As I type this, it’s currently 35 degrees, at 9am on an October morning in Brisbane. And, while one day’s temperatures don’t prove anything, a string of studies have shown that the increasingly frequent heatwaves in Australia can be reliably attributed to global warming. We haven’t had an El Nino yet, but according to NOAA, the last 12 months have been the hottest such period on record.
It will be interesting to see what the denialists come up with in response to this combination of record breaking local and global warming. We can safely rule out anything along the lines of “as a sceptic, I like to wait for convincing evidence before accepting a new hypothesis. But, with the steady accumulation of evidence I’m now convinced”. I suspect we’ll get more along the lines of
* Graham Lloyd, reporting a new study by Jennifer Marohasy, showing that the communists at the Met Bureau are artificially pumping hot air through Australian cities to cover up the fact that they rigged the data to show exactly this warming
* The Telegraph, with a front-page story of an old codger saying something like “You think this is hot? Back in ’23, we had heat waves in July so bad that concrete footpaths melted”
* Andrew Bolt will readjust the start dates so he can continue to claim “no significant warming for the past x years”, omitting the crucial word “statistically”
John Quiggin 
It’s over. They’ve won. Climate change is going to continue and accelerate and at every point special pleading will be employed to show that simultaneously: 1) It’s not happening, 2) It’s not our fault and 3) it’s just not worth spending a single lousy dollar on avoiding it.
Sorry – I’m feeling grumpy and depressed this morning.
Logic dictates that at some time (soon?) things will become undeniable .It would be good if we could feel confident sceptics will pay some(big) price for their errors. I cant help feeling that somehow they wont. They must be nailed down now with public commitments so they cant weasel out later. If the full price is paid it would be a big shift in power -so I cant see it happening.
@OzGamer
You’re right. It’s now a lost cause. The decades of “neo-liberalism” have made people more self-centred and selfish, and as Mr Abbott demonstrated with the demonisation of the carbon tax, many people would prefer the flat screen TV to doing something for their own future, and that of future generations.
I used to be able to handle the Qld summers, but even allowing for getting older, it should be obvious to anyone over 40, it’s getting warmer.
I’m in the middle of a sleet storm. I’ll have to rug up and check on some newborn calves. Mr Abbott might say it’s all averaging out.
@OzGamer Exactly. And Peter Burdon has nailed the now all-but-inevitable institutional consequences over at New Matilda (“Militarism And Climate Activism”). This will all unfortunately remain true when you feel less grumpy.
Oh ye of little faith or heart. Join up with 350.org, and get active. !
@John Chapman
Not bad advice in the short term, but really, there should be a 280.org. 350 is a reasonable start, and I’m certainly not against baby steps in preference to no steps at all, it’s not close to being good enough.
My current research seems to be showing, depressingly but I guess not surprisingly, that there has been reduced action on climate change in the primary healthcare sector in Victoria since the election of LNP governments at state and federal level.
But I am NOT giving up. The next Victorian election may be the start of change.
@Fran Barlow
Oh Fran, you just called 350.org “baby steps”. Methinks you have rather unrealistic expectations.
Moving on, yes I will remain extremely irate when, once yet more heat records are broken, the denialists retain some credibility somewhere. If Andrew Bolt is able to publish in ten years in a major newspaper and have at least some people consider him credible, well that will be even more disgusting than the fact that he can do it now.
and PS for those of you who aren’t following the Victorian political scene, our next election is very soon – just over a month away. You may start seeing some change.
And while ye of the faint hearts squirm in your chairs there, things are actually happening, eg:
“After years of opposition, hundreds of the world’s major companies and investment firms – including several oil giants – have agreed that there should be a charge for the damage done to the planet by greenhouse gases.
This means that an international carbon market – in which companies buy and sell the right to produce harmful emissions – is now close to becoming a reality.
So far, 74 countries, including the EU, China and Russia, but not the US, Canada, Japan or Australia, and 1,000 businesses – from oil firms BP and Statoil to giant corporations such as Coca-Cola, Nestlé and Unilever – have signed up to a UN declaration in support of carbon pricing.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-change-carbon-trading-edges-closer-as-un-brokers-deal-9818519.html
John Chapman :
Despite its sometimes being demotivating, I see no alternative to thinking with head rather than heart. While there’s not even a single realistically plausible scenario from where we are now to anything other than disaster, forgive me for considering such events as tactical wins on the way to strategic defeat.
And, eg …..
On Monday, the foundation, known as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, will formally announce plans to begin divesting itself of fossil-fuel stocks, citing concerns about climate change. The symbolic cutting of ties to a key part of the family’s heritage is being timed with the start of another symbolism-laden event: a gathering of world leaders to grapple with the environmental consequences of decades of fossil-fuel burning.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/big-oils-heirs-join-call-for-action-as-climate-summit-opens/2014/09/21/ab27b1ce-40ea-11e4-b0ea-8141703bbf6f_story.html
And, as you know, even the US Military is riding to the help stations.
There’s a very real chance that the Greens will be required to support Labor in the Council. I wonder what concessions they will be able to extract? While the ALP profess strong theoretical support for climate change actions, they may be forced to actually do some good stuff.
I really wish the idiotic Labor “hard-heads” would get over their hatred of the Greens in the inner city and not devote so many resources to defending against an attack from the left in about three seats, and would focus more on winning the dozens of outer suburban and regional seats.
Would Zombies be able to know if their a**e was on fire?
@Crispin Bennett
You certainly appear to be doomed to negative thought patterns. Perhaps an extract of C. Sativa might assist.
Of course, when climate change becomes undeniable to Bolt and co, they will claim that they weren’t given credible warnings.
I think that is fair comment from One Earth Sangha.
We can put forward a simple program: no more fossil fuel subsidies; complete shift to renewables, soon; make the polluter pay from production to end consumption; reclaim democracy.
And when people howl and scream about disruption to the economy explain that this is the necessary cost of ensuring a future worth living. Displaced employees, for example, should be given a decent cost of living allowance, which would be generalised, paid for from taxes that corporations currently just avoid or minimise.
From ’68: ‘be realistic, demand the impossible’.
Just remembered such an instance. My wife was driving, and thought she was turning into a driveway, when in fact she was heading for a high curb. I said, “stop, stop, stop…”. On running into the curb, she complained that if I wanted her to stop I should have said it like I meant it 🙂
For a period David Jones from the BOM used to post on Marohasys site explaining anomalies etc with data collection as well as other matters. Unfortunately he didn’t seem to make a single jot of difference (AFAIK Marohasy never debated the BOM directly).
I wonder when denialists will start pleading to google for the right to be forgotten. It seems to me that any denial currently online (whether in name or pseudonym) will to traceable back to the perp. I’m sure the NSA has all the IP data already stored. I fully support a witch hunt to bring these morons to book. Transferring the lot to a prison farm in the Maldives would seem a suitably ironic punishment.
@John Chapman
If you’re suggesting I might need to get stoned in order to believe in the possibility of peacefully defeating our corporatocracy’s wilful ecocide, then … yes.
JQ, you forgot to add:
* OK, so even if we were wrong, it’s clearly too late to do anything about it now. The world must burn more carbon so as to raise enough global wealth to buy the airconditioning that people will die without.
@wilful
heartily agree
B-b-but Maurice Newman has identified the IPCC as a socialist plot. Seriously.
The way conservatives can shift principles is fascinating. With regard to climate change, as we all know, the stance has consistently been to oppose any significant action until the science is “settled” (presumably this means when the last sceptic finally concedes, but that’s by the by). When it comes to the Ebola virus, on the other hand, their position is the precise opposite. They want lots of urgent government action and new spending, even though “science” affirms it’s quite unnecessary, because faced with an unknowable risk it would be “prudent” to prepare for the worst.
Thus the prudence principle persuades them to act in one case, but they sneeringly dismiss it in the other. Of course this puts them on the opposite side of the argument to the despised American liberals in both cases, so that might be the explanation. Or at a more fundamental level, the common theme might be “professional people, what would they know? Let’s rely on common sense” (which is a useful label for opportunistic rationalisation of what suits our personal interests).
A good example of BOM response is here
Click to access BOM_Response-to-Dr-Marohasy_MARKUP.pdf
Marohasy never discusses or publically evaluates these responses, just moves on to another tangent.
@wilful
My expectations have nothing to do with it. My evaluation is that a target of 350 is manifestly inadequate — the world will continue to accrete heat, albeit at a slower rate than at present. Since we’re already too warm and it will be some time before we get to 350, we will continue to warm at approximately our current rate, then warm more slowly after that, continuing to damage the biosphere during all that time.
Less rapid damage is preferable to more rapid damage, but it’s still the road to ruin, albeit an elongated one.
IOW, 350 is ‘baby steps’. I suspect it’s offered so as to avoid creating the impression that the challenge is too great and that we ought to surrender.
If that is the politics, and it probably is, then 350 is supportable (since we will need to pass that on the way to 280 and maybe a little lower so as to cool the planet). Even 280 just gives us the equilibration at that time of course.
@bjb
bjb (and less so OzGamer): while I am no great optimist about the ecological/political future, and I have in the past given voice to my dismay and pessimism, I’ve moved on from that for several reasons:
* history provides surprises; conditions can change rapidly and in unexpected ways; the fact that real leadership on climate change is in the hands of peaceful people’s movements is a great tactical advantage at the moment that will pay off;
* the young, who overwhelmingly constitute the core of the movement’s personnel are very much aware of the science and are under severe duress; therefore, I never give vent to ‘it’s over, they have won’ ideas because they need not just political mentors but people who are aware of their psychological fragility (which may not be apparent at first, given their often robust conduct,but is apparent over time);
* if it is the case that ‘they’ve won’ then it is our job to think beyond the ecological crisis in order to put in place people with the skills and cultural attitudes to create something like a decent society from what is left of resources; it is no accident that the environment movement here and in the US and Europe have all incorporated the social justice agenda that was part of the German Greens’ agenda so that the movement is strengthening through radical inclusivity; there has been long range thinking about how to handle this crisis by the left which is now coming to some fruition;
Finally, I reckon the best cure for pessimism is to get out and engage with direct action. There’s no shortage of options against coal mines or CSG or water/land issues. It may not achieve much except to identify yourself with like minded others who are, in my experience of NVDA, are often exemplary people and of all ages.
Herbert Stein was the formulator of “Stein’s Law.” – “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”
Some claim he meant that if a trend (balance of payments deficits in his example) cannot go on forever, there is no need for action or a program to make it stop, much less to make it stop immediately; it will stop of its own accord. It is often rephrased as: “Trends that can’t continue, won’t.”
We see a number of trends now which will obey Stein’s Law sooner or later. Here are some of them;
(a) endless growth in a finite world.
(b) growth in human caused CO2 emissions.
(c) decline of wages in real terms.
(d) decline in wages as a share of national income compared to profits.
None of these trends can continue indefinitely. Each will naturally or automatically self-limit even if no effective, proactive political-economic action is ever taken. However, to depart from Stein, it is far more preferable to take intentional, pro-active action than to wait for natural or automatic limiting factors to intervene.
To take one example, growth in human caused CO2 emissions will cease at some point even if we do nothing considered, intentional and proactive. Climate disruption and sea-level rise will badly damage our current biosphere. This is turn will disrupt our economies, our reproduction and our survival strategies. These natural limiting events and outcomes will be far nastier and far closer to the catastrophic end of the spectrum than considered, intentional and proactive human action.
However, our current political-economic power system is structurally and systemically incapable of taking the correct action. Thus catastrophe must intervene followed by radical political change or radical political change must occur before the impending catastrophe. The necessary changes will never occur under the current system, namely capitalism.
@Ikonoclast
A slogan for the times then: “nihilism or barbarism”.
@Fran Barlow
Fran, 350 is really quite ambitious. We are currently at 400!
Looking at my research, I could get really disappointed and embittered that my former colleagues in the primary healthcare sector seem to be bending with the wind of climate change denial. But I could also think that the tree that stands up to the wind might get broken, while the one who bends can stand up again when the wind has died down.
So those of us who are not so buffeted by the wind, let’s work to ensure that it changes.
Didn’t you know?
Whitehaven Coal chief, Paul Flynn, says coal will be crucial in fighting climate change. Improving efficiency, an increasing focus on higher quality coal, and use of clean coal technology, will cut emissions from coal-fired power generation considerably. Coal “may well be the only energy source” that can address man-made climate change.
Fancy that! I am glad he has clarified it for us. Burning more coal will save the world from climate change! It’s so simple! C + O2 does not equal CO2… apparently.
And clean coal technology (carbon capture and storage?) which has never worked anywhere yet on a significant commercial scale is going to magically save us too… apparently.
I can only conclude that people who talk like this know they are bulldusting and not only do they not care, they are immensely proud of it. It’s how they semaphore to their peers. They all know it’s bull and there is pride and kudos in being the biggest bullduster on the corporate block.
Remember:-
““If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
No prizes for guessing who made the final quote above.
John Brookes
Politically ambitious and not nearly good enough may seem to be contradictions, but in this case, they really aren’t. It’s possible because for a very long time those in charge have either been asleep at the wheel or driving hard into rough terrain and telling the passengers that this is what progress looks like.
The passengers have an interest in believing them especially since they can’t see any other roads, the way back looks treacherous and they’ve largely accepted that they aren’t competent to drive. Stopping the vehicle and then turning it 120 degrees around is ambitious but we need 180 and that at full tilt. We are approaching an abyss after all.
Sorry for the sustained metaphor.
Apropos JQ’s title of this blog entry, there’s a good article by David Dunning (of Dunning-Kruger effect) which explains why: http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/confident-idiots-92793/
“one day’s temperatures don’t prove anything”, but unlike the virtual data in the models and the homogenised data from bureaus like BOM, the satellite readings from the field don’t lie;
http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/03/04/updated-global-temperature-no-global-warming-for-17-years-6-months-no-warming-for-210-months/
No global warming for 17 years 6 months (No Warming for 210 Months)
AGW is dead so now we are causing the climate to change. (as if it never has before)
If my a**e was on fire I would know about, but unfortunately my b*lls are freezing.
@John Chapman
BP was calling themselves “Beyond Petroleum” and saying they were all about addressing climate change 20 years ago. This strikes me as more of the same corporate greenwash.
Bah, you chicken-little so-called “reality-based” climate observers just need to harden up. As our esteemed hench-financier said, stop being economic girly-men and start supporting our new nation-building program, where we knock down previous achievements and replace them with tax cuts. Great Leader says this is the way that our Great Nation has always been. There have been bushfires, floods, droughts and heatwaves since men first arrived here in 1788.
If we go on, as a world-leading nation, to break new records, that shows how impressive we are. Hottest year ever, well done Team Australia. We should celebrate that achievement, not sit round whining about how hard it will be to undo the work our fathers are forefathers did.
@Moz of Yarramulla
Exactly mate! We can burn ALL the fossil fuels, make the world 6 to 8 degrees C hotter (on average… much hotter here in Australia) and then solar power really WILL work. Guffaw! Guffaw! It’s a win-win!
(Scientific disclaimer: Solar PV probably will not work better unless it advances to utilise the infra-red spectrum. Other methods of utilising solar power may work better unless cloud cover increases or other force majeure events occur. The fossil fuel industry does not guarantee these or any outcomes. Please read the fine print of this contract which binds you and all your descendants forever but lets us oligarchs off scot-free for the rest of our natural lives which is all we care about.)
Even if the a**e of the average denialist was actually on fire (and scientifically proven), unless they actually BELIEVED their a**e was on fire, they wouldn’t do anything about it. That is the parallel universe they live in (or believe they live in).
@phoenix
John Quiggin writes ‘Andrew Bolt will readjust the start dates …’
You then link to a website using data from RSS (Remote Sensing Systems) and using 1997 as its start date.
A quick trip to the RSS website reveals a blog post saying this:
‘… The denialists really like to fit trends starting in 1997, so that the huge 1997-98 ENSO event is at the start of their time series, resulting in a linear fit with the smallest possible slope. …’
I conclude that you may not be Andrew Bolt but John Quiggin still had your number.
Thankyou for replying to me J-D,
This is graph is JQs predicted number or should I say the pants on fire hockey stick (bs) prediction.
Click to access File:T_comp_61-90.pdf
And this is what is actually happening with the full time series of satellite data going back to 1979. It could be said that over the last 35 years since 1979 the temperature hasn’t moved much at all, except for maybe a little bit of natural variability.
source;
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/10/why-2014-wont-be-the-warmest-year-on-record/
Kind regards,
phonex
As an amateur weather watcher here in sunny Tongala I can assure readers that we will bust the 2 degrees Celsius any time soon, we’re currently at 2 degrees above the average minimums and 1.5 degrees up on the maximums. Denialism equates to neoliberalism which is firmly entrenched in the wit family!
@phoenix
“It could be said that over the last 35 years since 1979 the temperature hasn’t moved much at all, except for maybe a little bit of natural variability.”
Equally it could be said that the sun is a fiery chariot pulled across the sky by magic horses. Doesn’t make it true.
There’s a reason Lindzen, Spencer and others don’t talk about “no significant warming since 1979” namely that any plausible fit to the data involves a statistically significant time trend.
To be even more delusional than the standard delusionist line is quite an achievement, phoenix. Well played!
Walruses inhabit Antarctica, that’s a fact—Greg Hunt, Minister against the Environment.
No, they sure wouldn’t know if their backsides were on fire.
George Christensen MP–who lists the bible as a favorite book on his Facebook page– is miffed you left him off your list…more Marohasian-style calls for BoM to be hauled over the coals for data-tampering…George claims that ‘homogenization’ is the method used for creating rising trends.
phoenix only posts here to make deniers look bad.
@Nick
Maybe the Bible-reading cohort should consider this verse from Hosea;
“For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.”
I mean how clear is this for Biblical literalists? We sow the wind with extra CO2 and reap the whirlwind of climate change. It will affect food production “the bud shall yield no meal” and what little is yielded will be swallowed by the many climate refugees; “the strangers shall swallow it up.”
That is the message I would take if I was Christian and a Biblical literalist aware at the same time of the possibility of many-layered prophecy. Theologically, it is quite supportable that this is a prophetic warning about climate change. If one accepts Christian prophetic dogma (I do not) one could not consistently ignore the possibilty that this is a prophetic warning. Of course, these Sunday Christians worship Mammon on the other six days and pay no heed to their duty of stewardship to the earth let alone to their duty to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.