Mumble reports Newspoll has Labor’s lead dropping from 59-41 to 55-45, with primary votes of 44 per cent for Labor, 39 per cent for Coalition, 10 per cent for Greens and 7 per cent others. More to follow.
Meanwhile, Alexander Downer confirms he will quit parliament to take up a job as United Nations special envoy to Cyprus. Mayo by-election to follow.
UPDATE (2/7/07): Today’s Australian provides further figures on standard of living expectations, which have plunged shockingly – “get worse” being up from 18 per cent to 43 per cent since December. While I’m here, a belated link to yesterday’s graphic.
UPDATE (3/7/07): Newspoll has released its quarterly aggregated poll which provides breakdowns by state, gender and age. It suggests the Rudd honeymoon effect has been especially strong in South Australia and in metropolitan areas, is fading quickest in Victoria, and did not further increase support for Labor in the 18-34 age group. Two of these four are consistent with the result of the Gippsland by-election.
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And last year the same mob were getting all excited about nuclear power being needed to solve the problem.
Ruawake I do see your point but INHO solar, wind etc are backward means of producing energies. True an electron is an electron is an electron but it’s the amount of energy one gets from something that counts.
Was iot not reported last month that the North Pole and Greenland have been completely snowed in? I believe it was.
Steve it would appear that some on Labors side are finally catching up to nuclear i.e. Mr Car and the Union guy.
Snow is not ice! Greenland ice covers a smaller extent and is much thinner than even 20 years ago!
John of Melbourne Says:
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:47 pm
People like you really don’t matter anymore, Greenland is sliding into the sea, you and Andrew Bolts inability to understand the science isn’t going to change the situation. Climate change is on, mild concern is going to change to panic as everyone including you and Andrew Bolt are forced to face reality, the sea level seen over the last 1000 years is not a god given height.
There was a land bridge between Australia and Tasmania 40 thousand years ago. When the evidence that the planets sea levels changes quite regularly and by large amounts why this inability to accept it’s going to move again?
We know the sea level depends on the level of carbon dioxide in the air, we know ice ages end when volcanoes put more of the stuff up there, we know humans have added more, what exactly is your problem, we are not talking quantum mechanics here, the science is pretty dam simple.
Charles I agree change is constant and inevitable. Can you tell me please if the level of carbon dioxide has a linear relationship to global warming.
12.30PM: Garnut releases his report. You can hear it live on News Radio.
This looks very ominous to me. From your link about Brough being dumped.
I don’t know how many Nationals Members and Senators from Queensland there are but if they all park themselves in the Liberal Party party room, what then?
Steve there are two. Barnabty Joyce and good old Ronald Boswell.
LTEP, as ruawake said earlier, “Barnaby, Ron, Paul, Bruce and Warren” can all park themselves in the Liberal Party room in Canberra now and there is nothing anybody will be able to do to stop them, if the Pineapple Party is formed.
John of Melbourne Says:
July 4th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
My view.
The reality of life, very few complex systems are linear and our science really hasn’t got past linear modeling. When the melt is on, the melts is on and it’s started big time.
I think it is all over, we have forced the system into a new mode and the changes in the next 10 years are going to cause panic. Two more summers to the next election, five to the next, eight to the next. Each summer is going to highlight just how non linear the system is.
Have a look at the second picture here.
Thats an iceberg going down the drain, an iceberg that is several thousand feet thick.
Apologies if it has already been linked.
Peter Hartcher eviscerates Dolly Downer….
http://www.smh.com.au/news/peter-hartcher/empire-ends-for-alexander-the-notsogreat/2008/07/03/1214950947565.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
John I also don’t think it isn’t going to be the end of the world. Change is good for an economy, there are levies to be built, irrigation system to be moved and hurricanes to recover from.
And just perhaps we as a species will conclude that forcing the system is not a good idea and there will be alternate energy sources to develop.
Optimist 361
I read Hartcher first thing this morning and what a great way to start the day. I was surprised how unashamedly damming he is of Downer!
Are we expecting a Morgan this afternoon? Roy has become somewhat unpredictable.
Runawake
You might want to redo your science and biology classes
See we eat Carbohydrates, sugar etc, which are forms of Hydrocarbons H (Hydrogen) and Cs (Carbon)
To create energy, we uses the Hydrocarbon stored in our system, and they are burned by the Oxygen we breath in
CHs + O2 give H20 and C02, otherwise know as water and piss, and Carbon Dioxide.
Runawake
a. when we breath out, there is normally 5% more CO2 and 5% less O2 than the air we breath in
Do you know what happened to CO2 when it pass out with urine …… you guess it, it goes into the atmosphere
According to the web site http://www.treepeople.org/, in one year an acre of trees can provide enough oxygen for 18 people.
Would there be more trees in the world than people? I would guess there would be.
Oldtimer –
Hartcher was just brilliant. I guess he was saving this for when Downer was on the way out. Would have preferred to see it written years ago, but better late than never eh?
Here’s a short extract from the Ganuat Report at Peter Martin’s blog.
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/2008/07/if-you-read-nothing-else-today-read.html
From the Hartcher article:
“He [Downer] holds the record for the most unpopular opposition leader in 36 years,” the life of Australia’s longest-running political poll, the Nielsen poll,…
Ouch, that’s gotta hurt. And the rest of the article is a nice and long overdue skewering of that pompous pretentious popinjay.
dovif
I will not waste William’s bandwidth any more after this but I was addressing your original statement.
“It would be interesting to see how much people’s respiration contribute to a % of CO2 ”
The answer is very very very little.
If you had omitted respiration I would have not been a pedant.
Ruawake
Time for biology class again, your intelligence astonishes me
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiration
JOM and others
You need to distinguish between air temperature and heat in the earth. Yes 1998 was the hottest year on record in terms of average air temperatures. Nevertheless the long term trend has clearly been up, and most of the years since 1998 have been higher than the years before it.
However that is heat in the air. Overall, as a fellow engineer would understand, there is far more heat stored in the oceans than in the atmosphere, since water is denser and stores much more heat energy than air. The oceans are getting hotter; especially at the surface, but also down to a depth of 3000 meters by now. That will drive the world’s cliamte (hotter) for decades to come, and is the key to the lag effects climate scientists talk about. That is why it is true that the earth is getting hotter (since 1998) even though 1998 happens to be the hottest year on record in terms of average air temperatures at recorded sites. So Bolt is wrong to say that the earth hasn’t gotten hotter since 1998; it definitely has.
Listing to Ganuat at the Press Club the most striking point he made was that if the world does nothing about greenhouse then agriculture in the Murray-Darling basin is doomed, with a worst case scenario (10% probability) that every river in the basis becomes a permanently dry ditch.
And for those who think we can continue to feed ourselves by moving farming to the north, well that will be just as dry.
We might be able to desalinate enough sea water to give everyone a drink, and maybe a shower, but producing enough to water our crops is another matter.
As he says, if we can’t address this problem now when we are as prosperous as we’ve ever been – apparently on a per capita basis we’re again richer than Americans for the first time in 70 years (big thanks to Keating), then when can we?
dovif
I admit it has been 30 years since I worked at The Research School of Biological Sciences – ANU.
But the point is that 90% of carbon that humans excrete is in the form of stuff like baking soda.
So says ru B.appSci B.Sci hons
Sorry William – end of my pedantry.
Channel 7 introduced the segment on the Ganuat Report by saying all of us will experience massive increases in petrol and electricity. Of course they maybe right but how they came up with that from this report is beyond me. No figures were given by Ganuat.
TT on 7 is now saying Rudd is “finally” doing something for seniors. H can’t win. damned if he doesn’t, damned if he does.
Ruawake and Dovif,
Yes…. you are the smartest people in the room now move on.
Back to the debate I am enjoying the CO2 admissions
In fact Anna said they had an exclusive. All she did was interview Rudd and he explained what was in the budget for seniors. That was their exclusive, as though they hadn’t heard this information before.
And for those who think we can continue to feed ourselves by moving farming to the north, well that will be just as dry.
That prediction is hard to generalise. Given the clear trends of the last 37 years (since 1970, about the time global warming started kicking in), all of northern WA, and some of the north of the NT will get wetter, but the rest of the NT and all of Queensland will get drier.
http://tinyurl.com/6ehdyf
You also need to remember that the northern areas of Oz (being in the monsoons tropics) are coming off a high baseline to start with, much higher than southern Oz (maybe with one or two exceptions). For example, the average annual rainfall for Darwin is about 1700 mm, with a minimum of about 900 mm, and a maximum of about 2500 mm.
Though the rain up here is seasonal, with almost all of it falling from Dec-Apr, so it needs to be captured and stored.
I hope the Govt. can separate the ETS from the Climate Change debate. The ETS is good policy that can move us into a sustainable future.
If it gets bogged down in an argument about spurious claims on climate change (which the opponents of an ETS will attempt to do) it will end up in a farce.
Garnaut should stick to economics and not try to be a meterologist. There are no proven models available that can accurately forecast weather 1 year or 10 years ahead. I am gobsmacked that the media and many here have sucked in what I would describe as dodgy assumptions.
What is even more annoying is the assumptions made about possible temp rises based on increases in CO2. So far we have seen temps rise by 0.1C every 10 years. There has been no evidence of accelerated temps if the el nino of 1998 is stripped out of the data.
What is even more astonishing is the prediction that the Barrier Reef will not exist by the end of the century. Memo to Garnaut, travel to the Red Sea or the Phillipines where water temps are already 4C warmer than the the temps off Mackay or Townsville and corals and fish survive just fine.
Thanks to Charles @ 360 for the link to the latest of Brian’s articles at Larvatus Prodeo that I thought JoM should have a squizz at. However, Charles, a lot of
science these days is non-linear, e.g., computer, weather and brain. Positive and negative feedback loops, for instance. Quantum physics sure ain’t linear\.
On cue Zedder proves my point.
Just Me @ 380 -
That comment was based on Ganaut saying in his Press Club speech that the Kakadu wetland would cease to exist under current predictions.
If Kakadu turns dry then I assume most of the rest of the north will too.
Zedder, go have a look at the articles Charles to which has posted the link. Read all of them, then come back for a discussion.
Zedder, you are confusing weather with climate.
Weather is short term and therefore more difficult to predict; climate is long term and less variable.
I’ve been told that Queensland is sunny. If I visit tomorrow and it’s raining, do I decide I’ve been lied to? Or that I simply was there on a rainy day?
The statement “Queensland is sunny” is a statement about Queensland’s climate. It’s not disproved by one day.
The rainy day is not ‘climate’ it is ‘weather’.
When we are talking about ‘climate change’ we are not talking about the weather.
I have read charles comments and they don’t stack up against the facts. There has been decreases in artic ice and increases in Antartic ice. The data in particular is being massaged to suit certain points of view and it is disapointing that concensus science is being promoted when the data does not support this view.
Then we have Ruawake’s pedantic and condescending definitions, the assumption being that any variation with the concensus view is utterly wrong. Maybe some of you would like to join us on weatherzone where we explore this issue with more meaty science.
http://forum.weatherzone.com.au/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=007014
I don’t care if climate change is real or not – it is irrelevant. We have a finite resource in fossil fuels, the sooner we wean ourselves off of them the better.
I see Turnbull has said Rudd is “so collosally vain and never admits that he’s wrong”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23968191-601,00.html
I think we can safely say that is the winner of the pot calling the kettle black competition for 2008.
Bizarre that Turnbull and Nelson are running the line that last year they were told they couldn’t do anything until 2012. Given they didn’t commission Garnaut; they didn’t do anything, and really had no desire to do anything of course 2012 would have been the deadline for them. (pushing deadlines is the easiest thing in govt).
Seriously if the govt can slap that arguement down then they might as well give up trying to sell this thing. What a pity there’s no question time for another 9 weeks.
Obviously the Libs have decided that they want to run the “we want to do something; but we are the only ones who will do it right” line. And Nelson is still essentially running the “we want a trading system” so long as everyone can drive cars and use electricity for the same price they can now. God I wish PJK was around to humiliate these guys.
I would agree Ruawake, I am more convinced about peak oil than I will ever be about AGW. I am in full support of less pollution being pumped into the atmosphere. It is sad that the residents of China rarely ever see a blue sky because of the particulate pollution blocking out the sunlight.
Whilst many may deride the man it is worthwhile listening to Professor Bob Carter’s arguments about AGW.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLkze-9GcI
Listen to the lectures and it may inspire some to delve further into the theory and better inform themselves better about the issues.
Funny story on the ABC news tonight that Brough tried to write himself in as Big Chief Pineapple. The Nats were aghast and wouldn’t allow it.
It does not matter, in Australian economic terms, how much stuff China pumps into the atmosphere.
What is needed is to enable our economy to move to an era past fossil fuels. Because one thing is certain – they will run out, it may take 10 or 400 years but so what, the facts remain the same.
If we fail to do this, either by lack of will by the Govt. or by pressure from lobby groups we will be condemned by future generations.
It matters immensely what China pumps into the atmosphere. Eventually Chinese citizens will be impowered to stop this pollution and may no longer want Australian coal. I find the tokenism with a ETS so evident when Australia is one of the world’s largest exporters of coal. The weening of the Australian economy off income generating fossil fuels will not happen in my life time.
Grog @ 390 -
Bizarre that Turnbull and Nelson are running the line that last year they were told they couldn’t do anything until 2012
Not bizarre at all Grog. They’re Liberals. It takes them that ages just to tie their shoe laces. They were in government federally for nearly 13 years and what did they do? Bought in a GST, tortured some refugees at great expense, and wasted bucket loads of our money, oh, and started an illegal war. That is pretty much the sum total of their achievement.
There are no proven models available that can accurately forecast weather 1 year or 10 years ahead. I am gobsmacked that the media and many here have sucked in what I would describe as dodgy assumptions.
And I am still gobsmacked by those who persistently and wilfully make fools of themselves by failing to acknowledge the important difference between day to day weather, and long term climate. If you toss a (fair) coin, you cannot reliably predict what the outcome of each toss will be, but you can very reliably predict the general outcome of 10 000 tosses. Does the failure to be able to reliably predict the next toss invalidate the statistical prediction of the outcome of a large number of tosses? Of course not.
You do not know what the maximum temp will be on any given day in mid summer, but you can reliably bet they will be substantially higher than mid winter. You cannot reliably predict which individual will get lung cancer, but you can reliably predict that many, many more smokers will than non-smokers.
Learn some basic stats.
What is even more annoying is the assumptions made about possible temp rises based on increases in CO2. So far we have seen temps rise by 0.1C every 10 years. There has been no evidence of accelerated temps if the el nino of 1998 is stripped out of the data.
What is your point? With the 1998 El Nino (a statistical outlier) in or out of the data, the long term temp trend is still rising.
There has been decreases in artic ice and increases in Antartic ice.
Wrong about the Antarctic.
“The Antarctic Peninsula has experienced some of the fastest warming on Earth, nearly 3°C over the last half-century. Eighty-seven percent of its glaciers have been retreating during this period and now we see these glaciers are also speeding up.”
Source: http://tinyurl.com/5ld4nw
GRACE [satellite] observations have found that between April 2002 and August 2005 the Antarctic ice sheet shrank by 150 cubic kilometres annually. (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1123785).
Increases in ice cover are a localised phenomenon. The East Antarctic is gaining ice, due to increased precipitation, but the West is losing more of it. Overall the Antartic is losing ice. It is true that it is losing ice proportionally slower than the Arctic, but that is because the Antarctic is far more isolated than the Arctic from climatic effects from the rest of the globe.
The data in particular is being massaged to suit certain points of view and it is disapointing that concensus science is being promoted when the data does not support this view.
So your right, and the vast majority of the world’s professional climate scientists are wrong. Hell of a claim, dude. No, the chances are overwhelming that you’re completely and utterly wrong.
And if Bob Carter is the best source of climate scepticism you got, then frankly you haven’t got much.
zedder, if you are right then we may all end up being a little poorer, though there is a very good chance that we’ll all come out ahead.
OTOH, if you are wrong and we’ve done nothing because we believed you then we’ll all be dead.
I’d rather risk some of my grandkids’ inheritance than their lives!
Oh dear “Just Me”, you play the man, not the facts. Stick with the argument rather than besmirching a person’s motivations. This is science, not politics.
The trouble with all arguments is the data sets. They are massaged to prove a point. Scales are distorted, the data is not like for like.
You provide a interesting point about glacier destruction. Yet I can provide evidence about increased sea ice formation.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/
When I hear you say “So your right, and the vast majority of the world’s professional climate scientists are wrong. Hell of a claim, dude. No, the chances are overwhelming that you’re completely and utterly wrong.” I am reminded of Colin Powell talking about the naysayers who didn’t believe that Iraq had weapon’s of mass destruction. I don’t mind being a sceptic. Sometimes I can be right.
The latest sat sensing data BTW is showing a diversion from the mean less than 0.5C either way depending on the satellite. As always what is the mean? Averages from the last 10 years, 100 years or 1000 years. Most are using temp data for the relevent sat history since launch.
Err..you’re going to have to interpret that data for us, zedder. The site appears to be saying that sea ice is on the decline. (Remember it’s trends which matter, not fluctuations – we’re all experts at reading trend lines here).
Scepticism is fine – it’s good. But it’s not being sceptical to quibble around the edges of the science and ignore the basic thrust. That’s simply being foolish.
Anyone can sift through all the data and arguments, come up with one or two points which look like anomalies and jump up and down about them. (to paraphrase ‘The diary of Brendan Nelson’ – “I’m going to ignore the facts and concentrate on the bits I don’t understand”).
There are people out there, zedder, who are still ’sceptics’ about evolution, and probably are just as proud about being so as you are about climate change. It doesn’t mean they’re right, either.
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