In defence of 'real' scientists, I will admit that the certainty expressed about the effects of CO2 and the so-called 97% consensus is merely a political tactic to get people motivated.
Why would they want to "motivate" people? And for that matter, motivate them to do what?
Motivate them to accept higher electricity prices and taxes to pay for the massive subsidies to the renewable energy industry, of course. This is the job of politicians, to motive people to accept their policies.
Unfortunately, I don't see much motivation from politicians in Australia to spend public money on building dams and dykes to protect the citizens from the reasonable expectation that past flood events will continue, despite any rising or lowering of CO2 levels.
Just recently the north east coast of Australia experienced a severe cyclone (Debbie). They're not uncommon in that part of the country. However, cyclones tend to bring a lot of rain in the aftermath, after the winds have died down.
One city which is south of the cyclone, and which was out of the range of the strong winds so wasn't exposed to any damage, is now preparing itself for a major flooding. The city is Rockhampton, a few hundred kilometres north of Brisbane, and is situated in a basin around the Fitzroy river.
Now, if one looks at the history of flooding in Rockhampton, from reliable sources such as the Bureau of Meteorology, one discovers that these flooding events have occurred regularly since records were kept, since 1859. On average, there has occurred a major flooding every 20 years or so, and a minor flooding every 7 years. This current flood, which is rising as I write, will probably fall into the category of a major flood.
What must be puzzling for many people is why the government doesn't take measures to eliminate, or at least reduce the effects of such floods. Surely the total cost of the damage and disruption to economic activity, which occurs every 20 years or so, must be higher than the cost of fixing the problem.
My explanation for this lack of motivation to fix the problem, is that the concept of AGW alarmism is contradictory to alarmism about natural flood events, from the political perspective.
The alarm about CO2 rises is based on an assertion that extreme weather events will get worse, so that's the focus of attention. If politicians were to shift the public attention to the undeniable fact that natural causes of extreme weather events have been responsible for all the floods since 1860 in Rockhampton, and that these events have been continuing at approximately the same level and frequency for the past 160 years, and that we should therefore spend resources on fixing the problem, this would cause people to wonder which issue was more important; protecting themselves from a more certain repetition of natural events, or accepting the consequences of the natural events without doing anything about it, and focussing instead on the less certain proposition that floods will get worse.
There's no evidence that floods in Australia are getting worse. The worst flood in Rockhampton occurred in the 19th century. The fourth worst flood occurred in 2010/11.
