Climate sceptics sense a modicum of vindication
Climate sceptics sense a modicum of vindication
THE Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's admission that it has overestimated rising temperatures is one thing, but to blame its computer revives memories of a certain travel agent in the series Little Britain.
Kim Keogh, East Fremantle, WA
With the IPCC apparently to back down from previous alarmist claims about global warming in favour of lukewarming, is it too early to claim that geologists were right all along?
Marc Hendrickx, geologist, Berowra Heights, NSW
- See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/letters/last-post-september-17/story-fn558imw-1226720422667#sthash.VYwoFKU0.dpuf
THE Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's admission that it has overestimated rising temperatures is one thing, but to blame its computer revives memories of a certain travel agent in the series Little Britain.
Climate sceptics sense a modicum of vindication
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MY mild-mannered climate sceptic friends would never say "I told you so", now that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has told us nothing dangerous or unprecedented is happening to the climate, and that the effect of carbon dioxide has been exaggerated, so I will do it for them ("We got it wrong on warming, says IPCC", 16/9). The sceptics have been right all along and apologies are due.
Alarmist claims led to unnecessary desal plants, generous subsidies for ineffective wind and solar power, waste of billions of dollars and higher power prices - all for nothing.
In Europe, as Bjorn Lomborg notes ("UN's mild climate change message will be lost in alarmist translation", 16/9), $250 billion is being wasted each year to stop something that isn't happening.
Doug Hurst, Chapman, ACT
WELL, what a surprise. Global warming science is not settled. Those of us who contested the case for costly and ineffective emissions reduction programs are not evil deniers. Climate change will not be catastrophic.
The IPCC process was never intended to find the truth about climate science. It was tasked with showing that humans were causing catastrophic warming. Scientists who queried the IPCC line (which is based on models rather than an understanding of the underlying mechanisms), and economists and statisticians were vilified.
Michael Cunningham, West End, Qld
IT is widely accepted the temperature of the planet has remained steady for about 16 years. As appears now to be openly conceded, this contradicts the IPCC's climate models and raises a fundamental question: if the models cannot explain the pause, how it can be said they explain the preceding period of warming?
It is now implausible to deny that climate science is far from settled and predictions of dangerous warming may be simply wrong. Given this state of affairs, it is imperative that governments ensure what may have been the greatest ever misallocation of public funds is urgently stemmed. If billions lavished on the so-called low-carbon economy turns on a false alarm, the opportunity cost is a scandalous account of efforts foregone in health, education and environmental protection. Grandiose public policy, based on unfounded fears of catastrophic warming, is a luxury we can't afford.
James Miller, Woolloomooloo, NSW
FOR the IPCC to blame its computers for the dodgy climate forecasts is like the dodgy builder blaming his hammer for the leaking roof of the house he has just built.
Computers produce the results that programs are designed to produce. If the programs are wrong, they have to be rewritten. As hundreds of billions of dollars have already been spent on building defective projections, the IPCC should be sacked just as you would sack a dodgy builder.
Brent Walker, Killcare, NSW
IN the first sentence of your front page story, it says "the past 60 years the world has in fact been warming at half the rate claimed in the previous IPCC report in 2007".
The observed rate of global average warming of surface air temperature over the past 60 years of 0.12 C per decade is almost identical to the value reported in the IPCC report in 2007 of 0.13 C per decade for the period 1956-2005.
David Karoly, professor of atmospheric science, University of Melbourne, Vic
THE IPCC admits it generously overestimated the global warming effect over the years. It said the modelled predictions did not happen. Meanwhile, Australia has been slugged with a $23 per tonne carbon tax.
Labor wants to continue to put a tax on carbon emissions. Well, go for it - campaign on that issue at the next election and it won't sit on the government benches for a long time.
Ian Fraser, Edmonton, Qld
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