pool

Text: Open letter to Bob Brown and the Greens

from Peter Ravenscroft, 02.07.09

Senator Brown,

This letter is in the public domain.

I am writing to you in your capacity as head of the Australian Greens Party. You and your party have over the years done a fine job of calling for others in politics to be honest and to play it straight and for that this country owes you.

But that cuts two ways. I have written to several members of your party, you included, on what follows, and have never yet received a coherent non-form-letter-reply, to the best of my recollection. The matter I have written about is not trivial.

It is this: Your party is front and centre in the push to reduce the use of fossil fuels, something I support, being all for less energy and resource waste, on every front.. Fine.

But there is a problem. There is no evidence whatever from the real world, as opposed to from the computer gaming fantasies of the new breed of crystal-ball-gazing shamans, that atmospheric carbon dioxide increases are driving the very real warming of the last century, or did so for any previous period, on whatever tine scale you care to pick. There is also very considerable evidence, when you compare the trends in CO2 and global temperatures, to show that CO2 cannot be driving climate warming. There is even stronger evidence, from the time-series global temperature and magnetic field  maps, particularly for the vertical field changes, that the deep-seated (core-mantle boundary) magnetic flux changes may be what is actually driving climate change. Also, the maps of where CO is concentrated on this planet are completely at odds with where it is warming, which is the exact opposite of the situation with the geomagnetic shifts. There, the fits to global temperature shifts are quite startling - to those who can be persuaded to look at the maps with their brains in gear, which is very few. I do not suffer delusions of grandeur, just rueful fellow-feeling. Galileo could not get the leading men of Europe to look down his telescope, though maybe a thousand visited. I cannot get the loudest supporters of AGW to look at the temperature and geomagnetic trend maps. Ho hum.

Google your name, and what you get first is "protecting the climate is a job for everyone." Given the above, that is straight out of cloud-cuckoo land and is what used to be called hubris - shouting at the gods. You cannot "protect" the climate. One big hurricane packs more energy than the human race has mustered since dot. 

The entire swag of IPCC scientists is totally ignorant of the relevance of geomagnetism to climate change, and apparently, of geophysics overall. Ian Plimer, though he is quite right that a vast array of geological evidence says AGW is impossible, has very little understanding of the geophysics. My problem also, I am a geologist who has used geophysics in mineral prospecting and I have had the luck to be involved in the development of new techniques in the field, but I am not a geophysicist. I can, however, understand what the data says is impossible and what is likely.   

Your party is advocating some very expensive changes to our economy, in pursuit of a chimera, in my opinion. You owe it to the public to be better informed on the science. Start by carefully reading Ian Plimer's book, all 500 pages, and then maybe a good number of the 2,311 references on which he bases his criticism of AGW. The geology there is detailed and sound. I have been reading in the field for 40 years, so perhaps am in a better position to assess it than many of his shriller critics. As with any assessment of the past, there is guesswork, and I would personally have had a few more qualifiers. And, I have a different model for the most likely main driver.

I have posted some of the relevant time-series contour maps on ABC Pool, here. Also see my website on this topic, with more, here

I am aware how difficult it is for a party to modify such a deeply held belief. But when you decline to do so in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence, as here, the consequences can be grave. The precautionary principle also cuts two ways. Waste your society's time and treasure when, as you have persuasively argued yourself, we have an unsustainable economy based on compound growth, and you may just bring it down around your ears sooner than otherwise. We need a stable and sustainable economy, that is clear. But trashing large parts of the present power system while, as the old Arab proverb has it, jousting with sandstorms in the desert, may be no more sensible than it ever was. We cannot control the climate and we are barking mad if we think that we can even control the amount of CO2 in the air. When the oceans warm, they release CO2 in amounts that make our efforts trivial. The CO2 isotope data has been misread 

As to the excess sea level rise over isostatic rebound in the last few decades, that is the result of massive groundwater pumping, with the volumes going to the seas very likely being four times the total present icemelt from Greenland and Antarctica. Etc., etc,. etc.

You cannot be held responsible for huge scientific oversights. But once informed, you do have  responsibility, in cases of considerable public import, to consider them very carefully. I did not suck these maps out of my thumb.

I am. by the way, politically of the left and have always been a greenie, at times professional and as a union official. But first, I try to be a geologist and scientist and to understand reality, never mind how politically inconvenient it may be.

That last, I think, is exactly your problem now.

It might be an idea to have a chat on the phone. My number is 07 3289 4470.

Regards,

Peter Ravenscroft

Geologist, Closeburn, Queensland.

P.S:The graphs posted by Penny Wong on her website in reply to the questions of Senator Fielding, are just plain silly. They are at complete odds with those accepted almost everywhere, by both sides in this debate. To put up as your model' s main defence, a graph of ocean warming where the entire trendline is within the limit of instrument error, is simply very poor work.

Tags

Alert Moderator

[Alert Moderator]

Comments

1 comments

Add Comment