…most of the world’s food fish outside fish farms will have been fished out. (Good grief what a sentence, is there another word for fish?)

You can use the word ‘ghoti’ if you choose (special section in the journal Fish and Fisheries):

…It is named for George Bernard Shaw’s joke spelling of ‘fish’ – ‘gh’ as in ‘rough’, ‘o’ as in ‘women’ and ‘ti’ as in ‘palatial’.

Alternatively, you could use ‘aquaculture’ and ‘harvest’ in the appropriate places.

Not much doubt about that and despite what Australia chooses to do in regard to CO2 neither India nor China can or will do anything to reduce the pace of their development in the foreseeable future.

India in particular has an avowed economic imperative to accelerate its growth. The Indian Government maintains that 48% of its people don’t have access to electricity and 28% live under even their abysmal poverty line. Having visited India and witnessed a tiny slice of life in that country I can’t say I blame them.

Sorry, the Dhogaza reference was just a tease as I fully expect he/she to jump in and condemn my comment because although I’m not a climate scientist I had the temerity to comment.

As for the other stuff… see para 4, but what the hell, I’m happy to make a few observations though most of the list of doom and gloom is so general it’d take a novel length post to discuss.

Sea levels up by 3 to 5 metres by 2300 – nearly 300 years away, so what’s that, a centimetre or so a year? Surely that gives populations time to ameliorate the negative aspects of such a ‘calamity’. What have the Dutch done for the past few hundred years?

Crops and forests stressed – what no answer from the GM crowd, won’t plants and animals more adapted to warm dry/warm wet conditions migrate and replace the current lot if they can’t adapt, won’t they move on too – we humans will adapt I have no doubt. Rainfall patterns change – move the farms, plenty of water in Lake Argyll and they are growing bugger all up there at the moment.

Acidification of the oceans? I would have thought that by the time acidification has any noticeable impact most of the world’s food fish outside fish farms will have been fished out. (Good grief what a sentence, is there another word for fish?)

The port/harbour flooding point is ridiculous – are we supposed to believe that Patrick and P&O management will sit in their offices 250 years hence and say “gosh where’d all the ports go? Pity we can’t make a buck now.

I agree with the majority of the recommendations listed. They are mostly good practices based on common sense and should be implemented regardless of any AGW predictions.

I mean, improved public transport and re-vegetating cleared areas, no brainers (I’m re-treeing my property with indigenous plants – not because of the CO2 scare, but because it looks nicer and I can attract more birds).

The high voltage DC cables sound great as does the previous post regarding Australia becoming an exporter of electricity – that’s called being entrepreneurial. As is the generation of cheap electricity using clean technologies. Anyone who has lived or even visited the La Trobe Valley knows how filthy the power stations are and it’s not odourless invisible CO2 that’s the problem it’s soot, grit and sulphurous smells.

I’m all for tidal, geo-thermal and the like as well, although windmills are ugly and inefficient except for small communities not connected to the grid like Coral Bay in WA.

What about some research into Thorium reactors in Australia? Let’s go nuclear, how are pebble bed reactors coming along?

A mix of all the above should do us nicely – I’ll be able to keep my hi-def plasma telly and air conditioner running 24/7, it is the 21st century after all.

Development of coastal protection and adaptation, great stuff, it’s about time the mangroves were left alone. Look what happened to Burma as a result of large scale mangrove clearing.

But placing emissions constraints on Australian coal is a pointless exercise – if it puts up the cost of procuring or burning our coal it will just end the Australian coal industry with much economic pain for no gain. China produces around 2400 million tons per year as apposed to our meagre 300 million or so. There’s lots in Russia, Romania, South Africa (all of Africa actually), the USA and probably South America and it is a buyers market.

I’m all for desalination plants too, but installing rainwater tanks at every house is extremely expensive when compared to recycling the ‘waste water’ (including storm water runoff)of our major cities – pity the Victorian Government hasn’t bitten the bullet and built a massive water reclamation plant at Werribee instead of fiddling about with a desal plant.

There are real health concerns associated with drinking untreated water collected from roof tops in both rural and urban environments.

I only have rain water tanks (no mains supply available) but the amount of bird shit, fertilizer and pesticide laden dust which washes into my tanks puts me off drinking it – my two 50,000 litre tanks are full though despite this year’s rainfall being slightly below average.

I drink my water filtered through Cabernet Sauvignon grapes and settled in French Oak barrels – it’s a wonderful natural filtration method. (grin)

Anyway times up, off to work now, colours to mix, funky shapes to create, blacker blacks to … well… make blacker.

Ciao (goes with black this year)

Climate zone migration in Australia: The Bureau of Meteorology charts display the following:

Temperatures:
1910 – 2006 (mean values): +0.1C/decade in southern Australia; +0.2C/decade in central Australia.
1950 – 2006 (mean values): +0.1 to +0.2C/decade in southern Australia; +0.2 to +0.3C/decade in central eastern Australia;

Rainfall:
1900 – 2007 (mean values): +5 to +10 mm/decade in southern Australia
1970 – 2007 (mean values): -15 to -50 mm/decade in eastern Australia; +10 to +50 mm/decade in most of Western Australia except for west coastal and SW areas.

Observations:

1. A total of 1 to 2 degrees C warming in southern and central Australia over the 20th century.
2. A total 10 mm rise in rainfall over southern Australia over the 20th century
3. Sharp decline in rainfall by about 150 mm in central and eastern Australia since the 1970

Note:
1. Due to rising tempratures the minor increase in mean rainfall is canclled by evaporation.
2. The bulk of the agricultural regions – SW Western Australia, Victoria, NSW (Murray-Darling) and Queensland suffer from both temperature rise and rainfall decline through the 20th century and in particular since the 1970s.
3. Hansen’s estimate of about 250 miles is an average figure for the US, Mediterranean region, South Africa and Australia is consistent with the observed increases in temeprature.

The search by “skeptics” for accuracy in projected climate projections betrays a lack of understanding of the science. Where multiply complex systems are concerned, such as the Earth’s atmosphere, given natural and statistical variations the best research aims at identifying MAJOR TRENDS consistent with direct observations.

IF ANYTHING, CLIMATE PROJECTIONS BY THE IPCC AND MANY CLIMATE SCIENTISTS HAVE BEEN EXCEEDED BY TEMPRATURE RISE, ICE MELT AND SEA LEVEL RISE — DEMONSTRATING A CAUTIOUS CONSERVATIVE NATURE ON THE PART OF CLIMATE SCIENTISTS.

Ad-hominem slur does not render “skeptical” comments more convincing.

As to your question, I thought you knew the answer – carbon sinks. Or do you now also dispute CDIAC data?

Regarding tropical expansion – that is a valid question. Interestingly, I am planning to write a post on that very point fairly soon – it is a very concerning problem.

Glikson also owes it to us to give the exact coordinates of the 250 miles “expansion” of the Australian sub-tropics that according to his quote from [deleted slur] has “already occurred”.* Looking at the BoM map of Oz rainfall distribution since 1900, it would appear that the tropics are gaining on the rest of us.

* Hansen is on record as saying that anyone critical of his position is no better than Nazi concentration camp officials etc. [no, he compared lines of coal cars to concentration camp trains, with the coal loads representing species consigned to extinction - get the context right, mate, or go and spread your slander elsewhere]

Those who attempt to question the reality of dangerous climate change through ‘ad-hominem’ and conspiracy theories, by criticizing climate scientists like James Hansen or Barrie Pittock, or Earth scientists and biologists like Tim Flannery or David Suzuki, or environmentalists like Jared Diamond or Christine Milne, or leaders like Al Gore or Arnold Schwarzenegger, miss the point.

Rather than trying to “shoot the messenger”, in so far as “skeptics” accept the fundamentals of the scientific method, they need to research the literature on the basic physics and chemistry of the atmosphere, the behaviour of the atmosphere through the recent history of Earth, and the response of species to changing circumstances.

Should they choose to do so, they will find that:

1. Whereas glacial terminations were triggered by small (<0.5 watt/m2) mean solar orbital forcing, current global warming was triggered by over 300 billion tons of Carbon, inducing atmospheric energy (=heat) rise larger than 1.5 Watt/m2
2. The current CO2 level (387 ppm) is 40% higher than any measured for the Pleistocene (the last 1 million years or so)
3. The current CO2-equivalent level (including CH4)is fast-tracking toward level above 450 ppm above which the Earth was free of ice.

It depends whether people accept the scientific method. Should any denialist be able to refute the evidence, there is bound to be a huge sigh of relief all over the place, including my own.

No, I am not!. According to NASA

http://www.data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007

Globally 2005 was the hottest year on record and 2007 has tied with 1998 (a fierce El Nino year) for the second hottest, noteworthy because the Pacific Ocean was in its cool La Nina cycle during 2007. Eight of the hottest years on record have occured since your beloved 1998! Sure 2008 is cooler (natural variation) but is still the hottest La Nina year ever recorded.

An expert on crustal effects of major asteroid and comet impacts (a non-climate scientist dhogaza) and a bloke that’s been retired for nearly ten years and is apparently trying to sell a book tell us that “we are concerned that, due to inertia in the political system, the urgent mitigation required to arrest runaway climate change may not be forthcoming.”

Oh ok, yup I agree.

Cue personal abuse from dhogaza.

A second factor, the more worried people become, the greater the temptation to deny.

I agree with this, entirely. That is, after all, why people keep smoking, etc, right?

Nomination for a fascist octopus award http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/patee.html

Denial arises from multiple factors. An obvious one is vested interests. A second factor, the more worried people become, the greater the temptation to deny.

It is a good question whether a ground swell of denial will, or will not, be abated by the realization of another kind of swell, namely, the acceleration of sea level rise — now near 3.5 mm/year as compared to 0.5 mm/year early in the 19th century.