O’Sullivan on climate change

Fran O’Sullivan takes a measured look at the 4th IPCC report.

As I have done, she laments the tendency of some NZ greenies to label sceptics as deniers,

What the true believers are trying to do is put anybody who expresses some scepticism over man’s contribution to the global warming phenomena on the same level as Holocaust deniers.

They are painted as dangerous nutters who must be put down in case they infect the rest of us with the notion that man might not be the main culprit in global warming but that other influences such as sunspots might also be part of the mix, and that a doomsday outcome which wipes man off the planet is by no means inevitable.

So looking at the UN report, what has been little reported is how much back pedalling there is from earlier reports:

Rising sea levels are a case in point. In the 2001 report, the UN’s best high-end estimate for the rise in sea levels by 2100 was 90cm. But the best estimate in the upcoming report is said to be 43cm.

The 2001 report is also said to have over-estimated the human influence on climate change by a third.

There is a case to be made for action to both lower greenhouse emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change, but these should be based on solid analysis of costs and benefits not scaremongering over the end of the world.