Forget the climate — Spend billions to stop Australia being called names like “Pariah” and “Denier”

Color me alarmed. We might be called names! Let’s make National Policy to avoid embarrassment.

Australian carbon dioxide emissions, cartoon, global temperature changeTim Flannery and the “Climate Council” think we should spend billions in an attempt to pander to foreign opinions — but it’s not even the average global citizen we are talking about, just the international inner-city cafe-latte crowd. Everyone worries about the environment in surveys, but they don’t care enough to spend much money on it. And last time I looked, being a Global Climate Pariah was good for our tourism —  visitors were still flocking to Australia after we got rid of the carbon tax, and the Chardonnay set were still drinking our wine (all 700 million liters).

It’s not about global temperatures

No one can pretend Australia can cool the planet: we emit a mere 1.16% of human emissions. Total human output of CO2 is a mere 4% of nature. Even if the IPCC was completely right, and we shut down Australia and everybody left — we would cool world temperatures by 0.0154 °C. Welcome to Futility Island — Australian emissions of CO2 are irrelevant to global temperatures.

So why cut CO2 at all —  Because we are scared of being called names?

Everyone is a pariah these days

Last week the UK cut green subsidies (it was so harsh, the industry called an emergency summit). Germany are chopping back the green schemes, burning more coal,  and gave up on their 2020 emissions target. In Japan, emissions hit new record highs. The former ambitious emissions targets nearly all failed (Australia being one of the only Annex 1 countries to make its Kyoto agreement) and new emissions targets keep moving into the far unaccountable future.  A few weeks ago, the G7 leaders met and resolved to bravely free us 100% from fossil fuels — but only after most people alive today are dead.

If the fuss was about actual CO2 emissions, Australia would be a hero — per capita Australian emissions have fallen by 28% since 1990. The “pariah” status is about pandering to the green industry, self-serving bureaucrats, and the eco-religion. Grovel to the Green gods!

In any case, actual atmospheric CO2 levels seem to be rising faster over developing nations.  Watch carbon dioxide rise and fall in a global seasonal pattern that depends mostly on warmth and sunlight.

The Australian

Aust will be a pariah if no climate action

AUSTRALIA risks becoming a “global pariah” if the federal government doesn’t step up efforts to tackle climate change, experts warn.

THE Climate Council says with all G7 countries except Japan outlining their new emissions reduction targets ahead of the Paris summit, it’s clear that most countries see it’s in their national interest to take accelerating action.

“This is likely the first time in recent history that Australia has come under such sustained criticism from other countries over its domestic policies,” chief councillor Tim Flannery said in a statement.

It’s a symbolic thing. We hope China, 1.4 billion, is hankering to follow our lead towards eco-martyrdom.

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197 comments to Forget the climate — Spend billions to stop Australia being called names like “Pariah” and “Denier”

  • #
    Dennis

    Despite meeting the Kyoto Protocol emissions target Australia is still not doing enough?

    Do they care, all they ever wanted was their political agenda pushed forward and money.

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    • #
      aussieguy

      It is never enough. They must keep pushing because they need to keep the money flowing!

      Clearly, the “golden age” of this Climate Nonsense is done. Money is being withdrawn as the general public is more concerned about everything else (Climate Change is something like 12th on their list of priorities. At least in Sydney)…So they chuck this tantrum as Govt is turning off the rivers of honey and nectar (taxpayer money). Notice how they always appeal to emotion?

      AUSTRALIA risks becoming a “global pariah” if the federal government doesn’t step up efforts to tackle climate change, experts warn.


      There’s only one verbal response to this: So what! No one cares any more!

      THE Climate Council says…


      This is really Climate Commission Version 2.0 …No longer funded by the taxpayer! (That’s the good news). It is and has always been an Australian activist propaganda hub for Climate Nonsense.


      I’ll tell you folks how the strategy of these activist think-tanks work.

      (1) Publish a paper that paints the Govt in bad light. (Must be emotional. In this case, “global pariah” report. Or like “Angry Summer” report when Flannery had his snout in the taxpayer trough.)
      (2) Get compliant news media to spread the word. Portray the activist think-tank as if it was a genuine scientific authority. (Like this one.)
      (3) Hope the public is stupid enough to fall for it and begin campaigning to put pressure on the Govt to change its mind. (Seriously, look at the comment feedback and note how they don’t have a clue they are being played!)

      This actually doesn’t work well if the Australian public has Climate Change down in 12th position in their list of concerns. Most people are concerned with economy, jobs, housing, living costs, etc. Heck, ISIS ranks higher than Climate Change! And so it should! Someone hating us and have no qualms in cutting people’s heads off tends to have a louder ring than reports from Flannery’s crowd-funded Climate Treehouse Club.


      So let’s summarise…

      Standard operating procedure of modern activist think-tanks for academics and pseudo-intellectuals. You don’t need to conduct mass street protests any more! Get someone to do the work for you!

      (1) Form your own think-tank of like-minded activists with various professional credentials. (You need to look professional in order to portray yourself as a trusted authority!)
      (2) Secure funding from the gullible. (Always try to get taxpayer money first. If that fails, secure via crowd-funding.)
      (3) Publish “reports” or “studies”. (Propaganda material to support your cause and to target Govt of the day.)
      (4) Spread the message out to news media. (Via Twitter or Facebook, or previously established media relations/friends.)
      (5) Hope it starts a grass-roots protest or lobbying to “affect change”. (I’m using the Leftist vocabulary here.)
      (6) Wait 6 months and repeat Step (1).

      I learned from observing modern activist groups (Eco-folks, Feminists, Gay Marriage activists, asylum-seeker activists, Social Justice, etc) is that they all eventually fall into a standard operating behaviour that makes them predictable. Just observe the behaviour. They can sprout as much propaganda they want…It is not the words, but their behaviour that gives them away!

      They have to cloak their intentions with words (often butchering the English language), but the truth about them is always revealed by their actions. They have to reveal themselves in order to achieve their goals. That is an eventuality. Of course, it also causes a reaction from the public when the public find out about the deception. (Most people are decent, and they don’t like being deceived into political agendas! Honesty and Trust seem pretty simple things that even 8 year olds understand, but they are often most powerful in politics.)

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        AUSTRALIA risks becoming a “global pariah” if the federal government doesn’t step up efforts to tackle climate change, experts warn

        Have you noticed (the readers, not you specifically, aussieguy), how these statement are always defined in terms of an amorphous area; a country, region, area, nationality, etc., refers to some indeterminate time in the future, and is bolstered by quoting statements made by a generic grouping of people, such as “experts”, or “climate scientists”?

        There is no substance to statements like this. It is all emotive clap-trap, aimed at the feeble minded, by the terminally incompetent.

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        • #
          Yonniestone

          RW what about NZ?, all this talk of Australia acting out but surely there’s some excellent examples of ‘climate pariah’s’ from across the pond…….besides your diabolical self!

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          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            “Hey, Rereke, we want you to lower your CO2 emissions by 30%”.

            “Yep, sure, no worries, Bro'”.

            “When are you going to start, Rereke?”

            “Don’t know. Perhaps after the Cuzzies have gone home”

            “What has that got to do with it?”

            “Simple, Bro. the Cuzzies are about two-thirds of the whanau, so when they go, we will have reduced our emissions by 60% – cool eh?”

            ———————–
            [Whanau is the Maori word for the extended family, including second, third, and fourth cousins, and their partners …]

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        • #
          ianl8888

          It is all emotive clap-trap, aimed at the feeble minded …

          It works, too

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          • #
            aussieguy

            It only works effectively IF they manage to TOTALLY control the language and the culture. Like in a Totalitarian country.

            When someone speaks out and highlights the hypocritical behaviour (or that something doesn’t add up), then things start falling apart…This is why they must attack and silence those who don’t chant the narrative. All doubt must be quashed BEFORE the public realise…Of course, such aggressive behaviour raises even more suspicion!

            You’ll find most people in the real world are not permanently susceptible to the emotive clap-trap. (Compared to what we see on-line.) …So it only works to some extent. However, it fails spectacularly in the long term.

            Emotive, vague nonsense is often ignored when real world consequences do not turn out as promised. This is when they lose the public. They become disconnected with the public by doubling down on their rhetoric even harder. (Drives people away).

            This is why I say: “Time is not on the side of a dishonest activist“.

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          • #
            OriginalSteve

            I was trying to explain to some greenies about the 18Gw base load we have.

            They suggested renewables would be jsut fine, bro….

            I proceeded to ask how they would keep the lights on whent he sun isnt shining and the wind isnt blowing?

            their answer – batteries…lots and lots of batteries….

            I still havent stopped laughing…..

            *sigh*

            Slaps forehjead with palm of hand……

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        • #
          Ceetee

          Correction Rereke, ‘terminally gullible’. Most people have a modicum of deductive ability but tend to lapse into a stupor when confronted by overwhelming messages.

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          • #
            Spetzer86

            I saw the documentary, “An Honest Liar” last night. The guy is a magician that debunks psychics, etc. It turned out that many people reacted negatively to his debunking because they so desperately wanted to believe. They were ready to throw him to the lions to get him to shut up and let them believe in their pretty fantasy.

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            • #
              Just-A-Guy

              Spetzer86,

              Just like children will just as likely be upset with the news that santa clause isn’t real as they will with the person who brings them the news.

              Abe

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      • #
        Just-A-Guy

        aussieguy,

        You wrote:

        I’ll tell you folks how the strategy of these activist think-tanks work.

        I agree with the strategy you outlined. I even gave your comment a thumbs up. 😉

        That’s the way ‘It Worked’ twenty or thirty years ago.

        Today:

        1. They publish or promote the publishing of 24,000 so-called ‘scientific papers’. That’s 65 per day, as Pointman ‘pointed’ out. (sorries on the word-play, no offence)

        2. The compliant MSM picks up on any number of these and floods the airwaves. (By ‘airwaves’ I mean, of course, the internet.) One or two papers per day are enough to saturate the ‘daily news cycle’ although there’s usually more than that.

        3. The skeptic bloggers pick up on one or another of these ‘news items’ and begin the rebuttal process. What else can they do. Skeptics don’t have, nor will they ever be given, fair access to the MSM.

        4. Slowly and quietly, while the whole world is looking the other way, focusing on the ‘he-said, she-said’ of the climate debate, they continue to take over the educational and political mechanisms of local and regional juisdictions thereby solidifying their ‘grass roots’ voter base.

        5. By the time Paris has come and gone, it won’t matter what the outcome on climate change ™ will be.

        It’s time to start thinking ‘outside the box’.

        Abe

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    • #
      Another Ian

      Dennis

      Time to re-read Kipling’s “Danegeld”

      30

      • #
        Hasbeen

        I’m sure most of you will have realised how to quickly spot the “B” grade academic.

        They are the ones who are desperately worried about what other “B” grade academics, particularly foreign based academics, think of them. They would never think outside the box or venture an opinion different to the herd.

        The “A” grader on the other hand is throwing out ideas, looking for criticism, hoping to use that to help refine their own ideas & theories.

        It’s a pity we have so few of the latter.

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  • #
    PeterS

    I think it’s time we set up a group, perhaps even a political party to study the idea of increasing not decreasing CO2 emissions in case the news that we might be facing a mini ice age is indeed correct. Oh hang on a minute – CO2 is increasing yet temperatures are not rising and perhaps falling at least slightly. Hmmmm. Doesn’t this prove beyond any doubt that AGW alarmists are fakes and/or liars?

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    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      Set up a group? Too many groups already. Why does anybody take the Climate Council seriously?

      Does anybody remember who Wentworth was in the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists? Wentworth was the pub where the excessively wealthy president of the World Wide Fund for Nature assembled a hand picked bunch of dead set Greenies for a booze up. Comrade Tim was there, and immediately posted a Blueprint for a Living Australia on the WWF website. It was dramatically revised next day after some sense of sobriety returned.

      I have copies of both editions here somewhere. Must dig them out one day.

      The MSM swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Never was so much mileage gained from a p*ss up.

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      • #
        PeterS

        I agree. I was being sarcastic. We need another group/think thank/party like we need another Stalin. NO WAY!

        51

      • #
        Another Ian

        Ted,

        I thought a suitable motto for that group might have been “F12k the water – pass the wine”

        40

      • #
        Glen Michel

        And the ABCs tendentious reporting of Greenie nonsense about the Coorong and the issue of water from the Murray/Darling. Green academics are notable in their rejection of pragmatic methodical evidence based science in favour of a contrived political outcome.Sorry,but we all knew that anyway!

        40

      • #
        Allen Ford

        I was walking up Macquarie St, Sydney, last Saturday after attending the dress rehearsal of Don Carlo at the Opera House, when I espied the HQ of said Wentworth Group in a swish, high rise building. This is not the **** end of town, for out-of-towners. It made me ponder who was funding this outfit, now I know! He’s still at it, by all accounts.

        10

    • #
      Dave in the states

      But your assuming that co2 emissions actually have any significant effect on temps. On the other hand increased co2 certainly improves crop yields. So your idea might just save millions of lives.

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  • #

    Per capita, if the rest of the world followed in our co2 footsteps, then it’s likely curtains for humanity. Yet the sceptics want to pretend we are not part of the world and our pollution isn’t connected.

    P.S. Colour contains a ‘u’

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    • #
      Popeye26

      Martin Smith

      What POLLUTION? – check here before you suffer any more “foot in mouth” disease.

      Methinks you know SFA about much (or anything) really if that’s what you think but the warmists have indoctrinated you really well – poor sod, sheeple!

      What’s your take on roughly 4% of 4% (or if you don’t do math) 16PPM of the earth’s current atmospheric CO2 level?

      Or perhaps you’d like to pass judgement on Professor Pierre Darriulat’s submission to the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee.

      Professor Darriulat is ONLY an astrophysicist so I’m sure you’ll be able to put him on the right track – lol/sarc

      Cheers,

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    • #
      Manfred

      Between Frappé coffees with The Australian Greens, Senator Richard Di Natale, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, Victorian Greens, Bob Brown, Christine Milne, Larissa Waters, Senator Scott Ludlam, Adam Bandt, Nick McKim, Senator Rachel Siewert, Mehreen Faruqiand 6 more.

      Busy life.

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    • #
      llew Jones

      The rest of the world is far in advance of “our footsteps”. Take Germany for instance. Germany is a world leader in Wind and Solar technologies so of course when it decided after Fukushima to close its electrical power generated by nuclear energy it of course used Wind and Solar to replace it.

      Wrong.

      That hypocrite Merkel began building power generation plants that used lignite coal. And she had the hide to chide the upfront Abbott for his very sensible suggestion that coal is our future for power generation.

      But there is much more. Only a raving ill informed idiot would ever characterise human produced CO2 as pollution. CO2 is a vital gas to all life on Earth including plant life. As the world population increases to 9 billion in the next few decades extra atmospheric CO2 will ensure that the record food crops we are now observing as a result of that extra CO2 will help provide the extra food needed in the future.

      The fact that over the last couple of decades atmospheric CO2 has increased by about 40ppm i.e. 10% of the current 400ppm with no global temperature increase in the troposphere, which can only be measured by satellites, should enable the most feeble minded to warmly embrace a bit of extra atmospheric CO2 because of its significant beneficial effects on plants. Which even the dumbest among us would see will be great for our great, great, great grandchildren.

      By the way to get some perspective the Australian Standard for safe exposure to CO2 for a continuous 8 hours is 5000ppm (five thousand).

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      • #
        Glen Michel

        I think the issue regarding CO2 as a pollutant has to be revisited and reversed.That US high court decision was a salient moment.Egregious with totalitarian overtones.

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  • #

    Apparently New Zealand plans to reduce CO2 emissions by 30%, from 2005 levels, by 2030 and the usual misery mongers are crying out that this is way too little to stop global warming.

    The easiest way to begin the CO2 reduction process is for everyone that believes in this imminent catastrophe to cut all their electricity use. That will inform the rest of the population as to what life is like without electricity. They may, or may not, wish to follow suite.

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    • #

      And I forgot to add that if all human life in Australia and New Zealand ceased to exist tomorrow, exactly what would be the impact on the world’s CO2 emissions? Would the earth notice?

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Sounds like a great idea. But given that the majority of electricity produced in New Zealand comes from hydro-generation, or thermal-generation, reducing electricity usage, would not lower the CO2 target to anywhere near where the Greens would like it to be.

      Ignoring human respiration, the majority of CO2 comes from cows, sheep, deer, chickens, and the native bird life. There are also the dogs and cats and opossums (thanks Aussie). CO2 also comes from thermal vents, but there has not much that can be done about that, ever since they passed the law forbidding virgin sacrifice (not that we could find many virgins, once they figured it out).

      In other words, the Greens can have all the targets they like. But since they are singing from the global song book, it ain’t gonna happen in Godzone.

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      • #

        Gotta love it. Exactly what do the warming worriers expect NZ to do to reduce CO2 levels by more than 30%? Kill all animals?

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        • #
          Ceetee

          The family cat is impervious to that idea. She couldn’t give a sheet. She may however be prepared to replace the ‘t’ with a ‘p’.

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        • #
          PeterS

          No, the Greens, at least the extremists I’ve spoken too want to kill humans. They believe the world is way overpopulated so it needs to be reduced drastically. Of course they will not volunteer to be the first ones to go.

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    • #
      Manfred

      For a country that generates 60% base load power from hydro, eco-marxist green posturing on CO2 is little more than window dressing with a vicious little sting in the tail, the escalating cost of power that will really punish those least able to cope and worry those than may manage.

      Observe yet another irony. Now even the strung and dangling sock puppet NZ MSM are peddling stories about ‘scientists’ warning of an imminent min-ice age……pause….switch to hapless climate ‘scientist’ at the University of Waikato in Hamilton who agreed….wait for it……but then had the brazen temerity to state:

      ‘it wouldn’t be quite so cold due to the much higher level of GHG’s in the atmosphere’.

      The golden opportunity for the NZ MSM sock puppet to ask….

      ‘ummmmm, well then, what you’re saying is that GHG’s can be good for us then if it’s not so cold?’

      ……or……

      ‘ummmmm, how many degrees less cold do you think that might be?’

      ……..or…….

      ‘ummmmm, we were given to understand by the IPCC that we were all doomed to catastrophic climate change and global warming due to CO2, which is still escalating, yet you say we’re about to freeze instead….did you predict that as well?’

      ………or………

      ‘ummmmm, we were told the science was settled and solar cycles were considered irrelevant, so that’s not true now?’

      All these and more evaded the low wattage, well-disposed, easily recyclable green journo of the moment. Let’s watch the wriggle line The Conversation peddle. It’ll be an enjoyable beer and popcorn feast.

      The bandied terms of ‘pariah’ or ‘denier’ are poised to become very yesterday, very passé. These ‘scientists’, and the MSM journos, Tim Flannel-bag and the eco-marxist ‘Australian’ “Klimate Kouncil” simply can’t help themselves.

      They betray themselves at ever turn.

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    • #
      Hugh

      The easiest way to begin the CO2 reduction process is for everyone that believes in this imminent catastrophe to cut all their electricity use. That will inform the rest of the population as to what life is like without electricity. They may, or may not, wish to follow suite.

      This does not work, because the extremists still want to buy eyeFones and stuff and live comfortably, and are not happy as others don’t support their gadget-and-travel-filled life by doing engineering miracles like factories working on perpetuum mobile power.

      They won’t save energy, because they don’t know how to. So they want that engineers solve their problem of OTHER people using electricity and creating CO2. They see of course it is not going to happen any time soon, so they produce a lot of talk.

      They also have a problem with China, because they know it produces CO2 a lot and more in future, but they feel they can’t require China to decrease before the Western countries have decreased more. So they want to be an example. Only that they want to live comfortably. So it must be the engineering miracle, though engineers tend to be cruel denialists which proves they are stupid and can’t solve this problem, but surely somebody can find out ways to cut CO2 emissions in a jiffy?! Surely flower power is better than coal!

      Anybody with basic counting skills knows that if CO2 is as dangerous as Dr Mann says, we are doomed. Really. I don’t see any point in talking reductions because the reductions needed according to Dr Mann will kill a lot of people and make the rest very unhappy. It is not just about Western countries, it is the whole world economy including food production, medicine, housing, heating, education, everything. If there are no reductions and world will warm 2 or 4 degrees, I find it less devastating than cutting energy production at a quick, forced pace.

      And really, Japanese are stupid bastards by letting a nuclear plant break in a tsunami and then being scared of traces of radioactive elements.

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      • #
        Spetzer86

        Sounds a lot like a chapter from “Atlas Shrugged”, doesn’t it?

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      • #
        bobl

        Actually Flour power IS almost as good as coal. Flour has almost the same energy content and pulverised can be an almost direct replacement for coal, with the added advantage that it doesn’t tend to spontaneously combust on the stockpile. It does tend to be a bit explosive in the right mix with air though.

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        • #
          Graeme No. 3

          I take it you were referring to the British flour bomb in WW2. After 2 years work they had a 100 grams of flour with the explosive power of a 2000 lb bomb. Just 1 drawback, it weighed 2600 lbs.
          Instead they increased the ratio of explosive, and it’s bursting power ( as known for years ) and worked out how to drop it somewhere near the target. By 1943 the Air Ministry had caught up with the German technology of 1939.

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      • #
        Angry

        If these Green Communists don’t want to be seen as hypocrites then they should immediately cease producing carbon dioxide by stopping breathing out………….

        30

  • #
    john karajas

    So Tim Flannery is worried about Australia being called a pariah.

    Tim Flannery should really be worried about his wrong predictions, such as:
    1. Dams in the Eastern States of Australia would never be full again. WRONG!
    2. Perth would become the first ghost city of the 21st century. NOT YET!

    But then he is in good company with his fellow alarmists. Not a pariah with them, not by a long shot. They all make dud predictions.

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    • #
      Hugh

      US is pariah, China is pariah, Japan is pariah, Russia is pariah. Don’t take that card so heavily, we love you still even if your country is considered anti-green pariah. Actually anti-green is about the only reason why I would like Russia; so much is wrong there, but at least it means the green piece will keep owt.

      There is only one country which is NOT pariah, it is Germany. And possibly Danes on their dunes as long as they run their minority cabinet.

      Tuvalu and Maldives have out-of-jail card. You know, they were flooded during the Eemian interglacial and are going to see if it happens again.

      It just happens to be, that Germany is on its road to to be hardly hit by laws of physics. There is no free power, and God save us from solar power parity achieved by tax and subsidy.

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  • #
    • #
      el gordo

      Zarkova is getting a lot of press, good to see a bit of realism in the MSM for a change.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      … to gather data on the sun’s cycle and then made predictions which Professor Zharkova says are 97 per cent accurate.

      There is that 97 per cent number, again. What is it with 97%? Is this some odd illuminati code? Is it because it is a prime number? I don’t get it.

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  • #
    William

    Lunacy continues at the Fairfax comments pages. I cited Valentina Zharkova’s paper on solar cycles and that her models were indicating a looming Maunder Minimum and was ridiculed by people who:
    —hadn’t heard about it;
    —hadn’t read it and thought it was to do with Greenhouse gases;
    —claimed I had found the only denier scientists as opposed to the many thousands who believed the science;
    —mistakenly thought it was forecasting a full on ice age (and they don’t happen over night); or
    —suggested I was in my 70s like Tony Abbott as only uneducated people in their 70s denied CAGW (for the record, I am younger than Abbott who also is not in his 70s and have a Bachelors degree (Qld) and a Masters (Syd) as well as several diplomas);

    As well, one claimed that the BOM had not homogenised temperature data and demanded proof – unfortunately comments closed before I could respond.

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    • #
      el gordo

      Its a Fairfax crowd, sublimely ignorant and vicious, but this is what we are up against in society at large. The Klimatariat running dogs have brainwashed the whole Western World and nothing can be done to bring down the AGW facade, unless there is a noticeable drop in temperatures.

      They think our global cooling meme is parody, I can live with that until the Gleissberg takes effect.

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      • #
        Oksanna

        Do you think that as the world cools, the climate industry can seamlessly switch to blaming man-made GHGs for extreme cold weather, and just steamroller onwards regardless? I mean, any sleight of hand, any sophistry, to keep the gazillions of taxpayer money flowing? After all, they already did the same, from ice-age to warming, in the ‘seventies.

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        • #
          Manfred

          …the climate industry can seamlessly switch to blaming man-made GHGs for extreme cold weather

          Global eco-marxist peristalsis may benefit by immediate evacuation of the now socially exhausted and scientifically bereft CAGW meme using the powerful combo of an intellectual laxative followed by an traditional enema. The resultant mess should allow them to move forward with an entirely new ideological meme Catastrophically Ruinous Anthropogenic Pollution (CRAP)

          10

      • #
        Angry

        Fairfax…….fairFAUX

        There I fixed it for you.

        20

    • #
      Hugh

      Do you have a link to Zharkova’s paper? Is is published?

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      • #
        Akatsukami

        I do not believe there is a published paper (yet, anyway), but that Dr. Zharkova presented her team’s results at the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting.

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    • #
      Manfred

      As I mentioned earlier, TV NZ have extraordinarily just peddled the solar minimum and stated ‘skientists warn of an ice age’…..same climate skientists advise all that it will not be quite as bad thanks to GHG….

      The end is nigh, for the specific CAGW meme, presently being morphed into the legislatively kontrolled notion of pollution that as we all know includes CO2, as the eco-marxists return to their bankrupt and hackneyed idea of ‘doubt benefit’…..pollution reduction by taxation’.

      Of course it all amounts to precisely the same thing, a rabid Green endeavour to ‘de-car-bon-ise’, said exactly the same way with the same cadence as our quasi-robotic friend does in this classic remix, which expresses encapsulates the same sentiments as this lot. /rhet

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  • #
    Andrew

    Strange how all these rude countries tell us what they think. Whenever A666ott or 666ishop makes the mildest criticism of another country it’s the end of the world. For example, 666ishop told China that it was unhelpful to create an air defence zone around an island you could clear with a 3 iron. And said AUS doesn’t support unilateral ADZ action.

    Seems pretty measured and sensible, but didn’t the leftards go berserk!

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    • #
      Andrew

      Could also mention when we mildly rebuked RI for sending 800 illegal smuggling vessels our way and said they would be denied entry. That was going to lead to war apparently.

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    • #
      ivan

      Having problems with your keyboard Andrew, or has the spell check gone berserk?

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  • #
    Yonniestone

    Pariah? meh I’ve been called worse, anyway better to be poorly labeled by a decreasing minority now instead of a becoming a future frozen corpse huddled against the wall of the last functioning power station that shut down to save us all from our evil selves.

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    • #

      Way out here they got a name
      For wind and rain and fire,
      ‘Maria, Maria!’
      They call the wind Maria.

      And pretty soon the greenie loons
      Will call the land down under,
      ‘Pariah, Pariah!’
      They’ll call the land ‘Pariah.’

      H/t Paint yr Wagon and
      Tim Flannery/

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    • #

      We’ll go to Paris and we’ll proclaim
      that temps will go much higher
      and the deluded will or exclaim
      Earth will catch on Fire.

      And delegates will or sign on
      to Kyoto targets much higher
      and Indian and China will
      announce their false “aspire.”

      So will the talks reduce emissions
      of polluting CO2?
      And will the shrill’s confessions
      Convince the people, too?

      For Climategate and IPCC have
      Homogenised the facts
      and faked a reason
      For a world-wide Tax

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      • #
        Ceetee

        Fabulous Geoff, wouldn’t it be interesting if we had a ‘Weekend Unthreaded’ where all posts had to be in the form of poetry?. That would sort the ‘ken’ from the boys.

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  • #
    James Murphy

    I thought we had to reduce CO2 to save the polar bears?
    I thought we had to reduce CO2 because we should ‘think of the children’?
    I thought we had to reduce CO2 because otherwise the dams wouldn’t fill?

    Now, from the recent general outcry about funding “renewables”, apparently ‘green industries’ should exist primarily to create jobs. I thought the primary aim was to reduce CO2. Sure, you could have both, but employment for the sake of employment, is not the same as directing money into genuine high-tech/high skill/low CO2 engineering.

    Now, we have to reduce CO2, or other countries will call us names.

    I am very much confused with regards to which story I am meant to follow. I wish I had an attention span as short as the Greens and their ilk would desire me to, I am sure life would be much less difficult if I didn’t remember what was said last week, last month, last year, or last decade.

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    • #
      Andrew

      They got tired of people asking “how much will it affect the temp.” So now it’s about jobs. Of course, the Science says for every “green job” in windmills, Spain destroyed 9. Ultimately, they lost their whole future.

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      • #
        James Murphy

        That can’t be right, we were promised a world-beating green industry, where, presumably, people with a vast array of skill-sets who used to work at coal-fired power stations were instantly transformed into R&D scientists and engineers, creating such incredible technology that perpetual motion machines would be created one day, and deemed inefficient and obsolete the next… not to mention the surfeit of jobs on offer…

        I’m still waiting for Sarah Hanson-Young and her band of luddites to explain how Australia is supposed to have a high-tech future when fundamental science, mathematics, and engineering competencies are rapidly decreasing. Actually, id like to hear a response on this from any political party, really, the Greens aren’t solely responsible.

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  • #
    Rollo

    I wish Tim would simply continue making predictions so we can have another good laugh some time down the track. It’s sad to see the great prophet reduced to simply worrying about perceptions. It is surprising, however, that the MSM give him so much airplay and treat him seriously given his record of failures.

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      aussiepete

      I’ve been trying to find that clip where “old mate Tim” is burbling on about the planet being a living organism replete with emotion and all. I’ve been Googling words like bollocks without luck. Can anyone help, i’m in need of a good laugh.

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      • #
        Oksanna

        I found the clip you are looking for, slightly enhanced with CGI. Just don’t make the mistake I made of drinking something while viewing it (tendency to choke).

        60

        • #
          Manfred

          Crikey, Oksanna, thank you for the link. I just wouldn’t have believed it had I not heard it…..that anyone theoretically claiming to be rational would blow bubbles this big, pink bubbles of unrelenting Gaia Credo of Flannel-bag Clap Trap…..

          …as we are becoming a global super organism, there is no outside, there is no ‘other’, we are forming a global super community able to send a strong signal to Gaia, leading to a stronger Gaia, so it is axiomatic as we become more dependent on each other and interconnected, we become less competent as individuals’.

          I presume he’s not only speaking for himself, but as a UN Ambassador.

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    • #
      Angry

      tim FLUMMERY……..

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  • #

    As Jo Says:

    No one can pretend Australia can cool the planet. We emit a mere 1.16% of human emissions. Total human output of CO2 is a mere 4% of nature.

    Let’s not WASTE money on this form of PR, let’s not waste money on supporting renewables that increase power costs.

    Let’s spend our CC dollars on an inquiry into the science behind anthropogenic (man-made) climate change:

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  • #
    Safetyguy66

    Pariah?

    I for one wear the tag with pride. I am an extreme skeptic. I doubt human CO2 plays any measurable role in global climate and that to the extent our emissions may have an effect. That effect is not separable from the background noise, with the quality and quantity of climate data we currently have. Basically the entire debate is a combination of rank left green opportunism and pseudo scientific nonsense masquerading as a moral imperative, to achieve a tawdry “end of days” [snip].

    I, like many here am not the first to take a position regarded by the “consensus” are “heretical”. When its the only position based on evidence, reason and sheer balance of probability for any common sense adult, I have always felt I had no choice. I have never been interested in winning any arguments or being right “in the end”. I will switch sides tomorrow, the second someone can show me some credible, observational evidence supporting the notion that cow farts change the weather and money can change it back again. Anytime your ready….. and….. go!

    Truth is where you find it and in this debate, its yet to be revealed. We simply don’t know, in any detail what drives the climate, to a degree that will make it predictable. We just like to think we do. Weather control for fun and profit basically describes the “science” right now.

    Frankly, Im with Chuck. Heresy isn’t such a bad thing sometimes.

    http://www.aboutdarwin.com/darwin/whowas.html

    [Please avoid such direct accusations as what I snipped.] AZ

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    Graeme No.3

    There is a big difference;
    The Climate Council want to shut DOWN our power stations.
    We want the Climate Council to shut UP.

    What we need is a change of head at the PC Tribunal (you know, the one who convicted Bolt) and then call some of these loud mouths in for arbitrary punishment for offending us. Just a day of silence – for each person offended and served consecutively.

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  • #
    ivan

    Oh dear, they are not going to like the next thing Mr Abbott has done then as reported by Breitbart News

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    • #
      gigdiary

      The comments on this article are very refreshing, especially in light of Flannery’s ‘pariah’ announcement.

      ‘..I want him for PM. Or possibly King.’

      ‘.. President of the U.S.A.’

      ‘Right on. This guy is a breath of fresh air. A politician who isn’t yet bought by any of the ‘green’ billionaires with their hands in taxpayers pockets receiving “subsidies” for their bullsh** projects. Gladly have him run the EPA here in America.’

      ‘well done abbot’

      ‘Hoo-bl**dy-ray!!!’

      ‘Whether it’s dealing with the climate change scam or the immigrant invasion, this bloke is looking after the true interests of his country. The UK has much to learn from Oz.’

      ‘Yes I wish he was running the UK we might see some changes like an immediate block on immigration!’

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  • #
    bodge It An Scarpa

    Off topic, but does anyone know if there is any truth to the story that Denmark is now producing 140% of the electricity needs from wind power alone, and is selling the excess to neighboring countries ? If you refuse to do battle on the Facebook arena, Joe, how about producing dumbed down versions of your articles that the average, misinformed, gullible Facebook user can digest, so that those of us that do enjoy a FB scrap have got a bit of ammo to fight with ?

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      I thought the claim was that 48% of the electricity GENERATED came from wind. Bear in mind that amount would crash their grid, so they sell as much as they can to Norway for pumped hydro storage. When I say ‘sell’ they often have to pay users to take the excess.
      When they want some back they pay full price. The cost to the Danish purse is not available but it will be very high (years ago it was $300 million per year).

      I understand there is a bit of gloating on some Norwegian language blogs, but I can’t read them. The other problem is that their 600+ CHP plants have to shut down electricity generation, but keep putting out hot water, so emissions don’t reduce.

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      • #
        bodge It An Scarpa

        Why would they pay other countries to take their excess power, Graham ? Can’t they simply dump it at no cost to themselves ? Can I take that 48% figure you quoted to the bank ? I am feeling a bit lonely out there in Facebook land, attempting to at least try to get the true science points of view out there, but unfortunately I’m not well equipped enough to make headway against the torrents of misinformation put out by the Labour Party, MMGW and alternative energy industries.

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          You can’t just dump excess power, once it has been generated.

          It has to go somewhere, or things – very large and heavy and expensive things – start to break.

          That is why power generators pay other generators to take any excess production.

          In effect, there is only one electrical grid, that is owned by lots of different generating companies in lots of countries, and is fed raw mechanical input power at multiple locations around the world.

          All of that has to be balanced so that the supply matches the demand, but does not over do it. It is quite tricky to do.

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          • #
            bodge It An Scarpa

            Well that answers one question, Rereke, Thank you. But what about the validity of the claim that Denmark generates 140 % of their electricity requirements from wind rower alone ? Is/was that a one off occurrence ?

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            • #
              Spetzer86

              Does this help? http://www.emd.dk/el/

              If they ever produce 140% of demand, it’s not consistent.

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              • #
                James Murphy

                Thanks for the link, this is interesting – particularly the longer term trend – say, 14 days from July 1… You’d have to be quite foolish not to be able to spot the weekly, and diurnal consumption patterns. Someone should suggest that if every day was a weekend, then Denmark could just about halve its power consumption! Think of the children!!

                From this type of plot, and from what I have learned from the esteemed ‘Tony From Oz’, on the matter, I am still at a complete loss as to how it can be claimed that base-load power generation is a myth, not a necessity.

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          • #
            Ceetee

            Funny that Rereke, we can send a probe to Pluto but we can’t store electrical energy right here on earth in a cost efficient way. The mind boggles. Maybe our priorities are skew-iff.

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            • #
              Andrew McRae

              Pumped hydro is very cost efficient as energy storage, but only if you have land topography that naturally provides a large elevated lake or easily-constructed dam near a steep height drop. Mainland Australia is mainly out of luck there, unlike our cousins across Bass Strait and the Tasman.

              It’s interesting you provide the Pluto probe as a comparison, as the nuclear RTGs which typically power such craft would have to be one of the least cost efficient forms of power available. OTOH, there is no free market in RTGs, as they contain weapons-grade plutonium and unless you know the right people and have a state-sponsored space programme you will not be able to buy one no matter how much money you offer.
              Price comparisons between politically restricted energy sources and free market sources is frustrated in that respect.

              I’ve sometimes wondered if short wide cylindrical tanks constructed on concrete pylons 100m high would be economically viable as energy storage in place of natural dams. The fact that nobody has done it yet tells me No.

              Tesla’s car battery factory has a sacrificial subsidiary company selling battery banks for renewables storage. Let’s just see how that pans out. Could be Real Pixie Dust™ or not.

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              • #
                Rollo

                I’ve sometimes wondered if short wide cylindrical tanks constructed on concrete pylons 100m high would be economically viable as energy storage in place of natural dams. The fact that nobody has done it yet tells me No.

                Maybe holding up water tanks would be a better use for wind turbine pylons.They are not providing much return in their present configuration.

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              • #
                Rereke Whakaaro

                The problem with large, elevated lakes, is that they tend to be already full of water. It seems a bit pointless to generate electricity to pump water into a lake, so that you can run a hydro plant to generate electricity to pump water …

                But that is just my opinion …

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            • #
              bodge It An Scarpa

              When I used the term ‘dump’ for disposing of excess power, what I really meant, in engineering terms was to use that energy to power a large Dynamometer, a scaled up version of the machines that measure the horsepower go automotive engines etc. Sure, they wouldn’t produce anything useful, but in the long term, assuming the generators did regularly produce excess, that would be cheaper than paying other countries to take that power off their hands.

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              • #
                Graeme No. 3

                bodge it etc:

                The wind turbine owners mostly depend on subsidies which are paid on the basis of the amount generated. ( except for scam no.2 )
                So it doesn’t matter much to them what they sell for, if the subsidies are enough to pay for their running costs.
                ( scam no.2 ) Persuade gullible politicians that you should be paid for power you might have generated e.g. The wind blows so strongly that the extra electricity would crash the grid, so regulators demand some turbines stop generating. The owners later get money for not producing ( UK, Denmark, Germany).

                The problem for turbine owners is when subsidies aren’t high enough to make up the difference when the selling price is negative. There are rumours that around 1,000 smaller turbines in Denmark have stopped working all together.

                20

              • #
                ROM

                bodge It An Scarpa @ #16.1.1.1

                There are lies damn lies and statistics

                Renewable energy scammers and the greens claims on renewable energy outputs make that quote on “lies and statistics” look like a paragon of verisimilitude

                Re Denmark producing 140% of it’s power consumption requirements from wind power on “Friday 10th July 2015”;

                From the Independent ;Sat 11th July

                Due to an unusually windy day, wind farms in Denmark managed to produce 140 per cent of the country’s electricity needs.
                By Thursday evening, the Nordic nation’s wind turbines were producing 116 per cent of Denmark’s electricity needs, a figure that rose to 140 per cent in the early hours of the morning.

                Note the very smelly sleight of hand in the verbiage used here;

                By Thursday evening of the 9th July [ just when power consumption drops off as industry and commerce cease for the day ] the Nordic nation’s wind turbines were producing 116 per cent of Denmark’s electricity needs.

                Then we have “that rose to 140 per cent in the early hours of the morning”.
                Just when most Danes were no doubt getting their night’s sleep and had shut down most electrical appliances and power using systems for the night..

                From the link supplied above by Spetzer86; [ http://www.emd.dk/el/ ] we can view the Danes wind power production and consumption for the 9th July when this 140% of consumption was supposedly taking place.

                Place your pointer on any time point on the graph and you will get a read out of the consumption, and power production by wind, solar,
                CHP [ Combined Heat and Power ie industry and district heating units ] Central power plants as in fossil fueled plants and Imports.

                For instance at Denmark’s peak power demands at 11.40 am on the 9th of July, the peak of power consumption for that day Denmark was consuming 4263 MWs of power.

                Wind was producing 3601 MWs
                Solar; 134 MWs

                Local CHP units ; 263 MWs
                Central power plants; 192
                And Denmark was still importing 78 WMs of power.

                Thats the actual domestic and industry consumption demands and the actual outputs from wind , solar and etc plus imports needed at that time point to run Denmarks economy for the 9th July

                ***********
                And here is where the true lying deception in this claim really begins;

                From the graph but this time the early Friday morning 10 July graph at about 2.30 am to about 3.10am, Denmark’s wind turbines were generating around 3580 MWs.

                BUT at that same very early morning time period of 2.30 am to 3.10 am Denmark’s power consumption had fallen to 2540 MWs consumption.

                ERGO! You have Denmark’s wind turbines generating at 3 am in the morning just over 140% of Denmark’s power demands at 3 am.

                ————
                ENERGINET/DK [ Power Right Now ] provides the current flow of power across Denmark and Scandanavia.

                Currently at 4.00 am in the morning in Denmark as I write this, Denmark is consuming 2526 MW’s
                [ The figures change every five minutes ]

                Of that 2526 MWs consumption it is importing 1,609 MW’s

                It’s wind turbines are currently producing around 443 MWs.
                Which makes output from its 5200 plus turbines with their plated output of some 4900 MWs look fairly pathetic with a current output at the time of writing this of just 9% of their plated capacity

                Denmark’s solar at 4.00 am was producing 0 MWs.
                I wonder why?!

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              • #
                Beowulf

                Bodge

                The full story was that Denmark achieved 140% of DEMAND at 3am on Sunday morning on a particularly windy night. Not much of an achievement. Of course it was hyped to the hilt by the wind industry. Not long after that it was quietly importing 2/3rds of its power as it commonly does. No publicity splash about that inconvenient fact.

                The details emerged on a Euro website yesterday but I’m sorry I can’t remember which one. All the public heard was the 140% figure.

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    • #
      bodge It An Scarpa

      Thanks for the replies gents. Particularly to ROM and Beowulf who have given me something I can quote. Cheers

      10

  • #
    Aussieute

    The scientists in the UK who are predicting a mini ice age must be wrong.
    Haven’t they heard that Senator Wong and Tim Flannery have decreed that ‘the’ science is settled?

    And what will they do at the Paris global warming summit this year?

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    • #
      Andrew McRae

      Actually Wongbot and Flim-flammery had a falling out a few years back. It all went belly-up that fateful day that the Flamster was the guest of radio crank Alan Jones. Someone had primed Jones with the calculations of how much temperature rise would be forestalled by 2050 if Australia adopted the carbon tax. It was a number with several zeroes after the decimal point before the first significant digit. Perhaps you recall the incident.
      Well Flim-flam chose the politically worst moment to suddenly develop a conscience. Jones asked isn’t it going to be 0.0015 degrees? Live on air, Flim-flam paused and winced and stammered and finally replied “Well it’s not going to be much.”
      Political undertakers were jolted into action, the long knives were assembled for midnight operations, and global warming skeptics spurted their morning coffee onto their sleeves, mixing their instant Moccona (skeptics aren’t well funded) with tears of joy.
      I recall an image of the Wongbot facing interviews on television a few months after this incident when the carbon tax had been thrown out the first time. It might have been Q&A or ABC Nightline. She was asked what had gone wrong to derail the legislation. I absolutely recall her first words were something like “Well don’t make Tim Flannery your spokesperson for a start.”
      Timmah was supposed to toe the party line, present a unified front, and above all stay on message. I don’t think Wongbot ever entirely forgave him for that moment of honesty.

      On the other hand it showed Flim-flam was not beyond redemption. You could take the boy out of Science but you couldn’t take Science out of the boy.

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    • #
      gai

      “….And what will they do at the Paris global warming summit this year?”

      Freeze their rumps off in a major blizzard as the green electricity fails. (Unfortunately France has Nuclear Power)

      Too bad the meeting isn’t being held in Germany where a sabot or three could make all the coal plants go down for the duration of the conference.

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  • #
    pat

    anything goes at Fairfax, but Gerrard is American so how come his headline says “nations like ours” referring to Australia?

    13 July: The Age: Michael Gerrard: To stop the boats we must stop the warming
    Climate refugees should be assigned to the nations that caused the damage – nations like ours.
    (Michael Gerrard is director of the Sabin Centre for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.)
    Towards the end of this century, if current trends are not reversed, large parts of Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt and Vietnam, among other countries, will be under water. Some small island nations, such as Kiribati and the Marshall Islands, will be close to disappearing entirely. Swaths of Africa from Sierra Leone to Ethiopia will be turning into desert. Glaciers in the Himalayas and the Andes, on which entire regions depend for drinking water, will be melting away. Many habitable parts of the world will no longer be able to support agriculture or produce clean water.
    The people who live there will not sit passively by while they and their children starve to death…
    Our children and grandchildren could be confronting a humanitarian crisis unlike anything the world has ever faced. In the absence of the political will to prevent it, the least we can do is to start planning for it…
    ***This problem will also require a new legal solution: Under current law, those displaced by climate change have no recognised legal status…
    http://www.theage.com.au/comment/climate-change-will-force-millions-to-look-for-new-homes-20150710-gi9g36.html

    August 2014: PhilanthropyNewsDigert: Columbia Law School Receives $3.5 Million for Climate Change Center
    The center, which will be renamed for Sabin in recognition of the gift, will use the endowment to expand its efforts to develop and teach innovative legal techniques and tools for fighting developers and others in court over environmental issues. The gift also will enable the center to hire a full-time executive director and provide policy makers and legal researchers with information on climate litigation, legislation, and regulations, and will fund the annual Sabin Colloquium on Innovative Environmental Law Scholarship…
    ***”Congress has not enacted a major new environmental law since 1990, and that is not likely to change any time soon,” said Michael B. Gerrard, the center’s director. “Thus our mission is especially vital — developing new legal tools within the existing statutory framework to tackle this extraordinarily important problem.”…
    Sabin, the president of precious metals refiner Sabin Metal Corp., helped launch the center in 2009 with a $1.5 million donation to endow a professorship for Gerrard, who, according to the Wall Street Journal, once worked as Sabin Metal’s corporate environmental lawyer. A self-described Rockefeller Republican, Sabin told the Journal he is trying to educate fellow Republicans about the importance of climate change and environmental protection. “Sure, we have a few wackos that may have skewed some evidence over time for their own interests,” he told the Journal. “But at the end of the day, there’s no question that science proves there’s climate change.”
    http://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/columbia-law-school-receives-3.5-million-for-climate-change-center

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    pat

    really, this is another CAGW industry that’s growing by the day:

    Columbia: Michael Gerrard Leads New Center for Climate Change Law
    Environmental Law Powerhouse Joins Columbia Law School Faculty
    Professor Michael B. Gerrard, Director of Columbia Law School’s new Center for Climate Change Law, is so passionate about environmental protection that his efforts not only involve his mind—they have engaged his nose.
    THE SMELL OF INSPIRATION
    “I once had my nose certified by the West Virginia Air Pollution Control Commission,” said Gerrard. “They trained people to detect the characteristics of chemicals in the air. If I smelled something terrible, I would call them and they would investigate.”…
    Gerrard grew up in Charleston on the banks of the Kanawha River, heavily polluted by nearby manufacturing facilities like Union Carbide. Growing up surrounded by hazy air and odorous water inspired Gerrard to spend the rest of his life advocating for protecting the environment…
    The Center represents a major initiative by Columbia Law School to advance an effective legal response to climate change, and push forward the requisite changes in behavior of government, corporations, non-profits and individuals.
    The Center will provide the framework to examine and shape environmental regulations and train future leaders.
    “Domestic and international policy related to climate change and energy independence is rising to the top of the global agenda,” said David M. Schizer, dean and the Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law. “Mike Gerrard’s unparalleled experience in advancing environmental law to mitigate climate change adds depth to our scholarship in this area.”…
    Gerrard is author or editor of seven books, including Global Climate Change and U.S. Law. Two of his books were named “Best Law Book of the Year” by the Association of American Publishers…
    He previously served as an adjunct professor at Columbia, and has taught at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and NYU Law School. In his current position at Columbia Law School, Gerrard teaches courses and seminars on environmental law, where he is already struck by his students’ enthusiasm and sophistication. “It’s their future at stake. Many students are seeking to devote their career to environmental law. It’s gratifying to help them in that quest.”…
    http://www.law.columbia.edu/media_inquiries/news_events/2009/february2009/michael-gerrard

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    • #
      Bushkid

      They’re just following the money, which this chap seems to have a nose for………..

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    • #
      Graeme No. 3

      Yeah, I remember some like that. They could detect foul smells coming from our factory even though it had been shut down for 10 days on strike.

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  • #
    Ross Stacey

    Thank you Jo. This is the most sensible comment I have read, highlighting the stupidity of the whole CAGW meme.
    It is amazing how all the articles supporting the IPCC rely on the appeal to their Scientific case. Of course if the science is wrong as observations suggest then all their arguments collapse.
    I will be forwarding this article to our local MP. I hope all the other LNP members also receive it and that it helps to stiffen their resolve against the green MSM.

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    • #
      el gordo

      Perfect timing, a robust debate is mooted.

      ‘Tony Abbott will face an internal debate on Australia’s post-2020 emissions reduction targets as government MPs signal the looming Coalition party room discussion will be “robust”.

      ‘Abbott said Australia’s post-2020 target would have to be discussed not only in cabinet but by the Coalition party room in August before the detail could be confirmed publicly.’

      Guardian

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    Ceetee

    Wasn’t Galileo once a pariah? I’m perfectly happy to be called a pariah in this instance. Only time and common sense will sort this out and if I’m wrong I’ll cop it. Thing is, I really doubt that I am. I’ve watched this debate for about 13 years and I can see who is trying to push it beyond credulity with every ever increasingly desperate press release. I know all is not well within academic circles and that is actually a good thing but not something on which to base policy. That suggests to me that some within that community have gone beyond their brief and are not fit for purpose.This has happened before and will always happen. May I suggest that all institutions of higher learning should be private and completely beyond the influence of the state. They should be free to conduct themselves in the purpose of their raison d’être, the quest for objective truth. There should be some sort of mechanism by which any member of that institution found to be in breach of this higher purpose be held to account. These days it seems to me that they hide their perfectly subjective purposes behind their history and culture. Am I wrong? I hope I am to put it charitably.
    As I write this the TV in background has some talking head from the Australian Green Party burbling on about Australian greenhouse emissions. Blah. blah etc. They love big words like ‘catastrophic’ and ‘responsible’ and the inference is that you guys over the pond should avoid being ‘pariahs’. This is Groupthink 101.

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  • #

    These warmists are not unlike the racketeering by Union officials uncovered by the Royal Commission today, but on a much bigger scale.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    I always thought pariah was the name of a flesh eating South American fish.

    Oh! Wait! The fish is called pirana. Pariah is a critical thinking human being. They’re similar in a way though because the pariah eats the non critical thinker for lunch every time. 😉

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    Roy Hogue

    And just another thought… …why not make policy to avoid embarrassment? Obama does it all the time. I just wish his understanding of embarrassment was a little (lot?) more sound than it is.

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    • #
      Sheri

      Obama is not capable of being embarrassed. His policy is whatever he thinks will fly and at the same time destroy America. It’s his stated goal. Seems it’s also the goal of the Senate and probably the House too. I vote we just elimate Congress and use that money to pay out welfare. It’s a time saver and money saver. Obama, SCOTUS and the IRS are writing the laws anyway.

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Good point, Sheri. Obama doesn’t appear to even know the definition of the word embarrassed. On the other hand, he certainly makes policy in many cases that appears designed to not tic off some favored constituency, say illegal aliens and their advocates or worthless loafers on welfare for example. So maybe embarrassed isn’t exactly the right term but he still seems to do something akin to what I described.

        And besides, I didn’t say he had a very good grip on the meaning of embarrassment. 😉

        What exactly does drive Obama anyway? He’s bent, as you point out, on tearing down his country without a doubt. But exactly why? Is it really his long dead father’s dream of stopping colonial powers as Dinesh D’Sousa claims or is it his jealousy of a world he could never seem to fit into as a child growing up? Maybe it’s both. But whatever it is he’s the most dysfunctional personality I’ve ever seen in American politics. He makes even Richard Nixon look good.

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    Andrew McRae

    the G7 leaders met and resolved to bravely free us 100% from fossil fuels — but only after most people alive today are dead.

    I’m sure Jo did not mean to imply that was a cause-and-effect relationship.

    That bold plan does however imply that at least one of these events would occur:
    1. either this country is going to have to welcome new fast-breeder or Thorium nuclear power to its shores, or
    2. some magical new high density energy storage technology will have to be invented for buffering renewables, or
    3. an entirely new magical energy source is discovered and is developed to commercial scale.

    Stationary energy consumers are challenging enough, but the real challenge is vehicles and particularly aircraft.
    CTL refineries would just move the problem to the right by a few decades, it’s still a very limited workaround.
    Biomass Fischer-Tropsch refineries can make diesel from atmospheric carbon in a sustainable loop, but they need to be powered by some other energy source and enormous fields of photosynthesising biomass. To avoid competing with food for arable land it needs feasible tanks of GMO bacteria of the sort that don’t exist. It also still requires local nuclear (FBR/Thorium) or remote nuclear (solar/wind).

    Say what you will about Peak Oil predictions, but it won’t last forever and there isn’t enough electrical generation capacity in this country to recharge a fleet of 13 million cars and 500,000 trucks every night. To avoid the collapse of civilisation as we know it, either the cars will run on non-fossil hydrocarbons, or they will be recharged directly from new nuclear power stations. The latter would be most efficient.
    Any other option requires inventing new economically scalable technology which simply does not exist today. It’s policy by pixie dust.

    That’s not to say pixie dust can’t be invented in the future, but is it responsible government to make century-scale public policy today based on pixie dust?

    40

    • #
      Ceetee

      Don’t they store pixie dust in a box somewhere with a large label on it – “To be used at election time only”?

      60

      • #
        Andrew McRae

        Quite so, Ceetee. Using pixie dust outside of election periods could be catastrophic. Indeed extensive research by 350.org has established with very high confidence that the only safe level for our political climate is 350 premature pixie magic vouchers of Commonwealth Operational Overruns. At least that’s what I assume they mean by “350ppmv CO₂”, I didn’t read the site too closely. In other contexts that title could also mean 350 parts per million by volume of carbon dioxide, but that meaning would be crazy.

        41

    • #
      Willard

      Andrew, I have no problem with nuclear power but if any Australian govt set the ball rolling on it being added to the power grid we would get 20 years of feasibility studies, discussions, reviews, inquiries, tens of millions of dollars wasted and then it still wouldn’t get the first slab poured.
      Plenty of oil in the world still but not much from this country, we’re importing vast amounts of the stuff.
      Most of the 500 000 trucks you mention will still have to run on some type of internal combustion engine for many years to come.
      There won’t be 13 million electric vehicles on the road overnight, the average car lasts for at least 11 years, people aren’t just going to dump the near new and trusty Camry for something new and shiny, unless you have heard a rumour the govt is going to ban all ICE cars tomorrow?
      But let’s say your doomsday scenario eventuates and over the next 11 years all 13 million ICE cars are steadily replaced with fully electric, let’s go with the worst case scenario and say there all 2100kg Tesla sedans that consume 20kwh per 100km, WOW Andrew thats 23% worst case scenario added to the power grid, and as the energy suppliers have 11 years to build up to that increase I’m sure they’ll be rubbing their hands together for the extra customers.

      00

      • #
        TdeF

        We can buy nuclear power plants. After all, we have a lot of unused desalination plants which each cost twice as much and will take 25 years to pay off. For the moment we have lots of coal and only madmen would want to go back to windmills.

        60

        • #
          Dennis

          Add the millions of dollars a year cost to maintain the desalination plants in ready to operate good order.

          10

      • #
        Andrew McRae

        Actually I said the collapse of civilisation would NOT occur because we would find one of several ways to avoid it.
        The G7 mooted the goal of total fossil fuel divestment, not me. You are the first person to introduce the “20kWh/100km” figure and the strawman of overnight replacement, so it sounds like that is your doomsday scenario Willard.
        You’ve neglected grid transmission efficiency (92%) and Tesla battery recharging efficiency (86%), which brings it up to 50% extra. Even then I’m not sure how you got 23% extra to begin with. Working backwards, 23% multiply by generating capacity 43000MW, divide by 13 million cars, multiply by 1000 for kW, multiply by 8 for hours of recharging, thats 6kWh for each Tesla which is only enough for a 30km roundtrip. Maybe for most that’s okay, but I’d hate to think you were short changing any delivery van drivers and commuters.

        And you’ve neglected that the goal was total fossil fuel replacement, which means 85% of our generating capacity has to be replaced with something, and then also expanded by 50% to deal with electric land vehicles. We haven’t even gotten to ships and aircraft yet, but I’m sure a battery-powered Super Hornet and a wind-powered frigate will be adequate for defense of your civil liberties.

        50

        • #
          Andrew McRae

          Argh, just checked that again, no idea how I got 50%, those adjustments only bring it up to 30%.

          Anyhow, electric vehicles are fine as long as pedestrians can hear them coming… being silent cuts both ways. I almost got run over by a Prius coming out of a driveway once. We’ll just have to keep our wits about us more.
          It’s good the range is increasing the price is coming down.

          The Tesla model 3 will have a range of 320km, which is 64kWh full charge, which will take 31 hours to recharge on a standard domestic power outlet if it uses the whole 240V*10A. So actually all 13 million cars can only recharge simultaneously if they use 0.76kW out of the 2.4kW max of the socket. I’ll bet people recharge them every night even when they don’t have to. Better hope the recharger isn’t thirsty.

          30

        • #
          Willard

          Andrew, the 23% worst case scenario stands, already included transmission and recharging losses, use the year round average distance covered by an Aussie passenger car, base it on the model S because there’s some pretty clear consumption figures coming through now, the model 3 is likely to use less energy but hasn’t been built yet so can’t be used as a guide.
          Although the car can be charged through a 10amp socket that’s a last case scenario as its too slow and wasteful it’s better to utilize the high power wall charger provided, charging can be done in less than 8 hours overnight, now if every single car was doing a full charge on the same night I’m sure there would be a problem, but that’s really putting a negative spin on it.

          20

      • #
        Another Ian

        Willard and Andrew McR

        A taste test of electric cars

        See the link at

        http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2015/07/we-dont-need-no-527.html

        Brings to mind a comment about travelling across Texas in the era of 55 mph

        “Takes it from being a journey to being a career”

        40

        • #
          Willard

          Good link Ian, the driver proved that he didn’t have the common sense to work out and fuel consumption and driving distance by himself.

          00

  • #
    TdeF

    Denier?

    Sceptical, intelligent, bright, knowledgeable, educated, no fool,
    wise, mature, not a pushover, confident, reserved,
    incedulous, suspicious, mistrustful, not tolerant of fools and questioning.

    but denier? That smacks of something being true in the first place,
    which man made CO2 increase is not. Nor is CO2 made Global Warming.
    Nor is Global Warming made Climate Change. Not CO2 made Climate Change.
    Not CO2 made extreme events. Not CO2 made hurricanes or bushfires or melting arctic ice.

    What is true is that the Global Temperature has not changed in the last 18 years.
    Even the IPCC agreed with this
    Anyone who says otherwise is self evidently a denier.

    So the real question is why they deny but then
    they are always people whose income or politics depends on Global Warming.
    They are not tolerated gladly.

    81

  • #
    Bushkid

    The fact anyone at all would ever pay any attention to anything Flannery says astounds me. I mean, this is the bloke (substituted for drongo in an effort to remain civil) who told us it would never rain again, or if it did (nice hedging of bets there) it would not be enough to fill dams…… cue images of Warragamba overflowing nicely. I think he was also on the “it will never snow again” bandwagon too, and the dreaded sea level rises one as well. I mean, those have all come true, haven’t they? (that’s sarcasm, by the way, for any Flannery fans who may have wandered onto the blog.)

    51

  • #

    You can’t help but feel that Timmy and the “Climate Council” are pulling a Black Night manoeuvre.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhRUe-gz690

    Pointman

    71

  • #
    Harry Twinotter

    “Even if the IPCC was completely right, and we shut down Australia and everybody left — we would cool world temperatures by 0.0154 °C. Welcome to Futility Island”

    This is a red herring. Australia is not the only country that will be required to reduce emissions.

    414

    • #
      Andrew McRae

      It’s not so much a red herring as an incomplete argument. There is another conjunct missing which is required to imply the conclusion.
      “Even if the IPCC was completely right, and we shut down Australia and everybody left, we would cool world temperatures by 0.0154°C AND the world’s three largest emitting countries plan to escalate emissions for at least 17 years. Welcome to Futility Island”.

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    • #
      James Murphy

      Why is it a red herring? Going by the ‘science is settled’ numbers, Australia would be the cause of a 0.0154 °C increase in global temperature, or rather, if it did shut down today, it would not be the cause of a 0.0154 °C increase in global temperature. It doesn’t matter what other countries do, in this case.

      Who would “require” Australia to reduce CO2 emissions anyway? Who will enforce any agreement, and how will they enforce it?

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      • #
        Harry Twinotter

        James Murphy.

        I do not usually answer rhetorical questions but I will have a crack at this one.

        It will be a requirement of the reductions treaty for Australia to reduce it’s greenhouse gas emissions.

        16

    • #
      ianl8888

      Australia is not the only country that will be required to reduce emissions

      And who, precisely, will do the “requiring” ?

      Just answer the question !

      92

      • #
        Manfred

        Indeed. This is exactly one of multiple ways in which global governance is slowly slid into place by a colluding eco-progressive MSM cultivating perception, the UNEP preaching the moral imperative of divestment from their pulpit to Councils and Businesses, the IPCC furnish the rationale aka the ‘science’, the World Bank the financial management, the UNFCCC the legal framework and hey prestissimo…poof….we’re all being ‘required’, ‘rewarded’ and relabeled as is seen fit.

        52

      • #
        Harry Twinotter

        ianl8888.

        I answered it above.

        16

    • #
      James Bradley

      Harry,

      Australia may not be the only country, but it is the biggest target with other such red herrings lodged by the local bedwetters as ‘highest carbon emissions per capita’ and ‘pariah’, in attempts to manipulate opinion.

      Unfortunaley for the local bedwetters most of the rest of the world still believe Australia adjoins Germany and is the birth place of Adolf Hitler and Arnold Schwartzenegger.

      Bad hat, Harry.

      72

      • #
        Harry Twinotter

        James Bradley.

        Ad hominems. And probably a Godwin too – really?

        17

        • #
          Dave

          Hey Harry

          Look at the latest post!

          It’s going to get colder!

          Grab your jumper before Paris Harry

          Snow forecast by East Anglia UNI Climate scientists!

          32

          • #
            Harry Twinotter

            Dave,

            you get your science from the popular media?

            Yep we are heading into a mini ice age, any decade now. That is what is causing the record global average temperatures, the receding glaciers and the shrinking Arctic sea ice extent. Makes perfect sense! 🙂

            01

            • #
              Sheri

              I can’t see that your sources are all that great, considering “hotter” is by a TINY amount, if at all (error bars). Receding glaciers are fiction—or at least the idea that it’s increasing. Seems they just made that up with the HImalayn glaciers, so forgive me if I posit they may have done it for many more glaciers since it fits their mantra. Arctic ice coming back. It’s not like it hasn’t changed in the past and it will in the future. Maybe increase dramatically, making the alarmists look foolish (while claiming it WILL melt sooner or later, you just wait and see. We are experts and we MUST be right.)

              42

              • #
                Harry Twinotter

                Rereke Whakaaro.

                Dominating a thread that I started? Shame on me! 🙂 I am just responding to comments made in response to my post.

                01

              • #
                Harry Twinotter

                Sheri.

                You should stick to analogies with tea-leaves readers, they are more amusing.

                01

              • #
                Sheri

                Goat entrails okay? Those are my personal favorite, but I can do tea leaves, tarot cards, just about any of the predictive practices.

                10

            • #
              Rereke Whakaaro

              Harry,

              Since you profess to be an expert in this stuff, can you explain to us, how a global average temperature is arrived at?

              And while you are at it, can you explain to us, what the difference is, between Arctic sea ice extent, and Arctic sea ice volume?

              21

              • #
                Harry Twinotter

                Rereke Whakaaro.

                A straw man – I never said I was an expert.

                I do know how a global average temperature is estimated (the procedure is well-documented).

                And if you do not understand the difference between surface area and volume, I doubt I would be able to make the difference any clearer.

                I am happy to try and answer relevant questions, but you can do your own homework I think. No one has even addressed the point I made about Jo Nova’s comment, so I am not in the mood to allow myself to be distracted by a homework assignment.

                02

              • #
                Rereke Whakaaro

                A straw man – I never said I was an expert.

                Sorry, my mistake. Because you appeared to be dominating the conversation, I assumed you thought you knew what you were talking about. Apparently I was wrong.

                I do know how a global average temperature is estimated (the procedure is well-documented).

                Yes, I know it is well documented, but I wondered if you could explain it in your own words. There is a huge gulf between quoting a reference, and actually being able to explain the principles. Any first year student can learn references. Building an understanding takes a little longer.

                And if you do not understand the difference between surface area and volume, I doubt I would be able to make the difference any clearer.

                Ah, so you don’t understand the difference, when it comes to sea ice. That is a shame, I was hoping we could have a conversation about that, and some of the wilder claims made in regard to Arctic microclimates.

                I am happy to try and answer relevant questions, but you can do your own homework I think.

                Oh, I have done my homework, and have accumulated lots of impressive, but meaningless, bits of paper to prove it. I was interested in knowing if you had done your homework, or if you were just working from a script, or using nice sounding phrases you collected via Google.

                No one has even addressed the point I made about Jo Nova’s comment

                Sorry, I missed that. Perhaps I can help. What was the point you made, again?

                … so I am not in the mood to allow myself to be distracted by a homework assignment.

                Your moods are your concerned, I am not a Psychoanalyst. But, you are correct. I did give you the opportunity to establish some credibility here, by giving you a homework assignment. Unfortunately, you have failed to deliver.

                Thank you for partaking in my little experiment.

                10

              • #
                Just-A-Guy

                Rereke Whakaaro,

                Twinotter wrote:

                Bla, bitty, bla, bla!

                Don’t expect a rational response from the Twin-Otter. In the past, he’s shown to have a good grasp on rational thought, as proven by the exchange in that link, which means all the rest of his nonsense is just his attempt at obfuscation.

                Abe

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              • #
                Sheri

                A reply—of he cannot. Or he claims he will not. The standard answer from the advocates of global warming—we don’t know but we’ll pretend we do and then tell YOU to find the answer. Then we’ll complain when you don’t find the answer we were sure you would and we will call you names and say you aren’t scientists. Remiscent of the parent who yells at the kid not to play with food at the table, the kid asks “What’s playing with food?” and the parent yells at the kid that if he’s not smart enough to know that, there’s no hope for the sub-intelligent kid. Bad parenting, bad science, bad everything.

                20

              • #
                Rereke Whakaaro

                Abe @ 29.4.1.1.3

                Thanks for that reference, I must have missed that debate. That is a pity. I have previously worked with people, who now work for WMO, and we exchange emails every now and then. I could have got some quotes, straight from the horses mouth, as it were.

                Sheri @ 29.4.1.1.4

                The tactic that he is employing, in demanding quotations and references to the literature, is designed to do three things:

                1. It slows the conversation in the thread, if people do decide to take the time and trouble to look for the actual answer;

                2. It makes the regulars appear petulant if they avoid answering, or refuse to answer; and

                3. It makes him feel superior, or makes him look superior in the eyes of his followers, who are probably lurking without commentating.

                Playing to a gallery (whether real or imagined) is usually an immature male tactic, although it can be, and sometimes is, employed by more aggressive females as well.

                10

            • #
              tom0mason

              Harry Twinotter,

              You said “record global average temperatures, the receding glaciers and the shrinking Arctic sea ice extent.”

              You, of course, can supply links to fully verified records of observations for your assertions.

              21

    • #
      Ross Stacey

      Can you tell me who and how this is calculated? It is a great barbecue comment but I need to be able to back it up.

      10

  • #
    Ruairi

    The warmists like old Jeremiah,
    Preach doom,from the altars of Gaia,
    As they loudly broadcast,
    Australia outcast,
    To the margins,and called a pariah.

    101

    • #
      Andrew McRae

       
      Peer pressure is the Green gambit.
      Our skeptics can’t understand it.
      To allay warming fear
      it’s not a good idea
      nor light bulb moment; they banned it!

      When only suicide will please,
      Aussie can’t seem weak at the knees.
      Decarbonising
      fully’s worth saving
      point zero zero one degrees?

      Skeptics had fairly had it,
      seeing futility rapid.
      “Why spend our good dollar
      when China won’t bother?
      Roos loose in your top paddock!”

      72

  • #
    michael hart

    As a non-Aussie I can claim to represent at least part of the rest of the world.
    So I’ll start the ball rolling by calling Tim Flannery a pariah and a common-sense denier.
    Let me know if there’s anything else he needs calling.

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  • #
    ScotsmaninUtah

    …..pandering to foreign opinions

    I would hope that Australians never take seriously the thought that it was a pariah….

    quite the opposite 😀

    90

  • #
    Radical Rodent

    No one can pretend Australia can cool the planet: we emit a mere 1.16% of human emissions.

    Jo, you are pandering to the fallacious argument that CO2 has anything to do with global warming. This idea is the present-day version of phlogiston; unlike phlogiston, though, it is an idea that has captured the minds of quite a few, all of whom claim to see the crock of gold at the end of that particular rainbow. Unfortunately, it is really just crock. Stop the pretence, and accept that CO2 – whether or not produced by humans – has little, if anything, to do with climate change, therefore any changes to our emissions of this plant-food are totally and utterly irrelevant.

    101

  • #
    ScotsmaninUtah

    “The redress of the EPA… ”

    The fiscal year 2016 budget for the environment and interior (of which the EPA is a part), proposed by the House will be decreased from the fiscal year of 2015, and is in total, $3 billion below the requested funding for these agencies.

    The bill provides $7.4 billion for the EPA – a 9% reduction from fiscal year 2015

    50

  • #
    Another Ian


    And another gem, from an Anon:

    Sociology: The study of a group of people who do not need to be studied by a group of people who do.”

    Jul 13, 2015 at 1:15 PM | Registered Commenter Robert Christopher”

    From http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2015/7/13/integrity-and-scholarship-at-the-lse.html#comments

    80

  • #
    Eugene WR Gallun

    A little off topic but it has been big news.

    Pope Francis — The Useful Idiot
    Sings A Famous Religious Song

    (I)
    I don’t care if it rains and freezes
    Long as I got my plastic Jesus
    Riding on the dashboard of my car
    I’m driving fast to where I’m going
    Horn a’honking, headlights glowing
    Racing to that global climate war!

    It’s Armageddon straight ahead
    For just as Adam Smith has said
    Creating wealth sets each against all others!
    The Covenant within the Ark
    Is best fulfilled by Karl Marx
    Shared poverty will make us Christian brothers!

    (II)
    I preach a new Theology
    Called Catholic Climatology
    My alter is the dashboard of my car
    I had a vision, went to buy a
    Naked, windup, plastic Gaia
    And serve Her in the global climate war

    For Gaia mends the Trinity
    She is the third Divinity
    God feminine as Christ was made a male!
    In all the nations they will herald
    The Moving Spirit Of The World!
    — Who bobs Her head and shakes her tail

    Eugene WR Gallun

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  • #

    A positive spin would be that Australia’s CO2 is contributing to greening of the Earth.

    This is much more important than the alleged minor warming CO2 is supposed to cause ( … but for some strange reason the average temperature goes down as CO2 rises (1940 to 1976, and 1998 to 2015) more often than it goes up (1976 to 1998). )

    50

  • #
    handjive

    CSIRO head Larry Marshal sued over technology firm collapse (Australian)
    “Shareholders in failed laser technology company Arasor claim Dr Marshall was a central figure in the company’s collapse, alleging he and other directors engaged in misleading and ­deceptive conduct, as well as ­serious breaches of the Corporations and ASIC acts in relation to the company’s financial reports and a disastrous $81 million float.”

    Climate change a CSIRO priority as new chief looks to secure funding (guardian)
    Larry Marshall says global warming is high on the public’s agenda because ‘the science is so compelling’
    . . .

    30

  • #
    Svend Ferdinandsen

    Just do like China. Say you are concerned and will take measures in the future to reduce the rising. It is all about pretending.
    Abbot is right. Let them build windmills, but on their own expense and risk.

    40

  • #
    Neville

    German maths Prof slams BS wind energy.
    Prof Dittmer claims wind energy increases co2 emissions and wind towers have to run for 4 years to compensate for extra co2 used in construction.

    Germany’s online business news magazine WirtschaftsWoche (business week) here has an interview with Professor Gonde Dittmer (right), who claims Germany’s transition to renewable energies so far has been a grand failure. The title of the WirtschftsWoche piece:

    “Doubts over the government’s climate policy. The true aim of the Energiewende is not environmental protection.”

    An illusion…not a single kilogram CO2 saved

    Dittmer, a professor of mathematics and electrical engineering, tells WirtschaftsWoche that all the solar and wind energy installed so far has not saved a single kilogram of CO2 and that these renewable energies are not green at all.

    He also calls the claim that 25% of Germany’s electricity is renewable “an illusion”. He tells WirtschaftsWoche that a wind turbine first needs to run 4 years before it compensates the energy that was needed to produce the system in first place. Dittmer says that instead of saving energy, solar and wind power have had the opposite effect: “To the contrary the result is increased CO2 emissions.”

    Huge tab for the
    – See more at: http://notrickszone.com/#sthash.n1nZlHu7.dpuf

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  • #
    el gordo

    ‘On their ‘Climate-At-A-Glance’ (CAG) web site, NOAA reports that the contiguous U.S. has been cooling at a rate of -0.6°F per century since January 1, 1994. That’s a 258-month period.’

    C3 Headlines

    30

  • #
    Bulldust

    More renewables nonsense at the Greens (it’s not my) ABC:

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-13/mckenzie-mcharg-theres-an-ill-wind-blowing-from-canberra/6615990

    My response, which will almost certainly be “moderated”:

    The hardest thing to imagine is how the ABC continues to publish such uninformed drivel.

    1) Windmills are a fledgling industry? They’ve been around since the first century AD…

    2) Windmills are “clean energy”? Care to post some pictures of the rare earths concentrators in Mongolia, from which the products come to build the magnets in the generators? Still think it is a “clean industry”?

    3) Solar industry does not save money – it was massively subsidised. It costs the economy far more than cheaper alternatives. Really could not be more wrong on this point… small scale solar is incredibly inefficient.

    I could go on, but this is simply a vested-interest renewables piece. Copied elsewhere for evidence of ABC moderator bias.

    100

    • #
      Bulldust

      True to form – a later comment on another thread has appeared. These inconvenient points appear to have been “moderated.”

      20

  • #
    STJOHNOFGRAFTON

    Worse still: Denier pariahs! Quick, administer (NH₄)₂CO₃ . I’m feeling faint.

    40

  • #
    pat

    i just posted the following at Bolt’s Q&A thread; hope it shows up in the comments:

    more damaging & costly to Australians is ABC’s relentless misinformation on solar and wind.

    Tony Delroy’s Nightlife Monday 13 July (podcast at website) had CEFC story as Topic of the Day (what else would they have?). all the critics quoted in the intro.

    majority of callers, as always,came from ABC’s anti-Coalition left. mocking, insulting renewable fantasists – Delroy entertains it all.

    Delroy doesn’t explain that Ivanpah, the world’s largest solar array (347,000 mirrors), is producing just 40 percent of its stated goal of 1 million megawatt-hours of annual electricity output (which the California Energy Commission blamed on “clouds, jet contrails and weather”, AP Nov 2014). nor does he explain that Germany recently extended the life of their coal-fired plants, that Germany’s electricity prices are double those of the US and hundreds of thousands of Germans have had their power cut off because they can’t afford their bills.

    Delroy to caller: you say Germany now gets about 75% of its power from renewables. Caller: yes. i was reading an article the other night blah blah.
    the reality – Germany merely achieved 74% of peak DOMESTIC power for a single day in May 2014. (25% is a more accurate figure &, even that is causing problems for Germans & neighbouring countries.)
    Delroy: the key is the batteries are getting a lot better with storage.

    when a caller mentions the problems regarding baseload power, Delroy says i think they’re heading towards being able to achieve baseload power.

    caller claims China has moved to renewables, says China exported 400,000+ tonnes of coal in a recent month so claims coal is on the way out (China produces nearly 4 BILLION tonnes of coal annually).

    if ACMA can still be making a huge issue of a shock jock stating 2 yrs ago a single incorrect figure relating to CAGW (which his audience wouldn’t have understood had he said it correctly), and which he corrected 2 hours later, then why is ABC allowed to broadcast hours and hours, such as the above ( plus, e.g. the 4 recent Science Show “Energy Futures” progs) of misinformation about the ability of solar and wind to povide Australia’s energy needs?

    until ABC programming reflects all taxpayers who fund the Corp, & consequently attracts an audience from across the political spectrum, “Topic of the Day” & other call-in programs, or audience-participation programs like Q&A, should be scrapped.
    —-

    13 July: Star Phoenix: German green-power push overwhelms neighbours’ defences
    Bloomberg: By Weixin Zha And Marek Strzelecki
    Germany’s drive to harness wind and solar power is producing so much electricity that it’s spilling over into neighbours’ grids and increasing the threat of blackouts.
    Poland and the Czech Republic are spending US$180 million on equipment to protect their systems from German power surges, while Austria is curbing some trading to prevent regional networks from collapsing. On a windy day, the overflow east can exceed the output from four atomic reactors.
    Germany’s fivefold increase in green energy in the past decade has outpaced investment in power lines to move it across the country. Electricity is looping through Poland and the Czech Republic to reach southern Germany, where supply is constrained as Chancellor Angela Merkel shuts nuclear plants after the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan. The disruptions show the limits to the European Commission’s vision of a single power market…
    “A huge accumulation of overflow increases the threat of a blackout,” Zbynek Boldis, the head of trade and international relations at Czech grid CEPS AS, said in Budapest. “The root of the situation is allowing a huge amount of electricity to be generated regardless of the capacity of the grid.”
    German grid companies plan to spend at least 22 billion euros (US$24 billion) on high-voltage power lines as they upgrade networks to accommodate more solar and wind energy before the last of the eight remaining reactors close in 2022…
    Nuclear power now accounts for 16 per cent of Germany’s electricity, compared with 26 per cent for renewables…
    http://www.thestarphoenix.com/business/German+greenpower+push+overwhelms+neighbours+defences/11209848/story.html

    41

  • #
    pat

    more of the same on this ABC page:

    ABC Q&A: Latest Questions
    The 200 most recently approved web questions
    13 Jul 2015 12:36:52pm “Denmark has announced that it now produces 100% of its electricity from wind power with no health effects on their population. How stupid must Australia look to the rest of the world when it wants to spend its money on emerging technologies like coal and cutting down native forests to burn like cave men used to do? What does this say about the quality of people that we elect to parliament and high office?” – boru1 …
    13 Jul 2015 8:07:37am “The coal industry is ancient technology that dates from the 19th century. It is dangerous, polluting and the G20 has mandated that it should not be subsidised. With Tony Abbott now saying he will only fund new and emerging technologies isn’t is obvious that he must now remove the billions of dollars in subsidies to the coal industry? This will not only make life better for Australians but will help balance the on again/off again budget emergency.” – boru1 …
    12 Jul 2015 11:05:03pm “Dnmark managed to generate 140% of its energy requirements through wind-turbines last week.
    How would the panel explain this current government’s blatant disregard of modern and renewable energy? What has to happen with these alternative forms of energy before we see a shift in government policy?” – Ben Scobie …
    12 Jul 2015 9:50:18pm “How ironic that in a place that survives almost solely on hot air and wind, Parliament House in Canberra; that solar and wind generated power are to be cut by the government from any Clean Energy Finance Corporation funding. I wonder if Coal has been added to the CEFC funding categories. We dig out environmentally polluting coal and bury commonsense. What must the world think of us?” – Greg Tuck …
    12 Jul 2015 6:32:37pm “Scott Ludlam hit the nail bang on the head today with his criticism of Tony Abbott for his industrial sabotage of wind-farming when it’s a LOW-COST competitor to coal-mining.
    Tony Abbott maintains that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation should be abolished because renewables should stand on their own feet in the “market”, and yet continues ad nauseum (and nauseatingly) to subsidise the coal industry… royal commission one day anyone? Something putrid there, even besides the coal dust in our lungs.” – Sharni Cannon …
    http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/latest-questions.htm

    ABC Q&A’s 10-year-old gotcha moment last nite:

    13 July: ABC Q&A: Peace, Ideology & Free Speech
    Q&A AND THE ABC
    A video question from Ashton Platt: Hello, this question is for the panel: Recently, this school holidays, I’ve been watching World War II films such as ‘The Book Thief’ and ‘Woman in Gold’. History interests me because we can learn so much from the past, to do better in the future. What I’ve learnt from these films is that attacking freedom of speech becomes, one way, in which dictators try to control public debate and thoughts. I know I’m only 10 but Tony Abbott scares me when he attacks the ABC and tries to control what we see on it. Should we all be afraid of his attacks on Q&A and ABC, both things I love?
    http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4256958.htm

    from Bolt comments:

    Lee of diamond creek melbourne: I have just listened to Neil Mitchell interview the father of the “PRECOCIOUS” ten year old.
    “Until recently the child was a fan/ supporter of Tony Abbott”
    From England the parents LOVE that Australia is egalitarian/ multi cultural?? Surely England today would be one of the most Multi cultural countries in the world.?
    In my opinion this gentleman who was being extremely careful with his words, told how they don’t go for either party, are bringing, their children up to be questioning, et al…
    To me it sounded like; “You can lead a horse to water, and in this case, you CAN MAKE IT DRINK”
    By the way, they only watch ABC and SBS, No they’re not of the Left, nor are they heading their chilren in that direction, and “pigs might fly”///

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    Owen Morgan

    James Thurber has a story about a parade at his university’s Officer Training Corps (or the US equivalent, if I have that wrong), about a century ago. They’re marched around, marched around, right turn, left turn, about turn, until the corps is smartly tramping one way and Thurber is the only one marching in the opposite direction.

    “That one,” cries the inspecting General, “is the only one who’s got it right!”

    Thurber is invited to meet the “General” in his office, where he stands around, unappreciated, while the General tries to swat a fly. When the fly gets away, Thurber is blamed and dismissed.

    Something made me think of that.

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    Dennis

    Solar Impulse grounded in Hawaii, batteries over heated.

    Maybe wind turbines could be adapted?

    http://www.skynews.com.au/business/tech/2015/07/12/solar-impulse-grounded-in-hawaii.html

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    pat

    the Church of England is way out of line:

    14 July: SMH: Nicole Hasham: Church of England leaders call on worshippers to fast for climate change
    It comes as the Abbott government has come under fire for directing the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to stop investing in wind and small-scale solar projects, throwing doubt on its commitment to renewable energy…
    ***The Church of England leaders also overwhelmingly supported a new climate change investment policy adopted in May, which excludes two categories of companies from the church’s funding – those that derive more than 10 per cent of their revenues from the extraction of thermal coal, and those that produce oil from tar sands.
    Bishop of Manchester David Walker said climate change calls for an urgent response from all of us “individually, institutionally, nationally and internationally. And that includes investors”…
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/church-of-england-leaders-call-on-worshippers-to-fast-for-climate-change-20150714-gibr0d.html

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    ROM

    Perhaps it is my imagination but it does seem that within the last year or less the numbers and volume of doubters and doubts and outright scathing dismissal of the catastrophic climate change meme, formerly the catastrophic global warming meme, along with the increasing and usually scathing condemnation of the sometimes near criminality trending greens and the renewable energy industry have been growing rapidly.

    Almost every day now we read of open corruption and gross agenda driven or more likely, incompetence driven distortion of data and numbers even within the supposedly most prestigious weather and climate organisations.
    We read almost everyday about the deliberate selection of catastrophic climate change driven papers in what was the most prestigious science journals of the last century.

    We read and hear of high profile and now openly skeptical scientists and high profile individuals now standing up in front of audiences and quite clearly stating their deep skepticsm about the claims of a catastrophic future with any predicted warming of the climate and when they give their reasons why they are hysterically challenged or dismissed as cranks and idiots by the mass of intellectually challenged climate catastrophe cult followers but increasingly less so from those at the same level of science they are operating at.

    And most of all we are seeing an increasingly wide spread commenting in science circles and in an increasing range of the media along with a hysterical outpouring of vemon and spittle from the global warming cults ideological guiding sites and their idiot savants on the possibility / probability of a global cooling occurring within the near future.

    This along with truckloads of supposedly and claimed science which comes across as little more than plain crap, tries to discount, eliminate, excuse or just plain hand wave away the global temperature pause of the last eighteen years along with increasing evidence of a significant solar slow down in activity.
    They haven’t succeeded in any of their dismissals as an increasing volume of science based data supports the plateauing of global temperatures and the Solar slow down which if history is correct, presages a global cooling in our global future.

    The wheel of human beliefs is turning to another stage as it inexorably has done so down through all the millenniums of the couple of million years of our homo species existence, driven by Nature’s refusal to co-operate with human cult based beliefs,

    I hope that somewhere, somehow, someone is keeping a score on the increasing numbers and volumes of the doubting of the climate catastrophe meme, the increasing skepticism and outright dismissal articles and speeches all questioning, doubting and dismissing the claims of the major climate catastrophe by the believing faithful of the climate catastrophe cult, doubts of which are now starting to appear across much of the media and in the science journals and even at a sprinkling of science conferences.

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    pat

    insanity:

    13 July: Guardian: Damian Carrington: Climate change threat must be taken as seriously as nuclear war – UK minister
    In foreword to Foreign Office report, Baroness Joyce Anelay highlights holistic risks of global warming, including food security, terrorism and lethal heat levels
    The report, commissioned by the Foreign Office, and written by experts from the UK, US, China and India, is stark in its assessment of the wide-ranging dangers posed by unchecked global warming, including…
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/13/climate-change-threat-serious-as-nuclear-war-uk-minister

    Centre for Science & Policy: Climate Change: A Risk Assessment
    Click here to download a free copy of the full report
    The risk assessment was informed by a series of meetings, held at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in November 2014; Tsinghua University in Beijing in January 2015; the Council on Energy, Environment and Water in Delhi in March 2015; and Lancaster House in London in April 2015. These were attended by experts in energy policy, climate science, technology, finance, international security, politics and economics…
    The report was commissioned by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office as an independent contribution to the climate change debate. Its contents represent the views of the authors, and should not be taken to represent the views of the UK Government. Sponsorship for the project was also generously provided by the China National Expert Committee on Climate Change, the Skoll Global Threats Fund, the Global Challenges Foundation, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, and the Willis Research Network.
    The report was edited and produced by the Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP) at the University of Cambridge.
    Lead Authors:
    Sir David King, UK Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative for Climate Change
    Professor Daniel Schrag, Director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment, Member of US President’s Advisory Council for Science and Technology
    Professor Zhou Dadi, Member of China National Expert Committee on Climate Change, Former President, Energy Research Foundation of the National Development and Reform Commission
    Professor Qi Ye, Director of Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy, Tsinghua University
    Dr Arunabha Ghosh, CEO, Council on Energy, Environment and Water
    Project management team
    Project Manager: Simon Sharpe, Climate Risks Team, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office
    http://www.csap.cam.ac.uk/projects/climate-change-risk-assessment/

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    pat

    Murdoch’s Business Spectator:

    14 July: Business Spectator: Kate McKenzie: Is Australia driving recklessly into climate-financial headwinds?
    (Kate Mackenzie is manager of investment and governance at The Climate Institute and author of ‘Australia’s Financial System and Climate Risk’ released yesterday)
    Is the next financial crisis going to be caused by climate change? Is it even a good question? …
    We were all reminded in 2008 that financial systems matter, a lot. At their most basic, they match creditors and debtors. If these conduits freeze up, there is no investment. Eventually the “real economy” suffers too. The damage can be immense.
    We often hear about that financial crisis that “no-one saw it coming”, but some people did foresee aspects of it – they just thought they could escape unscathed…
    Angel Gurria, OECD Secretary General, said in a 2013 speech that unlike the financial crises, we don’t have a “climate bailout” option up our sleeves. Yet, he added, “Interestingly, and despite all the press attention given to climate deniers, our understanding of the scale of the risk is much better developed than our understanding of the financial risks pre-crisis.”…
    Financial professionals are increasingly aware that climate change itself, and efforts to mitigate it, will impact their sector. Quite a few have taken note of the “unburnable carbon” theory, which simply points out that most of the world’s known fossil fuel reserves can’t be used if we’re to avoid extremely dangerous levels of pollution that would lead to more than 2 degrees of warming…
    The Bank of England considers climate risk at its monthly financial policy committee meetings; the International Energy Agency has mapped out how the world can meet its 2020 climate goals, and Norway’s massive sovereign wealth fund is set to screen out many thermal coal investments…
    No such formal processes exist for Australia’s financial system…
    Many of us live in coastal areas, and about 7 per cent of homes are already exposed to flood damage…
    From a financial system perspective, the greatest risk doesn’t come from any one of these factors, but from the interaction of them through our mortgages, our ***superannuation nest eggs, our industries and jobs. Much of this is still far too dependent on a bet that we can escape reckoning with climate change…
    http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2015/7/14/policy-politics/australia-driving-recklessly-climate-financial-headwinds

    why not just say give me your superfunds.

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    pat

    another CAGW industry that has remained in the shadows:

    13 July: Marketwatch: Carbon and Energy Software Market – Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2014 – 2022
    PRNewswire/ — This report aims to provide a comprehensive strategic analysis of the global carbon and energy software market along with the market size and growth forecast for the period from 2012 to 2022. The key factors driving the growth of the carbon and energy software market include rising environmental concerns pertaining to climate change, increasing awareness about reducing carbon emissions, and need to achieve enhanced energy efficiency to reduce operational costs…
    Furthermore, rising trends in developing sustainable business strategies are further driving the growth of this market. Growing significance of an environment-friendly brand image, and increasing need to comply with various government norms and mandates have made it imperative for organizations to effectively monitor and assess their energy consumption levels…
    It also provides the competitive landscape of the key players in the carbon and energy software market in order to highlight the prevalent competition in this market…
    The report includes an overview of the market strategies, annual revenues, and recent developments of the key companies operating in the market.
    ***The key market participants profiled in the study include Intelex Technologies, Inc., CA Technologies, Inc., SAP SE, Enviance, Inc., IHS, Inc., ProcessMAP Corporation, Thinkstep AG (PE International), IBM Corporation, Enablon North America Corporation, and Verisae, Inc…
    ***LINK: Read the full report
    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/carbon-and-energy-software-market—global-industry-analysis-size-share-growth-trends-and-forecast-2014—2022-2015-07-13

    still in the shadows:

    13 July: Brookings Institution: Adele Morris: Why the federal government should shadow price carbon
    A growing number of companies are putting a shadow price on carbon to reduce their carbon footprint cost effectively. Shadow pricing is method of investment or decision analysis that adds a hypothetical surcharge to market prices for goods or services that involve significant carbon emissions in their supply chain. For example, if a firm is analyzing acquisitions of new energy-using equipment, it would use expected energy costs of expected market prices plus a charge associated with the carbon dioxide that would be released when the fuel is combusted. Shadow prices can apply in all sorts of analyses of investments, procurements, and other strategic decisions to give an edge to options that are more emissions-efficient, other things equal. These decisions then allow firms to reduce their emissions gradually up to the incremental cost reflected in the carbon price they apply…
    Why would companies do this?…
    Companies that wish to adopt shadow pricing have few public examples of how to do it…
    The U.S. federal government has two key leadership opportunities here. First, the government could shadow price its own emissions in ways analogous to those used by companies but customized to the particular needs of federal agencies…
    One potential first step would be to establish an expert committee and/or interagency process to explore the feasibility of carbon shadow pricing by the federal government…
    http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/planetpolicy/posts/2015/07/13-carbon-footprint-governement-shadow-prive-morris

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    pat

    re Adele Morris who wrote the Brookings carbon “shadow price” piece:

    Adele Morris is a senior fellow and policy director for Climate and Energy Economics at the Brookings Institution…
    Before the JEC, Adele served nine years with the U.S. Treasury Department as its chief natural resource economist, working on climate, energy, agriculture, and radio spectrum issues. On assignment to the U.S. Department of State in 2000, she was the lead U.S. negotiator on land use and forestry issues in the international climate change treaty process. Prior to joining the Treasury, she served as the senior economist for environmental affairs at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers during the development of the Kyoto Protocol. She began her career at the Office of Management and Budget, where she conducted regulatory oversight of agriculture and natural resource agencies. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University, an M.S. in Mathematics from the University of Utah, and a B.A. from Rice University.
    Adele Morris is a senior fellow and policy director for Climate and Energy Economics
    http://www.brookings.edu/experts/morrisa

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    pat

    14 July: Bloomberg: Alex Nussbaum: Carbon-Trading Program Generates $1.3 Billion in U.S. Northeast
    A cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide generated $1.3 billion in benefits for nine U.S. states, a finding that may win converts elsewhere in the country.
    Funding from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative also created more than 14,000 new jobs in the Northeast and saved consumers $460 million in lower electric bills over the past three years, according to a report released Monday by Analysis Group, a Boston-based consulting company. The benefits came mainly from customer rebates and efficiency measures spurred by the program…
    “There are a lot of states that are looking carefully at doing the same thing,” said Paul Hibbard, an Analysis Group vice-president and co-author of the study, in a telephone interview. “It will be hard for states to not realize that from the standpoint of economic efficiency, that’s the way to go.”…
    Not everyone was a winner: Power-plant owners lost almost $500 million in revenue from 2012 to 2014, due to both reduced electricity demand and the cost of credits they had to buy to emit greenhouse gases.
    ***The report was funded by four private foundations that advocate for action on climate change and “sustainable energy,” including the Boston-based Barr Foundation and the ***Energy Foundation of San Francisco…
    The Northeast program was overhauled last year after demand for pollution credits proved weak. After reducing the amount of allowances available by 45 percent, prices increased, and with them, the incentive to cut emissions, proponents said. Pollution credits sold for $5.50 a ton in the latest quarterly auction on June 3, almost double the $3 they fetched before the cap was lowered, according to the RGGI website…
    Governor Chris Christie pulled New Jersey out of the market in 2011, saying it was driving up electric rates without providing any environmental benefits…
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-14/carbon-trading-program-generates-1-3-billion-in-u-s-northeast

    ***from HuffPo: Energy Foundation, a San Francisco-based organization …. funds the Sierra Club, the National Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund and Earthjustice.

    no link to the report in the Bloomberg article.

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    Ceetee

    “Earthjustice.” I roll about laughing at the sheer pretension of an organisation with a name like that. Still, the room must be getting pretty crowded so they must be running out of emotive monikers with snazzy acronyms.

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    hunter

    Audit Tim Flannery’s group.

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    Peter Carabot

    The cartoon is a bit wrong, The only thing the Greens and the various Warmist/Coolist want is the total closure of the continent, the signs should should read:” Welcome to Natural Park Oceania (formerly Australia) were you can observe nature in it’s… natural state” They dont want anybody here just Gaia!!!!!!

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