Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We have seen much discussion on global warming, what we need to do about it and the amount of money that it will cost. We have seen some incredibly alarmist articles and reports. It is almost as though there is a desire for each successive report to outdo the last in terms of prognostications of doom. This has led to more and more extreme calls—calls that would cause our economy significant damage if they were acted upon.

Instead of all of the alarmist hype, we need careful, balanced consideration of the issues. First, let us look at the issue of the debate having been settled and there being no doubt about the anthropogenic aspect to climate change. The IPCC’s summary for policy makers has stated that there is a 90 per cent certainty that there is an anthropogenic component. It sounds good, but it is nowhere near as certain in scientific terms. For instance, I would hate to go over a bridge where there was a 90 per cent certainty that it would take prescribed loads. If you think 90 per cent is beyond doubt, think about the Australian cricket team. The odds of their winning the recent one-day series would have been extremely high, yet not only did they lose the finals, they in fact did not win one finals game.

Consider the issue even within the IPCC. Yuri Izrael, Vice-Chairman of the IPCC, has said there is no proven link between human activity and global warming. Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT, an IPCC author and internationally respected climatologist, similarly has doubts. There are many other scientists both within Australia and internationally who also have doubts. In fact, I have spoken with many scientists expressing my doubts on the anthropogenic component. Funnily enough, I am not howled down by them in the same way that many of the true believers outside science do. It is probably because, even though many of them accept anthropogenic global warming, they know the uncertainties and complexities involved.

The IPCC process itself is flawed. Science does not work by consensus; it works on facts. Democracy is not a process relevant to science and scientific laws cannot be repealed by a vote. Look at Michael Mann’s infamous hockey stick. This is the well-known graph of stable temperature over the last thousand years apart from a rapid rise in the 20th century. It was used multiple times in the third IPCC TAR. It is also wrong—some, such as McKitrick and MacIntyre, who analysed Mann’s work, state that it is fraudulently so. The problem was that Mann had to be forced to hand over the data he had used. So much for his belief in peer review.

When the evidence was given to the IPCC on this, the hockey stick was dropped with nary a whisper about the error. Where was the peer review and rigorous checking by the IPCC prior to releasing the third assessment report? After all, it completely contradicted what had been accepted before, such as the medieval warm period when the Vikings settled Greenland and it was hotter than it is now, and the little ice age when fairs were held on the Thames River. Both have been found to be global phenomena. The reason the hockey stick was accepted so easily was that it agreed with the dogma. It would have behoved the IPCC to take the advice of the late Nobel physics laureate, Richard Feynman, who stated:

Experiment is the sole source of truth. It alone can teach us something new; it alone can give us certainty.

Feynman went on to say:

If it (the hypothesis) disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is—if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong.

You have another highly credentialled internationally famous scientist, Freeman Dyson, who similarly is sceptical and particularly decries the fudge factors used in the computer models predicting future climate. On climate stability we have Tim Flannery stating that the global thermometer has been set on 14 degrees for 10,000 years. This is absolute rubbish, so completely wrong it is embarrassing. Not only does it neglect little ice age and medieval warm periods, but also the cold Dark Ages, the warm Roman period and the Holocene optimum, which was much warmer than temperatures now are. The point with Flannery is that he is a media darling and they are quick to call him a climate expert. The fact is he is a palaeontologist, not a climatologist.

Chris Landsea, a tropical cyclone and hurricane specialist, quit the IPCC in disgust after his work was politicised by the IPCC. Dr Kevin Trenberth, a lead author, stated that his work showed that Katrina was more powerful due to anthropogenic climate change. Landsea protested to the IPCC senior leadership, but nothing was done. Interestingly, so much has been said of Katrina and anthropogenic global warming, but what about the extremely quiet tropical storm season in the North Atlantic last year? It is funny how the facts are so subjectively used by the global warming fraternity.

Let us have a look at the fourth report that came out recently. All we have seen so far is the Summary for policymakers. We have not seen the technical and scientific details—they only become available in May. The reason is that the IPCC wants to carefully go through the scientific reports and the Summary for policymakers to make sure that there are no contradictions. But what if a contradiction is found? The Summary for policymakers has already been released, so the scientific report would have to be altered—perhaps we should say ‘doctored’—to reflect what is in the Summary for policymakers.

On greenhouse gas, how many members actually know what the main contributing greenhouse gas is? Would it surprise them to know that it is water vapour contributing more than 90 per cent of the effect? We have all seen the graphs from ice cores showing correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide in past ages. I have two points: first, correlation does not equal causation; and, second, temperature change leads carbon dioxide concentration changes, not the other way around. In other words, if cause were to be ascribed, it would be more correct to state that temperature changes cause CO concentration changes.

On water vapour, the point that needs to be made is that a major contributor to climate, clouds, are not very well understood. This is acknowledged by the IPCC. There are major variations in the energy balance with IPCC reports, yet the IPCC claims the science is settled.

It has also recently been found that cosmic rays are likely to play a large effect on climate, as they interact in the atmosphere so as to form ‘seeds’ for cloud formation. Yet this is not considered by the IPCC at the moment. Looking at variations of cosmic ray activity and tracking temperature changes over the same period, the correlation is staggering.

The other fact is that the increase in solar activity has had a major effect on temperature. In fact, it has been found that warming is occurring on Pluto, Mars, Jupiter and Triton. The last time I looked, there were no evil greenhouse gas belching industries on those planets, subplanets and moons. This clearly indicates that the sun is a significant factor.

Let us have a look at some other factors. The Arctic is no warmer now than it was in the 1930s. Antarctica in fact has been cooling over 98 per cent of its area. The area that is warming is the Antarctic Peninsula, which is where all the magnificent calving of icebergs is occurring. However, it appears that there is a net ice mass increase in Antarctica—not the reverse—and this also appears to be the case in Greenland and Iceland. On the Arctic, if all of the ice melted in the Arctic, it would make no difference to sea levels, as the ice is floating.

An interesting fact to note is that the majority of warming occurred between 1900 and 1945, not in the last 30 years, as many would have you believe. Have a look at the 20th century. We have had numerous panics—global warming in the early period, then concern about an oncoming ice age, global warming again, an oncoming ice age again and now global warming again. There appears to be far too great a weighting on what is happening here and now and too little on the past.

The fact is that we had a warming trend about 20 years ago—for about 20 years up to 1998. From there, it has essentially stabilised, with temperatures almost constant since the record recorded temperature of 1998. You have no doubt heard of global dimming and atmospheric aerosols having cooled the earth somewhat, preventing even more catastrophic temperature rise. If this were correct, you would expect that the Southern Hemisphere would have warmed more than the Northern Hemisphere, given less industry and hence less aerosols. The problem is that the Northern Hemisphere has warmed more than the Southern Hemisphere.

Something that really annoys me is ad hominem attacks on those who disagree with the consensus position. The issues that they bring up and the science that they quote to support the critical arguments are shouted down by suggesting that they are all in the employ of the evil fossil fuel industry. Yet it could be argued that those in the IPCC et cetera have a vested interest. Research grants can be hard to get and global warming science would not be so well funded if it were found to be not a real problem.

Having said that, I do not like ad hominem attacks on either side. I believe in critical evaluation of the facts. The official spokesman for the Royal Society said:

It is now more crucial than ever that we have a debate which is properly informed by the science. For the people to still be producing information that misleads people about climate change is unhelpful. The next IPCC report should give people the final push that they need to take action and we can’t have people trying to undermine it.

That is a political position and it runs completely contrary to science, which should be about encouraging critical debate and analysis, not shutting it down.

I must say that I cannot recall in my lifetime such a push in science to only have one accepted position. This is more about religion and belief systems and less about facts and analysis. Indeed, when you have Al Gore’s disciples going through the land, preaching about global warming, it is clear that what we are talking about is religion, not science.

Michael Crichton has stated that the last time that he can remember when there was so much pressure for scientists and the population at large to accept a certain view as gospel was the issue of eugenics—and we all know where that led. We must accept a position of open and free debate and exchange of ideas and not go back to the Dark Ages, where only certain dogma was viewed as acceptable. If those that question the IPCC dogma are wrong, prove their arguments and scientific arguments wrong—do not resort to ad hominem attacks.

Given the foregoing, it is clear that Labor’s push on climate change is not only a politically contrived action; it is also damaging and not logical. Let us consider what Labor want. They want us to sign up to Kyoto, despite the Leader of the Opposition, Kevin Rudd, who seems to see himself as the expert on everything, recognising that without China things are looking pretty marginal. This was in an interview on Meet the Press, where he was pushing his credentials, particularly as a Sinophile.

Let us consider just how far Labor is pushing a particular solution. First there is Kyoto, which leaves out so many nations. Let us assume that every nation is in the carbon trading scheme, that Kyoto is about everyone. Why is this the way to go? After all, carbon trading simply allows heavy carbon emitting industries to trade away their emissions—somewhat like shifting deck chairs on the Titanic. No, if reduction of carbon is the way to go, we need regulation of carbon emissions, with some transitional arrangements for existing industry but with any new industry having to achieve those standards. This would give the result without attempting to price the emission and essentially, therefore, attempt to pick winners.

The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Science and Innovation is looking at carbon geosequestration. It is becoming more and more evident just what a hornet’s nest carbon trading schemes would be and how difficult it would be to set a price on carbon. This is something that would have to be set from outside. It would not be a market mechanism. And there would need to be a review on an almost continual basis in order to try to keep things in balance. These sorts of measures have been attempted in the past with things like exchange rates. They patently do not work.

Having said the foregoing, and even if we accept anthropogenic global warming, why is carbon dioxide reduction the way to go? We see that carbon reduction will cost an absolute fortune, so why is that the solution? Why are we not looking at other potential control mechanisms? Just off the top of my head I can think of two. One is the injection of aerosols, as in small particulates not underarm spray, into the upper atmosphere. After all, we have heard about aerosols and global dimming. Or what about some sort of shadecloth put in orbit? In that way we could actually tailor the area of the shadecloth and adjust it according to the energy balance. The problem is that we do not really know where the energy balance is, as is evidenced by the IPCC floundering with where we are with the energy balance.

Look at the issue of water. The state governments have neglected building much needed water infrastructure, taking the increase in rainfall in the second half of the 20th century as normal. We have now entered a period where rainfall patterns are more similar to those of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and have been caught out. The reason that cities are so short of water is inadequate infrastructure development, not drought. Consider Sydney, where the last dam was built about 40 years ago. They had an increase in rain in the 1970s and 1980s so did not bother with more dams. The population has approximately doubled, and the state government appears surprised at the lack of water. Blaming global warming is so much easier than owning up to their own inadequacies. The lack of planning is the reason that we see knee-jerk, quick, little thought out and inefficient responses. It is time for the state governments to be accountable. Are you listening, John Kobelke?

The more quickly the states realise that water is a national issue and not just a local issue to be played around with in an attempt to politicise it and pointscore from it, the better. The states must sign up to the $10 billion water initiative so that a well-coordinated strategy can be developed. This is a serious issue and it requires serious consideration of all the facts. The issue of global warming needs to be considered and calm action needs to be taken if the science does become settled. However, I believe that Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett are correct in their view of the world, which is that you apply money where it can best be used, not in some area to placate a heavily politicised agenda that is not really about what it purports to be.

See this speech in context