Articles Tagged "Des Moore"

LAMENTABLY, attempts to generate meaningful discussion on the science of climate change continue to be frustrated by attacks on those who question the dangerous human-caused global warming scenario.

Typical is Mike Steketee's critique of the motives of Emeritus Professor Bob Carter ("Scientists who trade in doubt", 17-18/3).

Citing leaked documents from the Heartland Institute, Steketee conveniently ignores that his evidence is a mixture of fabrications and stolen papers, a fact admitted by the perpetrator, Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute.

The substance of Steketee's charge is that Carter appears to be receiving pay for a fair day's work. Or is it the nature of the work that is so heinous: collecting and presenting evidence that refutes the alarmist claims? After all, Steketee has not similarly denounced the academic authors of the Climate Commission report from which he quotes favourably, a report prepared specifically to support prevailing government policy.

Treasurer Wayne Swan addresses the National Press Club outlining our Government's plan for a clean energy future.

Economic modelling of climate change – what does it mean?

In his 7 June address to the Press Club Treasurer Wayne Swan claimed that new Treasury modelling projects economic growth per head to 2050 only 0.1 per cent a year less than otherwise under a carbon (dioxide) tax. This modelling is subject to serious questioning – or should be. Although that poses difficulties because the modelling has not been released, there are some obvious questions considered below.

But note first that it is passing strange that details have not been released because the outcome is the same as that previously modelled and published in detail in October 2008 by the Treasury and also by Treasurer Swan and the then Minister for Climate Change Wong. That modelling was published when the emissions trading scheme was in vogue, that is, before Swan and Gillard persuaded Rudd to drop that approach and Gillard took over and then switched to a carbon tax policy for the first 3-5 years. However, given that either the ETS or the carbon tax would target a similar reduction in emissions, there is no reason why the details of the modelling of economic growth should differ significantly from one to the other.

Professor Ross Garnaut has now submitted two major reports on climate change to the Labor government, one in 2008 and one (Statement: Climate evidence is in, it is time to act as one involving eight updates) this year. He has been a much used economic adviser by Labor governments, including as senior economic adviser to Prime Minister Hawke from 1983-85, and was an important influence on Labor's reductions in tariffs and floating of the exchange rate in the 1980s. Against these roles Garnaut has been regarded as a prominent advocate of reforms that allow market forces greater play.

How, then, should one assess his advocacy of the opposite - major government interventions in the economy to stop the emissions of greenhouse gases because of the alleged threat that over time temperatures will otherwise increase to levels that threaten human existence?

The basic rationale here is that government action is needed to reduce greenhouse gases emitted as a result of human activity because individuals will otherwise continue to consume fossil fuels even if temperatures increase. Hence, it is argued, just as individuals need to be stopped by government regulation from polluting air or water, they also need to be prevented from using fossil fuels moving instead to usage of other energy sources. Accordingly, Garnaut's support for government intervention is fundamentally based on the claim by a group of scientists that threatening temperatures from the greenhouse effect, arising from increased radiations back to earth from the concentrations of greenhouse gases that accumulate in the atmosphere, will reach dangerous levels.

Government misadvised on global warming

On November 10 last year, the government’s Multi-party Climate Change Committee (MCCC) received a summary of the state of global warming science from its sole scientist member, ANU’s Professor Will Steffen. (see Powerpoint presentation here…).

All policy discussion conducted within the committee since has been predicated upon the accuracy of Professor Steffen’s advice, which was that a high risk of human-related dangerous warming exists and that urgent steps need to be taken to curtail carbon dioxide emissions.

In a more recent speech last week, Climate Minister Combet indicated his continuing reliance upon the views of Professor Steffen, who had advised him that:

there is 100% certainty that the earth is warming, and that there is a very high level of certainty it will continue to warm unless efforts are made to reduce the levels of carbon pollution being sent into the atmosphere.

Interpreting the 0.7C fall in 2010 temperatures.

Those familiar with the climate debate will naturally be aware that the rise in average official temperatures of 0.74C over the 20th century was an inherent component of IPCC’s conclusion of a future of dangerously high temperatures unless governments acted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But how to interpret the fall of 0.7C in the average Australian temperature for 2010? Clearly one year’s temperature doth not in itself maketh a new trend and believers in the IPCC’s conclusion are tending to portray it as either a one-off or even an unusual form of continued warming. But it is pertinent to give the development a perspective that differs from that conveyed by the believers.

For a start, the 2010 level was similar to average temperatures in 1914-15, 1928, 1938, 1959 and 1965, as well as in a number of subsequent years. It was also lower than in several years in the period since 1980. In short, it was not a one-off in terms of temperatures occurring over the past century.

The “explanations” by believers in the global warming theory are also seriously deficient.