According to journalist Michael Steketee writing in The Australian the news is not promising and neither is the data: Climate change is a reality and we can blame the recent deluge in Queensland and rising temperatures on it.
Looking at the same data, particularly the rainfall data, I’ve come to a completely different conclusion.
Christopher Monckton has gone to the trouble of immediately writing a detailed response to Mr Steketee…
Read the article by Mr Steketee for an appreciation of what it is to be a true believer: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/global-weather-disasters-a-sign-the-heat-is-on/story-e6frg6zo-1225983256858
Read the complete response by Mr Monckton here, for some perspective:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/2010_warmest_on_record.pdf
I’ve included only response number 24 below:
24. ADAPTATION TO THE CONSEQUENCES OF “GLOBAL WARMING” WILL GET MORE DIFFICULT THE LONGER WE DELAY… says Mr Steketee.
No replies Mr Monckton… “This assertion, too, has no scientific basis whatsoever. The costs of adaptation are chiefly an economic rather than a climatological question. Every serious economic analysis (I exclude the discredited propaganda exercise of Stern, with its absurd near-zero discount rate and its rate of “global warming” well in excess of the IPCC’s most extreme projections) has demonstrated that the costs of waiting and adapting to any adverse consequences that may arise from “global warming”, even if per impossible that warming were to occur at the rapid rate imagined by the IPCC but not yet seen in the instrumental temperature record, would be orders of magnitude cheaper and more cost-effective than any Canute-like attempt to prevent any further “global warming” by taxing and regulating CO2 emissions. It follows that adaptation to the consequences of “global warming” will get easier and cheaper the longer we wait: for then we will only have to adapt to the probably few and minor consequences that will eventually occur, and not until they occur, and only where and to the extent that they occur.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
The real question to ask Steketee is how he would tackle climate change?
That is real natural CC or his fantasy of CAGW. If it’s the make believe CAGW he should be reminded that there is nothing, zero , zip we can do about it.
We can certainly waste billions $ and flush money continuosly down the toilet but the return on investment will be zilch.
The climate will change, sometimes warmer, sometimes cooler, sometimes drier , sometimes wetter but the make believe fantasy should be left to the kindy class where it belongs.
If some of the fantasists here object to my assessment then show us in detail how we can make a difference. Luke needn’t bother because he hasn’t got the guts to see out the whole argument to it’s obvious conclusion.
He’s just a 50% clown whining about the phantom cause of CC but can’t give a remedy for it, in fact he won’t even stick a toe in the water.
So there’s the challenge CAGWERS, tell us how you would tackle CC and how your solution(s) would make a difference.
“Australia has a desert climate” – well that sums it up for Monkcy’s case. Man’s obviously a genius. ROFL !
Neville – drop off you clown. Here’s Nevillian logic. The problem is difficult – therefore it doesn’t exist. Yep true blue insight by our mate Nev.
I just posted something similar on the previous article.
I think Neville’s comment:
“The climate will change, sometimes warmer, sometimes cooler, sometimes drier , sometimes wetter”
Pretty much says it all.
I believe that our scientisits should keep trying to unlock the climate puzzle but they need to be humble enough to admit they haven’t cracked it yet.
Go back and study early Australian history and early Australian literature and you will quickly pick up a very common theme. That theme is our ancestors and early pioneers in a constant battle with our highly variable and unpredictable climate.
Nothing much has changed.
I think we can make a difference though Neville.
We will need to change our attitude big time.
Instead of spending frightening amounts of money pretending that we’re causing climate change all by ourselves, how about we spend it on ways to protect ourselves from the excesses that our Australian climate has always thrown at us?
We have had a crippling drought and then it got followed by a massive flood. That’s about normal isn’t it?
Before that we had a wet cycle and before that a dry cycle and so on and so on…
Shouldn’t we try and figure out how to keep more water when it floods and also slow down the excess of the damage caused by the massive movement of silt, so that we can also wisely manage the conserved water when the next inevitable drought comes along?
Seems to make more sense to me and we should get a much better return on our investment as an added benefit.
I’m glad Monckton did it – some one had to.
Paul Sheehan has a good article in the SMH this morning. Deserves a thread of it’s own Jennifer.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/floods-steal-precious-topsoil–and-future-goes-down-drain-20110109-19jrq.html
BTW – Bill Leak has a wonderful cartoon this morning.
http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2011/01/09/1225984/646236-bill-leak-10-jan-11-gallery.jpg
Gee Debbie – given your insight why do scientists even bother to do research?
Exactly right Debbie, I’ve long been a proponent of the only true solution to CC and that is adaptation. I’ve mentioned it here many times over the last year or so.
It really does work as humans have found over the centuries. If you have periods of flood then drought you must build dams to collect the water in the good times to prepare for the next drought.
We even have animals that prepare for lean times by storing resources but unfortunately the last 2 Victorian premiers ( Brumby and Bracks) both claimed that “building more dams won’t make it rain”. Brilliant pair of numbskulls, right up there with the powers of reasoning of good old jelly back Luke. Importantly we now know they were wrong, even animals know better.
Luke knows my sound logic, adapt to tough times by using the best science and engineering available and spend a much smaller amount on new technology rather than the crazy waste of Kyoto 1 or (hopefully not) 2.
Kyoto 1 was a dismal failure that achieved nothing but cost taxpayers in developed countries endless billions with nothing to show for it after years of economic pain now and into the future.
The only records being broken by the Queensland floods, is record media hype.
Statewide the number of homes directly affected by floodwaters (as in water actually getting into the house and not just underneath) is only one 10th of the number affected by the 1974 flood in Brisbane.
Australian climate shifts are too large, our floods too big,our droughts too long, to ever fully control them.
However if they could be accurately predicted, it would go a long way to lessening their impact.
Sadly science was well down this path before it was sidetracked by the CO2 fantasy.
What worries me, is that in the political fallout that follows the failure of AGW. All climate research will become political poison and starved of funding.
Steketee is an alarmist who toes the company line assiduously; it is a pity that Monckton’s reply will not be published in the Australian which like all media is bereft of insight into the racket of AGW.
There is one clarification about Monckton’s reply at number 13 where Steketee asserts a 3C higher Febuary temperature during the 2009 fires. This is junk. According to the Argus newspaper the temperature on February 6, 1851, was 47.2C, which helped to superheat the fires that then roared across 10 times more land than was burned during Black Saturday. As well, the peak temperature in Melbourne during Black Saturday was 46.4C; the peak temperature during the 1939 Black Friday fires was 45.6C, a difference of 0.8C for the 70 year period during which Melbourne’s population increased by 3 million; the rise in temperature therefore is entirely due to UHI:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/goodridge_1996_ca-uhi_county.jpg
Steketee is a disgrace, a hatchet faced doomsayer; he should be walking the streets with a sign around his scrawny neck saying ‘the end is nigh because I said so’.
Incisive and humorous cartoon, John. I’ll print it out and stick it on the fridge next to my prediction of Hunter Valley floods this year.
Neville, my suggestion for moderating the passion of climate activists is to hold future global conferences at the Central Kempsey Caravan Park, just far enough away from distracting beaches and nightlife. The local pub will serve meals till 7pm, after which nuts can be purchased from the bar. Accommodation will avoid such guilt generators as air conditioning and energy hungry entertainment systems. Lights out at 10pm would be a nice, earth friendly gesture, bringing a welcome North Korean touch to the proceedings. Caravans can accommodate many bodies in a small space, highlighting the need for developed nations to economise resources. The reduction of opportunities for sex will be a small but meaningful statement on population issues.
This will also be an opportunity for activists to mingle with indigenous locals in informal circumstances. Very informal.
There are many low-lying paddocks nearby for the erection of tents, should extra accommodation be required. But there is a good chance that activists will be otherwise engaged and will not be able to attend Central Kempsey Caravan Park 1. And as for CKCP 2, our activists may deem their past efforts sufficient, and simply declare triumph like those ozone-hole-fillers of yore.
Debbie and Neville I totally agree that adaption is the way to go; Prof Carter has a good article here http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/2010%2011-23%20Carter&Driessen%20-%20WashingtonTimes%20on%20Lomborg%20CoolIT.pdf
(concluding paras)
The time has come to listen instead to the majority opinion of qualified independent scientists. They conclude
that climate hazards are overwhelmingly natural problems and thus should be dealt with by the time-honored
civil-defense technique of preparing for adverse events in advance and adapting to them when they occur.
Whether the hazards are short-term (hurricanes and floods), intermediate (drought) or long-term (warming or
cooling trends), preparation must be specific and regional in scale, for the hazards themselves vary widely by
geographic location. If governments prepare properly for the full range of natural climatic hazards to which
their countries are regularly exposed, this “be prepared” approach will also address the risk of future
human-caused climate disruptions, should they ever occur.
Preparation and adaptation for all climate change is the simple, common-sense, cost-effective and
precautionary Plan B that all governments can – and should – support.
PLAN B
‘The time has come to listen instead to the majority opinion of qualified independent scientists. They conclude
that climate hazards are overwhelmingly natural problems and thus should be dealt with by the time-honored
civil-defense technique of preparing for adverse events in advance and adapting to them when they occur.’
Carter and Driessen
For example, the last two freezing winters in Europe should see them more prepared next time it happens.
john sayers… i followed your instructions and have posted paul sheehan here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2011/01/floods-steal-precious-topsoil/
Plan B in action.
There is speculation that a parliamentary inquiry will probe into transport failures in the UK last month.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2011/01/10/riverside-mp-louise-ellman-set-to-head-probe-into-winter-transport-fiasco-100252-27957063/
What Plan B – pfft ! All talk.
Gee Luke,
Where did I suggest they stop doing research?
I thought I said the opposite?
I suggested they practice some humilty…is that how you missed the point?
Mike Steketee’s response to Christopher Monckton
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/mike-steketees-response-to-christopher-monckton/story-e6frg6xf-1225985171179
Seems a fair reply.
Debbie said “Instead of spending frightening amounts of money pretending that we’re causing climate change all by ourselves” – Debbie in fact there are major resources studying natural variability and whether an AGW signal can be seen through the fog of natural variation. Do you guys have any real idea how science is conducted.
Luke,
If scientists conduct themselves by selectively picking out half a sentence from a document and siezing on that as the basis of their judgement of others, then I’m not a big fan.
I definitely believe that scientists should keep working on solving the climate puzzle.
My point was that they haven’t solved it yet and they shouldn’t pretend that they have.
There are too many anomolies in the AGW theories that are popular at the moment. Governments are trying to change taxation legislation based on these incomplete and inconclusive theories. They are also maintaining that it is because of us that the climate is warming or changing or whatever it is doing at particular moments in time. History indicates that man’s influence is not as great as AGW theorists believe. Their attempts to predict climate patterns and trends have proven to be little better than tossing a coin.
We work the land and therefore we are very interested in the climate. If and when scientists do crack the real code, there will be no one more delighted than farmers.
By all means, keep conducting climate research. Just remember that part of it is admitting that your theories may be deficient and that you need to keep testing and researching other theories.
The ‘fog of natural variation’…. still searching for the signal amongst the noise? Antarctica has been getting colder for the past two months, which may account for a positive SAM bringing flooding rains to South Africa and Australia.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/images/fnl/sfctmpmer_01a.fnl.anim.html
How soon can we expect to see icebergs off Margaret River?
AGEING BABY-BOOMER BELIEFS
a.n.ditchfield
______________________________________________________________________________________
Even when misguided, dissent is useful to stir debate over ideas that have grown fat and lazy with long and thoughtless acceptance; after the encounter, the vigour of robust ideas is restored. In the middle of the 20th century the accepted idea was that the main business of the world is raising the next generation, by men and women joined in wedlock. The more the merrier, was the spirit of the time that brought into the world a Baby-Boom Generation, a time when a buoy-ant mood had followed the gloom of two World Wars and a Great Depression. Nothing seemed to stand in the way of progress to redeem mankind from want and disease, save waning opposition of diehard reac-tionaries. As the baby-boomers came of age, parents were amused by the antics of their hippy offspring and thought the fad would wear off. It did not. Over the last forty years the baby-boomers rose to positions of power and now head for retirement. Will their envi-ronmental cult go their way or will it remain the guiding light of a course to be held?
The cult has three articles of faith that under-pin the message that doomsday is nigh:
· We are running out of space. The world popu-lation is already excessive for a limited planet, and grows at exponential rates.
· We are running out of means. The planet’s non-renewable resources are being depleted by runaway consumption; further expansion of the world economy is unsustainable.
· We are running against time , as tipping points of irreversible climate processes are reached. Carbon dioxide emitted by the eco-nomic activity causes global warming. It will soon bring catastrophic climate disruption that will render the planet uninhabitable.
When such issues are quantified, the contrast be-tween true and false becomes clear. Articles of faith have no place in matters of arithmetic.
Is overcrowding a serious problem? It may seem so to the dweller of a congested metropolitan city. It takes counter-intuitive thought to realise that the local sensation of cramped space is a parochial view that should not be generalised for the planet. The sum of U.S. urban areas amounts to 2% of the area of the country, and 6% in densely populated countries like England or Holland. And there is plenty of green in urban areas. If the comparison is restricted to the ground covered by buildings and pavements, the oc-cupied area amounts to 0.04% of Earth’s terrestrial area. It was estimated that 6 billion people could live comfortably on 100 000 square miles, the area of Wyoming, or 0.2% of the total. With about 99.8% of free space available, the idea that the planet is over-crowded is an exaggeration. Demographic forecasts are uncertain, but the most accepted ones, of the UN, foresee the stability of the global population, to be reached in the 21st century. According to some, world population will start to decline at the end of this cen-tury and an aging population emerges as a matter of concern. With so much available space is untenable that the world population is excessive or has the pos-sibility of ever becoming so.
It is argued that, ultimately, a limited planet cannot allow unlimited growth. It can also be counter-argued that, ultimately, non-renewable natural resources do not exist, in a universe governed by the Law of Con-servation of Mass. In popular form it states that “noth-ing is created, nothing is lost, everything changes.” Not a gram of human usage was ever subtracted from the mass of the planet and, in theory, all material used can be recycled. The feasibility of doing so depends on the availability and low cost of energy. When fusion energy becomes operational it will be available in virtually unlimited quantities. The source is deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen found in water in a proportion of 0.03%. A cubic kilometre of seawater contains more potential energy than would be obtained from combus-tion of all known oil reserves in the world. Since the oceans contain 3 billion cubic kilometres of water is safe to assume that energy will last longer than the human species. Potable water need not be a limita-tion, as is sometimes said; an innovation like nano-tube membranes holds the promise of reducing en-ergy costs for desalination to a tenth of current costs, which would make feasible the use of desalinated water for irrigation along the coast of all continents (750,000 km). What grounds are there to assume such technologies never will come to fruition?
There is no growing shortage of resources sig-nalled by rising prices. Since the mid-19th century a London periodical, The Economist, has kept consis-tent records of commodity values; in real terms, they dropped over a century and a half, due to technologi-cal advances, to the cheapening of energy and to its more efficient use. The decline was benign. The cost of feeding a human being was eight times higher in 1850 than it is today. Even in 1950, less than half the world population of 2 billion had a proper diet of more than 2000 calories per day; today 80% and have it and the world’s population is three times greater.
There is no historical precedent to support the idea that human ingenuity is exhausted and that tech-nology will henceforth stagnate at current levels. Two centuries ago, this idea led to the pessimistic Malthus prediction of the exhaustion of land to feed a popula-tion that seemed to grow at exponential rates.
There is a problem with the alleged global warm-ing. It stopped in 1998 after rising the previous 23 years, sparking the current alarm about global warm-ing by human hand. Since 1998, warming has been followed by 12 years of stable or declining tempera-tures, a sign of a cold 21st century. This shows that there are natural forces modifying climate, more pow-erful than carbon dioxide generated by burning fossil fuels. Natural forces include cyclic fluctuation of ocean temperatures and current change, sunspot activity and the effect on cosmic rays of the sun’s magnetic activ-ity. All these cycles are known, but mankind can do nothing for or against forces of this magnitude. Meas-ures to adapt to changes make sense; not the de-industrialization of a world where a quarter of mankind still has no electricity.
Caution in public policy must be exerted because climate change predictions are subject to great uncer-tainty. The existing knowledge about climate comes from numerous fields such as meteorology, oceanog-raphy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, paleontology, biology, etc., with partial con-tributions to the understanding of climate. There is no general theory of climate with predictive capacity and perhaps there never will be one. Chaotic phenomena, in a mathematical sense, cannot be predicted. Climate forecasts that extend into the next century mean as much as readings of tea leaves by fortune-tellers.
With no basis on solid theory and empirical evi-dence, the mathematical models that support alarmist predictions are nothing more than speculative thought which reflect the assumptions fed into models, and chosen in the interest of sponsors. These computer simulations provide no rationale for public policies that inhibit economic activity “to save the planet.” And carbon dioxide is not toxic or a pollutant; it is a plant nutrient in the photosynthesis that sustains the food chain for all living beings on the planet.
Disasters stories circulate daily. Anything that happens on earth is attributed to global warming: an earthquake in the Himalayas, the volcanic eruption in Iceland, the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean; tribal wars in Africa, heat wave in Paris; plague of snails on the tiny Isle of Wight; forest fires in California; sand-storms during the dry season and floods during the wet season in Australia; recent severe winters in North America; the collapse of a bridge in Minnesota; the hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico, known for five centuries. Evo Morales blames Americans for summer floods in Bolivia.
Such reckless allegations of cause and effect in-dicate that global warming is not a physical phenome-non; it is a political and journalistic phenomenon, which finds a parallel in the totalitarian doctrines that once incited masses deceived by demagogues.
As Chris Patten put it: “Green politics at its worst amounts to a sort of Zen fascism; less extreme, it denounces growth and seeks to stop the world so that we can all get off”. In the opinion of Professor Aaron Wildavsky, global warming is the mother of all envi-ronmental alarm: “Warming (and warming alone), through its primary antidote of withdrawing carbon from production and consumption, is capable of realiz-ing the environmentalist’s dream of an egalitarian society based on rejection of economic growth in fa-vour of a smaller population’s eating lower on the food chain, consuming a lot less, and sharing a much lower level of resources much more equally.” It is the hippy’s dream of a life of idleness, penury, long hair, un-shaven face, blue jeans, sandals and a vegetarian diet; not as a personal choice, but a lifestyle to be foisted upon the world by dictatorial decree of an in-ternational eco-fascist dictatorship. Who doubts this as hyperbole must read the word of James Hansen: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/20101122_ChinaOpEd.pdf
A recurrent thought of Nigel Lawson is that much of the current malaise in the West is due to the erosion of traditional religion. The West has lost its bearings. In this he echoes G.K. Chesterton: “The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything”. The epigram expresses what anthropologists have long known: that religiosity seems to be hardwired into the human brain; if suppressed in one form it returns in another.
Before the French Revolution all of Europe was referred to as Christendom and since then secu-larism has advanced by the hand of governments with agendas. In France, the Catholic clergy was dis-banded, church property was confiscated and forked out to politicians in power. To bless their gain a First French Republic enthroned Goddess Reason at Nôtre Dame cathedral in Paris. Decades later, the Third French Republic gave the Statue of Liberty to New York City, locally seen as a handsome monument that greets the poor huddled masses that flow from Europe to the Land of the Free. To radical French politicians the statue is a lot more; an idol, the first person of the trinity of Liberté Egalité Fraternité of their Humanist creed. Bismarck sought to bolster the power of the Prussian state by instituting political control over reli-gious activities, the Kulturkampf. State worship fol-lowed. Similar action was taken in Italy, Spain and Portugal at various times; all ended in fascist state worship. The Soviet Union went the whole hog to establish atheism as the official creed and to exorcise or burn dissenters. While such state action eroded the hold of traditional religion, in more recent times Envi-ronmentalism has crept in as the religion of choice of urban dwellers, even in English-speaking countries, immune to European-style anticlericalism.
“Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop”. The pagan-like worship of Nature has rites, such as plant-ing a tree to atone for an air trip; believers neither fake nor dissemble the sin of consumerism, but acknowl-edge and confess it; the faithful make weekly trips to the countryside to enter into communion with Nature; their children attend Sunday school to hear Inconven-ient Truths, the sayings of the high priest Al Gore. The congregation joins processions to sing hymns for green causes, of all things nice and beautiful for crea-tures great and small. It observes a calendar with red-letter days, such as Earth Day; perhaps green-letter days would be more to the point. There is a hagiogra-phy of saints, the followers of the righteous path of Rachel Carson, and a rogue’s gallery of demons, the big bad oil companies and the dirty coalminers that tempt mankind with the unclean combustion that lights the fires of Hades. Railroads that carry coal are mer-chants of death. The holy waters of the Gulf of Mexico were profaned by an oil spill. Religious orders such as Green Peace and Friends of Earth preach the true faith. The green religion even sells indulgences; the Carbon Credits for those who cannot stop sinning.
These antics would be as harmless as a foot-ball match, were it not for consequences on a practical plane of beliefs that inspire policies to de-industrialise the West and block the ascent of hundreds of millions in India and China to an adequate diet potable water, electricity, and basic education and health care. The opposing view sees this stance as the undoing of two centuries of achievements of the Industrial Revolution, a retreat back to poverty and want. Was the UN Co-penhagen Climate Change Conference 2009 a turning point in the swing of the pendulum? Will the post Baby-Boom generation reverse course?