Gillard "cautious on climate change"

24 June, 2010 by

Yes, Prime Minister

All the ecotards are crawling out of the woodwork, pressuring Gillard to resurrect the ETS. But initial signs are that Gillard is resisting, at least for the time being:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard says she is in no hurry to start emissions trading, resisting pressure from green groups to take faster action on climate change.

Labor’s decision in April to delay emissions trading until at least 2013 contributed to a dramatic dive in the standing of the government and former prime minister Kevin Rudd [and that’s not because people wanted an ETS, but because it showed that Rudd had no principles and about as much backbone as a jellyfish].

Ms Gillard indicated it would be business as usual on emissions trading under her watch, because there wasn’t a community consensus on the need for a price on carbon.

“First, we will need to establish a community consensus for action,” Ms Gillard told reporters today, shortly after her election as Labor leader.

“If elected as prime minister [at the next election], I will re-prosecute the case for a carbon price at home and abroad.”

She would pursue that argument “as long as I need to” to win over the community.

But the usual climate whingers are on Gillard’s back already, such as John Connor from the Climate Institute, and Greenpeace of course, all with vested interests and political agendas to pursue. At least Gillard acknowledges that there isn’t a community consensus on the issue at the moment…

Read it here.

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Julia Gillard is new Australian Prime Minister

24 June, 2010 by

In … out.

Kevin Rudd has stepped down and Julia Gillard is now Australia’s first female prime minister. In the end, there was no ballot in the Labor caucus room – Rudd realised that he had so little support. Wayne Swan is the new deputy PM.

The press are pinning Rudd’s downfall primarily on his failure to go ahead with the ETS back in April.

A disastrous day for Labor, and it will be very interesting to see what Gillard does with the policy nightmares – the mining tax, asylum seekers etc, but in particular the ETS, which may be back on the policy table.

The Liberals came out with the “Kevin OLemon” advert just a day or so ago, and now Rudd’s gone. Must be one of the most effective ad campaigns ever! Here it is:

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BREAKING: Rudd leadership in doubt

23 June, 2010 by

On the way out?

THIS POST WILL BE UPDATED AS EVENTS UNFOLD.

As I watch Sky’s coverage, there is a possible leadership challenge to Kevin Rudd underway in Canberra right now.

It is being reported that the challenge is being pushed by the right factions in Victoria and South Australia. The question is whether Julia Gillard will agree to be put forward as replacement.

2005 AEST: Senior source states that the question being put comes down to whether a Gillard government would be a “better, more consultative government” than Rudd’s.

2010 AEST: Mark Arbib apparently wishes Gillard to run. Gillard and Faulkner are still in Rudd’s office.

2020 AEST: Anthony Albanese and Lindsay Tanner join the party in Rudd’s office. This process will be very damaging for Rudd even if he survives…

2030 AEST: Bill Shorten is “rushing to make himself Kingmaker” ahead of Simon Crean “whom he detests” – don’t ya just love it!!

2040 AEST: Australian Workers Union move away from Rudd – big move.

2042 AEST: AWU now backing Gillard – is it all over for Rudd? All the other right unions will follow suit.

2045 AEST: Labor source: “Rudd’s dead.”

2055 AEST: Meeting still underway…

2100 AEST: Lefty Sky News is running the screen text “SMS to Liberal MPs to ‘totally shut up about the leadership'”

2120 AEST: NSW Right is now behind Gillard (Sky source) – it’s all over for Rudd.

2125 AEST: Nationwide right faction has deserted Rudd.

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Urban areas "getting hotter faster"

23 June, 2010 by

The UHI hard at work

So reads the headline on the ABC website, as if it’s something we don’t know. Obviously, as cities increase in size, the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect will also increase. However, the latest “research” bolts this on to the IPCC’s incorrectly exaggerated warming predictions, to give some even scarier scenarios:

Dr Richard Betts, a climate scientist at the UK’s Met Office, and colleagues, report their findings in the journal Geophysical Research Letters [although I cannot find the article there right now].

Betts and colleagues found not only do cities retain more heat than rural areas do but hot cities will grow even hotter as the climate warms and cities grow.

By mid-century, night-time temperatures in cities could rise by more than 5.6°C, they say.

At stake are the comfort and health of people who live in cities around the world, especially those who don’t have access to air-conditioning.

“If you’ve been exposed to hot temperatures during the day and you expect relief over night, that becomes increasingly difficult as temperatures at night get warmer,” says Betts. “We have to prepare to live in a warmer world.”

In a concrete jungle, roads and buildings absorb sunlight and trap heat, which also flows as waste out of cars, air-conditioning units and even just the breathing of millions of people crammed into a busy grid of streets.

As a result, cities create their own, warmer microclimates – a phenomenon called the urban heat island effect.

Unfortunately, this is another GIGO* case, where the results from the IPCC’s incomplete models, which vastly overstate the sensitivity of the climate, are plugged into further models of UHI effects (which may or may not be accurate). However, satellite temperatures are continuing to diverge from the IPCC’s predictions, which means that research based on them is the stuff of fairytales.

Read it here.

* Garbage in, garbage out

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Audio: Watts and Bolt on Melbourne Talk Radio

23 June, 2010 by

Anthony Watts

Anthony Watts joins Andrew Bolt on MTR with Steve Price (recorded earlier this morning). Click below to listen:

Watts and Bolt on MTR

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Spencer: The Global Warming Inquisition has begun

23 June, 2010 by

Fetch … the COMFY CHAIR!

The blogosphere is buzzing with the news of the National Academy of Sciences “sceptic blacklist” (see here), and Roy Spencer sums it up eloquently:

The study lends a pseudo-scientific air of respectability to what amounts to a black list of the minority of scientists who do not accept the premise that global warming is mostly the result of you driving your SUV and using incandescent light bulbs.

There is no question that there are very many more scientific papers which accept the mainstream view of global warming being caused by humans. And that might account for something if those papers actually independently investigated alternative, natural mechanisms that might explain most global warming in the last 30 to 50 years, and found that those natural mechanisms could not.

As just one of many alternative explanations, most of the warming we have measured in the last 30 years could have been caused by a natural, 2% decrease in cloud cover. Unfortunately, our measurements of global cloud cover over that time are nowhere near accurate enough to document such a change.

But those scientific studies did not address all of the alternative explanations. They couldn’t, because we do not have the data to investigate them. The vast majority of them simply assumed global warming was manmade.

I’m sorry, but in science a presupposition is not “evidence”.

Instead, anthropogenic climate change has become a scientific faith. The fact that the very first sentence in the PNAS article uses the phrase “tenets of anthropogenic climate change” hints at this, since the term “tenet” is most often used when referring to religious doctrine, or beliefs which cannot be proved to be true.

So, since we have no other evidence to go on, let’s pin the rap on humanity. It just so happens that’s the position politicians want, which is why politics played such a key role in the formation of the IPCC two decades ago.

The growing backlash against us skeptics makes me think of the Roman Catholic Inquisition, which started in the 12th Century. Of course, no one (I hope no one) will be tried and executed for not believing in anthropogenic climate change. But the fact that one of the five keywords or phrases attached to the new PNAS study is “climate denier” means that such divisive rhetoric is now considered to be part of our mainstream scientific lexicon by our country’s premier scientific organization, the National Academy of Sciences.

Read it here.

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US National Academy of Sciences publishes sceptic "blacklist"

22 June, 2010 by

Better than being blackballed

Clearly the gloves are off, as the alarmists realise they are losing the battle, and all pretence of there being any hint of scientific integrity in the climate change debate vanishes, as Roger Pielke Jr notes:

Little did I know it, but I am intimately associated with the world’s most accomplished “climate skeptic.” But he is not actually a skeptic, because he believes that humans have a profound influence on the climate system and policy action is warranted. More on that in a second.

A new paper is out today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (which I’ll call APHS10 after the author’s initials) that segregates climate scientists into the “convinced” and the “unconvinced” — two relatively ambiguous categories — and then seeks to compare the credentials of the two groups. The paper is based on the tireless efforts of a climate blogger, self-described as “not an academic,” who has been frustrated by those who don’t share his views on climate change:

I’ve also grown all too familiar with the tiny minority of ‘climate skeptics’ or ‘deniers’ who try to minimize the problem, absolve humans of any major impact, or suggest there is no need to take any action. I’ve gotten pretty fed up with the undue weight given to the skeptics in the media and online.

What qualifies one to be on the APHS10 list of skeptics, which I’ll just call the “black list”? Well, you get there for being perceived to have certain views on climate science or politics. You get on the black list if you have,

signed any of the open letters or declarations expressing skepticism of the IPCC’s findings, of climate science generally, of the “consensus” on human-induced warming, and/or arguing against any need for immediate cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.

In fact, it turns out that you don’t even have to sign an open letter or argue against immediate cuts for emissions. You can simply appear unwillingly on Senator James Inhofe’s list. A co-author of APHS10 warns on his website (but not in the paper) of the perils of relying on the Senator’s list:

I caution readers to take this with a grain of salt: a number of experts have been included despite their strong support for GHG reductions. However, the list does record a significant number of people who are outspoken critics of Kyoto or of efforts to cut GHG emissions generally.

So you can find yourself on the black list as a “climate skeptic” or “denier” simply because you express strong support for greenhouse gas reductions, but have been critical of the Kyoto approach. On the other hand, a scientist like James Hansen, who has expressed considerable disagreement with aspects of the IPCC consensus, finds himself on the list of people who are said to agree with the IPCC consensus. In fact, it appears that simply being a contributor to the IPCC qualifies one to be on the list of those who are defined to be in agreement with the IPCC consensus and/or demand immediate action on emissions reductions and support Kyoto (unless of course one doesn’t qualify, in which case you are placed on the other list — it is complicated, trust me).

Read it here.

UPDATE: The UK Telegraph reports on the new paper and quotes Judith Curry and John Christy:

Judith Curry, a climate expert at the Georgia Institute of Technology – who was not part of the analysis – called the study “completely unconvincing” while John Christy of University of Alabama claimed he and other climate sceptics included in the survey were simply “being blacklisted” by colleagues. (source)

Sounds about right.

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New CSIRO boss has "no scientific pedigree"

21 June, 2010 by

Could they have chosen anyone worse?

By his own admission! In fact, he is a corporate banker from Macquarie, Simon McKeon. Words fail me. But in the end, who cares? CSIRO isn’t in the business of proper science any more, it’s just a mouthpiece for federal government funded climate change alarmism, and this guy, who knows nothing about science, is perfect for the job, announcing that he “wants climate change elevated to the top of the political and public agenda.” He is, of course, clueless on climate:

“We may not have all the answers to what is occurring, we may not have certainly all the solutions to how to fix it,” he said.

“But the point is, why wouldn’t one take out very strong insurance to at least do what we can to future-proof our well-being? I think it’s a no-brainer.”

Add CSIRO to the ever-lengthening list of scientific institutions that have disappeared down the pan.

Read it here.

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UK windfarms being paid to turn off turbines

21 June, 2010 by

Spectacular failure

No, you did read that correctly. Wind farms are being paid to turn off their turbines – even when the wind is blowing! But hang on a minute, isn’t wind power a key plank in the whole “green economy” that we’re seamlessly transitioning towards? Aren’t we supposed to be able to decommission our coal and gas fired power stations and rely on wind and solar instead? From the UK Telegraph:

Energy firms will receive thousands of pounds a day per wind farm to turn off their turbines because the National Grid cannot use the power they are producing.

Critics of wind farms have seized on the revelation as evidence of the unsuitability of turbines to meet the UK’s energy needs in the future. They claim that the ‘intermittent’ nature of wind makes such farms unreliable providers of electricity.

The National Grid fears that on breezy summer nights, wind farms could actually cause a surge in the electricity supply which is not met by demand from businesses and households.

The electricity cannot be stored, so one solution – known as the ‘balancing mechanism’ – is to switch off or reduce the power supplied.

The system is already used to reduce supply from coal and gas-fired power stations when there is low demand. But shutting down wind farms is likely to cost the National grid – and ultimately consumers – far more. When wind turbines are turned off, owners are being deprived not only of money for the electricity they would have generated but also lucrative ‘green’ subsidies for that electricity.

The first successful test shut down of wind farms took place three weeks ago. Scottish Power received £13,000 for closing down two farms for a little over an hour on 30 May at about five in the morning.

Can we finally abandon this nonsensical “green economy” myth now please?

Read it here. (h/t WUWT)

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Global sea temperatures continue to plunge

20 June, 2010 by

Wave goodbye to El Niño, say hello to La Niña and widespread cooling, as Dr Roy Spencer reports:

Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) measured by the AMSR-E instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite continue their plunge as a predicted La Nina approaches. The following plot, updated through yesterday (June 17, 2010) shows that the cooling in the Nino34 region in the tropical east Pacific is well ahead of the cooling in the global average SST, something we did not see during the 2007-08 La Nina event:

And Dr Spencer’s conclusion is timely:

At this pace of cooling, I suspect that the second half of 2010 could ruin the chances of getting a record high global temperature for this year. Oh, darn.

Read it here.

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