Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for May 8, 2006

Is the Troposphere Warming?

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Last August I posted a comment at this blog titled ‘The Troposphere is Warming’, in which I explained that, in accordance with global warming models, and according to a series of papers in the journal Science, the lower troposphere was warming.

Yesterday Vincent Grey sent me the following graph from the oh-so-not confidential IPCC report on the physical basis for global warming, as reviewed in a recent volume of Nature but not to be published until February next year, click here for a background briefing.

TroposhereVincentBlog.JPG

Vincent Grey interpretes this graph as showing no evidence of warming. As posted yesterday he has commented that:

“The satellite measurements show no temperature change between 1979 and 1997, but is then followed by a large sharp peak in 1998 because of the El Nino ocean event of that year, and since 2001 has shown a modest warm spell.”

What is also interesting is that the two cool periods follow volcanic activity – El Chichon in 1982 and Pinatubo in 1991.

I wonder if any volcanos are likely to erupt in the next few years?

I find the graph fascinating.

It doesn’t suggest to me a really close correlation between atmospheric carbon dioxide levels that have been showing a consistent rising trend over this time period, and the temperature in the lower troposphere?

On Think Tanks: Christian Kerr & Greg Lindsay

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Today’s email from Crikey includes a note from Christian Kerr about last week’s 30th Anniversary dinner for Sydney-based think tank, The Centre for Independent Studies (CIS). I also attended the grand gathering, but this is how Christian reports it:

I‘ve been to many gatherings of the great and good, but I’ve never attended such a high calibre function as the Centre for Independent Studies’ 30th anniversary dinner in Sydney last week.

More than 600 guests crammed into the ballroom of the old Regent down on George Street – some of the most powerful and influential men and women in Australia.

The Prime Minister spoke, but it was the comments of the Centre’s founder and chief executive, Greg Lindsay, that were most interesting:

You’d be amazed at the range of think tanks that exist worldwide. Take just one example, the Albanian Liberal Institute. What does Albania conjure up in your minds? One image I have is the super highway from the airport as described by PJ O’Rourke. I think it was eight lanes. What a highway. Trouble was, it went for only 300 metres.

Albanians wish to be neither the butt of jokes nor the poor relation on the continent any longer. A think tank is an important part of the new world for them. The institute there has a staff of three and a budget of $50,000. The three main principles that it promotes are individual rights, the market economy and the open society. Sound familiar? It should, and it’s exciting. That story, or something like it, is being told in almost every country in the world.
Indeed, if you visit the website of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, you’ll even find a DIY guide to starting a think tank of your own.

Rivalry can be fierce. John Roskam, the head of the Institute for Public Affairs, was at the CIS do, but just a few blocks away Gerard Henderson and the Sydney Institute were hosting a rival show. That was pretty spectacular, too. Their guest speaker wasn’t someone you hear from everyday – ASIO boss Paul O’Sullivan.

Think tanks are a $US500 million industry worldwide. About $US300 million of this money goes to the United States think tanks, but the leftover is still significant.

Where does the money come from? Lindsay doesn’t name the CIS’s donors. In response, however, he points out that the CIS doesn’t accept government funds or undertake specially commissioned, “tied”, research. Funding is an issue for think tanks worldwide. A wide range of donors is needed to maintain independence, and for differentiation.

It’s easy to see how think tanks can become second-class agents of business. And it’s also easy to see how potential donors want think tanks to be virgin wh*res – how they fancy their purity of thought but want them to take the money and get dirty.

Interestingly, though, the global trend amongst think-tanks of the centre-right appears to be for a majority of funding to come from private individuals, not corporates.

The CIS has 24 staff and an annual budget of $2.5 million. As Lindsay said on the night, it has provided “words which have helped define the contemporary language of public debate”. To continue its work, a fund was launched on the night with the aim of raising $10 million. The money is already coming in.

Entrepreneurship in ideas is clearly booming – but it appears that the details of donors will be one subject the think tanks are silent on.”

There is often comment at this blog about my being an employee of the much smaller think tank, The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA). What amazes me is the extent to which there seems to be a general ignorance of why people like me work for the IPA and enjoy a meal with people from the CIS.

Like Greg Lindsay, I agree that there is a need to promote individual rights, the market economy and the open society. These things don’t come naturally.

What should also be abundantly obvious is that people who work for think thanks tend to be fiercely independent by nature and will question those who seek to impose top down regulatory approaches on principle.

Of course such regulation is usually pushed by organisations that claim to be working for the public good, organisations like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Greenpeace and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), but as George Orwell reminds us, “Saints should be presumed guilty until proven innocent”.