The Northern Irish Environment Minister, Sammy Wilson, “has banned government television adverts in Northern Ireland warning of the effects of climate change“.
This might seem a little “Irish” on a couple of fronts. For it to make sense you have to realise that England has devolved power to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, so as in Australia, you can have three levels of government in the one area. It’s not his own government ads that he is banning, but the UK government’s.
Still, while I am used to government propaganda telling me Global Warming is a problem, this is the first instance of which I am aware where a government has turned the propaganda off.
I have a fair bit of sympathy for Mr Watson when he cricises the ads for “attempt[ing] to tell people that simple measures like changing their lightbulbs and turning off TVs from stand-by mode could help prevent them ‘wrecking the world'”. Whatever your stance on global warming this is not just clearly nonsense, but the same level of empty activism that has been recommended by our own just-past and now-present federal governments.
In Australia, the latest Newspoll figures suggest that belief in Anthropogenic Global Warming is near universal. Perhaps colder temperatures this winter in the northern hemisphere have changed sentiment there, or the Irish were smarter to start with.
The bushfires here may well have done the opposite, intensifying belief. I’ve found it distressing that the propagandists like Clive Hamilton and David Karoly have already been out before the fires have even gone cold. It’s a ridiculous proposition that 0.6 degrees of temperature change would have made a difference one way or the other with the weather patterns that prevailed in Victoria over the last week or so, meaning it’s unethical and unscientific to trade on the tragedy in this way.
February 11, 2009 | Graham
Irish joke?
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Quote: “It’s a ridiculous proposition that 0.6 degrees of temperature change would have made a difference one way or the other with the weather patterns that prevailed in Victoria over the last week or so”
Just a quick note, the ‘0.6 degree increase’ you mention is misleading. As far as I know, nobody is suggesting that climate change is a matter of a flat x degree increase each day; rather, a gradual (but ultimately very significant) rise in average temperatures, accompanied by more pronounced increases in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events.
Comment by Matt — February 11, 2009 @ 7:58 am
0.6 degrees is the increase of global temperature, more or less, over the last century. No idea what you think I’m talking about.
Comment by Graham Young — February 11, 2009 @ 8:02 am
“0.6 degrees is the increase of global temperature, more or less, over the last century. No idea what you think I’m talking about.”
You seemed to be implying that linking climate change to the recent bushfires is foolish, as they would have happened anyway had the temperature been 0.6 degrees cooler. I was pointing out that the 0.6 degree increase in average temperatures is one measure of climate change, but not the whole story (i.e. it’s not simply a matter of subtracting 0.6 degrees from any given day to determine what the temperature ‘would have been’ had climate change not occurred).
It is quite widely accepted that extreme weather events — including heatwaves and droughts — have already started to become more common, and perhaps more severe. This is one example of climate change, which does not simply boil down to an evenly-distributed increase in average temperatures.
Comment by Matt — February 11, 2009 @ 9:38 am
Matt, there is no evidence that extreme weather events have increased, so I have no idea who “quite widely accepts” it, apart from the people who are trying to beat it up.
And in the absence of any evidence of any increase, you can’t put it down to climate change, unless you are arguing that a minor increase in average temperature is the culprit. As you seem to accept that it isn’t the temperature, then you don’t have an argument.
Comment by Graham Young — February 11, 2009 @ 10:01 am
“In Australia, the latest Newspoll figures suggest that belief in Anthropogenic Global Warming is near universal.”
Note the use of the word belief. It is of course a key denialist meme. The denialists have taken the position that anyone who accepts the weight of scientific evidence supporting AGW is in fact acting on “faith” in a “belief”. This is of course an act of cognitive dissonance on the denialists part. Because of their over-determining ideological convictions they take their non-acceptance of the evidence as rational when it is in fact irrational, a “belief” if you will.
Interst in this particular piece of denialist dogma reached fever pitch about 6 months ago with some opinion pieces in The Australian newspaper. It has since lost favour among denialists, perhaps because their numbers are thinning.
Comment by Patrick B — February 11, 2009 @ 10:49 am
There’s no fly’s on the Irish
Comment by Dallas Beaufort — February 11, 2009 @ 10:50 am
No flies on the Irish
Comment by Dallas Beaufort — February 11, 2009 @ 10:51 am
“Matt, there is no evidence that extreme weather events have increased, so I have no idea who “quite widely accepts” it, apart from the people who are trying to beat it up.”
The US Environmmental Protection Agency approvingly quotes on its website (http://epa.gov/climatechange/effects/extreme.html) an IPCC report from 2007 (http://www.ipcc-wg2.org/index.html), stating that ‘Our current level of understanding, as summarized in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC, 2007), is as follows:
“Since 1950, the number of heat waves has increased and widespread increases have occurred in the numbers of warm nights. The extent of regions affected by droughts has also increased as precipitation over land has marginally decreased while evaporation has increased due to warmer conditions. Generally, numbers of heavy daily precipitation events that lead to flooding have increased, but not everywhere. Tropical storm and hurricane frequencies vary considerably from year to year, but evidence suggests substantial increases in intensity and duration since the 1970s.In the extratropics, variations in tracks and intensity of storms reflect variations in major features of the atmospheric circulation, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation.” ‘
That is just one example, but I think it’s enough to demonstrate that there is indeed evidence that extreme weather events have increased. As for my claim that it is “quite widely accepted”, obviously we could argue over that one forever without coming to a meaningful conclusion (especially if you are going to discount those you deem to be “trying to beat it up”), but I think it’s fair to say that it is by no means a marginal belief, or one held only by non-experts. You may well disagree with the IPCC and EPA, but to sway the opinion of an impartial layman, you’ll need to provide evidence of your own which directly contradicts or undermines the IPCC’s data and conclusions.
(One other, relatively minor point, which I might not have expressed clearly in my earlier comment: the average increase of 0.6 degrees has not been uniformly distributed across the world. The Australian Government’s climate change website (http://www.climatechangeinaustralia.gov.au/recentchanges.php), which incidentally also indicates that extreme weather events have increased, quotes a 1-2 degree increase across Australia since 1910. It’s also not uniform across Australia, meaning that some areas have warmed by more than 1-2 degrees, while others have warmed by less. I’m not suggesting that this in itself is enough to justify blaming the bushfires on global warming, especially given that the increase in nighttime temperatures is said to have been greater than that in daytime temperatures; however, it does back up the suggestion in my earlier post that your “0.6 degrees” reference was misleading.)
Comment by Matt — February 11, 2009 @ 11:09 am
Forest fires are natural. Their frequency does not appear to have altered much over the past 200 years. Their intensity has increased because there is no longer a mechanism to reduce forest floor fuel loads.
When we banned cool burning and cattle grazing there was no check to fuel loads.
If we went back to cool burning every year we would address this situation. Climate change does not make leaves fall off trees. It does not alter the frequency of lightning.
Comment by John Cribbes — February 11, 2009 @ 11:36 am
Matt, the IPCC summaries are notably rubbery. Case in point. Chris Landsea was responsible for doing the work on Atlantic Hurricanes and he resigned because his work was misrepresented by IPCC officials http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/science_policy_general/000318chris_landsea_leaves.html.
If you are really interested in what is happening why don’t you go and check the actual stats rather than relying on second-hand information. You can download the temperature data for Victoria from the BOM site and you will find that since 1950 there has been only a mild increase in maximum temperature and minimum temperature is quite similar to the mid 90s. You will also find that there was a colder spell between 82 and 96. The trend since 2000 has been downwards.
They don’t appear to have fire frequency figures, but have a read of this article by Geoffrey Blainey that will put that in perspective http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25025375-5000117,00.html.
Matt, you are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.
Comment by Graham Young — February 11, 2009 @ 12:41 pm
AGW is an hypophysis and a rather shakey one, nothing more. As such it must always be open to criticism in so called “peer reviewed” journals which it is not, the most egregious example of which is Nature’s refusal to publish MacIntyre’s debunking of Mann’s “Hockey Stick” curve some years ago. Given enough time it will be revealed as the rubbish it is. In the meantime I only hope the polititians don’t wreck an already severely compromised economy by trying to moneterise carbon. The sub prime crisis will be peanuts in comparison.
Comment by David Chapman — February 11, 2009 @ 8:05 pm
Cool burning has not been banned. Period. I gather last year saw the largest amount of cool burning for a while. Some experts say we need more cool burning, some disagree. Hopefully the Royal Commission will sort this out, but it is a flat lie to say it has been banned anywhere.
Cattle grazing has been banned in certain areas. None of the deaths occurred anywhere near areas where the grazing was banned recently, and the fact that tens of thousands of cattle were killed in the fires should be evidence that the affected areas had plenty of grazing.
Comment by Stephen L — March 2, 2009 @ 12:24 pm