Shut down Australia and save 0.01 degrees

The key question — with all the billions spent on cutting Australia’s carbon production: the trade and income lost; the jobs cut; the pain of living near wind farms; the foreign holidays avoided and then paying more for petrol and electricity than we have to — how many degrees will our actions cool the world by?

Assuming the IPCC are right about the effects of CO2, and that Australia stopped producing CO2 entirely (if we all left the country) by 2100 the world would be 0.0123 degrees cooler, and sea levels would be 2mm lower. These are so small they are unmeasureable.

Abandon Australia and save

0.0123°C

The statistics every Australian should know: Australia produced 1.38% of global human emissions of CO2 in 2011. (EIA, 2011a) Each year global emissions increase by twice Australia’s total annual output. (2.8%/year (EIA, 2011a). If we all emigrated and left a bare deserted continent, it puts off the warmer Armageddon by just six months. 6.5 out of 10 based on 6 ratings […]

March 2nd, 2011 | Tags: , , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |

How well have the media and PR groups informed us about climate ?

Given the multimillion dollar budgets and advertising campaigns about climate change, it would be safe to assume there was a high public awareness of the most basic facts about CO2 right? But reader Gregg has taken the initiative and gone out and done a survey of 100 people and asked them a few basics and he’s made a valuable point in a prototype survey. The results tell us something about the aim of public education campaigns.

Governments and UN Agencies have enough resources to tell us that climate change will cause droughts, floods, storms, starvation, shrinking glaciers, extinctions, sea level rise, more aids victims, more wars, water shortages, rapes, terrorism, malaria, rabid bats, and biblical plagues of jellyfish (thanks to the Hooterville Gazette for the links to all those). But despite the acres of news space devoted to all these, Gregg’s quick survey suggests not many of our public servants or journalists have done much work to give the public the basic facts or to put things into perspective.

It seems that the average Australian is under the impression that there is 1000 times more CO2 in the atmosphere than there is, and that when it comes to sources of […]

March 2nd, 2011 | Tags: | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |

Galvanising against Gillard

Welcome to another day in the lost democracy. The place where an elected government thinks that cheating is the answer. What was Julia Gillard thinking? This turnaround is happening so fast. She announced the Carbon Tax only last Thursday, and already former members of her own party are discussing what genre of “lie” it qualifies as, or speculating over who will take over as PM, the polls are falling, and thousands of people are getting organized behind the scenes. Even one of the star team at the launch of the Tax has had to admit he’s not completely behind it. Worse the opposition now has a clear cause to fight for (Repeal the tax!). Rallies are being planned in most capital cities, phones are running hot, new groups have sprung into action, posters and T-Shirts are being printed. O Joy and what not, “Galvanised” is the word. People I’ve never spoken to are emailing me about their plans.

Meanwhile the Greens are falling all over themselves to help the skeptics. Please, someone – organize more mass media interviews with Bob Brown and Christine Milne where they tell people alternately that the Greens are behind the Big New Awful Tax, and […]

March 1st, 2011 | Tags: , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |
 
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