CARBON TAX-It's Started!

[Jabawocky]

Well said siseman

now here is a balanced view of things, from one of the very few qualified to comment climatologists.

The Factors and Fundamentals of Climate Science

Air & Waste Management Association
Annual Conference 104, June 21-24
Coronado Springs, USA

PREFACE

Twenty five years ago, in the Dark Ages, climate scientists were doing what scientists used to do – which is to say beavering away in their laboratories, and out in the field, collecting meteorological and climatic data with which to pursue their research. It was an exciting time because high quality data streams providing truly global coverage were starting to become available from new satellite-mounted instruments, and a spanking new international body had been created that was relevant to climate research, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which augured well for increasing both the research funding and the public importance of climatic studies in future.
And how! For looking back at what has elapsed since then, it is truly astonishing to observe the way in which a number of arcane, and rather immature, branches of science have morphed into perhaps the single most potent political issue in the world today. The IPCC has gone on to produce four large Assessment Reports regarding parts only of climate science (those parts concerned with the potential for dangerous increases in global temperature caused by human-related greenhouse gas emissions). And the political stage has become littered with the metaphorical corpses of leaders who have mismanaged the generally poisonous politics global warming, which are dominated by a worldwide push by environmentalists for introduction of carbon dioxide taxation or emissions trading schemes in a claimed attempt to “stop global warming”.
For example, in Australia, from where I write, in the last four years battles over the global warming issue have helped to claim the scalps of two prime ministers (John Howard and Kevin Rudd) and two opposition leaders (Brendan Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull), and resulted in the election of the incumbent opposition leader Tony Abbott. Current Prime Minister Julia Gillard is currently in hot pursuit of legislating a carbon dioxide tax against public opinion that is now so strong (not least because Gillard’s plans are a flagrant breach of an election promise) that the issue bids fair to send her to the same political graveyard as her predecessors.
The scene has, of course, been just as vigorous in the US, with a ruling by the Supreme Court that carbon dioxide is a pollutant (a ruling, it must be said, that represents an abuse of language, logic and science), endless battles in Congress and state legislatures in pursuit of cap and trade legislation and, more latterly, the involvement of the EPA in regulatory activities towards the same end.
In short, the politics of global warming have come to have extraordinary political potency, and now involve every lobby group and interest group in our western societies. Yet sweeping away the baggage, much of which is self-serving activity with financial or political intent, the matter at hand is a SCIENTIFIC issue and in principle a simple one. Put simply, until there is a proven, as opposed to speculative, scientific problem, no political or economic problem exists – and, were that to be the case, then much of the many tens of billions of dollars of expenditure and political busy-bodying that has occurred over the last two decades would simply be costly irrelevancies.
It is commonly said that there are “two sides” to the issue of dangerous global warming, which is often caricatured by the press as a battle between the IPCC “alarmists” and the scientifically independent “deniers. This is to grossly over-simplify a complex debate. For given that there are upwards of 100 subdisciplines of science, sociology and economics involved, there are almost as many sides to the issue in detail as there are professional persons competent to comment.
The nub of the issue is this, and in the late 1980s this was a good question to ask: “Are human carbon dioxide emissions causing dangerous global warming?”
Currently that question is answered in flatly contradictory ways by two main groups of scientists. Those who advise the IPCC, whose ranks are dominated by some meteorologists, geographers and computer modellers, say “Yes, and we need to do something about it by reducing carbon dioxide emissions”. In the other camp are thousands of independent scientists, many of whom work in empirical disciplines like astrophysics, geochemistry and geology, who say “Good question, but no empirical evidence exists that the late 20th century warming was either dangerous or was materially caused by human carbon dioxide emissions. So rather than wasting money on unnecessary (and, as it happens, ineffectual) mitigation measures, we should instead concentrate on managing better the all too real risks of natural climate-related events and change, i.e., the natural hazards of storms, floods, droughts and bushfires”.
Who is right, and how should policy makers proceed when faced with such an impasse?
Many will answer that they should “apply the precautionary principle” (or put another, sloganistic way, “give Earth the benefit of the doubt”). But the precautionary principle is a “principle” of sociology and politics, not of science, and its application in policy making has been adjudicated a failure by no less a body than the U.K. House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology – which recommended in 2006 that:
“We can confirm our initial view that the term ‘precautionary principle’ should not be used, and recommend that it cease to be included in policy guidance… In our view, the terms ‘precautionary principle’ and ‘precautionary approach’ in isolation from any such clarification have been the subject of such confusion and different interpretations as to be devalued and of little practical help, particularly in public debate.”
Nonetheless, it is anyway the case that the precautionary principle is impotent when faced with the embarrassing fact that - the much vaunted GCM models notwithstanding - statistical-empirical models and a continuing solar quietude support the likelihood that over the next few decades the climate will cool rather than warm. Are we, pray, to take precautions against cooling or warming?
Confronted with this situation, the average member of the public says, simplistically in view of the depth of the politics now involved, “Well, why can’t we just get a bunch of talented scientists who represent both main sides of the issue into a conference hall for them to discuss and resolve the matter”. Many have striven mightily towards such an end, in many different countries, and nearly all have failed. The reason is that, with extraordinary arrogance, leading IPCC scientists, arguing that “the science is settled”, simply refuse to engage in public debate with other qualified scientists, whom they often badge and dismiss as “climate deniers”.
Which brings us to the A&WMA Panel on The Factors and Fundamentals of Climate Science. Persons attending this Panel will be offered a full briefing on many major aspects of the currently intense debate amongst scientists regarding global warming and climate change. Not that there is any dispute about whether carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, increases in which will ab initio cause some warming - for that is a given. Rather, the essence of the controversy lies in three things.
· First, what EMPIRICAL evidence exists that the warming of the late 20th century was dangerous, i.e., lay outside previous natural limits of climate change;
· Second, HOW MUCH future warming will be caused by likely human-caused levels of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (the climate feedback and sensitivity issues); and
· Third, to what degree have the IPCC’s complex GCM computer models been validated, and should their PROJECTIONS be taken seriously for use in framing policy advice.
The Panel convenors have assembled for you a distinguished group of scientists who are leaders in their fields. All have public reputations for both the high quality of their research, and for the balanced way that they give equal consideration to all the information bearing on the most important scientific question in our society today. That question is: Are human carbon dioxide emissions causing, or likely to cause, dangerous global warming?
It has been my great pleasure to write in introduction for this outstanding public session about the science of global warming and climate change. Please listen, learn and enjoy.

Professor Bob Carter
Emeritus Fellow, Institute of Public Affairs, Melbourne
Chief Advisor, International Climate Science Coalition, Ottawa
Academic Advisory Panel, Global Warming Policy Foundation, London