Unthreaded – Site maintenance coming

Apologies for the inconvenience. Unfortunately sometime this week the site will be offline for some hours (up to one day). This move is in an effort to reduce costs. Thanks to a generous offer from a reader (thank you David) for the suggestion. I hadn’t been paying attention, and bandwidth charges had rather surprized me. (Don’t miss the post on the ARC funding that I just put up too). Jo

 

PS: People emailing me during this day will have trouble. Please save those emails and send them again in a day or two.

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102 comments to Unthreaded – Site maintenance coming

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    Kevin Moore

    “The Biggest Scientific Experiment Ever Undertaken”

    Project Argus (1958)

    Between August and September 1958, the US Navy exploded three fission type
    nuclear bombs 480 km above the South Atlantic Ocean, in the part of the
    lower Van Allen Belt closest to the earth’s surface. In addition, two
    hydrogen bombs were detonated 160 km over Johnston Island in the Pacific.
    This was called, by the military, “the biggest scientific experiment ever
    undertaken”. It was designed by the US Department of Defence and the US
    Atomic Energy Commission, under the code name Project Argus. The purpose
    appears to be to assess the impact of high altitude nuclear explosions on
    radio transmission and radar operations because of the electro-magnetic
    pulse (EMP), and to increase understanding of the geomagnetic field and the
    behaviour of the charged particles in it.
    http://rezn8d.net/2012/01/20/haarp-timeline-an-animated-history-of-ionospheric-destruction/

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      Kevin Moore

      Despite the media scaremongering,Fukushima pales into insignificance –

      http://www.arpansa.gov.au/News/MediaReleases/Japan1YearOn.cfm

      “How much radioactive material was released?
      During the emergency radioactive material was released into the atmosphere and ocean waters. Measurements taken by the Japanese government showed radioactive iodine and caesium levels in excess of regulatory limits in certain areas of Fukushima and around the country, leading the government to restrict the distribution and consumption of food grown in these areas.

      Estimates made by the Japanese authorities indicate that the release of radioactive iodine, which in the early phase of the accident was a cause for major concern, was approximately one-tenth of the radioactive iodine release from the Chernobyl accident. One year on, the levels of radioactive iodine have declined to insignificant levels. The quantity of radioactive caesium released was about one-fifth of the corresponding release from the Chernobyl accident. One year on, the radioactive cesium released from the Fukushima reactors has only slightly reduced (e.g. cesium-137 has a half-life of approximately 30 years).

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        Robert

        What is disturbing is to hear claims of cancelling nuclear programs such as those in Germany “in light of the nuclear disaster in Japan.”

        It was a natural disaster that struck Japan, the issues with the nuclear plant in light of that natural disaster are far from a “nuclear disaster.”

        Apparently those in Germany are concerned a tsunami wave will make it all the way across France to their reactors?

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      theRealUniverse

      Project Argus (1958)..I remember when I was a kid that my parents said that there was allot of protest even then about it. Such a stupid act of reckless disregard for the state of the planet by the Military Industrial complex (US and UK military machine and arms companies)

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    Kevin Moore

    I haven’t heard this on the news –

    http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/03/gas-leak-north-sea-deepwater-horizon

    A natural gas well in the North Sea 150 miles off Aberdeen, Scotland, sprung a massive methane leak on March 25. The 238 workers were all safely evacuated. But the situation is so explosive that an exclusion zone for ships and aircraft has been set up around the rig, reports the Mail Online. And nearby rigs have been evacuated, reports the New York Times:

    Royal Dutch Shell said it closed its Shearwater field, about four miles away, withdrawing 52 of the 90 workers there; it also suspended work and evacuated 68 workers from a drilling rig working nearby, the Hans Deul.

    But that’s not the worst of it. The platform lies less than 100 yards/meters from a flare that workers left burning as crew evacuated. The French super-major oil company owner of the rig, Total, dismissed the risk, while the British government claimed the flame needs to burn to prevent gas pressure from building up. But Reuters reports:

    [O]ne energy industry consultant said Elgin could become “an explosion waiting to happen” if the oil major did not rapidly stop the leak which is above the water at the wellhead.

    Elgin Field: Adapted from map by NordNordWest via Wikimedia Commons.
    And that may not be the worst of it either. The leak is not in the well apparently but in the chalky seabed around it. No one really knows how reparable that will be—especially with the risk of explosion so high for any workers on site.

    Plus, the field produces sour gas: a potent mix of natural gas, hydrogen sulfide, and carbon dioxide. Twenty years ago the cost of extracting energy from such messy stuff would have been prohibitively expensive. Now, not so much. But the true cost could be brutal, reports the BBC :

    The major threat to the local ecosystem is the hydrogen sulphide, which is toxic to virtually all animal life. “You might as well put Agent Orange in the ocean,” says [Simon Boxall of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, UK]. Because the leak is below the water’s surface, the hydrogen sulphide is bubbling through the sea water. This is the worst-case scenario, says Boxall, because it could lead to mass animal and plant deaths. Boxall says Total needs to monitor the water quality to see if this is happening

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    Liars By Design
    My wuwt comment: To assume that these scare-mongering Chicken Littles strive to be honest is wrong. Their own words, over and over again, have telegraphed their lying ways, plain as day.
    Many of the quotes that we have are from before the internet, done in small gatherings or small publications in which they thought their words wouldn’t reach the full public arena. The internet made it easy to broadcast their true intentions. They call the public the “little people,” and because the public plays a role in democracy, these little people are to be duped and deceived, not respected. Do we need any more proof than the following quotes?

    Liar Liar Pants on Fire Quotes:
    “It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.” — Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace
    “We have to offer up scary scenarios… each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective and being honest.” — Stephen Schneider, ipcc author, 1989
    “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that .. the threat of global warming.. would fit the bill…. the real enemy, then, is humanity itself….we believe humanity requires a common motivation, namely a common adversary in order to realize world government. It does not matter if this common enemy is a real one or….one invented for the purpose.” — Club of Rome
    “The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.” –Daniel Botkin, Chairman of Environmental Studies at UCSB
    “Isn’t the only hope for this planet the total collapse of industrial civilisation? Is it not our responsibility to ensure that this collapse happens?’” –Maurice Strong, UNEP Director
    “We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing …” — leftist Senator Tim Wirth, 1993
    “No matter if the science of global warming is all phony… climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.” — C. Stewart, Canadian Minister of the Environment

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      crakar24

      We need an election now Mad Jack enough of this corruption

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        MadJak

        Not just an election, but a full Inquiry across the whole ALP and Union Movement.

        A royal commission with broad ranges of inquiry.

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        MadJak

        Thomson is accused of hiring a couple of people using HSU funds to get him elected on the ALP ticket for the seat of Dobel.

        Let’s hear from a Health services union member from the seat of Dobell who chose not to vote for the ALP.

        I wonder what they would have to say about this.

        Of course, I’m sure the useless excuse for reporters we have in thsi country would never have even thought of this.

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          crakar24

          I need Acrobat Professional which costs about 60 bucks, to get this i need my big boss to sign for it (Wing commander) then i need the finance officer to sign for it (Squadron leader) and then i need Air command (Air commodore)to sign for it……….did i tell you the software cost 60 bucks?

          That red devil and her thieving mob are universally hated within defence she is screwed at the next election so rather than REGIME CHANGE NOW how about Viva la revolution as the libs are no bloody better.

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            MadJak

            I agree – we now have to classes – the political latte class and everyone who pays for their mistakes.

            I fail to understand the naivety people have for defence matters here in australasia.

            I often argued in NZ that there is no shortage of people in other countries who would be prepared to take over the country just for the opportunity to strip mine it and clearfell it all. They’d only need to hold it for a decade or two, then they could give it back.

            That was the only way I could get through to some of these nutters.

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          Rereke Whakaaro

          This is one of the oldest money laundering schemes in the book.

          If you want democracy (or the form of socialism we call democracy) then this is the price you pay. It is better than Feudalism, which is where the elites would take us, given a chance.

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      KeithH

      Puzzling comment from incoming ACTU Secretary Dave Oliver on the ABC today. Railing against all the exposed corruption in the Health Services Union he was asked if he thought there were more cases like this in the Union movenment.

      He responded that he’d been involved in Union matters for 20 years and had never seen anything like it in all that time!

      A very strange timeline! Where was he from 1992 to 1995 when there was massive misappropriation from the AWU through a/cs reliably reported to have been set up by Julia Gillard in her capacity as a lawyer with Slater and Gordon and operated on by a Union Official romantically involved with her at the time. The alleged perpetrators involved have never faced justice and it is believed little if any of the hundreds of thousands of dollars has ever been repaid.

      Bill Shorten is currently crying crocodile tears over the misuse of HSU funds but as a former AWU official who knew all about the earlier misappropriation, exactly what has he done to either bring to justice those involved or to recover his former Union members misappropriated funds?

      Some HSU members affronted by their current treatment at the hands of the ACTU might like to start asking these questions!

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    cleanwater

    There is an experiment that proves that the Greenhouse gas effect does not exist. This experiment which has been peer reviewed by Ph.D physicists . Ph.D. Chemical engineers and others. The experiment is found on the web-site http://www.slayingtheskydragon.com click on the blog tab. It is titled “The Experiment that failed which can save the world trillion-Proving the greenhouse gas effect does not exist
    ALAN SIDDONS   HEADLINE STORY   JOHN O’SULLIVAN   NASA  
    NASA in Shock New Controversy: Two Global Warming Reasons Why by John O’Sullivan, guest post at Climate Realists

    NASA covered up for forty years proof that the greenhouse gas theory was bogus. But even worse, did the U.S. space agency fudge its numbers on Earth’s energy budget to cover up the facts?

    As per my article this week, forty years ago the space agency, NASA, proved there was no such thing as a greenhouse gas effect because the ‘blackbody’ numbers supporting the theory didn’t add up in a 3-dimensional universe:

    “During lunar day, the lunar regolith absorbs the radiation from the sun and transports it inward and is stored in a layer approximately 50cm thick….in contrast with a precipitous drop in temperature if it was a simple black body, the regolith then proceeds to transport the stored heat back onto the surface, thus warming it up significantly over the black body approximation…”

    Thus, the ‘blackbody approximations’ were proven to be as useful as a chocolate space helmet; the guesswork of using the Stefan-Boltzmann equations underpinning the man-made global warming theory was long ago debunked. If NASA had made known that Stefan-Boltzmann’s numbers were an irrelevant red-herring then the taxpayers of the world would have been spared the $50 billion wasted on global warming research; because it would have removed the only credible scientific basis to support the theory that human emissions of carbon dioxide changed Earth’s climate.

    But, until May 24, 2010 these facts remained swept under the carpet. For the Apollo missions NASA had successfully devised new calculations to safely put astronauts on the Moon-based on actual measured temperatures of the lunar surface. But no one appears to have told government climatologists who, to this day, insist their junk science is ‘settled’ based on their bogus ‘blackbody’ guesswork.
    NASA’s Confusion over Earth’s Energy Budget

    But it gets worse: compounding such disarray, NASA, now apparently acting more like a politicized mouthpiece for a socialist one world government, cannot even provide consistent numbers on Earth’s actual energy budget.

    Thanks to further discussion with scientist, Alan Siddons, a co-author of the paper, ‘A Greenhouse Effect on the Moon,’ it appears I inadvertently stumbled on a NASA graph that shows the U.S. space agency is unable to tally up the numbers on the supposed greenhouse gas “backradiation.” Why would this be?

    In its graphic representation of the energy budget of the Earth the agency has conspicuously contradicted itself in its depiction of back-radiation based on its various graphs on Earth’s radiation budget.

    As Siddons sagely advised me, “This opens the question as to WHICH budget NASA actually endorses, because the one you show is consistent with physics: 70 units of sunlight go in, 70 units of infrared go out, and there’s no back-flow of some ridiculous other magnitude. Interesting.”

    Climate Sceptic Scientists’ Growing Confidence
    Thanks to Siddons and his co-authors of ‘A Greenhouse Effect on the Moon,’ the world now has scientific evidence to show the greenhouse gas theory (GHG) was junk all along.

    As the truth now spreads, an increasing number of scientists refute the greenhouse gas theory, many have been prompted by the shocking revelations since the Climategate scandal. The public have also grown more aware of how a clique of government climatologists were deliberately ‘hiding the decline’ in the reliability of their proxy temperature data all along.

    But NASA’s lunar temperature readings prove that behind that smoke was real fire. Some experts now boldly go so far as to say the entire global warming theory contravenes the established laws of physics.
    How NASA responds to these astonishing revelations may well tell us how politicized the American space agency really is.

    http://www.suite101.com/profile.cfm/johnosullivan

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      Robert

      There is more along this line here:

      Ned Nikolov: Implications of DIVINER results for the S-B standard equation

      Short version:

      DIVINER’s results show that the Moon’s actual mean surface temperature is much lower than the estimate derived from the standard Stefan-Boltzmann (S-B) equation:

      The formulas, equations, etc. are there and being discussed and the general indication is the S-B numbers don’t add up indicating the equation was incorrectly applied. The larger implication would be that in light of this information the numbers used so often by alarmists based on S-B are also incorrect as the equation was again incorrectly applied.

      See also: Ashwin Vavasada: Lunar equatorial surface temperatures and regolith properties from the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment

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      Bob Malloy

      While agnostic about the skydragon slayers, don’t have the scientific knowledge to judge it on it’s merits, Anthony Watts and Jo are both disbelievers about the theory.

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      Andrew McRae

      The moon doesn’t have an atmosphere.

      Next.

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        Robert

        Apparently so, however that doesn’t change the fact that when S-B was applied to determine its temperature they got the wrong numbers. What does an atmosphere have to do with S-B? Should be easier to get the temperature of something without an atmosphere than one with an atmosphere yet the numbers are still wrong.

        Now as to atmosphere I’ve seen various yammering about experiments where a test was conducted on regular air, then on CO2 to prove CO2 causes warming. But our atmosphere isn’t pure CO2 so the comparison isn’t valid is it?

        Why hasn’t anyone examined the effect of IR or whatever on the temperature of:

        1 – A mix of gasses in exact proportion to those of the atmosphere but no CO2 at all
        2 – A mix of gasses in exact proportion to those of the atmosphere but varied levels of water vapor from 0 to n% humidity.
        3 – A mix of gasses in exact proportion to those of the atmosphere but with CO2 replaced with something else like Neon or Argon perhaps
        4 – A mix of gasses in exact proportion to those of the atmosphere but with 800 ppm CO2

        Perhaps someone has and the results just aren’t out there, but I am talking about actual physical testing NOT computer modeling of what someone who thinks they know what will happen programmed.

        I could just as easily say “The atmosphere is not pure CO2. Next.” to everyone making such a fuss over the GHG properties of CO2 AS THEY DETERMINED THEM LOOKING AT PURE CO2.

        Dilute the gas to the level we find in the atmosphere and the claim that it will behave the same and have the same effect as a pure concentration of the gas tested or examined in isolation seems pretty ridiculous. Yet the behavior of the gas in isolation appears to be the basis for the claims of what it will do in the atmosphere from everything I have seen.

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          Kevin Moore

          Robert,

          This may be of help re water vapour –

          http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/climate2.htm

          “When water vapour exists in air at 2%, it adds 0.02 x 0.5 = 1% to the air’s heat capacity, which is negligible. However, by changing phase from vapour to cloud, it releases a latent heat of 0.02 x 540 = 10.8 (cal), equivalent to 10.8 / 0.5 = 22 degrees of warming. Water vapour is thus a considerable player in the transfer of heat through the atmosphere.

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          Kevin Moore

          4 – A mix of gasses in exact proportion to those of the atmosphere but with 800 ppm CO2

          With O K being absolute zero –

          Oxygen is ice below 54.36 K, Nitrogen is ice below 63.15 K, CO2 is ice below 194.65 K, then N & O are both 4 times more powerful at absorbing heat than CO2.

          Oxygen and Nitrogen together make up 99% of the atmosphere. Compared with N & O the influence of CO2 on atmosphere temperatures is totally insignificant. CO2 has no influence on temperature worth talking about.

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          crakar24

          Did you forget Ozone or was it omitted on purpose?

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      wes george

      Cleanwater,

      There is an experiment that proves that the Greenhouse gas effect does not exist.

      That’s junk science, snake oil salemen. Spam for suckers.

      The earth would be a frozen snowball in space without the Greenhouse Effect.

      Sadly, it seems some noobs to the debate are fooled by low-end retail warmist propaganda that the Greenhouse Effect is evidence for CAGW.

      Of course, the greenhouse effect IS evidence for CAGW in the sense that its also evidence that CAGW science is false too.

      The fact is the Greenhouse Effect is just a popular term, a METAPHOR, for the physics that underlies ALL climate science, both pro and con global warming.

      BOTH sides of the climate debate agree the Greenhouse Effect is real.

      Those of us who are skeptical of the AGW hypothesis have no need to disprove the Greenhouse Effect. In fact, the science behind the Greenhouse Effect is our friend.

      For example the logrithmic effect of CO2 is an important aspect of the Earth’s Greenhouse Effect and it also shows the fundamental problem with AGW theory. CO2 doesn’t have enough umph left in it at levels beyond 380ppm to warm the atmosphere catastrophically.

      Both sides of the debate accept that the logrithmic effect of CO2 is real.

      So the Warmists have to believe that Water Vapour Feedback is positive to get the extra warming their theory predicts.

      Water vapour is the most important Greenhouse Gas. But there is no evidence yet that the overall effect of water vapour – at today’s level – is positive, while evidence is building that it might be negative.

      In the end it will NOT be proving the Greenhouse Effect is bogus that will end the AGW theory, but increased knowledge about the more subtle details of the Greenhouse Effect that will undo AGW.

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        Robert

        That’s junk science, snake oil salemen. Spam for suckers.

        Now the alarmists have been saying the same thing about anyone who disagrees with their “science.”

        Apparently regardless of who did it or what they are working on, even if the end result is to change the thinking from that of a greenhouse effect to that of an atmospheric effect, it apparently isn’t even worth looking at if it questions the consensus. Since what you are describing is a consensus regarding the greenhouse effect are you not?

        Amazing, 20+ years of this shit and neither side appears to be able to learn from it.

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    pat

    why do i turn on ABC RN? this is what i caught last nite and it is breathtakinly propagandist. Vertessy’s response to a loaded question about BOM being able to empirically proved extreme weather events connection to CAGW is maddening:

    7 May: ABC Big Ideas: Planning for Climate Uncertainty
    Can you plan for extreme weather events like catastrophic floods, one in a hundred year droughts, and the nation’s food bowl running out of water? Climate change means we face an unpredictable future. So what can be done to prepare and what will it mean for urban development, irrigated agriculture, and the health of waterways?
    GUESTS
    Alastair Driver
    National Conservation Manager, UK Environment Agency
    Barbara Norman
    Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Canberra.
    Jay O’Keefe
    Professor, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa
    Karlene Maywald
    water consultant, ex-National Party MP & minister, South Australian parliament
    Dr Rob Vertessy
    Acting Director and CEO, Bureau of Meteorology
    Phil Cummins
    Deputy Commissioner, Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry
    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/planning-for-climate-uncertainty/3988014

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    • #
      Bob Massey

      Pat perhaps this country could be convinced in maybe building more dams, planting more trees and build infrastructure to offset these disadvantages instead of putting a price on Carbon. How on Earth with that actually help.. simply insane !!

      I think this is where the Libs have it over any idea the Labor Party or Greens have at least their plan won’t matter if we do have higher temperatures or more CO2. It generally helps the environment and doesn’t concentrate on one specific side note.

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    pat

    one big happy family!

    8 May: Climate Spectator: Andrew Herington: Crunching the carbon price numbers
    (Andrew Herington is a former Labor Ministerial Adviser now a Melbourne freelance writer)
    Three politicians and three experts debating climate change may seem a bit old hat, but there was a full house at Melbourne University last week for an event with a difference. Hosted by the Department of Mathematics and Statistics the topic was ‘Transforming data into votes’, which took the clash between science and politics head on…
    For Labor’s Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change, Mark Dreyfus, the prime number was the slight 0.9 per cent impact he said the carbon tax would have on the CPI. His equation was the government would deliver 140 million tonnes (MT) of carbon abatement for a carbon price of $23 – whereas the Coalition would only deliver 40 MT for a cost of $50 a tonne.
    Coalition Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment, Simon Birmingham’s riposte was that paying money to producers of 140 MT to reduce emissions avoids taxing all 600 MT of carbon emissions. He cited Treasury modelling predicting Australian CO2 emissions would rise from 578 MT to (sic) 2000 to 621 MT by 2020 because 75 per cent of the abatement, 94 million tonnes, would occur overseas – representing a massive drain on national wealth.
    As the mathematicians tried to get those numbers to add, Greens leader, Christine Milne focussed on 450 parts per million (ppm). At this CO2 concentration microscopic ocean life dies, removing the base of the marine food chain…
    Milne used geometry to attack the Coalition’s Direct Action Plan, which originally claimed 150 MT of abatement through carbon farming would need 100 square kilometres. When it was pointed out this meant 1.5 tonnes of carbon per square metre – the claim was adjusted to 100 kilometres square (ie 10,000 square kilometres) needing just 15 kilograms of carbon per square metre – still the equivalent of a half inch layer of carbon absorbed each year.
    Professor Philip Adams from the Centre for Policy Studies at Monash University was a big fan of mathematical modelling. His computation predicts the carbon price will reduce GDP by 1.4 per cent and real incomes by 3 per cent, spread over the next 40 years. Expressed annually, this cuts an average 3 per cent growth in incomes to 2.96 per cent – a negligible change…
    Professor David Karoly from Melbourne University spoke last and drew ironic cheers for being the first person to present graphs with error bars. He demonstrated the research consensus that a 0.8 degree increase in global temperatures occurred over the last century and the fallacy that readings for 1998 and 2010 represented a downward trend.
    He pointed to the fact that 90 per cent of the net energy absorbed by the globe was captured in the ocean – a staggering 2.0 x 1022 joules – that is 20 million million million kilojoules.
    As the audience stretched their minds around that number, Professor Karoly turned to the 30 per cent increase in Australian emissions since 1990 which had been offset by one off (and not repeatable) land use changes.
    He concluded by discussing different ways in which the “allowable” 1000 billion tonnes of CO2 could be apportioned between different countries in order to stay below the “maximum tolerable” 2 degree warming level. The most equitable global formula would require Australians to reduce their average current emissions of 19 tonnes per capita to 3 tonnes per capita per annum. A big ask.
    Fittingly, the final question came from a climate sceptic bearing two large folders of “evidence”, who asked why no-one would listen to his proof of the “corruption of climate scientists”. Simon Birmingham warily agreed to meet if he sent an email explaining who he was.
    With the eloquence only possessed by a QC, Mark Dreyfus gave the questioner both barrels. He firmly asserted that western government was founded on rational thought, that science must remain the root of democratic thinking and a progressive society must stand up to “delusional” ideas. It was a speech worthy of the early Renaissance and the mathematicians went home greatly affirmed.
    No audience vote was taken, but the applause made clear those for action on climate change clearly had the numbers on the night by an order of magnitude.
    http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/crunching-carbon-price-numbers

    the single comment so far, from CAGW activist Lovell:

    Agreement all around (almost)
    submitted by Graham Lovell
    Labor, Coalition and Greens all agree that reductions in carbon emissions are required. Let us build on that…etc

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    pat

    meanwhile, back in the real world:

    7 May: China Post: Chinese cities near top of world carbon emissions list
    Several major Chinese cities have some of the world’s highest per capita carbon footprints, a World Bank report said on Thursday. Greenhouse gas emissions (measured in tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per capita) in Tianjin, Shanghai and Beijing far exceed those of cities such as Paris, Tokyo, London, Barcelona and Jakarta.
    Industry and power generation are major contributors in Chinese cities, largely because coal dominates the nation’s energy use…
    Shomik Mehindratta, a World Bank urban transport specialist and co-editor of the report, said Chinese cities have high emission levels because they are important global centers of industrial production.
    Cities account for more than 70 percent of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and this is expected to rise to 76 percent by 2030, said the report.
    China’s urbanization is accelerating, and about 350 million people are expected to move into cities during the next 20 years…
    Sprawling cities are locked into a high-carbon development path…
    http://www.chinapost.com.tw/china/national-news/2012/05/07/340198/Chinese-cities.htm

    would someone please explain why we are having a carbon tax/ETS that will further de-industrialise Australia?

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      Robert

      would someone please explain why we are having a carbon tax/ETS that will further de-industrialise Australia?

      To make it easier for the Chinese to take control of your nation?

      It is quite apparent the Chinese aren’t going to hamstring their development or cripple their economy. Interesting thing about communist regimes, they have very efficient and quite permanent solutions to those who would propose things like those your Mr. Flannery and Ms. Gillard have pushed for.

      Not that I would want to live there, but if people like Obama, Gillard, Cameron, et. al. keep on as they are I suspect we will get to experience that type of society soon enough.

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      MadJak

      Pat:

      would someone please explain why we are having a carbon tax/ETS that will further de-industrialise Australia?

      Because the current mob in Government want to look after the mates that put them in power.

      After all, it is all about them.

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        Robert

        Interesting article, a bit dated but interesting. Seem to recall hearing about it in March or thereabouts.

        What I found particularly humorous was one of the rampant alarmists attacking the article and defending the “science” with religious fervor. One of his/her favorite lines of reasoning was to quote Lovelock. You know, the guy who just recently admitted he was wrong.

        Good friggin’ humour that.

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        DavidH

        I was thinking about this the other day. Checking Google only gives hits from around the time of the time of the book release, talking of things like “a body blow to the German global warming movement”. Is anyone aware if the book and the newspaper articles at the time have had any impact on German (Austrian, Swiss, Liechtensteinian (?)) opinion on global warming / climate change?

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    pat

    btw have heard radio commentators claiming Westpac’s Gail Kelly’s defense of the PM in Fairfax just before the budget will be good news for the govt.
    funny thing is AAP is now reporting the Fairfax story and saying Kelly was defending the “carbon (dioxide) tax” when, in fact, Kelly never actually mentioned the tax in any quote. it was the writer Johnston who used the phrase:

    7 May: Age Exclusive: Eric Johnston: Get off Gillard’s back, urges Westpac chief
    The powerful banking boss also gave an endorsement of the Prime Minister’s attempt to reach out to business, even in the face of intense and sometimes bitter criticism over issues ranging from the carbon tax and the rush to deliver a surplus…
    http://www.theage.com.au/business/hands-off-julia-gillard-says-westpac-boss-20120507-1y954.html

    8 May: AAP: Westpac CEO encourages execs to go easy on Gillard
    Westpac chief executive Gail Kelly has urged her fellow business leaders to work with Prime Minister Julia Gillard more co-operatively rather than engaging in combat on issues such as the carbon tax and the budget, Fairfax Media reports…
    http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Westpac-CEO-encourages-execs-to-go-easy-on-Gillard-pd20120507-U3NFJ?OpenDocument&src=hp10

    pity Fairfax and AAP didn’t link to this when they published the Kelly article:

    13 July 2011: AFR: John Kehoe: Banks cash in on carbon market
    Banks will cash in on the Gillard ­government’s carbon policy as they develop new financial products and services and trade instruments in a market estimated to be worth many tens of billions of dollars locally.
    Macquarie Group, Westpac Banking Corp, ANZ Banking Group and international investment banks that trade emissions permits in Europe and New Zealand want to use their experience in the $US142 billion ­global carbon market to develop new businesses here.
    “We think that there are going to be opportunities to arbitrage between different markets internationally, so that’s going to open up opportunities for us,” said Morgan Stanley executive director Emile Abdurahman, who recently relocated from Singapore to set up a ­Sydney trading desk…
    While the carbon price policy will present some trading opportunities for banks in the initial three-year fixed carbon tax period from 2012, the real bonanza for the finance industry will come when ETS permits are auctioned by 2015.
    ANZ’s head of energy trading, Gary Wyatt, said international evidence suggested the value of the derivatives carbon market would dwarf the $10 billion initially raised by the government.
    “I’d be really surprised if the trading market didn’t end up being several multiple times of the underlying physical market,” Mr Wyatt said.
    Besides trading carbon permits on their own account, banks say there will be business opportunities from entering into forward contracts for big-emitting clients wanting to lock in a future certain carbon price, hedging fuel costs for airlines, and hedging currency risk when permits are traded internationally.
    They also plan to advise on companies’ carbon liabilities and risks, finance new low emissions technology and energy-efficiency projects and lend money for the purchase of emissions permits…
    While Australia does not yet have a deep and liquid carbon trading market, local banks have been active in trading some $1.5 billion of existing commonwealth Renewable Energy Target certificates and state-based energy certificates. Westpac, ANZ and National Australia Bank have also been using their NZ businesses to trade permits under the ETS introduced there three years ago.
    Westpac employs about 15 people in its combined commodities, carbon and energy division and in 2008 helped AGL Energy buy emission permits on a forward basis, purchasing carbon permits at $20 for 2010, for the anticipated, but later abandoned, CPRS.
    Emma Herd, director of emissions and environment at Westpac, whose London-based energy traders have been trading European permits since 2006 and which was the first bank to trade New Zealand ETS permits, said the bank would use its offshore experience in Australia.
    “There really is a lot of overlap between energy, commodities and carbon markets,” she said.
    “They either trade directly in correlation with each other or they’re heavily influenced by activity in related markets.”…
    Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s head of carbon solutions, Neil Hereford, said the bank offered a range of tailored financing, including renewable energy hedging, to help the bank’s ­clients manage their carbon risk and capture opportunities as they move to the low-carbon economy.
    Banks also plan to develop new carbon-related financial products, to take advantage of the government’s carbon farming intitiatives (CFI)…
    http://afr.com/p/business/financial_services/banks_cash_in_on_carbon_market_ZHUVTvKlE0Akcs1JaL9n8M

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      MadJak

      That would be Gail Kelly of the “banking is like selling banana smothies” fame?

      She has about as much credibility with me as Swanny Boy the Aurotrash treasurer of the year

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    pat

    or they could have linked to this:

    27 March: Daily Telegraph: Phil Jacob: Bank passes carbon buck
    ONE of the nation’s biggest banks will shackle suppliers with environmental guidelines to slash its own carbon footprint.
    With less than 100 days until the introduction of the controversial tax, Westpac yesterday released a report it hopes will place the emphasis on reducing carbon emissions on the suppliers it deals with.
    Westpac emissions and environment executive director Emma Herd said the bank had been building a response to carbon pricing in Australia for years. “When we meet with suppliers or potential suppliers, it’s standard to ask about the product, the price, the quality. But we also look at sustainability,” she said.
    “We’re reducing our carbon emissions. With our suppliers we’re asking what they can do for us to help us reduce our own.”…
    http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/westpac-bank-passes-the-carbon-buck/story-e6freuy9-1226310648288

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      J.A.Verag

      Yes, pat. When big corporates see there’s a buck to be made in playing the moral highground, by telling everyone how socially reponsible they are they’ll go for it big time, at the expense of their captive market of smaller suppliers.
      Look at us how wondeful we are and we’re forcing others to become likewise, whether they like it or not.

      Like BT forcing it’s suppliers to introduce a costly reporting regime. BT demmands suppliers embrace carbon reporting

      ‘Social responsibility’ & ‘sustainability’ are now big words in the corporate management training lexicon and novice management swallow them wholesale, believing it’s really for the good of the planet, while their corporate masters know that appealing to the already suckered is just good business.

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      Robert

      Yep, that gets my vote for “assinine reasoning of the month”. But it is only the 7th here…

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      Gee Aye

      Interesting as plant eater’s digestion itself was seen as a contributer to mass extinction. It goes like this. Flowering plants evolve and adapt better than conifers, cycads etc that the big and small plant eating dinosaurs eat. Dinosaurs can’t easily digest these… guess why? Because their digestive bacterial flora can’t break them down (actually can’t release for absorption particular dietary components contained in their diet that they can’t manufacture themselves). Dinosaurs die of malnutrition.

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        crakar24

        No adaptation, no evolution? Not in Gods plan?

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          Gee Aye

          No organism is infinitely adaptable.

          Of which God are we speaking?

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            crakar24

            The omni potent God of climate change of course…………..i find it very difficult to believe that an organism can not only survive but also evolve for millions? of years but yet be thwarted by a flower.

            Once again the blood soaked finger print of climate change is all that is left at the crime scene.

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            Gee Aye

            time to read a basic biology text Craker.

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            crakar24

            Oh come on GA no need for that you made a now somewhat customary stupid statement and suddenly you get all nasty and stuff.

            Firstly some moron armed with nothing (no evidence) but a computer program he probably wrote himself makes the extraordinary claim that dinosaurs farted themselves to death, this by all accounts is likely to be the most stupid thing ever to be said. Rather than simply accept that your side is chock full of idiots with a laptop you come up with the most feeble reason to support such an outrageous claim thus showing everyone here that you are also a moron.

            In your simple (must always argue with somebody) perverse mind you now claim that dinosaur farting lead to warming which lead to flowering plants evolving and crowding out the cycads etc which lead to dinosaur malnutrition ergo climate change killed the dinosaurs is that about right GA?

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            Kevin Moore

            Biology 101

            Dinosaurs got so big because they retained their farts inside their elastic bodies. Their farts were only released after lemming like they burrowed their way deep underground,occassioning a quirk of nature which turned them into coal oil and natural gas.

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            Siliggy

            LOL. Kevin the North Sea ones must have fought bravely against bouyancy! No doubt they were hiding from the climate change monsters who put the limestone up stream from nearly dry underground caves.

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            Gee Aye

            Craker, I was pointing out that the dinosaur farting is contrary to another hypothesis (and several others too). I was not supporting any of them. I am in agreement with you about the linked article. My example underlined the very obvious fact that every paleontologist and her dog has their own hypothesis.

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            crakar24

            My sincerest apologies GA, i take it all back.

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      wes george

      Not to defend farting dinosaur theory, but it’s hardly the stupidest thing I’ve read even in the last couple of minutes.

      I have to see the maths, but it’s not so unreasonable to try to examine whether dinosaurian methane production contributed to warming the Mesozoic. I wonder how they estimated the vegetarian sauropod population levels and whether they considered other factors such as the distribution of the continental plates, which would have also had a large effect on the Mesozoic climate.

      Calculating methane emissions from modern animals depends only on the total mass of the animals in question. A mid-sized sauropod probably weighed about 44,000 pounds (20,000 kilos), and there were a few dozen of them per square mile (kilometre), the researchers found.

      They reckoned that global methane emissions from sauropods were about 520 million tons per year, comparable to all modern methane emissions. Unlike emissions of carbon dioxide, which come from natural sources but also from the burning of fossil fuels, methane emissions have decreased substantially since the start of the Industrial Revolution some 150 years ago.

      http://www.vancouversun.com/life/dinosaur+flatulence+have+warmed+Earth/6586333/story.html#ixzz1uK9crpYL

      Why can’t science be fun and wildly speculative sometimes?

      The stupid part is being mislead by a bad headline rather than reading the whole article and with an open mind actually thinking about what was said. Being skeptical is good as long as you can retain a sense of curiosity and don’t have reading comprehension issues.

      Another report on Wilkerson’s research hints at where the possible dodgy bits lie:

      He and two other researchers used a formula from a study last year that linked body mass to methane emissions from guinea pigs and rabbits. The relationship is straightforward: The more body mass there is, the more methane is produced.

      For their investigation, Wilkinson and his colleagues had to make some assumptions _ for example, that the ratio of body size to gas produced is the same for small and extremely large animals. “That’s a slightly dodgy thing to do,” Wilkinson acknowledged, “but in this case there’s not any other option.”

      Actually, that’s a very dodgy thing to do, especially considering – as Gee Aye points out – the type of plants dinosaurs contained considerably less carbohydrates than the modern grasses that modern herbivores eat and so would probably produce less methane in digestion too.

      Then there is this:

      A 2010 study in the journal Nature Geoscience found that atmospheric methane levels dropped in the Americas once native megafauna such as mammoths and giant ground sloths went extinct — around the same time that humans arrived on the continents.

      It’s just a correlation, not causation. But it’s all fun stuff to file away for later use if you’re a curious person.

      The research makes no claim that dinosaurian methane production was bad for the dinosaurs or Mesozoic life in general. The biosphere was adapted for hot and wet back then, so a little added methane was an advantage.

      http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982212003296

      No one has made the claim, other than Crakar and a lame headline editor, that global warming killed off dinosaurs.

      Stupid is as stupid does.

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        crakar24

        Wes,

        On what evidence do they base all of the information that they plugged into their model?

        Do we know so much about this period that we can actually describe the sizes of the herds and their distrubution around the planet? Dont be fool a Wes and do not agree with one side of a debate just so as you can be in disagreement with me you childish little man.

        The article clearly states that these animals farted enough methane to change the climate now that is a lot of methane, so Wes explain to me two things.

        1) Why do you have such confidence in their model to the point where you are now defending this as a scientific exercise and

        2) Please explain how this extra methane “trapped heat” and if you mention the phrase that begins with “imagine a blanket……” then you have failed.

        Good luck

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          wes george

          My argument isn’t for dinosaurian fart theory.

          My argument is for retaining a fresh sense of curiosity which will hopefully animate one’s reading comprehension skills.

          So that rather than reading a bad headline and then dissing the whole idea as stupid because you think it says dinosaurs farted themselves into extinction you’ll move more gracefully toward informed opinion rather than wallow in self-imposed ignorance.

          In our daily lives we all struggle against what the poets and Richard Dawkins have called “the anaesthesia of the familiar.”

          For example you might live on a beautiful tropical island, but after a while you stop seeing the sublime beauty. You know it’s beautiful but you can’t appreciate it anymore, because it’s so familiar you’ve lost connection with the sublime.

          The same thing happens when one adopts so thoroughly a worldview that everything is filtered through that lens. In this way, skepticism can degenerate into just another orthodoxy, a set of blinders that obscures from view that which does not directly reinforce the “skeptical” orthodoxy. Anything not part of your orthodoxy looks “stupid.”

          True skepticism is a project to maintain a sense of natural curiosity that makes us want to know more, to dig ever deeper.

          The first thing to be skeptical about is yourself.

          You think you know that Dinosaur Fart Theory is the Stupidest thing you ever heard?

          Fine. The skeptic inside you would demand that you test that proposition. And the only way to test it is to open your mind and read the research. The only way to have the energy to do that is to be curious. The only way to be curious is to be in love with the universe. And to be in love with life is a gift that no one can give you but yourself.

          So…the only way to learn is to be curious and approach things with a freshness, the good willingness to consider before rejecting.

          If after you have studied Dinosaur Fart theory and can rationally explain why it is the stupidest thing in the world. Good on ya.

          But all you did was read a bad headline and come to a premature and false conclusion.

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    Cheerful Chap

    Anyone else getting tired?

    I post a fair bit on slashdot and other sites, and on the non-climate-change threads I usually get modded up and good comments back. On the climate change threads the conversation gets really personal and nasty really quickly and any realist comments get modded way down. Even sensible, rational replies get flamed and modded down, and there’s so much nasty ‘anti-denier’ commentary that it gets really hard not to take this personally and be hurt by it.

    I’m tempted to stop fighting the good fight there, and just stop posting on the climate change threads. But if we don’t keep the debate going and at least attempt to get through the propaganda, then surely the bad guys win?

    In personal conversations I’ve found (as I expect most of us have) that the general public perception of us realists is that we’re uninformed right-wing loons, and I’ve been able to easily persuade anyone I’ve had a conversation with about this that the alarmist position is flawed at best. Their level of knowledge is usually around the ‘talking points’ in the media, and they haven’t even bothered asking the basic questions of that position, so the conversation tends to cover the same few points and then they’re confused. Even one-on-one conversation threads on blogs usually result in a ‘I’ll go away and think about this some more’ from the alarmist.
    But it’s dispiriting to have to justify my position and point out the lies and bullshit every time I have this conversation with someone new.

    We say we’re winning the debate. I certainly win every debate I have. But it’s getting tiring and annoying now, and I’m not sure that winning any amount of personal debate is going to change the media/general public stance on this.

    What’s your experiences?

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      crakar24

      CC,

      Think of it this way, for every warmbot you debate with there are at least 10 people reading in silence……….they are the ones you are trying to educate not the warmbot.

      Cheers

      Crakar24

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      MadJak

      Cheerful Chap,

      Don’t let them get to you. As Crakar mentioned, for every warmbot you exchange with, there are probably about 10 people just watching – usually not too confident to try and take a stance – and usually because of the bullying smears.

      And some people like yourself refuse point blank to be bullied. Unfortunately due to the void we currently have in the media, it falls to us everyday joes who refuse to be bullied to lead the charge.

      Just keep cool and let them go for it. Each time they lose it, you can almost hear the feet of the rational normal people over to the realist/sceptic camp.

      Right now, from a political perspective, they keep losing because of their own side. They can’t help shake off the radical elements that support them, and that is where the origins of their demise resides.

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      KeithH

      It’s hard not to get discouraged when one sees the trillions of dollars involved in “renewable energy” investments but what discourages me the most was highlighted on the news in Tasmania tonight. The CSIRO is in the State going round schools “explaining the science behind climate change” and effectively brainwashing six-year old kids in their liberally funded “Carbon Kids” indoctrination campaign. “These are our future leaders” said one CSIRO talking head!

      There are going to be some bitterly disillusioned young people later in life when they find out the truth and realise they’ve been well and truly “had” by adults who should know better!

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        Rereke Whakaaro

        Yep, heads will roll.

        The Millennials are very tech savvy, even at 6 years old. And although most of them can’t yet use the web well enough to get to the facts, they have been bombarded with so much rubbish over their short lives, that they can understand a scam when they see one.

        What the CSIRO is doing will only work if those doing the teaching have a Jesuit-like devotion to the cause.

        If the teachers have any doubts at all, the kids will pick up on it. In many ways they are smarter than their parents and grandparents, when it comes to human nature. Evolution at work.

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        Ross

        Keith H . I’m a great believer in the pendulum “theory”. When the swing comes against this type of brainwashing, as it surely will it will be major swing in the other direction. This will not be good for society –yes it has to swing back but I don’t think major swings in either direction are good for anyone.

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    pat

    another reason i will continue to vote informally:

    8 May: Courier Mail: Robyn Ironside: Newman Government backs down on challenging federal carbon tax in court
    THE State Government will not mount a High Court challenge to the Federal Government’s carbon tax after legal advice that such a lawsuit would be unlikely to succeed…
    “The Federal Government was deaf to these concerns so we sought legal advice on the viability of a constitutional challenge,” said Mr Bleijie.
    “Unfortunately, we’ve been advised that a challenge is unlikely to be successful, so we won’t waste taxpayers’ money fighting a losing battle.”
    He said it was “disappointing” because the tax would hurt Queensland and Queensland families.
    “It will also hurt business and the potential for new mining, refining and smelting operations in Queensland which are energy intense,” Mr Bleijie said…
    http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/newman-government-backs-down-on-challenging-federal-carbon-tax-in-court/story-e6freon6-1226349897884

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    theRealUniverse

    The biggest criminal lies of the 21st century, Climate change from CO2 and 9/11.

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    Bulldust

    Double dose of bad news, though nothing unexpected… firstly the challenge to the CO2 tax will most likely be canned:

    http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/13629391/carbon-tax-challenge-will-fail-newman/

    Secondly we see how hard it will be to repeal here:

    http://www.smh.com.au/business/challenges-of-unwinding-the-carbon-tax-20120508-1yacd.html

    I disagree with some of the points in the second article, but still … it will be a monster of a task.

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      MadJak

      Bulldust,

      Just a thought here – maybe the Carbon tax legislation could stand, but if some new legislation was passed which made any legislation which discriminates against any business for emitting C02 (or any other trace gas) to be null and void? Make the trading of pollution permits illegal in the process.

      Maybe I haven’t thought this one through well enough, but maybe the noxious part of this perfect tax (which it is, it’s so good it gives governments too much coercion power) could be rendered impotent?

      Maybe it might be worth kicking that idea around a bit – see what comes of it.

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      Kevin Moore

      The Banking mafia have agents who can quickly bring down a government. I suspect that Newman is just accepting reality.

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    Thumbnail

    Australian Government’s Dept of Climate Change sees fit to respond to Professor Ian Plimer’s “How To Get Expelled From School.

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      MadJak

      So how much did that cost me?

      Oh, that’s right, it’s on the never never, so I’ll rephrase

      How much did that cost my children?

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      memoryvault

      .
      That’s so bad it’s embarrassing.

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      The Black Adder

      This is what we get for a $1 Billion a year Dept. of Climate Change…

      Absolute garbage…God help us (definitely not Mohammed).

      What are we to do as a country?

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      Siliggy

      A word search of the “accurate answers” finds no mention at all of the word “cosmic”.
      Which makes the number one question for students…
      Why is the Australian dept of climate change allergic to the word cosmic?
      I have saved the PDF to see if they get over this allergy.
      Only five hits in a site search!
      http://www.climatechange.gov.au/search.aspx?query=cosmic&collection=agencies&profile=climatechange
      So what do they say about Non solar induced cosmic ray variations? Oh and what about cosmic dust clouds? Could it be that either subject is just a bit too problematic?

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      handjive

      At this official govt. link, they resort to smearing:

      In late 2011, Professor Ian Plimer, a geology professor and expert mineralogist with no background in climate science

      Obviously, Tim Flannery, Climate Commissioner, who also has ‘no background in climate science‘ springs to mind, who has written books (discredited) used in schools

      Where is the balance?

      When you are copping a lot of flak, you are over the target.
      Prof. Plimer must be ON target if a lumbering bureau of govt. can wheel out & mobilise a quick, but failed response.

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    The Black Adder

    Our Treasurer Wayne Goose just delivered a whole lot of CRAP to the aussie population!!

    I think I even heard Clean Energy Future in that diatribe!

    He cannot be the Worlds greatest tresurer for nothing…

    He who knows nothing will learn nothing…

    Election Now!! PLEASE….

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      Kevin Moore

      If only BoM could make a promise of their forecasts.

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      Kevin Moore

      Joe Hockey made a good point this morning that hidden deep inside Swans budget is a proposal to increase debt level from $250 billion to $300 billion. So true to form it appears that his forecast surplus isn’t worth a pinch of salt.

      From the 2008-09 Final Budget Outcome:

      Total Revenue – $298.933 billion ( -$20.53 billion)
      Total Expenditure – $324.569 billion ( +$32.09 billion)

      Deficit – $51.44 billion

      From the 2009-10 Budget forecast:

      Total Revenue (estimate) – $290.612 billion
      Total Expenditure (estimate) – $338.213 billion

      From the 2009-10 Final Budget Outcome:

      Total Revenue – $292.767 billion ( +$2.15 billion)
      Total Expenditure – $339.239 billion ( +$1.02 billion)

      Deficit – $46.472 billion

      From the 2010-11 Budget forecast:

      Total Revenue (estimate) – $321.822 billion
      Total Expenditure (estimate) – $354.644 billion

      From the 2010-11 Final Budget Outcome:

      Total Revenue – $309.89 billion ( -$11.93 billion)
      Total Expenditure – $356.10 billion ( +$1.45 billion)

      Deficit – $50.5 billion

      From the 2011-12 Budget forecast:

      Total Revenue (estimate) – $349.961 billion
      Total Expenditure (estimate) – $365.817 billion

      From the 2011-12 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (November updated estimate):

      Total Revenue – $344.11 billion ( -$5.85 billion)
      Total Expenditure – $371.747 billion ( +$5.93 billion)

      Deficit – $43.38 billion

      Oh yes.

      By the way.

      We will not bother to mention the tens of billions in spending on such things as the NBN, and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, that are not included in the budget.

      Because they are hidden Off Balance Sheet
      http://barnabyisright.com/

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    The site is about to go off for maintenance. 🙂

    Apologies.

    Jo

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      MadJak

      Good on her for pulling out. That tactic is simply naive, ignorant and utterly stupid on heartlands part.

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      Sonny

      I have to agree. Heartland have stuffed up here. No excuse.

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      Bob Massey

      Janama, totally agree this is a very very reprehensible act by Heartland. I have lost a lot of respect for the organisation.

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    pat

    9 May: Andrew Bolt: On being abused by Clive Hamilton, Professor of Public Ethics
    Former Greens candidate Professor Clive Hamilton is furious:
    Who would have thought the Melbourne Theatre Company would get into bed with Andrew Bolt?…
    Yet in response to the MTC staging a play with the sceptic as a hero, Hamilton lets fly with a truly extraordinary stream of abuse:
    …discredited … rat-bags … denier .. conspiracy theorists … fossil-fuel industry hatchet men … cyber-bullies … shit-spreaders … shock jocks … bullshit … insidious … grubbier … distortion … cowardly … artistic wanking … poison … slippery falsehoods … travesty.
    Wow. You’d laugh at the hypocrisy – this very epitome of the rabid shock-jockery Hamilton imagines in his foes – if Hamilton didn’t also stoop to the most vicious smearing of the playwright:
    Perhaps Richard Bean’s next project will be The Heretic 2, another “funny, provocative and heart-warming family drama” in which the maverick academic David Irving, lone defender of the truth, uncovers definitive evidence that the Holocaust never happened. Sent to Coventry by his fellow historians — a spineless lot who have for years been manipulating the evidence to protect their funding and their reputations — David is in the end vindicated; the Holocaust was a Zionist plot after all…
    http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/ormer_greens_candidate_professor_clive_hamilton_is_furious/

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    pat

    we did not vote for the UN or the Sierra Club to rule over us:

    8 May: Reuters: U.N. to rule on carbon offsets from coal plants
    Despite the dramatic cut to the plants’ potential to earn CERs, green groups believe the revisions do not go far enough and have called on the board to reject them.
    “Even if the technical shortcomings could be addressed, coal projects are clearly neither clean nor sustainable,” said Justin Guay from U.S.-based lobby group Sierra Club in a press release on Monday…
    According to the agenda of this week’s meeting the EB could also decide whether to hand CERs to a programmatic scheme that was registered in July 2009 and which seeks to replace incandescent lightbulbs with energy efficient ones in Mexican households.
    A first request for credits was last year rejected by the panel which demanded more proof showing how long the lightbulbs are switched on and more precise figures for the number of bulbs and households involved…
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/08/us-un-offsets-idUSBRE8470BB20120508

    coal is king and we need to start building more coal-fired power plants:

    8 May: Reuters: European slump leads utilities to burn more coal
    Europe’s economic slump is allowing utilities in some countries to burn increasing amounts of cheap, highly polluting coal for electricity generation and still meet legally binding targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions, Reuters research shows…
    Prices have slumped accordingly. Polluters currently pay around 7 euros ($9.13) per ton of CO2 emitted, down 60 percent from the same time last year.
    The low costs of being allowed to pump carbon into the atmosphere mean that utilities have leeway to burn more coal.
    At the same time, profits based on benchmark German prices for electricity generated by coal-fired plants have risen by around 30 percent since the beginning of the year to their highest levels since 2008 and could lead to a 13.5 percent year-on-year jump in German hard-coal power production, Reuters research shows…
    “If you have anything that’s coal-fired in your generation park at the moment – be it lignite or hard coal – you will take advantage of the high margins and burn the stuff,” a trader with a major German utility said.
    Utilities in Germany, Europe’s biggest power market and economy, have constantly increased their use of coal-fired plants since the beginning of the year.
    Between January and May, German midday hard-coal and lignite power generation rose from 53 percent to 68 percent of the nuclear and fossil power generation share, according to data from Leipzig-based European Energy Exchange (EEX).
    Britain, which has over 12 million tons of coal in inventories, is now running coal plants at capacity while carbon permits are cheap and gas is expensive, but how long this lasts will depend on the weather, according to Nigel Yaxley of the UK Coal Importers Association…
    “Demand for coal in 2010 was 51 million tons, a 5 percent increase on 2009, which was the lowest on record,” Britain’s Department of Energy and Climate Change said, adding that coal’s share in power generation had risen from 27 to 28 percent between 2009 and 2010…
    Usually there is a seasonal slump in coal generation in the spring and summer months before it picks up again in the autumn, but this pattern may not occur this year in these countries if coal keeps its edge.
    Whether it does will depend almost entirely on the degree to which China and India absorb the surplus of thermal coal supply in the global market in the second half of the year.
    But low carbon prices are also giving generators no incentive to switch to cleaner fossil fuels, such as gas.
    European officials and lawmakers are reviewing how to deal with the supply problem and prop up prices, with a possible removal of permits over the 2013-2020 period.
    Reuters data shows that carbon prices would have to rise to over 30 euros per ton in order to push utilities into switching from coal to gas…
    If the high coal margins persist, Reuters research shows that Germany could produce almost 130 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity from hard coal in 2012, up from 114.5 TWh last year.
    “Adding up 15.5 TWh burning hard coal means a raise in emissions of around 14 million tons,” said Matteo Mazzoni, an energy and carbon analyst at Nomisma Energia…
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/08/us-energy-power-co-idUSBRE8470JZ20120508

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    pat

    Australians do not vote for the EU crazies, or the Oxfam “climate change expert”!!

    8 May: Reuters: EU nations get cold feet over climate change fund
    EU nations have yet to come up with a plan on how to fill a multi-billion euro fund to help tackle climate change, even as the region’s executive body hosts talks with countries likely to bear the brunt of extreme weather…
    Hedegaard told reporters the talks in Brussels were “informally testing different ideas”.
    “We are all in agreement: no back-tracking, no less ambition. What binds us is this idea we will push for ambition.”…
    Non-governmental organization Oxfam said “intransigence” from some EU member states was putting the coalition at risk as they are arguing against firm commitments to finance after 2012.
    “At a critical moment in the fight against climate change, Europe looks to be sitting back rather than stepping up,” Lies Craeynest, Oxfam’s EU climate change expert, said…
    Some money could come from levies on shipping and aviation, although these sources are contentious…
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/07/us-eu-climate-idUSBRE8460U520120507

    LOL:

    8 May: Reuters: Club of Rome sees 2 degree Celsius rise in 40 years
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/08/us-climate-clubofrome-idUSBRE8470JE20120508

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