"Green" policies are destroying this country

Now if we only knew how much we are going to have to invest in renewables under this green plan, that not even greens can put a figure on, we would know how much we can invest in social services, our housing shortage etc. You know that old thing called budgeting.

I know greens believe we have been growing the wrong trees, but I didn`t realise until recently they meant money trees.

Perhaps, but it`s better than none.

This is going to be an unavoidably long post, so skip it if you like. But I really need to address some of the tripe being posted on here.

You really do have an extraordinary myopia when it comes to your own biases, and your projections onto others. You're correct in one thing -- I am leery of so-called climate event attribution. My reticence has nothing to do with science or non-science, and certainly not to do with any rejection of the fact of climate change. (I shouldn't have to keep saying that, but you Greenies never stop with the subtle implications of climate change denial whenever you are challenged).

No, it is to do with an extraordinary volte face by the scientific community. You see, it's not many years ago that they were being irked by people complaining about cold snaps or unseasonal snow etc. in a supposedly warming world. The scientists were at great pains to point out that singular events are weather, whereas climate is based on long term averages of at least thirty years. They soon realised that this was damnably inconvenient to themselves -- if singular events of an unexpected type weren't evidence against climate change, then neither were singular events of expected types evidence for it. And this became a pressing concern because the activists among the scientific community -- of whom there are many -- needed to be able to pin the blame for singular extreme events on somebody.

As the two other posters who got in ahead of me pointed out, this was a purely political project: the activists needed to be able to hold governments to account for meeting climate targets and to sue big corporations for causing environmental damage. Read anything about "climate change attribution science", or even go Googling, and you will pretty soon realise it's all about LAWSUITS. And so they abandoned their reliance on thirty year climate averages and invented the science of "event attribution", where events could still not be definitively laid at the door of climate change but could now be said to be "more likely" because of it. And because science is nothing if not mathematical, the increased likelihood had to be assigned a numerical probability.

The media and general public don't have the slightest clue about the statistical nature of the analysis that goes into event attribution. There's nothing wrong with that per se -- statistics is a mainstay of much science but can seem arcane to the layman. However, it's interesting to note what is dished up for public consumption. Joe and Jane Public read the banner headlines: such-and-such an event is likely "linked to" climate change, "fueled by" climate change, "made worse" by climate change. If they have the temerity to ask "how likely?", "how much worse?" ... they get batted down just as you did with my post. Merely pointing out the caveats written by the scientists themselves is a cardinal sin because YOU GREENIES DON'T ACTUALLY CARE about the statistics once the link has been established.

The basic approach is this: you run a bunch of computer models that incorporate the additions of anthropogenic GHGs to the atmosphere. You run another bunch of control models that omit these additions. You check how many models produce such-and-such an event. Let's say nine out of ten models produce this event either with or without GHGs. One model produces the event only in the case of GHG additions. Ok, now the event is 10% more likely to be "linked to" climate change. Bingo! The link has been established, it's game over. Yes, of course, the scientists will include the degree of significance of the attribution in their report. But when's the last time you saw a news article that dwelled on those sorts of details? The whole point of the exercise is that the scientists can now make the attribution claim without it being a word of a lie, and media can be relied to report on that claim without mentioning (or even understanding) the nuance.

And so we have arrived at a point where every extreme event is unabashedly attributed to climate change. Every drought, every wildfire, every intense storm. Forget about the fact that 15% of the Earth's land surface has burned every year since time immemorial or that many types of weather that scientists expect to intensify as yet show no long term trend. It is no longer necessary to show that extreme events fall outside the range of natural variability. There is always still a percentage chance that they are "linked to" climate change. And if the headline can say that they are "linked to" climate change then they they are caused by climate change, at least as far as the less mathematically inclined are concerned.

This is weasel science. I do not refute it, but it is a nakedly political. Nor is it at all controversial to call that out -- it has been discussed by philosophers and ethicists (e.g. here by Wündisch in "Three Problems of Attribution for Theories of Compensation for Loss and Damage Due to Climate Change" at the 23rd Congress of the German Society for Philosophy) as well as political environmentalists (such as Lahsen and Ribot in "Politics of attributing extreme events and disasters to climate change", 2021 Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change). From the latter:

In other words, they are talking about people like you who are only interested in event attribution because you believe it is a "smoking gun" that should force us down their particular preferred policy path. And in this I entirely reject your characterisation of so-called "merchants of doubt": the certainty of climate change simply does not make your favourite policy path the correct one, regardless of your obsession with particular "solutions".

You are making a very big claim here without even realising it, so blinkered are you. HOW DO YOU KNOW IT'S NOT A CHOICE BETWEEN ADAPTATION OR MITIGATION? How do you know that mitigation is a viable option? It is quite clearly not a solely technical project. How many times have we been reminded that global warming is a global problem needing global action? Mitigation can only be achieved by bringing the rest of the world along with you, and that is a political project. And I'm sorry to have to remind you -- so far many of the most important players are not playing ball. I will come back to this aspect in my next post as this one is getting too long already.

I'm being ludicrous? You are making this up as you go along. Where did I say it would cost $100m for Pakistan to adapt to flooding? Let me repeat exactly what I said:

The world isn't going to spend $100 trillion anytime soon on climate change. Waiting for that would be foolish. And the most optimistic result even if it happened would be for Pakistan to go back to its normal cycle of weather events. Pakistan has flooded 67 times between 1947 and 2011, in other words every year and then some (source: Oxfam, see below). Every credible expert without a climate change axe to grind attributes Pakistan's flooding problems primarily to socioeconomic factors. How do I know a Pakistani would like to see $100m spent on flood prevention infrastructure? Because there were protests in Sindh province and elsewhere after the disastrous 2010 floods at the slow pace of spending already committed funds. Billions are needed, but a paltry $27m would have gone a long way for starters according to Oxfam:

Pakistan has an abysmal record of tackling its own ecological issues (cf. "How Bad Governance Exacerbated Pakistan’s Flooding"). Economic mismanagement and corruption are rife. Deforestation is a disaster. The Indus valley is the largest irrigation system in the world, but infrastructure investment by Pakistan is the lowest among the world's most populous countries, second only to Egypt. ("Pakistan Could Have Averted Its Climate Catastrophe").

It is utterly pathetic and sickening of you to raise the spectre of "hundreds of millions of climate refugees". It is merely one more tool in the armory to browbeat people with. You've got more than a tinge of the Eamon Ryan megalomania -- "join us in bankrupting Ireland's economy or hundreds of millions of Pakistanis will be coming to live with you". It's utter ballcocks. The problems of poor people can't be solved by mitigating climate change. Leftwing lunatics are calling for "climate reparations" for nations like Pakistan. Personally I doubt there's a single Pakistani who wouldn't happily increase their GHG emissions per capita by a factor of twelve to match those of Ireland, along with the associated increase in wealth.

You're simply incapable of getting it, aren't you? Giving those people fossil propane for cooking would save FOUR MILLION lives per year. Installing another 30 gigawatts of bird whackers in Ireland will save ZERO of those lives per year, and will also save exactly 0.0°C of global warming. All to give you and Eamon Ryan a warm fuzzy feeling about your social credentials. That's pathetic. Not to mention utterly immoral.

"All of the temperature measurements have shown warming except for the very upper atmosphere which is cooling (and this is what we would expect from an increasing greenhouse effect as less heat is radiated out to space) —Akrasia"

Gee, thanks for the science lesson, professor. 😏

"an increase in greenhouses gases like carbon dioxide means more heat is lost to space — and the upper atmosphere cools —NASA"

I feel sorry for you. You still seem to think you are in a debate where reasonable assumptions are properly weighed. But the Green agenda is there to push people to renewables. Quickly, because, the end is nigh. It is an apocalyptic vision. The science is clear and settled according to them. No more questions but actions. They have the answers and the solution.Just like socialism in the 19th century but this time the elites and the media are on board. That is the real danger. The hope lies in the common people who see the results of their 'purchase' and the disaster the Green agenda brings. However, it is exactly that disaster that make the Greens double down. And yes, that is how stupid they really are. Or i should say that is how corrupt and biased they are. They will use the crisis as a weapon. They dont want the status quo but continue the Green revolution wherever it may lead to. They dont care about people, they care only about their ideology. They will ignore the corpses caused by supply chain disruption. They dont care about the third world, the developing world which has seen huge progress in the last 50 years. They dont see it that way but see it as the sin of the West spreading to the East. You know, where people lead a nice pastoral life and cut the occasional tree for firewood. Sing Kumbajah and have a very small carbon footprint. Never kill anyone from another tribe, sip fair trade coffee and nobody starves. Until the West and the White man comes and ruins it all. You know, the usual story of evil vs good. A bloody Lord of the Rings fantasy. They really believe their own propaganda.

So, dont engage with them is the best way of dealing with that. And vote them out of office if you can or at least dont vote for parties that are willing to make a deal with them which is increasingly difficult.

I wouldnt bet on Sinn Fein not making the same deal as currently FF and FG. Lets hope the Green vote tanks.

You never posted a link to that quote but here's the sentence immediately before your quotation

"That means little of Earth's heat makes it to the higher, thinner mesosphere. There, molecules are few and far between."

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/nasa-satellites-see-upper-atmosphere-cooling-contracting-climate-change

I consider this proof that you're arguing in bad faith

As for your previous post. Not once did you address the increased rainfall which is the root of the issue. And you scoff at 'hundreds of millions of climate refugees' this one flood has already created at least 40 million displaced people. From a single event.

And your 100 million figure is such a red herring. If they had spent a hundred times that since 2010 the 2022 flooding would still have covered 1/3 of Pakistan. If this was a once in a century event people can rebuild and recover. But once in a decade, that's unsustainable.

Better preparedness might have saved some of the 2k people who died directly from the floods, but many times this figure will die from disease and hunger and destitution as their livelihoods were washed away

The 'green agenda' is to move the world off fossil fuels so we can minimise the damage caused by climate change.

You're following the Exxon agenda by doing everything you can to stand in the way. Who benefits from delaying the transition to renewables?

Lol. Yeah keep joining up those dots. Funny how your money trail never seems to intersect with the trillions of dollars flowing into and out of the fossil fuel industry. its always the greens who are bribing everyone in crazy batshit upside down world

An incredible 16 inches of rain fell over 4 hours in Italy yesterday killing 10 people. I'm sure someone will be on to say those Italians died because the government didnt dredge the lake or some other nonsense

we have no clue if so, but we have a pretty good idea, if we dont, we re probably fcuked as a species.....

....as above, we re pretty sure if we dont, we re fcuked, so....

....if we redirect the resources, including finances, that we re currently putting into the use of fossil fuels, there may not be any increase in poverty, in fact, we might just reduce it, by boosting economic activities related to this change over....