As I have said, over and over again, the fundamental point has always been this: Climate change is governed by hundreds of factors, or variables, and the very idea that we can manage climate change predictably by understanding and manipulating at the margins one politically-selected factor (CO2), is as misguided as it gets,
Philip Stott, Professor emeritus of Biogeography, U of London.
DutchRoll said:
But what there is NOT any (credible) debate about among climate scientists and similar experts is:
• the fact that it is happening
• the extremely high probability that it is due to greenhouse gases
• the absence of any other viable explanations
• the greenhouse gases are due to our industrialisation
• that there will be long term consequences, and some of these are visible and measurable already.
Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is a political dogma in search of supporting scientific evidence.
The fact that (climate change or global warming?) is happening is not disputed. That’s the ONLY “fact” you’ve mentioned above that is not debated by climate scientists. “Credible” is a nice little adjective used to brush off any point of view contrary to your own.
The “extremely high probability that it is due to greenhouse gases” is misleading. Some scientists think this might be likely. Other scientists think this has little, if anything to do with greenhouse gases. Evidence for or against your conclusion has not been found to any significant degree. It might be a completely natural cycle. We just do not know with any significant degree of certainty yet.
“The absence of any other viable explanations” spoken like a true believer. There are several other explanations for which research is ongoing and which are gaining in viability each day as anthropogenic global warming loses (scientific) support. The pro-CO2 warmers just don’t want to upset their gravy train and political influence by considering any discussion other than human produced CO2.
SOME…Some “greenhouse gases are due to our industrialization”. A very, very small amount. The ALP is going to tax CO2 production. Less than 4% of CO2 in the atmosphere is derived from human activities. And CO2 makes up a tiny proportion of the total atmospheric gases. The overwhelming (by far) greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is water vapour. We have a pretty good idea on how much CO2 is produced as a result of human activities. We have far, far less certainty on natural CO2 production and sinks.
CO2 absorbs longwave radiation only at specific wavelengths. It’s propensity as a greenhouse gas reduces on a logarithmic scale with an increase in its concentration. Doubling its present concentration will only add about 1 degree of additional heat to the atmosphere. However, this isn’t the part that supports the catastrophic CO2 argument. We have to rely on computers for that. There’s something about a “tipping point” where the concentration of CO2 causes uncontained feedback from clouds to cause Armageddon and runaway temperature increase. Trouble is, the alarmists don’t know whether clouds have a positive or negative feedback. The global warming protagonists have conveniently assumed clouds have a positive feedback (fancy that!). Current evidence seems to indicate positive AND negative, but predominately negative feedback.
“That there will be long term consequences, and some of these are visible and measurable already" is yet another misleading assertion. The consequences you speak of are computer model projections…nothing more. Perhaps you should have replaced “will” with “may” and hedged your bets like the official press releases.
“It is not worth your time to quibble over details.” Al Gore will be proud of you. Quell dissent and evidence to the contrary of your opinion with a wave of your hand.
Contrary to your opinion, the hockey stick has been completely debunked. Scientists in support of global warming tried to argue against the debunkers, but were only taken seriously in their own support group. It's dead in mainstream science. The manufacturers of that little graph couldn’t even get the past right, let alone have it relied upon for future predictions. The simple fact that temperatures for the past 10 years have not followed the hockey stick’s predictions mean that those predictions were wrong.
An essential element of every catastrophic global warming prediction is a tropical hotspot in the upper atmosphere. Still nothing…nada…zip. Sea levels are dropping…how inconvenient. Global land temperatures are stagnant or descending. Ocean temperatures are declining. The best the AGW scientists can come up with is aerosols in the atmosphere, missing heat slipping past thousands of ARGO buoys and trapped at deep ocean depths and excess rainfall causing a drop in sea levels. Pure speculation tossed out to support a fractured argument.
Strim said:
This country could run solely on renewables.
Run a farmer’s tractor or a bulldozer, or a semi-trailer effectively on renewable energy! See how far you get. For that matter, try it completely on biofuels if you want to consider that too…the biofuels produced by that tractor with organic farming practices.
Wait! I’m wrong, Australia could run solely on renewables. We could move 98% of the population offshore and the rest could live in caves; the remaining males could hunt game and the women could scavenge for nuts and berries.
It just needs funding, vision and a government/leader with the sack (or whatever the female equivalent is) to do it.
Gillard is giving it a good try. She has two of the three necessary requirements you outline above. Try and pick the odd one out.