Carbon & Climate - Heated Views

The heat was turned up yesterday both with a very warm & windy autumn day in Melbourne as well as an announcement by Clive Palmer, mining billionaire, that his companies will mount a High Court challenge to the Carbon Tax, due to be implemented in July 2012.
On the same day CSIRO (Australia's premier research agency) and the Bureau of Meterology (BOM) released their updated State of the Nation report.
The report observed:

"Changes observed include:

• Highly variable rainfall across the country, with substantial increases in rainfall in northern and central parts of Australia, as well as significant decreases across much of southern and eastern Australia.
• Rapidly rising sea levels from 1993 to 2009, with levels around Australia rising, between 1.5cm and 3cm per decade in Australia’s south and east and between 7cm and 9cm in the country’s north
• About half of the observed reduction in winter rainfall in south-west Western Australia can be explained by higher greenhouse gas levels."

Some of those in Northern Victoria would be wondering about the first statement "significant decreases in rainfall across much of southern Australia." However, the last couple of years flooding is due to summer rain associated with strong La Nina events. This observed effect is part of the constant measuring done by these agencies (CSIRO & BOM). 

One of the observed and measurable difficulties we humans have is believing in patterns where there are none (gambling is a good example) and not believing measurements where they run counter to an individuals last observation and experience. Irrational thinking it is called, and Stuart Sutherland's book "Irrationality"is a good example of these thinking behaviours.

So here's hoping Clive Palmer's Carbon Tax challenge is found to be baseless. He will do us a service if the tax is found to be constitutional and able to be implemented. Just think of all the carbon emitted by the paper generated by such a challenge!