Or as my friend down under, Andrew Bolt, calls it: “Day of apathy”
Sydney yesterday demonstrated the depth of international passion about global warming through several highly pictorial stunts:
It was part of a series of events across Sydney yesterday by the environment movement 350.org. Australia was the first of 179 countries to take part in 4500 events worldwide as part of the International Day of Climate Action.
Counting the people in the picture, though, I’d say that this is not a global day of action, but global day of apathy. Or, let’s hope, a global day of mounting scepticism.
Left: People outside the Opera House take a stand on climate change yesterday. Top: Protesters at Manly and bottom, Marton Hidas at the Opera House. Photo: Adam Hollingworth, Janie Barrett
And that’s even without discounting for the tourists and the unfortunate children who were simply dragged there by parents warning them they may not have a future:
Among those on the Opera House steps showing their support was Rae Lawrence from Croydon, who brought her sons, Cameron, 6, and Nicholas, 8. ‘’We care about the future and I want them to have one to live in,’’ she said.
UPDATE
Apologies. From Greenpeace, this proof that the crowds in Sydney may have been even bigger than I sneeringly suggest:
UPDATE 2
The global day of apathy rolls on in Rome:
And in Kiev:
And Dunedin, just the one:
In Copenhagen, where the world’s leaders will meet in December to discuss slashing emissions – or not:
And Shanghai, city of 17 million, in a country that is now the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases:
But you know it’s a snoozer, media-wise, when “balloon boy”, his mom, and the death of Soupy Sales gets above the fold on Google News and “350” doesn’t:
UPDATE: Maybe I jinxed it, maybe it just took awhile for enough “critical mass” of stories to accumulate. Google has now elevated 350 day to top story status, even though it has far less the number of linked stories as the other top entries. An editorial decision, most likely.
Had I not seen Bolt’s column on it, I wouldn’t even have remembered to mention it myself. What did you do for “350 day”?
UPDATE 10/25: Bill McKIbben can’t do simple math.From 350.org website…seems to me the other two stories have a lot more new coverage. Lets see:
350 event: 322 news stories,
Church janitor: 854 news stories
Obama-Iran: 5255 news stories
So how does he get “for a little while, we’re the most talked about news story on the planet”?
As of this writing, they’ve only managed 661 news stories and have fallen off the Google above the fold section.
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The original organizers were considering a target of 450 as a realistic goal.However, in discussing this target, James Hansen suggested 350, a target lower than current levels. His reasoning was that this lower target would send a much stronger message, a message of increased urgency.
Interesting how this scientist chooses his targets based on politics not science.
Richard (21:29:30) :
“Norm/Calgary (20:46:48) :
3% of atmospheric CO2 is attributed to man. That would be 3% of 0.038% (0.038%=380PPMV) of the atmosphere.oops
Richard (21:26:29) :
Norm/Calgary (20:46:48) :
3% of atmospheric CO2 is attributed to man. That would be 3% of 0.038% (0.038%=338PPMV) of the atmosphere.”
Watch the almost prefect video:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=4204&linkbox=true&position=3
“jamel (22:00:38) : ……….this scientist chooses his targets based on politics not science.”
IIRC, in another thread yesterday someone described him as “mad”. Isn’t the “politics” a typo for “madness”? 😉
I use a crude Bathtub analogy.
There is a bathtub with some water in it. The tap is on but the drain is open. The same amount going in as is going out. If you turn up the tap even as little as 3% the water level will rise whereas it had not risen before.
There are more complex persistence mechanisms not explained in this analogy that causes the rise to level off eventually. But until then, there will be a rise.
I repeat, I do NOT think CO2 level matters much. But it does rise if we add 3% per year; some of it WILL accumulate until persistence is stabilized.
mike sphar (19:11:09) : “Meant refrig not regfrig, must have been the maitai talking.”
But ‘refrig’ means to frig again. And, of course, you know what ‘frig’ means, yes? (Must have been some maitai!)
If not: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/frig
Or perhaps you meant ‘fridge?’
Save your time and money, this thing is headed for the discount counter. “Was 350. Now marked down to 199.99.”
There are 21 million people here in Australia and 20,998,750 failed to turn up for this event including me!
Never heard of it. LOL
Aussies know what their priorities are.
Sydney Harbor Bridge becomes grassy picnic ground.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114139129
Somewhere between 5000 and 10000 showed up in Vancouver BC but the rest of Canada considers it La La land and it is home to David Suzuki.
Anyone notice that the 350.org website has mexico located in South America, and Botswana located in northern America!
Nobody thought about that all the fossil fuel that we are burning, was originally organic material, created by photosynthesis, which requires atmospheric CO2. When we are burning fossil fuel we are merely returning CO2 to the atmosphere where it originally resided. Of course, we cannot restore the original atmospheric CO2 concentration, because a lot of it is sequestrated in carbonate rocks and a lot of carbon containing deposits will never be burnt, either because it will not be discovered, or cannot be used economically.
evanmjones (21:56:01) :
With all due respect, it is not insignificant. (And I speak as a skeptic.)
There’s a multifold CO2 exchange going on. In nature, the same amount is emitted as is reabsorbed (over the short geological run). When we we add 3% extra, some of it gets absorbed by the ocean, soil, and organism sinks, but some of it (a bit less than half) accumulates in the atmosphere. Maybe 3 Billion Metric Tons Carbon per year (the atmosphere has c. 760 BMTC).
So there’s an accumulation of a little under a half a percent per year. That adds up over the years.
Well, it would, if the biosphere, algae and all did not increase cumulatively correspondingly over the years. I am not aware of a study that says they respond worse to extra CO2 than the greenhouse plants.
Now, I do NOT believe this matters damnall because I think CO2 is a bit player, a mere fingerprint, not a primary driver. But that 3% does accumulate over time.
After all CO2 is the exhaling of all living things and the food/fertilizer for the flora. Humans happen to be a bit larger than a lion. Large dinossaurs with gas.
It reminds me of a joke going around in my college years:
Dinosaurs disappeared because their body became too large for their brain capacity, in contrast to man.
Man +car gets in the range of dinosaur brain/body ratio, so will soon disappear.
At least the car, if AGWers have their way.
The way I explain the amount of CO2 (say 350ppm) in the atmosphere is as follows.
Our local football (soccer) team gets a home crowd of 30000, CO2 is the away team of 11 people. It’s even better for my home town team whose home crowd, apart from visits by the “Auld Firm” (aka the forces of darkness), is 3000, in this case the referee is the CO2. Quite frequently this is regarded as being untrue until proof is sought on the web.
Google expects to profit from this malarky. Hence a non-event is the number one story. More people watched Not Evil Just Wrong than all the 350 events put together but the media ignored it.
Dear all, you can’t miss this, I’ve got the pic from the 350.org site, the girls celebrating the day (Valencia, Spain) got the wrong ppm number, maybe they’re far more radical than Hansen himself, maybe the girl in the middle should move to her left, who knows? 🙂 305 vs. 350
http://creudelaconca.blogspot.com/
best
350? Isn’t that the name of a new SciFi show?
“rafa (02:38:32) :
http://creudelaconca.blogspot.com/
best”
I had a good chuckle, given I’ve had a pretty tough best part of two weeks, this cheered me up. To me, what it represents IMO, is that most “supporters” (being the general public. Al Gore, Hansen and politicians etc excluded, they are fully aware of their drive to control energy) of this AGW hoax, simply, have no clue.
I’d like to be apathetic, but I can’t be bothered.
As a member of the Scottish diaspora ( Melbourne, Australia,) I’m proud that the intellectual traditions of critical thinking and scepticism of the Scottish Enlightenment are still with us. Dunedin, Scotland and Sydney, Australia, resist the collectivist appeals of ‘Tipping point’ sans evidence! How many turned up?
350 day? I do remember reading something about that being “observed” on Saturday. To be honest, I forgot all about it since. Wasn’t it something to do with everyone turning their lights out to cause a drop in power load, or am I mixing it up with something else? Either way, it looks like a non event.
Reminds me of that stunt last month involving a telephone call from an action groupie in Trafalgar square to Mr. Broon. What they both have in common is that in the English language you would not refer to crowds, but to individuals. So far I can’t decide whether political leaders will be delighted by the apathy or deflated by it.
http://www.350.org/about/science
One of the worst article on “science” ever written…
“Coral reefs could start dissolving at an atmospheric CO2 concentration of 450-500 ppm..”
“The Arctic is sending us perhaps the clearest message that climate change is occurring much more rapidly than scientists previously thought. In the summer of 2007, sea ice was roughly 39% below the summer average for 1979-2000, a loss of area equal to nearly five United Kingdoms. Many scientists now believe the Arctic will be completely ice free in the summertime between 2011 and 2015, some 80 years ahead of what scientists had predicted just a few years ago..”
And what about the Antarctic????
Jonathan Lowe (00:07:59) :
Anyone notice that the 350.org website has mexico located in South America, and Botswana located in northern America!
And by the looks of it the Amazon can be found on the Pacific coast in South America. Anyway it seems that about ±300-400 people showed up in Amsterdam, that’s quite different compared to almost 25 years ago when the Dutch protested against new Nuclear Weapons, when more than half million showed up prostesting that they wanted to have a future without the neutron bombs and cruise missiles of the Reagan Administration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollanditis
Prague, Czech republic. Some 20 people. Video here:
http://www.lidovky.cz/ekologicti-aktiviste-demonstrovali-po-celem-svete-pod-heslem-350-pwi-/ln_domov.asp?c=A091024_182952_ln_domov_tsh
Looks like “Engage and change” day in my home town of Leeds UK was a bit slow. The uncooperatively cold wet windy weather probably didn’t help. This is Leeds main shopping street on saturday.
http://northern-indymedia.org/articles/261