I feel like crying......I was thinking if I was not wanted I should leave. How very kind fwed.

Don't you dare leave Phyl!!!! We really need you , at least until we find (if ever ) at least one or two replacements.

Have a great christmas

From the news we have been getting the Copenhagen meeting has been a major failure. No real discussions. Lots of complaining from the upcoming countries that the money offered to them is too small. The richer countries complaining about the amount of money to give is too high. Street riots outside. Some delegates and staff quiting. No body agreeing on the amounts of carbon restrictions and the open checking. The US delegates have been promising what they can not keep. India, China, and others unwilling to offer positive conditions to the meeting. The meeting is a total farce.



In the US there are polls that show over 50% do not believe in MMGW and want to have no commitments made in the Copenhagen meeting. Technically the President Obama and his representatives can only make promises of efforts but no commitments at Copenhagen. The commitments must come from our Congress if they are asked to ratify any promises made.

.

Here is a copy of the first draft of the political declaration put before governments last night [4.24Mb PDF].

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/images/091218_cop15_declaration.pdf]Link[/url]



I do hope Copenhagen can come up with something although it does not look promising.



I feel for the people in the South Pacific islands who could lose their homes and their countries.

Then we will have a rush on climate refugees which would make the asylum seekers numbers insignificant.

Fortunately, in my opinion, we have been saved from certain financial disaster by the overall failure of the Copenhagen treaty yesterday. Success would only have deprived many nations of their hard earned money given to some very undeserving totalitarian and religion controlled countries. Those countries subjects would gain next to nothing for the monies given but the leaders would do quite well.



Copenhagen outlook.

.................







http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8422133.stm







UN welcomes climate summit deal



But Mr Ban said the agreement must be made legally binding next year.



Earlier, the meeting failed to secure unanimous support, amid opposition from some developing nations.

......................



Not much we can do about the islands and lowlands if we do stop the warming, or not.







http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:RwQcPi0QV1YJ:ccar.colorado.edu/~nerem/sealevel2007.ppt+sea+levels&cd;=3&hl;=en&ct;=clnk







Is Sea Level Rise Accelerating?



* Short answer: probably

* The satellite sea level record is too short (~14 years) to rule out that the recent rise is due to natural decadal variability.

* This is only likely to be resolved by having a longer satellite data record (~30 years).

* The decline in satellite programs in recent years has put this in jeopardy.



[b]Even if greenhouse gases were stabilized now, substantial sea level rise would continue for several centuries because of inertia in the climate system (~ 0.1 - 0.25 m/century).[/b]

...................



If there really is a MMGW it might be too late for a lot of things. If it is more of a natural climate change then what ever we do is a false security action. Should we clean up our environment if possible? Sure we should. Do we need all these financial actions, taxes, cap and trade, reversions to hundred year old ways of living? Absolutely not.

.

We keep hearing arguments that past climate change disproves man-made global warming? Sure, Earth's climate has changed long before we were pouring CO2 into the atmosphere. Europe was warmer in the Middle Ages. During the 18th century, it was colder, prompting the 'The Little Ice Age'. Further back, there were times when the Earth was several degrees hotter than current temperatures. This has been comprehensively dealt with in the literature and it really is a red herring – if you want to get a head ache go to http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm

As I understand the situation it boils down to a consideration that climate change in the past has been caused by many factors, amongst them variations in the sun’s radiation, changes in the orientation and shape of the earth’s orbit, increased volcanic activity, heating from radioactive decay, none of which apply today. Increases in greenhouse gas levels after past warmings obviously did not cause planetary heating, but were a product of the warming as permafrost and peat warmed and released entrapped gasses. That is one of the ‘tipping points’ which have Climatologists worried today – once the ambient temperature rises enough to start peat and permafrost releasing entrapped greenhouse gasses, these will cause further temperature rise and thus more gas release and the whole thing goes into positive feedback, a runaway condition and no-one can say where that will end. It is all very well to say that the earth survived past severe climate change [although the dinosaurs were probably knocked out by an asteroid induced climate change] and indeed humans survived the last glacial age, but human society did not [there was none, of course]. It is unlikely to survive this one in any recognizable form.

It seems some people do recognize that the climate is changing but would prefer not to have anything done about it if it costs them anything.

But with droughts and bush fires in southern areas and floods in the north, it will cost more to exist.

No water equals less agriculture which means pay more for food.

Already there are many areas of the country on water restrictions and have been for some time.

As of 2008, the Murrary River only receives 36% of its natural flow.(Wiki)



I was interested to see that one of the posters here estimated how much carbon Kevin Rudd's trip to Copenhagen would put into the atmosphere.

I guess when you compare that to the people that travel via Heathrow airport (70 million per year) it is rather insignificant. And that is just one airport.

The number of vehicles (Planes, cars, trucks,trains etc) has increased dramatically over the last 100 years and they all use fossil fuels.

Vast clearing of vegetation in Indonesia and the Amazon has caused the loss of soil fertility and weed invasion as well as the loss of trees to store carbon.

At the current rate, in two decades the Amazon Rainforest will be reduced by 40%.



To act now will cost us dollars, but to do nothing will cost us and our descendants much more.



As for suggesting that politicians should stay out of it and leave it to the scientists, well the scientists can only create scenarios and make recommendations which only politicians can act upon.

Very few are saying do nothing. Many are asking why all the taxes and money distribution that does nothing to stop pollution. Carbon trading only authorizes the dirty folks to stay dirty. It seems real hard to get the MMGW folks to understand that not wanting to have our countries forced into bankruptcy is not denying the need to clean up our environment.



Our clean up should continue in a steady and proper way as it has for over fifty years that I know of. Get the politicians and political parties out of our way and let the scientist and engineers show the way to cleaner living. That will likely cost us money too, but at least it will be based on tested and proven ways and won't fatten the political folks pockets.



Having done that means we won't care if it is MMGW or natural cycles. We will have done our part without the political panic activities.



Scientist and engineers constantly give us better ways of doing things. The real good and acceptable ways do not need politicians to make decisions. The business and individuals will do what is best with out a bunch of air head politicians messing with reality.

.

Emissions trading (also known as cap and trade) is an administrative approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants.



A central authority (usually a governmental body) sets a limit or cap on the amount of a pollutant that can be emitted. Companies or other groups are issued emission permits and are required to hold an equivalent number of allowances (or credits) which represent the right to emit a specific amount.



The total amount of allowances and credits cannot exceed the cap, limiting total emissions to that level. Companies that need to increase their emission allowance must buy credits from those who pollute less.



The transfer of allowances is referred to as a trade. In effect, the buyer is paying a charge for polluting, while the seller is being rewarded for having reduced emissions by more than was needed.

Thus, in theory, those who can reduce emissions most cheaply will do so, achieving the pollution reduction at the lowest cost to society.



There are active trading programs in several air pollutants.

In the United States there is a national market to reduce acid rain.

An example of an emission trading system has been the SO2 trading system under the framework of the Acid Rain Program of the 1990 Clean Air Act in the U.S. Under the program, which is essentially a cap-and-trade emissions trading system, SO2 emissions were reduced by 50% from 1980 levels by 2007

OK fwed, for this we must agree to disagree entirely. Nothing in that cap and trade stuff actually reduces the content or amount of the pollutants. Growing economies will always have increasing outputs while failing economies will have less outputs. Luck of the draw says who is good or bad. It is a game but never stops the pollutions. That is done by the scientist and engineers. Politicians never come up with true ideas but they do come up with ways to empty the citizens pockets of coins and make sure the coins end up in politicians pockets, people like Al Gore. Taxes are disincentives for progress, it is money lost and there fore not productive.



Creativity can not be created with taxes. Creativity takes time and ingenuity and inspiration. Cap and trade does not inspire anyone as claimed. Just set standards and the scientist and engineers will produce adequate answers and solutions.. Governments do have the responsibility to pass laws to establish guidelines. After that they should step back and let the real experts decide how and how fast it can be done.



As for MMGW, another issue where we must agree to disagree. There is not consensus among the scientist so we should take time to reassess the IPCC stuff and make sure we are doing what is right, not in the cleaning up of our environment which most folks agree we should do, but in the methods chosen to help reduce the pollutions. The panic mode will not help.

.

Peter Spencer, the farmer up a pole on a hunger strike, has refused to meet senior Federal Government figures despite demanding a Royal Commission into land rights. He says that state native vegetation laws have been used by the Federal Government to lock-up land to meet carbon pollution reduction targets. He has received a letter from the Agriculture Minister, Tony Burke, on behalf of the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. It details compensation options and possible land management strategies. But he refuses to open it.



Can someone please tell me how the government gets carbon pollution reduction targets by denying this man his rights to clear his land. In simple English please.

Peter Spencer is a sheep farmer in the Monaro district.

Much of the land in this area has already been cleared of native vegetation leaving a useless dust bowl.

The rules governing land clearing are made by the state government not the federal government.

Trees and grazing can go together as the trees prevent erosion and provide shade for the animals.

Sheep also eat not only the grass but also eat the roots causing land degradation.

Demanding a royal commission is not the answer.

Fwed, are you saving he shouldn't be allowed to cut down his trees?

PETER SPENCER HUNGER STRIKE : DAY 35



Spencer’s four children fly into Australia for Christmas at the ‘Tower of Hope’



Spencer’s four eldest children fly home from Michigan, USA to family farm in Shannon’s Flat, NSW, Australia to see their Father who is in the 35th day of his hunger strike in protest for farmer land rights. Aaron, Kahn, Sarah and Emma Spencer were raised on the 20,000 acre farm “Saarahnlee” and moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan over 10 years ago.



The children have been following the hunger strike story online and became increasingly concerned for their Father’s health and decided to immediately book flights from Grand Rapids to Australia. The four children and Peter’s 4 month old Grandchild that he had not yet met travelled for over 30 hours and arrived in Canberra, ACT on Christmas Day.



As dark was moving in, the four children drove up into the snowy mountains high country where their father is 50 ft up a 300 ft wind monitoring tower a mile above sea level. The two sons, Aaron and Kahn, work for a company where they climb and reinforce cell phone towers and install wind turbines all over the U.S. They put on their climbing harnesses and scaled up to embrace their father on Christmas Day. Spencer’s sons had brought special Carhartt clothing from the U.S for him and carefully helped him to change his clothes, get warm and find shelter from the harsh and wet weather.



What a story, I wonder why the media aren't covering this.