International Day of Action on climate change 4-NOV-06

i think research suggests that an ice age is expected in the next 10 000 years or so..but could happen as soon as 10 years. No-one really knows.. and I guess if you take the perspective that we are fucked either way.. then who cares. or we could take the perspective of cutting a loss now and saving all these fossil fuels for when we really need them.

my bet is still on supervolcano.

Seems a bit silly to me when we have abundant reserves of coal and nautral gas. But it always intrigues me how we’ve had solar technology now for over 50 years and it still hasn’t become economic beyond very small scale applications.

But I agree what you say some scientists think we are very close to entering another ice age. It’s extremely difficult to point out what’s human induced and what’s not.

Interestingly, there was an article in I think New Scientist and a couple of other of those magazine type journals a month or two ago showing that all the other planets in the solar system are heating up as well!!!

Yes that’s right – consumption is evil…mmmm yep.

Howard hasn’t changed his position on climate change over the past two weeks, but he has managed to get a few lefties hook line and sinker. This is what he said last night:

“Clearly, if we can reach an understanding between all of the world’s major emitters and all of the nations of the world, it is possible to have an international emissions trading system.

“That is a path forward to which this Government is committed.”

These are not new words. He can huff and puff all he likes but he’s smiling like a chesire cat underneath as he knows an agreement including all the worlds major emitters and all the nations of the world is never going to happen.

There is no way China and India are going to sign on to any multilateral agreement which curbs their economic growth and standards of living. Meanwhile, if we choose to go it alone, they will laugh themselves silly as we decrease our competitiveness on global markets. They’ll also gladly take any money or technologies the west may donate to them and promptly piss it up the wall.

Living sustainably = does no harm
Over consumption = ? noone knows – it’s a gamble.

Australia’s climate has waxed and waned from wet to dry period that can last up to 50 years at a time. For christ’s sake we can’t even forecast the weather with any accuracy seven days out….

There are plenty of scientists out there who dispute climate change, and consequently seen as pariahs. Funny through history its been the pariahs who have made the major breakthroughs.

Berate me all you want, I used to work in this field and know the science and I am coming at this from an economics perspective. It is ludicrous to throw money at something where the impacts and potential costs and benefits are highly uncertain. Look at Bjorn Lomborg on Wikipedia for a different point of view.

At this stage in the electoral cycle Howard always starts throwing a bit of money around and huffing and puffing about all sorts of things recently it’s been money for stupid solar panels and throwing money at apprenticeships.

This will be the mayor’s next attempt to strut the world stage as he uses our scarce financial resources to try and set up a carbon trading scheme for the ACT to jump on the bandwagon of the climate alarmists.

30 odd years ago these alarmist types were telling us how the sky was falling as we entered a new ice age. Now the sky is falling because of global warming (although that term is out of favour, it’s now climate change – to allow for the cold snaps like last week).

The tree hugging hippies won’t be happy until we all live in caves and eat roots and leaves but they’ll puff their chests out and tell all and sundry how they’ve done their bit by going on a walk against warming as they drive home to whack on the aircon ‘cos it’s too hot.

The planet has been going through warming and cooling periods for millions of years. This extended period of hot, dry weather is part of nature – it’s called the weather.

Kyoto, carbon trading and all the talk of minimising our carbon footprint is just gay.

I don’t know if Canberra is generating the kind of heat or increased albedo that would have much effect on the climate. That’s just an opinion, Mr E, and I’m happy to be proved wrong.

The local climate in Canberra will no doubt have been affected somewhat by the expansion of the city over the past 20-30 years, although I also believe that global warming has something to do with this too.

I remember in the late 80’s we actually used to get flooding in the cotter area. Also i note that the last few canberra winters have seemed a lot shorter and not as ferociously cold.

Seepi – it sad that there are people out there like that… but i think the numbers are slowly gathering to the side of those who give a shit, and those who can put 1 and 1 together.

Ralph you are more behind the times than John Howard – scary.
Even he is coming around to climate change.