Rudd government censured on climate change

23 February, 2010 by

A gesture only, but a symbolic one none the less:

The federal government has been censured by the Senate for failing to adequately deliver climate change programs.

The coalition and all seven cross-bench senators teamed up on Tuesday to reprimand Labor over its mismanagement of the home insulation, green loans and solar rebate schemes.

In moving the censure motion, Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said there had also been “gross and systemic failure” in the government’s renewable remote power generation program and renewable energy target.

“The use of the censure, I can assure senators, is not taken by me – after 24 years parliamentary experience – lightly at all,” he told parliament.

“However we are, as a nation, witnessing one of the most gross episodes of mishandling of the public money and the public trust in recent governments history.”

One of the very rare occasions where I agree with Bob Brown. But why is Peter “Big baldy ball-bag” Garrett still in his job, after one of the worst displays of ministerial incompetence in living memory?

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Great Barrier Reef: alive and well

23 February, 2010 by

Doing OK

The UK Telegraph reports that a study has shown the health of the GBR has been markedly improved by the emissions reductions policies implemented throughout the globe which have halted climate change… er, no, wait, a strict fishing ban:

The study has raised hopes that years of decline on the world’s biggest living organism can be reversed.

Australian researchers said their findings had proved “no-take” zones set up in 2004 to prohibit fishing have had a significant benefit.

“The results are actually quite impressive. Having a higher proportion of protected areas is good for marine life, it’s good for fish and it’s good for people who rely on the reef for a living,” said Laurence McCook, the lead author of the report by the Australian Research Centre’s Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences, shows the zones have more and bigger fish, including sharks, and less damage to coral.

“That’s a very important result not only for the reef, because corals build the reef, but it’s also important for the tourism and fishing industries because fish rely on coral for their habitat,” said Mr McCook.

All good news then? Of course not. We couldn’t end without playing the “Climate Joker”:

However, he warned the reef was also facing a significant danger from climate change, which bleaches the coral and impedes its growth by raising the water’s temperature and acidity.

Phew, I was starting to worry there for a minute…

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With:

ETS bill "delayed until May"

23 February, 2010 by

So “the greatest moral challenge since the start of the universe” (© KRudd) suddenly isn’t so urgent after all. But hang on… just a couple of months ago, it was essential we passed the ETS before Copenhagen, wasn’t it? Or is it because Rudd has no principles whatsoever and his only political compass is popularity, which he slavishly follows, so that now the ETS is proving an electoral liability, he’s looking for ways to quietly abandon both it and his robotic minister, Penny Wong? Hmm.

THE future of the government’s emissions trading scheme was in disarray last night with claims that the Senate vote on the bill could be delayed until May.

The possible delay, the result of the opposition blocking a procedural vote in the Senate, has cast fresh doubt on the government’s ability to create an election trigger on its amended climate legislation.

Last night the government was seeking legal advice about whether it could force an earlier vote than the May sitting. Each side blamed the other for the delay, which resulted from the Senate’s blocking a motion yesterday to speed up the debate.

The government has already dropped the emissions trading scheme from the parliamentary schedule this week to give priority to establishing a double dissolution election trigger on its changes to the private health insurance means test.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

UK Telegraph's hysterical alarmism

22 February, 2010 by

Still there?

The Telegraph is the home of those formidable sceptics Christopher Booker and James Delingpole. Unfortunately, it is also the home of some moonbat environmental reporters who will regurgitate any old rubbish that flops onto their desks. This is an example of the latter:

Climate change could be accelerated by ‘methane time bomb’

Climate change could be accelerated dramatically by rising levels of methane in the Earth’s atmosphere, scientists will warn today.

Atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas, which is as much as 60 times more potent than carbon dioxide, appear to have risen significantly for the past three years running, scientists say.

Experts have long feared that vast amounts of the natural gas trapped in the frozen tundra of the Arctic could be unlocked as the permafrost is melted by rising temperatures, triggering a “methane time bomb” that could cause temperatures to soar.

More melting of the Arctic ice caused by accelerating warming would release further gases, setting off a “feedback” mechanism which could send climate change spinning out of control.

A brilliant example of irresponsible, hysterical, unfounded scaremongering, especially considering the final sentence:

Professor Nisbet told The Independent at the weekend that the new figures did not necessarily mark a departure from the trend. “It may just be a couple of years of high growth, and it may drop back to what it was,” he said.

Shame on the Telegraph for printing it.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Sea-level rise paper withdrawn from journal

22 February, 2010 by

Pure science fiction

From The Science is Settled Department. The UK Guardian [staggers back in amazement – Ed] reports that scary predictions of sea-level rises in a Nature paper have been withdrawn, with the author admitting to “mistakes”:

Scientists have been forced to withdraw a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes that undermined the findings.

The study, published in 2009 in Nature Geoscience, one of the top journals in its field, confirmed the conclusions of the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It used data over the last 22,000 years to predict that sea level would rise by between 7cm and 82cm by the end of the century.

At the time, Mark Siddall, from the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Bristol, said the study “strengthens the confidence with which one may interpret the IPCC results“. The IPCC said that sea level would probably rise by 18cm-59cm by 2100, though stressed this was based on incomplete information about ice sheet melting and that the true rise could be higher. [Isn’t it strange that they didn’t say “it could be lower” as well? Cynics may say that shows evidence of bias… – Ed]

Many scientists [alarmists – Ed] criticised the IPCC approach as too conservative, and several papers since have suggested that sea level could rise more [If you torture the data long enough, it will confess – Ed]. Martin Vermeer of the Helsinki University of Technology, Finland and Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany published a study in December that projected a rise of 0.75m to 1.9m by 2100.

Siddall said that he did not know whether the retracted paper’s estimate of sea level rise was an overestimate or an underestimate. [But I bet we can guess which he hoped it was – Ed]

And then the poor chap does his best to put a brave face on it (three times):

  • “It’s one of those things that happens. People make mistakes and mistakes happen in science.”
  • “Retraction is a regular part of the publication process.”
  • “Science is a complicated game and there are set procedures in place that act as checks and balances.”

Read it here. (h/t Climate Change Fraud)

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With:

SMH: valiantly plugging the warmist agenda

22 February, 2010 by

The Sydney Moonbat Herald will print any old rubbish as long as it supports their conclusion (formed years ago) that global warming is real and dangerous. In this case, they publish an article from AFP that fits the bill perfectly:

Tropical storms to be more intense

Tropical cyclones may become less frequent this century but pack a stronger punch as a result of global warming, a new study says.

The study published on Sunday is an overview of work into one of the scariest yet also one of the least understood aspects of climate change.

Known in the Atlantic as hurricanes and in eastern Asia as typhoons, tropical storms are driven by the raw fuel of warm seas, which raises the question about what may happen when temperatures rise as a result of greenhouse gases.

Tom Knutson and colleagues from the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) looked at peer-reviewed investigations that have appeared over the past four years, when the issue began to hit the headlines.

Their benchmark for warming is the “A1B” scenario, a middle-of-the-road computer simulation which predicts a global average surface temperature rise of 2.8 degrees Celsius over the 21st century.

“It is likely that the global frequency of tropical cyclones will either decrease or remain essentially unchanged,” says the paper.

But storms could have more powerful winds – an increase of between two and 11 per cent – and dump more water, it warns.

The SMH will love this of course, since it bolsters the IPCC’s position on hurricanes and cyclones. But it’s all based on model projections and speculation: may, likely, could. We already have 30 years of low-level warming since the late 1970s to use as an empirical test of change in cyclone energy, and what do we find (click for full size):

No change…

And that’s the point – we now regard the projections of climate models as being more “truthful” than empirical observations.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

OT: Rudd's own hockey stick

21 February, 2010 by

The graph actually shows the number of asylum seekers in immigration detention in Australia. The red spot shows the point where our glorious leader, Saint Kevin of Rudd, emasculated the previous Howard government’s policy. Boats are arriving on a daily basis. I wonder why? Is it because the word got out that Australia had overnight become a soft touch, and so you’re better off trying to get in there rather than anywhere else? At a time when global asylum seeker numbers are actually falling?

Global temperature… no, wait

Where’s the Medieval Warm Period again? Not even Phil Jones could fudge those figures (“hide the incline”)…

h/t: The Sheik

Filed Under: Aussie Politics Tagged With:

Idiotic Comment of the Day: Martin Rees

21 February, 2010 by

Rees in Great Court, Trinity

“Lord” Rees is the President of the Royal Society, which used to be a highly respected scientific organisation, but which is now reduced to a hysterical advocacy group for global warming. This is demonstrated admirably by Rees, who tries to sweep the entire Climategate, Hurricanegate, every-other-kind-of-gate, under the rug with this one sentence:

‘My personal take is the key bit of evidence is the rise in CO2 concentration plus simple physics. If we had no data other than that, that would be enough.’

Phew, thanks for clearing that up. We can all go home now.

Read it here.

P.S. I am ashamed to say that Rees is currently Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, which is my old college. I cringe with embarrassment.

Filed Under: Climate

Obama's climate plans in tatters

21 February, 2010 by

All going wrong

You wait ages for an Obama story, then two come along at once. The UK Telegraph reports on Obama’s woes in pursuing his deep green agenda. Not only is the cap-n-trade bill going nowhere, but the EPA’s endangerment finding (that labels the essential, harmless trace gas CO2 a “pollutant”) is being challenged in the courts:

President Barack Obama’s climate change policy is in crisis amid a barrage of US lawsuits challenging goverment directives and the defection of major corporate backers for his ambitious green programmes.

The legal challenges and splits in the US climate consensus follow revelations of major flaws in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which declared that global warming was no longer scientifically contestable.

Critics of America’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are now mounting a series of legal challenges to its so-called “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases are a threat to human health.

That ruling, based in part on the IPCC’s work, gave the agency sweeping powers to force business to curb emissions under the Clean Air Act. An initial showdown is expected over rules on vehicle emissions.

Oil-rich Texas, the Lone Star home state of Mr Obama’s predecessor George W Bush, is mounting one of the most prominent challenges to the EPA, claiming new regulations will impose a crippling financial toll on agriculture and energy producers.

“With billions of dollars at stake, EPA outsourced the scientific basis for its greenhouse gas regulation to a scandal-plagued international organization that cannot be considered objective or trustworthy,” said Greg Abbott, Texas’s attorney general.

“Prominent climate scientists associated with the IPCC were engaged in an ongoing, orchestrated effort to violate freedom of information laws, exclude scientific research, and manipulate temperature data.

“In light of the parade of controversies and improper conduct that has been uncovered, we know that the IPCC cannot be relied upon for objective, unbiased science – so EPA should not rely upon it to reach a decision that will hurt small businesses, farmers, ranchers, and the larger Texas economy.”

Makes Penny Wong’s claim that there is a global trend towards greater climate action even more ludicrous.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Idiotic Comment of the Day: Barack Obama

20 February, 2010 by

Clueless

Just like Rudd and Wong, Obama is utterly clueless on climate:

US President Barack Obama has rebuked climate change sceptics who argue that piles of snow dumped on the United States during a frigid winter cast doubt on global warming science.

‘We just got five feet (1.5 metres) of snow in Washington,’ said Obama, when asked about alternative energy projects during a town hall meeting in Nevada.

‘Opponents of climate change, they say — ‘see look at that, there is all this snow on the ground — this doesn’t mean anything’.’

‘I want to just be clear that the science of climate change doesn’t mean every place is getting warmer — it means the planet as a whole is getting warmer.’

Obama cited the lack of snow in Vancouver during the current winter Olympics and unusual snowstorms in places like Dallas in the southern United States as examples of violent weather patterns brought on by climate change.

By the garbled language of those quotes, he didn’t have his teleprompter to rely on.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,
«Previous Page
Next Page»