Most people don't know that the chicken they eat is laced with arsenic. The ice water or coffee they enjoy with their chicken may also be infused with arsenic. If they
live on or near a farm, the air they breathe may be infected with arsenic dust as well. (Douglas Gansler, Washington Post)
There probably are lots of senior execs who've been comforted when their chief scientist or toxicologist has told them that since "the dose makes the poison,"
they shouldn't sweat some new study about a chemical found in small amounts in their products. Unfortunately, this maxim, which has been around for about 500 years, is
somewhat misleading; taking it at face value may be toxic to your company's reputation. (Richard Liroff, Reuters)
At the Eating Disorders Unit at the Maudsley Hospital in London, anorexia is not seen as a social disorder — or even primarily a psychological one. While most American
treatment providers blame perfection-seeking parents and the media's idealization of hollow-cheeked actresses for eating disorders (among other dysfunctional behaviors),
researchers at Maudsley believe the root cause has little to do with social pressure. Rather, they think anorexia is better explained by heredity — perhaps by some of the
same genes associated with autism. (Maia Szalavitz, Time)
The “figure flaw paradox” is really a retake on the obesity paradox. As obesity has proven to be a poor measure of health or mortality risk, new renditions are being
proposed. But the fallacies are the same. (Junkfood Science)
This past week, when speaking to doctors about healthcare reform and the steps needed to reduce healthcare spending, the President answered a rhetorical question recently
posed here about comparative effective research. JFS readers may find his answers interesting. His speech, however, didn’t receive widespread mainstream media coverage, at
least in a form we would recognize. Before we look at what he said, it might be helpful to sort through some popular misconceptions about what comparative effectiveness
research is and isn’t. (Junkfood Science)
This week, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced that Health Net, Inc., a managed care company covering more than two million Californians and nearly a quarter million
New Yorkers, had agreed to end its relationship with Ingenix and pay $1.6 million towards the creation of an independent database. This was Cuomo’s twelfth settlement
against a network of health insurers across the country (including Aetna, MVP Health Care, Cigna, Wellpoint and Excellus Health Plan) using the Ingenix database, which he
charged was a “conflict-of-interest-ridden system” with manipulated data and behind industry-wide consumer fraud and corrupt out-of-network reimbursement schemes.
(Junkfood Science)
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulates claims made in advertisements for all products and services -- including environmental (green) advertising. Yet, the FTC
has taken little enforcement action in the exploding area of false or misleading environmental claims. Green, and all manner of eco-friendly, ads are supposed to comply with
guidelines issued by the FTC in 1992. The FTC can take companies that ignore their "Green Guidelines" to court and seek fines to reimburse consumers. The FTC
acknowledges less enforcement of environmental ad guidelines in recent years, citing a lack of resources. The 2009 budget for the FTC, which also regulates identity theft,
credit fraud and monopolies, is $259 million.
There has been a massive global expansion in green marketing. Surveys last year of large US retailers found more than 1,700 products boasting of green credentials or
environmental benefits. Green marketers have developed slick schemes to sell an avalanche of eco-friendly and green products. These marketing tactics emphasize an immediate
and emotionally-compelling environmental benefit -- often when the claimed benefit is unproven. They also deploy ad messages through highly-leveraged partnerships with other
products, institutions and media that are already a part of the consumer’s media. (Paul Taylor, LA Ecopolitics Examiner)
Evolutionary psychology has had a good run. But now there is growing pushback. Critics say the theory is being used to try to explain more than it can bear. (NYT)
GENEVA - The United Nations called on Friday for more aid funds to help countries prepare for - instead of respond to - natural disasters, saying simple steps could halve
the number of deaths they cause. (Reuters)
Then they've got a really stupid way of going about it. The UN's favorite 'crisis' is gorebull warming and efforts to 'address' that phantom menace
are doing more harm to vulnerable peoples than anything else. Why? because these people are vulnerable specifically due to poverty and the cure for poverty is development
and trade, the very things gorebull warmers are trying not merely to limit but actively undo.
BRUSSELS - European environment ministers could agree to tighten up widely flouted acid pollution laws this week after rapid progress in recent negotiations over
industrial emissions brought a compromise within reach.
"There has been significant progress in recent weeks, and member states are taking a cooperative approach," Jos Delbeke, number two at the European Commission's
environment unit, told Reuters. "It is possible there will be a deal on Thursday."
The complex Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) weaves together seven existing air quality laws, including the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control directive (IPPC)
and the Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD).
These seven existing laws contain so many opt-outs that many of the 52,000 relevant European installations have managed to avoid cleaning up acidifying pollutants, such as
sulphur and nitrogen oxides, that damage human health, soil and water quality. (Reuters)
Small changes in our mundane lives can stimulate a surprising array of emotions – love, anger, defiance, even shame. Take the five cents it now costs Torontonians to
take home anything they buy – books, fresh fish, running shoes – in a plastic bag.
"I hate those guys," says a man in a grey T-shirt charging out of the Loblaws grocery store on Dupont St. with a jar of mayonnaise in one hand, paper products in
the other. Those guys?
He waves vaguely to the store. "Charging five cents!" (Leslie Scrivener, Toronto Star)
BRUSSELS - The European Union plans to extend strict radioactivity checks by 10 years on food imports from areas affected by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster due to continuing
nuclear contamination, a document showed on Monday.
The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, first restricted imports just days after the accident in April 1986, with laws that have been successively updated since
then. The current legislation runs out on March 31, 2010. (Reuters)
CHICAGO - Monsanto Co and Dole Fresh Vegetables Inc are formalizing a partnership to breed broccoli, spinach and other vegetables that would be more attractive to
consumers.
The five-year collaboration, announced on Tuesday, will focus on creating variations of broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce and spinach, the companies said in a statement.
The focus of their efforts is to breed more colorful, tastier vegetables that are less susceptible to bruising and have a longer shelf-life. (Reuters)
According to new research published in the journal Global Environmental Change, we're running out of phosphate rock, a crucial ingredient of the fertilisers that farmers
currently lavish on their crops to keep them bursting with food.
Phosphate rock can only be mined in a handful of countries such as the US, China and Morocco - and we may run out of it 50-100 years from now, according to a joint study by
Linkoping University and the Institute for Sustainable Futures.
Great news for the climate, some would say. (Fertiliser production pumps 410m tonnes of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere every year, according to Greenpeace's 2008 report,
'Cool Farming', out-emitting farm machinery by a factor of two.)
Not such good news, however, for the two billion peckish new mouths that will need feeding by 2050, warns the study's chief author, Dana Cordell. 'Acquiring enough phosphorus
to grow food will be a significant challenge for humanity in the future', she concludes. (Blog of Bloom)
SASKATOON - Canadian farmers oppose the introduction of genetically modified wheat until market conditions change, a Canadian Wheat Board survey has found.
In the CWB's annual survey of 1,300 Western Canadian farmers, only 9 percent said GMO wheat should be grown as soon as it's available, with the majority saying it shouldn't
be grown until conditions are met such as proving benefits to farmers and demonstrating market demand. Nineteen percent said it should not be grown in Canada.
Farmers were close to evenly split when asked how interested they are in growing GM wheat. Fifty-one percent said they're not interested, with 46 percent very or somewhat
interested. (Reuters)
CHURCHVILLE, VA—It was only a matter of time before First Lady Michelle Obama sprang to the wall of the White House Organic Garden and demanded more organic food—a
heartfelt campaign fully as sincere as her husband’s ongoing demand that the affluent countries fight off man-made global warming by taxing away most of their energy.
However, both the First Lady’s and the President’s campaigns share the same problem: Both are based on politically-correct illusions. (Dennis T. Avery, CGFI)
It stood tall at 6’5, weighed over 500lbs, had the face of a koala and the body of a sturdy kangaroo. And apparently it was delicious.
Scientists think they have discovered the reason behind the demise of the prehistoric Australian marsupial Procoptodon goliah – better known as the giant, short-snouted
kangaroo. They say it was not climate change, as has always been assumed, but hungry Ice Age hunters. (The Times)
The 219-212 vote marked the first time that either house of Congress has approved a bill aimed at curbing the heat-trapping gases scientists have linked to climate change,
and it could lead to sweeping changes in the economy. (NYT)
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) had a few choice words about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) landmark climate-change bill after its passage Friday.
When asked why he read portions of the cap-and-trade bill on the floor Friday night, Boehner told The Hill, "Hey, people deserve to know what's in this pile of
s--t."
Using his privilege as leader to speak for an unlimited time on the House floor, Boehner spent an hour reading from the 1200-plus page bill that was amended 20 hours before
the lower chamber voted 219-212 to approve it.
Eight Republicans voted with Democrats to pass the bill; 44 House Democrats voted against it. (Molly K. Hooper, The Hill)
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today issued the following statement after voting against H.R. 2454, The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009:
“I oppose H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The reason is simple. It won’t address the problem. In fact, it might make the problem worse. (kucinich.house.gov)
No detectable climate impact: 'If we actually faced a man-made 'climate crisis', we would all be doomed'
The U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed global warming bill (219-212 vote) will no doubt be hailed by many as “historic” or “landmark” or “The Bill of the
Century.”
This passage of this bill does not signify any great “green revolution” or “growing” climate “awareness” on the part of Congress. Instead, the methods and manner
that the Pelosi led House achieved final passage, represents nothing more than unrestrained exercise of raw political power, arm-twisting, intimidation and special interest
handouts.
The House of Representatives passed a bill it did not read, did not understand. A bill that is based on crumbling scientific claims and a bill that will have no detectable
climate impact (assuming climate fear promoters are correct on the science and the bill is fully implemented – both implausible assumptions). (Marc Morano, Climate Depot)
A House committee working on sweeping energy legislation seems determined to make sure that the United States will tax China and other carbon polluters, potentially
disrupting an already-sensitive climate change debate in Congress. (ClimateWire)
Despite indications that much of President Obama’s agenda is meeting intra-party skepticism all over Capitol Hill, there is one policy nexus where congressional leaders
are still doggedly determined to move the country left: energy and the environment. Speaker Pelosi will reportedly allow a vote on the controversial Waxman-Markey
“cap-and-trade” legislation at the end of this week.
And it gets even better. Not content to tempt political fate by imposing huge carbon taxes on the American middle class, Democrats have added a provision which imposes stiff
tariffs on our trading partners if they don’t adopt aggressive carbon restrictions of their own.
You heard correctly: progressives have authored a bill that earns the mortal enmity of domestic energy consumers and our most crucial trading partners at the same time.
Economy-killing climate policies and a trade war — together at last! (Patrick J. Michaels & Sallie James, Planet Gore)
Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding
decided to vote against climate-change legislation.
If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the
Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again
doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global
warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed
with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S. (WSJ)
ALTHOUGH there are many doubters of man-made climate change, I am not yet one of them. But I remain unconvinced that carbon dioxide is the sole bete noire. Two decades
ago, I pored over the spectral properties of the infra-red radiation of this gas, which is essential to plant life, and found that it was almost completely overshadowed by
the radiative properties of water vapour, which is vital to all forms of life on earth. (Peter Schwerdtfeger, The Australian)
To inflict intense pain for no environmental gain is immoral. To ram such legislation through with backroom deals and no substantive debate – and unleash bureaucrats to
control our energy use and lives – is dictatorial and un-American. When The People finally catch on, it won’t be a pretty sight. (Paul Driessen, SPPI)
CANBERRA - Australia's landmark carbon trade scheme, being watched around the world in the lead up to global climate talks in December, hit a political roadblock on
Thursday when parliament delayed a vote on the plan until August.
The decision by the upper house Senate scuttled government hopes of passing its carbon trade laws in this parliamentary session, prolonging uncertainty for major polluters
and the stalled carbon trade market. (Reuters)
As the US Congress considers the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, the Australian Senate is on the verge of rejecting its own version of cap-and-trade. The story of this
legislation's collapse offers advance notice for what might happen to similar legislation in the US—and to the whole global warming hysteria.
Since the Australian government first introduced its Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) legislation—the Australian version of cap-and-trade energy rationing—there has been a
sharp shift in public opinion and political momentum against the global warming crusade. This is a story that offers hope to defenders of industrial civilization—and a
warning to American environmentalists that the climate change they should be afraid of just might be a shift in the intellectual climate. (Robert Tracinski and Tom Minchin,
Real Clear Politics)
OSLO - The United States has been resisting European calls for industrialized nations to target an upper limit for global warming of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit),
according to a draft summit text.
Two degrees is seen by the European Union and many developing countries as the threshold beyond which climate change will reach danger levels, with rising seas and more
heatwaves, floods and droughts. (Reuters)
As China announced just days ago, Russia has confirmed that it will not participate in any international greenhouse gas reduction plans advanced to replace the 2012
expiration of the Kyoto Protocol. Moreover, Russia actually plans to increase air pollution emissions. Russian President Medvedev has announced that Russia will increase the
country’s emissions 30% by 2020. Russia is the third biggest global air polluter – China first, US second.
Russia estimates the 30 percent increase in emissions would put his country 10 to 15 percent behind its 1990 emissions levels. This, based upon the decades of conversion from
polluting heavy industry to cleaner industries in the digital age. Many of the former communist block countries may now make the same industrial conversion offset claim to
avoid the costs of carbon controls. Like China, Russia recognizes that mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases will reduce GDP and punish long-term economic prosperity.
The rejection by China and Russia of international initiatives to control global warming will reduce the likelihood that Obama’s cap-and-trade carbon taxes will be adopted.
Without controls on all global greenhouse gas emitters, nothing the US does in the way of costly greenhouse gas reductions will impact climates. (Paul Taylor, Examiner)
The White House weather forecast is not the last word on climate: it marks the last stand of the ‘global warming’ profiteers, and the last gasp of the
scientific-technological elite. (Christopher Monckton, SPPI)
JOHANNESBURG, 25 June 2009 - The debate on providing protection to possibly several million "climate refugees" displaced by the vagaries of nature is heating up.
(IRIN)
... and the more nonsense mixed in the quicker the brew spoils.
LONDON, June 24 - Migrants uprooted by climate change in the poorest parts of the world are likely to only move locally, contrary to predictions that hundreds of millions
will descend on rich countries, a study said on Wednesday.
The research from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), a non-profit London-based think tank, challenges the common perception in the developed
world that waves of refugees will try to move there permanently to escape the impact of global warming. (Reuters)
As the scientific community debates the probable impact of human industry on the Earth’s climate, many in the environmental lobby, determined to dominate the political
debate, wage an effective public relations campaign in the public arena. Believing fervently in their version of the facts, they cleverly tailor their rhetoric to have the
strongest possible impact on the political process, without regard for the ongoing scientific debate. It is quite ironic that, while those who argue that we face a “climate
crisis” like to think of themselves as the advocates for science and reason, their tactics and rhetoric are often reminiscent of a sideshow, relying on hype and fear to
capture the public’s imagination. (Matthew Woessner, SPPI)
Polar bear expert
barred by global warmists - Mitchell Taylor, who has studied the animals for 30 years, was told his views 'are extremely unhelpful’, reveals Christopher Booker.
Over the coming days a curiously revealing event will be taking place in Copenhagen. Top of the agenda at a meeting of the Polar Bear Specialist Group (set up under the
International Union for the Conservation of Nature/Species Survival Commission) will be the need to produce a suitably scary report on how polar bears are being threatened
with extinction by man-made global warming.
This is one of a steady drizzle of events planned to stoke up alarm in the run-up to the UN's major conference on climate change in Copenhagen next December. But one of the
world's leading experts on polar bears has been told to stay away from this week's meeting, specifically because his views on global warming do not accord with those of the
rest of the group.
Dr Mitchell Taylor has been researching the status and management of polar bears in Canada and around the Arctic Circle for 30 years, as both an academic and a government
employee. More than once since 2006 he has made headlines by insisting that polar bear numbers, far from decreasing, are much higher than they were 30 years ago. Of the 19
different bear populations, almost all are increasing or at optimum levels, only two have for local reasons modestly declined. (Christopher Booker, Daily Telegraph)
Bob McNabb, 23, is just beginning what may be a long career studying glaciers. No matter how many seasons he spends on ice, he will probably never have a field experience
like his first.
In May, McNabb shot and killed a polar bear that was charging him outside a research station in Svalbard. The doctoral student observing an extremely far-north glacier in the
Norwegian territory spoke about his experience when he returned to Fairbanks, where he studies at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. (Alaska
Dispatch)
OSLO - Air pollution, dust and other tiny particles that can bounce sunlight back into space are braking global warming less than previously believed, a Norwegian study
said.
The report, which helps understand how climate change works, said scientific estimates of light-reflecting airborne particles had underestimated a fast build-up of black
airborne soot, which has the opposite effect by soaking up heat.
"The black carbon, or soot, emissions have increased fastest," said Gunnar Myhre of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo (Cicero)
of the report in Friday's edition of the journal Science. (Reuters)
One less reason for the modelers' marvelous magical multipliers, eh? Not that there were any realistic ones to begin with...
17 JUN 2009 From the ongoing OGS conference on Observational Oceanography in Trieste, Italy – Rome, 17 June (Apcom) – No water warming processes are likely to be
undergoing in the Mediterranean. It’s one of the preliminary results obtained under MedArgo, the “sister project”, coordinated by OGS [the Italian National Institute on
Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics].
MedArgo deals specifically with the Mediterranean Sea and surrounding countries and is part of EuroArgo, the European component of the international Argo project. (OmniClimate)
he rise in global temperatures since 1880 closely correlates with increases in postal charges, sparking alarm that CO2 has been usurped as the main driver of climate
change. (Jo Nova)
"CNET reports that less than two weeks before the EPA formally submitted its pro-carbon dioxide regulation recommendation to the White House, an
EPA center director quashed a 98-page report that warned against making hasty 'decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the
available data.' In an e-mail message (pdf) to a staff
researcher on March 17, the EPA official wrote: 'The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward...and your comments do not help the legal or policy
case for this decision.' The employee was also ordered not to 'have any direct communication' with anyone outside his small group at EPA on the topic of climate change, and
was informed his report would not be shared with the agency group working on the topic. In a statement, the EPA took aim at the credentials of the report's
author, Alan Carlin (BS Physics-Caltech, PhD Econ-MIT), describing him as 'not a scientist.' BTW, the official who chastised Carlin also found himself caught up in a 2005
brouhaha over mercury emissions after top EPA officials ordered the findings of a Harvard University study stripped from public records." (slashdot)
“Australia’s EPA (Environmental Protection Authority) has been negligent in listing carbon dioxide (CO2) as a pollutant without conducting an independent public review
of the scientific evidence to support that decision…
“Now a critical draft report has emerged from inside the US EPA. It was written by very competent EPA staff, warning that organisation that their classification of CO2
as a pollutant was too heavily based on the latest IPCC report “which is at best three years out of date in a rapidly changing field.” This EPA report has been suppressed
for months…
“The best evidence before us now, supported completely by this in-house thinking in the US EPA, is that Australia’s EPA was hasty and negligent in classing CO2, the
valuable and harmless Gas of Life, as a pollutant.” (Carbon Sense Coalition)
Senator Fielding holds a crucial vote on the proposed Emissions Trading Legislation. Fielding and four independent scientists faced the Minister for the Climate Change and
Water, Penny Wong , The Chief Scientist, Penny Sackett, and Professor Will Steffan, director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University. Read what
happened from someone who was there. (David Evans, SPPI)
The UK Climate Change Act of 2008 recommends reducing carbon emissions by at least 80% by 2050 and 34% by 2022 but these goals are just too ambitious according to a new
study. The Act is also "fundamentally flawed" and would require decarbonization rates that are simply unrealistic. (ERL)
On Thursday, the Met Office launched its new report on global warming: UK Climate Projections 2009, otherwise known as UKCP09. This is based on the output of Hadley Centre
climate models that predict temperature increases of up to 6°C with wetter winters, dryer summers, more heatwaves, rising sea levels, more floods and all the other
catastrophes that one would expect from similar exercises in alarmism.
What makes this report different from any of its predecessors is the resolution of the predictions that the Met Office is making. They are not just presenting a general
impression of what might happen globally during this century, or even how climate change could affect the UK as a whole. They are claiming that they can predict what will
happen in individual regions of the country - down to a 25km square. You can enter your postcode and find out how your street will be affected by global warming in 2040 or
2080.
All this is rather unexpected. In May last year, I posted here and here
about a world summit of climate modellers that took place at Reading University. On the agenda was one very important problem for them; even the most powerful super-computers
that have been developed so far are not capable of running the kind of high resolution models that they claim would allow them to reduce the degree of uncertainty in their
predictions, and also make detailed regional predictions that policy makers would like to have so that they can build climate change into infrastructure planning. (Tony
Newbery, The Register)
For many years the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly CSICOP) has published the Skeptical Inquirer, a magazine dedicated to rational thought and a scientific view
of the world around us. Mostly concerned with debunking pseudoscience and mystical beliefs, its articles mostly concerned UFOs, bigfoot sightings, psychic spoon benders and
spirit mediums. Now, unfortunately, it seems they have allied this previously skeptical magazine with one of the biggest scientific scams of our time, anthropogenic global
warming. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth)
This paper documents that landscape change is a regional first oder climate forcing in the United States. For more recent studies on this subject from our research group
(see).
Copeland, J.H., R.A. Pielke, and T.G.F. Kittel, 1996: Potential climatic impacts of vegetation change: A regional modeling study. J. Geophys. Res., 101, 7409-7418. (Roger
Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
This paper provides observational examples of the interaction between the atmosphere and the landscape which was discussed in yesterday’s weblog.
Stohlgren, T.J., T.N. Chase, R.A. Pielke, T.G.F. Kittel, and J. Baron, 1998: Evidence that local land use practices influence regional climate and vegetation patterns in
adjacent natural areas. Global Change Biology, 4, 495-504. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
Today’s weblog reviews how the atmosphere and landscape are coupled together, and that the climate system is an interactive nonlinear system.
Pielke, R.A., R. Avissar, M. Raupach, H. Dolman, X. Zeng, and S. Denning, 1998: Interactions between the atmosphere and terrestrial ecosystems: Influence on weather and
climate. Global Change Biology, 4, 461-475. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
Yesterday’s paper discussed how adjacent snow and snow free areas could generate mesoscale circulations. Today’s post (and yesterday’s as well) shows that not only
does this affect air quality, but temperatures near the ground (such as used to monitor long term temperature trends) are very significantly affected. Even if the atmosphere
above was not warming over time, a series of winters with less snow in a region would report higher surface air temperatures.
Segal, M., J.R. Garratt, R.A. Pielke, P. Hildebrand, F.A. Rogers, and J. Cramer, 1991: On the impact of snow cover on daytime pollution dispersion. Atmos. Environ., 25B,
177-192. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
Today’s weblog documents that the areas of snow and adjacent snow free areas can result in signifcant mesoscale circulations. This is yet another example of a the role
of landscape within the climate system.
Segal, M., J.H. Cramer, R.A. Pielke, J.R. Garratt, and P. Hildebrand, 1991: Observational evaluation of the snow-breeze. Mon. Wea. Rev., 119, 412-424. (Roger Pielke Sr.,
Climate Science)
Having reported that scientists did not find CO2 responsible for a change in the duration of ice age glacial periods 700,00 years ago, another new report takes a look at
the conditions around the last interglacial warm period and our own Holocene warming. Using corals from the south seas paradise of Tahiti to track sea-level changes,
researchers probed the mechanisms driving Earth's climate between glacial and interglacial states. Almost as an after thought they added that there is no longer any doubt:
changes in sea-level drive changes in CO2, not the other way around. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth)
CO2 Science Volume 12 Number 25: 24 June 2009
Editorial: Rice Production in China: What is its current status? ... what are the challenges it faces? ... and how will
these challenges be met?
Medieval
Warm Period Record of the Week:
Was there a Medieval Warm Period? YES, according to data published by 713
individual scientists from 416 separate research institutions in 41
different countries ... and counting! This issue's Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week comes from Skagerrak,
Northeast North Sea. To access the entire Medieval Warm Period Project's database, click here.
Subject Index Summary: Range Expansion (Butterflies): Contrary to climate-alarmist claims, earth's butterflies will
likely do just fine in the face of any global warming that may occur in the future.
Plant Growth Data:
This week we add new results of plant growth responses to atmospheric CO2 enrichment obtained from experiments described in the peer-reviewed scientific
literature for: Bald Cypress (Llorens et al., 2009), Coastal
Redwood (Llorens et al., 2009), Dawn Redwood (Llorens et al., 2009), and Maidenhair
Tree (Llorens et al., 2009).
The Rising Cost of European Floods: Has global warming increased the economic cost of European floods over the
past few decades? ... or have the monetary losses been driven more by socio-economic factors?
Potato Response to Water Stress: How is it affected by atmospheric CO2 enrichment? ...
and what do the results portend about potato production in the drier parts of a CO2-enriched world? (co2science.org)
Some physicists believe that changes to the Earth’s climate can be explained in large part by variations in the flux of cosmic rays reaching the Earth. These occur as
the solar system pass in and out of our galaxy’s spiral arms — passages that seem to correlate closely with the timing of ice ages. However, new research based on a
recent model of the structure and motion of the spiral arms finds there is no such correlation.
In 2003 physicists Nir Shaviv and Ján Veizer reported a close correlation between the motion of the solar system through the Milky Way and changes to the Earth’s climate.
They found that the solar system passes through one of the galaxy’s four spiral arms about once every 140 million years, and these intersections correspond with both the
peaks of successive ice ages and fluctuations in the abundance of oxygen-18 in fossils — which is related to temperature. Both climatic variables also vary with a period of
about 140 million years. (physicsworld.com)
ADDIS ABABA - Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has demanded that the rich world compensate Africa for global warming and said pollution in the northern hemisphere may
have caused his country's ruinous 1980s famines. (Reuters)
Africa has been desiccating for millennia but now it's the fault of the Industrial Revolution ;-)
The folks at the United Nations are at it again, this time along with the World Trade Organization. Last time it was their idiotic report about how cows and other forms of
livestock are contributing so much to global warming (now calling it climate change which I believe happens naturally every year). This time they’ve moved a step ahead to
try and link global climate change to trade. Give me a break. Here’s an excerpt from the WTO press release. (AgWired)
A UK government report unwittingly reveals that we should not be cutting carbon use but investing in Mediterranean-style cooling measures. (Rob Lyons, sp!ked)
Unless they're starring in the closing scenes of Macbeth, groves aren't famous for moving. But entire forests may be 'marched' to cooler climes to protect them from
climate change if the government of British Columbia gets its way, writes Emma Marris in the journal Nature.
Scientists worry that British Columbia's rapidly warming climate (the region has already warmed 0.7C in the decade leading up to 2006 - nearly as much as the world has warmed
in the last century) will trigger outbreaks of heat-loving pests and drought, wiping out the province's lucrative forests.
With so much at stake (stuff made of wood accounts for about half of the province's exports), it's no surprise that the British Columbia Ministry of Forests has already
launched a project to see how seedlings fare after they've been dug up and transplanted to cooler environments in the north.
The 'Assisted Migration Adaptation Trial,' is uprooting seedlings from 40 spots in British Columbia, Washington State, Oregon and Idaho and replanting them in new
environments to see if they flourish or fail. (Blog of Bloom)
Al Gore rallied the troops for some Waxman-Malarkey and the Big O issued a report full of global warming doom and gloom, but cheer up, it’s not all bad. (Daily Bayonet)
Some 800,000 jobs across Europe will be wiped out following the adoption of EU climate change legislation last year, warned Poland's Solidarność trade union.
Jarosław Grzesik, deputy head of energy at Solidarność, said Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic would suffer most because of their
reliance on coal for electricity production. (EurActiv)
SAN FRANCISCO - Technology to capture carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants and store them underground will be ready by 2015 and could be in wide use in the United
States by 2020, according to the top executive at American Electric Power Co Inc. (Reuters)
LUXEMBOURG - Europe has started moves to help China develop technology to trap and bury carbon dioxide (CO2) underground in the fight against global warming. (Reuters)
WASHINGTON - An environmental group on Wednesday asked U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to deny permits for pipelines that would bring oil from Canada's oil sands
to the United States. (Reuters)
DEEP in the Arctic Circle, in the Messoyakha gas field of western Siberia, lies a mystery. Back in 1970, Russian engineers began pumping natural gas from beneath the
permafrost and piping it east across the tundra to the Norilsk metal smelter, the biggest industrial enterprise in the Arctic.
By the late 70s, they were on the brink of winding down the operation. According to their surveys, they had sapped nearly all the methane from the deposit. But despite their
estimates, the gas just kept on coming. The field continues to power Norilsk today.
Where is this methane coming from? The Soviet geologists initially thought it was leaking from another deposit hidden beneath the first. But their experiments revealed the
opposite - the mystery methane is seeping into the well from the icy permafrost above. (New Scientist)
Last week, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) announced their plans to install 620,000 “smart meters” over the next two years in order to upgrade the
aging electrical system in the Sacramento Area.
“Instead of today's ‘dumb’ odometer-style counters, the devices will be brainy hubs in a new electrical nervous system that promises to save money and power and foster
the next tech boom,” according to the Sacramento Bee.
The renovations are being spun as positives for the utility’s customers, no more monthly visits from the meter reader and quicker repairs are both becoming popular sales
pitches for the new “smart meters.” “A home's power usage will be beamed straight to the utility, eliminating the meter-reader's monthly visit. If your power goes out,
the meter will tell SMUD instantly (now, the utility usually learns of outages when customers call),” the Bee further reports.
While technological innovation almost always means that consumers of a particular product or service will benefit, there are several problems with these electrical grid
renovations that should concern everyone. (Cameron English, Examiner)
SAN FRANCISCO - Maybe the future of climate friendly energy won't have as much to do with wind and solar energy as current booms in those technologies suggest.
Clouds and calm days could make the alternative energy stars bit players in a clean power future where round-the-clock dependability is critical.
That was one message from Microsoft Corp's deep thinker, Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie, whose view stirred controversy among energy executives.
"We should undoubtedly increase research and investment in alternative and renewable energy resources such as wind and solar but equally we need to be clear, at least in
my mind, that I don't think these are ever likely to be a substitute for today's primary resources, particularly if world demand at least doubles over the next 20
years," Mundie said in a speech to utility executives this week. (Reuters)
The Spanish professor is puzzled. Why, Gabriel Calzada wonders, is the U.S. president recommending that America emulate the Spanish model for creating "green
jobs" in "alternative energy" even though Spain's unemployment rate is 18.1 percent -- more than double the European Union average -- partly because of
spending on such jobs? (George F. Will, Washington Post)
BOSTON, MA – Recent studies forecasting the potential economic benefits of government green job programs are critically flawed and erroneously promote these jobs as a
benefit, according to a report released today by The Beacon Hill Institute (BHI) at Suffolk University.
The economic analysis reviewed the primary claims of three of the most influential green jobs studies and found serious economic flaws in each.
“Contrary to the claims made in these studies, we found that the green job initiatives reviewed in each actually causes greater harm than good to the American economy and
will cause growth to slow,” reported Paul Bachman, Director of Research at the Beacon Hill Institute, one of the report’s authors. (Beacon Hill Institute)
The use of nuclear power and/or renewable energy is seen as part of the response to climate change, but climate change may have a negative impact on some of these energy
sources, limiting the contribution they can make. (ERL)
In a Freudian slip, "Cash for Clunkers" is the latest Washington brainstorm to goose car sales while striking a fashion pose of being green. "Pimp my
ride" would be more accurate. The legislation, which is passed and awaiting President Obama's signature this next week, offers up to $4,500 in vouchers to purchase a new
car if it gets between 2 and 10 mpg more than the old car it replaces.
The industry, led by Undead Motors (formerly GM) and Zombie Motors (formerly Chrysler), is more than willing to grab a free lunch at our expense. Along for the ride are the
Japanese car makers, the UAW, and everyone else dining off the US taxpayers' carcass. With apologies to the Eagles' Lyin Eyes, has Congress ever wondered how it got this
crazy? ( Eric Singer, American Thinker)
BRUSSELS - Car makers are lobbying the European Union to delay an agreed 2011 ban on climate-damaging chemicals in car air conditioners, a letter from auto industry group
ACEA shows.
The move has aroused strong opposition from environmentalists and suppliers of greener engineering systems. (Reuters)
Thank Gaia for Steve Milloy, who has for more than a decade fought to stem the ever-rising waters of environmental hysteria via his Web site, junkscience.com, and his
personal activism. He has now written a book, Green Hell, that provides a jaw-dropping account of a society gone eco-mad.
How could you not love a man who, in 2007, rented an airplane to pull a banner over a Live Earth concert declaring “DON’T BELIEVE AL GORE.” Or who recruited students to
hand out Earth-themed beach balls at the same event bearing the words “I’m more worried about the intellectual climate”?
How could you not admire someone who staged a virtual version of the debate that Al Gore refuses to have by interposing clips of An Inconvenient Truth with segments
from The Great Global Warming Swindle and posting it all on YouTube?
How could you not laud an individual who exposed Ben & Jerry’s corporate humbug? In the summer of 2000, Mr. Milloy noticed a brochure in one of their stores titled
“Our Thoughts on Dioxin.” He read that “dioxin is known to cause cancer, genetic and reproductive defects and learning disabilities… The only safe level of dioxin
exposure is no exposure at all.” So he had the company’s “World’s Best Vanilla” tested and found that a single serving contained about 740 times the level of dioxin
considered “safe” for children!
Mr. Milloy also co-founded the Free Enterprise Action Fund, which peppers corporate executives not with questions on what they are doing about climate change (they’re used
to that), but why they are pointlessly pretending to do anything!
Green Hell shines the harsh light of objectivity on the usual NGO suspects, who are all here with their tame media megaphones, their corporate shakedowns and their
cozy backroom deals: the Environmental Defense Fund, The Natural Resource Defense Council, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, the Rainforest Action Network,
the World Wildlife Fund — the laundry machines of greenwashing. (Peter Foster, Financial Post)
Death from malaria means convulsions and delirium, retching and diarrhea, joint and abdominal pain so excruciating that coma can be a blessing. The parasitic infection
destroys the body’s red blood cells and clogs its capillaries, depriving vital organs and the brain of blood. That malaria strikes some 300 million people annually — and
kills an African child every 30 seconds — is all the more tragic given how preventable it is. But modern environmental ideology simply doesn’t permit the use of DDT, the
most effective means of eradicating the ghastly disease.
Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) certainly ranks among the most senselessly demonized synthetic compounds of all time. Despite decades of research vindicating the
insecticide, the World Health Organization recently announced plans for a “zero DDT world,” i.e., the total phase-out of the chemical during the next decade. Instead, the
agency, in conjunction with the UN Environmental Program, will spend $40-million to test “non-chemical” (read less successful) methods of malaria control.
Only three years ago, WHO had endorsed its widespread use, declaring that “DDT presents no health risk when used properly,” and “Spraying is like providing a huge
mosquito net over an entire household for around-the-clock protection.” The agency’s sanction in 2006 came 30 years after it renounced DDT amid unsubstantiated claims of
environmental risks.
Such policy yo-yo frustrates those on the front-lines of the malaria fight who see special-interest politics, not science, driving public health policy. Indeed, groups who
prosper by collecting contributions for bed nets and other less effective prevention methods are among the most virulent critics of DDT.
As Roger Bate, of Africa Fighting Malaria, recently told The Wall Street Journal: “Sadly, WHO’s about-face has nothing to do with science or health and everything to do
with bending to the will of well-placed environmentalists. Bed-net manufacturers and sellers of less-effective insecticides also don’t benefit when DDT is employed and
therefore oppose it, often behind the scenes.”
It was not always so. Swiss chemist Paul Muller was awarded a Nobel Prize for his formulation of DDT in 1939. Thereafter, it became the premiere weapon in defeating malaria
across North America, Southeast Asia and a chunk of Europe, freeing a billion people from the miseries of infection.
However, full-scale eradication efforts were never mounted in Africa, where 90% of malaria deaths now occur—most among children under age five.
Widespread agricultural application of DDT captured the attention of naturalist Rachel Carson and others, who claimed the chemical was destroying wildlife and causing cancer
in humans. In fact, a great deal of Carson’s conclusions about human health and the environment were patently wrong, more the product of her imagination than proper
scientific research.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT in 1972 despite the findings of administrative law Judge Edmund Sweeney, who concluded that DDT is not a carcinogenic,
mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to humans nor does it have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife.
Canada likewise banned its sale and use in 1990.
Nothing better has come along in the ensuing years. DDT remains the most affordable and effective method of “vector control,” which means it prevents infection by
reducing the transmission of malaria from infected mosquitoes to people. Spray the walls of a house and the bugs are repelled from entering. The chemical so irritates
mosquitoes that they exit fast. And, it kills any bugs that actually land on sprayed surfaces. Its potency can persist for up to a year, depending upon the concentration of
spray and type of wall surface.
Proper and timely applications of DDT reduce malaria transmission by up to 90%.
Despite DDT’s benefits and relative safety, the United Nations and World Health Organization prefer instead to promote more costly and less effective control methods.
Citing success with a pilot program in Central America (60% reduction of malaria cases), the agencies intend to replace DDT with “pharmacosuppression,” i.e., dispensing
the drug chloroquine to curb infection. But chloroquine has been shown to cause ventricular arrhythmias, while mosquitoes build resistance to the drug over time. Moreover,
the systematic delivery of legitimate drugs to millions of people in the poverty-plagued far reaches of Africa will be problematic, if not impossible. (In contrast, locals
can quickly be taught proper methods of in-home spraying.)
The “zero DDT world” campaign also includes promoting bed nets and window screens; planting mosquito-repellent trees and stocking waterways with mosquito-hungry fish;
draining ditches; and encouraging personal hygiene. None of which can match the affordability and ease of DDT, but all of which pass muster with the chemical-phobes.
Evidently, elements within the environmental lobby prefer the blood of malaria victims on their hands to DDT on the walls of malaria survivors. (Diane Katz, Financial Post)
Diane Katz is director of Risk, Environment & Energy Policy Studies at The Fraser Institute.
In May, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute published a study concerning formaldehyde exposure and cancers of the blood and bone marrow. As is far too often the
case these days, the authors overstated the results.
Listen to Betsy Natz, executive director of the Formaldehyde Council:
"Despite acknowledging that their findings are not definitive, the authors of the study took the step of asserting a possible link, rather than practice some prudent
epidemiological restraint. For example, the authors of the study have conceded that the patterns found in the data could be due to chance, while JNCI’s own editors wrote
that the study was based on 'limited measurement data' that would tend to compromise its conclusions."
An independent panel examined the study, and posted this
video. In the video, Dr. Phil Cole gives an objective discussion on the findings, and mentions that the National Academy of Sciences should examine all existing research
and produce its own report.
The number is 3,500. That’s the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s official limit on how much of the chemical Bisphenol A (BPA), measured by nanogram per
millilitre, an average male can safely take in every day of his life for 70 years. It’s a very small number. A nanogram is one billionth of a gram.
Humans are exposed to Bisphenol A through contact with plastic bottles and containers, tin cans lined with protective coatings and other polycarbonate products. The EPA
reference dose is based on its assessment of thousands of studies, including tests in which animals were injected with BPA and studies of humans exposed to it. The EPA, along
with regulators in Europe and Asia, have concluded that the current incidence of BPA is safe for all, including babies. French Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot said in March
that “baby bottles containing this chemical compound are innocuous.”
Now have a look at the graph above. It’s a reproduction from a new book, Slow Death By Rubber Duck: How the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects Our Health. Authors of
the book are Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie. Mr. Smith is executive director of Environental Defence, one of Canada’s leading science scaremongers and lobbyists.
Slow Death is a rehash of all the now-familiar claims about how we live in a toxic chemical soup that is supposedly the cause of most ailments known to man — from cancer to
genetic deformation, including turning men into women and vice-versa.
But Slow Death has a fresh and simple gimmick. Through the book, Mr. Smith and his partner deliberately expose themselves to various chemicals in ways that more or less mimic
normal behavior. They spray themselves with perfumes that contain phthalates, eat tuna fish allegedly loaded with mercury and test themselves for pesticide levels. The
result: A lot of hoary rhetoric, a few meaningless graphs and some numbers that — despite the hype — prove the opposite of their intent. (Terence Corcoran, Financial
Post)
A bitter debate is raging over a chemical called BPA (Bisphenol A), which environmental activists charge is endangering the health of “millions of babies.” In the wake
of widespread public alarm last fall, Health Canada banned BPA from baby bottles and infant formula packages, and members of the U.S. Congress are urging the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) to ban its use altogether. All this has occurred despite the fact that most scientific authorities, including Health Canada, do not regard the use of BPA
in consumer products as a serious health risk to either children or adults.
BPA’s use in various food containers and other food-contact materials was long regarded as safe, based on reviews of the scientific evidence conducted by government
regulators in the United States, Japan, Australia and the European Union, and by expert panels in France, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark and Norway. Moreover, our recent
survey of 937 toxicologists found that only 9% rated BPA as a serious health risk, about one-third the number who saw serious health risks in sunlight, ethyl alcohol or
aflatoxin, a naturally occurring fungus found in peanut butter.
Public concern hasn’t been driven by any dramatic change in scientific opinion. Instead it stems from a conjunction of chemophobic activists, controversial scientists and
credulous journalists. BPA is the latest in a long list of chemicals that environmental activists believe are poisoning our environment. In the case of many toxic substances,
such as environmental tobacco smoke, mercury in fish and lead in paint and gasoline, their warnings have served the public interest. But they have also overstated the dangers
of trace amounts of chemicals whose toxicity was established only for laboratory animals through methods that are not always applicable to humans. (S. Robert Lichter and
Trevor Butterworth, Financial Post)
When Prime Minister Stephen Harper launched the Chemicals Management Plan (CMP) in December, 2006, its objectives were, and remain, clear, noble and right. Canada would
lead the world “in assessing and regulating chemicals that are used in thousands of industrial and consumer products.”
Environment Canada, with Health Canada, is leading this process guided by the legislative framework of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA).
Based on my experience, industry fully supports the responsibility of Canadian governments to establish effective regulations to protect the health and safety of Canadians
and our environment. This support is based on the premise that regulations will be rooted in sound science.
However, after two-and-a-half years, the evidence-based decision making that should be driving CMP decisions is not being applied consistently. Moreover, the integrity of the
CMP process — both for domestic stakeholders and our global partners — is at risk due to poor communications from government, provincial regulatory creep and an
over-reliance on computer modelling as opposed to tried-and-true field science. Computer modelling has a role, but it was not designed to be a substitute for actual
environmental measurements, nor was it intended to be used for regulatory purposes in isolation of field data.
To be fair, communicating the findings of science and the concept of an “acceptable risk to human health” is challenging for government. Sadly, some governments have used
this complex policy area for short-term political gain at the expense of companies that consistently strive to provide Canadians with safe and beneficial products.
The experience around Bisphenol A during the past 18 months provides instructive lessons from which we can all learn. (Howard Mains, Financial Post)
Continuing with paradoxical correlations recently published in medical journals that we didn’t hear about, comes an analysis of the Helsinki Businessmen Study. As the
authors noted, ‘obese’ or ‘overweight’ is associated in the medical literature with a better prognosis and lower death rates compared with ‘normal’ weight people,
especially as people get older. They set out to see if losing or gaining weight during one’s adult life, or if traditional cardiac risk factors in middle-age, could
potentially explain the obesity paradox. The authors reported finding that being overweight or losing weight in midlife had the worst prognosis and greatest risk of dying
later in life.
Did you catch what they didn’t say? (Junkfood Science)
Whether you call it soda or pop, another tax scheme has just emerged from the House Ways and Means Committee to fund the massive government run health care scheme. This
time it's a 10 cent tax on each can of soda. That number sounds familiar since President Obama pledged as recently as February that no family earning less than $250,000 would
see its taxes increased by "a single dime. Not a single dime." This is a tax we can't afford for a plan we don't want!
Dozens of US cities may have entire neighbourhoods bulldozed as part of drastic "shrink to survive" proposals being considered by the Obama administration to
tackle economic decline. (TDT)
AN MP wants Queenslanders to be buried in cardboard coffins in natural bush cemeteries where the decomposing bodies can promote vegetation growth.
The "green in death" approach has been advocated by Labor's Barbara Stone who told Parliament about a body's "natural nutrients."
She suggested that more local authorities follow the lead of the Gold Coast City Council which is planning the state's first natural bushland cemetery.
"The site will be an old quarry to be filled with suitable soil so that bodies can decompose and provide valuable nutrients that encourage the rejuvenation of native
flora," she said. (Courier-Mail)
Why not just chuck 'em under a tree where bodies can provide "natural nutrients" for the ants & crows? With a population density of 2.76
people per square kilometer (about 7 people per square mile) Australia is so short of cemetery space, after all.
Around 1.2 million years ago, a shift in global climate began that caused a change in the timing of the alternating warm and cold periods—called interglacials and
glacials—that have persisted during the Pleistocene Ice Age. Prior to that time, ice age glacial periods lasted about 40,000 years but since ~700,000 years ago ice-age
cycles have lasted for around 100,000 years. Orbital variations, called the Croll-Milankovitch cycles, do exert some forcing on the 100,000 year time scale, but it is
relatively weak. Orbital cycles seem to many too feeble explanation an for the change in glacial-interglacial timing. Some scientists have attempted to attribute the timing
shift to a drop in CO2 but a new study confirms that carbon dioxide levels were not the cause of the climate shift. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth)
Suppose a company doctored data, misrepresented study findings, replaced observations with computer simulations and hired PR flacks to promote its new “wonder drug.”
News stories, congressional hearings and subpoenas would be in overdrive. Fines and jail sentences would follow. And rightly so.
But the standards change when “climate catastrophe” is involved.
The House of Representatives is preparing to vote on a 942-page bill to tax, regulate and penalize all US hydrocarbon energy use. The Senate promises an August vote. In
December, 190 countries will meet in Denmark to discuss slashing carbon dioxide emissions, to “save the planet from global warming disaster.” (Paul Driessen, Townhall)
The following is a guest post by Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Chris Walcek, a professor at the University at Albany in NY and a Senior Research Associate at the Atmospheric
Sciences Research Center who studies the relationship of pollutants within the atmosphere. (Marc Morano, Climate Depot)
The USA is beginning to savour in full the benefits of life under socialist government. It is expensive and wasteful. So it is no surprise that a breathtakingly
mendacious climate report has been issued with fanfares by the Obama government (or, indeed, by one of those coincidences
that seem to haunt the field, a supporting one from a British Government source). The capacity to ignore
objective evidence of falling global temperatures, in contradiction to years of forecasts in the other direction, is quite remarkable and only sustained by The Censorship in
the media.
If Americans wish for a foretaste of what they are in for they only have to look at the career of Gordon Brown. Can it really be over six years since our poet penned his
prophetic eulogy? Everything he does is at great expense to the populace, for example his endless game of musical
chairs in Departments of Government. His very vocabulary is built on deception – he never spends, he invests.
He has borrowed money at an ever increasing rate, but the worst of it is the future commitments he has taken on behalf of our grand children. There are hire purchase
agreements (in code – private finance initiative) and, perhaps worst of all, the gold-plate pensions given to his ever growing army of bureaucrats, who develop the
complexities that he so loves but blight the lives of ordinary people. He is still in denial about the public spending cuts that the next government, whatever its
complexions, is bound to have to implement. Otherwise the world will simply stop lending money to the national equivalent of a drunken spendthrift father who has reduced his
family to penury.
Meanwhile, we observe events in Washington with interest. (Number Watch)
Yesterday I reposted one of Warren Meyers essays on the hilariously flawed GCCI report from NCDC suggesting that the electrical grid is at risk due to increased weather
related events affecting electrical systems. The chart looked hinky, turns out it was. One wonders if these guys at NCDC know how to use a telephone, because one phone call
is all it took to verify the suspicions Warren had about this graph below being mostly about a change in reporting (baseline) rather than a real trend. His BS detector is
very good. Too bad the people at NCDC didn’t do some basic due diligence rather than accept the data at face value.
One private citizen and a phone call undid the entire premise of this graph portrayed by the National Climatic Data Center. We need more people like Warren willing to ask
questions.
Related: see my report on why tornado trends in general follow this same pattern that duped NCDC and why. – Anthony (WUWT)
When we drive on a long bridge over a river or fly in a passenger aircraft, we expect the bridge and the plane to have been designed and built in ways that are consistent
with proven scientific principles. Should we expect similar standards to apply to forecasts that are intended to help policymakers make important decisions that will affect
people’s jobs and even their lives? Of course we should. Such standards exist. But are they being followed?
The Financial Post asked us to look at a report last month from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change,
titled “Probabilistic Forecast for 21st Century Climate based on uncertainties in emissions (without policy) and climate parameters.”
The MIT report authors predicted that, without massive government action, global warming could be twice as severe as previously forecast, and more severe than the official
projections of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The MIT authors said their report is based in part on 400 runs of a computer model of
the global climate and economic activity.
While the MIT group espouses lofty-sounding objectives to provide leadership with “independent policy analysis and public education in global environmental change,” we
found their procedures inconsistent with important forecasting principles. No more than 30% of forecasting principles were properly applied by the MIT modellers and 49
principles were violated. For an important problem such as this, we do not think it is defensible to violate a single principle. (Kesten C. Green and J. Scott Armstrong,
Financial Post)
After several months of delay and some behind the scenes controversy, UK Climate Projections 2009 (UKCP09) launches today, June 18th, 2009. (Humanitarian Futures Programme)
On Thursday, the Met Office launched its new report on global warming, UK Climate Predictions 2009 otherwise known as UKCP09. This is based on the output of Hadley Centre
climate models that predict temperature increases of up to 6°C with wetter winters, dryer summers, more heatwaves, rising sea levels, more floods and all the other
catastrophes that one would expect from similar exercises in alarmism.
What makes this report different from any of its predecessors is the resolution of the predictions that the Met Office is making. They are not just presenting a general
impression of what might happen globally during this century, or even how climate change could affect the UK as a whole. They are claiming that they can predict what will
happen in individual regions of the country. Apparently there is even a page somewhere on their website where you can enter your postcode and find out how your street will be
affected by global warming in 2040 or 2080, although I’ve failed to find it.
All this is rather unexpected. In May last year, I posted here and here about a world summit of climate modellers that took place at Reading University. On the agenda was one
very important problem for them; even the most powerful super-computers that have been developed so far are not capable of running the kind of high resolution models that
they claim would allow them to reduce the degree of uncertainty in their predictions and also make detailed regional predictions that policy makers would like to have so that
they can build climate change into infrastructure planning. (Harmless Sky)
First let us deal with the inevitable question that comes up when one addresses this topic – what makes you think you are qualified to criticise computer models?
Your bending author:
Started digital computer modelling in about 1960 on the first digital computer delivered in the UK for academic research, after wasting a year on an analogue computer.
The machine was a Ferranti Pegasus, which had considerably less computing power than a modern
hand-held device. Indeed, the computer you are using to read this almost certainly has more computing power than the whole world had then.
In the subsequent forty years, reviewed hundreds of computer models – in undergraduate reports, PhD theses and, as a consultant, in industrial applications.
Most computer models are nonsense. This does not include those used by engineers in designing airplanes, bridges etc., which are based on detailed experiments on the
systems involved and tested in a variety of real conditions before being used.
The reason they are nonsense is that they tend to be based on guesses of the value of coefficients assumed, particularly and disastrously feedback
coefficients. There are few, however, that are quite as bad as climate models, where the physics of the interactions between variables and parameters is virtually unknown to
mankind.
So, in inevitable synchrony with the issue of the Obama Government’s excuses for draconian taxation, we have the UK media filled with dire predictions. The
Times, The
Telegraph and, of course, the BBC gave copious coverage, with many supplementary articles. The source is
the Met Office, one of the running jokes in the few pubs remaining after the New Labour revolution. Not only have they got the annual forecast grotesquely wrong two years
running (having forecast great heat, presumably on religious grounds) but they are not very good at telling us what the weather is going to do tomorrow. Their third attempt
at predicting a “barbecue summer” is not going very well so far, but they are bound to get it right one day.
Not to worry, however, because they now have an outrageously expensive super-computer. Unfortunately, if you write a program to print “two plus two equals five” you
get the same result however super the computer.
Imagine you settled down in your seat in a jumbo jet and noticed a plaque on the back of the seat in front which reads “This machine was designed with the aid of a
super-computer. We did not know the values of all the parameters, so had to guess most of them.” You would get off in a hurry. Yet the world’s political and media
establishment are asking you to gamble the economic future of yourself and your descendants on just such a proposition.
Computer modelling is one of the most powerful, yet dangerous, tools available to mankind. To be useful
it has to be hedged around with checks, tests and precautions. Ruthless, politically-motivated, members of the new establishment are not concerned with such niceties. They
want your money and your acquiescence and if it takes a (to say the least) dubious computer model to get them, so be it. (Number Watch)
The world faces a growing risk of ”abrupt and irreversible climatic shifts”, a scientific synthesis report released Thursday warns. (Michael von Bülow, COP15,
Copenhagen)
Find out what the left’s new segregation is all about, and why the future crimes department of corrections might want to lock you up for harboring naughty global warming
thoughts.
Still dare to be skeptical? Step right on up, it’s linkage you can believe in, with 10% added snark. (The Daily Bayonet)
In part one of this piece, I explained how the Harper Conservatives rode to power on a platform that
included open, common sense transparency in the climate debate; how they took full advantage of an electorate exhausted by past Prime Minister Jean Chetien’s opportunistic,
unscientific climate change bombast to tell Canadians that the Conservatives would promote an honest re-evaluation of the file from top to bottom.
I also started to explain how, after forming the government, the Conservatives turned the tables on core supporters by quietly adopting as their own, the adolescent climate
change rhetoric of their Liberal predecessors. This approach has resulted in today’s situation where a massive and unnecessary regime of carbon dioxide and other
‚’greenhouse gas’ emission ‚’cap and trade’ is about to be foisted on an unwitting public unaware of the coming storm. (Tom Harris, CFP)
The ocean is warming about 50 per cent faster than reported two years ago, according to an update of the latest climate science.
A report compiling research presented at a science congress in Copenhagen in March says recent observations are near the worst-case predictions of the 2007 report by the
United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
In the case of sea-level rise, it is happening at an even greater rate than projected - largely due to rising ocean temperatures causing thermal expansion of seawater.
Released last night at the European Policy Centre in Brussels, the report says ocean temperatures are a better indicator of global warming than air temperature as the ocean
stores more heat and responds more slowly to change. (The Age)
Polar bear populations in and around Alaska are declining due to continued melting of sea ice and Russian poaching, according to reports released Friday by the US Fish and
Wildlife Service.
Fewer polar bears have survived in the southern Beaufort Sea, which extends from northern Alaska to parts of Canada, and in the Chukchi and Bering Seas between northwestern
Alaska and Russia, the agency's draft population assessments show.
Officials say the drop among the Chukchi and Bering bears is likely steeper than for those in the Beaufort, due to a more dramatic melt of sea ice, which the bears need to
travel and forage for food, and an illegal Russian hunt believed to be killing 150 to 250 bears a year.
The assessments, though incomplete, are disturbing, said an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, which petitioned and later sued the federal government to add
polar bears and walruses to the US Endangered Species Act list. (Reuters)
Scientists have unearthed striking evidence of a sudden collapse in plant biodiversity from a trove of 200-million-year-old fossil leaves collected in East Greenland that
raises new concerns about the dangers of global warming. One of the most likely culprits for this great loss of plant life, to be reported in the Friday, June 19, issue of
the journal Science, was a relatively small rise in the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, which caused the Earth’s temperature to rise.
The international team, which includes researchers from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, University College Dublin and the University of Oxford, found
rapid reductions in the density of plant-fossil distribution in the samples collected. In analyzing the stratigraphy of the sampled areas, they found normal patterns of
density and diversity of life in the first 20 meters. “But the final 10 meters show dramatic losses of diversity that far exceed what we can attribute to sampling error,”
said Peter Wagner, paleobiologist at the museum. “The ecosystems were supporting fewer and fewer species of notable abundance.”
Global warming due to a rise in greenhouse gasses has long been considered a cause for the extinction of species. The surprise find from this new study is that it looks like
much less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is needed to drive an ecosystem beyond its tipping point than previously considered.
Despite the probability of a carbon dioxide-fueled extinction, lead author Jennifer McElwain of UCD cautions that additional atmospheric gasses such as sulfur dioxide from
extensive volcanic emissions may also have played a role in plant extinctions. “The problem is that as yet we have no way of detecting changes in sulfur dioxide in the
past, so it is difficult to evaluate if sulfur dioxide in addition to a rise in carbon dioxide influenced the pattern of extinction we see among the fossils," said
McElwain. (7thSpace Interactive)
Checking the facts:
The IPCC's projections for the future effects of climate change are generated, as is well known, by an array of computer models which attempt to reproduce the highly complex
inter-connected aspects of the Earth's atmosphere and climate. This approach has often been criticised because it places undue reliance on a set of assumptions and treats the
output as though it represented reality. But, setting aside these concerns, what if some of the basic data used as inputs for the models was wrong? As the saying goes,
"garbage in, garbage out".
Serious questions have previously been asked about the economic growth scenarios used. Broadly, these assume growth rates for developing countries which many economists
regard as unrealistically high, leading to a modelled global economy which, by the end of the present century, would have a much greater energy demand than would be likely
for more reasonable rates of growth. David Henderson and Ian Castles also pointed out in 2002 that economic growth was modelled on the basis of market exchange rates rather
than the more meaningful purchasing power parity, again artificially inflating the size of many economies. Even the lowest growth scenario postulated a 70-fold increase in
GDP/capita for developing countries in Asia from 1990 to 2100. Nothing close to this has ever been achieved before.
But there are other areas of concern. The IPCC "business as usual" baseline assumes limitless supplies of fossil fuels over the next century or more, such that the
vast increase in energy needed to enable the enormous projected growth in the global economy would essentially all be supplied by oil, gas and coal. The underlying trend of
reducing carbon intensity in growing economies does not seem to have been taken into account, but there is an even more basic issue regarding exploitable reserves of fossil
fuels. ...
Ocean "acidification":
In what is increasingly looking like a fallback position for the carbon-control lobby, the issue of ocean acidification is getting a higher profile. The argument goes that,
whatever happens to the air temperature, a higher level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will lead to greater concentrations in the oceans (which is unarguably true).
However, CO2 affects pH by forming a weak acid (carbonic acid) when it dissolves. Everything being equal, more carbon dioxide will move the pH in the acid direction and this,
argue some, will ultimately be dangerous for sea life, since many creatures will find it increasingly difficult to use the calcium in seawater to produce their shells.
In practice, the situation is more complex than that. First, the oceans are actually slightly alkaline, with an average pH of 8.2 (although alkalinity varies by about 0.3
unit from area to area). To become acid, the pH must fall below 7 (neutrality). So far, in moving from the generally-accepted pre-industrial figure for atmospheric carbon
dioxide concentration of 280ppm to the present roughly 380ppm, ocean pH has dropped on average by about 0.1 unit. ... (Scientific Alliance)
NASA announces yet another explanation for the late arrival of Solar Cycle 24 (nearly two years after it was supposed to have started). (Solar Science)
The weblog for today shows how the presence of irrigated landscapes in semiarid regions can result in a substantial alteration in the intensity of thunderstorms. (Roger
Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
The weblogs of our research papers present observational and modeling evidence of the significant role of landscape processes on weather and climate Today’s paper
summarizes why these effects have significant consequences on local and regional climate. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
Progress towards a new global climate agreement has been slow. SPIEGEL spoke with China's head climate negotiator Yu Qingtai about Western responsibility for CO2 emissions
in China and frustration in the developing world. (Der Spiegel)
House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) on Friday said climate change bill negotiators are heading back to the drawing board after discussions between
Democrats “blew up last night.”
A meeting between chairmen drafting the climate bill and Democrats on the Agriculture Committee “by and large blew up last night” over the issue of offsets, Peterson
said.
Specifically, he said, Agriculture Democrats rejected a concept pitched by bill drafters that would set money aside for a new greenhouse gas conservation program tied
together with some offsets.
“It’s a whole new concept being brought in at the last minute,” Peterson said. “Many didn’t like it. ... The bottom line is we’re not going to consider anything
unless we actually see the language and have it for three or four days so we can figure out what it does.”
Peterson said he hopes to find some resolution later Friday when he heads into another meeting with Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), White House
officials and farm groups.
But for now, he said, there is no proposal on the table to resolve the biggest concern among Democrats with agricultural interests: how to ensure the offset program works for
farmers.
“We’re back to how do we deal — we want USDA to run our offset program; they want EPA to run it,” Peterson said. “Not that we’re necessarily against the EPA; they
just speak a different language. They don’t have the infrastructure out there to deal with us.”
Added Peterson, “I’m tired of this running around in circles.” (Roll Call)
Our legacy starts now. Discussion on the link between global warming and carbon pollution began in the 1890s. Mainstream science has been establishing the link for more
than 20 years. Globally, 13 of the 14 warmest years on record were between 1995 and 2008.
Despite all these warnings, we have accelerated the carbon pollution that is causing climate change. Next week, for the first time, the Senate will vote on laws that will
stop that growth.
If the Senate passes the laws, by 2020 our carbon pollution will be reduced by as much as 25 per cent from where it was in 2000. If it does not, Australia's carbon pollution
will be 20 per cent higher than in 2000. (Penny Wong, Sydney Morning Herald)
THE evidence of global warming keeps piling up but that seems only to embolden the climate contrarians and sceptics to press their case harder.
Why shouldn't they, as they are having some success in raising doubts among politicians? (Mike Steketee, The Australian)
Wonder if Mike would care to actually mention something that qualifies as evidence enhanced greenhouse could cause catastrophic climate change,
much less will.
Soon our elected representatives will be asked to vote on Senator Wong’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
This scheme is not about carbon or pollution. Its main effect is to provide for a cap on the human production of carbon dioxide, a colourless harmless natural gas. Carbon
dioxide is no more a pollutant than oxygen or water, the other two atmospheric gases on which all life on earth relies.
The bill will also levy a tax on whatever carbon dioxide is produced, and levy an excess production tax on anyone whose production exceeds the legal cap. It is a carbon
dioxide Cap-n-Tax Bill.
Starting this week near Madison Square Garden in New York, a 70-foot-high, red digital display sign will indicate projected tons of greenhouse gases that we’re putting
into the atmosphere. This giant counter is both green guilt baiting and an advertising stunt by a European climate consultants business venture that expects Obama’s
cap-and-trade climate regulations to make them very rich. (Paul Taylor, LA Ecopolitics Examiner)
SACRAMENTO — When a company called Ausra filed plans for a big solar power plant in California, it was deluged with demands from a union group that it study the effect
on creatures like the short-nosed kangaroo rat and the ferruginous hawk.
By contrast, when a competitor, BrightSource Energy, filed plans for an even bigger solar plant that would affect the imperiled desert tortoise, the same union group,
California Unions for Reliable Energy, raised no complaint. Instead, it urged regulators to approve the project as quickly as possible.
One big difference between the projects? Ausra had rejected demands that it use only union workers to build its solar farm, while BrightSource pledged to hire labor-friendly
contractors.
As California moves to license dozens of huge solar power plants to meet the state’s renewable energy goals, some developers contend they are being pressured to sign
agreements pledging to use union labor. If they refuse, they say, they can count on the union group to demand costly environmental studies and deliver hostile testimony at
public hearings.
If they commit at the outset to use union labor, they say, the environmental objections never materialize. (NYT)
Thanks to new drilling technologies that are unlocking substantial amounts of natural gas from shale rocks, the nation’s estimated gas reserves have surged by 35
percent, according to a study due for release on Thursday.
The report by the Potential Gas Committee, the authority on gas supplies, shows the United States holds far larger reserves than previously thought. The jump is the largest
increase in the 44-year history of reports from the committee.
The finding raises the possibility that natural gas could emerge as a critical transition fuel that could help to battle global warming. For a given amount of heat energy,
burning gas produces about half as much carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming, as burning coal.
Estimated natural gas reserves rose to 2,074 trillion cubic feet in 2008, from 1,532 trillion cubic feet in 2006, when the last report was issued. This includes the proven
reserves compiled by the Energy Department of 237 trillion cubic feet, as well as the sum of the nation’s probable, possible and speculative reserves. (NYT)
An in-depth examination of the science, risk assessment, and media coverage of the most controversial chemical since alar, drawing on interviews with the lead authors of
two major risk assessments, and focusing on the accuracy of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's award-winning series, "Chemical Fallout," and the newspaper's campaign
to have the chemical banned. (Trevor Butterworth, STATS)
Wigle, DT, MC Turner and D Krewski. 2009. A systematic review and meta-analysis of childhood leukemia and parental occupational pesticide exposure. Environmental Health
Perspectives doi:10.1289/ehp.0900582.
Synopsis by Negin P. Martin, Ph. D and Kim Harley, Ph.D.
Children whose mothers were exposed to pesticides at work while pregnant are at double the risk of developing childhood leukemia.
A detailed analysis of all the available studies comparing work-related, parental pesticide exposure and childhood leukemia finds that the mother’s exposure during
pregnancy increases her child’s risk of the disease. The father’s exposure before pregnancy does not.
The study emphasizes the significant contribution of prenatal exposure in developing childhood disease and shows a need for more in-depth studies of the effects of prenatal
exposures to environmental factors. (Environmental Health Sciences)
But is this just the old problem of population churning exposing people to infectious agents? That mom's exposure is important while dad's is not
suggests mom & infant must be exposed directly (just because dad gets work away from home does not seem important). We've had claims of "clusters" in
construction towns (usually investigated because they are say, nuclear facility constructions, factory towns or the like) but this has never been shown as any different
from any other population churn exposure so why would their meta dredge come up with any different result (this time associated with pesticides but that could merely be a
marker for seasonal workers and more population churning)?
A federal crackdown on toxic air pollution from cement plants is generating blowback from the industry, and an official with the company that runs a kiln in Union Bridge
northwest of Baltimore warns that the plant may be unable to meet the new clean-air rule.
The Environmental Protection Agency wants to require cement plants, among the nation's leading air polluters, to reduce emissions of mercury and other harmful pollutants by
70 to 90 over the next four years. In addition to curbing mercury, a known neurotoxin, the EPA is proposing tighter limits on cement plant emissions of hydrocarbons,
hydrochloric acid and fine particles.
But in hearings this week in Los Angeles and Dallas, industry representatives are contending that the pollution reductions would be so difficult and expensive to achieve that
they may undermine the US cement industry, endangering thousands of jobs. There's a third hearing Thursday in Arlington, Va.
The Portland Cement Association, an industry group, has issued a statement calling the rules "excessively stringent" and so costly they could force many plants to
close and make the US building industry import cement. (Baltimore Green)
It's a shame that too few consumers understand what medical professionals do about what’s coming and being planned for them in healthcare reform and the woo that is
today’s preventive health movement. Dr. Westby G. Fisher, M.D., a board certified internist, cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist at NorthShore University
HealthSystem and Associate Professor of Medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, writes a satirical letter to his
patients, advising them to stay healthy! (Junkfood Science)
Obesity not only harms a child's body, but it also causes significant psychological damage to children as young as 10, a large new Canadian study shows.
The study, based on a nationally representative sample of 10 and 11-year olds, found that obese children had almost twice the odds of reporting low self-esteem when compared
to normal-weight kids. (Sharon Kirkey, Canwest New Service)
Having more junk food than produce for sale close to homes is associated with a greater prevalence of obesity in Edmonton neighbourhoods, according to a study released
Wednesday.
University of Alberta researchers conducted a telephone survey of 2,300 people in the city and surrounding communities and collected data on their body measurements.
The researchers also tabulated the "retail food environment index," or RFEI, calculated as the ratio of the availability of fast-food restaurants and convenience
stores to grocery stores and produce vendors. (CBC News)
A new study by Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) researchers contradicts the conventional wisdom that living near a fast food outlet increases
weight in children and that living near supermarkets, which sell fresh fruit and vegetables as well as so called junk food, lowers weight.
The IUPUI investigators in economics, pediatrics, geography and urban planning compared children's weights over time before and after one of these food purveyors moved near
the children's residences. Living near a fast food outlet had little effect on weight and living near a supermarket did not lower it.
The IUPUI researchers also report that residing near certain recreational amenities -- fitness areas, kickball diamonds, and volleyball courts -- lowers children's body mass
indexes (adjusted for normal childhood growth). The researchers estimated that locating one of these facilities near the home of an overweight eight-year-old boy could lower
his weight by three to six pounds. Surprisingly, living in proximity to a track and field facility (typically on the campus of a middle or high school) was associated with
weight gain. (ScienceDaily)
The Italian restaurant backed by celebrities Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich is one of several shunning bottled water, along with the city of San Francisco and New York
state.
"The argument for local water is compelling and obvious," said Bastianich, who is phasing out bottled water across his restaurant empire, which stretches to Los
Angeles.
"It's about transportation, packaging, the absurdity of moving water all over the world," he said. (Reuters)
... people buying restaurant food are basically buying an image, an illusion and if you start denigrating one illusion (better water) then what's to stop
people figuring they shouldn't do without the restaurant illusion too? What makes your ambiance environmentally affordable as opposed the one closer to home?
"Environmentalists make people feel bad, and making people feel bad is a terrible marketing strategy," Dorfman said, explaining the concept of his new television
series debuting on the Sundance Channel on Tuesday, "The Lazy Environmentalist."
"Prophecies of doom and gloom or trying to appeal to a moral imperative, those tactics appeal to a very small minority that change their behavior," Dorfman said in
an interview. "I'm interested in implementing change for the great majority." (Reuters)
They're right in one respect -- you shouldn't feel environmental guilt and you shouldn't listen to dopey misanthropes either, whether they call
themselves environmentalists or not.
Air pollution in the lower Fraser Valley would be no worse than it is today, whether Metro Vancouver burns its garbage in incinerators or hauls it away to distant
landfills.
That’s the result of a consultant’s study of air quality impacts attributed to each of eight scenarios studied for future waste disposal.
The report by RWDI Air Inc. found Metro Vancouver’s waste now accounts for just 0.1 to 1.2 per cent of air contaminant levels in the lower Fraser Valley.
It found that those levels would be lower still by 2020 – no matter which waste technology Metro chooses – for particulate, nitrogen oxides and sulphur oxides. (Jeff
Nagel, Black Press)
Few of us had heard of Glenn Beck a few years ago. Now the conservative talk-jock is everywhere. His radio show reaches eight million people. He's performing live before
sold-out crowds on a comedy tour.
He's had No. 1 bestsellers in both fiction and nonfiction -- plus a new book, "Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government" came out this week.
And now he's host of his own Fox News show, which, even though it airs in the ratings desert of late afternoon, has a bigger audience than every show on the other cable news
channels.
Why is he so popular? Beck says it's because he really believes what he says. I don't buy that. Rachel Maddow and Lou Dobbs believe what they say, but their audience is a
fraction of Beck's. I hope he's popular because of what he says, like: "Both parties only believe in the power of the party"; "if we get out of people's way,
the sky's the limit"; and the answers to our problems "never come from Washington." (John Stossel, Townhall)
"Live Free or Die" is the title of author and columnist Mark Steyn's speech at Hillsdale College, reproduced in Imprimis (April 2009), a Hillsdale publication
that's free for the asking. Canadian born, now living in New Hampshire, Steyn has had firsthand experience with socialist tyranny in his home country that is rapidly becoming
a part of America. Commenting on one of his run-ins with Canada's human rights commissions, Steyn points how it might seem bizarre to find the progressive left making common
cause with radical Islam. One half of that alliance is pro-gay, pro-feminist secularists and the other half is homophobic, misogynist theocrats. Steyn argues what they have
in common overrides their differences, namely, "Both the secular Big Government progressives and the political Islam recoil from the concept of the citizen, of the free
individual entrusted to operate within his own societal space, assume his responsibilities, and exploit his potential." (Walter E. Williams, Townhall)
WOOLLY mammoths, scientists have discovered, were roaming Britain 14,000 years ago – seven thousand years after they were thought to have died out.
New radiocarbon dating of remains of an adult male and at least four juveniles found in Britain shows the iconic Ice Age beast, characterised by its spirally curved tusks,
was wiped out by climate change rather than prehistoric humans hunting it to extinction.
The discovery of the bones in a Shropshire quarry at Condover in 1986 was one of the most important finds in Britain during the last 100 years, but the dating carried out at
the time is now considered inaccurate.
Palaeobiologist Professor Adrian Lister said: "Mammoths are conventionally believed to have become extinct in north western Europe about 21,000 years ago during the main
ice advance, known as the Last Glacial Maximum.
"Our new radiocarbon dating of the Condover mammoths changes that, by showing that mammoths returned to Britain and survived until around 14,000 years ago."
The analysis of both the bones and the surrounding environment, described in the Geological Journal, suggests some mammoths remained part of British wildlife long after they
are conventionally believed to have died out. (The Scotsman)
Letter: “Warmists are Eco-vandals.”
We must assess the environmental damage caused by global warming alarmists.
Six stand out.
Firstly, by mandating the use of bio-fuels for motor vehicles, they have accelerated clear felling of tropical forests for palm oil plantations.
Secondly, by subsidising ethanol production, they have increased the area of cultivated land covered with a sterile mono-culture of ethanol crops. This also created a grain
shortage and soaring food prices.
Thirdly, their silly carbon credit rules have replaced productive native pastures with monotonous forests of woody weeds which harbour feral pests and provide the ready fuel
for wild fires. This problem is exacerbated by their bans on clearing regrowth.
Fourthly, by putting carbon taxes on coal but not on wood, they have increased legal and illegal logging to feed thermal power stations on wood. This also increases power
costs.
Fifthly, their blind worship of piddle-power has blighted vast areas of land and sea shore with noisy and ugly wind towers and solar panels and scarred the landscape with
their network of transmission lines and maintenance roads.
And finally, by their vilification of coal, they have delayed the provision of clean electricity to Indian and Chinese cities, thus increasing the choking Asian smog caused
by open air burning of wood, dung, coal, coke, cardboard and rubbish.
Oblivious to all of this damage to the environment and living costs, climate continues to change naturally, in tune with the sun.
Michael Raper, a professional alarmist (and non-scientist) of the Red Cross, tells the ABC’s Fran Kelly that more people are dying each year from natural disasters
caused by the villain guaranteed to get his outfit most media attention: (Andrew Bolt Blog)
Below is a guest post by Geophysicist Dr. David Deming, associate professor of arts and sciences at the University of Oklahoma, who has published numerous peer-reviewed
research articles. (Marc Morano, Climate Depot)
It was hailed as a breathtaking scientific discovery: two ancient skulls of an apparently primitive hominid, an ancestor of man. Dubbed "Piltdown man," (Eoanthropus
dawsoni) it was unearthed in Britain in 1912 by Charles Dawson.
Here, excited scientists declared, was the long sought "missing link" part human, part ape, a primitive Brit sporting the noble brow of Homo sapiens and an ape's
primitive jaw.
Here at last was proof that we are Bongo's evolutionary descendants. Science was agog. Sounding like Al Gore, gullible scientists assured the world that the science was
settled. Darwinian evolutionary theory was a proven fact.
It wasn't.
It took 41 years for the truth to emerge — Piltdown man was a scam. In 1953, the roof fell in: Piltdown man was not our ancestor; nor was it a case of mistaken identity. It
was, as Richard Harter wrote in "The Bogus Bones Caper," a case of outright deliberate fraud.
We’d been had.
I thought of this old scam when I read this morning of a document being peddled by the Obama administration and touted by global warming alarmists. We are, this panic-ridden
report produced by a bevy of 30 scientists on the payrolls of 13 Obama administration government agencies responsible for dealing with the effects of alleged climate change,
facing unimaginable horrors as a result of global warming. (Philip V. Brennan, Newsmax)
Even a $600-a-year increase in utility bills would be a "hardship" for 78% of American families, notes a recent Lauer Johnson Research poll. They should be so
lucky.
If the pending Waxman-Markey energy and climate bill (HR 2454) becomes law, utility bills will soar. Farm and business energy costs will skyrocket — and be passed on to
consumers, or defrayed by layoffs. Everything Americans grow, make, buy and do will be far pricier. And bureaucrats will control our lives.
Compared to no cap-and-tax regime, Waxman-Markey would cost the United States a cumulative $9.6 trillion in real GDP losses by 2035, concludes a study by the Heritage
Foundation's Center for Data Analysis. The bill would also cause an additional 1.1 million job losses each year, raise electricity rates 90% after adjusting for inflation,
provoke a 74% hike in inflation-adjusted gasoline prices, and add $1,500 to the average family's annual energy bill, says Heritage.
The Congressional Budget Office says the poorest one-fifth of families could see annual energy costs rise $700 — while high-income families could see costs rise $2,200.
Harvard economist Martin Feldstein estimates that the average person could pay an extra $1,500 per year for energy. And those are just direct energy costs. (Paul Driessen,
IBD)
Environment: Democrats failed to create jobs with their unnecessary, pork-laden stimulus bill. Now they want to kill even more of them with an equally unnecessary global
warming bill.
The party that cares so much about jobs for "working families" sure has a funny way of saving them.
Amid pre-summer frosts and hailstorms, the White House this week released a sky-is-falling report on global warming that outdoes even Al Gore in predicting doomsday
scenarios. (Investors.com)
BEIJING - Climate change is making some of the poorest people in China even more destitute and undermining the development that has been a cornerstone of Communist rule,
academics and campaigners said on Wednesday.
The most poverty-stricken parts of the country are often also the most vulnerable to changing weather patterns, and farmers in these places are already feeling the pinch from
floods and drought, a report from Greenpeace and aid group Oxfam said. (Reuters)
The Chinese gateway to the ancient Silk Road is being flooded – and the culprit, researchers say, is climate change. Melting glaciers sitting above the Hexi corridor in
Gansu province, once an important trading and military route into Central Asia, are fuelling dramatic regional floods.
The finding illustrates a major problem for the coming century: around the world, arid regions that sit next to glaciers will suffer a spate of floods, then dry up completely
when the glaciers melt away. (New Scientist)
There is "scarcely an instrument of U.S. foreign policy" that was not vulnerable to climate change, which scientists say will raise sea levels by melting
glaciers and ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica, Kerry, a Democrat, said at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting. (Reuters)
A spokeswoman for the parliamentary group of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives said the group will reconsider the carbon capture and storage (CCS) law again in two
weeks.
In the meantime, the economy and environment ministries will attempt to resolve questions about the bill, which has already given rise to public concerns, she added.
Conservatives had been scheduled to vote on the legislation on Tuesday.
The CCS law would pave the way for further developing technology aimed at cutting pollution from coal-burning power plants, by holding CO2 indefinitely in underground storage
facilities. (Reuters)
Carbon dioxide is not an atmospheric pollutant! It is an essential trace gas!
Chu launched the "Low Carbon Communities of the Americas" program at an event on energy and climate change that was put together after presidents at the Fifth
Summit of the Americas in April agreed to collaborate more on green energy issues. (Reuters)
But ACI Europe's scheme did not set a deadline for airports to become carbon neutral -- largely by cutting emissions from ground transport, boosting renewable energy and
reducing the energy consumption of buildings. (Reuters)
Bonn, Germany – Although aggressively reducing CO2 emissions remains the primary target for avoiding the long-term effects of climate change, panelists at a side event
last week at the UNFCCC meetings in Bonn, Germany, emphasized that the contribution of non-CO2 climate forcers cannot be ignored and called for urgent action to reduce these
forcers in order to avoid abrupt climate change.
“I think we sometimes forget that carbon dioxide is only half of what is causing climate change,” said Cynthia Ehmes, head of delegation for the Federated States of
Micronesia (FSM). Ehmes spoke at the event on behalf of Andrew Yatilman, the Director of the Office of Environment and Emergency Management for FSM. “The climate challenge
is simply too immense to be solved by only addressing half of the problem.” (Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development)
Today’s paper documents with observational data the major role of irrigated crops on the surface and boundary layer temperatures and moisture in a semi arid
region.
“The present study provides a preliminary evaluation of mesoscale circulations forced by surface gradients of heating arising from irrigated areas adjacent to dry
land, utilizing a combination of satellite, observational, and modeling approaches. The irrigated crop areas of northeast Colorado were chosen for the study. For the cases
studied satellite surface infrared temperature data indicated a typical temperature contrast of approximately 10 K at noon, between the irrigated area and the adjacent dry
land. Surface observations and aircraft measurements within the lower region of the atmospheric boundary layer indicated, in general, a significant temperature contrast and
moisture difference, thereby implying a potential thermally driven circulation. The anticipated thermally induced flows, however, were reflected in the measurements only by
modest changes in the wind speed and wind direction across the contrast location. It is suggested that the daytime, elevated, terrain-forced flow in the area, and the
synoptic flow, combined to mask to varying degrees the thermally induced circulation due to the irrigated land-dry land area effect. Numerical model simulations which were
carried out over the studied area support this hypothesis. In addition, the impact of the irrigated areas on the moisture within the boundary layer, as well as on potential
convective cloud developments is discussed.” (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
Since I get asked so often what I think of the Vostok ice core data that James Hansen uses as ‘proof’ that CO2 drives temperature, I decided to spend a few days
analyzing that data, as well as the Milankovitch forcings calculated by Huybers and
Denton (2008) which (allegedly) helps drive the global temperature variations seen in the Vostok Data.
The following graph shows most of the 400,000 year Vostok record of retrieved temperature and CO2 content. Assuming that these estimates really are what they are claimed
to be, what can they tell us — if anything — about the role of carbon dioxide in climate change?
First off you need to realize there has been a long history of debate in the climate community about the 3 Milankovitch cycles in solar forcing being the driving force for
the Ice Ages. As far as I can discern, there have been at least three main problems with the Milankovitch theory.
First, the huge Vostok cycle at about 100,000 years remain unexplained because the Milankovitch cycles show no amplification for those events, just a regular series of
small forcings which tend to be correlated with the smaller bumps on the curves of Vostok temperature and CO2 in the above graph.
A second problem has been that the positive correlation with Vostok (at the South Pole) came from NORTHERN Hemispheric forcing, not from the Southern Hemisphere. In the
south, the Milankovitch forcings were out of phase with the temperature response in the Vostok ice core record. This has presented the problem of how Northern Hemispheric
changes in solar forcing could cause such huge changes in Antarctic climate.
The third problem is that the Milankovitch forcings are so small it was difficult to see how they could cause even the smaller temperature changes in the ice core record
– UNLESS climate sensitivity is very high (that is, feedbacks are strongly positive). This appears to be James Hansen’s view: the small Milankovitch forcings caused small
increases in temperature, which in turn caused increases in carbon dioxide, which then took over as the forcing mechanism.
The recent paper by Huybers and Denton claims to have alleviated the 2nd and 3rd problems. If one assumes it is the length of summer in the Southern Hemisphere
(rather than average yearly solar intensity) which is the main driving force for changing the Antarctic ice sheet, and also accounts for the fact that it takes many thousands
of years for the ice sheet (and thus the temperature) to change in response to that summertime forcing, then the Southern Hemisphere Milankovitch cycles really do line up
pretty well in time with the smaller Vostok events (but still not the huge 100,000 year events), and the “forcing” involved also becomes larger.
The Role of CO2 in the Vostok Record
So, where does CO2 fit into all of this? Well, at face value Hansen’s theory does require that temperature drives CO2. It has often been noted that the Vostok CO2 record
lags the temperature record by an average of 800 years, which is somewhat of a problem for Hansen’s theory. But then there have been uncertainties in dating the CO2 record
due to assumptions that have to be made about how far and how fast the CO2 migrates through the ice core, giving the appearance of a different age for the CO2. So the
lead-lag relationship still has some uncertainty associated with it.
But even if the CO2 and the temperature record lined up perfectly, would that mean Hansen is correct? No. It all hinges on the assumption that there was no forcing other
than CO2 that caused the temperature changes. Hansen’s theory requires that the temperature variations cause the CO2 changes, which begs the question: What started the
temperature change to begin with? And what if the mechanism that started the temperature change is actually responsible for most of the temperature change? In that
case, the climate sensitivity inferred from the co-variations between temperature and CO2 becomes less. The fact that even the recent work of Huybers and Denton does not
address the major question of what caused the huge 100,000 year cycle in the Vostok data suggests there might be a forcing mechanism that we still don’t know about.
If CO2 is the main forcing in the Vostok record, then it takes only about 10 ppm increase in CO2 to cause 1 degree C temperature change. The full range of CO2 forcing in
the Vostok record amounts to 1.6 to 2 Watts per sq. meter, and if that caused the full range of temperature variations, then today we still have as much as 10 deg. C of
warming “in the pipeline” from the CO2 we have put in the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning. That’s because 1.6 Watts per sq. meter is about the same amount of
manmade forcing that supposedly exists in today’s atmosphere.
But if some other forcing is responsible for the temperature change, that necessarily implies lower climate sensitivity. And the greater the unknown forcing involved, the
smaller the climate sensitivity you will calculate.
The Central Question of Causation
I believe that the interpretation of the Vostok ice core record of temperature and CO2 variations has the same problem that the interpretation of warming and CO2 increase
in the last century has: CAUSATION. In both cases, Hansen’s (and others’) inference of high climate sensitivity (which would translate into lots of future manmade
warming) depends critically on there not being another mechanism causing most of the temperature variations. If most of the warming in the last 100 years was due to CO2, then
that (arguably) implies a moderately sensitive climate. If it caused the temperature variations in the ice core record, it implies a catastrophically sensitive climate.
But the implicit assumption that science knows what the forcings were of past climate change even 50 years ago, let alone 100,000 years ago, strikes me as hubris. In
contrast to the “consensus view” of the IPCC that only “external” forcing events like volcanoes, changes in solar output, and human pollution can cause climate
change, forcing of temperature change can also be generated internally. I believe this largely explains what we have seen for climate variability on all time scales.
A change in atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns could easily accomplish this with a small change in low cloud cover over the ocean. In simple terms, global warming
might well be mostly the result of a natural cycle.
The IPCC simply assumes this internally-generated forcing of climate never occurs. If they did, they would have to admit they have no clue how much warming in the last 50
years is natural versus anthropogenic.
Fears of substantial manmade warming are critically dependent upon the assumption that the climate system never changes all by itself, naturally, or that there were not
other external forcing mechanisms at work we are not aware of. Given the complex nonlinear behavior of the climate system, it seems to me that the assumption that things like
global average low cloud cover always stays the same is unwarranted. In the end, in scientific research it’s the scientific assumptions that come back to bite you.
Where Does this Leave Carbon Dioxide?
About the only thing that seems like a safe inference from the Vostok record is that temperature drives CO2 variations – even Hansen’s theory requires that much —
but the view that CO2 then caused most of the temperature variations seems exceedingly speculative.
And, if you are thinking of using the Vostok record to support warming driving today’s CO2 increase, you can forget it. In the Vostok record it amounts to only about 8
to 10 ppm per degree C, whereas our ~1 deg. C warming in the last 100 years has been accompanied by about 10 times that much CO2 increase.
The bottom line is that fears of substantial manmade climate change are ultimately based upon the assumption that we know what caused past climate change. For if past
climate changes were caused by tiny forcings (too tiny for us to know about), then the climate system is very sensitive. Of course, those forcings might have been quite large
– even self-imposed by the climate system itself — and we still might not know about them.
Finally, as a side note, it is interesting that the modern belief that our carbon emissions have caused the climate system to rebel are not that different from ancient
civilizations that made sacrifices to the gods of nature in their attempts to get nature to cooperate. Technology might have changed over time, but it seems human nature has
remained the same. (Roy W. Spencer)
DENVER -- Conservation groups challenging a plan to open nearly 2 million acres of public land in Wyoming, Utah and Colorado to commercial oil shale development say
potential effects on climate change weren't considered and that violates federal law.
Thirteen groups seeking to set aside the Bush administration's plan have amended two lawsuits first filed in January to add the claim about climate change. The amendments
also allege the federal government broke environmental laws by not considering the potential effects on endangered species and air quality.
The coalition is challenging regulations and a plan approved late last year to tap the more than 1 trillion barrels of oil believed to be locked in a large formation under
the three states. (Associated Press)
BERGHAREN, the Netherlands -- European governments are quietly transforming the practice of turning manure into energy from a fringe technology into a tool for both
slashing greenhouse gases from farms and boosting domestic energy supplies.
Plants that convert manure, corn, grass or organic waste into electricity were historically built by just a few environmentally conscious farmers. But the European Union now
counts about 8,000 so-called biogas plants, and -- fueled by rising subsidies -- thousands more are expected to be built over the next decade. Farmers are building plants to
make a profit, not to protect the environment, and orders are rising at companies that provide the technology.
Farm emissions account for 9% to 10% of the EU's total greenhouse gases -- more than all industrial processes, such as steelmaking and chemical manufacturing, combined,
according to the European Environment Agency. Much of the emissions come from two gases produced from livestock manure: methane, which has 20 times the global warming
potential of carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide, which is 300 times as potent as carbon dioxide. (WSJ)
CHICAGO — The American Medical Association has taken action to support doctors' ability to discuss obesity with their overweight patients.
Under a new policy adopted Tuesday, the AMA formally opposes efforts by advocacy groups to define obesity as a disability.
Doctors fear using that definition makes them vulnerable under disability laws to lawsuits from obese patients who don't want their doctors to discuss their weight.
Doctors took the action at their annual meeting in Chicago.
In other action Tuesday, the AMA agreed to lobby for legislation to ban selling tobacco in pharmacies.
Health care reform issues are slated to come up later at the meeting, which ends Wednesday. (Associated Press)
HONG KONG — Two scientists whose work challenges the assumption that obesity is caused by a lack of willpower were on Tuesday announced as the winners of the Shaw Prize,
known as the Nobel Prize of the east.
Douglas Coleman and Jeffrey Friedman, who both work in the United States, will share the one-million-dollar Shaw Prize for Life Sciences and Medicine, organisers of the award
said.
The pair were given the coveted award for their separate research which led to the discovery of leptin, a hormone that regulates food intake and bodyweight.
The discovery has challenged the conventional wisdom that obesity is caused by a lack of willpower and provided a genetic explanation.
"For those people who are beset with the problem of obesity, this is a most important discovery," Yang Chen-ning, a professor and chairman of the Shaw Prize board,
told reporters in Hong Kong. (AFP)
BRUSSELS, June 16 - Millions of children in nearly all of the EU's 27 countries will get free fruit and vegetables from next school year under a scheme to promote healthy
eating and tackle child obesity, the bloc's farm chief said on Tuesday. (Reuters)
MeMe Roth, a publicist and an Upper West Side mother of two, is getting really, really mad — “and I do not mean angry,” she clarified. “I mean mad, like crazy.”
Ms. Roth is being driven mad by Public School 9, where her children are in second and fourth grades, and it seems that P.S. 9, in turn, is being driven mad by Ms. Roth.
Ms. Roth, who runs a group called National Action Against Obesity, has no problem with the school lunches provided at the highly regarded elementary school on Columbus Avenue
and 84th Street. What sets her off is the junk food served on special occasions: the cupcakes that come out for every birthday, the doughnuts her children were once given in
gym, the sugary “Fun-Dip” packets that some parent provided the whole class on Valentine’s Day.
“I thought I was sending my kid to P.S. 9, not Chuck E. Cheese,” Ms. Roth, a trim, impassioned 40-year-old from Atlanta, said in an interview. “Is there or is there not
an obesity and diabetes epidemic in this country?” (NYT)
California Attorney General Jerry Brown, 20 counties and the city of Los Angeles on Monday sued retail giant Target Corp. for illegally dumping bleach, paints, oven
cleaners and other toxic materials into the state's landfills.
The complaint, filed in Alameda County Superior Court, claims the Minneapolis-based chain's 200 California stores improperly disposed of damaged, returned and past-due
chemicals, resulting in more than 300 notices of violations from local environmental health inspectors over the last eight years. (SF Chronicle)
The marketing and advertising restrictions in the tobacco law that Congress passed last week are likely to be challenged in court on free-speech grounds. But supporters of
the legislation say they drafted the law carefully to comply with the First Amendment.
The law’s ban on outdoor advertising within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds would effectively outlaw legal advertising in many cities, critics of the prohibition
said. And restricting stores and many forms of print advertising to black-and-white text, as the law specifies, would interfere with legitimate communication to adults,
tobacco companies and advertising groups said in letters to Congress and interviews over the last week.
The controversy, legal experts say, involves tension between the right of tobacco companies to communicate with adult smokers and the public interest in preventing young
people from smoking. (NYT)
Hmm... doubtless plenty will want to "hang the editor" for my comment but I have yet to see any evidence of net public good from the
anti-tobacco pogrom. Once you get past the hype and emotional appeals there is no evidence society is any better off discriminating against any sub class of its citizens.
Think tobacco is evil? Ban it then. Governments wont though, simply because smokers generate a lot of funds used often times (well, maybe only sometimes) for public
benefit.
David Goerlitz was a star of cigarette ads until he turned against Big Tobacco. Now, however, he thinks the anti-smokers have gone too far. (Christopher Snowdon, sp!ked)
OTTAWA — With the summer smog season upon us, a new report concludes most Canadians pay scant attention to air quality advisories, in part because they've become
psychologically "acclimated" to air pollution.
The Environics Research report, done for Environment Canada and the Meteorological Service of Canada, draws on surveys done in 2007 and 2008 in seven regions of Canada
following episodes of poor air quality.
The report says air quality advisories "have had at best a limited impact on public awareness and behaviour.
"Many residents in the areas assessed are generally unaware of the fact that an air quality advisory was issued, and few among those who have seen or heard advisories
have taken any action to protect their health."
People don't seem to notice when the air quality in their area is poor, the report says. Most of those surveyed thought conditions were no worse than normal during periods
covered by air quality advisories.
Though Canadians know that air pollution poses a health risk, most "have largely 'acclimated' to this hazard, psychologically speaking," the report says. (Don
Butler, Ottawa Citizen)
Local air quality activists and the State Senate's majority leader are calling for the resignation of Merced County Supervisor Mike Nelson from a local air quality board,
citing what they call Nelson's irresponsible remarks about his role as a board member.
Their complaints follow a comment Nelson made last month during a San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District governing board meeting. Nelson, who serves as Merced
County's representative to the board, said he sometimes "tunes out" anti-pollution activists who he's deemed untruthful when they're giving testimony before the
board. (Merced Sun-Star)
With the annual spread of some 80 000 tonnes of pesticides, farmers are bound to get hit. However, the context for pesticide spraying has changed considerably over the
years, and Europe has outlined new requirements related to the safety of operators, the general public, and the environment.
In 2005 alone, a total of 800 000 French farmers were exposed to pesticides. French public research institute Cemagref's Technologies for Farm-Equipment Safety and
Performance Research unit is working to gain knowledge on the exposure of operators to phytosanitary products.
The latest project is building on a 2006 experimental study that centred on apple tree orchards needing some 30 phytosanitary treatments every year. The main objectives of
the study were to obtain data on the phytosanitary exposure and contamination of operators, and to enhance the performance of protection cabs used during the spraying
process. (Europa)
It was a classic case of a befuddled government throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s solution to the worldwide shortage of medical
isotopes, caused by the unexpected shutdown of a Canadian reactor, is the announcement that Canada will be out the medical isotope production business by 2016. (Victoria
Star)
WASHINGTON - Legislation to drastically reduce carbon dioxide pollution blamed for global warming could be voted on by the U.S. House of Representatives as early as next
week, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said on Tuesday, as the Senate focused on the plan's tax implications for companies.
Hoyer, speaking to reporters, said he expects the House to wrap up action on the climate change bill, which is a high priority of the Obama administration, either next week
or the week of July 6, following a holiday recess.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the bill in May and Hoyer said committee chairman Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was
ready to get it moving again.
But first, Waxman must work out problems that other committees, most notably the Agriculture panel. Farm community concerns include how alternative fuels such as ethanol will
be treated, as well as land-use issues. (Reuters)
The White House opened its gates to a gaggle of science reporters Tuesday as administration officials and scientists released a much-anticipated assessment
of global warming's impacts on the United States. The message - global warming is upon us - was delivered clearly and forcefully, several times over.
Hardly a novel finding, but, in a sign of the times, the audience proved receptive. The report echoed over the wires (see the Washington
Post, New York Times) and filled up email in-boxes as environmental
groups and politicians put their seal on the document.
President Barack Obama's chief science adviser, John Holdren, called the report "the most up-to-date, comprehensive and authoritative assessment" of global
warming in the United States. The document focuses on regional impacts, he added, "talking about climate where people actually experience it: in their back yards."
At 196 pages, the document represents the final installment in a series of 21 assessments produced under the auspices of the Global Change Research Program, itself part of
the US Climate Change Science Program. An earlier version of the document attracted some criticism
last year, in part because it was released for public comment before the rest of the assessments were complete, but everything worked out in due course. ("The Great
Beyond")
WASHINGTON, D.C. -U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, today commented on a climate change study
released by the Obama Administration.
“That the federal bureaucracy in Washington has produced yet another alarmist report on global warming is nothing new,” Sen. Inhofe said. It’s also no surprise that
such a report was released just in time for the House vote on Waxman-Markey. What’s clear is that despite millions of dollars spent on alarmist advertising, the American
public remains rightly skeptical of the so-called ‘consensus’ on global warming.
“I would suggest that, given a little time, the world’s preeminent scientists will quickly and thoroughly debunk this study. As has been clearly demonstrated by the
Senate Minority report of over 700 scientists questioning global warming hysteria, the debate on the science remains wide open.” (EPW)
Decision-based
evidence making isn’t a joke. It’s part of the plan, the policy, the way things are done
The Obama administration yesterday released its blockbuster global-warming propaganda document, "Global Climate Change Impacts on the United States." It’s a
doozy, filled with colour graphics, maps and dramatic pictures. The message: We’re all going to climate hell. Action needed now.
Scrolling through the 200-page output reminded me of a funny phrase a policy-wonk friend invented to describe the current state of policy research around the world. He called
it, jokingly, “decision-based evidence making.” Everybody who hears the phrase cracks up.
The joke, obviously, is a flip version of the slogan “evidence-based decision making,” which has been all the rage for years in other fields, notably health care. Google
produces thousands of hits for the idea that decisions should be evidence-based.
But the art of policy making has moved on, led by the global warming crusade, which daily produces science reports that turn the original slogan on its head. The new Obama
report yesterday joins the Global Humanitarian Forum’s recent claim to have found evidence for up to 300,000 annual deaths from global warming (see Peter
Foster’s article) or the recent MIT climate projections (reviewed
here).
Decision-based evidence making isn’t a joke. It’s part of the plan, the policy, the way things are done.
In 2005, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, which advises the U.S. Government on science policy, published a book, titled Decision Making for the Environment: Social
and Behavioral Science Research Priorities.
The advice in the book is pretty clear: “By focusing scientific efforts increasingly on decision relevance, such a program of measurement, evaluation, and analysis would
increase the influence of empirical evidence and empirically supported theory in environmental decisions relative to the influences of politics and ideology .... Processes
for determining which research is most decision-relevant should be participatory.”
So there we have it. Decision and policy first, evidence later. That, in our book, is pure junk science. (Terence Corcoran, Financial Post)
Imagine if an industry-funded government contractor had a hand in writing a major federal report on climate change. And imagine if that person used his position to
misrepresent the science, to cite his own non-peer reviewed work, and to ignore relevant work in the peer-reviewed literature. There would be an outrage, surely . . .
The Obama Administration has re-released a report (PDF) first issued in draft form
by the Bush Administration last July (still online PDF). The substance of the report is essentially
the same as last year's version, with a bit more professionalism in the delivery. For instance, the photo-shopped picture of a flood appears to be removed and the
embarrassing executive summary has been replaced by something more appropriate.
This post is about how the report summarizes the issue of disasters and climate change, including several references to my work, which is misrepresented. This post is long
and detailed, which is necessary to support my claims. But stick with it, or skip to the end if you've seen the details before (and long-time readers will have seen them
often), there is a surprise at the end. (Roger Pielke, Jr.)
Climate impacts report warns of flooding, heat waves, drought and loss of wildlife that will occur if Americans fail to act on global warming (Suzanne Goldenberg, The
Guardian)
"Average temperatures in the US have risen by 1.5F (-17C) over the last 50 years, the report said." Temperatures have risen by -17 °C?
We are in trouble! Fortunately they meant risen by 0.8 °C, although even that is a dubious claim likely having more to do with urbanization and statistics than
reality.
In fairness, I have seen the draft report -- a synthesis of idiotic GCM output -- which claims all manner of disastrous consequence (we've already passed 'tipping points'
you know, although no one noticed). Sigh...
In a new report, scientists used seven different climate models to assess human induced land cover change (LCC) at regional and global scales. The first results from the
LUCID (Land-Use and Climate, IDentification of robust impacts) intercomparison study by Pitman et al. show no agreement among the models. This study indicates that land cover
change is “regionally significant, but it is not feasible to impose a common LCC across multiple models for the next IPCC assessment.” In other words, this important
factor is missing from current models and scientists are at a loss as to how to add it. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth)
GENEVA — The United Nations on Tuesday raised the prospect of "megadisasters" affecting millions of people in some of the world's biggest cities unless more is
done to heed the threat of climate change.
"We are going to see more disasters and more intense disasters as a result of climate change," UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes said
at the opening of a four-day conference on reducing disaster risks. (AFP)
Protesters in alien
costumes hold placards with a message as they stage a picket in time for the high-level discussion on climate change and clean energy Tuesday, June 16, 2009 at the Asian
Development Bank in suburban Pasig City east of Manila, Philippines. The protesters were calling for a genuine climate change solutions and to stop the funding of coal
powered technology which they claimed as the single greatest cause of climate change. (AP Photo/Pat Roque) (Pat Roque - AP)
MANILA, Philippines -- Asia's share of global greenhouse gas emissions could rise to more than 40 percent by 2030, making it the world's main driver of climate change,
experts warned Tuesday.
The most populous continent with the fastest-growing economies in China and India already accounts for a third of world emissions of gases blamed for warming weather,
including carbon dioxide, Asian Development Bank President Haruhiko Kuroda told a conference in Manila.
Its share of discharges from energy use has tripled over the past 30 years, he said. (Associated Press)
It's a good thing carbon dioxide emissions are trivially related to climate then, isn't it.
Yes, the Chinese are playing a really good game: Climate
Trap
Officials from the Obama administration have been beating a steady path to China’s door to talk about climate change.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was there in February. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Congressional leaders visited last month, followed by experts from the
Energy Department and the White House. There also has been regular contact at a series of “major economies” meetings that began during the Bush administration and include
the 17 biggest emitters of greenhouse gases.
Without the enthusiastic participation of China — and, of course, the United States — negotiations in December in Copenhagen aimed at writing a new global agreement to
replace the expiring 1997 Kyoto Protocol are almost sure to fail. The health of the planet is equally at stake. The United States is the largest per capita emitter of
greenhouse gases; China is the biggest overall emitter. If they cannot agree on a common strategy, atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are likely to reach potentially
disastrous levels.
Ms. Pelosi found herself greatly encouraged by the dialogue but deeply afraid that the two countries would fall into an old trap: hiding behind each other so that neither
would have to do anything difficult or expensive.
It’s a legitimate fear. Even though the 1997 Kyoto Protocol was never submitted for ratification, senators from both parties made clear that they would never agree to any
treaty that required the United States to cap its emissions without at the same time imposing similar limits on developing countries like China.
For their part, the Chinese have insisted — and continue to insist — that Washington move first and do more because, along with Europe, the United States bears
responsibility for most of the increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases over the last 150 years. (NYT)
The investor community is making another attempt to push the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to improve disclosure of climate change risks. Members of the
Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) and other leading global investors sent a letter to the SEC this week requesting that the Commission address the lack of corporate
disclosure of climate change and other material environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks in securities filings.
Specifically, the investors are requesting that the SEC issue formal guidance on material climate-related risks that companies should disclose and enforce existing disclosure
requirements for climate change and other risks such as water scarcity and labor practices. They also want the SEC to recognize shareholders’ right to submit resolutions
related to climate change and material environmental, social and governance issues as well as require the disclosure of these risks using the Global Reporting Initiative as a
framework. (Environmental Leader)
Will the reconstruction of the global economy be positive for mitigating climate change? Is the move toward energy security at odds with a low-carbon society? Do we need
the return of state planning to overcome the climate change challenge? How can the response to climate change be socially just? How can we forge an achievable but also
equitable and legally secure international emissions deal at Copenhagen?
By addressing these questions, leading international thinkers and practitioners put forward a compelling new account of climate change politics and policies in this pamphlet,
demonstrating how a low-carbon future can be built by a revitalised co-existence of markets and the state, as well as a strong political narrative of hope and opportunity.
(The Politics of Climate Change)
The dramatic effect of climate change on the Alps comes into focus as never before this week with the publication of a major report which reveals that the mountain range
is rapidly dividing into two contrasting climatic zones, each posing new problems. (The Independent)
The parish records of tiny mountain communities high in the Alps chronicle great suffering during the Little Ice Age. The French historian Le Roy Ladurie has likened
the fluctuations of Alpine glaciers to the endless cycles of ocean tides. After centuries of "low water" during the Middle Ages, the ice sheets were high in the
mountains. Then, around A.D. 1300, the tide began to rise and the glaciers spread downslope. A glacial "high tide" brought the ice deep into foothill valleys
between 1590 and 1850. The greatest thrusts occurred in the seventeenth century and again in 1818--1820 and 1850--1855, scarring villages and decimating Alpine pastures. By
1860 the tide had turned and a great retreat began. By 1900 many glaciers had receded more than two kilometers deeper into the mountains in just forty years. -- Brian
Fagan, Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Nińo and the Fate of Civilizations (Basic Books, 1999). chapter on LIA
The Thermostat Hypothesis is that tropical clouds and thunderstorms actively regulate the temperature of the earth. This keeps the earth at a equilibrium temperature.
Several kinds of evidence are presented to establish and elucidate the Thermostat Hypothesis – historical temperature stability of the Earth, theoretical considerations,
satellite photos, and a description of the equilibrium mechanism. (Watts Up With That?)
The paper for today documents how landscape patterning, such as presented in yesterday’s weblog, result in the generation of mesoscale circulations.
Segal, M., R. Avissar, M.C. McCumber, and R.A. Pielke, 1988: Evaluation of vegetation effects on the generation and modification of mesoscale circulations. J. Atmos. Sci.,
45, 2268-2292. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
Over at MasterResource.org is an article looking at EPA’s Proposed
Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases Under Sections 202(a) of the Clean Air Act, and wonders whether or not the EPA has set its sight on the
correct gas. The EPA’s focus seems to be on carbon dioxide, but a very strong case can be made that the net effect of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations
may not be so bad (in fact, it may be quite good). So instead of risking the possibility that if they consider the climate impacts of CO2 alone they very well may not be able
to build a case for an “endangerment to public health or welfare,” the EPA has lumped CO2 together with five other greenhouse gases thus watering down the positive
aspects of CO2 with the potential negative ones from the other gases.
The MasterResource piece argues that to make a fair assessment of its effect on climate, CO2 should be unlumped and
considered on its own. (WCR)
Medieval
Warm Period Record of the Week:
Was there a Medieval Warm Period? YES, according to data published by 712
individual scientists from 415 separate research institutions in 41
different countries ... and counting! This issue's Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week comes from Iceberg
Lake, Alaska, USA. To access the entire Medieval Warm Period Project's database, click here.
Subject Index Summary: Ocean Temperatures (The Past Few Centuries): What do multi-century proxy sea surface
temperature records suggest about the theory of CO2-induced global warming?
Plant Growth Data:
This week we add new results of plant growth responses to atmospheric CO2 enrichment obtained from experiments described in the peer-reviewed scientific
literature for: Freshwater Diatom (Hu and Gao, 2008), Marine
Diatom (Hu and Gao, 2001), Tropical Bromeliad (Monteiro et al., 2009), and Tropical
Orchid (Monteiro et al., 2009).
This year marks the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s start of the war on drugs, and it now appears that drugs have won.
“We’ve spent a trillion dollars prosecuting the war on drugs,” Norm Stamper, a former police chief of Seattle, told me. “What do we have to show for it? Drugs are
more readily available, at lower prices and higher levels of potency. It’s a dismal failure.”
For that reason, he favors legalization of drugs, perhaps by the equivalent of state liquor stores or registered pharmacists. Other experts favor keeping drug production and
sales illegal but decriminalizing possession, as some foreign countries have done.
Here in the United States, four decades of drug war have had three consequences:
First, we have vastly increased the proportion of our population in prisons. The United States now incarcerates people at a rate nearly five times the world average. In part,
that’s because the number of people in prison for drug offenses rose roughly from 41,000 in 1980 to 500,000 today. Until the war on drugs, our incarceration rate was
roughly the same as that of other countries.
Second, we have empowered criminals at home and terrorists abroad. One reason many prominent economists have favored easing drug laws is that interdiction raises prices,
which increases profit margins for everyone, from the Latin drug cartels to the Taliban. Former presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia this year jointly implored the
United States to adopt a new approach to narcotics, based on the public health campaign against tobacco.
Third, we have squandered resources. Jeffrey Miron, a Harvard economist, found that federal, state and local governments spend $44.1 billion annually enforcing drug
prohibitions. We spend seven times as much on drug interdiction, policing and imprisonment as on treatment. (Of people with drug problems in state prisons, only 14 percent
get treatment.)
I’ve seen lives destroyed by drugs, and many neighbors in my hometown of Yamhill, Oregon, have had their lives ripped apart by crystal meth. Yet I find people like Mr.
Stamper persuasive when they argue that if our aim is to reduce the influence of harmful drugs, we can do better. (Nicholas D. Kristoff, NYT)
WASHINGTON — The American Medical Association has long battled Democrats who oppose protecting doctors from malpractice lawsuits. But during a private meeting at the
White House last month, association officials said, they found one Democrat willing to entertain the idea: President Obama.
In closed-door talks, Mr. Obama has been making the case that reducing malpractice lawsuits — a goal of many doctors and Republicans — can help drive down health care
costs, and should be considered as part of any health care overhaul, according to lawmakers of both parties, as well as A.M.A. officials. (NYT)
The award for the most sensational swine flu story goes to The Age. The number of swine flu victims in Australia was overstated by 5,500–fold.
Today’s news headlined: “One-third of Victorians may have flu.” According to the story, “up to one-third of Victorians could now be infected with swine flu, an expert
said yesterday, as the Federal Government announced it was preparing to ramp up its response to the virus in coming days.” Last night, Health Minister Nicola Roxon was
reported as saying that the total number of people in Australia infected with the swine flu had hit 1,515.
Fact check: This equals about 0.006% of the Australian population — the Australian population was 21,814,135 people as of June 15, 2009, 12:26am, according to the Australia
Bureau of Statistics.
Health surveillance finding about 0.006% of the Australian population infected with swine flu is a far cry from one in three, 33.33%, as is being claimed. Even if every
single case of swine flu in Australia came from Victoria, that would only represent 0.028% of the Victorian population (5,364,800 people per Australia Bureau of Statistics).
(Junkfood Science)
WASHINGTON - The new H1N1 virus, which has caused the first pandemic of the 21st century, appears to have been circulating undetected among pigs for years, researchers
reported on Thursday.
Although health officials have been watching for new influenza viruses in humans, animal health regulators have missed the opportunity to check swine, the researchers
reported.
Britons Andrew Rambaut of the University of Edinburgh and Oliver Pybus of Oxford University, and Yi Guan of the University of Hong Kong examined the genetic sequence of the
new H1N1 swine flu virus.
Like others who have done the same, they show it is a mixture of other viruses that had been circulating in pigs, one of which was itself a mixture including swine, human and
avian-like genetic sequences.
"We show that it was derived from several viruses circulating in swine, and that the initial transmission to humans occurred several months before recognition of the
outbreak," they wrote. (Reuters)
Last week President Obama appointed yet another “czar” with massive government power, answering only to him. Even before this latest appointment, the top-ranking
Democrat in the Senate wrote President Obama a letter saying that these czars are unconstitutional. President Obama’s “czar strategy” is an unprecedented power grab
centralizing authority in the White House, outside congressional oversight and in violation of the Constitution. (Ken Klukowski, Townhall)
Starbucks, that epitome of a socially-conscious corporation, is now the target of an escalating campaign to blacken its name. One can understand why radical activists
would go after discount retailing behemoth Wal-Mart. But who would have thought they’d also have classy Starbucks in their sights? (Carl Horowitz, Townhall)
On a diet but struggling to shed the pounds, or - horror of horrors - actually gaining weight?
Well it could be because you're on a diet, according to scientists.
A study has shown that when faced with a healthy, low-calorie dish, we instinctively increase the portion on our plate or feel justified in going back for second helpings.
Researchers at the University of Bristol discovered those on low-calorie diets believe you can't have too much of a good thing and end up consuming just as many calories as
if they were eating regular dishes.
'A person's perception of how full a meal will make them feel will no doubt affect portion size,' said Lisa Miles, of the British Nutrition Foundation. 'It's so important to
be aware of behavioural triggers for overeating.' (Daily Mail)
THE Aussie pie, pizzas and sausage rolls are back in school canteens as the war against child obesity falters and threatens to collapse.
Lollies, ice creams, chips and even banned sports drinks have also re-emerged on school menus because thousands of families are snubbing healthier foods.
Nutritionists and dietitians are desperately trying to rescue the $750,000 school health campaign launched five years ago by former Premier Bob Carr.
They are offering "low fat" Aussie beef pies, pizzas made with wholemeal pita bread and vegetables and chicken burgers to children who turn their noses up at salads
and wraps.
The anti-health push is greatest at secondary level where students leave school grounds to eat at local fast food outlets or order in takeaway pizza on their mobile phones.
(Daily Telegraph)
Around 32,000 children below five years and 14,000 adults die of acute lower respiratory infections (ALRI) caused by indoor air pollution every year in Bangladesh,
according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Andrew Trevett, an environmental health advisor of the WHO, disclosed this while speaking at a workshop on indoor air pollution held here on Monday, national news agency BSS
reported.
Trevett said there is a double risk of pneumonia among kids besides tuberculosis, asthma, cardiovascular diseases, low birth weight and prenatal health outcomes due to the
indoor air pollution.
Trevett, acting country representative of the WHO in Bangladesh, attributed the risk due to lack of using well-designed stoves for cooking meals across the country, the BSS
said. (Xinhua)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Alaska's Rat Island is finally rat-free, 229 years after a Japanese shipwreck spilled rampaging rodents onto the remote Aleutian island, decimating the
local bird population.
After dropping poison onto the island from helicopter-hoisted buckets for a week and a half last autumn, there are no signs of living rats and some birds have returned,
according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Rats have ruled the island since 1780, when they jumped off a sinking Japanese ship and terrorized all but the largest birds on the island. The incident introduced the
non-native Norway rat -- also known as the brown rat -- to Alaska.
The $2.5 million Rat Island eradication project, a joint effort between the U.S. federal government, the Nature Conservancy and Island Conservation, is one of the world's
most ambitious attempts to remove destructive alien species from an island.
Now there are signs that several species of birds, including Aleutian cackling geese, ptarmigan, peregrine falcons and black oystercatchers, are starting to nest again on the
10-square-mile (26-sq-km) island. (Reuters)
British
farmers, crippled by the credit crunch and the high price of grain, fertilizer and diesel, will be glad to hear that the RSPB
has chirped up with a fix: why not transform your farm into a nature reserve? The birds and the bees will thank you, and what's more, you'll get thirty
quid for every hectare you claw back from dreaded crop. Who knows, you might even make a profit, the RSPB concludes.
There's a teeny-weeny not-so-greeny catch, of course.
If the British farmer stops growing wheat and other food crops, other countries will have to farm even more land and cut down even more forest to keep us fed. Sure,
there's plenty of arable land out there dying to be farmed (take the Black Belt of Ukraine, for instance), but as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
points out here, most of it is currently stashed underneath species-brimming, carbon-storing
tropical rainforests in South America and Africa:
'By 2030, crop production in the developing countries is projected to be 70 percent higher than in 1995/97. About 80 per cent of this increase will continue to come from
intensified crop production ... the rest will come from further expansion of arable land. Arable land in the developing countries is projected to increase by 12 per cent (an
additional 120 million hectares), most of it in South America and sub-Saharan Africa, with an unknown but probably considerable part coming from deforestation'. So, farming
out Britain's farms may not be such a boon for biodiversity after all. (BBC Blog of Bloom)
Jack Eddy was a solar scientist who discovered the sunspot period known as “Maunder Minimum” in the 1970’s, and despite intense academic pressure of the consensus
then, argued that this demonstrated that our sun was not constant, but indeed a slightly variable star.
A humble man, he didn’t even name his discovery after himself as some scientists are known to do.
Jack Eddy recently passed away, as announced on WUWT here
Fellow solar astronomer and friend Dr. Leif Svalgaard announced his plan to present this idea formally in comments there:
At the Solar Physics Division [of the American Astronomical Society] next week in Boulder, CO, I will formally request that if a significant solar minimum
materializes that it be called the “Eddy Minimum”
If you support this idea, please sign the petition so that Leif can present
it with his formal request. (WUWT)
This arrived in my email tonight from Bill Livingston. It is hot off the press, date June 11th. I believe WUWT readers will be some of the first to see this. – Anthony
Guest Essay by:
W. Livingston, National Solar Observatory, 950 N. Cherry Ave, Tucson AZ 85718;
M. Penn, National Solar Observatory, Tucson AZ
Physical conditions in the infrared at 1.5 microns, including maximum magnetic field strength and temperature, have been observed spectroscopically in 1391 sunspots 1990 to
2009 (1). We emphasize the quantitative difference between our IR sunspot measurements and the visible light results from most solar magnetographs employed world-wide. The
latter are compromised by scattered light and measure flux, not field strength. A lower limit of ~1800 Gauss is required to form spot umbra. The umbral maximum field strength
has declined over the above interval, perhaps because spots have on average diminished in size. The present condition of solar activity minimum has more spotless days than
since the 1910s (2). The Cheshire Cat behavior is related to magnetic surface fields often appearing without accompanying dark spots.
Sunspots recently are behaving like a Cheshire Cat: the smile is there (magnetic fields) but the body is missing (no dark markings). We are unsure about past cycles but at
present sunspots, with their usual umbrae and penumbrae, are failing to materialize. For hundreds of years the Sun has shown an approximately periodic 11-year alteration in
its activity where the number of sunspots increases and then decreases. Sunspots are dark regions on the solar disk with magnetic field strengths greater than 1500-1800
Gauss. The last sunspot maximum occurred in 2001. Magnetically active sunspots at that time (Figure 1A) produced powerful flares, caused large geomagnetic disturbances, and
disrupted some space-based technology. (WUWT)
It is no surprise to
anyone who has studied the history of our planet and the life it harbors that CO2 levels have been falling for billions of years. Despite all the
hoopla over rising CO2 levels, eventually Earth will have lost so much carbon dioxide from its atmosphere that plants and trees will suffocate,
signaling an end to life as we know it. Now, a team of scientists from the California Institute of Technology, led by physicist King-Fai Li, have proposed a way to avert
disaster—get rid of much of the atmosphere.
In a paper titled “Atmospheric pressure as a natural
climate regulator for a terrestrial planet with a biosphere,” published in the June 1 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Li et
al., suggest that the life span of the biosphere can be extended at least 2.3 billion years, more than doubling previous estimates. Here is a description of the problem
from the paper's online abstract:
Lovelock and Whitfield suggested in 1982 that, as the luminosity of the Sun increases over its life cycle, biologically enhanced silicate weathering is
able to reduce the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) so that the Earth's surface temperature is maintained within an inhabitable
range. As this process continues, however, between 100 and 900 million years (Ma) from now the CO2 concentration will reach levels too low for C3
and C4 photosynthesis, signaling the end of the solar-powered biosphere.
There are three basic categories of plants when it comes to photosynthesis: C3, C4 and CAM. The
difference between them are the ways in which CO2 is extracted from the air and the primary products of photosynthesis. In C3
plants the enzyme involved in photosynthesis, RUBISCO, is also the enzyme involved in the uptake of CO2. Examples of C3
plans include wheat, barley, potatoes and sugar beets—most plants are of this type. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth)
For the next two weeks, my website is going to present each day an earlier research paper that was published by my research group, with a short comment on its
relevance to the current debate on climate science.
The first paper documents how important landscape configuration is on the patterning of deep cumulus convection. Figures 7 and 18, for example, clearly shows this
effect from a satellite photo.
“An eight-level three-dimensional primitive equation model which includes a detailed boundary layer parameterization scheme has been used to describe the initiation
and evolution of sea-breeze convergence patterns over south Florida as a function of the surface heat and momentum fluxes and of the large-scale synoptic forcing. A minimum
grid spacing of 11 km was used. Model results are presented for several different initial conditions and the results, when compared against cumulus cloud and shower patterns,
demonstrate that the dry sea-breeze circulations are the dominant control on the locations of thunderstorm complexes over south Florida on undisturbed days.
It is also shown that, in contrast to the differential roughness, the differential heating between land and water over south Florida is the primary determinant of the
magnitudes of convergence. The values of surface roughness, however, indirectly influence convergence patterns by affecting the intensity of the vertical turbulent transport
of heat and momentum.
It is found that the sea breeze over south Florida accumulates synoptic-scale moisture in the convergence zones, since the magnitudes of moisture convergence are
relatively unaffected by evaporation from the ocean at least for a period of 10 hours or so.
The results of the numerical experiments suggest that, in order to properly interpret the results of the Experimental Meteorology Laboratory’s cloud-merger seeding
experiments over south Florida, an appreciation and understanding of the sea-breeze circulations are required.” (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
CANBERRA - Ancient Australian forests are key to fighting climate change and contain the world's most dense carbon store, eclipsing tropical rainforests as efficient
greenhouse gas absorbers, scientists said on Tuesday.
Towering Mountain Ash forests covering Victoria state's cool highlands hold four times more carbon, or around 1,900 metric tons of carbon per hectare, than tropical forests,
scientists at the Australian National University said.
"The trees in these forests can grow to a very old age, at least 350 years, and they can grow very large, very tall, and they grow very dense, heavy wood," said
Brendan Mackey, a professor of environment science.
The researchers studied biomass data from 132 forests around the world to discover regions storing the most carbon, with results published in the U.S.-based Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences.
The Australian forest was compared to old growth tracts on the United States Pacific Coast, Siberia, the central Amazon, Thailand and Cambodia, Venezuela, Finland and
elsewhere.
The findings overturn conventional thinking about the carbon density of different forest types that until now held that tropical rainforests were the most carbon-dense,
Mackey said. (Reuters)
The EU and the US took a backseat at the negotiating table during the second round of global climate talks in Bonn, while Japan shocked developing countries by announcing
a "shameful" emissions reduction target. (EurActiv)
BONN: India-China unity held firm at the climate change talks here with the two big Asian countries defeating a bid by developed nations to offer
limited reductions while seeking concrete commitments from ‘‘third world’’ nations on control and mitigation of greenhouse gases. (Times of India)
NEW YORK - Rich countries may act on their own to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by developing a carbon market they hope will lure in poor nations even if U.N. climate
talks get bogged down, experts said.
Nearly 200 countries have been trying to reach an agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol on global warming with a December deadline at a meeting in Copenhagen approaching.
But there remains a large rich-poor divide. Developing countries want industrialized countries to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in the international agreement.
Industrialized countries want poor countries to take on binding commitments.
To get past the differences, the rich world, including the European Union and the United States, may form a carbon market outside or parallel to the U.N. talks. Rapidly
developing countries like China may be inspired to join the market to sell emissions offsets such as clean energy projects. (Reuters)
SYDNEY - Hundreds of environmental activists took to the streets of Australia's main cities on Saturday, saying the Labor government was not doing enough on climate
change.
The protests came ahead of a vote in the upper house Senate next week on the government's planned emissions trading scheme, which the protesters regard as inadequate.
(Reuters)
CHURCHVILLE, VA—A major country is getting media debate on the science of global warming for the first time ever—thanks to Australia’s Senator Steve Fielding. As one
of a half-dozen swing votes on Prime Minister Rudd’s massive carbon tax bill, Fielding recently spent his own money to attend an international conference of climate
skeptics in Washington, D.C. (Dennis T. Avery, CGFI)
s another set of climate talks wrap up with little outward sign of progress, are the chances of a new global deal to combat the threat of global warming slipping out of
reach? Even battle-hardened green campaigners saw few reasons for optimism this week in Bonn. One group was considering whether to simply reissue the same press release about
the state of negotiations they sent out last year, partly as a protest at the impasse, but partly because the picture has simply not changed since.
The deadlock extends further back than last year. Since the messy compromise that was the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, climate change has always been more about the politics than
the science. And while the message from the scientists has hardened over the last decade, the politics has remained largely the same. (David Adam, The Guardian)
Excuse me, which war are we fighting: The war against climate change, or a war over climate change?
We (by that I mean all the people in the world) will most likely have a war of the second sort. That is, if most conditions laid out by various countries - in the run-up to
the UN climate change conference, slated for Dec 7-18, 2009, in Copenhagen - is any indication.
In such a war, the industrialized countries are unwilling to commit to any significant cutback on their emissions unless (as they demand) the larger developing economies, at
the same time, are willing to pledge mandatory caps on their emissions. (China Daily)
The continuous presentation of scary stories about global warming in the popular media makes us unnecessarily frightened. Even worse, it terrifies our kids.
Former US vice president Al Gore famously depicted how a sea-level rise of 6m would almost completely flood Florida, New York, Holland, Bangladesh and Shanghai, even though
the UN estimates that sea levels will rise 20 times less than that, and do no such thing.
When confronted with these exaggerations, some of us say that they are for a good cause and surely there is no harm done if the result is that we focus even more on tackling
climate change. A similar argument was used when former US president George W. Bush’s administration overstated the terror threat from Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
But this argument is astonishingly wrong. Such exaggerations do plenty of harm. Worrying excessively about global warming means that we worry less about other things, where
we could do so much more good. We focus, for example, on global warming’s impact on malaria — which will be to put slightly more people at risk in 100 years — instead
of tackling the half-billion people suffering from malaria today with prevention and treatment policies that are much cheaper and dramatically more effective than carbon
reduction would be. (Bjorn Lomborg, Taipei Times)
It should be obvious, but in Washington it is often not: A big part of the solution to America's energy challenges involves making better use of the resources available
beneath American soil and territorial waters.
Unfortunately, the federal government has either locked up much of these oil and natural gas reserves or tied them up with insurmountable red tape. While the current Congress
and Administration's idea of smart energy policy is to add to this already-daunting regulatory burden, the recently introduced American Energy Act strikes a blow for fewer
constraints and more domestic energy in the years and decades ahead. (Ben Lieberman, Heritage Foundation)
WASHINGTON - Hormone experts said on Wednesday they are becoming worried by a chemical called bisphenol A, which some politicians say they want taken out of products and
which consumers are increasingly shunning.
They said they have gathered a growing body evidence to show the compound, also known as BPA, might damage human health. The Endocrine Society issued a scientific statement
on Wednesday calling for better studies into its effects. (Reuters)
A handful of scientists and environmental activist groups claim that bisphenol A is the biological equivalent of global warming, and its presence in plastic bottles and
can linings is endangering “millions of babies.” Their message – and their accusation that the Food and Drug Administration has been swayed by industry-sponsored
studies and has ignored vital scientific evidence – has led Congress to ask the agency to re-examine the safety of the chemical. A decision is expected by the end of the
summer.
Missing in this debate is that it’s not just “industry groups” that think BPA shouldn’t be banned – or just industry-sponsored studies that say it’s safe.
Scientists, regulators, and politicians in Europe, Australia, and Japan have all rejected as methodologically flawed, badly conducted or irrelevant the studies that purported
to show that the chemical is harmful. – Some have warned that banning it could actually endanger the public. Now that the National Institutes of Health has acknowledged it
funded several poorly-designed studies on BPA – the very research that activists touted as evidence that the chemical is deadly – it’s time to ask whether America has
been spun.
In March this year, Roselyne Bachelot, France’s Minister for Health, criticized Canada for banning the chemical bishpenol A (BPA), from polycarbonate baby bottles.
“Reliable studies”, she told the National Assembly, showed that the chemical was harmless. The European Union’s Food Safety Authority had found no cause for alarm, nor
did separate investigations by regulatory bodies and expert panels in France, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, and Norway. Canada’s decision, she said, was not rational.
Now, the United States appears to be going down the same path as Canada, with states voting to ban BPA even as Canada admitted it found no evidence that people were at risk.
But why had a substance no one had ever heard of triggered such a reaction when the rest of the world had found no cause for concern? (Trevor Butterworth, STATS)
The precautionary principle strikes again, as the Society's overblown findings are being trumpeted in the mainstream media.
"When an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not
fully established scientifically."
To the uninitiated, this principle may sound good, but in practice there have been virtually no demonstrated benefits to balance the well-documented failures and even
catastrophes. All but the most strident Greens now agree that the banning of DDT was a tragic mistake, leading to the deaths of millions of Africans from malaria. Closer to
the present, a mostly moronic Congress was quick to exploit the lead-poisoning death of young Jarnell Brown, with the patently ridiculous and destructive Consumer Product
Safety Improvement Act—quite possibly the worst law passed in the last 50 years.
At any rate, the charm that killed Jarnell was proscribed by a law dating back to 1978.
In calling for reduced use of BPA—an important chemical proven safe both by usage experience as well as by extensive FDA testing—the Society is exposing itself as a bunch
of PC know-nothings. How ironic that their big scientific statement came out only a few weeks after the wonderful Fisch
epi study that drove a stake through the heart of virtually all of their premises.
There is much wrong with the Society's "Scientific Statement" on endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and I cannot cover it all here, but will mention a few things:
This entire body of so-called knowledge has a phenomenal over-reliance on sometimes absurd rodent studies. I challenge you to read some of the papers cited, and you will
marvel at how much the currency of peer-reviewed journal articles has been devalued. Apparently, all a budding researcher need do is pick a chemical, posit some dire
consequence, and no matter how bad the methodology or ambiguous the results, as long as the PC (that is, dire) conclusion is obtained, it will be published. (Shaw's
Eco-Logic)
That's the title of my latest HND piece, which speculates on how the "endocrine
disruptor" mission got started. Along the way, we look at the consequences of overzealous regulators, and mention two articles (one already covered in this blog), which
espouse rather different views of the situation.
The second article was written by a true believer—Stephanie Engel—who posits that ":Any level higher than zero (of phthalates) is to some degree abnormal,"
and even objects to calling phthalates "trace chemicals." The article attempts to relate findings in an infant behavior test (BNBAS) to phthalate exposure, although
the results—to be kind—are inconclusive.
I promise you that ten or fifteen years ago, this paper would not have been published.
I posed a few questions to Engel, which to her credit she did answer quickly...
Shaw Question 1. Since sex-specific effects were hypothesized a priori, what specific hormones do you think are involved? How
do these hormones relate to such factors as can be measured with BNBAS?
Engel's answer: Research has shown that phthalates can be anti-androgenic (i.e. interfere with
testosterone), anti-estrogentic, and/or estrogenic. They are known reproductive toxicants that have been shown to be related to reduced anogenital distance in both animal and
human studies. Previous studies have shown that boys and girls perform slightly differently on the BNBAS overall, which may be related to differences in sex hormones/ brain
development. We therefore hypothesized that phthalates may impact BNBAS differently in boys and girls.
Shaw comment: She did not mention any specific hormones, referring only to speculations derived from earlier research. Normally, if a biological
effect is proposed, some mechanism should be suggested.
Shaw Question 2. You state that the median phthalate biomarker concentrations are within the range reported on another survey. Does this
mean that most of the subjects were in a normal range?
Engel's answer: I am not comfortable with referring to phthalate biomarker concentrations as
"normal" or their range as "normal". Normal implies endogenous levels, and phthalates are exogenous environmental toxicants. Any level higher than zero is
to some degree abnormal. However, the levels that we measured in these women were in the range of what has been reported in the large, population-based NHANES study. This
implies that the women in our cohort were no more highly exposed than the general population is (i.e. we are not describing an unusually highly exposed population).
Shaw comment: Normally, if one suspects an effect from a particular environmental chemical, tests are run on a normal as well as an
occupationally-exposed cohort (or at least a cohort that has a higher exposure) to allow for a classic control. Since nearly everyone is exposed to phthalates, the researcher
should have tried to find a cohort (possibly Amish people, who might not use modern personal care products??) with a much lower exposure.
Shaw Question 3. Did you determine if lifestyle factors could explain the differing levels of phthalate metabolites in the women, or,
again, did you simply see a normal range of titers?
Engel's answer: We performed multivariate analyses that considered lifestyle factors that
may be both associated with biomarker concentrations and BNBAS domains. In general everyone is exposed to phthalates. Women tend to have higher exposure to lower molecular
weight phthalates than men do because they tend to use more personal care products that contain these chemicals. The purpose of this analysis was not to explain variation in
phthalate levels (this has already been done), but to determine whether prenatal phthalate biomarker concentrations associate with neonatal behavior, after accounting for
factors that might be associated with both phthalates and neonatal behavior. We found that phthalates were associated with neonatal behavior, particularly for girls, and
particularly for the domains of orientation and quality of alertness.
Shaw Question 4. Since you are trying to look at effects of a trace chemical, how wise is it to rely on a questionnaire to determine
smoking, alcohol consumption, and illegal drug use--especially if CDC was running the urine tests--and presumably could have tested for such activities?
Engel's answer: I think characterizing phthalates as a "trace chemical" is inaccurate.
Phthalate exposure in the general population is orders of magnitude higher than most other known environmental toxicants (PCBs, lead, methylmercury, organophosphate
pesticides, bisphenol A). However, your question as to whether self-report is adequate to measure smoking, alcohol consumption and illegal drug use has also been addressed in
methodological studies. Smoking is variable during pregnancy as women tend to repeatedly try to quit or cut-back, so biomarker measuring of cotonine in urine during pregnancy
has almost as many problems as questionnaire based assessments (a spot cotinine level only addresses 2 week exposure). Methodological studies has found maternal self-reported
smoking to be more accurate. Alcohol consumption cannot be assessed through biomarkers, and is probably under-reported. Illegal drug use can be measured through biomarkers,
and is probably under-reported by questionnaire. However, these two factors would have to strongly associate with phthalate exposure to represent a substantial bias in our
study. Neither do.
Shaw comment: Sorry, not good enough. Since all the women are exposed to phthalates, how this associates with illegal drug use is irrelevant.
Certainly, illegal drug use could affect the BNBAS, and to not check for it is simply ignoring a huge confounding factor. My take is that the women only agreed to the urine
tests on the promise that illegal drug use was not going to be examined, although this is obviously not mentioned in the paper.
I am still waiting for an unequivocal study showing real health effects in real humans from these endocrine disruptors, but I'm not holding my breath. (Shaw's Eco-Logic)
We may know, intellectually, that correlations can never show causation, but when a correlation seems to confirm a reason we believe, it’s very easy to find ourselves
falling for the fallacy, anyway, and to not even consider other explanations. We may call our belief “common sense” or what “everyone knows,” without realizing that
we’ve come to believe it simply because it’s all we ever hear. It may never even occur to us to question an axiom — especially if we never hear about the evidence which
contradicts or disproves it. The obesity paradox wouldn’t be a paradox at all, for example, if the public had been hearing objective reports of medical research all along.
(Junkfood Science)
NEW YORK - The dramatic and sustained increase in bone turnover that occurs following surgery for obesity, or "bariatric surgery," translates into a
significantly increased risk of fractures, especially in the hands and feet, according to a study presented today at The Endocrine Society's annual meeting in Washington, DC.
The study team, from the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, compared the fracture rate in 97 patients (average age of 44 years) who underwent bariatric surgery to the rate
expected in individuals of the same age and sex in the general population.
Gastric bypass was performed in 90 percent of the subjects while 10 percent had either vertical banded gastroplasty or biliopancreatic diversion. Eighty-six of the subjects
were women.
Within an average of 7 years after surgery, 21 bariatric surgery patients experienced a total of 31 fractures, the investigators report.
"We showed that patients who have had bariatric surgery have about a twofold increased risk in developing a fracture or sustaining a fracture as compared to the normal
population," said study presenter Dr. Elizabeth Chittilapilly Haglind. (Reuters Health)
Knockout of myostatin, a growth factor that limits muscle growth, can decrease body fat and promote resistance against developing atherosclerosis, or "hardening"
of the arteries, according to a new study conducted in mice. The results were presented June 11 at The Endocrine Society's 91st Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. (ScienceDaily)
The scientific method is a valuable way to advance objective knowledge. By testing a hypothesis against observation, it can either be falsified or supported. Not proved,
of course, but nevertheless over time sufficient evidence can accumulate for a hypothesis to be generally accepted as the best available explanation. It is then known as a
theory. Hence, although the vast majority of scientists and citizens (at least in Europe) accept Darwin's description of evolution, this is still regarded as a theory rather
than fact. This is important, because as our understanding develops, apparently satisfactory theories may be replaced by others. (Scientific Alliance)
OROVILLE — Health workers are free to "fog" mosquitoes with pesticides as usual this year, due to a court ruling this week.
The ruling allays fears that without fogging, there might have been a rise in West Nile virus this year. The virus is transmitted by mosquitoes.
"I'm very happy for the sake of the county residents," said Matt Ball, manager of the Butte County Mosquito Control District, in a phone interview Thursday.
"We can continue doing adult mosquito control without worrying we'd have to stop." (Contra Costa Times)
The House moved quickly Friday to pass the Senate’s tobacco bill and send it to the White House, where President Obama promised to sign it.
Mr. Obama, who himself has struggled to quit smoking, said the measure would “protect our kids and improve our public health.” Appearing in the Rose Garden just moments
after the House vote, he said the tobacco legislation was “a bill that truly defines changes in Washington” and one that “changes the way Washington works and who it
works for.”
The law would for the first time give the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products, which kill more than 400,000 people in this country each
year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The House vote on Friday was 307 to 97, and followed Senate passage of the measure 79 to 17 on Thursday. A key to Senate passage was a vote earlier in the week to overcome a
filibuster, by a two-vote margin.
Under the law, the F.D.A. will be able to set product standards and ban some chemicals in tobacco products, but not totally ban addictive nicotine. The F.D.A. will set up a
new tobacco regulatory office financed by industry fees, which are expected to be $85 million in the first year and as much as $700 million annually within 10 years.
The F.D.A. would have the power not only to consider changing existing products, but also to ban new products unless the agency found they contributed to overall public
health. (New York Times)
Massive government intervention in the economy has spurred the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to launch an unprecedented campaign to promote a basic American principle:
capitalism.
As much as $100 million will go toward public education, lobbying, grassroots organizing and a high-profile advertising campaign over an unspecified number of years. (Jillian
Bandes, Townhall)
The “World Future Council” has recently issued a press release stating “Crimes
against Future Generations need to become taboo” (pdf), with a lead sentence that states the following: “How can we prevent and prosecute activites today that
severely threaten the living conditions and health of those living in the future?”
Does this sound sinister to you? If you don’t buy into some of the dominant concepts of mainstream environmentalism today, if you appreciate the potential for unintended
consequences, and if you are paying attention the ongoing momentum of mainstream environmentalism, you will find this pronouncement sinister indeed. Here’s more: (Edward
Ring)
Senator Charles Schumer has introduced a bill called The Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act. Flexibility, in this case, means bending to the will of
fishermen who want to keep vacuuming up depleted fish populations before they have a chance to recover.
The bill aims to help New York fishermen whose livelihoods depend on fluke and other species. To achieve this narrow objective, however, it would poke holes in the
Magnuson-Stevens Act, the basic law governing fishing in federal waters. The act, strengthened by Congress in 2006, imposes ambitious timetables for rebuilding fish stocks
and gives scientists a say in setting limits.
It is those sensible restrictions under which the fishermen are now chafing, and which Mr. Schumer’s bill — the companion to a House measure sponsored by Frank Pallone of
New Jersey — seeks to gut.
The bill would allow the government to consider the economic consequences of fishing restrictions, and prolong the deadlines for rebuilding fish stocks. It’s an
understandable response to the frustration of fishing interests, like the Long Island charter and party-boat captains who say they are seeing more fluke than ever and who
accuse rigid bureaucrats and misguided scientists of unfairly limiting their catch. (New York Times)
The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) has issued a warning urging the public to avoid genetically modified foods and has also called for a moratorium on
GMOs until long-term, independent studies can prove their safety. The group has also called for required labeling of foods that contain GMOs, a move that has been strongly
opposed by the Food and Drug Administration and Big Biotech which cooperatively purport that consumers should not have the right to know whether or not the foods they buy
come from traditionally bred or genetically engineered sources. (Ethan Huff, NaturalNews)
KANNAPOLIS, N.C. — Where a textile mill once drove the economy of this blue-collar town northeast of Charlotte, an imposing neoclassical complex is rising, filled with
fine art, Italian marble and multimillion-dollar laboratory equipment. Three buildings, one topped by a giant dome, form the beginnings of what has been nicknamed the
Biopolis, a research campus dedicated to biotechnology.
At $500 million and counting, the Biopolis, officially called the North Carolina Research Campus, is a product of a national race to attract the biotechnology industry, a
current grail of economic development.
Cities like Shreveport, La., and Huntsville, Ala., are also gambling millions in taxpayer dollars on if-we-build-it-they-will-come research parks and wet laboratories, which
hold the promise of low-pollution workplaces and high salaries.
At a recent global biotech convention in Atlanta, 27 states, including Hawaii and Oklahoma, paid as much as $100,000 each to entice companies on the exhibition floor. All
this for a highly risky industry that has turned a profit only one year in the past four decades. (New York Times)
FEMA is attempting to do the impossible, and that is to predict future flood losses in a way that will allow changes to be made in the federal flood insurance program. E&E
Daily reports:
Federal officials are struggling to calculate the fiscal impact that climate change could have on the nation’s troubled public flood insurance program, amid
predictions of intensifying downpours and more potent hurricanes. The mission is proving extremely difficult, according to one researcher, who said the effort so far has
failed to reveal even “squishy assumptions.”
The project’s lead researcher suggested that the entire effort was misguided (emphasis added):
Researchers are using data from the IPCC and the U.S. Climate Change Science Program to determine the climate risks to the insurance program. But there are glaring
omissions in the overall knowledge needed to accurately depict the effects, says David Divoky, an expert with the consulting firm AECOM and the study’s lead researcher.
Detailed information about population growth is unknown, for example. So are the frequency, severity and location of future hurricanes, all of which can create large
variations on the impacts on the flood insurance program. “There may be no solid projections. We’re not even coming up with squishy assumptions,” Divoky told an
audience at the floodplain managers conference. “This whole thing is not what a sensible person should do.”
Once again I am reminded about a vignette from Nobel Prize-winning economist Kenneth Arrow (PDF):
As a weather forecaster in the Second World War, Arrow and his colleagues were told that their commanding officer needed a long-term forecast. The forecasters knew from
experience that such forecasts had little scientific basis, and related this up the chain of command. The reply that came back was this: no matter, the general needs the
forecast for planning purposes.
One prediction for the FEMA study seems spot on:
“The results could produce controversy regardless of the outcome” (Roger Pielke, Jr., Prometheus)
BONN - Climate change will aggravate natural disasters and people in developing nations such as Dominica, Vanuatu, Myanmar and Guatemala are most at risk, a U.N.-backed
study showed on Thursday.
It urged governments to invest hundreds of billions of dollars to curb mounting impacts of hazards such as cyclones, floods, droughts, landslides, earthquakes and tsunamis.
"Risk is ... felt most acutely by people living in poor rural areas and slums," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wrote in the report, issued on the sidelines of
June 1-12 U.N. climate talks in Bonn working on a new treaty to combat global warming. (Reuters)
Polls show that global warming has fallen to the bottom of the list of Americans’ worries. Meanwhile 170 Michigan professors signed a letter
calling for tough climate legislation. I read the professors’ letter, and I have to say I’m with the people on this one.
Advertisement
Their letter would be more convincing if they weren’t so dismissive of the costs involved. They cite unnamed “recent studies” that claim emission cuts could create
150,000 jobs in Michigan. I put more stock in the analysis by the Energy Information
Administration of last year’s Lieberman-Warner bill (which is similar to the Waxman-Markey bill now before Congress).
The EIA pointed out that cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions requires driving up energy prices, and this will shrink the economy. U.S. manufacturing would decline by 3% to
7%, depending on how lucky the United States is at developing alternative energy sources, and manufacturing employment will fall between 3% and 10% (p. 39). Of course the
professors won’t lose their jobs, but they should still be concerned about these things.
It is true that if you could convince taxpayers in the other 49 states to subsidize new, money-losing green energy projects in Michigan, then you might gain some jobs. But
when every other state is hoping to pull the same trick on you, it’s a zero-sum game. Actually it’s worse: Subsidies for green jobs end up reducing national employment,
not increasing it. (Ross McKitrick, Detroit Free Press)
Next there is the problem of attributing temperature changes to CO2 emissions. In the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Figure
9.1 shows that the main effect of CO2 over the past century (see panel (c)) should have been a strong warming in the mid-troposphere over the tropics. Figure
10.7 shows the same pattern resulting from current and future CO2 emissions. Changes are also projected at the surface in the polar regions. However they are not so
easy to tie to greenhouse gases since those regions are also sensitive to solar variability and natural atmospheric oscillations.
The tropical troposphere stands out as a good place to measure the specific effects of CO2. The contour lines imply an expected warming of the tropical tropospheric of 1-2
degrees Celsius over four decades starting in 1980, implying a warming of one-quarter to one-half degree Celsius per decade should now be observable.
Satellite data for the tropical mid-troposphere is available from the University of Alabama and
from Remote Sensing Systems in
California. These series track each other closely. There were some processing differences in the early decades but in recent years the two have converged.
Taking the average of the two series, there is a 30-year trend over the tropics of six-hundredths of a degree Celsius per decade, and it is statistically
insignificant (when applying the appropriate autocorrelation correction). In other words, the data do not show the warming trend that the models say should be under way, if
greenhouse gases have such a big effect on the climate. (Ross McKitrick, Detroit Free Press)
BONN, Germany - Climate talks made progress on Friday toward a new U.N. treaty to curb global warming but ended far short of calls by developing nations for the rich to
make deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Four years of talks to widen the existing Kyoto Protocol have struggled to agree on how to share the cost of efforts to curb
greenhouses gas mainly emitted by burning fossil fuels. (Reuters)
BONN, Germany, June 12 - A small reference on page 776 of a mammoth U.N. scientific report to cuts in greenhouse gases far deeper than those on offer by rich nations has
become a main roadblock towards a new U.N. climate treaty.
For developing nations at two-week U.N. talks in Bonn ending on Friday, the outlined emissions cuts by developed nations of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 have
become vital for a deal due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December.
Many developed nations, however, say such curbs meant to avert the worst of climate change would cripple their economies.
"The minus 25 to 40 range has become a sort of beacon," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told Reuters. "It is very much in the back of
people's minds as something to measure the success of Copenhagen against."
The 25-40 range was based on only a handful of studies and did not even make it to the "summary for policymakers" of the three-part report by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), drawing on work of 2,500 experts.
"Very little progress has been made on setting targets," Shyam Saran, special climate envoy to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said of the Bonn talks.
(Reuters)
A bill to cap U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions, hailed on Capitol Hill as a historic breakthrough, went over with a soft thud this week during international negotiations,
criticized as inadequate for the climate and unfair to poor countries.
The bill passed a House of Representatives committee last month and is regarded as the most serious effort yet to reduce U.S. contributions to climate change. But at a United
Nations-led conference in Bonn, Germany, and at a summit of mega-emitters America and China in Beijing, some environmental groups and foreign governments derided it for a
lack of ambition.
The bill's target for reducing emissions is "unacceptable to China," said Pan Jiahua, an official at a think tank affiliated with the Chinese government and a
member of the Chinese government's advisory panel on climate change. "It is much too low."
That kind of reaction revealed the vastness of the work ahead, as countries seek to hammer out a new climate treaty by December.
This week it was mainly posturing and gridlock. The United States promised a first step; others said the situation requires a long jump. (David A. Fahrenthold and Ariana
Eunjung Cha, Washington Post)
With
this post I am initiating a periodic update of various landmarks along the road toward the United Nations' Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Known in UN jargon as the 15th
Conference of the Parties (COP-15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the conference will convene in Denmark this coming December.
Today's update features a new statement on climate change issued by the scientific academies of the world's 13 largest economies, including the U.S. National Academy of
Sciences, the Royal Society, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Indian Academy of Sciences. Among many other things, the statement declares:
...climate change is happening even faster than previously estimated; global CO2 emissions since 2000 have been higher than even the highest predictions, Arctic sea ice
has been melting at rates much faster than predicted, and the rise in the sea level has become more rapid. Feedbacks in the climate system might lead to much more rapid
climate changes.
The need for urgent action to address climate change is now indisputable. For example, limiting global warming to 2°C would require a very rapid worldwide
implementation of all currently available low carbon technologies.
According to the science academies' statement, all governments should
...agree at the UNFCCC negotiations in Copenhagen to adopt a long-term global goal and near-term emission reduction targets that will deliver an approximately 50%
reduction in global emissions from 1990 levels by 2050 ...
Read the whole statement here. Look for coming updates detailing various scientific and
policy landmarks as the world wends its way toward Copenhagen in December. (Ronald Bailey, Reason)
China Daily carried a report on Wednesday, saying China and the US had achieved nothing substantial at the bilateral climate change talks. But that was not to be, for
shortly before boarding the flight back home on Wednesday afternoon, US climate change negotiator Todd Stern told China Daily: "We don't expect China to take a national
cap (on greenhouse gas emission) at this stage."
The report in Thursday's edition carried the reaction of US environmentalists, who insisted that Stern's stance was temporary because the Sino-US climate change talks had
just begun.
It seems that many American environmentalists and think tanks are not happy with Stern's performance in Beijing. A US source even said: "This kind of language can lead
to Stern's resignation". Many interested groups have pinned high hopes on Sino-US partnership to fight climate change. But they have expressed concern on the slow
progress of their talks, too, especially after the world's two biggest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters made climate change a "primary area" of cooperation after
Barack Obama became the US president.
Irrespective of the agenda of bilateral talks or the 12-day UN meeting on climate change in Bonn that ended on Friday, accusations and arguments have dominated conferences
and forums.
If talks do not yield positive results and no concrete agreement on cutting GHG emissions is reached before the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December, there
is no reason for negotiators, including Stern, to continue on their posts. The reason for that is simple: if they cannot reach a deal they do not have the right to fly across
the globe to attend meetings and increase their carbon footprint. (China Daily)
BONN, Jun 12 - A leading global environmental group has accused the United States of holding up UN climate negotiations.
Friends of the Earth Malaysia's honorary secretary Meena Raman said that throughout the second round of the United Nations climate talks in Bonn that ended Jun. 12, the U.S.
administration had blocked progress to move negotiations forward.
Delegates from 183 countries meeting in Bonn discussed key negotiating texts which will serve as the basis for an international climate change deal due to be reached at a
meeting in Copenhagen Dec. 7-18. The Copenhagen meeting would seek to bring an international agreement to follow the Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of 2012.
The 12-day gathering in former West German capital Bonn this month was attended by more than 4,600 participants, including government delegates, and representatives from
business and industry, environmental organisations and research institutions.
Rather than show global leadership, the Obama administration failed to live up to its responsibility as the world's largest historical greenhouse gas polluter, Raman told
reporters Jun. 12.
"This strategy damages the prospects for a just, equitable, and effective outcome" at the key UN conference planned in Copenhagen, she added.
Echoing general disappointment with the new U.S. administration, Karen Orenstein of Friends of the Earth U.S. said: "The election of President (Barack) Obama created
tremendous hope worldwide that the U.S. would finally play a leadership role in solving the climate crisis that - more than any other nation on earth - it is responsible for
causing.
"Unfortunately for the survival of people and the planet, the Obama administration's position at these UN negotiations sounds frighteningly similar to that of (former
U.S. president) George Bush." (IPS)
WASHINGTON -- In Washington state, oysters in some areas haven't reproduced for four years, and preliminary evidence suggests that the increasing acidity of the ocean
could be the cause. In the Gulf of Mexico, falling oxygen levels in the water have forced shrimp to migrate elsewhere. (McClatchy Newspapers)
A noted skeptic of "climate change" disagrees with a recent report that the oceans are becoming too acidic.
In recent hearings before the Oceans Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, researchers and scientists predicted a dire future for the
world's oceans. According to their research, "manmade climate change" is warming the oceans and increasing the acidity of the water as they absorb more carbon --
which they claim, in turn, could destroy the economies of coastal communities.
Lord Christopher Monckton, a noted skeptic of manmade climate change who has testified before Congress, edits the Science & Public Policy Institute's "Monthly CO2
Report." He says global-warming alarmists have realized that their predictions are not coming true, so they are resorting to a new scare tactic. (Pete Chagnon,
OneNewsNow)
You’ve heard all the reasons before: We drive too much. We eat too much meat and processed food. We spend too much time with plugged-in devices—computers, TVs, air
conditioners.
But what problem are we talking about—climate change, or the worldwide rise in obesity? (Grist)
WASHINGTON - The world's richest countries and those that are developing fastest need to lead the transition to an energy-efficient and low-carbon economy to stave off the
worst effects of climate change, science academies from these nations said on Thursday.
In a message to the Group of Eight industrialized nations, as well as leaders of fast-growing Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa, the academies from these
so-called G8+5 countries said that tackling this environmental challenge should be part of efforts to rebuild the global economy.
"The need to find solutions to climate change presents a huge but as yet unrealized opportunity for the creation of new jobs and for the stimulation of new and emerging
markets," the statement said. (Reuters)
More and more Democrats are ready to vote against Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s climate change bill, according to a congressional committee chairman who opposes his leader.
The House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) said Wednesday that he’s at an impasse with the lead sponsor of a climate change bill strongly backed by
Pelosi (D-Calif.), and that his list of Democratic members who would join him in voting against the measure is growing rather than shrinking.
“We’re stuck,” Peterson said regarding a clash he’s had with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) over a number of issues in the bill.
“And there’s a lot of issues that haven’t even come up yet.”
The two powerful chairmen are butting heads at the staff level, despite a deadline set by Pelosi for all committee action to be completed by June 19.
But that may be the least of the trouble.
Peterson has warned that the bill put together by Waxman and Energy and Environment subcommittee Chairman Edward Markey (D-Mass.) will fail if agriculture-related provisions
aren’t altered, and he’s said he has as many as 45 votes on his side. That number of Democratic defections would certainly doom the prospects of passing the bill in the
House.
And while the Agriculture chairman said he’s working to resolve those differences and not intentionally trying to torpedo the legislation, he noted that skepticism toward
the bill is growing, not shrinking.
“I’m just estimating the number of votes that will be against this,” Peterson said. “I suspect that the list has grown as more members have gotten a chance to look at
this. I mean, my list has grown.” (Jared Allen, The Hill)
WASHINGTON — Republicans on Saturday slammed a Democratic bill before the House that seeks to address climate change, arguing that it amounts to an energy tax on
consumers.
In the GOP's weekly radio and Internet address, Indiana Rep. Mike Pence said Congress should instead open the way for more domestic oil and natural gas production and ease
regulatory barriers for building new nuclear power plants.
"During these difficult times, the American people don't want a national energy tax out of Washington, D.C.," said Pence, the third-ranking House Republican. (AP)
NEW YORK - The U.S. energy bill may not pass until next year, which could also delay an agreement to extend the Kyoto Protocol on cutting global greenhouse gas emissions
until 2010, experts said on Thursday.
Environmentalists, carbon market developers and many politicians have urged passage of a U.S. climate bill before December, when nearly 200 countries will aim to hash out a
successor to the Kyoto pact.
They have seen it as a way for the United States, the world's largest greenhouse gas polluter on a per capita basis, to break a deadlock with China, the top overall
greenhouse polluter, on taking action on global warming. Combined, the giants emit about 40 percent of the world's planet-warming pollution. (Reuters)
With concern over global warming disappearing in a hurry, proponents of a cap and trade scheme are desperately churning out arguments in hopes of convincing Americans that
carbon dioxide restrictions are necessary.
In a June 12th editorial, PG&E Chairman and CEO Peter Darbee and Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp jumped on the bandwagon and tried to shill a carbon cap
to Sacramento Bee readers. While they did everything they could to make a carbon tax look like a plus for consumers, they presented nothing but cleverly reworded arguments
that environmentalists have made for years.
Like all climate alarmists do, Darbee and Krupp argued that the scientific aspect of the debate is settled: “With study after study showing that the climate is changing
alarmingly fast – faster than anyone predicted – we can no longer duck the need to act.”
One wonders how the climate is changing “alarmingly fast” when the earth’s surface temperature hasn’t moved in well over ten years, and recent research indicates that
it won’t continue moving again until the middle of next decade. In fact, as time goes on it seems that the IPCC’s predictions of runaway warming don’t agree with
reality. Many qualified skeptical scientists—yes, they do exist—have argued that “the computer models forecasting rapid temperature change abjectly fail to explain
recent climate behavior.” (Cameron English, El Dorado County Conservative Examiner)
“The RAT Scheme will destroy jobs, jobs, jobs.” A statement/letter by Mr Viv Forbes, Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition.
13 June 2009
Any politician interested in preserving Australian jobs must vote against “The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme”. It will destroy real jobs faster than green jobs can be
created.
This deceptively misnamed bill is not about “carbon” nor about “pollution reduction” – it is designed to Ration and Tax human production of carbon dioxide (CO2). It
is correctly named “the Carbon Dioxide Ration and Tax Scheme” or “the RAT Scheme” for short.
There is no human activity or business that produces zero carbon dioxide – every activity (even sleeping on the job) produces CO2, either directly or indirectly. And for
Australia’s chief industries, there is no feasible alternative on the horizon. Electricity generation, transport and tourism, agriculture and food processing, mining and
mineral processing, infrastructure and construction, forestry and fishing, metals and cement, electronics and appliances – all depend for most of their energy on
hydro-carbons – coal, oil and gas.
Even with a crash-through program of investment in alternative energy, the base load power will still be required, with boilers charged and staff on standby to cope with the
many times when there is neither sun nor wind energy available. Given time and the political will, nuclear power could take up base-load power generation (at higher costs).
But that looks unlikely to occur any time soon.
The first thing the RAT Scheme will do is establish a “cap” - a ration or limit on the production of CO2. (The exact level of the cap, and the base reference year will
apparently be set using a roulette wheel in Penny Wong’s office.)
The whole purpose of the cap is to force Australia’s backbone industries to reduce production of CO2 (unless of course they are exempted, but that would make the whole
exercise even more pointless and unfair than it is now). There are no real alternatives available in many applications (solar aircraft? wind powered trucks? geothermal
fishing trawlers?) Thus the cap must thus reduce production.
This rationing of production will cause the first round of job layoffs.
Then comes the tax whammy.
Most industries will have to pay for their cap entitlement – ie they have to pay to do what they have previously been doing for free. Even after they have paid for
production up to their rationed entitlement, any business which wishes to return to its pre-Rat scheme production levels (above the cap), must buy new ration permits in a
speculative Emissions Permit market. This is another tax which has to be recovered from customers, other businesses or shareholders.
The first law of fiscal policy is this: “If you tax something, less of it will be produced.” This is the real aim of the RAT Scheme and it will achieve that aim.
There are always marginal businesses in all industries. An increase in taxes will cause a few of them to close their doors or move to a more enlightened country. And there
are always nervous bankers ready to pull the plug because of the extra risk in the speculative carbon trading market.
In the green new world there is also no room for new projects or new jobs in traditional industries – any new project will need to force closure of an old project by buying
its Ration permits on the market.
These new and uncertain taxes on existing production will cause the second round of job losses.
Even those businesses that survive the production cap, the ration fee and the excess carbon tax, will be forced to increase their prices to recoup the extra costs. This makes
them less able to compete with imports in the Australian market, or with other exporters in the world market. Countries such as India, China, Brazil and South Africa, who
have no intention of embracing the shackles of a RAT Scheme, will be the chief beneficiaries. Overseas is where the real new jobs will be created.
This unfair competition from foreign firms will cause the third round of jobs layoffs.
To date we have only looked at things from the perspective of existing industry.
There is also a whole gamut of global warming policies that will directly or indirectly subsidize regulators, inspectors, auditors, lawyers, bankers, carbon traders,
international conferences, and the manufacture and operation of subsidised facilities such as wind farms, solar arrays, carbon forests and facilities granted exemptions from
the costs everyone else must bear.
The second law of fiscal policy is this: “If you subsidise something, you will get more of it”.
We will thus get more of these costly subsidised things – the Climate Change Industry looks like becoming the biggest industry in the world. It will compete with real
industry for materials, labour and rationed energy, but will not put cheaper food on our plate, cheaper or more reliable electricity into the grid or make a net contribution
to tax revenue.
The growing costs of the Climate Change Industry must filter back to the real economy, causing more job layoffs.
Three places in the world have already tested the Green Job Creation Myth – Spain and Denmark with massive wind and solar power developments and California which tries to
lead the world in everything green.
All three have seen loss of jobs as industries close or relocate because of costly or unreliable electricity supply. A recent study in Spain has concluded that more than 2
real jobs were destroyed for every green job created. In addition Spain has 17% unemployment, electricity shortages, and power costs up by from 30% (homes) to 100%
(businesses). Denmark is selling unreliable wind power at a loss, and California’s climate madness has caused a huge loss of jobs and tax revenue.
A public-private project to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions that was abandoned by the Bush administration is being restarted, Steven Chu, the energy secretary,
announced Friday.
The project, known as FutureGen, was dropped in January 2008 because the Bush administration said that costs had doubled to $1.8 billion, from $950 million. A study later
found that a math error had caused the increase to be overstated; costs had actually risen 39 percent, to $1.3 billion.
Under the project, a coal plant will be built in Mattoon, Ill., that will store nearly all of its emissions underground, where they cannot contribute to global warming.
Carbon dioxide is not an atmospheric pollutant. It is an essential trace gas. Carbon dioxide is not an atmospheric pollutant. It is an essential
trace gas. Carbon dioxide is not an atmospheric pollutant. It is an essential trace gas. Carbon dioxide is not an atmospheric pollutant. It is an essential
trace gas. Carbon dioxide is not an atmospheric pollutant. It is an essential trace gas. Carbon dioxide is not an atmospheric pollutant. It is an essential
trace gas. Carbon dioxide is not an atmospheric pollutant. It is an essential trace gas. Carbon dioxide is not an atmospheric pollutant. It is an essential
trace gas. Carbon dioxide is not an atmospheric pollutant. It is an essential trace gas. ...
Capturing and storing (or sequestering, if you prefer) carbon dioxide to meet international greenhouse gas reduction targets is expected to be a high growth industry in
the next few years if the technology can be made cost effective.
An alternative to storing carbon dioxide underground is to work within the industrial waste stream to convert CO2 to an energy source and valuable organic molecule. Mantra
Venture Group of Seattle is developing technology that will turn CO2 into formic acid, which is naturally produced by stinging ants who use it as a defense mechanism.
Formic acid is currently used in a variety of applications, including a hog feed additive, for de-icing planes, in pharmaceuticals and rubber manufacturing. According to
Mantra CEO Larry Kristof, the company's electro-reduction of carbon dioxide (ERC) technology requires electricity, platinum as a catalyst, and a salt water solution.
(Reuters)
Should We Sell Our Stock in America, Too, Mr. Owens?
Washington, DC - Caterpillar CEO James Owens admitted Wednesday at his company's annual stockholder meeting that the carbon caps his company supports could hurt the U.S.,
U.S. heavy industry and Caterpillar itself.
Owens made the admission in response to questioning by Tom Borelli, director of the National Center for Public Policy Research's Free Enterprise Project, who attended the
meeting on behalf of the Free Enterprise Action Fund.
Owens told Borelli and stockholders that the U.S. and Caterpillar will be harmed if carbon caps are adopted by the U.S. but not adopted by the rest of the world.
The key industrial nations of China and India are extremely unlikely to adopt carbon caps.
Borelli also asked Owens how Owens would be held accountable if Caterpillar's lobbying led to "a regulatory avalanche leaving the U.S. in an uncompetitive
situation." Owens responded by telling Borelli to just sell his stock.
"Caterpillar CEO Owens' flippant remark that stockholders can just sell their stock if Caterpillar's lobbying efforts harm the company leaves me wondering: Does Owens
expect us to sell our stock in America, too? Because by lobbying for legislation that would harm individual Americans and American competitiveness, it sure seems like that's
what Mr. Owens and his board of directors have done," said Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research. "Mr. Owens freely admits the
legislation his firm backs will hurt the country and his company unless it also is adopted by major nations worldwide, but everyone knows the powerhouses China and India have
no interest in doing so." (National Center)
This week China, the world’s fastest growing economic power, most populous country and biggest greenhouse gas polluter, says no to participation in any global climate
change programs. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said that as a developing country China’s priority is to develop its economy, alleviate poverty and raise living
standards. “Given that, it is natural for China to have some increase in emissions, it is not possible for China to accept a binding or compulsory target,” the Chinese
said. Officials from Beijing told a UN conference in Bonn that China would increase its emissions to develop its economy rather than sign up for any mandatory greenhouse gas
cuts. (Paul Taylor, LA Ecopolitics Examiner)
Scotch whisky firms have pledged to cut their use of fossil fuels by 80% over the next 40 years under the first industry-wide environmental strategy. (BBC)
Oddly enough some extraordinary things make sense to me after (more than?) a few single-malteds that on sober reflection are not so well founded after
all. One can only assume a great deal of grain alcohol sampling had taken place before they arrived at this little gem.
Proponents of anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change have ruled the roost for years. Following the release of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) assessments and Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” book and movie, the media focused on “impending doom,” shunning skeptics. Only recently have several
thousand credible scientists offered organized evidence, research and persuasion that explain how forces far greater than those of mortals are effecting climate change. Their
data and explanations indicate that the incredible, soon-to-be-spent megamillions, will have little effect on lowering human-caused carbon-dioxide emissions. On June 2,
“Climate Change Reconsidered — The Report of the Non-Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)” (www.nipccreport.org/),
documenting this scientific evidence, was unveiled at the Third International Conference on Climate Change in Washington, D.C. (Michael Mogil, Naples News)
A new study has appeared (and thanks to Willie Soon for alerting us to it!) which provides further quantitative documentation of the role of land use change as a
first order climate forcing.
The paper is
Pitman, A.J., N. de Noblet-Ducoudré, F.T. Cruz, E.L. Davin, G.B. Bonan, V. Brovkin, M. Claussen, C. Delire, L. Ganzeveld, V. Gayler, B.J.J.M. van den Hurk, P.J.
Lawrence, M.K. van der Molen, C. Müller, C.H. Reick, S.I. Seneviratne, B. J. Strengers, and A. Voldoire, 2009: Uncertainties in climate responses to past land cover change:
first results from the LUCID intercomparison study, Geophys. Res. Lett., doi:10.1029/2009GL039076, in press. [“Land-Use and Climate, IDentification of robust impacts”
(LUCID)].
The abstract reads
“Seven climate models were used to explore the biogeophysical impacts of human induced land cover change (LCC) at regional and global scales. The imposed LCC led to
statistically significant decreases in the northern hemisphere summer latent heat flux in three models, and increases in three models. Five models simulated statistically
significant cooling in summer in near-surface temperature over regions of LCC and one simulated warming. There were few significant changes in precipitation. Our results show
no common remote impacts of LCC. The lack of consistency among the seven models was due to: 1) the implementation of LCC despite agreed maps of agricultural land, 2) the
representation of crop phenology, 3) the parameterisation of albedo, and 4) the representation of evapotranspiration for different land cover types. This study highlights a
dilemma: LCC is regionally significant, but it is not feasible to impose a common LCC across multiple models for the next IPCC assessment.”
This is the type of study that was recommended in the 2005 National Research Council report
The conclusions in the Pitman et al 2009 article include the text
”In conclusion, LUCID results suggest that the statistically significant impacts of past LCC are restricted to regions of LCC….Thus, the IPCC 5th Assessment
Report (AR5) should implement LCC since it is regionally significant, recognizing it will cause divergence over regions of LCC in the models.”
“LUCID did not identify any region, remote from LCC, where there are impacts that approach statistical significance or where several models agree on a remote
teleconnection pattern.”
“We recognise several limitations in our results. First, fixed SSTs may damp global-scale teleconnections resulting from LCC if they exist. LUCID plans fully-coupled
experiments in the future. Second, we note that others have found teleconnections with fixed SSTs; we suggest that by using multiple realizations and the modified t-test to
exclude changes that are caused by model variability and by using multiple models our
results are more robust than earlier studies that used a single model. Third, we imposed small LCCs in the tropics and it is arguably more likely that global scale
teleconnections would be triggered from this region (Werth and Avissar, 2002). Clearly, including future LCC in climate projections (Feddema et al., 2005) is necessary but is
not possible to implement in a common way for AR5. Finally, our simulations only included the biogeophysical effects of LCC on climate. Additional impacts may have occurred
had we included changes in land-atmosphere exchange of greenhouse gases, reactive trace gases and aerosols as a function of LCC.”
This is a very important study.
The failure to find a a long distance connection, however, needs further scrutiny. The finding of a“no common remote impacts
of LCC” does not mean this teleconnection does not exist, since they also report that there is a “lack of consistency among the seven models”. Thus,
in addition to the other shortcomings that the authors list with respect to teleconnections, if there are significant real world teleconnections, but they are not
spatially coherent among the models due to their lack of consistency, the analysis proceedure they used will incorrectly conclude that there is no long range effect of LCC
when there really is. This issue needs further exploration in order to remove this limitation in their excellent preliminary investigation.
For further papers on the importance of land use change in climate assessments, see, for example,
“Dominant spatiotemporal patterns of precipitation, modeled soil moisture, and vegetation are determined in North America within the recent observational record
(late 20th century on). These data are from a gridded U.S.-Mexico precipitation product, retrospective long-term integrations of two land surface models, and
satellite-derived vegetation greenness. The analysis procedure uses two statistical techniques. First, all the variables are normalized according to the Standardized
Precipitation Index procedure. Second, dominant patterns of spatiotemporal variability are determined using multi-taper method, singular value decomposition for interannual
and longer timescales. The dominant spatiotemporal patterns of precipitation generally conform to known and distinct Pacific SST forcing in the cool and warm seasons. Two
specific timescales in precipitation at 9 years and 6-7 years correspond to significant variability in soil moisture and vegetation, respectively. The 9 year signal is
related to precipitation in late fall to early winter, while the 6-7 year signal is related to early summer precipitation. Canonical correlation analysis is additionally used
to confirm that strong covariability between land surface variables and precipitation exists at these specific times of the year. Both signals are strongest in the central
and western U.S., and are consistent with prior global modeling and paleoclimate studies which have investigated drought in North America.”
As written in the paper
“The main goal of the present study is to determine the dominant spatiotemporal patterns of precipitation that force long-term variability in soil moisture and
vegetation.”
This study is a very significant advancement in our understanding the role of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean on precipitation and other weather
variables in the central and western United States. It also reinforces that it is the regional atmospheric and ocean circulations, not a global average surface temperature
trend, that dominate regional climate patterns such as drought and floods. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
This paper effectively discusses the issues associated with the incorrect assumption of the stationarity of the climate system. The real climate
has never been stationary in time.
To provide additional documentation of the nonstationarity of the climate system on a variety of space and time scales, see our paper
“The Earth’s climate system is highly nonlinear: inputs and outputs are not proportional, change is often episodic and abrupt, rather than slow and gradual, and
multiple equilibria are the norm. ……. we provide a number of illustrative examples and highlight key mechanisms that give rise to nonlinear behavior, address scale
and methodological issues, suggest a robust alternative to prediction that is based on using integrated assessments within the framework of vulnerability studies……. It is
imperative that the Earth’s climate system research community embraces this nonlinear paradigm if we are to move forward in the assessment of the human influence on
climate.”
There is also a clear example of nonstationarity in the research of Connie Woodhouse and her colleagues (see) which
I presented in Figure 1 my paper
There was an article on January 26, 2005 in the Sydney Morning Herald titled Climate
change: settlers 50,000 years ago blamed which provides another example of the major role of land surface processes (and the human conversion
of the landscape) on the climate system (and thanks to Tom Grahame for alerting us to this!).
Excerpts from this news article read
“Settlers who came to Australia 50,000 years ago and set fires that burned off natural flora and fauna may have triggered a cataclysmic weather change that turned
the continent’s interior into the dry desert it is today, United States and Australian researchers say.”
“Their study, reported in the latest issue of the journal, Geology, supports arguments that early settlers literally changed the landscape of the continent with
fire.”
“The implications are that the burning practices of early humans may have changed the climate of the Australian continent by weakening the penetration of monsoon
moisture into the interior,” Gifford Miller of the University of Colorado at Boulder, who led the study, said in a statement.”
“Miller’s study suggests that large fires could have altered the plant population enough to decrease the exchange of water vapour with the atmosphere, stopping
clouds from forming.”
“The researchers, working with John Magee of the Australian National University in Canberra, used computerised global climate simulations to show that if there were
some forest in the middle of Australia, it would lead to a monsoon with twice as much rain as the current pattern.”
A Science peer reviewed article by Gifford Miller closely related this subject is
“Most of Australia’s largest mammals became extinct 50,000 to 45,000 years ago, shortly after humans colonized the continent. Without exceptional climate change at
that time, a human cause is inferred, but a mechanism remains elusive. A 140,000-year record of dietary 13C documents a permanent reduction in food sources available to the
Australian emu, beginning about the time of human colonization; a change replicated at three widely separated sites and in the marsupial wombat. We speculate that human
firing of landscapes rapidly converted a drought-adapted mosaic of trees, shrubs, and nutritious grasslands to the modern fire-adapted desert scrub. Animals that could adapt
survived; those that could not, became extinct.”
With the much smaller human populations at that time, it should not be surprising that there is an even greater effect on today’s climate by human
conversion of the landscape. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
If that headline surprises you, then it is a good indication of how successful the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been in their
20-year long effort to pin the rap for global warming on humanity. I’m not reporting anything really new here. I’m just stating what is logically consistent with, and a
necessary inference from, one of the most recognizable claims contained in the Summary for Policymakers in the IPCC’s 2007 report:
“Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas
concentrations.”
They assign a probablility of 90% to the term “very likely”. This is a curious use of statistical probability since warming over the last 50 years is either mostly due
to anthropogenic emissions, or it isn’t. Probabilities do not apply to past events like this.
What the IPCC is really using probabilities for is to attach some scientific value to their level of faith. I would be very surprised if there weren’t vigorous
objections to the use of probabilities in this way from members of the IPCC…but the IPCC leadership really needed a scientific-sounding way to help push their political
agenda, so I’m sure any objections were overruled.
But I digress. My main point here is that the IPCC is admitting that they might be wrong. That doesn’t sound to me like “the science is settled”, as
Al Gore is fond of saying. If it is “very likely” that “most” of the observed warming was due to mankind, then they are admitting that it is possible that the warming
was mostly natural, instead.
So, let’s play along with their little probability game. Given the extreme cost of greatly reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, wouldn’t you say that it would be
important to actively investigate the 10% possibility that warming is mostly natural, as the IPCC readily admits?
Where is the 10% of government research dollars looking into this possibility? I suspect it is going to environmental NGO’s who are finding new ways to package “global
warming” so that it doesn’t sound like a liberal issue. Or maybe they are working on more clever names to call researchers like me other than “deniers”, which is
getting a little tiresome.
For many years the Department of Defense has had “Red Team” reviews devoted to finding holes in the “consensus of opinion” on weapons systems that cost a whole lot
less than punishing the use of our most abundant and affordable sources of energy. It seems like a no-brainer that you would do something similar for something this
expensive, and as destructive to the lives of poor people all over the world.
One could almost get the impression that there is more than just science that determines what climate science gets funded, and how it gets reported by the news media. Oh,
that’s right I forgot…the United Nations is in charge of this effort. Well, I’m sure they know what they are doing. (Roy W. Spencer)
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is widely regarded in the media as the ultimate authority on climate change. Created by two divisions of the United
Nations, and recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, its pronouncements are received as if they come down from Mount Olympus or Mount Sinai. The common presumption is that
the IPCC has assembled the best scientific knowledge.
Let’s take a closer look at this organization to see whether it merits such uncritical deference. (Mark W. Hendrickson, The Citizen)
Scratch a global warming fanatic these days and you may find a wannabe executioner.
The way I figure it, wish death upon your political opponents once and it can be ignored as just a warped jest. Do it twice and it looks like evidence of mounting frustration
with your neighbors’ inability to see your cause’s crystalline righteousness.
Do it three times and folks around you should start reaching for their hog legs (Don’t know the meaning of that firearms industry technical term? Google it, then read the
entry in the Urban Dictionary).
It seems there are more than a few global warming fanatics these days whose patience is wearing thin with those of us who refuse to endorse repeal of what the true believers
view as three of the 20th century’s greatest evils – privately owned cars that empower people to go where they please, suburbs that let them permanently escape city life,
and free market capitalism that produces a wider prosperity than seen anywhere else in human history. (Mark Tapscott, Examiner)
To be perfectly clear, the point of this blog is not to ask if thousands have marched in Australia against climate change or not. Had the BBC reported manufactured news,
that would have been fraud. Instead, the point is to ask on what basis did the BBC find it necessary to rush this kind of news first, and without having had the time to
check what they were writing about.
That is not fraud: it is bias. And I do not think the BBC can afford to show bias.]
Thousands of demonstrators have rallied across Australia to demand greater government action to protect the environment from climate change
BBC report on marching Australians
Or have they? Has Mr Mercer written his piece before the fact (could happen), and much worse, before having the information needed to verify the contents of his article? (OmniClimate)
Imagine a cap and trade regime in place, and a company decides to shave off a few percentage points on its emissions accounting in order to generate a few tens of
thousands more allowances. What happens then?
Australian Climate Change Minister Penny Wong explains the policing of carbon corruption via the Herald
Sun (and for those like me needing some translation from Australian, here is the definition of “rort”): (Roger Pielke,
Jr., Prometheus)
PARIS/LONDON - The Paris prosecutor's office confirmed on Thursday a probe was under way into a suspected multi-million euros value-added tax (VAT) fraud in the French
carbon emissions market.
"An inquiry is under way but we are not yet about to place people under official investigation," a source at the Paris prosecutor's office said.
The French Budget Ministry has made carbon permits exempt from VAT in order to prevent a potential scam linked to a French emissions exchange, a government source said on
Monday. (Reuters)
So what? ALL hot air trading is fraud since it can never achieve its stated aim of controlling the planet's temperature.
PAPUA NEW GUINEAN landowners are being ripped off by conmen travelling village to village offering fake carbon trading deals and promising big returns from "sky
money".
The crude carbon trading racket has duped at least 500 villagers since late last year around Popondetta, Oro province, on the north-west coast, an industry insider said.
The unknown con artist hired agents to offer "brokerage" in the province's coming carbon trading windfall. (AAP)
NEW YORK - New York City could become the grounds for a new kind of urban wind farm if a Cleveland-based mechanical engineer has his way.
Cleveland State University's Fenn College of Engineering on Thursday said it will unveil a new wind turbine design by one of its professors, Majid Rashidi, that could attach
to the sides of the water storage tanks that sit on the rooftops of many city apartment buildings.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has made green programs a centerpiece of his administration, last August proposed crowning the city's bridges, skyscrapers and shorelines with
turbines, but critics said they would be impractical and possibly hazardous.
But Rashidi said his turbines solve a key stumbling block of harnessing wind power effectively in crowded urban areas because they accelerate the flow of wind through four
rotating turbines. That allows the turbines to work where the wind speed otherwise would be too low.
"In the urban settings, usually because of the existence of buildings, you don't get the high speeds needed," he said. (Reuters)
True or false: taking the commuter train across Boston results in lower greenhouse gas emissions than travelling the same distance in a jumbo jet. Perhaps surprisingly,
the answer is false.
A new study compares the "full life-cycle" emissions generated by 11 different modes of transportation in the US. Unlike previous studies on
transport emissions, Mikhail Chester and Arpad
Horvath of the University of California, Berkeley, looked beyond what is emitted by different types of car,
train, bus or plane while their engines are running and includes emissions from building and maintaining the vehicles and their infrastructure, as well as generating the fuel
to run them. (Table 1 on page 3 has
a complete list of components that were considered).
Transport studies expert Abigail Bristow of Loughborough University, UK,
who was not involved in the study, says it is valuable because it attempts to compare transport on equal terms. To do this, Chester and Horvath calculated how many passengers
each train, plane, bus or car would carry in its lifetime and how many kilometres it would cover. The pair took into account how much each infrastructure component – such
as tracks, roads and airports – is used in its lifetime.
Including these additional sources of pollution more than doubles the greenhouse gas emissions of train travel. The emissions generated by car travel
increase by nearly one third when manufacturing and infrastructure are taken into account. In comparison to cars on roads and trains on tracks, air travel requires little
infrastructure. As a result, full life-cycle emissions are between 10 and 20 per cent higher than "tailpipe" emissions. (New Scientist)
Global oil demand dropped for the first time in 15 years in 2008, falling at its sharpest rate since 1982, according to the industry-leading BP statistical review
published yesterday.
Total worldwide consumption dropped by 0.6 per cent – equivalent to 420,000 barrels per day (bpd) – and demand from developing economies, particularly China, outstripped
that from OECD countries for the first time. As the developed world curtailed its appetite for oil by 1.5 million bpd – spurred first by eye-watering prices and then by
sharply braking economic growth – non-OECD countries also registered slower growth in demand at just 1.1 million bpd.
But the big story last year was China, and not just with regards to oil. Global energy consumption grew by just 1.4 per cent in 2008, its smallest rise since 2001. And China
accounted for three-quarters of it.
The US is still the world's most energy-hungry nation, gobbling a whopping 20.4 per cent. But demand was down 2.8 per cent last year, the biggest contraction for a quarter of
a century. Meanwhile, Chinese energy usage shot up by 7.2 per cent, its slowest rate for five years but still enough to take the rapidly industrialising nation to a 17.7 per
cent share. No other country is even in double figures.
Tony Hayward, the chief executive of BP, said: "The centre of gravity of the global energy markets has tilted sharply and irreversibly towards the emerging nations of
the world, especially China." (The Independent)
The Scientist is the source of our Casablanca
flashback, with its report that an open access journal published by Bentham
was willing to publish a ‘nonsense’ paper
that supposedly passed peer review. A Ph.D. student in science communications and a staffer at The New England Journal of Medicine have been testing journals peer
review practices by submitting papers generated by computer program. They
document this particular incident on their blog. In short, the journal agreed to publish the article, if the authors paid the fee, and asserted it had passed peer
review.
At a minimum the publisher Bentham is guilty of allowing journals to assert peer review when none had taken place. The scamming conclusion is reasonable, given the
reports. I’m not in agreement that open access journals are necessarily more suspect of putting out supposedly peer-reviewed articles that weren’t so reviewed.
Yes, they do charge more fees than traditional journals (who could be scamming authors for photo and chart fees, amongst other things), but an open access journal is not more
likely to skimp on peer review than any other journal.
What bothers me is that it has to take generating obviously lousy articles to ferret out derelict peer review. Given the volume of scientific publishing, there’s
an enormous amount of implicit trust in the processes behind these articles that people will continue to exploit. I wish I had even the germ of a possible solution
here. (David Bruggeman, Prometheus)
Tucked away in the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which was passed by the House in April and by the Senate this week, is a provision that speaks
volumes about the law's impact. It prohibits manufacturers from making "any statement directed to consumers" that "would reasonably be expected to result in
consumers believing" a tobacco product "is regulated, inspected or approved by the Food and Drug Administration."
The bill, which President Obama supports, authorizes the FDA to regulate tobacco products. Yet it says, "consumers are likely to be confused and misled" if they
know the FDA is regulating tobacco products. They might mistakenly believe that FDA regulation makes these products safer, for example, when the opposite is the truth.
It's easy to understand why Philip Morris supported this bill. The market leader can expect to benefit from the limits on advertising and promotion, the regulatory burden on
smaller competitors, and the ban on every "characterizing" flavor except the one it happens to use in some of its most successful brands (menthol). But the company
may be wrong to believe that FDA regulation will allow it to pursue plans for safer cigarettes. (Jacob Sullum, Townhall)
In their continuing effort to eliminate tobacco use, anti-smoking advocates are now lobbying for restrictions on tobacco consumption in “all film media.”
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), any film depicting tobacco consumption should automatically receive the “R” rating and movie studios should “certify
that they received no payoffs from tobacco companies to display tobacco products or their use, stop displaying tobacco brands onscreen [and] require strong anti-tobacco
advertisements before all movies that have tobacco imagery.”
So what end could possibly justify such blatant violations of personal and creative freedom? Why our children’s health, of course. The American Medical Association
Alliance, who recently began a campaign to irritate the movie studios into compliance with these draconian rules, claims that there is […] “a growing body of research
showing that youth see and are influenced by these [tobacco] images. In fact, studies show that one-third to half of all new smoking by teens can be attributed to smoking in
movies.”
Sure they do. (Cameron English, El Dorado County Conservative Examiner)
People usually gain weight because they overeat, but what makes them overeat? A new study suggests that obese people have a different physiological response to food: they
continue to salivate longer in response to a new taste than do people of normal weight.
Saliva production tends to decline in most people once they’ve gotten used to the taste of a certain food and had enough of it. The process, called habituation, is
associated with a feeling of fullness, said Dale S. Bond, a study author and assistant professor of research at The Miriam Hospital in Providence, R.I.
But among very obese people in the new study, all of whom were candidates for bariatric surgery, the decline in saliva in response to a stimulus — in this case, lemon juice
— was slight and occurred much more gradually than among those who were of normal weight, researchers said. (New York Times)
WASHINGTON - Large U.S. chain restaurants, criticized for their role in the country's obesity epidemic, agreed on Wednesday to support legislation that would require them
to disclose calories on their menus.
Chain restaurants with 20 or more locations would have to list on their menus the number of calories per item and would also have to make available upon request other
nutritional information such as the amount of sugar, salt or cholesterol.
The menu labeling law could be included in health reform legislation expected to be discussed in Congress during the next few weeks. (Reuters)
Raising taxes on cigarettes worked: Fewer kids are smoking because of it. That is among the most powerful arguments being made by proponents of an effort in Congress to
impose taxes on sugary drinks to help pay for health care reform while dissuading people from overconsuming sweetened beverages. (Another proposal would raise federal taxes
on alcoholic drinks).
Of course, the mere fact that a tax is effective in reducing consumption doesn't by itself mean it should be enacted. Indeed, the same argument can be made against imposing
taxes. Reducing consumption reduces sales, which hurts business, which could hit workers and stockholders.
And soda pop ain't cigarettes. Any amount of smoking is bad for you, but as the otherwise-disingenuous beverage industry correctly points out, it's possible to consume sugary
drinks in moderation without seriously degrading your health. (Dan Mitchell, The Big Money)
As I recently wrote about in a previous article, one of the ways that the Obama administration and members of Congress propose paying for their healthcare system overhaul
plan is via a new tax on ‘sugary products’ such as sodas. The argument behind this new tax is that sugary products contribute to obesity, which in turn is one of the
major reasons why healthcare costs have been skyrocketing.
On the surface, as is true with most government proposals, the concept seems to make sense. In a perfect world, the new tax on sugary products would cause Americans to
consume lower quantities of them, which in turn would lead to less obesity and finally to lower healthcare costs. Makes perfect sense, right? (Rick Robbins, Louisville
Economic Policy Examiner)
'Killer moth begins English invasion' was the disturbing title of a story in the Daily Telegraph's recent Nature Notes linking the spread of the oak processionary moth to
climate change.
This revelation about our imminent demise due to a furry Lepidoptera may have troubled you slightly. So just how deadly is this moth? (BBC Blog of Bloom)
Charitable giving fell last year by the largest percentage in five decades, according to a new study by the Giving USA Foundation.
Individuals and institutions made gifts and pledges of $307.65 billion, a decrease of 5.7 percent on an inflation-adjusted basis over the $314 billion given in 2007,
according to the foundation, a research organization backed by the fund-raising industry.
Some experts said they were surprised the drop was not even bigger, given that endowments fell by as much as 40 percent, the stock market declined by a similar margin,
corporations posted unheard-of losses and unemployment was rising at a fast clip. (New York Times)
That's a little over $1,000 per man, woman & child across the entire U.S. population, despite the current economy.
WASHINGTON — During the first four months of his administration, President Obama has committed roughly $1 trillion in federal spending: a $787 billion economic recovery
package, and $350 billion in money to bail out the nation’s banks. The budget deficit for this year is now projected at $1.8 trillion.
So on Tuesday, in the face of considerable skepticism from Republicans, the president was talking about saving money, not spending it.
Mr. Obama announced he was sending legislation to Congress to restore the 1990s-era “pay as you go” law, known as Paygo. The law, in effect from 1990 to 2002, required
that tax cuts or new entitlement spending — like the health care overhaul that Mr. Obama hopes will be a signature domestic achievement — be paid for through budget cuts
or tax increases.
The restriction would not apply to so-called “discretionary” spending that finances most government programs aside from Medicare and Social Security.
“The ‘pay as you go’ principle is very simple,” Mr. Obama told a group of Congressional Democrats in the East Room of the White House. “Congress can only spend a
dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere.”
But critics of Paygo say it is not simple at all, because Congress has a long history of waiving its requirements. And White House officials conceded Mr. Obama’s proposal
would not put a dent in the federal deficit. It would only keep it from getting bigger. (New York Times)
The part about cutting spending is fair enough but the increasing taxes thing is definitely not on.
Obama and his liberal cohorts in Congress want to enact a new tax on profits that U.S. companies currently defer. This will spur many firms to move their operations
overseas in order to avoid the tax - threatening American jobs and the economy as a whole. Urge your elected officials to oppose the deferral tax hike scheme! (Freedom Works)
WASHINGTON — Airports already bulldoze bird nests and send dogs to chase off flocks, but engineers are trying new technologies to scare away birds in flight, including
using landing lights as strobe lights, the vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board said Monday.
The official, Robert L. Sumwalt, spoke on the eve of Tuesday’s safety board hearing on the crash of US Airways Flight 1549, which took Canada geese into both engines
shortly after takeoff from La Guardia Airport on Jan. 15 and glided into the Hudson. All 155 people on board survived.
Mr. Sumwalt said turning the landing lights into strobe lights could make a plane, closing in on the birds at more than 100 miles an hour, more conspicuous to them. But, he
said, that is only one solution that should be investigated.
“Maybe there’s some other technology out there, a radar that some innovative company can come up with to zap the birds out of the way,” Mr. Sumwalt said in an
interview. Some pilots believe that birds try to avoid emissions from the planes’ on-board weather radar, he said, and “we need to find out, is that an urban legend or is
there some truth to that?”
“We need to be innovative when we’re looking for solutions here,” he said. (Reuters)
Environmental health researchers from UCLA, the University of Southern California and the California Air Resources Board have found that during the hours before sunrise,
freeway air pollution extends much further than previously thought.
Air pollutants from Interstate 10 in Santa Monica extend as far as 2,500 meters — more than 1.5 miles — downwind, based on recent measurements from a research team headed
by Dr. Arthur Winer, a professor of environmental health sciences at the UCLA School of Public Health. This distance is 10 times greater than previously measured daytime
pollutant impacts from roadways and has significant exposure implications, since most people are in their homes during the hours before sunrise and outdoor pollutants
penetrate into indoor environments. (University of California)
California's rivers used to brim with trout, salmon, sturgeon and more, but the federal, state and local governments built a monumental system of dams and pipelines in the
most populous state that turned a desert into productive farmland and left some rivers dry.
The state faces a water crisis and a third year of drought. Add climate change and a growing population to the mix, and the fate of some salmon runs looks untenable without
change, the National Marine Fisheries Service said in a report ordered as part of a long-running court battle over the salmon.
It called for a 5 percent to 7 percent cut in water diversions for cities and agriculture from key state and federal water suppliers. Water conservation, recycling and
groundwater use could offset the cuts, the report said, but water agencies described a tougher situation.
That reflects a larger argument about whether the state can conserve its way out of crisis or should build more dams and canals to capture the last trickles that bypass the
system. (Reuters)
Troops controlled the town of Bagua Grande, 870 miles (1,400 km) north of the capital Lima, after an overnight curfew was enforced to defuse the worst violence faced by
President Alan Garcia's government.
An indigenous leader said 40 protesters were killed and the government said 23 members of the security forces perished in two days of battles over Garcia's push to open up
the rainforest to billions of dollars in foreign investment.
Thousands of Indians armed with wooden spears vowed to dig in at blockades on remote Amazon highways to defend their ancestral lands from outside developers. (Reuters)
Despite Jack Shafer's recent complaints, newspapers continue to report on the "trend" of people raising chickens in their back yards.
The latest: The Dubuque, Iowa, Telegraph-Herald, which has taken it even further than a trend-according to that newspaper (whose article was picked up by the Chicago
Tribune), it's a "movement":
"Whether they are owned as pets or food sources, chickens have become the animals du jour, the darlings of the growing 'backyard flock' movement," the paper
reports.
Of course, there is nothing to support the idea that such a "movement" actually exists; the article is built on nothing but anecdotes. The only trend here is of
newspaper reporters insisting that there is a trend.
It may well be true that more people are raising their own chickens. But these stories offer no real data to indicate that it is so. (Reuters)
Europeans, considered among the staunchest opponents of food created with genetically modified organisms (GMO), are at least a decade from accepting biotech food, said
Meinolf Lindhauer from Germany's Max Rubner federal research institute of nutrition and food.
"The majority of consumers in many European countries, not in all, do not accept GMO at all," he said while attending the International Wheat Quality conference in
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
The only way for GMO wheat proponents to be heard above the arguments of anti-GMO groups is to demonstrate biotechnology could give consumers a "convincing
advantage," he said.
One way might be modifying wheat so it could be eaten by people with celiac disease, a serious digestive condition caused by eating the protein gluten, he said.
In the long run, genetically modified wheat will be necessary to keep pace with corn and soybeans, said Robert Henry, director of the Center for Plant Conservation Genetics
in Lismore, Australia. (Reuters)
Damon Matthews, a professor in Concordia University’s Department of Geography, Planning and the Environment has found a direct relationship between carbon dioxide
emissions and global warming.
Matthews, together with colleagues from Victoria and the U.K., used a combination of global climate models and historical climate data to show
that there is a simple linear relationship between total cumulative emissions and global temperature change.
These findings will be published in the next edition of Nature, to be released on June 11, 2009.
Until now, it has been difficult to estimate how much climate will warm in response to a given carbon dioxide emissions scenario because of the complex interactions between
human emissions, carbon sinks, atmospheric concentrations and temperature change. Matthews and colleagues show that despite these uncertainties, each emission of carbon
dioxide results in the same global temperature increase, regardless of when or over what period of time the emission occurs.
These findings mean that we can now say: if you emit that tonne of carbon dioxide, it will lead to 0.0000000000015 degrees of global temperature change.
If we want to restrict global warming to no more than 2 degrees, we must restrict total carbon emissions — from now until forever — to little more than half a trillion
tonnes of carbon, or about as much again as we have emitted since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
“Most people understand that carbon dioxide emissions lead to global warming,” says Matthews, “but it is much harder to grasp the complexities of what goes on in
between these two end points. Our findings allow people to make a robust estimate of their contribution to global warming based simply on total carbon dioxide emissions.”
In light of this study and other recent research, Matthews and a group of international climate scientists have written
an open letter calling on participants of December’s Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change to
acknowledge the need to limit cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide so as to avoid dangerous climate change.
For more information or to obtain a copy of the full article, contact Damon Matthews at 514-848-2424 ext. 2064 or email dmatthew@alcor.concordia.ca.
The actual 'paper' is in letters Nature: Vol 459 | 11 June 2009 | doi:10.1038/nature08047 and it appears an appalling exercise in modeling
make-believe. The fun part is that we ran up a simple script years ago that delivers estimated
time-independent linear response and far more accurate answers than these guys managed since ours is based on real-world numbers (plug in 1,000,000,000,000 metric tons CO2
and it will calculate ~0.43 K temperature response). Their response is 4 times larger than ours and we state unequivocally that ours is far too high as a linear calculation
rather than logarithmic.
This article has already been effectively commented on elsewhere (see
Examiner.com and Roy Spencer’s weblog), and I want
to add to the discussion of this news article here.
The article by John Vidal reads in part
“Reflecting sunlight on buildings and cars among dozens of ideas considered by Steven Chu and the US energy department”
People should paint their roofs white and drive ‘cool’ cars on pale-coloured roads to avoid devastating climate change, US energy secretary and Nobel prize-winning
physicist Steven Chu has advised Prince Charles and a group of 19 other laureates meeting in London today.
The measures, which would reflect sunlight and enable buildings and automobiles to stay cooler and use less energy in summer, are some of dozens that Chu and the US
energy department are considering for the “revolution” which he said was needed in the US, Europe and around the world to address global warming.
‘Yes, make people paint their roofs white. I think white is pretty. If all vehicles used cool colours then they could cut down the air conditioning and we would have
a great reduction in energy,’ he said at the start of a three-day climate change symposium hosted by Prince Charles and attended by peace, literature, chemistry and physics
laureates as well as 40 other senior scientists…..”
First, I am pleased that Dr. Chu accepts that land cover/land use, at least on very small spatial scales, can affect climate. Land use/land cover change
is an issue that readers of our weblog know I have emphasized frequently (e.g. see).
However, Dr. Chu does not consider unintended consequences with respect his suggestions. “Pale-coloured roads”, for example, might be a good idea in hot
climates, but in mid-latitude regions of the world with cold and snow during the winter, when the sun shines after a storm, the absorption of sunlight by asphalt is
an effective way to clear the roads. We need, therefore, to consider each of these proposals in terms of all of their possible effects (intended and
unintended).
Nevertheless, I am an advocate of passive solar heating which is an idea that Dr. Chu seems to similarly embrace. This is the type of “win-win” environmental
policy that I have weblogged on before (e.g see A
Win-Win Solution to Environmental Problems).
I next urge Dr. Chu to embrace the issue that, since white roofs and pale-coloured roads can reduce energy consumption and thus a reduction in
resultant CO2 emissions, that land uses of all types (irrigation, deforestation, afforestation, dryland agriculture, etc) be elevated in the policy planning
with respect to mitigation and adaptation to natural and human caused climate variability and change.
A example of the need for integrated environmental policy planning is discussed in my paper (with respect to carbon sequestration)
“There has, unfortunately, been no attempt to evaluate the benefit of carbon sequestration as a means of reducing the concentrations of the radiatively
active gas CO2 in the atmosphere, while at the same time, assessing the influence of this sequestration on the radiatively active gas H2O, and on the surface heat energy
budget. Until these effects are factored in as part of an integrated climate assessment, a policy based on carbon sequestration as a means to reduce the radiative warming
effect of increased atmospheric concentrations of CO2 could actually enhance this warming.”
This concept of considering all aspects of an environmental action should be part of Dr. Chu’s policy planning. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
Usually when we think of global warming, we are led to believe that it is caused primarily by increasing greenhouse gases. After all, that is what all the fuss is about in
Washington DC these days. But is that entirely true?
After all there are lots of other things going on all the while. For instance, to what degree has the global temperature record in recent decades been influenced by the
variability in aerosol emissions?
This question has been the subject of a series of articles in recent years by Martin Wild and colleagues which look at the impacts of (primarily sulfate) aerosols on the
earth’s climate. They typically conclude that sulfate aerosols play a larger role in multi-decadal climate fluctuations than the climate models generally give them credit
for. And that models’ inability to properly handle the climate aspects of aerosols “may hamper the predictive skills of these models to project near future climate
evolution.” (WCR)
A U.S. study shows introducing a hybrid of the American chestnut tree would not only help the nearly extinct species, but also reduce atmospheric carbon.
Purdue University Associate Professor Douglass Jacobs said the study found American chestnuts grow much faster and larger than other hardwood species, allowing them to
sequester more carbon. And since American chestnut trees are more often used for high-quality hardwood products such as furniture, they hold the carbon longer than wood used
for paper or other low-grade materials.
"Maintaining or increasing forest cover has been identified as an important way to slow climate change," said Jacobs. "The American chestnut is an incredibly
fast-growing tree. Generally the faster a tree grows, the more carbon it is able to sequester … (and) the carbon can be stored in hardwood products for decades. (UPI)
Whenever you hear a politician start a sentence with, "If we can put a man on the moon ... ," grab your wallet.
For years, Democrats, enthralled by the cargo cult of the Kennedy presidency, have used the moon landing as proof that no big government ambition is beyond our reach.
The latest example of anthropogenic-lunar empowerment is global warming. Al Gore and Barack Obama routinely cite the Apollo program as proof that we can make good on the
president's messianic campaign pledge to stem the rising ocean tides and hasten the healing of the planet. (Jonah Goldberg, Townhall)
Japan announced a target for emissions reductions, that by all accounts is based on what the Japanese government thinks is actually possible.
In reaction to this announcement, the Japanese government was criticized for
not playing along with the charade that most every other country is playing: (Roger Pielke, Jr., Prometheus)
Could Cap and Trade Cause Another Market Meltdown?
The same Wall Street players that upended the economy are clamoring to open up a massive market to swap, chop, and bundle carbon derivatives. Sound familiar?
You've heard of credit default swaps and subprime mortgages. Are carbon default swaps and subprime offsets next? If the Waxman-Markey climate bill is signed into law, it
will generate, almost as an afterthought, a new market for carbon derivatives. That market will be vast, complicated, and dauntingly difficult to monitor. And if Washington
doesn't get the rules right, it will be vulnerable to speculation and manipulation by the very same players who brought us the financial meltdown. (Rachel Morris, Mother
Jones)
They've got this much right -- carbon trading is a massive scam.
"I'm not saying it's technologically impossible, but a lot of the coal plants in China are old technology. They are thermally inefficient ... and they have to use a
lot of energy to capture and store the CO2," former U.S. Vice President Gore told a panel at the Cornell Global Forum on Sustainable Enterprise late Wednesday.
Actually Al, all CCS involves exorbitant expenditure in energy and it is never worth doing -- especially since CO2 emission is
the best thing people have ever done for the biosphere.
"China launches green power revolution to catch up on west" [sic] shrieks the front page headline in today's Guardian. It's a nonsense, of course. Modern China
cares about as much about "anthropogenic global warming" as Chairman Mao did about providing his population with five-course steak dinners. AGW's only use, as far
as the Chinese are concerned, is as an ingenious device to suck up money and power from the gullible west.
And this isn't meant to be an insult to the Chinese, by the way. I mean it wholly as a compliment to their far-sightedness, shrewdness and pragmatism. Over the last ten days,
delegation after US delegation has gone to China in a vain bid to persuade its leadership to believe in - or at least pay lipservice to - the mythical beast they call
ManBearPig.
How has China responded? Why, with exactly the mix of incredulity, scorn and cynicism you'd expect of a hungry, fast-industrialising nation whose priority is economic growth
rather than, say, assuaging breast-beating liberal guilt about how we've sinned against Mother Gaia and must now flagellate ourselves for our sins with swingeing new eco
taxes and punitive regulation. (James Delingpole, Daily Telegraph)
Your bending author has been thinking about women lately (as you do). This was precipitated by the shock of being cited in a review of a feminist tract, though the
connection is not clear. It induced an urge to stick ones head in the lioness’s mouth. (Number Watch)
WASHINGTON — The wind, a favorite power source of the green energy movement, seems to be dying down across the United States. And the cause, ironically, may be global
warming — the very problem wind power seeks to address.
The idea that winds may be slowing is still a speculative one, and scientists disagree whether that is happening. But a first-of-its-kind study suggests that average and peak
wind speeds have been noticeably slowing since 1973, especially in the Midwest and the East.
"It's a very large effect," said study co-author Eugene Takle, a professor of atmospheric science at Iowa State University. In some places in the Midwest, the trend
shows a 10 percent drop or more over a decade. That adds up when the average wind speed in the region is about 10 to 12 miles per hour.
There's been a jump in the number of low or no wind days in the Midwest, said the study's lead author, Sara Pryor, an atmospheric scientist at Indiana University. (AP)
Now, this is not implausible (we have pointed out many times that gorebull warming, if real, would have the effect of reducing atmospheric thermoclines
(steep temperature gradients) and hence reducing the potential between equator and poles, surface and altitude, in turn reducing wind speed, convective towers...). The
question now is how they can continue claims of increasingly powerful and destructive storms in the face of apparently declining wind speed.
Apparently an AP news article out today on how we don’t know if global warming is making the winds blow with less gusto is not a parody, despite all indications to the
contrary. For benefit of readers I have condensed it as below: (Roger Pielke, Jr., Prometheus)
HOUSTON, Texas, June 10, 2009 - Sea level rise due to climate change in the Houston-Galveston area over the next 100 years could displace more than 100,000 households and
create more than $12 billion in infrastructure losses, finds a new report commissioned by the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund and the British Consulate-General Houston.
The study used an economic computer model to assess the impact of both conservative and aggressive sea level rise on homes, buildings, industrial and hazardous material sites
and water treatments plants in Galveston, Harris and Chambers counties.
"Climate change is happening," said David Yoskowitz, co-author of the report and a professor of socio-economics at the Harte Research Institute, Texas A&M
University-Corpus Christi. (ENS)
Bangalore: In the next four decades, millions of people will be forced to flee rising seas, floods, drought and other climate-induced effects, with the melting Himalayan
glaciers particularly putting at risk the biggest irrigation system in the world, says a new report released on Wednesday in Bonn, Germany, at the ongoing United Nations
climate change talks. (LiveMint)
Big mammals might be unexpectedly resilient in the face of global warming, suggests a new study that looked to the past for insights into the future.
The study found that llamas, tapirs, deer and other large mammals changed their diets when glaciers retreated from North America more than a million years ago.
Scientists have long assumed that animals would be rigid about what they ate and what niches they occupied during periods of climate change — making them especially
vulnerable to those shifts. (Discovery)
WASHINGTON, June 10 -- NASA has announced a new funding opportunity that could result in the award of cooperative agreements for projects designed to educate students,
teachers and lifelong learners about global climate change. (PRNewswire-USNewswire)
HOUSTON — After just a few months of relief at the pump, cheap gasoline is disappearing.
Gas prices have risen 41 days in a row, to a national average of almost $2.62 a gallon. That is a sharp increase from the low of $1.62 a gallon that prevailed at the end of
last year.
Refinery problems are producing especially high prices in the Midwest, a region that was already reeling from the economic crisis. Michigan, the state with the highest
unemployment rate, at 12.9 percent, is now paying the highest gasoline prices, averaging $2.93 a gallon.
The national jump in prices, far larger than the normal seasonal increase, is pulling billions of dollars from the pockets of drivers. It threatens to curtail a modest
recovery in consumer spending on items like apparel and electronics.
After increasing 62 percent since December, the price of gasoline is actually lagging behind the increase in the price of oil, which has doubled in the same period, to more
than $68 in recent days. Analysts say the increase is being driven by investor expectations of an economic recovery, the recent fall of the dollar against other currencies
and, to a lesser extent, the success of oil-exporting countries in curtailing supplies. (New York Times)
WASHINGTON — House Republicans are calling for a hundred new nuclear power plants to be built in the next two decades as part of an energy plan they say is a better
alternative than one championed by Democrats.
The legislation unveiled by the GOP Wednesday would also increase production of oil and gas offshore, open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling and spur refinery
construction. The money from the new drilling would go into a trust fund that would pay for the development of renewable energy. (Associated Press)
They lost me at wasting the funds generated by drilling in a trust fund for renewable development.
"Demand will continue to increase, but any expansion of our carbon footprint will be compensated," Giovanni Bisignani told the annual general meeting of the
International Air Transport Association in the Malaysian capital.
But Bisignani said wide cooperation was needed from allied industries and governments.
"Air navigation service providers must make it possible to fly even more effectively. Fuel companies must supply eco-friendly fuels and governments must give us access
to credits in global carbon markets."
Aviation is responsible for about 2 percent of global greenhouse gas pollution and that share is expected to rise. (Reuters)
Greenhouse gases are not atmospheric pollutants. They are what makes this planet's surface habitable!
KUALA LUMPUR - Airlines project that carbon trading will cost the global industry around $7 billion a year from 2020, from when the sector has pledged to grow without
adding to greenhouse emissions.
The International Air Transport Association, which represents 230 airlines, agreed at a board meeting that it would achieve carbon neutral growth from 2020 through a
combination of investment in technology, biofuels and economic measures such as carbon trading.
Aviation is likely to be included in any global pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol to cap emissions from 2013, meaning caps on emissions that will make airlines buy credits
to exceed those limits. (Reuters)
Yesterday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry took aim at the federal government, salting his critique with a dose of unabashed global-warming skepticism.
He criticized the Environmental Protection Agency’s April ruling that rising levels of carbon dioxide present a hazard to human health. The governor, a former West Texas
rancher and Texas A&M University graduate, said: “The idea that CO2 is a toxic substance is a bit hard for this agricultural scientist to get his arms around when …
Nobel laureates have talked CO2 in a very positive sense when you talk about the green revolution.”
But he saved his sharpest barbs for the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill and its cap-and-trade provision to limit greenhouse-gas emissions. He said it amounted to “the
largest tax increase in the history of our country.” It would devastate the Texas economy–and for what?
He’s not sure there’s much to be worried about. “This is going to come down to this: Are the Democrats in Congress willing to stand up and say we are fixing to raise
everyone’s cost of living in America on some science that still is yet to be solidified?”
That’s not much difference than Gov. Perry’s earlier assault on federal ethanol mandates, which he said raised the price of corn and threatened another cherished Texas
industry—cattle.
Surely that means Gov. Perry is against clean energy–which is being propped up by all sorts of government incentives, loan guarantees and mandates? Not exactly. (WSJ)
The big picture for renewables is a sector which may emerge from recession as fast or faster than the wider economy, because government support is often in the form of
guaranteed long-term price support.
But capital-intensive projects, such as new installations, are dependent on debt finance and for that reason the sector can only recover fully with a growing economy.
(Reuters)
Pitiful energy return on expenditure means "alternative" energy will likely never get off the government teat. We have ample fossil fuels for
hundreds of years and absolutely no valid reason not to use them.
LONDON - Britain will miss 2020 clean energy targets and the supporting certificate scheme "will die" if the government does not spend more to support renewables,
the CEO of clean energy developer Climate Change Capital said on Tuesday.
The UK's Renewables Obligation scheme forces utilities to generate an increasing proportion of their electricity from low-carbon sources, including wind and biomass energy,
in an effort to meet a 2020 target of 15 percent renewable energy.
If utilities are unable to generate renewable energy, they must buy Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) from generators that have excess low-carbon energy to sell.
"Between now and 2020 we're not even going to come close to hitting our targets, but between 2020-2025 I think we'll reach them," said Mark Woodall, speaking at a
conference held by Project Finance International, a leading source on project finance intelligence owned by Thomson Reuters.
NEW YORK - Raising the allowable levels of ethanol in conventional U.S. gasoline would help push up prices for corn and other grains and ultimately meat and dairy,
economists associated with food groups said on Tuesday.
The government allows conventional gasoline to be blended with up to 10 percent ethanol. But the ethanol industry, which has grown rapidly during the last two years amid
generous government incentives and mandates that call for more ethanol blending over time, wants the blend rate raised to 12 percent to 15 percent ethanol for the industry to
continue growing.
"Ultimately this will translates into higher livestock and dairy prices, and eventually further upward pressure on consumer food prices," said Bill Lapp, president
of Advanced Economic Solutions.
He said in a report issued on Tuesday commissioned by the Grocery Manufacturers Association that 12 to 15 percent blends would push up the amount of land needed to grow corn
to at least 100 million acres by about 2010 to 2015. (Reuters)
OSLO - European car scrapping schemes are aiding a shift to small, less polluting cars but environmental campaigners say they fall short of pledges to create a greener
economy during the recession.
"It's definitely a missed opportunity. This is just doling out cash to the car industry," said Jos Dings, director of the European Federation for Transport and
Environment, which campaigns for greener transport.
"The first goal is to help the economy," German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said of a "cash for clunkers" subsidy that helped boost German car
sales by 40 percent in May from the same 2008 month.
"The indirect effect is that you help the climate" by replacing old cars with cleaner vehicles, the minister told Reuters of the scheme that pays motorists 2,500
euros ($3,468) to scrap a car at least nine years old and buy a new vehicle.
By contrast, U.S. auto sales slumped 34 percent in May. (Reuters)
The nation's green jobs market has "explosive" growth potential, outpacing overall job growth 9.1 percent to 3.7 percent over a 10-year span, a new research
report on the "clean energy economy" released by the Pew Charitable Trusts in Washington has found. (Andrea Billups and Kristi Jourdan, Washington Times)
Yes, we got this media release, too. No idea why The Times bothered to print it though.
As ergonomics specialists know, using a computer can be a real pain — in the neck, wrists, back, eyes, shoulders, etc. But it also leads to injuries that experts may not
have considered, such as trips and falls over the printer cord, lacerations from the sharp corners of a CPU or bruised toes from dropping laptops on feet.
Accidents like these happen more often than you think. According to a study published in the July issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine — the first to tally
acute computer-caused injuries like cuts and bruises — 9,300 Americans suffer such mishaps each year. Based on data from some 100 hospital emergency rooms across the
country from 1994 to 2006, the study found that 78,703 people sustained injuries ranging from scrapes and bruises to contusions and torn muscles during the 13-year study
period. (Watch a video about dropping your laptop from 3 ft. off the ground.)
In part, the high rate of injury reflects the sheer increase in household computer ownership, which jumped 309% over the same period. But computer exposure and injuries
hardly rose in lockstep: injuries far outpaced ownership, growing 732% from 1994 to 2006.
"I found that to be really astounding," says study co-author Lara McKenzie, assistant professor of pediatrics at Nationwide Children's Hospital's Center for Injury
Research and Policy. "We never see increases like that, and we look at consumer products all the time." (Tiffany Sharples, Time)
Computer-related injuries on the rise in children? Sure, I thought, their thumbs get sore from playing Grand Theft Auto for hours on end. But I was wrong; we’re talking
real injuries here, the kinds that land kids in the emergency room. (USNews)
How dangerous could that laptop, desktop, or Mac sitting in front of you be? (ABC News)
Must be a big deal so for goodness sake teach your kids to play catch with a ball instead of that laptop & desktops should, well, stay on the desk,
OK?
According to a research abstract that will be presented on June 9, at Sleep 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, adolescent
obesity is associated with having less sleep. Reduction in sleep could be related to a higher caffeine intake, more hours of technology use and increased symptoms of sleep
disorders (such as snoring).
Results indicate that children who slept less consumed more caffeine and had more hours of screen time (use of television, Internet, computer and video games). A higher body
mass index (BMI) was also associated with shorter sleep duration. More hours of screen time were also associated with higher caffeine consumption. (ScienceDaily)
Whether MEAL or LEAN proposals pass, Americans may get more information on the foods ordered in restaurants. With 2/3 of Americans overweight, and many of them obese,
calorie information may shock you but then it could save your life.
MEAL is the Menu Education Act which is based on a similar law in New York City. Under MEAL, any restaurant with more than 20 locations would be required to list the
calories, carbs, fat and sodium content next to each menu item.
LEAN is the Labeling Education and Nutrition Act which is championed by the restaurant industry. To avoid calorie-shock by diners, the restaurant industry supports LEAN which
only requires the calorie count be listed somewhere (menu board, separate page insert) which is less in-your-face than placing this vital health information next to each menu
item as mandated under the MEAL act.
How much does this matter? A few quick examples of fast take snacks showed stunning information in the column on Beware of Hidden Calories in Name Brand Foods. Check out a
bold article on the front page of the St Petersburg Times headlined, Consuming Truths. How refreshing to see nutrition and health focus on the front page instead of relegated
to a back page of a distant section. (KT Erwin, Examiner)
UN environmental chief Achim Steiner said yesterday that,
“Single use plastic bags which choke marine life, should be banned or phased out rapidly everywhere. There is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore,
anywhere.”
The notion that plastic bags pose some special hazard to marine life, however is a myth. As reported in the Times (UK) on March 8, 2008,
Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated claims.
The widely stated accusation that the bags kill 100,000 animals and a million seabirds every year are false, experts have told The Times. They pose only a minimal threat
to most marine species, including seals, whales, dolphins and seabirds…
Campaigners say that plastic bags pollute coastlines and waterways, killing or injuring birds and livestock on land and, in the oceans, destroying vast numbers of
seabirds, seals, turtles and whales. However, The Times has established that there is no scientific evidence to show that the bags pose any direct threat to marine
mammals… (Green Hell Blog)
Sub-Saharan Africa remains one of Earth's most impoverished regions. Over 90% of its people still lack electricity, running water, proper sanitation and decent housing.
Malaria, malnutrition, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and intestinal diseases kill millions every year. Life expectancy is appalling, and falling.
And yet UN officials, European politicians, environmentalist groups and even African authorities insist that global warming is the gravest threat facing the continent. They
claim there is no longer any debate over human-caused global warming - but ignore thousands of scientists who say human CO2 emissions are not the primary cause of climate
changes
, there is no evidence that future warming will be catastrophic, and computer models do not provide valid projections or "scenarios" for the future.
[Global] Warming alarmists use the "specter of climate change" to justify inhumane policies and shift the blame for problems that could be solved with the very
technologies they oppose. (Willie Soon and Paul Driessen, Right Side News)
Instead of guilt-tripping Western consumers about overfishing, we should invest our energy in developing aquaculture. (Rob Lyons, sp!ked)
ICAT HURRICANE DAMAGE ESTIMATOR
Roger Pielke, Jr.
Dear Colleagues-
I have not been this excited about a web app for a long time if ever.
ICAT is an insurance company located here in Boulder, Colorado and I have been working with them over the past year to develop a new website called the ICAT Damage Estimator
-- http://www.icatdamageestimator.com -- which builds upon our research on normalized hurricane losses. The website is now
live
in beta mode.
You can view a brief tutorial at the link above, and I encourage you to do so as it has a lot of interesting functionality. In the coming weeks we'll be rolling out some
additional functions that will be mightily impressive. Stay tuned for that. Meantime, please explore the site, share it around, and use the feedback options on the site to
let us know what you think.
It is a public site and I am sure will get lots of use as hurricane season heats up.
All the best,
Roger
Roger Pielke, Jr.
University of Colorado (via CCNet)
Essen, June 9, 2009 - The foreseeable consequences of dangerous climate change call for combined global efforts for climate protection - efforts that require great social,
political and cultural changes. These aspects of climate protection will be discussed for the first time between scientists of various disciplines and international experts
from the worlds of politics and business.
The conference from June 8-10 in Essen (Germany) aims to consolidate the social debate on climate change and provide new incentives for scientific policy advice in the run-up
to the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. The conference is hosted by the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in Essen (KWI) and Stiftung
Mercator, in cooperation with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy. (Kulturwissenschaftliches
Institut Essen (KWI))
Foreseeable consequences... if only we could foresee climate states.
Wonder why they don't consider the foreseeable consequences of climate hysteria?
Everyone--government agencies, private organizations, and individuals--is facing a changing climate: an environment in which it is no longer prudent to follow routines based
on past climatic averages. State and local agencies in particular, as well as the federal government, need to consider what they will have to do differently if the 100-year
flood arrives every decade or so, if the protected areas for threatened species are no longer habitable, or if a region can expect more frequent and more severe wildfires,
hurricanes, droughts, water shortages, or other extreme environmental events. Both conceptually and practically, people and organizations will have to adjust what may be
life-long assumptions to meet the potential consequences of climate change. How and where should bridges be built? What zoning rules may need to be changed? How can targets
for reduced carbon emissions be met? These and myriad other questions will need to be answered in the coming years and decades.
Informing Decisions in a Changing Climate examines the growing need for climate-related decision support--that is, organized efforts to produce, disseminate, and facilitate
the use of data and information in order to improve the quality and efficacy of climate-related decisions. Drawing on evidence from past efforts to organize science for
improved decision making, it develops guidance for government agencies and other institutions that will provide or use information for coping with climate change. This volume
provides critical analysis of interest to agencies at every level, as well as private organizations that will have to cope with the world's changing climate. (NAP)
I’ve posted some fairly upbeat posts about tackling climate change recently – but there was a less than optimistic message about the latest climate change science from
Dr Kevin Anderson from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change to this year’s big
low carbon vehicle event and conference held at London’s City Hall.
Here’s what came out of it…
Health warning: this was based on my notes – plus the issues are highly technical, and many of them are moving so fast that it’s difficult to for anyone to provide a
settled overview.
The Washington Post's reporting on global warming has made an important step forward. Post Reporter David A. Fahrenthold's June
8, 2009 Washington Post article about global warming and sea level rise does a surprisingly decent job of reporting on the issue.
Fahrenthold's article notes that the predicted increase in sea level by 2100 on the East Coast may be enough to "submerge a beach chair." The article then notes
that the possibility of even a submerged "beach chair" by 2100 is only a "might." (Marc Morano, Climate Depot)
One of the awkward things about global warming is that there are no absolutes. No one can say definitively what the climate will do next. Anyone who thinks they
can will probably end up looking like one of those TV scientists from the 1950s who said we'd all be holidaying in space and flying around in hover cars by now.
Admittedly, it's a little firmer about the temperature itself, stating: 'Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.' But then that's a bit like saying that, today, it
is hot. It doesn't tell you very much about tomorrow.
The weather is chaotic. Chaotic systems are infinitely complex and inherently unpredictable, (although not, as some
suppose, random). The climate is simply 'big, long weather' - the atmospheric conditions of a region charted over a period of time - and is therefore also infinitely complex
and inherently unpredictable. (BBC Blog of Bloom)
I try not to post anything on climate change because I’m not qualified (like most people) to debate the scientific issues but also because I don’t relish getting
shouted at by frantic commenters. This recently published book [Climate Change
Reconsidered - PDF] on the subject is fascinating and all 880 pages are available as a free download…
…Whatever side of the issue you are on, a reasoned debate dominated by facts rather than hyperbole and speculation should be viewed as a welcome development.
On one side of the debate CO2 emissions are causing global warming, that is generally bad and we need to do something about it. On the other side, CO2 is an effect, not a
cause of global warming and that there is more likelihood that natural activity by the sun is causing climate change. The economic consequences are fundamentally
different, depending on which side of the divide you choose to camp.
I was particularly taken by arguments in The Great Global Warming Swindle that this is a political issue with economic overtones that has washed out any real debate about
the science involved in understanding what is happening to the planet’s climate. Given what I have seen and especially the upsurge in attention paid to the topic by IT
companies it makes sense to stand back and ask: are we being hoodwinked into spending on IT that will be fruitless? More to the point, why should I take this position when
all around me say we urgently need to spend on IT measures that will help bring change? (Dennis Howlett, ZDNet)
In this paper, there is a presentation of the model predictions of sea ice extent along with observations up to 1998. This weblog introduces the subject of how well
have the model predictions done.
Their abstract includes the statement (referring to the GFDL and Hadley global climate models)
“Both models used here project continued decreases in sea ice thickness and extent throughout the next century.”
In the conclusion to their paper, they write
“Both climate models realistically reproduce the observed annual trends in NH sea ice extent. This suggests that these models can be used with some confidence to
predict future changes in sea ice extent in response to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Both models predict continued substantial sea ice extent and thickness
decreases in the next century.”
In their paper (in Table 1) they have model predictions (in units of linear trend in 106 square kilometers per decade) listed for the GFDL climate model
from 1978-1998 of -0.34 (and -0.19 using a “smoothed model output“) and for the Hadley Centre climate model -0.18 (and -0.16 using a “smoothed model
output“).
A value of -0.18 is the loss of sea ice area of 180000 square kilometers per decade, for example.
The first figure below is from the Vinnikov et al 1999 paper with respect to the model predictions, while the second and third figures are the sea ice areal
anomaly and the sea ice areal converage for the Northern Hemisphere up to the present from The Cryosphere Today.
Until later in 2007, the sea ice areal extent continued to decrease in a manner which, at least visually, is consistent with the Vinnikov et al 1999
predictions (although the actual values of areal coverage differ substantially between the observations and the predictions, perhaps as a result of their formulation to
compute areal coverage).
However, since 2006, the reduction has stopped and even reversed. Perhaps this is a short term event and the reduction of sea ice extent will resume. Nonetheless,
the reason for the turn around, even if short term, needs an explanation. Moreover, this data provides a valuable climate metric to assess whether the multi-decadal
global models do have predictive skill as concluded in the Vinnikov et al 2009 paper. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
The Waxman-Markey climate bill amounts to a $9 trillion tax that will reduce personal consumption by up to $2 trillion by mid-century, according to an analysis presented
yesterday by the left-leaning Brookings Institution.
No effort was made to estimate the benefits of Waxman-Markey, apparently because of the difficulty of such an estimation, according to a report in Carbon
Control News.
To summarize: We know Waxman-Markey will hurt taxpayers, consumers and the economy, and it’s too difficult to determine whether the bill will provide
any benefits — so let’s hurry up and enact the Mother of All Taxes?
If nothing else, the Waxman-Markey climate change bill is keeping the think tanks and Washington lobbyists busy. I've been surveying analyses and comment from critics
including The Heritage Foundation ("a massive energy tax in disguise that promises job losses, income cuts, and a sharp left turn toward big government"), former
Lotus CEO Jim Manzi in The National Review ("a terrible deal for American taxpayers"), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ("expensive, complicated, regulation-heavy,
domestic-only legislation"), The Breakthrough Institute ("may allow American emissions to continue to rise for up to twenty years") as well as Greenpeace
("not strong enough to stop global warming") and Friends of the Earth ("we have serious concerns and misgivings that prevent us from offering our
support"). Now we are getting analyses of the analyses, such as the NRDC's Laurie Johnson's persuasive takedown of Heritage's work. (Marc Gunther, GreenBiz)
OSLO - Environmental activists called on Monday for deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and for developed nations to pay $160 billion a year to help the poor as part of
a radical new U.N. climate treaty.
"It's going to be unpopular with almost everyone," said Tasneem Essop, of WWF International, of the blueprint issued on the sidelines of 181-nation U.N. talks in
Bonn about a U.N. pact to be agreed in December in Copenhagen.
"But we need more ambitious targets," she told Reuters of the draft, written by almost 50 leading environmentalists and with the backing of groups including WWF,
Greenpeace, Germanwatch and the David Suzuki Foundation. (Reuters)
EU heads of state and government are expected to yet again postpone a decision to provide poor countries with financial contributions to fight climate change when they
meet in Brussels next week (18-19 June), according to diplomatic sources. (EurActiv)
STEVE Fielding has had a conversion that could blow apart the great global warming scare.
No wonder the Rudd Government is scrambling and the ABC is already sliming the Family First senator.
You see, Fielding has suddenly realised that global warming may not be caused by humans after all.
What has startled him out of merely accepting we're heating the world to hell with our carbon dioxide emissions is one fact in particular.
While our emissions are increasing fast each year, satellite measurements show the world's temperatures have still not risen above the 1998 record, and have actually fallen
since 2002.
Of course, all this has been pointed out before. I've asked both Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Climate Change Minister Penny Wong - to their faces - to explain why the world
isn't still warming as it should if their global warming theories are right.
Neither has given me an answer. Nor have they answered similar challenges from the few sceptics in Parliament who have dared to reveal themselves - notably the Nationals'
Barnaby Joyce and the Liberals' Dennis Jensen.
But here's why Fielding's conversion is potentially so much more dangerous to the Government than sniping from mere columnists or Coalition MPs.
Fielding is not just in a position to ask the Government the same question. He can also demand a straight answer.
If he does not get it, his vote in the Senate could destroy the Rudd Government's plan to impose billions of dollars of taxes on all our sources of emissions - from power
stations and smelters to, eventually, even cows.
With the Liberals refusing to back the scheme this year, the Government needs not just the votes of the Greens but of the two crossbench senators, Nick Xenophon . . . and
Fielding.
But Fielding, an engineer, is now insisting he be shown the proof that the world is even still warming, and the Government must at last justify its plan's most basic
assumption. (Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun)
THE fact-finding mission to the US of Family First senator Steve Fielding has culminated in him giving senior White House staff graphs provided by climate change sceptics
and asking why he should not believe them.
Senator Fielding emailed graphs that claim the globe had not warmed for a decade to Joseph Aldy, US President Barack Obama's special assistant on energy and the environment,
after a meeting on Thursday.
Speaking from Washington, Senator Fielding said that asking the White House to explain why it is convinced global warming is linked to greenhouse emissions was part of
"picking up the fight for the underdog".
He earlier attended a climate sceptics' conference run by free-market think tank the Heartland Institute — part of a trip to "hear both sides".
Senator Fielding said he found that Dr Aldy and other Obama Administration officials were not interested in discussing the legitimacy of climate science.
The talks focused on the Democrats' Waxman-Markey climate bill, expected to go before Congress in August. (The Age)
OSLO - Japan and Russia should publish 2020 goals for greenhouse gas emissions to help spur U.N. talks on a new climate treaty, the head of the U.N. Climate Change
Secretariat said on Monday.
Other developed nations have already set targets and the lack of Japanese and Russian data was holding up the June 1-12 talks among 181 nations in Bonn, Germany, on a new
pact due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December.
"A number of critical ... ones are missing -- Japan and Russia," Yvo de Boer told a webcast news conference about progress in the talks on a successor to the Kyoto
Protocol, the existing U.N. pact for curbing emissions.
"It's really important now to get those remaining numbers on the table." (Reuters)
BONN — Japan on Wednesday will unveil a target of reducing its greenhouse-gas emissions by seven percent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, Japanese campaigners said on
Tuesday at the UN climate talks here.
They lashed the reported goal as pitiful, saying it marked a mere one-percentage-point fall over Japan's target for 2012 under the Kyoto Protocol, the treaty set to be
superseded by a far more ambitious global pact.
The target will be announced by the government as part of a larger strategy for tackling climate change, said Kimiko Hirata of Kiko Network, part of an alliance of green
groups called the Climate Action Network (CAN). (AFP)
From CO2 Science this week:
Editorial: Experts Rebut IPCC on Its Analysis of Medieval Warm Period: The most recent attempt of the IPCC to discredit the
global and coherent nature of the Medieval Warm Period is demonstrated to be both incorrect and based on inadequate empirical data.
Medieval
Warm Period Record of the Week:
Was there a Medieval Warm Period? YES, according to data published by 712
individual scientists from 414 separate research institutions in 41
different countries ... and counting! This issue's Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week comes from Lake
Haukadalsvatn, West Iceland. To access the entire Medieval Warm Period Project's database, click here.
Plant Growth Data:
This week we add new results of plant growth responses to atmospheric CO2 enrichment obtained from experiments described in the peer-reviewed scientific
literature for: European White Birch (Esmeijer-Liu et al., 2009), Scots
Pine (Alberton and Kuyper, 2009), Silver Vase Bromeliad (Monteiro et al., 2009), and Sugarcane
(Vu and Allen Jr., 2009).
Journal Reviews: Himalayan Glaciers: What does their melt-history tell us about late-20th-century global warming?
The lingering cool temperatures being experience by much of North America has weather forecasters wondering it we are entering a new Little Ice Age—a reference to the
prolonged period of cold weather that afflicted the world for centuries and didn't end until just prior to the American Civil War. From historical records, scientists have
found a strong correlation between low sunspot activity and a cooling climate. At the end of May, an international panel of experts led by NOAA and sponsored by NASA released
a new prediction for the next solar cycle: Solar Cycle 24 will be one of the weakest in recent memory. Are we about to start a new Little Ice Age? (Doug L. Hoffman, The
Resilient Earth)
According to Robert Cahalan, climatologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center "For the last 20 to 30 years, we believe greenhouse gases have been the dominant
influence on recent climate change."
This may not come as such a big surprise to those who weren't so ready to swallow the Al Gore theory. We all knew that Earth has experienced dramatic changes in its history,
going from ice ages to periods of extreme heat (even to the point of melting all the ice on the planet).
Many have suggested that the Sun was responsible for these climatic changes and pointed out that low (or non-existent) solar activity often appeared during cooler periods on
the planet.
It would now seem that NASA agrees with this finding. Thomas Woods, a solar scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder said "The fluctuations in the solar cycle
impacts Earth's global temperature by about 0.1 degree Celsius, slightly hotter during solar maximum and cooler during solar minimum," and added "The sun is
currently at its minimum, and the next solar maximum is expected in 2012."
Its the Sun!
Between 1650 and 1715, almost no sunspots were observed on the Sun's surface and this is believed to have been partly responsible for the Little Ice Age in Europe.
There have been few, if any, sunspots for some time now, but does this mean we have reached a turning point and can expect temperatures to fall again? (Ian Brockwell, News
Blaze)
Coal has become the official rock of West Virginia.
Last week. Gov. Joe Manchin signed a resolution (text)
giving the rock its new status, and declaring that the bituminous coal industry “remains essential to economic growth and progress in West Virginia and the United
States.”
The resolution, which passed the state’s house of delegates 96-0 and was approved by the State Senate in a voice vote, also traces the noble history of the rock, from
the time George Washington noted a “coal hill of fire” in what became West Virginia.
The Mountain State joins Kentucky and Utah, both of which have had coal as their state mineral and state rock, respectively, for more than a decade.
“I realized the state didn’t have an official state rock,” the high school senior, Britnee Gibson, told the association, “and I thought, what better to be the
state rock than coal?”
The resolution comes as the state’s coal industry encounters tough times, with some residents in West Virginia protesting
the blasting of mountaintops to remove it.
The recession, too, has dampened demand for electricity, such that Consol Energy, a big coal company operating in the state, recently announced that it was idling
two West Virginia mines. (Green Inc.)
WASHINGTON - The government should delay new rules that expand U.S. use of biofuels until 2011, the oil industry said on Tuesday, because there is too much work to do on
the ground-breaking rules to start sooner.
The Environmental Protection Agency has a January 1 target to apply the rules that also require advanced biofuels to have greenhouse gas emissions that are 40 percent lower
than petroleum from creation through consumption.
Al Mannato, a manager at the American Petroleum Institute, said the industry would prefer a year's delay as it is unlikely EPA can complete work in time for a smooth January
1 start.
"It appears the only option possible is a 2011 start date," said Mannato during an all-day EPA hearing on its May 5 proposal to update the so-called renewable fuels
standard. (Reuters)
Far too many simpleminded Green precepts have terrible unintended consequences:
DDT ban led to millions of deaths from malaria
CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standards created cars that even proponents admit are less safe
Drive to save energy in buildings by sealing them up tight as a drum created indoor air quality issues with radon and other toxics
Foolish advocacy of ethanol as an automotive fuel led to drastic increase in food prices
Now, a study—coming out of Canada—indicates that reusable grocery bags are a breeding ground for bacteria and pose public health risks: Food poisoning, skin infections
such as bacterial boils, allergic reactions, triggering of asthma attacks, and ear infections. It is noted that in the control group (single-use plastic bags and first-use
reusables), there was no evidence of bacteria, mold, yeast, or total coliforms.
Astoundingly, 64% of the previously-used reusables showed the presence of some levels of bacterial contamination.
Greenie proponents are calling for users to clean the bags, but this is not as simple as it sounds. Organic matter is difficult to remove, and if left wet, the situation
is probably made even worse. Other voices are blaming the findings on people using the grocery bags as general-purpose totes, thus mixing in gym clothes and even diapers.
However, the real problem is contamination from various food items (and is some cases the bag's material), which can breed microbial growth.
Even without this bad news, it was difficult to justify the reusables, in terms of the extreme energy cost in both manufacturing and transportation from China—especially
in light of the fact that most people do re-use plastic grocery bags.
Read my whole HND article for more serious public health implications. (Shaw's Eco-Logic)
Major health problems associated with smoking account for about a tenth of our health care spending, about the same amount as illness and behaviors associated with
obesity. Today, the Senate will vote to regulate tobacco like a drug and crack down on marketing. Costs associated with cigarette consumption will rise. A lot of folks wonder
why the government can't borrow the tobacco approach and apply it to obesity, which also seems to be -- seems to be, I say -- a condition that results from an addiction to
food? Arguably, the long-term costs associated with being overweight exceed those of nicotine addiction. Trouble is, obesity belongs to a different category of conditions.
There is a social and psychological element to the smoking contagion, but its origins, effects and treatments are much more defined.
Also, people can live without nicotine. They can't live without food. And food advertising is already more tightly regulated than tobacco advertising. The correlation between
tobacco advertising and consumption is much stronger than the correlation between food advertising and obesity -- so strong, in fact, that it's close to being unidirectional.
Though policy makers are beginning to change their thinking, I'd wager that most still believe that obesity is, at its core, a condition that individuals ought to be able to
control themselves. That's why the preferred response to obesity, so far, has been more study and prohibitions on lawsuits against the food industry. On the flip side,
comprehensive national anti-obesity programs, like national nutrition labeling standards, are untethered to evidence that they work. I'll be writing more about obesity and
health care policy in the coming months, but suffice it to say that the tobacco model offers fewer clues for obesity treatment and prevention then one might assume. (Marc
Ambinder, The Atlantic)
Somewhat unkind comment with the above article:
... strange that as a non-smoker he supports higher
tobacco costs, but as a clearly overweight man [pictured left] he finds the obesity epidemic to be a much more nuanced issue. This leads to insights like "people can
live without nicotine. They can't live without food."
I don't think anyone is proposing that we starve people to reduce obesity. But many cases of obesity aren't caused by an "addiction to food"; they're caused by an
addiction to sitting on the couch/at a computer with minimal physical activity for most of the week.
We tax smokers to support children's health care, why not support an obesity tax as well? Certainly obesity is a more lethal epidemic than smoking, especially after 25
years of anti-tobacco campaigns. If the Democrats get their way and succeed in creating a public health option, then the obese should have to carry more of the weight since
they will eat up more of the resources.
Granted, Mr. Ambinder would probably appear less full in the face if he smoked more and ate less but that wouldn't actually tell us anything about his health. Smokers
definitely smell bad but that doesn't make them societally expensive from a health perspective (nicking off for a smoke-break might mean they are less productive workers,
or not), nor is there any evidence that an aging society getting "broad in the beam" is indicative of poor health.
Some people shouldn't smoke and some people are ill-suited to carrying extra weight but that doesn't make them a hazard or a cost for the rest of us. The antis all need to
get a life and stop trying to dictate how everyone else lives theirs.
THE House of Representatives inquiry into the obesity epidemic, Weighing it up: Obesity in Australia, recognises the magnitude of the problem and recommends a range of
reforms but the advertising industry will remain self-regulated.
This is, they are told, their last chance.
I have been hearing such admonitions for more than 30 years.
From 1978-84 I chaired the children's program committee of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal when the children's advertising standards were first introduced. I soon
learned the only way to get program reform supported, and introduce the Classification for children's programs, was to go easy on advertising.
Little seems to have changed. The advertising industry's reprieve this time is based on evidence from the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the current
regulator, which has claimed it cannot identify a link between obesity and television advertising to children in its commissioned research. Ofcom, the media regulator in the
UK, had no such problem in accepting as credible the research it commissioned and banned junk food advertising in and around children's television programs in 2007. (Patricia
Edgar, The Australian)
Patricia, Australia does not have to repeat the mistakes of the UK -- just because Ofcom is gullible does not mean ACMA must be too.
LONDON—Polar bears have taken over screen savers. Two of the last five Nobel Peace Prizes have gone to eco-campaigners. Climate change has crept onto government agendas.
And now the European Parliament itself has gone a bit more green. (Associated Press)
Around the world, frogs and toads are falling victim to a loss of habitat, pesticides, pollution and an insidious, quick-acting fungus. And now they are going extinct
faster than any other animals since the dinosaurs (Globe and Mail)
Significant in that it gives mere passing mention to old chestnut of "climate change" (might be a promising sign of reality reintruding).
The more Helmand grapes we can stuff down our throats the more rapidly Afghanistan will wean itself off 'submission to the Taleban and economic dependency on opium,' says
Elliot Wilson.
The wannabe rulers of the world and rationers of our energy supply can see their opportunity slipping away with the world's obstinate failure to
overheat and the sun's continued quiescence. Countdown timers such as the above are beginning to proliferate (you can get the html code for this one and variants here).
Their purpose is of course to pressure lawmakers and politicians into rash and panicked action against the mythical beast. Ours is a little different. We think Copenhagen
is where the Kyoto farce will finally crash and burn and with it the political issue of gorebull warming.
We look on our version as a clock ticking away the life of one of the most absurd scares in human history.
[UPDATED, 6/3, below.] There are significant questions about the robustness of the numbers at the heart of the new report estimating more than 300,000 deaths are already
being caused each year by global warming, with nearly twice that number possible by 2030. The report was commissioned by the Global Humanitarian Forum, created in 2007 by the
former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan, and reviews reams of data and earlier analysis by other researchers and groups. More on the questions is below. (Andrew C.
Revkin, NYT)
We have real problems to deal with every day and there is NEVER any excuse to misdirect effort with irrelevant and trivial enhanced greenhouse
effect.
Can adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere increase global mean temperature?
Theoretically, yes -- BUT this hypothetical increase is trivially small and unnoticeable given the wide variability of local temperatures experienced on even an
hourly basis, much less the meaningless drift of hundredths of a degree averaged over thousands of hours. A quick look at the forecast for Washington, DC, suggests a daily
temperature range this week of 8 kelvins and more (pretty ordinary, as daily ranges go), that's an experienced change of 0.33/K/hr (also trivial, people regularly
experience far greater hourly change rates). So, if the silly claims of +5 °C (9 °F) warming over the next century were true? That's an hourly rate of change of
less than 0.000006 °C/hr or roughly +0.0001 °C/day. Without sophisticated statistics and record keeping no one would ever know the difference and yet that
hypothetical change is far beyond the physical characteristics of carbon dioxide and only achieved in models through the use of marvelous magical multipliers -- increasing
atmospheric CO2 alone CAN NOT DO IT.
THE RUNNING joke in Washington is that nobody has read the 900-plus-page energy bill sponsored by Reps. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), which
the House will consider in coming weeks. What you hear from its backers is that its cap-and-trade provisions would create a market-based program to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions -- which should mean that a simple, systemwide incentive encourages polluters to make the easiest reductions in greenhouse gases first, keeping the costs of
fighting global warming to a minimum. In fact, the bill also contains regulations on everything from light bulb standards to the specs on hot tubs, and it will reshape
America's economy in dozens of ways that many don't realize.
Here is just one: The bill would give the federal government power over local building codes. It requires that by 2012 codes must require that new buildings be 30 percent
more efficient than they would have been under current regulations. By 2016, that figure rises to 50 percent, with increases scheduled for years after that. With those
targets in mind, the bill expects organizations that develop model codes for states and localities to fill in the details, creating a national code. If they don't, the bill
commands the Energy Department to draft a national code itself. (Washington Post)
The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) analysis of the economic impact of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill relies on a variety of assumptions. These assumptions
strongly bias the cost downward when compared to the results of studies done by the Center for Data Analysis (CDA) at The Heritage Foundation and by CRA International for the
National Black Chamber of Commerce. (David Kreutzer, Ph.D. and Nicolas Loris, Heritage)
Washington, DC-The talk on Capitol Hill is not to expect climate change legislation to become law this year, but do expect Congress to take action before the 2010
elections. Any delay in sweeping climate change legislation is welcome news for America's farmers and ranchers because whatever action Congress takes could have a profound
and permanent impact on production agriculture.
Congress should not push through such important legislation in a rushed, haphazard way. Experts agree that efforts to reduce greenhouse gases will impact all sectors of the
economy and will be costly to all. Climate change may well be the most serious, far- reaching issue the 111th Congress handles, even more critical than health care reform.
Farm Bureau has a clear message to Congress on climate change legislation: the benefits must outweigh the costs. Any cap-and-trade program must make economic sense for U.S.
agriculture. Doing so means giving the Agriculture Department a prominent role in administering any offsets program and assuring that agricultural offset projects are spelled
out in the legislation. (AFBF release)
WASHINGTON — Low-income families will receive hundreds of dollars a year to help pay higher energy bills if Congress enacts the first-ever limits on the gases blamed for
global warming, according to a new analysis.
But it is unclear just how much more those families will have to pay for energy. (Associated Press)
Why not leave things alone and not increase their costs to start with? Al doesn't really need their money.
Dick Cheney is surely the most visible ex-vice president these days.
But Al Gore is almost certainly the most influential.
As Congress wrestles with politically explosive issues surrounding climate change and energy, Gore is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere.
He's worked the phones to squeak a bill through a key legislative committee. He's serving as an informal counsel to allies on Capitol Hill and inside the Obama
administration, as they seek to solve a complicated political equation.
The not-for-profit Gore heads is running ads in targeted congressional districts, and holding town-hall meetings across the country to drum up support for climate-change
legislation. The slideshow made famous in "An Inconvenient Truth" has now been shared more than 30,000 times and counting worldwide.
The one thing the former vice president is not doing very much of: talking in public about what he's doing behind the scenes. (ABC News)
America’s leading climate change negotiator will urge China to make a commitment to cutting greenhouse gas emissions during meetings in Beijing this week, as the US
seeks to avoid the collapse of the next global warming treaty. (The Times)
NEW DELHI: Does the `Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai' slogan still hold value at the climate negotiations? Or could the Sino-India leadership of the
G77+China grouping come undone in the lead up to the crucial climate talks at Copenhagen by the end of 2009?
This concern has been nagging a powerful section of the Indian establishment ever since the ball began to roll towards a possible international deal in Copenhagen. But the
doubts seem to have been put to rest with China taking a strong and unequivocal stance at the ongoing discussions at Bonn.
At the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations, G77+China makes up a formidable group and the India-China team is seen as the bulwark that holds the disparate
team together in the face of diplomatic and economic onslaught from EU and other industrialized nations. Sticking together, the powerful block has been able to neutralize the
economic influence of the rich countries with its moral position (`the rich were to blame for climate change not this collective of nations') and some of their own economic
muscle flexing.
But in the past year, some senior Indian officials (though not directly involved in climate change negotiations) have been voicing concern and some news in the media from
industrialized nations has been indicating that China may be ready to strike out on its own breaking the block. A fear had been expressed in the Indian quarters that a
US-China deal on the side could break the G77, and as a consequence leave India to fend for itself.
But China's strong statements at the ongoing Bonn negotiations and its formal submissions just before have left no room for doubt that it is sticking to the demands that G77
nations have collectively made. (Times of India)
In my discussion of the Cap & Trade scheme for carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2E) emissions (greenhouse gases) proposed by U.S. Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Edward
Markey, D-Mass. (the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act of 2009), I argue that the two key issues are (1) the size of the overall quota and (2) the enforcement of
the rule that without a permit, you cannot emit.
Prima facie, the scheme looks tough. The Discussion Draft Summary of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 reads: “The draft establishes a market-based program
for reducing global warming pollution from electric utilities, oil companies, large industrial sources, and other covered entities that collectively are responsible for 85%
of U.S. global warming emissions. Under this program, covered entities must have tradable federal permits, called “allowances,” for each ton of pollution emitted into the
atmosphere. Entities that emit less than 25,000 tons per year of CO2 equivalent are not covered by this program. The program reduces the number of available allowances issued
each year to ensure that aggregate emissions from the covered entities are reduced by 3% below 2005 levels in 2012, 20% below 2005 levels in 2020, 42% below 2005 levels in
2030, and 83% below 2005 levels in 2050.”
In fact, the scheme is a total con. It permits the US to increase CO2E emissions until 2020. The escape mechanism used - carbon offsets or carbon credits - suggests that for
the period 2020 - 2050 also, the supposed intent of the Act - to reduce CO2E emissions in the US - will be neutered. (Willem Buiter, Financial Times)
OTTAWA - Environmentalists say government documents show Canada's role in international climate change negotiations includes ``bullying'' developing countries,
backpedalling on commitments and attempting to exploit divisions in Europe.
Foreign Affairs briefing notes obtained through an Access-to-Information request indicate a ``deliberately provocative'' Canadian strategy in negotiations to replace the
Kyoto accord in Copenhagen in December, says Dale Marshall, climate change policy analyst with the David Suzuki Foundation.
``It suggests that Canada doesn't mind exacerbating tensions between developed and developing countries and wouldn't mind if that led to a failure in the discussions,''
Marshall said in a weekend interview from Bonn, Germany. ``Quite simply if you're looking for an agreement in Copenhagen, this is not the approach to take.'' (Juliet O'Neill,
Canwest News Service)
NEW DELHI: Industrialized countries are nowhere near meeting their legal obligations to combat climate change and are trying to muddy the waters by saying the global
problem cannot be tackled unless developing countries do more, says Shyam Saran, India's chief negotiator at the climate treaty talks.
As the world stumbles towards a climate treaty scheduled to be inked this December in Copenhagen, a key preparatory meet is on in Bonn (June 1-12). Negotiators from around
the world are poring over the "negotiating text" expected to lead to the treaty. (IANS)
What will it take to get developing nations to sign up to a global climate agreement?
A critical part of the answer, it seems, is cold, hard cash.
Countries in poorer parts of the world like China and India are demanding that wealthier regions like the European Union and North America finance their efforts at developing
clean energy technologies and help them adapt to the effects of climate change caused largely by accumulated emissions from the industrialized West.
Money to finance these efforts is seen as a precondition for reaching an agreement at United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen in December, when nations gather to hammer
out a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol.
European finance ministers meeting over lunch in Luxembourg on Tuesday are expected to discuss the thorny question of what would represent a fair amount, according to
diplomats. (Green Inc.)
That's the closing line of a new MasterCard commercial. You know those commercials; they've been out for nearly a decade. A typical one goes something like this:
"Bric-a-brac: 17 dollars. White elephant: 28 dollars. Getting your wife to remove the restraining order: priceless."
Only this one has a little boy tailing his father--a man who looks like a perpetually adolescent extra from the old sitcom Friends--through a home-improvement store pointing
out ways the carbon-profligate old man can reduce his footprint. The boy replaces the usual narrator as well.
"Energy-saving bulb: four dollars," quoth the child. "Reusable bag: two dollars. Helping Dad become a better man: priceless." (The Free Library)
Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson has been roundly criticized for insisting global warming is not an urgent problem, with many climate scientists dismissing him as
woefully ill-informed. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Dyson explains his iconoclastic views and why he believes they have stirred such controversy. (Yale
Environment 360)
Scientists have slammed Family First's Steve Fielding after he returned from the US suggesting solar flares rather than human activity are responsible for climate change.
Senator Fielding said he wanted to debate the cause of global warming with government scientists before he votes on Labor's climate change legislation.
He recently returned from a trip to the United States where he met climate change sceptics who blame global warming on solar flares, not human activity or carbon emissions.
It is a theory he believes has some credibility.
"The issue that has been put forward is that over the last decade carbon emissions have been going up but global temperature hasn't," he told ABC Radio today.
"What I heard at the conference was that solar activity seems to be more closely aligned to global temperature changes over a long period of time."
Senator Fielding said there hadn't been a proper debate on the science behind climate change and that up until now, there was only a blanket acceptance that carbon emissions
were the cause of global warming. (AAP)
(A point here, a point there, and a whole lotta bull in between.)
Steven Chu, entertainingly described as an “Energy Secretary”, says we can Save The Planet from “global warming” by painting our rooftops and roads white. He says
making roofs and roads paler would have the same effect as taking every automobile in the world off the road for 11 years.
The Limbaugh Question
Rush Limbaugh, entertainingly as always, but pointedly, asks –
“Now, would somebody explain to me how he knows this? … If we can do something that will effectively remove the carbon emissions of every car on the road for 11 years,
then why are we doing anything else? Why are we doing cap and trade? Why are we getting rid of SUVs? … How much paint is this going to take, by the way? How much of a
footprint does paint manufacturing leave? … I need a scientist to answer this for me. I understand how clouds at altitude can help reflect the heat, but I want to know …
where does that reflected heat go? … Are we being told here that reflected heat is not damaging at all, but direct heat is? It seems to me that, if we had ‘global
warming’, wouldn’t we want dark roofs to absorb the heat?”
Gangsters are muscling in on Big Al’s territory and skeptics might be executed. It’s just another week in the rough world of radical environmentalism, conveniently
rounded up for your delectation and delight. (Daily Bayonet)