NOTES TO A CLIMATE CHANGE DENIER.

NOTES TO A CLIMATE CHANGE DENIER.

When having a conversation with someone who denies a) that the world is warming, and b) that humans beings could not be responsible, it is worth finding the exactly what the conversation is about.

In your last email you wrote: Without empirical SCIENTIFIC measurement as evidence, it is not science.

We sent you a paper by Shakun et al, which you condemned because: “Your cited article's authors rely on computerised numerical models.” So clearly the issue is not so much about empirical evidence but it being contaminated  by the use of modelling.

Without the development of such technology and skills we would not today be flying in the aircraft we do, nor driving the cars we do. Such modelling is fundamental to the development of modern day technological achievements. Many of these are based upon phenomena so complicated that models need to be used as a key element in their development. Climate change while no different in principle, just newer, bigger and more complex, differs from all other science I know of  in that it cannot be duplicated.

While modelling may not be a perfect element of modern science and technology it is getting stronger and more accurate all the time, and to write it out or ignore it is not really sensible if we hope to arrive at solutions to the complex problems we face. I suspect we would be very much worse off without it. (But you might say here we do not face the problems as Richard and I see them as you see our world and society differently to us. See earlier emails).  While I believe papers using modelling predominate in the research, there are those that do not.

If in asking for the tabling of papers exhibiting only empirical evidence without recourse to supporting modelling, that the observed climate change can only be caused by human activities, then I offer a few.  I also provide you with  some slides in the attached power-point which demonstrate the very high probability that the cause of the current increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is anthropogenic rather than ‘natural’.

C12:C13 isotope ratio

1.      Stable isotope ratio mass spectrometry in global climate change research. Prosenjit Ghosh, Willi A. BrandIsotopen- und Gaslabor, Max-Planck-Institut für Biogeochemie, Postfach 100164, Jena 07701, Germany. Received 29 January 2003; accepted 20 May 2003. (no modelling)

2.      Stuiver, M., Burk, R. L. and Quay, P. D. 1984. 13C/12C ratios and the transfer of biospheric carbon to the atmosphere. J. Geophys. Res. 89, 11,731-11,748. 

3.      Francey, R.J., Allison, C.E., Etheridge, D.M., Trudinger, C.M., Enting, I.G., Leuenberger, M., Langenfelds, R.L., Michel, E., Steele, L.P., 1999. A 1000-year high precision record of d13C in atmospheric CO2. Tellus 51B, 170–193. (modelling used)

4.      Quay, P.D., B. Tilbrook, C.S. Wong. Oceanic uptake of fossil fuel CO2: carbon-13 evidence. Science 256 (1992), 74-79.

Modelling though is not new. When Arrhenius constructed a model of the atmosphere in 1896 he made several key predictions; nights would warm faster than days; winters would warm faster than summers; the arctic would warm faster than anywhere else. All of these predictions have been observed in the 20th and 21st century. How did he arrive at this prediction? He used models!  Does this mean his work is unacceptable?

Today such modelling is used in physics, chemistry and economics. There exists plenty of evidence showing the efficacy of computer modelling. Computer modelling is a key element in adding important and significant value to the science. As I said above, without it we would not have the technologies we have today.

A look at the development of the Milankovitch theory will see the criticism of the early models, but eventually it became accepted that Milankovitch was correct. Modelling was a part of the science that enabled this to be settled. Do you reject Milankovitch’s work because it is supported by modelling?

But you may disagree we are seeing any climate change other than that caused by ‘natural global or planetary cycles’. If this conversation continues I can show you quite clearly the current rapid changes we are observing in our climate are not part of any cycle that predates the last 200 years of human habitation on this planet; and that it fails to fit other shorter term cycles or events put forward by those who dispute anthropogenic climate change.

The other important aspect of science critical to this conversation is the concept of scientific method.  While there have been cases of fraud identified, such the McBride Debendox issue, general process of modern scientific method with peer reviewed publications has stood the test of time very well.

When research is published in peer-reviewed journals, it is accepted that other scientists will attempt to duplicate, or at least look for ways to check the authenticity and efficacy of the work. This is not possible with global warming and the ensuing climate change we are examining and researching for obvious reasons. So to continue this conversation with any sort of rationality we must find a way to compare eggs and eggs, not eggs and rocks.

With global warming and the ensuing climate change we are dealing with something science rarely has dealt with, let alone on such a scale – where we are dealing with events occurring over periods of time varying from a few decades to many hundreds of thousands of years.

The science of global warming and climate change (GWCC) depend not upon any one piece of evidence from any one scientific area, but what some might say, a very disparate bunch of speciality areas, including the physical sciences, maths, chemistry and biology, along with others including hydrologists, isotope geochemists, paleoclimatology and many others.

The climate change being researched is deemed to be occurring mostly over about 50-60 years, since the beginning of mass consumption, with the lead time being perhaps 150 to 200 years to the beginning of the industrial revolution. Given this wide range of disciplines involved in this, there has been a need to create a new type of approach to science, one where the task is as much interpretative as it is empirical.

It has become necessary to explore new paths for a new climate change science by building new research, methodologies and tools to address the developing issues.

Climate Science and Climate Change are not just about science, they are as much about social issues.  Perhaps it cannot better be said than by Beck:

Experts can never provide anything but more or less uncertain knowledge and information on the probabilities of events ...  all statements on risk contain built-in standards of tolerance and acceptance relying on morality, cultural standards and perceptions, which ultimately come down to the question: how do we want to live?  This is a question that can never be answered by experts alone.”  [Ulrich Beck, 1997]  M. Hulme, Bergen November 2010

I would suggest whatever paper I send you to support anthropogenic climate, it will contain some aspect of what Beck says, plus modelling.

I will end with something about society and the systems of government and corporations.

One major issue is that uncertainty is intrinsic to complex systems.  Uncertainty in scientific endeavours is the result of knowledge creation, and not all uncertainties are able to be quantified. We enter the realm of ignorance, assumptions, value loadings, institutional inertia, scientific jealousy, disagreement, contestation, cultural interpretations, conflicts of interests, vested interests and most significantly about our value and belief systems. This is the territory this conversation is grounded in.

The short-term focus of democracy and most other forms of government ensure that the long-term decisions required will be deferred as there is no political capital to be made from them. Only rarely do we find much to the contrary.

The current form of aggressive, free-enterprise capitalism, often backed by corrupt and/or ignorant governments living for short-term political power denies them the long-term view required to correct our current flawed thinking and practices. Both these practices must change.

Limiting the fiduciary responsibility of companies to the shareholder, is also flawed. Companies need to adopt a much broader view of their responsibilities and how they interact with people and the environment.

The values, systems and institutions that have brought us to this position will never be able to solve the problems we face.  We need to explore alternative systems – and I am not suggesting we leave a free-enterprise system but modify the one we have.

“If we live as if it matters, and it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. But if we live as if it doesn't matter, and it does matter, it DOES matter!”  Anon.

 

 

Notes on the carbon 'tax'!

Most days I read about and listen to people worrying about the changes confronting them, such as the 'carbon tax', or the coming carbon trading scheme, in Australia, where the first few years operate with a fixed price for carbon. These people wish the government to subside them to ensure they are not out of pocket. It is worth noting that in this case the government is going to so ensure.

On Friday, I heard people from the Latrobe Valley talking about how some 2000 jobs may be lost through this 'tax' being imposed on power stations like Loy Yang because they are such large polluters.  But it is inevitable that one day soon Loy Yang and other brown coal burning power stations must close, and the sooner the better.

It may seem trite when I state how sorry I do feel for these people, and for all those who will begin to suffer in coming years, as we start to face the real costs of having lived the profligate life style we have for so many years.

The people who are going to be most hurt will always be those least able to afford it, and yes, it will, and it should, be to a considerable extent the responsibility of government to assist where possible. But, since we are part of the problem, surely we must accept part of the responsibility to change our life-styles?

Our society has been living beyond its means for generations. What we are confronting today is the reality of our wasteful and destructive lifestyle that failed to take into account, or even consider, there would ever be a cost to pick up later in time. I believe it unreasonable to consider, or expect, that we cannot change the way we live without some cost.

We have been living on our capital - in this case natural capital not money – drawing from our bank account and running into deficit. People who do this one day find there is no money left. This is the position we are beginning to face.

I further believe it is politically flawed thinking that denies both acknowleging the real core problem, as well as denying people to be part of the solution.  As long as this mindset remains as part of our culture, I cannot see the changes necessary ever eventuating.

In amongst all this somewhat negative view, there is one light appearing - the role of the global business corporations.  There is no doubt there are increasing numbers of these seeing a sustainable business model as their way to move in the future.  Nearly each day in recent weeks some company somewhere has described some aspect of their business looking at sustainable new ways and options.  This is one real bright spot on the horizon that politicians would do well to emulate.  It might assist their future too.

I live in hope.

Patrick

 

Some thoughts that are not about global warming.

Often when I meet people after a hot, or cold, day, they challenge me with, "Patrick, is this global warming?" My usual sort of reply is: "I thought you knew the difference between climate and weather!"
This takes me not to talk about global warming, and the inherent climate change, but to the core issue. These changes are a problem, yes, but they are symptoms of a whole spectrum of problems - problems caused by the actions, activities and behaviours of you and I along with our fellow beings. Problems driven by our beliefs, values and institutions that have evolved over the last millennium.
When I said above, "… along with our fellow human beings.", I do not mean everyone on the planet. Clearly the Inuit, or the Australian Aboriginals, and other similar groupings, are not part of the cause of our problems. Their 'footprint‘ is too small. Yet it maybe though within their value structure and thoughts we could find a part of the solution. But that is another element of this story.
The issue is of a society locked into a set of paradigms based upon a destructive set principles and practices that evolved recently in the development of our civilisation. Principles and practices that encompass: companies whose core legal duty is to their shareholders; a set of financial principles that sees 'growth‘ as its core driver; a largely post-WW2 phenomenon called 'consumerism‘; and a political system based upon short-termism and selfishness. (Note please, I do not equate 'self-interest‘ with 'selfishness‘.)
We in Australia are amongst the 20% of the population of the world who consume 80% of its resources. Were everyone on this planet to consume at the rate you and I are doing, it has been estimated we would need 3 or 5 planets like earth to satisfy their needs.
These figures do not yet include China and India. It is worth pointing out that the population of the US is 307 million. It is considered the middle-class group in China today is about 350 million. I invite you to reflect upon the inevitability of these 350 million expanding to say 50% of the total Chinese population and becoming consumers like you and I.
Simply, our society takes materials out of the ground faster than they can be replaced; we put poisons out into the environment that are toxic to nearly all forms of life; we overcrop, overuse and misuse good agricultural land; and finally we have created a world full of inequity.
We live in a world out of balance. That is my message today in these few words.

About a species living out of balance with its world

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I have said in another posting, that I do not use this blog very often.  Well, I intend to do something about it, and write some more stuff.

Firstly, we have a real problem! Four areas of our current society, its systems and institutions, our thinking and the values we hold dear, have brought us to where we are today – a species living out of balance with the world in which it lives.

It seems reasonable to surmise that, since the world we have created is in trouble on many fronts, logic would lead us to make the observation there is something in all or some of them that is flawed.

We might say therefore:

It seems reasonable to state we are in a invidious position, one of increasing known risk.  It could only have been brought about by the current systems, processes, thinking and values we currently hold.  Therefore can we expect them to be part of any solution?

So where to next?

If it is correct they are flawed, they will not get us to where we now need to go without being modified or replaced. We need to be questioning every aspect of their origin, reasons for existence and how and why we use we use them.

Where does climate change sit in all this?

While global warming and the ensuing climate change are clearly very important, they are not the core problem we should be dealing with. Global warming and climate change are symptoms only of a problem.

The real problem is a society locked into an ideal of economic growth at all costs. This is the accepted operating system for the first world, and one being rapidly adopted by the developing countries.

I have two books that hold pride of place on my ‘bookshelf’ at home. One is very large, the other considerably slimmer - in fact very slim. The large one is full of questions – the smaller of answers.

This is a small start.  Over coming weeks I shall add to this article.

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The three domains of our lives.

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NB I have some graphics to add but they do seem to want to go up.

We may describe our existence on the planet using three domains: Society, the economy, and the environment.

Today, the economy has become the dominant dimension of our lives – everything we do must ensure it is not compromised. We are told this daily, either directly or by inference. The operations of all aspects of our society must bow at the altar of the economy. Since you and I are part of society, you and I are its servants too – and we are encouraged to go into debt to keep it afloat and growing all the time.

A thought in passing. I recall a moment at school, when we discussing the economy of countries. We were told by the teacher that an economy had to grow by 4% in order to keep afloat. Well, this muggins writer here asked the inevitable, “But Sir, nothing can go on growing at 4% for ever?” I was told that was the way it is, and to shut up.

Where does the environment stand in this? Well, it is seen to be there to service ours needs – seemingly at all costs. As long as the economic needs are met, it seems not to matter what damage we do to the environment. This is the world in which you and I live! I believe this should change.

Let’s look at a different paradigm.

Here is a suggested model to move toward. In this one, the environment must become the dominant paradigm, or at least understood to be the limiting factor in our existence.

The environment existed long before we came into existence. It evolved over the millennia, into the world we know today. One that supplies us with all we need to live by – and it all comes for free. In this environment are the abundant and numerous species existing alongside us, that we call biodiversity. The variety of life that provides a reasonably stable, healthy ecosystem for us to live in. One that we compromise at our peril.

Our society is therefore something that evolved within the environment, and is hence dependent upon it. Without a healthy, alive, clean and vibrant one, we will continually live at risk for our future.

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The economy is a human construct. It should be our servant, not something we are driven to support at all costs. In a new world, the economy should operate in such a way as to ensure, irrespective of its own needs, a healthy, clean and sustainable environment. Anything less will be unacceptable.

This is about finding a new balance between the three dimensions of your lives, the environment, society and the economy.

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Some further thoughts in a similar vein.

In a long gone past all living things existed in harmony and balance, and ‘nature’ was the controlling force. The environment was here long before the human race came along. Without a healthy, balanced working environment, there would be no life as we know it on the planet.

As we humans evolved, we created and developed what we know today as ‘society’. For most of the time we were in harmony with our environment. It is now theorised that around 40 000 years ago there were perhaps only 9 or 10 thousand Homo erectus left in Africa. Some of them left Africa and moved northward, spreading throughout the planet, ultimately to live on every piece of land except Antarctica.

Over the millennia, we developed increasingly complex societies, learning how to use the environment and its free services for benefit. Initially this caused no known problems. However as various civilisations appeared, they matured, expanded, and in the end collapsed. As far as we know or can understand, they did so generally because there was some failure in some aspect of the environment that supported them. During this period, these civilisations were largely separate from one another. There was no overall global negative effect brought about by the growth and subsequent collapse.

We are the first species that we know of with some unique and important capabilities relevant to this discussion.

  • We know we exist.
  • We can ‘see’ the planet as a whole for the first time.
  • We understand our capabilities for goodness and harm.
  • We can make conscious decisions for good or bad.

 Money.

Money has no moral or ethical framework guiding its behaviour. It owes nothing to anything except itself.

So when it is invested in a project, it must produce a return otherwise the investment is considered inappropriate and the money will be withdrawn and placed elsewhere, where it can make an appropriate return.

We need to tame and get control of this beast.  We need to clearly define a new set of rules – ones where there is a defined expectation that whatever and wherever money is invested, no aspect of the project, mine or business causes any damage to the environment.

Until and unless this is done, we will have this as a continual unmanageable risk at our sides.

Again I re-iterate, we need a new balance between money, the expectation we give it, and how the environment is constantly compromised by inappropriate investment and management.

 

 

 

 

Some notes and thoughts

I thought I should put some new material up.  I know I am not very good at keeping this up-to-date.

Opening comments

There is clearly much being done today, at personal, political and corporate levels, to begin the move toward a sustainable future. However I have come to understand how little we are really doing to address the core issues.

I speak with people from many walks of life, and many different and varied social and cultural backgrounds. Through these interactions I have come to appreciate that while much seems to be being done, little is changing at a fundamental level where things really need to happen.

The present discussions and actions about dealing with global warming, greenhouse gases and climate change, are only about treating symptoms. We are not yet treating the cause, let alone acknowledging it. The cause is the values that drive and motivate individuals, corporations and politics and society in general.  They are those driving growth and excessive consumption.

Through The Natural Step and the work I have done with EcoSTEPS, along with my other work, I came to realise it is around the social impacts and consequences of our activities the major work in achieving a sustainable future must focus.  The discussion we need right now should be about values – our personal and social values.

This realisation helped me make the connections that an understanding of the concept of ‘Education for Sustainability’ (Stephen Sterling), is of real significance. When we get our education model correct, for both children and adults, we shall begin to make the changes for which we are looking. It is this new way of thinking and doing that will inform and influence my continuing work with young people about whose future we are speaking.

Background and experience

I have worked in tertiary level bio-medical science for many years as a technical officer and teacher, and now lecture and tutor on sustainability. I have always had a personal and professional interest in the environment. Undertaking a Masters in Social Ecology at the UWS, led me to the development of a keen interest in Ethics and Futures Studies. This guided me to be significantly involved in the development of an environmental focus where I now work lecturing and talking to groups about the reasons behind the need for change, and how we can go about it.

In closing

Nobody, in any time in the past sat down and designed the world we have – it has developed and  evolved at random.  Without laying blame. we know today how flawed the thinking and systems were that brought us here.

For the first time in history, we now have a global view of our planet, and can see and understand its flaws, along with the thinking that brought it about.

The values used to get us to this time in the development of the human race, are those that have caused the problems we now face. They will not get us to where we need to go.

We now have an opportunity to use this knowledge and understanding to create the sustainable society we talk about.  Maybe it will be the only one we have before things begin to go really wrong.

The majority of the work I do today is with young people, at school and university.  I will never see a sustainable future.  My wish that through working with the younger generation, I can invite them to do at least three things.

·         Explore what sustainability means for them, and

·         Challenge the core values and institutions of the society that gave them life.

·         Realise that we should not be talking about technology, but about the values we wish to live by, and how they can become the core of a new framework for the future life.

How urgent is the situation? I believe this interview spells it out quite clearly. Patrick

EDF’s Peter Goldmark: “My generation has failed.” - “It has got to be said, over and over again: This is an urgent situation. We must act.”

Posted: 14 Oct 2010 08:29 AM PDT

Guest blogger Dominique Browning’s interview with Peter Goldmark is reposted from her EDF blog.  I served as Goldmark’s special assistant when he was President of the Rockefeller Foundation two decades ago.  He is one of the best thinkers and speakers on climate I know. 

“What we need more than anything else is a mass movement of young people,” Peter Goldmark, director of EDF’s Climate and Air Program, [EDF = Environmental Defence Fund]  who recently announced his retirement at the end of the year. “In American culture, it is youth that sets the agenda. It’s always been this way.  Think who was driving change in the anti-Vietnam war movement, in the civil rights era. They have to mobilize, now, and demand action against global warming.”

 We are sitting in Goldmark’s small, spare office at EDF’s Manhattan headquarters. He has had a distinguished and varied career, which included stints as Director the Port Authority of New York, President of the Rockefeller Foundation and publisher of the International Herald Tribune. I’ve come to talk to Goldmark, as he prepares to leave EDF, about what he has learned during his tenure. He speaks angrily of the “shameful paralysis” of the U.S. Senate, and says his focus is now is almost entirely on the next generation.

“My generation has failed,” he says flatly. “We are handing over the problem to our children. They - and their children - will live with the worst consequences of climate change. Make no mistake, global warming is happening right now. It is only going to get worse.”

In a 2003 paper, “Before the Storm,” he wrote: “We are, I believe, living in the time before a storm of historic proportions, a period of searing difficulty for the peoples of the world and the planet itself.”

But the world, Goldmark added, was failing that challenge: “We all - citizens, governments, and foundations - face in common the imperative to respond constructively to the crises of our times. And we are not responding. We are drifting.”

That drift continues, he says. Nor does he expect the marketplace to solve the crisis of climate change for us. Markets, he notes, may respond to social agendas, but they do not set them. But Goldmark isn’t entirely disheartened. “When historians look back at this decade, from 2000 to 2010, they will see that the wheel of change began turning in spite of our government’s inactivity,” he says. “We have begun a very slow transition to a low carbon, high efficiency energy system.” The problem is that we are not moving fast enough.

What Goldmark - along with all leading authorities on climate change - fears most is that we still do not understand the urgency of the problem. “When I think about how I would address a group of young people, my message is not a gentle one,” he says. “This is the hardest, most terrible, thing to say to a young person, but we have no choice: it is five minutes before midnight. Time is running out.”

That means we no longer have the luxury of polite, time-consuming public debate on the issue. “We have to be much more aggressive about pinpointing our enemies, and doing it early - showing how and where they are spending their money to undermine our efforts,” he says. “We need to learn how to inflict pain on the opposition.”

The environmental movement must also do a better job of linking climate directly to shrinking harvests, falling water tables, receding glaciers, extended droughts and more violent storms. Already, food, water, and climate problems are simultaneously hitting many nations. It’s happening now, and we need to connect that to climate change in the minds of all people.

Environmentalists also need to reach small and medium size businesses with this message. We’ve done well in educating the GEs of the world, but we need to convey the urgency of climate change to the people who run or work at the smaller enterprises, because their numbers, and their voices, carry influence. That’s what made the Chamber of Commerce such a powerful voice against progress in the Senate debate on climate change.

While at EDF, Goldmark has travelled the world with his message and helped to extend the organization’s global reach. He has worked on projects in India, Mexico, Brazil, and China, as well as in the United States. Everywhere he went, he tried, indefatigably, to raise the awareness about the need for prompt action.

There is, he emphasizes, “no such thing as an American solution to global warming.” Slowing global warming down demands international efforts to reduce carbon emissions. “Either we all get there together, or no one does.”

The need for global solutions is another reason Goldmark is now putting his hope into a youth movement. “Young people are already transnational thinkers. This is one of the great gifts of the Internet culture. Fifteen to 35 year-olds are used to thinking globally. They are the ones who are going to insist that the United States get on board with international solutions.”

Unfortunately, Goldmark believes that the United States will continue move slowly on climate legislation. “We will need other countries to lead the way,” he says. “We even have to remain open to the possibility that China will emerge as at least a co-leader once others begin to move. China is choking on its economic boom supported by conventional, high carbon energy, and the pollution is getting worse daily. Even though the country is investing heavily in alternative energies - and threatening to penalize heavy polluters - we have not yet seen them move off reliance on coal.”

I ask Goldmark about hope, a subject much on my mind these days, as science delivers ever more bad news about the condition of the planet. It’s a question he gets asked a lot.

Goldmark begins by noting that the world still has enough time to draw down carbon emissions to forestall the consequences of climate change. Also, there is much we do not know about how climate change will unfold, he points out. This reminds me of a recent conversation on the subject with Jeremy Grantham, Chairman of the Board of GMO, a Boston-based fund, who told me, “While we deal in probabilities, there is hope. It is only when we deal in certainty that things become hopeless. And the outcome is not yet certain.”

Goldmark agrees, and points out that countless polls show that Americans understand that climate change is a problem, and want it addressed. The problem is only that it is never high on anyone’s agenda.

“It has got to be said, over and over again,” Goldmark says, “this is an urgent situation. We must act.”

In his work with EDF, Goldmark has done more than most to get us closer to solving the climate crisis. Yet he hesitates to predict what is going to happen. “I do the best I can, without being able to see how it is going to come out.”

Still, he adds, history shows that people have a remarkable ability to blunder into solutions. Several days after our talk, he sent me a poem about hope, written by the Chinese poet, Lu Xun.

Hope is like a path in the countryside.
At first there is no path.
And then, as people are all the time coming and walking in the same way,
a path appears.

Dominique Browning is the author of Slow Love.  She writes regularly for The New York Times Book Review, Wired, and others.

My take on Lord Monckton's talk in Sydney

Last Wednesday I had the dubious pleasure of hearing Lord Monckton speak on his views of climate-change.  Although I am no climate scientist, I am a educator and scientist passionate about environmental issues and I teach at university hoping to motivate students to become aware of the issues involved in the sustainability debate, of which climate-change is part.

Lord Monckton opened his talk by challenging the concept of an Emission Trading Scheme.  Then, rather than commence and build an argument to support his position, he used what I consider cheap and tawdry theatre with a lengthy quote in Latin, which was lost on most of the audience, followed by a long theatrical discourse about spade (digging type) technology.  This he uttered so fast it was hard to separate one word from another.  He lost any credibility as a professional from that moment, convincing me he was on an ego trip.

For someone claiming to challenge some of the world’s most serious and significant science, I expected a solid, honest argument refuting the science of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  This did not happen.  Lord Monckton used similar techniques to fuel his own agenda, to those he challenges climate scientists of using.

He went on to claim “the arctic temperature is 2oC cooler now than in 1940”, and on ozone, “Mt. Erebus emits CFCs which are the cause of the variations in the size of the ozone hole.”  Both these ‘facts’ are incorrect. Worse still, his solution to the energy problem in Africa is to use fossil fuel to generate electricity – this in a continent with access to unlimited solar power, in a world running short of oil.

Monckton comes to Australia with an interesting history, an example of which is when HIV/AIDS first appeared.  He proposed “to screen the entire population regularly and to quarantine all carriers of the disease for life”.  Perhaps one has only to read ‘The Diary’ in the SMH of the 29th January for another credibility check.

Lord Monckton’s presentation could be taken lightly were it not on such a serious topic.  He fuels the climate‑change debate for all those who do not wish their consumptive lifestyles to change, and has become one of their ‘knights in shining armour’.

Irrespective of anything I have written, I am fortunate to live in a time and place where people have the freedom to speak openly.  It is left to each individual to make up their mind about the veracity of the ‘facts’ as presented, and the person delivering them.

I am though, still glad I went.