Hilary Benn, who has spent his entire useless life as a lefty trade union official and politician – after reading eastern European languages at right-on Sussex university – has risen, by some fluke, to be a government minister with a brief to pontificate about “climate change”. Not content that he and his government cronies last week pledged to blow £1.5bn of our money on “carbon emissions”, he is today to warn the the new world government assembled in Copenhagen that we face yet another threat – “ocean acidification”. Despite his complete lack of relevant knowledge, he somehow believes he’s qualified to interpret to the world the highly complex science behind the absorption of CO2 by seawater. Of course, to him and his fanatical brethren, it’s another huge threat, another reason to spend billions of our money on vast nonsense schemes. For the BBC and its environment correspondent Richard Black, another man without a single scientific qualification to his name, it’s a top story that must be breathlessly reported without qualification or challenge. And without reference to latest scientific papers (here and here)that suggest that the whole issue is yet another greenie load of hot air.
BENN NONSENSE
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Interesting, given the new mantra noted yesterday is ‘preparing our audiences’, that on BBC Breakfast just now we have one of those young directors of another ‘charity’ I have never heard of (funded by?), who is very concerned about ocean acidification and killing polar… er.. coral, to tell us what the settled science is today.
Just him. Plus some teleprompter readers to agree.
Maybe he is right, and maybe they are serving a purpose, but without a perception of balanced argument, the BBC is in danger of being seen as nothing but a shill when it leads its programmes with ‘what the government will say…’ Especially if it turns out the funded BBC is ‘interviewing’ a ‘guest’ ‘expert’ from a funded NGO on a topic favoured by a very funding-friendly Government.
I also noted, with certain irony, this young, thrusting exec with a good career in green jobs (if not the kind I think most were thinking when Miliband E. was ‘selling’ the value to the nation) and his sofa surfing chums did not even stumble over how he was hearing about all this as he flew between all their offices around the world.
Meanwhile, tackling further serious topics of importance, Simon Cowell is working with Number 10, which seemed to excite the the teleprompter readers no end.
I am not saying what is being ‘shared’ is true or not; I don’t know… yet. It is clear that there are differing views.
But by denying these exist, and shoveling out one-sided science, and in such a gung-ho, unquestioning manner by mostly trivial celebrity ‘journalists’ whose ‘news’-gathering consists of no more than a retyped press release, the BBC serves the cause of public information woefully.
And widens an already highly compromised divide between rational climate-related news and views, and sheer, unadulterated propaganda that can but backfire as it is picked up and.. worse… often shown to be less than accurate.
Simon Cowell is working with No. 10? Why? Does he have some expertise in debt management? Is he a trained psychiatrist? What other possible reason could there be for him to go to No. 10?
I see Guido is tweeting that there is footage of soldiers refusing to shake the hand of McSnot in Afghanistan.
Anyone want to bet if Guido gets a copy the BBC will ignore the story totally just like they did the one of the soldiers pulling their curtains around them in the hospital to ignore him?
So hows this all work then?
If plankton feeds on CO2, and there is an abundance of CO2 being absorbed by the sea, doesnt that mean plankton numbers will increase, thus removing the increased CO2 from the sea?
Increased plankton also has to be good news because its the food of a lot of sea creatures…so increased food, means increased stocks in the sea?
Also, when plankton dies, doesnt it fall to the sea bed and forms rocks…which is then recycled by the sea (over millions of years) as plates are subducted?
Mailman
Our future being decided by the likes of Benn Jnr/Millibrain E? Very scary indeed but listening to the foolish man waffling away it became clear he doesnt actually know the first thing about the ocean acidification theory but as usual it fits perfectly with his political narrative.
Benn admitted that almost nothing is known about the oceans carbon dioxide cycle yet he feels able to state that the science is clear and nbody disagrees with him nor could he find anyone who did.
The BBC toady was happy to let him waffle away when even a couple of questions could have reduced Benn to a laughing stock, time after time the BBC interviewer fail to ask even the most basic critical questions.
I heard Benn spout his bilge on the BBC that a natural process is being caused by man even saying that it is a result of industrialisation 250 years ago. The stupidity of it is beyond belief but it come as no surprise that Benn banal claptrap is being taken a gospel.
How do these boids explain Limestone, mined from many metre thick strata all over the world that came about through totally natural process when CO2 was deposited as rock many millions of years ago? Did zooplankton have cars or power stations?
Benn is an MP because of Labour nepotism, but it helped a great deal that he had the vast wealth of the Stansgate fortune behind him.
Just because CO2 levels have been high in the past (when, for example, the planet was far more tectonically active, or when it was in a natural warming cycle, which leads to more being released) doesn’t mean that the current levels are part of a natural cycle. Indeed, in the past warming cycles came first, then raised CO2 levels; currently it’s the other way round.
And your point makes no sense. Limestone is always being created. The amount of calcium in the oceans is far more of a limiting factor than carbon dioxide. No-one is denying the presence of carbon dioxide in the past, or even of higher levels of it in the past. But carbon dioxide output since the industrial revolution – and particularly in the last 50 years – has been accelerating at a rate which cannot be explained by natural processes, and cannot be expected to be controlled by geological processes which you yourself admit take place over many millions of years.
Mailman:
I’m a marine biologist. Well, I was in a previous life.
CO2 isn’t the rate limiting nutrient for phyto(plant)plankton, so increasing the amount won’t increase the number of plankton, it will make the sea more acidic. In most cases it’s nitrogenous or phosphoric nutrients which are rate-limiting; algal and phytoplanktonic blooms aren’t caused by CO2 but by pollution from other sources. If CO2 was limiting, then pollution wouldn’t cause these blooms.
Encouraging phytoplankton blooms by seeding areas of ocean has been explored by marine biologists and oceanographers in the past as a way of controlling CO2, but it’s never really succeeded because of the problems it causes. Blooms are often toxic (“red tides” which kill fish) and seriously disrupt ecosystems.
Another issue is that phytoplankton need light of the right wavelength (650nm if memory serves) and this – indeed all light – is very rapidly absorbed by sea water, so the “usable” volume of ocean for plankton is a tiny fraction of what you may think. Add to this the paucity of nutrients in oceanic systems and it’s mostly coastal areas where this is in any way feasible, and then you get the toxicity issues.
As for plankton locking away CO2 – in theory you’re right, that’s an important part of the CO2 cycle. But in real terms, 95% of phytoplankton which die are eaten/decomposed in the surface waters and the carbon isn’t locked away, it’s just recycled (and eventually released into the water). About 5% sinks and is locked away for around 1000 years. Only 0.2% or thereabouts is locked away as fossil fuel. (See Schlesinger WH 1991 “Biogeochemistry: an analysis of global change”, Academic Press, San Diego, CA, USA, Butcher SS, Charlson RJ, Orians GH and Wolfe GV (eds) 1992 “Global Biogeochemical Cycles”, Academic Press, New York, USA.)
[cont…]
[…cont]
Increasing stocks of food; well, possibly, but if you disrupt the balance of the ecosystem then the knock-on effects might not be what you want, especially when you bear in mind the life cycles of the organisms involved. It’s similar to introducing rabbits to Australia; before you know it you’ve got millions of rabbits causing problems and the predators can’t keep up. Then the predator numbers increase and eat all the herbivores, so then there aren’t enough to eat the phytoplankton, and they bloom and kill all the fish because they take all the oxygen and they’re toxic as well, then they use all the other nutrients in the water (which had been released by the herbivores and predators) and they die out, and so on… an equilibrium is eventually reached but it takes generations, not months or years, given the incredibly slow growth of most fish and how sparsely they’re spread in the oceanic plains (which make up the vast majority of the seas).
This argument could go on forever – and probably will. But among scientists, those who dispute climate change are in the minority, and most of the anti-climate change arguments can be easily dismissed: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/climate-change-deniers-vs-the-consensus/
“most of the anti climate change arguments can be easily dismissed” at http://www.deniers‘R’evil.com.
Where did you arrive at the conclusion that sceptics deny the climate changes? All sceptics realise the climate changes on a regulat basis from warm to cold,wet to dry,winter to summer, we sceptics doubt that a harmless trace gas has any effect on climate change.
The ridiculous use of the word “anti climate change” is misleading at best isnt it?
Still if you insist on name calling then so be it, you gave us a website to visit so pehaps you might want to visit ‘watts up with that’ and ‘climate audit’ where most of the global warming cultists arguments are very easily dismissed.
Your post is what we call in the trade a ‘snow job’ more commonly known as ‘bullshit baffles brains’ the art of swamping the target with so much information they surrender, dodgy double glazing salesmen use the technique for quick kill sales.
In essence your long winding post just confirms the lack of actual firm hard evidence based knowledge.
In my experience as an instructer, the student who knows the most says the least, the student who knows the least will try and bullshit the most, needless to say the bullshitters failed.
I give your post a 3/10 fail see me after class!
Oh well. I thought that was a fairly simple explanation of some of the flaws in Mailman’s argument based on several years studying just that kind of marine biological system, and having read countless papers on it going back to the 60s.
You obviously know a lot more about it than me though, so fair enough.
I’ve broken a few windows in my time but never set fire to any cars.
I guess this makes me part qualified to be a climate change expert.
So, like the rest of us (if we were being entirely honest) I merely pronounce. I don’t know if man is the cause of climate change, that said I’m not getting any research grants or trying to control the great unwashed or extract copious amounts of green taxes out of the latter.
“you obviously know a lot more about it than me though, so fair enough”
The point is that nobody knows with any certainty about ocean acidification, even experts are in the dark but the theory fits a political narrative that is desperate for another string to its bow, they can say that the AAM theory is dead at some future point BUT what about about our new shiny ocean acidification theory. Its about changing cannards to hide behind until they are no longer needed.
Its a time honoured technique that the dishonest use to further their positions, if one argument fails then change the line of attack, by the time this new theory is examined and ripped apart the propaganda machine moves onto another line of attack.
Has atmospheric CO2 been higher in the past? Yes.
Has any research been carried out on shells dating from the 17th century to the present that these sea creaures are indeed forming thinner shells in line with the theory and has a direct correlation been made between increased CO2 content in the oceans and thinner /weaker shells? the answer is of course quite simple isnt it? There is no evidence that confirms the theory at present levels, only the projection that hugely increased levels MAY begin to affect marine life.
The theory such as it is is wholly based on those infamous models, they hinge on the model of ever higher levels of stored CO2 in the oceans, a kind of hockey stick if you will, the theory only holds water so to speak if CO2 levels increase dramatically and this one point is where the theory fails, there is no evidence to suggest that the ocean is in fact will continue to take in ever higher amounts of CO2, there is only conjecture based on speculation hinging on the all too frail ‘IF’ and as we have seen with the AAM theory all the ‘IFs’ in the world cannot alter reality.
One only has to look at the core samples taken from the ocean bed to see levels of stored CO2 rises and falls in a regular cyclic pattern, the previous highs and lows just happen to fit the natural warming and cooling cycles.
The art of the model projection has given science some of its most embarrasing failures and if the scientists involved have an ulterior motive while preparing the model then you would be better off asking your local witch to cast the bones. 😀
Ocean acidification is not a “new cannard”, it’s something which has been discussed in marine biology for many years. One new report has been picked up by the media and people from both sides are leaping on it as something to shout about. Really, it’s a red herring (if you’ll excuse the terrible pun); it’s being used by those on both sides who don’t have a full understanding of the science behind it to justify their positions, and that’s a shame. I kind of agree with some of the points about the BBC latching on to releases like this as something new and terrible to worry about, because it’s not, not in a bigger context.
However. Your point about CO2 levels and temperatures (temperature is NOT climate, of course, but a local measurement of the effects of climate) has been regularly explained. Yes, due to solar (and other factors) which are not currently in play, temperatures in the past have risen. Which in turn led to increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. This time, there are no external factors which changes in climate can be attributed to, and the rise in CO2 levels preceeds (rather than, as in the ice core records, following) the changes in climate.
Ah dear old veggie Been!
Surely he`d be chuffed(yes he represents a Yorkshire constiuency so will like that!) there is more scientific expertise up here on this blog than in all the Whitehall Departments that he cruises along with Milbands Major and Minor!
Imagining him hopping from Green room to sofa to Green Room to finish off what Green Queen Prescott could`nt scoff-Bunter without Brains our John!
Now I know why I can`t get round the Strand without some coolie cycling a minister on his rickshaw! See plenty of jobs in this green lark if you look hard enough.
Don`t know or care that much about this new canard of ocean acidification-surely some hippie at Stanford is sending this crap through for the BBC to quote just for a laugh!
You see we`re running out of ocean…a seaside tariff anyone?…permits to build sandcastles?..more BBC more!
And here’s some actual science about the “hockey stick” – a tiny part of the data used to support the climate change theory, by the way:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/myths-vs-fact-regarding-the-hockey-stick/
Oh yes – and the above has a list of evidence-based, hard facts referenced. You know. Proper science, peer reviewed and done by actual climatologists.
Realclimate – a propaganda outlet for those who agree with Mann (as revealed by the CRU emails).
The reference section to that article reads like a who’s who of Climategate: Mann, Jones, Briffa, Crowley, Tett, etc.
A group of self-interested scam merchants peddling dodgy data to shore up their own reputations safe in the knowledge that the rigged peer review will always be symapthetic.
“I’m a marine biologist. Well, I was in a previous life.” You’re weren’t George from Seinfeld were you Adam?
Proper science, peer reviewed and done by actual climatologists. ? =-X
I thought that a major part of the Climategate scandal was the corruption or proper science and peer review by climatologists with a MMGW barrow to push?
Adam,
I too worked in a marine biology lab although I was not a marine bioligist. My degree was in Cellular biology/Physiology. I worked in the Gatty marine laboratory in St Andrews where in my final year my thesis/project was on corticosteroidogenesis of the interrenal gland of the lesser spotted dog fish.
I now run my family printing firm. Go figure( as our cousins across the pond would say)
I understand scientific method.
So incidently does Richard Siegmund Lindzen Alfred P.Sloan proffessor of Meteorology at MIT
Funnily enough MIT is ranked 9th best uni in the world.
Incidently he is a ‘Denier’ or realist
Funny that. And yet the science is ‘settled.
Lindzen does make interesting points, but one swallow does not a summer make. He’s a self-acknowledged contrarian who also states the link between smoking and lung cancer is overstated, although to be honest that’s neither here nor there. I’m not denying he’s not a great scientist who’s done some good work, just that he may not be right. Just because of his position doesn’t necessarily mean he’s right.
I’m not trying to say that the science is “settled” – as you know and appreciate, there’s always going to be disagreement between scientists, and no science is ever truly settled. What I’m trying to argue is that:
1. the majority of experienced climate scientists, and other scientists, support the view that man-made climate change is a strong theory.
2. those who disagree with the science – who may have valid points – are basing those discussions on a small section of the evidence available, and choosing the evidence which best suits them. That’s always true of any argument. But when you look at a consensus view, man-made climate change has stronger support than natural change (or that it’s not happening at all). I tried to counter some of the arguments with several evidence-based sources, but these were dismissed, often with no evidence to back up this dismissal.
3. Many of those who use the science to argue their points do not have a scientific background and do not completely understand the science involved. It’s the same with a lot of media around science-based stories – for example the MMR scandal. I don’t pretend to understand it all. But having studied nutrient cycling in marine biological systems, being told by an “instructor” that my understanding of that science rankles more than a little, so I hope you can understand any hostility.
There’s an interesting article on the New Scientist website (which cites lots of verifiable, evidence-based papers) refuting some of the counter climate change claims:
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/12/50-reasons-why-global-warming.html
Adam,
An interesting list reasonably well constructed. However most are counter arguments which are limited by the list format and as such are pretty 2 dimensional.
The arguments and counter arguments each have merit. My main complaint abut the warmers is the absolutist way they approach their subject.
One week 2weeks 2 years or whatever to the end of the world is plainly bollocks. The ice cap at the north pole will not dissappear in 50 yrs.
The over emotional overly hectoring manner taken up by AGW advocates does their cause a disservice.
I personally am still not persuaded. I personally feel the samples taken have been skewed from the start. There is a herd mentality within science which is natural but dangerous.
History is littered with outsiders vilified by mainstream science who have turned out to be right. Darwin Gallileo William Harvey
All were shunned by the mainstream and only later gained acceptance.
Deniers are not challenged and questioned but are dismmissed as somehow lacking in intellectual capacity or insight.
As you know there is always a temptation to choose the data sets that fit your theory and reject those that are more difficult to explain. This as been practiced on a grand scale. The very criticism you lay at the door or realists/deniers that they pick and choose their sources can also be levelled at the warmers.
I would love the debate to be opened up again. BOTH sides should be listened to. BOTH sides should have their research funded and then and only then can we hope to get to a reasonale position. Until that time,crazy economic decisions shoul be kept to a minimum. Measures which would be good for the planet whether or not MMGW existed should be implemented, but measures which have a serious negative economic impact should be delayed until there is time given to sought the science out.
And before you say it the science isnt soughted. Too many loose ends too many noncritical reviews to many warped funding proceedures.
Remember, one saying which occurs this time of year more than many others. Turkeys dont vote for christmas.
I am a man made global warming/climate change denier. I do not believe nor will I that man is causing the change in our climate, or that man is responsible for the increase in CO2.
I believe that the MMCC alarmists are issuing false data, and sinning false data in a similar way Tony Blair spun his lies over taking us to war in Iraq.
Climate change is natural and instead of the false claptrap of reducing CO2 levels man should be concerned about recycling, reusing and reducing. Impose extreme limits on rain forest deforestation, reduction of fishing, better use of fuels and reducing human reproduction so that the world is a better place to live, but not through the bogus call on reducing CO2 levels to save the world, which is an out and out lie. The world has been a lot warmer when man was not around so CO2 by man is a proven lie.
Oh and BTW increase nuclear power so we are not so dependant on Mid East oil which will be used as a stick and weapon to hold our economy to ransom in the not too distant future.
I don’t think anyone seriously questions whether the rise in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is due to the burning of fossil fuels. After all carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels has a different ratio of carbon isotopes to that found normally in the atmosphere and that can be measured and the rise matches the amount of fuel burnt. It would be rather surprising, I think, if all this carbon that has been stored away underground for hundreds of millions of years did not have an effect on the atmosphere after being burnt in a geological blink of an eye.
What is in dispute is whether, or by how much the increase in C02 could change the climate, or even whether a change in the climate would necessarily be a bad thing (eg, warming and increased rainfall could benefit agriculture in many places).
Also, it is a logical fallacy to say that the Earth being warmer in the past disproves that man can have any effect, because the two things are not logically linked. Climate is effected by many things not just the composition of the atmosphere. There’s also the configuration of the continents, ocean circulation etc. These things have produced radically different climates from glaciation in the tropics to a warm, forested arctic over the history of the earth. It’s not really helpful either, because it rests on the “natural=good” fallacy, when in fact many of the things that have happened naturally in the distant past we would find unpleasant if they happened again.
Eg once it was believed that oxygen levels were so high that wildfires could happen even in wet conditions.
But the past history of the Earth doesn’t logically prove much. It would be the same logically as saying that because your house was warmer without the heating on in July than with the heating on in December, that your central heating is proved to have no effect. Which would obviously be false.
As for ocean acidification (actually, becoming less alkaline would be more accurate, as the oceans are in no danger of actually becoming acidic) I would have thought that all the chalk and limestones that the oceans wash over would be more than enough to buffer any acid, but I’m not a chemist…
I would be interested to know what Benn, Prescott and all the other lefty green kings think about the miners of the UK.
Adam, dear heart, you must be dumb if you think that quoting the RealClimate site gives any validity. Its real nature was fully exposed by the Climategate emails – to those who did not already know.
By the way – have you seen that Briffa’s data on tree rings, a key part of the exploded hockey-stick myth, has not been made unavalable at CRU ?
Briffa at least had the honesty to show that his data post-1960 did not support the hockey-stick invented by Mann, Bradley and Jones. (Even if he did allow those shysters to flatten his data relating to medieval times). I have even heard it suggested that it was Briffa who prompted the leak – but that sounds a bit extreme.
Anyway – his data that is a key component of the whole IPCC argument that we have unprecedented warming is now barred from view.
Great science, eh ?
…………..Briffa’s data “has NOW been made unavailable at CRU”
Ah, ClimateGate. Which is a non-story. There’s no wrongdoing there; the results have been verified by external, independent sources, and the references to “fixes” in the emails refer to standard scientific methods used to make data more accurate and directly comparable by adjusting the data to allow for external factors.
Do you trust the drugs you take to be (for the most part) safe, or for the car you buy to have past safety testing? Do you trust the food you buy to contain what it says on the label, or to be free from contamination? Because all these things are based on the same “fixes”.
As for the tree-ring data, you’re right. It doesn’t fit the (massively simplified) hockey-stick graph. But do you know why? Is it because the tree ring data is more accurate than anything else, like instrument records? Or is it because the hockey-stick is wrong? Or is it because – as Briffa himself says (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v391/n6668/full/391678a0.html) “The cause of this increasing insensitivity of wood density to temperature changes is not known, but if it is not taken into account in dendroclimatic reconstructions, past temperatures could be overestimated. Moreover, the recent reduction in the response of trees to air-temperature changes would mean that estimates of future atmospheric CO2 concentrations, based on carbon-cycle models that are uniformly sensitive to high-latitude warming, could be too low.”
That’s Briffa there, saying that the tree-ring data doesn’t fit the actual temperatures seen because there may be a factor he’s not considered which results in the ring patterns seen. And that CO2 estimations are too low.
“Having failed to convince the world that human-caused warming of the atmosphere is dangerous, IPCC has been casting around for new causes to espouse. A Royal Society of London report in 2005 on “Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide” has proved to be good feedstock, because of its claim that the average pH of the oceans will fall by 0.5 units by 2100 if global emissions keep rising at their current rate. That this estimate is known to be exaggerated by a factor of about 3 has not prevented the IPCC and others from recently publicizing the ocean acidification legend. Clearly, they now seek to move the epicentre of the climate scare from the atmosphere, which stubbornly refuses to warm, to the ocean, whose depths doubtless still contain many scientific surprises.”
http://www.nzcpr.com/guest92.htm
“Bob Carter is a marine geologist and environmental scientist with forty years professional experience, with degrees from the University of Otago (New Zealand) and Cambridge University (England). He has held academic positions at Otago University and the University of Adelaide, and is currently a Research Professor at James Cook University (Queensland), where he was Head of School of Earth Sciences between 1981 and 1999. He is a former Director of the Australian Office for the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP), the premier, world-best-practice research program for environmental and earth sciences.”
http://www.nzcpr.com/guest92.htm#bio is a
I think Bob Carter is a marine geologist in his present life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Carter
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bob_Carter
Bob is a member of the IPA, whose funders include, ExxonMobil, Western Mining Corporation, BHP-Billiton and Gunns. Like you, Bob has publicly stated that he doesn’t believe this to be a problem, or that this biases either his or the IPA’s output.
Interestingly, some companies have found the IPA <i>too right wing</i> after they came out against aboriginal reparations. A lot of the board members of the IPA sit on the boards of mining and fossil fuel extraction companies.
The NZCPR is run by Muriel Newman, former member of the NZ libertarian ACT Party. She was ousted from ACT after her moral conservatism was found to be at odds with the party’s libertarian stance.
So, yes. When you’re trying to say that RealClimate is skewed, try smelling your own shit too.
You may as well see what your heros vested interests are as well
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100019821/climategate-with-business-interests-like-these-are-we-really-sure-dr-rajendra-pachauri-is-fit-to-head-the-ipcc/
“So, yes. When you’re trying to say that RealClimate is skewed, try smelling your own shit too.”
What a nice spoken person you are. Did you go to one of Britains leading comprehensives?
“”The Climatic Research Unit at the heart of the ClimateGate scandal sought funds from Shell Oil in the year 2000.
Other e-mail messages obtained from the University of East Anglia’s computers also showed officials at the school’s CRU solicited support from ExxonMobil and BP Amoco, although the nature of this support was not identified.”
http://noworldsystem.com/2009/12/08/climategate-cru-sought-funds-from-shell-oil/
So what is your point?
And on the IPA – which “right-wing” bits don’t you like?
lower taxation;
deregulation of the Australian economy particularly as affecting industrial relations and trade unionism;
privatisation of government businesses and reduced government spending;
greater transparency in government;
opposition to perceived left wing ideological bias in Australia’s public broadcaster the Australian Broadcasting Corporation;
a free market approach to environmental problems, and criticism of aspects of climate change science;
the elimination of existing programs of welfare targeted at Indigenous Australians, with the aim of encouraging transition to work, self-reliance and high incomes.”
Is it the “Indigenous Australian” bit?
Another view of ocean acidification:
Below is an article from “The Times” of London. The writer has not kept up with the science however. His high-school chemistry has not prepared him for the complexity of nature: Both shellfish and corals THRIVE under higher levels of CO2. And warmer water EXPELS CO2 anyway, which is probably what is causing the present slight elevation of atmospheric CO2 levels. The Comments on the article give the author quite a caning anyway. He really is a drip who should stick to something he knows about. He is just a smug journalist with a chip on his shoulder
Ocean acidification has been quite scandalously left out of the reckoning in the past few weeks. I am not for a moment belittling the science behind man-made global warming. This still seems to me solid, despite the shenanigans at the University of East Anglia. That levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are rising is not disputed. We have known since the 19th century that carbon dioxide was a crucial greenhouse gas. Venus has a lot of it and is hot as hell. Mars has almost none and is cold as ice. [Errr… could we mention their very different distances from the sun?]
However, even if you happen to believe that everything we know about greenhouse gases is illusory — unlikely though that is — we would still need to agree at Copenhagen this week to cut our emissions of carbon dioxide because of what is happening to the sea, the source of roughly half our food and provider of other useful services that we tend to take for granted.
We know the ocean absorbs about 25% of the carbon dioxide we emit each year. This CO2 dissolves through wind and wave action to form carbonic acid. ….snipped from here
from http://antigreen.blogspot.com/
Oh, and notice that just like those here who still have
NO COUNTER ARGUMENT to the FACTS of OLD EARTH SCIENCE,
DESCRIBED by God’s Living Word, the video uses the SAME
ONE WORLD POWER CONTROLLED, MEDIA/STORIES to SELL
HATE of The Creator of JUST, PERFECT LIFE.
Simply, the Age of the rise of Europe IS RECENT Earth history,
whereas God’s Word Describes The Same Beginning that Science
Has Discovered to have been SO VERY MUCH OLDER than the
RIDICULOUSLY Short ‘time-line’ NAILED TO The EGYPT LIE.
Buy that INSANE LIE and YOU ARE LOST.
<!– / message –><!– sig –>
Oh no…this acidification train seems to be a rumbling down the track. How many parts per million will I be allocated to put on my chips or on my pancakes-time to invest in the Bicarb industries!
Taxes and warnings on plastic lemons and licences to put vinegar down the drain…mark today as the first one when acidification(charming word!) became the fifty third bat up the nations nightdress!
Now I can see why Brown refuses to stay in the country-no stationary target you see!
The subject of Climate Dynamics should never have been placed in the hands of Environmental studies departments etc, as they were never qualified to investigate the subject. Their publications output clearly reveals that.
Below is a link to a talk given by an eminent physicist from CERN, Dr Jasper Kirkby, on the physics of Climate.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/175641-climategate-revolt-of-the-physicists
The first thing that will be noticeable is the humility of Dr Kirkby -a trait that is missing from the religious certainty and dogma that Climatologists display.