Green's and their JUNK Science

Why being green is good camouflage

February 19, 2005

http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=145769&storyid=2685096

THIS week there was a wailing and a gnashing of teeth as the Kyoto Protocol came into effect without Australia's co-operation. Greenpeace's stunt at Warragamba Dam reflected the contempt for the facts we have come to associate with it.

The dam is half empty and activists broke in and put a sign on the bare earth that read: THIS IS WHAT CLIMATE CHANGE LOOKS LIKE.
This is nonsense. Climate change these days means global warming: there is some evidence the earth has warmed about 0.6C in the past century.

So Greenpeace is saying warmer countries must have less rainfall than cooler ones. There is no scientific reason for this.
And even if you don't understand the science, all you have to do is compare a country like New Guinea – very hot and rainy – with Australia.

In fact, there's no evidence of increased droughts, floods, or any other extreme weather over the past century. I know this doesn't stop environmentalists blaming global warming whenever there's a storm, but according to William Kininmonth, who was in charge of Australia's National Climate Centre until 1998, it's the truth.

It's depressing that no public figure criticised Greenpeace's claim. You can understand why some might not want to.
History will regard Bob Carr's failure to build infrastructure like new dams as a defining feature of his government. Maybe he sees climate change as a useful diversion.
This week he said: "Climate change is the biggest issue facing the world."

Kim Beazley said global warming is as bad as global poverty, and his environment spokesman Anthony Albanese said it is the greatest threat to the health of our planet.

What – as bad as starvation and malnutrition affecting millions in the Third World? As bad as AIDS in Africa?

Statements such as these are recklessly irresponsible. They divert our attention from problems we could solve, such as hunger, to ones we can't.

The truth is we have no control over global warming, and in any case it's not a problem at all.
The myth holds that carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere is increasing, due mainly to industrial activities, and this traps heat lower down, with the result that temperatures on the earth's surface rise.

The first problem with this is that the extra carbon dioxide we create is so minuscule in comparison with the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere it's highly unlikely it could create this effect. Variations in the amount of heat the sun generates are a far more likely cause.
The second problem is that temperatures have not risen along with industrialisation over the past 200 years. In the 1970s, for instance, environmentalists said we faced a global cooling.

Another major problem is that a small rise in temperature could be a good thing, whatever the cause. It could increase agricultural productivity and reduce energy requirements (for heating) in many places. The myth of manmade global warming thrives because it fits the interests of so many people, such as Green groups in search of crises to attract new members (no crisis, no cash) and politicians looking for excuses. We can now speak of a global warming industry.

Professor Garth Paltridge is an atmospheric scientist who headed the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies at the University of Tasmania for many years.
He says most developed countries have institutionalised their greenhouse activity within government agencies devoted specifically to mitigation of global warming. Their budgets are enormous.

It is not likely that the public servants who staff them will be receptive to doubts about their reason for existence.
Nor are the research institutions concerned with global warming likely to bite the hands that feed them.
As to the claim that there is a consensus on global warming among climate scientists, Paltridge is dismissive. He says: That belief is simply not true.