What Fascinates Me About the Climate Change Conversation

...when we pass from global warming to climate change to global climate disruption, I smell a rat. The smell gets stronger when you get multiple cases of fraud and “You can’t see my data” from climate scientists.

But that said, I don’t claim to be a climate scientist and will bow to what the experts say when they get their story straight. Meanwhile, what fascinates me, not as a reader of science news, but as somebody who writes about religion, is how routinely the language of faith is used to discuss climate change. I am perpetually asked if I “believe in” climate change. Nobody asks if I believe in cosmic radiation, or Bernoulli’s principle or atomic fission or Carbon 12 or electrolysis. These are dealt with as matters of data. But climate change is dealt with, constantly, in the language of faith–or in the language of heresy. I find that fascinating.

Australians not impressed by carbon tax, finds poll | Connect Asia | ABC Radio Australia

A poll released by the Climate Institute last weekend found two-thirds of people believe they will be worse off after the carbon tax is introduced on Sunday.

Abbott takes last swipe at PM before carbon tax day | ABC Radio Australia

Armed with a tape measure as a prop, government frontbencher Craig Emerson told the Parliament he will be going to Whyalla, in South Australia, on Sunday to check whether Mr Abbott's prediction that the town will be wiped off the map comes true.

"And I'll be taking my sky-high measuring device Madam Deputy Speaker," he told the chamber.

"And we will be checking the height of the sky because Chicken Little will be proved wrong."

Scientists respond to the Register on Antarctic ice shelf melt: ‘This is the equivalent of turning the statement “the cancer is not as bad as we thought” into “you don't have cancer”.’ | Carbon Brief

The new research reports that its findings agree with satellite data showing a "steady state mass balance" on the Fimbul ice sheet. This means that the ice on the shelves is currently building due to snowfall while it's also melting - processes that currently balance out. But the finding that there isn't any net ice loss at present
on the ice shelf isn't the same as saying the ice isn't changing, or that there's no ice loss in the wider region.