- Banned
- #1
Title should have read "TRANSCRIPT FROM DEBATE-ENDING VIDEO
While I was transcribing the audio from the piece that Mr Owl claimed was going to end the debate on global warming, the thread seems to have vanished. I suspect that would be because he embedded videos rather than providing passive links.
This transcript is quite rough. It starts out loose - was intended only as notes to myself for discussing the content. Got tighter as time went on.
This was a show of Andrew Bolt, a conservative video journalist or pundit on Australian TV. He had brought on three scientists to discuss the government's (in the person of PM Julia Gillard) contention justifying a carbon tax they wished to put into effect. This is older material and the tax was put into effect on July 1st of 2012. Bolt had three guest panelists: Bob Cotter, a geophysicist, Peter Ridd, a marine physicist and Garth Portridge, an emeritus (ie retired) professor of atmospheric physics.
Cotter IS asked if humans are causing global warming.
Responds with "of course the climate is changing. It always changes. Ends up restating the question without answering it.
Moderator. "Seems to me as if she's saying that ALL the change is due to humans
Portridge: yes, but answer is misleading. You really need to be concerned about how MUCH temperatures will change.Climate scientists these days tend to vastly overstate the problem of the increasing temperature of the world due to carbon dioxide.
Ridd: Is CO2 a pollutant. Well, it's a bit of a stretch, but I guess you could.
Moderator looks up last 30 years warming on his iPad. Finds about a third of a degree. Is that a big warming? Can we say that's caused by our gases?
Ridd: No, I don't think there's anyway we can do that. When you look at these big models, when you look at the details, the uncertainties involved, they make it... in my view, they have no predictive value whatsoever. [This doesn't seem to be a response to the question just asked.. The moderator said nothing about models or predictions. I suspect bad editing]
Moderator: So, when we're told that climate is changing and this is caused by carbon pollution, the answer from scientists is well, it's changing but it always changes, but what warming we've seen, we're not sure carbon pollution is the main driver of it.
Moderator: Question 2: Is any warming dangerous? Is warming dangerous? Is Julia Gillard right when she warns of various specific risks to Australian natural resources from warming?
Ridd: Coral in Papua New Guinea are in hotter water and they're more healthy. Most stressed coral is in Queensland and that's because it's too cold. Sea level has fallen on the Great Barrier Reef over the last 5,000 years and this has killed a lot of corals because they're now exposed at low tide. It in addition to global warming we get a sea level rise, they're be a massive explosion of coral on these areas that are currently dead.
Moderator: Are you telling me that we'll get more corals?
Ridd: I don't think theirs any doubt that we'll get more corals.
Moderator: You must be wrong because I have consulted Hoegh Goldberg and "the alarmist David Suzuk" (Japanese Canadian academic, science broadcaster and environmental activist) and they say there's been a devastating effect on the reef from warming already (goes to video)
Goldberg is swimming over and filming a large area of bleached coral. Looks to be perhaps 4-5 meters deep. Water is murky. Says something about being the first signs of impact from global warming. Cut to Suzuki. " I was shocked. In the short period from 1988 to 2004, there were very perceptible changes."
Cotter: "I have a hard time keeping a straight face watching Goldberg and Suzuki say those things". Peter is absolutely right. Shallow water corals are controlled by sea level. If sea level is rising, and it is on the Queensland coast and will continue to do so, that is good for the Great Barrier Reef. If, and its a very big if and I don't think it'll happen, but if human warming was enough that it accentuated that sea level rise, then the coral would do even better. Score 100 Peter, 0 David Suzuki.
Moderator: Question 3: Is the science settled? Goes to Julia Gillard who names some conservative pundits who reject AGW and a fairly long list Australian, US and international science organizations that accept it. Goes to Garth for a response as he was a member of one of the organizations she named.
Portridge: "Yes... well, that's rather overstating the case. Their are vast quantities of scientists who at least question the concept of man made global warming. It is true that the ones who go public are usually scientists either who have retired (like him) or who come from other disciplines.
Moderator: They've got nothing to lose
Portridge: They've got nothing to lose. But in this day and age it can be fairly dangerous to one's career if you are a climate scientist and express some vociferous objection to the concept of dangerous global warming.
Moderator: You made an interesting point Peter because you sent a letter to the chief scientist Ian Chubb saying why don't you fund, why don't you ensure that funding goes to skeptics as opposed to warmists who get billions?
Ridd: I think this is very important because in our court system we have a prosecution, we have a defense and by making the two sides argue we can get to the truth, hopefully. And the defense side in a court case, actually their sole job is to try to find problems with the opposition argument. Now, in science at the moment, we only hear one side and one side is funded. The other side is not funded, so we have a situation where, in fact,it's like a court case in China. And therefore the public can't really have a great deal of faith in science at the moment. We need scientific reform in fact, before we go and do things to our economy.
Moderator: Yeah.. I think that contributes to the group think but lets go to Question 4 cause we're running out of time. Will Julia Gillard's tax actually work? // Will carbon tax work? By how much will Julia Gillard's carbon tax cut the world's temperature or is Gillard right when she says "that is an impossible question". Cut to video Gillard: "This is a question put into the debate by Andrew Bolt and it is not a question not capable of being answered because it assumes other countries are not acting.
Moderator: True or false, is that a question incapable of being answered Bob
Cotter: well, you have to use a computer model to answer it so its a highly inaccurate answer but there are many models and when you run them you end up with fractions of ten thousandths of a degree for a 5% cut in Australia's carbon emissions.
Moderator: We've actually asked the [something] scientists what the temperature would be and they range from about 4 thousandths of a degree if we went through and cut to one twenty-thousandths of a degree. Would you quarrel with those estimates Garth.
Portridge: No... they're in the ballpark but because we're relying on models we can't be exact with it but roughly...
Moderator: Essentially zero Peter.
Ridd: Yes, essentially zero. However, one of the arguments is that by cutting our own we'll have some sort of moral high ground to pretend that the Indians and the Chinese are going to cut theirs. I think that's the argument that they're using.
Moderator: Well, it doesn't seem to have gone to well for Julia Gillard. Scientists say that if she listens to them, a lot of what she claims is the basic facts about the global warming science seem false. Thank you so much for joining us gentlemen. Garth Portridge and Bob Catter and Peter Ridd, it's very good to have you.
While I was transcribing the audio from the piece that Mr Owl claimed was going to end the debate on global warming, the thread seems to have vanished. I suspect that would be because he embedded videos rather than providing passive links.
This transcript is quite rough. It starts out loose - was intended only as notes to myself for discussing the content. Got tighter as time went on.
This was a show of Andrew Bolt, a conservative video journalist or pundit on Australian TV. He had brought on three scientists to discuss the government's (in the person of PM Julia Gillard) contention justifying a carbon tax they wished to put into effect. This is older material and the tax was put into effect on July 1st of 2012. Bolt had three guest panelists: Bob Cotter, a geophysicist, Peter Ridd, a marine physicist and Garth Portridge, an emeritus (ie retired) professor of atmospheric physics.
Cotter IS asked if humans are causing global warming.
Responds with "of course the climate is changing. It always changes. Ends up restating the question without answering it.
Moderator. "Seems to me as if she's saying that ALL the change is due to humans
Portridge: yes, but answer is misleading. You really need to be concerned about how MUCH temperatures will change.Climate scientists these days tend to vastly overstate the problem of the increasing temperature of the world due to carbon dioxide.
Ridd: Is CO2 a pollutant. Well, it's a bit of a stretch, but I guess you could.
Moderator looks up last 30 years warming on his iPad. Finds about a third of a degree. Is that a big warming? Can we say that's caused by our gases?
Ridd: No, I don't think there's anyway we can do that. When you look at these big models, when you look at the details, the uncertainties involved, they make it... in my view, they have no predictive value whatsoever. [This doesn't seem to be a response to the question just asked.. The moderator said nothing about models or predictions. I suspect bad editing]
Moderator: So, when we're told that climate is changing and this is caused by carbon pollution, the answer from scientists is well, it's changing but it always changes, but what warming we've seen, we're not sure carbon pollution is the main driver of it.
Moderator: Question 2: Is any warming dangerous? Is warming dangerous? Is Julia Gillard right when she warns of various specific risks to Australian natural resources from warming?
Ridd: Coral in Papua New Guinea are in hotter water and they're more healthy. Most stressed coral is in Queensland and that's because it's too cold. Sea level has fallen on the Great Barrier Reef over the last 5,000 years and this has killed a lot of corals because they're now exposed at low tide. It in addition to global warming we get a sea level rise, they're be a massive explosion of coral on these areas that are currently dead.
Moderator: Are you telling me that we'll get more corals?
Ridd: I don't think theirs any doubt that we'll get more corals.
Moderator: You must be wrong because I have consulted Hoegh Goldberg and "the alarmist David Suzuk" (Japanese Canadian academic, science broadcaster and environmental activist) and they say there's been a devastating effect on the reef from warming already (goes to video)
Goldberg is swimming over and filming a large area of bleached coral. Looks to be perhaps 4-5 meters deep. Water is murky. Says something about being the first signs of impact from global warming. Cut to Suzuki. " I was shocked. In the short period from 1988 to 2004, there were very perceptible changes."
Cotter: "I have a hard time keeping a straight face watching Goldberg and Suzuki say those things". Peter is absolutely right. Shallow water corals are controlled by sea level. If sea level is rising, and it is on the Queensland coast and will continue to do so, that is good for the Great Barrier Reef. If, and its a very big if and I don't think it'll happen, but if human warming was enough that it accentuated that sea level rise, then the coral would do even better. Score 100 Peter, 0 David Suzuki.
Moderator: Question 3: Is the science settled? Goes to Julia Gillard who names some conservative pundits who reject AGW and a fairly long list Australian, US and international science organizations that accept it. Goes to Garth for a response as he was a member of one of the organizations she named.
Portridge: "Yes... well, that's rather overstating the case. Their are vast quantities of scientists who at least question the concept of man made global warming. It is true that the ones who go public are usually scientists either who have retired (like him) or who come from other disciplines.
Moderator: They've got nothing to lose
Portridge: They've got nothing to lose. But in this day and age it can be fairly dangerous to one's career if you are a climate scientist and express some vociferous objection to the concept of dangerous global warming.
Moderator: You made an interesting point Peter because you sent a letter to the chief scientist Ian Chubb saying why don't you fund, why don't you ensure that funding goes to skeptics as opposed to warmists who get billions?
Ridd: I think this is very important because in our court system we have a prosecution, we have a defense and by making the two sides argue we can get to the truth, hopefully. And the defense side in a court case, actually their sole job is to try to find problems with the opposition argument. Now, in science at the moment, we only hear one side and one side is funded. The other side is not funded, so we have a situation where, in fact,it's like a court case in China. And therefore the public can't really have a great deal of faith in science at the moment. We need scientific reform in fact, before we go and do things to our economy.
Moderator: Yeah.. I think that contributes to the group think but lets go to Question 4 cause we're running out of time. Will Julia Gillard's tax actually work? // Will carbon tax work? By how much will Julia Gillard's carbon tax cut the world's temperature or is Gillard right when she says "that is an impossible question". Cut to video Gillard: "This is a question put into the debate by Andrew Bolt and it is not a question not capable of being answered because it assumes other countries are not acting.
Moderator: True or false, is that a question incapable of being answered Bob
Cotter: well, you have to use a computer model to answer it so its a highly inaccurate answer but there are many models and when you run them you end up with fractions of ten thousandths of a degree for a 5% cut in Australia's carbon emissions.
Moderator: We've actually asked the [something] scientists what the temperature would be and they range from about 4 thousandths of a degree if we went through and cut to one twenty-thousandths of a degree. Would you quarrel with those estimates Garth.
Portridge: No... they're in the ballpark but because we're relying on models we can't be exact with it but roughly...
Moderator: Essentially zero Peter.
Ridd: Yes, essentially zero. However, one of the arguments is that by cutting our own we'll have some sort of moral high ground to pretend that the Indians and the Chinese are going to cut theirs. I think that's the argument that they're using.
Moderator: Well, it doesn't seem to have gone to well for Julia Gillard. Scientists say that if she listens to them, a lot of what she claims is the basic facts about the global warming science seem false. Thank you so much for joining us gentlemen. Garth Portridge and Bob Catter and Peter Ridd, it's very good to have you.
Last edited:
