The Climate Scientists got it wrong.

No it's not - it's crap. 

Yep - and they didn't really land on the moon right?

Enjoyed reading that link Neil - thanks. A useful quote from Neil's link: https://thelogicofsc...OCB0t1kKZoXgdK4

 

What is a scientific consensus?

 

 There are really two different levels at which we can talk about a consensus, and this can become confusing because most people are bad at specifying the level at which they are talking (I have been guilty of this myself). At one level, there is a consensus of experts. In other words, this exists when the vast majority of experts agree on something. This is what most people think of when they think of a scientific consensus, but it is not actually the best level to look at.

 

You see, when we say something like, “this is a fact” or “the science is settled,” we aren’t basing that on a consensus of experts, but rather a consensus of evidence (i.e., a large body of studies that all agree with and support each other). The consensus of experts is a secondary by-product of the consistent body of evidence. This is really the level we need to look at when asking questions like, “is there any serious debate on topic X.” Science is not a democracy. It is about evidence, not authority. So simply finding some people with advanced degrees who disagree with X does not mean that there is serious scientific debate about the topic. Rather, if there is serious debate, it will be reflected in the peer-reviewed literature, because people will be publishing papers presenting evidence that X is not correct. So that is really the level we should focus on when we talk about a scientific consensus: the evidence, not the experts.

This also highlights the futility of polling this forum.  For example, a summary might look like this:

50% of forum members believe AGW is happening.

70% of the general public believe AGW is happening.

97% of scientists believe AGW is happening.

99% of research publications accept AGW is happening.

Edited by gruntguru, 26 January 2020 - 05:18.

There is a cycle to scientific endeavour .

First it takes someone with enough chutzpah to disagree with 'the scientific consensus' to present a contrary position, they also have to have enough passion and self belief to withstand the subsequent negative onslaught.

If this occurs, and  subsequent scientific data agrees with the one with the chutzpah and passion, then it will eventually become 'the scientific consensus'

At what point are we in this cycle of scientific endeavour ?

Where does chutzpah and passion fit into a scientific paradigm (Or self and belief for that matter) ?

 (ps)

Edited by carlt, 22 January 2020 - 01:03.

It seems it isn't going to get better, not by itself anyway.

http://theconversati...e-warned-130211

But then again, they are only scientists*, and what has science ever done for us?**

*  Caution - irony alert!

**  Rhetorical question, no answer required.

Yep - and they didn't really land on the moon right?

 I have been asked this question before - I will give much the same answer:

  Clearly NASA  did go to the moon - but only with the  assistance of  the Alien Lizard Shapeshifter  People's  technology.  Everybody KNOWS  that  - even you  gg.

  I would imagine all the NASA people  do these days  is mince about squealing and grabbing each other on the bum  (not that there's anything wrong with that you understand)  - while spouting "woke" crap.    

  PS - it's top secret but  the Jews and the ALSPs  are one and the same.

Edited by Kelpiecross, 22 January 2020 - 02:54.

Enjoyed reading that link Neil - thanks. A useful quote from Neil's link: https://thelogicofsc...OCB0t1kKZoXgdK4

 

This also highlights the futility of polling this forum.  For example, a summary might look like this:

 

50% of forum members believe climate science is settled.

70% of the general public believe climate science is settled.

97% of scientists believe climate science is settled.

99% of research publications agree (broadly) on climate science.

  I don't think a typical "summary" would look anything like this.  

  I don't think a typical "summary" would look anything like this.  

Feel free to post another "example".

   It really depends on the question being asked on all propositions:

  I would think that No. 1 is the only one where you would approach your predicted/desired  result.   This is the only statement that can be easily settled  - ask the "forum members" that exact question.   And even then  a 50/50 would reflect a more "buggered if I know"   attitude than anything else.  

  70%?   Not the general public I know or associate with.   Amongst the "practical"  people I know there seems to be an increasing  "push back"  against the ever-increasing tide of  "woke/PC/lefty"  propaganda.   I don't know even one fervent Climate Change  supporter.    This is not a  "dig"  (well it is a bit)   -  but I would imagine that the people you associate with could  almost all  be described as painfully  "woke, PC"  etc. and are  fervent "warmists".  No point in quoting  various surveys etc.  - it is impossible to tell how biased they are in either  direction.  

 97%?  Didn't  somebody on this forum thoroughly demolish that figure through sensible logic a while back?   You saw what Plimer said -  97% of scientists  (or any group of humans)  could not agree on even the simplest   proposition.

  (And - no - Plimer is not my "muse" as Flummery, Greta, Indian ex-bus drivers, Al Gore etc. etc. apparently  are to the "PC Brigade").  

 99% ?   Not even amongst the most biased  "publications" - and that is pretty much all of them.             

Edited by Kelpiecross, 23 January 2020 - 04:20.

 . . and your "example" was????

EDIT. BTW there have been a number of polls of the Australian public and 70% is a very conservative number. eg 89% in a 2019 Lowey institute poll.

https://www.lowyinst...-climate-change

Edited by gruntguru, 23 January 2020 - 22:16.

Your post 156  refers to "climate science being settled"   -  the Lowy survey  is something entirely different  -  no mention of any "science"  being settled.  

The science in a general sense is settled, if you add CO2 to the average mix of gases seen in the atmosphere then it will tend to warm under sunlight. In the lab that number is measurable. However in the case of Planet A, the effect of this general trend is up for grabs.

Your post 156  refers to "climate science being settled"   -  the Lowy survey  is something entirely different  -  no mention of any "science"  being settled.  

It was post #152.  I have changed the wording.

64% of those polled believe climate change is a "critical threat".

89% believe Climate change is a "problem".

You don't think they believe the science is settled? Are you just being pedantic?

Edited by gruntguru, 26 January 2020 - 06:57.

  "Pedantic"  - no - just not being stampeded  by the Looney Left herd.

  I have to agree with GL  (No.161)  -  all that is "settled science"  is the  (possible) fact that  CO2 will tend to warm a mixture of gases  under experimental conditions.

  To immediately  extrapolate  this possible very slight warming to predict  3m (or whatever) ocean level rise,  apparently causing drought and bushfire,  causing the various  ocean  "dipoles"  to move about erratically,  to cause ginger cats to become more ginger etc. etc. is really verging on madness.  

  Something else to note is that this particular discussion is very  "Australocentric"  - the rest of the world is excessively icy,  excessively wet, excessively average  - the only unusual fact is the change in cats'  colour.  

 I was once a believer in the "hole in the ozone layer"  scare and thought banning CFCs was a wise move.   To clarify, in fact,  not so much a "believer" as just didn't question  the whole business.  

 Turns out that it was highly likely all bullshit - or at least highly exaggerated - and the "highly regarded",  "infallible" ,  "how dare you suggest that I would tell a lie"   Climate Scientists (probably quite a few who are making a good living out of the present Climate Change scam)  knew bloody well that it was all bullshit.   They found it more profitable to tell bullshit than actually tell the truth.   

  In fifty years time somebody will read this forum and say  "the bloody Dog was right  - and that gg really  was (or, maybe is,) a bloody fool.  

  What will be the next Lefty scam?,  - maybe -  "quick - these bloody cats are becoming dangerously ginger - we must immediately  destroy the economy - that will fix the problem".  

This thread is ...

...

no, it's not worth my time and effort. 

A lost cause. 

  "Pedantic"  - no - just not being stampeded  by the Looney Left herd.

 

  I have to agree with GL  (No.161)  -  all that is "settled science"  is the  (possible) fact that  CO2 will tend to warm a mixture of gases  under experimental conditions.

 

  To immediately  extrapolate  this possible very slight warming to predict  3m (or whatever) ocean level rise,  apparently causing drought and bushfire,  causing the various  ocean  "dipoles"  to move about erratically,  to cause ginger cats to become more ginger etc. etc. is really verging on madness.  

 

  Something else to note is that this particular discussion is very  "Australocentric"  - the rest of the world is excessively icy,  excessively wet, excessively average  - the only unusual fact is the change in cats'  colour.  

 

 I was once a believer in the "hole in the ozone layer"  scare and thought banning CFCs was a wise move.   To clarify, in fact,  not so much a "believer" as just didn't question  the whole business.  

 

 Turns out that it was highly likely all bullshit - or at least highly exaggerated - and the "highly regarded",  "infallible" ,  "how dare you suggest that I would tell a lie"   Climate Scientists (probably quite a few who are making a good living out of the present Climate Change scam)  knew bloody well that it was all bullshit.   They found it more profitable to tell bullshit than actually tell the truth.   

 

  In fifty years time somebody will read this forum and say  "the bloody Dog was right  - and that gg really  was (or, maybe is,) a bloody fool.  

 

 

  What will be the next Lefty scam?,  - maybe -  "quick - these bloody cats are becoming dangerously ginger - we must immediately  destroy the economy - that will fix the problem".  

Care to comment on this ?

Ozone depletion consists of two related events observed since the late 1970s: a steady lowering of about four percent in the total amount of ozone in Earth's atmosphere (the ozone layer), and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone around Earth's polar regions.^[1]The latter phenomenon is referred to as the ozone hole. There are also springtime polar tropospheric ozone depletion events in addition to these stratospheric events.

In 2019, NASA announced the "ozone hole" was the smallest ever since it was first discovered in 1982.^[2][3]

The main cause of ozone depletion and the ozone hole is manufactured chemicals, especially manufactured halocarbon refrigerants, solvents, propellants and foam-blowing agents (chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), HCFCs, halons), referred to as ozone-depleting substances (ODS). These compounds are transported into the stratosphere by turbulent mixing after being emitted from the surface, mixing much faster than the molecules can settle.^[4] Once in the stratosphere, they release halogen atoms through photodissociation, which catalyze the breakdown of ozone (O₃) into oxygen (O₂).^[5] Both types of ozone depletion were observed to increase as emissions of halocarbons increased.

Ozone depletion and the ozone hole have generated worldwide concern over increased cancer risks and other negative effects. The ozone layer prevents most harmful UV wavelengths of ultraviolet light (UV light) from passing through the Earth's atmosphere. These wavelengths cause skin cancer, sunburn and cataracts, which were projected to increase dramatically as a result of thinning ozone, as well as harming plants and animals. These concerns led to the adoption of the Montreal Protocol in 1987, which bans the production of CFCs, halons and other ozone-depleting chemicals.

The ban came into effect in 1989. Ozone levels stabilized by the mid-1990s and began to recover in the 2000s. Recovery is projected to continue over the next century, and the ozone hole is expected to reach pre-1980 levels by around 2075.^[6] The Montreal Protocol is considered the most successful international environmental agreement to date.^[7][8]

https://en.wikipedia...Ozone_depletion

I just learned the following fun fact which might put all the whining about sea level rising into perspective. At the moment it is rising at around 0.3m per century

In the last hundred years Tokyo has sunk by 4.5m

Oska 3.5m

Taipei 2.5m

Jakarta 4m

Bangkok 2m

The reasons are many, primarily groundwater extraction and the weight of the buildings compressing soft soil (that surprised me).

 Carlt  -  I don't know why you highlighted  the various words in  blue  - they add nothing to your argument.  

 The  ozone depletion was highly  likely to have been a totally natural cyclic event.

 I don't know if the "Climate Scientists"  deliberately lied or exaggerated the danger - but I would think it was more likely than not.  

This thread is ...

 

...

 

no, it's not worth my time and effort. 

 

A lost cause. 

Ben1445 - I really was looking forward to reading  your contribution to this topic.    

 

  Something else to note is that this particular discussion is very  "Australocentric"  - the rest of the world is excessively icy,  excessively wet, excessively average  - the only unusual fact is the change in cats'  colour.  

 

This really puts you into Frans territory.

 Carlt  -  I don't know why you highlighted  the various words in  blue  - they add nothing to your argument.  

 

 The  ozone depletion was highly  likely to have been a totally natural cyclic event.

 

 I don't know if the "Climate Scientists"  deliberately lied or exaggerated the danger - but I would think it was more likely than not.  

That seems to be a very fair example of your research methodology . 

Edited by carlt, 27 January 2020 - 16:49.

Ben1445 - I really was looking forward to reading  your contribution to this topic.    

You did. 

This really puts you into Frans territory.

   I give up - who is "Frans"  for Cliff's Sake? 

Antarctica has logged its hottest temperature on record, with an Argentinian research station thermometer reading 18.3C, beating the previous record by 0.8C.

The reading, taken at Esperanza on the northern tip of the continent’s peninsula, beats Antarctica’s previous record of 17.5C, set in March 2015.

A tweet from Argentina’s meteorological agency on Friday revealed the record. The station’s data goes back to 1961.

https://www.theguard..._Mbw3GXWCEdy8rI

Antarctica has logged its hottest temperature on record, with an Argentinian research station thermometer reading 18.3C, beating the previous record by 0.8C.

The reading, taken at Esperanza on the northern tip of the continent’s peninsula, beats Antarctica’s previous record of 17.5C, set in March 2015.

A tweet from Argentina’s meteorological agency on Friday revealed the record. The station’s data goes back to 1961.

 

https://www.theguard..._Mbw3GXWCEdy8rI

  We're doomed - doomed I tell you!   - It'll never rain again.  

https://www.scienced...048969716327152

Abstract

Edited by Greg Locock, 10 February 2020 - 04:13.

It seems that the press always go for the shock headline and never present the big picture .

Antarctica has logged its hottest temperature on record, with an Argentinian research station thermometer reading 18.3C, beating the previous record by 0.8C.

The reading, taken at Esperanza on the northern tip of the continent’s peninsula, beats Antarctica’s previous record of 17.5C, set in March 2015.

A tweet from Argentina’s meteorological agency on Friday revealed the record. The station’s data goes back to 1961.

 

https://www.theguard..._Mbw3GXWCEdy8rI

The Esperanza research station is 1865 miles north of the south pole, halfway to Buenos Aires. The temperature was caused by a brief period of very warm winds.

On the 2nd. of January the American Geo Summit Station on Greenland recorded the coldest temperature ever recorded there, minus 66 degrees.

I assume this was mentioned in the Guardian too? Meanwhile in Bagdad, https://www.middleea...e-this-century/

The last time this happened was in January 2008, then it was the first time in a century. Back then both the BBC and the Guardian mentioned it, but not this time....

Wow - yet another climate-change-induced-weather-extreme?????

That's the funny thing about data. Even if there is NO long term trend you'll get more extremes the longer you record the data for. 

Apply a low pass filter over the data and see what the trend chart looks like then.

north pole ice is thinning and lower avg area

yes it varies a bit but the trend is clear

current temp here in miami is 84 this week my a/c is on

and the nut-con's still think CO2 IS A HOAX

THEY CAN'T UNDERSTAND

  CO2 Climate Change is indeed a hoax.   The planet is greening slightly (actually - more than slightly)  probably because the extra CO2  - otherwise nothing unusual is happening  to the Earth's climate.   

Edited by Kelpiecross, 14 February 2020 - 11:37.

An excerpt from "Super-Power" by Ross Garnaut (an economist). Apologies for the length. Please remove if you re-quote this post.

 

A PERSONAL REFLECTION ON AUSTRALIA’S CLIMATE CHANGE ODYSSEY

 

In the first half of August 2019, my wife Jayne and I took a journey through the Murray–

Darling Basin. We spent a couple of days at Lake Mungo, where the ice age overflow from

the Lachlan once filled lakes and supported communities that left us with what may be the

oldest record on earth of complex human mind and spirit. Then we turned up the Darling to

Menindee, where Harrison made his pile when Pardon won the cup. Once the source of

Broken Hill’s water, and of renowned grapes and fruit, in the past year the Menindee Lakes

have been famous only for a plague of dead fish. They are mainly dry. A new pipeline is

raiding the Murray to supply Broken Hill. We cut across to Wilcannia, once a bustling port

collecting wool and copper ores brought in by camels and bullocks for shipping down the

river to Goolwa and Port Adelaide. Here was a little water, held back by the barrages, low

and still. Finally, we crossed the Lachlan at Hillston and the Murrumbidgee near Griffith, and

returned to the magnificent but weakening Murray once more. This was beautiful Australian

country, rich with the human heritage of 50,000 years and 200 years.

For many Australians, their personal heritage lies in the Basin. Jayne’s father, Tom, lived

in Wentworth and the lower Darling until he and many others in the bush rode to Melbourne

on the news of war in 1914. That ride led him to a beach in Turkey, as the rising sun lit the

coastal hills on 25 April 1915. A decade ago, a board in the Wentworth RSL club

remembered Tom and his brother. This building without its memorabilia is now empty beside

the Darling.

What value do we place on Australian heritage? The question kept coming back as we

travelled the Darling. For about 30 kilometres the bottom of the riverbed is wet from the

flowback from the Murray. But beyond that, the sand between the rows of grand old river

gums is dry, except for scattered stagnant pools. By one of these lay the skeletal head of a

Murray cod, its mouth gaping wide enough to swallow the largest carp whole. The dried flesh

on the cod’s back had been gnawed by wild pigs, which had waded into the shallow pond and

dragged out the helpless survivor of eighty summers and a dozen droughts. Around a fire on

the riverbank one night, we were told of plans for a quad bike ride along the Darling bed

from just north of Wentworth to the arid Menindee Lakes.

Mike Sandiford, professor of geology at the University of Melbourne, is using new,

Garnaut, R. (2019). Superpower : Australia's low-carbon opportunity. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Created from qut on 2020-02-16 16:11:09. Copyright © 2019. Schwartz Publishing Pty, Limited. All rights reserved.

satellite-based remote-sensing techniques to map the water contained in the structures below

the surface in the Darling Basin. For millennia, water in occasional floods has filled porous

sands and cavities and seeped out to maintain the life of plants and animals through the long

dries. But now these occasional floods are treated as surplus, and held back for irrigation in

the northern Darling and its tributary, the Barwon. Professor Sandiford foresees lower run-off

from higher temperatures, reduced average rainfall and more insistent demands of irrigation

interacting to contrive the desertification of the Basin. These factors are reproducing the fate

of the Tigris and the Euphrates several thousand years ago, when the riverways that nurtured

the beginnings of agriculture and human civilisation evaporated into today’s Iraqi deserts.

But in one way, this tragedy is different from that of the original Garden of Eden. The

Adams and Eves of Mesopotamia had not eaten of the tree of scientific knowledge; they

knew not what they did.

But we do. The tragedy of the Murray–Darling is a consequence of denial, and of

knowledge not being applied to public policy.

This was not always the Australian way. In June 2019, I spoke at Bob Hawke’s memorial

service of the great Australian prime minister’s conviction that broadly shared knowledge

was the foundation of good policy in a democracy. And just one day after returning from the

Darling, I presented a memorial lecture for one of Australia’s greatest public servants. John

Crawford’s essential contribution to Australian public life was his commitment to knowledge

based on research as the starting point for sound policy development. It was through

Crawford that I met Hawke in the late 1970s, while working on a report for Prime Minister

Malcolm Fraser on the future of Australian industry. I was inducted into a great Australian

tradition, of which Hawke and Crawford were the most accomplished proponents in their

respective spheres.

But today, public policy based on marshalling knowledge through research and analysis,

and then nurturing public understanding of the issues, seems a distant dream. That it is not

contemporary reality is the essential problem behind the tragedies of the Murray–Darling

Basin and of policy on climate change and the energy transition. (At an international level,

that is also the fundamental problem of global trade and development.)

In the 2008 Garnaut Climate Change Review, I drew attention to the historic increase in

world food prices in the first decade of the new century. And I highlighted that improving

living standards in the populous countries of Asia would make this a great opportunity over a

long period for Australian farmers and therefore all Australians – unless climate change at

home damaged Australia’s supply capacity. Global climate change mitigation was needed, or

Australia’s farm capacity would be reduced. The atmospheric physics was showing that

climate change would see the movement south of climate systems, and therefore the drying

as well as warming of the southern latitudes where most of Australia’s agricultural value lies.

The irrigation output in the Murray–Darling could decline by 90 per cent if the world failed

to act.

By 2019, new knowledge has reduced uncertainty without much changing these predicted

consequences. We can now see the effects anticipated in 2008. Average temperatures across

Australia so far this century are over a degree higher than in the first half of the twentieth

century. We have reliable records of inflows into the Murray since 1892. After taking out the

Snowy and inter-valley transfers, and the highly variable (currently absent) flows from the

Darling, the average inflow in the past seven years has been a quarter below the first century

of observation.

The controversial Murray–Darling Basin Plan does not take into account declining

inflows as a result of climate change. It is unsettling now to read a CSIRO panel’s description

from 2011 of how the original Basin Plan dealt with climate change:

MDBA [Murray–Darling Basin Authority] has modelled the likely impacts of climate

change to 2030 on water availability and this modelling is robust. MDBA has not

used this information in the determination of SDLs [sustainable diversion limits] for

the proposed Basin Plan but rather has determined SDLs using only the historical

climate and inflow sequences. The panel understands that this reflects a policy

decision by MDBA …1

After public outcry about the fish kills in the Darling below Menindee in 2018, the

MDBA published a report in February 2019 on the effects of climate change. It noted that

there had been five major blue-green algal bloom events in the past thirteen years. There had

been four in the preceding sixty-five years. The report stated that lower rainfall in the

southern areas of the Basin and higher temperatures were reducing stream flows into the

rivers. After 48 millimetres per annum average run-off from 1961 to 1990, it was 27

millimetres in 1999 to 2008. ‘The timing and magnitude of long-term climate changes remain

uncertain and difficult to identify and measure separately from natural variability,’ the

MDBA wrote.

2

Maybe. But maybe it’s imprudent to use historical data without regard for climate change

in calculating the amount of water available for allocation.

The Murray–Darling Basin Plan on which Commonwealth and state ministers agreed in

2012 was built, at best, on hope. At worst, on obfuscation. Either way, it contradicted

scientific reality. And even this plan – for all its inadequacy – has not been implemented as

designed. The Murray–Darling would be in better health if it had been honoured.

Yet the damage that climate change has wrought so far is of modest dimension compared

with what will follow – even if the world takes decisive action immediately. And it is utterly

trivial compared with what is to come if we fail to take decisive action. My 2008 Review

demonstrated that we are the most vulnerable of the developed countries to damage from

climate change.

In Paris in December 2015, all members of the United Nations agreed to hold

temperature increases below 2°C and as close as possible to 1.5°C. The best that we can hope

for now is holding increases globally to around 1.75°C. This could be achieved if the world

moves decisively towards zero net emissions by 2050.

But temperatures over land will increase by more than the average over land and sea. An

increase of 1.75°C for the whole world would mean more than 2°C for Australia – twice the

Garnaut, R. (2019). Superpower : Australia's low-carbon opportunity. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Created from qut on 2020-02-16 16:11:09. Copyright © 2019. Schwartz Publishing Pty, Limited. All rights reserved.

increase that this year helped to bring bushfires in August to New South Wales and

Queensland.

Such temperature increases would present Australia with a massive adaptation task. The

internal disruption would be hard enough – with the Murray–Darling Basin just one of a

hundred fateful challenges. The changes in our neighbourhood would probably be even

harder for us to manage. The problems our neighbours in south and southeast Asia and the

southwest Pacific would face would certainly and quickly become shared problems. The

geostrategic own goal scored by Australia at the Pacific Island Forum leaders’ meeting in

August 2019 was a response to one of the smaller problems, but reminded us of our

vulnerability.

A failure to act in Australia, accompanied by similar paralysis in other countries, would

see our grandchildren living with temperature increases of around 4°C this century – and

more beyond.

I have spent my life on the positive end of the Australian discussion of many

international and domestic policy and development issues. That positive approach to what

was possible in our democratic polity was mostly vindicated by the unfolding of history

during the Australian reform era from 1983 to the beginnings of this century. But if the nation

were to experience the consequences of a failure of effective global action on climate change,

I fear that the challenge would be beyond contemporary Australian society. I fear that things

would fall apart.

So is it all bad news? What we now know about the effect of increased concentrations of

greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has broadly confirmed the conclusions I drew from the

scientific research available for my 2008 and 2011 Reviews. But on the other hand, these

Reviews greatly overestimated the cost of meeting ambitious reduction targets.

The good news is very good indeed for Australia, and especially for rural and provincial

Australia. If we are wise, we can change the political story of climate policy in this nation.

Quite a few Australians once argued that atmospheric physics is bunkum; or that there is no

point in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions because others will not; or that it is too costly to

reduce emissions, no matter how expensive the result of a failure to act. To those Australians,

I can say: circumstances have changed.

It took me some years to realise the extent of that change. The Reviews from eight and

eleven years ago touched upon the unusually high quality of Australian solar and wind

energy and other renewable resources. They noted exceptional opportunities for growing

biomass and capturing carbon in the landscape. They mentioned the possibility of great

advantage. A chapter in each was devoted to carbon farming. But the references to

exceptional opportunities were almost in passing.

After completing my official reports, I continued to take a close interest in Australian

renewable resources and clever inventions that would help the transition to a low-carbon

economy. I introduced leaders of many established Australian businesses to promising

proposals for profitable investment in reducing emissions. Australian business is generally

slow in innovation. Established non-competitive and anti-competitive arrangements are

Garnaut, R. (2019). Superpower : Australia's low-carbon opportunity. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Created from qut on 2020-02-16 16:11:09. Copyright © 2019. Schwartz Publishing Pty, Limited. All rights reserved.

unusually rich by global standards, and disruption of them is unattractive. So I started to take

up some of the proposals privately. I worked with partners in South Australia to develop ZEN

Energy. Later we brought in British businessman Sanjeev Gupta as a partner after his

purchase of the Whyalla Steelworks. ZEN and SIMEC ZEN Energy built acceptance in

South Australia of the use of utility scale batteries to stabilise the power system; completed

the development work on Australia’s largest solar farm; and now supply the power needs of

the South Australian government and the South Australian Chamber of Mines & Energy

buyers’ group. With old colleagues, I am working on some transformative power system

developments beyond South Australia through Sunshot Energy.

Meanwhile, my work as an economist was tracking the rapid fall in costs of new

technologies for reducing emissions in industry. By mid-2015, I was convinced that what in

2008 and 2011 I had perceived to be a possibility of modest dimension had become a high

probability of immense economic gains. I gave a public lecture in June that year at the

University of Adelaide: ‘Australia as the Energy Superpower of the Low-Carbon World’.

In this book, I explain how my thinking has evolved from the earlier reviews – and why I

now believe that if Australia rises to the challenge of climate change it will emerge as a

global superpower in energy, low-carbon industry and absorption of carbon in the landscape.

I begin, in Chapter 2, by outlining recent developments in scientific knowledge on

climate change.

In Chapter 3, I discuss how to assess the costs and benefits of Australia doing its fair

share in a strong global effort. Here, changes in economic realities have altered earlier

conclusions, although my methodology remains unchanged.

Chapters 4 to 7 explore the many benefits and opportunities of the good news about the

lower cost of cutting emissions. Australia is richly endowed with resources that allow it to

prosper from a global movement to zero net emissions. If we take early and strong action in

ways that build upon our natural advantages, we will not suffer a decline in living standards

in the near future in conventional economic terms as we move towards zero emissions. Now,

much more than was anticipated a decade ago, we can be confident that we will be richer

materially sooner rather than later, as well as very much richer in human and natural heritage,

should we embrace a zero-emissions future.

The economic improvement has two main sources. First is the extraordinary fall in the

cost of equipment for solar and wind energy and of storage to meet the challenge of

intermittency. Per person, Australia has natural resources for renewable energy superior to

any other developed country and far superior to our important economic partners in northeast

Asia. Together with our strengths in mining, this makes us the natural home of processing

mineral ores and some foodstuffs. Second is the immense opportunity for capturing and

sequestering, at relatively low cost, atmospheric carbon in soils, pastures, woodlands, forests

and plantations. Rewarding people and organisations that own and manage land with

incentives equal to the true cost of carbon emissions would lead to sequestration in

landscapes becoming a major rural industry. I said in 2011 that it could be a new rural

industry as large as wool. That now seems to me to be a radical underestimate of the

Garnaut, R. (2019). Superpower : Australia's low-carbon opportunity. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Created from qut on 2020-02-16 16:11:09. Copyright © 2019. Schwartz Publishing Pty, Limited. All rights reserved.

potential.

Technologies to produce and store zero-emissions energy and to sequester carbon in the

landscape are highly capital-intensive. They have therefore received exceptional support

from the historic fall in global interest rates over the past decade. This has reduced the cost of

transition to zero emissions, at the same time as it has increased Australian advantages. (I

discuss low interest rates and their effects in the Appendix to Chapter 3.)

These main drivers of lower costs are supported by Australia’s exceptional capacity to

produce biomass as a base for industry. This will be valuable as the world moves away from

coal, oil and gas as raw materials for plastics and other chemical manufactures. It helps as

well that we have unusually good opportunities for geosequestration of carbon dioxide

wastes. In both cases, we could draw intensively on established Australian strengths in the

biological, metallurgical and engineering sciences and in managing land and other natural

resources.

There is more to say about the changing economics of a strong global mitigation effort. In

2008, comprehensive modelling of the costs and benefits of playing our part in the global

transition suggested there would be a noticeable but manageable sacrifice of Australian

current income until early in the second half of this century, but that average incomes would

then regain lost ground and the gains would grow late this century and beyond.

Today, calculations using similar techniques would give different results. Australia

playing its full part in effective global efforts to hold warming to 2°C or lower would now

show economic gains instead of losses in early decades, and much larger gains later on.

Whereas the modelling in 2008 suggested that Australia would import emissions-reduction

credits, today I would expect Australia to become an exporter of emissions permits.

Australia should have a much stronger comparative advantage in energy-intensive

minerals and agricultural processing in a zero-emissions world economy than it had in the

fossil-energy past.

If Australia is to realise its immense opportunity in a zero-carbon world economy, it will

require a different policy framework. But here there is also good news. The advantages of the

low-carbon world are so great for Australia that we can make a strong start even with

incomplete and weak policies that are consistent with established state and federal

commitments. Policies to support the completion of the transition can be built in a political

environment that has been changed by early success.

For renewable energy, we can build on considerable recent investment in solar and wind

generation. State government policies in Victoria and Queensland will underwrite the early

momentum, as the impetus from the Commonwealth’s renewable energy target fades. It will

become clear through the 2020s that drawing 50 per cent of electricity from renewable

sources in these states and the country as a whole is simply a milestone on the path to more

comprehensive transformation.

Three early policy developments are necessary. None contradicts established government

policy. First, the regulatory system has to focus strongly on security and reliability of power

when most electricity is drawn from intermittent renewable sources. Second, the regulatory

Garnaut, R. (2019). Superpower : Australia's low-carbon opportunity. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Created from qut on 2020-02-16 16:11:09. Copyright © 2019. Schwartz Publishing Pty, Limited. All rights reserved.

system must support transformation of the transmission system, to allow huge expansion of

supply from those regions with high-quality renewable energy resources. This is likely to

require new mechanisms to support private initiative. Third, as a first step towards imposing

order on a highly unstable and uncertain policy framework, the Commonwealth government

could underwrite new investment in firm electricity supply, thereby securing a globally

competitive cost of capital for a capital-intensive industry.

3

For use of competitive power in expanding energy-intensive industry, grants for

innovation in low-emissions industry along the lines provided by the Australian Renewable

Energy Agency to renewable energy would also help. Among other things, this would

support the hydrogen strategy being developed by Chief Scientist Alan Finkel.

In Chapter 4, I focus on an expanded role for renewable energy in electricity supply.

Chapters 5 and 6 then discuss how this will take us a long way towards decarbonisation of

transport and industry.

The full emergence of Australia as an energy superpower of the low-carbon world

economy would encompass large-scale early-stage processing of Australian iron, aluminium

and other minerals.

But for other countries to accept the shift to Australia of lower-cost low-emissions

processing, and to import large volumes of low-emission products from us, we will have to

accept and be seen as delivering on emissions-reduction targets that are consistent with the

Paris objectives. Paris requires zero net emissions by mid-century. Developed countries have

to reach zero emissions before then, so interim targets have to represent credible steps

towards that conclusion. Japan, Korea, the European Union and the United Kingdom are the

natural early markets. China will be critically important to realisation of the full opportunity.

Indonesia and India and their neighbours in southeast and south Asia will sustain Australian

exports of low-emissions products deep into the future. For the European Union, where

carbon prices are now much higher than Australia’s ‘carbon tax’ from 2012 to 2014, reliance

on imports from Australia of zero-emissions aluminium, iron, silicon, ammonia and other

products processed from energy and mineral ores would only follow assessments that we

were making acceptable contributions to the global mitigation effort. We will not get to that

place in one step or soon. But likely European restrictions on imports of high-carbon

products, which will exempt those made with low emissions, will allow us a good shot.

The Australian emissions trading scheme was due to be integrated into the European one

from 1 July 2014. Those arrangements went into hibernation with Australian carbon pricing.

If something like them were brought back to life, we could now expect Australia to be a

rapidly expanding exporter of goods embodying renewable energy, and to be engaged in

close discussion of adjustments in rules to allow large-scale trade in legitimate carbon credits

from the land sector. We can make a significant start on developing an important carbon

farming industry through domestic markets, and go further when policy change allows largescale international trade in carbon credits.

Alongside our strength in renewable energy, our advantages in growing, using and

sequestering carbon in biomass will set Australia up as the international superpower of the

Garnaut, R. (2019). Superpower : Australia's low-carbon opportunity. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Created from qut on 2020-02-16 16:11:09. Copyright © 2019. Schwartz Publishing Pty, Limited. All rights reserved.

low-carbon world economy. But for this to occur, Australia will need to regain its former

strength in research and education on agricultural, pastoral, forestry and related industrial

activities.

The low-carbon world economy will be especially favourable for rural and provincial

Australia. Energy will be produced mainly outside the large cities, much of it in remote

locations. This will make it commercially attractive to process many Australian mineral and

agricultural goods into products of higher value close to the sources of the basic

commodities. A new carbon-farming industry, prospering exceptionally in less agriculturally

productive regions, will add substantially to rural incomes. Biomass will have additional

value as a base for new industry, especially when combined with low-cost energy. The new

farm-and station-based activities on average will make fewer demands on water than the old.

And low-cost energy will improve the economics of recycling, desalinating and transporting

limited water resources. Rural and provincial Australia will be the engine room of the

superpower of the low-carbon world economy. Much of the new opportunity will be on land

managed by Indigenous Australians.

Alas, the low-carbon opportunity cannot restore the life of the Murray cod on the dry bed

of the Darling below Menindee. The unavoidable increases in carbon dioxide before we

achieve zero emissions will keep on doing what carbon dioxide does. We will still leave for

our grandchildren an awful job of cleaning up our mess.

Awful, but maybe not impossible. The low-carbon opportunity can make life better for

the Australians who come after us. There is a better chance of leaving a manageable mess if

we can build a bridge to a low-carbon economy, over which Australians can now walk to join

the global effort on climate change. This book describes that bridge.

 

Garnaut, R. (2019). Superpower : Australia's low-carbon opportunity. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Copyright © 2019. Schwartz Publishing Pty, Limited. All rights reserved.

Edited by gruntguru, 17 February 2020 - 00:18.

  Seems like an overlong pointless lefty ramble to me.  

Well even if you are a climate denier, it is obvious that there is an opportunity to sell cheap renewable energy to the suckers that believe in climate change. Pointless?

What Woss got wong is that if Australia went carbon neutral tomorrow within one year manmade CO2 emissions would  be back to where they would have been. I see no sign that China and India pay the slightest bit of attention when the USA and Europe reduce their emissions (and there is no reason they should) so why would they care what we do?

 I have to admit  that I didn't actually read it all.   After about 20 lines I felt my will to live slipping away - so I gave up reading it.

  What did he say?  (In 3 lines or less please).      

What Woss got wong is that if Australia went carbon neutral tomorrow within one year manmade CO2 emissions would  be back to where they would have been. I see no sign that China and India pay the slightest bit of attention when the USA and Europe reduce their emissions (and there is no reason they should) so why would they care what we do?

Is that not a bit school playground logic ?

We should care , because we should care . 

What about the old adage 'lead by example' ?

Ah yes, pointless sacrifice. A great way to run a country, or even a planet.

We can argue the existence, genesis, and magnitude of AGW/CC indefinitely, but the fact remains that a massive chunk of the planet is just being introduced to a consistent access to electricity for the first time, generally through the use of coal. They'll not be denied what we see as common conveniences on any grounds, nor should they. As for the world which is already in a more developed state, economic seppuku is not a reasonable, or even particularly effective, response w.r.t. any calamity, including climate.

Humans have a long history of sacrificing virgins to weather gods. Even if there were the possibility of securing virgins to sacrifice, the juice is not worth the squeeze. A complete collapse of Western society doesn't meaningfully change the projected outcome.

We're much better off working toward risk mitigation as opposed to the foolish notion that man, as a whole or individually, can meaningfully shift the planetary climate decades or even centuries into the future. The absurd compulsion to assign blame, and thus sanction, is as ineffective as it is unnecessary.

We're much better off addressing other issues that we actually can influence, like plastics in the ocean or particulate emissions. Problems which have actual answers are less captivating than hysteria over a relentless leviathan, but they are much more achievable in terms of potential success. Perhaps that explains the inaction. 

All these contrary arguments are based on some notion that we need to regress to 'sacrificing virgins' etc.

This is a common defence mechanism of black and white thinking. "It's either, or,  syndrome.

That is also a very undeveloped childish or adolescent thinking/processing method.

The notion that we can somehow 'switch off' our current reliance on fossil fuels is absurd , and equally absurd is that we bury our heads in the sand and still have this utopian viewpoint that a system geared to constant and increased economic growth is sustainable within a finite system. 

That kind of thinking is an equal form of 'magical thinking' as is the notion that praying to some sky god will fix it for us.

Edited by carlt, 18 February 2020 - 12:48.

You're mistaken on how I'm approaching this issue. I'm not seeing it as black and white at all. I absolutely feel that's what is being offered to me and I'm rejecting it.

I can't speak to the Aussie politics which has been discussed, but I can certainly address what's been kicked around in the US. Let's look at The Green New Deal. It's actually been proposed in Congress, but it faced broad opposition.

These are some of its points:

• Elimination of all fossil fuels by 2050
• Elimination of nuclear energy by 2030
• Elimination of all IC engine vehicles. Cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats, etc. within 10 years
• Elimination of air travel
• Reconstruction or retrofitting of every single building in the US to reach certain energy standards within 10 years
• Government control of dietary intake including the banning of meat

Did this pass? No, It was voted down. That's not the point. The point is that this is what is being put forth as the potential 'fix'. Let's agree that the above criticism of me is 100% warranted and my logic is, "a very undeveloped childish or adolescent thinking/processing method." I'll accept that criticism without explanation or defense. Is there anyone who can look at the points above and not see it as some version of 'sacrificing virgins' or economic suicide?

------------------------------------------------------

And carlt, this is a racecar forum, not Twitter. Most of us have been around here for quite a while, including you. Act like it.

Edited by Fat Boy, 18 February 2020 - 22:06.

You're mistaken on how I'm approaching this issue. I'm not seeing it as black and white at all. I absolutely feel that's what is being offered to me and I'm rejecting it.

 

I can't speak to the Aussie politics which has been discussed, but I can certainly address what's been kicked around in the US. Let's look at The Green New Deal. It's actually been proposed in Congress, but it faced broad opposition.

 

These are some of its points:

 

• Elimination of all fossil fuels by 2050
• Elimination of nuclear energy by 2030
• Elimination of all IC engine vehicles. Cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats, etc. within 10 years
• Elimination of air travel
• Reconstruction or retrofitting of every single building in the US to reach certain energy standards within 10 years
• Government control of dietary intake including the banning of meat

. . . and I am sure almost everyone on this forum would reject that proposal as well ie I doubt that extreme view is what is being argued here - by anyone. My personal view is that economic levers should be gently pressed wherever possible to encourage sustainable and/or environmentally friendly outcomes. The problem with allowing a "free market" to determine the best outcome is there is no "cost" applied to environmental degradation. No cost applied to depletion of finite resources either (even fossil fuels). Should we keep growing our system exponentially until one minute to midnight then realise something vital is about to run out?

Edited by gruntguru, 19 February 2020 - 02:32.

Is that proposal literally that extreme? I haven't seen such a rigid proposal myself.

Although I welcome the idea to consider the need of e.g. flying short distances instead of using other means of transport. LeClerc going from Monaco to Milano via plane is such an example.

Fat Boy, I was not intending a personal comment (thats why I didn't 'quote' your post). I used one of your hyperboles to reflect a certain pattern of discourse that is adolescent in its nature, and was becoming prevalent in this thread. 

I agree with much of your sentiment in above posts.

Where we may differ is in an assumption that AGW is an impossible 'leviathan' that warrants no  action other than 'risk mitigation'.

I perceive the only sensible action as global and integral (i.e. pollution, resource depletion, habitat depletion, species depletion, AGW etc) and then to treat the biosphere as if it is a self regulating being (similar to our own sub-conscious self regulatory system)

as an aside

It is an interesting thought experiment to consider the biosphere (Gaia as it has been called)  as a conscious entity, particularly in light of the latest Integrated information theory measurement of consciousness, which suggests that consciousness may be a fundamental property of matter (New Scientist 1st Feb. 2020).

I consider it hubristic and very ego-centric for us humans to assume that we have the only consciousness, to dismiss other levels of consciousness (especially as we know sweet f.a. about our own) is extremely short sighted.

Edited by carlt, 19 February 2020 - 12:18.

What Woss got wong is that if Australia went carbon neutral tomorrow within one year manmade CO2 emissions would  be back to where they would have been. I see no sign that China and India pay the slightest bit of attention when the USA and Europe reduce their emissions (and there is no reason they should) so why would they care what we do?

Woss was in fact totally aware of this. As you would expect from a professor of economics.

Specifically on China.

Edited by gruntguru, 19 February 2020 - 23:09.

Here's wiki's take on that graph

https://en.wikipedia...federations.png

It didn't pass the sniff test. Given the growth in China's GDP, they'd have to have made incredible advances in efficiency in a few years to plateau like that.

Edited by Greg Locock, 20 February 2020 - 06:00.

Either way, China's performance is remarkable, particularly considering their per-capita emissions are still less than half those of the US or Aus.

China's GDP is 2/3 that of the USA yet emits 50% more CO2.

Ok, I know you and I can can spend endless time cherry picking stats, but I don't think it is clear cut, and I don't think much of Garnaut most of the time.