US Environment Protection Agency to declare CO2 "dangerous pollutant"

8 December, 2009 by

Stop polluting the environment

Stop polluting the environment

Now let’s just analyse the utter insanity of this. Carbon dioxide is the harmless trace gas that is essential for plants (and indeed all life on earth to survive), and which we all breathe out. And the EPA will declare this a “dangerous pollutant”? The world is truly mad. Here’s an extract from the press release:

After a thorough examination of the scientific evidence and careful consideration of public comments, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that greenhouse gases (GHGs) threaten the public health and welfare of the American people. EPA also finds that GHG emissions from on-road vehicles contribute to that threat.

GHGs are the primary driver of climate change, which can lead to hotter, longer heat waves that threaten the health of the sick, poor or elderly; increases in ground-level ozone pollution linked to asthma and other respiratory illnesses; as well as other threats to the health and welfare of Americans.

“These long-overdue findings cement 2009’s place in history as the year when the United States Government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution and seizing the opportunity of clean-energy reform,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “Business leaders, security experts, government officials, concerned citizens and the United States Supreme Court have called for enduring, pragmatic solutions to reduce the greenhouse gas pollution that is causing climate change. This continues our work towards clean energy reform that will cut GHGs and reduce the dependence on foreign oil that threatens our national security and our economy.” (source)

So it’s nothing to do with reducing pollution in the environment at all, but “tackling climate change”. And the real reason behind all this is that the EPA can now regulate those gases without any further need for Congress to approve legislation. And believe me, they will.

Maybe they should declare water vapour a dangerous pollutant as well – it’s a far stronger greenhouse gas than CO2. No, wait, you can’t tax and regulate that can you? So don’t bother.

Pure climate madness.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With:

Copenhagen – Day 1

8 December, 2009 by

Day 1

Day 1

We’re up and running at Copenhagen, and already, Australia has taken centre stage – for the wrong reason (or the right reason, depending on how you view it):

THE head of the world’s top climate research body has compared Tony Abbott to former US president and climate sceptic George W. Bush and conceded the failure of Australia’s cap and trade carbon bill has given momentum to climate naysayers worldwide. [“Naysayers”? Oh, please – Ed]

In an exclusive interview with The Australian just hours before he was to deliver the keynote address on the opening day of the Copenhagen global climate summit, Rajendra Pachauri denied the defeat of the legislation would provide enough impetus to derail negotiators at Copenhagen from delivering an agreement.

…

“It seems to me the Australian public is fully committed to taking action because Australia is probably one country that has suffered from the impacts of climate change more than any other,” Dr Pachauri said from Denmark. [Nonsense, of course, but we all know Pachauri can say anything and never be challenged – Ed]

“(Climate sceptics) will get momentum from time to time but they are certainly a minority so I don’t see in a democracy how they would succeed. [Those by-election results weren’t too bad – Ed]

“I think as long as Kevin Rudd is the Prime Minister of the government in power and he wants to move in a particular direction the country will rally around the PM.” [Don’t you bet on it – Ed] (source)

And whatever happens at Copenhagen, it won’t be enough to satisfy the global socialists:

The head of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, told The Australian the $US10 billion package expected to be discussed during the 12-day summit was a “positive move and would create some degree of satisfaction among developing countries”.

“But it’s not going far enough,” he added, saying “serious work” was still required to deliver adequate assistance to the most vulnerable developing nations.

The European Commission has estimated that wealthy nations will need to provide as much as $US50bn a year to help poor nations develop cleaner technologies and mitigate the worst effects of global warming. (source)

Believe me, that will only be the start. We’ve already had demands from Central America for way more than that – it will be a blank cheque. Terry McCrann has the antidote to all this:

COPENHAGEN is going to be two weeks of insane hysteria. Just like the Olympics, but with lots of snow, courtesy of Al Gore and his ‘Gore Effect.’

There’ll be another major difference. This will be like the Olympics with only one country represented. All 40,000-plus attendees will be batting for the same side, so to speak.

We are going to be deluged with wall-to-wall coverage of hysterical end-of-the-world claims unless we hand over billions of dollars a year, every year, and close down our economy.

This really is the ultimate gift that keeps on taking. Give us the money to fight climate change; and as the climate changes every year, the funding has to be permanent.

Gets hotter? Climate change. Gets colder? Climate change. Stays pretty much the same? Now, that’s the really insidious climate change!

Read it all!

UPDATE: Looks like things may already be turning pear-shaped, after just one day:

Climate talks in Copenhagen have opened with a declaration that the 12 days of negotiations represent an historic opportunity for the world, but deep divisions between delegates have already emerged.

The representative of the developing world says the amount of money set aside to help poor nations adapt to climate change is an insult, and Saudi Arabia’s chief negotiator has raised issues about the validity of the scientific research used to justify claims that global warming is man-made. (source)

It looks like a roller-coaster ride ahead.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Nauseating start to Copenhagen

7 December, 2009 by

Loving every second of it

Loving every second of it

Wouldn’t have expected anything less, naturally! All lovingly reported by the Sydney Moonbat Herald:

A landmark conference on tackling climate change opened here on Monday, with negotiators from 192 countries aiming toward a deal to ward off global warming’s potentially catastrophic effects.

The meeting will climax on December 18 with more than 100 heads of state or government in attendance.

Opening ceremonies began with a short film featuring children of the future facing an apocalypse of tempests and desert landscapes if world leaders failed to act today.

“There will be hundreds of millions of refugees,” Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN’s panel of climate scientists, said in the film.

“Please help save the world,” said a little girl, plaintively. (source)

So no emotional blackmail there, obviously…

It’s only been going three hours, and already I want it to stop.

Don’t forget to check out the Cut out ‘n’ keep guide to Copenhagen in the sidebar!

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Full speed for an alarmism week

7 December, 2009 by

Nice Bristols

Nice Bristols*

The other thing that we should expect in the next 11 days is full on climate hysteria, with apocalyptic predictions, everything “happening faster, bigger, badder than we thought”. But now we can take it all with a pinch of salt, since in this post-CRU world, we give our climate scientists even less leeway than they had before. The latest scare is that the climate is “more sensitive than previously thought” to CO2, so we need even deeper, harsher, bigger and badder cuts.

From our “The Science is Settled” department:

In the long term, the Earth’s temperature may be 30-50 per cent more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide than has previously been estimated, reports a new study published in Nature Geoscience this week.

The results show that components of the Earth’s climate system that vary over long timescales – such as land-ice and vegetation – have an important effect on this temperature sensitivity, but these factors are often neglected in current climate models.

Dr Dan Lunt, from the University of Bristol, and colleagues compared results from a global climate model to temperature reconstructions of the Earth’s environment three million years ago when global temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations were relatively high. The temperature reconstructions were derived using data from three-million-year-old sediments on the ocean floor.

Lunt said, “We found that, given the concentrations of carbon dioxide prevailing three million years ago, the model originally predicted a significantly smaller temperature increase than that indicated by the reconstructions. This led us to review what was missing from the model.”

But, but, but… our models are perfect, aren’t they? They must be – the planet is about to spend trillions of dollars based on their output. But not to worry. Results of climate research never say “it’s not as bad as we thought” or “we may have overestimated this.” What are the chances of every piece of research always saying it’s worse? And of course, the inevitable call to action:

Alan Haywood, a co-author on the study from the University of Leeds, said “If we want to avoid dangerous climate change, this high sensitivity of the Earth to carbon dioxide should be taken into account when defining targets for the long-term stabilisation of atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations”.

This is all about feedbacks of course. The actual warming effect of a doubling of CO2 is virtually nothing, but the models rely on fudge factors in the feedbacks in order to make the models fit what has already happened in the past. However, because this leads to huge positive feedbacks, temperature projections go through the roof for a modest increase in CO2. The fact is that no climate scientist understands the feedbacks, because there are still thousands of unknowns or unquantifiables (despite Kevin Rudd and Gordon Brown telling us all “the science is settled”), which means the models don’t either, and the results are close to worthless.

Read it here.

*Cockney rhyming slang: Bristol Cities – t*tties.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Two hours to Copenhagen

7 December, 2009 by

Roaring trade until 18 December

Roaring trade until 18 December

OK, I can’t put it off any longer. Yes, the biggest climate gab-fest in the history of the planet is set to kick off in a little under two hours. All the delegates have arrived in Copenhagen, checked in to their seedy little hotels, and have been issued maps to the Red Light district. After the daily tedium of climate change negotiations, we can be sure the local ladies of the night will do a roaring trade!

So what’s the point of all this? There won’t be any binding treaty, as that was chucked in the dumpster a couple of weeks ago, so it will be an expression of wishes at best.

China and India are only prepared to reduce “carbon intensity” which is emissions per unit of GDP, so their emissions will still increase rapidly, just a little bit more slowly than otherwise (because, let’s be honest, China and India are far more interested in economic growth than worrying about fixing a non-problem). The UK has already passed crippling laws that call for an 80% absolute reduction in emissions by 2050 – good luck with that. The US has the Waxman-Markey bill stalled by the Senate, and nothing much else apart from Obama’s platitudes.

And then of course there’s us Aussies, who have made headline news around the world by becoming the first country to see a leader of a major political party elected precisely because he is a sceptic. Go Aussie!

So what can we really expect? There will be a great deal of pontificating from the usual suspects: Pachauri, Obama, De Boer, Rudd, Brown etc etc. There will no doubt be stirring speeches about the fact that we have only [2] [5] [10] [20] [50] years to save the planet (insert appropriate figure). There will be acres of news coverage from Fairfax, which will try spin every announcement into something positive and encouraging. Unfortunately, however, there will almost certainly be no deal, and if we’re lucky, the whole thing may descend into farce and recrimination.

But, as my late uncle always used to remind me, “You can’t polish a turd.”

Strap yourselves in for the ride. Let’s pray for snow (maximum forecast for Friday: 2˚C).

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With:

Mad Malcolm loses it completely

7 December, 2009 by

Mad Malcolm and the Monk

Mad Malcolm and the Monk

How the Liberals ever thought that Turnbull could be Prime Minister. Now he’s showing his true colours, ranting and raving like a Latham clone, and threatening to vote with the government on the next ETS vote:

Former Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull has unleashed an attack on his successor Tony Abbott, describing his climate change position as “bullshit”.

In a strongly-worded blog entry posted this morning, Mr Turnbull personally attacks Mr Abbott for putting the party’s integrity on the line, saying Coalition climate change policy has descended into “farce”, because it does not have a policy.

He vows to cross the floor and vote for the Government’s emissions trading scheme and urges his colleagues to follow him.

…

“So any suggestion that you can dramatically cut emissions without any cost is, to use a favourite term of Mr Abbott, ‘bullshit.’ Moreover he knows it.

“It is not possible to criticise the new Coalition policy on climate change because it does not exist.”

Mr Turnbull goes on to describe those who backed Mr Abbott’s leadership as climate change sceptics. [Yes, and your point is? – Ed]

“As we are being blunt, the fact is that Tony and the people who put him in his job do not want to do anything about climate change. They do not believe in human caused global warming.

“As Tony observed on one occasion ‘climate change is crap’, or if you consider his mentor, Senator Minchin, the world is not warming, it’s cooling and the climate change issue is part of a vast left wing conspiracy to deindustrialise the world.

It must be obvious to the public and the media by now that Turnbull is a dangerous megalomaniac who cannot bear the fact that Abbott’s policy on climate is actually more popular with the core Australian voter than his own. Tony Abbott, you have an enemy in your midst who will have to be neutralised in whatever way possible. If you’re trying to destroy the Liberal party and ensure they remain in opposition for a generation, Malc, you are going the right way about it.

VISIT TURNBULL’S BLOG POST AND LEAVE A COMMENT HERE. [Link dead – Web Archive HERE]

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Lemmings: 56 of world's moonbat media print the same editorial

7 December, 2009 by

Pious nonsense

Pious nonsense

Even The Age doesn’t fall for it, sensibly preferring to rely on its own views rather than cutting and pasting other editors’ nonsense. And nonsense it most certainly is, written by the most lefty and greeny of the world’s newspapers, the UK Guardian. Full of pious platitudes and vacuous statements, it is a painful read:

Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record [“on record” being since about 1850, conveniently ignoring the MWP and the Roman warm period – Ed], the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year’s inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage [Haven’t read the CRU emails yet, then? – Ed]. Yet so far the world’s response has been feeble and half-hearted.

Climate change has been caused over centuries [yes, exactly, without any help from humans – Ed], has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone.

“Taming” the climate? Really? Good luck with that! And then there is the inevitable rush towards global socialism, and the accompanying scaling back of Western economies:

Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically without growing their emissions.

…

The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill for bailing out global finance — and far less costly than the consequences of doing nothing.

Many of us, particularly in the developed world, will have to change our lifestyles. The era of flights that cost less than the taxi ride to the airport is drawing to a close. We will have to shop, eat and travel more intelligently. We will have to pay more for our energy, and use less of it.

And in doing so, it will condemn billions of people in developing countries to a life of misery and poverty. Finally, the predictable, tired and hackneyed “green energy myth”:

But the shift to a low-carbon society holds out the prospect of more opportunity than sacrifice. Already some countries have recognized that embracing the transformation can bring growth, jobs and better quality lives. The flow of capital tells its own story: last year for the first time more was invested in renewable forms of energy than producing electricity from fossil fuels.

As if renewables can replace fossil fuels in the next 20 or even 50 years! It’s nothing short of a joke. And the biggest joke of all is that all of this will be pointless. The effect of CO2 emissions on the climate is so small that all the trillions of dollars that will be wasted as a result of any Copenhagen Treaty will make not an iota of difference. Just like Kyoto made no difference either. The climate will do what the climate will do, and there ain’t nothing we can do about it.

Pious climate nonsense.

Read it here.

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Even the SMH says it's the government that's in denial

7 December, 2009 by

Painful reading

Painful reading

Paul Sheehan, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, has some painful home truths for Labor:

When Julia Gillard faced the media outside Federal Parliament in Canberra on Wednesday she looked shell-shocked. She then proceeded to give the most jittery, hollow, nonsensical performance of her career. It was pantomime of the lowest order.

”Today the climate change extremists and deniers in the Liberal Party have stopped this nation from taking decisive action on climate change,” the Deputy Prime Minister said, deadpan, into a thicket of cameras and recorders.

Extremists and deniers. In case anyone had missed the point, she repeated the phrase five times. ”Now [we] have been stopped by the Liberal Party extremists and the climate change deniers. This nation has been stopped from taking a major step in the nation’s interests by Liberal Party extremists and climate change deniers.”

This is clearly going to be the mantra the Rudd Government uses to describe anyone who opposes its pointless legislation on an emissions trading scheme.

Gillard used the terms ”denier” or ”denial” 11 times, pointed words because they carry the connotation of Holocaust denial. The last time that tactic was used in the national debate, after the release of the Bringing Them Home report, it exploded on those who used it.

So this is going to get interesting because the political ground has shifted in the past six months. It is now the Rudd Government that appears to be in a state of denial.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Dream start for Abbott

7 December, 2009 by

From The Australian

From The Australian

A series of headlines to cheer the spirit. Rather than the disaster the media had hoped for, Tony Abbott appears to be galvanising Liberal support.

There were dire predictions that the Liberals could lose the seat of Higgins to the Greens — Labor did not run a candidate in either by-election — and that there would be a big swing in Bradfield against the Liberals because of Mr Abbott’s opposition to the ETS.

After counting continued yesterday, it appeared the Liberals would get a small swing towards them in both seats [of Bradfield and Higgins] on a two-party-preferred basis and possibly a small swing against them on primary votes.

The Newspoll survey, conducted from Friday to Sunday, exclusively for The Australian, showed a rise of four percentage points in the Liberals’ primary vote, taking the Coalition’s support to 38 per cent compared with the government’s unchanged 43 per cent.

The government still has an overwhelming two-party-preferred vote of 56 to 44 per cent, but Mr Abbott has improved on Mr Turnbull’s last position as preferred prime minister and won strong endorsement among Liberal voters.

Support for Mr Rudd as preferred prime minister fell five percentage points last weekend from 65 to 60 per cent and Mr Abbott started on 23 per cent, a rise of nine points compared with Mr Turnbull’s 14 per cent the previous weekend.

Mr Abbott’s standing as preferred prime minister is better than all Mr Turnbull’s polling against Mr Rudd since the controversy over the then Liberal leader’s use of a fake email from then Treasury official Godwin Grech to attack the Prime Minister.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Rudd the autograph hunter

7 December, 2009 by

Please Mr Obama!

Please Mr Obama!

Look where Barack Obama is, and there you’ll find our lap-dog Prime Minister, hanging on to the One’s coat-tails. So it’s no surprise that Rudd has changed his Copenhagen plans in response to Obama’s change of plan.

KEVIN Rudd has shelved plans for an early dash to Copenhagen after US President Barack Obama said he was not going until the late stages of the climate change conference, in the hope of closing a deal.

The White House announced over the weekend that Mr Obama would push back his visit to the conference until its final day, putting him in a better position to help broker an agreement.

Mr Rudd, who had the RAAF on standby for a snap trip to Denmark, will now attend the late stages of the conference.

Yesterday, a spokeswoman for Mr Rudd confirmed the Prime Minister had considered travelling to Copenhagen early, but said by Friday night it had been resolved Mr Rudd would attend during the final stages of the talks along with more than 100 heads of government.

It’s a great look for Australia abroad, you have to admit…

Read it here.

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