Bad news for Holland

Not only did they lose the World Cup but their country is going to sink. In about a hundred years. Maybe.

Global warming farce

You can feel the tide turning on this, or the wall crashing down, or the 'what' entering the 'whatever' (whichever metaphor grabs your fancy).

It's not so much that Paul Sheehan has written a somewhat sceptical article, it's the fact that it appeared in the SMH, until quite recently an unashamed promoter of the ideology that not only is global warming happening, we must all pay lots of money to stop it.

Here are 10 anti-commandments, 10 selected facts about global warming which have been largely ignored amid the orthodoxies to which we are subjected every day. All these anti-commandments are either true or backed by scientific opinion. All can also be hotly contested.

Sheehan then goes on to provide a random grab-bag of things that are most likely true and most certainly underreported—the polar bear population is increasing, Barack Obama wants nuclear power stations to multiply, the scientific consensus on global warming is a myth, etc etc.

The two from Sheehan's article that, if true, ought to make Christian bandwagoners on global warming ashamed:

6. The politicisation of science leads to a heavy price being paid in poor countries.

After Western environmentalists succeeded in banning or suppressing the use of the pesticide DDT, the rate of death by malaria rose into the millions. Some scholars estimate the death toll at 20 million or more, most of them children.

7. The biofuels industry has exacerbated world hunger.

Diverting huge amounts of grain crops (as distinct from sugar cane) to biofuels has contributed to a rise in world food prices, felt acutely in the poorest nations.

Those who have used the global warming momentum to push Christians (and others) to take costly action now (though the exact actions are frequently vague in nature, imprecise in application and uncertain in effect) have by and large remained silent on the real, current impact of a Western world largely sold on the reality of the still uncertain phenomenon of anthropogenic global warming.

The greater and possibly less visible sin of Christian apologists for global warming is not about how money and effort has been mis-spent, however, but how it's worked to distract some from the true end-time scenario; that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead.

Climategate

Would you report Watergate like this?:

Security problems persist at a building complex in Foggy Bottom, Washington DC, following a burglary that reportedly caused the resignation of a leading political figure last night.

Watergate senior janitor Herb D Kowalski is calling for a thorough review of window latches, which he says are still “way too loose” two years after the burglary.

“I hear tell that politicians have gotten involved and that old Tricky Dick got fired,” he said.

“But that’s hardly the main issue, which is that those window latches are a disgrace. I said so when they put ‘em in, but did anyone listen?”

But that's how leaked e-mails about some scientific dirty tricks, used to prop up the idea of climate change 'consensus', are being talked about in some quarters.

(Thanks blog reader Em!)

Suppressing climate debate

The religion that climate change has become finds ways to advance its cause—in this case, by suppressing dissent:

A CSIRO economist whose research criticising emissions trading schemes was banned from publication said last night he had been subjected to harassment by the senior agency management.

Clive Spash also accused the agency of hindering public debate and trampling on his civil liberties by preventing the research being published in British journal New Political Economy.

That's in today's Australian.

Emissions Trading Legislation

It doesn't matter which side of the climate change debate you're on, the current legislation being debated in Parliament is a complete waste of time:

... few in Parliament are excited about the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill (2009) and its related 11 bills. The legislation is arcane. It is compromised. It will cost voters money. Compared with Rudd's rhetoric during the 2007 election, it is a cop-out. For those who are convinced that human activity is responsible for a dramatic shift in global climate, such as Garrett, the Labor Left and the Greens, this bill is a pointless exercise in bureaucratic churn. For those who are convinced that human activity is not necessarily responsible for a dramatic shift in global climate, such as half the Opposition, this bill is a pointless exercise in bureaucratic churn.

They are both right. This bill is a pointless exercise in bureaucratic churn. It is all about having a policy in place before the world climate convention in Copenhagen in December. The collateral benefit for Labor is that Malcolm Turnbull inherited an opposition that is anything but a coalition on this issue.

It was a listless debate because everything that matters will be decided overseas, by the US, the European Union, China and India. Australia's contribution, good and bad, represents about 1 per cent of the global phenomenon.

-Paul Sheehan in today's SMH.

Climate change: nothing will happen

At Federal policy level, that is. Here's why:

The truth is that one of the central reasons for which Kevin Rudd won the election (his pledge to take serious action to slow climate change) is deeply inconsistent with another (his pledge to do all that he can to keep fuel and food prices low).

From here.

Climate comments

Michael Duffy makes some observations about climate change in today's SMH.

Commenting on the fact that global warming has stopped since 2002 (some argue 1998) Duffy says:

But because the figures since 2002 might raise doubts about the orthodoxy, there has been a great silence. Most of those involved in public discussion of global warming simply ignored what was happening to the temperature record. The media have continued to interpret any minor weather event as proof of global warming. Political leaders have continued to crank up the panic.

It's a response that has to raise concerns about the relative roles of reason, emotion and propaganda in public consideration of global warming.

The implications of the past six years for public policy are the same as for science: we need to be cautious. We simply don't know enough about this matter to justify urgent and dramatic action. It's worth reflecting on the number of scientists who are certain about what the temperature trend will be in a 100 years, yet in 2001 were unable to predict what would happen in the next six.

The whole article is worth reading, and includes references to some useful websites.

As usual, Tim Blair is somewhat more forthright:

The same people who only now predict a twelve-year cooling still expect to be taken seriously about eventual massive warming. They’re making this up as they go along. And it’s your fault for believing previous warming threats:

The projection does not come as a surprise to climate scientists, though it may to a public that has perhaps become used to the idea that the rapid temperature rises seen through the 1990s are a permanent phenomenon.

From whom might the public have gotten that crazy idea?

Deuteronomy 18:21-22 comes to mind.

Climate Debate Daily

OK you climate-changerologists out there, whatever your opinion, you are going to find Climate Debate Daily a regularly useful trigger for your hobby horse. It is a 2 column, frequently updated page with links on the left under the heading 'call to action', and links on the right under the heading 'dissenting voices'. So for example, here's an article published in the last week from the sky-and-everything-else is falling brigade, talking about fast-melting glaciers; right next to it (whether by accident or design, I haven't yet worked out) is one purporting to dismiss any alarmism about the imminent collapse of the Wilkins ice-shelf as a scientific crock.

As a militant agnostic regarding matters climatic ("What's the weather going to be like tomorrow, everywhere?" "Dunno, and I don't think you do either") the Climate Debate Daily page will be of mild interest to me, and will help anyone else with a dog in the fight to stay somewhat up-to-date.

Theologically speaking, my main concern is that most of the current talk about the weather prompts both climate-change believers and unbelievers alike to think about the daily weather God gives without reference to the God who gives it. This is a garment-rending offence, and has been at least since Acts 14:14-18 was written. The key verse, spoken by Paul:

"Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”

Even weather disrupted by the sinfulness of man (if indeed it has been disrupted) is an occasion for thankfulness to God. So the worst-case climate change scenario still leaves us daily offering thanks to God for his goodness through rain and sunlight.

Two words: China, India

Ross Gittins explains why nothing we do about reigning in emissions here in Australia will make the faintest carbon smudge of difference.

Locking up skeptics.

If you are not convinced by the notion of global warming, David Suzuki would like you locked up.

Water—too much

How come there's so much water in Sydney's Warragamba dam lately?

The global warmenists kept telling me it would be empty by now. Here's climate change guru Tim Flannery in 2005 warning that we would all be rooned, right about now or even a few weeks ago. I am as disappointed as a disappointed thing expecting to be disappointed, and then not.

Oopsy, sky not falling.

Sorry about that false alarm a few days ago, folks, and put away the umbrellas. The sky is not falling, and NASA suggests that the Arctic may not be melting after all. Oopsy.

And apparently the temperature in Antarctica has remained exactly stable for a period of thirty two years.

Speak, you global warmenists! If you can see through the fog and mist of this unseasonably cold Sydney winter, er, summer, to see these words on your screen.

Thanks to Andrew Bolt, who has a few words to say, and Tim Blair, who is frequently a very funny person. Here he thanks Kevin Rudd for recent Australian rain.

The sky is falling

It's predictions like this that make regular citizens think that climate change prophesiers are eejits.

I think climate change is probably happening, but when the headlines and the bloggerizers begin to shriek about an ice-free Arctic by 2013, you know you've entered the world of sci-fi. It also makes the likelihood of serious and constructive responses, to something that may turn out to be a real problem, just that much more difficult.

Panic now, folks. The Lord Jesus may return tonight, but this apocalyptic scenario is as nothing compared to the reality that the Arctic will be ice-free within minutes.

Carbon sequestration—get it right!

I'm impressed with Dr Karl for admitting he got it wrong, misled as he was by Tim Flannery's calculation which was out by a factor of ten.

That's a fairly big 'oops' though, isn't it, if it leads you to reject an entire technology and advise politicians accordingly.

Just as well we found that zero digit in time. Assuming no more mistakes, at least.

Al Gored

A climate scientist with no concerns about losing grant money (he's 78) critiques Al Gore on climate change.