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
Alexander K says: March 25, 2011 at 3:44 am
[——Mike Lorrey, I think your’e on to something. The Warmist beliefs seem to be an echo of religious guilt with a good dollop of the ancient Puritan Witchfinder tactics in the mix; —-having a Good Time it’s all going to come crashing down and ITS ALL OUR FAULT. CO2 has replaced Satan, and much of Mankind carries on with their ridiculous unevolved and primitive beliefs.]
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Alexander K. – a good observation, imo. Except really it’s about power. Superstition and guilt equates with ignorance. Witch doctors, religious leaders, politicians all use it. Ignorance allows these people to use anything that comes to hand to exert influence over the masses in order to gain or retain power over them and, incidentally, to accrue wealth. The guilt bit was especially valuable for religious leaders- kept the masses under the thumb. Anything that we don’t know enough about can be used for this purpose. Ask any witch doctor – he can tell you how it works. Well now we have got rid of god (it seems) so bang goes the traditional religious bit but the pea has been switched under the ‘science’ cup. The trouble with this one is it is on a massive global scale and the damage that the ‘witch doctors’ are creating will be massive. That’s the scary bit.
Douglas
For perspective, there was the mentioned Susan Solomon work:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/13/more-wisdom-via-solomon-global-warming-has-passed-the-point-of-no-return/
Thus whatever civilization we have can revert to a worldwide “Dark Ages” and it’ll be a millennium before the climate notices the difference.
This was followed by:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/10/abandon-all-hope-ye-who-read-this/
Thus we can send the entire planet back to the Stone Age, and it’ll still take a millennium.
Thus by the best Peer-Reviewed Climate Science™, Tim Flannery is reasonably correct, if it’s understood that when he says “If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow…” that should mean ALL emissions, everywhere in the world.
If all he wants to cut right now is Australia’s paltry emissions, and only to some percentage of current levels or to pre-Industrial Revolution levels (did Australia even have any measurable anthropogenic emissions back then?), don’t even bother. Wait until the worldwide binding enforced treaty, insisting on one that ELIMINATES ALL EMISSIONS, or it won’t matter at all. BTW, best of luck getting such a treaty. ☺
Douglas says:
March 25, 2011 at 11:25 am
Re your comment, I love this parallel example of today’s AGW cult…
“The Age of Witch-Hunting thus seems pretty congruent with the era of the
Little Ice Age. The peaks of the persecution coincide with the critical
points of climatic deterioration. Witches traditionally had been held
responsible for bad weather which was so dangerous for the precarious
agriculture of the pre-industrial period. But it was only in the 15th
century that ecclesiastical and secular authorities accepted the reality of
that crime. The 1420ies, the 1450ies, and the last two decades of the
fifteenth century, well known in the history of climate, were decisive years
in which secular and ecclesiastical authorities increasingly accepted the
existence of weather-making witches. During the “cumulative sequences of
coldness” in the years 1560-1574, 1583-1589 and 1623-1630, again 1678-1698
(Pfister 1988, 150) people demanded the eradication of the witches whom they
held responsible for climatic aberrations. Obviously it was the impact of
the Little Ice Age which increased the pressure from below and made parts of
the intellectual elites believe in the existence of witchcraft. So it is
possible to say: witchcraft was the unique crime of the Little Ice Age.”
http://www.scribd.com/doc/32396573/Witch-Hunting-Maunder
// If we cut emissions today, global temperatures are not likely to drop for about a thousand years. //
And if we don’t cut emissions?
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/6/1704.full
Given that no one is able to predict how much it will cost, how much effort it will need or how long it will take to bump our temperature down a decimal point or two, I was thinking. The supposed surplus energy is 1.5 W/M^2, the Earth is 510,072,000 Km^2 or 7.65*10^16 W, dividing by 200 W/m^2 give 3,825 million km^2 of Earth surface that needs to be shaded. How hard can it be?
Greg O
A great question Greg and one I often wonder about. Why indeed do the masses tend to gravitate toward such obvious (in my view) irrationality?
I’m no psychologist but my theory is the phenomena is largely driven by two primary and I think related factors: 1) a human need for spiritual connectivity, and 2) a deep-seated state of denial regarding the reality of mankind’s vulnerability in this world.
I believe most human beings yearn for and during their lives strive to establish some sort of spiritual connection to the universe. For some, the need is fulfilled by belief in and adherence to established religious dogmas. Those who find themselves unable to commit these ideas for any number of reasons, continue to search for spiritual footing and ultimately either find it, or grow to accept (or maybe rebel against) their state of imbalance in this regard. In the course of searching, it seems common for poeple to manufacture substitute “religions” out of thin air. This is where environmentalism, the mother of global warming and climate change, comes into play. Much has been written about the similarities between the green movement and religion. I see both deeply religious and non-religious people practice “greenism” in what I percieve to be in most cases rather overly-convenient efforts to somehow deepen their sense of spiritual connectivity to something. I like to call it feel-good environmentalism. It doesn’t really accomplish much (at least from the perspective of a non-adherent), but you feel good about it.
In the civilized world (for lack of a better term), people are protected. They are insulated and far-removed from the risks and hazards of day to day existence our forebears faced. They for the most part can’t provide their own food nor their own shelter. I think these people on an almost subconscious level cling to the notion that controlling this benign gas (or more accurately insisting that others control it) somehow will provide them with an assurance of long term security. They make this choice and irrationally focus on it rather than face the reality that earthquakes, fires, floods, droughts, tornados, tsunamis, volcanoes, pestilence, hurricanes, meteors, ice ages, hostile populations and any number of other naturally occurring and truly potentially catastrophic events could decimate their very existence at virtually any moment. People in general strike me as exceedingly reluctant to acknowledge such vulnerability.
Who can blame them? Would that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere were the biggest challenge facing mankind. There is a certain comfort I think, a false sense of security that comes from the world view that this is indeed the case. So to answer your question, I’d say that multitudes of faith-seeking (again for lack for a better term) and frightened people in the English speaking world tell themselves that man-made CO2 is destroying the world – and that they have the means to stop it – largely so they can fulfill their need for spiritual connection while they simultaneously avoid facing the overwhelming reality of their utterly uncertain futures.
Collective madness? In a sense I’d say so, yes.
Well then… I hope it is worth the wait…and the expense!!
Surely, if this is really what we will achieve by a tax on what we all exhale, is it not now time to assign this drivel to the bin and have the great scientific minds start working on how we as a species adapt to live in an ever changing climate.
I can’t imagine Tim being “Climate Commissar” for too long if he keeps emitting truths like this.
OK Julia et al…explain (lie) your way out of this one…. We’re waiting…
Al Gored says:
March 25, 2011 at 11:25 am
I got as far as her statement saying Africa was supposed to see more desert because of increased CO2 when exactly the OPPOSITE is being observed for sub-Sahara Africa over the past several decades (or are they delaying any impact for many centuries in the future; if so I’m rooting for all the immediate benefit we can get).
I’d say the only way this is a “pioneering” study is that Ms. Solomon has a lot more to study. She might even look at the real world rather than conjecture and pontificate with worthless models.
Tried not to laugh too loudly lest it disturb the neighbors…
I see we are getting the magical 2 degrees C limit thrown around again. There was an article in Der Spiegel about 6 months ago involving an interview with Germany’s head climatology guy ( sorry I cannot recall his name) He admitted in the article that he “invented ” the 2c figure to satisfy the politicians and said there was NO scientific data or evidence to back it up. He explained the German politicians kept saying the science was too complicted to explain to the voters so they need a snappy one liner or sound bite — in response he gave them the 2C idea for their propoganda.
@Smokey says: March 25, 2011 at 10:54 am
“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.”
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Wow. I know you are in denial but this really takes that cake. What I say won’t matter to you. It will go right by you. But maybe someone out there will be interested.
His evidence that there is no evidence of a drop in ocean pH is a blog posting by David Middleton, who tells us: I have been a geoscientist in the evil oil and gas industry for almost 30 years. So, he does not have a background in oceanography and has a obvious conflict of interest. Further he cites evidence for my claim! He derides it, but that’s no surprise. Thus evidence exists. Skeptical readers should look at the balance of evidence to develop an informed opinion. And your opinion might, “I not sure yet.” That’s OK. That’s not denial.
Smoky knows full well evidence for CO2 lowering ocean pH exists. But, since he does not want to believe this, he first thinks it must be wrong – after all someone from the oil industry says so – then decides it does not even exist! This is called being in denial. It is not at all the same as being skeptical. A skeptic acknowledges that it is a complex issue and that there will likely be conflicting evidence. But he or she attempts within their means to look at the preponderance of the evidence.
For my first claim see the Science Daily article Brendon referenced. And notice too the responses he got from PJB , Bruce Cabb and Al Gored. All they do is try to poke fun at it. These folks are like the losers from high school who sat in the back and cutup during class. They are not skeptics.
RockyRoad just above, to his credit, does offer a bit of a critique. But he quit reading as soon as something confused him. But at least he tired.
Here is the study: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/01/28/0812721106.abstract
And here is Solomon’s vitae: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/staff/susan.solomon/susan.solomon.cv.pdf
PS: dzalexander posted a link to the full study by Solomon et al.
Mike,
Please show us ocean pH trends with error bars.
And you do know of course that the Solomon paper is based on models?
Ocean and vegetation have been absorbing about 2% each year of the excess CO2 above 280 ppm for the last 200 years. There has been no change in that rate. 2010’s numbers came in at exactly the same rate. Anyone with a calculator or a spreadsheet should be able to figure the lifetime of increased CO2 and it is not 1000 years.
Temperatures will follow right behind the declining CO2 since the lag time seems to be very short going by the OHC content numbers.
The problem is the climate scientists do not even know the basic numbers behind the Carbon cycle. But their climate models do? (the ones that have not been programmed with the basic numbers behind the Carbon cycle because the climate modelers do not even know what the real numbers are).
And Flannery has been put in charge of implementing a Carbon tax when he doesn’t even understand the basic numbers behind the Carbon cycle. It’s actually rather ridiculous but it is not the first time one could say this about this science. It lives on previously made-up myths that no climate sceintist will try to correct because they get black-balled if they do.
The CO2 lifetime has even been quoted as 200,000 years more and more recently.
Mike,
Your pnas “study” is by Susan Solomon, a chemist with an agenda. And I note that she has no background in oceanography – the same exact criticism you leveled at David Middleton. Is that Susan’s picture on the right side of the pnas page? Anyway, her paper is based on a model. Models are not evidence. It’s just an appeal to an authority.
You have provided no evidence that ocean pH is affected by CO2, because there is no evidence. There is only model-based conjecture. All of your purported “evidence” amounts to conjecture. It is not based on empirical, testable, reproducible evidence. The icing on the cake is the link to Skeptical Pseudo-Science, the agenda-driven propaganda blog written by a cartoonist. Pf-f-f-t.
Willis Eschenbach totally deconstructed the evidence-free ocean acidity claims in this article. PH changes so much during the day, location and seasons that there is no real world, testable evidence showing any pH change due to human CO2 emissions. The ocean has essentially infinite buffering capacity, and it could easily handle a quadrupling of atmospheric CO2 without affecting its pH.
The planet’s oceans are not “acidifying” because of a few more molecules of a harmless trace gas. It’s just a scare tactic, like CAGW. But when all you’ve got is conjecture. models, and labeling me with the d-word, I guess that’s the hand you have to play. Unfortunately for you, there is no evidence to support your pH beliefs.
GregO says:
March 24, 2011 at 9:26 pm
Somebody answer this humble question:
What is it about the English speaking world that captures our imagination about man-made CO2 destroying the world. It isn’t happening according to script – but the play goes on in Britain, USA (less so probably because we never seem to “get it” anyway), Canada, and most acutely, Australia? Why are we so irrational.
Man-made CO2 seems to be accounting for just about nothing. No sea level rise. No increased storm activity. No unprecedented warming. No crises. No crises at all. All crises in fact, being as a result of poor political leadership.
Are we collectively mad?
Not irrational – the anglophone world is the essence of western civilization and culture. Who saved Europe in WW I? Who saved Europe and Asia again in WW II? Who defeated the USSR in the cold war. We are the number one threat to the existence of any totalitarian state and we are therefore under constant attack on many levels by those who lust for total dominion over humanity.
Shevva says
For the UK and OZ it’s a race to the bottom.
Trouble for the Ozzies is they don’t have help like us in the EU.
Yes UK may well reach the bottom before us Aussies because we also have Mother Nature on our side, demolishing the dire predictions of our AGW’s left, right and centre. They predict drought, she sends rain. They predict empty water supplies, she fills ’em up. They said no more skiing, she sent bumper snow, they said hottest decade, she said “nope, not this one” etc etc.
Perhaps Tim thinks predicting conditions a thousand years out is a safer bet?
She is a real pain the
Smokey says:
March 25, 2011 at 5:03 pm
Mike,
Your pnas “study” is by Susan Solomon, a chemist with an agenda. And I note that she has no background in oceanography – the same exact criticism you leveled at David Middleton. Is that Susan’s picture on the right side of the pnas page? Anyway, her paper is based on a model. Models are not evidence. It’s just an appeal to an authority.
Another way of saying this…
A model is in itself a theoretical construct, as a professional software engineer I can attest that any computer program cannot tell you more than the assumptions of the programmer.
So by relying on models – climate scientists don’t actually test anything – you need real world empirical measurements for that – like the way physics is done.
I.e. Theory + Model = Theory, Theory + Experiment = Science.
I live in Australia and it makes me sick to hear on a daily basis such totally illogical ramblings, rants, dogma and blatant misunderstandings on climate change. Flannery pretends to be a reasonable guy but he clearly hasn’t challenged, as the good scientist he projects himself to be, any of the science on which the doomsday forecasts have been made. As a scientist he should have challenged it, rigorously, before becoming climate change commissioner. More importantly, he should continue to challenge. To close his mind to further developments such as the Briffa deception that is unfolding and the lack of significant AGW outcomes shows he lack scientific ethics. In Australia we are expected, no told, to accept the primary school level argument that we have to pay an enormous amount of tax, just in case the worst case AGW happens, even though not much of the money will go to mitigating the problem of AGW (it will be redistributed). Yesterday the Prime Minister warned that the coasts of Australia would be inundated by 2100. I feel sick again.
Snotrocket says:
March 25, 2011 at 9:36 am
I was so going to stay out of this, not being an Oz, and all, but then eadler at 8:01 am said:
“I think Watts (or Bolt?) is talking nonsense here. If we stopped emissions today, our grandchildren would be happy. The climate of today’s earth is what we are seeking to preserve. to the best of our knowledge, if the global temperature goes up only a little it should be OK. What we are concerned about are temperature increases in excess of 2C, which would be associated with big changes in regional climates in a short time, with large scale extinctions of species, as well as displacement of many millions of people.”
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’!)
Snotrocket,
I think there is an internal contradiction in your post. You are right, I like to apply conditions to my arguments, in contrast to God, who knows everthing for sure, and would never apply conditions to what he would say, assuming there is a God. So it is clear that I don’t think I am God. But there I go again, applying conditions to what I say.
If we want to avoid dislocations and strife, we should avoid rapid climate change. This is not an idea I or Al Gore invented. The US Defense Department under Bush recognized this.
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB932.pdf
I really couldn’t care less what name you give me. The fact that you do this shows your intellectual bankruptcy.
I didn’t invent the 2C threshold for deleterious climate change. It was proposed by the EU on the basis of projections. Some people would prefer a lower limit such as 1.5C.
http://views.washingtonpost.com/climate-change/post-carbon/2009/12/copenhagens_2_degree_target.html
Mike Lorrey says:
March 24, 2011 at 9:46 pm
‘’’’’It is a long standing tradition in english speaking culture . . . [edit out] . . . there is an inherent refusal to accept the idea that the world is capricious, random, and that nature is simply *natural* without persona. “””
“””The modern AGW movement is thus inherently influenced by these puritanical christian archetypes.”””
———–
Mike Lorrey,
Thank you for launching us on this train of thought.
I think you must consider, in order to adequately put AGW ideology in perspective, a much broader context of human religious/mythical patterns than just those of English speaking countries all who happen to be Christian dominated societies. Comparitive mytho-religious studies show many common patterns of mass acceptance of modes of crisis thought throughout all civilizations back to pre-history.
I would rather put the discussion in terms of whether, at any given period, a culture is dominated by the principal of freedom of independent thought or dominated by the tendency of some enforced common belief system. I think in the latter you have the fundamental basis for tendencies of fear, anxiety and fanaticism leading to ideologies like the CAGW one.
Having said that, I do think the American irrationalist tradition in academia is a significant contributing factor for promoting the irrationalist component of the CAGW movement in the whole world.
John
here is the full interview with the quote at the beginning
if we cut emissions today global temperatures are not likely to drop for about 1000 years
Feel sorry for Tim, he has been given a political hot ember, but can he talk!
I used to attend his public lectures at the ANU and when talking about flora and fauna, he was always very interesting. For example he opened my eyes to the fact that carnivorous plants thrive in Australia when soil nutrition and rainfall are low.
Thanks, Adam (above), listened to the interview, and his technique when cornered is not to stop and give a considered answer, but to keep blabbering away like a verbal battering-ram until the time is up.
AB did well in getting his questions in.
While Flannery’s quote was remarkable – I personally liked the Geelong Conference last night on live T.V.
It was a talk given by ‘Julia’s Committee’ that is to be pricing Carbon. What a delight they all were… Especially the ‘female’ scientist gal – I thought she was extra special when she and her cohort to her left agreed that now ‘they’ were the only scientists interested in furthering public information on ‘Climate Change’… In fact, the little darlings said that ‘all the other scientists’ have gone back DOWN THEIR HOLES with their little…little… it wasn’t ‘beakers’…but, it was yet another word that made all of you look and sound ‘totally ridiculous’ on Australian T.V. (no big deal, really)
The two of them – quite the pair, actually – nodded in complete agreement with each other as the other spoke. They told the obviously ‘hand picked’ audience that the consensus IS IN and HAS BEEN FOR MONTHS, and truly YEARS – Actually!
That dynamic duo went on and on about ‘their peers’ – who, they said ‘never liked dealing with the public anyhow’ so, now ‘they’ve gone into their boroughs’ ‘doing whatever it is that they do’ – and it made you all sound like a bunch of mindless, ignorant dolts, frankly. Real classy, huh? So much for the new religion of Science. Congratulations in advance, Gentlemen – I think ‘science’ just sunk to a new low having them out on stage – representing you.
Here’s a link I just found. But, I’d recommend you find the whole conference to get the full impact of what they had to say about ‘you’. What they ‘go on’ about rates up there with what Flannery just said. They all must be cousins, perhaps.
http://www.surfcoastnews.com.au/2011/03/26/first-climate-commission-community-forum-held-in-geelong/
C.L. Thorpe
4 eyes says:
March 25, 2011 at 6:14 pm
_______
I agree. It has given me a certain amount of pleasure, to read in ‘The Age’ (Melbourne) online, that the Labor lot in NSW seem to have been given a complete drubbing in the election.