"Rights of Mother Earth": barking madness from Durban

9 December, 2011 by

Durban nightmare

This is what you get if you fill a room full of extreme greens – total nonsense. It would be funny if it weren’t so dangerous. Here are some of the key points from a draft (or should that be plain “daft”) document from Durban, and a glimpse at the kind of world we may inhabit if the lunatics ever get to run the asylum:

  • A new International Climate Court will have the power to compel Western nations to pay ever-larger sums to third-world countries in the name of making reparation for supposed “climate debt”. The Court will have no power over third-world countries. Here and throughout the draft, the West is the sole target. “The process” is now irredeemably anti-Western.
  • “Rights of Mother Earth”: The draft, which seems to have been written by feeble-minded green activists and environmental extremists, talks of “The recognition and defence of the rights of Mother Earth to ensure harmony between humanity and nature”. Also, “there will be no commodification [whatever that may be: it is not in the dictionary and does not deserve to be] of the functions of nature, therefore no carbon market will be developed with that purpose”.
  • “Right to survive”: The draft childishly asserts that “The rights of some Parties to survive are threatened by the adverse impacts of climate change, including sea level rise.” At 2 inches per century, according to eight years’ data from the Envisat satellite? Oh, come off it! The Jason 2 satellite, the new kid on the block, shows that sea-level has actually dropped over the past three years.
  • War and the maintenance of defence forces and equipment are to cease – just like that – because they contribute to climate change. There are other reasons why war ought to cease, but the draft does not mention them.
  • A new global temperature target will aim, Canute-like, to limit “global warming” to as little as 1 C° above pre-industrial levels. Since temperature is already 3 C° above those levels, what is in effect being proposed is a 2 C° cut in today’s temperatures. This would take us halfway back towards the last Ice Age, and would kill hundreds of millions. Colder is far more dangerous than warmer.
  • The new CO2 emissions target, for Western countries only, will be a reduction of up to 50% in emissions over the next eight years and of “more than 100%” [these words actually appear in the text] by 2050. So, no motor cars, no coal-fired or gas-fired power stations, no aircraft, no trains. Back to the Stone Age, but without even the right to light a carbon-emitting fire in your caves. Windmills, solar panels and other “renewables” are the only alternatives suggested in the draft. There is no mention of the immediate and rapid expansion of nuclear power worldwide to prevent near-total economic destruction.
  • The new CO2 concentration target could be as low as 300 ppmv CO2 equivalent (i.e., including all other greenhouse gases as well as CO2 itself). That is a cut of almost half compared with the 560 ppmv CO2 equivalent today. It implies just 210 ppmv of CO2 itself, with 90 ppmv CO2 equivalent from other greenhouse gases. But at 210 ppmv, plants and trees begin to die. CO2 is plant food. They need a lot more of it than 210 ppmv.
  • The peak-greenhouse-gas target year – for the West only – will be this year. We will be obliged to cut our emissions from now on, regardless of the effect on our economies (and the lack of effect on the climate).
  • The West will pay for everything, because of its “historical responsibility” for causing “global warming”. Third-world countries will not be obliged to pay anything. But it is the UN, not the third-world countries, that will get the money from the West, taking nearly all of it for itself as usual. There is no provision anywhere in the draft for the UN to publish accounts of how it has spent the $100 billion a year the draft demands that the West should stump up from now on.

You just can’t make this stuff up, unless you’re in a hermetically sealed eco-bubble disconnected from reality, just like Durban in fact.

Read it all.

And whilst you’re over at Climate Depot, read the “A-Z Climate Reality Check” (65 page PDF).

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Paul Sheehan unloads on the Green government

9 December, 2011 by

Running Australia

The fact that our present government is run by the Greens hasn’t escaped even the Sydney Morning Herald, as Paul Sheehan documents the Green takeover of the legislative agenda. The article will have the latte-sipping urban-green elite spraying their organic muesli over the breakfast table:

When the Australian people voted in last year’s federal election, most of them did not vote for the Greens nor did they endorse a Coalition government involving the Greens. But that’s what they got.

In the vote for the House of Representatives, where government is decided, 94 per cent of the adult population voted and 88 per cent of their collective primary vote went to parties other than the Greens. Yet in the ensuing 15 months all the big policy shifts by the Gillard government – none of which was put to the electorate – have been towards core policies of the Greens.

The Prime Minister said no to a carbon tax. We have a carbon tax. She said no to open borders. We have de facto open borders. She said no to gay marriage. Support for gay marriage is now Labor Party policy. She put off indefinitely any substance of an emissions trading scheme. The machinery for such a scheme has been legislated. She said little about giving trade unions sweeping new rights. The unions are now acting on sweeping new rights.

Yet another brick in the Green wall was put in place this week when Gillard and her cabinet made a mockery of the tender process, reversed itself again, and wasted millions of dollars again, giving the running of the Australia Network to the ABC, indefinitely.

The Greens, utterly wedded to big government, wanted this tax-funded Australian overseas TV network to be part of the ABC. The Greens will propose legislation seeking to make this happen next year.

It already has, effectively. The network will operate as part of the ABC despite losing the tender process to Sky News and despite the ABC’s dreadful 24-hour news network being grossly inferior to Sky News.

Read it all.

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The Cry grows quite stale and threadbare

7 December, 2011 by

Croxall's Fables

The Boy who cried Wolf. Or in this case, “the Boys” – the climate alarmists, the IPCC, the mainstream media (particularly Fairfax and the ABC), the university climate change departments, Flannery, Gillard, Combet, Rudd, Wong, and all the others who are guilty of barefaced and brazen exaggeration and scaremongering in respect of the dangers posed by man-made climate change.

So many times have we heard that it is the last chance to save the planet, it has lost any impact it may have once had. Year after year, the climate fails to follow the dire predictions, the rains still fall, the sun still shines, the planet is indeed still here, and so are we, healthier and, for the most part (EU excepted perhaps), wealthier.

What follows is a wonderful extract from a book of Aesop’s Fables by S Croxall, dated 1722:

“He that is detected for being a notorious Liar, besides the Ignominy and Reproach of the Thing, incurs this Mischief, that he will scarce be able to get any one to believe him again as long as he lives. However true our Complaint may be, or how much soever it may be for our Interest to have it believed, yet if we have been frequently caught tripping before, we should hardly be able to gain Credit to what we relate afterwards.

Though Mankind are generally stupid enough to be often imposed upon, yet few are so senseless as to believe a notorious Liar, or to trust a Cheat upon Record. These little Shams, when found out, are sufficiently prejudicial to the Interest of every private Person who practices them. But, when we are alarmed with imaginary Dangers in Respect of the Public, till the Cry grows quite stale and threadbare, how can it be expected we should know when to guard ourselves against real ones?”

What a glorious phrase: the Cry grows quite stale and threadbare, and how appropriate the extract above relates to the current debate on climate change.

Indeed, the climate alarmists have been “frequently caught tripping before”. We only have to take the briefest glance at the Climategate emails to see uncertainties downplayed, an agenda (or “The Cause” as it should now be referred to) bolstered and protected, and extreme measures taken to ensure The Message is consistent – or in other words, there is consensus. Mankind is certainly still stupid enough to be imposed upon frequently, but the point is near where the public will in future “resolve to take no notice of their alarm.”

And this is a huge problem. As has been discussed many times on this blog, the credibility of the climate science community, in particular the IPCC, is destroyed. No-one who has read even a small proportion of the Climategate emails can possibly take the word of the IPCC (or any of their associated alarmists) when the latest scare story is regurgitated by the mainstream media.

However, this situation will inevitably stifle proper scientific advancement. If a significant section (the majority?) of the climate science community is so tainted by the Ignominy and Reproach of so many failed predictions and hysterical warnings, on whom can policymakers rely to base their decisions? Politicians require such experts to guide their thinking, but so many organisations around the world have abandoned their impartial scientific principles to climb aboard the bandwagon of environmentalism that there are very few of them that remain unscathed.

And the bigger question is this: if at some point in the future, a particular branch of science was genuinely predicting impending catastrophe for the planet and its inhabitants – perhaps from a possible asteroid impact, a deadly virus, or a range of other threats – would we believe it? Would we, given the experience we have so far endured with climate science, be prepared to put our trust in the hands of those who tell us, We know best and we must act now? Would the public consent to such a course, “However true our Complaint may be”? Or would the wolf devour the sheep?

The Cry has indeed grown stale and threadbare. Trust once lost is never regained. The IPCC and the climate science community have lost that trust, squandering it and abandoning their scientific integrity in pursuit of politically correct environmental agenda supported by misrepresentation, bullying and spin. It will take an extraordinary effort to rebuild it again from scratch, and that’s no exaggeration.

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Brisbane: coldest December day in 123 years

7 December, 2011 by

Throw another reindeer on the barbie…

Another from the Weather Isn’t Climate Department:

Cloud and rain has limited Brisbane’s temperature to 19.1 degrees so far today, putting the city on track for its coldest December day since 1888.

20mm of rain had drenched the city between 9am and 3pm, while the associated cloud cover had blocked out the warming rays of the summer sun.

The highest temperature recorded after 9am in Brisbane was 19.1 degrees, which is around 10 below average for the month of December. The main Brisbane weather site only has 12 years of continuous records, but checking surrounding sites from the city and the old regional office site, the current maximum of 19.1 would be the lowest recorded since 1888 (assuming we stay at or below 19.3 until 9am on Thursday). (source)

Of course, this story is as meaningless in relation to climate as all those hysterical claims that hot days are a sign of “global warming”.

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Idiotic Comment of the Day: Ban Ki-moon

7 December, 2011 by

Moon(-bat)

The UN Moonbat is on cracking form today in Durban, trying to scare world leaders (most of whom are preoccupied with keeping their economies solvent) into taking utterly futile and eye-wateringly expensive action on climate change. Fortunately, there is little chance of that:

“It would be difficult to overstate the gravity of this moment,” Mr Ban said overnight at the start of a four-day meeting of the world’s environment ministers.

But somehow, Moonbat succeeds:

“Without exaggeration, we can say: the future of our planet is at stake – people’s lives, the health of the global economy, the very survival of some nations.“

Without exaggeration, that’s bullish*t. I humbly suggest that Mr Ban take a cold shower and read the Climategate 2.0 emails. He might learn something.

Source.

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IPCC "too sullied to be credible"

5 December, 2011 by

Sullied

Professor Stewart Franks speaks some highly inconvenient truths about the IPCC (reported, amazingly, by the ABC):

Stewart Franks says there is no evidence that carbon dioxide drives global warming and he blames the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for scaring people about a future climate catastrophe.

For the past decade Professor Franks has focussed his research on natural variability in climate as being the driver of extreme droughts and rain events, rather that CO2 emissions.

He says the emails from Kevin Trenberth from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, show fundamental flaws in their methodology, but the public is being kept in the dark.

Professor Franks says he believes the emails support his own argument that natural variability is responsible for warming.

“Now I’ve been criticised for talking about these modes that we’ve barely beginning to understand as somehow being some kind of a denier of climate change or a pure contrarian,” he said.a

“But it is really heartening to see that these scientists actually acknowledge and in fact one scientist went as far as to say ‘What if all the warming we actually see is just natural multi-decadal variability?’

“He then said, ‘They’ll probably kill us’.

“I think we do need an independent and judicial review of the evidence both for and against the likelihood of climate change beyond naturally catastrophic climate variability.

“I must say the IPCC is far too sullied by the leaks and some of the shenanigans that the emails show have be going on.

“It is now too sullied to be credible.” (source)

He’s absolutely right of course. The IPCC has lost the little trust it may once have had, thanks in part to the Climategate emails which reveal an organisation driven by political agenda, happy to silence dissent, disappear inconvenient data, destroy emails and smear critics. This issue was giving me pause for thought only a day or so ago, as I pondered how climate science can be rehabilitated. I actually believe an organisation akin to the IPCC can serve a useful purpose in the climate debate, if and only if it were to be constituted properly. However, this isn’t going to be easy.

For a start, the IPCC has to go, once and for all. Clear the slate and start again. Secondly, any successor organisation should have nothing whatsoever to do with the UN. I’m not entirely sure which global organisation should take its place, but that’s a decision for later. Thirdly, funding should be made a level playing field – sceptics and consensus scientists should compete on equal terms for research grants. Fourthly, either vested interests should be allowed to participate across the board, or they should be excluded completely. Cosying up to WWF whilst slamming “Big Oil” is rank hypocrisy. Finally, the successor organisation must have transparent procedures and processes in place. The IPCC is opaque in its appointment of key personnel and the review procedure for its reports, and this is completely unacceptable.

As I have said many times, I am agnostic on the causes of the 20th century warming. However, I am damn sure that I want to see apolitical, impartial and unbiased science, untainted by environmental agendas, before I am prepared to accept it as gospel. And the IPCC will never, ever be able to meet that requirement.

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Tropical fish on Barrier Reef adapt in two generations

5 December, 2011 by

Am I bovvered?

From the Science is Settled Department comes the news that the fauna of the Barrier Reef can adapt to even sudden changes in water temperature extremely quickly. The Daily Telegraph reports:

ONE of the direst warnings about the effect of climate change on Australia – that rising sea temperatures will devastate the marine life of the Great Barrier Reef – has been dramatically challenged by new research.

Scientists from the CSIRO and James Cook University found that tropical fish easily adapted – and actually thrived – despite being forced to live in water up to 3C warmer than normal, a temperature increase at the highest end of global warming predictions.

They found that it took just two generations of tropical damsel fish, common on the Great Barrier Reef, to adapt when they were reared from birth in tanks of warm water.

The scientists warn that previous methods of studying the ability of tropical fish to cope with rising sea temperatures – by looking at one generation of fish – is flawed.

“We demonstrate that a tropical reef fish is highly sensitive to small increases in water temperature but can rapidly acclimate over multiple generations,” the scientists said in peer-reviewed work published in prestigious journal Nature Climate Change.

“Acute exposure to elevated temperatures predicted to occur this century caused a 15 per cent and 30 per cent respective decrease in individuals’ maximum ability to perform aerobic activities such as swimming or foraging, known as aerobic scope.

“However, complete compensation in aerobic scope occurred when both parents and offspring were reared throughout their lives at elevated temperature.

“Such acclimation could reduce the impact of warming temperatures and allow populations to persist across their current range.

“This study reveals the importance of trans-generational acclimation as a mechanism for coping with rapid climate change and highlights that single generation studies risk underestimating the potential of species to cope. (source)

Once again, the alarmist argument that the planet and its inhabitants cannot adapt to climate change has been shown to be flawed in this case. If the planet were so fragile, how come we have a diverse and thriving ecosystem that has suffered through multiple changes in climate more dramatic than that occurring at present?

Clearly the tropical fish haven’t got around to enacting a carbon tax to “tackle climate change”, so they’re stuck with boring old adaptation which they can clearly accomplish very rapidly. Maybe we should follow their lead?

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Sydney: coolest start to Summer in 51 years

4 December, 2011 by

Sydney storms

From the Weather Isn’t Climate Department:

Thunderstorms are helping Sydney achieve its coolest start to summer in 51 years, according to weatherzone.com.au.

Thunderstorms rolled across the city late this morning and early afternoon, cooling most suburbs below 17 degrees, well below average for this time of year. The storms also brought brief rain and hail to some western and northern suburbs. Picnickers and beach-goers were sent scurrying.

“In the first four days of this summer, Sydney has now failed to reach 23 degrees, making it the coolest start in 44 years,” Weatherzone meteorologist Brett Dutschke said.

“The city is on target for its coolest start to summer in 51 years with none of the next three days expected to reach 23 degrees,” Dutschke said.

In the summer of 1960, each of the first 10 days were cooler than 22 degrees. (source)

Bring me sunshine…

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Attenborough: "irrelevant" whether climate change is man-made

4 December, 2011 by

Sold out

UPDATE: Attenborough is bankrolled by the BBC, so it’s hardly surprising that he toes the alarmist line. As a commenter pointed out, look what happened to David Bellamy when he dared speak his mind.

We still have to do something about it, apparently. Another icon of my youth, David Attenborough, sells out to the Dark Side and reveals himself as a climate alarmist. Like the Natural History Museum and the BBC, these institutions have sullied their reputations by abandoning impartiality and embracing alarmist hysteria.

Attenborough’s latest pronouncements on the climate make interesting reading, because he seems to suggest that we should take action on climate change irrespective of whether, or to what extent, it is caused by man. I actually heard this in the wee small hours on ABC News Radio and thought I was having a bad dream:

“I don’t think anyone can seriously deny it is happening,” he said. “What the controversy is about is whether mankind has been a factor in that. I personally think we have and it would be surprising if we hadn’t given what we have been doing for the last 125 years.”

We’re all with you so far. Man has had some effect on the climate. Continue.

“But in the way it is irrelevant given temperatures are increasing and we know that is potentially doing a lot of damage and if we can we should try and stop that happening. Whether it is caused by us or not, we can bring down carbon emissions and that could stop temperatures rising.” (source)

Just run that past me again… “whether it is caused by us or not, we can bring down carbon emissions and that could stop temperatures rising.” Right, so you’re not sure whether man-made carbon emissions have caused the recent warming, but cutting those emissions will stop it somehow? Sorry, not following that logic at all, I’m afraid. In fact, it’s complete and utter nonsense.

Not surprising, because this isn’t an argument based on logic, it’s an argument based on an environmental ideology. Thankfully we have Nigel Lawson to put the more rational perspective:

Sir David Attenborough is one of this country’s finest journalists, and a great expert on animal life. Unfortunately, however, when it comes to global warming he seems to prefer sensation to objectivity.

Had he wished to be objective, he would have pointed out that, while satellite observations do indeed confirm that the extent of arctic sea ice has been declining over the past 30 years, the same satellite observations show that, overall, Antarctic sea ice has been expanding over the same period.

Had he wished to be objective, he would have pointed out that the polar bear population has not been falling, but rising.

Had he wished to be objective, he would have mentioned that recent research findings show that the increased evaporation from the Arctic ocean, as a result of warming, will cause there to be more cloud cover, thus counteracting the adverse effect he is so concerned about.

Had he wished to be objective, he would have noted that, while there was indeed a modest increase in mean global temperature (of about half a degree Centigrade) during the last quarter of the 20th century, so far this century both the UK Met Office and the World Meteorological Office confirm that there has been no further global warming at all.

What will happen in the future is inevitably unclear. But two things are clear. First, that Sir David’s alarmism is sheer speculation. Second, that if there is a resumption of warming, the only rational course is to adapt to it, rather than to try (happily a lost cause) to persuade the world to impoverish itself by moving from relatively cheap carbon-based energy to much more expensive non-carbon energy. (source)

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Cold feet on climate: banks slash carbon traders

3 December, 2011 by

Carbon traders?

City institutions are pretty savvy when it comes to securing the future of their businesses. Decades of experience have taught them which opportunities are genuine and which are fake. During the last decade, climate change departments have sprung up in many international investment banks, accountancy and law firms around the world, keen to cash in on the massive revenue streams from advising on and/or trading in carbon and climate markets.

Maybe the penny has begun to drop, since many such institutions are already starting to show signs of cold feet on climate change and are slashing employees working in such areas. As the Sydney Morning Herald reports (via Bloomberg):

Investment banks are cutting traders and analysts in climate-related businesses as a slump in shares and carbon emission permits coincides with a deadlock in international climate talks.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Managing Director for Environmental Markets Odin Knudsen left his post in New York by mutual accord after his team was shrunk, while UBS Securities LLC fired Vice Chairman Jon Anda and his Climate Policy Group co-workers, Anda and Knudsen said in interviews. Ben Lynch left his London job as an alternative-energy analyst for Commerzbank AG and it was taken over by a utilities analyst, company spokeswoman Claire Tappenden said. The departures took place since September.

The biggest banks, trying to recover from trading losses and a clampdown on investing their own money, are clipping resources from emissions-related businesses as United Nations talks have failed for years to extend Kyoto Protocol greenhouse- gas curbs beyond their expiration in 2012. The International Emissions Trading Association, the main carbon-market trade group, has seen its membership slide about 6 per cent this year.

“People are leaving the industry because they’ve been fired or because they see no prospects,” said Emmanuel Fages, head of energy research for Europe at Societe Generale SA in Paris. “That is the sad story.” (source)

“Sad story” is not exactly how I would put it. You would have thought, if the world were “rushing ahead” towards global carbon trading, the banks would be pulling out all the stops to ensure they were first in line to cream off a healthy profit. But it appears, at long last, that these institutions are coming to their senses and rapidly bailing out of an imaginary, manufactured market, mired in corruption and bogged down in fraud – and with little future, given the current global financial strife.

And once the money dries up, it’s Game Over.

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