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Climate sceptics: enough is enough

Enough with the climate change deniers, the fanciers of their own scientific wit who muddy the debate with pseudo science and scare-mongering. Enough. The time for spurious, dubious disagreement is over. There isn’t any time.

That’s not just my view. That’s the view of, oh, you know, most of the scientists in the world.

And now the Australian Government’s Climate Change Commission has come to the same conclusion.

“Over the past two or three years, the science of climate change has become a more widely contested issue in the public and political spheres. Climate science is now being debated outside of the normal discussion and debate that occurs within the peer-reviewed scientific literature in the normal course of research. It is being attacked in the media by many with no credentials in the field.

The evidence that the Earth’s surface is warming rapidly is now exceptionally strong, and beyond doubt … the primary cause of the observed warming and associated changes since the mid-20th Century – human emissions of greenhouse gases – is also known with a high-level confidence.”

The report also has a well-founded dig at the climate change sceptics who have hijacked the debate here and overseas. And why shouldn’t they?

There are some who believe vaccinations are not sound medicine. But science does not believe them.

There are some who believe that the Earth is still flat. But science does not believe them.

There are some who believe that cigarette smoke does not kill. But science does not believe them.

Why are we willing to trust the weight of scientific opinion in any other aspect of our lives; and not when it comes to the greatest challenge of our short history on this planet? Healthy scepticism has a place, but scepticism for scepticism’s sake (and in the face of such overwhelming evidence) is meddlesome and dangerous.

And what would it achieve? If the skeptics are indeed right then we shall carry on our merry way, choking the world with smog nonetheless and building more coal fire power stations because we may as well. But if they’re wrong? We’ve missed the boat.

And we’ll need a boat, because sea levels will rise. Not by ludicrous ‘100m’ as has been claimed, but by 1m in the next 90-years. Sure, the sceptics might be dead by then. I might be dead by then, but I’d always envisaged leaving a better legacy.

1m doesn’t sound like much, but remember for example that 80% of the Maldives’ 1200 islands are less than 1m above sea level. Where would those 360,000 people go? Where indeed.

We never ask to see the credentials or the qualifications of the climate change denier. What could they possibly submit?

People may ask to see my credentials, too. And they’d be right that I am not a climate change scientist. Instead, I’m happy to refer them to the litany of peer-reviewed research by people who are scientists that tell the truth. It’s the truth as much as we can prove it, which is far and away more truthful than any denier’s protestations about everything being fine and dandy.

I don’t know about you, but I’m siding with the experts. Just like I do when I visit my doctor (a doctor’s diagnosis is better than mine) and just as I do when my taxpayer dollars get an engineer to build my suburb a foot bridge.

We have experts for a reason. We should listen to them.

Now, can we please start debating the real debate? That is: how to we reduce carbon emissions? What will work? Is a carbon tax the way to go or is the Opposition’s carbon offset scheme a winner?

Just because you believe climate change exists, and that we caused it, does not mean we have the solution to fix it. That is where our energy needs to be focused now. That is what we, as a country, need to do.

The deniers are debating whether the foxes even exist, instead of building a fence to keep them away from the chickens.

Enough already.

 

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Top Comments

Patricia 13 years ago

There is a spiritual side to this argument as well. Starting in 1931, God has been gradually increasing His spiritual fire upon the world...in preparation for the return of Christ. I don't know if my image will upload, but if it does...it was created via supernatural means. Check out the teachings of Mokichi Okada which you can find through Johrei Fellowship who have a link to amazon.com for many of his writings. Our world is experiencing more natural disasters, more illness, more strife because an increase in spiritual fire results in a purification process. "Global Warming" is just one visible sign. It's hard to comment very much as a guest so people have to do their own investigating. Okada states in a teaching that all that is happening now is the tribulations that Jesus warned us about, that God wants us to repent and seek forgiveness. Having a discussion about whether something is happening or not is a waste of time...like arguing about the best ways to rescue someone from drowning while someone actually is drowning. God sent clearer explanations through Okada back in 1926...please take it seriously.


Kelly Liddle 13 years ago

The following study done by myself and assisted by a scientist is only to demonstrate that the warming can be mostly if not all explained by thermal emmissions or basically a large scale heat island study using energy use data. This is not intended to give any exact warming extent as average values are used and wind land cover etc are not taken into account (this is virtually impossible despite the claims of organisations such as NASA or CSIRO) Also the energy use is not constant and will have greater effects when weather is cold and heating is more widely used.

The energy use we shall use is the total annual use of fossil fuels and nuclear. These 2 energy sources are being released by humans.

Numbers used for calculations.

Area m2 is square metres

USA 9626091000000 m2

China 9596960000000 m2

France 547030000000 m2

Germany 357021000000 m2

United Kingdom 244820000000 m2

Planet Surface 510066000000000 m2

(Source : www.worldatlas.com)

Annual energy use based on energy use in 2009. Includes fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Does not include others such as wind solar biofuels geothermal or hydro.

Mtoe is Million tonnes or oil equivalent.

USA 2119.8 Mtoe

China 2037.7 Mtoe

France 228.8 Mtoe

Germany 285.6 Mtoe

United Kingdom 197.7 Mtoe

World 10424 Mtoe

(Source : Statistical review of world energy full report 2010 (Beyond Petroleum))

The following formula was used. It basically is working out the amount of energy in continuous watt output per hour per metre squared and then calculating out the expected change in temperature by using the average input of energy from the sun using Albedo and Suns energy per square according to NASA. This is not intended to give any accurate prediction but just a general prediction.

Mtoe* 11.63*1 000 000 000 000 (conversion of Mtoe to Watts)*0.7 (energy available as thermal energy)/365/24(conversion to Watt output per hour)/land area in square metres(to give energy output per square metre per hour)*Kelvin 287/342/.703(to give estimated temperature change where Kelvin 287 is earth average temperature 342 is available energy from sun and 0.703 is the amount available to the troposphere after the albedo)

After doing these calculations if the air never left the country and everything else such as albedo remained constant mentioned these would be the approximate temperature changes.

USA 0.24 degrees increase
China 0.23 ,,
France 0.46 ,,
Germany 0.88 ,,
United Kingdom 0.89 ,,
World 0.0224 ,,

Conclusions: If a climate model printout has not taken this into account the printouts highest value shall be the greater of the recycling price to the use as a biofuel (but watch out for the thermal emissions). Most fuel use is over land and in the northern hemisphere so this is where the expected highest results are likely. Anecdotely this could be the effect in the antarctic peninsular but it is very difficult to get any fuel use figures. If this is the case the increases are likely to be in summer as this is when the scientists travel there.

Note; The energy available is a very conservative estimation based on average power station efficiency and vehicle efficiency and uses eg. domestic use of energy is far higher with average households spending over 50% of energy dirrectly for heating (hot water cooking and space heating). The amount of energy from sun will not be accurate as the albedo and latitudes on the earth could have a big effect.