This is from MTR 1377 radio today. Our regular feature, “Quote of the Week” just doesn’t work here. Neither does decade or century. No, a whole new category all by itself is reserved for this quote from the newly appointed Climate Commissioner of Australia, Tim Flannery, noted zoologist and author of the book The Weather Makers.
Here it is, brace yourself:
If we cut emissions today, global temperatures are not likely to drop for about a thousand years.
Lest you think that is an errant remark out of context, here’s the follow up from Flannery:
Just let me finish and say this. If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years because the system is overburdened with CO2 that has to be absorbed and that only happens slowly.
Crikey! So much for the “think of the grandchildren” argument used by Dr. James Hansen.
Read the entire transcript and listen to the audio here
h/t to Lawrie Ayres and Scarlet Pumpernickel
There’s a prime example of a world-wide government mandate’s effect on natural phenomenon: just look at how well cutting CFCs has done in repairing the “ozone hole”. Doesn’t seem to be decreasing in size, but there is always an excuse that indicates its lack of response to lower CFC emissions “is not inconsistent with models”.
So inferentially, the temperatures we have today are thanks to whatever they did in the Medieval Warm Period?
That was big of them. – Still, ‘ bet they never had such imaginative ways or raising taxes back then.
Theo Goodwin says:
March 25, 2011 at 5:00 am
“With the Japanese tsunami, the MSM went around the bend. They took a natural tragedy and converted into a hate fest for nuclear energy. Why? Maybe our collective hysterical sickness. But maybe the entire MSM has now decided that the money to be made through environmental taxes and trading scams, such as carbon credits, is just too much to let go. ”
It is even worse with the German media. Each one tries to scream “nuclear catastrophe” louder than the other. It’s difficult to be the loudest alarmist when all the competition tries the same. I understood that their business model is not to convey information, and has never been, but to use information as a basis and exaggerate it in the way they think sells the most units. For instance, they say “Nuclear catastrophe out of control, number of victims in Japan continues to rise” in one headline, not even mentioning that there are zero radiation fatalities but only from quake and Tsunami.
So, we can use the media from now on to find out what the media wants us to think; but we can’t use the media to find information about the world. That’s where we are. Very much like the Pravda in Soviet times.
Lady Life Grows says:
March 24, 2011 at 9:33 pm
“Who/what funds European and Aussie science?”
European: The 7th Research Framework of the EU – sort of like a 5-year plan (remember, the structure of the EU mirrors the structure of the Soviet Union, and there are a lot of 5-year-plans in the EU. Just google “EU 5 year plan”.)
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html
He just parrotted Solomon’s paper.
GregO says:
March 24, 2011 at 9:26 pm
“What is it about the English speaking world that captures our imagination about man-made CO2 destroying the world.”
The following about sums it up I think:
Truth and lies are faced alike; their port, taste, and proceedings are the same, and we look upon them with the same eye. I find that we are not only remiss in defending ourselves from deceit, but that we seek and offer ourselves to be gulled; we love to entangle ourselves in vanity, as a thing conformable to our being.
~Michel de Montaigne
There is something in Biology curriculums that makes these guys hate humankind. We are astounded by the CO2 minister’s remarks but he isn’t capable of thinking how this looks to the taxpayer. He is making a statement about how we ugliest of species have irreparably damaged the planet. Socialists have taken over the schools but only the most rabid doctrinaire types that even other socialists dislike, have concentrated on biology departments. If there are any independent, individualist, thinking biololgists who sneaked through with at degree, for gosh sakes show yourselves. Otherwise we will know what you think about all issues even before you are born.
As their AGW hypothesis gets unraveled over time.They come out with statements that gets stupider and stupider.
After all their many modeling predictions have failed utterly.Hansen’s ,the IPCC’s and many more have failed scientifically.
All they have left are stupid statements.That is why they are getting stupider and stupider.
So, essentially, that can be read as they now want to be tax funded and subsidized to the end of time.
I was so going to stay out of this, not being an Oz, and all, but then eadler at 8:01 am said:
The emphasis above is mine: to hi-light the conditionals that eadler usually applies to his/her arguments.
I want to know who made eadler God? How did He decide what the ideal climate is that ‘we are trying to preserve’? And how does he/she know that things will ‘be OK’ if the ‘temperature only goes up a little’? We are so in need of your guidance eadler, oh great one!
And finally, where in hell (ah – it must have been there!) do you get the rise to be 2C? (And in what period of time is that?) AFAIK, the only place this number is bandied about is in Al Gore’s head. Tell me, oh wise one, what will kill more people, 0.7C increase in a century, or a 30 year cold spell?
(And for those thinking of a name for eadler and others, I still prefer the one I heard over a year ago: ‘warm-mongers’!)
Hey, where’s MY non-falsifiable hypothesis, for which I get paid big bucks to push for the gubmint?
IT”S NOT FAIR!
This strikes me as another case of verbal inflation. The cataclysmic predictions of past “heaters” have failed to move the masses, so they’re trying even more dire predictions in the home of tugging some heart strings. Instead they’re just desensitizing the population.
eadler says:
March 25, 2011 at 8:01 am
“I think Watts (or Bolt?) is talking nonsense here. If we stopped emissions today, our grandchildren would be happy. ”
No; they would be dead. Or never born.
Robert Laughlin did a pretty good analysis of this concept in an interview at Econ Talk.
Same logic: if we cut emissions, and if CO2 is a problem, then the problem is going to be around for 10,000 years. If we cut oil consumption by huge amounts, it delays the effect only a few hundred years.
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2010/08/laughlin_on_the.htm
It is long, but I had a friend (who is totally a warmist and whose wife sets environmental policy for a liberal mayor of a large city) listen to it, and he has just about changed his opinion.
Little victories, I guess.
Dennis Wingo says:
March 24, 2011 at 11:56 pm
Why are we so irrational.
It is the rich feeling guilty for being rich (and yes ALL of us in the west are fantastically rich compared to 99.999% of all mankind before the year 1700 and the industrial era) and this is a form of self flagellation.
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Yes, but this still doesn’t address as to why this is almost a uniquely an English speaking nations issue. Were it not for the U.S., G.B. Canada, Australia, and N.Z., I dare say we would have never even heard the term “Global warming”. There must be something inherent to the language that triggers an insanity mechanism in many people. Years from now sociologists will be arguing about how and why we slipped into this mad, mad world.
If the weather right now is what they (alarmists) say AGW brings us, then I sure as hell don’t want to be around when the next ice age comes along. Here in the northeast (USA) it is the 5th full day past the vernal equinox and the g – d temperature hasn’t been more than 5 degrees past freezing in a week (at least it feels that way), and it’s not forecast to get warmer until mid next week. The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning here 2 days ago, forecasting about 8-12 inches of snow – we got 4. Some areas near us got hit pretty hard with up to 10 inches (higher elevations) but for the most part it was a bust forecast.
The point is (and we all pretty much know this here): if they can’t get a 24 or 48 hour forecast correct (and I know it’s not easy, sometimes impossible), what makes these people think they can tell you how the addition or subtraction of a trace gas (.039 %) is going to affect the climate in 1000 years, let alone the next 100?
Anyone left swallowing that kool-aid is completely off their nut.
”Read the entire transcript and listen to the audio here”
Not on your flippin nelly!
The quote made me wince enough…but FFS – on that kind of logic – how on earth did all those several thousand ppm of CO2 in past geological time ever manage to disperse?
It’s amusing to see Flannery’s quote framed as though it is some sort of dark admission of something. Rather, he is just stating something that is broadly understood.
Several people have mentioned Susan Solomon’s paper “Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions”. Flannery is not making any radical “quote of the millenium”. It’s basic stuff… It’s a bitch, but it’s inherent to the physical nature of the dilemma. See also:
Risk Communication on Climate: Mental Models and Mass Balance
“But there is a deeper problem: poor understanding of stocks and flows—the concept of accumulation. Accumulation is pervasive in everyday experience: Our bathtubs accumulate the inflow of water through the faucet less the outflow through the drain, our bank accounts accumulate deposits less withdrawals, and we all struggle to control our weight by managing the inflows and outflows of calories through diet and exercise. Yet, despite their ubiquity, research shows that people have difficulty relating the flows into and out of a stock to the level of the stock, even in simple, familiar contexts such as bank accounts and bathtubs. Instead, people often assess system dynamics using a pattern-matching heuristic, assuming that the output of a system should “look like”—be positively correlated with—its inputs (12, 13).
Although sometimes useful, correlational reasoning fails in systems with important accumulations…
… Most believe that stopping the growth of emissions stops the growth of GHG concentrations. The erroneous belief that stabilizing emissions would quickly stabilize the climate supports wait-and-see policies but violates basic laws of physics. “
Understanding Public Complacency About Climate Change: Adults’ mental models of climate change violate conservation of matter
This is like deja vu, all over again.
Anthony, this is almost verbatim what the tree huggers said in 1970 in order to get the Clean Air And Water Act passed. Funny you should mention the quote of the millennium. But how about TEN millennia?
They said in 1970, “If we don’t put one more drop of pollution into Lake Erie, it will take ten thousand years for the lake to clean itself.”
Granted, the clean air we now breathe and cleaner water we have both do have to do with that Act.
But I have been angry as hell at the liars ever since. Why? Because ten years later, a study showed that with pollutants reduced by 75%, Lake Erie had cleaned itself up by 90%.
Ten years versus ten thousand years.
100% reduction versus 75%.
The mendacious tree huggers think that anything goes, if it is “in defense of” our poor, poor defenseless planet.
While I don’t argue we should be careful about pollution, if they have to lie to get their way, well then all of us should be allowed to lie to get our way – in ANY area of interest to us – shouldn’t we? Let’s just all run around pulling numbers and claims right out of our rear ends.
(I do have a few choice words that I had to bite my tongue to resist putting them in here…)
The obvious tactic to implement here is to ask him for his source.
rustneversleeps,
You turn a blind eye to fact that there is no evidence that CO2 causes any problems. But there is plenty of evidence that more CO2 is beneficial. Does that alter your world view? Or will you still argue, without any empirical, testable evidence, that CO2 causes global harm?
@DirkH March 25, 2011 at 9:58 am
Thanks! That was the loudest I’ve laughed here in a long time!
These people have no idea how many people would die if we got rid of industry. “Rid of” as in the starving to death of 3 to 5 billion people. The warmists must think that they and theirs would be the holy ones left over.
I do want to say this regarding my previous comment: I understand the difference between weather and climate. I prefer to think of it as Mark Twain put it: “Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.”
Mike says:
“There is nothing new in Flannery’s statement. Obviously the CO2 we have pumped into the atmosphere will take awhile to dissipate and cause warming until it does. If we pump more CO2 into the atmosphere the worse it will get. (And it will take even longer for ocean pH to return to normal.)”
Neither of your assertions has any basis in real world evidence. CO2 may cause some minuscule warming. But where is your empirical evidence? And you have no evidence that ocean pH is altered by CO2.
Without evidence all you have is a conjecture; an opinion. On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence showing that more CO2 is beneficial. You can wring your hands over this invented non-problem, but it’s a waste of energy. All you’re doing is scaring yourself with ghost stories.
GregO
In reference to “What is it about the English speaking world that captures our imagination about man-made CO2 destroying the world.” (?) And ” Are we collectively mad?”
No, it’s just that most institutions in the English speaking world have gradually been infiltrated and taken over by covert communists over the last 50 years. Today they finally control most of the means of mass communication. They are now powerful enough to make an open move toward world communism. CO2 hysteria serves two purposes: to destroy the engine of capitalism, and to “redistribute” wealth (read “class warfare”).
Brendon says:
March 25, 2011 at 4:38 am
“Gee if only that were backed by research.
Oh, what do we have here … http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090127163403.htm
“The pioneering study, led by NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon…”
Well, alrighty then! A “pioneering” study by Susan Solomon. The debate is over! LOL.