Archives - May 2008
May 29, 2008
Poseur Shareholders - The green
blitzkrieg hit the ExxonMobil annual shareholder meeting this week. (Steven Milloy, FoxNews.com)
US Senate Set To Take Up Climate
Change Debate - WASHINGTON - The international fight to control climate change heads to a new arena in June
when the Senate is to debate a bill that could cut total US global warming emissions by 66 percent by 2050.
Environmentalists are supportive but want more in the legislation, the business community questions the economic
impact, and the politicians who have shepherded it seem gratified that it has managed to get this far -- even
though it is unlikely to become law this year. (Reuters)
May 27, 2008
What's Green and Goes Pop? - At the
heart of the credit crunch now afflicting the global economy is the bursting of a great housing bubble throughout
much of the developed world. Bubbles are, of course, as old as capitalism itself. Many of us in England recall
learning at school of the great South Sea bubble of the early 18th century. But they seem to be coming more
frequently nowadays. The housing bubble has burst only a decade or so after the Internet and tech-stock bubble. So
we may not need to wait all that long to see the next one. And the most likely candidate is a green bubble, fueled
by climate-change alarmism and government subsidies.
The twin elements of a bubble are euphoria and roguery, with the proportions varying from case to case. The coming
green bubble, which is already attracting large amounts of venture capital and government money, displays both.
(Nigel Lawson, Time Magazine)
All the usual nostalgic nonsense: 40
Million Acres of Rain Forest for the Greenest Bidder - The other day I went to a meeting to hear Harrison Ford
talk about saving the rain forests and ended up listening to a man who has a rain forest to save: Guyana’s
president, Bharrat Jagdeo.
The occasion was the announcement of a new campaign to protect the world’s rain forests, Guyana’s included,
organized by the environmental group Conservation International. (Mr. Ford, a board member, was in New York to
promote his new movie and somehow got his schedule wrong.)
That left the spotlight where it belonged: on Mr. Jagdeo and his mission to get the world’s rich nations to help
save Guyana’s huge rain forest from chainsaws and prevent the release of billions of tons of carbon dioxide, the
main global-warming gas.
Mr. Jagdeo caused a stir last year when he offered to cede the management of his country’s entire rain forest
— 40-plus million acres, covering 80 percent of Guyana’s land mass — to a British government agency in
return for British economic assistance. Though the British have yet to take him up on the deal, Mr. Jagdeo
continues to press the case for protecting not only his rain forest, but all of them. (Robert B Semple Jr, New
York Times)
Actually tropical rainforests are no more and no less than a heap of critters competing to exploit available
sunlight and carbon. Another way of looking at them is really big weeds infested with lots of pests and that is
no less correct (probably more so) than the bizarre views of the wilderness worshippers.
On the stupid global warming angle embedded in this piece they are dead wrong -- if you are truly stupid
enough to want to cool the planet it's quite easy to accomplish. How? Get rid of dark rainforests and replace
them with bright crop fields or, even more effectively, deserts. That will increase the planet's albedo
(reflectivity) where it is most effective around the equator (where solar insolation is greatest) and cause the
planet's temperature to plummet.
See for yourselves, upping albedo from an
estimated 31% to 33% drops the expected temperature of the planet a couple of degrees. Now, if you follow the
numbers of this debate at all you will also notice it is roughly equivalent to offsetting 2% greater greenhouse
effect or, expressed another way, incoming solar radiation of 1366.5 W/m2 / 4 (~342) x 0.397
(estimated 'natural' greenhouse) = ~136 W/m2 versus 342 x 0.417 (+2% GHE) = ~143, so +2% GHE = ~7 W/m2.
According to the IPCC each doubling of CO2 yields ~3.5 W/m2 forcing so we can easily get
rid of enough nasty dark rainforest to offset 4xCO2 (1120ppmv).
Who knew this planet saving thing was so easy? We don't need to paint the sky like that fool Flannery
proposed, we don't need to strangle the energy supply, as nearly every nutter and scam artist proposes and we
don't have to prevent people developing and improving their living standards and health. And we are way cheaper
than the IPCC with its globetrotting gravy train.
Global Warming: What do the numbers show? Lecture by
Dr. John Christy October 4, 2007, Auburn University
Media
Report On the Important Role Of Landscape Change On Climate - There is an interesting news article In The
Telegraph on May 23 2008 by G.S. Mudur titled “Riders rained out, trees to blame - Jump in green cover over
capital the reason for unseasonable showers, say scientists“. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
Whoops! No wonder they get it so wrong: Anders
Levermann on geopolitics of climate change - Intro: Professor at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate
Impact Research, Anders Levermann’s interests range from monsoon in India to glacier melt in Antarctica. He has
contributed to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released last year.
He talks to Mario D’Souza on the geopolitics of climate change
Not anthropogenic? A molecule of carbon dioxide would be my counter argument to those who say climate change is
not due to anthropogenic activities. We can calculate the molecule’s absorption spectra (amount of radiation
absorbed by the molecule), which gives the greenhouse effect (when an atmospheric gas molecule like carbon dioxide
absorbs radiation, it traps a part of the radiation, which leads to warming, called the greenhouse effect). So we
don’t need any assumptions here.
More evidence There is feedback in the climate system which is fundamental. The water vapour feedback, for
instance. It says for every degree of warming you will get an additional 7 per cent of water vapour, which is a
very strong greenhouse gas. So it’s from such first principles that we know that carbon dioxide is going to
increase the global temperature. Global warming is not climate behaviour over the past 100 years; it is something
more fundamental—the greenhouse effect of co2 molecule.
Either this guy is woefully ignorant or deliberately deceptive. Yes, we can calculate additional warming from
increased atmospheric CO2 and it is trivial. Moreover the sign of net feedback can not yet be
determined but water vapor has not been increasing, meaning either the planet hasn't warmed after all or their
relationship is wrong. Total water vapor is a function of precipitation efficiency rather than temperature
anyway.
Model
Verification - A Guest Weblog by Giovanni Leoncini - As a member of the mesoscale NWP community, climate
modeling papers and seminars often seem to have a different standard when it comes to verification. Whilst it is
routine in the NWP community (see the last issue of Meteorological Applications on verification),
I don’t perceive a similar effort in the climate modeling community. In the introduction of their paper
“Performance metrics for climate models” (2008, J. Geophys. Res.) Glecker et al. mention a few reasons for
this discrepancy. (Climate Science)
The
parking lot effect: temperature measurement bias of locations - Seven Days in May: A guest post by David Smith
This is an update on recent field tests with remote thermometers (see the ”Fun with Thermometers” post for
background).
My goal is to quantify, to an extent, the effects of microsite problems (pavement, buildings, trees, etc) on
temperature. (Watts Up With That?)
Foggy Science In London
- Tomorrow, May 24, the G-8 environment ministers will be in Japan to commence their annual meeting. Back in
London, though, the world's oldest science academy, the Royal Society of London, recently has become a vocal
advocate of climate alarmism. RS fellows have included Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.
But, under the previous leadership of Lord Robert May, the Society seems to have taken a wrong turn. They even
tried to enlist other science academies into joining them in an alarmist manifesto. However, the U.S. National
Academy, though sharing some of these views, decided not to sign up, and the Russian Academy of Sciences has taken
an opposing position.
In June 2007, the Royal Society published a pamphlet, titled "Climate Change Controversies: a simple
guide," designed to undermine the scientific case of climate skeptics. They presented what they called
"misleading arguments" on global warming and then tried to shoot them down.
In countering the RS pamphlet, I have prepared a response that is being published tomorrow by the London-based
Centre for Policy Studies under the title "Not so simple? A scientific response to the Royal Society's
paper." (S Fred Singer, New York Sun)
Targets And Funding In Focus At
Kobe Climate Talks - KOBE, Japan - Big emerging countries urged rich nations on Sunday to set ambitious
mid-term targets for reducing greenhouse gases, as both sides stressed the need for funds to help developing
countries limit their emissions. (Reuters)
G8 ministers pledge 'strong will' on
climate amid doubts - KOBE, Japan — Environment ministers from the world's top industrial powers called
Monday for more effort to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, but little headway was seen in setting more
immediate goals. (AFP)
G8 summit emission cut
target likely "aspirational" - KOBE, Japan - The Group of Eight rich nations will likely agree to an
"aspirational" target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 but shun mid-term goals at a July
summit, the top U.N. climate official said on Sunday. (Reuters)
No? Duh! Billions
wasted on UN climate programme - Billions of pounds are being wasted in paying industries in developing
countries to reduce climate change emissions, according to two analyses of the UN's carbon offsetting programme.
Leading academics and watchdog groups allege that the UN's main offset fund is being routinely abused by chemical,
wind, gas and hydro companies who are claiming emission reduction credits for projects that should not qualify.
The result is that no genuine pollution cuts are being made, undermining assurances by the UK government and
others that carbon markets are dramatically reducing greenhouse gases, the researchers say.
The criticism centres on the UN's clean development mechanism (CDM), an international system established by the
Kyoto process that allows rich countries to meet emissions targets by funding clean energy projects in developing
nations. (John Vidal, The Guardian)
US emissions
trading waits for Bush to go - The departure from office of US President George W. Bush will give a “very
promising” outlook to international talks on global warming and the $64bn market in greenhouse gas emissions,
said the United Nations’ top official on climate change. (Financial Times)
Uh-huh... waiting for one of the three socialist presidential candidates to give away your money.
Climate Reality Bites - The global
warming debate arrives in the Senate next week, and it's about time. Finally, the Members will have to vote on
something real, as opposed to their buck-passing to courts and regulators, and their easy trashing of President
Bush.
The vehicle is a bill that principal sponsors Joe Lieberman and John Warner are calling "landmark
legislation." They're too modest. Warner-Lieberman would impose the most extensive government reorganization
of the American economy since the 1930s.
Thankfully, the American system makes it hard for colossal tax and regulatory burdens to foxtrot into law without
scrutiny. So we hope our politicians will take responsibility for the global-warming policies they say they favor.
Or even begin to understand what they say they favor. For a bill as grandly ambitious as Warner-Lieberman, very
few staff, much less Senators, even know what's in it. The press corps mainly cheerleads this political fad,
without examining how it would work or what it would cost. So allow us to fill in some of the details. (Wall
Street Journal)
Biggest
drop in greenhouse gas emissions by G8 nations since 1990 bid to slow climate change - Greenhouse gas
emissions from the world's leading countries have fallen by the biggest amount since the G8 began tackling climate
change in 1990, it emerged today.
All eight of the industrial nations, except Russia, saw a dip in carbon dioxide levels in 2006, a new survey
revealed.
Rising oil prices, combined with some measures to curb global warming and a milder winter in the U.S. that year
helped reduce energy demands. (Daily Mail)
Jupiter: Turbulent Storms May Be Sign
Of Global Climate Change - (May 23, 2008) — The first images of Jupiter since it came out from behind the
sun show that the turbulence and storms that have plagued the planet for the past two years continue. Whether or
not this is a sign of global warming, the turbulence does seem to be spawning new spots. As Red Spot Jr. and the
Great Red Spot approach a June conjunction, a new third spot may merge with the GRS in August. (ScienceDaily)
Equally, they might not -- we don't understand our own planet's climate yet, let alone Jupiter's.
Over 31,000 U.S. scientists
deny man-made global warming - In 1998, Dr. Arthur Robinson, Director of the Oregon Institute for Science and
Medicine, posted his first Global Warming skeptic petition, on the Institute's website (oism.org). It quickly
attracted the signatures of more than 17,000 Americans who held college degrees in science. Widely known as the
Oregon Petition, it became a counter-weight for the "all scientists agree" mantra of the man-man Global
Warming crowd.
Recently, with America being dragged toward Kyoto-style energy limits by cadres of alarmists, Robinson mailed a
new copy of the petition to his original signers, asking them to recruit additional qualified scientists. Now his
list includes nearly 32,000 American man-made warming skeptics with science qualifications. More than 9,000 hold
scientific PhDs. Almost 32,000 thousand skeptics happens to be twelve times as many scientists as the 2,500
scientific reviewers claimed by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to form a scientific consensus.
Earlier this month Robinson held a press meeting at the National Press Club in DC, followed by a luncheon on
Capital Hill, to which members of Congress and their aides were invited. Not surprisingly, attendance was low.
(Dennis T. Avery, ESR)
Correlation
of Carbon Dioxide with Temperatures Negative Again - The temperatures over the last century correlated
positively with carbon dioxide in the early 20th century but that warming was acknowledged even by the IPCC to be
largely natural and minimally anthropogenic.
A negative correlation existed from the mid 1930s to the mid 1970s as temperatures cooled. This included three
decades of the post war economic boom. A very strong positive correlation resumed after the Great Pacific Climate
shift in the late 1970s. Data here is the USHCN. Both data sets are identically smoothed. (Joseph D’Aleo,
CCM)
Sunspots and Rainfall Cycles - Prof. Will
Alexander - Will Alexander, Professor Emeritus, University of Pretoria has written an “Urgent Submission to
the SAICE [South African Institution of Civil Engineering] Council on the Likelihood of Severe Water Resource
Droughts” with this summary:
- There is overwhelming evidence of a causal and predictable linkage between variations in solar activity and
climatic responses, specifically rainfall and river flow.
- There is no evidence of trends in rainfall and river flow data that could be attributed to unnatural climate
change.
- There is increasing worldwide research that questions the fundamental basis of climate change theory.
- The international political situation regarding the implementation of universal measures to restrict
greenhouse gas emissions has collapsed.
- Recommendations that South Africa should resort to the development of measures to adapt to human caused
climate change will fail because they would be adapting to something that does not exist.
Read the complete document: www.carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/alexander-2008.pdf
[PDF, 266KB]. (Carbon Sense Coalition)
An introduction to the
Copenhagen Consensus 2008 - The Times is giving you a chance to vote your priorities.
A
Proper Doom - In the film, No Country for Old Men, the sheriff declares: “If it isn’t doom it’ll
do until a proper doom comes along.” Such has been the role of ‘global warming’ during the last ‘nice’
decade. It has been ‘the doom’ for the chattering classes, who, meanwhile, have been doing quite well - er -
‘nicely’, thank you. It has been the ‘doom’ for those who have seen the salvation of the world’s poor
through a green-tinted commentariat, one blithely arguing that it can all be achieved without nasty economic
growth. (Global Warming Politics)
Wonder if watermelons will ever figure it out: A
paler shade of green - There is a depressing parallel with Britain's last flirtation with greenery, in the
late 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher toyed with environmentalism and the Green party came third in European
elections. There was a lot of talk then about the next decade being a caring, environmentally sensitive one - talk
which fell away rapidly as house prices began to crash in the recession of the early 1990s. It took a decade for
politicians to summon up the courage to return to the subject and Gordon Brown, whose political identity was
forged as shadow chancellor in that recession, has always been cautious about doing so. When he mentions it at
all, he tends to talk of climate change in economic terms, not scientific ones. His most recent speech, at the
start of this month, was typical in promising "a green economy, that provides new jobs and opportunities,
powered by the innovation of our firms and the skills of our workforce". (The Guardian)
Infected
Science - [“The best antidote to the doom merchants is skepticism. We must be willing to take uncertainty
seriously. Climate change is a fact. But apocalyptic thinking distorts the scientific debate and makes it harder
to explain the causes and consequences of this fact, which in turn makes it harder to know how to deal with it.”
(Robert Skidelsky, May 22, 2008)]
Do not miss this most powerful comment by Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky of Tilton, a British economist of
Russian origin, Fellow of the British Academy, and the author of a major three-volume biography of John Maynard
Keynes (for which he received, in 2001, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography): ‘The
apocalypse is the scientist’s fundamentalism’, The Taipei Times, May 22, p. 9. (Global Warming Politics)
The
Liberals' invisible carbon tax: Corcoran - The Great Liberal Carbon Tax is apparently still in gestation,
delivery date unknown. Energy prices are already through the roof, up to $1.33 for a litre of gasoline, but the
Liberals believe Canadians could use a little more bad news on the cost of heating their homes, running air
conditioners and driving to work. Oops. Sorry, not driving to work. The Dion Liberals are deeply, deeply committed
to the use of green carbon taxes to bring the power of market forces to bear on transforming the way we live and
thereby thwart the ravaging monster of man-made climate change, but they are not so crazy as to actually impose
their new tax on Canadians' biggest energy expenditure, gasoline. At least not yet. (Terence Corcoran, Financial
Post)
On
Alligators And A Green Bubble - This morning, at 08.10 BST, there was an excellent discussion on BBC Radio
4’s ‘Today’ programme between veteran pollster, Sir Robert (Bob) Worcester, and a leading local government
expert, Professor Tony Travers, on why white working class voters now seem to be deserting the Labour Party in
droves, as exemplified in Thursday’s Crewe and Nantwich By-election, at which the Conservatives overturned a
7,000 Labour majority to win by 7,860 votes on a remarkable 17.6% swing [you can listen to the 5 minute exchange
here].
When asked why this social group, one normally comprising solid Labour supporters, is not wooed by more
metro-middle class ‘Guardianista’ Labour policies, such as those on the environment and ‘global warming’,
Bob Worcester turned to what he called his ‘Alligator Principle’ - that is, when you are surrounded by
alligators, you are not going to be interested in abstract ideas like ‘global warming’. This is a brilliant
image, for you can just see all those alligators, with their wide-open, toothy gapes, waiting to pounce: increased
food costs; increased transport costs; restricted borrowing at punitive rates; house re-possessions; worries over
pensions; difficulties in choosing schools - the voracious reptiles are legion.
But the biggest alligator of them all is surely stalking Labour itself, for, without these voters, it will be
gobbled up, and be out of power before you can say “Old Croc”. (Global Warming Politics)
A
green miscalculation - The centre-left's influence is falling as it abandons progressive optimism for
environmental zealousness (Benny Peiser, National Post)
Environment?
“So Early Noughties!” - “In the Nineties and early Noughties, paying through the nose to live out this
fantasy was a luxury many felt they could afford. Organic - to adapt Robin Williams on cocaine - was God’s way
of telling us we were earning too much money.” (James Delingpole, The Sunday Telegraph, May 25)
As long-predicted on GWP, the environment - more correctly, perhaps, environmentalism - is on the way out. The
signs of organic decay are everywhere, even in bien pensant newspapers like The Observer. And the reaction to a
decade of being lectured to about ‘global warming’, ‘organic’ food, set-aside, and pretty birdies can be
surprisingly angry, as I recently witnessed at an agricultural conference where the speaker from the RSPB was
attacked with quite extraordinary venom. (Global Warming Politics)
Acidity Levels At An All-Times-High? - Icecap
Note: As the earth fails to warm, the alarmists turn their attention to other potential disasters we are causing
with the burning of fossil fuels in stories like ”Acidity
Levels At An All-Times-High”. In this tale, they note “Researchers from the Science journal recently
reported an alarming increase in ocean acidification over the continental shelf of North America. The effects of
the anomaly are very likely to include a series of negative impacts on the marine ecosystems. One of the
conclusions reached by the scientists is that the acidification will lead to the corrosion of calcium carbonate
exoskeletons in a large number of organisms. The explanation is that the CO2 mixed with ocean water forms the
carbonic acid which has a corrosive effect on aragonite (the calcium carbonate mineral forming the shells of many
sea creatures.) Apparently, the reason for the severe acidification could be connected to the ocean’s increased
absorption of the carbon dioxide quantities from the atmosphere.”
For an alternative and more objective non-agenda driven view, I suggest this
site. Dr. Anthoni of the New Zealand Sea Friends Organization takes an objective and in-depth look at the
topic. Dr. Anthoni begins: “The scientific literature and Internet are awash in articles relating to ocean
acidification, mainly as part of a world-wide scare for global warming. Most are repeats of what others wrote,
superficial and scare-mongering, and not worthy of mention...” (Icecap)
MPs back personal carbon credits - The
government should go ahead with a system of personal "carbon credits" to meet emissions targets, MPs
have said. The Environmental Audit Committee said the scheme would be more effective than taxes for cutting carbon
emissions. Under the scheme people would be given an annual carbon limit for fuel and energy use - which they
could exceed by buying credits from those who use less. (BBC)
Brown
faces rebellion over 'green' road tax - Gordon Brown is facing a fresh tax rebellion as Labour MPs demand the
repeal of a £200 increase in vehicle excise duty on environmentally unfriendly cars purchased in the past seven
years.
As lorry drivers prepare to stage a slow-moving protest through London today against rising fuel duties, a
ministerial aide broke ranks to brand the levy an unacceptable retrospective tax that would discredit green taxes.
(The Guardian)
PM wants
Europe to press India, China to cut gases - Prime Minster Stephen Harper will aim to persuade several European
counterparts next week to press developing nations such as China and India to take more significant roles in
reducing greenhouse gases when the Kyoto accord expires.
A government official said yesterday that Mr. Harper plans to lay out the Canadian position when he meets with the
leaders of four key members of the Group of Eight industrial nations before the annual G8 summit in July. The
European Union believes that Western industrialized nations must lead the charge on reducing greenhouse gases,
which scientists say are the main contributor to increasing world temperatures.
Japan, which is playing host to the G8, wants to ensure that emerging economies sign on to talks to develop a new
deal to reduce carbon emissions for the years beyond 2012, when Kyoto expires. (Globe and Mail)
Leaders told battle to stem
global warming slowing - KOBE, Japan — The world is losing momentum in the battle against global warming,
the U.N. climate chief warned on Saturday, urging environmental ministers from wealthy nations to revive the
effort by setting clear targets for reducing greenhouse gases. (AP)
Bill Hare is the Greenpeace Campaigns Director on secondment to Potsdam, but still posing as a climate
scientist.
Let’s
Bury These Bonkers MPs - Precisely as John Vidal, writing in The Guardian [‘Billions wasted on UN climate
programme’, The Guardian, May 26], reports that “billions of pounds are being wasted in paying industries in
developing countries to reduce climate change emissions”, the bonkers bunch of MPs who comprise ‘The
Environmental Audit Committee’ issue a report saying that “the government should go ahead with a system of
personal ‘carbon credits’ to meet emissions targets” [‘MPs back personal carbon credits’, BBC Online
Politics News, May 26]. (Global Warming Politics)
German Climate Protection Package
at Risk - Part two of Chancellor Merkel's ambitious package of measures aimed at reducing German greenhouse
gas emissions may be in trouble. Originally set for passage on Tuesday, many of the law proposals are under
attack. (Der Spiegel)
Ultralong
Solar Cycle 23 and Possible Consequences - In 1610, shortly after viewing the sun with his new telescope,
Galileo Galilei made the first European observations of Sunspots. Daily observations were started at the Zurich
Observatory in 1749 and with the addition of other observatories continuous observations were obtained starting in
1849. As a climatologist, I always found it amazing that we have had regular sunspot data far longer than we have
had reliable coverage of temperature or precipitation.
Monthly averages (updated monthly) of the sunspot numbers show that the number of sunspots visible on the sun
waxes and wanes with an approximate 11-year cycle, The last five cycles are shown in the diagram below.
See larger image here
(Joseph D’Aleo, CCM)
Absurd conjecture of the moment: Research suggests
parts of UK could be too hot for wine-making by 2080 - Increasing summer temperatures could mean some parts of
southern England are too hot to grow vines for making wine by 2080, according to a new book launched today (26 May
2008). (Imperial College London)
Warm Winds Comfort
Climate Change Models: Study - Climate change models predicting a dangerous warming of the world’s
atmosphere got a confirming boost Sunday from a study showing parallel trends at altitudes nearly twice as high as
Mount Everest. The new research, published in Nature Geoscience, will help remove one of the remaining scientific
uncertainties about the general thrust of global warming, the authors and commentators say. Over the last two
decades, temperature readings from the upper troposphere—12 to 16 kilometres (7.5 and 10 miles) above Earth’s
surface—based on data gathered by satellites and high-flying weather balloons showed little or no increase. (AFP)
Actually this is a pretty imaginative use of the thermal wind model. Unfortunately their reason for using it
simply that empirical measures don't show what models 'predict' and who are you going to believe, models or your
own lying eyes? Hence this workaround where large assumptions can be reintroduced to deal with inconvenient
measures. Our current 'favorite toy' showing how small changes in assumptions have dramatic (and imaginary)
effects on output is our simple global energy
balance model.
Climate profs 'can't recommend'
enormo-space-parasol: Global-warming brains lukewarm on 'Sunshade World' ploy - Bristol-based researchers have
said that they "can't recommend" the idea of solving global warming by putting a giant sunshade in space
so as to cool the earth down.
In their report Sunshade World, Professor Paul Valdes and Dr Dan Lunt of Bristol Uni's School of Geographical
Sciences - with colleagues - examine the likely results of artificially reducing the amount of sunlight reaching
the Earth. The scientists say that previous studies have estimated that space-based architecture could perhaps
achieve this in around 25 years' time, at a cost of "several trillion dollars". (Lewis Page, The
Register)
Towards a Low Carbon Economy - We are
yet confronted with another World Environment Day, 5th of June is a day set aside by the United Nation Environment
Programme as a vehicle to sensitize people around the globe on pertinent environmental issues. This global
celebration has been held under various themes depending on what the United Nations deems important but having
serious consequences on our planet earth and its atmosphere. For some years now climate change issues has
dominated World Environment Day themes because it has been proven from scientific evidence as the single biggest
threat to nature and the existence of humanity in general.
This year's theme reads "kick the CO2 habit: Towards A low Carbon Economy" is an indication that carbon
dioxide one of the major greenhouse gases responsible for global warming is on the increase.
In the opinion of UNEP, which is of course the general view of all environmentalist, the increase in carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere is as a result of our habits, lifestyles, and the choices we make due to our
unsustainable consumption patterns. (Public Agenda (Accra))
International
Conference on Solar Influence on Climate - I thought I’d give a little heads up to a conference
to be held at Montana
State University from June 1-6:
Approximately 100 scientists from Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and North America will participate in
the workshop titled “Solar Variability, Earth’s Climate and the Space Environment,” said MSU physicist
Dibyendu Nandi, head of the local organizing committee.
Participants will include directors of major international institutions, leaders of space missions and
contributors to the report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change. One of the participants, the managing director of the Max-Planck-Institute
for Solar System Research in Germany, will give a public address on June 3.
“This is the first workshop in this international series of meetings that will be held in the United
States,” said William Hiscock, physics professor and head of the MSU physics department. “The selection of
MSU as host for this event reflects the strong international reputation of our solar physics research group.”
Nandi added, “The Sun is the
main source of energy in the solar system. Understanding how variations in its magnetic and radiative output
influence our climate and space environment is the primary focus of this workshop. Achieving this understanding
is important for protecting our technologies in space and on Earth and is essential towards distinguishing the
natural and man-made causes of global climate change.”
Of course, some climate modellers think that this conference would be a waste of time. (Solar Science)
Follow-up
to The Response to Ray Pierrehumbert’s Real Climate Post by Roy Spencer - I’ve received the comment that I
did not adequately address the last three graphs that Ray showed in his RealClimate.org post of May 21, 2008.
These three plots represent what he calls Lesson 1, 2, and 3 on how to “cook a graph.” (Climate Science)
Challenge
to Real Climate On The IPCC Global Climate Model Predictions Of Global Warming - Real
Climate has offered a challenge (a bet) on their weblog on global cooling but they use global average
surface temperature trends as the metric [see].
As shown, for example, in Pielke Sr., R.A., 2003: Heat
storage within the Earth system. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 84, 331-335, however, the monitoring of changes in
the ocean heat content is a much more robust metric to assess global warming and cooling. The global average
surface temperature trend has a number of unresolved issues with respect to its value to diagnose global climate
system heat changes, including a warm bias (see
and see).
Climate Science has proposed using Joules that accumulate within the oceans as the currrency to assess
climate system heat changes, rather than a global average surface temperature trend (e.g. see).
(Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
Less water vapour could ease global
warming - A LOCAL ENVIRONMENTAL scientist thinks too little attention is being placed on water vapour or H2O
gas as a contributing factor to global warming. Mark Harris, professor in the Department of Biology and Chemistry
at Northern Caribbean University, has argued that the popular villain - carbon dioxide (CO2) - might be eclipsed
by water vapour in contributing to global warming.
"Popular perception links CO2 with the 'bad guys' - the big oil companies with whom many associate greed and
insensitivity. On the other hand, pure, clean water is associated normally with life and health," Harris
recently told a gathering at the Mandeville-based university while delivering a public lecture on global warming.
"It is, therefore, unfashionable, and even inconceivable, in some quarters to think of too much water vapour
as a dangerous substance," he continued. (Jamaica Gleaner)
Exxon Again Cuts Funds For Climate
Change Sceptics - NEW YORK - Exxon Mobil Corp is pulling contributions to several groups that have downplayed
the risks that greenhouse gas-emissions could lead to global warming, continuing a policy started in 2006 by Chief
Executive Rex Tillerson.
Exxon will not contribute to some nine groups in 2008 that it funded in 2007. It said in its corporate citizenship
report that the groups' "position on climate change could divert attention from the important discussion on
how the world will secure the energy required for economic growth in an environmentally responsible manner."
The groups Exxon has stopped funding include the Capital Research Centre, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow,
Frontiers of Freedom Institute, the George C. Marshall Institute, and the Institute for Energy Research, according
to Exxon spokesman Gantt Walton. (Reuters)
And activists say skeptics are in it for the money...
Rising
gas prices: Energy solutions are needed, not excuses - As Oklahomans travel this Memorial Day weekend, one
thing is certain — they will feel the pressure of skyrocketing gas prices. Prices at the pump have never been
higher nationwide, and most Americans will pay nearly $4 for a gallon of gasoline this weekend. Four dollars. At a
time when American families are already feeling the strain of rising food and consumer prices, $4 a gallon is
certainly hard to swallow.
As many Washington politicians return home to face understandably disgruntled constituents this weekend, no doubt
there will be plenty of finger pointing. But Oklahomans and Americans want and deserve solutions, not excuses.
(Sen. Jim Inhofe, News Oklahoma)
Like Your $5 Gas?
- Spending $60, $70, even $90 for a fill up at the gas station is fun right? When it comes to crippling, racist,
and economically debilitating energy policy liberals have truly paralyzed America. And they seem proud of their
efforts. In the left's refusal to allow us to seek new energy sources they are stunting a nation's economy, they
are hurting the average family, and they are starving hungry children.
They also have the gall to do all of this under the guise of feigned outrage at oil companies in addition to
self-superior Senate floor speeches where they rage against the administration. They also express abject
resentment towards anyone who dares to mention the obvious - that it is their policies that put us in this mess to
begin with and disallows our escape from it. (Kevin McCullough, Townhall)
House Of Oil Repute - Democrats
oppose extracting 10 billion barrels of oil from ANWR because it won't affect prices, but want to tap our
strategic reserve of 700 million because it will. Come again? (IBD)
Drill, Coast Haste - With the
prospect of an oil shortage and $12 gas, the energy crisis is turning into a national emergency. One solution:
Give states the option to develop offshore tracts. (IBD)
Green
Bush? Administration May Declare More Undersea Oil Off Limits - U.S. oil producers just can’t get any
satisfaction. Despite repeated calls to open up swathes of protected land to oil and gas exploration to ease
supply shortages, most U.S. oil reserves are on land that’s still off-limits. And things are just going to get
tougher. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
Petrobras announces new oil
discovery in ultra deep waters - Brazil’s government managed oil and gas corporation Petrobras announced
this week the presence of oil traces in pre-salt reservoirs, in ultra deep waters off shore Sao Paulo in the
Santos Basin. (Mercopress)
US Greens Wary Of Ecological Cost
Of Record Oil - NEW YORK - US environmental advocates are nervous that record crude oil prices will lead to a
boom in production of fossil fuels like motor fuel from coal, Canada's tar sands, or shale in Colorado that would
emit more planet-warming gases than conventional oil. (Reuters)
Latest moonbattery: We
have gone mad, Your Majesty, and only you can cure our affliction - An open letter to the leader of Opec's
biggest oil producer, the one man who can force Britain to cut its carbon emissions (George Monbiot, The Guardian)
Dominic
Lawson: Mr Brown can try to blame this crisis on Opec, but the real fault lies with his own tax policy - The
British Government has two policies on oil prices. The first is that the price we pay for oil is too high, and
must be brought down. The second is that the price we pay for oil is too low, and must be increased.
The second policy rests its case on the Stern Review's assertion that the price consumers are charged for fossil
fuels is "the biggest market failure in history" – because it doesn't take account of the
"climate costs" they allegedly impose on future generations. (The Independent)
Labour
plans green revolution to slash energy prices and win back lost voters - Gordon Brown is planning to use a
massive expansion of green energy to win back voters angry at spiralling fuel prices.
They will be offered guaranteed prices for generating their own power that could fund loan schemes to pay for
energy-saving technology under plans being finalised by ministers.
The plans are expected to be contained in a major offensive to promote domestic solar and wind power, as well as
promoting energy conservation, that will be launched by the Prime Minister next month. (The Independent)
Crisis-hit
Brown told to scrap car tax rises - Gordon Brown is being urged by ministers to scrap rises in car taxes and
petrol duty as he struggles to regain popularity after a humiliating by-election defeat. The Prime Minister faces
the gravest crisis of his career after seeing the safe Labour seat of Crewe lost to a resurgent Tory party. (Daily
Telegraph)
German car tax
plan to be delayed - government - BERLIN, May 23 - The German government's controversial plans to change rules
on car tax from 2009 to take exhaust emissions into account will likely be delayed further, government officials
said on Friday.
The proposals were due to be signed off in cabinet next Tuesday but the finance, economy and environment
ministries have been unable to reach final agreement and they are now due to be discussed in cabinet on June 18,
officials said at a regular news conference. The measures, part of a climate protection package agreed last year,
have stoked tensions within Germany's ruling conservative-Social Democrat coalition. (Reuters)
British
Airways warns carbon trading will cripple Europe's airlines - Europe's airlines will be put at a major
competitive disadvantage if the European Union implements a punitive version of carbon trading at a time of
soaring oil prices and rising taxation, British Airways has warned. (Daily Telegraph)
Going Nuclear Despite Warnings - PRAGUE, May 24 -
The EU seems to be backing nuclear energy as the response to global warming and gas dependency, but civic groups
warn that safety and waste processing should be preconditions for the industry's growth. (IPS)
Rwanda puts
hopes in methane power plant - Extracting the gas from Lake Kivu's depths is a risky venture. But officials
say it can help solve two problems: drain the deadly pool and provide energy to the electricity-starved nation.
(Los Angeles Times)
Cereal
Killer: Don’t Blame Biofuels for Food Prices, New Study Says - Maybe corn belt politicians have a point,
after all. Biofuels play a “far from dominant” role in food price increases around the world, according to a
study to be released next week by clean technology analysts New Energy Finance. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
Protectionism
is to blame for the food crisis - The world has enormous capacity to produce food to deal with the current
food crisis. But this potential has been held back by agricultural protectionism in developed economies and, more
recently, by export restrictions imposed by some less developed countries. Contrary to what is often heard,
today’s crisis cannot be explained by higher demand for food in emerging countries or by speculation. In
addition to natural catastrophes such as the Australian drought that has slightly reduced world production
recently, ill-advised government policies are largely to blame. (Ian Irvine, National Post)
Men are not
mice — No link between fats eaten and risks for prostate cancer - Guys who are looking forward to enjoying a
great barbecue this Memorial weekend may be interested in the results of what’s probably the world’s largest
study looking to see if there is any link at all between dietary fat and risks for prostate cancer. If no link can
be found at all, then, of course, it would rule out fat as a cause. So what did it find? (Junkfood Science)
Exercise
'does not make obese children slim' - Encouraging overweight children to exercise has no impact on weight loss
and they should be encouraged instead to eat more healthily, according to new research.
The study claims that obese children are inactive because of their weight, and not fat because they are inactive.
(Daily Telegraph)
No matter how
it's packaged, it’s still a diet - “Lifestyle medicine” is a relatively new field of integrative
medicine that’s part of the preventive health and wellness movement. It holds that obesity and most chronic
diseases (heart disease, diabetes, cancers, etc.) are due to bad lifestyles, namely bad diets and lack of
exercise. These beliefs have become so widely promoted, that many consumers don’t realize the elements of fringe
that have entered into mainstream, evidence-based medicine. The first meeting of the Australian Lifestyle Medicine
Association was reported as taking place today and provides an opportunity to learn more about this field and
those behind it. (Junkfood Science)
Minister - Ice Won't Vanish On Kilimanjaro
- A Cabinet minister has allayed fears that ice caps on Mt Kilimanjaro that is a big tourist attraction in the
region could disappear permanently.
The minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Ms Shamsa Mwangunga, says contrary to reports that the ice caps
were decreasing owing to effects of global warming, indications were that the snow cover on Africa's highest
mountain were now increasing.
"Among the signs of more snow is the decrease in temperatures in areas surrounding the mountain, heavy
rainfall this year and increased precipitation and spring water flow on the slopes of the mountain," she
pointed out.
The minister toured the mountain last week as part of activities to mark the African Travel Association's annual
meeting held in Arusha.
She said reports that the ice caps at the 5,895 metres high mountain would disappear in the next 20 years were
overblown because there were signs that the snow cover had increased in recent years. (The Citizen (Dar es
Salaam))
Race For Antarctic Krill A Test
For Green Management - SINGAPORE - In the global rush for resources, a tiny pink crustacean living in the seas
around Antarctica is testing man's ability to manage one of the world's last great fisheries without damaging the
environment. (Reuters)
Figures... GM Foods the Problem, Not the Solution
- BONN, May 23 - The food crisis has prompted some looks towards genetically modified food production as a
solution. That in turn has led to stronger warnings over the consequences of such food for health and the
environment. (IPS)
May 23, 2008
Global Warming’s New ‘Consensus’ -
There’s a new global warming consensus in town. It’s too bad the once-level-headed, but now chicken-hearted
Bush Administration has already skedaddled, perhaps leaving our standard of living at the mercy of Barack Obama
and his high regard for the international hate-America crowd. (Steven Milloy, FoxNews.com)
31,000
Signatures Prove ‘No Consensus’ About Global Warming - Presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Monday
that “we have to get used to the idea that we can’t keep our houses at 72, drive our SUVs and eat all we
want.” Arthur B. Robinson, president and professor of chemistry at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine,
has a different response.
“I don’t want to give up eating all I want because of a failed hypothesis,” said Robinson at the National
Press Club here on May 19. Robinson said global warming is not a threat to America. He said that the global
temperature increased by just .5 degrees in the last century. (AIM)
The Lynching of Carbon Dioxide - The Innocent Source of
Life, by Dr. Martin Hertzberg - Extract … Al Gore, the IPCC, and the vast majority of politicians in the US
and Europe argue that this [need to reduce CO2 emissions] is all established science. But I am here to
show that not only is this not established science, but that the objective evidence available indicates that it is
false.
Shocking isn’t it? You might ask, how can a lifelong Democrat like myself reject my party’s position on global
warming and join the camp of the skeptics, virtually all of whom are Republicans or neocons.
Read the full article: www.carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/hertzberg.pdf
[PDF, 655KB] (Carbon Sense Coalition)
The Question of Global Warming
A Question of Balance: Weighing the Options on Global Warming Policies
by William Nordhaus
Yale University Press, 234 pp., $28.00
Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto
edited by Ernesto Zedillo
Yale Center for the Study of Globalization/Brookings Institution Press, 237 pp., $26.95 (paper)
I begin this review with a prologue, describing the measurements that transformed global warming from a vague
theoretical speculation into a precise observational science.
...
When we put together the evidence from the wiggles and the distribution of vegetation over the earth, it turns out
that about 8 percent of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is absorbed by vegetation and returned to the
atmosphere every year. This means that the average lifetime of a molecule of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,
before it is captured by vegetation and afterward released, is about twelve years. This fact, that the exchange of
carbon between atmosphere and vegetation is rapid, is of fundamental importance to the long-range future of global
warming, as will become clear in what follows. Neither of the books under review mentions it. (Freeman Dyson, New
York Review of Books)
On and on this nonsense goes... The Twilight Age
of Coral Reefs - GIJON, Spain, May 22 - Coral reefs will be the first global ecosystem to collapse in our
lifetimes. The one-two punch of climate change that is warming ocean temperatures and increasing acidification is
making the oceans uninhabitable for corals and other marine species, researchers said at a scientific symposium in
Spain. (IPS)
What is it that makes people view a world struggling along with low carbon availability as a preferred state?
The creatures they claim to worry about evolved when carbon was abundant so it is bizarre to assume a declining
shortage will be harmful.
Now it's "Kill trees to beat 'global warming'": Aspen
trees starved in global warming experiment - Chain saws scream in a northern Michigan forest, but it's not the
familiar sound of lumberjacks.
This time the tree killers are environmental researchers. They hope that years from now the aspens they remove
will be replaced with a healthy mix of maples, oaks, beeches and pines - which should soak up more carbon dioxide
from an ever warmer world.
The scientists hope to take a 100-acre section of the University of Michigan Biological Station research forest
closer to the state it was in before logging, when it was dominated by different species of trees instead of the
present-day aspens.
They say the experiment is the first they're aware of that involves removing large numbers of trees to promote
growth of other species that will boost carbon absorption. It comes as governments and businesses around the world
look for economically feasible ways to limit climate change. (AP)
Endangered Specious - Alaska
says it will sue to challenge the listing of polar bears as a threatened species. The designation could block
vital oil and gas development. But that was the whole point in the first place. (IBD)
Bush’s
polar bear legal disaster - Some not-so-clever polar bear skeptic in the White House may have thought this was
a brilliant manoeuvre (Kevin A. Hassett, Financial Post)
Don't develop? Global
warming: Forge new path, urges Nobel winner - PETALING JAYA: Developing countries should avoid the present
carbon economic system that is responsible for global warming, said Nobel Peace Prize co-winner and
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) chairman Dr Rajendra K. Pachauri.
“It’s ruinous for developing countries to pursue growth in the same path. However, committing to alternative
development paths requires major changes in a wide range of areas such as economic structure, transport
infrastructure, urban design and consumption patterns and lifestyle,” said Dr Rajendra at the 10th anniversary
lecture series at the Monash University Sunway campus here recently. (The Star)
Even more hypocritical than Al? A
Nobel cricketer - RK Pachauri heads the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the
2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore for informing the world about the dangers of climate change. What you may
not know about him is that he is a cricket fanatic and plays regularly, even at the age of 67. He captains the
Tata Energy Research Institute in Delhi's corporate league, in which he has taken 345 wickets. The Indian
Express reports that Pachauri once "took a break during a seminar in New York and flew to Delhi over the
weekend to attend a practice session for a match before flying back. Again, he flew in for a day, just to play
that match."
Wonder what Gore, who in his film An Inconvenient Truth urges people to cut down on air travel (because
travellers foregoing even two flights per year will significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions, apparently)
would think of that? (Cricinfo)
'Choose growth or accept
poverty for billions': Stark warning in blueprint for emulating model countries - The world will contain 4
billion people living in abject poverty by 2050 unless the poorest countries adopt policies to deliver rapid and
sustained growth over the coming decades, a report backed by the World Bank and the British government said
yesterday.
After a two-year investigation, a group of policymakers and economists published a blueprint designed to allow the
least developed nations to emulate the 13 countries that have expanded at an average rate of at least 7% a year
for 25 years or longer since the second world war.
Professor Mike Spence, chairman of the Commission on Growth and Development, said there was no prospect of meeting
the Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations - which include halving of the number of people living
in poverty by 2015 - without faster growth.
Two billion of the 6 billion people in the world live in countries with stagnating or declining incomes, but the
report said this figure would rise to 4 billion if they continued to suffer from low growth. (The Guardian)
State's fever
on global warming may be cooling - The state's costly, grandiose scheme to combat global warming is finding
resistance from many of the same folks who approved it two years ago. Meanwhile, legislative opposition also is
growing to the plan to create a global warming state think tank financed by a utility users' surcharge.
It appears that paying for saving mankind from a projected 1- or 2-degree increase in temperature over the next
century already is proving too costly in today's limited dollars. (Appeal Democrat)
And you're supposed to believe this: NRDC
Report on Global Warming - WASHINGTON, May 22 -- A report released today by researchers at Tufts University,
commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), presents two ways of estimating the costs of
inaction on climate change, both leading to staggering bottom lines. A comprehensive estimate, based on
state-of-the-art computer modeling, finds that doing nothing on global warming will cost the United States economy
more than 3.6 percent of GDP - or $3.8 trillion annually (in today's dollars) - by 2100. On the other hand, a
detailed, bottom-up analysis finds that just four categories of global warming impacts -- hurricane damage, real
estate losses, increased energy costs and water costs -- will add up to a price tag of 1.8 percent of U.S. GDP, or
almost $1.9 trillion annually (in today's dollars) by 2100. (PRNewswire-USNewswire)
Slight problem -- we have no indication the world will conform to "state of the art" computer
models, a.k.a. PlayStation® climatology. Neither is there any real indication GHG emissions are associated with
hurricanes in any way, real estate losses or increased energy and water costs (although absurd measures to
"address global warming" are horrendously expensive with no prospect of positive outcomes).
Uh-huh... provided the US pays roughly $2 trillion of it: Carbon
market could be worth 2 trillion euros in 2020: study - The global market in CO2 emission rights could be
worth two trillion euros (3.14 trillion dollars) by 2020 if the United States joins the scheme, analysis group
Point Carbon said on Thursday.
The United States, which has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol that calls for the mechanism, could in 2020 account
for 67 percent, or 1.25 trillion euros, of emissions rights if it decided to introduce a US emissions trading
system, the Point Carbon study said. (AFP)
RealClimate vs Roy
Spencer: non-feedback changes in clouds - Roy Spencer is a rising star and public face of climatology - not
only because of his topseller, Climate Confusion, and occasionally inconvenient UAH MSU satellite data, but also
because of his perfectionist recent theoretical work (including their recent work on cloud oscillations and
several new papers that will be published soon) - and RealClimate.ORG has provided him with a positive feedback.
;-) (The Reference Frame)
A
Response to Ray Pierrehumbert’s Real Climate Post of May 21, 2008 by Roy Spencer - Guest Weblog By Roy
Spencer on Ray Pierrehumbert’s Real Climate Post of May 21 2008
Since Ray Pierrehumbert has decided to critique some of my published work (and unpublished musings) on global
warming over at RealClimate.org, I thought I’d offer some rebuttal. The main theme of his objections to our new
paper and what it demonstrates is clearly wrong - and leading IPCC experts have agreed with me on this. (Climate
Science)
The
Role Of Landscape Processes Within The Climate System - A New Review Article - We have completed a new review
chapter on the role of landscape processes within the climate system, as well as added to our discussion of the
need for bottom-up, resource based vulnerability assessments. The information on this contribution is in Pielke
Sr. R.A., and D. Niyogi, 2008: The role of landscape processes within the climate system. In: Otto, J.C. and R.
Dikaum, Eds., Landform - Structure, Evolution, Process Control: Proceedings of the International Symposium on
Landforms organised by the Research Training Group 437. Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences, Springer, Vol. 115, in
press.
We conclude the chapter with the paragraph
“Finally, unless there is a broadening of the current IPCC focus it will only lead to promote energy policy
changes, and not provide an effective climate policy, which necessarily needs to include how humans are altering
the climate system through land surface processes. Policymakers need to be informed of this very important
distinction where a separation of climate policy from energy policy is essential.” (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate
Science)
A Sea Surface Story -
Sometimes we wonder if authors of papers are not outright campaigning for coverage in World Climate Report. Chose
a title like “Ocean surface warming: The North Atlantic remains within the envelope of previous recorded
conditions” and you will be guaranteed coverage by our skeptical scientists! (WCR)
NOAA
Predicts a Below-Normal Eastern Pacific Hurricane Season - While the forecast for the Atlantic Hurricane
season is active and for 12-16 named storms, the Pacific forecast is just in time to coincide with recent
pronouncements of no link between global warming and hurricane frequency, this just in: (Watts Up With That?)
Blame Washington, Not Oil Companies
- Senate Democrats, dragging executives from five major U.S. oil companies before them for a second day, say
they're alarmed by our "failed" oil markets. What they should be is ashamed. (IBD)
Oil Industry, Lawmakers Aim To Lift Bans on
Drilling - Mounting concerns about global energy supply are fueling a drive by the oil industry and some U.S.
lawmakers to end longstanding bans on domestic drilling put in place to protect environmentally sensitive areas.
Increasing U.S. oil production would require overturning decades-old moratoriums that limit offshore drilling and
accelerating leasing of federal lands, moves that would trigger a swift and vigorous political backlash. Still, as
gasoline prices continue to climb and squeeze household budgets, the momentum appears to be gaining to open up new
areas. (Wall Street Journal)
Inhofe
Continues Fight to Bring Down Gas Prices - “The simple fact remains, until we explore and develop domestic
energy resources and increase domestic refining capacity, the cost of gas at the pump will increase. Now is not
the time for politics as usual – now is the time for common sense solutions.” (EPW)
Peak
Oil in Paris: International Energy Agency Now Skittish Too - Peak oil is contagious: even the International
Energy Agency is getting the rash.
The WSJ reports today that the Paris-based IEA will slash its forecasts of global oil supplies, after years of
rosy predictions that oil output would rise in lockstep with developed countries’ appetites. The IEA’s latest
project? A close look at 400 of the world’s biggest oil fields to figure out how much oil is really left, and
how much production is declining. Nobuo Tanaka, head of the IEA, said Thursday the plan is to provide a “more
realistic supply potential” estimate of what’s really out there.
That marks a fundamental shift for the IEA, founded in the wake of the 1973 oil embargo and subsequent supply
shocks. Ever since, the IEA spilled a lot more ink studying oil demand in rich countries than oil output in the
developing world.
Two developments appear to underlie the shift: Rich country demand no longer calls the tune, given China’s
implacable thirst for petroleum, and global oil reserves no longer seem a bottomless well. IEA chief economist
Fatih Birol told the WSJ that oil production at big fields will continue to decline at an accelerating rate,
leaving the world with a big shortfall of crude even as demand growth marches on. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
Hooray! Now will you start encouraging countries to bring coal to liquids online?
Burying CO2 Vital In Climate
Battle - IEA - BRUSSELS - Finding ways of safely burying carbon dioxide could be the only way of keeping
greenhouse gas emissions below dangerous levels, the International Energy Agency's chief economist said on
Thursday. (Reuters)
Another bunch bitten by algore... We don't want the carbon reburied, it does good in the
environment.
As
Oil Prices Rise, Nations Revive Coal Mining - BIBAI, Japan — These rugged green mountains, once home to one
of Asia’s most productive coal regions, are littered with abandoned mines and decaying towns — backwaters of
an economy of bullet trains and hybrid cars.
But after decades of seemingly terminal decline, Japan’s coal country is stirring again. With energy prices
reaching record highs — oil settled above $135 a barrel on Thursday — Japan’s high-cost mines are suddenly
competitive again, and demand for their coal is booming. Production has jumped to its highest in nearly four
decades, creating a sensation rarely felt in these mining communities: hope.
“We are seeing a flicker of light after long darkness,” said Michio Sakurai, the mayor of Bibai, on Japan’s
northernmost island of Hokkaido. “We never imagined coal would actually make a comeback.” (New York Times)
Carbon
Call: Climate Underpins NRG’s Bid for Calpine - The Lieberman-Warner climate bill hasn’t even hit the
floor of Congress, but its impacts may already be hitting the market.
That’s the first reading of NRG Energy’s unsolicited, $11 billion all-stock bid for troubled rival Calpine
Corp., a move which would create the biggest independent power producer in the U.S. NRG and Calpine are roughly
the same size today, and a combined company would have about 45 gigawatts of generation capacity.
Things are looking up for natural gas-fired plants (Calpine)
What’s so attractive about Calpine, which just got out of bankruptcy–besides a $5 billion tax carryover?
It’s the biggest electric utility in the U.S. that doesn’t burn any coal–it just operates natural gas-fired
turbines and some geothermal plants. NRG, on the other hand, is still coal-heavy despite a recent push into
cleaner technologies like wind and nuclear power. About two-thirds of the electricity it produced in 2006 came
from coal.
Getting coal out of the system is important, because climate-change legislation like Lieberman-Warner will put a
price tag on emissions of greenhouse gases. Natural gas produces about half the carbon dioxide emissions as
coal—but prices for natural gas are a lot more volatile, and helped drive Calpine into the red in 2005.
That’s what makes the NRG bid especially interesting. It appears to be a bet that whatever happens to natural
gas prices in the future—and they’ve been steadily climbing of late, and may have more room to rise—they are
less of a threat than looming climate legislation. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
And that's the crux of the matter -- the threat is from climate legislation.
Dream on... Alternative
Energy Execs Dream Of Oil Crunch - LONDON - While most companies are watching soaring oil prices with an eye
on rising costs some renewable energy executives are licking their lips at the prospect of "spectacular"
growth. (Reuters)
Rudd urged to dump
renewable energy targets - KEVIN Rudd is being urged today to dump mandatory renewable energy targets in
Australia if an emissions trading scheme is introduced. The Productivity Commission has warned that demands
Australia use more renewable energy - including solar, water and wind - will distort the operation of an emissions
trading scheme that simultaneously encourages a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. It will not increase the
abatement of emissions, but threatens to distort the market, particularly against low-emission gas options, and
add to the price of energy. (The Australian)
Italy
Plans to Resume Building Atomic Plants - ROME — Italy announced Thursday that within five years it planned
to resume building nuclear energy plants, two decades after a public referendum resoundingly banned nuclear power
and deactivated all its reactors.
“By the end of this legislature, we will put down the foundation stone for the construction in our country of a
group of new-generation nuclear plants,” said Claudio Scajola, minister of economic development. “An action
plan to go back to nuclear power cannot be delayed anymore.”
The change is a striking sign of the times, reflecting growing concern in many European countries over the
skyrocketing price of oil and energy security, and the warming effects of carbon emissions from fossil fuels. All
have combined to make this once-scorned form of energy far more palatable.
“Italy has had the most dramatic, the most public turnaround, but the sentiments against nuclear are reversing
very quickly all across Europe — Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Germany and more,” said Ian Hore-Lacey, spokesman
for the World Nuclear Association, an industry group based in London. (New York Times)
Germany, France Near A Deal On Car
Emissions - Source - BERLIN - Germany and France are close to an accord on reducing carbon dioxide (CO2)
emissions from cars that could pave the way for the introduction of European Union-wide limits, a government
source said on Thursday. (Reuters)
Have you taken
the Thinking is Dangerous Challenge yet? - “Dr. T” at Thinking is Dangerous has issued a challenge to find
places where all five of his top fallacies of logic have been used in the same place. There’s a prize. :) (Junkfood
Science)
A vision for a healthy
state - Do you ever wonder what kind of policy advice the leaders in your state get? The Wisconsin Policy
Research Institute, which says it’s a free market think tank that advises government leaders on key policy
issues and conducts regular opinion polls, produces a daily newsfeed that managers in Wisconsin read each morning.
Today, state administrators received in their inboxes recommendations for a “healthy Wisconsin.” (Junkfood
Science)
Ecochondria
Retards Progress in Reducing Hunger - Keith Bradsher and Andrew Martin outline in Sunday’s New York Times
the extent to which the world’s aid agencies starved the budgets of international agricultural research
institutions that worked on increasing agricultural productivity in the developing world: (Cato @ Liberty)
May 22, 2008
The Failure of Centralized Scientific Planning - A
review of Sex, Science and Profits: How People Evolved to Make Money (Ronald Bailey, Reason)
Economic Progress and Climate Change Issues:
A Dissenting Viewpoint - The attached text formed the basis for my opening contribution, and also some later
remarks, at the discussion that followed the 2008 Clare Distinguished Lecture in Economics and Public Policy,
given in Cambridge, England on 14 May 2008. The lecturer was Professor Mohan Munasinghe, and his subject was ‘A
policy framework for Climate Change and Sustainable Development: economic analysis and beyond’. (David
Henderson, CCNet)
Guest feature: Greenhouse Gas Facts
and Fantasies - To support their argument, advocates of man-made global warming have intermingled elements of
greenhouse activity and infrared absorption to promote the image that carbon dioxide traps heat near earth's
surface like molecular greenhouses insulating our atmosphere. Their imagery, however, is seriously flawed. (Tom
Kondis)
This rubbish, again! Ocean acidification -- another
undesired side effect of fossil fuel-burning - Up to now, the oceans have buffered climate change considerably
by absorbing almost one third of the worldwide emitted carbon dioxide. The oceans represent a significant carbon
sink, but the uptake of excess CO2 stemming from man’s burning of fossil fuels comes at a high cost: ocean
acidification.
Research on ocean acidification is a newly emerging field and was one of the major topics at this year’s
European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly held in Vienna in April. The European Science Foundation
EUROCORES (European Collaborative Research) programme EuroCLIMATE, which addresses in particular global carbon
cycle dynamics, organized and co-sponsored several sessions on ocean acidification. (European Science Foundation)
We discussed this before and no, it's not really right. See, for example, CO2 levels in the
Ordovician -- 4,000-4,500ppmv. The Ordovician period was an era of extensive diversification and
expansion of numerous marine clades. Although organisms also present in the Cambrian were numerous in the
Ordovician, a variety of new types including cephalopods, corals (including rugose and
tabulate forms), bryozoans, crinoids, graptolites, gastropods, and bivalves flourished.
Ordovican communities typically displayed a higher ecological complexity than Cambrian communities due to
the greater diversity of organisms.
Now, if 4,500ppmv CO2 could not make seas acidic enough to trouble calcium-depositing critters
like these what reason have we to worry at 1/10th such levels?
Moreover, we just had this: Chalk one up for
coccolithophores - Scientists have feared that gradual acidification of the world's oceans would wreak havoc
with organisms that build protective outer shells. But a new finding shows at least three species of
coccolithophores -- single-celled algae that are major players in the ocean's cycling of carbon -- are
responding to ocean acidification by building thicker cell walls and plates of chalk, contrary to what some
recent lab experiments have shown.
Further to this item yesterday: EU
Report Calls For Faster Climate Change Curbs - BRUSSELS - Global temperature rises should be kept well below
the European Union's target of 2 degrees Celsius to avoid costly damage to people and their lifestyles, according
to a European Parliament report. (Reuters)
Richard Courtney provides comments and
the lecture mentioned therein.
More form the Nude Socialist: Alps hit by two-decade
decline in snowfall - A forthcoming study has added to worries that the Alpine ski industry will be badly
affected by global warming, the British weekly New Scientist reports on Wednesday.
A "dramatic step-like drop" in the amount of snow falling in the western European mountain chain
occurred in the late 1980s and since then snowfall has never recovered, it says. (AFP)
Did it not occur to these dopey buggers to check the NAO
indices? From the late '80s they say? Imagine that...
A
review of the major global temperature metrics for April 2008: Still globally cooler than 1 year ago - Here is
a review of the major global temperature metrics in tabular and graph form. There is a bit of disagreement this
month (Watts Up With That)
Can
The IPCC Model Projections Of Global Warming Be Evaluated From Just Several Years Of Data? - ... Thus the
value of global warming of the last 4 years fails to agree with the IPCC projections (the values are not even
close!). The argument that this is too short of a time is spurious unless the modellers can account for where else
in their model results the missing Joules went.
Moreover, this is not too short of a time period to compare with the models. Heat, unlike temperature at a single
level as used to construct a global average surface temperature trend, is a variable in physics that can be
assessed at any time period (i.e. a snapshot) to diagnose the climate system heat content. Temperature not only
has a time lag, but a single level represents an insignificant amount of mass within the climate system.
The answer to the question on this weblog “Can the IPCC model projections of global warming be evaluated from
just several years of observed data” is YES. The conclusion for the past four years is that the model
projections are not skillful on this time period. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
The Unholy Alliance that manufactured Global
Warming - In previous parts of this series (Parts 1,
2,
3,
4,
5, 6)
I’ve shown how a political agenda took over climate science primarily through the UN and specifically the United
Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC). The agenda was spread to the world at the 1992 Rio Conference. Periodic Reports from the
IPCC maintained the focus on CO2 and increased the political pressure. Please understand I am not claiming a
conspiracy, but rather a cabal, which is defined as a secret political clique pushing a political agenda; in this
case, designed by Maurice Strong.
Although the IPCC was the major vehicle other agencies got caught up quickly as governments became more involved.
Results of the IPCC reports were skillfully propagandized so the issue took hold with the media and the public. It
was also due to bureaucrats in each country carefully selected from weather related offices to serve on the IPCC.
As MIT professor Richard Lindzen, former member of the IPCC said, “It is no small matter that routine weather
service functionaries from New Zealand to Tanzania are referred to as ‘the world’s leading climate
scientists.’ It should come as no surprise that they will be determinedly supportive of the process.” A
political bias made a few of them especially supportive. The pattern of their machinations emerged early and
continues. A measure of this was how long many of them kept the Hockey Stick graph on official government web
sites.
Contrary to popular belief politicians do listen. The problem is they usually hear if they think there is a
consensus, whether right or wrong, or if the issue can garner votes. Both these situations existed in the claims
of global warming. In addition, most politicians don’t understand climate science and were forced to rely on the
bureaucrats.
The most notorious was the Hockey Stick (HS) in the IPCC 2001 Third Assessment Report (TAR). Despite its
destruction by McIntyre and McKitrick confirmed by the Wegman committee reporting to the National Academy of
Sciences, Michael Mann and his associates continue to claim their work was legitimate. Its omission from the 2007
IPCC Report told the real story. (Dr. Tim Ball, CFP)
Charley
Reese: Skeptic dissects global warming frenzy - Global warming has ceased. In 2005, it was .45 degrees
centigrade above the 1961-1990 global average temperature. In 2006, it dropped to .42 centigrade, and in 2007, to
.41 centigrade.
That's one of many facts to be gleaned from an intelligent and calm book, "An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look
at Global Warming," by Lord Nigel Lawson, a British politician and former journalist.
It is not a book to be read on a warm afternoon after a heavy lunch. It will put you to sleep.
Richard S. Lindzen, Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says of
the book: "This brief and elegant book treats the science of global warming seriously, but convincingly shows
that whatever view one has of the science, almost all proposed approaches to the putative problem are
intellectually deficient, economically absurd and harmful, and morally misdirected at best."
Lawson sums up his book with this warning: "So the new religion of global warming, however appealing it may
be to the politicians, is not as harmless as it may appear at first sight. Indeed the more one examines it the
more it resembles a 'Da Vinci Code' of environmentalism. It is a great story and phenomenal best-seller. It
contains a grain of truth - and a mountain of nonsense." (News Press)
Are
We Out Of Our Trees? - I am a rather simple chap, and I like to ask simple questions. So here are two little
conundrums for readers of ‘Global Warming Politics’ to contemplate over their G & Ts this fine evening.
(Global Warming Politics)
George Will: Washington's latest pre-emptive war
- A preventive war worked out so well in Iraq that Washington last week launched another. The new preventive war -
the government responding forcefully against a postulated future threat - has been declared on behalf of polar
bears, the first species whose supposed jeopardy has been ascribed to global warming.
The Interior Department, bound by the Endangered Species Act, has declared polar bears a "threatened"
species because they might be endangered "in the foreseeable future," meaning 45 years. (Note: 45 years
ago, the now-long-forgotten global cooling menace of 35 years ago was not yet foreseen.) The bears will be
threatened if the current episode of warming, if there really is one, is, unlike all the previous episodes,
irreversible, and if it intensifies, and if it continues to melt sea ice vital to the bears, and if the bears,
unlike in many previous warming episodes, cannot adapt. (Star News)
Governor says Alaska will
challenge polar bear listing - ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The state of Alaska will sue to challenge the recent
listing of polar bears as a threatened species, Gov. Sarah Palin announced Wednesday.
She and other Alaska elected officials fear a listing will cripple oil and gas development in prime polar bear
habitat off the state's northern and northwestern coasts.
Palin argued that there is not enough evidence to support a listing. Polar bears are well-managed and their
population has dramatically increased over 30 years as a result of conservation, she said. (AP)
Polluters may soon burn
up money - SAN FRANCISCO - Bay Area factories, power plants, hospitals, airlines, oil refineries and other
businesses that emit carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases may be among of the first in the nation to pay a
tax to battle global warming. (Will Reisman, The Examiner)
A carbon tax on gas won't fly -
Federal Liberal leader Stéphane Dion plans to campaign in the next election with a promise to introduce a
"carbon tax" on gasoline, natural gas and home heating oil precisely when the prices of these already
over-taxed essential commodities are soaring and causing citizens hardship -- analysts are virtually unanimous in
predicting gas will hit $1.50 per litre this summer and it is already in the $1.30 per litre range.
The new gas tax is not just going to be a "hard sell" for Mr. Dion and the Liberals, it is most likely
to be political suicide. It's foolish and it is difficult to fathom what Mr. Dion expects yet more tax on gasoline
and heating oil will do. By inflating the price of gas Mr. Dion will severely damage the already struggling
tourism industry and will push up the price of virtually every consumer good available via increased shipping
costs. What does he expect to achieve other than to push the nation into a recession? (Times & Transcript)
Japan
environment chief says industry may face tough pollution limits - TOKYO - Japan will have to impose carbon
taxes and other tough measures on the industrial sector to meet its long-term goals of reducing greenhouse gas
emissions, the environment minister said Wednesday. (AP)
Editorial: Carbon plan
a hostage to politics - First, the Prime Minister postponed next year's introduction of greenhouse gas
emissions trading in transport fuels and extended the phase out of freely allocated emission rights by five years,
now the Opposition leader wants the whole scheme delayed indefinitely. What is going on? (New Zealand Herald)
Comment: carbon plan stupid to start with.
Relationships of Ocean Cycles
with Atlantic Hurricanes - In recent weeks we have posted stories about the Pacific
Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic
Multidecadal Oscillation and ENSO
and their effects on temperatures and Greenland
and Arctic ice.
In this story, we
look at how these same ocean cyclical oscillations influence the relative frequency of tropical storms, the number
of strong storms and the most likely storm tracks and areas affected.
In recent months we have seen two prominent scientists (MIT’s Kerry
Emanuel and NOAA’s Tom
Knutson of the fluid dynamics lab at Princeton) who had earlier published papers linking global warming with
increased Atlantic hurricane frequency and strength change their position on the basis of new data or models. We
applaud these scientists for being willing to change their opinion when presented with conflicting data.
We believe these varying cycles of activity and tracks relate mainly to natural cyclical changes in the oceans.
Dr. Bill Gray has shown how the frequency of Atlantic hurricanes and major hurricanes increase dramatically during
the warm AMO phase (the case since 1995). We can see that surface pressure during hurricane season tends to be
lower in the western Atlantic and Gulf when the Atlantic is in its warm mode (positive AMO). (Joseph D’Aleo, CCM)
The
Accidental Tourist (aka The GISS World Tour) - A guest post by: John Goetz, originally posted on Climate
Audit.
Occasionally I will take a trip after much careful planning and preparation, only to find myself going off into
uncharted territory soon after embarking on my adventure. That is what happened to me recently when I started to
take a fresh look at worldwide station coverage. Where I ended up and what I found when I got there was incredibly
surprising. (Watts Up With That?)
Another New Cosmic Rays and Climate Paper
- Jasper Kirkby of CERN has published a new paper examining the potential link between cosmic rays and climate.
The paper concludes:
Numerous palaeoclimatic observations, covering a wide range of time scales, suggest that galactic cosmic ray
variability is associated with climate change. The quality and diversity of the observations make it difficult to
dismiss them merely as chance associations. But is the GCR flux directly affecting the climate or merely acting as
a proxy for variations of the solar irradiance or a spectral component such as UV? Here, there is some
palaeoclimatic evidence for associations of the climate with geomagnetic and galactic modulations of the GCR flux,
which, if confirmed, point to a direct GCR-climate forcing. Moreover, numerous studies have reported
meteorological responses to short-term changes of cosmic rays or the global electrical current, which are
unambiguously associated with ionising particle radiation. (JenniferMarohasy.com)
Sunspot
cycle more dud than radiation flood (Watts Up With That?)
Yes, we know we ran the original article yesterday but Anthony's post gives you the opportunity to comment.
THE REAL LINK BETWEEN SOLAR ENERGY, OCEAN CYCLES AND GLOBAL
TEMPERATURE - Stephen Wilde F.R.Met.S. has been a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society since 1968. The
first four articles from Mr Wilde were received with a great deal of interest throughout the Co2 Sceptic
community.
In Stephen Wilde’s fifth and exclusive article for CO2Sceptics.Com he considers how to explain the apparent
failure of the 'experts' to see or recognise the obvious and overwhelming climate driving mechanism provided by
the sun acting in conjunction with a variety of oceanic processes. (Co2sceptic)
The Exxon Fight, Round 2 - Who wins in a
shareholder war between green-collar activists and blue-collar union pensioners? Hard to say. But round two in the
battle over the fiduciary responsibilities of corporate giant Exxon Mobil ought to be illuminating for investors.
The heirs of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil empire made a media splash recently when they demanded that the
oil giant diversify out of oil, of all things. When Exxon holds its annual shareholder meeting next week, the
Rockefeller clan will push proxy resolutions requiring the company to invest in noncarbon energy sources, and to
create more board of director "independence" from management by splitting the role of chairman and chief
executive. To hear the wealthy heirs tell it, Exxon will thus be better positioned to take advantage of the
eco-opportunities of the future.
The counterpunch from other, nonwealthy shareholders has now arrived in the form of a letter from union chief
Chuck Canterbury. He's president of the National Fraternal Order of Police, whose 324,000 members have plenty of
pension-fund dollars invested in Exxon. In a May 17 letter to Exxon Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson, Mr. Canterbury
made clear he and his members don't agree that Exxon should be used to promote social goals if it means putting
worker retirements at risk.
"ExxonMobil is an example of how hard work, efficient management and innovative entrepreneurism breed
success," Mr. Canterbury wrote, noting this was why many union pension funds have invested in the oil
company. "The Rockefeller resolutions threaten to degrade the value of ExxonMobil."
And more: The family would impose "rigid, ideologically-based conditions on the company's future," would
nullify "the judgment of a highly successful management team," and would "undercut every project
and business operation." This would "hamstring ExxonMobil's profitability and growth, thus directly
harming the police officers, firefighters, teachers and public employees whose retirement savings are invested in
the company."
Mr. Canterbury seems to understand how capitalism works better than do the ostensibly capitalist Rockefellers. His
letter is a reminder that Exxon's legal obligation is to maximize returns to shareholders, and that over the years
it has done that by taking calculated risks in drilling for fossil fuels. Many investors put their money into
Exxon precisely because the company does that so well. (Wall Street Journal)
ExxonMobil's
Rockefeller spat leads to blocking proposal - ExxonMobil's very public spat with the Rockefeller family over
the separation of the roles of chairman and chief executive could become a thing of the past if one US fund
manager gets his way.
Steven Milloy, managing partner of the Free Enterprise Action Fund, has filed a shareholder proposal to end all
shareholder proposals which will be voted on at the oil major's annual meeting next week.
Mr Milloy, who describes his fund as the first conservative/libertarian activist mutual fund, argues that his
proposal, if successful, would require Exxon's board to amend company by-laws to no longer accept the bulk of
shareholder resolutions.
advertisement
The Maryland-based fund manager, who was inspired by a similar suggestion from the US Securities and Exchange
Commission last year, is angered by the number of shareholders who put forth proposals to meet their own ends.
Although less common in the UK, annual meetings for US-quoted companies often contain a whole series of
resolutions from ordinary shareholders which must be voted on.
Mr Milloy told The Daily Telegraph: "We believe that activist shareholders - like the Rockefellers - are
looking to advance their political agenda through Exxon rather than to increase shareholder value." (Daily
Telegraph)
Crude Scapegoats - It's now a
cliche: fat-cat oilmen control our destiny by holding back supplies, letting prices soar, then pocketing the
profits. But if any fat cats are to blame for the energy crisis, it's those on Capitol Hill. (IBD)
Oil
policies threaten U.S.: This oil crisis could be a watermark in the decline of the U.S. economy - In the
now-familiar century-old ritual of corporate punishment, the U.S. Senate judiciary committee yesterday ordered
members of the Big Oil’s CEO chain gang to explain themselves. Which they did, very effectively. Whether any of
the demagogic politicians were inclined to hear the message is another matter. The committee chair is Vermont
Senator Patrick Leahy, from a state not known for its firm grasp of the oil business or even market economics; the
other Senator from Vermont, Bernie Saunders, is a socialist radical known in some circles as “Vermont’s
Communist Senator.”
The gap between Leahy and Saunders is a small one. Yesterday, Leahy lit into oil industry profits, oil executive
salaries, and the oil industry’s alleged links to President Bush. “The president once boasted that with his
pals in the oil industry, he would be able to keep prices low and consumers would benefit. Instead, it is his pals
in the oil industry who have benefited,” said Leahy. “Why has the price of oil increased 400% since President
Bush took office?”
As the price of oil topped US$130 a barrel, the best U.S. politicians can come up with as a response is blind
partisanship and destructive policy initiatives aimed at attacking the oil industry. Among the dumb ideas is The
Consumer First Energy Act, to impose a windfall profit tax on U.S. oil firms. Another plan would force U.S.-based
oil companies to disclose money they pay foreign governments for resources. (Terence Corcoran, Financial Post)
Losing
the energy race - H. Sterling Burnett - Shock and awe — we are living it! We stand, mouth agape, staring at
the pump — at $4 gallons and fast-emptying pocketbooks. Even worse, with crude oil already costing more than
$120 a barrel, many predict this wave has yet to crest.
And while we wait for the price to peak, spending shrinks and the economic outlook worsens. Our energy policies
have failed us, and now, we pay the price — literally.
In response, politicians call for windfall profits taxes and temporary gas tax holidays. Once again, we're forced
to stomach politically motivated, short-term non-answers instead of long-term solutions. Here's a thought: Rather
than vilify the oil industry for our sticker shock, let's take a hard look at the actions of our federal
government.
For years, we've approached domestic drilling in a politically correct manner, placing caribou on a pedestal while
ignoring American consumers and national security. Politicians chose to outsource and import, instead of expand
and drill. As a result, we fill the coffers of foreign nations instead of boosting American gross domestic
product.
In a recent press conference, President Bush suggested drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He
might be on to something. Despite the hysterical claims of environmental lobbyists, oil and the environment can
mix. Caribou and other wildlife have expanded and flourished in and around Prudhoe Bay, apparently unaffected by
the relatively primitive oil and gas development in the area.
And technology in the oil industry has improved mightily in the years since the Arctic Slope was first tapped.
Indeed, two leading environmental groups, the Audubon Society and the Nature Conservancy, have allowed oil and gas
production on several of their most important and unique nature preserves.
Unfortunately, the United States Congress has also banned energy exploration in 85 percent of our coastal waters.
As a result, while Cuba, in partnership with China, drills closer to the U.S. coastline than we do, the United
States goes hat-in-hand to Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Canada, Nigeria, Mexico and even Iran. Our lawmakers' decision
to block domestic access harms both the public and the environment. (Washington Times)
Let’s Sue OPEC! That’ll Teach ‘Em! - When
it comes to energy policy, Congress keeps getting dumber and dumber. The latest example: a bill passed by the
House of Representatives on Tuesday that will allow the U.S. government to sue OPEC for conspiring to raise
prices. (Robert Bryce, Energy Tribune)
GOP douses coal debate: House won't try
another override; resolution of issue up to courts - House Speaker Melvin Neufeld threw water Wednesday on a
final attempt to overcome a veto by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of legislation compelling state regulators to approve
expansion of a coal-fired utility plant in southwest Kansas.
It translated into a political victory for Sebelius and environmental activists concerned about carbon dioxide
emissions. It constituted a bruising defeat for leaders of the Republican-controlled House and Senate, as well as
the Kansas Chamber of Commerce.
"I am pleased that we can close this contentious chapter of our debate on energy policy," Sebelius said.
Neufeld's declaration ended debate on coal for the 2008 session, but triggered renewal of legal wrangling over the
$3.6 billion project proposed by electric cooperatives in Kansas, Colorado and Texas.
Utility companies vowed to push ahead with legal claims that the Kansas Department of Health and Environment
overstepped its authority by denying an air permit for the Holcomb project, while environmental organizations
continued to prepare for a protracted legal battle with national implications. (Capital-Journal)
AUSTRALIA: Split Over Carbon Capture Technology -
MELBOURNE, May 21 - Australia’s plan to develop carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology -- whereby
greenhouse gas (GhG) emissions from fossil-fuel fired power stations are trapped and stored rather than released
into the atmosphere -- is pitting green groups against one another. (IPS)
We are with greenpeas on this one, kind of. There is absolutely no value on CCS and it should not be
undertaken. A 30-40% energy hit to bury carbon we expended energy to mine in the first place is just plain
stupid.
Ethanol Vehicles
for Post Office Burn More Gas, Get Fewer Miles - The U.S. Postal Service purchased more than 30,000
ethanol-capable trucks and minivans from 1999 to 2005, making it the biggest American buyer of alternative-fuel
vehicles. Gasoline consumption jumped by more than 1.5 million gallons as a result. (Bloomberg)
Halting methane squanderlust - The pipes that rise from
oil fields, topped with burning flames of natural gas, waste fossil fuels and dump carbon dioxide into the air. In
new work, researchers have identified the structure of a catalytic material that can turn methane into a safe and
easy-to-transport liquid. The insight lays the foundation for converting excess methane into a variety of useful
fuels and chemicals.
"There's a big interest in doing something with this 'stranded' methane other than flaring it off," said
chemist Chuck Peden of the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. "An important thing
researchers have struggled with is determining the structure of the active catalyst." (Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory)
Misplaced
priorities for the children - Mass emailings went out around the country yesterday with a Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation press release, praising the Washington Post for making its childhood obesity agenda front page news all
week. While massive governmental and medical programs are being proposed — to address the young people who fall
at the 95th percentile on revamped BMI growth charts, despite the fact that today's children are healthier than
ever and living longer than ever in our country’s history — about 13 million children in our country currently
don’t have enough to eat. And their numbers are growing. Little attention has been given to these young people
whose lives and futures are endangered now, today, and for real. (Junkfood Science)
How to Think About the World's Problems -
The pain caused by the global food crisis has led many people to belatedly realize that we have prioritized
growing crops to feed cars instead of people. That is only a small part of the real problem.
This crisis demonstrates what happens when we focus doggedly on one specific – and inefficient – solution to
one particular global challenge. A reduction in carbon emissions has become an end in itself. The fortune spent on
this exercise could achieve an astounding amount of good in areas that we hear a lot less about. (Bjorn Lomborg,
Wall Street Journal)
Bullspit! Trapped Between Economy and Ecology
- BONN, May 21 - One of the most frequent arguments against environmental protection is an alleged economic
imperative. Humankind must progress economically, and the environment is only an input in the overall economic
process, this argument goes.
But if the economy is about managing scarce resources, the resource most scarce, and irretrievable, is the
environment and biological diversity. When one species is gone, it is gone forever. And loss of biodiversity is a
self-multiplying process: the disappearance of one species, by destroying the ecological balance of eco systems,
brings along the death of more. (IPS)
"The environment," as the term is used today is a totally artificial and false construct. What your
environment really is is whatever happens to surround you and, if you are fortunate, has been altered
significantly to protect you from nature, red in tooth and claw. So-called "ecological balance" is
merely a brief stalemate in the eternal conflict of critters attempting to exploit available niches to the
exclusion of other critters. "Environment and ecology" is no more than romantic twaddle spouted by
those resisting change, which in itself is most unnatural given that change is the only natural state.
The Well Funded
World Wide Fund for Fear - We reported
earlier in the year how claims that a 'denial lobby' had influenced public opinion on climate change were
totally at odds with reality.
The UK's Royal Society, for example wrote an open
letter to Exxon in 2006, accusing it of funding these sceptics. The image of oil barons distorting the truth
for pure profit was appealing to an environmental movement desperate to account for its own lack of popular
appeal. Through their site 'Exxon Secrets', Greenpeace 'exposed' the millions of dollars that had allegedly been
given to think tanks and other deniers to brainwash an unthinking, gullible public.
But as we pointed out, the $22 million that Exxon allegedly
gave away between 1998 and 2008 is peanuts compared to Greenpeace's $2.2 billion income over a similar period.
Following our post yesterday about the WWF's use of a rather dodgy scientific measure to secure headlines and
public attention, we thought we'd have a quick scan of their accounts, too. (Climate Resistance)
Mix-up throws House veto
override in doubt - WASHINGTON — The House overwhelmingly rejected President Bush's veto Wednesday of a $290
billion farm bill, but what should have been a stinging defeat for the president became an embarrassment for
Democrats.
Only hours before the House's 316-108 vote, Bush had vetoed the five-year measure, saying it was too expensive and
gave too much money to wealthy farmers when farm incomes are high. The Senate then was expected to follow suit
quickly.
Action stalled, however, after the discovery that Congress had omitted a 34-page section of the bill when
lawmakers sent the massive measure to the White House.
That means Bush vetoed a different bill from the one Congress passed, raising questions that the eventual law
would be unconstitutional. Republicans objected when Democrats proposed passing the missing section separately and
sending that to Bush.
In order to avoid those potential problems, House Democrats hoped to pass the entire bill, again, on Thursday
under expedited rules usually reserved for unopposed legislation. The Senate was expected to follow suit. The
correct version would then be sent to Bush under a new bill number for another expected veto.
Lawmakers also will have to pass an extension of current farm law, which expires Friday.
"We will have to repass the whole thing, as will the Senate," said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y.
"We can't let the farm bill just die."
The White House, almost gleefully, seized on the fumble and said the mix-up could give Congress time to fix the
"bloated" bill.
"We are trying to understand the ramifications of this congressional farm bill foul-up. We haven't found a
precedent for a congressional blunder of this magnitude," said Scott Stanzel, a White House spokesman.
"It looks like it may be back to square one for them." (AP)
Supermarkets
accused of 'carbon hypocrisy' - Supermarkets should stop being "carbon hypocrites" about their
ethical policies, according to a leading think tank.
If too much air-freighted food is banned from the shelves of UK supermarket, tens of thousands of livelihoods
could be wiped out in Africa, according to the Food Ethics Council.
The think tank points out that air-freighted food is far less damaging to the environment than home-grown meat and
dairy produce - because of the intensive nature of much of UK farming - and calls on supermarkets to put an end to
"carbon hypocrisy".
The report does not name any individual grocery chains. However, both Tesco and Marks & Spencer have put
stickers of an airplane on food that has been flow in to the UK.
The Soil Association, Britain's leading organic certifier, has also come under fire for considering refusing to
allow air-freighted food to use its distinctive logo.
"Air-freighted food makes a much smaller contribution to total UK emission than other aspects of farming and
food. (Daily Telegraph)
May 21, 2008
Here's an interesting juxtaposition, we follow this item with the Press Briefing by White House
Spokesman Dana Perino:
31,072 American
scientists against AGW - The Global Warming Petition
(click!) was signed by 9,021 American PhD's and 22,051 additional American scientists.
For the sake of balance, here is the list
of 100 or so most prominent climatologists who believe man-made catastrophic global warming:
Celebrities
Al Gore, B.A. Government (no science degree)
Alanis Morissette, High School Diploma
Bill Maher, B.A. English (no science degree)
Bono (Paul Hewson), High School Diploma
Daryl Hanna, B.F.A. Theater (no science degree)
Ed Begley Jr., High School Diploma
Jackson Browne, High School Diploma
Jon Bon Jovi (John Bongiovi), High School Diploma
Oprah Winfrey, B.A. Speech and Drama (no science degree)
Prince Charles of Whales, B.A. (no science degree)
Sheryl Crow, B.A. Music Education (no science degree)
Sienna Miller, High School Diploma
ABC - Sam Champion, B.A. Broadcast News (no science degree, not a meteorologist)
CBS - Harry Smith, B.A. Communications and Theater (no science degree)
CBS - Katie Couric, B.A. English (no science degree)
CBS - Scott Pelley, College Dropout
NBC - Ann Curry, B.A. Journalism (no science degree)
NBC - Anne Thompson, B.A. American studies (no science degree)
NBC - Matt Lauer. B.A. Communications (no science degree)
NBC - Meredith Vieira, B.A. English (no science degree)
Al Sharpton, College Dropout
Alicia Keys, College Dropout
Alicia Silverstone, High School Dropout
Art Bell, College Dropout
Ben Affleck, College Dropout
Ben Stiller, College Dropout
Billy Jean King, College Dropout
Brad Pitt, College Dropout
Britney Spears, High School Dropout
Bruce Springsteen, College Dropout
Cameron Diaz, High School Dropout
Cindy Crawford, College Dropout
Diane Keaton, College Dropout
Drew Barrymore, High School Dropout
George Clooney, College Dropout
Gwyneth Paltrow, College Dropout
Jason Biggs, College Dropout
Jennifer Connelly, College Dropout
Jessica Simpson, High School Dropout
John Travolta, High School Dropout
Joshua Jackson, High School Dropout
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, College Dropout
Julia Roberts, College Dropout
Kanye West, College Dropout
Keanu Reeves, High School Dropout
Kevin Bacon, High School Dropout
Kiefer Sutherland, High School Dropout
Leonardo DiCaprio, High School Dropout
Lindsay Lohan, High School Dropout
Ludacris (Christopher Bridges), College Dropout
Madonna (Madonna Ciccone), College Dropout
Matt Damon, College Dropout
Matthew Modine, College Dropout
Michael Moore, College Dropout
Nicole Richie, College Dropout
Neve Campbell, High School Dropout
Olivia Newton-John, High School Dropout
Orlando Bloom, High School Dropout
Paris Hilton, High School Dropout
Pierce Brosnan. High School Dropout
Queen Latifah (Dana Elaine Owens), College Dropout
Richard Branson, High School Dropout
Robert Redford, College Dropout
Rosie O'Donnell, College Dropout
Sarah Silverman, College Dropout
Sean Penn, College Dropout
Ted Turner, College Dropout
Tommy Lee (Thomas Lee Bass), High School Dropout
Uma Thurman, High School Dropout
Willie Nelson, High School Dropout
Politicians:
John McCain, B.S. (Graduated 894th out of 899 in his class)
Newt Gingrich, Ph.D. Modern European History (no science degree) (Hypocrite)
Pat Robertson, B.A., J.D., M.A. Divinity (no science degree)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr, B.A. Government, J.D. Law (no science degree, 'recovered' Heroin addict)
Scientists:
Bill Nye, B.S. Mechanical Engineering (Bill Nye the Science Guy)
Gavin Schmidt, B.A. Ph.D. Applied Mathematics (RealClimate.org)
James Hansen, B.A. Physics and Mathematics, M.S. Astronomy, Ph.D. Physics (NASA, Gavin Schmidt's Boss)
James Lovelock, Ph.D. Medicine, D.Sc. Biophysics
Lonnie Thompson, Ph.D. Geological Sciences
Michael Mann, A.B. Applied Math, Physics, M.S. Physics, Ph.D. Geology & Geophysics (RealClimate.org)
Michael Oppenheimer, S.B. Chemistry, Ph.D. Chemical Physics
Richard C. J. Somerville, Ph.D. Meteorology
Steven Schneider, Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering and Plasma Physics
Social Scientists:
Ronald Bailey, B.A. Philosophy and Economics (Science Correspondent, Reason Magazine)
(Luboš Motl, The Reference Frame)
Press Briefing
by Dana Perino - May 20, 2008 3:09 PM EDT
WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
Excerpt:
Les Kinsolving. (reporter for WorldNetDaily.com)
Q Thank you, Dana. Two questions.
MS. PERINO: Okay.
Q WorldNetDaily reports that more
than 31,000 U.S. scientists, including 9,000 Ph.D.s, now signed a petition rejecting global warming, the
assumption that human production of greenhouse gases is damaging the Earth's climate. My question: What is the
White House reaction to these 31,000 U.S. scientists?
MS. PERINO: I would say that everyone is entitled to their opinion. What's your next question?
Q That's all?
MS. PERINO: That's all I'm going to say. (BUSINESS WIRE)
For an administration allegedly hell-bent on cooking the planet and 'denying global warming' they sure give
the impression of having imbibed deeply from the Kool-Aid barrel.
Consider that global warming hysteria is driving the most dangerous misdirection of effort and resources in
human history. No one knows what the 'right' temperature is for the planet any more than we know its current
temperature with a precision greater than guessed change over centuries. The only thing holding the silly scare
together is the alleged 'consensus of scientific opinion' despite facts not requiring a quorum and here's more
than adequate demonstration of lack of unanimity of opinion anyway.
And the administration's response? 'Everyone's entitled to their opinion' (which is true -- they just aren't
entitled to their own facts).
Audio (MP3): Dr. Arthur
Robinson’s presentation at the National Press Club
Now, while the administration is yielding to the anti-energy watermelons, we have the National Academies
hosting panicked meetings about America's loss of competitiveness -- it is being outcompeted on the world stage.
Check out their podcast: Is
America Falling Off The Flat Earth? (alternate link)
One startling omission in the NAS 'Gatherings' podcast is cheap and abundant energy (arguably the foundation
of America's industrial greatness). Why? If America does not get off its collective butt and bring one heck of a
lot of fossil fuel and modern power stations online in the near future no amount of hand-wringing or
education/innovation initiatives are going to help. Industry needs innovators, smart, educated workers and
committed, productive people but, above all, industry needs abundant, reliable and cheap power.
Get busy or lose. What's so hard to understand?
WCCO meteorologist: Global
warming 'extremism' uses 'squishy science' - Longtime WCCO-TV meteorologist Mike Fairbourne says that the
environmental movement is practicing "squishy science" when it ties human activity to global warming.
Fairbourne's assessment Monday came on the same day that the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine appeared
before the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and announced that it has the signatures of more than 31,000
scientists -- including Fairbourne's -- who agree that the human impact on global warming is overblown.
Fairbourne, who joined WCCO in 1977 and has been a meteorologist for 40 years, said that while there is no doubt
that "there has been some warming" of global temperatures in recent years ... there is still a pretty
big question mark" about how much of that warming is from human activity. (Star Tribune)
Stink over alarmist theory
- YOU'D think a record of dud predictions would shame Alarmist of the Year Tim Flannery into silence. But, no. It
seems this professional fearmonger has learned instead that global warming is a faith that grows on panic, not
facts. (Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun)
Sometimes laughs just flood across my desk... New
Theory on Climate Change - PUNTA DEL ESTE, URUGUAY--(Marketwire - May 20, 2008) - Ewire -- The Uruguayan
researcher Luis Seguessa recently stated in three press conferences held in Latin America, that the internal
combustion engine is the chief culprit for the degradation of the ozone layer, global warming and climate
change, not so much for the gas emissions into the atmosphere as for the huge amount of oxygen they consume.
"A vehicle consumes an average of between 50 and 100 liters of air per second and, taking into account the
current car-driving population, that represents 20,000 million liters of air which are consumed per second on the
planet and which are returned to the atmosphere half burnt and in explosive form. Twenty percent of this air is
pure oxygen which is taken from the ozone layer. The figure is so big that it does not give vegetation time to
replace this loss," stated Luis Seguessa.
"The ozone layer is not just an oxygen reserve, but also a natural covering which protects the earth
from the intense cold of outer space and the power of the sun. As we lose it, we are experiencing sharp
temperature changes during the day and this will become more common," he indicated. "Moreover, without
an ozone layer, nature gets out of balance and that is why we experience serious climatic problems, such as
flooding, tornadoes, droughts, tsunamis, earthquakes, and the thawing of the polar ice caps."
Likewise, Seguessa maintained that "The speed at which the ozone layer is being lost is occurring with
geometric not arithmetic progression as was thought, and in a very short time the great natural source of
oxygen supply on the planet, which the ozone layer is, will be used up."
Perhaps I shouldn't treat it too harshly, after all, a lot of people believe in gorebull warming.
Lieberman-Warner’s
Window Dressing Reveals Largest Pork Bill in U.S. History - “Lieberman-Warner bill offers nothing new except
more pain at the gas pump and more expensive consumer goods.”
WASHINGTON, DC – Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee,
today commented on the Lieberman-Warner global warming cap-and-trade bill’s substitute amendment (Climate
Security Act – S.2191). (EPW)
A
Cap Costs: No Free Lunch on Climate Bill, Analyst Stresses - Congress will soon face its moment of truth on
climate-change legislation, prompting the Senate’s Committee on Energy and Natural Resources to convene a
Scrabble board of government agencies Tuesday morning to clear up some lingering questions for once and for all.
Such as: How much will this thing cost the U.S. economy, and why are cost estimates all over the place? (Keith
Johnson, WSJ)
Only 2 things are certain: 1) it will cost and 2) there is absolutely no upside to doing it.
McCain's green efforts 'futile' -
Environmental policy expert Steve Milloy says Republican presidential nominee John McCain's effort to reach out to
so-called "green voters" is a futile one.
Senator McCain (R-Arizona) says he plans to fight global warming by instituting a cap and trade system for
limiting carbon emissions, with specific targets for national emission cutbacks. He is also trying to appeal to
environmentalists by promoting "eco-friendly" campaign merchandise on his website. The items include
"Go Green" shirts, hats, and visors with the recycle logo. He is also selling organic cotton "onesies"
for babies, as well as "Go Green" McCain tote bags, notebooks, and travel mugs. (Jim Brown, OneNewsNow)
A
flirtation with Chicken Little - By Wesley Pruden - This is no time for John McCain to be John McCain. The
Republican nominee-to-be, who flirted with the idea of joining John Kerry on the Democratic ticket four years ago,
now wants to be Al Gore. (Washington Times)
US carbon dioxide emissions up 1.6 percent in 2007 - US
carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels increased 1.6 percent in 2007, a preliminary government
estimate showed Tuesday. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) said emissions rose to 5,984 million metric
tonnes last year from 5,888 million in 2006. The agency said factors that drove the emissions increase included
weather conditions that increased the demand for heating and cooling services and "a higher carbon intensity
of electricity supply," according to an agency statement. (AFP)
Hot air trading is a scam? Well blimey... Discredited
strategy - Increasing allegations of corruption and profiteering are raising serious questions about the
UN-run carbon trading mechanism aimed at cutting pollution and rewarding clean technologies
The world's biggest carbon offset market, the Kyoto Protocol's clean development mechanism (CDM), is run by the
UN, administered by the World Bank, and is intended to reduce emissions by rewarding developing countries that
invest in clean technologies. In fact, evidence is accumulating that it is increasing greenhouse gas emissions
behind the guise of promoting sustainable development. The misguided mechanism is handing out billions of dollars
to chemical, coal and oil corporations and the developers of destructive dams - in many cases for projects they
would have built anyway.
According to David Victor, a leading carbon trading analyst at Stanford University in the US, as many as
two-thirds of the supposed "emission reduction" credits being produced by the CDM from projects in
developing countries are not backed by real reductions in pollution. Those pollution cuts that have been generated
by the CDM, he argues, have often been achieved at a stunningly high cost: billions of pounds could have been
saved by cutting the emissions through international funds, rather than through the CDM's supposedly efficient
market mechanism.
And when a CDM credit does represent an "emission reduction", there is no global benefit because
offsetting is a "zero sum" game. If a Chinese mine cuts its methane emissions under the CDM, there will
be no global climate benefit because the polluter that buys the offset avoids the obligation to reduce its own
emissions. (The Guardian)
EU Report Calls For Faster Climate
Change Curbs - BRUSSELS - Global temperature rises should be kept well below the European Union's target of 2
degrees Celsius to avoid costly damage to people and their lifestyles, according to a European Parliament report.
(Reuters)
Ah, unintended consequences... Inconvenient
Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green - The environmental movement has never been short on
noble goals. Preserving wild spaces, cleaning up the oceans, protecting watersheds, neutralizing acid rain, saving
endangered species — all laudable. But today, one ecological problem outweighs all others: global warming.
Restoring the Everglades, protecting the Headwaters redwoods, or saving the Illinois mud turtle won't matter if
climate change plunges the planet into chaos. It's high time for greens to unite around the urgent need to reduce
emissions of greenhouse gases.
Just one problem. Winning the war on global warming requires slaughtering some of environmentalism's sacred cows.
We can afford to ignore neither the carbon-free electricity supplied by nuclear energy nor the transformational
potential of genetic engineering. We need to take advantage of the energy efficiencies offered by urban density.
We must accept that the world's fastest-growing economies won't forgo a higher standard of living in the name of
climate science — and that, on the way up, countries like India and China might actually help devise the
solutions the planet so desperately needs.
Some will reject this approach as dangerously single-minded: The environment is threatened on many fronts, and all
of them need attention. So argues Alex Steffen. That may be true, but global warming threatens to overwhelm any
progress made on other issues. The planet is already heating up, and the point of no return may be only decades
away. So combating greenhouse gases must be our top priority, even if that means embracing the unthinkable. Here,
then, are 10 tenets of the new environmental apostasy.
10 GREEN HERESIES:
- Live in Cities: Urban Living Is Kinder to the Planet Than the Suburban Lifestyle
- A/C Is OK: Air-Conditioning Actually Emits Less C02 Than Heating
- Organics Are Not the Answer: Surprise! Conventional Agriculture Can Be Easier on the Planet
- Farm the Forests: Old-Growth Forests Can Actually Contribute to Global Warming
- China Is the Solution: The People's Republic Leads the Way in Alternative-Energy Hardware
- Accept Genetic Engineering: Superefficient Frankencrops Could Put a Real Dent in Greenhouse Gas Emissions
- Carbon Trading Doesn't Work: Carbon Credits Were a Great Idea, But the Benefits Are Illusory
- Embrace Nuclear Power: Face It. Nukes Are the Most Climate-Friendly Industrial-Scale Form of Energy
- Used Cars — Not Hybrids: Don't Buy That New Prius! Test-Drive a Used Car Instead
- Prepare for the Worst: Climate Change Is Inevitable. Get Used to It (Wired Magazine)
Devotion to the big-dollar scare means crapping on so many treasured myths...
Multi-Decadal
Global Model Predicted and Observed Indian Ocean Warming - Are They In Agreement? - There is an excellent
summary of the skill of the IPCC multi-decadal global models to predict climate over this time period in
Assessment of the reliability of climate predictions based on comparisons with historical time series by
Koutsoyiannis et al. of the Department of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering at the National Technical
University of Athens.
One of their conclusions is that “….future climate projections [are] not credible”.
There is another study that can be used to assess the skill of the multi-decadal global IPCC models that are being
used to define climate policy. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
Appalling propaganda toy to frighten children: DEATH
TO THOSE WHO WARM! - According to this
ABC carbon calculator, I should have died before my second birthday. After re-calculating – with answers
pleasing to the ABC – this response appeared:
You can live forever!
(Via JD, who would’ve made it to 12)
UPDATE. Skeptic Lawyer, who was told she should die
at the age of 5.4:
What an evil, evil little application! Just imagine that some impressionable child comes along to the
website and finds out that his family should have “died” at the age of 4.3. That is just despicable. It
actually reminds me of an incident which occurred when I was 6 years old, involving a Religious Education
teacher telling me that my parents were going to hell because they were heathens. (Incidentally, being a logical
type, I worked out if she was right, I’d rather be in Hell with Mum and Dad, but if she was wrong, who cares,
so either way, I may as well reject her religion with impunity).
These are the kinds of things which just should not be put to a kid. Or to anyone really. The notion of
calculating that someone should die because they consume too much carbon is immoral and revolting in the
extreme. (Tim Blair)
From CO2 Science this week:
Editorial:
Coral Calcification and Photosynthesis in a CO2-Enriched
World of the Future: Will the two essential processes be reduced or enhanced?
Medieval
Warm Period Record of the Week:
Was there a Medieval Warm Period? YES, according to data published by 537
individual scientists from 328
separate research institutions in 38
different countries ... and counting! This issue's Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week comes from an Alpine
Lake in the Southern Austrian Alps, Austria. To access the entire Medieval Warm Period Project's database, click
here.
Subject Index Summary:
Trees (Types - Pine: Ponderosa): How do
Ponderosa pine trees respond to increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations?
Plant Growth Data:
This week we add new results (blue background) of plant growth responses to atmospheric CO2
enrichment obtained from experiments described in the peer-reviewed scientific literature for: Minjiang
Fir, Purple Nutsedge, White
Mustard, and Yellow Nutsedge.
Journal Reviews:
North Atlantic Tropical Cyclones: How have they
changed over the last four decades?
The Cosmic Ray-Climate Connection: How well
established is it?
A Millennial Thermal History of Lower Murray Lake,
Canada: What important knowledge does it reveal?
Effect of Elevated CO2 on Leaf
Senescence of Populus Trees: Does it make leaves "dry and die" earlier or later? And of what
significance is the phenomenon?
Fine-Roots of Loblolly Pines in the Duke Forest FACE
Study: How has eight years of atmospheric CO2 enrichment impacted their yearly growth?
(co2science.org)
African dust forecast may help hurricane season predictions
- As the official June 1 start of the Atlantic hurricane season approaches, forecasters are developing predictions
about the severity of this year's season. For the first time this year, African dust may provide a piece of this
puzzle.
Researchers in the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) reported earlier this year
that African dust storms may dampen hurricanes by cooling sea surface temperature of the tropical Atlantic.
Now CIMSS scientist Amato Evan is extending this work, offering a dust storm activity forecast as a tool to help
predict severity of the upcoming hurricane season. (University of Wisconsin)
Farmers 'in denial' on
climate change - NEARLY 40 per cent of rural people are uncertain about whether climate change is happening
and are pinning their hopes on the weather returning to normal after the drought.
Most people who live on the land question the link between the 11-year drought and climate change, a study by the
Government's Bureau of Rural Sciences finds.
"There is some denial that climate change is happening ... in order to maintain hope," the study said.
It also found a high level of uncertainty - rather than rejection - around the notion of human-induced climate
change.
The study - called Climate and Industry Adaptation - interviewed 148 people from four rural communities, along
with community representatives and business managers. (The Australian)
Funny how people connected to the land are much more sanguine about weather -- perhaps because they've been
watching and living by it all their lives they know that forecasts a week in advance are subject to multiple
changes and those beyond possible seasonal trends a few months in advance are utterly worthless. "Climate
models? Pshah! It'll do what it'll do, boy & we'll cope with it when it gets here."
WARNING! -- GRAPHIC CONTENT! ENVIRONMENTALISM
- A CURSE IN AFRICA - Prof Will Alexander writes from Pretoria: "All that I wish to say now is that this
whole climate alarmism is a madness that we could all do well without. We can then get on with solving the real
humanitarian issues of this country, and not be sidelined by all this environmentalist nonsense that is permeating
our government departments and research institutions. " (Climate Science NZ)
Speculative... but possible: Sunspot
cycle may be a 'dud' - TUCSON, Ariz. -- Many solar scientists expected the new sunspot cycle to be a whopper,
a prolonged solar tantrum that could fry satellites and raise hell with earthly communications, the power grid and
modern electronics. But there's scant proof Sunspot Cycle 24 is even here, let alone the debut of big trouble. So
far there have been just a couple minor pimples on the face of the sun to suggest the old cycle is over and the
new one is coming.
The roughly 11-year cycle of sunspot activity should have bottomed out last year, the end of Cycle 23 and the
beginning of Cycle 24. That would have put the peak in new sunspot activity around 2012. But a dud sunspot cycle
would not necessarily make it a boring period, especially for two solar scientists with the Tucson-based National
Solar Observatory.
Two years ago, William Livingston and Matt Penn wrote a paper for the journal Science predicting that this could
not only be a dud sunspot cycle, but the start of another extended down period in solar activity. It was based on
their analysis of weakening sunspot intensity and said sunspots might vanish by 2015.
And here's the punch line: That last long-term down period, 1645-1715, coincided with the Little Ice Age, a period
of bitter cold winters. That kind of talk could ruffle some feathers in this time of climate change and global
warming, starring man-made carbon dioxide as the devil.
The paper, rejected in peer review, was never published by Science. Livingston said he's OK with the rejection.
"I accept what the reviewers said," Livingston said. "'If you are going to make such statements,
you had better have strong evidence.' " Livingston said their projections were based on observations of a
trend in decreasingly powerful sunspots but reviewers felt it was merely a statistical argument. (Arizona Daily
Star)
'Space'
kangaroo shines light on global warming - A giant white kangaroo bounced into the science books on Tuesday as
part of a global experiment to measure the amount of light the earth reflects back to the sun.
The cardboard cut-out marsupial, which measures 32 metres (105 feet) by 18 metres, was laid out in a paddock on
the grounds of Monash University in the southern city of Melbourne.
"We call it our kangaroo from space because two satellites flew over (and) what they were doing was measuring
the amount of light reflected from our kangaroo," Professor Patricia Vickers-Rich told AFP.
"And the point of that was to make people aware that reflected light, or lack of reflected light, has a very
big effect on climate." (AFP)
See for yourself how tiny changes in albedo have a significant effect on estimated temperatures here.
Studies
call for climate change policy from government - HOUSTON, May 20 -- Recent studies indicate that corporate
pressure is building globally for lawmakers to address climate change.
More than 75% of companies surveyed in worldwide energy, utilities, chemical, forest products, metals, and mining
industries are looking to policymakers for a clean, consistent framework on global emission targets, reported
Accenture in a recently released study. (Oil & Gas Journal) | Big
investors seek stricter climate laws (Reuters)
Presumably they only asked rent-seekers. Bizarrely many industries are operating under the misapprehension
they will be given massive windfalls by governments while taking no penalty for ripping off their consumers. We
can only guess they are graduates of the Enron school of management.
Critics: Polar bear plan must fight global warming -
Conservation groups returned to court to challenge Bush administration efforts to help save the polar bear, saying
federal officials' refusal to include steps against global warming violates the Endangered Species Act.
(Associated Press)
'Big Oil' Faces 'the Same Game Plan
that Brought Down Big Tobacco' - Lawyer that sued the tobacco industry in the 1990s now suing energy industry
for causing climate change, according to Atlantic Monthly. (Jeff Poor, Business & Media Institute)
EU
plan could lead to power blackouts, say electricity generators - Energy providers have begun a fierce lobbying
campaign against new plans by the European Commission to clamp down on industrial pollution, saying they could
cause the premature closure of a quarter of Britain's electricity generation capacity and leave the country
struggling to keep its lights on. (The Independent)
Biofuels A Risk For Wildlife In
New Habitats-Study - OSLO - Fast-growing foreign crops used as biofuels can disrupt new habitats by ousting
local plants and animals, an international report said on Tuesday. (Reuters)
Poor practices taint Brazil’s
ethanol exports - Luís Oliveira and his gang get up at dawn to take a rickety bus to Fazenda Agua Doce, a
sugarcane farm in central São Paulo state where the heat regularly tops 40 degrees.
They cut the cane by hand with a machete-like tool, the podão, the design of which has not moved on much since
its invention. Water breaks are short and food meagre and unappetising.
Such conditions have prompted a barrage of criticism from the European Union that Brazil, the world’s largest
ethanol exporter, is a nest of poor labour and environmental practices.
The criticism, and the €0.19 ($0.29, £0.15) per litre tariffs which the EU imposes on Brazilian ethanol, is
damaging for an industry which Brazil hopes to promote as a green alternative to fossil fuels.
Stavros Dimas, EU environmental commissioner, said recently that planned EU biofuel quotas should be subservient
to “environmental and social concerns”, prompting threats from the Brazilian foreign ministry to appeal on the
issue to the World Trade Organisation. (Financial Times)
Put UK airport
expansion on hold, demands green group - The government should completely rethink its aviation policy and
shelve plans to expand Heathrow and Stansted airports, according to an influential advisory body.
The Sustainable Development Commission, chaired by Sir Jonathon Porritt, said there were big question marks over
the environmental and economic arguments underpinning the proposals for British airport expansion. It warned that
the government faced a wave of legal challenges if it did not hold an independent review of its 2003 aviation
white paper, which sanctioned new runways at Heathrow, Stansted and other airports. (The Guardian)
Anti-development cranks are agin it? Go figure...
Better than a soap opera
- For those who’ve been following blogger, Kathleen Seidel’s case with the anti-vaccination lawyer who tried
to intimidate her silence: As we last left things, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire had
granted her motion to quash the subpoena against her. Magistrate Judge James R. Muirhead had ordered the attorney
to give the court cause for why he should not be sanctioned. He filed his response this week and you won’t
believe his comeback. It’s priceless.
It’s not fair and must be some big conspiracy network (with “co-conspirators”), he says (in essence),
because she’s just a girrrrl. A "mother and housewife" can’t possible be smart enough to able to
research the internet and medical journals, and write such well-researched pieces. She couldn’t just be a
concerned mother of an autistic child, somebody had to be helping her, he says, and she must be “either an agent
of the defendant or of industry.” Therefore, he wanted to find out who she was working for or with. Yes, she
must be an industry shill. LOL! How many of us have heard that before?
Any lady who dares believe that she, too, is capable of doing science, just has to read Kathleen’s full account,
titled “Welcome to my conspiracy.” Only she can do it justice. Too funny for words. (Junkfood Science)
'Evening News' Blasts Flame-Retardant
Materials - CBS report parrots cause of liberal Maine legislator but downplays the benefits, such as lives
saved by chemicals. (Jeff Poor, Business & Media Institute)
Confusion
about supplement disclaimers - With the news seeming to bring regular reports of dietary supplements being
recalled for problems, contaminants or not containing what the label says, or for making unsubstantiated disease
claims, many consumers appear to be attributing it to a failure of the FDA to protect them. It’s not exactly the
FDA’s fault, in the way you might think. (Junkfood Science)
Why not? To
Fight Global Warming We Must Tax All Recreational Exercise - A recent Lancet article argued that
obesity is contributing to global warming because the obese consume more calories.
Since making food releases carbon, that means an obese person, on average, is worse for global warming than a
skinny person. (Not to mention the extra methane the obese might release, but that is my father’s area of
expertise, not my own.)
Just to put these arguments into perspective, I made some simple calculations for the United States. (Steven D.
Levitt, New York Times)
Government of the
people in action - The Citizens' Council on Health Care demonstrated today what the power of people can
accomplish. Twila Brase, RN, who led efforts to stop the State of Minnesota from taking DNA from every newborn to
store in its genomic biobank without parental consent, just announced success. Today, Governor Pawlenty vetoed the
DNA bill (SF 3138). (Junkfood Science)
From stowaway to
supersize predator: the mice eating rare seabirds alive - For tens of thousands of years, the birds of Gough
Island lived unmolested, without predators on a remote outcrop in the south Atlantic.
Today, the British-owned island, described as the home of the most important seabird colony in the world, still
hosts 22 breeding species and is a world heritage site.
But as a terrible consequence of the first whalers making landfall there 150 years ago, Gough has become the stage
for one of nature's great horror shows. Mice stowed away on the whaling boats jumped ship and have since
multiplied to 700,000 or more on an island of about 25 square miles.
What is horrifying ornithologists is that the British house mouse has somehow evolved, growing to up to three
times the size of ordinary domestic house mice, and instead of surviving on a diet of insects and seeds, has
adapted itself to become a carnivore, eating albatross, petrel and shearwater chicks alive in their nests. They
are now believed to be the largest mice in the world. Yesterday Birdlife International, a global alliance of
conservation groups, recognised that the mice, who are without predators themselves, are out of control and
threatening to make extinct several of the world's rarest bird species. (The Guardian)
Well, yes. In fact the vast majority of extinctions over the last 500 years have been island species, mainly
birds and lizards, suddenly exposed to predators and competitors in the form of rodents -- and ships cats that
were meant to keep the onboard rodents in check -- accidentally introduced in the days of sail (the great New
Zealand extinction wave additionally includes various flightless bird hunted to extinction following the Maori
occupation of the islands). Isn't it ironic that most of these critters would be alive today if early sailors
had had access to methyl bromide to fumigate their ships holds? No matter -- the watermelons would likely have
been agin it then, too -- for whatever reason.
It is these genuine extinctions that make modern enviro claims so ludicrous -- of the hundreds of extinctions
that occurred over the last 500 years perhaps a dozen occurred in the 20th Century and yet the nutty
brigade persist with absurd claims of n species lost per hour in the current era, etc. -- too stupid for
words.
The church of green
- A kind of irrational nature worship separates environmentalism from the more fair-minded approach of
conservationism.
I admit it: I'm no environmentalist. But I like to think I'm something of a conservationist.
No doubt for millions of Americans this is a distinction without a difference, as the two words are usually used
interchangeably. But they're different things, and the country would be better off if we sharpened the
distinctions between both word and concept.
At its core, environmentalism is a kind of nature worship. It's a holistic ideology, shot through with religious
sentiment. "If you look carefully," author Michael Crichton famously observed, "you see that
environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and
myths."
Environmentalism's most renewable resources are fear, guilt and moral bullying. Its worldview casts man as a
sinful creature who, through the pursuit of forbidden knowledge, abandoned our Edenic past. John Muir, who laid
the philosophical foundations of modern environmentalism, described humans as "selfish, conceited
creatures." Salvation comes from shedding our sins, rejecting our addictions (to oil, consumerism, etc.) and
demonstrating through deeds an all-encompassing love of Mother Earth. Quoth Al Gore: "The climate crisis is
not a political issue; it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity." (Jonah Goldberg, LA Times)
Proving research causes morbidity in lab rodents: 'Asbestos
warning' on nanotubes - Carbon nanotubes, the poster child of the burgeoning nanotechnology industry, could
trigger diseases similar to those caused by asbestos, a study suggests.
Specific lengths of the tiny fibres were found to cause "asbestos-like" inflammation and lesions in
mice.
Use of asbestos trigged a pandemic of lung disease in the 20th Century.
There are high hopes for the tiny carbon molecules, which have remarkable properties that could be used for
advanced electronics and materials.
"As a society, we cannot afford not to exploit this incredible material but neither can we afford to get it
wrong - as we did with asbestos," said Dr Andrew Maynard of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars in Washington DC, US. (BBC News)
As China and India become richer, rice
consumption is likely to drop - BEIJING: Rice prices have increased this year for many reasons, but unlike
most other commodities, fast-growing Chinese and Indian demand is not one of them.
With incomes rising in the two countries, in which a third of the world's population consumes about half of the
world's rice, more people are eating protein-rich meat and dairy products, or sampling new foods like pasta,
leaving less room on the plate for rice.
If Chinese rice demand follows the trend seen in wealthy Japan, it could fall by half in the coming decades,
bringing relief to world consumers who have seen benchmark Asian rice prices nearly triple this year.
"People are making more money and are eager to try other tasty food," said Chai Weizhong, an associate
professor at Peking University who studies public nutrition. "More people realize meat and vegetables are
nutritious and healthy, and more choices have cut into consumption of rice." (Reuters)
May 20, 2008
What an insult! The
war to end all wars - The climate change threat needs drastic action. Only a cross-party approach can deliver
it (The Guardian)
10 million people died in the War
To End All Wars. And these dipsticks have the gall to equate a trivial increase in atmospheric trace gas
with one of the most desperate conflicts in human history? This is too much!
Alright then, what is the precise expected temperature of the Earth?
Hmm... only a few tentative hands -- quite right too since it's such a stupid question.
The correct answer is that it depends on a great many assumptions, some estimated with fair precision (sun
temperature and distance...) and others little better than plain vanilla guesses (is Earth's albedo 29%, 30,
32...). It is common when calculating Earth's expected temperature to come up with 288 K (15 °C) but current
anomalies (how "hot" Earth is) are worked in variation from annual means of 13.9 or 14 °C (287 K), so
is Earth actually warmer than expected or merely recovering to equilibrium temperature? No one really knows.
We've run up a little global energy balance model
so everyone can 'play with' Earth's temperature -- it has just three tweakable parameters so doesn't get much
simpler or easy to use. Have a go and see just how small variations in assumptions lead to very different
results and then see if you can justify The Guardian's stupid headline.
Natural
Disasters In Context - With more than 71,000 people dead, buried, or missing in China following last
Monday’s 7.9 magnitude earthquake [‘China in mourning over earthquake’, BBC Online Asia-Pacific News, May
19], and the 78,000 now thought to have perished in Myanmar (Burma) from the May 2 Cyclone ‘Nargis’ [‘Burma
to mourn cyclone’s victims’, BBC Online Asia-Pacific News, May 19], I thought it might be helpful to provide a
detailed historical context for our understanding of the size of such natural disasters. I thus present: A Premier
League of Deaths from Natural and Semi-Natural Causes [in order of expected number of fatalities] (Global Warming
Politics)
Cooler Heads - Nearly 32,000
scientists sign a petition that says they reject the claim that humanity is causing global warming. The media, who
are heavily invested in the Gore Consensus, yawn. (IBD)
Audio (MP3): Dr. Arthur Robinson’s
presentation at the National Press Club
Global warming or cooling? Who knows? -
Thoele, of Fincastle, has been an analytical chemist for 32 years in the pharmaceutical and personal health care
industries. He is also a mathematician.
Global cooling or global warming, which is it? It depends upon the latest climate study published. In the 1960s
and 1970s, they claimed global cooling because of several years of colder than "normal" temperatures.
Academia and certain think tanks claimed this cooling was from too much CO2 (carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere.
That died down and then came a warming spell, so we are now experiencing global warming, because of too much CO2
in the atmosphere. So, too much CO2 causes both global cooling and global warming. (Sherwood Thoele, Roanoke
Times)
So
much for 'settled science' - You may have heard earlier this month that global warming is now likely to take
break for a decade or more. There will be no more warming until 2015, perhaps later.
Climate scientist Noel Keenlyside, leading a team from Germany's Leibniz Institute of Marine Science and the Max
Planck Institute of Meteorology, for the first time entered verifiable data on ocean circulation cycles into one
of the U. N.'s climate supercomputers, and the machine spit out a projection that there will be no more warming
for the foreseeable future.
Of course, Mr. Keenlyside-- long a defender of the man-made global warming theory -- was quick to add that after
2015 (or perhaps 2020), warming would resume with a vengeance.
Climate alarmists the world over were quick to add that they had known all along there would be periods when the
Earth's climate would cool even as the overall trend was toward dangerous climate change.
Sorry, but that is just so much backfill. (Lorne Gunter, National Post)
Economist Dr David Henderson says the IPCC is a “poor
show” - Yes, very kindly understated David. This
is a very readable and concise summing up of reasons to be skeptical of the IPCC. I have converted Dr
Henderson’s speech to an html page here
In an email Dr Henderson says, “On Wednesday May 14 I appeared on a Cambridge University platform , where I
opened the discussion following the Clare Distinguished Lecture for 2008, which was given by a Vice-Chair of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Professor Mohan Munasinghe. His subject was ‘A Policy Framework for
Climate Change and Sustainable Development’. I now attach the text that I used as a basis for my remarks.
The text (4,000 words) goes beyond what I had time to say, and includes footnotes and references: it therefore
does not reflect my exact words in Cambridge though it includes almost all of them.” (Warwick Hughes, Errors in
IPCC climate science)
Tweaking
the Alarm - As the Midwest continues its now late May struggle to emerge from one of the coldest winters in
two decades; as Grand Rapids, Michigan’s 107 inches of snow sets a record; as southeast Michigan received frost
advisories this weekend as temperatures plummeted into the ‘30s; and as global temperatures have shown no
warming trend in ten years, the global-warming movement is understandably challenged in keeping its message of
fear relevant. (Henry Payne, Planet Gore)
Even Flawed Data Can’t
Hide the Cooling - NOAA reports that April 2008 was a full degree (F) below normal making it the 29th coldest
April out of 115 years for the United States, the coldest in 11 years. Much of the western 2/3rds of the lower 48
were colder than normal. In Washington State, it was the second coldest April on record. In contrast in the east,
in New York State it was the 3rd warmest.
All the monthly global data sets are updated now. The University of Alabama Hunstville (Spencer-Christy) MSU
satellite derived lower tropospheric data shows an anomaly of just +0.015C. The UK Hadley Center version 3v which
includes land station and some ocean reports showed an anomaly of +0.265C. Adding this month to the plot since
2002 shows the downtrend continues. (Joseph D’Aleo, CCM)
The
Spatial Pattern and Mechanisms of Heat-Content Change in the North Atlantic by Lozier et al. - This paper
illustrates yet another shortcoming of the global climate models that are used to predict the climate system in
the coming decades. They cannot accurately simulate the important climate feature of the North Atlantic
Oscillation (the NAO). As the authors, themselves write “it is premature to conclusively attribute these
regional patterns of heat gain to greenhouse warming“. This shortcoming of the multi-decadal global models
applies to other low frequency climate variations, such as ENSO and the North Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which
are major factors in the climate that we experience (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
EPA climate rule at least a year away - WASHINGTON—A decision
on whether carbon dioxide endangers public health as a greenhouse gas will probably be made by the next
administration, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Monday.
EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said "as a practical matter" he would not expect the complex
regulation to be completed in less than a year, leaving a final rule to his successor.
Johnson has been criticized by congressional Democrats and environmentalists for not moving fast enough to decide
the pivotal climate issue.
All three presidential candidates—Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham and GOP Sen. John
McCain—have said climate change needs to be addressed and have called for mandatory measures to curtail
greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide. (Associated Press)
An Open Letter to
the Presidential Candidates - AccuWeather.com's senior meteorologist and long range expert Joe Bastardi sent
the global warming center a copy of his open letter to the 2008 presidential candidates. I like his idea in the
fourth paragraph. Here it is... (AccuWeather.com)
Wrong question: The Ethics of
Climate Change: Pay Now or Pay More Later? - Weighing our own prosperity against the chances that climate
change will diminish the well-being of our grandchildren calls on economists to make hard ethical judgments (John
Broome, SciAm)
To frame this as there being a price to pay, either now or later, is entirely wrong. The actual question is
whether it is ethical to impoverish future generations to assuage the ridiculous fears of ecochondriac current
generations.
Cap And Trade Is Cap And Kill The
Economy - President Bush and Sen. John McCain went to bat on energy policy last week. And guess what? They
both struck out. (Lawrence Kudlow, IBD)
Verdict:
Failure - The influential Pew Center has a new report
out by a couple of MIT researchers (A. Denny Ellerman and Paul Joskow) purporting to assess the European Emissions
Trading Scheme (ETS). ETS is of course the cap-and-trade rationing scheme — under which EU energy costs went up,
up, up and covered emissions . . . uh, also went up — that our brave Senate will confront imposing on the U.S.
in two weeks’ time. That’s a coincidence, by the way. Don’t let their membership of corporate rent-seekers
fool you, Pew isn’t a lobbying group. (Chris Horner, Planet Gore)
Carbon-trading boom could go
bust - The carbon-credit business is booming in Thailand. But the key question is: how long is the boom going
to last? (The Nation)
Time to Clean the Stables - Submission to the
Wilkins Strategic Review - The Carbon Sense Coalition recommends that all policies on global warming should be
based on the science and the evidence, not on unproven computer forecasts or media scare stories. We also submit
that markets and private initiatives will achieve better, quicker and cheaper results than government departments,
legislative coercion, targeted subsidies, or punitive taxation. Here is the full submission: www.carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/wilkins.pdf
(Carbon Sense Coalition)
This idiot gets more dangerous by the day: Change
sky's colour, proposes Flannery - Scientist Tim Flannery has proposed a radical solution to climate change
which may change the colour of the sky. But he says it may be necessary, as the "last barrier to climate
collapse." Professor Flannery says climate change is happening so quickly that mankind may need to pump
sulphur into the atmosphere to survive. Australia's best-known expert on global warming has updated his climate
forecast for the world - and it's much worse than he thought just three years ago. He has called for a radical
suite of emergency measures to be put in place. The gas sulphur could be inserted into the earth's stratosphere to
keep out the sun's rays and slow global warming, a process called global dimming. (AAP)
The danger is that someone might actually believe him and try something this stupid.
Why Grassroots Initiatives Can't Fix Climate
Change - Have you heard enough already about global warming? It’s so ... last year’s news! Plenty of
people are “doing something” about it. Becoming carbon-neutral has gone as mainstream as Girl Scout cookies;
help is on the way. Can we move on, please? (SciAm)
Can't fix what ain't broke, dopey! We should move on.
Carbon Trust "Could Do
Better" - LONDON - The government-backed Carbon Trust's contribution to reducing UK carbon dioxide
emissions is "pretty small beer" and it can do better, the Committee of Public Accounts said in a report
on Tuesday. (Reuters)
Who says? - "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at
all times . . . and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said. (AFP)
Reality
Check: Consumers Unlikely to Pay Much More for Green - The smart money these days seems to agree that fighting
climate change won’t be expensive—for the economy as a whole, that is. Which is known as “macroeconomic”
buck-passing. At the “microeconomic” level, electricity rates will rise a lot. And that is exactly what a lot
of people don’t need right now. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
Eek! Biodiversity! Climate
Changes Creating Green And Flowering Mountains — Sweden's mountains are growing greener. At the border
between woods and bare mountain, trees that require warm temperatures, such as oak, elm, maple, and black alder,
have become established for the first time in 8,000 years. This is shown in current studies led by Leif Kullman,
professor of physical geography at Umeå University in Sweden.
Over the last century, the temperature has risen by more than one degree. The cooling trend over several thousand
years is broken, and this has triggered changes in flora, fauna, and landscapes. In important respects, the
present state is similar to what occurred directly after the latest ice age. (ScienceDaily)
How not to
measure temperature, part 62 - One of the key criteria for placement of weather stations in the COOP, and by
extension, the subset USHCN network is the requirement for a warm body to read the thermometer daily, and write
down the max and min (plus rainfall) in the B-91 observers log for monthly submission to the National Climatic
Data Center.
By that criteria for a live observer then, manned facilities such as fire stations are often prime locations for
NOAA climate monitoring stations. (Watts Up With That)
Vostok Ice Core / CO2 correlation - an
AGW myth demolished - Jonathan Drake has released an interesting paper called A Simple Method to Correct Carbon
Dioxide Concentrations in Ice Core Data for Ice / Gas Age Difference Perturbations.
Before you skip to the next item tarry a while because this is interesting. He had a look at the Vostok ice core
data / CO2 correlation, one of the great poster children of the AGW movement. (An Englishman's Castle)
People of faith "Get It" - Evangelicals and
other religiously-inclined are now uniting their voices against ruinous policies on climate change. The “We Get
It!” campaign seeks one million signers to their declaration and will probably get it with such illustrious
partners as Dr. James Dobson, Family Research Council, WallBuilders, Concerned Women for America, Janet Parshall,
senators and congressmen, and nearly a hundred pastors, Christian leaders, policymakers, theologians, and state
organizations. (Julie Walsh, CEI)
A Bear of a
Problem: Listing polar bears under the Endangered Species Act could have dramatic impacts. - Last week, the
Fish & Wildlife Service listed the polar bear as a “threatened species” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA),
the first species to be listed due to global warming. Although the ESA was not designed to address concerns like
global warming, and listing the polar bear will do little if anything to protect polar bears in their native
habitat, the federal government had little choice in the matter. Now that the bear is listed, the federal
government may also have little choice but to take further measures to restrict greenhouse-gas emissions under the
guise of protecting Ursus maritimus. (Jonathan H. Adler, NRO)
Fat People are
Killing the Polar Bears (Again) - Last year we mentioned Ian Roberts' theory, as reported in New Scientist,
that fat people are responsible for more than their fair share of global warming, and, in order to get a snappy
headline out of it, we tied it into another New Scientist article, which was critical of research by Willie
Soon, who had suggested that polar bears aren't as vulnerable as is widely claimed. Both NS articles were, in our
view, rather shoddy, reflecting the magazine's partiality in the climate debate. Who could not form the impression
that fat people were more responsible than the rest of us for the demise of the polar bear, if they took the
magazine at face value? Excuses for snappy headlines aside, our post - 'Fat
People Are Killing the Polar Bears' - was intended to demonstrate the confusion between the science and
morality of climate change.
True to the eco-warrior's demands that we 'Reduce! Re-use! Recycle!', Roberts' argument - which deserves to go to
landfill - has been recycled, in an article entitled Fat
is an environmental issue in, yes, New Scientist magazine, who, on the same day, also reports
uncritically more recycled 'news' from uber-eco-warriors, the WWF, that human activities are devastating
the world's wildlife. What have these fatsos got against polar bears, for goodness sake? (Climate Resistance)
Huh? Chelsea gives a
glimpse of gardens in 2050. Hotter, drier, but remarkably short of cacti - Flower show demonstrates climate
change need not turn backyards into deserts (The Guardian)
The Week In Washington, D. C. - Although the tide is
turning against energy-rationing policies in the U. S. Senate (and in the European Union, especially in Britain),
Senator John McCain (R-Az.) is staying true to the old religion in his presidential campaign. He laid out his
global warming policies in a speech at a Danish company’s wind turbine factory in Portland, Oregon on Monday.
McCain used the venue to say that, “When we debate energy bills in Washington, it should be more than a
competition among industries for special favors, subsidies, and tax breaks. In the Congress, we need to send the
special interests on their way….” The Energy Information Administration reported that wind power receives
federal subsidies of $23.37 per megawatt hour of electricity produced. Coal gets 44 cents and natural gas 25
cents. However, the subsidies provided to wind and solar power are not enough to make them competitive without
state and renewable mandates. (Myron Ebell, CEI)
Report: EPA head reversed stand on greenhouse gas
- WASHINGTON—The head of the Environmental Protection Agency initially supported giving California and other
states full or partial permission to limit tailpipe emissions—but reversed himself after hearing from the White
House, a report said Monday.
The report by the Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee cites interviews and
depositions with high-level EPA officials. It amounts to the first solid evidence of the political interference
alleged by Democrats and environmentalists since Administrator Stephen Johnson denied California's waiver request
in December.
Johnson's decision also blocked more than a dozen other states that wanted to follow California's lead and
regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. It was applauded by the auto industry and supported by the
White House, which has opposed mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions.
Johnson, a 27-year career veteran of the EPA, frequently has denied that his decisions are being directed by the
White House. "I am the decision maker," Johnson said Monday, meeting with reporters at Platt's Energy
Podium newsmaker session, before the California waiver report surfaced.
A White House spokeswoman denied interference. (Associated Press)
Imaginative, aren't they? US
begins to break foreign oil ‘addiction’ - The US is starting to break its “addiction” to foreign oil
as high prices, more efficient cars, and the use of ethanol significantly cut the share of its oil imports for the
first time since 1977.
The country’s foreign oil dependency is expected to fall from 60 per cent to 50 per cent in 2015, before rising
again slightly to 54 per cent in 2030, according to the head of the Department of Energy’s statistical arm.
(Financial Times)
Personally I think their crystal balls have become cloudy with oil to the point they're just making this
stuff up. How do they imagine the Americans will bring that much oil capacity online in the next 7 years?
Why? A simple, low-cost carbon filter removes 90% of
carbon dioxide from smokestack gases - Researchers in Wyoming report development of a low-cost carbon filter
that can remove 90 percent of carbon dioxide gas from the smokestacks of electric power plants that burn coal and
other fossil fuels. Their study is scheduled for the May 21 issue of ACS’ monthly journal, Industrial &
Engineering Chemistry Research. (ACS)
Coal
Porters: Oil-Rich Mid-East May Import Coal - Coals to Newcastle is one thing, but energy being exported to the
Middle East?
That’s the scenario looming for fast-growing economies in the region, especially the Gulf states, according to
the Times of London. Demand for electricity is growing quickly in countries like the United Arab Emirates. Many
countries in the region have plans to build new nuclear plants, but that will take years. In the meantime, the
energy crunch trumps climate-change worries, and they are turning to coal to fill the gap. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
Ooh! Drax
seals £50m deal to produce 10 per cent of its electricity from biomass - Drax, Europe's biggest polluter,
signed a landmark deal yesterday that will allow it to produce 10 per cent of its electricity from biomass
resources such as peanut husks and wood chips. (The Independent)
The Immorality of Ethanol - Boosters claim
ethanol production doesn’t raise food prices, but the numbers tell a different story. (Robert Bryce, Energy
Tribune)
US Senator Promotes Bill To Freeze
Ethanol Mandate - WASHINGTON - US Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison on Monday proposed freezing the federal mandate
for corn-based ethanol at this year's level, contending that using so much grain for fuel was pressuring the food
supply. (Reuters)
Khosla's Conspiracy - Spiking food
prices, global shortages and Third World riots have managed to elicit repentance from some ethanol evangelists.
Not Vinod Khosla. As the Silicon Valley billionaire explained last week in an interview with the San Francisco
Chronicle, ethanol's contribution to the crisis is "very minor" and "overblown."
"Food prices have been going up," Mr. Khosla conceded. "But there are massive PR campaigns trying
to ascribe most of the blame to biofuels." Apparently "lots of people" are behind the plot, though
Mr. Khosla singled out one: "Clearly, the American Petroleum Institute has been very, very concerned about
food prices, and you wonder why."
Gosh. API is a trade group for the oil and gas industry that is radioactive on Capitol Hill. But we didn't realize
that API's tentacles were wrapped around the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the USDA, all of
which blame ethanol for inflationary pressures on food prices. Nor did we appreciate how much authority API's
views carried with the U.N.'s special rapporteur for the right to food, Jean Ziegler, who says Western biofuels
programs are "a crime against humanity."
There are other factors at play (especially the Federal Reserve's easy monetary policy) but this conspiratorial
vision is uniquely unfortunate. Mr. Khosla and his well-heeled peers are among those who persuaded Congress to
create the subsidy bonanza that causes the U.S. to convert food to fuel. Now that the price shocks from corn and
other crop scarcities are ricocheting world-wide, he blames a Washington policy outfit that can barely get its
phone calls returned.
Like other green venture "capitalists," Mr. Khosla now claims that corn ethanol is merely a springboard
for the cellulosic varieties, which don't draw on food stocks. Of course, his investments in such fuels also come
with their own handsome subsidies. As long as he's on the federal dole, perhaps Mr. Khosla should take a vow of
embarrassed silence. (Wall Street Journal)
The Uranium Boom Hits Western U.S. -
Thanks to soaring commodity prices, the U.S. uranium mining sector is enjoying a comeback – and that is causing
conflict in several western states. (Richard Martin, Energy Tribune)
NYT -- supermarket tabloid... Concerns
About BPA Plastic - Until the Food and Drug Administration rules on bisphenol-a, consumers would be
wise to avoid it for babies and young children and use BPA-free alternatives. (New York Times)
Perhaps their climate fear-mongering isn't bringing readers so they are turning absurd chemical scares
instead. What a sad end for the Old Gray Lady...
HRT
'does not raise risk of breast cancer' - Women should not be put off hormone replacement therapy by over-hyped
fears about its health risks, a panel of international experts has concluded.
For women aged 50 to 59 in the early years of the menopause, HRT is safe and effective, said the scientists. It
alleviated menopausal symptoms such as hot flushes and maintained healthy bones without significant harmful side
effects.
Contrary to what many people had been led to believe, HRT did not raise the risk of heart disease for these women,
and its impact on breast cancer was "minimal", the experts reported.
Although certain types of HRT containing combinations of oestrogen and progesterone could slightly increase the
chances of developing breast cancer, their effect was dwarfed by other risk factors. (The Independent)
War on
childhood obesity is showing its desperation - How do we respond to those scaring children, becoming
increasingly more hysterical and outrageous, in ways that might hurt them? If it was someone in your living room
or your child’s school saying such stuff to your child, you would intervene to protect your child and other
children. (Junkfood Science)
Oh... Is Fire
Retardant A Harmful Toxin? - For decades, Americans have depended on special chemicals to protect them from
fire. But now, there are serious questions about the safety of those chemicals. Two states have already banned
them, and six more are considering it. CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews has this exclusive report. (CBS)
More gibbering nitwittery from irresponsible media. Guess what? Fire retardants save a lot of lives.
On any given day your risk of [insert some vaguely associated malady here] is immeasurably small and, on any
given day, the increase in your risk of said malady from exposure to [name commonly contacted compounds] is,
um... still immeasurably small.
Used fluorescents
loom as environmental hazard - It's a message being drummed into the heads of homeowners everywhere: Swap out
those incandescent lights with longer-lasting compact fluorescent bulbs and cut your electric use.
Governments, utilities, environmentalists and, of course, retailers everywhere are spreading the word.
Few, however, are volunteering to collect the mercury-laced bulbs for recycling - despite what public officials
and others say is a potential health hazard if the hundreds of millions of them being sold are tossed in the trash
and end up in landfills and incinerators. (Associated Press)
Adviser's warning on
ecotowns - Ecotowns risk increasing social division by diverting money and political will from improving
existing towns and cities, according to an independent adviser to the prime minister. (The Guardian)
Dominic
Lawson: The best population policy is to have none - The humane approach is to let each family, in every
country, choose its own fertility rates (The Independent)
Rice grown in United States contains less-dangerous form of
arsenic - Rice grown in the United States may be safer than varieties from Asia and Europe, according to a new
global study of the grain that feeds over half of humanity. The study evaluated levels of arsenic, which can be
toxic at high levels, in rice worldwide. The two-part report is scheduled for the May 15 issue of ACS’
Environmental Science & Technology. (ACS)
Greens and Hunger - Farmers and
consumers in poor countries are now paying the price now for decisions made by well-fed Westerners, as reported by
my colleagues Keith Bradsher and Andrew Martin in their front-page article on cutbacks in financing for
agricultural research. They explain how the Green Revolution faltered after Western governments and agencies
slashed funds for agricultural research, partly to shift money to other areas, like environmental projects, and
partly because of opposition to high-yield agriculture from advocacy groups. (John Tierney, New York Times)
Shoppers
to 'abandon organic food to cut bills' - Middle-class shoppers will be forced to abandon organic and fair
trade food as inflation continues to climb, a new report warns. (Daily Telegraph)
Ancient deep-sea coral reefs off southeastern US serve as
underwater 'islands' in the Gulf stream - Largely unexplored deep-sea coral reefs, some perhaps hundreds of
thousands of years old, off the coast of the southeastern U.S. are not only larger than expected but also home to
commercially valuable fish populations and many newly discovered and unusual species. Results from a series of
NOAA-funded expeditions to document these previously unstudied and diverse habitats and their associated marine
life have revealed some surprising results. (NOAA)
May 19, 2008
32,000
deniers - That’s the number of scientists who are outraged by the Kyoto Protocol’s corruption of science
Question: How many scientists does it take to establish that a consensus does not exist on global warming? The
quest to establish that the science is not settled on climate change began before most people had even heard of
global warming. (Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post) | 31,000
Scientists Rejecting Global Warming Theory to be Named Monday (NewsBusters)
Facing
fears & global warming - With all of the pending disasters blamed on global warming blasting their way
through the media, I can understand why many might fear the future climate. We are told emissions of greenhouse
gases, mainly carbon dioxide (CO2), are destroying not only polar bears and petunias, but the planet as a whole.
If we don’t “stop global warming,” The End will surely come.
I am a climate scientist. My research and that of many others does not lead me to be afraid for the climate’s
future. However, I am fearful for other reasons: (John Christy, Baptist Standard)
Scare disintegrating: 'Fewer hurricanes' as
world warms - Hurricanes and tropical storms will become less frequent by the end of the century as a result
of climate change, US researchers have suggested.
But the scientists added their data also showed that there would be a "modest increase" in the intensity
of these extreme weather events.
The findings are at odds with some other studies, which forecast a greater number of hurricanes in a warmer world.
The researchers' results appear in the journal Nature Geoscience. (BBC News) | Study:
Global warming not to blame for rise in hurricanes (Houston Chronicle) | Experts
spar over warming in storms (Palm Beach Post)
Such a shame we can't guarantee the world will warm.
What a Charlie... Prince
Charles: Eighteen months to stop climate change disaster - The Prince of Wales has warned that the world faces
a series of natural disasters within 18 months unless urgent action is taken to save the rainforests. (Daily
Telegraph)
Tell it to the flowers, Charlie. If by some accident we make it through the next 18 months, will the bloody
idiot shut up then?
Real
intelligence failures - By Richard W. Rahn - What do you think was the most costly intelligence failure of all
time? No, was is not the world's leading intelligence agencies' failure to notice that Saddam had few, if any,
weapons of mass destruction. It was the failure of many leading climate model builders to be modest enough about
their predictions, and the politicians' and media's failure to ask the tough questions of these climate experts.
As a consequence of what we now know was an overblown global-warming scare, everyone on the planet is paying
substantially more for food and fuel than is necessary.
Despite the prediction of all the major climate models, the Earth has been getting cooler since 1998. At first, it
was not considered a big deal because temperatures fluctuate from year to year. However, the drop has now been
going for a decade, with another big drop last year.
The global warming zealots have just been handed another rude shock, when the peer-reviewed journal, Nature,
reported on May 1 that according to a new (and hopefully improved) climate model, global surface temperatures may
not increase over the next decade.
Roger A. Pielke, environmental studies professor at the University of Colorado, and not previously a global
warming skeptic, reacted to the Nature article: "Climate models are of no practical use beyond providing some
intellectual authority in the promotional battle over global-warming policy." (Washington Times)
Interesting item to appear on Reuters: So
what happened to global warming? - It’s not just that it’s disappeared from media headlines this year -
shoved off by the credit crunch and natural disasters, for example. It can’t be ignored that 2007 came and went
as another very warm year - the 7th hottest on record since 1850 according to the World Meteorological
Organization.
But it wasn’t a record. In fact that was 1998, a full 10 years ago — the year of an exceptional El Nino, a
Pacific weather pattern which heats the whole globe. So is global warming not living up to the hype? (Gerard Wynn,
Reuters)
Phi
On Climate Change - As long pointed out on this site, public interest in ‘global warming’ and the
environment is in steady decline here in the UK, and, according to the ΦPHI5000, the world’s largest daily
public-opinion tracker, climate change and the environment have now fallen into bottom place [‘People Stop
Worrying About The Environment As The Economy And Tax Take Centre-Stage’, ΦPoliticsHome, May 16]: (Global
Warming Politics)
Senate poised to
take up sweeping global warming bill - WASHINGTON — Landmark legislation to reduce global warming is set to
spark an intense Senate debate in early June.
While it is unlikely to become law this year, the Climate Security Act is seen by both supporters and opponents as
evidence of how far Congress has moved on the issue and how quickly a bill is likely to pass after a new president
moves into the White House in January and a new Congress takes office. (Gannett News Service)
McCain
boards the warming craft - Were John McCain truly a maverick, he would publicly break from the politically
correct culture that demands obedience to its global warming narrative. But sadly, he continues to do the
opposite. (David Limbaugh, Washington Times)
Wrong Side McCain - During his 1999 bid for
the Republican presidential nomination, the New York Times reported that John McCain told a group of college
students that there was still a lot he didn't know about global warming. "I don't claim to be an expert on
the issue," he said.
That's a brave and surprisingly humble admission from anyone running for national office. But he didn't let that
lack of knowledge stop him from spending the next eight years pushing bad policy on the issue. (Peter Suderman,
American Spectator)
EUROPE: There's Money in Emissions - BRUSSELS, May
16 - 'Cap and trade' has become one of the stock phrases that one is almost guaranteed to hear at any European
conference on climate change these days.
The underlying concept is simple enough: a ceiling is placed on the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main
gas blamed by scientists for global warming, that a country may emit. This is then divided between the most
polluting companies operating in that country. Companies that release more CO2 than they are allowed to must buy
extra permits; those that emit less than their allocation may sell their unused permits.
Yet like many ideas that work fine on paper, difficulties can arise when the system is put into practice, as the
European Union's main institutions have found out. (IPS)
Dion exudes confidence on green plan - OTTAWA–Over the
summer, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion will be criss-crossing the country, telling Canadians already reeling from
higher gas prices that they need to pay a lot more for the rest of their energy sources. His message, in essence,
is that it's time for Canadians to put their money where their mouths are if they are serious about saving the
planet. (Toronto Star)
The sun sets on Rudd's climate
change credibility - KEVIN Rudd's climate change honeymoon ended last week. The hero of Bali received a public
relations belting over what were relatively modest indiscretions in the environment section of Tuesday night's
budget. (The Australian)
K.Rudd had credibility on climate change... who knew?
Why farms must change to save
the planet - FARMING is to blame for 25 per cent of Scotland's greenhouse gas emissions, a new report has
revealed. The study into agriculture and its impact on the environment says radical changes are needed to
centuries-old practices if Scotland is to meet its targets to tackle climate change. It dispels the myth that it
is only air travel, shipping and excessive car use that unleash huge quantities of damaging carbon dioxide into
the atmosphere. Instead, it lays a big portion of the blame on farming. (The Scotsman)
"Damaging carbon dioxide"?
Um... no: Not
Much Help for the Polar Bear - Boxed into a corner by the courts and its own scientists, the Bush
administration agreed last week to place the polar bear under the protection of the Endangered Species Act. The
decision was the clearest official acknowledgment that the bear, its hunting grounds diminished by shrinking
summer ice, is seriously at risk.
It was a victory for conservationists and for the Interior Department’s scientists whose findings have often
been twisted or ignored by the administration.
It is not clear that the decision is much of a victory for the bears. The listing appears to offer only modest new
protections. United States law already bars the killing of bears. The listing will also prohibit the importing of
hides or other trophies from bears killed in Canada. (New York Times)
Listing the bears as 'threatened by gorebull warming' won't do anything for the bears because, well, they
aren't.
Kempthorne
Opens Pandora's Box - In explaining his landmark decision to use the Endangered Species Act for the first time
to protect a species supposedly threatened by the impact of global warming, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne
went out of his way to reassure industry that his polar-bear ruling “should not open the door to use the ESA to
regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants, and other sources. That would be a wholly
inappropriate use of the Endangered Species Act. ESA is not the right tool to set U.S. climate policy.”
Mr. Kempthorne apparently just fell off the turnip truck. Or maybe he was born yesterday. Or, as M. Reed Hopper of
the Pacific Legal Foundation (which has filed to overturn Interior’s decision) diplomatically put it: “He’s
engaged in wishful thinking.” (Henry Payne, Planet Gore)
Where
Are All The Drowning Polar Bears? - The Interior Department just announced its decision to list the polar bear
as “threatened” under the U.S Endangered Species Act (ESA). The justification behind the decision is that
polar bears are highly dependent on sea ice in the Arctic for their livelihood—hunting, mating, birthing, family
rearing, etc.—and thus if sea ice declines, so will the overall health of the species. While this may, in fact,
be true in some sense, it also gives short-shrift to the bears adaptive abilities, which must be large, given that
they survived the previous interglacial warm period as well as an extended period of warmer-than-present
conditions in the Arctic (which undoubtedly were associated with reduced sea ice levels) about 5,000 to 7,000
years ago (give or take a thousand years) (see here fore example). If the bears fare worse this time around, it
will mostly likely be because their natural adaptive response may run up against a human roadblock in the form of
habitat disruption or other types of difficulties that an increased human presence may pose to the adapting bears.
It seems that this is what the intent of the ESA is aimed at tempering, not trying to alter the
climate—precisely how the Act should have be applied, despite all the criticism surrounding the decision. (WCR)
Editorial:
Telling the truth on polar bears, global warming - The U.S. government says the population of polar bears has
increased four-fold since the 1960s, so the bureaucrats whose job security depends on stirring up environmental
distress have classified the huge white beasts as an endangered species. Surely Alice in Wonderland has donned a
disguise that makes her look and sound exactly like Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne. Alice issued a
decision last week under Kempthorne’s signature that effectively mandates nothing can be done anywhere by
anybody in the lower 48 states if it increases the greenhouse gases that fuel the global warming that is allegedly
melting the Artic ice the polar bears require for survival. (Washington DC Examiner)
Eye-roller: 10
places to go before global warming hits hard - That dream vacation — diving along the Great Barrier Reef,
skiing in the Swiss Alps — could remain a dream forever if you don't get a move on. (McClatchy Newspapers)
Climate change and human extinction--are you
ready to be fossilized? - Climate change killed the dinosaurs. Will it kill us as well? Will we let it destroy
the human race? This was the grim, depressing message that hung in the background of the Climate Change Forum
hosted on Friday by the Philippine National Red Cross at the Manila Hotel.
"Not one dinosaur is alive today. Maybe someday it will be our fossils that another race will dig up in the
future, " said Roger Bracke of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies,
underscoring his point that no less than extinction is faced by the human race, unless we are able to address
global warming and climate change in this generation. (abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak)
Complex Climate Treaty Challenges
Experts - VENICE - Eighteen months before a new climate pact must be agreed, the world appears to be drifting
in negotiations that could be the most complex ever, experts said. (Reuters)
Retrogressive,
Retrospective, and Wrong - If Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, was thought to stand for anything, it
was for the poor and for the disadvantaged. If the Labour Party has a core value, it is surely support for
low-income, working families. No longer, it would seem. In trying to pass itself off as a middle class ‘Green’
party for the public school Guardianistas, Labour is making blunder after blunder, errors of political judgment
that could well cost it dear, and with likely immediate effect in this up-coming Thursday’s Crewe and Nantwich
by-election (Global Warming Politics)
Not
again! Now an unfair car tax is embarrassing for Brown - Just when Gordon Brown was praying for some respite,
another 10p row is brewing at Westminster - and again he only has himself to blame. This time the tax rebellion
focuses on some small print in the Budget that could see the tax on ordinary family cars - vehicle excise duty -
rising by 32 per cent as part of the Government's so-called anti-climate change measures. Already the shadow
chancellor, George Osborne, is rubbing his hands with glee, dubbing it a 'Ford Mondeo tax'. (First Post)
U.N. chief says rich must fight
global warming - LONDON - Efforts to combat global warming risk running out of steam because rich, developed
nations are failing to show the necessary leadership, Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N.'s climate change secretariat,
said on Friday. (Reuters)
D'oh! UK
demands repayment of climate aid to poor nations - Britain's £800m international project to help the poorest
countries in the world adapt to climate change was under fire last night after it emerged that almost all the
money offered by Gordon Brown will have to be repaid with interest.
The UK environmental transformation fund was announced by the prime minister to international acclaim in November
2007, and was widely expected to be made in direct grants to countries experiencing extreme droughts, storms and
sea level rise associated with climate change.
But the Guardian has learned that the money is not additional British aid and will be administered by the World
Bank mainly in the form of concessionary loans which poor countries will have to pay back to Britain with
interest. (John Vidal, The Guardian)
Actually only watermelon media and wannabe wealth redistributors even consider the concept of "climate
aid" while the real world works in terms of development loans (frequently concessionary loans, too).
There's a really good reason for this -- there's no such thing as gorebull warming and no reason to anticipate
sudden acceleration in sea level rise, extreme weather or anything else dreamed up by the fevered brows of the
de-developers (revelopers?): "Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialised civilizations
collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?" -- Maurice Strong, head of the 1992 Earth
Summit in Rio de Janeiro and Executive Officer for Reform in the Office of the Secretary General of the United
Nations.
US Changes Course, Bans Drilling
In Arctic Wetland - ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The Bush administration on Friday proposed keeping potentially
oil-rich wetlands in Arctic Alaska off-limits to drilling because of their ecological sensitivity, a reversal of
its earlier plan. (Reuters)
Exxon Chief Criticizes U.S. Oil Policy -
Exxon Mobil Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson says he finds it "astonishing" that
President Bush is asking Saudi Arabia to pump more oil rather than working harder to clear the way for more oil
production at home.
In an interview Thursday, Mr. Tillerson called it "terribly upside down" that Mr. Bush would lobby
members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to boost production when much of the U.S.'s coastal
waters remains off-limits to drilling. Mr. Bush, in the Middle East this week, plans to talk with Saudi King
Abdullah about raising production and other ways to lower global oil prices.
Lifting a federal moratorium on offshore drilling in many parts of the U.S. has been a long-held aim of the
industry. About one-quarter of U.S. oil and gas production comes from offshore wells in the Gulf of Mexico, but
other offshore areas in the U.S. are largely off-limits.
The federal government controls drilling in offshore U.S. waters and is prevented from leasing these areas to oil
companies by both a congressional moratorium and a presidential order signed by the first President Bush in 1990
and renewed by President Clinton in 1998. The current President Bush has deferred to the governors of California
and Florida, who have opposed offshore drilling.
A White House spokesman said the administration has worked with state leaders to "expand domestic exploration
in an environmentally sensitive way."
Also in the interview, Mr. Tillerson said Exxon was close to signing a deal with the Iraqi national oil company to
provide technical services to boost production from the Zubair field. He said he would sign a three-year deal but
wouldn't send Exxon employees because of the security situation. (Wall Street Journal)
Crude Mistake - Energy: With the
price of oil spiking above $127 a barrel, the search for scapegoats has begun. Some point to the Saudis, OPEC's
No. 1 producer. Others blame the oil companies. We have a better candidate: Congress. (IBD)
Energy and the Executive - This election
is notable in many ways. For the first time since 1952, neither the president nor the vice president will be his
party's presidential nominee. For the first time since 1960, a sitting U.S. senator will be elected president. And
for the first time ever, if the Democrats win, the next president will be female or black.
We are also at a fork in the policy road, for any of the three major candidates would lead us in very different
directions on major public policy issues, from spending and taxation on the one hand, to international relations
and the war on terror on the other.
Equally critical will be their direction on how we generate the energy America needs. Over the past 20 years, have
our presidents and Congresses allowed us to drill for the additional offshore oil available to fuel our economy
and reduce imports? No. Have they encouraged the building of nuclear power plants that would generate
pollution-free energy? No. Are they now supporting the building of coal-fired power plants to generate the
electricity our economy needs? No.
We have an abysmal national energy policy, and as our population grows and our economy expands, energy needs will
increase. From 1980 to 2006 America's annual energy usage increased from 78 to 100 quadrillion British thermal
units, and the figure is estimated to grow to 118 quadrillion BTUs by 2030. If our regressive energy production
policies continue when the next administration takes office, our economy and the personal lives of Americans will
be severely affected. (PETE DU PONT, Wall Street Journal)
Mexico's Oiling Days Are Numbered
- Energy: Even without a terror attack on its oil facilities, Mexico's output is falling sharply and could end as
soon as 10 years. Its president is setting an example by fighting a difficult Congress and culture to reverse
that. (IBD)
Russian
fleet raises heat in icy battle for polar oil - THE battle for "ownership" of polar oil reserves has
intensified with Russia sending a fleet of nuclear-powered ice-breakers into the Arctic.
It has reinforced fears that Moscow intends to unlawfully annex a vast portion of the ice-covered Arctic.
Scientists believe up to 10 billion tonnes of gas and oil could lie under the region.
Russian ambition for control of the Arctic has provoked Canada to double to $C40 million ($A42 million) funding to
map the Arctic seabed in support of its claim over the territory.
The Russian ice-breakers patrol for months on end, cutting through ice up to two metres thick. Eight are thought
to be in the region, dwarfing the British and US non-nuclear fleets.
Canada intends to build a special fleet of patrol boats to guard the North-West Passage.
The crisis has raised the spectre of Russia and the West entering a new cold war over the Arctic unless the United
Nations can resolve the dispute. (Daily Telegraph)
German Coal
Use Jumps 3.5%, Increasing Emissions - May 16 -- German coal consumption jumped 3.5 percent in January as
colder weather increased demand, boosting emissions of greenhouse gases in Europe's biggest economy, government
statistics show. (Bloomberg)
How many frequent flyer points
does it take to change a light bulb? (Carbon Sense Coalition)
Auf
Wiedersehen to Solar Subsidies? - In the U.S., the energy subsidies debate revolves around how much support to
give, for how long, and how to pay for it. In Germany, the big question is how much to cut generous state support
for clean energy like solar power. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
Eco-friendly claims for
‘hybrid’ cars dismissed as gimmickry - Cars promoted as eco-friendly were criticised yesterday for pumping
out up to 56 per cent more carbon dioxide than the manufacturers claim. Three models, including the Honda Civic
hybrid, performed so badly in tests that their environmental claims were dismissed as a gimmick. (The Times)
Chain
Reaction: Why British Energy is the Nuclear Prize - There’s likely to be a bidding war for Britain’s
largest power company, British Energy, with a handful of European companies champing at a $21 billion bit to get
their mitts on the utility at the heart of the U.K.’s nuclear revival. EDF of France, RWE of Germany, Iberdrola
of Spain, and–maybe–Suez of France are all weighing their options.
But nuclear power is plagued by relentlessly rising upfront costs, in the U.S. at least. So what makes British
Energy so special? Two things: real estate and pricey carbon. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
Carbon Caps May Give Nuclear Power a Lift
- As Congress debates whether to limit carbon-dioxide emissions, one of the most vocal supporters of such
legislation -- the nuclear-power industry -- is poised to reap a multibillion-dollar windfall if restrictions take
effect.
Some nuclear operators are already forecasting how much their profits could increase under various versions of
greenhouse-gas legislation that are under consideration. Among the nuclear operators that stand to profit most are
Exelon Corp., FPL Group Inc., Constellation Energy Group, Entergy Corp., FirstEnergy Corp., NRG Energy Inc. and
Public Service Enterprise Group Inc.
Carbon limits could usher in a period of "supernormal profits" for nuclear operators in markets where
rates are deregulated and have more ability to rise, says Hugh Wynne, utilities analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein
& Co. But he warns that profits, if perceived as excessive, run the risk of inciting a public backlash,
perhaps including calls for a windfall-profits tax. (Wall Street Journal)
On Climate,
Symbols Can Overshadow Substance: Lights-Out Event More Showy Than Practical - In March of last year, the
World Wildlife Fund in Australia teamed up with Leo Burnett, the multinational advertising agency that created the
Marlboro Man, to come up with a new environmental campaign called Earth Hour. The idea was to get 2 million
residents in Sydney to turn off all the lights in their homes for one hour. The campaign generated wide publicity,
but the energy saved was small -- the equivalent of taking about five cars off the city's roads for a year.
This year, Earth Hour expanded to dozens of cities around the world. The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the
Sears Tower in Chicago and the Empire State Building in New York were among the U.S. landmarks that went dark.
Many corporations signed on to burnish their green credentials. A bar in Phoenix served a drink called an ecotini
-- organic vodka, green tea and an edible orchid.
But if everyone who participated in Earth Hour had left their lights on and instead switched to mundane,
high-efficiency compact fluorescent bulbs, simple calculations show, it might have saved 1,368 times as much
energy, because the bulbs would have saved energy all year. (Washington Post)
Forget Earth Hour, Let’s Try Earth Month
(Carbon Sense Coalition)
Always keen to spend your money: Put
greenhouse levy on flights: academic - Passengers on all international flights should pay a compulsory
greenhouse levy, an Australian academic says.
Andrew Macintosh, associate director of the Australian National University's Centre for Climate Law and Policy,
recommends a $20 levy on passengers flying Sydney to London but lower levies on flights from developing countries.
Mr Macintosh has released an ANU study he co-authored which warns greenhouse gas emissions from international
flights will more than double by 2025 as more people fly. (AAP)
Karl Popper and 21st
century enemies of science - Nude Socialist has printed another venomous attack against theoretical physics
that was written by an individual named Robert Matthews. He argues that science has to be "redefined"
but unfortunately every single sentence written in his text is profoundly incorrect. (The Reference Frame)
Induction & how scientists
think - Many people like to promote an interpretation of the scientific method - let me call it the "Popperian
interpretation" - that I find naive, oversimplified, and incomplete. In this picture, scientists
- make guesses (create hypotheses)
- falsify the wrong ones by observations
and that's it. Well, in some vague sense, it is always the case. These two procedures may appear at some
moments of the scientific process. We make some guesses, we are trying to eliminate the wrong ones, and we may
ignore everything else that the scientists are doing if we're not really interested in it. ;-) (The Reference
Frame)
Beverly Hillbully - In politics, not
everything is at it seems. And there's no better example than the case of the Congressman from Beverly Hills who
is crying "pollution" as a way to protect his own district's polluting ways. (Wall Street Journal)
Silly me! I had been looking at it from the perspective of health standards and called it a crock...
Another
cruel breast cancer scare falls flat - There was a press release about a new study... sent out to media before
the study was published in the medical journal... more than 500 media outlets reported on the study on the same
day and all saying the same thing... Stop me if you’ve heard this before. (Junkfood Science)
Quote of the
day: “We need a more fluid concept of evidence” - I’ve waited to write more more about the roots of
unscience in medical schools and universities, to include what I knew would be a priceless synopsis of his trip to
the United States. Professor David Colquhoun of the Dept of Pharmacology at University College in London, recently
spoke at the Integrative Medicine at Yale. As covered in-depth here, medical professionals in the UK are actively
working to advocate for the safety and welfare of patients and the integrity of science in medicine by exposing
quackery. (Junkfood Science)
A look at some
of the companies behind your employer’s wellness program - You might be interested in the latest preventive
health and wellness management companies marketing themselves directly to your employer. Delivered to employer
in-boxes over recent weeks: (Junkfood Science)
Our country on drugs - One
of the world’s largest pharmacy benefit managers announced more success of its drug benefit management this
week. More than half of all insured Americans, children and adults, are now on prescription medications for
chronic conditions — and 20% are on three or more drugs. Nearly half of all young women in their 20s and 30s are
now chronically taking prescription drugs, as are nearly one in three children. (Junkfood Science)
World’s
Poor Pay Price as Crop Research Is Cut - LOS BAÑOS, Philippines — The brown plant hopper, an insect no
bigger than a gnat, is multiplying by the billions and chewing through rice paddies in East Asia, threatening the
diets of many poor people.
The damage to rice crops, occurring at a time of scarcity and high prices, could have been prevented. Researchers
at the International Rice Research Institute here say that they know how to create rice varieties resistant to the
insects but that budget cuts have prevented them from doing so.
This is a stark example of the many problems that are coming to light in the world’s agricultural system.
Experts say that during the food surpluses of recent decades, governments and development agencies lost focus on
the importance of helping poor countries improve their agriculture.
The budgets of institutions that delivered the world from famine in the 1970s, including the rice institute, have
stagnated or fallen, even as the problems they were trying to solve became harder.
“People felt that the world food crisis was solved, that food security was no longer an issue, and it really
fell off the agenda,” said Robert S. Zeigler, the director general of the rice institute.
Vital research programs have been slashed. At the rice institute, scientists have identified 14 genetic traits
that could help rice plants survive the plant hopper, which sucks the juices out of young plants while infecting
them with viruses. But the scientists have had no money to breed these traits into the world’s most widely used
rice varieties. (New York Times)
Permanent
disaster - "We need to stand up to the special interests, bring Republicans and Democrats together and
pass the farm bill immediately," Barack Obama declared last November. It was a weird comment, since the farm
bill, which subsidizes an arbitrarily chosen section of the economy at the expense of taxpayers and consumers in
general, is special-interest legislation by definition.
The latest version, which President Bush has promised to veto, includes tax breaks for racehorse owners,
"marketing aid" for fruit and vegetable growers, research funding for organic farmers, enhanced price
supports for domestic sugar producers, increased subsidies for dairy farmers, a $170-million earmark for the
salmon industry, and billions of dollars in automatic payments and "permanent disaster assistance" for
corn, wheat, cotton, rice and soybean growers. Take that, special interests! (Jacob Sullum, Washington Times)
Whose
Rain Forest Is This, Anyway? - “Contrary to what Brazilians think, the Amazon is not their property, it
belongs to all of us,” Al Gore, then a senator, said in 1989.
Such comments are not taken lightly here. In fact, they have reignited old attitudes of territorial protectionism
and watchfulness for undercover foreign invaders (now including bioprospectors).
The government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is pushing a law that would restrict access to the rain
forest, requiring foreigners and Brazilians alike to obtain a special permit to enter it. Brazilian officials say
it would separate bad non-governmental organizations from good ones, and deter so-called “biopirates” —
those who want to patent unique substances discovered in the forest.
“The Amazon is ours,” Justice Secretary Romeu Tuma Jr. said in an interview. “We want to know who is going
there and what they are going to do. It’s a question of national sovereignty.”
But that question is not as straightforward as it may seem. One man’s savior of sovereignty can be another’s
despoiler of the forest. (New York Times)
Development Crucial To Saving The
Brazilian Amazon - SAO PAULO - The best way to preserve the Amazon rain forest is to develop the region and
bring viable economic alternatives to the millions of people who live there, a Brazilian cabinet member said on
Friday. (Reuters)
Huge project to restore Everglades to be suspended -
Construction on a huge reservoir meant to help restore the Everglades will be put on hold over a lawsuit brought
by a group that fears the water could be diverted for other purposes.
The South Florida Water Management District, whose board voted Thursday to stop work, has already spent about $250
million on construction. The delay could cost nearly $14 million.
The 25-square-mile reservoir - the largest of its kind in the world - is estimated to cost up to $800 million and
was set for completion in 2010.
No one disagrees that storing runoff water is key to reviving the famed River of Grass. But the Natural Resources
Defense Council is suing, claiming the state has not legally committed itself to using the water primarily for
restoration. (Associated Press)
The ultimate in imaginative accounting: Green
damage bill '$3.3 trillion' - BERLIN: The destruction of flora and fauna is costing the world E2 trillion
($3.3 trillion) a year, or 6 per cent of its overall gross national product, according to a report published by
German news weekly Der Spiegel.
The European Union and German environment ministry-led research, entitled The Economics of Ecosystems and
Biodiversity, will be presented today at the ninth conference of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in
Bonn.
Der Spiegel will present extracts from the paper, with the study's lead author, Pavan Sukhdev, a senior figure
with Deutsche Bank in India, writing: "The world's poor bear the brunt of the cost."
Der Spiegel says German Chancellor Angela Merkel will announce a sharp increase in her country's funding to combat
deforestation in line with Norway, which ploughs $US500 million ($530 million) a year into forest retention.
Deforestation - a huge factor in species loss and global carbon emissions contributing to climate change - is a
central theme of this year's conference in Bonn, formerly the capital of West Germany. (AFP)
May 16, 2008
McCain’s Embarrassing Climate Speech -
While no one knows who first uttered the sentiment, “It’s better to say nothing and seem a fool, than to open
your mouth and remove all doubt,” Republican presidential hopeful John McCain’s speech this week on climate
change certainly supports the phrase’s validity. (Steven Milloy, FoxNews.com)
McCain Joins
Global Warming Cult - In an effort to win over those "moderates" who believe that global warming is
about to destroy the planet, Republican presidential candidate John McCain spoke Monday at a Portland, Ore.,
training facility for Vestas Wind Technology. He claimed, "The facts of global warming demand our urgent
attention, especially in Washington."
There certainly is more "hot air" on this and a lot of other subjects in Washington, but that isn't what
he meant. The era of big government is so not over, as Bill Clinton claimed it was in 1996. It is just beginning
and increasingly the political contests seem to be about who will manage its growth, not who will reduce its size,
cost and reach. (Cal Thomas, RealClearPolitics)
Most Republicans Discount Global Warming: McCain,
Bush At Odds With Most Of Party - The proportion of Americans who say that the earth is getting warmer has
decreased modestly since January 2007, mostly because of a decline among Republicans, according to a new survey by
the Pew Research Center.
That puts most Republicans at odds with their standard-bearer, President George W. Bush, and with GOP presidential
contender Sen. John McCain. Both men said this week global warming is real and must be addressed.
Republicans are increasingly skeptical that there is solid evidence that the earth has been warming over the past
few decades, the survey found. In January 2007, 62 percent said they believed the evidence, compared to 49 percent
in the new Pew findings. Pew found that self-described conservative Republicans are more likely than party
moderates or liberals to reject the science.
Overall, 71 percent of Americans say there is solid evidence of higher global temperatures, compared with 77
percent at the beginning of last year. Fewer than half in the survey -- 47 percent -- attribute the rising
temperatures to human activity.
Age played a role in opinions, Pew said. Fifty-four percent of people under age 30 believe that the earth is
warming mostly because of human activity, compared with 37 percent of those ages 65 and older.
Americans cooling
to global warming: Solomon - All three U.S. presidential hopefuls have made global warming a high-profile
issue in their campaigns. In this they are out of step with the broad electorate, which ranks global warming well
down the scale of important issues. The public's increasing skepticism is particularly surprising given the
overwhelming air time that the press has given to the notion that global warming spells doom. (Lawrence Solomon,
Financial Post)
Gore is right. Climate
change catastrophe is imminent! - I've been having an interesting exchange on a CO2 alarmists' blog about the
dangers human emissions of CO2 pose for future climate. While the exchange has generally been cordial and it has
certainly been interesting while providing great insight into the rationale most alarmists agree too, I have yet
to find the proverbial "smoking gun" that actually makes their case.
Nevertheless, I do have to agree with them about one thing. The danger and cost to human society from climate
change will be catastrophic and is, apparently, unavoidable.
But ironically, while the catastrophe to which I refer is unquestionably human-caused, it is completely avoidable.
Therein lies the rub.
The danger is not from a catastrophe arising from soaring temperatures and human misery that alarmists claim will
follow (a highly debatable proposition). The catastrophe that seems unstoppable is the human misery that will
unquestionably arise from the massive costs of soaring imprudent government regulation of CO2 emissions in the
form of Gore-enriching "cap and trade" schemes that will, in the end, provide no discernable impact on
global climate. (Bob Webster, WEBCommentary)
Global Warming: Mostly Hot Air - As
more data come in, the dire predictions of Al Gore and company are being exposed as unfounded alarmism. Is the
game close to being up for eco-mongers and their media enablers? (Pajamas Media)
New
Inhofe White Paper, Web Page, Details Harmful Impacts of Lieberman-Warner Bill - WASHINGTON, DC – Sen. James
Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, today announced the release of a
new white paper by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee minority detailing the severe economic
impacts of the America's Climate Security Act – S.2191 (Lieberman-Warner) bill. In addition, Senator Inhofe also
announced a new web page on the minority portion of the EPW Committee website dedicated to providing an online
resource center that will serve as a central hub for all information exposing the flaws of the Lieberman-Warner
bill. The website can be viewed at www.epw.senate.gov/lieberman-warnerbillexposed.
(EPW Blog)
Cap-And-Trade Folly - Climate
Change: Legislation pending in the Senate might warm environmentalists' hearts, but not because of potential cuts
in carbon emissions. Their interest is in the heavy economic costs the plans would inflict. (IBD)
The price isn't right: People like the
idea of a carbon tax, they just don't want to pay it - Here in the department of the painfully obvious we're
pleased to announce that polls suggest people are strongly in favour of paying carbon taxes, until they actually
have to pay them.
Then ... not so much.
To illustrate, a recent Canadian Press Harris/Decima poll found Canadians surveyed supported "a carbon tax
levied on people and businesses based on the carbon emissions they generate" by a margin of 61% to 32%.
Except in B.C., where on July 1 people will be hit with a real carbon tax imposed by their provincial government.
There, support for a carbon tax which hasn't even gone into effect yet, plunges to 49% in favour, 41% opposed.
Meanwhile, in Great Britain, where people already pay carbon taxes, a recent Opinium Research poll found almost
three in four (72%) oppose paying higher taxes to fight climate change and two in three (67%) believe the
government's entire "green" agenda is just a ploy to raise taxes. (Lorrie Goldstein, Edmonton Sun)
Arctic Fairy Tale:
The polar bear isn't threatened, but Big Oil should be. - The decision on Wednesday by the U.S. Interior
Department to declare the polar bear a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act is a major victory for
environmentalists who have been looking for a back-door legal mechanism to limit carbon-dioxide emissions. (Roy
Spencer, NRO)
Reaction
from the Last Frontier (Edward John Craig, Planet Gore)
Polar
bears listed as endangered, while global sea ice anomaly is above average (Climate Sanity)
Unbearable Legislation - The decision
announced yesterday by the Secretary of the Interior, to list the polar bear as "threatened," removes
all doubt that the Endangered Species Act is broken and in need of urgent repair. It is the environmental movement
that must take responsibility for breaking it. (Iain Murray, American Spectator)
Polar
Bears: More Journalistic Malpractice - How do you declare a species endangered when its numbers are
increasing? (Henry Payne, Planet Gore)
A thin-ice way to save polar bears - Lawsuits
are not the best way to force the public into solving planet-size problems such as climate change. In most cases,
political consensus - as Al Gore is trying to achieve - brings the most fitting solutions. But the
environmentalists who sued on behalf of polar bears likely knew that and shouldn't be surprised at what their suit
has wrought.
On Wednesday, as a result of a 2005 suit filed by three environmental groups trying to speed up government action
on global warming, the Interior Department listed the polar bear as "threatened" under the 1973
Endangered Species Act. The finding was based on computer projections of continuing climate change, caused in part
by humans, and an estimated loss of Arctic ice where some 25,000 bears hunt for their main food, seals.
But for a number of reasons, the decision may end up being largely symbolic, leaving the issue of global warming
right back where it belongs: with Congress.
For one, the finding is expected to bring a legal ricochet in a promised counter-suit testing the presumption that
the bears face extinction within a few decades. Some polar bear populations, such as in Norway, are increasing.
And it's not yet known if the bears will eventually adapt to warmer climes.
This kind of legal wrangling proves again that courts aren't the place to force the United States - or China or
India - into taking bold action on a global-scale problem. Politics and diplomacy are more effective, even if they
are slower. Mr. Gore's latest campaign to create grass-roots momentum against global warming is spending millions,
with an eye for decisive action in Congress next year.
The lawsuit only further pushed the Bush administration into a defensive posture, setting back political progress
toward taking action. (Christian Science Monitor)
The
polar bears are doing just fine - Today is Endangered Species Day in the United States. And what better way to
celebrate it than the decision this week by the Department of the Interior to put the polar bear on the
“threatened” list. No doubt this will provide another necessary jolt for eight-year-olds who have already
become obsessed with climatic Armageddon after being forced to watch An Inconvenient Truth. But then who could
forget Al Gore’s little animated polar bear, paddling around desperately looking for a bit of ice on which to
alight. Who could forget the following 2006 exchange between Mr. Gore and Oprah Winfrey, after showing the clip of
the doomed creature: (Peter Foster, Financial Post)
A false mascot for climate change - OTTAWA
-- When environmentalist activists want cuddly creatures for poster purposes, nothing beats Canadian. (Don Martin,
National Post)
ANALYSIS - Polar Bear Listing
Could Slow Arctic Oil Drilling - ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Oil drilling in the Arctic may need to slow down, now
that polar bears, iconic symbols of global warming, are headed for protection under the US Endangered Species Act,
experts said. (Reuters)
Easy fixed -- repeal ESA.
Polar Bear Pushback
- After 18 years of a law practice devoted to counseling landowners, home builders and commercial interests
affected by the long arm and severe penalties of the Endangered Species Act, I am used to incredulous looks and
outraged oaths from clients coming to grips with the Act's incredible burdens on impacted private citizens. (Hugh
Hewitt, Townhall)
Major
Development In Global Climate Modeling By Professor Roni Avissar and Dr. Robert L. Walko - There is a new
global model (OLAM) developed by two outstanding talented scientists, Professor Roni Avissar and Dr. Robert L.
Walko which provides original and important tool to study the climate system. This new global model is reported on
in two accepted peer-reviewed papers for the journal, Monthly Weather Review. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
Oh dear... A
lot of hot air - Books about climate change are often flawed—some more so than others (The Economist)
The Economist is not going to increase anyone's understanding with this garbage. Absurd panic-merchant
David King as "the layman's handbook"? Fred Krupp's book "is the businessman's guide"?
Nigel Lawson "relies on old evidence to attack the consensus (such as an apparent disparity between
temperatures on the earth's surface and in the troposphere, which was resolved two years ago)"?
I suppose if you are going to get it wrong you might as well do it BIG. See, for example, Response
to 'Global warming differences resolved with corrections in readings' (note this is incomplete and
Christy has more papers published since dealing with this nonsense).
It is The Economist doing the misleading here and their advocacy is showing.
A joke? Expert warns climate
change will lead to 'barbarisation' - Climate change will lead to a "fortress world" in which the
rich lock themselves away in gated communities and the poor must fend for themselves in shattered environments,
unless governments act quickly to curb greenhouse gas emissions, according to the vice-president of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). (The Guardian)
Oh Fiona! Proof found of
man-made climate change - Scientists have been able to say with virtual certainty for the first time that the
climate change observed over the past four decades is man made and not the result of natural phenomena. (Fiona
Harvey, Financial Times)
Not even close -- the meta study basically covers the recent warming phase of cyclic temperatures and
extrapolates from that (i.e., practically worthless from a scientific viewpoint). And then there's such
appalling nonsense as:
Barry Brook, director of climate change research at the University of Adelaide, said: “[We should]
consider that there has been only 0.75ºC of temperature change so far, yet the expectation for this century is
four to nine times that amount.
No, there is no such 'expectation' -- that's merely model inflation achieved with absurd multipliers hosted
on kludge boxes and have no known relationship with reality.
Luboš Motl has more on this stupid piece here: Female
alarmists spam Nature (The Reference Frame)
Global Warming: A hot topic at TV6 this week
- This week, TV6 is airing a three-part series on Global Warming (GW), also referred to as “Climate Change.”
Meteorologist Nick Kanczuzewski has put together an excellent, balanced look at both sides of the issue and what
it means for Upper Michigan.
The time constraints imposed by television news will only allow him to survey the topic. For that reason, I will
use this blog to occasionally delve deeper into this controversial subject.
First of all, here is my disclaimer. I do not side with one political party—I am appalled that this branch of
science has become so political. My views are counter to the consensus view that “mainstream” media repeatedly
bombards us with. That does NOT mean I do not care about the environment.
For many years I kept silent on this issue; no more. (Karl Bohnak, WLUC)
Global-warming
myth - By Patrick J. Michaels - On May Day, Noah Keenlyside of Germany's Leipzig Institute of Marine Science,
published a paper in Nature forecasting no additional global warming "over the next decade."
Al Gore and his minions continue to chant that "the science is settled" on global warming, but the only
thing settled is that there has not been any since 1998. Critics of this view (rightfully) argue that 1998 was the
warmest year in modern record, due to a huge El Nino event in the Pacific Ocean, and that it is unfair to start
any analysis at a high (or a low) point in a longer history. But starting in 2001 or 1998 yields the same result:
no warming.
The Keenlyside team found that natural variability in the Earth's oceans will "temporarily offset"
global warming from carbon dioxide. Seventy percent of the Earth's surface is oceanic; hence, what happens there
greatly influences global temperature. It is now known that both Atlantic and Pacific temperatures can get
"stuck," for a decade or longer, in relatively warm or cool patterns. The North Atlantic is now forecast
to be in a cold stage for a decade, which will help put the damper on global warming. Another Pacific temperature
pattern is forecast not to push warming, either.
Science no longer provides justification for any rush to pass drastic global warming legislation. The Climate
Security Act, sponsored by Joe Lieberman and John Warner, would cut emissions of carbon dioxide — the main
"global warming" gas — by 66 percent over the next 42 years. With expected population growth, this
means about a 90 percent drop in emissions per capita, to 19th-century levels.
Other regulatory dictates are similarly unjustified. The Justice Department has ruled that the Interior Department
has until May 15 to decide whether or not to list the polar bear as an endangered species.
Pressure to pass impossible-to-achieve legislation, like Lieberman-Warner, or grandstanding political stunts, like
calling polar bears an "endangered species" even when they are at near record-high population levels,
are based upon projections of rapid and persistent global warming.
Proponents of wild legislation like to point to the 2007 science compendium from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change, deemed so authoritative it was awarded half of last year's Nobel Peace Prize. (The other half
went to Al Gore.) In it there are dozens of computer-driven projections for 21st-century warming. Not one of them
projects that the earth's natural climate variability will shut down global warming from carbon dioxide for two
decades. Yet, that is just what has happened. (Washington Times)
Ocean Nitrogen Only Limited Help
For Climate - Study - OSLO - Rising amounts of nitrogen entering the oceans from human activities are less
beneficial than previously thought as a fertiliser for tiny marine plants that help slow global warming,
scientists said on Thursday. (Reuters)
Actually it'd be really nifty if people could warm the planet with atmospheric CO2 since
warming is way better than cooling but, sadly, there is no evidence we can have any such influence. Afraid we're
just going to have to put up with what we get.
Studies say reactive nitrogen a growing hazard in
the environment - WASHINGTON - While carbon dioxide has been getting lots of publicity in climate change,
reactive forms of nitrogen are also building up in the environment, scientists warn.
"The public does not yet know much about nitrogen, but in many ways it is as big an issue as carbon, and due
to the interactions of nitrogen and carbon, makes the challenge of providing food and energy to the world's
peoples without harming the global environment a tremendous challenge," University of Virginia environmental
sciences professor James Galloway said in a statement. (Associated Press)
Poor word choice: "but in many ways it is as big an issue as carbon" -- a complete non-issue
then.
Airbus
and Algae: Why Biofuels Won’t Cut It - We noted yesterday aviation’s uphill battle to replace
traditional—and increasingly expensive—jet fuel with alternative fuels. Today, Airbus and Honeywell announced
a new project to provide one-third of aviation’s fuel needs by 2030 using second-generation biofuels made from
things like vegetable biomass and algae. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
Don't Blame Us For Hunger, Biofuel
Makers Say - SEVILLE - Biofuel manufacturers at an international gathering in Spain have strenuously denied
media charges they are driving up food prices and world hunger. (Reuters)
Texas
Wind: Boone Pickens’ Big, Big Bet - Oilman T. Boone Pickens’ love affair with wind isn’t brand
new—he’s been touting the idea of “peak-free” energy since he decided to build America’s biggest wind
farm in Texas. What’s different is the way he’s going about it. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
Your taxes abused: Renewable
Energy Tax Bill Advances In US House - WASHINGTON - Legislation that would renew billions of dollars in tax
breaks for solar, wind, biomass and and other renewable energy sources and extend a proposed new tax credit for
ethanol fuels not produced from corn advanced in the US House of Representatives on Thursday. (Reuters)
Coal Plant Pollution Threatens US
Parks - Report - NEW YORK - US regulators are proposing to weaken air quality laws, which would allow new
coal-fired power plants to pollute US parks from Shenandoah in Virginia to the Great Basin in Nevada, a new report
said on Thursday. (Reuters)
No, they're actually feeding the parks and keeping them green.
R.I.P. Irena: I hope Al
Gore is hanging his head - I am ashamed to admit that I had never heard of Irena Sendler, whose obituary
appeared in this morning’s paper. Hers is an awesomely humbling story, even by the standards of her heroic
generation. (Daniel Hannan, Daily Telegraph) | Irena's
Worlds (WSJE)
When fears
hurt: Measles are making a come-back - History may be one of the most important school subjects because
forgetting its lessons can lead us to repeat the most costly and deadliest mistakes. Medical professionals reading
the news over recent months can only watch in dismay as scares, soundly and repeatedly debunked by good science,
have led parents around the world to not vaccinate their children. Before immunizations, about 500 children in the
United States died each year of measles alone and others were left permanently disabled, while their parents could
do nothing to prevent it. Vaccinations virtually eliminated such tragedies. (Junkfood Science)
New study casts further doubt on risk of death from higher
salt intake - Contrary to long-held assumptions, high-salt diets may not increase the risk of death, according
to investigators from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. They reached their conclusion
after examining dietary intake among a nationally representative sample of adults in the U.S. The Einstein
researchers actually observed a significantly increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease (CVD) associated
with lower sodium diets. They report their findings in the advance online edition of the Journal of General
Internal Medicine. (Albert Einstein College of Medicine)
A step towards
healthier model figures - America’s Next Top Model was just announced. The lovely Whitney Thompson is the
first winner for the show to look closer to what healthy, average-size women look like. Clothes sizes vary, but
she is said to wear a size 10, while the average American woman wears a 14. This may seem a trivial moment, but
for many young women at a time in their lives when their figures seem paramount and believe they’re supposed to
weigh 100 pounds and look like the thin figures they see in magazines, she brings an especially valuable, and
hopefully more healthful, reality. Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. (Junkfood Science)
Couldn't make it up: Obesity
Contributes To Global Warming - Study - GENEVA - Obesity contributes to global warming, too.
Obese and overweight people require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat, and the problem will worsen
as the population literally swells in size, a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine says.
This adds to food shortages and higher energy prices, the school's researchers Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts wrote
in the journal Lancet on Friday. (Reuters)
No, fellas, you've got it wrong! Fat people are composed of more carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere for
many decades and slowing gorebull warming.
The sneak attack - The President of
the Citizens’ Council on Health Care, Twila Brase, RN, just issued an emergency notice that may be of interest
to JFS readers who’ve been following the legislation in Minnesota [background here] to allow the State to take
DNA from every newborn to store in its genomic biobank and share with genetic researchers without parental
consent, or in adulthood without the person’s consent. (Junkfood Science)
Green
Economics: How Do You Value the Environment? - Is the environment best served—or served at all—by
economics?
Strange as it sounds, especially when the Republican presidential candidate is offering climate-change stump
speeches that appear cribbed from an environmental economics syllabus, that debate is rattling around politics,
academia and the blogosphere these days. The gist of the argument boils down to this:
Are environmental goods—be they polar bears, tropical forests, or clean air—best preserved with a dollar sign
on them? Or does the attempt to put a price on everything lead to knowing the value of nothing? (Keith Johnson,
WSJ)
That
Sinking Feeling - The highly-respected Lausanne-based Institute for Management Development (IMD) has just
issued its 20th anniversary ‘World Competitiveness Yearbook 2008’ [see: ‘Britain slips down key economic
league table’, The Times, May 14/15]. It is not a pleasant read for the UK.
In this annual assessment of national competitiveness, the UK has fallen one place from twentieth, to
twenty-first, having been overtaken by Israel. But, more significantly, the IMD report downgrades the UK’s
position against its global rivals on the crucial factor of economic performance, from seventh out of 55 countries
to an alarming sixteenth.
And the cause of this decline? Yes, you have guessed it - the rising tax burden and worsening business
environment. As ever, Carl Mortished of The Times pens an excoriating piece [‘Alistair Darling counts cost as
party over for UK plc’ (The Times, May 14/15)]: (Global Warming Politics)
Uh-huh... Climate change threatens
Norway's moose - Already chased by hunters and often run down by cars and trains, the popular Norwegian moose
now faces another threat: Global warming. (Aftenposten)
An
epidemic of extinctions: Decimation of life on earth - Species are dying out at a rate not seen since the
demise of the dinosaurs, according to a report published today – and human behaviour is to blame. Emily Dugan
counts the cost (The Independent)
Massive extinction rate, eh? Can you name 10 this month? Oh, well how about this past year? No? 10 in a
decade? ... you think maybe over a century? Very impressive -- how does that compare with expected rates?
Nothing abnormal... very worrying.
SOP: No
newts is bad news as council spends £1m - A council spent £1 million protecting a colony of rare newts on a
building site only to discover that none lived there.
Leicestershire County Council delayed a major road-building scheme for three months after evidence of great
crested newts was found on the site. The species is protected by law, but after the authority paid hundreds of
thousands of pounds for special newt-fencing and traps, not one of the rare creatures was discovered.
The action was taken on the strength of a report from environmental experts, which found there could have been
between one and 10 of the 6in amphibians on the site.
Officials yesterday lodged a complaint with the government, claiming the outlay would have a knock-on effect on
local services.
The council leader David Parsons said: "I'm not happy that we have gone a million pounds over on the bypass
and then found no great crested newts. (Daily Telegraph)
May 15, 2008
Interior Declares Polar Bears ‘Threatened’ by Global Warming
Backdoor Attempt at Cap-and Trade Legislation
Washington, D.C., May 14, 2008—Today the US Department of the Interior took the controversial step of listing
the polar bear as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act, despite lack of a sound scientific basis and
potentially enormous consequences for the U.S. economy. Listing the polar bear has long been a goal of global
warming activists who claim that a warmer world will shrink the bears’ habitat.
Advocates of the new listing claim that to remove the bears from their threatened status, the federal government
must first enact restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, which will then, it is imagined, influence the global
climate to such an extent as to stop shifts in Arctic ice cover. Listing the bear will enable activist groups to
use litigation to force the nation into a regulatory nightmare of limits on energy use.
“We regret the listing,” said Competitive Enterprise Institute Director of Energy & Global Warming Policy
Myron Ebell. “We don’t think putting ‘high bars’ on it will work. We hope there will be immediate
litigation to challenge the listing on procedural and substantive grounds.”
Today’s listing does require a “high bar” for evidence that particular greenhouse gas sources are causing
actual harm to a particular population of polar bears. But “the ‘high bar’ just delays the day when global
warming activists will be able to impose their policy of energy suppression,” said CEI Senior Fellow Iain
Murray. “Secretary Kempthorne obviously knows that this listing will have dire consequences, but his attempts to
erect barriers to them will have all the strength of tissue paper. If anything, this listing shows the need for
urgent reform of the Endangered Species Act.”
Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis submitted lengthy comments last fall on behalf of CEI
to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service detailing the reasons why the polar bear should not be listed. His comments
can be found here. (Richard Morrison, CEI)
Comment by Reed Hopper, Principal Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
Unwarranted Listing
Although Secretary Kempthorne stated he was compelled to list the polar bear as a "threatened" species
because of the "inflexibility" of the Endangered Species Act, the opposite is true. Rather than compel
the listing of a thriving species that is already protected, the Endangered Species Act prohibits such a
listing.
Although some subpopulations have declined with increasing temperatures, the species overall has grown to the
largest population levels in recorded history. Additionally, due to other laws, international treaties, and
strict conservation measures, the polar bear is already among the most protected species in the world. No wonder
Dale Hall, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, tesified in congress that the listing would provide
"very little added protection." Secretary Kempthorne echoed that opinion while announcing his listing
decision. According to the Secretary, the ESA will provide no greater protections than are already afforded the
polar bear under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Secretary Kempthorne also pointed out that the listing would
not address the very threat he cites for the listing in the first place: "[T]he listing will not stop
global climate change or prevent any sea ice from melting."
It is also telling that the Canadian government, which oversees 14 of the 19 polar bear populations, has not
listed the bear as "threatened" or "endangered." As for computer models of future events, on
which the Secretary rests his case, they are by definition speculative and error prone as evidence by one model
that was critizied by researchers at Wharton and Harvard for "extrapolat[ing] nearly 100 years into the
future on the basis of only five years data" which itself was of "doubtful validity."
Rather than compel the listing, based on these facts, the Act prohibited the listing.
Polar Bear Melodrama - Polar bears are
not the fragile, vulnerable creatures of liberal iconography. They have thrived in the Arctic for thousands of
years, both through periods when their sea-ice habitat was smaller, and larger, than it is now. They will continue
to adapt – and the Endangered Species Act can't make the slightest difference.
Such realities haven't prevented green showboaters from claiming victory after the Bush Administration designated
the polar bear as a "threatened" species yesterday. And it is a kind of victory, though the ruling
itself is mostly symbolic – at least for now. However, this is really the triumph of bad legislation over the
democratic process.
As Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne noted, the 1973 Endangered Species Act is "perhaps the least flexible
law Congress has ever enacted." In 2005, green litigants took advantage of this rigidity, suing the
government to force it to label the polar bear at risk for extinction. Since the 1980s, the sea ice that the bears
use to hunt and breed has been receding. Although the population has increased from a low of 12,000 in the 1960s
to roughly 25,000 today – perhaps a record high – computer projections anticipate that Arctic pack ice will
continue to melt over the next half-century. This could, maybe, someday, lead to population declines.
The lawsuits were hardly motivated by concern for polar bear welfare. Instead, environmentalists asserted that the
ice is thinning because of human-induced global warming. A formal endangered listing is one more arrow in their
legal quiver as they try to run U.S. climate policy through the judiciary.
They'll argue that emissions from power plants, refineries, automobiles – anything that produces carbon –
would contribute to warming, thus contributing to habitat destruction, and thus should be restricted by the
Endangered Species Act. This logic could be used to rewrite existing environmental policy to accommodate
greenhouse gasses, purposes for which they were never intended but with economy-wide repercussions. (Wall Street
Journal)
Polar Bears: 'Still Alive... Having
Fun' - Regulation: The Interior Department ruled Wednesday that the polar bear will be protected as a
threatened species. Why special treatment for an animal whose population has more than doubled over the last 50
years? (IBD)
Endangered
energy acts - Polar bear and Kearl decisions are just part of global policies that curb energy supply (Terence
Corcoran, Financial Post)
Bear
Truth: Warming Fears Spark Polar Bear Protection - Grizzly bears are mating with polar bears, seals are
sexually assaulting penguins, the Bush administration effectively rules out oil drilling in the Arctic—what is
the world coming to?
Nothing good, to judge from a new study in Nature today, which goes further than reports from the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and pins the blame for sudden changes in global ecosystems squarely on
mankind’s contribution to higher temperatures. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
Polar
Bears listed as threatened - now comes the lawsuits (Watts Up With That?)
Inhofe
Says Listing of Polar Bear Based on Politics, Not Science - WASHINGTON, DC – Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.),
Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, today expressed disappointment with the U.S.
Department of Interior's final decision to list the polar bear as “threatened” under the Endangered Species
Act.
“Unfortunately, the decision to list the polar bear as ‘threatened’ appears to be based more on politics
than science,” Senator Inhofe said. “With the number of polar bears substantially up over the past forty
years, the decision announced today appears to be based entirely on unproven computer models. The decision,
therefore, is simply a case of reality versus unproven computer models, the methodology of which has been
challenged by many scientists and forecasting experts. If the models are invalid, then the decision based on them
is not justified. It’s disappointing that Secretary Kempthorne failed to stand up to liberal special interest
groups who advocated this listing. (EPW Blog)
US
enacts law to protect polar bears, but only from hunting - The United States declared the polar bear a
threatened species yesterday; saying the dramatic reduction in sea ice caused by global warming has put it in
imminent danger of extinction.
Yesterday marked the first time the US Endangered Species Act was used to protect a species threatened by climate
change. The US Geological Survey says that two-thirds of the world’s polar bears could be gone by 2050.
The bears will only be protected from the direct effects of hunting, and some other activities, because of limits
imposed by the Interior Department. It invoked a seldom used loophole to make it easier for the energy industry to
actually expand activities that already threaten the bears and their habitat.
The Interior Secretary, Dirk Kempthorne, who spent much of his political life opposing the Endangered Species Act,
said it would be "inappropriate" to use the polar bear listing "to regulate global climate
change". (The Independent)
Green Gasbag - If Republicans are going to
be stampeded by phony environmental alarms and propose terrible public policies in the name of these scams, what
the hell do we need Democrats for?
America is so far gone in the global warming superstition that the Republican candidate for president (the
REPUBLICAN!) is proposing a Soviet scheme to take decisions about energy use out of the private sector where they
belong and turn them over to politicians and bureaucrats. If there's a quicker way to make America into a Third
World nation, pray tell me what it is. (Larry Thornberry, American Spectator)
Don’t Freak Out:
Bjørn Lomborg speaks climate sense to nonsense. - An NRO Q&A
We need to “cool our conversation, rein in the exaggerations, and start focusing where we can do the most
good.” So Bjørn Lomborg writes in his recent book, Cool It!: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global
Warming. This Danish statistician and “skeptical environmentalist” (the title of his earlier book) was
recently named one of the “50 people who could save the planet” by the Guardian. Impatient with the overheated
rhetoric and hyper-pessimism of conventional climate politics, Lomborg takes a cold, hard look at the empirical
facts, and weighs the costs and benefits of global warming (which he does not deny) and the policy solutions
advanced to restrain it. His recommendation: Calm down. In an interview with National Review Online editor Kathryn
Lopez today, Lomborg offers that same advice to Senator John McCain, while throwing some cold water on the
Republican’s climate-change speech in Oregon this week. “Wishful thinking is not sound public policy,”
Lomborg tells NRO.
Further, he warns: “In the May 1 London mayoral election, Ken Livingstone was a high-flying advocate for
stringent carbon cuts and made his reelection a referendum on his policies to tackle climate change. His aides
claimed it would be the first election in British history to be decided largely on environmental issues.
Livingstone lost.”
Lomborg offers panic-free advice to the senator and the rest of the planet. (NRO)
Carbon 'cap and trade'
policies immoral - The carbon "cap and trade" policies advocated by Al Gore and John McCain are an
immoral solution to a non-existent problem. So says Britain's Lord Christopher Monckton, and he backs this
statement up with scientific fact and analysis. See this paper.
I wish Lord Monkton could achieve a higher profile in the US since he is very articulate, passionate and on-top of
all the scientific, economic and moral facts to debunk the Global Warming Hoax. It you're not familiar with him,
he successfully sued the UK educational establishment and forced them to acknowledge that An Inconvenient Truth is
riddled with scientific errors. He pursued this suit into the teeth of the Labor Government and Judicial
establishment and only succeeded by highlighting the absurdity of their positions both legal and scientific. We
could use him to champion the truth here. He said on Glenn Beck's show that a similar suit against the US
Educational establishment would cost about $6 million. (Jerome J. Schmitt, American Thinker)
Counterpoint:
Level the greenhouse - Given surging CO2 emissions from Asia, the only way to a level playing field is a tax
imposed at product destination (John R. Allan and Thomas J. Courchene, Financial Post)
No, the only rational way is to fuggedaboudit! Carbon dioxide is an essential trace gas.
Environmentalism:
"frustrated, angry and confused" - Over at the Daily
Kos, and European Tribune,
blogger 'Johnnyrook' attempts to connect 'denialism' with an ideology. The piece itself is an answer to a blog
post elsewhere by Joseph Romm, The
denialists are winning, especially with the GOP. David Roberts tried this approach on the Nation blog
back in February.
Long-time greens are painfully aware that the arguments of global warming skeptics are like zombies in a '70s
B movie. They get shot, stabbed, and crushed, over and over again, but they just keep lurching to their feet and
staggering forward. That's because -- news flash! -- climate skepticism is an ideological, not a scientific,
position, and as such it bears only a tenuous relationship to scientific rules of evidence and inference.
We replied that environmentalism used
'science' as a fig leaf. Environmentalism is an ideological position, whereas scepticism encompasses a range
of objections to it, some of which are, in fact, perfectly valid on scientific grounds.
What Johnnyrook writes in Why Climate Denialists are Blind to Facts and Reason: The Role of Ideology is,
frankly, unmitigated and unimportant crap. But it does offer some insight into the 'thought processes' of
grass-roots Environmentalism. Johnnyrook whines that
Anyone who has tried to discuss Climaticide with a climate change denialist knows just how frustrating it
can be. No matter how well informed you are, no matter how many peer-reviewed studies you cite, or how many
times you point out the overwhelming agreement based on the evidence that exists among climate scientists that
global warming is real and is principally caused by human fossil fuel use, you will get no where. Your adversary
will deny the facts, cherry pick the scientific evidence for bits of data that, taken out of context, support
his/her denialist view, or drag out long-debunked counter-arguments in the hope that they are unfamiliar to you
and that you will not be able to refute them. If you succeed in countering all of his arguments he will most
likely reword them and start all over again.
Climaticide? Climaticide? Is it even possible to kill a climate? But moving on, Johnnyrook clearly
believes himself to be in possession of a faultless argument. So it must be the rest of the world that's wrong.
Who said environmentalism was emotional, arrogant, and infantile? (Climate Resistance)
The utter rubbish that gets printed in once-eminent journals: Giant
study pinpoints changes from climate warming - WASHINGTON - Human-generated climate change made flowers bloom
sooner and autumn leaves fall later, turned some polar bears into cannibals and some birds into early breeders, a
vast global study reported Wednesday. (Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters)
The polar bear cannibal thing is a nonsense: Factors affecting the survival of polar bear cubs (Ursus
maritimus) are poorly understood (Derocher and Stirling, 1996). Low food availability and accidents on the sea
ice may be the main sources of cub mortality (Uspenski and Kistchinski, 1972; Larsen, 1986; Derocher and
Stirling, 1996). Intraspecific predation, infanticide, and cannibalism have been reported in polar bears
(Belikov et al., 1977; Hansson and Thomassen, 1983; Larsen, 1985; Lunn and Stenhouse, 1985; Taylor et al.,
1985). However, some of the instances have followed human activities such as harvest or immobilization (Taylor
et al., 1985). Regardless, intraspecific predation has been suggested as a regulating feature of ursid
populations (e.g., McCullough, 1981; Young and Ruff, 1982; Larsen and Kjos-Hanssen, 1983; Stringham, 1983;
Taylor et al., 1985). (Infanticide
and Cannibalism of Juvenile Polar Bears (Ursus maritimus) in Svalbard, ARCTIC, VOL. 52, NO. 3 (SEPTEMBER
1999) P. 307–310)
And goodness, don't they know most penguins actually live outside the Antarctic, mainly around Southern Ocean
islands (they're not really that fond of extreme cold) and those few breeds that do actually nest south of the
Antarctic Circle have constantly changed their nesting locations over the millennia according to ice variation?
Antarctic Peninsula breeding sites are thought to have only become active again over the last 3-4 centuries as
Little Ice Age conditions forced the birds further north and they are now returning to abandoned sites as
conditions moderate.
As we pointed out over 3 years ago: Supplemental, January 26, 2005:
It's becoming fashionable to claim rapid Antarctic warming too - from NYT yesterday:
"Antarctica, Warming, Looks
Ever More Vulnerable" - "A continent is quickly changing. The questions are how and why."
(New York Times)
Antarctica, however, is not warming. While the enhanced greenhouse hypothesis insists the Antarctic should
demonstrate the most dramatic response to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels due to its cold, dry
atmosphere, the simple fact is the Antarctic is not cooperating.
South Polar air samples record atmospheric CO2
rising from 328 ppmv to 373 ppmv subsequent to the 1949-1974 temperature increase - almost 15% increase
apparently without affecting Polar temperatures, while startling temperature changes of ~4 °C (+ve and -ve)
are recorded in periods when we know atmospheric CO2 was increasing at a more leisurely rate.
A treasured hypothesis insists increasing atmospheric CO2 should lead to increasing temperature
and the South Polar super-cold, super-dry air mass should respond dramatically. Well, we looked for the CO2
increment and it is obvious. We looked for the temperature increment and... what? Found it missing? There it
was, gone?
We've already had the "you could see the warming if it wasn't being hidden by the cooling (which is
being hidden by the warming)" thing - see "Stratospheric
Cooling?" Prophetically, we asked in early '05: What is Big Warming going to come up with
now - "Please Miss, the ozone hole ate my Antarctic warming"? Well, guess what? Ozone-hole
recovery may spur Antarctic warming; Ozone
hole saves Earth’s ice caps; ... Perhaps we better stop suggesting excuses for crappy climate models.
Gautam Naik did a better job of
covering the Nature nonsense for WSJ pointing out that these projections are from extremely short
data series. Note that projecting Antarctic temperatures from the 1930s through early 1970s (see graphic linked
from thumbnail) screams warming but there has been nothing over the next 3 decades.
Honest
Statement Of Current Capability In Climate Forecasts - The 2007 IPCC report presents “projections” of
climate in the coming decades. Policymakers and politicians are using the IPCC models to plan policy for regions
and globally. However, what is the actual skill at forecasting the weather (even averaged over decades) in the
coming years? The IPCC uses the term “projection” but it is being interpreted by almost everyone as a
prediction if certain CO2 emission scenarios actually occur.
The actual skill at making long-term climate predictions, however, is illustrated by a statement on the website of
the United Kingdom Meteorological Office with respect to seasonal prediction. It states
”Seasonal forecasting is a developing area of meteorology and, although these forecasts are not as accurate
as our short-term forecasts, they do demonstrate some skill in predicting what may happen for a season (a
three-month period) ahead.”
The obvious message from this, which is being almost completely ignored by policymakers, and was certainly
ignored by the IPCC, is that seasonal forecasting is “a developing area of meteorology”.
However, how can longer term predictions be more skillful when the climate forcings and feedbacks become more
complex the longer into the future we seek to forecast? (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
Are Tropical Cyclones Really Increasing in Number & Intensity?
- I just read a small article published in the April 2008 edition of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological
Society titled “Are Atlantic Tropical Cyclones Really Increasing in Number, Intensity? Using data from
1966-2006, statistical models were used to determine:
“it is improbable that the number of tropical cyclones has increased since 1966.”… “In addition, the rate
at which storms become hurricanes appears to have decreased”. Also, “little evidence is found that mean
individual storm intensity has changed, although the variability of intensity has certainly increased. This
increase is probably due to changes and improvements of intensity measurements through time..”
“This model was recently applied to worldwide tropical storms and resulted in similar conclusions.”
The full article will be in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Climate. I wonder how many people will ever hear
about it?
At least Kerry Emanuel from M.I.T., who had been a strong believer in increased tropical cyclone activity due to
global warming has now modified his position. In an email to Andrew Revkin of the New York Times he stated:
“The models are telling us something quite different from what nature seems to be telling us. There are various
interpretations possible, e.g. a) The big increase in hurricane power over the past 30 years or so may not have
much to do with global warming, or b) The models are simply not faithfully reproducing what nature is doing. Hard
to know which to believe yet.”
Isn’t it more likely both could be true? (Craig James, WOOD TV)
Why Has Politics Got In The Way Of Science? - Stephen
Wilde has been a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society since 1968. The first three article's from Mr Wilde
were received with a great deal of interest throughout the Co2 Sceptic community.
In Stephen Wildes fourth and exclusive article for CO2Sceptics.Com he introduces the contentious aspect of
"Man Made Climate Change", and that is the politics and reasoning as to why the public are being
deliberately misinformed. (Co2sceptic)
The
Global Warming Tutorial Media Should be Required to Take - Do you ever get the feeling the reason most people
in the media have bought into Nobel Laureate Al Gore's global warming myth is that they are largely uneducated in
matters of science, and regardless of the volume of information available at their fingertips via the Internet,
such pompous folks are too lazy to take the time to do any research that might challenge their dogma? (NewsBusters)
To The Junk Heap - Energy
Policy: With pump prices still climbing — Wednesday's national average was $3.76 a gallon — many Americans are
trying to get rid of their gas guzzlers. Those who drive old clunkers should be accommodated. (IBD)
South California Faces Summer
Power Challenge - LOS ANGELES - Southern California's electricity system will be challenged this summer, and
power emergencies may result if an extended drought leads to massive wildfires, the main US electricity
reliability watchdog said on Wednesday. (Reuters)
They face shortages because they fail to generate sufficient electrickery... serves 'em right for listening
to the watermelons.
Merkel Says Brazilian Biofuels
Must Respect Amazon - BRASILIA - German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Brazil on Wednesday to adopt tougher
environmental standards in producing biofuels but said rich nations needed to pay up to help protect rain forests
and their biodiversity. (Reuters)
US FDA Defends Safety Of Baby
Bottle Chemical - WASHINGTON - The US Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday said it sees no reason to
tell consumers to stop using products such as baby bottles made with a controversial chemical found in many
plastic items.
Norris Alderson, the FDA's associate commissioner for science, said although the regulatory agency is reviewing
safety concerns about the chemical bisphenol A, or BPA, "a large body of available evidence" shows that
products such as liquid or food containers made with it are safe. (Reuters)
First it’s a
scarlet D, then O, H, C... - Did you hear that San Antonio Metro Health District has decided to create a
surveillance program of the lab results on its residents to identify diabetics who aren’t keeping their indices
to government-approved levels? Health officials there are initiating a program to make it mandatory that all
laboratories electronically turn over hemoglobin A1c results (along with the people’s names, addresses and dates
of birth) to its government agency for a database of diabetics. (Junkfood Science)
Conflicts of interest
— Ya think? - All of us hope that public health policies and care guidelines, especially those directed at
our children, are based on the most careful examinations of the soundest evidence and have been shown to be safe
and effective, with benefits that outweigh the potential harms. We hope that those creating health programs are
free from conflicts of interest that can taint objectivity. But when we think only in terms of industry-funding,
we can miss far more influential conflicts... such as from one of the world’s largest nonprofits that has made a
key agenda the war on obesity. (Junkfood Science)
Conspiracy or what? (Number Watch)
Uh-huh... what extinctions? WWF
Says Food Supply At Risk From Species Loss - BERLIN - Governments are set to miss a self-imposed goal of
slowing the rate of extinctions by 2010 and as a result are putting long-term food supplies at risk, a top
environmentalist said before a UN biodiversity conference. (Reuters)
Good: Lula Seen Putting
Brazil Economy Ahead Of Amazon - BRASILIA - Hailed as Brazil's first "green president" when he took
office, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva appears to have thinner environmental credentials than ever after the
resignation of Amazon defender Marina Silva. (Reuters)
I
give up, says Brazilian minister who fought to save the rainforest - Brazil has been accused of turning its
back on its duty to protect the Amazon after the resignation of its award-winning Environment Minister fuelled
fresh fears over the fate of the forest. The departure of Marina Silva, who admitted she was losing the battle to
get green voices heard amidst the rush for economic development, has been greeted with dismay by conservationists.
(The Independent)
What anti-globalists don't understand: Globalization's
Victors Hunt for the Next Low-Wage Country - What can Western companies do when China's factory workers start
demanding better wages and conditions? Easy -- just transfer production to a cheaper country. China's loss is
Vietnam's gain. (Der Spiegel)
Globalization is not a 'race to the bottom' but a stepping stone to prosperity. By capitalizing 'better than
nothing' employment in underdeveloped regions these capital flows set in motion the path to inevitable
improvement in employment, living conditions, health care, infrastructure development, transport and so on. Do
capitalists make money from low wage workers? Of course they do -- no point in capitalizing these projects
otherwise, is there? But their gain is trivial compared with that of people suddenly given the gift of
opportunity.
The
spurious Klein doctrines - She predicts more slums and wars, but in fact they have decreased (Johan Norberg,
Financial Post)
Harvest Of Shame - Agriculture:
The subsidy-stuffed farm bill just passed by Congress is a monster that will leave us with less food at higher
prices. The president should veto it right away and force this foolish Congress to override him. (IBD)
Seed giants see gold in climate change
- First the biotech industry promised that its genetically engineered seeds would clean up the environment. Then
they told us biotech crops would feed the world. Neither came to pass. Soon we'll hear that genetically engineered
climate-hardy seeds are the essential adaptation strategy for crops to withstand drought, heat, cold, saline soils
and more.
After failing to convince an unwilling public to accept genetically engineered foods, biotech companies see a
silver lining in climate change. They are now asserting that farmers cannot win the war against climate change
without genetic engineering. (Hope Shand, Asia Times)
Actually we agree the case for biotech is sometimes oversold. That said most of biotech's promise has been
prevented from delivering by the watermelons and other misanthropists.
Don't have a cow, Man! Where’s
the Beef? It Doesn’t Matter, It’s Bad for the Environment, Says ABC - It's the sort of thing you would see
on propaganda passed out by animal rights activists at a global warming rally, but somehow the message has
infiltrated the mainstream. ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson" told viewers on May 13 to curb beef
consumption to lower greenhouse gas emissions. (NewsBusters)
May 14, 2008
Warming to McCain - It's good to see a
politician rewarded for a courageous and unpopular stand, as John McCain has been over Iraq. History will show he
was as central to the battle of Washington as Gen. David Petraeus has been to the battle of Baghdad. Our enemies
strategized that America lacks staying power. Mr. McCain's role deprived them of their plan for victory.
But honor, the value that underlined Mr. McCain's stand, is no use on an issue like global warming. Here, he could
use a little more Mitt Romney, his vanquished nemesis whose name has now resurfaced in the veep sweepstakes.
Mr. Romney was tagged as a wonk because he "immerses himself in data." But one thing immersion can do
that casual "gut" proceedings can't is let you know when the data don't provide an answer, even if
people are telling you it does.
If the warming of the 1980s and 1990s were shown to be extraordinary, that would at least indicate something
extraordinary is going on. If the pace of warming or the scale were correlated in some sensible fashion with the
rise in atmospheric CO2, that might suggest cause – but such correlation is lacking.
It perhaps takes somebody steeped like Mr. Romney in real-world analytics to find a footing against the media
tide. But the fact remains: The push toward warming that CO2 provides in theory is no reason to presume in
confidence that CO2 is actually responsible for any observed warming in a system as complex and chaotic as our
atmosphere.
In his climate speech on Monday, Mr. McCain exhibited (as the press usually does) a complete lack of consciousness
of the fact that evidence of warming is not evidence of what causes warming. Yet policy must be a matter of costs
and benefits, adjusted for the uncertainties involved. Which brings us to today's irony: He who finds a six-figure
earmark an affront to humanity is prepared to wave through a trillion-dollar climate bill without, as far as
anyone can tell, a single systematic thought about costs and benefits. (Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., Wall Street
Journal)
McCain’s Assault
on Reason: Another Al Gore for president. - John McCain’s global-warming speech on Monday made it clear that
there will be no presidential candidate this year willing to question the assertion that global warming (a.k.a.
“climate change”) is manmade, or the assertion that we can fix global warming by passing a few laws.
Along with Clinton and Obama, McCain’s proposal to attack global warming now gives voters three choices for a
car color — as long as it is black. Like Clinton and Obama, McCain’s proposal involves a “cap and trade”
mechanism to legislatively limit CO2 emissions in the coming years, with the free market minimizing the economic
damage by allowing a trading of emission credits between companies. He also includes an allowance for carbon
offsets, although everyone (except Al Gore) believes this to be more smoke-and-mirrors than a real-world strategy
for reducing carbon emissions.
What worries me is the widespread misperception that we can do anything substantial about carbon emissions without
seriously compromising economic growth. To be sure, forcing a reduction in CO2 emissions will help spur investment
in new energy technologies. But so does a price tag of $126 for a barrel of oil. Finding a replacement for
carbon-based energy will require a huge investment of wealth, and destroying wealth is not a very good first step
toward that goal.
When the public finds out how much any legislation that punishes energy use is going to cost them, with no
guarantee that anything we do will have a measurable impact on future climate, there will be a revolt just like
the one now materializing in the U.K. and the EU. At some point, as they are faced with the stark reality that
mankind’s requirement for an abundant source of energy cannot simply be legislated out of existence, the public
will begin asking, “Just how sure are we that humans are causing global warming?”
And this is where the science establishment has, in my view, betrayed the public’s trust. (Roy Spencer, NRO)
Detroit's
History Lesson for McCain - Detroit — In outlining a plan to fundamentally reorder America’s economy under
a centralized, carbon-capped, command-and-control regime, John McCain reaffirms why free-market conservatives are
deeply suspicious of his candidacy. (Henry Payne, Planet Gore)
John McCain Freaks Out Over Global
Warming - With a slowing economy, escalating food prices and energy prices climbing ever higher, you might
think that Republican presidential candidate John McCain would be hesitant to endorse a European Union-style
carbon emission trading scheme that seems likely to result in less economic growth, higher energy prices and
higher food prices from increased biofuel demand. But that’s because you don’t know him as well as his
daughter, Meghan McCain, who says he’s totally freaking out over global warming. (Dealbreaker)
McCain Ink: Woo Who? -
John McCain’s climate-change speech at a Vestas factory in Oregon was meant to tend a branch to independents and
Democrats for whom global warming is presumably a bigger concern than among most Republican voters. Tuesday’s
reactions to the speech suggest he didn’t fully succeed—many environmentalists are still not impressed, while
many Republicans seem more suspicious than ever. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
Big Mistake -
Senator McCain gave a speech in Portland, Oregon Monday reiterating and explaining his longstanding support for a
“cap-and-trade” approach to global warming. He proposes that the government require reductions in
greenhouse-gas emissions but allow companies to trade emissions credits, supposedly creating an efficient,
market-based distribution of the regulatory burden. Support for this policy is the biggest mistake his campaign
has made so far. (By the Editors, NRO)
Carbon Copy? - After the coldest
April in 11 years, John McCain offers a "market friendly" approach to global warming — saying we
"have a genius for adapting, solving problems." But shouldn't the problems be real? (IBD)
The
Post-Bush Climate - John McCain has been engaged in the fight against global warming for years, even at the
expense of breaking with Republican orthodoxy and with President Bush on the issue. But it was still an important
moment this week when Mr. McCain, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, decided to raise the profile of
climate change in the 2008 campaign. We have clearly entered the post-Bush era of policy and politics on climate
change. However this election turns out, the United States will have a president who supports mandatory cuts in
greenhouse gases. It is possible to begin to believe in the prospect of serious Congressional action. (New York
Times)
Hmm... could be he's made himself unelectable. Are "write ins" accepted for President? Would they
need to be -- the GOP can still nominate someone else.
Poll: How
Did McCain's Climate Change Speech Yesterday Impact You? (NewsBusters)
McCain: The
New 'Captain Climate'? - The likely Republican Presidential nominee offered a climate-change proposal that
opponents, including Obama, say is too little, too late (John Carey, Business Week)
The World Wide Font of nonsense takes our planet heroes to see calving glaciers and voila -- they're climate
experts. How do they think icebergs have formed for millennia?
CNN’s
Toobin: McCain’s Global Warming Stump ‘Like Acknowledging Gravity’ - CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey
Toobin, during a panel discussion on Monday’s "The Situation Room," reacted sarcastically to John
McCain’s recent campaign speech on climate change. "Well, you know, this story illustrates just how low the
bar is for Republicans on the environment. You know, the fact that he acknowledges global warming is seen as a big
advantage for him, but it's like acknowledging gravity. It is a scientific fact." Toobin then compared McCain
to President Bush on the issue, stating that "the real issue is not whether it [global warming] exists. The
question is what to do about it, and, in that area, he's not as far as to the right as Bush is, but he's pretty
close." (NewsBusters)
Global
Warming Skepticism Shocks Chris Matthews - Toeing the "Green is Universal," corporate line, MSNBC's
Chris Matthews seemed shocked that anyone would dare question whether climate change was real. During a discussion
about John McCain's eco-friendly rhetoric the "Hardball" host was dismayed when conservative radio talk
show host Heidi Harris called it a move "to the left," as Matthews decried: "You think climate
change is an ideological issue?!"
The following exchange occurred on the May 13 edition of "Hardball:" (NewsBusters)
Meanwhile: Belief
In Global Warming Slips - The proportion of Americans who say that the earth is getting warmer has decreased
since January 2007, mostly because of a decline among Republicans, according to the latest national survey by the
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. (Environmental Leader)
The Economic Costs of the
Lieberman-Warner Climate Change Legislation - Members of Congress are considering several bills designed to
combat climate change. Chief among them is Senate bill 2191--America's Climate Security Act of 2007--spearheaded
by Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and John Warner (R-VA). This bill would set a limit on the emissions of greenhouse
gases, mainly carbon dioxide from the combustion of coal, oil, and natural gas. (Center for Data Analysis Report
#08-02)
Who Will Pay For Promises Of
Politicians? - Most of the great problems we face are caused by politicians creating solutions to problems
they created in the first place.
Politicians and a large percentage of the public lose sight of the unavoidable fact that for every created
benefit, there's also a created cost, or, as Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman put it, "There's no free
lunch." (Walter E. Williams, IBD)
Archibald
Prize - Western Australia’s David Archibald writes:
Your mentioning my win in Iowahawk’s carbon footprint competition resulted in my being written up in last
Thursday’s West Australian.
In that article, John Connelly of The Climate Institute said that I am destroying the environment. I have
written a reply.
Do read on. (Tim Blair Blog)
Tropical
Water Vapor and Cloud Feedbacks in Climate Models: A Further Assessment Using Coupled Simulations by De-Zheng Sun,
Yongqiang Yu, and Tao Zhang - There is a very important new weblog on water vapor and cloud feedbacks within
the climate system as represented by the models used to project multi-decadal climate change. The paper is Sun,
D.-Z., Y. Yu, and T. Zhang, 2007: Tropical Water Vapor and Cloud Feedbacks in Climate Models: A Further Assessment
Using Coupled Simulations. J. Climate, Submitted. [a powerpoint talk of this research was completed for my class
last spring (see Validating and Understanding Feedbacks in Climate Models ).
... This study indicates that the IPCC models are overpredicting global warming in response to positive radiative
forcing. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
What problem? Put the Trees in the Ground: A
solution for the global carbon dioxide problem? - Of the current global environmental problems, the excessive
release of carbon dioxide from the combustion of fossil fuels and the related global warming is one of the most
pressing.
In an essay in the journal ChemSusChem, Fritz Scholz and Ulrich Hasse from the University of Greifswald introduce
a possible approach to a solution: deliberately planted forests bind the CO2 through photosynthesis and are then
removed from the global CO2 cycle by burial. “For the first time, humankind will give something back to nature
that we have taken away before,” says Scholz. (Wiley)
Why? NOAA chief urges creating National Climate
Service - With concerns about global warming rising along with the planet's temperature, the head of the
federal agency in change of weather research and forecasting is proposing creation of a new National Climate
Service. (AP)
The problem here is that climate is inherently unpredictable and currently of little more than entertainment
value. What is important is weather and its forecasting, hopefully a season or two in advance. Over the
decades, as we untangle more of the cycles involved in climate, we may be able to predict multidecadal warming
and cooling cycles (most importantly how these will affect precipitation regionally) and these will be useful
policy tools but nothing in our current or foreseeable abilities makes climate worthy of special
attention. Note we have an appalling record of predicting such well-studied and critical annual and multiannual
cycles as ISMR (Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall) and ENSO (El Niño southern Oscillation) and these have massive
agricultural importance to the world. Stick to the weather -- despite appearances we are beginning to understand
some of it.
Constitution? Never Heard of It - Yet another pair in a
series of climate non-aggression pacts have been inked between U.S. states and foreign governments. This time,
according to Greenwire (password required), “Wisconsin and Michigan entered into separate agreements with the
United Kingdom on Monday, vowing to work together toward solutions to climate change. Under the pacts, Britain and
the states agree to share research and ideas about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, promoting low-carbon
technologies and raising public awareness.”
Here’s a quick refresher. Article I, Section 10: (Chris Horner, CEI)
Zeno’s
Political Paradox - The Labour Government in the UK is obsessed by implausible targets, from the NHS through
schools to the environment. Some Labour commentators, like Polly Toynbee of The Guardian, appear to be especially
mesmerised by targets per se. Indeed, targets have become an end in themselves, never mind the fact that the bull
may be missed by miles, or that the actual targets cannot be hit, an unsolvable Zeno’s Paradox of Political
Panjandrummery worthy of Samuel Foote’s Grand or Great Panjandrum of 1755. (Global Warming Politics)
Money for nothing
- If countries in Europe stick to current projections, they will postpone global warming by just days and waste
billions: why not spend that on aid now? (Björn Lomborg, The Guardian)
Costs
Soar Like Swallows - The costs of suicidal ‘global warming’ policies are soaring like our newly-returned
swallows.
On Sunday, The Daily Express highlighted the cost for UK families of the government’s ill-judged policies, based
on a newly-released report carried out by respected energy consultants for the Department for Business, Enterprise
and Regulatory Reform [what a 1984 invention] [‘Labour’s Green Tax Will Cost Every Family £3,000’, The
Daily Express, May 4]. These costs are no longer a joke. Here we have a Labour government heaping burden after
burden on the poorer members of society, at a time when people’s finances are under greater stress than usual
from rising food and fuel bills, from the increasing unavailability of mortgages, and from a series of ill-thought
out tax and pension decisions. No wonder Labour received a drubbing last week in the local and London elections.
It is just asking to be voted out of office. (Global Warming Politics)
Makes you really appreciate Boris: UN's
chief climate scientist regrets Livingstone's loss in London mayoral race - AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - He
couldn't vote for London's mayor, but the head of the U.N. panel of scientists on climate change thinks Ken
Livingstone's defeat might be bad for the planet. (AP)
USHCN
Version 2 - prelims, expectations, and tests (Watts Up With That?)
From CO2 Science this week:
Editorial:
Climate Model Problems: VII. Clouds and Precipitation:
What is the status of cloud resolving models?
Medieval
Warm Period Record of the Week:
Was there a Medieval Warm Period? YES, according to data published by 534
individual scientists from 326
separate research institutions in 38
different countries ... and counting! This issue's Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week comes from the Boothia
Peninsula, Nunavut, Canada. To access the entire Medieval Warm Period Project's database, click
here.
Subject Index Summary:
Precipitation (Model Inadequacies):
How are climate modelers doing with respect to their ability to simulate various aspects of real-world
precipitation, particularly within the context of modern global warming?
Plant Growth Data:
This week we add new results (blue background) of plant growth responses to atmospheric CO2
enrichment obtained from experiments described in the peer-reviewed scientific literature for: Canadian
Goldenrod, Chinese Lespedeza, Orchardgrass,
and Purple Clover.
Journal Reviews:
Urban Heat Islands of North China: How have they
impacted official assessments of late 20th-cemtury warming?
The Urban CO2 Dome of Essen,
Germany: What causes it? And what are its primary characteristics?
Southern Ocean Phytoplankton Responses to Atmospheric
CO2 Enrichment: Changes in phytoplanktonic productivity and the mix of species
responsible for it may provide an important brake on CO2-induced global warming.
Effects of Elevated CO2 on a
Major Potato Pathogen: Does it encourage or hinder the development of potato late blight?
Carbon Dioxide vs. Ozone Effects in Birch and Aspen
Trees: What are the individual effects of the two trace gases? And what is the net result when the atmospheric
concentrations of both gases increase together and by similar amounts? (co2science.org)
Eye-roller: Australia
Budget - Great Barrier Reef In Frame In Climate Fight - CANBERRA - Australia will spend A$3.8 billion ($3.5
billion) [nope -- actually $2.3b and that's certainly not all new spending] to fight climate change,
including A$200 million to rescue the Great Barrier Reef, as part of a four-year plan outlined in the government's
budget on Tuesday. (Reuters)
Australia's GBR extends from equatorial New Guinea, demonstrating a profusion and preference for higher water
temperatures than available over most of its range, south as far as sub-tropical Gladstone, where its range is
limited by cold water temperatures. Corals and other calcium-using shelled denizens of the sea evolved when
atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were at least an order of magnitude greater than those of today, telling us
'ocean acidification' is the 'problem' that will never be. Stupid dogma all around.
Oh... $2.3bn in
climate change measures - HALF a million Australian homes will be able to reduce their impact on the
environment and the little standby light on your TV will have a power limit as a result of a $2.3 billion suite of
climate change measures planned by the Federal Government.
Precise levels of emissions that should be reduced through the raft of measures in the 2008 Budget are not
outlined, but the changes will affect everyone from home owners and renters to farmers and even forestry workers
in Papua New Guinea.
A new code for household appliances will be introduced to overtake the current six-star energy ratings.
Items such as fridges and dishwashers will instead be rated on a 10-point scale , and it will apply to a wider
range of products.
Funding of $14 million has been allocated for this plan, which includes accelerating the introduction of a
standard 1-watt power limit on appliances on standby.
The package also earmarks $500 million for the development of a low-emission car by Australian scientists and
researchers, though the money will not be available until 2011.
The Budget commits almost $70m to a national emissions trading scheme, under which companies will need permits to
produce greenhouse gas pollutants.
But the homework for the project is expensive: over $13.3 million has been allocated for research on how the
trading scheme will affect various industries. (The Australian)
Does the 1W standby limit apply to dehumidifiers? If so they are going to kill a lot more electrical
equipment, hard to see that as "energy saving" really. (dehumidifiers in electronics keep the
equipment nearer operating temperature, reducing internal condensation and corrosion) What a wasteful crock this
gorebull warming thing is.
They've blown it on climate
change - Greens - THE Australian Greens view the Rudd government's first budget as a big letdown. Greens
leader Bob Brown said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had "flunked'' the test of climate change. (The Australian)
Well, we'd tend to agree but for very different reasons. A single dollar wasted on "climate change"
is far too much.
Are Polar
Bears Really an Endangered Species? - The Bush administration must decide by Thursday. Its answer may have
serious consequences for the U.S. energy economy. (Kenneth P. Green, The American)
Reason For High Oil Is (Unsatisfyingly)
Simple - Some people think the reason the public misunderstands so many issues is that these issues are too
"complex" for most voters.
But is that really so?
With all the commotion in the media and in politics about the high price of gasoline, is there really some
terribly complex explanation?
Is there anything complex about the fact that with two countries — India and China — having rapid economic
growth, and with combined populations eight times that of the United States, they are creating an increased demand
for the world's oil supply?
The problem is not that supply and demand is such a complex explanation. The problem is that supply and demand is
not an emotionally satisfying explanation. For that, you need melodrama, heroes and villains. (Thomas Sowell, IBD)
Green Ink:
IEA Goes Cap in Hand, Too - Bearish demand forecasts from the International Energy Agency pushed oil down for
the second straight day, reports Bloomberg. The IEA figures rich-country demand growth will continue to slow,
taking some heat out of oil markets—but a biofuels backlash could mean losing the equivalent of 1 million
barrels of oil per day, Dow Jones Newswires report. And, hey, why not: The IEA also asked OPEC to see if it could
find a way to maybe increase production, AP reports in the WSJ. Meanwhile, Energy Outlook explores the role of
speculation in oil prices—if it’s there, it works in two directions. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
BP axes plan for
carbon capture plant - BP has abandoned plans to build a pioneering plant to capture and store carbon dioxide
in Australia, the second such project the company has axed. (Financial Times)
Kearl
project is no dead duck - How can Ottawa condemn environmental radicalism when it backs carbon-dioxide climate
theory? (Peter Foster, National Post)
Rising
Sum: Japan’s Gas-Tax Debate Challenges Government - In the U.S., shenanigans over gasoline taxes are limited
to campaign-trail rhetoric, and apparently have little political upside. In Japan, the gas-tax debate is a photo
negative—and a political life-or-death battle.
Embattled Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda finally managed today to ramrod through what’s become his
signature issue: reinstating the gasoline surcharge against opposition from other politicians and plenty of
voters. Not only does Mr. Fukuda want to permanently tack on another $0.88 per gallon to already pricey
gasoline—with the surcharge, about $6 a gallon—he wants to (eventually) use the proceeds for clean-energy
investment, rather than just building more roads. And Japan could sorely use some clean-energy investment, after
drifting off-course in both wind- and solar-power incentives.
That’s pitted Mr. Fukuda against both angry voters close to throwing him out of office, and veteran heavyweights
in his own party—the “road tribe,” which wants plenty of pork for more highways. Contrast that with the
U.S., where would-be leaders aim to finance their gas-tax holiday at the expense of Big Oil—at zero political
risk, and at odds with their own plans to fight global warming. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
The
Dion airline ticket surcharge? - The Liberals want airlines to advertise fuel surcharges, but they’re
unlikely to want to give their planned carbon tax similar prominence (Terence Corcoran, Financial Post)
Norway CO2 Emissions Up As
Statoilhydro Flares Gas - OSLO - Norway's emissions of greenhouse gases rose almost 3 percent in 2007 to a
record high, boosted by the opening of a liquefied natural gas plant by state-controlled StatoilHydro, Statistics
Norway said on Tuesday. (Reuters)
Is there any Kyoto proselytizer the U.S. is not beating in the emission reduction stakes?
Renewable
OPEC: Careful What You Wish For - The U.S. and Europe both dream of securing more energy “independence”
from fickle oil- and gas-exporting nations. Both have grand plans for huge solar-power plantations in the desert
that, on paper at least, could help meet that goal. But Europe has one huge problem compared to the U.S.—its
deserts are actually in North Africa, smack in the middle of OPEC country.
What’s that mean in practical terms? Even as the world increasingly inches away from fossil fuels and toward
renewable energy, many oil-producing countries are scrambling to keep their bargaining power alive. (Keith
Johnson, WSJ)
Hannity
Exposes Gore’s Connection to Ethanol and Higher Food Prices - Since media began recognizing the
international food crisis and its ties to biofuels, NewsBusters has been wondering when press members will expose
how intricately linked Nobel Laureate Al Gore is to this controversial issue.
On Sunday, Fox News's Sean Hannity finally did just that.
In a segment on "Hannity's America," the host addressed much of what NewsBusters has been reporting for
the past several months about this matter, and established a template that hopefully others in the media will
emulate if they are indeed interested in helping to solve this growing problem. (NewsBusters)
Misanthrope,
Dystopian, or Utopian? - Now, here is a nice long read for you this merry Monday. My book review of ‘The
World Without Us’ by Alan Weisman [New York: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2007. ISBN 0-312-34729-4.
304 pp. $24.95 Hardcover*] has just been published in the Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development (EJSD),
Vol. 1, Issue 2, May 2008. Is his fantasy that of a misanthrope, a dystopian, or a utopian? (Global Warming
Politics)
(Legal) Climate Change - Tort
Reform: Three years ago, Missouri capped the damages a jury can award in a malpractice suit. The result has been a
significant decrease in claims against doctors — and fewer of them leaving the state. (IBD)
US Study Sees Threat From
Big-Particle Pollutants - CHICAGO - On days when there is a lot of dust and other large-particle pollutants in
the air, slightly more elderly people go to hospital emergency rooms with heart problems, US researchers said on
Tuesday. (Reuters)
People with irritated lungs find irritants irritating... how do they do it?
Why did the EPA fire a respected toxicologist? - In
March, the US House Energy and Commerce Committee launched an investigation into potential conflicts of interest
in scientific panels that advise the Environmental Protection Agency on the human health effects of toxic
chemicals. The committee identified eight scientists that served as consultants or members of EPA science advisory
panels while getting research support from the chemical industry to study the chemicals under review. Two
scientists were actually employed by companies that made or worked with manufacturers of the chemicals under
review. (Public Library of Science)
Simple, Rice is an activist disinterested in the science where it runs counter to her advocacy. Plain enough
for you?
Their model says so: New Analysis Shows Important
Slowdown in Lake Tahoe Clarity Loss - For the first time since researchers began continuously measuring Lake
Tahoe's famed water clarity 40 years ago, UC Davis scientists reported today that the historical rate of decline
in the lake's clarity has slowed considerably in recent years. (UC Davis)
The case for biotech: Climate
change = 'killer cornflakes' - Climate change could lead to "killer cornflakes" with the cereal
carrying the most potent liver toxin ever recorded, an environmental health conference has been told.
The effects of the toxins, known as mycotoxins, have been known since the Middle Ages, when rye bread contaminated
with ergot fungus was a staple part of the European diet, environmental health researcher Lisa Bricknell from
Central Queensland University (CQU) said. (AAP)
Funny, isn't it? We've pointed out for years that Bt-enhanced grains are strongly protective against
mycotoxins by virtue of reducing insect damage to grains. Watermelons and the even more-extreme anti-everythings
thought that irrelevant. Associate mycotoxins with the dreaded "climate change" however and suddenly
you have [dramatic intro, please] 'killer cornflakes'.
What a stupid game this is.
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? - We can't
wait to hear how Members of Congress explain their vote this week for the new $300 billion farm bill. At a time
when Americans are squeezed at the grocery store, they will now see more of their taxes flow to the very farmers
profiting from these high food prices.
This year farm income is expected to reach an all-time high of $92.3 billion, an increase of 56% in two years,
making growers perhaps the most undeserving welfare recipients in American history. But that won't stop this bill
from passing the House and Senate by wide margins. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was once a farm subsidy skeptic, but she
now has some 30 freshman Democrats from battleground rural districts to protect. So more than $10 billion a year
in giveaways to agribusiness is a necessary taxpayer sacrifice to keep her majority. (Wall Street Journal)
Who Stole the American Spirit? -
According to the most recent polls, more than 75% of the American public believes the economy is in bad shape. All
three remaining candidates for president are treating the economy as the biggest electoral issue, and all agree
the situation is dire.
The normally sanguine Alan Greenspan recently observed that the current economic mess is "the most
wrenching" since World War II; Fortune magazine's Allan Sloan, who's been covering the business of business
for decades says, "I'm more nervous about the world financial system than I've ever been in 40 years."
There is no denying that the current financial morass is deep and painful. But taking the long view, there is
something both startling and disturbing about the gloom that has settled over Wall Street and the country in
general. In fact, looking back over the past century, it would be a stretch to rank the current problems as
especially notable or dramatic. Something else is going on – namely a cultural rut of pessimism that is draining
our collective energy, blinding us to possibilities, and eroding our position in the world. (Zachary Karabell,
Wall Street Journal)
May 13, 2008
Fossil fuel combustion causes major extinction -- 65million year-old headline: Dinosaur
killer may have struck oil - The dinosaur-killing Chicxulub meteor might have ignited an oilfield rather than
forests when it slammed into the Gulf of Mexico 65 million years ago, say geologists.
Smoke-related particles found in sediments formed at the time of the impact are strikingly similar to those
created by modern high-temperature coal and oil burning, as opposed to forest fires, says Professor Simon Brassell
of Indiana University.
He and colleagues from Italy and the UK publish their report on the discovery in the May issue of the journal
Geology. (ABC Science)
He's John McCain and he's a bloody idiot for drinking the gorebull warming Kool-Aid.
McCain's
Hot Air - John McCain’s delivered a major global-warming speech this afternoon at a windmill factory in
Oregon. [Amazingly, he goes to a windmill factory to say that “When we debate energy bills in Washington, it
should be more than a competition among industries for special favors, subsidies, and tax breaks.” Is this
remarkable cognitive dissonance, or is he saying we don’t need to have these poor windmill folks competing for
their pork anymore? Weird.] Being neither in Oregon nor near a TV, I offer the following observations based on the
speech’s prepared
text, which I had the painful opportunity to read.
I note that his opening joke — that there’s no wind there, so I was invited to give a speech (pause . .
. wait for laughter) — is premised on guessing the weather in advance. Just like the agenda he is announcing.
The problem is that the premise of McCain’s entire speech is that the rise in earthly temperatures is
accelerating, as Al Gore and IPCC head R. K. Pachauri have both recently, if outrageously, repeated — which
flies smack in the face of recorded observations. (Chris Horner, Planet Gore)
McCain differs with Bush on climate
change - PORTLAND, Oregon: Senator John McCain sought to distance himself from President George W. Bush on
Monday as he called for a mandatory limit on greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, also pledged to work with the European Union to
diplomatically engage China and India, two of the world's biggest polluters, if those nations refused to
participate in an international agreement to slow global warming. (IHT) | AP
Tacitly Endorses McCain’s GW Speech (Henry Payne, Planet Gore)
The big question is whether anyone can tolerate Kool-Aid guzzlers for the position of President of the United
States. The presumptive main party presidential nominees appear to be misanthropic nitwits who will do an
inordinate amount of harm to the global economy and society if allowed into office for a single term.
Should there be a "write in" campaign to choose a more rational president than those candidates
currently on offer and if so, who? As an Aussie I admit I don't pay great attention to the seemingly endless
American electoral process but I do seem to recall Fred Thompson specifically declined global warming hysteria.
The Grand Old Party needs to either shake some sense into McCain or find someone electable -- now! And who
should be offered to rational Democrats?
The way things are Euro-socialists look to win their campaign to destroy the American economy this coming
January and they will have done so with nothing more substantial than "Boo!".
McCain's Climate 'Market' - The latest
stop on John McCain's policy tour came at an Oregon wind-turbine manufacturer, where the topic was – what else?
– the Senator's plan to address climate change. This is one of those issues where Mr. McCain indulges his
"maverick" tendencies, which usually means taking the liberal line. That was the case yesterday, no
matter how frequently he claimed his approach was "market based."
In fact, if "the market" is your favored mechanism, Mr. McCain's endorsement of a "cap and
trade" system is the worst choice for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. The Bush Administration has pursued
one option, which combines voluntary measures with subsidies for "clean" alternatives. Since 2001 under
this approach, U.S. net carbon emissions have fallen by 3% – that is, by more than all but four countries in
cap-and-trade-bound Europe.
At the other end of the market spectrum is a straight carbon tax, which would at least distribute costs more
efficiently. It would also force politicians to be honest about – and take responsibility for – the true price
of their global-warming posturing. (Wall Street Journal)
The
limits to nuclear: McCain shouldn’t try to follow French disaster - "If France can produce 80% of its
electricity with nuclear power, why can’t we?,” asks U.S. presidential candidate John McCain. Nuclear power is
a cornerstone of Senator McCain’s plan to combat climate change, which he is unveiling this week.
McCain thinks he is asking a simple rhetorical question. As it turns out, he is not. His question is technical,
with an answer that will surprise him and most Americans. Nuclear reactors cannot possibly meet 80% of America’s
power needs — or those of any country whose power market dominates its region — because of limitations in
nuclear technology. McCain needs to find another miracle energy solution, or abandon his vow to drastically cut
back carbon dioxide emissions. (Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post)
It’s
the Economics, Stupid: Nuclear Power’s Bogeyman - It turns out nuclear power’s biggest worry isn’t Yucca
Mountain, Three Mile Island ghosts, or environmental protesters. It’s economics. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
Al
Gore Feeds on Burma's Tragedy: Foster - With the potential death toll in Burma from Cyclone Nargis rising into
the hundreds of thousands, last week’s attempt by Al Gore to use the tragedy to promote his “climate crisis”
agenda becomes all the more reprehensible.
Promoting the paperback version of his book, The Assault on Reason, on a U.S. National Public Radio show, Mr. Gore
said that “even though any individual storm can't be linked singularly to global warming… nevertheless… the
trend toward stronger more destructive storms appears to be linked to global warming and specifically to the
impact of global warming on higher ocean temperatures in the top couple hundred feet of the ocean, which drives
convection energy and moisture into these storms and makes them more powerful.”
Mr. Gore went on to cite the current disaster in Burma, last year’s cyclone in Bangladesh, and the previous
year’s storms in China, as evidence for his apocalyptic theories. The problem is that science doesn’t support
him. (Peter Foster, National Post)
Very Active Tornado
Season Another Classic La Nina Effect - The winter and spring brought heavy, in places all-time record
snowfall, flooding, and now an active tornado season. All of these are classic strong La Nina phenomena.
Brush fires now ablaze in Florida are is also a common springtime La Nina hazard. Almost daily tornadoes have been
in the news with 910 reported to date (as of 5 pm Sunday). 96 deaths have also been reported. We have not had a
superoutbreak (yet) as we did in 1974 (The Great Superoutbreak) or 1965 (Palm Sunday Outbreak), but a lot a very
active days. Given the pattern with a strong suppressed jet stream and lots of high latitude blocking more active
days can be expected.
The most fatalities from tornadoes occurred in the 1920s (peak 1928) (source NSSL). In recent decades, deaths
were less with the exception of the two years with SUPER OUTBREAKS, 1965 and 1974 (both years coming off La Nina
winters, in 1974, one of the strongest)
See larger graph here.
See this entire story with more on those superoutbreaks here.
Don’t let anyone tell you this is the result of global warming. This May has with the exceptions of a few
pockets, been a cold month so far thanks to high latitude blocking and a suppressed jet stream. With that forecast
to continue, expect more widespread unseasonably cool temperatures and severe weather ahead.
See larger image here. (Joseph
D’Aleo, CCM)
How
to Make Two Decades of Cooling Consistent with Warming - The folks at Real Climate have produced a very
interesting analysis that provides some useful information for the task of framing a falsification exercise on
IPCC predictions of global surface temperature changes. The exercise also provides some insight into how this
branch of the climate science community defines the concept of consistency between models and observations, and
why it is that every observation seems to be, in their eyes, "consistent with" model predictions. This
post explains why Real Climate is wrong in their conclusions on falsification and the why it is that two decades
of cooling can be defined as "consistent with" predictions of warming. (Roger Pielke Jr., Prometheus)
But wait -- it's worse! World
carbon dioxide levels highest for 650,000 years, says US report - The concentration of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere has reached a record high, according to the latest figures, renewing fears that climate change could
begin to slide out of control.
Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stand at 387 parts per
million (ppm), up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last 650,000 years.
(The Guardian)
Uh... just a minute. Even if bubbles in ice cores do not suffer from solution and diffusion issues (an
open question) the relevance of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels is still next to nil. There is no indication
atmospheric CO2 is anything beyond a passive marker of ocean conditions and its relationship to
temperature one of respondent not driver.
CO2 levels are up? Excellent! That will make plants very happy. And the rising levels are
something to do with human effect? Even better! Very green of us.
Where do plants get their
carbon? - The essential ingredient for all growing plants is CO2 in the atmosphere. But organic matter in the
soil is also of value for the plant life on which we all depend. It can only be put into the soil by growing
plants (including fungi) and the bacteria, worms and other microbes that live on and beside the plants. All plant
and soil carbon comes, in the end, from CO2 in the atmosphere.
Leaves collect carbon and oxygen from the air, roots collect minerals, water and nitrogen plus some carbon from
the soil. Plants can live without carbon in soil (as in hydroponics), but not without carbon dioxide in the air.
The biggest stupidity in the carbon debate is treating carbon dioxide as an atmospheric pollutant. All food for
plants and animals comes from this gas of life - it is not a pollutant.
The second biggest stupidity in the soil carbon debate is the biofuel myth that we can use the “waste” from
crops or grasslands to produce motor spirit without affecting soil fertility and productivity. There is no
“waste”in a sustainable farming operation. All organic “waste” should be mulched back into the soil, to
feed the soil microbes that add humus, that holds mineral nutrients and soil moisture. Every tonne of carbon
trucked off from a bit of land reduces soil productivity and has to be replaced from the CO2 in the air.
Once the biofuel gets burnt in motors, it gets back to the soil or the oceans eventually via carbon dioxide in the
air (unless some fool has buried the CO2 in geo-sequestration cemeteries). (Carbon Sense Coalition)
The Hockey Stick scam that heightened global
warming hysteria - UN agencies, especially the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and its offspring
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), were orchestrated to achieve the goal of convincing public
and policy makers that warming and climate change were a human created disaster. Manipulation of the process was
first publicly exposed in the Chapter 8 issue (here). Sadly, it was just the first of several that established the
pattern of IPCC behavior.
It was not the first time the unsupportable claim that humans were causing global warming had made the news. A
major incident occurred in 1988 when James Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS),
appeared before Senator Al Gore’s committee and said he was “99 percent” certain the Earth had warmed.
Few who study climate change denied warming even though many were accused. They knew that for 22,000 years the
world generally warmed as it emerged from the last Ice Age and more recently it warmed from 1680 out of the Little
Ice Age (LIA). However, Hansen then suggested the cause was likely an enhanced Greenhouse Effect due to human
addition of CO2 from industrial activity what was to become known as the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory
The problem is there was no proof and there were many other possible explanations. It was an untested theory that
was accepted as fact by the IPCC. (Tim Ball, CFP)
No, gorebull warming won't stop earthquakes: Hot
climate could shut down plate tectonics - A new study of possible links between climate and geophysics on
Earth and similar planets finds that prolonged heating of the atmosphere can shut down plate tectonics and cause a
planet's crust to become locked in place. (Rice University)
Observed
climate change in West Virginia - Annual temperature: Over the course of the past 113 years, the time since
statewide records have been compiled by the U.S. National Climatic Data Center, the statewide annual average
temperature history of West Virginia exhibits no statistically significant trend either towards cooling or
warming. Instead, the temperature history of West Virginia is dominated by inter-annual and inter-decadal
variability. (Robert Ferguson, SPPI)
Kiwi Climatology - This analysis assumes
that as greenhouse gas fees make Kiwi industry less competitive globally, businesses and jobs will move overseas.
The government disputes this conclusion, mainly because its own analyses assume New Zealanders will be willing to
take lower wages. That's debatable, to say the least.
That aside, give the Kiwis credit for honesty. Having signed up for Kyoto, they're actually talking about
shouldering the costs of meeting their commitments. Whether or not they end up regretting it, other countries will
now have a chance to see what the anticarbon crusade does to an economy. (WSJA)
New
Article On The Role Of Landscape Processes Within The Climate System by Barnes and Roy In Geophysical Research
Letters - There is an important new paper on the role of landscape processes within the climate system [and
thanks to Tobis Rothenberger at the University of St. Gallen for alerting us to it!]. The article is Barnes, C.
A., and D. P. Roy (2008), Radiative forcing over the conterminous United States due to contemporary land cover
land use albedo change, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L09706, doi:10.1029/2008GL033567. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate
Science)
Multidecadal
Ocean Cycles and Greenland and the Arctic - As part of a four part series on the ocean’s multidecadal cycles
and their importance to climate on Intellicast.com, the last two weeks we showed how the natural multidecadal
cycles in the Pacific
(called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation or PDO) and Atlantic
(called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation or AMO) affected the frequency of El Ninos and La Ninas and
combined to correlate strongly with temperatures over the United States. In part III this week, we discuss
temperatures and ice in Greenland and the Arctic, topics sure to dominate the news this summer. Already recent
media stories have some scientists predicting another big melt this summer. We will show how that is not at all
unprecedented (happens predictably every 60 years or so) and is in fact entirely natural.
Temperatures were warmer in the 1930s and 1940s in Greenland. They cooled back to the levels of the 1880s by
the 1980s and 1990s. In a GRL paper in 2003, Hanna and Cappelen showed a significant cooling trend for eight
stations in coastal southern Greenland from 1958 to 2001 (-1.29C for the 44 years). The temperature trend
represented a strong negative correlation with increasing CO2 levels.
Shown below is the temperature plot for Godthab Nuuk in southwest Greenland. Note how closely the temperatures
track with the AMO (which is a measure of the Atlantic temperatures 0 to 70N). It shows that cooling from the late
1950s to the late 1990s even as greenhouse gases rose steadily, a negative correlation over almost 5 decades. The
rise after the middle 1990s was due to the flip of the AMO into its warm phase. They have not yet reached the
level of the 1930s and 1940s.
See full size here.
Warming in the arctic is likewise shown to be cyclical in nature. This was acknowledged in the IPCC AR4 which
mentioned the prior warming and ice reduction in the 1930s and 1940s. Warming results in part from the reduction
of arctic ice extent because of flows of the warm water associated with the warm phases of the PDO and AMO into
the arctic from the Pacific through the Bering Straits and the far North Atlantic and the Norwegian Current.
As was the case for US temperatures, the combination of the PDO and AMO Indexes (PDO+AMO) again has
considerable explanatory power for Arctic average temperature, yielding an r-squared of 0.73.
See full size here.
See much more with much peer review support for the ocean’s role in the Arctic and Greenland cycles of
temperature and ice in the story here.
In part IV, next week, we will address how both the Pacific and Atlantic control the strength, frequency and
favored storms tracks for Atlantic tropical storms. (Joseph D’Aleo, CCM)
Global warming
hysteria reaching new heights - New Scientist, which revealed
last year that obesity causes global warming, now tells us that global warming will make
days longer, which has been confirmed
by NASA. So not only is at least one global warming hysteric worried that efforts to stop global warming may slow
the rotation of the earth, but the hysterical New Scientist reports that global warming itself slows
it:
Global warming will make days longer as well as hotter, say Belgian scientists. A team led by Olivier de
Viron of the Royal Observatory of Belgium has calculated the impact of global warming from the build-up of
greenhouse gases in the air on the angular momentum of the planet.
So we might at well get used to longer and longer days. Who needs Daylight Savings Time anymore? (Jonathan
David Carson, American Thinker)
Except a slightly warmer world will transfer more water to the poles, where precipitation accumulation means
a mass transfer from equator to poles, causing the Earth's rotation to accelerate due to conservation of angular
momentum and making days shorter...
'Senior writer' having senior moment: Global
Warming Worries Wealthy, Polluting Nations Least - The wealthier a country is and the more greenhouse gases it
spews into the atmosphere, the less worried its citizens are about the effects of global warming. Residents of the
low-lying Netherlands, ironically, are the least worried of all. (Andrea Thompson, Senior Writer, LiveScience)
Carbon dioxide isn't 'pollution', wealthier nations have much less to fear from the environment and 'global
warming' has always been a non-issue. Moreover, the wealthier a country is the less it pollutes since it can
afford the niceties of non-productive control of emissions and effluent of many types -- even those of purely
aesthetic influence.
British Climate Change Chief Says
Optimistic - LONDON - Adair Turner, the head of Britain's new Climate Change Committee, sees some tough times
ahead guiding the government towards legal carbon reduction goals but says he is quietly confident of success.
(Reuters)
Fuel delay shakes the
trees - Forest owners are angry that Government plans to defer the inclusion of transport fuels in the
emissions trading scheme will leave them with carbon credits they will struggle to sell.
"We look around and we don't see a lot of other people in the ETS," NZ Forest Owners Association David
Rhodes told members of Parliament's finance and expenditure select committee yesterday. In the early years of the
scheme, oil companies would have been the biggest buyers of carbon credits which the owners of post-1990 forests
fought long and hard for. (New Zealand Herald)
No real value in hot air certificates? Go figure...
Who Is Really Responsible For The
High Prices You Pay For Gasoline? - For the last 28 years, Democrats in Congress and a few Republicans have
again and again opposed our drilling for oil in Alaska's ANWR area when we knew it contained at least 10 billion
barrels of oil we could be using now. (IBD)
Looking Back at Offshore for 2007 - High oil
demand is here to stay, and the offshore industry continues to boom.
Some years ago, this publication’s editors predicted, to the disbelief of nearly everyone, that global oil
prices would top $100 per barrel. That prediction became a reality during the first quarter of this year, and
provides some insight into the state of the oil and gas industry today. Although the price of oil has increased
significantly due to an ever-evolving global landscape, it is also being driven and sustained by growing world
demand. This is in sharp contrast to the industry’s last price surge in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Around
1980, oil prices reached a high of $39.50 – which, adjusted for inflation, comes to roughly $103 in today’s
dollars. The primary difference between then and now is the driving force behind the increase. (Matt Pickard,
Energy Tribune)
Polar
Bears Threatening to Deliver Us $200 Oil: Kevin Hassett - Protecting the environment is a noble cause,
although the consequences can be costly.
Back in August 1973, a biologist found a humble fish called the snail darter in the Little Tennessee River. At the
time, it was believed that this species would be pushed to extinction if the Tennessee Valley Authority finished
its Tellico Dam.
The snail darter became a celebrity, as environmentalists used the Endangered Species Act to halt the project. It
took six years and an act of Congress to complete the dam.
Since then, the snail darter has been the poster child of endangered species litigation. The fish, which
subsequently was found in other Tennessee waters, established the conventional wisdom about the interaction
between endangered species and development. The pattern is familiar. Someone discovers a rare species in a local
area. It is declared endangered, and then local projects are blocked. (Bloomberg)
Wanted: Evil Minions for Long Hours, Rough
Conditions, Constant Criticism - The energy industry is almost universally criticized and hated. And for some
reason the number of people wanting to work in it are in short supply.
Many energy sectors currently face shortages of skilled workers, from hands-on labor to scientific specialists to
management. Some reasons for this are mundane: energy prices are currently high, and that’s encouraging
exploration and expansion. Also, back when energy prices were ridiculously low, many laid-off workers sought
permanent career changes. And of course, engineering and technical jobs are hard, involving lots of education and
training – and who needs that when a Bachelor of Arts degree is just there for the taking?
Beyond these well-examined causes, however, could be another factor: image. Society’s views of an industry or
career affect whether young people choose to enter it. A career’s image has at least two components: a moral one
and a practical one. Morally, some jobs are just seen as wonderful: fireman, puppy doctor, and special-needs
teacher all jump to mind. And practically, some jobs are seen as good careers for the holder: doctor, rock star,
and high-tech something-or-other, for example. On both the moral and practical count, the energy industry comes up
short. (Mac Johnson, Energy Tribune)
Wind ($23.37) v. Gas (25 Cents) -
Congress seems ready to spend billions on a new "Manhattan Project" for green energy, or at least the
political class really, really likes talking about one. But maybe we should look at what our energy subsidy
dollars are buying now.
Some clarity comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), an independent federal agency that tried
to quantify government spending on energy production in 2007. The agency reports that the total taxpayer bill was
$16.6 billion in direct subsidies, tax breaks, loan guarantees and the like. That's double in real dollars from
eight years earlier, as you'd expect given all the money Congress is throwing at "renewables." Even more
subsidies are set to pass this year.
An even better way to tell the story is by how much taxpayer money is dispensed per unit of energy, so the costs
are standardized. For electricity generation, the EIA concludes that solar energy is subsidized to the tune of
$24.34 per megawatt hour, wind $23.37 and "clean coal" $29.81. By contrast, normal coal receives 44
cents, natural gas a mere quarter, hydroelectric about 67 cents and nuclear power $1.59. (Wall Street Journal)
Seward’s Folly…Not! - He bought vast
mineral riches for pennies on the dollar. If only every U.S. politician were so foolish.
Lured by the prospect of wealth from the demand for sea otter fur (which was worth nearly its weight in gold),
Russians migrated into the coastal regions of the Aleutian Islands and southern and southeastern Alaska in the
1700s. This invasion resulted in the Russian American Company, which as a for-profit company governed the new
territory until the sea otter was completely depleted by the mid-1800s. With no other obvious natural resources to
exploit, the Russian government sold its territory to the U.S.
Had the Russians migrated up the Yukon River or along the northern part of the Bering Sea, they would have easily
discovered these regions’ large gold placers. They did not, because no sea otters existed along any of
Alaska’s rivers or along the colder Bering Sea coast. The otters were confined to the southern Pacific Coast,
which had experienced extensive glacial advances during the Pleistocene era (10,000 to 2.7 million years ago).
Such advances destroyed most of the large surface gold nugget deposits that would have accumulated near the
numerous subsurface gold bodies. In contrast, most of Alaska’s interior was never glaciated. There was one major
Russian expedition to the Copper River Valley, to search for copper and other metals because the coastal Indians
used copper tools. That expedition never returned.
So in 1867, Russia sold Alaska to the U.S. for a bit more than $7 million – less than $0.02 per acre. William H.
Seward, the U.S. Secretary of State who was responsible for pushing this sale, was considered by some to be
foolish. Even though the purchase had public support, it was branded as “Seward’s Folly.” Unfortunately,
even to this day, most Americans lack any understanding of the 49th state’s history and its amazing geologic
wealth. (John W. Reeder, Energy Tribune)
EU official says car pollution
targets unworkable: report - BERLIN — A senior EU official said Sunday that a European Union deadline to cut
carbon dioxide emissions from new cars by 2012 was unrealistic, according to an interview with a German newspaper.
Industry Commissioner Guenther Verheugen said that the proposals -- under which carmakers will be fined for
failing to meet emission limits by the deadline -- were already likely to be delayed by the European Parliament. (AFP)
Must We Suffer Global Famine Again? - Do
today’s soaring food prices and Third World food riots mean we’re headed for global famine?
Not any time soon—if we suspend the biofuels mandates quickly. Unfortunately, if we keep burning corn, wheat,
and palm oil in our vehicles, there’s no limit to the hunger, malnutrition, wildlife extinction and political
disruption we can cause.
The problem is simple: Food demand is inelastic. People need about the same number of calories whether they’re
expensive or cheap. But the demand for biofuels is almost without limit. An acre of corn produces only 50 gallons
worth of gasoline per acre, while humans worldwide burn more than a trillion gallons of gasoline per year.
Biofuels could absorb the whole world’s crop production without bringing down gasoline prices—because we’re
banning coal and refusing to drill for oil. If we want to keep on eating, we’ll have to scrap the false “fuel
security” of the biofuels. (Dennis Avery, CFP)
Blow
Hard: Wind to Supply 20% of U.S. Power? - The U.S. can follow Denmark’s lead and get 20% of its electricity
from wind by 2030, the Department of Energy said today. The only obstacles, according to the DOE report, are
building the wind turbines, improving them, getting them in place, and getting their electricity to where it’s
used. Piece of cake. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
Study shows progress against
water pollution - WASHINGTON – Some good news from the government scientists who study pollution in U.S.
coastal waters: A newly released 20-year study shows overall levels of pesticides and industrial chemicals are
generally decreasing. (McClatchy Newspapers)
We're wasting less expensive chemicals? Cool.
Don't let us slow you down, dopey! Wanna
help planet? 'Let's all just die!' - Group pushes to improve Earth's ecosystem by ensuring human species does
not survive (Chelsea Schilling, WorldNetDaily)
Rice Crop To Hit Record, But
Prices Still Rising - MILAN - World rice output is expected to hit a record high this year, but growing demand
and export curbs should keep prices high, at least in the short term, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture
Organisation said on Monday. (Reuters)
'Super yeasts' produce 300 times more protein than
previously possible - Researchers in California report development of a new kind of genetically modified yeast
cell that produces complex proteins up to 300 times more than possible in the past. These “super yeasts” could
help boost production and lower prices for a new generation of protein-based drugs that show promise for fighting
diabetes, obesity, and other diseases, the researchers suggest. Their study is scheduled for the May 14 issue of
the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
May 12, 2008
Taking out the junk -
When Al Gore and his global warming alarmists take over, one of the first citizens they'll slap in a prison and
charge with crimes against the (green) state will be Steven J. Milloy, founder and publisher of the popular Web
site JunkScience.com.
For 12 years, JunkScience.com has worked to debunk the bad science that has been used to advance the harmful or
merely silly political and social agendas of environmentalists that have led to things such as bans on DDT and
incandescent light bulbs.
Milloy is a self-described libertarian whose other unforgivable crimes include working for Fox News Channel and
associating with think tanks that accept oil and/or tobacco money. He visited Pittsburgh Thursday to appear at an
Alcoa stockholders meeting. I talked to him by cell phone as he drove back to his home near Washington, D.C. (Bill
Steigerwald, Tribune-Review)
In
the heat of the battle, nobody is talking about climate change - Gordon Brown, Ken Livingstone and 300 Labour
councillors were not the only casualties of the local and London elections. No one seems to have noticed, but the
other big losers were those people who care about the environment.
We might just look back on May Day 2008 as the moment when the power of green politics peaked and went into
reverse. I hope I'm wrong, but I doubt it. The reaction of the two main parties to the elections was instructive.
Desperate to prop up his own position after Labour's rout, Mr Brown needed to toss a few bones to the voters and
jittery Labour backbenchers. So it suddenly emerged that he was about to dump the so-called "bin tax"
– allowing councils to charge householders who do not recycle their rubbish. Downing Street didn't confirm it,
and five token pilot schemes will go ahead, but it's clear the bin tax has been binned.
Brown allies also floated the idea that the 2p rise in fuel duty might be shelved again. No doubt this was an
attempt to placate motorists. As well as being anti-green, it was a surprise, since the Chancellor, Alistair
Darling, will need all the revenue he can get when he delivers his pre-Budget report in the autumn – not least
to compensate the losers from the abolition of the 10p tax rate.
Mr Brown was not alone in relegating the environment to the back burner. David Cameron, the wind in his sails
after the elections, held a prime ministerial press conference in which he set out his priorities for government.
Significantly, the words "environment" and "climate change" did not appear in his 1,200-word
statement. (The Independent)
Would that he were correct but gorebull warming is still the nutters' flavor of the time.
Exactly wrong: How to Be a
Climate Hero - Something truly horrible is happening to the planet's climate (Audrey Schulman, Orion Magazine)
"Global warming" a.k.a. "catastrophic climate change", "AGW" etc., is not an
emergency paralyzing people with fear but a contrived nonsense which everyone should ignore. The problem
is not one of "bystander effect" but of panic merchants arm waving and calling on everyone to "do
something" when every action to address the phantom menace will and does cause harm.
How to be a climate hero? Don't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Have the courage to do
the right thing -- exactly nothing!
Eco-anxiety – a condition whose time has come
- A recent Harris/Decima poll asked Canadians how they felt about the environment. The poll relied on respondents
completing online questionnaires that may have resulted in responses different than if it was conducted by the
usual telephone polling. The pollster received responses from 10,000 Canadians. Over three quarters (76 per cent)
of those who filled in the questionnaire believe that the environment is not simply a fad and will be a dominant
issue for years to come.
When asked who was responsible to protect the environment, individuals or corporations, 82 per cent of respondents
answered that both were responsible. As pointed out by Martin Mittelstat in his Globe and Mail column, this is a
big change from twenty years ago where most of the blame for environmental degradation was put on those evil,
capitalistic corporations. Now, we are all responsible for killing the planet.
It should come as no surprise then that a new psychological condition has emerged in recent years – eco-anxiety.
Melissa Pickett, a licensed therapist in Santa Fe New Mexico and an “expert” in eco-anxiety, described people
who are afflicted with this condition as follows: (Arthur Weinreb, CFP)
Lawyers:
Gore's Pelosi Ad May Violate Election Law - A television ad in which the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi,
and a former speaker, Newt Gingrich, warn about the dangers of climate change may violate federal election law,
according to two campaign finance lawyers. (New York Sun)
Fine, nail Pelosi for breaking the law and Gingrich for criminal stupidity for having had anything to do with
it to start with.
The Cost and
Futility of Trading Hot Air - Foreword – A Political Context: European and American statists, including
activist NGOs like the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), assert that the moderate climate warming that is
occurring today is a man-made catastrophe, and have embraced the dystopian fantasy that coercive policies for the
elimination of fossil fuel production and usage can prevent or turn back the current warming cycle. They have,
thus, made the “global warming planetary emergency” into the central plank of their ongoing campaigns for more
centralized government. (Christopher Monckton, SPPI)
Thieves Fall
Out - You may have wondered why there has been no Congressional effort to actually legislate the “global
warming” policies that will supposedly save the planet from itself. For six years, the Democratic minority
indulged in often nasty rhetoric, with the gist being: We know the problem. We know the solution. Your hearings
are a delaying tactic. We. Must. Act. Now!
After winning the majority, Dems muttered for a while about how that mean George Bush would just veto their legi-salvation
anyway: Why bother? We’ll just work for a bigger majority — and the White House. Though, as I have
noted on Planet Gore before, Bush had threatened no veto — and on those occasions since January 2007 when he did
threaten a veto, in other policy contexts, the Dems typically took it as a challenge to pass something. So there
seemed to be something missing from their political calculation, or at least their public rhetoric. (Chris Horner,
Planet Gore)
Liberal
carbon-tax plan splits NDP, Greens - OTTAWA -- A Liberal green plan that would levy taxes on carbon use while
offering a matching cut on income taxes split the political parties yesterday, setting up a potential electoral
battle for Canada's left-wing vote.
The idea, which is being touted as revenue-neutral, received support yesterday from the federal Green Party, but
was criticized by the NDP's Jack Layton, who argued that it would harm working class Canadians.
The Liberal idea would slap a carbon tax on usage of fossil fuel, while at the same time reduce income taxes to
keep the government's overall tax-take neutral. (Globe and Mail)
Dion’s
risky carbon gambit - The U.K. shows carbon taxes carry risks of unintended political consequences (Terence
Corcoran, Financial Post)
Russia may hold on to emission
rights -expert - COLOGNE, Germany - Russia may decide to hold onto its greenhouse gas emissions rights under
the Kyoto Protocol, at least until the details of a successor treaty are clearer, a Russian expert said. (Reuters)
Another
Paper On The Role Of Landscape Change On The Climate System - Van der Molen et al. - There is another paper on
the role of landscape processes within the climate system; it is van der Molen, M.K., H.F. Vugts, L.A. Vruijnzeel,
F.N. Scatena, R.A. Pielke, and L.J.M. Kroon, 2007: Mesoscale climate change due to lowland deforestation in the
maritime tropics. In: Mountains in the Mist, Science for conserving and managing Tropical Montane Cloud Forest.
L.A. Bruijnzeel, J. Juvik, F.N. Scatena, L.S. Hamilton and P. Bubb (Eds.). University of Hawaii Press, in press.
(Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
Lessons of the
Quaternary - When climatologists talk about the Quaternary Period, you probably think they are referring to
events that occurred thousand of years ago. You would likely be right, but for the official record, the Quaternary
Period is the geologic and climatic time period that began roughly 1.8 million years ago and includes the present.
The Quaternary includes two major geologic epochs including the relatively cold Pleistocene when glaciers ruled
the Earth and the Holocene period that began approximately 12,000 years ago when the glaciers retreated. We see
the climate alarmists sometimes arguing that we have left the Holocene and entered the Anthropocene – a time
when the human impact has significantly altered the Earth. So, we are currently living in the Quaternary,
Holocene, and Anthropocene, all at the same time. (WCR)
And it's still utter rubbish: Climate
Debate: What’s Old is New Again - As the squabbling over man-made global warming continues, it’s
instructive to see how the current argument got started–half a century after scientists had ruled out carbon
dioxide as a cause of rising temperatures. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
Oh no! What if people find out? Global
cooling theories put scientists on guard - LONDON - A new study suggesting a possible lull in manmade global
warming has raised fears of a reduced urgency to battle climate change. (Reuters)
Horn: 'Global Warming? What Global Warming?'
- Noted Connecticut weatherman Art Horn has a habit of vacationing in places that are later hit by major
hurricanes, from Jamaica to Nova Scotia, but not including Myanmar whose cyclone hit four days before Horn gave
his talk on "Hurricane! The Ultimate Storm," Tuesday at Greenwich Library.
He arrived with the latest Myanmar statistics of more than 22,000 dead and 40,000 or more missing. He proceeded
with dire images of the power of hurricanes to wreak havoc, the latest predictions of what foul weather was in
store, and finally shared his contrary-to-popular opinion views on global warming.
"The real inconvenient truth," he said, disputing the current weather prognosticators, was that
"hurricanes are not increasing in numbers or frequency." (Greenwich Citizen)
That Darned Water Vapor - If you’ve read many of my past posts,
you may remember that the main reason I (and many other meteorologists) disagree with the computer model forecasts
of how much warming will occur due to an increase in CO2 is because of how those models handle water vapor. in
this post written over a year ago, I included the following statement from the IPCC:
“Water vapour feedback continues to be the most consistently important feedback accounting for the large warming
predicted by general circulation models in response to a doubling of CO2. Water vapour feedback acting alone
approximately doubles the warming from what it would be for fixed water vapour (Cess et al., 1990; Hall and Manabe,
1999; Schneider et al., 1999; Held and Soden, 2000). Furthermore, water vapour feedback acts to amplify other
feedbacks in models, such as cloud feedback and ice albedo feedback. If cloud feedback is strongly positive, the
water vapour feedback can lead to 3.5 times as much warming as would be the case if water vapour concentration
were held fixed (Hall and Manabe, 1999).”
Now, a new study published in the May 8 Science Daily, admits that when computer models have tried to simulate the
climate in the Antarctic over the past 100 years, those simulations have been too warm . The reason given is:
“The error appeared to be caused by models overestimating the amount of water vapor in the Antarctic
atmosphere..” In fact, the models over estimated the amount of warming by a factor of exactly 3.5 (at least that
IPCC forecast was correct). The simulation was for 1.4 degree F warming and it has turned out to be just .4F.
(Craig James, WOOD TV)
PlayStation® pap: Global
climate change: What it means to Iowa - Iowa's greenhouse gas emissions are growing faster than the nation's
as a whole, even as new state programs fight to limit the damage from global climate change, a new report shows.
The study conducted for Iowa's Climate Change Advisory Council found that the state faces a tough task in cutting
greenhouse gases, said Jerald Schnoor, an environmental engineering professor at the University of Iowa who is
leading the panel.
The gases, which include water vapor, carbon dioxide and ozone, trap heat that otherwise would escape into the
atmosphere. That warms the globe, threatening an increase in disease, heat-related deaths, severe weather and crop
damage. (Des Moines Register)
NGO attacks Apple's lack of
action on climate change - Apple’s MacBook Air may have received the thumbs-up from Greenpeace, but the
iPhone maker should be avoided by the "climate-conscious consumer", a new eco survey claims.
According to non-profit organisation Climate Counts, Apple scored a measly 11 points out of a possible 100 in its
latest annual rating of computer companies' climate-change awareness credentials. (The Register)
Hmm... Former Vice President Al Gore Joins
Apple’s Board of Directors; Apple's
Jobs urges Gore to run for President.
Gore's
Truth sowed seeds of enviro boom - When An Inconvenient Truth premiered at the Sundance Film Festival two
years ago, Al Gore was considered a "stuffed shirt" and a "has-been" by most U.S.-based media.
And that was just the man. His message about climate change was even more unwelcome, to the point where one
colleague from Ohio mocked me when I gloated about getting a Canadian exclusive with the former vice-president.
"Oh no! Don't tell me you drank the Kool-Aid on global warming? Don't you know the man's a joke in this
country?" (Katherine Monk, CanWest News Service)
Well, no -- but he certainly stirred some mass sociogenic illness in the media...
A Gore confession - Al Gore today said his irresponsible
lies blaming global warming for every catastrophe to occur on Earth in the past few years were themselves a
consequence of global warming, and warned that if we don't want more people like him mouthing off, we had better
cut back soon on carbon emissions.
"The warming has fried my brain," Gore said, adding that he had totally lost control of his tongue,
which wags mendaciously at every opportunity. (Jay Ambrose, Scripps Howard News Service)
Another tipsy scientist: Skating
on thin ice in the Arctic - Ice was the last thing David Barber was worried about when he and an international
team of scientists made plans last year to have their research icebreaker frozen into the Beaufort Sea for the
winter. (Ed Struzik, Canwest News Service)
The only 'tipping point' genuinely to be anticipated is the capsize of the gorebull warming juggernaut.
And a tipsy McKibben: Civilization's
last chance - The planet is nearing a tipping point on climate change, and it gets much worse, fast. (Bill
McKibben, LA Times)
At least the reporter is convinced of his position: GLOBAL
WARMING: Conference would seek dissenting views. - The state Legislature is looking to hire a few good polar
bear scientists. The conclusions have already been agreed upon -- researchers just have to fill in the science
part.
A $2 million program funded with little debate by the Legislature last month calls for using state money to fund
an "academic based" conference that highlights contrarian scientific research on global warming.
Legislators hope to undermine the public perception of a widespread consensus among polar bear researchers that
warming global temperatures and melting Arctic ice threaten the polar bears' survival. (Anchorage Daily News)
White
House vs white bear: Judge says Bush must decide whether to save the polar bear as the ice melts - It's a
classic stand-off between one of the world's best loved animals and one of its most unpopular leaders, between the
planet's largest bear and its most powerful man. And it comes to a head this week. (The Independent)
Bush gets a say in this? What does Lean know that we don't?
Polar
bears OK without our help - Thursday is the deadline set by a federal judge in Alaska for the Fish and
Wildlife Service to decide whether the polar bear is a threatened or endangered species. All the evidence shows
the polar bear doesn’t need his help. (Boston Herald)
Federal Polar Bear Research Critically
Flawed, Forecasting Expert Asserts - (May 10, 2008) — Research done by the U.S. Department of the Interior
to determine if global warming threatens the polar bear population is so flawed that it cannot be used to justify
listing the polar bear as an endangered species, according to a study being published later this year in
Interfaces, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. (ScienceDaily)
Climate
change plea from tribe of herders who face extinction - Olav Mathias-Eira is a reindeer-herder. So was his
father. And his father's father. He is a member of the Sami community, one of the largest indigenous groups
remaining in Europe, and his family have been herding reindeer in the same stretch of the Norwegian Arctic since
the 1400s.
But, because of climate change, their lifestyle, unchanged for centuries, is now at risk. So Mr Mathias-Eira, 50,
has travelled to Britain to issue an urgent plea in the hope that his people and livelihood can be saved. (The
Independent)
And the answer is "No" -- anything else? We can't change what the globe's cycles do and if that
makes a mess of Sami herding then there are two choices, adapt or starve. Gosh, nothing new there either, is
there?
Good question: Bernard
Ingham: Why on earth do we put up with this green extortion? - MY text this week is taken from Corinthians I:
"Behold, I shew you a mystery."
In the election for London's Mayor, the Greens got just over three per cent of the vote. Leaving aside such
misguided places as Norwich, where the Green Party gained three seats, they struggled elsewhere to poll anywhere
near that.
In my native Calderdale, with its strong "Green" lobby, they managed only just over one per cent –
less than the BNP, English Democrats and Independents, the other small groups that fought the election there.
Yet Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Nationalists dance slavishly to the Green tune. (Yorkshire Post)
Saving
Gaia with Bovine Tailpipe Intervention - Never mind that in 2006 it was reported that levels of the second
most important greenhouse gas, methane, have stabilized.
Scientists are now working to create a new “tootless” grass for bovine enjoyment which will help cut methane
emissions from the bovine tailpipes. What next? A moratorium on baked beans at BBQs? Editing out that scene from
Blazing Saddles so that school kids don’t get bad ideas that might harm the earth? (Watts Up With That?)
Emissions trading scheme
'could damage economy' - Farming sector organisations are warning that New Zealand's proposed emissions
trading scheme could damage the economy. (New Zealand Herald)
Fran O'Sullivan: Clark's
climate change agenda put into reverse - Helen Clark's finely honed political instincts are again to the fore
as she courageously throws her pet climate-change agenda into reverse to avert mounting economic pressures.
In any normal situation Clark would face allegations that delaying the introduction of key features of the
emissions trading regime is simply hypocritical.
The Prime Minister has after all been named a "Champion of the Earth" for her goal to make New Zealand
use 90 per cent renewable energy by 2025.
She has declared an ambition for New Zealand to be the world's first "carbon-neutral country" and made
"sustainability" a catchphrase for her Government in election year. (New Zealand Herald)
Emissions trading bill
running out of time - The Government is in danger of running out of time to push through major pieces of
legislation before the election - including its cornerstone climate change policy, the emissions trading-scheme.
With fewer than 37 sitting days left before Parliament is likely to dissolve for the election, Labour still has
about 70 bills to push through.
The carbon emissions trading-scheme has been a high priority for the Government - although its value in election
year is now debatable as it has been linked to rising petrol prices. (New Zealand Herald)
Can’t we have less waste, less
pollution and more renewable energy?
Question: I think that companies that are making millions of dollars should be forced to use renewable
energy, and/or invest in it; they should be doing their bit for the planet. The government should not be forcing
householders to pay a tax or more for living, food, electricity etc., especially when they can’t stop what big
business does to the environment, or what the government spends the carbon money on.
You can’t be serious that the burning of fossil fuels doesn’t hurt the environment; even if you don’t
believe in climate change, this would be one point that I don’t agree with. Also I don’t agree that the planet
needs more emissions to be able to grow food, as plants were growing on this planet long before companies started
burning fossil fuels to fuel factories.
Answer: The key thing to grasp is that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, not poisonous and is a beneficial
gas in the atmosphere. It is colourless, odourless and non-toxic. It is the holes in your bread and the bubbles in
your beer. And it is present in the atmosphere in minute quantities. Over 99.9% of the atmosphere is other gases,
but every living creature relies on there being enough CO2 in the air to survive.
People who run greenhouses pump CO2 into them to help the plants grow. More CO2 in the air has allowed us to
produce more food, and makes plants stronger and more resistant to heat, cold and drought. People have done
careful experiments on this, and warmer temperatures and more CO2 are significant factors in all plant growth.
You are of course correct that plants grew long before we started to burn coal and oil, but food production (and
population) were far, far lower then. Aerial fertilisation by man-made CO2 is a significant factor in allowing the
growth in world population (as is in-ground fertilisation by nitrogen fertilisers from the same fossil carbon
industry). No doubt people will say our population is too large, and in places that may be true, but it is not
sustainable without carbon fuels and the food they help to produce and transport. That is the ugly truth, which
will be illustrated in several countries soon. ... (Carbon Sense Coalition)
Rethinking
Ethanol - The time has come for Congress to rethink ethanol, an alternative fuel that has lately fallen from
favor. Specifically, it is time to end an outdated tax break for corn ethanol and to call a timeout in the
fivefold increase in ethanol production mandated in the 2007 energy bill. (New York Times)
Ethanol:
the next unintended consequence - One of the claims of the Canadian biofuels industry is that, unlike the
United States, Canadian ethanol will depend less on corn than the American version. That should make Canada less
of a contributor to rising food prices. (Terence Corcoran, Financial Times
Sugarcane Alcohol Tarnished by U.S. Maize Ethanol -
RIO DE JANEIRO, May 9 - Recent efforts by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to clearly mark the difference
between Brazilian ethanol and the agrofuels produced by the United States are an admission that signing an
agreement with Washington to promote a global bioethanol market was a serious political mistake, say analysts. (IPS)
Elk Grove wants a refund after hybrid-bus fires - The
once-vaunted hybrid gasoline-electric buses that powered the early days of Elk Grove's transit service are
languishing in a city corporation yard over city concerns about buses catching fire. (Sacramento Bee)
Gas
bills set to rocket by 30% next winter - Sixteen million British Gas customers face price rises of up to 30
per cent next winter. They have already seen charges go up seven times in five years, almost doubling the average
dual fuel bill to more than £1,000. A typical household now pays £653 a year for gas compared with £370 in
2003. The figure could hit £750 later this year. In January, gas prices jumped 15 per cent while electricity
charges moved up by between 12 and 19 per cent. Another increase by British Gas is certain to be followed by its
major rivals, sending thousands more customers on fixed incomes into "fuel poverty". (Daily Mail)
Clean Coal:
Black Gold or Fool’s Gold? - The coal question has become something of a litmus test in the whole
energy-policy debate. You can’t live with it–and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases; you can’t live
without it–and still have an economy. The U.S. government’s relaunch this week of FutureGen, its scaled-down
“clean coal” research project, puts the issue smack in the middle of the agenda.
But is “clean coal”—capturing and storing carbon dioxide from coal plants—the answer? (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
It was meant to be a joke, again (Number Watch)
Tragic -- and dead wrong: Families will make case
for vaccine link to autism - Families claiming that a mercury-based preservative in vaccines triggers autism
will challenge mainstream medicine Monday as they take their case to a federal court. They seek vindication and
financial redress from a government fund that helps people injured by shots. (Associated Press)
When food fears
deserve special attention - It’s common on forums discussing the painful and difficult road back from eating
disorders, to hear nutritional misinformation and fears about certain foods. Many who are avoiding certain foods
are convinced they are aren’t dieting or restricting their eating, but are eating healthy. While the idea of
foods that are good and bad mimic what is popularly cited in mainstream media and often taught to young people in
nutrition classes, recent research by Columbia University eating disorder specialists suggests that recovery from
disordered eating requires getting past fears of ‘bad’ foods. (Junkfood Science)
Our growing
culture of disordered eating - How often do you see a mature woman with little of the natural fat that comes
with healthy aging? How often do we want to believe they’re just naturally thin? How many women do you know who
continue to watch their figures and restrain their appetites? This important Guardian article by Kate Hilpern
discusses the recent death of a prominent professor who died of malnutrition while no one noticed that she, like
growing numbers of mature women, had been suffering from disordered eating. (Junkfood Science)
Please be
careful out there — supplements for sick children - Growing numbers of children and teens are taking
alternative supplements and most parents and healthcare professionals believe them to be completely safe. Two
recent studies of children in the hospital alert us to the need for both parents and healthcare professionals to
take extra care to be aware of potentially harmful reactions with natural remedies. (Junkfood Science)
Doctors and
intensive care units for sick babies - It’s hard to read this story without your heart going out to these
women with high-risk pregnancies who, at one of the most stressful times in their lives, learn there are no
intensive care beds for their babies. In just the past year, more than a hundred Canadian women and babies have
had to be transported out of the country and away from their families to receive care. (Junkfood Science)
It’s official:
the world has gone nuts :-) - There is simply no other explanation. In no particular order, I present as
evidence: (Junkfood Science)
Good: Herbal
farmers, vendors fear new bill - Some local producers and vendors of natural health products are concerned
that their livelihoods may be at risk if recently introduced amendments to the federal Food and Drugs Act become
law.
Bill C-51, tabled by the Conservative government in early April, focuses on the safety and monitoring of drugs,
food and health products, from clinical testing to the way they are marketed to Canadians. If passed, it would
give the federal government more power to order recalls of unsafe products and impose harsher fines for safety
violations. Bill C-51 has been touted as a much-needed overhaul of Canada's weak consumer-protection legislation.
But critics say the bill would also over-regulate the sale and use of natural health products, which include
vitamins, minerals, homeopathic medicines and herbal remedies. By replacing the word "drug" with
"therapeutic product" throughout the act, Health Canada would have broader power over the natural health
product industry. (Windsor Star)
Ecological crime: US: Loggers, Owls Not Out of
the Woods Yet - SEATTLE, May 9 - Some wounds heal slowly, and the wounds of the logging community on the U.S.
northwest Pacific coast are still smarting nearly 20 years after measures to protect a threatened species
devastated their industry.
"All of our public institutions that were supported by this economic activity began to crumble," said
John Calhoun, director of the Olympic National Resources Centre, an entity created by the Washington State
legislature that brings together industry, environmental, government and native groups to forge sustainable forest
and marine policies.
"It was devastating not only economically, but it was devastating philosophically," Calhoun told IPS,
"and it was a depression in people's attitude, about the world being turned upside down for reasons they
couldn't understand or agree with." (IPS)
In case people don't know, genuine ecological crimes are abundant and involve every case of eco-fanatics
triumphing over people.
Shining the Hard Light of Reason on
Environmental Problems - Last Wednesday was the launch of a new initiative between the University of
Queensland and the Institute of Public Affairs for environmental research.
There is some reporting of the program in today's The Australian newspaper under the title 'Climate
Sceptic's $350,000 grant to uni has no strings attached'. [I have received comment that the article includes
some snide remarks about me - hopefully not related to my critique of the national newspaper's 'Save
the Murray Campaign'.]
The Australian also includes a column by the Perth-based philanthropist, Bryant Macfie, who's generosity has
made the partnership possible.
The column is entitled 'Blessed
are the sceptics' and in it he explains the importance of shining the hard light of reason and critical
thinking on our environmental problems, aided by multiple skills and points of view.
After the launch at the University, Aynsley Kellow, Professor and Head of the School of Government at the
University of Tasmania, gave an address to member and friends of the IPA at the Brisbane Club. His talk was
entitled 'All in a Good Cause: Framing Science for Public Policy'. He said:
"The history of science is replete with error and fraud.
Environmental science is no exception. Indeed, this area of science provides a hyperabundance of examples,
thanks to the presence of two factors: a good cause and extensive reliance upon modelling, especially that
involving sophisticated computer models. (Jennifer Marohasy)
How're they gonna blame people for this? Environmental
fears after volcano - VOLCANIC ash raining down from the Chilean volcano Chaiten may cause long-term
environmental damage and harm the health of people and animals in Patagonia, scientists said.
Ash from the volcano, which started erupting 10 days ago for the first time in thousands of years, is made up of
pulverised rock containing all kinds of minerals.
It has spoiled lakes, rivers and lagoons, coated plants in a dense layer of gray, and altered the sensitive
habitat of animals now struggling to survive. Satellite images show a white stripe smeared across the southern
part of South America.
Though it is too early to say what the long-term effects will be, ecologists say life has permanently changed in
the region's pine and cypress forests, inhabited by pumas and huemules, a rare species of deer.
"I am tremendously worried because this is an environmental, social and ecological disaster," said
Alejandro Beletzky, an environmental scientist in a soot-covered swath of Argentina. (The Australian)
How the world's oceans are running out
of fish - The future of our seas has never been more precarious. Ninety years of industrial-scale overfishing
has brought us to the brink of an ecological catastrophe and deprived millions of their livelihoods. As scientific
guidelines are ignored and catches become ever bigger, Alex Renton tells why the international community has
failed to act. (The Observer)
Oh Alex! Don't you read the papers? It's gorebull warming doing it so you might as well harvest the lot
before the seas boil...
Climate change will boost
farm output - AUSTRALIAN agricultural output will double over the next 40 years, with climate change predicted
to increase, rather than hinder, the level of production.
A recent spate of reports forecasting the decline of Australian agriculture because of climate change have greatly
exaggerated, and even completely misreported the threat of global warming, according to senior rural industry
figures.
In a report published by the Australian Farm Institute, executive director Mick Keogh says agricultural output is
projected to improve strongly through to 2050, with a growing global population and increased economic wealth
boosting demand for Australian produce. If the sector adapts even modestly, production would increase rather than
decrease as a result of climate change, the report says.
Predictions of a 20 per cent drop in farm production by mid-century were cited by Kevin Rudd and Agriculture
Minister Tony Burke as justification for Australia's signing of the Kyoto Protocol.
In fact, Mr Keogh says, if global warming does occur, some areas such as southeast Queensland will receive more
rain, and as a result will greatly benefit. Recent research has shown increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
lifts plant production by up to 30 per cent in a phenomenon known as carbon fertilisation.
Mr Keogh, a well-respected industry figure, said much of the media reporting on the recent ABARE report Climate
Change: Impacts On Australian Agriculture, was so misleading it risked eroding industry confidence in public
research agencies. (The Australian)
We wish... sadly it appears warming is less and less likely.
May 9, 2008
Schumer Chucks the FDA? - Who needs the
Food and Drug Administration? New York Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer and personal injury lawyers certainly don’t
-- at least to the extent the agency gets in the way of their political grandstanding and a multi-million dollar
payday, respectively. (Steven Milloy, FoxNews.com)
Never-ending asbestos scam: Off-roaders
to protest closing of riding area - After being told last week they could no longer raise asbestos-tinged dust
at Clear Creek, a vast off-roading playground, a die-hard group of enthusiasts plan on raising their voices
instead.
Today, at a meeting in Santa Clara with Bureau of Land Management and Environmental Protection Agency officials, a
few hundred off-road riders and motorcyclists plan to make their case to keep the site near Coalinga open.
"We're expecting a big, big turnout," said Justin Hensley of Modesto, a longtime Clear Creek rider.
The community's outcry follows the Bureau of Land Management's May 1 decision to close 31,000 acres of the Clear
Creek Management Area, a rugged moonscape straddling San Joaquin and Fresno counties. The Environmental Protection
Agency found an increased long-term cancer risk for people conducting recreational activities there that generate
dust. (Mercury News) | Hearings
set on BLM closure of rec area (SF Chronicle)
Exclusively focused on their own field or willfully misrepresenting? Solar
Variability: Striking a Balance with Climate Change - The sun has powered almost everything on Earth since
life began, including its climate. The sun also delivers an annual and seasonal impact, changing the character of
each hemisphere as Earth's orientation shifts through the year. Since the Industrial Revolution, however, new
forces have begun to exert significant influence on Earth's climate.
"For the last 20 to 30 years, we believe greenhouse gases have been the dominant influence on recent climate
change," said Robert Cahalan, climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. (NASA/GSFC)
TSI (total solar irradiance) only accounts for about one quarter estimated global mean temperature increase.
OK, presumably in calculating that they must perform something similar to this calculation:
The sun behaves approximately like a black body of radius rs=6.599 x 105 Km, at a
temperature of Ts=5,783 K. The radiative flux at the sun's surface is given by the expression σTs4,
where σ is the Stefan-Boltzmann Constant (5.6704 x 10-8 Wm2K4). Flux
refers to radiation per unit area. Thus, at the Earth's distance from the sun, res=1.496 x 108
Km, this flux is reduced by the factor (rs/res)2. The Earth's disk has a cross
section, acs=πre2, where re is the Earth's radius (6.378 x 103
Km), and thus intercepts acsσTs4(rs/res)2
radiation from the sun. In order to balance this intercepted radiation, the Earth would warm to a temperature Te,
where σTe44πre2 = acsσTs4(rs/res)2.
This leads to a solution Te=272 K. Clouds and other features of the Earth reflect 31% of the
incident radiation. Taking this into account reduces Te to 255 K.
Sound about right? In fact it's difficult to believe they achieved their current positions without running
through that many times in their education and careers.
Why is this important? Note particularly Clouds and other features of the Earth reflect 31% of the
incident radiation. Taking this into account reduces Te to 255 K. So bright clouds, snow and
ice fields and even light colored deserts reflect enough solar irradiance to reduce the Earth's temperature 17
K. A mere 2% change in bright clouds is sufficient to more than triple the effect of solar brightening (which
would leave very little room for any other forcing). What's really significant is that TSI is merely a marker of
many changes in the sun, one of which is the solar magnetic field and this appears to influence penetration of
GCRs (galactic cosmic rays) in Earth's atmosphere and indirectly the amount of bright cloud. That's just one of
the ancillary mechanisms of solar forcing being investigated at present but featured because Svensmark demonstrated
the mechanism in repeatable lab experiments.
NASA are well aware TSI is perhaps the least interesting of observed solar changes from the perspective of
global climate change and it is disingenuous of them to suggest since there is insufficient direct TSI effect
then all other changes must be atmospheric carbon dioxide increase.
More worrying is why they would so suggest -- if it is ignorance then we are in trouble but if it is
deliberate deception then we may be in worse trouble.
Not good.
A Climate of Belief
- The claim that anthropogenic CO2 is responsible for the current warming of Earth climate is scientifically
insupportable because climate models are unreliable (Patrick Frank, Skeptic.com)
Burma killed by tyranny -
THE vultures are circling over Burma's dead. Hey, isn't that fat one Al Gore?
Sure is. And - flap, flap, plop - there he lands, the first to go picking over carcasses for scraps to feed his
great global warming scare campaign.
What the world should be learning from this terrible loss of at least 60,000 people in the cyclone that hit Burma
last week is that tyrannies kill more surely than any freak of weather. (Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun)
Al Gore And Climate Ka-Ching -
Al Gore blames the Burma tragedy on global warming despite growing evidence to the contrary. Could the hype be
related to his financial interests? (IBD)
Al is not the only disgusting parasite: Cyclone
'is a sign of things to come' - A TOP Indian advocacy group that monitors climate change in south Asia warned
last night that the Nargis cyclone that devastated Burma was "a sign of things to come", as climate
change caused extreme weather to increase in intensity.
India's influential Centre for Science and Environment yesterday warned that destructive cyclones were likely to
occur more often unless nations sped up their efforts to curtail the emission of greenhouse gases.
"Nargis is a sign of things to come. Last year, Bangladesh was devastated by the tropical cyclone Sidr,"
CSE director Sunita Narain said in a statement.
"The victims of these cyclones are climate change victims and their plight should remind the rich world that
it is doing too little to contain its greenhouse gas emissions."
She recalled that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, headed by Indian Rajendra Pachauri, in a report
last year concluded that cyclones would increase in their intensity as a result of global warming.
Ms Narain said lifestyles in rich nations "are now spelling doom for countries like (Burma) and Bangladesh -
and the big polluters of the world, such as the US, cannot escape their responsibility and their role in the
'dance of death' of tropical cyclones like Nargis." (The Australian)
Wealth Protects Better Against Natural Disasters - If the
same category four cyclone (or "hurricane" in the Atlantic) hit an industrialized country, the storm
would have been harmful but not even remotely close to the devastation that exists today in Myanmar.
This tragedy doesn't provide ammunition for global warming (category four cyclones aren't unique), but for the
need for countries and their citizens to develop better infrastructure, build better buildings, have better
emergency services, etc.
The only way these changes will happen is if poor countries are able to generate the wealth necessary to make the
changes. The only way for the U.S. to better protect itself against hurricanes is to ensure that we continue to be
a wealthy country. (Daren Bakst, John Locke Foundation)
Universities must help
prevent another Burma - Knowledge remains our most powerful defence against natural disasters. So why aren't
British universities producing more geophysicists, asks Tim Radford (The Guardian)
What Tim means is that wealth and development are protective and the means to this is open democratic society
with a sound education system. Agreed.
Where this article falls apart is: But the logic of global warming means that the oceans will get warmer,
which means that wind and rainstorms could become more terrible. The statistics are debatable, but the reasoning
is sound enough. A warmer planet means that more energy is going into the system: this energy will express
itself somewhere. There is a well-established link between ocean temperature and hurricane or cyclone hazard. An
increase in the number and violence of tropical cyclones seems plausible. Utter rubbish. Total energy within
a system is largely irrelevant -- temperature gradient and net energy transfer are keys to storm
ferocity and enhanced greenhouse theory anticipates warming of the coolest regions (both by latitude and
altitude) thus reducing temperature gradients and hence storm ferocity. There is no logical or physical
reason enhanced greenhouse could or would increase storm ferocity, which is nothing more than an Al Gore
campfire story.
Radford then completely runs off with the fairies with the broken window fallacy: Put this way, a tropical
cyclone is not just a destructive force: it could and should also be the stimulus for a job creation scheme.
Oh puh-lease! People are not better off when what little they have is destroyed. Far better to create wealth and
develop without destroying what people already have.
Brits offer a taste of Kyoto -
Great Britain is a decade ahead of Canada in the global warming debate and what's happening there today is
instructive for us.
British taxpayers were among the earliest conscripts into the war on global warming, long before Canada, where
Liberal Leader Stephane Dion is only now talking about pricing carbon (i.e. a carbon tax) if he wins the next
election.
However, when you examine the views of the British people today, the news isn't good for climate hysterics or
Britain's Labour government, now led by Gordon Brown, which suffered heavy losses in recent local elections.
A survey last month of 2,002 British adults by the respected polling firm Opinium Research found:
- 72% are unwilling to pay higher taxes to fight climate change.
- 67% believe the government's green agenda is simply a ploy to raise taxes.
As Opinium's head of research, Mark Hodson, described the findings in the Daily Mail and Independent newspapers:
"Britain appears to be feeling increasingly negative about being more carbon neutral. We are questioning the
truth behind being greener and many feel the government is creating a green fear for monetary gain." (Lorrie
Goldstein, Edmonton Sun)
Desperation? Panic, maybe? Fighting
climate change fatigue: how to keep stakeholders engaged - A one-day summit organised by the Guardian and The
Observer
Wednesday July 16 2008
Business Design Centre, London
With increasing political and public awareness about climate change, the debate has moved on. The public are
willing to make changes, but mixed messages have led to confusion and fatigue. Leading businesses realise that now
is the time for collaboration - with each other, with government, with NGO's and individuals.
The Guardian Climate Change Summit will bring together senior executives and decision makers to discuss strategies
to keep stake holders engaged and fight against climate change.
After all the billions spent on indoctrination campaigns and the forests devoted to print media climate
hysteria they still haven't managed to stampede the populace and impose their global social order. What can they
do? Who can they telephone?
The Green Jobs Fallacy - The NRDC has a full-page ad in
the New York Times today hailing "The Economic Stimulus Plan that can Save the World." This miracle
piece of legislation is none other than the Lieberman-Warner global warming bill. NRDC's premise is put quite
simply in the ad — Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! In other words, shifting over from old-energy technology to new-energy
technology will create jobs aplenty.
This is hooey, of course. (Iain Murray, CEI)
“When
Will Lake Mead Go Dry?” - A New Paper That Uses Multi-Decadal Global Models for Regional Predictions - ...
However, the paper suffers from their reliance on the multi-decadal global models as quantitative predictions of
what will happen in terms of climate in the coming years. They even recognize this in their text “…..the
Colorado River will continue to lose water in the future, if the global climate models are correct.”
Thus while Climate Science agrees that there is a significant concern on water available from the Colorado River,
and planning should be a major priority with respect to long-term drought, the multi-decadal global model
predictions are just hypotheses and their use as part of the computation as definitive, skillful predictions to
present quantitative probabilities of Lake Mead drying out is misleading to the policymakers. This is yet another
example of overselling the skill that exists in using these models as predictions. The large amounts of
precipitation this past winter (2007-2008) in large areas of the West should be a wake-up call on the serious
limitations of the IPCC models. (Climate Science)
ENSO and Monthly Global
Temperatures
By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM
In a recent
story we showed how the PDO cycle related to the relative frequency of El Ninos and La Ninas and through that,
global temperatures. This is the case because El Ninos lead to global warmth and La Ninas a cooling.
See larger graph here.
You can clearly see on the chart of Wolter’s Multivariate ENSO Index (explained here)
the predisposition for more and stronger La Ninas and fewer weaker El Ninos during the cold phase of the PDO and
more and stronger El Ninos and fewer cooler La Ninas.
See larger graph here.
The last decade, we see how well the monthly MEI correlated with the global temperatures. The correlation
(Pearson coefficient) is 0.60. There appears to be a lag of a few months from the diagram and indeed if we lag
temperatures 3 months to MEI, the correlation jumps to 0.68. Read more here.
See larger graph here.
Carbon guilt: University
Research Contributes To Global Warming, Professor Discovers - Add university research to the long list of
human activities contributing to global warming. Hervé Philippe, a Université de Montréal professor of
biochemistry, is a committed environmentalist who found that his own research produces 44 tonnes of CO2 per year.
The average American citizen produces 20 tonnes. (ScienceDaily)
And medical research causes cancer in lab rodents. Of all the stupid mea culpas...
These silly scares just won't die: Act
now on global warming before it's too late for Thailand's coastline and coral reefs - Thailand's coral reefs,
which have attracted tourists since the 1960s, could be lost in 50 years if carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions
continue at current rates over the next eight to 10 years.
The warning came from Dr Marea Hatziolos, senior coastal and marine specialist at the World Bank, who was one of
the scientists who warned of the impact of climate change on coral reefs around the world at the UN Climate Change
Conference in Bali, Indonesia, last December.
"The current level of CO2 equivalent accumulation in the atmosphere is 430ppm [parts per million]," she
said. "At current rates, an accumulation level of 450ppm is expected to be reached by 2015, and scientific
evidence suggests that once CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere reaches 550ppm, coral reef ecosystems will be
extensively and irreversibly damaged," and reef-building corals will largely disappear. (Bangkok Post)
Bottom line: a lot of current coral types and shell-bearing marine critters evolved in the Ordovician when
atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were greater than 4,000ppmv. Why would they have trouble coping with levels as
'high' as even 1,000ppmv?
Your
tax dollars at work - money down the carbon hole - The Department of Energy awarded $126.6 million in grants
today to projects that will pump 1 million tons of CO2 into underground caverns at sites in California and Ohio.
The grants are subject to approval from Congress. When private money is included, the amount spent on the projects
will be about $180 million over 10 years, the DOE said. So there’s still time to write a scathing letter to your
US Senator or Congressperson to tell them they’d may as well just pour money down the hole and save the trouble.
(Watts Up With That?)
Shouldn't be taking the people's money to start with: Government
clashes with Europe over carbon permit revenue - The Government is on course for an embarrassing showdown with
the European Union, business groups and environmental charities after refusing to guarantee that billions of
pounds of revenue it stands to earn from carbon-permit trading will be spent on combating climate change.
The dispute follows the publication yesterday of a discussion document by the Department of Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs (Defra) outlining how the UK will operate phase three of the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme, which
begins in 2012.
While the EU has insisted that revenue earned by member states from the sale of carbon permits should be used to
combat climate change, Defra specifically ruled out such a commitment, either in phase three of the ETS or in
phase two, which began this year. (The Independent)
Government scraps
carbon card scheme for fear of ridicule - Ministers have scrapped radical plans to test a carbon rationing
scheme that would have forced citizens to carry a carbon card to swipe every time they bought petrol or paid an
electricity bill.
The plan was announced by David Miliband, former environment secretary, in 2006 as a way to cut greenhouse gas
emissions and tackle global warming. But officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
said today that the idea was too expensive and would be unpopular.
Defra said a feasibility study found that carbon rationing was "an idea ahead of its time in terms of its
public acceptability and the technology to bring down costs." While there were "no insurmountable
technical obstacles", the study found such a scheme would cost £1-2bn each year and would be perceived as
unfair. (The Guardian)
10 years too late: Steel
execs decry emissions bill - The domestic steel industry would be hurt if the government forces steelmakers to
follow stricter emissions standards proposed in Congress, industry executives said Wednesday. (Tribune-Review)
Driving and cheap flights lay waste to
recycling campaign - Hopes that Britain has turned into a nation of environmentalists were dealt a severe blow
yesterday by an official report which found that the nation's carbon footprint was growing.
Although far more households were separating their rubbish for recycling, any benefits to the environment have
been more than wiped out by a sharp rise in car journeys, a decline in cycling and a dramatic increase in
commercial flights.
The findings come in the latest report on regional trends from the Office for National Statistics. (The Times)
Democrats' Windfall Tax — On You
- In their ongoing war against U.S. oil producers, Senate Democrats say they'll slap Big Oil with a windfall
profits tax and take away $17 billion in tax breaks, among other punishments. This is an energy plan? (IBD)
California’s Potemkin
Environmentalism - A celebrated green economy produces pollution elsewhere, ongoing power shortages, and
business-crippling costs. (City Journal)
Oh... Speed
kills (the polar bears) - MANY OF US remember the ubiquitous highway safety campaign of the 1970s: "Stay
Alive - Drive 55." Today, driving the speed limit is crucial to another kind of survival: the planet's. (Renée
Loth, Boston Globe)
I suppose next thing Renée will want us to do a Jimmy Carter and put a cardigan on the planet because it's
getting a chill.
Federal Polar Bear Research Critically Flawed, Argue
Forecasting Experts in INFORMS Journal
Deficient forecasting methodology casts doubt on threat to polar bear population, say authors in Interfaces study
HANOVER, MD, May 8, 2008 – Research done by the U.S. Department of the Interior to determine if global warming
threatens the polar bear population is so flawed that it cannot be used to justify listing the polar bear as an
endangered species, according to a study being published later this year in Interfaces, a journal of the Institute
for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®).
On April 30, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ordered the Interior Department to decide by May 15 whether polar
bears should be listed under the provisions of the Endangered Species Act.
Professor J. Scott Armstrong of the Wharton School says, “To list a species that is currently in good health as
an endangered species requires valid forecasts that its population would decline to levels that threaten its
viability. In fact, the polar bear populations have been increasing rapidly in recent decades due to hunting
restrictions. Assuming these restrictions remain, the most appropriate forecast is to assume that the upward trend
would continue for a few years, then level off.
“These studies are meant to inform the US Fish and Wildlife Service about listing the polar bear as endangered.
After careful examination, my co-authors and I were unable to find any references to works providing evidence that
the forecasting methods used in the reports had been previously validated. In essence, they give no scientific
basis for deciding one way or the other about the polar bear.” (Informs)
Shell
Oil president wants more access to energy resources - COEUR d'Alene, Idaho - The United States' reliance on
foreign oil is increasing because of limits on where companies can search for resources, the president of Shell
Oil Co. says.
"The U.S. prohibits access to its own natural resources," John Hofmeister said. "We need more oil
and gas, whether it's onshore Alaska, or offshore Alaska."
There are also large energy reserves in Alberta's oil sands and in oil-rich shales in Colorado, Hofmeister said in
a speech Tuesday to the National Association of Attorneys General conference here. (Associated Press)
How to Use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
- John McCain and a number of other senators have been recommending that the Bush administration stop buying crude
oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). They're right.
Over the last eight months, the Department of Energy purchased more than 10 million barrels of oil for the SPR as
the price rose $40 to above $120. This is not sensible. It puts upward pressure on oil prices at the worst
possible time. It is a waste of taxpayer money. It gives aid and comfort to unfriendly nations. And it is an
insurance policy that, for the most part, is no longer needed. In fact, we should be selling oil from the SPR at
$120. Doing so could be a powerful tool for U.S. energy policy.
Under
Water: Insiders Question Offshore Wind Power - Royal Dutch Shell took a lot of flak when it pulled out of the
huge “London Array” offshore wind farm in the U.K. last week. The prevailing explanation for the withdrawal?
Higher oil prices make old-fashioned energy a more attractive investment than still-immature renewable energy.
Perhaps there’s a less-conspiratorial explanation. Maybe offshore wind power just isn’t up to snuff yet.
Denmark’s Vestas, the world’s biggest wind-turbine maker, today said Europe should curb its enthusiasm for
massive offshore wind farms, and focus on regular onshore wind power. Vestas isn’t hiding vested
interests—it’s one of the leading makers of offshore equipment, too. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
Saving Babies’ Lives -
Repeating a scare — no matter how often or how loudly — won’t make it true. Once again, fat women are being
meanly frightened by news their bodies could cause their babies harm.
In the news, a new government report is said to have found that rising levels of obesity could be contributing to
rates of stillbirths in the UK. The same source used by the news last year to claim obesity contributed to mothers
dying in childbirth is now being used to scare them about their babies’ safety. It wasn’t true last year and
it isn’t today. But the misperceptions are the same, so let’s start by looking back at what we learned about
the women in the report last year. (Junkfood Science)
Parents
warned to vaccinate children after first diphtheria death in 14 years - Parents are being reminded to check
their child is fully vaccinated after a boy died from diphtheria in London.
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said the child was not immunised against the disease, which can cause membranes
in the throat to detach and obstruct the airways, causing suffocation.
The boy is the first to die from the C. diphtheriae strain in England and Wales since 1994.
The last death from any strain was in 2006. (Daily Mail)
Time
to recognize Web addiction as illness - Compulsive emailing and text messaging could soon become classified an
official brain illness.
An editorial in this month's issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry says Internet addiction - including
"excessive gaming, sexual preoccupations and email/text messaging" - is a common compulsive-impulsive
disorder that should be added to psychiatry's official guidebook of mental disorders. (Canwest News Service)
Cut and
paste: school nutrition research goes to Canada - A new study was just reported by the Heart and Stroke
Foundation in Canada as finding that schools that stop offering sugary sodas and fatty snacks could see
significant drops in childhood obesity in just two years — a 33% lower risk for becoming overweight among the
students.
A gold star if you realized it was the same study reported last month.
Remember those long-awaited results of the intensive program that put to test the Student Nutrition Policy being
promoted in U.S. schools? It threw every intervention recommended in the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention’s Guidelines to Promote Lifelong Healthy Eating and Physical Activity at the kids. While billions of
dollars were riding on proving school healthy eating programs are effective and help children, the results
didn’t receive much fanfare here.
Not surprisingly. Despite what it put the children through, the school nutrition program had no effect on the
incidence, prevalence, or remission of obesity, nor on changing BMIs. Worse, the intervention actually resulted in
the children eating fewer fruits and vegetables. Rather than repeat the full scoop and the story behind the claim
it lowered the risk of overweight, simply cut and paste the comprehensive overview here. (Junkfood Science)
'Eco-terrorist' gets 20 years for plotting
bombing campaign - An "eco-terrorist" convicted of plotting to blow up or firebomb government and
commercial buildings across California was on Thursday jailed for nearly 20 years, justice officials said. (AFP)
Wonder why AFP felt the need to place 'eco-terrorist' in quotes? It's not 'alleged' that these twits are
'eco-terrorists' but a fact since they have either pleaded or been found guilty. Or is it that AFP don't view
eco-terrorism a crime?
Birds make easy weather of
climate change - British great tits have proved themselves to be far more adaptable to climate change than
their counterparts in the Netherlands.
In the past half century the great tits living in Wytham Woods (also known as the Woods of Hazel) near Oxford,
have brought forward the date that they lay their eggs by an average of two weeks. The advance is a response to
climate change and the timings of the egg-laying showed that the birds tracked the variations in temperature. (The
Times)
Overlooked in the global
food crisis: A problem with dirt - WASHINGTON Science has provided the souped-up seeds to feed the world,
through biotechnology and old-fashioned crossbreeding. Now the problem is the dirt they're planted in.
As seeds get better, much of the world's soil is getting worse and people are going hungry. Scientists say if they
can get the world out of the economically triggered global food crisis, better dirt will be at the root of the
solution.
Soils around the world are deteriorating with about one-fifth of the world's cropland considered degraded in some
manner. The poor quality has cut production by about one-sixth, according to a World Resources Institute study.
Some scientists consider it a slow-motion disaster. (AP)
Credit where credit is due: Seth Boringtheme has done a much better job of this than his atrocious AGW
pieces.
More politically-inspired shortage: Half
of Argentine 2007/08 crop retained in the farms - The extended Argentine farmers/government conflict, which
was triggered in early March when the new sliding export taxes system was announced, and its renewed eight days of
protest, have left an estimated 44 million tons of grains and oil seeds unsold, valued in approximately 12 billion
US dollars, according to market analysts interviewed by the Buenos Aires press. (Mercopress)
May 8, 2008
Climate change? You're having
a laugh - A growing number of comedians are trying to find some humour in global warming. But it's not always
easy - and things can even turn nasty. James Russell reports (The Guardian)
Don't know why that should present a problem -- it's been a complete joke for two decades.
For those who keep trying to tell us clouds are properly included in current climate models, here's an
honest declaration on the state of play: Climate
modeling to require new breed of supercomputer - Three researchers from the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have proposed an innovative way to improve global climate change
predictions by using a supercomputer with low-power embedded microprocessors, an approach that would overcome
limitations posed by today’s conventional supercomputers.
In a paper published in the May issue of the International Journal of High Performance Computing Applications,
Michael Wehner and Lenny Oliker of Berkeley Lab’s Computational Research Division, and John Shalf of the
National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) lay out the benefit of a new class of supercomputers
for modeling climate conditions and understanding climate change. Using the embedded microprocessor technology
used in cell phones, iPods, toaster ovens and most other modern day electronic conveniences, they propose
designing a cost-effective machine for running these models and improving climate predictions.
... Understanding how human activity is changing global climate is one of the great scientific challenges of
our time. Scientists have tackled this issue by developing climate models that use the historical data of factors
that shape the earth’s climate, such as rainfall, hurricanes, sea surface temperatures and carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere. One of the greatest challenges in creating these models, however, is to develop accurate cloud
simulations.
Although cloud systems have been included in climate models in the past, they lack the details that could improve
the accuracy of climate predictions. Wehner, Oliker and Shalf set out to establish a practical estimate for
building a supercomputer capable of creating climate models at 1-kilometer (km) scale. A cloud system model at the
1-km scale would provide rich details that are not available from existing models.
To develop a 1-km cloud model, scientists would need a supercomputer that is 1,000 times more powerful than what
is available today, the researchers say. But building a supercomputer powerful enough to tackle this problem is a
huge challenge.
Historically, supercomputer makers build larger and more powerful systems by increasing the number of
conventional microprocessors—usually the same kinds of microprocessors used to build personal computers.
Although feasible for building computers large enough to solve many scientific problems, using this approach to
build a system capable of modeling clouds at a 1-km scale would cost about $1 billion. The system also would
require 200 megawatts of electricity to operate, enough energy to power a small city of 100,000 residents.
(Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory via R&D)
Climate prediction: No model for success (Roger
Harrabin, BBC News)
Squeaky wheel well-oiled: NASA
scientist to receive Scripps' Nierenberg Prize - LA JOLLA: James E. Hansen, a NASA scientist who says the Bush
administration attempted to censor his warnings about the perils of global warming, will be honored tomorrow night
at 7 at the Forum Theater of the La Jolla Playhouse at the University of California San Diego. The Scripps
Institution of Oceanography will give Hansen its 2008 Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest. Hansen
will receive a bronze medal and a $25,000 award. (Union-Tribune)
New
Paper On The Role Of Urban Regions In Weather Published - Lei et al 2008 - We have a new paper that has
appeared which reports on the role of an urban area (Mumbai, India) in a heavy rainfall event. The paper is Lei,
M., D. Niyogi, C. Kishtawal, R. Pielke Sr., A. Beltrán-Przekurat, T. Nobis, and S. Vaidya, 2008: Effect of
explicit urban land surface representation on the simulation of the 26 July 2005 heavy rain event over Mumbai,
India. Atmos. Chem. Phys., accepted. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
Somewhat belatedly: Prime TV: The Great
Global Warming Swindle - Prime TV: Important Viewing For Everyone Who Cares about the Planets future and our
Standard of living.
The documentary - The Great Global Warming Swindle - is to go to air on Prime TV on June 5th with a local debate
about its message. In my view this documentary essential viewing for anyone seriously trying to understand whether
the scientific evidence supports or rejects that man made CO2 emissions are causing the globe to warm, with
dangerous consequences for planet earth. This documentary is disturbing as it presents evidence from lots of
scientists that reject the proposition above. Yet from everywhere else we hear a different story and, because it
is now widely believed, we have to face huge costs and a big reduction in living standard worldwide to "save
the planet". (Press Release)
Nude Socialist with their knickers in a knot: Melting
glaciers release toxic chemical cocktail - Decades after most countries stopped spraying DDT, frozen stores of
the insecticide are now trickling out of melting Antarctic glaciers. The change means Adélie penguins have
recently been exposed to the chemical, according to a new study.
The trace levels found will not harm the birds, but the presence of the chemical could be an indication that other
frozen pollutants will be released because of climate change, says Heidi Geisz, a marine biologist at Virginia
Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester in the US. She led a team that sampled DDT levels in the penguins.
She worries that glaciers could release an alphabet soup of chemical pollutants into the ocean, including PCBs and
PBDEs – industrial chemicals that have been linked to health problems in humans. (NewScientist.com news service)
DDT? Who cares -- it isn't suitable for 'throw it at everything, all the time' broad acre use to which it was
placed (as a notably better substitute for arsenical sprays and other heavy metals in use prior to that) but it
is largely benign unless you happen to be a susceptible insect. NS inadvertently admit Antarctic glaciers
swelled and advanced in the '50s and 60s and are currently cycling back to levels observed prior to that --
probably not the message they had in mind with this piece.
$64 billion scam: Slower
Cuts In Greenhouse Gases Cloud Carbon Boom - COLOGNE, Germany - The global carbon market more than doubled in
value in 2007 to $64 billion, but that masked slow growth in actual greenhouse gas emissions cuts, the World
Bank's carbon finance unit said on Wednesday. (Reuters)
Canada Facing Kyoto Probe Over
Greenhouse Gases - OSLO - Canada will be investigated on suspicion of violating rules for registering
greenhouse gases that are the mainstay of a UN-led fight against global warming, official documents show.
(Reuters)
The Senile Crone still trying to ration your energy: The
Tax Trickery Spreads - It was bad enough when Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain decided to
engage in some petty pandering by calling for a suspension of the federal gas tax over the summer. What they
suggested would reduce needed tax revenues and hamper efforts to combat global warming. And it would fail to
deliver lower prices while giving oil companies more money. But neither senator is actually running the country,
so it might be tempting to chalk it all up to campaign pandering.
Unfortunately, their demagoguery is growing into a real problem, setting off a chain reaction of “me too”
proposals across the country to suspend state gasoline taxes, which tend to be much larger than the
18.4-cent-a-gallon federal levy. If the pandering spreads, it would go a long way in setting the nation’s energy
strategy in precisely the wrong direction. (New York Times)
All this damage to 'control' plant food: Kansas:
House passes bill on coal plants but veto looms - TOPEKA, Kan. — Supporters of two coal-fired power plants
in southwest Kansas failed again Wednesday to muster the support they’d need in the House to override a veto of
a bill to make sure the plants get built.
Legislative leaders tied the plants to economic development projects in other parts of the state in hopes of
attracting enough votes. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has vetoed two bills to clear the way for the plants and restrict
the power of the regulator who’s been blocking them.
The House approved the latest measure, 76-48. Because the Senate had approved it Tuesday night, 24-10, the bill
went to the governor.
But supporters were eight votes short in the House of the two-thirds majority they’d need to override a veto.
The margin in the Senate was three votes short, but six senators, including five supporters of the coal plants,
were absent when the vote was taken.
Backers of the plants have tried throughout the legislative session to attract votes by linking their construction
to other proposals, including “green” provisions. But the strategy hasn’t overcome concerns about the
plants’ potential carbon dioxide emissions and global warming. (Associated Press)
What
Democrats Won't Tell You About Climate Change - Here is what William Pizer, an economist at Resources for the
Future and a lead author on the most recent report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said
at a symposium earlier this week here in Washington: "As an economist, I am skeptical that [dealing with
climate change] is going to make money. You'll have new industries, but they'll be doing what old industries did
but a higher net cost.... You'll be depleting other industries."
Of course, many economists will recognize "the green is good for growth" trap that Obama and Clinton
have stumbled into. It's just a modern iteration of the famous "broken windows fallacy" where people
mistake the shifting of wealth and resources for the creation of new wealth and resources.
Pizer went on to say that calls for dramatic reductions in carbon emissions—the Democrats want 80 percent, John
McCain 65 percent—were also unrealistic unless there was "some event" that really galvanized public
opinion. Instead, what he predicted was a modest price on carbon via a cap-and-trade plan, a greater push for
efficiency, and more regulation of energy-intensive industries. (James Pethokoukis, Capital Commerce)
Government's green
targets 'will be missed' - Most of the green targets set since 1997 will be missed, a report said on
Wednesday.
The think tank, Policy Exchange, looked up 138 commitments made by central Government and found 60 per cent had
not been achieved, were likely to be missed or were too meaningless to monitor.
The report criticised a "disturbing trend" of the Government setting targets on climate change "as
an excuse for inaction" and criticised the setting of targets without any money being set aside to achieve
them.
The report, Green Dreams: a decade of missed targets, said the failure to meet targets on climate change - such as
the three-times-repeated manifesto target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 2010 - was "a serious
concern." (Daily Telegraph)
Greened
consumers turn red: Solomon - US presidential candidates John McCain and Hilary Clinton vow to combat man-made
climate change by curbing America's CO2 emissions. They also vow to give American drivers a tax holiday this
summer by suspending the federal gas tax. Voters are upset at the price they must pay at the pump.
New Zealand is a world leader in championing climate change reform. It will be exempting gasoline from the
government's emissions trading scheme until 2011 to dampen voter upset over rising living costs. New Zealand's
Kyoto protocol commitments exceed $1-billion -- that's how much New Zealand will be paying other countries for
carbon credits.
New Zealand can't hold a candle to the UK, however, which has plans to spend £3,000 per family, and possibly much
more, to combat climate change -- far more than any other EU country. With the British stiff upper lip beginning
to curl at the politicians who are forcing these these costs on them to no evident benefit, politicians are in
retreat. The ruling Labour Party is expected to trash the "bin tax" on householders who improperly
recycle their waste and put off increasing announced gas taxes. The opposition Conservatives likewise plan to
shelve green taxes if elected.
When the rubber hits the road, the carbon tax erodes. (Lawrence Solomon, National Post)
More nonsense: Petrify,
liquefy: new ways to bury greenhouse gas - OSLO - Turn greenhouse gases to stone? Transform them into a
treacle-like liquid deep under the seabed?
The ideas may sound like far-fetched schemes from an alchemist's notebook but scientists are pursuing them as many
countries prepare to bury captured greenhouse gases in coming years as part of the fight against global warming.
Analysts say the search for a suitable technology could become a $150 billion-plus market. But a big worry is that
gases may leak from badly chosen underground sites, perhaps jolted open by an earthquake.
Such leaks could be deadly and would stoke climate change. (Reuters)
Guess what? We still have zero evidence (or indication) that atmospheric carbon dioxide can drive
climate on Earth-like planets.
Fury over 'unethical'
warming website - New Zealand climate scientists are upset their names have been used by an American
organisation wanting to challenge the increasingly accepted view that climate change is human induced.
Among the five scientists is Niwa principal scientist Dr Jim Salinger, who said he was annoyed the Heartland
Institute was trying to use his research to prove a theory he did not personally support.
The institute describes itself as a non-profit research and education organisation not affiliated with any
political party, business or foundation.
Dr Salinger said he was never contacted about his work which was being mis-used to undermine support for the idea
that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, largely fossil fuel burning, was warming the globe.
"I object to the implication that my research supports their position ... they didn't check with me."
He said that he and the other New Zealand scientists all felt their work had been misinterpreted. (New Zealand
Herald)
Hmm... doesn't sound like Heartland did themselves any favors with their list but, that said, just because
you publish research doesn't preclude others from drawing differing conclusions from it. See, for example, how
climate modelers endlessly tweak their models to wiggle fit past time series with their assertion CO2
drives climate and then conclude they can model climate -- we conclude they're full of it from exactly the same
modeling studies. Doubtless modelers would love to claim we misuse their results too but two diametrically
opposed conclusions from one set of observations is hardly unusual and certainly not newsworthy. The Herald
has solicited a response: Website
defends naming Kiwis as climate change sceptics (New Zealand Herald)
Not really: Global climate models both agree and
disagree with actual Antarctic data - Scientists who compared recorded Antarctic temperatures and snowfall
accumulation to predictions by major computer models of global climate change offer both good and bad news.
The models’ predictions covering the last 50 years broadly follow the actual observed temperatures and snowfall
for the southernmost continent, although the observations are very variable.
That’s the good news.
The bad news, however, is that a similar comparison that includes the entire last century is a poor match
Projections of temperatures and snowfall ranged from 2.5 to five times what they actually were during that period.
(Ohio State University)
What it actually means is that their wiggle fitting only works for brief periods before breaking down and
thus they are not modeling the system at all, merely achieving accidental concurrence for brief periods.
Still got it bass-ackward: Cold
Water Thrown on Antarctic Warming Predictions - Antarctica hasn't warmed as much over the last century as
climate models had originally predicted, a new study finds.
Climate change's effects on Antarctica are of particular interest because of the substantial amount of water
locked up in its ice sheets. Should that water begin to melt, sea levels around the globe could rise and inundate
low-lying coastal areas.
The new study, detailed in the April 5 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, marks the first time
that researchers have been able to give a progress report on Antarctic climate model projections by comparing
climate records to model simulations (these comparisons have been done for the other six continents). Information
about Antarctica's harsh weather patterns has traditionally been limited, but temperature records from ice cores
and ground weather stations have recently been constructed, giving scientists the missing information they needed.
"This is a really important exercise for these climate models," said study leader Andrew Monaghan of the
National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Co. (Andrea Thompson, LiveScience.com)
No, the 'ozone hole' does not cause the south polar vortex but rather appears because of it. Modelers
still have a long way to go with 'cause and effect'.
Back to the 'aerosols wuz hiding it': Cleaner
air to worsen droughts in Amazon: study - Curbing a notorious form of industrial pollution may ironically harm
Amazonia, one of the world's natural treasures and a key buffer against global warming, a study released Wednesday
has found.
Its authors see a strong link between a decrease in sulphur dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants and a
rise in sea temperature in the northern Atlantic that was blamed for wreaking a devastating drought in western
Amazonia in 2005.
University of Exeter professor Peter Cox and colleagues created a computer model to simulate the impact of
aerosols -- airborne particles that, like sulphur dioxide, are also spewed out by fossil-fuel power plants -- on
Amazonia's climate.
The aerosols, while a bad pollutant, indirectly ease the problem of global warming as they reflect sunlight,
making it bounce back into space rather than warm the Earth's surface.
In the 1970s and 1980s, according to Cox's model, high concentrations of aerosols over the highly industrialised
northern hemisphere had the effect of buffering the impact of global warming on north Atlantic surface waters,
which led to more rain over Amazonia. (AFP)
Even though atmospheric chemists have no idea whether these aerosols are even capable of behaving in the
manner modeled that doesn't stop virtual worlders using them as an excuse. So, how long before PDO and AMO phase
shifts are completely ignored (along with solar effects) and current lack of warming is declared because China
is 'hiding' global warming via emissions from all their new coal-fired power plants they keep bring on line
every, what is it now, 4-5 days?
Global Warming and Cooling - The Reality - Stephen Wilde
has been a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society since 1968. The first two article's from Mr Wilde were
received with a great deal of interest throughout the Co2 Sceptic community.
In Stephen Wilde's third and exclusive article for CO2Sceptics.Com, he explores the mechanics and mechanism
involved that are attributed to the Earth's Warming and Cooling, needless to say the presence of CO2 is not part
of the process.
Global Warming and Cooling - The Reality. (Co2sceptic)
International group disavows UN’s climate claims
- NASHVILLE, Tenn.—TIME magazine warned that scientists had observed “bizarre and unpredictable weather
patterns” which led them to believe the world was headed for “a global climatic upheaval.” Fluctuations in
temperature, rainfall and sea ice were all described as signs of impending doom.
But the scientists interviewed by TIME weren’t talking about global warming, and the magazine wasn’t
issued in the 21st century. The June 1974 report in TIME warned of a new ice age, touching off other
articles in respected publications about expanding glaciers, crop failures and killer tornados.
Newsweek, for example, published its own story within a year, claiming that the evidence in support of
the dire predictions “has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard pressed to keep up
with it.” The New York Times followed in 1975, noting that “a major cooling is widely considered to be
inevitable.”
For more than a century, American scientists and newspapers have been predicting catastrophic climate changes.
So far, none of the climate predictions has proven true.
On Feb. 24, 1895, The New York Times warned of the next Ice Age, and in 1923, the Chicago Tribune
warned that ice would soon make Canada uninhabitable. But by 1933, the same papers were warning of the greatest
rise in temperatures since 1776. Reports two decades later also spoke of a spike in global temperatures. Even TIME
magazine reported on global warming in 1951, just two decades before the article on a new Ice Age. (BP)
A
reminder to us flyspecks on an elephant’s butt - This article from NASA’s Science portal is a sobering
reminder of the power of our nearest star. Given that we are in a deep solar minimum now, I thought I’d remind
everyone of the kinds of things that can happen when solar max and a cantankerous CME erupts.
The vanity held by many of us puny humans tends to bolster a belief that we control our own destiny within the
universe, or are even masters of our own climate control. Recent events such as the PDO shift remind us that the
slow but powerful forces of nature remain in control.
If this solar event in 1859 happened today, it would probably be known as “the day the silicon died”. Given
how dependent we are on technology now, and given how much wiring we all have to act as antennas, one CME like
this one could spell worldwide disaster. (Watts Up With That?)
Oh boy... US Senate
Democrats Unveil New Energy Tax Plan - WASHINGTON - Democrats in the Senate Wednesday unveiled a new energy
package that would revoke $17 billion in tax breaks extended to big oil companies like Exxon Mobil Corp and slap a
25 percent windfall profits tax on firms that don't invest in new energy sources. (Reuters)
Politically Contrived Gasoline Shortage - The
earth is hardly exhausting the resources to make abundant, affordable gasoline. The technology to make gasoline,
even when oil wells run dry, already exists. Rising gasoline prices will automatically set the stage, so that
synthesizing gasoline from a wide variety of source materials will become increasingly profitable. However, the
enjoyment of plentiful gasoline may not be in our future in spite of its feasibility. Political interference with
the construction and operation of refineries and synthesizing plants places the world at the mercy of those who
believe they must deprive humankind of cheap fossil fuels. Their persistent obstruction of the construction and
expansion of petroleum refineries has already proved capable of contriving a mild energy crisis. (Craig S. Marxsen,
Independent Institute)
Law firm vows to sue if U.S. links climate to
polar bear's survival - A Sacramento law firm known for its conservative advocacy is poised to join the
political melee over the fate of the polar bear, vowing Wednesday to sue the government if global warming is cited
as a threat to the species.
The Pacific Legal Foundation's warning comes in response to a much-anticipated decision next week by the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service on whether to protect Alaskan polar bears under the Endangered Species Act. The service faces
a court-ordered deadline of May 15 for that ruling. (Sacramento Bee)
Polar Bear Scare Could Maul Energy
Production - Global warming alarmists, news media portray arctic beasts as victims and spokesbears, but
protecting their thriving population means greatly increased federal power to control our lives. (Nathan Burchfiel,
Business & Media Institute)
Pain
at the Plug: Fuel Costs Push Up Electricity Rates, Too - American consumers just coming to grips with higher
gasoline prices can now count on another worry: higher electricity prices. Something has to give—but will it be
electricity demand, or power-company profits? (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
Those Windfall CFL Programs - Martin Watcher, the
marvelous mysterious blogger in Maryland, does the math today on the
Public Service Commission's compact fluorescent light bulb program. The upshot is that the major utilities,
Baltimore Gas & Electric and Allegany Power, have reaped nearly $1 million per month from the program thanks
to surcharges on their customers' bills. From O'Malley Watch: (Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch)
Food
and fuel follies - By Ed Feulner - "What could possibly go wrong?" That's what members of Congress
probably thought when they started shoveling bigger subsidies at ethanol producers. Now, with food riots erupting
in some parts of the world, we have our answer: a lot.
Other factors — a weak dollar, high energy costs, low crop yields in places such as Australia — have played a
role in this crisis. But diverting food to fuel is clearly a contributor and it exacerbates the situation.
(Washington Times)
EU still far from agreeing biofuel standards: diplomats
- The European Union remains far from agreeing on how to tighten its rules for using biofuels, diplomats said
Wednesday amid growing opposition towards such forms of energy. (AFP)
Spin
This: Booming Wind Industry Still Seeks Subsidies - Here’s a challenge: How do you keep clamoring for
subsidies when your industry shatters growth records with numbing regularity? (Keith Johnson, WSJ)
Have you heard
the news — on the federal genetic database and surveillance program? - Two major new pieces of legislation
have received virtually no notice by mainstream media, but, incredibly, give the federal government the ability to
both collect the DNA on every American and establish a nationalized DNA database and surveillance system, and to
legalize the sharing of genetic information without patient consent. The names given the legislation aren’t what
they sound. (Junkfood Science)
Your secret’s safe with
us - USA Today reports that thieves are using increasingly sophisticated methods to access electronic medical
records and steal patient information. Only two states require people to be notified when their personal health
information has been fraudulently accessed, according to the story. (Junkfood Science)
Apparently not a joke: New
Study: Conservatives are Happier Because They Hate Everyone - There is a news report starting to make the
rounds amongst the MSM on a study that claims to have discovered why conservatives tend to be happier than
liberals and it is just the sort of bilge that the MSM loves to promulgate. We may see more of it over the next
several days because, while it is titled "Conservatives Happier Than Liberals," it is basically saying
that the reason conservatives are happier is because they just don't care about other people. This purported
research claims to pinpoint the reason conservatives are happier and it is because they have theirs and they don't
care if everyone else is poor and downtrodden. In contrast they claim liberals are less happy because they care
more about people and are all heartbroken that people suffer "inequalities."
Yes, if they are telling us that if you're a happy conservative, it's because you are a hateful, meanie. Thank you
New York University. (NewsBusters)
AP's flooded the wires with this rubbish: Climate
Change Jeopardizes Koalas - (CANBERRA, Australia) — Koalas are threatened by the rising level of carbon
dioxide pollution in the atmosphere because it saps nutrients from the eucalyptus leaves they feed on, a
researcher said Wednesday. Ian Hume, emeritus professor of biology at Sydney University, said he and his
researchers also found that the amount of toxicity in the leaves of eucalyptus saplings rose when the level of
carbon dioxide within a greenhouse was increased. Hume presented his research on the effects of carbon dioxide on
eucalyptus leaves to the Australian Academy of Science in Canberra on Wednesday. The researchers found that carbon
dioxide in eucalyptus leaves affects the balance of nutrients and "anti-nutrients" — substances that
are either toxic or interfere with the digestion of nutrients. An increase in carbon dioxide favors the trees'
production of carbon-based anti-nutrients over nutrients, so leaves can become toxic to koalas, Hume said. (AP)
Bottom line, eucalypts in Australia are well adapted to Australia's perpetual drought interrupted by
occasional floods and as conditions dry eucalyptus leaves become progressively more toxic (a natural
concentration of tannins and other toxins as a consequence of reduced diluting water in leaf cells, one natural
selection has favored since it reduces grazing pressure from insect pests and increases the trees' drought
survival chances). Koalas, too, have evolved with this cycle of drought and variable nutrient quality and will
not notice the trivial difference invoked by slight changes in aerial fertilization with atmospheric carbon
dioxide (notice that zoos around the world have koala populations living happily on eucalypts grown under
conditions wildly different from those found on Australia's eastern coastal littoral, where koalas are endemic).
Can't blame other disciplines for coveting a slice of the mega-billions thrown at gorebull warming and full
points to Hume for creatively acquiring some with an imaginative study design but fair suck of the sauce bottle
guys (Australian colloquialism similar to "fair go," implying greed or inequity), this is way beyond
the pale and will actually worry kiddies who think koalas are cute and cuddly and now endangered. Time to give
this nonsense a rest.
Alternatives to ozone-depleting pesticide
studied - Methyl bromide, an odorless, colorless gas used as an agricultural pesticide, was introduced in the
1980s as an effective way to control weeds and increase fruit yields. Agricultural production nurseries around the
world relied on methyl bromide (MB) to produce healthy plants for export and domestic sales. In 2000, the widely
used pesticide was classified as an ozone-depleting substance, and in 2005 MB was banned in the United States and
all European Union countries. (American Society for Horticultural Science)
Ozone depletion -- the 'problem' that never was...
Is Cheap Meat Bigger Threat to Amazon
than Biofuels? - Brazil plans to massively expand the production of biofuels but environmental campaigners
worry about the effect this will have on the rainforest. Germany's environment minister, who recently visited the
country, thinks demand for cheap meat presents an even great danger. (Der Spiegel)
A world apart - The
set-aside scheme to stop farmers producing unwanted crops resulted in unforeseen benefits as the land provided a
haven for wildlife. But what will happen now the EC has shelved the requirement? (The Guardian)
Maybe it'll be put to work feeding people...
May 7, 2008
Enviros oppose carbon capture and storage -- Here's a wake-up-call for all the naive coal and electric
utility folk out there who think that the enviros will ever allow the capture and underground sequestration of
carbon dioxide. Check out this letter to
Congress from dozens of nutjob green groups -- including Greenpeace, Rainforest Action network and Friends of the
Earth -- announcing their opposition to carbon capture & storage (CCS). The enviros want "no new
investments in major infrastructure that increases fossil fuel dependence."
Environmentalists Still Can't Get It
Right - Now that another Earth Day has come and gone, let's look at some environmentalist predictions they
would prefer we forget. (Walter E. Williams, IBD)
Al Gore Calls Myanmar Cyclone a
'Consequence' of Global Warming - Former vice president tells NPR's 'Fresh Air' cyclone is example of
'consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming.' (Jeff Poor,
Business & Media Institute)
Warming? Really? Look at the toll from major Bay of Bengal cyclones 1961-70, when warming was definitely not
on the agenda:
May 9, 1961 - BANGLADESH - About 12,500 people are killed in a cyclone with top wind speed of 161 kph
(101 mph).
May 28, 1963 - BANGLADESH - Severe cyclone hits Chittagong coast in the night, destroying about 1 million
homes, and killing more than 11,500 people.
Nov. 12, 1970 - BANGLADESH - The country's deadliest cyclone destroys Chittagong and dozens of coastal
villages, killing around 500,000 people.
MSNBC effectively destroy propaganda value of kid's gorebull warming
indoctrination video - We're a little late on this one but can't resist (it was just brought to our attention
by reader Ron Castleton). Breitbart TV has captures of the original
(below) and corrected versions. As you can see from the captured still, MSNBC thought to brighten up the dull and
boring flat, white Arctic scenery with some sightseeing shots -- from
the wrong hemisphere. Actually it's quite fitting since the entire object of the exercise is a misinformation
campaign designed to deceive UK and US students over gorebull warming and Arctic meltdown so they might as well
advertise what rubbish it is by featuring wildlife from the opposing pole.
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