The Australian continues its deplorable coverage of global warming, in this editorial which contains more errors and misleading claims than it is possible to count, following on from an equally bad news story at the weekend.
The factual basis of the story is that the IPCC has confirmed the reality of anthropogenic global warming, tightening the error bounds around its earlier estimate of a 3 degree warming by 2100. Obviously, when you tighten error bounds, you raise the minimum estimate, but the Australian manages to mention this once in passing in its news story and not at all in its editorial.
The rest of the editorial contains allusions to all the denialist claptrap the Oz has been pushing for years now: claims that climate change is really natural (the IPCC confirms that the change we are observing is anthropogenic), suggestions that the report refutes the ‘hockey stick’ (it confirms it, even more strongly than the 2001) report, misleading references to the Medieval Warm period and so on.
At least, having publicly relied on the IPCC, the Oz might stop publishing the conspiracy-theory opinion pieces suggesting that the whole thing is a hoax.
The Australian’s coverage of this issue has been a disgrace. As a paper, it cannot be taken seriously on any scientific issue.
John Quiggin 
Louis – “only robots can be modelled mathematically – humans not.”
The atmosphere is not composed of humans. Computer models are used all the time quite accurately even in geology.
Just remember kiddies, Louis Hissink believes (or used to) that Saturn used to prowl the inner solar system, and in a near pass with Earth produced the world’s oceans. Or something. If you google his name this stuff comes up. To not believe the climate can be modelled mathematically is pretty tame stuff.
The extraordinary thing is that the Oz is increasinly reliant on people like him as more pragmatic denialists recognise the game is up.
I never said it was. The only benefit measured is the reduction in GHGs from the reference case. ABARE does not quantify the reduction required to stabilise the atmosphere or deliver measurable benefits.
Note: The alternate scenarios do not all get to the same end point in 2100. Scenario 2d delivers a 71% cut in GHGs from the reference case by 2050, while scenario 1 delivers a 38% cut by 2050.
Carbonsink,
the 2a-d scenarios deliver a 39% cut in 2050 and the 1 scenario delivers a 34% cut from the reference (Table B).
With ref to my previous note – the latter numbers are the global reductions (Table B in the exec summary of the ABARE report), carbonsink’s figures are the Oz reductions (Table C). Global reductions are more relevant to the assessment of benefits – relative mixes from one country to the next are more relevant to burden and equity considerations.
Louis Hissink,
“only robots can be modelled mathematically – humans not.â€?
Louis, if you mean propagandists of whatever persuasion have learnt that people can’t be shaped along the lines the propagandists want it (ie like a robot programmed to act the way they want), then many people might agree with you.
If this is not what you mean, then there are a few questions I’d like to have answered.
Part A: Physical (‘material’ in economics).
1. Are you aware that dress and suit manufacturers rely on ‘model sizes’ (eg 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 for females) which involve measurements (ie application of mathematics)?
2. How tall you are, relative to your ‘neighbourhood’
Part B: Philosophy.
1. Are you aware that economists (some) have managed to make precise, by means of applying mathematics, the notion of ‘freedom of choice’ and rationality?
2. Are you aware that the wishful thinking spruiked by some economic ideologues can be debunked by means of the mathematical models generated by economists?
StephenL – Louis and I have a been taunting each other for a while now. My apologies for bringing down the dicussion on this thread.
The Lithophyte wrote:
Fair enough. I was focussing on the Australia-only cost-benefits, which are shown in Table C. Go here scroll down then click the Table C image to see a larger view.
Scientific American has given the Oz a serve…
As reported by Crikey.
Also, in what maybe truly planet-saving news Crikey’s Sophie Black says Rupert may have seen the light:
Seems like there’s quite a debate happening within News Corp over climate change. If Rupert turns, how long until Bush and Howard see the light?
Modelling humans is impossible?
A complete model, perhaps for ever, yes, but for many special purposes human behaviour can be modelled. Some financial institutions use statistical models to make loans, and do so more successfully (in terms of bad debts etc.) than human loan managers. Life insurance is based on models of (certain aspects of) human life. Genes behave in human population genetics the way they behave in other mammals, so you can model human micro-evolutionary change quite well. Exam results predict exam results, so you can base university entrance largely on exam results. And so on, in terms of descriptive and predictive models, not normative models.
What carbonsink said most recently. The IPCC draft report is still going through the review process and is currently being disputed by scientists. See http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,20359400-3102,00.html
Paul – “The IPCC draft report is still going through the review process and is currently being disputed by scientists.”
I think that they are confusing the climate sensitivity work of Annan and Hargreaves with the total amount of warming expected by 2100. I also don’t think that climate scientists are disputing it. The report is still in draft and the normal review process is going on.
StephenL, I wouldnt get too excited, when Ender isnt pedalling his peak oil unicycle he is tinkering with his virtual windmill. Bad news from Chevron..for some
As long as the long term costs of Greenhouse gas emissions are not included in the current price of the goods and services that create them there won’t be real incentive to develop and use low emission technologies. Until those technologies are developed and deployed there’s not much chance we’ll make a significant impact on Global warming. To say we can’t make any significant impact on Global Warming and so should make no efforts to curb emissions would mean we get the worst of all scenarios – uncontrolled growth of emissions without policy directions to do otherwise. Of course there are at least some efforts to develop those technologies although I think Australia’s leaders – Labs and Libs alike – are expending little more than some PR rhetoric whilst resisting any measures that might reduce the apparent profitability of fossil fuel based industries (ie profitability without those currently externalized future costs). Sustaining our wealthy and indulgent lifestyle into that future without the expense of converting to low emission technology seems a bit dubious -there will be other costs which are most likely going to eat away that wealth anyway – even if a carbon tax isn’t imposed on us by the rest of the world, there could well be a lot of lost agricultural production, new infrastructure to build such as coastal levy banks, land lost to saltwater inundation, increased security and defence costs even without major conficts and with any major conflicts that draw us in potentially costing more than a host of GHG reduction measures. It may not be easy to create costings for these. That they aren’t amenable to projections of costs does not mean they aren’t foreseeable consequences to a collective failure to take action.
We – the developed world – need to lead in this matter. It’s unlikely the developing world will deploy low emission technologies unless they are proved, established and made cost effective. Part of that cost effectiveness is only going to be apparent by incorporating those externalized costs of using fossil fuels into the equation.
rog wrote:
I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. Its very deep (7,000 feet of water and >20,000 feet below the sea floor), dispersed amongst a number of smaller fields, not that big (between 3 billion and 15 billion barrels) and won’t start production until 2013. Its no Prudhoe Bay.
Hopefully it will buy some time, but its a drop in the ocean for a world using 30 billion barrels a year.
EG said:-
Happy to give credit where credit is due.
Government policy is always backed by force. Not a major point I should think, unless you wish to expand on it and use it to say something a little more substantial. Perhaps your point is that it was not democratic.
Before this gets too protracted let me make it clear that my point was that human system are not as readily open to mathematical modelling as physical systems. However I accept without any reservation at all that mathematics has wide and appropriate application in economics and the social sciences.
I think your point about clothing sizes was amusing and also pretty spot on. Opinion polls are another example of mathematics being applied to human systems with great success.
“Its no Prudhoe Bay”
No, but it is the first with more to come.
rog wrote:
How exactly do you know that? I don’t pretend to know that there won’t be major oil discoveries in the future, but if this graph is accurate, the trend does not look good.
rog – “StephenL, I wouldnt get too excited, when Ender isnt pedalling his peak oil unicycle he is tinkering with his virtual windmill. Bad news from Chevron..for some”
… and as usual when devoid of cogent arguments you resort to schoolyard taunts.
The new find is between 3 and 8 billion barrels. At the usual recovery rates then between 1.5 and 4 billion barrels will be recoverable. The USA currently uses 25 million barrels per day so this represents at best 4 billion/25 million = 160 days of US consumption and at worst 60 days.
Also these minor facts also apply:
More than a half a dozen world records for test equipment pressure, depth, and duration in deepwater were set during the Jack well test. For example, the perforating guns were fired at world record depths and pressures. Additionally, the test tree and other drill stem test tools set world records, helping Chevron and co-owners conduct the deepest extended drill stem test in deepwater Gulf of Mexico history.
The oil that was found was thus expensive to find, and will also be expensive to produce. It is also far enough out into the Gulf that the platforms that will produce it will run into the same risks that hit Thunder Horse and the Mars platforms, and which, should more hurricanes hit the area, may make it more difficult to find insurance. ”
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/9/6/0514/58013#more
This is exactly in line with Peak Oil. As the peak approaches the finds get smaller and smaller, harder to get at and more expensive to produce. Perhaps you should save your taunts for blogs that consist of little else.
rog – a bit more reading for you about the oil discovery:
http://www.energybulletin.net/20140.html
Point 7 is illuminating
“7. Related to point #6, the announcement is reminiscent of the Mexican “huge oil discovery” announced last year, of a possible 10 billion barrels, which was quietly revised this year to around 43 million barrels, a downward revision of 99.57%. This similar “discovery” was made in Mexico last year a few months before the Mexican parliament was to vote on Pemex (state oil co)’s budget and rights to expand drilling. This illustrates the potential political pressure to announce oil and gas discoveries.”
Dear All,
Its great to see all these smart arguments. It would be even better if the sceptics would read and contribute to it too.
Coincidentally on the 2nd of September when the Opinion article was published ABC RN aired The Science Show on the theory of Gaia and accelerated global climate change I’ve written and produced.
Following climate change debate for a decade I felt its important to look at climate change from an Earth system point of view and explain why could relatively small increases in CO2 levels lead to major consequences. Those who listened might have an idea what could a 3 degrees increase in global temperature cause. But is that enough? We need to have the most visible forum for a public debate not just pro and con opinions, articles, reports, documentaries scattered in different media over a period of time. Any suggestions, please?
Best wishes,
Annamaria
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/
Annamaria, I thought it was a great program – listened to it, taped it, printed out the transcript, though I haven’t learnt it by heart yet.
Scary in parts, though.
I know this is off topic, but for rog’s benefit I thought I’d write up what I know about: the biggest oil discovery in 38 years.
Brian! That’s such a nice surprise. Thank you.
Yes it gets really scary once you think about it as an interconnected non-linear system pregnant with surprises. We only see it in its robust, steady state but the Earth reached this balance over 3,5 thousand million years and regulated itself in narrow bounds of CO2 levels.
There were always great natural disturbances but there was always time to bounce back to balance. The problem is that this fast world we call civilisation can’t be put on hold for that sort of timescale.
What is the chance that we will act sensibly, collectively, internationally and within the timeframe available for us? It would be so important to have a big open debate on the emergency and extent of climate change..
It gets a pretty frequent run on this blog, Annamaria, including one post that ran for 647 comments.
Over at Larvatus Prodeo in recent weeks we’ve had the greening of Greenland and Johnathon Holmes’ Four Corners report then the fragility of the Amazon plus The Australian Environment Foundation and methane in Siberia. Oh yes, and something about red balloons.
So we might be accused of obsessing about it.
But too much is not nearly enough on the topic. The mail I’m getting is that if we start turning things around majorly in the next ten years we have a chance that the system won’t run right out of control. Even so Vicky Pope may well be right when she said on your program:
“Essentially the uncertainty is whether it’s going to be bad or very bad, not whether it’s going to be good or bad.”
I made a long interview with Vicky Pope. She is not the kind of person who jumps into conclusions, rather a classic conservative scientists. This makes her prediction even more serious. She says that we have to adapt and we have to do everything to stave off the worst. She doesn’t say that the system will run out of control – that’s only a 1% chance and a speculative one for the moment.
The 4Corner was great but all of these things I fear only talk to the converted. That’s why we need to bring everyone in to a big forum – to a debate. Otherwise pro and con we just selfcongratulate ourselves on random appearances of varoius stories published/aired on the issue.
Annamaria;
Why not a program on what are the changes that are going to be needed to adapt? The changes will need to be linked to the time for adaptation.
Basically start from a scenario in which little or nothing is done to mitigate climate change so how do we best adapt to the change.
Perhaps examples are: the extension of Canadian and Russian wheat belts to the North whilst a decrease to the South; the shift in wine growing regions in the USA, the shift in sugar growing region from the coastal belt up into the Atherton Tablelands.
I’m sure professional research will give a much more complex position and also identify important projects to prepare Australia for the most likely outcome.
Annamaria, you say of Vicky Pope:
“She says that we have to adapt and we have to do everything to stave off the worst. She doesn’t say that the system will run out of control – that’s only a 1% chance and a speculative one for the moment.”
I guess we have to define “out of control”. In the program Watson says this:
“Now if we push it [CO2 levels] up…this is not something that most climatologists will talk about but I think that there is a small chance, maybe a 1% chance, that if we really hit the planet too hard we may push it into a runaway system in which the temperature simply goes up and up until the oceans boil into the atmosphere, and that would extinguish all life on Earth.”
Truly scary and very much out of control. I wonder whether his 1% was off the top of his head in an interview situation or, as I suspect, his considered assessment of the risk would be much lower. In insurance terms 1% for such an extreme outcome seems to me horrendously high. If the risk is anywhere near that level there should be a G8 emergency meeting devoted entirely to the problem within weeks.
But it is in any case very worrying that serious scientists should be talking in those terms.
Lovelock is suggesting that the appropriate analogy is what happened 55 million years ago. He sees equatorial temperatures rising by 5C and 8C in the more temperate zones. This would leave the planet drastically less inhabitable and biopruductive than it is now and take 200,000 years for it to what we would term rectify.
I notice that no scientist (almost) will go there with him, although James Zachos, professor of earth sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has found that we are putting similar amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, only 30 times faster.
But even if we get, say, one metre sea-level rise per century for 500 years it will be very disruptive and there will be nothing we can do to stop it in terms of the time perspectives of normal planning. So that scenario too might be termed ‘out of control’.
Still it gives a bit of flesh to Pope’s “whether it’s going to be bad or very bad.”
The main thing is to stay focused on the net positive benefits of global warming. And not get sidetracked into this Anthropogenic/non-anthropogenic talk. Which sounds sort of religious and gratuitously anti-homo-sapien.
Graeme Bird wrote:
Graeme, can you please outline what those benefits would be?
Matthew Warren from The Australian is at it again today suggesting the really scary thing about global warming are the costs of cutting greenhouse gases:
Link: Climate horror flick could have been even scarier
Hmmm … so it seems I shouldn’t be worried about mass extinctions, permanent drought in SE Australia, the death of the Great Barrier Reef, no more snow in the snowies, and cities running out of water, I should really be worried about Australia losing a few percentage points of GDP.
Well look on the bright side:
mass extinctions after which it will only be species that are improving their sustainability that will be around thus we can expect of very rapid evolutionary bloom of nature we will live in a period of rapid change in the natural world ;
permanent death of the great Barrier reef in its northern reaches but great surfing in Far North Queensland at last and an extension of coral reef zone south- see the reef off Sydney,
drought in SE Australia : with that frame of mind every rain event will be appreciated just like the outback a flowering of poetry and painting and other art forms(there will even be a good excuse for a whole school of artists devoted to displaying dirty washing);
No more snow in the Snowies -Those wonderful snow gums now cover the upper reaches of the Snowies, winter bush walking, no more skiers brilliant dark nights I’m beginning to look forward to this one;
Cities running out of water -water with efficient pricing Sydney siders decide to follow the surf to Far North Queensland.
In all the massive extinction events in the past 90% of all genetic diversity has survived.
It looks as though those percentage points off the GDP particularly when the effect will fall unequally on the poor should be your worry
taust – and you could say that the Great Fire of London was great because people were not cold or the Hurricane Katrina at least brought plenty of water to poor people etc
Not really an argument.
If I remember from reading Samual Pepys diaries you are right people did not complain of the cold.
The main positive effect of Hurricane Katrina appears to have been to improve the living conditions of a significant proportion of the poor who were in New Orleans. It also gave us some useful engineering and organisational data for when many of our major cities will be below sea level. Though I fear the lessons will have been forgotten by that time.
Brian,
re Andrew Watson:
‘if we really hit the planet too hard we may push it into a runaway system’
he did run this on his computer that’s why he mentions it. Its speculative of course but the point is that things changed not only on the planet but also in our cosmc surroundings – ie. the solar energy output increased by 30%.
Watson believes we are all here because of a series of fortunate events that were just right for life to emerge and warns that things are getting more and more difficult even without human forcing, so please hands off! The system is instable.
Watson sees Earth less capable of bouncing back to balance. Lovelock has a great comfort in the thought that Gaia and life generally speaking are very robust. He argues that anything that survived for 4.0 billion years must be robust.
If your are interested you can listen on the BBC’s website to the full unedited feedback that Lovelock had about his book by seven academics. They have endorsed the science in the book with the exception of the fast and large sea level rise.
You are right – ‘out of control’ means different things – and some are already happening – sea level rise due to warming that already happened raises global sea levels because of thermal expansion. It’s nothing like as if the Greenland ice-sheet melts but with 2.5-2.7 increase of temperature that too is inevitable.
Taust:
I think the program idea you’ve suggested is great. I’ll put it forward.
Graeme:
bright side of global warming..the problem is that the change is too fast for organisms to adapt. Evolution operates on very long timescales.
The biota of the ocean is extremly vulnarable because the changes in acidity and temperature are a sudden shock to them. They were not exposed to anything like this for thousands of million years, in their gene pool they don’t have a quick fix toolkit to adapt.
Annamaria;
you will hsve to manage the Deniers and Catastophe people. It really is not their story
Adaption particularly for Australia is going to have to play a highly significant role whatever mitigation projects get off the ground.
It could be one of the biggest events, Projects going on all around the world, private neterprise going for the profit and the inevitable subsidies. The researchers getting really exited about being involved in something useful.
Very best of luck,
Annamaria – how about a future Science Show on how we might adapt to nuclear winter, or a comet strike, or super volcano? Hey I know, how about a show about how we’ll adapt to gamma ray burst in our galaxy? The point is, you don’t.
carbonsink, if you are interested in Bird’s ideas on CO2 go here.
Be careful what you ask for!
carbonsink;
its good to know their are real catastrophes (as compared to the relative blip of climate change) to worry about.
I do note the nature has survived all in the past except the gamma ray burst.
One could hope that H sapien could adapt and survive.
Some work has been done on mitigating the comet strike.
Development of geotherma energy extraction might lead to some ways of mitigating the super volcanoe.
Both can be solved without needing a world wide agreement so there is some reasonable hope that mitigation efforts will be made in time to have an effect.
Then we can adapt.
So do not get too depressed facing the future
Brian, Mr Bird seems positively restrained here compared with his rants at LP. I have enough on my plate with taust, I don’t have the time or energy to take on other AGW deniers on other blogs.
Taust is a new and interesting breed. He’s not a denier, he accepts AGW, but thinks we should put all our resources into adapting to (rather than preventing) climate change. His view is (and correct me if I’m wrong Taust) is that Australia should not “waste” any resources on preventing climate change because of the harm this would do to our economy. We should therefore abandon the Great Barrier Reef to its fate and focus on how we can adapt our civilisation to the changing climate. I am frankly horrified that Annamaria (from the Science Show) takes his ideas seriously.
I much prefer Al Gore’s view that if Australia switched sides and ratified Kyoto that would leave the US as the only hold-out in the developed world, and would put increasing pressure on the US to get serious about preventing climate change.
I’ve got kids. I want them to see the wonders of the reef one day. I think its a little early to just give up and accept that we have to adapt to a seriously degraded environment.
Carbonsink,
there are some natural events that we can do very little about and can’t adapt to and there are others that we can. The world seed bank on the Arctic is a preparation for global catastrophy of different kinds. Think about the next flu pandemic – we know its coming and we do what we can to prepare to it. Maybe not enough but more than what we do about climate change.
Annamaria, climate change is a preventable problem that will (hopefully) take decades or centuries to unfold. A global flu pandemic could happen tomorrow. They are two very differenent problems. If we don’t act on climate change (as taust suggests, and you seem to be agreeing with) the earth could become uninhabitable. A flu pandemic (at worst) might kill 20% of the human population, a catastrophe of course, but it doesn’t threaten civilisation or the biosphere.
Will the Science Show seriously be advocating a do-nothing-and-adapt response to climate change in a future episode?
carbonsink, Bird is an AGW enthusiast rather than a denier. And yes we all have to manage our time.
Annamaria, I’ve been busy but I hope to comment further later tonight.
Ah dear, I needed a good laugh, that Bird thread at LP is frickin’ hilarious! Check it out taust, I think we’ve found your soulmate.
Pt 1
First just for you taust
Ockham’s Razor
Climate change Sunday 03 September 2006
Dr Barrie Pittock of the CSIRO talks about climate change and risk management and what to do about climate change.
Climate change
BTW are you going to be one of the first to put your hand up for all Pacific climate refugees to come here and adapt with us?
You won’t mind massively increase our disaster aid funding to help others that we don’t let in?
Might mean increasing taxes but surely that is just one of moral consequences of your stance.
Annamaria Talas welcome its fortunate I checked back in. Maybe if taust had been listening to the Science Show as I’ve been doing over many years he would have picked up a thing or to and would be more informed.
The down side I’m always catching up via the pod casts for recent shows and have quite a few to go.
As to suggestions.
I once contacted Robin via email in the past to suggest he may go onto Counter Point to talk about the science of AGW and biases of the skeptics but he wasn’t keen on it.
Cannot blame him.
Pt2
Anyway even before the recent nuclear debate smokescreen was in full swing I suggested to the admin of http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/ that a forum be held on Insight with pre show pieces by Fourcorners, Catalyst or The Science Show and with extended blog and chat forums afterwoods. Maybe the commercial channels would be interested maybe not since it isn’t a diet scam.
The thing is with other natural feedback system like the methane in Siberia and the good possibility that massive peat bogs like in Indonesia drying up and catching alight or that forests like the Amazon-
Daniel Nepstad from the Woods Hole Research Centre gives us the latest update on Amazonian droughts and how far North they may spread.
Amazonian droughts
could dry up and release absolutely enormous amounts of C02 Lovelock’s claims could well indeed be on the money.
Which puts this topic in the league of extreme national importance similar to a real war footing not this pseudo was on Terrorism.
Get the best science, get all the parties involved, cut the BS and put them on the spot.
If we can get them all together to debate the Republic the very least we can do is give this our best shot.
More than happy to help out in greater detail.
Carbonsink;
consider these questions:
1.Take any reduction amount you like to choose and see what happens to the climate over the next 50 to 100years.
My answer is the climate changes significantly even with the largest cuts in emissions. ie adaptation will be required
2. What is the probability that there will be an agreement put into practice in the next ten years to limit greenhouse emissions to an extent that will significantly limit climate change .
My answer is that this outcome is a very low probability event thus adaptation is a very good strategy to adopt
3 What effect will Australia adopting controls on greenhouse emissions have on the timing or rate of climate change.
My answer None. Therefore if we are going to spend our material and intellectual wealth it should be spent on adaptation
I to would like to see a functioning world
. I am sure the world is going to be different. If we spend our material and intellectual wealth on actions that will have no effect then a number of people in Australia will be much worse off than if we do something effective.
What is wrong with this analysis. It is only in outcome about GDP and other frightenong economic concepts. It is about practicality. Adaptation is going to be required.
Australia is doing little to enable its people to get ready for adaptation. Meanwhile State Governments do thing which impose costs on the poor that probably outstrip those imposed by the GST and which will have no significant effect on greenhouse emissions at all.
I went through the COAG reforms where the policy elites now lining up for emission controls told us about the benefits (that were real in that case) but did not tell us it meant throwing a group of 15 to 20 year olds and a group of 50+ on the scrap heap.
Emission controls are going to throw another generation on the scrap heap.
Is your view that the natural world is far more important the human beings We shoot people to protect elephants so throwing people out of work is small beer.
News from the real world
Kyoto protocol: Adapt or fry
09 September 2006
From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
IS IT all over for Kyoto? Should we accept that global warming is inevitable and plan accordingly?
Yes, says Frances Cairncross, president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA) which held its annual festival in Norwich, UK, this week.
Taust Some of what she says makes sense she acknowledges the risk, cannot say I or other would agree about the costs in making emission cuts.
It’s the mix that Cairncross is talking about I’d read the whole speech.
http://www.the-ba.net/the-ba/PressOffice/PressReleases/_PresAddress06.htm
Basically for me she sees the risk but doesn’t see the economic or political will to change so start preparing.
I’m more optimistic for both the political and economic.
All that will be neededis some large natural disasters to come more frequently-not to be a norm but just enough to spook the public- to hit the US China and India and case unrest –apart from the screams of the Insurance industry- and the political will will come.
With that will come the economics and people like Gore who will be for solutionsm not the head in the sand lip service Bush and Howard’s.
Simonjm;
I think it resolves around two issues:
the probability of achieving an effective global agreement to mitigate climate change (my assessment very low); and
the probability that even with mitigation we will experience significant climate change (my assessment very high).
Depending upon your assessment of the above you then factor in what difference to climate change will Australia’s çontribution make (my assessment very small).
Depending upon your assessment of the third factor you then can arrive at an order of magnitude assignment of the proportion of effort (both material and intellectual) Australia should spend on mitigation and adaptation.
Based on my assessments we should only mitigate where there is a very clear direct economic return to Australia and we should spend the economic rational amount on adaptation. At this stage it means that we should in general be developing our adaptation options and doing very little mitigation.
Particularly important given the closed nature of the policy elite in Australia we should insist the policy elite do no harm to Australians.
In the last 50 years poor policy actions have cost the lives of more Australians than wars and terrorist actions in the same time period (just look at the suicides due to the structural adjustment of the Australian economy and that adjustment resulted in large benfits to Australians generally and the effect on Aboriginals of poor policies).
simonjm;
I should have added thanks for the link.