Snouts in the carbon trough

9 November, 2009 by

From Viv Forbes at the Carbon Sense Coalition:

Mr Rudd accuses opponents of his Ration-N-Tax Scheme of “bowing to vested interests”.

That is the pot calling the kettle black.

The biggest vested interest is the ALP itself, hoping to harvest Green preference votes from their green posturing.

Supporting the alarmists are the gaggle of green industries already reaping dividends from the Rudd subsidies and market protection rackets.

Mr Rudd also tells us that his big business mates want the “certainty” of Emissions Trading.

A roll call of these people reveals domination by big firms of auditors and accountants, bankers and brokers, speculators and solicitors, touts and traders – all longing to get into the biggest trading lottery the world has ever seen – more snouts in the carbon trough.

Read the rest here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Climate talks end in division and pessimism

8 November, 2009 by

It's that black CO2 again…

It's that black CO2 again…

Ah, a headline to cheer the heart and lift the spirits. The longer an emissions reduction treaty can be delayed, the more the earth will fail to match the flawed climate models, and the more obvious it will be that anthropogenic carbon dioxide has little to do with the climate. We may, just, be able to salvage some of the prosperity that Western democracies have achieved over the past hundred years of economic and technological development, and which they seem so keen to chuck away in the dumpster:

The last United Nations negotiating session before next month’s Copenhagen summit on climate change has ended in Spain, with rich and poor nations still deeply divided.

Officials say a new treaty to replace the Kyoto accords on greenhouse gas emissions could take another year.

UN officials have admitted progress has been so slow on the most difficult issues they will need more time to legally seal the deal.

The key problems are targets for emissions cuts and money for poorer nations.

Copenhagen could still lead to a significant political agreement, but if it happens it will be a major achievement.

Above targets, money and technology, one major element was clearly missing this week – trust.

And the less chance of any binding agreement at Copenhagen means the more ludicrous Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong’s determination to railroad the ETS through parliament becomes.

Read it here.

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NZ: Hottest October in 64 years… no, wait…

8 November, 2009 by

Blue is the colour…

Blue is the colour…

From our Weather Isn’t Climate Department: we can’t draw conclusions from one month, of course, but this global warming sure is sneaky.

It will come as little surprise to most New Zealanders that the country shivered through the coldest October in 64 years.

In its climate summary for the month, the Niwa said the average temperature nationwide was 10.6degC – 1.4degC below average.

Such a cold October has occurred only four times in the past 100 years, the last time in 1945.

It was only fractionally warmer than August, which recorded a warmer-than-normal average temperature of 10.4degC.

Niwa said October was shaped by a series of southerly fronts, all-time record low temperatures in many areas, and unseasonable late snowfalls.

The heaviest October snowfall since 1967 occurred in Hawke’s Bay and the central North Island on October 4 and 5 stranding hundreds of travellers, closing roads, and resulting in heavy lambing losses. (source)

And on the other side of the world, the US is shivering too:

NCDC has compiled the October temperatures and it ended up the 3rd coldest in 115 years. As we have shown it was cold over almost all the lower 48. Indeed only Florida came in above normal. There is no press release out yet but it should be interesting

October with a mean of 50.8F was behind only 1976 with 50.7F and 1925 with 49.4F.

Also the University of Alabama global temperature is out and it is down this month. Hadley came in late for September but it was down. The trends since 2002 continue down for both even as CO2 rise. (source)

H/t: Watts Up With That

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UK: Gordon Brown's transaction tax given lukewarm reception

8 November, 2009 by

Time warp back to the 1970s

Political version of "Life on Mars"

Gordon Brown is a deep red, old fashioned socialist in the 1970s Labour mold. Whereas Tony Blair was the shiny, spin-obsessed, non-stick façade of “New Labour” (i.e. not really Labour, but Conservatives with compassion), Brown is like a throwback to the days of Jim Callaghan and Denis Healey, to the days of Arthur Scargill and strikes every week and power cuts and garbage piling up in the streets.

So in the dying days of the UK Labour government, with no hope of being re-elected, Brown is trying to impose global socialism for one last time, with a “transaction tax” on all financial institutions, to funnel a proportion of all global financial transactions back to the government for redistribution, one of the beneficiaries of such a tax being “tackling climate change”. But no-one is buying it, thankfully (not even the US):

The proposal, which took delegates by surprise at the [G20] meeting in St Andrew’s overshadowed other items on the agenda.

The US said it would “not support” a transaction tax and Canada added it was “not an idea we would look at”.

The Conservatives said that Downing Street had previously “poured cold water on this proposal” and that the Treasury had called it “unworkable”.

…

The head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Khan, said he believed the transaction tax was unlikely to be adopted.

“I don’t believe it will be a transaction tax because transactions are very difficult to measure and so it’s very easy to avoid a transaction tax,” he told Sky News.

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner dismissed the idea of such a tax, saying: “That’s not something that we’re prepared to support.”

He told reporters: “This is an idea that has been around for a long time. Many countries have a lot of experience with the design of these kinds of taxes. I think, frankly, the experience has been mixed.”

Canadian finance minister Jim Flaherty also rejected the proposal, telling Sky News it was “not something we would be interested in in Canada”.

He added: “We are not in the business of raising taxes, we are in the business of lowering taxes in Canada. It is not an idea we would look at.”

Your time has run out, Gordon. The exit is that way.

Read it here.

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Rudd fails to run "clean energy government"

8 November, 2009 by

Not so green

Not so green

One of Kevin Rudd’s ambitious promises was to run his government on “clean energy”, showing his enviro-friendly credentials and at the same time pandering to the Greens, who were essential for Labor’s preferences in the 2007 election. Only trouble is, as he has discovered, it isn’t as easy as all that.

DESPITE repeatedly brandishing its green credentials, the Rudd Government has reneged on its election promise to run Parliament House and MPs’ electoral offices on clean energy.

It has also failed to deliver on a promise to upgrade all government office buildings to minimum five-star greenhouse ratings.

The promise to use renewable energy was made in a speech by Kevin Rudd in the lead-up to the 2007 election, but so far little or no progress has been made.

The Government has also failed to follow through with a requirement that all government agencies with more than 100 staff undertake energy and water audits and introduce energy efficiency improvement plans.

The election commitments were bolstered to mark Earth Hour in March 2008. In a joint press release, Mr Rudd and Environment Minister Peter Garrett promised to set up an ”interdepartmental committee on government leadership in sustainability’‘ to investigate using the government car fleet to ”drive the market for low emissions cars”.

So far the committee – which was scheduled to report to Mr Rudd by June 2008 on progress – has been silent, with no subsequent announcements or recommendations.

The Sunday Age was unable to confirm whether the committee has even been established.

Unfortunately, this is just another in a long line of examples demonstrating that using green power is expensive and impractical. If green power can’t even run Parliament House, how on earth does the Rudd government expect it to run Australia, when the ETS has pushed up the cost of regular power beyond reach?

Yet more spin, and no substance.

Read it here.

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WA sea level rising "at double the global average"

7 November, 2009 by

Bad hair day for Alannah MacTiernan

Bad hair day for Alannah MacTiernan

A crazy day for sea level climate madness. Only this morning, we read that sea levels on the Eastern seaboard were rising much more slowly than predicted, and then, not to be outdone, the ABC trumpets that Western Australia’s sea levels are rising faster than the global average:

Figures from the National Tidal Centre show sea levels along Western Australia’s coast are rising at a rate double that of the world average.

Global sea levels rise at an average of just more than 3 millimetres a year.

Latest figures show sea levels have risen an average 8.6 millimetres a year off Perth and 8.1 millimetres in the Kimberley.

The Opposition’s spokeswoman for regional development, Alannah MacTiernan says future planning needs to consider rising sea levels.

“Our planning policies have been actually based on the global averages and now that we see from these figures the sea level rise in WA is more than twice that,” she said.

“I think we’ve got to take some urgent action.

I agree – get your tide gauges checked, and pronto.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Shock: Sea level rises far less than forecast

7 November, 2009 by

On Thursday we reported that the NSW government was basing planning decisions on a 40cm rise in sea level by 2050. Today in The Australian we see that the actual sea level rises around Australia are far less than expected [Really? There’s a surprise – Ed].

SEA levels on Australia’s eastern seaboard are rising at less than a third of the rate that the NSW government is predicting as it overhauls the state’s planning laws and bans thousands of landowners from developing coastal sites.

The Rees government this week warned that coastal waters would rise 40cm on 1990 levels by 2050, with potentially disastrous effects.

Even yesterday Kevin Rudd warned in a speech to the Lowy Institute that 700,000 homes and businesses, valued at up to $150 billion, were at risk from the surging tide.

However, if current sea-level rises continue, it would not be until about 2200 – another 191 years – before the east coast experienced the kind of increases that have been flagged.

According to the most recent report by the Bureau of Meteorology’s National Tidal Centre, issued in June, there has been an average yearly increase of 1.9mm in the combined net rate of relative sea level at Port Kembla, south of Sydney, since the station was installed in 1991.

But, but, but… our models, our models!! They can’t be wrong, can they? So the CSIRO goes into full damage control mode with a list of excuses for why it really is rising in accordance with the models, namely:

  • Effect of barometric pressure [can’t quite understand that one, since pressure varies between roughly the same extremes]
  • Australia was rising slightly, counteracting the effect of sea-level rises [well that’s OK then, isn’t it?]
  • “Extreme” sea level rises were happening “more often” [dodgy]
  • Wind stress patterns in the Pacific [scraping the barrel now]
  • Polar ice caps will cause sea levels to rise faster [really desperate…]

And my favourite of all:

“There is a clear acceleration in the rate of sea-level rise,” Dr Church said.

Where? Here’s the graph. Point out the clear acceleration:

Rapid acceleration of sea level rise… no, wait…

Rapid acceleration of sea level rise… no, wait…

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Quote of the Day – Rupert Murdoch

7 November, 2009 by

Rupert Murdoch has gone very cool on Kevin Rudd, in an interview reported today. Here’s my favourite quote:

“If Rudd thinks we can set an example for the rest of the world with a cap-and-trade system on greenhouse gas emissions – the ETS – all it would do is push up the cost of living in Australia and the rest of the world will laugh.”

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate

UPDATED: Rudd loses all grip on reality

7 November, 2009 by

Get his pasty slab of a face off my monitor

Get his pasty slab of a face off my monitor

UPDATE: Marc Morano at Climate Depot has compiled a brilliant line-by-line demolition of Rudd’s climate nonsense. Read it all here.

Roger Pielke Jr. comments on Rudd’s chilling speech.

More coverage in The Australian:

In a speech at the Lowy Institute yesterday afternoon, Kevin Rudd appeared to lose it completely on climate change, launching into an astonishing tirade against “sceptics” and “deniers”. The facade has slipped away to reveal the mealy mouthed Rudd at his worst, hurling insults and abandoning any pretence of good faith negotiation on the ETS. The speech was packed to the gills with tired old clichés, as you would expect:

“It is time to be totally blunt about the agenda of the climate change sceptics in all their colours, some more sophisticated than others,” he said.

“It is to destroy the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme at home and it is to destroy agreed global action on climate change abroad. [Yes, and your problem with that is…? – Ed]

Nauseating Mawkishness Alert:

“And our children’s fate – our grandchildren’s fate – will lie entirely with them. It is time to remove any polite veneer from this debate; the stakes are that high. [I actually lost count of how many times he roped in the “children” – Ed]

“The clock is ticking for the planet [boring cliché – Ed], but the climate change sceptics simply do not care.”

“Climate change sceptics, the climate change deniers [Denier Alert – Ed], the opponents of climate change action are active in every country,” he said.

“They are a minority. They are however powerful and invariably they are driven by vested interests [and are] powerful enough to so far block domestic legislation in Australia.”

Actually, the “sceptics” care, but they care for something different – raising people out of poverty, the standard of living of Australians, cheap energy availability for all, not sacrificing all of that on the altar of Gaia. Unfortunately, Rudd’s speech is just a catalogue of typical responses to those who aren’t stupid enough to have swallowed the IPCC line whole, like Rudd and Penny Wong have. I’m amazed he didn’t say they were all paid for by “Big Oil”!

And to conclude, Rudd continues to rely solely on the politicised and biased IPCC as his only source of information, talking up the number in the consensus each time it’s mentioned:

And the most recent IPCC scientific conclusion in 2007 was that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” and the “increase in global average temperatures since the mid 20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”

This is the conclusion of 4,000 scientists appointed by governments from virtually every country in the world, and the term “very likely” is defined in the scientific conclusion of this report as being 90 per cent probable.

I guess that’s why the climate has cooled for nearly a decade, despite CO2 emissions rising faster than ever?

Climate madness.

Read it here.

Read the full text of the speech here (if you dare).

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Why are we sceptics? Because we're MENTALLY DERANGED!

6 November, 2009 by

ABC bias incarnate

ABC bias incarnate

Yes, and if you challenge me on that I will split your skull in two with this axe.

But that’s the level of debate on Margot O’Neill’s execrable blog “Countdown to Copenhagen“. She just can’t get her tiny brain around why people are deserting the climate change bandwagon in droves. She just can’t understand that people are starting to see through the smoke and mirrors of Al Gore, so she, along with all the other alarmist fruitcakes, have to think of another reason. We’re all mentally unbalanced. We’ve been here before, of course, but here’s the ABC, our national broadcaster, peddling it as fact:

CSIRO’s former climate director, Dr Graeme Pearman, suffered a personal crisis after confronting this question before deciding to study psychology, which he describes as the new frontier in climate change:

“Behavioural issues are likely to be much more important than the development of improved descriptions of exactly what happens or might happen to the climate. These are the main barriers to the actions that are needed.”

Mr Gore says he conducted 30 “solutions summits” with leading international experts to discuss how to design the multi-faceted battle plan in his book. They included brain scientists who told him the climate threat seemed too remote and unprecedented to trigger survival reflexes. In short, primordial human wiring is tuned to the likes of carnivorous predators, lightning strikes and blood-curdling rival clansmen.

Harvard University’s Daniel Gilbert has provided a sharply amusing account of how global warming challenges our evolutionary psychology – if it doesn’t make us duck or twitch or even feel repulsed, can it really be so bad?

Behavioural scientists also told him that “Simply laying out the facts won’t work … The barrage of negative, even terrifying, information can trigger denial or paralysis or, at the very least, procrastination.” Sounds like a bad rap for his Academy Award winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, which helped raise global awareness of the issue.

But scientists told Mr Gore that the human brain can commit to multigenerational goals although this can be undermined by constant stress and excessive distraction, both of which abound in modern society.

In other words, don’t bother with the climate, just focus on using psychiatry to brain-train everyone to believe unquestioningly in the holy and immutable word of Al God.

Read it here (if you must)

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