From Canberra to Copenhagen

Big Dave said:

It’s farcical to think that we can change the climate anyway! LMAO!

Sorry Big Dave, you might not be old enough to remember the ozone depleting CFC issue .. but it was real and it was caused by humans. Luckily, we actually had a simple solution and the issue was dealt with. Carbon pollution is not so easy .. doesn’t mean it isn’t real or not caused by humans.

One question for all the doubters … what does any politician get out of creating a “big new tax” on anything other than being hugely unpopular and creating a backlash? Nothing. Politicians are just as allergic to creating new taxes as the little people who have to pay it are.

Sorry imhotep, I’m just not gullible enough to be taken in by this scam. You only have to look at the proposed ETS that Rudd wants to suspiciously steamroll through. Nothing but a blatant tax grab that will do absolutely zero for the environment and everything for the government coffers! It’s farcical to think that we can change the climate anyway! LMAO! Mother Nature always has done and will continue to do it herself long after we are gone.

housebound said :

…. it makes it hard for anyone not working in the field to know who and what to believe. In variably, we (the unwashed masses) end up believing the better (louder, better funded and more organised) communicators or those who say what we want to hear in a way we can understand it.

You don’t have to be part of the ‘unwashed masses’ in this debate. You can easily educate yourself about merits of either side of the climate-change ‘debate’ by objectively looking at the evidence (simply via Google if you wish). Look at which side cherry-picks the evidence. Look at which sides claims any uncertainties as ‘proof’ in their argument. Look at the sort of people who are promoting each side.

In reality, amongst the scientific community there is no real debate about human-caused climate change -the jury came in on that one a long while ago. The climate-change deniers (and the media) create an illusion of debate by giving a dispropotionately loud voice to anyone who supports their cause and can plausibly be called a scientist.

housebound said :

When it comes to scientific debate, most scientists are right at least some of the time, all are wrong at least some of the time, and almost all have a vested interest in having their version of science (whatever it may be) heard above all others.

The CRU scandal – with evidence of suppression of alternative views from being published – is just one example. Here’s another closer to home. The need to chase external grants in lieu of core funding for research has caused this type of problem, so it won’t stop anytime soon.

But it does mean that when we come to a high stakes debate, it makes it hard for anyone not working in the field to know who and what to believe. In variably, we (the unwashed masses) end up believing the better (louder, better funded and more organised) communicators or those who say what we want to hear in a way we can understand it.

What a good response. How very true. We become unstuck when we believe our view of something is totally correct. Every adult human changes his view of the world and everything in it many times during their journey through life as he/she develops. Look how much our “Proven” scientific knowledge has changed over the last century.

So when it comes to this debate, put self interest aside for one moment and seek to listen to your instinct, your inner voice. Is our current life style, energy consumption, farming practises sustainable or not?

Can the next 50 years be the same as the last 50 years, or do we have to change. When you take your emotional reaction out of the picture, what does your inner voice say?

There is no need for panic or hysteria, for that is how we will stuff it all up, but what we as the little people can do is stop listening to the media and educate ourselves from many different varying sources, and be open to listening to all the opposing opinions.

When it comes to scientific debate, most scientists are right at least some of the time, all are wrong at least some of the time, and almost all have a vested interest in having their version of science (whatever it may be) heard above all others.

The CRU scandal – with evidence of suppression of alternative views from being published – is just one example. Here’s another closer to home. The need to chase external grants in lieu of core funding for research has caused this type of problem, so it won’t stop anytime soon.

But it does mean that when we come to a high stakes debate, it makes it hard for anyone not working in the field to know who and what to believe. In variably, we (the unwashed masses) end up believing the better (louder, better funded and more organised) communicators or those who say what we want to hear in a way we can understand it.

BigDave said :

It’s a shame that these “climate scientists” can’t tell us the truth for fear of their government funding being cut, eh?!

Sounds to me like the scientists simply aren’t telling you the ‘truth’ that you want to hear.

.

I am totally in favour of global warming. Canberra needs a beach.

Sorry Tuvalu. My advice is to try to discover some oil.

yellowredme

If a 16 year old can’t understand a simple bus timetable, perhaps he should go back to school?

It’s a shame that these “climate scientists” can’t tell us the truth for fear of their government funding being cut, eh?!

IMHO Copenhagen is a pretty silly place to hold just such a conference. All that pointless hot air will melt all that northern european winter snow and cause flooding.

Of course climate change is all a fraud. I heard it from a guy on the internet. I mean…who do you want to believe? Pretty much every climate scientist on the globe? Pah!

Chop71 said :

Scientists tip 2010 as hottest yet –

Well of course they do, they get more funding to perform the next study…..
and next year…..OMG it is getting hotter …….. more money, more studies …

…and the kids at school learn this great poem
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.

yes folks, back in the 1900’s we had droughts and flooding rains
(although we didn’t have as many people running around saying OMG the sky is falling)

lol… my grandmother always quotes that poem when people start harping on about climate change!

I’m already tired of hearing about the Summit. It’s all hot air if you ask me

First of all I apologise for going off on a tangent, it relates to carbon footprint etc …

Lonefighter, I agree public transport in Canberra is inadequate, I moved here as a nursing student and had to buy a car to get around, I surmised Australia’s capitial would have good public transport, but buses dont run early or late (I can’t bus to hospital shifts, nor get home from a night out on public transport, most venues are in Civic, a taxi home is expensive, no wonder Canberra has high DUI rates). I admit express/peak hour buses are good and I can get my bike on the bus.

My home backs onto a main road with two bus stops in sight, busing to Uni in the middle of the day I have ended up walking because buses were late, another didnt turn up when I had an appointment, this journey takes 8 minutes by car but sometimes half an hour by bus if I have to transfer. Frequency and reliability of daytime buses leaves alot to be desired, maybe it is a matter of supply and demand.

Planning a new or spontaneous bus journey isn’t easy, the transport info line operates 7am-8pm Monday to Friday (shorter hours on weekends) operators have had difficulty identifying where I catch a bus from (even when given cross street details), timetables and maps are informative but it takes a while to figure out journies with transfers. A 16 yo who visits thinks it is too difficult to figure out and just waits until a bus turns up. Easily accessible info could influence more people to use public transport and in turn allow more buses to run cost effectively.

I have emailed and phoned Action Buses asking why Canberra, a capital city, does not have an online journey planner (Sydney’s is good, London’s is briliant). Action gave several verbal replies: it will be up and running soon, try Google Maps (does not work), no we dont have one. I wrote to the Transport Minister, his reply said Action Buses had advised the Minister’s office that Google Maps provide a journey planner for Canberra. I tried Google Maps again, it certainly doesnt work for the routes I require. I emailed Action quoting the Minister’s reply, they replied advising that although they had given Google Maps the info it was out of their control as to when Google chooses to use this information. It is a poor excuse giving the impression Action have not outlaid money for a journey planner, or they wouldn’t allow Google to fob them off.

I have had parking fines for squeezing my little car into voids during busy parking periods, I would hope that this revenue may go towards solving these problems. Lack of accessible public transport causes our small population spread over a wide area parking problems, parking at Canberra Uni often nears capacity as student numbers have increased, it was discussed in a student publication that commuters may be using UC to park for free whilst busing into Civic or Belconnen.

Maybe I have just become spoiled living away from Oz for a few years using efficient public transport and not needing a car. Saying all of this, I should really use my bike more to lessen my carbon footprint and save money, Im the one that slows down the fast guys on the bike paths particularly on the hills!

There, I have had my rant.

you of course can have your opinions, toad – but the science isn’t ‘junk’; unlike the ‘evidence’ to which denialists resort.

I think it is always a good thing to clean up our environment, that can’t hurt, but we don’t need a New World Order to tell us how to do it. It should be managed by each individual government down to a local level.

On the first day of Copenhagen… the media got hold of a leaked doc that outlined plans to bypass the UN and screw over developing countries.

On the second day they argued over said document.

On the third day, they said %&*$ it, we’re going home.

We have a PM whose blatant toadying to Obama makes the Howard / Bush thing look like an equal partnership and whose efforts to create a role for himself as a world leader instead of a petty bureaucrat are both comical and embarrassing.

I agree that we need to rein in our reliance on coal and oil, stop cutting down forests & plant more trees and stop polluting our air and water; but this frenzied “we’ll all be rooned” catastrophic climate change mentality is the abandonment of all common sense.

The world is warming and sea levels are rising. 10 000 years ago it was much colder and you could walk from Singapore to Hobart. In another 10 000, Queanbeyan might be a seaside village.

Barking toads likening the Copenhagen to an evangelist in a white suit claiming that salvation is sold here for a meagre donation is all too true unfortunately.

Good work Coach! While it appears that KRudd seems more focused on getting himself elected to the supreme council of every world forum, there is some good work happening in Copenhagen.

What about ‘On the 4th day of Copenhagen the conference gave to me …. the tiny country of Tuvalu keen to stop sinking in the sea!’

Anyone been there? I have … highest point on the whole island is about 1 metre above sea level. Not much room for complacency or the Mad Monk’s ‘lets wait to see what every other country on the planet does before we do anything to cut our unsustainable, fossil fuel intensive, environmentally destructive over consumption’ attitude.

If you want to understand the dodgy temperature measurements as adjusted by CRU (as exposed by the leaked emails/coding) with the assistance of the now politically correct BoM and CSIRO have a look at the featured post about Darwin’s temperature records at http://www.wattsupwiththat.com/

The shenanagins at Copenhagen are like a tent revivalist meeting with conversions, swooning and, most of all, money extraction.

As Thumper noted, our little Kev747 trots after Hussein like a lovesick puppy seeking attention as he angles for a plum job at the UN.

Meanwhile the “do as I say, not as I do” crowd fly to Copenhagen in their private jets to be collected by limos that had to be driven from other countries to meet the demand so they can pose and demand the great unwashed must reduce their carbon footprint (whatever that stupid saying means).

A pathetic political circus with competing interests driven by a lust for power and money based on junk science provided by those benefiting from the scam.

Yes it came out of my mind, yesterday at my desk, taking a break from my work. Whether it is good or not depends on whose filters it is read through. It’s purpose is to stimulate debate.

But I will allow myself the indulgence to add an observation, and this one is a quote from Deepak Chopra’s new book “A tightly focused mind becomes narrow and linear if it can’t expand. We are all guilty of following narrow mental grooves, like a train confined to one narrow set of tracks.”

So whatever your current opinion, lets allow ourselves to step out of judgement mode (where we judge everything to be right or wrong based on our current beliefs) and get into curiosity mode, where we seek to understand why other people hold different opinions. We don’t need to agree with them, just respect the opinions and attempt to undertand where they come from.

Scientists tip 2010 as hottest yet –

Well of course they do, they get more funding to perform the next study…..
and next year…..OMG it is getting hotter …….. more money, more studies …

…and the kids at school learn this great poem
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.

yes folks, back in the 1900’s we had droughts and flooding rains
(although we didn’t have as many people running around saying OMG the sky is falling)

A… LITTLE bit optimistic, you say?

If you’re living in a fantasy world of fairies and unicorns it’s a little bit optimistic.

If Canberra wants to go green then one way is to put something decent to do in Southside to reduce people driving to Civic and Northside thus reduce our carbon imprint. Also could it kill them to put in place a decent public transport system- buses are too unreliable and slow, Taxis too expensive.

I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth

Sounds like we should sit around singing ‘Kumbaya…’

is this actually your work, coach – or lifted from another’s creativity? in which case citing a source and not purporting it to be ‘your contribution’ would be appropriate; even if we are only little ol’ riotact…

it is good but, if a little over-optimistic. the ‘outcome’ from copenhagen is more likely to mimic doha trade negotiations – which linger yet, some years after doha was spick and polished, if less endowed with mermaids than copenhagen.