Science Forums: JohnB - Viewing Profile - Science Forums

Well the new special report is out today from the IPCC. The full report is available here but is a slow d/load and a 44 meg file. I'm still reading it so the thread title may finish up to be more accurate as "Not sure about increase".

Roger Pielke covers the high points.

The most quotable quotes are these;

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So, no increase in tropical or extra tropical storms or hurricanes. No increaseing trend in losses. No increase in rains and floods.

This means that anybody who is advocating action wrt climate change on the basis of "extreme weather events" is now truly in "denial" about the facts.

Okay, this isn't big on the grand scale of International politics, but my home State Queensland had an election last weekend.

For roughly the last 20 years we have had government from the Labor Party, who are from out "left" with all the union affilliations and green tendencies that this implies.

We have 89 seats in the State House (The Upper House was abolished by the ALP back in 1922) of which, until Saturday the ALP held 51. 51 out of 89 being a reasonable and comfortable majority.

As of Sunday morning, they hold 7 after losing a stunning 44 seats, the largest loss ever in any Australian election. The incoming conservative government holds 78 out of 89 seats. What was interesting was that while the average swing was about 15%, it varied from seat to seat. In each lost seat the swing was 3-4% above what was needed for the seat to change so seats held by 4% had 7% swings while seats held by 17% had 20% swings. This is something that nobody has seen before.

For a timeline of how quickly the disaster became obvious try the Courier Mail. With polls closing at 6.00 pm the result was clear by 7.20.

Four things led to this devastating defeat and there are lessons for our politicians to learn;

1. The ALP campaign of mercilessly smearing Mr Newman failed dismally when the Premier was forced to admit that they actually had nothing more than smears and inuendo. (Especially since she had been attacking Mr Newmans wife and father after swearing a year ago to "keep family out of this".) We are sick of personal and dirty campaigns. If you play this way we will assume that you have neither policies nor achievements to point to and will punish you accordingly.

2. Prior to the last election Mrs. Bligh (Yes, the "Captain" of our State was a "Bligh", some things are too funny not to vote for) promised she would not sell public assets to balance the books, shortly after winning she did so. Do not lie to us. We are not stupid and we will remember and punish you for it. (I point here to our Prime Minister saying before the last election "There will be no Carbon Tax under a government I lead". She lied and there will be a reckoning.)

3. "The People" are just that and are represented by persons from all walks of life. They are neither represented by nor have any interest in the opinions of the self styles intellectuals or university trained pseudo intelligentsia who believe in their own moral and intellectual superiority. These fools are a mob of wankers who circle jerk over their lattes and do not hold opinions with any relevence to the actual needs of the people of the State or Nation. "We the People" seriously outnumber these dweebs and will demonstrate this come election time.

4. Specifically for the Left here. Projection is a serious illness, just because you use a crapload of astroturfing doesn't mean the other side do. In my very hotly contested seat of Ashgrove the count was at least 4 astroturfing outfits for the left and none for the right. Stop listening to the people in section 3 above, these fools believe that the majority of the population are idiots who will vote as they are told to by some talking head on TV. This justifies the use of astroturfing because then your side can be the last thing the foolish proles hear and so they will do as you tell them. The simple fact is that people can recognise astroturfing when they see it and they can also think for themselves. Assuming their stupidity will cost you votes.

Aside from that, what a breath of fresh air. A State led by an ex military officer with a civil engineering background and a lot of new talent in Parliment from so many different walks of life. Ex journos, Doctors and Tradesmen replace 20 years of party hacks, incompetents and ideologues. This will be a wild ride back to the top, but worth every minute of it.

It's something I've been considering lately and wondered if anyone had an answer.

Excluding the megafauna which died out relatively recently, the current crop of fauna on the planet are the smallest they've ever been. Why?

Going back through all the various ages shows that animals and fish were a lot bigger before than they are now. Pick any era and the waterlife will dwarf everything except a Blue whale while the land predators would find an elephant "snack worthy". Pre reptiles, mammal like reptiles, reptiles and mammals, the rule for over 500 million years was "Big is better". The top of the food chain was always the biggest, meanest carnivore around.

So what changed?

I think one of the more interesting ideas has been put forward by Octave Levenspiel from Oregon State. His two relevent webpages are;
http://levenspiel.co...e/dinosaurs.htm
http://levenspiel.co...e/dinosaur2.htm

While I'm not backing it, his idea that atmospheric pressure was higher in the past than it is today would solve some problems. (And explain why the wing loading for some of the pteranodons is so wrong for flying.)

And I thought that the UN was out of touch with reality.

The clip is 10 minutes long but you only need to hear the first minute or so. The Police Commissioner implies that "Politicians don't give straight answers" and don't a couple of the pollies get their knickers in a twist.

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Yes, he does dare, and so I think would 99% of the general population.

I always knew that the connection of beauracrats and (many) NGOs to reality was tenuous at best, but this out of Durban simply shows how far from the real world they are.

From the UNFCCC agreement that they wanted to get signed at durban;

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So how much "new and addititional finance" you may ask?

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So America, your share is around $800 Billion. I'm so glad you can afford it.

But seriously, how far divorced from any form of economic reality do you have to be to even make such a suggestion? Only people living in a total fairyland could think that Germany has a spare 30 Billion Euros to throw at this. (There are other ways of funding this, see below.)

All up it would come to around $1.3 Trillion, a nice little earner for the UN that I'm sure has them swooning at all the great deeds and marvelous works they could accomplish with the money. (After management fees, their wages and a few conferences in very nice places are deducted of course.)

Some other really cool bits (Are you listening America?)

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You are required to stop all "warfare" related activities and shut down your defence industries, giving all the saved money to the UN for redistribution. (See 47 above) What you do about the hundreds of thousands unemployed is presumably your problem.

How about this bit?

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Can somebody enlighten me as to exactly what an "Intrinsic Law of Nature" is? Or is it just a greenies wet dream?

But I'm sure the "Climate Court of Justice" will be able to rule on this;

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BTW, "Annex I Parties" are the West, the developed nations, a full list is here. The court is to have the power to judge and fine only the developed nations. The West is to comply or else, the ROW can do what they like. I guess some animals are more equal than others.

I've always thought that those who think that "Climate Change" was a cover for some UN conspiracy were fools. However, having read the UN documents and seeing the sheer amounts of money it wants and the power that it is demanding in that name, I'm starting to wonder if they might not have a point. The documents are long on power and authority over the people of the planet, but very short on responsibility to the people of this planet. It seems to be very much assumed that the UN knows best and would never act except in the best interests of the people or the planet. If that is true then they would be the first organisation in history to manage that little feat.

The UN needs to be introduced to reality, very soon.