By Leon Gettler

September 17, 2010

PEAK oil and climate change are on parallel paths. Both are inextricably linked and can only be solved together, requiring a shift away from a reliance on fossil fuels into what is now called the “post-carbon economy”. For Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s climate change committee, peak oil is an inconvenient truth, and BHP Billiton chief executive Marius Kloppers’s call for a carbon price and tax tells us something needs to be done soon.

As with climate change, the peak oil debate has been going on for years. The fundamental argument: how close are we to peak levels? International Energy Agency chief economist Faith Birol warns that the output of conventional oil will peak in 2020 if demand continues. Other specialists say oil will not so much peak as plateau, giving countries time to deal with the problem. It’s all a question of timing.

These debates are a distraction from the real issues. Whether climate change is man-made or naturally occurring, we are seeing a change in weather patterns around the world. Similarly, governments, insurers and think tanks acknowledge that we face an energy supply crunch, suggesting peak oil is no longer the stuff of conspiracy theorists.

According to an article published in Der Spiegel magazine this month, a German military think tank report strategically leaked online warns that peak oil will occur soon “and that the impact on security is expected to be felt 15 to 30 years later”. Peak oil, according to the report, could threaten democracy, creating “room for ideological and extremist alternatives to existing forms of government”. It says this could “in extreme cases lead to open conflict”.

It also warns of market failures, huge tax rises, food shortages and widespread rationing. Oil is used in producing 95 per cent of industrial goods, so the report predicts price shocks right through the supply chain. “In the medium term, the global economic system and every market-oriented national economy would collapse,” it says.

The Germans also warn of a shift away from a market economy. It’s back to central planning.

“A conceivable alternative would be government rationing and the allocation of important goods or the setting of production schedules and other short-term coercive measures to replace market-based mechanisms in times of crisis,” the report says.

The climate change-peak oil link is also made in a new Australia Institute study, Running on Empty? The peak oil debate. It says tackling climate change and peak oil together is necessary but complicated. On the demand side, for example, China and India have turned global energy markets on their heads and will account for 70 per cent of new oil demand between now and 2030. More complications are added with technically feasible solutions that are climatically disastrous.

The first step is a carbon price. More to the point, we need a carbon tax. A trading system would not work as well because permit prices fluctuate, creating uncertainty and making it impossible to build a business case for investment in energy alternatives.

“Ultimately, these issues can only be addressed by the introduction of a comprehensive carbon-pricing mechanism that delivers an internationally consistent carbon price,” the paper says. “This can be achieved either by international trade in carbon permits or, the best and simplest option, an internationally harmonised carbon tax.”

It is a contentious decision, but tackling peak oil is likely to force governments to tackle climate change, giving them the political cover they need for those judgment calls. It will also require tough decisions on urban planning. The German city of Freiburg, for example, has bicycle lanes all over the city. It discourages car use by mandating parking in a few designated lots and has designed its public transport to allow even large families to live without cars. It’s a sign of things to come.

The reality is that politics will force hard decisions on peak oil. Examples already include financial help to the ethanol industry, with an extra $140 million in transitional assistance over the next decade and another $20 million to establish a Biofuels Research Institute in Townsville, all part of the deal Gillard secured with the rural independents.

More is required. To tackle peak oil, the government needs to implement the Henry review’s recommendations to change the fringe benefits tax formula for company cars that potentially encourages drivers to clock up mileage, and introduce road congestion charges. It will also have to invest more in public transport, promoting alternative fuels and subsidised infrastructure for electric cars.

These are politically fraught decisions, but tackling the issue when oil has peaked will be impossible. Global warming and peak oil can only be resolved together. Peak oil might provide governments with just the excuse they need to make tough calls on climate change.

Source: The Age

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What a backflip! Deniers become climate prophets
September 23, 2010

by Ian Verrender

Australia and the US are the laggards.

THE cream of Australian business, overnight it seems, has undergone a transformation from climate change sceptics into environmental warriors. Each day summons forth a new prophet, proclaiming the virtues either of an emissions trading scheme or a carbon tax; or as Tony Abbott put it in the election campaign, a ”great big new tax on everything”.

If you find this perplexing, given the vehement opposition from the business lobby in recent years, fear not, you are not alone. Just imagine how Tony feels.

BHP Billiton’s Marius Kloppers started the ball rolling last week, advocating a hybrid system, with a carbon tax and a limited emissions scheme; an idea quickly endorsed by business lobby groups.

Then followed the amazing spectacle of Andrew Forrest grudgingly backing Kloppers. And, in an even more astounding development, TRUenergy chief Richard McIndoe advocated the introduction of an emissions trading scheme.

How has it come to this? A cynic may conclude that with the Greens being elevated into a powerful new force in Parliament, business leaders see a carbon price as inevitable.

Before we delve into the complexity of the whole thing, let’s just dispose of a ”great big myth about climate” in this country.

The big lie, almost universally believed by Australians, is that after the failure of the Copenhagen summit to come to an agreement, we would be foolish to go it alone.

The argument goes: Why should we impose a huge cost on our export industries and standard of living when the rest of the world has walked away from taking action on climate change?

Wrong. The rest of the world is doing something. Australia and the US – the two heaviest emitters of carbon per head of population – are the laggards.

In fact, 32 countries now have emissions trading schemes. We’re not talking obscure countries in exotic locations. Try Britain. Think all of the European Union.

Even China, the world’s biggest polluter, has imposed stringent undertakings on itself to cut emissions by 2020.

The workings of emissions schemes and carbon taxes – and the debate about which is superior in reducing carbon dioxide emissions – is devilishly complicated.

But the unavoidable truth is that both will increase the price of conventional energy sources. Green policies in Britain are expected to add 33 per cent to the cost of electricity by 2020. That’s for consumers. For industry, it could be as much as 43 per cent.

Complexity and cost have enabled our leaders to create a smokescreen so thick that it threatens to completely hide the carbon.

So which is superior, a trading scheme or a tax? Both attempt to achieve the same end but through different means.

A trading scheme sets a quantity of carbon dioxide emissions and allows the market to work out the price. A carbon tax, on the other hand, sets a price and allows the market to determine the quantity of emissions. Most economists believe a trading scheme is more efficient. And if such a scheme were global, Australian coal producers could buy credits from those replanting rainforests in other countries. That’s not to say a carbon tax wouldn’t work. Where both schemes get messy is the extent of exemptions and compensation for emitters and consumers.

Kloppers last week proposed an ETS for the handful of power companies but a carbon tax on just about everything else, with three notable omissions. Transport (including motorists), agriculture and export industries were to be exempted from the tax. These three just happen to be the three main sources of pollution. Under Kloppers’s proposal, that pretty much puts the entire burden of paying for carbon emissions on a handful of companies in the power industry.

Kloppers apparently has deep personal convictions about the need to shift towards more environmentally friendly fuels. But he also has a responsibility to act in the best interests of his company.

So too does McIndoe – whose company owns the Yallourn power station, a big emitter of carbon dioxide – a staunch opponent of the Rudd government’s trading scheme. This week he ridiculed Kloppers’s proposal, labelling it as ”clumsy”, instead calling for, you guessed it, a trading scheme.

If that’s left you gobsmacked, you’ve forgotten that McIndoe extracted the promise of billions of dollars in compensation from the ETS compromise thrashed out by Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull when they were leaders.

That wouldn’t be available if only a handful of companies – as opposed to the 1000 or so that are our biggest carbon polluters – paid for emissions. Prepare yourselves for more gymnastics, for the games have yet to begin. At least it’s progress, of a sort.

http://www.theage.com.au/business/what-a-backflip-deniers-become-climate-prophets-20100922-15mzj.html

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Excerpts from an interesting thread of Facebook responses to the article at the top (without names):

* If I had a dollar for every time I read an article that “we are running out of oil in X years” and “**human caused** climate change is real” then I would be a multi-millionaire. By the way, Mars, Pluto, Titan (one of Saturns moons) and Venus ALL have the same Warming/Cooling trend between 1990-2010 — oh no human made CO2 is warming other planets!!!! IE, Climate Change is a CON!!!

* I cannot believe that you believe the climate sceptics!!
Are you also a fan of the exceedingly ignorant Andrew Bolt? or a reader of the right wing Murdoch press?. PLEEEZE give your brain a little exercise and do some real research.

* He’s a stirrer. I cannot take him seriously!

* (Stirrer): I have a Bachelor of Engineering, which back in the 90’s included 1st&2nd Year Physics and Maths directly out of the BSc in Physics and BMath — such it was possible to switch directly to a BSc or BMath. I know science, mathematics, computer modelling, Statistics, and the difference between “Real Science” and “Politicised Science”. So then, what are your credentials, or like many warmenists do you just have a BA???

I am serious in my scientific stance against the con job that is called “Climate Change”. The debate is not over, even though the warmenists at CRU have effectively shut-out real scientists from publishing real-science that totally trounces the crappy science coming out of the IPCC and it’s friends! Do your research, you’ll see that the “denier” science is superior to the “warmenist” science.

* it seems you accept the evidence that the Earth is warming. Is this correct?
Do you accept also that this will have harmful consequences for humankind and other animal and plant species in the future?
Do you accept that it is possible for changes in human activity to avert some if not all the potential adverse consequences?

* (Response from original stirrer): The world did slightly increase in temperature between 1990 and 2001, then decreased slightly between 2001 and present. CO2 levels have been ever-steadily increasing since 1990 (ie, have not levelled out nor decreased). According to the IPCC an increase in CO2 increases temps, which plotted fine between 1990-2001, but diverged between 2001-2010 (much to the horror of the IPCC and hence the “hide the decline” stuff).
This is probably the easiest clearist thing to grasp. The CRU threw out the “raw” data, as did BOM, NOAA and several other institutions, but some other universities and meterological beaureus only gave copies of the raw data, so you can freely access on the Internet the original raw temps and the “cooked” temps of the CRU and IPCC — but even easier than this just google search on “hide the decline” and you’ll see real scientists use real scientific arguments that decimate the so called science of the CRU, and put to death the global warming part of the human made climate change con. Have fun, those links will link to other stuff, and as you read through the “denier” science you’ll wonder how and why you could fall for such a scam that is so easily dismissed by real genuine science.

* I think New Scientist gives a fairer overview of the issue than the “hide the decline” mob. There’s been exaggeration on both sides, but greater scientific consensus for man-made climate change than scientific disputes.

* Sorry (Stirrer)… I am definately NOT a scientist. ~ I would not outline the following, except for the fact that you chose to throw your educational weight around and I have decided to outline my own pathetic credentials.
I have been married to Dr ______, a scientist, for 35 years.
I am intellectually capable of understanding exactly what he is talking about; such that I edited the grammar etc in his Ph.d thesis on the development of the Cochlear Implant as he was part of that team.
[We have just attended Prof Graeme Clark’s 75th birthday and the celebration of his Lister award – catching up with friends and collegues from Otorhinolaryngology]

* My husband also completed Bsc.Hons and an Msc. in Biophysics which is his main field of research. He is presently lecturing in physics, maths, statistics and environmental sustainability, about which he has published a book and written an online lecture series.

Throughout our 35 years we’ve had wonderful and robust discussions around all areas scientific, philosophical, theological, cosmological, ethical, political, metaphysical, educational [including art history and post-modernism] and of course, environmental … ETC…ETC…ETC.
We had 2 such discussions today….

I earnestly hope that this barrage might inspire you to search out an alternative path. Let me recommend the website TED and a book recently published by our friend from the Bionic Ear days, Prof. Peter Seligman : Australian Sustainable Energy – By The Numbers.
OF course there are many, many more but this might give you a sniff if you’re open to it.

* (Another response to Stirrer…) I’ve also got a Bachelor of Engineering – with the same physics and etc as you, and to be blunt: it’s absolutely irrelevant. There’s NOTHING you learned doing an engineering degree that qualifies you to have an opinion on climate science. End of story.

* Well said. I also have a BEng in Aerospace Engineering, so I also studied atmospheric physics all through my degree. But in order to claim a very educated opinion, you need to have professional mastery in the field as evidenced by many years of experience in the specific discipline itself, have access to the latest raw data first-hand, and thoroughly understand the current software and analysis tools. (in aerospace, for example, a systems design engineer may have a thorough understanding of CAD, but I’d question whether they had a mastery of aeroelasticity) The sheer complexity of the climate system demands caution from laymen on both sides. If you’re going to question the modeling analysis assumptions and methodologies (ala Andrew Bolt), you at least should be able to name the software analysis packages (and version numbers) that the climate scientists use, name the peer-reviewed journals that they publish in, be able describe the capture mechanism of samples (eg. ocean CO2) and so on. I certainly couldn’t do that.

* Rowland Croucher I’m not a scientist but I begin by asking two broad questions: 1. Which ‘experts’ are most likely to have vested interests which might contaminate their objectivity on the broad questions? (Put Plimer into the search facility of the John Mark Ministries website for the best – ie. worst – example I’ve come across). 2. Which experts know most about the relevant data (ie. they’re *climate* scientists not engineers or whatever) and who have most to lose if peer-reviews criticize their data and conclusions? See here for the article I find most helpful –

The Best up-to-date Climate Science data

Thanks for the discussion everyone. My main motivation in addressing these issues is the future well-being on this planet of my precious little grandchildren.

* I think the “Climate skeptic” movement actually has a lot of parallels with the Creation Science movement… the problem is if you only focus on sources of information from one side of the debate you can end up absolutely convinced that there’s a massive conspiracy afoot. (“the scientists are covering up the truth”).

* Climate science IS really complex, and is influenced by factors outside the earth such as solar activity, orbit variations etc… natural buffers such as increasing cloud and CO2 absorption into oceans makes a difference, volcanoes/dust makes a difference, changes in ocean currents makes a huge difference to local climates, etc. etc. All this complexity means average global temperatures go up and down.

* The basic thesis is really, really simple though. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that traps heat. Increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere would be expected to trap more heat than would OTHERWISE have occured. The only ways of getting around the basic thesis is to say CO2 isn’t a greenhouse gas (noone’s doing that) or to say the buffers are counteracting all the increased CO2 (the evidence is that they are not). As noted, New Scientist has a host of articles on the topic, it critiques the IPCC, but it notes the levels of scientific consensus. I find it quite a fair voice on the issue.

* I’m not a scientist but I looked at the evidence of how much C02 was pumped out over the last 30 years and how much the earth has ‘warmed and cooled’ over that period. It doesn’t match up. I read heaps of science fiction in the 80’s and I’m still waiting for the Ice Age that was meant to happen early this century.

* Stirrer again: The AGW/ACC game is almost over now, with some of their leaders jumping ship almost every week. Basically, if a respected scientist who was at the forefront and in the leadership “team” of the AGW/Climate-Change camp suddenly decides to join the “deniers” and refute what he was previously preaching, you’ve got to ask yourself why – something must be seriously flawed with it for one of the leaders – a person who knows all the secrets – to become a denier! This has been the icing on the cake for me – sort of like when an Atheist finally acknowledges that there must be a God!

* I must certainly acknowledge that “…in order to claim a very educated opinion, you need to have professional mastery in the field as evidenced by many years of experience in the specific discipline itself..”

This is, however, as Rowland says, far too an important issue for our children and grandchildren

* My husband’s lengthy years in physics have qualified him to think SCIENTIFICALLY with absolute rigour in the environmental field, and in many other fields. Furthermore, lecturing and writing requires access to the latest data and an understanding the current software and analysis tools.

The statement “…with some of their leaders jumping ship almost every week…” is very generalised and I would like evidence…
and you also wrote: ” ..for one of the leaders – a person who knows all the secrets – to become a denier!” * Is it SOME every week or ONE ??

p.s. I understand the point you’re trying to make with athiest> God – belief, but I actually find the comparison odious.

* Rowland, the mention of the grand-children raises an important point here, viz: just how certain does the science have to be before one is justified in acting? One of my very great reservations in respects of those who deny the cause(s) and/or severity of global warming is that they seem to me to want an unreasonably high degree of certainty before engaging in any remedial action whatsoever. Given the complexity of the problem (hence we KNOW that we’re NOT going to get 100% certainty) and the potentially disastrous consequences (for your grandchildren, for instance) it begs the question: at what point are we justified in acting?
I also like a related question: to what extent should be defer to the experts in any field? Actually a pretty complex question. Especially when it has very wide ranging social consequences.

* Rowland Croucher: for me it’s the popular mantra: ‘I’d rather act on the basis of human-induced climate change being a fact and be wrong, rather than not act at all and be wrong’…

* It is a given that the climate system is exceedingly complex. So are many other things like say the human body. But we know that if we did something very simple to this fearfully complex human organism like alter the pH of extracellular fluid by say 0.2 pH units we probably couldn’t continue to live.

In a similar way if we do something very simple like change the composition of the atmosphere ( massively in this case- push CO2 from 280 ppm before the industrial revolution to 387 ppm today ), then we have removed a keystone ecosystem service from the climate system. Like pH for the human body the wonderful ‘ homeostatic’ features of the biosphere are overwhelmed and we end up with a simplified and horrific mess, which is where we are heading right now.

Perhaps the best question to ask is why WOULDN”T you expect changes to the climate if we change CO2 from 280 ppm to over 380 ppm? This is a 35% change.
Underneath a complex climate system sits some quite simple physics. This bit is actually not rocket science even if climate science is.

*  ¢â‚¬Å½@ Rowland – which I sympathize with very much. Problem is that we have a rather lemming like run to the cliff with people thinking that “doing something” is vital. What’s needed, of course, are actions which are themselves driven by the science not by people who themselves have questionable motives. For instance, did you know that one of the better responses to global warming would be to INCREASE logging in Australia’s native forests? Actually a trivially easy case to argue as long as you realize I’m talking about managed logging (i.e. with replanting) rather than clearing of forests. To simply lock up native forests and prohibit logging is to abandon them to the bushfire cycle – which is actually more devastating than logging PLUS the carbon tied up in tree growth gets released back to the atmosphere. But if, instead, we harvest that timber as a resource (actually, even if we just bulldoze it into the ground!) then not only can we prevent much bushfire related tragedy (including trauma to native animals), but the Carbon absorbed by trees during their early growth cycle would be locked-up in timber products. Your grandchildren, it turns out, would be much better off living in a house made of native timber than one made of bricks.

* The fact is, we don’t know very much at all.
– Many regional temperatures have risen in the last 100 years, though mostly by only 1 or 2 degrees C.
– There is no meaningful definition of global temperature, so any claims about variation in global temp are just hot air.
– We know that greenhouse gasses such as CO2 have an effect on temperature, though we don’t how much effect and whether the effect increases or decreases as the concentration gets higher.
– We know that the concentration of CO2 has increased a lot in the last 100 years, however we strongly suspect that it has been much higher in prehistoric times.
– The work from East Anglia is so compromised that we cannot conclude anything from it. That doesn’t mean we know it is wrong – we simply don’t know.
– Michael Mann’s hockey stick has been completely discredited.
– Most of James Hanson’s work is based on data from East Anglia and Michael Mann. That makes it unreliable (though not definitely wrong).
In short, the world has warmed a bit and will probably (but not definitely) warm some more. The apocalyptic warnings of climate disaster are probably unlikely, but even smaller changes may be harmful in some regions.
Stopping warming by cutting carbon dioxide emissions is unlikely to work and politically impossible to achieve. Cutting emissions by better technology is likely to be possible and probably a good idea, even if we don’t know if it will help with climate change.

To anybody who still believes in disastrous AGW, please supply a reference to a study that supports that point of view and that makes available all raw data, clearly explains and justifies data corrections and modifications and doesn’t rely on any hidden processes (black magic).

* In demanding that those who accept AGW supply references to studies, you’ve somewhat missed the point that this debate simply cannot be carried on amongst those who are lay persons with respect to climate science. The litmus test ought to be nothing more and nothing less than the consensus opinion amongst climate scientists. We all know what that consensus opinion is and you whilst demanding that those with no qualifications in climate science reference the scholarly studies is a nice polemical ploy it doesn’t overturn the fact that the majority of those who know the science are of the opinion that AGW is, all things considered, a pretty well substantiated hypothesis and therefore deserves urgent political attention. You can go on until you’re blue in the face and it won’t change the essential point: one has to EARN the right to have an opinion in ANY discipline and until one earns that right (which comes when those in the discipline confer it) then nothing one says is of any particular importance. Note that this also applies to MYSELF – exactly why you want to enter into discussion with a person who readily acknowledges he has no particular insight into the science is beyond me. You could, of course, enter into discussion with qualified climate scientists – let me know when you’ve finished the PhD.

* Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Firstly I apologise if it sounded like I was demanding anything. It was intended as an invitation, no more.

Secondly, I dispute that only a “climate scientist” can understand climate science. You might notice that amongst the most famous commentators you will find physicists, astronomers, meteorologists and economists.

Climate science is primarily physics and a little chemistry. Gathering proxy data also involves some geology and geophysics (possibly some archaeology). Modelling is primarily statistics and applied mathematics. People with a reasonable level of understanding in these disciplines should be able to understand the arguments. It it may take a specialist to balance all of the information and come up with a working theory, but anybody scientifically literate should be able to read the stuff and get a reasonable understanding of it.

Science has never been about consensus. There was clear consensus that the Sun orbited the Earth. Fortunately the “deniers” stuck to their guns.

What science requires is proof. Demonstrate by experiment that something is so, or prove with mathematics that it must be so. Those are very hard, but anything less is not real science.

If the scientific proof exists, I wish to see it. If it does not exist, then we ought to be pursuing it as the future of our society may depend on it.

* I never argued that only a climate scientist can understand the science, I argued that only a climate scientist is qualified to express an opinion on climate science (big difference). Even if I allow that the notion of a “competent lay-person” is a credible one (unqualified, inexperienced, unrecognized, unpublished, but competent?) and that therefore a non-climate scientist can actually grasp the data and methods of climate science and reach an informed opinion there remains a major problem, viz; on what basis can one reasonably affirm the honesty and competence of lay-persons whilst questioning the community of qualified climate scientists on both counts? Surely, if anybody is likely to be in error (or worse) it’s the lay-person not the majority of scientists qualified in the field?

So there’s the rub – the vast majority of persons most qualified to assess the data (i.e. climate scientists) are of the opinion that AGW is sustainable as a scientific hypothesis. And they do that on the basis of the data, not despite it. As long as they are telling me that the data evidences AGW, then I’ll assume that the data evidences AGW, the opinions of “competent lay-persons” (if indeed there be any such) notwithstanding.

Incidentally, my philosophy of science is essentially Polanyian – meaning I regard the ability to formulate and assess scientific theories is an art one learns by doing NOT merely the systematic application of rules and methods. So while science may well be informed by experimental data and mathematical proofs it hardly reduces to only these and there is a FAR bigger picture to be considered. One should never think that just because one can identify the tradesman’s tools that one is therefore qualified to tell a tradesman how to practice his/her trade.