Post by Chips on May 1, 2008 10:35:54 GMT 9.5
Scientific proof climate change is only natural
ANGELA GOODE
May 01, 2008 12:00am
WHAT a relief. Freedom of speech reigns again. And ute loads of farm people can rejoin society. We are at last not the only sector which is sceptical of the great global-warming panic.
In the face of almost compulsory belief in the inexorable destruction of a reliable climate, doubters wisely kept their lips sealed if they knew what was good for them.
Now, credible scientists are piping up with information which challenges what has been almost universal acceptance that the world is warming up and climate change is unstoppable. Not only have temperature rises stalled, in the past decade they have been reversed, despite the continued increase of the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide.
The brave chap who tells us this is Phil Chapman, a geophysicist and the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut. The global temperature measured by four global tracking agencies fell last year by about 0.7C. If these types of drops continue, apparently it is now an ice age we should fear, not being fried.
Phil Chapman says the 0.7C drop was the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930. No doubt, he will have been attacked mercilessly for daring to challenge academic castles built upon other hypotheses. Why do I see images of Don Dunstan standing at the end of a jetty bravely holding back a fictitious tidal wave while gullible locals ran for the Hills?
Have we been conned by a similarly scary fairy story? Why have we in regional areas been invited to managing climate-change workshops run by the State Government when there is doubt about in which direction the climate is changing and no proof about what is causing such alleged changes? Why has there been such earnest passion about a hypothesis which is unproved - and who gains from this theory?
Most farmers I have spoken to have had a lot of trouble accepting the tenets of global warming. They have found it improbable that the recent drought and decline in rainfall figures over the past decade or more are anything more than a normal climate pattern.
No one, it seemed, was terribly interested in hearing why they held such subversive views. Farm people live by the climate and study it incessantly, passing on its changing story through their rainfall records and diaries.
They recall mighty droughts of the past - the Federation drought, the long drought of the '30s and the 1967 drought. They point to ancient swamps with huge red gums growing in them, many here in the South-East. Since red gums can't germinate under water, those swamps have been dry before - in many cases, a century or more ago, judging by the size of the trees.
At Mt Gambier, the other side of the road from the famous Blue Lake, there is another lake at the bottom of a deep gully. Now that its water level has dropped, a set of very old wooden cattle yards has been revealed.
That lake must have been dry for so long that early settlers had enough confidence to go to the trouble of chopping trees, fashioning posts, digging them in and adzing for rails, never imagining that their hard work would be swamped and wasted. It is heartbreaking too to think of how hard life must have been in such an unpredictable land for our early Aboriginal people, when water holes and streams dried up and food sources disappeared.
Rain, meanwhile, has been obedient - for once appearing right on cue, around Anzac Day. Things are looking good in Queensland, most of New South Wales and in the West Australian northern wheatbelt, all areas which last season were in dire straits and reliant on drought relief funding. Perhaps we are in for an aberrantly reasonable season.
* angelagoode@bigpond.com
Angela Goode has written about rural issues ever since she was whisked away to the country in 1981.
Formerly a news reporter and feature writer at The Advertiser, she began to write weekly articles about her new life on a cattle and sheep property as a way of keeping in touch with her city colleagues.
She has written books in praise of working dogs, about the working horse era and people on the land.
She rides, paints, travels frequently, studies the endangered bush stone curlews on her farm and rejoices when they breed.
Country and city differences, rural politics and lessons from the natural world continue to fascinate her.
ANGELA GOODE
May 01, 2008 12:00am
WHAT a relief. Freedom of speech reigns again. And ute loads of farm people can rejoin society. We are at last not the only sector which is sceptical of the great global-warming panic.
In the face of almost compulsory belief in the inexorable destruction of a reliable climate, doubters wisely kept their lips sealed if they knew what was good for them.
Now, credible scientists are piping up with information which challenges what has been almost universal acceptance that the world is warming up and climate change is unstoppable. Not only have temperature rises stalled, in the past decade they have been reversed, despite the continued increase of the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide.
The brave chap who tells us this is Phil Chapman, a geophysicist and the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut. The global temperature measured by four global tracking agencies fell last year by about 0.7C. If these types of drops continue, apparently it is now an ice age we should fear, not being fried.
Phil Chapman says the 0.7C drop was the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930. No doubt, he will have been attacked mercilessly for daring to challenge academic castles built upon other hypotheses. Why do I see images of Don Dunstan standing at the end of a jetty bravely holding back a fictitious tidal wave while gullible locals ran for the Hills?
Have we been conned by a similarly scary fairy story? Why have we in regional areas been invited to managing climate-change workshops run by the State Government when there is doubt about in which direction the climate is changing and no proof about what is causing such alleged changes? Why has there been such earnest passion about a hypothesis which is unproved - and who gains from this theory?
Most farmers I have spoken to have had a lot of trouble accepting the tenets of global warming. They have found it improbable that the recent drought and decline in rainfall figures over the past decade or more are anything more than a normal climate pattern.
No one, it seemed, was terribly interested in hearing why they held such subversive views. Farm people live by the climate and study it incessantly, passing on its changing story through their rainfall records and diaries.
They recall mighty droughts of the past - the Federation drought, the long drought of the '30s and the 1967 drought. They point to ancient swamps with huge red gums growing in them, many here in the South-East. Since red gums can't germinate under water, those swamps have been dry before - in many cases, a century or more ago, judging by the size of the trees.
At Mt Gambier, the other side of the road from the famous Blue Lake, there is another lake at the bottom of a deep gully. Now that its water level has dropped, a set of very old wooden cattle yards has been revealed.
That lake must have been dry for so long that early settlers had enough confidence to go to the trouble of chopping trees, fashioning posts, digging them in and adzing for rails, never imagining that their hard work would be swamped and wasted. It is heartbreaking too to think of how hard life must have been in such an unpredictable land for our early Aboriginal people, when water holes and streams dried up and food sources disappeared.
Rain, meanwhile, has been obedient - for once appearing right on cue, around Anzac Day. Things are looking good in Queensland, most of New South Wales and in the West Australian northern wheatbelt, all areas which last season were in dire straits and reliant on drought relief funding. Perhaps we are in for an aberrantly reasonable season.
* angelagoode@bigpond.com
Angela Goode has written about rural issues ever since she was whisked away to the country in 1981.
Formerly a news reporter and feature writer at The Advertiser, she began to write weekly articles about her new life on a cattle and sheep property as a way of keeping in touch with her city colleagues.
She has written books in praise of working dogs, about the working horse era and people on the land.
She rides, paints, travels frequently, studies the endangered bush stone curlews on her farm and rejoices when they breed.
Country and city differences, rural politics and lessons from the natural world continue to fascinate her.