Comments on: Why Oh Why Can’t We Have a Better Press Corps? (Oz edition)

By: Climate fears “tempered” at SynapseChronicles

Climate fears “tempered” at SynapseChronicles — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 01:20:04 +0000

[...] Update 2006-09-07: Seems that the report doesn’t even say what the Australian article suggests. That’s the impression I get from reviewing some of the commentary in the links in another post by John Quiggen at Crooked Timber. Tim Lambert’s explanation is probably the most clear. [...]

By: foo

foo — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 16:26:16 +0000

Murdock must hate Australia. Australia is the most vulnerable country on the planet.

Did the article end: Rah, Rah, Coal, Rah

or: “Give me a C” C, “Give me an O”, O …

Ugh

By: jet

jet — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 03:37:01 +0000

I wonder if all the money spent denying Global Warming was a problem had instead…

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 01:01:17 +0000

I think you’ll find, jet, that far more public money has gone into promoting nuclear energy than into promoting global warming as a problem.

By: jet

jet — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 19:24:21 +0000

I wonder if all the money spent promoting Global Warming as a problem had instead been spent promoting safe nuclear alternatives to coal plants, if Global Warming wouldn’t be within a few decades of being completely solved.

By: roger

roger — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 00:17:58 +0000

Jet, you are right. The man who worries about this in Ward’s book, Pieter Huisman, just doesn’t have your credentials, man. He’s some jerkoff, the head of the Flood Control Division of the Rijkswaterstaat. Whereas you, you comment on CT. The disparity in expertise is overwhelming! I don’t think Huisman is even aware of the cloud making robot ships that you have all but invented—why, implementation should be snap! What does he do—work day in, day out supervising dikes and shit.

I’m sorta ashamed I mentioned someone like Huisman, who simply doesn’t get God’s Plan.

By: Eamonn Fitzgerald

Eamonn Fitzgerald — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 22:32:52 +0000

But you’ve got Tim Blair! You lucky things Down Under. What else do you want?

By: Steve LaBonne

Steve LaBonne — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 20:17:48 +0000

P.S. Holland probably won’t be under water this century, but a significant portion of coastal Bangladesh may be. We’re talking a hell of a lot of refugees there.

By: Steve LaBonne

Steve LaBonne — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 20:07:40 +0000

jet, there may be some localized benefits eg. to agricultural productivity in some areas (even as others suffer- and worse, most likely those in poor countries which thereupon will send millions of desperate refugees Northward; and gains, due largely to increases in atmospheric [CO2],in places like North America might well be offset, or worse, by incresees in pest infestations; the problem is that the speed of the change is extreme by ecological and evolutionary standards- the biosphere simply can't adapt witout major carnage along the way, with difficult-to-predict but likely bad impacts on our species even from the most crassly economic point of view, let alone "softer" aspects of quality of life. And under some scenarios sea level rise could also eventually become too rapid for successful adaptation in coastal areas, with the inherently nonlinear dynamics of ice-sheet collapse making it hard to tell big trouble is coming until very late in the game. The time when complacency was a rational option is way over.

By: jet

jet — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 19:48:34 +0000

You can’t have a better press corps when the debate is between those who don’t believe in Global Warming and those who think Holland will be underwater in 100 years. It’s like Fric and Frac are deciding our fate.

By: aaron

aaron — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 19:48:23 +0000

Steve,
I wonder if it’s really necessary to add “get a clue” to the end of each of your posts. Although jet may be wrong in some of his claims, and added an inflammatory remark about “An Inconvenient Truth”, his comments seem to reflect good-natured but misinformed skepicism.

Jet,
Ultimately, you should be turning to scientists for the answers to your questions. One of the problems our society has is that the opinions of scientists and the science community are brought to us through less credible sources. However, this does not mean that a consensus within the scientific community on global warming should be overlooked. And there does seem to be a consensus in the scientific community over how global warming works and what sort of effects it mights have. There are some scientists who disagree with this assessment (probably even a few who aren’t being paid by interested parties), but with every scientific theory there are going to be some contrarians.
realclimate is one place where you can find some scientists’ opinions on global warming. There are a number of others out there. Given the sensationalist nature of the mainstream media and political blogosphere, these blogs probably provide a better and informed perspective on the issue.

By: a

Thu, 07 Sep 2006 19:41:43 +0000

“They think it is coming.”

Are property values going down?

By: roger

roger — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 19:32:22 +0000

From what I understand about sea level rises, the people with the most experience are the engineers in Holland. They’ve had the most continuous experience—and experience of the way that the incursion of the sea doesn’t come gradually, as when you are filling a tub, but often comes as the result of a surge and storm, such as in the way the Zuider Zee was formed back in 1500.

Anyway, the chapter in Diane Ward’s Water Wars is definitely interesting in regard to what the Dutch think about sea level elevation. They think it is coming. And they think that they have to prepare now—although one engineer told Ward that really, Holland is going to have to prepare to lose their country.

There are countries that don’t find Global warming a fun and games radio talk show topic.

By: Maynard Handley

Maynard Handley — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 19:07:54 +0000

”
If the warming phenomenon were natural, and not human induced, would you still advocate intervention to change it?
”

There are equivalents. Smallpox and polio are natural. We intervened to change them. You oppose that, do you? You want to come right out and tell us that you and the GOP support children dying when god has decided it is their time, rather than having medicine intervene?

By: jet

jet — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 18:56:25 +0000

james killus,
Go back to my original post in 17, then read steve-o’s response. I never denied that Global Warming was real or an issue. I’ve shown that there is technology in existence, and more on the near horizon that will make CO2 taxes, limits, and sequestration of little importance. In 17 I even proposed fuel taxes to further entice consumers into electrical and hybrid vehicles.

Meanwhile the “reality based community” shows London and NYC underwater and calls me astro-turf.