The Gallup poll results for May show the environment is not the most important issue for 97% of Americans. Golly, but those naming the environment as the top concern tripled from 1% – 3% from April to May. It’s a blip up in a long term trend that’s falling. H/t to Brietbart.com.
How many times do people need to tell politicians that being a skeptic isn’t the vote killer that some commentators would like you to believe? Even people who believe in man-made global warming just aren’t as concerned about the environment as they are about jobs, corruption, and the economy.
Which politician will make cleaning out corruption their trademark policy?
…
Where’s the balance?
According to some the media doesn’t report on climate often enough. But where’s the “balance” — if 97% of the public are more concerned about something else, perhaps the message should be something else?
For those all-knowing super intelligent beings who protest that the public won’t worry about the right things if you don’t tell them, we can only ask if 20 years of non-stop campaigns, reports, advertising, documentaries, and Nobel Prize winning (flawed) documentaries are enough?
There comes a point where it’s time to say the public have heard it all, and they are still not convinced.
“Results Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews .. with a random sample of 1,028 adults”. For such a big country, this is a tiny sample!
So general environmental issues, of which Global Warming is surely only one, were of most concern only to 10 and then 30 people? Losses of 10 votes each are to Poverty, Immigration, Deficit, Leadership but job worries are up by 60 votes. These are all tiny numbers and the errors with such a small sample make this pretty meaningless except to say that general environmental concerns are in the bottom few of 13 concerns, totalling beween them only 10%.
Jobs, money, government, health total 73%. Even foreign aid is higher than general environment concerns.
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Totally nonsensical premise in this whole thread. Of course climate change is not an important problem yet, as in “today”.
Maybe they should have asked them “What will be the most important problem facing the country in 20 years”
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Gallup is a pretty respectable company, that has been doing this sort of stuff for a long time.
In fact, they have been doing it a lot longer than than the climate change catastrophe meme has been a fashionable dinner conversation topic, with the more impressionable and vaporous members of the society, that they seek to analyze.
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And your point is??
39
Gallup have a well earned reputation for asking questions that get to the heart of the matter, rather than asking questions designed to justify a particular point of view.
Your example would just elicit a random range of “important future problems, maybe”. Like, who knows what could happen in 20 years that might be a problem? It could be anything. It would therefore be a stupid question to ask, because the answers today would be meaningless, and tell us nothing about the future.
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Hmm yes. Good argument fro authority there
22
Its good to look at people who often get things right.
You should try it once in your life, and stop believing the climate bletheren.
31
Rereke,
You’re right about Gallup’s good reputation. But I would not rush to believe they have asked the right question. A very subtle difference can turn the outcome on its head. The Obamacare question looks like this.
Do you like Obama care? Result way over 60% or more will say no.
Should it be repealed? Way over 60% say fix it, don’t repeal it.
It is, of course, un fixable, being far too complex for one person to even understand all of it.
So you see what I mean about the result going upside down if the same essential question is asked a little differently.
40
Then there’s the lesson of the VA scandal to consider. But that’s another story.
30
“The most important problem facing the World in 20 years” would be a possible Climate Treaty established UNEP controlled Global Government?
In other words International Socialism and the end of Western World democracy?
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..and while you seek solice in the “great conspiracy”, the climate just keeps getting warmer every year.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/climate-angst-rises-with-record-temperatures-20140523-38uek.html#ixzz32hzGDiHk
26
And North America has just had its coldest April/May.
71
Really? you have a source for this I presume or are you just making it up?
14
Brian, just like World War II – it was in all the papers.
Google Polar Vortex.
30
Brian: ‘and while you seek solice in the “great conspiracy”, the climate just keeps getting warmer every year.’
–
Brian’s world: Sydney
–
Everyone else’s world: Earth
30
I have to wonder what anyone finds bad about a nice warm Autumn !!
Do these morons seriously WANT to be freezing their butts off ???????
10
“The most important problem facing the World in 20 years”
This was a poll of those who mostly are not tea leaf readers,astrologists or witchdoctors so it is very unlikely that they like us and you or any rational being would have a clue
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““The most important problem facing the World in 20 years””
Unfortunately, I suspect it will be trying to prise society out of the grips of far-left totalitarian socialists.
The EU and UN will still probably be existence, as the hidden unelected socialist bureaucrats continue to hold the reins of power.
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Brian you got a line wrong –
Maybe they should have asked them “What will be the most important problem facing the country in 620 years”
There fixed.
No need to thank me, it’s thanks enough that I’ve helped someone in your condition.
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“What will be the most important problem facing the country in 20 years”
After wasting billions of dollars on building and erecting them, are we going to be able to dismantle the useless, life destroying, windmills and recycle some of the components to create something life giving and energy producing, like another coal fired power station? And, who’s gonna pay for that?
50
P.S. So it’s about 4 Damocles swords: 1. Volcanic winters/ice-age, 2. Magnetic pole reversal, 3. Passage through big comet tail and 4. Deforestation.
We have a unique opportunity to face all of them well, if we cooperate, even with fatalists, that is the only way! I look forward your opinion!
00
Is it just me or do both columns add up to 103%
60
It is Just you Keith. The column on the right adds up to 106%.
Perhaps they got confused when they removed the counts of people who answered that telephone pollsters were the number one problem.
Thanks for thinking to check!
50
It is Americans.
21
You have got to allow for inflation.
40
Surely the error is due to rounding. They would be more likely to report 3% rather than 3.2 or 2.8%. Enough to know that the people don’t trust politicians and by extension wouldn’t be happy with Barry using the EPA to achieve his legacy programme. I would have thought he should be proud enough of his deficits and his panty waist approach to foreign affairs. Just goes to show community work is insufficient training to become a national leader. Picture Prime Minister Sarah Hanson-Young and treasurer Christine Milne. OTOH that’s the stuff of nightmares.
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A rounding error caused it when there is only 13 categories. 9 rounded up, 3 down and 1 exact? Possible I suppose.
20
97% of this site’s readers believe you.
30
BTW: (Totals are 106%: gee, I thought we were to give everything 110% om America! But carrying on….)
Let’s break this down into what defines our lives as flesh-and-blood beings:
1. Stuff – your job, what you do
2. Management – how well your stuff is handled, how often the job or what you do is done well or done well by others,
3. Policy – what directs the stuff you do and what controls how well the stuff is managed.
On that basis:
1. Stuff: 37%. Jobs and economy.
2. Management: 46%. Leadership (w/wout corruption), debt, poor healthcare and education services, environmental pollution
2. Policy: 23% Morals, homelessness, poverty, immigration, foreign aid, racism
(I know there are some who consider racism, income gap, homelessness etc. management issues, but when you can’t feed your family, these are more policy issues if they affect to other people in some other place. Just the hierarchy of things in a physical world.)
So the Gallup says that people want their lives to be beneficial to them in the long run, and to have the aspects of their lives that impinge on them but controlled by other people to be done well. Spiritual aspirations for the herd, so to speak, is last, but interestingly NOT at an insignificant level. I’d bet that if you took this survey in the 1930s or the 1870s, #3 would be <10%, while #1 would be 60%.
We are improving our social sensitivities, but only because we are covering off the basics better than we were. The "management" aspect reflects what we commonly use as whining, griping and complaining …. and then do nothing about (like booting the elected out of power).
Oh, and this survey reflects empowered people, I'd bet. Not the marginalized.
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Doug,
When it all comes down to it you don’t have to swim faster than the shark, you just have to swim faster than the other guy going for the life raft.
130
Only an Aussie …
70
The noble, beating heart of science is no more. Peer pressure, conformity, orthodoxy – these remain.
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/
30
Ha! Except I read its crocs, not sharks that the enviros are getting to eat skeptics these dsys.
30
Happily no, you see the enviros will regularly and blithely jump the shark believing there is no danger.
Now sceptics know different, sceptics know that although there is no danger from sharks, because they saw the large slide marks on the bank, big crocs propel themselves from the water for a feed.
00
I always heard it was a bear that was doing the chasing…. Just sayin’…
00
People in the US are pretty much like people anywhere in the world.
If it doesn’t affect our pocketbooks it really doesn’t matter! Oh sure, a three year old stuck deep in a well or wildfires raging out of control will appeal to our emotions but bland topics like climate change, acid rain, the hole in the ozone etc. merit nothing more than a yawn from most people! There is a reason journalists say, “if it bleeds, it leads.”
Most people are concerned about feeding their family, paying their bills, watching the big game and having a cold one and not what some geek in a lab coat says!
In the US the educational standards are the laughing stock of the first world. When you talk to most people about global warming in the US you may as well be talking to Homer Simpson about string theory! After about three words most people will only hear blah, blah, blah!
Don’t believe me? Go to youtube and watch a Jay Walking segment from an episode of the Tonight Show with Jay Lenno. In it, he finds some really ignorant people. For example, they do not know who the governor is in their state or even where the state capital is! What is really scary is that these people are not hard to find! They are everywhere!
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As proof, in this episode the guy didn’t know who Al Gore was when he was shown a picture of the former VP! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGRnPi5gpn4
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The most positive and life enhancing clip I have seen in an age. I didn’t know who half these people were or cared. Don’t you see that what the MSM and media portray as “important issues and personalities” passes by the general public who really, don’t give a shit about what they are “supposed” to be concerned about. What better sign of a free society that they draw their values from their own association and experience than from any “authority”. This is what freedom actually means – being able to not know who Al Gore is – or care. I hope HE saw this clip!
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“they do not know who the governor of their state is or even where their state capital is”. Do you not see that these people live in a blessed state of existence. If they do not know then do they NEED to know in order to live an acceptable life? In modern democratic societies, given a basic quality of life, the people will let the elite get on with their absurd ideological obsessions about how society should operate and CHOOSE how they will live.
My experience of “management”, in the health sector, is that it makes almost zero difference to actual outcomes (except for a few, specific cases), they delude themselves that they are “running the show” but the actual players simply adapt and follow their own agendas. People will look after themselves and their peers. In North Korea and Syria (for example) it DOES matter who is in charge (not that you can do much about it).
The polls show that most people will believe that fossil, fuel use will destroy the world, and it is their lowest priority FFS. Think about what that signifies, the appalling
apathy of the common man when well fed!
I have lived through for too many imagined catastophies to be moved by the current frightener. The first (MAD) was real enough – Oliver Manuel isn’t as daft as he appears- the Cuban Missile crisis was close( although not as it appeared – Kennedy know the Politbureau minutes by return!).
I have spent a lot of my professional life using “frighteners” to get people to follow policy. That is why, when I turned my mind to “global warming” I instantly recognised what I was dealing with, The parallels with “medical practice and administration” are uncanny.
Believe me – the world is in a far better state than it has been in recorded (and unrecorded) history. The problem is with the need of the “enthusiasts” to have a noble cause to pursue without which they would be bored to death (and good riddance), without them we could lead comfortable lives.
“where in history have you seen the persecution of the apathetic by the bone idle” (Reginald Perrin)
Rant over – blame this one on Nottage Hill.
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No they are not. They use an antiquated system of measurement, and 17th century spelling.
And they have nicer hair.
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Perhaps, when ruminating about climate stuff, Obama should consider one of the golden rules of running a business.
It is the ‘Monkeys climbing a tree’ rule.
For those who unfamiliar with this:
Those at the top look down and see only smiling faces.
Those at the bottom look up and all they see is xxxxholes.
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It is far broader than just environment. Look at the bottom 4 priorities for Americans, each placed top by only 3%. They are four of the five top priorities of the current US government (the fifth being health, which the government is working hard at and making worse).
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Yeah, like what’s the environment ever done for us?
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Nothing much, apart from keeping you alive.
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Here in the good old USA we know that the dumbest people are in New York City and Los Angeles, both Democrat strongholds. It would be interesting if Jay Leno were to go to Chicago, Memphis, Atlanta, Houston, or Dallas with the same man-on-the-street interviews. I believe you would find a totally different public.
Most of the real pot-heads are in California, with Colorado bringing up a close second.
As to the concern for climate change in the USA, people are not as stupid as their leaders suppose. We all remember the statement at the beginning of the Obama administration to not waste a crisis. We all know that climate change is another imagined crisis.
In the USA we have been robbed, cheated, lied to, and betrayed too often in history to not know that climate change is just another ploy to get to our pocketbooks.
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That sounds pretty paranoid. [SNIP ad hom – J]
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“If you have a doctor you can keep him.”
Internal Revenue Service targeting political groups
Over 150 military veterans dead because they could not get treatment appointments at Veterans Administration hospitals
There are many examples of lies, betrayals, and other ignominious behavior of the US federal government.
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There are some genuine things to concern us about the environment and so I suspect that of that 3% the ‘climate problem’ is probably an even tinier fraction.
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Yes that percentage of the 3% would be interesting to see taken over a larger population and demographic.
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I agree.
Like the culling of predators, to protect tree-browsing animals, which then results in a population explosion, and kills all the trees, which then results in erosion etc.
The Yellowstone Park in the US is a classic example of “environmentalists” failing to appreciate just how complex the ecosystem was, when they removed the wolves.
The good thing about Chernobyl is that all of the wild life is returning to the area surrounding the plant because it is quarantined from humans. And it is thriving.
And then they have the gall to tell me that I shouldn’t take plant food, that has been sequestered and unavailable for centuries, and return it to the atmosphere, from whence it came.
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another pristine wild life reserve is the Korean Demilitarized Zone – for the same reasons.
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True, but you have to be careful what you stand on. Some things bite … and some things blow up.
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What happened to the atmosphere when it was sequestered? What happens when you return it to the atmosphere?
02
Nothing happened to the atmosphere. If you are referring to climate then, again, nothing happened! Over the last 650,000,000 years the geological record shows no relationship between CO2 and climate. As the Vostock ice records show, temperatures rise and CO2 levels follow several hundreds of years later. Although ocean surface temperatures respond more quickly to a rise in land temperatures, the oceans as a whole lag by several hundreds of years because it takes centuries to warm such a large volume of water. As the water warms, it outgasses CO2. Thus, the lag.
When temperatures decline CO2 levels continue to rise because the oceans will take hundreds of years to cool.
Temps control CO2, not the other way around.
Just another falsification of the CAGW theory.
Most skeptics agree with the IPCC that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will raise temperatures a pleasant 1.1 degrees. Since it would be necessary for the main greenhouse gas, water vapor, to increase as a percentage of atmospheric content to cause catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, we need to look at the data pertaining to water vapor.
Both the geological record and empirical data from recent measurements of atmospheric water vapor show that an increase isn’t happening. In fact, a lack of increase in water vapor is one of the many excuse proffered by “scientists” to explain the lack of warming that has been occurring for over a decade and a half now. If there would have been a positive feedback loop caused by an increase in atmospheric water vapor we wouldn’t be here and you would not be able to annoy us with your inane babble. Recent peer reviewed papers and NASA ENVISAT Data actually show a slight decrease in atmospheric water vapor.
Yep, just another falsification of the CAGW theory.
Besides climate scientists trying to scare the hell out of people to milk us for more money?
Well, the deserts will green even more than they have recently. We will be able to grow more food on less land with less water. And, if past is prologue than humans will, as in past warm eras, enjoy more prosperity.
All in all, a doubling of CO2 would be the best thing to happen to humanity since the onset of the Holocene interglacial.
Just let me know if you have any more questions.
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I’m not a scientist but I’m pretty sure that the sequestering of carbon in the Carboniferous Period resulted in a dramatic change in climate during that period, i.e., it displayed a clear correlation between levels of carbon in the atmosphere and the climate.
05
CO2 is a greenhouse gas, no doubt about it. The more of it you have in the atmosphere the more warming you will have. However, the more of it you add to the atmosphere the more the effects of CO2 decrease on a per unit basis.
We have seen ice ages when CO2 atmospheric content was more than an order of magnitude greater than it is now. If we didn’t have a positive feedback when CO2 levels were greater than 4,000 ppm why should we worry that a positive feedback will occur at 400 ppm? Remember, the only way for the warming from additional atmospheric CO2 to be catastrophic is for a positive feedback loop to happen.
It has not!
Instead, despite rising CO2 levels the requisite increase in atmospheric water vapor has not occurred. See http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/pip/2012GL052094.shtml#content
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National Geographic
“Core samples, tide gauge readings, and, most recently, satellite measurements tell us that over the past century, the Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL) has risen by 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters). However, the annual rate of rise over the past 20 years has been 0.13 inches (3.2 millimeters) a year, roughly twice the average speed of the preceding 80 years.”
00
The time scales in that NatGeo article are far too short to be meaningful. We are talking about noise on natural cycles that have a frequency measured in multiple centuries.
10
Firstly, correlation does not imply causation; and this is especially true with cyclic phenomena, operating at multiple frequencies, like the climate. A might cause B, or B could cause A, or both could be caused by C, with different response rates. Or the cycles may be totally independent.
I think the only thing that we currently agree on, is that the cycles are interrelated in some way, but given the timeframes involved, we cannot even be sure that we know all we need to know, in order to figure it out.
Geologists will tell you that the Carboniferous Period ended quite suddenly, in geological terms. Trees had been growing, and dying, and falling over, and rotting, and thereby releasing carbon dioxide, for millennia. It was a self-perpetuating process. But at some stage, an event seems to have occurred, that not only stopped that process, but also caused the mass extinctions of thousands of animal species.
One hypothesis is that an asteroid strike created a shock wave strong enough to flatten the forests, and also threw billions of tonnes of soil, rock, water, and other “stuff” into the atmosphere, so shading and thus cooling the planet, and also trapping the carbon dioxide underground, as the “stuff” fell back to earth. Another hypothesis is that there was a period of massive volcanism, which did the same thing. Or the volcanism could have been caused by an asteroid strike. That debate also rages on.
But causation aside, it is interesting that a significant number of coal mines are now deep underground. During the carboniferous period, the raw materials for coal would have been quietly rotting on the surface, and the earth would have been teeming with life.
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“the raw materials for coal would have been quietly rotting on the surface, and the earth would have been teeming with life.”
And it wouldn’t be there for us to use now.
We have probably released but a small fraction of what got buried, but even with that small amount, the biosphere is starting to respond and is thanking us.
10
Will, you exhale CO2 just like everybody else.
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Well done James! You’ve successfully identified what CO2 is. Now see if you can manage another step.
00
Will, are you asking for correlation or causation?
00
3% of Americans care greatly about the environment.
Apparently 97% don’t or not very much
I had to chuckle at how that amazingly important statistical figure of 97% appears yet again although by default this time.
And this time from a survey source that at least has a long history behind it and has considerable credibility.
Not only that it also appears their data is open and available for analysis if you want it.
Gallup is definitely not run by UQ.
In fact UQ could probably be bought by Gallup out of petty cash but then you can probably buy anything at UQ if you have the money including UQ’s integrity and scientific ethics.
The exception of course being any of UQ’s SkS survey data which is not available under any circumstances.
America is a land of contrasts even amongst it’s people with some very, very smart people coming out of the USA and on the other extreme some very, very dumb and down right ignorant ones allowed on the loose to amuse foreigners visiting the USA .
In my case on an invited trip to promote the use of Australian plant breeding technology in medics and clover pasture species,[ Adelaide based world clover and medic collections ] I was, shall we say accosted, by an American farmer who insisted that as we sowed our wheat, grain and oil seed crops in the May, june and july periods we were sowing in the middle of summer.
And when harvesting in the November, December periods were we harvesting in the middle of winter.
Nothing I said could convince him otherwise.
He didn’t seem to know about the Southern hemisphere at all and only shut up when told to do so rather forcibly by another of his very embarrassed fellow countrymen.
In another instance when asked where he came from my brother replied he came from Australia.
Oh dear! that must be a long drive” was the American response said in all innocence and surprise.
On the other side of the coin, when seen from the outside America has everything it needs as a country within it’s own borders.
Massive natural resources,, a highly developed infrastructure, a huge population of highly skilled and an industrious people and an can do and aggressive to problem solving attitude of it’s people.
It doesn’t need the rest of the world.
You could put a lid over America and it would just roll right on without much fuss.
So why should Americans bother too much if the bulk of it’s population is fairly ignorant of the rest of the world.
That attribute of America is shown in the american-centric education system which relegates the rest of the world to a minor status compared to american interests.
In saying this I also need to remember that as Australian’s those who throw stones should not live in glass houses.
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ROM:
Nothing new. My father struck this in 1955 & 64. “West Coast and East Coast separated by miles of ignorance”. They couldn’t work out how he could speak english without being either from the USA or the UK. He put it down to many in the middle not having seen an ocean, any ocean, but it seems that their Education System might need improvement.
He was startled though by an east coast banker who complimented him on his fluent English and asked where he’d learnt it. When my father explained he’d learnt from his mother, it went right over his head and he asked what language we spoke in Australia. So if you’ve heard rumours in the USA about us speaking polynesian, you know who to blame.
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Graeme No.3
My parents had the same experiences when they visited the USA in the late 1950’s.
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I had the same experience when I lived there in the late 1990s. It is an astonishingly parochial country.
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Is JoNova deploring the average American’s reckless attitude towards the environment, or celebrating it?
[I suggest you read the whole post, and make your own decision on that question -Fly]
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Jo is celebrating the sensible attitude of Americans, who recognise that there is little evidence that CO2 poses any threat at all, but plenty of evidence the economy is falling to pieces.
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I wonder if the average joe in Miami still thinks that way.
13
So do we, but short of asking them, we can’t be sure.
I have heard evidence though, that a lot of conservative Republicans, which I guess would be a sizable demographic in Florida, are starting to recognize the climate scare scam for what it is. In their terms, it is a, “Grab for their life savings by that evil Democrat in the White House”.
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Even the ones who now often find they have to wade through water to get in and out of their homes?
14
Well, fix them levees.
I once worked with a guy from Boca Raton. He kept on getting alligators in his swimming pool. He had to keep calling the Wildlife Service to come and take them away. The interesting thing was, that the critters had to cross an eight lane freeway, just to get to his pool. Climate Change does some real strange things.
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Will, surely you are not going to suggest that this is caused by sea level rise.
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Report From Miami
It’s not me who’s suggesting it.
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Will, if not then moot point.
00
It takes at least 30 years of fear mongering to be statistically significant Jo.
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“Projections calculated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers indicate sea levels will rise 9 to 24 inches by 2060”
00
May, 42, 2014
Australians more worried about climate change, poll finds
~ ~ ~
They are gambling the house on a severe El Niño, not that ENSO has anything to do with carbon(sic).
Joe Bastardi: Global temps will fall again as soon as warm enso done. Pattern now obvious in jagged fall since 2007 seen here
20
Like El Niño …
They’re Back!
The Usual Alarmist Suspects:
January 2008
This drought may never break
“IT MAY be time to stop describing south-eastern Australia as gripped by drought and instead accept the extreme dry as permanent, one of the nation’s most senior weather experts warned yesterday.
“Perhaps we should call it our new climate,” said the Bureau of Meteorology’s head of climate analysis, David Jones.
David Jones
October 6, 2008
OUR HOT DRY FUTURE
February 17, 2009
Drought and fire here to stay with El Nino’s return
“VICTORIA is likely to come under the influence of another El Nino within the next three years, exacerbating the drought and the likelihood of bushfires, a senior Bureau of Meteorology climate scientist says.
David Jones, the head of the bureau’s National Climate Centre, said there was some risk of a worsening El Nino event this year, but it was more likely to arrive in 2010 or 2011.”
We all know how that turned out:
JUNE 24, 2010: La Nina to drop buckets on Australia
The Bureau of Meteorology believes a La Nina, Spanish for The Little Girl, is more likely than not to form before the end of winter.
JANUARY, 2011
Floods: 10 of the deadliest in Australian history
PHOTO: A car is engulfed by floodwaters in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, on January 10, 2011.
FEBRUARY 2012:
Torrential rain is expected to ease across Victoria this afternoon after much of the state received a thorough drenching in the past two days, with some areas receiving their monthly average in a matter of hours.
And now …
May 24, 2014:
‘The moment you start to warm up the Pacific Ocean as we are seeing now, you’re increasingly stacking the odds over Australia towards dry conditions and warmer daytime temperatures,” said David Jones, head of climate monitoring at the Bureau of Meteorology.
The strength of El Nino may determine how much climate angst rises, said Andy Pitman, director of UNSW’s ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science. ”It wouldn’t surprise me if people were getting concerned,” he said. ”If we have a dry winter … the fire season next spring will make [last year’s] seem trivial.”
. . .
In any other job, that would be considered a fail.
Australia Day Medallion for Dr David Jones for leadership of the Bureau’s Climate Analysis Section during a period of significant climate activity and championing the Bureau’s scientific and technical input to the National Agricultural Monitoring System and the Australian Water Availability Project.
Parliamentary Secretary, the Hon Greg Hunt MP, presented David’s medallion at an Australia Day ceremony at the Bureau of Meteorology’s Head Office on February 25.
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I find it interesting that this blog studiously ignores the recent research on west Antarctic melting and yet sees fit to beat up a story about UQ. Says a lot I think.
[This comment is off topic – make the remark on a more appropriate thread -Fly]
013
Well actually;
From the WUWT post [ Climate alarmists make major blunder in reporting Antarctica ice loss results ] referencing a number of studies on the so called losses of Antarctic Ice from West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula which makes up 10% of the Antarctic Ice mass.
The other side of the alarmist coin
Quoted from the WUWT post which includes the references to the relevant abstracts and papers [ my bolding ]
__________________________________
One study (abstract link below) of Eastern Antarctica notes:
“In this study, we describe the causes and magnitude of recent extreme precipitation events along the East Antarctic coast that led to significant regional mass accumulations that partially compensate for some of the recent global ice mass losses that contribute to global sea level rise. The gain of almost 350 Gt from 2009 to 2011 is equivalent to a decrease in global mean sea level at a rate of 0.32 mm/yr over this three-year period.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL053316/abstract
Another study (abstract link below) of East Antarctica notes:
“During 2003 to 2008, the mass gain of the Antarctic ice sheet from snow accumulation exceeded the mass loss from ice discharge by 49 Gt/yr (2.5% of input), as derived from ICESat laser measurements of elevation change.”
“The recent 90 Gt/yr loss from three DS (Pine Island, Thwaites-Smith, and Marie-Bryd Coast) of WA exceeds the earlier 61 Gt/yr loss, consistent with reports of accelerating ice flow and dynamic thinning. Similarly, the recent 24 Gt/yr loss from three DS in the Antarctic Peninsula (AP) is consistent with glacier accelerations following breakup of the Larsen B and other ice shelves. In contrast, net increases in the five other DS of WA and AP and three of the 16 DS in East Antarctica (EA) exceed the increased losses.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50559/abstract
[ / ]
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And then there is the gross misinterpretation of the terms used in science as translated by the science ignorant media.
Again quoted from a guest post from WUWT;
____________________
The specialized meaning of words in the ‘Antarctic ice shelf collapse’ and other climate alarm stories
Quoted;
Q. On TV I saw that the ice in Antarctica is collapsing, and that will raise sea level and inundate cities. Others reports say this will take thousands of years. How serious is the problem?
What you are witnessing here is a result of confusion between the public perception of the ordinary meaning of words, and the very special definitions used in scientific discourse.
Geologists deal with changes in the earth that occur over epochs of millions of years. Anything that happens in less than 10,000 years is “sudden,” and something happening in only 1,000 years is “instantaneous.” To geologists, the word “collapse” is appropriate for a 10,000 year process.
A hot-topic in the media these days has to do with the West Antarctic Ice Shelf (WAIS), a region comprising about 8% of the ice covering Antarctica. Within that region, there are two glaciers that are sliding down to the sea at a steady pace, as glaciers always do. They comprise about 10% of the WAIS, less than 1% of Antarctic ice. This descent has been in progress for several thousand years, and is neither new nor man-caused. It will go on for a few thousand more, after which they’ll be gone. In the parlance of geology, those two glaciers are collapsing.
If that doesn’t sound to you like your usual meaning of the word “collapse,” you’re absolutely right. It’s a specialized geological term.
Unfortunately, the major media overlook the distinction of meanings, and then make the further generalization from two specific glaciers to the entire WAIS, and moreover to Antarctica in general. Scientists who point out the small actual glacier size (and volume of ice) are brushed aside in the rush to get a headline or a flamboyant sound byte that will keep the viewers tuned in. Words like unavoidable collapse carry a sense of foreboding.
This isn’t just a problem from geology. Confusion over the meaning of words used in science crops up frequently. Laws of physics (e.g., conservation of energy) are said to be true in general, meaning “always true.” But if a physicist says “that is generally true,” a non-scientist hears “that is usually true” – meaning “most of the time, but not always.” Neither is aware of the other’s interpretation.
The word “average” is easily misunderstood. For any set of data, about any topic, you can construct an average. But it may be irrelevant – a good example being the “average temperature of the Earth.” Regional and seasonal variations are so great that a single average number is meaningless. And yet people have such familiarity with the word “average” – batting averages, school grade averages, etc. — that it’s commonplace to believe that any statistic called an “average” represents something real.
Climate change is another prime example. In the ordinary sense of the term, everyone realizes that the climate changes, and there is no argument about it. However, there is a very special limited definition given to the term by the U.N. around 1990: “Climate Change” refers only to changes caused by mankind’s emissions of CO2. Under that restricted definition, anyone who doesn’t think that CO2 is the cause of the changes we’re experiencing is labeled a “denier” of Climate Change. The frequently-recited figure of “97% consensus” is too small for the percentage of scientists who recognize climate change in the ordinary sense of the term; it’s much closer to 100%. But in the specialized U.N. sense (about CO2 driving the change), there is widespread disagreement based on reliable opposing scientific data.
In the absence of quotation marks, italics or capitals, ordinary citizens have no idea that the controversy is rooted in radically different meanings of the same words.
[ more ]
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FIN;
Looking forward to your evidenced opinions on Cook/UQ issue, as well as for WEST Antarctic issue.
[On the appropriate thread. -Fly]
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There is enough alarmist crap to laugh at, but, as you insist:
This Ice Sheet Will Unleash a Global Superstorm Sandy That Never Ends
Glaciologist Richard Alley explains that losing West Antarctica would produce 10 feet of sea level rise in coming centuries. That’s comparable to the flooding from Sandy—
National Geographic, May 13, 2014
Opinion: Keeping Ice Sheet “Collapse” in Perspective
Seas are rising faster now, but don’t head for the hills quite yet.
. . .
What can you add to that conversation, FIN?
[Not on this thread, please. -Fly]
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That’s because 97% of respondents on this blog understand that ideas about the Antarctic and tiny changes there are not interesting. The other 2.883% don’t care.
Personally I’m 2/3 of the way to being 97% with the 97% majority.
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How many warmists does it take to change a light bulb?
None. Light bulb’s fine, they just turned it off to protest evolution.
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let’s take the Lennart Bengtsson affair. a matter so serious, Der Spiegel writes this lengthy piece, giving voice to all sides.
MEANWHILE, STILL NO ARTICLES WHATSOEVER ON ABC, BBC, FAIRFAX OR THE CONVERSATION:
23 May: Der Spiegel: A Heated Debate: Are Climate Scientists Being Forced to Toe the Line? (Translated from German)
By Axel Bojanowski
After joining a controversial lobby group critical of climate change, meteorologist Lennart Bengtsson claims he was shunned by colleagues, leading him to quit. Some scientists complain pressure to conform to consensus opinion has become a serious hindrance in the field.
News that Lennart Bengtsson, the respected former director of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, had joined the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), sent shockwaves through the climate research community…
Gavin Schmidt a climatologist and climate modeler at NASA described the “alleged connection to McCarthy” as “ridiculous.” “As someone who has actually been threatened with criminal sanctions by a United States Senator only because of published science, I don’t quite see why Bengtsson’s total freedom to associate with anyone he wants — and let me be clear, he has this freedom — has in any way been compromised,” he said.
But Bengtsson insists that even close colleagues shunned him. He says that one research partner, apparently fearing damage to his reputation, withdrew from a study they had been conducting together. Bengtsson added no further details other than to state that the incident had been hurtful.
NASA’s Schmidt also expressed criticism of that claim. “This is so vague as to mean anything, and without an actual example, it is impossible to know what is being alleged.”…
Bengtsson said in an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE that he wanted to open up the climate change debate by joining GWPF. He said that in view of large gaps in knowledge, the pressure to reach a consensus in climate research “does not make sense”.
Nevertheless, by joining the political lobby group, Bengtsson opened himself up to criticism that he had taken a position inappropriate for a scientist of his stature…
University of Washington climatologist Eric Steig says the activities of the GWPF are more reminiscent of McCarthyism than Bengtsson’s case. Steig says the GWPF boasts about investigating climate researchers. “They also have published opinion articles on their web site accusing mainstream climate scientists of having ‘secret societies’ and having political agendas designed with specific left-wing policy aims in mind,” he adds…
Reto Knutti of the ETH Zürich technical university is also critical. “Organizations like the GWPF contribute to whipping scientific debate into a religious war,” he argues. “They distribute pseudo-scientific reports, even though they are actually pursuing a political aim,” says Knutti. Jochem Marotzke, who is Bengtsson’s successor at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, says, “GWPF works deliberately in a selective way. They mention only arguments that suit their purposes. Counterarguments are kept under wraps.”
Professor Myles Allen, a climate researcher at Oxford, says, “The problem is their anti-science agenda, clearly illustrated by the fact that they refused point blank to submit their recent report criticizing the IPCC 5th Assessment Report to the same kind of open peer review that the IPCC report was itself subjected to.”
GWPF Director Benny Peiser challenges assertions like that. “We are not an interest group; our scientists have no official or collective opinion — to any topics. If there were no taboos in climate science or climate policy, the GWPF would probably not exist.”…
But even a recognized skeptical climate researcher Roger Pielke Jr., an environmental scientist at the University of Colorado, says the group uses science to cloak its political agenda. Pielke emphasizes, however, that as a lobbying group GWPF “has every right to advance whatever arguments it wants. It often focuses on stealth advocacy — hiding its politics in science — a strategy common across the climate issue, found on all ‘sides,’ and is pretty common across many issues.”
Von Storch agrees that other political camps, such as environmental groups, also use “stealth advocates” to influence scientific debate. Pielke elaborates, “In a democracy people will organize around all sorts of shared interests, as they should, and many will share values that I don’t. So what? Bengtsson’s justifications for associating with GWPF are perfectly legitimate. That he was pressured by his peers with social and other sanctions reflects the deeply politicized nature of this issue.” …
Roger Pielke Sr. of the University of Colorado says, “Unfortunately, climate science has become very politicized and views that differ at all from those in control of the climate assessment process are either ignored or ridiculed. From my experience, I agree 100 percent with the allegations made by the very distinguished Lennart Bengtsson.”
But who is doing the politicizing? Knutti says that it is pretty easy to tell. “If you are on the left politically, you believe in global warming,” he says. “If you are on the right, that is much less likely.” He adds that the line between opinion and fact is often blurred, even among scientists.
“Each side maintains the other is politicizing the debate,” explains Werner Krauss, an environmental ethnologist at the Helmholtz Center for Materials and Coastal Research in Geesthacht, Germany. He says climate research is dominated by “strongmen” who know how to exploit the media whenever they like. Krauss claims Bengtsson stage managed his move to GWPF in the media and alleges that climate research has fallen into the throes of the scientific equivalent of religious fervor. He says it is no wonder Bengtsson came under heavy fire for his decision.
At the same time, Heinrich Miller of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research says, “I find the way his colleagues reacted shocking. Apparently there is now pervasive disappointment because a shining scientific example is making his scientific doubts public,” he says. Miller adds that the Bengtsson case reminds him when politicians use “dirty tricks” to muzzle opponents.
Pielke Jr. confirms that climate research is a tough business. “We see hardball politics,” he says. “I have personally seen very strong social and professional pressures over the years. These include threats to my job, professional ostracism, public misrepresentations of my research and views, efforts to prevent me from speaking publicly and personal threats, many of which have been publicly documented.” He advises that “anyone who wishes to participate in the public debate on climate change should do so knowing how the politics are played today — dirty, nasty, destructive.”…
Climatologist Michael Mann even speaks of “climate wars.” For years, he says he was the subject of attacks by conservative groups skeptical of climate change, especially after the “Climategate” scandal, when his e-mail correspondence was published illegally. The other side is not pulling any punches either — at least when it comes to vitriol. One Austrian professor has gone so far as calling for the death penalty for climate skeptics.
Miller says that scientists were politicized more than anything else by having to seek a consensus on results for the 5th IPCC report. “Global warming is taken as dogma. Anyone who doubts it is bad,” says the renowned researcher, who was branded a “climate skeptic” after questioning the scientific validity of computer simulations.
Knutti, by contrast, warns about overemphasizing the lack of certainty about the evidence. He says Bengtsson’s stringent criticism of climate change forecasts is misleading, explaining that the models provided useable results that were tested on historical climate change. The 5th IPCC Report that took hundreds of scientists years to produce, says Knutti, comprehensively documents the range of results.
***He says that sitting back and waiting until all the questions are answered is not an alternative, and describes a large portion of what has come to be called skepticism as deliberate deception.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/climate-scientists-mixed-over-controversy-surrounding-respected-researcher-a-971033.html
to be cont’d…
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compare Der Spiegel with the work of that great literary figure & CAGW specialist writer, Graham Readfearn, at The Guardian:
23 May: Guardian: Graham Readfearn: The GWPF bemoans state of climate debate – while promoting antagonism
Nigel Lawson’s climate change sceptic group complains of ‘intolerance’ in climate science, but what of its own record?
Professor Lennart Bengtsson, a 79-year-old meteorologist from the University of Reading, had resigned from the foundation’s academic advisory council only a couple of weeks after joining.
According to Bengtsson, once news got out that he had joined the GWPF, colleagues and peers in the academic community put him under “enormous pressure” and one refused to co-author a science paper with him…
(ATTACKS Lennart Bengtsson, Vaclav Klaus, Cardinal George Pell, John Howard, Professor Nir Shaviv, the Cato Institute’s emeritus Professor Richard Lindzen and Professor William Happer, Professor Ian Plimer, Dr Robert Carter, Heartland Institute, Professor Richard Tol,, Bjorn Lomborg)
But all this talk of McCarthyism and communists reminds me of a passage in the book Merchants of Doubt: How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway.
The book explores the roots of science denial, tracing many of its earliest actors – some of which are still active –to a group driven by a fear of communism and a fanatical devotion to free markets.
“Evidently accepting that their ends justified their means, they embraced the tactics of their enemy, the very things they hated Soviet Communism for: its lies, its deceit, its denial of the very realities it had created.”
COMMENTS: Bluecloud: A brilliant analysis of the denial industry. (AND THE COMMENTS GO DOWNHILL ALL THE WAY)
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/may/23/climate-mccarthyism-confected-outrage-checking-record-global-warming-policy-foundation
btw i linked to Readfearn, with BBC’s help, from BBC’s search results page on “Lennart Bengtsson” which had only the following mention of Bengtsson…in 2009!
May 2009: BBC: Cyclones not getting worse but could be heading to Britain, says study
The study (‘Will Extratropical Storms Intensify in a Warmer Climate?’) published in the latest edition of the Journal of Climate, has found that there’s probably no need to panic about future megastorms.
If you compare cyclones at the end of last century with those modelled for the present century, ‘maximum wind speed is practically identical and occurs at the same time and place relative to the storm centre,’ say authors Lennart Bengtsson, Kevin I Hodges and Noel Keenlyside.
But if you define ‘intensity’ in terms of how much rain the cyclones will dump, then we might have a problem…
Even more unnervingly, the report suggests that Britain could become the next cyclone stomping ground…
However, the authors admit that their predictions are based on a single computer model. It might all be a storm in a teacup, so no need to batten down the hatches just yet.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/climatechange/2009/05/ipcc_prediction_that_cyclones.html
how low can the MSM go? time will tell. meanwhle, give thanx for the Internet.
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as for the once-respected Washington Post (or did we only believe it was worthy of respect because there was no internet?):
22 May: WaPo: Terrence McCoy: How Australia’s winking Tony Abbott became one of the world’s most unpopular prime ministers
Finally, the madness has taken its name: Winkgate. The gate opened when Australia’s prime minister, who has recently bungled his way from one scandal to the next, took a call from a listener on a radio show that was filmed…
This, of course, is nothing new for Tony Abbott, who’s quickly becoming one of the world’s most hated prime ministers…
***Abbott is also taking heat from environmentalists. He once referred to climate change as “crap,” and has since come under criticism for his decision to allow the dredging of the famed Great Barrier Reef. Later, news hit that dredging has had significantly more impact on the Great Barrier than earlier claimed, and that it faced “unprecedented” threats…
Making environmentalists even madder, Abbott wants to allow some logging in national forests. He also abolished Australia’s climate commission and defunded scientific research.
Abbott’s also restored the honorific title of “dame.” But some women, it turns out, don’t much like the guy either. Here’s some classic Abbottisms on women, sex, and gays:…
(Terrence McCoy is a foreign affairs writer at the Washington Post. He served in the U.S. Peace Corps in Cambodia and studied international politics at Columbia University.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/05/22/how-australias-winking-tony-abbott-became-one-of-the-worlds-most-unpopular-prime-ministers/
everything u need to know about McCoy is in the opening line.***
13 May: WaPo: Terrence McCoy: West Antarctic glacial collapse: What you need to know
***Years from now, when scientists look for a precise moment when the Earth’s climate began to inexorably change, they may mark this week…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/05/13/west-antarctic-glacial-collapse-what-you-need-to-know/
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switched on abc local at the very moment these exchanges took place last nite & then switched off.
around 2.3am saturday morning, rod quinn abc local, asking the usual trivia questions to callers. at this point, he’s asking one question per caller or something for them to qualify for more, mostly hollywood, trivia questions.
(PARAPHRASING)
Quinn: to female caller: what is the name of the phone sex line worker who phoned Tony Abbott?
Caller: Gloria (slight giggle) i didn’t find it believable.
Quinn: in his smarmiest voice: it was bizarre. i wonder if tony abbott will look back at that moment and…pause…if it will be like Kim Beazley, when Rove McManus’s wife died and Beazley called him Karl Rove, and he never recovered. he never recovered. that was the end of him.
Male caller: good morning Tony.
Quinn: RUDELY SNAPS: Tony who?
Confused caller: am i speaking to Tony?
Quinn, IN AN EVEN RUDER VOICE: Tony who? u r the one who called.
more confusion for caller.
silence.
Quinn sighs. mentions he is Rod Quinn. asks his silly question.
AND SO IT GOES ON ‘OUR’ ABC. KEEPING WHAT IS A TAWDRY LITTLE ABC FAKE STORY ALIVE AS A QUIZ QUESTION.
Quinn’s rudeness to the innocent male caller is far more reprehensible than any set-up/beat-up(?) wink could possibly be.
de-fund the ABC & cut the staff by at least 50%.
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Edward De Bono’s thoughts on “The intelligence trap”
“…… that many people who consider themselves to be highly intelligent are not necessarily good thinkers. They get caught in the intelligence trap. There are many aspects of this trap but I shall mention just two.
A highly intelligent person can take a view on a subject and then use his or her intelligence to defend that view. The more intelligent the person the better the defence of the view. The better the defence of the view the less that person sees any need to seek out alternatives or to listen to anyone else. If you know that you are ‘right’ why should you do either of those things? As a result, many highly intelligent minds are trapped in poor ideas because they can defend them so well.
A second aspect of the intelligence trap is that a person who has grown up with the notion that he or she is more intelligent than those around (possibly a correct view) wants to get the most satisfaction from that intelligence. The quickest and most reliable way to be rewarded for intelligence is to ‘prove someone else wrong’.
Such a strategy gives you an immediate result and also establishes your superiority. Being constructive is much less rewarding. It may take years to show that a new idea works. Furthermore, you have to depend on the listener liking your idea. So it is obvious that being critical and destructive is a much more appealing use of intelligence. This is made even worse by the absurd Western notion that ‘critical thinking’ is enough.”
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Critical thinking or simply checking is very important. Not just to do it but to do it well so as not to stifle new ideas. Science is like a fishing expedition. We can’t have leaders who tell a good yarn about the one that got away, and we can’t get rid of those who will keep casting while trying new bait, lures* or berley, just because they caught an old boot with the first cast.
Constructive criticism is a tautology ie. if its not constructive its not criticism. For positive or negative criticism to be constructive requires as much effort from the one receiving it as from the person giving it to make it constructive (making trolls think instead of parroting counts).
*One of the funniest things I’ve seen on the tele. Someone told the host that you could catch snapper using a spanner for a lure. He tried it and was justly sceptical about it working, but boy did it work!
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The polls did not ask the correct questions. The questions asked should have been:
Question 1: Would you be concerned if the US signed and/or was planning to sign a ‘climate change’ agreement which would result in a massive loss of US jobs to Asia (due to the increase in energy costs in the US Vs the energy costs in Asia, see EU for the road map, China and India will be exempt from the agreement and/or will cheat) and will result in a massive transfer of US tax revenue to corrupt developing countries to be spent on green scams which do not work and to be spent on a massive bureaucracy to monitor carbon emissions and carbon trading, if there is no climate crisis to solve and the agreement will result in almost no significant reduction in CO2 emissions?
Question 2: Same as question 1 except the planet is cooling.
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What else would you expect from the poor yanks.
Hell, having a dill like Obama in the Whitehouse is enough of an environmental disaster for anyone.
Talk about pollution personified! With him there, any natural environmental problem fades into insignificance.
30
btw should have made it clear the caller to Rod Quinn obviously thought he was talking to abc’s Tony Delroy, who hosts the previous program.
30
been online for more than 24 hours, no other MSM have picked up this story, & i doubt if they ever will:
22 May: BBC: ‘Callous’ firms in carbon credit scam shut down
A web of firms that sold carbon credits to vulnerable investors at inflated prices has been shut down in the High Court on grounds of public interest.
Eco-Synergies Ltd bought credits for 65p each, selling them to investors via other firms for up to an 869% profit…
The credits were sourced by Eco-Synergies at a cost of £2.3m and then marketed, using false and misleading claims, through 12 companies and raised a total of £19m…
Chris Mayhew, company investigations supervisor at the Insolvency Service, said: “The credits were sold at such inflated prices that an unnatural increase in value would be required before investors could break even, let alone see a return on their investment.
“Essentially, investors including vulnerable individuals – and often repeat victims who were urged to buy more and more credits – have lost their money.
“I would urge anyone cold-called and offered hot air by callous individuals to simply hang up the call.”
Eco-Synergies used lavish brochures calling itself “the voluntary carbon specialists” and claiming to be a carbon market pioneer…
(BESPOKE – LOL)It provided bespoke assistance to the companies selling the credits, offering to train their staff in how to sell them to the public…
Its brochure claimed that the firm had a monthly turnover of more than £5m and had spent £200,000 on legal fees to ensure its system and contracts were “watertight”.
The Insolvency Service estimated that “hundreds, possibly over a thousand, individual investors [have been] affected by the 13 firms”.
These latest cases take the total number of (BRITISH) carbon credit firms closed by the Insolvency Service to 32.
In the last two years, 19 other companies have been closed down after taking nearly £24m from over 1,500 investors.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27530039
22 May: Reuters: Michael Szabo: UK court orders 13 firms liquidated for carbon credit sales schemes
Efforts by Reuters to contact Eco-Synergies by phone or email were unsuccessful…
British watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority last year released findings of a survey of 125 carbon investors, showing that not one had made money from investing in credits.
It said nearly 200 carbon firms have been put under investigation since 2011, and has listed many of them on its website.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/22/britain-carbon-crime-idUSL6N0O85AF20140522
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It just goes to show that if you are dumb enough to buy carbon credits as an investment, then you are stupid enough to be an alarmist.
40
not being picked up by MSM & not on Reuters, so no further text available:
yippee!
Q&A – What EU Parliament election means for bloc’s carbon market
LONDON, May 23 (Reuters) – Europe’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) remains in dire straits and is likely to be dealt a further blow on Sunday when elections to the EU parliament end as polls predict a rise for political parties sceptical towards climate change.
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.5277720?&ref=searchlist
23 May: WSJ Washington Wire Blog: Adele C. Morris: Will the EPA Push for a Carbon Tax?
(Adele C. Morris is policy director of the Brookings Institution’s Climate and Energy Economics Project.)
Thanks to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that greenhouse gases are considered air pollutants under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency has to do something to control them. But the act is particularly ill-suited to controlling a non-toxic global pollutant…
One would be a national carbon tax, which could be part of a broader pro-growth, deficit-reduction package. Such a tax is, of course, politically impossible these days, but it’s still smart policy, as Aparna Mathur of the American Enterprise Institute and I explain in a new paper.
Another alternative that’s getting attention in Congress: Offer states the option of enacting their own sensible carbon tax to avoid the convoluted regulations that otherwise would be required by the Clean Air Act as interpreted by the Supreme Court. Legislation drafted by Rep. John Delaney (D., Md.) would offer states just such a powerful choice.
Or, the EPA and the states could muddle through under existing law. Stanford scholars and I analyzed how the EPA could allow states to adopt a carbon tax as their Clean Air Act compliance plan if they could show it would satisfactorily reduce emissions. A survey of 40 prominent economists last year found that 90% agree that a carbon tax is the “best system of emission reduction.” The question is: Will the EPA?
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/05/23/will-the-epa-push-for-a-carbon-tax/
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Give the individual US states a choice of imposing carbon taxes or not, and then stand back and watch how real business reacts.
If you are confused by this comment, then look at the recent flight of business from California, the state which is widely recognised as being the most business hostile in America. Why? Well, the explanation is provided by the supposed quote of the UK’s prime minister David Cameron, “Green crap.”
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what a joke:
23 May: Bloomberg: Mike Anderson: Australia’s Pollution U-Turn Threatening UN Climate Talks
Australia’s program to rein in pollution is losing momentum, the latest in a series of setbacks for the international effort to tackle global warming.
With the highest per-capita fossil fuel emissions among industrial countries, Australia’s participation in United Nations-led climate talks is seen as crucial to sway China and India to step up pollution controls even as developed nations backslide. Now, Australia’s environmental stance is undergoing an about-face as the country’s new government and its political opponents haggle over the best way to dismantle earlier regulations…
“It feels like a 180-degree turn for Australia,” said Jake Schmidt, director of international climate policy at the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council. “That’s the hardest thing for the international community to take.”
Closer to home, environmentalists worry that the new government’s stance will set back years of effort to rein in pollution…
“There is a likelihood of Australia becoming a climate policy wasteland,” said John Connor, chief executive officer of The Climate Institute in Sydney…
***“The budget drama is significantly diminishing the authority of the goverment and emboldening opponents across the spectrum.” …
Yet Prime Minister Tony Abbott, fulfilling a campaign promise, has vowed to replace the levy with an alternative that he says would still effectively reduce emissions. His plan, though, is under attack by Clive Palmer, the mining magnate turned politician who controls three critical seats in Australia’s senate. While Palmer also wants to do away with the carbon levy, he is opposing Abbott’s program, arguing it’s a waste of money…
The U.S. has encouraged Abbott to include climate change on the G-20 agenda…
Even some prominent members of Australia’s business community are urging Abbott to stay the course on tough greenhouse gas emission standards.
“Australia is now being positioned very definitely on the wrong side of history,” said Ian Dunlop, former chairman of the Australian Coal Association and former CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. “Paying polluters to reduce their emissions is morally and ethically flawed.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-22/australia-s-pollution-u-turn-threatening-un-climate-talks.html
30
how could i have left out this bit from the Bloomberg/Anderson piece?
“Australia risks being embarrassed by global leaders who are determined to take action, like German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Barack Obama,” said Kobad Bhavnagri, the Sydney-based head for Australia research at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
30
Dear Kobad,
Yes Merkel and Obama might be embarrassed by Australia stance on not playing the AGW scam on it’s electorate.
Well that’s their problem isn’t it.
30
boo hoo:
23 May: Bloomberg: James Paton: Siemens Says Australian Cuts May Hurt Wind-Power Plans at Mines
Siemens AG (SIE), Europe’s largest engineering company, said it’s concerned that Australia’s plans to scrap its renewable energy agency may hurt efforts to bring wind turbines to remote mines…
Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s government plans to get rid of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency to save A$1.3 billion ($1.2 billion). The agency, which this week provided A$11.3 million to fund a solar project at a Rio Tinto Group mine in Queensland state, is seeking to increase the use of clean energy in diesel-powered regions.
“ARENA was quite helpful in trying to prove the technology, so that is a concern to us that the government funding might disappear,” Pryke said May 21.
Declining wind and solar power costs and rising diesel prices are making alternatives more attractive to companies that have traditionally relied on fossil fuels to power their operations, according to an Ernst & Young LLP report earlier this year…
Siemens is among companies behind Vestas Wind Systems A/S (VWS)with the biggest shares of Australia’s wind turbine market…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-23/siemens-says-australian-cuts-may-hurt-wind-power-plans-at-mines.html
20
Tim Palmer can explain everything…to Bloomberg:
headline on Sustainabiliity homepage is: “Extreme U.S. and U.K. Winters Linked to CO2″
23 May: Bloomberg: Justin Doom: Extreme U.S. and U.K. Winters Linked to Greenhouse Gases
The severe snowstorms that battered much of the U.S. and the U.K.’s wettest winter in almost 250 years were at least partially caused by rising greenhouse-gas emissions, a University of Oxford researcher said.
Rising sea temperatures in the tropical Western Pacific also exacerbated last year’s typhoon season including Haiyan, which killed more than 6,000 people in the Philippines, and heat waves in Australia, said Tim Palmer, a professor of climate physics whose findings appear today in the journal Science…
“The sea temperatures in that crucial region of the west Pacific, which are some of the warmest ocean temperatures anywhere in the world, have reached these all-time record warmings through an additional effect, which is man-made climate change,” Palmer said in a telephone interview. “The water’s already warm there, and it’s just taken it over the brink to create conditions last winter and into this spring that were unprecedented.” …
“There are various links in a long chain, and part of my message is that climate is a complex system,” Palmer said. “Interaction between natural climate variability and man-made climate change are coming together in a perfect storm.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-22/extreme-u-s-and-u-k-winters-linked-to-greenhouse-gases.html
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Hannam hasn’t written a word about Lennart Bengtsson? but he already has two articles up about a Lowy Institute Poll (hahahaha) proving Australians want CAGW action at almost any cost!
12 hours ago:
24 May: SMH: Peter Hannam: Australians more worried about climate change, poll finds
A strong response to questions about global warming is among the standout results in this year’s Lowy Institute Poll, with the numbers demanding action ”even if this involves significant costs” building on a small rebound in last year’s survey.
”After five years of successive decline in Australians’ concern about climate change, last year’s poll showed the first upward trend in the number of Australians who see climate change as a ‘serious and pressing problem’,” the report’s author, Alex Oliver, said.
”This trend continues,” said Ms Oliver, declining to elaborate before the report’s release on June 4. ”Australians have strong views on the leader- ship role government should take.”…
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/australians-more-worried-about-climate-change-poll-finds-20140523-38u81.html
2 hours ago:
24 May: SMH: Peter Hannam: Climate angst rises with record temperatures
It’s official.
Just after midday on Saturday, the mercury reached 23 degrees – 25 is forecast – as Sydney posted its longest warm spell in records going back to 1910, says Sarah Perkins, a leading heatwave expert at the University of NSW.
Sydney’s 25.1 degrees on Friday matched the previous longest heatwave – defined as at least three consecutive days in the warmest 10 per cent for each date – of seven days set in August 1995. Including Saturday, that burst could stretch to at least 14 days.
”It’s actually quite scary, especially if it lasts for two weeks – that’s incredible,” Dr Perkins said.
”That’s blitzing records.”…
There may be political implications too, with signs that public worries about climate change are on the rise.
One of the stand-out results from this year’s Lowy Institute Poll is a further rise in demands for action on global warming ”even if this involves significant costs”…
Former prime minister Julia Gillard viewed the breaking of Australia’s drought in 2009 as sapping support for action on climate change…
The strength of El Nino may determine how much climate angst rises, said Andy Pitman, director of UNSW’s ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science. ”It wouldn’t surprise me if people were getting concerned,” he said. ”If we have a dry winter … the fire season next spring will make [last year’s] seem trivial.”
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/climate-angst-rises-with-record-temperatures-20140523-38uek.html
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NOT ONLY AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITIES PRODUCING FOOLS.
Dyke’s writing style is like Readfearn’s: tick, tick, tick, tick off on their idea of wedge political issues:
23 May: The Conversation: James Dyke: When climate change comes, you won’t be able to vote it out
(James Dyke is Lecturer in Complex Systems Simulation at University of Southampton)
A little while ago I had managed to grab a half hour cuppa with a previous vice chairman of the IPCC. Topics of discussion roamed far and wide but with an understandable focus on climate change. As I sat at my desk this morning, blearily staring into the clouds of my coffee, I thought about that meeting in the light of yesterday’s UK council elections. The results for the European Parliament will not be known until Sunday, but I would hazard a guess that they will bring a few messages.
First, the United Kingdom Independence Party has significantly increased its seats and its overall influence on British politics. Perhaps in a similar evolution to that of the Tea Party movement in the US, what was once written off as an incoherent party of protest that could not survive for more than a season is becoming an established feature of the political landscape…
Additionally, UKIP members are well known for their particular interpretation of the science. Even if we leave aside the idea that this winter’s storms were caused by gay marriage, there’s obviously sceptical claims in the party’s manifesto:
“The slight warming in the last hundred years is entirely consistent with well-established, long-term natural climate cycles… We do not however regard CO2 as a pollutant. It is a natural trace gas in the atmosphere which is essential to plant growth and life on earth.”
It is this, clearly climate change-skeptical political party, that has in some parts of the country polled over 30%.
It’s entirely possible that this was in part because there has been such recent bad news about the climate…
Fear of immigration has been another important factor in these recent elections…
So to immigration. The impact of climate change will be felt first and foremost by those countries with the least resources to cope…
Rather than retreat and turn inwards in an attempt to deny the forces that spiral around us, we should take our responsibilities seriously and seek influence on the global stage…
FIVE COMMENTS
http://theconversation.com/when-climate-change-comes-you-wont-be-able-to-vote-it-out-25285
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I think both OZ and America have their loony left. It is getting so that in the USA, environmentalists are synonymous with radical leftists. The “environment” and environmental issues are used as tools of the radical leftists to destroy progress and useful things for the majority of the people, especially the poor. If the question had been real conservation of natural resources, it would have drawn a large majority.
For the last four decades, or longer, there has been a nationwide effort to push the leftist agendas in education and it is working exactly as they desired. Same with the so-called main stream media–it is nothing more than a crude appendage of the Democrat Party.
So if you mention the environment most taxpayers see it as a code word for radical leftists and big government.
It may be misleading to take this Gallup poll too seriously.
Just as the radical leftists have given science a black eye with phony global warming and resulted in disbelief of many of the things they say as just left-wing politics. The same has happened when they say environment and mean a big, totalitarian government.
Enough said, but you might also think about Obama and our nation’s rapid decline in almost everything. Last example. The mission of NASA was changed from space and related things to scientific outreach to Muslim countries. More Obama.
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Indeed the imbalance exhibited by politicians is out of control. Instead they should be focusing on the real issues, such as crime, poverty, unemployment, debts, stagnant growth, etc. What’s ironic is if they did do all that, the AGW issue if it were real would solve itself in due course as new and better means of power generation and consumption are used.
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My experience is that most Americans don’t understand “environmental issues” unless they’re visible in their own front yard. It takes something like the water running down the gutter having motor oil in it or shore birds covered with crude oil to be an environmental issue to most people.
People will, of course, pick up and believe what someone with the cloak of authority tells them. So environment is on everyone’s mind because it’s shoved at us constantly. The State of California all by itself is on a one state crusade to save the world. What that means to me is that environment being so far down the list only reflects the ugly fact that so many of us are worried about things that more directly affect our lives. Keeping food on the table is a major struggle for many. Keeping your job from disappearing and finding another job when the old one has been pulled out from under you are big problems as well. And for far too many who do have a job, making the money last through the month is a challenge.
I think that absent some of those other problems environment would come out far higher. And we shouldn’t fool ourselves that its being so low (3%) means much.
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Whoa – 97% of Americans think global warming is BS?
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NICE LINK !!
Go and argue over there.. IF YOU DARE, Sheman !!
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