In ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ Al Gore repeatedly suggests that all the ‘so-called global warming skeptics’ are in the pay of a big oil company probably Exxon Mobil. Never once during this so-called documentary does Gore acknowledge that there is potential for an alternative thesis on global warming and the role of carbon dioxide. All dissent is met with ridicule and/or name calling.
Al Gore certainly doesn’t appear to understand the potential value of hypotheses testing. Instead Gore reduces global warming to a moral issue and a contest between the good guys, which according to Gore includes all of the world’s climate scientists, and the so-bad so-called skeptics, who he suggests are all hired guns.
Gore is clearly not a fan of Socrates who once said wrote that the highest form of human excellence is to question one-self and others.
The Gore approach has certainly brought out the worst in some journalists with Sophie Black from Crikey, a so-called independent online media service, ditching independent analysis for branding.
Yesterday, she wrote in a piece entitled ‘The Global Warming Sceptics Club – a Crikey list’:
“But the majority of scientists in Australia believe that reasonable debate about the substance of global warming ended some time ago. What remains at issue is potential rates of change and the scale of destruction, a problem many have moved onto addressing. But even in the most optimistic scenarios, the news is not good.
Which means the doubters are starting to reduce to a small, exclusive clique. Crikey has compiled an unofficial membership list of the Global Warming Sceptics Club — meet the commentators who don’t see what all the fuss is about.”
Her list includes me (Jennifer Marohasy) along with William Kininmonth (former head of the National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological Organisation), Ray Evans (once executive at Western Mining Corporation), Chris Mitchell (Editor-in-chief of The Australian), Terry McCrann (News Ltd business writer), Andrew Bolt (Herald Sun columnist), Hugh Morgan (head of the Business Council of Australia until 2005), Alan Wood (The Australian’s finance writer), Ian Castles (Former head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics), Ian Plimer (Professor of Mining Geology at the University of Adelaide) and Bob Carter (A former director of the Australian Ocean Drilling Office, Professor of paleoclimatology at James Cook University).
Like Al Gore, instead of analyzing the quality of our argument(s), Black makes one or other of the following comments next to each of our names, and in the context of other comment, insinuates that we have a vested interest in maintaining what she considers to be an increasingly untenable position: “closely associated to the mining industry”, “News Ltd” or “a member of the IPA (Institute of Public Affairs)”.
Most of us might be just independent thinkers who have taken the time and effort to try and understand the issue and have come to a different conclusion and refuse to be bullied into the consensus position.
It is somewhat shocking that in 2006, an independent news service like Crikey, and a much revered so-called documentary like ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ can be so openly intolerant and dismissive of any alternative perspective on such an important issue as climate change.
——————–
The Crikey piece by Sophie Black includes links to some recent public commentary by the so-called Clique on ‘An Inconvenient Truth’:
William Kinimonth, Don’t be Gored into going along, The Australian, 12th September: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20393768-7583,00.html
Andrew Bolt, Bulled by a Gore, Herald Sun, 13th September: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20400748-5000117,00.html
Terry McCran, Al Gore’s Day After Tomorrow Sequel, Herald Sun, 12th September :http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20394654-36281,00.html
Chris Mitchell, Editorial: It’s not the end of the world, The Australian, 4th September :http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20346728-7583,00.html
and also An Inconvenient cost, The Australian, 12th September: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20393954-7583,00.html
I will be writing something for my next Counterpoint column on the 2nd October.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Classifying Andrew Bolt and Chris Mitchell as “…independent thinkers” just made me retch…
That’s just gone way too far, even for someone whose own “independent thinking” work at IPA is funded by Liberal Party acolytes who believe climate change is the new Y2K.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs
So resisting the urge to get into a shoot-out and in hope of some serious discussion and a reflective exploration of values:-
Jen – do you think made a serious effort to understand the issue (just asking here!) and for yourself why do you hold a contrary viewpoint what is the essence of it.
Also much of opposing material IMHO is pretty aggro with quick slips into conspiracy theories and accusations of fraud and some on. Whereas the science in general is just techo techo techo blah blah blah. Yes for balance – Tim Lambert, Stoat and James Annan are pretty critical and full on – do you think they have cause though with the quality and style of the opposing debate. Bill Kininmonth and Ian Castles here have conducted themselves with fairly high standards in the main.
So I’m interested in the values at work here – if climate change is hazardous to ourselves and our environment most of the planet’s citizens would want something done about it. However obviously if its all nonsense then wise heads would caution about disruption of our economies and way of life.
Jennifer; I could say luckily for the rest interested in the global warming process, that the group of climate change sceptics outlined in your paragraph is small but I suggest there may be many more like them with connections to the activities above yet to be identified.
Sure, go slow on the idea if you wish but that leaves a lot of heavy work for someone else. But waiting for all the science to come home if we don’t understand the measurement problems is not good enough.
Too much dependence on science was part of the problem in the first place. Note, in retirement and well away from all industry and its research I have no axe to grind.
“What remains at issue is potential rates of change and the scale of destruction” is a fair enough statement if we want to get on top of it. Using our imagination is probably the best thing we can do as individuals at this critical time.
Anyone hunting clues solely in old papers is likely to be disappointed with the available science. Ask a Pacific Islander or mountain tribe a better perspective. Those who live closest to the elements will be our best source.
Anyway in the end it becomes more of a problem for engineers than scientists.
Funny thing was; I wrote a note about the Weekend Australian “Power” supplement before I realized others were on to it.
BTW: What happened to Ian?
Debate and dissent are healthy. But Socratic dialogue requires mutual trust and respect. We need to believe that those with whom we are debating are actually interested in seeking the truth, and that they are not just pushing an agenda (or seeking to whiteant one).
This posting plays the man and not the ball. This site rarely if ever acknowledges the merits of environmentalists’ views. This is unbalanced – after all, few of us are smart enough to be 100% wrong all the time. I find it hard to trust Jennifer’s postings.
I’d have more trust in and respect for Jennifer’s postings if, every now and then, she itemised all the points that environmentalists make that she agrees with.
Hi Jennifer,
I am not certain that Sophie Black was being strictly accurate in referring to ‘the majority of scientists’ versus ‘a small exclusive clique’ since her wording would appear to suggest that all (on both sides of the debate) are climate experts.
Surely the only two scientists mentioned in her sceptics list, directly involved in climatology are William Kininmonth (former head of the National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological Organisation)and Bob Carter (A former director of the Australian Ocean Drilling Office, Professor of paleoclimatology at James Cook University), with analytical input from Ian Castles (Former head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics).
I apologise in advance if you or any of the others mentioned, have climatology qualifications I am unaware of.
Due to the enormous complexity of the issues concerned with climate change, I am extremely cautious about accepting evidence from anyone not directly connected with the discipline, whether they are in favour of an anthropogenic forcing effect or against it.
One point that has always concerned me is that if the climate change sceptics are correct, then in fifty years time everyone will be able to laugh about it however if they are wrong and no corrective action is taken………
That is the reason for my supporting the precautionary principle approach to the issue. I am fairly sure however that Al Gore is rather more interested in sound bites and his political career.
Apparently the new rules of science should be that to use the “imagination is probably the best thing we can do” rather than “hunting clues solely in old papers”.
Given that the mainstream media is biassed to the warmers views, expecting Jennifer to offer a balanced view is preposterous.
I might add that climate is a subset of geology as we have been concerned with climate, ice ages and so on, throughout geological history – it is there written in the rocks.
So one might be excused for thinking that its the weather forecasters who have wandered into unfamiliar territory.
Well said Louis!
Louis looking at the articles above cited by Jen, remembering many others similar, and looking at the number of anti-AGW papers in the literature I would suggest that you guys have succeeded to get a very loud hearing. Certainy out of proportion with the volume of literature. So you have a good measure of success to your case.
Your view that cimate is a sub-set of geology may invite some debate I’d suggest.
Hi Louis,
You make a valid point regarding geology for the analysis of climate however it is an extremely unpleasant education for the public that scientists can look at identical data to analyse whether there is an anthropogenic forcing or not and come to directly opposing conclusions on a matter of such fundamental importance as to what is written in those rocks.
Wondering about this Al Gore, is he or is he not going to run for President?
Also, what is/has his connection with Ocidental Oil Company and how many shares does he hold.
I mean. lets put all our cards on the table.
I’d have to agree with Sophie Black that reasonable debate ended some time ago, if Al Gore’s film is now considered to be a moderate position. We are now well into the realms of fantasy.
If the skeptics are proved right, and it won’t take fifty years, we won’t be laughing about the trillions of dollars wasted on reducing “greenhouse” emissions.
I doubt if anyone reading this blog has personally noticed the slightest sign of “global warming”.
Paul … errr… yep
Warmer autumns. Fewer frosts. It’s most noticeable.
No cyclone season anymore (save Larry).
A recent drier drought that lingers. And pretty well all state capitals with water problems.
The problems that skeptics have is that we need to see a reversal soon ! It’s all falling into place more each week.
For example: “Study acquits sun of climate change”
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/09/15/global.warming.sun.reut/index.html
The problem that you seem to forget is that globally droughts, floods, heatwaves and hurricanes already kill lots of people and disrupt our economies. We already have climate strife ! (without climate change)
(Rog – how many people do you think will see the movie really – I suggest bugger all).
Hi Paul,
Considering you used the word ‘If’ it seems that you are rather more concerned about spending the money in the short term, than what actually happens.
A cost/benefit analysis for civilisation? Interesting hypothesis but I think it would be about as popular with the public as the infamous Ford Pinto and Firestone cost/benefit analyses and rightly so.
Paul’s financial imperative is not unique however:
“The administration strongly opposes any treaty or policy that would cause the loss of a single American job,” quote from Jim Connaughton, The chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality regarding Kyoto.
Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post, October 3, 2004
So the government of the planet’s only superpower and one of its largest consumers / polluters is actually not in the slightest bit interested in the accuracy of the science, merely in political expediancy.
If you personally ‘noticed’ climate change on an incontravertable level it would already be way to late to do anything more than apologise to your loved ones for not taking the subject more seriously in the past, since their future would have suddenly become exceedingly tenuous.
Come on Luke, make up your mind.
You tell me AGW will bring more hurricanes, after suggesting the lack of a cyclone season is evidence of AGW.
You can’t have it both ways.
Hasa – oh yes u can. No shortage of fast systems in the general region just not where they normally are. (And I have NOT told you more hurricanes – just more intense ones)
There is a general pereception that the earth is an isolated sphere suspended in a vacuum (space) and affected graviationally by the rest of the solar system with the additional effect of solar radiation warming part of its surface as it rotates around its axis.
Now the ABC reports http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200609/s1739585.htm
that there is a connection between earth storms and space storms.
Nasa has discovered that the earth’s aururas have some connection with the sun http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20011025aurora.html
(there is a neat short movie showing the effect on the right hand side of the NASA page)
All together this suggests an alternative possibility – that what we observe on the surface of the earth is merely the earth reacting to changes in its solar environment – that it’s the space electricity causing the earthly storms, n ot the other way around, and that its the stream of charged particles from the sun which cause the auroras at the earth’s poles.
And what is a stream of charged particles? An electric current for God’s sake. And electric currents which pass through resistive loads generate not only light but heat.
As the earth also has a strong geomagnetic field, that field can only be formed by a commensurate electric current in its interior – and as such electric currents passing through resistive loads not only generate heat but also lose energy, then pray tell, where is all that energy coming from to maintain the electric currents which maintain the earth’s geomagnetic field.
And of course the earth rotates which means it is doing work and thus consuming energy. As the earth is not slwoing down, where is the energy that maintains that motion?
None of these facts are incorporated in any GCM yet the sheer quantum of energy implied by these physical forces would dwarf anything that mere humans could possibly contemplate.
This is the principal reason why climate sceptics reject the junks science of AGW. Your theory is somewhat incomplete because GCM’s have zero geological input into the process.
“Warmer autumns. Fewer frosts.” Thanks Luke, you just described the exact opposite of what happened in my neck of the woods. So global cooling is happening? Sorry I forgot,global warming is also responsible for any cooling that happens (and if it’s drier, wetter, stormier or calmer, why that’s just the magic of global warming!).
I don’t see how we can avoid costs and benefits, whether we do something or nothing. Only a blind belief in your cause allows you to ignore costs. Still if you put “save the planet” in the benefit column, that gives you a blank cheque for the costs, doesn’t it?
Lamna Nasus
When different groups of scientists come up with radically different conclusions from the same set of data means that the theories are wrong and that a third approach is required.
Warmers insist human created CO2 is changing global climate. Sceptics say not, the evidence is not there and that some other factor is at work.
Remember that it is the warmers who want to change our habits and lifestyles. The sceptics are not engaged in any movement to change peoples lifestyles or habits.
It’s the warmers who want to dictate to the rest of us how to behave, what to eat, but, drive, live and what not. We sceptics don’t.
It’s as simple as that – AGW is merely the latest totalitarian political system we have to endure.
Paul, It’s very simple…
If things get “worse”, that is climate change
If things get “better”, that is weather.
Louis – you are just an old political hack apologising for your mining masters and regurgitating what youve learned from hanging around with the mining end of town for your entire life. You bleat on about the junk science of climate change but every time one gets close to a scientific discussion you’ll knick off from the thread. All your solar mechanisms/electric universe stuff is crap. You have tidsy bits o evidence, no comprehensive theory, no mechanisms – you never address mainstream work preferring to quote kook-ery from the fringe. Everything is a conspiracy.
Solar has just come a gutser (if it hadn’t already). “Study acquits sun of climate change”
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/09/15/global.warming.sun.reut/index.html
And that to a long list showing really there’s nothing in it. Yet you have a entirely plausible, testable radiative physics model which has empirical evidence to back up – and we hear a pin drop – silencio ! So lets drop some twaddle in about electric universes for bravado.
Interesting that geologists are so heavily featured in the contrarian camp. Amazing that geologists who had so long to do it have not come up with anything substantive on climate theory. You hacks have missed your chance. Milankovitch was a mathematician and engineer. The evidence might have been there in the rocks/ice but it’s not you guys who have brought it to light. What an intellectually impoverished profession.
Paul – I think you are most disingenuous to suggest it’s a total hotspotch. The world is unambiguously warming, the surface is, the atmosphere is, the oceans are warming, there are some areas bucking the trend and for good reasons. The only driver have to explain it with a comprehensive theory is greenhouse.
But let’s consider Europe in the behaviour of species – flowering, mating, life-cycles – spring is earlier and people have definitely noticed. Even her Majesty has been commenting on her garden’s behaviour. Pine beetles are a forestry epidemic now in North America razing whole areas not previously affected and upslope. I think it has the foresters attention. The post-hoc analysis of the Katrina hurricane season is coming in and the climate change scientists have been initially wrong – there was a climate change component above the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. Global warming was a factor after all.
Paul – don’t cherrypick the exceptions at the risk of throwing out the 90% clear part of the story.
But as for blank cheques for the environment and stopping our way of life – I’m not keen for that – so we seem to have our selves in a bind. But as Al Gore has said – he remains optimistic – there is plenty we can do about it with new technologies, sequestration and CO2 reductions (if we want to). And do all these things have to best cost negative – might we not spawn whole new technologies and new industries which would benefit Louis’s beloved big end of town (Assuming one had shares in the right companies of course).
I have to wonder if activists are stuck on the “ad hominem,” “who pays whom” arguments because they’re so completely bought and paid for that they want to know what money is on the other side.
Greenpeace is often called a “lobby group,” and everyone knows you need cashola and payola to lobby. The greenies don’t seem to understand that people can disagree with them without being on someone’s payroll like they are. This sort of confusion appears to drive Nasus bonkers.
Dude, if you’re going to foam at the mouth, why not brush your teeth at the same time? It would look more realistic.
Luke,
Ad hominems like your last post basically means you have lost the debate.
And unlike you, I cannot spare the time sitting at computer screen all day censoring any contarian views that guvmint employees believe should not be posted on important blogs.
Fear not, I will be absent in the field for about a month, which of course will be interpreted by you as a failure to engage in debate.
Sad to see you are still in the Victorian Gaslight physical world with radiation and gravitation as your only tools. You really are a scientific ignoramus, aren’t you.
Louis – you have plenty of time to advance your position. You said so the other day – copiuous and skillful posts. You never do. You’re a flake. And we don’t have to put up with quasi-astrological drivel in an evidence based debate. This has nothing to do with guvmint – this is about science, science policy and potentially serious environmental and economic impact – you’ve missed the point of blogging my son. The guvmint just ignores you. As for ad hominems – you invented the concept – so don’t do the glass jaw routine.
Luke, the surface temperature record needs a thorough audit, the atmosphere is showing a miniscule rise, no catastrophe there, and the ocean heat figures are now under scrutiny. Life goes on as usual with no unusual disruptions while we are being regaled with scare stories that we have only 10 years to act (or 5 years, choose your scaremonger). Sorry, we’ve heard it all before.
And no clear evidence that the changes that are occurring are caused by humans. Just computer modelling. And they have to be continually tweaked to make them conform to the observations.
Meanwhile Western politicians pay lip service to the global warming mantra, throwing billions of dollars of our money away to appease the Green constituency, all the while aware that there is nothing that can actually be done to change the emission of CO2.
Hi Louis,
Disappointing, one minute you are making a valid scientific point about the studying of climate data through geology, the next you are claiming that the Aurora Borealis is taking care of business, wandering off into Schiller’s fascist conspiracy theories and saying that climate sceptics are right simply because they think pollution is ok.
Well if thats the case why dont you get your neighbours to start dumping all their rubbish at the back of your house; it will save the local authorities a load of cash and you have stated it will not make any difference to your standard of living because nature will just vanish the stuff. Hey, you could get the local sewage company and industrial waste disposal company to join the scheme as well….No?…thought not.
While we are on that subject, it might be interesting to do a short presentation on how the international mining industry and its effluent affects the lifestyles of third world people living in the vacinity of their mines and how much of the profits are retained by local communities or even local governments, do you think that would be informative?
I could also run a piece on De Beers monopoly of the diamond industry and how little that sparkly gravel would actually be worth, if De Beers didn’t regulate supply to ensure prices remain rather higher than cubic zirconia.
Whaddya think, would readers find that interesting? after all I read something somewhere about someone being ‘fed ideas’ (that’s very interesting) in order to throw ‘intellectual hand grenades into the blogopshere’, can’t quite remember where….perhaps you can jog my memory?
But perhaps you would prefer to tell us how despicable Aborigional people are, that Aids is not a disease communicable by sex and that there is no AIDS epidemic in Africa as detailed in the
The Hissink File, August 2006 instead?
Word to the wise, if you get really fed up with re-installing the operating system on your computer then switch to Apple.
‘if you’re going to foam at the mouth, why not brush your teeth at the same time? It would look more realistic.’ – Schiller.
Advice from the expert, how kind. :o)
Lamna Nasa
Beg Pardon? The Aurora Borealis is taking care of business? And your interpretation of Schiller’s post?
My goodness you have trawled alot of my postings around the traps.
And you call Aboriginals despicable? Perhaps you should read Professor Bauer’s article in Quadrant magazine which was a shorter version of his paper in the Journal of Scientific Exploration recently published. You obviously feel unobliged to check the original sources to see whether I was making it up, don’t you.
As for the mining companies in 3rd world countries, you seem not to realise that such companies are actually under control of the political classes of the countries in which they mine.
You really are a quite nasty, cowardly, ignorant little left-wing twit, hiding behind a nom – de plumes, vilifying me with your innuendoes and patronising waffle.
And I write this on an Apple if you would been diligent in reading Hissink File contributions.
And alas Hissink File contributions will be diminishing in the future as I don’t have the time to research and write the articles Henry expects of me. Once the next mining bust happens I will return to writing.
Hi Paul.
‘all the while aware that there is nothing that can actually be done to change the emission of CO2.’
Really? That doesn’t sound to me like someone arguing with the science that sounds like someone who is waiting for an appropriate moment to tell the public how nasty its going to get…or preferably get someone else to do it….someone in another country perhaps….in a decade or so……no rush
Let me get this straight Luke. Some guys claim that changes in the suns energy over an 11 year sunspot cycle are only in the order of 0.07% and therefore could not influence global warming.
Never mind that long term fluctuations also occur in 80 year cycles and it would be these trends that would show up an influence on climate. To concentrate on a single 11 year cycle is the classic extrapolation from limited data that sceptics have been talking about since this debate began.
But you seem willing to accept that a minor change in a trace gas, from 0.029% to 0.037%, is driving climate change. And you consistently argue this when the records clearly show that CO2 increases have lagged temperature increases by a few centuries for the past 450,000 years.
And after consistently avoiding serious responses to key questions on other strings on this blog, you then have the gall to accuse sceptics of evading justification of their position.
Your cheap sneers merely emphasise your lack of answers. And it is worth noting that the ice cores that the GW advocates have placed so much reliance on do not even show up the impact of Krakatoa in 1883.
The Beck chemical methods analysis, that you dismissed without any statement of substance, shows a marked increase, from 290ppm to 375ppm and back in the mid 1880s.
That data from 420 readings was supplied by Uffelmann at Rostock in 1886-87 and demostrates;
a. the time involved in dispersal of large volumes of CO2 from the equator to Europe and through 105 degrees of longitude,
b. the time it takes the planet to absorb that large volume, and, most importantly
c. that the current levels of CO2 are entirely within the recent historical range of variation.
One of the most telling indictments of the AGW proponents has been the extent to which they have attempted to exclude the natural range of variation in CO2 from the debate.
Nasus uses another interesting and rather sorry ploy common among intellectually-challenged activists. The argument runs thusly: I believe that X is like exploding a thermonuclear device on the roof of your house. Since you do not accept my belief in X, you apparently advocate such a denotation.
Nasus, CO2 is a gas. Think. Concentrate. It is not composed of solids one might toss over a fence. It is a gas. Breathe deep, and if you don’t like CO2, don’t exhale. Make yourself an example. You can do it. Be brave, you can do it. Show your determination not to emit CO2!
I promise you, by the time you exhale, I will have thoroughly researched the conspiracy theory involving Nazis, DeBeers, AIDs, Africa, Aborigines, the Apple OS, local authorities, waste disposal and the Aurora Borealis. Hold your breath, I’m working on it!
Hi Louis,
You blinked.
Ian,
Your facts and reasoning are sound, but you’re wasting effort. These people want to control the economy by governing the supply of energy. They won’t listen to you unless you agree to the importance of stifling human activity under an impenetrable cloak of a global elitist governance.
Well that was a successful exchange. I just deleted my response to yo’all (you could all have simulated my response by now – I’m stunned that you didn’t actually enunciate it yourselves and say why it’s wrong).
I did see an old one come out though – the CO2 lags temperature scam. Sigh. Haven’t seen for a while. Ring Cape Grim on Monday Ian ! Chat with the OIC and test your theories.
But anyway why worry.. ..
You’re probably all correct – it’s driven by solar forces and electric universe fields, all the measurements are wrong or corrupted, the scientists are in a big conspiracy, the world is actually cooling, and CO2 is declining from 420ppm mid-century. Al Gore should have given credence to all the many dillberry ideas out there in his movie – but gee which dillberry idea would you pick – so many to chose from – I reckon he should have done Louis’s Electric Universe myself with an interview with Ian on CO2 levels. I apologise for getting it wrong and look forward to your stewardship of the planet – what do you think you should do next?
Jen might consider how to attempt a more worthwhile debate.
Lamnus, actually my position is to not worry about CO2 at all. It irks me that politicians are busily spending my money to appease gullible green voters.
Even if restricting CO2 emissions could affect climate, what little Australia could do would be negated by emission growth in other countries in a couple of months.
I’m still waiting for a reply from the South Australian Sustainability Office to my question on the expected temperature decrease we could achieve if all South Australians followed their advice to turn electrical equipment off when not in use, and to take shorter showers. I believe Al Gore promotes similar rubbish.
No country has reduced their emissions while maintaining living standards. I challenge you to name one that has.
It’s amazing how you’ve managed to find some written work by Socrates (“Socrates who once wrote that…”), I’ve always been taught that all we know of Socrates is from the writings of others, such as Plato.
Bolt drilled by Deltoid.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/09/andrew_bolt_gets_a_perfect_sco.php#more
I’m not sure which was the funniest, using economic refugees from Tuvalu as proof of global warming (but hey, they called themselves climate refugees), or the suggestion that malaria would spread due to global warming, when it was once common up to the Arctic circle.
No, the funniest bit was Lambert calling papers on computer modelled projections, “evidence”.
There is a general pereception that Louis H is an isolated sphere suspended in a vacuum (space) and affected gravitionally by the rest of the solar system with the additional effect of solar radiation warming part of its surface as it rotates around its axis.
So Paul I’ll generously give you a half mark for the Tuvalu economic refugee. So that gives Bolt 0.5/10. The endemic mossies are moving locally upslope – that’s the point. And think of those goddam pine beetles destroying North American forests including moving upslope. Munch munch munch. As usual Paul you’ve picked 2/10 – not mentioned the 8/10 and ignored any supporting evidence. How many cherries can a cherry plucker pluck. Focus on the minor and ignore the major.
Amazing isn’t it, the usual lefty loonies still prefer to shoot messengers than debate the actual issues.
Their problem is that by firing the first shot at the messenger, their cover is blown, and the debate ends up closed – all because of their silliness in going for the man rather than the message.
Thick and Thicker.
Anyone watching Sunday SBS at 6pm?
We saw the documentary on TVALU and balanced comments in the following world news.
One islander standing in the briny rolling over the garden said last year’s high tides were not a high as this. Another said they were loosing about 3m of coastline all round but the program comment was sea level monitoring was indeterminate.
An Australian academic said development was the more likely cause of the islands sinking.
Nasus,
I blinked?
Reminds me of the cartoon Alex in the Australian Financial Review last week – when Alex concluded Cyrus had gone completely mad.
In your case I suspect much, much earlier.
Aaah,
Luke has made a freudian slip – he is a guvmint timeclock boy – and confirms my recent suspicion that he is the alter ego of that fraud Phil Done.
Whats the bet, the adds for the new Holden Caprice immediatly after on SBS had nothing to do with Tuvalu
Tavalu
I have family as officers in the RAN and one was stationed at Tuvalu a few years back.
There was an environmental scientist married to a RAN officer who was researching the sea level rises at Tuvalu for their submission to the World Bank.
She presented here report to the Tuvalu Government. Her report stated categorically that there were no increases in the sea levels, and was totally dismayed when her report was edited to state otherwise so that the Tuvalu Govt could weasle out funds from the World Bank.
Much the same with the children overboard scam too – the RAN people on site refute totally what the ALP and its lap puppies here assert.
My sources are first hand – people at the coal face.
So the SBS documentary is interesting.
3 metres loss in coastline?
Once again a lack of geological knowledge – wave action continually erodes the coast line, so it is little wonder the coast line is becoming shorter.
Development might have little or nothing to do with it.
It is simply erosion by wave action and weathering from climate.
Guvmint – but it’s Sunday night and no overtime in sight? I wonder what it is about ageing geologists that turns them into crackpots?
Further to Tuvalu
http://www.sopac.org/tiki/tiki-sopac_reportsindex.php?ss=country&vv=TV&pp=1
The above link lists reports which are downloadable from the internet.
Interestingly the ones one would like, are not.
At the left hand column are the document file numbers which are usually linked to a pdf.
The ones of interest are unlinked.
Sceptic case proven until shown to be otherwise by the data.
Luke, the point is that malaria is a disease of undeveloped countries. And one of Lambert’s links on malaria had a map showing new areas that are “projected” to be at increased risk of malaria. That incuded areas such as southern England.
The other study he linked to somehow neglected to actually include any data on malaria!
Both studies are, needless to say, based on computer modelling.
Louis – you are clueless aren’t you – but then again a geologist so what do we expect, I think you better have a closer look at the coal face & review the kids work.
The National Tidal Facility Reports at http://www.bom.gov.au/oceanography/projects/spslcmp/reports.shtml are rather interesting.. .. These show a mean rate of rise of Tuvalu sea level of +6.6mm/year – http://www.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDO60101/IDO60101.200604.pdf . These data are corrected for tectonic movements using GPS.
Paul – that’s funny – I thought it was about appropriate vectors?
And for Louis – anyone for a paddle on Tuvalu – some great holiday pics of wetness.
http://www.tuvalu.tv/tiki/tiki-browse_gallery.php?galleryId=1
Luke,
Courtesy to Jennifer precludes me answering your slur but why she tolerates your ad hominena remains interesting.
As no one here actually knows who you are, and some of us think you certainly don’t, your comments here have to taken at face value – Looney Lefty Global Warming Waffle.
Like Done and the rest of your non-entity mates, you are basically frauds. Operating under noms des plumes, you are able to vilify anyone you wish though if I were a certain professor of economics, I would sue the web owner.
I won’t because it’s not the decent thing to do.
So enjoy your Phlyrric Victory Luke, for as most of us know, eventually it catches up with you.
Luke,
You are a total idiot.
The BOM report is for various locations in the South Pacific – it does not specify Tuvalu at all.
You lie again.
The previous link to Tuvalu does show some geological maps of the islands comprising Tuvalu – one I spotted was basically sand on coral reefs.
Waves and loose sand are, err, problematical issues, loose sand being somewhat ephemeral in nature.
I spent most of my youth in North Narrabeen where my parents had a home right on the beach front. During wild winter storms the coastline shortened and waves were crashing under our back fence. During summer high-tide was hundereds of meters away due to the replenishment of sand by the longshore currents.
Sea level measurements should be taken with reference to bedrock, not sandy ephermeral sand deposits.
Your problem Luke is that crackpot geologists are not paid buckets of money the mining industry or put in charge of professional society publications. My peers don’t regard me as a crackpot – just pig-ignorant geographers it seems.
Hi Paul,
‘Even if restricting CO2 emissions could affect climate, what little Australia could do would be negated by emission growth in other countries in a couple of months.’
You are sounding ever more like Jim Connaughton, The chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality discussing Kyoto, rather than someone with scientific evidence and even Connaughton has recently started to sing a different song:
‘As we learn more about global climate change, we are actively taking steps to mitigate greenhouse emissions…..Through the President’s FutureGen program, we will build, with private-sector and international partners, the first-ever coal-fired power plant that is pollution-free and emits no greenhouse gases. And we propose tax incentives totaling $4.1 billion through 2009 to spur the use of cleaner, renewable energy and more energy efficient technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.’
– Jim Cannaughton, Ask the Whitehouse, April 22, 2004.
‘No, the funniest bit was Lambert calling papers on computer modelled projections, “evidence”.’
Really? Thats odd because climate sceptics use computer models as well, in fact it would be kind of hard to have the debate without them, despite your interesting attempt to prove that licking your finger, sticking it in the air, waving it about a bit then exclaiming “Nah! its all cobblers” is incontravertible peer reviewed research.
‘No country has reduced their emissions while maintaining living standards. I challenge you to name one that has.’
Emissions of greenhouses gases have fallen by an average of one per cent a year since 1997….
Carbon dioxide emissions are now estimated to have been 5.6 per cent lower in 2003 than in 1990.
– UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2005.
Paul :”No country has reduced their emissions while maintaining living standards. I challenge you to name one that has.”
Russia’s emissions of greenhouse gases today are only 70% of what the Soviet union’s emissions were in 1990.
Of course this is due to that many dirty coal powered industries have closed down.
Did anyone else watch Tuvalu on SBS today? First hand viewing only.
As I said up front in this thread in regard to “What remains at issue is potential rates of change and the scale of destruction” is a fair enough statement if we want to get on top of it.
I’m glad someone thinks the club of skeptics is diminishing.
I’m glad someone thinks the club of skeptics is shrinking in size if not in their own stature. Another question worth pondering; at what rate are they diminishing in the eyes of the world?
Lamna:”Emissions of greenhouses gases have fallen by an average of one per cent a year since 1997….
Carbon dioxide emissions are now estimated to have been 5.6 per cent lower in 2003 than in 1990.
– UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2005.”
I am not 100% sure , but I think this result has to do with the decrease of Russian emissions. A big part of their heavy and dirty industry vanished together with the communism collapse.
Admission of error:
I chatisted Nasus or whatever that I published my use of Apple computers in an article on the ‘Enry Thornton site.
Wrong.
It was ‘ere guv.
http://geoheresy.blogspot.com/2006/08/more-global-warming-bulldust-i-made.html
Nasus
We do not use computer models as evidence.
Cite immediately your evidence we do!
Modelling is about predicting the future.
Sceptics only restrict themselves to the data, which is the historic, and from that data, projections which are avoided as we know we cannot predict what we had measured.
While Lamna and his fellow travellers cogitate on my last post, let me spell out something we in the exploration industry avoid: non-linear data.
We collect data, whether geochemical or geophysical and while that data appears to behave in a linear, or quasi-linear (log normal) manner, we deal with it.
The instance the data become non-linear, all bets are off – and we stop collecting them.
Considering the billions of dollars in potential revenue from finding a mine by solving non-linear equations, the mining industry remains unsuccessful – we only use what we know works.
Climate is essentially longterm weather, and weather is trying to define non-linear data on a chronological basis.
We in the mining industry find microscopically studying the mesentary tissue of chickens to predict future climate a more useful application of funds.
Now Louis – don’t you be mean. Come on let’s be friends.
And,
Science is basically speculation over physical processes.
Once we work out what is going on, it becomes an engineering issue and little further research is required.
Things that remain speculative, like AGW, means we don’t understand it.
AGW proponents believe they do.
Muslim Immams also believe when a Muslim dies as a martyr, then he will be received in heaven by 77 virgins.
Like all prophesies neither can be proved.
Global warmers seem not to have considered this apsect of the debate.
Luke,
or is it Judas?
Lamnus, you could save a lot of effort with your posts by just addressing the issues instead of having me perform imaginary actions or comparing me to people whose quoted saying I disagree with.
UK emissions.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1449439,00.html
Do try to stay up to date.
Ann, I guess we don’t want Soviet type environmental problems. Was the GDP greater after the fall of the Soviets?
Luke, wrong, Bolt and Gore were talking about diseases, trust Lambert to respond with a paper about something else.
On the Peiser survey, about lack of consensus on AGW, Peiser does concede some errors, but not the point of his survey, which he stands by. That would make Lambert’s comment, by his own criteria, “misleading”.
3/10 to Bolt, and counting.
Hi Paul,
Nice try but no cigar.
You stated quite clearly and incorrectly, ‘No country has reduced their emissions while maintaining living standards’.
You then challenged me to name a country that has.
I supplied you with figures showing that the UK did just that between 1990 and 2003.
Just be honest and admit you made a mistake, then if you like we can discuss the fact that between 2004 and 2006 the UK has failed to keep its emission levels under control, which is a different debate.
To Paul,
Interesting stats on some countrie’s greenhouse emissions.
http://www.grida.no/products.cfm?PageID=10
Seems like Germany has decreased greenhouse emissions since 1990.
Interesting “Business” article in our favourite “Weekend Australian” pulp (about 600 gm this w/e, too many pages to count), “Mining’s nightmare scenario – Panic about the US current account could bring our mining boom to a nasty end” – David Uren.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20419425-643,00.html
Now that’s a touchy industry and a pretty good story for our Louis H to worry about all day.
Much of the attack here on the Gore film, warming etc is over supporting dollars for touchy industries.
None of the critics on this blog are discussing the other critical issues like running on efficiently with existing reserves or developing a more flexible skills base for the next major demand. My guess is they have never built or maintained a pipeline in their lives.
Gavin Bugg
Sure lamnus, I’ll concede that my statement was way too broad, and easily disproved by choosing favourable start and end dates (a bit like picking temperature trends). In fact according to Ann’s graphs, the US proved me wrong in 2000/2001. So I shouldn’t have made such a sweeping statement.
Not sure that I’ll concede on Russia, since life expectancy fell during the nineties.
Hi Paul,
No problem.
Ann, you are grasping at straws, emissions from Russia (USSR) dropped because their economy fell into a black hole.
Similarly with Germany, their flirtation with creating a workers paradise and reunification led to a drop in productivity resulting in the lowest GDP in the EU over 1994-2003.
Of course the ultimate test to come might be California – be awful for Paul’s argument if they make even more money (will it make them happier?) and end up with whole new industries and a more efficient energy system. We’ll see.
And funny that such a right wing guy like Arnie would make the innovations (I’m sure Schills has all his movies). “Perhaps only girly men are anti-AGW. Do you want your Prius with 9mm bullets too. I’ll be bach!”.
“What everyone is frightened about is the lags in the system and the uncertainty on the demand side.” The words ‘lags and uncertainty’ should sound familiar to a few of us.
Anyone looking for absolutes, even precision in our language after interpretation of natural events is in for a hard time.
Few would want to emulate Russian GPD/living stds but you need to try harder to attack Germany – we could learn a thing or 2 from the krauts. Some major economists have claimed a major reason for Germany’s prolonged slow economy was realistic house-pricing whereas most other industrialised cities having a decade of expanding over-inflated house prices causing flow-on effects, driving urban economy. More instructive to look at living standards, not GDP. Germany can show bloody good living standards (while also grappling with some difficult socio-political matters), good quality of life, good levels of equality, high standards of education, informed public debates AND good environmental mngt (investing in restoration, clean techcnologies etc). Germany’s economy, on pure GDP terms, may yet also show itself to be comparatively resilient. Let’s judge that we’ve navigated the trough of the next downturn!
I want to believe that climate change is nonsense. Can you recommend a sciencific paper with the evidence to support a sceptical argument I can use to show AGW isn’t happening?
Or is there no real evidence, so we have to tally the credible scientists on each side of the debate?
Actually Luke, I’d be quite happy for my argument to be shot down. Who doesn’t want cheap, clean energy?
Russ, what a good idea!
Luke, 9mm is a girly calibre, as you should know. Lift your game, son!
Sceptic Russ – well can’t help directly but I could suggest some directions:
It depends what level of scepticism you’re at:
(1) if you don’t beieve there is a general warming or the Earth is cooling stop there
(2) (a) if you accept warming is occurring – why – what could it be (i) don’t know (ii) solar (iii) internal variability which is really (i) (iv) cosmis rays (v) the Earth’s core is heating up
2(b) do increasing greenhouse gases causing a radiation imbalance stack up as a theory. Is there any empirical evidence. Do we have any validation for the climate models
3. If you get through (2) – maybe extra CO2 will be good for us – warmer, more CO2 for plants or will we be worse off for droughts, floods, heatwaves and hurricanes
4. If you decide on (3) then you have to decide do we have the future CO2 scenarios nailed (SRES). Ian Castles would argue we don’t; climate scientists say the range is covered.
Don’t tally scientists – you have to decide if the evidence stacks up (on both sides)
Paul – sorry – I assumed Arnie would be using a couple of Micro Uzis as weapons of choice vis a vis a Magnum or something Dirty Harry-ish.
Hasta la vista baby.
All these posts and nothing of substance, Phluke.
The standard line about orbital triggers to temperature and CO2 spikes doesn’t explain the lag between the temperature spike and the CO2 spike more than a CENTURY later.
Pinxi,
What you don’t realize is that Europe is on the brink of a wholesale economic meltdown. The “ecological programs” so widely admired are actually agricultural subsidies and impose crushing tax burdens. European citizens get it from both ends. The government takes their income to subsidize farmers, and the food chain takes their money with artificially inflated food prices.
Europe cannot compete on the open market with this system, so its only alternative is to tax till it hurts, while erecting trade barriers till it hurts. When the pain becomes unbearable, the whole thing will collapse and drag the unfortunate, short-sighted newly-admitted members of the EU with with it.
The EU is, like the “diversifying” US corporations of the ’80s, desperately trying to fund its financial hemorraging with new “acquisitions” that look cheap, but in the end will prove to be a horrific shambles.
Europe is once again headed for the toilet. The smart money is already headed out, and the scientists, too.
Ian – you’re an amateur. What causes the initial warming. An orbital – solar forcing change. Place starts to warm, some CO2 is liberated, warms somemore and a feedback occurs. The lag is EXACTLY what you’d expect. Jeez everyone knows that. Take a course for heavens sake.
You must be dreaming if not seriously deluded Pinxii if +10% unemployment and crippling taxation is your idea of a model economy.
The reality is that the unions and the lefty govt has strangled business to the point where Germany is underperforming against its newly liberated eastern neighbours. Germany’s only hope is to host more World Cups.
Ian – RC says
From studying all the available data (not just ice cores), the probable sequence of events at a termination goes something like this. Some (currently unknown) process causes Antarctica and the surrounding ocean to warm. This process also causes CO2 to start rising, about 800 years later. Then CO2 further warms the whole planet, because of its heat-trapping properties. This leads to even further CO2 release. So CO2 during ice ages should be thought of as a “feedback”, much like the feedback that results from putting a microphone too near to a loudspeaker.
In other words, CO2 does not initiate the warmings, but acts as an amplifier once they are underway. From model estimates, CO2 (along with other greenhouse gases CH4 and N2O) causes about half of the full glacial-to-interglacial warming.
So, in summary, the lag of CO2 behind temperature doesn’t tell us much about global warming. [But it may give us a very interesting clue about why CO2 rises at the ends of ice ages. The 800-year lag is about the amount of time required to flush out the deep ocean through natural ocean currents. So CO2 might be stored in the deep ocean during ice ages, and then get released when the climate warms.]
http://icebubbles.ucsd.edu/CaillonTermIII.pdf says
Timing of Atmospheric CO2 and
Antarctic Temperature Changes
Across Termination III
Nicolas Caillon,1,2* Jeffrey P. Severinghaus,2 Jean Jouzel,1
Jean-Marc Barnola,3 Jiancheng Kang,4 Volodya Y. Lipenkov5
The analysis of air bubbles from ice cores has yielded a precise record of atmospheric
greenhouse gas concentrations, but the timing of changes in these gases
with respect to temperature is not accurately known because of uncertainty in the
gas age–ice age difference. We have measured the isotopic composition of argon
in air bubbles in the Vostok core during Termination III (240,000 years before the
present). This record most likely reflects the temperature and accumulation change,
although the mechanism remains unclear. The sequence of events during Termination
III suggests that the CO2 increase lagged Antarctic deglacial warming by
800 200 years and preceded the Northern Hemisphere deglaciation.
Schiller you’re behind the movement. People and nations in the know are selling USD and buying euros. What does the US offer anyone these days? Seriously tell me – what strength lies in US economic structure & export composition? The US runs on international confidence and debt-fuelled spending. The 2 go together. When confidence wanes…
Rog, again you’ve fallen back on short-term GDP indicators although it’s an inadequate proxy for quality of life or long-term economic performance.
You lot gauging GDP are confusing the weather for the climate. Short-term GDP indicates NOTHING of economic resilience or well-being. US-centric attacks on Europe indicate nothing other than arrogant, self-perpetuating deceptive patriotism.
Add a few things togehter:
risk of AGW (needs mitigation & adaptation), or perhaps, risk of accelerating natural climate change (ie need adaptation)
+ risk of peak oil or at least, increasing price of extracting oil or going to war over oil, which essentially arrives at a similar outcome
+ perverse subsidies in fossil fuels, military etc and the economic efficiencies therein
+ various economic (eg scrubbers, other anti pollution gear), social (eg health issues) & environmental COSTS and industrial pollution of various forms from fossil fuel combustion
= bloody good win-win situation, increased competitiveness, more economic efficiency, and increased long-term economic resilience (along with more local business opportunities), better health & less environmental risk if we scale back our dependency on fossil fuels and invest in other technologies and in-between technical businesses who mediate between commercial requirements and science/engineering, ie the real engine underlying economic growth.
Cripes Pinx – that sort of intelligent progressive hinking isn’t going to get you anywhere here – this is just a site for whingers who don’t have any ideas as to how progress matters.
“hinking”, somehow that’s so descriptive of Pinxi’s little rant.
To hink, n. To combine anti-Americanism, Green ideology and economic ignorance and come up with the conclusion that we would all be better off if the Government ran everything and taxed us to the hilt.
What a load of bollocks, Luke, the temperature rises are not incremental, they are, in geological time, immediate and complete. There is almost invariably a very steep rise to a peak followed by an extended downward trend of smaller peaks in temperature. The Vostok graphs, show a temperature peak in about 235,000bp when CO2 is still only 200ppm. The next temperature peak is about 215,000bp when CO2 is also at about 200ppm and just emerging from lowest point.
At 125,000bp the temp graph has undergone half its eventual amplitude before CO2 makes any movement. So this forcing theory really doesn’t stack up.
The only conclusion one can draw from this data (assuming it is of sufficient integrity) is that CO2 will decline gradually over time as biological activity declines due to temperature declines. CO2 flux is clearly an outcome of temperature change, not a cause or driver.
And as CO2 is less than 1% of all greenhouse gases, the remainder being water vapour, it is entirely possible, indeed probable, that temperature equilibriums will be maintained by a minor reduction in water vapour that will offset the increase in CO2.
Clearly, the natural range of variation in levels of water vapour are more than adequate to accommodate such an adjustment.
Yes Ian that’s right. You’re a genius. Team up with Louis, Warwick and Paul and go for the Nobel prize. Write your findings up quick and change science history. How’d the phone call to Cape Grim go incidentally – were they in?
(Lurkers will note that Ian has now been sucked in by Jabba the Hutt, the water vapour dominant gas ruse, the CO2/temperature ruse, and he’s making use of the CO2 data even though it’s all bullshit – hmmmm – you’d think he’d do some research – but that’s why he’s a spruiker not a scientist. Answers to Ian’s points above are in Jen’s climate archive. )
Ian says “it is entirely possible, indeed probable, that temperature equilibriums will be maintained by a minor reduction in water vapour that will offset the increase in CO2”
What evidence we have for that senario?
Listen to Pinxii waffling on, you would think that she is reading it all out of a text book.
You only have to look at the policies undertaken by the newly liberated ex Soviet bloc countries to see just how much they value “feel good” lefty social engineering, they have had the experience.
“intelligent progressive” = “reactionary regressive”
Sory folks but boiling up an old stew creates steam in my book
oh geez, how dumb rog. Bog std righty ham-fisted lame accusation that any probing or progressive thoughts are left AND anti-individual AND socialist AND artificial social engineering. Hissink has mastered that argument. About the only interesting relevant thing from that part of the world is flat taxes.
so, why should i care? I’m a comfortably well off enviro-liberal. I don’t care for urban green agendas. Im unlikely to be affected in my lifetime and I don’t give a toss about any of yr kids.
It’s amusing though to see the knee-jerk unthinking reactions to my post above. Keep up the closed mind intolerance boys – anything to defend yr inflexible position.
DEBATE AND DISSENT IS HEALTHY.
need I remind you twirps of the theme of this post?
Debate and dissent is only healthy when the sceptics engage in it and write the rules for it. Otherwise, it’s lefty socialist ranting
What is so probing or progressive about unemployment and loss of property to the state?
Next you will be waxing lyrical about life in the commune.
You do like to award yourself some mighty big medals Pinxii.
Rog, again you’ve fallen back on short-term indicators – inadequate proxies for quality of life or long-term economic performance and you’re adding in extra factors as though someone argued for them?!!!? Commune my arse, I like my individual property! More productive to talk to the brick wall
Pinxi, Rog has also forgotten or wish back to the USSR, where official unemployment rates were always zero and 100% of the population voted on the Communist or Socialist Party!!
I agree although I would use the word “inappropriate” rather than “inadequate” – quality of life is an emotive subjective term open to exploitation and manipulation.
Ann, you are no doubt pleasd that the leftys in Sweden have been booted out, seems like the Swedes are also tiring of excessive taxation, cronic unemployment and a nanny state (unlike Pinxii who likes to focus on The Big Picture)
Rog, it’s really confusing in Scandinavia what party is really what!! The right wing Conservative Party called themselves on the posters the New Working Class Party in Sweden and in Denmark the right winged Conservative Party call themself the Radical Left wing Party!!!
nanny states -> aust has no shortage of regulations, rules, by-laws and social expectations on how to conduct yr affairs. We’re not as bad as, eg singapore, but W Europe lags years behind aust’s strict regulations. But gee even Singapore still lets people get driven around in the back of trucks without any seatbelts – but they’re mostly 2nd class immigrant labourers with temporary visas, so what?
Europe defends some personal freedoms that Austns happily regulate to the nth degree. Why? Partly cos with recent, still living, memories of war and dictators, they value their personal liberties. Some of Germany’s alleged socialist influences were deliberately in-built mechanisms by WWII victors to enshrine civil constraints over concentrated powers. Funny that big picture! … European policies that get dimissed as socialist and anti-capitalist by capitalists can be viewed from The Big Picture as libertarian safeguards.
Ann, too make it even more difficult to compare parties, many of the ‘central’ mainstream political ideas in Nth & West Europe are considered left-leaning in Aust.
Well said, Pixie!
Rog, regarding the elections in Sweden. Yes, the Center Conservative Coalition won over the lefties, but actually I doubt that much will change.
Folks,
I scrolled up and noticed that the headline topping this prolific commentary begins with: “Debate and Dissent is Healthy”.
Is this true by definition, or should it be somewhat qualified?
“Europe defends some personal freedoms that Austns happily regulate to the nth degree”
Howabout naming a few Pinxie?
rights and enjoyments:
* hold regular, noisy street festivals (without elaborate local council regulations or extortions over costs because cultural expression gets priority) including in some places, right to release avalanche crackers (no snow in sight) at dawn to remind everyone it’s festival time yet again
* right to hold impromptu gatherings on the street side/curb/local square and drink, smoke, carry on
* right to buy & smoke weed &DIY drug quality testing kits in the netherlands & weed is being decriminalised & overlooked in other countries
* easy attitude allowing you to buy alcohol anybloodywhere and in sth europe, buy cheap alcohol in cafes & restaurants (more expensive in the nthn/calvinist nations)
* relatively easy approvals to conduct parties and festivals at/inside historically significant monuments/museums (even tried to get after hrs access to a public facility in Aust, let alone get agreement to hold a party there?)
* right to cycle lanes, cycle bikes everywhere & get right of way over cars
* cycle bikes without helmet
* cycle bike with 2-3 kids on bike with you all without helmets
* right to get kids to climb high on a multiple storey human tower (occasionally kids fall head 1st into pavement)
* smoke in pubs (no-smoking restaurants & clubs & offices are spreading throughout Europe but in practice it often still comes down to individual business or even small team in an individual office to decide), hell they’ll even smoke in their own cafe while serving you!
* have your favourite spirit chaser to wash down yr morning coffee, and a beer or wine with lunch on work days (less common now, but still there) without being persecuted at work
* workers’ councils rights to approve or modify corporate restructures before they’re put in place, to ensure fair practices and reasonable notice etc have been followed
* right to ski like maniacs and put others in danger (on austn & US slopes that kind of reckless skiing behaviour is strictly policed)
* more flexible mixed zoning, eg housing pet horses, cars, apartments, businesses & public operations, restaurants, parks & entertainment all in the one area (access to a balanced life)
* hold public works & get in some construction machinery without excessive closing off of area & overkill with warning signs
* until recently you could hide money offshore within Europe as well!
>>>>In everyday aspects there is definitely more defense of personal rights & freedoms to live as an individual chooses as long as they’re not doing direct harm to another. It goes hand in hand with taking on more personal responsibility for your own actions.<<<< Living memories of repressive regimes as I mentioned earlier make people wary of concentrated power and more into active civil involvement.
The capitalist-right interpretation of this in US & Aus is socialist and completely misses the point that it’s actually libertarian and welfare focused, with a stronger bias for egalitarian society with individual rights and freedoms.
By comparison, the US and Aust are much more nanny-like because they regulate more to prevent people from doing harm to themselves as well as others. ie treat people more like sheep who can’t think for themselves (particularly in America – constitution) whereas generally in Europe (& other countries) people are encouraged to think & take responsibility for themselves more.
You notice this immediately in driving styles: in Aust we drive more offensively, knowing the rules & screaming abuse at anyone who breaks them; whereas in European countries generally they drive more defensively, bending the rules, running traffic lights, more tailgating (not in germany) seemingly taking more risks but driving with greater caution & awareness of others on the road. eg in some places right of way is given to sidestreets, not the main street so drivers always have to look around for entering cars. (If you want another eg, checkout the traffic experiment in Groningen and tell me if you can imagine this happening in aust). Hence you’ll see a European equivalent of RTA put temporary markers out to change lanes, make extra lanes, change other traffic rules just for a few hrs to adjust to the flow of traffic
If anything, I’d expect liberal capitalists to admire the model of many European countries where you DO have personal rights (more individual freedoms actually than in the legalistic US & AUst) to do what you want if you can afford it. eg stockholm has limited real estate area & many people cycle, there’s not really the space for everyone to have a car and the pollution would be bad, so it’s taxed. You are free to have a car if you choose to spend yr money on one. Same principle in some other EU cities, and Singapore too. Kinda similar in US except high tazes (disincentives) aren’t needed because a similar effect is achieved though high levels of income inequality. Which would you prefer rog? High inequality (majority of people struggling to make ends meet and most of the socioeconomically impoverished remaining that way) or high levels of equality and higher taxes. Socialism is NOT implicit in the latter.
(btw: the next time you choose to slag off one of my comments with an effortless 1 liner rog, the onus is on you to put up the proof!)
Phluke delivers more invective but still no substantive response to any point of contention. I can understand how some departmental plodder in the brave new green utopia may regard a simple correct interpretation of actual data on a record as a stroke of “genius”.
But those of us with reasonable exposure to even the “very clever” have such regard for a fine intellect that they would never toss the word genius about in a casual manner.
Gavin, the CSIRO workshop on Impacts of Global Change on Australian Temperate Forests, 1998 was advised that the interaction of CO2 increases and temperature increases would improve water use efficiency in transpiration. So either the same growth could be maintained with less water or additional growth could be had from the same water.
The former, maintaining growth with less water, will mean less evapotranspiration within any period, at site level. Therefore, part of natures response to the increased CO2 will be a reduction in water vapour.
This, of course, will be in a context of a number of interfacing fluxes. But what we certainly do know is that the current range of natural variation in water vapour levels is much greater than the 0.008% change in CO2 from 290ppm to 370ppm as claimed by those who fully accept the ice core data as accurate.
The chemical methods analysis of Beck indicates contemporary decadal level CO2 fluxes of 320ppm to 420ppm (0.01%) with century length changes from 320ppm to 370ppm (or 0.005%).
Ian – well I’ve given up as you don’t seem to amenable to any logical argument or engage in any background research, consideration of alternatives, or making a phone call to someone in the know. But I know you’ll just play games till the cows come home as you’ve already made your mind up on all these issues. You have no idea of the magnitude of the fluxes or how they interact and you don’t want to find out. So how would you really know. If you don’t know the internal inconsistencies in your argument I’m not going help you except to say it’s all in Jen’s climate archive 2-3 times over. You’re prepared to argue about the CO2 curves but the data are all rubbish too? ?
The one lesson anyway is that it is a total waste of time have any discussions on climate change on this blog. For all the posts nothing has been achieved either way.
So the implication if the anti-AGW crowd are correct is that there seems to be massive fraud perpetrated on a grand scale at an international level on multiple science fronts – every single AGW argument is wrong. That’s impressive.
Anyway Ian – I think there is a great role for you here. I think you have a duty to inform the public and suggest you and your anti-AGW colleagues here should populate Jen’s Wiki on climate change. It’s waiting for you to write the right story.
the Right story?
Where is the scientific evidence I requested to make an informed sceptical argument?
That wonderful Pissi, I can see you have got your prorities sorted.
Pinxi, you forggot to mention that in Sweden we have a Feminist Party as well! They make the most amusing comments. The other day they called all men “monsters” and Jane Fonda was in Stockholm promoting this party for the elections. Don’t know however if Jane Fonda thinks all men are monsters since she been married many times.
But to be frank this Party is more like a hens house , they are quarrelling a lot between themselves!
Yes, yes I know my posts have many spelling errors, trying to improve myself…
Phluke, in sociological terms your reaction is called “leaving the field”. It is a standard frustration reaction to a failure to overcome a barrier. In this case, the barrier of your own ignorance.
Only you could come up with a statement like, “You have no idea of the magnitude of the fluxes or how they interact and you don’t want to find out”, in response to my post with specific numbers that indicate clearly the magnitude of the fluxes involved.
So I will spell it out once more for you, Luke. The range in natural variation in water vapour is from zero relative humidity to 100% (ie rain) and it is the interaction between this greenhouse gas (99+%), and its 100% range of natural variation, and the trace gas, CO2, with its 30 to 50% variation, that determines climate and temperature.
Don’t you find it just a bit hard to believe that the 1% is driving the 99%?
No Mean Grott – it’s just that you’re impossible to deal with and make no attempt to do anything but ram-raid.
In terms of the fluxes involved – coming off what is an ice age – you give me your calculations as to what the time frame is to get the biosphere feedbacks going. You haven’t got a clue.
CO2 does not have a 30-50% variation – show us one paper that demonstrates that over any sizeable area except in geological time.
12ppm CO2 increase between 1995 and 2002 should be about one fourth of a Watt per square meter and is borne out by close measurement of 1/3 watt. You also don’t understand that water vapor acts as a feedback to amplify forcing due to CO2 increase. Water vapour is only about 60-70% of the effect.
But anyway – write the Wiki on anti-AGW theory for Jen – the public deserve your view of history and critique of the AGW research – but I guess you and your mates aren’t up to it.
Hi all!
Not being half as well educated as the rest of you seem to be, I am only an interested observer here, and make no comments about the subject, but I am greatful to Louis Hissink for his remark about the rotation of the Earth.
I was under the impression that All planets rotated, how wrong was that? made me look up a few things on the net.
And that reminded me of one regular poster here, Luke.
Luke, I mean no disrespect, but judging by your comments and copious use of internet links, you don’t really seem to have any formal qualifications, you just grab a suitable link, read it and if it agrees with your view, post it as proof.
Unfortunately instant, (or just any) information does not replace knowledge.
I must admit though, you are clever.
If I am wrong about it all I apologise, but I do know people, so I think I’m right.
Cheers
Well Bert – in a scholarly debate citing a published work is seen to be more relevant than pulling information out of one’s derriere. But yes I’m just an unqualified hack publishing random links. Ian in contrast is a genius so I suggest you study his writings most closely.
Ian, I hoped Tasmania may get a bit steamier on the far side of the plateau as we go on.
Gunns will need that extra wood when the tax breaks come off.
Bert: It takes a lot of experience to know exactly which links to pull of the net in any debate. That’s why some like me try to avoid stepping up then off the plank.
Reduction of atmospheric water vapour due to increased transpiration use efficiency is just rubbish, Ian certainly has some convoluted thoughts.
Changing the efficeincy of transpiration will do very little, as for much of the world the water not transpired today will be transpired or evaporated tomorrow may be fixing a little extra carbon on the way, a little extra runoff is suggested in models and some data are suggesting this is hapening at least on a global scale, but if less transpiration then dryer air, warmer surfaces and more potential evaporation (i there is any water.
Reduction of atmospheric water vapour due to increased transpiration use efficiency is just rubbish, Ian certainly has some convoluted thoughts.
Changing the efficeincy of transpiration will do very little, as for much of the world the water not transpired today will be transpired or evaporated tomorrow may be fixing a little extra carbon on the way, a little extra runoff is suggested in models and some data are suggesting this is hapening at least on a global scale, but if less transpiration then dryer air, warmer surfaces and more potential evaporation (i there is any water.
Pinxi, apparently quite a few Germans disagree with you on how well Germany is going. They’re leaving the country for better opportunities. For some reason they’re not happy with high taxation and record unemployment, despite being able to ride a bike without a helmet.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_en&refer=news&sid=aaiYvU1EuM2A
Paui, people are leaving all countries all over the world cos the grass is always greener. Is that all you could come up? Would you like to play a proportionate numbers game on people leaving US v’s Germany to seek opportunities elsewhere or compare general public opinion on each country? Would you like to try to argue that young Australians don’t leave Aust in search of better jobs & pay? None of this alone would make any important points eh? The truly disturbing thing about the Germans though is their secret Plan B to conquor the world more slowly through migration, real estate purchases and bakeries. Perhaps the Germany Plan B idealogy has sunk its teeth into me, eeeekkkk. Is that carnival music I hear? Gee these socks & sandals are comfy & awfully sensible though.
Oooohhh… did I mention HOW FAST you can drive in Germany too? Petrol heads can whiiizzzz down those autobahns & fume all over AGW. Push that pedal to the metal til yr birkenstocks strain over yr socks..
the thrust Paul, in case you missed it, is that as you’ve repeated the exact same narrow interpratation that I’d already knocked. you refer to singular, short-term indicator in potentially temporary, net migration figures. So what? Eventhe article itself says many germans return with additional qualifications. What of long-term economic resilience? Do you think Aust & US & China (& UK?) are all gunna remained buoyed for another 10-15 yrs? Taking long-term view (the climate not the weather) what of economic resilience and relative equality and standards of living? And…. what of economic structural interdependence heavily fuelled by fossil fuels and the various risks involved there, incl institutionalised economic inflexibility and low investment in developing substitutes? Do you see any broader issues other than a narrow scientific view of AGW?
“Do you think Aust & US & China (& UK?) are all gunna remained buoyed for another 10-15 yrs? ”
Yes, I do. Less optimistic about UK, especially if they follow the German model.
Economic resilience – best achieved by strong property rights and minimal government interference.
Fossil fuels – underpin all this economic resilience. Back to the Middle Ages without them.
Investment in developing substitutes – great idea. But if the government is going to take a large proportion of my income to invest in that manner, when I could have invested it more profitably elsewhere, then they are reducing that economic resilience.
They need to demonstrate an overriding benefit before I’m going to be happy with that. Handwaving about saving the planet or what are we going to tell our grandchildren just doesn’t cut it. (And in case you’re wondering, I do have children, no grandkids as yet.)
A question for you Pinxi (or anyone). What is a “carbon constrained future”? It’s a term I’ve heard bandied about lately, especially in relation to carbon trading. As far as I can see, it’s buzzword with no real definition.
Be careful not to mix your categories Paul: you want energy inputs, you don’t necessarily want fossil fuel inputs. I don’t deny that fossil fuels have delivered us great socio-ec gains to date and continue to fuel our current lifestyles. However, longterm will they continue to support eternal economic growth – for a growing popn and development for all countries, and in the short to medium term, are they the most efficient and effective option? Re: backing fossil fuels for resilience, are you putting all yr eggs in the one basket?
See previous post discussions on this blog (I’m not about to spend the time digging them out now) for a few mentions of specific economic and academic reports (from some respectable sources) on the huge amounts of fossil fuel subsidies (so called peverse subsidies) and projected gains in economic efficiency and more competitive freely operating markets AND improved resilience (incl through more correctly priced energy alternatives and corresponding allocation of investment funds) IF these monetary subsidies and institutional supports were peeeld back. Why is it that the liberal sceptics scream against potential/perceived inefficiencies and opportunity costs of investments in fossil fuel alternatives (without quoting sources to support this claim) but don’t scream about existing inefficiencies that maintain the system they defend? Are the sceptics actually just resistent to change?
I remember reading some of your links on fossil fuel “subsidies” and in every case, what you called a subsidy was a reduction in tax.
If reduction in subsidies causes a gain in economic efficiency, and it does, then that applies equally to all forms of energy. You can’t have it both ways.
“in every case, what you called a subsidy was a reduction in tax”
Not true. Not true at all.
You want to deny there are direct subsidies? There are significant direct subisidies AND supporting institutional arrangements. And gee, we haven’t even dipped our toe in negative externalities other than AGW or asked who pays financially or personally. You cherry pick as an extreme sport Paul. You don’t want to think broadly about long-term resilience. I suggest you think deeply about coby’s excellent advise:
“you must think these things through, that is what it really means to be a sceptic, to be a sceptic does not mean grasp at every straw trying to avoid a particular conclusion.”
Richard Darksun, If water is not transpired today then it is still in the soil until tomorrow or later. And as the median water vapour level is the sum of all daily readings divided by 365 days then the median value will be slightly lower.
The speed of water cycling from oceans to atmosphere to soil and back to the atmospher via plants will slow down. And it will take only a very minor change in that water vapour cycle to completely negate the impact of increased CO2 which is less than 1% of the former.
Pinxi, in every one of the links you provided THAT I READ, a subsidy was actually a drop in tax. I don’t think I read them all. In the Byzantine world of government subsidies, nothing would surprise me.
And I would like to see ALL energy subsidies dropped. That way the best energy solution would emerge. Who should pay? I nominate whoever is using the energy.
You know what I think about AGW. What other negative externalities (nifty phrase, that) did you have in mind? Pollution? I’m against it. Radioactive waste? An opportunity. Spoiling the view on scenic headlands? It won’t kill you. Having an unreliable power supply to appease the environmentalists? THAT could kill people.
You may call it cherry picking. Doesn’t everyone find some evidence more compelling than others? And it’s not an extreme sport. That is were people snowboard off cliffs, or surf monster waves. I felt like I had to explain that to you.
With the greatest respect, you have no idea what I do or do not think deeply about. The fact that I may come to different conclusions to you merely gives me more confidence in my thinking.
Bullcrap Paul. The discussion gave disproportionate attention to whether or not a drop in tax counted as a subsidy despite this issue being only one component of many in the entire subsidy review (and despite the controversial aspects of definition of subsidy getting explicit discusion in the article which you didn’t actually read much if at all – I recall you asked online if reduced taxes were included as subsidies and I gave youo the answer so you didn’t perhaps read that article at all?!).
Cherry picking indeed but you go ahead and feel confident in your selective thinking despite being wrong in stating that in everyone of the links subsidy = reduction in tax. You overlooked and now deny the attention given to direct subsidies and institutional supports such as infrastructure & transport, R&D, industry development funding, govt agencies, admin & emissions/pollution abatement.
Clearly being your flavour of sceptic DOES mean grasping at every straw trying to avoid a particular conclusion.
Its obvoius that pixii has never been to Germany otherwise she would have known that shops close at lunchtime and must, by law, close at night and all day Sunday and dogs cant bark, frogs cant croak and you cant shovel snow at night, you’re not supposed to dump glass into the bin or use a car wash or drive a truck on a Sunday, you’re not allowed to blow your car horn for any purpose other than to warn someone of immediate danger, you’re not allowed to insult anyone in any way, shape, or form (incl car bumper stickers) or ride a bike in the daytime without lights on or dance or have a party on ash wednesday, good friday, or a couple other holidays or have a BBQ more than once a month.
It is called Ruhezeit!
And dont ever call anybody a Nazi!
Pinxi, could you remind me again what particular conclusion I’m trying to avoid? The signal to noise ratio is a bit low at the moment. Ta.
Hmmmm – seems like Motty has done a runner.
Be mindful of the broader issue Paul, not just the convenient subset of facts and influences that fits your preferred story line. Specifically, consider that there may be potent scientific AND/OR social AND/OR economic AND/OR environmental reasons for reducing GHG emissions. (That could require you to, for eg, read the review article on fossil fuel subsidies before you dismiss it ignorant of its contents). Even if you’re not 100% convinced that AGW is happening, as I”m not because the science is not certain, you can still run a cost-benefit analysis, mindful not only of the risks but the potential magnitude of the effects. BTW, if you engage in fewer furphies, or selective arguments if you prefer, you might get better at recognising hi-fi tunes amid the unexplained rise in popularity of low-fi. Lost again? I unwittingly caught a concert not too long ago (in Germany odd enough!) of guys in trackies playing music by gaming their Nintendos. Suprised the venue let them punish their speakers like that, just another case of cultural liberties winning over materialistic concerns I guess.
Rog kindly send me an email alert when you have an intelligent or merely thoughtful response to my longer post above. Meanwhile I’ll do something more constructive, like wax my fanny, then pay you any heed.
I did acknowledge, a bit grudgingly I admit, that it was possible there are actual subsidies on fossil fuel. When I have time, I will go back and look at the links you posted again, in detail, and tell you what I really think. Give me a couple of days though, I’ve just come off night shift.
Anyway, did you catch that I don’t agree with subsidies for fossil fuels? Or for any other source of energy?
My position on CO2 emission is that, at the moment I don’t believe there is any need to limit them. I just don’t find the evidence to do so convincing. Call it a furphy, cherry picking or selective argument if you want. If I find that the evidence becomes convincing, I will change my position, without apology.
Jen; I thought it was just possible that you would nod at our PM as the leader of that group above but since you picked on the other gal for the role of chief sceptic I will add, its been a long time since we had a female Pope.
As Pru Goward puts her foot on the Liberal ladder I will be most interested in her utterances on AGW etc. Goulburn must be one of the thirstiest places this side of the black stump. Readers should also note; from this region to the Great Australian Bight, all winter crops are about half of what they should be for this season. Add to that the fight over water rights between farmers and big biz everywhere our Pru becomes another who must at least stand firm on water policy.
One thing I like about this blog; people can share their inner thoughts about life in general (except for the cynics).
Paul has popped up with a clue about himself, shiftwork! It’s a special breed of employee that survives working nights long term for someone else. However Paul must stand firm too on Pinxi’s issue of energy subsidies, both direct and indirect.
Some time ago as I put thought to paper about the infrastructure at tax payers expense that goes into the start up of a new mining project I could recall the demands. Quite a few projects in my time only went ahead as state governments built the roads, towns and schools. Lots of industry was also allowed to pollute.
Most of our power stations, grids and other infrastructure were entirely built at taxpayers expense then sold for a song when some of the maintenance became neglected. Against thermal sources; all These larger projects were built around other public utilities like water and sewage (effluents) also railways. These days we probably pay for those services via the energy charges however it is not likely to reflect the initial construction cost for each one.
An interesting reverse case ahead is Gunns proposed pulp mill in Northern Tasmania. Water is likely to be diverted from a local hydro power station one of the oldest in the grid. The considerable volume of the mills effluent (it’s a big pipe in my experience) must be discharged at sea but the whole lot regardless of treatment standards has bypassed the Tamar River in its entirety.
Will that long estuary be more ‘salty’ than the sea? Will the mill power charges go up?
Motty will say it’s only one in a hundred, any slime we won’t see.
Gavin Bugg
Yes I did catch & I acknowledge Paul that you don’t agree with energy subsidies.
I’d like people to think more broadly than their particular discipline or area of exposure or pet view. *Some* new project investments (eg infrastructure and plants) are a ripe opportunity for what they call “no regrets” changes, ie win-win – emissions reducing AND more efficient, but won’t happen unless we have awareness and political will instead of denial.
Dear Pinxi; science is all about maintaining tight disciplines at any cost. Policy can be equally dogmatic. We won’t get practical solutions here.
One of the hardest things to develop in any new program is an individual perspective on magnitudes required to effect change. This whole thing is a task for engineers, not climate scientists, journalists and least of all geologists.
Let’s look at geologists for a mo; I’ve worked with a few. Geologists don’t make ore bodies into metals and generally they don’t run the mines. Neither do scientists make the weather or change the climate. The last people to do anything are our politicians.
Note too there are some lackeys around who just push the barrow for others.
That leaves you and me Pinxi to worry.
Whilst some are waxing lyrical others are abandoning their birthplaces for a better life, not normally a decision taken lightly. Not just a few years OS, see the world, have a few laughs, they are seeking citizenship elsewhere and emigrating for good.
This model that is Germany, this soziale marktwirtschaft, this clean green highly taxed over regulated altes bierhaus, it needs overhauling, people need to develop some pride in themselves instead of whinging about noise. But how can it be changed, it has so many laws and controls and unions and committees citizens are locked in to a consensual mediocrity (I heard many Germans lamenting their loss of personal freedoms years ago, no wonder they need a drink with their cornflakes)
If you allow the state to own and run the country then the state will subsidise certain industries to suit its political ideology. States can build infrastructure at taxpayers expense because the people allow them that power.
The next big energy subsidy in Aust, after LPG conversions (another collossal waste of taxpayers money), will be ethanol.
Hayek called the word “social” a weasel word, a word used by special interest groups to extract “rent money” from the State who in turn extort money in the form of taxes.
Rog; I hope you are not attempting to tar and feather the word ‘social’ here.
A word I use a lot lately in terms of developing attitudes is ‘community’.
This invariably leads me to the concept of clusters. Complexity in our industry arrises from all that with out using the word ‘policy’ which can often get in the way of natural ‘progress’.
Besides that; where is your profile in the general scheme of things?
Pinxi, just so we’re talking about the same thing, the links you posted before were on this thread
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001103.html
and I found one link from you (when you were Think objectively)
http://www.isf.uts.edu.au/publications/CR_2003_paper.pdf
Are there any more? I gathered from our discussion on this thread that there were several, but I can’t find them.
I’ll re-read it today and comment on this thread.
Society, community, rights, we, welfare, common good, the people, minorities, fair trade – all weasel words used freely by the socialists.
George Orwell called it ‘new speak’ and ‘double think’, terms misapplied by wily political operators.
Paul that pdf was the one to which our discussions above mostly refer, so that will do for a start – interested to hear yr comments. We’ll prob agree that we need an equal playing ground for all forms of energy – at least that would be a good start. There are other reports I’d mentioned prior ie economic studies on the Aust bus case & later, similar from a US uni but buggrd if I have time to dig it out now – had a quick look but I ve spent more time here lately than I can afford to. Will come back though to see what you have to say on Aust subsidies
rog pls nominate some specifics – list a number of personal liberties you enjoy in Aust that you can’t enjoy in Europe. I repeat, pls nominate a number of personal liberties you enjoy in Aust that you can’t enjoy in Europe. Also pls reread my earlier comment on migrations OR provide specifics to support whatever yr trying to say about net comparisons of permanent migration (truth or fiction Germany has an unusually high number of people leaving permanently?) and causes. And IF germany is a socialist hell as you seem to believe, what contribution did WWII victors make to that? They imposed internal social controls after all so which political structures created present day germany?
Gavin, yep.
One meaning of social to me is friendly neighbours, people that have other people around them eg that’ll notice if they drop dead alone inside their home. rog is just trying to frame & play semantics to support false distinctions he wants to make because he can’t substantiate his extreme liberal views otherwise
Look pinxie, Germanys economic history is their own doing, the social market economy was brought in by Erhard not by the US as you infer. And it has failed. End of story. Have another beer.
Look at recent headlines, Merkel wants to raise taxes even more so that they can pay the housekeeping whilst business confidence has plummeted even further. You call that progress?
here rog you reveal what’s at the core of yr personal version of extreme capitalism – authoritarianism & intolerance of questions. You revert yet again to short-term headlines. Dear oh dear one needs to punch the information in don’t they?
You haven’t answered my direct question. As I said above, in return for the extended explanation I gave you yet again, the next one would lie on you to prove. So please go ahead. Shall I repeat it for you? pls nominate some specifics – list a number of personal liberties you enjoy in Aust that you can’t enjoy in Europe. I repeat, pls nominate a number of personal liberties you enjoy in Aust that you can’t enjoy in Europe. Without answering this question, you CANNOT support the underpinning philosophy of your position, ie that individual liberal rights in a more free market-based system give you more freedom. SO go ahead & prove it rog. With specifics.
AND while yr substantiating yr position for once, please demonstrate that Germany’s economy is unaffected by the prices exacted and obligations placed upon her post wars. (gee even prominent people involved in post-war negotiations have publicly commented on that so you’ll have a hard time of it!). Take the social controls placed on business – these were imposed externally as safeguards against the type of industry collaboration (corruption) that supports dictators. This is why Europeans are so conscious of the risks of unfettered capitalism. Not because they’re socialist, quite the opposite, because they want to protect their personal liberties. You still don’t get it? To ignore these repeated points (I won’t engage in it again as you have yr hands over yr ears or eyes) and refuse to consider them is to prove that you are deliberately complicit in yr own ignorance. GO ahead, answer the direct questions rog, have a go
You call that a detailed explanation? reads more like a drinkers wish list.
Germany was a dream economy up to the ’60’s then they took a left turn and tried to be like France – made move.
When it comes to being social es geht um die wurst
rog I refer you again to questions to provide some specifics to support yr position. clearly you can’t
I have already given you one but you were too busy listening to the sound of your own voice to notice, the Auschwitz law.
“And dont ever call anybody a Nazi!”
The right is freedom of speech, another impinged ‘right’ is freedom of (movement of) capital
Pinxi, I’ve read the paper you quoted.
http://www.isf.uts.edu.au/publications/CR_2003_paper.pdf
It’s called “Subsidies that Encourage Fossil Fuel Use in Australia”, written by Christopher Riedy of the Institute for Sustainable Futures as part of his PhD research, and presented at the Australia New Zealand Society for Ecological Economics 2002 Conference on Ecologically Sustainable Development. I’m not an economist, so it’s pretty hard for me to assess this paper on a technical level, however it is written in a fairly straightforward style, without mathematics, so I think I understood what he was saying.
One of the problems with debate is that people often have different ideas about the meaning of terms. Here is Riedy’s definition of a subsidy;
“Fossil fuel subsidies can then be defined as any government action, concerning primarily the energy sector, that lowers the cost of fossil fuel production, raises the price received by fossil fuel producers or lowers the price paid by fossil fuel consumers.”
This raises the question “compared to what?” , and Reidy answers it;
“For the purposes of this paper, and consistent with the subsidy definitions above, I have assumed that only deviations from the taxation benchmark defined by the Commonwealth Government constitute subsidies.”
If I understand what he is saying here, he is looking for instances where fossil fuel consumption and production generate less tax revenue than the benchmark tax level.
There is another definition for a benchmark, which he mentions but does not use;
“Theoretically, the benchmark situation is that in which private welfare is maximised. Any deviation of prices from marginal private costs therefore implies a subsidy.”
If he used this definition, he would have to include benefits of fossil fuel use, but he specifically does not do this. In the sense that he mentions “externalities”, which are costs and benefits that are not explicitly included by markets, he mentions only negative externalities, specifically GHG emissions.
I see this paper as an exercise in finding ways to make fossil fuels more expensive, so the funds could be redirected towards alternative energy sources.
Here’s one final quote, which sums up my objection to the use of the word “subsidies” in this context;
“it is clear that petroleum production companies are being taxed by a significantly larger amount than they are subsidised.”
Thanks Pinxi, for initiating this discussion, I learned a lot.
rog I’m still missing your explanation of personal liberties you enjoy in Aust that you can’t enjoy in European countries. You wanna discuss sedition laws?
Can you kindly explain which European laws prevent free speech?
How specifically is movement of capital less free in EU than in Aust?
Paul if you read it thoroughly you would acknowledge that they discussed subsidies to activities and roles far broader than simply petroleum production taxes. They covered a range of govt R&D, market development, infrastructure funding, public admin, regulatory bodies, pollution abatement and cleanup funding etc activities of direct relevance that are funded by taxes. Add up the lot, as you must to consider the broad issue, and we are subsidising fossil fuels through our entire economic and political structure.
And the subsidy issue is just one angle. A separate angle is a complete economic cost benefit analysis of the business case for climate change activities – including gains from increasing energy efficiency and other gains that were ignored by the ABARE study.
Keep to Germany pinxii, your retention is lacking
Pinxi, give me a break, I did read it thoroughly. I’m not going to respond line-by-line, life is too short.
I agree with some of the points he makes, but it seems to me that if the object is to make fossil fuels more expensive on the grounds that reducing GHG emissions is a public good, then the social and environmental costs of more expensive fuels has to be considered too. To be fair, the paper is only about identifying tax expenditure in relation to the fossil fuel industry, but he editorialises a fair bit about how the money could be spent differently. Research into non-emitting energy sources, specifically.
It’s hard to see how some of his subsidies could be avoided, regardless of the source of fuel used. For example, if we all drove electric cars charged by wind generated power, return on investment on land and infrastructure, as well as maintenance charges, would still be incurred. That’s $14.5 billion according to the NIEIR estimate, but without the fuel tax offset. That has to then be considered a subsidy to wind energy, if we are to be serious about it.
Paul I wasn’t having a go at you in that 1st line, just encouraging you to broaden yr openness to accept the broader implications. It was a good exchange & I’d like to get into it more if I had the time. another time perhaps.
rog you’re toast. Go water yr plants. Oh that’s right, you have severe water shortages and predictions of a hotter than usual summer with lower than usual expected rainfall. Wonder why. Have you expanded yr business into water tanks?
No problem, Pinxi. It’s a very important topic, I believe.
What’s this “extreme capitalism” beastie pinkie?
If capitalism is private ownership of the means of production with capital being invested to produce goods and servicves which are then sold for profit on the free market then what is the “extreme” version?
This is a nonsense phrase to which there can be no credible responder only more weasel words from the pink waxer.