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The Climate Change Thread

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Cutter

Nicholas Shehadie (39)
Yes, but in this case the peers that reviewed it either don't have common sense, or they are complicit in the deception of this study.

No one would argue that peer review doesn't have its faults. But, as matty_k said, there isn't a better system.

If we look at the IPCC report, I assume you don't believe that the however many thousand scientists responsible for producing the peer reviewed IPCC report either all lack common sense or are conspiring amongst themselves to carry out a massive fraud. If anything, they're underestimating the effects - http://www.smh.com.au/environment/c...-rising-higher-and-faster-20110504-1e8j7.html.

If the money men are saying these things, it pays to listen http://www.smh.com.au/business/us-investment-guru-backs-carbon-tax-20110504-1e8e8.html.
 

Scotty

David Codey (61)
No one would argue that peer review doesn't have its faults. But, as matty_k said, there isn't a better system.

If we look at the IPCC report, I assume you don't believe that the however many thousand scientists responsible for producing the peer reviewed IPCC report either all lack common sense or are conspiring amongst themselves to carry out a massive fraud. If anything, they're underestimating the effects - http://www.smh.com.au/environment/c...-rising-higher-and-faster-20110504-1e8j7.html.

If the money men are saying these things, it pays to listen http://www.smh.com.au/business/us-investment-guru-backs-carbon-tax-20110504-1e8e8.html.

No of course. However it does appear that you believe that the scientist researching and publishing contradictory information to the IPCC are indeed conspiring.
 

Scotty

David Codey (61)
You're right that there are plenty of voices against climate change, just as there were plenty suggesting there were no harmful effects associated with smoking. Its the cliched comparison but its right. And, a little bit of digging shows that some of the voices are the same. Its important we all reach our own conclusions on these things, but its equally important we're critical of the information people feed us.

I know that peer reviewed studies have already been through a verification process. That is why I can rely on them. Without testing the data and conclusions myself (which I'm not qualified to do), I can place no reliance on papers and studies which aren't peer reviewed. If they are meritorious, they will go through the peer review process at some point anyway and then I can rely on them. In the meantime, it is a fact that there are no peer reviewed conclusions supporting the theories that:

1. Increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does not lead to atmospheric warming; and
2. Human activity is not increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to an extent that it is leading to atmospheric warming.

Until there is solid science supporting the counter theories, what have we to go on? The "vibe" might be good enough for Dennis Denuto, but its not good enough for me.

Because of comments like this.
 

Cutter

Nicholas Shehadie (39)
[video=youtube;fK0rXRmC4DQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK0rXRmC4DQ&feature=player_embedded[/video]

Discuss.
 

Cutter

Nicholas Shehadie (39)
But does pier review=credibility?

Not necessarily, but there can be no credibility without it. A rigorous peer review process would guarantee credibility.

No thoughts on the population speech from the esteemed Sir David Attenborough?
 

Scotty

David Codey (61)
Sorry, haven't had a chance to watch it yet. Will do so in the next few days, or over the weekend.
 

Cutter

Nicholas Shehadie (39)
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/c...inds-dire-need-for-action-20110522-1ez0o.html

Warming jury finds dire need for action
Ben Cubby
May 23, 2011

THE evidence for global warming is now ''exceptionally strong and beyond doubt'' and actions this decade will determine the impact of climate change for the rest of the century, according to the first big report produced by Australia's Climate Commission.

The report, to be presented to federal parliamentarians today, is designed to cut through the noise of political debate about the government's carbon tax and find common ground.

It catalogues the latest research on the impact of climate change on Australia, updating the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, including reduced rainfall, recorded sea level rises and increasing temperatures.

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Climate science was ''being attacked in the media by many with no credentials in the field'', the report said.

''The questioning of the IPCC, the 'climategate' incident based on hacked emails in the UK and attempts to intimidate climate scientists have added to the confusion in the public about the veracity of climate science.

''By contrast to the noisy, confusing 'debate' in the media, within the climate research community our understanding of the climate system continues to advance strongly.''

The key finding is that greenhouse gas emissions must peak and then begin to fall rapidly within the next few years if the world is to avoid dangerous warming of up to 7 degrees and beyond this century.

''If you leave the peaking year until 2020 you are going to have to reduce emissions at 9 per cent a year after that,'' the lead author, Professor Will Steffen, said. ''I think this is almost impossible to do unless you put the economy on a war footing. The earlier you peak, the more affordable the reduction. It shows how crucial this decade really is. Even if we only make a reduction of 5 per cent by 2020, our investment decisions in terms of renewable energy and in transport today are critical.''

Australia's current plan is to cut emissions by 5 per cent below the level it was at in 2000 by 2020. Under a business-as-usual scenario, Australia's greenhouse emissions are projected to rise by 24 per cent over that time, according to the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.

This means that the 5 per cent cut translates to a 29 per cent reduction below business-as-usual levels, the equivalent of cutting the carbon footprint of everyone in Australia by just under one-third.

The chief of the Climate Commission, Tim Flannery, believed the report would be well-received on all sides of politics.

''The issue's not going to disappear in 2012 whether we have a carbon price or not. In 2020 this issue is going to be just as hot as it is today. Our long-term objective is just to put clear, independent science to the public.''

The federal opposition spokesman on climate change, Greg Hunt, said: ''I welcome any constructive review of the science, on which there is bipartisan support. However, the government deliberately confuses the need for action with the need for a carbon tax, which drives up the cost of electricity, petrol, gas and groceries.''

I suppose it's too much to hope for a bipartisan solution.
 

Cutter

Nicholas Shehadie (39)
Another interesting article...http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/socie...-planet-is-yet-to-sink-in-20110522-1eyqk.html

The scale of the effect we have on the planet is yet to sink in
Mike Sandiford
May 23, 2011
Surely it is inconceivable that human activity could rival the forces of nature. We are such insignificant creatures that it seems breathtakingly arrogant to believe our impact on the immense grandeur of our planet could be anything but minuscule.

That's what some prominent climate sceptics indignantly assert. Their incredulity may be understandable, but they are just plain wrong. Our species is now a geophysical agent of unprecedented power, albeit with unsustainable growth expectations.

Indeed, our impact is already so profound that my colleagues are seriously debating whether to christen this period ''the Anthropocene'' - a geological epoch dominated by the global effects of our own species.

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This is a timely reminder that humanity is not only altering the composition and dynamics of the atmosphere and the oceans but leaving its mark on the planet in many other ways.

Rivers and glaciers, for example, have moved about 10 billion tonnes of sediment from mountain to sea each year on average, over geological time. Each year humans mine about 7 billion tonnes of coal and 2.3 billion tonnes of iron ore. We shift about the same amount again of overburden to access these resources, along with construction aggregate and other excavations. In short, we are now one of the main agents shaping the earth's surface.

In Australia, natural erosion removes between 50 and 100 million tonnes each year. Yet one proposed mining development alone plans to extract about 14 billion tonnes of rock over a 40-year period, with peak extraction rates of about 400 million tonnes per year.

Our cities, transport routes, farms, forests and grazing activities have also altered the surface of more than half of all habitable ice-free lands. So rapidly are we extinguishing other species that future geologists will be able to discern this sudden mass disappearance from the fossil record - a mass extinction event seen only five times previously.

But it is in our energy use that the scale of our activity becomes truly mind-boggling.

Anyone who has seen film of a volcano erupt or those scenes of devastation from the recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami can intuitively appreciate the immense energy involved in the natural processes that shape our planet as it vents heat stored deep within its interior.

The rate at which heat is released from the earth - a measure of its natural ''metabolic'' rate - is about 44,000 billion watts, and reflects the average rate of energy used in moving all the continents, making all the mountains, the earthquakes and the volcanoes, in a process we call plate tectonics.

During the 20th century, it is estimated that a touch under 1000 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide was emitted from the burning of fossil fuels and cement production. Now we are adding about 30 billion tonnes a year and the rate of increase in carbon dioxide concentrations is doubling about every 30 years.

To generate all that CO2 we annually consume more than 13 billion tonnes of coal, oil and natural gas as part of a global energy system that operates at a rate of some 16,000 billion watts. The human consumption rate is already more than one-third of the earth's natural heat-loss rate.

And with our energy use doubling every 34 years, we are on course to surpass the energy released by plate tectonics by about 2060.

To put those figures in a more sober context, we now consume energy at a rate equivalent to detonating one Hiroshima bomb (60,000 billion joules) about every four seconds and are on a trajectory towards one Hiroshima bomb every second before the end of the century.

The ocean has already soaked up so much carbon dioxide that its acidity has increased by 25 per cent since pre-industrial times and, according to recent measurements, is now absorbing heat at a rate of about 300,000 billion watts. When my students measure the temperature in boreholes across Australia, they invariably see that as much heat is now going into the upper 30 to 50 metres of the earth's crust as is trying to get out - a result entirely consistent with the surface temperature rises measured by climate scientists.

The world's human population has grown so much and so fast - trebling in one century and still soaring by more than 70 million a year - that it is perhaps not surprising that the vast scale of our combined environmental impacts is yet to sink in.

Geologists don't readily tinker with their precious timescale - adding a new epoch is akin to adding a new verse to the Lord's Prayer. So proposing one named after us indicates that the international geological community fully understands the reality of the unprecedented impact we are having on our planet.

Mike Sandiford is professor of geology and director of the Melbourne Energy Institute, University of Melbourne.
 

Aussie D

Dick Tooth (41)
So we have two articles from leftist-leaning media telling us that we need to adopt a bipartisan position on climate change. This is to support the first big report from the Climate Commission who has found that we need to act immediately? *cough*independence*cough* Sorry, I must be a flat earther and too stupid to see the truth when it is planted in front of me.
 

Scotty

David Codey (61)
The world's human population has grown so much and so fast - trebling in one century and still soaring by more than 70 million a year - that it is perhaps not surprising that the vast scale of our combined environmental impacts is yet to sink in.

I haven't yet looked at the speech above, Cutter, but I assume it has a lot to do with this from the second article you just posted.

This is the issue with any environmental concern. The question is - how is this fixed? The answers (as far as reducing or stabilising population) are probably only:

1. Move all 3rd world countries to first world, thus decreasing reproductive rates. I have no idea how this can happen in anything less than 1000 years.

2. Mass wipe out of the population from hunger, disease or good old mother nature.

If we are seriously destroying the earth (which is likely in one way or another), then its response will be to hit us back, possibly leading to massive losses of life. As much as it doesn't sound too good, this is probably the most likely solution. The stonger and more prepared will survive and the weaker will die. That is life. That is how it has always worked, and how it will continue to work.

If the predictions of the likes of Flannery are all correct, then I can't possibly see how we can stop this from occurring. Hoping for the world to agree is futile. Hoping for people to put others, living 200 years in the future ahead of themselves living today is, in general futile.

We can all do a bit to improve life on this earth, climate change being one of these many issues (other issues that are just as important now sit buried because of the focus on reducing CO2), but I don't think we should all do what equates to holding our breaths while we wait to see if everyone else follows. We will only achieve one thing by that - damaging ourselves, and our ability to prepare and adapt.
 

mark_s

Chilla Wilson (44)
This is the most confusing of debates. The issues are able to be presented to serve any agenda at all. I have no idea what to think or who to believe but I am very much inclined to take strong action now to try and mitigate the effects of climate change rather than rely on the hope that the other side has it wrong.
 

Scotty

David Codey (61)
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...to-dangers-ahead/story-e6frg6zo-1225710269931

Here is an article from a few years ago, also from Mike Sandiford.

Some interesting things in this:

We are not the first people to face the prospect of a rapid rise in the sea level. At the height of the ice age about 18,000 years ago, the sea was 130m lower than today. By 10,000 years ago the seas had risen to their present heights, reducing the continental landmass by a staggering 8 per cent. For much of this time Tasmania was connected to the mainland and people lived in what is now Bass Strait. The people living there - the Vicmanians - were confronted with the terrible reality that their land was drowning. When the last land bridge broke about 13,000 years ago, seas were rising at more - possibly much more - than 2m a century.


That the land of the Vicmanians and their fellow peoples is now largely submerged explains why we have such a fragmentary record of the first Australians: for the first 30,000 years of human occupation of this continent, most people lived along former coastal fringes now long since submerged.

Changes in sea level also go hand in hand with the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Between 18,000 and 10,000 years ago, the concentration of CO2 rose from about 200parts per million to 280ppm at about 1ppm a century. CO2 is now rising at 2ppm a year, more than 200 times faster than when Vicmania drowned. CO2 levels are now at 380ppm, way outside the natural realm of our present ice-age epoch. Alarmingly, the rate of increase is doubling every 30 years, with present trajectories heading towards CO2 levels this century that our planet has not seen for 30million years.

So the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is rising at 200 times faster than after the last ice age. He wants to compare atmospheric CO2 levels to rises in the sea levels (compare, but does not come out straight and say which leads to the other). So during this period 18,000 to 10,000 years ago, the sea level rose 130m. Approximately 16mm per year. 16mm! Now, the level of C02 is rising 200 times faster. 200 x 16 = 3200mm. 3.2m per year. That is scary isn't it? Hang on - why aren't we seeing anything like this at all? Maybe it will take a lot of time before this starts occurring, maybe there is just a little more to it than what he implies (although he doesn't directly make any conclusions or predictions - good on him - much more credible than Flannery). Talking about Flannery, he has a little dig at the likes of him here:

Many are alarmed by what might happen to our climate; some are sceptical that anything will; even fewer appreciate the inevitability that it will change, as so clearly written in the geological record. In the same way as Plimer, I understand there is nothing new in such change. I, too, worry that alarmist claims that the planet is imperilled speak to a woeful ignorance of the geological record and confuse the crisis we face. It is future generations, not the planet, that should be the focus of our concern. We have no useful moral tools for understanding how to frame issues of intergenerational equity raised by climate disruption. Confounding the geological record may not much matter for the planet - it has seen it all before - but could affect future generations, who will have to bear any burdens of rising seas and changing climates.
 

Cutter

Nicholas Shehadie (39)
So we have two articles from leftist-leaning media telling us that we need to adopt a bipartisan position on climate change. This is to support the first big report from the Climate Commission who has found that we need to act immediately? *cough*independence*cough* Sorry, I must be a flat earther and too stupid to see the truth when it is planted in front of me.

The smh is left of the Murdoch media, but is hardly left in the true sense. In relation to the Climate Commission (http://australia.gov.au/directories/australia/cc):

The Climate Commission is an independent body set up to provide reliable and authoritative source of information on climate change, and help inform the debate on this issue of national significance.

What it does is analyse the science which is where the debate is too often lacking. If you disagree with the conclusions, it's not sufficient to attack the publication running it, you need to attack the science. Your turn now.
 

Aussie D

Dick Tooth (41)
My issue is more about independence. The climate commission may be independent but it doesn't have the appearance due to the fact it's very existence is contingent on anthropological climate change being real.
 

Cutter

Nicholas Shehadie (39)
My issue is more about indepence. The climate commission may be independent but it doesn't have the appearance due to the fact it's very existence is contingent on anthropological climate change being real.

It seems you don't think anthropological climate change is real. If that is the case, on what do you base your view (bearing in mind it runs contrary to the scientific consensus)?
 

Bruwheresmycar

Nicholas Shehadie (39)
By far the worst argument against climate science is the "their jobs are dependent on government funding and climate change being real".

Most of them have many qualifications, in fact most climate scientists until 10 or so years ago came from completely independent fields. They will easily go and find another job, or get more qualifications. Also, you're assuming they get paid a salary by the government that can't be matched in any other field of research.

Try refuting the actual science for once. I'm quite happy to see someone prove the greenhouse effect is not what we think it is and the predicted levels of greenhouse gas emissions will actually not have an effect on the climate. But the whole debate has turned to petty newspaper opinion pieces and politics.

There are genuine climate change skeptics out there, that focus on doing exactly that. But i'm pretty sure most of their arguments are focused around exactly what the greenhouse effect will result in (ie: Will coral reefs actually be effected? Will the oceans temperature rise do anything?). They don't try to attack the science because some particular climate scientists are being paid to do their job.
 

Scotty

David Codey (61)
Bruwheresmycar,

An appropriate name, for my next question:

How many of Julia Gillard's team actually drive fuel efficient cars? Low CO2 polluting ones?

Do they really believe?
 
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