Climate Change Forum Geelong 2011 - very few questions answered!

I watched most, if not all of the Climate Change Forum chaired by Professor Tim Flannery in Geelong yesterday (telecast on the ABC) and I can tell you, I'm none the wiser. Although it was stated that 90% of climate scientists agreed with the notion of global warming, climate change skeptics were often the one's given the most media attention. Are they? I've rarely seen a climate change expert referred to in the Australian media, however there is a list of them on Wikipedia if anyone is interested.

Experts at the forum suggested that 'real' climate change experts were either too busy undertaking their research, or too frustrated with having to defend their position to actually want to front up to the media to explain their side of the argument. I still think that we need to know what the skeptics are saying, even if, as one member of the forum said 'It's difficult to understand the science, if you are not a scientist'. If that's so, and I've no doubt it is, then perhaps scientists have a responsibility to explain science to members of the general public in a language that is accessible and understandable to them. No wonder people are up in arms about a carbon tax and confused about the whole issue. Is the planet warming or cooling who knows?!

One of the questions posed to the panel surrounded the fact that it may not be anthropogenic sources, but the ocean that contributes most to CO2 concentration. After what may only be called a protracted response the panel member agreed that ocean warming did contribute greatly to CO2 emission, however it was a feed-back loop: ocean warming = CO2 and more CO2 leads to more ocean warming. Nobody put the El Nina and El Nino phenomenon into the equation. One of the members did admit that he was a member of a group that was in ongoing discussions about whether global warming was a natural occurrence NOT caused by non-anthropogenic intervention. Roy Spencer, PhD, climatologist, author and former NASA scientist addresses the issue of ocean and COs and provides some interesting models on his website.

If it is discovered that global warming has more to do with non-anthropogenic events, then perhaps, as suggested, we should do something to assist nature so that she can get on with what she does. In the 70s the depletion of the ozone and subsequent banning of harmful chlorofluorocarbons resulted in healing of the ozone layer, which should be largely restored by mid century.

Another audience member suggested that deforestation in Australia contributed to CO2, since it contributes to warming through loss of cooling affect of trees and he asked the panel what Australia was doing to combat this. The answer given was more about international trends, rather than local and the panel member suggested that villagers in countries such as Thailand, Borneo, Indonesian etc who garner a living from deforestation should be compensated for loss of income if this source is removed from them. Fact is that Australia, along with 50 other countries is playing a leading role in international efforts to reduce deforestation, which causes approximately 18 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Partial answers are just NOT good enough! When a panel member, who is supposed to be an expert responds to the question: 'What happens when the earth has a 5 degree warming.' With a 'it's too scary to think about', rather than giving an expert answer, then what hope have we of gaining any information?

My own research on the Internet this morning reveals that total warming in the past century is 0.8C or 1.4 F, and although Most of the scientists believed that global warming was occurring and appropriate policy action should be taken, but there was wide disagreement about the likely effects on society and almost all agreed that the predictive ability of currently existing models was limited.

Fact is, no one knows or can accurately predict how long it will take for the planet to warm up to such an extent that it will create dangerous weather situations, and given that natural occurrences such as tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, drought, flooding as well as anthropogenic events, such as war, human greed, plundering of earth's natural resources already occurs on a regular basis and devastate humanity beyond belief, it's no wonder that most don't have the mind space to worry about global warming that may happen one day - according to scientists.
Having said all of this, one of the most interesting documents I've found to date is from the Council of Europe, Steering Committee for Human Rights, which addresses at length issues surrounding global warming, but even it states:

it is virtually impossible to disentangle the complex causal relationship linking historical greenhouse gas emissions of a particular country with a specific climate change-related effect, let alone with the range of direct and indirect implications for human rights, and  global warming is often only one of several contributing factors to climate change related effects, such as hurricanes, environmental degradation and water shortage.