Global Cooling Is Imminent, Thinks Australian PM Advisor

Fanghawk

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Global Cooling Is Imminent, Thinks Australian PM Advisor

Australia's chief business advisor believes we're ill-prepared for global cooling thanks to widespread "warming propaganda".

Science has looked at climate change <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/scienceandtech/columns/forscience/11565-Scorched-or-Frozen-What-is-the-Earth-s-Ultimate-Fate>from just about every possible angle, and the overwhelming consensus is that it's getting pretty warm around here. According to Maurice Newman, the Australian government's chief business advisor, we're missing the bigger picture: Global cooling is the immediate threat. In an opinion piece critiquing the "warming propaganda" of climate scientists, Newman writes that warming trends are about to undergo a dramatic reversal, and implies Australia isn't prepared for the inevitable cold. Given Newman's position as advisor to Prime Minister Tony Abbott, this naturally sparked some controversy among Australia's scientific and political communities.

"Tony Abbott needs to repudiate these views and dump Mr Newman from his Business Advisory Council," said Adam Bandt, deputy leader of the Greens. "Someone with these flat-earth views has no place helping set policy for 21st century Australia."

In his article, Newman posits that the most significant factor contributing to climate change isn't CO2, but solar activity. Pointing to the sun's increased energy output from 1959 to 2009, Newman suggests we are undergoing a global warming pause that will shift to a potentially disastrous global cooling period. He then accuses climate change studies of spending money "to largely preordain scientific conclusions" which favor man-made warming theories.

"What if the warmth the world has enjoyed for the past 50 years is the result of solar activity, not man-made CO2?" Newman writes. "The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its acolytes pay scant attention to any science, however strong the empirical evidence, that may relegate human causes to a lesser status.

"But the political establishment is deaf to this," he continues. "Having put all our eggs in one basket and having made science a religion, it bravely persists with its global warming narrative, ignoring at its peril and ours, the clear warnings being given by mother nature. If the world does indeed move into a cooling period, its citizens are ill-prepared."

Of course, scientists have since responded noting that the recent pause <a href=http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/feb/10/unprecedented-trade-winds-global-warming-oceans>is caused by Pacific winds forcing surface heat underwater. "The idea that solar cycles can override climate change driven by greenhouse gases is fanciful," said Professor Matthew England. "Saying we aren't prepared for global cooling is like saying we aren't prepared for an alien invasion. There is no credible scientist saying this is on the horizon. It's completely weird to be calling for investment into something that's completely unfounded and I think he's arrogant to think he knows the answer to climate physics when he hasn't studied it."

Source: <a href=http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/14/tony-abbott-adviser-warns-of-threat-of-global-cooling>The Guardian

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blackrave

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Mar 7, 2012
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Global cooling?
Awesome, we need all the cold we can get if we want to build air-cooled fission reactors

P.S. I still think that political dick-waving of nuclear countries is bigger threat to humanity than climate change.
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

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Sep 8, 2011
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To be perfectly honest, in the most civil way I can, all things considered, this man sounds like a complete fuckin' imbecile. Does this idiot really think that none of the climate scientists have considered the solar activity? He's either a moron or a shill for some oil company. Either way, get him the fuck out of politics.
 

Baresark

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Listen, you don't have to be on board for man made climate change. I get that. I'm not entirely on board myself, to be completely honest (skeptical is what everyone should be). But this is the most asinine thing I have ever heard.

That said, I don't know if he should be thrown out as an adviser. He is advising on things that are not his area of expertise. Adviser's do this all the time, they are advisers though, and not policy makers. The US President has a cabinet of advisers that give their opinions on things they are not experts in, but they give their opinions on subjects regardless of this. It will always fall on the President to make the decision, and no one is sitting there listening to a single adviser.
 

Ferisar

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Guys, have you considered that the sun is actually Hitler, and before WW2 the sky was actually only lit by moonlight that shines because moon is powered by space-glow-rocks? When Hitler launched himself on a nuclear missle into space to evade the encroaching allies and the nuke caused the sun to appear, we all just forgot, right?

Of course Global Warming is caused by the sun; first he started with Europe, next... Europa.

Global fucking cooling.
 

Pyrian

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Want to see how fast he can backpedal? Actually propose legislation to build infrastructure to withstand this coming ice age, with concomitant tax increases. Poof! Suddenly, climate change (of any sort) will be a myth again!
 

conmag9

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Ferisar said:
Guys, have you considered that the sun is actually Hitler, and before WW2 the sky was actually only lit by moonlight that shines because moon is powered by space-glow-rocks? When Hitler launched himself on a nuclear missle into space to evade the encroaching allies and the nuke caused the sun to appear, we all just forgot, right?

Of course Global Warming is caused by the sun; first he started with Europe, next... Europa.

Global fucking cooling.
...and yet, somehow still more credible than this guy's global cooling.


While I'll hope not sink to the appeal to authority fallacy, when there is a tremendous consensus among scientists of many backgrounds all agreeing that the planet is warming up, you should probably take their word for it at least tentatively (for the record, I personally would say far more than "tentatively" in this matter).
 

Gearhead mk2

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There are some things I just do not understand how anyone still buys into them. Global warming denialism is one of them. And the fact this man was elected in a civilised country disturbs me greatly.
 

Britpoint

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Aug 30, 2013
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"chief business advisor"

Well he certainly sounds like someone I want to ignore the overwhelming scientific consensus to listen to. Just look at those CREDENTIALS. If I ever need a heart transplant I'm going to this guy, because I'd have to be an idiot to put my life in the hands of people who do heart transplants for a living.

No sir, I'll have a chief business advisor complete the op or die trying.
 

Zhukov

The Laughing Arsehole
Dec 29, 2009
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DEAR REST OF WORLD,

Please do not listen to anything our current government says.

They are idiots. We are very sorry.

Kind regards, your mostly friendly neighbourhood kangaroo wrangler.
 

Johnson McGee

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Gearhead mk2 said:
There are some things I just do not understand how anyone still buys into them. Global warming denialism is one of them. And the fact this man was elected in a civilised country disturbs me greatly.
If he's just an adviser he likely wasn't elected, but he was still hired by and heavily influencing someone who was so... remain disturbed I guess.

On the topic of global warming though, it's a shame that denying climate change has paralyzed so much of the action against sources of pollution. Even if the pie-chart sliver of people who believe that it's false are right, things like coal and oil should still be phased out due to the myriad of other (entirely proven) environmental and health risks they pose (acid rain, spills, smog, etc.) and also the fact that these energy sources are going to become unfeasible as their price increases.
 

RJ Dalton

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Aug 13, 2009
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Global cooling is inevitable, but I wouldn't say imminent. It'll happen eventually, because global temperature fluctuates a lot over the course of thousands of years, but to call it imminent gives very much the wrong impression of the time scale for this.
 

nevarran

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Apr 6, 2010
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Bring on the coal and the old cars with the 5 liter engines, people, we need to warm up this damn planet.
 

Lilani

Sometimes known as CaitieLou
May 27, 2009
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So according to this guy, CO2 isn't causing global warming, and something to do with solar activity is actually going to cause global cooling? How convenient, turns out pollution is okay guys!
 

RJ Dalton

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Johnson McGee said:
Gearhead mk2 said:
There are some things I just do not understand how anyone still buys into them. Global warming denialism is one of them. And the fact this man was elected in a civilised country disturbs me greatly.
If he's just an adviser he likely wasn't elected, but he was still hired by and heavily influencing someone who was so... remain disturbed I guess.

On the topic of global warming though, it's a shame that denying climate change has paralyzed so much of the action against sources of pollution. Even if the pie-chart sliver of people who believe that it's false are right, things like coal and oil should still be phased out due to the myriad of other (entirely proven) environmental and health risks they pose (acid rain, spills, smog, etc.) and also the fact that these energy sources are going to become unfeasible as their price increases.
I'll put it frank, the evidence supporting what people think when the term "global warming" is brought up is largely bullshit. These people are claiming that they can predict what the global climate is going to do hundreds of years in the future, but not a single model we've come up has been able to accurately predict even local climate for more than a few weeks in advance. And a lot of the evidence in support of it has numerous confounding variables that get ignored because it doesn't support the political cause that the people funding the research want. In short, when it comes right down to it, we genuinely have no good idea what the global climate is going to do and have no means to accurately guess at it.

That said, yes it is a terrible shame that the all the politicization has paralyzed the discussion on pollution. You don't need some kind of scary man-bear-pig like global warming as an excuse to improve on current technologies and work on reduction of pollution. Pollution is just plain unhealthy for human life. And while we may be better at it here in the US than in some countries (like, say, China), there's still room for improvement and we ought not be holding back on research into tech that could significantly improve the quality of life for many people.

But, unfortunately, politicians care more about having something they can scare people with than actually doing something about the problems.
 

The Artificially Prolonged

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Jul 15, 2008
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I do find the idea of a business adviser ignoring what the stats are telling them and advocating preparations for the exact opposite of what is likely to happen hilarious. I can now imagine future Australians bankrupted by buying ski jackets and thermal underwear ready for the next ice age as water from the melted ice caps laps around their knees :p

Zhukov said:
DEAR REST OF WORLD,

Please do not listen to anything our current government says.

They are idiots. We are very sorry.

Kind regards, your mostly friendly neighbourhood kangaroo wrangler.
If it makes you feel better, the rest of our Governments don't fare much better in the intelligence department.
 

squid5580

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Feb 20, 2008
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After the "summer" I have been having I can believe it. It's bloody cold out there
 

Zato-1

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Mar 27, 2009
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Mr. Newman has no idea what he's talking about. The basic science around the warming that will be produced by the accumulation of greenhouse gases like CO2 is pretty much irrefutable.

That said, I do share his contempt for the IPCC: There's very little hard science supporting the AMOUNT of warming that they predict, leading to a whole bunch of pointless alarmism and misinformation, which the media (including this website) happily parrots.
 

Jupiter065

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Aug 12, 2008
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There was a bit of a debate in the 70s on whether enough aerosols from exhaust from coal and wood burning would get stuck in the atmosphere and dim the light coming in to overcome the rising temperatures from the greenhouse effect (which, yeah, they knew about then, and well before). The scientific community came to the conclusion that, no, aerosol concentration would not get high enough to cause cooling, especially with modern exhaust filtering employed all over the world.

"Solar activity" has always been a canard, though, this guy is an idiot.