COP15 Copenhagen — What the...

Poorer nations walk out yesterday because they are afraid that Kyoto will be abandoned, India tell Kevin Rudd he is the ayatollah for his drive to abandon Kyoto in favour of a new deal; an African representative says his actions are those of a climate change sceptic. The US is balking at prematurely cutting emissions. Protesters clash outside. Two separate deals are now mooted. No takers.

Monboit vs Plimer: We've had the debate, finally

Watching Lateline on ABC tonight was a treat. Host Tony Jones has immersed himself in both the science and politics of climate change, and it is great to see a mainstream journo so well across the on-again, off-again, much threatened debate between Guardian science journalist, George Monboit and retired geologist turned avid AGW denial megaphone, Ian Plimer, that he managed to get them both on

Joyce hoist on his own petard

One of the most useful sayings that French, that fabulous language, has given us is 'hoist on his own petard' - to be blown up by your own bomb (pronounced 'bembh' for ze Pink Panther fans).Petard also handily translates to 'fart' -- the same noise emanating from Malcolm Turnbull's opposition backbench whenever he tried to push the Coalition's promised bipartisan message on climate change action

Andrew Bolt: liar, denier, and father

Andrew Bolt really is a piece of work, of the guilty, paranoid kind:Today he is having a go at Clive Hamilton for trying to "trying to turn my children against me":Leave my children alone, HamiltonThis is seriously creepy. Is Green extremist Clive Hamilton now trying to turn my children against me - and by warning them I’m a corrupt killer?Hi there,There’s something you need to know about your

Ex-CIA director wants oil to go the way of salt

Over 100 years ago world powers fought over salt. True - salt preserves meat. Then they invented refrigeration, and the salt wars stopped. Is refrigeration one reason why Gandhi dodged the British bullet for his salt satyagraha (not to take anything from the fact that he was a brilliant strategist)? Just a thought.Anyhoo, that's what we need to happen with oil, say James Woolsey, ex-CIA director

Opposition now opposes Australian people's will

How's that for an election strategy when staring down the barrel of an anytime-now double-dissolution election?With 66 per cent of Australians supporting the emissions trading scheme, according to the Herald's Nielsen poll on Monday, and only 25 per cent supporting it, the Liberal party elects a hard-right, stem-cell research stopping, God-bothering wacko, preferred by only 25 per cent of Aussie

A pox on your house

The Liberal National Coalition of the Welching is in good form today, with "Mad Monk" Tony Abbott now reneging on his Friday pledge to not contest the leadership spill tomorrow if consensus-candidate, "cuddly" Joe Hockey, steps into the ring. Commentators are saying that Hockey will have made a Faustian pact to gain the loyalty of the brain hemorrhaging right wing of the Liberal party by sinking

Dissecting the brain of an AGW denier #2

This brain belongs to Cory Bernardi:They said ...Senator Cory Bernardi, Liberal, South Australia: "This ETS [emissions trading scheme] will also fundamentally change the way our legal system operates. It reverses some important legal concepts such as presumption of innocence, the right to remain silent, the burden of proof and protection from self-incrimination." Altogether after me: Huh?Peter

I hope ILoveCarbonDioxide.com readers also love methane

Someone put a few denier dollars up and presto, the world now has ilovecarbondioxide.com for the time-capsule we should leave for aliens. Let's hope they merchandise plastic bags for their CO2-devoted readership. Huge mark-up potential -- how much does a plastic bag cost? Good for the environment too.Has anyone told ilovecarbondioxide.com that the permafrost is melting, releasing the GHG, methane

Dissecting the brain of an AGW denier

I have a lovely little email from Miranda Divine, a SMH opinion writer, that gives great insight into how the mind of a denier works when challenged by inconvenient truths.It's not lovely: it is down-right rude, as was mine that prompted her response. But I had resisted the idea of publishing it on GWW due to the one-on-one nature of the correspondence.That's until I read this from her latest

Send world leaders at Copenhagen your thoughts

A penny planet for your thoughts.Send a digital postcard with your personal climate greeting to the world leaders. Greetings will be displayed on the official website of cop15.dk and on screens in the conference area during COP15.And if you have a blog, link the website and the greeting facility; as we already know from the carbon pollution pickle we find ourselves in -- every little bit

Who is who in the Coalition zoo

Further to my post below, you might like to know who supports the CPRS and negotiated amendments, and who doesn't. The never-learn-from-an-election Liberals/Nationals look like rabble:Among the Coalition party room speakers in favour of the bill were Richard Colbeck, Judith Troeth, Andrew Laming, Simon Birmingham, Gary Humphries, Sue Boyce, Mal Washer, Bruce Billson, Barry Haase, Marise Payne,

Don't let evil flourish...

Calling all good men and women of Australia. Malcolm Tunbull and the human chainsaw, Macfarlane, finally have negotiated their CPRS amendments with Penny Wong et al. Finally. The Liberal party has reconvened after dinner break to vote on supporting the bill. It looks like the doers might just trump the deniers and vote to push the bill though to the Senate for the vote to turn the bill into

Following myself

I just did it to see if I could, honest. I clicked on Google Followers to check out the widget functionality, and was promptly invited to befriend my own site. Sure - one can't have too many friends. Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Hadley Center CRU hack confounds deniersphere

The part of the blogosphere where politics informs science is abuzz with the conspiracy-busting exploits of a hacker who allegedly broke into the UK Met Office Hadley Center Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia mail-server and downloaded 1079 emails and 92 documents in a file called FOI2009.zip. (Warning: I cannot vouch for the safety of that link - I stole it from Andrew Bolt's blog

How to tell your child about global warming

I've been grappling with how and when to tell my six years old about man-made global warming, its claimed effect on his climate, and the implications for his world when he is my age. He has natural interest in weather events, and can tell me the geographic differences between tornadoes, cyclones and hurricanes, for example. Knowing he has gleaned all this under his own steam, driven by his own

Shrinking ozone hole heralds success of global treaties

In 1987 the world came together via the UN, and signed the historic Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer. The participating countries passed legislation banning industry from using chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), hydrochloroflourocarbon (HCFC) and other ozone depleting substances. CFCs, scientists told us in peer-review research, gobble up the ozone layer by releasing chlorine

All power to you, Google!

My leprechaun friend, below, tells me that it's motivated, grass-root ideas that are going to create the groundswell needed for meaningful change at the level where it has to happen — the consumer.I would rather throw my lot in with a market-signalling coalition of the good-willing than all the vapid international treaties and lobby-bruised politicians in the world. And Google PowerMeter now

About f'king time, Mr Rudd

Respectfully, you should have been using this sort of hard language to publicly out and route these most insidious AGW deniers (not sceptics ~ sceptics form their views based on the peer-reviewed evidence) in the Liberal party, a lot earlier. We've already seen how many political cowards in the Liberal Party snuck across into the denier camp as the public bought your you-are-doing-something and

Thought Experiment: Getting hot feet over cool headedness

In response to this:Sydney is warm in theory, thoughAndrew BoltMonday, November 02, 2009 at 12:09amStill waiting for that warming:SYDNEYSIDERS are repacking their winter woollies after the coldest October in 17 years.I left this:Imagine getting into a bathtub half filled with water at body temperature. Turn on the hot water tap so there is a little pressure, but not enough to scald you and lay

Last 10 years period warmest on modern record

The AGW denier canard that the earth has been cooling since 1998 is taken apart by Seth Borenstein in AJC.The case that the Earth might be cooling partly stems from recent weather. Last year was cooler than previous years. It's been a while since the super-hot years of 1998 and 2005. So is this a longer climate trend or just weather's normal ups and downs?In a blind test, the AP gave temperature

Glasses charged for Copenhagen

I don't like admitting it because I'm a glass-half-full guy, but, right now, the political climate change world is wobbling some.In Australia, we have a Government that is finally negotiating Carbon Pollution Reductions Scheme bill amendments with an opposition determined to destroy itself for their claque of Carbon Pollution Freedom Scheme lobbyists, in an agonisingly slow-mo train crash over

What's the worse that could happen?

Greg Craven is the guy who injected himself into the AGW deniers propaganda war two years ago, with a simple risk analysis grid pointing out the obvious — that, if the scientists are wrong, the worst that could happen is that we move to a carbon free economy sooner in our history than otherwise, but if the AGW deniers are wrong (ie. the scientists are right), we are toast. Then he did not sleep

Climate changlings news

The climate blogosphere is ticking over: At Deltoid, Tim Lambert takes Chilinger and Pielke (Sr) to task for their latest crimes against deductive reasoning and statistics, respectively. Marvel at the desperation of the deniers' arguments, all relying on the poor scientific understanding of the average person to sound plausable, none of it on hard science.With usual eruditon, Barry Brooks covers

Who would have tipped that Tip would tip?

Staunch to the last:Andrew Bolt Monday, June 15, 2009 at 02:53pmNice profile on the (perhaps) next member for Higgins. I suspect, however, that Peter Costello will make the impressive John Roskam wait. UPDATE No sooner predicted than contradicted. Roskam is as startled by the news as am I: PETER Costello has finally put an end to speculation about his future, confirming

1 tonne of co2 equals 0.0000000000015 °C of global warming

From my unscientific understanding, if the latest findings of Damon Matthews, a professor in Concordia University's Department of Geography, Planning and the Environment bear out, then the public understanding of AGW will have it's smoking gun. Matthews and his colleagues claim to have found a direct relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming.The latest edition of Nature,

Australia's climate bill may be scuttled

The ETS circus plays on:Australian Greens climate change spokeswoman Christine Milne said the Government would also have no alternative but to reverse its plan to link passage of the emissions bill to renewable energy measures."The [emissions trading] bill will be defeated. There is no question about that," she told ABC Television."The Government hasn't been able to reach a compromise with the

Crime will organise to go green

So suggest sooths spotted by Desmogblog.Just in time for the rocked Australian biker club scene, desperate as they are to rehabilitate their public image after the Sydney Airport brawl showed them up to be the mongrels they are.Future Banditos and Notorious meetings to resolve grievances will be so much more in line with public sensibilities: The fat biker wog turns to the skinny biker wog, "You

Fielding staring at the sun for too long

My reaction to the news of Senator Stephen Fielding coming back from attending an AGW denier's conference hosted by the Heartland Institute, is that he seeks to betray the path of ETS legislation for thirty pieces of Big Fossil-Fuel silver. My evidence? Simply that Fielding is replaying their great canard, 'It's the sun, stupid'.Professor Barry Brook's reaction is to patiently explain why the

Punters and pundits call the Arctic Summer Melt

It's that time of the year, when types that think about these things, turn their attention to predicting what this year's lowest Arctic sea-ice extent will be. Eli Rabbet kicks off with a rough round-up of pundits and early predictions. There are rumours of money changing hands.If none of this makes sense to you, here's the good oil from a Kiwi called Gareth of Hot Topic. And, as a GWW service

US Emissions Talks With China Hit Great Wall

Five months ahead of the Copenhagen talks, a round of climate talks between the world's two biggest polluters has stalled, reports the Financial Times:Chinese officials maintained that the two countries should have a “common but differentiated approach” – code for Beijing’s reluctance to adopt a formal domestic mandate to reduce its carbon emissions. The US Congress is considering a bill that

Turnbull hands Rudd ETS early election trigger — Chk Chk Boom

IMHO, everything that has gone wrong with the Liberal party has to do with their inability to maintain the bipartisan approach to a carbon cap and trade system. Turnbull used to be the one who seemed to be across the issues, but what a flip-flop, opportunistic waverer he turned out to be. How's that holding Rudd accountable?Now we got a damn election to get through. Liberals are going to get hit

Australia coping best with global recession

Top 10 recession refuges:The top countries best surviving the global recession, according to a survey of 7500 businesspeople from 24 nations.1st - Australia2nd - China3rd - India and Singapore (equal)5th - Hong Kong6th - Canada7th - Japan and Qatar (equal)9th - New Zealand10th - Malaysia, Sweden and Vietnam (equal)Source: Servcorp International Business Confidence Survey.Well, there you go, who

Do future generations have rights to a stable climate?

Recalibrating the Law of Humans with the Laws of Nature: Climate Change, Human Rights, and Intergenerational JusticeHigh ambition deserves a lofty title. The paper is the product of the University of Iowa's Centre for Human Rights and the University of Vermont's Environmental Law Centre having jointly started an initiative to seek legal protection for future generations. If today's unborn have

The history of the politics of the theory of evolution

Darwinania: n. If your "interests include Darwin, politics involving Victorian-Era scientists, public perceptions of evolution, anti-evolution movements, and the history of paleontology, especially the presentations of dinosaurs in museums and scientific literature from the 1800s on", you have Darwinania. Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Obama's Bush holdovers attack EPA co2 ruling

An interesting insight into how the Bush government used to play its cards in thwarting EPA global warming legislation is provided by Jim Tankersley of the L.A Times:The agency's declaration that emissions pose a health danger could have 'serious economic consequences,' Bush-era holdovers in the Small Business Administration assert.Reporting from Washington -- In ruling last month that greenhouse

AGW denier says peer-review is a public enemy

James Dellingpole plumbs the depth of his intellect in The Spectator:I don’t bait greens only for fun. I do it because they’re public enemy number oneHow so?Here is what’s so terrifying about the modern green movement: its complete refusal to accept that anyone who disagrees with it can be anything other than wilfully perverse, certifiably insane or secretly in the pay of Big Oil.Or stupid and

Is Ian Plimer's Heaven and Earth a sell-out?

Well yes, considering he challenges the fundamentals of the spectrum of multidisciplinary sciences making up the body of climate science. Problem is, he won't do this in the peer-reviewed literature.But has it really sold out of its 25,000 print run, as claimed by Andrew Bolt? Not according to Tim Lambert of Deltoid, whose mate reckons it's more like probably around~3700. Global Warning Climate

Reduced emissions with increased productivity

In the search for every-day global warming solutions, Eli of Rabett Run suggests that cheap is good. Think low-tech solutions for everyday tasks.Consider where the costs and problems associated with reducing carbon emissions comes from, from having to transform a dispersed, costless source of energy such as wind or solar or geothermal, into a form which can be centrally distributed to cover all

Government ETS delay: A back-flip to the future

I don't know what to think about the Australian Government's 2011 back-flip on the starting date of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.The economy is going sideways. This means fewer carbon emissions caused by lower productivity. A delayed introduction will help businesses by delaying compliance costs, but it is only a delay. And, we miss the chance to go to Copenhagen and negotiate with more

AGW deniers deny World Vision children

By day Andrew Bolt pumps out AGW denial propaganda that has its genesis in a handful of Exxon-Mobil supported think-tank workshops. By any measure it's distasteful stuff, with Andrew regularly branding 9 out of 10 Australians as alarmist, pagan, lefty, earth-worshipping, green-fascists who have fallen for the great global warming hoax.Then he takes his work home with him, teaching his ten year

Andrew Bolt: affirmed yet cognition challenged

Who still does not appear to understand that the definition of climate change can take in extreme cold? Oops. I made a mistake in today’s column when I said that despite all this alleged global warming, Australia’s record temperatures had not been broken for decades. Reader Cameron says I’ve been proved wrong - and on the very day my column appeared: A new Australian record was set

Climate Sceptics needs all the help it can get

Found this in my inbox, forwarded to me by a reader after reading this: Climate Sceptics News - 10/04/09 www.climatesceptics.com.au to unsubscribe - reply "please unsubribe" (sic)Welcome to the first of what will be regular updates of what Climate Sceptics around the country are doing to change the perspective of the community on global warming scares etc. As President of "The Climate

Cow Farts causing Global Warming!?

Scientists and farmers around the world are debating a very serious subject at the moment. You may not know it, but cows are actually one of the rudest animals around. In fact, they burp and fart so often and in such huge figures that the methane they release may be an affecting part of global warming. Yes, they are really talking about farting and burping cows.
Why are scientists talking about this? Good question, let's start with the science behind passing gas. Farts and burps are essentially pockets of gas that get released from human and animal bodies. Some of it is created inside our bodies as we digest food and some is ingested, when we eat or talk. This mixture is not useful to us, so our bodies propel it out as best they can, “passing gas or flatulence.”
One of the gases found in farts and burps is methane. Certain amounts of methane in the atmosphere are normal. Right along with other greenhouse gases, methane collects in the sky and traps warm air around our planet. The problem starts when the layer of greenhouse gases is too thick and too much heat is shut in. This effect is called global warming my friends!
A report published in the state of California a while back declared that dairy cows in the area were producing almost 20 lbs of gas every year. That is a ridiculously large amount of gas. If that number is correct, it could mean that cow farts are causing more greenhouse gases than pollution from cars, since California has millions of cows.
Scientists around our globe have known for a long time that animal gases could be trouble. What they cannot agree on is how big of a problem it can actually be. Even if scientists manage to measure the size of the farts or burps, they then have to work out how much methane they contain. It is very hard to measure just how much methane an animal is burping and farting out.
A Swedish university has taken this matter very seriously and has been awarded close to $600,000 in support to research this occurrence. Jan Bertilsson of the Swedish University for Agricultural Sciences stated that 20 cows will be involved in the study.
By attaching special collars around the cow’s necks, they hope to calculate the amount of methane released with each burp depending on the kind of food they consume. Mind you this is only a study on burps not farts.
I am not a scientist or anything but it looks like if we want to make a real effort at slowing down our climate change, we simply can’t only go after the cows. It just doesn’t seem to me to be the only source of the problem. What does the rest of the planet think?

Earth Hour!

This year, Earth Hour has been transformed into the world's first global election, between Earth and global warming. For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote – Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming....more


By signing up you are supporting Earth Hour's aim to reach more than one billion people in 1000 cities around the world in 2009. Earth Hour is inviting communities, business and governments to switch off lights for one hour at 8:30pm on Saturday March 28, sending a powerful global message that we care enough about climate change to take action.

Cars and Global Warming

One of the most eye-opening conclusions of reports is that the vehicles we choose today will affect our lives for time to come. Astonishingly, the largest category of current on the road polluters is the small car. We ask ourselves why? Well, simply because there are so many of them on the road. Cars in and light trucks our nations are a huge supply of global warming pollution. United States automobiles emit more than 333 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, which is more than 1/5 of the nation's total CO2 emissions.
Compared with the rest of the planet, American automobiles emissions are excessively high. With only five percent of the world's population and thirty percent of the world's automobiles, the United States put in forty eight percent of the world's automotive CO2 emissions.
Any true effort to battle global warming has to include cutting automobile emissions. Acting now is crucial to slowing global warming and reducing air pollution.
Americans don't all have to drive hybrids to make a change in our nation. And, while we support everyone to use different forms of transportation whenever it is possible, the certainty is that cars are a big part of our American ways of life.

We should be thinking to:
• Put public pressure on the automobile industry to maintain a comprehensive national global warming policy.
• Educate vehicle owners and drivers on what they can do to decrease emissions.
• Explore ways we Americans can do our part to progress fuel efficiency and cut global warming pollution from America's automobiles.
So, if we all did our part to decrease automobile emissions and if all of us purchased the most fuel efficient vehicles that met our needs, and if all of us found ways to drive a less, if all of us did our best to keep our vehicles maintained, and if all of us contributed in prioritizing global warming as a issue in our daily lives, we would considerably decrease global warming pollution from America's vehicles.

Second Cause of Global Warming

Chlorofluorocarbons were introduced to the world in the 1920s and are used in a range of industrial, commercial, and residential uses and is a big part of Global Warming. Chlorofluorocarbons, along with others like chlorine- and bromine-containing compounds, have been implicated in the boost of reduction of ozone in our planet’s stratosphere. This stuff is non-flammable, non-toxic, and non-reactive with other chemical composites. These nice safety characteristics make them useful as coolants in air conditioners and refrigerators, propellants for aerosol sprays, and blowing agents. Production and use of Chlorofluorocarbons increased as a demand by us humans for production of these common products.
It was not until 1973 that chlorine was found to be a catalytic agent in ozone devastation. Catalytic obliteration of ozone gets rid of the odd O2 species while leaving chlorine unchanged. We knew that this was potentially damaging to the ozone layer, but beyond question evidence of stratospheric ozone depletion was not exposed until 1984. An intricate situation of atmospheric dynamics, chemical reactions, and solar radiation, was found to explain the abnormal low levels of ozone during the polar springtime. Current missions to the Arctic areas show that related processes can occur in the northern hemisphere, but to a lesser level due to warmer temperatures. We as a nation have to do something soon before this climate change takes a real toll on our planet!

The Main Cause for Global Warming

We humans who think of ourselves as the most intelligent things on this planet are intentionally or unintentionally destroying our own surroundings. One of the chief causes for global warming can be accredited to the behaviors of humans. It took more than twenty years for the world to finally accept that we humans are causing global warming with the emission of greenhouse gases which include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxide etc. the gases have formed an effect of green house on the earth’s exterior which prevents the reflection of the sun’s rays and therefore causes the boost in temperature. The radical boost in the emission of carbon dioxide in the last 30 years caused by burning fossil fuels has been recognized as the major reason for the change of temperature in the atmosphere.



Carbon dioxide concentration in the air has amplified because of the emissions from power plants, airplanes, cars, industries etc. one more reason for it is deforestation. Forests have been reduced making way for cultivation, industries and cities. The vegetation was natural regulators of carbon dioxide that controlled its level’s in the atmosphere. Eighty percent or more of the worldwide energy claim is currently supplied by the fossil fuels oil, coal or gas. It will be unfeasible to find alternative sources, which could restore fossil fuels in the short or medium term. The energy demand is just too high.



Another subject is the non-renewable traits of fossil fuels. It took our planet millions of years to produce these resources, while we will have used them up in about the next few decades. Alone the lessening supply will not make it possible to carry on as usual for a longer time.

Financial crisis equals breathing space on climate

In news that Andrew Bolt is sure to jump on, climate adviser Ross Garnaut claims that the economic crisis has bought Australia at least two years of "breathing space" in the fight against climate change.The crisis has clamped down on industry and production, which has put a lid on greenhouse gas emissions.Australia's emissions have been rising every year, but are now some years behind predictions

Who is fueling new Climate Sceptics political party?

Witness the birth of The Climate Sceptics, Australia's newest political party. Aren't we truly the lucky country? They bill themselves as "The World's first up front political party representing climate sceptics"Well, after John Howard's Liberals here in Australia, and George W. Bush's Republicans in the US. And then there was that Vaclav Klaus' Civic Democratic Party in Checkloslavakia. That's