There was an important ruling last week in the USA. Would-be regulators of carbon dioxide lost an appeal in the Supreme Court.
They lost on technical grounds and in the process the Court cautioned, by way of a footnote in the judgement, that the science of climate change is hardly settled. Rather than citing some evidence, however, the Judge cited an article about the views of physics and sceptic Freeman Dyson, published in of all places, the New York Times Magazine and over two years ago.
You can read the article entitled ‘The Civil Heretic’ by Nicholas Dawidoff here… http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?pagewanted=1
You can read the Supreme Court ruling here…
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/10-174.pdf
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
A marvelous magazine article, and an excellent read. And of course, likely the world’s most competent polymath scientist.
But there are far more authoritative sources which debunk the hoax. Maybe we should simply be thankful for small favors.
If it had been in the UK Supreme Court you’d be able to say it was “peer” reviewed.
Top column from Bob Carter on this fraudulent nonsense in todays Age.
Yes even the dummies at the AGE can wake up as well, eventually.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/an-inconvenient-fallacy-20110626-1glmu.html#ixzz1QPyTiCfx
There has been a big drop in warmists over the last year or so according to the latest polling.
GeeeZZ what a surprise, surely even the most pig ignorant dummy wakes up sooner or later?
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/one_in_three_warmists_have_cooled_down/
Just listened to Bolt trying to get assistant treasurer Shorten to tell us how much the world’s temp will drop if we introduce this idiot co2 tax.
He couldn’t/ wouldn’t answer but promised to give an answer if Bolt asked him by email.
Amazing but these silly fools ( the Treasury no less ) haven’t even taken the time to work this out.
The answer of course is that co2 will keep on rising because of the ongoing huge increase in emissions of China, India etc, there will be no drop because of our sacrifice in jobs and industry.
Simple primary school sums but the Australian Treasury hasn’t worked this out yet and will only reply after they receive Bolt’s email. Just ask Bill Shorten the assistant Treasurer. GEEEEZZZZZ what a hopeless bloody farce and what useless numbskulls we have running the country.
Dawidoff’s article was just a bit of fawning free range chook waffle – relevance to climate = 0.0 “Oh Dyson has had such a remarkable life – oooo – ooooo – fawn – grovel” Really who cares. Dyson wouldn’t know. Of course Schiller loved it as it was content free and had no science. Pure filler.
What the whole AGW debate has exposed is how much tea party swilling sceptics love wacko theories, wacko personalities (Sieg Heil Monckers), and just adore conspiracy theories.
I think we should perhaps just ignore poor Luke. The Outhouse is falling down around his ears and he hasn’t got the good sense to vacate the premises and will no doubt be left with more smelly crap adhering to him than he’d like.
So what about Bob’s column (with facts), what about the idiot Oz treasury ineptitude, what about the rapid reduction of warmists, Luke couldn’t care less.
Luke,
Man, I just can’t figure you out at all.
To stop those CO2 emissions, ergo to stop Climate Change disaster as you perceive it, the only real answer is for the Western World to stop huge Countries like China and India from developing, completely stop trying to bring the Third World a little closer to how we live, and then, to add to that, we have to go back and join them all in the dark ages.
Tony.
Tony
For where the science is at, read this post from Judith C’s website:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/06/19/understanding-the-conflict/#comment-78822
The political problem we are enduring is caused by the insane desire to stop CO2 emissions without first having economic alternatives for base load apart from hydro and nuclear power, which the politics prevent being deployed (Aus cannot really use much hydro power anyway, apart from Tasmania, as we lack significant mountain ranges across most of the continent)
Brown et al want to have their tea party without first doing the hard work. They’ll leave that to someone else
Ian,
I believe with modern hydrotechnology there are plenty of places on the mainland that we could develop more hydro power.
What we lack is the political will.
Upgrading the snowy system would yield excellent results just for a start.
We don’t need significant mountain ranges, we just need water to run downhill.
That’s why hydro power makes so much sense.
Water likes to run downhill !!!
Neville, thanx for that link to the Carter story, nice to get a hearing in the Age.
Gina continues to buy Fairfax and appears to be making an impact on editorial policy, so naturally Labor and the Greens are screaming blue murder as a newspaper baroness joins the fray. It has such an old world charm about it.
Reinhart only need spend a fraction of her $10 billion in personal wealth to bring about a non-violent revolution. Extraordinary times!
All the sceptics ask is equal time in the msm on this very important scientific discussion.
The skeptics don’t need much time at all as has been shown by the massive shift in public opinion against the mediocre scientists , economists and assorted hangers on promoting AGW. Every Aussie lives in the laboratory called climate and each has been able to make a “scientific” judgement about the sort of nonsense that led to the construction of two white elephant desalination plants in Qld and Victoria. Victorians in particular will be paying a hefty price for many years and are unlikely to pardon the false prophets of this astrology like craft that masquerades as science.
What’s impressive is that Dyson gets a reasonable wrap in the NYT, journal of reference for knit-browed leftism and pretentious bilge in general. Meanwhile, on another continent altogether, a conservative billionairess is taking nibbles out of Fairfax, Oz equivalent to the NYT group, but minus any flimsy adult pretensions. Now Bob Carter actually gets a gig in…The Age! Judith Curry, who never made a false career move, is talking about “more accountability” instead of just “better communication”. Who even remembers her warm period?
Have certain professional survivors already tippy-toed to the exits, leaving their more naive cronies to go on bloviating?
But who cares if there’s a whiff of manipulation or hypocrisy? That’s how intellectual climates change.
This winter, elderly and frail Australians are unable to heat their homes freely or without worry. Defenders of the mass neurosis called Environmentalism will say the energy issue is complex. It’s not. We live in a resource-rich nation which has impiously refused to build and exploit for its citizenry. To prove it’s not “complex”, we nonetheless send our coal offshore to be burnt on exactly the same planet as the one we claim to be saving by not burning it here. In ever greater quantities. Go figure.
As I said elsewhere this week, our Green Betters have refined their philosophy down to: Burn Global, but Tax Local.
To use a word that’s not heard often enough, it’s impious.
Debbie
Sorry, but effective, efficient, reliable hydro power requires both volume AND velocity. This is why hydro’s are located in actual mountains
Perhaps the Snowy scheme may be better engineered, but most rivers worth damming already are. It is pointless damming rivers that just spread massively sideways in flood times. Australia is the FLATTEST continent on the globe, bar none. A consequence of the ancient nature of most of its’ geology. I am not at all ideologically opposed to dams, just inefficient ones
Tasmania, although geographically tiny, has a large mountainous spine – ergo
“Tasmania, although geographically tiny, has a large mountainous spine – ergo”
And spineless senators to boot.
The Greens and their fellow travelers in both major parties are as much against building dams for hydro produced electricity as they are against electricity produced by uranium and fossil fuels. Brown made his name on stopping the Franklin.
Until the Greens are removed from any position of power in the Australian parliament those economy destroying policies will continue.
The Greens essentially are repudiators of the Industrial Revolution. End of story.
Re Comment from: ianl8888 June 27th, 2011 at 4:31 pm
Debbie
Sorry, but effective, efficient, reliable hydro power requires both volume AND velocity. This is why hydro’s are located in actual mountains
Um! Half the story. But there is also low head hydro power generation. Check Brasil for example.
That’s right another Ian.
Sorry IanI8888.
New technology has completely changed the ball game.
It’s amazing how much power can be produced even in gravity fed irrigation systems. Water infrastructure companies are seriously looking at it.
The head walls on our existing big dams can also deliver big time.
Any new dams could easily incorporate hydro power.
Although height also helps, there are still plenty of ways to get bang for our buck via hydro power on the mainland.
Political will is the missing ingredient. Everything else is available.
Very interesting what Deb and the two Ians have raised re hydro. Would love to hear if Tony from Oz has any opinion on low head hydro.
I’m biased, of course. I love dams almost as much as I love coal. Almost.
Robert,
Then have a feast on the dam at Sobradinho, Bahia, Brasil.
And they don’t have a mountain to drop that water down.
Hey guys,
Hydro is a little off the main topic here, and if Jen will forgive me, I’d like to link into a short series on the Largest Power Plant on the Planet, The Three Gorges Dam Project in China.
You want Hydro.
This is a 4 part series on the history and what this plant can produce.
http://papundits.wordpress.com/?s=Threegorgestony
Tony.
Monies saved by the Coalition (in not implementing a carbon dioxide tax) would be well spent investing in this new technology.
Tony
I’m very pleased to hear it. Aus needs low head hydro – the country’s far too flat for much else in the hydro genre
I haven’t kept up much with hydro advances, mostly those in coal and methane power stations
Sobradinho…choice!
Couldn’t help but love Three Gorges after 60 Minutes expressed its disapproval. I’m not too big on being lectured by the Channel Nine blow-dries about what a naughty world it is.
But back on topic. I was fumbling around the radio dial on my arvo jog looking for Talkinsport when I stumbled on a conversation between an ABC journo and a Labor pollster about the savage decline in support for Labor’s Green policies and CO2 tax. Nearly every possibility was canvassed: The public used to be smart and now they’re not; the party sold its message well, now it doesn’t; the public doesn’t understand how well compensated they will be, soon they will. And so on.
So, guys, we’re either short on education, in need of further information or awaiting more subsidy. The Green-Left view of humanity.
On his worst day, and added to that bad day advanced alzheimer’s, Freeman Dyson would operate at much higher intellectual levels and more rational thought than Luke on his best day.
For Luke to be dismissive of Dyson is like a toothless chiuahua attacking a Kodiak Bear:
Pointless and jsut a wee bit sad. But funny to watch.
The AGW social mania is sinking quick. The flunky bureaurats and hanger onners as represented by the Lukes of the world are not going to go quietly or quickly into the day of reason. They and their ilk will cling to their dark vision, and spit and whine and continue their little displays long past the entertainment value expiration date.
Another mindless spray of pseudo-political invective from hunter. Mate I just kacked – do you have a little group of angry old retired teachers sitting there penning that stuff. 100% filler.
Tell us hunter – how has Dyson informed your view of climate science or are you just a VIP groupie ?
Luke,
Your spew and what my cat coughs up are indistinguishable.
Dyson, unlike you, knows how to actually think about things.
You just cough up fur balls and bits of offal.
Dyson informs anyone who actually wants to be able to consider issues how to do so.
Over employed bureaucrats like you seek to reduce thought to the level just above brain death, and that level only because then it is too ahrd to collect taxes from your victims.
VIP groupie?
You might rethink that particular piece of idiocy based on how skeptics look t the AGW promoters.
But keep up the good….er…work(?) or whatever you do to keep shaking down Australian tax payers.
EU carbon price falls off a cliff, what a graph. Of course we’ll have at least twice this price on our idiot co2 tax it seems. The green loons want at least 40 to 100 dollars just to start with if they can swing it with Juliar.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/gillards_own_tax_would_be_higher/
The plaintiffs in this case were proxies or sock-puppets for the EPA; they wanted the Courts to determine limits to CO2 emissions consistent with AGW theory and the various IPCC protocols.
In a delicious judgement the court decided that such a judicial role would contravene the powers of the EPA. The sting in the tale of course is that the Court also observed that the EPA’s exercise of it powers is subject to judicial review: page 5:
“Indeed, this prescribed order of decisionmaking—the first decider under the Act is the expert administrative agency, the second, federal judges—is yet another reason to resist setting emissions standards by judicial decree under federal tort law. The appropriate amount of regulation in any particular greenhouse gas-producing sector cannot be prescribed in a vacuum: as with other questions of national or international policy, informed assessment of competing interests is required. Along with the environmental benefit potentially achievable, our Nation’s energy needs and the possibility of economic disruption must weigh in the balance.”
The EPA has been hoisted on its own petard by this sly decision. The Court’s references to Freeman and the energy’s needs of the nation are the perfect garnish for the main meal.
Interesting take on this issue?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/tony-abbott-now-the-preferred-prime-minister-newspoll/story-fn59niix-1226083325297
It seems that Labor and Julia still think they can sell this tax by ..er…bribing (?) 9 out of 10 taxpayers?
I think we all have seen that sleight of hand trick before haven’t we? Many times? From both sides of politics?
Apparently we’ll all be very happy once we see the whole package rolled out?
Hmmm?
Also,
Have you all noticed that the term ‘carbon pollution’ is now just accepted terminology in the media?
From here:
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2011/s3255157.htm
JULIA GILLARD: I’m determined to push on with the agenda because it’s the right thing to do for the country’s future. That’s what driving me Lyndal. We are in the midst of a tough reform with pricing carbon. We need to tackle climate change as a country; that means we have to cut the amount of ‘CARBON POLLUTION’ (my emphasis) we are putting in the atmosphere.
And it has been repeated throughout the media this morning.
Wasn’t there a quote of Lenin’s that went something like:
“If you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth”.
???????
Seriously, since when did CO2 become a pollutant?
If it was a pollutant then every single breathing mammal on earth is a massive polluter!
We all exhale more CO2 than we inhale.
debbie,
Great point.
The AGW promoters depend on twisting the language to redefine things in a way to support their idiocratic goals.
Sorry, but you guys have got it all wrong.
As I read at another site, there’s two types of CO2.
The stuff that’s emitted naturally, and the stuff we breathe out (and in) is ‘OK’ CO2.
The CO2 we produce from all other means is the bad CO2.
Besides, that ‘bad’ CO2 is the only one they can place a Tax on
Surely the Government wouldn’t consider taxing the air we breathe, now would they?????
(As Graham Kennedy once said, “It’s a joke Joyce!”)
Tony.
Well it is called AGW isn’t it?
Maybe it’s only the air that HUMANS (anthropogenal) exhale that’s a problem then?
So maybe they are trying to figure out how to tax the air we breathe (out?) ?
Of course there has been some talk about the air that comes from the rear end of domesticated livestock….there seems to be some heavy lifting going on to try and justify taxing that bit too isn’t there?
I know that’s not CO2….but the principle is sitting there squarely in the middle of a lot of media stories.
I know I’m being highly sarcastic, BUT GEE WHIZ, CO2 never really a dangerous pollutant was it?
How come it being called a dangerous pollutant now?
Are we truly that gullible?
Unless basic science has changed radically since I left University (and it wasn’t all that long ago) we are still largely carbon based life forms aren’t we?
We therefore have been exhaling CO2 from the very first breath we took, every last one of us, including Julia who is busy calling it ‘pollution’ at every opportunity.
Well the girls and boys haven’t got much better. Hunter having learnt nothing from Dyson science-wise trys the Braveheart buttocks baring approach to discourse. What a loon.
Tony’s back on the old sceptic net versus flux ruse and channelling Mavis Bramston.
Debbie needs to try 10,000ppm of what she loves and report back.
Nah Luke,
Just pointing out some rather absurd terminology re CO2.
I seriously think we would do far better focusing on more serious pollution issues.
As a nation we have more pressing social challenges than CO2 don’t you think?
Debbie,
The world is suffering because useless bureaucrats like the Luke sit back, pretend to work, get highly paid for their play acting, and actually impact policy.
Little con artists grow into big bureaucrats.
Notice that the Luke (Luke, are you still a hive mind of bureaucrats, or was round robin posting too complicated for you all?) doesn’t dispute Dyson with anything like facts or data, he just dismisses him out of hand.
Now who should we pay attention to?
One of the great geniuses of the past 100 years or a group of tits-on-a-boar-hog useless bureaucrats who offer sniveling defenses of a ridiculous social mania?
Luke, I know better than to bare my buttocks anywhere near you. I do not care to find out what else you might need to rudely attack.
Dear Huntsbum – all you had to do was show how Dyson had influenced your thinking. You couldn’t. And so out comes the abuse.
Therefore you’re just a sop for for any old denialist codswallop. Moi – influence policy – I don’t think so….
Debs – well given Australia is dependent on the value of the US$ and the SOI…. perhaps not.
If CO2 is a pollutant then every one of us is intrinsically pollution. With each breath we inhale about 4% of the mass of CO2 we exhale each breath. Each year we each exhale about 0.35 tonne of CO2.
Given there is about 7 billion of us that means we are adding about 2.4 billion tonnes of the “polluting” stuff to the atmosphere each year.
How much CO2 is too much? Industrial safe standards for workers in say confined spaces is 10,000 ppm for a period of 8 hours. That’s about 25 times the present concentration of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere. Fifteen minutes is about all a healthy adult human can take at 30,000 ppm of CO2. That’s why a canary is a useful tool if one is into exploring deep caves etc.
When a few of us gather in places with limited ventilation such as movie houses CO2 concentrations of 1000 ppm are quite common.
What happens if we inhale very high concentrations of oxygen?
“Oxygen toxicity is a condition resulting from the harmful effects of breathing molecular oxygen (O2) at elevated partial pressures. It is also known as oxygen toxicity syndrome, oxygen intoxication, and oxygen poisoning. Historically, the central nervous system condition was called the Paul Bert effect, and the pulmonary condition the Lorrain Smith effect, after the researchers who pioneered its discovery and description in the late 19th century. Severe cases can result in cell damage and death, with effects most often seen in the central nervous system, lungs and eyes. Oxygen toxicity is a concern for scuba divers, those on high concentrations of supplemental oxygen (particularly premature babies), and those undergoing hyperbaric oxygen therapy.”
Seriously Luke?
The $US and SOI?
That makes CO2 an all out social challenge for Australia?
Good one!
ROFL
Luke,
that Mavis Bramston quip was insightful, well for me anyway, as it ‘may have’ gone right over the heads of everyone else here.
I didn’t think you were actually older than I am, and if you remember that, you must be.
Now I realise that you really are one of those angry old men.
A possible similar analogy is ‘you’ channelling Victor Meldrew, and using his favourite comment.
Tony.
I was wondering how long it would take?
Apparently the CEO of Nab has made favourable comments about carbon trading and an ETS and that the current plans from our Govt are economically sensible.
As one of the three major parasites to business (bureaucrats, bankers and brokers) it was only a matter of time before they started to weigh in on this one.
I can’t find the link. I should have posted it last night when I first read it.
The comments were also amusing with a lot of business people criticising the bank’s support of an ETS.
I guess because the bureaucrats are having a horrible time trying to convince the Australian public that putting a price on carbon is a good idea, the bankers have decided they better have a go?
I wonder when the brokers will step in?
Let’s see….a taxpayer funded trading scheme where a centralised govt gets to choose the value and the destination of ‘carbon credits’ ? The only actual value they will have is the artificial value that is placed upon them?…and remember, most importantly, it gets backed by the seemingly bottomless well of taxpayer funding.
Sounds like a three B dream to me. 🙂
No wonder the banks think it’s a good idea!
Tony,
Here’s a go. Solar power for 1c per kilowatt/hour!
Yeah, right.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/06/meeting-all-of-earths-energy-needs-with.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Fadvancednano+%28nextbigfuture%29
Hmm!
Long extension lead.
Tony.
I have a question for the community:
Is “Luke” really a compilation of Australian bureaucrats?