back to article World's largest miner spooked by climate change

BHP Billiton – the mining giant with massive coal interests – is laying out its own cash rebuilding a coastal facility to cope with climate change. Vulture South can’t claim any scoop on this – it was announced in an investor presentation on Monday December 3, so about half the world knows about it if they’re paying attention …

COMMENTS

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  1. NomNomNom

    we'll need more coal for global warming anyway to power all the air conditioners.

  2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    China imports coal?

    Don't they have their own mines that are cheaper?

    1. LaeMing
      Boffin

      Re: China imports coal?

      Yes, but the coal is generally a very different (inferior) grade. Mostly sulphide-rich brown coal, which burns as dirty as ... the Beijing skyline.

      1. Mayhem

        Re: China imports coal?

        There is a coal/gas power station in New Zealand, build (for obvious reasons) adjacent to the country's biggest coal field. That field ships high quality coal by train to the coast, where it is loaded on to ships to go to Japan for use in their power plants. The train then fills up with cheaper dirtier Australian coal and brings it back to the power station.

        The train is full in both directions, all three companies make a profit, and the clean air gets a little dirtier.

        Win win according to the state owned companies, if a complete fail in every other respect.

  3. mike panero

    Interesting

    World's largest miner?

    So not some stupid kid with an opinion and no data

    A huge corporation with the ability to hire the best

    And we can assume from all that has been said before to use facts rather than fiction

    Hence the use of "CLIMATE CHANGE" rather than "GLOBAL WARMING"

    I mean you know a giant hurricane the size of Europe crashes into NY NY, in a season starting a month early, I mean where are these so called signs of climate change eh? WHERE ARE THEY?

    1. James Micallef Silver badge

      Re: Interesting

      What's interesting is the long-term approach. Presumably they have looked at the bottom line and realised that it was considerably cheaper to continue to produce coal to be burnt (with all the resulting effects on climate chnage) and rebuild their terminal, than to stop mining coal altogether. Of course in their particular case they are only looking at their own little patch, and their conclusions are different from those that could be reached on a global scale.

      Nevertheless, this is the correct approach to climate change - analyse as accurately as possible the consequences of different policies, and then select the best one based on cost vs predicted outcome.

      Reducing carbon emmissions "at all costs" is not an ideal policy (can already be seen in, for example, feed-in tariffs), we need to be getting the most bang for our buck (eg switch fossil fuel subsidies to nuclear, increase cap-and-trade markets etc).

      1. Dr Stephen Jones

        Re: Interesting

        You will be downvoted for being rational.

        They're not switching from coal - a point that seemed to elude Mr Chirgwin.

  4. Trevor_Pott Gold badge
    1. Grikath

      Re: I'll just leave this here...

      Actually, that 0.17% is *scientifically* very significant, since they prove the models used are still not correct, and as such have not yet passed from hypothesis into theory. Or would people like to make the same mistake Mendel did when he discarded his "non-significant" oddities from his breeding experiments, simply to uphold his theories?

      The picture painted is actually nicely polarised, as many peer-reviewed articles do indeed not deny the possibility of climate change at all, they simply deal with the actual science, which states that the, quite politically motivated, Doomsday Predictions are several shades of wrong off the mark, and that the actual human factor still has to be determined.

      But that, as they say, is an Inconvenient Truth.

      1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

        Re: I'll just leave this here...

        God did it. Has to be. It's God wut done everything!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'll just leave this here...

      @Trevor_Pott: I would be interested to know if those peer reviewed papers include the IPCC 'peer' reviewed papers of questionable or dubious capability. He does make an interesting statement-

      "Of one thing we can be certain: had any of these articles presented the magic bullet that falsifies human-caused global warming, that article would be on its way to becoming one of the most-cited in the history of science. "

      This is against a backdrop of excessively wasteful money being poured into projects and committed further to stop MMCC and a lot of politicians globally putting their reputations on the line against this new threat. The scale of this commitment is demonstrated by the lack of teeth against the climategate affair and the IPCC has become a joke yet still funded.

      He compared these rejecting papers as cited 5 times compared to 19 for the others. In the war of attrition that suggests that these rejecting papers are not so ignored even if they are drowned out (I say that without reading the papers). There is certainly an industry for outputting MMCC cult propaganda at a highly rapid pace beyond the reaches of science, as proven by claims from politicians, respected institutions and the IPCC.

      It is a shame the graph doesnt break down the degree of agreement as the basic principle (ignoring the world + environment) of co2 makes the theory work. However that is why the models predict one thing but the world does another. So while to a degree I can imagine these papers support his claims I dont think there is enough information to claim some authority to abandon science in favour of cult status MMCC co2 theory.

      Before the rabid cult of the MMCC calls me a denier, I am not. We do have an affect on our environment and assume the climate is changing and we may possibly have some effect. However the constant back peddling, political statements and revised figures tends to leave me sceptical that we have figured out the causes. And the only reason for my scepticism is the lack of credability from those who claim to know the truth.

      1. Tom 13

        Re: magic bullet that falsifies human-caused global warming

        You can't scientifically falsify the existence of God. For the exact same reasons, you can't falsify the existence of AGW/MMCC/MCCC.

    3. Dr Stephen Jones
      FAIL

      Mother Jones?

      Junk science from ageing hippies. Why would I expect them to say anything else?

  5. Clunking Fist

    Cyclones

    Actually, pretty much the entire southern hemisphere is imune to hurricanes. But we do get rather a lot of cyclones.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      Re: Cyclones

      Actually, pretty much the entire southern hemisphere is imune to hurricanes. But we do get rather a lot of cyclones.

      You'll never see a hurricane in the southern hemisphere:

      Hurricanes are Atlantic Ocean cyclones.

      Typhoons are north west Pacific Ocean cyclones.

      Southern hemisphere cyclones are cyclones.

      North Indian Ocean cyclones are cyclones.

      The main difference between southern and northern hemisphere cyclones is the direction of rotation but they are all still cyclones.

      Just saying :)

      1. Mayhem
        Coat

        Re: Cyclones

        But if the main difference is the direction of rotation, does that make a hurricane an anti-cyclone?

  6. MalcomTent
    Trollface

    "evidence of a sudden attack ... "

    ah .. sarcasm at its finest ..

    Even if Global warming were proven to be caused atmospheric carbonation, "they" would not stop .. but as you can see "they" will make sure their facilities can cope.

    *Thinks* .. I wonder how many lumps of coal my PC used to post this comment ?

    Fuck .. now I feel guilty .. damn conscience !

  7. cirby

    Clever

    Or, on the other hand, they realized they needed to build the jetty to protect against the normal level of hurricanes (since hurricane frequency and strength are _not_ increasing, according to all of the studies), and used the "climate change" excuse to keep the Greenies from protesting the "expansion" of a coal mining facility.

    It's a great public relations trick that you'll be seeing more of: decide to build something, tell everyone it's to protect against climate change, and trump all of the upcoming complaints by the environmental fanatics.

    1. Tom 13

      Re: trump all of the upcoming complaints by the environmental fanatics.

      It would be nice if that were true, but it isn't. No matter how much you feed the greedy maw, it always demands more.

  8. asdf

    yep

    Yeah its something you wont hear LP or AO talk about but when there is money on the line companies can't afford to rely on ideology. Insurance actuaries have been factoring projected climate change into policy calculations for years now. Business might particularly not care what is causing it but they certainly will need to start dealing with how it will affect the bottom line and the smart ones have already started.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: yep

      LP did a few articles on the money issues. The fact that energy would become unaffordable as a consequence of the MMCC policies which are causing damage and fixing nothing. The smart businesses are religion based. If you whip up a cult and take political power then you can fleece the masses while pretending to do good. However when science provides the truth the religion must retreat.

      I say this in the context of NASA apologising for providing rubish figures but these ones are correct (honest). The IPCC claims which have been disproved. The hockey stick graph.

      The level of scientific failure is the reason articles like this are funny- http://joannenova.com.au/2009/05/shock-global-temperatures-driven-by-us-postal-charges/

  9. FlatEarther
    Meh

    Left Wing?

    The most incredible statement in this article was the suggestion that AFR might be just a little be left leaning. Just like the Democrats in the US, I suppose. If you look down the wrong end of the telescope everything looks small.

    But good to see someone in Queensland planning for a disaster. There's a first time for everything.

  10. bugalugs

    meh

    Given Australia's pretensions to world leadership of the Camelot Weather Restoration Movement, the AGCC spin on this announcement is just PR. If these images are anything to go by, an upgrade to cyclone-proof is overdue. And tax-deductible of course...

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