Monday, May 07, 2012

Eli Can Retire Part XII: The Australian Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency Responds to Ian Plimer's 101 Questions


Worldwide, energy and environmental agencies are contributing to Eli's retirement fund by whacking the moles.  Today the Australian Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency offs Ian Plimer's 101 questions.  Eli has had a whack at a few of them, but really, this was a job for the real climate scientists.
This document provides answers to the 101 questions on climate change posed by Professor Ian Plimer in his latest book, How to get expelled from school: a guide to climate change for pupils, parents and punters (2011). Many of the questions and answers in Professor Plimer’s book are misleading and are based on inaccurate or selective interpretation of the science. The answers and comments provided in this document are intended to provide clear and accurate answers to Professor Plimer’s questions. The answers are based on up-to-date peer reviewed science, and have been reviewed by a number of Australian climate scientists.
Plimer asks
8. If global warming is human in origin, when will we feel it and when will it be dangerous?
And the AU Department of Climate Change Responds
Climate change becomes dangerous when it takes natural and human systems beyond environmental thresholds to which they can easily adapt. The more rapid the change, the less likely that adaptation can occur. Projections indicate that without action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions:

»temperatures in Australia could increase by up to 5 degrees by 2070;

»sea levels could rise by up to 80 cm by the end of the century (baseline of 1990), with larger increases possible; and

»we are likely to see more severe and intense extreme climatic events.

World governments have agreed that limiting temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures would help to reduce many of the most dangerous impacts of future climate change.
and, this could be a dangerous drinking game, 99
99.  Why do those advocating human-induced global warming vilify scientists who disagree rather than addressing genuine scientific questions?

And: Genuine scientific disputes are normally addressed through publication of alternative theories in peer-reviewed scientific journals. However, the scientists and others disagreeing with the consensus on human-induced climate change have rarely published in such journals, therefore avoiding critical scientific assessment of their work.

There is no single paper, or set of papers, that provides a plausible alternative explanation of recent warming. The few papers that do exist have been demonstrated to be flawed by the weight of peer-reviewed literature. There is now a vast body of literature supporting the mainstream understanding of climate change.
And a bit of optimism from the first comment


9 comments:

John said...

Answer to: "8. If global warming is human in origin, when will we feel it and when will it be dangerous?"

When inhofe, Monckton, Bast, Watts, Barton, Cuccinelli and Wegman appear at HQ of the US Chamber, along with a chorus of HI "experts," to lustily croon "We've got to get out of this place"

http://tinyurl.com/clwh87

John Puma

Anonymous said...

"Plimer asks:

8. If global warming is human in origin, when will we feel it and when will it be dangerous?
"

For Plimer and his cronies, it'll probably be when no-one's paying them any more to claim that everything is hunky dory.


Bernard J. Hyphen-Anonymous XVII, Esq.

Anonymous said...

Great to see my tax dollars put to such effective use.

Plimer bowls a long hop and the Dept of Climte Change hits it into the car-park.


Anonymouse Etc.

Anonymous said...

Well color me stoopid, that they call me stoopid.

Say, this fine rebuttal of "Plimer Nonsense" would make for a wonderful Iphony/Android app, would it not?

It is the old story, choose your experts wisely, on the peer reviewed subject they know best.

Anonymous said...

Plimer is a member of the set that contains Velikovsky, von Däniken, et al.

Seems to me a deserves a chapter of his own in a new edition of Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things or The Borderlands of Science.

Cymraeg llygoden

bill said...

I also salute the good use of my tax dollars!

And appreciate the extensive use of SkS graphics in the text.

I hadn't actually appreciated how tendentious some of those questions really are.

Also, Plimer borrows from Ben Stein? (The full title of the book is 'How to Get Expelled From School: a guide to climate change for pupils, pundits and parents'. So, Ian, has 'Big Science expelled smart new ideas from the classroom', or what?) I have to go: my irony meter just melted...

J Bowers said...

Speaking of Ben Stein: Fail.

Hank Roberts said...

Speaking of animals -- while monkeys-in-boats watched and tsked, humpback whales tried to interfere with orcas as they were kidnapping and eating a baby gray whale.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/print/article/324348

J Bowers said...

Humpbacks: That has pretty big implications.