For once in a blue moon, a story about something that isn’t as dire as first thought. There were fears (i.e. alarmism) that the methane locked at the bottom of the world’s oceans could be brought to the surface by “global warming”, but apparently, the science isn’t as settled as some (Rudd, Wong, Gore, Hansen etc etc) would have us believe:

The concern has been that as the world gets warmer, some of the clathrates [methane compounds] would escape into the atmosphere and have a dramatic amplifying effect on global warming.

The CSIRO’s Dr David Etheridge says the circumstantial evidence was not good.

“There’s evidence in the long-term past, millions of years ago, that this may have occurred,” he said.

“It is circumstantial evidence only. What we needed to know for the future is whether the warming that we are currently seeing and which will increase in the future will destabilise these clathrates.”
…
“I think this confirms that source of methane, that potential source of methane, is more stable than we previously thought and that gives us some upper bounds to the future releases that we might expect with a warming world.”

A non-alarmist article from the ABC? Heresy – that journo should be burnt at the stake!

Read it here.

As always, a great read!

Thanks to reader David F. Here are some of the Earth Day predictions from 1970. Some of them will sound scarily familiar to those being made today, which will be just as wrong:

“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
• Kenneth Watt, ecologist

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
• George Wald, Harvard Biologist

“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.”
• Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist

“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”
• New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day

Read the rest here.

Eww, put it away, love… (© Sun newspaper)

Global fatsters are causing global warming (no, honestly, it says so on news.com.au so it must be true…). So away we go, let’s bash the lard-arses:

Scientists warned that the increase in big-eaters means more food production – a major cause of CO2 gas emissions warming the planet [note the lack of any qualifying “may be” or “might” or “could” – hey, the science is settled, you denier, you – Ed], according to a report in English newspaper The Sun.

The environmental impact of fat humans is made even worse because they are more likely to travel by car – another major cause of carbon emissions. [“Fat humans” – hilarious!]

Each fat person is said to be responsible for a tonne more of climate-warming carbon dioxide per year than a thin one due to factors including higher food and fuel consumption.

Read it here, or here for the original Sun article [with lots more illustrative photos like the one above – Sun readers don’t have much imagination, so when a story mentions fat people, it is accompanied by copious pictures of, er, fat people. Oh, and, because it’s a story about climate change, a picture of a polar bear. Sadly not this one…]

But calls them “Howard government Kyoto sceptics”, which is perfectly fair comment. Maybe she and the government are realising that it’s just a teensy-weensy bit hypocritical to brand the Opposition as “deniers” when in fact it is the government, the IPCC, Krudd and Wong herself that are the true deniers – denying that the IPCC models have failed to predict the last decade of cooling, denying that the cooling is even happening, and pretending that “it’s all happening faster than we thought” (© Al Gore and James Hansen).

Ever more desperate to keep her ETS ship afloat, despite it being holed many times below the waterline and now listing heavily to starboard, Penny goes on the offensive, blaming the Opposition for its likely failure:

“Wrecking this reform is about much more than Australia’s domestic political debate. Wrecking this reform shortens the odds of not getting a global deal on climate change.”
…
Senator Wong said the emissions trading scheme represented “an opportunity to go to Copenhagen with a responsible position“.

But she refused to countenance any changes to the scheme, despite lack of support from industry and environment groups.

So business as usual there, however.

Read it here.

Seems if you have a name like Penny, there’s no hope. Back in October last year, only a few days after I started this blog, I posted on the new Chief Scientist and was optimistic about things:

Here’s a great opportunity for someone with a genuine scientific approach and significant influence in Government to cut through the usual AGW hysteria and take a dispassionate look at the science, not just the propaganda.

She said at the time:

“I believe that the people of Australia, if they have the choices that confront them clearly articulated in an open atmosphere of dialogue and if that is underpinned with scientific evidence, then I believe that Australians will make the choice that is the best for them and for their children.”

A promising start, I thought. How wrong can you be, for Penny Mark II has revealed herself to be even more away with the Gore-fairies than Penny Mark I:

Professor Sackett has also warned the world only has six years to decrease its emissions to avoid damaging climate change.

“We know that the rate at which we are putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is increasing rather than decreasing,” she said.

“We also know that if we want to maintain that level of climate change which we could measure by the increase in global average temperature to 2 degrees then we have six years to reverse the trend from increasing CO2 emissions to decreasing CO2 emissions.

“It’s not long, which is why we need to begin to act now.”

All recycled, political, IPCC-speak. Sadly, Ms Sackett, you are unfit to call yourself a scientist of any kind, let alone the chief one.

Read it here.

That’s because there aren’t any, clearly:

Federal Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has been unable to name a single supporter of her government’s embattled Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

This prompted the opposition to claim the scheme would “wander the corridors of Parliament looking in vain for a friend“.

Senator Wong struggled to answer a reporter in Sydney who asked her to name any supporter of the scheme outside her own party.

“This is a reform that was a commitment of the Rudd Labor government, made prior to our election,” was her response.

Too funny! Read it here.

Yet more climate sense, with even a dash of scepticism thrown in. What’s going on? In an opinion piece entitled “Wong is wrong on ETS”, The Australian skewers the utter nonsense that is the ETS:

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong was as intractable as ever yesterday in her insistence that “the time is right” to proceed. But if the Prime Minister does not prevail on her to change her mind, the Senate is likely to vote down the scheme. That would be the responsible course at this time, and one that more pragmatic members of the Rudd Government would welcome. It would enable them to keep faith with those who want action and blame the Opposition and minor parties for the defeat, while avoiding the economic difficulties of pressing ahead.
…
A more prudent course would be to wait and allow the outcome of the [Copenhagen] summit to inform the legislation. Even then, the uncertainties of climate change, including significant expansion of ice in east Antarctica, suggest a cautious approach is warranted.
…
Senator Wong’s likening the scheme to “getting fit” is off course. Starting the ETS during a recession would be akin to starting a fitness plan in the midst of a bad bout of ‘flu.

The Australian is thinking like a proper scientist for once, and actually taking note of what’s happening in the real world, rather than relying blindly on the woefully inadequate computer models of the IPCC, in which Rudd and Wong have put all their faith.

Read it here.

I am tiring of Penny Wong’s arrogance, and I hope the general public will soon do likewise. Senate enquiry? Don’t care. Opposition left, right and centre to the ETS? Not listening [sticks fingers in ears and shouts “la, la, la” molto fortissimo]. Almost as boring as the constant repetition of the “two errors in four words” Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, is Penny Wong’s insistence that the scheme will go ahead whatever – like Catherine Tate: am I bovvered? As the ABC reports:

Federal Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says she is determined to push ahead with the proposed emissions trading scheme despite strengthening opposition to the plan.

“Malcolm Turnbull and every Senator is going to have to make a decision whether they will vote to allow Australia’s carbon pollution to continue to rise, or whether they will finally say it’s time for us to turn this around and start to reduce Australia’s emissions,” she said.

There’s unfortunately no other word for it – idiotic.

Read it here.

To all my US readers, I urge you to submit comments to the EPA protesting against the madness of classifying CO2 as a pollutant (from Justin at I ♥ CO2):

In a landmark decision long pushed for by some environmentalists and money-hungry politicians, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has almost officially declared CO2 — AKA plant food, the air you exhale, the bubbles in beer, and the basis of all life — a “pollutant”.

As the Earth continues to cool and the rest of the world has begun to realize that CO2 is neither a pollutant nor a climate driver, the EPA and the Obama administration continue to push the hoax of the century on an increasingly skeptical public. It seems as though Al Gore and the lobbyists are also ramping up their campaigns against science and reason in light of the fact that more and more people are waking up to the reality of this scam.

If the EPA succeeds in its proposed finding, this will in effect give the government the LEGAL ABILITY to tax and severely control nearly everything in our lives, ranging from driving your car all the way to switching on a television, using a hairdryer, mowing your lawn, or heaven forbid burning a candle.

This EPA “finding” cannot be allowed. All the factual science has been thrown into the trash in favour of a fatally flawed ideology and completely unfounded fear of a hypothetical human-caused climate change which is not happening, and we will all pay dearly for it.

In fact, millions of people in the third world will pay with their lives for this outrageous way of thinking, especially if this type of unscientific policy spreads around the world as many environmentalists are hoping for. Countless souls have already starved to death thanks to the nonsensical push for biofuels which has taken over food crops around the world. This madness must be stopped.

The EPA is taking comments from the public for 60 days before their decision is finalized, so please make your voices heard. Tell the legislators and politicians that we aren’t going to fall for it, and tell them to throw their junk science out the window along with this ridiculous idea that carbon is “pollution”. More and more honest politicians and unbiased (IE: non-government funded) scientists are speaking out daily but their voices are heavily suppressed and effectively silenced by Big Environment and socialist green agendas.

Please visit this link to submit your comments to the EPA. Do it now, and spread the word to everyone you know.