
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Australian Federal Science Minister Karen Andrews, climate deniers are robbing Australia of the time and energy to deal with climate change by perpetuating an already settled debate.
Climate change deniers robbing Australia of time to respond to impacts, Science Minister Karen Andrews warns
Australia is wasting time debating the merits of climate change and should instead focus its attention on responding to the impacts it is having on the country, a senior Liberal minister has warned.
Key points:
- Karen Andrews wants people to move on from ideological debates about climate change
- The Science Minister says the focus should be on adaptation and mitigation strategies
- She says the science of climate change is settled and is apparent in Australia
Science Minister Karen Andrews said it was time to move on from ideological battles, which she said had robbed the nation of the time and energy needed to respond to climate change.
“Every second that we spend talking about whether or not the climate is changing is a second that we are not spending on looking at adaptation [and] mitigation strategies,” she said.
“It really is time for everyone to move on and look at what we’re going to do.”
Ms Andrews, a former engineer, said the science on climate change was settled.
Her intervention comes in the wake of the Bureau of Meteorology confirming 2019 was Australia’s hottest and driest year on record.
“Let’s not keep having debates about climate change,” the Cabinet minister said.
“Let’s accept that the climate has changed, the climate is changing and we need to look at what we’re going to do about that.“
…
Karen’s comments will be unwelcome news for companies worried about Australia’s soaring energy costs. If doing nothing is no longer an option the government will consider, the costs and rising risk of blackouts caused by the transition to unreliable renewables will continue, and will likely get worse.
Obviously we heard a very different message a few weeks ago from the delightful Craig Kelly. But Craig Kelly is a backbencher, while Karen Andrews holds an important ministerial portfolio. So I think it is reasonable to conclude Karen Andrews is more representative of the Morrison government than Craig Kelly.
Australia’s bipartisan climate action agenda has real economic consequences. Late last year Bluescope Steel diverted a billion dollars investment to the USA, a billion dollars worth of investment in jobs and national income, because of concerns about soaring Australian energy prices.
I doubt Bluescope is the only company planning to scale back involvement in Australia’s increasingly uncompetitive economic environment. Karen Andrews comments are a message to energy intensive businesses like Bluescope, companies which might be hanging on in case the situation improves, that whichever political party wins the next election there is no point hoping for a better future.
Update (EW): Prime Minister Scott Morrison has explicitly endorsed Karen Andrews comments on climate policy.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
As if Australian energy use could have any effect on global CO2 emissions.
Its recent wildfires, the extent of which owes to idiotic Green Land mismanagement, did however make a large but brief contribution to atmospheric plant food levels.
Exactly
“Karen Andrews wants people to move on from ideological debates about climate change”
OK then, someone buy her a f-kin calculator. Or at least a napkin and a pencil.
Hello Nick, I’ve never actually seen your no-doubt brilliant maths on this.
I wonder how many ‘Hiroshima bombs’ of heat energy will have been released, by the time the current cycle of Australian bush fires subsides? Hmmmm…. And if we tallied up the total Australian bush fire “Hiroshima bombs” of heat since the aborigine immigration, how much would that be???
OMG – It’s, like, ya know, Australia aborigines and eco-terrorists are Hiroshima bombing our Planet! We Must Act Now! /s
Energy release in the heavier fuels about 70 MW/linear metre along the fire front. That is from two Australian bush-fire research scientists.
TedM,
Maybe it is kW per linear metre.
But, make it 1,000 times bigger than reality to virtue signal to post-modernism, where the retold message matters more than the scientific answer.
Geoff S
Or maybe it is 70 MW. My 3kW electric convector heater is about 50 cm long so equivalent to 6kW per linear metre and I can comfortably hold my hands over it.
Three additional factors.
Your heater is pretty much linear, whereas the flame front is more of a plane.
Secondly the flame front will exist for several minutes, so you have to integrate the energy output over time.
Thirdly, you didn’t say, but most heaters that I’m familiar have a reflector in the back so that most of the energy is projected forward. The flame front will be emitting in all dimensions.
This lady seems to be missing a crucial element in the debate – the issues in contention are cause and effect. No one really knows. So I guess the “Science Minister” is arguing that Australia should junk it economy just in case the hysterics are half right.
Not sure she realises that the view she has is likely to alienate enough voters to tip the Coalition out of office at the next election.
This lady seems to be missing a crucial element in the debate –
The situation is more idiotic than you state…
… it is not possible to get to carbon neutral with sun and wind gathering. Their ‘solution’ fails at the point where power storage is required. At that point electricity becomes unaffordable and there is no savings in CO2 emissions. So there is no point to force more economic torture.
There is no solution to CAGW, regardless of money spent. They have created a problem that is impossible to solve with their forced solution.
Rather than wasting money on stuff that will never get us to carbon neutral, logically we should only spend money on mitigation.
Just a nitpick, William Astley,
There is a solution to CAGW. Gen4 Nuclear.
If CAGW is true: No CO2 directly, industrial CO2 in manufacture.
If the counter-alarmists are correct and global cooling is coming soon, clean Gen4 works to generate electricity for heat.
If, perchance, there is some feedback mechanism that keeps things essentially unchanged, no harm with Gen4.
The only sensible idea, adopt your oppositions climate spouts and get Nuclear energy electrical generation on the table, then see how they squirm and squeal and fight among themselves. Build the economy and start stripping out useless feather bedded public service that votes only to preserve their jobs. Its either that or the Minister is in political self-destruction mode.
the excrable ross garnaut recently got media tme announcing Aus could make steel and aliminium by using green power
and mentioned hydrogen
well im not a boffin but I understand it takes more energy to crack it to use than its worth still
just going to hunt the lik I sent round ,andinto tips n notes
read it an rage or weep for the stupidity
this nasty specimens caused much grief and expense for Aussies over the decades
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-13/ross-garnaut-on-bushfires-scott-morrison-climate-change/11861846
She is illegally blonde pretending to be a scientist. Someone ask her what photosynthesis is. Oz is a great place run by lunatics? (BTW, my wife of 49 years is legally blonde and knows what photosynthesis is).
Congrats AU – you got your very own “climate Barbie”. Peanuts from Canada.
‘Not sure she realises that the view she has is likely to alienate enough voters to tip the Coalition out of office at the next election.’
She better realise she is going to alienate the voters because I will be one of them. If there was a party that advocated ‘no money at all to be spent at all on global warming’ I would vote for them in an instant. Should go and have a yarn with my local Federal MP about getting her to ‘pull her head in or else.’
Yoale
I have been talking to my Federal MP and Karen Andrews office, We cannot be silent any longer.
be bette rif SHE gets the flick PDQ
why the hell scomo would endorse her is a puzzle
guess he placed her so feels he must?
bad choice obviousl;y
not heard or seen of her until now
sure would be hard to vote with her staying
Labor n greens are on the nose
shes just done the same for Libs
guess a shitload of indies are going to get vastly larger votes next election
I would have thought that recent Oz bush fires, spanning several months, would have sent more than 10 years worth of CO2 into the atmosphere than all the coal fire power stations in Oz. Apparently the smoke from the fires will circumnavigate the earth. I did check the CO2 recordings, in Hawaii over the last six months, of recordings, which showed no blimp.
Scale of craziness
So how much Co2 is it that we as Australians have to reduce in output.
The following is for the scale that is quoted by the IPCC.
Total Co2 at the moment is 410 parts per million.
Wow. So what is a physical representation of one million. One million millimetres is 1km or the
length of 10 football fields and Co2 makes up the first 420mm.
But how much is man made? The IPCC quote that at 13.8% of the total Co2 is man made.
So now we have 410×13.8% =56.58mm is man made on this scale of 10 football fields.
And what part of this are we responsible for as Australian’s? Again as quoted by the IPCC
Australia percentage is 1.3% of the total man made Co2.
So now we have 56.58×1.3%=0.73554mm
Yes that is 3/4 of 1mm in the total length of 10 football fields.
But wait it gets better.
On page 6 I think of the IPPC report they correctly state that with more Co2 in the atmosphere
the less effective it is. And at 410 parts per million it is less than 5% effective.
So now we get our 3/4 of 1mm and multiple it by 5% so, 0.73554×5%=0.036777mm
Yes that is right, around 4 tenths of 1mm on a scale of 10 football fields is what we contribute to
our so called green house gas.
But as they say in the classics, there is still more.
We don’t have to stop producing all of our Co2, we just have to reduce it. If we went with Labour
in the last election that amount would be a ridiculous 45%, but for this we will again go with the
IPCC and set the amount at a tiny 25%
Sooooooo for the grand finale. What is the amount on the scale of 10 football fields that we as
Australia’s will spend billions of our hard earned money on and send billions overseas on carbon
trading instead of in our hospitals, schools and infrastructure.
0.036777×25%=0.00919425
Yes read that again_ _ _ _ _
From our gullible politicians and the beloved IPCC that has a mission statement that says it is to
prove man made global warming!
We will spend billions of dollars on 9 hundredths of 1mm on a scale of 10 footage fields.
So something we can’t see that is good for the planet on a scale so large that it is the length of
10 football fields, our portion is so small we can’t see what we are spending our money on and
our children’s future on.
Hope I put a smile on your dial as your pockets get emptied by your local representative.
Haha , great analogy , sure put a smile my dial .
But the warmists won’t buy it unless they get free ‘steak knives with that’
To slice their kale of course .
““Every second that we spend talking about whether or not the climate is changing is a second that we are not spending on looking at “Every second that we spend talking about whether or not the climate is changing is a second that we are not spending on looking at adaptation [and] mitigation strategies,” she said she said”
.1) The climate has been “changing” for 4.5 billion years and will continue to change for the next 4.5 billion years, with or without the existence of Humans….PERIOD !
.2) Adaptation and mitigation strategies are what Humans have ALWAYS used to thrive !
.3) Adaptation and mitigation strategies are what “deniers” suggest for the future, not trillion $$ liberal idiocy !
……MAGA
The same thing is happening here in New Zealand, with the socialist government recently announcing their plan to introduce an alarmist climate change programme for schools. These politicians appear to be intent on removing from children their right to consider all elements of this debate and make up their minds based on data and evidence. Better to continue to believe in the tooth fairy, it seems.
Hi Mike,
As a retired textbook publishing professional, I see your pain.
The object of education is critical thinking.
Each State in our Republic has Rights over education; USA.
No State in our Rebublic allows political interference in textbook adoptions.
Yet, NASA etc. have been doing an end-around to place propaganda in classrooms.
We all feel and confront the foolishness.
Only parents can fix this tragedy!
Best,
John
Hi John,
“…Only parents can fix this tragedy!”
Here, here. My wife and I are both educated in earth sciences, work or have worked in the much maligned oil industry and our political views are generally conservative (we’re prepared to accept responsibility for our own decisions and actions rather than expecting everyone else to wipe our arses for us). As a result our children get common sense at home as an antidote to their daily indoctrination at school.
Happily as a counter to the gullible warming, political correctness, how people feel is more important than truth or honesty bovine excrement they’re being force fed, a daily dose of reality appears to be working. However, countering the sheer volume of crap they’re exposed to feels at times like a full time occupation.
The most important lesson we give them though, is that they should always think and find out for themselves what is right and not simply take anyone’s word for anything, not even ours.
So I guess in the next ten to fifteen years my kids will be ‘managing’ the next generation of sheeple, who are nice to everyone who believes the same crap as them, are venomous to anyone who thinks for themselves, and who actually believe they’re entitled to everything, responsible for nothing and are incapable of pretty much anything.
My biggest worry for my kids is not some nonsense about living with the ‘worst effects of gullible warming’, it is that fixing the shit-sandwich they’re being served with courtesy of a four or five decade slide into brain-dead socialism while burdened with an over-abundance of useless, dependent peers will be an unnecessarily onerous task. Or that the rot will have gotten so bad that, with nothing left to lose, the sheeple will agree to pick another worldwide fight with each other.
As far as the Aussie government is concerned, the sad observation to make is the absence of credible alternatives for office who are worth voting for. All parrot the ‘gullible warming is scary’ line, while mostly planning nothing more than virtue signalling in response and all have as their main policy statement, something along the lines of; ‘we’ve got nothing (in case we offend someone), but the other guys are worse than us’. The main discernible difference between major parties is the level to which their arithmetic skills are bad; demonstrably, Labor are worse at maths than the Liberal/National coalition (which is why when they’re incumbent, the country ends up in debt), but not as hopeless at maths as the Greens (who were able to topple Juliar Guillard’s minority Labor government by forcing a carbon tax in exchange for their support, which even politically apathetic Australian voters had the good sense to know wasn’t good for them).
Could we borrow The Donald for three years please?
Some of the children will be smarter than the rest, and there will be blow-back from such a strategy.
Alarmism basically telegraphs to the more intuitively smart kids, “this is BS”.
If the evidence were completely solid, no alarmism would be necessary.
One cannot simply blame socialism for the Minister’s attitude here in Australia. She is no socialist.
The article did not go far enough in dissecting the Liberal Party. Backbencher Kelly is no more than tolerated with regard to CO2, although he will not be disendorsed because even the Liberal warmists (who are legion) understand that realist votes are required to form Government. He will not change Coalition policy, nor will a dozen more like him do so.
It is much the same as happened under the Hawke Labor Government. Hawke tolerated the Socialist Left, for he needed their votes, but did not do as Whitlam before him felt obliged to do and give a Socialist Left leader the keys to the Treasury for Hawke had seen the disaster of that first hand.
Naturally, Hawke’s exclusion of the SL from important decisions made sense on a number of levels. The cautious exclusion of realists from important energy policy decisions etc in the Coalition only makes sense politically if one accepts that the Liberal Party is luke-warm at best and red-hot in parts. Any belief that the Liberals may be trusted on this issue to be fair dinkum about real science is simply a reflection on modern Labor being far worse.
One only has to listen to Morrison”s mixed messages to see that he’s a fence-sitter in a party where most are on the warm side of the fence.
Science Minister Karen Andrews said “it was time to move on from ideological battles”, which she said “had robbed the nation of the time and energy needed to respond to climate change.”
From her bio: “She undertook further studies in alternate dispute resolution gaining a Certificate in Mediation from the Institute of Arbitrators and Mediators Australia to assist businesses and individuals with disputes through negotiation and mediation.”
It is blatantly apparent ‘Science Minister’ Karen Andrews learned nothing from her conflict mediation course work. She chooses instead to be a dictator, denying opposing science and attempting to scare the electorate into a ‘crisis’ stampede.
She’s a bit younger than my elder daughter and, as far as I am concerned, that means she isn’t yet grown up enough to make mature decisions on much at all, no matter how many educational qualifications she may have gained.
Australia should shut down all its airports and ban all cruise ships.
Tourists and travelling Australians can use sailing ships or solar powered dirigibles. 🙂
And those sailing ships and dirigibles could be used to transport all of the delegates and NGOs to the next COP, joe.
Regards,
Bob
But some Scotsmen are worried about how much will cost the security for the next COP in Glascow.
https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/18162317.gmb-union-calls-glasgow-call-off-major-cop26-climate-change-summit/
isnt there a term like a glasgow?’kiss” aka headbutt?
would be the politest way to welcome them;-)
I actually have a fairly complete plan for a solar dirigible, with the energy budget worked out, and it’s a pretty cool machine, if I say so myself. It would terrify most, as it uses a fair percentage of hydrogen as the lifting gas.
No matter how cool it is, it’s not as expedient as an A380.
well I would vote for that;-)
tourism crud drives me barmy
Well if you followed the settled science, the answer is there is nothing Australia can “do about that” that would have a measurable impact on CO2 emissions. If Australia went to zero emissions (destroying their economy in the process) the continued increase by India , China and the rest of the undeveloped world would easily erase your contribution (all sanctioned by the “holy” IPCC).
“… the answer is there is nothing Australia can “do about that” that would have a measurable impact on CO2 emissions.”
True, there is nothing Australia can do in the context of a GLOBAL atmosphere, but that was never the point of CAGW – which has always been entirely political.
You can’t change the climate from Australia but you can scare the people into voting to de-industrialise their nation while making billions for the Globalists on the way down.
“De-industrialize Australia ” After helping win two world wars, to go down the tubes fighting a non existing enemy seems so foolish.
Or course the climate is changing – that isn’t the debate. The debate should be about the science behind why it changes. And as the overwhelming majority of the science shows that the largest changes aren’t from human-caused CO2 we should be debating why natural causes aren’t really the focus of research.
As for “what we’re going to do about it” the answer is obvious – adapt to nature as humanity has always had to do.
I think that her comments as reported leave aside the question of what drives the climate(s) to change.
So maybe her intent is to progressively move Australia to adaptation measures over the medium / long term, rather than waste effort and $$$s on trying to “fight” climate change.
Who knows – she might be a closet supporter of the Bjorn Lomberg school of rational, practical measures into the future.
I hope so, because that makes a lot of sense to me.
I read it that way too, Mr. If it turns out that the long term weather patterns change for reasons other than anthro CO2 then all the $$$ spent addressing the wrong cause has been completely wasted, unless you are are a Big Green investor.
For sure , Scomo is a very intelligent leader and reader of what people want and expect .
Instead of fearmongering , he is offering sensible alternatives that address the situation.
To argue against climate change would be political sewerside (sic) .
To acknowledge the ‘maybe’ problem and say they are dealing with it is good marketing .
Flake wrote “Or course the climate is changing” [Of ?]
Not that I know of.
It has been reported that Earth’s atmosphere is a bit warmer than during the little ice age.
However, we live in a transition zone {ecotone} between the forested east slopes of the Cascade Mountains and the shrub/steppe lands of central Washington State. Studies of plants, animals, and geomorphology indicate no atmospheric changes of significance.
It is a fact that settlement after the “war between the states” — after 1865 — has impacted the region.
There is no indication the climate has changed.
My idea of climate is based on the vegetation-based research of Wladimir Köppen.
She’s an engineer, which puts her in the same category as insistent old white guys as far as the press is concerned…..so no woke ones will listen to her…..too much pragmatism and not enough pandering to suit the media….
The universal chant of the salesman;”Buy now”.
Politicians will say whatever the media convinces them is popular.
What President Trump refers to as Fake News,is best visualized with venn diagrams.
The relationship between media and chattering class is two overlapping circles almost forming one, the relationship of this media party to the the general public is of two barely intersecting circles.
And when in comes to taxing the citizen,for their own good and ultimate salvation. no politician can resist.
Unless the penalty is political death,politicians of every stripe are drooling over the opportunity taxing air(Carbon) represents.
Money to help the pollies look credible,money to fund all the unfunded promises already sold to the citizen..
More OPM to be stolen/”invested” by government .
For in the world of our entitled parasites,the “But look at all the good we can do with that money”, is far more important than Not Stealing it in the first place.
And then their is the State religion of Calamitous Climate Change,far easier to go along than buck a wave of public hysteria and propaganda.
Of course the Minister of Science is going to sell out to the loudest most authoritarian voices, for as we have all come to learn,if a title has “Science” included in it,there will be no science involved.
And what have we here?
A former Engineer now turned Political Scientist?
+ 42 :<)
It seems to me that the position of Australian Federal Science Minister is not a settled matter and should be thoroughly reviewed.
I went looking for where she said that but could find no instance. Eric likes to insert little dog-whistle phrases like that, maybe thats what happened here.
“Australia is wasting time debating the merits of climate change and should instead focus its attention on responding to the impacts it is having on the country”
Like the rest of the trolls, Loydo likes to pretend that unless you quote, word for word, then “she never said that”.
I guess it’s easier than actually finding something intelligent to say.
I don’t think she did say that. It looks like a reporter summarised that for her but then Eric has made it one of “key points” as if it is a direct quote. Btw, most of the science is settled – there is broad agreement amongst so-called skeptical scientists about most of the basics, ECS being one of the few areas still being debated.
I remain to be convinced this is all not just another coalition smokescreen, time and action will tell. The one thing that is encouraging is that there appears to be at least member of cabinet who has an inkling of science.
Didn’t look very hard did you
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-15/cabinet-ministers-karen-andrews-climate-change-time-wasters/11868694
yup and same is being run on adel tizer online
and some other daft git wants all other opinions cancel cultured
and they talk about Russia and China being dictatorships with no free speech?
sheesh
we need to look closer to home right now
Hey Loydo, since you’re one of those what’s happening right now kind of guys, pick out one of the letters from: LGBTQIA, and I will help you along with the transition
Ms Andrews, a former engineer, said the science on climate change was settled.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/climate-change-deniers-robbing-australia-of-time-to-respond-to-impacts-science-minister-karen-andrews-warns/ar-BBYXCsW
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-15/cabinet-ministers-karen-andrews-climate-change-time-wasters/11868694
https://www.facebook.com/pg/abcnews.au/posts/
https://theindependents.org.au/
Yeah, it’s Eric that likes to take liberties. LOL
Do you ever get tired of being wrong Loudo?
The alarmists aren’t letting up. California is sponsoring legislation requiring “Climate Change” education starting in the first grade and continuing until high school graduation. Hitler youth anyone?
The costs will be evident later as always. I had a friend in the metal parts casting business ask me in in his dispair “is all we are going to have left I mow your yard and you give me a massage” I told him the lawn mower is in the garage but you’ll be waiting awhile on the massage”
China, India, and others are happy to take the work and give us loans
Only if it’s a push mower.
“Ms Andrews, a former engineer, said the science on climate change was settled.”
Does that mean she couldn’t cut it as an engineer?
That has to be the reality. No engineer who is qualified to be called such, would be so naive as she evidently is, saying that.
Is possible.
I was briefly trying to look at her timeline. She did, according to her bio, move into mediation. Hey, career choice and all that and I know (and work with) a lot of engineers who move into a more project management position. The more senior you get in engineering the less hands on.
So… Karen does seem to have worked as an engineer for at least part of her career, but this needs to be taken into consideration that graduate engineers need constant supervision and the occasional beating. Or for some constant beating. So if she only worked as an engineer during her graduate years then her ‘worth’ may not actually be that much. Remember, in the real world it is your experience that is regarded higher than your education.
So, in answer to GP’s question? Dunno, but the fact she decided to get into politics rather than continue her engineering career does suggest a few things.
I would suggest that all of western civilization has surrendered to leftist activism of every flavor.
A news heading in NZ MSM this morning:
“Australian bushfires: Rain is on the way but so are severe thunderstorms, flash flooding”
You’r gotta love it 🙂
theyre already moaning the ashy water created a fishkill
the fact theres water incoming saving the land and people ?
nah
gotta kvetch
murray mouth silting up
its what its always done and the rivers changed the mouth area by 100s of miles over many hundred(thousands?) of yrs
but its being blamed on upstream water use
as if they havent wasted megalitres flushing it already this yr while towns have no water at all
We thought Aussies were tough, logical, pragmatic. Guess not. Having a snowflake, scientist wanna be as Science grand pooba is a sure fire (no pun intended) way to bankrupt Australia. NO real scientist states that science is settled; ever. So not only is the ‘Science’ Minister a snowflake, she doesn’t get it. One only needs to look back in Australia’s history books to see that this years fires weren’t its worse. And, they have had as hot of weather long before fossil fuels were used. Native Australians blamed the coming of the Europeans for their hot weather and rampant fires. So the ‘Science’ Minister doesn’t even know her own history. Good luck to the land down unda; where alarmists crow, whine,and thunda. To much ado about nuthin mate!
Now retired, but I haven’t ‘practiced’ engineering in many years. But I still consider myself an engineer because I learned much more that simply solving formulas in college. Engineering is a way of thinking, and solving problems. Ms. Whats-her-name obviously was oblivious to that….
Her WIKI entry says she took her degree and went to work in a power station. It didn’t proffer what it was she was employed as….I wonder now if she would be in favour of closing it down.
The climate is changing because the environmentalists have been removing the protective layer of dimming SO2 aerosols (from the burning of fossil fuels) from our atmosphere. PERIOD.
The real cause of Australia’s woes!
Prior warming periods, such as the Medieval Warming Period, resulted from greatly reduced volcanic activity, with a consequent reduction in the amount of SO2 aerosols in the atmosphere.
Since the end of the Little Ice Age, Earth has been trying to warm up naturally, as before, but has been prevented from doing so because of the Megatons of Anthropogenic SO2 aerosol emissions in our atmosphere.
This protective layer needs to be restored, in some fashion.
“Ms Andrews, a former engineer, said the science on climate change was settled”
Then what are all those well funded climate scientists doing?
Or maybe it IS settled.
Here are some supporting data
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/12/25/earth-day-wisdom/
How can anyone be so misinformed …
An ECS with +/- 50% error bars is about as far away from settled as you can possibly get.
Apparently, climate “scientists” (mainly the ones tagged in climategate) had “settled the science” with an ECS of 1.5C – 4.5C about 30 years ago.
But upon checking their superannuation / retirement benefits accounts at that time, there was an immediate consensus that the ECS needed another 30 years or so of tenured research to firm it up.
Which would get most of them over the line to retirement age. And an award-winning career.
What’s not to like?
Mr.
And the primary criteria for selecting it’s range was that it be large enough to justify the formation of the IPCC followed later by the UNFCCC. By that criteria, anything less than 1.5C is nothing to worry about, which is why they can’t admit the truth whose upper bound is less than their presumed lower bound.
To calculate the theoretical maximum, 1 W/m^2 of forcing can cause a maximum of 2 W/m^2 of surface emissions, which can happen only when the atmosphere absorbs 100% of what the surface emits and per its geometric constraints re-emits half into space and half back to the surface.
1 W/m^2 comes in (forcing) and in the steady state, 2 W/m^2 are emitted by the surface, all of which are absorbed by the atmosphere. 1 W/m^2 of this escapes into space to offset the W/m^2 of incremental input while the other W/m^2 is added to the W/m^2 of input to offset the 2 W/m^2 of incremental surface emissions.
The current average temperature of about 288 K corresponds to 390 W/m^2 of equivalent emissions. After increasing to 392 W/m^2 of emissions, which is the largest possible increase after 1 W/m^2 of forcing, the corresponding temperature is 288.37K, where the increase of 0.37K is less than the IPCC’s lower bound of 0.4C.
QED
This analysis is based on a sensitivity factor, now obfuscated as 1/alpha, of 0.8C +/- 0.4C per W/m^2 which when multiplied by the 3.7 W/m^2 of equivalent forcing from doubling CO2 results in a presumed temperature increase of 3C +/- 1.5C.
‘Science Minister’ Karen Andrews has a curious likeness to Hogwarts High Inquisitor Dolores Umbridge……
No real offense to the Australians but with 25.5M people you are still around 4M less than Texas so I’m not sure just how much impact all this has on the Globe. And as you and California follow the same path to self-destruction, let’s see where you are 10 years from now.
I predict in that time there will be periods of no rain, periods of abundant rain, fires (except where it has already been burned) hot spells, cold spells and normal temperatures. Unfortunately almost all your cities are on the coast so it’s a good probability they all just might be underwater by then.
Good Luck.
Your prediction about Australia’s climate was written in 1904 as a poem by Dorothea McKellar titled “My Country”
An oft-quoted observation is –
“a land of droughts and flooding rains”
Was it ever thus . . .
https://skepticalscience.com/climate-conversation-ccn.html
In the pursuit of science, SK just deleted posts from someone pointing out the numerous prior Austrilian fires that were much larger than the current fire.
ie the 1974 fire and the 1930’s fire – According the SK, those fires werent caused by Global warming and therefore the “denier” should not be allowed to post fake science.
Where has the mind gone when you reach the point where you can’t tolerate alternate opinions. I actually feel sorry for those folk that have lost (or never gained) the ability to think logically or those whose world must be totally limited by comfirmation bias in order to maintain some modicum of sanity. Life must be really tough when you have to be very careful when picking those it is safe to meet and those you must avoid at all costs. But, I guess they deserve the world they are creating for themselves.
This early Australian Bush Ballad was probably the start of climate alarmism.
http://www.warrenfahey.com.au/said-hanrahan/
I clicked on the link and read “meaningful dialogue” & “awesome” in the first few comments. That was enough for me to leave forthwith.
t’s not a “look” it’s a “Listen” Click on the audio
The only person standing in the way of Australia going completely climate bonkers is prime minister Scott Morrison. Which is why he’s being hammered from all sides.
Don’t forget that ScoMo gave one billion dollars for ‘climate research’ without any previous debate or discussion.
This raised some seeds of doubt in some commentators.
Another depressing post here at WattsUpWithThat
These people are bent on starting a civil war, apparently a world-wide civil war. And it looks like they think they can win it. It will finally come to a head, and they will either have to back off, or well like I said, it looks like they think they can prevail.