climate change
5 May 2009
Suicidal Sweethearts
Rudd's climate policy just went from bad to worse, but some green groups are saying they support it. It's a political strategy that will lead to disaster, writes David Spratt
Kevin Rudd's announced changes to the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme has again split the climate movement, and this time it's very serious, with three large, rusted-onto-Labor groups providing cover for an appalling policy that won't guarantee a reduction in Australia's emissions for decades.The grassroots movement, which gathered in Canberra in January with 500 people and 150 groups for the first national Climate Action Summit and unanimously opposed the CPRS legislation, appears uniformly angry. The Prime Minister has received 66 letters from climate action groups saying they "believe that you have abandoned your duty of care to protect the Australian people as well as our species and habitats from dangerous climate change".
The re-worked proposals for the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme announced yesterday were described by the Greens as "making the 'worse than useless' scheme even worse and giving another $2.2 billion to big polluters. It also fails on voluntary action" and has an "almost irrelevant green distraction of a hypothetical 25 per cent target to undermine criticism".
John Hepburn of Greenpeace said: "It's clear that Rudd has been listening to the big polluters and this is another shift towards the interests of polluters rather than climate action. We're rapidly running out of time and we'd like this scheme to go back to the drawing board until Kevin Rudd can stand up to the big polluters and take action in the interests of the Australian people."
Friends of the Earth "criticised the raising of the government's hypothetical target range as an exercise in 'smoke and mirrors', aimed at hiding the further windfall for polluters".
But the three climate advocacy groups that have acquiesced or actively supported the Government's "clean coal" policies — ACF, the WWF and Climate Institute — again lined up to support Labor, together with the ACTU and ACOSS. Michelle Grattan in The Age noted that "the biggest concessions are the brown ones" and said that "Kevin Rudd has stitched key groups in behind a revised emissions trading deal — both browner and greener than before — to put maximum pressure on Malcolm Turnbull."
John Conner of the Climate Institute on behalf of the Southern Cross Climate Coalition (ACF, ACTU, ACOSS and Climate Institute) said it was now time for all parties to pass the scheme.
Australian Conservation Foundation CEO Don Henry told staff: "We have achieved a significant step forward on climate change. The Government has just announced that it will take on a target of reducing Australia's emissions by 25 per cent by 2020 in the context of a Copenhagen agreement that has the effect of stabilising emissions at 450ppm or lower." (That is itself untrue, of which more later.) ACF climate campaigner Owen Pascoe added: "This is a good step forward and the positives outweigh the negatives. However there's a lot more to be done and we'll keep pushing for our ask of 30 to 40 per cent cuts."
Just so we know what we're talking about, let's take a minute to look at exactly what the new changes Rudd has announced would mean.
Rudd's now planning to delay the scheme's introduction for a year to 1 July 2011 and set a nominal carbon price of $10 a tonne with an unlimited number of permits until 1 July 2012, so there will be NO effective action for another three years.
He's also going to increase the permits to the biggest polluters in the first year from 90 per cent to 95 per cent for the most assisted group and from 60 per cent to 70 per cent — so that in the first year the biggest polluters will be effectively paying 50 cents per tonne to pollute, as Environment Victoria noted.
The changes will keep the provision for unlimited outsourcing of Australia's national responsibilities by allowing the purchase of permits from overseas without limit, so that the scheme has no mechanism for ensuring that Australia's emissions (as opposed to domestic permits) will drop by even one tonne by 2050.
The scheme still fails to deal adequately with the question of additionality and voluntary action. As Environment Victoria notes: "The fix to recognise household and business voluntary action through GreenPower is welcome, but the mechanism is awful. By only recognising additional GreenPower purchases above 2009 levels the Government is guaranteeing the collapse of existing GreenPower customer purchases and therefore jeopardising the whole program."
At the same time, the scheme will not (contrary to back-slapping comments by the ACTU) produce an avalanche of "green jobs" because it is not designed to close down the brown jobs. Instead of building a clean, renewable-energy economy and technological capacity, Australia will continue to stumble at the back of the pack.
So why are some of the big climate advocacy groups so keen on this disaster? (Or rather, why are they expressing public support for a scheme which is massively at odds with some of their private positions?) And is their public position actually supported by the evidence? To get a better sense of what's going on, here's a look at the views expressed by ACF and others, and whether they're justifiable.
View 1: "Passing the CPRS is necessary for Australia to be credible at Copenhagen."
No, quite the opposite. If there were no legislation, Australia's position would not be tied by law to Rudd's poor target and pressure would be maintained to catch up with the leading bunch. The targets in the proposed CPRS legislation are out of whack with the major players such as the UK, US and EU, who have agreed to unconditional emissions cuts of 34–46 per cent, 20 per cent and 20–30 per cent from 1990 levels respectively. Let's be honest: what happens at Copenhagen depends more than any other factor on what the "G2" — the USA and China — strike by way of a climate deal, and what Australia puts on the table has little relevance to that. They are used to Australia behaving badly.
View 2: "If there is a reasonable outcome in Copenhagen, Australia will be committed to a 25 per cent cut by 2020."
As Adam Morton reported in The Age today, despite "yesterday's spin about progress in international climate talks", Rudd and Wong are certain that whatever deal is done in Copenhagen it won't be enough to force a 25 per cent emissions cut by Australia under the terms they have set.
View 3: "The CPRS can reduce Australia's emissions by 25 per cent by 2020."
This is complete bull, regardless of what happens at Copenhagen. By allowing an unlimited number of permits to be bought from overseas, through such dubious schemes as REDD and the CDM, the CPRS cannot guarantee that even one tonne of Australian emissions (as opposed to domestic permits) will be cut. The Treasury modelling assumes no drop in Australian emissions for another 25 years.
This provision alone should be enough to scuttle the whole scheme. How can this be "a significant step forward on climate change" as Rudd's supporters in the environment movement claim publicly when it won't guarantee to cut any domestic emissions at all? In fact, what the CPRS is doing is trying to lock in through legislation, for decades to come, a high-pollution economy dominated by high-pollution industries and brown jobs.
View 4: "If the high-polluting nations such as Australia adopted a policy of reducing emissions to 25 per cent below 1990 by 2020 this would likely lead to an international agreement that would stabilise emissions at 450ppm or lower."
This idea is a case of "if you say something often enough, you'll end up believing it". Too many climate groups and climate scientists have been saying this so long and so often, yet it is so untrue.
The 2007 IPCC report found that Australia (and all the other Kyoto Annex I countries) would need to reduce emissions by 25–40 per cent by 2020 for a 450ppm target. Note how everybody has dropped the 40 per cent end of this formulation, as if it never existed. Australia, as the highest per capita polluter of the Annex 1 members, would certainly be at the 40 per cent end of the range, but this is rarely mentioned.
View 5: "Stabilising at 450ppm would reasonably limit global warming to 2˚C."
No it won't. Analysis for the 2006 Stern Report (p. 195) shows that a 450ppm CO2e target has a 26–78 per cent probability of exceeding 2˚C relative to pre-industrial levels, but also a 4–50 per cent probability of exceeding 3˚C!
That is not defensible and I can't understand how anybody who works professionally on climate change could think for one second that it is a reasonable target to utter in public.
After a careful reassessment of climate sensitivity and climate history data, NASA climate science chief James Hansen and his colleagues concluded that the tipping point at which substantial ice-sheets on Earth will disappear is around 450ppm (+/-100 ppm) of CO2. This means that the CO2 levels often associated with a 2˚C rise — 450ppm — may just be the tipping point for the total loss of all ice sheets on the planet and a huge sea-level rise.
If you are silly enough to contemplate a 2˚C rise, then just to have a 66 per cent chance of limiting warming at that point, atmospheric carbon needs to be held to 400ppm CO2e and that requires a global reduction in emissions of 80 per cent by 2050 (on 1990 levels) and negative emissions after 2070. And with high climate sensitivity, a risk-averse target for 2˚C is around 350ppm CO2e — and all this is necessary just to meet a 2˚C target that is actually dangerous.
The big groups know privately that 350ppm and lower should be the target. John Connor of the Climate Institute wrote recently that the science leads us to 350ppm, and ACF Council has adopted a 350 ppm target, but this has not yet seen the light of day in ACF's public advocacy.
View 6: "2˚C is a reasonable target to avoid dangerous climate change."
No, it will ensure that climate change IS dangerous. A rise of 2˚C over pre-industrial temperatures will initiate large climate feedbacks in the oceans, on ice-sheets, and on the tundra, taking the Earth well past significant tipping points. Likely impacts include large-scale disintegration of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice-sheet; the extinction of an estimated 15–40 per cent of plant and animal species; dangerous ocean acidification; increasing methane release; substantial soil and ocean carbon-cycle feedbacks; and widespread drought and desertification in Africa, Australia, Mediterranean Europe, and the western USA.
The loss of the Greenland ice sheet produces about a 7 metre global sea-level rise. One conclusion is that advocacy of the 25–40/2020 target, for example by the ACF in its 2008 "Special Places" campaign, will result in the destruction of many of the "special places" in Australia that the ACF wants to protect; Kakadu, for example, will salinate with a sea-level rise of less than 1 metre.
Hansen told the US Congress in testimony last year that: "We have reached a point of planetary emergency ... climate is nearing dangerous tipping points. Elements of a perfect storm, a global cataclysm, are assembled ... the oft-stated goal to keep global warming less than 2˚C is a recipe for global disaster, not salvation." But the ACF says the Government announcement of "a target of reducing Australia's emissions by 25 per cent by 2020 in the context of a Copenhagen agreement that has the effect of stabilising emissions at 450ppm or lower" is a "significant step forward on climate change".
Take your pick, but I'd rather go with the climate scientist . As Ken Ward, the former deputy director of Greenpeace USA and an environmental strategist has so acutely observed, we must "stop seeking and celebrating dinky achievements" because "nothing that we are doing, nor even seriously contemplating, comes anywhere near such a massive transformation [as is necessary], yet every actor on the political stage ... downplays the terrible realities and trumpets small-scale solutions wrapped in upbeat rhetoric ... We are racing toward the end of the world and have no plan of escape, but it is considered impolite to acknowledge that fact in public."
View 7: "If this legislation is passed, it is reasonable to expect that the Government will do more and go further than its own legislation."
Pull the other leg.
It appears the strategy of the groups who have endorsed the CPRS is to pretend that we don't face a climate crisis that requires emergency action, so they endorse incremental policies and never talk about the elephant in the room. That elephant is this: we only get one shot at this, and we don't have the luxury of a trial option that locks in a bad policy for decades.
Today with global warming at just less than 1˚C we are witnessing the destruction of the Arctic ecosystem. Eight million square kilometres of sea ice is disappearing each summer and may be entirely gone within a few years. Already 80 per cent by volume of summer sea-ice has been lost, and regional warming of up to 5˚C may have already pushed the Greenland ice-sheet past its tipping point.
But are the ACF, the Climate Institute and the WWF telling the Government this?
We know that the present level of greenhouse gases is enough to increase temperatures by more than 2˚C over time. We have already gone too far, there is already too much carbon in the air. At less than 1˚C we are on the way to triggering a multi-metre sea-level rise that will devastate coastal infrastructure, delta peasant-farming communities and some of the world's biggest cities. Our only choice is to head back to 0˚C of warming, to halt all emissions and reduce atmospheric carbon to return the planet to a safe-climate zone.
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute and Europe's leading climate scientist, says that "we are on our way to a destabilisation of the world climate that has advanced much further than most people or their governments realise", so "our survival would very much depend on how well we were able to draw down carbon dioxide to 280 parts per million", compared to the present level of close to 390ppm.
And are the ACF, the Climate Institute and the WWF telling the Government this?
Put starkly, we either keep warming within the limits at which carbon feedbacks become sufficiently pervasive as to make further human action futile, or we don't. We have a safe climate or we have a global catastrophe. There are no middle-of-the-road compromises. We must head back towards zero. At 1˚C the genie is out of the bottle, at 2˚C the bottle is broken.
One of the great powers of the climate action movement is our capacity to withhold support from — and actively campaign against — government actions that are designed to fail, as the CPRS will. Presently there is political denial, even an arrogance of power that leads governments to believe that they can negotiate with the climate and the laws of physics and chemistry. We're living in a land of tradeoffs, where climate is just another issue, the politics are partisan, the action slow, and it's all embedded in a culture of compromise and failure. Monday 4 May was a great example.
And it is a tragedy that some people who should know better are warmly praising such a failure.
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Excellent article, David Spratt!
Wong is wrong, again! As always. Like Garrett, she is a ‘snow-job’ on the Australian people, put there by Rudd to pamper the Big Polluters, the Big Miners etc. None of them have the faintest interest in actually doing ANYTHING for the Planet! Seems even the Murray River has been left to die by her! What they are doing is playing wedge politics with the opposition in order to win another election, a pursuit of power for power’s sake, certainly playing with the every existence of the human race in order to play with petty games of ‘Hah Hah, mine is bigger than yours’.
The ACTU, WWF, Climate Institute, ACF, ACOSS, probably all sup from the public purse, or have other interests which collide with their ethics, and, deserve every contemptuous ‘mention’ that Christine Milne has directed at them.They have been ‘snowed’ by Rudd and Wong into casting aside their principles for personal and political, and perhaps financial gain!
Wong just came back from talking to the Obama camp! Surely, if she worked out this abomination with them, then the World is in for a sorry time, with Obama also playing ducks and drakes with Global Warming.
If Obama is intending to stick to his declared values, then surely Wong and Co. must go down as total idiots! Obtain a lead from the greatest polluter to attack Global Warming, then go down the path of giving billions to the Big Polluters in Australia to keep on polluting until time runs out, play silly buggers with logging in Asia for no gain whatsoever in Australia, humbug all thinking Aussies who themselves want to do something to help the Planet with Solar and Wind etc. by handing their efforts results to the Big Polluters, for free!
I mean, this mob are a total cop out. The were elected by the Australian Peoples to DO SOMETHING about Global Warming, NOT pander to the mindless, greedy instincts of the Big Polluters, Big Coal, but that is exactly what they are doing, and arrogantly expect us to wear it and accept that we are going to die off as a species, because Little Kevin and Wrong Wong and Co. want to play silly stupid political games.
I would be very happy if the Opposition do not pass this insane legislation, and allow it to wither on the vine, with some hope that if Rudd does call for a double dissolution, he loses all power in the Senate, and it passes to the Greens, because it seems they are the only hope for all of us. I would also love for Rudd to lose his own seat! What sweet irony!
And may Combet rot in Hell! For a man of such promise, he has turned out to be as bad as the rest. Dare one call all of this CORRUPTION! Who is paying the Piper! Dazza.
What is really scary is not that David Spratt regurgitates the AGW alarmist rubbish but with no understanding of the science whatsoever but that any semi intelligent person can ignore what is happening in the world around them.
- The Arctic is not melting away in fact it is growing again and has been for the last 3 years. It never reached the same loss as the 1930’s where the straights were completely free of ice. This is neglecting the fact that the USGS and National Ice and Data Centre just had to admit under estimating the Arctic sea ice by a mere 500,000 sq km (That’s 500,000 sq km!!!!!!)
- The Antarctic is growing quite nicely (see recent Aus article)
- All data sets (surface, sonde and satellite) have shown a decrease of 0.2C over the past decade which is the sharpest fall in human recorded history.
The climate scientists have been very quiet recently because they know they got it wrong, the computer models predicted inexorable warming which not only has not occurred but the earth has been getting much cooler and very quickly!
As a scientist I have always wondered why the climate scientists who have access to the raw temperature data have consistently refused to release it to the scientific community, to keep data secret is a breach of every scientific principle and yet few seem to question this behaviour. Why keep this data a closely guarded secret? Perhaps this is why: one of the leading doomsayers from the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center (who has access to the raw data!) has just been publicly accused of fraudulently altering data to support the case for AGW. Could this be the beginning of the end for AGW?
Ooh, icedvolvo! Did you say the Oz published an article saying the Antarctic is growing nicely AND you’re a scientist? Sweet. Let’s all just forget about AGW and start worrying about AGC. Feel like betting on that? It would be soo worth it, you know, so you can say who was right or wrong in 2050…
Great article David Spratt, let’s hope this is a wake up call for anyone who wants to reduce emissions and dependency on vanishing resources.
Thank you. Appreciated your article. Another voice of reason, not hysteria.
I am a member of one of the local area climate action groups that signed the protest letter to Kevin Rudd over the CPRS shenanigans.
The majority of our group would like to live quiet lives, and help the planet by putting solar panels on our roofs etc. It has been a very rude awakening for many of them to discover truth about the CPRS and the power of big polluters.
I hope that this debate will shake up the environmental movement and turn it back towards organising people into action and away from dependence on lobbying.
There is a national call for protest rallies on June 13, calling for a target of 100% renewable energy by 2020. Let us hope that will be a new beginning.
I’m just in the midst of (slowly) preparing an article on Australia’s relations with Asia, focusing on what Australia might be able to do to assist Asian countries adapt to the growing climate chaos, and within that focusing on agriculture. I come from Australia but have been living and working in SE Asia for 20+ years, currently in Laos.
The news on what is not being done to address climate chaos in Oz gets steadily worse, and I feel particularly aggrievied as Rudd is/was our local MP. The news on what Oz is not doing to assist its neighbouts adapt is even worse.
One of the key issues, and one that some people have been sounding warnings about for some decades, is the vulnerability of food crop agriculture and how fragile the food supply and food security is in Asia. Climate chaos is already making that fragility quickly even shakier.
Try checking the website of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) - the peak organisation providing agricultural R&D for Asia - for references to adapting agriculture, the best you will find is a link to the international agricultural R&D centre (CGIAR), and all that it has is a gabble of sweet words about what needs to be done, but no evidence of anything actually being done.
So I went to ANU (my alma mater) Climate Change Institute (CCI) anticipating that I would find lots of material on what was being done. Aside from the fact that the site has not been updated since 15th May 2007! it was empty of recent work by Oz academics - all it had was reports from old gabfests and a list of collaborators that went on for pages.
So I went to the Australian Universities Climate Consortium (AUCC - ANU, Monash, UNSW, Melbourne), surely there would be something of worth there - just as empty, just a full of sweet promises, and not updated since, you guessed, 15th May 2007!
In a week the CCI and AUCC can celebrate two years of doing nothing useful! Beauty mate!
So here we are, a year and a half since Labor was elected to ‘do something’, and the news that the rate and severity of climate chaos has increased radically since the IPCC report of 2007 seems to have been overlooked. We have a government that is worse than being in denial, they are actively rewarding the culprits!
If we are not smart enough to get moving and help ourselves in the face of such clear evidence of the sources of climate chaos, our neighbours to the north had better get ready to look after themselves, because we’re not even thinking about them.
Be concerned, be very concerned.
Why does Plimer get so much media space? Why can’t I convince some of my more intelligent friends to wake up? Let’s hope that Bill McKibben, who was interviewed on Late Night Live last night, can convince enough of us to agitate for 350ppm and that a paradigm shift in thinking and action will occur.
Well I am a 60 year old PhD geoscientist with about 70 peer reviewed papers and book chapters reflecting a very respectable 30+ year career and it just so happens I agree with the scientist icedvovo.
The fact is the actual modern climate record to date shows that most GCMs (still) overestimate CO2 sensitivity and there is now a significant emerging body of literature from a very wide range of fields showing the IPCC AR4 estimates were very likely flawed.
I also happen to believe that some anthropogenic warming may well be occurring and we do have a long term historical responsibility to adjust to that.But, surprise surprise, it is no shame to be a sceptic of any shade.
Only in the West and only amongst the partisan hordes of green NGO apparatchikis like David Spratt and Anna Rose, both of whom BTW are not scientists but have a vested interest in perpetuating the crass ideological bandwagon that is global climate alarmism/catastrophism have recent scientific developments gone unnoticed.
I note they also don’t seem to have acknowledged that neither the Chinese, the Indians, the Brazilians nor the Russians have embraced their extremist ideology in any significant numbers either. If their movement was really ‘fair dinkum’ it would be out there trying to turn the emerging BRIC powers around on this issue rather than driving the West into a hole from which it might never recover.
But I see no evidence whatsoever of this happening. Quite an indictment, don’t you think? This is why the real hysteria emanates from them.
Rudd and Wong, like all good politician are simply reading which way the wind is blowing:
http://247wallst.com/2009/05/04/is-carbon-trading-or-cap-and-trade-dying…
I find it slightly bizarre, and a little sad, that when the government makes a significant improvement to the scheme by moving to 25%, the criticism from some greens becomes even more vehement.
Moving to 25% puts us in the right ballpark internationally and shows that we are prepared to lift our share of the burden.
Frankly, if the world cannot reach a comprehensive agreement in the next few years, we’re all screwed. If we are still in a situation of business as usual by 2020, it may be too late to avoid dangerous climate change. In that case, it would be game over, and it wouldn’t matter one bit what reduction Australia had committed to. 5%, 15%, or 25%, if the world doesn’t come to the part, our actions are, sadly, pointless.
The global agreement is the whole point. That’s why having a big differential between the unconditional and conditional targets is good policy. The government is not trying to shirk our responsibilities, they are trying to add to the international pressure for action.
More here- http://everythingischanging.wordpress.com/2009/05/06/emissions-trading-i…
I see we’ve had a visit from one of the Intelligent Deniers. It doesn’t matter how many times their false claims are disproven they still trot them out again. Merely using The Australian as a reference for climate change is dodgy. A spokesman for CSIRO said that in regards to Antarctica there is a stabilising or slight increase in ice in the east because of damper air currents but it doesn’t counter the loss of ice in the west. There is consensus that there is an overall loss of ice but in true Intelligent Denier fashion, only half the story is latched onto.
Listen to the ignorant spout off. The polluters in Australia are the 21 million citizens. If we use less coal fired power, drive less, use less plastic and so on or boycott certain companies who make aluminium foil and so on there will be less pollution.
you can whine and rant and spew this crap for as long as you like but you miss the point entirely.
While coal has been proven to be a nasty resource over many decades it has also kept billions of people having lights, hot water, computers and so on.
You can’t just turn them into the world’s greatest villains over night, after all it was scientists who claimed coal fired power stations were perfectly safe, just like the did with DDT, the organophosphates and so on.
The world is not going to end tomorrow and Rudd has already registered a goal of 25% reduction with the UN which is further than any other country has bothered to do.
Now stop whining and play tootsie with the coal companies, it is not their fault Australian’s are fat, lazy, ignorant and the world’s biggest pigs.
They can only supply power on our demand because it cannot be stored at base load level.
Sheesh. Talk about ungrateful and dumb.
Not sure what you are on about, Maryj. Are you trying to outdo BPopje? You are only further confusing the issue. As for the 25% figure, I think you had better do some catching up. This is a scam, it would only ever be operational if the world does the same, as Rudd said. It was put in the latest stuff to ‘snow’ the environment movement, or parts of them. Worked too, and on you also, it appears.
Sure, coal has been a wonder. Fuelled the Industrial Revolution. Also, in that time, it has pretty much befouled the world, rendering it very close to uninhabitable. Millions of deaths can be directly attributed to Big Coal. What we are all saying now is that it is time, past time, that we woke up and changed our very dirty habits.
Maybe the world will not end tomorrow, but in a very few tomorrows, the climate situation will be past the tipping point, and NOTHING that we then may do will fix it. Billions will die, starve, flooded out, no food, no water. Want that, do you?
I also listened to Bill McKibben. I have to agree. Politicians are never going to do the right thing, they are all short term thinkers, and are all beholden to the Big Polluters. I am going to get onto the web site and see what I can do, myself, an ordinary citizen, as if we leave it to the pollies, then we are already dead!
They may as well be! Dazza.
Excellent review by David Spratt of this latest disastrous Rudd Labor Government Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) - I would urge everyone to read his seminal book with Phillip Sutton entitled "Climate Code Red. The case for emergency action" (see: http://www.climatecodered.net/ ; for a review see: http://www.green-blog.org/2008/11/01/book-review-climate-code-red-the-ca… ).
The extreme right wing, neo-Bush-ite, pro-war, pro-coal, anti-science and anti-environment Rudd Labor Government has betrayed ALP voters, Australia, Humanity and the Biosphere by its pro-coal commitment to business as usual for as long as possible that flies in the face of evidence of massive climatic disruption already at an atmospheric CO2 concentration of 387 ppm (atmospheric GHG circa 450 ppm CO2-equivalent ) (see Presdient Obama’s Chief Science Adviser Professor John Holdren’s power-point lecture "The Science of Climatic Disruption": http://www.usclimateaction.org/userfiles/JohnHoldren.pdf ).
The Coalition is much the same but - unlike Rudd Labor - its leader Malcolm Turnbull has at least urged implementation of renewable energy and biochar - major things required , together with re-afforestation and cessation of all GHG sources, to REDUCE atmospheric CO2 to the safe level advocated by top climate scientists of about 300-350 ppm.
The following carefully researched and documented commentary on the disastrous Rudd Labor ETS and entitled “Pro-coal Australian Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) devalues Australian lives, threatens Biosphere and ignores Science” has been placed on the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group website (see: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/latest-pro-co… ) . It has been sent to media and MPs. The silence is deafening.
COMMENTARY. Pro-coal Australian Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) devalues Australian lives, threatens Biosphere and ignores Science
The World is facing a climate emergency requiring urgent action - as perceived by its top scientists but not yet by First World Establishment media, corporations and politicians. [1].
Thus the stark opinion of Professor Sir David King (former Chief Science Adviser of the UK Government and Head of the UK Government Office for Science, 2000-2007, currently Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at Oxford University, President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and a senior scientific adviser to major global financial company UBS) is reported thus by Reuters (28 May 2008): “speaking at a climate change workshop hosted by Thomson Reuters in London [Professor King] said Europe needed to reduce its annual per-capita emissions by 80 percent, or from 11 tonnes of CO2e, to India’s current level of 2.2 tonnes per person by 2050”. [2].
Professor Sir David King: “If you (don’t want) run-away climate change, you need to be at about 350 parts per million (ppm) of CO2 … We’re currently at 387 ppm CO2, going up at 2 per annum … If you include all greenhouse gases, we’re at around 420 ppm CO2e …the challenge, to move from where we are now [Europe’s 11 tonnes of CO2e per person per year] to where the Indians are today [2.2], while growing the global economy at the same time”. [2].
“Annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution” in units of “tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year” (2005-2008 data) is 2.2 (India), 6.7 (the World), 11 (Europe), 27 (the US) and 30 (Australia; or 54 if Australia’s huge Exported CO2 pollution is included). [2-4].
Australia is the world’s leading coal exporter and a world leader in annual per capita GHG pollution. The pro-coal Rudd Labor Australian Federal Government has just announced its new revised Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) involving (a) a further delay in introduction until 2011; (b) massive subsidies for GHG polluters; (c) a target of “5-25% off 2000 GHG pollution by 2020”; and (d) an initial carbon price of A$10 per tonne. [5].
This Australian decision flies in the face of advice from top scientists such as Professor King in that it (a) ignores the urgency of action required; (b) provides massive subsidies for continued GHG pollution, (c) will only reduce Australia’s “annual Domestic and Exported GHG pollution” from its present value of 54 to 38-43 tonnes per person per year by 2020 (using UN Population Division data) ; and (d) ignores the circa 5,000 annual Australian deaths from coal burning pollutants that, at a valuation of A$10 million per person (US EPA) and an annual domestic use coal production of 156 million tonnes (2007; US EIA) yields an estimated “real” cost of coal burning of A$50 billion/156 million tonnes = A$321 per tonne. [4, 6-9].
The sine qua non in Australian public life is surely “loving Australia”, which surely means (a) love for Australians, (b) love for Australia’s unique flora and fauna and (c) love of Australian values (most notably, being “fair dinkum” or “telling the truth”). The Australian Government’s ETS clearly violates these fundamental injunctions by (a) devaluing Australia’s 5,000 annual coal death victim lives by a factor of over 30; (b) committing Australia to effective “business as usual” GHG pollution that, if adopted globally, will destroy Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (coral death above 450 ppm CO2; atmospheric CO2 currently 387 ppm and still rising at 2 ppm/year) and (c) blatantly ignoring top scientific opinion in the interests of major GHG polluters. [10].
[1]. Yarra Valley Climate Action Group, “Climate emergency: what top World scientific experts say “: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/climate-emerg… ; “Climate emergency: what outstanding Australian scientists say “: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/climate-emerg… ; “Climate Emergency Facts and Required Actions “: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/climate-emerg… .
[2] Michael Szabo, “Cut CO2 to India’s level, top scientist urges”, Reuters, 28 May 2008: http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL28290944 .
[3] Ross Garnaut, The Garnaut Climate Change Review, Chapter 7: http://www.garnautreview.org.au/chp7.htm .
[4]. Gideon Polya, “Australia’s “5% off 2000 GHG pollution by 2020” endangers Australia, Humanity and the Biosphere”, Yarra Valley Climate Action Group, 2008: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/australia-s-5… .
[5]. ABC News, “Polluter’s lobbying paid off, says Greenpeace”, 4 May, 2009: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/04/2560560.htm .
[6]. UN Population Division: http://esa.un.org/unpp/ .
[7]. Gideon Polya “Devaluation of American lives. 7 million Americans, $49 trillion lost under Bush”, MWC News, 16 July 2008: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/23939/42/ .
[8]. Gideon Polya, Yarra Valley Climate Action Group, “Pollution deaths from fossil fuel-burning power plants”: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/pollution-dea… ; “How many people die from carbon burning and climate change each year”: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/how-many-peop… .
[9]. US Energy Information Administration statistics: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/country_energy_data.cfm?fips=AS .
[10]. Professors O. Hoegh-Guldberg and P. J. Mumby and colleagues, “Coral Reefs Under Rapid Climate Change and Ocean Acidification”, Science 14 December 2007: Vol. 318. no. 5857, pp. 1737 – 1742: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/318/5857/1737
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
An excellent article by David Spratt that is in agreement with the views of top climate scientists from top climate research centres overseas and in Australia who believe in the acute seriousness of the current climate emergency e.g. Dr James Hansen (Head, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies);
Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber (director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research., Germany);
Professor John Holdren (Professor of Environmental Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University; Director of the Woods Hole Research Center; recent Chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; Preddient Obama’s Chief Science Adviser);
Professor Sir David King (former Chief Science Adviser of the UK Government and Head of the UK Government Office for Science, 2000-2007, currently Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at Oxford University, President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and a senior scientific adviser to major global financial company UBS) - just to name a few.
For what these and other eminent overseas and Australian scientists say (and what they say is consonant with what David Spratt is saying because he is evidently INFORMED by these outstanding scientists) see: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/climate-emerg… and http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/climate-emerg… .
David Spratt’s book with Phillip Sutton entitled "Climate Code Red. The case for emergency action" was launched last year by the Victorian Governor and eminent scientist Professor David de Kretser AC who stated : " There is no doubt in my mind that this is the greatest problem confronting mankind at this time and that it has reached the level of a state of emergency”.
David Spratt’s book with Phillip Sutton "Climate Code Red. The case for emergency action" was endorsed by top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen who stated: "A compelling case … we face a climate emergency ".
Australian Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty has stated unequivocally of the climate emergency: "Everything is about hot air. Political and in the atmosphere. We are in real danger".
In contrast to the endorsement of David Spratt from top scientists, the ad hominem attacks on David Spratt on this thread have been made by anonymous self-asserted scientists with the courage of anonymity.
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
Thanks for a very useful summary & analysis, David. I find it quite painful to listen to Penny Wong now because its always bad news.
Your Copenhagen points were great - of course we don’t need a shonky CPRS to continue to sit at the small table at the UNFCCC!
Its great there are lots of new climate action groups sprouting up - they can keep the lame end of the movement honest, hopefully.
As for the cynical people - why are you even here? Seriously folks, its your planet and your life. Either do something constructive or just sit quiet and stop being so frikkin boring on lovely New Matilda!
The Rudd Labor Government’s latest anti-science, pro-coal, pro-pollution Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) proposal betrays Labor voters, Australians and Humanity - and comprehensively demonstrates its unfitness to rule.
The World is threatened by a Climate Emergency as perceived by outstanding scientists from overseas (e.g. Professors Hansen, Lovelock, Schellnhuber, King and Anderson) and Australia (e.g. Professors Karoly, Brook, Flannery, Doherty and De Kretser) but irresponsible Rudd Labor ignores the science and the Planet in favour of the greedy interests of carbon polluting industries.
Former UK Chief Scientist Professor Sir David King (Oxford University) estimates than “annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution” in “tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year” must rapidly fall to India’s value of 2.2 in order to avoid catastrophe (the values for India, the World, Europe and the US are 2.2, 6.7, 11 and 27, respectively; the value for Australia is 30 - or 54 if its world-leading coal exports are included).
However the Australia- and Planet-threatening, Rudd Labor ETS proposal of “5-25% off 2000 value by 2020” means in harsh actuality that Australia’s “annual per capita Domestic and Exported GHG pollution” will merely fall from 54 now to 38-43 tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year by 2020.
Further, while the “true carbon price” from carbon burning-related Australian deaths is about A$320 per tonne C, the Rudd Labor ETS sets a carbon price at A$10 per tonne C – an immense and utterly unacceptable de-valuation of Australian lives (for details and documentation see “Climate criminal Australia threatens Planet. Australia’s pro-coal Emissions Trading Scheme” on ethical, pro-Humanity, Canada-based MWC Mews: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/30391/42/ ).
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
An amended calculation shows that Australia’s projected per capita GHG per annum in 2020 is actually a bit worse than that estimated above - Australia's \"annual per capita Domestic and Exported GHG pollution\" is currently 54 tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year (as compared to 2.2 for India). However under the Australian Government's proposed \"5-25% off 2020 value of Domestic GHG pollution by 2020\" the estimated \"annual per capita Domestic and Exported GHG pollution\" will only fall to 44-49 tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year by 2020 (revision upwards from the estimate in previous post of 38-43).
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
"Australian Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty has stated unequivocally of the climate emergency: "Everything is about hot air. Political and in the atmosphere. We are in real danger".
In contrast to the endorsement of David Spratt from top scientists, the ad hominem attacks on David Spratt on this thread have been made by anonymous self-asserted scientists with the courage of anonymity.
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity."
(1) Peter Doherty’s work is not in any field remotely related to climate science.
(2) Polya’s 2nd para accuses others of ad hominem attacks while (as usual) issuing one in the very same sentence! This is precisely why some sceptics prefer to maintain a measure of anonymity as it has been well demonstrated over many years that the global bandwagon of climate hysteria (of which Polya is one of the stormtroopers) persecutes such by sceptics denying (!) them funding, forums and loading them up with ad homs and juvenile labels. I am a (mild) sceptic and have never hidden my identify (www.ecoengineers.com).
(3) Google Dr Gideon Polya and you find a web site which clearly identifies Polya’s entire scientific career has been in the field of pharmocology! His personal career has also been one of longstanding leftist activism. How does that fit him to judge the scientific veracity of issues of climatology, hydrology, geophysics, paleoclimatology, biogeochemistry, oceanography etc., etc any more than sceptical scientists who do have long careers in such fields?
Peace is the only way but Silence Imposed also kills and is Fascism.
No EcoEng, no IcedVovo,
There is a plateau only not cooling trend, and this almost certainly is a combination of unprecedented Global Dimming (refer 4 Corners website several years ago) from Chinese Indian etc particulates, parallel with anthropogenic global warming. Unprecedented correlating with massive economic expansion … and air pollution.
Or to put it metaphorically, foot on the accelerator (agw), foot on the brake (dimming), at same time.
Only a fool would expect a car or climate engine to avoid system failure or at the least major disruptions and strange symptoms in that circumstance. Like say popping a brake line. Imagine that going down the big dipper on the F3 - talk about exponential rate of change.
But you will be sticking your head out the window crying "but I had my foot on the brake!" … which by the way is another way of saying thousands poisoned to death by particulate air pollution is the price of agw mitigation. Nice.
Nobel Laureate in Medicine Professor Peter Doherty is a top scientist and expert in risk management as well as biology, molecular biology and immunology; he has written a book - from his expert medical science and biological sciences perspective - relating to man-made global warming and the biological consequences that he has summarized thus: "we are in real danger".
Sensible people would have no trouble in deciding on whom to place greater credence in relation to acute risks to humanity, a Nobel Laureate in Medicine such as Professor Peter Doherty or an anonymous, self-asserted scientist indulging in false, ad hominem pejoratives with the courage of anonymity.
Corrections to the false ad hominem pejoratives made above with the courage of anonymity - my "entire scientific career" as a biological chemist has NOT been in the area of pharmacology though a dozen years or so have been; nearly all my career has been in the general area of plant biochemistry, including photosynthesis, that is acutely relevant to the biology of climate change. And as for "leftist activism" I am a de facto pragmatic economic conservative and also a humanist who believes that "all men are created equal and have an unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".
While biologists (and scientists in other areas) are intimately involved in climate change analysis they must defer to experts in specific areas of the physical and biological sciences such as atmospheric physics, oceanogrophy, paleo-climatology etc etc and vice versa.
Again, readers of this thread will have no trouble deciding on which climate science specialists to place greater credence, outstanding scientists in various disciplines seriously concerned about climatic disruption and the acute threat to humanity from man-made global warming (e.g. Professors Hansen, Lovelock, Schellnhuber, Holdren, King, Anderson, Karoly, Brook, Flannery, Doherty, De Kretser etc, the thousands of IPCC scientists, the 1,700 delegates to the recent Copenhagen Climate Change Conference who issued a dire warning on its conclusion) VERSUS anonymous climate sceptic bloggers indulging in false, ad hominem pejoratives.
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
:…or an anonymous, self-asserted scientist indulging in false, ad hominem pejoratives with the courage of anonymity."
:…VERSUS anonymous climate sceptic bloggers indulging in false, ad hominem pejoratives."
Yes, that’s classic Goebbels all right. Repeat a lie often enough and eventually it will be believed (especially by the masses).
Many respected scientists have pointed out that real science was never about the deliberate marginalisation of dissenting views and numerous ‘consensuses’ in many areas of science have shifted many times over the years to accord with the views of those originally in the minority, even small minority.
Real science was never about the attempted absolute extinction of minority views and the suppression of minority view studies.
This important attribute of science is lost on the modern crop of self proclaimed scientists who have reduced their craft to a crass exercise in post modernism.
Truly great scientists often exhibit the wisdom to acknowledge when their (majority) view has failed the tests which science and mathematics can apply e.g. Hawking/Susskind.
Dr Steve Short MSc. PhD. Dip. Metall. Sci. MRACI. MIAH. FIH. Hon. Fellow UOW.
(isotope geochemist, hydrogeologist, hydrologist)
Peace is the only way but Silence Imposed also kills and is Fascism.
GraemeF, it would appear that like most of the writers here you are not a scientist. So can I address the issue of the Antarctic ice to illustrate the problem with the type of misrepresentations that many AGW believers seem to indulge in. Firstly. The previous commenter was not "Merely using The Australian as a reference for climate change." The article was linked to a comment by Australian Antarctic Division glaciology program head Ian Allison who said sea ice losses in west Antarctica over the past 30 years had been more than offset by increases in the Ross Sea region, just one sector of east Antarctica and that "Sea ice conditions have remained stable in Antarctica generally." East Antarctica is four times the size of west Antarctica and parts of it are cooling. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research report prepared for last week’s meeting of Antarctic Treaty nations in Washington noted the South Pole had shown "significant cooling in recent decades".
Dr Allison also went on to say there was not any evidence of significant change in the mass of ice shelves in east Antarctica nor any indication that its ice cap was melting. "The only significant calvings in Antarctica have been in the west," he said. And he cautioned that calvings of the magnitude seen recently in west Antarctica might not be unusual.
"Ice shelves in general have episodic carvings and there can be large icebergs breaking off — I’m talking 100km or 200km long — every 10 or 20 or 50 years."
Ice core drilling in the fast ice off Australia’s Davis Station in East Antarctica by the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-Operative Research Centre shows that last year, the ice had a maximum thickness of 1.89m, its densest in 10 years. The average thickness of the ice at Davis since the 1950s is 1.67m.
A paper to be published soon by the British Antarctic Survey in the journal Geophysical Research Letters is expected to confirm that over the past 30 years, the area of sea ice around the continent has expanded.
To refute Dr Allison you choose to attack the Murdoch press as being "dodgy" and to claim that "There is consensus that there is an overall loss of ice." Which is demonstrably untrue.
Finally, it’s wrong to look to CSIRO and their claim that a "slight increase in ice in the east was because of damper air currents." What CSIRO really said was that in a warming world, more water vapour allows for more snowfall in Antarctica, the growth in ice you’ll be pleased to hear, was due to good old GLOBAL WARMING.
Then again CSIRO also said global warming would strip all Victorian snow resorts of up to a quarter of their snow by 2018. Yet the past two years have been bumper seasons and this year could be just as good, and more snow already falling in NSW and Victoria this past week.
I think there are far too many climate groups. There’s only one climate.
Global climate models are increasingly being used as tools for predicting how the global climate may respond to changes in atmospheric composition and land surface albedo. Such numerical models are typically developed only to reproduce the characteristics of modern climate and its inherent variability during a short period with relatively modest climate change (Tett et al. 1999). Using numerical models for projections of future climate therefore always involves extrapolation beyond the time range for which the models has been developed and tested. This is in contrast to the prudence by which numerical models are applied in other and less complicated frameworks, e.g. engineering and economics.
Global climate model simulations of the 20th century are usually compared in terms of their ability to reproduce the 20th century temperature record. This is now almost an established test for global climate models. One curious aspect of this result is that it is also well known that the same models that agree in simulating the 20th century temperature record differ significantly in their climate sensitivity. The question therefore remains: If climate models differ in their climate sensitivity, how can they all simulate the global temperature record with a reasonable degree of accuracy?
The answer to this question is discussed by Kiehl (2007). While there exist established data sets for the 20th century evolution of well-mixed greenhouse gases, this is not the case for ozone, aerosols or different natural forcing factors. The only way that the different models (with respect to their sensitivity to changes in greenhouse gasses) all can reproduce the 20th century temperature record is by assuming different 20th century data series for the unknown factors. In essence, the unknown factors in the 20th century used to drive the IPCC climate simulations were chosen to fit the observed temperature trend. This is a classical example of curve fitting or tuning.
It has long been known that it will always be possible to fit a model containing 5 or more adjustable parameters to any known data set. But even when a good fit has been obtained, this does not guarantee that the model will perform well when forecasting just one year ahead into the future. This disappointing fact has been demonstrated many times by economical and other types of numerical models (Pilkey and Pilkey-Jarvis 2007).
Lamb (1995), commenting on a climate model able to reproduce the global temperature history since AD 1600 by an equation involving just three variables (the amount of volcanic material in the atmosphere, warming by CO2, and solar variations), cited the following comment made by the authors of the model: ‘We are hesitant to try to improve the fit of our calculations to the observations by tuning the model…With so many free parameters to vary one could fit almost anything to anything…’.
The sun has gone very quiet as it transitions to Solar Cycle 24.
The Ap index is a proxy measurement for the intensity of solar magnetic activity as it alters the geomagnetic field on Earth. It has been referred to as the common yardstick for solar magnetic activity. The Ap Index for the month of April was "4". This follows an Ap index of "5" for February and March and three consecutive months of "4’s" (November 2008 - January 2009). An Ap index of "4" is the lowest recorded number since measurements of this index began in January 1932.
This indicates the current solar minimum still has some way to go before it can be declared officially over.
As of the end of April 2009, the cumulative number of spotless days (days without sunspots) now stands at 610 days. The transitions INTO the last 8 Solar Cycles (SC16-23), referred to as "recent solar cycles" minima, averaged 362 cumulative spotless days. Those 8 minima ranged from 227 - 568 spotless days.
Since the current transition now significantly exceeds 568 spotless days, it is becoming clear that sun has undergone a state change.
It is now evident that the Grand Maxima state which persisted during most of the 20th century i.e. the period following the onset of ‘anthropogenic global warming’, has come to an abrupt end.
The 6 "old solar cycles" of the early to late 1800s (SC 10-15) averaged 797 spotless days, over twice that of the "recent solar cycles". Those solar minima ranged from 406 - 1028 spotless days.
That period coincided with the the golden age of colonial Australia, when the inland rivers of Eastern Australia flowed consistently to sustain a long -lasting shallow draught shipping industry, enabling invention of the phrase [the country was] ‘living off the sheep’s back’.
An increase in the number of cumulative spotless days during a solar minimum correlates to a reduction in the number of sunspots over the entire solar cycle. The "old solar cycles" overall produced 38% fewer sunspots than the "recent solar cycles".
We should all hope that this present solar state change does not presage a transition to the ‘even older solar cycles’ of the late 1700s/early 1800s as that was of course the period of the much colder Dalton Minimum when my own ancestors shivered (and starved) in the bitterly cold slums of the East End of London.
So, anyone like to place a confident bet with me that the hysterical AGW lobby won’t be looking increasingly foolish over the next decade?
Readers of this thread will have little trouble deciding between (A) the sober warnings of outstanding climate scientists and top scientific bodies (e.g. see “CLIMATE EMERGENCY: What Top World Scientific Experts Say “: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/climate-emerg… and “CLIMATE EMERGENCY: What Outstanding Australian Scientists Say “: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/climate-emerg… ) versus (B) the unsubstantiated, uncredentialled assertions of anonymous climate sceptics that in the light of (A) can be seen as dangerous and anti-social.
It is one thing to hold to bizarre sceptical opinions (e.g. views contrary to the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus on the nature and danger of H1N1 influenza virus strains, HIV/AIDS or the climate emergency) and another thing entirely – specifically, dangerous and irresponsible - to actively campaign against the life-saving prescriptions of world’s-best experts in these areas.
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
It is the disadvantage of reasonable people that Dr Gideon Polya has added expertise in Climate Change to his sideline in conspiracy theorising about Zionist power, and how Mossad and the CIA carried out the acts of mass murder on 9/11. See here for evidence of Dr Polya’s take on 9/11.
http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18569/26/
If Polya brings the same degree of scientific objectivity to Climate Change as he does to this bizarre analysis of 9/11, his popularity with the extreme Right and conspiracy cranks is all but guaranteed.
False, obfuscatory, ad hominem abuse is offensive, does not constitute sensible debate and is particularly obnoxious when made with the courage of anonymity - hardly surprising that it is the all too typical resort of those defending the indefensible such as climate sceptics (as evidenced by this thread) as well as pro-war Zionists, Bush-ites and neo-Bush-ites defending the ongoing Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide (post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths 0.3 million, 2.3 million and 3-7 million, respectively, and refugees totalling 7 million, 5-6 million and 3-4 million, respectively, and genocides as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention) (see "Pro-Zionist Western Genocide Denial ": http://mwcnews.net/content/view/29844/26/ ).
I repeat that "freedom of speech" means that people are free to hold to bizarre sceptical opinions (e.g. views contrary to the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus on the nature and danger of H1N1 influenza virus strains, HIV/AIDS or the climate emergency) but it is dangerous and irresponsible to actively campaign against implementation the life-saving prescriptions of world’s-best medical and other scientific experts in these areas.
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
You claim Dr Polya that my attack on your credibilty was "ad hominen abuse, obfuscatory and false". Which parts was false Dr Polya? You did write an article headed "Were US & Israel Behind the 9/11? " How Mossad and the CIA carried out the acts of mass murder on 9/11. It can be read here. http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18569/26/ Every reasonable person can make their own mind up whether this type of conspiracy nonsense tarnishes your reputation. But now I see you have gone a step further with another ‘scientific’ explanation for the mass murder on 9/11. You say that scientists have found nano-thermite in the dust of the WTC. This leads you to conclude that there is "clear evidence of Mainstream Establishment atrocities against their own people" And to again claim while attacking the Obama/Bush/Zionists, that the US government was behind 9/11. Read all about Dr Polya here.
http://mwcnews.net/content/view/29921/42/
With a ‘scientific’ friend like Dr Gideon Polya, climate change activists do not need enemies.
More false, obfuscating, ad hominem abuse - it does not constitute a sensible argument about the Rudd labor ETS.
Contrary to false, irrelevant, pejorative , ad hominem assertions above, I do NOT know who did 9-11 (but with the finding of unignited nano-thermite in all samples of WTC dust analyzed the scientific money is on the US and traitorous dual citizen or Apartheid Israeli racist Zionist surrogates) (see "Is US responsible for 9-11 atrocity? Scientists find nano-thermite in WTC dust ": http://mwcnews.net/content/view/29921/42/ ).
Who would you believe on this technical matter, Professor Niels Harrit and colleagues from the Chemistry Department, University of Copenhagen OR endlessly lying, genocidal, warmongering, holocaust-denying, media-manipulating racist Zionists, racist neo-Bush-ites and and racist Bush-ites?
This thread is about the Rudd Labor ETS and NOT about evil, racist, genocidal, anti-Arab anti-Semitic US-Israeli state terrorism.
The ONLY obvious connection is that just as the power of Goebbellsian-Orwellian Bush-ite, neo-Bush-ite and racist Zionist propaganda means that the horrendous realities of the ongoing Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide can be kept from public perception by these racist, genocidal, anti-Arab anti-Semitic, holocaust-denying psychopaths, SO the reality of climatic disruption and the looming prospect of Climate Genocide (an estimated 10 billion mostly non-European victims this century according to estimates from Professor James Lovelock FRS) perceived by an overwhelming international scientific consensus can be sidelined by powerful vested interests in the holocaust-denying, racist, pro-Zionist, pro-war mainstream media of the Western Murdochracies.
It would greatly help how our nation deals with the reality of dangerous climatic disruption if the endlessly lying Bush-ites, neo-Bush-ites and racist Zionists who dominate our society and have created a Culture of Racist Lying were sidelined - as have been the Nazis, neo-Nazis , KKK and like militant racist extremists.
Indeed outstanding Jewish American investor, philanthropist, Jewish Holocaust survivor and Jewish Holocaust hero George Soros has called for the "de-Nazification" of Bush America - would that this could occur in racist Bush-ite- and racist Zionist-dominated Australia.
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
Whose been very naughty then?
See what happens when you get into the pantry and steal from Mummy’s jar of lovely nano-thermite brownies?
Bad boy! You’ll be scrubbing the kitchen for weeks.
Well Gideon, you really have taken the lid off the crank jar. Take your statement "I do not NOT know who did 9/11" Yes you do. At least this is what you said on your own site.
"As to “Who” did 9-11 … they were people who had unimpeded access to introduce 10-100 tonnes of nano-thermite (super-thermite) into the North Tower, the South Tower and the WTC7 building of the World Trade Center (WTC) complex i.e. American officials or US surrogates (i.e. Israelis) with official government or corporate security clearance."
Pretty clear, Gideon? To refresh your memory, here’s your web site with your claim that it wuz the Jooz wot done it. http://gideon.sulekha.com/blog/post/2009/04/us-responsible-for-9-11-atro…
As for Professor Niels Harrit his idea was fully debunked years ago. See for example here: http://www.911myths.com/WTCTHERM.pdf. and here.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Was-it-Nanotech-Thermite—by-John-R-Mof…
Now get back to the kitchen and scrub up that nano-thermite.
More false, obfuscatory ad hominem abuse, the stock in trade of neo-Bush-ites, Bush-ites, pro-Zionists and climate sceptics, variously defending the indefensible, whether it be war, occupation, genocide, ethnic cleansing or ecocide.
It is very hard for Professor Harrit’s results to have been "fully debunked years ago" when his research group’s X-ray analysis findings on unignited nano-thermite in WTC dust samples were only published 1 month ago in early April 2009 (for details of his paper see "Is US responsible for 9-11 atrocity? Scientists find nano-thermite in WTC dust ": http://mwcnews.net/content/view/29921/42/ ).
And of course, none of this abusive, ad hominem obfuscation has anything to do with the Rudd Labor ETS except insofar as the pro-coal Rudd Labor Government is also pro-war and pro-Zionist.
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
Deep breaths, Gideon, blow into the brown paper bag, calm down. OK If you take the trouble to read the report here:
http://www.911myths.com/WTCTHERM.pdf.
You will read that the thermite argument was put forward by Professor Harrit and these same researchers years ago, and the idea was FULLY DEBUNKED by non-conspiratorial serious science years ago. Again if you take the time to read the paper you will discover why this work is so poorly done, and why the interpretations of the researchers are so suspect.
Now Gideon, I am going to have to end this little discourse (I have some pro-coal Rudd Labor Government, pro-Zionist flyers to distribute) I’ll let you get back to your laboratory. So just let me conclude by quoting from the pro Zionist, but I’m sure anti-coal, King James Bible.
"Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him."
False, pejorative, ad hominem abuse is obnoxious and no substitute for sensible discussion but nevertheless illuminates climate sceptic, Bush-ite and Zionist perpetrator deficiency.
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
good grief…
I repeat the sensible comment that has been evidently so sensible that it has prompted a flood of irrelevant and obfuscatory comments: "freedom of speech" means that people are free to hold to bizarre sceptical opinions (e.g. views contrary to the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus on the nature and danger of H1N1 influenza virus strains, HIV/AIDS or the climate emergency) but it is dangerous and irresponsible to actively campaign against implementation the life-saving prescriptions of world’s-best medical and other scientific experts in these areas.
While it is illegal to violate disease quarantine protocols it is merely dangerous, irresponsible and anti-social to campaign against them.
The immediate dangers from climatic disruption are real for South Asians and inhabitants of tropical Island States (already hundreds of thousand of refugees are associated with man-made climate change) but are less obvious to Australians ( e.g. currently, climatic disruption contribution to recent deaths from bush fires and heat waves and the threat of mosquito vector borne disease in Northern Australia).
However the mounting threat to humanity due to climatic disruption - as perceived by the current UK Chief Scientist Professor John Beddington FRS, his predecessor Professor David King and top UK climate Scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS - is so catastrophic that ignorant or corrupt climate sceptic opposition and Government inaction in relation to sensible precautions advocated by top climate scientists must surely attract severe disapprobation.
Thus presently 16 million people die avoidably each year from increasingly climate change-impacted deprivation (see "Body Count, Global avoidable mortality since 1950" (2007): http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/2007/06/body-count-global-avoidable-… ) but sensible analysis of Professor Lovelock’s estimate of fewer than 1 billion people surviving this century due to unaddressed climate change indicates an average annual avoidable death rate of 100 million per year in an horrendous Climate Genocide that will kill about 10 billion people (mostly low carbon footprint non-Europeans in the Third World).
Ignorant or corrupt, obfuscatory and irresponsible climate sceptics and Lib-Labs - and their fellow travellers (e.g. the disgraceful Australian Conservation Foundation) - must be held responsible for the mounting death toll.
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.