Ian Plimer and another person.

I feel unfortunatly we’ll never get that debate as this would proove global warming is not man made. The science behind the political man made global warming does not stack up when you start talking to people like Ian Plimer.

This would be the last thing Kevin Rudd, Turnbul or any other political leader going for a man made Global Warming.

I belive we should all wait until next year before deciding on this.

Why, because the sun has not made any sun spots for 200 days over the past 12 months. The politions could not aford to stand back and wait this long, as it may disprove global warming as man made.

Why, when the sun reacts like it has done, and keeps on going like it is, the Northern Hemishere could experiance one of it’s coldest winters for quite sometime which would discredit Global Warming as man made.

This could be part of the reason of the push now. It could be their last chance before people start questioning if it realy is real.

Rosco

Comment by Rosco on 30 November 2009 at 10:40:24 PM
Jason,

I didn’t say ‘conspiracy”. But I do say it is political. It is driven by many different agendas. There is group think.

Regarding the ‘oil company’ conspiracy you alude, that really is a nonsense. From what I understand Exon has spent about 13 million. The Governments of the world have spent $50 billion on climate research and surely you don’t believe that is channelled without political bias, do you.

Have you been keeping up with what is going on over the past few days?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230943/Climate-change-scandal-BBC-expert-sent-cover-emails-month-public.html# <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230943/Climate-change-scandal-BBC-expert-sent-cover-emails-month-public.html#>
<http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/geraldwarner>
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936289.ece
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/17102
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1231694/The-inconvenient-truths-Mr-Gore-fanatical-friends-DIDNT-tell-climate-change.html#

Comment by Havequestions on 30 November 2009 at 09:39:59 PM
Havequestions,

Your response is a bit paranoid for my liking. I doubt very much that there’s a global conspiracy by politicians and scientists. Scientific data is open to the scrutiny of other scientists. If activists had hijacked the science, it would not be hard at all for people to work that out. Funnily enough, it’s many of those who don’t accept humanity’s part in climate change who have been shown to have “activist” interests (like from oil companies etc).

Comment by Jason BSc on 30 November 2009 at 09:02:18 PM
Jason,

What you are arguing is that we should accept the word of authority - the IPCC.

The IPCC is a political body. AGW is a political issue led by highly activists scientiests such as James Hansen (and his mouth pieced, Gore), Michael Mann, Gavinn Schmidt, Jones etc. These are the leaders of the AGW activists. They are also the most influential Lead Authors, Coordinating Authors and reviewers on the IPCC.

I wonder how thoroughly and carefully you have read the IPCC reports. They are very cleverly written. They were coordinated by “Coordinators” and Facilitators. Governments sent along their bureaucrats. Only those who truly believed, such as from each country’s Environment Department, attended the meetings.

The result is that the IPCC rports are not the considered position of scientists. They are facilitated summary reports. They are political.

It is the politics of AGW that is the problem. It is that activists have hijacked the science.

Comment by Havequestions on 30 November 2009 at 07:15:57 PM
G’day Rosco,

Will all due respect, the “big push” that has taken place recently has been building up for the last 40yrs. Whether we agree or not that the Emissions Trading Scheme is good in its current form or not (I think it’s a bit dodgy to compensate the power companies as much as the Federal Government intends to do), we will pay for climate change one way or another in the end.

Also, doing one’s own research is noble and admirable, but in the end leads people up the garden path - it leads them to make ill-informed decisions because they don’t have sufficient knowledge about science to understand the technical arguments and to assess the data that is produced in favour of climate change and that climate change sceptics and deniers put up against human-induced climate change. Let me put it another way: I have a university degree in science and I find it difficult at times to come to grips with the technical discussions - it’s a learning curve for me. I can’t imagine, then, what it would be like for people who have at most Yr 10 or Yr11-12 science as their highest level science knowledge. It’s like a bicycle mechanic trying to understand how the how the latest Ferrari Formula 1 car works.

So we’re all left in this position - none of us is doing the research in climate science, none of us has investigated the data to the degree that climate scientists have, and so we read their material and then we can - i. trust what they have to say unless there is very clear and widely accepted evidence that contradicts the climate scientists, or ii. we trust what the climate change deniers and sceptics have to say, even when their arguments haven’t got wide-spread acceptance in the scientific community.

And I’d suggest that most people who deny climate change do so, not because of the evidence (for or against climate change), but do so based on their personality. A certain level of scepticism is healthy in assessing any matter. But radical scepticism and conspiracy theories of the sort climate change deniers hold simply aren’t reasonable ways to operate in the world.

Comment by Jason BSc on 30 November 2009 at 04:42:31 PM
i belive there is something more sinicle behind this global warming scam. There is obviously something big behind this propaganda. Instead of us all fighting about weather or not it’s true, look at the otherside of it.

Why are these taxes really for, are they trying to do it for the planet or to line their own pockets? Push the poorer people below poverty perhaps?

When you look at everything logically it does not add up.

The common people in Aus will have to pay $1200+/yeay while coal and some other industries will receive 3BILLION DOLLARS compensation packages even though we are the one who have to pay for higher electricty bills and food etc, etc.

This is obsurd. Isn’t it strange that all of a sudden, is this huge push to pass it through the senate, but not just Australia, most of the other nations around the world all before Copenhagen.

Makes you think hey. Especialy when the public don’t have the right to vote or debate this issue. We have to leave it up to the pollations who will hopefully get this thrown out.

If all the major nations on earth get this motion passed we the people will have NO say in what happens and we will all pay for this crazy upset.

Why should, we the people pay for something that these big companies proffit in and wreck our societies and invitonment. When they have had alternitive energies hidden away so they can proffit. Our whole existance is to make them ritch. Why do you think John Howard introduceed a $4000 dollar baby bonus when he was in power.

If our population increases by 5% so does the economy.

Think a bout it and do your own reserch with an open mind and seek truth.

Comment by Rosco on 30 November 2009 at 12:44:29 PM
Jason (BSc), I was thinking in bed this morning that it would be better if we debated in a reasoned manner than just exchanging meaningless chatter but was reluctant to go over once again all that I’d been saying for the past x months. Thanks to Havequestions I don’t need to (thanks HQ).

Just to get things straight about myself, I left AMEC in 1998, worked in IT (Telecomms) from then until 2002 then retired. I started looking into climate change in 2007 after reading Mark Lynas’s propaganda booklet “Six Degrees ... “. After months of researching via the Internet and other sources I moved from being concerned but agnostic. I am now definitely a sceptic.

It’s nothing to do with my previous involvement within the energy industry (since 1961). It’s to do with careful assessment of the evidence as a layman, backed up by 72 years experience of weather, climate and people, along with less (but still considerable) years of experience of distortion by politicians and others.

I apologise for the tone of my previous submission here but would still like to know “Which of the thousands of Jason BSc’s among the Google results are you?”

Best regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnos(cep)tic

Comment by Pete Ridley on 28 November 2009 at 05:40:22 PM
Jason,

Your post is very reasonable. I have worked in energy industries that totally believed in CO2 cause climate change since the mid 1970s. Yes, even back then, perople working in hydro electrcity and nuclear energy were aware and arguin that these technologies were environmentally benigh because of polution. But the wheels started to fall off the dangerous AGW wagon for me following the 2001 IPCC report, especially the Hockey Stick exaggeration.

Your third question is “what motivation would they have for this?” which refers to the motivation of the scientoists who believ in AGW. From my perspective it has become like a religion. The governments are raising the level of hype and advertising. The Federal Government spent $10 million to “raise the awareness” of the population. Another way to put that is that they used rtax payers money for their propoganda machine. People simply believe. They are not being sufficently sceptical. They do not read the IPCC reports with open minds. If you do, you realise the WG! is the critical part. That is where the evidence should be, but isn’t if you read carefully. All the modelling wor\k is built on this. It is a complex house of cards built on shakey foundations.

Let’s get to the evidence. You are a chemist. I am more interested in the long term paleo-climate evidence. I feel the Climate Scientists moslty have far too short a view. I call them the ‘weather men’. So, have a look at the following for a digfferent perspective.

This simple schematic shows that over the past 600 million years there is no evidence that CO2 caused temperature change.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_0oNRupXJ4-A/SANF6KvP1sI/AAAAAAAAATQ/FP8y3DPkssY/s1600-h/image277.gif

This explains the cause of the three ice ages that have occurred over the past 600 million years. We are currently in the third.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html

This shows that CO2 concentration change follows temperature change during the glacial-interglacial swings.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/co2-temperatures-and-ice-ages/

This suggests there is nothing unusual about the current warming.
http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025

Comment by Havequestions on 28 November 2009 at 04:13:41 PM
Thanks for the extra information Pete (no sarcasm, that’s genuine).

If you’re the same Pete Ridley from AMEC, it is noteworthy that you work with power companies - oil, gas, mining, nuclear…and a tinge of renewables for good measure. Vested interests in this blog and being a climate change agnostic perhaps?

And if CO2 emissions aren’t that bad, why is your company “committed to reducing its carbon footprint” (oh, that’s right, “carbon” is the climate-change-hyper-ventilators’ favourite metonym for dirty, polluting coal and nasty CO2 belched into the atmosphere). You have lots of experts in the field of “Oil and Gas” and “Mining”, but what about climate science?

In case you’re wondering, a name like “Intelligent Sceptic” is a pseudonym. If s/he isn’t criticised by you for adopting a pseudonym - largely, I suspect, because that person roughly agrees with you - then why criticise me because I choose to remain somewhat anonymous and disagree with you?

And what does it matter whether I supply a surname or not? I’m simply a concerned citizen with a BSc in chemistry, who understands enough about the science associated with climate change to be concerned, but not nearly enough about it to be any form of expert. So, when I examine documents from Copenhagen group, from IPCC or from the International Climate Science Coalition, I take each document on its merits, weigh the argument, test the assumptions, look at the data, and make my own conclusion. And I happen to fall down on the side that says, “This looks like it could be very bad.”

From my reading - even of Steve Fielding’s questions to Penny Wong and her Professorial advisors, and their responses on this site - those concluding that human-made climate change is occurring seem to be far more balanced and circumspect in their conclusions and their reading of the data than do their sceptical or denying counterparts.

This leaves us, then, with two conclusions:

i. the Climate Scientists that form the majority view that climate change is real, and has the great potential to be catastrophic are wrong, and therefore incompetent - they are wrong, even if sincerely; or,

ii. the Climate Scientists that form the majority view have deliberately misled people.

If it’s ii.) my question is: What motive would they have to do this?

Comment by Jason BSc on 28 November 2009 at 11:44:57 AM
Jason (with that BSc in chemistry), try Googling “Pete Ridley MIEE” and go to the 123 site.
I tried Googling Jason BSc Chemistry. Which of the thousands of Jason BSc’s among the Google results are you?
I do like that word “synecdoche” – must try to remember it.
I need to know what assertions about CO2 I have made that you object to before I can respond (if I choose to).
Please don’t feel that you have to ask me to excuse you for anything. I couldn’t care less.
By the same token, don’t presume to expect me to respond to anything that you say.
You, like myself, are entitled to have and express an opinion but are not entitled to anything from each other.

Keep enjoying life and all of the benefits that human development has bestowed upon us.
Best regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnos(cep)tic

Comment by Pete Ridley on 28 November 2009 at 09:18:13 AM
Pete - so which of the thousands of Pete Ridleys among the Google results are you? Still no clearer.

BTW, I’m not using a pseudonym - it’s my name, just not all of it. A pseudonym is a different thing altogether.

My point about CO2 wasn’t that it will get to toxic levels for humanity in any reasonable timeframe. It was in reply to your silly assertion that “carbon” is a big, scary synecdoche for CO2, and that, really, CO2 is this lovely, life-supporting thing. Like every assertion that is half true, it is also half false - that is, it is misleading. Either give a comprehensive and balanced account of what CO2 is and does, or don’t make assertions - assertions that just happen to suit your rhetorical purpose - about CO2.

What gives you the authority to claim the Copenhagen Document is propaganda, and yet some of the selective evidence you’ve given is remarkably thoroughly trustworthy and above board? Excuse my scepticism, but you’re selecting material that backs your case up and dismisses anything contrary as propaganda. That’s a poor method.

Oh, and you haven’t responded to my point about your use of your selective, narrow, and un-scientific anecdotal evidence as proof that the climate isn’t changing.

Pete, I’m not going to trawl through pages of blogs just to satisfy you that I’ve read enough of your material.

Comment by Jason BSc on 28 November 2009 at 08:37:14 AM
Jason (with that BSc in chemistry), I forgot to mention that the life-supporting substance CO2 only becomes toxic (a killer?) in concentrations more than 10,000% above today’s level (Note 1) greatly exceeding anything experienced in the global atmosphere for many millions of years (Note 2). QUOTE: But for most of the Mesozoic era (65–250 Myr), CO2 levels were high (1,000–2,000 p.p.m.v.), with transient excursions to even higher CO2 (>2,000 p.p.m.v.) concentrations. UNQUOTE

Note 1) see http://www.inspect-ny.com/hazmat/CO2gashaz.htm

Best regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnostic

Comment by Pete Ridley on 28 November 2009 at 03:38:05 AM
Sorry folks, Jason (whoever) made me so escited that I forgot that I’d already posted that comment.

Comment by Pete Ridley on 28 November 2009 at 02:36:19 AM
PART 1

You may be interested in this comment that I posted to several of the UN’s COP15 blogs yesterday.

The news about China and its promises for Copenhagen is being distorted in the reporting by the media headlines.
As is to be expected the UK’s Guardian headlines (Note 1) QUOTE: China sets first targets to curb world’s largest carbon footprint • China plans to slow emissions growth by up to 45% UNQUOTE. The BBC also had a similar misleading caption attached to its TV news.

Although the UN is using this as part of its propaganda suggesting that China has agreed to cut emissions., this is not true. As far as China’s actual commitment is concerned (Note 2) QUOTE: Reports have today emerged that China will commit to cutting its carbon intensity – the amount of carbon it emits per unit of GDP – by 40 to 45 per cent on 2005 levels by 2020. UNQUOTE! Taking into consideration its economic growth over the past 10 years and projecting that over the next 10 this does not add up to a reduction in CO2 emissions. On the contrary, it will almost certainly increase.

At long last the UK newspapers are picking up on the UEA CRU and its “Climategate” scandal. Today’s Daily Mail had the first article that I am aware of in which it suggests that there might be flaws in The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis. It’s headline is QUOTE: I might not know the truth about climate change, but I recognise trickery and slippery excuses when I see them UNQUOTE and goes on to talk about the “climategate” furore. The MailOnLine has another article (Note 3) headlined QUOTE: Climate change scandal deepens as BBC expert claims he was sent leaked emails six weeks ago UNQUOTE. I wonder when the BBC is going to stop pushing only one side odf the debate and give fair voice to the sceptical argument.

PS: Philip Sanchez, I posted a more complete version to Realclimate (Note 4) and Gavin Schmidt’s response QUOTE:
[Response: Way overblown. Everyone knows (since it was published in Nature) there is a problem the MXD proxy post 1960. It makes perfect sense that the scientists involved would try a number of things to attempt to correct for the problem. The code highlighted is structured to produce two plots. The first is entitled “Northern Hemisphere temperatures, MXD and corrected MXD” and the second is “Northern Hemisphere temperatures and MXD reconstruction”. In the code as available, the “corrected MXD” plot and the artificial correction is commented out (note the ‘;’ on the line ;filter_cru,5.,/nan,tsin=yyy+yearlyadj,tslow=tslow. Instead the program will quite happily plot the temperatures and MXD reconstruction with no correction. As for where the correction comes from, it appears to be based on a PCA technique described in briffa_sep98_decline1.pro and briffa_sep98_decline2.pro:

; On a site-by-site basis, computes MXD timeseries from 1902-1976, and
; computes Apr-Sep temperature for same period, using surrounding boxes
; if necessary. Normalises them over as common a period as possible, then
; takes 5-yr means of each (fairly generous allowance for
; missing data), then takes the difference.
; Results are then saved for briffa_sep98_decline2.pro to perform rotated PCA
; on, to obtain the ‘decline’ signal!

; Reads in site-by-site MXD and temperature series in 5 yr blocks, all
; correctly normalised etc. Rotated PCA is performed to obtain the ‘decline’
; signal!

Comment by Pete Ridley on 28 November 2009 at 02:33:05 AM
PART 2

I guess the initial reason to do this would be to see if there is a spatial pattern to the divergence that might reveal something about it’s cause. The weighting of that pattern (the ‘yearlyadj’ PC weights) could be used to correct for the decline, but I’m not sure what use that would be. More importantly, I have no idea if that was used in a paper (I have no access from home), but since the graph would have read “Corrected MXD”, I don’t see how anyone would have been misled. It certainly has nothing to do with Jones’ comment or the 1999 WMO plot, nor the published data. This is just malicious cherry picking. - gavin]
UNQUOTE.

Poor old Gavin has had a lot of stonewalling to do over the past several days – not his usual style.

Jason (with the BSc in chemistry), I’m so pleased that you followed up on that propaganda document The Copenhagen Diagnosis. The gloves may just have come off for you but I’ve been there and done that long ago. All of the points you make have been covered earlier here, on Senator Fielding’s other blogs and elsewhere. Have a Google and if you look hard enough you’ll find what my background is. Also, I don’t hide behind a psuedonym!

NOTES:
1) see http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/26/china-targets-cut-carbon-footprint
2) see http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2253988/reports-china-cut-carbon
3) see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230943/Climate-change-scandal-BBC-expert-sent-cover-emails-month-public.html#ixzz0XyudtxDM
4) see http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/comment-page-15/#comment-144890

Pete Ridley, Human-made global climate change agos(cep)tic

Comment by Pete Ridley on 28 November 2009 at 02:32:46 AM
Pete Ridley,

I’ve done a little internet searching of my own, and guess what? The link below confirms much of what I had written earlier…and I hadn’t even read it before. I was just using that unreliable scientific brain of mine, and it accords well with the arguments of climate scientists. Guess it can’t be that unreliable after all.

http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.org/read/default.html

Comment by Jason BSc on 27 November 2009 at 11:44:14 PM
Pete Ridley,
The gloves are off mate. I was putting it in layman’s terms for the sake of intelligent Skeptic. If you don’t understand the science, don’t dabble - and to treat the IPCC with the disdain you do in your post of 8:20pm tonight, shows you do not understand the basic physics and chemistry taking place in climate change. And quoting a few links to Wikipedia won’t cut it either, nor will a few other links to scientific journals. Exactly what qualifications do you hold in science, and when did you receive them? Lay your cards on the table. Or are you like the backyard mechanic who has a go, but couldn’t fix your multi-point fuel injection system?

It DOES NOT matter whether CO2 forms a weak acid when it is dissolved in sea water. What does matter is the *increasing* acidification in an otherwise stable pH environment. And since increasing acidification is a logarithmic scale, then even small changes are relevant. Yes, Wikipedia is relevant and will give you some good information. You will also find in Wikipedia the impact on sea creatures that increasing acidification causes. To label the situation one of “less alkalinity” is simply spin of the worst kind - like saying a dead person is “less alive”. Do you actually know what it means that the pH will drop by 0.5 units - from about 8.2 to 7.7? If a pH drop of 1 unit = 10 times more acid ions present than previously, the 0.5 units is a substantial increase in acidity. We may not notice it, but the marine environment certainly will. Further, you say that some scientists are trying to “scare” people with the use of “carbon” for CO2, which is “invisible, tasteless and odourless” - you forgot something…it is also deadly to human beings in certain concentrations. Try that for scaremongering.

Next, you claim climate scientists are still trying to understand the science - that’s patently false. They understand what CO2 does in the atmosphere - it’s the precise consequences that certain concentrations of CO2 will have on the environment that is not certain. Why? Because there is no precedent. This isn’t an experiment that we can perform, look at the data, and then repeat to test the validity of our hypotheses. You get ONE shot at this. So to imply that scientists don’t understand what is going on is disingenuous. They understand the science, it’s the exact nature and depth of the impact that is debate - whether it’s going to be very problematic for the earth, or whether it will be catastrophic. Admit it, you’re not agnostic about climate change. You deny it is man-made, and you doubt it will have any significant impact. And instead, you rely on your own, narrow and anecdotal “climate data” from your 72yrs of experience of very localised temperature fluctuations. It’s a joke. Try publishing that rubbish in a peer reviewed science journal and see what the response would be. And yet, climate scientists have their work reviewed by the scientific community worldwide, but that’s not good enough for you - you’re so much superior to those dodgy science types with their vested interests, right?

Comment by Jason BSc on 27 November 2009 at 10:53:04 PM
PART 1

You may be interested in this comment that I posted to several of the UN’s COP15 blogs yesterday.

The news about China and its promises for Copenhagen is being distorted in the reporting by the media headlines.
As is to be expected the UK’s Guardian headlines (Note 1) QUOTE: China sets first targets to curb world’s largest carbon footprint • China plans to slow emissions growth by up to 45% UNQUOTE. The BBC also had a similar misleading caption attached to its TV news.

Although the UN is using this as part of its propaganda suggesting that China has agreed to cut emissions., this is not true. As far as China’s actual commitment is concerned (Note 2) QUOTE: Reports have today emerged that China will commit to cutting its carbon intensity – the amount of carbon it emits per unit of GDP – by 40 to 45 per cent on 2005 levels by 2020. UNQUOTE! Taking into consideration its economic growth over the past 10 years and projecting that over the next 10 this does not add up to a reduction in CO2 emissions. On the contrary, it will almost certainly increase.

At long last the UK newspapers are picking up on the UEA CRU and its “Climategate” scasdal. Today’s Daily Mail had the first article that I am aware of in which it suggests that there might be flaws in The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis. It’s headline is QUOTE: I might not know the truth about climate change, but I recognise trickery and slippery excuses when I see them UNQUOTE and goes on to talk about the “climategate” furore. The MailOnLine has another article (Note 3) headlined QUOTE: Climate change scandal deepens as BBC expert claims he was sent leaked emails six weeks ago UNQUOTE. I wonder when the BBC is going to stop pushing only one side odf the debate and give fair voice to the sceptical argument.

PS: Philip Sanchez, I posted a more complete version to Realclimate (Note 4) and Gavin Schmidt’s response QUOTE:
[Response: Way overblown. Everyone knows (since it was published in Nature) there is a problem the MXD proxy post 1960. It makes perfect sense that the scientists involved would try a number of things to attempt to correct for the problem. The code highlighted is structured to produce two plots. The first is entitled “Northern Hemisphere temperatures, MXD and corrected MXD” and the second is “Northern Hemisphere temperatures and MXD reconstruction”. In the code as available, the “corrected MXD” plot and the artificial correction is commented out (note the ‘;’ on the line ;filter_cru,5.,/nan,tsin=yyy+yearlyadj,tslow=tslow. Instead the program will quite happily plot the temperatures and MXD reconstruction with no correction. As for where the correction comes from, it appears to be based on a PCA technique described in briffa_sep98_decline1.pro and briffa_sep98_decline2.pro:

; On a site-by-site basis, computes MXD timeseries from 1902-1976, and
; computes Apr-Sep temperature for same period, using surrounding boxes
; if necessary. Normalises them over as common a period as possible, then
; takes 5-yr means of each (fairly generous allowance for
; missing data), then takes the difference.
; Results are then saved for briffa_sep98_decline2.pro to perform rotated PCA
; on, to obtain the ‘decline’ signal!

; Reads in site-by-site MXD and temperature series in 5 yr blocks, all
; correctly normalised etc. Rotated PCA is performed to obtain the ‘decline’
; signal!

Comment by Pete Ridley on 27 November 2009 at 08:29:43 PM
PART 2

I guess the initial reason to do this would be to see if there is a spatial pattern to the divergence that might reveal something about it’s cause. The weighting of that pattern (the ‘yearlyadj’ PC weights) could be used to correct for the decline, but I’m not sure what use that would be. More importantly, I have no idea if that was used in a paper (I have no access from home), but since the graph would have read “Corrected MXD”, I don’t see how anyone would have been misled. It certainly has nothing to do with Jones’ comment or the 1999 WMO plot, nor the published data. This is just malicious cherry picking. - gavin]
UNQUOTE.

Poor old Gavin has had a lot of stonewalling to do over the past several days – not his usual style.

NOTES:
1) see http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/26/china-targets-cut-carbon-footprint
2) see http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2253988/reports-china-cut-carbon
3) see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230943/Climate-change-scandal-BBC-expert-sent-cover-emails-month-public.html#ixzz0XyudtxDM
4) see http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/comment-page-15/#comment-144890

Pete Ridley, Human-made global climate change agos(cep)tic

Comment by Pete Ridley on 27 November 2009 at 08:29:25 PM
PART 1

Well well– this blog really has sprung to life again after staying dormant for a while. Could it be anything to do with the University of east Anglia Climate Research Unit scandal? All kinds are crawling out of the woodwork – and not just from those files.

Jason (with the BSc in chemistry), thanks for the lesson but you seem to have missed my point about “less alkaline”. Both terms are of course are equally correct but it does sound much more scary to say “more acid”- most people understand that acid burns. A bit like calling Carbon Dioxide “carbon” – we all recognise those horrible dirty things coal and soot but have no fear of invisible, tasteless, odourless CO2. Also, you conveniently overlooked several rather important points.
a) the change in ocean pH since ??? has been very small
b) disolution of CO2 in water creates a WEAK acid. Only % is ionised.
c) human contribution to atmospheric CO2 adds only about 3% to what nature provides by itself. The Royal Society of Chemistry reported (Note 2) in July 2005 started QUOTE: The average pH of the oceans will fall by up to 0.5 units by 2100 if global emissions of CO2 continue to rise at present rates, .. Surface oceans currently have an average pH of 8.2. UNQUOTE. So, those 97% natural emissions plus that extra 3% caused by humans, the oceans will still be alkaline in 2100 and at that top rate of 0.5/century rate of fall in pH (if maintained) it would reach neutrality by 2200. It would have to continue at that rate for another 600 years before reaching that “concentrated … acid” pH of 3. But this is all crystal ball gazing, isn’t it, just like the IPCC’s climate forecasts.

Intelligent Sceptic, you’d be better advised to look elsewhere than Jason for reliable information on ocean pH and CO2. Even Wikipedia would be better (Note 3).
Jason says QUOTE: please try to understand the science UNQUOTE. That is what the climate scientists themselves are trying to do. It is essential, taking into consideration the present poor understanding of climate processes and drivers. With our lack of understanding of the numerous scientific disciplines involved. People like us have little chance. All we can do really is use our intelligence and experience of climate change during our lifetimes. I’ve been around 72 years and have seen nothing significant. How about you guys?

The UN uses our ignorance to further its own objectives, which are:
- redistribution of wealth from developed to underdeveloped econonmies and
- establishment of a mechanism for global government.
That is what its Copenhagen COP15 activities are all about – nothing at all to do with trying to control global climates. It’s all a matter of how best to influence public opinion. As all leading climate scientists know (Note 1) QUOTE: To avert the risk (of potentially disastrous climate change) we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public imagination. UNQUOTE. This is an approach fully supported by scientists like Professors Phil Jones, Michael E Mann, Stephen H. Schneider, Dr. Gavin Schmidt, etc. etc. etc.

All good propagandists need to know how to sway public opinion, no matter what the lie. Well, all “good” (I misprinted it as “god” the last time I used it, but on reflection, it is appropriate) propaganda starts with a real scare, doesn’t it. Hitler’s regime (from almost three climate changes ago) perfected it and all other governments and dubious organisations learnt from them. As Adolf Hitler, said “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it”. He also said “All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach”. Plenty intelligent people have swallowed the UN’s IPCC propaganda hook, line and sinker and are now disciples of the AGW cause.

Comment by Pete Ridley on 27 November 2009 at 08:20:25 PM
PART 2

The latest piece of UN climate change propaganda, timed for just ahead of the Copenhagen conference, is “The Copenhagen Diagnosis”. This beautiful propaganda bulletin is being presented by some propagandists as the latest IPCC report. It is not! It has been written by a group of climate scientists quite independently of the IPCC. As I said a couple of days ago on several of the UN’s COP15 blog QUOTE:
It is not a scientific report but a propaganda bulletin for politicians in support of the UN’s COP15 in Copenhagen. One of those authors is Michael Mann and another is Stephen Schneider. Both Michael E Mann and Stephen H Schneider have been involved in controversy regarding the way in which human-made climate change propaganda is presented. Michael E Mann’s name is prominent in the debate over the leaked University of East Anglia Climate Change Unit files which is running all over the Internet and in the mainstream media (excepting the BBC of course). Stephen H Schneider was involved in debate with The Detroit News, which had an editorial starting QUOTE: On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method. … On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. … To avert the risk (of potentially disastrous climate change) we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public imagination. That of course means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. …Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective, and being honest.
—Stephen H. Schneider, author of the book Global Warming (Sierra Club), in an interview in Discover Magazine, October 1989. UNQUOTE. More on this is available at the BBC blog “Hacked climate e-mails and FOI “ comment # 20 (Note 4).
With the involvement of people with their attitude about how to present the human-made climate change argument to the populace I leave it to you to decide how trustworthy their declarations are.

As becomes any worthwhile piece of propaganda, The Copenhagen Diagnosis is filled with very emotive pictures (a picture paints 1000 words) just like Mark’s propaganda booklet “Six Degrees .. “ is. It shows pounding seas, tornadoes, parched landscapes, dead trees, balding rain forrests, melting glaciers and ice sheets, great deserts, blazing sunshine, a boiling West Antarctic, floods, those (obligatory) poor polar bears and belching chimney stacks. There’s a graph of increasing CO2 along with a “hockey-stick” style global temperature graph - you name it, they have it. Then, of course, there are those dreaded tipping points! Once we reach those there’s no hope – mankind is doomed – unless we pay up that carbon tax.

What a marvellous way to encourage people to be ripped off.
UNQUOTE.

As Jason pointed out in his earlier comment, now that we’ve had 10 years with rising CO2 levels but slightly falling temperatures the UN’s IPCC and its supporters are diverting attention to the oceans (and all of that temperature and sea level rising their useless computers forecast for the end of the century (or sooner – those horrific tipping points and all that, just waiting to bite us if we don’t stop using fossil fuels!!). Fortune tellers could do a better job.

I repeat, what a marvellous way to encourage people to be ripped off.

NOTES:

1) see http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/DetroitNews.pdf
2) see http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2005/July/01070501.asp
3) see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification for
4) see http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/opensecrets/2009/11/hacked_climate_emails_and_foi.html

Best regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnostic

Comment by Pete Ridley on 27 November 2009 at 08:20:03 PM
We need to remember that this blog arises from questions raised by Senator Fielding. Minister Wong could not answer those questions and Nobel Laureate Gore avoided them. Not surprising because pro-AGW organisations have avoided my similar requests over the past 18 months.

This suggests that pro-AGW does not have a straightforward explanation using basic laws of science. So what does pro-AGW have to support ETS/CPRS…please answer Senator Fielding. (ETS/CPRS will impact entirely via atmospheric CO2 interacting with infrared radiation…please explain how!)

My enquiries lead to Prof Nicol and his work which suggests CO2 is not the culprit so an ETS/CPRS will not help us combat climate change. The pro-AGW camp can’t provide a step by step explanation whereas Prof Nicol attempts such an explanation. Shouldn’t we place more weight on factual explanations rather
than modelled hypotheses using wobbly data?

The task for pro-AGW is simple…explain in terms of basic physics/chemistry how more human generated CO2 is driving climate change. Then Senator Fielding will be able to make a logic based decision when the Australian senate is called to vote on the CPRS legislation.

Discussions about oceans etc etc are relevant to changes in environment/climate but are outside the scope of the possible effects of an ETS/CPRS. Crunch time is here and we need to maintain focus.

Regards

John Watt

Comment by John Watt on 27 November 2009 at 12:53:07 PM
Intelligent Skeptic, I’ve bought into this debate late. But what Pete Ridley tried to explain to you about pH is dodgy - scientists don’t use “more acidic” to scare people.

Acidity of a solution is measured with a pH scale - a scale that goes from 14 to 0 - 14 being “very high” pH (but “very low” acidity) and 0 being very low pH (but “very high” acidity). The measure of pH explains the number of H+ ions (the acidic bits) in a solution. If a pH is “high” (e.g., pH 10) (this is commonly called an alkaline solution) it has a relatively small number of H+ (acidic) ions in the solution. If the pH is “low” (e.g., pH 3) then it has a heck of a lot of H+ ions (like fairly concentrated Sulfuric acid, or Hydrochloric acid). So, it is *right* to say that the oceans are becoming *more acidic* - the oceans’ acidity (pH) levels are going from “higher” (pH 8.3?) to “lower” (pH 8), which means there are more H+ ions in the sea water - they are more acidic. This isn’t a scare tactic, but the regularly used scientific description of H+ ions in solutions. The issue here is, what the impact of the slightly more acidic oceans will have. We can cope with a relatively small change in ocean acidity - we’re not very sensitive to that change *because we don’t live in the oceans*. But oceans becoming more acidic has a great impact on sea life that is very sensitive to pH change and has grown very accustomed to the relatively stable pH of the oceans over thousands of years.

Comment by Jason BSc on 27 November 2009 at 10:57:20 AM
Oh, and by the way, for those relying on the leaking of “fake” data in the emails of climate scientists from East Anglia (?), take a look at Prof. Michael Ashley’s (Professor in Astrophysics at the University of NSW) response in the Sydney Morning Herald’s letters section. I’ve included the link for your convenience: http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/alarm-bells-ring-when-the-debate-heats-up-20091126-juje.html

Climate Change skeptics, please try to understand the science…and I mean, really try to understand the science, not with a backyard science job and believing any old authority that confirms your pre-judged position.

Comment by Jason BSc on 27 November 2009 at 10:22:57 AM
Steve Fielding may have a degree in Engineering, but that in no way qualifies him to speak about atmospheric and climate science. I have a degree in science (chemistry major, with a decent amount of physics). Now, while I’m no expert, it is easy to explain why CO2 levels have increased with no appreciable increase in *AIR* temperature - it’s called Sea Temperature increases. The earth has a massive volume of its total surface area covered with water. And so even the minutest increase in sea temperature means A LOT OF ENERGY has been absorbed: 1 degree change in temperature of 1mL of water takes 1 calorie of energy. So if you do the calculations, a very, very small increase in temperature of billions and billions of litres of sea water requires a phenomenal absorption of energy. The fact that sea temperatures have risen consistently means there is a significant problem with CO2 levels. These may not have a great impact on air temperatures *yet*, but it’s only a matter of time. Further, another aspect of CO2 output that needs to be realised before jumping to dumb conclusions about lack of air temperature rises is the fact that water also absorbs CO2 turning it into an acid as a result: (from memory) CO2 + H20—> H+ (acid) + HCO3-. So ocean acidification should be the expected result of loads of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere…and guess what? The oceans have become more acidic. Surprise, surprise. The earth is a complex system, so relying ONLY on AIR TEMPERATURE rises as a measure of Climate Change is VERY FOOLISH indeed. Take for example the vast distance between the surface of the earth and the upper reaches of the earth’s atmosphere - there is a lot of space involved there. To have a significant impact on the volume of air in that space so as to increase air temperature appreciably would require a catastrophic rise in earth temperature and water temperature and weather patterns first, it would seem to me. In other words, air and CO2 can move around and expand more due to the space available to it. So, you’d expect weather changes before you’d see air temperature increases. This is my conjecture, obviously - conjecture slightly informed by my science degree and a bit of noodling around on climate science over the years. But I would be surprised if the broad explanations here were extremely wide of the mark, so as to be thoroughly wrong.

Comment by Jason BSc on 27 November 2009 at 10:15:26 AM
Roger, I’d never heard of it (Azolla) either - it just came up as a hit when searching on “greenhouse evidence & CO2”.

I don’t follow your final logic - no ice -> lower albedo -> more absorption -> higher temp -> higher water vapour -> “this might explain the bulk of the temperature difference”

How does this explain the temperature drop ? As distinct from it being a consequence of the CO2 drop ?

Comment by Hyperion on 26 November 2009 at 10:53:13 PM
Pete - as I pointed out, Nicols paper is long on rambling and short on coherent sequential argument - if you can’t identify what elements in it you believe
have worth and are valid - I’m not going to bother further.

With Taguchi one unfortunately again gets the feeling that snowing the reader under rather than enlightenment is the theme if not the intent of the paper.

“Here we show that the accurate value for climate sensitivity is 0.277 K/(W/m^2), which is 3 times smaller than the generally accepted value of 0.8 K/(W/m^2). “
Very good - hypothesis stated. Now is there an experiment to test it ?
If there’s one documented somewhere in there - sorry I can’t find it.

But I did find - “Therefore the high temperature at the surface of Venus is not due to incoming solar radiation directly, but is due to an initial even higher temperature when the planet was formed by the bombardment of incoming asteroids, comets, etc.”
- again this paper seems to have many random tangential departures unsupported by preceding statements.

The Azolla reference was for Have Questions - who seems amenable to logical argument.

You don’t seem similarly constrained -

“For the moment let us we accept the evidence of the ice core records as valid and showing that CO2 concentration lags temperature (by hundreds of years) hence changing temperatures cause corresponding changing CO2 concentrations.”

- nor too clear on correlation vs causation. That requires a mechanism and experiment - see above.

“if you’d done your homework you would know that Senator fielding has looked much further back (Note 2) than the short period covered in your Wikipedia graph.”
In which case why is the senator engaged in selective reporting and not mentioning the previous downturns but the overall upward trend - or is that too inconvenient to a blinkered position ?

Sorry - I don’t have the time to research all the senators masterworks. Your note 2 goes to great convoluted pains to push the “anything but CO2 is responsible” line.

In fact argumentative is more like it - “the greenhouse effect is a well understood physical phenomenon - like gravity” - “the intrinsic nature of gravity is not understood”
Well - yes, but lack of a quantum gravity theory doesn’t stop NASA accurately sending probes to Jupiter, so this sort of oppose absolutely everything approach really doesn’t enhance credibility.

“9.5. Over the 20th century, both cooling and warming phases were concurrent with rising carbon dioxide levels, and the 1988 paper was published 13 years after a 33 year cooling trend that was paralleled by an increase in carbon dioxide cncentration. Essentially, in the 46 year period from 1942 to 1988, when the paper was published, saw 33 years of cooling and only 13 years of warming concurrent with increases in carbon dioxide ...”
Again, selective truth - cherry picking a particularly hot year as base and not looking at the overall trend 1880 - present (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png) - I find that deceptive conduct.

I came here because I was intrigued to know if the senator had a basis for his scepticism founded on his engineering qualifications (which I tend to hold in high regard), rather than his spelling talents ... apparently not.

Comment by Hyperion on 26 November 2009 at 10:27:17 PM
The ClimateGate documents reveal data fraud; attempts to hide the current global cooling trend; deleting of critical data; deleting of damning emails; a desire to “get rid of the Medieval Warm Period”; the suppression of sceptic publications; and shonky climate anaysis programs that CRU’s programmer describes as “a crap crap system”. Most importantly however, is the corruption of the most fundamental scientific principles.
However, for any alarmists here who doubt the above, here’s two questions for you:
1. In your own words, exactly what is the evidence for man caused climate change ? Please also give a page reference to the “evidence” in the latest IPCC report ( I’ve read it in detail ... there is none whatsoever ).
2. We all know that the earth has been warming for the past 200 years since the Little Ice Age. The rate of fossil fuel burning increased 1200% after 1945 yet the rate of warming decreased. The rate of warming between 1910 and 1940 was higher than any subsequent period todate.
Exactly where is the “alarming” warming caused by man supposed to be ? The past 11 years ? 30 years ? 60 years ?
I’ve asked these questions of alarmists many times. They should be pretty basic for any alarmist but I have yet to receive a direct answer !

ClimateGate has laid bare that “man caused climate change” is the greatest scam the world has ever seen, involving trillions of dollars. It never had a snowball’s chance in hell of doing anything for the environment.

Comment by Dr T Burns on 26 November 2009 at 02:10:11 PM
ISorry guys I did not add that point about co2 is not a pollutant, yes I know it’s not a pollutant and I don’t believe in the propaganda Kevin Rudd and his so called team is saying. In fact I’m dead against his princaples and was only adding the good things that I could see that may come out of this.

As for them blaming climate change on the planet getting warmer (Co2) and effecting the Great Barrier Reef for example. Does not add up for the oceans have not gotten any hotter over the past 20 years as the beaurea of meterology still uses these to try and piece together what wheather we may be having for our summer.

The point I am making is the run offs from our farmers is what is causing the bleaching of the Barrier Reef and they use the GLOBAL WARMING as part of the cover up.

Yes, I agree with you about CO2 but want to make people aware of the bigger problem with all our chemicals we use each and everyday that get washed into our water ways that is controled by PATENTS and while everyone is so focused on this bogus GLOBAL WARMING PROPAGANDA all of these other isuse are getting over seen.

SUMARY.

I WAS ONLY POINTING OUT WHAT GOOD MAY COME OUT OF THIS. I personaly see it all like you guys and am not happy because I belive we will be paying money from our own pockets to try and solve a problem that only does not exist.

The government should really be making the big companies pay for the mess they have created as they are the ones who deppress these technologies. Lets face it if we took away being abel to patent chemicals and oil among other things may help slow down/stop the greed of the people who are above the governments and make this place (Earth) a better place to live for all of mankind not just for a selected few.

Comment by Rosco on 24 November 2009 at 12:24:46 PM
Colin (Stevenson), you may be interested in looking at Senator Fielding’s “Climate Change” thread at
http://www.stevefielding.com.au/forums/viewthread/125/P4470/ where the UEA CRU leak is discussed.

Comment by Pete Ridley on 24 November 2009 at 04:27:41 AM
I’m surprised that nobody here has yet mentioned the shattering events of the last few days in respect of the hacking of the computer systems at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Most bloggers here will know that the CRU is one of the world’s premier climate research organisations and many of its staff have been principal contributors to the IPCC reports since the IPCC formation.

The hackers have copied and released to the world over 72Mb of data including over 1000 internal emails. The content of much of this information indicates that the CRU has been guilty of misrepresentation of climate change in ways which would support their own agenda, ie the politics of AGW. The situation is so bad that in my opinion, if the CRU were a commercial research company engaged to give advice on a sensitive business proposal and they behaved in the misleading way that they have over climate change, they could be found guilty of fraud.

The press are just starting to get wound up over this issue, appropriately termed ‘Climategate’ by some, eg here’s what the Sydney Morning Herald is saying http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/hackers-leak-emails-stoking-climate-debate-20091123-iu6u.html

For more background go to Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit blog at http://camirror.wordpress.com/
Or Anthony Watts blog at http://wattsupwiththat.com/

Whatever the validity of AGW arguments, this whole issue is going to do immense damage to the credibility of climate science and until the dust settles and some truth emerges (which I suspect will be – we don’t know as much as some of us think we know) we should absolutely not make any profound policy decisions on climate related matters, such as the ETS.

Steve Fielding, climate change may not be as real as you think it is.

Colin Stevenson

Comment by Colin Stevenson on 24 November 2009 at 01:50:37 AM
Despite everyone’s best endeavours Oz will have an ETS/CPRS within the week and the PM will be off to Copenhagen with his team of 50 to tell the world that ETS/CPRS will somehow impact on climate change.
Yet Wong and Co still have not answered Senator Fielding’s question..this has to be a classic example of false advertising.

However two Danes have important messages for K Rudd and his team: Hans Christian Andersen and the story of the emperor’s new clothes and Henrik Svensmark and his story of the chilling stars. Will our PM take the time to make the connection?

Comment by John Watt on 23 November 2009 at 11:47:30 PM
Rosco, there is no need to stop using fossil fuels. They are still available in enormous quantities and can be used without damaging the planet through pollution. As Havequestions says, CO2 is NOT a pollutant, it is an essential life-supporting substance without which we would not be here. Technology exists which reduces pollutants that are emitted to acceptable levels but I think that with a bit of research you’ll find that the QUOTE proto type vehicle that the car that runs on nothing but water UNQUOTE is not one of them. Let me give you a starter in your search (Note 1). As you admit at the start of your comment QUOTE: I am no scientist UNQUOTE.

Jeff, you admit to not being a scientist either, so try doing your own investigation into the arguments presented by both sides of the debate over The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis. DO not simply accept the propaganda being forced down our throats by the UN, our own politicians and the environmentalists. I have been doing this since reading a scare-mongering booklet “Six Degrees ..” by staunch environmentalist Mark Lynas. I started out as a concerned agnostic and have ended up as a sceptic - and for DigitA’s benefit I now call myself an agnos(cep)tic.

NOTES:

1) see http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4271579.html

Best regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnostic

Comment by Pete Ridley on 23 November 2009 at 08:12:44 PM
Rosco,

You are correct about the things we must change. Most people would agree. But many do not believe that increasing the cost of CO2 emissions is the correct approach to clean up polution. CO2 is not polution. The policy is wrong, and at enormous cost to humanity.

Comment by Havequestions on 23 November 2009 at 01:38:18 PM
Do I belive in a man made global warming No. I am no scientist but all the research I have personaly made is what makes me realise that. 1000 years ago the world we live in was 5 degrees warmer was that human inflicted 400 years later the world was hit by cooling as the northern hemishere experianced bitter cold winters that must have been human driven too.

Now we are currently in a warm period and we should be greatful for that as when the world gets colder it brings disease and femine.

The Sun of late has been extreemly quiet and for 200 days over the past year has not produced any sun spots if this trend keeps up we are going to experiance bitterly cold winters where crops will probably fail. I could go into more detail about this but want to keep it short.

The good thing that a global emissions tradding scheme will produce is less pollution, it’s whats in this pollution that is killing our fragile planet.

We can reverse this but it will be at a cost of JOBS and HUGE PROFFITS by the ones who keep us on this merry go round.

We have the technology to use NO FOSSIL FUELS. This is true. Japan has a proto type vehicle that runs on nothing but water check it out on youtube. As for electicity there is geothermo power where we can use the earths heat to power the WORLD for thousands of years but we won’t it all comes down to knowledge and power.

we can get away from using cleaning chemicals as well and pestacides but we won’t because companies put patents on these chemicals make huge profits at our health and the enviroment.

If we want a better world these are the things that MUST CHANGE!

Comment by Rosco on 22 November 2009 at 09:19:22 PM
Jeff,

You have that back to front. The effect of CO2 on temperature becomes less as the concentration increases, no more.

However, that is not really important. What is important is that the actual evidence that man’s CO2 emissions are having, or will have, a significant effect on climate is very weak. Furthermore, the evidence that global warming is dangerous is even weaker. Cooling is certainly very bad for life. But the evidence from the past is that a warmer planet is better for life than a cooler planet.

This simple schematic shows that over the past 600 million years there is no evidence that CO2 caused temperature change.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_0oNRupXJ4-A/SANF6KvP1sI/AAAAAAAAATQ/FP8y3DPkssY/s1600-h/image277.gif

This explains the cause of the three ice ages that have occurred over the past 600 million years. We are currently in the third.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html

This shows that CO2 concentration change follows temperature change during the glacial-interglacial swings.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/co2-temperatures-and-ice-ages/

This suggests there is nothing unusual about the current warming.
http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025

Comment by Havequestions on 22 November 2009 at 05:20:46 PM
I am not a scientist but I am a father who is quite concerned about the complex nature of climate change. I understand that the relationship between CO2 and the temperature is NOT a simple linear graph. Up to a certain critical point, the effect of CO2 is negligible. After that critical point, the effect is exponential.

The 64 million dollar question is where we are on that graph (especially the critical capacity point) and what can be done about the complex issues.

Comment by Jeff Shelley on 22 November 2009 at 02:28:41 PM
The big question I want answered is. What will CPRS/ETS cost and who pays, who profits ?
For many months prior to the GST being enacted the public was informed by much open debate on the economics of GST.
There has been no information to the public about the CPRS / ETS issue. Few people even understand what an ETS is.
Let’s hear what it is going to cost the average household..

Comment by Peggyb on 06 November 2009 at 12:26:32 PM
HI Pete,

Many thanks, you’re a well of accurate scientific information.

Comment by intelligent skeptic on 06 November 2009 at 02:30:23 AM
intelligent skeptic, regarding global plant growth, NASA “climate-vegetation interactions” expert Dr. Ramakrishna Nemani (Note 1) says (Note 2) QUOTE: Between 1982 and 1999, 25 percent of the Earth’s vegetated area experienced increasing plant productivity—a total increase of about 6 percent, UNQUOTE but does not put this down to increased atmospheric CO2 content (he wouldn’t, would he). The paper, which is worth a read, includes QUOTE: Nemani says it would be nice if the next decade were as favorable for plants as the past two seem to have been. “Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing yet whether climate changes will continue to have a positive effect on vegetation productivity,” he cautions. “India, for example, got a blessing from nature during the 1990s. For 100 years, there has been a strong relationship between El Niñoo and the monsoon season that brings rain to India and Southeast Asia; El Niñoo events interrupt the monsoon and create drought. In the 1990s, that relationship broke down, and the monsoon rains came despite a severe and persistent El Niño.” As a result, while much of the globe saw a decrease in productivity during El Niño events, India was one of the places where productivity increased. Whether the region can count on such a lucky break this decade can’t be predicted. UNQUOTE. I love those last three words.

You may be interested in comparing what Dr. Nemani says about what “can’t be predicted “ and what Professor David Schimel said in the National Science Foundation’s paper in 1997 “Plant Growth Surges After Global Temperature Spikes, Scientists Report” (Note 3). Dr. David Schimel (at that time with The National Center for Atmospheric Research) said QUOTE: the results highlight the power of new data sets on global change, as well as the usefulness of computer models that connect the atmosphere and biosphere. .. We were looking specifically for delayed ecosystem responses in this study because they had been predicted by the models, UNQUOTE.

It seems that even the scientists who support The (significant human-made climate change ) Hypothesis cannot agree on the ability of those computer models to predict anything worthwhile.

Thanks for the comment and the information about those natural oil spills. If the environmentalists find out we’ll have them condemning Mother Nature as well as us humans. Greenpeace will be out in force demonstrating against these seepages.

NOTES:

1) see http://experts.nasa.gov/get_expert.php?id=1543
2) see http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalGarden/
3) see http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=102841

Best regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnostic

Comment by Pete Ridley on 06 November 2009 at 01:08:34 AM
To Pete Ridley:
Hi Pete, would you know if there has been an increase
in the earth’s vegetation due to the higher CO2 levels.
I read somewhere that it has increased by around 40% in the last 3 - 4 decades.

Also I never realised that so much oil is seeping into the oceans from under the seabeds.
Here is an excerpt. If there is one there must be others.
It seems the marine ecology can handle oil spills in their stride and it’s not such a major issue for the environment…...
Also if oil is seeping out like that there must be a hell of lot that hasn’t been discovered yet. So much for so called ‘running out of oil fears’.

——————————————————-
Natural petroleum seeps release equivalent of eight to 80 Exxon Valdez oil spills
Study off Santa Barbara is first to quantify oil in sediments
A new study by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) is the first to quantify the amount of oil residue in seafloor sediments that result from natural petroleum seeps off Santa Barbara, California.

The new study shows the oil content of sediments is highest closest to the seeps and tails off with distance, creating an oil fallout shadow. It estimates the amount of oil in the sediments down current from the seeps to be the equivalent of approximately 8-80 Exxon Valdez oil spills.

The paper is being published in the May 15 issue of Environmental Science & Technology.

Comment by intelligent skeptic on 05 November 2009 at 03:15:35 AM
Strebor,

Haven’t you realised that the ‘hockey stick’ was a fraud.

The ‘hockey stick’ was what persuaded the ‘intelligensia” that climate change was real, man made and dangerous. The evidence is discredited. It is no longer valid. Man’s emissions do have some effect on the climate, but it is small. And global warming is more good than bad. Furthermore, the CPRS, and international agreements, will have no significant effect on the climate. We cannot control the climate.

Comment by Havequestions on 25 October 2009 at 12:16:18 PM
Strebor,

I think you made a couple of editorial mistakes. I think you meant to say:

What a shocking surprise- all of Rudd and Wong’s’ climate advisers are man made climate change ‘believers’…. utterly pathetic. Get out of the way and let us stop the CPRS and so prevent the damage it will do, so that our children have a chance. Not only our children, but the billions of people in poverty who want to emerge from it and get a better life, for themselves and for their children.

Comment by Havequestions on 25 October 2009 at 12:11:13 PM
Strebor, if yu’d been involved in this blog from the start you’d know that all of the would-be supporterd of The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis have given up on their argument, just as the supportive scienists, politicians and environmenalists will lbe forced to do when the truth coms out.

Best regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnostic.

Comment by Pete Ridley on 25 October 2009 at 02:49:00 AM
What a shocking surprise- all of Steves’ “independant” climate advisers are man made climate change skeptics…. utterly pathetic. Get out of the way and let us fix our climate so that our children have a chance.

Comment by Strebor on 24 October 2009 at 01:58:37 PM
Pete Ridley,

My mistake. My apologies. I mis read who had written what.

I concur with John Watt’s clear statement of the situation.

Comment by Havequestions on 23 October 2009 at 06:16:13 PM
John Watt,

You are absolutely correct. I don’t know why Pete Ridley misunderstood what you are saying.

Comment by Havequestions on 23 October 2009 at 04:26:12 PM
John (Watt) are you aware of the debate on the Have Your Say “Climate Change” thread?

Comment by Pete Ridley on 22 October 2009 at 05:31:51 PM
Strebor,

The purpose of this blog is to provide useful information (ie facts) to Senator Fielding to enable him to contribute to the debate and decision on the Govts ETS/CPRS legislation. The PM indicates that may be in the Parliament in mid November.

The simple question is what part does human driven CO2 emission play in the climate change process.

As yet no one (not Wong, not Rudd, not Gore, not Flannery, not IPCC, not etc etc) has been able to set down an answer to that question in terms of basic laws of physics/chemistry. Surely common sense says we need to understand what is happening at the molecular level before we can confidently make meaningful statements at a global level.

Who is going to give the Senator something useful!

Simply cutting human driven CO2 production will not stop climate change. So why waste time and precious resources developing , debating and implementing ETS/CPRS?

Regards

John Watt

Comment by John Watt on 21 October 2009 at 10:46:59 AM
Hello Strebor, how lovely to hear from you, but I respectfully suggest that you are over-simplifying and misinterpreting the sceptical position. You express your opinions as though there is no uncertainty about the validity of The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis. As you are so confident would you be kind enough to justify some of your statements.

1) QUOTE: 1st climate change wasn’t happening, now it is happening UNQUOTE but I understand that most sceptics accept that climate change occurs over and over again as a result of natural processes and has done so millions of years before humans walked the earth and thousands of years before they started using fossil fuels. Why do you think to the contrary?

2) QUOTE: climate change is occuring & it is human induced UNQUOTE so would you kindly advise which of the different global climates have been changing, which are natural and which are human-induced?

3) QUOTE: The arguments against this are evaporating and are increasingly occuring from ‘mad scientists’ beyond the fringe of credible science. UNQUOTE so to which arguments are you referring and who are these “mad scientists”?

4) QUOTE: . the past 10 years have been the hottest on record, with each year warmer than the last UNQUOTE and the past 10 years must be 1999 … 2008. Dr Roy Spencer of University of Alabama in Huntsville presents a graph of global temperatures since 1979 which show that your “indisputable facts” are very much disputable. Please show where Dr Spencer has erred.

5) QUOTE: Climate change deniers will fabricate and bend statistics to prove their ‘facts’, but these facts fall over pretty quickly…. then its on to the next set of dodgey numbers. UNQUOTE something that supporters of The Hypothesis like yourself would never do. Please would you tell me what your opinion is of the debate over the validity of the Mann “hockey stick” curve (Note 1).

You appear to have fallen into the same trap as many other supporters of The Hypothesis by choosing to ignore scientific uncertainty. As the father of the “hockey stick” is reported to have acknowledged (Note 1) QUOTE: “more widespread high-resolution data are needed before more confident conclusions can be reached and that the uncertainties were the point of the article.” Mann and his colleagues said that it was “hard to imagine how much more explicit” they could have been about the uncertainties surrounding their work UNQUOTE. Man is also reported to have said (Note 2) QUOTE: “My colleagues and I continue to work on reducing the uncertainties in past climate reconstructions and understanding the mechanisms of past and current climate change. UNQUOTE.

BTW, would you also let us know about your degree of expertise in the science of climate processes and drivers that lead you to this state of certainty (or are you simply repeating the political and environmentalist propaganda that has been presented to you by the media?).

NOTES:

1) see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy
2) see http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0716-climate.html

Best regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnostic

Comment by Pete Ridley on 21 October 2009 at 02:20:43 AM
I’m really amused how 1st climate change wasn’t happening, now it is happening but its not human induced…. climate change is occuring & it is human induced. The arguments against this are evaporating and are increasingly occuring from ‘mad scientists’ beyond the fringe of credible science. So some indisputable facts then:
1. the past 10 years have been the hottest on record, with each year warmer than the last,
2. atmospheric GHG concentartions are increasing with no natural cause- there are no more volcanos than usual nor other natural ‘forcings’,
3. the earth is no closer the sun than before temperatures started to rise, nor has its axis changed, and solar activity is at a low point.

Climate change deniers will fabricate and bend statistics to prove their ‘facts’, but these facts fall over pretty quickly…. then its on to the next set of dodgey numbers.

Comment by Strebor on 20 October 2009 at 07:03:40 PM
Hi Glen (McBride), that’s an interesting post but it leaves me a little puzzled. As I understand it is only humans who consider those fuel sources like coal, oil, natural gas and uranium to be “treasures” and this only because of the use that humans can put them to. I can’t see how I am wrong with that, so you need it explained to me.

You say that “We waste most of their properties by burning them.” But what properties are being wasted? If they are treasures only because of the use we can put them to then how would you use them without wasting those properties that you need to describe? (I’m not talking here about our atrocious waste of the released energy, which rally annoys me and I try to minimise my own).

I completely agree with your generalisation that “But we are greedy and of recent years, we learned that greed is good!” and I’ve commented on this several times. I also agree on the need to recycle (or preferable re-use) and do this to the best of my ability, but I am not prepared to give up the comfortable life style that our use of these fuels has made possible. I don’t want to start living like other animals who don’t have the intellect that we humans have that enables us to benefit from the natural resources available to us.

Do you yourself live in an environment which makes no use of the products from our use of those precious fuels that you are so keen to preserve for future generations of our species whoi might be around “thousand or millions of years” from now. I doubt it, but please correct me if I am mistaken.

Best regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnostic

Comment by Pete Ridley on 10 October 2009 at 07:55:29 PM
I don’t care a damn whether the “human responsible global warming model” is right or wrong. I’m not a climate expert and thus have always been open about the whole story.

I am in favor of any plans to stop the production of co2 by the use of fossil fuels. Yes, a change to renewable energy will lower our standard of living for a while.
We have enough oil to last perhaps a hundred years and coal perhaps could last for about 400 years. Then we will be forced to adopt a sustainable lifestyle. Then there will then be no option.

The present movement towards living with sustainable energy means that we can soon wean ourselves off burning oil and coal. They are chemical treasure-houses and should never be wasted by burning them. Perhaps our generation could leave some of these treasures for future generations.

I think we are just thoughtless. Oil and coal are valuable. We waste most of their properties by burning them. Our descendants would love to have a share but we are so greedy that we want to take them all and waste them for making energy - which we can have endlessly from the sun, tides, wind and geothermally. Stupid and selfish.

We believe that oil and coal are cheap. They both took millions of years to create - how much should we be valuing a resource if it takes millions of years to produce and can never be replaced? We naively think that the cost of digging them out of the earth is a real cost. Of course this is nonsense. That trivial cost is what we pretend is their value. This pretending lets us waste them. It also lets us pretend that their use is cheaper than renewable sources of energy. But we are greedy and of recent years, we learned that greed is good!

I like to think that our species will last for thousands or millions of years. They will need everything we are ripping out of the earth, every mineral, every chemical.We have no plans to ensure that we recapture everything we use once - for every chemical and mineral will last for millions of years and all need conserving and recycling. We are just beginning to think of recycling. It obvious that everything must be conserved, regardless of cost. But we argue that it is mostly too expensive because it is often cheaper to dig more from the earth. Yet every gram will be required over and over again by our descendants.

We are not sensible livers - we are plunderers. Our economic system ignores the intrinsic value of these permanent minerals and chemicals. Our interest is immediate plunder - how much can we rip up, waste and disperse with as much immediate profit as possible.

The Club of Rome in the 70’s wrote about “Limits to Growth”. It tried to look ahead, something we should have learned from them - their logic was inescapable. They attempted to show how long resources of the earth would last. Technology improved and quickly made their estimates incorrect. The plunderers then made sure that their imaginative attempt at logical thinking and planning ahead was trivialised, denounced and eliminated so completely that one never hears their name today. Yet these were real and imaginative people who tried to look logically at our failure to look ahead and predict sensible consequences. Bright people today could do much better.

Logic suggests that we should be grateful for those finding a reason to stop burning and wasting real resources. It suggests that the “climate sceptics” are appealing only to our greed and selfishness rather than thinking about the future of our grandchildren. Sadly logic will never overwhelm greed. So please bless the global warmers and the co2 worriers. They have just a chance of moving us to a sustainable lifestyle a hundred years before we would inevitably be forced to. They could make us pay our own way realistically sooner rather than leaving it to our grandhcildren to pay for our greedy profligate living style.
Changing from coal and oil wasting will be expensive. It will mean thousands of people forced to change jobs. It will take enormous resources to invest in these other forms of energy. Only a fool believes that it won’t be necessary - the only question is when. This moment is history offers us a chance to decide to do it soon. We know it will hurt. We do it now or leave it to our grandchildren. The selfish and greedy ones will leave it to our grandchildren. The proud and independent ones will delight in the challenge.
Humankind has a real challenge before it and the time is right NOW.
This may help others think beyond next the decade.

Glen McBride

Comment by Glen McBride on 10 October 2009 at 01:28:34 PM
lau440, you covered a lot of items in your short sharp comment but didn’t really say anything to move the debate along. I’ve tried to understand what you are getting at but find it difficult to unravel your thought processes. Let’s take the first part.

QUOTE: there’s a shiny yellow ball in the sky that if you stand in to long will burn you. that could have no possibility of causing climate change.UNQUOTE. I doubt if many would disagree with you that getting sun-burnt won’t cause climate change.

QUOTE: when there cutting down trees all over the world UNQUOTE. Well, yes, this has been going on for centuries as humans have changed the environment from forrests, scrublands, etc. to cultivated land, housing estates, shopping centres roads, railways, airports, etc. As a result we have easy access to water, food, clothing, accommodation, heating, entertainment, leisure activities, etc. This has made life so easy for many of us. DO you deny yourself this lifestyle?

QUOTE: putting garbage in the oceans’ when we have a enviroment minister that just approved a new oil rig off the coast of western australia while the one we have is leaking like a sive UNQUOTE. I think most of us consider this sort of negligence to be inexcusable but we do nothing about it because we do not suffer directly from its effects.

QUOTE: it will not help australia or the enviroment to have a tax on the big bad booggie man carbon dioxide UNQUOTE. I totally agree with that one. The vast majority of politicians only do things that are of benefit to themselves. They are not concerned about anything else unless it is in their own interest to show concern, such as attracting environmentalist votes.

Regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnostic

Comment by Pete Ridley on 08 October 2009 at 06:02:30 AM
there’s a shiny yellow ball in the sky that if you stand in to long will burn you. that could have no possibility of causing climate change. when there cutting down trees all over the world and putting garbage in the oceans’ when we have a enviroment minister that just approved a new oil rig off the coast of western australia while the one we have is leaking like a sive it will not help australia or the enviroment to have a tax on the big bad booggie man carbon dioxide

Comment by lau440 on 08 October 2009 at 01:20:43 AM
Pete Ridley,

Hopefully Dr Nicol’s recalculation exercise will be concluded soon. If he confirms his earlier results then Steve Fielding has something to work with. Unfortunately i suspect political issues will still force Australia into a CPRS/ETS which will have no obvious benefit other than to possibly make some of us feel good about doing something for the planet..(Even if Nicol has got he physics wrong and CO2 does influence climate 22 million in 6500 million are not going to make any difference. Destruction of a viable energy industry so a few people can feel warm and fuzzy makes no sense at all).

Outside the scope of this blog but potentially highly relevant is the work of Copenhagen-based scientist Henrik Svensmark. His work appears to attribute the bulk of the global warming/cooling phenomenon to magnetic fields emanating from the sun and their influence on cloud formation. I wonder if our team going to Copenhagen have room in their minds for those ideas.

Regards

John Watt

Comment by John Watt on 04 October 2009 at 10:55:59 AM
Windguy, John Trigge, John Watt, you may find that you learn something useful from the debate that is ongoing at Senatir Fielding’s “Have Your Say” forum on the “Climate Change” thread (Note 1).

I quote from Roger Taguchi, a retired physics teacher from Ontario, Canada who has provided detailed calculations at the site to which he links which show, as do those of Dr. John Nicol, that the IPCC seriously exaggerates the effects of increasing CO2 emissions on global temperatures.

QUOTE: My calculation that global warming for a CO2 increase from 300 ppm to 400 ppm is 0.5 degrees (not including feedbacks from water vapour, clouds, etc.) shows that it must be the dominant term in an overall 0.8 degree historic increase, if real, from 1750 to today. All the feedbacks together give a net result of 0.3 degrees, only 60% of the CO2 term. This explains why the net positive feedback does not result in a runaway greenhouse effect. Unlike diverging series like 1 + 1 + 1 + 1+ ... or 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +...., you can have a series like 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 +... which converges toward a finite limit. In hindsight, Hansen’s and the IPCC’s assumption that water vapour feedback provided twice the climate change of CO2 alone may have been unrealistic, if not physically impossible (I haven’t decided on the latter yet).

The 0.8 degree climate change since 1750 is stated in the section “Sample calculation using industrail-age data” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity. This is a measurement of a real-world change, which although it of course has some uncertainty is not the result of a computer model calculation. On re-reading this wikipedia article, I was happy to see that it says at the start in “Essentials:...Without any feedbacks, a doubling of CO2 (which amounts to a forcing of 3.7 W/m^2) would result in 1 degree C global warming, which is easy to calculate and is undisputed.” Unaware of Hansen’s calculation, I had calculated this myself in my article at http://mistakesinipcccalculations.blogspot.com/ Although sylas at Physics Forums says this is “only a model”, it has the virtue of being accurate, having been derived from the Stefan-Boltzmann law which is in the same league as Newton’s Gravitational law (yes, I am aware of the limits of Newtonian gravity, which doesn’t take into account relativity). Therefore if you subtract an accurate 0.5 degrees from a real-world 0.8 degrees, you get a real-world 0.3 degrees for the sum of all the feedbacks, albeit with some error. Therefore all theoretical and computer calculations of water vapour and cloud feedback must match this net real-world value of 0.3 degrees (within error bars) from 1750 to today. Otherwise the theoretical and computer calculations are missing something, and must be revised. But as far as overall understanding, the debate is over. UNQUOTE.

If you disagree with the finding of Roger Taguchi and John Nicol then please join us and prove them to be wrong. Others have tried and failed.

NOTES:
1) see http://www.stevefielding.com.au/forums/viewthread/125/P2730/ and earlier pages.

Regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnostic

Comment by Pete Ridley on 03 October 2009 at 05:25:36 AM
Windguy,

The reference I gave still loads for me and the figures are from the US Department of Energy and were in the IPCC TAR.

Does anyone have an answer for my question:

IF we accept that CO2 is the main cause of global warming, my question is how are we humans going to counter the much larger natural production of CO2?

Comment by John Trigge on 02 October 2009 at 08:32:50 PM
John Trigge

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

We know CO2 is forcing by 1.44W/m^2 and add the other man made gases we have about 2.5W/m^2 forcing. Give or take the Aerosols and the current unknowns, we are quite correct in saying we are in between 1.5W/m^2 to 2.5W/m^2 forcing only!!

That doesn’t include the water vapour feedback or the albedo reduction from the ice melting or from the ocean rising over shiny sand.

I will give we don’t know everything, but I am sure we know global warming is happening but we really haven’t seen all of the possible bad turning points that will make it that much worse.

As a denialist, we’ve proven CO2 is heating the planet, we’ve proven the planet is heating up, so it’s up to you guys to come up with your mysterious feedbacks or forcings that will make global warming redundant.

A nice article for you.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/global-warming/study-links-drought-with-rising-emissions-20090815-elpf.html

Comment by Windguy on 01 October 2009 at 03:09:35 PM
Do you know what an ETS scheme is??

Is is the easiest method of reducing the consumption of a certain product.

It’s because the government doesn’t weigh into the how, they just set the target and people could either profit from their credits by heavily slashing their energy usage, or they can just pay for more credits.

Now with that, you reduce what you can afford easily. i.e. turning the lights or power off when not needed. Buying more economical vehicles. Why buy a V8 when the current crop of 4 bangers can easily crack 200km/h and get you a night in gaol. If you cut your 10 or 15% then you pay nothing!! You don’t then you’ll pay a measly amount right now, but slightly more in the future.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18288820/

Have a play.

Comment by Windguy on 01 October 2009 at 02:56:34 PM
John Trigge and Windguy,

The queries about the origins of the CO2 may be irrelevant if the Nicol proposition is correct. This brings us back to the trigger for this blog…..what part does CO2 play and therefore will a CPRS/ETS do anything useful?

Comment by John Watt on 01 October 2009 at 12:21:25 PM
I don’t know where you got that figure John Trigge, even climate realists website has removed that web page. China alone burns 2.2 billion tonnes of coal a year. Australia ships 240 million tonnes of coal per year, for which CO2 output per tonne of coal is nearly 2.5 tonnes.

Your figure is waaaaay off.

Comment by Windguy on 01 October 2009 at 11:53:20 AM
One of the reasons I do not accept the AGW hypothesis is explained by the simple maths outlined in the article found at

http://climaterealists.com/attachments/database/CO2 REALITY CHECK.pdf.

This states, in part:

REALITY CHECK
Throughout the 1990’s global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels were increasing on average by about 500 million metric tonnes of CO2 per year.
This table from the IPCC 2001 Third Assessment Report shows the annual increase in atmospheric CO2 over this time period to be 11,700 million metric tonnes of CO2 per year.
This clearly demonstrates that only 500 of the 11,700 million metric tonnes of annual increase in atmospheric CO2 was from fossil fuels.
500/11,700 = 0.0427 or 4.27%
This means that 95.73% of the increase was naturally sourced.

So, IF we accept that CO2 is the main cause of global warming, my question is how are we humans going to counter the much larger natural production of CO2?

Comment by John Trigge on 24 September 2009 at 06:33:15 PM
I simply don’t get climate change denialists/skeptics…if you’re driving along and you’ve got six peeps in the car….four of them are telling you you’re heading for a cliff and you need to turn around and go another way even if it means you’ll spend a bit more cash on petrol…but one is telling you that’s bullshit and keep on driving..surely you’d go ‘ok, maybe, at the very least, I should stop and pick up parachutes for us all just in case’....

Comment by amanda on 10 September 2009 at 11:16:48 AM

Response by Intelligent Skeptic:
Sorry Amanda, dont mean to be sarcastic however that parable seems to be more at home in the Road Runner Show.
Well even if you arent logical, you’re funny.

Comment by intelligent skeptic on 23 September 2009 at 02:51:57 AM
Hi Pete, thanks for the reference.
The following statement from ‘wiki’ raises some questions in my mind.
The pH measurements are over a period of 243 years and in that time there has been episodes of cooling and heating. It is thought that when temps go down the oceans absorb and when it goes up the oceans release the CO2
My question is what sort of time period does it take to absorb and release any given quantity.
The reason I ask is that obviously if we assume that in a period of warming whether it be man made or otherwise as the ocean releases CO2 then it should become more alkaline and then less “alkaline” when temps come down, which should make any alarmist shudder at the thought of them actually succeeding in driving temps down.

Intelligent Skeptic
———————————————————-
From Wikepedia:
Ocean acidification is the name given to the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth’s oceans, caused by their uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.[1] Between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.179 to 8.104 (a change of −0.075).[2][3]

Comment by intelligent skeptic on 23 September 2009 at 02:28:36 AM
Anybody have any comments on this utterly insane
postings I’ve made, from the guardian.
I dont think enough people realize just how insane some of the pro agw mobs are.

Intelligent Skeptic

Comment by intelligent skeptic on 23 September 2009 at 02:06:13 AM
Another one from the Guardian!

Why does this editorial make me feel like rolling on the ground with laughter?!

Just add lime (to the sea) – the latest plan to cut CO2 emissions• Project ‘could turn back clock’ on carbon dioxide
• Guardian conference will select top 10 climate ideas
Buzz up!
Digg it
Duncan Clark The Guardian, Monday 6 July 2009 Article historyPutting lime into the oceans could stop or even reverse the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere, according to proposals unveiled at a conference on climate change solutions in Manchester today.

According to its advocates, the same technique could help fix one of the most dangerous side effects of man-made CO2 emissions: rising ocean acidity.

The project, known as Cquestrate, is the brainchild of Tim Kruger, a former management consultant. “This is an idea that can not only stop the clock on carbon dioxide, it can turn it back,” he said, although he conceded that tipping large quantities of lime into the sea would currently be illegal.

The oceans are a key part of the natural carbon cycle, in which carbon dioxide is circulated between the land, seas and atmosphere. About one-third of the CO2 released into the air by humans each year is soaked up by the oceans. This helps slow the rate of global warming but increases ocean acidity, posing a potentially disastrous threat to marine ecosystems.

Kruger’s scheme aims to boost the ability of the oceans to absorb CO2 but to do so in a way that helps reduce rather than increase ocean acidity. This is achieved by converting limestone into lime, in a process similar to those used in the cement industry, and adding the lime to seawater.

The lime reacts with CO2 dissolved in the water, converting it into bicarbonate ions, thereby decreasing the acidity of the water and enabling the oceans to absorb more CO2 from the air, so reducing global warming.

Kruger said: “It’s essential that we reduce our emissions, but that may not be enough. We need a plan B to actually reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. We need to research such concepts now – not just the science but also the legal, ethical and governance considerations.”

Kruger’s plan was one of 20 innovative schemes proposed at the Manchester Report, a two-day search for the best ideas to tackle climate change staged by the Guardian as part of the Manchester International Festival.

A panel of experts chaired by Lord Bingham, formerly Britain’s most senior judge, will select the 10 most promising ideas. These will be featured in a report that will be published in the Guardian next week and circulated to policymakers around the world.

Climate change secretary Ed Miliband told the conference the biggest danger faced by campaigners was creating a sense of defeatism. “We need to show people how they can aggregate their individual actions and be part of a bigger whole,” he said.

Cquestrate is one of a number of so-called “geo-engineering schemes” that have been proposed to intervene in the Earth’s systems in order to tackle climate change.

Kruger admits there are challenges to overcome: the world would need to mine and process about 10 cubic kilometres of limestone each year to soak up all the emissions the world produces, and the plan would only make sense if the CO2 resulting from lime production could be captured and buried at source.

Chris Goodall, one of the experts assessing the schemes, said of Cquestrate: “The basic concept looks good, though further research is needed into the feasibility.”

Another marine geo-engineering scheme was presented by Professor Stephen Salter, of Edinburgh University.

His proposal is to build a fleet of remote-controlled, energy-self-sufficient ships that would spray minuscule droplets of seawater into the air. The droplets would whiten and expand clouds, reflecting sunlight away from the Earth and into space.

Salter said 300 ships would increase cloud reflectivity enough to cancel out the temperature rise caused by man-made climate change so far, but 1,800 would be needed to offset a doubling of CO2, something expected within a few decades.

• This article was amended on 8 July 2009. The original said that oceans soaked up about half of the CO2 released into the air by humans each year. This has been corrected.

Comment by intelligent skeptic on 23 September 2009 at 02:02:09 AM
Got this one from the Guardian.

For those of you that have never heard of Saul Alinsky, read up on him then understand what the UN is doing here!
The United Nations is planning a form of diplomatic shock therapy for world leaders this week in the hope of injecting badly needed urgency into negotiations for a climate change treaty that, it is now widely acknowledged, are dangerously adrift.

UN chief Ban Ki-Moon and negotiators say that unless they can convert world leaders into committed advocates of radical action, it will be very hard to reach a credible and enforceable agreement to avoid the most devastating consequences of climate change.

As the digital counter ticking off the hours to the Copenhagen summit – which had been supposed to seal the deal on climate change – hit 77 days today, progress at the UN summit in New York is seen as vital. Nearly 100 heads of state and government are to attend the summit, for which a pared-down format has been devised.

“We need these leaders to go outside their usual comfort zones,” said one diplomat. “Our sense is that leaders have got a little too cosy and comfortable. They really have to hear from countries that are vulnerable and suffering.”

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won the Nobel peace prize with Al Gore, agreed. Commenting on the leaders attending the G20 summit in Pittsburgh next week, he said: “We need to remind these people about impacts of climate change – the fact that they are inequitable and fall very heavily on some of the poorest people in the world. We are likely to see a large number of failed states if we don’t act in time.”

The heads of state attending the UN summit are to be stripped of their entourages. Each will be allowed just one aide, generally their country’s environment minister, in the sessions.

Instead of set-piece speeches, leaders will be paired off to chair discussion groups. Britain will be with Guyana, Tuvalu with the Netherlands, and Mongolia with the European commission.

The leaders will also lunch with environmental activists and chief executives of corporations who have been pressing their governments for action. At dinner, the leaders of the biggest polluting countries will dine with the leaders of Bangladesh, Kiribati and Costa Rica – which are among the primary victims of climate change.

By the end of the day, the rationale goes, the leaders will be imbued with a new sense of purpose. Leaders of rich countries will have been galvanised to take on the big emissions cuts – 25-40% over the next decade, 80% by 2050 – needed to keep temperatures from rising more than two degrees above pre-industrial levels, the temperature set by science to avoid the most calamitous effects of climate change.

The leaders will also, it is hoped, have some understanding of the threat to poorer countries. And, at the very least, they will have more of a common purpose in tackling the problem. “We need to gather together. We don’t want to blame or point fingers at each other,” said Yaqoub al-Sanada, counsellor at the Kuwaiti mission to the UN. Kuwait – one of the biggest producers of oil – will co-chair a discussion session with Finland.

The UN is hoping for help from Barack Obama. The US president will speak at the session, and there is anticipation he will deliver a strong signal that America is committed to action. There is growing anxiety for those kinds of reassurances, especially as opposition to Obama’s green agenda grows in Congress. “The first question I get any time I meet with anybody is, ‘Where’s the legislation? How’s it going?’,” Todd Stern, the State Department’s climate change envoy, said. There are also reports that China’s president, Hu Jintao, in his first appearance at the UN, will announce new commitments to curb pollution – the kind of signal that will be crucial to boost negotiations in the days leading up to Copenhagen.

“We can get a successful outcome from Copenhagen. It is achievable, but at the moment it’s in the balance,” said John Ashton, Britain’s climate change envoy. “We need to close the gaps.”

Those gaps grew over the summer. There is what Ashton called the “ambition gap” – the failure of leaders of the big polluting countries to sign on to the deep emissions cuts needed. Then there is the “finance gap” – the failure of industrialised states to come up with a package on how to compensate poor countries that will suffer the most devastating consequences.

Britain came forward last June with an estimate of £61bn a year by 2020. Negotiators are frustrated that major industrialised states have not set clear figures on how much they are willing to commit, or how they will provide the funding.

Comment by intelligent skeptic on 23 September 2009 at 01:56:45 AM
Intelligent sceptic, I think that the Wikipedia aticle (Note 1) on ocean acidity answers your question. It’s all a matter of semantics and what you’re trying to achieve. If you want to scare someone use the term “more acidic”, otherwise say “less alkaline” (or “less basic” as Wiki puts it). There is a 2005 Royal Society article (Note 2) which you may find of interest but the following extract sums up the situation nicely QUOTE: 5.3 Other feedbacks within the Earth systems As discussed in Section 3, it is unclear what impact rising atmospheric CO2 will have on the physiology of phytoplankton (such as diatoms and flagellates). As a result it is uncertain whether it will lead to greater productivity and therefore draw down more CO2 or reduce productivity thus absorbing less. UNQUOTE.
You may want to look closely into the numerous “uncertainties” “mights” “mays” “coulds” etc. in that article.

You may also find the IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 7 (Note 3) of interest, again full of uncertainties, etc. summed up in Section 7.1.2 QUOTE: Ocean acidification due to uptake of anthropogenic CO2 may lead to shifts in ocean ecosystem structure and dynamics, which may alter the biological production and export from the surface ocean of organic carbon and calcium carbonate (CaCO3). UNQUOTE and outlined in Section 7.3.4.5.2 Key uncertainties.

I support the way you put “global warming is driving up CO2” which is the reverse of what the supporters of The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis would have us believe.

NOTES:
1) see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
2) see http://royalsociety.org/displaypagedoc.asp?id=13539
3) see http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter7.pdf

Regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnostic

Comment by Pete Ridley on 19 September 2009 at 06:24:06 PM
Roger wrote:

Hyperion, thank you for your comment of 09 September, referring to the Azolla event of which I was unaware. The absence of the polar ice caps would mean a diminished albedo, and therefore more absorption of visible light energy from the Sun. The overall higher temperatures would mean a higher vapour pressure of water vapour, especially in the polar regions (since vapour pressure is roughly an exponential function of absolute temperature, the change would be greatest in regions with at present the lowest vapour pressures, i.e. the polar regions). Since water vapour is a greenhouse gas, this might explain the bulk of the temperature difference, assuming that cloud formation above the Arctic did not produce an albedo equivalent to that of today. Because I cannot produce a really accurate calculation for cloud formation, I must admit my limitations at this stage. But my point is that higher Arctic temperatures would be correlated with higher water vapour pressures as well as with historic CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Correlation with only one variable is not the same as cause-and-effect due to that one variable. I like your logical arguments, however.

Intelligent Skeptic replied.

I really have doubts re the argument of diminished albedo in the arctic region.To buy into this argument one would have to overlook the reasons why the earth has arctic regions in the first place.
Once you figure this out then you must realise that the amount of sun shining on that part of the earth is not significant enough to create the effect the alarmists are trying to push that is, less ice more warming, more warming less ice. Because if this were true it would be impossible for the ice caps to have formed in the first place. So what you are trying to make the gullible in our society believe is that the ICE is actually causing the formation of the poles and if we lose that ice then goodbye poles. See the stupidity in that argument.
The ice poles were formed as a direct result of the earth’s tilt. Proof of this is the change of seasons as the earth circles it’s way around the sun exposing itself at different angles.
Inspite of the natural warming which is taking place we are still having icy winters and these are in areas away from the poles. This has strong implications re the poles when it come to so called reduced albedo.
If anything, as the earth gets warmer, more water will be released into the atmosphere, a lot of which will settle in the poles as ice, again bearing in mind the poles’s positions due to the earth’s tilt.
Therefore without resorting to modelling and just using plain common sense it would be impossible under normal conditions ( yes even with man’s puny contributions) to melt the ice on the poles unless there is some source of tremendous heat underneath it like a volcano or two or three.

Comment by intelligent skeptic on 19 September 2009 at 03:09:27 AM
My question to Pete Ridley,

Hi Pete, i am perplexed when so called scientists comment on the oceans becoming more acidic.
I was under the impression ( from my pool building days when I was much younger than today ) that anything below ph7 was acidic and over alkaline. So is it correct to use the term acidic if the ocean ph is 7.9 instead of 8.0.
Also if global warming is driving up CO2( whether man made or otherwise) and the ocean is giving up more of it’s CO2 because of this warming does it not mean then that the oceans are becoming more alkaline because of the lose of CO2? And therefore releasing statements that more CO2 in the air means acidification of the oceans, is really neither here nor there in other words a lot of cr$p.
I look forward to your response which should help a lot like myself see things more clearly.

Comment by intelligent skeptic on 19 September 2009 at 02:47:56 AM
Stormboy wrote:

As for the glacier issue, my point stands that the glacier is thinning rapidly as you would expect from the rising temperatures being experienced in that part of Antarctica. No other mechanism has yet been proposed by you or any of your links; Kiwichick’s point remains undisputed whether you like the way she worded it or not. This is what I was saying about dismissing things. You haven’t acknowledged that the sceptic sites were wrong and the evidence says that the West Antarctic ice shelves actually are in retreat, and that now this very large area of land ice is thinning with no other explanation so far than warming air. You’ve simply refocused attention on the rest of Antarctica where it’s not happening and refused to comment on the glacier because you don’t like her wording.

Intelligent Skeptic replied:

Not having a formal scientific background kinda makes feel like that kid in the emperor’s new clothes.
Your comments really drive home to me the contradiction in your conclusion.
How can we have the the shelf melting from so called global warming and yet the rest of the antarctic remains unaffected.
Are you suggesting that “global” warming is not global but local in this case. Get my drift?

Comment by intelligent skeptic on 19 September 2009 at 02:32:38 AM
Roger (Taguchi), have you been keeping an eye on the Have Your Say “Climate Change” thread (Note 1) on this site? Some interesting comments have been posted recently.

Note 1) see http://www.stevefielding.com.au/forums/viewthread/125/P2355/#6977

Regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnostic

Comment by Pete Ridley on 18 September 2009 at 05:04:39 PM
Hyperion, thank you for your comment of 09 September, referring to the Azolla event of which I was unaware. The absence of the polar ice caps would mean a diminished albedo, and therefore more absorption of visible light energy from the Sun. The overall higher temperatures would mean a higher vapour pressure of water vapour, especially in the polar regions (since vapour pressure is roughly an exponential function of absolute temperature, the change would be greatest in regions with at present the lowest vapour pressures, i.e. the polar regions). Since water vapour is a greenhouse gas, this might explain the bulk of the temperature difference, assuming that cloud formation above the Arctic did not produce an albedo equivalent to that of today. Because I cannot produce a really accurate calculation for cloud formation, I must admit my limitations at this stage. But my point is that higher Arctic temperatures would be correlated with higher water vapour pressures as well as with historic CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Correlation with only one variable is not the same as cause-and-effect due to that one variable. I like your logical arguments, however.

Comment by Roger Taguchi on 18 September 2009 at 12:36:15 PM
I want a V8 coupe with a wide deep chrome grille and chrome bumpers. It maybe not very enviromentaly friendly to some, and there are certainly no such vehicles available new today, but I dont believe in global warming, too many holes in that theory too make sense to me

Comment by gladstone on 16 September 2009 at 07:27:21 PM
Sorry Steve, I spelt your name wrong. Confused you with another ‘Stephen’. I apologise.

Paul.

Comment by Paul P. Mealing on 12 September 2009 at 04:34:18 PM

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