A new Report produced by a coalition of over 40 prominent civil society organisations from 33 countries says that governments should reject calls for a post-Kyoto treaty (“Kyoto 2”) with binding limits on carbon emissions. The report says a better strategy would be to focus on removing barriers to adaptation, such as subsidies, taxes and regulations that hinder technological innovation and economic growth.
From 3-14 December, government officials will be in Bali, Indonesia, for climate talks. They are set to discuss the establishment of a new treaty, dubbed “Kyoto 2”, which would require all countries to limit emissions of greenhouse gases.
The Civil Society Report on Climate Change concludes that such emissions caps would be counterproductive: they would undermine economic development, harm the poor, and would be unlikely to address the problem of climate change in a meaningful way.
It includes four chapters:
1) “Human Ecology and Human Behavior: Climate change and health in perspective” By Paul Reiter http://www.csccc.info/reports/report_22.pdf
2) “Death and Death Rates due to Extreme Weather Events: Global and U.S. Trends, 1990-2006” By Indur M. Goklany http://www.csccc.info/reports/report_23.pdf
3) “Weathering Global Warming in Agriculture and Forestry: It can be done with free markets” By Douglas Southgate and Brent Sohngen http://www.csccc.info/reports/report_24.pdf
4) “The Political Economy of Global Warming, Rent Seeking and Freedom” By Wolfgang Kasper http://www.csccc.info/reports/report_25.pdf
“Kyoto 2 is the wrong solution. Such a treaty would harm billions of poor people, making energy and energy-dependent technologies, such as clean water, more expensive, and would perpetuate poverty by retarding growth”, said Kendra Okonski, Environment Programme Director of International Policy Network, one of the 41 organisations who published the report.
“Given that nations are having trouble complying with the relatively small emissions cuts required under Kyoto, the economic and social consequences of a Kyoto 2 Treaty could be devastating”, added Ms Okonski.
The Civil Society Report argues that adaptation is the best way to enable people to deal with a changing climate. That means:
• Enabling people to utilise technologies capable of reducing the incidence of disease, such as clean water, sanitation, and medicines.
• Deploying technologies – e.g. flood defences, roads, sturdier houses, and early warning systems – that reduce the risk of death from weather-related disasters.
• Removing barriers to the use of modern agricultural technologies, which would better enable people to adapt to changing conditions.
• Eliminating subsidies, taxes, and regulations that undermine economic growth – thereby enabling people better to address current and future problems.
Other conclusions in the Civil Society Report on Climate Change include:
• Over the course of the past century, deaths and death rates from weather-related natural disasters have declined substantially. It appears that the main drivers of this reduction have been improvements in wealth and technology.
• Mortality from extreme weather events is far more strongly affected by the technologies deployed by humans – such as the construction of houses, roads, and dams – than by climate.
• Human ecology and human behaviour are the key determinants of the transmission of infectious disease. Obsessive emphasis on climate is unwarranted because, given suitable economic circumstances, straightforward strategies are available to ensure the public health.
• If adaptation is not unduly restricted, production of food and other agricultural products, as well as forestry products, will keep pace with growing human demands.
• Foreign aid is being used as a ‘carrot’ to induce poor countries to restrict their emissions. But aid has mostly been wasted or even counterproductive. While there is a case for refocusing aid on projects that have a stronger chance of providing net benefits, increasing aid would do more harm than good.
• Finally, the stick of trade sanctions have been threatened as a means of enforcing the global cap – yet such sanctions harm both parties; a clear lose – lose scenario.
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The Civil Society Report on Climate Change, Produced by the Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change, Published Tuesday 27 November 2007, ISBN 1-905041-15-2, 100 pp.
The Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change seeks to educate the public about the science and economics of climate change in an impartial manner. It was established as a response to the many biased and alarmist claims about human-induced climate change, which are being used to justify calls for intervention and regulation. The coalition includes the Institute of Public Affairs.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Thank goodness for that.
“4) “The Political Economy of Global Warming, Rent Seeking and Freedom” By Wolfgang Kasper http://www.csccc.info/reports/report_25.pdf“
How about we add a few chapters like:
5) “Rising Sea Levels are your Friend” by Stephen Gloor
6) “Who Really Needs Arctic Ice Anyway – Are Polar Bears Really Necessary for a World Economy?” by Stephen Gloor
7) “Nuclear Waste and How to Add it to Breakfast Cereal”
I am sure we can add a few more if we really try.
Well what a pretty compelling 100 pages. I don’t think the IPCC will be able to recover from that. The sheer depth of climate risk assessment was breathtaking. And all neatly in a 100 pages too. Must have taken over a week to write. I think it could have a major influence on Bali oucomes.
Goklany’s recent book too could have gotten a mention , of course an all time classic of it genre, and so good for the folks at CEI to assist him. And Exxon have been so helpful as well which is good to see.
And what an amazing list of organisations. I didn’t even know the names of some. Some even seem to be missing.
The one thing I don’t understand is this “civil society” term when really they’re just right wing think tanks designed to slow down any environmental issue. But what’s wrong with a little badging and marketing if it helps put the message over. I guess rowdy or disruptive society organisations wouldn’t look good. Subversive would conjure up negative connotations. So upon reflection “civil society” is pretty good. But on the other hand if they’re only acting in the interests of big business maybe society is a misnomer. So we could have “civil in support of big business as usual” organisations. But that’s a bit long.
We should have a look at Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_society but the definition included so many groups not in the list of 41 – and these days with a Rudd Labor government I would have thought a trade union organisation would have been a worthy addition.
Too hard perhaps ? A bit ideologically iffy.
But anyway leave it at Civil Society. We know what they mean.
Ender,
How silly….Sea Levels rising…Where? Just scare stuff from the ‘global warming cargo cultists’ and their arch prophet, Big Al.
Oh, and the usual fibs about melting arctic ice and the poor Polar Bears. Porkies put out by that extremist group, the WWF. In the world of reality, Polar Bear populations have probably more then trebled in recent years. Arctic sea ice has always expanded and contracted. In 1957 the USS Skate surfaced at the north pole, when ice thickness was less then today.
Bravo the CSCCC, and every success to them.
Sid – “In 1957 the USS Skate surfaced at the north pole, when ice thickness was less then today.”
I can see your research skills are limited so I will post this link so you do not have to find it.
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/01/03/arctic.ice/index.html
“The Navy has been recording ice data for decades, but like most Cold War calculations, the information has been top secret. If an unfriendly nation obtains information on where and when submarines had taken their measurements in the past, they might be able to guess where those subs would travel in the future.
But — like the Arctic ice itself — military secrecy seems to be thawing. About a year ago, Rothrock convinced Navy brass that measurements taken in the 1950s could be helpful in figuring out whether the data from the ’90s was statistically significant. Armed with a pile of new numbers, Rothrock guessed that they might show that the polar cap had shrunk perhaps 18-20 inches over the past half century.
He was wrong. The actual shrinkage left him astonished.
On average, the University of Washington team found that ice had thinned by four feet (1.3 meters) — a 40 percent decrease since 1953. The “trend” of the 1990s seemed to be an indisputable fact. ”
Well the Rothrock bit is full of the usual flaws and inuendos about threats to polar bears, and the demise of the gulf stream and a lot of other Mother Shipton stuff.
The biggest fib of all is that arctic ice has thinned by four feet since the 1950’s. If that were the case, the arctic would be mainly ice free today. But it’s not.
I correct my statement that the Skate surfaced at the pole in 1957. The date was 17 March, 1959.
http://ssn578.com/gallery/index.php?gallery=./Skate%20Photo%Gallery/History
Note the thickness of the ice here!… 4 feet indeed!
Oppps. Some problems with that site. To view the Skate and other graphic arctic photos and articles, try.-
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm
Sid – “The biggest fib of all is that arctic ice has thinned by four feet since the 1950’s. If that were the case, the arctic would be mainly ice free today. But it’s not.”
So you are disputing actual measurements made by the US Navy over 40 years for one data point. How can you do that?????
As you are probably not aware the Skate had to look long and hard for an area where it’s specially hardened sail could break through even in the summer.
How can you possibly reject serious scientific measurements as a fib? Oh I forgot, you really need to be good at this to be an AGW denier.
Like everything else to do with electronics,
I would suggest that the sonar of the 1950’s would not be of the standard of a 1990’s system or a late noughties system.
You know these military types, always tinkering.
Is there any study comparing the two sonar system’s?
It may be that it will be the SST debate revisited.
No doubt there will be some statistical trickery to compare the 1950’s to the 1990’s readings.
Ender,
I’m not disputing serious scientific measurements, but rather the way Rothrock and his mate Maykut massaged them, and then produced a computer model to get the result they wanted. The whole thing is rather old hat any way. The area of ice selected for study was known as “the Gore box”, named after former V P Gore, who in the Clinton Admin. pressured the Navy into releasing the data so that his pals could get to work on it. As they did. McLaren et al exposed the whole shoddy business.
Dr. J. McCarthy, (you guessed it, an IPCC Lead Author) got the show on the road with the sensational ‘Water at the North Pole’ story in the N Y Times, Aug 19 2000. His comments in the article include “It was totally unexpected”…”I don’t know if anybody in history ever got to 90 deg N to be greeted by water, not ice”….”The last time scientists can be certain the pole was awash in water was more than 50 million years ago”
What utter rubbish. As usual the NY Times and other media failed to check the bogus claims of McCarthy and the IPCC. They were forced to retract the story. Did the IPCC???!!! No.
If you care to check the site I posted above, you can not only see the Skate, but I suggest you look at the photo of one British and two US Subs surfaced in OPEN WATER at the NP on 18 May, 1987. While there have a look at the letter from the president of The Royal Society, 20 Nov. 1817, regarding conditions at the pole. Deja Vue’
The Kyoto Protocol: The U.S. versus the World?
Using a variety of public opinion polls over a number of years and from a number of countries this paper revisits the questions of crossnational public concern for global warming first examined over a decade ago. Although the scientific community today speaks out on global climatic change in essentially a unified voice concerning its anthropogenic causes and potential devastating impacts at the global level, it remains the case that many citizens of a number of nations still seem to harbor considerable uncertainties about the problem itself. Although it could be argued that there has been a slight improvement over the last decade in the public’s understanding regarding the anthropogenic causes of global warming, the people of all the nations studied remain largely uniformed about the problem. In a recent international study on knowledge about global warming, the citizens of Mexico led all fifteen countries surveyed in 2001 with just twenty-six percent of the survey respondents correctly identifying burning fossil fuels as the primary cause of global warming. The citizens of the U.S., among the most educated in the world, where somewhere in the middle of the pack, tied with the citizens of Brazil at fifteen percent, but slightly lower than Cubans. In response to President Bush’s withdrawal of the Kyoto Protocol in 1991, the U.S. public appears to be far more supportive of the action than the citizens of a number of European countries where there was considerable outrage about the decision.
Carlos Menendez
http://www.segurosmagazine.es
So Sid is your quality reference for the “Gore Box” and other sundry accusations from a shonk like Daly.
Sid – “I’m not disputing serious scientific measurements, but rather the way Rothrock and his mate Maykut massaged them, and then produced a computer model to get the result they wanted. The whole thing is rather old hat any way. The area of ice selected for study was known as “the Gore box”, named after former V P Gore, who in the Clinton Admin. pressured the Navy into releasing the data so that his pals could get to work on it. As they did. McLaren et al exposed the whole shoddy business.”
So you would rather believe Daly who had no scientific qualifications or training over reputable scientists. How do you Daly was correct?
The secret data was released for the purposes of research and included a lot more data points as the US Navy then and now is vitally interested conditions at the Pole. Do you honestly think that the US Navy would rely on shonky data when the lives of its sailors was at stake. Read the biography of Admiral Rickover some time and decide for yourself.
The data was processed to align the different datasets.
If the first surfacing event was mid 1959 then most of the records came from the 1960s, not the 1950s. And the 1960s were actually a great deal colder than the 1940s and 50s.
So once again we have supposedly “peer reviewed” science that is claiming to prove something that is quite inconsistent with the data. There has never been any issue over whether the ice in 1965 was thicker or greater extent than today. It was the cold part of a cycle so of course it would have thicker ice than we have in our current warm part of the cycle.
The key question cannot be resolved by this study because it does not compare this warm cycle with the most relevant past warm cycle in the 1940s and 50s.
And any attempt to garner some spin from this study could only be described as the hallmark of a shonk. And Ender’s pathetic attempt to claim some sort of piggy-back credibility to the spin, on the basis of the US Navy’s credibility for reliable data is obvious to all sensible readers.
No one questions the credibility of US Naval data, Ender, we only question the spin that has been put on it. And well you and Luke may question Daly’s credibility, but you have not even attempted to disprove any single bit of data or photographic evidence he has put to-gether in the piece which I have posted above.
One can only assume that you support the shameful ‘water at the north pole’ story promoted by Dr. McCarthy and the IPCC in 2000.
Again, I quote McCarthy, on that occasion..”I don’t know if anybody in history got to 90deg N to be greeted by open water, not ice.” Yet countless photographs over the years have shown areas of water at the NP. eg. the May 18, 1987 photo of the three subs surfaced in areas of open water at the Pole. Compare that photo, taken at the end of winter, with this 2007 photograph taken at the end of summer.(Aug.3, 2007)
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/latest/noaa2.jpg
Where is the melting polar ice this year, you guys are all preaching about?
Daly was caught out fibbing about the Skate business, wouldn’t trust anything he said on this:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060218082437/http://www.trump.net.au/~greenhou/home.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20031203174202/http://www.trump.net.au/~greenhou/reply.html
Luke, You’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel with those two sites. So now we have it, the Skate photo was a fake! A giant conspiracy theory promoted by the US Navy.
Suppose the three subs in open water at the pole is also a rigged photo!!!
What about the NOAA Web Cam photo in August this year? A great NOAA con trick I suppose.
Sid you old crook – this is your standard – quoting from a source that makes up it’s data on the subject. I wouldn’t believe any of your crap. You want to play conspiracy theory well clean your own backyard up first.
Those two sites went through daily like a dose of salts.
So we’ll just add that to you being found out bullshitting about BoM and AGW – directly misquoting – and also no decile analysis. Did a runner.
Don’t think we don’t check everything your say.
Wrong again, Boy Wonder, Those sites did a standard vilification job on Daly. They claimed that the sales from his book constituted income for his site or payments from industry. They then sought to imply that the $500,000 spent by a US lobby group that included his work in their publications ended up, in whole or part, in John Dalys pocket. Pathetic.
And all the crap about the validity of the photo of the Skate will not alter the inescapable fact that the submarine DID surface at the pole in 1959. It is like criticising Thomas Eddison for misplaced punctuation. Onyabikeyaclown.
Mate – that critique exposed Daly for the bullduster that he was. And you’re going to attempt a defence
– gee Ian what a massive rebuttal. “oooooo ooooo I’m mortally wounded – what a comeback – ” NOT !
Is that actually your commentary? Pathetic. Sid loves to make up stories – I’m collecting them – I like to check out all his little sources for myself – again we find Sid quoting from a disreputable source. We know you guys by your shonky actions.
Those sites posted by Luke certainly did a ‘standard vilification job on Daly’. Why one wonders? Do they feel their position is threatened by a few facts?
Daly mearly posted well referenced information from high quality sources such as the US Navy archives and various government departments, agencies and archives.
Every reason for groups like the CSCCC to become active on this issue. Well may the become very well supported.
The two sites Luke posted above need to be scruitinised too. They appear to be somewhat shadowy to say the least. They, or it, as they are one and the same, provide scant information as to whose site it is. However the name John Hunter appears at the bottom, who references only four sources besides his own. He gives his home page as the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Research Centre. Again no info on Hunter, and difficult to bring up much info. with in many cases, answers such as ‘Not in archive’ and ‘Failed to connect’. However I did get a few, some of which came up with the usual drivel about melting ice, rising sea-levels etc.
The site was badged alongside the badges of the CSIRO, the BoM and the Uni. of Tas.
Now for John Hunter. A search shows a Dr. John Hunter in the employ of the CSIRO! Nooo! remember the photograph of Drs. Whetton and Pittock alongside the BoMs Dr. David Jones viewing the Gore movie like three monkeys gazing at a bunch of bananas! The same three who did a hatchet job on Durken’s movie.
Back to Hunter, is it right and proper for a Public Servant to engage in the sort of hatchet work that was handed out to Daly? And in a ‘site laundered’ way which seems to remove the hatchet from the ‘hand that wields it’?
Yes it is right and proper to dismiss erroneous propagandistic information. Frankly there should be more of it – they should really be allowed to get the gloves off with lying creeps. Where’s that climate change URL again Sid?.
A gimp like you may even notice the links are fairly old, as is Daly’s site itself. Which is why they’re from the wayback_machine. It would take you two minutes to research and find out John Hunter now works at the Antarctic CRC at the University of Tasmania, Hobart. Between 1989 and mid-1998, he was a Principal Research Scientist in the Division of Marine Research of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (Australia). He has written the critique of Daly on his own time and published elsewhere than CSIRO – got a problem with that. It’s called a community service to expose shonky research.
Anyway as scum like you like to do – what a gratuitous slag off off of 3 scientists. Of course they did a critical job on Durkin’s movie – it was a piece of shit. Do you know the scientists – ever met them?
So again Sid you’ve been again exposed for running conspiracy theories which don’t exist. He left CSIRO in 1998. You shonk ! A full apology is demanded.
Daly’s site (above), is referred to as ‘erroneous propagandistic information’. Why? His work on the arctic, posted above, contains some twenty one quality references. Hunter’s on the other hand contains four, which in fact are only two.
The hard data Daly provided stands unbloodied by Hunter’s hatchet.
Hunter’s present position at the Antarctic CRC is one also where probity would demand that such hatchet jobs not be done with the help of public funding.
It is interesting the relationship between the Antarctic CRC and the CSIRO which had an important input into the setting up and funding of the CRC. One of Australia’s most eminent and respected scientists, Dr. Garth Paltridge was the Founder, and for many years, Head of the Antarctic CRC, and also the Institute of Antarctic & Southern Ocean Studies, also at the Uni. of Tas. Before that, for several years, he was Chief Research Scientist of the CSIRO’s Division of Atmospheric Research.
Dr. Paltridge became concerned about unsubstantiated AGW ideology creeping into what should have been hard scientific research at the Centre and elsewhere. He spoke out about it. He also spoke critically of the IPCC.
He spoke of how he received threats from the highest levels of the CSIRO, that funding for the CRC would be killed off unless he kept quiet.
This, at the time that great issue was being made that two CSIRO scientists were being threatened by the Federal Gov’t, for their pro AGW views.
They were Dr. Graham Pearman and Dr Barry Pittock.
Pearman’s AGW beliefs were so strident that even the CSIRO stood him down. He is now involved in some group called “The Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming”.
Barry Pittock is ‘one of the three’.
They were treated as Martyrs.
But not Paltridge… The hatchets have been hacking away at him ever since.
You’re an old skunk Sid.
The facts are Sid is that Daly was a shonk and well known. Hunter and others have sliced and diced him.
Don’t bother changing the subject – you’ve been caught fibbing your skanky butt off about John Hunter following the climate change link and others.
You don’t have a clue about Pittock and Pearman. More libellous unsubantiated drivel from an old kook.
What really got Hunter’s ‘knickers in a knot’ was Daly’s bit on the 1841 Mean Sea Level mark on the ‘Isle of the Dead’, Tassie, which was put there by Sir James Clark Ross. This mark, a visible fact in the real world sent the “Rising Sea Level Lobby” into a frenzy. Out came the knives and hatchets to get Daly.
Hunter has spent countless hours and public dollars to try and prove fact fiction. Somewhere there is a photo of Hunter standing in water at the Benchmark at high tide trying to prove something. Likewise his claim about rising sea levels at Tuvalu is so full of qualifications and cautions that it makes his claims and those of the IPCC look ridiculous.
I have seen the Mark at the Isle of the Dead. Watched low tide, half tide and full tide there. Any change in sea level since 1841, either up or down would be so miniscule to be unobservable.
Got it sea levels just aint rising. Even if The Three believe Gore’s graphics of Manhatten flooding.
Oh I thought you didn’t know Hunter – now you do – you old codger. Lying again. Nose is getting longer Sid.
Hunter shafted Daly’s Isle of the Dead rot. Totally.
Specifically
http://www.csiro.au/files/mediaRelease/mr2003/Prrecord.htm
http://www.marine.csiro.au/media/03releases/21jan03.htm
So much for Daly ….
That is bollocks, Luke. All it tells us is that the two year 1841/42 level, as determined by the records, shows a variation from the lost four year 1837/41 data that led to the making of the mark. It is entirely reasonable to assume that the mark is an accurate record of the mid-tidal mean over the period prior to it being put in place.
And you, Hunter and all the rest involved know perfectly well that variations of 300mm over a few years are not uncommon. That is the whole purpose of getting long term data.
Conspicuously, Hunter has not told us what the extent of the variation was between the two year series and the mark. And the crap about cross referencing to a shell bed is merely a smoke screen for their decision to place greater reliance on a convenient two year data set rather than a less convenient but much larger missing data set, that Sir James Clark Ross, not the “amateur meteorologist, Thomas Lempriere”, thought highly enough of to make a formal mark.
The question also needs to be asked, why didn’t Hunter just add the two year data to get a mean level for the six year interval? Surely, Hunter has done a blatant cherry pick when he could have compiled a larger, more credible sample.
This attempt by Hunter, to imply that the mark was just some sort of amateur scratching rather than the official determination of Clark Ross, is quite obvious. As is the apparent need, on the part of Hunter, to ensure that a limited data set reconciles with longer but much more recent data from Fort Denison.
So leave John Daly alone, you witless goon.
Grott – don’t try and defend the indefensible you utter halfwit. Daly’s stuff is pure 100% crappola and you know it. In science we tend to usually investigate outliers and not discard the bulk of the data sets. Daly is infamous for so many try-on’s by now that nobody even denialists don’t take him seriously. It would be like having someone like you as relative – you certainly wouldn’t advertise it.
I know – why don’t you write a paper on the Isle of the Dead Mark and submit it. E&E would run it and Archibald would help you write it. ROTFL and LMAO. Go and find something else to apologise for you dickhead.
Note well, readers, Luke provided zero substance and copious insult and unsubstantiated opinion. As usual.
So lets go back to the tide mark to see what he was avoiding, shall we?.
What grounds are there for concluding that the mark was not an accurate representation of the missing data sets? None.
What grounds are there for concluding that the data collection and calculation of mean was beyond the capacity of those involved? None.
Would it be possible to calculate a new mid-tidal point by weighting the uncovered data, adjusted for overlaps, with the existing mark? Absolutely.
Would this provide a superior sample size to the one provided by the two parts? Absolutely?
Would this have been the most obvious course of action for an unbiased study within our understanding of best practice standards? Yes.
So why was it not done? Because the results would be only marginally less inconvenient to the Climate Cretins than the tide mark was. So they went out of their way to justify ignoring important evidence.
zzzzzzzzz