A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually. Abba Eban via Joe D’Aleo
A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually. Abba Eban via Joe D’Aleo
“Residents were left fearing for their safety after shards of melting ice fell on homes and gardens from the blades of a giant wind turbine.” Read more here.
DR Dennis Jensen BAppSc (RMIT), MSc (Melb), PhD (Monash) is the only member of the Australian Parliament with any training in science a PhD in a science discipline. Read more »
PROBABLY one of the best ways to cut CO2 emissions dramatically would be to cancel climate Conferences, starting with Poznan.
One has only to look at the skies filled with private jets and the subsequent use of limousines to ferry delegates to these. Once there, consider the great increase in emissions required to pamper these people in the style to which the climate industry has accustomed them. Carbon neutral? What a joke.
Since the dawn of thought, people have been using various methods to foretell the future. Forecasting is now big business and many large businesses have been made smaller through incorrect forecasts.
In Australia we have suffered long enough from bad forecasts. It is time to do something to improve forecasting standards. Read more »
Woodland owners [in the UK] have enjoyed sparking results by investing in forests and trees in the past five years as prices have more than doubled. Read more here.
LAST year they met in Bali, tomorrow they meet in Poland, again under the direction of the United Nations, again about 10,000 people will gather to progress the global warming agenda. In particular, they will discuss policy options for averting a ‘climate crisis’.
According to Christopher Booker writing in the UK’s Telegraph: Read more »
Before next week’s giant international climate conference to be held in Pozna?, the daily RZECZPOSPOLITA has published results of a probe on climate change, showing that Poles are more worried about other threats than global warming. Read more here.
There are no roads to Churchill – a town in northern Canada on the shores of Hudson Bay. This remote outpost is known as the polar bear capital of the world. Polar bears have become something of an icon for those concerned that we have a Read more »
THIS is not what President-elect Barack Obama’s energy and climate strategists would want to hear. Read more »
“People such as former American vice-president Al Gore say that millions of us will die because of global warming, which I think is a pretty stupid thing to say if you’ve got no proof. And my opinion is that there is absolutely no proof that CO2 has anything to do with any impending catastrophe. The science has, quite simply, gone awry.” Read more here.
On Saturday I reported that 200 whales are trapped in ice in the Canadian Arctic. Read more »
The U.S. Minerals Management Service did not properly consider the risks of oil spills, disturbance to migrating whales, disruptions to the traditional hunting lifestyle of Inupiat Eskimos and other potential harms from Shell’s program to drill. Read more here.
Hi Jen,
All things considered, I thought the debate went very well. The show of hands at the end indicated 50-50. I have had complimentary calls today. The following is a summary that Des Moore has sent around.
Climate Debate - Hawthorn Town Hall - 19 Nov
I attended last night a debate between Professor David Karoly, who is an adviser to Professor Garnaut and Victorian Premier John Brumby, and William Kininmonth at the Hawthorn Town Hall on “We should be concerned with human-caused climate change”.
Read more »
BrisScience: Friend or Foe? The Ocean¹s Response to Climate Change presented
by Dr Ben McNeil
Time: 6:30pm to 7:30pm (Doors open at 6pm)
Monday 8 December, 2008
Venue: Ithaca Auditorium, Brisbane City Hall
Refreshments: There will be complimentary drinks and nibblies following the
talk, and Ben will be available to answer any questions.
********* Read more »
IN a body blow for Australia’s solar industry, the nation’s biggest solar-panel factory will close early next year. Read more here.
SWEDEN is, like Australia, experiencing the effects of an upward trend in temperatures that by some has been attributed to the recorded increase in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. However, Sweden unlike Australia is likely to gain economically from global warming. Read more »
REMEMBER the stories about how the Murray Darling Basin, the food bowl of Australia, was going to be lost to salt? Not so many years ago headline after media headline told of imminent ruin from rising water tables bring salt. Read more »
Greenpeace says it witnessed the main whaling ship the Nisshin Maru depart from a port near Hiroshima in Western Japan thought to be heading for the Southern Ocean. Read more here.
HOW many times have you heard it said, the science is settled, we will have catastrophic global warming unless we change our ways and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions?
While the “science might be settled” it does not seem to be well understood.
At least there has been a dramatic rise in key greenhouse gases in the past last two years, in particular methane, but temperatures have not gone up.
In fact, global temperatures are falling. That’s right – falling. Read more »
Tens of thousands of Australians took part in mass protests calling for tough government action on climate change. Read more here.
Some time ago Art Raiche suggested to me that, “In all honesty, I suspect that it would be easier to hold readings of Dawkin’s “The God Delusion” in Mecca than to get the Sydney Morning Herald to print letters critical of AGW. At least the response would be more direct.”
Today, the Sydney Morning Herald Letters Editor wrote: Read more »
I have been critical of many environmental activists over the years on the grounds that they know what they are against, but they don’t know what they are for. For example, bushfire management systems developed by forestry agencies over many decades are savagely condemned, but no alternative system is offered up as a replacement. Read more »
Links to three interesting ’weather reports’ from last century from Art Raiche
The 2009 Darcy Medal will be awarded to Demetris Koutsoyiannis (http:// Read more »
IT is my prediction that in not so many years-time weather station data will be collected more for fun and a sense of history, than for serious climate statistics. In the future it will be data from satellites that is recognised as much more reliable and used almost exclusively to understand global temperature trends. Read more »
Plans for a scientific panel on biodiversity, similar to a Nobel-winning group on climate change, have been knocked back by representatives of 80 countries at UN-sponsored talks. Read more here.
Following a blunder at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Steve McIntyre, at the Climate Audit blog, has reminded James Hansen, from NASA, that its colder in Russia in October than in September, as Napoleon found out to his cost in 1812. Read more here .
ON Tuesday, I suggested at this blog that I was not convinced by a story from Josh Willis, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explaining why and how he corrected data showing global ocean cooling. The title of my blog post suggested that Dr Willis had changed the data to fit output from computer models. Dr Willis has responded, via Fred Singer, explaining that the correction was made, not on the basis of computer output, but on the basis of high quality t Read more »
WHILE searching the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s website, looking for data on rainfall for Melbourne, it became apparent that this site only contained links to data in pdf format with rainfall averages for various and different periods. Read more »
California’s blueprint to address global warming won’t include details of an emissions-trading program as regulators try to build consensus on how best to organize the market-based system. Read more here.
Ian Plimer did a great job on Australian ABC Television last night explaining climate in a geological context.
Consider supporting the Taronga Zoo captive breeding program for the Tasmanian Devil. Captive breeding programs can work, indeed we now have Nailtail Wallabies in Scotia National Park.
You can donate here.
NASA scientist, Josh Willis, was so concerned that his data, showing ocean cooling, did not fit the official consensus on climate change that he searched for a solution. Eventually he “applied a correction” so the historical ocean temperature record showed a relatively steady increase in line with the climate models. Read more »
If you want to be an integral part of this blog community visit the Community Home page. There are links to the best online videos, upcoming debates on climate change, and more. Read more »
Prof David Karoly and Mr Bill Kininmonth will debate: “We should be concerned with human-caused climate change” at the Hawthorn Town Hall, Chandelier Room, 358 Burwood Road, Hawthorn, Melbourne, Australia on Wednesday November 19, 2008 at 7.30pm. For more information leoonzem at hotmail.com
After two years of not much summer sea ice in the Arctic, levels now appear to be on the increase. See chart here.
“There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.” Michael Crichton (1942-2008)
I do not write papers because ExxonMobil or Greenpeace pays me to, but because my academic researches demonstrate that the sun, not carbon dioxide, is the chief driver of Arctic temperatures. Read more here.
Hunters in Nunavut’s Baffin Bay [a region near Greenland] will be able to kill up to 105 polar bears this season, after the territory’s environment minister agreed to leave the quota unchanged. Read more here.
LAST month, a regular reader of this blog, Michael Duffy, witnessed something shocking:
“Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was giving a talk at the University of NSW [in Sydney, Australia]. The talk was accompanied by a slide presentation, and the most important graph showed average global temperatures. For the past decade it represented temperatures climbing sharply.
Read more »
I hope you all had the opportunity to watch Seed Hunter last week, if not the documentary is now able to be downloaded online at: http://seedhunter.com/community.html?showresults=1.
Kind regards,
Nadja
There is speculation that the new US President will focus on job creation through the development of ‘clean energy’ with an energy bill before a climate bill. Read more here.
“One of Barack Obama’s first tasks will be to lead the United States back into the heart of the global debate on climate change, ending the country’s years of isolation and scepticism.” Read more here.
Democrat Barack Obama is the new President of the United States. In his acceptance speech he promised to be a President for all Americans. He made only one oblique reference to climate change speaking of our earth in peril. Read more »
The Royal Geological and Mining Society of The Netherlands, together with the Royal Institute of Engineers and the Royal Geographical Society organise a national conference with the title: Read more »
Dr David Jones, the head of climate analysis at the Bureau of Meteorology, recently attributed a decline in Melbourne’s rainfall to global warming. Amongst various comments, he claimed in The Age that the autumn drying trend could be linked to either human-induced climate change through greenhouse gases or changes in the ozone layer over Antarctica. Read more »
The United States presidential election of 2008 is scheduled for today, November 4. While the campaign was dominated initially by foreign policy and more recently by the financial crisis, there are other issues including energy. The likely new President, Barack Obama, has promised $150 billion for renewable energy, while Republican hopeful, John McCain, has promised 45 new nuclear power stations and to expand domestic oi Read more »
“We need to consider the very real possibility that carbon dioxide - which is necessary for life on Earth and of which there is precious little in the atmosphere - might well be like the innocent bystander who has been unjustly accused of a crime based upon little more than circumstantial evidence.” Read more here.
EVER since public computer networks burst onto the scene in the 1980’s, the subject of online content has been a controversial one, explained Mark Newton at e-journal On Line Opinion last week. A few months ago, 30 July 2008, John Stewart on Australian ABC Television’s Lateline described on-line blogs as one of the few places where the science of climate change is still debated. Now occasional blogger, Cohenite, has come up with the 10 worst climate blog posts on the basis, “they all represent a Read more »
Last week the Australian Treasury released modelling of the likely impact of an Emissions Trading Scheme. All the scenarios assume the rest of the world will sign-up. Read more here.
A recent paper by economist Dr Judith Ajani of the Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment and Society, states that:
Deforestation and the degradation of native forests account for an estimated 20 per cent of Australia’s annual net greenhouse gas emissions. Most of the degradation occurs via (wood) chip exports …
Read more »
Consider supporting the Taronga Zoo captive breeding program for the Tasmanian Devil. Captive breeding programs can work, indeed we now have Nailtail Wallabies in Scotia National Park.
You can donate here.
Picture via Mike. Read more »
Hi Jennifer,
We are trying to raise funds for an important cause that you and your readers may be interested in.
The Tassie Devil Appeal “breed and release” program is made up of 17 of Australia’s most acclaimed zoos and wildlife parks all working protect the Tasmanian devil from the threat of extinction. Read more »
On 1st Sep 2008 the Queensland Government issued a Mineral Development Licence for coal to the wholly Queensland Government owned Tarong Energy Corporation over the iconic Haystack Road farmlands. Read more »
IN Australian cities rainwater tanks are being promoted as environmentally friendly with generous government subsidies available for their purchase and installation. But according to Don Matthew, a gardener who is passionate about the environment, they are a looming pollution problem: Read more »
You know there’s an election around the corner in Queensland when politicians get emotional and angry about the Great Barrier Reef. The Labor Government has been in power in Queensland for the past 10 years and the previous Premier, Peter Beattie, told us if it hadn’t been for his policies we wouldn’t have a reef. But on Premier Bligh’s watch things must have slipped as she is intent on saving it all over again. Read more »
In Sydney, the Premier of New South Wales, Nathan Rees, yesterday blasted former state treasurer Michael Costa for being a global warming sceptic, and said a new era of climate change action would start immediately. Read more here.
A carbon tax will not stop the need for climate adaption. Even under the Australian Greens’ scenario for a carbon-free economy, climate change will occur but the economy would be less able to afford to adjust. Read more here.
Dr David Jones, Head of Climate Analysis at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, has claimed that over the past 11 years Melbourne’s rainfall has been about 20 percent below the long-term average.
It is common to refer to “the long-term average” when discussing climate data, but if the climate along the East Coast of Australia tends to be dominated by either El Nino or La Nina conditions, how meaningful is an average? Read more »
The Institute of Public Affairs holds lectures on interesting topics at the Brisbane Club. Last night eighty guests heard Professor Bob Carter from James Cook University explain how climate always changes and why climate change is a natural hazard.
Thanks Bob for another great presentation!
In the New Year, the Institue of Public Affairs is hoping to start a lecture series in Sydney along the lines of the Brisbane Club Lectures and Bob has agreed to give the inaugural lecture. Read more »
In response to a question concerning the likelihood of our oceans becoming acidic from global warming Ian Plimer, University of Adelaide, has replied:
THE oceans have remained alkaline during the Phanerozoic (last 540 million years) except for a very brief and poorly understood time 55 million years ago. Read more »
A highlight of my year so far is the climate change conference in New York in March. It was a gathering of more than 500 skeptics, including many scientists, to discuss global warming.
I was enthralled by a presentation from Stan Goldenberg from NOAA which included photographs taken inside the eye of hurricanes from flights within NOAA’s Hurricane Hunters – WP-3D Turbo Prop Aircraft. Read more »
The Australian government is more virtuous and extreme on the issue of whaling than your average conservation group. Read more here.
Kelvin Thomson is the federal member for Wills, representing inner-city northern Melbourne. He was shadow environment minister until early 2007 when it was discovered that he had provided a notorious Melbourne gangster, Tony Mokbel, with a personal reference describing him as a “responsible, caring husband and father”. Mr Thomson subsequently resigned from the front bench, but he still has trouble telling good from bad. Read more »
Since moving to the Blue Mountains late last year I’ve made some new friends including a King Parrot and a Magpie. The young male King Parrot sits on my back landing and looks through the glass door into my study when the bird-feeder is empty. Maggie, the Magpie, perches on a window sill and looks into the kitchen when she is hungry and notices I am feeding myself.
They are both rather bold birds. Read more »
IT is generally believed that there has been a decline in rainfall across Australia and that as a consequence cities like Melbourne must suffer severe water restrictions. Indeed if you live in Melbourne you must get prior written approval to fill a swimming pool, there are strict rules explaining how and when you can water your garden, and it is illegal to wash to your car with a garden hose.
In Melbourne reducing water demand and ensuring the efficient use of water is now government policy and the public is continually reminded of this imperative. Read more »
Stewart Franks, Bob Carter and I gave a presentation at Parliament House on Monday evening on Climate Change. Professor Carter focused on global temperatures, I followed with some rainfall graphs for different parts of Australia, and then Associate Professor Franks explained why rainfall along the east coast of Australia is so variable and dominated by either El Nina or La Nina cycles back at least as far as 1660.
Our main message was that there is no climate crisis, but that climate change is a natural hazard. Read more »
Liberal Leader Stephane Dion has lost the Canadian election: “The owlish professor-turned-politician defied two central political tenets in this election campaign: avoid overly complex policy and, above all, don’t even suggest new taxes. His beloved ‘Green Shift’ attempt to tax pollution was lauded by environmentalists and 250 economists. But on the campaign trail, it became more of a Green Albatross around Dion’s slender neck, forcing him over and over again in the face of a Tory advertising onslaught to stress that any new levies on polluting fossil fuels would be offse Read more »
Remember that blog post from the residents of Taralga back in June 2005 explaining they did not want any windmills?
Well today I drove through the little town which is about 45 kms north of Goulburn in New South Wales (Australia). It is very small and very cute.
I didn’t see any windmills. Read more »
I spent last weekend at The Annual Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) Conference at Rydges Hotel Lakeside in Canberra. The conference theme was a ‘climate for change’. Read more »
“Australian cities must join a global network in which urban farmers grow produce on rooftops, a leading science commentator says. Professor Julian Cribb, author of The Coming Famine, said the global food crisis was a forewarning of what could be expected as civilisation ran low on water, arable land and nutrients, and experienced soaring energy costs. Professor Cribb said the urban farmers of the future - who would primarily grow vegetables - would play a much larger role in the global diet. Read Read more »
Arthurs Smith does not explain the specific contribution of carbon dioxide to global warming, nor does he deal with the issue of convective overturning, but in ‘Proof of the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect’ he elegantly explains the greenhouse effect in harmony with “the scientific standards of theoretical physics”. Read more »
DOES society benefit from a fear-driven science-funding policy that threatens the livelihood of scientists with the courage to argue against “orthodox” and established “beyond doubt” views on climate? Read more »
Hi Jennifer,
I have recently taken over Carl Smith’s blog at
