The Somali pirates have nothing on the bunch who turned up in Copenhagen, seeking to plunder the world and divvy up the loot under the guise of ‘saving the planet’. I heard even Mugabe was there, after reducing his nation from rich Rhodesia to poor Zimbabwe, looking for a handout under the latest fable, ‘the Carbon Debt’ supposedly owed to the poor countries by the rich countries.

There is only one carbon debt, and that is the debt every inhabitant of this planet owes to carbon dioxide. Without adequate amounts of this in the atmosphere, plant life suffocates, and we could not grow enough crops to feed the population. To quote Freeman Dyson ‘The fundamental reason why carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is critically important to biology is that there is so little of it. A field of corn growing in full sunlight in the middle of the day uses up all of the carbon dioxide within a metre of the ground in about five minutes’.

Surely it’s time to confront the immorality of scaring children witless with images of ‘threatened bears’ (polar and koala) and ‘dying’ reefs and then exploiting their fears with cheap political stunts.

Please, no more scares and no more talkfests, whether in Mexico in 2010, or Cairns in 2011 (neither city has reported snow yet). The money would be better spent on improved and reliable water, power and transport systems. Education about how this country became prosperous would also be a good investment into a prosperous future otherwise we can descend from A to Z (Australia to Zimbabwe) faster than in a Mad Max movie.

John McRobert
Indooroopilly
Qld Australia

By Cliff Ollier, 2009.

I was lucky enough to be invited to the “Climate Challenge” conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. The aim of this small two-day conference was to throw a challenge to the science of the main Copenhagen conference. We had a few experts who presented their views and evidence.

Niklas Morner, world expert on sea level, showed that sea levels are not rising at an alarming rate anywhere, including the Maldives and Tuvalu.
(more…)

Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi is being praised for his compromise “low figure” demanding only $10 billion a year (immediately) from the west for Africa to implement carbon policy until 2015, when he will settle for $50 billion per year. Even at these apparently “low prices” other African nations are calling it a sell out.

Thrilled at the thought of giving such money to Somalia, Zimbabwe,S. Africa, Zambia and some of those west African thug nations, and setting aside any political division as whether such expenditure is necessary anyway, one has to ask where Australia, US, UK will find this sort of money.

Borrowing is the answer. In short we’d have to go into further debt to give huge sums of money to countries whose financial rectitude is to say the least, questionable. Not a good look.

Colin Lamont
Varsity Lakes, Queensland

The events at Copenhagen reveal a latter day lynch mob in full fury. In this case, the innocent victim is Carbon Dioxide. Without fair trial it has been deemed guilty of a most heinous crime, warming the planet.

There is ample evidence that it is innocent of this crime, and there has been no fair trial to allow this evidence to be heard. Indeed it would be difficult to find an unbiased jury, as even kindergarten children have been brainwashed with horror stories of ‘carbon footprints’. Shame on the people who do this to the minds of the young who trust them.

Carbon dioxide has been made a scapegoat for real pollution which can and should be addressed by each and every country in which it occurs. Real pollutants are particulate matter, noxious gases and heavy metal waste into the air or into the water. Carbon dioxide is none of these – it is a fertiliser essential to plant life, and essential to human life. It is not guilty of the crimes of which it is accused and the lynch mob in Copenhagen should be dispersed before another innocent victim is consigned to the gallows.

A tombstone in Boot Hill said:

“He wuz right and we wuz wrong,
But we strung him up, and now he’s gone.”

We’ll sure miss our friend Carbon Dioxide if we allow this lynching to proceed.

Regards,
John McRobert
Indooroopilly
Qld Australia

Climate Change, to say the least
makes us humans change some habits,
though the sun still chooses east
there is panic ‘mongst the rabbits.

Nerdy, idiosyncratic
motivation quite unknown,
quark and man made heavy static
new emperors to claim the throne.

Polar bears, so many starving
neither seals or tasty fish,
end up serving pups and carving
offspring as survival dish.

Icebergs melting raising oceans
though the physics are unclear,
grizzlies passing smaller motions
in the forests, so I hear.

Say the experts, it is gazzes
preference for C-O-Two,
emanating out of azzes
and the lowly Subaru.

Burning fossils is the trouble,
though we ought to, don’t you think?
And the atmospheric bubble
makes the solar system blink.

First it’s cooling then it’s warming,
records kept and falsified,
killer bees covertly swarming
turtles drowning in the tide.

Please dear reader, use some logic,
and recall your chemistry,
images so anagogic
for the biased mind to see.

They will plunge civilisation
into poverty and death
those who will commit their nation
to renounce their carbon breath.

All this is quite schizophrenic,
voices heard and faulty reason,
yet to say anthropogenic
is denial of the seasons.

Sun empowers living matter
sun has rhythm and design,
Gore the impotent mad hatter
claims his profit paradigm.

All in all, so many changes,
gone the cold Siberian East,
Santa carefully arranges
straw hats for his wildebeest.

©2009 Herbert Nehrlich

No research has been done in Australia into the fate of CO2 emitted from coal fired power stations. (This conclusion has been reached after enquires to the Greenhouse Office, Energy Supply Association of Australia, Australian Coal Research, National Generators Forum and CSIRO.)

About 25 years ago a CSIRO team using an aircraft fitted with measuring equipment did a study into the fate of sulphur dioxide emitted from the Mount Isa smelters. They flew through and down the plume over some weeks to determine what happened to the SO2 and tracked the plume as far as the Indian Ocean. A second team worked on the ground and studied what happened when the plume hit the ground.

Local factors such as stack height, gas temperatures, ambient temperatures, humidity, rainfall, local vegetation, topography and wind speed and direction could play a role in determining exactly what happens to the CO2 emitted from power stations. It is known that CO2 is absorbed by plants and there could be other unknown chemical and physical interactions that could be used to reduce CO2 going into the upper atmosphere.

Power stations also emit water vapour from cooling towers so it is possible that research into the fate of CO2 emissions might lead to power stations being built in prime agriculture land with the water vapour and CO2 combined and distributed through a network of low stacks to enhance agricultural production.

It is amazing that no research has been done to find out exactly what happens to CO2 emitted from power stations.

Bob Greenelsh
BULIMBA QLD

Comment
A large paddock of corn may exhaust the carbon dioxide for some meters above the crop when growing strongly during a sunny day. It would benefit greatly from some nearby source of carbon sustenance. The moisture would also be welcome. Even a bit of sulphur and nitrogen would be very beneficial to the nearby plants.

Viv Forbes

The Editor,

Someone should tell your gloating Prime Minister that just because some part of Oz is experiencing record high temperatures it does NOT mean that the ‘planet’ (as we now call it because it sounds profound) is warming. For example, NZ has had two of the coldest months on record. Places all around the world are often colder or warmer than ‘normal’. But the averages have not changed since the days of Ned Kelly’s grandfather – and before. It would be remarkable, indeed, if that were not the case.

Obviously Mr Rudd paid more attention to Mandarin than meteorology.

Keep trucking!

JC
New Zealand

It was the year 1799, during the “Dalton Minimum” when the sun was quiet that George Frederick Bollinger led a group of early pioneers from North Carolina to establish early settlements in Missouri. They hoped to cross their largest obstacle, the Mississippi River, on the ice, frozen solid in mid-winter.

The pioneers and their wagon train moved westward a few miles each day, making and breaking camp each night, fording the small streams and floating across the larger ones on rafts which they made from the nearby trees, following roads that were barely trails through forests and valleys.

They arrived on the east bank of the Mississippi River opposite St. Genevieve in late December, pitched camp and explored potential river crossings. St. Genevieve is located about a 100 miles downstream from St. Louis. Winter had come early and the Mississippi river was already covered with ice. It was bitterly cold. They determined the ice was not yet thick enough to support a crossing of ox-carts and covered wagons. Daily the thickness of the ice was measured and then on Dec. 31, a chopped hole in the ice indicated thickness well over two feet. They tested the ice by making a few trips across on foot and horseback. The believed the ice was thick enough to support a loaded wagon.

As a test, a wagon was selected to be driven across with no one riding and the driver would walk ahead watching the ice and leading his team. The trip across and back to camp was made without the ice cracking and preparations were made for an early crossing New Year’s Day.

The next morning final preparations were made to break camp and all supplies were loaded. The weather remained bitter cold with dark skies overhead and light snow falling, but the decision had been made to cross and there was no turning back. The group was devout German Reformed Protestants and they gathered together in the early cold gray dawn to seek guidance from their God for a safe crossing.

The cracking of whips like pistol shots rang out over the heads of the oxen to coax them out onto the ice; the crossing had began. All that were able, walked to lighten the loaded wagons, keeping a safe distance from the wagons, which were also spaced far apart to lessen the danger of breaking the ice. The crossing was made successfully with no mishaps, except extremely cold hands and feet.

The townsfolk of St. Genevieve had built a large fire to welcome and warm these new settlers. Safely across the Mississippi, they were relieved of their crossing fears and enjoyed the local hospitality. They exchanged news from the East for information of what they might expect ahead. Needed supplies were purchased and even the weather abated a little as the sun broke through the clouds. They settled along the Whitewater River where the soil was rich.

We are transitioning into Solar Cycle (SC) 24 and the sun has become fairly quiet. During most of the last century (SC 16-23) the sun has been in a Grand Maxima. As a result the Earth has experienced warming. But with SC 24 the sun is again changing states. From the peak year 1998, the lower Troposphere temperatures globally have already fallen around 1/2 degree Celsius. This is despite the fact that during that same time period, atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen 5% from 367 ppm to 386 ppm. Several solar scientist are predicting the sun will slide into a “Dalton Minimum” event in SC 25, about a decade from now. If that happens, the Earth will experience some bitterly cold winters for several decades.

The winters may once again resemble the winters 200 years ago during the time of the early pioneers. Imagine for a minute the west fork of the White River near Bloomfield freezing into a block of ice two feet thick.

James A. Marusek
Bloomfield USA

First published Greene County Daily Word, 19 Mar 2009.

http://gcdailyworld.com/story/1510388.html

Here is another Monument to the Madness of CCB (carbon capture and burial) – it needs a lot of energy – currently estimated to require 30% of the output of a power station.

So in order to satisfy the existing market for electricity, we would have to build a new power station for every three existing ones just to provide the power to capture and bury, not just the CO2 from the existing ones, but also from the new one as well.

Most coal fired power stations are about 33% efficient. Put simply, they burn 3 tonnes of coal to get the equivalent energy of 1 tonne. With CCB, they will now burn 4 tonnes of coal and increase CO2 emissions by 33% for the same useful output.

If however we spend the money required for CCB on increasing the efficiency of thermal power stations even to a modest 50%, they would only need to burn 2 tonnes of coal to get the equivalent energy of 1 tonne and that alone will reduce CO2 emissions by 33%.

Combined cycle is already at 50% and China has been developing super critical boiler temperatures which they claim will be 50% efficient.

But what does Government do? They introduce a tax, as a solution which may not work, for a problem which may not exist.

Clive Gard MIE Aust

Did I hear today’s ABC AM show correctly? Matthew England, a mathematician and computer modeler is now a climate expert, it seems? Did he say he projects temperature will rise 7 degrees next century? Was he serious?

Ten years ago, computer modelers projected Earth’s temperature would continue rising. In reality it FELL. Quick, get blankets.

He’s Joint Director of The University of NSW’s Climate Change Research Centre, a centre established, according to the then Vice-Chancellor, to attract research funding to the university. Without alarm, funds dry up. Hmmmmmm.

There is no measured scientific real-world data connecting Earth’s latest period of natural modest ‘global warming’ that ended around 1998 to humanity’s negligible production of carbon dioxide. None. The false claim blaming Nature’s most essential trace gas rests entirely on a UN IPCC ‘theory’ contradicting the laws of physics and on faulty computer models.

And people riding the research funding gravy train.

Yet our government wants to destroy our economy and hand our sovereignty to UN bureaucrats.

In Nature we trust. All others bring data.

I’m not worried about Earth’s climate. I’m worried about the intellectual climate.

Malcolm Roberts