China urged to take more climate action, so Australia will be "left behind"

1 September, 2011 by

"Low carbon" China

In public, Labor claims that China is at the forefront of tackling climate change, and therefore Australia will be “left behind” unless we enact a pointless carbon tax. However, in the shadows (as revealed by Wikileaks), Australia has secretly complained to China about their lack of real commitment to such action. In other words, please improve your action on climate change so we can use it to justify our own:

THE Gillard government has always publicly insisted China is taking significant steps to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, but WikiLeaks cables reveal senior Australian bureaucrats complained privately to China about the ”lack of ambition” in that country’s targets.

A confidential cable sent from the US embassy in Canberra in January last year, weeks after the disastrous Copenhagen climate change conference, reported the then secretary of the Department of Climate Change, Dr Martin Parkinson, said his department ”expressed concern to Chinese diplomats over the lack of ambition in the [Chinese] stated goal of a 40 to 45 per cent reduction in carbon intensity by 2020.” [ACM Note: don’t forget, “carbon [dioxide] intensity” is emissions per unit GDP, and since China’s GDP is going through the roof, emissions in absolute terms will continue to rise]

The 40 to 45 per cent reduction in emissions intensity target was pledged by China at Copenhagen and remains that country’s target. The government’s climate change adviser, Professor Ross Garnaut, judged it to be more than China’s ”fair share” of global emission reductions.

Dr Parkinson, now Treasury secretary, told US officials Australia’s emissions trading legislation would be ”seriously jeopardised” if China did not inscribe its target in the UN agreement. China eventually did, but the legislation failed anyway. (source)

Yet another example of a government addicted to spin, that will say one thing to the electorate, and yet believe precisely the opposite in private.

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Labor: clueless on climate, abysmal on asylum seekers

1 September, 2011 by

Not a climate story, but really THE story here in Australia today, is the High Court’s demolition of Gillard’s asylum seeker policy, which, in brief, was an agreement to send 800 boat arrivals to Malaysia in exchange for 4000 genuine refugees. The policy is now in tatters, having been ruled unlawful – the 800 will stay in Australia, but we still must accept the 4000 from Malaysia.

On climate, the government has treated the electorate with contempt, using blatant lies to mislead the public about the carbon tax. In the case of asylum seekers, the Malaysia solution was formulated SOLELY to cling on to political pride – the Gillard government was unable to bring itself to admit that the former Coalition’s Pacific solution actually worked. The Malaysia solution was therefore labelled the “anywhere but Nauru” policy by the Coalition, after the processing centre previously used, very successfully, by the government of John Howard. And now the whole thing has been torn down, leaving yet another key Labor policy area shredded.

This government is incompetent, arrogant, contemptuous, disconnected, compromised, and, thanks to the ongoing grubby saga of Craig Thomson, sleazy as well. When will it end? Somebody spare us.

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UK: coldest summer since 1993

31 August, 2011 by

Not exactly Bondi, is it?

From the Weather Isn’t Climate Department. Ah, memories of an English summer’s day on the beach when I was a kid – before Global Warming, that is: covered in goosebumps, sand in the ice-cream, the bucket and spade are halfway to France, with the beach-ball not far behind, desperately trying to stop Granny’s deck chair from taking off, and now it’s drizzling. Idyllic. Looks like those halcyon days might be on the way back:

As Britons return to work today after a soggy Bank Holiday weekend, official weather data reveals that average temperatures were significantly down on recent years.

The UK’s average temperature from June 1 to August 15 was only 57F (13.9C) – the lowest for 13 years.

For central England the average was 59F (15C), making it the coolest summer since 1993.

Helen Waite, a Met Office forecaster, said: “The average temperature for central England this summer has been just 15C – this sort of temperature is normally typical of September.

“Generally speaking, you would expect to see temperatures of at least 17C for this time of year.”

Source.

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Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change – Interim Report 2011

30 August, 2011 by

For an up to date summary of the huge body of science that challenges the “consensus”, check out the NIPCC report’s latest update here.

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Bravo! ABC's balanced report on CLOUD

29 August, 2011 by

No bias! Hooray!

Credit where credit is due. I don’t want to knock Auntie just for the hell of it, so I am very happy to shower ABC Science with praise (OK, bit strong perhaps, maybe just a gentlemanly “well done” will suffice) for a balanced and sensible report on the CLOUD experiment at CERN.

No alarmism, no rubbishing the results, no questioning of the funding, no sneering comment from David Karoly or Andy Pitman, no pompous soundbites from Robyn Williams or Bernie Hobbs, no caveat that it’s still “really” all down to CO2 – none of that, just a fair and reasonable reporting of the results. Excellent.

Climate scientists have discovered a mystery factor in climate change models, following new research at the CERN particle accelerator, near Geneva.

First results from the CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets) experiment show that trace vapours in the atmosphere, which until now had been thought to account for all aerosol formation, actually only explain a minute proportion of atmospheric aerosol production.

The research, published in the journal Nature, also shows that ionisation from cosmic rays may play a significant role in the process.

Understanding how new aerosol particles form in the atmosphere, and the effect these particles have on climate, is one of the big challenges of atmospheric science.

[ACM editor falls off chair at this point]. See? You can do it. It really isn’t that hard. Well done to author Carl Holm for this piece.

Read the rest here.

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Official: climate change makes you crazy

29 August, 2011 by

No climate crisis, no Climate Institute

It certainly makes me crazy – listening to the nonsensical ramblings of Gillard, Combet, Flannery, Brown, Milne, Gore and Garnaut is enough to send even the most level-headed individual completely round the bend.

But here we have the totally impartial Climate Institute, with no vested interest in the outcome, clearly, commissioning a report on the effect of climate change on the population’s mental health. So given the report’s provenance, was there ever any chance that the conclusion would be anything other than alarmist? No, because with no climate crisis, there would be no Climate Institute.

RATES of mental illnesses including depression and post-traumatic stress will increase as a result of climate change, a report to be released today says.

The paper, prepared for the Climate Institute, says loss of social cohesion in the wake of severe weather events related to climate change could be linked to increased rates of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and substance abuse.

As many as one in five people reported ”emotional injury, stress and despair” in the wake of these events.

The report, A Climate of Suffering: The Real Cost of Living with Inaction on Climate Change, called the past 15 years a ”preview of life under unrestrained global warming”.

”While cyclones, drought, bushfires and floods are all a normal part of Australian life, there is no doubt our climate is changing,” the report says.

”For instance, the intensity and frequency of bushfires is greater [no evidence. More to do with idiotic green policies prohibiting land clearing – Ed]. This is a ‘new normal’, for which the past provides little guidance …

”Moreover, recent conditions are entirely consistent with the best scientific predictions: as the world warms so the weather becomes wilder [no evidence – Ed], with big consequences for people’s health and well-being.”

How many nonsensical statements can you find? The only sensible statement is “cyclones, drought bushfires and floods are all a normal part of Australian life”. Yes, have been for thousands of years and will continue to be for thousands more.

This is total junk science, reported gleefully by Fairfax (where else?).

Read it here.

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Gore apes Combet: compares sceptics to "racists"

29 August, 2011 by

Al "Three Monitors" Gore

Remember Greg Combet nonsensically branding the Coalition’s position on climate a “white carbon policy” a few days ago? Now we have Al Gore (who he? – Ed) comparing sceptics with racists.

Gore, like Combet, has no arguments left and has abandoned any pretence of his cause being grounded on some kind of scientific basis. Now it’s all about morals, a sure sign that he, like Combet, Gillard etc, is a busted flush. Gore is now fully unhinged, desperate to keep the climate bandwagon rolling to protect his green investments:

“There came a time when friends or people you work with or people you were in clubs with — you’re much younger than me so you didn’t have to go through this personally — but there came a time when racist comments would come up in the course of the conversation and in years past they were just natural. Then there came a time when people would say, ‘Hey, man why do you talk that way, I mean that is wrong. I don’t go for that so don’t talk that way around me. I just don’t believe that.’ That happened in millions of conversations and slowly the conversation was won.”

“We have to win the conversation on climate,” Gore added.

When Bogusky questioned the analogy, asking if the scientific reasoning behind climate change skeptics might throw a wrench into the good and evil comparison with racism, Gore did not back down.

“I think it’s the same where the moral component is concerned and where the facts are concerned I think it is important to get that out there, absolutely,” Gore said.

As usual when figures like Gore and Combet try to justify their belief in the climate religion by resorting to ridiculous comparisons to issues of race or morality, we should be satisfied that their argument is well and truly lost.

Read it here (thanks to WUWT).

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Irene a rainy mess

28 August, 2011 by

Tropical depression?

Irene has disintegrated into a rainy mess of a thing. Eye disappeared long ago, any kind of structure has vanished. Winds are strong, rain is heavy, but a hurricane it ain’t.

Link to live image here.

UPDATE: This in the comments from Klem, cowering under the worst storm in history:

“I live on the east coast and Irene is on top of us right this minute. It is windy and rainy, nothing out of the ordinary. This is an average August storm, we get them every year in August. I was watching CNN this morning and they were trying to make this storm out ot be as scary and damaging as they could, they were trying to keep the story alive as long as they could, especially after telling everyone that this was the most powerful hurricane in recent memory. It was no use, this hurricane has fizzled.

This is not climate change, this is climate normal.”

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Hurricane "Global Warming" Irene

27 August, 2011 by

Just weather?

As we all know, any and all weather events can now be attributed to climate change. What did we do before the AGW scare? If there was a large hurricane it was just the chaotic nature of the planet’s atmosphere at work. Historical records would show that there were hurricanes in the past of similar intensity which would help to reinforce our conclusion – we never believed there was anything sinister at work.

How it has changed. Now we can blame anything and everything on global warming. We don’t need no stinking historical records. So it’s completely unsurprising that Hurricane Irene is naturally a product of an evil (sorry, harmless) trace gas emitted by prosperous and healthy economies:

Irene’s got a middle name, and it’s Global Warming.

As she roars up the Eastern Seaboard, everyone is doing what they should—boarding windows, preparing rescue plans, stocking up on batteries. But a lot of people are also wondering: what’s a “tropical” storm doing heading for the snow belt?

So far, so predictable. But then this:

Category 3 Storms have rarely hit Long Island since the 1800s; one was the great unnamed storm of 1938, which sent 15-foot storm waters surging through what are now multimillion-dollar seaside homes. (source)

Here is a list of some storms that hit New York City in the late 1700s and 1800s:

  • September 23, 1875
  • August 19, 1788
  • October 9, 1804
  • September 16, 1816
  • September 3, 1821
  • October 13, 1846
  • October 6, 1849
  • October 28, 1872 (source)

So what was so special about the 1800’s that meant that there were more storms then? Oh yes, that’s right – it was COOLER. So the mild warming of the 20th century has actually made such storms less frequent, the complete opposite of what is claimed.

As the Mythbusters boys might say: totally busted.

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Reactions to CLOUD

26 August, 2011 by

Science at work


The various polarised reactions to the CLOUD experiment’s initial results demonstrates how the climate debate has become mired in politics, petty point scoring and one-upmanship.

What would a proper, impartial scientist say in response to yesterday’s news? I guess something like “these results are really interesting because they add to our understanding of cloud formation mechanisms in the atmosphere, which will add to our understanding and attribution of climate change. As a scientist untainted by politics or funding, I don’t object to the fact that these results may contradict or challenge my ideas about climate, my only goal is to seek the scientific truth.”

Yet what did we get? Hordes of alarmists desperately trying to rubbish and dismiss the experiment before the ink was even dry on the paper. Media organisations either ignored it, or reminded us all that it was all CO2’s fault, and nothing in this experiment changes any of that. How tragic.

Unfortunately, entire research departments are built on the wobbly foundations of CO2 being the primary driver of climate change (together with the attendant funding that such a view attracts), and that position must be defended from possible attack at all costs.

And no sensible climate sceptic would go further than saying that this is an interesting course of further enquiry, and confirms that there may be some climatological effect from galactic cosmic rays – and that there is still more to learn about the climate – duh. The commenter yesterday who claimed we were all rejoicing at “another nail in the AGW coffin” not only misrepresents the sceptic community, but paints our thought processes in the same light as those of the funded and politicised alarmists. They are not.

If there is anything that reaction tells us, it is that mainstream climate science is more politics than science.

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