Obama told Australia's coal is killing the world

Now this is a story no global warming sceptic could leave alone. Professor James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies has dumped on Australia's coal industry - big time!


Refer Courier Mail's on line news article "Australia destroying life on earth" earlier today.


James Hansen's name pops up quite frequently in relation to global warming alarmist news. Professor Hansen has written an open letter to Michelle and Barack Obama, published on the internet because it wouldn't be able to be hand delivered to him before his inauguration.

Being a sceptic, I looked up the letter myself, and yes, he did say the following .....

Australia exports coal and sets atmospheric carbon dioxide goals so large as to
guarantee destruction of much of the life on the planet

Nobody realistically expects that the large readily available pools of oil and gas will be left in the ground.

What really gets my goat is that he claims that no-one expects oil and gas to stay in the ground, but that coal should.

He includes some other gems which were not reported in the newspaper article .....

Analysis of Earth’s history helps reveal the level of greenhouse gases needed to maintain a climate resembling the Holocene, Creation, the period of reasonably stable climate in which civilization developed. That carbon dioxide level, unsurprisingly in retrospect, is less than the current 385 ppm (parts per million). The safe amount for the long-term is no more than 350 ppm, probably less. Pre-industrial carbon dioxide amount was 280 ppm.

The Holocene Climate Optimum refers to the period of time between about 8,000 to 5,000 years ago. My reading tells me that CO2 levels then were 260 to 270 ppmv and the Earth's temperature was up to 3 degrees C warmer than modern times. During that period, CO2 levels actually dipped a little, while temperatures rose. Since then, temperatures have lowered a little, with increases and decreases, while CO2 levels have gradually increased.

Going back over 5,000 years is well and truly before any man made CO2 influence. Going back further into prehistory, some scientists report the atmospheric CO2 levels were well over 1000 ppmv during some of the periods of greatest biodiversity. Presumably Professor Hansen doesn't look back that far as he referred to the Holocene period as "Creation". I have heard Christian ministers of religion refer to the Earth as 40,000 years old, not 8,000.

Since the Holocene Climate Optimum the Earth has experienced periods of unstable climate with successive moderate changes from warming to cooling and back again. There is some evidence that these climate changes were the undoing of the supremecy of some civilisations within recorded history.

Hmmm - the USA produces a fair bit of oil and gas, but little or no coal. Australia produces a heap of coal and lesser amounts of oil and gas. Why all of a sudden is oil and gas production and consumption OK, but coal is a no-no?

Has Professor Hansen become very patriotic, protective of US oil, gas and automotive industries? Has Professor Hansen discovered that somehow coal originating CO2 is worse for the world than oil and gas CO2? Or is Professor Hansen receiving sponsorship from the rich and powerful US oil and gas lobby?


Regardless of the reason for this twaddle from Professor Hansen, it just adds further "fuel" to the global warming sceptics' concerns that the CO2 caused global warming alarmists stories are not realistic and that global warming alarmism lacks credibility.


The full letter can be found at http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20081229_DearMichelleAndBarack.pdf

Lessons From History on Climate Change

Published with the permission of Viv Forbes:

“Lessons from History on Climate Change”.

A statement by Viv Forbes, Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition.

3 January 2009

For Immediate Release.

The Carbon Sense Coalition today congratulated Senator Barnaby Joyce, Senator Ron Boswell, Senator Cory Bernardi and Dr Dennis Jensen MP for their principled stand against the Emissions Trading Scheme.

Releasing a new paper entitled “Climate Change in Perspective” the Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition, Mr Viv Forbes, said that changing climate was a permanent feature of Earth’s history – man did not cause it and cannot change it.

“All over the world, politicians, scientists, taxpayers and shareholders are waking up to the fact that they have been conned by the global warming story. All we need to do is read a bit of climate history to get things into perspective and realize how lucky we are today.”

He commented: “Within just the last 20,000 years, vast ice sheets melted from the earth’s surface, seas rose about 130 m, temperatures rose well above present levels several times, and as the seas warmed, they expelled their dissolved carbon dioxide.”

“Then just 300 years ago, earth suffered from the bitter cold and famines caused by the Little Ice Age. Since about 1700 AD, warmth created by increasing solar activity has been driving back the deadly frosts, snow and ice. Carbon dioxide is naturally expelled from the warming oceans to the atmosphere – humans have very little to do with it all.”

“All of these events were caused by and controlled by natural processes, and all life on earth was forced to adapt or die.”

“Despite continual increases in man’s emissions of carbon dioxide, the earth has not warmed since 1998. With unseasonal snow, bitter frosts, power failures and lost crops being reported every week, to send 10,000 pampered politicians and bureaucrats on a junket to Poland to discuss “Global warming” is surely a sick joke?

“A growing number of politicians are now bravely stating what a large and increasing number of scientists have been saying: “There is no global warming crisis, carbon dioxide is a benefit not a danger in the atmosphere, and the whole Emissions Trading industry is shaping up to be a bigger financial disaster than the sub-prime mess.”

To read the full report from The Carbon Sense Coalition on “Climate Change in Perspective” see:
http://carbon-sense.com/2009/01/02/climate-change-in-perspective/

For a link to the additional 650 scientists who signed their dissent over Man-Made Global Warming claims and continue to debunk the so-called “Consensus” in 2008 see:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=83947f5d-d84a-4a84-ad5d-6e2d71db52d9&CFID=53242194&CFTOKEN=70206467

To read comments by Senator Joyce see:
http://www.agmates.com/blog/2008/12/17/barnaby-joyce-the-innate-problems-with-labors-emissions-trading-scheme/

Viv Forbes
Chairman
The Carbon Sense Coalition
MS 23 Rosewood Qld 4340
0754 640 533

info@carbon-sense.com www.carbon-sense.com.

Senator Barnaby Joyce on Climate Change and ETS

The following is an address to the readers of Agmates website from the Leader of the Nationals in the Australian Senate, Barnaby Joyce -

Leader of the Nationals in the Senate Barnaby Joyce writes to the Agmates community -
*****
I’m going to be serious and quite frank with you here as the issues I am about to raise will be contentious not only amongst coalition MP’s but also my own party.
Every age comes up with a witch to burn, a sect that apparently if it is not succumbed will bring about the destruction of an empire, an issue that occupies the rigours of the day.
It is almost as if those in the position of power and their surrounding Illuminati with time to spare are terrified of the banality of daily existence and so search for an issue that demands blind obedience to conquer it.
The most dangerous place to be in these times of immense fervour is in the counter position that calls in to question the logic of the euphoria. Those who dare to question are held as heretics. There is a communal life fest in being part of the pack or staying silent.
It is hard for them to separate from the reality that the world is fairly constant and predictable and that things of the greater nature of the universe have remained beyond our control in the past and generally shall remain so into the future.
It was interesting to hear the recent discussion between Freeman Dyson, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, with Robyn Williams, on The Science Show on ABC Radio National, when he rightly stated that the world has many problems but global warming is not one of the biggest ones. As Dyson said:
“Sea level rise has been going on much longer, long before global warming, and it probably has very little to do with human activities. All we know for sure is that sea level has been rising steadily for about 10,000 years and we’ll have to do something about that.”
I don’t pretend for one moment to be a scientist but in my role in the Senate it is implicit in my job to be a sceptic , to question and to consider all sides and be open to the views of many rather than one view.
My current concern with the emissions trading scheme is that a religious fervour has built up around the altar of global warming. Those who serve at the altar have become ruthless in their denigration of alternate views. This fervour has now received its imprimatur by reason of a new tax, or should it be tithe to be paid to the Rudd Labor Government.
The similarity in this newest forte of socialism can be defined by the ultimate purpose of divesting the individual of their asset or income stream on the premise of an apparent greater moral good.
But who becomes the benefactors of this divestment? The administrators and the traders. Their pockets are lined with the property and income of others.
I don’t remember anybody paying rural Australia for the vegetation that was divested from their asset, rural land, during the tree-clearing legislation so we could meet our Kyoto target and unfortunately I don’t hear any chorus of questioning as to why in the future rural producers, after trying to feed the nation and others, will have to be dragged into an emissions trading scheme that could make many of them unviable.
Where is all this heading?
The National Party has been at the forefront of saying this is all getting beyond ridiculous and becoming dangerous. They are also being supported by unlikely allies such as the Australian Workers Union who see their own members, who have been part of the process of delivering wealth to our nation from their labours have had their industries now termed ‘dirty’ by the new environmental high priests. In this new Orwellian frenzy everyone is looking over their shoulder.
Australia is going down a path of an ETS without the co-operation of the major emitting countries. It says that it is morally right to do so. The Rudd Labor Government and others say that unilateral action is a moral imperative. I look forward to that same fervour of moralistic rectitude as they approach the Mugabe issue in Zimbabwe. He is certainly in the wrong and it is on this new platform of morals that we await our dear leader to launch an attack in a very worthwhile and immediate practice of ridding our planet of this tyrant, Mugabe. That is something that would be of an exceptional benefit.
The government is currently honey-coating the fact that it will be collecting a vast amount of money from the Australian people. The ETS will collect $11.5 billion in its first year, $12 billion in its second, it will force up the price of goods and services, it will encourage industries to move to where an ETS is not present.
Australia generates 1.5 per cent of global greenhouse emissions and this ETS will reduce world levels by the smallest sliver, which self-evidently will have nil effect on global climate whether you believe in climate warming or not.
People will lose their job or their business because of the ETS. They will be the modern-day witches burning on the environmentalist fanatical pyre because their role in this new dynamic was unacceptable.
For regional Australia we look forward to the ridiculous prospect of 34 million possible hectares of forest to take the place of farming land, formerly the backbone of so many regional towns and generations of good, honest working Australians’ lives.
The history of human civilisations has the disturbing trait of devising ways to put themselves out of business, sometimes through no more than their own excesses and belief structures of their governing bureaucracies. The only protection against these excesses is the capacity of the general population to question, to doubt and to disagree.
I have no doubt that as a world we must become efficient with the utilisation of our resources. We must give the greatest number of people the greatest access to the highest standard of living, it is only fair.
Efficiency, more than emissions, must become the trading scheme that brings a cleaner, fairer future. Encourage efficiency and keep the government’s hands out of people’s pockets and off their assets and that will bring a greater propensity to a long-term broad-based better world for all of us.
END

Well said Senator.

Please pass on this news, and your support of the Senator's comments, particularly to your Member of Parliament.

Dr Tim Flannery, Australian of the Year, Quoted ......

I was told about an Australian news item that I just couldn't believe was real. I looked it up, and sure enough, it was real all right!

Dr Tim Flannery is a scientist - and 2007 Australian of the Year!

He is quoted by AAP, and therefore news all around the world, as having stated in a public address at Australia's Parliament House that drastic measures are needed to curb global warming, including adding sulphur to plane fuel so that sulphur could be dispersed into the atmosphere and create cloud cover, and setting up an eBay style carbon trading scheme.

I know, I didn't believe it either. Check out the 19 May 2008 story "Tim Flannery's Radical Climate Change "Solution"" at news.com.au.

And he admits to having no idea what adding sulphur to the atmosphere would do to the planet!

Is this scientific statement as responsible as others that have been published?

Slowing of Coral Growth in Great Barrier Reef

Today's newspaper articles on a paper published in Science state that the scientists attribute the declining rate of growth of a particular type of coral to climate change and increasing acidity in the ocean due to greater absorption of CO2.

The abstract of the article Declining Coral Calcification on the Great Barrier Reef states:

The causes of the decline remain unknown; however, this study suggests that increasing temperature stress and a declining saturation state of seawater aragonite may be diminishing the ability of GBR corals to deposit calcium carbonate.

The scientists Glenn De'ath, Janice M. Lough, Katharina E. Fabricius of the Australian Institute of Marine Science report that their data suggests that the decrease in calcification of 14.2% since 1990 is unprecedented in the past 400 years.

Aragonite is CaCO3 - a form of calcium carbonate. It makes sense that this is important to coral growth. But what might be reducing the saturation of aragonite in seawater around the Great Barrier Reef? On further research I found that CO2 reacts with H2O and CaCO3 to make Ca and H2CO3 - carbonic acid! Aha - so that is why the oceans are becoming more acidic.



So what happened to corals much more than 400 years ago? The Earth was at least as warm, some say warmer, in the Medieval times. Coral was around then, so how did it cope? Maybe the answer is in slower growth, not killing. The coral is growing more slowly, but will recover again when the temperatures reduce with the next Little Ice Age. What is happening with coral in other locations around the world?

What will happen/ has happened to coral when the planet cools?

Coral seems to be pretty resilient. It has survived Crown of Thorns plagues, bleaching episodes and massive quantities of superphosphate washing out of Queensland rivers. I would like to see more studies of what has happened to corals over time with other unfavourable events.

As for the scientists claim that this is due to global warming from man-made CO2 (as at least one stated on camera), I didn't see any reference to their proof that CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere due to man made causes, nor that this is causing global warming.

All that can be concluded is (possibly) that the rate of growth of one type of coral in the Great Barrier Reef has been slower recently than it has in the past.

Am I correct in understanding that the coral is STILL GROWING, just 14.2% more slowly?

US to announce War Against Global Warming?

Reuters has just posted news that US President elect Obama has filled his new administration with AGW proponents.

President-elect Barack Obama's new "green dream team" is committed to battling climate change and ready to push for big policy reforms, in stark contrast with the Bush administration, environmental advocates said on Monday.

"If this team can't advance strong national policy on global warming, then no one can," said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, referring to Obama's picks for the top energy and environment jobs in his administration, which takes office on January 20.

Just great! From the country that brought us the war in IRAQ, the global financial collapse, ENRON and other startling failures, they are now going to inflict on us the perpetuation of the man made CO2 is bad for us myth.

... Karpinski said that with Obama's "great new green dream team" and more members in the U.S. Congress who support action to curb climate change, a law to limit greenhouse gas emissions is more likely, as is a global agreement to succeed the current phase of the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol.

Or is this just wishful thinking by the AGW proponents?

At least they didn't mention an emissions trading scheme, or is that what they mean by a "law to limit greenhouse gas emissions"?

Policy to protect the environment is good, but only if it is directed at the real causes and takes action that is going to make a real difference.

Rising sea levels have hot spots!

If global warming causes rises in sea levels, why aren't rising sea levels "global"?

Why, if global sea levels have been falling since 2005, are some areas experiencing sea level surges which are causing very real problems to very real people?

Refer today's Solomon Star news item Giant Waves Hit Atolls. A fellow I work with is from one of the villages named and is concerned about his community and what he will find when he arrives for a Christmas visit this Sunday. I repeat - very real people. And matters are even more dire in PNG islands as per Tidal waves displace 75,000 people.

The University of Colorado has some very interesting illustrations of sea level rises.

The most interesting thing to me is that the sea level rises are not uniform around the globe. Another point I found interesting is that the sea level hot spots do not align with the IPCC's surface temperature hot spots which clearly move from hotter in the Arctic region to cooling in areas close to the Antarctic.

I have been living in the middle of one of these sea level rise hot spots for three "wet seasons" and this year's December full moon tidal surge is higher than the previous two. I know this is very short term observational data, but it doesn't align with the published global trends. Why? (I think I have picked up the habit of this question in recent times from my young son.)

Maybe "global warming" and sea level rises are not causal. I don't need to run the sea level data and temperature rise data through a regression analysis to tell there simply is little or no geographic correlation from these graphical representations of the data.

There is, however, a geographic correlation between the sea level rise hot spots and areas of seismic activity. The US Geological Survey (USGS) site has maps which are updated with the locations of seismic activity in the past 30 days. This only records "significant" events. The huge bang that momentarily shook my house last night isn't among the ones shown of this map.

Are these areas of sea level rise hot spots due to under sea seismic activity, or heat coming from the earth's core where there are movements along the fault lines?

Jennifer Marohasy stated in her blog Dip in Global Sea Level Won't Save Tuvalu:

Of course even a drop in the global sea level may not save Tuvalu because the great majority of oceanic islands, including Tuvalu, were formed by volcanic activity. While the volcanoes are active, the islands rise relative to the global averaged sea-level. When volcanic activity stops, the islands will cool and eventually start to sink. So there are islands rising and sinking all the time – and Tuvalu should be sinking.

The end point? Why not just get over this CO2 thing as the sole cause of environmental catastrophe, and concentrate on working out what the REAL cause of each problem is. The people of Tuvalu, Ontong Java, Papua New Guinea's islands and many others need help NOW. If sea inundation is a geological fact of life, let's deal with helping the affected people relocate. That in itself will be a major task for the world governments just negotiating somewhere for them to relocate to.

David Bellamy's price of dissent on global warming

The Australian newspaper has published David Bellamy's "The price of dissent on global warming".

PLEASE read this article! This is one person's description of what happened when he dared to voice his opinion about the global warming retoric. This man is well known for his concern for the environment and the living creatures on this planet.

If this very public fugure has been shunned by the AGW supporters to the extent that his opinion is now blocked from the rest of the world, how many other respected people are in a similar position, but we don't know about them because they have not had the same public profile in the past?

I thought that science was about critical examination of all the evidence, not supporting politically acceptable views at the time?

How will democracy survive if people's views and opinions are hushed up? The increasingly popular line that the global warming science is too technical for ordinary people, so we should all just listen and believe what we are told is chilling. (Pardon the unintended pun.) Dictatorships and other people control doctrines are based on this line of argument.

Politicians take note

I think and I vote.

And so do millions of others! Let us hear all of the arguments so we can make up our own minds.

First ETS spin "gotcha"

I haven't even finished reading the first news item I opened (Kids take the heat out of climate costs) on the Australian Government's new emissions reduction target of 5% (from 2000 levels) and the first whopper bites me on the nose -

Some 60 per cent of middle income earners - 2.4 million households - would be compensated for all price rises. The extra money would come through a 2.5 per cent rise in welfare payments, including Family Tax benefits A and B, from July 2010.
This would include a 1.1 per cent indexation due in September but to be brought forward, and 1.4 per cent to cover cost increases.

In other words, over 40% of what the government claims they will be paying families to compensate for the costs of the scheme they would have been paying any way! This is called spin in polite political circles.

What would the figures look like if they showed only the actual true increase in welfare assistance as 1.4%?

The figures in the couriermail.com.au article compared to the true 1.4% extra payments:

(My comments and calculations at 1.4% are in red beside each quote.)

"How the emissions trading scheme will impact you, assuming you do not alter your energy consumption:

Single-person household - no children

• On $30,000 a year: Average cost of living impact is $324, government assistance is $390 - therefore $66 a year better off - really $106 worse off
• On $70,000 a year: Average cost of living impact is $574, assistance from government is $290 - therefore $284 a year worse off - really $412 worse off
• On $120,000 a year: Average cost of living impact is $877, government assistance is nil - therefore $877 a year worse off - still $877 worse off

Sole parent with one dependent child under five-years-old

• On $30,000 a year: Average cost if living impact is $487, government assistance is $963 - therefore $476 a year better off - really $52 better off
• On $70,000 a year: Average cost of living impact is $622, government assistance is $904 - therefore $282 a year better off - really $116 worse off
• On $120,000 a year: Average cost of living impact is $900, government assistance is $99 - therefore $801 a year worse off - really $845 worse off

Single income couple with two dependent children, one aged 6-12 and one aged 13-15

• On $30,000 a year: Average cost of living impact is $553, government assistance is $1189 - therefore $636 a year better off - really $113 better off
• On $70,000 a year: Average cost of living impact is $701, government assistance is $1044 - therefore $343 a year better off - really $116 worse off
• On $120,000 a year: Average cost of living impact is $925, government assistance is $897 - therefore $28 a year worse off - really $423 worse off

Dual income couple (50:50 income split) - no children

• On $30,000 a year: Average cost of living impact is $436, government assistance is $1249 - therefore $813 a year better off - really $263 better off
• On $70,000 a year: Average cost of living impact is $658, government assistance is $780 - therefore $122 a year better off - really $221 worse off
• On $120,000 a year: Average cost of living impact is $960, government assistance is $780 - therefore $180 worse off - really $523 worse off

Dual income couple (50:50 income split) with two dependent children, one aged under five and one aged 6-12

• On $30,000 a year: Average cost of living impact is $554, government assistance is $1540 - therefore $986 a year better off - really $308 better off
• On $70,000 a year: Average cost of living impact is $741, government assistance is $1028 - therefore $287 a year better off - really $165 worse off
• On $120,000 a year: Average cost of living impact is $985, government assistance is $984 - therefore $1 a year worse off - really $434 worse off

Dual income couple (70:30 income split) with three dependent children, one aged under five-year-old and two aged 6-12

• On $30,000 a year: Average cost if living impact is $623, government assistance is $1322 - therefore $699 a year better off - really $117 better off
• On $70,000 a year: Average cost of living impact is $793, government assistance is $1265 - therefore $472 a year better off - really $85 worse off
• On $120,000 a year: Average cost of living impact is $1040, government assistance is $750 - therefore $290 a year worse off - really $620 worse off

Single aged pensioner

• On $20,000 a year: Average cost of living impact is $358, government assistance is $382 - therefore $24 a year better off - really $144 worse off
• On $40,000 a year: Average cost of living impact is $406, government assistance is $845 - therefore $439 a year better off - really $67 better off

Age pensioner couple

• On $20,000 a year: Average cost of living impact $461, government assistance is $640 - therefore $179 a year better off - really $103 worse off
• On $50,000 a year: Average cost of living impact is $611, government assistance is $1894 - therefore $1283 a year better off - really $450 better off

In other words, most people will be worse off!

Now, if an emissions trading scheme is such a great idea, why does the government need to bribe us to accept it?

If the government is telling such obvious spin to exaggerate the effect of government assistance, what makes them think we are going to believe the cost of living impact will be as low as they say?

What other spin has been put on the global warming and emissions trading sales pitch?

UNFCCC working on son of Kyoto Protocol

AFP yesterday reported the UNFCCC has scheduled a program of work to be undertaken during 2009 which will culminate in another global agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol which ends in 2012.

THE world's forum for tackling climate change has agreed on a program to culminate in a treaty to tackle the threat from greenhouse gases.
The 192-member UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has set a schedule of work in 2009 designed to conclude with an historic pact in Copenhagen next December.
Taking effect after 2012, the envisioned deal will set down unprecedented measures for curbing emissions of heat-trapping carbon gases and helping poor countries in the firing line of climate change.

Refer full report at news.com

The UNFCCC website has several documents which came out of the talks in Poznan over 1 -12 December 2008.

The UNFCCC Kyoto Protocol page actually includes the work plan as a document link called FCCC/KP/AWG/2008/L.19. This is very heavy reading. In a nutshell it provides for further study on measuring greenhouse gases, improvements to emissions trading and tying down parties to the Kyoto Protocol to firm and detailed commitments and targets.

This is part of several streams of activity leading up to the next major meeting in Copenhagen at the end of 2009. There are several working group meetings planned at different venues around the world to continue to prepare for the major meeting in Bali mid-year and then Copenhagen.

While I was typing this the UNFCCC updated their website to say the decisions adopted during Poznan will be available there shortly.

This very serious business and it is apparent that considerable resources are being committed to this process.

There is still time for studying and lobbying.