23022010

Is ETS a lame duck?

ETS goes slower and slower..

According the SMH the Senate vote on the ETS could be delayed until May; with possible legal maneuvering to try and get an earlier vote.

To me the real issue with ETS is not the scheme itself as such but rather will it actually succeed in delivering on fixing climate change..  I think it is doomed to failure and heres why..

Co2 as the climatic 'evil' is not proven

Given ClimateGate, the IPCC 'gates' and now Phil Jones stating there has not being statistically significant warming in the last 15 years - any sensible person would have to wonder if there actually is a problem worth controlling after all..  In fact there might not be a man made climate change problem even.

Now before I get tarred with the 'denier' brush; let me state that I am quite prepared to accept the man made warming theory, but in light of the evidence to date I find the balance is with the 'none man made warming' camp.

The problem as I see it is several fold:

Firstly; there is the assumption that humans have been able to be a 'major contributor' to global warming in a significant sense; i.e. we have been able to have a large impact on the climatic system. Now I don't doubt that we have had an impact on the climatic system, but rather I doubt we have had a simple 'net warming' impact - i.e. somehow we have 'bulged' out in just a warming direction. There is a whole combination of things we have done in one way or another to the climate.  Now at this point people usually cite Ozone depleation and Acid Rain as examples of how we can negatively impact the environment - true, these did impact the environment, but the distinction is that these were adding largely 'artificial' chemicals into the climatic system; something for which it had no regulation processes for, in effect the ultimate 'spanner in the works'. This neatly leads onto my next point.

Secondly; Co2 is a 'natural' environmental chemical, we produce it when we breathe and plants consume it in turn. It is a major active chemical in the biological processes on our planet - our cells are made with it; its a fundamental building block of life in part - we are carbon based lifeforms...

Thirdly; Co2 and its effect on temperature increasing is not linear, i.e. doubling Co2 will not double the additional temperature increase. Rather it has reached a point of saturation where it could double and it would add a fraction of a degree to the temperature over 100 years.

Fourthly; if we are really serious about stopping global warming, why are we set on reducing one of the lesser warming gases, why not reduce Nitrous Oxide which is 298 times more warming than Co2 and we produce 30% of it - that to me seems an easier lever to control...

The real climate problem

I think this is all getting away from the real issues we have in Australia. Namely a real lack of appreciation on the 'larger picture' effects of what we do on a local and regional level. We have basically been 'reshaping' large parts of the Australian environment and biosphere with little true long term awareness of the consequences. For instance the increased urbanization of large areas has known effects on temperature (the Urban Heat Island effect) this must in turn have an impact on rain fall and cloud patterns in the local area. Similarly, urbanization changes how water 'flows' through a landscape. These effects are nothing new, rather the value placed on them has somewhat diminished in the face of the big evil of climate change; and to me this is the real problem.

Namely, if climate change turns out to be a 'none event' what has actually been causing the effects we are seeing? I suspect the causes are a lot closer to home than we would like to think...