Monckton responds: the economics, the creatures, the acidification!

UPDATED with another reply (See below)

Across my desk came another one of Christopher Monckton’s many analytical entertaining parries, which I see SPPI has published already. Monckton and SPPI have supporting information in the documents linked from the images. – Jo

Dear Professor Bada,

You reply to my earlier email as follows (with some ad-hominem instances of the ignoratio elenchi fallacy removed):

“OK so you accept global warming but say from an economic standpoint we would destroy our societies by trying to mend our ways. What about all the other creatures on the Earth? Do they have any say in your economic based claims we should to do nothing? What about ocean acidification from increasing CO2 and its affects on photosynthetic organisms?”

Let me deal with your three points seriatim.

First, mitigation economics. You may like to look at the attached reviewed paper that was published earlier this year in the Proceedings of the World Federation of Scientists. The analysis is in line with the reviewed literature in concluding that attempted mitigation today would be 1-2 orders of magnitude costlier than adaptation the day after tomorrow. The calculation, which is simple and survived unchallenged after 90 minutes of vigorous debate at last year’s Federation meeting on planetary emergencies, at which I presented the paper, takes no account of the opportunity losses from diverting what is now $1 billion a day worldwide from where it could do some good to where it can do no good at all. Already there are more deaths among people who cannot afford to heat their homes because mad global-warming mitigation policies have doubled and tripled their electricity prices than among people damaged by global warming (which has not occurred for 17 years in any event). My calculations, for the first time, combined the IPCC’s principal climate-sensitivity equations and results with the standard techniques of intertemporal investment appraisal and, for the first time, revealed just how extravagantly cost-ineffective any attempted measure to mitigate global warming must be, even if the IPCC’s mad exaggerations of climate sensitivity were correct, and even if Stern’s mad exaggerations of the cost of adapting to the IPCC’s madly-exaggerated warming were correct.

Secondly, the other creatures on the Earth.

Well, 99.9% of them had become extinct before we came along. I cannot find, anywhere in the literature, any paper asserting, still less demonstrating, that 0.7 Celsius degrees of warming over a century has been anything other than beneficial. Indeed, even the mad IPCC has had to admit not only that there is no economic case for action to mitigate global warming (you will find this revealing admission in WG3 of the 2007 report) but also that warming of a further 1.4 Celsius compared with today would, in net terms, be beneficial. I have noticed that only 1% of the Earth’s species live at the Poles, and more than 90% in tropics, from which one may perhaps legitimately infer that warmer, wetter weather is better for life on Earth than colder, drier weather. Even the polar bears are thriving: there are 7 or 8 times as many of them as there were when I was born. Let us not, therefore, be too emotional. Warmer weather is a good thing, not a bad thing: and my analysis of climate sensitivity, also reviewed and published, was one of the first to state that global warming in response to a doubling of Co2 concentration would be likely to be less than 1 Celsius degree. That was the significance of my question to you about the singularity in the Bode feedback-amplification equation and the consequent necessity of a damping term if that equation is to be wrenched from electronic circuitry, where it belongs and has a physical meaning, and forced into the climate models, where it does not belong and has no physical meaning. Any reasonable damping term would divide officially-projected climate sensitivity by at least 4, so that the warming by the time all reserves of fossil fuels are exhausted would scarcely exceed the 1.4 K that the admittedly mad IPCC regards as net-beneficial.

 

Thirdly, you raise the specter of what you bizarrely call ocean “acidification”.

The last time I looked, the oceans were pronouncedly alkaline, and even the mad IPCC says the acid-base balance has been altered by only 0.1 acid/base units in the direction of slightly reduced alkalinity. However, that estimate, like much else in the IPCC’s mad gospels, is entirely guesswork, because there is no sufficiently well-resolved global measurement program for ocean pH. However, elementary theoretical considerations would lead us to expect homoeostasis in the acid/base balance of the oceans because the buffering influence of the rock basins in which they live and move and have their being is overwhelmingly powerful. Acid/base neutrality is at a pH of 7.0. The oceans are at about 7.8-8.2 (no one knows, so that the IPCC’s alleged dealkalinization of 0.1 acid/base units is well within the measurement error, so that we cannot actually be sure that it has occurred at all; and, on the elementary ground I have described, it is unlikely to have done so). Besides, there is about 50 times as much CO2 already dissolved in the oceans than there is in the atmosphere, so that even if all of the CO2 in the atmosphere were to make its way into the oceans the pH would scarcely change even in the absence of the overwhelming buffering effect of the rocks. As for calcifying organisms, they are thriving. The calcite corals first achieved algal symbiosis and came into being 550 million years ago (you are too young to remember) during the Cambrian era, when atmospheric CO2 concentration was 25 times what it is today. The more delicate aragonite corals came into being 175 million years ago, during the Jurassic, when CO2 concentration was still 15 times today’s. “Ah,” you may say, “but it is the suddenness of the abrupt increase in CO2 concentration that the fragile corals will not be able to endure.” However, consider the great floods of the Brisbane River (eight of them from 1840-1900 and three of them since). The rainwater that pours into the ocean and meets the Great Barrier Reef is pronouncedly acid, at a pH of 5.4. Yet the corals do not curl up and die. “Ah,” you may say, “but what about the effect of sudden warming on the puir wee corals?” Well, the Great el Nino of 1997/8 gives us the answer to that one. Sudden increases in ocean temperature cause the corals to bleach. There have been two previous Great el Ninos in the past 300 years, and the corals bleached on both those occasions too. It is a natural defense mechanism against natural change. The corals continue to thrive. My brother and his three sport-mad boys dive on the reef every year and, like many others from whom I have heard, find the corals thriving except where the Crown of Thorns infestation has damaged small parts of the reef. Oh, and the Great Barrier Reef Authority, which has been moaning about the effects of rising sea temperatures on the corals, publish a dataset that shows zero increase in sea temperature in the region of the reef throughout the entire period of record. Don’t hold your breath worrying about ocean “acidification”: it can’t happen, even if all the CO2 in the air goes into the ocean.

Let me conclude by reviewing the principal scientific and economic reasons why, in my submission, we should do nothing at all about global warming.

First, one has only to take a cursory glance at the exponential decay curve of 14CO2 following the last atmospheric bomb tests in 1963, 50 years ago, to realize that very nearly all of the CO2 that we add to the atmosphere will have left it within half a century. The curve provides direct and unchallengeable empirical evidence of the rate of uptake of additional CO2 by terrestrial and oceanic sinks. I have recently taken the CDIAC’s reconstructions of anthropogenic fossil-fuel emissions since 1751 and distributed the annual residual atmospheric fractions in accordance with the bomb-test curve. The result shows that the concentration of CO2 today – in the absence of any natural contribution – would have been just 324 ppmv (not the measured 394) in 2010, compared with 278 ppmv in 1750. Allowing for land use changes and taking some account of the warming caused by our small net addition to atmospheric CO2 concentration, one might imagine that about half of the 110 ppmv increase in CO2 concentration since 1750 is anthropogenic, and not all of it, as the mad IPCC would like to profit by having us believe. The first scandal of the IPCC’s mad science, then, is its attempt to pretend that the mean residence time of CO2 that we add to the atmosphere is 50-200 years, when in fact very nearly all of it will have left the atmosphere after 50 years. The implications of this for projections of future warming are self-evident: one must halve them on this ground alone.

Secondly, the mad IPCC has flagrantly exaggerated climate sensitivity to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration, in the following respects. It has incorrectly understated the cooling influence of non-radiative transports such as evaporation, which increases three times faster with temperature than its models assume, giving us our first pointer to the fact that climate sensitivity has been very substantially exaggerated. Next, it imagines that temperature feedbacks (which, in its mad analysis, account for two-thirds of all the warming that arises from adding CO2 to the atmosphere) will triple the small direct warming from the extra CO2 itself. However, this mad exaggeration is insupportable. Absolute global temperature has fluctuated by little more than 1% either side of the long-run median throughout the past 420,000 years. What that record shows is that temperature feedbacks cannot really be net-positive at all. They are more likely to be net-negative, and that would drive climate sensitivity down below 1 Celsius degree per CO2 doubling. I have already mentioned the significance of the fact that the singularity in the feedback-amplification equation has no physical meaning in the climate. It is the wrong equation. Yet it is upon that wrong equation that the mad IPCC relies in multiplying by 3 the direct warming from CO2 which is itself already overstated because the IPCC takes insufficient account of non-radiative transports. The IPCC’s implicit evolutionary curve for the climate-sensitivity parameter is tuned to suggest that the overwhelming preponderance of the effect of feedbacks will occur in the first century or two after the warming that triggered the feedbacks. However, that is contrary to common sense: the major feedbacks take a long time to occur. The key feedback – the water vapor feedback – shows no sign of occurring at all at present: at all altitudes, and particularly at the vital 300 mB pressure altitude, water vapor has if anything declined somewhat throughout the period of record. No surprise, then, that according to the RSS satellite record there has been no global warming at all for a full 204 months – i.e., 17 years. Not one of the mad models predicted that.

Thirdly, as I have shown, there is no economic case for action even if everything I have said about the science is incorrect and everything the IPCC says about the science is correct. I do understand that – for some reason – the Party Line among the hard Left in academe is that we must shut down the West for the sake of Saving The Planet. Well, The Planet was triumphantly Saved 2000 years ago and, on the scientific and economic evidence, it does not need to be Saved again.

Monckton of Brenchley

————

Post Note: Professor Bada is a Prof of Marine Chemistry at Scripps who publishes on the origins of life and the evolution of Biospheres. He is most welcome to reply here if he would like to. – Jo

Other posts by or about Christopher Monckton

UPDATE

Christopher Monckton informs me that Prof Bada has already responded, and Monckton has responded to him. What is most striking is that Professor Bada, an eminent expert on marine chemistry at Scripps holds such a strong position on climate science, yet seemingly even resorts to ad hominem attacks to back them up (in the PDF Monckton sets him straight on the House of Lords again, did Bada really resort to such a trashy argument?). If the evidence is so strong, so overwhelming, those who believe the theory ought have no trouble sticking to the science.

From Monckton:

“Godbold and Calosi, the first of the papers you have attached, deal with the extent of ocean “acidification” only in the introduction to their paper, which – like so many on climate-related subjects – prefers to take the supposed problem as a given and then expatiate on its consequences, rather than to check whether there is a problem.

 They begin by asserting that “further increases” in Co2 concentration “(700-1000 ppm)” are “anticipated by the end of the twenty-first century”. However, analysis of Fig. 10.26 on page 803 of IPCC (2007), where the underlying data are not available but I superimposed a fine grid on each graph to reconstruct the original data, shows that 700 μatm (not “ppm”, which, by omitting the necessary reference to volume, is misleading, as well as not being a Systeme Internationale unit) is the IPCC’s central estimate of CO2 concentration by 2100, not its lower bound.

Next, the two propagandists say, “Over the past three decades, changes in [CO2] have increased global average temperatures (approx. 0.2 C decade), …”. Well, I beg leave to modify their aetiology and also their quantity. First, the aetiology. As best I can make it out on the basis of analyzing the bomb-test curve, almost 40% of the increase in CO2 over the past three decades was not attributable to Man.

Large-scale atmospheric nuclear testing ceased in 1963. The testing approximately doubled the previously-stable baseline atmospheric concentration of 14C, which rapidly reverted towards the baseline over 50 years, after which time less than 5% of the excess remained in the atmosphere. Observations of Δ14C, expressed as the remaining airborne fraction of the excess, are at Fig. 1.

Figure 1. The decay curve of atmospheric 14C following the ending of nuclear bomb tests in 1963, assembled from European records by Gösta Pettersson. 

This is just the beginning.

Read the full 11 page response in this PDF document.

10 out of 10 based on 6 ratings

395 comments to Monckton responds: the economics, the creatures, the acidification!

  • #
    The Black Adder

    Game, Set and Match once again to The Lord!

    God, I love this bloke!
    Can we make him an honorary Aussie and get him to replace that drongo Dr Karl on all the ABC’s Science Shows?

    That would be priceless!

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    • #
      scaper...

      I reckon Christopher would welcome being made an honorary Australian. He loves this place and most of the people.

      The method of the left to dismiss Monckton is to make fun of his eyes (medical malaise) but you get that from idiots!

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      • #
        AndyG55

        Hey, they want to make fun of a medical condition…….

        Why shouldn’t we may fun of their mental condition 🙂

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        • #
          Bulldust

          Now now… let’s not resort to Lew’s deplorable tactics.

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          blackadderthe4th

          @AndyG55
          November 18, 2013 at 7:07 pm

          ‘Hey, they want to make fun of a medical condition…….’
          But is he not making fun out of other peoples medical conditions? By offering them false hope? Or perhaps he is just selling snake oil?

          See from his own his own mouth, ‘We are curing people with……HIV, malaria, multiple sclerosis‘……at about 44:00….’it sounds barking mad’. yes it does, does it not?

          http://www.youtube.com/edit?video_id=n8yXZr3DDTw&o=U

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          • #

            When I’ve talked to Monckton about this, he says they are waiting results from clinical trials, and the BBC fished and edited his remark to hide that.
            ” The [BBC] creep who made the programme had visited me in Scotland and asked me, on camera, about the medical invention that cured me of 25 years’ crippling illness four years ago. I had said it showed promise against various infections, but until we had done the clinical trials that are now in preparation we were not making any claims.

            The creep said my answer was too long and complicated. He asked me simply to list the diseases the invention might be effective against. I said, “We have had some promising indications and, subject to clinicial trials, it is possible that we can cure [followed by a list of infections]”. The clip was edited dishonestly. What was broadcast was “We can cure the list of infections]”.

            In no time an Australian climate extremist at Melbourne “University” had complained to the medical regulators in the UK that I was conducting unauthorized clinical trials. The complaint failed when I pointed out that the BBC programme had evilly tampered with what I had said, the extremist had lied in correspondence and, in any event, he had no standing to interfere.”

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            • #
              Gee Aye

              As I see it, BA4s post is saying that he is making extraordinary claims without substantiating them.

              You’ve then posted an ad hom laden (did LMoB really want this made public?) post that adds no substantiation but adds plenty of victim statements (those lying evil extremist creeps made me out to look worse).

              Even if he is being made to look worse or even being a victim of a concerted attack, he still made those claims and has still not substantiated them.

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              • #
                Heywood

                Why did BA4 bring up the subject at all?

                Can you not see that BA4’s comment is the usual lazy ad hom attack on LMoB that we see all too commonly here?

                Maybe you can explain on BA4’s behalf what his mis-quoted statement has to do with the topic at hand, or are you happy to keep perpetuating the ad hom?

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              • #
                Gee Aye

                agree it is not relevent and I only responded once the owner of the blog weighed in so I guess it is not too off topic for Jo?

                Also agree that his quoting is poor but his link still contains statements that are not substantiated by Jo’s response.

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              • #
                Winston

                Selective editing of a person’s off the cuff response to a question is actually indefensible (remember ABC’s “Frontline” parody of the door slamming in the face of the interviewer?), even for someone with a somewhat ambivalent relationship with morality like you Gee.

                If Monckton has made any scientific error in anything he claims above, then if you can substantiate that, then by all means I would support you, but when an irrelevant attempt to discredit someone is used as justification for discrediting anything someone says on any other unrelated subject, I think that is beyond the pale.

                Since when did “Science” come to mean the cloak one hides behind to avoid scrutiny of one’s claims, or the shield against having to counter inconvenient questions of the certainty or validity of one’s theories?

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                Gee Aye

                Winston, if I make a claim about something, you have a right to be sceptical. If I then provide you with no information with which you could decide if the claim is valid or not, you would be right to remain sceptical. The fact that you cannot substantiate your scepticism does not make me right.

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              • #
                Winston

                That’s absolutely true, Gee, except that the onus of proof is on the alarmists, not on Monckton, since he is not advancing a theory, nor is he advocating diverting billions of dollars of the world’s economy as a result of his prognostications.

                Monckton is merely pointing out weaknesses in some of the assertions of the IPCC, the Stern review, etc have made, and how many of the assumptions and so called evidence are shaky or unsubstantiated when closer scrutiny is applied. So perhaps that scepticism you mention would be better applied across the board, n’est pas?

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                AndyG55

                Read that second paragraph from J’s post.

                It appears that you are intentionally ignoring the fact that was reported was not what was said, but a twisted version designed specifically to put LM in a bad light. Very typical of you, and of the BBC ! Slime personified.

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              • #
                gee Aye

                Winston, in this instance we are not talking about climate change. The subject raised by BA and replied to by JC is claims made by LMoB on another topic and in this instance LMoB is in the position of those you call alarmist in your analogy.

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            • #

              You can view the film clip, if you want to assess whether Monckton gets 10/10 for veracity here:
              http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8yXZr3DDTw

              Monckton says, “…and then 18 months ago I cured myself with an invention which shows much promise for curing people of everything from HIV to Malaria to Multiple Sclerosis”.
              And,
              “…this appears to have a radical capability to cure people, it certainly cured me…”

              Honestly, I have no idea why you people want to embarrass yourselves by forming associations with him.

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              • #
                Rereke Whakaaro

                Well, irrespective of the veracity, or otherwise, of a YouTube clip (which would not be admissible in a court of law), an ad hominem attack is an ad hominem attack, and has no relevance whatsoever with his opinions regarding the science.

                In fact, people tend to resort to ad hominem when they have no other argument to make. So this comment of your is, in a way, an admission from you, that you have no scientific rebuttal.

                Honestly, I have no idea why you would what to embarrass yourself with such a childish ploy.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Bet you are into homeopathy, reiki, reflexology etc etc.. 🙂

                What else have you got to occupy your time.. certainly not your unproductive hobby farm.

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              • #

                In fact, Rereke, when assessing the reliability of a source, that source’s qualifications, academic record, reputation and track record are paramount.

                Monckton is clearly trying to tell us something about his claims to having some kind of an “invention” that cures Graves disease and other ailments which is contradicted by any basic exercise in fact-checking. And this is in line with a pattern of conduct on Monckton’s part which should sound the alarm bells for anybody who is truly sceptical.

                It appears from what he writes that he doesn’t even know what “acidification” means, when any 1st-year Chemistry textbook explains it very clearly, showing Monckton’s opinion on the subject to be utterly hopeless.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                No Margot, it is YOUR understanding that UTTERLY HOPELESS..

                Not even as a basic level do you seem to understand !!

                You need to get past 1st year high school science.. really you do !!!

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                MemoryVault

                It appears from what he writes that he doesn’t even know what “acidification” means, when any 1st-year Chemistry textbook explains it very clearly

                Quote from a chemistry textbook:

                Acidification is a natural process. The term is used to describe the loss of nutrient bases (calcium, magnesium and potassium) through the process of leaching and their replacement by acidic elements (hydrogen and aluminium).

                It applies to the leaching of soils, Margot.
                And this has precisely what to do with the highly erroneous and misleading term “ocean acidification”, as applied to CO2 in seawater, and as referred to by Monckton above, Margot?

                .
                But thanks for the laugh – again.
                Good to know you haven’t lost your touch.

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                AndyG55

                So Margot, do you really think the oceans can ever become acidic?

                Really ????

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              • #

                Gosh, I’ll give that little bit of semantic acrobatics a degree of difficulty of 4.5. Sadly, however, halfway through the final double-pike, you’ve ended up flat [snip]: “Ocean acidification” is absolutely not analoguous with the leaching of base cations from soil. Ocean acidification is where the increased uptake of CO2 causes an increase in H+ ions, thus increasing acidity. There is no leaching occurring.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Saying that the ocean acidity in increasing as more than a bit like Wayne Swan saying he is planning to increase his budget surplus.

                The ocean is not acidic, and will never be acidic.

                Do……. you…….. under……stand !!!!!!

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “thus increasing acidity”

                That statement would have to be pretty close to one of the MOST MORONIC statement even you have ever made !!

                You again display, for all to see, your absolute lack of any scientific understanding.

                I suggested you re-do junior high..

                I aim far too high for you.!

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              • #
                MemoryVault

                “Ocean acidification” is absolutely not analoguous with the leaching of base cations from soil.

                Margot, you invoked the use of a “first year chemistry textbook”.
                I gave you the definition of “acidification” from a chemistry textbook.

                As can clearly be seen, even by someone with your limited capacities, in chemistry “acidification” has nothing to do with CO2 in seawater. In chemistry, the term is used to describe a process of leaching in soils, as you have now discovered.

                I’m sorry if giving you precisely what you demanded in any way upset you, Margot.
                Actually, I lied, I’m not the least bit sorry – ask me for something else. I love watching you make an idiot of yourself.

                Ocean acidification is where the increased uptake of CO2 causes an increase in H+ ions, thus increasing acidity.

                Yet another epic fail, Margot.

                There are no free H+ ions in seawater that are “increasing the acidity”.
                One cannot “increase the acidity” of a buffered alkaline solution.
                One can only decrease the alkalinity by combining some of the alkaline present, with an acid, thereby creating a salt plus pure, pH neutral water.

                The resultant mixture is less alkaline, NOT because it is now “more acid”, but because it has been diluted by the presence of pure water.

                .
                If I take a litre of water with a set alkaline value, then add a litre of pure water, the pH value of the resultant mixture will drop. But it will not be “more acidic”, it will simply be “less alkaline” because of the dilution.

                I can go on adding litres of pure water until the cows come home and the resultant mixture is only alkaline in homeopathic terms, it will STILL never become “acidic”, let alone “more acidic”.

                .
                I’m sure you’ve been told this before, Margot, but it bears repeating.
                Your knowledge of basic chemistry is truly woeful.
                Hilariously funny, but nonetheless woeful.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Careful MV, not too much at once.

                You can’t build a house on quicksand.

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              • #

                MV, your attempt at diversion by describing the technical process of soil acidification is quite pathetic.

                Ocean acidification is the process whereby H+ ion concentration is increased, thus increasing the oceans’ acidity. The increase of H+ ions is correctly described as “acidification”. This is very basic chemistry, and once again we find people on this blog who vehemently try to contradict reality.

                510

              • #
                AndyG55

                “acidification – the process of becoming acid or being converted into an acid”

                Ocean water is not and acid, and will never become an acid.

                Your moronic definition ONLY exists in the counter-science world of climate change chemistry.

                It further shows your ABJECT LACK OF ANY SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE.

                Go back and do high school science again.

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            • #
              Reinder van Til

              So sad he fell into this trap of this BBC “whorenalist”. That is the name we give here in The Netherlands and Belgium to journalists who are out to discredit persons. Let this be a lesson for every skeptic to insist on the answers given and never give another answer to “please” a journalist. If the journalist is not happy about a certain answer that is his/her problem.

              60

              • #
                AndyG55

                The far-left ABC/BBC types will ALWAYS twist whatever is said by anyone, just to push their dying agenda.

                Well guess what, guys… IT ISN’T WORKING ANY MORE !!!

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          • #
            AndyG55

            Again , the truth is very different to what you have heard from the BBC !!

            You seriously are a gullible twit, BA4.

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            • #

              Sounds like somebody has swallowed Monckton’s denials….who’s gullible now, Andy?

              57

              • #
                Heywood

                I thought we weren’t allowed to discuss Margot and swallowing??

                I see you are using the AAD tactic of carpet bombing threads with condescending and arrogant comments. You must be so proud of yourself.

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              • #
                Rereke Whakaaro

                Playing childish games is all you have left Margot?

                How pathetic that is. I thought you were better than that.

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              • #

                In my world, AAD means “Australian Antarctic Division”, another organisation full of scientists with genuine scientific credentials conducting genuine science research and publishing genuine science papers in the academic press.

                Once again, this contrasts vividly with Monckton’s story about presenting “a reviewed paper” which appears to be neither reviewed nor even a paper.

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              • #
                Heywood

                In this context, AAD means Arrogant Annoying Di#%ead and refers to one of your fellow travellers ‘Michael the Activist’ who uses the same commenting tactics as you. Comment as arrogantly as you can, as often as you can. Come to think of it, are you ‘Mrs Michael’???

                To give credit though, you at least are an arrogant tool in the current thread, and don’t limit your posts to two month old threads like Michael ‘AAD’ the Activist.

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              • #

                More splutter from Heywood. And foul-mouthed splutter at that.
                Is this your substitute for knowledge and reasoned argument?

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              • #
                Heywood

                More carpet bombing from Margot.

                I don’t get my knowledge from the loudest voice in the room, sorry.

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              • #
                PhilJourdan

                Still you, my little margie.

                10

    • #
      blackadderthe4th

      @ The Black Adder

      ‘replace that drongo Dr Karl on all the ABC’s Science Shows?’ and what is Monckton’s qualification to make qualified statements on scientific matters?

      757

      • #
        PhilJourdan

        Maybe that he has a brain and uses it?

        How many of these ‘self styled climate scientists’ have a degree in climate science?

        Science does not work based upon “argumentum ad verecundiam”.

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        • #

          Whether he has a brain or not is probably worth investigating.

          Anybody who is even vaguely sceptical can similarly investigate the assertion Monckton makes above.

          He starts of talking about the “World Federation of Scientists”. Who are they? What do they do? They are neither notable, nor respected, nor well-known. It seems to be some kind of club where various people with more-or-less crackpot ideas find an audience.,
          Next, Monckton refers to something he calls a “reviewed paper”. What’s he trying to get us believe here? Is he trying to give the misleading impression that it is “peer-reviewed”? And why is he misleadingly calling a transcript of a speech a “paper”?
          He then asserts it is in-line with “reviewed literature” – if it is, then why rely on a non-peer-reviewed non-paper? Why not refer instead to some proper economics papers written by real economists? Could it be because Monckton’s idea of “in-line” is so different from what the rest of the world means by that expression that he doesn’t dare quote any genuine scholarship for fear of being shown that none of it actually agrees with him?
          He then goes on to admit that he was the one who gave this speech. Not an economist, not an academic paper, not peer-reviewed, and “published” in the proceedings of an obscure science-club which appears to play no part in the world of science.

          The fact is, there are real economists who publish real papers in real academic journals where their work is critiqued by real peers and ultimately become genuine examples of knowledge that can be used to understand this issue. This is the kind of thing that should be used to devise public policy, not the politically-motivated tale-telling of inexperts like Monckton.

          Any sceptics here spot what a load of nonsense this piece is, or was it just me?

          741

          • #
            MemoryVault

            .
            I Love it when you get jealous, Margot.
            I can just picture you there, shaking your little fists in frustrated anger.

            .
            Tell me, do you stamp your little feet, as well?

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            • #

              You realise, MV, that diversion implies acquiescence?

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              • #
                Heywood

                You realise, Margot, that your use of unnecessarily big words makes you look like a pretentious w@nker?

                Of course you do, that’s why you use them.

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              • #
                MemoryVault

                You realise, MV, that diversion implies acquiescence?

                Diversion, Margot? Try mirth instead.

                I’ve been telling you for a week Margot, that in coming here, day after day, and repeating the same old discredited crap, you had reduced yourself to the level of a standing joke, much like Dribble bladder the 4th, and the Master Baiter. But you just go insisting on making a fool of yourself. For instance:

                A couple of days ago on a previous thread you made the completely outrageous, and totally erroneous claim that Germany had reduced its CO2 emissions. At the time I:

                1) – Corrected the error of your claims.
                2) – Posted a link to an article pointing out that Germany had,in fact, increased its CO2 emissions, which in turn contained links to the source of the official figures.
                3) – Pointed out that it was irrelevant anyway since Germany was now buying 25% of its electricity from nuclear-powered France, and coal-powered Poland.

                To a sane, normal person, that should have been an end to it. But no. Below at comment #25.3 we find you again making the same old, discredited claim about Germany having reduced its CO2 emissions.

                And you expect to be taken seriously, Margot? You expect people to actually engage in complex discourse with you?

                What a joke you are.
                Go stamp your angry, frustrated, petulant little feet elsewhere, Margot.
                This blog is (mostly) for serious discussion.

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                MV, Germany has reduced its CO2 emissions by 25%.
                Look it up.
                Deal with it.

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                Heywood
                November 19, 2013 at 12:48 pm

                You realise, Margot, that your use of unnecessarily big words makes you look like a pretentious w@nker?

                Of course you do, that’s why you use them.

                Well Heywood, we may disagree with each other about some things, but it definitely brings a warm burst of sunshine to my heart to discover that we are fully agreed about Monckton and his over-use of over-long words.

                Shall we send him a co-signed email telling him what we think of him?

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              • #
                Heywood

                No. You should print it out und shove it up your ar$se.

                Careful, you might enjoy it.

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                AndyG55

                “Germany has reduced its CO2 emissions by 25%.”

                And you watch that reverse pretty darn quickly now they are building at least TEN NEW COAL FIRED POWER STATIONS. 🙂

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                Joe V.

                Yes , rejoice in Germany reaching the nadir (or is it the pinnacle) of its Carbon production,as its just about to reindustrialise.

                30

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                Heywood
                November 20, 2013 at 3:08 pm

                No. You should print it out und shove it up your ar$se.

                Careful, you might enjoy it.

                More class from Heywood. Keep it up, there may be some lurkers here who are yet to twig to the emotional motivation of those who support the likes of Monckton.

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                Heywood

                “More class from Heywood”

                Hey, I’m not the one parading around a blog clearly not aligned with their own beliefs like an arrogant tool.

                Perhaps if you got your own blog, you can demand whatever standards you want. You won’t though, because trolling the “oppositions’s” blog is buch more titilating and exciting for the average warmist activist. You actually can’t help yourself.

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                MemoryVault

                MV, Germany has reduced its CO2 emissions by 25%.

                Margot,
                Even our own lying, deceiving, cherry-picking ABC couldn’t conceal the truth.

                Story here.

                First line under the sub-heading “Global footprint”.
                .
                Keep the laughs coming, girlie.

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              • #

                I see nothing at that story that contradicts the basic fact that Germany reduced its CO2 emissions by 25%.

                Why you persist in denying this unassailable fact is quite a mystery.

                Here is a graph of German CO2 emissions that clearly illustrates Germany’s 25% cut in emissions:
                http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/ger_reg.html

                Will MV mend the errors of his ways and stop denying this fact, I wonder?

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              PhilJourdan

              Now you have planted a picture of Varuca Salts in my head! 😉

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            So Margot, you have absolutely no scientific problem with what Monckton wrote then?

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              Was there science involved there somewhere? I see some lame economics and some blatant anti-science where he admits he doesn’t even know what acidification is.

              It would be fairly unusual if an Arts graduate with zero scientific or economic academic background, by giving talks in obscure places were to overturn the entire world’s scientific knowledge built up in this area, wouldn’t you think?

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            Ross

            Since you don’t seem to know about Google, Margot I give you hand on the World Federation of Scientists

            http://www.federationofscientists.org/WFSHist.asp

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            • #

              Apparently all the science bodies in the world are wrong, and this obscure collection of nobodies who don’t exactly have any extensive record of having published any science are right.

              Surely you know a sceptic somewhere who can explain to you what you’re doing wrong here?

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                Rereke Whakaaro

                Apparently all the science bodies in the world are wrong

                Says the spinner, implying in double-speke that they are always right.

                All of them? Not one exclusion? In every country? In every language in which science is practiced? Did you know that the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea has its own science body? Do they agree with the views of, say, the Royal Society, in London, on matters of climate change? How do you know one way or the other? Do you know, or are you merely blowing smoke, and wallowing in your own bombast?

                I worked, at one time, with scientists and engineers who started their early careers in Eastern Europe. They lived in fear of stepping outside the politically correct, demand driven, version of science required by the politburo, and promoted by people like you. That era could almost be the prototype, upon which climate science is built. And here you are, as one of its most rabid advocates.

                Are you comfortable with that thought?

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                PhilJourdan

                Could you – just once – write something that is not a juvenile rant?

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          • #
            Olaf Koenders

            Margot;

            “He starts of talking about the “World Federation of Scientists”. Who are they? What do they do? They are neither notable, nor respected, nor well-known. It seems to be some kind of club where various people with more-or-less crackpot ideas find an audience.”

            But, you were really referring to the IPCC?

            As per the article, I would consider replacing “mad IPCC” with either “greedy” or “certifiably insane”.

            Thanks Chris Monckton. The world needs many more like you.

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              The IPCC canvasses the academic output of a large number of well-respected and notable scientists who have extensive records of publishing the results of their research.

              This “World Federation of Scientists” is unknown to the scientific community at large.

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                AndyG55

                “large number of well-respected and notable scientists warmist activist organisations.. ”

                see.. easily fixed for you. 🙂

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              • #

                No doubt, Andy, you are confusing the output of WGI with the more opinion-based output of WGII, which isn’t about the science?

                …er…you *have* read AR4, right?

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                Kevin Lohse

                The IPCC was set up by the UN not to investigate the causes of global warming but to market the meme that evil man-made CO2. less than 4% of Gaia’s CO2 budget which is presumably not evil, would cause Catastrophic Climate Change. Bearing in mind that CO2 is a trace gas of less than 0.04% by volume of the earth’s atmosphere, we end up with the proposition that a homeopathic amount of a specific molecule chemically indistinguishable from naturally produced sources is responsible for all Earth’s ills. All evidence to the contrary is ignored or hidden away, and those brave people who question such an insane idea are treated in the manner reminiscent of the Medieval Church’s attempts to conceal the fact that the Earth was not at the centre of the Universe.
                Not one doom-laden prediction made by climate scientists in the 1980’s et seq has been remotely correct. Indeed, climate scientists have given up making predictions, one of the pillars of scientific practice, preferring to arm-wave about projections and computer simulations instead of taking proper account of the empirical measurements which so stubbornly refuse to conform to the CAGW theory. We are bombarded with marketing tools such as Mann’s ridiculous hockey stick and Trenberth’s mad, “The Oceans Ate The Heat”, thesis, and every natural calamity is seized upon by CAGW acolytes with the fervour of a hell-fire preacher as a signal of God’s Gaia’s anger with humanity.

                Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. CAGW adherents are now in this category.

                As the wheels fall off the CAGW scam wagon, people in high places reveal the truth. The whole medicine show has been nothing but part of a plan to centralise power to create world government status for the UN, and to redistribute wealth from developed countries to undeveloped countries, all under a Socialist umbrella. In truth, the developing world is showing itself quite capable of improving it’s lot without such a bureaucratic leviathan, and the developed world would best be supporting economic development to the highest common factor rather than levelling down to the lowest common denominator in the same old socialist fashion. The G 88 see the use of the ever-more-doubtful CAGW scam as a neo-colonialist attempt to restrict them from improving the lives of billions of the World’s poorest. As most of these people are yellow and brown-skinned, elements of possible racism have to be taken into consideration.

                Mr. Abbott has had the political will to break out of the “CONsensus”, for which Australians should be glad. Now Japan has followed Australia’s example, and other nations are following their lead. Unfortunately my own UK is still spellbound by the medicine show, and it will take many more unnecessary deaths from Winter cold before my politicians come to their senses.

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                Rereke Whakaaro

                This “World Federation of Scientists” is unknown to the scientific community at large.

                With the exception of countries formally part of the United States of Soviet Russia, and to some extent the Peoples Republic of China, both of which formed science into “Institutes” with very clear mandated guidelines. Not dissimilar to the guidelines issued by the IPCC.

                So we have also established that your knowledge of science history is somewhat on a par with your knowledge of chemistry.

                Lets try plant biology: Question, from what sources (plural) do green plants derive their energy? Because this is such a simple question, you get bonus marks for getting them all.

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            “Margot” seems full of spite and fury. Yet it is by reason, and not by hate, that science is done. She begins a
            characteristically hate-filled ad-hominem rant by saying that whether I have a brain or not is “probably worth investigating”. Mere yah-boo. Ad-hom 1, science 0.

            Next, “Margot” asks about the World Federation of Scientists. “Who are they?”, she demands, testily. “What do they do? They are neither notable [ad-hom 2, science 0] nor respected [ad-hom 3, science 0] nor well-known” [ad-hom 4, science 0].

            Yet “Margot” knows all about the WFS. She continues that they seem to be “some kind of club where various people with more or less crackpot ideas [ad-hom 5, science 0] find an audience.”

            Let me set “Margot” straight. The World Federation of Scientists is – well, it’s a world federation of scientists. It was founded half a century ago by Professor Antonino Zichichi, Italy’s most celebrated scientist since Galilei. Zichichi isolated a species of anti-matter 40 years before the Large Billion Collapser did. He founded the WFS together with many other eminent physicists, including Dirac, Kapitza, Blackett, Wigner, etc., etc. The Federation was founded because these great men were horrified that the work they had done to advance physics into the age of relativity had been appallingly abused to cause the mass murder of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They wanted to restore morality to science.

            Next, “Margot” whines (does she do anything other than whine?) that one of my reviewed papers was not reviewed [ad-hom 6, science 0]. Well, it was. One cannot give a paper to the Federation unless it has been read by scientists in relevant fields and, importantly, on both sides of the debate. No pal review at the Federation. My paper on climate economics (if that was the one “Margot” was wailing about) was presented at some 30 academic venues worldwide before it reached the Federation. For instance, I had given an invited presentation at the Fifth Los Alamos Climate Conference in Santa Fe, NM, in 2011. I had also presented it at the Charles University Business School, Prague (where I had also had the honor of discussing it with President Vaclav Klaus, a professor of economics); at a climate conference at Downing College, Cambridge; at Louisiana State University (despite a vicious campaign by terrified extremists to try to prevent me from being allowed to lecture on campus); etc., etc. Only then could the paper be elevated to the Federation, where I presented it in front of at least one head of state, several ambassadors, senators, parliamentarians (including two other Peers) – oh, and 200 of the world’s leading scientists in relevant fields. I had to face 90 minutes of questions; I was required to come back the following day having recalculated the principal case study at a zero intergenerational discount rate; I was then told to summarize the results of that case study, with every equation made explicit and every source stated, on a single page (they eventually allowed me to put the calculations on one side of the page and the long list of references on the other); and finally I had to go through that summary line by line, equation by equation, term by term with the Federation’s vice-president, an eminent physicist entirely on the other side of the debate. Only when he had accepted that I had made my case did he allow the paper to be published. The review process took three years, in all – a great deal more rigorous than most systems of peer review.

            From this account, it is possible to discern that “Margot” had not checked any facts before asserting that my paper was “a transcript of a speech”. On the contrary, my presentation was a summary of my paper. Ad-hom 8, science 0.

            Next, quivering with venom, “Margot” asks why, if my paper were “in line with reviewed literature”, I relied on “a non-peer-reviewed paper”. Ad-hom 9, science 0. The paper was indeed reviewed, and it was indeed in line with the near-unaminous opinion of economists, and of the IPCC itself (2007, WG3), that it is costlier to mitigate global warming today than to adapt to it the day after tomorrow. However, the Federation would not have allowed a mere me-too paper, as the extremist journals do: my paper had to convey new methods and results. For the first time, it combined the standard climate-sensitivity equations and results of the IPCC and the models with the techniques of intergenerational investment appraisal to show exactly why it is not cost-effective to try to mitigate global warming by any method.

            Next, “Margot”, on no evidence whatsoever, says I did not “dare quote any genuine scholarship for fear of being shown that none of it actually agrees” with me. Ad-hom 9, science 0. In fact, the paper had several pages of references to other papers, results, and data in the field of mitigation economics, on which I have lectured worldwide at faculty as well as undergraduate level.

            “Margot” then has another bash at the WFS, describing it as “an obscure science club” [ad-hom 10, science 0], and putting the word “published” in inverted commas as though the Federation’s annual proceedings were not a respected journal of great standing [ad-hom 11, science 0]. Then she says the WFS “plays no part in the world of science” [ad-hom 12, science 0]. Well, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation didn’t think that. They sent the head of their malaria eradication program to give a paper at the annual meeting. Presentations were given by the world’s leading scientists in many fields, specifically including climate science (which has a thriving permanent monitoring panel) and mitigation economics. The Federation’s president, after hearing my paper, asked me to establish a new permanent monitoring panel on mitigation economics, but I had to decline his generous invitation.

            Next, “Margot”, by now throwing all of her toys out of the pram and screeching at the top of her voice, goes on (and on) that “there are real economists” [ad-hom 13, science 0] who publish real papers [ad-hom 14, science 0], where their work is critiqued by real peers [ad-hom 15, science 0, and there were two real peers as well as me at the meeting, and one of them was the holder of a first-class honours degree in economics from Oxford, and was a former Chancellor of the Exchequer to boot].

            “Margot” whines that my paper – which she shows not the slightest sign of having read, still less understood – was “politically-motivated tale-telling” [ad-hom 16, science 0], and described me as “inexpert” [ad-hom 17, science 0].

            Finally, she describes the head posting as “a load of nonsense” [ad-hom 18, science 0].

            One hopes “Margot” is paid well by one of the many hard-Left quangoes that spend fortunes trying to trash the reputations of climate sceptics who have proven to be effective. Given that “Margot” was unable or unwilling to challenge a single scientific or economic point in my paper, her futile and petulant rant can only have been intended as yet another attempt to damage my reputation in the hope that that would silence me.

            She should know this. The only reason why I still persist in going around the world warning people about the threat to civilization posed by the abandonment of reason in science is that the hard Left – for it is they, almost exclusively – have spent so much time and money, and deployed so many useful idiots like “Margot”, in a costly and abjectly-failed attempt to silence me and stifle the truth.

            Al-Haytham, the founder of the scientific method, said the road to the truth was long and hard, but that was the road we must follow. That is the road I must follow, until peculating liars like Margot, who is either very stupid or very greedy or probably both, have been silenced forever. They have the money, the power and the glory, but we have the truth, and the truth will be heard, whether “Margot” likes it or not.

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              Truthseeker

              What an excellent comment by the good Lord!

              Margot is a zealot so no rational argument, regardless of the quality of the reasoning or the veracity of the data, will change her opinion on anything. As the good Lord already knows, when you are arguing with a zealot the arguments you are making are for the audience. The zealots are beyond reason and immune to logic.

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                scaper...

                Most probably is also concerned about dihydrogen monoxide pollution too. A waste of time engaging with insignificant warmists.

                I can not recall an occasion that people protested to pay a tax in Australia.

                Truly bizarre!

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              Vince Whirlwind

              So, this “paper” of yours (date, place of publication unknown – vague reference to “Proceedings of WFS” returns zero results in PLOS, and zero results everywhere else) was “read by scientists”, huh?

              And *that’s your excuse for pretending it was “reviewed”!

              What a joke.

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        Richard

        @blackadderthe4th

        The scientific method requires us to ignore persons and pay attention to the content of what they are saying instead. The question of what Monckton’s qualifications are is irrelevant in science. All that matters from a scientific standpoint is the veracity.

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        • #
          blackadderthe4th

          @Richard

          ‘and pay attention to the content of what they are saying instead’ and ‘All that matters from a scientific standpoint is the veracity’:-

          So is co2 important or not?

          ‘The Monckton who argues co2 is immensely important argues it out with the Monckton who claims it is negligible let me take the side of Mr Monckton, by which I mean this one, according to the biological text books he is absolutely right all plant life depends on co2….’Potholer54

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv3-de8ArCk

          The amount of co2 in the atmosphere is so small, it can’t have any effect on the climate say anti-AGW observers, but they also say all life depends on it! Because it is ‘plant food’, so what is the correct answer? You can’t have it both ways? It’s too small to have any effect on the climate, but it maintains all life on Earth! That’s the oxymoron you have to come to terms with!

          It’s only an oxymoron for the confused. That CO2 is a tiny part of the atmosphere (but almost no one in the public realizes it) is useful to show how unscientific and propaganda-like the PR has been. That we are carbon life forms that depend on CO2, and CO2 is the only “pollution” deliberately pumped into greenhouses to feed crops are simple facts. That you still follow potholer, even knowing he deceptively cherrypicks lines and hides information from his followers (eg See Bob Carter thread) says a lot about you. My commiserations. _ Jo

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          • #
            Jon

            In Norway I have had the “fortune” for more than 15 years to discuss and critic the UNFCCC scientific claims of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming and the claims from IPCC to support the UNFCCC dogma.
            And “interests”, hard left or radical left, always show up when there is a scientific debate that show weakness or does not support the UNFCCC claims. Even when they do not have scientific arguments they will debate with the object to distract, derail or stop the scientific critique of UNFCCC claims.
            Don’t use your energy on them for that is their object and that will distract, derail or stop the scientific debate.

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        • #

          So, Richard, how much “veracity” in Monckton’s claim in his first paragraph that this a “reviewed paper”?

          Hmmmm…? 10/10 for veracity, or something rather less?

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            Rereke Whakaaro

            Margot,

            How do you define, “reviewed”? Lots of people, across multiple disciplines, have read it and many have commented. Does that not constitute a review?

            Or does it only count if persons with a vested interested in the subject matter do a review? And how is any pre-disposition bias managed in such a review involving vested interests? Does a multi-disciplinary review, by independent experts in their own fields, not count equally, if not more so?

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        • #
          Richard the Great

          Indeed, namesake, quite so: it is what he says that is important not who he is nor what qualifications he holds. Unfortunately for his critics it’s like Perth Glory taking on Manchester United. Are they going to score a brilliant upset? Naah- they are simply not in his league.

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        Heywood

        BlackDribblerThe4th,

        If you are going to use the usual pathetic appeal to authority argument, what is Dr Karl’s qualification to make qualified statements on climate matters?

        What are yours?

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          blackadderthe4th

          @Heywood
          November 19, 2013 at 6:41 am

          ‘What are yours?’ and I say, what are yours to defend your position that AGW is not happening?

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            Heywood

            So you answer my question by repeating it back to me. Typical kindergarten response.

            I’ll just chalk up your initial comment to typical leftard logical fallacy then.

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            MemoryVault

            what are yours to defend your position that AGW is not happening?

            I can read, it is sufficient.
            So, Dribblebladder, give me something to read.
            If CAGW is happening where is the heat (energy) it is generating?

            It’s not in the atmosphere – atmospheric temps haven’t gone for a decade and a half.
            It’s not in the tropical tropospheric hotspot – there isn’t one.
            It’s not in the oceans at the surface – they too are now stable, or cooling.
            It’s not in the ocean deeps – not unless you can explain how it got there, undetected.

            So that brings up back to the beginning.
            If there is no “missing heat”, how come you continue to believe in CAGW?
            (And stop dropping the “C” – catastrophic is part of the claim).

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              blackadderthe4th

              ‘It’s not in the ocean deeps – not unless you can explain how it got there, undetected.’

              Trenberth’s missing heat!

              ‘Warming is going on the human fingerprint is clear in the data, but there are other things that are also in the game, the top figure there which has the global temperature the one below is the El Nino influence. If you put a huge amount of hot water in the middle of the Pacific, the atmosphere can’t heat it up very easily. If you put a huge amount of cold water in the Pacific the atmosphere can heat it up easily and so whether the heat is going mostly into the atmosphere or the ocean for the short term is influenced by El Nino and La Nina and in the last decade much of the heat has been going into the ocean and less into the atmosphere. This is something that wobbles…ultimately the ocean and the atmosphere have to be coupled and it is simply how must warming is already been realised in the atmosphere…the long term picture yes heat is still accumulating in the earth’s system with high confidence, no there hasn’t been a stop in global warming…where did it go and there is finally the ability to make statements about heat going into the deep ocean, the Argo floats and other advances have come just in time…I think this is fair to say that this is just enough to see what is going on…a lot of heat has got into the ocean and it’s gotten pretty far down…that’s really deep!’ R Alley.

              http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbQkFXYGmos

              And

              http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/pacific-ocean-warming-15-times-faster-than-ever-before-8916297.html

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                Mike Jowsey

                blackadderthe4th:
                Firstly you do not explain (nor do your links) how the missing heat got there, which was the question posed to you by MemoryVault.

                The youtube clip to which you link is horrible. Reminds me of an evangelist at full throttle. Lots of arm waving and little of substance.

                The newspaper article exclaims in the headline that the Pacific is warming 15 times faster than ever before! OMG – if that doesn’t sell the paper, nothing will. Again, little of substance in the article. It doesn’t even say that the “study” has been peer-reviewed or published, and it neglects to list the authors of the “study”.

                The study used indirect, “proxy” temperature readings estimated from the chemical makeup of the shells of tiny marine creatures which had been washed from the middle depths of the Pacific into seabed sediments that had built up off Indonesia.

                What is the resolution of this 10000 years of proxy from rotten shells? I bet it is about 100 years at best. Therefore a comparison with a 60-year timeframe is meaningless. Absolute rubbish to shout from the rooftops that the warming is 15 times greater than ever before. Voodoo science, as Pachauri would say.

                Although global surface temperatures from land-based stations show that the world is warmer now than for thousands of years

                Again, absolute rubbish and unscientific rhetoric. Which confirms my assessment above.

                We’re experimenting by putting all this heat in the ocean without quite knowing how it’s going to come back out and affect the climate.

                This is the meme to push with all the might of an enormous gravy train. It means that we don’t have to rule out CAGW after 15 years of stasis – we now maybe have to wait a couple hundred years before the bad ol’ Pacific will suddenly release all that heat with a vengeance. Then we will all be DOOMED!!! Meanwhile, for the next couple hundred years the boondoggle continues.

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                bobl

                Thats game, set and match for CAGW then, if the energy is going into the ocean then we will never see more than a fraction of a degree rise. After all once in the ocean it is thermalised, and given the stupendous mass involved and the heat capacity of water, that energy can NEVER be returned to the atmosphere except in microscopic quantaties. A 0.001 degree rise in water temp, can simply never be realised as 1, 2, 3 degrees of atmospheric warming, at best it can add 0.001 degrees to it. Such is the way of entropy.

                Thanks for calling off the scare BA.

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                blackadderthe4th

                @bobl
                November 20, 2013

                ‘that energy can NEVER be returned to the atmosphere except in microscopic quantaties’ so why does the ENSO have such an effect on the world’s temperature! Is it because you are wrong?

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                MemoryVault

                ‘that energy can NEVER be returned to the atmosphere except in microscopic quantaties’ so why does the ENSO have such an effect on the world’s temperature! Is it because you are wrong?

                You really don’t have a clue, do you, Dribble bladder?
                Have you even heard of the word “entropy”?
                Let’s see if I can explain it in a way even a moron could understand.

                You are watching TV Dribble bladder.
                It’s a cold night so you decide to put the heater on.
                Pretty soon you are warm.
                The room is warm.
                Your chair is warm.
                The coffee table is warm.
                Even the walls are warm.
                Eventually you turn the heater off.

                .
                Now it’s late, you are tired and feeling sleepy.
                Before you go to bed though, you should gather up all that warm, and put it back in the heater.
                That way you can use it again tomorrow night.
                Waste not, want not.

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        Brett

        and what is Monckton’s qualification to make qualified statements on scientific matters?

        I think the same was asked of Alfred Wegener. They started accepting his work 20-30 years after his death. I’m sure there are a lot of other examples too.

        History tends to only remember those who actually advance science.
        The trough dwellers will likely be forgotten fairly quickly.

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        Rereke Whakaaro

        blackadderthe4th:

        What was Issac Newtons qualifications as a Physist?

        What qualifications did Albert Einstein hold?

        If you don’t know, go and look it up. And then come back and tell us why a piece of paper is so important.

        It is the ability to think laterally and abstractly that is important, something that you have yet to demonstrate.

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          AndyG55

          “the ability to think”

          BA4 has not demonstrated this at all, ever. Random prattle at best.

          I suspect his latest round of nonsense is coming from a CD they gave him at his little 6 day course. 🙂

          Whoops, no.., That was Michael.. sameo, sameo….

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          blackadderthe4th

          ‘What was Issac Newtons qualifications as a Physist?’ well he more or less invented the science, so I think he was well qualified!

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            Rereke Whakaaro

            BA4

            … he more or less invented the science, so I think he was well qualified!

            Ah, so, in Newton’s case, you make an assessment on the quality of his work? How interesting?

            But Isacc Newton had no official qualifications! Apart from having completed an apprenticeship as an Alchemist.

            In todays society, people like you, and Margot, and Rajendra Pachuri, would normally just dismiss his work out of hand, and some would even call it “voodoo science”.

            Because today, as far as people like you and Margot are concerned, the prestige of the title a person holds, is all that is important. No considerations are made in regard to the scientific validity (or otherwise) of their work. I can only presume that is because you have no scientific knowledge of your own, on which to make a qualitative assessment, except when confronted by the singularity of my original question.

            So if your opinions are base upon the concept that, “this person has an impressive title, or they work in this prestigious organisation, so they must know what they are talking about”, what you are really stating is a belief system, rather than science.

            Unfortunately, this is a science blog, so your belief is not compatible here, and although religion and science are not incompatible, it is often best to keep them separated when discussing one or the other.

            You would be better off at one of the Gaia-worshiping sites, or the misnamed Skeptical Science site, it you want to talk belief systems rather than demonstrable fact, and observable phenomena.

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            • #
              Jon

              Or in other words their political based dogma can only survive critique from their own policy based science?
              The CAGW theory is so scientific weak that it can’t take scientific critique. The more ad hom the weaker scientific is the dogma?

              10

    • #
      cohenite

      That’s a very good idea; LM could replace both Karl and Robin Williams; he’s worth more than the pair of them put together anyway.

      201

    • #

      It would be an honour to be an honorary Australian. Yours is a great nation. My brother and his family have already had the sense to move to Sydney, where they are part of the fashionable crowd at Bondi Beach and my brother referees rugby matches. I think I should like to moor my diamond-encrusted yacht by the Opera House.

      42

  • #
    Niff

    As always, erudite, apposite and accurate. I think the main issue is that his opposition cannot comprehend the detailed logic and science he explains to them.

    625

    • #
      James (Aus.)

      Too true, Niff.

      Many of the cult took up soft sciences to escape maths; now when they find people like Monckton or McIntyre running rings around them using mathematical analysis, their envy and ire is manifest in all sorts of very unpleasant ways.

      413

  • #
    David

    Can’t see Lord M as a tennis player. In his younger days probably a good full back in a Union team and with his command of the language he could have persuaded the opposition to step aside while he ambled down to the try.

    I don’t understand a lot of the more scientific comments on this site but I know when I’m being fed crap and man made gerbil worming is crap and I for one have no wish to move back to the dark ages in my mode of living.

    : )

    602

    • #
      AndyG55

      “I for one have no wish to move back to the dark ages in my mode of living.”

      And that is what will always be the downfall of the global warming agenda.

      The global warming agenda is inimically linked to regressive aspects of society.. but most people with any common sense want PROGRESS.. and NOT to return to living in caves with zero usable electricity.

      Gees, even the pro-CAGW inner-city latte sippers would be LOST without the MODERN benefits of reliable stable electricity.. most of them are just TOO THICK to realise it.

      Imagine if they went to their “fav café” and were told, “sorry, no latte today, there’s no wing and its cloudy”

      Maybe we should give them (and only them) exactly what the want….. unreliable, inconsistent electricity.. .. see how they cope for just 2-3 hours 🙂

      486

      • #
        AndyG55

        ohh.. .. 2nd last para…. should read “no wind” 🙁

        no wing is what birds have after flying through a turbine or solar energy field. 🙁

        365

      • #
        Who Else

        and I have found it more than passing strange that those pushing those “regressive aspects of society” call themselves progressives. But then, ask them what they think and they will invariably start their answer with “I believe” or “I feel”.

        Yes, very strange.

        292

        • #
          James

          And I have found it stranger still that the more progressive they profess to be the more resistant to change they are – who else thinks that human action can control the climate so as to maintain a particular comfort zone. When the ability of a species to adapt is lost it is referred to as extinction.

          81

    • #
      Greg S

      I for one have no wish to move back to the dark ages in my mode of living.

      Agree entirely, my ancestors have spent the past two million years or so becoming alpha species on this planet and I have no desire to retreat to a cold, dark, damp cave to gnaw on stringy, raw vegetables and hide from everything else with teeth and claws!

      321

    • #

      Actually I were on the wing, because in the Neoproterozoic, when I were a lad, I were that tiny I had to be careful when I stepped off the kerb in case my parachute didn’t open. But I were as quick as sh*t off a shiny shovel an’ the lumbering forwards on t’other side didn’t see me comin’ till I’d gone. An’ a try were wuth three points in them days, an’ two for a conversion. An’ the beer were sevenpence a half, an’ that were old pence an’ all, not like nowadays (cont’d. p. 94)

      195

      • #

        Who’s driving this drivel?

        524

        • #
          AndyG55

          You seem to be doing all of the drivelling.. and dribbling.

          133

          • #
            Heywood

            …and sw . Whoops. Nearly forgot.

            I love it when warmist watermelons sook about blog content but don’t have the stones to start their own.

            121

            • #
              AndyG55

              Margot would get ZERO visitors after the first couple of days..

              They would leave.. laughing at her pointlessness.

              93

              • #
                Heywood

                A bit like ‘Maxine’ and his/her/it’s blog?

                A whole 9 visitors, and one of them was TonyfromOz who tore him a new one…

                lol.

                Whatever happened to Maxine anyway? Seems to have gone extremely quiet since the Libs got in. Probably still curled up in the foetal position gently sobbing.

                121

      • #
        RoHa

        “An’ a try were wuth three points in them days, an’ two for a conversion. An’ the beer were sevenpence a half, an’ that were old pence an’ all, not like nowadays”

        But you try tellin’ that to t’ young people of today. They won’t believe you.

        60

  • #
    Phillip Bratby

    I can’t wait for Professor Bada’s response. This should be fun.

    233

  • #
    King Geo

    I disagree David – I have no doubt Lord M is a very good tennis player serving many aces and having no trouble hitting winners off the Warmist’s spin shots. The “Alarmist Warmist Brigade” are making a last ditch stand promoting their failed “Warmist Doctrine” – to coincide with COP19 in Warsaw – this all despite Global Temp data clearly showing “no discernable Global Warming” for the past 15 years. Their pathetic protesting is well illustrated in Sundays The Guardian article by Oliver Milman entitled “Climate Rallies held across Australia” – in this article the usual suspects promoting the deceit are highlighted – Getup, Greens, ALP, Flannery & Greenpeace – that is those not in detention in Russia. Australians have largely dismissed the “Warmists” hysterical ravings as shown by the landslide margin to the Coalition in the recent 2013 Australian Federal Election [35 Seat majority in the House of Reps – soon to become 37 Seats – thank you Kevin].

    364

  • #
    AndyG55

    I laugh at the goons that say a delPh of .1 is a 30% change in the concentration of H+..

    without mentioning that a further 1300% change is required to even neutralise to a pH of 7

    (ps, I think that’s about right, but that wine was rather nice) 🙂

    306

    • #
      Scott

      yep people forget that PH is a log scale

      141

      • #
        Graeme No.3

        The warmists don’t forget pH is a log scale, they just don’t know what a log scale is.

        Look at Michael the Realist (really?) thinking “the oceans have got 30% more acidic since the Industrial Revolution”.

        1. No way of knowing what the pH was in the past (just use a model)
        2. No measurements showing a 30% drop (which means from 8.0 to 7.9)
        3. Actual drop in paper quoted was .05 from 8.09 to 8.04 (off top of head) but no way you could claim 30%)
        3. No admission that this was only one check
        4. Measurement was on water in a bay
        5. Ocean measurements show pH ranges from 7.8 to 8.2
        6. Doesn’t connect that more warming leads to lower CO2 solubility
        7. Sure knows nothing about buffering
        8. Seems to think conversion from gas to bicarbonate (and to carbonate) is independent of pH.

        General behaviour similar to those very old clockwork record players..Wind him up and he repeats a short recorded phrase.

        90

  • #
    handjive

    Quote Professor Bada: What about all the other creatures on the Earth?

    To support Monckton of Brenchley’s second point I would offer this example to Prof. Bada.

    October 28, 2013Scientists find ‘lost world’ in north Qld
    “Australian scientists have found what they’re calling a ‘lost world’ in a rainforest in far north Queensland.
    They had to helicopter in to a plateau that’s impossible to reach on foot, and in just four days exploring only a tenth of the plateau, they found three new species.

    And what this shows is that Cape Melville’s just been sitting there doing its own thing just for millions of years, completely isolated from other upland rainforest areas.
    So these creatures have been isolated up on the, in the rainforest and just gradually diverged to become different things.”
    .
    So, how many changes of climate and variations in carbon(sic) levels did they survive and what proof does Bada have they won’t survive this current dynamic & constantly changing climate?

    342

    • #
      Safetyguy66

      Basically if their(the creatures) situation looks good then they are unaffected by CO2 If they are on the verge of extinction then they are affected by CO2.

      102

    • #
      AndyG55

      “What about all the other creatures on the Earth? ”

      Every other creature on Earth is bound to the biosphere (as are we)..

      And the biosphere is doing just fine.. thanks to the extra CO2 that WE are partly responsible for. !

      The biosphere THANKS us !!

      And the sooner these irresponsible twerps realise that, the better.

      246

    • #
      Manfred

      ‘No wing’ that species are being constantly discovered all over the planet, all the time, is another one of those ‘inconvenient facts’. Another is the failing prophecies of the cult of global warming catastrophism:

      The Guardian (2004) true to form publicise an article published in Nature:

      An Unnatural Disaster: Global Warming to Kill Off 1 Million Species

      Scientists Shocked by Results of Research; 1 in 10 animals and plants extinct by 2050.

      Climate change over the next 50 years is expected to drive a quarter of land animals and plants into extinction, according to the first comprehensive study into the effect of higher temperatures on the natural world.

      ‘New analyses suggest that 15–37% of a sample of 1,103 land plants and animals would eventually become extinct as a result of climate changes expected by 2050’.

      The proposed solution:
      ‘A rapid shift to technologies that do not produce greenhouse gases, combined with carbon sequestration, could save 15–20% of species from extinction’.

      115

      • #
        Manfred

        Four downward thumbs for what? For highlighting that the socialist environ-mental green slime of the Grauniad peddled their catastrophe agenda at a time when there hadn’t been any statistically significant global warming for eight years and since the nonsensical “research” prophecy of species extinction, there have been a further nine years devoid of statistically significant global warming.

        I’d say they had far more of a problem than they bargained for, in addition to the irrefutable and inconvenient loss of street cred.

        141

      • #
        Just Thinkin'

        Would…..could……should…..suggests….might?
        Scientific facts. Can’t see any here.

        10

    • #
      AndyG55

      Bada says, “What about all the other creatures on the Earth? ”

      Yet makes no mention of the devastation caused to avian life by wind turbines and solar energy heat fields..

      So yes, Bada, what about the other creatures on Earth ?? !!!!

      Let’s get rid of these environmental catastrophies that are the poster child of the ignorant pseudo-green religion. And let’s continue to green the planet by increasing the global CO2 level. Let the biosphere thrive, and all the rest of nature thrive with it, instead of trying to hold it back.

      206

  • #
    llew Jones

    I’ve noticed recently, in my reading, the expression “third rate scientists” is being applied, by more than a handful of knowledgeable skeptics, to the infamous 97 percenters.

    Monckton reminds us that climate science, IPCC style, is itself but a third rate science.

    435

    • #
      Kevin Lohse

      As Minnie the Minx, aka Donna Laframboise, repeatedly points out, the IPCC was set up to promote the theory of AGW, not to investigate it. I would challenge whether much of the output of the UN’s disaster-marketing organisation has any scientific value at all.

      562

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      I agree. More and more experts are looking at climate science and the “peer reviewed” papers and are less than impressed.

      70

  • #
    Fred Furkenburger

    Perhaps Lord Monckton is a good tennis player as I would consider that this response to Professor Bada pretty much brings us to game, set and match. I would suspect that Professor Bada would have great difficulty returning serve on the science in this response!

    265

  • #
    Albert

    The ”tornado” in Sydney today was more likely a microburst. It had all the signs of a microburst, remove roofs, snap trees and high winds
    The alarmists are claiming we now have tornados as in the US, we don’t
    Microbursts are known in aviation and many people had perished until we understood how they worked

    352

    • #
      AndyG55

      We also have very regular waterspouts.. ie mini-tornados over water.

      They are NATURAL OCCURANCE !!

      Always have been.. ALWAYS will be.

      287

      • #
        Albert

        Andy, I know about water spouts and willy willys, I didn’t see any description of a water spout, the descriptions were like a microburst, ferocious and quick, I’ve even seen them in Brisbane and incorrectly named as a tornado
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkavH9aZue8

        40

      • #
        David

        ..and when you are under sail near where one decides to eventuate they are very unsettling. well actually they are very frightening up close.

        40

      • #
        Albert

        re: Hornsby storm, the first report claimed ”the storm” did the damage with the high winds. My search on the BOM history showed strong ocean breezes but no storm, so it may have been a water spout with no evidence of where it crossed the coast.
        A microburst is always under a storm whereas a waterspout travels alone.
        The problem with early reporting of meteorological events is that ”witnesses” are not properly trained to make an accurate assessment. If there was a storm, it was probably a microburst and if there was no storm it was probably a waterspout on the coast, they require a flat ocean to develop speed

        40

    • #
      Heywood

      Gee Albert,

      You must have upset one of the resident warmies with your little factoid. They throw red thumbs around when you get closer to the truth.

      255

      • #
        Greg S

        Correct Heywood, as the pilots of WWII used to say the flack is always thickest over the target.

        221

      • #
        Alan Bates

        Sorry. Entered thumbs down by mistake. Mea Culpa.

        72

      • #
        Albert

        Microbursts have claimed many lives in aviation. We now know the danger and some modern airports give a ”microburst warning” to pilots

        The Sydney event was too fast and powerful for me to suspect it was a water spout

        50

    • #
      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Yep, very quiet. Nobody is talking about it. Perhaps it is a secret? Perhaps they don’t want to spoil the party in Warsaw?

        171

        • #
          Manfred

          Likely there is quiet because were they not, the usual attributions would be easy fodder for rebuttal. Furthermore, they’d be guilty of habituating the sheeple.

          No, they do try to pick their moments these days.

          101

  • #
    Yonniestone

    HaHa you know Lord Monckton is so feared by the left as everyone supporting him has a red thumb already.
    Where’s mine you commie bastard! 🙂

    426

  • #
    Eddie Sharpe

    Taking on such a Distinguished Professor of Marine Chemistry on oceanic pH.
    Has he no shame ?

    191

  • #
    Peter S

    Monckton quite correctly identifies the ocean acidification myth. As a water scientist I have frequently argued this in various fora.

    475

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Peter, is that really your title, “Water Scientist”? Aren’t you a Hydrologist? If not, what is the difference? Curious people would like to know.

      151

      • #
        Tim

        What’s all the kerfuffle about acidification? A few squadrons of crop – dusters loaded with Sodium Bicarb should fix it all up quick smart.

        60

  • #
    Andrew

    So those tornadoes we now have in SYD due to Gorebull Warming: interesting how they only come out during a mid winter 16C here isn’t it? I dragged out a quilt I hadn’t used since August

    162

    • #
      MemoryVault

      Oh noes.

      Global warming causes quilts!!

      And it’s worse than we thought.

      201

      • #
        AndyG55

        “Global warming causes quilts!!”

        Careful.. you will have the CWA and the Quilter’s Association after your blood !!

        And actually, one would hypothesise that a warmer environment would require LESS quilts..

        so I guess I can see why they would be upset.

        114

        • #
          AndyG55

          …………..unless of course global warming makes it cooler.

          (stranger things have happened ) 😉

          94

          • #
            bobl

            Strangely enough, that’s exactly what happens. On earth at you approach the equator the relative humidity rises. Such is the thermal capacity and evaporative cooling power of water vapour, that over water the maximum temp doesn’t exceed 30 odd degrees, while say in Melbourne where its less humid it gets to 40 odd. On the other hand the average of min/max in melboune is something like 20 while the average over say kalimantan is 28. So it’s 8 degrees warmer on average in kalimantan 23 – 33 at 27 degrees but the maximum is 7 dgrees less than Melbourne. So as it warms, it cools 🙂

            10

      • #
        Dave

        Talking of big cover ups’

        On old goose stitched me up with this question on Quilts,
        Question:

        What the difference between a Quilt and a Doona?

        Answer:

        Ten Rum & Cokes.

        60

  • #
    LevelGaze

    Heh.

    Just watched a TV doc on the 1938 Orson Welles radio dramatisation of War of the Worlds. It panicked a nation.

    Couldn’t help thinking of AGCW. Fiction, both.

    181

  • #
    Tim

    Once again, we see Christopher Monckton’s detractors firing ad-hominen abuse at him when they’re cornered. It’s the last refuge of the loser.

    He does, however, use the description of ‘mad’ quite a bit. I don’t think they are. Perhaps he could replace that with: devious, calculating, conniving, conspiratorial, cunning, treacherous, underhand, wily or tricky?

    211

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Or “mad” as in “annoyed”?

      Monckton’s detractors are certainly not sanguine about what he says.

      131

  • #
    John West

    Every shallow coral reef that was alive 125,000 years ago died when the interglacial ended and the glacial period dropped sea levels 120 meters. Yet we still have coral reefs.

    171

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Determined little buggers, these corals, you just can’t get rid of them …

      121

    • #
      Rabe

      You mean they didn’t reproduce any longer and waited in horror til all that water was gone so that not even the tides could reach them any more?

      92

      • #
        John West

        No, obviously the sessile corals (biotic) that made the reefs (abiotic) kept living it up making planulae (“pre-sessile coral”) right up till the very end.

        90

  • #
    pat

    science is like magic these days. so many papers reviewed & published & in the hands of the likes of Peter Hannam to publish instantly, without question, and coinciding precisely with the Warsaw climate talks:

    18 Nov: WA Today: Peter Hannam, SMH: Fiercer El Nino weather ahead
    Australia will face fiercer El Nino weather patterns – causing severe drought – as a result of human-induced global warming, world-first research by Sydney scientists has shown.
    While the El Nino cycles typically trigger drought in the eastern states, so-called super El Ninos – such as those in 1982 and 1997 – have been detected since the mid-1970s…
    In a study published in Nature, researchers led by authors from the University of NSW found the trigger for the unusual patterns was a weakening of westward-flowing currents along the Pacific equator.
    Eastward spreading El Ninos matter because the pool of heat over the western Pacific is likely to shift to the east during such events, taking rainfall with it and exacerbating drought conditions over Australia, said lead author Agus Santoso, a senior research associate at UNSW’s Climate Change Research Centre…
    The findings are likely to trigger further research to understand how much rainfall patterns are likely to change, Dr Santoso said…
    “While more frequent eastward propagating El Ninos will be a symptom of a warming planet, further research is underway to determine the impact of such events in a climate that is going to be significantly warmer than today,” said co-author, Dr Wenju Cai, a senior scientist at CSIRO.
    http://www.watoday.com.au/environment/weather/fiercer-el-nino-weather-ahead-20131118-2xrg5.html

    nowhere near finished with this lot either:

    18 Nov: Courier Mail: AAP: Fight climate change: CCA
    BOTH carbon price mechanisms and direct action should be used to combat the challenge of climate change, Climate Change Authority (CCA) chair Bernie Fraser says.
    “We are not talking about price-based mechanisms and direct action as alternatives. I think a suite of all possible measures including regulatory measures in terms of efficiencies and legal standards, all those kinds of things need to be in the tool box.”
    Mr Fraser said it was hard, for him, to imagine that some kind of price-based mechanism, domestically and internationally and trading in permits, would not be part of that toolbox alongside various forms of direct action…
    In its draft Targets and Progress Review report the CCA – soon to be abolished by the federal government – did not make a final recommendation on what the 2020 target should be, instead canvassing two options – a “minimum” 15 per cent reduction and a 25 per cent reduction.
    The CCA’s head Anthea Harris told the senate hearing that the body’s last report did not speculate about the impact of the coalition’s direct action policy.
    But she said there might be more information available before their final report, due next February, is finalised that would allow them to arrive at some conclusions…
    Mr Fraser said Australia appeared to be “falling behind” on action to address climate change compared with other nations.
    He said it was a pity the government wanted to axe the independent body in favour of having “in house” advice on climate.
    http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/breaking-news/fight-climate-change-cca/story-fnihsfrf-1226762826330?from=public_rss

    110

    • #
      MemoryVault

      .
      Pigs scrambling to keep their snouts in an ever-diminishing public trough.
      Not surprising to read that professional trough snuffler, Bernie Fraser, is leading the charge.

      .
      It will get really interesting when the surviving pigs realise that they have to start eliminating their competitors to survive.
      Things will get truly entertaining when groups like the Climate Change Authority come to accept that, to survive, they have to start discrediting Greenpeace, and vice versa.

      326

      • #
        Graeme No.3

        They will have to work fast. Greenpeace are already well into discrediting themselves.

        I heard the ABC this morning working themselves up into ? (got to the off button at that point) about the Arctic 30 staying in Russia until February or longer.

        70

  • #
    bobl

    I’m not sure the good lord is right in his application of CO2 residence. I rather think that the biospheres response to increasing CO2 thats important. While the C14 experiment shows that effectively the entire volume of CO2 is turned over every 50 years, that’s not the same as the time to equilibrium from a change in CO2.

    It seems to me that this relates to the pipeline argument, how many years until the biosphere equilibriates to a change in the rate of CO2. I say that since plants suck up about 50 % any imbalance between Co2 production rate qnd Cao2 absorbtion rate takes about 5 years to come to equlibrium.

    62

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      How would you define equilibrium, in what is fundamentally a chaotic system?

      71

      • #

        So, you wake up in the morning, and you never know what that day’s CO2 level is going to be, right?

        520

        • #
          Truthseeker

          I do … not high enough

          100

        • #
          AndyG55

          “what that day’s CO2 level is going to be”

          In your bedroom.. probably upward of 1000ppm ! 🙂

          Keep your indoor plants in your bedroom.. they will LUV you.

          72

        • #
          AndyG55

          I take it you think climate has been in static equilibrium for like 10,000 years, before evil CO2 was invented. 🙂

          63

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          That’s right Margot,

          I have to wait to see what the temperature levels are, before I can assess how much CO2 will be outgassed from rivers and waterways and the irrigation ponds on my property, and I also have to take into account the time of year, and the growing seasons, in order to assess how much will be absorbed by the admixture of vegetation on my farm. It is not a simple calculation, but one that been empirically shown to be much more accurate than the brute force methods espoused by the model-makers (who are, after all, only playing with numbers).

          70

          • #
            AndyG55

            And of course , if there is an adiabatic inversion… look for 2000ppm +

            And it stays cool until the sun or a breeze shifts it.

            NO CO2 back radiation warming, just the Sun.. as always.

            53

            • #

              Hello, lookee here, I have repeatedly been told that nobody on this blog denies the basic reality that is the Greenhouse Effect.

              CO2 traps heat that would otherwise escape to space. Does Andy disagree with this?

              55

              • #
                AndyG55

                The Greenhouse effect is a HYPOTHESIS

                IT IS NOT FACT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                Learn some science little child !!!

                33

              • #

                It’s not a hypothesis, it’s an observed effect. Are you telling us there is no such effect?

                Tell us it ain’t so, Jo…!?

                45

              • #
                AndyG55

                Sorry Margot, but if you got away from your hobby farm computer and actually LEARNT some science, you would KNOW it was a hypothesis.

                Come back to us in several year, once you have got through yr 11,12 high school, then done a BSc of some sort.

                33

              • #

                Incidentally, Andy, a “hobby-farm” is defined in my Shire as something smaller than 80 hectares. My very much larger than that holding is not a hobby farm. And, in fact, I don’t do any farming on it at all. (Although I’d like to start up a market garden and sell over-priced “organic” vegetables to the city-bound yuppies.)

                Anyway, we can add that to the ever-growing list of, “things Andy is wrong about”.

                57

              • #
                AndyG55

                “I don’t do any farming on it at all.”

                Well that was patently obvious !!! I was just being kind.

                You have just confirmed that its not even a hobby farm! You just have wasted, unused, unproductive land..

                That’s the spirit. Good on you !!! 🙂

                In a way, its still a Hobby farm…. its just that your hobby is doing nothing with it.

                63

              • #

                Andy, persisting in being wrong, I see.

                There are many land uses that don’t involve farming.
                Can you think of any?

                For starters, I might have built 24 chalets on it and a rainforest walk, and I might let my chalets out to city-slickers to come and “experience the environment” by paying big bucks to be fed damper and be eaten by leeches.

                Or, maybe, I have a bottling plant and produce something I could call something along the lines of, “Green Springs Natural Mineral Water”. Bottled water is a bigger money-spinner than beer these days.

                Or, I could supply nurseries with Treeferns, Blackboys and Eucalyptus seedlings.

                Alternatively, I may be exploiting some mineral resources. Or timber.

                I’ve always thought the inability to grasp the reality of climate change probably boils down to a lack of imagination being trumped by a groundless sense of certainty. In your case, I am convinced of it.

                45

              • #
                AndyG55

                “grasp the reality of climate change probably boils down to a lack of imagination

                Yes, the whole climate change thing is CERTAINLY based on imagination as you have just said.

                and NOT on reality

                22

              • #
                AndyG55

                roflmao. Look at all the “could’s”, and “maybe’s”…

                You are a climate propagandist, that’s for sure !!!

                A waste of space. (I could be talking about you.. or your little hobby farm)

                32

              • #

                “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

                ― Albert Einstein

                I’ve never tried shooting fish in a barrel, but this is roughly what I imagine it feels like.

                55

              • #
                AndyG55

                So.. you again admit that the AGW meme is based purely on imagination.

                Lots of science fiction is based on imagination, because that’s all there is !

                Thank you for confirming this yet again..
                .
                .
                .
                .
                Margot……. the trough that keeps on leaking.

                42

              • #

                Yes, Andy, climate change involves no known physical processes, no observations, no data at all.

                And of course you are the sharpest knife in the drawer, while Albert Einstein had no idea what he was talking about.

                The topsy-turvy world Andy lives in must get quite confusing sometimes…

                45

            • #
              AndyG55

              You obviously don’t even know what happens in an adiabatic inversion, do you.

              High levels of CO2, that STAY COOL until the sun hits the ground and warms it enough to reinstate the lapse rate.

              No trapping of heat by those really high levels of CO2.. they stay COLD..

              Do…… you…….. understand ????

              And in that bushfire you just had at the back of your hobby farm..

              did the CO2, which must have been very high concentration above the fire, trap that heat…. NO !!! It Didn’t !!!

              All that heat escaped by NORMAL ATMOSPHERIC CONVECTION.

              The moronic suggestion that CO2 traps heat in an open atmosphere is ludicrous to say the least. A total nonsense.

              Go and learn some science !! FOOL !

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                Andy, the radiation hitting the surface loses energy as it is reflected back up.

                The longer wavelength of the outgoing radiation matches the peaks in the CO2 absorption spectrum.
                The shorter wavelength of the incoming radiation does not.

                This is very, very basic physics. You appear to be unaware of it, which may explain your ability to rationalise away your denial of the very real thing that is the Greenhouse Effect.

                I get the feeling you’ve come to this BBQ a couple of stubbies short of a sixpack…

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                AndyG55

                And you arrived with a glass of water. with dead worms in it.

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                AndyG55

                And Margot, you really have to get past your basic level of physics.

                What you were taught in junior high school is not actually all that correct.

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                Andy, are you even *in* High School yet?

                You are a childish know-nothing.

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              AndyG55

              Here’s one for your unused hobby farm..

              If you build a chook pen only out of 1/2″ chicken wire on a frame(4 walls and a top..) does the heat get trapped inside ?

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                Well, if you provide the absorption spectrum for your chicken wire, and let me know the relevant wavelengths for your radiation, I could tell you whether the chicken wire produces anything analoguous to the Greenhouse Effect.

                On the face of it, however, your attempted analogy appears merely dim.

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                AndyG55

                Well really..

                I thought you were the guru of absorption..

                Seems NOT !!!

                You AGAIN indicate your ABJECT IGNORANCE !!

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            It’s funny, because the measurements taken from, for example, Mauna Loa, show a very steady and predictable seasonal pattern to CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. The variation exactly matches the progress of the Northern Hemisphere growing season, and can be predicted years in advance with great accuracy.
            This very steady (and not at all chaotic) concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere makes it very easy to determine its component factors.

            In this case, people, it would pay to be very sceptical indeed of the assertions being made by non-expert Rereke, because he is very clearly wrong.

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              Heywood

              “it would pay to be very sceptical indeed of the assertions being made by non-expert Rereke”

              Interesting. So we shouldn’t believe Rereke, but we should believe thread carpet bomber Margot the Activist, simply because she says so?

              Riiiigggghhhhhttttt.

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                I’m saying you should check it for yourself..

                I mentioned Mauna Loa – you can check that for yourself and see whether I am correct.

                I checked what Rereke said, and it is apparent that many of the components of our climate are either steady or predictable. For example, solar inputs and greenhouse gas levels.

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        bobl

        It’s notional, the point at which the rate of emission over a cycle equals the rate of absorbtion over the same cycle. Of course as is pointed out, transiently things are chaotic, CO2 could rise merely because the rain in a year fell in the wrong place quite naturally reducing absorption, creating a gap. Equally, a good year could result in extra sinking creating a defecit and reducing CO2. I would expect at equilibrium Co2 to dance around a central value rather than show a rising envelope.

        The Big question is – how long is the “Cycle” – place your bets

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      Joe Born

      I join bobl and Richard in urging Lord M (and, if I remember correctly, Dr. Evans) to reconsider the inference he draws from the isotope residence time. That residence time merely reflects what the mix is of a gas supplied (and sunk) at an essentially constant rate. He infers (mistakenly, I believe) from this what will happen to a gas supplied at an increased rate when we don’t know how fast the sink rate will increase in response.

      I believe it would be good if we eliminated this argument from the armory, or at least see a good argument in its support.

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        With respect, no. The CO2 from the bomb tests was supplied at a rapid rate till 1963 and then stopped, allowing us to see how quickly the concentration of 14C returned to equilibrium once no more was being added. Answer: 96% of the excess had gone from the atmosphere after 50 years. Now, while it is trivially true that the more significant partial-pressure increases we cause will increase the sink rate, they will be most unlikely to reduce it, all other things being equal. So we can be reasonably confident from the bomb-test curve that the mean residential half-life of any CO2 we introduce will be unlikely to exceed ten years; that, therefore, little more than half of the post-1750 increase in CO2 concentration is anthropogenic, and that, therefore, the rate of warming for which we are responsible will – on this ground alone, and before considering climate sensitivity at all – be not all that much above half of what the IPCC has so confidently but imprudently predicted.

        Interestingly, though it is easy to determine the equilibrium constant of CO2 from figure 6.1 of IPCC (2013), and it works out at 0.015, the Bern climate model on which all other models are based assumes an equilibrium constant of 0.217, implying that more than a fifth of the CO2 we emit will never leave the atmosphere.The bomb-test curve definitively establishes that that value is nonsense.

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          Joe Born

          Consider a source pumping one liter of a single-substance fluid per minute into a container that contains 15.53 liters of that fluid while a sink is simultaneously withdrawing one liter of the container’s contents per minute. The container’s contents remain a steady 15.53 liters.

          Now let’s say that the the make-up of the fluid coming from the source changes to a second fluid, also supplied at one liter per minute, that is ideally miscible with the first fluid and has the same density and flow characteristics. After 50 minutes, 96% of the first fluid will (if I’ve done the math right) have left the container–but the container will still contain 15.53 liters.

          Now let’s say that we instantaneously inject an additional one-liter bolus of fluid and thereby raise the container’s contents to 16.53 liters. What does that 96% drop in 50 minutes we previously observed tell us about how fast the volume of contained fluid will thereafter change from that 16.53 liters? I don’t think it tells us anything; what tells us how fast the fluid volume will change is the difference, if any, between source and sink rates. The rate, observed above, at which the contents turn over does not.

          The conceptual problem may arise from the fact that the C14 injection sounds as though it parallels the second operation above; it was (I guess) adding a slug of CO2 over and above to what other sources were. But–correct me if I’m wrong–that added amount was essentially infinitesimal; it made no detectable change in the CO2 concentration, so in essence it merely changed the isotope composition of that concentration, not the concentration itself. Therefore, the C14 injection parallels the first step above, while man’s recent CO2 emissions parallel the second step above.

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            bobl

            Thanks Joe, great analogy, just one point I’d like to make, assuming your leaky bucket has a fixed size hole, then the point of equilibrium where the bucket stops emptying is dependent on the volume flow rate out the hole, and this will depend on the pressure at the hole, which is dependent on the height of the water if we increase the rate of water flow into the bucket then the water will only rise to the point that the flow rate out = the flow rate in, at a particular height of water column for a constrained container that’s a particular volume.

            Height is partial pressure CO2, input flow in is analogous to emission of CO2 and the hole geometry is analogous to the sinking resource. Increasing the cO2 will push more CO2 into the sinks (out the hole)

            In the climate, not only does the increased partial pressure push more CO2 through existing sinks, it grows more of them, extending arable area and density of vegetation. Essentially in the climate, increasing the height of the water also makes the hole in the bucket bigger.

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              Joe Born

              I agree with your point about the changing sink rate. My point, as I’m sure you understand, was that, whatever the sink rate is, it is the difference between that rate and the source rate that matters, and we get no indication of that from the turnover rate that the decay of C14 concentration implies. As you observe, the sources and sinks here source and sink CO2 (almost?) independently of which carbon isotope it’s made of.

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                bobl

                I found your analogy good, but difficult to understand, I was trying to explain (to others) how your analogy relates to CO2, the dependency on the difference between the source and sink rates, but also that for a given imbalance the sinking rate will eventually catch up to the source rate for any change in the source rate.

                Hope you don’t mind

                I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what Lord M has to say about it. I would want him just to seriously consider the argument. I can’t help think that we might be speaking at cross purposes with him though, though I personally can’t see how the turnover rate matters since the level of CO2 is driven by the difference between the rates of sourcing and sinking, and we don’t know near enough about that.

                The point I’m trying to make in the end, is that we are slowly turning on the source tap, such that the rate of input is continually increasing – with a lag between input and output CO2 has to rise under that condition, but it will stop and decline slightly once CO2 production stabilises IE Once China and India are sufficiently advanced. Won’t make a scrap of difference to the climate of course, but hey, the Hypothesis is interesting on it’s own.

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          bobl

          Nope, I dont get this.

          The sinks are not preferentially sinking C14, if we take a batch of C14 and mix it with the entire atmosphere, then the C14 does not disappear until the entire atmosphere is turned over.

          This will happen regardless of whether the CO2 is increasing decreasing or otherwise and will take roughly the same time regardless.

          The situation we are really considering is if we make a step change to the sourcing rate, how long does it take such that the now disparate source and sink rates come back into equilibrium and CO2 stops rising. If one believes the oft mentioned 1/2 the CO2 is sunk ( Presumably within the year ) then bioproductivity will increase to consume 1/2 in the first year, 1/2 of the remaining half in the second year and so on so that after 5 years the sink rate would be consuming 97% of the additional production and be within 3 % of equilibrium. Presumably the accumulation of CO2 would stop ( be insignificant) beyond about that point.

          I infer from this that there can only ever be 5 odd years of warming “in the pipeline” Assuming CO2 warms significantly at all.

          Lord M – is there a Lord Q btw? Martini, shaken not stirred 🙂

          I also dispute your finding on internal loop gain of the climate. Gain is a complex number equation, not a scalar one. One can’t calculate a feedback without understanding the magnitude and phase ( I use the term loosely to mean lag) of each feedback. It is the lag component that causes oscillation in electronic circuits. Such systems can have reasonances.

          The outcome of this is that the feedbacks may in some situations act independently, for instance suppose I were to block direct radiation to space so that this negative feedback can’t act then any positive feedback might act alone in it’s absence.

          I think this means that one must neglect negative feedbacks when definining the magnitude of positive ones.

          Using the IPCCs overall gain of three and noting that known negative feedbacks operate to reduce CO2 effect about 4/5ths ( from Kinimonth ) then achieving a Nett gain of 3 after applying negative feedbacks requires a gain of 3 x 5 or 15 to overcome the effects of the negative feedback and then give a nett gain of 3 requiring an inplausible loop gain of 0.95 rather than your value of, I think, 0.67.

          This result implies that in situations where the negative feedbacks don’t apply the temperature should get impossibly hot or become oscillatory, yet that doesn’t observably seem to happen.

          I have tried to point this out before but you have never responded.

          Another thing to think about, in electronics from where we draw our analogy, the loop gain is dependent on the availability of energy, so while we may have a loop gain of 0.95 once our circuit takes of, and nears the supply rail, the gain rapidly falls off until it becomes unity and the output becomes hard limited. The lesson here is that loop gain is not necessarily a constant. In the climate, for example, too much heat generates a non linear response, a storm that restricts the energy input and causes the gain to fall dramatically. Noone has established that the climate system is not a saturated system like this and before one can say anything about how temperature changes with CO2 they need to establish the relationship between gain and temperature.

          In short I think it is a mistake to assume climate sensitivity is anything like a constant.

          This is consistent with the assumption that CO2 follows a log law and can therefore increase forever continuing to intercept more and more energy, the physical process doesn’t allow a indefinite rise, CO2 will begin to saturate at the point combustion becomes impaired ie when a certain amount of oxygen is used up. There is a hard limit to warming because there is a hard limit to CO2.

          Hope you can find the time to make comment on these points, and once again please excuse the typo’s elicited by the tablets idiosyncracies

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          bobl

          I’d also like to add that looking at the problem this way, as a series of changes in the rate of emission followed by a lagging adaption in the rate of absorbtion, suggests that increasing CO2 is a result not of increased CO2 Emission, but the rate of increase in the rate of CO2 emissions. If we merely froze CO2 at current levels, in a few years the biosphere would adapt and equilibrium would be reached, but we keep moving the goalposts out and sustain that gap between source and sink. (Don’t get me wrong though, more CO2 is a good thing). The necessary outcome of that is that CO2 levels must rise, but also be currently above (that is overshooting) the equilibrium CO2 level and freezing emissions would actually result in a reduction of CO2 from today (Not by much since there probably not a lot of gap between emission and absorbtion to make up) but it does suggest that the equilibrium level is below current levels rather than above, and that therefore there must be “Cooling” in the pipeline rather than warming.

          It’s an interesting hypothesis.

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          Joe Born

          Although I have reduced this all to math elsewhere, my guess is that Lord M will get it better if he does the math himself, so I will content myself with the following (and, I’ve been able to convince myself, more-succinct) argument:

          The time constant of the excess C14 observed after the A-bomb tests was (or would have been if everything had been ideally mixed, etc.) determined by the ratio of total CO2 sinking to the total atmospheric CO2 content. In contrast, it is the ratio of the difference between CO2 sourcing and CO2 sinking to total atmospheric CO2 content that determines the time constant of the CO2-concentration increment that a temporary increase in CO2 emission causes.

          Very different quantities.

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      Mr. Born is of course correct to say that the ratio of net emission to total atmospheric CO2 concentration that is an influential (though not the sole) determinant of the rate-constant of decay in the excess concentration to the prior baseline. However, the net emission of carbon-14 was large enough to reveal the rate of decay we may expect; and, as other commenters have rightly mentioned, as CO2 concentration increases the capacity of the biosphere and hydrosphere sinks changes. The biosphere sink increases its uptake capacity: the net primary productivity of plants, which has risen appreciably worldwide throughout the satellite era, is a measure of this. Interestingly, some detailed work by Professor Pettersson shows that in the past two decades the uptake capacity of the oceans has also increased, contrary to what the usual suspects have been trying to tell us.

      Not the least of the many uses of the bomb-test curve is that it establishes that once a CO2 molecule has been taken out of the atmosphere (and nearly all of the carbon-14 excess had gone within 50 years), it does not subsequently reappear in the atmosphere. The curve continues to decay towards the prior baseline in accordance with an exponential-decay function with an equilibrium constant directly determinable from estimates of the relative sizes of the major active carbon reservoirs. The notion that molecules keep reappearing, so as to prevent the CO2 concentration from decaying back to the prior baseline, is disproven by the bomb-test curve. Likewise, the notion in the climate models (derived from the Bern model) that the equilibrium constant is as high as 0.217, implying that more than a fifth of all the CO2 we emit will (by various exchanges) remain in the atmosphere indefinitely must now be questioned.

      To set the seal on all of this, Professor Murry Salby’s work shows that the cumulative net emission of CO2 (i.e. the Keeling curve) is a function of the time-integral of global temperature change, so that one does not need to posit any contribution from anthropogenic emission to reconstruct the curve. His calculations are not inconsistent with mine: that about half of the increase in CO2 concentration in recent decades is anthropogenic, and that if solar activity continues to decline our emissions may in future come to be overwhelmed by uptake as the oceans cool, so that CO2 concentration in the atmosphere could fall even as our emissions rise. That has not happened yet, but in theory it could – but only if the bomb-test curve is not too wide of the mark as a guide to how quickly the CO2 we emit is taken up by hydrosphere and biosphere sinks.

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        Truthseeker

        that if solar activity continues to decline our emissions may in future come to be overwhelmed by uptake as the oceans cool, so that CO2 concentration in the atmosphere could fall even as our emissions rise

        This is one of many real concerns about the future climate cycle. Lower solar activity leading to overall cooling and thereby reducing the capacity of marginal farming areas in Russia and Canada to produce significant amounts of food, coupled with the increasing absorbtion of CO2 from the atmosphere by the oceans again reducing the ability of plants everywhere to thrive in a cooling world.

        Our best mitigation of this possible double-barrelled catastrophy is to produce as much CO2 as we possibly can, for the plants. It will have no effect at all on the ambient temperature of the planet.

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        Joe Born

        Okay, I’ll make one more stab at this before I give up.

        Let’s assume that the total mass M of CO2 in the atmosphere equals the mass m12 of 12CO2 and 13CO2 plus the mass m14 of 14CO2: M = m12 + m14, where m12 >> m14. Let’s also assume that CO2 is being pumped into the atmosphere at a rate p and sucked out at a rate s and that the concentration of 14CO2 in the CO2 being pumped in is c. Then:
        dM/dt = p – s.
        That is, the total mass, and thus the concentration, of CO2 varies as the difference between source and sink rates. So, for example, if the source and sink rates are equal, the total mass remains the same–even if few individual molecules remain in the atmosphere for very long. Also, if the emission rate p exceeds the sink rate, the total mass of atmospheric CO2 will rise until such time, if any, as the sink rate catches up, and, unless the sink rate thereafter exceeds the emission rate, the mass M will remain elevated forever.

        In contrast, the mass m14 of 14CO2 is given by:
        dm14/dt = cp – (m14/M)s,

        which tells us that, even if the emission rate p were to remain equal to the sink rate s and thereby keep the total CO2 concentration constant, the difference m14 / M – c between the (initially bomb-test-elevated) 14CO2 concentration and the ordinary, cosmogenic concentration–i.e., the “excess” 14CO2 concentration–would still decay with a time constant M/s. So that time constant tells us nothing about how long the total CO2 concentration would remain at some elevated level to which it may previously have been raised; in this scenario, it remains at that elevated concentration forever.

        None of this is inconsistent with the theory that in practice the sink rate s will increase with increased concentration. Nor is it inconsistent with your theory (to the extent I understand it) that “once a CO2 molecule has been taken out of the atmosphere … it does not subsequently reappear in the atmosphere.” On the other hand, it is hard to understand precisely what you mean by “The notion that molecules keep reappearing, so as to prevent the CO2 concentration from decaying back to the prior baseline, is disproven by the bomb-test curve.” To the extent that it reflects your continued conviction that one can draw a conclusion about persistence of overall CO2 concentration from the bomb-test results, though, I urge you to go over the equations above with someone whose judgment about mathematics you trust.

        Again, the decay rate of 14CO2 tells us the turnover rate of carbon dioxide (essentially of whatever isotope) in the atmosphere. It does not tell us how the fast sink rate will adjust to increased overall concentration, so it does not tell us how long the results of a temporary emissions increase will persist. You have given a number of other reasons for believing they won’t last long, and I offer no opinion on those other reasons. Nothing in what you’ve said so far, though, gives any reason for basing that belief on the bomb tests.

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          Richard

          Your point is well-taken Joe, and I agree.

          I’ll try to elucidate some of these matters hopefully without adding anymore fuel to the flames. The atmospheric observations of nuclear-C14 that Monckton has cited are measurements of residence time, i.e. the time it takes for a molecule of CO2 to be sequestered by natural sinks. We know this is very short. The IPCC’s own figures in AR4 suggest a residence time of 3.8 years. The IPCC’s own figures in AR4 are as follows: the atmospheric CO2 mass is 3000 gigatonnes, natural CO2 emissions are 771 gigatonnes/year and absorption is 788 gigatonnes/year. The characteristic decay time is simply the atmospheric CO2 mass divided by the removal rate. Hence we get 3000/788 = 3.8 years. The short residence time of atmospheric CO2 is also acknowledged by the IPCC in AR4 whey they say “This means that on average it takes only a few years before a CO2 molecule in the atmosphere is taken up by plants or dissolved in the ocean”. The short residence time of CO2 is uncontroversial, and the nuclear-C14 observations tell us what we already know: atmospheric CO2 is sequestered by sinks very fast.

          However a short residence time does not and cannot refute the IPCC’s assumption of a long lifetime. Why? Because of the Revelle Factor, which deems that the ocean surface can only old hold 10% of anthropogenic CO2 because of the way DIC (dissolved inorganic carbon) is partitioned, as I pointed out below. As the oceans emit and absorb CO2 throughout the year, a whopping 771 gigatonnes and 788 gigatonnes respectively, the anthropogenic CO2 molecules and ocean molecules mix indiscriminately, the anthropogenic CO2 molecules swap places with ocean molecules, and the ‘back-pressure’ brought about by the Revelle Factor forces these ocean molecules back into the atmosphere thereby contributing to the atmospheric CO2 increase. These are not the same molecules that we humans emitted initially, but because of the Revelle Factor, we can still increase the atmospheric CO2 greenhouse, because of this ‘back-pressure’. The surface ocean can only hold so much CO2, according to the IPCC.

          It’s this ocean chemistry mechanism that gives human CO2 such a long lifetime. Point is, the observations of nuclear-C14 only measure residence time, and because of that, they cannot be presented as evidence for a short lifetime. The Revelle Factor is in direct conflict with Henry’s law though, which at the Earth’s average surface temperature of 288K sets a fixed partitioning ratio between the atmosphere and oceans of 1:50 respectively, implying that the oceans should absorb 98% of human CO2 at equilibrium, and this should occur very fast. One only has to appreciate opening a bottle of soda to see how rapidly PCO2(aq) and PCO2(g) equilibrate. Prof. Tom Segalstad has some very interesting papers covering this issue that I recommend you taking a look at and shows that this equilibrium is achieved very fast. As far as I can tell, the idea that humans could be responsible for the majority of the increase in CO2 (or even half) comes straight out of cloud-cuckoo land and contradicts a well-tried and well-established law of physics.

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        Vince Whirlwind

        You keep referring to Salby as a “professor”, which he isn’t, since he was sacked, and you keep referring to his “work”, which as far as I know doesn’t exist.
        He is responsible for some various speeches and PR-exercises, but no actual work. Maybe if he’d done some actual work he wouldn’t have been sacked?

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    I do like Monckton and the responses he makes, until steps from the sublime to the ridiculous with this nonsense: “Well, The Planet was triumphantly Saved 2000 years ago”. The moment I read something like that is the moment I decide no to pass on what he’s written.

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    Andrew McRae

    What? No alarming sea level rise?? Quick, switch tactics…
    Oceans becoming more acidic at unprecedented rate: report“.

    The usual ABC rhetoric:
    * Reports a reduction in alkalinity in relative concentration ratio instead of pH drop? CHECK. (-26%,-176% instead of -0.1pH, -0.43pH.)

    * Projects a future drop in alkalinity in scary numbers without discussing what effects that drop has been tested to actually have? CHECK.

    * Uses arguments from authority and consensus? CHECK. (compiled by “experts” from a huge number of countries)

    * Uses weasel words such as “potential”, “may”, and “could be”. CHECK.

    * Uses vague qualitative descriptions of risk (“likely to be”) and causality (“affects”) without being quantitative about the probability or the strength of the effect. CHECK.

    * Issued by a scientific-sounding organisation in a report called “Summary for Policymakers” whose website feature emotive images of deserts. CHECK.

    Turning to the IGBP OA report itself:

    * Compounds hypotheses? CHECK. (It says all Finfish are threatened by acidification but only by assuming their breeding habitats are corals and those corals will be threatened.)

    * Overestimates impact by treating all species as the same. CHECK. (Says finfish will be threatened due to impacts on coral even though tuna spawn out at sea and don’t mature on coral reefs. )

    * Claims absence of evidence is evidence of absence. CHECK. (Reports “The ocean is acidifying more rapidly than it has in millions of years [HIGH CONFIDENCE]” even though no proxy measure of ancient ocean pH can record a year-by-year or decade-by-decade rate of pH reduction, meaning the longer term averages from proxies are not comparable to the current accurate measures.)

    As for predicted absolute pH levels being problematic, there is some mirth in reading the science paper which underlies the most dramatic claims of the headlines. “The Geological Record of Ocean Acidification” by Bärbel Hönisch and co is paywalled but a copy has been leaked by the lead author on their own web site. Check their figure 4. It indicates that ocean pH was 7.8 around both 60Mya and 210Mya, yet their reconstructed CO2 levels were 500ppm and 1000+ppm. The relation between proxy CO2 and pH seems not quite so straightforward as the headlines make it to be. No doubt the modern predictions of chemistry are correct for the remainder of this century, but if the chemistry theory is not in doubt then how much importance can we put on proxy reconstructions of pH that diverge from theory by a factor of 200% ?
    They say themselves: “Because most old sea floor (~180 Ma or older) is subducted, the sedimentary record of the Toarcian OAE is now restricted to former continental margins”, meaning that available sampling sites are very few and far between.

    The elephant in the room is adaptability. We’re told even though CO2 has been much higher in ancient times that the rate we are increasing it now is too fast for marine life to adapt. In other words, the rate of change is more important than the absolute level. Okay, I can accept that. So why on earth should laboratory experiments which force pH to drop by -0.3 over a matter of months give us any insight into how an organism will cope with that same drop spread over 90 years? That doesn’t mean the pH drop is entirely safe or that organisms are infinitely adaptable, but these studies will completely miss the adaptability that the organism may have.
    The Hönisch paper was an attempt to use paleo proxies to sidestep the limits of modern lab and field work, but it looks to me like it has its own limitations… limits on the accuracy of reconstructions from proxies, which means its ability to reconstruct past rates of change is similarly limited.

    Maybe OA will be some sort of mild distant future problem for a handful of species, but they won’t convince me with such poor arguments.
    Mr Monckton’s point about the sheer scale of CO2 in the ocean compared to the air is a timely reminder, as due to the logarithmic definition of pH the increase of hydrogen ion concentration by 1/50th would be a pH drop of 0.009. The alleged man-made drop in ocean pH is 0.1 units (or in scare terms 30%). Assume for argument that the consensus attribution of CO2 movements was correct, that we increased the air’s CO2 content by the full 38%, the ocean has absorbed roughly about 25% of our CO2, and half our CO2 remained in the air. Working backwards then, relative to the air’s current CO2 content the ocean’s absorbed amount must be 38% / 50% * 25% = 19%. If putting all the air’s current CO2 in the ocean would lead to a 0.009 pH drop almost immediately then how could 19% of that amount spread over 200 years make a pH drop 10 times larger? Inquiring minds want to know!

    There’s two paragraphs in the official report which stand out for relatively good sense:

    Ecosystem impacts depend on policy decisions made now in relation to future carbon dioxide emissions and policies relating to other marine issues. Moreover, there are complex ethical and economic considerations on issues relating to “safe” or “tolerable” levels of ocean acidification.
    Science cannot answer these questions but can provide some information on possible
    consequences of policy options. A dialogue between scientists, policymakers and stakeholders is necessary to explore what questions require answers and what options are available.

    Find out more about the situation before acting? Surely not?

    [Andrew – This appears to have been stuck in moderation because of its size] -Fly

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      Andrew McRae

      “This appears to have been stuck in moderation because of its size”
      Yep, no problem, I expected it to be moderated for that reason, plus it was sent in quite late so the volunteers would not get to release it until after they had done their morning rituals.

      And may I say the mods (there’s 3 of them right??) do a fine job.
      Fly, Oggi, and the mysterious Ed, keep on clicking.

      [Not to mention CTS, who is a model for us all] -Fly
      [Not to mention The Mod, brilliant, and then there is the rarely seen Yoda who works in other ways… -Jo]

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        MemoryVault

        And may I say the mods (there’s 3 of them right??) do a fine job.

        Agreed.

        Now if we could just get them to develop a sense of humour . . .

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          Rereke Whakaaro

          Come on, if the moderators had a sense of humour, you wouldn’t have so much fun winding them up – go on, admit it. 🙂

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            MemoryVault

            .
            Moi?
            Stirring the mods?
            Rereke, how could you even suggest such a thing?

            .
            I am almost always on my almost best behaviour, almost most of the time.

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              AndyG55

              Let’s say “testing the limits” 😉

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              Truthseeker

              MV is mostly well behaved … mostly.

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                Heywood

                There comes a point, where even the most polite commentator reaches their dic%$ead tolerance.

                Arrogant activists like Michael (AAD) and Margot tend to accelarate the process.

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                AndyG55

                Trying to educate M&M (or at least explain to them that they need to get an education)

                is rather like trying to communicate with a child that is throwing a tantrum.

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                MemoryVault

                MV is mostly well behaved … mostly.

                Fair shake of the sauce bottle, TS.
                I haven’t been on the receiving end of a caning from Jo for over a month now.
                Something of a record for me.

                I must be doing something right – mostly

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        Andrew McRae

        Sorry, CTS. How could I forget.
        Thanking all mods today we are.

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    Richard

    I respect Monckton, but like so many others, frustratingly, he conflates ‘residence time’ (which is what the atmospheric changes in nuclear-C14 measure) with ‘lifetime’. The IPCC acknowledge that CO2 has a very short atmospheric residence time. In fact in AR4 they say just ‘a few years’. What matters is lifetime, not residence time. The IPCC is quite clear and scientifically correct about residence time, but it is totally unclear about lifetime and sheer unbounded speculation appears to set in with the introduction. I have noticed that the IPCC tend to be very vague about the details of atmospheric CO2 lifetime. But they do give a lifetime of up to 200 years and it appears to be due largely to the Revelle Factor which only allows the surface ocean to absorb 10% of the anthropogenic CO2 mass. One of the astonishing discoveries that I made when investigating the lifetime issue myself was that it is liable to be measured with a model simulation instead of by observation! The IPCC assume that the anthropogenic CO2 molecules being absorbed by the oceans are them swapped with oceanic CO2. And that is very convenient from the IPCC’s point of view because it means that it can never be called to account empirically on measurements of how much human CO2 is in the atmosphere. I wrote a piece on my blog about whether the increase in CO2 is natural, and when you apply Henry’s law, it turns out that a large majority of the increase in CO2 can be accounted for by changes in ocean temperature and I also explain why the Revelle Factor is wrong. See here: http://chipstero7.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/it-is-often-asserted-by-cagw-advocates.html

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    • #
      Rabe

      Lifetime… what the… Oh, you mean those bad, bad red colored CO₂ molecules from our coal power plants (or were they black?) compared to the blue ones coming out of the ocean. Well, thats an important difference, right.

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    • #

      With respect, no. I don’t confuse residence time and lifetime. The enormous and largely unrecognized value of the bomb-test curve is that the pre-1950s concentration of 14C was stable, because the rate of introduction coincidentally more or less equals the rate of decay (half-life 5730 years). Because the isotopic decay rate is so very slow, it is not significant over a period as short as 50 years. Accordingly, if the 14C returns to its prior equilibrium level in not a lot more than 50 years, then its residential half-life is only 10 years. Point is, the 14C, having gone into the carbon sinks, does not re-emerge. It stays away. Now, if there is any reason why other isotopes of carbon should behave any differently, I’d like to know it (and please don’t refer me to the daft Essenhigh paper).

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      • #

        Gosh, so much confusion…..

        The first thing this journalist seems to be unaware of is that carbon isotopes are indeed preferentially taken up by the various organisms that consume carbon.

        As for the rest….it appears he is confused about the difference between residence time and lifetime. Luckily we have real scientists publishing work that relies on this knowledge and who are not confused as to this difference, and whose opinions are therefore as a result infinitely more fiable than what we are getting here.

        625

        • #
          bobl

          An assertion from exactly where Margot, what physical reason would you have for believing that the biosphere likes radioactive CO2 more than the non-radioactive stuff, no science in them thah words!

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          • #

            …because it’s heavier, bobl, it’s discriminated against.

            I couldn’t possibly over-recommend the idea that you look up the facts before joining a conversation where they are being discussed.

            47

            • #
              bobl

              I couldn’t possibly recommend more that you learn some physics, chemistry and math before joining a conversation about chemistry, physics and math.

              Last I heard the reactivity of a chemical was broadly related to the number of valence electrons rather than the number of Neutrons it has. Least that’s what they told me in chemistry class.

              Oh, and please answer my other questions, you’ve had weeks

              41

            • #
              AndyG55

              “because it’s heavier, ……, it’s discriminated against”

              Then slim down a bit then , Margot !!!

              32

        • #
          AndyG55

          “Gosh, so much confusion…..”

          Yep, your poor little brain does seem to be in that state.. permanently

          Poor little thing ! 🙂

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        • #
          Winston

          I think that the Revelle Factor, as Richard suggests, is a wake up call for all of us, don’t you Margot?

          51

      • #
        Richard

        A little correction on my post above, that should read ‘then swapped with oceanic CO2’.

        “Point is, the 14C, having gone into the carbon sinks, does not re-emerge. It stays away. Now, if there is any reason why other isotopes of carbon should behave any differently, I’d like to know it”

        This is something we can agree on. I agree that anthropogenic CO2 is absorbed by sinks very fast. The IPCC’s AR4 figures on human CO2 emissions are 29 gigatonnes/year, natural CO2 emissions are 771 gigatonnes/year and absorption is 788 gigatonnes/year, thereby implying that human emissions are only 4% of the total, giving us a residence time for atmospheric CO2 of 3.8 years. The residence time of nuclear C14 is longer supposedly because most of the nuclear-C14 was emitted into the stratosphere and there is a delay for its transfer into the troposphere (See ‘Bert Bolin 1986: Greenhouse Effect, Climate Change & Eco-Systems’). However, the IPCC get around that problem by assuming that the human CO2 molecules once absorbed are immediately swapped with ocean molecules because of the Revelle Factor (See the IPCC’s ‘AR4 Carbon Cycle’). This Revelle Factor gives the IPCC a physical mechanism whereby humans can still contribute to the atmospheric CO2-greenhouse without the same molecules lingering in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. The Revelle Factor allows the IPCC a longer lifetime for anthropogenic CO2 and this means you cannot use measurements of residence time to refute the IPCC’s assumption of a long lifetime. You must refute the Revelle Factor.

        40

        • #

          The carbon cycle involves a bunch of C atoms being taken up and released. If you add to the pool of available atoms in the atmosphere, you do two things: you increase the total size of the pool, and you also force uptake.

          The fact that only a tiny proportion of that entire pool is the result of recent human activity doesn’t change the fact that a small increase has been made to the pool, that increase has been aimed at the atmosphere, and that the resulting forcing on uptake has not been strong enough to keep atmospheric CO2 levels constant. Instead levels have increased very steadily and now reached a point they have not been at since well before the last ice age.

          The entire argument that C that has been cycled discounts the effects of human emissions is ludicrous.
          It doesn’t even make sense.
          That’s why I get my science from scientists, not from an Arts-graduate ex-journalist.

          57

    • #
      AndyG55

      Its really very simple.

      CO2 will remain in the atmosphere or in the ocean/atmosphere interchange, UNTIL it is utilised by plants (be they land or water based) turn it into USABLE FOOD for the rest of life on Earth.

      73

      • #

        I wonder what Andy is referring to here – is he referring to the uptake of CO2 being forced by the increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere?

        56

        • #
          AndyG55

          So….. you also lack any understanding of biology, as with every other facet of real science.

          Back to KINDERGARTEN for you, little girl !!

          Back to the beginning.. clear you brain-washed little mind.. and start all over again !!!!!

          33

          • #

            CAPS, exclamation marks!!!! Insults!!!

            I think I understand the psychology your drivel is coming from.

            55

            • #
              AndyG55

              Ahh, so you are friend of Lewendopey..

              Explains your lack of anything resembling reality.

              And your sidestepping also confirm you have no understanding of biology,

              But we already know that your knowledge of anything scientific is limited to junior high level.

              43

            • #
              AndyG55

              ps, I learnt long ago, that when trying to communicate with low IQ children,

              you need to do a lot of arm-waving !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

              43

  • #
    Bruce

    Monckton was useful for a while, but has become an unrestrained gasbag who now does not serve the cause well.

    Who cares, except Monckton, whether he is entitled to sit in the House of Lords.

    His use of pidgin Latin serves to reveal more about him than his opponent(s).

    Similarly, who cares what Bada says.

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    • #
      Kevin Lohse

      Bad day in the office?

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        No, it’s the wrong Bruce …

        40

        • #
          David

          “Bruce of the Yukon” perhaps? Shades of the Mavis Brampton Show.

          The last line of any of Bruce’s skits was “Piss off Bruce” but as I don’t use that sort of language I won’t say it.

          : )

          31

    • #
      Eddie Sharpe

      Methinks Bruce rather misses the point, but it can be hard to sustain an interest I grant you.

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    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      I think it does matter. Most people as yourself and myself, think “who is Bada and why should I care”. So his statements go uncontested.

      Lord Monckton cares enough to try to correct the man’s statements, this is a good thing. If Lord Monchton makes a dent in Bada’s thinking and he gains some knowledge, the world is a better place.

      Lord Monckton brings up his Lordship because people are constantly using that to discredit his knowledge. While he has gotten legal advice that he can use that title. Those who wish to belittle him refuse to know that.

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      • #
        bobl

        Besides pointing out that a particular scientist is wrong about his title does serve to somewhat highlight that said scientist might be wrong about other things.

        30

        • #
          Kevin Lohse

          Einstein the social scientist was about as wrong as it’s possible to be. Einstein the Mathematician was no great shakes either. Should we therefore ignore the work of Einstein the theoretical physicist?

          20

          • #
            bobl

            No, though it still serves to illustrate that Einstein is not infallible and therefore we shouldn’t blindly accept what Eienstein says without questions as we are urged to do to appease the high priests of climate change.

            Were Eienstein alive today, I would not hesitate to put sceptical arguments to him about relativity, be it that I could find such an argument. For example, Einstein postulates that empty space is truly empty, but quantum mechanics suggests that the prior conclusions – that there is a “stuff” of space (previously the ether, now called the zero point field). I am therefore sceptical of Einstein’s clain that space is empty. I am much less sceptical of E = mC2 though, that’s just because I haven’t seen a better argument. It could be wrong, in science one must always remain sceptical (otherwise known as open-minded )

            20

    • #
      Rod Stuart

      Perhaps, just maybe, nobody gives a damn what Bruce says either?

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    • #
      PhilJourdan

      Then I have to ask – why are you wasting your time on a thread that is about Monckton and Bada?

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    • #

      it was not I but Bada who raised the House of Lords question. He should have stuck to science, but, being more than somewhat challenged in that direction, he resorted to a futile ad-hom about whether I was a Peer or not. I am – get over it.

      And, of course, if you do not find climate science or economics interesting, you will not be interested in the discussions on this thread. But there are plenty of other sandpits for you to play in, and, since there are only 29 Viscounts in the world, the likelihood of your coming across another of us is small.

      Bring back deference, that’s what I always say.

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      • #

        I’m a great believer in deference – I will defer to the superior knowledge of the recognised experts in any field of knowledge.

        I would never defer, however, to somebody with an Arts degree, a diploma of Journalism and a career as a hack who pretends to have been a science advisor to Margaret Thatcher, who herself had actually achieved a degree in Chemistry as well as an early career as a working scientist.

        528

        • #
          Truthseeker

          I will defer to the superior knowledge of the recognised experts in any field of knowledge.

          Margot has just publically admitted to intellectual subjugation to the logical fallacy of argument by authority.

          Those of us that are interested in how the universe actually works defer only to data and observations. The “who” is entirely irrelevant, only the “what”, “when” and “how” matters. I do not defer to anyone just because someone else thinks they have achieved some academic criteria. I always defer to verifiable data and proven causality.

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          • #
            MemoryVault

            .
            I always defer to my wife Thumper.
            She’s not called Thumper for no reason.

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            • #
              Truthseeker

              Physical violence works when logical reasoning doesn’t. Husbands rearly have the logical capacity to understand the arguments that wives put forward.

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              • #

                I find this contribution somewhat worrying, but it does seem to be in character with much of the other content here.

                36

              • #
                Truthseeker

                Margot since you have clearly chosen the path of intellectual serfdom, it is not surprising to me that the subtleties of irony and sarcasm are lost on you.

                51

              • #
                AndyG55

                TS.. Using the words ‘intellectual’ and ‘Margot’ in the same sentence… really ????

                32

              • #

                If I understand correctly, “Truthseeker”, you feel that wife-bashing is an appropriate subject for a bit of off-topic humour?

                As I said, I’m worried, but hardly surprised – the general tone here is one of barely-suppressed aggression with constant personal insults and a peppering of thinly-veiled threats.

                Why you can’t simply pick up a few relevant textbooks and get with the program instead of this eternal merry-go-around of dogmatic adherence to a contradictory collection of more-or-less half-baked opinions is a depressing question I ask myself daily.

                44

              • #
                Truthseeker

                Margot,

                Your stupidity is actually without limit. The humour from MV and myself was based on the juxtaposition of stereotypes with the implication that it was his wife (Thumper) that was capable of husband bashing if you want to put it those terms. It is unfortunate that I can only use text in these comments as I suspect to get things down to your level of understanding I would need to draw pictures with crayons.

                Typical of zealots everywhere, you cannot understand humour, see everything that does not conform to you highly distorted view of the world as a threat and do not realise that if the behaviour matches the terminology it is a description, not an insult.

                It is you that adheres to dogma, believes opinions of authority figures and spouts falsehoods as facts.

                41

          • #
            Tim

            Would ‘recognised experts’ encompass such luminaries as Al Gore and Tim Flannery?

            60

            • #

              No, Tim, I’m sorry to have to break this to you, but neither of those two is a primary source for any kind of climate science.

              Flannery I would trust as a primary source on Macropodidae. Also, based on his reputation for successfully publishing papers that advance the course of science in his area, as well as his reputation for (for example) not padding out his CV with lies about having been a “science advisor”, I would tend to trust him to honestly develop and communicate his personal opinions.

              Gore I know nothing about, but in general I wouldn’t trust any kind of politician for any purpose (save Tim Fischer and a select few others), let alone a foreign politician.

              34

        • #

          Margot, we defer to people who can reason, you defer to officials. Congratulations on your mental-serfdom.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          “’m a great believer in deference ”

          Really? then bow to me !!! 🙂

          53

    • #
      Truthseeker

      What the climate alarmists and socialist activists like Bada fail to understand, quite deliberately in my view, is the difference between being a peer of the Realm and being a member of the House of Lords. These are two different things. Lord Monkton is a peer of the Realm of Great Britain with the rank of Viscount (between Baron and Earl). He is not a member of the House of Lords. Not all Lords (Baron, Viscount, Earl, Marquess) are members of the House of Lords, but they are still Lords.

      Again, the simple facts are beyond their grasp because they get in the way of “the message”.

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      • #
        Eddie Sharpe

        These indeed are points all of which they would choose to ignore, though I think you’ll find leading opinion on constitutional law goes rather further than that:-

        “Lord Monckton‟s statement that he is a member of the House of Lords, albeit without the right to sit or vote, is unobjectionable. His claim is not a false or misleading claim. It is legitimate, proportionate, and reasonable.”

        From a fuller consideration of the matter by leading Constitutional Lawyer,
        Hugh O’Donohughe, Carmelite Chambers, Carmelite Street, London

        50

    • #
      ian hilliar

      “who cares” about Bruce? saw a couple of your comments in the Australian on line today, and I think you should change your handle to “who cares” , and then go off and read a book, and try to improve your mood. Regular exercise, is good, try to look on the bright side, and if that does not help you perhaps a prescription for an antidepressant? Or did this black mood of yours coincide with Shorten taking the reins of the ALP. Cheer up, you can always watch the ABC to give you the sort of “facts” your soul desires.

      70

      • #
        Yonniestone

        “Regular exercise, is good” For gods sake man don’t encourage him to do more, I don’t think his right hand can take the punishment!

        50

    • #

      Well, I’ve heard of whingeing Poms, but now we have a whingeing Bruce. Bada was, for a time, obsessed with the question whether I had the right to call myself a member of the House of Lords. He has now seen the definitive legal opinion on the subject that I obtained and has, rightly, decided to retreat on that question and accept that, as Bruce correctly points out, the question is irrelevant to climate science.

      Bruce is wrong, however, to whinge about my occasional use of a Latin phrase. For two millennia, Latin was the language of the academic, diplomatic and business worlds: it was really only in the 20th century that it gave place to English. Indeed, as recently as the 1950s international scientific conferences in Eastern Europe were conducted in Latin because it was the only common language. Because of its long history as the language of thought, culture, art, science and civilization, there are a number of concise Latin phrases with specific meanings that allow one to say a very great deal in just a word or two (Latin being the most concise of all languages).

      Another advantage of Latin is that it is near-impossible to be ambiguous in Latin. It is a very clear language. Its use prevents foggy thought. If the UN had to conduct its climate conferences in Latin, nearly all of the nonsense now being peddled would never have been uttered.

      Just for Bruce, here is Auld Lang Syne in Latin:

      Sodalitatis veteris
      Cur immemor ero?
      Cur temporis praeteriti
      Fiet oblivio?
      Ob aevum iam praeteritum,
      Praeteritum diu,
      Nos poculum plenissimum
      Sumemus nunc manu.

      43

      • #
        MemoryVault

        .
        Trouble is, m’Lord, with all due respect, downunder here in the Land of OZ we prefer to communicate with each other employing the KISS principle.

        To this end we have largely eliminated the necessity of complex explanations in Latin (or any other language), and replaced them with a few choice words with multiple, oft-times opposing meanings, the correct one of which can easily be discerned with reference to other factors.

        Hence a word like “bastard”, or “mate” can be either a term of endearment, or a threat. The intended meaning is instantly conveyed by the tone of delivery and the stance of the speaker.

        True, this form of communication has shortcomings when it comes to the written word, but then most Aussies would prefer to wait for the movie anyway.

        60

        • #
          AndyG55

          chuckle.. yep, we lack that proppa English up-bringing, you know, latin, greek and all that stuff.

          And proppa grammar

          Dad (Manchester and Oxford Universities) did try, though, but we came to Australia when I was too young.

          32

      • #
        Grant (NZ)

        I would suggest that mathematics is more concise and precise than Latin. Empirical evidence translates into all other languages.

        40

  • #
    richard

    ocean acidification,

    http://www.ucar.edu/communications/Final_acidification.pdf

    A report from a workshop sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the National
    Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.S. Geological Survey

    extract,

    Tripling the pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 concentration will cause a reduction in surface ocean
    pH that is almost three times greater than that experienced during transitions from glacial to interglacial periods. This is often termed “ocean acidification” because it describes the process of decreasing pH. Current projections of ocean acidification suggest that
    the pH of surface ocean waters will continue to decline. However, the term can also lead to confusion when it is wrongly assumed that the oceans will become acidic, when in reality, ocean pH is never expected to fall below 7.0; i.e., the oceans are becoming less basic, but not acidic. Such a phenomenon could only occur in the unlikely event that CO2 emissions
    reach more than 10,000 Pg C (Caldeira and Wickett,
    2005).

    So I thought lets check rules and regulations about PH of coastlines etc which took me to the EPA and this.

    So 3 miles out to sea, of course I do not know how sea life is effected further out.

    http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/lawsguidance/cwa/tmdl/upload/oa_state_info_nov2010.pdf

    extract

    Maryland: “Normal pH values may not be less than 6.5 nor greater than 8.5” for Use II (Estuarine and
    Marine Aquatic Life and Shellfish Harvesting) waters.

    and finally if still worried-

    http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7545&tid=3622&cid=63809

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    • #
      tom0mason

      Your quoted paper asserts –

      When viewed against
      the Pleistocene record of atmospheric CO2 variabil-
      ity, the increase in atmospheric CO2 over the past
      century constitutes an unprecedented spike in green-
      house gas concentration which is certain to increase
      with continued fossil fuel burning.

      With the implication that fossil fuel burning is a major source of CO2 and that the is no natural process to counter a rise in atmospheric CO2. A very contentious point.
      Fossil fuel burning is a source of atmospheric H2O but no one appears to be worried about that. Why not?
      Hopefully CO2 will reach 500 ppm or more and this paper will be vindicated or otherwise.

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      • #

        You’re implying you disagree that the combustion of fossil fuels releases CO2 into the atmosphere.
        That would be a very unusual thing to believe. Please clarify.

        You also imply you believe there is a negative feedback of some sort.
        Describe it?
        Also, explain why CO2 has risen from 280 to 400ppm with no such negative feedback kicking in?

        319

        • #
          bobl

          No he implies that the fossil fuel burning has any significant effect… Quite different.

          Given that mans emissions amount to 3 % of the total and that bioproductivity uptake increase balances the increasednemission within about 5 years one could accept his assertion of insignificance.

          You on the other hand have yet to state whether you agree, with grannies, dying from fuel poverty, the misdirection of billions into green schemes away from medicine and poverty reduction, the use of food, and farmland for fuel rather than food, and the killing of animals and birds plus the scarifying of the environment by useless windmills and solar panels.

          Please Margot, I’m awaiting an answer, are you a misanthropist or not?

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          • #

            Ah, but bobl, if uptake responds to forcing so quickly, why are atmospheric levels of CO2 still not equalised?

            Do you think it has occurred to anybody to put some time, effort, and money into researching this issue?

            Where do you think we should look to find the results of that research? Speeches full of nonsense by ex-journalists with no background in science, or maybe academic journals?

            34

        • #
          tom0mason

          I’m implying that they are saying that the *only* man’s burning of fossil fuels is the only thing increasing CO2 or at least the major part of it. This assertion is unqualified.

          31

          • #

            Then your implication is at odds with the scientific facts as we know them.

            The atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased from 280ppm to 400ppm.
            (That CO2 must have come from somewhere, right?)
            The amount of CO2 released by human activity is a known value.
            (We know how much land we farm, we know how much oil we burn)
            It exceeds the additional amount of CO2 now contained the atmosphere.
            (Basic maths)
            This tells us that the uptake from the biosphere is increasing as a result of the increased availability in the atmosphere.
            (Which is obviously what happens).

            What you seem to be saying is that in addition to the known amount of CO2 that humans are known to be adding to the atmosphere, there is another source that is adding CO2 to the atmosphere, which in turn means the biosphere is actually absorbing even more CO2 than we suspected.

            Why would you choose to believe that? What is this mystery source? What evidence could you possibly have that would make you think there is such a source? Does this mean ocean acidification is going to be much more alarming than the IPCC believes?

            Basically, are you familiar with Occam? Because your implied proposition is a classic example of a woefully over-convoluted explanation full of unnecessary assumptions for a problem for which a much simpler explanation already exists.

            Scepticism: you’ve picked up this nonsense idea from somewhere and failed to realise it is both, rubbish, and, implies global warming is even worse than we thought. A truly nonsense idea you should have no trouble seeing through now that I’ve explained it to you.

            45

  • #
    Eddie Sharpe

    Burn baby burn. Germany on track for 10 New Coal Fired power stations.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      Thank you Germany for joining China and India in helping to increase the atmospheric CO2 level.

      The plants, and hence all nature, thanks you for the food supply. 🙂

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      • #
        AndyG55

        Interesting.. As soon as I mention that NATURE LOVES CO2..

        All the nature hating red thumbs appear. 🙂

        bizarre !

        163

    • #
      tom0mason

      Thanks for the good news – only 7 more (before 2020)to add and my predicted figure for their requirement will be met. Burn it up Germany I’ve got money riding on this!

      90

    • #

      Eddie, Germany have reduced their CO2 emissions by 25%.

      You were saying?

      321

      • #
        Dave

        Marcot,

        Germany CO2 emissions set to rise 1.5% this year 2013.
        Germany CO2 emissions went up 2.15% last year 2012.

        You’re flogging a hot source, Marcot.

        Germany CO2 emission target of 40% by 2020 will NEVER be met, and appears to be a downhill slide to only a fraction over 19.84% and getting worse after that. Their push to strengthen the economy will blow all hopes of CO2 reductions out the door.

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        • #

          Let me get this straight – because Germany’s emissions are now growing at 1-2%pa, that means their reduction by 25% never happened?

          I’m not sure exactly how innumerate you are, but is it your contention that Germany’s emissions this year are exactly what they would have been, had the 25% reduction not occurred, due to the growth that is now occurring?

          36

      • #
        AndyG55

        “Germany have reduced their CO2 emissions…..”

        And their economy is certainly suffering the consequences, as is Spain’s and the UK and ANYONE who goes down that ridiculous and nonsensical path.

        Fortunately for the Germans, their government has realised their past abject stupidity, and they are doing something about it,.. 10 new COAL FIRED power stations.

        UK, doesn’t look like being so fortunate.. and in the coming decade or so could be in for a horrific time, similar to the Dark Ages, all brought on the pseudo-green agenda of the moronic, unfounded, un-scientific, demonising of a minor trace gas that is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL for life on this planet.

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        • #

          I see – in Andy-world, there was no GFC, just a big attack of the Giant Mutant Killer Windtowers.

          I wonder, Andy, if you’ve run this idea of yours past an actual economist to see what she had to say about it?

          35

          • #
            AndyG55

            TEN new coal fired power stations, big ones too.. and that’s will be just the start. 🙂

            And just in case you didn’t catch that TEN NEW COAL FIRED POWER STATIONS. !!!

            The economists have obviously spoken louder than the whinging of the green troglodytes.

            62

            • #
              AndyG55

              oops.. seems I was wrong.

              its not “Ten new coal fired power stations”… its

              Ten new VERY LARGE coal fired power stations. 🙂

              22

          • #

            But Andy, how many coal-fired plants were closed?
            What is the *total* number of power stations?
            How many coal-fired power stations were scheduled to be replaced but have instead been simply shut down due to plenty of non-coal power becoming available?

            You really need to put on a sceptical hat to address the half-a-story you’ve picked up from somewhere.

            Meanwhile, have you asked that economist what she thinks of your idea that the GFC was caused by wind turbines? How did that go?

            34

            • #

              Careful Margot,

              How many coal-fired power stations were scheduled to be replaced but have instead been simply shut down due to plenty of non-coal power becoming available?

              When you know less than zero about this, you really should avoid making such an abject fool of yourself like this.

              Plenty of non coal power, you say. Margot, let me be very clear about this.

              Not one coal fired power plant, anywhere on Planet Earth has closed because of a renewable power plant taking up the power that was provided by the coal fired plant.

              The only reason coal fired plants are closing is that they have reached their life expectancy. Those plants that have closed have all been smaller than 100MW, nearly all of them in the range of 10 to 20MW.

              In the U.S. they are being replaced lock stock and barrel by Natural Gas Fired plants, because gas is now so cheap and so readily available.

              Not one large scale power plant has closed down, nothing over 750MW, let alone over 2000+MW.

              In China, lots of those little (less than 10MW) ancient plants are closing replaced by 2000+MW plants at the rate of one new one each 7 to 10 days.

              Margot, I urge you here, please don’t believe what your string pulling spying masters tell you to say, because it just makes you look like the fool, not them.

              If you know nothing about the subject, which is patently obvious, you need to avoid making comments that only end up with people laughing at your ignorance.

              Tony.

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              • #

                Tony, you are still recycling 20-year-old opinions. You need to update your fossilised opinions.
                For a more up-to-date and realistic look at the issue (and not tainted by perverse personal opinions):
                http://www.brattle.com/news-and-knowledge/news/66

                As for Germany, they hadn’t built any new coal power plants since 2006, and these new ones are an exercise in risk management to enable the closing of Germany’s old nuclear power plants, and its old coal power plants.

                For a look at what is *really* happening in Germany (rather than Tony’s fossil-fantasies):
                http://www.argusmedia.com/pages/NewsBody.aspx?id=860150&menu=yes

                Eon is more than halfway through a restructuring of its conventional European power plant portfolio, and had shut down or mothballed 6.5GW of plant capacity by the end of April this year, over 58pc of the 11GW earmarked for closure in 2012-15, the company said today at the presentation of its half-year financial results.

                Additional closures could follow because the market environment for thermal power plants continues to deteriorate, as a result of low forward prices on European wholesale power markets and narrow margins for generation. The utility expects it is more likely than not that power plant closures will exceed 11GW, with chief executive Johannes Teyssen saying there is a “high probability for this to happen”. “Unless the business environment of the energy industry in our core European markets changes tangibly, other permanent or at least temporary plant closures will be unavoidable,” he said.

                It comes as low demand for electricity and increasing renewable power supply have pushed forward electricity prices to an eight-year low for a year-ahead contract on the German wholesale market, with few power plants currently able to recover their full costs, Eon said.

                Did you get that? Increasing supply of renewables is pushing prices down and causing the closure of old-fashioned power plants. Pretty much *exactly* the opposite of Tony’s fact-free opinions.

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                Andrew McRae

                Ah Margot, the mistress of the selective quote. Two can play that game.

                Eon does not expect much support from the demand side for wholesale power prices as Europe recovers slowly from the global recession.

                Coal-fired plants set the power price in the German wholesale market about three-quarters of the time, Schenck said. But future development of European wholesale power prices will more likely hinge on political decisions on renewable power subsidies and the EU ETS market, with Chinese economic growth and coal demand slowing, he said.

                So those renewables are really driving down electricity prices…
                …while operating on taxpayer subsidies not available to Coal, who have to pay for emissions certs on a market rigged by Goldman Sachs, nor available to the nuclear industry who have to pay a fuel rod tax not conceived of when their plant was designed, and
                … that’s only during the QUARTER of the day when the sun is shining strong enough and the wind is blowing hard enough for renewables to make more than a blip in the grid, and
                … there’s been low demand due to a global recession.

                You’re like the John West of warmists. 🙂
                It’s the quotes that Margot forgets that make Margot the best!

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                Graeme No.3

                Margot:
                Stop lying.
                A new coal fired plant started up this month, and 10 more are scheduled to start up in the next 2 years.
                There are roughly 21 applications in train, but some of these won’t be proceeded with, but overall Germany should have 20 -25 new coal fired plants within 5 years.

                Global Coal Consumption has Jumped 70% Since 2000, Global Temperature Falls 0.03°C Since 2002!

                See more at: http://notrickszone.com/2013/11/19/while-global-coal-consumption-jumps-70-since-2000-global-temperature-falls-0-03c-since-2002/#sthash.qmm4BnGM.dpuf

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    Heywood

    I love this paragraph and going to unashamedly steal it for personal use 😉

    “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Science is not, repeat not, a belief system. It is not, repeat not, part of the Communist manifesto. It is a rigorous, quantitative process by which the truth is honestly sought and gradually obtained, not by careless adoption and mindless recitation of a fatuous Party Line but by the advancing and questioning and refining of hypotheses.”

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    Carbon500

    A most enjoyable no-holds barred posting!

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    Brett

    Thanks for the article, answers a couple of things I have wanted to know, but raises several more questions (Damn science, it would be easier to go to rallies and drink latte’s). I try to find most of the info, but in this area most articles appear to have been hijacked and only offer ‘what if’ results. Anyone up for answering a few questions? (mainly to do with the ocean ‘acidity’ issue) Links to good sources would be appreciated.

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        Brett

        One of the ‘scares’ is the lack of ability to build shells right? I have read that a lower PH may impede shell formation, but this can be compensated by increased dissolved calcium carbonate being available. Would an increased level of carbonic acid have a reaction with the limestone in the ocean, firstly buffering, as LMoB mentioned, also have the possibility of increased calcium carbonate available? No study I have seen (showing adverse effects) specify whether they just manipulated conditions in a tank of water, or took variables from the natural environment into consideration. Secondly, what about estuaries, etc. ? They have varying habitats from what I understand (Low PH, low alkalinity, Low/high salinity, greater temperature variations). Why are there so many crustaceans, shellfish etc in those habitats if they can’t build shells?

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    tom0mason

    A few references for those that think Oceans becoming less basic is a problem here are a few references –

    Modern-age buildup of CO2 and its effects on seawater acidity and salinity
    (Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 33, Number 10, May 2006)
    – Hugo A. Loáiciga
    http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2006GL026305.shtml

    Phytoplankton Calcification in a High-CO2 World
    (Science, Volume 320, Number 5874, pp. 336-340, April 2008)
    – M. Debora Iglesias-Rodriguez et al.
    http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;320/5874/336

    Elevated water temperature and carbon dioxide concentration increase the growth of a keystone echinoderm
    (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 106, Issue 23, pp. 9316-9321, June 2009)
    – Rebecca A. Gooding et al.
    http://www.pnas.org/content/106/23/9316.abstract

    Marine calcifiers exhibit mixed responses to CO2-induced ocean acidification
    (Geology, Volume 37, Number 12, pp. 1131-1134, December 2009)
    – Justin B. Ries et al.
    http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/37/12/1131.abstract

    Vulnerability of marine biodiversity to ocean acidification: A meta-analysis
    (Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, Volume 86, Issue 2, pp. 157-164, January 2010)
    – I. E. Hendriks, C.M. Duarte, M. Alvarez
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2009.11.022

    * Ocean acidification: Separating evidence from judgment – A reply to Dupont et al.
    (Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, Volume 89, Issue 2, pp. 186-190, September 2010)
    – I. E. Hendriks, C.M. Duarte
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2010.06.007

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      Gee Aye

      you shot yourself in the foot with all but the first of these. Did you read these papers or did someone suggest them to you?

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        Do you have a reason for your aversion Gee Aye, or is it innate?

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        tom0mason

        My foot is still whole and in no pain. Did you understand any of those papers?

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        Andrew McRae

        Wellllll just looking at the last one for instance, the full article is paywalled and trying to mentally unblur the low-res preview images is a bit tricky, however….
        …it does seem to show that increased CO2 led to a reduction in calcification rate which was accompanied by increased fertility of embryos and a mild increase in survival rates.
        No detrimental effect of increased CO2 detected in that study.
        Gee Aye, would you disagree with that interpretation?

        I don’t know if the critters were subject to normal predation during that study, so whether the decreased calcification ever had a chance to decrease survival is unclear.

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        tom0mason

        Just from the Abstracts for some of the references-

        from
        Phytoplankton Calcification in a High-CO2 World

        Field evidence from the deep ocean is consistent with these laboratory conclusions, indicating that over the past 220 years there has been a 40% increase in average coccolith mass. Our findings show that coccolithophores are already responding and will probably continue to respond to rising atmospheric CO2 partial pressures, which has important implications for biogeochemical modeling of future oceans and climate.

        My take on that is that coccolithophores are already quite naturally responding to some change in order to maximise their survival. The range of change so far is within these creatures abilities and judging from past records of exopure they are likely to survive.

        From –
        Elevated water temperature and carbon dioxide concentration increase the growth of a keystone echinoderm
        Rebecca A. Gooding,1, Christopher D. G. Harley and Emily Tang

        We manipulated water temperature and [CO2] to determine the effects on the sea star Pisaster ochraceus, a keystone predator. We found that sea star growth and feeding rates increased with water temperature from 5 °C to 21 °C. A doubling of current [CO2] also increased growth rates both with and without a concurrent temperature increase from 12 °C to 15 °C. Increased [CO2] also had a positive but nonsignificant effect on sea star feeding rates, suggesting [CO2] may be acting directly at the physiological level to increase growth rates.

        See my comment from above.

        From
        Marine calcifiers exhibit mixed responses to CO2-induced ocean acidification
        Justin B. Ries1,*, Anne L. Cohen1 and Daniel C. McCorkle

        Here, we present the results of 60 d laboratory experiments in which we investigated the effects of CO2-induced ocean acidification on calcification in 18 benthic marine organisms. Species were selected to span a broad taxonomic range (crustacea, cnidaria, echinoidea, rhodophyta, chlorophyta, gastropoda, bivalvia, annelida) and included organisms producing aragonite, low-Mg calcite, and high-Mg calcite forms of CaCO3. We show that 10 of the 18 species studied exhibited reduced rates of net calcification and, in some cases, net dissolution under elevated pCO2. However, in seven species, net calcification increased under the intermediate and/or highest levels of pCO2, and one species showed no response at all.

        In otherwords some species react slower, i.e. are less able, than others to react to changes in conditions. As this is a laboritory experiment it remains to be seen what actually happens in the wild. See other comments above…

        From
        Vulnerability of marine biodiversity to ocean acidification: A meta-analysis
        I.E. Hendriks, , C.M. Duarte , M. Álvarez

        Calcification is most sensitive to ocean acidification while it is questionable if marine functional diversity is impacted significantly along the ranges of acidification predicted for the 21st century. Active biological processes and small-scale temporal and spatial variability in ocean pH may render marine biota far more resistant to ocean acidification than hitherto believed.

        Speak for itself.

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    […] Thirdly, you raise the specter of what you bizarrely call ocean “acidification”. […]

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    pat

    lots of CAGW advocacy, but lots of detail & unsupported claims as well, for TonyfromOz & others who might be interested:

    18 Nov: Bloomberg: Oil’s Future Draws Blood and Gore in Investment Portfolios
    By Tom Randall with assistance from Eric Roston in New York
    Gore has been fighting climate change since he co-sponsored the first congressional hearings on the subject in 1976. While his essential aim hasn’t changed, his tactics and rhetoric have. Flush with cash after making $70 million in the sale of the Current TV network, Gore is buddying up to investors, working to change their minds about billion-dollar climate risks lurking in their portfolios. Gore, snubbing trees, is now a hugger of Wall Street.
    “We’re already seeing the impact on some carbon intensive assets — we’ve seen it in Australia, we’ve seen it in Canada, we’ve seen it in the U.S.,” Gore said by phone from London on Oct. 29, a day he spent promoting a new report as chairman of Generation Asset Management, the investment firm he co-founded with David Blood. “The time has come to question how people avoid the risk.”…
    ***Whenever the company (Royal Dutch Shell) evaluates a new project, it bakes in $40 a ton for the future cost of carbon emissions, Destin Singleton, a spokeswoman for Shell, wrote in an e-mail…
    Not everyone says fossil fuels are in trouble…
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-18/oil-s-future-draws-blood-and-gore-in-investment-portfolios.html

    18 Nov: SMH: Tom Arup: Call for PM to back cheap international carbon permits
    Australia’s leading business group has called for the Abbott Government to consider reversing its opposition to the use of cheap international carbon permits to meet Australia’s 2020 emissions reduction target.
    In a submission on the government’s direct action climate change policy, the Business Council of Australia also says the policy’s design should be referred to the Productivity Commission to ensure the emissions target is met at the lowest cost…
    “Consideration should be given by the government of purchasing international certificates as a buffer to help ensure achieving the 5% emissions reduction target in 2020 at lowest cost, given the current relatively low cost of measurable, verifiable and registered international certificates,” the submission says.
    The Council’s submissions follows comments by Australian Industry Group head Innes Willox last month in which he doubted direct action could drive enough emission savings domestically to meet the five per cent target and said the government should purchase international carbon credits offshore to ensure no shortfall occurs.
    Last week the Business Council and AiGroup joined the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Mineral Council of Australia in a joint statement calling for the swift repeal of the carbon price…
    http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/call-for-pm-to-back-cheap-international-carbon-permits-20131118-2xr3p.html

    19 Nov: Australian: Sid Maher: BCA puts heat on direct action
    AUSTRALIA’S top companies have warned that the Abbott government’s plan to focus on domestic carbon emissions reductions could have “a very high-cost impost on Australian taxpayers” if cheap domestic abatement is not available, and have called on the Coalition to consider buying international emissions permits…
    The call from Australia’s top companies came as Tony Abbott was pressed to encourage people to switch from electric to gas hot-water systems, which could save as much as three tonnes of carbon emissions per household and cut Australia’s emissions.
    The call by the Energy Networks Association, which represents gas and electricity transmission businesses, argues support should be given for people to switch to gas hot-water systems, as with solar and electric heat-pump systems, which are supported by small-scale renewable energy certificates…
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/bca-puts-heat-on-direct-action/story-e6frg6xf-1226762841279

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    pat

    it took five pages of news results from a “carbon price” search to find this extremely informative, current Financial Times article. found every conceivable MSM push for “carbon trading” on the first page of results, incl some dated as far back as 11 Nov:

    18 Nov: UK Financial Times: London banks quit carbon trading
    By Jim Pickard and Ajay Makan
    At least 10 London banks have scaled back or closed their carbon trading desks amid turmoil in the European emissions trading scheme.
    The fledgling market was once seen as a promising growth area, with the City of London Corporation predicting in 2006 that London would become the leading provider of services to the “mushrooming” sector.
    But the number of City workers employed on carbon desks has fallen by 70 per cent in the past four years, according to Anthony Hobley, president of the Climate Markets & Investors Association…
    The workforce had fallen from close to a thousand to just a couple of hundred, Mr Hobley estimated, as carbon prices have plummeted…
    A report by the Institute for Public Policy Research, a left-leaning think-tank, warns that problems within the emissions trading system (ETS) – the world’s largest carbon market – pose a “serious risk” to London’s status as the home of carbon finance…
    Barclays has sold its carbon trading business, Deutsche Bank has closed its global carbon trading operations and UBS has closed its climate change advisory practice, according to the report.
    It says that JPMorgan has scaled back its environmental markets team and Morgan Stanley has reduced its carbon desk from full-time to part-time.
    Meanwhile much of the activity in carbon trading has switched to China, California and Australia…
    Other banks reducing their London operations include EcoSecurities, Camco Clean Energy, Nedbank, Sindacatum and TFS Green, the report adds…
    “Our gas and power team keep an eye on the [ETS] market, in case a client needs to transact, but as a stand alone business it is basically over,” said an executive who oversees European energy trading at one large bank.
    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/cbb749ba-506b-11e3-9f0d-00144feabdc0.html

    perhaps we should send this article to the pollies as a reality check.

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    As a long term climate denier I’ve decided to atone for my sins against Gaea by moving to subtropical Hervey Bay, so I can experience first hand the climatic suffering which will shortly be visited on us all. I hope everyone appreciates my gesture of contrition. 🙂

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      scaper...

      Not a bad place to be fried in.

      I go there in late Winter every year for the whale hunt. I used to ship the carcasses to Brisbane to be rendered down to compliment my mining tyre, fire pit generator.

      Too expensive so I’ve set up a rendering plant on the coast on River Heads Road. Will have to up the annual kill rate to ensure a quick payback for the investment. Four hundred a year should do the trick.

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      bobl

      Welcome,Eric, assuming you come from a cold climate please note than Harvey bay is (on average) about 6 degrees hotter than Melbourne streets outside your favourite choice of Latte cafe’s and therefore is likely to be visited by Armageddon – any moment now!

      Bob

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    pat

    19 Nov: NYT: Justin Gillis/David Jolly: Slowdown in Carbon Emissions Worldwide, but Coal Burning Continues to Grow
    Global emissions of carbon dioxide are slowing somewhat from the rapid pace of the last decade, new figures show, but growth in coal burning continues to outstrip the growth in other forms of energy, and experts said the world remains far from meeting international goals on climate change.
    Scientists compiling the numbers said it was unclear whether the slowdown in the growth of emissions might represent the beginnings of a permanent shift…
    The new figures were released late Monday by the Global Carbon Project, which tracks emissions…

    ***Yet on a global scale, the continuing expansion of coal, the dirtiest form of fossil energy and the one associated with the highest emissions of greenhouse gases, is far outstripping the growth of renewables and other low-carbon sources of power.
    “Coal is king, still,” said Glen P. Peters, a researcher at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo and a leader of the group that produced the new analysis…

    In a speech on Monday in Warsaw, the United Nations’ top officer on climate change warned coal industry executives that much of the world’s coal will need to be left in the ground if international climate goals are to be met.
    Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, told industry leaders at the World Coal Summit, which the Polish government called somewhat incongruously to run at the same time as the 19th meeting of the United Nations climate conference, that they were putting the global climate and their shareholders at risk by failing to support the search for alternative methods of producing energy…
    “Let me be clear from the outset that my joining you today is neither a tacit approval of coal use, nor is it a call for the immediate disappearance of coal,” Ms. Figueres said. “But I am here to say that coal must change rapidly and dramatically for everyone’s sake.”
    She cited a “business continuation risk” for the coal industry if it does not play a larger role in finding ways to limit emissions…

    *** Godfrey G. Gomwe, chairman of the World Coal Association’s energy and climate committee, responded in a speech that, with “1.3 billion people in the world who live without access to electricity,” the questions of climate change and poverty reduction could not be separated.
    “A life lived without access to modern energy is a life lived in poverty,” said Mr. Gomwe, who is also chief executive of the mining company Anglo American’s thermal coal business. “As much as some may wish it, coal is not going away.”
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/science/slowdown-in-carbon-emissions-worldwide-but-coal-burning-continues-to-grow.html?_r=0

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    pat

    and this is how Fairfax reported the Global Carbon Project story, with the only mention of “coal” in the entire article being –

    “China has instituted a number of measures to try get its mammoth greenhouse gas emissions under control, including closing older industrial and coal power plants, subsidising renewable energy and even trialling emissions trading.”

    19 Nov: SMH: Tom Arup: Greenhouse gas emissions hit highest level ever
    Global greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels reached the highest levels in human history last year, driven predominantly by Chinese growth, and are projected to surge even further in 2013.
    New data from the Global Carbon Project – a team of international scientists who track global emissions – finds carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels and making cement grew 2.2 per cent in 2012 from the previous year. In 2013 a further 2.1 per cent rise is expected.
    But the latest data suggests the world’s emissions could be slowing…
    CSIRO climate scientist Dr Pep Canadell – who is also executive director of the Global Carbon Project – told Fairfax Media the emissions rates of the past two years could be the tentative signs of a global slow down…
    “But it is important to understand it is only a slow down in growth – emissions every year are still higher than the previous one. Two per cent growth is still a very large number,” he said…
    Australian emissions under Global Carbon Project numbers have bounced around in the past two years, rising 12 per cent in 2011, but falling 13 per cent in 2012.
    But Dr Canadell said little can be made of the preliminary Australian numbers because of a lag in some data. He instead pointed to federal government numbers reporting Australian emissions largely flatlining in recent years.
    Not all emissions find their way into the atmosphere. Between 2003 and 2012 the Global Carbon Project found about 27 per cent was captured in the oceans, 27 per cent was stored in land, and 45 per cent went into the atmosphere.
    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/greenhouse-gas-emissions-hit-highest-level-ever-20131119-2xsap.html

    both MSM outlets try to disguise it’s only a slowdown in growth of emissions.

    Arup’s paras on Australia’s emissions – way up/way down/
    flatlining and CSIRO’s Candell admitting to a “lag” in data, is pure comedy!

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    pat

    i know 10-year-olds who can write better than Redfearn. way too silly to excerpt, tho i can’t resist this bit:

    19 Nov: Guardian: Graham Redfearn: Climate talks, coal and the pink lungs of Warsaw
    UN climate change chief fronts coal conference in Warsaw as talks hit crucial week
    There has been no sunshine either. A breezy 4C outside and a thick blanket of cloud, Figueres admitted in an afternoon press conference she was missing the sun…
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2013/nov/19/warsaw-climate-talks-coal-pink-lungs

    if u actually read this article, does it make u wonder how he could be paid to write for MSM!

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    pat

    don’t back down, India:

    19 Nov: Economic Times India: Vishwa Mohan: Warsaw green meet: India, US at odds over fate of climate-damaging gas
    While India insisted that the issue must be kept out of the Montreal Protocol as HFC is not ozone depleting gas, US on Monday said the Protocol had very much jurisdiction over this climate damaging gas…
    Montreal Protocol deals with phasing out ozone-depleting substances like hydro-chlorofluorocarbon (HCFC) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFC). Though HFC is not an ozone-depleting gas, it contributes to global warming and consequently its phase-out comes under the Kyoto Protocol of the UNFCCC that puts the onus of its replacement only on rich countries…
    “Montreal Protocol has built in differentiation (to deal with the issue). It is not the same kind of differentiation like the UNFCCC but it has got differentiation built in.”
    He dismissed the suggestions that the UNFCCC principles should apply (for phasing out the HFCs). “Let’s just get some results,” (US special envoy for Climate Change, Todd) Stern said…
    India, however, stuck to its stand and requested the participating countries to resist any pressure to look at the issue differently unless they get alternative and cost-effective technology for the phase-out…

    ***An Indian negotiator, said, “We (India and other developing countries) have categorically said that we would not agree to European Union, the US and other rich nations because we are still not sure on the alternative technologies, its cost and how it is going to impact our domestic consumers. In many other developing countries, we don’t have technologies. There were concerns that many of these technologies are of very high cost.”

    Making India’s stand clear, the official said New Delhi would not be party to any change which defies the core of the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol…
    http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/environment/global-warming/warsaw-green-meet-india-us-at-odds-over-fate-of-climate-damaging-gas/articleshow/26000058.cms

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    pat

    ***don’t expect the slightest concern from Christian Aid, 350.org, “youth climate campaigners & environmental groups” featured in this piece for the plight of “poorer countries”. interesting that NYT didn’t pick up this Figueres quote, tho they did find space for – ‘She cited a “business continuation risk” for the coal industry if it does not play a larger role in finding ways to limit emissions’:

    18 Nov: UK Guardian: UN climate chief says coal can be part of global warming solution
    Christiana Figueres says the coal industry has ‘the opportunity to be part of the worldwide climate solution’ but it must change
    by Adam Vaughan and John Vidal in Warsaw
    Her remarks, at a summit that takes place as the second week of UN climate negotiations get under way in Warsaw, prompted strong criticism from the head of the UK’s climate statutory advisers and environment campaigners…

    ***She also said coal power could help poorer countries’ economic development and poverty reduction, but that the industry “must change”…

    John Gummer, the chair of the government’s climate advisers and former UK environment minister, said that “calling coal a clean solution is like characterising sex trafficking as marriage guidance.”…

    William Moomaw of the Fletcher School at Tufts University in the US, said “The trend of future coal use is changing rapidly. The World Bank, US development assistance and the US Import-Export Bank will no longer finance or support new unabated [without CCS] coal power plants internationally, except in rare cases.”
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/18/un-climate-chief-coal-global-warming

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    pat

    18 Nov: Washington Post: Brad Plumer: Wealthy nations pledged billions to help the poor adapt to climate change. Where did it all go?
    In 2009, these nations pledged $30 billion in “fast start” climate finance over the next three years, with a promise to scale that up to $100 billion per year in aid from both public and private sources by 2020.
    But that latter pledge now looks increasingly unlikely…

    2010-2012: The first $35 billion in climate aid. Between 2010 and 2012, the world’s wealthy nations say they provided $35 billion to help poorer countries adjust to climate change, as promised at Copenhagen. (You can see a full breakdown of these pledges from the World Resources Institute here.)
    The vast majority of that aid — $27 billion — came from five countries: Germany, Japan, Norway, Britain, and the United States. And most of it went toward clean energy, efficiency, and other mitigation projects around the world. Only a small slice, about $5 billion, went toward helping poor countries prepare for the actual impacts of climate change, like droughts or heat waves.
    For instance, Norway gave Brazil $1 billion to help prevent deforestation. The United States gave the Congo Basin $15.7 million to preserve rain forest biodiversity. Japan gave Egypt a $338 million loan for wind power. You can see a partial list of projects in this map below from 2011 (click to enlarge):…
    Oxfam International has argued that most of the aid wasn’t “new and additional” — much of it was foreign aid that already existed but was simply repackaged under the auspices of climate change.

    The United States, for instance, says it provided $7.5 billion in “fast start” climate finance between 2010 and 2012, spread out across more than a hundred countries. But Oxfam says that total includes existing development aid approved by Congress that the State Department says produced “climate co-benefits.” It also includes loan guarantees through the Export-Import Bank that are primarily intended to benefit U.S. companies…

    Another recent report from Oxfam estimates that global climate aid from developed countries amounted to between $7.6 billion and $16.3 billion in 2013. The report said it was impossible to get a precise estimate, thanks to “murky accounting” — those figures, for instance, likely include existing loans that will have to be paid back…
    Most developed countries have provided no details about their climate-finance plans for 2014, and only one country — Britain — has even said anything about 2015…

    Todd Stern, the State Department’s envoy on climate issues, was blunt about this fact at a lecture in London last month.
    “The fiscal reality of the United States and other developed countries is not going to allow it,” Stern said. “This is not just a matter of the recent financial crisis. It is structural, based on the huge obligations we face from aging populations and other pressing needs for infrastructure, education, health care and the like. We must and will strive to keep increasing our climate finance, but it is important that all of us see the world as it is.”*** (LOL)
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/18/wealthy-nations-promised-billions-to-help-the-poor-adapt-to-climate-change-where-did-it-go/?tid=pm_business_pop

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    pat

    ABC carries AFP – no coal can play a part, no “poorer countries” quote, but full of angry anti-coal protesters, of course:

    19 Nov: ABC: AFP: Coal industry must change: UN climate chief
    The host body, the World Coal Association (WCA), went on the defensive (??) on Monday.
    “This is not an attempt to distract from the important work of these (climate) negotiations,” WCA chief executive Milton Catelin told delegates.
    The industry “accepts” that the burning of coal contributes to warming and that new technology is needed, he said, referring to CO2 capture and other initiatives.
    But, Catelin argued, “the facts tell us that continued economic growth and poverty reduction … will both require coal.”
    About 41 per cent of global electricity and 68 per cent of steel production depended on coal, Catelin said…
    Opening the meeting, Economy Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Janusz Piechocinski insisted that Poland had “with great consistency stuck to its international obligations to climate”.
    But, he said, “The largest coal deposits in the EU are in Poland, so over the next decade coal will remain an important fuel and can be a guarantor of energy for the entire EU.”…
    http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2013/11/19/3894436.htm

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    Safetyguy66

    Phillip Adams doesn’t get the answers he’s looking for in this interview on the debate around the repeal of the carbon tax legislation. I actually thought he was going to terminate the interview at one stage. He kept setting the interviewees up for their lefty expected diatribe, but they just wouldn’t play the game, its amusing listening.

    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/business-and-the-carbon-tax-repeal/5099320

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  • #
    J.H.

    Sort of felt sorry for Bada…. It must be a humbling experience indeed to get smacked, pwned and crucified right down to a molecular level.

    … Perhaps now he can reconstruct himself with some real science. He could perhaps ask Lord Monckton of Brenchley to review it for him. Something on Marine acid/base levels would be most appropriate. 😉

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  • #
    J.H.

    I like saying “Acidification” with an stuttering emphasis along the lines of Hannibal Lecter’s famous lines …”A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.” Acidif-if-if-if-iffffication!!!!

    0.o 😉

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  • #
    Dave

    News flash:

    Australia slides down to bottom on climate change performance index

    They go on to say: “Australia has become an “anti-climate” influence on international efforts to slow global warming after dropping close to the bottom of a ranking of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters.”

    Now it is up to other nations to do the same and beat us.

    And Christoph Bals, policy director at Germanwatch, said:

    between 2002 and 2011, the world’s largest emitter China had been responsible for 80% of the rise in global annual emissions. But he said growth in renewable energy in China was currently outstripping growth in coal.

    I think Christoph does not understand China, they want our spot on the leader board.

    N.B. Germanwatch is not happy about Australia, Japan and Canada.

    As I say to Ms. Christina Figueres, go GAIA yourself you little Greedy Gang Greens.

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    • #
      diogenese2

      “growth in renewables outstripping growth in coal”
      For what its worth NYT 26/10/13 prints details of Chinese energy production 2005-11. It was complicated by quoting “renewables” in Kwh and “fossils” in BTU (which, even in quadrillions reduces fossils buy about * 30 in numbers!).
      Current production 3846 bkwh , of which fossils about 75% nuclear & Hydro 22.5% solar & wind 2.5%. These last two show
      80% “growth” over the period. All renewables show 9% growth
      against 8% fossils. Outstripping!!!!
      However total growth is about 312bkwh of which wind and solar have contributed about 10% Hydro/nuclear 10% and fossil 80%.
      Detailed breakdown available if anybody gives a toss.

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      • #
        diogenese2

        apologies – BTU conversion wrong – actual consumption
        Fossil 93% renewables 7% of which solar & wind 0.3%.
        Its worse than I thought!

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        • #
          AndyG55

          And most of that “renewables” is hydro.

          which you need large dams and rainfall to make work.

          It is good that they count dams as a renewable, means we should build some more, using direct action funds.

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          • #
            scaper...

            Andy, the warmists believe that there are no places left to site a dam, rubbish of course.

            I have been lobbying with limited success not only the sites for new dams but also to lift the capacity by dam wall extension and am a huge supporter of Terry’s (Bowring) interstate water transfer project. Google him.

            The project is to transfer water to the head of the Murray Darling system from Northern Qld. Have got everything on that project. Little things like CBA, 23% of GDP increase for the region which is on the low side of projections, and an investment return in seventeen years.

            For a $2B outlay the amount of water that flows from QLD into the system could be increased many fold. It involves constructing embankments in the channel country. The Greenies won’t like it but stiff! They will whine it is geo-engineering but they don’t seem to mind the barrages that were built on the Murray mouth.

            The beauty is that the embankments will have flood gates installed so we can control the flow rate.

            A bit Queensland eccentric but am aware of interstate sites.

            Remember the Traveston Crossing Dam debacle? Could not believe Labor’s inanity to even propose such a stupid proposition.

            The proposed dam was a saucer, from memory the deepest sections at full capacity would have been ~6M. But there’s more. It was an alluvial floodplain that tests revealed was over 40M down before reaching bedrock.

            For the engineers, consultancy firms walked away as the proposed dam wall could only be keyed in on one side. That’s right, the other side there was bedrock if one wants to excavate a few hundred metres to key into a fault line.

            Had a bit of input to stop that farce but the area has potential…the Borumba Super Dam! The wall could be lifted over 70M to protect Imbil, is a deep dam as it stands already, could produce enough constant hydro power to supply the valley plus, could be fed vertically to supply Brisbane via the Stanley River dam system.

            Could go on and on about other projects that still are yet to be announced but you get the gist.

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    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      How come we are on the bottom? There are many countries that never even put a foot in, yet we get vilified?
      Obnoxious pricks.

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  • #
    Robert

    There was a reply to a blog by Andrew Bolt with a rant of mine about the doco ‘Acid Ocean’. In it they talked about the effects of decreasing pH on the larvae of oysters and the acidification of the oceans due to extra CO2.

    In a reply from ‘theoysterfarmer’, it was claimed that the oyster farmers pump CO2 into the tanks of larvae. These feed on algae and because the extra CO2 helps the algae grow, it is beneficial to oyster larvae.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      Humm.. I didn’t realise that oyster farmers used CO2 as well. Doesn’t surprise me though.

      CO2 is of course HIGHLY IMPORTANT for all plant life, be it land or ocean based.

      It is plant life that FEEDS THE WORLD either directly or indirectly.

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  • #
    Robert

    Surprising that the folk are starting to wake-up to the photochemical reaction called photosynthesis. All carbohydrate upon which all life depends on its synthesis in green plants; in the chloroplasts as chlorophyll is the catalyst acting in the presence of light. Carbon dioxide and water are the ingredients and carbohydrate and oxygen the products of it. Yes, we humans need the oxygen as well. Like all chemical reactions the rate of reaction can be increased by increased temperature, light and substrate.

    So what does the AGW industry want to do; tax carbon dioxide because it’s allegedly causing global warming, and yet there hasn’t been any warming for 17 years despite a 7-8% increase in levels of CO2 to 400 ppm.

    Pity that the AGW industry and its supporters, politicians, bankers, economists, lawyers, etc. are, frankly, scientifically illiterate. If there is no significant mathematical relationship between global temperatures and levels of CO2 a carbon tax will achieve nought.

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  • #
    Reinder van Til

    Margot
    November 22, 2013 at 7:37 am

    I see nothing at that story that contradicts the basic fact that Germany reduced its CO2 emissions by 25%.

    Why you persist in denying this unassailable fact is quite a mystery.

    Here is a graph of German CO2 emissions that clearly illustrates Germany’s 25% cut in emissions:
    http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/ger_reg.html

    Will MV mend the errors of his ways and stop denying this fact, I wonder?

    Sure. Till around 1990 there were two German states. A democratic prosperous West Germany and the socialist/communist ruins of East Germany. Then they fused again to one German country. No wonder the CO2 dropped dramatically since those days. The former East Germany is still far behind in development compared to the former West Germany.

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  • #
    Reinder van Til

    Margot
    November 21, 2013 at 11:55 am

    Gosh, I’ll give that little bit of semantic acrobatics a degree of difficulty of 4.5. Sadly, however, halfway through the final double-pike, you’ve ended up flat [snip]: “Ocean acidification” is absolutely not analoguous with the leaching of base cations from soil. Ocean acidification is where the increased uptake of CO2 causes an increase in H+ ions, thus increasing acidity. There is no leaching occurring.

    Since when and how can something which has no acidity (the seas and oceans) show an increasing acidity? Slightly less alkaline is a far more appropiate use of terms here.

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  • #
    Orson

    Margot
    November 21, 2013 at 11:10 am
    In fact, Rereke, when assessing the reliability of a source, that source’s qualifications, academic record, reputation and track record are paramount.

    YEAH, that Newton guy who passionately believed in alchemy, alchemy of all things! How can you ever trust his findings on, oh, gravity?
    What a f_ _ _in rube!

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