Climate change, economics, politics

[owheelj]

Originally Posted by Blue Lightning

I hope that you don't regard this as hair splitting on my part. But I do regard the likely impacts to be, to use other words, very serious. I accept that catastrophe towards the cataclysm end of meaning is very unlikely within our lifetimes. More in the nature of "serious and extensive misfortune".

Importantly for the economic end point, the range of probable impacts will add up and produce a very significant total economic effect. That is where my final link, to the OECD paper (another vast piece of work) fits in.

I am completely sold that without major efforts, the results of climate change will be an economic and environmental catastrophe. I think if we do disagree is in the time frame - and I think this is something that a lot of "anti-climate catastrophe" people get wrong too. We are headed for average global temperatures rising by more than 6 degrees, for sea level rises over 20 meters, and for a whole range of other serious problems. There is a very slim, but possible scenario where the climate never stops warming until well after all life is extinct (or at least, all life as we know it) - but these aren't predictions being made within our lifetime. The shock jocks and climate deniers who reject these claims reference them to changes we've seen in tiny amounts of time, but once the Amazon starts dying back, once the poles stop reflecting heat, once the oceans and permafrost start releasing trapped methane - what will make them stop?

The threat of catastrophe is real, but the threat of happening within our lifetimes is only a threat worth leaving sleep about if you're also a Singularitarian, and think we're going to live for hundreds of years.

You obviously agree with most of what I've said. I think this is the problem with the political process - because of the lag between emissions and effect, there will never be a time where politicians can do something about the climate within the time that they're in power. The decisions being made now won't have an environmental impact until beyond 2050. On the other hand, they will have an economic impact now. All politicians will always be asked to choose between economic costs now, or environmental and economic costs beyond their lives. It's no surprise that we don't see adequate action.

[Blue Lightning]

Originally Posted by owheelj

I think this is the problem with the political process - because of the lag between emissions and effect, there will never be a time where politicians can do something about the climate within the time that they're in power. The decisions being made now won't have an environmental impact until beyond 2050. On the other hand, they will have an economic impact now. All politicians will always be asked to choose between economic costs now, or environmental and economic costs beyond their lives. It's no surprise that we don't see adequate action.

I think they call that the NIMTOO syndrome - Not In My Term Of Office. My understanding is that the average retention time of carbon in the atmosphere is in the order of 1000 years, so the impacts will certainly be long lasting!

[owheelj]

Originally Posted by bundybear

It is an externality, but it is not like pouring industrial waste or heavy metals into a river. Let us not confuse CO2 with the whole gambit of gases, such as methane, CO, sulphur dioxide etc and of course plain old water vapour. We don't really know of any direct damage from CO2, only models of potentially damaging indirect effects. And plants love it...we are pumping it into greenhouses to improve yields.

It's exactly like pouring heavy metals and industrial waste into rivers - it's a pollutant created by a economically profitably process that does significant damage to the environment.

We know of literally hundreds of examples of direct damage from CO2. I can think of 3 peer reviewed published examples just in Tasmania, let alone the rest of the world.

I finally note that plants don't "love" CO2. In fact CO2 is rarely a limiting nutrient for plants. In a greenhouse where you're providing NKP etc, you'll see added growth (although depending on what you're growing, this doesn't necessarily follow to higher yields), but if you're talking about the effect on plants in "nature", then impacts will vary wildly, depending on what nutrients are available. Increased growth isn't even a good thing in many cases. Here's a perfect example very related to what I studied;

Grasses can harness CO2 faster than most other types of plants (C4 plants vs C3). Grasses also have much more frequent fire regimes - often burning every year or every few years - while forests typically burn on a decade to century (and beyond) scale. Across Northern Australia is a fire sensitive cypress - Callitris intratropica as well as an introduced very rapidly growing grass from Africa - Gamba grass, which burns at 4-10 times the intensity of native grasses. Because Callitris never burns, places that do get burn are often converted to grasslands - this is a process that cannot naturally return to the original state.

Grasses do grow much better in higher CO2 environments (http://eprints.utas.edu.au/13427/1/2...osynthetic.pdf - etc.), while cypress trees are very slow growing, and so cannot compete. Their best defence is creating enough shade to keep the grass out. However in the NT and northern Queensland Gamba grass is spreading at an enormous rate (it's used as a pasture grass) and as soon as it grows alongside a strand of Callitris the edge effects can lead to the stand being destroyed (ie. fires to the edge diminish the size of the stand, the next fire goes further in etc.)

Thus Callitris intratropica forest communities are a threatened and declining forest type in Australia. Increased CO2 means that their main threat grows better, while even if they doubled their growth rate, they couldn't compete. Hence not all plants are equal, any "fertilisation effect" that we do see won't necessarily be positive, but will probably actually result in ecological changes that will be negative until the ecosystem stabilises (which takes centuries to millennia).

[wearestardust]

Originally Posted by bundybear

Do you have scientific proof of your claims? Or are you merely making assertions and trying discredit people who don't agree with you.

While "idiots" may be hyperbole, the polling does indicate that very large numbers of Australians are allowing themselves to be led up the garden path. As I understand it this goes to what people understand of the effects of the tax. That has nothing to do with attitudes to "juliar", and indeed to the extent that people are allowing their judgements on matters of fact like "the tax will cost this much" by whether or not the govt "lied", then they are even more irrational still.

[gibreel farishta]

LNP to remove climate science from schools

The motion, proposed by the LNP’s Noosa State Electorate Council, calls on Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek to require Queensland schools to “remove environmental propaganda material, in particular post-normal science about ‘climate change’, from the curriculum and as adjunct material at exam time”.

The mover of the motion, LNP member Richard Pearson, railed against “those false prophets who would poison the minds of our children in our schools”.

“Few people understand that the so called science of climate change is really what can be defined as 'post-normal' science,” he said, arguing it went beyond traditional understanding of science based on experimentation and falsifiable theories.

Another member spoke against the motion, saying he was concerned when people tried to dismiss differing opinions and he believed children to have access to all information.

The motion was nonetheless passed with overwhelming support from the LNP members at the gathering.

At last year's conference, LNP president Bruce McIver questioned the role of humans in driving climate change, arguing the climate was always changing and children were being “brainwashed” in the way climate science was taught



Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/quee...#ixzz20U2YXbad


One comment at weatherzone
They are mimicking the tactics of the creationist movement in US, who every year try to have climate change and evolution removed from the school curriculum. In doing so the Queensland LNP risks making Australia an international laughing-stock.

And yet, it is not at all surprising: when faced with the often uncomfortable facts science presents the more conservative, fearful and small-minded will retreat into denial. That this denial has infected so much of our political class is tragic.

We need to defend the teaching of science in schools