http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/06/2735769.htm

“Rudd wages war on Coalition climate deniers : By online parliamentary correspondent Emma Rodgers : Posted Fri Nov 6, 2009 : Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has upped the pressure on the Opposition over its emissions trading stance, accusing it of being full of climate change deniers intent on delaying action. In a speech to the Lowy Institute today Mr Rudd launched a strongly worded attack on the Opposition and climate change sceptics worldwide for holding up countries’ efforts to combat climate change. “It is time to be totally blunt about the agenda of the climate change sceptics in all their colours, some more sophisticated than others,” he said. “It is to destroy the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme at home and it is to destroy agreed global action on climate change abroad. And our children’s fate – our grandchildren’s fate – will lie entirely with them. It is time to remove any polite veneer from this debate; the stakes are that high. The clock is ticking for the planet, but the climate change sceptics simply do not care.”… Mr Rudd accused those who question climate change science of “holding the world to ransom. Climate change sceptics, the climate change deniers, the opponents of climate change action are active in every country,” he said. “They are a minority. They are however powerful and invariably they are driven by vested interests [and are] powerful enough to so far block domestic legislation in Australia.” Quoting several Opposition frontbenchers at length as proof of scepticism and a “do-nothing” attitude within the Coalition, Mr Rudd accused the Opposition of political cowardice and a “failure of logic” in so far refusing to pass the scheme. “The tentacles of the climate change sceptics reach deep into the ranks of the Liberal Party and once you add the National party it’s plain the sceptics and the deniers are a major force,” he said…”

I expected the American right-wing free-trade lunatics to try and chew him up :-

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/world-mainmenu-26/australia-mainmenu-34/2267-australian-prime-minister-goes-hysterical-over-global-warming

“Australian Prime Minister Goes Hysterical Over Global Warming : Written by William F. Jasper : Monday, 09 November 2009…”

But I was still surprised to find that the Wall Street Journal was so nasty-mean about Kevin Rudd, written anonymously as far as I can see, and using evidence from what I think could well be a dubious opinion poll :-

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704402404574525031879821944.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

“NOVEMBER 9, 2009 : Climate-Change Panic Down Under : Kevin Rudd’s attack on ‘skeptics’ is instructive-and bodes poorly for Copenhagen. Tough economic times have a way of clarifying political priorities and forcing people to distinguish among needs, wishes—and fantasies. So you might think a politician as canny as Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd would know better than to blame his country’s new-found skepticism about the risks of global warming on something other than an evil conspiracy. In a speech in Sydney on Friday, Mr. Rudd claimed “climate-change skeptics, the climate-change deniers, the opponents of climate-change action are active in every country.” The prime minister then linked this global conspiracy to “vested interests” bent on “slowing and if possible destroying the momentum towards a global deal on climate change.” Mr. Rudd went on to attack, by name, “the vocal group of conservatives who do not accept the scientific consensus”; opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull, who has questioned the wisdom of taxing the most productive sectors of Australia’s economy during the downturn; and “world government conspiracy theorists” who worry about devolving tax-and-spend powers to unaccountable United Nations bureaucrats. Well, who’s left? Inconveniently for Mr. Rudd, who based his election in 2007 on his environmental bona fides, the public. Electorates all over the world are starting to question the climate-change received wisdom. A recent poll by the Lowy Institute—where Mr. Rudd gave his speech Friday—showed climate-change had fallen to the seventh “most important” foreign-policy goal for the public—down from first two years ago. There is receding support in the U.S. and Europe too, which is why next month’s Copenhagen confab is expected to be such a dud. Like the U.S., Australia is ignoring this common sense and pushing ahead to impose an expensive cap-and-trade regime on its economy. At the very least, such a fundamental change deserves a lively debate, not a defensive denunciation of anyone who disagrees with Mr. Rudd.”

But then I read this :-

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/09/2737160.htm

“Murdoch blasts ABC’s global ‘didgeridoos’ plan : By communications reporter Michael Rowland : Posted Mon Nov 9, 2009 : Mr Murdoch is confident he’ll be able to work out a way of charging people for online content. News Corporation’s media mogul Rupert Murdoch has been in town and he has had a lot to get off his chest, opening up on everything from the treatment of asylum seekers to Kevin Rudd’s personality. Mr Murdoch gave expansive and remarkably candid interviews with The Australian and Melbourne’s Herald Sun… Mr Murdoch also took a swipe at US President Barack Obama, saying he was “going badly”. But his comments on the Prime Minister were the most striking. Mr Murdoch described Mr Rudd as “delusional” for thinking he could shift global thinking on climate change, and accused him of being over-sensitive to criticism. He also said Mr Rudd seemed more interested in running the world and not Australia. It is no secret that Mr Rudd and News Limited papers have been at odds of late, but Mr Murdoch says this simply goes with the territory and effectively told Mr Rudd to harden up…”

Who owns the Wall Street Journal ? Wikipedia tells me, Dow Jones, of course. And who owns Dow Jones ? News Corporation. And who owns News Corporation ? Why, strangely, Rupert Murdoch.

I wrote to various people in my neighbourhood about a Transition Towns project plan for the local Public Library.

One person wrote back to say he was already in Transition, but that he was a Climate Change sceptic (read “denier”) and he quoted all sorts of current “denier” arguments and sources.

I honestly thought about not bothering to reply at all. I’ve replied to so many Climate Change sceptics (read “deniers”) over the last couple of years. They trot out the same stuff again and again and again, never bothering to update themselves or check the real truth of the matter.

Also, all of them to a man seem to jump on the latest “argument”, so I get to hear and read the same nonsense over and over and over, even when it has a perfectly good rebuttal. It gets so, so tiring after a while. It’s like it’s a game to wear us all out.

And why are the Media contributing to this assault on science ? Surely there are rules about this ?

But, if my neighbour is genuine, he does need a reply of some sort, so I tried. And I tried to stay polite, but I’m not sure if it worked out that way. I didn’t cover all his points (some of which he got from “phone a friend” sources).

Why do I, personally, have to answer all this wearing, grinding non-science ?

Why can’t the Government step up and have a weekly public briefing on Climate Change, refuting the latest sceptical myths that transmit like viral disease ?

Why can’t Gordon Brown or John Prescott or Ed Miliband go on record with a “Climate cam” or something ?

from: jo abbess
to: Highams Park, London E4
date: Tuesday, 25 August, 2009
subject: Will the lights go out on Tesco supermarkets ?

Dear Highams Parkers,

Most of you are by now aware of the problems that Climate Change is causing worldwide, and the threats it holds for all of us :-

http://www.saferworld.org.uk/publications.php/404/climate_change_and_security_in_bangladesh

http://www.234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5449220-146/Experts_warn_that_global_warming_may.csp

http://blogs.usatoday.com/sciencefair/2009/08/study-global-warming-worst-in-western-europe.html

But did you also know about Peak Energy – the world reaching a peak in production of supplies – followed by an inevitable decline ?

This is not just a theory or a fantasy. Peak Oil is admitted by Fatih Birol of the International Energy Agency :-

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bed9186c-8514-11de-9a64-00144feabdc0.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/warning-oil-supplies-are-running-out-fast-1766585.html

There are a variety of reasons why Energy will become more scarce and possibly much more expensive.

But it is sensible to accept that the possibilities of both scarcity and expense are real risks.

It could completely destroy the supermarket model of food delivery, such as Tesco Stores, making the food unbearably expensive.

The Transition Town movement is working to develop community resilience to both Climate Change and Peak Oil, and there is a new project in Waltham Forest :-

http://www.transitionwf.org

Each group is independently organised, but they tend to develop the same key working groups : Energy, Transport, Food, Economy and Community Engagement.

Part of the community work already going on is a series of film screenings, of which several have already been shown, for example The Age of Stupid at the Asian Centre in E17.

Hale End Library have offered community space to Transition Waltham Forest for a Climate Change project, and I would like to hear from anyone interested in working with me on two key activities that would be good to do at the Library :-

1. Film screenings

The film-screening group have all the equipment needed that can be taken everywhere by bicycle trailer. Some of the films that we want to show in the Autumn at various venues are in this list :-

The Power of Community (about Cuba’s experience of Peak Oil)
An Inconvenient Truth (the Al Gore film)
The 11th Hour (Leonardo DiCaprio narrates)
The Truth about Climate Change (David Attenborough)
Earth – The Power of the Planet (Dr Iain Stewart)
A Crude Awakening (about Peak Oil)
The End of Suburbia (about Peak Oil)
Who Killed the Electric Car ?
What Would Jesus Buy ? (about consumerism)

2. Book reading club

The Library have said that they can purchase ten copies each of these two books :-

The Transition Handbook (Rob Hopkins)
The Transition Timeline (Shaun Chamberlin)

which could form the basis of a fortnightly or monthly reading group, to get interested people involved in how to take part in a Transition Towns project.

Please do get in touch if you are at all interested in taking part or helping me organise the events.

The next film screening is intended to be at the end of September, possibly in Hale End Library, possibly in Leytonstone Library (if we can’t organise for Hale End by then).

Regards,

jo.

from: M S
to: jo abbess
date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009

Dear Jo

For your interest

I too have concerns of Peak Oil and am a member of the Transition Community but I believe that Global Warming and Cooling are just natural cycles.

This site that explains how CO2 enhanced Global Warming could come about:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_absorption

It turns out that the experiment cannot be performed in laboratories on Earth because you cannot remove the effects of conduction and radiation.

For the greenhouse effect to work you need both water vapour and CO2 in the atmosphere at the same time. Because the CO2 absorbs in the bands where H2O does not.

We have always known that nights are warmer when it is cloudy and when it is clear there are frosts.

CO2 dissolved in water sinks, so our oceans are like soda water. When they warm, the CO2 in the air increases and when they cool the reverse happens.

So the amount of CO2 in the air merely reflects the temperature of the oceans. The CO2 in the atmosphere is at its lowest for 300 million years:-

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1644060/posts

And back in 1820 it was 450ppm

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/07/25/beck-on-co2-oceans-are-the-dominant-co2-store/

It is not a difficult experiment and even I have measured it at around 400ppm there is no reason to doubt early measurements.

Misleading claim by Greenpeace:-

=========================

http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3893

Greenpeace Leader Admits Arctic Ice Exaggeration by Phelim McAleer & Ann McElhinney

Wednesday, August 19th 2009

The outgoing leader of Greenpeace has admitted his organisation’s recent claim that the Arctic Ice will disappear by 2030 was “a mistake.”

Greenpeace made the claim in a July 15 press release entitled “Urgent Action Needed As Arctic Ice Melts,” which said there will be an ice-free Arctic by 2030 because of global warming.

Under close questioning by BBC reporter Stephen Sackur on the “Hardtalk” program, Gerd Leipold, the retiring leader of Greenpeace, said the claim was wrong.

“I don’t think it will be melting by 2030. … That may have been a mistake,” he said…

=========================

Maybe Global Cooling is now on the cards:-

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10783

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/601511/an-emerging-truth.thtml

On the other hand if the Oceans were given a great stir by an asteroid or earthquake then vast quantities of CO2 could be released:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-05/teia-csh051107.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limnic_eruption

So you see why I am very sceptical about CO2 enhanced Global Warming.

It is in the National Curriculum so teachers have to teach this as being true whether they believe it or not. A whole generation of kids have been frightened into thinking that the world is going to end by overheating.

Kind regards

=========================

from: R B
to: M S
date: Thursday, 20 August, 2009
subject: FW: Global B/S

Found this article in the Telegraph. Thought you might find it interesting

==========

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5955955/Weather-records-are-a-state-secret.html

Weather records are a state secret

The IPCC’s computer models have proved just as wrong in predicting global temperatures as the Met Office has been in forecasting those mild winters and heatwave summers, says Christopher Booker.

By Christopher Booker
Published: 01 Aug 2009

Everyone has enjoyed the discomfiture of the Met Office, caught out over its April forecast that we were in for a “barbecue summer” – not least because this is the third year running that our weathermen have got their predictions for both summer and winter hopelessly wrong. In 2007 and 2008 they forecast that summers would be warmer and drier, and winters milder than average – just before temperatures plunged and the heavens opened, deluging us with abnormal rain or snow according to season.

One cause of the blunders that have made the Met Office a laughing stock is less widely appreciated, however. It is that the multi-million pound computer it uses to assist its short-term forecasting for Britain is also one of the four main official sources of data used by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to predict global warming. In this respect the IPCC’s computer models have proved just as wrong in predicting global temperatures as the Met Office has been in forecasting those mild winters and heatwave summers.

Back in 1990, Mrs Thatcher, temporarily under the spell of the prophets of runaway global warming, authorised lavish funding for the then-head of the Met Office, Sir John Houghton, to set up its Hadley Centre in Exeter, as a “world-class centre for research into climate change”. It was linked to the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, to create a record of global temperatures based on surface weather stations across the world, a data set known as HadCrut. Sir John himself played a key role at the top of the new IPCC as chairman of its scientific working group.

Sir John was a fervent believer in the theory that the cause of global warming is man-made CO2, and the HadCrut computer models, run by his CRU ally Professor Phil Jones, were programmed accordingly. Sir John (and the Hadley Centre) continued to play a central part in the running of the IPCC, selecting many of the contributors to its reports that were the main driver of global warming alarm. He and Prof Jones were also prominent champions of the IPCC’s notorious “hockey stick” graph, which rewrote climate history by suggesting that global temperatures had suddenly shot up in the late 20th century to easily their highest level in history.

In recent years, however, the whole theory has come under increasing fire because, as CO2 levels continue to rise, temperatures have failed to follow suit as the IPCC’s computer models predicted they should. Part of the reason why the Met Office has made such a mess of its forecasts for Britain is that they are based on the same models which failed to predict the declining trend in world temperatures since 2001…

==========

=========================

Dear M,

I’m sorry to hear you’re suffering from Climate Change scepticism.

It’s disappointing that you quote so many sources that I consider unsound.

Have you read the IPCC reports ?

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf

I trust this report more than I trust Melanie Phillips, The Spectator, CO2 Skeptic, Global Research, Free Republic, The Daily Telegraph (sceptics’ corner) and Watt’s Up With That.

The reasons are quite simple : those who contributed to the IPCC reports are a diverse group of the world’s experts on all the relevant areas of science. And yet despite their differences, even differences about the evidence of Climate Change, they have come to a consensus opinion which should not be ignored in my view.

It seems bizarre to me that your sources should dispute the facts laid out by the IPCC.

The Daily Telegraph piece continues with one of the more ridiculous lines of argument : weather is not the same as climate. The British climate can be said quite accurately to be “temperate”, and I think we’d all agree about what that means. However one cannot know exactly when a particular rain cloud is going to tip on London. Hence weather forecasting cannot be confused with climate predictions.

The Greenpeace issue is well documented and refuted :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/aug/21/greenpeace-sea-ice-mistake-climate-sceptics

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/greenpeace-admits-bbc-got-it-wrong-about-arctic-sea-ice-melting-20090820

To be honest, I’m more concerned about missing sea ice than whether or not someone put the word “sea” in the expression “sea ice”.

I’m sorry to say that I will not be able to cooperate with you on Transition Town work if you continue propagating Climate scepticism, which has wasted a lot of time since I learned the basic science in the 1980s.

And no, the science hasn’t been debunked since the 1980s. It’s all coming out exactly as predicted.

jo.

Dear Jo

I do not propagate “Climate scepticism” I am just giving you my view – it is not a broad posting. I suspect that CO2 levels will naturally level off in the next few years and the politicians will call their meetings a grand sucess. The CO2 in the atmosphere is at its lowest for 300 million years – that is an undisputed fact.

Regards M

Let’s come back here in a “few years” and see if M’s suspicions about a “level off” in Carbon Dioxide are justified or not ?

I’m genuinely too tired to respond, but if anyone wants to write to M, please let me know and I’ll forward your material.

It is essential that there is meaningful debate in the public realm about what Climate Change is doing to our world, and how we can control emissions and work to protect against damaging outcomes.

The evidence is all around us. And gradually, increasing numbers of people are adjusting their mental aerials to tune into the greater ideas and the bigger picture. What we don’t need just now are obfuscation and turbulence and gleeful mischievous wreckers.

Newspapers can be fun. Some of the writers and web loggers raise genuinely thoughtful issues in a lighthearted style. Some commentary is necessary to point out inadequacies and inconsistencies in policy and personalities.

But whatever they believe, there is no justification for deliberately confusing and misleading people. Yes, we have strived for centuries for the privilege to be able to speak our minds freely, but that gives us an onerous responsibility, to be as truthful and useful as we can be.

James Delingpole has been rising up the charts with his little Daily Telegraph web log :-

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/jamesdelingpole

http://jamesdelingpole.com

At first, I did the equivalent of ruffling his hair : he is, after all, young and benighted, he doesn’t know any better. We can all laugh gently and affectionately at his “libertarian” views on Global Warming, quoted verbatim from a number of cracked pots.

Sooner or later he will work out that his editors encourage this kind of writing purely for the ratings. It might come about that the Conservative Party ask him to quit his membership or public support if he carries on like this. All quite humourous, if tinged with a little regret.

But this week, it has all gone beyond a joke.

Dear James has written a review in The Spectator (that known organ of sense and rectitude) of the book written by Ian Plimer :-

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/3755623/meet-the-man-who-has-exposed-the-great-climate-change-con-trick.thtml

“James Delingpole talks to Professor Ian Plimer, the Australian geologist, whose new book shows that ‘anthropogenic global warming’ is a dangerous, ruinously expensive fiction, a ‘first-world luxury’ with no basis in scientific fact. Shame on the publishers who rejected the book : Imagine how wonderful the world would be if man-made global warming were just a figment of Al Gore’s imagination. No more ugly wind farms to darken our sunlit uplands. No more whopping electricity bills, artificially inflated by EU-imposed carbon taxes. No longer any need to treat each warm, sunny day as though it were some terrible harbinger of ecological doom. And definitely no need for the $7.4 trillion cap and trade (carbon-trading) bill — the largest tax in American history — which President Obama and his cohorts are so assiduously trying to impose on the US economy. Imagine no more, for your fairy godmother is here. His name is Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology at Adelaide University, and he has recently published the landmark book Heaven And Earth, which is going to change forever the way we think about climate change…”

He then goes on, in a similar vein, to assert Ian Plimer’s views; with dashes of surprise, admittedly, but still promulgating the “discredited” geologist’s ideas on Global Warming as if they are established fact. Which they are not.

George Monbiot immediately denounced this book review :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/jul/09/george-monbiot-ian-plimer

“Spectator recycles climate rubbish published by sceptic : Ian Plimer’s work of climate fiction is riddled with schoolboy errors the Spectator appears prepared to believe : Seldom has a book been more cleanly murdered by scientists than Ian Plimer’s Ian Plimer’s Heaven and Earth, which purports to show that manmade climate change is nonsense. Since its publication in Australia it has been ridiculed for a hilarious series of schoolboy errors, and its fudging and manipulation of the data. Here is what the reviews have said. Professor David Karoly, University of Melbourne’s School of Earth Sciences: “Given the errors, the non-science, and the nonsense in this book, it should be classified as science fiction in any library that wastes its funds buying it. The book can then be placed on the shelves alongside Michael Crichton’s State of Fear, another science fiction book about climate change with many footnotes. The only difference is that there are fewer scientific errors in State of Fear.”…Delingpole takes the opportunity to cite the usual conspiracy theories about the “powerful and very extensive body of vested interests” working to suppress the truth, which presumably now includes virtually the entire scientific community and everyone from Shell to Greenpeace and The Sun to Science magazine. That took some organising. I have come to expect this sort of rubbish from Delingpole but I’m amazed that the Spectator is prepared to run a story like this on its cover when a quick check would have shown that it’s utter nonsense. What this story shows is that climate change denial is a matter of religious conviction. The quality of the evidence has nothing to do with it. It doesn’t matter how comprehensively the sources have been discredited, or how ridiculous the claims are. People like Plimer and Delingpole will cling onto anything, however improbable, that allows them to maintain their view of the world.”

And what did The Daily Telegraph do ? Claim James Delingpole was writing in jest :-

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/georgepitcher/100002833/religion-isnt-as-mad-as-climate-change-denial/

“George Pitcher is Religion Editor of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph. He was ordained priest in the Church of England in 2006 and is Associate Priest at St Bride’s, Fleet Street, in London – the “journalists’ church”. : Religion isn’t as mad as climate-change denial : By George Pitcher UK Last updated: July 10th, 2009 : My colleague James Delingpole has produced a fantastic satire of climate-change denial in this week’s Spectator, pretending to be duped by Professor Ian Plimer, whose new book Heaven & Earth re-hashes bad science and flawed evidence to claim that “anthropogenic global warming is a dangerous, ruinously expensive fiction.” Playing it with a straight face, the sly Delingpole’s real intent was clearly to wind up the lefty, po-faced eco-intelligentsia. George Monbiot duly obliged in the Guardian today, exposing Prof Plimer’s transparently weak thesis. Monbiot explodes like a volcano, with clouds of noxious derision and lava-streams of counter-evidence. All the more fool him, for taking Delingpole seriously. And in his outrage, Monbiot makes his own mistake: He concludes that “People like Plimer and Delingpole will cling onto anything, however improbable, that allows them to maintain their view of the world”. So, for Monbiot, “what this story shows is that climate change denial is a matter of religious conviction.” Don’t be silly, George, religion isn’t that mad and stupid.”

The trouble with James Delingpole’s position is not what he actually believes, or what he was attempting to provoke with his attempt at either satire or exposé.

The problem is that he has been effectively inciting all the Climate Change deniers to keep on hammering and stamping. This creates shockwaves of division amongst the population, who are only too ready to be cynical.

The more that the Climate Change denier myths and non-science get repeated and propagated, the harder it is to build a democratic response to Climate Change.

So, regardless of James Delingpole’s actual position (which doesn’t appear to be scientifically informed), his writing is damaging.

James Delingpole isn’t funny. He has been manipulated. Climate Change is not a game. It’s deadly serious.

This kind of fake “debate” stuff should have been put in a lead casket with a stake through the heart in the 1980s, back when it stopped being fashionable to try to sell newspapers through stirring up fake controversy.

Writing about Climate Change is not like taking pot shots at a public person’s dress sense (or not). It’s not like laughing about some architectural monstrosity, or commenting amusingly about those in public life who speak critically about architecture (especially those with challenged dress sense).

Getting cohesion on what Climate Change really is, what it’s already doing, and where it’s probably leading, is really deeply vital.

The Media should be helping, not throwing spanners in the works.

Media Suggestion Number 1 : How about employing some people with actual scientific knowledge and experience to write about Global Warming ?

Media Suggestion Number 2 : How about sending all Media journalists on a training course in Climate Change ? I can give you some names of reputable people, telephone numbers and web addresses to check.

Media Suggestion Number 3 : Even if you don’t believe that Carbon Dioxide emissions are accumulating in the atmosphere at a huge rate owing to humankind’s activities and thereby causing dangerous added Global Warming, at least you could look into the problem of increasing acidification of the oceans from excess Carbon Dioxide and what it’s doing to marine life. Clue : mass extinction.