From ABC:

Coalition MPs have backed amendments to negotiate with the Government on its emissions trading scheme (ETS).

The MPs have just emerged from a marathon party room meeting in which Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull detailed the proposed amendments.

As Mr Turnbull left the meeting he said shadow cabinet had received strong support from the party room for the amendments.

He is due to hold a press conference at 8:10pm (AEDT).

The issue had threatened to derail Mr Turnbull’s leadership in recent weeks with increasing backbench resistance to his desire to negotiate with the Government on the scheme.

More to come.

Read it here.

We can’t forget that the Coalition will meet today to discuss their proposed amendments to the government’s ETS legislation.

The Federal Opposition’s emissions trading spokesman says he is optimistic that today’s special party room meeting on emissions trading will accept the amendments he has drafted.

Ian Macfarlane will present amendments that he says protect jobs and industry but would still meet the target of cutting greenhouse emissions by 5 per cent by 2020.

Some in the Coalition argue the Opposition should not be negotiating with the Government on the issue.

But Mr Macfarlane says he expects the Coalition will accept the amendments he is putting up today and he says it will then be up to the Government.

“If the party room accepts the amendments as I lay them out then the negotiation with the Government will begin,” he said.

The real question is whether the government will even bother to look at them…

Read it here.

Here’s the line: the Maldives are being swamped by “rising sea levels,” caused by “global warming,” caused by the evil “carbon” emissions of rich countries, so we are going to pull off a ridiculous stunt in order to get the moonbat media (of which there is plenty) to devote millions of column inches to it and hopefully add more pressure to get an agreement at Copenhagen so that developed countries will send us their money. Phew. And all lovingly reported by Australia’s own moonbat media, Fairfax, in the guise of The Sydney Morning Herald:

The Maldives’ government held an underwater cabinet meeting on Saturday in a bid to focus global attention on rising sea levels that threaten to submerge the low-lying atoll nation.

President Mohamed Nasheed plunged first into the Indian Ocean followed by his ministers, all clad in scuba gear, for the nationally televised meeting in this archipelago known as an idyllic holiday getaway for the rich.

Nasheed and his deputy, Mohamed Waheed, and a dozen ministers sat behind tables arranged in a horseshoe at a depth of six metres (20 feet) and approved a resolution urging global action to cut carbon emissions.

Tropical reef fish swam among the ministers and the nation’s red and green flag with white crescent moon was planted in the seabed behind Nasheed.

After surfacing, he called for the UN’s climate summit in Copenhagen in December to forge a deal to reduce carbon emissions blamed for rising sea levels that experts say could swamp the Maldives by the century’s end.

Trouble is, it is all wrong. For a start, sea levels have been rising at the same rate (2-3mm per year) for several thousand years, and in fact are rising more slowly at the moment. And furthermore, sea levels around the Maldives have actually fallen in the past 50 years. American Thinker sums it up well:

In 2004, Stockholm University professor Nils-Axel Mörner, of Sweden, published a paper in Global and Planetary Change (hardly a bastion for global warming deniers) regarding his extensive research of the ocean around the Maldives.  He noted, “In our study of the coastal dynamics and the geomorphology of the shores we were unable to detect any traces of a recent sea level rise.  On the contrary, we found quite clear morphological indications of a recent fall in sea level.”

Dr. Mörner’s research indicates that sea level about the Maldives has fallen approximately 11 inches in the past 50 years.  In fact, additional research indicates that about the time the leaders of Tuvalu created headlines in 2001, the sea-level surrounding the nine atoll islands of their country had recently fallen 2.5 inches.
…
So what’s really behind the complaints?  In the case of the Maldives, the problem is idiotic development. 

The Maldivian islands are relatively flat atolls, composed of coral. Tourism was only introduced to Maldives in 1972 with the opening of the plush Kurumba Village Resort on the North Malé Atoll.  Now there are 87 beach resorts scattered primarily on three islands: the North and South Malé Atolls and the Ari Atoll.  Tourism has become the largest industry in the Maldives and the primary construction material used to build the expansive resorts is locally mined coral.  Digging up the local coral to build plush hotels and large conference centers is as stupid sucking the air out of your lifeboat to breathe.  The mining has severely compromised the atolls, creating the impression that the islands are sinking, when in fact they’re being dug up.  The problem the Maldives faces is engineering lunacy — not a rising sea. (source)

Once again, our biased and ignorant media have lapped up a global warming stunt in order to promote their alarmist agenda, all the while conveniently ignoring the facts.

Read it here.

P.S. Funnily enough, the Mörner paper is available in PDF on AGW alarmist Stephen Schneider’s web site – here!

Writing in The Australian, Terry McCrann correctly equates the ETS to another GST, but one in which we have no idea what the rate will be:

IMAGINE if John Howard and Peter Costello had proposed a GST with an indeterminate variable rate, with the “variation” left hostage to the manipulation of clever investment bankers and other main-chancers, and you might begin to understand “Kevin Rudd’s GST” — his Emissions Trading Scheme, or ETS.

“His GST?” If we get the ETS, it is going to add to the price of everything — not just power and not just carbon-based power in particular. On that point, it’s worth noting that it is specifically designed to increase the price of all power — quite deliberately, to make wind and solar power “competitive”. That’s to say we pay more for them, but they become “cheaper” than coal-based power.

Indeed, the ETS is intended to be, and will be, even more punitively pervasive than the GST. Because once we get past the early, politically driven, subsidies to hide its real impact and real cost, there will be no carve-outs, as is the case with the GST and fresh food and medical services. They will all become more expensive.

The pervasiveness and very significant impact on your everyday costs make Rudd’s ETS the elephant in every living room. What will turn it into a dangerous, unpredictable rogue is the way it becomes hostage to market manipulation.

Read it here.

Kind of like “Spot the Ball” but in this case we’re using our sceptic olfactory organs to sniff out climate bullshit (of which there’s plenty around).

Here is the ABC in full alarmist mode. In a completely uncritical interview with ACM’s favourite alarmist, Will Steffen, on ABC’s Catalyst, there is spin heaped upon hysteria heaped upon alarmism heaped upon… you get the idea.

The interviewer, Dr Jonica Newby, challenges Steffen on absolutely nothing, and swallows absolutely everything. Not a single difficult question, not a single alternative viewpoint, and this is our national broadcaster’s flagship science programme acting as a platform for a well known climate alarmist. And it will only get worse as we approach Copenhagen.

So here it is: The Inaugural ACM Competition

ACM readers are invited to submit comments to this post pointing out the misrepresentations (or even, dare I say it, lies) that you can find in the video of the segment here, together with a transcript.

There is also a web extended interview with Steffen in two parts: first video is here, and second video is here (second part mainly plugging Copenhagen)

Feel free to complain to the ABC as well. With propaganda like this, there is little hope for the public ever having a balanced view of the climate change debate.

Bizarreness Alert: on Google’s blog search feature (blogsearch.google.com.au), if you type in “arctic ice”, which admittedly is a pretty general search term, the second result is … ACM! Result! Google would not be pleased to discover that a sceptic web site was nearly leading the search results:

Margot O’Neill’s execrable blog Countdown to Copenhagen (see here for previous post on this) acts as a kind of conduit for all of Australia’s looniest alarmists, conveniently distilling them all into one place. In her latest offering, she quotes Amanda Lynch of Monash University.  O’Neill prefaces the whole thing with this completely even-handed and balanced introduction:

So what’s happening? Are sceptics having a serious impact? Is the drawn-out argy bargy over the proposed emissions trading scheme anesthetising [sic] public engagement? Have scientists failed to cut through because they’ve been too cautious or too inaccessible? [Ha, ha, my aching sides – Ed]

A couple of recent US books argue that scientists need to loosen their lab coats. Unscientific America by Chris Mooney urges young scientists to undertake communication courses.

Of course, because it’s just simply that we can’t get the message across. Nothing to do with the science – hey, that’s settled, you filthy denier, you – we need to reprogram the population to accept our message (as if the media and the government weren’t doing that job well enough). Ms Lynch clearly thinks that censorship is the way forward to shut up the dissenters once and for all. Welcome to the People’s Republic of Kruddistan:

What I am sensing right now is a very high level of anger and frustration particularly at the ‘sceptics’ who continue to derail the discussion. That frustration is probably at the forefront, and from many I’ve heard a real sense that to play the nay-sayer in the face of such serious consequences is deeply unethical. I’ve heard this directed both at scientists of various stripes and at members of the press.

O’Neill also quotes the following impartial observers of climate change:

• David “Asteroid” Karoly (Melbourne University)
• James Risbey (CSIRO)
• Andy Pitman (UNSW)
• Michael Raupach (CSIRO)
• Will “ACM’s Favourite Alarmist” Steffen (ANU)
• Barry Brook (Adelaide Uni)

So pretty fairly balanced, then… Pity the blog doesn’t allow comments (why not?).

It’s-All-Happening-Faster-Than-We-Though Alert: Tedious stories about the Arctic ice keep cropping up, like bad pennies, despite the Arctic ice actually having increased by a million square km since 2007.

The Arctic ice cap will disappear completely in summer months within 20 to 30 years, a polar research team said as they presented findings from an expedition led by adventurer Pen Hadow.

Note that this is the same Pen Hadow who participated in the Caitlin expedition earlier in the year. See here for a dissection of the alarmism that spawned.

It is likely to be largely ice-free during the warmer months within a decade, the experts added.

Veteran polar explorer Hadow and two other Britons went out on the Arctic ice cap for 73 days during the northern spring, taking more than 6,000 measurements and observations of the sea ice.

The raw data they collected from March to May has been analysed, producing some stark predictions about the state of the ice cap. [Gee, there’s a surprise – you could have bet your house on it NOT saying the opposite – Ed]

“The summer ice cover will completely vanish in 20 to 30 years but in less than that it will have considerably retreated,” said Professor Peter Wadhams, head of the polar ocean physics group at Britain’s prestigious Cambridge University.

“In about 10 years, the Arctic ice will be considered as open sea.”

And then of course the inevitable hysteria and call to action at Copenhagen:

Loss of sea ice cover will “set in motion powerful climate feedbacks which will have an impact far beyond the Arctic itself,” he added.

“This could lead to flooding affecting one quarter of the world’s population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emission from massive carbon pools and extreme global weather changes.” [One quarter of the world’s population??! I think you’ve got frostbite on the brain, pal – Ed]

“Today’s findings provide yet another urgent call for action to world leaders ahead of the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in December to rapidly and effectively curb global greenhouse gas emissions.”

Yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn. etc.

Read it here.

UPDATE: Anthony at Watts Up With That does the required demolition job.

Congratulations, Tim, on your award for linking the Samoan tsunami and the Indonesian earthquake (both caused by tectonic plate movement) to climate change:

Mr Costello said the “ring of fire” that had exploded in our region in recent weeks, including the tsunami in Samoa, the earthquake in Indonesia and flooding in the Philippines and India, was directly related to changes in global weather patterns. (source)

I’d love to hear an explanation for that!

Bjørn Lomborg is a voice of sanity in the climate debate. Despite believing that anthropogenic CO₂ causes “global warming”, he always argued cogently against emissions trading schemes, as they simply don’t work. However, in this article, Bjørn appears to be advocating “climate engineering,” which has to be one of the crazier ideas going around right now. There have been a few of these, like painting roofs white to reflect sunlight, injecting tonnes of sulphur into the atmosphere to reduce incoming solar radiation, many of which would have completely unpredictable results on the climate, and would be far more dangerous than the problem they are trying to solve, which Bjørn himself admits. But he does make a very valid point – that money should be spent on research and development rather than inefficient and unreliable “green energy”:

Some suggested climate engineering technologies – in particular, marine cloud-whitening technology – could be cheap, fast, and effective. (Boats would spray seawater droplets into clouds above the oceans to make them reflect more sunlight back into space, reducing warming). Remarkably, the research says that a total of about $US9 billion spent implementing marine cloud-whitening technology might be able to offset this entire century’s global warming. Even if one approaches this technology with concerns – as many of us do – we should aim to identify its limitations and risks sooner rather than later.

It appears that climate engineering could buy us some time, and it is time that we need to make a sustainable and smooth shift away from reliance on fossil fuels. Research shows that non-fossil-fuel energy sources will – based on today’s availability – get us less than halfway towards a path of stable carbon emissions by 2050, and only a tiny fraction of the way towards stabilisation by 2100.

If politicians change course and agree this December to invest significantly more in research and development, we would have a much greater chance of getting this technology to the level where it needs to be. And, because it would be cheaper and easier than carbon cuts, there would be a much greater chance of reaching a genuine, broad-based – and thus successful – international agreement.

Read it here.