The Climate Change Thread

[Karl]

No matter what your view on AGW, our Carbon Tax, which isn't even actually a carbon tax, is not going to do shit to change, reduce, slow or impact in any measurable way anything to do with climate or global temperatures. It is by definition a pointless platitude and a
meaningless symbol, a political stunt. If you think otherwise you make Pollyanna look like a cynic.

 

[Schadenfreude]

If the government want to lower CO2 emissions I don't understand why they don't pass legislation making all new homes built to have solar panels.

Because market forces will do this with a carbon tax.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

Because market forces will do this with a carbon tax.

not if you compensate the living shit out of the tax

 

[Inside Shoulder]

But on another note and in support of doing stuff that feels good and does some good for the environment: this place was featured on Australian Story last night: Wooleen Station
Makes an old cynic inspired to do something!

 

[fatprop]

Because market forces will do this with a carbon tax.

"Market forces" have been compromised by the government taking a large lump of the tax into a slush fund.

The people who may be able to afford solar panels and new houses aren't receiving the compensation, they get nothing, so why would they move towards positive options like solar panels increasing build costs against better insulation and house design to improve efficiency without the added cost.

 

[Schadenfreude]

"Market forces" have been compromised by the government taking a large lump of the tax into a slush fund.

The people who may be able to afford solar panels and new houses aren't receiving the compensation, they get nothing, so why would they move towards positive options like solar panels increasing build costs against better insulation and house design to improve efficiency without the added cost.

Because at some point the added cost will be cheaper than not installing them.

If you incorporate the solar work into your home build, it goes on your home loan, and you get a pretty good interest rate. So the solar panels will probably get you a profit immediately.

I haven't done the math, but if that's not the case already - it will be soon.

 

[fatprop]

Because at some point the added cost will be cheaper than not installing them.

If you incorporate the solar work into your home build, it goes on your home loan, and you get a pretty good interest rate. So the solar panels will probably get you a profit immediately.

I haven't done the math, but if that's not the case already - it will be soon.

and if the tax was actually revenue neutral, there would have been more money in the market to invest in the best of this stuff.

 

[Karl]

http://www.news.com.au/national/climate-commissioner-professor-tim-flannery-said-temperatures-on-rise-in-sydneys-west/story-e6frfkvr-1226354676536

It seems to be about Urban Heat Island effects, but that won’t stop the disaster extrapolation scenarios from being trotted out. If the bow they draw was actually constructed in the real world, it would be the largest man-made structure on Earth

“In a report to be released today, climate commissioner Professor Tim Flannery said the region's temperatures would rise sharply in coming years, leading to violence and more cases of mental illness.”

“Heat combined with poorer air quality could mean hospitals, which already experienced more emergency cases on hot days, recorded a 40 per cent jump in admissions from 2020-30 and a 200 per cent increase from 2050-60, the commission will claim, based on a report from 2008.”

“If extreme weather caused power outages, the climate scientists feared serious health impacts if blackouts caused "food to spoil due to improper refrigeration, or be contaminated due to inadequate cooking, leading to illness"

But the debate being over and the science settled and all that, I’m sure that JCU Adjunct Professor and Environmental Scientist Bob Carter is just some Oil Company mouthpiece with no place to open his uninformed trap.

But James Cook University Adjunct Professor Bob Carter, an environmental scientist, rubbished the predictions.

"So what. There is always going to be more or fewer hot days per decade," he said.

He claimed forecasting models to project warming, used by the UN, were wrong and that claims made about the start of this century had proven wrong.

"Those same computer models predicted there would be two-tenths of a degree of warming between the turn of the century and 2010 - in fact we had no warming at all.

"If you bring it out to 2012, we have had a slight cooling."

 

[Bruwheresmycar]

Yes, easy to takedown Tim Flannery's work with the interpretation of a report that hasn't been released yet by a Daily Telegraph journalist. Well done.

 

[Bruwheresmycar]

What is your problem with what they seem to be saying anyway? Worse heatwaves = more problems.

 

[Cutter]

But the debate being over and the science settled and all that, I’m sure that JCU Adjunct Professor and Environmental Scientist Bob Carter is just some Oil Company mouthpiece with no place to open his uninformed trap.

Yep, you're right. Bob Carter is on the payroll of the Heartland Institute. Not a credible source.

 

[Bruwheresmycar]

On a sidenote the Heartland Institute have been pretty active recently: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environme...institute-global-warming-murder?newsfeed=true

Osama Bin Laden was on another one!

And once sponsors got angry they pulled the ads and said it was all an "experiment". Pretty hilarious backtracking.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

I reckon the worst thing environmental science advocacy has going for it is Tim Flannery: hectoring, condescending, self important and self satisfied.
Hard to take the public with you with those attributes.

 

[Cutter]

Which is why it is important to undertake a rational assessment of the merits of the science without letting personal prejudice influence your thoughts.

 

[HarveyColon]

i would have thought flannery would shut his hole by now considering his prediction that we'd be in drought by now didn't come to fruition

 

[Scarfman]

You actually think you know more about the climate than Tim Flannery, don't you Harv?

 

[cyclopath]

The inherent problem with making predictions, no matter if they are "absolutes" or "probabilities", is that you get ridiculed with them if they don't come to pass. Being such a public figure, and no doubt with far more knowledge on the subject than most, Flannery will get asked all the time. It doesn't mean the basis for the prediction is bunk.
For this same reason, I avoid timelines when patients ask the inevitable "how long have I got?" in relation to terminal conditions, and unfortunately this happens from time to time. Better to try to help them understand the process, and what we can do to make it less awful than to make pointless predictions.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

You actually think you know more about the climate than Tim Flannery, don't you Harv?

Thats not the point: there is a message. It needs to be communicated. In order for it to be communicated people need to be prepared to listen to the messenger.
People like Flannery irrespective of their knowledge/qualifications cannot sell it because the public very quickly work out that they are up themselves. The public will not listen to people who are up themselves therefore the message will not be communicated.
All of that says zilch about the message itself.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

The inherent problem with making predictions, no matter if they are "absolutes" or "probabilities", is that you get ridiculed with them if they don't come to pass. Being such a public figure, and no doubt with far more knowledge on the subject than most, Flannery will get asked all the time. It doesn't mean the basis for the prediction is bunk.
For this same reason, I avoid timelines when patients ask the inevitable "how long have I got?" in relation to terminal conditions, and unfortunately this happens from time to time. Better to try to help them understand the process, and what we can do to make it less awful than to make pointless predictions.

And am sure that you do everything to avoid lecturing to them or condescending.
Flannery does neither and would actually serve his purpose better by becoming anonymous and/or invisible.

 

[cyclopath]

Maybe so, IS. My comment was more on the pitfalls of predicting, especially in a system with many variables, rather than a comment on Flannery, about whom, I confess, I am relatively ignorant.