I hope you're right, Tim.

Today’s ‘Positive and Optimistic Sunday’. The Bureau of Meteorology has just released its Annual Australian Climate Statement 2010 [1]. It says 2010 was our coolest year since 2001. Question: what does this tell us about global warming? Answer: nothing – because weather’s short-term and climate’s long-term [2]. In fact the Bureau’s Statement says that the 10-year period ending in 2010 was our warmest on record. Atmospheric CO2 continues to rise. Inexorably so. In the year to November 2010 it rose from 385.99 to 388.59 ppm; and its rise isn’t slowing [3]. Further, governments – especially my country’s – aren’t doing much about it. At least that’s my take. I admit I’m no expert in this field. So I rely on the media and books. Though as a cup-half-empty man (Darling sister Sue wants me to change. I’d like to, but I don’t know how.), maybe I’ve invoked confirmation bias [4]. Anyway last Monday’s ABC Science Show was entirely devoted to eminent climate change expert (and former Australian of the Year) Tim Flannery (pictured) [5] giving a talk and then answering questions. Surprisingly, Flannery was upbeat about global warming and climate change mitigation processes and future outcomes. The program’s an hour long [6]. If you’re already positive and optimistic about these matters, don’t bother listening. But if you aren’t, it’s well worth an hour of your time. Almost certainly, once you’ve listened you’ll declare: ‘How positive and optimistic is that’.

farmdoc's blog post number 425

I respect Tim Flannery as a scientist. As I do James Lovelock (pictured). In Flannery’s review of Lovelock’s latest book The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning, in the June issue of The Monthly, he carefully establishes Lovelock’s credentials as ‘one of the world’s most respected scientists’. Thus Flannery takes Lovelock’s predictions seriously. So do I. So should everyone. Flannery’s review starts by warning us Lovelock’s book ‘…has an important message. In a few years, or a few decades at most, abrupt changes in Earth’s climate will begin, which will end up killing almost all of us and cause the extinction of almost all life on Earth’. ‘Important’ is an understatement! Lovelock says major climate change is inevitable. In his model, between 400 and 500 ppm of CO2, suddenly a small increase in heat or CO2 causes a sudden temperature rise – of a prodigious 9°C. The current atmospheric CO2 concentration’s 390 ppm. And adding the warming capacity of the other greenhouse gases to CO2’s, expressed as CO2 equivalent (i.e. CO2e) we’re now at 430 ppm CO2e – well into Lovelock’s danger zone. So Senator Fielding’s recalcitrance [1, 2] borders on negligence. And ditto the coal industry’s, so I understand the reason for this threat which politicians indignantly call ‘eco-terrorism’. Unless those same politicians take Lovelock’s predictions seriously – which they show no sign of doing – it is they who are eco-terrorists.