I received the followed note and pictures from Neil Hewett of Cooper Creek Wilderness in the magnificent Daintree Rainforest of Far North Queensland. Neil wrote: “These magnificent birds once roamed more than half the land-surface of the planet, but for the inconvenience of global cooling and drying.”
These images were captured at Cooper Creek Wilderness by Brian and Rosemary Mulcahy of Ormond, Victoria.
In an early blog post titled ‘Debate and Dissent is Healthy’, part of my series on Al Gore’s movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, I explained how tabloid e-news site Crikey had started a list of global warming skeptics and was suggesting that we were a small and misguided ‘clique’.
According to their journalist Sophie Black I got on the list because I once wrote: “As a consequence of the burning of fossil fuels, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are currently increasing. There is no evidence, however, to suggest this will bring doom or that, by signing the Kyoto Protocol, Australia would make a significant difference to global carbon dioxide levels or to the rate of climate change.”
So it’s not so much that I deny global warming or climate change (and by the way I don’t), or that I deny that increasingly levels of carbon dioxide may drive some warming, but rather I have been labeled a skeptic because I don’t believe in Kyoto or that the current elevated atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide mean we are ruin.
Today Crikey has published the names of MORE so-called global warming skeptics. It includes: Miranda Devine (Sydney Morning Herald columnist), my colleague at the IPA Alan Moran, Prof Jon Jenkins, (NSW Parliament), blogger Tim Blair, radio broadcaster Alan Jones, the Prime Minister John Howard, Alan Oxley (Head of APEC Studies Centre at Monash University), Christopher Pearson (columnist with The Weekend Australian), The Australian Industry Greenhouse Network’s John Eyles and Christian Kerr (Crikey journalist).
But Christian was given the opportunity to immediately deny that he is a skeptics with the comment: “I’m not a climate change sceptic. I’m not a Chicken Little, either. Science shows us that global temperatures have varied throughout the earth’s history. And science has also shown itself more than capable of overcoming remarkable challenges. Sorry if that disappoints the apocalyptically-minded.”
Come on Christian Kerr! If I am a skeptic you’re a skeptic. I also believe in science and technology and haven’t written anywhere that the sky is falling in.
The original global warming skeptics list published by Crikey on Friday included William Kininmonth (former head of the National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological Organisation), Ray Evans (once executive at Western Mining Corporation), Chris Mitchell (Editor-in-chief of The Australian), Terry McCrann (News Ltd business writer), Andrew Bolt (Herald Sun columnist), Hugh Morgan (head of the Business Council of Australia until 2005), Alan Wood (The Australian’s finance writer), Ian Castles (Former head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics), Ian Plimer (Professor of Mining Geology at the University of Adelaide), Bob Carter (A former director of the Australian Ocean Drilling Office, Professor of paleoclimatology at James Cook University) and me.
I am going to nominate a reader, commentator and contributor to this blog Paul Williams to the growing clique of global warming skeptics for his great contribution to dissent and debate by way of that blog post titled ‘Hockey Sticks & Ancient Pine Trees’.
And also, On Line Opinion editor and blogger, Graham Young, for suggesting Tuvalu and Kiribati still exist as Pacific Islands in his blog post of 8th May last year entitled ‘Antropophagai anyone’.
I invite others to nominate their favourite skeptic with a short justification by way of comment below.
You may also like to send your nomination and justification to Crikey with an email to boss@crikey.com.au.
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Today’s Crikey list include the following contributions from the named skeptics:
Miranda Divine for ‘Its the End as He Knows it’ published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 10th August, and
Alan Moran for ‘Alarm on Global Warming Just a Load of Hot Air’ published in the Age on 8th September.
In ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ Al Gore repeatedly suggests that all the ‘so-called global warming skeptics’ are in the pay of a big oil company probably Exxon Mobil. Never once during this so-called documentary does Gore acknowledge that there is potential for an alternative thesis on global warming and the role of carbon dioxide. All dissent is met with ridicule and/or name calling.
Al Gore certainly doesn’t appear to understand the potential value of hypotheses testing. Instead Gore reduces global warming to a moral issue and a contest between the good guys, which according to Gore includes all of the world’s climate scientists, and the so-bad so-called skeptics, who he suggests are all hired guns.
Gore is clearly not a fan of Socrates who once said wrote that the highest form of human excellence is to question one-self and others.
The Gore approach has certainly brought out the worst in some journalists with Sophie Black from Crikey, a so-called independent online media service, ditching independent analysis for branding.
Yesterday, she wrote in a piece entitled ‘The Global Warming Sceptics Club – a Crikey list’:
“But the majority of scientists in Australia believe that reasonable debate about the substance of global warming ended some time ago. What remains at issue is potential rates of change and the scale of destruction, a problem many have moved onto addressing. But even in the most optimistic scenarios, the news is not good.
Which means the doubters are starting to reduce to a small, exclusive clique. Crikey has compiled an unofficial membership list of the Global Warming Sceptics Club — meet the commentators who don’t see what all the fuss is about.”
Her list includes me (Jennifer Marohasy) along with William Kininmonth (former head of the National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological Organisation), Ray Evans (once executive at Western Mining Corporation), Chris Mitchell (Editor-in-chief of The Australian), Terry McCrann (News Ltd business writer), Andrew Bolt (Herald Sun columnist), Hugh Morgan (head of the Business Council of Australia until 2005), Alan Wood (The Australian’s finance writer), Ian Castles (Former head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics), Ian Plimer (Professor of Mining Geology at the University of Adelaide) and Bob Carter (A former director of the Australian Ocean Drilling Office, Professor of paleoclimatology at James Cook University).
Like Al Gore, instead of analyzing the quality of our argument(s), Black makes one or other of the following comments next to each of our names, and in the context of other comment, insinuates that we have a vested interest in maintaining what she considers to be an increasingly untenable position: “closely associated to the mining industry”, “News Ltd” or “a member of the IPA (Institute of Public Affairs)”.
Most of us might be just independent thinkers who have taken the time and effort to try and understand the issue and have come to a different conclusion and refuse to be bullied into the consensus position.
It is somewhat shocking that in 2006, an independent news service like Crikey, and a much revered so-called documentary like ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ can be so openly intolerant and dismissive of any alternative perspective on such an important issue as climate change.
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The Crikey piece by Sophie Black includes links to some recent public commentary by the so-called Clique on ‘An Inconvenient Truth’:
William Kinimonth, Don’t be Gored into going along, The Australian, 12th September: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20393768-7583,00.html
Andrew Bolt, Bulled by a Gore, Herald Sun, 13th September: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20400748-5000117,00.html
Terry McCran, Al Gore’s Day After Tomorrow Sequel, Herald Sun, 12th September :http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20394654-36281,00.html
Chris Mitchell, Editorial: It’s not the end of the world, The Australian, 4th September :http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20346728-7583,00.html
and also An Inconvenient cost, The Australian, 12th September: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20393954-7583,00.html
I will be writing something for my next Counterpoint column on the 2nd October.
I’ve been in Hong Kong two days now and I haven’t seen the sun yet.
My hotel room has a magnificent view over the harbour. I did see some sun beams early yesterday morning penetrating through the smog haze over the harbour – but no sun.
Photograph taken looking from Hung Hom (Kowloon) east to the island of Hong Kong from the top of the Harbour Plaza Hotel on 11th September 2006 at about 3pm.
It’s an eight hour flight from Brisbane to Hong Kong and I tuned the screen in the back of the seat in-front of me to Al Gore’s new movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and watched the movie a couple of times. I had already seen it at a cinema in Brisbane the day before, so I’ve now seen ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ three times.
It’s a mighty piece of propaganda in which Gore doesn’t let a single inconvenient truth get in the way of his thesis that the earth is already experiencing dramatic climate change as a result of extremely elevated carbon dioxide levels.
Early in the movie there is a cartoon depicting a ‘Mr Sunbeam’ marching down to earth only to be trapped and then beaten up by some ‘global warming thugs’. An analogy is made between the bodies of dead ‘sunbeams’ piling up within the earth’s atmosphere and planet earth overheating.
Gore is correct to indicate that carbon dioxide levels have risen dramatically over recent decades, but he is wrong to suggest there has been a corresponding dramatic increase in temperature. Global air temperatures have only risen by about 0.6C over the last 30 years – though more dramatically at the Arctic. He suggests sea temperatures have also risen dramatically as an explanation for the veracity of hurricane Katrina.
Gore was correct to indicate that with global warming there should be a corresponding increasing in rainfall and snowfall, but it is unclear to me whether this has actually been the case. I understand more snowing is falling on Greenland, but less on the Australian Alps.
Gore went on to claim more rain is falling in more extreme events giving the example of Mumbai (India) in July 2005. He also indicated that rainfall patterns are changing with places like the African Sahel experiencing more extreme drought.
In the movie, all of this was attributed to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. There was no mention in the movie of global dimming, which a growing scientific literature* suggests has the effect of reducing global temperatures as well as potentially reducing rainfall and snowfall by affecting both cloud droplet coalescence and ice precipitation formation. There is also potential for this phenomenon to change precipitation patterns, with the pollution from Australia’s capital cities and industrial areas potential creating a downwind rain shadow.
Global dimming is a consequence of increasing levels of urban and industrial pollution with man-made airborne aerosols having the effect of sending Al Gore’s ‘Mr Sunbeams’ back into space, in effect saving them from the global warming thugs depicted in the cartoon in the movie.
So the haze that has been hanging over Hong Kong, can potentially counteract the increasing levels of carbon dioxide. This potentially explains why global temperatures have not increased dramatically.
Of course there are other explanations, but given the anticipated growth in the Chinese and other economies, and the likely corresponding increase in air pollution, shouldn’t Gore have at least acknowledged the issue?
Al Gore’s movie purports to present facts and information in a thoughtful and compelling way. But Gore so simplifies and exaggerates just one aspect of our understanding of climate physics that it would perhaps have been more honest to have called the movie ‘A Plug for Anthropogenic Global Warming Wthout All The Inconvenient Truths’.
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* I was recently sent the following very interesting papers on global dimming and its potential impact on rainfall in Australia: Rosenfeld, D. (2000) Suppression of rain and snow by urban and industrial air pollution. Science, Vol 287, pp 1793-1796. Rosenfeld et. al. (2005) Potential impacts of air pollution aerosols on precipitation in Australia. Clean Air and Environmental Quality, Vol 40, No. 2, pp 43-49. Rosenfeld, D. (2006) Aerosols, Clouds and Climate. Science, Vol 312, pp. 1323 – 1324. ABC TV Four Corners did a feature on global dimming in March 2005, the transcript and reference documents can be found here: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2005/s1328747.htm
I’m hoping to publish a few blog pieces on the movie and invite guest posts from others: email your contribution to jennifermarohasy@jennifermarohasy.com .
My daughter turns 18 on 19th February 2007 and we are planning a party. February is often wet in Brisbane. We want to invite lots of people and hold the party outside in the backyard. Will it rain on us?
According to a book I’ve been reading by Ken Ring entitled ‘Predict Weather for Australia: Almanac and Isobaric Maps 2007’ published by Random House we are perhaps better to wait until late March to hold the party.
On page 121 he writes that between the 19th and 26th March, Brisbane can expect the longest dry and sunny spell of the month.
In contrast Ring writes on page 87 that the first 10 days of February will bring a passing front and moderate rainfall, then between the 15th and 20th there will be persistently overcast days and heavier amounts of rain and the last week of February will see another front bringing more rain.
The book has detailed predictions for all of 2007 with a focus on Australia’s capital cities.
Ring bases his predictions on lunar cycles in particular drawing on five of the lunar cycles known most to astronomers on the basis each creates an orbiting pattern that influences weather. He writes that these cycles feed into each other and fit like cogs in a gearbox with such celestial precision that after each lunar cycle of around 130 years, the moon returns to the same place in the sky with respect to the background of stars.
The five cycles are: 1. the cycle of the phase (new moon to new moon), 2. the cycle of declination (north to south and north again), 3. the apsidal cycle (moon speed change), 4. the perigee(closest to furthest away each month), and 5. the cycle of moonrise and moon set timing (air-tide in and out).
Ring explains that combinations of these lunar cycles produce weather peculiarities and when peaks in two or three cycles occur on or near the same day, extreme weather can result.
Perhaps not surprisingly Ring is a global warming skeptic.
To what extent should I consider Ring’s predictions in the planning of my daughter’s 18th birthday party?
According to an article entitled ‘Arctic dips as global waters rise’ published at BBC News, sea levels in the Arctic have been falling by a little over 2mm a year. It goes on to explain that while it is well known that the world’s oceans do not share a uniform height, the scientists are nevertheless puzzled by their findings. And so am I.
Read the full article here.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.
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