Australia to Cut Global Warming Funding by 90%

[Bells]

I'd like to say that this is idiocy and that it should be thrown down, but while I'm sure out of hand that global warming is a fact, I haven't reviewed the statistical evidence myself and so my comments would be unrooted.

I'm sure my pointless comment reassures everyone. Actually, is the core data online? I realise there are numerous studies.

Australians notice the changes. The weather conditions are more extreme. The droughts are more severe and more numerous. Dams were drying up. And then you get these extreme rain events.. The one that hit the Lockear Valley resulted in such a tragic loss of lives and it came out of the blue.. What was meant to be a day with showers and some rain resulted in severe flash flooding and a wall of water coming down a mountain and hitting small towns in the valley with people not even having time to run..

In my home State, we were getting battered by one severe cyclone after another. As for the severe thunderstorms.. It is so bad now that just about every single storm causes damage in some way, shape or form. My parents nearly lost their house in a severe hail storm the likes rarely seen - tennis ball sized hail storm that lasted for over 20 minutes. And the wind.. They nearly lost the roof, the roof tiles were damaged, they suffered severe damage to the internal walls since the hail was coming down so big, thick and fast that it clogged up the gutters in about 2 minutes and the water from that flooded under the roof line and into the walls and ceiling.. The trees were knocked down, those that were not lost all of their leaves and fruit.. This was wide spread and it is literally a daily occurrence in some areas. In the warmer months, these are daily occurrences in many areas of the state. Sure, big storms are a thing in Queensland. But the severity and the numbers of them is increasing every year. I would dare Mr Abbott to come to Queensland and declare that climate change is not real. We know it is very real. The farmers also know it is all too real.

The threat to people's homes, health and livelihood is all too real here.

It is a political stunt, by Abbott. The Carbon tax was unpopular, but we adapted, we were given subsidies and aid to cover for it. So in the end it was not that bad. Especially with the subsidies that allowed people to access solar panels.. Abbott won the election on the promise of eliminating the Carbon Tax (after painting it as some sort of dooms day tax) and to not impose any new taxes. The first budget saw the elimination of the Carbon Tax, but the implementation of so many new taxes and cuts to health and education, cuts to the poor and new taxes imposed on them and now cuts to climate change programs as well - which include subsidies for solar panels which reduce dependency on coal burning for electricity. It's ridiculous. When you drive around in Queensland, for example, solar panels are common now. The reliance on environmentally unfriendly sourced electricity fell. People's power bills went down, it was better for the environment. Why would you not continue with such schemes? It is good for the environment, reduces our reliance on oil and coal, we pay less for power.. We are using an energy source that is clean and safe.. It defies logic.

To put it into how bad it is here and how the weather has changed.. A few weeks ago, my kids went surfing at the beach, the water was warm and the weather even warmer. Usually at the start of May, it is cool enough to make beach swimming an unpleasant experience. But the temperature was in the mid 30's and the water temperature in the mid 20's. It was ridiculous. No one could understand why it was still so warm and why it was as hot as it gets in summer (we had to turn the aircon on). My kids were in the pool every day after school it was that hot. Then on the Thursday night, the weather bureau issued a forecast of possible snow in the ranges behind us (about 30 minutes away). Of course no one believed it. We went to sleep, no blankets because it was so hot and by 3am, the temperature had dropped down to about 5 degrees. Not by 5, but to 5 degrees. It was freezing cold for the next week. Today, it is warm enough for me to be wearing shorts and a t-shirt with fans back on. This is not normal here, at all. Sure, we enjoy a more temperate climate than most of the country, but this? Not normal. And that tool in Canberra cuts global warming funding by 90% because he does not believe in climate change?

It is infuriating.

 

[CptBork]

For maximum irony, they should use the money to build a nuclear power plant, thus doing far more to reduce carbon emissions than it would as "global warming" funding!

That would indeed reduce global warming, but in its place the atmosphere would be flooded with evil negative ions and world karma would take the damage instead. Power your factories with love, not radiation!

 

[GeoffP]

Australians notice the changes. The weather conditions are more extreme. The droughts are more severe and more numerous. Dams were drying up. And then you get these extreme rain events.. The one that hit the Lockear Valley resulted in such a tragic loss of lives and it came out of the blue.. What was meant to be a day with showers and some rain resulted in severe flash flooding and a wall of water coming down a mountain and hitting small towns in the valley with people not even having time to run.

This might be symptomatic but only a proper geospatial analysis of temperature increases would be able to tell. I'd be interested in having a go at it, probably under less restrictive thresholds.

 

[sculptor]

$5.75 billion/year?
Absolute insanity------better to spend the money on education.

I wonder how much money the usa is throwing at the ill perceived and conceived "problem" ?

 

[wellwisher]

That's true. As another example, if I am competing with your business, and our businesses share a shopping center, I might get excellent insurance and then have a friend burn down the shopping center. That would mean change. Afterwards there will be winners and losers. Did you wisely purchase insurance? Then you might win. Did you neglect to get good insurance? Then you will lose.

Surely you would not complain about such a change. After all, why should you be protected? Why not just let natural changes (like fire) redistribute things?

If you look at natural history, the earth has gone through many changes over the eons, from asteroids that killed the dinosaurs to the last ice age that we have warmed up. In all cases, the earth and life survive and continue to evolve. Why not allow the change, since it always turns out fine in the end.

The problem with liberalism is, it is based on short term thinking. The man made climate change sales pitch does not include longer term natural explanations which would allow for perspective. The magic trick works by focusing on a narrow time frame. This same short term mentality then extrapolates the now as the long term ideal that needs to be protected at all costs.

Conservatism is about longer term trends, such as religions that go back thousands of years. This makes one's mind more open to longer term patterns in nature from which the average always works out as a whole.

As an analogy, if you look at the stock market, it has short terms ups and downs, which are more visible as you narrow the time frame. But if you look at the longest time frame this chatter becomes smoother and is averaged out. The short term liberal mind makes mountains out of mole hills because it gets caught up in the short term data noise, while lacking long term perspective. This animates emotions, not the power of reason.

 

[sculptor]

Many of the agw alarmist seem to be close minded, in that they do not(or refuse to) recognize a likely connection between us having been in a grand solar maximum during most of the warming during the latter 1/2 of the last century.
Mention that the warming slowed and stopped as we exited the grand maximum, and peculiar things happen to the conversation.
Refusal to consider all climate influences seems indicative of mass insanity.

There is a schism within the study of climate science that is retarding the advancement of the science.

 

[iceaura]

from asteroids that killed the dinosaurs to the last ice age that we have warmed up. In all cases, the earth and life survive and continue to evolve. Why not allow the change, since it always turns out fine in the end.

It didn't turn out fine for the dinosaurs, though, did it. Or the wooly mammoths.

Things like that tend to turn out fine for cockroaches. Ants. Burrowing little rodents. Jellyfish. Pond scum. Depends on who you identify with, I guess.

Mention that the warming slowed and stopped as we exited the grand maximum, and peculiar things happen to the conversation.

You mean you get laughed at, and people tell you you're full of shit? Yeah, I can see that happening. Any idea why?

This might be symptomatic but only a proper geospatial analysis of temperature increases would be able to tell.

We just had a near record cold winter in the north central midwest, ended up something like the fifth coldest and longest in recorded history,

and managed it without setting a single 24 hour record low temperature for any date. And it rained again in January - something like the 17th or 18th consecutive year of January rain, formerly a one year in seven phenomenon. What are the odds? And this is not an odd little corner of the world - it's the middle of the flat, open, hugely expansive center of the North American continent.

 

[billvon]

Many of the agw alarmist seem to be close minded, in that they do not(or refuse to) recognize a likely connection between us having been in a grand solar maximum during most of the warming during the latter 1/2 of the last century.

Since 1995 we have been having an unusually quiet solar period, significantly lower in both solar output and sunspot activity compared to the rest of the 20th century. And yet we are still (slowly) warming, with 2010 being tied with 2005 for the hottest year ever. Were you unaware of that fact?
Next question - what do you think will happen when the sun returns to its average output?

Mention that the warming slowed and stopped as we exited the grand maximum, and peculiar things happen to the conversation.

You mean like deniers start screaming bloody murder? Yes, I've seen that. Fortunately more rational scientists usually prevail.

 

[Ghostwriter]

Wasn't it found that Australia's free market capitalism was what started the first ice age? I cannot believe they refuse to take this responsibility seriously!!!!

 

[GeoffP]

We just had a near record cold winter in the north central midwest, ended up something like the fifth coldest and longest in recorded history,

and managed it without setting a single 24 hour record low temperature for any date. And it rained again in January - something like the 17th or 18th consecutive year of January rain, formerly a one year in seven phenomenon. What are the odds? And this is not an odd little corner of the world - it's the middle of the flat, open, hugely expansive center of the North American continent.

That's a single almost anecdotal observation. Incredible concepts require incredible evidence. The data is online; I might have a go at it once I get done everything else I have to do. I think there might be either traction or problem with the missing factors: that which is not known in the association. I guess it depends on what is available for each modeling run.

 

[wellwisher]

Climate change is an illusion created by an over abundance of news stations, climate scientists and amateur video competition. The effect is similar to when there is a jet liner crash. Although flying is safer than an automobile, it gets sensationalized until a segment of the population thinks it is worse. If you broadcast one event, a hundred times, at many angles, and get all the experts to talk about it, over and over, some minds get confused relative to data weight.

If I wanted fewer hurricane to look like more, you simply add music and experts and play these from any angles.

Another aspect of this special effect is connected to more detailed coverage of everything. Before there were satellites, the internet, cells phone cameras, cable stations, and youtube, most things witnessed were never shared like they are now. If I saw a sun beam 100 years ago, I might tell a few close friends but that is as far as it goes in terms of the popular data. It would not be included as valid data if I am the only eye witness. Today if I use my cell phone camera and thousands view it on youtube, it counts more in the general data and looks like more documented sun beams for climate change. The same things of the past, not reported in a reliable way, are now reported, thereby adding what appears to be more data.

As an experiment, have two groups collecting data from a staged event, with one group having cameras, and the other only word of mouth. They will both see the same things. Which will have more credibility and which data will count more? Nobody wants to put a reputation on the line for word of mouth, but if you have pictures, you will get more support. This tricks the weak mind.

The cutting of funding will result in less data collection thereby making climate change appear milder.

 

[GeoffP]

And the analysis of this phenomenon is what to you then?

The cutting of funding will serve to blind us, and your cynical motives are noted.

 

[Asguard]

As this twit tries to wind back any clean energy technology so we can go back to the "golden age of coal" or some rubbish we have this news coming out

West Antarctic ice sheet collapse 'unstoppable'
ABC

Ice is melting in the western Antarctic at an unstoppable pace, say NASA scientists.

The discovery holds major consequences for global sea level rise in the coming decades, they warn.

The speedy melting means that prior calculations of sea level rise worldwide made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will have to be adjusted upwards, say the scientists.

"A large sector of the West Antarctic ice sheet has gone into a state of irreversible retreat. It has passed the point of no return," says Eric Rignot, professor of Earth system science at the University of California Irvine.

"The retreat of ice is unstoppable," he says, noting that surveys have shown there is no large hill at the back of these glaciers that could hold back the melting ice.

"This retreat will have major consequences for sea level rise worldwide," he adds, anticipating the melting will take place largely in the next two centuries.

"It will raise sea level by 1.2 metres," says Rignot, whose paper has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

A previous study published in the same journal documents observational changes in the Antarctic in recent years, and predict the future behaviour of the melting ice through computer models.

Rignot, a glaciologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, says his study compiles data from satellites, airplanes, ships and ground surveys in the West Antarctic ice sheet.

Retreat of the Pine Island Glacier has slowed in recent years, but scientists say that was likely to due to a very rapid retreat it went through at first.

The nearby Thwaites glacier has been speeding up since 2006.

"From year to year things can change a little bit, so it is really important when looking at this observational evidence to look at the long term trend of these glaciers," says Rignot.

Thwaites Glacier melt
A separate study published in the journal Science found that Thwaites Glacier is melting fast and that its collapse could raise global sea level by more than half a metre.

That study was based largely on computer modelling of the future, in addition to airborne radar measurements of the West Antarctic ice sheet that allowed scientists to map the underlying bedrock.

Study author Ian Joughin, a glaciologist at the University of Washington, says the process is now expected to take between 200 and 1000 years.

He also found that such a collapse may be inevitable.

"All of our simulations show it will retreat at less than a millimetre of sea level rise per year for a couple of hundred years, and then, boom, it just starts to really go," says Joughin.

Current projections of sea level rise, agreed upon by international surveys, do not account for the Antarctic ice sheet melting.

Future projections
Sridhar Anandakrishnan, professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University, says that studies like these will cause the United Nations to revisit their projections.

"The number for 2100 will almost certainly be revised and revised upwards, and my guess is toward what is now their upper limit of something like 90 centimetres," says Anandakrishnan, who was not involved in the new reports.

He says that the rise in sea level is widely accepted to be a result of human-caused climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels.

"As glaciers and ice sheets flow faster, that water has nowhere to go but in the ocean and once in the ocean this results in a rise in sea level around the globe," he says.

Even though in the past, Greenland has been the source of most melting glaciers, that appears to be changing, with more and more coming from the South Pole.

"Thus far the loss of ice from Antarctica has not been of the same scale. This appears to be changing," he says

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2014/05/13/4003536.htm