The Scientific Truth About Climate Change
There was a time when the public debate about climate change was reasoned, rational and evidence-based. Then the Left-wing fanatics took over, people who have just one thing in their lives – politics – and try to impose their beliefs on everyone else.
The Greens invented the propaganda of a ‘climate emergency’, trying to get parliaments and local Councils to declare an emergency and 100 percent renewable energy policies. The fanatics (with help from their friends in the media) started to say that every problem, every disaster, every setback in society had just one cause: climate change.
They were telling people to “follow the science” but had abandoned any sense of proportion themselves in what the climate science was actually saying. The public debate became hysterical and heavily polarised.
Anyone giving a moderate, balanced view of climate change is now automatically attacked by the Left, hounded on social media in particular. Sadly, scientists are also subject to this treatment. They are reluctant to go against the new, wild Left orthodoxy for fear of public ridicule and humiliation.
Climate is becoming a science-free debate. So how do we establish the truth?
There was a time when climate scientists spoke independently, when they advanced facts publicly. We need to go back to hear what they had to say when the global warming debate started in Australia 15 years ago.
I was reminded of this recently, when the press pumped up Ross Garnaut as a prophet regarding this summer’s bushfires. They seized upon two sentences in his 2008 climate change report to the Rudd Government saying:
“Recent projections of fire weather suggest that fire seasons will start earlier, end slightly later and generally be more intense. This effect increases over time, but should be directly observable by 2020.” (Page 118)
What else did Garnaut say in his landmark report? Importantly, his conclusions relied heavily on material provided to him by the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). The report was based on the best available science of its time.
There was no talk of a climate emergency or extinction rebellion. There was no banshee teenager screeching at the world, “How dare you!”
The language was considered, the conclusions couched repeatedly in doubt and wide margins of error. Climate change was presented as a long-term, 100-year trend, not an overnight apocalypse destroying the planet tomorrow.
Yes, Garnaut said human-induced global warming is real. But it also needs to be judged in its historical context, acknowledging that, “Australia’s dry and variable climate has been a challenge for the continent’s inhabitants since human settlement” (Page 105) – that is, for 60,000 years.
Garnaut forecast, “Annual average temperatures in Australia are expected to rise in parallel with rises in global average temperatures. Significant regional variation, however, is projected across Australia. In general, the North-West is expected to warm more quickly than the rest of the country … By 2030, annual average temperatures over Australia will be around 1 degree (C) above 1990 levels.” (Page 113)
As of 2019, on the BOM trend-line, three-fifths of this warming prediction has been realised (with just over a decade to go).
Elsewhere, Garnaut was sceptical about linking climate change to specific weather events and outcomes. “Single events, such as an intense tropical cyclone or a long-lived heatwave”, he wrote, “cannot be directly attributed to climate change.” (Page 106) Presumably this also applies to a dry spell and a bad bushfire season.
The Greens say global warming means permanent rainfall decline and drought in Australia. What did the Garnaut Report say, based on CSIRO and BOM research?
At Page 105: “Effects of future warming on rainfall patterns are difficult to predict because of interactions with complex regional climate systems.”
Again at Page 105: “The mainstream Australian science estimates there may be a 10 percent chance of a small increase in average rainfall.”
Then on the next page: “Rainfall decline in (South-East Australia) has not been definitively attributed to human-induced climate change.”
Then at Page 107: “Rainfall changes over the longer period from 1900 to 2007 are generally positive and are largest in North-West Australia.”
At pages 114-5: “There is considerable regional variation in precipitation change within Australia. Some areas are expected to experience an increase in rainfall. The complexities also lead to disagreement among climate models about the potential extent and even the direction of change (in rainfall levels).”
According to the expert Garnaut report, anyone telling you rainfall in Australia is declining because of climate change is pulling your leg. What about the drought we are currently experiencing?
At Page 111: “Many major Australian droughts are associated with an El Nino event, though not all El Nino events trigger a drought. The effect of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation on climate varies across the country … The extent to which the decline in the Southern Oscillation Index is influenced by global warming is unknown.”
Then at Page 113: “There is no consensus among models as to how climate change will affect the El Nino-Southern Oscillation. In some models it intensifies, while in others it weakens.”
What about the Greens’ rhetoric trying to scare people with “more extreme weather events” caused by climate change – more storms, more cyclones, more carnage along the coast? Garnaut reports, “It becomes difficult to draw definitive conclusions on whether observed changes in tropical cyclones can be attributed to climate change.” (Page 111)
This is also true of other storms, including hailstorms. At Page 117, Garnaut is more precise: “It is difficult to project changes in the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones. Studies suggest that the frequency of East Coast cyclones will either remain the same or decrease by up to 44 percent.”
It must be repeated: these conclusions are on the best advice of the CSIRO and BOM – the science we are always told to follow. In truth, the Greens have junked the science in favour of cheap-jack scare campaigns.
Re-reading the Garnaut Report is like an antidote to Green-Left hysteria. Are you worried about heat-related deaths due to global warming, people literally frying alive? Garnaut forecast, “In NSW, the number of annual temperature-related deaths is expected to decrease by 30 percent” (Page 126)
What about the Australian economy being destroyed, sector by sector, with mass unemployment from the impact of climate change? Garnaut said, “Australians will be substantially wealthier in 2100 in terms of goods and services, despite setbacks from climate change.” (Page 127) It hardly sounds like the end of the world.
In other parts of the report, Garnaut is off target. He predicted sea level rises of up to 59 cms, which are not occurring. He said Pacific nations such as Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands would be submerged, which hasn’t happened. (Page 149) He forecast, “climate refugees could constitute the fastest growing proportion of refugees globally”, which is ludicrous.
Even with Garnaut’s (more credible) bushfire prediction, it is important to drill into the detail of what was said (something the ABC/Fairfax/Guardian climate change cheer squad failed to do). The 2008 report relied on a bushfires study commissioned by the Climate Institute of Australia. The four authors (Lucas, Hennessy, Mills and Bathols) wrote of how:
“Bushfires are an inevitable occurrence in Australia. (In the South-East) the winter and spring rains allow fuel growth, while the dry summers allow fire danger to build. This normal risk is exacerbated by periodic droughts that occur as a part of natural inter-annual climate variability.”
At no point did they say bushfires would be caused by climate change. Their main conclusion was to point to an increase in the number of ‘fire danger days’ on the Australian mainland, marginally increasing the length of our bushfire seasons by 2020. That looks about right.
Re-reading Garnaut is a sobering experience. It’s a reminder of how accuracy, detail and perspective have been lost in the climate change debate.
With the Green-induced hysteria that now prevails, the 2008 document remains our best guide to what’s actually happening to Australia’s climate. It’s the science the Lefties have conveniently erased from their memory. It’s a more nuanced, doubt-laden and realistic view of the challenges of climate change adaption.
The world is not ending, we just need to adjust to a slightly warmer world.
That’s one of the reasons I advocate for nuclear power in Australia. Unlike renewables, it generates reliable, dispatchable baseload electricity that’s emission free. It keeps the lights on, whereas the renewables fetish is sending Victoria and NSW towards blackouts.
This is the other main problem with green ideology (Liberals like Malcolm Turnbull as well as Labor and the Greens): their obsession with renewables is creating a bigger problem (blackouts) than the one they are trying to solve (climate change).
How idiotic is that?
Mark Latham MLC
