Carbon dioxide is NOT a Pollutant

1. Carbon dioxide is NOT a Pollutant • Without CO2 we would not be here. If it is a pollutant, then so is water (H2O), which is the other main effluent from fossil fuel combustion • We do not any of us breathe out black smoke, pace SBS and ABC. • The increase in atmospheric concentration from 280 ppm in 1750 to 384 ppm at end 2007 is trivial (growth rate is c0.2% p.a.) • CO2 is a fertilizer, without which we would starve. • Minister Wong spoke about the “ethics” of dealing with climate change at LSE 2 weeks ago. Her Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is based on a falsehood.

2. The Garnaut Review: A Critique Tim Curtin Associate, RMAP Copies of main paper and ppt version available from tcurtin@bigblue.net.au

3. History of CO2 and global temperature

4. Global temperature 1958-2007

5. How to create alarm and despondencyThe IPCC method (please do not mention the scale)

6. The Science of the Garnaut Report

7. Science of Climate Change • Stephen Hawkings: “one cannot predict future events exactly if one cannot even measure the present state of the universe precisely” • IPCC 2007: Oceanic Uptakes < Terrestrial • Garnaut 2008: Oceanic Uptakes > Terrestrial

8. The Carbon Budget • Year on Year Change in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 = Ct – Co • Annual Emissions (E) of CO2 from all sources • Uptakes (U) of CO2 by the oceanic and terrestrial biosphere (mainly photosynthesis) • Ct – Co = Et – Ut, • but measuring Ut is difficult, so • We derive Ut = Et - (Ct – Co) • But in reality (Ct-Co) is the residual/dump, and Ut is an independent variable with a life of its own largely determined by the ENSO, but that is not how it is treated by the IPCC & Garnaut models (MAGICC etc).

9. MAGICC • This model goes back to Ian Enting and Tom Wigley et al. CSIRO 1994 and Wigley & Raper 2001 • It was the basis for much of the modelling by the IPCC 2007 (WG1, ch.8, SI) and was “tuned” to the output of 19 other models. • But no room for “sinks” in the parameters.

10. “Saturation” of the terrestrial sink implies that it is already or soon will be impossible to raise crop yields and forestry output. How so?

11. Saturating Sinks? Falling trend of the Airborne Fraction

12. Rising (?) Trend of Airborne Fraction (Canadell data)

13. Rising (?) trend of the Airborne Fraction (CDIAC data)

14. Emissions and Uptakes are directly related, pace Canadell et al. 2007

15. The Airborne Fraction of CO2 emissions is a function first and last of ENSO

16. Food Production relative to Fertilizers, Temperature and CO2

17. Atmospheric CO2, Rain, and Wheat yields, Temora 1959-1999(Data from Geoff Smart, GFS Genetics)

18. Atmospheric CO2 and Wheat Yield, Temora 1959-1999

19. Rainfall and wheat yields Temora 1959-1999

20. A recipe for famine?

21. Business Council of Australia • Reductions in EBIT for 14 case studies under the Green Paper compensation scheme, 2020 • THREE BUSINESSES MUST SHUT • SEVEN BUSINESSES MUST REDUCE • OPERATING COSTS IN SOME WAY • FOUR BUSINESSES MUST REVIEW OPERATIONS • Source: PJPL (Rod Simms).

22. How to wipe out Rio Tintoand the National Party

23. ETS: the mother of all slush funds • The ETS with full coverage of all sectors would raise c$8 billion from sale of permits at the initial fixed price of $20 per tonne of CO2, and more than $16 billion after auctions lead to convergence with the EU price of $45 per tonne. • Allocating as proposed half of such sums ($4 to $8 Billion) to helping the poor (in targeted constituencies) to keep on buying electricity, gas and petrol as usual creates a slush fund beyond the dreams of even Robert Mugabe.

24. Prisoners’ Dilemma and Free Riders • Australia’s best course of action is to be a free rider. On our own we can have no impact on “climate change” (even if the ACT Greens believe the ACT can on its own prevent global climate change!). • China cannot be a free rider. Without its total support, there will be no reduction in climate change from which it would benefit without incurring any costs.

25. St Petersburg Paradox • The great Daniel Bernoulli anticipated Garnaut by noting the potential declining marginal utility of money (the more one has, in theory, the less one values each extra dollar (tell that to the Murdochs, Lowys, and Packers!). • But he also noticed that this means the marginal utility of costs of an ETS on one earning say $50,000 now will exceed the dollar for dollar utility of benefits of avoided climate change even if still alive and earning $100,000 by 2100.

26. The “greatest market failure” (Stern & Garnaut) • “Market failure” involves creators of social costs, like pollution, or the free rider problem of the tragedy of the Commons, not paying for the costs they impose on society. • But “Carbon Pollution” creates as we have seen higher yields across global agriculture and livestock for which the beneficiaries pay nothing, clearly also a market failure. • In Australia’s case, with its primary exports the largest in the world (per capita), the world owes us for all the CO2 those exports have soaked up.

27. The last windmill, Wedmore in North Somerset, UK, c.1895. • Closed c1905 when it could not compete with flour millers using electricity supplied by the Wedmore Power Co • That electricity was not subsidised by an ETS, but produced cheaper flour than the windmill could, unlike the Wong ETS and its Lake George Wind Farm.