Climate change & 1998

The Garnaut report is out and climate change is back on the agenda. And Clive Hamilton and John Quiggin have been back to their usual game of vilifying people they disagree with as “denialists” and “delusionists”. They say the debate is over. I disagree.

I’m not an AGW-alarmist. But I’m not an AGW-denialist. I’m a sceptic… which means that I’m not quick to accept the story from any side. Some people seem to have a strong faith that the end of the world is nigh. Others seem to have a strong faith that nothing is happening and it’s all a leftist joke.

I don’t have faith (an opinion based on something other than reason) but I do have beliefs. Based on my reading of the science, I believe that human-induced global warming is a potential danger. But I also think that this danger has been blown out of proportion, that we should be very careful about introducing new government programs, and the debate has become so political that few people honestly consider the arguments of the “other side”.

I want to quickly mention one example where I think both sides have put politics before truth — and that is the issue of “no warming since 1998″. This is commonly said by AGW-sceptics and often dismissed as a distortion by AGW-proponents. Both have a point.

First, here is a graph of the temperatures over the past 30 years as provided by Climate Audit.

More bad news from Zimbabwe

As you may know, my parents grew up in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia). The last of my extended family left Zimbabwe several years ago, and they are in the process of becoming Australians. But obviously we try to stay up to date with the current chaos. Here is a recent story:

Inside Mugabe’s torture camps: beaten, maimed and poisoned with weedkiller
By Daniel Howden in Harare — Tuesday, 1 July 2008

As Robert Mugabe sought recognition from African leaders yesterday, his police have been arresting the ‘dangerous’ opposition agents that Mr Mugabe accuses of fomenting violence in the country. Mrs Chigoro is one of them. She is considered such a threat she is being kept under armed police guard at a Harare hospital.

Seventy years old, her injuries are so horrific she can no longer lie on her back or walk unassisted. She can only huddle in a claw-like shape. The appalling chemical burns that have removed her lips and melted her right cheek come from an industrial weedkiller she was forced to drink. The widow can eat no solids and survives with the aid of a saline drip. Her crime was to survive the death squads that have roamed the rural areas of this bankrupt and terrified country. The police, armed with AK-47s, have been stationed on her ward to stop her from telling her story.