92 thoughts on “Monday Message Board”

  1. John, it seems like this week the neo-conservative illywackers have found another ‘wannabee’ Liberal Party leader within their ranks, Kevin Andrews. I wonder who will it be next week?

  2. The problem with politicians is that they all think they carry a marshal’s baton in their knapsack. Unfortunately, such is politics that they are all in with a chance no matter how humble their talents.

  3. What is it with the Liberal and National parties and global warming? Why are so many members obsessed with this issue? Australia is the only country in the world with a significant political representation stridently opposed to dealing with greenhouse gas pollution. Even in Britain and the US, the conservative parties support dealing with this issue. After all, its simple politics. What political party (apart from the ones in Australia) would go to its electorate with a policy that supports the end of the world? That’s essentially what the Liberal and National members are wanting to do, when they oppose the government’s greenhouse gas reduction scheme. They are saying to the public, support me and we will speed up the destruction of the planet. Why would any sensible politician take this stand?

    After all, all the government’s plan does is increase the cost of industrial processes that add to the greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere. It’s a variation of a tax on carbon. Political parties usually have no problem in adding to the cost of other products. Australia still increases the cost of cars and clothing to protect the local industries – cars used to have tariffs of over 100%. The extra cost planned to be added to producing electricity and so forth is not at this level. We will adjust to the cost increase involved. Life will go on. Except for some Liberal and National party politicians, who want to go to the next election with a policy that they think will get them elected – to encourage the destruction of our ecosystem. They were content in the past to double the price of our cars, but now they can’t stomach increasing the cost of coal-generated electricity by a lesser amount… People worry about the increase in their cancer risk from asbestos, but the Liberals now want to use a greater risk to our future to help them win the next election. Maybe they can reverse asbestos removal as their next policy direction…

    So, why are all these Liberal and National politicians taking such a suicidal stand?

  4. Elections select for talent but unfortunately it isn’t the right talent. I favour senators appointed by sortition so that at least one house can have a diversity of talents and some ordinary people free of party allegance^ can provide legislative oversight. A bit like a jury.

    ^ free in the sense that they don’t owe anybody for the position they hold.

  5. Two blogservations, with inference intended 🙂
    i) Australia is the biggest per capita emitter of GHGs as per IPCC definition on GHGs.
    ii) Australia has the biggest per capita denialist politician fraction of industrialised countries.

    Caveats being that ii) is difficult to measure, what with Tony Abbott’s 180s on the topic 🙂

    Bring on the circus today!

    PS: Terje, Today I committed the very sin I was highlighting on the weekend – I quoted the (probably illegally released) CRU email texts from Andrew Bolt’s blog in order to make a point over at Deltoid. Does my quoting thirdhand make as wrong as firsthand, I wonder? Please forgive.

    PPS: blogservation – I was trying to say “observation” but also conveying that the said observation might not actually be true, and that I don’t really care one way or the other, if it makes my argument for me. Then I thought “Hey, blogtruth is fast and loose truthiness, so why not the merging of blog and observation – blogservation. Think of all the possibilites! If it ever gets traction, you read about it here first!! 🙂

  7. @Cavitation (#3)…

    I have been wondering the same thing. Presumably the Nationals represent rural/agricultural voters. These same voters will be first and arguably hardest hit by climate change (if they are not being hit already, i.e. if the spate of recent draughts turn out to be caused by global warming).

    I can’t work out why they are not fighting emissions restrictions more than anyone!

  8. “In the last few years, where there hasn’t been a continuation of that warming trend, we don’t understand all of the factors that creates Earth’s climate, so there are some things we don’t understand, that’s what the scientists were emailing about.”

    Professor Flannery says scientists are working to find out how the whole system works. When someone ‘finds out’ please get back to us, but in the mean time do not lie to us and say the science is settled fraudsters.

  10. Donald – the leaked emails were clearly private, were clearly stolen but they are also now in the public domain. The genie is out of the bottle and it isn’t going back in. The egg can’t be unscrambled. I think quoting a section of the emails for the purposes of comment is fair use even if the owners want to assert copyright. Morally, as opposed to legally, I think intellectual property rights are on shakey ground anyway.

  11. “After all, all the government’s plan does is increase the cost of industrial processes that add to the greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere.”

    “all” it does is this:

    1. Provides high cost administration (unnecessarily).

    2. Allocates initial permits in an ad hoc manner with no underlying sensible rationale.

    3. Excludes many relevant sellers and buyers allowing incomplete market conditions to prevail as the norm.

    4. Rewards and compensates high intensive polluters over low intensive polluters (within similar industries).

    5. Promotes an economic solution (cap and trade) that is not the most economically cost efficient method (when rate of change of MAC is greater than rate of change of MDC).

    6. Redistributes earnings in an ad hoc manner with little clear economic rationale (for example support for CCS or favourable support for the worst polluters).

    The rational basis for voting for this legislation is this – “we’ll fix it later”.

  13. Tony

    There is no mystery. The recent record-breaking heat in Marree is due to the heat island effect from the increased urbanisation of Marree.

  17. Tony G, I happen to have 5 mins to waste so here is a link which, if you bother to read it, will explain the term ‘trick’ in the context it was used, as well as how the term ‘decline’ was used in relation to the Divergence Problem.

    http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/truth-hacked-climate-email-controversy.php

    The mis-understanding of terms used in the emails, deliberately or not, must only add to the contempt climate scientists feel towards skeptics and deniers.

  18. Robert #7, the trouble is that farmers and rural communities, as a group, are now way too diverse to be represented by one organisaion. It seems to me that NFF and maybe even the Nats really only represent the big agribusiness exporters.

    I know that many farmers wanted to be included in the CPRS for the opportunities it represented for growing offsets and biofuels. Many other farmers would be on the bones of their arses already as price takers in unfair markets and are going to be hurt badly whether farming is included or not.

    Then there is the conservative ideology, the age of the group who have ‘seen it all’ and ‘this is just more of what nature has been throwing at us for the last 60 years’, and a small group of us who hope for strong targets which would lead to an increase in localisation.

  19. Also re robert at #7 The nats don’t represent rural communities, they use rural communities.
    Similarly the liblabs use urban communities.

  21. I just hope the greens get a stack of votes in the next elections. Otherwise it really is all over for democracy here for the foreseeable future.

  22. Nanks # 21 agree and I think we are going to see a lot of direct action in the near future. Dec 12th in Adelaide will be my first protest march in 35 years.

  23. nanks :I just hope the greens get a stack of votes in the next elections. Otherwise it really is all over for democracy here for the foreseeable future.

    How on earth is democracy in peril?

  24. No Terje!
    I watched Lateline’s coverage of the emails and has a pretty clear impression by the end of it, that the stolen emails have been deliberately decontextualised by those using them emails to present a version of the conversations involved at odds with what the scientists themselves later said these converstin actually meant
    It is right to present information, but it is wrong to consciously misrepresent the comments thru manipulation of context and backgrounding apt to the given situation.

  25. @TerjeP (say tay-a)
    to have a democracy – let’s not get too precious about defining that – at a minimum you need some sort of diversity of option upon which people act such that the diversity is manifest in the result of their actions.
    So a one party state – even with voting and everyone holdings hands and being happy – is not a democracy as far as I’m concerned. It’s more like a cult- and there are basic insights into ontogenesis from neuroscience and psych that support that view vis a vis environmental variability and development. That is, some sort of control system must be built into the society for that sort of result to obtain – ie diversity of option is illusory.
    If the liblabs continue to dominate Austalian politics such that there is no effective reflection of diversity at the elections then Australia is, in my view, a one party state. Therefore there is not a democracy in any effective or substantive sense.
    Personally I think that we are pretty much a one party state and have been for a while. But I still hope.
    A possible rejoinder is that people are individuals who can make up there own minds etc etc. Unfortunately for that view there is no empirical support for it and plenty against.

    Anyhow, that’s a shorthand after-I’ve-cooked-the-family-dinner version

  26. It’s funny how disaster movies like 2012 always propound improbable catastrophes (with downright impossible physics) but nobody in Hollywood seems to want to make realistic disaster movies. I guess that’s because this real disaster (climate change and resource depletion) will take 50 years to unfold and will be horrendously protracted and gruesome. No real plot and nobody gets out alive except maybe a few hunter-gatherers again.

    Won’t it be ironic if a remnant of the aboriginal people re-inherit this continent? It would be an entirely fitting denoument to white imperialist and capitalist greed.

    Remember “Ozymandias”.

  27. @nanks

    Nanks, you are quite right. We are essentially a one party state. Corporate capitalism has suborned both major parties so they implement policies to suit vested corporate interests, not to meet the requests and needs of the real democratic polity.

    The current perverse CO2 subsidy bill is a case in point. We are emitting too much carbon dioxide so what do we do? We subsidise thse CO2 emissions with billions of doallrs, give out bulk free permits to the worst offenders and set up a bogus trade in it so that the heavy emitters can make further billions out of their negative externality. Gee, that’ll work to bring down emissions. We go from ignoring a catastrophic neagtive externality to subsidising it. This is sheer insanity. It is indicative of the terminal maladaptive insanity of late stage corporate capitalism and its concommittant insatiable consumerism.

  30. Judith Curry, a climate scientist herself, writes about the CRU hack’s effect upon the perceived credibility of affected scientists, and makes the claim of identifiable tribalism among the CRU team and their closest collaborators.

    The tribalism claim – see PrQ’s take on it for the Delusorati – is interesting because if we grant its existence among said group, then the intriguing question is when did it start, and why? Afterall, in scientific circles of all shades scientists brought together for a common purpose (eg CRU’s creation) are going to be a close-knit bunch if they are both colleagues and frequent collaborators. So where does the line blur from team to tribe? When did they cross it, assuming that they did?

    Perhaps, and this is just an untested hypothesis at this point, the CRU group first felt under siege with the swingeing attack of the so-called “Hockey-Stick” from the US politicians (some with delusional beliefs, follow this link), based upon M1’s analysis. Given the international elevation of this one research article by, Michael Mann et al (see Myth vs. Fact Regarding the “Hockey Stick”, and Dummies Guide to the Latest “Hockey Stick” Controversy for further information), and the following social-network analysis done upon them by a well-known Denialist outfit, perhaps the CRU group felt isolated and this had the effect of converting their individual and somewhat divergent views into the common perspective of a group under attack. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me – I sure wouldn’t want to be hauled up in front of Congress to explain my work when it was under aggressive biased examination by certain senators.

    Once M1 allegedly unleashed a volley of FOI’s, having already campaigned for them to release more data (mostly already in the public domain, for those less feeble-minded and able to read scientific references), in at least one case for data he allegedly already had but failed to inform others on his website! My guess of that particular case (the 2004 case) is that M1 may have hoped that if Briffa et al eventually handed over the raw data, he might find discrepancies between it and his copy – or at least, he could verify the veracity of the raw data; holding on to it unannounced for 4 years or so does seem weird though. Of course, he might have had entirely different reasons for continuing to demand the data, but why would that be if he already had it? Too much heat, not enough light 😦

    So, is the CRU group suffering from tribalism, or is it collective frustration shown by talk of how to fight against the (unjustified?) demands of certain individuals?

    I’ll end with a remark from RealClimate:

    All this shows wishful thinking overcoming logic. Every time there is a similar rush to judgment that is subsequently shown to be based on nothing, it still adds to the vast array of similar ‘evidence’ that keeps getting trotted out by the ill-informed. The excuse that these are just exploratory exercises in what-if thinking wears a little thin when the ‘what if’ always leads to the same (desired) conclusion. This week’s play-by-play was quite revealing on that score.

    Good Night and Good Luck,

    Don.

  32. In the course of defending the climate scientists Tim Flannery says:-

    These people (scientists) work with models, computer modelling. When the computer modelling and the real world data disagrees you have a problem. That’s when science gets engaged.

    What Kevin Trenberth, one of the most respected climate scientist in the world, is saying is, ‘We have to get on our horses and find out what we don’t know about the system, we have to understand why the cooling is occurring, because the current modelling doesn’t reflect it’.

    And that’s the way science progresses, we can’t pretend to have perfect knowledge, we don’t.

    Is this the same as saying the science is settled? Or not?

  33. @nanks
    You are quite right, this is a one party state, and the results are far from optimal. However, it is indeed wishful thinking that you believe you can keep feeding the beast and hope that it behaves i.e. placing ever more and more power in the hands of government. Eventually you will realise that you have to starve the beast.

    @Ikonoclast
    This was exactly what I was fearing regarding the ETS. I do not believe AGW is a scam, but most of the policies proposed to combat it are. What I find astonishing is that, given the nature of the political process, you hoped for a efficient, well targeted scheme and you got a monster.

    Unfortunately the consumerism and resource depletion is only being exacerbated by modes of economic thought that hold up consumption as the be all and end all of economic growth, and which believes in the virtues of redistribution of resources to those who cannot manage them effectively.

    You may accuse libertarians of being free-market fundamentalists, yet I read your posts and the phrase “democratic fundamentalist” springs to mind. What you see as a failure of democracy is simply the fact that the policies consistent with your particular version of morality are not being implemented.

  34. @Sea-bass

    Sea_Bass, if we sweep away the state then the powers left are corporations and warlords. How much space do you reckon they will leave for libertarian idealists?

  35. Terje, wow. You can’t be serious with this question? You really need to go over to RC and ask these questions over there if you really don’t know the answer to what you are asking.

    Some possible responses RC will give you:

    Re Trenberth: “You need to read his recent paper on quantifying the current changes in the Earth’s energy budget to realise why he is concerned about our inability currently to track small year-to-year variations”

    Click to access EnergyDiagnostics09final.pdf

    Terje, please try having a read of this paper – it is actually a pretty accessible read for a science paper.

    Even just read the first page of it.

  36. Is this the same as saying the science is settled? Or not?

    This would have to be one of the stupidest comments I’ve ever read, and believe me, in all the time I’ve spent on teh internets, I’ve read a lot of stupid comments.

    Terje, you claim to have a degree in engineering, and if you actually do, then presumably you’d be aware that people discover stuff, and that scientific knowledge changes over time. The science is never settled.

    But it’s still useful even though it can’t ever be settled. If you were transported back to the 17th century and you said to Newton, “Hey, drop a 16 ton weight on my head, I don’t care, Einstein’s going to show that you were slightly wrong in 200 years time”, well, the 16 ton weight would still kill you, and Newton’s approximation would still be right.

  37. Salient #18 and Nanks #19…
    “…farmers and rural communities, as a group, are now way too diverse to be represented by one organisaion…”

    “The nats don’t represent rural communities, they use rural communities….”

    So who voted for them (National Party)?

  39. @TerjeP (say tay-a)
    I’m not sure which drongo from the 2007 IPCC coorroboree came out and said it, ie “The science is settled”, but someone should’ve clipped him/her around the ears quick smart. What a terribly stupid thing to say at the moment that journos were descending upon anyone or anything quoteworthy. But once the horse has bolted…

    This CRU hacking event may prove similar at the political level. However, the science caravan continues on.

    One thing that has surprised me over the last few years is just how many people outside the disciplines central to climate science are demanding the whole kit and boodle of code, data, and articles – even help files 🙂 – so that they can duplicate (or not, as the agenda may be) the results. They want a simple recipe even Bozo the clown could follow. In the past it was accepted that the description of method needed only to be clear enough for another expert of the discipline to follow, but not a layperson, not even an educated layperson, could have expected their wishes to be catered for. Now they are catered for, apparently.

    I wonder what architects will feel if people off the street start asking to see the plans for some new public building or bridge. Claim that the architect is hiding the evidence, if he tells you to take a flying jump.

  40. SJ- “The science is never settled”.

    Actually for a lot of things the science is settled. Not proven and not perfect but settled. We still teach kids Newtonian mechanics in spite of Einstein. Newtonian mechanics is still fantastic for making predictions within a vast class of problems. It is settled because it’s predictive powers have been demonstrated again and again for centuries. And it is taught in science classes in spite of being inacurrate simply because the inacurracy is subtle and in most day to day applications insignificant. Professional scientists still use Newtonian mechanics in spite of knowing about Einstein. Newtonian mechanics is settled science.

    When we have a computer model encapsulated in a piece of software that anybody with the appropriate hardware budget can download and run, and where it has for decades been pumping out acurate climate forecasts (rather than hindcasts) without any code modification I’ll be regarding the science of climate science as pretty much settled.

    However I suspect that this debate is a bit futile. The word “settled” which AGW proponents have been using for some time now to mean “we know enough to reliably predict future climate” is now been getting some spin (by the likes of you and Tim) so as to say that it means “not perfect or exact”. However it is quite clear from the context of the leaked email that it was not being used like this. It was being used to say something to the effect of “hey something is happening which we didn’t predict and it suggests a fundamental gap in our model. I’m concerned”.

    And if we wish to characterise climate science as like Newtonian mechanics in it’s maturity then I’m inclined towards the view that it is working on a problem that entails some special relativity. Metaphorically speaking.

    Regards,
    Terje.

    p.s. Perhaps there is a chance we will be cooked before the science is settled. Which is why I’m quite friendly towards the notion of removing nuclear prohibition and happy to argue the case for a narrowly applied, revenue neutral carbon tax that replaces payroll tax.

    p.p.s. We had best not debate the science in any depth here lest JQ bans us. However it’s open slather at the ALS blog if you’re keen.

  41. Don, the difference between a climate scientist and an architect is large. The architect says I am going to build you a house of 300m2 of x quality at this price and he does it. Where as climate scientists are not agreed on what is going to happen, they predict sea levels could rise or fall by up to a metre and the temperature is or could be rising or falling and that it could rise or fall between x and y in the future years.

    Regardless of my Sh** stirring rhetoric and views on AGW, I am for carbon reduction, but not the in the form of the schemes being put forward at the moment. Unlike Terje I am against nuclear as the leak last week at the 3 mile plant demonstrates its problems.

    Now is a good opportunity to implement lasting economic reforms that at the same time could dramatically reduce carbon emissions (something along the lines of Observers carbon reduction taxation amendments). Unfortunately, Turnbull by rolling over to the ALP is not doing his job which is putting out viable alternate policies on carbon reduction. The proposed ETS is a joke as it will cost the economy a lot and not reduce carbon emissions by much. The ETS should be rejected by the senate and if Turnbull can’t see that he should move on.

  42. @Tony G
    The proposed ETS will reduce emissions exactly according to how many permits are issued by the government, no more and no less. The handouts to industry have no bearing on this at all.

  43. Tony G – why does the radiation leak at three mile island cause you such concern? Even when 3 mile island was host to the worst nuclear accident in US history (1979 partial core meltdown) the health impact was insignificant compared to all manner of other industrial accidents that occur frequently but don’t make headlines. If such things cause you to oppose nuclear power then you might as well oppose all industrial activity, motor vehicles and airplane travel. Based on history nuclear power is far safer per kWh than our existing fossil fuel energy systems. Allowing people to own BBQs is a bigger threat to life and property.

  45. Uncle, if you exempt agriculture which is say 10% (I don’t know the exact amount) then that is 10% of Australian emissions that will not reduce, further more agriculture emissions are increasing each year.. Also coal fire power stations are the other 70% and no one is proposing turning them off, so I fail to see how issuing permits will greatly reduce emissions.

    Terje, I am not a big fan of ionising radiation and its effects on human tissue. You can kid yourself it is a minimal risk, but I am sure you would not want to be exposed to it for any length of time. The by-product of a nuclear power station remains radio active for many many years so, it is a BIG risk to have the stuff around. I will get drunk next to my BBQ all the time but, I would move to NZ if Australia goes nuclear.

  49. UM, the emissions target is 5% of 2000 levels by 2020 for scope 1 and 2 emissions that are included in the scheme.

    There is no target restriction for emissions not included in the scheme, there is no emissions target for scope 3 emissions.

    The, most likely, result of the CPRS will be for the total of all emissions across all scopes to increase. Refer EU ETS for precedent.

  50. @iain

    But agricultural emissions were never in the scheme. The original CPRS had an aspirational goal to include ag emissions in 2013, if the measurement issues could be sorted out. Now ag emissions are out indefinitely. It’s not much different.

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