CARBON TAX-It's Started!

[Splitpin44]

One thing is for sure and thats the Australian voters will pick which way they want to go the next election.

Keep in mind that everyone who voted for Julair the first time was told she would not bring a carbon tax. Who do you think they will vote for this time????

[Slasher]

Keep in mind that everyone who voted for Julair the first time was told she would not bring a carbon tax.

Just as everyone who voted for the Silver Bodgie the first time
in the early 80s who had clearly promised no capital gains tax.

Keep voting ALP, keep believing the lies, keep cutting yer own
throats - that bogan's carbon scam is just the start.

[De_flieger]

She may fly "Jul-Air" but I think you mightve been going for "Juliar" ! You're right, at the next election people get their say. Neither party holds a monopoly on broken promises though, whether its to never introduce a carbon tax, never ever introduce a GST, the list goes on. "Playing the man", saying its a bad idea because it came from Labour, is introduced by a redhead who you dont like the look of or who has a voice that makes your hair stand on end, is failing to think about the issues involved.

Do you think Tony Abbott will be able to repeal the many different laws and also remove the tax and pension changes and rebates put in place to help the average and lower income earners, or will unscrambling that particular egg turn out to be a "non-core promise"? I can see the headlines now, either sad-looking pensioners having their payments reduced, or Mr Abbott explaining how legally he didn't realise how complex it all was from Opposition, and how the bad, evil carbon tax brought on by those ratbags will have to stay, but he'll keep the votes against it that brought him to power. Its very easy from Opposition to say "we'll repeal it, roll it back, undo these laws", and the oldest trick in the book to get into power then "discover" a budget black hole, costings issue or legal problems that mean you cant do what was promised, but blame it on the other guys who have just been given a kicking by the electorate. I think Mr Abbott will be happy to take the protest votes, but once he's in power his tune will change very rapidly. Also, a couple of years from now when it is election time and the sky hasnt fallen in a lot of people will have moved onto other issues and the election could well be decided on them instead.

[konstantin]

Some thoughts from JC on the recent IPCC report

IPCC Special Report on Extreme Events | Climate Etc.

Her conclusion statement reads

This report is better than I expected, although I suspect that some of their conclusions are based on weak arguments (we will have to wait for the full report). The two most important aspects IMO are the recognition of the importance of natural variability and also vulnerability. The dominance of natural variability for the past 40-60 years in determining extreme events makes the AGW extreme events attribution exercises (see here) seem even more pointless. The weakest part of the report is the high confidence level of the future projections (including one “virtually certain.”) I suspect that different authors worked on the “Observations” section than those working on the “Future” chapter; too bad the “Future” authors didn’t read the “Observations” section first.


DutchRoll

"Scientists have been saying for decades that climate impacts are going to occur over a long period of time and they've discussed natural variability within these changes at great lengths."

Sorry, but very rarely if at all have I seen natural variability mentioned for the benefit of the "end user" of MSM consumption. Wonder what the reason for that might be?

"As knowledge and data increases, those predictions will change slightly, but the ultimate result of adding greenhouse gas to a planetary atmosphere at a rate much higher than natural forces can scrub it out will not change, unless freaky new physical processes are discovered."

Which might manifest themselves in something like a decade-long hiatus in LST, SST and oceanic heat content? The 80s/90s were supposedly an observation-based validation of "trust the models" and "it`s obviously related to CO2 emissions". Now we are pumping ever more "carbon" into the `sphere but there has been a lull - oops, let`s now publically invoke natural variability here. Or was that aerosols, geez, which one do we go for? Hell, let`s use both...

Pray to your god that we do not get a Younger Dryas type of natural variability sometime soon!

Strangely enough we have had a recently much-trumpeted "10 years is not enough for a trend, it must be at least 17 years" from Santer.
Which will no doubt be amended to 19 years circa 2013...


"In just a few years, snow will be a rare and exciting event".

Honest. It is in the models...


Gobbledock
As you say, it is the futility of unilateral action that is biggest cringe factor here. China`s emissions growing every year at a rate approximating total Oz annual emissions...we aim to reduce our rate of increase, NOT to physically reduce the current amount, actually...at what overall financial impost to the nation?...but never mind such pesky considerations.

No wonder people start jumping onto conspiracy theory bandwagons, with this sort of BS going on. But as I keep saying, that is something I personally consider to be...ahem..."less than likely"...

A gravy-train confluence of interests which has evolved into a Too Big To Fail construct does just fine as an explanation.

[gobbledock]

The News Limited press are serial offenders claiming "we'll all be rooooned" by a carbon tax, they recently had an article which described the hardship a family was facing. The family in question was a single-income family making ~$150,000 per year, with 3 kids and a stay-at-home mum, and talked about how hard it was paying a mortgage on a big house in a nice area in Sydney. The article was complete with a photo of the family, sitting in their luxurious open-plan house on a nice leather couch and talking about how the government wasnt providing enough compensation to struggling families such as themselves. It appears to have disappeared from the website after people asked questions about the 4 high-end tv/audio and Foxtel remotes visible on the couch next to the cute little kids, and whether the projected cost of around $700 per year (or looking at it differently, $13.46 a week) worst case scenario, would cause such hardship to people who were already paying well above that for their pay-tv subscription alone and still complaining about the lack of government welfare support.

YES! Now I understand why da little fella got a $2.9 million dollar payrise at the last AGM - to offset the cost of carbon tax on his personal life! Of course, now I get it

[RATpin]

De Flieger, one thing that people such I who have "accidently" fallen into a job that pays more than $150g's/year get sick of hearing is the politics of envy most often played by Labor when they are in trouble politically.
The latest example being the carbon tax BS,"90%" of people will be better off.
Guess who won't be.
Thanks to K.Rudd, I lost my stay at home wife as a tax deduction,whilst I don't wish too cry poor,it's a bit rich coming from a multi-millionaire who also has his snout in the public trough.
The problem is,we are a little like the ducks in side show alley,easy targets for Government/Media/Tax Department whilst some small and big business's escape scrutiny.
P.S.FlyingFox,you would need to have a sense of humour to fly the "Fruit Bat"

[Lodown]

CAUTION: Heavy on sarcasm.

Unfortunately, there are alarmists who don't see a light at the end of the tunnel and find it convenient to conclude it must be a train coming the other way blocking the light. With some limited data, and what they see as infallible computer programs, they then make their conclusions fit their expectations. The conclusions dovetail nicely with the fears of many of the train’s passengers and if a few alarmists start standing on seats shouting "We're all gonna die!", before long there is a full blown panic and a stampede to the driver to “Stop and turn around!”

Never mind that with a little time for keen observation by cooler heads, the hasty conclusions of the fear promoters is seen not to match the initial catastrophic conclusion of a colliding train rushing in from the other direction. Never mind that on further evaluation, the input into the alarmist’s models is found to be incomplete, missing, kept behind locked doors or otherwise unavailable so that their experiments cannot be replicated. Never mind that the growing evidence appears to indicate the light is not evident because of natural reasons; perhaps the tunnel curves and is extremely long or there might be other possible reasons. Never mind that email leaks indicate the fear promoters have modified some data deliberately to create additional panic and have taken advantage of (manipulated?) the peer review process and actively silenced dissenters. Never mind that catastrophe-predicting, eye catching press releases are released well in advance of acceptance of relatively mundane final reports. The passengers are in panic. The fear promoters have the crowd behind them. The crowd is looking to the alarmists for answers. The alarmists can rely upon the panicked passengers to put them in the driver's seat.

The alarmists stated very publicly that increasing CO2 concentrations would cause runaway increases in temperature. They were emphatic in stating that temperatures were linked to the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. We were approaching a tipping point and soon it would be too late to go back. Al Gore and the IPCC received a Nobel Peace Prize for promoting the runaway global increase in temperatures, the coming extinction of the cute and cuddly polar bear, disappearing glaciers, melting icecaps and sea levels rising 20 metres by the end of the 21st century and inundating low lying island communities and all the world’s major coastal cities.

What started as fears of “global warming”, evolved into “climate change” because some areas weren’t showing any warming (roughly 1/3rd of the earth). Community fears could be better developed if there was a practical response to every global weather extreme. Cyclones/hurricanes? Climate change! Drought/floods? Climate change! Tornadoes/storms? Climate change! Heavy snowfall? Climate change! Hot summer temperatures and cold winter temperatures? Climate change!

After a few more years of observation, the data once again showed that these events weren’t matching with alarmist predictions either. Cyclone and hurricane numbers are down. Tornado and storm numbers are relatively stable. Nothing appears out of the ordinary either with flood or drought characteristics around the world. The Russian heat wave and the Australian and Texas droughts were convenient events in support of climate change for a while, but then some non-cooperative USA government killjoys said they had/have nothing to do with climate change either.

Now we have observations that the world temperatures haven’t changed much in 13 or so years, and look like they are starting a prolonged decline. 10 years of temperature declines were seen as acceptable to the pro-warmers. That's been extended to 17 years by Santor. Now the IPCC has extended that to 30 years.

Projected changes in climate extremes under different emissions scenarios generally do not strongly diverge in the coming two to three decades, but these signals are relatively small compared to natural climate variability over this time frame. Even the sign of projected changes in some climate extremes over this time frame is uncertain

Oh dear! The fear wheels are coming off the bicycle. That's longer than global warming has been around! Solar physicists and oceanographers seem to have a better idea of global climate than so-called climatologists. Ocean levels are decreasing. Polar ice caps haven’t done much. The Antarctic ice coverage is showing no major change to historic coverage and the Arctic ice cap, while down, is showing signs of recovery. Natural variation, an oft-repeated argument from sceptics and blown off as only a minor influence causing occasional temperature declines by the pro-warmers has received heightened importance now that temperatures are not rising. The alarmists are construing the discussion to make it appear like they have been considering natural variation for a significant period of time. Only when it has suited their conclusions! The major arguments supporting catastrophic manmade climate change are suffering a significant lack of real-world support.

With waning supporting evidence for a global “catastrophic” link between CO2 and world temperatures, the IPCC is shifting strategy once again. This time, it’s morphed away from a global view of climate change towards a more localised “extreme climate events” scenario. Same fear promotion…just a different reason. The global fears have little support left in reality. This time, a local argument might be a safer bet for the IPCC. Past records appear to indicate more severe weather events linked to cooling global temperatures.

The problem for the IPCC now is how to successfully reposition itself from endorsing a (false), sole causative link of rising CO2 directly to rising world temperatures, to a translucent link of man’s fossil fuel activities with local weather extremes while maintaining a seemingly legitimate influence on world government. There has been very little research on airborne aerosols allowing for considerable manuevring with innuendos, rumours and half-facts. My guess is that the IPCC argument will shift slightly from manmade CO2 alone causing temperature increases to a combination of human produced CO2 and human produced aerosols related to the burning of fossil fuels, of course, (each over-riding the influence of the other at the appropriate time, one heating and one cooling, the interactivity which is difficult to predict without additional funding and support, of course) possibily causing extreme weather conditions. That should buy the IPCC and climate scientists in support of AGW another 10 or 20 years of employment and community and political gullibility to come up with another argument against fossil fuels, capitalist market ideals, and individual countrys' self-government.

In the convenient words of Konstantin, the IPCC and global warming community is:

A gravy-train confluence of interests which has evolved into a Too Big To Fail construct…

I am amused by the following quotes from The Australian article:

Professor Palutikof said it would take a while for the effects of climate change to become visible. But without action, she said, "gradually, over time, that signal will emerge with resounding clarity".

"If we don't do something now to prevent it, by the time we get to 2070, we will see the impact clearly," she said.

So she admits that climate change is not evident? It might look like the emperor has no clothes. But just wait. The tailor is working hard. What's wrong with you? Can't you see? Believe!!!! Believe!!!!!! Like the climate priest Palutikof, you'll see the beautiful suit too.

The federal government's climate science adviser, Will Steffen, has acknowledged there is no statistically significant evidence that there has been a change in the behaviour of tropical cyclones.

However, Professor Steffen told the Ten Network's The Bolt Report at the weekend that most experts agreed we would see an increase in intensity in cyclones as the warming continued.

What warming? The religion of global warming continues. We believe that it's happening. We are taking actions to stop it from happening. The evidence for global warming will become apparent as global warming becomes apparent. WTF! An image of a dog chasing its tail comes to mind. Sums up the Labor party too.

I do agree with De flieger above. The Liberal Party has flip-flopped on policy choices, but still maintains support for global warming for fear of losing its votes. I've never voted National, but would do so at the drop of a hat next election to send a message to the spineless Liberals as well.

[DutchRoll]

CAUTION: Heavy on requiring evidence to be presented to demonstrate that you actually have a clue.

Originally Posted by lodown

Never mind that on further evaluation, the input into the alarmist’s models is found to be incomplete, missing, kept behind locked doors or otherwise unavailable so that their experiments cannot be replicated.

Please specify precisely which information is missing, kept behind locked doors, or otherwise unavailable so the experiments cannot be replicated.

Never mind that the growing evidence appears to indicate the light is not evident because of natural reasons; perhaps the tunnel curves and is extremely long or there might be other possible reasons.

Please clarify what on earth this entire paragraph is supposed to mean.

Never mind that email leaks indicate the fear promoters have modified some data deliberately to create additional panic and have taken advantage of (manipulated?) the peer review process and actively silenced dissenters.

Please demonstrate that you actually understand what data was specifically being referred to in the emails, and understand the reasons why about half a dozen separate and independent inquiries into those emails have cleared the scientists on any alleged manipulation of that data.

The alarmists stated very publicly that increasing CO2 concentrations would cause runaway increases in temperature.

No, they stated that if it were ever to reach a certain point it could cause that. There is a precedent for just such an event within our own solar system, you know, and if you had even the faintest education on solar system science you'd be aware what it is (being one of our closest planetary neighbours). However scientists have been very careful to state that there's an awful long way to go before you'll get a runaway greenhouse effect, and a "runaway greenhouse effect" is not the same thing as what is currently happening on earth.

They were emphatic in stating that temperatures were linked to the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Well, yes, the temperature of the Earth is directly linked to the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and if you change that you'll change the temperature of the Earth, if all other variables remain the same. So is the temperature of any planet. The concentration of greenhouse gases is one of the main variables. It's what keeps planets much warmer than they otherwise would be. The other main variable is the distance of the planet from its nearest star. So...... you're complaining that they're absolutely correct? I don't get it.......

What started as fears of “global warming”, evolved into “climate change” because some areas weren’t showing any warming

Nonsense, and a popular myth. The link below will take you directly to a PDF of the actual journal publication, the highly respected peer-reviewed journal "Science".

Journal: Science, Vol 189, Pages 460-463, Aug 8 1975
Author: Wallace S Broker, Department of Geological Sciences, Columbia University
Title: Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming

As you can see, the two terms are synonymous.

Now we have observations that the world temperatures haven’t changed much in 13 or so years, and look like they are about to start dropping.

They have still risen at a slower rate, which is not unusual on a decadal time scale. And no, there is no evidence that they are about to start dropping. Though there is some degree of speculation about whether reduced solar activity might occur, the National Solar Observatory makes it abundantly clear that the exact relationship, ie the finer details like sunspot activity and so-forth, between Earth's climate and solar activity is not yet fully understood (except to sceptics of course, who apparently understand it much better than solar physicists do) and so drawing any conclusions about future temperature trends from this must be done very carefully.

Solar physicists and oceanographers seem to have a better idea of global weather than so-called climatologists

You cannot be serious. Many scientists studying climate (ie, "climate scientists") actually have solar physics and oceanography training or work for solar physics/oceanography organisations! The world's foremost Oceanography institution is the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. Have a look at what they say about the earth's climate. Here, I'll start you off:

Scripps Institute - Research into ocean acidification due to CO2 increases and anthropogenic climate change
Scripps Institute - Scripps researchers tackle one of climate change modelling's toughest challenges
A quote from the above article: "We are trying to understand the major sources of aerosols in our atmosphere and how they affect the overall temperature of our planet; as opposed to greenhouse gases which we know are warming....."

Ocean levels are decreasing.

Yes indeed they are undergoing a pronounced and precipitous fall, as you can see in this graph using Sea Level data from the University of Colorado (the drop at the end, if you actually read the scientific narratives, is due to the El Nino/La Nina changeover):

.....and the Arctic ice cap, while down, is showing signs of recovery

yeah you can clearly see the Arctic ice recovery in the latest Polar Science Centre data:




I was going to respond to much more, and a couple of other posts, but I can only digest a certain maximum amount of garbage in a single day before I get a tummy upset.

[konstantin]

Whatever one`s opinions on the matter, the last two posts by Lodown and DutchRoll are a perfect example of the science not being settled. Sceptic or warmista sites, one sees it constantly and ad nauseam.

eg

- Panic, arctic ice is reducing. But it would be nice to compare the current trend and amount to what we had in the 1920/30s. Pity the sat records only start in 1979.

- Sea levels are rising. Yep, have been for a looong time, the point being? Apparently they absolutely rocketed up a few thousand years ago too.

- Degree of anthropogenic attribution please. Oh, I forgot, Trenberth says 5%, for extreme weather events anyway. So there, QED.

- Net recession of glaciers. Yep, since last century. Nothing to do with a multi-centennial cycle and coming out of the LIA?

LIA has been debunked, see...
No, the hockey stick has been debunked, see...
No it hasn`t, see...
Yes it has, see...

Etc, etc, et bloody c....

The amazing thing is that while all of this is going on, we have the most alarming pronouncements being blindly parroted on the news by pollies, eg

"New advice indicates that sea levels could rise by [insert any ludicrous amount you like here] metres this coming century"

"450ppm - 2 degrees - tipping point/irreversible"...repeat after me...

Three years ago all of this was "care factor zero" for me - then over a period of a few months the BS detector started going off, the constant references to "carbon" and "pollution", and black balloons popping out of washing machines and DVD players on those telly ads, and "climate change" sans the human-caused prefix were all cumulatively just a little too Goebbels...did more and more digging thereafter. Conclusion?

The "science" is far from "settled". Although many people/organisations/businesses, for a multitude of diverse and self-interested reasons, would have us believe otherwise.

And as always, the bottom line is - exactly what is unilateral action by Oz going to achieve? Oh wait, there will be an international scheme by 2016. Yes there will. We just have to talk China and India and the US and Canada and Russia and Japan into it, that`s all.
But they will come around. You`ll see.


PS Comparing Earth and Venus brings to mind the "apples and oranges" adage. Have certainly seen lots of he said/she said on that one!

[teresa green]

I would not worry about it to much fella's, unless you are aged 10, you are never going to know the truth. I wonder if the poor buggers in the ice age, had to pay half a rabbit leg in tax or what?

[Lodown]

Must agree Teresa. More emails released overnight:

Kjellen:

I agree with Nick that climate change might be a better labelling than global warming.

So much for that "popular myth".

<1682> Wils:

[2007] What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multidecadal natural fluctuation? They’ll kill us probably [...]

<2267> Wilson:

Although I agree that GHGs are important in the 19th/20th century (especially since the 1970s), if the weighting of solar forcing was stronger in the models, surely this would diminish the significance of GHGs.
[...] it seems to me that by weighting the solar irradiance more strongly in the models, then much of the 19th to mid 20th century warming can be explained from the sun alone.

Better not increase the weighting of solar forcing then. It would diminish the impact of CO2 on the pro-AGWer's argument and we can't have that.

<4241> Wilson:

I thought I’d play around with some randomly generated time-series and see if I could ‘reconstruct’ northern hemisphere temperatures.
[...] The reconstructions clearly show a ‘hockey-stick’ trend. I guess this is precisely the phenomenon that Macintyre has been going on about.

Ooops, slight embarrassment.

<5066> Hegerl:

[IPCC AR5 models]
So using the 20th c for tuning is just doing what some people have long suspected us of doing [...] and what the nonpublished diagram from NCAR showing correlation between aerosol forcing and sensitivity also suggested.

<4443> Jones:

Basic problem is that all models are wrong – not got enough middle and low level clouds.

<4085> Jones:

GKSS is just one model and it is a model, so there is no need for it to be correct.

Models wrong? Never!

On Freedom of Information:

<1473> McGarvie/UEA Director of Faculty Administration:

As we are testing EIR with the other climate audit org request relating to communications with other academic colleagues, I think that we would weaken that case if we supplied the information in this case. So I would suggest that we decline this one (at the very end of the time period)

<1577> Jones:

[FOI, temperature data]
Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden. I’ve discussed this with the main funder (US Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.

No data hidden? Well, not much anyway.

More here.

[flyingfox]

Great work Lodown. More meaningless trash from a sceptic blog called 'climategate'. That's a pretty creative name! (May cut it with your average bogan too.) Your research is impeccable!

[DutchRoll]

Yep, Lodown, because a single sentence of an email, or maybe two at best, gives you ALL the perspective you need, doesn't it? Here's an extract from an email I sent to someone a while back:

I'm gonna kill him....

Should you:

a) report me immediately to the police on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder?

b) perhaps ask me about the context of the rest of the email and what it was referring to before you report me to the police?

Of course, if you happened to be a reasonable person and chose answer b), you might discover that the statement was not in fact a murder plot, but an initial reaction just after I found out I'd been ripped off by a tradesman who performed substandard work. Wow! Who'd have ever guessed that the 2 second sound-bite from my email makes it out to appear much worse than it actually is? On the other hand, if you don't like me anyway, you might not be bothered researching the surrounding context and just send your accusation straight to the police, together with that snippet from the email. Then you run the risk of being made to look a little like a fool after the police have finished their inquiries.

Well this is exactly what happened to climate scientists, and the fake-sceptics indeed looked a little foolish, though this didn't discourage them from alleging ever greater and more elaborate conspiracies after each subsequent inquiry cleared the scientists. And you can read the results of the "police" inquiries here:

The 1st inquiry clearing climate scientists - UK House of Commons Science and Technology committee

The 2nd inquiry clearing climate scientists - The Science Assessment Panel chaired by Lord Oxburgh

The 3rd inquiry clearing climate scientists - The Penn State University Investigatory Committee

The 4th inquiry clearing climate scientists - The Independent climate Change Email Review chaired by Sir Muir Russell

The 5th inquiry clearing climate scientists - The US Environmental Protection Agency investigation and response to petitions claiming the emails undermined the science (see comments 2-37, 2-38, 2-39)

And the piece-de-resistance, when the Inspector General of the National Science Foundation announced an inquiry into the inquiry by Penn State Uni, the sceptics finally erupted in cheers and applause, stating that it would be the first "truly independent" investigation, and because the Inspector General himself was a climate change sceptic. And guess what? Come on.....bet you can't guess what he found! Come on.....have a guess.......

The 6th inquiry clearing climate scientists - Closeout Memorandum from the Office of the Inspector General of the National Science Foundation

THEN try explaining this very inconvenient recent event:

Retiring to lick their wounds, the fake climate-change sceptics held on tightly to their last bastion of hope: A sceptic himself, Dr Richard Muller, a physicist, had formed a group of eminent scientists (well, all except one, Judith Curry) called the "Berkley Earth Surface Temperature Project" to reanalyse all the temperature data. It was even blessed by the infamous "sceptic-without-any-science-qualifications-at-all" Anthony Watts, who personally vowed to "accept its conclusions", even if his allegations that the temperature record was fudged and manipulated were wrong.

And guess what? Come on again. Bet you can't guess what results the sceptical BEST group came up with!

Berkley Earth Surface Temperature Project - 20th October 2011 - Global Warming is real

Well golly. Whoever would've guessed? The absolute funniest thing is that now the sceptics have turned on Berkley Earth and Muller viciously. They used to love the sceptical Dr Muller. Now they hate him, wondering how the Government managed to implant the mind-control "global warming alarmist" chip inside his head. Of course, the truth is that he simply analysed the raw data, and it shows what it shows, and there is no conspiracy except inside the tortured minds of those who desperately want to believe that there is one. And you can sit at home in your rocking chair sucking your thumb and mumbling how it's all a conspiracy as much as you like, but it isn't going to change that.

Originally Posted by konstantin

PS Comparing Earth and Venus brings to mind the "apples and oranges" adage. Have certainly seen lots of he said/she said on that one!

Well to be fair I never said they were the same (though they do share a few similar characteristics). You can see what a runaway greenhouse effect is like on Venus. However I specifically said that is not happening on Earth, though it is possible if the conditions were right in the more distant future.

If you frequent the "sceptical" blogs, as some here obviously do, you can see lots of allegations from fake-sceptics, particularly one Steven Goddard, that Venus isn't really a runaway greenhouse effect. This view is treated with near universal contempt by real planetary scientists, astronomers, etc, because there's simply no evidence to support it, and a lot of evidence to support a runaway greenhouse on Venus.

[teresa green]

I don't know how to break this to you Dutch Roll, but the UBS report that was tabled this morning shows that at the present time the Europeans have spent approx 287 Billion on carbon waste. For zero impact. Naturally they are getting a little pissed off, and the EU carbon pricing market is now on the verge of collapse. Of course we have our two hero's stepping in to save the world, one because he (Brown) believes all this stuff, the other because she sees a opportunity to redistribute wealth. We should be so lucky. Looks like the only carbon trading we will be doing is with ourselves.

[konstantin]

BEST??

More he said/she said?

Two new papers vs. BEST | Climate Etc.

BEST;

Publically released before peer review...
but that was only in terms of the preliminary results...
and "to make the science behind global warming readily available to the public"...
and "in order to invite additional scrutiny"...
and I am sure the timing and manner of all this had nothing whatsoever to do with Durban COP17...
and "will form part" of the literature for AR5.

So much for the "bleat, bleat, but it hasn`t been peer reviewed, I`m not listening, neeh, neeh!" standard m.o. from certain quarters...

And for goodness sake don`t mention

"What Berkeley Earth has not done is make an independent assessment of how much of the observed warming is due to human action, Richard Muller acknowledged"

But that`s only a minor detail...

Yes.
"Global warming is real"
No argument there.
Never was...

[DutchRoll]

The Rise and Rise of "Fake" Scepticism and Google Scholarship

Judith Curry's website eh? Have you critically examined this? Have you looked at discussion and debate about her work - not by laypeople - but by scientists of significant standing within the Earth Sciences community? Have you looked at those two papers she refers to in the link? Have you looked at where they were published? Do you know what the "EIKE" is? Do you know what "Energy and Environment" is? Do you know what its scientific standing is?

Part of being a true sceptic, as opposed to a fake one, is asking questions like these and establishing the reliability/credibility of your sources. because the web is wonderful tool for both information and misinformation as we all know. So given the answers to all those questions, I am immediately suspicious that those two papers may not be all you're cracking them up to be. A true sceptic would be sceptical (no surprise there), until they have either been verified by other scientists of significant standing, or until they have been torn down as deeply flawed junk. Sure, I concede this may be an amazing new breakthrough suddenly showing that the rest of the scientific world has got it all wrong. But you'll excuse me if I don't head off to Ladbrokes and wager money on that possibility.

Google Scholarship

Another point I want to make related to scepticism in general is "Google Scholarship". Google returns answers from websites which are only as good as the search terms you use. If you suspect the moon landings were faked, then google "NASA faked moon landings" and you'll be rewarded with information that confirms your suspicions (as long as you ignore the first hit, which is NASA's own website).

It's a beautiful example on this thread that someone seriously thinks Arctic ice is recovering. I have no doubt that this was extracted from a "sceptical" website. If you want to confirm it, just google "Arctic Ice recovery" and you'll be rewarded with "sceptical" websites arguing exactly that, and giving you all the information you need.........except that the information is wrong and totally misleading (usually deliberately so IMHO). If you go to a serious website where people actually do scientific research, like the National Snow and Ice Data Centre, or the Polar Science Centre, or a dozen others, you can get the real information which shows this is nonsense.

But "fake" sceptics seem incapable of, or just not inclined to actually do this level of research.

Originally Posted by konstantin

Publically released before peer review...

As a "sceptic", do you or do you not believe that the peer review process is fundamentally flawed? If it is (as many sceptics allege), then why would you care whether it hasn't been peer-reviewed? Not reviewing it would simply remove any alleged peer-review bias. If it is not flawed, then how do you reconcile that it simply agrees with the rest of the peer-reviewed literature? In fact, how do you reconcile that anyway, regardless of your views on peer-review?

And for goodness sake don`t mention

"What Berkeley Earth has not done is make an independent assessment of how much of the observed warming is due to human action, Richard Muller acknowledged"

BEST was created specifically to address allegations from fake-sceptics, primarily originating from the "climategate" scandal, that the temperature record has been doctored or otherwise screwed up by scientists. It has done exactly that, and sceptics are not happy with the results because they confirm what every other credible scientific analysis of global temperature trends says, and that's not what sceptics wanted to hear.

Yes. "Global warming is real" No argument there. Never was.

Bulldust. See above. Fake-sceptics have been screaming at the top of their lungs since "climategate" that scientific observations of warming planetary temperatures are all proven to be a giant con. There is an argument there and no matter what evidence is presented to them, fake-sceptics simply will not allow it to go away! The evidence of this is how they have now turned on Muller's team like a pack of wolves! Muller may not have analysed (yet) how much is due to human action, but based on the current trend of BEST confirming exactly what the evidence in the peer-reviewed scientific literature has said for years, are you willing to take a bet that he'll discover something totally different? I mean, do you seriously believe this is a likely outcome?

[blackhand]

I think it's a good idea

In what way is it a good idea?
Whilst I can not see any affect on my finances or lifestyle, there are some who see an affect on themselves and businesses.
In this case would you agree that there may be another way to mitigate or eliminate pollution - carbon or otherwise?
I too have utilised internet searches for information, on the science not the politics, and have been dismayed at the pollution over chinese industrial centres, the desertifaction of china and massive population increases there and worldwide.
I feel that this has more impact on world climate, than the pollution output of Australia's industrial society.

[chuboy]

Well fkuc me peter. There is a post worthy of being catalogued.

I now know the calibre of the idiots who put this Country in it's present state and, of more importance, whom to blame.

Off topic but I don't think we're doing too badly as a country for all intents and purposes.

Better looking economy than Europe or the USA. Not quite as good as China but a much nicer place to work as a result. Good weather, plenty of food for everybody.

Seems to be a lot of whingers, though...

[konstantin]

DutchRoll

We seem to be talking at cross purposes to an extent?

Judith Curry - have heard her referred to rather condescendingly by some, to be sure. Mostly names one would associate with the warmista side, from memory. Not forgetting she is perceived as a traitor to the cause - which is a pity because her site is as close as I have been able to find to something even approaching neutral ground.
Lucia`s is another blogsite which verges on middle ground, although some would dispute that.
If you can come up with another suggestion for a site which does not rabidly proselytise either side of the argument I am genuinely all ears...we all know where to go for a pro or anti "fix".

Peer Review - perhaps I was a little too sarcastic in my allusion to the standard line of the pro brigade about something having to be peer reviewed and published preferably in certain journals - but when it suits the cause then never mind that particular little requirement ...especially if there may be tight timeframes involved???

This article I found quite interesting

Three myths about scientific peer review | Michael Nielsen

the last para or two might put my tongue-in-cheek remarks into perspective?

BEST - some people are not happy with the results because they possibly disagree with the methodologies used?
Elsewhere and previously, windshear proxy data vs actual temps and suchlike...area extrapolation of temps...debate over UHI correction techniques...it just goes on...

Global Warming is Real - okay...
The world has warmed by anywhere between half and one degree C in approximately the last century.
The debate I have seen is to do with the veracity of particular records, the way they are interpreted/presented, the means by which there can be a definitive anthropogenic component identified, and the degree of the component itself.
That was my point.

As far as modelling projections are concerned it is an even bigger can of wriggly things - and the "consensus" crutch is becoming a rather tiresome motherhood catchphrase indeed. Seems to be as commonly used as "carbon" and "pollution" for the benefit of the 6 o`clock news LCD. And there appears to be rather a lot of "consensus" disputation out there...

Layer that over with considerations of it being "to advantage" for organisations, individuals, corporations, departments and governments to continue to milk the whole concept for all it`s worth...pragmatically the overall picture makes for an interesting construct indeed. The Chinese r23 rort readily comes to mind.

All I know is that there has been little significant warming trend, if any, over the last decade or so - which flies in the face of the previous adamant "we are pumping CO2, and look, temps are increasing". So QED.
Except that lately we are pumping even more CO2, but the temps, hmmm...which is where the "but just you wait" argument starts coming in real handy. Pardon my cynicism...

But let`s say you are right...given political and economic world realities I have mentioned in previous posts (and dealing with the thread title itself!) ;
- What to do about it?
- What will Australia`s tokenistic approach achieve in the absence of a whole-of-world emissions actual mitigation process?
[NB - shuffling CERs around the world is not mitigation...except maybe on paper]

Tiring of all this, just quietly - rest assured DR, not a snide reference to this particular exchange!


Might chill out and amuse myself with Climategate II for a while though...that may recharge the batteries...

"What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multidecadal natural fluctuation? They’ll kill us probably"

Gotta love it...hang on, I thought the science was settled?
Jools keeps saying it is...

[Ultralights]

wasnt this thread about the impact of this new carbon tax, not a debate over climate change, global warming or whateve it will be called next week...