The belief that the world is being threatened with catastrophic global warming by human emissions of carbon dioxide is starting to unravel.
In the 20 years since the scam was launched, global man-made carbon dioxide emissions have risen over 50 per cent. But at the end of 2011, global temperatures measured by NASA satellites hardly moved than their average throughout the 32 years since satellite measurements began – far lower than the projected “catastrophic” warming. The computer models have proved to be so wrong that it’s just mind boggling how they were ever taken seriously in the first place. Unless of course your name happens to be Julia Gillard who still thinks the science is settled.
As the third UN gabfest in as many years failed miserably in Durban, all attempts to get global agreement on “drastic” measures to meet this supposed catastrophic threat finally died. The only outcome of the Durban meeting was of course an agreement to hold yet another gabfest in yet another nice location (Qatar) sometime late in November.
The gabfest in Durban provided an opportunity for the ecotards to make their latest argument that ordinary people like you should surrender your freedom and hand all cash and power over to unelected, unaccountable “experts” like, well, the people at the conference. This is of course, in order to “save the Earth” from “catastrophic anthropogenic global warming”.
The idiotic carbon trading schemes dreamed up to meet this imaginary crisis is falling apart. The EU’s carbon dioxide CER futures contract for December 2012 delivery has collapsed to a record low of just $4.86 (3.90 euros) per ton leaving Australia isolated as the only country in the world with a $23.00 per ton carbon dioxide price – the highest in the world. China will also be putting a price on carbon dioxide but at a measly (appropriate?) rate of 10 yuan or $1.55 per ton of carbon dioxide.
This makes the EU’s price 313% higher and Australia’s a whopping 1483% higher than China’s proposed starting price.
Not only will Gillard’s carbon tax do serious damage to the competitiveness of Australian industry, it will add billions a year to the cost of electricity and push more Australians into fuel poverty.
It is obvious that even if “global warming” is happening, and even if it is a bad thing, it is not going to be reversed by taxing carbon dioxide emissions. Despite decades of climate change conferences, protocols, and agreements, fossil fuel use is booming as people all over the world have adopted free market economics (aka capitalism) as the only way of escaping poverty. So, if anything at all is going to be done about global warming, it will have to be done by “geo-engineering”.
Geo-engineering is a far more logical response to “global warming” than are efforts to curb carbon dioxide emissions. First of all, there are geo-engineering approaches that could cool the earth at a cost of a few billion dollars per year, rather than tens of trillions of dollars per year. Secondly and more importantly, geo-engineering does not require that our assumption that it is man-made carbon dioxide emissions that are causing the problem be correct. It would work regardless of what was “really” causing global temperatures to rise.
And, thirdly, geo-engineering does not require that the people of the world surrender their personal and economic freedom.
But the ecotards are vehemently opposed to geo-engineering and that exposes their entire game plan, which is all about money, extending the powers of government, weakening the capitalist system and curtailing the personal freedom of individuals, and has nothing to do with the environment.
Your third sentence is slightly completely wrong. The linked-to UAH monthly mean temperature for December 2011 is 0.13 degrees above the period mean. The trend in the time series is pretty obvious, and it is well within the model projections, projections which assigned a pretty low probability to catastrophic climate change in the early 21st century.
Other than those trivial errors of fact, the piece was well argued and thought provoking.
Three stars.
Posted by: Chucky McChops | January 6, 2012 at 08:20 PM
Fair enough.
This is worth reading too:
http://thegwpf.org/international-news/4694-amanda-carey-green-movement-dead-in-the-water.html
Posted by: Andy Semple | January 6, 2012 at 09:55 PM
The Australian Greens should read this , then they might realize just how futile their agenda is.
Bunch of nincompoops , the lot of them .
Posted by: barry | January 7, 2012 at 12:31 AM
One would think Australians might be having second thoughts about their government , and perhaps soon making a move to remove them from office ,, while we still have a little left .
Posted by: barry | January 7, 2012 at 12:34 AM
"Unless of course your name happens to be Julia Gillard who still thinks the science is settled".
JG thinks this way because it suits her money-grubbing, big spending Labor agenda. And she has a lust to see Australians devoid of the means to keep themselves and their country in good order. Must all be sent overseas in order to promote her image of herself or whatever mysterious reason for giving away container loads of our money lurks in her befuddled mind.
As a non-scientist I only have a faint glimmer of understanding about the content of the article on geoengineering, although the concept is clear enough.
The article touched on the damage done by concorde and space vehicles - something I have always wondered about and seen little info about as all the blame is laid at the door of the persons who can't escape this madness - you and me.
One thing which occurred to me and which, no doubt, scientifically minded people would be able to explain in laymen's terms is - whether existing small particles in the atmosphere are responsible for the cooling over the last 10 or so years. If this were the case, would a blanket of sulphuric acid designed to reflect the suns rays back into space cause further cooling and would this be harmful to life on earth which needs the sun to prosper?
In spite of what alarmists say about the danger of warmer temperatures, greater danger to health lurks in cold, particularly when we are being forced to not use energy for heating purposes.
The number of deaths associated with hot days reported in our news media over recent days has probably got quite a lot to do with the fact that people who need airconditioning can no longer afford to run it. So shouldn't the blame for some of those deaths be laid at the door of Gillard and the maniacal greens, rather than AGW?
And please, could someone stop this endless hype about the danger of a few warm days every time the mercury rises. I lived through - in the old scale - 10 - 14 days at a time of 110 - a little less or even more - degrees with little cooling overnight, and I might add, without air conditioners - and never heard a peep about this from the media.
Strangely, by todays standards such temperatures were considered unexceptional and natural which undoubtably they were.
This AGW/warmist propaganda is the most insufferable rubbish I have had the misfortune to hear in my reasonably long life.
Pardon, but JG, Labor and the Greens - particularly the insufferable Milne and Brown should be fed into one of the pipes envisioned to carry gas into the higher stratas and fired into out space. Couldn't do any more harm than concorde or space vehicles did.
Full marks to Andy for bringing this topic to MH.
Posted by: ibbit | January 7, 2012 at 11:22 AM
Cheers Ibbit. You also have valid questions that need answering by our political elite.
Posted by: Andy Semple | January 7, 2012 at 01:00 PM
Dont overlook the motivating factor for Gillard and her band of idiots...the compensation package, the re-distribution of 'wealth' that will go a long way to getting them re-elected. That is probably why our carbon price is set so high above the world market....anything lower would not have given them enough cash to waste.
This whole thing has a bit farther to run yet.
Posted by: Grantley | January 7, 2012 at 02:06 PM
What compensation? Hundreds and thousands of self funded retirees with no access to the Commonwealth Seniors Card will get NADA! The Carbon Tax will cost every single person $510 in the first year alone. This criminal government is 'generously' allowing a $300 low income supplement for the affected retirees. But they must go cap in hand to Centrelink to register for the payment. That still leaves us $210 OUT OF POCKET !!!
Can't WAIT to 2013! Any Labor volunteer who puts an election pamphlet in my hand will find it torn up into tiny shreds and placed back in their hand!!
Posted by: bluebell | January 7, 2012 at 02:39 PM
Don't forget. Labor only went ahead with this stupid tax to stay in power. The Greens are behind this & most other cockups in recent times.
Doesn't excuse Labor but they are only accomplices after the fact.
Posted by: Dene Charlesworth | January 7, 2012 at 03:01 PM
lol.
Hear ya Bluebell...I'm in the same boat as you.
But be gentle on the poor election volunteers...I spent many a day handing out blue ones. Just to digress for a moment...if I had my way I would get rid of that "handing out how to vote cards" I think it is a total watse of time. They should be displayed in every booth and checked regularly by polling booth officials.
Dene: yes, your right, should not let the watermelons off the hook so lightly.
Posted by: Grantley | January 7, 2012 at 03:10 PM
As well as displaying how to vote cards in every booth, voters should be marked with indelible pen as in, say, India for instance. They deserve this if they are to be so dishonest as to vote time and again.
Something like 16,000 bums did this and then thumbed their nose at the electoral commission who say they can do nothing about it.
What a nonsense, but typical of what is happening in Aussie land.
Posted by: ibbit | January 7, 2012 at 05:44 PM
Andy, you clearly do not have the ability to understand, assess and assimilate complex scientific and economic facts and hence you take refuge by describing concepts you fail to understand as “scam”, “idiotic” etc..
You and your associates futile repudiation of the science is based on not being able to understand a very simple and logical factor: TIME. You are limited to think of time only in terms of decades, and if something as complex as the global temperature does not show significant changes within a 20-30 year time span, your little minds closes and you deny the existence of a correlation between human emitted carbon dioxide and global climate change.
Unfortunately for us humans, Nature does not have the same limitation that you have. A 20-30 time span is nothing but a breath as far as Nature is concerned. Measuring climate changes over a 20-30 years time span is, to use one of your terms, idiotic. As I have pointed out several times, but clearly you either aren’t listening or your miniscule mind can’t absorb it, climate changes have to be measured in time spans of at least 80-100 years. When seen over those extended time spans, the “science is settled”.
Your must have doubts in your own assertions since you say “it is obvious that even if “global warming” is happening, and even if it is a bad thing, it is not going to be reversed by taxing carbon dioxide emissions”. A couple of things are wrong in your sentence. Somehow you believe that “global warming” isn’t a bad thing. Would you mind explain why isn’t “a bad thing” or we just have to take your words for it? Sea level raising may not be a bad thing is you live up in the hill but few islands would disagree with you. Since when have scientists asserted that “taxing carbon dioxide” will reverse global warming? The science isn’t attempting to “reverse” but to simply bring changes in global climate, something our planet has experienced several times and well before humans, to within tolerable limits thus giving time to natural systems to respond and adapt.
You also appear to have no concept of economics. Fact 1: The fossil fuels we are exploiting today were formed over millions of years. Fact 2: At current consumption rate, these finite resources will be depleted within a couple of generations. Fact 3: The push to secure alternative vital energies required for human habitation of this planet is extraordinarily slow and not keeping pace with our insatiable, and mostly “single use” consumption of petroleum products. Economy 101 teaches that by increasing the cost of a commodity you extend its life because the market will seek substitutes and alternatives. Your assertion that “fossil fuel use is booming as people all over the world have adopted free market economics” is the nail that is being driven into the coffin of the current style of capitalism. The current capitalism model is based on economies being reliant on a resource that becomes day-by-day more scarce. As an advocate of “capitalism” I thought you would applaud any effort to develop and implement alternative energy sources. “Taxing carbon dioxide” is clearly the biggest signal markets need to develop, implement and switch to alternative sources, wouldn’t you agree? Or would you rather continue using this finite resource till one day there is none left? Or are you one of those “she’ll be right” and let coming generations worry about such trivial thing as famine and wars?
The myopic, narrow focus of your arguments is disturbing. Your intent is pure and simple that of trying to discredit actions by a government instead of concentrating on the big picture. Widen your scope and I’m sure you’ll stop your “idiotic” attempts to discredit what you haven’t got a clue about.
Posted by: dante | January 8, 2012 at 03:51 AM
What a load of codswallop
Posted by: barry | January 8, 2012 at 08:05 AM
Geo-engineering is a pretty bad idea, actually.
The best way to to resolve a quality or productivity problem is to prevent the defect or waste source at the point of production rather than afterwards.
The reason that most "green" policies towards the mitigation of carbon dioxide production are so expensive is that they generally rule out the best technological fix, namely the progressive substitution of chemical energy sources with nuclear energy sources. Instead most greens opt for pointless technologies like solar and wind.
The real test of the sincerity of green concern about carbon dioxide is theit attitude to nuclear power, which actually works, not towards a band-aid approach like geo-engineering.
Posted by: Craig | January 8, 2012 at 08:11 AM
Methinks it is the "Sincerity of green concern" is the matter of most concern.
Posted by: barry | January 8, 2012 at 10:06 AM
Dante,
You have simply posed an unfalsifiable proposition - apart from the making the logical fallacy of arguing the consequent by asserting petroleum is a fossil fuel - it isn't. It may well have bio-debris in it, but any hydrocarbon invading any sedimentary sequence will incorporate that biodebris into it.
Posted by: Louis Hissink | January 8, 2012 at 10:30 AM
Geoengineering is pointless when there isn't a problem to start with. People living in the UK and Greenland still can't grow the things in the areas they used to during the Medieval Period - and until that climate state returns to those localities, trying to counter it by limiting emission of CO2 is plain silly. The problem is explaining the LIA and the abrupt drop in global temperature - not the warming as the earth-system returns to its previous climate state. I would fear another LIA, not a return to the MWP climate.
Posted by: Louis Hissink | January 8, 2012 at 10:36 AM
Is this the science forum??
Methinks I'm on the wrong page!!!!!
Posted by: barry | January 8, 2012 at 11:00 AM
Sea level raising may not be a bad thing is you live up in the hill but few islands would disagree with you
Did you know the Great Barrier reef has alternately been submerged (as it is now) and exposed (above sea level). Marine fossils have been found at Richmond and other places in Queensland hundreds of kilometers inland from the present coastline. Now That is sea level change.
Have you considered the fact that the continents are rising and falling, by a comparable if not greater amount than any percieved sea level change.
Or do facts not fit in too well with your ideology?
Posted by: Anton | January 8, 2012 at 03:03 PM
Fact 2: At current consumption rate, these finite resources will be depleted within a couple of generations.
In fact the current proven reserves of coal in Queensland will last for more than 1000 years at current consumption with growth. Add to that other known deposits, coal seam gas and oil shale and the situation is not as dire as you imply.
Certainly there is enough time to develop viable alternatives, unless we watde our wealth on fairland concepts such as wind and solar.
Exactly how do you define "Fact"?
Posted by: Anton | January 8, 2012 at 03:45 PM
Economy 101 teaches that by increasing the cost of a commodity you extend its life because the market will seek substitutes and alternatives
Maybe at the school for leftards, but the reality is a bit different. It depends on the price elasticity of demand. Due to energy being an essential commodity, and the lack of viable alternatives, "fossil" energy has a low price elasticity of demand.
This means that increasing the price has little effect on the quantity consumed, but reduces the consumption of "discretionary" goods (as is happening) and transfers wealth to the government (because it is a tax). But this is not a surprise - governments always look to impose a consumption tax on goods with a low price elasticity of demand - cigarettes, alcohol, petrol, toll gates, council rates etc. It is clear that THE CARBON TAX IS NOTHING MORE THAN ANOTHER APPROPRIATION OF PRIVATE WEALTH TO THE COMMUNIST CENTRAL GOVERNMENT.
Do you get paid to make an idiot of yourself on this site?
Posted by: Anton | January 8, 2012 at 03:59 PM
I'm fairly sure Dante does get paid to make and "idiot" of themself on MH.
Posted by: Andy Semple | January 8, 2012 at 04:52 PM
Is it possible for MH to get a better class of leftard. The current tribe are just so thick
Posted by: Anton | January 8, 2012 at 06:56 PM
but they add comedy and laughter...
Posted by: Andy Semple | January 8, 2012 at 08:58 PM
Who needs to go to the circus to see clowns?
Posted by: Anton | January 8, 2012 at 11:19 PM
For Andy Semple: Andy this is going to be one of MANY manufacturer's who will offshore or severely restructure their operations before/and after the Carbon Tax kicks in on July 1st this year. Already several other large companies (including the auto industry and our banks)who have announced severe restructuring amounting to very worrying job losses.
Would you and Tim be able to set up a page where we can keep a list, and where we can add onto it as other companies do likewise. This list could become a valuable tool to Menzies House and help further our contention that this TAX will irrevocably harm this countries ability to create future employment. A country with no decent manufacturing is a country that is going nowhere. We could call the page: Australia's slow decent into economic decline courtesy of the Carbon Tax? Or something similar....I'll leave it up to you guys.
Mortein and Dettol factory shutdown will leave nearly 200 without jobs
http://www.news.com.au/business/breaking-news/mortein-and-dettol-factory-shutdown-will-leave-nearly-200-without-jobs/story-e6frfkur-1226259552739
Posted by: bluebell | February 1, 2012 at 04:12 PM