Tom Quirk has taken look at the numbers for the Australian Government’s direct action plan (someone had to do it). Not surprisingly in a vast nation with hardly any people, the numbers that matter are the ones about “land-use” — which means anthropogenic changes to farms and forests. Electricity is our largest emitter of CO2, but without shutting down the nation there are no easy gains to be had. Demand is inelastic. Cuts are expensive. Renewables are pathetic. Ditto for industry and agriculture. Whether we meet our targets and whether there is P-A-I-N all depends on whether we count the CO2 molecules that come and go from agricultural land and managed forests.
The big question then is do we pretend those CO2 molecules coming and going from plants, soils, lakes and animals are irrelevant? (Greenpeace and the EU seem to think that’s a good plan). It’s a make or break thing in the carbon accounting world. But if carbon is causing global warming, surely all CO2 molecules are equally to blame. However only net emissions caused by humans (and which wouldn’t have been emitted naturally) count towards the national tallies and targets.
If we are to save 5% from our 2000 emissions, the figure to aim for is either 5% less than 500Mt of CO2 (if we ignore “land use” changes) or 5% less than 550Mt (if we count the CO2 involved in “land-use”). If we ignore the CO2 in land-use, things are tough for Australia. We start at 500Mt, are at 552Mt now, and are headed for 594Mt by 2020 instead of 475Mt. We need to find savings of about 120Mt — a huge 20% of net emission levels. Instead, if we include CO2 in land-use, we start at 550Mt, are at (who knows) 511Mt and are aiming for 525Mt, which is pretty close to where we are headed (subject to accounting methods). And if we included fire and oceans all bets would be off, but we don’t because they are not “anthropogenic”.*
Bizarrely, fire is an Act of God, so it doesn’t count at all in natural forests (natural forest and “natural” fires are not included in Kyoto agreements). That leads to a perverse incentive where in a managed forest, Governments might want to grow a crop of trees then burn them catastrophically. The CO2 going in gets taken off the tally, and the CO2 going out is invisible. As it happens, most of the carbon in the trees and debris goes up in smoke but about 1% becomes charcoal, which is stored in the soil for thousands of years because it is chemically and physically inert — permanently sequestered by humans. This is of course a joke and not seriously considered anywhere, but the perverse incentive exists under carbon accounting rules.
Quirk notes that the numbers on land use are highly variable. In 2011, for some reason (perhaps an accounting change) the land use changes wiped out nearly half the entire emissions from all the cars, planes, trains, trucks and buses in Australia. I didn’t hear the Greens celebrate.
I have long said that attaching monetary value to a basic molecule of life is stupid, and I’ll say it again. These numbers prove my point. We can’t account for it, most of the players can’t pay (because they are gum trees), the loop-holes are bigger than the loops, and we have to defy chemistry and treat identical molecules of CO2 as if they are not the same.
Does Greenpeace want more Green? It doesn’t seem so. — Jo
—————————————————————————-
The Australian ¡®Direct Action¡± plan to reduce CO2 emissions
With the looming demise of the carbon tax, imposed not to reduce emissions but to prolong the life of a minority government, we are faced with an alternative of ¡°Direct Action¡± to meet our Kyoto target of 2020 CO2 emissions being 5% less than that in 2000. This approach may be unique amongst developed countries as its success will depend on how much CO2 can be absorbed by modifying farming and forestry in the very large land mass of Australia, ¡°adjustments¡± made to the accounting protocols for CO2 emissions, and the use of uncertainties in measurements.
The Australian anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases as estimated by the Department of the Environment and Climate Change are given by sector and total in Table 1 along with estimates for the year 2020 based on the performance of each sector from 2002 to 2012. The estimates of fugitive emissions and agriculture largely depend on estimates of methane emissions[1] that have large uncertainties. Similarly there are large uncertainties for land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF). Table 1 also shows the average annual changes in emissions and the projected amounts for 2020 based on the average annual increases.
Table 1 Australian CO2 equivalent emissions in millions of tonnes
| Year | Stationary energy | Trans-port | Fugitiveemissions | Industrialprocesses | Agri-culture | Waste |
Total net Emissions (excluding LULUCF) |
Land use change and forestry |
Total net Emissions (including LULUCF) |
|
|
Elect- ricity |
Other |
|||||||||
|
2000 |
500.0 |
550.0 |
||||||||
|
2002 |
186.4 |
79.5 |
76.2 |
34.4 |
28.0 |
91.1 |
13.9 |
509.5 |
70.8 |
580.3 |
|
2003 |
186.5 |
82.4 |
78.9 |
34.2 |
29.4 |
89.9 |
13.2 |
514.5 |
44.2 |
558.7 |
|
2004 |
196.6 |
84.5 |
80.9 |
35.3 |
29.1 |
89.7 |
13.0 |
529.1 |
49.6 |
578.7 |
|
2005 |
195.5 |
85.9 |
81.0 |
36.0 |
29.5 |
89.5 |
12.7 |
530.1 |
74.3 |
604.4 |
|
2006 |
201.8 |
86.8 |
82.0 |
38.2 |
30.0 |
88.3 |
12.8 |
539.9 |
69.0 |
608.9 |
|
2007 |
202.5 |
88.3 |
84.4 |
40.4 |
31.1 |
86.6 |
13.1 |
546.4 |
58.4 |
604.8 |
|
2008 |
208.2 |
89.7 |
85.4 |
40.1 |
32.0 |
85.4 |
13.3 |
554.1 |
31.9 |
586.0 |
|
2009 |
204.9 |
87.6 |
85.0 |
40.0 |
29.1 |
82.7 |
13.4 |
542.7 |
17.7 |
560.4 |
|
2010 |
199.6 |
94.6 |
86.1 |
42.3 |
33.2 |
82.9 |
13.1 |
551.8 |
28.3 |
580.1 |
|
2011 |
200.1 |
93.5 |
89.0 |
38.9 |
32.9 |
86.0 |
12.8 |
553.2 |
-40.3 |
511.9 |
|
2012 |
190.8 |
94.2 |
91.5 |
42.3 |
32.3 |
88.0 |
12.8 |
551.9 |
||
| Average annual increases in emissions from 2002 to 2012 in Mt CO2-e per year |
|
|||||||||
|
Mt CO2 per yr |
1.01 |
1.40 |
1.31 |
0.81 |
0.45 |
-0.62 |
-0.04 |
4.31 |
-8.54 |
-3.68 |
| Projected annual emissions for 2020 based on the average annual increases |
|
|||||||||
|
2020 |
210.6 |
106.2 |
100.7 |
48.9 |
36.4 |
79.2 |
12.5 |
594.5 |
-74.9 |
527.8 |
The target for the year 2020 is emissions 5% below the level in 2000. This is either a reduction to 475 Mt or 525 Mt CO2-e with and without the land use changes. This requires a reduction of 120 Mt CO2-e without land use changes from the projected 2020 total emissions of 595 Mt of CO2-e. It is not possible to get an estimate of land use changes owing to the erratic variations of the annual values (see values shaded green in Table 1).
Some 66% of emissions come from stationary energy and transport. Table 1 shows annual increases in these sectors. The Australian population may grow by 10% from 2012 to 2020 (ABS models of population growth) and it is unlikely that stationary energy use or transport use of fossil fuels will fall significantly.
The Renewable Energy Target (RET) scheme with 20% of electricity from renewables by 2020 would give about a 40 Mt reduction in the electricity contribution to CO2 emissions. However the present impact of this scheme is uncertain as the decline in electricity use after 2008 and hence emissions may be partly due to a drop in economic activity or the carbon tax that started in July 2012. Since the growth in electricity demand has fallen since the RET was set, there are already calls for reducing the target and the success or failure of the scheme is not determinable at this time.
The effect of the RET if fully met still leaves a balance of 80 Mt to be found from other activities. This cannot be found from reductions in any combinations of the remaining emission sectors except perhaps in land use changes (see Table 1).
The net emission changes in land use, land use change and forestry vary quite markedly from year to year. In addition they vary quite markedly by the year in which they are reported. The components of this are shown in Table 2 and are taken from the website of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat…
Table 2 Emissions from land use, land use change and forestry
|
|
Estimated emissions in Mt CO2-e |
||
| Land use |
1990 reported in 2009 |
1990 reported in 2012 |
2011 reported in 2012 |
| Deforestation |
132.2 |
||
| Forest land |
-47.3 |
-45.6 |
-102.1 |
| Cropland |
-0.3 |
33.3 |
16.1 |
| Grassland |
89.1 |
123.2 |
48.6 |
| Other |
-4.4 |
-2.9 |
|
| Total |
173.6 |
106.6 |
-40.3 |
The changes in forestry are said to be the shift from harvesting in old growth forests to the use of plantations. What is remarkable is the variation of this contribution as this shift has been taking place over many years. What it may well illustrate is the use of uncertainties in measurement to yield a favourable result. There have also been changes in accounting rules. As an example trees felled in forests were treated as immediately converted to CO2 but now accounting may be delayed until the CO2 from the wood actually enters the atmosphere! [Note from Jo — David Evans –carbon modeler, says that our Kyoto accounting program has allowed for slow decay for as long as he can remember, around 2000 onwards.] Bush fires are treated as ¡°acts of God¡± but as He or She is not anthropogenic (an interesting philosophical question), these emissions are no longer included.
The Coalition Direct Action Plan as detailed before the election of the Abbott Government had two main programmes:
- An Emission Reduction Fund to bring emissions down by 140 Mt CO2-e by 2020 thus meeting the target of emissions 5% below that in 2000. This fund, capped at about $3 billion, would ¡°buy¡± reductions by paying companies to produce fewer emissions. This fund might assist old power stations to be modified to reduce CO2 emissions such as the conversion of brown coal burning stations to using gas. An expensive exercise in rebuilding boilers and using more expensive gas. An example is to compare the short run marginal cost of brown coal burning Hazelwood at $6 per MWh to Newport, with gas fired boilers at $40 per MWh. So changing fuel source is not the answer if you do not want to add to the cost of generating electricity and Australia needs to keep the advantage of low cost electricity. Innovations will not be easy to find and will take time to develop and demonstrate. How they might be implemented without adding to costs is the key and unanswered question.
The other area of activity that might yield some reduction in emissions is farming and forestry. Landcare Australia, spending a modest $6 to $8 million per year, has achieved some notable demonstrations of how returning carbon to the soil can increase crop yields as well as removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Chapter 22 of the Garnaut Report discusses some of the possibilities and opportunities for absorbing CO2 emissions through changes in land use.
Perhaps the greatest example of land recovery is the experience of the Dust Bowl in the United States and Canadian prairies in the 1930s. Extensive plowing of the virgin topsoil displaced the deep-rooted grasses that normally trapped soil and moisture even during periods of drought and high winds but applying dry-land farming methods gave rise to a recovery.
There is also a promise to plant 20 million trees in public spaces with no estimate of the resulting reduction of emissions. The higher levels of atmospheric CO2 should enhance tree growth, just as the forests in the far northern hemisphere have been growing at about 1% a year for the last 40 years.
The fund will spend its $3 billion over the next 3 to 4 years.
- Direct action on renewable energy is a promise of more subsidies for solar, tidal and geothermal installations. There is $100 million a year for domestic solar panels, $100 million a year for Solar Towns and Schools and $50 million a year for Geothermal and Tidal Towns. (And don¡¯t worry about sea level rises.) This does not help innovation where the driving force is either meeting a present need at a lower cost or meeting an unmet need which is not the case for electricity.
There may be a real benefit from the Direct Action plan if, in addressing farming of grassland and cropland, there is a significant rise in farm productivity from better use of soils and carbon as a fertiliser. This would thus pay for itself and would be a true innovation.
Any moderation of CO2 emissions will take a considerable time to have an appreciable impact, quite apart from the delays in auditing the claims of CO2 emission reduction.
However forestry changes resulting from accounting changes might deliver the desired reduction of our emissions to 5% less than the year 2000 emissions.
Greenpeace, the major transnational franchisee on climate, has become so upset by this possibility, calling it ¡°Australia¡¯s carbon scam¡± that they commissioned an analysis from the ANU Centre for Climate Law and Policy[2].The report discusses how, with suitable drafting of the emissions reporting protocol for land use, land use change and forestry, Australia might not need to take any active steps to reduce emissions but simply shelter behind the accounting rules that would allow the reductions of emissions to the agreed 2020 target.
The conclusion is that the policies of Direct Action will have little or no effect on our direct emissions of CO2. However the policies offer a double benefit from the Kyoto protocol escape clauses sheltering the direct emissions and the improvement of agricultural yields giving real economic benefits, a very significant achievement in itself.
The Kyoto protocol changes were proposed by Labor before the election of the Abbott Government. So the outgoing government may have bequeathed a great benefit to the new government and to the country.
[1] In the new 2013 IPCC Summary for Policymakers the projections to 2100 for atmospheric methane are kept at the present level and will have no additional effect except for one scary and unjustifiable scenario where methane has more than doubled by 2100. This is no doubt to keep the maximum temperature and sea level rises in play ¨C see: http://www.henrythornton.com/article.asp?article_id=6620
[2] http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/en/news/climate/lulucf-australia-s-carbon-sca/
*Except for arson and army mistakes.
G’day Tom
A good article but a bit of an academic issue until someone actually PROVES that reducing CO2 emissions is both significant and desirable.
Cheers,
Speedy
140
Speedy, of course, I figured that went without saying around here. :- ) Tom Quirk is Very much the skeptic. But I should add in the qualifier… fair point.
Sadly, rather than being academic, this (sigh) is a question of national policy — and also possibly a matter for a re-Senate-election in WA. Our national debate is not about whether this will change the world’s climate, but how many billion we ought be spending.
150
Jo, a recent study indicated that animal emissions included the basis of micro-particles for cloud formation. Given that cloud blocks or impedes radiation, more animals means more daytime cloud, which means lower maximum temperatures.
Further, animals eat grass, which means they ingest CO2, and their faeces contains CO2. Without animals the grasses would die over time and release all their CO2 into the atmosphere.
Animals seems to be a positive rather than negative in the carbon cycle. Given the number of animals in Australia we might already be a net absorber of CO2.
50
Fair enough Jo, and I wasn’t trying to be rude. However, I’ve seen enough guys in my busines (especially in the enviro side of things) who are pushing onto us all the regulations, taxes and rules that our unspeakably corrupt politicians have foist upon us.
But, in the meantime, they “conveniently” ignore the fact that there is not a shred of truth underlying the basis for these regulations, taxes and rules. Truth, it seems, is an optional extra.
Am I angry? Yes, actually. And rightly so. So while I get Tom’s message, we cannot forget that his is only a secondary issue; the real issue is that climate control – under any name or guise – is not only futile, but fraudulent.
Cheers,
Speedy
110
Jo, check the table formatting. It overlaps on the right margin when I look at the webpages. makes it hard to read.
10
Jo re your reference to the Kyoto Protocol is it even valid anymore? My understanding is that not enough countries signed up to it when they attempted to renew it,last year. I’d like to see us follow the route of Canada and withdraw from it,ASAP.
20
Since many of the bushfires are deliberately lit, say one third, these are not an Act of God.
Reduce the number deliberately lit and control those caused by power lines,field exercises and barbeques and ,hey presto,we can immediately cut our real emissions of CO2 caused by burning the bush.
Add the increased incremental growth of the biomass in marginal drylands in most of the continent that sequester CO2 and we should meet our targets of 5% net reduction with ease.
This latter effect is a benefit we reap from others overseas that produce the plant food, CO2.
61
It is a valid point that many fires are deliberately lit – or maybe accidently caused. To minimize the impact there should be fire breaks. A possible cause of frequent large fires is due to the success of the fire services in preventing the spread of the majority of fires. If there are not temporary natural fire breaks through fires being allowed to burn themselves out, there needs to be man-made ones.
80
Be careful here, the bushfires in Victoria were predominately caused by failed ties in high winds, the failure of which is very difficult to control, (undergrounding of power lines does work well though) but such a control measure may be impractical to deploy widely. It may well be more economically sensible to defoliate completely along the power lines so that ignition from a failure can’t occur.
Magic bean counter has probably got the better idea, if the bush were properly segmented with firebreaks and defoliated regions then the lines of defense are put in place to control burning, preventing fires from getting hot enough to cause significant damage. Also in my opinion landowners must be given discretion to build firebreaks to protect their lives and livelihoods. Personally I see this as a constitutional fight. A council preventing a landowner from cutting a firebreak is putting a citizen in danger, as much as a policeman ordering you to stand in the middle of the Pacific Highway or for our WA friends the Great Eastern Highway at dawn or dusk.
Governments cannot order citizens to put themselves in harms way (except the military and police). You have a right to *LIFE*, liberty and justice. That constitutional right to protect your own life has been taken away by over zealous lawmakers and MUST be restored to the citizens.
I urge all of you to nag your members about this travesty and have them fix the egregious overreach.
40
Those lines of defense against fires , the clearing of access tracks in our western Victorian Grampians mountains and in other highly fire prone areas here in SE Australia were all done by a mostly firey’s volunteer basis back in the late 1960’s to the mid 1980’s.
Small catchment dams / tanks for fire fighting were also carved out for water for firefighting on these remote, isolated tracks, mostly only known they thought , to the local volunteers .
Those small catchment dams also proved a real boon for the local wildlife when conditions got dry in the mountains as they do here in west Vic.
Then the rabid ignorant greens got close to political power through the Labour party in the 1980’s.
To their total dismay the local volunteers and local professional foresters around the Grampians discovered when they went to ensure those tracks were clear for the upcoming fire season , they found that those utterly ignorant greens backed surreptitiously by the government of the times, had rolled heavy logs across the tracks to prevent access and had destroyed or filled in hose small catchment dams and the tracks.
The bush had to be preserved in it’s natural state you know.
Although I’m not sure they meant the consequent scene of blackened destroyed tree trunks to be the scenically preserved bush of their dreams and which acted as a mute testimony to their utter irrational ignorance and stupidity.
110
I am firmly of the view that Rabid Greens that interfere with firefighting efforts should be charged and prosecuted,and required to pay for the homes that are lost as a result of this. After all in NSW I’ve heard of various local councils that attempt to fine people insane amounts for controlled burns on their own property and then attempt to avoid any responsibility on the matter.
Such insanity should not be tolerated,under any circumstances.
60
The occurrence of arsonists and sh**-disturbers in the population is not actually subject to control. It is thus an Act of God.
00
It would be interesting to see what the reduction in CO2 would be if all out big coal fired power stations were modernised to higher efficiency standards.
I suspect that this would be by far the cheapest and most effective way of achieving CO2 emission cuts… ( which we shouldn’t be trying to do anyway ! )
202
Tony from Oz already did that exercise yonks ago – I think it even ended up as a guest feature article here on Jo Nova.
Basic summary from memory – that one, simple step and we would meet our Kyoto targets, and then some.
But I’ll stand corrected if needs be.
150
Have it on speed dial MV.
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/03/upgrade-coal-power-and-cut-15-of-emissions-will-the-greens-consider-coal/
150
Thanks Heywood.
50
Darn, I knew I’d read it somewhere 🙂
20
The world’s population is predicted to level out at around the 9 billions by about 2050 or if the rate of increase, the birth rate per thousand which is slowing at an incredible speed right now even in some of the poorest and least developed countries, [ amazing what mobile phones ie; instant world wide communications and knowledge can do once people who own one can see what is happening in the rest of the world, can communicate with that world outside of their hearing, voice and and vision range for the first time and understand a bit more of the world around them ]
Even if this rapidly decreasing birth rate doesn’t slow down as much as anticipated then the world’s population may not reach very far beyond ten billions or about another 30 % more than today’s 7.3 billions.
After that the world population is likely to begin a long slow decline.
In fact according to close relatives who has just returned from a trip to Europe, they were astonished by the lack of children and young kids compared to even australia where the birth rate is slowing very rapidly indeed.
Index Mundi & http://www.indexmundi.com/g/
But in the meantime the world’s plant breeders and plant geneticists and researchers along with the world’s farmers have to produce the food to feed these numbers in the coming half century and beyond
I have said this before on Jo’s site here,
I will say it again.
The world’s plant breeders and farmers will more than adequately feed these increasing numbers of mankind if the world warms and CO2 increases
If the global climate cools but CO2 still increases, then perhaps, operative word is “perhaps” the world’s farmers will be still able to feed the increasing global population, just!
If the world cools and mankind through rank stupidity tries to reduce atmospheric CO2 and succeeds then all bets are off for the worlds’ farmers in a colder climate and with less of that absolutely essential plant food CO2 may not be able to grow enough of the world’s food crops to feed mankind’s increasing numbers.
And that means hunger and possible starvation on a scale unmatched in human history.
A cold world and failed harvests are synonymous throughout the annals of history and millions, hundreds of millions have died throughout history when famine has struck.
Just get out of the way and let Nature look after all that supposedly so dangerous and absolutely essential plant food called Carbon dioxide just as she has always done for the 4.5 billion years of Earth’s known existence.
230
.
A brief glimpse of the future.
Here it will just mean a few farmers go bankrupt, and a few commodities will get more expensive.
In the NH, it will mean mass starvation.
70
Ummmm, no. That is happening now. What do you say Michael?
10
Even that is way overstated. The UN Population Survey spreadsheet has 3 pages, High, Medium, Low. Only the Medium is ever quoted, but only the Low is ever close to accurate. It now peaks at ~8bn in 30 years, declining indefinitely thereafter.
De-pop will be the real crisis. Your duty is clear.
[done] ED
00
edit: close
itto accurate.00
This carbon accounting thing is indistinguishable from Advanced Bistromathics.
The variability of the underlying assumptions produces a set of malleable results suited to any purpose; except Science and Engineering. i.e. you can’t do anything useful with the results except to talk about them. Nevertheless; fabricating the numbers is entertaining and time consuming; which is highly desirable in a social sphere where activity is mistaken for productivity.
Similarly entertaining pscience is in the form of the Drake equation: You make a bunch of guesstimates of parameters, combine them in a largely arbitrary formula and you get a “result”. (The difference is that you don’t need a computer to work the Drake equation.) No sane Engineer would build a Starfleet based on the results.
120
But they are only using finite parameterized bistromathics with the infinite numerical matrix quanta derivative reduced by a laughable proportion.
Resolving their equations will only last until the main course!
20
I think this line of argument is lacking detailed programmatic specificity.
20
It is an interesting article by Tom Quirk, but as we have yet to see any proof that CO2 is causing anything catastrophic, it seems to be a bit academic.
The effect of increased CO2 on plant and food production seems to be wholly beneficial and storms seem to be lessening.
It may be all due to solar activity or lack thereof or it could even be due to some CO2 effect, but we do not seem to be heading the wrong way at present. We do not need to do anything precipitate.
70
Actually, warming would be the right way. You won’t like the alternative.
00
Very , very few people outside of farming and all food growing pursuits realise just how close to the edge the growing of food on a mass production basis, ie modern farming at very low prices, to the food producers, actually runs.
In 2009 we had 4 days of over 40 C just as a very good lentil crop was flowering and setting it’s seeds in mid Novemnber , The lentils that the latte sippers claim to eat or use for their personal public eating of healthy foods displays [ Maccers no doubt in the exclusiveness of home and out of the public eye ] and which is exported to a large number of nations mostly in Asia and the Middle East.
Well there was a world shortage of Lentils in 2009 and that four days of stinking hot over 40 degrees weather cost my son close to a million dollars of lost income . And that after hundreds of thousands of dollars had already ben spent on the crop
[ for the warmistas here; who no doubt will spout global warming / climate change / extreme weather. So what’s new as far as late october and early to mid november heat waves are concerned. Seen more than my fair share of them over my 75 years.
We have also lit a fire a few times on Christmas day to warm the freezing place up for Christmas.
It’s called “weather” ]
Lentil crops sown in May a week earlier or a week later than my son’s crop survived OK. To really twist the blade in the wound we had about 25 mms a week later. Had the hot weather and the rain event been reversed in time he would have been laughing all the way to the bank with his lentil yields and the prices paid.
It wasn’t to be and on top aof a whole decade of bad seasons and a couple of major droughts it broke his spirit if not his bank account and he has sadly on his behalf, left farming for good. Still owns quite a section of land from the farm , Has a nice house in town and a job as does his wife, a very competent nurse.
Of such is life on the land.
170
Interesting, but the bottom line is the numbers are speculation based on assumptions. It’s not a sound basis for any business to plan and survive on (unless you are on the receiving end of rent-seeker’s largesse), let alone make a return on investment, nor is it suitable for a nation to “invest” in.
The underlying assumptions are: we have a problem with “too much” CO2 from readily identifiable anthropogenic sources that are negatively influencing climate (specifically causing temperature to rise as a direct relationship of anthropogenic-derived emissions of gaseous carbon molecules, which have been validated statistically to be greater than natural variability, so humanity can therefore, make adustments to the weather by paying a tax, of any description, which will then “fix” the alleged problem.
However, the assumptions are based on computer models that have been shown by empirical observation and measurement, to be way off the mark. Net effect: a zero sum game. It therefore is yet to be proven, beyond any reasonable doubt, that human activities have a direct, negative or positive, effect on climate beyond natural variability.
Government policies are based on invalid assumptions so there will be no net and measurable effect on climate or weather, either from the Direct Action or any other policy put forward.
This begs the question; why then, are they avoiding the core issues:
1. Is there a valid problem (or is does it remain in the realm of an un-proven speculation);
2. If the assumption is, for the sake of an argument, valid, is it actually “fixable” by the proposed or any other policies; and
3. On a global scale for an alleged global problem, what are all other countries actually doing about “the problem”, and will the net overall effect be to increase emissions and therefore “exacerbate” the alleged problem? If not all “in”, there is no point.
So what’s holding the government back from, say, proposing a cost benefit study to tie down the assumptions and distinguish fact from mere speculation, by holding a full and transparent enquiry (Royal Commission?) into the science as a foundation for development of sound policy, before embarking on a yet another waste of money just to pove a point that they can be just as inept, incompetent, stupid and pig-headed as the previous government, driven by ideology, not by sound reasoning.
While in opposition they made plenty of noise about the lack of a business case being made for the NBN, now they are doing a “Commissar Conroy” by not applying the same argument for their Direct Action policy. And as far as the Kyoto agreement is concerned, it’s irrelevant and redundant, so untangle from that U.N funnel-web spider web as well.
The conservative government was elected to clean up the Labor-Greens mess. Being objective about policy formulation (e.g, “in the light of new information, we will do a comprehensive review”) might be a good start. Or do they dance to another tune, that they aren’t talking about?
80
Now you are getting it. While all eyes and minds are concentrated on what the new, “conservative” government will do about climate change, boat people, gay marriage, and a handful of other, now passe subjects, our new “conservative” government is quietly getting on with the jobs it was elected to do. They are:
1) – Change Commonwealth laws to facilitate the wholesale sell-off of State-owned assets;
2) – Change Commonwealth laws to facilitate the transfer of private superannuation funds to corporate entities.
The first will entail passing legislation to allow the Federal government to reimburse state governments for loss of recurring income from the sale of income producing assets. The taxpayer will pick up the bill, probably eventually financed by an increase in GST.
The second will entail Treasury issuing “infrastructure bonds”, with a government guaranteed rate of return, plus legislation to allow super funds to buy these bonds. The money thus raised (your super) will then be used to finance “infrastructure construction”.
The result will be a plethora of rent-seeking pork-barrelling, with roads and railways to nowhere, bridges to forever, Campbell Newman style tunnels to dark places, and, of course, the obligatory wind farms and solar subsidies, as promised in the Coalition’s “Environment Policy”.
None of these projects will ever return a profit back to the holders of the “infrastructure bonds”, so the government guarantee will kick in. Only the government won’t be able to meet its commitments, so the now non-existent super funds, now represented by worthless “infrastructure bonds”, will be taken over by the government, and your super payout will be replaced by a means and assets tested pension.
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No, I don’t have a crystal ball. We’ve done it all before, back in the Sixties.
And yes, it was a Coalition grubbermint back then, too.
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We need names.
And how did you find out these shenanigans?
With the Internet it must be easier now than it was for you in the 1980s when writing the newsletters.
30
.
Andrew, they don’t hide things from our eyes, they hide them from our minds.
Everything detailed above has been spelled out in MSM online newspaper articles over the past month or so, usually buried in the financial section. True, they are not presented as baldly as I have presented them, they have been couched in terms such as “economic reform” and a “need to promote investment in infrastructure”, and “taxation reform”, “making it possible for super funds to be invested in infrastructure”, and so on.
You just need a smattering of history, and an ability to read between the lines.
Let’s play a little game. Prior to the election, hands up anybody who had ever heard of Mathias Cormann? Now he is the Finance Minister. Okay, go do a little digging, and find out what he specialises in. Now go and find out what he is working on,as “Finance Minister”.
It helps if you know what’s coming. These political puppets do precisely what they are told to do, if they hope to get/keep their jobs. This is done publicly. Back in the days of the newsletter, it was done through black-tie, invitation only dinners hosted by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA). For instance, an endless queue of guest speakers were extolling the “need” for a GST at CEDA dinners five years before it became a political issue. All the main players were there. Hawke, Keating, Howard, Hewson, Costello et al.
Today it is done exactly the same way, only now the vehicle appears to be the Lowy Institute. Scan the business section of the MSM for Lowy Institute dinners, find out what the guest speaker was on about, and you are forewarned as to what is coming. Just for interest, checkout the guest list. You’ll find all the usual suspects, from both sides of the political fence.
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Yes, it really IS that simple.
Now I’m off to bed.
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MV.
Have you ever thought about writing a book about your life and experiences?
I think you should do it. As a lurker on this site, i can gather from your post history, you would have a lot to share. You are one clued up individual.(:
Respect.
Stephen.
20
.
It’s already been done years ago, sort of, and disastrously, by Sydney Radio Talk Back Host, Brian Wilshire. Trouble was, Brian has his own very strong views on certain subjects, like feminism.
Brian would start a chapter with a one paragraph – or even a one sentence quote from something I wrote – usually quoted out of context – and then launch into a full chapter of his own diatribe on the subject. Trouble was, there was no way of distinguishing between my comments and his.
When Brian approached me about doing it, the deal was I got to read and approve the draft, but it never happened. Nothing happened for two years, and then suddenly there was a parcel of half a dozen copies delivered to my door. What a disaster. Still, it was a best-seller for him. For what it’s worth – “One Man Banned – Australia’s Greatest Whistleblower”.
Brian changed the name slightly for the second edition.
.
I have thought about doing it again, focusing on the more” interesting” bits. The brushes with the CIA, MI6 and Mossad, the complete story about John Freidrichs, the NSCV and the failed State Bank of Victoria. The botched attempt by the CIA to fit me up as a leading heroin dealer and the guy they shot because of it. The shenanigans with our phones, the truth about Senator Ron Boswell and the Assembly of God Church, the cosy arrangement between Yana Wendt’s “A Current Affair” team, and former Labor Member for Capricornia, and subsequently convicted child rapist, Keith Wright, and more.
.
Maybe one day when I get bored with stirring here on Jo Nova
50
MV if you hadn’t heard of Mathias Corman before September 7th you can’t be such an avid reader of the MSM business sections as you claim. Here’s my hand up for knowing of Mathias Corrman, a West Australian Senator of Belgian origin, before the election. As for the rest of your nonsensical rant it is neither relevant to this post or factual, just a lot of subjective assessments of some phrases in the MSM.
13
.
I didn’t say I hadn’t heard of Mathias before the election, I asked how many other readers had.
So far you’re the first to put your hand up. Telling.
Mind you, more people should know more about Mathias Cormann. From newly-arrived immigrant, unqualified in anything in Australia, working as a gardener at a private girl’s school, with no political affiliation, to Ministerial Chief of Staff to the Premier, Richard Court, in less than six months.
Then a couple of years as Senior Adviser to the Federal Minister for Justice and Customs, followed by a couple of years as Vice President of the WA Liberal Party, plus serving as General Manager of HBF, despite having utterly no experience in health care whatsoever.
Then parachuted into the Senate over the top of a sitting member, straight into the Shadow Ministry, then a meteoric rise through the Shadow Ministry, to Finance Minister in the new government.
Talk about the nobody from nowhere who had a dream run to the top. Only Simon Sheikh’s rise from literally nothing (near as I can tell he didn’t exist before around 2000) comes anywhere even close.
.
Anyway, as to the rest of my “nonsensical rant”; interesting to note the ABC “Fact Check” department just this morning threw its weight behind Cormann’s plan (who else?) to sell off Medibank Private (pretty much the only income-producing asset the Feds have left). Then it will be on to the States.
Also interesting to note that Joe Hockey will be making an announcement later today, basically “clearing the decks” for upcoming “tax and superannuation reform”.
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Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Enjoy your means-tested pension.
31
MV What’s a lot more telling than me knowing of Mathias Corrman ( I can read business columns just as you can) is absence of any comment from you regarding my post (9.08am) on LULUCF. Your opinion on that would be very interesting indeed, far more interesting than your comments on Mathias Cormann, that actually don’t address the crucial point of why he had such a meteoric rise from gardener to Senator to Minister without being a trades union official. Still, perhaps comments on LULUCF are a little more difficult
20
Born in the German-speaking town of Eupen in eastern Belgium, Cormann graduated with a Bachelor of Law degree from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. As part of his university studies Cormann participated in a one-year student exchange program at the University of East Anglia in Norwich in 1993-94, where he first learnt to speak English. Following a visit to Perth in 1994, he migrated to Australia permanently.
21
He joined the Liberal Party in Western Australia and took on a job as ministerial chief-of-staff, then senior adviser to then-Premier of Western Australia, Richard Court. He then moved to federal politics, working for two years as a senior adviser to then Minister for Justice and Customs Chris Ellison. Between 2003 and 2008, Cormann was the state senior vice-president of the Liberal Party in Western Australia. He was also acting general manager of HBF, a WA-based health insurance company, until resigning in May 2007 to contest a Senate seat.
Cormann’s preselection for the coveted third position on the Liberal Senate ticket for the 2007 election was all but assured, at the expense of controversial Senator Ross Lightfoot, who withdrew from the preselection race and resigned from politics when he realised the numbers were against him. On the ABC’s Stateline program on 27 April 2007, Lightfoot stated that he considered Cormann (although he stopped short of naming him) an “inappropriate person” to replace him. Lightfoot’s main complaint was that there were “more appropriate people” to succeed him “who have served the party longer” and “who have been in the country longer”.
When Senator Ian Campbell unexpectedly announced his planned resignation on 4 May 2007, Cormann was quickly preselected by the party to fill the resulting casual vacancy. Campbell formally resigned on 31 May 2007. Cormann was sworn in on 20 June 2007 and served the remaining four years of Ian Campbell’s term until 2011.[6] On 21 August 2010 Cormann was re-elected for a further six year term as Senator for Western Australia, which started on 1 July 2011.
In Opposition Cormann served as Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health Administration (2008-09), Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Apprenticeships and Training (2009-2010) and as Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Shadow Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation (2010-2013). In the Senate he also chaired the Fuel and Energy Select Committee.[7] (2008-2010) and the Scrutiny of New Taxes Committee (2010-2011).
11
DT
Precisely.
Throw in the fact that his law degree is not recognised here in Australia, and you have an unqualified immigrant gardener who joins the Liberal Party virtually on arrival, is immediately installed as the Premier’s Ministerial Chief of Staff, who then goes on to enjoy possibly the most meteoric rise in Liberal Party history, to the Inner Cabinet position of Finance Minister, where he magically morphs into the government’s leading expert on all things superannuation, despite never having worked a single day in that field in any capacity whatsoever.
Move along folks.
Nothing to see here.
22
Your comment on Mathias Corrman that he has never worked in the field of superannuation could equally well be directed at Labor politicians with trades union backgrounds who never did a day’s work on the shop floor. And just because his law degree is not recognised in Australia doesn’t mean it is not of sufficiently high standard.. Australian degrees are not recognised in the EU or the UK. So what’s your point? I had thought you were just a straight out ignoramus but reading some of your comments it seems your ignorance might be tinged with something much darker
20
His wife is a lawyer too and is with Clayton Utz, as I recall it Julie Bishop was the managing partner before she entered politics.
20
Absolutely true. And when we had a Labor/Green grubbermint trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes, I commented often on such matters. Now we have an LNP grubbermint trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes, so that’s where my comments are aimed.
No, it doesn’t. It just means an immigrant with no formally recognised qualifications here in OZ, stepped off a plane and immediately became a Premier’s Ministerial Chief of Staff. Happens every day.
Aah – the Dark Side of the Force.
Take your pick, Ian. On this site alone I have been accused of being a trade union hack, a Labor lackie, a shill for the Liberals, a secret plant for the Greens, and an apologist for Big Business.
In the Senate Ron Boswell once named me as the secret head of both the League of Rights, and the Australian Chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.
And in the House of Reps Keith Wright accused me of being, quote, “the most sinister, insidious, extremist threat to the delicate thread of democracy this country has ever seen”.
After I got out of investigative journalism I got talked into going undercover to weed out the source of some mail order kiddie porn here in OZ (pre internet days), which turned out to be the then Surfer’s Paradise branch of the Queensland Child Abuse Squad. That little effort got me convicted for possession of a child abuse document – to whit, a catalogue of non-existent videos that was used to snare the bad guys.
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So Ian, short of arson, rape and murder, plenty of “dark sides” to choose from.
Take your pick.
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It’s only been my first hour in the MV School of Geopolitical Decryption but your tactics are already paying off.
This policy summary was written by people who accept as gospel the inspiring words of such infamous figures as Hilary Clinton and Henry Kissinger. Smells like CFR spirit.
Basically they want to create a global USSR in energy such that nothing can happen anywhere without an oligarch pushing a button.
No big deal!
They wanted to create a specific central energy bureau for the whole world, but some of the minions fussed over creating a political unit with such a restrictive agenda. Perhaps the title was too obviously communist. So the IEA will be retrofitted to perform the World Energy Organisation role by stealth.
Then some of the G20 minions (i.e. elected national leaders) again kicked up a stink about being replaced by a proxy at the IEA, presumably because they would miss out on more junkets and air time and… opportunities to exercise their leadership. Heheh!
The irony of these globalist minions talking the talk on globalisation and co-operation and international one-world government and then baulking at the last minute when they realise it makes them powerless too is just tragically comedic.
40
Thanks Andrew.
you say here:
I want to take what you said here and transpose it to a very short 2.34 segment on tonight’s Lateline, and also using the context of the Chinese National Energy Administration you linked to above, and I know, there’s three different things here, but put them all together if you will.
Here’s the link to the short clip from Lateline
These
idiotspeople KNOW (or they tell us that they know) exactly what the root of all those CO2 emissions are, coal fired power.Those emissions of CO2 are increasing, and increasing exponentially because the two Majors in the (still) Developing World, China especially, and to a lesser extent,India, are constructing large scale coal fired power plants like there is no tomorrow, and just quietly, if they stopped doing that, then there would be no tomorrow for those two Countries.
In their own minds, they are so sure that they KNOW the root cause and they are starkly, utterly, totally powerless to do anything.
It’s (quite literally) comedic to watch these people, and all of those similar.
I keep waiting to hear them say ….. “Am I on TV yet?”
Tony.
40
“and I know, there’s three different things here, but put them all together if you will.”
Yeah, there has been a lot of “reading between the lines” already, I’m talking 3rd or 4th hand opinions there. Drawing an analogy between the official plan and a department in communist china just seemed like the obvious cynical thing to do.
That’s my opinion of someone’s academic summary of several other academic summaries of some bureaucrats’ opinions.
Which means….
… 🙂 ……
…..this is all just Chinese Whispers.
I neglected to link to the document itself, though googling any of those quotes will indeed lead back to… The Lowy Institute.
30
Regarding that news clip… yikes!
They chose Redbeard the Irate, who “watches the CO2 levels kindof day-by-day”, as their voice of Reason!
You’ve got to love those little touches of advertising-style brainwashing they do in the segment, like talking about record greenhouse gas emissions whilst showing you a picture of… a coral reef. But we wouldn’t have it any other way at our ABC.
Has this always been happening over the last 10 years, or are they now trotting out Uni Melbourne and CSIRO flunkies with greater frequency now that news of the Pause has spread too far amongst the Plebs?
(“It’s a La Nina, it’s just a flesh wound! Come back ya yellow-bellied skeptics!”)
If cooling really kicks in, how will they keep the carbon taxes flowing? Or is that the trigger for a global Boston Tea Party?
Another 5 years will show if this is a Pause or if it’s The End.
10
Now then MV your blinkers are getting in the way of fact. Sell off of Commonwealth assets commenced under Hawke in 1988. You can read the details at http://www.caslon.com.au/privatisationnote3.htm
But your anti Abbott rant on cost while seemingly irrelevant to this debate is in fact very cogent. Perhaps you didn’t read or, dare I say it, understand, the significance of some comments in the GreenPeace commissioned report. Like all of these International schemes, emission reduction schemes reflect each country’s input of moaning, groaning, bitching, whinging and pleading for special concessions. A really big plus for Australia is the LULUCF. Here is a precis of a very pertinent part of the GreenPeace commissioned report on this aspect of emissions reduction; LULUCF projects have the potential to make important contribution to mitigation of climate change. When well designed they offer multiple environmental benefits extremely cost effectively. However relying on LULUCF carries risks for effort free offsets (my bold). In the Kyoto protocol needless to say there was a “political imperative to appease recalcitrant countries”. This resulted in a compromised accounting framework that “undermined the environmental effectiveness and integrity of the agreement”
As mentioned by Jo, the previous government asked for changes to the Kyoto protocol. These may benefit Abbott as Australia could, by expedient use of LULUCF and its attendant accounting procedures, easily mange both to reduce emissions well below the 2000 levels and do this “effort free”.
It is this “effort free” which is also cost minimal and possibly cost free, aspect which has really upset GreenPeace which considers it essential that there is economic cost from decarbonising Australia. Why this is so is unclear but if Australia abides by the rules extant so far (and MV just think, Abbott had no input into these rules at all but the ALP did) and reduces emissions, as measured according to the Kyoto Protocol procedures, to less than 5% of 2000 emissions, won’t this be a huge win-win for the world as well as for Australia?
Of course both you and I and Joanne and the others who post here know the “as measured according to the Kyoto Protocol Procedures” is very elastic and in reality may not lead to a reduction in CO2 emissions from the generation of electricity (which is what really upsets the Greens and GreenPeace) but hey, Abbott didn’t make the rules did he, he’s just abiding by them.
40
If you go back to the beginning of this thread, you will see I was replying to a throw-away line by “Realist”. What I actually wrote was:
Given my above comment, why on earth would I be the slightest bit interested in, let alone bothering to comment on, some obscure sub-deal buried in the now defunct “Kyoto Protocol”, or a stage-managed bunfight over it between Greenpeace and the current grubbermint, with little other purpose than to keep the populace firmly distracted from what is really going on behind the curtain?
Oh,and for the record, I’m not down on just Abbott and the LNP, I despise ALL major political parties with an equal passion.
52
I think that is reasonable since we are all under some illusion that our vote really counts for something.
Small government, local government, even part-time government. Cut off their money supply and do not let them spend in deficits.
Well it would be a start……
11
You vote?????
I subscribe to the George Carlin view.
WARNING: Coarse language.
11
George Carlin, funny guy even if he’s wrong.
Voting in national elections may not really count due to massive fraud, inaccurate counts and defective voting machines, BUT it freaks “them” out when big turnouts push the pendulum wildly. Just look at the Tea Party wins in the last few years. They forced both parties in the US to sit up and listen.
Yes I voted November 5th (shortly before you posted), and better than that I was armed with a semi-automatic hand gun while at the polls. I mention this because that right (it is legal) was assured by the legislative action of people I voted for in previous years. These elections for local and State representatives are very important in our system.
The results of our local elections this morning are half disappointing. Half of the people I voted for did not win. And worse because of low voter turnout, a property tax increase providing additional funds to a dysfunctional school district narrowly passed. It would have failed if more people turned out to vote. On the other hand, half did win and that is a rare experience for me.
20
Mark,
That way lies anarchy. Governments, all over the world, are running deficits, and borrowing money in order to pay back the loans that they took out earlier, plus the interest.
Government finances are the biggest Ponzi schemes the world has ever seen. If they can’t purloin the productive wealth of future generations, the whole of the global political system will collapse.
Please be sensible.
30
Did you forget the sarc tag?
10
I thought you would take it as read 😉
20
You obviously haven’t bothered to read the post and attachments. Because MV the LULUCF aspect of the Kyoto Protocol provides a means for this government to claim reductions in emissions without a carbon tax and without spending very much money at all. So Abbott may not even need to bring in his direct action plan per se but could just use the existing regulations to show a very dramatic reduction in emissions as calculated according to the current UN legislation. And this isn’t some “obscure sub-deal buried in the now extinct Kyoto Protocol” but is vey much alive and relevant. Here’s some URLs you might find relevant
http://www.citepa.org/en/news/858-12-march-2013-european-parliament-vote-on-two-proposals-lulucf-and-ghg-emissions-monitoring-mechanism
http://www.euractiv.com/climate-environment/open-letter-asger-olesen-dg-clim-analysis-515135
https://www.devex.com/en/projects/lulucf-implementation-guidelines-and-policy-options-296977
20
No, and I don’t buy disposable nappies anymore, either.
My son is 28, and my grandkids are ten and seven.
Nappies are a thing of the past in our household.
Similarly, most things “climate change”, and everything “Kyoto” are things of the past in the OZ household.
The fact that like Greenpeace and the grubbermint, you choose to go on pretending otherwise is your business.
Don’t let me stop you – go ahead and enjoy.
20
MV The fact that you don’t do this or that is entirely irrelevant. You obviously feel that you can conveniently ignore relevant facts if they don’t fit your ill conceived and half baked ideas. Why you bother to read Joanne Nova’s posts is beyond me as they are well beyond your apparent intellectual ability and grasp of reality
27
Ian,
That is uncalled for, and it demonstrates your lack of experience on this site.
Needing to resort to Ad Hominem comments, means you have nothing further to add to the discussion, other than a pathological need to have the final word.
MV has contributed to this site for some time now, and although he does get a few things wrong (as he will admit), he is generally on the money. He has a prodigious memory, and almost perfect recall regarding things that interest him. He has earned the respect of the regulars here.
Attacking the man (sic) detracts from the opinions you are trying to share, that is unfortunate, because I think you make some good points.
80
Very well Rekeke Whakaaro I accept your remonstrance and apologise for my ad hominem remark. However, if I am to be censured for commenting adversely on Memory Vault’s intellectual ability although i am sure you noted I qualified my remark with the adjective “apparently” why do you not censure Memory Vault for his ad hominem on Mathias Corrmamn. You may recall he referred to Corrman as an “unqualified immigrant gardener” despite Corrman having a law degree. Agreed his degree was not recognised in Australia but then Australian degrees are not recognised in many foreign countries either. It is the general rule. Pathological desire to have the last word. Could that be classed as an ad hominem do you think? Possibly you’re right although, generally, when debating points with someone on a blog one is able to understand where the other party is coming from and it is not usual for them to refuse to even glance at facts that may conflict with their (I was going to say prejudices but I am conscious of your ad hominem comment so I won’t) preconceived ideas. So normally one can have a civilised to and fro discussion between adults which has an endpoint that satisfies both. If you look back over the two years I’ve been posting here I think this is the only example of last wordery from me that you’d find
20
Ian,
Please don’t take my comment as censuring. I was merely trying to defuse matters. From what I gather, MV has seen some of the nastier side of politics, and as have I. If he read my comment to you, he would have taken the unstated message on board.
I did not take him to task over his comment about Mathias Corrmamn, because I am in a similar position. I hold three tertiary qualifications, all obtained overseas. I am also a Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and several other professional bodies. But I am not qualified to practice as an Engineer in Australia or New Zealand because I specialised, and therefore did not take all of the subjects required to obtain a practicing certificate in this part of the world. It is a legal restriction imposed by the definition of “qualification” in each jurisdiction. That was what MV was referring to, in my interpretation.
As for my comments on “last-wordery”, I considered that you and MV were starting to talk past each other rather than exchanging points of view. In my experience, these sorts of exchanges descend into a state where, “the last comment wins”. Subsequently, and looking at your commenting history (or what I could see of it), I now think my interjection was probably unfounded. For that I apologise.
50
I somehow doubt that, the government may sell infrastructure bonds in a market, but it’s up to the super fund if they want to buy them. You can get out of such a deal by changing fund, portability gives you that. Since in my fund, I choose the investment vehicles, I would suggest there are plenty of options open to anyone to avoid such bonds (assuming you’d want to).
Providing a debt mechanism into superannuation for funding infrastructure using voluntary investment by super funds seems like a good idea to me, nobody is forcing anyone to invest anywhere.
20
If Tony Abbott’s advisers convinced him years ago to declare that Global Warming was “crap”, the only reason for this ‘Direct Action’ plan is political. CO2 is either the enemy or it is not.
The LNP are now acknowledging it is the enemy by simply applying a more user-friendly atonement strategy to keep the votes of the brainwashed, the ill-informed and the naïve zealots.
Much easier that to ever try and educate them with (yawn) complex logic.
110
Of course its political. All governments inherit things that they would rather not have, however prior commitments must be adhered to. Votes are only a minor factor in this.
As the fallacy of CO2 alarmism slowly dawns upon the minds of the majority all these things will become history.
80
Howard recently admitted that his government’s emissions trading policy was because there was what he called the perfect storm, global warming propaganda and a severe drought in Australia that had captured voter’s imaginations, it would have been political suicide to oppose the left at that point in history. I suspect that the direct action plan is also a political insurance policy that when carefully considered is in reality a plan to continue the fight against pollution generally, an extension of the Environmental Pollution Acts direct action policies.
40
What worries me about all these carbon taxes and schemes is the basic premise that it will do something for global warming, sorry climate change, and the evidence is totally lacking. In fact, the embarrassment of no significant warming for the past 15-20 years despite an increase in levels of carbon dioxide shows us that is has nothing to do with science. And yet the political agenda and hyperbole continue.
I know it is a difficult concept, but just think of how much better off Australia would be if it didn’t waste our taxes on useless policies. In all honesty who, apart from the Rudd/Gillard government, would spend a brass razoo on carbon credits for some forestry scheme in Nigeria or PNG? The direct action programme is less costly, but again what will it achieve in global temperatures? As there is no significant relationship between CO2 levels and global temperature, nothing.
At least there are now a few prominent people starting question the basis of the climate change industry, but will it be enough to stop its momentum and the daily propaganda in the press?
90
Step by step, you can’t turn an economy on a sixpence. Look at how the collapse on the green loans scheme affected real lives. Look at how the early withdrawl of the 8000 dollar solar rebate affected real peoples lives or the sudden withdrawal of the pink batts scheme. The world is not black and white and green overreach, unfortunately, needs to be dealt with sensitively to peoples lives. Rather than perpetuating the lie, i’d like the government to say, “You know, the CAGW thing is crap, but we agree to perpetuate the schemes so that previous commitments to all consumers will be met”. As you can imagine though, what might be the reaction of the people that actually pay the feed-in, that is the poor and renters, to the withdrawal of the cover story. Politics, it aint nice.
For example should those people that invested in rooftop solar on a guarantee of 44c feed in tariffs, being the only thing that makes the investment profitable really have that investment return ripped out from under them at the whim of a government. They should be entitled to rely on the marketting hype of the government of the day… Any company duping the public by saying they’ll provide a discount, then breaks their word would be dealt with harshly… Honouring such agreements whether we like it or not is important for equity and integrity of a government even if it doesn’t affect the environment much.
Finding ways of diverting the cash from time wasting useless activities to something that’s at least profitable and beneficial is a fist step toward the eventual back out as the agreements and guarantees expire. For example the feed-in guarantee in QLD was for 20 years, so it will take 20 years to back out and remove the RET which powers the feed-in tariff.
40
What worries me is that it may ‘appear’ to do something, or explain away the pause and this rubbish to continue even longer.
10
Yes it is stupid from a rational sane perspective but NOT from the perspective of “humans bad” and “humans plague” held in the twisted mind of Deep Green. To them it is BRILLIANT!
Now how do we make them irrelevant?
50
Since the joke is a viable solution, perhaps the problem is a joke as well?
10
The Australian ‘Direct Action’ to reduce CO2 emissions seems risible to me, not least of all because natural CO2 emissions are 771 gigatonnes/year and anthropogenic CO2 emissions are 30 gigatonnes/year, while Australia’s CO2 emissions stand at only 0.4 gigatonnes/year. Hence the total assumed anthropogenic CO2 contribution from Australia to the entire planetary CO2 greenhouse amounts to a mere 0.05%, the remaining 99.95% being contributed almost entirely by natural sources.
As others have said, it’s academic though, because CO2 is not harmful to the environment at its current level. On the contrary. The photosynthetic metabolism of C4 plants cease below 250ppmv and they would go extinct (Segalstad 1998) and the current CO2 level of 400ppmv is historically low. Stomata-data shows significantly higher CO2 levels, even over the last 15,000 years. Far from being harmful to the envrionment, we should expect more CO2 to enhance the net-productivity of the biosphere by providing vital nutrition to green plants (Randall Donohue 2013). We, the people, know that CO2 is not dangerous. The evidence is already in and the IPCC’s hypothesis has been blown out the water by the non-appearance of the tropospheric hotspot.
Notice though, that whenever politicians and the mainstream media talk about CO2 they almost always cleverly refer to it as ‘carbon’ thereby immediately conjuring images of that ghastly dark brown smokey stuff that we can see pouring out of factory chimneys which is basically soot-particles from unburned carbon and sulphur. My parents thought the ‘carbon tax’ was a good idea precisely because of this misunderstanding over what ‘carbon’ was. They don’t understand that when the media talk about carbon, what they’re really talking about is CO2. As soon as I told my parents this, they thought I was mistaken, and said that a CO2 tax was ‘preposterous’. They’re only half-right.
70
I have no right to speak on what your prime minister should do but I’ll yield to the temptation in this case. If Tony Abbott has any sense he’ll take that Kyoto monster out behind Parliament House in the middle of the night and shoot it, Chinese style, one bullet to the head and then charge the UN for the bullet.
Keeping up a pretense that Kyoto means something is not only a joke, it’s dangerous to Australia. There’s no justification for continuing to be bound by an agreement that does nothing but hurt you. Admit the mistake and move on.
60
100% spot on. We need to show some leadership here. We did not show leadership in getting sucked into eco nonsense by taxing air to counter a myth. We simply folded under the pressure from a tiny minority of outspoken, emotionally over developed cowards in the green movement and all to secure power for a Govt. that never should have been. This has so little to do with the welfare of the planet and so much to do with the legacy grasping, fame hunting crapola of Gillard, Brown and Milne its disgusting.
40
I live in England by the way, and over here CO2 is always referred to as carbon.
20
That is because with “carbon” its easy to make the numbers look bigger.
10
I’m happy to take, all the carbon nations want to divest, on one condition, please deliver it in the hard crystaline form.. ( of course only because it is the most compact form, and I only have a hectare to store it on…. ). Once they fill my hectare with crystaline carbon, I promise to acquire more land to store more of that nasty carbon. (Do I really need to add a /sarc tag)
40
Please don’t. Considering how much harm they’ve been doing to everyone I think your request is entirely reasonable. 🙂
But you’ll need some really good luck to protect it all. 😉
00
At the start of this article Jo mentions the types of CO2 as in molecular CO2, it was even mentioned in the previous thread and I believe is an important point to make and explain to the general public who have been bombarded with so much misinformation via the MSM.
I have recently had conversations with average people (like myself) on AGW and going by their replies on how our planet operates or even it’s composition is astounding, you would think we’re living in a Salvador Dali painting with some descriptions.
When my “big oil” cheque comes in I would like to set up a “JoNova science foundation/trust” where people can access real science and our youngest and brightest are educated, nurtured, protected from the insane stupidity of left leaning Universities.
50
Is there some other kind? I thought it was all molecular. Have I missed some new findings in gas chemistry or physics? 😉
50
.
Well,according to Dibble Bladder 4 on the previous thread, there’s also “variable electron” CO2.
I’m not sure if VE CO2 even has “molecules” – you’d have to ask him.
40
I understand it is something to do with molecular spin.
That is the same as political spin, but delivered in very very small pieces.
10
There is hysterical CO2 – that is when you see CO2 behind every rock.
There is Algore CO2 – that is when you find O2 has hidden the C.
There is Imaginary CO2 – that is what there was in the past when levels were over 1000 ppm
There is death CO2 – that is when it is on a hansen coal train.
30
Aah, that must explain it then. Hysteria produces all sorts of odd things. 😉
10
Sorry guys, poor wording in a very rushed post.
I was referring to BA4 in the previous thread and Jo making fun of it at the start of this article.
Apparently any CO2 produced nature is good and any produced by humans is evil, so the molecules become possessed or some usual green crap like that. 🙂
10
But we could have fun with it anyway! 😉
10
Yonniestone,
You worded it just fine. The problem is the hysterical CO2. Phil got it nailed down with the first item in his list. 🙂
Unfortunately the real problem may be that there is political CO2, a molecule with the peculiar property that it causes imaginary demons in the minds of the scientifically challenged.
30
My list was not comprehensive, so please feel free to add those that I missed. Like the Political CO2. Should have made that one number 1! 😉
10
– During the fires was it ever discussed ? that there are quite a few eco-warriors kooky enough to think that since warming isn’t going to IPCC plan, it would be OK to give it a helping hand and produce more heat and CO2 .. otherwise those evil deniers will get the upperhand.
10
In Bob Carter’s latest book “Taxing Air ” he estimates that OZ actually sequests at least 10 times the co2 we emit.
This is because of OZ’s exclusive economic zone ( EEZ)that includes huge areas of southern ocean etc. See pages 201 to 202.
He also adds that the real sequestration is probably twice that number and is therefore about 20 times our co2 emissions.
So what are we talking about here anyway because it can’t make a scrap of difference to climate or temp.
BTW oz’s population in 1990 was just 17 million and in 2013 is now 23 million. What will it be in say 2040 or just another 23 years? I think it’s about time we started to wake up to the con and fraud of mitigation of CAGW.
110
This is true, the good professor stole my IP.I want to point out that 10 x emissions represents sequestration from only declared forests. But I hereby give permission for prof Carter. Not only that, the 6% rise in bioproductivity since 2000 has now offset something Between 60% and 120% of Australia’s emission. The mission to get zero nett CO2 is probably over, thanks (ironically) to CO2 driven fertilisation of plants.
40
The “carbon” [ duh! ] CO2 emissions levels and the supposed but basically only guessed at CO2 sinks, even more so the vaporous oceanic CO2 sinks are all only modeled anyway.
There is no hard proof just where the increasing CO2 originates from. It is only assumed to be from fossil fuel burning and is modeled and calculated on that basis.
Biological release and sequestration of CO2 is only modeled and there is considerable dissension on how much of both the great tropical Amazon and African forests do.
Likewise with the oceanic sequestration and release of CO2 both from and into ocean waters and the ocean’s biological take up and release of CO2.
The great chalk and the immense limestone and shale rock deposits seen on the planet’s continents are all the result of uncountable numbers of tiny, minute carbonate shell forming sea animals taking up ocean CO2 as a carbonate type structure for their shells and then dying and slowly sinking to the oceans depths over the aeons of times past.
So depositing and forming these immense layers of carbonate type rocks which have been brought up to the land surfaces and exposed through the plate tectonic movements of the continents that make up the planet’s land masses.
as it is locked up in the fossilised remnants of the great forests and animal kingdoms of some couple of hundred millions of years ago as coal, oil and gas.
We should all know by now just how far removed from reality are any climate models are, including those that so confidently allocate the sources and sinks of CO2 on this planet.
Any model that has anything to do with climate predictions or climate science is not to be trusted at all for any predictions of any sort.
Half the lies they tell about me aren’t true.
Yogi Berra
50
John Howard tells it like it is overnight
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/the-claims-are-exaggerated-john-howard-rejects-predictions-of-global-warming-catastrophe-20131106-2wzza.html
“Economic growth in developing countries was much more important than countering global warming, Mr Howard said, and the West had no right to deny economic development to the rest of the world in the name of climate change.”
That’s the broken record i have been playing for at least 5 years. The West has no right to dictate to the developing world on how they grow their nations. It is the height of arrogance and racism to even suggest we do. We should be giving them every assistance to exploit their resources and assist them to enjoy better living standards.
110
He’s creating a firestorm of “right-thinking” progressive responses on that blog. Over 500 comments already 🙂
60
The Oz is also running the story without blog (not paywalled for a change):
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/global-warming-exaggerated-former-pm-john-howard-says/story-e6frg6xf-1226753872134
They have added a link to the full transcript of the speech:
http://resources.news.com.au/files/2013/11/06/1226753/906885-howard-speech.pdf
30
The West has become a moral vacuum as the CAGW philosophy has taken hold, in spite of the trolls protestations of having the benefit of humanity in mind.
We now have in the UK, for example, the return to the pre-Magna Carta feudalism of the land barons in the form of receiving a tax/subsidy in fealty for the provision of basic electricity which is a necessity for the serfdom to maintain through cold winters and put bread on the table. So land barons become obscenely wealthy while tightening a financial noose around the proletariat, with the added bonus of killing off large numbers of welfare dependants and widening the gap between them and the aspirational middle classes who represent a threat to their entrenched influence and financial advantage.
Then in Africa and poorer countries in the third world we have carbon offsets used as a pretext to buy up land from the marginalised serfdom there, while at the same time buying the favours of the patrician classes in those poorer countries with the bargain being to keep those at the bottom starving and dying off at a consistent rate to make them ripe for neo-colonialist corporations to rape and pillage their resources for pennies in the pound.
You have just got to love the never ending greed and inhumanity of the enlightened West, and its bureaucratic representatives in the various manifestations of the UN being its most recent and deadly manifestation.
42
Winston, I doubt you’ll find willingness to alter the “formula” going back to colonial times and the robber barons of days gone well past. Funny though, most of the wealth in Europe and Britain is from these days gone by. The holders of that wealth are often very old families and well connected politically. They too, are the ones that bring windmills and all things “sustainable” to
EuropeanEU politics and life. But I digress. Just like their forbears, they are using the lowest peoples (economically) for their resources and consolidating wealth in the same way.Woe is to those of us that are lowly people for we are but pawns, slaves and bait……..
Magna Carta be damned, Constitution be damned, human rights?……..Sorry, I’m in a very pissy mood.
20
Spot on Winston. The “benefit of humanity” is a smoke screen for totalitarian control measures focused on depopulation in the developing world.
People are living in pre-historic to medieval conditions in their billions and it doesn’t worry these people a jot. If they had the slightest measure of genuine care for poverty, starvation, infant mortality and a host of other preventable conditions, they would be falling over themselves to promote the development of cheap energy in the 3rd world. History has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that affordable power is the catalyst for all other forms of development. Denying these populations that development is to condemn them to entirely preventable forms of demise.
The argument that greens care about humans is nothing more than a cynical fabrication and a last desperate effort to lock in their tax payer funded swill troughs of nonsense, posing as work and science.
60
And I would add universally history shows better environmental stewardship comes proportionate with that development. Hence their raison d’etre is even less defensible as it achieves exactly the opposite of what is claimed.
And hence this demonstrates that this is precisely the reason they have embarked on their campaign, as it is the sole inevitable outcome of their policy approach. QED.
30
Yes as I have stated before, how many brilliant minds are we condemning to death right now. We could have already lost the brain that held the idea for a new energy future by failing to assist or worse condemning these children to death by preventable causes.
Energy brings development, development brings education, education brings technology and technology brings improvements to the human condition, but it all starts with not having to burn cow dung to keep warm.
40
In the USA 750,000 to 1,000,000 abortions per year and terminating roughly 20% of all pregnancies must already assure that shameful reality.
(I expect several red thumbs for bringing this up.)
20
The resulting drop in crime rates must have been hard to take.
00
No, not many illegal abortionists were ever charged with a crime. Now that murder isn’t murder well you know how that goes.
00
One of the problems with politics is voter perceptions, we have watched the support for the global warming and climate change propaganda reach about high 60 per cent and now reversing towards 30 per cent. In between times the left’s alarm tales had people concerned, now most have realised that there has been a con underway.
20
You’d think they would recognize that CO2 is a part of everything all living things do, everything they need and that every last bit of life on this planet produces it or consumes it if not both. What’s to be so worried about? Life on earth goes back hundreds of millions of years and we have evidence that CO2 varied widely over that time. We have no evidence that life suffered any because of the variation in atmospheric CO2.
It’s time for the alarmists to give it up and go home. Or maybe they can hold their breath indefinitely in order to avoid polluting the planet…
60
How about some real direct action? Three thoughts.. First, spend about $1bn on picking up the threads of the 1960s successful Thorium/Molten Salt reactors, building a working prototype, and then using the abundant Thorium we are not yet using in Australia,
Second, using some of our abundant coal to resurrect SASOL style Coal to Liquid ( say$6bn) and produce diesel and jet fuel for the equivalent of $30 per barrel.
And then thirdly, employ all the displaced labour, skills and technology from our doomed Motor Industry to design, build and operate a Public Rapid Transit system that will cure our intra-city public transport problems once and for all.
Damn…I forgot, that would call for a high level of innovation, forward thinking, planning and concern for our future. What ever was I thinking.
80
Thorium/Molten Salt reactors. Firstly, others are trialling this. Secondly, why restrict yourself to just this version if another approach works better?
SASOL style Coal to Liquid ( say$6bn) and produce diesel and jet fuel for the equivalent of $30 per barrel.
This process costs $60-65 per barrel. Still, a good use for brown coal and cutting down imports.
Public Rapid Transit system that will cure our intra-city public transport problems AND replace them with new problems? Like, where to put them? What they cost? How to match the convenience and flexibility of personal transport which causes it to be most people’s first choice despite drawbacks?
20
Thanks Graeme; two out of three isn’t bad eh?
But consider the PRT additional system more seriously. Please refer to www prtconsulting for some excellent comparative costings and operational overview. There is also a well thought out presentation titled “Rethinking Transportation”
10
Well, I’m still sceptical.
Firstly, building the guideways would be a massive demand on access to land. Sure you could partially use existing roads, at the cost of massive traffic jams in the intermediate period.
More importantly for an suburbanite like me, how do you get to the city and join in?
Secondly, what happens if you get someone who doesn’t know exactly where they want to go? There are plenty of them around.
Mind you, I can see the advantages of taking the driving out of the hands of the average driver. Especially in Adelaide where the average is a very low standard.
Egon Musk’s Hyperlink isn’t an intra-city but an inter-city solution, and something similar (and less complicated) was proposed in the 1970’s. The proposal was for tunnels between cities, with the air pumped out from in front of the train, and let in behind. It never got off the ground -boom, boom.
10
Outer edge suburbanite. Out past the point where authorities can see roads, rail, infra-structure etc. are needed, although that might just be because the electorate never changes hands.
10
One point that seems to be missed in all the prognostications about CO2 is how are the emissions applicable to any source, and particularly natural sources, actually measured? All the statements quote figures with little real supporting data. It is all based on a variety of theories and assessments which in turn are determined by, one assumes, statistics(??). Yet we all seem to accept these figures as the basis for assessing taxes and imposing penalties on the producers of CO2. If a retailer tried to sell goods on similar assessments of the quantity sold,they would be in Court before the first item hit the floor.
One standard for retailers (a tolerance of +/- 0.3% of volume or mass) and one for governments and activists (near enough to guesswork on the information we have).
30
electrons
21
I see what you did there Gee.
Well played.
Bruce – Inside joke, not having a go.
10
Actually Bruce, isotope measurements are done using mass spectroscopy.
(Just so everyone knows that they don’t really count electrons 😉 )
Results are presumably pretty accurate.
30
Thanks, Andy, a bit beyond my ken. Presumably, this allows the allocation of emissions to a particular source, e.g. to a specific power station, oil or gas source, or coal mine?
The real problem is that none of the allocation is very transparent or detailed in a way that is easily understood. It is very much the old “trust us, we’re the experts” mode. Now where have we heard that for the last 20 odd years?
00
The variations in isotopes C14, C13, C12, and O18, O16 are dependent on many factors.
The measurements of proportions is now pretty basic and standard (with the right equipment), and scientifically and engineeringly (is that a word?) accepted measurements.
But once in the atmosphere there is no way you can tie anything to a specific source.
iirc (been a while since I did this stuff) fossil fuels are “generally” low in C14 compared to today’s atmospheric balances because the C14 has decayed over time… so a depletion of C14 in the atmosphere “may” indicate fossil fuel source.
O18 on the other hand is depleted in rapid combustion, so “may” be a signal of industrial processes.
O18 compounds also precipitate slightly faster… so raised O18 in ice “may” indicate..they were deposited at slightly warmer temperatures…..
Notice the use of “may” many times.. no assumptions made..
There is a lot of so-called “climate science” based on totally unproven, hypothetical assumptions !!!
But that’s the only way it can exist.
20
ps.. If you had the total gases of the output of some factory or other, you may be able to link it back by matching mass spec data.
But NO, a specific CO2 atom CANNOT be traced back to a specific source. (except in climate science.)
20
CO2 molecule….
Just finished assignment mark for the year.. brain in temporary shut down mode. 🙂
00
MS can be very accurate. Lots of significant digits.
I’ll never drop the e word again unless it is relevant.
10
MS can be very debilitating and usually fatal after time. If you are over 50 you are unlikely to be one of the unfortunate.
More common in cold winter areas the cause is unknown.
10
Correct. When I wrote digits I was actually referring to fingers
10
ps.. actual sources of different carbon and oxygen isotopes are dependent on several factors.
Carbon 14 is also slightly radioactive, so assuming many assumptions, can be used for carbon dating.
(Been a long, long time since I did radiation chemistry.. 1975 or thereabouts, so things have probably progressed a bit since then… unlike climate science)
30
Question: Green Genius or Kyoto Criminal?
“Mounties say a fraud investigation started in August into the International Performance Assessment Centre for the Geologic Storage of Carbon Dioxide, commonly known as IPAC-CO2.
An initial review began after the NDP went to the RCMP in May with questions about how $2.1 million was spent at the centre.”
Answer: Green Criminals.
40
And at the same time in La La Land
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2013/11/6/policy-politics/greens-launch-direct-action-inquiry
If anyone should be under investigation it is The Greens, Flannery and Co. for sucking the good people of this country into paying through the nose for power when we should be enjoying the benefits of the massive amounts of energy resources we have of all types, renewable and non renewable. Howard nailed it overnight, renewables should be introduced as market forces dictate. Milne has again shown evidence of her slide into dementia basically.
30
jo, u might have provoked the following!
6 Nov: BusinessSpectator: AAP & Staff Reporter: Greens to push for Direct Action inquiry
The Greens today announced the terms of reference for the inquiry, which will need Labor support to go ahead, and the party will push for first probe to commence in the first week of parliament’s return…
It will also examine problems with measuring abatement and how the plan, which involves measures such as tree planting, will affect carbon farming and long-term investment in clean energy.
A report would be presented in the Senate by the first sitting day in March…
Greens leader Senator Christine Milne said the inquiry would not prevent the party from opposing the Coalition government’s attempt to repeal the carbon price legislation, and would expose Direct Action’s ambitions as a “sham”.
“Everyone knows the Direct Action plan is just a sham designed to hide the government’s climate denialism, but the tightly controlled consultation won’t expose its flaws,” she said.
“A full Senate inquiry will expose why the Direct Action sham can’t actually reduce our carbon pollution by even 5%, let alone the more than 25% that is necessary.”.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2013/11/6/policy-politics/greens-push-direct-action-inquiry
40
Sorry Pat, doubled up above you.
10
Let’s see if the Greens can still push Labor around, now that they’re not joined at the hip.
Any enquiry should be a comprehensive Royal Commission into the validity of the science behind the whole CO2 scam – not whether ‘our plan is better than your plan’ at fixing a non-existent problem.
30
Pt Carbon & Bloomberg have been trying to pre-determine the Germany/ backloading outcome forever, but the story still relies on “anonymous”. why should the world participate in this ever-changing scam controlled by the EU?
6 Nov: Bloomberg: Stefan Nicola & Alessandro Vitelli: EU Carbon Rises as Germany Said to Agree to Talks on Carbon Fix
European Union carbon permits rose for the first time since Oct. 29 after Germany agreed to back talks between nations and the bloc’s Parliament on a draft carbon-market fix.
Permits for December closed 5.3 percent higher at 4.80 euros ($6.47) a metric ton on London’s ICE Futures Europe. Germany’s representative to the EU will be directed to back a mandate for the talks at a meeting in Brussels on Nov. 8, a German government official, who asked not to be identified because an announcement hasn’t been made, said today by phone…
The outcome of negotiations will need to be backed by the assembly and by ministers before the measure, which will enable delays of carbon auctions, becomes a law. In the next stage, member states will need to vote on a separate regulation to set out the details of backloading, including the exact timing and volume of allowances to be postponed.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-05/eu-carbon-rises-as-germany-said-to-agree-to-talks-on-carbon-fix.html
5 Nov: Bloomberg: Matthew Carr: EU Nations Should Cut Some Wind, Solar Subsidies, Alstom Says
European nations should cut subsidies paid to onshore wind and solar photovoltaic projects after 2020 and focus instead on new technology, said turbine-maker Alstom SA (ALO)’s vice president of environmental policy and global advocacy.
“There are some renewable technologies out there now that need much less subsidy than they did five years ago,” Giles Dickson said Oct. 31 in an interview in London. Onshore wind and solar “possibly” don’t need boosting, as long as they can compete against other forms of power generation, he said.
***Electricity generated by onshore wind farms costs only 5.5 percent more than power from coal plants, according to data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The price for offshore wind is double that of coal-fired generation, the data show…
The European Commission wants to propose new climate and energy policies for the decade through 2030 by the middle of January, EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said the same day at a Green Alliance seminar in London…
The EU should also raise a target for the amount of energy that comes from renewable sources by 2030 to about 35 percent, compared with the 20 percent goal for 2020, Dickson said. “That does not mean we are pushing for more renewable subsidies,” he said…
Paris-based Alstom is a preferred bidder to make steam turbines for a nuclear power station Electricite de France SA (EDF) proposes to build at Hinkley Point in England.
The U.K. government has agreed that EDF will receive a 92.50-pound ($148) per megawatt-hour fixed price for power generated by the venture, nearly double the current level of the wholesale electricity market.
This would make Hinkley Point the world’s costliest power station, Liberum Capital Ltd. said last week in a research note.
“The U.K. government wanted new nuclear build,” Dickson said. Centrica Plc, the U.K.’s biggest utility, and EON AG and RWE AG in Germany have all dropped plans to help finance nuclear stations in England, potentially because the price being offered wasn’t working for them, Dickson said.
“The one company that stayed the course, EDF, agreed a deal,” he said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-04/eu-nations-should-cut-some-wind-solar-subsidies-alstom-says.html
10
Electricity generated by onshore wind farms costs only 5.5 percent more than power from coal plants, according to data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The price for offshore wind is double that of coal-fired generation
That is after loading taxes, cost of backup and disruptions onto coal fired.
20
Complete lifecycle health costs of power technologies usually place coal power as by far the most deadly, partly because dead coal miners in the Third World are included alongside lung diseases from old generation smokestacks mostly in developing countries too.
However as recent events in the Netherlands demonstrated, wind turbine maintenance and operation is not without hazard either. I haven’t tracked down the original story yet, just the picture, but word is those two survived.
10
And not without carbon emissions either 😛
00
http://eastcountymagazine.org/node/14273
October 31, 2013 (Netherlands) – Two young mechanics, ages 19 and 21, died when a fire broke out in a wind turbine where they were performing routine maintenance. The tragedy occurred at Deltawind’s Piet de Wit wind farm in the Netherlands,
One victim was found on the ground beside the wind turbine; the other body was recovered by the specialized team.
Two other mechanics escaped safely. A witness reported seeing two men jump through flames into a staircase.
A record is being kept at Caithness Windfarm Information Forum.
00
Wind turbines are clearly a serious fire hazard.
00
fortunately this Pt Carbon piece has been posted here:
5 Nov: BusinessRecorder, Pakistan: Reuters Point Carbon: EU carbon gains 4.6pc as price support deal stirs optimism
European carbon climbed 4.6 percent on Tuesday, reacting to an agreement between Germany’s main political parties over a plan to prop up carbon prices.
Benchmark EU Allowances for December delivery were up 21 cents to 4.77 euros ($6.44) by 1542 GMT…
The contract climbed as confidence grew that Germany would support the European Commission’s backloading proposal to delay sales of 900 million permits, after remarks by the country’s Environment Minister Peter Altmaier late Monday.
Altmaier said on Twitter that his conservative CDU party had agreed a deal over backloading with the socialist SPD party.
“Long awaited good news from Germany now EU can move on,” said European Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard on Twitter in response…
A trader said: “I think those remarks definitely helped push prices, but there is a lot of uncertainty and it’s really keeping things rangebound.” …
An EU official said Monday that officials of member states were almost certain to agree on a mandate on Friday to begin talks with the European Parliament, with swift agreement needed for it to be made law by the end of the year.
A second trader said most market participants expected backloading to be agreed but were wary of delays to the process amid ongoing weekly governmental permit auctions of around 80 million units.
“The market is nervous. You don’t want to be caught long in the face of all this supply and you don’t want to be short if we get a sudden spike on progress over backloading,” he said…
Both traders said carbon moved in close sympathy with 2013 baseload German power prices, which advanced nearly 1 percent 36 cents to 37.76 euros/MWh.
http://www.brecorder.com/top-news/109-world-top-news/143230-eu-carbon-gains-46pc-as-price-support-deal-stirs-optimism.html
10
6 Nov: ABC: No big savings to come from repeal of carbon tax, industry group warns
One of Australia’s largest business groups says consumers may not see a big difference in the price of many products when the carbon tax is removed.
The Federal Government has asked for public feedback on legislation aimed at getting rid of Labor’s carbon tax.
In its submission, the Australian Industry Group says apart from electricity, many price changes are likely to be limited.
It says many businesses were not able to pass on the cost of the carbon tax in the first place.
The group’s chief executive, Innes Willox, says that means price cuts will not be as significant.
“The whole pain of the carbon tax won’t go away overnight,” he said.
“Consumers will have to accept that business will have to continue to pass through some costs that they have associated with the carbon tax and its leftovers whenever it is repealed.”…
The Coalition has repeatedly claimed households would be “better off to the tune of $550 a year” without a price on carbon…
This morning, the Treasurer said electricity prices would come down, but did not commit to the predicted drop of 9 per cent given by the Prime Minister…
Meanwhile, Federal Labor MP Nick Champion has changed tack in his attitude to the Coalition’s plans to abolish the tax.
He had previously argued the Government should be allowed to repeal the tax in order to expose flaws in the Coalition’s so-called Direct Action scheme.
However, he told Sky News he accepts the majority of his party wish to oppose the tax’s abolition, unless it is replaced by an emissions trading scheme…
“I accept the fact that the majority of my party wants to set up a contest between emissions trading and Direct Action.”
The Greens are moving to set up a Senate inquiry into the Government’s policy alternative, which includes directly funding companies to find ways to reduce their emissions.
Leader Christine Milne says the Prime Minister has been exposed as “a complete fool”…
“Market-based mechanisms are the best way of dealing with this problem, not Tony Abbott’s sham.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-06/no-big-savings-from-repeal-of-carbon-tax-group-warns/5072054
Milne getting just as much MSM time-to-be-vile as before the election?
20
This is kind of not on topic but Jo did mention short of shutting the country down we cant reduce our co2 emissions…………last night the warmbots wetdream began airing on TV. For those that missed the opening double episode let me fill you in.
For some mysterious but obviously man made event as yet unknown shut down the power on a global scale, no ipods, no computers, no cars and obviously no coal power. We then jump 15 years into the future and Gia has now begun the slow process of removing any evidence of our civilisation ever existing, vines grow/cover every man made construction and the humans live a simple life with chickens running wild and corn fields bearing cobs. For the Trekky fans picture every planet Picard went to where there was a local inhabitants and you will get the idea……they all ran around with cross bows to catch prey and when they was some fisty cuffs they all used swords except for two guys that used flint lock rifles and one guy had a modern version.
By my calculations if they dont get the power back on in the next 5 years they will be living in caves and when this happens teh wetdream will become reality.
What a stupid show.
Cheers
Crakar24
40
Meanwhile, in spite of the total shutdown of civilisation, in the Arctic circle the polar ice melt has reached catastrophic proportions, releasing the huge reserves of methane clathrates from permafrost, and thereby sending global climate beyond its tipping point into a “death spiral” of unprecedented warming.
And here’s me, not even able to update my facebook status to “we’re all f@#*^d”!
40
Glad I missed it. What was title so I can miss it again?
Did anyone happen to mention that corn is a crop entirely dependent on Man for survival?
Or that it grows in warmer climates than England (I assume this nonsense is BBC)?
Also, I’d wonder where steel barrels etc. of flintlocks were manufactured?
Any wise blue or green aliens appearing?
10
Revolution ?
Warmbots Wet Dream must be the international title.
10
Brett,
Yes thats the official title but warmbots wetdream was the working title or so i just made up.
G3,
The flintlocks were manufacture about 100 years before the black out but with no power you would quickly run out of bullets, it would be easy to get a bit of gun powder and a all of lead……..of course this will run out soon as well which is why i said in 5 years they will end up in caves, strangely though…or maybe not they all drank from plastic bottles?
The sub plot is the father of the main character (who is now dead) knows what happened and has a USB which is related to why no power. On his death bed he gave it to some nerdy ex google employee (probably a handy skill later) and said give it to some woman. This woman has a device that enables a computer running windows 3.1.1 to work but she is now dead. The brother of the father (who is now dead) is a trained killer (a handy skill for now) is out to avenge his brothers death and save his nephew by killing General Monroe (current dictator), Gen Monroe just happens to be best mates with the trained killer (old ARMY buddies), fascinating stuff…..oh hang on forgot, the father (who is now dead) stated his wife was dead (sometime in the preceding 15 years but you were not shown)is actually not dead at all, she is living the life of reilly albeit under guard with Gen Monroe.
It has all the hall marks of a Days of our lives episode without the steelly stares.
It is on next Tuesday so dont miss it
30
Thank you but not me.
After Tony and your descriptions I will spend Tuesday night dipping into
H.H. Lamb — Climate, History, and the Modern World (Rev. 1994)
P.S. Tony Does Windows 3.1.1 recognise thumb or other demountable drives?
10
Interesting point, Graeme. Back in 1990/91 I had Windows 3.1.1 on my 386.
It was only there to run an Adobe (I think – maybe Aldus back then) publishing program originally written for Apple.
Everything else ran under MS DOS, including the 3.5 and 2.5 floppy disk drives which were the only form of “demountable” drives available then, as far as I remember.
Even the Iomega Zip Drives hadn’t appeared at that time.
Not to mention the fact that USB ports on computers (for a thumb drive) weren’t introduced until 1996, when we were all running Windows 95.
40
Without a power supply (see TonyfromOZ at #28.3), that question becomes purely academic.
10
Graeme,
I suppose that this will immediately label me as a hoarder.
We moved here to Rockhampton in late July of 2010.
Before we moved, both my good lady wife and I decided that enough was enough and that we would finally cut back on the stuff we had, so there was less to pack. We rationalised and so much stuff went to second hand stores and the tip.
One of those things I finally got rid of was indeed my first OS for my first computer, a 386, in 1996, and that OS was indeed Windows 3.1 For WorkGroups.
I’m not sure it actually would have software to recognise a USB device, but what it does do is make you think how older people would view a TV program like this and just smile at the absolute stupidity of what they expect you to believe, and something like that is only going back 17 years.
I even remember having to write commands on the DOS line to boot it up.
Put an old 286 and an original Windows (even DOS) in front of someone today, and they would scratch their heads.
In late 1984, my brother bit the bullet a few years after his discharge from the Navy and enrolled in a new course at the Gold Coast Institute for TAFE, a 2 year full time computer course, the first time it was introduced.
After a month or so, he found he actually needed to have a computer at home, rather than just do it all at school.
Get this.
He had to sell his Tarago to buy that computer and a printer, an Amstrad, with an A Drive that took those new fangled small harder floppy disks, (256 and 512KB) and a B Drive for the larger flexible floppys, 256KB.
Man, what did we once do?
At the end of that course, DoD head hunted all the graduates, and there were only 5 of them, and he worked in Defence in Canberra for the next 24 years in IT.
Tony.
20
Tony I was working in computer stores on and off from about 1989 selling and servicing Commodores and Amigas, later I had my own business and the first machine I sold was an XT. You know what I wish?
I wish I would have kept one of every model from the Vic20 onwards, if only I had the vision…..
30
Tony,
In 1991 I upgraded my 386 to colour (CGI) from green screen, plus added a “massive” 110 megabyte HDD to replace the standard 10 megabyte one.
Total price for the new graphics board, HDD contoller, HDD, CGI colour monitor, necessary driver software, plus aforementioned Windows 3.1.1, plus publishing program, plus labour, plus a “demo” model Hewlett Packard Postscript Laser Printer, plus Postscript software: –
$17,000.00.
Two years later I replaced the entire computer with one with upgraded colour (VGI) and ten times faster, for $5,000.00.
I’m writing this on an Acer 1.5gh 15.6 inch laptop with 4gb of RAM and a 500gb HDD, that I bought on special last Christmas, for $300.00, plus $12.95 delivery.
50
Amazing isnt it. I had a customer show me receipts for an IBM 286 they bought from a dealer in Darwin around the early 1990’s that set them back $21K.
10
Pffft you guys are all n00bs. My first PC was a TRS-80 level II with 16kb RAM. The screen had two colours… black AND white! Cost about as much then as my latest gaming machine, but that’s without allowing for inglation since the 70s. Oh, and the data storage was a cassette recorder … yeah, you young uns don’t know what they are … try the history museum.
10
In all it’s glory:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80
That’s inflation of course… darn tablet keyboard. New fangled thingamabobs don’t work like the good ole gear 🙂
10
Apple II plus was the first computer I ever worked with. It was for WORK, not for play 🙂
I did have to work with hand poked batch cards programming Fortran in about 1976. never saw the actual computer though.
00
Ti-99A. Used a tape recorder for storage.
00
My daughter and her husband told me about this program, Revolution, and they watched it all by downloading the 20 odd Series One episodes and watching them all.
Said it was great.
For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what they were getting at. Here’s the gist.
All power goes out, full stop, immediately. By some fluke, one guy saves something and puts it onto a sort of thumb drive.
Scroll forward 15/16 years after this event.
Everyone evidently wants this thumb drive because that will immediately get the power back on.
WTF.
After 15/16 years.
Immediately.
Surely, I thought to myself, no one could fall for this, and surely, the writers would be aware that we wouldn’t fall for this.
But no, evidently this actually is the plot.
Immediately.
You must be kidding.
See what I (or the extended we now) are up against.
People actually will believe this charlieromeoalphapapa.
Electrical power comes out of the hole in the wall, and THAT is all people want to know. If it stops, someone somewhere will have it back on in a jiffy. Just wait around for it come back on ….. immediately.
I know I’ll sound like a scaremonger, but what can you do?
Nothing.
This is just a modern day 50’s/60’s cowboy show.
Tony.
70
With all the credibility of “The Munsters”.
10
The missus and I starting watching episode 1 but gave up after 30 mins or so … the acting and writing were awful, let alone the massive plot holes. Typical dross from the US. It is quite interesting to look at IMDB where it has a reasonable rating, but then look at the first few user reviews and they tell you everything you need to know.
Thankfully there are good shows out there as well, though very few on Aussie TV stations. I blame the local content regulations which mean we end up with hours upon hours of Aussie ‘reality’ TV garbage.
Depending on your taste I am happy to advise you what shows I think are worth watching 🙂
10
“but gave up after 30 mins or so” same here it was just a piss poor effort at best, as for anything worth watching I recently tried a couple of shows out of desperation and found “The Undateables” on SBS to be a pleasant surprise, also “Ninja Warrior” is interesting if just for the highly manic and poetic Japanese announcer.
10
Hey Tony, You might find these amusing…
Dara O’Briain explains modern technology
Also this one (from about 7’30”)
10
Here in the antipodes, you can get little plastic items that you push into the electrical socket to stop enterprising youngsters from poking knitting needles (do people still have them) into the holes to see what happens.
Some of my “cussies”, acquired a whole load of these things and repackaged them as power saving devices. Apparently we have been told to remove plugs from the wall when the appliance is not in use. Well, these clever little devices have been designed to stop the electricity from leaking out of the hole in the wall once the plug is removed.
The sad thing is, they sold out in weeks.
40
I actually did this when I was three years old and was electrocuted. Perhaps that explains some things? Not sure exactly what I poked in there….
30
They have them in MacDonalds restaurants. A devil to get out when you only went in to recharge your smartphone.
20
LOL! That is called free enterprise I guess.
20
Well said Tony! I firmly believe the Greens and other elitists and dingbats pushing AGW, who all live in cities and rely on continuous power, would last about 55 minutes if the power went off. At base they are luddites and cargo cultists who have vast egos and think there will be no consequences from their little vanity soiree of AGW.
20
An immigrant who took a job when he arrived in Australia: Mr Cormann migrated to Perth in 1996 after visiting the city two years earlier and loving it. His parents and three sisters still live in Belgium.
He initially took a job as a gardener at the Presbyterian Ladies College because his Belgian law degree wasn’t recognised here but after joining the Liberal Party was soon offered a job.
– See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/ex-gardener-lands-senate-spot/story-e6frg6nf-1111113482991#sthash.tz1P7r60.dpuf
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Warning – non sequitur.
I was just sent this. I may be behind the moment and it may have been already discussed here. If so my apologies. It would seem Mr Obama is falling over himself to embrace UN Agenda 21 as reported Nov 2 INFOWARS.com
“The executive order (EO) lumps extreme weather events under the discredited rubric of climate change. It will mandate new federal building codes under Agenda 21′s “sustainability” and promises to “address climate impacts and infrastructure needs.” The order was praised by the EPA and its administrator, Gina McCarthy, who said it serves as a “roadmap for agency work” and forces the nation to face what it deems are “climate-related challenges.”
The EO will withhold money expropriated by the federal government from the states if they do not sign on to the latest climate scam proposals. It will “bring sweeping new changes to land use and resource policies,” “refocus of climate change data and use of it to push a new agenda into every priority of the federal government,” and, importantly, make policies immune to challenge by establishing “a new internal organization for coordination efforts during a government sequestration and possible future shutdowns.”
So, it never was about the ‘science’, and didn’t we know that? It was always, and will always be, an ideological war.
It’s probably past a good time to wake-up and smell the stench.
80
Left politics = UN agendas.
40
Manfred
The Northern Hemisphere “blind bums rush” is on! Maybe to get the meme rolling and set the scene, the wheels have all but fallen of the Climate change C02 thingy.
Europe may well be locked in an icy embrace this coming winter, along with parts of the US continent, the rush is on to get reports in place, so that the meme can stagger out of the winter doldrums and they hope into some sort of summer.
Energy security and affordability will become an issue this northern winter and in anticipation, “low and behold” the original anti coalers Hansen along with Australia’s Tom Wigley (ex head of CRU) have put out a plea to environmentalists that for the sake of the planet, the future of the grandchildren and to make it easier to keep an unsellable scientific meme as effective propaganda, environmentalists need to embrace Nuclear Power Generation to ensure that the world can survive in the future.
They put this out on the 3rd of November,2013 three days after Obama’s Presidential press release, is this a harbinger of change? a last ditch attempt to push evil coal that (check the statistics) is being burnt in ever increasing quantities in the UK and Europe right now, due to its cheapness and availability, in short term answer to the dismal situation bought on by a political error in promoting heavily underwritten wind and solar ventures that have no hope of meeting the requirements and energy needs of their populations! Or are we now seeing the true agenda of those “Senior Scientists” to promote nuclear revivalism (all types) by those that have ridden the meme from the start.
One could say that maybe the penny has dropped, that the energy shortfall and high prices, blackouts and deaths will also kill off the meme anyway, and perhaps kickstart a legal reaction against those responsible?
I would warn that while this could test the faith and solidarity of the green movement, it will also test sceptics as there are many that favour nuclear as the only viable future energy source, may also lend their weight and voices to that plea, even though they know, that the whole C02 warming meme was a scam. The goal of achieving nuclear (at any cost)for Energy security and economic supremacy, some may feel that it is worth while jumping on or adopting the Hansen bandwagon, and of course Obama might just be setting the scene to obtain the necessary investigative reports to take on board nuclear and in that turn-a-round hope that enough might also come on board and “maybe” get re-elected for another term.
Will voters buy the new propaganda – well the faithful bought 20 years of the new religion, and I myself have been saying for years that Australia should continue to use it’s abundant and cheap coal (free of the European disease of taxing and creating commercial exchange mediums) to build our economy and develop nuclear power stations to eventually replace our aging coal burning electricity generation. So in a funny way I agree with the Hansen team even though I know their teary reason, science and meme is absolute Cr*p!
40
Sorry CT, but I have to disagree.
The very last thing we want is to allow the atmospheric CO2 level to EVER drop back down to the parlous low ppm it has been for so long.
We must do everything we can to maintain it at an ABSOLUTE MINIMUM of 400ppm, where we are now, (far higher is far better, 700-1000 would be GOOD).. ,
otherwise crop production will greatly decrease and world-wide food shortages will occur.
10
China have the right idea.. keep pumping out that luvly CO2, so they can feed their population.
10
Obama is in his second term now, and can’t be re-elected for a third. Hilary Clinton is setting herself up to make a play for nomination as a candidate.
00
Geochemists in the mineral resources sector did a lot of looking at soils, analysing them extracting information from studies.
After doing this, my impression was that Australia’s natural soils are not accumulators of much carbon (analysed as total organic carbon).
Much of the couple of % carbon seemed to be derived from leaf litter and twigs and it ephemeral, certainly not a building reserve.
It was uncommon to separate out physical charcoal, but there could be expect3ed to be a small amount, say less than 0.5 % by weight.
The more critical comment is that you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
If you want to build up soil carbon with a substance that hangs around for centuries, it won’t assist the yield increases of other plants very much. It might slightly increase the cation exchange capacity and make certain fertilizers more effective. But ay direct mechanism of assisting plant growth relies upon the charcoal being dissolved by root exudates, thus removing it. You can have your cake from storage, but to eat the cake you have to deplete the storage.
60
Geoff is right. There is an upper limit to C storage in any particular soil. It depends on inputs vs. outputs; as well as the N cycle. Inputs are driven by rainfall, so they pulse; C respiration occurs at soil moisture levels too low to grow plants; so while inputs can be high from time to time, respiration keeps on going during the long rainless periods that characterise our climate.
Agriculture is actually an innocent bystander. It does not produce net emissions; it simply re-cycles CO2 from the air, into a product; respiration of the product continues the cycle back to the atmosphere.
For a forest, especially a dry forest, infrequent fires serve the same purpose. The carbon plateau may be different – more is stored in forest; but the functioning is similar.
If you want to ‘save’ 3 or 4 tonnes of carbon/ha, you can in a forest; but to save millions of tonnes takes millions of hectares; and there is still a point where the forest is carbon-saturated ie. when photosynthesis is balanced by decay.
Most of Australia’s landscape was never designed to “store” carbon. It is not possible to grow Tasmania-like forests over 99.99% of the landmass.
Across the vast arid zone, growth rates could be as high as 300 kg/ha in a good year. In the 600 mm, southern NSW/Vic. zone; perhaps 2 to 4 tonnes; but it will only be ‘stored’ if it does not burn, if N-cycling is very low and if its mostly lignin.
Photosynthesis “at-large” produces biomass which is around 50/50 cellulose/lignin. Only microbes and fungi can break it down. Enzymes that break-down lignin are mostly produced by fungi. Those that break-down cellulose are mostly (and most efficiently)produced by bacteria under anerobic conditions. Hence the methane cycle.
Methane is a by-product of cellulose breakdown by bugs; the bugs exist in anerobic conditions in say a rumen. They also exist in the gut of all beetles – dung-beetles for instance produce methane, along with christmas beetles and all the rest. Termites also cultivate bugs that do their digestion for them; also cockroaches – cellulose consumers all need bugs.
The problem is that cellulose contains energy, the C bit; but not much N – which is what protein is made of. To ‘concentrate’ N, a lot of the C needs to be disposed of – methane is an efficient way to get rid of C; the bugs concentrate the N in their bodies; the host then digests the bugs. We then digest the host.
So what has this got to do with agriculture? Agriculture displaces and only to some extent, the “beetle-driven” methane cycle, with an animal-driven one. On my farm, even though cellulose has been re-routed through my cows, their gross liveweight would still be exceeded by the weight of remaining “beetles + cockroaches + white ants …”. My animals take just a bit of the total biomass (50% of which is in roots; and generally, cattle can only graze down to about 400 kg/dry matter residue).
Kick-a-log-along in my bush-paddock or in your local bushland, and look at what is happening. Under the bark there are a host of beetles-cockies-white ants; within the wood, lots of fungal decay. Nothing much actually “stores”.
This is truly important. Our ecosystems grow across an impoverished landscape. Nutrient cycling depends on decay. Leaf-eating beetles, truncate what would be a very slow process otherwise. Their frass feeds the system. In the drier grasslands, termites do the same job. They breakdown cellulose directly, as well as cart-off lignin; they cultivate fungi to work on the lignin.
Sitting by a creek in the evening, a time when there is a fractional reduction in air pressure, it is not unusual to see bubbles of methane rise through the water. Anerobic decay goes on the sludge and debris layer in the creek-bed. Look at an old fence-post; they rot-off just below ground-level, where conditions are moist and aerobic – perfect for fungi that break-down lignin, which is what wood consists of.
The rumen is a truly amazing organ. It is located at the start of the fore-gut; and it is the fore-gut that absorbs protein, not the hind-gut. Hind-gut digesters (kangaroos; rabbits etc. etc as well as humans) also produce methane and CO2, but they can’t use the protein liberated by the processes. Some animals do night-dodo which is high in protein and day doodo that is low in protein. They re-consume their night dodo; send it through again to digest the protein out of it; thus their day dodo is pretty bereft of anything!
I can’t see much merit in carbon accounting. The impact of agriculture is much overstated. methane has a half-life of 7 years in the atmosphere, and it can be shown that levels will stabilise at about 10 time the input rate. To push methane up a notch takes a monumental change in input levels. Solar panels that only work during some days cannot possibly reduce coal consumption either. Its all smoke and mirrors so to speak.
The other interesting thing for Australia is that during sustained periods of above-nornal rainfall, all our ecosystems and farmland store more carbon irrespective of everything else. Because the carbon feeds more bugs, methane production ought also be higher. During sustained low-rainfall epochs, soils should be net methane sinks – it is food for another set of bugs. So methane levels should fall.
During below-rainfall epochs, fires become more frequent; less carbon is stored irrespective of other things.
10
Man, how I just love reading stuff like this.
Bill, you’re a maven.
Thank you.
Tony.
00
Off topic but worth mentioning. We just had an X3 solar flare, which is not major but neither is it insignificant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNGLqU3O4DI
20
“I have long said that attaching monetary value to a basic molecule of life is stupid…” and that for me is the the essential truth. How on earth can anyone be so hubristic as to assume their shallow philosophical beliefs trump the natural world?, Hang on, silly me, they are of the LEFT. Nature has it’s own way of balancing the ledger irrespective of our feeble influence. There is so much we don’t understand and can’t account for yet those arrogant b’stards try and effect political policy under the guise of the defense of nature. It’s Soviet methodology on a global scale. The Soviet Union never died, it burst like a deceased cell and infected every formerly respected scientific institution and perverted each one. This is an immense battle for the soul of science. God help science if the law has to come to it’s defense because as everyone knows, the law can be an ass.
30
Jo,
Please can you run on an anti global warming ticket for the WA senate re-vote.
60
John Howard comes out as an Agnostic.
Brisbane Times
20
Clearly only room for one religion in his life 🙂
10
Somewhat off topic but hopefully of interest …
“…another example of a President who lives in his own bubble, untouched by the real world around him.”
President Issues Executive Order to ‘rearrange the deck chairs’ on His Sinking Climate Ship
By John L. Casey, November 4, 2013
On November 1, 2013, President Barack Obama issued an Executive Order titled, “Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change.” In the course of which, he has assembled all his climate decision making organizations and representatives from virtually all agencies of the federal government into an all-powerful, all knowing, single climate advisory body – the “Council on Climate Preparedness and Resilience.”
In the process of his plowing ahead with his overall “Climate Action Plan,” and in a fit of obvious, if not disturbing White House cognitive dissonance, the President once more blatantly deceives his people and the world about the status of the Earth’s climate while reinforcing that he “The One” can change the Earth’s climate.
It was apparently not embarrassing enough for him that he spoke the unmitigated lie that global warming was “accelerating,” during his June 25, 2013 address at Georgetown University.
And perhaps no one on his staff bothered to tell him that shortly thereafter in a Senate hearing, that none of his strongest science supporters was willing to agree with his Georgetown climate status assessment.
In fact, if one objectively looks at the President’s statements and actions on climate change, it is reasonable to conclude that he is totally divorced from reality on the subject. It looks as though he is quite willing to ‘dig his hole deeper’ on the world’s already poor opinion of him and our country as he blindly Captain’s his sinking climate ship.
Sadly, this ‘rearranging of the deck chairs’ thru his latest executive order, will do nothing for his administration except add to his list of unforgiveable deceptions and the growing awareness by many that this is but another example of a President who lives in his own bubble, untouched by the real world around him.
It is also unlikely that any member of his new ‘Council on Climate Preparedness and Resilience’ will step up during any council meetings and tell him that he and the failed greenhouse gas theory are naked for all to see. They will likely rubber stamp his continued pursuit of climate ‘unicorns’ while the rest of the world begins to go in an opposite direction, like the new Australian government (and Russia see later) has just done.
It is more probable to actually find a unicorn than to see any member of this latest climate body who will tell the President to his face the following facts:
There is no global warming; it ended years ago! And Mr. President, mankind’s CO2 emissions had little or nothing to do with the warming when it did exist.
There has been no effective growth in the Earth’s atmospheric temperatures for sixteen years now even though CO2 is still increasing. As we all know Mr. President, that is an impossibility if the greenhouse gas/CO2 theory really worked in the first place!
The latest Physical Science, Summary for Policymakers from the UN-IPCC fifth assessment report, has become an international butt of jokes as have similar US government climate reports because of their highly exaggerated claims for temperature and sea level rise based on deeply flawed, unverifiable, science.
The global climate models, using the greenhouse gas theory and mankind’s CO2 emissions that have had two decades and billions of dollars spent on them, “simply don’t work” according to those who helped write the UN-IPCC climate reports. So I guess Mr. President, all those global temperature and sea level predictions for the year 2100 are, well, not worth a plug nickel.
The ‘hot spot’ required in the atmosphere above the Tropics by the greenhouse gas theory has never been found. And likewise Mr. President, the ‘sensitivity’ of the climate to CO2 that we have hung our hat on during your presidency is also a problem. That too cannot be proved to the degree we said and it’s now such a black eye that the UN-IPCC decided to just leave it out of their next climate report, all together.But Mr. President there’s more bad news about the climate:
The planet’s oceans have actually been cooling for a whole ten years now.
And the planet’s atmosphere has been cooling for a whole seven years now.
We were really hoping that Antarctica would melt and flood New York City to prove we were right but unfortunately it is setting new records for cold temperatures and extent of sea ice.
The Arctic has rebounded swiftly and now has sea ice extent within its normal thirty year range. Also, the many US and foreign government predictions for the past fifteen years, that the Arctic will be ice free have all been proven wrong.
The Pacific Ocean has been getting colder for thirty years now and the Atlantic may be poised to enter a four decades long cold phase. With both the Pacific and Atlantic in cold phase together, the Northern Hemisphere is likely to become cold for decades.
And unfortunately Mr. President, in a news conference in Miami on August 21, 2013, scientists from around the world said global sea levels will soon start to decline because of the oceans getting colder – back to where they were two hundred years ago! But don’t worry. Our friends in the mainstream media covered it up; well, except for Paul Bedard at the Washington Examiner and Sean Hannity who had the brass to talk about it.
The ability of the greenhouse gas theory using mankind’s CO2 production has been an utter failure in its ability to accurately and consistently predict climate change including global temperature and sea level increases.
It now appears that climate models that use the Sun as the primary driver for climate change are routinely far more accurate in predicting climate changes than UN-IPCC and US government models that rely on the greenhouse gas theory and CO 2 emissions.
Mr. President, this is really big and could scuttle all our climate plans. It seems that there are many signs recently confirmed by our own government scientists, that the Sun has entered a “solar hibernation” stage. This is when the Sun cuts back on the energy by which the Earth stays warm. As a result, we have probably entered an historic if not dangerous new cold climate that will last thirty to forty years.
Also Mr. President, we should mention that scientists from Russia, you know, the country that has kicked your tail in European relations, in Chinese relations, and in the Syrian civil war, and with Edward Snowden, are now saying that a “Little Ice Age’ may start as early as next year and that our manmade climate change program is a fraud!
And lastly Mr. President, because we are spending all our time and money on your man made global warming programs we will be totally unprepared for the crop damage, food shortages and social upheaval that may come because of the solar hibernation, like what happened the last time a hibernation hit two hundred years ago.
We should not expect anyone on the President’s new Council on Climate Preparedness and Resilience to tell him the truth about the climate. Even if one had the courage to do so, it’s a near certainty that he would not even hear it. The chairs will be tragically moved around once more and the band will strike up for another final performance as our ‘Captain’ goes on as before, pretending all will be right with the world so long as we do his bidding.
Mr. Casey is a former White House space program advisor, consultant to NASA Headquarters, and space shuttle engineer. He is one of America’s most successful climate change researchers and climate prediction experts. Mr. Casey is best known as the leading advocate in the US for a national and international plan to prepare for the next climate change which he has predicted
to be one of a dangerous cold climate era. He is also the Editor of the Global Climate Status Report© and is the author of the internationally acclaimed climate book, “Cold Sun.” Mr. Casey is currently the President of a climate research company, the Space and Science Research Corporation (SSRC), in Orlando, Florida. In March 2013, he was named “America’s best climate prediction expert,” by Watchdogwire.com
20
6 Nov: Reuters: Michael Szabo: UK watchdog says investors lose 24 million pounds in carbon credit scam
Nineteen companies selling carbon credits have been shut in the past 15 months for bilking investors out of 24 million pounds ($38.7 million), British regulators said on Wednesday, warning more firms were trying to sell carbon as a viable option for private investors.
The UK Insolvency Service said more than 1,500 investors had been ripped off by the firms, which target mainly the elderly with high pressure sales techniques and promises of hefty returns of more than 40 percent…
The companies typically offer carbon offsets approved by the United Nations – a feature used to give the offering credibility – as well as those issued in the opaque and unregulated voluntary market…
British Consumer Minister Jo Swinson called the carbon credit scam “particularly contemptible” as it not only preyed on older people trying to maximize their savings, but also targeted their desire to make ethical investments…
The FCA in September released the findings of a survey of 125 carbon investors, showing not one had made any money from investing in the credits.
The watchdog said some 183 carbon firms have been put under investigation since 2011 and has listed many of them on its website.
City of London police have also arrested at least 17 people in the past year suspected of defrauding investors through the sale of carbon credits…
http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/11/06/us-britain-carbon-fraud-idINBRE9A50L020131106
10
O/T but I had the impression that the Greens were against cows?
” The Greens minister in the ACT government employs staff who have ethical objections to horse racing.
Instead, an ”ice-cream party” was held to celebrate the first anniversary of Mr Rattenbury’s appointment to cabinet under a parliamentary agreement with Labor.
10
6 Nov: Bloomberg: Louise Downing: Utilities in Pain Selling Renewable Assets at Record Rate
Wind farms and solar parks are changing hands at record rates, signaling both an increased taste for the assets among pension funds and hard times for utilities that are the biggest sellers.
About 43 percent of the 275 deals completed in the power industry in the first nine months were for renewable generators, up from 37 percent in the year-earlier period, according to data compiled by Ernst & Young LLP. The value of all the deals increased to $104 billion from $93 billion…
Buyers from insurer Aviva Plc (AV/) to Danish fund PFA Pension A/S are seeking yields averaging about 6 percent on wind and solar, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Utilities such as France’s GDF Suez (GSZ) SA, Iberdrola SA (IBE) of Spain and Dong Energy AS have unloaded plants to build cash cushions as power prices slumped and competition increased from independent generators.
Utilities “simply don’t have the capital to allocate to endless volumes of renewable energy investment,” said Ben Warren, who works in environmental finance at Ernst & Young, which is rebranding itself as EY…
That also helps explain why investment in renewables is declining. After touching a record $317.2 billion in 2011, inflows of money into wind, solar, biofuel and energy-efficiency projects fell 11 percent last year and are on track to drop again in 2013, Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates…
Many power companies were under pressure to sell, and some of the assets may be riskier propositions in the future: Subsidies for renewables are being scaled back across Europe and the U.S., led by retroactive reductions for existing projects in Spain, Greece, Romania and the Czech Republic. Utilities with nuclear capacity such as RWE AG (RWE) and EON also are having an even harder time trying to boost profits as Germany and France wind down atomic energy programs…
***For pension funds, the returns on renewable energy plants beat those for many government bonds and are backed by contracts to sell power at above-market prices…
Pension funds and insurance companies including Aviva, AMP Ltd. (AMP), and Hermes GPE are seizing the opportunity to tap assets that earn steady returns for decades that formerly would have been monopolized by the utilities.
AMP Capital Investors Ltd., a New South Wales-based institution that specializes in real estate and infrastructure investments, has bought 104 megawatts of wind farms in the U.K. and Ireland and is looking to buy more assets, said Bob Pehari, who is head of infrastructure in Europe for the unit of Australia’s largest fund…
*** The situation isn’t necessarily bad for renewables since pension fund cash is taking the place of utility balance sheets, Warren of EY said…
GDF Suez, Iberdrola, EDP Renovaveis SA, Electricite de France SA and Dong Energy AS all have relinquished stakes in wind energy projects since December…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-06/utilities-in-pain-selling-renewable-assets-at-record-rate.html
love how Ernst & Young have re-branded as EY, much as Blackwater re-branded as Xe before yet another re-branding to Academi. these re-brandings usually make it much more difficult to do online searches of these companies.
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6 Nov: Voice of America: Reuters: Hopes for Strong 2015 Climate Deal Fade as Risks Grow
OSLO/LONDON — World governments are likely to recoil from plans for an ambitious 2015 climate change deal at talks next week as concerns over economic growth at least partially eclipse scientists’ warnings of rising temperatures and water levels…
The outline of a more modest 2015 deal, to be discussed at annual U.N. climate talks in Warsaw Nov. 11-22, is emerging. This deal will not halt a creeping rise in temperatures but might be a guide for tougher measures in later years…
“Our concern is urgency” in tackling climate change, said Marlene Moses of Nauru, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States whose members fear they will be swamped by rising sea levels. “Vague promises will no longer suffice.”…
Yet many governments, especially in Europe, are concerned that climate policies, such as generous support schemes for solar energy, push up consumer energy bills…
The less ambitious model is a shift from the existing Kyoto Protocol, which was agreed to in 1997…
Any deal weaker than a treaty for shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energies is anathema to poor nations***…
???Temperatures have already risen by 0.8 C (1.4 F) since the Industrial Revolution, causing more heat waves, floods and rising sea levels despite a hiatus in the pace of warming at the Earth’s surface so far this century…
http://www.voanews.com/content/reu-hopes-strong-2015-climate-deal-fade-risks-grow/1784510.html
***this callous use of “poor nations” to push the CAGW agenda needs to stop. Reuters provides no evidence whatsoever for such a statement.
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global wealth “swells” for what percentage of the 7-plus billion!
6 Nov: New Scientist: Fred Pearce: First sign that humanity is slowing its carbon surge
2012 may go down in history as a remarkable year. For the first time, the maddening pace of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions showed signs of a global slowdown.
???Importantly – and unlike the drop in emissions triggered by the 2008 recession – the let-off is happening at the same time as global wealth continues to swell…
“The small increase in emissions [of 2012]… may be the first sign of a more permanent slowdown in the increase of global CO2 emissions, and ultimately of declining global emissions,” declares the Trends in Global CO2 Emissions: 2013 Report, published by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) last week…
???The news should provide fresh momentum for UN negotiations on a new climate treaty, which resume in Poland on Monday…
The data show that global carbon dioxide emissions rose by 1.4 per cent in 2012.
***Allowing for it being a leap year, the underlying increase was just 1.1 per cent, says the report, compared with an average of 2.9 per cent since 2000…
That means emissions must be cut by 2.5 per cent each year, starting now, says Myles Allen at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute.
Breaking the link between emissions and GDP is a start, says Bill McKibben, head of environment group 350.org. “But it’s not party-time yet.”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029422.800-first-sign-that-humanity-is-slowing-its-carbon-surge.html
a day later:
7 Nov: New Scientist Editorial: We can cut emissions without a global deal
We haven’t fixed global warming, but new evidence suggests that the world has taken its foot off the gas when it comes to carbon dioxide emissions. In 2012, the growth in emissions was 1.1 per cent, compared with an average of 2.9 per cent since 2000. Perhaps more importantly, the rise was less than a third of the 3.5 per cent growth in global GDP…
This growing trend is seen in more and more major countries – most notably China, the world’s largest emitter. It is an affirmation of what economists call the environmental Kuznets curve after Nobel prizewinning economist Simon Kuznets of Harvard University. He argued that beyond a certain stage of economic development countries start to use resources better and cut pollution…
It is easy to be pessimistic about the UN climate talks, which resume in Warsaw, Poland, next week. But the good news is that, while a global deal would clearly be a good thing, we could be on the way to saving the planet without it. And every one of us should now know that changing the light bulbs really can help to change the world.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029421.800-we-can-cut-emissions-without-a-global-deal.html
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Let’s take the upper amount for Australia’s current CO2 emissions here, that total of 550 Million tons per year.
There’s no dispute between the two major political parties here in Oz, both in lockstep about wanting to reduce CO2 emissions by 5%.
So then, 5% of that 550 million tons of CO2 comes in at a CO2 reduction of 27.5 Million tons.
27.5 Million tons.
In China, they are bringing on line one new technology large scale coal fired power plant every 7 to 10 days. One of these new plants will burn around 6 million tons of coal each year for an emission of around 17 Million tons of CO2.
So then let’s say that the Chinese are slowing down and opening them up at the 10 day rate. So, that means two new plants in 20 days, or three weeks. That now means an extra 34 million tons of CO2 per annum.
So while here in Oz we aim for a 5% reduction in CO2 emissions, this is totally and utterly exceeded by an increase in China by an even larger amount than our reduction ….. in 3 weeks.
And then again in another three weeks, and then again in another three weeks, and then …..
Tony.
20
Totally O/T but
Margot is bored.
She’s back in a month old thread tacking pithy one-liners onto month old comments.
They’re not even clever.
What’s that saying about small things and small minds . . .
50
Now she’s gone back two months.
I suppose it’s what you have to do when you have nothing left to debate, either in science, or in politics.
70
I’m trying to take my mind off the fire that is currently burning through my land. The RFS map shows about 30-40 hectares under the fire, but who knows where it’s got to. I thought we’d stopped it. I woke up Saturday night to a very bright glow where it had flared up in the neighbour’s, several hours of frantic chansawing because the RFS bulldozer has gone AWOL. I was hoping there’d be no more flare ups chez moi. I drove out the back and dealt with a few smoking stumps, but on the whole it looked like it had failed to jump the far creek. Plus the bucket choppers were busy for 3 days in a row dropping water out of the neighbour’s lake (heh – thanks guys!) into my far SE corner, it looked like they were extra keen to stop it there. Definitely hoping they did, because otherwise the next containment line only leaves about 95% of place abandoned to the fire.
Still, lots more lyrebirds around than usual, which is nice…;)
Anyway, I thought some light comedy from the climate-change d[SNIP!] would be just the ticket.
[Back to the usual methods eh Margot? That’s OK I’m ready for you] ED
18
The old Lyrebird…
They are most notable for their superb ability to mimic natural and artificial sounds from their environment.
When lyrebirds detect potential danger they will pause and scan their surroundings, then give an alarm call. Having done so, they will either flee the vicinity on foot, or seek cover and freeze.
30
So no mention of stock. lots of bushland, probably unclear for ages because you wouldn’t let them.
Non-productive acreage with lots of eucalypts right up to the house..
Expecting the firefighters to just turn up to protect you.
Good Luck :-))))
40
So let me get this straight…
Fire at the back door.. and you have time to make moronic nonsense posts in several threads like this.
You have some very worrying priority issues !
.
.
.
.
Seriously GET SOME MENTAL HELP !!!!!!!
40
Margot, I’m sorry to hear that you are fighting fire.
When it has been stopped, I’d appreciate a serious thoughtful comment from you about fuel loads, whether or not you were permitted to proactively back burn, trim, create firebreaks and whether you did so prior to this fire?
Having been involved firsthand with forest firefighting and helping with saving several structures during a fire, I know the feeling.
Even though I’ve been hard on you over your comments about AGW, I sincerely hope you are able to stop this fire before anything serious happens.
30
So your contention is there were never fires in Australia before the mid 20th century? Want to prove that?
20
Ahhh…. Michael the Idealist’s long lost sister…..
30
Please don’t reply to
herhiswhatever comments.That’s what gets me about these blatantly political commenters, and what is currently also happening in both the media and in politics.
The left were all roundly thrashed at the recent election.
Not only have they not accepted the will of the people, but they still think that they control the agenda.
Also, I see Greg Hunt is not bothering to go to the upcoming UNFCCC COP19 in Warsaw. I can see Milne and Bandt going into apoplexy.
Tony.
40
Who’s talking about politics?
Ah – of course – you are.
I’m just wondering, Tony, what will be enough evidence for you to admit you are wrong?
Name a temperature, a low-point in glacier or sea ice, sea levels or acidity, or some other factually testable parameter that you can assign as not compatible with your position?
18
Why don’t you come up with some falsification criteria of your own?
Just how far from reality do the climate models need to be before you leftard warmists acknowledge the models are bunk?
50
The inaccuracy or otherwise of models can’t disprove physical reality. Do you really need that explaining to you?
I’ll agree with you that several purported models have definitely been proven by physical observations to have been completely and utterly wrong.
First cab off the rank is John McLean’s. His model was wildly divergent from reality, so is now permanently canned. I don’t think anybody really knows what his model was supposed to be based on, but it turns out the real world wasn’t involved.
Then there is Lindzen – bizarrely, his model didn’t even match observed temperatures that were available to him when he devised it, never mind its growing divergence from subsequent reality. His unwarranted assumption that sensitivity is about 1 degree was thus disproved, for the few people for whok the lack of pre-existing evidence for that assumption wasn’t enough to be sceptical.
Then Don Easterbrook – he tried his hand at a couple of models, but they both diverged almost as much as McLean’s terrible model did.
Akasofu’s model was also quite wrong, but not as embarrassing as the previous 3. Still, it was wrong.
Those guys aside, the remainder of the various models have proven to be quite useful:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2008GL034932/abstract
18
I can’t see what else is left once the models are thrown away.
IPCC sixth assessment to be titled ‘Shut up, that’s why!’ ?
20
Cause and effect Margot.
The models were designed to demonise CO2. They do not consider any other major cause. For a while there (and by being very selective with the start date) CO2 and “Global” Temperature sort of tracked together. But for the last decade and a half, they have not, and we now have various “experts” pointing to all sorts of explanations as to why. But none of these factors were mentioned before, so why are they suddenly significant now?
Skeptics have always pointed out that Correlation does not prove Causation, but were shouted down by climate scientists who obviously know more about truth than scientists in any other discipline. Yet here we are, with CO2 continuing to rise, and “Global” Temperature remaining flat(ish). So from your own argument that, “The inaccuracy or otherwise of models can’t disprove physical reality”, I can definitively state that the observations of physical reality can, and does, demonstrate the inaccuracy of the models.
To quote Einstein, “No number of experiments can prove my theory correct, but it only take one experiment to prove it wrong”. The current departure of the correlation between CO2 and temperature proves the theory of Anthropogenic Climate Change to be insufficient, and probably wrong.
20
Margot, reluctant as I am to give you oxygen, you say here:
What will IMMEDIATELY make me admit I was wrong will be one minute after these climate change people start shutting down large scale coal fired power plants, not just one of them, but all of them, hang the consequences, because this is a disaster in the making.
THAT will be evidence that they are actually serious about there being a problem.
Not just coal fired power plants, but all Natural Gas fired plants as well, and shutting down any entity that emits CO2.
Not just here, but I want these people to go to China and shut down their plants as well, not just here in Australia, but everywhere.
When they actually do that, not talk about it, but bloody well DO it, then I will admit there may be a problem.
Until that time comes, you people are just playing games.
TALK is all you have. No action, just talk.
Tony.
40
Two of them were shut down last year as a result of growing supply from better sources.
Did you know that?
I guess that’s what you might call “action”. So there has been “action”. So it’s not “all talk”. So….what’s your actual thesis, again?
18
2 from ~2300, not bad, nearly there. Tony is just around the corner from admitting you are right…
What two were shut down and what were the better sources?
Oh wait, what’s this?
“Coal-fired power plants capacity to grow by 35 per cent in next 10 years”
“World coal-fired power plant capacity will grow from 1,759,000 MW in 2010 to 2,384,000 MW in 2020. Some 80,000 MW will be replaced. So there will be 705,000 MW of new coal-fired boilers built. The annual new boiler sales will average 70,000 MW. The annual investment will be $140 billion”
50
And “YUMMMMM” says nature’s biosphere !!
Food at last !!!
The trees would hug us if they could. 🙂
40
Margot,
Wow!
Only 2 plants closed.
Where?
Just last year, 2012, there were 25 plants closed in just the U.S. alone. Each of those plants were closed, not because of the growing supply from better sources, but only because they were time expired, having been in operation most of them 50 years or more. Each of those plants were between 20MW and 200MW in size or less, tiny by comparison to large scale coal fired plants, of 2000MW+, not one of which has closed in the last 6 years at the least, and none scheduled for closure in the near term, out to around 2020/5. Those 25 closed plants in the U.S. were replaced in toto by Natural Gas Fired plants built on the same sites, umm, also emitting CO2.
Currently, there are (conservatively) around 2500 or more coal fired power plants in existence around the World, or around 7500 separate units.
Just in planning alone, there are a further 1500 Plants, full plants, not just units, scheduled to be constructed in the near term.
That equates to an emissions rate for CO2 of around 35 BILLION tons a year, and that’s just from coal fired power alone, not adding on Natural Gas fired power.
So Margot, where you say 2 plants closed.
That’s 2 down, only, umm, 4000 to go.
So Margot talk is really ALL you do have, and talk, well, with 2 plants, you can’t even get that right!
Tony.
40
It probably means that on in South Oz, the one they had to quietly restart to stop Adelaide blacking out.
10
Claiming planned redundancy as a win for your side?
Surely you can do better than that, Margot?
20
I’ll get the popcorn. I love to watch watermelons exploding.
50
I remember when I was young and we still could buy tuppenny bungers.
2 of those stuck in a watermelon was great fun !!! 🙂
40
Luckily, Christopher Monckton has discovered the cure for MS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Monckton,_3rd_Viscount_Monckton_of_Brenchley#Resurrexi_Pharmaceutical
So nobody has any excuse for claiming to be suffering from MS anymore.
29
Any reason for your completely random attack?
It isn’t even close to the subject of this thread.
I have another Wikipedia reference just for you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)
41
Oops, you’re right. I haven’t used this internet thingy recently, and that post was meant for a different page. How did that happen?
Although…how is faithfully repeating another’s assertion, an “attack”? I don’t really get you. Or are you yourself making a comment on the quality of the original assertion?
29
Google William Connolly. Then withdraw your link if you have the integrity to.
10
I doubt that she will, Phil.
She seems to be working from a script. If my conjecture is correct, that reference will be on her “List of points to change the subject”, and will have been crossed out by now.
20
Can carbon in the soil be a fertilizer? I doubt it. Plants get their carbon from the air. Photosynthesis occurs in the green leaves, which are in contact with the air. The roots absorb Nitrogen from the soil, which is why we put superphosphate fertilizer on the soil.
30
Many carbon compounds are certainly fertilizers, some, not so much.
Nothing in nature is that simple….. except warmists.
30
.
Geoff Sherrington covered this at post #31.
10
Kyoto did us all a great disservice by focussing on emissions. The real issue is extraction. Once carbon enters the troposphere trying to track it and account for it is an exercise in complete and utter futility. The natural control point if you really believe adding carbon to the troposphere is a problem, is to attempt to control the activity of digging it up out of the ground.
00
“point if you really believe adding carbon to the troposphere is a problem”
Adding carbon the troposphere would be a very bad idea.
Adding carbon dioxide, is a GOOD idea.
ie.. Please let’s not use the word “carbon” when we mean “carbon dioxide”. That’s a warmist scare tactic.
10
I would like to see them attempt to make a carbon free electric car.
00
Not sure why you think carbon might be more scary than carbon dioxide. Are atoms are more scary than molocules? Anyway I used carbon because once you introduce it into the troposphere carbon enters the carbon cycle where some of the time it resides in molocules other than CO2.
10
Carbon, as itself, can only exist in the atmosphere as particulate matter.
Breathing in too much carbon and other particulate matter is not particularly good for your lungs.
Particulate matter makes up a large proportion of what is called smog.
00