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If you don't shit, you die..
In a family of twenty, when one person stops shitting in their backyard, the difference isn't noticeable. Down the track, the non-shitter falls sick. For everybody else, the importance of shitting is reinforced.
Let's get the facts right:
The Science:
The science in climate change is not real. What is real is that a majority of scientists agree on the science. What this means is that the science is more likely to be right. In all communities there is a suppression of minority opinion. However, science advances the most when it listens to those who disagree. We need to recognise that some scientists disagree and cherish that disagreement.
The Technology
The models used to predict the effect of carbon are not science. They are technology, the application of science and mathematics. Models are gross simplifications of reality. It is very easy to get complex models wrong. Even when a particular model works in one instance, it is not proof that it will prove correct in another instance. On the other had, when a model doesn't work in one instance, it does prove that the model is weak. While short range weather forecasts are based on proven models, so far, climate change models haven't worked.
The Economics
Economists haven't said that an ETS is the best way to reduce carbon emissions. What they have said is that a global ETS is the best way to reduce carbon emissions. Economists agree with the shitting parable above. Economists have also said that between Abbot's and Gillard's proposals, Gillard's is the lesser of two evils.
The National Politics
Gillard knifed Rudd to grab the top job. To keep the job, she promised the Greens a carbon tax, thereby knifing her back-benchers, the majority of whom are unlikely to get re-elected. Is there a pattern?
The International Politics
In negotiating targets with developing nations, there are two critical issues they won't let the west bamboozle them on:
- We have been shoving democracy down their throats. Applying this to carbon quotas means on a per capita basis.
- the West achieved their competitive advantage through very high emissions, and now have the wealth and technology to reduce their emissions. The east has the same right to go through a high emission growth curve.
More importantly, Gore, Gillard and Rudd are white middle class suburbanites. The real world lives in the slums of Kandahar, Darfur and Dhaka. Their priorities are war, female literacy and mosquitoes.
Our Grandchildren's Inheritance
The Carbon tax is not going to make one iota of difference to whether our grandchildren have a Great Barrier Reef. What it will achieve is a rapid exodus of Australian manufacturing. Australia, the land of solar roofs, manufactured in China. Australia, the overseas-owned quarry.
Turning off the Heat
If we are really concerned about climate change, then we should stop spouting hot air disguised as logical scientific arguments. It only drives up the temperature.
PS My apologies to anyone I offend with this acerbic style. Often, the pleasure of crafting a sharp barb blinds me to the effect it has on flesh and blood.
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The consequences of a 4 degree world.
Jay, you acknowledge that the majority of the worlds Climate Scientists agree that the Earth is warming and this warming is due to greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere by human activity. This has has tipped the balance of the Earth's climate so it has begun a gradual warming process. Some of these scientists believe that the planet may be upto 4 degrees warmer by the end of this century.
Forget the petty politics that is occuring around the issue of global warming.
What we do in this decade will determine the future of our grandchildren and we hold billions of unborn humanity in our hands.
Listen to the science and let us roll up our sleves and begin working for a better future.
Even if you thought the science had only a ninety percent change of being right surly a few cents worth of insurance would make a lot of sense.
Or should we listen to those that think that the science is crap.
Are you willing to risk billions of lives?
Hmm...
John Pratt: Are you willing to risk billions of lives?
Life on earth has existed for 3,000 million years. The modern human, Homo sapiens, has existed for about 75 thousand years and its population has exploded to 7,000 million in that microscopic period of time, wiping out most other species, wiping out the fish of the rivers and seas, once, a sub-microscopic number of years ago, teeming with them.
We are a horde of locusts, are we not? Our population explodes suddenly, wiping out its environment, and actually needs to collapse suddenly, just like such a horde.
Selling snake-oil as science
The problem, John is that when I hear the phrase "may be upto 4 degrees warmer by the end of this century", My bull shit meter starts blaring. What does it mean? Does it mean that it also may be upto 4 degrees cooler by the end of the century?
I'm personally inclined to believe that climate change is something we should start doing something about. But when I'm talked at by a "scientist" who uses the language of a con-man, it turns me off.
Ps As I said in the essay, climate modelling is not science, it's technology. Your sentence "Even if you thought the science had only a ninety percent change of being right surly a few cents worth of insurance would make a lot of sense." Is exactly the type of language the technologists should be using. Is it 90%, what is their confidence interval? How many cents? Exactly how many dollars is the payback of this insurance? Are there any exclusions? (and they are not doing that because they have these great big gaping holes in their models)
All the rest is waffle and mis-direction. Julia Gillard isn't worried about climate change (If I wanted to be nasty, I'd point out that she doesn't have children. But I'm not, so I won't.). She wanted the Greens to support her as PM. And the ads? Using our money for her sales pitch? How stupid does she think the Australian public is?
The white man's burden.
It must go to show, however important the rest of the organs think they are, the clever brain, the brave workhorse heart, the multi skilling liver; ultimately they all ultimately dependent on an arsehole for survival.
Insofar as my arse does have a hole in it, like a doughnut, most of Jay's above is fair if unpalatable.
As long as I've been alive, timid, tight arseholes have been getting in the way, ever since Dylan sang " The times are a changin".
"If you can't lend a hand,
then get out of the way..".
But the Abbotts and Marns, Mining Councils, developers and Murdochs- and the lazy public- just keep roads a blockin'.
Keep on shitting Jay, it may not stop the trogs, but at least you'll have the consolation of feeling better for it.