Demonising Carbon

Published at the request of Viv Forbes:

“Demonising Carbon – a Death Wish?”

 
A statement by Viv Forbes, Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition.
9 March 2009
 
The Carbon Sense Coalition today called on all parties in the looming state election to make a clear statement on their policies regarding Emissions Trading and Carbon Taxes.
 
The Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition, Mr Viv Forbes, said that politicians in a state so overwhelmingly dependent on carbon energy, carbon food and taxes on carbon products can no longer hide behind hypothetical anti-carbon scare stories based on dubious climate forecasts for 100 years ahead.
 
 “We have a real present emergency with growing fear among investors and shareholders in anything associated with mining, power generation, tourism and farming – the backbone industries of Queensland.”
 
“Much of this fear is generated by an insane campaign to demonise carbon dioxide, the natural atmospheric gas on which all life depends.”
 
“There is growing scientific recognition that carbon dioxide does not control climate – rather the other way around – temperatures rise because of solar influences and those rising temperatures expel carbon dioxide from that great carbon storehouse – the oceans”.
 
“There is also growing recognition that current levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are very low and the gradual increases occurring at present pose no threat to any life on earth. The reverse is true – all life will benefit from more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and the benefits will be increased by the slight warming experienced over the last one hundred years.
 
“We are supposed to panic over carbon dioxide levels of a miniscule 380 parts per million.
 
“Most life, plants and animals, probably developed with CO2 levels of about 1500 ppm – 400% above current levels. This fact is well understood by greenhouse operators who burn gas to increase CO2 levels to at least 1,000 ppm, 260% above current atmospheric levels.
 
“Inside populated buildings, CO2 levels of 3,000 ppm (770% above current levels) have been measured in homes, schools and offices with no ill effects. Even most Health and Safety people consider 5,000 ppm (1,300% above current levels) to be safe. Medical gas given to people with respiratory problems typically contains 50,000 ppm CO2 (13,000% above current levels) and our lung sacs retain about 65,000 ppm (16,800 % above current levels). Not until CO2 levels get to 100,000 ppm (260 times current levels) is there any concern about human health.
 
“All plant life will also benefit from increased carbon dioxide, and much of the extra food produced by the green revolution is the result of the warmer and more carbon-rich atmosphere.
 
“It seems that those who are trying to demonise carbon dioxide have a death wish for Queensland society. To achieve significant cuts in carbon emissions from man’s activities would requires massive destruction of our energy, farming, smelting, cement, transport and tourism industries, together with the jobs and prosperity of the populations that depend on them.
 
“The war against carbon is a war against coal, cattle, concrete, cars, electricity and breathing – who thinks Queensland can survive without these?
 
“It is time for the people of Queensland to be told which parties are supporting or condoning this reckless policy.”
 
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 For more information on the importance of carbon dioxide to human health see:
http://carbon-sense.com/
 
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John Coleman, an experienced meteorologist and founder of the Weather Channel has the last word:
“Global Warming: It is a hoax. It is bad science. It is high-jacking public policy. It is the greatest scam in history”.
Source:
http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/38574742.html
 
————————————————————————————————-
 
Viv Forbes
Chairman
The Carbon Sense Coalition
MS 23  Rosewood        Qld      4340
0754 640 533
info@carbon-sense.com                                                          www.carbon-sense.com.
 
 
The Carbon Sense Coalition was formed in Queensland by Australians concerned at the baseless demonisation of carbon dioxide by an unholy alliance of green extremists, vested interests and political and media opportunists. Support for “Carbon Sense” is growing rapidly. The Coalition aims to expose the lack of scientific support for the anti-carbon campaign, and the real and present threat to our industries and jobs if any of the current proposals for Emissions Trading Taxes or Carbon Taxes are enacted.
 

Captain Bligh sets sail to “rob the treasury” in Canberra

Reader Bushie from Burnett sent in this little ditty and the associated press item from The Courier Mail:

With the Ship of State virtually rudderless, Captain Bligh is off to rob the treasury in Canberra. With the economic storm worsening and as the Ship flounders towards the reef (Election date), the captain and crew are panicking.

Anna Bligh makes dash to Canberra for infrastructure cash

Article from: Michael Madigan, John McCarthy and Melanie Chrisitansen
January 28, 2009 11:00pm
ANNA Bligh has made a mercy dash to Canberra in the hope of accelerating multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects to stave off a state recession.
The Premier’s trip came as inflation posted its biggest quarterly fall in more than a decade, slashing the annual rate from 5 per cent to 3.7 per cent in the face of a dramatic slowing in growth.

Ms Bligh is concerned resource-rich Queensland is dangerously exposed to the global financial crisis.

“Our own data shows that we are seeing a deterioration of the Queensland economy and it’s happened very rapidly,” she said.

Ms Bligh had a breakfast meeting with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. The two agreed a national, co-ordinated bout of pump priming was needed.

Ms Bligh refused to reveal which projects would take priority but said the pair had agreed to “put the pedal to the metal” on major projects.

“Clearly these are unprecedented times and the PM and I are agreed to act swiftly, and carefully,” she said.

“By necessity our conversations are confidential while we get more detail on the proposals before us.”

The Consumer Price Index fell 0.3 percentage points in the December quarter, the largest quarterly fall since 1997, taking inflation to 3.7 per cent.

The figures show the decline was partially due to the drop in the price of petrol, down about 18 per cent over the quarter.

Treasurer Wayne Swan said the inflation figures were a timely reminder of the effects of the financial slowdown.

“I think it’s now clear that inflation in Australia is subsiding – as it is of course around the world – and it’s subsiding in response to the global financial crisis which is slowing growth dramatically in the global economy,” Mr Swan said.

The CPI figures also showed rising food bills had kept the financial pressure on Brisbane consumers.

The overall CPI for Brisbane fell by 0.2 percentage points in the last three months of 2008 – a smaller decline than most other capital cities.

Food prices in Brisbane jumped 2.7 per cent, more than twice the increase in Perth.

The data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics yesterday showed Brisbane food bills were driven up partly by an 8.8 per cent spike in fruit and vegetable prices.

Last night the International Monetary Fund warned advanced economies were suffering their “deepest recession” since World War II.

The grim warning almost ensures the Reserve Bank will cut interest rates by up to 1 percentage point on Tuesday.

The IMF report – which will be released today in Washington – forecasts world economic growth to collapse from 3.4 per cent in 2008 to 0.5 per cent this year.

Advanced economies including the US, Europe, Japan and Australia will contract by an average 2 per cent for the year.

The economy of China is tipped to grow 6.7 per cent, down from 9 per cent last year.

This is particularly bad for Australia, with the IMF reporting that “anaemic global growth has reversed the commodity price boom”.

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Contracting economies means RECESSION. If the economies contract much more than the 2% forecast above, then it would be a DEPRESSION. Now is definitely not a good time to be chasing fools gold with an expensive emissions trading scheme and the associated tax burden.  It wasn’t a good idea before this – man made CO2 is NOT causing catastrophic global warming. An ETS will not reduce world CO2 emissions.

Bob Carter says facts debunk global warming alarmism

Professor Bob Carter has again been quoted in http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24934655-5017272,00.htmlon-line newspaper. His comments deserve more wide spread attention, so here it is in full:

Facts Debunk Global Warming Alarmism 

22 September 2009

THE National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that October in the US was marked by 63 record snowfalls and 115 lowest-ever temperatures.

Over the past few years, similar signs of colder than usual weather have been recorded all over the world, causing many people to question the still fashionable, but now long outdated, global warming alarmism. Yet individual weather events or spells, whether warmings or coolings, tell us nothing necessarily about true climate change.

Nonetheless, by coincidence, growing recognition of a threat of climatic cooling is correct, because since the turn of the 21st century all real world, long-term climate indicators have turned downwards. Global atmospheric temperature reached a peak in 1998, has not warmed since 1995 and, has been cooling since 2002. Some people, still under the thrall of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change’s disproved projections of warming, seem surprised by this cooling trend, even to the point of denying it. But why?

There are two fundamentally different ways in which computers can be used to project climate. The first is used by the modelling groups that provide climate projections to the IPCC. These groups deploy general circulation models, which use complex partial differential equations to describe the ocean-atmosphere climate system mathematically. When fed with appropriate initial data, these models can calculate possible future climate states. The models presume (wrongly) that we have a complete understanding of the climate system.

GCMs are subject to the well-known computer phenomenon of GIGO, which translates as “garbage in, God’s-truth out”.

Alternative computer projections of climate can be constructed using data on past climate change, by identifying mathematical (often rhythmic) patterns within them and projecting these patterns into the future. Such models are statistical and empirical, and make no presumptions about complete understanding; instead, they seek to recognise and project into the future the climate patterns that exist in real world data.

In 2001, Russian geologist Sergey Kotov used the mathematics of chaos to analyse the atmospheric temperature record of the past 4000 years from a Greenland ice core. Based on the pattern he recognised in the data, Kotov extrapolated cooling from 2000 to about 2030, followed by warming to the end of the century and 300 years of cooling thereafter.

In 2003, Russian scientists Klyashtorin and Lyubushin analysed the global surface thermometer temperature record from 1860 to 2000, and identified a recurring 60-year cycle. This probably relates to the Pacific decadal oscillation, which can be caricatured as a large scale El Nino/La Nina climatic oscillation. The late 20thcentury warming represents the most recent warm half-cycle of the PDO, and it projects forwards as cooling of one-tenth of a degree or more to 2030.

In 2004, US scientist Craig Loehle used simple periodic models to analyse climate records over the past 1000 years of sea-surface temperature from a Caribbean marine core and cave air temperature from a South African stalactite. Without using data for the 20th century, six of his seven models showed a warming trend similar to that in the instrumental record over the past 150 years; and projecting forward the best fit model foreshadows cooling of between 0.7 and 1 degree Celsius during the next 20-40 years. In 2007, the 60-year climate cycle was identified again, by Chinese scientists Lin Zhen-Shan and Sun Xian, who used a novel multi-variate analysis of the 1881-2002 temperature records for China. They showed that temperature variation in China leads parallel variation in global temperature by five-10 years, and has been falling since 2001. They conclude “we see clearly that global and northern hemisphere temperature will drop on century scale in the next 20 years”.

Most recently, Italian scientist Adriano Mazzarella demonstrated statistical links between solar magnetic activity, the length of the Earth day (LOD), and northern hemisphere wind and ocean temperature patterns. He too confirmed the existence of a 60-year climate cycle, and described various correlations (some negative). Based on these correlations, Mazzarella concludes that provided “the observed past correlation between LOD and sea-surface temperature continues in the future, the identified 60-year cycle provides a possible decline in sea-surface temperature starting from 2005, and the recent data seem to support such a result”.

Thus, using several fundamentally different mathematical techniques and many different data sets, seven scientists all forecast that climatic cooling will occur during the first decades of the 21st century. Temperature records confirm that cooling is under way, the length and intensity of which remains unknown.

Yet in spite of this, governments across the world – egged on by irrational, deep Green lobbying – have for years been using their financial muscle and other powers of persuasion to introduce carbon dioxide taxation systems. For example, the federal Labor government recently spent $13.9million on climate change advertising on prime time television and in national newspapers and magazines.

Similarly, the London-based Institute for Public Policy Research advised the British Government “ultimately, positive climate behaviours need to be approached in the same way as marketeers approach acts of buying and consuming … It amounts to treating climate-friendly activity as a brand that can be sold. This is, we believe, the route to mass behaviour change.”

Introduction of a carbon dioxide tax to prevent (imaginary) warming, euphemistically disguised as an emissions trading scheme, is a politician’s, ticket clipper’s and mafia chief’s dream. All will welcome a new source of income based on an invisible, colourless, odourless, tasteless and often unmeasurable gas. No commodity changes hands during its trading, and should carbon dioxide emissions actually decrease because of the existence of a carbon dioxide market (which is highly unlikely), the odds are that it will have no measurable effect on climate anyway. Nonetheless, the glistening pot of gold which beckons to be mined from the innocent public is proving nigh irresistible, and it is going to need a strong taxpayer revolt to stop it in Australia.

The present global financial crisis should be inducing politicians not to squander money on non-solutions to non-problems. Yet to support their plans for emissions taxation Western governments, including ours, are still propagating scientifically juvenile greenhouse propaganda underpinned only by circumstantial evidence and GCM computer gamesmanship.

Perhaps a reassessment will finally occur when two-metre thick ice develops again on Father Thames at London Bridge, or when cooling causes massive crop failure in the world’s granary belts.

Bob Carter is an adjunct professor of geology at James Cook University.

Check it out yourself at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24934655-5017272,00.html

Professor Carter’s JCU biography is at http://www.jcu.edu.au/ees/staff/adjunct/JCUDEV_014954.html and his personal page is at http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/

Coalition joins the climate change fight – but without an ETS?

The Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull, is quoted by The Australian as giving a speech which attacks the Australian Government’s unbalanced focus on an emissions trading scheme as a means of addressing man’s influence on the climate. Instead Mr Turnbull states that a Coalition Government would focus on replacing old technology with new.

“An ETS is not an end to itself,” Mr Turnbull will argue. “It’s only part of the solution – one tool in the climate policy tool box and, in fact, no solution at all without new energy sources and new low-emissions technology.”

“Our Green Carbon Initiative will ensure Australia is able to achieve greater reductions in carbon dioxide than those proposed by Mr Rudd, at relatively low cost and with enormous additional benefits to our own country’s environment.”

Hooray! At least part of the message is getting through to the politicians. Also, thank you to readers who have sent copies of my posts to politicians. Suddenly there is a risk-management focus on the climate change debate….

But Mr Turnbull will assert that action on climate change is not a matter of belief or non-belief in the science but a wise exercise in risk-management.

Clever political move Mr Turnbull. Most Australians ARE concerned with the environment. With our abundance of open space, Australians are probably more environmentally aware than other people.

However, Australians are not convinced that another socialist experiment is in anyone’s best interests. The US sub-prime mortgage market was one such experiment, and that triggered the current global economic crisis.

I posted on a risk management view of an ETS in Australia headed for economic strife, but still wants a an Emissions Trading Scheme?

Personally, I support moves to actually protect our environment and have lower human impact on the world we live in – regardless of whether man-made CO2 is causing global warming. (And I still have stuff to readnsay on that topic too!)

Australia headed for economic strife, but still wants an emissions trading scheme?

The Australian economy has held up pretty well against the storm of the global financial crisis, but it appears the financial crisis is starting to bite here too. China’s economy is slowing, which will reduce our exports of resources. It is the resources boom which has insulated Australia from the bulk of the global economic storm so far.

I published this graph in a previous post, How an ETS would create economic chaos to indicate Australia’s recent dependence upon resource mining.

 

Any commercial enterprise with this type of graph of its product mix would have identified this as a commercial risk and acted to mitigate the risk of the main product line going sour for some reason. These actions might include investing in value adding from that product, increasing sales in other existing product lines, not locking in investment in this product line too far in the future, while ensuring that product can be supplied for as long as there is demand for it ……..

Another risk mitigation strategy would be to ensure that the business does not place critical reliance on the cash flow from this one major product. Australia has not made the most of any of these risk mitigating opportunities. Therefore as the demand for our resources slows, we are going to feel a bit of a pinch.

Fortunately this slow down shouldn’t last too long. The world’s financial industry is starting to settle in corrective and remedial action. This will take time to come around, but it will. The upturn will be gradual though, as finance and credit will become available again a bit at a time, not in one wave of a magic wand. In the meantime industry needs to slow activity until the financial markets get back onto firmer ground.

Imagine though if the downturn in industry was imposed for ten years? That is what Australia is facing with the cap, tax and (one day) trade Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. It is our boom and bread and butter industries – mining and agriculture – that will feel the main impacts. Industry will take time to implement the cleaner technologies, once they become technically realistic and cost effective.

Industry invests less in R&D and innovation in a downturn because most efforts and money are spent on ensuring survival. No sense investing heavily in next generation technology if the risk you won’t be around next year is getting uncomfortable.

Also, government invests less in innovation when tax revenue falls. Social security, health, education, policing and security are basic services expected of a government in a developed country. It is the other areas in which there is more flexibility in spending, and that is where the cuts will be made.

Hopefully the policy makers are reviewing their strategy regarding CPRS already.

 

What would you do if you were part of the government policy making team? What risk mitigation strategies and policy changes would you be taking now?

How an ETS would create economic chaos

The news is full of reports of demand for oil dropping and predictions that it will continue to fall during 2009 due to the economic crisis, such as in Reuters 16 January 2009. The same economic factors are in play now as would be under a global emissions trading scheme, just the influence would be in a different direction. Do we want an emissions trading scheme which is the trigger for economic calamity?

The current global financial crisis is spreading into an economic crisis which is slowing industrial demand for a number of inputs, including energy which includes oil. Oil prices are dropping dramatically due to decreased demand for oil. The causal relationship in the current economy looks like this:

access to finance/ credit shrinks -> industrial productivity drops -> consumption drops -> price of oil to the producer drops

Imagine a different trigger event to the finance/ credit crisis, such as an emissions trading scheme which taxes consumption of fossil fuels heavily. The causal relationship then would look like this:

massive tax on fossil fuel consumption -> cost of production increases -> demand for products drops -> industrial activity drops -> demand for fossil fuels drops -> price to the producer drops

In this scenario, everyone loses, including government revenue:

• industrial production drops
• company tax paid to the government drops
• unemployment increases
• taxes paid on wages drop
• standard of living in the developed world drops
• carbon emissions drop a little, but not much, because poor people use carbon based fuels for heat and cooking, they can’t afford swanky solar panels on their roof (if they have a roof), they collect wood and burn it
• clean technology innovation slows because industry can’t afford R&D or upgrades when the economy slows
• global climate keeps on doing what it was doing anyway because the solar cycle is not influenced by economics

What a great scenario. In the meantime, unemployment increases and gross domestic product decreases. A fall in GDP in two successive quarters is called a recession. A fall in GDP of more than 10% is called a depression. What some countries are experiencing currently is bordering on recession, or is recession.

An enforced emissions trading scheme could trigger a full blown depression – a la 1930’s style. The objective of reducing carbon emissions would be achieved only by default – due to a decline in economic activity

Senator Joyce calls environmentalists Nazis

 

Australia’s Senator Barnaby Joyce is making his stance on an emissions trading scheme very clear. AAP today quote the Senator calling global warming theory “eco-totalitarianism” and compares the shunning and hushing of  anyone refuting an emissions trading scheme to the totalitarianism of the Nazi era. The following is an extract from the item on heraldsun.com.au:

 

Environmentalism is like Nazism – Joyce

Article from: AAP January 14, 2009 08:23am

NATIONALS firebrand Barnaby Joyce has launched a fresh attack on emissions trading, drawing parallels between environmentalists and Nazis.

Senator Joyce warned of the rise of “eco-totalitarianism” and said he would not be “goosestepping” along with them.

The Federal Government plans to start emissions trading in 2010 to reduce carbon pollution and take up the fight against climate change.

“The idea that this scheme can go forward and no one’s allowed to question because there’s a new form of eco-totalitarianism that demands blind obedience, I think that is wrong,” the Nationals Senate leader said on ABC radio today.

“One has to fall into lockstep, goosestep and parade around the office ranting and raving that we are all as one?”

He has also written to farmers expressing his views. Refer my post Senator Barnaby Joyce on Climate Change and ETS. I am no fan of the concept either as you may have gathered from Emissions Trading Scheme Does not Make Ecocnomic Sense.

I consider myself an environmentalist, but I am against an emissions trading scheme. I am also against anyone trying to tell me what I should think. So I get where he is coming from.

 Most blogs I have read have a very genteel code of behaviour. If you don’t agree, you say so – politely. In the “in your face” world of politics, it is another matter. Behaviour in Parliament in Western societies would be considered obscenely rude in some other countries.

Also, some global warming alarmists are so absorbed by their beliefs that they will attack anyone who dares to differ. You have to sympathise with them a little – they really believe Al Gore et al and that the world will become inhabitable and life as we know it will cease because of CO2 emissions. If you think your life is threatened you do tend to get a bit tense.

In summary – global warming alarmists, please keep your insults and belittlements to yourself. No one likes being told what to think or that they are too stupid to understand. Open, frank but polite debate is needed with people from both sides of the argument respecting the other’s right to an opinion – even if they are wrong!

CO2 Sceptics Polls Are Enlightening

Here are the results of some of CO2 Sceptics’ recent polls:

Will the control of CO2 lead to world wide economic suicide?

Yes – 85%      No – 12%      Not Sure – 3%

Is carbon trading worth all the fuss?

Yes – 2%       No – 95%      Not sure – 2%

Has politics got in the way of science?

Yes – 98%     No – 2%        Not sure – 0%

Yes, I know, their blog attracts CO2 sceptics, so the answers are only to be expected. However, I was surprised at just how strongly to one side the answers are. It would be interesting to know the numbers and countries of origin of people who voted. Is the “silent majority” starting to speak up?

Emissions Trading Scheme Does Not Make Economic Sense

CPRS and You Booklet

The Australian Treasury prepared a paper called Australia’s Low Pollution Future – The Economics of Climate Change Mitigation which was launched by the Treasurer on 30 October 2008.

This paper presents Treasury’s view that a switch to active measures to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions by 5%-15% from 2000 levels will have a net cost to Australians of only about 5% GDP in real terms. This aligns with IPCC’s economic forecasts which show that developed countries like Australia will mitigate the costs of adapting to reduced CO2 emissions by implementing an emissions trading scheme.

However there is one fundamental difference in the two calculations. Australian Treasury states the 5% reduction in GDP will commence almost from day 1 and continue past the date proposed for Australia to enter the international emissions trading market in the year 2020. IPCC’s economic forecasts show much greater reductions in GDP without engagement in the international emissions trading scheme and mitigation to a few percent if developed countries join in the international emissions trading scheme from the UN’s target date for implementation of 2010 – ten years before Australian Treasury proposes Australia join the international market.

One obvious problem with IPCC’s forecasts is that for the effect on GDP for developed counties to be mitigated by an emissions trading scheme, the developed countries must be getting a cash inflow from somewhere as a result of the trading scheme. From where? The developing countries? Do they think China and India are going to pay other countries for the right to continue to burn fossil fuels?

The problem with the Australian Treasury forecast is that although they state there will be a negative effect on the production of some industries, including coal, alumina and cattle, this will be compensated for by Australia developing greenhouse gas friendly industries. And what might these be? Australian Treasury shows only one industry with significant increasing contribution to GDP – forestry. As Treasury states that their forecast is based on “existing land area” this increase must be made up of a big jump in the value of carbon credits as well as the value of harvested timber. Will we be allowed to harvest the trees we grow?

Forestry is not a significant employer. Once the trees are established there is little activity in maintaining them. Therefore there will be very little economic input into the Australian economy from this industry. I suspect the flow on effects of changed employment levels and the resulting change in mix of economic multiplier effects have not been fully factored into the Australian Treasury forecasts.

Australia’s highest export earners are the resources sector. Australia’s economy is very heavily dependent upon primary industry – mining and agriculture. Take away coal, alumina and cattle and we have very little productive sector left!

To sell an emissions trading scheme as morally correct and thus reduce the level of backlash for this new tax, the Australian Government has spun up a nice fuzzy name – Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

Climate Change Debate Has Moved!

I have set up a new website in WordPress. I found the software I was using wasn’t very comment friendly, and I want to generate discussion.

So – welcome to Read n Say. I have used a new name so that I can use this blog for new subjects that catch my attention after this Global Warming and ETS nonsense (hopefully) goes away.

Please let me know what you think, suggest topics for future discussion, send emails, links and even copy anything you find here. The purpose of this blog is to circulate ideas and generate discussion.