.
As the Federal Government’s climate change ‘carbon pollution’ legislation gets debated in Parliament, we’ve decided to run the ultimate climate change reference post. You’ve heard from Tony Abbott, and from Minister Jenny Macklin. Now, hear the view from The Climate Institute, an independent research body. Giulia Baggio writes:
Climate Change Mythbusters
1. Myth: Taking action on climate change will make my household bills go through the roof.
Fact: The pollution tax proposed by the Government is not a tax on households. It’s a tax on pollution caused by big industrial polluters. You will not see it appearing on your tax return, electricity bill or your shopping bill.
Any costs passed through to households are expected to be small – around $9.90 a week. Most households will receive financial support to cover all or part of this.
2. Myth: Australia does not create much pollution
Fact: Australians create the most pollution, per person, in the developed world – mainly because we burn heavy-polluting coal to create most of our electricity. Our economy compared with other major economies is the 15th biggest polluter in the world.
3. Myth: Cutting Australia’s pollution will not have any effect on global pollution levels
Fact: Australia’s pollution levels might look small compared with China or the US, but in fact they are similar in size to the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, South Korea and a range of other mid-sized countries. Acting together, our countries can cut up to a third of global pollution – and that’s the point: we all have to act together to make it effective.
As a big polluter, and the one of the world’s largest coal exporters, other countries take note of Australia’s actions.
4. Myth: Other countries are not doing anything about climate change
Fact: All major economies are acting on climate change. More than 100 have renewable energy policies and many are developing clean energy industries worth billions of dollars. More than 30 have emissions trading schemes including all of Europe, the UK, New Zealand, a number of US states and, by 2015, a pilot scheme in China too. The danger for Australia is falling behind the rest of the world.
5. Myth: Scientists don’t agree climate change is really happening
Fact: A vast majority of working climate scientists (97%) agree that climate change is happening and human activity is largely responsible.
All the scientific academies and associations around the world, including the Australian Academy and CSIRO, support this majority scientific view and agree that prompt action is necessary to avoid dangerous climate change, with scientific evidence growing stronger every year.
This includes the leading academies in 19 of the world’s most powerful developed and developing countries such as the US, Japan, the UK, Germany, Canada, China, Russia and India.
6. Myth: A price on pollution will just churn money through the economy and will not do anything to help the environment.
Fact: A price on pollution or pollution tax will make clean energy like solar and wind power relatively cheaper than older, dirtier electricity sources. As products and services made from cleaner energy sources become cheaper, businesses and households will switch over to save money. This will drive our economy to use even more clean energy and this, in time, will cut the amount of carbon pollution going into our atmosphere.
To be most effective, the pollution tax needs to be coupled with other policies like the Renewable Energy Target (RET) which aims to have Australia using 20% renewable energy by 2020.
The background
Like a lot of women, I have 2 jobs.
I’m a mum raising 2 kids, and I also work in the field of climate change research. Both feel full-time but I’ve decided they’re the 2 most useful things I could be doing.
As a mother I instinctively want to make sure my children don’t inherit a hot, harsh environment with nasty extremes of weather brought on by a polluted atmosphere.
As part of a climate research team, I know there are already ways we can undo some of the damage but it’s a big job and we have to get on with it – right now – if the kids are going to be ok down the track.
First, some facts.
Since the 1950s, scientists have been measuring a rapid build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Co2 is a natural part of the atmosphere and acts like a blanket around the earth.
But because so much man-made carbon dioxide is now being pumped into the air, it’s like we’re adding extra blankets and trapping too much heat.
This is melting the Arctic ice cap and also causing the sea level to rise. Bad news if you’re a Pacific Islander …or, in years to come, a coastal-dwelling Aussie.
.
It’s also warming the sea, which scientists say is driving more intense storms and hostile weather.
On land, the trapped heat intensifies drought, creating hotter, drier conditions that lend themselves more readily to bushfires.
Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases causing the heat-trap come mostly from burning coal, oil and gas (fossil fuels). Factories in wealthy countries like Australia have been doing it for 160 years – it’s made us a rich, industrialised nation with great living standards.
But per person, it’s also made us one of the biggest polluting countries on earth – we’re among the top 20.
Countries like China and India are fast catching up as they start to industrialise and pull their people out of poverty. They’re building impressive clean energy industries but also burning enormous amounts of black coal for electricity and a decent standard of living.
So we have a worsening heat-trap caused by heavy industrial pollution worldwide.
What to do about it, Mamamia readers?
Will we have to live in a cave, wear hessian bikinis, eat grass and be miserable to save the world?
No we will not. The good news is we can build cleaner sources of electricity: solar (hello hot Australian sun), wind (already underway), wave power (we are an island) and geothermal power (hot rocks deep underground). You can even use gas from landfill to make electricity. Researchers are also trying to find ways to capture and store pollution from our power stations.
Believe it or not, our politicians – yes Libs, Labor and Greens – actually DO agree climate change has to be fixed.
But HOW to do it is where they disagree and things get murky. Let me shine some light.
In deciding the best scheme, there’s one main question: what’s the cheapest but most environmentally effective way to cut pollution? The biggest bang for our buck?
Option 1: Carbon price or pollution tax
Cost: $23 per tonne of pollution in 2012
Who pays: heavy polluting industries – not households
Environmental effect: could cut pollution 25% by 2020, 80% by 2050
Australia’s heaviest polluters are coal-burning power stations, and cement, steel, aluminium and mining businesses. The less pollution they make, the less tax they’ll pay – a big incentive for them to use cleaner energy and smart technology to cut pollution when they make or mine their products.
By 2050 – when our kids are parents – Australia aims to have cut carbon pollution by 80% under this scheme.
Where does the tax go? Not to government coffers – the money is set aside to help build renewable energy industries; help polluting industries develop cleaner technology; create more sustainable farming practices; and to give tax cuts and support to households from prices rises passed on by big polluting businesses as they start to change their ways.
These measures are likely to be made law later this year, supported by the Government, 4 independent MPs and the Greens. You can find out more here.
Option 2: “Direct Action” or government subsidy program.
Cost: $11 billion fund for pollution-cutting projects till 2020
Who pays: taxpayers give money to businesses taking part in the program
Environmental effect: Opposition says pollution could be cut 5% by 2020 but independent studies say it could increase by up to 18%. Scheme stops in 2020.
Under this plan, backed by the Opposition, $11 billion dollars would be given to businesses to develop their own pollution-cutting projects. The funding would come from taxpayers, out of the federal budget each year.
It’s not clear if businesses would be allowed to pass costs from their schemes back onto consumers. There would be no compensation for households. Various studies conclude pollution keeps rising until the scheme runs out in 2020. You can find out more here .
.
So there’s your choice. One thing is very clear.
If we do nothing, climate scientists calculate the temperature of the planet will rise by more than four degrees Celsius by 2050. Four degrees doesn’t sound much? If your child’s temperature went up 4 degrees, you’d be straight to the doctor. I won’t scare you with the details – go Google it if you’re not convinced. You can find two articles that sum up the scary stuff here and here.
Let’s just say your kids will be pretty pissed off if they find out later you were a) sitting on the fence feigning confusion; b) pretending it was a scientific conspiracy and nothing to worry about; c) taking your cue from popular entertainer Alan Jones.
This is the mother of all issues – so do your kids a favour – get to know the facts and make an informed choice.
Let me get you started:
Climate Nasa, Met Office, skeptical science
Oscar winning documentary – An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
Giulia Baggio is the Media and Communications Director for the Climate Institute and mother of two from Melbourne.
Comments
313 Comments so far
Giulia, instead of ‘Mythbusters’ you have reiterated six Labor/Green myths. As for fact, not one of your ‘facts’ is a fact.
Of course the carbon tax won’t show on your grocery bill, tax return or electricity bill. The government aren’t that stupid. Though they’ll hope you are and that you’ll believe the increase in prices is normal. Even pensioners won’t have their costs offset by the pitiful $9.90 being offered.
As for Aussies being the worst offenders. Per capita, that’s a powerful statistic, but a useless one. Australians generate a very small percentage of ‘carbon’ as compared to China, India and the rest of the world. If the aim is to improve the environment, please note that the climate or the Earth doesn’t recognise per capita boundaries. Such distinctions are ludicrous.
As for acting ‘together’, currently most of the EU are distancing themselves from the Green program. Spain has found that for every ‘green’ job created, they have lost 2.5 other jobs. This may not sound too bad, until you realise that these ‘green’ jobs are heavily subsidised. The rest of the EU is experiencing similar economic repercussions as a result of their green programs.
China is investing in new technologies, ie wind farms. However, they aren’t using them, they’re selling them to the West. For their own energy, they have been upgrading their coal-fired power stations, and continue to build nuclear power stations.
As for making solar and wind energy cheaper, that really is a misnomer. Both solar and wind are unable to power our civilisation. Unless we want to regress to the dark ages and wait until the technology catches up, perhaps we should accept that the ‘green’ dream is nothing more than that.
It’s a lovely idea, but no amount of carbon tax will push the development of alternative energy further than it’s already evolved. It’s not socialist government intervention that will enable renewable energy, it’s the human spirit that will find a way.
And the human spirit will only find a way if unencumbered by socialist government intervention, ie the carbon tax.
loading...
I find it sad that the misinformation campaign on climate science, perpetrated by big business, some media outlets and public figures in Australia, has worked so well that we now have to struggle to get the basic facts about climate change across.
This misinformation was so severe that the Federation of Australian Science and Technological societies, which represent over 70,000 scientists in Australia, had to put together its own campaign called “respect the science” – it has a website. It basically has many of the same facts as Guilia has outlined.
loading...
Dear guardians-slash-care-takers-slash-PR
Unfortunately Prue Macsween is still having problems playing nicely with others and has become even more irrational after last term’s debacle. Therefore she has been dropped from our school debating team after offering no logical arguments regarding climate change and screaming abuse during the other team’s turn.
Prue often bullies when she doesn’t get her own way and intimidates others by using a threatening tone while making nasty personal comments.
She is now failing the talking and listening section of the literacy curriculum. Unhappily she thinks she can win an argument by having the loudest mouth and quite frankly she is making a fool of herself and losing friends. We are now unable to find anyone who wants to play with her.
Also, Prue desperately needs to do the ethics course running in some state schools. Even young children quickly learn to politely listen, while giving others a turn. Then if they don’t agree with another’s opinion they can argue sensibly without resorting to name calling and shouting.
Consequently a 6 week suspension will be imposed and if Prue cannot improve her attitude then exclusion will be necessary.
….yours sincerely the principal with principles.
loading...
While I agree with your article, I wouldn’t be using Inconvenient Truth as support material. The High Court of UK ruled that a large portion of the stated scientific facts were misrepresented and misconstrued. Not the most reliable source, I’m afraid
loading...
Fact 1 – WRONG – The costs will be passed onto you, polluting companies will be profit neutral, you pay!
Fact 2 – WRONG, we make just 1.4% of the man made CO2, 97% of CO2 is natually occuring, so we make 0.042% of the Worlds CO2.
Fact 3 -… WRONG as expressed by Tim Flannery, “possibly 1000 years before we notice a change in temperature, if the entire world stopped emiiting CO2 tomorrow”
Fact 4 – Neither right nor wrong, some are doing something, most of the major polluters, nothing.
Fact 5 – WRONG – some do, some dont. Most agree we’re having an effect (which I agree), most agree we’re not 100% responsible.
Fact 6 – WRONG, it will do little to help because more than half will go back to poor people and a large amount to the UN to get developing nations into using power (we’re actually funding a negative effect on CO2 levels)
loading...
Fact 1 – CORRECT – The carbon price will not appear on individuals’ tax returns or bills. And the treasury modelling does predict flow-on costs to be under $10 per week, *and less if businesses and individuals change behaviour to minimise the impact*. Neither the article nor the government deny that some of the 500 companies will try to pass the costs on to consumers.
Fact 2 – CORRECT – Australia has the highest per-capita pollution, and is ranked 15th in total pollution. Michael’s figures are also correct, but are also misleading; just because the % is low does not mean the effects are low (just look at VX toxin!).
Fact 3 – CORRECT – The countries with a similar total pollution to Australia account for ~30% of the global pollution. Australia is also responsible for 25% of world coal exports, so we are deliberately selling a known harmful substance to people who are addicted to it. The point that Flannery and others are making is that there is a lag between emissions and effect. It is not an argument for inaction!
Fact 4 – CORRECT – The major economies (including the major polluters, China and the US) are doing heaps! China are a world leader in alternative energy. Many of the US states have their own emissions targets. They are certainly not “doing nothing”.
Fact 5 – CORRECT – The article states: “97% of climate scientists agree that climate change is happening and human activity is largely responsible.” That is consistent with “some don’t… [but] most agree we’re not 100% responsible.”
Fact 6 – CORRECT – Major economists (including Garnaut, Shergold, & Stern) explain that a market-based approach is the way to go. That trumps the opinion of one Michael Whawell who works in Oil & Energy. There is an international commitment for rich countries to contribute to the UN’s “Green Climate Fund” to support activities related to mitigation, and so has a *positive* effect on CO2 levels.
loading...
1. No the carbon tax won’t appear on your electricity or shopping bills, unlike the GST. It will still be there… all those costs will be passed along, after all. You just won’t have any idea how much you’re actually paying.
2. Yes, Australia is high on the list. In percentage terms though, we release 1.5% of worldwide emissions, completely dwarfed by the likes of China, India and the USA. In terms of emissions v living standards we are well down on the list. Not to mention emissions as opposed to area.
3. A 20% cut in our emissions (which total 1.5% of the world’s), equates to a whopping 0.3%. Obviously this would make a difference to worldwide levels, just not in any significant way.
4. Other countries are doing something. Often at great expense and for little noticeable difference. Other countries also use more hydro generators and nuclear plants (nuclear accounts for approx 75% of power in France).
5. Most skeptics agree that climate change is happening. They also know that there are still some serious deficiencies in the science that have not been adequately addressed, and due to the distortion of current funding may never be meaningfully studied (such as the impact on clouds, as was well acknowledged by the IPCC itself).
6. There may be some benefits from switching to alternative energy sources, however the belief that it will be a universal cure-all is a doorway to future disaster. The government has still never mentioned how they will fund the widening hole in the future budget as industries switch to cleaner energy sources and stop paying the carbon tax. No doubt they believe that they will be sitting in the opposition benches by that time, and hoping that the Australian people will take out their anger at increased taxes and cuts to welfare and government spending on the Coalition.
loading...
“All the scientific academies and associations around the world, including the Australian Academy and CSIRO … agree that prompt action is necessary to avoid dangerous climate change”
What exactly does “dangerous” mean in scientific terms? And how are scientific organisations qualified to adjudicate on the engineering and economics associated with “prompt action”? How then can they agree that such action is “necessary”?
loading...
I’d go further than the carbon tax if I was in power. I’d legislate that every new home built had to have enough solar panels to support it’s expected energy output. I’d give 10 years and financial assistance for all other homes to comply (like they did with pool fencing). Can’t afford your media room or your new tv and washing machine because you have to spend $20k on solar panels? Tough luck. Cover your energy output and take responsibility for the energy you use before you buy your mod cons or renovate. Obviously why I’m not in politics as I wouldn’t be elected but still… I wish the government would go further so the energy companies would stop benefiting their shareholders before the environment.
loading...
Why do these articles bring out the very worst in people? This comment thread is revolting.
loading...
Firstly, let me start by saying that I am a mathematician working in the science community modelling natural systems. This post is so riddled with inaccuracies I hardly know where to start. ok, for a start, the arctic ice cap melting does nothing to sea levels, and ice is actually increasing on Antarctica. The alarmist predictions of massive sea level changes are not happening any faster than any other time in recent history, period.
And the question is whether our carbon tax will do anything to global temperatures (not pollution – and anyway, C02 is not a pollution), and the answer to that is simply no. Please tell me by what amount (in degrees C) this tx will reduce temps by?
Also, there is virtually no compensation for small and medium business, and last time I checked, they employed most people in this country. This country is more than a collection of ‘working families’ guys.
The science is not as certain as you make out, and this 97% of scientists statistic, please source where this comes from – as I know this is wrong. Climate is such an incredibly difficult thing to model, with literally millions of input drivers. To think we have a grasp on it to the degree of these ’100 years hence’ forecasts is noddy land stuff. Just look at how many economists accurately predict the share market, and this is infinately simpler a system than climate.
The use of ‘extreme weather’ also makes me laugh – during the drough (one of thousands Australia has periodically) we were told that was all the work of CO2 and our dams would never fill again, and as soon as it breaks and floods, well that is (conveniently) due to CO2 as well.
And the ‘bushfire’ call, talk about just latching on to anything that has happened recently in Australia to gain traction and cred. Increasing temps increase ocean evaporation which increases humidity. Even assuming global warming (man made or otherwise), if anything this will ultimately reduce bushfire risk by increasing humidity. That is scientific fact.
Lastly, Australia has BY FAR the greatest impost / tax for carbon dioxide – to say the rest of the world is ahead is a joke.
loading...
Hi Anonymous,
In regards to the humidity/bushfire relationship – I was wondering if you are able to explain to me why there was massive flooding in Queensland around the same time that the black Saturday bushfires happened in Victoria? Because obviously flooding occurs with an increase in humidity or have I got that wrong? So how can they occur at the same time..?
You state that climate is too difficult to accurately model because the large number of drivers but also claim that humidity/bushfires/warming have a very simple relationship – I’m a bit confused. Do the warming models suggest to you that the increases in humidity will be homongenous everywhere without any complex interaction with other factors?
I’m also curious to know what climate factors the increase in Antarctic Ice is attributed to – because I have read that due to complex ocean-atmosphere interactions in the Southern Hemisphere, it is in fact the warming that is responsible for the ice-building. Can you point out what you think the flaws in the reasoning with the model that is generally accepted by the scientific community regarding this are.
I’m not trying to be argumentative – I have a solid background in the physical sciences and am trying to make up my mind based on the best evidence.
I appreciate your response.
loading...
localised flooding in Queensland does not negate a ‘perfect storm’ bushfire day in Victoria. ie, Raining in Queensland does not deliver humidity to Victoria. And anyway, the 2 events were not nearly at the same time (not that it were relevant if they were).
Also, there IS a very simple relationship between how quickly and intensely a bush fire burns, and factors such as humidity, fuel load, slope and wind. This is easily measured – hardly analogous with modelling long term climate trends. Increased humidity SIGNIFICANTLY reduces the severity of a bush fire – ask any volunter fire fighter this – common knowledge.
The notion that there is additional ocean and waterway evaporation with additional heat is also a simple ‘given’. Whatever may (or may not) be causingthat addition heat. It is widely reported that the current warming trend (note I didnt say this was not occuring, just denying the doomist predictions and the degree to which it is man made induced) is producing additional cloud formation.
Regarding Antartica, if you study the localised global warming maps, you will see that the bulk of recent warming is in the Northern hemsphere. Is this natural cycles and variability (aka also the natural variability in the Ozone layer for instance) or something else, really nobody is as sure as the author suggests.
Keep in mind, that in trying to timeseries model climate, we really have limited ‘quality’ localised temp data across the entire globe. Indeed, most historical temp stations were located close to cities for convenience. It is well documented that built up urban areas generate higher temps than other areas (nothing to do with CO2), so what do you think happens when you time series this data against a back drop of a vastly larger urban footprint. Therefore, spotting an underlying trend in the available short time frame of data is like trying to make a medical diagnosis on a patient’s heart monitor based upon 1/100th of a second of the graph.
Also, dont underestimate the ‘sing for your supper’ mentality in the science community – it is amazing how many scientists go where the grants and political opinions are at any time. To suggest that they are more pure than that is to deny human nature.
Finally, I will just also point out that the media loves the ‘bad news story’ over the good any day of the week. People love being shit scared, thinking the world is ending yada yada. Alarmists get the oxygen. Always have, always will, and things are always never near as the worst predictions (yes the worst predictions are the ones the genreal population get shoved down their throats by eager media)
loading...
Thanks for your response –
however I think you’ve misunderstood my question about the humidity/bushfires/warming relationship- obviously the bushfires occured during record temperatures – so I was trying to point out that increasing temperatures does not simply increase humidity and thus decrease bushfires.
I have read reports that there was flooding in Qld at almost the same time as the fires and that the weather systems were connected – I’m not talking about the massive floods that occurred later (but I can see my language might suggest that now).
Once the local factors behind a bushfire are created THEN the relationship might be simple but the complex meteorological interactions that lead to these local factors obviously are not.
I’m very confused how anyone that works in mathematical modeling could think that the increases in temperature would create conditions such that the humidity would increase *uniformly* – instead of what I understand the reality to be – that the interactions are complex and that some areas will experience increases in humidity and floods and some will experience increases in drought (which combined with increases in temperature will increase risk of severe fires). Increased humidity overall may perhaps decrease the frequency but not the severity of bushfires when they do occur – though perhaps the changing climatic conditions may create more overall humidity but more dry conditions in some bushfire prone areas thus also increasing the frequency (I’m just confused how you think the relationship could be a simple one??)
I reject your claim that meteorologists are ‘singing for their supper’ – this may be the case in some scientific circles but with the advanced level of mathematics required for meteorology – most of these scientists could have gone into the business sector and made significantly larger amounts of money (as some of my friends have).
I agree that the picture is a complex one – but the majority of extensive modeling that has been compared with much more significant and extensive data sets than you are claiming here – support that there will be significant warming.
loading...
I will confine my comment to just one of your points, because I am stunned that someone who claims to be involved in “modelling natural systems” could misrepresent a very basic relationship so badly. While increased temperatures my indeed increase evaporation, it is simply false to say that equates to an increase in relative humidity (RH). RH is the amount of moisture in the air expressed as a percentage of how much the air *could* hold *at a given temperature*. Warmer air can hold more moisture. In other words, while evaporation may increase the total amount of moisture in the air (the numerator), the capacity of the air to hold moisture (the denominator) also increases, so it is simply incorrect to say that RH increases with rising temperature. And that’s just the most basic relationship. Factor in all the complicating factors as Mabol mentions, and you can’t possibly draw the simplistic conclusions you seem to be suggesting.
loading...
All you are doing is underscoring my point entirely, so thanks, which is that it is a complex system and therefore, if you point out that a uniform prediction of mine cant be applied on a localised level, then much of the alarmist lines like those used in this post (worse bushfires yada yada) also need to be taken into doubt.
And for the record, without wanting to get into a mass scientific argument on a site like MM, I also dispute your argument, as increased global evaporation WILL, ON AVERAGE, decrease wild fire effects due to increased moisture levels in the atmosphere and increased greening of the fuel loads. FACT. Thanks anyway.
loading...
Anonymous, lets be clear. I am in no way underscoring your point. I am pointing out that something *you* claimed as scientific fact is just plain wrong.
The one thing we agree on is that global climate systems are complex. However, I don’t think any climate scientists, least of all the IPCC, have claimed absolute certainty about the issues of climate change. To the contrary they have been quite specific about the uncertainties, which only serves to highlight the importance of the trends identified in multiple, highly complex, observations and modelling.
As an aside, I have been involved in bushfire management for almost 20 years. I can assure you Australian fire agencies are taking this very seriously, and they are not dominated by idiots.
loading...
I do risk modelling for some of australias largest fire agencies, have done for over a decade, and they are very politically driven organisations, you know that. Many people in the ‘industry’ agree with me on the uncertainty in it all, the fact that there may even be a reduction in ‘catastrophic’ events if there is indeed a warming trend, and that much of this is being driven by other agendas. And given that you only agree with one thing I said, please find holes in the rest?? You have a very ‘holier than thou’ tone, like many supporting your view.
loading...
Holier than thou? That makes me giggle. Honestly, if it turns out you’re right, I will be more than delighted.
loading...
um, humidity is simply the level of moisture in the air, where was RH mentioned. Doh! A little bit of knowledge is dangerous huh.
loading...
Hey Giulia,
A few questions.
Firstly, what are your credentials? It says that you are a Media and Communications Director for the Climate Institute, what does this mean? Are you a scientist? And are you qualified to make such scientific assertions?
Secondly, where are your sources? I refuse to believe anything you say until you can link me to the original data for every single argument you’ve made. Surely if you are a scientist, you’ll know that you cannot write an article or journal entry without citing every last bit of evidence.
Thirdly, where does the figure 97% come from? Did you really interview every climate scientist in the world? And even if this figure is somewhat true, why does that make human induced climate change real? Scientists are not always right, and majority opinion does not equate to truth.
Thank you.
loading...
Hey Chelsea, I think you might be confusing a website post for a scientific article. It will take you about 3 seconds on Google scholar to find where the peer-reviewed evidence for the vast majority of experts agreeing on the facts. Yes, scientists are not always right – but until you come up with evidence to show why they’re all wrong (and that has been very conspicuous in its absence when you read the scientific literature), we’ll stick with what the experts say.
Thanks!
loading...
Rob, it’s a basic rule of logic that one cannot prove a negative. The burden of proof in a scientific question like this is always with the one making the assertion. It cannot be otherwise. Simple things maybe indirectly disproved by proving something inconsistent. For instance I can “prove” to you that I wasn’t in the USA at lunchtime yesterday by proving that I was in Sydney at that time. This pseudo-proof relies wholly on another bit of knowledge – ie that I can’t be in two places at one time. Without that second bit of knowledge, I can’t “prove” that I wasn’t in the USA at lunchtime yesterday. This strategy is much more difficult, if not impossible, with something like AGW. Firstly, what is that second bit of knowledge? Even if I prove that the temperature has been both warmer and cooler than it is now, or that the rate of temperature change over the past century, or even over the past 40 years, has occurred before (both of these things are correct by the way) it does not disprove AGW. Even if we were to prove volcanoes or solar activity caused climate change (I’m not personally convinced by either of these two theories, but the second one seems much more feasible) it still does not disprove AGW. Secondly, you AGW types use this defence with impunity. You trot out some glib answer to anything we say. Firstly it was AGW causing the drought, so when the drought ends and its raining a lot, you say the AGW is causing the rain (in the 1970s global cooling was causing the rain). Now that the temperature increase has levelled out over the past 10-14 years you say that the natural cooling cycle is just cancelling out the AGW warming that is still occurring (of course the problem with this is that it is completely inconsistent with the other assertion that the rates of temperature change that AGW is causing are unprecedented and cannot be occurring naturally). It’s like that Monty Pythin sketch where they say to Brian “only the true Messiah denies his divinity”.
So, for the rest of us that can clearly see this AGW stuff is nonsense, we can only really point out that the evidence does not support the AGW conclusion. In the case of AGW, the available evidence actually supports nothing. If you can’t see that, it is just because you have no logical ability to recognise it. My sister in law thinks she has some psychic ability to know what sex baby in in her womb when she is pregnant – her evidence for this is that she got it right with both her children. Ability to think logically and to recognise when evidence does or does not support a conclusion is rare- much rarer than it should be. Sadly, like Brian, what chance do we have in the face of your warped logic?
loading...
Riley – I don’t have time now to go through everything that you have presented here but you can throw out the volcanoes and solar activity theories straight away – they have been extensively checked as possible contributers to climate change by research scientists.
Volcanoes over the course of a year produce a tiny fraction of the Carbon Dioxide that humans do.
Solar activity has been at a minimum over the last decade at the same time that atmospheric temperatures have been increasing. As a matter of fact when the solar cycle picks up again so that we have increased solar activity on top of the warming trend, we may see a more rapid acceleration in the warming effects.
Please at least keep an open mind and if you really want to give the climate change scientists a fair go – please go and check out the Nasa site that Guilia has recommended and have a good look through the evidence again.
loading...
Thanks for your response Mabol, but it kinda misses my point. I’m not convinced by the science that talks about volcanoes or solar activity either and it doesn’t surprise me that these theories have been disputed (including for the reasons I outlined above).
My point is that I don’t have to be able to prove an alternative reason for the climate changing to be able to bin the AGW idea. The climate has been changing for the entire 4 billion year history of the earth. It’s OK if we don’t know all the reasons for this. If there is insufficient evidence to support the AGW idea (and there is) then it is a fair response to reject it. I was just responding to that guy that said us sceptics need to come up with evidence. We don’t. If nothing is happening, then there won’t be any “evidence” (obviously).
Also, I have looked at the NASA site (in fact I’ve looked at pretty much everything there is to look at on this topic). I just don’t find it convincing, sorry. I don’t think that any of the things that are being held up as evidence for the dangerous AGW conclusion are any better evidence than tossing 3 heads in a row is evidence for me having a biased coin.
Cheers
loading...
There were some rather rapid increases (not dissimilar to current rates) in global temps in the early decades of the 1800s and also prior to WW2 in the 1900s. Science cannot confidently attribute a reason why these temperature rises occurred. It is not unreasonable to think that at least some of the factors that went into these natural events are occurring today.
loading...
Rob,
All I’m saying is that someone with seemingly no scientific credentials cannot come onto this website and rattle off numerous facts and claim that they are “true” without first referencing where her information has come from. Scientists cannot make claims without referencing their own research or citing other scientists, and neither can journalists, who Imo shouldn’t be allowed to claim facts are true, unless they link me to the evidence. And a couple of general links at the end of an article will not suffice, I’m talking about citing/footnoting every fact.
And fyi, I’m a science student and I’ve read tonnes of literature on climate change (including the original 5 journals, which have been cited a squillion times and yet have gapping holes), and have subsequently made my own decision for now at least, until further evidence can convince me otherwise (which, before you start sledging me again, is exactly what science is about, always finding new evidence and hence refining/changing theories to better suit what we currently know.) Currently we don’t know much about AGW, save for a few mathematical models (which are not evidence) and some pretty dubious temperature records, so I don’t think it’s justified at present to talk about CC as “absolute truth,” (which scientists don’t anyway; that’s what journalists do).
loading...
Chelsea I’m curious – what are you majoring in – within your science degree?
loading...
Not climate science, but neuroscience. Yes I know, I’m not a climate expert, and don’t claim to be, but I can have an informed opinion on CC. But tbh, why is that any of your business?
loading...
Yes, I believe it is my business –
you are making completely unqualified and false assertions without having any relevant credentials. My first degree was major in Physics with an almost minor in Chemistry and I’ve almost completed my second degree in Mathematics and Philosophy. I’m studying advanced meteorology right now as a matter of fact.
You are exactly right in saying you are not at all an expert – your statement that the only evidence of AGW is a few mathematical models which isn’t evidence displays serious lack of knowledge of both what the actual evidence is and a fundamental lack of understanding of the relationship of between mathematics and science.
I’m not sure how you could have read ‘tonnes’ of literature and come to your conclusions – Global warming was predicted in the late 1800′s by Arhenius at the advent of the Industrial revolution – there is a HUGE amount of empirical evidence to support the model and further backed up by extensive mathematical modeling which has shown accurate predictive ability.
You are aware that many, many theories in science were mathematically formulated and then supported by empirical evidence and observations? I’ve done quite a bit of mathematical modeling myself – so if you would like me to take you through the relationship in a bit more detail let me know.
You are welcome of course to have an opinion – but I would ask that you do spend a bit more time making it an ‘informed’ one. I’m a big supporter of skepticism, thoroughness and rigor in scientific inquiry – but your claims are completely unsubstantiated.
loading...
@Riley Hunter
Oh you poor dear. So you have read each sides arguments equally yet 97% of scientists believe in AGW and over 99% of peer review papers agree in AGW. Yet you don’t… lol…
Then your illogical comment on Giulia’s article is this: “Thanks Giulia. You say you are busting the top 6 climate change myths, but your points are stupid, and insignificant.”
This really shows your level of intelligence and attitude…
Then you completely and illogically fail in describing climate scientists as all pro AGW – they are studying climate and what causes variations and giving us their findings. That’s what they do. You will also find that they come from a wide number of scientific fields and come from all the leading universities, research institutes and leading government organisations like the CSIRO.
Then you run into the usual “Climate Denialist” material and quote the regularly repeated unscientific and dumbed down quotes.
A scientist can be wrong:
Yes but tens of thousands cannot be wrong.
England went warmer and cooler in the last 1,000 years:
Yes, but the world didn’t. It was a local weather variable that was not felt in Africa, Asia, Australia, Nth and Sth America. England fits into Victoria. Typical denialist talking about local weather and not world climate…
Global temperatures varied less than 0.3 C over 1000 AD to 1850 AD, yet have rise by 1.0 C since then globally, with most of the increase occurring in the last 35 years.
Models are showing warming that is not happening???
Well you can believe that, but in reality the first decade of the 21st Century was the warmest since accurate temperature records started in 1860. The 1990′s were the second warmest… Your point?
Everything you have written has been dispelled as wrong and illogical by many websites, academics and institutions.
skepticalscience.com website has all the facts you need and won an Australian award recently.
loading...
Oh for god’s sake. OK, I guess I went a little overboard with my “stupid and insignificant” comment. I take that back. In fact I suppose most of the points Giulia made about the carbon tax are more or less correct. However they are insignificant in the bigger picture. There ain’t no climate change problem, so talking about the tax is like fiddling while Rome is burning.
97% of scientists don’t agree with AGW. If you think 97% of all scientists agree with AGW, you’re an idiot. Check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming;
http://www.petitionproject.org/; and
http://climatequotes.com/2011/02/10/study-claiming-97-of-climate-scientists-agree-is-flawed/
I saw a really long and recent list the other day of scientists that disagree with AGW, that went on for pages, but I can’t find it again now – typical.
Anyway, this is well accepted now, and that is why the argument has been changed to “97% of ‘climate’ scientists”. I also think you are stupid if you can’t see the truth in my “climate scientist” point. It’s like a group of people who call themselves “marxist economists”. They might be all well trained economists, but how many of them would think marxism is a load of rubbish? Or lecturers in the Environmental Science degree. When I went to uni there was no such thing as an environmental science degree. How many lecturers or professors now hanging out in the Environmental Science department would think it is all nonsense? Likewise, not too many years ago there was no such thing as a climate scientist. The “profession” of “climate science” has followed the invention of the climate science theories. This is undeniable. How many climate scientists are going to disagree with climate science? Come on now, if you can’t see the obvious point here you must be really stupid or you are willfully ignoring it, which is bad behaviour. Of course my point is correct. It is ridiculous to deny it.
You say tens of thousands of scientists can’t be wrong. Are you kidding? Of course they can. The problem with the world today is that far too few people have logic. If your argument is that tens of thousands of scientists can’t be wrong, then I have to tell you that you have no argument.
Regarding your little jaunt about England. I used England because of the cute little anecdote about the Thames freezing and the grape growing. There have been many scientific studies that show average global temperatures in the “medieval warm period” (about 1000 yrs ago) were warmer than today and during the “little ice age” (about 500 years ago) were colder. I particularly like the work of Loehle in about 2007 and McCulloch in about 2008. Many different proxies were taken (tree rings, ice cores, pollen remains, Mg/Ca ratios etc, and from all over the world, including the places you mention. Again, it is undeniable, except by dishonest or very stupid AGW fanatics and extremists, that recent (1000yr) temperatures have been both warmer and colder than now. In addition, similar rates of change to what we have seen over the past century have also occurred in the past.
If you really believe that global temperatures varied by no more than 0.3 deg over 1800 years, then you are saying you believe Mann’s hockey stick. Have you not heard? That was discredited years ago. Prof Mann has admitted it was wrong.
As for your warmest decades argument, Prof Phil Jones (who was right in the middle of all this climate change stuff and the IPCC) said, last year, that there had been “no statistically significant warming since 1995″. He later changed this to “no statistically significant warming since 1997″. Either way, it’s at least 14 years.
I know there are plenty of websites that disagree with what I have said above, but the point is that there are also plenty of websites (and more importantly, robust scientific studies) that do agree with it. The idea that there is scientific consensus on this is utter rubbish. My friend has a neighbour that is a scientists who works for the CSIRO and I have been told that his view is that the AGW theory is simply not supported by the evidence. I think his exact words were along the lines of “the science is just not there to support it”. So what you should do is read both sides and use your brain to work out what you think is right. Trouble is that you will need to leave your ideological need to believe this parked outside, and I don’t think you will be able to do that. But it’s what I have done and in my assessment, the ones that reflect my position above are far more credible. The pro-AGW stuff seems to me to be incredible and quite frankly, just a load of bullsh*t. I don’t care how many people believe it. Truth is not determined by majority vote.
loading...
@Riley, Just a few quick responses to your post.
“there has been no warming of global temperatures over the past 14 years”
That is incorrect. The last decade was the hottest on record. Here’s a report from NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/jan/HQ_10-017_Warmest_temps.html And globally, the hottest 12-month period ever recorded was from June 2009 to May 2010.
“in the 1970s the “majority” of “climate scientists” were in furious agreement that the earth was cooling towards an ice age”
This is incorrect. The vast majority of climate papers in the 1970s predicted warming. In the early seventies there were a tiny handful of scientists claiming cooling. Either Time or Newsweek magazine, can’t remember which, made it a cover story, so it got a lot of publicity, but it was never a majority of scientists. Nothing remotely like it.
“the rate of temperature change over the past 100 years has been seen before on numerous occasions, before industrialisation.”
This is incorrect. To the best of our scientific knowledge, global temperatures have never risen this fast in such a short time.
“extreme or unusual weather events are no more frequent now that they throughout the last century ”
Sections of the media may blame every storm on climate change, but all that Climate Science claims is that global warming amplifies the risk factors for extreme weather events.
Here’s a report from a US government website, The United States Global Change research Program, that disagrees with you: http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts/full-report/national-climate-change They claim droughts have got worse, heavy rainfall has increased in both frequency and intensity, Atlantic hurricanes have increased both in power and frequency, coinciding with warming oceans that provide energy to these storms. Etc…
“CO2 only makes up 3% of all “greenhouse gases”
While natural processes continue to introduce short term variability, the unremitting rise of CO2 from industrial activities has become the dominant factor in determining our planet’s climate now and in the years to come.
Here’s a page that explains it better than I can: http://www.skepticalscience.com/CO2-is-not-the-only-driver-of-climate-intermediate.htm
“Scientists have been wrong before, in the 1990s with the ozone hole thing”
I’m sorry? Scientists were wrong about the ozone layer? News to me.
I think I’ve covered all your claims, but let me know if I missed any.
Cheers,
Brett
loading...
Oh dear. Everything that is wrong with the climate change debate is evident here in these comments. It is very disturbing indeed.
I post a comment that contains a number of structurally logical arguments and all we get in reply is ad hominem attacks. It’s pretty poor, indeed. All of the arguments that have been posted in reply to my original post amount to either an ad hominem attack on me (which are all wrong – see below) or are simply saying “all the scientists say it is true, so therefore it is”.
To the guy that says “uninformed gibberish” etc. How on earth do you know how informed I am? I agree with the other person below who notes how peculiar it is that all us sceptics are immediately labelled as ignorant and uninformed, but the rest of you are somehow intelligent and enlightened. For your information I doubt there would be many people posting here that would be better informed in this area than I am. I have in fact read all of each IPPC report. I read numerous scientific articles every week (or maybe month) on both sides of the argument and all up I would have read 20 books, on both sides. And with the huge amount of research I have done, my conclusion is that the alarming AGW climate change conclusion is simply not supported by the evidence. Or another way to put it is that, having read all of the science on this stuff, I am simply unconvinced. I find that the evidence strongly support the idea that nothing out of the ordinary is happening. Furthermore, I would go as far to say that I really don’t understand how anyone who is able to digest the information (and actually has the information) could ever be convinced that AGW is likely to be true. Don’t be so bloody rude and ignorant yourself to dismiss my comments as uninformed gibberish. I am far from being uninformed.
To the guy that is talking about qualifications – and either expressly or impliedly assumes that us sceptics have insufficient qualifications to comment on AGW. Firstly, I actually don’t think you need to be a scientist to understand why AGW is not supported by evidence. As they say, you don’t need to be an expert on textiles and fabric technology to realise that the emperor has no clothes. Also, see my other comments about that stupid “climate scientists” assertion. That said however, I agree with the qualifications guy that engineering is a pretty useful discipline to have to assess the AGW information. Engineers have a science and maths basis, understand the technical aspects and are generally good with logic. The problem with the qualifications retired engineer guy’s argument is that I am also an engineer. So where does that leave your argument Mr retired engineer? Either neither of us are qualified to discuss it or we both are. Which is it Mr retired engineer?
To the guy that says everything I said is wrong, please be specific and tell me why each of the things I say is wrong. I don’t think any of it is wrong, and I’ve done a lot of work to be able to say that. I don’t mind being wrong and will happily admit it and change my mind if someone can explain why I’m wrong.
I will put some points again, maybe in vain, but at least just for fun. Will someone here who knows the answers (and I mean the actual answers and not just “it’s right because the scientists say so”) please tell me what is wrong with this logic:
I’m not denying any fact that I can think of. I’m not denying that a CO2 molecule has a “greenhouse” characteristic. I’m not denying that there is about 30% more CO2 in the atmosphere now than there was 100 or so years ago (and various measurements of human emissions seem to correlate with the assertion that it has been put there by humans). I’m not denying that the temperature has gone up by about 0.6deg or that the seas have risen at an average of about 9mm (in Sydney Harbour at least) per year over the same timeframe. I am not denying that 97% of “climate scientists” support the AGW idea. What I don’t believe is the conclusion, which is not a fact, but just a theory. So please tell me why I am a denier and what fact it is that I am denying?
Let’s put the shoe on the other foot? Science supports and/or history records the following true facts: over the past 1000 years, it has been both cooler and warmer than it is now; there has been no warming of global temperatures over the past 14 years; in the 1970s the “majority” of “climate scientists” were in furious agreement that the earth was cooling towards an ice age; the rate of temperature change over the past 100 years has been seen before on numerous occasions, before industrialisation. Numerous peer reviewed studies have been undertaken, and are regularly reported, supporting the facts that extreme or unusual weather events are no more frequent now that they throughout the last century (ie, not only is it silly to say that climate change is creating more frequent extreme weather events, even if it was happening, the fact is that it not happening anyway). CO2 only makes up 3% of all “greenhouse gases”. By far the most prolific “greenhouse gas” is water vapour (about 95%) and the IPPC report expressly says that the scientists don’t understand the effect of water vapour or clouds. There are others, but let’s stop there. It makes one wonder who the real “deniers” are in this debate.
Someone tell me what is wrong with my point that, of course the “climate scientists” agree with AGW, and it is not extraordinary at all or very convincing to make that as a point? Isn’t this obvious? It used to be said that the vast majority of all scientists agree with AGW. Now that even the most vociferous supporters have to admit that is not true – a huge amount of scientists are against it – the talk has changed to “only ‘climate’ scientists are qualified to comment. Apart from this being so see-through as to be laughable, what on earth would you expect people that have taken to calling themselves “climate scientists” to support?
Scientists and other experts have been wrong many times before. In the 1970s with the global cooling thing; the 1990s with the ozone hole thing and the Y2K bug alarmism to name but a few recent examples. Will someone tell me please how it is that this time is different? Why is it that scientists and scientific theories have a long history of being wrong more often than they are right, but in this case, you are all so sure they are right?
This seems like a good place for my new favourite saying, which I only learned last week:
“Fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”
-Bertrand Russell
loading...
Riley you’re so on the money. If Al Gore didn’t stand to become one of the richest men on the planet thanks to his carbon trading bank I’d have more of a chance of believing him. If China wasn’t building 3 dirty coal fired power plants a week while the US closes down its clean burning coal stations I might believe the tax was about protecting the environment. If ALL the major oil companies were not secretly or openly supporting carbon taxes rather than opposing them as the Climate Change machine would have us believe – I’d be more likely to believe them.
But this isn’t the case. Their arguments are built upon lies, misrepresentations, scare mongering, and propaganda.
The truth is that the majority of the members of their “scientific panel” do not even hold academic credentials. The posts are largely political.
Carbon taxes will be passed on to the consumer just as all taxes are. In the 3rd world, where there is little breathing room, the death rate from malnutrition will most definitely jump from the current 25 million a year as a result. While the banks and Al Gore get filthy rich, China and India produce even more polution, and the formerly 1st world western countries slide back to a 3rd world status.
A tax on C02 is a tax on life. Nothing more and nothing less, and amounts to a further extension of the derivative type ponzi schemes that these very same global institutions have already used to bring the global economy to its knees.
loading...
Riley, I’m certainly no climate scientist, or actually any scientist. I’m probably at the “climate for idiots”stage. I have read up a lot and try to keep an open mind. My thoughts are that even if the AGW is shown to be bunkum (which I think a fair proportion of people are hoping for), is it actually good for us to be going about merrily polluting, digging holes in the ground, building nuclear power stations and deforesting to our hearts content? Surely not. In would hope we would learn to treat the planet we live on with a bit more respect and just admit that we do need to make some changes.
loading...
Actually, yes it is good for us to be engaging in industrial activity and generating clean power form nuclear sources. Because these things raise our standard of living, bring us technology, and if spread to the world, will ultimately allow us to control population growth, disease, poverty and starvation. And it will allow us to apply technology to keeping our world clean. Failing to embrace technology will see the world descend into chaos and misery.
loading...
Riley, Just a few quick responses to your post.
“there has been no warming of global temperatures over the past 14 years”
That is incorrect. The last decade was the hottest on record. Here’s a report from NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/jan/HQ_10-017_Warmest_temps.html And globally, the hottest 12-month period ever recorded was from June 2009 to May 2010.
“in the 1970s the “majority” of “climate scientists” were in furious agreement that the earth was cooling towards an ice age”
This is incorrect. The vast majority of climate papers in the 1970s predicted warming. In the early seventies there were a tiny handful of scientists claiming cooling. Either Time or Newsweek magazine, can’t remember which, made it a cover story, so it got a lot of publicity, but it was never a majority of scientists. Nothing remotely like it.
“the rate of temperature change over the past 100 years has been seen before on numerous occasions, before industrialisation.”
This is incorrect. To the best of our scientific knowledge, global temperatures have never risen this fast in such a short time.
“extreme or unusual weather events are no more frequent now that they throughout the last century ”
Sections of the media may blame every storm on climate change, but all that Climate Science claims is that global warming amplifies the risk factors for extreme weather events.
Here’s a report from a US government website, The United States Global Change research Program, that disagrees with you: http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts/full-report/national-climate-change They claim droughts have got worse, heavy rainfall has increased in both frequency and intensity, Atlantic hurricanes have increased both in power and frequency, coinciding with warming oceans that provide energy to these storms. Etc…
“CO2 only makes up 3% of all “greenhouse gases”
While natural processes continue to introduce short term variability, the unremitting rise of CO2 from industrial activities has become the dominant factor in determining our planet’s climate now and in the years to come.
Here’s a page that explains it better than I can: http://www.skepticalscience.com/CO2-is-not-the-only-driver-of-climate-intermediate.htm
“Scientists have been wrong before, in the 1990s with the ozone hole thing”
I’m sorry? Scientists were wrong about the ozone layer? News to me.
I think I’ve covered all your claims, but let me know if I missed any.
Cheers,
Brett
loading...
Thanks Giulia! Your words of wisdom need to be heard loud and clear to more Australian’s. It’s frightening to see such an unbalanced scare campaign take over what should be viewed as an exciting transition for our country – to a cleaner, stronger, more prosperous, green future.
loading...
I am sick of people saying climate change is really bad. In 1750 the industrial revolution was just beginning, we are producing over 1000 x the amount of carbon than what we were using back then. Does anyone like to say how much the temperature has gone up? 0.9 Degrees Celsius. And i’m not saying climate change isn’t real, i’m just saying it’s not as a big of a deal as people make it out to be. And we will see many cycles of weather patterns in the near future. The earth goes in a pattern of hot and cold years.
loading...
I loved this article. I was discussing this issue at playgroup today. It seems people just dont know enough of the facts and get scared that their worlds are going to end with a carbon tax or action on climate change. Its not. And I think people who dont know much about these issues say they are climate change skeptics when really uninformed is what they are. Thats why its great to have some facts set out so concisely. Thanks.
loading...
Pip, you have come to the worng place if you are looking for facts on climate change. This web site is a front for ALP and Greens propaganda.
loading...
For those who don’t believe that global warming is real, and even those that accept it as possible, but don’t think it matters. I suggest you have a look at some real facts. Thes are facts that show the real cost of pollution to human health and show that we have to dramatically reduce ouir use of fossil fuels to save our own health is actually just as important.
scientificamerican.com
enter- the human cost of energy- into the query box,
a number of quality articles will be shown.
This publication is well worth having a good look at for real science facts,
loading...
Pingback: Say Yes | Top 6 Climate Myths Busted on Mamamia
All for action against climate change, not so much for a carbon tax.
“Fact” one? Just because you’re a scientist doesn’t make you an economist.
loading...
The carbon tax is the only way to make people take notice. Think of it as a price pollution, might make it a bit more acceptable.
loading...
Then add the fact that the carbon tax is designed and modelled by Australia’s best economists and not the Labor party, and has been scrutinised by top economists from around the world and they have agreed it is the best way.
Then add the fact that China and India are looking at our prospective carbon tax legislation to help design their own tax/ETS systems.
It looks like the carbon tax is in fact based on solid economic foundation!
loading...
I ltirelaly jumped out of my chair and danced after reading this!
loading...
I really wish some of the naysayers would publish their qualifications along with their negative comments. Most of them read like uninformed emotional gibberish.
I suspect they are not qualified to even understand whatv tehy read and then republish as informed, not, comment.
Just in case anyone wants to question my qualifications I’m a retired engineer, I mostly specialised in thermodynamics and mechanics
loading...
Thanks Giulia. You say you are busting the top 6 climate change myths, but your points are stupid, and insignificant.
It’s not about whether the carbon tax will make my bills go through the roof (it’s all relative of course but it’s not about the money (money money)). It’s not about how much pollution Australia creates or whether if Australia cuts CO2 emissions it will or won’t have much impact on global pollution levels (not to mention that your point assumes that CO2 is in fact pollution, which it is not). It’s also not about whether other countries are doing the same thing or not (who cares) or whether the tax will just churn money.
It’s about whether or not human CO2 emissions have any impact on the globe’s climate (in anything more than an insignificant way, or at all). They are not.
The least insignificant of your points is the one about the number of scientists that are behind this nonsense. Has it not occurred to you or your climate change mates how stupid it sounds to say stuff like “97% of working climate scientists agree that humans are causing alarming climate change”? Think about it. What on earth would you expect a bunch of people who have gotten together and decided to call themselves “climate scientists” would support??? There was no such thing as a “climate scientist” until all this came up. The stupid claim (that 97% of working climate scientists agree that humans are causing alarming climate change) is exactly as convincing as saying 97% of all marxists like communism, or 97% of all Keynesian economists agree with John Meynard Keynes’ General Theory of Employment. A girl in my office recently said to me that she knew AGW was true because she learned about it in her Environmental Science degree. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that her Environmental Science degree was only invented to talk about this stuff, but I’m telling you now.
In any case, since when are scientists infallible? Do you think all scientific theories are correct, even if a majority of scientists support them? Don’t be so gullible. A guy I have known for a very long time told me recently that, during his time working at the University of Sydney in the 1970s he was heavily involved in writing report after report about how the temperature was cooling, the world was heading for another ice age and by the end of the century the world would run out of food and you can image all of the other disasters that went along with it. I asked him why he did that (because I thought he was quite a smart guy) and he said “because that is what all the scientists told us was happening”. Climate change believers run a mile from the global cooling theory history of the 70s but there you have it, first hand, right from the horse’s mouth (well, second hand in your case).
If you want sensible people to start taking you and your issue seriously you need to explain what exactly the evidence is that supports the idea that something out of the ordinary is happening to the climate. I have read all the material and I just can’t see that there is any evidence that supports the conclusion.
The more scientific explanations often start with the statement that the scientists have concluded that natural drivers could not have caused the rates of change over the past 100 or so years. I have seen the graphs with my own eyes and rates of climate change similar to what we have been seeing recently have in fact occurred in the past. Also, even anecdotally, for instance England, over the past 1000 years or so, has gone from having a good grape-growing climate to the Thames freezing every year, back to the warmer (but not as warm) temperatures of today. When I read that natural forces could not account for warming of 0.6deg over 140 years, it’s just not believable and the evidence supports the opposite. Surely, by simple logic alone (and you don’t need to be a climate scientist to work this one out) if these rates of change have occurred in the past, then you quite simply don’t have the evidence you need to make the assertion that this time, it’s not natural, it’s us. All the other times were natural, but this time it’s us. Puhleeeeeease. Give me a break. Why can’t this time be natural too? Answer: it can.
Some people say that the forecasting models are evidence. Firstly, models are not evidence for anything, and in any case, the forecasts are continuously wrong – over the past 14 years they have forecast temperature increases that have not happened.
The mere facts that a CO2 molecule has a “greenhouse” effect and that humans are pumping CO2 into the atmosphere (facts that nobody disputes) is not enough evidence to draw the conclusion you want. Particularly given that all you need to do is open your eyes to see that the supposed out-of-the-ordinary temperature changes are not happening and the seas are not rising up to swamp us.
You think you are on some sort of crusade, but you are really just a speed hump. One day all of this will be forgotten. Will you admit you were wrong and apologise to the rest of us for being so bloody stupid. I won’t hold my breath.
Those supposed myths you purport to be busting are insignificant. If you want to be convincing please take aim at the points I raised above, and bust them. If you can, I will gladly come on board, but I think that, because you cannot change the facts and the logic is solid, you won’t be able to do that successfully.
loading...
A great example of uninformed emotional gibberish
loading...
Yes but what about the excellent and informed comment of Riley?
loading...
I hope you are being sarcastic?
loading...
Rily’s commenty is compleetly wrong on every level, a typical unionformed denier.
loading...
Why is it that all deniers are automatically uninformed. I have studied the competing views at great length and remain a “denier”. Let me know where I am required to board the train for the concentration camp for we deniers?
loading...
bobeg you are the only one on here giving uninformed emotionally biased knee jerk opinions. debate the issues and facts my friend or all you do is come across like a troll touting gibberish.
loading...
You’ve got to be kidding.
loading...
No, not kidding I actually completely disagree with you on the basis of my rigorous and well informed research. Further, endless repetition will not change my view on what is completely bogus “science”. Get over it.
loading...
It’s not research in the actual evidence or scientific literature though – you’ll come up empty if you look there for anything robust that is inconsistent with human-induced warming. If you read the internet, though, you’ll find all sorts of wild claims.
loading...
“uninformed emotional gibberish”? Great retort pal. Very helpful. Riley’s comments seem logical to me. If you think not, please post why not. I would like some more education in this area. Exactly why is Riley wrong? There must be someone here who knows about this stuff.
By the way, the logo at the top is comical. You’re not extremists or alarmists at all.
loading...
Hey “pal”,
are you one of those people employed to make sure certain views are represented in forums like this?
loading...
No. I’m a lawyer. And I should be working now rather than reading this, so I think I will get back to work now, but out of interest, what makes you think I would be one of those? Are there really people who get paid to do that? How much? Sounds like a pretty cool job.
loading...
I*does* sound cool.
I need to find out more….
loading...
If it wasn’t so sad that you actually believe what you are saying, Riley Hunter, your post would be very funny.
You spend most of your post trying to point out how unintelligent everyone else is, but at the same time expose your ignorance and lack of insight and lack of knowledge.
“It’s about whether or not human CO2 emissions have any impact on the globe’s climate (in anything more than an insignificant way, or at all). They are not.”
Well, we can identify CO2 particles in the atmosphere that got there via burning fossle fuels.
We can study ice cores going back thousands of years.
We can compare that to what has been actually recorded in the atmosphere in recent times.
We can compare all that with climate models.
We can peer review all this research.
And you know what? It all matches up. We are indeed causing the climate to change by pumping too much greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.
Furthermore, ‘climate scientists’ is just a term used descriptively in articles etc. Do you seriously think that there is a secret world-wide club, like the masons, that they all belong too? They come from different strains of science, different countries, different backgrounds, different motivations, different funding. And by the way, if these people just wanted to make money they would be traders and bankers, not scientists.
By the way, all of the temperature variations you have triumphantly parrotted into your ‘arguement’ have all been taken into account and explained long ago.
Try doing some proper research before you start pointing the finger, as you just end up sounding like the kind of idiot you are trying to paint everyone else as.
loading...
Science fact is based on testing, retesting, and then proving your results to the wider scientific community, only then are they accepted. The science behind climate change has been through this again and again. Man made climate change is unique because it’s something that has been proven across a very wide range of different sciences, who don’t operate together.
Climate change ‘deniars’ are insulting the very people who spend countless years of study to reach a conclusion, you should be ashamed and you should also stick to your own field of expertise. Noticed one guy below is a lawyer, should I disagree with you over an act of parliament or argue a section of a law document? No, that’s your field, I respect you know what you’re doing. -please visit the NASA page on climate.
Let me put it this way, if your doctor told you that you had liver cancer, what would you do? Why would you have any reason to not believe him? Would you simply deny that conclusion and keep living as normal? So why, do you find the need to question the science of climate change?
What happens if you got a 2nd opinion and that doctor also said you had liver cancer. I know I would probably go with what the doctor said because he’s a medical expert and I’m not. This isn’t blind faith, it’s called respecting the science and the people in it. What if you got a 3rd opinion, but that doctor said if you took this drug you wouldn’t have cancer, but you knew that doctor was receiving money from that drug company to push the product. What would you do then? Unless you’re an idiot, I’m going with doctor number 1. That’s how a lot of these so-called scienctists who are sceptics work. They are paid to attend conferences by the very companies that have the most to lose. Whenever someone objects, you should also consider their motivations.
Politics and how we tackle climate change is a totally seperate issue from the science of climate change. It’s time everyone remembers that.
loading...
Someone at work today told me they think that the carbon tax is a redistribution of wealth to Labour voters. Interesting comment, no?
“Fact 1″ not so factual….
I’ll be getting barely any tax cuts or compensation. So much for “Fact 1″ that the tax is not going to make household bills go through the roof. While it remains to be seen how much my bills will increase, let’s be clear that I will be paying for the increase – NOT the top 500 polluters and not the Government = Me.
Where is the Climate Change Institute getting their funding from? Government Grants? Come on Mama Mia give us a balanced article that favours diffrering sides of the policy debate.
If the Govt are so passionate about climate change why have they scrapped the subsidies to the solar energy industry? A large solar energy company in SA was placed in receivership last week, largely due to this. 200 people out of jobs, not to mention any other complementary industries like installers that will suffer. Good one Labour.
loading...
You pose a good question.
Where does the Climate Change Institute get it’s funding ?
loading...
@ Riley Hunter, Bradley, Anonymous et al,
Yawn, I’m bored with your distractions.
The debate on whether Climate Change is real, man made, long-term, to be feared, catastrophic, or whether CO2 is really a pollutant (it isn’t! we get it – it’s just an inert gas and the building block of plant life and photosynthesis, yadda yadda yadda. Yeah, but even water is toxic to human life in extreme doses: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1770067/ )
is pretty much done, dusted and concluded; you may have missed the memo!
Time to move on to mitigation, prevention, and improvement.
The scientific community (those that are suitably qualified, intelligently informed, conduct the research, and submit it to Peer Review) have produced enough significantly researched and reviewed data and observational conclusions to convince me, and most other “non-conspiracy-theory-alarmists’ that the results of inaction on atmospheric increases in greenhouse gas emissions from anthropogenic sources (and I mean all of them, not limited to CO2, CO, CH4…) will be catastrophic to our continued existence.
I am not naive enough to believe that a Carbon Tax, or any other tax or market based disincentive, will directly lower average world temperatures. Nor do I expect to be “better off” or “positively compensated” for my losses or the inconvenience any scheme may cause me. It’s about changing behaviour; through cause and effect.
If you want evidence, then do your own reading (no more spoon feeding) as this is not a course on climate change science; that was last semester.
You may wish to start here:
http://theconversation.edu.au/climate-change-is-real-an-open-letter-from-the-scientific-community-1808
Real scientists, with their research and interests (conflicting and otherwise) clearly stated, writing their own articles (ie, not journalistic clap-trap) about the real issues of climate change. There is so much to learn, and so little time to get with the “new program”. Good luck.
Well done Guila, keep up the slog.
Thanks Mia for sharing Guila’s qualified view.
loading...
Obviously, boredom did not result in brevity.
loading...
Of course Climate Change is real, climate has always changed. Is it man made? Well science suggests partially, but the degree is still unknown. Will it be long-term, that depends on a lot of factors as yet unresolved. Will it be catastrophic? there is no real evidence that it will be.
And is to be feared? That is not a matter for science but religion.
loading...
I stopped reading your post when you spelled the name of our leading party incorrectly.
Something tells me you don’t care for details…
loading...
You loose interest when someone makes a spelling mistake, that makes a lot of sense, not.
I tried to find the mistake, but couldn’t. big deal none of us is perfect, but at least some of us try to learn.
loading...
Arghh! I’m so sick of this weird, illogical conspiracy theory! Which – by the way – has already been espoused in these comments several times.
clairek says (and Bradley repeats in his reply): “Where is the Climate Change Institute getting their funding from? Government Grants? Come on Mama Mia give us a balanced article that favours diffrering sides of the policy debate.”
Scientists are not being paid to support human-induced climate change by the Government so that they can bring in a carbon tax!!!
It’s like you have no memory. The science of human-induced climate change came BEFORE the carbon tax. Well BEFORE. The carbon tax is a result of the government accepting the scientific research and taking action on it.
loading...
i like
loading...
GREAT article… thank you. Will promote it with my friends who are largely ignorant to the issue…
loading...
Heather, I’m sure that your friends would appreciate hearing you refer to them as ignorant.
You would have scored a few points had you indicated that you would advise them of this article because they might find this information useful.
There is a great deal of difference between not having information and being ignorant.
loading...
Thanks Bradley but ignorant is not necessarily a derogatory term and I certainly didn’t mean it as such… in fact I consider myself largely ignorant on the issue….
Just for your future information:
Ignorant – Definition
(a.) Unknown; undiscovered.
(a.) Destitute of knowledge; uninstructed or uninformed; untaught; unenlightened.
(n.) A person untaught or uninformed; one unlettered or unskilled; an ignoramous.
(a.) Resulting from ignorance; foolish; silly.
(a.) Unacquainted with; unconscious or unaware; — used with of.
I guess this means you are no longer uninformed, unconscious, unaware or uninstructed around the meaning of ignorance.
Thanks though – appreciate you highlighting it.
loading...
Thank you for your definitions I think they describe most of the naysayers in this column.
loading...
Thank you, Heather. Rest assured I have my Webster’s and Macquarie dictionaries and my copy of Roget’s close at hand should for our next discussion require clarification.
loading...
First, it is disingenuous to say this is not a tax on households. It is a tax whose legal incidence falls on about 500 of the top polluters – what about the rest? – who will pass it on if they can to households.
Emissions intensive trade exposed polluters will not be taxed – they will receive free permits effectgivley cutting the cost by up to 94.5%.
Second, this will not produce a shift to renewables. That would require prices of about $70 a tonne for wind and $100 to $200 for solar and solar thermal. What it will do is lock in gas fired power stations, ie another fossil fuel, for 4 decades. From memory the Government’s clean energy plan predicts 60% of electricity will be from gas by 2050. It may well be that the explosion in Coal Seam gas exploration in Australia has been prompted by the certainty the carbon tax will provide to the gas suppliers.
All compensation packages erode over time because of inflation, bracket creep and government policy developments. The ETS from 2015 may produce volatile prices but is aimed at eating back the compensation and cutting workers’ living standards.
loading...
A silly thought….
If only we could separate the Earth into ‘those who had the vision and were willing to do something’ and ‘those that stuck their head in the ground or didn’t want to take any responsibility’. I know which side of the world I would like to my children to be on 30 years from now.
loading...
LuLu, I’m very keen to do something but I want to make sure that it is done properly so that we’re not suffering the consequences in years to come.
loading...
John Passant I largely agree with what you said, but not with that this’ll be the be all and the end-all of it. We need to start somewhere. Once this broo-haha from the soothsayers, naysayers and those who choose to deny because they’re too damned lazy to do anything about it has blown over, reality will kick in and, hopefully, sensible governing. No wait, maybe that’s a myth…
loading...
Have you missed the bit about the tax cuts that most electricity conumers will receive to offset a rise in cost? Seems many CT opponents overlook this.
loading...
The troll? The troll? Now will we hear “bowerbird” deride this comment in the same way he did “Anonymous”?
loading...
*waves*. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, but tell me, what makes you think I’m a “he”?
loading...
i thought you were a she all the time… are you not? doesn’t matter anyway, an opinion is an opinion
loading...
I thought so too, but no doubt Anonymous knows better
loading...
http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories/beast-file-gina-rinehart
http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories/beast-file-koch-brothers
loading...
Big dollars and vested interests are involved in climate change denial
http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories/beast-file-koch-brothers
http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories/beast-file-gina-rinehart
loading...
What? An independent scientific opinion on climate change? But we’re so used to hearing from the “expert” public, politicians and shock jocks.
Thank you Giulia, for your refreshing input.
loading...
You believe someone that works and writes for the climate institute is independent?
loading...
Scientific opinion?
Now that you mention it, there is something oxymoronic about the article. It seeks to dispel myths with misinformation.
eg It is not a tax on households, it is a tax on the big polluters – such transparent spin, but it seems to fool a lot of people.
loading...
What astounds me from reading some of the comments posted here is the short-sightedness of it all. As a 30-something, I’ll be old or dead before the very worst of the effects of climate change occur should the world do nothing. But as a Mum, I’m worried about what future generations will be facing because of our lack of action. And it’s scary. Climate change will bring environmental upheal and financial crises. Set this against doing something now and being no worse off than $500 a year and it’s a no-brainer. We need to trust the vast majority of scientists who say climate change is real, man-made and very dangerous. And I believe we need to put into place a price on pollution, which the vast majority of economists believe to be the most effecient way to cut carbon dioxide emisions.
loading...
Airpunch to you!
loading...
What makes you think that the vast majority of scientists say climate change very dangerous? The IPCC consensus statement is that 50% of observed warming is due to humans. That warming is necessarily bad remains a matter of fairly even debate in the scientific community.
And if rich people in Australia could avert all possible climate change for a cost of $500/year then perhaps there is a case for precaution. The problem is that even if everyone in the western world paid this price, it will have no measurable impact on climate change.
loading...
This is really informative-thank you.
The thing that bugs me the most about this whole debate is all the complaining about how people will be worse off paying the carbon tax. If you earn under $140 000, you will be fairly compensated. If you earn over that and can’t see that sacrificing a little bit for the sake of our children’s future is vital, then I just despair of you. And I would happily say that at a dinner party. We’ve got to get our thinking out of our own loungeroom and start to look at the big picture. We are so bloody lucky to live in such a beautiful place and we should be doing everything we can to preserve it for as long as we can.
loading...
First thing I looked for before I read your article was your references. There are none. Where is all this factual information coming from?
loading...
Where is all of this factual information coming from ?
The author.
I remember many things that my modern history teacher taught me back in highschool. Most important, always provide references in the body of your essay and always provide a bibliography at the end of it.
loading...
Hi Anne, here is a link that summarises a lot of the climate change myths. It has a big bank of resources, and the climate institute (where the author works) also uses this resource. It’s pretty good as it goes through every single possible myth (even the silly ones that Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones and Tony Abbott have tried out)
http://skepticalscience.com/argument.php
http://www.climateinstitute.org.au/myth-busters
loading...
Hello Guilia. One myth that you didn’t “bust”.
How many degrees will the temperature drop should the carbon dioxide tax be introduced and how long will it take for that drop to occur.
I hope that you don’t thing me rude, but as you scientific types believe that you have all of the answers….I’m interested in an answer to this question.
Also, I’m not sure whether it was the real Julia Gillard or the pretend Julia Gillard who indicated that household bills will not rise by that much. So you’ll have to excuse me if I say….politician, lips moving, didn’t believe.
Thank you.
loading...
Well, now.
I’d say that a good scientist is the one who freely admits they don’t have all the answers.
How else would they be able to find things out.
loading...
Well, this is the question that I want answered.
The scientists want us to believe that they know it all, then I want this question answered to prove it. They can apparently bust every other myth. I read that this tax will not produce any significant temperature reduction for decades and decades.
Bust this myth, please !
loading...
You’re quite right, it will take ages, and the scientists aren’t trying to say they know it all. What they are saying is that the evidence strongly supports correlation between human activity and global warming, and that this is predicted to become catastrophic in future. Instead of waiting for proof (which, let’s face it, requires such a catastrophe to happen) we are taking preventative measures.
The cost of unnecessary prevention : slight economic impact
The cost of failing to prevent it : mass famine, more tsunamis/cyclones/droughts, eventually mass extinctions, your great-grandchildren get to be vegetarians because it will not be possible to support a meat industry.
As an added bonus, we reduce pollutants in the atmosphere which lead to things such as asthma attacks, which result in sick days which … are bad for the economy. Hang on, did I hear “no lose situation” there?
loading...
The cost of unnecessary prevention : massive economic impact from resources not used more wisely on addressing technology development and overpopulation/poverty, that will cause millions of unnecessary deaths throughout the world as $trillions are wasted.
The cost of failing to prevent it: A few degrees warmer, better crop growth rates, more rain, less rain, more wind, less wind. Overall maybe uncomfortable for some, but not so bad, and easily adapted to by using new technology developed with the $trillions saved by not wasting on renewable energy or carbon taxes.
Oh, so now you are going to tell me that vast majority of scientists say I am wrong and agree with you, that climate change will be catastrophic. And you will start to hunt for the peer-reviewed literature to support that case. And then it will slowly dawn on you that your assumption is wrong, that climate science does not predict the doom and gloom that you assume, that you are the victim of propaganda (as presented in the above article).
And you feel a bit silly for having been so easily fooled, but that is normal. Go with it. Laugh out loud, tell your friends.
loading...
Hi there Bradley. It isn’t a myth, but it’s not a reason to not try to cut emissions. If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years because the system is overburdened with CO2 that has to be absorbed and that only happens slowly.
The plan is to at first slow emissions, then eventually stop greenhouse gas emissions. If we don’t, then temperatures will rise by more than if we reduce emissions. That is, doing something won’t cool the globe overnight, but doing nothing will make things a whole lot worse.
So the argument that the earth won’t cool if we stop emissions and so we shouldn’t bother trying to reduce emissions is not taking into account the already huge amounts of C02 the earth has to absorb before we would see cooling.
loading...
Loz, currently around a third of human CO2 emissions are absorbed by the oceans- via thermohaline circulation and oceanic algae. if we stopped emitting CO2 tomorrow, atmospheric levels will decrease to within 5% of the previous equilibrium with the biosphere very quickly, perhaps in less than a decade.
loading...
What really interests me here on the big issue, is the 97%.
That’s the figure that’s being bandied around. A lot of people seem to be basing their belief on that 97%.
That is, the theory that 97% of those surveyed agreed that Human are the cause of climate change.
What I’d like to know, is how many would keep the same belief/faith if figures were more like 60/40 or worse 30/70 against?
Because what we are being told is to trust that the scientists know what they are doing.
So we work on fundamentals – If 97% agree, then that’s enough for me.
Both sides of this argument oft throw critical thinking out the door. Basing your choice of sides on faith in percentages is assumption. When those percentages are in the hands of human beings who have their own biases and logically probable flaws (see what I did there?) it takes the understanding of the problem and puts it in the category of faith.
Which of course we all have, such as when we take medicine and when we fly in planes.
Of course the difference is these technologies we have faith in are bound by rules that require them to be proven effective and thusly efficacious.
Climate change analysis relies on several factors; the computational ability and quality of the computer systems, the complete understanding of the data sets, zero human interference with data, the removal of bias, scientific method.
The mere fact that people are skeptical isn’t a fundamental flaw any more than the possibility is the is a confirmational bias intoned there.
People are questioning what is essentially a predictive model. That’s all it is and as such it is questionable and it should be questioned.
Most people accept technology based on the proof that said technology is proven to work. That’s fair enough.
I don’t think any one should be so fast to condemn the attitudes of people who want proof.
Of course the problem here is that proof would mean predicting something.
So people decide to take a side based on the “fact” 97% of interviewed scientists agreed that humans are a primary cause of climate fluctuation.
Unfortunately there is real proof (not of the predictive or theoretical kind) that those surveyed were given loaded questions.
Those surveyed could not answer in such a way that they could state that humans can add carbon dioxide to the environment and still not be the conclusive cause of fluctuations.
Not very scientific – More scientifical really!
Loaded questions?
76 out of the 79 respondents were proprium.
79 respondents were not 100% of those surveyed.
Now if this doesn’t ring alarm bells that’s fine, if quality of surveys or information and data are of no interest to you then that’s fine.
But if you based your belief on climate change on the 97% figure then it may interest you to be disclosed as to the lack of scientific value in the survey itself.
Not that adequate reporting is correlated to the quality of climate science, I’m not stating that as a fact.
loading...
I just pulled an old bingo ticket out of my wallet.
The motto on the back of the ticket says….”Just because everybody says so, doesn’t make it true”.
The more that I hear about this particular bill, the more that I’m convinced that Julia Gillard is rushing it through parliament in order to keep the Greens onside and hang on to her very precarious grip on power.
loading...
Hi Bradley. I’m not picking on you
) It’s true what you say, that just because everybody says it’s true doesn’t make it true! However, I think eventually people will realise that the anti-climate change movement has been funded by big polluters and has run a very effective campaign to derail the move to curb emissions.
I’ve just read a good book called “Merchants of doubt”. It’s a very well referenced book and it details how a group of dodgy scientists were employed by big polluters to cast doubt over climate change. It turns out that the same group of scientists were also employed to cast doubt over the link between smoking and cancer. I’m not making this up! Here is a link to details about the book. http://www.bloomsburypress.com/books/catalog/merchants_of_doubt_hc_104
Whatever you think about Julia and her government, we should understand that the same scientific processes that help us to understand that smoking causes cancer are the same processes that are used to analyse the effect that excess C02 has on the planet.
I just think its strange that we accept the results of scientific processes in one arena (smoking, genetics, medicine etc etc) but we don’t accept the results of the same scientific processes when it comes to climate change.
thanks for reading this!
loading...
Did you really just use the big polluters line?
C’mon, you’re (possibly) better than that.
Accepting predictive modelling vs proven technologies – Quite the long bow.
Science is accepted by what it gets right, not what it says.
That’s the lay version.
I’m well versed in computational complexity theory, being that computer science is my life and business.
I don’t need to be told any skepticism I harbor is from big oil or lack of quantitative analytic understanding.
We can’t solve P versus NP problem with set variables, but you’re telling me people lower in intellectual standing can produce effectives on wider scope, expanding variables.
I call bullshit.
I won’t trust the input data until I see human bias interference taken out of the equation.
loading...
You SOUND like you might know something … but are you trying to say that the entire accepted scientific consensus on this issue is wrong?
Can you name a SINGLE respected international scientific institute that disputes the consensus view of the relationship between climate change & CO2?
What are you trying to say? They are ALL wrong?
There is more than one study that arrives at the 97% figure.
Models – you don’t need computer models to make reliable predictions: Dessler vs Lindzen Debate – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9Sh1B-rV60
What’s worthwhile here is the first part of the presentation, where Andrew Dessler, the noted Texas A&M atmospheric expert, explains, among other things, why climate science is not, in fact, based on models, but in the actual behavior of the planet throughout history.
Computers may be everything in your world, but theres more to science than fancy computer models.
The dissing of computer models is a common denialist theme at the moment – not sure why, since the models Ive seen provide vastly more accurate predictions (thus far) than the predictions of (say) Lindzen… or any of the prominent deniers.
Etc, etc and sadly, etc…
loading...
“you don’t need computer models to make reliable predictions”
Wait, what?
Argument over really!
What you might like to know is I don’t deny that releasing superfluous carbon creates a change.
What I will debate, because I am qualified to do so, is how the ciphering of several calculations using programs I have a complete understanding of are not subject to deterministic definitives.
I do not arrive at any conclusions based on emotional bias.
It’s also funny how in my immediate circle are the people most qualified to judge and make evaluations of the systems in place, yet are never heard of or asked on certain panels.
That my friend sends alarm bells ringing – Scratch that – NUCLEAR sized gongs droning!!!
loading...
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3313559.htm
You aren’t a climate scientist bradley, do you think your computer science degree makes you qualified to argue with climate scientists. While we are being wanky, I have a PhD and it’s not in climate science, but it’s in modelling and what you say is totally bogus. If I made my research up and tried to publish the results, the peer review process would smash it out of existence. You are implying that the entire scientific community is corrupt, rather than those with vested interests like gee I don’t know, those big polluters!
loading...
Loz, the IPCC consensus is that more than 50% of observed warming is due to humans. However the prediction that this may be bad for us, is based on models. The models are simplistic, imprecise, and subject to bias. And they are currently being proven wrong by empirical data.
The conclusion that humans face climate change catstrophe is not demonstrated, and is not supported by the majority of scientists as so many erroneously claim.
loading...
Imagine you have been diagnosed with cancer. If you consult 100 different health care professionals and 97% tell you you will live for more than five years if you have an operation. The others tell you you will be fine without the operation. Do you believe the 3, or do you take the advice of the 97? I know what I would do.
loading...
Therein lies the rub, what if you were told 97% of doctors agreed about a treatment, but the drug company who surveyed them gave the survey to 3000, but 76 out of 79 replies were counted.
Would you take the treatment?
Better yet, we have laws in medicine that require drugs to be proven efficacious before use.
Would you use a drug that was only theoretically created?
Good luck with that!!!
loading...
Hello – the 97% doesn’t come from a survey of scientists. It is 97% of scientists who have worked and investigated and are EXPERTS in Climate Change. This is a flaw in your argument.
Scientists do not read conclusions based on subjectivity – they look at the facts.
loading...
Before correcting my heavily flawed argument; have you a list of the 97% of climate scientists who have agreed that the majority change in climate is Anthropogenic?
Not a list of climate scientists who believe agw is in the league of contributing factors.
You’re right, real scientists adhere to scientific method.
loading...
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus-intermediate.htm
Have a read of this Free Human Being.
I don’t think you will though. It answers ALL of your questions about the 97%.
loading...
Loz – That’s a blog
I could give you a hundred blogs, but I’m not a “denialist” or “alarmist”.
I simply have an understand of the parameters of computational ability and mathematics and how they interact and how that makes anyone who claims to know all the variables to accurate degrees and input them to be stretching in my educated, specialist opinion.
Computational operations are in fact everything when making large calculation, it’s not only insulting to algorithmic programmers it’s ignorant to dismiss this factoring.
loading...
Free Human being, my stance on the issue is based on my understanding of the various studies that have been carried out by separate people, using very different methods, plus the logic behind the reasons given for the arguement.
I couldn’t care less what some survery says. That point being made is that the vast majority of people with knowledge of the issue, agree abou tit’s cause.
You are getting distracted from the issue at hand, and using a side-issue to try and discount the main arguement fro AGW. It’s a common fallacy.
loading...
Gordy, I’m not trying to discount anything – I have never stated categorically that humans don’t contribute to climate change, so using that presumption is a fallacy.
I’m not distracted – I know a a lot about a very small specialized area and I don’t need people to question what my colleagues and I know.
Computer scientists know what they are doing and they can extensively prove it.
loading...
We’ll believe you when you manage to get a proper rebuttal of the paper (and others which establish the conclusion that almost all experts agree that AGW is real) in a peer-reviewed paper. Until that, this is just more hot air.
loading...
So what about my partners job in mining? And his sisters? And their dad? No one has thought about this. We are trying to buy a home…it’s already without the risk of losing jobs. Where’s the compensation for that?
loading...
There’s always jobs on the new windmills, or work for the dole.
Name updated for Rick
loading...
Hi Platypus, this might make you feel better about putting a price on pollution.
“The impact of the carbon tax on the mining industry will be “trivial” – so small that for practical purposes it will be “invisible,” according to one of Australia’s leading labour market economists.
Professor Bruce Chapman is president of the Economics Society of Australia and director of policy at the Australian National University’s Crawford school of government.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/only-tiny-carbon-tax-effect-on-mining-jobs-20110605-1fnj5.html#ixzz1XunKluVf
loading...
There is no job in the world that is 100% secure. Medical practitioners have to pay liability tax, how is that different to paying a polution tax?
Yes, your trying to save for a house, so are we.
But i’m also trying to save for a future for my children and grandchildren.
I think its very niave to play the “oh woe is me” card when complaining about saving our environment so the future not only have jobs but a planet to actually live on.
loading...
There is so much rubbish online from climate skeptics, thank you for publishing this article to help counteract the lies.
You’ll never change a skeptic’s mind, but they will get used to the changes, just as we all did with the GST.
loading...
Where as the believers are open minded and always ready to embrace the possibility that they may be wrong? I think Not. Maybe someone can confirm that if it turns out warming is not only good for the planet but essential and CO2 production needs to be increased we will then move to taxing the low CO2 emitters and giving rebates to the high “polluters”. I expect that you will join other believers in cutting down trees and insisting on burning more and more coal for the good of the planet.
loading...
Hear, here !
loading...
Hey Anonymous,
I was a believer through most of the 90′s and early 2000′s then became a skeptic after reading Ian Pilmer’s book Heaven and Earth. I was a fan of Pilmer, especially after his complete smashing of Creationism & intelligent Design arguments in his previous book.
His book astounded me and I completely switched sides. I, like you, hung around forums quoting Pilmer and using his example. I even hit up one of the NSW Greens candidates for the Senate (he didn’t make it in) on his election blog many, many times. The example I like the best was grapevines near Hadrian’s Wall in the time of the Romans as proof that higher temperatures didn’t result in higher sea levels.
But I continued to test my faith. I looked into the rebuttals I was getting from Greenies then finally looked up longer debunkings of his books. There are some that allow you to click through to the studies he quotes, the ones he doesn’t – they certainly draw a conclusion for you, but they allow you to check.
In the end, I concluded that Pilmer’s work was seriously flawed and man-made climate change was indeed real and most likely a problem should it continue in it’s current direction.
I’m completely open minded to the fact I could be wrong. I just can’t find any compelling argument put forth by anyone to change my mind. The fact that Lord Moncton and Alan Jones are the champions of pure misinformation compelling presented using common debating tricks does your side no favours.
If you are looking for honest appraisals and openness, the skeptic/deniers camp could do a lot better.
loading...
Hi there. Unfortunately excess C02 is not good for life on this planet. Some C02, but not more than the planet can cope with. A simple example of this is if you put your head in a plastic bag for an hour, you would see that you would find it difficult to live due to the excess C02.
“While CO2 is essential for plant growth, all agriculture depends also on steady water supplies, and climate change is likely to disrupt those supplies through floods and droughts. It has been suggested that higher latitudes – Siberia, for example – may become productive due to global warming, but the soil in Arctic and bordering territories is very poor, and the amount of sunlight reaching the ground in summer will not change because it is governed by the tilt of the earth. Agriculture can also be disrupted by wildfires and changes in seasonal periodicity, which is already taking place, and changes to grasslands and water supplies could impact grazing and welfare of domestic livestock. Increased warming may also have a greater effect on countries whose climate is already near or at a temperature limit over which yields reduce or crops fail – in the tropics or sub-Sahara, for example.”
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-positives-negatives.htm
loading...
What a crap article, i love how when people are trying to convince you of something, they give you very specific and missleading ‘fact’ and focus purely on the letter of the law and not the spirit in which it was written. Both sides do it and it just ruins any chance of a real debate or outcome.
Per person we might polute alot, but as a nation it makes up a tiny fraction of overall polution. The nations mentioned as doing something about polution are almost entirely net importers of polution as they have little in the way of manufacturing or mining. So its a pointless fact as they dont polute much anyway. half of nothing is still nothing.
if climate change is the moral dilema of our time, then perhaps we should look at criminalising polution rather than simply taxing it, give the EPA powers to control and punish big poluters. we tax cigarettes instead of banning, we tax alcohol instead of banning, yet we ban drugs because they are deemed to do more harm then good. so why dont we take the same approach with polution?
if it causes more harm than good, ban it. make it an across the board policy that if something isnt good for society, then society will ban it.
the real truth is that politicians want to look like they care and are doing something, when in reality nobody cares and they dont want to do anything that would harm their campaign contributers. they are all gutless scum who use clever marketing and spin doctors to convince us of one view or another instead of providing us with real information so we can make an informed decision.
Until people realise this you midas well just howl at the moon for all the good it will do in changing political will.
loading...
Here’s a decent table summary of global emissions, as well as a handy graphic for perspective.
Australia is 15th in the world out of the 215 countries reported on.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/31/world-carbon-dioxide-emissions-country-data-co2#
Your idea of banning carbon emissions would simply destroy our civilisation overnight. Taxing is a market based approach to change future investment and technology directions.
The point is harm minimisation, carbon emissions produce lots of good, but it’s not sustainable. It’s just we’d like to keep the good and eliminate the negative.
loading...
Dear Becausei’mthemum, no need to be confused, it’s pretty straightforward.
I’ve been clear that heavy polluting companies WILL pass on some costs. What is also clear is that households also receive assistance under the legislation now going through parliament.
If your household receives no assistance, like mine, there is money to be saved on power bills through very simple, household energy efficiency measures.
Don’t forget the tax free threshold for every worker will rise from $6000 to $18,000 under the scheme, so it’s likely there is some benefit for you. the only reason you wouldn’t benefit from this is if you earn an extremely healthy salary.
Don’t forget the big picture – the architecture of this scheme allows us to cut pollution by up to 25% by 2020 (based on 2000 levels) and aims for 80% by 2050.
Let’s go for it.
Must be off now to pick up the kids from school, cheers Giulia
loading...
Thanks Guilia. I appreciate what you’re saying. Our household made significant energy changes several years ago. Apart from dining by candlelight I can’t see what else we can do. Yet my power bill surprises me every time. It keeps going up and up, and not by $20 here or there, but my $50 to $100 every quarter. I don’t know when it will end or how long it will be until I have to get a second job to support our cost of living.
I will wait with baited breath with the hope that the carbon tax will make a positive difference to our planet and our pocket.
loading...
Dear Mum,
I think U have hit the nail on the head with those comments. How can the Govt, the Yes crowd or even Giulia tell U to basically relax and trust us. When they are not the ones going to live with the consequences of this Tax. Yes they will pay as well, but for the people who already know their budgets and are scared about putting an extra financial burden on hope that the Govt compensates them enough. If they don’t, who do we send our extra bills too???? Until I hear anybody say “ Well if we get this wrong, you can send your extra bills to the Labor party” I am not in favour on this tax. Not because I don’t care about the environment, I care more for my family financial future and the people of Australia will be able to live in freedom without being a slave to Govt for their compensation to pay their bills.
loading...
Really? Because my power bill does not go up by $50 – $100 per quarter.
I find it hard to believe that an increase of this magnitude ($200-$400p.a.) is being caused solely by price rises and is nothing to do with increased usage. If it is purely price rises you need to shop around for a different electricity retailer. It’s very easy to switch. I’ve done so twice in the last year.
loading...
Yes Mooner, my bill keeps going up by between $50 and $100 per quarter. But your argument to change electricity retailer leads back to my initial post. I don’t know who to trust. I would happily change electricity providers if I knew I was being told the truth about their products and if I was able to reasonably compare products. All I get is one provider telling me theirs is the best and all the others are ripping me off. Hence, I don’t know who to trust.
loading...
There is another quite simple argument that refutes the ‘per capita emissions’ mantra. Australia suffers in these statistics because we have a very small population (some might say ‘sustainable’). That is, a simple solution to this problem would be to increase our population ten fold overnight. This is where the real flaws of the climate change debate arise….they ignore genuine environmental concerns such as overpopulation while attempting to blame all the world’s problems on carbon dioxide. In addition, last time I checked, the atmosphere doesn’t care how many people we have….the effects of greenhouse gases are cumulative. It just so happens that we are blessed with many natural resources that we choose to dig up and export.
As for the “97% of climate specialists agree” argument, I still regard that study as being highly flawed. Let’s use your analogy of medical science for a minute (not withstanding the significant differences between the two fields. One is about the human body and one is about correlations in temperature records..very different) and pretend we have asked a number of different doctors whether increased salt intake leads to heart disease. Many would undoubtedly agree but if you actively chose NOT to include those doctors in your survey who were specialists in cardiovascular medicine who stated that there are many contributory factors in determining heart health (eg. salt intake on its own may not tell the full story) then the survey would be flawed. This is exactly what happened in the study about ‘climate scientists’. Those on the earth sciences side of the debate were deliberately excluded because they were less likely to agree with the author’s predetermined views. Following that the first question asked of the participants (79~ in total…TOTAL) regarded an increase in temperatures from pre industrial times until now. Frankly I’m surprised 100% didn’t say yes to that. No one disputes the fact that temperatures have risen in the past ~160 years. The second question merely asked whether they thought ‘human activity’ was a major contributing factor. This could cover anything from deforestation to emissions of particulate matter from diesel engines, but the study didn’t go into that much detail. Instead the author merely lumped the answers under the prejudicial umbrella of “carbon dioxide” and said look, all scientists agree.
As for those who suggest that Bahrain is not a developed economy, have a look at their GDP figures. You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.
loading...
Dear Alex,
Pray, show me exactly where Giulia ‘blame[s] all the world’s problems on carbon dioxide’.
No climate scientist I have ever read or heard says that carbon dioxide is the only thing forcing the climate. Red herring.
The UN says that ‘in common practice, Japan in Asia, Canada and the United States in North America, Australia and New Zealand in Oceania, and most European countries are considered “developed” regions or areas.’ http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm#ftnc
Bahrain is indeed a modern ‘developed’ country by other definitions, but in everyday language (and Mammamia is, I would guess, pitched at the ‘everyday’ person), the term ‘developed’ is more akin to the UN definition.
In the end, this is hair-splitting. The point is that Australia is a wealthy country able to afford modernization of its economy to improve its energy efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas emission, develop renewable power and so on without burling us back into the Dark Ages.
Sigh. Why do I bother?
Michael
loading...
Alex: you say “Australia suffers in these statistics because we have a very small population (some might say ‘sustainable’). That is, a simple solution to this problem would be to increase our population ten fold overnight.”
If you increased our population ten-fold overnight our emissions would also rise approximately ten-fold because the extra people would be using extra electricity etc etc.
If countries with small, sustainable populations suffer in these statistics, how do you explain the fact that New Zealand’s 2009 per capita emissions were 9.28 tonnes while Australia’s were 19.64 tonnes??? They have a much smaller population than Australia (apprx 4million) and have a very similar standard of living to Australia. Not to mention the slew of other ‘industrialised’/'first world’ nations with ‘sustainable’ populations with per capita emissions less than 10 tonnes in 2009: Finland, Greece, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Japan, Norway, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland, Sweden… need I go on?
Does this not suggest that we are doing something fundamentally wrong? i.e. burning dirty coal to generate electricity willy-nilly?
(source data: Energy Information Administration’s CO2 emissions from energy consumption 2009)
loading...
Posts like this only serve to further confuse me. Just like the salesman who knocks on my door trying to convert me to his utilities company, I don’t know who to believe any more. You are all telling me the other side is wrong, wrong, wrong. And you are doing even less to convince me when you back up your argument by referring me to Al Gore’s documentary, I mean, movie. I am all for looking after our planet for the sake of our children and of low-lying countries, but I want to know that we are doing it in the most efficient way possible. Not creating another monster.
And as for the costs not being passed onto households, I don’t believe you. I don’t mind paying my fair share but the cost of living has gone through the roof in recent times and this is just one more thing we have to pay for. You can’t tell me that large corporations won’t filter their carbon tax charges down to the little people by building it into the cost of their product. 9 out of 10 households will receive something, but not our household. I am sick of the government claiming to help working families when our working family doesn’t receive a cent from the government and is always expected to contribute more. I feel like we are getting hit from all angles.
loading...
Dear becauseimthemum,
I’m not much more enthusiastic about this or any other government. Unfortunately, ‘the most efficient way possible’ to cut emissions got caught up in the political argy-bargy somewhere along the way. Still, do you believe the scary stories about this tax or trading scheme sending broke any more than you believe Ms Gillard? This shouldn’t be about politics, should it? My partner is Dutch. In Holland they have an emissions trading scheme, regulations and carbon taxes; all done with relatively little fuss and the Dutch don’t seem to be doing too badly, even with the financial system hitting the wall, which is something I don’t anyone could really blame on a carbon tax! (Or maybe I speak too soon!)
By the way, most climate scientists who’ve seen Gore’s movie reckon it’s fairly accurate. A few stuff-ups here and there but nothing that undermines the overall message. Whatever you might think of Gore he got it broadly right.
Michael
loading...
The cost of living is going up because Australia has a strong economy and has done well though these tough economic times. If the cost of living hadn’t increased so sharply you’d be complaining that our economy was in the dumps. Everyone seems to forget that the increases in the cost of energy (which hasn’t increased as sharply as is often claimed) hasn’t been caused by a carbon tax that hasn’t yet been introduced.
loading...
(which hasn’t increased as sharply as is often claimed))
I beg to differ. I did a nice little chart a few months ago, based on MY real world bills, and not what’s been told in the media.
Item 2008 2009 2010 2011 Total Increase 4y
Power 0.1410 0.1650 0.1890 0.24 70%
Gas 0.01088 0.01137 0.01126 0.014990 50%
Water 1st 0.8564 1.0248 1.2600 1.5427 78%
Water 2nd 1.0 1.2025 1.4785 1.8102 81%
Yeh, not really that bad.
loading...
Oh and also my Council Rates
2007 – $1300
2008 – $1650
2009 – $1875
2010 – $2527
2011 – $2800
Over 115% in 5 years. Ahh the joys
loading...
and how much did your income go up by over the same period?
loading...
And your property value?
loading...
you own a home?
LUCKY YOU
loading...
Eternally asked about value. We lets say, If I sold my house today, It would be exactly the same as I paid for it (in 2008)+ the value of renos done. The value of the house hasnt increased 115% in 5 years.
I was more talking about the 70% increase in power, the 50% for gas, and the 80% for water over the last 4 years.
loading...
You must live in Qld! We do and our rates have doubled in 12 short months! I’m actually not anti the carbon tax as u think it’s necessary. But Wow the cost of living sure has dramatically gone up and not commeasurate to our single family income supporting 3 kids!
loading...
Our rates haven’t gone up anywhere near that amount……and we live in Qld.
loading...
Thank you Peter, my budget looks very similar to yours. And our incomes have increased 30% over the past 4 years. But my bills have increased between 50% and 135%. How long can this go on for?
loading...
Quick responses to Jo, Peter, Alex and Anonymous
Hi Jo, the big companies (around 500) paying the tax will pass some of their costs onto consumers which is why the government is offering a combination of tax cuts and financial assistance to low to middle income earners to cushion this effect. Govt reckons 9 out of 10 households will receive something. Pensioners and and low paid households will be fully covered. If you make your home more energy efficient, you can cut your power bills significantly (and pocket the govt assistance which would be the smartest thing to do).
Also have a look at the latest ABS figures published last week – household expenditure (including energy bills) has increased by 38% since 2003/4 but wages have increased more – by 50%. Proportion of money spent on energy bills has actually remained pretty static, about 2.6% of weekly expenses.
Also i’ve got some new data coming soon on what basic household price rises will look like, before factoring in govt assistance. Let me tell you now, you won’t be losing sleep over it.
Anonymous: Hospitals and univerities do not pay the carbon price – only businesses that emit 25,000 tonnes of carbon pollution pay the price.
They might cop indirect rises in their power bills as big polluters pass on the costs, but they will be eligible for funding to improve their energy efficiency which can cut power bills by a very substantial amount.
Peter: you live in my suburb? Happy to meet you any time – Corner Shop, your shout. See above comments about financial assitance.
Alex: i stand by the figure that 97% of climate scientists agree on the science, there are a number of studies to back this up, the figure does not rely on the study cited by you.
On per capita pollution among developed countries, the 2 countries you mention are not developed countries.
The UK HIgh Court ruled that Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” was broadly accurate and rejected a call to stop it being shown in schools.
Other posts have mentioned nuclear energy – economically Australia is better placed to quickly develop wind and solar. Nuclear should not be discounted but it takes years to build nuclear facilities and then of course there’s the problem of toxic waste. On that point, Japan’s disaster provides a sorry, cautionary tale.
Happy to take more queries,
Cheers to all, Giulia (Italian spelling)
loading...
i take my hat off to you guilia. it must be so disheartening to have to repeat the same facts to dispel the same myths so often..
loading...
Say it often enough….and the masses of non-believers will become believers.
Throw in a few personal insults, oh…..they’ll believe, and how they will believe.
You can say something one thousand times. It doesn’t make it the truth.
loading...
Say it often enough….and the masses of believers will become non-believers.
Throw in a few personal insults, oh…..they won’t believe, and how they won’t believe.
You can say something one thousand times. It doesn’t make it lies.
right back at you braddo!
the media is very anti-carbon tax it is really hard to get the actual scientific facts out there. last i heard alan jones doesn’t have any scientific qualifications.
i just DO NOT understand why people think 97% of the world’s climate scientists are making this up. i think they have better things to do with their time, money and BRAINS than sit around thinking up myths.
loading...
The media is very anti carbon dioxide tax ? Yes Alan Jones is, as is Andrew Bolt. You might have to provide me with a few more names.
loading...
Sorry but hospitals and at least 4 major universities are on the (admittedly ever changing) list that will be taxed directly on current measures.
loading...
can you provide the names of these institutions?
loading...
This site lists the 300 that the government admits will pay:-http://www.climatechange.gov.au/government/initiatives/national-greenhouse-energy-reporting/~/media/publications/greenhouse-report/nger-publication-0411.pdf There are aparently about 200 more to be added.
loading...
i’ll hazard a guess that the uni’s will get themselves of that list pretty quick. to be one of the top 500 polluters is not something you would associate with an academic institution.
loading...
The myth I object to is that these are all pollution spewing power stations or otherwise evil corporations. Another mystery is why the pro-tax lobby is not screaming out for rapid developement of nuclear energy options. This whole thing is politically driven and not some holy and righteous aspiration of sweetness and light. I don’t trust the pollitics and see no reason for Australia to lead. In fact I’m very happy to go last and let others pioneer their way to needless economic suicide.
loading...
You know we’re not leading though right? We’re far from the first to go down this road.
loading...
big polluters are big polluters. simple as that. it doesn’t what they do, if they pollute they get charged, i don’t think there is any myths there.
and as an idle dad pointed out below one of the companies visy is already trying to reduce their emissions. and i know you are not meant to start a sentence with the word and
loading...
Hey Rainbow,
Metropolitan Health Services (the WA health department) is on the list at 242 top emitter of carbon dioxide.
As I stated before, Metro Heath is looking at a bill of around $3.5M, or around $4 per emergency patient (if you included non-emergency patients, the number is even lower).
Does Giulia mind clarifying her statement? Is Metro Health exempt from the tax or are they classifying it as a business (aka being tricky with the wording).
loading...
thanks ID.
as i said above i think they would be working hard to reduce emissions to get themselves off the list. i am sure they could introduce greener ways of doing things.
that is one of the things i like about this method, is that companies will hopefully be motivated enough to do whatever they can to take themselves off the list. it would be interesting to hear from someone working in one of these companies to see if things are being done now. or i am being naive again?
loading...
Do you mean like giant cardboard box manufactorer like Visy?
http://www.theage.com.au/national/price-scheme-encourages-companies-to-come-clean-20110713-1he4a.html
loading...
yay! it is working already!
loading...
They will actually be working hard to get out of this country and taking industry and jobs to the huge majority of countries that don’t tax CO2 where they can produce CO2 (and actual pollutants) without fear of tax or even environmental prosecution. This will actually increase (rather than decrease) CO2 emissions while costing Australians their jobs. The result will be worse emission outcomes and economic regression for Australia and Australians. Even the risk of this stupid tax is driving companies off shore. Tax is not the answer un less the question is “what is a really stupid and ineffective solution to this fake problem we have invented”.
loading...
What Giulia does not mention is that TO DO THE SAME JOB, wind and solar will take considerably longer to build than nuclear. And advances in nuclear technology mean that the ‘toxic waste’ is a non-issue. Generation IV reactors eat the stuff – and produce even more energy in doing so. And they are not anything like as vulnerable as the 40-year-old technology at Fukushima.
loading...
” economically Australia is better placed to quickly develop wind and solar”
Nonsense, nuclear power is a vastly better solution economically than solar and wind, it is a fraction of the cost of solar thermal and PV and wind with gas backup. Yes it takes a long time to build a nuclear power station, but why not build 10 or 20 all at the same time. It would be impossible to build the same 10-20GW of capacity in the same timeframe with solar and wind, and it certainly isn’t possible to replace baseload coal-fired power stations any other way than with nuclear.
So, Giulia, if you were really serious about climate change (and the catastrophe that you are so sure it will cause) then you would be howling at the government to build nuclear power plants. What’s a bit of toxic waste to the hell of climate armageddon? But you do not promote nuclear power. So how serious are you?
loading...
I agree, it is simple. Look at the picture below. Enough said.
loading...
Hmmm I see a direct inverse correlation here.
loading...
I must be a bit thick – what’s the relevance of deaths from tobacco?
loading...
Inverse correlation. A contrary relationship between two variables such that they move in opposite directions
The more people die from climate change in a country, the less die from smoking. Does that mean, those countries should take up smoking? Or does it mean if countries with high tobacco deaths drop their smoking rates, will their climate change deaths start to go up. Or do both charts have nothing to do with each other, but are inversely correlated and it happens to be a co-incidence. Just saying if U take 2 groups of totally unrelated data, anybody could draw conclusions between them. Sounds kind of familiar.
loading...
It sounds like you’re grasping at straws, Peter.
loading...
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. After this, therefore because of this. That’s a well known understanding of data, however, the massive consensus of climate scientists are also well aware of drawing silly conclusions from data. In their expert considerations, however, that is not the case with climate change. These aren’t three year olds drawing bar graphs comparing shetland pony heights to drink driving accidents you know…
loading...
Wow you know Latin!
You are so clever.
loading...
I actually stole it from an episode of West Wing, but the sentiment is the same
loading...
Very glad to see this up! Finally, the truth.
It’s very interesting that even though only 3% of climate scientists deny that humans are attributing to climate change, they tend to be given 50% of the debate within the media when discussing global warming.
Seems a little unbalanced to me.
loading...
Good point Katie. It does seem unfair
loading...
The 50% of the media time does not go to the 3% who deny that climate change is real, it also goes to those who are sceptical that:
all (or most) of observed warming is due to humans
the climate models that predict the future are accurate
climate change is dangerous (or even bad)
spending valuable resources on reducing emissions is justified
a carbon tax or ETS is a good way of fixing climate change
the ALP has a mandate to introduce a carbon tax or ETS
All of which are highly debatable, and none of which have the support of 97% of climate scientists.
loading...
Why can’t some people just accept the truth?
Thank you MM and Giulia, great article. If only more people wrote like this.
loading...
Had a Gutful you are hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.
loading...
I like it! It makes sense to me that we pay this to help protect our children and their children in the future.
loading...
This tax will not in any way change the climate.
But it will rob your children and their children (and the children of people all over the world in both developed and developing countries) of wealth, properity, jobs and education.
loading...
Hmmmm…..is it too late to change sides?
loading...
It’s warm over here Anonymous. C’mon!
loading...
had-a-gutful,
I think you may regret leaving that comment……just a hunch.
loading...
i agree! leave it up. it shows the level of debate in the climate change deniers camp. it speaks volumes!
loading...