Tim Flannery on Lateline, June 10, 2005: The general patterns that we're seeing in the global circulation models - and these are very sophisticated computer tools, really, for looking at climate shift - are saying the same sort of thing that we're actually seeing on the ground. So when the models start confirming what you're observing on the ground, then there's some fairly strong basis for believing that we're understanding what's causing these weather shifts and these rainfall declines, and they do seem to be of a permanent nature.
Tim Flannery on Lateline on Monday:
You see these people work with models, computer models, right? So when the computer modelling and the real world disagree, you've got a very interesting problem, and that's when science really gets engaged. We don't actually know why the current cooling is occurring because the current modelling doesn't reflect it. We can't pretend we have perfect knowledge - we don't.
True believer George Monbiot, May 10, 2005:
It is hard to convey just how selective you have to be to dismiss the evidence for climate change. You must climb over a mountain of evidence to pick up a crumb; a crumb which disintegrates in your palm.
If only I'd been more sceptical. George Monbiot in The Guardian on Monday:
It's no use pretending this isn't a major blow. The emails extracted from the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I'm dismayed and deeply shaken by them. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request. Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign.
I shouldn't gloat I know, but it is interesting that Dr Flannery now confirms what I have said for years was patently self-evident and obvious, ie that our knowledge of how the planet's climate works is too partial and incomplete to be making definite pronouncements about how we may be affecting it, and certainly too partial and incomplete to be assuming we had any idea what will be happening by the end of this century and that this somehow provided the sensible justification to completely turn our economy and that of the rest of the world upside down and at the cost of quite literally trillions of dollars by the time of whole mad scheme was finished.
What he's saying of course is that rather than the science on climate change being settled as he and others have been falsely claiming for years, it is anything but.
And just to settle one point once and for all, Flannery (and very reluctantly, the Department of Climate Change) now both admit that there has been either no warming for a decade now, or indeed there has actually been a cooling trend.
But the whole demented caravan marches on and continues with its increasingly threadbare antics. So today we yet again have the polar ice card played.
Andrew Bolt:
Take your pick.
The Arctic could be ice free by:
2008
2012
2013
2014
2019
2060
Er, would you now believe 2030?
Now, 26 international scientists have collated the most recent data and observations, and they have found that climate change is accelerating beyond expectations.
Most of the 26 scientists are authors of reports published by the IPCC… According to their research, the Arctic may be ice-free by the summer of 2030 and sea levels could reach the upper limit of 2 metres by the turn of the century.
Hmm: Is that the truth, or were you peer-reviewed? And can 2030 really be “beyond predictions”, when those predictions have already included 2008, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2019?
Meanwhile, back at the Arctic, the ice is where it’s been for the past several years. And the world’s temperature still hasn’t risen this century.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/adjust_your_predictions/
Finally, an interesting barometer of the changing mood of the times.
Dr David Karoly dishes up the usual alarmist fare on the ABC here http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2751952.htm
But check out the comments! They're after him and the alarmists with baseball bats. On the ABC! That's what I call a sea change in public opinion.
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