http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view...le=9075&page=0

By Bob Carter, David Evans, Stewart Franks and Bill Kininmonth.

Senator Steve Fielding recently undertook a well-publicised fact-seeking trip to a climate change
conference in Washington.

Listening to the papers presented, the Senator became puzzled that the scientific analyses that
they provided directly contradicted the reasons that the Australian government has been giving as
the justification for their emissions trading legislation.
At the Washington meeting, Fielding heard leading atmospheric physicist, Professor Dick Lindzen of
MIT, describe evidence that the warming effect of carbon dioxide is much overestimated by current
computer climate models, and then remark tellingly: "What we see, then, is that the very foundation
of the issue of global warming is wrong. In a normal field, these results would pretty much wrap
things up, but global warming/climate change has developed so much momentum that it has a life of
its own - quite removed from science". Indeed.
And another scientist, astrophysicist Dr Willie Soon from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics, commented that "A 'magical' CO2 knob for controlling weather and climate simply does
not exist". Think about that for a moment with respect to our government's current climate policy.

Quite reasonably, therefore, on his return to Canberra Senator Fielding asked Climate Minister
Penny Wong to answer three simple questions about the relationship between human carbon dioxide
emissions and alleged dangerous global warming.
Fielding was seeking evidence, as opposed to unvalidated computer model projections, that human
carbon dioxide emissions actually are driving dangerous global warming, to help him and the public
at large better assess whether cutting emissions will actually be a cost-effective environmental
measure.

After all, the passed-down cost to Australian taxpayers of the planned emissions trading bill is of
the order of $4,000 per family per year for a carbon dioxide tax level of $30 per tonne. And the
estimated "benefit" of such a large tax increase is that it may perhaps prevent an unmeasurable
one-ten-thousandth of a degree of global warming from occurring. Next year? No, by 2100.

It was our privilege to have attended the meeting between Senators Wong and Fielding at which these
three questions were discussed between ourselves and the Minister's scientific advisors, Chief
Scientist Penny Wong and Director of ANU climate research centre Will Steffen.

The three simple questions that were posed we

1.. Is it the case that CO2 increased by 5 per cent since 1998 whilst global temperature cooled
over the same period? If so, why did the temperature not increase; and how can human emissions be
to blame for dangerous levels of warming?

2.. Is it the case that the rate and magnitude of warming between 1979 and 1998 (the late 20th
century phase of global warming) were not unusual as compared with warmings that have occurred
earlier in the Earth's history? If the warming was not unusual, why is it perceived to have been
caused by human CO2 emissions; and, in any event, why is warming a problem if the Earth has
experienced similar warmings in the past?

3.. Is it the case that all GCM computer models projected a steady increase in temperature for
the period 1990-2008, whereas in fact there were only eight years of warming were followed by ten
years of stasis and cooling?

As independent scientists, we found that the Minister's advisors were unable, indeed in some part
unwilling, to answer these questions.
We were told with respect to the first question that it needed rephrasing, because it did not take
account of the global thermal balance and the fact that much of the heat that drives the climate
system is lodged in the ocean. Que? What is it about "carbon dioxide has increased and temperature
has decreased" that the Minister's science advisors don't understand?

The second question "was the late 20th century phase of warming unusual in rate or magnitude" was
effectively dismissed with the comment that climatic events that occurred in the distant geological
past are not relevant to policy that is concerned with contemporary climate change. Try telling
that to Professor Plimer.

And regarding the third question, and the matter of the accuracy of the IPCC's computer models, we
were assured that the models are improving all the time, and that better models still are in the
pipeline. So the Minister's advisors appeared to concede that the climate models that have guided
preparation of the current ETS legislation are inadequate, but don't you worry about that because
the new, better models will get it right next time.

Scientific legerdemain, and an apparent inability to discuss the important climate change issue in
simple terms that the public can understand, are not adequate responses to the crisp questions that
Senator Fielding posed to the Minister and has yet to receive clear answers to.

It was reported in the Business Age last July that the Ministry of Climate Change's Green Paper on
climate change, which was issued as a prelude to carbon dioxide taxation legislation, contained
seven scientific errors and oversimplifications in the first sentence of its opening section.

Almost 12 months on, our experience confirms that the balance of the scientific advice Minister
Wong is receiving is quite simply inadequate to justify the exorbitantly costly upheaval of our
society's energy usage that is intended to be driven by the government's emissions trading
legislation.

All Australians owe Senator Fielding a vote of thanks for having had the political courage to ask
in parliament where the climate Empress's clothes have gone. Together with the Family First
Senator, and the public, we await with interest any further answers to his questions that Minister
Wong's advisors may yet provide.