Menzies House

Heatwaves are nothing new

Guest post by Viv Forbes

No doubt we will hear how the current heatwaves in Australia are “unprecedented” and evidence of dangerous man-made global warming.

They are neither “global” nor “unprecedented”.

In the great heatwave of 1896, the temperature at Bourke did not fall below 45.6 degC for six weeks, and the maximum was 53.3 degC. Bushfires raged throughout NSW and 66 people perished in the heat.

In 1897, Perth had an 18 day heatwave with a record of 43.3 degC. Other heatwaves were reported at Winton, 1891, Melbourne 1892, Boulia 1901, Sydney 1903, Perth 1906 and so on.

Why don’t we hear of these severe heatwaves from the past? Simple - the government Bureau of Meteorology conveniently ignores all temperature records before 1910.

However, that does not excuse our media for neglecting the written records such as these preserved in newspapers of the past.

Could it be that both the BOM and some of the media are still trying to preserve the ailing global warming scare?

Viv Forbes is the Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition. He is a geologist, mineral economist, "political gadfly", part time company director and full time sheep and cattle breeder. He has a Bachelor Degree in Applied Science (Geology).

 

 

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“Speak without fear, question with boldness.”

Carbon Tax gets two Vetoes

Australians have elected the second Prime Minister who made a prominent election promise that: “There will be no carbon tax under my government”.

The electorate supported this policy twice. With two vetoes, the desire of the people is surely obvious.

Why are politicians still having a debate about whether to repeal this silly tax on the gas of life?

Viv Forbes,

Rosewood    Qld   Australia
[email protected]

Correlation, Causation or a Carbon Tax Con-Job?

If two things vary in parallel, that is a positive correlation. But it does not prove that one causes the other.

For example, wet roads always occur when it rains. But wet roads do not cause rain.

Three things are required to prove that rain always causes wet roads.

Firstly, no exceptions – roads must get wet every time it rains. They do.

Secondly, the cause must always come before the effect. Rain always comes before wet roads (apart from snow, floods, burst water-mains etc).

Thirdly, we need a credible explanation of the mechanism. We have it – rain is composed of falling drops of water, and the water wets the road.

The three conditions are satisfied - therefore rain does cause wet roads. The theory becomes a law.

Now, let’s look at the theory that carbon dioxide (CO₂) controls global temperature.

Carbon Dioxide is not Pollution

We should minimise human pollution of land, atmosphere and oceans.

But that has nothing to do with carbon dioxide from modern coal-burning power stations. No rational person could define carbon dioxide as “pollution”. It is a harmless, non-toxic, colourless natural gas that is the essential food for all plants which then produce food and oxygen for all animals.

Almost everything in coal was derived from plant material - burning it is no more dangerous than burning wood. Both will suffocate you in confined places, but when dispersed in the vast atmosphere their emissions are beneficial plant fertilisers.

Modern coal-fired power generators have extensive filtration equipment which ensures that the exhaust gases are harmless natural gases already present in the atmosphere – nitrogen, water vapour and carbon dioxide – all essential to sustaining life on Earth.

IPCC is more about Politics than Science

The science debate is over. They lost.

Decades ago they proposed a theory that Earth’s temperature is controlled by the 0.04% trace of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

This theory was used to make predictions by at least 73 computer models.

Thirty years of observations has proven every prediction wrong.

Therefore their theory is wrong. That is how science works.

Now, faced with collapse of their theory and de-funding of their activities, the alarmist crew have switched to politics.

The IPCC Summary document released last week with all the hoopla of a political convention is a political document produced by consensus. It was negotiated by a faceless committee of international bureaucrats for their government masters, most of whom have a vested interest in proving there is a continuing problem needing international taxes and controls.

Immediate Execution or Prolonged Pain?

The new Australian government inherited a costly and cumbersome climate bureaucracy. They seem unsure how to eliminate it.

On the one hand they acted decisively, stormed “Flannery Castle”, and eliminated the Climate Commission.

But just across the moat, they baulked at storming the other citadels, applying instead the death by 1000 cuts – a prolonged siege. They will collapse 33 climate change schemes run by seven departments and eight agencies into three bodies run by two departments. They must hope these holdouts will die slowly from funds starvation or boredom.

Burying Life

Of all the anti-carbon policies supposedly improving our climate, carbon capture and burial is probably the worst.

No life can exist on earth without carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, nature has been capturing and burying this valuable plant food for millions of years.

Carbon dioxide is very soluble in water, especially cold water. So it is continually being captured from the atmosphere by rain, rivers and the oceans as well as in growing vegetation. Much of this captured carbon gets buried at sea as extensive deposits of hydrocarbons such as coal, shales, oil, and natural gas, as thick beds of carbonates such as chalk, limestone and dolomite, and in sea shells, bones and coral reefs.

Green Energy is Part of the Past, not Fuel for the Future

The growing failure of green energy in Europe should warn Australia to abandon bi-partisan policies dictating targets, mandates and subsidies for “green” energy.

I grew up at the end of the last green energy era – solar energy powered our growing crops and dried the washing, but it was weak in winter and ceased under clouds and at night; wind energy pumped water, but only when the wind blew; draft horses powered farm machinery, but they had to be fed whether they were working or not; wood gave us home heating and cooking, but it consumed energy to collect and chop it up; kids walked to school or rode bikes or ponies and ladies took the horse and sulky.

Our only help from carbon energy was kerosene for the kitchen lamp and coke used to smelt and forge the metals for farm tools and machinery.