What Do We Think About Climate Change

[Meanz Beanz]

My cynical side says that "Greenhouse Effect Global Warming Climate Change" (notice how the language has changed to accommodate the notion that it soon might be global freezing!) is now such an industry with so many research grants and jobs dependant on it that it will not be allowed to be challenged in an open way. There is too much vested interest here already... I was appalled recently when one, the only, anti man made climate change doco was to be aired by the ABC. The sledging and calls for censorship where many and loud, so much for the idea of free speech in this country. Surely if the "every single ******* scientist in the world agrees camp" are correct they should not be concerned by the airing of a contrary view, it should in fact just reinforce the validity of their stance. What we got was a disgraceful display of strong arm tactics more fitting of a dictatorship than a democracy. Now before some smart pops up a says the doco in question was flawed, and in some respects I would agree, the same charge can be leveled at everyone of these things I have seen so far... they all are more emotive entertainment than factual accounts.

Rant rant rant.... sigh.

[masalai]

Let me do/introduce something that should produce more response than my usual red herrings?

Think of all the options & reasons for the "climate changes" - is peak oil the motive behind saying "Don't burn fuel/make co/co2" or is it the "big boys" saying "It is your turn now, to develop renewable/solar/wind energy systems whilst we Oil interests profiteer (we will donate some to support your solar stuff - invest in it)

so who are the main INTERESTS - oil, mining, mineral processing, marketeers, new technology, leisure supply, GREED, POWER ... Whose turn has it been, who is next?

The market boys seem to recognise that although India & China will be HUGE markets, they will mostly look after themselves.... so "The West" must be induced to continue to consume to keep enterprises and markets rolling...

The joke on another thread seemed to me to be very close to current operations in stock/commodities markets - tea lady comes in saying "tea's up" and immediately an operator yells "buy tea" - LIGHTNING RESPONSE... Not a game for me...

You will note I do not mention food production of farming - only poor people do that and they have (poor people) always been at the bottom of the heap and relied on as "consumers" trying to buy their way up and out of the trap...

[Pericles]

CO2 is not the issue. Carbon footprint is a spurious name for guilt trip. The greens are trying to make us feel bad, but the tide is turning against them. There was an excellent article by Chris Booker yesterday. Find it here.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/m.../20/do2002.xml

There are a couple of other papers that would reward the dissidents amongst us.

http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/C...hibald2007.pdf

http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html

How well do these new windmills work in blizzard conditions? That's what another Dalton Minimum will mean, if Sunspot Cycle 24 doesn't start soon.

http://journals.cambridge.org/downlo...39898b8d35813a

Keep up to date about a road trip to look at the sites for NOAA USHCN stations as many of them are placed where the measurements they record are affected by the surrounding buildings.

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/

Perry

[Meanz Beanz]

I believe that "climate change" is more about selling the realities of peak oil to the US public than anything else. Its a feel good positive angle on an issue that the electorate had every right to expect relevant anticipation from their elected officials. Solve peak oil and you most probably solve CO2 emission issues. Peak oil is real and now, yet it is undiscussed by the popular media, too harsh, its better to make the population feel good about crusading for the planet rather than dealing with the harsh realities of curtailment in cheap energy in economies that rely on cheap energy for the lifestyles that we have come to love.

Don't blame the traders, if they are wrong they end up victims of the underlying and pervasive trends, they end up merely subsidising the true cost of the change by losing money. If they are right they end up providing the capital to those who have the power to contribute to the solution. This is capitalism at work and it works... its messy but so is any form of creation and we know the alternate fails.

The truth is we are in competition for energy and when supply becomes limited the typical solution for our "leaders" is to go to war for what is left of whatever the conventional source for the era is. This is a sad fact, we as the people need to beat our leadership about the head and demand that we sacrifice other elements of our life in the effective search for an alternate solution to the energy issue. The most effective mechanism we have is the market. High prices for energy and water will lead to the capable, talented and motivated in our midst to offer effective solutions to the problem, we must first embrace high cost as the path to the most efficient solution to the problems that face us. The "feel good" solutions such as punitive "windfall profits tax" merely take the capability away from the most experienced players to provide answers.

Recenty I listen to a US polly grill an Exon board member about the profits they had made, he was suggesting somehow that they where predators. His response was simple and devastating, he countered that they had spent more that the profit number on alternate power research and that in the end they where an energy supplier, oil is getting scarce and they are making every effort to be apart of the next energy solution as they see themselves as a energy company. He pointed out that any tax on the "windfall" profits would curtail the ability to look for the next effective step in energy supply and push up the cost of the currently available energy. After all government takes the money but never comes up with the solution.

For my money, the market is messy, brutal, but effective and it makes the hard decisions where no populist ever will. Let it drive change and don't curtail it with unrequired government penalty, after all it only exists at the beck and call of all those individuals voting with their hard earned $. It might be inconvenient, hard, hurt, but the problem is serious and demanding that our pollies provide unrealistic "solutions" through silly taxes and nimby laws is never going to get us to a solution.

More rants from the ape...

[Meanz Beanz]

Originally Posted by masalai

You will note I do not mention food production of farming - only poor people do that and they have (poor people) always been at the bottom of the heap and relied on as "consumers" trying to buy their way up and out of the trap...

Austrian Economic Theory might interest you, this has alot to do with the mismanagement of our "money supply" and the resultant misallocation of capital and misinvestment. Long story short, we all have Jetskis (read new toys) and grand houses but the country is missing basic productive infrastructure and productive capacity (food, minerals... the basics.. you have read the news stories) Was this predictable... yes... the Austrian School of Economics tells you why. Unfortunately we in the Western world loosely follow a Keynesian doctrine that empowers government by ultimately robbing the people.

A link for those of an academic bent...

http://www.mises.org/ ... Ludwig was right!

Cheers

Mbz
The dumb arsed ignorant and disconnected Ape.

[masalai]

You presented politically correctly what the red herring was presenting with emotional fervour. - - Thank you sir... When I was doing Macro & Micro economice under the guidance of Dr Chandra Rau at WAIT in '77 I was then of the view that Keynesian theory sucked and some recognition (deniable) was suggested outside class

[Meanz Beanz]

I was sitting econ exams explaining how inflation and stagnation where mutually exclusive events while the economy was in what came to be known as "stagflation". Boy did that grate but if you wandered off line and pointed out reality you where summarily marked down, so "parrot the line" we did! Keynes is god! Keynes is god! Keynes is god! Keynes is god! LOL.

It truly is the dismal science...

"Economists use statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts for support rather than illumination." -- Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

But then again I am just an ape, not a professional economist...

Cheers
MBz

[masalai]

I think I alluded to it elsewhere - My lecturer then, (1977) privately defined economics as the nearest thing you can get to witchcraft without running the risk of being labelled as a witch as you are burned at the stake for making a wrong prophesy - - In unguarded (private) moments, displayed a wicked sense of humour...

I have also heard of "there are statistics and lies" one being supported by "********, the other by academic ********" the word "bureaucratic", fits in there somewhere - fcuk the ageing processes, recall is hampered by an overload of data/information... and I know what to expect, as I am told it is partially hereditary and caring for mum, I get to see it everyday first hand - bugger (to quote from the Ford series of adverts?)...

[Meanz Beanz]

Originally Posted by masalai

In unguarded (private) moments, displayed a wicked sense of humour...

You'd need it to stay sane if it where your chosen path!

[masalai]

Maybe that is why we "clicked" a bit - similar sense of humour - but I took an easier path...

[Guillermo]

Solar cycle 24 prediction:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/index.html
Solar cycles 24 consensus prediction
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/...glas Biesecker
Solar Cycle progression
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/index.html


From one of the very interesting articles Perry posted (thanks Perry):

"Al Gore likes to say that mankind puts 70 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every day. What he probably doesn't know is that mother nature puts 24,000 times that amount of our main greenhouse gas -- water vapor -- into the atmosphere every day, and removes about the same amount every day. While this does not 'prove' that global warming is not manmade, it shows that weather systems have by far the greatest control over the Earth's greenhouse effect, which is dominated by water vapor and clouds."

"Man-made CO2 doesn't appear physically capable of absorbing much more than two-thousandths of the radiated heat (IR) passing upward through the atmosphere.

And, if all of the available heat in that spectrum is indeed being captured by the current CO2 levels before leaving the atmosphere, then adding more CO2 to the atmosphere won't matter a bit."


Cheers.

[Guillermo]

Originally Posted by Meanz Beanz

IMO you are on the money Guillermo...

From http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html

"After the hockey stick was accepted virtually overnight without close examination ( like the Piltdown Man ), along comes Al Gore, a long-time "environmentalist", ( who made near-failing grades in science and math in college ) who decides to make a movie out of it. The hockey stick goes up on the big screen, and Gore boards a mechanical lift with cameras grinding, pointer in hand as he rises in unison with the blade of the stick which starts growing upward toward the ceiling. No longer are we talking about tenths of a degree, the temperature is rising like a puff pastry, and headed toward the attic. It all began with the word "if". If the hockey stick tip continues to rise (lift starts going upward, the audience holds its breath ) then... and along comes computer animations of New York flooding, Florida underwater, and poor little Polar Bears struggling to board the last piece of ice floating in the open Arctic Sea. (sigh...) It ends with Hurricane Katrina and Boston almost losing the pennant. It is Hollywood at its finest, and the Deacons of La La Land give it an Oscar. Even the Nobel Committee is impressed, gives it two thumbs-up and a Nobel Prize to Gore and the other members of the IPCC for the many lives that will be saved in the future because of this brilliant early warning. And, there's still time for we miserable humans to "save" the planet by buying "carbon offsets" accomplished best by investing in Al Gore's British company which buys stock in other companies that will benefit from a world-wide global warming hysteria (keeping a healthy cut) and making, perhaps, Al Gore the richest former Vice President in history. That will buy a lot of SUV's, jets, and large mansions with mega-electric bills. Everyone wins except the taxpayer and businessman, who are soon to pay a very heavy price.
............
While Al Gore's Oscar and Nobel Prize winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, has serious students of climate change laughing their heads off, the British didn't think it was very funny. The British High Court has ruled that it cannot be shown to students without first having a disclaimer that it is "propaganda", instead of a "documentary". "

Cheers.

[Meanz Beanz]

Originally Posted by Guillermo

While Al Gore's Oscar and Nobel Prize winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, has serious students of climate change laughing their heads off, the British didn't think it was very funny. The British High Court has ruled that it cannot be shown to students without first having a disclaimer that it is "propaganda", instead of a "documentary". "

Yes, its not like Al declared any conflict of interest here is it... Its an inconvenient pile, complete with miss matched data sets and fudged graphs.

However dare to criticize and you are socially ostracized, everyone is a rabid climate change cheer leader now!

"Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities... With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck." ---Thomas Jefferson

Belief is the enemy of truth.

[masalai]

I believe, I believe - that one should never let the truth get in the way of a good story

[Meanz Beanz]

Now we just have to work out who is telling the most reliable stories!