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The Pew Climate Centre have shown that over the last year or so a decreased proportion of US citizens believe climate change is a serious public policy issue and a reduced number believe there is solid evidence that anthropogenic warming is occurring. Climate change delusionists might be credited with inducing these changed opinions but the role of the media is also important. Continue reading Global warming & the issue-attention cycle While many have devoted time and effort trying to predict what will come out of the Copenhagen meetings I have largely elected to wait-and-see. Even that is difficult – this article from Bridges I found useful. It is the first in a series and I will update. Continue reading Eyes of world on Copenhagen. Rudd lets the Coalition have it and he is correct. An excellent speech – to the point and accurate – with sound economics – I have a strong intuition about who wrote it. It is 20 days until the Senate vote on the CPRS and 31 days to the meetings in Copenhagen. The deceptions coming from the Liberal and National Parties, the lies told by the IPA and the other delusionists, that have reached a crescendo in recent weeks, are designed to prevent national and international deals on climate change. The protagonists in these debates exclude practising climate scientists and include a mix of suckers and fools who deserve contempt more than sympathy. Nor is it useful – or a successful evasion – for some of them to say that they agree AGW is a problem but then to deny every attempt to deal with it. It is a fact that many in the Liberal Party only support moves to deal with AGW because they see votes in it – I have heard these sentiments directly myself. (Update: Many like Nick Minchin are outright denialists. Watch Malcolm and the Malcontents on Four Corners tonight for an update). Continue reading Rudd on Coalition on climate change I have become fascinated by the topic of climate change ‘denialism’ or, to use John Quiggin’s term, ‘delusionism’. It is an intrinsically interesting development and has deeply troubling implications. The climate change issue is probably the first time in history that people get to vote on a scientific issue where the science is well-understood and a significant response by a politically-motivated group of intellectuals is to seek to persuade people that the science is wrong. And judging by the ruckus in the Australian Liberal and National Parties this group has had a fair measure of success in Australia. Continue reading Climate change notes 2 The Freakonomics boys (Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner) have more nonsense coming out in a new book Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance. Silly material supporting global cooling, deriding climate change policy, criticising solar energy (some startling bloopers here!) and some nutty observations on aerosol-based geoengineering – a critique is at Climate Progress which reprints much of Chapter 5 of [...] I debated Des Moore on the issue of Global Warming and Uncertainty: Sensible Policy Responses at the Victorian Branch of the Economic Society of Australia last Friday. The powerpoints for my presentation are here. It was an animated discussed with Des rejecting mainstream climate science and me endorsing it. Apart from this I also tried to summarise [...] I got angry about some particular climate delusionist claims that continued to be advanced in the face of persistent rebuttals. The deceit continued without reference to the literature that sought to demolish the claims. Criticisms can be rejected with reason but criticisms that go to heart of scientific claims cannot simply be ignored. I prepared this short PowerPoint [...] Quadrant has outdone itself this time with a forum of views encouraging the Senate over the next week to reject the proposed ETS. It is in the main – not entirely – the same old denialist nonsense – the science is wrong, all due to the sun, the earth is cooling, the earth hasn’t heated over the last decade though CO2 levels have risen, its all too complex, Australia’s contributions to GGEs are small so we should do nothing, the economy will collapse with an ETS, we shouldn’t lead the world, unemployment will increase etc etc. The different authors repeat a core of time-worn fallacies. It is interesting that Quadrant launches a political campaign to defeat the bill when it is primarily a conservative cultural magazine. Continue reading Democracy in operation or irresponsible politicking? I have read Ian Plimer’s, Heaven and Earth and cannot recommend it on any basis. It is a rant – not a piece of scientific writing. According to Plimer almost all climate science is wrong and compiled by greenie environmentalists at the IPCC seeking research funds. The media according to Plimer have collaborated in this conspiracy. This is foolishness. Continue reading More on Plimer
I have just read James Lovelock’s The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning. It surprised me that Lovelock is so hopelessly pessimistic about the abilities of climate science to forecast climate but still remains a strong proponent of the view that AGW will profoundly alter the way the human race can survive on this planet. Lovelock believes that cumulative emissions are too great and that the potential for decisive action to address climate change by mitigation too weak. Hence he believes that much of the earth is doomed. Adaptation policies will help but renewable energy technologies are largely a waste of effort and really just ‘green romanticism’ – too little too late. The humanity that does survive on earth according to Lovelock will need to live on small islands – he mentions the UK, Tasmania and New Zealand and in the far north of the northern hemisphere. Continue reading Lovelock & Lomberg on climate change Professor Ian Plimer does indeed have an impressive looking CV in his area of geology and mineralogy. But looking through it, current to 2007, I could not see a single published article on climate change. Of course he has a brain – apparently a good one – and the ability to think about areas of his specific expertise but I do wonder how he is able to be so confident in his views that dismiss essentially all modern climate science. To Plimer every part of the conventional story of AGW is wrong. I am immediately suspicious. |
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