New home for Australian Climate Madness

Australian Climate Madness has moved to:

http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/

Our new RSS feed is:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/AustralianClimateMadness

Please update your bookmarks and feeds!

Thanks,

Simon

Break from blogging

ACM is taking a break. Other commitments mean that for a while I will not have the spare time to research and write this blog. Check out the Blog Roll to the right for all your climate sceptic needs, but I recommend:

• Watts Up With That for the alternative science
• Andrew Bolt for the Australian perspective 

Best regards,

Simon

More photos of the "thousands" at global "350" protests

Here are the thousands that turned up in Rome:

There are precisely 58 people. I just counted them. And that's in a city of 3.7 million. They couldn't write the message on the ground except by lying down. Here are the thousands that turned up in Kiev (pop. 2.8 million):

Maybe a hundred, if we're being generous (excluding all the bystanders looking puzzled). But at least they could all stand up. Yet despite the almost laughably small size of these protests, they get huge coverage in the media. A Google news search of "350 climate" yields no less than 2,521 news articles in the past day (see here). Just another example of the undue weight the alarmist media affords to a tiny news story when it has the magic words "climate change" in it.

The photos are grabbed from a BBC story here.

"350" Protest - that's the number that turned up…

All the moonbat media are talking this up as if it's a big deal, but of course, the pictures tell a different story. Here's The Age on the protests:

Thousands of people gathered on the steps of the Opera House for an outdoor concert and formed a giant 350 with their bodies, one of more than 200 events to be staged across the continent, said spokeswoman Blair Palese.

But here's the reality:

350 is approximately the number of protesters that turned up…

A few hundred at best. In Melbourne there were about half a dozen bikes, and in Darwin, the march looked more like a few lonely stragglers out for a stroll. But hang on, this is the biggest challenge to humanity since the dawn of time, isn't it? More from Ms Palese:

"Our global emissions are now perilously high, at 387 ppm [she means, of course, the current proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 387 ppm, which has absolutely nothing to do with "global emissions", but that is just the kind of sloppy thinking we are used to from environmentalists who do not have a clue what they are talking about - Ed]," Palese said. [And a good job she wasn't around in the Cambrian period, when CO₂ reached seven THOUSAND ppm, or even the more recent Cretaceous, when CO₂ was still well over two thousand ppm - she would have probably expired with the shock - Ed]


"The majority of expert scientists now say this has to come down to 350 ppm to avoid dangerous climate change. 350.org is calling for our political leaders make this their target."

Like you can just twiddle a knob and tinker with the climate. Yeah, right.

Read it here.

Carbon Sense - "Why Compromise is Defeat"

Another excellent article from Viv Forbes at the Carbon Sense Coalition:

The next few weeks are crucial. Australians can choose to assist the creation of the World Carbon Rationing, Tax and Redistribution Authority, administered by the United Nations, or we can take a step on the road back to energy and climate sanity.

The first step to sanity is to ensure that the opposition votes at all times to REJECT whatever Ration-N-Tax Scheme the Rudd government tries to get on the law books before the Copenhagen Climate Conclave. We must give no encouragement whatsoever to this international cabal of levellers.

Malcolm Turnbull and the warmist wing of the Liberal Party think that they are being politically savvy and achieving something useful by negotiating with the devil on a few clauses of the ETS (Extra Tax System). In matters as crucial as this, compromise is defeat.

Read it here.

If Higgins votes in Hamilton, they will get what they deserve

Clive Hamilton, enviro-loony from the extreme Left and author of Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change, is the Greens' candidate for the seat of Higgins, vacated by Peter Cosello. If the electorate in Higgins are dumb enough to vote this guy in, they will surely receive their just desserts. The Canberra Times goes typically misty eyed over this brave climate warrior:

''The motivating factor was that I'm just ... terrified about climate change. I think it's a massive problem looming on the horizon and the two main parties are oscillating between being weak and being pathetic on the issue,'' Dr Hamilton told The Canberra Times.
…
He became a Member of the Order of Australia this year for ''contributions to public debate and public policy'', was the ACT finalist for Australia of the Year two years ago and finalist for the Prime Minister's Environmentalist of the Year in 2001.

Looks like you need to be a climate hysteric to win the gongs in Australia. Nauseating stuff.

Read it here. 

UPDATE: Doesn't seem to like koalas, either… see here.

"Thousands" will attend climate protests

The dog-on-a-string brigade will be out in force today protesting about the lack of action on "tackling climate change". So all the usual suspects will be there, namely the Socialist Alliance, Socialist Youth Organisation, Socialist Alternative (like here, for example), oh yes, and a few Greens for good measure. Who says climate alarmism is about social change? And the ABC churns out its usual misleading photograph of CO₂ to illustrate the story:

Harmless, colourless CO₂, or is it particulates and toxins?

Australia will lead a day of international climate protests calling on world leaders to cut the planet's pollution and deliver a climate deal in December.

More than 170 countries are taking part in today's demonstration, with more than 3,000 events planned around the world.

Protesters are concerned that world leaders, including Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, have not delivered strong enough emissions targets to avoid runaway climate change.

The day of protests kicks off in Australia with thousands expected to attend more than 230 events organised across the country.

Read it here.

Japan may "water down" emissions promise

But hang on - surely they should be following us Aussies in locking in binding emissions reductions before Copenhagen, so that whatever happens in December they will be obliged to meet them. Why would they possibly want to wait until after Copenhagen? That's cheating! Then they'll know what the rest of the world is doing and can respond accordingly!

JAPAN cautioned that it could water down planned 2020 cuts in greenhouse gas emissions if other rich nations fail to make deep reductions as part of a UN deal due in Copenhagen in December.

In Brussels, a draft report showed that European Union states were preparing to endorse an estimate by the European Commission that developing countries will need about €100 billion($150.1 billion) annually by 2020 to tackle climate change.

Disputes over 2020 emissions cuts by developed nations and the amounts of cash to help developing nations combat global warming are among the main sticking points in sluggish UN talks meant to end in Denmark on December 18 with a new treaty. [Ha, ha, stop it! My aching sides!]

"The possibility is not zero," Japanese Environment Minister Sakihito Ozawa said when asked if Japan could change its 2020 target of cutting emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels if Copenhagen falls short on ambition.

He declined to say what alternative target Japan, the world's fifth biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, had in mind for cutting emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels.

Japan's 25 per cent offer made last month is tougher than that put forward by the previous government and among the deepest by any rich nation.

"As environment minister, I want to go ahead with this pledge, but the government announced it with a precondition at the United Nations (climate change summit last month) so of course it could change," he said.

Gee, waiting until after Copenhagen? That seems sensible. Maybe Krudd & Co should consider it…

Read it here.

London's Science Museum unveils alarmist "climate change map"

Yet another Indoctrination Alert, and the fall from grace of another once great British institution. Only last month it was the Natural History Museum, unveiling a hysterical "Climate Change Wall" (see here), and now it is the Science Museum which has joined the alarmist bandwagon, and will be indoctrinating the thousands of school age children that pass through its doors each month:

BRITISH Foreign Secretary David Miliband has unveiled an interactive map demonstrating the impact of global warming in decades to come, to underline the looming threat. 

 

The map, presented at London's Science Museum, shows graphically how climate change could lead to water and food shortages, mass migration and conflict if action is not taken at a landmark summit in Copenhagen in December.

"The reason for publishing this map is that for many people, not only in our own country but around the world, the penny hasn't yet dropped that this climate change challenge is real, it's happening now," Mr Miliband said.

The effects of climate change are not in "some far flung future" but would affect hundreds of millions of people within his lifetime, he added, unveiling the map with his brother Ed, Britain's climate change minister.

A 4 degree celsius increase could happen in his children's lifetime, Mr Miliband warned.

"The penny hasn't dropped that Copenhagen is the chance to address - on a global scale - the challenge," he said.

The map shows sea level rises and storm surges with temperatures rising up to 15 degrees, bringing increased risks of forest fires and droughts in Europe, and slashing harvests by up to 40 per cent in southeast Asia and Africa.

Vicky Carroll of the Science Museum said: "We thought it was important for visitors to understand the whole picture. [Only the alarmist side of the whole picture, clearly - Ed]

"There's so much information about climate change but many people are still confused, so this gives them the evidence in a clear and accessible way."

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned on Monday the world faces "catastrophe" if action is not agreed to curb the greenhouse gases held resposnible for global warming at the UN talks in Copenhagen.

To think I used to adore the Science Museum as a kid, and now look at it… tragic.

Read it here.

Greg Combet: temperatures will rise "five degrees" by 2100

More climate lunacy from the intellectually challenged minister assisting the minister for climate change, as the ETS bill is re-introduced into Parliament:

"If we do not act, average temperatures across Australia are expected to rise by over five degrees compared to 1990 by the year 2100," he said.

"To put this in perspective, a one degree [rise] in temperatures risks a 15 per cent reduction in stream flow in the Murray-Darling Basin.

"Australia is highly exposed to the impact of climate change, the impacts of Australia's environment and economy will be serious, the health of our population, the security of our water and energy supplies and impacts on coastal communities and infrastructure all face unprecedented tests."

Five degrees? Where does that come from? But at least Barnaby Joyce is not standing for this nonsense, by asking the very simple question: what will the Australian ETS do for climate? Answer: nothing at all.

"They have said behind this is this feeling that if the ETS comes in, you'll save the Great Barrier Reef, there'll be no more droughts," he said.

"That's all just a load of rubbish. That is just a second hand vacuum cleaner salesman guilt trip that they're putting you on to try and get you to get behind the ETS, when really what it is, is just a massive tax grab."

Read it here.

"Proof" of manmade global warming debunked

We reported here about a new study by Yarrow Axford that "proved" that the warming in the last 50 years was unusual and man-made. The study relies on investigating midge larvae in sediment cores on Baffin Island as a proxy for temperature. Watts Up With That has posted several rebuttals, including this latest one:

As I’ve pointed out on WUWT several times, the study is terribly flawed, because they haven’t considered other possible factors, such as DDT and other pesticides being transported into the lake from nearby military outposts and settlements, plus the tendency for transport or organotoxins into glacial ice which ends up in meltwater lakes. Plus the nearby weather station shows no significant warming.

WUWT reader “Ecotretas” points out this July 2009  peer reviewed study Evidence for a warmer period during the 12th and 13th centuries AD from chironomid assemblages in Southampton Island, Nunavut, Canada by Nicholas Rolland et al, which uses the same techniques, but just one island west of Baffin… The Rolland et al study temperature reconstruction shows a significantly different result than that of Axford.

Read it here.

UK government climate ad to be investigated

We reported here about a disgraceful TV advert in which a child is scared witless by a fictional Armageddon caused by climate change. Due to the number of complaints received, it has been referred to the UK Advertising Standards Authority for investigation:

A £6m government ad warning about climate change is to be investigated by watchdogs over claims it is misleading and too "scary" for children.

The Advertising Standards Authority has received 357 complaints about the Department of Energy and Climate Change's "bedtime stories" ad.

The ad aims to make adults feel guilty about the impact their carbon emissions are having on their children's future.
…
The government has already been prevented from screening the ad during children's programmes.

But the ASA has still received complaints from parents saying it is too frightening, although most complainants questioned the scientific basis of the claim that climate change is man-made.

An ASA spokeswoman said: "It is not just about the issue of climate change in this particular case. We have had a huge number of complaints about the science but also whether the ad itself is scary for children."

She said the watchdog would be investigating whether the claims about climate change could be substantiated and whether the ad complied with taste and decency rules.

That will be an interesting decision to read.

Read it here.

Quote of the Day: Nils-Axel Mörner

The sea-level guru writes an open letter to President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, after the ridiculous "underwater cabinet meeting" stunt:

And let us, for Heaven’s sake, lift the terrible psychological burden that you and your predecessor have placed upon the shoulders of all people in the Maldives, who are now living with the imagined threat that flooding will soon drive them from their homes, a wholly false notion that is nothing but an armchair fiction artificially constructed by mere computer modelling constantly proven wrong by meticulous real-world observations.

Your cabinet meeting under the water is nothing but a misdirected gimmick or PR stunt. Al Gore is a master in such cheap techniques. But such misconduct is dishonest, unproductive and certainly most unscientific.

Read it here (PDF) h/t Climate Realists

The climate is most definitely cooling

From Watts Up With That:

Global satellite data is analyzed for temperature trends for the period January 1979 through June 2009.  Beginning and ending segments show a cooling trend, while the middle segment evinces a warming trend.  The past 12 to 13 years show cooling using both satellite  data sets, with lower confidence limits that do not exclude a negative trend until 16 to 22 years.  It is shown that several published studies have predicted cooling in this time frame.  One of these models is extrapolated from its 2000 calibration end date and shows a good match to the satellite data, with a projection of continued cooling for several more decades.

Read it here.

UPDATED: Comedy headline: 'Proof' humans cause global warming

See, the science is settled, you denier you. Just like a handful of trees in Siberia created the Hockey Stick, now we have a bunch of sediment cores in the middle of Canada cherry-picked to show that the Medieval Warm Period didn't exist, the Roman Warm Period didn't exist, the Holocene climate optimum didn't exist, it's warmer now than in the last 200 gazillion years, and it's all our fault after all. Now can we please just get on with taking our Western economies back to the Dark Ages?

"The past few decades have been unique in the past 200,000 years in terms of the changes we see in the biology and chemistry recorded in the cores,'' University of Colorado glaciologist Yarrow Axford said.

"We see clear evidence for warming in one of the most remote places on Earth at a time when the Arctic should be cooling because of natural processes."

Mr Axford is the chief author of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

For thousands of years, environmental changes in a remote lake on Canada's Baffin Island closely matched natural, cyclical climate changes such as those caused by the Earth's periodic wobble as it swings around the sun, the researchers said.

However, lake sediment cores dating from 1950 show that expected climate cooling was overridden by human activity like greenhouse gas emissions.

Just for interest, here is a section from Ms Axford's personal web page:

Why study the Arctic?

The Arctic is changing rapidly today. And ongoing changes in the arctic cryosphere (ice and snow) and hydrosphere (water) have important ramifications for global climate. Understanding how the arctic environment has changed in the past may shed light on both the future of the Arctic, and the future of the wider world.

My dissertation research focused on the climate histories of Iceland and Baffin Island. The economies and natural environments of Iceland and Nunavut are potentially very vulnerable to future climate change. It is important to understand the nature, rate, and magnitude of past paleoenvironmental changes in these regions in order to help constrain future risks. Paleoenvironmental records from the warm early Holocene provide glimpses of what the environments of Iceland and Nunavut might look like in a future greenhouse world. (source)

No agenda there, clearly.

Read it here.

UPDATE 1: Anthony Watts posts on this here, and links the decline to DDT use.


UPDATE 2: And this from the BBC, for all you who think tree-rings tell the whole story:

The intensity of cosmic rays also correlates better with the changes in tree growth than any other climatological factor, such as varying levels of temperature or precipitation over the years.

"The correlation between growth and cosmic rays was moderately high, but the correlation with the climatological variables was barely visible."

Libs to face "disciplinary action" if they are disloyal on ETS

This whole ETS debacle isn't exacly what parliamentary democracy is about. For a start, I cannot remember an occasion where an opposition "negotiated" with a sitting government on a bill. The job of the opposition is to hold the government to account in Parliament, not usurp the authority of Parliament by holding clandestine meetings in order to reach an "agreement" before a vote.

Now there are threats of disciplinary action against Liberals who don't toe the party line on the ETS, which seems a thoroughly draconian measure.

Liberal Party federal president Alan Stockdale warned that his party had power to take action against MPs who damaged its brand.

Commenting on a recent call by former Liberal staffer Grahame Morris for the party to re-examine its endorsement of MPs who attacked the party, Mr Stockdale said he would not publicly canvass the issues of disloyalty and bad behaviour.

But he said: "People should be aware that at both state and federal level there are mechanisms for reviewing preselections where people take action that damages the party.

"There are a whole raft of stages of counselling and disciplinary issues that arise before preselection."

Asked whether he believed any MP should face censure over the ETS issue, Mr Stockdale repeated his position that he would not discuss such issues in public, saying they should be handled between party officials and individual MPs. (source)

But at least Cory Bernardi isn't threatened. Speaking on ABC News radio this morning he said that there was no way he would be voting for an ETS before Copenhagen (no link yet). A breath of fresh are in increasingly crazy times.

As Andrew Bolt puts it:

So may as well fight for what’s right, rather than what seems safe - since it’s better to lose just an election, rather than your dignity and principles, too. (source)

UPDATED: WWF: "Five years to save world"

Five years, three years, ten years, fifty years - pick a number. The climate moonbats at WWF are in turbo-hysteria mode as Copenhagen approaches:

The economic modelling, commissioned by WWF Australia, has found that an emissions trading scheme is not enough to drive the change needed to sufficiently cut global emissions.

Instead, it says governments must rapidly put in place greater incentives for industry to make the transition.

Karl Mallon, a scientist with Climate Risk and one of the key authors of the report, says 2014 has been calculated as the point at which there is no longer enough time to develop the industries that can deliver a low carbon economy.

"The point of no return," he said.

"If we wait until past 2014 or that's what modelling shows, then simply put, it will be impossible for industries to grow to the scale that has to be achieved in the time that is available.

"So essentially, we'll miss the target and I guess then we are left with the consequences of what happens if we go about two degrees warming."

Ho hum.

Read it here.

UPDATE: Piers Ackerman skewers this story here.

Wong to hold talks with Opposition on ETS

It will be interesting to see whether the government is really interested in getting the ETS through, or whether it is more concerned with wedging the Opposition into forcing a double dissolution by rejecting their proposed amendments.

Senator Wong and her counterpart climate change spokesman Ian Macfarlane will hold talks this afternoon after the Coalition agreed yesterday to allow the party leadership to negotiate with Labor over possible amendments to the legislation.

Pledging to protect jobs and limit expected rises in electricity prices for small business, the Coalition yesterday released its wishlist for reform.

It includes protecting farmers by permanently excluding agriculture and treating food processing as an emissions intensive industry.

Electricity generators and the coal industry will also get more compensation, raising the prospect that the scheme will cost taxpayers more if a deal can be struck with the Coalition - a prospect Nationals and some Liberals insist is still unlikely.

Senator Wong said today they intended to continue negotiations in good faith.

"I intend to meet with him today and we will outline what the government’s timetable is," Senator Wong told ABC radio.

Read it here.

BREAKING NEWS: Coalition backs ETS amendments

From ABC:

Coalition MPs have backed amendments to negotiate with the Government on its emissions trading scheme (ETS).

The MPs have just emerged from a marathon party room meeting in which Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull detailed the proposed amendments.

As Mr Turnbull left the meeting he said shadow cabinet had received strong support from the party room for the amendments.

He is due to hold a press conference at 8:10pm (AEDT).

The issue had threatened to derail Mr Turnbull's leadership in recent weeks with increasing backbench resistance to his desire to negotiate with the Government on the scheme.

More to come.

Read it here.

Coalition meets today to discuss ETS amendments

The harmless, colourless, odourless gas carbon dioxide, according to the ABC…

We can't forget that the Coalition will meet today to discuss their proposed amendments to the government's ETS legislation.

The Federal Opposition's emissions trading spokesman says he is optimistic that today's special party room meeting on emissions trading will accept the amendments he has drafted.

Ian Macfarlane will present amendments that he says protect jobs and industry but would still meet the target of cutting greenhouse emissions by 5 per cent by 2020.

Some in the Coalition argue the Opposition should not be negotiating with the Government on the issue.

But Mr Macfarlane says he expects the Coalition will accept the amendments he is putting up today and he says it will then be up to the Government.

"If the party room accepts the amendments as I lay them out then the negotiation with the Government will begin," he said.

The real question is whether the government will even bother to look at them…

Read it here.