Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Failed Aussie Conservative Leader and ANU “Tax and Transfer Policy Chair” Professor John Hewson thinks Coronavirus “plusses” such as the noteworthy setting aside of civil liberties offers an opportunity for ramming through climate policies.
Sorry to disappoint climate deniers, but coronavirus makes the low-carbon transition more urgent
April 6, 2020 6.04am AEST
Climate deniers have been hanging out for the United Nations’ next big summit to fail. In a sense, the coronavirus and its induced policy responses have more than satisfied their wildest dreams, precipitating a global recession that they no doubt hope has pushed the issue of the low-carbon transition well down the political and policy agenda.
The next round of international climate negotiations – the so-called COP26 in Scotland – has been delayed until 2021. Presumably, climate sceptics hope governments and policy authorities will now be consumed by, in the words of our prime minister, the need to “cushion” the impact of the recession and ensure “a bounce back on the other side”.
Deniers argue that further disruption to economies and societies will be avoided at all costs.
Sorry to be the harbinger of denier disappointment, but there is every reason to expect that the virus crisis will strengthen and accelerate the imperative to transition to a low-carbon world by mid-century.
…
As Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, states in her recent book:
“We are in the critical decade. It is no exaggeration to say that what we do regarding emissions reductions between now and 2030 will determine the quality of human life on this planet for hundreds of years to come, if not more.”
…
There are a few “pluses” from the experience of coronavirus. Emissions are falling (although clearly no one would advocate a global recession as a climate strategy). And the response of governments to the crisis has seen decisive domestic action – working individually, but together, in meeting what is a global challenge.
Individual governments have demonstrated how quickly they can move once they accept the reality of a crisis. We’ve also seen just how far they’re prepared to go in terms of policy responses – lockdowns, social distancing, testing, rapid and historically significant fiscal expansions, and massive liquidity injections.
It’s noteworthy that issues that in “normal times” could not have been ignored – such as civil liberties and concerns about intrusive governments and effective competition – have so easily been set aside as part of emergency responses.
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/sorry-to-disappoint-climate-deniers-but-coronavirus-makes-the-low-carbon-transition-more-urgent-135419
John, what is missing from your glorious climate action revolution is large scale buy-in.
Most people in Australia and elsewhere have accepted the Coronavirus lockdown because there is solid evidence that Coronavirus is a problem. Horror news videos coming from New York, Iran, Italy, Spain and Britain have sent a powerful message which most people have accepted, that it is worth some serious inconvenience to avoid joining those poor dying people gasping for breath in overcrowded hospitals.
There is no solid evidence climate change is a problem. The only “evidence” climate activists have presented for their economic lockdown is a bunch of fear mongering UN elitists whom nobody likes, a 17 year old puppet with serious psychological issues, and a bunch of jet setting professors who keep having to revise their calculations when all the bad things they predict fail to happen.
Until you and your friends can present genuine evidence climate change is a problem, nobody in their right mind is going to accept a climate change lockdown, or anything remotely resembling the kinds of economic cuts failed politicians like you want to inflict on the people you once aspired to lead.
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Hewson is rubber room material. For his own self protection and that of society he should be locked up.
The ANU is a lapdog for Communist China. It is only a matter of time before they fly the red flag and hand out little red books to their students.
lol:
7 Apr: AP: Modeling coronavirus: ‘Uncertainty is the only certainty’
By SETH BORENSTEIN and CARLA K. JOHNSON
“The key thing is that you want to know what’s happening in the future,” said NASA top climate modeler Gavin Schmidt. “Absent a time machine you’re going to have to use a model.”
Weather forecasters use models. Climate scientists use them. Supermarkets use them…
https://apnews.com/88866498ff5c908e5f28f7b5b5e5b695
The climate models are about as accurate as those keeping supermarket shelves stocked with toilet paper.
They need to narrowly specify the operative domain. They need to specify a frame of reference, in the past, present, and future, and the assumptions/assertions underlying their hypotheses (“models”).
It is true that climate change must be reversed, but today the only way to reduce carbon emissions is unrealistic. Brutal geoengineering is needed combined with family planning in developing countries, reversal of migration, wider use of nuclear energy, LENR and so on.
“It is true that climate change must be reversed”
What sort of dumb, nonsensical comment is that?
What do you even mean by it ?
Do you really want temperature to drop back down to those of the Little Ice Age.
To you really want global CO2 to drop to barely plant subsistence levels, causing famine around the world.
The temperature only needs to be reduced by two degrees, because we know that this way the climate is stable. However, current trends threaten an avalanche effect mainly due to the melting of the termafrost.
“It is true that climate change must be reversed”
I recommend turning the clock back and reversing the increase of Entropy.
That should do it.
Cheers
Mike
Carbon emissions could be stopped one way: development of a new source of safe, abundant, easy-to-deploy energy generation that achieves the old saying “too cheap to meter.” However, the inertia to deploy additional fossil fuel plants in Asia would still require a century to halt.
That’s what LENR technology is all about. Unfortunately, if energy production were to be completely carbon-free from tomorrow, it would still be necessary to temporarily use geoengineering to safely get the world out of its current impasse.
There’s no evidence that CO2 has done, or will do, anything to the climate or to global temperature, malkom.
The IPCC and allied ilk literally do not know what they’re talking about.
The misconception is caused by the fact that science is really overwhelmingly left-wing and liberal and therefore politically unreliable but in turn the one hundred percent consensus that CO2 is the key responsible is for the meaning of something. If it were only sixty percent, I wouldn’t believe in science either.
Huh? What impasse? CO2 at .04% up from .03% a short while ago, but no big deal in the Holocene nor in the Phanerozoic (that’s an understatement.)
Maybe you meant to say “…it would still be necessary to burn FFs anyway, to some extent, to prevent the percentage falling so low it endangers plant growth worldwide?”
It just means that microorganisms don’t die out just for our grandchildren. Personally, I’d rather try to do something even if it might seem selfish.
Hands up. Who thinks this ”Lockdown” thing, is the way forward and how we should be living our lives to make sure we have a ”better Climate” in the future?
Given that it’s the single biggest obstacle to the Alarmists’ agenda and has banished them into obscurity, it’s hardly something they should be holding up as their Champion.
Eamon.
Anyone who starts out “Climate Deniers” is a fool. There is no such thing clearly, but the cultists from the green blob continue to beat the drum with such foolishness.
I, sir, do not deny climate. I do however deny that that you are a rational thinking person, except in your inhumane pursuit of helping to try and destroy the western economy which has so successfully alleviated so much human suffering. Never in the history of mankind has life been so good.
Begone and at the very least have the decency to stop lying to us. State outright your real objectives- you know be a man.
Why would anyone listen to or believe the “climate” cult claims?
Exactly my thoughts. Should anyone pay attention to what the local village idiot says?
Fossil CO2 Emission Hoax,
Climatologists grossly overstate the impact of fossil CO2 emissions on global temperatures. The world’s fossil CO2 emissions have increased from 22,674 million tons (Mt) in 1990 to 37,077 Mt in 2017. A plot of global temperatures from 1850, (Little Ice Age) to 2018 shows the temperatures increased between 1920 and 1945, before significant CO2 emissions, at the same rate as from 1970 to 2018. The temperature increased from1970 to 1990 at the same rate as from 1990 to 2018 despite the 70% increase in fossil CO2 emissions. Clearly global temperatures were not that sensitive to those emissions.
Also a plot of CO2 in the atmosphere showed CO2 increased from 320 parts per million (PPM) in 1960, to 396 PPM in 2014. Yet the rate of change from 1970 to 1990 was essentially the same as for 1990 to 2014. Again despite the 70% increase in fossil CO2 emissions.
If increasing fossil CO2 emissions didn’t increase atmospheric CO2 PPM they could not be the reason for increasing global temperatures. The only rational explanation was global temperatures, driven by the sun were increasing CO2 out gassing from ocean surface. That global temperature increases were the cause of increasing CO2 in atmosphere not the result.
I’m a retired Boeing engineer but it shouldn’t take much education to recognize that if a 70% increase in fossil CO2 emissions doesn’t result in a dramatic change in the rate at which global temperatures or atmospheric CO2 levels increase its “unlikely” fossil CO2 emissions are the reason. Yet apparently 96% of scientists don’t recognize that rationale.
One of the seminal arguments for global temperature sensitivity was an August 2007 Scientific American article, “The Physical Science behind Climate Change”. The article claiming to be “The Undeniable Case for Global Warming” based their conclusion on the failure of their computer models of climate temperature with their initial estimates for “forcing” (influence of) to match measured temperature. The end result was matching their computer model results to measured data required “forcing” for fossil CO2 emissions to be 10 times that of the Sun. The fact that the global temperature increase from1990 to 2017 was essentially the same as from 1970 to 1990 despite the 70% increase in fossil CO2 emissions would “seem” to belie that conclusion.
The fact that atmospheric CO2 level increase from 1970 to 1990 was also the same as from 1990 to 2017, again despite the 70% increase in fossil CO2 emissions reaffirms the lack of sensitivity. The real correlation is between global temperatures and CO2 in the atmosphere. As the letter concludes the likely reason is global temperatures driven by the sun, have increased CO2 out gassing from the ocean surface. Again, that increasing global temperatures are the cause for the increasing CO2 in the atmosphere not the result.
The conclusion is fossil CO2 emissions are not an existential threat to the planet. Hundreds of billions have been wasted each year attempting to limit fossil CO2 emissions. That all the billions spent attempting to replace fossil fuels with renewable sources have likely had little affect on either global temperature or atmospheric CO2 levels. The sooner the whole world recognizes that the better.
Shameless exploitation.
Nobody but marxist-sycophants care what “The Conversation” says.
Government regulation of where and how often we can travel away from home are a leftist/greenie version of “paradise”. I’m reminded of Weird Al Yankovic’s “Amish Paradise” parody,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOfZLb33uCg
Most rational people want this hellish lifestyle to end soon,
Well this alarmist could not be more wrong. This state of emergency will not suddenly make people go “gee, this is so easy. After covid-19 has been defeated wouldn’t it be fun to continue all these measures for ever, for the sake of global warming?” Not only will they not entertain such an idea, even for a second, but they will be extremely averse to anything that entails restricting travel, work and leisure or adding even more costs to those they will be forced to pay via higher taxes to pay for the fiscal measures now being implemented. Anybody that thinks they can leverage this moment to engineer some kind of climate austerity will be in for a rude awakening.
AKA: If the measures we currently have in place fail to destroy the economy, here are some other handy ideas to try.
Scrap metal from failed projects of Dr Hewson litter the Australian landscape.
Who knew that a tiny virus would efficiently spotlight the dead enders of the Great Climate Crusades.
I guess WHO knew but they were busy playing UN diplomats.
” It is no exaggeration to say that what we do regarding emissions reductions between now and 2030 will determine the quality of human life on this planet for hundreds of years to come, if not more.”
This is the only statement of Figueres I completely agree with and why Im in the battle against totalitarians like her.
Since one of the goals of the Marxist progressive was to use the environmental movement to destroy capitalism, and the corona virus has accomplished in a few weeks what they could not in 30 years, you would think they would just declare victory and move on.
However, it would appear that they have become greedy and just can not wait to extract a few billion out of a 2 trillion stimulus (with moe to come down the road).
Parasites