Category: Climate Change

I have included a quote and link to an article in todays Australian in the left column. If you are already a member of the new Church of the Latter Day Alarmists or are considering applying for membership, you might like to read it and ponder. It’s not simply a case that I agree with the good Professor, but more that he articulates my feelings and opinions on the matter better than I do. I have problems with the ongoing debate about temperature changes. Opinions are abound over what a decimal point change in average temperatures mean and what, or who is causing it; with enormous efforts by commentators portraying light and sound presentations complete with graphs and pics of Polar Bears on melting ice flows. They present this as proof that the worlds climate is changing but no one needs proof – it has been changing forever. We once had an ice age and now we don’t, and before that ice age we had warmer periods. Climate is always changing, it is cyclic as are the orbits of all the agents; the sun, other planets and matters or agents unknown to us. That much is clear but the core of the religious movement is that we humans are causing it. Nothing else matters which is a poor premise because we don’t know enough about everything else. Those of the faith, the Church elders, use alarming statements to convert us. Your waterfront property will be worthless, crops will fail, continued mining of coal will turn the skies, and your lungs, black and the people flock to the pulpit. The media, sensing a new and varied way to sell their products, join the faith and we are flooded with images of Pittwater, Sydney flooded…look at your house, it’s meters under…and graphic depictions of the Great Barrier Reef without coral…all those beautiful colours lost. Shades of Armageddon thousands of years ago ago…..convert, do what I say or you will spend your days in purgatory. That’s not to say we don’t look to better manage the Earth but I would like to see it done in a secular fashion using the old, ever reliable science, engineering and common sense. Plant trees where we have clear felled, plant and manage plantation timbers, help third world countries maintain their rain forests with some financial help, pursue cleaner power, but most of all, let’s not panic about what the preacher said at the pulpit last Sunday. UPDATE: They are even trying to panic the beer drinkers.

BEER will be short supply, more expensive and may taste different as climate change affects barley production, a scientist says.

USING less energy to help combat climate change should be a new year resolution for all, South Australian Premier Mike Rann says. There could be some advantages from using less energy – cheaper bills for example, but combating climate change isn’t likely to be one of them. Even a cleaner environment is not guaranteed as using less power doesn’t automatically mean the local power grid is going to use significantly less coal. Of course, if everyone in SA stopped using power all together then the need for coal powered generators would drop but it’s still unlikely that Global Warming would slow. For that we need time. Reading Townhall.com I noticed a 10 question list that raises reasonable points that the Elders of the Church of Latter Day Alarmists are ignoring. A sample;

2) If greenhouse gasses produced by mankind are behind the roughly one degree increase in temperature over the last century, then why did the global temperature go down from roughly 1940 to 1975 even though mankind’s production of greenhouse gasses was skyrocketing during that same time period?

It’s a good read. I would recommend Mike Rann read it but I shouldn’t distract him from his current Poll problem

The pilgrims at Bali, followers of the Church of the Latter Day Alarmists have applauded Chief Clerk Rudd for his ratification of Kyoto – well they would, wouldn’t they? Just like at an extreme right wing religious movement. Praise the Lord – Hallelujah….Praise Kyota – hallelujah – all the same really. I’m still of the opinion that Global Warming, as believed by many, has many fathers and for us to be so presumptuous as to think that human input causes it all defies rationale. It is admirable that we work at better management of the ecology but I would like to see more engineers being quoted than opinionated scientists that have been baptised into the church. There are many who aren’t followers and they need to be heeded as well. Personally I think the Earth and it’s relative variable position to the Sun, have more to do with the problem than us mere humans. After an ice-age we can expect the Earth to warm up and maybe soon, we can expect the Earth to start to cool down as it heads towards another Ice Age. I don’t know if that’s the case and neither do the converted scientists. I can’t prove my case and they can’ prove I’m wrong. I doubt any of us know enough; haven’t lived here long enough to know of the greater cycles, greater than summer or winter, that effect our weather patterns. So, based on what I describe as an imprecise science,we have committed to a treaty that will cost us money. Billions are already being bandied around as being payable fines for not meeting targets. Would it be worth considering that we would be better advised spending these billions on research and development or simply planting trees to balance nature? And where does the money go – who controls it? – does someone in Europe or the UN get to play with our money addressing the problem their way? We need new technology not old promises. 10,000 pilgrims at Bali from a multitude of nations all with their own agendas, all looking for an advantage for themselves, all of this overseen by the UN. This is not a formula for success – It is nothing more than a religious gathering and at best will only produce another Gospel – call it Revelations II; that once again reveals the Original True Faith plus Secrets of Life and Success, and how to survive looming the War of Armageddon Global Warming

I think this piece in Cut & Paste is worth quoting in full Long-time British chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson, addressing the New Zealand Business Round Table

AS it is, the temperature projections (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) does come up with in its fourth and latest report range from a rise in the global average temperature by the year 2100 of 1.8C for its lowest emissions scenario to one of 4C for its highest emissions scenario, with a mean increase of slightly under 3C. The average annual temperature in Helsinki is less than 5C. That in Singapore is in excess of 27C, a difference of more than 22C. If man can cope with that, it is not immediately apparent why he should not be able to adapt to a change of 3C when he is given 100 years in which to do so. Let us look at the gloomiest of the IPCC’s economic development scenarios, according to which living standards … would rise, in the absence of global warming, by 1 per cent a year in the developed world and by 2.3 per cent a year in the developing world. It can readily be calculated – using, to repeat, a cost of global warming (based on the gloomiest IPCC warning) of 3 per cent of GDP in the developed world and as much as 10 per cent in the developing world – that the disaster facing the planet is that our great-grandchildren in the developed world would, in 100 years, be only 2.6 times as well off as we are today, instead of 2.7 times; and that their contemporaries in the developing world would be only 8.5 times as well off as people in the developing world are today, instead of 9.5 times as well off. And this, remember, is the IPCC’s very worst case. The major cause of ill-health, and the deaths it brings, in the developing world is poverty. Faster economic growth means less poverty but – according to the man-made CO2 warming theory, incorporated in the IPCC’s scenarios – a warmer world. Warmer but richer is in fact healthier than colder but poorer. The more one examines the current global warming orthodoxy, the more it resembles a Da Vinci code of environmentalism. It is a great story and a phenomenal bestseller. It contains a grain of truth and a mountain of nonsense. And that nonsense could be very damaging indeed. We appear to have entered a new age of unreason, which threatens to be as economically harmful as it is profoundly disquieting.

I don’t think it’s a new age of unreason; I think unreason has been forced upon society several times by a number of new “We’ll all be doomed” religions over the last century; Climate Change is just the latest manifestation of certain zealots need to change us to their idea of a clever caring society I see no problems with society changing the way it treats the environment and there are lots of good reasons to pursue cleaner fuel but scaremongering and over reaction will not help at all.

Mr Gore proposed that payroll and even income taxes be abolished and replaced with taxes on greenhouse gases and pollution to encourage employment and discourage environmental damage. I can see the $1000-a-plate businessmen nodding sagely at that one. The man’s loopy.

THE ABC board has been accused of pressuring the national broadcaster to show a controversial British documentary questioning the science behind climate change. Whats wrong with the ABC showing both sides of an arguement?

The ABC announced this week that it would screen in July The Great Global Warming Swindle, which argues the main cause of warming is not human activity but changes in radiation from the sun.

So bring it on. I have yet to see conclusive proof that we humans are totally responsible for weather change and look forward to some balance in the arguement.

ABC science journalist and broadcaster Robyn Williams, who advised the TV division not to buy the program, yesterday accused the broadcaster of “verging on the irresponsible” over its decision to air something that was “demonstrably wrong”.

Robyn Williams has obviously made up his mind after studying points for and against so is it OK if we plebs get the chance to see both sides of the arguement as well as we look to make up our mind. What is Robyn afraid of? If the show is “demonstrably wrong” then the vewers will see it and he will be proven right.

The Prime Minister gets it right with these words from a speech at Brisbane yesterday

I worry about targets being plucked out of thin air without any analysis of the consequences for Australia’s economy. I worry about policies whose main target is a preference deal with Bob Brown and some cheap applause at a Labor Party conference.

Spot on

There still are some Australians not panicking enough about Global Warming so this quote makes it into todays Australian

A climate change business risk analyst, Karl Mallon, yesterday told a Sydney forum the cash value of a home would be cut by up to 80 per cent if it were deemed uninsurable for a severe weather event caused by global warming.

There, that should do it. A climate change business risk analyst! Another industry has been spawned to mop up the otherwise unemployable naive and gullible. Maybe Rudd should get onto this. I can just see it now. If you re-elect Howard the value of your property will fall by 80%

Head Priest of the Church of the Latter Day Alarmists, Al Gore is quoted as saying;

“The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don’t say, ‘well, I read a science fiction novel that tells me it’s not a problem.’ “

Some more rational responses from Best of the Web Today. Reader Scott Jacobson questions Gore’s premise:

Overreacting is common among parents. I remember one morning when my first child was still an infant. Imagine my horror when I discovered that her temperature had risen to 99.5 degrees, almost a whole degree in just under 12 hours. Naturally, I immediately sat down and built a computer model, which clearly projected that by age 30, her temperature was going to be a staggering 19,710 degrees!

And Kelly Murphy puts things in perspective nicely:

So let me see if I have this right. According to Al Gore, I would have to be an idiot to decide, after reading “a science-fiction novel” (he must be referring to “State of Fear”) that it’s OK to go about living my life in a normal fashion. Instead, I should see one science-fiction movie (his) and run screaming out of the theater prepared to change every aspect of my life to avoid certain destruction.

Gore’s a fool but it’s amazing how many swallow the panic. I meant to say, you know, it’s true – I saw it on Channel 10.

Australians simply aren’t panicking enough. After Al Gore’s piece of theatre, Nicholas Stern’s “Pay out 9 trillion or your all dead” and Tim Flannery being appointed Aussie of the Year you’d think we’d get the message.

But no. More obviously needs to be done. Lets see…tell the Aussies that their beloved Great Barrier Reef will cease to exist in 20 years. Now that should bring them to the pews of the Church of Global Warming and Latter Day Alarmists on Sunday

From the Age

THE Great Barrier Reef will become functionally extinct in less than 20 years if global warming continues at its current pace, a draft international report warns.

A confidential draft of the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), obtained by Melbourne’s The Age newspaper, says that global warming will cause billions of dollars of damage to coastal areas, key ecosystems and the farming sector without massive greenhouse gas emission cuts.

Not enough? Try this then. Kakadu and the Murray Darling basin will dry up and the alpine snow field will melt. Snow fields…mmm…that should panic the yuppies.

The fact that the rise in temperature over the past century has been in the order of 0.6C (plus or minus 0.2C) then we are looking at maybe 5 centuries before we have a problem; and that presumes that in all that time the human race couldn’t come up with an answer. They may even come up with a computer model that us sceptics can believe. Even if we double the rise in temperature rate then in 20 years the temperature in the Great Barrier Reef might rise as much as .12C.

The report quoted by the Age is to be released soon by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In looking through the website I can’t see any mention of the Australia-specific disasters and think it may be Liz Minchin’s interpretation in an attempt to convert the public.

Sorry, not panicking or converted yet.