AGW – Talkabout VI

This is where you can argue all you like about human-induced climate change. We’re up to page 6 already.

246 comments on “AGW – Talkabout VI”

  2. Global Warming downgraded to a Sultry Afternoon

    ‘Global warming is likely to be less extreme than claimed, researchers said yesterday. The most likely temperature rise will be 1.9C (3.4F) compared with the 3.5C predicted by the Intergovern­mental Panel on Climate Change. The Norwegian study says earlier predictions were based on rapid warming in the Nineties. But Oslo University’s department of geosciences included data since 2000 when temperature rises “levelled off nearly completely”.—John Ingham, Daily Express, 26 January 2013.

    ‘The Earth’s mean temperature rose sharply during the ­Nineties. This may have caused us to overestimate climate sensitivity. We are most likely witnessing natural fluctuations in the climate system – changes that can occur over several decades – and which are coming on top of a long-term warming.’——Professor Terje Berntsen,University of Oslo, 24 January 2013.

    ‘These results are truly sensational. If confirmed by other studies, this could have far-reaching impacts on efforts to achieve the political targets for climate’.—Caroline Leck,Stockholm University, 25 January 2013.

  5. The Klimatariat presents their views on CC.

    Note some of the charts shown have been ‘doctored’… hockey stick and no MWP.
    Propaganda is insidious.

  6. A partial recant by James Lovelock…he still believes CO2 causes global warming.

    ‘I am an environmentalist and founder member of the Greens but I bow my head in shame at the thought that our original good intentions should have been so misunderstood and misapplied.

    ‘We never intended a fundamentalist Green movement that rejected all energy sources other than renewable, nor did we expect the Greens to cast aside our priceless ecological heritage because of their failure to understand that the needs of the Earth are not separable from human needs.

    ‘We need take care that the spinning windmills do not become like the statues on Easter Island, monuments of a failed civilisation.’

  9. It was warm in the continental US recently, which is of great concern to those who are soft in the head.

  10. ‘In villages across the Arctic, Inuit are reporting an invasion. Polar bears, once rare, are now strolling the streets, peeking in windows, killing dogs – even stalking kids.

    ‘No place has been more menaced than Arviat. In 2012, the Nunavut government conducted a long-awaited census of western Hudson Bay polar bears and came up with 1,013 animals, or about twice as many as the number projected by environment Canada.’

    Jake MacDonald GWPF 28 Jan 2013

  11. Insightful comment at Independent Australia:

    In my opinion those who are in control of the climate denialist religion are in all probability sociopaths.

    The same goes for the followers of the denialist cult, especially the trolls. No matter how stupid they are, they are still sociopaths.

  12. ‘Antisocial Personality Disorder is the clinical term for the disorder associated with the traits of sociopaths.’

    Someone outside Groupthink?

  14. Someone outside Groupthink?

    No, EG. Someone outside group feeling!

    This is very telling. It is a virtual admission that EG is a sociopath.

  18. A scientist – Michael Asten, professor of geophysics at Monash University – responds to Obama’s global warming rhetoric:

    ‘It was an appeal using rhetoric and not science because the most severe impacts of these natural disasters come from the challenge of managing increased population or changed population demands, not changes in the events per se…

    ‘I note three recent papers that find evidence for long-term cycles influencing the Earth’s climate.

    ‘Weichao Wu of the Peking University and colleagues studied sea-surface temperature records preserved in deep-sea sediments near Okinawa in the Pacific Ocean, and found evidence for multiple cyclic temperature variations over the past 2700 years.

    ‘The most interesting temperature peaks correspond to medieval, Roman and possibly Minoan warming periods of about 900, 1800 and 2500 years ago.

    ‘The paper is significant in that it concludes that the current rate of global temperature change lies in the same range as that of those historical warming periods.

    ‘This suggests we have evidence that challenges current climate orthodoxy on two grounds, first by suggesting that such warming events were global not local European phenomena, and second that current warming is not unprecedented in the historical record.

    ‘While we read many claims by oceanographers of an increasing rate of rise in sea-levels associated with increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, an alternative interpretation of observed data is made in a recent analysis by Don Chambers of the University of South Florida and colleagues.

    ‘Chambers poses the question: “Is there a 60-year oscillation in sea-level?” and shows evidence that the answer is probably yes.

    ‘I read his data and find it is arguable that the upswing of that oscillation is responsible for about half of the current 3mm/year rate of rise, leaving the background rate of rise at about 1.7mm, where it has been for 110 years…

    ‘I would add that if Chambers is right, the accelerating rate of increase in sea-levels has topped out about now, and the 10mm a year rises needed to reach the feared “1 metre rise by 2100” are not going to happen.’

    A third work … is a study by JA Abreu of the prestigious Swiss university ETH, with co-authors including Australia’s 1995 Australia Science Prize winner Ken McCracken.

    Abreu reconstructs a history of solar sunspot cycles over the past 10,000 years… These records show a series of cycles ranging from 88 years to 504 years with longer cycles of 974 and 2300 years evident …

  20. Yes, the Queensland and NSW floods and the NSW, Victorian and Tasmanian bushfires have been excellent for Australian agriculture. Everyone is celebrating.

  26. ‘The reality is, then, that no scientist on the planet can tell you with credible probability whether the climate in 2030 will be cooler or warmer than today. In such circumstances the only rational conclusion to draw is that we need to be prepared to react to either warming or cooling over the next several decades, depending upon what Nature chooses to serve up to us.’

    Bob Carter

  27. What Nature chooses to serve up? Does carter really believes Nature is an intelligent entity? Isn’t this a religious belief?

  33. “I’m still speechless.”

    Someone has to do it. The stench of denial permeates the left these days.
    denial that planet hasn’t warmed
    Denial that gillard lies
    denial that Labor is on the nose
    Denial that Labor is becoming irrelevant
    denial that labor is driven by corruption from the top down…

  35. Pterosaur you’re a perverter of the truth! Glacier calving has been going on since the last ice age…what you mean is an impressive calving event!

  36. @treetroll

    Pterosaur you’re a perverter of the truth!

    How?
    Perhaps you missed the bit about increased rate of ice loss in the area ?
    Of course natural processes continue, they merely become more extreme as AGW progresses.

  37. “Perhaps you missed the bit about increased rate of ice loss in the area ?”

    Not at all, but rates do go up and down, notably increasing after a larger than usual calving, which happened smack in the middle of the ten year period mentioned….

    “natural processes continue, they merely become more extreme as AGW progresses.”

    Bunkum!

  39. @ treetroll blusters

    Bunkum!

    I am able to reference my claim with credible and peer reviewed research.
    This you remain incapable of, and your opinion is irrelevant, as you have repeatedly demonstrated your ignorance wrt AGW, and an ideological denial of reality on many occasions, not least in your failure to comprehend either the nature or the reality of climactic and ecological “tipping points”.

    Perhaps you think your insistence that CO2 is not a pollutant lends you credibility?

    Or does the citing of watts, nova et.al, in opposition to, and as the equivalent of citing those qualified to, and currently engaged, in climate research, somehow lend your (second hand) opinions weight?

    I think not.

    Your bluster is yet another example of right wing projection.

  43. ‘… it didn’t take long for the bush fires set off by Australia’s “hottest summer ever” to be blamed on runaway global warming. Rather less attention was given to the heavy snow in Jerusalem (worst for 20 years) or the abnormal cold bringing death and destruction to China (worst for 30 years), northern India (coldest for 77 years) and Alaska, with average temperatures down in the past decade by more than a degree.’

    Christopher Booker

  46. ‘As an island nation with some 85% of the population residing within 50 km of the coast, Australia faces significant threats into the future from sea level rise.

    ‘Further, with over 710,000 addresses within 3 km of the coast and below 6-m elevation, the implication of a projected global rise in mean sea level of up to 100 cm over the 21st century will have profound economic, social, environmental, and planning consequences.

    ‘In this context, it is becoming increasingly important to monitor trends emerging from local (regional) records to augment global average measurements and future projections.

    ‘The Australasian region has four very long, continuous tide gauge records, at Fremantle (1897), Auckland (1903), Fort Denison (1914), and Newcastle (1925), which are invaluable for considering whether there is evidence that the rise in mean sea level is accelerating over the longer term at these locations in line with various global average sea level time-series reconstructions.

    ‘These long records have been converted to relative 20-year moving average water level time series and fitted to second-order polynomial functions to consider trends of acceleration in mean sea level over time. The analysis reveals a consistent trend of weak deceleration at each of these gauge sites throughout Australasia over the period from 1940 to 2000.

    Short period trends of acceleration in mean sea level after 1990 are evident at each site, although these are not abnormal or higher than other short-term rates measured throughout the historical record.’

    P. J. Watson
    Principal Coastal Specialist, NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water.

  47. The debate is shifting to a higher level, increasing CO2 and ozone depletion is pushing the jet stream around. The story is up at Watts and I’m highly sceptical.

    The Klimatariat is doing revision. Reading through the comments I came across Brent Walker who said…

    ‘The Extreme and Far UV emissions provide the energy to create Ozone in the upper stratosphere, mesosphere and lower thermosphere and the various nitrogen oxides in those locations. Over time the more EUV and FUV emissions there are the greater the depth of the Ozone column.

    ‘The more Ozone there is the more the jet streams move to the poles and the less depth to the Rossby waves (loopiness of the jet stream). What we are seeing at present is a long term reduction of about 40% in the EUV and FUV emissions and a reduction in Ozone resulting even in a hole in the Ozone layer in the last two Northern Hemisphere springs. So the jet streams are migrating towards the equator and the Rossby waves are getting deeper.

    ‘If you look at today’s map of the jets streams in both the Northern and Southern hemisphere you will see the jet stream that in the summer normally crosses Australia either just below the continent or at least across Melbourne is currently crossing NSW and Southern Queensland.

    ‘Also the lower polar jet stream is rising almost from Antarctica to partially link up with the jet stream crossing the continent before diving to below the South Island of New Zealand – in other words a rather extreme loop but one which has caused weather forecasters to suggest there may be some summer snow on the alps in northern Victoria and some rather wild weather in NSW. Also there are parts of the Northern Hemisphere jet stream that appear to have crossed the equator into the Southern Hemisphere in the Pacific. You have to look at both the northern and southern hemisphere jet stream maps to see this.

    ‘How the Ozone layer affects the jet streams is not fully understood. But planetary waves and gravity waves are thought to play a part. But it may be as simple as the lower Ozone levels allow more infra-red heat to radiate from Earth into space. This means less is being trapped in the stratosphere and these slightly lower temperatures in the stratosphere then cause a general shift in the jet streams toward the equator where the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere are warmer.

    ‘Until recently climate scientists were blaming increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 for causing the gradual migration of jet streams towards the poles in the last three decades of the 20th Century.

    ‘Given that atmospheric levels of CO2 are still increasing and the jet streams are now moving towards the equator they have had to revise their theories. Also there is no talk of CFC’s affecting the Ozone layer this time. That 1970′s scare was mostly furphy given that the solar cycle at that time was fairly weak.’

  48. Oh noes! More climate change disruption.

    ‘Britain may have only just recovered from last month’s Big Freeze, but more cold weather and snow are on the way today.

    ‘As freezing temperatures return to the UK, eastern parts of the country will be hit by snow showers starting this evening and continuing overnight.

    ‘A new cold snap comes as much of Britain is still afflicted with floods caused by melting snow and a week of heavy rain.’

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2271906/UK-weather-Snow-return-Britain-weekend-cold-winds-set-leave-feeling-chilly.html#ixzz2Jh1pEqa5
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  49. I thought you had more intelligence, el gordo, but to give us the weather at one spot on the planet and then extrapolate this into your argument against global climate change is fatuous.

  51. It’s obvious from your posts you are a climate change denier and the one above is your puerile attempt at ridiculing those who believe in climate change.

    Of the 13,950 peer-reviewed climate articles published from 1991 to 2012 there were only 24 which rejected global warming. Using you warped deductive reasoning I expect you to say ““Dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles prove that so-called “global warming” is a hoax!”

  52. If eg had half a brain, she wouldn’t unquestionably take the word of an actuary as gospel truth over that of climate scientists in matters of climate 🙄

  55. Its all very well when the models appear to work, then the high priests say post hoc ergo propter hoc, but when temperatures fall in the face of rising CO2 they say the models predicted it.

    jokers!

  56. el gordo, how can you expect anyone to take you seriously with the following uncorroborated sweeping statement?

    “And human induced global warming is a fraud.”

    But, thanks for confirming your stupidity.

    With regards to you I will now take Mark Twain’s advice:

    “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”

  57. Let’s agree to disagree.

    I like your name … soon be travelling faster than the speed of light, thanks to Higgs Boson.

  58. A tax on a harmless trace gas has rooned my party.

    ‘FOR years, stress and a sense of feeling pressured in daily life has been increasing for the majority of people living in the outer reaches of suburban Australia. This unifying sense of pressure is reported to members of parliament and pollsters with varying reasons given for its cause.

    ‘Some voters volunteer that it’s “the rising cost of living”, while others are more specific, nominating the size of their housing mortgage and the need for both parents in a family to work to service their loan. For a long time rising power prices, particularly electricity bills, have been at the top of other voters’ concerns.’

    Dennis Shanahan

  59. Yep, and what has caused the rise in power bills. Not the price on carbon emission. Only caused a very small rise, which the government has compensate most for.

    In all those polls, there seems to be an extra large number that have no opinions on most questions. The number appears to be arond 25%

  60. ‘what has caused the rise in power bills. Not the price on carbon emission. Only caused a very small rise, which the government has compensate most for.’

    Green Energy, tax and poles.

    The plebs were compensated, but very small business has to carry the full burden without compensation. All those I’ve spoken to have said their power bills have tripled and they all blame joolya.

  65. He’s apparently changed his graphs, removed one that after adjustment shows the greatest upward trend, plays down the upward trends completely but leaves his remarks and demand for an apology against Dr Karl in place when it’s Bolt who should be apologising.

    The Twitter exchange between Dr Karl and some deniers is also telling in that they state blatant falsehoods that Kruszelnicki shoots down, but it doesn’t stop them continuing to state falsehoods.

  67. Hey el gordo you disingenuous piece of work, why don’t you show all the other graphs, oh that’s right they clearly show upward trends. The RSS data isn’t disputed and is acknowledged with the reason for its finding explained.

    In one link you have shot yourself in the foot.

  68. It’s worse than even that Mö – the dishonest p#!(+ is merely picking a “special” year. Isn’t climate defined as weather trends over a 30 year period? Try replotting the graphs with a starting year of the1983 🙄

    You really are a dishonest, despicable piece of $#!!+, aren’t you el gordo 👿

  71. You really are a dishonest, despicable piece of $#!!+, aren’t you el gordo

    I noticed that you didn’t use a question mark.. So I assume it’s an ‘assertion’. Not that’s anything wrong with that, particulary when it’s an accurate claim. IMHO.

    Again it draws attention to the broader issue of how to deal with those who are in dire need of professional help. The evidence of that need abounds.

    Part of the problem is that there’s no ’employer’ (based on historic claims – but who knows). Again I raise the issue as to whose responsibility it is when ‘one sick puppy’. crying for help (apparently) continues to post, and post and …?

  76. And el gordo does the usual crap thing, and nothing will ever stop them, of posting local cold weather events, even long term ones, and inferring from them, without credible scientific evidence , that the globe is cooling, whilst also saying global warming has plateaued, which is not cooling by the way, but also wrong.

    All the while warming and hot weather events, even long term trending ones, are completely ignored because el gordo deliberately being misleading and artful only searches for and picks out those cold local weather events.

    El gordo doesn’t discuss or debate climate change at all but only what’s happening with the weather in very select areas of the world.

    It proves to me that el gordo isn’t genuine in their belief and only posts to troll and to be contrary, just as el gordo does on other topics.

    And this post and any others you may put up to refute the disingenuousness of el gordo will only illicit a string of more nonsense single paragraph posts, which is why it’s better off just leaving this topic to el gordo to post what crap they want to their hearts content and none of us having to worry about how dishonest they are.

  77. The UK Met indicate its cooling, but they are known to exaggerate.

    Mo put up any chart that supports your world view and we’ll discuss it.

  78. And with thanks to Kevin for this..

    Every parking lot ought to look like this. Shades the cars while producing free energy. Germany has created over 500,000 new jobs by pushing hard into solar and wind energy – providing incentives for everyone to install and as a result, they will be able to move forward with their plans to shut down all their nuclear power plants in the next decade.

  79. Mobius, or ignore it..I prefer to do the latter. It’s Migs’ topic and I’ll keep trying to be positive until he decides to close down the topic.

  81. You don’t have to close down the topic Min, just ignore this thread all together and leave el gordo to post their nonsense to their hearts content. Shit el gordo could even debate el gordo.

    You see el gordo’s problem by the response, and I bet el gordo doesn’t even know why it’s a nonsense and simplistically imbecilic.

  83. ‘Chairman Lord Smith says changes in rain patterns mean parts of the country are being hit by prolonged downpours that are causing extreme flooding.

    ‘Thousands of homes and businesses were damaged and at least eight people were killed in 2012 as Britain suffered its second wettest year on record.

    ‘Lord Smith told the Sunday Telegraph that changes in the way it rains have contributed to the severe floods, in a claim reminiscent of British Rail’s ‘wrong type of snow excuse’.

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2272712/Britain-prepare-floods-caused-wrong-type-rain-says-Environment-Agency-chief.html#ixzz2JsPgMFgz
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  84. ‘Occam’s Razor and the null hypothesis. William of Occam (1285-1347) was an English Franciscan monk and philosopher to whom is attributed the saying ‘Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate’, which translates as ‘Plurality should not be posited without necessity.’

    Bob Carter

  85. ‘The phrase ‘Occam’s Razor’ is now generally used as shorthand to represent the fundamental scientific assumption of simplicity. To explain any given set of observations of the natural world, scientific method proceeds by erecting, first, the simplest possible explanation (hypothesis) that can explain the known facts. This simple explanation, termed the null hypothesis, then becomes the assumed interpretation until additional facts emerge that require modification of the initial hypothesis, or perhaps even invalidate it altogether.

    ‘Given the great natural variability exhibited by climate records, and the failure to date to compartmentalize or identify a human signal within them, the proper null hypothesis – because it is the simplest consistent with the known facts – is that global climate changes are presumed to be natural, unless and until specific evidence is forthcoming for human causation.

    ‘It is one of the more extraordinary facts about the IPCC that the research studies it favours mostly proceed using an (unjustified) inversion of the null hypothesis – namely that global climate changes are presumed to be due to human-related carbon dioxide emissions, unless and until specific evidence indicates otherwise.’

    Bob Carter

  87. LIA conditions return to Britain.

    ‘Britain faces another night of cold and wet weather as near-zero temperatures are coupled with snowstorms and howling gales.

    ‘Temperatures will drop down to 0C (32F) in parts of Scotland, with lows around 2C (36F) in most of the country.

    ‘The foul weather comes after the UK was hit with ‘thundersnow’ today, as the return of freezing weather combined with lightning storms to create the freak phenomenon.

    ‘Residents of northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland were shocked to wake up to a blanket of snow after a night of storms, with reports of thundersnow in major cities including Manchester, Sheffield, Glasgow and Edinburgh.’

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2273263/UK-weather-Temperatures-hover-just-zero-tonight-snowfall-gales-forecast-tomorrow.html#ixzz2K3xVWwFR
    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

  88. Record snowfall in Moscow…Here’s one for the new deniers…denying that global warming alarmism is 100% hot air!

    ““There hasn’t been such a winter in 100 years,” Pyotr Biryukov, deputy mayor for residential issues, said Tuesday in comments carried by Interfax. “The snow this year has already reached one and a half times the climatic norm,” he said.”

    WWF tries to make out it’s because of global warming…”“The weather we’ve seen in the past couple of days completely fits with the tendency that was identified a couple of years ago, that we are going to to see much stronger, intensive bursts of precipitation in the future,” said Alexei Kokorin, director of the climate and energy program at WWF Russia. “In the summer, we will probably see stronger bursts of rain.”
    http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/heaviest-snowfall-in-a-century-hits-moscow/475102.html#ixzz2K4m8i13z

    The logic fail here by the WWF spokesman is typical for mindless zealots. If global warming caused this snowfall event, what caused the heavy snow 100 years ago when CO2 levels were below Hansen’s “safe” 350ppm?

  90. Hey el gordo, guess what..

    China’s decade-long boom in coal-driven heavy industry is about to end as the leadership shifts priorities towards energy conservation, say officials and policy advisers.

    and..

    Income shock for Australia

    And it would trigger a negative income shock to Australia, the world’s biggest exporter or coal and iron ore, with significant implications for government budget forecasts.

    Twas it not lil ol’ moi who has been saying for the last umpteen years, watch out for China, they are now leading the world into research into renewables..this is irrespective of one’s belief in Climate Change…

    But of course those still decades behind, still arguing The Science would choose to ignore all of that, plus ignore the implications for Australia.

    http://www.theage.com.au/business/carbon-economy/time-for-change-china-flags-peak-in-coal-usage-20130206-2dxrv.html#ixzz2K6fbRSOe

  91. Interesting, I’ll follow it up. Love the way Garnaut slipped in this one liner…paid his dues.

    ‘The move would also bring some relief in the fight against global warming.’

  93. This may explain why the new regime in China is taking a great leap forward in renewables. From Ambrose Evans Pritchard….

    ‘We can now discern more or less when the catch-up growth miracle will sputter out. Another seven years or so – enough to bouy global coal, crude, and copper prices for a while – but then it will all be over. China’s demographic dividend will be exhausted.

    ‘Beijing revealed last week that the country’s working age population has already begun to shrink, sooner than expected. It will soon go into “precipitous decline”, according to the International Monetary Fund.

    ‘Japan hit this inflexion point fourteen years ago, but by then it was already rich, with $3 trillion of net savings overseas. China has hit the wall a quarter century earlier in its development path.

    ‘The ageing crisis is well-known. It is already six years since a Chinese demographer shocked Davos with a warning that his country might have to resort to mass suicide in the end, shoving pensioners onto the ice.

    ‘Less known is the parallel – and linked – labour drain in the countryside. A new IMF paper – “Chronicle of a Decline Foretold: Has China Reached the Lewis Turning Point?” – says the reserve army of peasants looking for work peaked in 2010 at around 150 million. The numbers are now collapsing.’

  94. ‘AUSTRALIANS have been warned to brace for economic shock, rising unemployment and falling incomes as China puts the brakes on its industrial boom.

    ‘Economist Ross Garnaut has warned of a “very big and painful” adjustment in the next two years as Chinese demand Australia’s coal, iron ore and gas drops, causing major export commodity price falls and an economic downturn to rival that experienced by the US and Europe in the past five years, forecasting a long period without income growth.’

    Sue Neales in the Oz

  95. Min, your quote from The Age suggests that “China’s decade-long boom in coal-driven heavy industry is about to end as the leadership shifts priorities towards energy conservation, say officials and policy advisers.”

    The Age is hardly a source of valid information on China. I suggest the reverse is true.

    “China proposes to further reshuffle its coal industry by setting higher thresholds for the scale of coal producers and encouraging mergers to form industrial conglomerates, the government said Monday.

    The minimum standard for the scale of coal producers will be raised gradually, according to a revised draft of coal industrial policies released by the National Energy Administration, the country’s top energy regulator, to solicit public opinions on the proposals.

    The draft suggests that the annual output of coal companies in the country’s three major coal-producing regions — Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and northern Shaanxi — should be no less than 3 million tonnes.

    It also says large-sized coal enterprises will be encouraged to form alliances with each other or merge with smaller companies to develop big industrial groups.

    The move came as China’s coal sector is seeing softening growth and plunging prices due to overcapacity and sluggish demand amid the economic downshift.

    The country’s coal output rose 4 percent year on year to 3.66 billion tonnes in 2012, with the growth rate 4.7 percentage points weaker than that of the previous year, data from the China National Coal Association showed recently.

    Boosted by expectations of faster mergers and acquisitions in future, shares of Chinese coal firms surged on Monday, with Datong Coal Industry Co., Ltd. soaring by the daily limit of 10 percent to 10.26 yuan.

    China Shenhua Energy Co., Ltd., the country’s largest coal miner, saw its share price rise 1.34 percent to 24.93 yuan on Monday”

    http://www.china.org.cn/business/2013-02/05/content_27888125.htm

    Apart from that, China’s projected new coal fired power plants approved for production equate to 557,938MW
    http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/global-map-of-planned-coal-fired-capacity-tells-a-story/

    http://www.worldcoal.org/resources/ecoal-archive/ecoal-current-issue/coals-vital-role-in-china/

    You really need to get your head out of the sand.

  96. el gordo

    Just watched Garnaut on ABC and he did not once mention AGW, sticking to the familiar ground of mineral extraction and number crunching!

  100. Arbitrage – European carbon price ‘inching ever closer to zero”
    In finance and economics, arbitrage means taking advantage of the price difference between two markets.

    In practice, arbitrage happens when Wayne Swan and Julia Gillard are in charge of setting up a market but Christine forgot to turn the tap off and it’s emptied the tanks onto Europe but we’ve got lots of bits of paper.

    Someone found the prospectus for Dutch Tulip Bulbs under the lino when Bruce (while I was away) just decided to renovate the house – and hey presto, instant regulatory framework for carbon credits. Fill your boots with them.

    Our carbon price per certificate for use as wallpaper in the spare room is $23 per A4 absorbent sheet this year, rising to $25.40 in 2015.

    (Pssst – hey buddy, yeah you – I got cheap Rolex.)

    So class, here’s your homework. If you let Al Gore create a global market, and sufficient people in Europe watch Al Jazeera all day on welfare – how long until Peter Foster on the Gold Coast realises that you can buy carbon credits for nearly nothing in Brussells while the Australian Government ones sell for $23?

    Group Term Assignment – Produce a marketing plan featuring Christine Milne and Sarah Hanson Young as Carbon Credit Maids on the Gold Coast to encourage eco-Carbon-Trading-Tourism.

    http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2013/02/arbitrage-european-carbon-price-inching-ever-closer-to-zero.html

    This line would work here:

    “Supplementary – engineer a sports-doping race-riot scandal that blames Tony Abbott.”

  101. LONDON, Feb 7 (Reuters Point Carbon) – ‘The EU’s biggest political party remains opposed to an EU Commission plan to force prices for carbon permits higher, a party source said Thursday, increasing the chances that the so-called backloading plan could face further delays.’

  102. “It’s typical isn’t it? You take a break and then, well, stuff happens. But this particular ‘stuff’ is too good to pass up.

    The University of Western Australia’s very own Nutty Professor, Stephan Lewandowsky, goes full-on stupid, with best buddy John Cook of Un-Skeptical Pseudo-Science, by publishing another risible paper on the ludicrous “moon landing denier theory” previously discussed widely here and on the net (see here and here and here and here and plenty more).

    But wait… This time, instead of labelling anyone daring to question any part of the climate consensus as a crazy conspiracy theorist, it’s anyone who questions Lewandowsky’s moon landing denier paper, who’s, er… a crazy conspiracy theorist.

    It’s snappily entitled Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation, but what it actually represents isn’t recursive fury, but recursive idiocy: rational, if sometimes irritated, responses to an idiotic paper confected into yet another, this time doubly idiotic, paper. It’s bullshit squared, in other words.”

    http://www.australianclimatemadness.com

  103. “The Amazon rainforest is less vulnerable to die off because of global warming than widely believed because the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide also acts as an airborne fertilizer, a study showed on Wednesday.
    ”

    http://www.thegwpf.org/false-alarm-no-2575-amazon-rainforest-resilient-climate-change-thought/

    “The boost to growth from CO2, the main gas from burning fossil fuels blamed for causing climate change, was likely to exceed damaging effects of rising temperatures this century such as drought, it said.

    “I am no longer so worried about a catastrophic die-back due to CO2-induced climate change,” Professor Peter Cox of the University of Exeter in England told Reuters of the study he led in the journal Nature. “In that sense it’s good news.”

    Cox was also the main author of a much-quoted study in 2000 that projected that the Amazon rainforest might dry out from about 2050 and die off because of warming. Others have since suggested fires could transform much the forest into savannah.

    Plants soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and use it as an ingredient to grow leaves, branches and roots. Stored carbon gets released back to the atmosphere when plants rot or are burnt.

    A retreat of the Amazon forests, releasing vast stores of carbon, could in turn aggravate global warming that is projected to cause more floods, more powerful storms and raise world sea levels by melting ice sheets.

    “CO2 fertilization will beat the negative effect of climate change so that forests will continue to accumulate carbon throughout the 21st century,” Cox said of the findings with other British-based researchers.”

  107. Min @7.42pm, yeah right. el gordo and Treetroll must do the research for Fox Lies. They must be unaware that southern California and other states like Utah, Nevada and New Mexico, Florida etc are part of the US.

    I also find it amusing when the likes of the above two twats breathlessly report record snowfalls in the northern hemisphere with the expectation that it is proof that the world is cooling.

    Well der. They might have a bit more hope if they were reporting record snowfalls in the middle of summer. Neither of them understands that global warming will produce extreme weather and that includes record snowfalls in winter in the northern hemisphere and the hotter summers in this country over the last few years.

    And we’re not the only ones; last year was the hottest on record in the US.

  108. Yes jane they have absolutely no credibility or a modicum of nous in this matter, they just spout local weather reports because of a blinkered ideology as if that emphatically proves their point, when it does nothing of the sort.

    If the world’s climate scientists were putting forth anthropogenic global cooling (AGC) with all the establishments and governments taking action to alleviate it, but that action would hurt very big and wealthy vested interests who donate heavily to right wing think tanks, parties and politicians, who then run a disingenuous and misleading anti AGC campaign, they would be posting just as much bullshit nonsense against that. In other words they’re mindless sheep who follow whatever the vested interest put out to muddy the waters on any topic, but especially AGW.

    Also note they never ever post links to warm weather events.

    For instance whilst going on about record snow falls in Russia they completely overlooked the bigger weather story from Russia in that the Winter Olympics will have no snow and where it’s being held is averaging 18º at the moment. Russia is bringing in Europe’s biggest snow making machine.

    And the 2010 Winter Olympics in Canada also did not have enough snow because of the unusually high temperatures and they had to truck in tons of it.

    Both those unusually warm weather events are just that, unusual local weather events, just as hundreds more extreme warm weather events around the globe are just local weather events.

    So what is the difference between extreme or unusual cold and warm local weather events that has them posting only about the cold ones? Blind ideological stupidity.

  110. “Yes jane they have absolutely no credibility or a modicum of nous in this matter, they just spout local weather reports because of a blinkered ideology as if that emphatically proves their point, when it does nothing of the sort”

    If you had any nous yourself you would take more notice of those sceptics who keep alarmist scientists from the funding trough. By dismissing Anthony Watts and Joanne Nova out of hand you deny any other view which puts you firmly in the frame of a new age denier, along with bottom feeders like ‘never fill again dams’ flannery and ‘nevers now again’viner.

    mobius, it is really you with a blinkered ideology and time is proving you wrong

  111. “Min @7.42pm, yeah right. el gordo and Treetroll must do the research for Fox Lies. They must be unaware that southern California and other states like Utah, Nevada and New Mexico, Florida etc are part of the US.”
    Well der. They might have a bit more hope if they were reporting record snowfalls in the middle of summer. Neither of them understands that global warming will produce extreme weather and that includes record snowfalls in winter in the northern hemisphere and the hotter summers in this country over the last few years”

    Spoken like a true believer, and a patronising one at that!

  112. Meanwhile there is a blizzard in North East US and surprise surprise there was also one back in 1978 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_United_States_blizzard_of_1978

    Climate Central alarmist Heidi (hide the facts) Cullen tries to make out that the current blizzars is fed by unusually warm ocean temperatures…http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/cullen_tweet_capture.png

    Hellooooo Heidi, the actual temps are quite cold….

    Heidi might apply for a job here, her ‘expertise’ would help the new age denier cause heaps!

  113. @treetroll

    you would take more notice of those sceptics who keep alarmist scientists from the funding trough.

    😆 🙄
    Not that the treetroll is able to like, provide any examples of any of any such sceptics liars showing any ability or results, wrt keeping

    scientists from the funding trough

    Pretty much typical of the ignorant bluster of all denialists – the gullible fool is unable to even demonstrate rational thought. much less play a meaningful role in any discussion, let alone concerning AGW.
    It blusters around, attempting to impress with recycled lies, misrepresentations and abuse, failing to ever contribute something of any value to any conversation, while repeatedly demonstrating a profound ignorance of, among other things, the nature, and existence of reality.
    In the face of the determined ignorance, malice and lies as exhibited by the treetroll as it attempts to proselytise, condescension and/or disgust seem quite appropriate reactions. 🙄
    Given that it, and the other trolls do nothing more than endlessly repeat the same lying mantra, ignoring the reality that all their so-called “arguments” have been repeatedly demonstrated as being without foundation in either logic or reality, their persistence in such activity(ies) is surely indicative of severe pathology(ies) affecting their mental processes and social interactions.
    Probably best to Scroll The Trolls, rather than by interacting with them, and possibly exacerbating the delusionary states of mind they affect.

  115. Pet is unable to even demonstrate rational thought. much less play a meaningful role in any discussion, let alone concerning AGW…pterosore exacerbates the delusionary states of mind it affects with every comment!.

  116. ‘It seems to me that these these theories, that global warming will lead to colder winters, need to pass three tests before they can even cross the starting line:-

    ‘Explain how winters were as cold, or colder, and as snowy or snowier, in earlier periods such as the 1960’s and 70’s, when the NH was cooling, and Arctic ice expanding.

    ‘Explain how winters grew milder in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, at a time when the earth was warming, and Arctic ice was declining.

    ‘Prove what was wrong with earlier models that predicted milder winters.

    ‘Until these tests are passed, the theories really don’t get off the ground.’

    Paul Homewood (guest post at Watts)

  119. ‘Oh look. It’s that idiot that thinks Jesus was an alien.’

    Ah, no. I say the null hypothesis stands, the apostles and scribes which followed simply made shit up.

    Of course there is always a slim possibility that along the way homo sapiens have been tampered with. Or you may prefer to side with the view that humanity is the only intelligent life in this carbon universe?

    Local Nooze

    ‘WEST Australian Labor leader Mark McGowan said yesterday he opposed the carbon tax, as Newspoll reveals most voters believe he has a vision for the state but think Premier Colin Barnett is the better economic manager.

    ‘Mr McGowan has distanced himself from Julia Gillard, whose unpopularity in the west is seen as a major problem for state Labor in the run-up to the March 9 election.’

    Paige Taylor in the Oz

  120. This is something that would never happen under an Abbott-led government as after all, climate change is “crap”.

    Australia will give $15 million to the Pacific island nation of Kiribati towards the cost of rebuilding a main road damaged by rising sea levels.

    Foreign Minister Bob Carr who is visiting Kiribati says fixing the road will ensure people can get to schools health clinics and markets.

    “Kiribati is at the front line of climate change,” Senator Carr said in a statement on Monday, adding its highest point is now just three metres above sea level.

    Without help in the fight against climate change, Kiribati could be uninhabitable by 2030.

    Coastal erosion, rising sea levels and saltwater intrusion into drinking water are major concerns.

    http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/aust-helps-kiribati-on-climate-change-20130211-2e75b.html

  122. Obama to Congress: if you don’t act on climate change I will
    Published 1:42 PM, 13 Feb 2013
    Updated 1:50 PM, 13 Feb 2013

    “By a staff reporter with AAP
    In his State of the Union speech, President Obama gave extensive focus to clean energy and climate change. He urged the Congress to act on a market-based carbon emissions policy, otherwise he would put in place his own executive measures. In addition he proposed hypothecating some revenue from taxing oil and gas companies to an ‘Energy Security Trust’ tasked with shifting cars and trucks “off oil for good”.
    Obama pledged on Tuesday to support the development of wind and solar power along with cleaner natural gas in the world’s largest economy and set a goal of improving efficiency to cut the energy wasted by homes and businesses by half in the next 20 years.
    He rebutted head-on the many climate sceptics in the rival Republican Party by noting that 12 of the world’s hottest years on record took place in the past 15 years.
    “We can choose to believe that superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence,” Obama said………..”

    http://www.climatespectator.com.au/news/obama-congress-if-you-dont-act-climate-change-i-will?utm_source=Climate%2BSpectator%2Bdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Climate%2BSpectator%2Bdaily

  125. As Abbott plans to slug every household $1300 in uncompensated costs for his DAP whilst spending billions on a scheme that has failed before it starts, carbon emissions have fallen in Australia, and just as it’s supposed so has the carbon costs added to bills.

    On top of that some industries like abattoirs and food processors have used the money given to them to mitigate their emissions to do exactly that and are now running far more efficient and profitable businesses.

    Let’s see how they react when Abbott takes that away from them and then slugs them with extra taxes.

  126. Disappointed in Greg Combet. He has now reverted to using the Liberal-and-MSM-favoured term “carbon tax” instead of the one he and the pro-science side of politics have been using for the past three years, “carbon price.” Something or someone has gotten to him.

  129. Arctic Ice Death Spiral

    Why It Matters

    From the second link (my bold)

    News articles referring to the Arctic and its sea ice usually have pictures of polar bears accompanying the text. But although many animals in the Arctic will be impacted negatively by the vanishing of Arctic sea ice, much more is at stake. After thousands of years in which the sea ice played a vital role in the relatively stable conditions under which modern civilization, agriculture and a 7 billion strong world population could develop, it increasingly looks as if warming caused by the emission of greenhouse gases is bringing an end to these stable conditions. Whether there still is time to save the Arctic sea ice, is difficult to tell, but consequences will not disappear when the ice is gone

    Time is running out for our civilisation, and those “in control”, along with their puppet politicians and trolls seem oblivious.

  130. “Time is running out for our civilisation, and those “in control”, along with their puppet politicians and trolls seem oblivious.”

    What rubbish!

    Arctic sea ice has been melting and re-freezing since time immemorial and has been given start status only since satellite measurements began. NIC ice charts showed that the “Record Arctic Melt” lasted exactly 1 month, from Sept. 16 to Oct. 16. The rest of 2012 ice extent was above 2007, at times by a great amount, as the NORSEX graph shows.
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/18/sea-ice-news-volume-3-number-14-arctic-refreeze-fastest-ever/

    The only time running out is that for alarmists running the scare campaign…as more and more people wise up to the spin and shrill with no substance!

  131. Meanwhile Obama promises to stop storms. Labor is so broke that Combet asks skeptics for money to help.

    “Welcome back to another Golden Era of Climate-Hype. Obama’s State of the Union speech and all-new legislation in the US is ramping up the debate again. Greg Combet (Australian minister for the weather) is getting so excited at the news, he’s sending out emails to all the skeptics who’ve ever written to him:”

    http://joannenova.com.au/2013/02/obama-promises-to-stop-storms-labor-so-broke-that-combet-asks-skeptics-for-money-to-help/

    I got one of Combet’s emails and sent it straight on to Tony Abbott and Barnaby Joyce!

  133. For those still based in reality,

    The Last Option?

    The current CO2 level generates amplifying feedbacks, including the reduced capacity of warming water to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, CO2 released from fires, droughts, loss of vegetation cover, disintegration of methane released from bogs, permafrost and methane-bearing ice particles and methane-water molecules.

    With CO2 atmospheric residence times in the order of thousands to tens of thousands years, protracted reduction in emissions, either flowing from human decision or due to reduced economic activity in an environmentally stressed world, may no longer be sufficient to arrest the feedbacks.

    Four of the large mass extinction of species events in the history of Earth (end-Devonian, Permian-Triassic, end-Triassic, K-T boundary) have been associated with rapid perturbations of the carbon, oxygen and sulphur cycles, on which the biosphere depends, at rates to which species could not adapt.

    (my bold).

  134. @treetroll

    What rubbish!

    Arctic sea ice has been melting and re-freezing since time immemorial and has been given start status only since satellite measurements began.

    From the 2nd link I provided @2:26pm

    Arctic sea ice became a recurrent feature on planet Earth around 47 million years ago. Since the start of the current ice age, about 2.5 million years ago, the Arctic Ocean has been completely covered with sea ice. Only during interglacials, like the one we are in now, does some of the sea ice melt during summer, when the top of the planet is oriented a bit more towards the Sun and receives large amounts of sunlight for several summer months. Even then, when winter starts, the ice-free portion of the Arctic Ocean freezes over again with a new layer of sea ice.

    Since the dawn of human civilization, 5000 to 8000 years ago, this annual ebb and flow of melting and freezing Arctic sea ice has been more or less consistent. There were periods when more ice melted during summer, and periods when less melted. However, a radical shift has occurred in recent times. Ever since satellites allowed a detailed view of the Arctic and its ice, a pronounced decrease in summer sea ice cover has been observed (with this year setting a new record low).

  135. pterosaur…”Ever since satellites allowed a detailed view of the Arctic and its ice, a pronounced decrease in summer sea ice cover has been observed (with this year setting a new record low).”

    Star status since satelilte measurements began…get it?

  137. Must admit, I’m all in favour of different points of view, but I prefer references to ‘science’ rather than ‘ideology’.

    Ther’s all types of rewards, (including financial ones) for any ‘scientist’ (or others) who can can come up with a better explantion of why the earth ‘warms’.

    But sadly not.

  141. The point is that satellite observations only began in 1979.

    Future generations will marvel at our scientific ignorance and hubris in thinking the Modern Climate Optimum was our fault.

  143. Now why do I give you the shits Miglo? Can’t you accept the fact that the light of climate alarmism is dying?

    El gordo is correct, satellite observations did begin in 1979 and before you start huffing and puffing ecko, that statement does add to the debate. It’s your endless ad homs that diminish it!

  145. “The ‘short paragraph’ is how news reporters are trained to write.”

    True, and that’s also how they read. One of my oldest friends is a left wing journo who reads Bolta, but only the bylines!

  147. The Light Brigade Shines at the Shivering Blackout Rally

    “”For “the biggest climate rally in history,” attendance was remarkably sparse. Those of us in the Light Brigade guessed 5,000″
    The Light Brigade Shines at the Shivering Blackout Rally
    It was really, really cold the whole time. I was surprised that everyone we ran into was wearing oil-based clothing. I figured a couple people would try to symbolically wear “natural fibers,” I didn’t see any. When I pointed out to people that their clothes were made of oil, they blamed “the system.”
    …
    For “the biggest climate rally in history,” attendance was remarkably sparse. Those of us in the Light Brigade guessed 5,000. We were heartened by the lack of real enthusiasm by the protesters. The Light Brigade, as our videos will show, had real passion–we love energy with conviction, while they hate it with confusion.
    “Forward on climate” was personified by the shivering, emotionally muted, and fairly sparse crowd leaving early in their oil clothing to get to their coal and gas homes.
    The lesson of the protest was clear: Nature, untamed by fossil fuels and other affordable, reliable energy is an often uncomfortable and dangerous place to be. That’s why the protesters left as early as they could, and why the whole production was ridiculous. Who wants to stand outside in the middle of February, freezing to “send a message” about “global warming”? Resolve faded to the point where by the 4:00 closing time, I could shoot footage right next to the stage with no one within 20 feet of me.”

    http://tomnelson.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/the-biggest-climate-rally-in-history.html

  148. The treetroll doesn’t perform well on reading comprehension, apparently considering it’s made a point ?

    Perhaps if one were to concentrate on the actual DATA , which gathered through the use of satellite technology, leads to the conclusions concerning both area and volume of sea ice in the Arctic has declined from 16855 cubic kilometres in 1979, to 3261 cubic kilometres in 2012.

    As usual the trolls avoid the cogent point(s)

    The sharp drop in Arctic sea ice area has been matched by a harder-to-see, but equally sharp, drop in sea ice thickness. The combined result has been a collapse in total sea ice volume — to one fifth of its level in 1980.

    and ignore the fact that the practice of science involves the use of data types as they become available.
    Attempting to create an “argument” as the treetroll & eg do, that satellite data (which has only been available since the technology was developed, funnily enough) is somehow irrelevant, given that it “only” dates from 1979, is a simple variation of the Straw Man fallacy.
    example Pterosaur @4:50pm

    However, a radical shift has occurred in recent times. Ever since satellites allowed a detailed view of the Arctic and its ice, a pronounced decrease in summer sea ice cover has been observed (with this year setting a new record low).

    @treetroll 6:00pm

    Star status since satelilte measurements began…get it?

    From a troll who, obviously does not.

  149. I seem to remember the deniers denying the polar bears are in any trouble and it was all a beatup by the AGW proponents. Just another part of a great big global conspiracy involving hundreds of thousands of scientists and institutions along with just about every government in the world.

    The deniers forgot to tell the polar bears it’s only a conspiracy as they face starving to death because of the climate change conspiracy.

    Don’t feed the (polar) bears

    There is a link to the death of a polar bear cup at the end of the piece. They warn you it’s graphic. It is.

  151. With thanks to the Tony Abbott Will Never Become Prime Minister facebook group..

    Greg Hunt rules out ever having an ETS………………….and gives GUARANTEES on Chinas behalf.

    Bwhahaha.
    Goose

  153. Let’s face it Min giddard is on a hiding to nowhere and all the trashing of Abbott has done is make things worse….and what a wonderful thing that is!

  154. Ah yes, an opinion from a climate change denialist..that’s a real opinion. 🙄

    Terry McCrann, business writer for the Herald Sun and the Daily Telegraph, is like a lot of those railing against the carbon tax who fail to realise that their knowledge and training is desperately out of date.

    You meet people like McCrann on a regular basis at free-to-attend functions. They’re usually retired or semi-retired businessmen or engineers. They haven’t practiced the profession they originally trained in for many years, haven’t published a peer reviewed paper (at least in the last two decades), but they fancy themselves as experts on matters of energy, economics and atmospheric science.

    You see poor old Terry McCrann has absolutely convinced himself that the carbon price will be the end of civilisation as we know it, and now he’s finding it rather difficult to reconcile his beliefs with reality.

  156. What is it about the idiot trolls that leads them to think that somehow, endless regurgitation of recycled lies constitutes argument?

    The treetroll being the case in point.

    @ Mo

    Treeman, living in his alternate reality

    as does the entire complement of the right wing, it appears. 🙄

    Thus demonstrating the ultimate failure of their idiotic denialism, given that reality
    will not be denied

  157. @ Min,

    he’s finding it rather difficult to reconcile his beliefs with reality.

    .

    As does, it appears, the entire opposition, along with the rest of the lunar right. Which is why they will lose. 😆

  158. This site appears to have grown too long in the tooth. it is repeating information and has sunk to another site where one can put the boot into the PM.

    Maybe if could be replace by one one that invites all to come and tell us why they believe Mr. Abbott will make a wonderful PM. One where they can explain Mr. Abbott’s policies to us.

    Just a thought.

    PS Would enable Tree to be positive for a change, than the negative role he has had to play until now. I am sure he will lead the charge, in putting Mr. Abbott’s good points up front.

  159. “This site appears to have grown too long in the tooth. it is repeating information and has sunk to another site where one can put the boot into the PM.”

    Only because most of the posts here concentrate on sinking the boot into Abbott.

    The day that Miglo ” invites all to come and tell us why they believe Mr. Abbott will make a wonderful PM” I’ll eat my akubra!

  161. “Enjoy eating your akubra.”

    Better start eating your hat. If you read the comments on this site, you would have read on numerous occasions, the invitation to do that.

    There was even a topic dedicated to the topic. Did not get one reply telling us why Mr. Abbott is superior to the PM.

    Not one person came forward to defend Abbott.

  162. Indeed, Fed up.

    The fact that Treeman offered absolutely nothing when given the opportunity to do so indicates that his sole purpose of coming here is to troll.

  163. How many times has Treeman come here denigrating this site and saying words to the effect it’s had its day, yet he keeps coming back time and again to put forth his idiocy and inane comments full of projections and diatribes devoid of facts.

    Apparently it’s for the “fun”.

    But for someone who keeps coming back here for the supposed fun, even though they continuously say the site is done with, they certainly are very serious most of the time, hypocritical and disingenuous.

    How does your hat taste Treeman or is that another promise you don’t intend to keep, just like all the pledges, guarantees and promises the Liberals never keep?

  164. Tree claims all we do is run Abbott down. Where is his evidence. All we do is repeat what Mr. Abbott does or says.

    That is all we have to do, as that says it all.

    At least we do not sink to profanities when challenged,

  165. Give me admin rights for a week and we’ll see how many comments from treetroll get posted 😈

    I’d only delete posts that add nothing to the site, honest 😉 😆 😆

  166. Another loaded poll.

    Thank you for voting in today’s Sky News poll.

    What do you see as the core building blocks for a strong Australian economy?

    Education 18%
    Skills development 39%
    Other

    http://www.skynews.com.au/vote/results/vote.aspx?repeat=n

    Because one needs education to develop skills. They are equally important.

    I am listening to repeat of Tasmanian Premier’s s NPC address. She has much to say that makes sense,

    It came to me. that this governments biggest achievement is keeping the economy afloat, in spite of the high Australian dollar.

  167. Fed up, at least the poll is correct on one thing, it is people and skills which keeps the economy strong, unlike Abbott’s opinion which equates with “sacking people with skills keeps an economy strong”.

  171. silk, have you not noticed. Not many around now, and yes, the site has improved amazingly.

    Love that self censoship topic. Spot on.

  172. I am convinced that Treeman’s only purpose for being here is to irritate or offend. His comment earlier as to why we don’t give him and others the opportunity to defend Tony Abbott, and my link back to him showing that when given that opportunity he failed to grasp it, is a true indication that he has no intention other than to troll.

    I won’t be having him back here.

  174. I won’t be having him back here.

    Migs, much appreciated.

    I can picture Treetroll now, crying in his milkshake.

  177. I won’t be having him back here.

    Which is precisely the point, people are guests on Migs’ blog and should act accordingly. A guest who becomes increasingly abusive and obnoxious can be politely shown the door.

  178. I could be wrong, but the way I see it, Migs or other writers are not here to provide pleasure for them.

    If they want sport, they should go an join a sporting team.

  179. A comment from Treeman was just caught up in our spam folder. It was just an echo of his usual dribble.

    Message to Treeman: All of your comments will be heading straight to the spam folder. I will not read them. They will be deleted as soon as they are detected.

  180. Fed up’s comment earlier that this thread has “grown long in the tooth” is probably correct.

    “The AGW – Talkabout” pages were initially introduced as somewhere for el gordo to talk about climate change, given that she was hellbent on disrupting the other topics. It was a good ploy, however, the threads soon became littered with her links to sites that had no credibility whatsever.

    Now that I’ve done everyone a favour by blocking el gordo, I don’t think we need these pages dedicated to climate change.

    We have open threads where we can carry on our “el gordo-free” discussions.

    I’ll archive this page shortly.

  181. Migs,

    Thanks for putting the foot down on el grubo and trollman. An unreservedly good move. They brought nothing to the Cafe that was worth having . Treetroll should know that the mainstream media has a loud enough megaphone with which to defend Abbott without expecting a left wing blog to join them (FFS). We’re here to defeat Abbott, not join with the legions covering his cowardly arse. And tweed, surely his days must be numbered also after going out of his way to repeat foul language to offend Min?

  187. @Migs

    We are now almost troll free. 🙂

    O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
    He chortled in his joy.

    Thank you oh great and powerful moderator. 😀
    You’ve extended them much more courtesy than they have warranted, imho

  189. With thanks to Noelene F*..

    Joe Hockey ..again all over the shop…the left hand doesn’t know what the right hands doing !!!!!

    “The Coalition will consider compensating big companies that are part-way through expensive refits to reduce their carbon price liability when the carbon tax is abolished.

    We will consider it on a case-by-case basis. We have allocated funds under our Direct Action to deal with initiatives that have been under way,” Mr Hockey said in Tasmania when pressed about the case of Hydro Tasmania, which has become more profitable since the carbon tax was introduced.
    ‘If there are individual businesses that will be affected, we will deal with them on a case-by-case basis.”

    Mr Hockey later issued a statement saying ”the Coalition will not be paying compensation for repeal of the carbon tax”.

    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/big-firms-may-get-carbon-cash-20130225-2f259.html

  190. Haha, funding compensation under DAP that itself is not funded and will never happen as soon as the phoney audit commission by Costello is released.

    That along with a whole lot of other promises and guarantees made by the Coalition are all going to be trashed. Nothing is more certain.

  191. You know that feeling of relief when you unearth and dispose of the dead mouse that had laid decaying behind the furniture, stinking up the room? That’s how The Cafe feels now that the trolls have been shown the door. Good riddance, smellies!

  194. I’m pleased, Miglo, that you have consigned eg and tree to the ‘waste of space’ basket. Their arrogant and supercilious approach to blogging added nought to conversation. They will be joyously missed.

  196. Thank you Bacchus. Hope you’re travelling ok. Might be around more often now the garbage has been put out.
    I have been a little preoccupied with house reno…a never ending thing.
    But forever lurking.

  197. I never read much of Treeman, but I think there was some git on TPS a while back whose style he reminded me of. Big noting, abusive he man stuff. Can’t remember the name. Won’t be lying awake tonight trying to.

  198. The Coalition has promised that if it takes government in September, it will get rid of the price on carbon emissions established by the Australian Labor Party. In its place, the party will implement a Direct Action Plan, its way of reducing emissions. This plan relies mainly on carbon sequestration and funding industrial improvements through taxpayer-funded initiatives.

    While the Direct Action Plan outline has been removed from the Coalition website, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and the shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage, Greg Hunt, continue to state the plan is their climate initiative….’

    http://theconversation.edu.au/will-the-oppositions-direct-action-plan-work-12309?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+28+February+2013&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+28+February+2013+CID_9102b7756fbf3bac2fb13b2a58b1fefd&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Will%20the%20Oppositions%20Direct%20Action%20Plan%20work

  199. Hunt puts some flesh on bones of Direct Action

    Shadow Climate Change Minister Greg Hunt gave one his most expansive talks yesterday on how the Direct Action Emission Reduction Fund (DAERF) might work, while at the Australian Alliance to Save Energy Summer Study conference.
    Winners of the abatement auction rounds will be awarded contracts providing guaranteed payment rates from government for each tonne of CO2 abatement they deliver. Payment will only be provided on delivery of “measurable and verified” abatement. No payments will be provided prior to delivery of abatement.
    What Hunt explained as the key components for the operation of the fund sounded essentially like a baseline and credit abatement scheme (similar to the NSW Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme), but with government as the only purchaser of abatement credits, rather than obligated entities.
    His description was that the Coalition would take the core approach of the Carbon Farming Initiative, and expand it out to additional abatement activity methodologies. For example, Hunt said he would be open to using methodologies prepared for the Clean Development Mechanism with suitable modifications to fit Australian circumstances.
    The Clean Energy Regulator would take on the task of administering the scheme and undertaking measurement and verification of the abatement delivered by contracted parties.
    When asked about the existing NSW and Victorian energy efficiency tradable certificate schemes and the potential for a national scheme, Hunt explained that the Fund could effectively serve a similar function, providing abatement payments for the same activities as covered by the existing energy efficiency schemes. However he didn’t cover off on the extensive use of deeming under these schemes, which does provide credits upfront, rather than as abatement is delivered.
    He continued to emphasise that the scheme would be driven solely by lowest cost of abatement, and made no mention of other criteria being applied to assessing bid…………………..

    http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/hunt-puts-some-flesh-bones-direct-action?utm_source=Climate%2BSpectator%2Bdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Climate%2BSpectator%2Bdaily

  200. Right Wingers….. hypocrites…… na…. never. 😯 They sow thier seeds of doubt whilst saying ‘look over there’ as they exploit the very thing thier exploitation caused, CAGW 🙄
    “What we are seeing is that the melting of ice is prompting a rush for exactly the fossil fuel resources that fuelled the melt in the first place,” Achim Steiner, the UNEP Executive Director
    http://www.unric.org/en/latest-un-buzz/28235-strengthened-governance-required-to-protect-fragile-arctic-environment-

  201. LEVELS of carbon dioxide rose hand-in-hand with warming at the end of the last Ice Age, according to a study that deals a blow to climate sceptics.

    French researchers say they have answered a riddle that has perplexed scientists.

    The question arises from bubbles of atmospheric air, trapped in cores of ice drilled from Antarctica that date back to the last deglaciation, which ended some 10,000 years ago.

    These tiny bubbles are closely scrutinised, for they contain carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal greenhouse gas behind global warming……

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/co2-and-warming-lock-step-in-last-ice-age/story-fn3dxix6-1226588092341

  203. BOM says Australia has hottest summer on record with national average of 28.6 degrees that’s 1.1 degree above normal

  205. Climate also describes trends — longer-term changes in weather that are distinct from the shorter-term variability.

    When it comes to climate change, there is often confusion as to when one should consider a particular meteorological event to be “just weather” or something more significant in a climatological context.

    In general, the individual weather and climate events that scientists consider most significant are those that are both at the extremes of — or beyond — our historical experience, and consistent with quantifiable trends.

    In that context, the summer of 2012-13 has had it all.

    As far as day-to-day weather goes, numerous individual locations in Australia set daytime records for extreme heat. As far as regional averages go, records were also set for the hottest daytime temperatures averaged over the whole of Australia.

    Summer Temperature Anomalies
    Click to enlarge
    Records were set for the duration of extreme heat at both individual locations, and for Australia as a whole. Birdsville experienced 31 successive days above 40°C and Alice Springs had 17.

    When it comes to averages over time, January 2013 was the hottest month recorded in the entire observational record for Australia, stretching back to 1910 (the first year for which we can confidently estimate national temperatures).

    And as of yesterday, a new record was added to the books. The summer of 2012-13 was Australia’s hottest on record. In fact, the entire six months — from September 2012 to February 2013 — were warmer than the previous high for that period, set in 2006-2007.

    Average summer temperatures across Australia were 1.1°C above the 1961-1990 average, surpassing the previous record, set in 1997-98, by more than 0.1°C. Daytime maximum temperatures also set a record; they were 1.4°C above normal, and 0.2°C above the 1982-83 record.

    And the most significant thing about all of these extremes is they fit with a well established trend in Australia — it’s getting hotter, and record heat is happening more often.

    Click to enlarge
    Six of the hottest ten summers on record have occurred this century, and only two occurred before 1990.

    Australia has warmed by nearly a degree Celsius since 1910. This is consistent with warming observed in the global atmosphere and oceans. And it’s going to keep getting hotter. Over the next century, the world will likely warm by a further 2 to 5 degrees, depending on the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere.

    Under mid-to-high emissions scenarios, summers like this one will likely become average in 40 years time. By the end of the 21st century, the record summer of 2013 will likely sit at the very cooler end of normal.

    Indeed, an interesting feature of the heat this summer is that it occurred during a “neutral” period in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (that is, it was neither La Niña nor El Niño). Up until this year, six of the eight warmest summers, and the hottest three summers on record, occurred during El Niño years.

    This essentially means that the record was consistent with warming trends, and achieved without an extra push from natural variability associated with El Niño.

    The oceans surrounding Australia have also been exceptionally warm. January 2013 was the second warmest on record, following an unusually hot 2012, and a record hot 2011 for Australian-region sea surface temperatures. These temperatures are measured very differently to air temperatures over land.

    Hotter in more places and for longer

    The defining feature of the heat of this summer across Australia has been its extent and consistency. Not many individual places have had their hottest summer on record, but the extent of the heat has been unprecedented.

    Nearly two-thirds of the continent had a summer that ranks in the top ten of the last 100 years. Only 3% of the continent (mostly in the Pilbara) has been cooler than normal. Some previous summers have been hotter in particular regions, but none have made the top ten across even half the country………..

    http://theconversation.edu.au/hot-summer-yes-the-hottest-12505?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The+Weekend+Conversation&utm_content=The+Weekend+Conversation+CID_ef97cf836a70786ffc4ed3eb0f83bf30&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Hot%20summer%20Yes%20the%20hottest

  206. What does the Direct Action Plan promise to do?

    The plan says:

    The single largest opportunity for CO2 emissions reduction in Australia is through bio-sequestration in general, and in particular, the replenishment of our soil carbons. It is also the lowest cost CO2 emissions reduction available in Australia on a large scale.

    Through the Emissions Reduction Fund a Coalition Government will commit to a “once in a century” replenishment of our national soils and farmlands.

    Through the Fund we will support up to 85 million tonnes per annum of CO2 abatement through soil carbons by 2020 – and reserve the right to increase this, subject to progress and evaluation.
    The favoured sequestration strategy is soil carbon storage. This methodology is still controversial, and a review by CSIRO demonstrates the large uncertainties involved in long term storage of carbon in soil.

    Because of these difficulties, the Coalition may need to supplement soil sequestration at least in part, if not entirely, with more certain sequestration methodologies, namely tree plantation, if it is to have any impact on Australia’s net CO2 emissions.

    The plan does include forestry measures. And on February 5, 2013, Greg Hunt confirmed on ABC News Breakfast that tree plantation would make up part of the plan.

    I analysed the sequestration component of the plan to test its viability. To ensure the plan was given the best chance for success within this analysis, the selected assumptions were purposely designed in its favour.

    This largely involved assuming soil sequestration would work and that, if not, the best quality plantations could be established and that the necessary high quality land could be sourced.

    The species I selected as sequesters were the Tasmanian Blue Gum (Eucalyptus globulus) and Shining Gum (E. nitens), with optimum wood density of 600kg per cubic metre and an annual yield of 30 to 35 cubic metres of wood per hectare.

    Can it be done?………….
    http://theconversation.edu.au/will-the-oppositions-direct-action-plan-work-12309?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The+Weekend+Conversation&utm_content=The+Weekend+Conversation+CID_ef97cf836a70786ffc4ed3eb0f83bf30&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Will%20the%20Oppositions%20Direct%20Action%20Plan%20work

  207. Is it cost-effective?

    Sequestration is of value, but the scale the Direct Action Plan calls for appears unlikely to be viable, especially by 2020, and is likely to become very expensive as the scale is adjusted over time to deal with increasing emissions reduction targets.

    It is unfeasible to imagine that any sequestration initiative of the magnitude required can be achieved without significant additional expense.

    Placing this hand-in-hand with funding improvements to industrial efficiency increases the cost to the taxpayer. In the case of the latter, this would be to the benefit of polluters. The Coalition has stated that this will be achieved without further taxes. The only other option is a retraction of standing public services.

    The ultimate goal will necessarily be to achieve carbon neutrality. In this case, soil sequestration simply could not fulfil such obligations without major shifts away from a carbon driven economy – we will have to reduce emissions if we hope to sequester all we create.

    The Direct Action Plan seems unlikely to be a viable counter pathway to the established price on carbon, because a carbon price has intrinsic market-based motivators to decouple carbon emissions from economic growth.

    Ultimately, a quick analysis demonstrates the plan is very unlikely to provide the returns promised by the Coalition and is most likely to increase in cost beyond what has been promised by the Coalition. This is especially true if the Coalition eventually plans to scale up to meet future reduction targets or if it becomes necessary to scale up, simply due to returns failing to meet current targets.

    http://theconversation.edu.au/will-the-oppositions-direct-action-plan-work-12309?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The+Weekend+Conversation&utm_content=The+Weekend+Conversation+CID_ef97cf836a70786ffc4ed3eb0f83bf30&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Will%20the%20Oppositions%20Direct%20Action%20Plan%20work

    Truth is, it is fantasy land stuff. Truth is they do not care, as it is only meant to be a diversion from what the PM has done.

    What could one expect from a future coalition government that will have on its front bench, sixteen memebrs from the Howard government that was thrown out to office two terms ago.

    It was not only two terms ago, but before the GFC and the new global economy that has arisen.

    Can we afford to have Abbott as PM? I believe not.

  208. Climate on Steroids

    The latest report from the Federal Government’s Climate Commission says the weather extremes experienced around the country this summer were made worse by climate change.

    The report – The Angry Summer – says the extreme heat, floods and bushfires experienced around country were all aggravated by a shifting climate, and it warns the trend is likely to continue.

  209. Another step forwards 😎 – Wave Power

    The Gillard Labor Government will invest revenue from the carbon price to support Western Australia’s Carnegie Wave Energy Limited in trialling a project to power desalination plants with wave energy.

    This world-first project will use the power of ocean waves to directly drive high pressure desalination pumps at a pilot-scale desalination plant, substantially reducing emissions and electricity consumption.

  210. Pterosaur, on The Angry Summer report..I do like this quote..that is, if the ramifications for the planet weren’t as dire.

    The report, The Angry Summer, says behind the litany of broken heat and rainfall records this year, a clear pattern has now emerged.

    ”Statistically, there is a one in 500 chance that we are talking about natural variation causing all these new records,” said Will Steffen, the report’s lead author and director of the Australian National University’s Climate Change Institute. ”Not too many people would want to put their life savings on a 500-1 horse.”

    http://www.theage.com.au/national/climate-change-a-key-factor-in-extreme-weather-experts-say-20130303-2fefv.html#ixzz2Mc47tYav

  213. More and more developments on “alternative” energy supplies, as “pipe dreams”
    become reality in the replacement of polluting fuels.

    With respect to tidal power the large tidal ranges may well be harnessable in the NW and N but would face the difficulties and expense of long distance transmission,
    Perhaps avoidable by siting major consumers closer to the generation technology.

    Currently it seems to be economically feasible to mine and transport gas in NW WA, I’m not sure of any comparison between such an idea and what is currently happening there.

  214. pterosaur1, is not that where the Oppostion going to move our population.

    This one is I believe about providing water in the region. For agriculture I assume.

  215. So here for a long time was a certain poster I won’t name who trotted out local cold weather report after cold weather report, all the while ignoring any hot weather reports local or otherwise.

    Now I know why. Was attempting to divert away from this.

    Global Temperatures Highest in 4,000 Years

    Global warming has stopped, bullshit. And to make that false contention is to admit there is global warming.

  216. From your link

    Dr. Mann pointed out that the early Holocene temperature increase was almost certainly slow, giving plants and creatures time to adjust. But he said the modern spike would probably threaten the survival of many species, in addition to putting severe stresses on human civilization.

    “We and other living things can adapt to slower changes,” Dr. Mann said. “It’s the unprecedented speed with which we’re changing the climate that is so worrisome.”

    which pretty much consigns to irrelevance idiotic assertions that “adaptation”(of the biological kind) is all that is required, or that we can do, in the face of AGW ‘.

  217. NSW Environment Minister Robyn Parker has not met the state’s climate change council – a group set up to advise the government – for more than a year, despite repeated pleas during the recent heatwaves and floods.
    Departmental staff said the delay was a symptom of ”paralysis” afflicting the government over its climate change policies, with key studies delayed or shelved. The council – comprising top business, emergency services and science leaders – has written to Ms Parker, seeking her response to its ”request for engagement”.
    After Fairfax Media contacted the government this week, the minister indicated she would start consulting the council again………………………….

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/minister-ignored-expert-climate-panel-20130307-2fob6.html#ixzz2Mw66b0fI

  223. A terrible future outlined in those links, LOVO.

    The most pressing questions being …what can we avoid? How?

    I fear our civilisation, and even our survival as a species are in question unless we are able to achieve rapid de-carbonisation of our society. Even then, we would probably have to develop technology capable of harvesting and sequestering CO2 on a monumental scale if we are to avoid ongoing mass extinctions, and the consequent disruptions to elements of the biosphere upon which we completely rely.
    I first heard of the possible dire effects of increased atmospheric CO2 on “greenhouse effect” during the late ’60’s/early 70’s and have followed the subject with interest and concern since.
    The science is uncontroversial in identifying, and quantifying AGW , the actions required to avoid more and worse, catastrophe(ies) clear.

    What follows may represent the failure point of our society, and possibly our technology-based civilisation. While many may share these concerns, the point I am rambling towards, is that the speed of the changes attributable to AGW is capable of being observed without recourse to complex instrumentation and laboratories. The cascading weather records globally, indicate something is inreasingly awry, let alone the mountains of data supporting. Although I have been keeping informed on this subject for years, I have never anticipated witnessing such change, given the projected timelines. I for instance had never heard of such phenomena as “tornados” in Australia until recently

    The “worst case” scenarios have/are been studiously ignored (excepting the scientists), by politicians/politics in general, presumably in attempts not to appear “alarmist”. The articles you have linked to, demonstrate that this may not have been a prudent, or wise choice.

  224. Hi pterosaur,

    I was woken by a tornado in 1977 here in SEQ. It tore the roofing and other aluminium sheeting off Woolworths (about 500m away) and deposited it in an empty block across the road. Several houses 2 streets away were twisted on their stumps – at least one of them had to be demolished.

    They’re certainly not unheard of – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Southern_Hemisphere_tornadoes_and_tornado_outbreaks
    but they do seem to be getting more frequent…

  225. G’day Bacchus –
    I overdid the “tornado” bit 😳 There’s been a couple I remember here in Tassie – a big one in ~2000/2001 levelled a 2-3 km strip through forestry plantations in the NE, for several km. and another reported in the NW about the same time, I think.

    The point I was making was that, despite agreeing with the science and the need to address AGW realistically, I never expected to be able to watch it happening. That I and just about anyone I’ve encountered who has spent a significant period(s) of their life “outside” recognise that changes are about indicates to me that AGW is not tomorrow’s problem but is TODAY’S. Unfortunately, the “easy” solutions needed to be applied yesterday, and that didn’t happen.

  226. pterosaur, “AGW is not tomorrow’s problem but is TODAY’S. Unfortunately, the “easy” solutions needed to be applied yesterday, and that didn’t happen.” …. huge slap in face coming for some, pterosaur 😦
    ….. like you, I can remember back in the early 70’s in high school our science teacher telling us about the melting ice and the ‘theory’ of the ‘wobble’…. where all the extra water goes to the equator and causes a shift in the rotation of the earth……or something like that as I remember 😕 ….. who’d a thunk that we’d be still around to be sad witnesses 😦 …. the ‘coal-face’ of CC prevention is coal prevention….. like that’s gunna stop 😦 …… we love our ‘energies’… and rightly so… the harnessing of energy has made our modern life what it is today …. we just gots to get smarterer in producing said. … sadly we are a civilisation blinkered by ‘the next quarter’…… the unshare market has become a dead end street….. the suposed ‘trickle down effect’ has become a methane+CO2 trickle up affect……. as far as I’m concerned.. the debate is over…. you are either part of the solution…. or part of the problem……. CHOOSE 😦

  230. Adverse “Health” implications of Wind Farms? None

    http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/8977

    Yet against all the scientific evidence from multiple global studies over several years Liberal State governments are shutting down or banning wind farms on the lies and influence started by one quack.

    Of course the Liberals aren’t doing this because of the influence of that one quack, they are using her as an excuse and banning them for ideological reasons but mostly because of the influence of big business on their Party, and that’s who really runs the Liberals.

  231. When lobbyists blow in, rate of wind farm illness rises

    More on how outside influence caused wind farm illnesses, and not any real medical reasons.

    And the stupidity of the Coaltiion who go on about saving billions that doesn’t exist yet will waste money on this:

    But the Coalition has said that if it is elected in September it will hold another ”expert” inquiry into wind farm noise. The most recent Senate inquiry into the issue found no causal link between the noise from wind farms and symptoms reported by those who lived near them, but accepted that people were reporting that they felt unwell.

  232. One must wonder how the population in those Scandinavian countries has survived for decades a, with wind farms dotting their landscape.

  233. I feel unwell when I see Abbott and in many of his supporters. When I see the likes of Mriabella standing behind hiw, I feel worse.

    Does that mean, they are a danger to my health?

  234. I suspect the Bunngerong Power House might have been harmful to my health as a child.

    One only had to look at the washing left on the liner over night, with those black stains from the Soot, that could not be removed. What must it had done to our lungs.

    I now live on the Central Coast near many such powerhouses. I do hope they have really managed to make the air clean. How does one know or trust.

  236. waxes lyrically about, in the name of liberty, freedom and the rights of the individual. Sounds great

    Indeed it does. Who is opposed to ‘liberty’, ‘freedom’ and the ‘rights of the individual’. They are a bit like ‘motherhood and apple pie’.

    It’s only when one begins to examine these concepts that some complications arise. Take ‘freedom’ as an example. Is ‘freedom’ only about ‘freedom from’ constraint(s) such as rules, conventions of government legislation (laws)? For the IPA, one gets the clear impression that their definition stops there. If I am left alone, then I am ‘free’. I mightn’t be able to do much but I am at least free.

    But ‘freedom’ can also be given ‘positive’ meanings, in particular, the notion of ‘freedom to do’. Often the ‘freedom to do’ requires the intervention of the ‘state’, broadly defined to include ‘collective action’. Education, health, roads and bridges are examples. The freedom to ‘do’ or ‘achieve’ for you and yours often implies imposing ‘constraints’ on some groups or individuals.

    Both the rich man and the poor man have the freedom to sleep under the bridge, but only the rich man has the freedom ‘from’ the need to sleep under same.

  237. On people reporting that they feel unwell, one does have to wonder about how the question was put.

    Do you feel unwell?
    No.
    Are you certain?
    Well, I’ve been a little crook lately, but that could have been the missus’ corned beef.
    Are you certain? Perhaps it’s something to do with the wind farm?
    Now that you mention it since the wind farm I’ve been feeling crook alright…

  238. Min the wind farm illnesses were started by one woman, can’t remember her name but I’ve linked to her story before.

    She would go to people living near wind farms who did not have them on their properties and talk them into illnesses. I think she had a medical background of some sort but she would ask, “You have this symptom don’t you?” “Only since the wind generator was put there you have had trouble sleeping haven’t you?”

    Yet when examined by doctors or studies they often found these people had no symptoms or their doctors records showed a history of lack of sleep or dizziness etc.

    Overseas they found a direct relationship to those having symptoms to those who did not to whether they were receiving compensation or not for the wind generators. Those with them on their property, and thus more directly effected, had no symptoms yet some of their neighbours complained of symptoms, but only after being visited by anti-wind farm protagonists.

  239. ……………………………..As one of Australia’s top 500 polluters, AJ Bush & Sons is slugged heavily for every tonne of its carbon emissions and expects to pay a carbon tax bill of $1.2m on March 31 for the first nine months of the financial year.

    Add to this an extra $175,000 in electricity charges and price hike across the board of about 16 per cent for the company’s products, and Mr Kassulke is the first to admit the tax has hit hard.

    However, he now also says the tax has had a positive impact on the business.

    A dollar for dollar $6.2 million grant from the government’s clean technology food and foundries investment program has put AJ Bush well on the way to slashing emissions, with the company confident its rendering operation will eventually be removed from the ‘top 500 polluters’ list.

    With construction of a new biogas plant due to start this year, the company expects to cut carbon emissions from 82,000 to 25,000 tonnes per year.

    The company also expects to cut its coal usage by 50 per cent and to produce 50 per cent of the company’s electricity requirements onsite.

    The end result of the introduction of the new biogas technology will not only be a saving of millions of dollars in energy and carbon costs, but also an opportunity for the company to be positioned at the cutting edge of renewable energy technology in the rendering industry, Mr Kassulke said……………………..

    http://www.beaudeserttimes.com.au/beaudesert/215-carbon-tax-turnaround

  243. Far from disproving global warming, the increasing cold spells in Britain and parts of the US confirm the predictions made by the science. Disappearing Arctic sea ice weakens the Polar Vortex, letting cold Arctic air spill southwards.

  244. Yet 2012 was the warmest year on record in the US, Australia and other continents and was in the top 10 of the warmest years ever. 2013 is also trending to be a warm year. That pretty much says it all along with the continuing global warming trend, not cooling.

    That whole article doesn’t give any links to the science and the cause of the UK extreme cold weather, it does what Murdoch owned media always does, state cold events prove there is no global warming whilst ignoring extreme record heat events like we’ve just gone through in Australia.

    You have to laugh. During the record heat waves here the Murdoch papers were stating they didn’t prove global warming whilst in the UK the Murdoch papers are saying extreme cold events disprove global warming.

    As for experts, I guess you’re now a fully fledged climate scientist with credited papers behind you?

  245. Hehehehe…Oh know, I never claimed to be anything but a man of “common sense”…I am content to let “time” prove me right as it has on most subjects you and I have gone back and forth about “Adrian”…Peer Reviewed? Really, after all this time still clinging to “print”…I will be in touch…LOL

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