There is a great video to watch here. Cheers!

Jennifer Parfenovics

NO SINGLE issue better illustrates the Rudd Government’s gross incompetence than its blindly ideological approach to the question of climate change.

Fortunately, and perhaps accidentally, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s own hand-picked climate change guru, Professor Ross Garnaut, has now driven a truck through its principal argument.

In the 10 months since Rudd, Treasurer Wayne Swan, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong and Environment Minister Peter Garrett have held office, the Government has constantly decried and denigrated as “irresponsible climate-change deniers” all who question their views .

The snide use of the word “denier” to link sceptics with those who deny the actuality of the Holocaust is so obvious it hardly deserves mention.

But its repeated usage is indicative of the gutter nature of the massive propaganda campaign waged by Rudd and his colleagues as they attempt to capitalise on their symbolic signing of the politically correct Kyoto Protocol.

…

In his July 4 draft, [Garnaut] stated that the cost of no mitigation — that is, if no action were taken on so-called greenhouse gases — would be minus 0.7 per cent of GDP in 2020.

In his new paper he presents three scenarios for carbon-emission reductions by 2020.

At an “as-soon-as-possible’’ level of 450 ppm (parts per million) he says the cost would be minus 1.6 per cent of GDP.

At the “first best’’ conditional offer of 550 ppm the cost would be minus 1.1 per cent of GDP.

If a second-best “Copenhagen compromise’’ was followed, the cost would be minus 1.3 per cent of GDP.

It is highly revealing that in presenting his first specific trajectories and estimated costs of emissions reduction, Professor Garnaut has found that the cost of reducing emissions is greater than the cost of doing nothing — although that is not how he sold his paper.

Jonathan Sarfati, Brisbane

Here is an in depth coverage of the global warming issue from a Biblical creationist perspective.

Jennifer Parfenovics

Much of what Bob Carter talks about is not new so he really has no reason to produce papers on such matters. I am quite sure if had discovered something worthy of a paper he would produce one. Having said that, working out what the truth is is very hard for people like us but I know it is dangerous to accept science based on “consensus”. Science should always be about the evidence. It is true that we/us that are burning carbon based fuels are adding to the change in climate. The question is by how much? At this point in time I do not think this question has been answered to any degree of accuracy. The IPCC have just made assumptions to fill in what they cannot explain.

Even though I am no fan of Richard S. Lindzen, he has produced an interesting paper which explains the Maths of
earths warming by the sun in somewhat readable terms. If you are interested you can have a read here

www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/230_TakingGr.pdf

In terms of scare mongering claims I feel they do not really add much to the debate. The debate should be about the science. If you cannot understand the science then we have no hope of doing anything, or worse, we do the wrong thing.

Ben Green

What, now an ice age is a danger again, just as the doom-mongers of the mid 1970s predicted? And does “Shelley” still believe the hugely exaggerated alGore scares about huge rises in sea level (6 m), that were too much even for the corrupt UN bureaucrats running the IPCC (more like 0.6 m). As a real scientist, Dr Jennifer Marohasy documents, some Pacific islands are rising not sinking.

Jonathan Sarfati, Brisbane

Nowhere did I suggest that Bob Carter is wrong, and I take no issue with your summary of his position. I’m quite interested in the opinions of scientists who actually work in the climate field, more particularly when they back up their opinions with professional papers. But there are many more papers that support the “consensus” view, and it is quite difficult for any lay person to have a truly informed opinion on the matter. I am still watching the debate unfold and I’m quite open to genuine published sceptical evidence. If only there were more of it. I lean towards acceptance of AGW at present because that’s where the weight of expert opinion lies. Economic solutions are another matter, and I am not yet informed enough on economic matters to make a comment about the likely success of carbon trading schemes.

And the answer to your question about temperature “anomalies” in recent years lies in short term cycles such as El Nino. Remove these cyclical effects and the trend remains firmly upward. Yet the contrarians persist in cherry-picking spot data.

Unlike others here, I take little notice of tabloid journalists like Andrew Bolt. I am quite baffled that Jonathan should quote Bolt’s simplistic rhetoric with apparent approval. He paints a picture of pleasant days basking in a warm sun in the future, with health benefits for all.

Yet scientists are predicting a very different future, e.g.
- melting of land ice producing rising sea levels.
- adverse impacts on biological diversity which will impact on food supplies.
- tropical diseases spreading to wider areas.
- an ice age in Europe if the thermohaline circulation of the Gulf Stream stops.
- more violent tropical cyclones (or hurricanes) which pick up energy from warmer waters.

Shelley Atherton, Brisbane

I would be interested in knowing why you think Bob Carter is wrong. He is only making conclusions based on observable data. He is not making predictions based on spurious modeling. He also does not deny GW is happening. He just does not agree with AGW and the hysteria that has been generated by it.

Do you think a Carbon trading scheme will change global weather patterns? I am more worried by the Economists, Politician’s and journalists pretending to understand the science and basing policy and opinion around it. The scheme that Krudds wants is putting our fate in the hands of futures traders and large financial institutions. Madness!

The science concerning GW it not done and dusted like many would have you think. The weather is very complicated. I am currently searching for an explanation as to why the last 10 years has not shown any statistical increase in global temp’s yet the North Pole is still shrinking and CO2 levels have also increased in the same period.

Ben Green

Here, for instance, is a recent Adelaide University study—Temperature and direct effects on population health in Brisbane, 1986-1995 — published in the Journal of Environmental Health:

“Death rates were around 50-80 per 100,000 in June, July, and August (winter), while they were around 30-50 per 100,000 in the rest of the year.

“It is understandable that more deaths would occur in winters in cold or temperate regions, but even in a subtropical region . . . a decrease in temperatures (in winters) may increase human mortality.”

It’s the same story over in New Zealand, a University of Otago study confirmed last year: “From 1980-2000, around 1600 excess winter deaths occurred each year with winter mortality rates 18 per cent higher than expected from non-winter rates.”

So winters kill and, yes, your growing suspicions are indeed correct: global warming could cause fewer people to die from the temperature.

Of the many studies I could quote, here is one from the British Medical Journal in 2000, by scientists from Britain, Italy, the Netherlands and Finland, that also explains why a cold snap is deadlier than a heat wave:

“All regions showed more annual cold-related mortality than heat-related mortality . . .

“Some of those who died in the heat may not have lived long if a heatwave had not occurred. Mortality often falls below baseline for several days after the end of a heatwave . . . indicating that some of the people dying during the heatwave were already close to death . . .

“Falls in temperature in winter are closely followed by increased mortality, suggesting that most excess winter deaths are due to relatively direct effects of cold on the population.”

Heat carries off those already dying, but cold kills the healthy, too.

Concludes that study:

“Our data suggest that any increases in mortality due to increased temperatures would be outweighed by much larger short-term declines in cold related mortalities.”

Got that? Rising temperatures will actually be healthier.

A review article by University of London researchers in the Southern Medical Journal three years ago makes the same point:

“The rise in temperature of 3.6F expected over the next 50 years would increase heat-related deaths in Britain by about 2000 but reduce cold-related deaths by about 20,000.”

Jonathan Sarfati, Brisbane