David Suzuki accuses Tony Abbott of ‘wilful blindness’ to climate change

[G_j]

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/sep/24/david-suzuki-accuses-tony-abbott

David Suzuki accuses Tony Abbott of ‘wilful blindness’ to climate change

'It's a crazy, dangerous situation if we're going to marginalise science in favour of political priorities,' says environmentalist

Monday 23 September 2013 23.08 EDT

Environmentalist David Suzuki has attacked the Coalition’s climate change policies, calling for a legal penalty to be imposed for “wilful blindness” in leaders who commit the “crime” of ignoring climate change.

Suzuki, a Canadian academic visiting Australia, told the ABC’s Q&A on Monday night that the government’s decision to disband The Climate Commission – which has since been resurrected as a privately funded body – was “very dangerous”.

“Human beings have become so powerful that we are altering the physical, chemical and biological properties of the Earth on a global scale,” he said. “In a time when we have become so powerful, how are we best making decisions for the future? I would think the best source of advice would be science.

“If we don’t listen to science, what are we going to turn to – the Bible? the Qur’an? An advertising agency? Australians are at a very critical time. You had a mechanism where science could be provided, with no commitment one way or the other, so that you could make up your own mind. By shutting that down, what does that tell you?

..more..

[Enthusiast]

1. Yay, David Suzuki!...nt

[laundry_queen]

2. He's right.

As soon as I heard of the disbanding I thought, "wow. One of the places on earth that has suffered the most from climate change and he is turning a blind eye? what a tool!"

Glad David Suzuki is saying something about it.

Here's one of my favorite analogies from him.

[G_j]

3. that was excellent

thanks for sharing!

[Edim]

4. Climate researchers, Marotzke adds, have an obligation not to environmental policy but to the truth.

I agree, a great quote.

Germany's highest-ranking climate researcher, physicist Jochem Marotzke, director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, in Hamburg, is fighting back against this refusal to face facts. Marotzke, who is also president of the German Climate Consortium and Germany's top scientific representative in Stockholm, promises, "We will address this subject head-on." The IPCC, he says, must engage in discussion about the standstill in temperature rise.

Marotzke calls the claim that a temperature plateau isn't significant until it has lasted for over 30 years unscientific. "Thirty years is an arbitrarily selected number," he says. "Some climate phenomena occur on a shorter timescale, some on a longer one." Climate researchers, Marotzke adds, have an obligation not to environmental policy but to the truth. "That obligates us to clearly state the uncertainties in our predictions as well," he says.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/climate-scientists-face-crisis-over-global-warming-pause-a-923937.html

[Democracyinkind]

5. ...

All of the false claims take advantage of one fundamental truth about the average temperature of our planet: it varies a little, naturally, from year to year. Some years are a bit warmer than average and some are a bit colder than average because of El Niños, La Niñas, cloud variability, volcanic activity, ocean conditions, and just the natural pulsing of our planetary systems. When you filter these out, the human-caused warming signal is clear. But natural variability makes it possible for scurrilous deceivers to do a classic “no-no” in science: to cherry-pick data to support their claims. They pick particular years or groups of years; they pick particular subsets of data. But when you look at all the data, or when you look at long-term trends, the only possible conclusion is that the Earth is warming – precisely the conclusion the scientific community has reached based on observations and fundamental physics.



http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/02/05/global-warming-has-stopped-how-to-fool-people-using-cherry-picked-climate-data/

[Edim]

6. Whether the Earth is warming or cooling depends

on the time-scale (and significance). At the multi-millenial time scale (since the Hollocene maximum and before, ~10 ka BP) it's cooling. This cooling trends consists of many warming/cooling excursions at multi-centennial (and shorter) time-scales. The latest is the warming since the period known as the Little Ice Age (LIA). The LIA is the coldest point since the Holocene maximum. This warming since the LIA also consists of many multi-decadal warmings/coolings, the latest being the warming since roughly after the middle of the 20th century, attributed anthropogenic and called AGW. It's cherry-picked and clearly misattributed. It's a textbook example of what Feynman called Cargo Cult science. The 'temporary fame and excitement' is over.

[Democracyinkind]

8. Good luck with what you're peddling here. nt