IPCC moves goalposts from 2 to 1.5C — just a part of the PR plan to get more headlines

Pick a number, any number — the message is always the same. In 2018 the IPCC dropped the arbitrary 2C target to an arbitrary 1.5C target. The world hadn’t warmed fast enough, and worse, the new round of CMIP6 models were pushing their estimates of climate sensitivity up. But regardless, there are PR points to be made in every change. It’s an excuse for another round of “worse than we thought” press releases.

Commenter Joe teased:

Have the IPCC now become deniers? looks like we can only expect only .5 degrees C warming over the coming decades….

and Bobl sagely replied:

bobl

You’ve lost sight of the pea.

All the wild predictions are based on “Post Industrial” there has been about 0.95 deg since then, plus 0.5C brings us to the magic 1.5.

What you have to see is that all the $billions is about “preventing” an imperceptible and completely harmless 0.5 deg C change in temperature that might just come naturally anyway.

You are being duped. The aim frankly is to create an income stream via treaty that requires sovereign countries to levy taxes (Carbon credits) that are required to transit the UN so they can skim it like the charities do.

The whole thing is a UN shakedown.

Actual predictable consistency would be a disadvantage — they wouldn’t have the chance to reissue headlines that roll with cycles.

The numbers are irrelevant anyway in the quest for clickbait. To distracted, time-strung people every number bigger than 100 is “big”.

Watch the PR machine roll with the cycles

When Climate sensitivity goes up:

” It’s worse than we thought”

“Scientists have underestimated how bad CO2 will be”

“Seas will swallow your suburb”

When temperatures aren’t rising as fast as expected:

“Even a small amount of warming will be catastrophic”

“Even 1.5C will cause ( … insert disaster… more storms, more rain, less rain, more reckless fish).”

“We are closer to dangerous climate tipping point than we thought”.

“The margin of safety has just become smaller”

When climate sensitivity falls again (the cycle):

“new discovery means models have improved, are more accurate than ever”

“models find missing factor, are uncannily, reliable…”

“for the first time warming in the 1700s can be attributed to mankind”

When temperatures rise faster:

“scientists have underestimated the effect of CO2”

“climate change is accelerating”

“it’s the fastest rate since last week!”

In every situation above:

Apocalypse coming. Give us your money.

So silence those deniers, sack them, boycott companies that do business with them. Mock them, namecall, bully and coerce people to toe the line on the dogma, even if the line keeps changing, that’s part of the PR plan. As long as the media cycle is controlled by arrogant innumerate lefty-voting people the parasites win every round of the “cycle”.

It’s all about the framing, never the fact…

 

 

9.6 out of 10 based on 70 ratings

91 comments to IPCC moves goalposts from 2 to 1.5C — just a part of the PR plan to get more headlines

  • #
    nb

    Collectivised sin.
    We will all burn.
    Pay to be absolved.
    I build my emerald city to the glory of…
    me.

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      nb
      Here in Michigan USA, last year (2018/2019) was an unusually cold winter.

      This year (2019/2020), so far, we’ve had an unusually warm winter.

      In January 2019, we used 23.7 thousand cubic feet (McF) of natural gas to heat our home.

      In January 2020, we used 16.0 thousand cubic feet (McF) of natural gas to heat our home, a 32.5% reduction year over year.

      Our home thermostat was set at 68 degrees F. both years, and there is no other explanation for the large reduction EXCEPT that the month January 2020 was much warmer !

      We love that !

      Because global warming is good news.

      +1.5 degrees C. is good
      +2.0 degrees C. is better
      +3.0 degrees C. is best

      Our planet supports the most life when it is warm, and has high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.

      Only fools would want a colder planet, with less CO2 in the air.

      Global average temperature guesses for the 1700’s and 1800s will have large margins of error — at least +/-1 degree C.

      And those wild guesses are being used to set government policies ?

      Hard to believe human beings could be so dumb, or so brainwashed.

      The real debate, completely ignored, is whether global warming is good news or bad news.

      There has been global warming since the 1690s during the Maunder Minimum.

      Probably at least +2 degree C.

      I say that was 100% good news.

      Has anyone been hurt by the slight warming?

      I say no one — please submit specific names if you think a few degrees C. of warming since the 1690s has hurt any actual people.

      So why would a continuation of that 300+ years intermittent warming suddenly become bad news?

      Or a crisis?

      Or an emergency?

      Or a catastrophe?

      The ONLY real existential threat is a gross over-reaction to a non-existent climate problem.

      We live in a wonderful climate, that people living in the 1690s prayed for.

      Yet we don’t even appreciate living in the best climate for humans, animals and plants in 800 to 1,000 years, since before the Little Ice Age centuries !

      The next major climate change is ver likely to be the end of the current, warm Holocene interglacial.

      When that happens, people will soon start looking back at today’s climate, as being “the good old days”.

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    • #
      PeterS

      More accurate to say “How are Climate Scientists are Lying to Us?”. The “why” is a different question, the answer being they want money and recognition to satisfy and justify their career. So in combination of the “how” they are scam artists pure and simple.

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      That title is a bit hyperbolic. Lying requires knowing that what you say is false and I don’t think the alarmist scientists pass that test. They really believe what they say. It would be easier if they were lying.

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        John

        Agree. I don’t think it’s “mwah ha ha! Let’s fool the public!”. Many are actually in the grip of a catastrophist delusion. They’re a bit like a psych patient who believes the world is ending next week, and will argue it strenuously.

        A lot of them appear to have some doubts, but they seem to be maintaining a high level of doublethink to hide the doubts and contradictions from themselves.

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        PeterS

        Yes a lie is when a person says something that they know is not true. What about those who push the emissions reduction agenda without saying it’s purpose is to save the planet form some global warming catastrophe, such as PM Morrison? I’m sure he doesn’t believe in the alarmist nonsense yet he pushes for emissions reduction so often. Has anyone heard his reasoning for doing so? Is it just so we look good on the world stage to stop climate change? I doubt it since that’s backfiring anyway. The world is saying he isn’t doing enough. Why then is he doing it at all if it’s not satisfying the alarmists? Hypocrisy and stupidity come to my mind but it could be worse than that. It could be just to enhance his re-election campaign, in which case he is lying by omission by leaving out important information or fails to correct a pre-existing misconception in order to hide the truth from others, by definition.

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      Ian Wilson

      My point is that, given the evidence that I have presented, no rational scientist can claim the warming in the world’s mean temperature between 1970 and 2010 is solely (or mostly) the result of increasing levels of human CO2 emissions.

      If a rational scientist knows this but still tells everyone that we are all going to die in the next 50 years if we do not de-industrialize, then they are lying!

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  • #
    Richard Ilfeld

    The Big Lie.
    It is a way of life for the left.
    (In fairness, a writer on the left would cite conservatives as proponents of The Big Myth.)
    AS the US is in the throes of one of our quadrennial and interminable election cycles,
    the IPCC is having trouble gaining news traction, as Climate ranks near the bottom of
    voter’s concerns away from the vaporous college campi.

    College, where costs have gone up much faster than inflation over the pas few decades, while the
    teacher-student ratio hasn’t changed during that period and more classroom time is with the
    underpaid serfs known as adjuncts: in support of a ‘diversity’ bureaucracy ‘students’ incur life altering debt.

    In education, our most socialist enterprise, facilities state owned, faculty state employed, mostly tax supported,
    and hopelessly out of touch with reality. IPCC idiocy fits right in with the rest of the socialist drivel; beliefs
    unsupportable by data.

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  • #

    It’s a routine. The IPCC runs high with some mouthpieces and low with others. The spook site Climate Etc is devoted to flattering the skeptics and roping wanderers. On the other hand, the mockingbird media does outright hysteria, since it needs the clicks and the ratings. Then you get these sober announcements from the main HQ, based on nothing but very sciency, doncha know. It’s all coming from the same place.

    And that’s not a good place.

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    TdeF

    So what prediction of the infallible computer models was right? Certainly not the temperature.

    And what about all the other devastating impacts, tipping points, irreversible changes, devastation, crop failure, hurricanes, rising sea levels, barrier reef, more severe bushfires, climate refugees, millions dead, war?

    Can Lucy Turnbull and friends please return the unasked for $444million to save the Great Barrier Reef. From what?

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      glen Michel

      What with the Australian drought and fires , and now the floods on the coast no wonder people are running around in a state of panic.Lack of resilience on the part of many to realise the temporal nature of things.

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    ivan

    With this stupidity it appears it is time the UN and all its offshoots was disbanded for the good of the worlds population. It would also help if the merchant banks were investigated for fraud and insider trading.

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      PeterS

      Would also be nice if the scientists who are predicting rampant increases in temperature to be investigated for aiding and abetting the biggest scam of all time, and when found guilty sent to prison for life.

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  • #
    feral_nerd

    Please send your tax-deductible contribution to “Save the World RIGHT BLOODY NOW!”

    A 503(c) corporation.

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  • #
    Leo Morgan

    CSIRO suggest climate change will make 1/3 of Australia wetter, 1/3 will stay the same, and 1/3 get worse.
    It’s admittedly a different context, but I’m reminded of a clinical psychologists assertion that “when a drug has no effect, we expect 1/3 to get better, 1/3 to stay the same, and 1/3 will get worse.”
    CSIRO also point out that climate change should make tropical cyclones occur less often.
    https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/OandA/Areas/Oceans-and-climate/Climate-change-information
    Of course all their models assume we continue to oppose hydro, fracked natural gas, and nuclear energy, and that fusion will never be introduced nor space power satellites.

    But WHEN did they make these predictions? Their website doesn’t appear to say. Their predictions seem substantially the same as those they were making back when climate scientists (computer modellers) thought the effect of CO2 was triple what they now acknowledge it to be.
    https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo3031.epdf

    PS Jo, your link to NZ Science needs to be corrected. It reads nzclimatescience.net when it should be nzclimatescience.org.
    All the best.

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    TdeF

    Perhaps they are softening everyone up for the announcement that emissions are going to make the world colder?

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    Dennisa

    The 1.5 deg C has been around since 1988 and has long been promoted by Australia’s own 40 years plus climate activist, Bill Hare, although he was demanding below 1 deg C in this Greenpeace tract: https://web.archive.org/web/20041109073501/http://archive.greenpeace.org/climate/science/reports/fossil.pdf

    Former ACF and then Greenpeace International Political Director, he spent a long time at Potsdam, writing scary scripts for Schellnhuber. Whilst still at Greenpeace he was involved in IPCC reports, as a reviewer on SAR and later was a Lead Author on AR4 Summary for Policy Makers, with Pachauri.

    He is a contractor for the UNFCCC with his Climate Action Tracker consortium, monitoring the IDC’s: https://unfccc.int/event/climate-analytics-climate-action-tracker-update-on-government-action.

    He set up his own company, Climate Analytics, whilst still at Potsdam. In the last couple of years he came back to Murdoch University with his wife, who is on leave as a senior official from Germany’s Environment Ministry and was an adviser to Merkel when she was Environment Minister. http://climatecollege.unimelb.edu.au/speaker/dr-ursula-fuentes-hutfilter. She is also employed by her husband’s Climate Analytics company. They met at Kyoto in 1997.

    Check out Bill Hare at Quadrant: https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/tony-thomas/2019/04/doctor-hares-nasty-green-prescriptions/

    There is a major Potsdam invasion at Melbourne Uni: https://tthomas061.wordpress.com/2015/04/28/die-grunshirts-parachute-into-parkville/

    Hare has always attacked Australia and currently bangs the drum about how Australia should cut coal: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/13/australia-wont-meet-the-paris-targets-despite-what-recent-research-claims

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-29/queensland-urged-to-abandon-coal-and-expand-renewables-rollout-/11650966

    https://www.theflindersnews.com.au/story/6505509/australia-must-exit-coal-by-2030-report/

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  • #
    Speedy

    Hi Jo

    This week we had a “climate vigil” near parliament house. While I’ve always associated vigils with Christmas, Easter and other religious milestones, I was curious to see what they were doing, so had a little chat to one of the nice people there. Lovely lass she was, seemed quite sincere and worked for an outfit called Extinction Rebellion.

    She was quite happy to tell me that she was protesting about the climate so (as a science graduate) I asked her to explain her concerns. This was greeted with a rather smug comment along the lines that we’d had some bushfires lately. To which I informed her that I was aware of this, being also aware of plenty of bushfires previously in this country. Despite which, we hadn’t gone extinct yet. Also, I pointed out that her logic had not established a logical link between cause and effect. (The concept of the null hypothesis didn’t figure in her logic, apparently.)

    Overall, she was patient and took this pretty well. She announced that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels had increased. I agreed. “And so what?”, I asked, which got her a bit flummoxed. Apparently, she was not aware of the Beer-Lambert Law, nor of earth’s paleoclimate history. But she did have this idea that artificial CO2 somehow behaved differently to the stuff that is naturally spewed out of volcanos etc. When I asked her why this was so, she didn’t seem to know. I referred her to the literature, in which she would find that artificial CO2 is astonishly similar to the other kind.

    With respect to CO2’s impact as a greenhouse gas, I rather helpfully pointed out that, thanks to Beer-Lambert, we know that every increasing increment in CO2 concentration has a diminishingly smaller impact on atmospheric infrared absorption compared to the preceding increment. Which is why we have a paleoclimate history indicating that temperatures fluctuations occur quite independently of the atmospheric CO2 concentration. She seemed unable to explain why things would be different this century.

    I also pointed out that, even in recent history, cooling and warming of the earth has occurred by natural variation. For example, the Medieval Warming Period. And the Greek and Roman Warmings that occurred before that. Or the mini ice age of the late 1700’s. She could not explain why the relatively minor warming of the late 20th century was any different, apart from the assertion that the CO2 was artificial, and therefore obeyed a separate law of physics – apparently. No further comment from her on that.

    At this point, I informed her that the atmospheric CO2 concentration is about 420 ppm (compared to about 6000 in the carboniferous period) but that (firstly) the runaway greenhouse didn’t happen at that point and (secondly) that this represents about 50 times more CO2 in the oceans (in tonnage terms) compared to what’s in the atmosphere. This would seem to indicate that 420 ppm – or even 1000 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere is not going to trigger the extinction she seems so concerned about. She could not explain otherwise, but said she’d heard about some very famous scientists who said we should all be worried. I pointed out that Isaac Newton was also a very famous scientist and the first President of the Royal Society in London – the worlds first scientific institute. Their motto could be translated as “think it out for yourself”. I think that still applies – science works on evidence and logic, not on reputations.

    The significance of this second point (that there is 50 tonnes of CO2 in the ocean per tonne in the atmosphere) didn’t seem to dawn on her, so I carefully walked her through it. Basically, if the solubility of CO2 in water is inversely proportional to temperature (which it is), and if global temperatures are driven by atmospheric CO2 concentration (which she believes), then as soon as there’s any ocean warming whatsoever, then it will release more CO2 into the atmosphere, thus setting up a runaway greenhouse. She agreed that there was a logical conflict between this model and the persistent existence of life on earth, and that a runaway greenhouse had yet to eventuate. I mentioned that global temperatures had swung between tropical and ice age climates, without this sort of issue. I saw her brow go a little furrowed about then… I didn’t even mention the Vostok ice core data.

    She mentioned that she’d done some reading by a lovely lady who said that she’d had a terribly difficult time passing a peer-review process to get her science into the public domain – my new friend said she thought the science was ethical and reliable. Knowing the track record of censorship and suppression applied by the established climate community on those who ask unwelcome questions, I was surprised at my restraint to this comment. I briefly mentioned Climategate and the Hockey Stick graphs, Himalyagate, BMO “homogenisation” etc, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. I also assured her that I wasn’t casting aspersions against the lovely lady scientist, just her factuality. Lovely as she may be, she needs to apply logic and evidence, otherwise she’s just another person with an opinion. This wasn’t received well.

    Anyway, at the end of this discourse, my XR friend announced that I needed to get to work and that she would graciously agreed to agree to disagree with me. Presumably, she still reserved right to superglue herself to anything she liked and to dictate anyone else’s life – as a matter of conscience, apparently. This conclusion would seem to be entirely in keeping with her previous standard of logic, and confirmed my existing suspicion that her beliefs were based not based on scientific logic, but on a highly charged emotional faith.

    And that’s the time when I understood why they called it a vigil, because what she follows is a religion. But it is not one that we must follow or pay for.

    Cheers,

    Mike

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    • #

      Thank you for getting in there!

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      Ian Hill

      “Artificial CO2”? I haven’t heard that one before.

      So all of modern society’s achievements since the industrial revolution are based on a mechanism which puts fake CO2 into the atmosphere! Seeing as the atom wasn’t split until well into the 20th century, there was no possible way to create artificial CO2 before then.

      Conclusion – coal, oil and gas must contain only real CO2.

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        robert rosicka

        I’m seeing it a lot on social media , the fossil fuel CO2 is the only stuff in the atmosphere heating the planet , but the natural stuff is absorbed by plants and the oceans .
        They actually seem to believe this stuff no matter what evidence you give to the contrary.

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        John

        Artificial CO2 is a valid concept. It’s simply the extra amount in the atmosphere that humans have emitted.

        This is one area where climate skepticism overreaches and makes itself an easy target.

        Likewise the related arugument that humans only emit 3% of CO2 and that therefore we make no difference. If natural emissions largely balance out year on year then the extra 3% compounds pretty quick. Same as the difference between earning or losing 3% each year makes a difference over decades. Heck I’d be happy with a measly 3% per annum on my savings right now!

        There are very strong scientific arguments against CAGw . A claim that humans can’t cans don’t alter CO2 levels isn’t one of them.

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          Robert Swan

          In what way does this valid concept need a new word when we’re already used to anthropogenic CO2?

          I suppose it’s just a coincidence that this perfectly valid word echoes the widely disliked artificial colouring, sweeteners, etc.?

          You start your explanation with “It’s simply …”, but the word for your subsequent argument about the relentless accumulation of CO2 is simplistic.

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            John

            Humans are releasing CO2. This is increasing the CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Call it whatever you want – “artificial”, “anthropogenic”, it makes no difference. They’re just words.

            Denying these basics does our cause no favours, as people can just point to it and claim we’re off our rockers.

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              AndyG55

              Science has shown that humans “may” be responsible for some 10-15% of the increase in atmospheric CO2

              If the alarmista want to think it is a larger percentage, I have no problems with that, because it makes their manic depressive behaviour even funnier.

              They must know that all the fiddling around the edges in western countries is TOTALLY MEANINGLESS because China, India, other Asian countries, and I suspect soon, several African countries will continue to increase their very large share of human CO2 emissions..

              And great thing about that,

              is that there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that anti-CO2 brigade can do about it 🙂

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                John

                They can do plenty. They can destroy our energy infrastructure. Increase our taxes. Cripple our economy. Expand the government. Reduce our freedoms.

                And we play right into their hands when we deny things we shouldn’t be denying.

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                AndyG55

                No, these attempts to cripple Western countries have basically ZERO effect of global CO2 emissions.

                They can do absolutely NOTHING about rising atmospheric CO2.

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              Robert Swan

              John:

              I think you’re foolish to think that words don’t matter. I also have serious doubts that you and I have much in common in our shared “cause”. It’s unkind, I admit, but I’m wondering if you’re in some way related to “hatband”. Both of you say reasonable enough sounding things, then come out with complete clangers. Anyhow, let’s skip gently over that.

              M position is that weather is complicated. The whole is fantastically complicated, but so many of its parts (known or unknown) are also well beyond our knowledge. I am not a great web warrior, but in my comments I have always rejected the ridiculous “basic physics” argument about CO2’s contribution to temperature. I’m not about to accept your equally ridiculous suggestion of “compound interest” on the extra CO2 we contribute to the atmosphere. Nature abounds in negative feedbacks — vapour pressure so the CO2 dissolves in the oceans, fertilizer effect so the CO2 is incorporated into extra plant growth, etc., — so my money is on the fact that all our extra CO2 simply means an equilibrium is struck at a different point.

              The people who *are* off their rockers, as you put it, are the ones who claim positive feedbacks, tipping points and catastrophes. For further evidence, look how many of them opt for no clothes and/or carry placards saying that the end of the world is nigh.

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                John

                It’s not “ridiculous” to suggest that us adding an extra few percent each year adds up to a greater balance of CO2 in the atmosphere over a period of centuries.

                I don’t know why any of us deny these basics. It completely undermines the status of climate skepticism, allowing the alarmists to dismiss us as cranks. Every time Alan Jones, Malcolm Roberts butcher and deny basic facts that humans are altering the CO2 concentration it’s massive own goal. It’s a LOSING strategy in case you hadn’t noticed. All the alarmists have to do is point to a real CO2 graph and laugh.

                Why are attacking the small pieces of solid ground that these people have erected their ridiculous alarmist structure upon? Why aren’t we attacking the weak points of the structure instead?

                Do we secretly want to lose? Sometime I wonder….

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                WXcycles

                Could not agree more with those remarks.

                ‘Artificial’ is just another meme and word used by the hysteric types to imply unnatural wrong doings, and to render invalid the works of the human mind, and to pretend the human mind is an unnatural construct from an alien place and time unrelated to the natural world. Which is of course absurd. They want ti insinuate that intelligence used to its best is ‘suspect’ and foreign to the biota. That science is a net-bad activity, that there is ‘good’ science and ‘evil’ science, that high technology and its materials are the fruit of other-worldly forces that are anti-life and environment. That humans have no right to think, that their brains existence and the actions it naturally elicited have no true validity or natural place on Earth. That we are undeserving interlopers in the ecology, destroyers of a paradise-planet. Instead of humanity being entirely natural and all of our works natural, a core and integrated component of that ecology itself, a product of same, with as much right to exist and thrive as any other creature that has ever lived.

                All those creatures that can alter the ecology and environment, via use of their brain and materials do so, to suit their own needs, to thrive and live as we see fit. We have every and all natural rights to do so. I have no tolerance for the mad-cap ignorant ideology that asserts we have no natural right to do what ever we wish to, to further our own lives and natural niche. There’s no such thing as ‘artificial’ in the whole cosmos, just another invalid baseless meme from transparent dismal greenie misanthropes.

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                Robert Swan

                John — my last on this, and I think it’s pretty clear you are a concern troll.

                Your earlier comment included:

                the extra 3% compounds pretty quick

                Compound growth of atmospheric CO2, as you claimed, is quite definitely ridiculous. Good that you walk it back to something more reasonable, but better that you not make silly claims in the first place. Best of all if you stop pretending to be sceptical; more respect if you argue your case honestly instead.

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                John

                Robert,

                I’m not a “concern troll”. I am being honest.

                Humans are increasing atmospheric CO2 levels. Our emissions, though a small part of the total, result in a surplus each year which builds up in the atmosphere.

                Denying these basics undermines our claims on scientific legitimacy. It is a losing strategy. The other side is winning. Their “denier” tag is sticking. We help it stick when we deny the basics.

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                AndyG55

                No, you are being unscientific.

                Science shows we have had some percentage contribution, around 10-15%, to the highly beneficial rise in atmospheric CO2.

                Only a complete scientific ignoramous would think we are totally responsible.

                Your comments undermine any scientific credibility you are trying to fabricate for yourself.

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                John

                Ok Andy Man of Science – what’s the scientific basis for your claim of only 10-15% of the CO2 rise being anthropogenic?

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                AndyG55

                Do you REALLY think we caused 100% of the increase.? so funny !

                There have been several papers showing the % is around 10-15%

                Time for you to catch up with science.

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            • #
              John

              Andy,

              Honestly the Harde paper is really bad. It disregards anthropogenic emissions once they’ve cycled thru the system, not counting them towards the total, thus reaches its nonsense conclusion that only a small part of the overall increase is anthropogenic.

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          Ian Hill

          Thanks for your comments John.

          I was responding to Speedy’s comment that the woman believed “artificial CO2 somehow behaved differently”. This apparent change to the laws of physics is the property which made it artificial. I’m fully aware of the distinction the CAGW believers make between “good” and “bad” CO2 depending on its origin.

          I believe your observation that humans emit 3% of CO2 needs to be multiplied by another 3% but I cannot recall why. Perhaps something to do with the fraction of CO2 which is actually involved in any warming. If that is true then the compounding impact is still negligible.

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            Ian Hill

            Raymond in the Thursday open thread provides the answer in post #13.

            CO2 comprises only 4% of all greenhouse gases so only about 0.12% of “human emissions” have any impact, and greenhouse gases themselves are only a small part of the atmosphere.

            The emissions question is all rather much ado about nothing!

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      I’d love to comment on this in unthreaded

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      Allen Ford

      No doubt you new-found friend belongs to the Shouty School of Oratory, where you make your case by speaking in a loud, pseudo-confident voice, but no logic or evidence to back up your case.

      Aristotle would not be amused!

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        Speedy

        Hi Allen. Actually, this one seemed OK, at least in the manners department. The problem was that she didn’t know her subject but believed in it passionately. And that this was enough to justify the actions of her shouty friends and their mindless demands. If anything, this makes it all the more scary.
        The term “banality of evil” comes to mind.
        Cheers,
        Mike

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      WXcycles

      Scientific principles and data! You’re quite a subversive, Speedy!

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    tom0mason

    yep, AGW is going to burn all of us us up and cause the extinction of everything in about 10 to 12 years. There’s no hope, no way out, life on the planet is toast!
    XR-Greta knows it, the courtroom loser Michael Mann knows it, the overpaid UN-IPCC elites know it. So as I march through my twilight years I am thankful to God that I’ve survived, survived the 1957 Asian flu epidemic, survived not being blown-up by A-bombs, and survived the 1960-1970 ice age hysteria, survived all the terrorism despite working in many ‘hot-spots’ around the world. How comforting it must be for this generation to know that they could all perish from being mildly warm surrounded by greenery, killed by the might of social media embarrassment in a virtual world full of virtual enemies and friends.

    Alternatively maybe those solar observers are correct and a big freeze will get them… Who knows? Certainly not those who follow the ‘Climate Models’ and the fantastic virtual reality they portray based on ‘best guesses’.

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    John F. Hultquist

    Jo wrote: “Pick a number, any number — ”

    I find it hard to keep up with the “Klimate Numbers.”
    I’ve just started reading a book titled ‘An Imaginary Tale – The Story of sq. root of -1’ by Paul Nahin. [search using author’s name]

    Note that ‘imaginary numbers’ are useful, even necessary, while UN IPPC numbers are not useful, not necessary, and not real.

    I think I’ll have a drink.

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      PeterS

      To solve you dilemma you can call their numbers fictitious as distinct from imaginary. Nothing wrong with having imagination. We can imagine square roots of negative numbers, and as you say they do serve a purpose in the real world. Fictitious on the other hand serve only one purpose; to pretend something is true when it’s not, or to contrive something based on a lie.

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    Rick

    The climate will change, there is no doubt
    And alarmists continue to panic about
    A nice balmy day
    Or rain on the hay
    And in mindless parade will all rant and shout

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    Zigmaster

    I challenge any person to pick intuitively the difference between 15 degrees and 16 degrees. It makes no difference 1, 1.5 , or 2 degrees,. If you fly from Australia to Asia the average temperature probably goes up 4 or 5 degrees with no consequences. When one turns the air conditioning it’s 30+ degrees outside and 20 degrees inside. The theory that minor changes in temperature represent an existential threat to humans is obviously stupid and without the creativity of Al Gore and Hollywood combined with a concerted indoctrination of malleable student minds the global warming scare would’ve died years ago. The fact that it still remains so front and centre in the news cycle has been a reflection of how successfully this global indoctrination has been. The role of the media in continuing to perpetuate the warmist message has been crucial to keep it going so long and despite the fact that most people no longer trust the media, they source all their information from it. Your view will generally reflect which media you listen to and as your views become established they become more and more entrenched ecause it becomes difficult to watch outlets that convey a different viewpoint. That’s why I think one way on this topic , watching almost exclusively sky TV and my sisters have an opposite view watching exclusively ABC. She finds watching sky as painful as I have watching the ABC. Ironically it’s only through commentaries by Paul Barry on media watch complaining about Sky and its commentators that the ABC viewer would even know that a sceptical viewpoint existed.
    The role of the BOM also has been influential in politicising the weather and the massaging the historical data to suite the narrative. Everyone watches or listens to the weather reports and you can be assured that in such a large and diverse country as Australia there will be a weather record somewhere. When one looks at the incredible press generated by the fires with both the intensity and longevity it’s incredible to think that despite many warnings of heat wave conditions there has been virtually no periods of 40 plus days in a row and only a couple of times of more than 2 , 30 plus days in a row in Sydney and Melbourne. Despite the fact that by normal standards this summer has been mild I suspect that the BOM will somehow declare this summer as the hottest EvaH.

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      theRealUniverse

      Also theres no such thing as a mean planetry temperature on a planet that has a daily variation of at least 110 deg! between max and min anywhere.

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        Graeme#4

        As somebody pointed out, an average global temperature is as meaningful as an average of all the telephone numbers in a telephone book.

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  • #
    theRealUniverse

    Int Panel of Climate Crooks cant control doo dahs. 2deg 1.5 deg 1.487699823451238754 deg all made up numbers. They should be prosecuted for science f r @ u d.

    10

  • #
    Robber

    Ask the question of every politician and warmista you know: Are you saying that just 0.5°C of global warming from today’s temperatures will be catastrophic, despite the fact that the world has warmed by about 1°C since 1850 and world prosperity has never been greater?
    We need to use ridicule as a weapon. Cartoon designers? Poets?

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      el gordo

      Satire is the only way to snap the Western World out of this malaise.

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      John

      They believe it though. They believe in the “climate cliff” that we’re about to step off.

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      • #
        AndyG55

        They believe in the “climate cliff” that we’re about to step off.

        So they think temperatures are about to drop somewhat, do they. 😉

        Either that of they don’t realise that when you step off a cliff, you fall downwards.

        Perhaps they are used to floating in mindless oblivion.

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    On topic.

    The IPCC released a report in 2019 that was approved in 2018 about the impact of 1.5 degrees. That is, the report was looking at the fact that 1.5 degrees was going to happen so let’s see what that means. It was not a goal-post shift but a study of a particular scenario. Paris is still 2.0 so nothing changed there.

    They also had a chapter (3) about consideration of the means and advisability of trying to limit warming to under that value. Also not a goal-post shift since the position of the IPCC and anyone on the CAGW side is to limit warming to the minimum possible value and always has been. 1.5 is just a number in a continuum but a number that is upon us and worth serious study.

    01

  • #
    John

    “It’s all about the framing, never the fact…”

    That’s what frustrates me most about what’s happened to ABC and SMH. They used to be more concerned with the facts.

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    Gerry

    I heard another ‘worse than previously thought’ on the radio this morning, so I googled:
    1 ‘Climate worse than previously thought’ and
    2 ‘Climate the science is settled’
    The winner is No.1 with 80,000,000 results versus No 2. with 38,800,000 results.
    Those numbers tell me something, but I’m not sure what. Have they stopped peddling the ‘settled’ line?

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    thingadonta

    Cliches are nearly always a sign the person doesn’t understand the science. I read a sentence on the ABC a few weeks ago which was laughable, and went something like this(paraphrased, but not by much):

    Ever accelerating, unprecedented Black Swan climate events will become more common, making it worse than we thought.

    There might be about 11 scientific errors and mixed metaphors in there, but my favourite would be this one: if an event becomes more common, than it can’t be ‘unprecedented’.

    A term which is also impossible:

    -‘ever accelerating’ (this is physically impossible)

    So if the IPCC target above has changed, were the IPCC estimates ‘worse than we thought’?

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    pat

    Jo writes: “As long as the media cycle is controlled by arrogant innumerate lefty-voting people”

    only very rarely do I listen to ABC’s perennial “intellectual” Phillip Adams Late Night Live show, but last nite was one of those occasions.

    while ABC Brisbane was broadcasting lengthy and expensive (according to Ita) emergency reports from BoM’s senior forecaster, Sam Campbell, about the DANGEROUS, LIFE-THREATENING rain last night (even stating multiple times that “the WORST (OF THE RAIN!) is over” in some drought-ravaged regions, Adams had the following, with not a mention of the rains, as far as I can tell:

    AUDIO: 19m10s: 12 Feb: ABC Late Night Live: Disappearing water
    By Phillip Adams
    AUDIO PIC: A boy using groundwater in the Maldives. The nation faces a shortage of drinking water.
    The world’s fresh water is being used at an unsustainable rate.
    NASA has two satellites surveying the world’s water movements, and noting where the water shortages are.
    As well, a new report from the University of NSW, published last month, found that Australia’s freshwater supply – from rivers and dams – is dwindling as the climate warms.
    The team of engineers and number crunchers predicted the frequency of water restrictions in Australia will treble by the end of the century.
    Guests
    Professor Ashish Sharma
    ARC Future Fellow in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UNSW
    John Bolten
    NASA’s associate program manager for water resources – part of NASA’s applied science program
    https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/disappearing-water/11959370

    Adams intro paraphrasing: as a farmer who has been drought-stricken for well over 3 years, I am, of course, obsessed with water and learn, with alarm, that the problem is much bigger…that the world’s fresh water is being used at an unsustainable rate and is rapidly disappearing…we know this partly because of NASA…as well a new report from UNSW published last month showing our fresh water supply from rivers and dams is dwindling as the climate warms.

    14m57s: Adams: more precipitation sounds like a good thing, but that is not necessarily the case.
    NASA: exactly. talked to someone yesterday who said so the world is drying? no. it’s not drying. it’s not getting wetter either. it’s a redistribution.
    Adams: so the socrosanct hydrological cycle is obvservably changing NOW.

    NASA: definitely. we’re seeing changes in the distribution, precipitation, more extreme events, more flash droughts, and that’s being seen all over the world.

    17m: Adams to Ashish: I understand you have been in London for a week, presenting at the Royal Society. quite an honour.

    Ashish: different problem over there. universal increase in flooding across the country. the interesting thing I heard over there was – my argument over there was to say how much difficulty do we have attributing all of these changes in water supply/flooding to climate change – and they very nicely said that THAT IS A BATTLE THAT HAS BEEN LONG WON IN THE UK – NOW THE PROBLEM IS HOW DO WE ADDRESS THIS WHOLE PROBLEM.
    ***so the whole issue of attributing EVERYTHING to climate change is something they have crossed many years ago.
    ENDS WITH NASA: moving from data to decision-making. able to forecast yields that are really useful to farmers, etc.

    ATTRIBUTING “EVERYTHING” TO CAGW DID NOT PROMPT ANY PUSH-BACK FROM ADAMS.

    this was not a repeat from before the rains, as evidenced by Ashish’s appearance at Royal Society last week being accurate. check all the speakers, some of the usual suspects:

    Royal Society: Intensification of short-duration rainfall extremes and implications for flash flood risks
    Discussion meeting 3-4 Feb 2020
    Recorded audio of the presentations will be available on this page after the meeting has taken place. Meeting papers will be published in a future issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A (LINK)…
    4 Feb: Session 3:
    09:00-09:30 Decoupling increase in precipitation extremes from changes in urban stormwater flooding
    Professor Ashish Sharma, University of New South Wales, Australia
    https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectures/2020/02/rainfall-extremes/

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    Furiously curious

    Try keeping it simple. It took ages to find a similar graphic to this, and then it was only in a ‘Washington Post’ article, where they attempted to refute it by saying, ‘how ridiculous; what would happen if we zoomed out all graphs x50 like this?’ Attempting to be cunning, they didn’t mention that 99% of all the temperature graphs we are shown, are zoomed IN pretty much x50, from normal human scale temperatures, and then they choose as a baseline the coolest period they can find , usually 1950 – 1980, to create the greatest contrast with the later temperatures they produce.
    This is human scale. Many of us might be able to detect a 1 degree variation in temperature. I reckon it’s only climate scientists, and maybe Greta, who can detect changes of fiftieths of one degree.
    In this case the picture is definitely worth a thousand words. Numbers and counter numbers are constantly thrown up, and it goes nowhere. This graph is stark, and hard to refute. It might be handy to have a NASDAC(?) graph zoomed in X50 to show how much use that would be. But Human Scale, Human Scale, Human Scale.
    They claim this graph is pointing to the end of the world!!

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/149157242@N05/49522969057/in/dateposted-public/

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    Models reconsidered: There is no climate emergency
    By David Wojick
    https://www.cfact.org/2020/02/12/models-reconsidered-there-is-no-climate-emergency/

    If you look carefully it turns out that the apocalyptic Climate Emergency narrative is an empty shell. Just what the looming catastrophe looks like is never explained. As the saying goes, there is no there, there. But there is a good reason for this carefully crafted silence, namely there is no plausible scenario whereby global catastrophe comes from global warming.

    As the CLINTEL Manifesto points out, the emergency narrative is based on runaway computer models. As we know from video games, computer modelers can make their models do anything they want them to. The modelers are like fiction writers in this regard. Look at the past 150 years. The global temperature rose about 1 degree C, but the social and economic progress was spectacular. The global poverty was never as low as today. So, what is the problem?

    The CLINTEL World Climate Declaration explains it this way: “Climate models systematically exaggerate future global warming (output of IPPC’s Working Group 1) and, based on this exaggeration, IPCC’s Working Group 2 forecasts that natural disasters will increase. However, when we look at reality, the true statistics of natural disasters show a very different picture. There is no evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike, or making them more frequent. On the contrary, in the past 100 years there has been a sharp decrease in climate-related deaths.”

    When it comes to damages from this wrongly predicted global warming, the modelers have shown that their entirely speculative models can be pushed to do truly outlandish things. So called “tipping points” are especially prominent here. There is no empirical evidence that these imaginary tipping points actually exist.

    The IPCC’s Working Group 1 is the primary source of the misguided climate emergency uprising, which has come on suddenly. Their October 2018 “Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 degrees C” (SR15) is consistently cited by those proclaiming an emergency. However, this report is based entirely on computer modeling which we know shows too much warming from fossil fuel emissions.

    There are two reasons why SR15 exaggerates global warming. First, the models they use are far too sensitive to the slowly increasing atmospheric CO2 levels. Second, they use an incredibly unrealistic scenario for future CO2 emissions. As a result SR15 calls for a completely unsustainable reduction in CO2 emissions, which is the essence of the supposed emergency.

    SR15 tells us that if we would go above 1.5 degree C global warming, climate-driven disasters will increase. So the message is: stay below this limit! Next we see that the completely unrealistic scenario RP 8.5 is declared as “business as usual’, meaning that if we do nothing we will go far above the safe limit of 1.5 and reach a global warming of about 5 degree C. So their message is: it is one minute to twelve. There is no time to loose for drastic mitigation measures.

    The CLINTEL Manifesto puts it succinctly: “Looking at today’s panic, the mitigation target – 50% reduction of CO2 in 2030 – is unrealistic and irresponsible. It involves a hasty rebuilding of the entire energy system with unproven technologies. However, prosperity requires plentiful low-cost, reliable energy. Today’s mitigation policy means abandoning our proven low-cost energy system within a very short period. Poorly performing energy systems will inevitably lead to economic decline and increased poverty: “Back to the past”. Is mitigation not an immoral climate policy? Is climate adaptation not the fundament of development-aid?” The latter is an important message to the World Bank leaders.

    Now the climate panic has gotten completely out of hand, going far beyond SR15 with proposals calling for even zero CO2 emissions in just ten years. This sort of drastic action would be unbelievably destructive for mankind if it were actually attempted. Calling for drastic immediate actions that far exceed the IPCC means there is no scientific support. The IPCC is unrealistic but these “action now” proposals like the Green New Deal are truly preposterous. The ‘action now people’ claim that the science is behind them and refer to SR15. The only sense in which the science is behind them is that they have left it far behind, so far it can’t even be seen.

    In conclusion, there simply is no climate emergency. As the CLINTEL Manifesto explains, this is purely a computer driven fiction to scare the public. Even worse, they also try to frighten our children and grandchildren with their apocalyptic message. Model makers are running the climate show, which has now become a full scale panic.

    The sensible policy is to pursue adaptation to climate change, whatever its form or cause. We cannot hastily restructure the physical foundations of our society from the ground up. But, even more important, why do it if is there no reason to do so.

    Please pass this on.

    David

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      PeterS

      I saw a similar critique some 20 years ago that the models are worthless. Nothing has changed (no pun intended). Still the message hasn’t come through to the general public. The propaganda machine is so powerful, with the evil trio of the ABC, BOM and CSIRO working hard to keep it that way. Too bad we don’t have a leader with a spine to call them out.

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    Zane

    On the news last night Australia’s ” chief scientist ” proclaimed that climate change was real and would lead to more extreme weather events and by implication wildfires. He then suggested switching from coal to natural gas for power generation. Immediately a green talking head said this was not good enough, and what was required was more renewables. Cue scene of spinning wind turbines and fields of solar panels.

    No wonder people are brainwashed by the constant propaganda and incapable of making rational decisions.

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    dinn, rob

    closed borders cuts both ways, Joanne Nova

    10

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    pat

    forget the weather is just the usual in N Qld, as is pointed out in the report, ABC/Oriti find floods/erosion/worries etc all over the East Coast!

    AUDIO: 5m3s: 13 Feb: ABC The World Today: A summer of contrasts: Wild weather hits the east
    By Thomas Oriti
    Residents of Lord Howe Island off the coast of New South Wales at the southern edge of the Great Barrier Reef are preparing for a tropical cyclone and are being warned to expect winds of 120 kilometres an hour.
    Further north, torrential rain has already led to evacuations on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
    (at the end, Oriti seems to think only Warragamba Dam, **73.9% full, reaped the benefit from the rain!
    https://www.abc.net.au/radio/sydney/programs/worldtoday/a-summer-of-contrasts:-wild-weather-hits-the-east/11961754

    ***btw Warragamba is listed as 75.1% now.

    13 Feb: ABC: With NSW facing more wet weather as Cyclone Uesi looms, SES issues urgent advice
    ABC Radio Sydney By Matt Bamford
    Posted about an hour ago
    Wet weather warnings…have been issued for New South Wales days after thousands of residents were caught out by record-breaking rainfall.
    Cyclone Uesi is tracking towards the east coast with more heavy falls and large swells expected in the coming days.

    Efforts are underway to shore up communities already dealing with flooding, and work is continuing to restore power to tens of thousands of homes in Sydney.
    The State Emergency Service, which received more than 4,000 calls for assistance last weekend, has called on the public to be prepared.
    “[During flooding] we don’t know how long it might take to get to people,” NSW SES media coordinator Amanda Allen said.
    “So it’s best to think of the worst case scenario and make sure you have the supplies that you need.”…

    The Bureau of Meteorology’s Amy Debattista is stationed on Lord Howe Island and is watching Cyclone Uesi approach.
    “We’ve got very overcast conditions, the wind’s up around 50km per hour, but we are expecting that to increase to gale force winds this evening,” Ms Debattista told ABC Radio Sydney.
    “We are in our peak tourist season, our lodges are fairly full with tourists — right now about 400 tourists.
    “We are quite a resilient island, we do cop a lot of bad weather, but rest assured we are taking precautions.
    “People are cleaning gutters and drains, bringing in boats and preparing as best as we can.”
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-13/ses-issues-advice-as-nsw-faces-more-wet-weather/11953964

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      william x

      Pat,

      Yet another wild inaccuracy by the ABC.

      Thomas Oriti in his reporting stated:

      “Lord Howe Island off the coast of New South Wales at the southern edge of the Great Barrier Reef”

      Facts:
      Lord Howe island 31.5553° S, 159.0821° E
      Port Macquarie (NSW) 31.4333° S, 152.9000° E
      GBR southern point Lady Elliot Island (QLD) 24°06’S 152°42’E.

      The GBR is entirely contained in the Coral Sea.

      Lord Howe island is in the pacific ocean at roughly the same latitude as Port Macquarie.

      Correct me if I am wrong but the last time I travelled to Lord Howe Island and also Port Macquarie and its environs, I could not see the southern end of the GBR.

      Maybe it is because my eyesight is bad or that the southern end of GBR is 814 km north of Lord Howe.

      Thank God I have the ABC to supply me with facts.

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    pat

    13 Feb: ABC: Can legal action force governments and businesses to respond to climate change?
    By Jacqueline Peel
    (Jacqueline Peel is a professor at the Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne)
    Updated about 2 hours ago

    PHOTO: Australia’s devastating summer bushfires fit scientific predictions for how climate change might affect the weather.

    Australia’s devastating summer bushfires, and now flooding rains, fit with scientific predictions for how climate change might affect the weather (LINK)…

    Legal challenges related to climate change are a fast-growing trend…
    Australia has been a hotspot for climate litigation, with only the US having more climate-related lawsuits.
    Many climate cases coming before courts in Australia have involved challenges to big coal mining projects, like the proposed Adani mine…

    PHOTO: For many in the community, Australia’s devastating summer bushfires and flooding rains highlights the need for a political response

    At the same time, influential private sector institutions, from the Reserve Bank of Australia to the Bank of International Settlements (the world bank for central banks) have warned that climate change poses significant financial and environmental risks if we continue down the path of a business as usual carbon-based economy…

    PHOTO: Shareholder Guy Abrahams brought a suit against the CBA over its proposed financing of the Adani coal mine ETC
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-13/climate-change-legal-action-solve-global-warming/11943146

    re the writer above:

    Find an Expert: Melb Uni: Prof Jacqueline Peel
    Professor Jacqueline Peel is a leading, internationally-recognised expert in the field of environmental and climate change law…
    Professor Peel’s research has attracted competitive funding from various organisations, including the Australian Research Council (ARC), VCCCAR and the United States Studies Centre. In the field of climate change law, Professor Peel has held several ARC grants: to examine the regulatory framework for responding to climate change in Australia (2009-2011 with L. Godden and R. Keenan); on the role of climate change litigation in transitioning to a clean energy future (2012-2017, with H. Osofsky); and on legal mechanisms for promoting corporate energy transition (2016-2019, with H. Osofsky and B. McDonnell). Professor Peel has also been a Visiting Scholar at the Berkeley Law School’s Centre for Law, Energy and Environment (UC Berkeley, California) and also at Stanford Water in the West, Stanford University (2012-2015).

    Together with Dean Osofsky, Professor Peel provides evaluation and research consultancy services to the UK-based Children’s Investment Fund Foundation for their grants on strategic climate change litigation…READ ON
    https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/profile/8713-jacqueline-peel

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    pat

    13 Feb: Canberra Times: Politicians keep finding new ways to disappoint us
    by Mark Kenny
    Astounding isn’t it how politicians keep finding new ways to disappoint – new ways to fall short of any residual hopes we have on wicked social, economic, and environmental problems…

    ***Events in the US show, not merely that democratic accountability has evaporated, but how brazen governments are becoming in the low expectation environment they have themselves created.
    Despite the evidence, not one Republican senator agreed that the Donald Trump had obstructed Congress and only one – Mitt Romney – agreed that by unfreezing military aid to a friendly government while seeking a political favour, Trump had breached his oath of office.
    A majority to convict in one house became a minority in the other, lickety-split. Trump’s defenders saw no value in providing even a fig-leaf of genuine rigour before agreeing he had acted “perfectly”…

    ***In just three years, Trump has remade the party of Lincoln and Reagan in his own vainglorious image – a signature moment surely in America’s surrender to authoritarianism.

    In Australia, a nation now seen around the world as the cooked canary in the global coal mine, a brutal summer of death and habitat destruction has simultaneously hardened community resolve to confront a climate emergency, and emboldened support for yet more coal-mining…
    In Tory-governed Britain there is progress, but not in reactionary Australia – a country hamstrung by third-rate leaders gifted in stirring fear and division, but unwilling to do the hard work of consensus-building.

    Coal workers, a small subset of the workforce, have been elevated to most valued Australians status. Their economic future is now ranked ahead of the vast majority of workers in other industries whose livelihoods and assets may be directly threatened by global warming…
    Personnel changes and feckless leadership tilts – even unsuccessful ones such as the latest Barnaby Joyce debacle on February 4 – portend an even more difficult debate on emissions, just as the community pulls together…

    Addressing the National Press Club yesterday, an upbeat Chief Scientist, Alan Finkel insisted that we should nonetheless remain optimistic.
    “We’re on our way, we can do this,” he said. The question for our politicians is “can they?”
    https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6627721/politicians-keep-finding-new-ways-to-disappoint-us/

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      hatband

      If the Chief Scientist wants to shill for Climate Change and the Government isn’t sacking him, then he must be following instructions.

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    pat

    like the wind & solar mob, Finkel says forget what you actually have, go for his particular dream:

    12 Feb: RenewEconomy: Finkel renews call for Australia to embrace hydrogen from coal and gas
    by Michael Mazengarb
    Australia’s chief scientist Dr Alan Finkel has used a speech to the National Press Club to argue – again – that Australia should use its coal and gas resources in the production of hydrogen, saying that it would provide an easier pathway to establish a hydrogen industry.

    In the speech to the National Press Club, Finkel made a case for kick-starting Australia’s hydrogen industry by focusing on production from fossil fuels combined with carbon capture and storage technologies, rather than focusing on wind and solar…READ ALL
    https://reneweconomy.com.au/finkel-renews-call-for-australia-to-embrace-hydrogen-from-coal-and-gas-19645/

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    WXcycles

    Latest satellite image:
    https://i.ibb.co/WDYTFKX/Alleged-Tropical-Cyclone-Screenshot-2020-02-13-Windy-as-forecasted.jpg

    That’ no ‘tropical cyclone’, it’s an “East Coast Low” at this point.

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      pat

      16 minutes ago, it was still a ***cyclone for ABC:

      13 Feb: ABC: Nepean Dam breaks its banks as rainfall fills crucial water catchments
      By Lily Mayers
      Updated 16 minutes ago
      VIDEO: 34s: The overflowing Nepean Dam
      After months of drought, the Nepean Dam has spilled over after more than 700 millimetres of rain drenched parts of the region across the past week.
      The heritage-listed dam, south-west of Sydney, is at 100 per cent capacity and gushing into the Nepean River, WaterNSW said.
      Last week Sydney’s metropolitan dam systems were at 33 per cent capacity, but after 244 mm of rain fell into the Warragamba catchment, the system is now at 75 per cent capacity.

      Despite the heavy rainfall across NSW, Sydney Water said level 2 water restrictions remain in place for Greater Sydney, the Blue Mountains and the Illawarra.
      “While we welcome the rain, it’s way too soon to see if there’s going to be a start of drought recovery or a welcome temporary relief from the drought conditions,” said Sydney Water’s Peter Hadfield.

      The downpour has been bolstered by multiple rain gauges around the Nepean system recording heavy falls as well as ***Cyclone Uesi looming off the eastern states of the country…

      “Inland of Wollongong saw more than 700 mm of rainfall, while Katoomba has had a high of 545mm, and quite a number of surrounding areas have experienced between 250-500 mm, including Oberon, Mt Boyce and High Range,” (BOM duty forecaster David) Wilke said…

      The torrential rain soaking much of the state has significantly dampened over 100 bushfires, with only 24 bushfires still alight.
      The NSW Rural Fire Service said over 30 bushfires have been extinguished in the last week.
      https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-13/nepean-dam-overflows-into-nepean-river/11961302

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    M Allinson

    This is my philosophical angle on “climate change.”

    It offers no comfort nor solutions, except perhaps the equanimity which attends understanding and acceptance of life’s inexorable processes.

    As everyone knows, every organic system has its use-by date, after which it begins to decline.

    This applies to all living things, including human cultures and civilizations.

    The rose sprouts from the mud, climbs and buds, unfurls its blooms, and the blooms then grow brown around the edges, then wrinkle and die.

    The rose-bush of our civilization has blooms with lots of brown edges, growing browner by the day.

    Most civilizations don’t die from external forces, but from internal organic changes, as programmed by Nature.

    Civilizations with long histories of great success – such as Greece and Rome – at the very height of their achievements suddenly turn on their own people in a fit of oikophobia, preferring “refugees” or any outsiders to their own ugly “oiks”, as the elites begin dismantling long-held traditions.

    One of the organic elements of our particular Western decline is the evolution and expansion of a new religion – a self-hating religion which demands the death of the old culture. This religion is, of course, “climate change.”

    The factors that brought our culture to its highest expressions of rosey blooming are now seen as the very forces of evil which must be destroyed – coal and other “fossil fuels.”

    “Climate change” is the way by which the West (following the dictates of Nature as it works within individuals and groups) commits its programmed suicide.

    Many folks (like most of us on this site) will fight against this decline with all we have (I know I will) and perhaps we can extend the life of our culture another few generations.

    But we have to admit that the rot has truly set in. As the Bard says:

    And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,
    And then from hour to hour we rot and rot;

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    pat

    13 Feb: RenewEconomy: Windlab reaches “stand-still” agreement in bid to resolve Kennedy dispute
    by Michael Mazengarb
    The “stand still” agreement between Windlab ,at the request of the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for the Kennedy project follows an adjudication by a Queensland construction commission that ruled that Windlab must pay the contractor an outstanding $7.5 million in project milestone payments…

    The Kennedy Energy Park is a 50-50 joint venture between Windlab and Japanese firm Company Eurus Energy and consists of 42MW of wind capacity, 15MW of solar and 2MW/4MWh of battery storage.
    The EPC contractor to the project is a joint venture between Vestas and Quanta services…

    The innovative project, which co-locates different clean energy sources in the one location, aims to provide a reliable source of zero emissions electricity. The $100 million project won the backing of both the Australian Renewable Energy Agency which provided a $18 million grant, and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation which provided debt finance to the project.
    https://reneweconomy.com.au/windlab-reaches-stand-still-agreement-in-bid-to-resolve-kennedy-dispute-68779/

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  • #
    Choroin

    All this money we all throw at the UN, and the new Socialist International SecGen of the UN can’t even throw in a few funny Boris Yeltsinesque rain dances for entertainment. I feel ripped off. You’d at least expect some rain dances. What do we pay them for?

    They could even cite them as proof of Global Warming:
    97% of rain dancers agree, humans are warming the planet.

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  • #
    M Allinson

    A post on the Oz site points out that the BOM “trend maps” on evaporation are worth a look, suggesting “that evaporation rates in some parts of the country have declined by 15 to 20% since the 1970s.”

    Why should evaporation rates be declining ANYWHERE if we are in a steadily warming atmosphere?

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