From The Spectator, an excellent article on the climate change phenomenon by Mark Imisides.

In a previous article, I discussed how climate science has grown from an obscure theory in the late 80s to a worldwide colossus that will soon overtake the oil and gas industry in terms of its size. How is it that despite the scientific case for a climate apocalypse comprehensively collapsing some 20 years ago, we have seen a 16-year-old girl (at the time) being invited to address the United Nations, weeping children marching in our streets, and a federal election outcome in which this issue dominated the political landscape?
Where did we go wrong? And by ‘we’ I’m referring to those of us termed sceptics – people who understand the science, and the house of cards that comprises the notion of Anthropogenic Climate Change.
Mainly, we have fallen into the trap of thinking that just because the evidence is on our side, people will come around to our way of thinking. Or to put it another way, we naively assume that everyone is as interested in evidence as we are.
They are not. The Climate Change industry is a massive global entity with unimaginably large financial and political interests. There is too much at stake for those involved to sully themselves with things like evidence…
The time is ripe for a major political party to take up the cudgels and go to the next election on the ‘cost of living’ platform by tossing every initiative or program with ‘eco’, ‘green’, and particularly ‘renewable’ in the bin. Peter Dutton, I’m looking at you.
How do we do it?
Put simply, we must learn the art of the polemic. The art of rhetoric. We must recognise that there’s no point in having evidence on our side if we don’t know how to use it.
We begin with this proposition. There is no case for reducing our carbon footprint unless all four of these statements are true:
The world is warming.
We are causing it.
It’s a bad thing.
We can do something about it.
No rational person can have any problem with this, and if they do, we need to find out why.
Here’s where we have to decide which of these points we want to contest. Remember, you only have to falsify one of them for the whole thing to collapse like a house of cards.
Most sceptics, in my view, pick the wrong fight. They do this by attempting to prosecute the case based on one of the first two points. This is a mistake.
Here’s why.
Arguments about whether the world is warming revolve around competing graphs: ‘My graph shows it’s warming. If your graph shows it isn’t, then it’s wrong – no it isn’t – yes it is – no it isn’t…’
This argument also looks at Urban Heat Island Effects, and examines manipulation of data by government agencies.
This is a poor approach to take because:
You’re never going to prove your graph is right.
You can be very easily and quickly discredited as a conspiracy theorist (Brian Cox did this to Malcolm Roberts on Q&A a few years ago). People just do not believe that government agencies would manipulate data.
We should not fear a warming world. Records began at the end of the last ice age, so it’s only natural that the world is warming. And the current temperatures are well within historical averages.
As for arguments about whether we are causing the warming, this is even more problematic. The various contributions to global temperatures are extremely complex, involving a deep understanding of atmospheric physics and thermodynamics.
With a PhD in Chemistry, this is much closer to my area of expertise than Joe Public, but I am very quickly out of my depth. I recognise most of the terms and concepts involved, but know just enough to know how little I know.
Sadly, many people on both sides of the debate don’t understand how little they know, nor how complex the subject of atmospheric physics is, and it is nothing short of comical seeing two people debating about a subject of which both of them are blissfully ignorant.
This approach is taken simply because it is so tempting. We can point to the Vladivostok ice cores that prove that CO2 follows temperature changes. We can ask why the cooling period from 1940-75 coincided with the greatest increase in CO2 production the world has ever seen. It’s very tempting. But, I’m sorry to say, it is simply a futile approach.
The bottom line is this – they simply don’t change anyone’s minds – ever. Having seen these arguments used for years, and having used them myself, I cannot point to a single person that has said, ‘Oh yes! I see it now…’ The whole point of arguing, or debating, is to change someone’s mind (including, at times, your own). If that isn’t happening, then it’s futile to continue with the same approach.
I think the reason both these approaches fail that most people do not believe that all these experts, and the government, can be wrong. You say the world isn’t warming? Oh, I’m sure you have the wrong graph. You say that CO2 is not responsible? Oh, I’m sure the government scientists know more than you do.
This then brings us to the third point. Why is a warmer world a bad thing?
This is even more tempting than the first two points, as it’s so easy to prove that a warming world, so far from being a crisis, is actually a good thing. The reason for this is that, unlike with the first two points, they don’t have to look at a complex scientific argument. They just have to look at the weather. Are cyclones and hurricanes increasing? Are droughts increasing? Are flooding events increasing?

cont.....Regretfully, it is impossible to get people to even look at this. Even worse, they seem oblivious to the simple concept of cause and effect. We see this in that they simply can’t see that droughts and floods are opposites, and the same cause cannot produce exactly opposite effects. Astonishingly, they somehow think that charts that plot these extreme events are somehow manipulated, even when they come from a primary source such as the BOM, and that there really is a ‘climate crisis’.
Where does that leave us? Well, before we adopt Catweazle’s mantra of ‘nothing works’, there is one more point – point 4 (can we do anything about it?).
Most people will have seen the address of Konstantin Kisin at an Oxford Union debate, where he prosecuted this case to great effect. He pointed out, in simple terms, that as the UK only contributes 2 per cent to the global CO2 budget, anything they did will have negligible effect, and that global CO2 levels will be determined by people in Africa and Asia. He then pointed out that people in these countries ‘didn’t give a sh*t’ about climate change, as all they want to do is feed and clothe their children, and they don’t care how much CO2 that produces.
Finally, he pointed out that Xi Jinping knows that the way to ensure that he isn’t rolled in a revolution, as happened to so many other leaders in former communist regimes, is to ensure prosperity for the Chinese people. And indispensable to that goal is cheap, reliable, power, which is the reason that China is now building lots more coal-fired power plants – in 2021 alone they built 25 GW of capacity – equivalent to 25 x 1000MW plants.
By all accounts, his speech was well-received, with many people turning to his side. The beauty of prosecuting this case, as opposed to the other three, is that people don’t have to look at any evidence. They don’t even have to look at the weather.
The argument is at the same time simple, compelling, and irresistible. The question is this: will we see a major political party with the courage to take it on?
That part remains to be seen. But what is certain is this – the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different outcomes. If, for twenty years we’ve been telling people either that the world isn’t warming, or if it is we aren’t causing it, or if it is warmer but there’s no climate crisis, and not a single person has been persuaded by our arguments, then we have the brains of a tomato if we think anything is going to change.
Konstantin Kisin’s talk, and in particular the way it was received, fill me with hope that I haven’t had in years. It fills me with hope that if the case is prosecuted wisely, the climate change colossus can be brought to a grinding halt, politicians will unashamedly take on energy security as a political mantra, and the notion of climate change will at last be exposed as the unscientific, anti-human, regressive, apocalyptic cult that it is.

Eemian Period 125K years ago. temperatures a tiny bit higher than now and sea levels 20 metres higher than now.

Is AGW bad? Do you live under 20m above sea level?

Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 9^th, 2023 at 12:17pm:

Eemian Period 125K years ago. temperatures a tiny bit higher than now and sea levels 20 metres higher than now. Is AGW bad? Do you live under 20m above sea level?

Is CO2 bad? The Arctic is still not ice free. The Antarctic is not losing ice, except via glacial movement and calving. Bigger glaciers, bigger calves. ::)

"In the last millions years Earth's climate has alternated between ice ages lasting about 100,000 years and interglacial periods of 10,000 to 15,000 years. The new results from the NEEM ice core drilling project in northwest Greenland, led by the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen show that the climate in Greenland was around 8 degrees C warmer than today during the last interglacial period, the Eemian period, 130,000 to 115,000 thousand years ago."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130123133612.htm

8C is only a tiny bit? ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Yes. We are warming at the rate of 2°C per century and the rate is picking up.

There are 50,000 years left of this interglacial.

Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 9^th, 2023 at 1:13pm:

. We are warming at the rate of 2°C per century and the rate is picking up.

Is it picking up? According to whom?

But 400 years or even 300 years there will be no more fossil fuels. And then?

Deforestation? Who knows. Be enough CO2 to continue the warming.

We also may not have to warm the whole extra 8°C either—Antarctica losing over 100Gtons ice a year will see bigger losses as the warming continues. How much longer do the Thwaites and Pine Is glaciers have?

Oh yes, “no danger from the warming”—if only!

Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 9^th, 2023 at 3:13pm:

Deforestation? Who knows. Be enough CO2 to continue the warming.

Link?


Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 9^th, 2023 at 3:13pm:

We also may not have to warm the whole extra 8°C either—Antarctica losing over 100Gtons ice a year will see bigger losses as the warming continues

Again link?

"A new NASA study on the Antarctic Ice Sheet says that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers."

https://www.antarcticajournal.com/antarctic-ice-sheet-mass-gains-greater-than-losses/


Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 9^th, 2023 at 3:13pm:

Oh yes, “no danger from the warming”—if only!

Now all you have to do is prove it. ::)

But I see you want to merge Cats and Critters and environment. Wanting to spread your board bans? ::)

Good old Zwally.

Land ice is being lost and that will increase. Those two glaciers are ever more likely to slide into the sea and the rest of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet after them. I may see this happen in my lifetime and boy I hope it does not happen!

Re merging the two boards—I see Bobby is totally lost. Dubyne is proven wrong—no GSM now. Not that a mini ice age would inevitably follow a GSM.

The only posts Bobby makes—off topic crap that belongs either in my MRB or the Finance and Economics MRB. Like I said—he is lost.

Put Bobby in Fringe (and bring along all his ice age/warming/cooling crap) and he can post about any old rubbish he thinks of! He would be happier—his hero Blight might even return!!!

There is nobody else left here with any idea of the environment or ecology. Hence i suggest merging the Environment (minus ice age nonsense) and Critters and Gardens with me as Mod. You get tedious because of your desperate need to pretend change is not happening you might cop a ban from the merged board.

Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 9^th, 2023 at 3:48pm:

Good old Zwally.

So show me something different about net Antarctic ice. 100Gt is only one side of the equation. ::)


Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 9^th, 2023 at 3:55pm:

You get tedious because of your desperate need to pretend change is not happening you might cop a ban from the merged board.

Nowhere have I said change is not happening. Of course, if you think you have proof, post it. You just don't like that I have the temerity to question you. ::)

You got booted from my MRB because you were trying to argue aspects of climate science we had already argued at least once. Even in “Intro to AGW” which was just to set the scene.

Face it, change terrifies you.

Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 9^th, 2023 at 4:26pm:

You got booted from my MRB because you were trying to argue aspects of climate science we had already argued at least once. Even in “Intro to AGW” which was just to set the scene.

Because you don't like alternative views. And because your arguments were wrong. So tell us how a greenhouse warms the atmosphere when the internal and external CO2 is the same. ::)


Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 9^th, 2023 at 4:26pm:

Face it, change terrifies you.

So tell me when climate has not changed. ::)

Edit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f8/2000%2B_year_global_temperature_including_Medieval_Warm_Period_and_Little_Ice_Age_-_Ed_Hawkins.svg/330px-2000%2B_year_global_temperature_including_Medieval_Warm_Period_and_Little_Ice_Age_-_Ed_Hawkins.svg.png

Notice how global warming started about 1700, BEFORE the industrial revolution, before CO2 increase.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/49417777-6b36-4427-8fca-87c07dcd5b4f/gbc1882-fig-0002.png

But it is changing ever more rapidly and that scares you.

Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 9^th, 2023 at 5:02pm:

But it is changing ever more rapidly and that scares you.

Link?

Don't forget increasing CO2 causes a logarithmic decreasing effect on temperature. ::)

Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 9^th, 2023 at 3:55pm:

Re merging the two boards—I see Bobby is totally lost. Dubyne is proven wrong—no GSM now. Not that a mini ice age would inevitably follow a GSM. The only posts Bobby makes—off topic crap that belongs either in my MRB or the Finance and Economics MRB. Like I said—he is lost. Put Bobby in Fringe (and bring along all his ice age/warming/cooling crap) and he can post about any old rubbish he thinks of! He would be happier—his hero Blight might even return!!! There is nobody else left here with any idea of the environment or ecology. Hence i suggest merging the Environment (minus ice age nonsense) and Critters and Gardens with me as Mod. You get tedious because of your desperate need to pretend change is not happening you might cop a ban from the merged board.

Monk,
shut up or you'll be banned.

Why bother with a link, lee? You still won’t accept the result.

RSS shows that temperatures are increasing at the rate of 0.213°C per decade. Used to be 0.2°C per decade for RSS, bit less for the terrestrial series.

Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 9^th, 2023 at 5:24pm:

Why bother with a link, lee? You still won’t accept the result.

So you can't provide one thanks. ::)


Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 9^th, 2023 at 5:24pm:

RSS shows that temperatures are increasing at the rate of 0.213°C per decade. Used to be 0.2°C per decade for RSS, bit less for the terrestrial series.

Yes. But out doesn't mean it will be that way forever. Remember the effects diminish as CO2 increases. So it must be something else. ;)

Did you see REMSS has the Southern Hemisphere warming at .161/decade. Isn't it amazing how a well mixed gas can have a temperature differential like that?

Edit: and the Southern Polar region by a whopping 0.056C/decade.

https://images.remss.com/msu/msu_time_series.html

Which hemisphere has the most land, which the most ocean, idiot?

So Antarctica IS warming? Nice of you to notice!

Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 9^th, 2023 at 9:41pm:

Which hemisphere has the most land, which the most ocean, idiot?

So the warming is a NH problem and the SH just warms a little by circulation. Nice of you to notice.


Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 9^th, 2023 at 9:41pm:

So Antarctica IS warming? Nice of you to notice!

If you have a look it is 60S to 70S. and 0.056/decade in that area.  So which part of Antarctica is warming? ::)

The warming is a global problem.

Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 10^th, 2023 at 8:57am:

The warming is a global problem.

What exactly is the problem?

Floods - not according to the IPCC
Droughts - not according to the IPCC
Bushfires - not according to NASA

BoM/CSIRO—bushfire season extended by AGW

Extreme heat events more common

Agriculture stressed

Damage to the environment as pests/weeds can spread out of the ranges they were previously confined to.

Sea level rise starting to accelerate

Warm bodies/blobs of water killing some fish stocks


We been through this at least twice before. Enough.

Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 10^th, 2023 at 3:34pm:

BoM/CSIRO—bushfire season extended by AGW

That study was the one where they only looked at, I think,  from 1970's We have a good history  of bushfires going back over 150 years. Or perhaps you can link the study if you think it different?

And of course a season doesn't define the area burned.

"NASA: Area burned by global wildfires dropped by 25% since 2003 "

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/aug/29/nasa-area-burned-by-global-wildfires-dropped-by-25/

It is supposed to Global isn't it? ::)


Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 10^th, 2023 at 3:34pm:

Extreme heat events more common

Which extreme heat events. Be specific. What is the benchmark for extreme heat?
.

Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 10^th, 2023 at 3:34pm:

Agriculture stressed

Really. Grains or livestock? The WHO shows increasing crops. Or perhaps you can link that study.


Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 10^th, 2023 at 3:34pm:

Damage to the environment as pests/weeds can spread out of the ranges they were previously confined to.

Damage due to fire, damage due to cultivation, damage due to insecticides or pesticides. Again be specific and show the link.


Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 10^th, 2023 at 3:34pm:

Sea level rise starting to accelerate

No it is not. The satellite altimeters have an accuracy of 33mm. Good luck trying to find the signal that is an order of magnitude smaller. Or again show your link. Interestingly Fort Denison shows subsidence of over 1.47mm per year. Subsidence is not an increase in SLR. Or again show the study.


Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 10^th, 2023 at 3:34pm:

Warm bodies/blobs of water killing some fish stocks

And it has always been thus. ::)


Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 10^th, 2023 at 3:34pm:

We been through this at least twice before.

And yet you never cite these studies. Why is that? ::)


Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 10^th, 2023 at 3:34pm:

Enough.

AS I said you don't like being questioned. ::)

As I suspected that is indeed the study mentioned. 1990-2020.

However according to wiki the worst fire was in 1974-75. A colossal 117 million Ha. 2019-2020 was a mere 18.6 million Ha, behind 2002 fire of 38 million Ha.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_bushfires_in_Australia

It helps if you don't factor in historical burns apparently.

Strangely those fires are not significant according to the study.

https://media.springernature.com/lw685/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41467-021-27225-4/MediaObjects/41467_2021_27225_Fig3_HTML.png

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27225-4

Note: the NT is excluded from the fire data.

It appears JM has got humpy or can't find his data.

Edit: "The frequency and intensity of hot extremes (including heatwaves) have increased, and those of cold extremes have decreased on the global scale since 1950 (virtually certain). "  1950? That was when it was cooling.

I’m not making this up, but Leslie Hughes, star scientist at Tim Flannery’s Climate Council, has been running catastropharian climate courses for hairdressers, whom she coaches to harangue clients about those awful coal, oil and gas emissions. Although her basic expertise is in stick insects and ant-tended butterfly ejaculations, Macquarie University’s Distinguished Professor also wants to tune the global climate for a better Year 2100, which is where the 400 ladies-who-lather come in. While snipping and combing and colouring, they are to convince customers that the Council’s goal of net-zero by 2035 is definitely not at all insane. Clients might even emerge with a teal tint to their shag cuts.
...
The Council’s 2022 annual report boasts of its “drumbeat” of climate calamity, citing the planting of more than 22,000 stories in the media last year intended to influence “millions” of Australians. That’s 800 items a week obligingly regurgitated by stenographers identifying as journalists, plus a further 20,000 media items “supported” via third-party climate enthusiasts.[3]  The Council not only spoon-feeds alarmism to reporters, it actually trains them with union help to propagate the narrative: in 2022, it

teamed up with the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, to provide expert advice to journalists nationwide on accurately and responsibly reporting on the climate [supposed] crisis.

The engine room of the  Council is its Climate Media Centre. It likes to keep its dark arts there under wraps: You won’t see the Climate Media Centre mentioned in the media, but you will have heard the voices of the dozens of everyday Australians we support”  and “You won’t read about the Climate Media Centre in the news.” (Annual Report 20-21 p30), 

These days the Council’ has 50 staff – including close to 20 media spinners[4] . The Council succeeds not just with regular media (including sports pages) but offshoots like Marie Claire, Women’s Weekly, and TV’s The Project and Sunrise.

The often-sceptical Murdoch stable swallows the Council’s guff too. One Council report got 500 recycles, not just in the ABC (of course) but in 37 News Corp publications including The Daily Telegraph and WIN News. (AR 21, p25). In 2021, some 23 Council proxies “featured across national News Corp titles as part of their Mission Zero initiative to ‘put Australia on a path to net zero’.”

At the Council’s 2013 inception, Flannery pledged it would not go in for politics: “We won’t be running any political campaigns, we won’t be running any agendas.” Really? More than a year before the 2022 poll, the Council’s strategists mobilised their 500,000-plus grassroots supporters and began detailed work “to shift the dial ahead of the election” (AR 22  p8) and unseat Morrison’s “denialists”:

We set ourselves up to drive change in this moment by bringing together special internal teams focused on political engagement, supporter activation, public engagement in key electorates, and shaping the national story through media action.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2023/04/on-climate-the-media-is-the-massage/

For those who are convinced Arrhenius was right, but prefer his 1896 study, here are excerpts from his 1906 study -

"I calculate that a reduction in the amount of CO2 by half, or a gain to twice the amount, would cause a temperature change of – 1.5 degrees C, or + 1.6 degrees C, respectively.
In these calculations, I completely neglected the presence of water vapour emitted into the atmosphere.
…
Because of the high concentration of water vapour in the lower air layers, the radiation is not reduced by the action of the water vapour in the same proportion as it is by the action of CO2. The calculation shows that under the conditions of the quantity of water vapour in our atmosphere, almost exactly 1/3 of the radiation absorbed by the atmospheric water vapour is retained. The average water vapour content of the whole atmosphere corresponds to approximately an absorbent layer 4 cm in length. Thus the water vapour would reduce the Earth’s radiation by 1/3 x 61.6 = 20.5%.

If one uses this correction, one finds that with a change in the quantity of CO2 in the ratio of 1:2, the temperature of the Earth’s surface would be altered by 2.1 degrees. It is assumed that the radiation that is absorbed by the water vapour is not influenced by the CO2.

Added to this is still the increased heat protection through the uptake of water vapour. The water vapour in the atmosphere does not only keep back the Earth’s radiation, but also absorbs a large part of the solar radiation. This last circumstance works in opposite directions, but not nearly as vigorously as the former. For this related correction, I have used the data of Ångström and Schukewitsch. The calculations show that a doubling of the quantity of water vapour in the atmosphere would correspond to raising the temperature by an average of 4.2 degrees C.

For this disclosure, one could calculate that the corresponding secondary temperature change, on a 50% fluctuation of CO2 in the air, is approximately 1.8 degrees C, such that the total temperature change induced by a decrease in CO2 in the air by 50% is 3.9 degrees (rounded to 4 degrees C)."

https://friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/Arrhenius%201906,%20final.pdf

And we have had neither a doubling of CO2 nor a doubling of water vapour.

Australian geologist, Ian Plimer: Governments are guilty of uncritically accepting the claims of alarmist climate pseudoscientists, based on climate models which don't correlate with the actual evidence.

https://mobile.twitter.com/wideawake_media/status/1645376202419437569

https://mobile.twitter.com/Risemelbourne/status/1645680744629702658


The manipulation is as blatant as it is ridiculous

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FtbHcz-aYAUBi_q?.jpg

The documents, released after a years-long Freedom of Information campaign, show temperature measurements taken using updated BOM probes in automatic weather stations at the Brisbane Airport site could be up to 0.7C warmer than the temperature taken using a traditional thermometer at the same time at the same site.

More than three years after a FOI request for parallel data was lodged by scientist John Abbot, the BOM released three years of data on Easter eve after the matter was taken to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

In the end, the BOM released only limited data, paving the way for a wave of FOI demands that full records be released in the public interest.

Release of the data is the first opportunity to analyse the performance of BOM probes alongside mercury thermometers. The bureau has long claimed the readings are identical but critics have said the BOM was not following World Met­eor­­ological Organisation guidelines on how they should be used.

Given that even small variations in temperature recordings can have an impact on the long-term record, accuracy is vital.
...
“The public is constantly being told of impending global catastrophe should temperatures rise by more than 1.5C. Discrepancies of more than 0.5C because of instrumentation differences are therefore very significant, and certainly should satisfy the public interest test”, Dr Abbot said.

The Oz