Archives - September 2009 Peter Foster: Climate policy bust The Copenhagen meeting in December from which a successor to Kyoto was meant to emerge will obviously be a bust. The G20 has at last caught on that the global economy
doesn’t really need another policy shock right now. Rich nations are reluctant to ship more billions to corruptly-governed poor nations under the cover of “green
development.” China and India — rightly — aren’t going to curtail their growth in order to cater to the self-serving nightmares of would-be global governors. Treemometers: A new scientific scandal - If a peer review fails in the woods... A scientific scandal is casting a shadow over a number of recent peer-reviewed climate papers. How the global warming
industry is based on one MASSIVE lie For the growing band of AGW “Sceptics” the following story is dynamite. And for those who do believe in Al Gore’s highly profitable myth about “Man-Made Global
Warming”, it will no doubt feel as comfortable as the rectally inserted suicide bomb that put paid to an Al Qaeda operative earlier this week. What Does the Last Decade Tell Us about Global Warming? (Hint: the ‘skeptics’ have the momentum) “Worldwide temperatures haven’t risen much in the past decade…. If you are a climate-change activist pointing to year after year of mounting climate crises, you
might want to rethink your approach.” There has been a flurry of activity in recent weeks in the discussion as to the significance (scientific, political, social) of the evolution of the global average surface
temperature during the past 10 years or so. Climate Changes for U.S. Chamber Global warming has put the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on the hot seat. In recent weeks, three utilities have announced plans to drop their membership or reduce their role in
the powerful business organization because of the Chamber’s opposition to pending legislation that would cap carbon emissions. Exelon
Joins U.S. Chamber of Rentseeking, says JunkScience.com in Mock Media Release WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 -- JunkScience.com issued a mock media release today spotlighting Exelon Corp.'s recent announcement that it was cancelling its membership in the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce because of the Chamber's opposition to carbon dioxide emissions caps. Climate superstition with a 'net megaphone -- a really BAD idea: Blog Action Day - Climate Change? Why Climate Change? The BAD Blog About Blog Action Day Are
Warmist-Journalists Helping Spread The Skeptical Word In The UK? Who could have guessed…journalists
are third from bottom in the list of trusted public figures in the UK, a poll has just shown. A great progress indeed (they had the pride of last place until
now), apart from the fact that this year they have been beaten by scandal-plagued parliamentarians and Government ministers on their way down. Now, consider also the vast amounts of AGW belief among British journalism (eg BBC, Guardian, Independent, most tabloids if not all of them, apart from a tiny number of
mostly politically-motivated people at The Daily Telegraph). Is it any wonder then that AGW skepticism is on the increase in the UK? Perhaps the impact of all the rivers of ink and bytes dedicated by non-skeptical AGW British media should not be underrated… (OmniClimate) Landmark 2nd
Circuit Ruling May Open Gates for Climate Cases Climate change lawsuits gained new urgency for environmentalists and industry groups alike last week when a federal appeals court issued a ruling that both sides see as a
potential game changer. Oh boy... Is 350
the New 450 When It Comes to Capping Carbon Emissions? When it comes to fighting climate change, pick a number -- any number. What they all overlook is that there is NO SAFE LEVEL OF CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS CONTROL. These are the sort of scare stories that really annoy me: By
2050, 25m more children will go hungry as climate change leads to food crisis Twenty-five million more children will go hungry by the middle of this century as climate change leads to food shortages and soaring prices for staples such as rice,
wheat, maize and soya beans, a report says today. Anti-biotech, anti-population, anti-everything useful Luddites interfere with development, fertilizer subsidies, crop improvement, divert land into
growing "biofuels" and on and on -- then claim we won't manage to feed people because the planet might be less-cold. Sigh... CIA Opens Center on
Climate Change and National Security The Central Intelligence Agency is launching The Center on Climate Change and National Security as the focal point for its work on the subject. The Center is a small unit
led by senior specialists from the Directorate of Intelligence and the Directorate of Science and Technology. Senate
Cap and Trade Bill Draft Released: Worse Than House Version Back at the end of
June, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Waxman-Markey cap
and trade global warming tax bill. This bill would cost millions of American jobs,
raise our electric bills by 40% or more, hinder much-needed refining
capacity, hurt foreign trade, block much-needed power
plant development, require home inspections
and environmental retrofitting before we can sell our homes, regulate how much water
we can use in our own homes, Courtesy of the Green
Hell Blog, we have a look at the draft of the Senate
version of the cap and trade global warming tax bill. Apparently, not to be outdone by the asininity and hostility
toward the American people of the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate has upped the ante and called for a 20%
reduction in greenhouse gases, even more egregious than the House bill. All this to “fix” a problem that doesn’t even exist! (Bob Ellis, Dakota Voice) Senators' Climate
Draft Mirrors House Bill, With Some Exceptions An early version of Senate climate legislation obtained today by E&E confirms that Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) largely plan to follow the
path their Democratic colleagues pursued in the House-passed climate bill. Funny, Most Americans Weren’t At
The Bargaining Table ClimateWire, via the New York Times, leads its Boxer-Kerry climate-change-bill story thusly: Ending some nine months of closed-door deliberations, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) will release global warming legislation Wednesday that they
hope will be the vehicle for broader Senate negotiations and an eventual conference with the House. Odd. We don’t remember most Americans being at the table, so we’re curious to see what comes out. And, as we’ve stated time and again, it is us workers and consumers
that will be hardest hit by the kind of cap and trade bill passed by the House of Representatives and whispered about in the Senate. In fact, there’s new evidence of just how bad cap and trade will be for most of us. Andrew Chamberlain, lead author of a
new analysis released for the Institute for Energy Research, said: “Many of the current estimates of cap-and trade’s distributional impact are in direct contradiction to microeconomic theory. Using implausible assumptions about free
emissions allowances, the government’s analysis concludes that the costs associated with cap-and-trade legislation are progressive. Unfortunately, they are almost
certainly regressive, with America’s top income-earners profiting by more than $14 billion per year, and low- and middle-income households footing a large portion of the
burden. What’s more, the free allowances distributed under Waxman-Markey will result in large windfall profits for the corporate allies of the legislation.” So, hold onto your hats (and wallets) Wednesday. (The Chilling Effect) E.U. Alone and Lonely on
Carbon BRUSSELS — Carbon trading put the European Union in the environmental vanguard. Costly Carbon Cuts - Proposed Strategies Would Hurt
the Most Vulnerable COPENHAGEN -- In speech after rousing speech at the United Nations summit on global warming last week, politicians emphasized the need to protect the world's most
vulnerable, who will be hit hardest by climate change. The rhetoric did little to disguise an awful truth: If we continue on our current path, we are likely to harm the
world's poorest much more than we help them. Correction to This Article It's too late to seal a global climate
deal. But we need action, not Kyoto II Climate is too complex an issue to get in one gulp. If Copenhagen can pave the way for practical steps, an agreement can wait (Jeffrey Sachs, The Guardian) Oh... It's the climate, stupid A deal at Copenhagen must have equality and social justice at its heart, or our time may be seen in future as the Age of Stupid
This
age is likely to be known as the age of stupid for being so climate superstitious but never mind... As alternate-energy champ Spain's green economy slides into recession, a German professor says if American "climate illiterates" don't follow, the Copenhagen
climate conference will fail. And the bad news is? It's always about the money: Cash is crucial to Bangkok talks While delegates at the just-opened round of UN climate negotiations in the Thai capital are working their way through an extensive draft text for a global accord, the
pressure is on rich countries to deliver finance for developing world’s adaptation. (CoP15) Climate heating up at EU global warming talks BRUSSELS – Europe, which hopes to be a model for the world at UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December, is squabbling internally over who cuts what and who pays for
it. Garnaut slams rural climate sceptics Australia's top climate change expert has likened global warming sceptics in rural areas to sharks. Funny how economists are "top climate experts" when it suits the warmy narrative... Senator Boswell's response: GARNAUT NO SHARK HUNTER “Rural areas have much worse sharks circling them than climate change sceptics,” said The Nationals’ Senator Ron Boswell today in response to Ross Garnaut’s recent
comments on Sky News. Back to the REDD scam: Conservation Groups Say Forest Carbon Market Critical to Climate
Change Solution Conservation groups say creating a global market for trading carbon credits from uncut forests is critical to fighting climate change and should be part of a United
Nations-backed agreement being whittled down in Bangkok. But, there are many challenges to expanding the carbon market. Newly discovered critters are always newsworthy, at least from the novelty angle... Secret
life of plants and animals vital in warming struggle THE world must invest more in identifying plants and animal species in the wake of climate change, the author of a new audit of global species has warned. (SMH) ... so why hitch them to an absurd gorebull warming angle? Are critters and their ranges affected by changing mean temperatures? Of course. Are some of
these as yet unnamed critters clinging precariously at the limits of their tolerated range waiting for a return of the conditions found in the Holocene Climatic Optimum?
Undoubtedly. That means we need warming of 1 °C - 3 °C or even more to make those critters "safe". Which temperature are we going to make
"optimum" and why? What is preferable about cold-adapted critters than warm ones? This is such a stupid game. Shriek! Increase in sea levels due to global warming could lead to
'ghost states' Global warming could create "ghost states" with governments in exile ruling over scattered citizens and land that has been abandoned to rising seas, an expert
said yesterday. If States cease to exist, as they so frequently have in the past, then they cease to exist, don't they. Met any Carthaginians lately? Goths? Trojans?
Vandals? Incans or Mayans maybe? Heck, for Slavic States you just about need a live update subscription for you atlas... What is it with these guys always seeking to
pretend there has ever been stasis? It's a dynamic world, get over it. Um, kind of... Two metre sea level rise inevitable A leading sea level scientist says a rise of at least two metres in the world's sea levels is now almost unstoppable. Provided we don't head into an ice age in the next couple of thousand years then yes, sea levels are expected to rise by a couple of meters but that has
nothing to do with human use of fossil fuels. It could even happen in as little as 1,000 years but that's about as quickly as such a rise can be anticipated. Waist-deep in fieldwork - Anticipating global warming,
scientists are measuring the long-term effect of extra carbon dioxide on marsh plants This lush marsh south of Annapolis seems like an alien landscape - clear plastic bubbles dot the watery plain, with curved white pipes poking, periscope-like, out of the
tall, green grass. Green plants, totally dependent on atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and long known to thrive with increasing levels thereof, fair well exposed
to... CO2. Boy, sure wish I paid more taxes to support more experiments like that... From CO2 Science Volume 12 Number 39: 30 September 2009 Editorial: Medieval
Warm Period Record of the Week: Subject Index Summary: Plant Growth Data: Journal Reviews: Landfalling Tropical Cyclones of the Philippines: Have they become more or less frequent in response to
20th-century global warming? FACE-Based Crop Responses to Projected CO2 and Climate Changes in Germany: Does the
future look rosy or bleak? Corals vs. Macroalgae in a CO2-Enriched and Warmer World: Which is destined to
predominate? Plant Responses to Recent Warming in the Southern Alps: Have any of the predicted "biodiversity
disasters" occurred? (co2science.org) Urs Neu has alerted us to an observationally based paper that documents a change of surface radiative forcing that is consistent with our studies {as well
as further refutes claims to the contrary; e.g. see). Pielke Sr., R.A., and T. Matsui, 2005: Should light wind and windy nights have the same temperature trends
at individual levels even if the boundary layer averaged heat content change is the same?Geophys. Res. Letts., 32, No. 21, L21813, 10.1029/2005GL024407 and Klotzbach, P.J., R.A. Pielke Sr., R.A. Pielke Jr., J.R. Christy, and R.T. McNider, 2009: An alternative
explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere. J. Geophys. Res., in press (with edits still to be made in the final
published version). In the second paper we wrote “…… if, for instance, there is a long-term positive trend in greenhouse gas concentrations or cloudiness over the observing site, it may introduce an upward bias in
the observational record of minimum temperatures that necessarily will result in an upward bias in the long-term surface temperature record.” The paper recommended by Urs Neu is Philipona, R., B. Durr, C. Marty, A. Ohmura, and M. Wild (2004), Radiative forcing – measured at
Earth’s surface – corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L03202, doi:10.1029/ 2003GL018765. The abstract reads “The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases and radiative forcing to increase as a result of human
activities. Nevertheless, changes in radiative forcing related to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations could not be experimentally detected at Earth’s surface so far.
Here we show that atmospheric longwave downward radiation significantly increased (+5.2(2.2) Watts per meter squared) partly due to increased cloud amount (+1.0(2.8)
Watts per meter squared) over eight years of measurements at eight radiation stations distributed over the central Alps. Model calculations show the cloud-free longwave flux
increase (+4.2(1.9) Watts per meter squared) to be in due proportion with temperature (+0.82(0.41) C) and absolute humidity (+0.21(0.10) g per meter cubed) increases, but
three times larger than expected from anthropogenic greenhouse gases. However, after subtracting for two thirds of temperature and humidity rises, the increase of cloud-free
longwave downward radiation (+1.8(0.8) Watts per meter squared) remains statistically significant and demonstrates radiative forcing due to an enhanced greenhouse effect.” This paper documents that changes of 1 Watt per meter squared (or more) in the long wave fluxes that we examined in Pielke and Matsui (2005) are realistic. The
Klotzbach et al (2009) paper demonstrates that a significant bias is introduced in the land portion of the global surface temperature trend which is used in the
assessment of global warming, that can be explained, at least in part, due to such changes in long wave radiative fluxes at night. (Climate Science) Company Backed by Gore Gets Taxpayer Millions A start-up automotive company backed by former Vice President Al Gore has been loaned more than half a billion dollars by the federal government. Gas Taxes, Peak Oil and Long Range Energy Planning Ed. note: This item originally ran in Robert Rapier's R-Squared Energy Blog. Sadly, stupidity is a limitless resource: The Climate Bill
is Already Killing Coal Plants The largest utility company in Arizona has no plans to build another coal plant, despite the fact that energy demand is scheduled to rise 50% over the next 15 years. NV
Energy, another utility with 2.4 million customers, is putting its only scheduled coal plant on hold indefinitely--until carbon capture becomes viable. These are just a
couple of the utility companies that are willingly killing plans for coal power to prepare for laws that would put a price on carbon. Here's how the mere specter of a climate
bill is phasing out coal--and how a good bill could finish the job without damaging the economy. (Brian Merchant, TreeHugger) Researchers
seek ‘preheater' for oil sands - Project hopes to explore the use of geothermal energy to help cut carbon emissions A new international research partnership based in Alberta hopes to answer an intriguing question: Could the warm rocks of deep Earth wean the oil sands off their heavy
natural gas diet? BERLIN, Sept. 28 -- Nuclear energy is set to be revived in Germany as Chancellor Angela Merkel can form her coalition of choice after this Sunday's elections. India to invest heavily in nuclear power Nuclear energy will become a cornerstone of India’s efforts to supply its population with electricity while keeping down contributions to global warming, says Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh. (CoP15) Eye-roller: Steven Chu to
greenhouse gases: We will bury you The U.S. Secretary of Energy—channeling former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev perhaps?—has one thing to say in this week's Science to the greenhouse gases emitted by
coal-fired power plants: We will bury you. Nobel laureate Steven Chu's department has funneled $3.4 billion in stimulus dollars to research and develop the technology known
as carbon capture and storage (CCS). Dopey on so many levels... By the way, enhanced oil recovery (a very good thing) is not much of a sequestration technique (which is good because
sequestration is a serious waste of an environmental resource). That's because you get 60-80% of your CO2 back with the oil or gas you flush out with it, so you
are not really wasting a lot of your essential trace gas, just slightly delaying its return to the atmosphere. Expensive, wasteful, pointless: Canada asked to join nations in pumping greenhouse gases
underground OTTAWA – Canada is being courted to form a group of countries that will commit to permanently storing greenhouse gas emissions underground on a large-scale by 2020,
pushing an expensive but promising technology into the vanguard of the global warming fight. Coerced vaccinations? For 'flu-A-H1N1? Seems a bit over the top but not particularly hazardous nor unreasonable: N.Y.
Health Care Workers Revolt Over H1N1 Vaccine - Saying They Should Be Given A Choice, Employees Rally In Albany, Around State, Chant "No Forced Shots!" They're upset over an ultimatum from the health department. If I had to deal with a higher proportion of pregnant women or youths & infants then I'd have the vaccination simply to avoid being a carrier and
infecting at-risk groups since this particular strain can be a problem for some. I can see it's much easier and safer for the State to simply say everyone who works in the
health field and who wants to continue to do so must be inoculated (saves litigation problems with people claiming to have been harmed by exposure to potential carriers in
the health service... ). Like so much to do with this declared pandemic this is a lot of noise with little substance. What's everyone's problem? Cancer jab ‘was not to blame' for Natalie Morton's death A vaccine to protect against cervical cancer was unlikely to have caused the death of the schoolgirl Natalie Morton, health officials said last night. The world before vaccines is too easy to forget -
All medical treatments have risks, but the dangers from immunisation are far outweighed by the number of lives saved When I was 6, very shortly before polio vaccine was released, my best friend, from whom I was inseparable, contracted the disease, and was permanently paralysed from the
waist down. Eating in America Still Unhealthy: CDC
- State-by-state report finds too few people meet fruit and veggie guidelines TUESDAY, Sept. 29 -- Most Americans don't eat the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables, says a U.S. government study released Tuesday. And no state has achieved
national objectives for consumption of fruits and vegetables, it found. And yet they are living longer than ever... Skinny friends may make you eat more NEW YORK - That friend who stays thin despite eating anything and everything is not just annoying. She might also wreck your diet, new research suggests. Obesity Alone Does Not Cause Arthritis In Animals, Scientists Find The link between obesity and osteoarthritis may be more than just the wear and tear on the skeleton caused by added weight. Nanny
State Doesn’t Like Competition – the English Version A previous post by David Boaz poked fun at bureaucrats in Michigan for
threatening a woman for the ostensible crime of keeping an eye on her neighbors’ kids without a government permit. English bureaucrats are equally clueless, badgering two
women who take turns caring for each other’s kids. The common theme, of course, is that bureaucrats lack common sense — but the real lesson is that this is the inevitable
consequence of government intervention (especially when politicians say they are “doing it for the children). The BBC reports: England’s Children’s Minister wants a review of the case of two police officers told they were breaking the law, caring for each other’s children. Ofsted said the arrangement contravened the Childcare Act because it lasted for longer than two hours a day, and constituted receiving “a reward”. It said the women would have to be registered as childminders. …Ms Shepherd, who serves with Thames Valley Police, recalled: “A lady came to the front door and she identified herself as being from Ofsted. She said a complaint
had been made that I was illegally childminding. “I was just shocked – I thought they were a bit confused about the arrangement between us. So I invited her in and told her situation – the arrangement between
Lucy and I – and I was shocked when she told me I was breaking the law.” …Minister for Children, Schools and Families Vernon Coaker insisted the Childcare Act 2006 was in place “to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all children”.
(Daniel J. Mitchell, Cato at liberty) Partly correct: Europe’s
Socialists Suffering Even in Downturn PARIS — A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of Socialism’s slow collapse. Socialism is inevitably failing but it was not a failure of the right which so challenged capitalism recently, rather it was government (read: socialist)
interference and corruption of a truly free market system. It always amazes me that socialists so misunderstand socialism that they do not recognize that it can only
succeed as it does in nature (bees, ants, wasps...) -- as an enslaved population serving an elite class. I guess that's fine if you are one of the elite but a workers'
paradise it is not and can never be. There is not and can never be anything remotely democratic about socialism. See Capitalism is the worst system - except for all the ones that were tried before (Caroline Baum, Bloomberg) US Navy boffins put an end to drought - Somewhat exacerbate energy
crisis, however Backroom lab boys in the US Navy say they have developed hugely more efficient desalination machinery, ideal for making seawater drinkable. The new tech, as well as saving
space and energy aboard US warships, could also bring relief to water-poor areas around the world. September 29, 2009
Winnowing the chaff: Exelon to Quit Chamber Over
Climate Bill Exelon, one of the country’s largest utilities, said Monday that it would quit the United States Chamber of Commerce because of that group’s stance on climate change.
It was the latest in a string of companies to do so, perhaps a harbinger of how intense the fight over global warming legislation could become. If they are moving to subsidy farming rather than commerce they really don't belong in the Chamber, do they? Enron tried to use climate hysteria
to scam the world too, how'd that work out again? I keep thinking Krugman is a gibbering nitwit... and he keeps proving me right: Cassandras
of Climate Every once in a while I feel despair over the fate of the planet. If you’ve been following climate science, you know what I mean: the sense that we’re hurtling toward
catastrophe but nobody wants to hear about it or do anything to avert it. Look how outraged the Guardianiastas are over simple biological truths: CO2
is green: the TV advert making viewers choke A TV advert paid for by an oil industry lobbyist telling Americans "more CO2 results in a greener earth" would be almost funny if it weren't so depressing
"Is this a joke?" splutters one of the comments underneath the YouTube video of a new 30-second TV
advert that has started being aired in a handful of US states over the past few days telling viewers that "CO2
is green". Sadly not, it seems. (The Guardian) I listened to the ad (on the provided YouTube link) and noted no questionable statements. Even NASA
has well-established history pointing out the greening of the Earth with rising carbon dioxide levels. Left as a reader exercise to look up net primary production
figures and relate them to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels -- tip: the Earth's garden is getting greener. The people haters are wrong -- you just have to make do with less: Third
World population controls won't save climate, study claims The population explosion in poor countries will contribute little to climate change and is a dangerous distraction from the main problem of over-consumption in rich
nations, a study has found. Here's a novelty: Moonbat's at least partly correct: Stop
blaming the poor. It's the wally yachters who are burning the planet Population growth is not a problem - it's among those who consume the least. So why isn't anyone targeting the very rich? (George Monbiot, The Guardian) Yes George, you've finally got it -- people are not a problem. It was a startling admission. Prior to passage of "Cap-and-Trade" legislation by the House of Representatives, Mr. Henry Waxman (D, CA), House Energy and
Commerce Committee Chairman and co-sponsor of the bill, in responding to a question from Mr. Joe Barton (R, TX) at a May 22 hearing, admitted
the following: I certainly don't claim that I know everything that's in this bill. I know we left it to ....we relied very heavily on the scientists on the IPCC and others and the
consensus they have that there is a problem with global warming, it's having an impact, and that we need to reduce it by the amounts they think we need to achieve in order
to avoid some of the consequences. That's what I know, but I don't know the details. I rely on the scientists. Since then, the House of Representatives has passed and sent to the Senate a major piece of legislation which both Republicans and Democrats agree will heavily tax certain
industries, significantly raise prices on energy consumption, and increase the cost of almost all produced goods. President Barack Obama, in a September 22 speech at the
United Nations "climate summit," said, "We understand the gravity of the climate threat. We are determined to act. And we will meet our responsibility to
future generations." Calling on America to save the world, again: Fate of US
climate bill casts shadow over Bangkok talks - Evidence of 'clear movement' on domestic front would lend weight to UN climate talks in Bangkok, says US chief negotiator. The fate of US carbon emission cap and trade legislation weighed heavily on delegates at United Nations climate talks which started today in Bangkok, with the Americans
saying delays in passing the bill could deter commitments from other nations. (Associated Press) We see America as having a clear duty to lead the world away from the precipice -- Save the world - Kill the climate bills! Do it now. Do it
completely. Do it permanently. Save us all. Green Problems Give Democrats the Blues Green is the new black – for chic environmentalists and eco-intellectuals, that is. Energy Secretary Steven Chu promotes cap-and-trade bill
in Cleveland CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Senate version of controversial and far-reaching federal climate-change legislation is expected Wednesday with initial hearings possible later in the
week and throughout October. Seeing Red On Cap And Trade - Massey Energy
CEO Don Blankenship on why he thinks the government's environmental policies are wrong. WASHINGTON -- Energy and environmental policy returns to the spotlight on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, when Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and John Kerry, D-Mass., are
expected to introduce legislation to curb climate change. To bury, or not to bury - Panelists bash government investment in carbon capture and sequestration Experts gathered at the Munk Centre on Wednesday morning to discuss the merits of carbon capture and storage, which has emerged in the past several years as a key strategy
for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Professors, policy wonks, and industry representatives responded to a conference paper titled “Burying Carbon Dioxide in Underground
Saline Aquifers: Political Folly or Climate Change Fix?” Cash sequestration - Alberta’s funding of
carbon-capture technology is taxpayer-funded publicity for private companies In an effort to blunt some of the criticism of Alberta’s tar sand industry, Premier Ed Stelmach has pledged to spend $2-billion to fund research on technologies to
capture and store carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions generated by the oil sands industry. He hopes to take the greenhouse gas issue off the list of grievances. The
Union of Soviet Climate Change Writers - a guest blog by Geoff Chambers I have an unhealthy obsession with Guardian Environment and their Climate Change web site.
As the unofficial voice of the worried middle classes, they have (of course) every right to express the consensus views of their readers on global warming – but twenty
times a day? In the year or so that I have been following their climate change coverage, the Guardian has foresaken all pretence of rational argument. Monbiot’s
“Bullshit” campaign; the use of the terms “denier”, and “climate creationist”; and the savage censorship on the so-called “Comment
is Free” blogs, all disgrace the reputation of this once respectable newspaper. This weekend they have reached a new lowpoint with their invitation to
“ten of our greatest writers” to treat the subject of Global Warming. There’s a wonderful moment in “the Office” when a confused Brent is trying to dig himself out of the racist hole he’s dug for himself, and his colleague
(the sane one) whispers “He’s going to mention ‘Melting Pot’” – and sure enough he does. You can get a similar buzz by clicking on Jane Winterton’s prose
poem which begins: I am your inner polar bear or by reading Andrew Motion’s: Here are the baffled species taking to high ground, The most ardent warmist, the Greenest believer commenting on a Guardian blog would know better than to utter these ineptitudes, simply because a few hours on a climate
change blog would make you savvy enough to know that polar bears are passé; everything that needs to be said about polar bears has already been said a million times. The only people who don’t know that are the country’s greatest writers, apparently. Not only is there not a single murmur of doubt or dissent from the consensus view of imminent catastrophe; but the sickening regurgitation of the tiredest warmist clichés
demonstrates that not one of “our greatest writers” has spent a single hour researching the subject of AGW. They don’t need to – They Know, and their warning to the doubters is terrible. Here’s Helen
Simpson: Nobody will be able to plead ignorance, either. We can all see what’s happening, on a daily basis, on television That’s right. Our greatest writers know what’s going on, because they saw it on the telly. These are proper writers, with talent. But so were the Union of Soviet Writers who
extolled Stalin’s five-year plans. No-one is threatening our best writers with the labour camp if they don’t conform. So why do they do it? Are they too stupid, or too
lazy, or too cowardly, to confront received opinion? What’s happening to the intellectual life of our country? (OmniClimate) Asking you to play Russian Roulette with an automatic -- but don't worry, there's only one bullet in the chamber ;-) Let's
Have a Grown-Up Debate About Climate Change If, like me, you have been confused, frustrated, dispirited or all of the above by the health care debate in Congress, get ready for more as the U.S. Senate prepares to
take up climate-change legislation. The stakes are high. The debate will not be high-minded. Bangkok delegates are met with stern pep talks There is no plan B...If we do not realize plan A, we go straight to plan F, which stands for failure, says Thai Prime Minister. (CoP15) Copenhagen negotiating text: 200 pages to save the world? Draft agreement being discussed ahead of December's crucial Copenhagen summit is long, confusing and contradictory (The Guardian) EU struggles to find common ground Disagreement over EU's emissions trading scheme and over a French and German proposal to hold states accountable, if they fail to sign a new climate protocol in
Copenhagen. (CoP15) EU to propose climate action on planes, ships BRUSSELS - Aviation and shipping should cut their respective carbon dioxide emissions to 10 and 20 percent below 2005 levels over the next decade, the European Union is
likely to propose at global climate talks this week. Australia will not have an ETS, before CoP15 or after: Majority of
Liberals oppose ETS plan MALCOLM Turnbull will be forced to stare down more than two-thirds of the Liberal back bench if he proceeds with his plan to negotiate with the government over amendments
to the emissions trading scheme before December's Copenhagen climate change conference. Dust storms spread deadly diseases worldwide Dust storms like the one that plagued Sydney are blowing bacteria to all corners of the globe, with viruses that will attack the human body. Yet these scourges can also
help mitigate climate change. (John Vidal, The Observer) Better politics, not better science Science can prove global climate change is happening, but it won't tell us what to do about it, says professor of climate change. Warming guru Ross Garnaut – one of many warming gurus who speak in a zombie monotone, for some reason – mourns rural
doubt over climate change:
That’s a sad thing. There you’ve got climate sharks preying on the vulnerability of people who aren’t in a position to be well informed themselves. That’s a
tragedy, the exploitation of people who would benefit from greater knowledge. I’m afraid that what’s going to happen in rural Australia is that the well-informed will
make a lot of money out of the ignorant, and the ignorant include a lot of people who can’t afford to be skinned in that way. Professor Garnaut seems to define money-making warming doubters as “well-informed”. Interesting. (He also says: “It’s the sort of denial we see in relation to a
lot of tragic circumstances.” Care to name those circumstances, Prof?) Their well-informedness aside, I’m not aware of too many warming doubters who’ve turned their
scepticism into massive dollars. Warming alarmists,
on the other hand … UPDATE. Rural voters – tragic, exploited rural voters – speak out. (Tim Blair) As a geoscientist who works in that often strange area where government policy, academia and commercial practicality overlap I fully understand the quote, paraphrased from
Heraclitus, circa 500BC, that "nothing is constant except change." I suspect Heraclitus had some geoscientist in him. Schellnhuber... US inertia could scupper world
climate deal in Copenhagen, says expert Leading climate scientist criticises Bush administration and points to general ignorance of global warming in US public polls (The Guardian) Wonder if he realizes Dubya has not only left the building but ridden into a whole bunch of sunsets since? & more... Americans are
'illiterate' about climate change, claims expert America's lack of knowledge on climate change could prevent the world from reaching an agreement to stop catastrophic global warming, scientists said in an attack on the
country's environmental policy. Translation: Schellnhuber finds Americans hard to panic with his baseless scare stories. And they & their neighbors keep breaking hockey sticks, too: Breaking news: Cherry Picking of Historic Proportions A big news day. It appears Steve McIntyre (volunteer unpaid auditor of
Big-Government-Science) has killed the Hockey Stick a second time… The details are on the last three days of Steve McIntyre’s site Climate
Audit, and summed up beautifully on Watts
Up. The sheer effrontery and gall appears to be breathtaking. The Briffa temperature graphs have been widely cited as evidence by the IPCC, yet it appears they were based on a very carefully
selected set of data, so select, that the shape of the graph would have been totally transformed if the rest of the data had been included. Kieth Briffa used 12 samples to arrive at his version of the hockey stick and refused to provide his data for years. When McIntyre finally got hold of it, and looked at
the 34 samples that Briffa left out of his graphs, a stark message was displayed. McIntyre describes it today as one of the most disquieting images he’s ever
presented. Background Since 1995 Kieth
Briffa has been publishing graphs about temperature of the last thousand years. Like Michael Manns’ famous (and discredited) Hockey Stick graph, Briffa’s graphs were
based on tree rings and appeared to show dramatic evidence that the current climate was extraordinarily warm compared to previous years. They were used in the
infamous spagetti plots,
and the
IPCC 3rd Assessment Report, and recycled in other publications giving the impression they had been replicated. His work has even made it into school
resources
(Cimate Discovery, p4). His publications since 2000 are listed
here. Unaudited science Suspiciously Briffa refused repeated requests to provide the Yamal data that his analysis was based on (something about the data belonging to the Russians). As
Steve McIntyre points out, this kind of data should be archived and freely available after any peer reviewed paper is published. Last year Briffa published a paper in a journal (Philosophical Transactions of Biology, the Royal Society) that did maintain basic standards, (after being
prodded), and a few days ago McIntyre noticed
the data was finally up. This data had been used in papers going back as far as 2000. (And no one thought to politely inform McIntyre that the information he’d requested
for years was now available.) Hiding data in science is equivalent to a company issuing it’s annual report and telling the auditors that the receipts are commercial in confidence and they
would just have to trust them. No court of law would accept that, yet at the “top” levels of science, papers have been allowed to sit as show-pieces for years without any
chance that anyone could seriously verify their findings. In science, getting the stamp of Peer Review has become like a free pass to “credibility”. Now we know why he might not have been so forthcoming with the data… If all the tree rings are combined, the graph looks like this below. (I’ve added the black thick line to the original to make the merged data
stand out). Obviously today is not as warm as things were 1000 years ago (at least not in far north Russia), and it’s also clear things have been warming since 1800 in
Yamal. Here’s a map to help put places to the names. These are the four sites mentioned as sources of the tree ring data. Yamal and Taymir are roughly 400 km apart. In the mid 1990’s the Polar Urals were the place to be for interesting tree rings, but then as the data got updated and yielded a medieval warm period that Team AGW
preferred to ignore, they moved their focus to the Yamal Peninsula. There was plenty of data to pick from, but that’s the point. They chose 10 data sets from 1990, and only
5 post 1995. Which seems curious as presumably there is no shortage of 20 year old trees on the Yamal Peninsula. As Ross McKitrick notes, a small sample may have been
passable, but it appears that these trees were not selected randomly. McKitrick expands: Thus the key ingredient in a lot of the studies that have been invoked to support the Hockey Stick, namely the Briffa Yamal series (red line above) depends on the
influence of a thin subsample of post-1990 chronologies and the exclusion of the (much larger) collection of readily-available Schweingruber data for the same area. Honest scientists who believe in there is a crisis in carbon must surely be starting to ask questions about what’s going on with their colleagues. If the evidence is so
strong, so undeniable; if the warming recently has been so unprecedented, why won’t people offer their data up freely so that science can progress as fast as possible? When
is deluding the public, other scientists and our elected representatives ever a useful thing to do? People have invested money and careers, governments have paid
millions for reports, and billions for research; and companies have planned years ahead, all partly based on the Hockey Stick Graph. If the data had been archived immediately for the public, the world could have had access to better information for nearly a decade. Thanks to readers Francis, Charles, and Kreuger.
Entertaining evening. (JoNova)
Four degrees Celsius in 50 years? Last week, Yugratna Srivastava, a
13-year-old Indian girl, was hired by the United Nations to present a poem to the world's leaders and the humanity. In our paper Klotzbach, P.J., R.A. Pielke Sr., R.A. Pielke Jr., J.R. Christy, and R.T. McNider, 2009: An
alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere. J. Geophys. Res., in press [with edits still to be made in the
final published version; see], we show that the surface and lower tropospheric temperature trends are diverging in time. We offer an explanation for some of this related to the use of minimum
temperatures over land as part of the construction of the global average surface temperature trend. Other sources of bias and uncertainty are reported in our 2007 JGR
paper [Pielke et al 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface
temperature trends]. This also means that the diagnosis of the radiative forcing using the surface temperature trends introduces errors. The assumption of a linear relationship between the
radiatve forcings and surface temperature is clearly stated in the 2007 IPCC WG1 report (e.g. see Chapter
2 page 133), where it is written “Radiative forcing [RF] can be related through a linear relationship to the global mean equilibrium temperature change at the surface (delta Ts): delta Ts =
lambda * RF, where lambda is the climate sensitivity parameter (e.g., Ramaswamy et al., 2001).” The lower troposphere is also expected to have a linear relationship to the radiative forcing although amplified relative to the surface; e.g. see Figure 5.6 for the
tropics in CCSP 1.1. Chapter 5. Our Klotzbach et al 2009 paper shows that there is not a temporally invariant linear relationship between the global average surface and lower tropospheric
temperature trends. Based on this paper, and our other papers such as JGR 2007, there is
also not a linear relationship between the global average surface temperature trends and the radiative forcing. This view is at significant variance to the
IPCC view, which used the CCSP 1.1 report in its assessment. In our new Klotzbach et al paper, we present additional observational evidence that the paragraph above
from the IPCC report is not correct, and we discuss one of the reasons for the discrepancy. The 2005 NRC report supports our view where it is written “The simplification of complex, mechanistically disparate processes to the same radiative forcing metric, with the implication that positive forcings may cancel
negative forcings, provides a way of easily communicating climate forcing factors and their relative importance to general audiences. However, a net zero global mean
radiative forcing may be associated with large regional or nonradiative (e.g., precipitation) changes. Further, when forcings are added, uncertainties in individual forcings
must be propagated, resulting in large uncertainties in the total forcing. Adding forcings also belies the complexity of the underlying chemistry, physics, and biology. It
suggests that all effects on climate can be quantified by a similar metric without knowing, or needing to know, the details of the climate response as captured in feedback
effects. Yet there are many aspects of climate change—including rainfall, biodiversity, and sea level—that are currently not related quantitatively, much less linearly,
to radiative forcings.” (Climate Science) Climate Science: Funding Hypocrisy Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing” Edmund Burke A California 'Black Gold' Rush An amazing number of oil finds have been made this year, including the biggest in California in 35 years. If the world is running out of oil, why do we keep finding more
of it? We won't bother saying "we told you so..." China's
wind farms bring coal plants CHINA'S ambition to create "green cities" powered by huge wind farms comes with a dirty little secret: Dozens of new coal-fired power plants need to be installed
as well. Cleaning Up on Dirty Coal - A novel gasification process for low-quality coal heads to
China. The industrial boomtown of Dongguan in southeast China's Pearl River Delta could soon host one of the country's most sophisticated power plants, one that uses an
unconventional coal-gasification technology to make the dirtiest coal behave like clean-burning natural gas. Its developers, Atlanta-based utility Southern Company and
Houston-based engineering firm KBR, announced the licensing deal with Dongguan Power and Chemical Company this month. (Technology Review) BERLIN, Sept. 28 -- Nuclear energy is set to be revived in Germany as Chancellor Angela Merkel can form her coalition of choice after this Sunday's elections. Could Hummer Be Headed for the Heap? GM's Hummer division has commanded attention ever since the vehicles first appeared on American highways at the height of the sport-utility boom. Whoa! Swine
flu prompts changes to Mental Health Act The government plans to rush through measures allowing people with suspected mental health issues to be quickly detained because of fears over staff shortages in any
forthcoming swine flu outbreak, it has been revealed. Don't believe in gorebull warming, eh? Have we got a doctor for you! Don’t Blame Flu Shots for All
Ills, Officials Say As soon as swine flu vaccinations start next month, some people getting them will drop dead of heart attacks or strokes, some children will have seizures and some pregnant
women will miscarry. Keeping
Your Doctor Will Be as Easy as 1, 2, 3…1,788, 1789, 1,790 This simple little chart shows the steps needed to keep your doctor if the health care plan put forth by Senator Baucus becomes law. For a closer look, click this link.
(Daniel J. Mitchell, Cato at liberty) What kind of country would imprison citizens who felt it was in their best interest not to purchase health care insurance? We may soon find out. Uh-huh... poverty & starvation are like, good dude! Recession
may be good for your health: study NEW YORK - The economic downturn may not be good for your bottom line, but it might be a boon to your health, a study on health trends during the Great Depression
suggests. Schoolgirl dies after being given cervical cancer jab A 14-year-old schoolgirl has died after being given a vaccine to protect against cervical cancer as part of the national immunisation programme. Some of her classmates
suffered side-effects such as dizziness and nausea. Dealing with mercury the right way That's the title of my latest HND piece, and the good guys here are Lafarge's Ravena, NY cement
plant. One of the largest such plants in the country, it is also about the best in terms of mercury emissions, coming in at one percent or less of allowable levels. For some reason, Erin Brockovich targeted this facility and town, while trolling for clients. Memo to Erin: Try researching the plant you pick on, before you give your dog
and pony show. It might help if the plant in question is actually a polluter. For those who never saw it, here is Walter Olson's masterful takedown of this incredible phony. I don't even mention Erin in my HND piece, since she is completely irrelevant. In fact, John Reagan, my contact over at Lafarge, said that nothing seemed to come of her
visit. (Shaw's Eco-Logic) More women having a healthy breast removed NEW YORK - A small but growing number of women with breast cancer are choosing to have the unaffected breast removed in an effort to prevent a recurrence, researchers
reported Monday. Another
“Victory” in the War on Drugs A grandmother in Indiana has been arrested for purchasing cold medicine. We can all sleep more safely now that this hardened criminal has been taught a lesson. The Terre
Haute News reports: When Sally Harpold bought cold medicine for her family back in March, she never dreamed that four months later she would end up in handcuffs. Now, Harpold is trying to clear her name of criminal charges, and she is speaking out in hopes that a law will change so others won’t endure the same embarrassment she
still is facing. …Harpold is a grandmother of triplets who bought one box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her husband at a Rockville pharmacy. Less than seven days later, she bought a
box of Mucinex-D cold medicine for her adult daughter at a Clinton pharmacy, thereby purchasing 3.6 grams total of pseudoephedrine in a week’s time. Those two purchases put her in violation of Indiana law 35-48-4-14.7, which restricts the sale of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, or PSE, products to no more than 3.0
grams within any seven-day period. When the police came knocking at the door of Harpold’s Parke County residence on July 30, she was arrested on a Vermillion County warrant for a class-C misdemeanor,
which carries a sentence of up to 60 days in jail and up to a $500 fine. (Daniel J. Mitchell, Cato at liberty) Nanny
State Doesn’t Like Competition “A Michigan woman who lives in front of a school bus stop says the state is threatening her with fines and possibly jail time for babysitting her neighbors’ kids until
the bus comes,” CNN
reports. Lisa Snyder of Middleville, Mich., says she takes no money for watching the three children for 15-40 minutes each day so that the neighbors can get to work on time. The Department of Human Services, acting on a complaint that Snyder was operating an illegal child care home, demanded she either get a license, stop watching the kids
or face the consequences, WZZM says. Snyder calls the whole thing “ridiculous” and tells the Grand Rapids TV station that “we are friends helping friends!” A DHS spokesperson tells the station that it has no choice but to comply with state law, which is designed to protect Michigan children. She’s not getting paid. She’s possibly not even letting the neighbor kids into her house. The kids are waiting for a school bus in front of her house, and she’s told
her neighbors she’ll keep an eye on their kids. And the government wants her to get a license. (Something similar is happening in
Britain.) This is what people mean when they warn that an ever-expanding government threatens the values of neighborliness and community. When the government
provides services for free, or when it erects obstacles to individuals’ providing those services, it reduces private provision and simultaneously increases the demand for
government services. If you make it illegal for neighbors to watch one another’s kids, you weaken ties of neighborhood and community. Our nanny-state government not only wants to take care of us from cradle to pre-K to K-12 to homebuying to medical care to retirement to grave, it not only considers adult
Americans “just like your
teenage kids, [not] acting in a way that they should act,” it not only wants to “nudge”
us into acting the way it thinks we should, now it thinks that neighbors should have to get a license to keep an eye on the kids congregating in front of their homes.
It’s enough to make you think we have too much government. (David Boaz, Cato at liberty) Senescent Crone's decline continues... Out-Foxing The Times The New York Times, still smarting after losing scoops to Fox News, has thrown in the towel, vowing to avoid future embarrassment by monitoring the cable channel. We have
a better idea — it's called reporting. SCIENCE TO SAVE THE CHESAPEAKE BAY CHURCHVILLE, VA: The Chesapeake Bay is in eco-collapse. The once-clear waters are clouded with sediment, so the eel-grass cannot grow across the bottom for baby crabs to
hide in. The oysters, which once filtered every bit of the bay’s water twice daily, have mostly succumbed to such viral diseases as MSX and Dermo. Conservation is a wonderful thing, but it is science that gives us the capacity to achieve it. DENNIS T. AVERY is an environmental economist, and a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of
State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years, Readers may write him at PO Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421 or email to
cgfi@hughes.net (CGFI) Okay... The UN is united again On climate change, nuclear weapons and poverty, the world's nations are showing a new spirit of multilateralism (Ban Ki-moon, The Guardian) ... but is being equally irrelevant really anything to crow about? September 28, 2009
Climate groups dismayed by G20's lack of interest PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania — Climate change campaigners expressed dismay on Friday after the leaders of the world's most important economies failed to earmark funds to pay
for a deal to cut carbon emissions. G-20 not a forum to negotiate climate
change issues: India India today declared that the G-20 was not a forum for negotiating climate change issues, although it was aware that its leaders assembled here for the Summit were
expected to convey a significant commitment to move away from the current pattern of economic activity through promotion of renewable and clean sources of energy. We won’t be able to save the world in 74 days -
That’s how long until the Copenhagen climate change summit. But the serious players are already looking farther ahead When the panda smiles the world applauds. Or so it seemed on Tuesday after President Hu Jintao’s speech at the UN. From the way that much of the media reported his words
it was as if China had actually made an important announcement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Barack Obama plays down the need to finalise a
deal on climate change The G20 did agree to back Obama's efforts to end the annual subsidies on fossil fuels, which globally cost $300bn. Photograph: Frank Krahmer/Getty Images Well duh! There never was a need for one in the first place. Barack Obama is cooling
on global warming - The President's speech to the UN on climate change was commitment-lite, says Christopher Booker. Just as President Obama was exciting the frustration of the greenies by making his conspicuously commitment-free speech to the UN about global warming, a Bloomberg poll
reported that, asked what was the most important issue facing their country today, 46 per cent of Americans replied "the economy". UN climate summit:
Sea change needed at Copenhagen Cumbersome at the best of times, UN procedures seem unable to bear the weight of an issue as important, urgent, and complicated as climate change, says Geoffrey Lean.
(Daily Telegraph) So, Lean is finally figuring out that the U.N. is an organization devoid of value? Took him long enough... The Crone, wrong on all counts, of course: The
Climate Improves This week’s speeches at the United Nations by President Obama and President Hu Jintao of China raised hopes that — with vision, political will and a lot more work —
the world may eventually reach a new agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, back in Washington, the struggle continued on a retail level. Liberal Senators Dodge Tough Climate Votes At the United Nations, President Obama tried desperately to convince the international community we have entered a “new era,” one in which the United States was
serious about tackling global warming. His allies in the U.S. Senate do not appear eager to address the issue, as they used parliamentary procedures to dodge tough
climate-related votes on the Interior-Environment Appropriations bill. (The Foundry) Dem campaign anxiety: Vulnerables say they lack cover from Pelosi Politically vulnerable Democrats say Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House leaders aren’t offering them the protection from tough votes that they did in the last
Congress. Climate change bill may drift - A wary Senate might not decide measure’s fate
until next year WASHINGTON — Although President Barack Obama confidently assured world leaders last week that the U.S. was determined to combat global climate change, that resolve isn't
shared in the U.S. Senate. G-20 Pledges to End "Inefficient Fossil Fuel
Subsidies" — What Does That Mean? One of the few surprises to come out of the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh this week was the sudden emphasis in the group statement on ending "inefficient fossil fuel
subsidies." At first glance, this doesn't appear to be a big deal. I mean, who would be for inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, other than the oil and gas industry? Climate tax functionaries
derailed by a decade of observed climate records World leaders who met on Tuesday at the United Nations to discuss climate change were challenged by 10 year records showing no climate change. This makes enactment of a
Climate Treaty tedious. Skeptics use the 10 year temperature plateau as evidence that global warming is a chimera. Scientists say the climate stability results from cyclical
variations in ocean conditions and is unrelated to the effect of greenhouse gases. Next decade may be even cooler. The public does not care. (Michael Lynch, GLG) China Claims Edge Over US in UN Climate Change Talks In spite of the fact that President Obama is facing an uphill battle - in his own party - on domestic climate change legislation; and, with China taking every opportunity
to hide behind their "developing" status, both the US and China used the UN General Assembly to ramp up rhetoric on climate change. To misquote the Bard,
"methinks they doth protest too much." Europe wrangles over carbon emissions quotas BRUSSELS - France, Italy and several other European Union countries weighed their chances of haggling up their EU carbon emissions quotas on Thursday, one day after Poland
and Estonia successfully challenged theirs in court. The baseline year is high on the agenda next week in Thailand - Thailand minister hopes to
break the stalemate at the Bangkok talks, starting next week. Extreme humidity and high temperatures are awaiting almost 3,000 senior officials and climate negotiators from 192 countries during the 12-day long climate change talks
that start in Bangkok on Monday. However, it is not only warm weather. PREVIEW-U.N. hopes climate talks speed up towards finish line BANGKOK, Sept 28 - Delegates from about 190 nations meet in the Thai capital from Monday to try to refine a draft text of the world's most comprehensive pact to fight
climate change, with time running out to try to seal a deal. More Krugman propaganda: It’s Easy Being Green So, have you enjoyed the debate over health care reform? Have you been impressed by the civility of the discussion and the intellectual honesty of reform opponents? Since Paul is now apparently a climate scientist (he'd have a better idea than Al, after all, at least Paul managed to complete his education), perhaps
he'd be so kind as to tell us the "correct" temperature for the planet? Then maybe he can tell us what it is now. No? That's alright, neither can anyone else. Climate Change and Health Care: Free Lunches? In the debate over health care reform, advocates of expanded government health insurance suggest we can pay for this by making Medicare and Medicaid more efficient. The evidence suggests that we’re wasting a lot of energy right now. That is, we’re burning large amounts of coal, oil and gas in ways that don’t actually enhance
our standard of living — a phenomenon known in the research literature as the “energy-efficiency gap.” The existence of this gap suggests that policies promoting
energy conservation could, up to a point, actually make consumers richer. Both claims of a “free lunch” are heroic, at best. California OKs fee to pay for global
warming program SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Despite industry objections and threats of lawsuits, California air regulators on Friday approved the nation's first statewide carbon fee on
utilities, oil refineries and other polluting industries. Analysts warn Hatoyama after success debut - Japan’s new prime minister will soon have to
face the political consequences of his pledge to reduce Japanese greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent. After a debut week packed with international meetings, Japan's new prime minister Yukio Hatoyama is winning applause from world leaders for his ambitious target on climate
change. Sad nonsense from the world of make-believe: 4 degrees warming "likely" without
CO2 cuts-study LONDON, Sept 28 - Global temperatures may be 4 degrees Celsius hotter by the mid-2050s if current greenhouse gas emissions trends continue, said a study published on
Monday. This is what we said about a similar fantasy last week & we see no reason to waste more time on this one: From the guys who couldn't predict summer: Met
Office: catastrophic climate change could happen with 50 years - Catastrophic climate change could happen with 50 years, five decades earlier than previously predicted,
according to a Met Office report. An average global temperature rise of 7.2F (4C), considered a dangerous tipping point, could happen by 2060, causing droughts around the world, sea level rises and the
collapse of important ecosystems, it warns. Stunts are becoming more absurd, too: Maldives cabinet all wet
on climate change PARIS — Politicians rarely admit when they sink to new depths but for the Maldives government, it's a badge of honour when fighting global warming is concerned. Eye-roller: The world's building sector offers vast and cheap energy savings - Across rich and
poor nations, the average cost of cutting a ton of carbon from buildings is only 25 US dollars, a new study says. The worldwide building sector accounts for almost 40 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions, but it is also the cheapest source of emissions cuts. Improving energy
efficiency can cut one third of global emissions with investments that largely pay for themselves, a new study says. But every penny spent with the exclusive view of limiting carbon dioxide emissions is by definition wasted and hence expensive. There is absolutely no
purpose in denying the biosphere its required resource. Craig Sams made his fortune – and changed our eating habits – with Green & Black's chocolate. Now he has his sights set on saving the Earth... using soil. Rhiannon
Harries meets the eco entrepreneur at his kiln to find out how (The Independent) By choking the place with smoke? Nice... Emergency Climate Control: Geoengineering Risks With the news that climate change is occurring at a faster rate than climate models have predicted, geoengineering solutions have been brought to the fore and are being
taken more seriously. The main focus of these emergency geoengineering strategies is a reduction in “shortwave” radiation entering the Earth’s atmosphere via the solar
wind. (Michael Ricciardi, Ecoworldly) Yes, if it ever proves necessary then we could alter planetary albedo (most rapidly and cheaply through sulfate aerosols but not necessarily). Yes, we
should engage in development and testing of these techniques regionally, if only to see whether they might be useful in reducing the severity of approaching tropical
cyclones or tweaking precipitation levels. Yes, potential problems should be investigated and discussed but that doesn't mean falling for the acid rain farce all over
again. The
Military-Industrial-Environmental Complex President Obama, speaking to the United Nations this week, cast climate change unequivocally as a threat to national security. He told the General Assembly, "Our
efforts to end conflicts will be eclipsed by wars over refugees and resources. Development will be devastated by drought and famine." The President echoed the sentiments
of hawkish-sounding lobby groups, such as the Partnership for a Secure America and the American Security Project, that are promoting cap-and-trade “energy legislation” as
vital for national security. Catastrophic climate change, they claim, could become a “threat multiplier” as droughts, pestilences, floods, and famines purportedly caused
by global warming spark and exacerbate conflicts overseas. Framing global warming as an emergency is not effective in mobilising governments or citizens, as happened with the anti-nuclear movement. It may even have the opposite
effect. Gorebull warming is not an effective agent for mobilizing social change simply because it is not a credible threat. Nuclear war was a significant risk
and motivated a peace movement but what really is the risk a of a slightly warmer, wetter, more productive world? "Look out! Food and habitat will grow better!"?
Just not that compelling, especially considering the "cure" is extreme privation. New Groups Revive the Debate Over Causes of Climate
Change Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) may be grappling with health care, but in Montana a new advocacy group opposed to climate legislation called C02 Is Green is taking aim at the
next big battle for Congress. Lawrence Solomon: Hot and cold - If
a new Little Ice Age soon sets in, as many scientists believe, Arctic shipping will not happen in our lifetimes. The Arctic ice “is melting far faster than had been previously supposed,” we heard this week from the UN’s Environment Program, in releasing its 2009 Climate Change
Science Compendium. A sprinkling of history, a lot of make-believe... High tech may
pinpoint Antarctica sea rise risks OSLO - Dismayed by ice and storms, British explorer Captain James Cook had no regrets when he abandoned a voyage searching for a fabled southern continent in 1773. Antarctic ice is growing, not melting away ICE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap. Forecast: A cooling trend on climate change The United Nations is pulling out the “big guns” in an attempt to create a climate of urgency about climate change so that the meeting of over one hundred world
leaders in Copenhagen some 75 days from now can produce an agreement to replace to failed Kyoto accord. UN Climate Scientists Speak out on Global Warming What follows is a small sampling of quotations from the much larger U.S. Senate Minority Report by Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican Ranking Member of the Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee. It quotes various experts regarding the claims by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) about human caused global
warming. Jeremy Clarkson:
'People are bored of climate change' Jeremy Clarkson has claimed that people are "bored" of hearing about climate change and would rather watch Top Gear than worry about the environment. Climate-Change Study Cites Role of Ancient Farming Has climate change been around as long as the pyramids? In answer to the first question, yes, there has been climate change as long as there has been climate. Goes downhill from there, though... . What makes
him think a few slash and burn farmers had more effect than wild fires of the era? Perhaps he hasn't seen what dry electrical storms can do to parched grasslands and
forests in the absence of people but there is nothing at anthropogenic about burning bushland, nor is it trivial in scale. and what makes him think small-scale paddy
agriculture compared with the methane emissions of flood deltas or the natural methane seeps found around the world? Even worse, temperate forests have a net warming
effect, so early clearance would be expected to cool the planet due to changes in albedo. Our ABC: mired in a moral morass UNEP CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENCE COMPENDIUM 2009 on page 5 uses the following graph from Wikipedia (not the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report): Hanno is the pseudonym for a Wikipedia contributor. The graphic itself compares CO2 levels from Mauna Loa and Law Dome ice core to a splice of the HadCRU temperature index
and the Jones and Mann 2004 reconstruction (dominated by Graybill bristlecone chronology).] The latter splice is, of course, the splice that Mann has informed us is never done by responsible climate scientists, further informing us that the allegation that such
splices are done is disinformation by fossil fuel companies. No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, "grafted the thermometer record onto" any reconstruction. It is somewhat disappointing to find this
specious claim (which we usually find originating from industry-funded climate disinformation websites) appearing in this forum. (Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit) The 2007-2008 Global Cooling Event:
Evidence for Clouds as the Cause As I work on finishing our forcing/feedback paper for re-submission to Journal of Geophysical Research – a process that has been going on for months now – I keep
finding new pieces of evidence in the data that keep changing the paper’s focus in small ways. For instance, yesterday I realized that NASA Langley has recently updated their CERES global radiative budget measurement dataset through 2008 (it had previously ran from
March 2000 through August 2007). I’ve been anxiously awaiting this update because of the major global cooling event we saw during late 2007 and early 2008. A plot of daily running 91-day global averages
in UAH lower tropospheric (LT) temperature anomalies is shown below, which reveals the dramatic 2007-08 cool event. I was especially interested to see if this was caused by a natural increase in low clouds reducing the amount of sunlight absorbed by the climate system. As readers of my
blog know, I believe that most climate change – including “global warming” – in the last 100 years or more has been caused by natural changes in low cloud cover,
which in turn have been caused by natural, chaotic fluctuations in global circulation patterns in the atmosphere-ocean system. The leading candidate
for this, in my opinion, is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation…possibly augmented by more frequent El Nino activity in the last 30 years. Now that we have 9 years of CERES data from the Terra satellite, we can more closely examine a possible low cloud connection to climate change. The next figure shows the
changes in the Earth’s net radiative balance as measured by the Terra CERES system. By “net” I mean the sum of reflected shortwave energy (sunlight), or “SW”, and
emitted longwave energy (infrared) or “LW”. The changes in the radiative balance of the Earth seen above can be thought of conceptually in terms of forcing and feedback, which are combined together in some unknown
proportion that varies over time. Making the interpretation even more uncertain is that some proportion of the feedback is due not only to radiative forcing, but also to non-radiative
forcing of temperature change. So the variations we see in the above chart is the combined result of three processes: (1) radiative forcing (both internal and external), which can be expected to cause a
temperature change; (2) radiative feedback upon any radiatively forced temperature changes; and (3) radiative feedback upon any NON-radiatively forced temperature changes
(e.g., from tropical intraseasonal oscillations in rainfall). It turns out that feedback can only be uniquely measured in response to NON-radiatively forced temperature
changes, but that’s a different discussion. The SW component of the total flux measured by CERES looks like this…note the large spike upward in reflected sunlight coinciding with the late 2007 cooling: And here’s the LW (infrared) component…note the very low emission late in 2007, a portion of which must be from the colder atmosphere emitting less infrared radiation. As I discuss at length in the paper I am preparing, the physical interpretation of which of these 3 processes is dominant is helped by drawing a phase space diagram of the
Net (LW+SW) radiative flux anomalies versus temperature anomalies (now shown as monthly running 3-month averages), which shows that the 2007-08 cooling event has a classic
radiative forcing signature: The spiral (or loop) pattern is the result of the fact that the temperature response of the ocean lags the forcing. This is in contrast to feedback, a process for which
there is no time lag. The dashed line represents the feedback I believe to be operating in the climate system on these interannual (year-to-year) time scales, around 6 W m-2
K-1 as we published in 2007…and as Lindzen
and Choi (2009) recently published from the older Earth Radiation Budget Satellite data. The ability to separate forcing from feedback is crucial in the global warming debate. While this signature of internal radiative forcing of the 2007-08 event is clear, it
is not possible to determine the feedback in response to that temperature change – it’s signature is overwhelmed by the radiative forcing. Since the fluctuations in Net (LW+SW) radiative flux are a combination of forcing and feedback, we can use the tropospheric temperature variations to remove an estimate of
the feedback component in order to isolate the forcing. [While experts will questions this step, it is entirely consistent with the procedures of Forster and Gregory (2006 J.
Climate) and Forster and Taylor (2006 J. of Climate), who subtracted known radiative forcings from the total flux to isolate the feedback]. The method is simple: The forcing equals the Net flux minus the feedback parameter (6 W m-2 K-1) times the LT temperature variations shown in the
first figure above. The result looks like this: What we see are 3 major peaks in radiant energy loss forcing the system: in 2000, 2004, and late 2007. If you look at the features in the separate SW and LW plots above,
it is obvious the main signature is in the SW…probably due to natural increases in cloud cover, mostly low clouds, causing internal radiative forcing of the system If we instead assume a much smaller feedback parameter, say in the mid-range of what the IPCC models exhibit, 1.5 W m-2 K-1, then the estimate of the
radiative forcing looks like this: Note the trend lines in either case show a net increase of at least 1 W m-2 in the radiant energy entering the climate system. The anthropogenic greenhouse gas
component of this would be (I believe) about 0.4 W m-2, or a little less that half. I’ll update this if someone gives me a better estimate. So, what might all of this mean in the climate debate? First, nature can cause some pretty substantial forcings…what if these occur on the time scales associated with
global warming (decades to centuries)? But what is really curious is that the 9-year change in radiative forcing (warming influence) of the system seen in the last two figures is at least TWICE that expected
from the carbon dioxide component alone, and yet essentially no warming has occurred over that period (see first illustration above). How could this be, if the climate system
is as sensitive as the IPCC claims it to be? (Roy W. Spencer) To
Study The Sun, Go To The Moon or “On The Surface Of The Moon, a Four-billion-year Record of Solar Activity Awaits Us” [UPDATE : More evidence of the "imprint"
of solar wind into lunar soil] In her 2007 article “The Sun and the Earth’s Climate” published in “Living
Reviews in solar physics” (Living Rev. Solar Phys. 4, (2007), http://www.livingreviews.org/lrsp-2007-2
cited on Sep 25, 2009), Professor Joanna D. Haigh writes in the Conclusions: One important issue is to establish the magnitude of any secular trends in total solar irradiance (TSI). This may be achieved by careful analysis and understanding
of the satellite instruments [and] continued [with] current and new satellites. For longer periods it requires a more fundamental understanding of how solar magnetic
activity relates to TSI. This would not only facilitate more reliable centennial-scale reconstructions of TSI, from e.g. sunspot records, but also advance understanding of
how cosmogenic isotope records may be interpreted as historical TSI. Actually, there is another source of information for the history of solar activity, and it could open possibilities of discovery and understanding of an almost unheard-of
scale. I am talking about the surface of the Moon. As per my notes about my (yes, peer-reviewed!) 2005 article “W.W.W.
MOON? The why, what and when of a permanent manned lunar colony” (Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. 58(3-4):131-7): The [...] lunar soil’s regolith contains also an at-least-billion-year-long record of the solar activity [22] [23] [24] that would help
a lot in the understanding of the behaviour and evolution of our star. Just as well, buried regolith deposits are expected to preserve traces of the very young Sun [25]. These are the references for the above [22] H Y Mc Sween, Jr., ‘Stardust
to Planets‘, St. Martin’s Press, 1993, p136 [23] P D Spudis, ‘The
Once and Future Moon‘, Smithsonian, 1996, p196 [24] P D Spudis, ‘The
Once and Future Moon‘, Smithsonian, 1996, p106 [25] P D Spudis, ‘The
Once and Future Moon‘, Smithsonian, 1996, p115 One doesn’t need to be a hardcore skeptic or AGW believer to understand the enormous worth of getting such information, awaiting us at a distance that can be covered in
a mere 3 days. (OmniClimate) More Water Vapor Woes For Climate Modelers Using
satellite infrared spectroscopy to provide an almost global perspective on the near-surface distribution of water vapor, a new report in Science has identified more
water vapor inaccuracies in current general circulation models (GCM), the computer programs used by climate scientists to predict future climate trends. The researchers
uncovered anomalies in the Hadley circulation and its misrepresentation in GCM. Looks like climate theory and the IPCC's error ridden models are in for another round of
corrections. Following hot on the heals of my last column that reviewed a study on water vapor latent heat transfer and climate modeling modeling (see “Climate
Models Blown Away By Water Vapor”), a new report has identified even more places where current climate models get atmospheric circulation and the hydrological cycle
wrong. Christian Frankenberg of the SRON-Netherlands Institute for Space Research, et al., in a paper entitled “Dynamic
Processes Governing Lower-Tropospheric HDO/H2O Ratios as Observed from Space and Ground,” used a previously overlooked technique to obtain
global information with high sensitivity near ground level. This part of the lower troposphere, the bottom 1-2 km of the atmosphere, has previously been missed because
earlier satellites used thermal infrared frequencies lacking sensitivity in that area. At the start of the report the authors explain the motivation for their work: Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. As saturation vapor pressure increases exponentially with temperature, a positive
feedback effect with respect to the current global warming trend is expected and confirmed by satellite measurements over the ocean. However, highly complex interactions
via cloud formation and the release of latent heat, impacting convection, complicate matters and seem not to be well represented in climate models, especially in the
tropics. Land-atmosphere coupling adds further uncertainties. An accurate knowledge of hydrological cycles and feedback mechanisms is therefore indispensable for reliable
weather and climate predictions. Evaporation, precipitation and atmospheric circulation are all part of the hydrological or water cycle that constantly recirculates water throughout the
biosphere. People have kept rainfall records on land for centuries, but there are many isolated regions and vast expanses of ocean for which no records are available. Isotope
measurements of water vapor can give important information regarding precipitation and evaporation. Using remote sensing from satellites, proxy readings from even Earth's
remotest regions can be gathered. Atmospheric applications have traditionally focus on isotopes as a proxy for exchange processes in the upper troposphere and lower
stratosphere and few models incorporated any water vapor components for other factors. The results of this report, which extends observations to the lower atmosphere, will
hopefully allow current models to be corrected. The trick here is that part of the water vapor in Earth's atmosphere has, as one of its molecule's two hydrogen atoms, an isotope of hydrogen called
deuterium or D. Such isotropic water molecules are referred to as Hydrogen Deuterium Oxide, or HDO for short. Owing to the large spectral displacement of the rotational and
vibrational modes of HDO, it has spectroscopic absorption lines distinctly different from those of H2O. This allows simultaneous measurements of the
relative abundance of HDO and normal H2O by the SCIAMACHY (Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Chartography) instrument aboard
the European Space Agency (ESA)’s environmental research satellite ENVISAT. For the first time a global picture of near surface HDO/H2O levels can be constructed. The HDO abundance relative to standard
mean ocean water (SMOW) in delta-notation (δD) is shown below. Figure 1A from the Sciencereport shows the global δD distribution as derived
from 3 years of SCIAMACHY spectra. From these data, the isotopic fractionation of water provides deeper insight into the global hydrological cycle as evaporation and
condensation processes deplete heavy water in the gas phase. Over the large ocean basins, where few surface stations are located, the high δD values typical for the tropics extend farther north than over
land. This is most striking in the north Atlantic, where zonal symmetry is broken and δD iso-lines point northeast (see the arrow). This feature can be attributed
to the warm Gulf Stream and strong evaporation, associated with storm tracks efficiently transporting vapor northeastward. Strong continental gradients were observed in North America and, to a lesser extent, in Eurasia. The smaller gradient in Eurasia can be explained by the
relatively efficient transport of Atlantic water vapor into the continent. In North America, by comparison, the Rocky Mountains and their associated precipitation obstruct
the propagation of oceanic moisture further inland. Some of the most interesting data are from comparisons of direct measurements with model results for several northern locations. The researchers suggest
that the contrast of sea surface temperature against air temperature in the lower troposphere results in maximum ocean evaporation and more local moisture origin of
precipitation in winter. Particularly at Ny Ålesund, in the Norwegian high arctic (78.9°N 11.9°E), where the monthly predictions of the IsoGSM model underestimate the
amplitude of seasonal change. Quoting from the report:
In the Ny Ålesund area, δD seasonality is, compared with other models, best represented by IsoGSM. Although data are only available for a coastal
station, this indicates that moisture transport largely influences high-arctic isotopic variability and that its misrepresentation in general circulation models (possibly
due to differences in storm track activity between reanalysis data and general circulation models) can be critical. The researchers also observed an unexpectedly high seasonal change in the HDO/H2O ratio in the inner Sahel region of Africa. Such
seasonal δD variations provide important insights into dynamic changes in evaporation, precipitation, and general atmospheric circulation. Conditions similar to
the “continental effect” appear in tropical regions such as the Amazon basin or central Africa, where continental water vapor is least depleted. In addition to comparing measured results with the IsoGSM model other models were run. These included ECHAM-4 and GISS-E, a favorite of the IPCC. In
simulations of the Sahara region, the GISS-E model captured the large isotopic seasonal changes well but was too moist during the Northern Hemisphere summer. ECHAM-4 also
missed the mark on summer moisture content. This can be seen in Figure S12, taken from the report's online supplement. So to sum up, here is yet another scientific report identifying the shortcomings of current GCM programs. In this case better empirical data has shown
things in the lowest parts of the atmosphere to not behave as the models describe. Evaporation rates are higher up north and precipitation predictions inaccurate in many
regions. These are not minor factors, the report's authors termed them “critical” to correctly modeling the atmosphere and hydrological cycle. Tie these findings to the new revelations regarding latent
heat, insolation effects and aerosols
and you have to ask why mainstream climate science has bet its reputation on climate modeling. The siren call of easy grant money and media acclaim has lured many otherwise
sensible scientists onto the rocks of politically motivated consensus science. They have forgotten that science demands they adhere to the truth as dictated by nature, and
nature cannot be negotiated with or ignored. We can expect the clamor from global warming true believers to rise during the run-up to Copenhagen, the last shrill outcries
defending a discredited theory. Be safe, enjoy the interglacial and stay skeptical. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth) Our new paper Yuling Wu, Udaysankar S. Nair , Roger A. Pielke Sr., Richard T. McNider, Sundar A. Christopher and Valentine G. Anantharaj, 2009: Impact
of Land Surface Heterogeneity on Mesoscale Atmospheric Dispersion. Boundary-Layer Meteorology. 10.1007/s10546-009-9415-1, has appeared in print [this was first weblogged on
in August; see] The abstract reads “Prior numerical modelling studies show that atmospheric dispersion is sensitive to surface heterogeneities, but past studies do not consider the impact of a
realistic distribution of surface heterogeneities on mesoscale atmospheric dispersion. While these focussed on dispersion in the convective boundary layer, the present work
also considers dispersion in the nocturnal boundary layer and above. Using a Lagrangian particle dispersion model (LPDM) coupled to the Eulerian Regional Atmospheric Modeling
System (RAMS), the impact of topographic, vegetation, and soil moisture heterogeneities on daytime and nighttime atmospheric dispersion is examined. In addition, the
sensitivity to the use of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)-derived spatial distributions of vegetation characteristics on atmospheric dispersion is also
studied. The impact of vegetation and terrain heterogeneities on atmospheric dispersion is strongly modulated by soil moisture, with the nature of dispersion switching from
non-Gaussian to near-Gaussian behaviour for wetter soils (fraction of saturation soil moisture content exceeding 40%). For drier soil moisture conditions, vegetation
heterogeneity produces differential heating and the formation of mesoscale circulation patterns that are primarily responsible for non-Gaussian dispersion patterns. Nighttime
dispersion is very sensitive to topographic, vegetation, soil moisture, and soil type heterogeneity and is distinctly non-Gaussian for heterogeneous land-surface conditions.
Sensitivity studies show that soil type and vegetation heterogeneities have the most dramatic impact on atmospheric dispersion. To provide more skilful dispersion
calculations, we recommend the utilisation of satellite-derived vegetation characteristics coupled with data assimilation techniques that constrain soil-vegetation-atmosphere
transfer (SVAT) models to generate realistic spatial distributions of surface energy fluxes.” In terms of climate, this paper is another example of the major role of landscape heterogeneity in local and regional climate patterns. (Climate
Science) New California rules allow timber firms to sell carbon credits
- Environmental groups criticize the Schwarzenegger-backed changes, which allow the companies to benefit from the fight against global warming while continuing to clear-cut
forests. The Schwarzenegger administration pushed through new rules Thursday allowing California's biggest timber firms to cash in on the fight against global warming even as they
clear-cut parts of their forests. We agree hot air trading is a total nonsense but there is actually nothing wrong with clear cutting, any more than there is with fires contributing to
the diversity and health of ecosystems. If it helps forestry survive until society returns to its senses then, I guess... SPECIAL
ENERGY REPORT: Flawed intelligence guides the Obama energy plan President Obama has embarked upon a costly and potentially dangerous energy path that may threaten our quality of life, our place in the world, and even our economic and
national security. America: A World Leader in Oil Exports! There has never been a more global, more integrated, more transparent market than the modern crude oil and oil products market. And yet, the calls for America to be
“energy independent” continue to be heard from both the Right and the Left. Only "may be"? Bogus bidder's green defense may be blocked A federal judge said Friday he is unlikely to allow a University of Utah student to testify before a jury that he spoiled an oil and gas lease auction to combat the global
climate crisis. Consider the state of anarchy that would exist if mere belief (or statement of belief) was a sufficient defense for criminal acts. What a "killer
defense" for killers: "Dr Ehrlich and others showed me that people are the greatest threat to the planet, so I killed some to save the world...". How about:
"I killed the woman because she was pregnant and her child would have increased human's carbon footprint. Al says we mustn't do that!"? Scammers declaring their positions: Another
Utility Leaves U.S. Chamber Over Climate Policy A New Mexico electric utility will leave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of the business group's position on climate change. Now you are getting a clearer picture of who thinks they can make more money from government-sponsored theft than honest enterprise. All you need to do
is make your business decisions accordingly -- take your business to those who openly want to steal your money or elsewhere... Climate debate leads to Chamber of Commerce rift ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A rift widened between the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and some utilities as another major power provider quit over the business group's hard stance on
pending climate regulation. Another case of good riddance... Looking for a change on climate
policy in Copenhagen - A Q&A with Richard A. Bradley (by Richard Bradley) In December, climate scientists, policy makers and other representatives of 192 nations will convene at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. In
advance of that meeting, Science News earth sciences writer Sid Perkins spoke with Richard A. Bradley, head of the Energy Efficiency and Environment Division of the
International Energy Agency in Paris. An intergovernmental organization that counts 28 industrialized nations as members, the IEA analyzes and facilitates global energy
policy. (Richard Bradley, Science News) He's looking to a change in policy? We're looking to avoid one altogether... Federal energy commissioner checks
on Alaska pipeline projects If Alaska's natural gas ever flows to markets in Canada and the Lower 48, the pipeline carrying it must secure the blessing of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Taxing the
fuel-poor to bolster subsidised companies is a waste of energy - Energy policy in the UK is as badly flawed as banking regulation proved to be. We have a regressive tax that takes hundreds of millions of pounds from customers – including the fuel-poor – and redistributes it to major companies that have already
received subsidies for generating renewable energy. China’s Threat Revives
Race for Rare Minerals HONG KONG — A Chinese threat to halt exports of rare minerals — vital for high-performance electric motors in wind turbines, hybrid cars and missiles — appears to
have backfired. A dust storm on 25th September 2009 viewed from the office of the Carbon Sense Coalition. Read more: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/dust.pdf [PDF,
271KB] Wind farms cause decline in bird
population - RSPB Wind farms can reduce bird numbers by up to half, according to a new study by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, that raises questions about the charity's
support of the new technology. Solar sector held back by foggy energy policy WHEN Kevin Rudd returns to Australia to translate the grand rhetoric of the international stage into action on the domestic front, he could start by trying to sort out the
mess and the confusion in the country's solar ambitions. Lack Of Carbon Policy Prevents Emissions Innovation President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao both were criticized because their climate change speeches last week at the United Nations lacked solid commitments to
slash greenhouse gas emissions. Not merely impractical but entirely purposeless... Sigh... Coal ETFs Are Here to Stay Despite the recent push for clean energy, coal and its exchange traded funds could still find a home as more nations join the fight to combat global warming. Be grateful: Britain
bellyflops over green power as rows at the Department of Energy cost dear Dithering by the Department of Energy has probably cost Britain the chance to become a world leader in green power station technology, killing off hopes of creating
thousands of jobs and billions of pounds of export orders. CCS is an expensive waste of effort and energy. There is now a special magazine called “Carbon Capture Journal” devoted to carbon capture pipe dreams. But despite all the hype, there still isn’t any commercial scale power plant (1000 MW) operating anywhere in the world that captures and stores CO2. There are gas and oil rigs that pump it back down into reservoirs, there one small 200 MW pilot/demonstration generator in Germany that captures the CO2 and
then trucks the CO2 halfway across Germany to an injection point (but is it a real commercially viable plant anyway – or just a heavily subsidized exercise in
PR?). All a big fronted farce designed to gather lots of Government funding (our tax money!!) JB, NSW, Australia Britain explores undersea carbon capture Geological formations under the North Sea could store more than 100 years' worth of emissions from British power stations, energy officials said. Obama's OSHA Nominee Will Be Bad for Business, Critics Say President Obama's choice to head the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is an "aggressively anti-business" proponent of junk science who should not be
confirmed by the Senate, his critics say. (Joshua Rhett Miller, FOXNews.com) Is the CDC wrong about who should get the swine flu vaccine first? Modeling how disease spreads shows that the most vulnerable to H1N1 are those who aren’t being urged to get the vaccine. NEW FEARS OVER HEART PILL TAKEN BY MILLIONS FEARS over the side-effects of heart drugs used by four million Britons have sparked a two-year investigation. Blast form the past: The Great Cholesterol Myth - We all know that a high
cholesterol diet is bad for you, right? Wrong, says this medical writer. If you eat too much cholesterol, or saturated fat, your blood cholesterol will rise to dangerous levels. Excess cholesterol will then seep through your artery walls
causing thickenings (plaques), which will eventually block blood flow in vital arteries, resulting in heart attacks and strokes…. No link seen between meat and risk of brain cancer NEW YORK - Despite theories to the contrary, adults who eat a lot of meat may not have a heightened risk of the most common type of malignant brain tumor, a new study
finds. Diagnosis: ADHD—or Is It Trauma? - Hyperactive, yes.
Attention problems, check. But it's not ADHD. When Dawn adopted her 7-year-old nephew, Dylan (not their real names), she expected a difficult initial adjustment. The 51-year-old Wisconsin homemaker, who is married to
an attorney, has 10 children—8 adopted, 2 biological—and jokes that her occupation is "laundry." She knew that Dylan had been starved and neglected by his
cocaine-addicted mother. Sweet Lies About Kids and Smoking At least since 1994, when seven tobacco executives testified before Congress that they didn't think cigarettes were addictive, the public has not put great trust in those
who sell carcinogens for a living. What Americans may not realize is that they also shouldn't believe the people who are supposed to protect us from tobacco. When it comes to
cigarettes, the federal government can blow smoke with the best of them. Can A Soda Tax Really Curb Obesity? The
numbers don't say so. The momentum for federal taxes on soda is growing. President Barack Obama recently said he thought Congress "should be exploring" the idea of a tax on sugared
drinks as a way of tackling the nation's ever-expanding waistline. Thomas Frieden, the president's nominee for director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
argued in an article for the New England Journal of Medicine last April that "a penny-per-ounce excise tax could reduce consumption of sugared sodas by more than
10%." According to Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina’s Annual Report, claims in 2008 reached $10.7 Billion — half the entire budget for the state of North Carolina.
Claims increased nearly three times the growth in health plan members. Claims also cost the State Health Plan more than $200 million over that budgeted. Politicians had
believed that preventive wellness and managed care in the State Health Plan, administered by BCBSNC, would save the state money. We don't want the gu'mint in our bedrooms or our pantries -- get lost! Anti-obesity
group calls for diet survey Australia needs a government-funded nutritional survey to better determine which fatty foods are consumed most and which junk-food items should be taxed, according to
anti-obesity campaigners. Does air conditioning blunt pollution's ill effects? NEW YORK - Air conditioning is certainly welcome during hot summers. But could it actually be good for your health? What a stupid response! To see the hazards of not having air conditioning just look at the European disaster of 2003 where a combination of a
warmer than usual August and neglect of the elderly and vulnerable during the summer vacation period led to somewhere north of 30,000 fatalities. Subsequent heat waves have
not been similarly lethal simply because a sensitized population now ensures the vulnerable are taken to shopping malls or other air conditioned public places for respite
from periods of hot weather. Handling heat is not a significant problem provided you make energy available cheaply (and reliably) enough and your population can afford to
have and use air conditioning. It's poverty and lack of affordable energy that is a problem and a lethal one. What Can Parents Learn From The Dugard Family Ordeal? Jaycee Dugard's tale will be seared in our memories forever. Unfortunately, so will the ridiculous advice we're getting now on how to avoid this same fate -- advice that
makes it seem as if abduction/rape/enslavement is something we just have to be ever-prepared for, like the possibility of overcharges on our credit card bills. Note: obvious dangers can be dangerous The fight for freedom has many fronts, observes Trevor Butterworth of Stats.org, pointing to the work of a libertarian protest group in Britain. Members of the Manifesto
Club ("For Freedom in Everyday Life") may not need the same bravery as the protesters in Tehran, to put it mildly, but they have targeted for rollback an inarguable
area of creeping government intervention: warning-sign overkill. Looking distressingly like "climate science": Particle feud goes public An ongoing split within the HARP experiment at CERN in Geneva has come out into the open – with fierce differences of opinion between rival groups within the
collaboration over how to analyse their data. One of the groups accuses the other of research that "violates standards of quality of work and scientific ethics on
several counts", and its leader, CERN’s Friedrich Dydak, believes this to be a reflection of a more general decline in scientific standards at the lab. (Physics World) Progress means different things to different people, particularly when they are not from the same culture. When asked what he thought of Western civilization, Gandhi
famously said that he thought it would be a good idea. More recently, some have questioned the dominance of economic measures of prosperity such as GDP as indicators of
progress, suggesting that some measure of overall contentment would be better. And, of course, economic growth is not necessarily a good in itself, but it is by any measure
the greatest enabler of all aspects of progress. Money does not necessarily bring happiness, but lack of it is certainly the cause of much misery. Green and confused: How safe are incinerators? Q: I was persuaded to sign a petition as part of a successful campaign preventing the building of a local incinerator. Now I’m wondering if I was too hasty: I know that
we can’t continue just dumping waste in the ground — is incineration safe? California's 'green' ink-cartridge recycling fails to cut pollution, or costs On paper, the recycling program was touted as a bold step toward California's green, climate-friendly future. Sen. Dianne Feinstein votes to deny water to California's drought-stricken San Joaquin Valley. Farmers, families and food are being held hostage to an endangered fish
called the delta smelt. Ecological 'motorways' to help endangered
species The Government is expected to create a network of ecological “motorways” that will allow animals to migrate when climate change affects their current habitats. (Daily
Telegraph) Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas
should be allowed to die out' Giant pandas should be allowed to die out, BBC wildlife expert Chris Packham has said. Are
so-called 'extinct' species really extinct, and will we rediscover any? Why are we asking this now? 'CLOUDY With a Chance of Meat balls" doesn't lack for ideas. It's the Food Network meets The Weather Channel meets . . . the Scary Doomsday Preachers Channel. Scientists warn on Antarctic fishing HOBART: Moves into the last great untapped resources of the Antarctic have led leading scientists to raise the alarm about the validity of the world's premier stamp of
approval for sustainable fishing. Suzuki... More science needed on effects of genetically modifying food crops In gearing up for the 2010 release of its super-genetically modified corn called "SmartStax", agricultural-biotechnology giant Monsanto is using an advertising
slogan that asks, "Wouldn't it be better?" But can we do better than nature, which has taken millennia to develop the plants we use for food? Farmers told to stop ploughing land to protect soil The ploughed field, one of the most cherished images of the English countryside, could become a rare sight under government plans to protect soil. Paganism? Is biodynamic the new organic? - The biodynamic
movement, advocating food that is grown and harvested in accordance with lunar cycles, is taking off. Organic food has had a terrible recession. Before the crunch, the organic sector had been growing steadily year on year – but sales came to a crashing halt when
cost-conscious customers began to look for cheaper alternatives. September 25, 2009
Low vitamin D may be deadly for older adults NEW YORK - Low levels of vitamin D appear to increase the risk of death in older adults, researchers report in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. WHO probes whether seasonal shot raises H1N1 risk GENEVA - The World Health Organisation said on Thursday it was looking into an unpublished Canadian study indicating that a seasonal flu shot could increase the risk of
catching the H1N1 virus. Oh... Fat caused 124,000 cancer cases in Europe: experts BERLIN - More than 124,000 people in Europe developed cancer last year because they are overweight, and rising body fat levels threaten to add tens of thousands more to
their ranks, experts said on Thursday. The myth of the smoking ban health miracle - Restrictions on smoking around the
world are claimed to have had a dramatic effect on heart attack rates. It's not true. ‘Heart attacks plummet after smoking ban’ declared The Sunday Times earlier this month, as it reported that England’s smoking ban has ‘caused a fall in heart
attack rates of about 10 per cent’ (1). A few days later, The Scotsman upped the ante, informing its readers that ‘Smoking ban slashes heart attacks by up to a third
across world’ (2). What sort of future are green groups pushing us toward? If they get their way, it will be one that won't look much different than the world our great-grandparents were
born into. Not new but definitely worth recycling: WARNING! Excessive use of the Precautionary Principle
may be bad for you The Precautionary Principle basically says that we should not do something unless we are sure it will have no harmful or potentially harmful side-effects. Truly appalling: Science advocacy in full flight: Carbon Capture and Sequestration Carbon Capture and Storage: How Green Can Black Be? Why Capture CO2 from the Atmosphere? Amine Scrubbing for CO2 Capture Storage of Carbon Dioxide in Offshore Sediments This suite is just about too stupid for words. Science should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. Even if you could do this for $1/MWh (and it's way
more expensive than that with a price tag somewhere north of 900 trillion per alleged saving of 1 °C
and that doesn't include the 30% energy penalty) it still isn't worth the cost because there is no upside.
Throw in the fact that you need an area the size of Maine for just the sequestration from one 500MW plant and you begin to get the idea of just how ridiculous CCS really
is. It might wear a fancy suit but this is no more than an assault on coal and affordable energy supplies. Worse, carbon dioxide is an environmental asset without which
green plants cannot survive and thus none of us could. Historically current levels are really quite low, far from presenting a danger to life on Earth increasing levels are
an absolute boon. This is a really stupid game. Senate Democrats to unveil climate bill Sept 30 WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats will unveil legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions next Wednesday, kicking off what is likely to be a battle in Congress as lawmakers
tussle over the economic impact of controlling global warming. Case Study in How to Use Your Position as a Reporter to
Advocate Over at Greenwire, Anne C. Mulkern has written a superb
article demonstrating how a reporter can can use a "news" story to editorialize, advocate and attack a position that s/he personally disagrees with. It should
be required reading for anyone wanting to learn how to editorialize through news stories. Hysteria abounds: Climate change threatens
entire planet: UN report Damage being caused by climate change is a real threat to the entire planet and is no longer a matter of debate, according to a new report from the United Nations. What an embarrassment CSIRO has degenerated into: Hot
air over CSIRO's new enviro diet The CSIRO seems about as confused as Colonel Gadaffi. I call Bullshit! New Analysis Brings Dire Forecast Of
6.3-Degree Temperature Increase Climate researchers now predict the planet will warm by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century even if the world's leaders fulfill their most ambitious climate
pledges, a much faster and broader scale of change than forecast just two years ago, according to a report released Thursday
by the United Nations Environment Program. We wish there was a serious chance of the world warming 3.5 °C, making it similar to the Holocene Climatic Optimum but there is no such
possibility (at least not from enhanced greenhouse). Even if we could manage a double-doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide from the current approximately 385 to 1,540
ppmv that would still only theoretically deliver a maximum of about 2 °C (less than 3.5 °F, not °C), see information on Earth's
natural negative feedbacks. Their hysterical claims have gone way beyond the ridiculous. More nonsense claims: Climate-related disasters forced 20 million out of homes in 2008 - Last
year, 4.6 million people were displaced by conflict and violence, but four times as many fled their homes due to climate-related disasters. In 2008, at least 36 million people were displaced by sudden-onset natural disasters including over 20 million displaced by climate-related, rapid-onset disasters,
according to a new report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). Why we can all stop
worrying about 'Global Warming' for a bit Three months to go until the UN climate summit in Copenhagen. Three months in which we will be repeatedly assured by climate fear promoters such as Al Gore, George Monbiot,
Ed Miliband and the risible Ban Ki-moon that this really is absolutely, definitely, totally and irrevocably the very last chance the world’s leaders will have to save the
planet from ManBearPig. Court decision threatens
to unravel Europe's carbon market Estonia and Poland have scored deeply significant wins in their battle with the EU over carbon quotas. In a decision that threatens to scupper Europe's cap and trade
scheme, the Court of First Instance annulled the European Commission's decision to lower the carbon emission quotas of both countries. European carbon trading market takes hit The Europe-wide carbon trading market suffered a severe blow yesterday when a European court issued a ruling that will weaken carbon prices and undermine efforts by the
European Commission to curb carbon emissions further. Hot on the heels of an EU court ruling that the EU cannot dictate national
emissions allowances over the objections of national governments, Italy now wants to renegotiate its allowances, from Reuters:
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has written to the European Commission asking to renegotiate the caps on his country's carbon dioxide emissions, an Italian
government official said on Thursday. The official made the comments one day after Poland and Estonia made headway in a court challenge to their own emissions caps. "The cap assigned to Italy was excessively low and we have difficulty meeting it as our industry is already very efficient, especially our power generation
system," the official said. "The letter was meant to raise a problem that has also become evident in the European Court of Justice decision on Poland and Estonia's caps," the official
added. "We are making no proposal, just looking to discuss this problem with the Commission." (Roger Pielke, Jr.) European governments are warming to the idea of taxing end-users directly for their carbon emissions. France, despite popular opposition, has announced it will introduce a
so-called carbon tax next year, and Ireland has suggested it may do the same. Planet Cooling Down Amid Global Warming Madness Let’s get this straight. The planet is not warming. Hasn’t warmed since around 1998. Instead, it’s cooling, and scientists say that it’s going to continue to cool
for at least the next 20 or 30 years. Some even warn that based on the lack of sunspots evidenced on the sun’s surface, a reliable indicator of future climates, we may be
on the verge of another little ice age. Op-ed: "Scientific consensus" should be put on the stand An issue for which the science is supposedly "settled" by a complete "consensus" of scientists would seem to offer the perfect opportunity to win over
a skeptical public once and for all. But look no further than global warming movement's effort to ignore the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's call to put the science on trial,
involving cross-examinations, witnesses, and a judge to make a final ruling. Has gorebull warming struck at last? The World's Highest Ski Run
Has Melted Photo By: Carsten Drossel/Flickr Back in 2005, we told you about Bolivia's Chacaltaya Glacier,
which contained the world's highest ski run at 17,388 feet -- the ropetow attached to an old auto motor, the little shack where the locals drink chicha cochabambina, a strong
corn-based alcohol, the dedicated ski club that made the trek up to Chacaltaya in mismatched ski boots and decades-old skis. We also told you it was going to disappear soon
due to global warming -- and we were right. As of May 2009 the glacier had completely
melted away. In 1999, a team of researchers studying the glacier predicted it would die in 2015, but the rate of melting tripled in the last decade, wiping out the
glacier in just 10 years. Photo by Carsten Drossel See more photos of Chacaltaya (Ski) Nope: Climate Change in Bolivia - Expect Surprises Climate change has suddenly become a hot research topic in Bolivia (1). The glaciers in the highlands are melting, the lowlands are flooded, and the government has
declared a state of national emergency due to natural disasters. It is a good time to ask how climate change might be affecting the poor Bolivians. In 2007 I published a paper on the relative roles of climate change and societal change in future hurricane losses: A
look at the Thompson et al paper – hi tech wiggle matching and removal of natural variables Thompson et al (2009) – High-Tech Wiggle Matching Helps Illustrate El
Nino-Induced Step Changes Guest Post by Bob Tisdale INTRODUCTION In “Identifying signatures of natural climate variability in time series of global-mean surface temperature: Methodology and Insights”, Thompson et al (2009) remove
the effects of three natural variables from the Global Surface Temperature record (January 1900 to March 2009). Those three natural variables are El Nino-Southern
Oscillation, stratospheric aerosols emitted by explosive volcanic eruptions, and “variations in the advection of marine air masses over the high latitude continents during
winter”, which they condense to “dynamically induced variability” or Tdyn in the paper. Thompson et al use “a series of novel methodologies to identify and filter out
of the unsmoothed monthly-mean time series of global-mean land and ocean temperatures the variance associated with ENSO, dynamically-induced atmospheric variability, and
volcanic eruptions.” Thompson et al (2009) Link: Preprint Version: http://www.atmos.colostate.edu/ao/ThompsonPapers/TWJK_JClimate2009_revised.pdf Thompson et al (2009) also provided a link to five of the datasets they used and created while preparing the paper. The webpage is identified as “Data for Thompson,
Wallace, Jones, Kennedy”: OVERVIEW This post briefly discusses the data made available by Thompson et al (2009), it illustrates the ENSO and volcanic aerosol residuals that remained in the global
temperature anomaly data after the effects of ENSO, volcanic aerosols, and dynamically induced variability were said to be removed, and it illustrates the El Nino-induced
step changes that resulted from the significant El Nino events that occurred since 1976. The post does not discuss the erroneous assumption made by Thompson et al (2009), which is that the relationship between ENSO and global temperature is linear. It is not.
The non-linear relationship between ENSO and global temperatures was discussed in the following three posts, which all cover the same subject, fundamentally, though there are
differences in the presentation: The data furnished by Thompson et al actually reinforces the fact that the global temperature response to El Nino events is not linear. Read
the rest of this entry » KNMI has been measuring the wrong temperature for years WUWT reader Mike writes with this little bombshell on one of the world’s leading meteorological agencies. It seems they can’t get their thermometer siting correct
which resulted in a bias to the record. Hmmm. Where have we heard this before? The newspaper “AD” in the Netherlands has picked up the issue with two separate
stories.Mike writes: Dear Anthony, I left this on the “tips” thread on WUWT, but since it is also relevant to surface stations, I felt you should hear of it directly. It probably deserves a
whole story on WUWT. As you probably already know, KNMI De Bilt is the only station in the Netherlands used for GISTEMP. The nearest long-term station is in a suburb of Brussels, hence
is undoubtably UHI-polluted. De Bilt is the only long record stn in NL & within 150km in any direction would be a useful correction. Two stories caught my eye in the Dutch papers today about a 0.5-degree error in the De Bilt record which was miraculously corrected this summer with a station move
of 200 m without anyone being told of it. Here are the links to and my translations of the articles. Mike’s translations of the newspaper stories are below, I’ve added relevant graphics. – Anthony The instrument stood too close to a line of trees, due to which on average half a degree (Celsius) too high was measured. After discovery of the fault the thermometer was moved to an open spot on the measurement field before last summer, the KNMI has confirmed. Due to the change the average
measured temperature fell half a degree. This measurement should be reliable. Read
the rest of this entry » The price for speaking out against global warming is exile from your peers, even if you are at the top of your field. What follows is an example of a scientific group that
not only stopped a leading researcher from attending a meeting, but then-without discussing the evidence-applauds the IPCC and recommends urgent policies to reduce greenhouse
gases. What has science been reduced to if bear biologists feel they can effectively issue ad hoc recommendations on worldwide energy use? How low have standards sunk if
informed opinion is censored, while uninformed opinion is elevated to official policy? (Joanne Nova, SPPI) An epidemic of OCD: Obsessive Carbon Dogma From living in virtual darkness to minutely measuring their water-use, greens’ fixation with carbon counting is verging on a mental illness. (Austin Williams, sp!ked) Green Gas - Obama says he wants a climate change bill. But can he get it? Bill Clinton's presidency has served as a roadmap for Barack Obama's—a roadmap, that is, of what not to do. Don't try to pass health care reform without congressional
input. Don't tackle controversial social issues early in your presidency. Don't alienate the military. Now there's another lesson: Don't promise the world you're going to
fight climate change when you can't. (Christopher Beam, Slate) Obama’s Ability to Deliver Climate Law Questioned (Update1) President Barack Obama, who challenged world leaders to overcome “doubts and difficulties” and reach a global accord on climate change, faces skepticism over whether
he can deliver legislation in his own country. (Bloomberg) Pressure mounts on Harper and other G20 leaders over
climate change PITTSBURGH — New climate-change commitments from China and Japan have ratcheted up pressure on Canada and other countries to put money and measures on the table at the
G20 summit in Pittsburgh. At summit, doubts grow on reaching climate deal European leaders voiced growing doubts Thursday on whether the world will meet a December deadline for a new climate deal as a summit here looked set to take up global
warming in generalities. EU says rich states must pay up to save climate agreement
- José Manuel Barroso outlines what is needed for an agreement on global warming at Copenhagen The EU set aside diplomatic language and issued a bare-boned challenge to industrialised countries to come up with the cash developing countries need to deal with climate
change today. So, since we don't want any such deal all we need do is cut off the cash? Has China Really Gotten Serious About Climate Change? To get a sense of how far the Chinese leadership has come on the issue of climate change in a relatively short period, consider a conference held two years ago on the
tropical island of Hainan, where, every year, China invites the high and mighty from around the world to address the weighty issues of the day at a plush resort. The theme of
the conference was "Green China," and if there was a single underlying idea, it was that China, having just become the world's largest emitter of CO2 gases, was
going to jump wholeheartedly on the global bandwagon to combat climate change. But on the conference's final day, during the main event and keynote address, President Hu
Jintao talked about China's commitment to economic reform, to maintaining its extraordinary pace of economic growth, to opening China's market further to foreign investment
and products — but only the barest nod in the direction of climate change. A confused American environmental consultant left the speech sputtering. "What was that
about?" he asked former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was walking out with him. Powell laughed. "You know what the first thing is that Hu Jintao doesn't
think about when he wakes up every morning?" Powell joked. "Climate change." (Bill Powell, Time) China has always been deadly serious about climate change -- they are going to milk western ecochondria for all it's worth. Is China's Energy Intensity Story A Myth? Recently I've seen a number of claims made about China's plans to improve the energy intensity of its economy. Here are some examples: Considering the country already has reduced its economy’s energy intensity by 20 percent over the past five years, the shift to carbon intensity with a meaningful goal
attached “would be significant and impressive,” says Reid Detchon, vice president for energy and climate at the United Nations Foundation in Washington. China appears to be making steady progress toward its goal of achieving a 20-percent reduction in energy intensity by 2010. "This suite of policies [alluded to today at the UN] will take China to be the world leader on addressing climate change," he said. De Boer told reporters:
"It will be quite ironic to hear that tomorrow expressed in a country (the United States) that is firmly convinced that China is doing nothing to address climate
change." Energy intensity is thus energy consumption divded by GDP. The graph below shows Chinese energy intensity for the period 1998 to 2008, with 2005 (the Plan's base year) set
to 1.0. Little fish from a tiny pond... Hard for Kevin Rudd to kick up a
storm in the US THE dust storm that swept through Sydney has hit the headlines in the US, but Kevin Rudd has been struggling to kick up enough dust on his latest New York trip to attract
American media attention. Drought
News From Australia (Guess The Date!) Date: (try to guess!) (Reuters) – A drought that has parched Australia’s rich eastern farmlands for the last few years is now forcing the nation’s cities to take drastic measures to
save water. Melbourne, the second largest city and the leading commercial center, has sharply restricted the use of water after an unusually dry winter that has left its
reservoirs only half full. Official cars will prowl the streets looking for people illegally watering their lawns or washing their cars. Anyone doing so risks a fine of $950. The water board has warned the city’s 2.8 million residents that tighter limits will be imposed during the normally dry summer months unless the new measures
succeed in cutting consumption. With no seasonal rain due for almost six months, fears are growing that the drought could turn much of eastern Australia into the sort of dust bowl seen in the
United States during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Dust Blankets Town The first signs appeared recently when the remote mining town of Broken Hill in New South Wales reported its first dust storm in decades. A cloud of red dust, swept by hot dry winds from the interior deserts, settled over the town, cutting visibility to less than 1,000 yards for several hours. Sydney, Australia’s largest city, still has adequate water supplies, but a city official said the situation could change if a recent run of above-average
temperatures continued and brush fires now smoldering around the suburbs burst out of control. It is the rural areas, however, that are bearing the brunt of the drought, now in its fourth year in some areas. Prime Minister XXX has described it as the worst in
living memory. YYY, president of the National Farmers Federation, said last weekend that the drought had become a disaster for the Australian economy as well as farmers.
Government figures show that four out of five farms are affected by the drought. The federation estimated the value of crops lost in the drought at $2.4 billion. Since economists say that every dollar of farm income generates two dollars in the
rest of the economy through related industries, the total loss would be around $7 billion. (this is the link if you want to know the original
publication date…) (OmniClimate) Greenpeace
global warming claim lost without Yellow River map A correspondent has pointed to this gem of a mistake by Greenpeace who have
claimed since 2005 !! – that The Yellow River is relied upon by 120 million Chinese for food irrigation, industry and other uses. Global warming at the source of the river is already leading to it
drying up. This simple map and accounts below shows there are sizeable catchments between the Yellow River
headwaters and the Tibetan Plateau. More maps – and I am sure readers can find more online. (Warwick Hughes) Oil Industry Sets a Brisk
Pace of New Discoveries The oil industry has been on a hot streak this year, thanks to a series of major discoveries that have rekindled a sense of excitement across the petroleum sector, despite
falling prices and a tough economy. Smaller
refiners pull climate support Executives at small oil refiners who broke with the industry to support the House climate bill now oppose it advancing in the Senate, illustrating the stiffening
resistance to the sweeping legislation. Real industry whining about green cuts? Industry warns
against "disastrous" carbon capture funding cuts Reports of funding U-turn prompts stark warning from carbon capture industry (Tom Young, BusinessGreen) There shouldn't be any encouragement at all for such a stupid activity as CCS -- to begin with atmospheric carbon dioxide is a beneficial byproduct of
modern society gifted to the biosphere. Moreover, CCS is an enormously expensive waste of energy with exactly no hope of controlling global climate. We don't want anyone to
do it and we sure don't want to pay for it. Coalminers recruit Kevin 07 guru Neil Lawrence to shaft ETS THE creator of the "Kevin 07" advertising campaign, Neil Lawrence, has been recruited by coalmining companies to design a multi-million-dollar advertising
campaign against the Rudd government's emissions trading scheme, to be launched next week in key marginal seats. “Green Jobs in the Brown Haze”. Dust on a solar panel will reduce its efficiency by up to 50%. September 24, 2009
The
President’s Health Care Tax As Michael Cannon discussed in an earlier post, the White House is trying to
claim that health care “reform” does not mean higher taxes. This is a two-pronged issue. First, there is a mandate to purchase health insurance. Second, there is a tax
(the White House calls it a fee) on people who fail to purchase a policy. The White House claims this mandate is akin to state-level requirements for the purchase of health insurance, and that the newly-insured people will be getting some value
(a health insurance policy) in exchange for their money. These assertions are defensible, but that does not change the fact that a tax is being imposed. It might be plausible to argue that the mandate is not a tax if the value of the insurance policy to the individual was equal to the cost. But since these are people who
are not buying policies, their behavior reveals that this obviously cannot be true. So this means that they will be worse off under Obama’s plan and that at least some of
the cost should be considered a tax. The Social Security payroll tax allows a good analogy. Labor economists correctly argue that the payroll tax functions, in part, as a “premium” for what can be
considered a government-provided annuity. As such, when we try to measure the disincentive effect of the payroll tax, it is appropriate to include the perceived value of
future Social Security benefits (for most Americans, especially with average or above-average incomes, the “rate of return” is very low or negative, so a substantial
share of the payroll tax is a tax both in the legal sense and economic-distortion sense). The same is true of a mandatory health insurance policy (even if the money does not
go through the government’s hands). On the broader issue of paying money and getting something of value in return, another analogy is helpful. A share of the gasoline excise tax is used for road
construction and maintenance. We all benefit from roads, even if we don’t drive (let’s set aside issues such as whether the benefits equal the costs, whether
the federal government should be involved, etc). Does that somehow mean the gasoline excise tax is not a tax? Of course not. Turning now to the excise tax, the Administration’s argument that this is a fee is even less defensible. The Baucus legislation in the Senate Finance Committee
explicitly references an excise tax. Equally revealing (and even more ominous), the IRS is charged with collecting the fee. The White House can argue that the tax – in the
economic sense – is lower than the fee if something of value is exchanged. But the tax is still there. Rather than play games, the White House should make an open argument for bigger government. The fact that the Administration prefers to be deceptive says a lot about the
underlying merits of their proposal. (Daniel J. Mitchell, Cato at liberty) Hmm... NHS hospital deaths rise on day junior doctors join wards, study
finds - The NHS has its very own black Wednesday, when death rates go up by an average of 6% There is never a good time to have a heart attack, but the wise person afflicted with clogging arteries might want to be especially careful in future to avoid stress and
watch the diet as August rolls around. ... and "hmm..." again. Haven't seen the underlying "study" so there is no way of telling whether this merely reflects a reduction in
elective treatments on the day. Funny how activist campaigns against supermarket chains are not mentioned in obesity complaints... A
Plan to Add Supermarkets to Poor Areas, With Healthy Results The Bloomberg administration, in its ever-expanding campaign to make New Yorkers eat better, has already clamped down on trans fats, deployed fruit vendors to produce-poor
neighborhoods and prodded corner bodegas to sell leafy green vegetables and low-fat milk. ... and here we are with gum'mint campaigns to install the very supermarkets activists claimed were bad for communities, on health grounds. Big effect unlikely for UK rules on kid food ads NEW YORK - Two-year-old UK regulations designed to cut down on TV ads that pitch unhealthy foods to kids are likely to only prohibit only a tiny fraction of food
advertising, new research shows. Doctor's office weigh-ins no help to heavy kids NEW YORK - Having doctors routinely weigh overweight children and give parents advice on diet and exercise may have little impact on kids' weight gain or lifestyle habits,
a new study suggests. More employers looking at their roles in obesity It's 6 p.m. and you still have tons of e-mail to answer. You find yourself grabbing a bag of chips from the office vending machine and settling in for another hour or two
-- again. 10 million Brits 'unaware they are obese' Ten million Brits are unaware they are obese because being fat is now seen as the 'norm', according to new research. (Daily Telegraph) Turning a blind eye to obesity A survey suggests the vast majority of those who are obese do not realise they are so. How is this possible amid what some see as saturation coverage of the nation's
burgeoning bellies? (BBC News) An
Open and Honest Debate About Drug Policy in El Paso, Texas Last January, the city council of El Paso, Texas, unanimously approved a resolution urging the federal government to support “an honest, open, national debate on ending
the prohibition on narcotics.” Soon afterwards, the mayor of El Paso received a call from Washington, DC demanding that he veto the resolution, otherwise his city would be
cut off from some federal money. He did. However, the city council approved a new resolution calling for a conference assessing U.S. drug policy and the War on Drugs. That led to the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) organizing a two-day conference on the 40th
anniversary of the War on Drugs with leading experts from all over the world in the field of drug policy. The event was heavily attended by students, journalists and people
interested in the subject. I had the chance to speak on the first panel, addressing the “History, Successes and Failures” of the War on Drugs. Not surprisingly, I failed
at pointing out a single success from the current prohibitionist approach to drug policy. A summary of that first panel is available here. Unfortunately, two Obama czars (on border and drugs) called off their participation just days before the
conference. It was a missed chance to find out if there’s any change going on with the new administration regarding drug policy. In his opening remarks, Beto O’Rourke,
the city councilman who introduced the original resolution that was later vetoed, said that he never imagined that calling for an “open and honest debate” on drug policy
was going to be so controversial. El Paso is at the crossroads of the War on Drugs. One of the safest cities in the Unites States, it’s just across the Rio Grande from one of the most dangerous cities in
the world, Mexico’s Ciudad Juárez, where so far this year more than 1,000 people have died in drug related violence. El Paso is not isolated from this carnage. Both cities
are deeply intertwined economically, culturally and by blood ties. “Todos somos juarences” (we are all Juarezians) was the most common phrase from residents of
El Paso expressing concern about the situation in their sister city. Needless to say, the participants at the conference were highly critical of the War on Drugs. Some speakers focused on the empirical evidence coming from countries with
flexible drug laws, such as the Netherlands and more recently Portugal. Luis Astorga, a
professor at the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) gave an interesting presentation on the history of drug cartels in Mexico. Other presentations dealt with the social
consequences of prohibition, and how the War on Drugs is affecting communities in Mexico and the United States. As I’ve written earlier, in Latin America
there have been growing calls in recent months to reconsider the War on Drugs. It is about time that this discussion also takes place in the United States. Kudos to UTEP and
the city of El Paso for taking that step. (Juan Carlos Hidalgo, Cato at liberty) No matter how often Malthusians are proven wrong they just keep coming back with this rubbish: Scientists
Outline 'Safe Operating Space' For Humanity New approaches are needed to help humanity deal with climate change and other global environmental threats that lie ahead in the 21st century, according to a group of 28
internationally renowned scientists. And despite acknowledging warm is good, Walsh produces this: How Much Human
Activity Can Earth Handle? The scientific name is the Holocene Age, but climatologists like to call our current climatic phase the Long Summer. The history of Earth's climate has rarely been smooth.
From the moment life began on the planet billions of years ago, the climate has swung drastically and often abruptly from one state to another — from tropical swamp to
frozen ice age. Over the past 10,000 years, however, the climate has remained remarkably stable by historical standards: not too warm and not too cold, or Goldilocks weather.
That stability has allowed Homo sapiens, numbering perhaps just a few million at the dawn of the Holocene, to thrive; farming has taken hold and civilizations have arisen.
Without the Long Summer, that never would have been possible. (Bryan Walsh, Time) Inhofe,
Barrasso Urge EPA to Provide Answers Before Finalizing EPA Endangerment Finding WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Senator John Barrasso (R-Wy.), ranking
member of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, today sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson urging the EPA not to finalize the Agency’s Proposed
Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases Under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act (proposed rule) until it provides answers to letters that the
Senators sent regarding the process behind EPA’s proposed endangerment finding for greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. CBO KO: Waxman-Markey hurts the economy more than “doing nothing” The CBO has issued a new report [.pdf] that summarizes the economic effects of
greenhouse-gas legislation, relying on previously published analyses. The report shows just how weak the case for the proposed cap-and-trade plan really is. In fact, the CBO
demonstrates that the theoretical benefits of Waxman-Markey to the United States fall far short of its costs. You tell 'em, Granny! Letter of the moment: Climate-change
sceptics, read on From Ms Annie Walker. State by State, Selling the Lie As part of a well thought out and executed plan to convince the public there is global warming despite the cold and snow records of the last two years, get state climate
action plans approved, keep the grant gravy train rolling through the university systems, and get government legislation or carbon control legislation approved that will
benefit Wall Street and the government at our expense is underway. Global Warming Suits Are A Hard
Sell, Attorney Advises NEW YORK—Companies sued for creating damage by contributing to global warming have a major defense available against such charges, according to an attorney at a legal
session for policyholders. More wasted funds from a total waste of oxygen... U.N.
Sets an Example by Offsetting Its Carbon Emissions Like most large international conferences, the United Nations climate summit meeting in New York this week generated a hefty dose of greenhouse gas emissions. Uh-huh... Gore: Climate change laws 'crucial step' in
crisis NEW YORK — Former Vice President Al Gore told attendees Wednesday at the Clinton Global Initiative to reach out to U.S. senators and urge them to pass climate change
legislation, saying it was the "crucial step" in solving the climate crisis. (AP) ... What "crisis" would that be, Al? The one where your carbon scam finally falls on its butt, leaving you somewhat short of being the first
multibillionaire robber carbon baron? Mr. Obama and Mr. Hu on Warming Of more than 100 world leaders who gathered Tuesday at the United Nations for a summit meeting on climate change, two mattered most: Barack Obama and China’s president,
Hu Jintao. Together their countries produce 40 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Together they can lead the way to an effective global response to this clear
global threat. Or together they can mess things up royally. (NYT) Mess what up... and how? We've run the IPCC's numbers again and again but the answer is always the same -- carbon dioxide is an innocent bit player on
the climate stage. Even if humans could drive a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide since Hansen's 1988 testimony (i.e., from 350 to 700 ppmv), that is still only a
maximum potential warming of 1.1 °C if the sun constantly delivers recent solar cycle peak wattage, otherwise the warming will certainly be lower. Right... China considering carbon tax Four to five years from now China could launch a tax on greenhouse gas emissions if proposal from Chinese energy research institute wins political support. (CoP15) Obama
Speech to the UN: The Data Myron has already pointed out how most of what the President claimed were the threats from
global warming are exaggerated. Here’s the data to back that up. “…[T]he threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing.” Reality: global mean temperatures increased slightly from 1977 to 2000.
Temperatures have been flat since then. “Rising sea levels threaten every coastline.” Reality: sea levels have been rising on and off since the end of the last ice age 13,000 years ago. The rate
of sea level rise has not increased in recent decades over the nineteenth and twentieth century average. “More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent.” Reality: there is no upward global trend in storms or floods. “More frequent drought and crop failures breed hunger and conflict in places where hunger and conflict already thrive.” Reality: there is no upward global trend
in major droughts. Reversals in large-scale cycles have meant that the southward march of the Sahara Desert into the Sahel has been reversed in recent years and the
Sahara is now shrinking. “On shrinking islands, families are already being forced to flee their homes as climate refugees.” Reality: some Pacific islanders may want to emigrate to New
Zealand or Australia and are claiming that their islands are disappearing as the reason, but shrinkage has been minimal in recent decades because sea level rise has been
minimal. Charts from SPPI’s Monthly CO2 Reports
and from Indur Goklany, “Death and Death Rates Due to Extreme Weather
Events: Global and U.S. Trends, 1900–2006,” 2007. (Iain Murray, Global Warming) D'oh! Proposals Lag Behind Promises
on Climate UNITED NATIONS — World leaders gathered here for a global summit meeting on climate change made modest proposals on Tuesday for combating the problem, underscoring the
way domestic political battles still trump what United Nations officials had hoped would be a sense of global urgency. (NYT) What planet is this guy on? China and India
are leading the way. Yes, I'm optimistic This week's summit on climate change offered cause for confidence. But all nations now need to redouble their efforts (Nicholas Stern, The Guardian) Just a small step in the right direction World leaders tried to jump start climate negotiations at UN summit on Tuesday, but did not break the deadlock. (CoP15) A quiet bombshell on Copenhagen climate treaty? All eyes are on New York today, for the latest political moves ahead of the make-or-break conference in Copenhagen in December seeking a global climate deal to replace the
Kyoto Protocol. And last night it looked as if Danish prime minister and host of the talks, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, was about to drop a quiet bombshell. He was expected to make clear that he is no longer looking to Copenhagen to deliver a "treaty", that is a document with legally enforceable emissions cuts, but
only "a political declaration" - an altogether different outcome. But overnight reaction from European countries has now put a question mark over that, suggesting that he may now defer his announcement. Downgrading from a treaty to a political declaration would be a bitterly disappointing result for those pinning their hopes on Copenhagen, despite all the warning signs
that a meaningful deal looks perilously close to impossible. (Susan Watts, BBC Newsnight) Keeping the gravy train rolling: New targets for Copenhagen No deal in Copenhagen might not be a disaster for the global climate, as long as the UN climate conference reaches agreement on important issues leading to a deal in 2010,
says Head of the Climate Panel at Aarhus University in Denmark. (CoP15) We will back a
global deal to cut emissions, says Obama President signals intention to abandon intransigence of his predecessor – but admits it will be tough to get treaty through the Senate (The Independent) Perfectly safe statement given there won't be one... Awkward:
Senators move to rein in EPA as Obama talks tough on climate How’s this for awkward timing? Even as President Obama tries to persuade other countries gathered at the U.N. climate confab and upcoming G-20 meeting that the U.S. will
take action on climate change, senators from both parties are moving to limit what his administration can do to fight climate change. At issue are two amendments to a huge government spending bill nearing a vote in the Senate that would pare the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate
various industries’ greenhouse-gas emissions. One amendment, drafted by Sen. Tom Harkin (D., Iowa) and backed by ethanol companies, would limit how the EPA could measure the global-warming impact of growing corn and
other crops for fuel. It would prohibit the agency from considering the emissions that are said to result when farmers overseas clear grasslands and cut down forests in
response to higher food prices. What do those farmers’ decisions have to do with ethanol production in the U.S.? Well, according to some
researchers, there are some nasty ripple effects when farmers in the U.S. convert their farmland to growing corn for fuel. Still, why would the EPA want to go down this road, given the U.S. government’s traditional support for ethanol? Because a 2007
energy law says it has to! More about this debate here and here. Another amendment, being circulated by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska), would prohibit the EPA for one year from regulating greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants,
factories and small businesses. Sen. Murkowski says she’s worried about the economic toll of any regulations that EPA might set; environmental
groups say her measure would render the EPA toothless and undermine U.S. efforts to convince other countries to reduce their emissions. Not surprisingly, the Obama administration is speaking out against Sen. Murkowski’s proposal. “We don’t think trying to legislate on an appropriations bill is a good
idea,” Carol Browner, the President’s assistant on energy and climate change issues, tells WSJ’s Jonathan Weisman. So does that mean President Obama would veto the
entire spending bill if Ms. Murkowski succeeds in attaching her amendment to the final bill? Ms. Browner said she’s not in a position to comment. Our sources predict a close vote in the Senate, possibly as early as Thursday afternoon. Stay tuned … (WSJ) NAM Urges Senate To Support EPA "Time Out" From Regulating Greenhouse Gases WASHINGTON, D.C., ' The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) has sent a Key Vote letter to U.S. Senators urging them to support an amendment by Senator Lisa
Murkowski (R-AK) to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from issuing an "endangerment finding' for carbon dioxide in an attempt to regulate greenhouse
gases (GHG) under the Clean Air Act. (Manufacturing and Technology) The Dog Ate Global Warming - Interpreting climate
data can be hard enough. What if some key data have been fiddled? Imagine if there were no reliable records of global surface temperature. Raucous policy debates such as cap-and-trade would have no scientific basis, Al Gore would at this
point be little more than a historical footnote, and President Obama would not be spending this U.N. session talking up a (likely unattainable) international climate deal in
Copenhagen in December. Inhofe: I’m Bringing a ‘Truth Squad’ to Copenhagen Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), tells NRO that he plans to “lead a truth squad” at the
United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December. U.S. groups lower sights for global climate progress WASHINGTON - U.S. groups pushing for a new international accord on climate control are scaling back their expectations for an end-of-year deal, openly talking on Wednesday
about either pushing for an "interim" plan or a simple extension of negotiations set for December in Denmark. But atmospheric carbon dioxide is a resource, not a pollutant... What utter nonsense: The full climate change tale - Carbon
dioxide emissions are a significant cause of global warming. But that’s only half the story Think “climate change” and “carbon dioxide” is probably one of the first things that comes to mind. “Copenhagen”, symbolizing all of the tension and nuance of
international action, is probably a close second. “Catastrophe” might be another association, as reports about glacial melting, monsoon disruption, sea levels rising and
other environmental changes pile up. The numbers are actually readily available and carbon dioxide-driven warming is trivial and diminishing. Moreover, we have not the slightest indication
that it is in any way harmful. No action should ever be taken against such an essential trace gas and marvelous resource. Global
warming = more tornadoes | Not happening this year With the onset of the Autumnal Equinox today at 21:18 UTC, the severe weather season winds down. I
reported earlier on the finding of Ryan Maue, who showed that we’ve reached a 30
year low in Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) which is a measure of global hurricane activity. Now it appears the 2009 tornado season is significantly lower as well, which is a very, very, good thing. The actual number of tornadoes so far this year is only 850
compared to the previous three years, all above 1000. 2008 saw 1691 tornadoes in the USA, almost double. The three year average is 1297 tornadoes. Tornado related
deaths are also way down with only 21 so far this year compared to 126 last year and a 3 year average of 91. Going from last year’s La Niña to a weak/fading El Niño this year had more of an impact on this than any measure of global warming in the USA because as
we’ve seen from the NCDC announcements this year, we had a cool
summer despite supposedly record sea surface
temperatures. Our quiet sun may also be a factor. Source: http://www.spc.ncep.noaa.gov/wcm/ It seems that we are well below last year, and close to 2005/2006 values. Here’s the 2009
tornado map from NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center. Read
the rest of this entry » (WUWT) Global
Warming = more hurricanes | Still not happening So far the hurricane season for the Atlantic has been pretty quiet for 2009. Ryan Maue from Florida
State University explains why. In related news, Al Gore has dropped the [hurricane frequency] related slide in his traveling PowerPoint show. – Anthony Great Depression! Tropical Cyclone Energy at 30-year lows Both Northern Hemisphere and South Hemisphere AND therefore overall Global hurricane activity has continued to sink to levels not seen since the 1970s. Even more
astounding, when the Southern Hemisphere hurricane data is analyzed to create a global value, we see that Global Hurricane Energy has sunk to 30-year lows, at the least.
Since hurricane intensity and detection data is problematic as one goes back in time, when reporting and observing practices were different than today, it is possible that we
underestimated global hurricane energy during the 1970s. Using a well-accepted metric called the Accumulated Cyclone Energy index or ACE for short (Bell and Chelliah 2006), which has been used by Klotzbach
(2006) and Emanuel (2005) (PDI is analogous to ACE), and most recently by myself in Maue
(2009) , simple analysis shows that 24-month running sums of global ACE or hurricane energy have plummeted to levels not seen in 30 years. Read the rest of
this entry » (WUWT) Coral
Atolls and Sea Level Rise - a guest blog by Willis Eschenbach Much has been written of late regarding the impending demise of the world’s coral atolls due to sea level rise. Recently, here in the Solomon Islands, the sea level rise
has been blamed for salt water intrusion into the subsurface “lens” of fresh water under some atolls. Beneath the surface of most atolls, there is a lens shaped body of
fresh water which floats on the seawater underneath. The claim is that the rising sea levels are contaminating the fresh-water lens with seawater. These claims of blame ignore several facts. The first and most important fact, discovered by none other than Charles Darwin, is that coral atolls essentially “float”
on the surface of the sea. When the sea rises, the atoll rises with it, and when the sea falls, they fall as well. Atolls exist in a delicate balance between new sand and
coral rubble being added from the reef, and sand and rubble being eroded by wind and wave back into the sea. When the sea falls, more sand tumbles from the high part, and more of the atoll is exposed to wind erosion. The atoll falls along with the sea level. When the sea level
rises, wind erosion decreases. The coral grows up along with the sea level rise. The flow of sand and rubble onto the atoll continues, and the atoll rises. Since atolls go up
and down with the sea level, the idea that they will be buried by sea level rises is totally unfounded. They have gone through sea level rises much larger and much faster
than the current one. Given that established scientific fact, why is there water incursion into the fresh water lenses? Several factors affect this. First and foremost, the fresh water lens is
a limited supply. As island populations increase, more and more water is drawn from the lens. The inevitable end of this is
the intrusion of sea water into the lens. This affects both wells and plants, which both draw from the same lens. It also leads to unfounded claims that sea level rise is to
blame. It is not. Seawater is coming in because fresh water is going out. The second reason for salt water intrusion into the lens is a reduction in the amount of sand and rubble coming onto the atoll from the reef. When the balance between sand
added and sand lost is disturbed, the atoll shrinks. This has two main causes — coral mining and killing the wrong fish. The use of coral for construction in many atolls is
quite common. At times this is done in a way that damages the reef as well as taking the coral. This is the visible part of the loss of reef, the part we can see. What goes unremarked is the loss of the reef sand, which is essential for the continued existence of the atoll. The cause for the loss of sand is the indiscriminate,
wholesale killing of parrotfish and other beaked reef-grazing fish. A single parrotfish, for example, creates about half a tonne of coral sand per year. Parrotfish and other
beaked reef fish create the sand by grinding up the reef with their massive jaws, digesting the food, and excreting the ground coral. In addition to making all that fine white sand that makes up the lovely island beaches, beaked grazing fish also increase overall coral health, growth, and production.
This happens in the same way that pruning makes a tree send up lots of new shoots, and in the same way that lions keep a herd of zebras healthy and productive. The constant
grazing by the beaked fish keeps the corals in full production mode. Unfortunately, these fish sleep at night, and are easily wiped out by night divers. Their populations have plummeted in many areas in recent years. Result? Much less sand. The third reason for salt water intrusion into the lens is the tidal cycle. We are currently in the high part of the 18 year tidal cycle. The maximum high tide in Honiara
in 2008 was about 10 cm higher than the maximum tide in 1996, and the highs will now decrease until about 2014. People often mistake an unusually high tide for a rise in sea
level, which it is not. There has been no increase in the recorded rate of sea level rise. In fact, the global sea level rise has flattened out in the last couple years. What can be done to turn the situation around for the atolls? There are a number of essential practical steps that atoll residents can take to preserve and build up your
atoll, and protect the fresh water lens: 1. Stop having so many kids. An atoll has a limited supply of water. It cannot support an unlimited population. Enough said. 2. Catch every drop that falls. On the ground, build small dams in any watercourses to encourage the water to soak in to the lens rather than run off to the ocean. Put
water tanks under every roof. Dig “recharge wells”, which return filtered surface water to the lens in times of heavy rain. Catch the water off of the runways. In Majuro,
they have put gutters on both sides of the airplane runway to catch all of the rainwater falling on the runway. It is collected and pumped into tanks. On other atolls, they
let the rainwater just run off of the airstrip back into the ocean … 3. Conserve, conserve, conserve. Use seawater in place of fresh whenever possible. Use as little water as you can. 4. Make the killing of parrotfish and other beaked reef grazing fish tabu. Stop fishing them entirely. Make them protected species. The parrotfish should be the national
bird of every atoll nation. I’m serious. If you call it the national bird, tourists will ask why a fish is the national bird, and you can explain to them how the parrotfish
is the source of the beautiful beaches they are walking on, so they shouldn’t spear beaked reef fish or eat them. Stop killing the fish that make the very ground under your
feet. The parrotfish and the other beaked reef-grazing fish are constantly building up your atoll. Every year they are providing tonnes and tonnes of fine white sand to keep
your atoll afloat in turbulent times. You should be honoring and protecting them, not killing them. This is the single most important
thing you can do. 5. Be very cautious regarding the use of coral as a building material. An atoll is not solid ground. It is is not a constant “thing” in the way a rock island is a
thing. An atoll is an eddy, an ever-changing body constantly replenished by a (hopefully) unending river of coral sand and rubble. It is a process, wherein on one side
healthy reef plus beaked coral-grazing fish plus storms provide a continuous stream of coral sand and rubble. This sand and rubble are constantly being added to the atoll,
making it larger. At the same time, coral sand and rubble are constantly being eaten away, and blown away, and eroded away from the atoll. The shape of the atoll changes from
season to season and from year to year. It builds up on this corner, and the sea washes away that corner. And of course, if anything upsets that balance of sand added and sand lost, if the supply of coral sand and rubble per year starts dropping (say from reef damage or coral
mining or killing parrotfish) or if the total sand and rubble loss goes up (say by heavy rains or strong winds or a change in currents) the atoll will be affected. So if coral is necessary for building, take it sparingly, in spots. Take dead or dying coral in preference to live coral. Mine the deeps and not the shallows. Use hand
tools. Leave enough healthy reef around to reseed the area with new coral. A healthy reef is the factory that annually produces the tonnes and tonnes of building material.
You mess with it at your peril. 6. Reduce sand loss from the atoll in as many ways as possible. This can be done with plants to stop wind erosion. Don’t introduce plants for the purpose. Encourage and
transplant the plants that already grow locally. Reducing water erosion also occurs with the small dams mentioned above, which will trap sand eroded by rainfall. Don’t
overlook human erosion. Every step a person takes on an atoll pushes sand downhill, closer to returning to the sea. Lay leaf mats where this is evident, wherever the path is
wearing away. People wear a path, and soon it is lower than the surrounding ground. When it rains, it becomes a small watercourse. Invisibly, the water washes your precious
sand into the ocean. Invisibly, the wind blows the ground out from under your feet. Protect your island. Stop it from being washed and blown away. 7. Monitor and build up the health of the reef. You and you alone are responsible for the well-being of the amazing underwater fish-tended coral factory that year after
year keeps your atoll from disappearing. Coral reseeding programs done by schools have been very successful. Get the kids involved in watching the reef. Educate the people
that they are the guardians of the reef. Talk to the fishermen. 8. Expand the atoll. Modern coastal engineering has shown that it is quite possible to “grow” an atoll. The key is to slow down the water as it passes by. The slower
the water, the more sand builds up. Slowing the water is accomplished by building low underwater walls perpendicular to the beach. These run out until the ends are a few
metres underwater. Normally this is done with a geotextile fabric tubes which are pumped full of concrete. In the atolls the similar effect can be obtained with
“gabbions”, wire cages filled with blocks of dead coral. Wire all of the wire cages securely together in a triangular shape, stake them down with rebar, wait for the sand
to fill in. It might be possible to do it with old tires, fastened together, with chunks of coral piled on top of them. It will likely take a few years to fill in. Here’s a
before and after picture of the system in use on a beach (not an atoll), taken three years apart. Note the low height and triangular shape of the wall extending out from the
beach and continuing underwater (made of 3 concrete-filled geotextile fabric tubes). This triangular shape does not attempt to stop the water currents. It just slows them
down and directs them toward the beach to deposit their load of sand. Eventually, the entire area fills in with sand. Of course to do that, you absolutely have to have a constant source of sand … like for example a healthy reef … with lots of parrotfish. That’s why I said above that
the single most important thing is to protect the fish and the reef. If you have beaked fish and a healthy reef, you’ll have plenty of sand and rubble forever. If you
don’t, you’re in trouble. Coral atolls have proven over thousands of years that, if left alone, they can go up and down with any sea level rise. And if we follow some simple conservation practices,
they can continue to do so and to support atoll residents. But they cannot survive an unlimited population increase, or unrestricted fishing, or overpumping the water lens,
or unrestrained coral mining. FURTHER REFERENCES: On sea level rise in Honiara: Pacific Country Report Sea Level & Climate: Their Present
State Solomon Islands June 2006 On global sea level rise levelling off: University of Colorado at Boulder’s Sea Level Change On Darwin’s discovery: Darwin, C., The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882, 1887 No other work of mine was begun in so deductive a spirit as this; for the whole theory was thought out on the west coast of S. America before I had seen a true coral
reef. I had therefore only to verify and extend my views by a careful examination of living reefs. But it should be observed that I had during the two previous years been
incessantly attending to the effects on the shores of S. America of the intermittent elevation of the land, together with the denudation and deposition of sediment. This
necessarily led me to reflect much on the effects of subsidence, and it was easy to replace in imagination the continued deposition of sediment by the upward growth of
coral. To do this was to form my theory of the formation of barrier-reefs and atolls. (Darwin, 1887, p. 98, 99) On the results of coral mining and changing the reef: Xue, C. (1996) Coastal Erosion And Management Of
Amatuku Island, Funafuti Atoll, Tuvalu, 1996, South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) On the same topic: Xue, C., Malologa, F. (1995) Coastal sedimentation and coastal management of Fongafale, Funafuti, Tuvalu, SOPAC Technical Report 221 On parrotfish creating sand: this link On the cause of erosion in Tuvalu: Tuvalu Not Experiencing Increased Sea Level Rise, Willis Eschenbach, Energy & Environment, Volume 15, Number 3, 1 July 2004 , pp.
527-543 On expanding island beaches: Holmberg Technologies On the dangers of overpopulation: Just look around you … (OmniClimate) Expect a lot more Copenhagen-themed nonsense: Ancient
glaciers are disappearing faster than ever - Satellite laser measurements show change in environment for the first time Melting ice is pouring off Greenland and Antarctica into the sea far faster than was previously realised because of global warming, new scientific research reveals today. Oddly enough, sea level rise has currently stalled, despite it being a normal part of our post-ice age world and will be so until the next ice age. JPL’s
Patzert: “It’s actually eroding the credibility of long-range forecasters and climatologists” The 2009 “super El Nino” predicted by some may be a “fizzle” according reports attributed to NASA JPL’s Climatologist Bill Patzert. I wonder who he might be
referring to when he says “eroding the credibility”? Hansen’s
prediction perhaps? Excerpts from three different articles below: This year’s El Nino expected to be mild http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-09/21/content_12086294.htm LOS ANGELES, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) — This year’s El Nino would be mild, resembling the pattern of 2006 and 2007, weather experts said in remarks published on Sunday. The oscillation of hot water in the eastern Pacific Ocean is going to be a let-down, in terms of precipitation over a parched California, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
researcher Bill Patzert told the San Diego
Union-Tribune. “This El Nino is definitely puny,” Patzert said , adding that this year’s pattern resembles the mild El Nino of 2006-2007, which left California’s snowpack and
reservoirs short of what water experts had coveted: an end to five years of drought. Although the jet stream pattern still shows that California might get a wet winter, the likelihood of floods and massive rains is diminishing, the paper quoted
climatologists as saying. “We’re planning for a dry 2010,” said Elissa Lynn, senior meteorologist for the state Department of Water resources, in an interview with the paper. Read
the rest of this entry » Climate
Is Weather When It Is Not Climate, Weather Is Climate When It Is Not Weather. Or Not? or…”Climate Belief In Disarray” Front-page article today by Andrew C Revkin on the International Herald Tribune about the
problem of “selling” any urgency for warming-stopping CO2 emission cuts to the public in a non-warming planet (now that that concept has been accepted even
by the hardest climate integralist). Parts of what is reported by Revkin is interesting as it appears there is no shortage of scientists providing all sorts of opinions on why the world has not been warming
as expected. Trouble is, if the recent 10-year-long set of observations showing “non-warming” cannot be used to falsify AGW, then no 10-year-long set of any observation
showing anything can be used to demonstrate AGW either. Therefore there is no meaning in the just-released climate forecasts by
the Met Office talking about “the odds of a 15-year pause” after analysing “how often decades with a neutral trend in global mean temperature occurred in
computer modelled climate change simulations” (my emphasis). In fact, some are fond to say that climate is a 30-year-long average of weather. Well, if that is true, all we should be scientifically able to talk about with any amount
of knowledge, is the climate trends for… 1979. Everything else is (interesting, but just) speculation. ps Dr Mojib Latif says he “gives about 200 talks to the public, business leaders and officials each year“. There are 365 days, in most years. At what times
during the year is then “climate science” studied at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Kiel, Germany? And shall we worry about the absence of
private life for AGW scientist-advocates? pps Shame to Revkin for publishing this absurdist remark by Joe Romm: “We need all the unmuffled warnings we can get“. Why? Because Romm
is a known “muffler” himself. (OmniClimate) Unusual for them to not blame gorebull warming... Dust
storm: unclear if climate change to blame Global warming may not be the cause of the most severe dust storm to blight eastern Australia in 70 years, an Australian climate scientist says. Just because it wouldn't be true has never stopped them before. Comment
On Andy Revkin’s August 3 2009 article “Nobel Halo Fades Fast for Climate Change Panel” There was an interesting article on August 3 2009 by Andy Revkin [thanks to Benny Peiser for alerting us to this] titled “Nobel
Halo Fades Fast for Climate Change Panel”. This article includes the following text: ”…… scientists who question the likelihood of a calamitous disruption of the Earth’s climate accuse the panel of cherry-picking studies and playing down
levels of uncertainty about the severity of global warming. ‘It just feels like the I.P.C.C. has gone from being a broker of science to a gatekeeper,’ said John R. Christy, a climate scientist at the University of Alabama,
Huntsville, and a former panel author. In an interview, Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the I.P.C.C., rejected the charge of bias, noting layers of transparent peer review. “ John Christy is completely correct on his view of the IPCC as a gatekeeper. The IPCC WG1 report is a biased advocacy document. I have documented the gatekeeper
format of the WG1 2007 IPCC report in my Appendix in Pielke Sr., Roger A., 2008: A Broader View of the Role of Humans in the Climate System is
Required In the Assessment of Costs and Benefits of Effective Climate Policy. Written Testimony for the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality of the Committee on Energy
and Commerce Hearing “Climate Change: Costs of Inaction” – Honorable Rick Boucher, Chairman. June 26, 2008, Washington, DC., 52 pp. There was a useful proposal in the Revkin news article that should be pursued. In the article, it states “……..Dr. Nicholls, a climate scientist at Monash University in Victoria, Australia [proposed] that the group [in his proposal this would be the IPCC scientists]
write more focused, expeditious reports on issues relevant to setting policy. Dr. Nicholls suggested that the panel could eventually shift to reviewing the flow of research
on more basic questions through a constantly updated Wikipedia-style system.” This is an good idea, but the ability to update a Wikipedia-style system must be available to all climate
scientists, not just a cherrypicked subset of this community. (Climate Science) The ditching of a desert renewable-energy project shows just how difficult it is to maintain our standard of living while pleasing the purists. Maybe we shouldn't even
try. September 23, 2009
Cap and Trade Legislation Would Increase Uninsured By Millions Washington, DC - The U.S. Senate can increase the number of Americans with health insurance by tens of millions -- at zero cost to taxpayers -- by rejecting cap-and-trade
legislation passed by the U.S. House, according to a policy analysis just released by The National Center for Public Policy Research. Cui bono? WHO slashes radon limit in homes, cites lung cancer GENEVA - The World Health Organisation (WHO) has drastically cut the maximum amount of radon -- a naturally occurring gas -- that should be permitted in homes because of
strong evidence it causes lung cancer. Ethylene oxide (EtO) techie stuff Our newest Knowledge Base article gets into measurement ranges for EtO monitoring instrumentation. In so
doing, we had to take a hard look at certain OSHA documents, as well as examine some literature references. More often than you would think, references cited in a particular article don't necessarily support the contention being made. We link to a comprehensive report from 1989,
and most of its content is still excellent. Too bad the authors who referenced it couldn't quote it properly. Enjoy. (Shaw's Eco-Logic) We've spiffed up the gas detection
applications primer One of the more popular pages on Interscan's website has been built out with more content and more links. Check
it out. (Shaw's Eco-Logic) Demonizing, and/or Taxing, Soda Over the past 30 years, Americans have gotten a lot heavier thanks primarily to technological progress in the food industry, which has provided an abundance of tasty,
caloric treats. The champions of public health are now fighting fat with the same tools that helped turn the smoky city of the “Mad Men” era into the clean-aired boroughs
of Bloomberg. Linking obesity with leukemia relapses - Fat
may offer sanctuary for cancerous cells, a study in mice shows In leukemia patients, excess fatty tissue allows cancerous cells to avoid destruction by chemotherapy drugs, a study in mice suggests. New links among alcohol abuse, depression, obesity in young women found There is new evidence that depression, obesity and alcohol abuse or dependency are interrelated conditions among young adult women but not men. NEW YORK - People who suffer a traumatic brain injury from a car crash or other mishap are more apt to survive if they had been drinking at the time of the injury,
according to a study published Monday. No, this doesn't mean you should take alcohol prophylactically before driving -- not the same as the old "wear clean underwear in case you have an
accident" thing at all. Mediterranean diet trims the wallet NEW YORK - Sticking to a Mediterranean diet rich in fish, olive oil, legumes, fruit and vegetables is heart healthy, but expensive, maybe even prohibitively so, new
research from Spain hints. Experts say cancer wave threatens poorer nations BERLIN - Cancer is a bigger killer in developing countries than tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS combined and a "tsunami" of the disease threatens to overwhelm the
nations worst equipped to cope, experts said on Tuesday. Weather shifts may spark asthma attacks in kids NEW YORK - People who say their asthma gets worse when the weather changes are on to something, new research hints. Tanning may up skin cancer risk for palest kids NEW YORK - Very light-skinned children who tan in the sun develop significantly more moles than their peers who stay pale in the sun, new research shows. EPA Sues VF's North Face Over "Pesticide" Shoes SAN FRANCISCO - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency filed a complaint against VF Corp, owner of the North Face brand, on Tuesday, claiming that more than 70 styles of
shoes advertised as bacteria-killing by the company had not been registered with the agency. Too funny for words... Shrinking
ozone hole hailed as global treaty success story STRONG evidence is emerging that, together, governments have probably dodged another environmental bullet at a time when global climate change agreement is under threat. You can see some of the real story here, in case you are not familiar with it. Hmm... We Should Fund NASA to Search for ‘Killer Rocks’ In 2005, the US Congress gave NASA a deadline of 2020 to detect, track and characterize 90% of near-Earth objects bigger than 140 meters. This is the size of objects
thought to pose a significant risk if they strike in urban areas. I find myself somewhat ambivalent... On the one hand funding NASA to perform such busy work is infinitely preferable to funding them to produce absurd
climate scares but on the other it's a dreadful waste. So-called "planet killers", asteroid impacts sufficient to decimate life on Earth arrive on average about
every 65 million years. Assuming you live for 80 years then you have something less than one in eight hundred thousand (1/800,000) risk of such an impact in your lifetime.
The chance of today being the day is about 1 in 24,000,000,000 (your lottery odds are way better). Even sneaky little ones that arrive so much more frequently are not very
likely to get you (heck, they could explode over 95% of the planet & only frighten sea birds, fish or maybe some bugs or livestock). Humans only live on a dispersed 3%
of the planet's surface and are at far greater risk from volcanoes than space rocks. Barack Obama's problem:
eco-worry is for those with excess cash Pity Britain’s organic farmers. According a full-page report in today’s Guardian, they’re close to going bust. Sales of organic produce have fallen 13% per cent in a
year (organic vegetables, for example, are down £34.1 million). So Green and Blacks, Rachel’s and Yeo Valley are all fighting for their survival, and the firms are meeting
today in London to help co-ordinate a fightback. UK Organic Food Needs To Be Cheaper: Trade Board LONDON - Organic food in Britain is often too expensive in comparison with non-organic products and the price gap must narrow if the struggling sector is to return to
strong growth, the Organic Trade Board said. The BBC
reports that… Eight
of the UK’s leading environmental groups have joined forces to urge political parties to adopt a joint approach on green issues. These
eight are the usual suspects - Green Alliance, Friends of the Earth, the Woodland Trust, WWF, the Wildlife Trusts, the RSPB, the Campaign to Protect Rural England and
Greenpeace. Speaking
on behalf of all the groups, Stephen Hale, director of Green Alliance, said: “Action in the next parliament is critical if we are to simultaneously reduce our CO2
emissions whilst improving the resilience of our natural environment to avoid the looming crises of food, energy and water shortages by 2030. “It’s
now or never. Support for the common cause declaration will be the threshold for credibility at the next election on environmental issues. “The
commitment to decisive action must be endorsed by all parties. “The
real contest will be over specific policies, so we urge them to include our 10 manifesto asks for 2010 in their forthcoming manifestos.” We’ve
written before about the influence of NGOs in today’s world, and the roles they seem to have positioned themselves into. When Conservative leader, David Cameron gave a
press conference at Greenpeace’s HQ, the relationship between the political establishment is (symbolically, at least) transformed. Once the thorn in the side of Western
governments, the organisation was now operating as a de-facto PR consultancy, lending the Tories’ energy policies the appearance of legitimacy.
In
October last year, we asked whether the arguments made by Oxfam’s campaigns were
consistent with reality, and suggested that in fact they end up encouraging a very selfish understanding of ‘injustice’ in the world, as though it were experienced, not
by people actually suffering injustice or inequality, but by the organisation’s would-be donors. More worryingly, the development agency increasingly appeared to be taking
an anti-development line, pushing for policies that seemingly aimed to ‘protect’ traditional lifestyles on the basis that they were ‘environmentally sustainable’. But
as we pointed out, this may well preclude the possibility of the ‘beneficiaires’ of Oxfam’s campaigns from asserting their own political interests, as well as realising
their own ambitions for development. There
is no denying that the NGO has increased its influence over the past few decades. The questions we have concern the legitimacy of the new configuration of domestic and
international politics, and the kind of elite politics it generates, and why this is happening. The
power of NGOs begins with people putting cash in tins rattled at passers by on the High Street. Increasingly, this process - once an activity of concerned citizens giving up
their spare time - has become professionalised, and now consists of teams of people employed to accost shoppers with direct-debit forms, and stories and pictures about the
plight of animals and African babies. They want to you to sign up, now, and rarely have any literature which you may take away with you. When the shopper gets home, he or she
still is likely to be contacted by the same fund-raising teams who make calls on behalf of the same NGOs with the same stories, on the basis that they earn a commission. Handing
over cash to an organisation that putatively aims to protect Things with Wings seems like an innocuous gesture. Who wouldn’t want to protect the whale/dolphin/puffin? And
indeed, if you’re worried about donkeys or elephants, there is nothing wrong with giving money to an organisation which goes about making life comfortable for creatures.
But, increasingly, organisations such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (the RSPB - part of the Green Alliance) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF - also part of
the alliance) aren’t engaging in the simple provision of sanctuary for bunny rabbits, nor even lobbying for a bit more recognition for the rights of grasshoppers, but are
instead directing their campaigning funds at the entire business of politics. These green NGOs turn a routine concern for fluffy and feathered animals into a political force.
Did the pensioner who signed up to a £5 a month direct debit to ’save the creature’ imagine that it would be spent directly on a tiger, owl, and badger, or were they
aware that it would be spent on delimiting the possibilities of democratic expression? And did those who forked out cash to aid Third World development imagine that it would
be spent on precisely the opposite? It
ends with governments funding NGOs to lobby them. Groups such as Friends of the Earth and WWF are the beneificiaries of £millions
of EU funds. Back
to the demands of the Green Alliance. The intention is to get each of the UK’s political parties to include the following statements in their manifestos: (Climate
Resistance) No
Science Without Skepticism, Just Intolerance and Despotism (a slightly different Italian version of the below has been published by Climate Monitor) Skeptically-challenged AGWers are hardly the best
examples of tolerance. Arguably, some among them don’t seem to be bothered with
supporting dictatorships. If one talks to others, a
barrage of insults will be fired back. What if the underlying problem is exactly their rejection of the value of skeptical / unorthodox / anti-dogmatic thinking? And what if by that very rejection, they are actually revealing nasty undertones that risk placing AGW centuries against Science and against centuries of philosophical
advances too, starting from the Enlightenment if not from the times of Ancient Greece? That is one’s feeling having read an extraordinary page in Italy’s biggest business daily “Il Sole24Ore”, in particular in its separate Sunday section
dedicated to cultural and scientific matters. In the Sunday, August 2 2009 edition, page 35 is an almost solid praise of skepticism, described as That’s the skepticism that has reached us through the Enlightenment. Those that refuse skepticism in the realm of science then, and denigrate it, and recklessly rely on
an “Unquestionable Authority“, they are ultimately placing themselves outside of Science itself, and outside of nearly four hundred years of philosophy if not
more. What is obvious is that the “skeptical attitude” of ancient and modern philosophers is antithetical to current fashionable AGW, where an incredibly dogmatic rigidity
leads to cries of lese-majeste for example when anybody dares to doubt prophecis of upcoming catastrophes, or some of the conclusions of the latest IPCC report, or even the
very dangers of anthropogenic climate change. (All articles appear here in my own translation. Unfortunately they do not seem to be available on the internet) Let’s start from Remo Bodei’s “An Enlightenment to turn back on“. UCLA’s
History of Philosophy Professor Bodei invites readers to rediscover some oft-forgotten aspects of the Enlightenment, such as being aware of the “limits of Reason“,
and of the importance of a skeptical approach to Knowledge. The Enlightenment has its firmest roots in modern skepticism represented by Bayle along the traditional lines of Pyrrhonism, Montaigne’s relativism, the
achievements of Hobbes’s “New Science” and French libertinism. However, the Enlightenment emphasizes the “corrosive”and”destructive” nature of Reason, ready
to doubt even of itself. Bayle is Pierre Bayle, a famous-no-longer XIX-century French philosopher. Bayle considered
knowledge as an endless process whose only “true source” is reality rather than formal logic. “General theories” are therefore impossible, and Bayle
dedicates large swaths of his 1697 “Dictionnaire historique et critique” to sarcastically compare wisdom and stupidity in order to debunk seemingly unassailable
“truths”. Because what is “true” today is almost certain to become “false” sometimes in the future. As reported by Bodei, Pierre Bayle is also mentioned in the following diary entry by Italian maître-à-penser
Giacomo Leopardi (“Zibaldone”, September 1, 1826): Bayle’s argument that reason is an instrument of destruction rather than construction, applies very well. Indeed, it reminds me of what I have observed in other
areas: that from the Renaissance onwards, and especially recently, the advances of the human spirit have consisted, and mostly consist, not in the discovery of positive
truths, but of negative ones. In other words, progress has been achieved in knowing the falsehood of concepts in the recent or faraway past considered as solid truth, or in
appreciating our ignorance of other concepts that we had presumed to know already [...] And therefore the Ancients, in fields such as metaphysics, morality, and even in
politics […] could be considered as more advanced than us, merely because they lived before certain “positive truth” claims and discoveries had been made,
claims that we now try to shrug off slowly and with great effort […]. According to Leopardi, “to know” means “to discover which truth has now become false”, that is, “to learn more about our own ignorance”.
And so as time progresses, we will know more and more, that is less and less, because each new “positive truth” will eventually join this paradoxical increase in
the “knowledge of ignorance“. It is customary at this stage to stop and wonder if all the above be an invitation to let go of Knowledge, since we will never be able to reach any “Truth“.
But the answer can only be a resounding “No”. In fact, Bodei mentions “pyrrhonism“, the ideas of ancient Greek philosopher Pyrrho,
unwilling to choose between the existence (dogmatism) and the denial of existence (stoicism) of an Absolute Truth. “We can have opinions, but certainty and knowledge are impossible“, Pyrrho said. This would make it absurd to be offended by people having different opinions
than ours. If anything, the skeptical invitation is to avoid all dogmatisms, even and perhaps especially those related to scientific discoveries, and to allow us instead the
luxury of the possibility to change our mind. It t all gets explained in Professor of Philosophy of Knowledge Nicla Vassallo’s “Who’s afraid of
skepticism?“ In ancient times skepticism was a practical, as well as theoretical attitude: doubt preserves us from the “dogmatic certainties” with which we conduct
our lives, and provides us with greater happiness: the certainties crash as shipwrecks against rocks, whilst doubt allows us to suspend judgement, hence to lead a life
sheltered from anxieties, and to reach a higher level of ethics through greater tolerance to different opinions. Contemporary skepticism seems instead intent on something almost opposite, a purely theoretical concern against which only life can provide soothing… But is that
really true? Even the theoretical application of modern / contemporary skepticism has relevant practical consequences: indeed, in order to be reasonable, we have take as
legitimate only the “knowledge” that can pass the “skeptical challenge”. In other words, we can only defend what we say if we have the ability to
reject the explanations of our beliefs that are compatible with their falsehoods. For example, if we are not able to tell a rabbit from a hare, how can we claim to have seen a rabbit? There is no sense, no legitimacy in claims that do not pass the obstacle represented by the virtuous “skeptical challenge”. So for example we can not take as
incontrovertible dogma, or even as scientific knowledge, AGW claims that are compatible with everything and its opposite, able to explain the warming and then the cooling
too, and any future heating and/or cooling. That’s because if we are not able to tell a natural warming from an anthropogenic one, how can we then claim to have seen AGW? Rigidity, dogmatism, the claim of possessing an absolute truth that no one may dare challenge, they all do not belong to the wise, the philosopher, the sensible person. Neither can they be legitimate tools for the scientist. (OmniClimate) Speaking volumes about climate change superstitions: Revival of the rainmakers In Kenya, a country severely affected by climate change, meteorologists cooperate with traditional rainmakers. The idea is both to benefit from their understanding of
nature and to create public awareness. Interestingly, when British colonial authorities jailed sorcerers there was no gorebull warming... The Best Health Reform May Be to
Kill Cap-and-Trade If you worry about what Congress could do in its health care legislation, you should be terrified by the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, which could cost millions of
Americans their health insurance. Why I am an Anthropogenic Global
Warming Sceptic: Michael Hammer I HAVE been asked several times ‘why am I so sceptical of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis’? There are many reasons, some of which I have documented
in previous articles at this weblog, but these have relied on sometimes complex calculations which I admit can be difficult to appreciate. So I would like to outline here a
few of my reasons based only on simple consistency with the AGW proponents’ own data. (Michael Hammer, JenniferMarohasy.com) Poor gibbering Gideon is still at it: Climate
Lies Doom Planet The First World’s biggest Climate Liars are gathering at the UN in New York. Their Big Lies are the EU and now G8 “targets” of limiting temperature rise to 2 degrees
C (now inevitable whatever we do) and of limiting atmosphere greenhouse gas (GHG) concentration to 450 ppm CO2-e (it is already at a dangerous 475 ppm). Actually total GHG concentration regionally ranges from 1,000-40,000 ppm with an average of about 10,000 ppm and that's just the H2O content of the
atmosphere. There are other greenhouse gases of course but they don't matter much. Wonder if Gibbering Gideon really believes the planet was "unhealthy" for all
the hundreds of millions of years it had much higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels? Wonder if he's really this stupid? Apparently he thinks Indy readers are: Johann
Hari: Collapse or survive: the stark choice facing our species - We all know what has to happen. But are we too primitive and irrational to do it? We are – at the same time – thrillingly close and sickeningly far from solving our planetary fever. The world's leaders huddled in New York City yesterday to discuss
man-made global warming, in a United Nations building that will soon be underwater if they fail. They all know what has to happen: their scientists have told them, plainly
and urgently. Oh... U.S. To Track Greenhouse Gases For First Time WASHINGTON - The U.S. government will begin requiring big companies to monitor and report greenhouse gas emissions, officials said on Tuesday, a move that could make it
easier for federal regulators to cut emissions if Congress does not pass a climate change bill. But greenhouse gases are not atmospheric pollutants... OK, as far as baby steps go... Murkowski Mulls Stopping EPA Climate Moves WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would be prohibited for one year from clamping down on some new carbon dioxide pollution under legislation being
crafted on Tuesday by Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski. (Reuters) Hearing focuses Texas opposition to climate bill AUSTIN — Scores of Texas politicians, regulators and industry representatives took aim Tuesday at proposed federal legislation to combat climate change, saying it would
cripple the state's economy. Nobody
Does Climate Change Gimmicks As Badly As Gordon Brown UK Prime Minister (unelected) Gordon Brown, whose ascent to power has sadly coincided with the start of the global financial crisis, has given a little less than three
minutes of his time to a blatantly orchestrated gimmick related to Avaaz.org’s “The Global [AGW]
Wake Up Call“. Mr Brown has agreed to appear in a video taking up a phone call from an Avaaz.org’s activist.
Of course it was just perchance that video recording facilities were available exactly where Mr Brown happened to pick up his phone. And of course the visage of the
Avaaz.org activist was remarkably well lit, again due to chance. The video has several low points: first Mr Brown is just too eager to agree on everything, thereby defying the point of the “wake-up call” (it’s like bringing a
bucket of sand to the Sahara…). Secondly, there is a pathetic attempt to claim that “hundreds of people” had shown up in Parliament Square. Despite plenty of video recording equipment, we are only
shown a handful of the “hundreds”. There is mention of 300
activists in this eWeek article, but again no pictures or videos of them. Here’s a flickr
page full of them (I wonder if there were more than 100 people at most?). According to Google News, the eWeek article has been published at around 12.30PM London time, remarkably only a few minutes after the Brown phone call took place. And
finally, what did Mr Brown promise? Why, to go to Copenhagen himself…the
very thing Avaaz.org wanted to persuade him to do. How strange. (OmniClimate) President Barack Obama’s speech on global warming to the United Nations yesterday was based on fantasy. Here are some quotes from the speech followed by the reality. Europe fears Obama going cold on climate battle European leaders who once saw Barack Obama's election as a new dawn in the battle against global warming are becoming concerned, three months ahead of a key UN climate
summit in Copenhagen. Terence Corcoran: Growth
first, climate later In this week’s battle of the summits, Pittsburgh wins. As the world’s top 20 political figures, leaders of the so-called G20 group of nations, open two days of summit
work in Pittsburgh tomorrow, it can now safely be concluded that one issue has been resolved. US-EU rift clouds climate summit A growing rift between the US and Europe is overshadowing Tuesday’s United Nations climate change summit in New York, further damping hopes for a breakthrough at the
Copenhagen talks in December. Gap Holds Between Climate
Stances of Rich and Poor As world leaders and their top advisers convened in Manhattan for Tuesday’s United Nations summit on global warming, there were hints of accord on a few issues that
could form the basis for a climate deal in December in Copenhagen – something less that a full-blown treaty but sufficient to avoid total breakdown of an international
effort. (More on those hints can be found below and on our Green Inc. blog.) Chinese rope-a-dope: Now
China lays down challenge to Obama on climate - UN hopeful that Beijing initiative will kick-start talks on deal to curb emissions Beijing will raise the stakes in the race to agree a global climate change treaty by using a summit of world leaders in New York today to announce that China, the biggest
emitter of greenhouse gases, is ready to take new measures to cut pollution. Can China make a great green leap forward? - The
world’s most polluting country has pledged to end its energy-squandering ways. Beijing’s commissars have the power to do it The Chinese once rode to work on bicycles. Millions of pedalling commuters in Chinese cities would, decades ago, crowd out ancient lorries and limousines carrying
Communist Party officials. The choice of two wheels wasn’t a fashion for Lycra-clad ethically green mobility. It was poverty. Given the choice, today’s Chinese commuters
would rather burn petrol while seated in air-conditioned cars than inhale the foul fumes of China’s cities, while burning body fat. China diminishes hope for global climate deal
- Copenhagen summit set for failure as major polluters fail to break new ground toward a treaty World leaders have failed to break new ground in climate talks, making the chance of finalizing a full global treaty in Copenhagen in December remote. Rudd switches tack on emissions legislation PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has undermined his own argument that his emissions trading legislation must be passed before Copenhagen, admitting its defeat has not hampered
his role in international climate-change talks. Another eye-roller from Andy: Momentum on Climate Pact Is Elusive The world leaders who met at the United Nations to discuss climate change on Tuesday are faced with an intricate challenge: building momentum for an international climate
treaty at a time when global temperatures have been relatively stable for a decade and may even drop in the next few years. U.N. climate meeting was propaganda: Czech president UNITED NATIONS - Czech President Vaclav Klaus sharply criticized a U.N. meeting on climate change on Tuesday at which U.S. President Barack Obama was among the top
speakers, describing it as propagandistic and undignified. Future coffee: scarce, expensive – but tasty In Guatemala, farmers growing coffee are forced to move production to higher altitudes where less land is available. The good news: conditions for high quality coffee are
actually better. (CoP15) From CO2 Science Volume 12 Number 38: 23 September 2009
The Scientists Speak: Editorial: Medieval
Warm Period Record of the Week: Subject Index Summary: Plant Growth Data: Journal Reviews: Warming and Cooling in the Bay of Biscay: What does the multi-decadal sea surface temperature cycling of the
past century and a half reveal? Genetic Adaptation to Extreme Environmental Change: Can it work its wonders with respect to global warming? Alpine Plants Threatened with Warming-Induced Extinction: Can phenotypic plasticity save the day? Biological Soil Crusts, Seed Germination and CO2: How are the three related? New
Paper “Albedo Effect On Radiative Errors In Air Temperature Measurements” By Huwald Et Al 2009 There is a new paper which addresses the issue of surface albedo and how this affects surface air temperatures (thanks to Dev Niyogi for alerting us to it!). The article
is Huwald, H., C. W. Higgins, M.-O. Boldi, E. Bou-Zeid, M. Lehning, and M. B. Parlange (2009): Albedo effect on radiative errors in air temperature measurements, Water
Resour. Res., 45, W08431, doi:10.1029/2008WR007600. The abstract reads “Most standard air temperature measurements are subject to significant errors mainly due to sensor heating by solar radiation, even when the measurement principle is
accurate and precise. We present various air temperature measurements together with other measurements of meteorological parameters using different sensor systems at a
snow-covered and a vegetated site. Measurements from naturally ventilated air temperature sensors in multiplate shields are compared to temperatures measured using sonic
anemometers which are unaffected by solar radiation. Over snow, 30 min mean temperature differences can be as large as 10°C. Unshielded thermocouples were also tested and
are generally less affected by shortwave radiation. Temperature errors decrease with decreasing solar radiation and increasing wind speed but do not completely disappear at a
given solar radiation even in the presence of effective ventilation. We show that temperature errors grow faster for reflected than for incident solar radiation,
demonstrating the influence of the surface properties on radiative errors, and we detect the albedo as a variable with major influence on the magnitude of the error as well
as a key quantity in possible error correction schemes. An extension is proposed for an existing similarity regression model to correct for radiative errors; thus,
surface-reflected shortwave radiation is identified as a principal source of error and the key variable for obtaining a unique nondimensional scaling of radiative errors.” This paper further documents one of the sources of spatially non-representative temperature data that we highlighted in our papers Pielke Sr., R.A. J. Nielsen-Gammon, C. Davey, J. Angel, O. Bliss, N. Doesken, M. Cai., S. Fall, D. Niyogi, K. Gallo, R. Hale, K.G. Hubbard, X. Lin, H. Li, and S.
Raman, 2007: Documentation of uncertainties and biases associated with surface temperature measurement sites
for climate change assessment. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 88:6, 913-928. Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S.
Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land
surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S08, doi:10.1029/2006JD008229. The Huwald et al 2009 paper shows that if the local surface characteristics, such as albedo, change over time, the long term trends in surface temperatures will
have a non-spatially representative component if the larger scale landscape did not have the same changes. (Climate Science) Iceberg Stories Are a Wet Lettuce In the Guardian yesterday, the paper’s US Environmental correspondent, Suzanne Goldenberg writes: The world’s ocean surfaces had their
warmest summer temperatures on record, the US national climatic data centre said today. Climate change has been steadily raising the
earth’s average temperature in recent decades, but climatologists expected additional warming this year and next due to the influence of El Niño. However, as Bob Tisdale and Anthony Watts point out at the latter’s blog, there are many reasons to be cautious about
taking the claim at face value. It is the product of one dataset, and is not supported with data from satellites. Indeed, according to the UAH satellite record, the average
temperature of the world in August was just 0.23°C above the average. But that’s not what really piqued our interest. Goldenburg’s story finishes, The report also noted the continuing retreat
in Arctic sea ice over the summer. Sea ice covered an average of 6.3m sq kilometres (2.42m sq miles) during August, according to the national snow and ice data centre. That
was 18.4% the 1979-2000 average. The press release from which Goldenburg lifts her story says According to the National Snow and Ice Data
Center (NSIDC), Arctic sea ice covered an average of 2.42 million square miles during August. This is 18.4 percent below the 1979-2000 average extent, and is generally
consistent with a decline of August sea ice extent since 1979. The difference between ‘18.4 percent’, and ‘18.4 percent below’ is 63.2 percent. But of course, it may well just be a typo than a reflection of Goldenberg’s
misunderstanding of the science. But notice another interpretation. The original quote speaks of the 2009 ice extent representing the continuation of a general trend,
‘consistent with a decline of August sea ice extent since 1979′, ie, not as much ice as there was, once. But this is transformed in Goldenberg’s copy, and becomes
‘the continuing retreat in Arctic sea ice over the summer’, which is palpably not true. Perhaps you think we’re nit-picking by pulling Goldenberg up for what might well be the result of an honest misunderstanding married to a slack rewording of the press
release. But what is strange is her apparent complete lack of surprise at the notion that summer ice has declined by a factor of five in such a short time. And that’s after
two years of recovery. … (Climate Resistance) Chu wants you to pay more: Electricity Costs Should Move To Reflect Demand: Chu WASHINGTON - As the United States' power grid becomes more sophisticated, electricity rates will need to rise to reflect periods of intense energy use and to encourage
consumers to change their electricity habits, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said on Monday. In reality supply should increase to meet demand (and usually does, in the absence of government interference) but Chu wants to ration you through
punitive pricing. Have you got a message for Doctor Chu? Market the crude or don't but you can keep your scam: Ecuador Would Protect Oil-Rich Rainforest For Cash UNITED NATIONS - Ecuador, a member of OPEC, is willing to preserve a tropical forest with reserves of 900 million barrels of oil if rich countries pay it about $360
million a year to keep the petroleum in the ground. Actually the biosphere would prefer the carbon was released as carbon dioxide, it is an essential trace gas, after all. CCS:
all about the ‘right rocks’ - A report from the Third Annual Coal Tech conference, held on September 15-16, on steps to carbon storage in Australia. The Third Annual Coal Tech conference hosted a range of insightful presentations on coal related technologies, including clean coal and carbon capture and storage (CCS)
technologies; coal-to-liquids; underground coal gasification; and syngas. No, it's actually all about whether there's any plausible reason for wasting roughly one-third of your generated energy depriving the biosphere of the
one really beneficial byproduct of human activity. There is absolutely no excuse for doing this. Good! Spending crisis could put brake on clean coal project The government's claim to be a world leader in developing clean coal technology has been dented after officials warned privately that public spending constraints could
force them to cut the £10bn programme. The last thing we should be doing is burying carbon we have spent time, effort and energy mining in the first place. Biofools... Senator Would Drop Land-Use From U.S. Biofuels Rule WASHINGTON - A senator from the U.S. Corn Belt filed an amendment on Tuesday that would bar federal regulators from considering how land is used overseas when they write
rules to expand use of biofuels. Wave electricity generator
capsizes in sea A power company's plans to create energy by harnessing power from sea waves suffered a setback after an 80-tonne generator capsized off the coast. Except for the "floating" part... September 22, 2009
The backward attacks on Norman Borlaug - Who could possibly think that
Borlaug’s ideas for feeding millions were a bad thing? Green activists, that’s who. The death of Norman Borlaug on 12 September was widely marked as a sad loss. Borlaug’s development and introduction of high-yielding crop varieties into Mexico, India
and Pakistan in the mid-twentieth century helped avert a humanitarian disaster of biblical proportions. Instead of hundreds of millions of people starving, food production in
these and other developing countries shot up as a result of his work. BORLAUG: FEEDING THE HUNGRY, SAVING THE
WILDLIFE, BY: DENNIS T. AVERY CHURCHVILLE, VA—It was 1950. World War II, with its 40 million deaths, was over. Doctors were conquering smallpox with vaccines, protecting millions from malaria and
typhus with new pesticides, and treating infections with the miraculous new antibiotics. Obama:
‘Nobody’ Considers Health Care Mandate a Tax Increase President Obama argued on TV talk shows this weekend that his proposed
mandate for everyone to buy health insurance – or face a large financial penalty – is not a tax increase: In a testy exchange on ABC’s “This Week,” broadcast Sunday, Obama rejected the assertion that forcing people to obtain coverage would violate his campaign pledge
against raising taxes on middle-class Americans. “For us to say you have to take responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase,” Obama said in response to persistent
questioning, later adding: “Nobody considers that a tax increase.” Well, I consider it a tax increase, so I guess that makes me nobody. The real question is whether this tax increase is a good idea. My answer is no. If others disagree, then fine, let’s have that debate. But denying plain truths suggests
that advocates of Obamacare are trying to pass something that Americans would not endorse if it were structured and explained clearly. Watch:
(Jeffrey A. Miron, Cato at liberty) Nobody
Considers Health Insurance Mandates a Tax? Really?? As my colleague Jefferey Myron noted earlier today, when
grilled by George Stephanopolous on whether the so-called “individual
mandate” is a tax increase, Obama replied, “Nobody considers that a tax increase….You can’t just make up that language and decide that that’s called a tax
increase…My critics say everything is a tax increase.” Where do Obama’s critics get these wacky ideas? From a bunch of nobodies, that’s who! Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt, quoted by Larry Summers (1987): [Just because] the fiscal flows triggered by mandate would not flow directly through the public budgets does not detract from the measure’s
status of a bona fide tax. Economist Larry Summers, Obama’s National Economic
Council chair (1989): Economists have generally devoted little attention to mandated benefits regarding them as simply disguised tax and expenditure measures…
Essentially, mandated benefits are like public programs financed by benefit taxes… [If] the mandated benefit is worthless to employees, it is just like a tax from
the point of view of both employers and employees…There is no sense in which benefits become ‘free’ just because the government mandates that employers offer
them to workers. Columbia University economist Sherry Glied, Obama’s appointee to HHS Assistant
Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, in the New England Journal of Medicine
(2008): The mandate is in many respects analogous to a tax. It requires people to make payments for something whether they want it or not. One important concern
is that the government will provide insufficient funds for the subsidies intended to accompany the mandate. In that case, the mandate will act as a very regressive tax,
penalizing uninsured people who genuinely cannot afford to buy coverage. Congressional Budget Office (2009): Under some proposals, firms would be required to make payments to the federal government if they chose not to offer health insurance to their employees, and individuals
who did not comply with the requirement to obtain insurance would have to pay a penalty. Such payments would be equivalent to a tax or a fine, and the
government’s receipts should be recorded in the budget as federal revenues. Here’s a question: if an individual mandate is not a tax, why exempt anybody? If an employer mandate isn’t a tax, why exempt small businesses? (Michael F.
Cannon, Cato at liberty) Symposium tackles obesity and food issues - The Healthy Foods,
Healthy Lives Institute held its first annual symposium on health and food issues. The world is fat, which is part of the reason that processed foods — the kind that can sit in the cupboard for three years without going bad — have been demonized.
Instead, health advocates claim fresh fruits and vegetables are the key to healthy living. Call for early intervention to prevent child obesity THE CRITICAL time to intervene to prevent the development of obesity is during the pre-school years and in early adolescence, a conference on sport and exercise medicine
has been told. ASBMR: New Reference Values Set to Gauge Obesity DENVER -- Normal values for 10 body composition parameters -- including a proposed replacement for body mass index (BMI) -- have been established from NHANES data, a
researcher said here. Separate reference values were calculated for three major racial groups and both genders for such measures as total body bone mineral content, trunk-limb fat mass ratio,
and total body fat percentage, reported Thomas Kelly, PhD, of Hologic in Bedford, Mass. Editorial: Soda tax will curtail obesity, bolster health care Under the contentious proposed tax on soft drinks, a can of soda might cost more than that crumpled dollar bill in your pocket. So how do you stop wannabe social engineers? Are they the ones you're supposed to fill their mouths with rock salt and sew their lips together or
something? Soda tax is no sure cure for
childhood obesity The video shows dozens of children playing “Red Rover” and singing “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” It is a summer scene that took place nearly 50 years ago. Prosecutors
Should Not Be Allowed to Fabricate Evidence In 1977, county attorney David Richter and assistant county attorney Joseph Hrvol worked side by side with police to investigate and “solve” the notorious murder of a
former police officer in Pottawattamie County, Iowa. The prosecutors fabricated evidence and used it to charge and convict Curtis McGhee and Terry Harrington, sending them to
prison for 25 years. After the convictions were overturned for prosecutorial misconduct, McGhee and Harrington sued the county and prosecutors. The defendants in that civil suit invoked the
absolute immunity generally afforded prosecutors to try to escape liability. After the Eighth Circuit ruled against them, the Supreme Court agreed to review the case. On Friday, Cato joined the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the ACLU on a
brief supporting the men unjustly imprisoned. We argue that prosecutors should be responsible for their role in manufacturing a false “case,” just as police officers
would be under the same circumstances. As the Court has held, prosecutors enjoy absolute immunity only during the prosecutorial phase of a case, not its investigatory phase.
Were prosecutors to receive absolute immunity here, citizens would have no protection from or recourse against prosecutors who frame the innocent by fabricating evidence and
then using that evidence to convict them. To read Cato’s brief in the case of Pottawattamie County v. McGhee, see here.
(Ilya Shapiro, Cato at liberty) The Indy's green suicide is near complete (how long before The Guardian follows?): O'Brien
sees London's Independent closed by Dec DUBLIN, Sept 18 - Independent News & Media is likely to close its flagship London title The Independent by Christmas, the publishing group's second biggest shareholder
Denis O'Brien said on Friday. A couple of interesting “greenie” articles…if only because one doesn’t have to follow through to each and everyone of their conclusions to agree with their
observations: much of what is being touted as solution to (alleged) planetary environmental problems is “a way of making you think” begging the question of “what
difference does it make?“ From RISMedia: “All This Talk about
‘Green’…It’s Enough to Turn ‘Ye Puce” by George W Mantor (March 17, 2009): You can bet that in the next few months someone will chastise you for not being “green” enough. [...] Car companies are going “green” and so are refineries,
builders, and just about every other industry with any exposure to the public. As a matter of fact, even manufacturers of ammunition are producing “green” bullets.
These would be particularly appropriate, I suppose, for shooting environmental activists. So, what is this “green?” Is it new? Where did it come from and, why now? [...] “Green” isn’t a thing as much as a way of thinking. Or, a way of making you think. [...] Being Greener. The first phase had already taken place. They switched to “greener” office products: recycled paper, bamboo paper clips, solar powered
calculators; a bold switch from chemical adhesives to certified organic muselage ground from the bulbs of renewable wild Hyacinth. I was musing about some of the consequences, like the move to far costlier refillable pens. They still buy the same number of pens. What they didn’t consider was
that the pens weren’t wearing out or running dry, they would “disappear” long before they ever ran out of ink. It would have been greener to simply chain the
disposable pens to conveniently located writing surfaces. As I waited for the light to change, my eyes were drawn to the gutter where the exact composition of the decaying soggy mass was indiscernible, but I did notice that
some of it was turning green. And, it sort of begs the question, what difference does it make [...] From Orion magazine: “Forget Shorter Showers – Why personal change does not
equal political change” by Derrick Jensen (July/August 2009) WOULD ANY SANE PERSON think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that
chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act
of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”? [...] An Inconvenient Truth helped raise consciousness about global warming. But did you notice that all of the solutions presented had to do with personal
consumption—changing light bulbs, inflating tires, driving half as much—and had nothing to do with shifting power away from corporations, or stopping the growth economy
that is destroying the planet? Even if every person in the United States did everything the movie suggested, U.S. carbon emissions would fall by only 22 percent. Scientific
consensus is that emissions must be reduced by at least 75 percent worldwide. Or let’s talk water. [...] See the disconnect? Because I take showers, I’m responsible for drawing down aquifers? Well, no. More than 90 percent of the water
used by humans is used by agriculture and industry. The remaining 10 percent is split between municipalities and actual living breathing individual humans. Collectively,
municipal golf courses use as much water as municipal human beings. [...] Or let’s talk energy. [...] “even if we all took up cycling and wood stoves it would have a negligible impact on energy use, global warming and atmospheric
pollution.” [...] Or let’s talk waste. [...] Let’s say you’re a die-hard simple-living activist, and you reduce this to zero. You recycle everything. You bring cloth bags
shopping. You fix your toaster. Your toes poke out of old tennis shoes. You’re not done yet, though. Since municipal waste includes not just residential waste, but also
waste from government offices and businesses, you march to those offices, waste reduction pamphlets in hand, and convince them to cut down on their waste enough to
eliminate your share of it. Uh, I’ve got some bad news. Municipal waste accounts for only 3 percent of total waste production in the United States [...] .
(OmniClimate) Top companies to avoid: NEWSWEEK Launches Ranking of Greenest
Companies in America NEW YORK, Sept. 21 -- Newsweek launched a ranking of the greenest companies in America in its current issue and Hewlett-Packard took top honors. The Newsweek Green
Rankings is the first-ever report based on companies' actual environmental footprint, policies and practices. The twelve-page report in the September 28 issue, (on newsstands
September 21), features a green ranking of America's 500 largest publicly-traded companies as measured by revenue, market capitalization and number of employees. On
Newsweek.com, can search and sort the data in several ways, analyze the detailed methodology of the study and submit and review comments. (PRNewswire) Oh... Fed judge says grizzlies still threatened BILLINGS, Mont. — Facing the combined pressures of climate change, hunters and lax protections, 600 grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park are going back
on the threatened species list under a federal court order issued Monday. After all their efforts to terrorize people out of using biotech... Biotechnology Could Cut C02 Sharply - Report Industrial biotechnology has the potential to save the planet up to 2.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per year and support building a sustainable future,
a new WWF report found. <chuckle> Record fall in carbon emissions The recession and political initiatives to cut emissions lead to significant decline in carbon emissions this year, a study from the International Energy Agency shows. The
world has seen nothing like this for 40 years. (CoP15) I guess political initiatives could be seen as largely responsible for the loss of confidence and attendant global recession which, coupled with fairly
mild conditions in both hemispheres reducing the need for heating/cooling energy use, did lead to reduced emissions. Don't know if they should be crowing about it though
since it is a very good proxy for reduced economic activity and increasing populations sliding into [deeper] poverty. Poor indoctrinated dupes... Firms Start to See Climate
Change as Barrier to Profit As the real-world impacts of climate change begin to materialize and regulation of greenhouse gases appears more likely, corporate America has begun to grapple with a
challenging question: How do you quantify the risks associated with climate change? See the previous item for the association between reduced emissions and business activity. The only real risk is the misguided belief life-sustaining
carbon dioxide is a bad thing. Time to expunge all environment "anythings" from law: US
appeals court revives pollution lawsuit NEW YORK -- A federal appeals court ruled Monday that states trying to combat global warming can sue six electric utilities to force them to cut the greenhouse gases
emitted by their power plants in 20 states. Ideology trumps ecology for many climate change doubters As the U.S. Senate gears up to consider the Waxman-Markey climate protection bill this fall, we should expect to hear heightened denials about the reality of human-induced
global warming. Probably could have called that demographic the perpetually terrified since they are basically the same group concerned anything with a chemical name is
going to "get" them and who possess a plethora of nameless fears. Gorebull warming is nothing but well-exploited "future fear" (fear of that which we
have not already survived, even though there is no state or past which was not someone's unknown future before it was experienced). How sad it is that almost 1 in 5 people
fear the coming day rather than viewing it with delicious anticipation of new challenge, learning and experience awaiting. Iceland: Wetlands should count as mitigation The North Atlantic nation wants wetland restoration to be assessed for emission reduction units at December's UN climate change conference in Copenhagen. (CoP15) Yeah... so should dams. After all, land impoundments keep runoff water from raising sea levels, so they should count big for mitigation credits ;-) This from the guy that helped then-chancellor Gordon Brown tax and spend Britain into its current hole... Former
British prime touts 10 million jobs from climate action Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair stresses that 10 million jobs could be created by 2020, if developing nations agree to big cuts in greenhouse gases. (CoP15) So Tony, how many jobs are created in a "normal" year? Would these 10 million jobs be additional jobs or ones that displace 100 million real
jobs? Another version of the Left's "great leap 'forward'"... and developing countries are supposed to take economic advice from such people? Is he really this stupid? Chu: More Bipartisanship On Climate
Change Than Health Care Energy Secretary Steven Chu said today that he sees more bipartisan support for climate change legislation than for health care reform. Idiots! Of course politicians will pay the price for stealing people's jobs and homes: Green
groups open 'climate war room' The cap-and-trade movement, spooked by the pounding health care reform took over the August break, is scrambling to persuade nervous Democrats they won’t suffer
politically for taking another tough vote this year. Australia suggests compromise between rich and poor The way to get a deal in Copenhagen is to accept that the developing countries should not make the same commitments as the rich countries, says the Australian Climate
Change Minister, Penny Wong. (CoP15) Developing countries should not limit their development in any way, shape or form. Then again, neither should developed ones. Wonder if he's any good as a railway engineer? Canada
should put oil sands on hold: climate change expert MONTREAL — Canada should be doing much more to tackle climate change, and consider closing down the oilsands projects in northern Alberta, the head of an international
scientific panel on climate change said Monday. We certainly think it'd be a lot better for the world if he went and found out... On Global Warming, an Ambitious Agenda - Domestic
Politics Could Thwart U.N. Push for Commitments From Leaders The United Nations' commitment to securing an international climate deal will be on full display Tuesday, as world leaders come together in New York to discuss how best to
address global warming. But the event, arranged by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, highlights both the possibilities and obstacles Ban and his deputies face in orchestrating
the historic pact. Denmark and Google to cooperate on climate A new YouTube channel is aimed at opening up the UN climate conference in Copenhagen (COP15) to the public. Google Maps and Google Earth offer guided video tours that
illustrate climate change. Gifting the scammers: The Market Solution For Global Warming -
Chief of Enel argues for unlimited market for carbon offsets. Fulvio Conti, chief executive of Enel, Italy's largest power utility, says that the U.N. needs to give market forces free rein as it designs the next phase of a global
carbon cap and trade market. "Common sense," says Conti, dictates that Western companies have unlimited ability to reduce their carbon footprint as cheaply as
possible, namely by investing in offset projects in developing countries like China, where carbon dioxide reduction projects are relatively inexpensive. (Andy Stone, Forbes) Remember we warned you about looming idiotic scare stories? Here ya go... Scientific
consensus over dire consequences A sense of urgency that has led to Tuesday’s meeting of world leaders in New York has been driven by an increasingly troubling consensus of scientific opinion. This recycled pap, again: Small island nations urge rich to limit warming NEW YORK, Sept 21 - Small island states that could face devastating storms and floods from climate change urged on Monday that global temperature increases be sharply
curtailed from goals set recently by industrialized countries. Activist stunts could be shafting themselves: Fake
New York Post on Climate Change: “We’re Screwed” Let
it not be said that no one is using eye-catching stunts to raise awareness about global warming. The activist group the
Yes Men is distributing 85,000 free copies of a “special climate edition” of the New York Post throughout New York City today, with the goal of, well,
terrifying people into action against climate change. The full paper is available online here, and
each article is also online. Here’s an excerpt from the front-page
story: It’s official. It’s getting hot down here. And if we don’t stop burning oil and coal, the Big Apple will be cooked. According to a high tech study
commissioned by a concerned Mayor Bloomberg and generously funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, climate change caused by human-created greenhouse gases is threatening the
health, livelihood and security of New Yorkers—especially those who take the subway to work… According to the panel’s report, if all nations don’t drastically cut their carbon emissions, then Gotham will suffer in the following ways: • Deadly heat waves will become more frequent, more intense and longer. Because cities are a lot hotter than their surrounding areas, we’ll see more of the sorts of
heat events that killed 600 people in 5 days in Chicago in 1995… • With coastal flooding, our water supply will be in trouble… • Along with coastal flooding, droughts will also increase… • The strain on our power grid will be drastically increased during the summer months. Granted, there is some light at the end of the pitch black tunnel: So what can we do about it? Plenty. And it’s not even that hard. On the City level, NASA scientists have the answers, and they’re simple: plant lots more trees (to cool the air through “evapotranspiration” and shade), and paint
the roofs white to reflect the sun’s heating rays (See “New
York’s all white with me”). But MOST IMPORTANTLY, we need to put pressure on government—local, state and federal—to convert our entire energy systems to sustainable sources like solar and wind. Well, lets hope all
those stimulus checks can kick that process into gear. (Discover) Well no, we're not "screwed" yet, although we will be if the misanthropists manage to gain control of the energy supply through the global
warming fraud. Carbon dioxide simply cannot produce the effects all this nonsense is supposed to "address". The popularly promoted accounts reduce a complex climate change process to a simplistic global warming argument based on carbon dioxide and some other compounds in the
atmosphere that absorb infrared (IR) radiation. The promoters employ atmospheric temperature measurements of relatively short term trends, extenuate the influence of natural
events and emphasize a greenhouse-related rationale. But their greenhouse analogy is scientifically incorrect, and they offer no clean supporting data from experiments
carefully designed to minimize confounding by natural influences. Their scientific transgressions originate from misapplication of the electromagnetic spectrum, disregard for
three fundamental laws of physics, and the misrepresentation of greenhouse operation and absorption behavior of photons. (Tom Kondis) I’ve unearthed from the YouTube dustbin what I believe to be some significant video of man-made global warming alarmist extraordinaire Stephen Schneider’s appearance
on a May 1978 episode of the old television series, In Search Of…. For this episode, the show was In Search Of…The Coming Ice Age. Monbiot
Challenged To Debate – By “Chill”’s Peter Taylor On the heels of the Plimer debacle, deep
among the comments to one of Monbiot’s blogs our own Geoff Chambers has “discovered” this new invitation for a debate, by Peter Taylor, author of “Chill,
A Reassessment of Global Warming Theory: Does Climate Change Mean the World is Cooling, and If So What Should We Do About It?“ PeterTaylor George – I’m an old and seasoned environmentalist, older than yourself, and so I should not be surprised or disappointed when political zeal over-rides science and
the quest for truth – but I am, and most particularly by your continued reference to critics as ’sceptic’ and ‘deniers’ – suggesting some quasi-religious or
psychological failing, and thus enabling you not to actually take seriously any of the scientific arguments they may raise. In this latest blog, you presume to arbitrate on areas of science you know little about (along with the IPCC who classified knowledge of natural variability – for that
you can read ‘cycles’, a bit of a bogey word, as ‘very poorly known’). Yet despite the poor science, you and the IPCC presume to know that the recent warm period
was not naturally driven. I understand that Professor Plimer has not met your request for a debate. I am willing to step in. My arguments are laid out in my recent book ‘Chill: a reassessment of global warming theory‘ If you would do me the courtesy of reading the book, and taking advice on its arguments from acknowledged experts in each of the fields I cover – natural cycles, polar
ice, cosmic rays, satellite data etc., and on my conclusion that the global warming signal that is currently being ‘masked’ by natural cooling, was also first amplified
by the same natural cycles peaking – leaving an 80/20 split natural/GHG – then I would gladly debate with you. It is my only condition. To encourage you, I quote from W.Jackson Davis, author of the first draft of the Kyoto Protocol (and former colleague of mine on UN committees regarding ocean
pollution), who has endorsed my book: ‘Taylor raises issues and questions that must be addressed conclusively before global warming can be genuinely regarded as ”truth”, inconvenient or otherwise.
The book is a must-read for everyone on all sides of the climate change issue’ If I am right – and recent science suggests I am – then CO2 from industrial and consumer emissions represents less then 15% of the driving force. If you cut it by
half, you affect 7-8% of the driver. This will have virtually no effect on what the climate does on any policy-relevant timescale. Vast sums of money aimed at mitigation
will be misdirected. It would not matter so much if that money was put to good use and was not needed elsewhere – but if I am right about the prospects for cooling (which the Latif paper
only touches the surface of, then that money is needed for adaptation. Great suffering is ahead. The renewable energy programme for biofuels heads in entirely the wrong
direction, adding to food supply issues. These are debates and arguments that we could usefully have. I want to change your mind and to change government policy. But for that you need to have an open mind –
open enough to read my book. It took three years to write and is based entirely on peer-reviewed science, with full references. As a committed environmentalist I would not
have spent that time if I thought there was not much at stake and that the truth needed to direct policy. “Chill” is reviewed at HarmlessSky. I haven’t read that review as yet. (OmniClimate) Boy, have these guys been led up the garden path... Global Businesses Demand Ambitious New Climate Deal LONDON - A coalition of more than 500 international companies on Tuesday urged rich countries to commit to "immediate and deep" cuts in greenhouse gas emissions
at U.N. climate talks to help combat global warming. So, when has Earth ever had a "stable climate"? Never mind... These guys really need to learn a lot more about the physical sciences or to have
a great deal less to say about policies dealing with the physical world. Their idiotic adherence to gorebull warming faith is eroding confidence as wasting money on
"low-carbon" destroys useful investment and severely damages development. They've got it exactly wrong. Uh-huh... UN climate chief says China poised to lead UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. climate chief says China is poised to join the European Union in claiming "front-runner" status among nations battling climate
change. West urges India
to junk Kyoto pact NEW DELHI: In what could turn into a deal-breaker at the climate talks, US and other industrialized countries in the Major Economies Forum meet Crank of the Week - September 21, 2009 - Gisele Bündchen In
an effort to revive the rapidly fading global warming climate scam, the UN has enlisted fossil fuel-guzzling supermodel Gisele Bündchen to lead the counter attack. Ms. Bündchen
has been named an official UN Environmental Ambassador by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), one of the parent organizations of the infamous IPCC. Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director said: “Gisele is among a handful of talented individuals and personalities that
have a truly global reach. She is also a committed and passionate environmentalist. UNEP is delighted to welcome her on board as a Goodwill Ambassador so that with her help,
we can make environmental action a global brand and a life-style choice, from New York to Nairobi and from Sao Paolo to Shanghai.” Director Achim Steiner announced Gisele's new position as UNEP's new Goodwill Ambassador, with Girl Scouts in the background wearing life vests to
symbolize rising sea levels. How adorable! The Brazilian supermodel herself said, “Climate change is something we can't deny? It affects all of us. At the end of the day,
it's our planet ? we all have to feel accountable.” She went on to ask developing countries including China and India to invest more in green technologies. So what's wrong with the beautiful Gisele wanting to help save the planet from the ravages of CO2 induced global warming? Well
her message might be more convincing if she showed signs of understanding the tripe she is shilling for. If she truly believes that the world is at risk from demon CO2
she has a strange way of demonstrating it. According to the Boston Globe: Gisele Bundchen has bought herself a sweet new ride, and we're not talking about a sports car. Word is Tom Brady's globe-trotting girlfriend has joined
the ranks of the rich and famous who have their own jet. We're told the supermodel, who spends a ton of time each year traveling to photo shoots around the world, has
purchased a Gulfstream G550 for $50 million. The super-fast jet, which can carry up to 19 people, will enable Bundchen to bop from the US to Sao Paulo to Paris without
worrying about connections or waiting in lines. Evidently Ms. Bündchen is also in the process of getting her helicopter pilot's license. We guess that for celebrity supermodels “going green” means
driving a Prius to the private helicopter pad for a quick hop to the airport, then boarding your private Gulfstream jet for a little international climate change fighting.
Someone should clue the eco-bimbo in—living large and jetting around the world in your own private aircraft is not exactly leading by example. Reportedly, the UN will be
publishing a web-based cartoon series called “GiGi and the Green Team,” portraying Gisele as a pollution-busting superheroine, an “environmental heroine, aiming to
empower girls to protect the environment.” We think she's already cartoonish enough. Congratulations Gisele, this Crank of the Week is for you. (The Resilient Earth) I am working to encourage the adoption of the assessment of vulnerability as a focusing approach for the climate community (as well as for colleagues that are involved in
other types of environmental research). This is a much more useful and comprehensive bottom-up, resource-based approach to reduce societal and environmental
risk to climate variability and change than relying on the use of multi-decadal global climate model projections. I recently summarized this perspective in the following short text: There are 5 broad areas that we can use to define the need for vulnerability assessments : water, food,
energy, health and ecosystem function.
Each area has societally critical resources. The vulnerability concept requires the determination of the major threats to these resources from climate,
but also from other social and environmental issues. After these threats are identified for each resource, then the relative risk from natural- and human-caused climate
change (estimated from the GCM projections, but also the historical, paleo-record and worst case sequences of events) can be compared with other risks in order to adopt the
optimal mitigation/adaptation strategy. The advantage of the bottom-up, resource-based perspective is summarized in Table E.7 in Pielke, R.A. Sr., and L. Bravo de Guenni, 2004: Conclusions. Chapter E.7 In: Vegetation, Water, Humans
and the Climate: A New Perspective on an Interactive System. Global Change – The IGBP Series, P. Kabat et al., Eds., Springer, 537-538. Pielke, R.A. Sr., 2004: Discussion Forum: A broader perspective on climate change is needed. IGBP
Newsletter, 59, 16-19 (Climate Science) Groups Spar Over U.S. Offshore Drilling Plan WASHINGTON - Environmental and pro-drilling advocates pitched dueling messages about expanded offshore oil and natural gas production to the U.S. Interior Department on
Monday, as the comment period on a Bush-era energy plan came to a close. Partly right: Research called key to slicing coal emissions The nation and the coal industry must get more serious about research to ensure the use of so-called "clean coal," especially if the United States wants to cut
carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent by 2050, a Carnegie Mellon University engineering professor said Monday. We do need coal but carbon dioxide is irrelevant. Wasting so wonderful a resource as carbon dioxide can never be condoned: Scientists
Examine Injecting Liquid Carbon Dioxide Underground While carbon capture and sequestration technology remains controversial, studies to delve deeper into it are ongoing in hopes of presenting one way to alleviate emission
levels. A team from MIT has been studying a carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technique called pressurized oxy-fuel combustion. This process converts the carbon dioxide
emissions of a power plant into a pressurized liquid stream meant to be pumped underground. Team leader Ahmed Ghoniem of MIT claims that his team is the only one conducting
an academic study of "pressurized combustion system for carbon dioxide capture." Why don't they ever look at the numbers? Cleaner Coal Plants May Use Pressurized
Combustion System To Capture Carbon Dioxide Researchers at MIT have shown the benefits of a new approach toward eliminating carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions at coal-burning power plants. You'd think these guys would try a calculation or two, at least for novelty value. Using the IPCC's deltaForcing formula and the known
mass of CO2 required for each part per million of the atmosphere it is not difficult to calculate just how trivial will be the effect on global mean temperature
of given amounts of CO2 sequestration, even using Hansen's absurdly high climate sensitivity estimates (nor is it hard to show just how ridiculously inflated
they are). Trapping all the CO2 from all of the U.S.'s current coal-fired electricity generation for the remainder of the century can only make a
difference of about one-twentieth of one degree (see the workings). Currently about six-tenths of that CO2
is being utilized by green plants and nourishing the biosphere. Why would you want to deny it that gift for the sake of an immeasurably small temperature
"saving"? And why would you think one temperature is preferable to another so similar temperature? Oh... Refitted to Bury Emissions, Plant Draws Attention NEW HAVEN, W.Va. — Poking out of the ground near the smokestacks of the Mountaineer power plant here are two wells that look much like those that draw natural gas to the
surface. But these are about to do something new: inject a power plant’s carbon dioxide into the earth. (NYT) Should the U.S. Build Its Next Coal Plants Underground? Might burning coal thousands of feet below the surface be the secret to making coal climate friendly? If it's the most economical way of extracting energy from the seam, great -- but not for the purpose of denying the biosphere its greatest asset! Where do they find these fools? BA CEO To Pledge Aviation Sector C02 Cuts To U.N. LONDON - British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh will tell world leaders at the U.N. climate summit on Tuesday the aviation industry could halve its carbon dioxide
emissions by 2050, a spokesman for the airline said on Monday. (Reuters) Opponents ask Salazar to halt offshore drilling WASHINGTON—Opponents of offshore drilling—including some dressed as salmon and a polar bear—delivered more than 250,000 postcards and letters to the Interior
Department Monday on a proposal to open vast waters off the Pacific and Atlantic coasts to oil and gas drilling. September 21, 2009
Two New Mexico nurses have paid a heavy price for following their consciences and the basic tenet of the nurse’s Code of Ethics — the ethical duty to protect and
advocate for the rights, health and safety of patients. After unsuccessfully going up the chain of command at the Winkler County Memorial Hospital, a small West Texas
hospital in Kermit, Texas, they made an anonymous report to the Texas Medical Board with concerns about a doctor selling his own sham herbal remedies to patients in the
hospital’s emergency department and at a health clinic. Nonscientists Naive about Science I like listening to journalists talk about science, as such fields have parochial tests and models that can take years of devoted study to fully appreciate. Some of these
insiders, like Steven Pinker, are good at communicating to a general audience, but most of the translation to outsiders comes from non-scientists simply because there are
more of them, and some write very well. H1N1 vaccine production far less than forecast-WHO GENEVA - Production of H1N1 vaccine over the next year will be "substantially less" than the 4.9 billion doses previously forecast but one dose should provide
adequate protection, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday. U.S. health workers worry about swine flu vaccine WASHINGTON - Health department staffers scrambling to answer 100 calls a day. Harried hospital workers rushing to swab hundreds of sore throats. Out of practice school
nurses learning how to give vaccines all over again. Here's a case where impetuous 'flu response really did cause a health hazard: Belatedly,
Egypt Spots Flaws in Wiping Out Pigs CAIRO — It is unlikely anyone has ever come to this city and commented on how clean the streets are. But this litter-strewn metropolis is now wrestling with a garbage
problem so severe it has managed to incite its weary residents and command the attention of the president. Educated family may mean higher eating disorder risk NEW YORK - Girls whose mothers, fathers, and grandparents are highly educated may have an increased risk of developing an eating disorder, a new study suggests -
particularly if the girls themselves do well in school. Mosquito-Borne African Virus A New Threat To West WASHINGTON - The United States and Europe face a new health threat from a mosquito-borne disease far more unpleasant than the West Nile virus that swept into North America
a decade ago, a U.S. expert said on Friday. Curious: Health Ills Abound as Farm Runoff Fouls Wells MORRISON, Wis. — All it took was an early thaw for the drinking water here to become unsafe. As most regular readers realize, I'm from down-under -- don't you chlorinate your drinking water supplies as a matter of course? And if not, why not? In
the land down-under people either have the sense to treat well & tank water or they suffer the consequences (town supplies are chlorinated by the municipal authority).
Fancy drinking or bathing in raw water, you must be mad! Oh my giddy aunt... World's deltas subsiding, says study Two-thirds of the world's major deltas, home to nearly half a billion people, are caught between sinking land and rising seas, according to a new study. Well, flood deltas are subject to... flooding. How do they do it? No, I don't mean "how do they come up with these startling revelations?"
Rather, I had in mind "how do they get such mind-numbingly basic grade school observations published in Nature Geoscience? Silt and detritus that compose flood
deltas compact and subside -- that's what they do. When we channel seasonal floodwaters out to sea rather than over the flood plains on which we build then we cut off the
supply of silt that keeps these flood deltas above sea level (shockin' innit?). The truly distressing part is that this seems to constitutes news to the editor of a
geoscience journal. A significant volcano eruption in Australia is ‘well overdue’ and emergency authorities must better prepare themselves and the wider community to respond to it, the
recipient of the prestigious Geological Society of Australia (Victoria Division) Selwyn Medal for 2009 has warned. Mostly emotional pap: The Extinction Knot: A
Hidden Crisis in Northern Australia As I walked back the other night from dinner at a lodge near the Van Diemen Gulf on the north coast of Australia, I accidentally stepped on a toad in the dark. When I
looked down, I realized there were toads all around me and that they were cane toads — Bufo marinus — natives of Central and South America. Tens of thousands were
released in Australia in the 1930s to control a beetle that preyed on sugar cane, another introduced species. Cats & foxes are a problem that is difficult to deal with now that animal nutters have screwed up the fur trade (they weren't so much when their
pelts were valuable, a trade that saved untold billions of native critters). Camels, donkeys, horses, rabbits and other feral grazing animals are also a huge problem (you
know, dealing with which had some of your media personalities calling our Prime Minister a "mass murderer" when really he's only a dopey Socialist). Cane toads,
well there's another matter since native critters do learn to deal with them after some exposure and they become just another part of the ecosystem. Brazil proposes banning sugarcane in Amazon A government plan unveiled Thursday would limit sugarcane plantations to 18 percent of Brazilian territory. (CoP15) Attack of the zombie protocol: EU hails ratification of Montreal Protocol on ozone layer protection In a move which could signal a strategic shift by many of the world’s leaders The Swedish Presidency of the European Union and the European Commission welcomed the
universal ratification of the Montreal Protocol announced on September 16, following ratification by Timor-Leste. This farce just goes on and on... there is not now nor has there ever been any anthropogenic threat to some wondrous, fragile, life-preserving
"ozone layer". Stratospheric ozone levels are highly dynamic and a function of solar activity. They are also of no particular relevance to life on Earth, despite
all the absurd claims. See some basic ozone facts here and for heaven's sake grow up and get over the ozone
fairy story. Big mistake: Worldwide Dairy Industry to Sign Global Declaration
on Climate Change ROSEMONT, Ill., Sept. 18 -- On 24 September, the dairy industry will make history signing a Global Dairy Agenda for Action during the World Dairy Summit in Berlin,
Germany. For absolutely no purpose: Electricity prices will quadruple: TransCanada CEO BANFF, Alta. -- Electricity prices will quadruple as countries toughen their stance on greenhouse gas emissions, and governments need to brace the public for the price
spike, a chief executive of a major power generating company said Friday. With CCS costs headed towards a quadrillion dollars ($1,000,000,000,000,000.00) per hypothetical degree "saved" (and no real expectation of
achieving even that) who expects their energy costs to inflate by a mere factor of 4? He's right that they should burn their coal but dead wrong about any need to
"address" gorebull warming. Increasing energy prices to not address a non-problem is simply unacceptable. “Since when did you become a global warming alarmist?” I kidded Norman midway into our telephone conversation a few weeks before this amazing scientist and
humanitarian died. “What are you talking about?” Dr. Borlaug retorted. “I’ve never believed that nonsense.” Here's Lomborg's more conservative numbers: Climate
Change: A Perilous Path Evidence is growing that relatively cheap policies like climate engineering and non-carbon energy research could effectively prevent suffering from global warming, both in
the short and long term. Unfortunately, political leaders gathering at a special meeting of the United Nations in New York this week will focus on a very different response. Still a massive expense for no return, even though his numbers are based on far more hopeful assumptions. Cap-and-Trade Is Dead. Long Live
Cap-and-Trade President Obama’s risky perseverance on health care is running over another of his pet government expansions—the cap-and-trade bill sent by the House on June 26 for
Senate consideration. Recall that cap-and-trade is complex legislation with a very simple premise: make energy so expensive to consume that Americans use less of it, and
“greenhouse gas” emissions are thereby curtailed. THE MOST effective way for the United States to fight global warming is for Congress to put a price on carbon, either through a cap-and-trade system or, as we'd prefer, a
carbon tax that rebates the revenue to taxpayers. But last month the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee announced a delay in introducing its climate change bill.
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said last week that such legislation might not be acted on until next year. Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency is
preparing to regulate carbon under the Clean Air Act. As Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) once warned, EPA action would create "a glorious mess" of regulation. How
much of a mess is only beginning to become clear. The correct thing to do is have legislature remove EPA authority to regulate essential trace gases -- end of problem. There is absolutely no value
on regulating or restricting emission of such a marvelous atmospheric resource. Um, no: Achieving climate prosperity The debate over climate change has spent too much time describing the problem and debating its causes. Too little time has been spent on distributing solutions. It is
possible to substantially reduce the global carbon footprint by profit-driven companies. (Richard N. Swett, Washington Times) In fact provably too little time has been spent discussing the problem since some people still atmospheric carbon dioxide is something other than a
really good thing. Using the IPCC's own formula demonstrate atmospheric carbon dioxide can not cause the absurd results output by activists' climate models -- just see the
sidebar here to note anyone could have checked Hansen's homework but no one did. Even if
the IPCC's inflationary formula are correct then each doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide delivers a mere 3.7 W/m2 but to achieve the absurd warming estimates
of models would require not one doubling of atmospheric CO2 to 560 ppmv but a completely unachievable seven doublings to more than 35,000 ppmv! Hansen's missing
20 Watts per meter squared are hardly a surprise given that models are off by 20-50 W/m2 over huge chunks of the planet. Carbon dioxide simply can not do what
activists claim and carbon constraint stands no hope of adjusting the climate in any meaningful way -- it just starves the green plants that form the foundation of our food
chain. Deneen
Borelli: Cap and trade is a ball and chain for poor Americans As Congress considered the Waxman-Markey "cap-and-trade" bill, President Obama rallied House Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats at the White House. In
making a point, he gestured to Abraham Lincoln's portrait and said, "He had a chance to affect history. You, too, have a chance to affect history." Better if they pushed 'em right of the planet but it's a start: Obama
Administration Pushes Climate Talks Into 2010 Top U.S. energy and climate leaders yesterday began to openly plan for international global warming talks to trickle into 2010. US climate legislation may wait to 2011-Duke CEO ANN ARBOR, Mich., Sept 18 - Climate change legislation is unlikely to pass the U.S. Congress until the first half of 2010, and maybe not until 2011, Duke Energy Corp Chief
Executive Jim Rogers said on Friday. Kevin Rudd set for climate failure at Copenhagen KEVIN Rudd has talked down prospects of international agreement at a crucial climate change summit in Copenhagen in December, amid fresh predictions the conference is
doomed to failure. (The Australian) Australia plans Copenhagen climate pact compromise Developing economies shouldn't be locked into carbon lowering targets under a new global climate pact, Australia said on Monday, outlining a deal it hopes will avert
failure at make-or-break talks in Copenhagen. The plan by the world's biggest per-capita carbon polluter would give India and China flexibility to lower emissions through a
"national schedule", potentially taking some of the heat from near-gridlocked talks between rich and developing countries. "We simply won't get the broad
participation from major developing economies that the climate needs and that Australia, in terms of our national interest, needs," Climate Minister Penny Wong said of
Canberra's compromise proposal. (Reuters) Gosh they talk some nonsense: UN plans 'shock therapy'
for world leaders on environment - Pared-down summit will force heads of rich states to listen to those of third world in hope of kickstarting radical action The United Nations is planning a form of diplomatic shock therapy for world leaders this week in the hope of injecting badly needed urgency into negotiations for a climate
change treaty that, it is now widely acknowledged, are dangerously adrift. The most worrying aspect is that idiotic attempts to "address" gorebull warming are the real threat to developing nations (and the rest of us,
too). Sorry climate change tale looming for Copenhagen THE Copenhagen tourist board is facing a PR disaster. Its symbol is the small copper statue of the Little Mermaid but, after December, the city is likely to be better
known as the place where the world failed to agree on a deal to prevent catastrophic climate change. (The Australian) Climate Change to Take Center Stage at U.N. Talks WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Barack Obama promised strong action on climate change from his first day in office, but he is heading into a series of meetings with other
world leaders this month under growing pressure to deliver on his rhetoric. Perhaps they fully understand the "gravity of climate risks", which is why they are willing to do exactly nothing? That would be good. EU's Barroso warns climate talks in dangerous state WASHINGTON - U.N. climate change talks are "dangerously close to deadlock," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso will warn on Monday, kicking off a
week that could prove critical for efforts to halt global warming. U.S. Reluctance on Climate Change Persists NEW YORK — Last Tuesday, Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat and majority leader of the U.S. Senate, was asked by a reporter to appraise the odds that Congress, in the
throes of debating health care changes, would manage to pass climate legislation in 2009 — including provisions for an emissions cap-and-trade plan. Well, no, you're right... In fact you should take your ball and go home, refusing to play the silly climate game ever again ;-) Clever move to sabotage any possible pact? Sarkozy, Merkel want
carbon tax on imports PARIS — The leaders of France and Germany called Friday for the United Nations to support a carbon tax on imports from countries who fail to back international efforts
to fight global warming. US group urges "peace clause" in Senate climate bill WASHINGTON, Sept 18 - The U.S. Senate should act to head off a potential trade war by adding a "peace clause" to a climate change bill that threatens China and
other countries with a tariff on their goods, a business group said on Friday. Misguided? Misinformed? Either way, just plain wrong! Danish
Conservative Prepares for Climate Debate COPENHAGEN — Connie Hedegaard, Denmark’s minister of climate and energy, feels little kinship with the green end of the political spectrum — people who stage sit-ins
at power plants or vote for the Green parties in elections. Climate is not an issue. Then again, neither is "environment", only development and wealth generation can deliver what misnamed
"environmentalists" claim to want but actively obstruct. No Leader on Climate Change as Nations Prepare to Meet UNITED NATIONS — Economists point to powerhouse countries like India to illustrate the hurdles facing some 100 world leaders due to gather in New York this Tuesday for
the highest level summit meeting on climate change ever convened. Copenhagen will be a bust for climate change It's becoming increasingly clear that the demands of domestic politics in several key countries ensure that there isn't going to be a substantive treaty agreement on
climate change from December's Copenhagen summit. No government will want the blame --but Washington is the most likely to take a diplomatic black eye. (Ian Bremmer, Foreign
Policy) The three stooges of climate change Reading the international climate change news recently has reminded me more than a little of The Three Stooges, those kings of physical comedy that permanently warped at
least one generation of Americans. Sadly, our modern day climate stooges are toying with something far more important than our sense of humor as they jostle for position and
generally play politics leading into December’s Copenhagen conference. “Ditch the Emissions Trading Scheme”. Link to this statement: http://carbon-sense.com/2009/09/19/ditch-the-ets/ Viv Forbes is Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition, an Australian organisation which opposes waste of resources, opposes pollution, and promotes the rational and
sustainable use of carbon energy and carbon food. Egregious example of target fixation: Geoengineering- a
last ditch response to climate change? In its recent report on Geo-engineering, the Royal Society argues that ‘air capture’ carbon dioxide absorption techniques are probably the best geo-engineering option
in that we should ‘address the root cause of climate change by removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere’. Solar heat reflector techniques were seen as generally less
attractive. It may well be true that carbon dioxide absorption is the best type of geo-engineering option, but surely, geo-engineering of whatever type in no way deals at
source with the ‘root cause’ of climate change- which is the production of carbon dioxide in power stations, gas boilers and vehicles. (ERW) As we've shown you here and here,
carbon constraint is absolutely useless if you are trying to cool (or avoid warming) the world. No amount results in any meaningful difference (which kind of kills their
silly claims about carbon overheating it but never mind...). Typically, these guys forget the other half of the Earth energy balance equation. If you really want to
mess about with the planet's temperature and you can't achieve your aims through tampering with OLR (outbound longwave radiation) then you need to look at blocking some of
the incoming shortwave radiation from the sun. That we could do with minimal expense through increased sulfur levels in fuels and it is controllable (stop doing it and the
effect wears off in a matter of weeks). From the original Gaia nut: Such drastic
climate therapy could make things worse Better, perhaps, to let the earth look after itself than try to regulate its system through mirrors, clouds and artificial trees (James Lovelock, The Guardian) For perhaps the first time I find myself in agreement with Lovelock -- people should not be trying to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide. Apart from that
I have no particular problem with people engineering Earth to make it more suitable for our purposes -- always provided we can agree on what those might be. He's right in one respect... Nick
Clegg: Eco politics for the real world A vote for the Green Party would be a wasted vote, as only one party has both the will and the power to tackle climate change ... voting green is really stupid. Apart from that Nick is not on the planet. So, Nick, what does: "... if the planet warms by more than
C, it will tip us into ..." mean? If the planet warms more than one hundred degrees? Granted, that would be kind of unpleasant but it's not very likely, nor could
we do anything about it. Presumably Nick meant to go back and fill in some vaguely plausible yet scary number. Don't sweat it Nick, we don't know from one year to the next
whether to expect a warmer or cooler one (we always hope for warmer though, because a cooling world present far greater difficulties). About the only "last
chance" looming is for AGW to be useful for scaremongering -- its course is about run. People-haters seize any excuse: Contraception vital in climate
change fight: expert LONDON - Contraception advice is crucial to poor countries' battle with climate change, and policy makers are failing their people if they continue to shy away from the
issue, a leading family planning expert said on Friday. If they are really worried about population growth then the way to address that is development -- wealthier populations have fewer kids (because they
don't need a lot of kids to ensure survival of a few nor more kids to support the parents as they age). Ironically, the moves of the antis directly inhibit the very things
they seem to desire by hampering development and wealth generation. What a bunch of losers... Poor naive young fellow: A new direction for climate campaigning The Senate’s rejection of the Rudd Government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in August presents the Australian climate community with the opportunity to reassess
and recalibrate their messaging and advance an effective policy agenda. Regardless of whether the Senate approves the bill when it is reintroduced this November, the climate
movement must be prepared for the next stage of climate and energy advocacy - one that will focus on renewable energy deployment. What a shame Leigh didn't study real science rather than "Bachelor of Social Science Environment", then he'd know enough to actually hold an
intelligent opinion. In case anyone manages to clue young Leigh in, fossil fuel interests are not out to thwart progress, they support and fund a great deal of it all the
time and no policy agenda has any relevance to the planet's climate -- it can only make people more vulnerable to whatever the climate does. Sometimes The Economist can produce some really good stuff... and then there's now: A
bad climate for development - Poor countries’ economic development will contribute to climate change. But they are already its greatest victims IN LATE April Mostafa Rokonuzzaman, a farmer in south-western Bangladesh, gave an impassioned speech at a public meeting in his village, complaining that climate change,
freakish hot spells and failed rains were ruining his vegetables. He didn’t know the half of it. A month later Mr Rokonuzzaman was chest-deep in a flood that had swept away
his house, farm and even the village where the meeting took place. Cyclone Aila (its effects pictured above) which caused the storm surge that breached the village’s flood
barriers, was itself a plausible example of how climate change is wreaking devastation in poor countries. (The Economist) All else regardless, development is defensive and underdeveloped regions need all the development they can get. Moreover, The Economist
really needs to pay some attention to Ryan Maue's meticulously assembled data (note that we have just suffered through silly claims of really warm contemporary sea
temperatures and yet there is little tropical cyclone activity to talk about): Ryan Maue's Seasonal Tropical Cyclone Activity Update Global Tropical Cyclone ACE valid September 18, 2009 12Z Northern Hemisphere ACE for the month of July struggled across the finish line, with the lowest recorded value since at least 1970. The monthly ACE value of 15.6 is truly
remarkable in its ineptitude considering the average of the previous 40 years is 73! See text file for the
previous 40-years ranked according to July ACE activity. May - June - July Northern Hemisphere Tropical Cyclone Activity: the three month ACE sum for 2009 just missed being the lowest since at least 1970, by less than one ACE
point behind the truly anomalous year of 1977. Tropical Cyclone ACE Update The quality of the historical tropical cyclone records becomes more suspect in the past. However, for the North Atlantic and Eastern Pacific, the NHC vis the only
reporting agency for the last 30-years, in general. Thus, for Northern Hemisphere tallies, the variability in the Western North Pacific (and Indian / S. Pacific) best-tracks
from different agencies (i.e. JTWC, Hong Hong, Tokyo, Reunion) could of course lead to somewhat different seasonal totals. However, since the ACE metric is dominated by the
duration component, which does not vary between the datasets, small changes in the seasonal totals are expected. Future research of course continues to quantify the effects
of database choice on TC trends, i.e. IBTrACS.
Note: climatology is based upon the past 30-years of tropical cyclone activity (1979-2008). Historical tropical cyclone tracks are obtained from two sources: National
Hurricane Center (NHC) for Eastern Pacific and North Atlantic basins and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) for the Western Pacific, Northern and Southern Indian Oceans,
and the South Pacific including the Australian region. Best-track data when cyclones are in an extratropical phase are disregarded, where this is included in the datasets. © Research property of Ryan N. Maue Florida State University, COAPS, Tallahassee, FL 32306 | 850/644-6935 Climate Models Blown Away By Water Vapor Contrary
to what is said in the popular media, water (H2O) is the most important greenhouse gas in Earth's atmosphere, not the small amount of demonized CO2.
But aside from acting as a greenhouse gas, water vapor plays an active role in shaping global atmospheric circulation and thus Earth's climate. Water does this by undergoing
state changes—from liquid to vapor and back again—allowing water vapor to carry significant amounts of latent heat from the warm equatorial regions toward the poles. The
importance of this heat transfer mechanism in climate regulation is poorly understood but new data have begun to show the impact is major. One thing is certain, most widely
used climate models do not correctly account for the complex dynamics of water vapor. In a detailed study of the mechanisms and effects of water vapor, to be published in Reviews
of Geophysics, Tapio Schneider and Xavier Levine of the California Institute of Technology, and Paul A. O’Gorman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have
expanded our knowledge of water's role in climate regulation while showing just how poorly understood the Earth climate system really is. Our level of collective ignorance is
explained at the start of the paper: Although the mechanisms are not well understood, it is widely appreciated that heating and cooling of air through phase changes of water are integral to
moist convection and dynamics in the equatorial region. But that water vapor plays an active and important role in dynamics globally is less widely appreciated, and how it
does so is only beginning to be investigated. As we reported in The
Resilient earth, the role of water as a greenhouse gas was first methodically investigated by Irish scientist John Tyndall in the mid 19th
century. An accomplished mountaineer, Tyndall was fascinated by Louis Agassiz's daring proposal of ice ages, in which glaciers once covered enormous parts of the world.
Looking for mechanisms to explain climate change, he established the absorptive power of clear aqueous vapour—water vapor. To investigate this phenomenon he
constructed the first spectrophotometer, shown below. Tyndall's experiments showed that, in addition to water vapor, a number of other atmospheric gases can absorb heat energy. Correctly identifying water
vapor as the strongest absorber of radiant energy, Tyndall marveled at the ability of transparent, colorless gas to trap heat. He suggested this phenomenon was linked to
changes in climate—changes that caused glaciers to advance and retreat. In his own words, he stressed the importance of water vapor in the atmosphere. Aqueous vapour is a blanket more necessary to the vegetable life of England than clothing is to man. Remove for a single summer-night the aqueous vapour
from the air which overspreads this country, and you would assuredly destroy every plant capable of being destroyed by a freezing temperature. The warmth of our fields and
gardens would pour itself unrequited into space, and the sun would rise upon an island held fast in the iron grip of frost. When it comes to climate change carbon dioxide is pretty much a one trick pony. It acts as a greenhouse gas, delaying the re-radiation of energy from the
Sun back into space and thus raising the average temperature of the atmosphere. It can have secondary effects on plant cover—CO2 is basically
plant food—but it does not contributes directly to climate regulation in any other significant way. H2O on the other hand, is not just our
atmosphere's major greenhouse gas, it is a multi-talented climate regulator. When scientists talk about heat in the atmosphere they refer to two major types: sensible heat and latent heat. Sensible heat is thermal energy that causes
dry bulb temperature changes in the air. Dry bulb here means that the change in temperature occurs without a change in water vapor content—no state change is involved. In
contrast, latent heat requires a state change in a substance. Ice turning into water, or water turning into water vapor are state changes that require the input of energy.
The energy becomes latent heat energy during the state change and can be released by reversing the state change. In other words by condensing water vapor back into liquid or
freezing liquid water into ice. If you have ever boiled away a pot of water to make steam it should be obvious that water changing state can absorb a lot of thermal energy. The input of energy required by a change of state from liquid to vapor at constant temperature is called the latent heat of vaporization. At normal
atmospheric pressure this is 2257 kilo-Joules/kg for water (970.4 Btu/lb for the metric challenged). Energy from the Sun evaporates a lot of water from Earth's oceans,
particularly from the tropical zones around the equator. Water vapor, being lighter than air, tends to rise from the surface and is then carried along by currents in the
atmosphere. As the water vapor is transported toward the poles it carries with it the latent heat of its state change from liquid to gas. This latent heat is released when
atmospheric water vapor condenses and more captured by the cooling of air through evaporation or sublimation of condensate. Both affect atmospheric circulation. As water vapor is transported by atmospheric circulation it also affects circulation patterns. This in turn impacts atmospheric stability and storm
formation. As the study's authors explain: “We discuss how latent heat release is implicated in such circulation changes, particularly through its effect on the atmospheric
static stability, and we illustrate the circulation changes through simulations with an idealized general circulation model. This allows us to explore a continuum of
climates, constrain macroscopic laws governing this climatic continuum, and place past and possible future climate changes in a broader context.” Focusing on water vapor dynamics—the study of the dynamic effects of heating and cooling of air through phase changes of water—the study emphasis large
scales, from extratropical storms (~1000km) to the planetary scale of the Hadley circulation. Again quoting the researchers, “This allows us to examine critically, and
ultimately to reject, some widely held beliefs, such as that the Hadley circulation would generally become weaker as the climate warms, or that extratropical storms would
generally be stronger than they are today in a climate like that of the LGM with larger pole-equator surface temperature contrasts.” Here LGM stands for Last Glacial
Maximum, which occurred around 20,000 years ago. The Hadley circulation pattern dominates the tropical atmosphere. Named after George Hadley, who first described it as an explanation for the trade winds,
these circulation cells consists of rising motion near the equator, poleward flow 10-15 kilometers above the surface, descending motion in the subtropics, and equatorward
flow near the surface. This circulation is intimately related to the trade winds, tropical rainbelts, subtropical deserts and the jet streams. Hadley circulation is so
important to Earth's climate system that entire scientific conferences are held to study it. This long and fascinating paper (22 pages) has much more to say about water vapor, latent heat and changes in the Hadley circulation. Other topics are
touched on as well, far to many to cover in a single blog post. One topic that I found particularly interesting was in section 4, regarding extratropical circulations, which
the rest of this post will concentrate on. While water vapor's role in tropical dynamics is fairly well known, its role in extratropical dynamics is less clear. “The unclear role of water vapor in
extratropical dynamics in the present climate and its changed importance in colder or warmer climates are principal challenges in understanding extratropical circulations and
their response to climate changes,” state the authors. In the present climate, about half of the total atmospheric energy flux in mid-latitudes can be attributed to latent
heat release in extratropical circulations. Clearly water vapor must play a significant role in the extratropical atmosphere of the mid-latitudes. Interestingly, not all of
the results of this study are as simple as previously assumed. One unambiguous result was that extratropical storm tracks generally shifted toward the poles in simulations of global warming scenarios. A number of
possible mechanisms for this effect are discussed but in the end “there currently is no comprehensive theory for the position of storm tracks.” As an example of how
complex and confusing the effects of water vapor have on a changing climate consider the report's findings regarding storminess: The extratropical transient eddy kinetic energy, a measure of storminess, scales with the dry mean available potential energy. Near the present climate,
both energies decrease as the climate warms, because meridional potential temperature gradients decrease and the static stability increases as the poleward and upward
transport of latent heat strengthens. In colder climates, however, both energies can also decrease as the climate cools. Because water vapor has a big impact on atmospheric circulation it also impacts tropical storm formation. As stated by Hye-Mi Kim et al.:
“Strengthening or weakening of the vertical wind shear occurs largely through changes in the upper-level westerly flow and is thought to be a major factor inhibiting or
enhancing the formation and intensification of cyclones” (see “Impact
of Shifting Patterns of Pacific Ocean Warming on North Atlantic Tropical Cyclones”). In particular, this has been tied to vertical wind shear, which can inhibit the
formation of tropical cyclones. Now it seems that a warming climate doesn't result in more storms outside of the tropics either. But in an example of how counter intuitive
and complex atmospheric circulation can be, a colder climate can also reduce the amount of storminess. As with the erroneous predictions of increased frequency and intensity
for tropical storms by global warming proponents, simple blanket statements about how changes in temperature affects our environment are most often wrong. In the end this paper raises more questions than it answers, something many good scientific investigations do. At the end of the paper the authors pose the
question, “what controls the static stability of the subtropical and extratropical atmosphere?” After listing five major unsettled questions regarding atmospheric
circulation and the dynamic effects of water vapor, the study's authors summarize their findings: “The lack of a theory for the subtropical and extratropical static
stability runs through several of the open questions. Devising a theory that is general enough to be applicable to relatively dry and moist atmospheres remains as one of the
central challenges in understanding the global circulation of the atmosphere and climate changes.” Without such a theory it is impossible to predict changes in atmospheric circulation, it is impossible to predict changes in the hydrological cycle, it is
impossible to predict storm frequencies, intensities and tracks. Future climate cannot be predicted without a theory explaining how climate works, yet the IPCC has
confidently made predictions regarding changes in storms, precipitation and climate for decades, even centuries into the future. If
something as seemingly simple as water vapor can have such complex and bewildering impacts on Earth's climate why does the IPCC and the climate crisis crowd continue to
insist that all fault lies with CO2? It could be that even they realize that blaming global warming on water vapor would give them no political
leverage. After all, 70% of our planet's surface is covered with water and not even the most wild-eyed geoengineering proponent would propose we attempt to control the amount
of water vapor in the atmosphere. What does this have to say about all of those general circulation models (GCM) used by the IPCC to divine the future of Earth's climate? It means they
can't accurately simulate our planet's climate engine because they don't know how the atmosphere works. If they don't know how climate works today, how can they tell us what
the climate will be like 100 years in the future? The predictors of future climate disaster may as well be using tarot cards. Be safe, enjoy the interglacial and stay skeptical. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth) Cheng, W. Y. Y., G. G. Carrió, W. R. Cotton, and S. M. Saleeby (2009), Influence of cloud condensation
and giant cloud condensation nuclei on the development of precipitating trade wind cumuli in a large eddy simulation, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D08201,
doi:10.1029/2008JD011011. “To investigate the effects of both cloud condensational nuclei (CCN) and giant CCN (GCCN), the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System was used to investigate the
effects of various CCN and GCCN concentrations on the development of precipitating trade wind cumuli in a large eddy simulation (LES) framework. The sounding to initialize
the LES was taken from the Rain in Cumulus over the Ocean Experiment archive for 11 January 2005. Several sensitivity experiments were performed in which two levels of CCN
(GCCN) concentrations were used: 100 (0.01) and 1000 (0.1) per [centimeter cubed] corresponding to low and high values, respectively. Both CCN and GCCN can affect
the precipitation processes. With low GCCN concentration, raising the CCN concentration from low to high reduced the precipitation rate as well as the accumulated
precipitation due to the presence of a large number of small cloud droplets that are inefficient in forming drizzle. However, GCCN can have a greater response in increasing
the precipitation rate and accumulation when the cloud system has a high CCN concentration. The total cloud coverage (TCC) was reduced for the higher CCN concentration
experiments because of the susceptibility of evaporation of cloud droplets in the upper parts of the cloud as a result of entrainment. On the other hand, the TCC was
increased for the higher GCCN concentration experiments. For this trade wind cumuli case, the time‐ and domain‐averaged albedo changed very slightly with
increased [CCN] and/or [GCCN] because of a compensating increase/decrease among the optical depth, liquid water path, cloud coverage, and cloud droplet concentration.” The conclusions include the text “Entrainment played a role in affecting the cloud properties and dynamics contrary to Albrecht’s second indirect effect in this case as a result of the different
cloud droplet concentrations. The results further illustrate the nonlinear response of clouds to perturbations in aerosol concentrations and that changes in cloud dynamics
are just as important as changes in cloud microphysics when examining the radiative responses of clouds to air pollution aerosols.” This paper provides new insight into one of the complex roles of clouds within the climate system as affected by aerosols. The indirect effect of aerosols
was highlighted as a still very incompletely understood major climate forcing in NRC (2005); see page
40. (Climate Science) About
Peer-reviewed Dogmas, or ‘Meet The Peeritarians’ (this in response to yet another tired thread full of “but
the findings of so-and-so have not been peer-reviewed!“) I think I understand it now…it’s like a new religion…instead of the Pastafarians, we now have the… Peeritarians! Those people can be recognized by their preferred way to communicate with anybody they disagree with: “Have your thoughts/proposals/findings/obvious-observations-nobody-in-their-right-mind-could-deny been peer-reviewed?“ Sadly, there is no way to convince them to ask or say anything else. If anything has not been peer-reviewed, Peeritarians will deny its very possibility of existence. Worse, if anything has been peer-reviewed it is then taken as their new
dogma…because Peeritarians are characterized by being impervious to critical thinking upon reading peer-reviewed material. Only hope is, the peer-review system will eventually publish something completely contradictory, thereby convincing to good Peeritarian to change his/her mind. ——————— In order to preserve their remaining sanity, everybody is strongly encouraged not to engage Peeritarians in discussions about hurricanes and global warming, or health and
global warming, areas where there are peer-reviewed articles demonstrating pretty much everything and its opposite. (OmniClimate) The Handbook spreads to Turkey Turkey, where the local climate is normal and where nothing unusual happened in the time since the green bandwagon hit the road, signed on to Kyoto and will most likely
sign on to the Copenhagen compromise, Kyoto II. So there is a need to spread the word about that the science the media won’t mention, hence The Skeptics Handbook A 2007 survey showed that even in Turkey some 70% of people are familiarized with the theory that carbon affects the climate, which shows the remarkable reach of UN
propaganda1. The UN may not have any evidence, but they have widespread influence. The Politburo would be impressed. Like most politicians, the Turkish representatives wouldn’t mind another excuse to tax everything that moves while being hailed as heroes (I ‘ll save you. Let me
spend your money!). And with potential EU membership acting like a carrot with gold plating, there are reasons for Turkey to accept agreements it may not otherwise have
chosen to. It’s a country caught in a patchwork of third world unmechanized farming and modern megopolis development. Pop music has arrived in a big way; mass produced electronics
goods are finding markets; and satellite and cable TV is common, but at the same time, people still chant five times a day — only now the most fanatical can do it with Bang
and Olufsen megaphones. This is “modern” third world style. Adaptive Bass Linearisation meets the Koran. The state may provide free hospital care, but you need to bring your own nurse. Seriously, family members may have to provide non-medical nursing. Sewers are still
uncovered and storm drains are inadequate. Infant mortality is surprisingly serious. Babies born in places like Nicaragua or the Palestinian Territories have much
better chances of survival. This is not a country where “going solar” is a top priority. People are dying from real preventable causes, and man-made climate change is not
one of them. Most people live in rural villages, and are dependent on coal and wood in winter, and gas for their cars, so the chances of “alternate energy sources” being affordable
are seriously close to zero. Turkey’s economy (like many others) hangs by a thread. It’s hard to imagine how they could seriously cut their emissions without crippling their economy. Current tax
rates are at a level that almost every business struggles to meet. Income levels are much lower than the west, to the point where even children are breadwinners. Meanwhile
unemployment is officially “above 13%”, and probably in reality, above 25%2. Those numbers have a special meaning in a land where there are no unemployment
benefits. Hiking up food costs with an unnecessary carbon impost is dangerous for people already on a subsistence diet. Energy-wise, Turkey has big gas reserves near the north coast of the Marmara and a well developed gas infrastructure, though not, it seems, a terribly well developed
electricity network, as blackouts are still regular. There is plenty of work to do to get fossil fuel powered electricity running reliably before the country rushes into
unproven and more risky alternatives. Rather than establishing Research Centers in Atmospheric Chemistry, the Kurds in the east are more interested in establishing schools and hospitals, and, of course, their
own government. This is a country that needs to spend money on health, on basic services, on education — not on inefficient energy sources, auditing carbon credits, or a
new layer of bureaucrats. The word from a cyber friend who lives there is that there aren’t many skeptics, but nor are there many AGW fans either. As I suspected, Turks view this mostly as a
western creation and a western problem. Once again, marvel at the worldwide grassroots network of volunteers. Email all your Turkish friends. Click on the image above to see The Turkish Skeptics Handbook. Thanks to Zulloch Ltd for the
translation. They are a professional translation service in Istanbul, so this was an easy effortless process for me. I just had to give permission and the cogs turned… And just in case you ever need to arrange a Turkish translation: Zulloch Tercume (Translation and Print Services) Ltd, Istanbul. The full printable top quality 17Mb
version can be downloaded too. (For all your friends in Turkey with four color printing presses.) Finally! – I’ve got a translation in a language that Brian Valentine can’t read. 1 2007 polls of countries and climate change attitudes and knowledge.
http://www.globescan.com/news_archives/bbc_climate/backgrounder.html 2 Turkish Unemployment. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/turk-m18.shtml (JoNova) Better get busy making sure they can meet consumer demand for power then, eh? Plugged-In
Age Feeds a Hunger for Electricity With two laptop-loving children and a Jack Russell terrier hemmed in by an electric fence, Peter Troast figured his household used a lot of power. Just how much did not
really hit him until the night the family turned off the overhead lights at their home in Maine and began hunting gadgets that glowed in the dark. Fortunately enhanced greenhouse is another problem that never was. Looming failure to meet exploding consumer demand, however, is criminally negligent. Anadarko Group Makes Oil Find - Discovery Potentially Opens Up a New Frontier Off
Sierra Leone A consortium led by Anadarko Petroleum Corp. said it had discovered oil off the coast of Sierra Leone, potentially opening up a vast new petroleum province in the deep
waters off West Africa. Gouging, fleecing, ripping off small businesses, single mums and grannies, these utilities are a disgrace. Ofgem has caught the scoundrels red-handed, pinching pounds from
our pockets. ScottishPower in running for clean coal deal SCOTTISHPOWER has moved a step closer to winning £1 billion of government aid after German energy giant E.ON hinted that it will struggle to meet the deadline to build
Britain's first clean coal plant. "Dangerous greenhouse gas emissions"? They are talking about the essential trace gas, carbon dioxide. What an idiotic game this
is. How cutting carbon emissions leads to wasting energy ECONOMISTS can and do get it wrong. The lead-up to the sub-prime mortgage crisis being an obvious case in point. While some economists and regulators were convinced all
was well, many people were alarmed at a system that enabled people to buy expensive houses with loans that were beyond their means of repaying. It just didn't pass the common
sense test. Electricity companies warn of time-use charging fees ENERGY retailers are warning families to change the way they live or risk harsh hip-pocket punishment as the industry pushes to expand time-of-use charging. Nuclear must be
part of energy equation ENERGY Secretary Steven Chu turned NIMBYism on its head recently when he told National Public Radio listeners that he would rather live close to a nuclear power plant than
to a coal-fired power plant. September 18, 2009
'Junk science' expert sounds alarm
on insurance study Steve Milloy’s "junk science" detector started running high when he got hold of a new study in the American Journal of Public Health claiming nearly 45,000
Americans die from a lack of health insurance. Political Science Strikes the Health Care Debate An Obama administration-funded study to published Sep. 17 in the American Journal of Public Health claims that the lack of health insurance causes as many as 45,000 deaths
per year. U.S. employers will defray health reform costs: study NEW YORK - If U.S. health reform efforts lead to higher costs for employers, employees may end up bearing the brunt, according to a new survey. Hmm... Threat of lead has not gone away for children NEW YORK - Lead pollution in the environment remains a health hazard for children. No control for socio-economic status? No mention of it at all? How do they know that these trivial lead levels are not merely markers of same then? Until they change the criteria, again: Preschool
obesity rate stable at 1 in 7: U.S. study CHICAGO -- The U.S. obesity epidemic, which afflicts all age groups, has stabilized in the past five years among preschool-age children at about one in seven children,
government researchers said on Thursday. (Reuters) Bad idea: Fight Grows
Over Labels on Household Cleaners Procter & Gamble, the maker of Mr. Clean, is under pressure to come clean itself. Appeasement never works and giving any information (or anything else) to anti-chemical anti-everything and everybody "anything" groups
is just plain stupid. These people are not your friends. They do not have your best interests at heart. Don't give them anything, ever. As if California doesn't have real problems... California
lawmaker plans hearings on soda-obesity link LOS ANGELES - The California lawmaker who spearheaded a high-profile anti-obesity effort across the country's most populous state is now training his sights on
sugar-sweetened drinks. Airline workers may spread H1N1, expert says WASHINGTON - Airline employees who report to work ill are more likely than sick passengers to spread infections such as the H1N1 swine flu virus aboard airplanes, with
low-paid workers posing the greatest danger, a U.S. government expert said on Thursday. Australian
Trade Scholars Offer Perfect Cure for ‘Protectionitis’ Earlier
this month, the Lowy Institute in Australia published a paper offering some very sound and, obviously, very timely
advice about how to contain, and ultimately, eradicate protectionism. The paper is being circulated among the G20 delegations, who will undoubtedly discuss the topic of trade
and protectionism in Pittsburgh next week. So for those of you interested in getting a sense of what will probably be the single best idea on (or at least near) the table at
the G20 summit, I highly recommend this 20-pager. The solution proposed by the authors boils down to a two-word phrase: “Domestic Transparency.” What is meant by that phrase is that “defeating protectionism begins
at home.” And by that slogan, the authors mean that the key to reducing, and ultimately eliminating, protectionism is not external pressure from other countries,
mercantilist trade negotiations, or filing trade complaints at the WTO, but rather greater awareness at home of the real costs of protectionism. I couldn’t agree more. (In
fact better transparency is one of our recommendations in this paper). When governments impose trade barriers at the behest of special interests, they usually justify that protectionism with diversionary rhetoric concerning some vague
conception of the “national interest,” and the imperative of shielding domestic business from unfair competition and other vagaries of the globalized economy. That the
protectionist measure itself—the product of special interests diverting productive resources from economic to political ends—forces involuntary and usually unknowing
subsidization of those protection-seekers by the same citizens at large who are expected to buy into the national interest canard is a detail about which most people remain
in the dark. The central theme of the Lowy paper is that once people become informed about the costs of protectionism, not only to the broader economy, but in terms of what it means
for their own personal budgets, politicians and lobbyists will find it much more difficult to concoct protectionist schemes. That this paper is written by Australians is no accident. The Aussies have experience and credibility implementing a successful domestic transparency regime, which
entailed the establishment of an independent authority (independent from the levers of government and business) to provide advice to governments that is “disinterested,
open to public scrutiny, and formulated from the perspective of national welfare rather than the needs of particular producer groups.” The establishment of that agency
(oddly named the “Industries Assistance Commission”—one of the authors, Bill Carmichael, is the former Chairman of the IAC) in 1974 and its successor agency (also oddly
named the “Productivity Commission”) are widely credited with exposing the costs of protectionism to Australians, who subsequently supported dramatic waves of trade
liberalization and have since been skeptical of efforts of industries to secure protection. In this country, the U.S. International Trade Commission is an agency with a stable of economists that measures the welfare effects of trade liberalization and
protectionism. While it may have the resources to conduct the analyses, it doesn’t have the independence. Regrettably, ITC studies are often subject to the whims of
politics, particularly when the objectivity and facts in their reports don’t comport with politicians’ “expectations.” We need something similar to Australia’s
domestic transparency institution in the United States, and in other countries, too. G20 members should seriously consider the proposal in this excellent Lowy paper.
(Daniel Ikenson, Cato at liberty) New approach could stop 6 mln African malaria cases LONDON - A third of malaria cases in African babies can be prevented by giving them regular doses of antimalarial drugs even before the children are infected, researchers
said on Thursday. Explains a lot about NYT: Why I Still Oppose Genetically Modified Crops Introduced more than a decade ago, genetically modified crops are now planted on millions of acres throughout the world. But the fundamental questions about them remain
— both about their safety and their long-term impact on global food security and the environment. (Verlyn Klinkenborg, Yale 360) Verlyn Klinkenborg is a member of the editorial board at the New York Times, where he regularly writes editorial opinions about rural life. Looking back on Norman Borlaug's achievements Norman Borlaug died on September 12th, aged 95. The name will be unfamiliar to many, but not to those concerned about food security in the developing world. Borlaug has
been called the 'grandfather of the Green Revolution' for his breakthrough in breeding disease-resistant strains of so-called semi-dwarf wheat. This led to apocalyptic
forecasts of global famine – given a high profile by Paul Ehrlich and others in the 60s and 70s – being proved dramatically wrong. In the 40 years from 1963, the world
population doubled, and the number of chronically malnourished people (essentially a problem of poverty and infrastructure rather than overall food availability) hardly
changed. Over 3 billion more people were fed from essentially the same total area of farmland. The malaria myths of
climate change Contrary to oft-repeated claims, climate change is unlikely to cause a major rise in malaria, says medical entomologist Paul Reiter. World Development Report demands immediate action on climate change This year's World Bank WDR – Development and Climate Change – argues that poverty reduction remains top priority, but it must be combined with urgent action on climate
change. The report prescribes massive investment in new energy technologies and renewal of generating systems to slash carbon dioxide emissions, and argues that continued
growth alone would not be fast or equitable enough to enable developing countries to counter the effects of climate change. An inconvenient truth about global warming The global warming narrative - that mankind's addiction to burning fossil fuels is rapidly changing the climate - may be about to go seriously off message. We wish... Expert: World doomed to face warming The world is "doomed to experience some global warming, and countries must prepare for those changes," warns an international expert, looking at upcoming global
climate treaty meetings. In the current Nature, David Victor of the University of California, San Diego, calls for abandoning hopes for a global treaty on climate change in
Copenhagen in December, arguing that the 192 nations involved cannot get their act together by then. Such "doom" would certainly be a boon to life on Earth (including humanity) but we have no reason to believe the planet is any more likely to
warm than it is to cool. Climate policies endanger U.S. national security The global warming scare campaign goes through phases. Warmists are collectivists, and they buzz like a hive. The overall narrative of doom does not change, but every
couple of months or so the hive settles on a different scare to buzz about most loudly. Not quite: Public bored by climate change, says IPPR Government and business face a big challenge in changing the public's use of energy at home and reducing the UK's overall carbon emissions, report finds. From the Ecologist,
part of the Guardian Environment Network The general public are resentful, cynical and resigned when it comes to the issue of climate change, according to
an IPPR report. Unless they can be persuaded to adopt lower-carbon lifestyles, it will be impossible to meet new emissions targets, says the report. (The Guardian) More like the public are waking up to the fact gorebull warming is a complete nonsense designed to rip them off. Still confusing greenhouse gases with "pollution": World's
big polluters kick off climate talks in Washington WASHINGTON — Representatives of the world's 17 biggest carbon polluters kicked off a week of high-stakes talks on climate change Thursday with a discussion at the US
State Department. When are these guys going to wake up that our planet is life-friendly because our greenhouse gas-rich atmosphere delays nocturnal cooling and
limits diurnal heating to keep our environment from being as hostile as the moon's? The moon's mean surface temperature by day is 107 °C (380 K, 225 °F)
and by night drops to -153 °C (120 K, -243 °F), the Lunar surface temperature increases about 260 °C from just before dawn to Lunar noon. Why would
we want to nudge our planet toward such extremes? Are you really a leader if no one follows? Allies
abandon U.S. at climate confab GENEVA | Western nations that spent the past several years slamming the Bush administration for not doing enough to deal with climate change were conspicuously absent from
a recent global climate conference. I'd send Jane Lubchenco and her climate cabal to the ends of the Earth too, but that's another matter. Targets Demand Dogs Poor Nations' Steps To Cut CO2 SINGAPORE/WASHINGTON - In the game of climate poker, developing nations might feel they have the right cards on the table in U.N. talks after ramping up efforts to curb
greenhouse gas output. China and India warned over emissions Todd Stern, the US’s climate change envoy, has warned countries such as China and India that they run greater risk of protectionist measures in the US Congress if they
do not co-operate on international steps to hold down carbon emissions. Someone please reassure me they are not really this stupid... anyone? China's top climatologist stays cool over 2C rise It is too early to determine the level of meteorological risk posed by global warming, says the director-general of the Beijing Climate Centre (The Guardian) Actually, they said a lot more than that:
The polluted skyline of Shanghai at dawn. On the way to the December climate conference in Copenhagen, Chinese scientists are tackling the issue of carbon emissions. To our knowledge this is the first time that
this has happened. Until now, China has been sheepish or even defensive as to how they would address carbon dioxide emissions. Considering the strict media controls in China
on anything that is published (the government owns all publishing houses) the article below should be viewed as reflecting the views of the Chinese government. China is now
questioning the motives of the countries who are promoting limits on carbon dioxide and it sees those limits as an attempt by the developed world to stifle China’s economic
growth.
Below is an abridged English translation of an article by Wang Jing
that appeared in China’s Science Times on September 7, 2009. The upcoming Copenhagen United Nations Climate Change Conference in December will have a deep impact on the economic development of every country. Many major,
economically strong, countries will come together to discuss climate change and craft a greenhouse gas emission agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, signed in December
1997. As the biggest carbon emitter in the world, China will certainly be pressured on carbon emission from developed countries. Currently China is at the peak of economic
development and any reduction of carbon emissions is considered a fantasy by Chinese experts.
But what kind of gesture should Chinese make at the Copenhagen conference? How can China fight for its right to emit while continuing to develop its economy? Recently, Ding Zhongli, an academician and the vice president of the Science Academy of China, published a research paper titled “2050 Atmospheric CO2 Concentration
Control: Emission Rights Calculation for Each Country” on Science in China Series D: Earth Sciences (Vol. 39, No.8, 1009 -1027, 2009). That paper detailed the
historical CO2 emission data of developed countries and their economic development and provides fresh thinking on how China can win the argument during the carbon
emission negotiations. Emission rights are development rights All developed countries, without exception, became developed through high-speed industrial growth, and that growth inevitably resulted in intense utilization of fossil
energy and massive CO2 emissions. In the US, CO2 annual per capita emissions increased by an average rate of 5 percent during 1901 to 1910; Germany
averaged 9.9 percent during 1947 to 1957; Japan averaged 12 percent during 1960 to 1970. Therefore, emission rates correlate with development rates and emission rights are
development rights. However, in exactly the era that China puts its full effort on economic development, some developed countries are proposing CO2 emission cuts. The IPCC’s estimate of a global temperature increase of 2.5 degrees C due to CO2 emissions increase is an average value obtained by some meteorologists
through multiple model calculations. Ding’s report found that there is no solid scientific evidence to strictly correlate global temperature rise and CO2
concentrations. Some geologists believe that global temperature is related to solar activities and glacial periods. At least human activity is not the only factor to cause
the global temperature increase. Up to now not a single scientist has figured out the weight ratio of each factor on global temperature change. However, the massive propaganda “human activity induced the global temperature increase” has been accepted by the majority of the society in some countries, and it has
become a political and diplomatic issue. Why do the developed countries put an arguable scientific problem on the international negotiation table? The real intention is not
for the global temperature increase, but for the restriction of the economic development of the developing countries, and for keeping their own advantageous positions.
Cumulative emission per capita reflects more fair and justified principle … Ding’s research shows that cumulative emission per capita indicates the economic level of a country. By 1960, US emission per capita was 234.48 tC (tons of carbon);
Britain’s level was 177.17 tC; Canada’s level was 149.49 tC; and France’s level was 73.56 tC. However, the cumulative emission per capita for China was only 24.14 tC
from 1900 to 2005. China’s GDP per capita in 2005 was much lower than that of the average of the developed countries in 1960. If the global temperature increase indeed is the result of human activity, controlling the CO2 concentration should be the historical responsibility of each
country that has already emitted CO2. About 70 to 80 percent of the CO2 in the atmosphere has been emitted by the developed countries. The cumulative emission per
capita from Britain and US is about 1,100 tC, the cumulative emission per capita from China and India are only 66 tCO2 and 23 tCO2, respectively.
Therefore, the obvious conclusion is that the historical emission of the developed countries directly resulted in the global temperature increase, if the claimed correlation
is to be accepted. Nevertheless, after emitting greenhouse gases for over a century and imagining a horrible consequence, the developed countries now strongly require that the developing
countries also bear the historical responsibility. As is well known, the long time biggest emitter, the US first refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and then asked that
China provides its emission reduction goal. On June 27, 2008, the then-British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said in Tokyo that to avoid the risk of extreme climate change, all
countries have to adjust their national economic structure. But only the promise of change by the developed countries is not enough for developing countries. It is truly
hegemony.
Internationally there are two ways to control atmospheric CO2 concentration, one is to emphasize on reduction of emissions, another is to emphasize emission
quotas. … Ding’s research indicates that whenever there are conflicts between the international climate framework and US domestic economic development, the climate
policies are adjusted to protect the economic development and business interests. Since the 1950s, US academics led in global climate change studies and have made significant
contributions on this issue. However, the US government policy started to change in the late 1980s. The first Bush administration appeared sluggish on the climate issue. The
climate policy of the Clinton administration was active internationally, but inactive internally. The second Bush administration became even more hesitant and instead of
ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, they structured a replacement for Kyoto Protocol “Clear Skies & Global Climate Change Initiatives” to put the US in a good position for
economic development. Therefore, it is necessary for China to insist on emission quotas to ensure a continuous economic development. The G8 meeting held in Italy in July 2009 proposed to reduce CO2 emissions by 50 percent globally and by 80 percent for G8 countries by 2050. … It looks like
the developed countries contribute more on reducing emission, but if using 1900 level as the baseline, the average cumulative emission per capita for G8 countries is 356.58
tC, compared to 59.95 tC per capita for all the other countries. Ding’s calculations indicate that the average cumulative emission per capital of G8 countries from 1990 to
2050 would be 3 times more than that of other countries. Therefore, the G8 proposal is extremely unfair…. Currently the need for fossil energy in China is enormous. China can use the “cumulative emission quota per capita” strategy to gain favorable status. Ding’s
research categorized countries with population over 300,000 into four different groups according to four indices: He concluded that although China is in the group that needs to reduce the emission increase rate, China can strive for more emission rights since China could get over 30
percent of the global emissions quota. (Energy Tribune) Nice one: India to set non-binding emissions targets: minister NEW DELHI — India said Thursday it was ready to set itself non-binding targets for cutting carbon emissions in a bid to shed its image as an intransigent polluter ahead
of UN climate change talks in December. (AFP) Definitely learning to play the game. <chuckle> South Africa: We’ll burn more coal, sorry While admitting to be a ”culprit” on the climate scene, Africa’s largest economy can’t accept targets for its greenhouse gas emissions, minister states. (CoP15) Oh dear... Scotland unveils world's first carbon budget Scotland today unveiled the world's first "carbon budget" to link greenhouse gas emissions with government spending, revealing that its plans will emit the
equivalent of four coal-fired power stations next year. In [10] days the curtain will rise in Bangkok for the penultimate round of negotiations before the climate change conference in Copenhagen. David Victor warns of the
dangers of a rushed, stapled-together deal. (David Victor, Nature) Abundant free "permits" don't cost anything? Imagine that... Businesses Unharmed So Far By EU CO2
Scheme: Survey LONDON - The European Union's flagship emissions trading scheme has had no negative impact so far on business costs or competitiveness, a survey by non-governmental
organization The Climate Group said on Thursday. What? China growth path could exceed planet's resources If China's energy usage structure remains unchanged, its emissions of greenhouse gases would represent 60 percent of total global emissions and three times China's current
production by 2050, a study says. (CoP15) If they are talking about carbon dioxide emissions then that should read: "China [emission] growth path will boost planet's [bio] resources". Off to an inauspicious start: Interior Launches Climate
Strategy - New Council's Aim Is to Help Curb Warming Interior Secretary Ken Salazar launched the Obama administration's first coordinated response to the impacts of climate change Monday, which he said would both monitor how
global warming is altering the nation's landscape and help the country cope with those changes. Several people have written to query: "Cheat grass is a carbon source, and we'd rather see [the basin] as a carbon sink" since cheat
grass is sourcing its carbon from the atmosphere just as the hallowed biofuels do. Well, they are right in that cheat grasses are not liberating previously sequestered
carbon, nor are they directly fueled by combustion of coal, oil or gas. We should cut Interior a little slack, however, since cheat grass intrusion does apparently increase
brushfire potential and so return atmosphere-sourced carbon embedded in sage brush a little sooner than would otherwise have occurred. Call Interior's claim trivially true
-- kind of. If cheat grass is bad though, then biofuels are orders of magnitude worse from a carbon cycle perspective. Left-Coasters with more money than sense... San Francisco Launches First Airport Carbon Kiosks Today at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) we are launching the Climate Passport program allowing travelers to offset the impact of their air travel through an
airport kiosk. This will be the world's first airport kiosk-giving people the opportunity to calculate the environmental impact of their flights and purchase carbon offsets
to address that impact while at the airport. (Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco) Canada Energy At Risk In Low-Carbon Standard: Group WASHINGTON - Rules to add costs to fuels that emit the highest levels of carbon dioxide would deny millions of Americans access to stable Canadian energy and add to the
nation's security risks, an interest group backed by oil companies said Thursday. Dirtiest? Actually carbon dioxide is colorless, odorless and in fact essential to life on Earth. NOAA:
Warmest Global Sea-Surface Temperatures for August and Summer From the NOAA press release, just in time for Copenhagen. Of course the
satellite record for August tells another story that is not quite so alarming as NCDC’s take on it. AMS Fellow and CCM, Joe D’Aleo of ICECAP has this to say about it:. Icecap Note: to enable them to make the case the oceans are warming, NOAA chose to remove satellite input into their global ocean estimation and not make any attempt to
operationally use Argo data in the process. This resulted in a jump of 0.2C or more and ‘a new ocean warmth record’ in July. ARGO tells us this is another example of
NOAA’s inexplicable decision to corrupt data to support political agendas. - Anthony Global surface temperature anomalies for the month of August 2009. Temperature is compared to the average global temperature from 1961-1990. Visualization of world’s land and ocean surface temperature. High resolution (Credit: NOAA) The world’s ocean surface temperature was the warmest for any August on record, and the warmest on record averaged for any June-August (Northern Hemisphere
summer/Southern Hemisphere winter) season according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The preliminary
analysis is based on records dating back to 1880. NCDC scientists also reported that the combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for August was second warmest on record, behind 1998. For the June-August
2009 season, the combined global land and ocean surface temperature was third warmest on record. (WUWT) NOAA’s
August global SST record is the result of one data set Yesterday NOAA announced with much
fanfare that: The world’s ocean surface temperature was the warmest for any August on record, and the warmest on record averaged for any June-August (Northern Hemisphere
summer/Southern Hemisphere winter) season according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The preliminary
analysis is based on records dating back to 1880. Besides the UAH data for
August I cited, Bob Tisdale shows that some other datasets don’t agree with NOAA’s conclusion. – Anthony Record Sea Surface Temperatures Are Only In NOAA ERSST.v3b Dataset Guest post by Bob Tisdale The NOAA press release claims the August Global Sea Surface Temperature
(SST) was the warmest on record. The record ERSST.v3b SST for August can be seen in Figure 1. And of course SST anomalies, Figure 2, were also at record levels in August 2009. What a sad piece of reporting: Arctic Ice Melts To Third-Smallest Area LOS ANGELES - The Arctic ice pack melted this summer to its third-smallest size on record, up slightly from the low points of the past two years but continuing an overall
shrinking trend symptomatic of climate change, U.S. scientists said on Thursday. (Reuters) "Arctic ice level continues to increase since wind reversal blew a lot of old ice out of the Arctic three years ago." "Arctic
ice melts to third-smallest area noted in the few years satellite data has been available." I guess they are functionally equivalent and accurate -- what a shame
the media didn't manage to do it. NSIDC
still pushing “ice-free Arctic summers” This is the press release sent out by NSIDC today (sans image below).
Instead of celebrating a two year recovery, they push the “ice free” theme started last year by Marc Serreze. There’s no joy in mudville apparently. My prediction for
2010 is a third year of increase in the September minimum to perhaps 5.7 to 5.9 million square kilometers. Readers should have a look again at how
the experts did this year on short term forecasts. – Anthony Image source: NOAA News CU-Boulder’s Snow and Ice Data Center analysis shows negative summertime ice trend continues The Arctic sea ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year, the third-lowest recorded since satellites began measuring sea ice extent in 1979,
according to the University of Colorado at Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center. While this year’s September minimum extent was greater than each of the past two record-setting and near-record-setting low years, it is still significantly below the
long-term average and well outside the range of natural climate variability, said NSIDC Research Scientist Walt Meier. Most scientists believe the shrinking Arctic sea ice is
tied to warming temperatures caused by an increase in human-produced greenhouse gases being pumped into Earth’s atmosphere. (WUWT) When
Is A Climate Satellite Not Exactly A Climate Satellite? I have just been at a beautiful presentation at the British Interplanetary Society in London, by Jessica Housden of EADS-Astrium about the upcoming ESA “EarthCARE”
satellite (beautiful especially to us engineering boffins that is). Designing a Spacecraft to Observe Climate Change Understanding of the atmosphere is a continual process, with scientists all over the world endeavouring to determine how our atmosphere works and how it is changing.
One such mission, EarthCARE, will be observing several processes which will help scientists. How will this be done and how will the spacecraft work? Jessica Housden is a systems engineer for the EarthCARE mission, which will observe water content and aerosol distribution in the atmosphere. Ms Housden said that EarthCARE, designed to look at clouds and aerosols, will be up there for 4 years from around 2013 (don’t bet your house on that though…there’s
lots to learn before it can actually fly). Upon hearing that I suddenly realised something confirmed during the Q&A session later: the climate-change EarthCARE satellite is not exactly a satellite to
study the climate. For a start, 4 years are way too short a time to see what climate is doing, let alone to see it changing. You see, EarthCARE is a climate-change satellite. Its measurements will be used to (surprise, surprise!) help climate modellers improve their models (as
everybody knows, clouds have been particularly badly modelled up to now). After all, that’s what it “says on the tin” (”Spacecraft to observe Climate Change“, not “Climate“). Nothing to fault EADS-Astrium
for…still, I suspect in the upcoming future one will have to be careful about this apparently minute distinctions. What about the Climate then? Well, EarthCARE would be a good starting point. For example one of its instruments is designed to measure incoming and outgoing fluxes,
thereby answering many of the questions we still have about the planetary energy budget. But you’d need a constellation of EarthCAREs for proper climate research, perhaps 5 or 6, if only to observe a particular spot more than once a month. And you’d need
also a steady supply, to have enough of them up there despite the relatively-short 4-year lifetime. (OmniClimate) After being starved of any significant solar activity for so long, any detection of a sunspot very nearly becomes headline news. Therefore when a significant spot is
detected on the solar farside, people start writing furiously. So what to do? The first detection of a potential (and substantial) sunspot in more than a month came from GONG But will it survive to the nearside? There’s something that might be a spot on the far eastern limb of the latest STEREO image But GONG now shows nothing at all
So what to believe? The next few days should show whether we’re looking at a spot or a plage. I confess that the sensitivity of the seismic results interpreted by GONG
are often less accurate as to whether we are seeing a solar disturbance (like a coronal hole or a prominence) or a real sunspot. I suspect that this is continuation of a pattern we have been seeing for many months, a single sunspot or very small group with SC24 polarity passes in front of us, but
nothing else happens and the Sun’s activity quickly falls back to very low levels. Because of this phenomenon, the most likely response from the solar science community is likely to be muted, after so many false dawns. Solarcycle24.com has produced a graph showing the remarkable difference between the spotless days between solar
cycles 22 and 23 and between 23 and 24. There’s no end in sight for this minimum. (Solar Science) NCAR:
“number of sunspots provides an incomplete measure of changes in the Sun’s impact on Earth” From an NCAR press release September 17, 2009 BOULDER—Challenging conventional wisdom, new research finds that the number of sunspots provides an incomplete measure of changes in the Sun’s impact on Earth over the
course of the 11-year solar cycle. The study, led by scientists at the High Altitude Observatory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of
Michigan, finds that Earth was bombarded last year with high levels of solar energy at a time when the Sun was in an unusually quiet phase and sunspots had virtually
disappeared. “The Sun continues to surprise us,” says NCAR scientist Sarah Gibson, the lead author. “The solar wind can hit Earth like a fire hose even when there are virtually
no sunspots.” The study, also written by scientists at NOAA and NASA, is being published today in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Space Physics. It was funded by NASA
and by the National Science Foundation, NCAR’s sponsor. Scientists for centuries have used sunspots, which are areas of concentrated magnetic fields that appear as dark patches on the solar surface, to determine the
approximately 11-year solar cycle. At solar maximum, the number of sunspots peaks. During this time, intense solar flares occur daily and geomagnetic storms frequently buffet
Earth, knocking out satellites and disrupting communications networks. When those streams blow by Earth, they intensify the energy of the planet’s outer radiation belt. This can create serious hazards for weather, navigation, and
communications satellites that travel at high altitudes within the outer radiation belts, while also threatening astronauts in the International Space Station. Auroral storms
light up the night sky repeatedly at high latitudes as the streams move past, driving mega-ampere electrical currents about 75 miles above Earth’s surface. All that energy
heats and expands the upper atmosphere. This expansion pushes denser air higher, slowing down satellites and causing them to drop to lower altitudes. (WUWT) When reading a paper by Richard Lindzen Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions? I was struck by some
comments towards the end by John P. Holdren, director of the Woods Hole Research Center about climate skeptics. He says: First, they have not come up with any plausible alternative culprit for the disruption of global climate that is being observed, for example, a culprit other than the
greenhouse-gas buildups in the atmosphere that have been measured and tied beyond doubt to human activities. (The argument that variations in the sun’s output might be
responsible fails a number of elementary scientific tests.) Second, having not succeeded in finding an alternative, they haven’t even tried to do what would be logically necessary if they had one, which is to explain how it can
be that everything modern science tells us about the interactions of greenhouse gases with energy flow in the atmosphere is wrong. As to the first point, most skeptics have been maintaining that similar Arctic conditions were experienced recently, that the current climate state is similar to the
Medieval Warm Period, and possibly temperatures have exceeded the present throughout the recent geologically warm 10,000 years called the Holocene. These issues as far as I
know are still unsettled. Holdren is criticizing skeptics for not coming up with an explanation for a non-disruption that has not been observed. OTOH, the record of alarmists of loudly proclaimed ‘disruptions’ that have subsequently been discredited provides numerous examples of scientific bias: that the
climate system is ‘more sensitive than we thought‘, that the intensity of
hurricanes and others storms are increasing, that droughts and floods are increasing, that the Walker
circulation is weakening, a miserable
record predicting Arctic ice extent, to name a few. On his second point, skeptics have also “consistently affirmed modern science and interactions of greenhouse gases with energy flow in the atmosphere” by finding that
the rate of underlying warming that can be attributed to increases in CO2 is consistent with the direct radiative effect of CO2, a paltry 0.05C/decade. The graph below lists
some of the authors that have arrived at the same basic rate of warming through completely independent means (there are others as well such as Miskolczi and Nir Shaviv). These sources of observational evidence suggest that the amount of warming will be 0.5C by 2100, not nothing, but not catastrophic and certainly well below the IPCC
projections, produced by a chorus of climate simulations sharing many common aspects. The difference is due to the warming attributed to speculative and as yet unconfirmed
positive feedbacks. Holdren tells us that: the extent of unfounded skepticism about the disruption of global climate by human-produced greenhouse gases is not just regrettable, it is dangerous. One of the main reasons for persistent skepticism is that people look at the evidence and find it wanting, they look at the AGW proponents and find misrepresentation of
the alternative arguments, and they look at the emotional appeals and see bias. When people of science like RealClimate start worrying that their lack of results is due to
being ‘unlikable’ and ‘poor communicators’, its my experience that the real problem is the use of subjective vehicles to back up inconclusive science. Skepticism is
healthy, and the way for AGW proponents to further their work is through greater openness and objectivity, not stronger emotional appeals. (David Stockwell, Niche Modeling) World Bank spends billions on coal-fired power stations The World Bank is spending billions of pounds subsidising new coal-fired power stations in developing countries despite claiming that burning fossil fuels exposes the poor
to catastrophic climate change. The bank, which has a goal of reducing poverty and is funded by Britain and other developed countries, calls on all nations in a report today
to “act differently on climate change”. Financing power stations is good but we can do without the gorebull warming nonsense. "Liability" for an essential trace gas... Chevron Australia CO2
Liability Deal May Be Precedent Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc agreed to invest in the $37 billion Gorgon natural gas venture only after Australia’s government assumed
liability for potential damages hundreds of years from now. That may set a precedent in this resource-rich nation. CO2 Regulations and Electricity Prices: Cost Estimates from Coal-Fired Power Plants CO2 Regulations and Electricity Prices: Cost Estimates from Coal-Fired Power Plants This study examines the changes in electricity prices that are likely to result if in the future coal-fired power plants are regulated for their CO2 emissions. We focus
on carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies that new power plants may adopt either because of a direct regulatory requirement or because the market price of CO2
emission permits is sufficiently high. Our analysis takes explicitly into account that in some jurisdictions the supply of electricity at the wholesale level (generation)
is organized competitively, while in other jurisdictions a regulated monopolist (utility) provides both generation and distribution services. We find that for both the
competitive and the regulated monopoly scenario an emission price in the range of $25-30 per tonne of CO2 would make it advantageous for coal-fired plants to adopt CCS
capabilities rather than buy emission permits. The resulting increases in the retail price of electricity are projected to be near 25%. In contrast to the competitive power
supply scenario, these price increases materialize only gradually, in fact almost linearly, over 30 years for the scenario of a regulated utility. This delay in price
increases reflects that for regulated firms prices are principally based on historical cost rather than current cost. + Full Paper (PDF; 414 KB) (Docuticker) German Mini Power Stations Augur Change For Big Firms FRANKFURT - Energy conscientious Germans taking power production into their own hands may give a wake-up call to established utility firms, as innovators roll out new
competition on the clean energy front to grab market share. Not exactly. The mountain they have to move is that they don't have a viable product. Adonis defends aviation industry over emissions Transport secretary says it is 'perfectly credible' for airlines to continue to expand as new technology to control their carbon emissions becomes available (The Guardian) Guess what? It's perfectly credible for them to expand regardless of carbon dioxide emissions. Casting for new marks... Green Energy On A Roll But Experts Warn Of Bubbles GENEVA - Investors betting on renewable or clean energy and related green themes are looking for healthy and sustainable returns, but the road is full of pitfalls for the
unwary, investment managers warned on Thursday. September 17, 2009
Idiotic data dredge of the moment: Chemical pollutants linked
to fewer female births NEW YORK - High exposure to certain now-banned industrial chemicals may lead to fewer female births, a new study suggests. So, while busy trying to claim "endocrine disruptors" are feminizing the population they throw in defeminizing by increasing male birth rates?
Did it occur to these dopey beggars that the intensely studied group received more medical supervision and the normally more-fragile male fetuses had a higher than normal
success rate in this group for no other reason than micromanaged pregnancies? Flu experts gear up for pandemic of vaccine worry WASHINGTON - One million heart attacks, 700,000 strokes and 900,000 miscarriages -- U.S. public health officials want Americans to know these will happen every single year
with or without a swine flu vaccine campaign. Swine flu death rate similar to seasonal flu: expert WASHINGTON - The death rate from the pandemic H1N1 swine flu is likely lower than earlier estimates, an expert in infectious diseases said on Wednesday. 20-somethings
Will Pay for Big Government A front-page Washington Post story today notes that the cost of Obama-style health care reform will
fall disproportionately on young adults. Younger workers are typically more healthy than the population at large, and a significant share of them quite rationally choose not to buy health insurance, as my
colleague Mike Tanner explains in a recent op-ed. The major health care
plans on the table in Washington would force them to buy coverage. As the Post story explains: Drafting young adults into any health-care reform package is crucial to paying for it. As low-cost additions to insurance pools, young adults would help dilute the
expense of covering older, sicker people. Depending on how Congress requires insurers to price their policies, this group could even wind up paying
disproportionately hefty premiums—effectively subsidizing coverage for their parents. I’m beginning to see a pattern. Those same young workers will be forced to pay the bills for soaring Social Security and Medicare expenditures when the Baby Boomers
begin retiring en masse a decade from now. And of course, they will be the ones paying off the $9 trillion in additional federal debt expected to be wracked up from the
current explosion in federal spending. I always thought parents were supposed to support their kids, not saddle them with bigger bills and huge debts. (Daniel Griswold, Cato at liberty) Proposed Tax on Sugary Beverages Debated The debate over a tax on sugary soft drinks — billed as a way to fight obesity and provide billions for health care reform — is starting to fizz over. UN food aid hits 20-yr low as hunger soars LONDON - Food aid is at a 20-year low despite the number of critically hungry people soaring this year to its highest level ever, the head of the United Nations relief
agency said on Wednesday. The Man Who Defused the
'Population Bomb' - One of America's greatest heroes remains little known in his home country. Norman Borlaug arguably the greatest American of the 20th century died late Saturday after 95 richly accomplished years. The very personification of human goodness,
Borlaug saved more lives than anyone who has ever lived. He was America's Albert Schweitzer: a brilliant man who forsook privilege and riches in order to help the
dispossessed of distant lands. That this great man and benefactor to humanity died little-known in his own country speaks volumes about the superficiality of modern American
culture. (Gregg Easterbrook, WSJ) The Crone still doesn't get it: Some
Bad Climate News and Some Good Senators Barbara Boxer and John Kerry have delayed the introduction of their long-awaited climate change bill until the end of this month — one more sign that Congress
will be hard pressed to get a bill to President Obama’s desk before the international summit on global warming in Stockholm in December. The entire "threat" of gorebull warming stems from someone taking it seriously. Turn off the computer models and the "threat"
disappears entirely. Attempts to shape climate bill in full swing NEW YORK — Industry, economic and environmental groups are making a final push to influence a climate bill that may go before the Senate within weeks. Really? And just why is that, Sir Nic? Even IPCC-favored research groups suggest we are not going to see any warming worth mentioning for a decade or
two, so what exactly is the rush? Even shutting down all U.S. coal-fired electrical generation now would "save" a mere 8/100 °C by the year 2100 (and that's
under the ridiculous assumption that all post-LIA warming is due to atmospheric CO2 increase). That's a full order of magnitude smaller than our
global mean temperature measurement error, so we'll never even know if it did what it was supposed to do. That is one huge expense to do nothing detectable. This is encouraging: GOP gubernatorial candidates reject
global warming science St. Paul, Minn. — Nearly all of the Republicans running for governor next year say they don't believe in human-caused climate change. Kirk Hits Reverse Thrusters On Cap and
Trade Rep.
Mark Kirk’s “aye” vote in the House of Representatives was something of a surprise and something of a mistake, if one reads the tea leaves. Now his
back-pedal is odd: “About cap and trade: I voted for it because it was in the narrow interests of my congressional district. But as your representative, representing the entire state of
Illinois, I will vote ‘No’ on that bill coming up.” The logic, if one calls it that, is odd but the result is a positive. Frankly, we don’t imagine that most politicians understood the breadth and depth of anger that
would follow cap-and-trade “yes” votes.” Keep up the pressure! (Chilling Effect) Officials at the Treasury Department think cap-and-trade legislation would cost taxpayers hundreds of billion in taxes, according to internal documents circulated within
the agency and provided to The Washington Times. Smoking Papers On Global Warming A Treasury Department analysis says a cap-and-trade law could cost American families more than $1,700 a year. No wonder administrators tried to keep the study secret.
(IBD) Has Climate Porn Already
Tipped? At the BBC’s Earth Watch blog, Richard Black
takes a different perspective on the recent survey of the British public (well, 500 of them, anyway) and Climate Porn that we covered in our last post. Among the emails that arrive in my inbox regularly on climate change, one sentiment expressed regularly is that the language of climate catastrophism is getting
shriller and shriller as the arguments for the phenomenon collapse. It’s one that I disagree with. I think the language of catastrophism, chaos, doom - whatever you like to call it - has actually sobered up, in the UK at least, having peaked about three or four
years ago when newspapers such as The Independent ran dramatic front pages on a regular basis, a new umbrella body for activists called Stop Climate Chaos came into
existence, Roland Emmerich had the Atlantic Ocean freezing in an instant in The Day After tomorrow, and a leading thinktank lambasted a portion of the British press for
indulging in “climate porn”. Some long-time observers warned at the time that this would “turn people off”; the Cardiff study suggests they may have been right. So is Richard right that global warming hysteria has diminished? Thirteen months ago, the New Economics Foundation, with a group of other organisations including the UK’s Green Party, launched its 100
Months campaign, claiming that: We have 100 months to save our climate. When the clock starts ticking, we could be beyond our climate’s tipping point, the point of no return. In January, the Guardian reported James Hansen’s claim that the President ‘has four years to save Earth’ - US must take the lead to avert eco-disaster. Last month, John Beddington, the UK’s Chief Scientific Advisor foresaw
a global environmental crisis in 2031: As the world’s population grows, competition for food, water and energy will increase. Food prices will rise, more people will go hungry, and migrants will flee
the worst-affected regions. Earlier that month, Paul Kingsnorth and George Monbiot did battle in the Guardian over whether
the eco-apocalypse was inevitable or could just about be prevented if human nature could be contained by state institutions. Wrote Kingsnorth: On the desk in front of me is a set of graphs. The horizontal axis of each represents the years 1750 to 2000. The graphs show, variously, population levels, CO2
concentration in the atmosphere, exploitation of fisheries, destruction of tropical forests, paper consumption, number of motor vehicles, water use, the rate of species
extinction and the totality of the human economy’s gross domestic product. Wrote Monbiot, his brother in despair: Like you I have become ever gloomier about our chances of avoiding the crash you predict. For the past few years I have been almost professionally optimistic,
exhorting people to keep fighting, knowing that to say there is no hope is to make it so. I still have some faith in our ability to make rational decisions based on
evidence. But it is waning. 2009 also saw the release of the film, The Age of Stupid, which claims to be a documentary, but is in fact a fiction set in the future, charting the fall of civilisation
as it was torn apart by Gaia’s wrath. Environmentalism’s inability to construct an understanding of the present forces it to base its fantasies - climate porn - from a
position in the future. The film’s director, Franny Armstrong, was met in several public meetings by the UK’s Climate Change Minister, Ed Miliband, who was entirely
unable to challenge her catastrophism, as we reported, back in June: … it isn’t a debate. Miliband and Armstrong’s positions are not counterposed. Miliband is nothing if not a committed environmentalist. Yet he recognises that
what both he and Armstrong want ain’t a vote-winner, and the public remain unconvinced about the environmental issue. Knowing that environmental policies therefore lack
the legitimacy such far-reaching policies ought to have, he recently called for the green movement to demonstrate the kind of mass-movement that has driven political change
in the past. Miliband needed Armstrong, we said. To give his government’s policies moral legitimacy, she had thrown at him the figure that, according to the UN, 150,000 people die
each year as a result of climate change, for which the UK would be culpable if it failed to act on climate change. As we pointed out in the same post, the figure had just
been raised by the GHF, to 300,000 - another case of climate porn in 2009 - but both figures were dubious. What they entirely failed to show is how few people in the
developing world died of causes attributed to climate change compared to other causes. In fact, as a cause it ranked the lowest, beneath obesity - not something you’d
expect people in the Third world to suffer from. Moreover, what the figure entirely omits is that these secondary effects of climate change, were they experienced in the
industrialised world, would likely have resulted in no deaths at all. And yet these 300,000 deaths are used as the basis for an argument for the mitigation of climate change
rather than as a good reason for industrialisation and economic development. Such is the distorting effect of climate porn on political discourse. Expressing the thesame symptoms of disorientation, here are some headlines from the Independent over the past year. Is the Independent less shrill thanit used to be? Hardly. Back in March, we wrote about the coverage of the Copenhagen climate discussions
in the Guardian, most of which was written by David Adam. The following headlines all appeared in the same week: Adam finished his week of misery with a podcast about what he took from the conference: The message might sound familiar is that we have to act, and that we have to act now. But I think the scientists, they have been saying it for a while, and we’ve
been saying it in the media for a while… but I think the scientists have lost a little bit of patience almost. I mean one said to me here that we’re sick of having our
carefully constructed messages lost in the political noise. You know this is the scientific community standing up and saying enough is enough, we’ve lost patience, get
your act together. But as we pointed out at the time, in an echo of his criticism of climate porn in 2006, Professor Mike Hulme gives us reason to take Adam’s and the conference
organisers’ claims to be reporting ’scientific opinion’ verbatim with a pinch of salt. What exactly is the ‘action’ the conference statement is calling for? Are these messages expressing the findings of science or are they expressing political
opinions? I have no problem with scientists offering clear political messages as long as they are clearly recognized as such. [...] But then we need to be clear about what authority these political messages carry. They carry the authority of the people who drafted them – and no more. Not the
authority of the 2,500 expert researchers gathered at the conference. And certainly not the authority of collective global science. Caught between summarizing scientific
knowledge and offering political interpretations of such knowledge, the six key messages seem rather ambivalent in what they are saying. It is as if they are not sure how
to combine the quite precise statements of science with a set of more contested political interpretations. Richard Black is perhaps a great deal more sensible in his reporting than his fellow journalists at the BBC, the Guardian, and the Independent. Yet he seems to have become
immune to their sensational climate stories. They simply no longer register. But this desensitisation means a failure to reflect critically on environmentalism and its
influence, and his journalism suffers as a consequence. With ‘a number of reports hinting that the pace of global temperature rise may have abated, for now at least’ in
mind, Black considers whether this, rather than climate porn, may be having an influence over the direction of policy. I wondered if this was being reflected in the intensive negotiations leading up to Copenhagen’s UN summit. After all, if governments were sensing a reason not to
pledge difficult and potentially expensive transformations to their economies, you would expect them to take it. Here, he misses the point that climate change isn’t something difficult for governments to cope with. It is actually convenient. The political establishment’s
absorption of environmentalism allows it to substantially lower the standard by which it is measured, and gives authoritarianism a legitimising basis. The looming, inevitable
environmental crisis instructs the public to lower their expectations accordingly. It means that rather than finding a way through problems such as energy supply, water and
travel infrastructure, and of course, raising expectations, politicians can turn the normal business of politics around, and redefine the problem as one of individual
morality. The statement that the public must use less electricity, must travel less, and must consume fewer resources is a statement that the public must expect less of
politicians and politics, and behave themselves. The failure of the establishment’s collective imagination is what drives ‘climate change ethics’. The search for
international agreements and legal frameworks to ‘combat climate change’ is a way of externalising what cannot legitimately be done domestically. Once in place,
politicians can reasonably argue that punitive climate laws are a matter of international obligation; we are all bound by them, and cannot do anything about them. It defers
politics and political accountability to the strange, undemocratic, inaccessible space that exists between states. Black continues… Last week I had the chance to ask someone intimately involved in those negotiations. “No” was the answer - not reflected at all - in fact, what was being
reflected were fears that the picture would be worse than the IPCC painted. Climate porn operates at these levels, not just in the media. According to Black’s un-named climate negotiator, we can’t even trust the consensus - represented by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - to paint a reliable picture of the future. Therefore there can be no parameters by which we can begin to rationally understand or
criticise the governmental, or inter-governmental response to climate change. Things can be perpetually based, not on what has been observed, or produced by science, but on
the possibility that ‘the picture would be worse than the IPCC painted’… Climate porn, just as Hulme warned. Black concludes by taking a closer look at the results produced by the survey of the British public, and determines, weakly, that theirs “and their leaders’
perceptions of climate change, in the UK and elsewhere, are not significantly out of step”. Here, again, Black sees the world upside down. He can point to as many opinion polls and interpret them in as many ways as he likes: environmentalism has never been tested
in the UK at the only poll that counts - democratic elections. Fear (climate porn), and hashed-together international frameworks (Copenhagen) - not democracy - are the
vehicles through which environmental ideology cements itself in public institutions. Environmentalism’s influence within the establishment is ascendant precisely because
the political establishment has such trouble connecting itself with the public. (Climate Resistance) Wouldn't you think they'd learned their lessons about relying on models by now? Investors
call for action on global warming More than 180 of the world's largest investors, with collective assets of $13tn, put their combined weight behind a passionate call for strong US and international action
on global warming in New York today. Cringe-worthy: Climate change
will damage your health - World's doctors unite in challenge to politicians over 'biggest health threat of this century' Human society faces a global health catastrophe if climate change is not effectively tackled at the UN conference in Copenhagen in December, leading doctors from around
the world warn today. Hopefully these doctors know a great deal more about medicine than they apparently do about climate and health. They would have been far better off
remaining silent and thought fools rather than opening their mouths and proving it. AGW
and Health: 2 Journals, 18 Professional Medical Organizations…And Still They Can Be Wrong More almost-pure nonsense about AGW and health,
this time even bigger than last time, from two famous medical journals and 18 professional medical organizations. Anybody could write them down by using a little catastrophical imagination (poverty, death, plagues, famines, the works). They should be titled “No University degree
needed”. I demonstrated that a few months ago. And I was only able to analyze the bits I am familiar with…who knows how many more articles have been left out. For example there are no “encroaching
deserts in Africa” (the opposite might be happening…yet again, some say,
because of global warming). And the forays into rainfall patterns and climate modelling in
the earlier report can at best make one cringe. Add to that some blatant untruths (there are no
“clear facts…identified in relation to climate change“;and especially so about
health issues). The result can only be a full rejection of the latest claims. That’s why, whatever the intentions (and professional competence) of those writing them, they are
almost-pure nonsense. (OmniClimate) SciDev.net’s
Plea: Get The Science Straight! Questioning the soundness of climate-related science should not be the realm solely of climate skeptics. That’s what makes the following even more welcome. “Get
the science straight on climate change and disease – Climate change’s complex links with insect-borne disease need solid research — not alarmism that distracts
from other crucial factors“ That’s the start of a courageous, no-holds-barred Sep 9, 2009 editorial by Sian Lewis on SciDev.net (”a
not-for-profit organisation dedicated to providing reliable and authoritative information about science and technology for the developing world“). In normal times, Lewis’ words would sound obvious in the extreme (and no: SciDev.net
is not a hotbed of hard-core AGW skeptics – read also this).
But these times of “climate porn” (see also here
and here) are not normal times at all. A few excerpts from Lewis’ article: The editorial is an introduction to “a series of articles [that] explore the evidence for (and against) the notion that climate change will worsen the burden of insect-borne disease, highlights gaps
in our knowledge, and provides advice to policymakers“ Interestingly, given that “how
well models can predict these effects is a particularly thorny issue in the debate“, then “the solution, according to Jonathan Cox, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is to forget
predictive modelling for the moment and focus on research with a better chance of improving disease control“. “Forget predictive modelling”…if only!! (OmniClimate) No-o-o... North America backs plan to cut greenhouse gases The United States, Canada and Mexico now support using the UN ozone treaty to require cuts in powerful greenhouse gases known as hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs. (CoP15) The last thing we want to do is breath any more life into that idiotic Protocol. It is a nonsense designed to address a non-problem to benefit a
few individuals at the expense of the many (yes, I do mean chemical patent holders versus the rest of us). More
than 4.5m children will die if money for aid is diverted to climate change - Oxfam Millions of children could die because cash for food aid is diverted to tackle climate change, Oxfam has warned. (Daily Telegraph) A lot more than that will die unnecessarily if the carbon cranks get their way and decimate affordable energy. <chuckle> If Obama can't defeat the
Republican headbangers, our planet is doomed One year on, the world still looks to the US and holds its breath. The fate of a global climate treaty rests in American hands (Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian) Growing controversy between US and Europe? Discussions between Europe and the US on whether or not an upcoming ”Copenhagen Protocol” should be build on the expiring ”Kyoto Protocol” may undermine a new
worldwide treaty, sources say. (CoP15) An entertaining split between Europe and America has emerged concerning the question how the carbon emissions reductions should be achieved in individual nations. We can but hope: Senate
Delay on Climate Bill Could Stymie Copenhagen Talks Climate change activists reacted sharply yesterday to indications from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that cap-and-trade legislation may have to wait until
2010, warning that the delay could derail international negotiations in Copenhagen. Let's get it out in the open: there is absolutely no possibility of environmental or societal good from any form of "climate treaty", only
human misery and declining environmental standards. Don't do it. Commission says farmers need help to cut carbon European farmers must slash agricultural greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20% by 2020, primarily by producing biomass and storing carbon in the soil, but they risk
ruin without outside help, EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said yesterday (15 September). (EurActiv) Sarkozy’s Carbon Tax and the French Media Jean-Michel Bélouve, Institut Turgot, Paris French Public Opinion First of all: French people are against it! Two recent polls point out that a large majority are dissatisfied: According to IFOP Institute, which questioned 1011 persons on 3 and 4 September, 65% are against a carbon tax while 34% approve [see Paris-Match
weekly magazine]. The French Consumers Union “UFC”, a very powerful consumers lobby, after having ordered a survey from the CSA polling institute, wrote in UFC’s review “Que
Choisir” that 74% are rejecting a carbon tax. The main reasons are: Both surveys show that roughly the same proportion of right-wing and left-wing voters disapprove of a carbon tax. (CCNet) <chuckle> Copenhagen begins in
Beijing. The world waits - It could be the most crucial question we face today: just what is China's climate change strategy? What is China playing at on climate change? That may be the most important question in the world right now, thanks alone to its status as the world's biggest producer of
greenhouse gasses. But what Beijing is – or is not – prepared to do will also determine whether the rest of the world can reach a deal on combating global warming that is
worth the paper it's written on. (Ian Katz, The Guardian) Actually China has outplayed the West all ends up. Their strategy is to extort the maximum advantage from the West and they are doing it beautifully. China Carbon Truths - Authoritarian government makes greenhouse
emissions worse. China is the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, and countries around the world from the United States to Japan are pressuring Beijing to lower
emissions and to introduce an absolute cap on emissions. But asking China's central government to impose a carbon cap is the wrong approach. Even if Beijing wanted to do so,
such a decision would be almost impossible for the central government to enforce. Greater political freedoms are the key for real environmental improvements in China. Mr. Gilley is assistant professor of political science at Portland State University and principal investigator of the Portland State University-Lanzhou University Global
Warming Initiative. Partly true: Chinese government adviser warns that 2C global warming
target is unrealistic China's emissions unlikely to fall low enough because 2C target 'does not provide room for developing countries (The Guardian) We couldn't increase global mean temperature 2 °C even if we really wanted to. Downloading
Monthly Mean Australian Temperatures from the BoM This is a funny story about getting monthly mean Australian temperatures from the Bureau of Meteorology. I hope for happy ending, but we have yet to see. About 2 weeks ago I tried to download these data from the BoM website set up for the purpose. I have noticed before that temperature is NOT available as a MONTHLY mean series, but this time I was very perplexed. It is available by season, by January, February, etc.
but not all together. To get the data into a monthly series would require me to download all 12 raw datafiles (one for each month) then interleave them to create a continuous list with 12
values for each month. This would be timeconsuming and a potential source of error. Note that all of the major sources of global mean temperature data on the web are available in as a monthly temperature series, GISS,
HadCRUT, RSS
MSU, etc… It would seem relatively easy to add an option for download of data to the selection menu. So I contacted the help desk, and after some time, had a delightfully frustrating conversation along the lines of: “I would like the monthly data series.” “But all
the months are there.” etc, etc. Finally, she agreed to send my enquiry on to the technical department I presume, and today I found out why Australian temperature is not
available as a monthly series. The monthly data are not available as a single file because the graphs are generated automatically from the data files and an all-months data file would contain too many
data values to fit easily on one graph. We will see what we can do. So the reason why stock standard monthly data series are not available is because they don’t look good as a barchart. Well, I would never have guessed. (David Stockwell,
Niche Modeling) Now here's a suspect claim: Ocean surfaces have warmest summer
on record, US report finds he world's ocean surfaces had their warmest summer temperatures on record, the US national climatic data centre said today. There is further evidence with respect to major issues in using minimum 2m temperatures as part of the diagnosis of climate system heat changes (i.e.
global warming and cooling). [thanks to Jielun Sun for alerting us to it!]. It is Nakamura, R. and L. Mahrt, 2006: Vertically integrated sensible-heat budgets
for stable nocturnal boundary layers. Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc. (2006), 132, pp. 383–403 doi: 10.1256/qj.05.50. The abstract reads “The stable nocturnal boundary layer is commonly viewed or modelled as a balance between the temperature tendency (cooling) and vertical heat-flux divergence.
Sometimes the radiative-flux divergence is also included. This perspective has dictated the design of field experiments for investigating stable nocturnal boundary layers.
Tower-based micrometeorological data from three field campaigns are analysed to evaluate the vertically integrated sensible-heat budget for nocturnal stable conditions. Our
analysis indicates frequent occurrence of large imbalance between the temperature tendency and vertical heat-flux divergence terms. The values of the radiative-flux
divergence are generally too small and sometimes of the wrong sign to explain the residual. An analysis of random flux errors and uncertainties in the tendency term indicate
that such errors cannot explain large imbalances, suggesting the importance of advection of temperature or possibly the divergence of mesoscale fluxes. The implied role of
advection is consistent with circumstantial evidence. Even weak surface heterogeneity can create significant horizontal gradients in stable boundary layers. However, it is
shown that existing field data and observational strategy do not allow adequate evaluation of advection and mesoscale flux divergence terms.” As the authors write in the conclusions, Even weak surface heterogeneity may induce important horizontal variations in the very stable boundary layer, and new
approaches for measuring horizontal variation of temperature and fluxes are required.” Thus minimum temperatures over land are very sensitive to their immediate local environments. Their use to characterize minimum temperatures as being
spatially representative over a larger area, such as used to diagnose global warming and cooling, are not appropriate. (Climate Science) Sunspot
drought could cool temps Earth is experiencing a sunspot drought which, if it persists, may deliver a make-or-break test of the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Greenpeace ends protest at Shell oil sands mine CALGARY, Alberta - Greenpeace activists who occupied mining equipment at Royal Dutch Shell Plc's Canadian oil sands project ended their protest on Wednesday after 1-1/2
days and were escorted away without facing charges, the environmental group said. They should be charged and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Coal execs listen to environmentalist Like Daniel in the lion's den, Sierra Club representative Nachy Kanfer stepped to podium at the Southern Coals Conference meeting in downtown Cincinnati Wednesday. Yes, coal has added significantly to human's standard of living but no, there is no evidence coal has a net warming effect on the planet. Even if it did
carbon constraint is the least effective and most societally destructive way of attempting to mitigate any such effect. Study: 'shocking' fossil fuel use BEIJING | If China's economy continues to expand rapidly and rely heavily on coal and other fossil fuels until the middle of the century, its power consumption would be
unsustainable, according to a study by government think tanks released Wednesday. Good thing atmospheric carbon dioxide is a major boon for life and the environment then, eh? Parenthetically, note just how much U.S. carbon constraint
could do (think: "nothing"). China think-tank charts costs of low-carbon growth BEIJING, Sept 16 - China needs huge flows of clean technology investment to maintain hope of keeping greenhouse gas emissions below levels that could help push the planet
deep into dangerous global warming, a Beijing energy think-tank has said. Dopey: Energy transition: not for the
faint-hearted - It will take both innovation and patience to change the energy game All of us want to use energy and feel good about it. The challenge is to supply sufficient amounts of affordable energy to power our lives and build an energy system that
can sustain future generations. (Globe and Mail) There's no real reason to feel bad about using energy and we have been building an energy system to sustain future generations throughout history (first
with firewood transported to towns, then on to coal, gas and baseload electricity over the ages). Until now we kept getting better at it but the current hysterics over
imaginary problems threaten our energy supply and that of future generations. Uh oh. First President Obama pointed to Spain and Germany as models for how the U.S. could create a robust "green jobs" economy that even would lift us out of
our current — an increasingly appropriate term — malaise. White House Wants
Fuel Subsidy Cuts on G-20 Agenda White House officials are calling for international efforts to end fuel and electric power subsidies as part of the agenda for next week's G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh,
according to a letter from a senior administration official. How about cutting energy subsidies in general? Sounds a much better idea to me -- especially as it would eliminate such parasites as wind, solar and
biofuels... Governor contenders toss around nuclear power Top contenders for California governor interjected an unexpected issue today into the fledgling 2010 campaign: Most of them said they will at least consider expanding
nuclear power to meet the state's growing energy needs and reduce carbon emissions. Miliband: Tory councils
are blocking wind farms (as they should) The energy secretary has claimed that Conservative-run councils are frustrating plans for wind power. Councils reject these applications because they represent the people who elected them and who don't want these useless white elephants erected in their
locales (rightly so). Toyota: Electric cars 'too expensive' for mainstream Electric vehicles are the clear favored technology for concept cars at the Frankfurt Motor Show this week. But Toyota, the leader in hybrid cars, thinks that the high cost
of the lithium ion batteries will keep electric cars from penetrating the mass market for another decade. September 16, 2009
Need antibiotics? No prescription? Go online NEW YORK - Think you need antibiotics to fight that cough or cold? Numerous Web sites are willing to sell them to you without a doctor's prescription -- a loophole,
researchers say, that could undermine efforts to curb the problem of bacteria that shrug off powerful antibiotics. How much time, effort and finance must be wasted on this? U.S.
senator vows look into cellphone-cancer link WASHINGTON - Iowa senator Tom Harkin, newly empowered to investigate health matters as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, promised on
Monday to probe deeply into any potential links between cellphone use and cancer. Is there really a skin cancer epidemic? NEW YORK - Is melanoma, a potentially deadly form of skin cancer, on the rise, as is often reported? Maybe not, says a new study: The "melanoma epidemic" may
simply represent a change in how doctors are diagnosing the disease. Traffic noise linked to high blood pressure NEW YORK - Sitting in traffic can get your blood boiling temporarily, but living near it might raise your risk of long-term high blood pressure, a new study suggests. But were they actually assessed? Lumping Mozart and Einstein in with those who have severe socialisation problems is no help to sufferers or science. (Sandy Starr, sp!ked) Zealotry without bound: New York Eyes
‘No Smoking’ Outdoors, Too New York City’s workplace smoking ban six years ago drove cigarette and cigar puffers outdoors. But soon some of the outdoors may be off limits, too: The city’s health
commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, said Monday that he would seek to ban smoking at city parks and beaches. Swine flu hid out in pigs for a decade, expert says WASHINGTON - The new pandemic H1N1 influenza was circulating undetected in pigs for at least a decade before it jumped to people, and much better surveillance is needed
among both pigs and people, an expert said on Tuesday. Swine flu deaths show this flu is different-experts WASHINGTON - Autopsies on people who have died from the new pandemic H1N1 flu show this virus is different from seasonal influenza, even if it has not yet caused more
deaths, experts told a meeting on Tuesday. Pandemic flu harder to survive in poor nations: WHO GENEVA - H1N1 influenza is "a virus of extremes" likely to cause far more deaths in poor countries than affluent ones, the head of the World Health Organisation
said on Tuesday. Hate to rain on their parade but everything is harder to survive in poor nations, from childbirth onwards... The new China syndrome:
The threat to Canada Though its money is welcome, we should have no illusions that China is a normal investor that plays by our rules Blimey! A slop
bucket in every home: Ministers plan to impose fines if you don't recycle food waste Every home will be issued with a kitchen slop bucket under plans being drawn up in Whitehall. Some
preliminary results from GOSAT – CO2 hot spots in interesting places WUWT reader Anna V. alerts us to the preliminary report from the JAXA GOSAT Project. According to the project
website: The Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT) Project is a joint effort promoted by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the National Institute for
Environmental Studies (NIES) and the Ministry of the Environment (MOE). NIES organized the research team dedicated to the GOSAT project within its organization in April 2004, and since then has been working for the research and development
with respect to GOSAT “IBUKI”. For a complete description of how GOSAT works, please read their summary here (PDF) First let’s have a look at Global Methane (CH4): Note that the areas with the most concentration of methane are in China, Middle East, Southern Europe, and Africa. The real surprise comes from the GOSAT CO2 data analysis. This first global CO2 map released from GOSAT is shown below: While this is just a short data set comprising a few days from April 20-28th 2009, it does show some surprising features for hotspots of CO2 in the atmosphere over many of
the same areas methane had higher concentrations. One difference is that some spots in the Eastern USA, presumably the larger cities, show CO2 hotspots also. From looking at
the large CO2 map, it appears Atlanta, Charlotte, and NYC are the three cities in
the USA with higher CO2 concentrations. However, China, India, Southern Europe, the Mideast and Africa have the majority of the CO2 hotspots. Here’s what JAXA has to say about their CO2 analysis: Carbon dioxide column averaged dry air mole fractions (XCO2) for clear-sky scenes analyzed using observations at shortwave infrared bands (radiance spectrum uncalibrated
data) from the IBUKI greenhouse gas observation sensor (TANSO-FTS). Clear-sky scenes at individual TANSO-FTS observation points are determined using measurements from the
cloud/aerosol sensor (TANSO-CAI). Data are excluded where the associated radiance spectra are saturated, and where noise is relatively large due to weak ground surface
reflection. In the initial analysis, the late April observation data shows a hemispheric gradient, with larger values over the Northern Hemisphere (Note 1), consistent with other
measurements. Derived XCO2 values are generally lower than model predictions (Note 2). This is thought to be due to the analysis involving uncalibrated radiance spectrum
data and due to the parameter adjustment for the analysis method not being finalized. High concentrations are observed over continental China and Central Africa, which may
be caused by measurement interference due to the presence of atmospheric dust. Asian dust (yellow sands) were observed over continental China during the observation period,
and the existence of dust storm-like and smoke-like phenomena were observed in the relevant locations in Africa. Future investigation is required to understand these
errors. Data calibration, processing parameter adjustment, and product validation required for quantitative discussion of the analysis results, will be carried out in the
future. (Note 1) The analysis showed Northern Hemisphere results to be on average around 10 ppm higher than Southern Hemisphere results. An atmospheric transport model
calculation predicts the difference between north and south at this time to be 2-4 ppm. (Note 2) Southern Hemisphere values were on average approximately 17 ppm lower than the model calculation, while Northern Hemisphere latitude band average values were
approximately 7-12 ppm lower. It will be very interesting to see if the hotspot CO2 distribution holds with more data from GOSAT. If it does we’ll be asking the question of why the USA seems to have
less CO2 concentrations than other parts of the world. I’m sure it will fuel some political and policy debate. We’ll be watching for releases of more complete data with better coverage. (WUWT) The global-warming industry would probably still be solely owned by assorted cranks and romantics (and the odd vice president) if it weren't for a bunch of CEOs taking a
leaf from Enron's playbook and attempting to monetize the issue. Playing the bootleggers in a classic bootleggers
and baptists alliance, these businessmen have realized that they can get the government to increase their profits by means of "cap and trade" and similar
regulatory interventions, at the expense of other businesses and the paying public. Ordinarily, such shenanigans would have the corporate watchdog groups in arms, but by
getting the "baptists" of the green movement on their side, they have shielded themselves from public disgust. This has to stop, and the good folks at Junkscience.com are at the forefront of calling foul. They are releasing a series of "Wanted"
posters for six corporate fat cats who want to grow fatter by means of the Waxman-Markey Bill. Junkscience describes the six and their crimes as: * Exelon CEO John Roe, the "carbon bandit," who stands to make billions of dollars at taxpayer expense from Waxman-Markey's free
carbon allowances; Form that posse and go get 'em, guys. (Iain Murray, The Corner) The sun has gone quiet Benign? If the sun does remain quiet and it does send us into another period similar to the Little Ice Age I suspect a lot of people will have a rather
different outlook. Counter propaganda, isn't there a rule or something against that? High
School Teacher’s Assignment: “Expose the Myth of Global Warming” I was sitting at home in my pajamas, glossily checking Facebook, when I saw a status update that caught my attention. It alluded to homework which forced a student to
prove that global warming is a hoax. Eyebrow raised, I investigated. Turns out, a public school teacher in my state, Utah, gave this assignment to students last week: “Write a 2-page paper exposing the myths of global warming, and giving scientific information show that global warming is not the major catastrophe the media would
have us believe. Must include a full bibliography and include a copy of your highlighted sources.” Of course, I had to sleep on this before I trusted myself to react. Actually I disapprove of the preconception in the assignment (although it may be contextually based and thus appropriate). That said, it's probably
understandable anyway since there is so much propaganda from the AGW camp (see, for example, Al & his climate evangelists and the insistence of so many
ideologically-aligned teachers that their students view Inconvenient Truth in class time). Newsweek’s Begley Flunks Calculus, Science and Politics Sharon Begley, after a five-year stint at the Wall Street Journal returned to greener pastures at Newsweek in 2007, where she started her career. It was just in time to
take part in Newsweek’s embarrassing August 13, 2007 issue “Global Warming is a Hoax” edition. Media 're-open' North Eastern Passage - Thermageddon fever disappears 70 year
trade route One of Russia's commercial maritime trade routes for the past 70 years has been "re-opened" by a press hungry for dramatic Global Warming scare stories - but who
failed to check the most basic facts. I've traced this fascinating example of "eco-churnalism" - peddled by both BBC Radio and its website, the Daily Mail, The Independent, Reuters
and many others - back to its origins, with a press release from a German shipping group. But first of all - what on Earth is the Northern Passage? Also called the Northeast Passage or North Sea Passage, it's a trade route that in summer months links the North European and Siberian ports to Asia, around the Arctic
Circle. Orient-bound traffic heads east, then South via the Bering Straight. Much of the Siberian North coast lies outside the Arctic Circle, and the route offered
significant gains over the alternatives via Suez or the Cape. But until technological advances in the early 20th Century it was considered too hazardous for commercial
operation. Since the 1930s the route has seen major ports spring up, carrying over 200,000 tons of freight passing through each year, although this declined with the fall of the
Soviet Union. But none of this ever happened, we learned on Saturday. The Independent reported that the journey had been traversed for the very first time, proclaiming that two
German ships had completed "the first commercial navigation of the fabled North-east Passage", proclaiming it "a triumph for man, a disaster for mankind".
BBC Radio followed suit. Others have followed the BBC. Climate change: too good to be true It didn't take long to trace the origin of the story. On Wednesday, German shipping group Beluga claimed "the first non-Russian commercial vessels to make it through
the Northeast Passage from Asia to Europe". You can still read their press release, here. Journalists failed to challenge Beluga's claim that the Northeastern
Passage was "formerly impenetrable", but bloggers had debunked it within seconds. (See An Englishman's Castle here - and the EU Referendum blog here
and here.) North unearthed a fascinating account of the past 80 years of this sea route (pdf, 17pg) by
a retired mariner Jan Drent, who made the Europe to Asia Northeast Passage himself. Drent writes that the Soviet Union offered to open the route to global commerce in 1967,
but with war in the Middle East closing the Suez, Russia didn't want to offend its Arab allies. In their haste to bring us Thermageddon, journalists now simply manufacture the evidence. But wasn't the recent warming period - which started began in the mid-1970s and
with temperatures peaking in the late-1990s - a contributory factor? Arctic Ice has recovered the past couple of years, but it's still down on 30 years ago. As it happens, the thaw has helped, but isn't the primary reason, according to maritime historians. "In the past ten years voyages between the northern coast and Japan and Canada have demonstrated how modern ice-strengthened vessels and contemporary ice forecasting
have extended the navigation season." Ignore all that, however. If the BBC is to remain trusted, we can only conclude that these are phantom ships, failing to penetrate a previously impenetrable trade route,
dropping off phantom cargo at phantom port towns. (Andrew Orlowski, The Register) Monbiot
& Schmidt 0 – Plimer 1 (After Spectacular Own Goal) Alternative titles: “Dear George, In Any Sport, No-Show Means Automatic Loss“, and “Don’t Mention Gish If You Can’t Debate ================ I am not at all surprised that George Monbiot (and by inference,
Gavin Schmidt) have lost their public (virtual) debate against Ian Plimer even before having a public (real) debate. That’s because: Why has Plimer won the debate? Because the end result is that Monbiot has refused to publicly debate with him. And in any sport, failure to show up automatically makes you
a loser. This is too bad as Schmidt’s responses look even more
impressive than Plimer’s bunch of heavily-sounding questions
(the actual bait). And Plimer’s non-answers to Monbiot could have made the basis for a smooth, trouble-free attack/counterattack to Plimer’s argument. If Monbiot could sustain a debate, that is. I have my doubts. The Monbiot/Schmidt couple took the Plimer bait actually a tad too easily. Evidently knowing how to make opponents fall flat on their faces even when apparently much more
powerful than him, all Plimer had to do is artificially concoct an “escape route” that would allow Monbiot to declare himself the winner without actually having won
anything. The “escape route” is Plimer’s refusal to answer in print. And Monbiot, shall I say OF COURSE, eagerly took it, unable to understand the consequences. Isn’t it more heartwarming to be able to tell one’s own troops about how bad the enemy is, rather than getting into a dangerous, live debate with that same enemy? Especially when one has extremely poor argumentative skills, like Monbiot when he includes the mention of the “Gish Gallop“, “named after [creationist]
Duane Gish [...] a special case of fast talking (the technique famously employed by Snake Oil Salesman that confuses people with fast long strings of words long enough to
convince them to buy snake oil“. Yes, but: people like Michael Shermer (and Ian Plimer, by the way) have actually debated with Gish. They haven’t just sat at their desk whining about the Gish Gallop. ————– Now we will only get Plimer on Thursday 12 November at 2 Savoy Place, London WC1, where he “will give a 30 minute lecture on global warming and then take
questions/points from the audience for 60 minute“. I will believe in that only when I see it happening, by the way…whose kneecaps is Plimer going to try to (figuratively) break?
(OmniClimate) The
Funnier Side Of Monbiot & Schmidt’s “Plimer Débâcle” It is clear that George Monbiot has made
himself the loser by not agreeing to publicly debate with Ian Plimer
about global warming in London in November. The rule is very simple and universal: a no-show is invariably a loss. The whole thing looks like an elaborate trap prepared by experienced debater Plimer with the goal of
convincing Monbiot to run away from the debate. And it looks like it worked. Talk about the elephant being afraid of the mouse. Yet again, one is glad not have the likes of Monbiot
(and Schmidt) on one’s side! But wait…it gets even funnier. What I just wrote might have crossed a few minds already, of people unfortunately too eager to bite the bait, therefore missing the chance
to take their own reasoning to its natural conclusions: ======= Dear Schmidt/Greenfyre/Lambert/Colose: one suggestion if I may dare. If you are debating with anybody, and they use any logical device of any kind, please oh please DO NOT follow through along the device, for any reason whatsoever. Otherwise, it’s not going to look pretty… (OmniClimate) Hello! Where were you? Climate Goals Must Be Achievable: U.S. Official VIENNA - Nations aiming to agree on a new global climate deal should focus on achievable greenhouse gas emissions targets, to involve as many nations as possible, U.S.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu said on Tuesday. Oh... Chu still thinks we can twiddle a few knobs and adjust the world's thermostat. Well, if required, we could cool the planet but not by
tweaking so trivial a variable as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels but by direct manipulation of local solar absorption, which is doable, controllable and potentially very
effective. Is Harry Reid bailing on climate legislation? Harry Reid - the Senate Majority Leader who’s facing a potentially difficult reelection campaign and known for announcing legislative timetables that he can’t deliver
on - told reporters Tuesday that the Senate might wait until next year to vote on legislation that would require companies to pay for the right to emit greenhouse gases.
(Environmental Capital) Cap-and-Trade: Run Over by the Healthcare
Train? President Obama’s risky perseveration on health care is running over another of his pet governmental expansions—cap-and-trade legislation sent by the House on June 26
for Senate consideration. Sen. Inhofe: GOP Beware: Though Now Stalled,
Cap-and-Trade is Alive and Well September, 14, 2009 Now that the debate on cap-and-trade has stalled indefinitely in the Senate, inquiring minds are wondering: what’s next? While there’s no question the Democrats
have declared a cease fire on cap-and-trade—many of them want nothing to do with the issue—their allies outside the Beltway are preparing a massive $20 million campaign
to push legislation forward. Inhofe is the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. (Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.)) EU climate change unit warns against geo-engineering Hard geo-engineering is a temporary cure. Far preferable is geo-renovating, the sophisticated way of solving the problems of climate change. Yeah, funny that, the benefits of carbon constraint not appearing for a very long time (probably ever). Nor do we encourage any large scale, long lived
projects since the Earth cools rapidly (~4 °C from July to January, every year) but anthropogenic influences take centuries to warm it (0.7 °C over 250 years,
or less since there is probably some natural component in that amount). Minor tweaks with increased sulfur content in aviation fuels on selected routes for specified
periods should be able to provide the required benefit with minimal downside and can be flushed from the system in mere weeks should there be unanticipated undesired
effects. Um... no. To Save the Planet
From Global Warming, Turn the Sahara Green A team of researchers has come up with a simple plan to halt global warming: All we need to do is turn both the Sahara and the Australian outback into vast, shady forests.
(Discover) Another grand scheme which will not have the desired effect, although if we could warm the world it would likely further green the Sahara and Australian
deserts. Only tropical forests have a net cooling effect while darkening currently high albedo deserts has a net warming effect. China's Hu To Unveil New Climate Proposals To U.N. BEIJING - China's President Hu Jintao will present China's new plans for tackling global warming at a United Nations summit on climate change later this month, the
country's senior negotiator said on Tuesday. I wonder how they'll blame Dubya for this? US planning to weaken
Copenhagen climate deal, Europe warns Exclusive: Key differences between the US and Europe could undermine a new worldwide treaty on global warming to replace Kyoto, sources say (The Guardian) Thailand is against any replacement of the Kyoto Protocol However, the country has not yet decided whether to support a sectoral approach to emissions reduction. As all responsible governments should: Greenland's government wants to heavily increase its CO2
emissions The world's largest island may remain outside a climate agreement if it impedes development. (CoP15) The carbon casino caught with it’s pants down (again) Another major carbon auditor goes down. Norway’s DNV (Det Norse Veritas, “The Norwegian Truth”) was the largest auditor of the infamous CDM’s (Clean Development Mechanisms) until it was
suspended last December when it was caught selling carbon credits for projects it hadn’t checked. At the time it was so large it had approved fully half of all CDM
credits on the market. Its excess workload was transferred to number two auditor, SGS, and shock, this week, SGS has been caught and suspended because it couldn’t
prove it’s staff had properly vetted projects either. Indeed it couldn’t show that they were even trained to do that vetting. (Did SGS not see this coming?) When the West offered money to buy the rights to air-with-slightly-less-carbon-dioxide-than-it-could-have-had, China and India put up their hands and said “Yes please”
900 times. And why wouldn’t they? CDMs are worth about 20% of all emissions trades, which amounted to $126 billion in 2008. Up until the global financial crisis it was
doubling annually, like all good ponzi schemes do. This supposedly “free market” has none of the normal limits which make it hard for companies to get away with cheating … namely a connection to real material goods:
usually if you don’t have it, you can’t sell it. But with carbon credits, customers can buy fake products and never know the difference — even after it’s
“delivered”. That’s what you get when you deal in atmospheric nullities. …with carbon credits, customers can buy fake products and never know the difference — even after it’s “delivered”. It might be called a “carbon market”, but remember that no one actually trades carbon, they trade rights to emit air with less carbon, and it’s not
even as physical as air with less carbon than it used to have (something we can measure). No, it’s worse than that: it’s air with less carbon than it might
have had. So it’s an underwhelming surprise that the top two auditors have both been caught selling “Credits for emitting air that might-have-had-more-carbon-in-it, which
might-have-been-checked by people who might-have-been-qualified to check these things”. Selling bridges in Boston has more respectability. Fortunately, because carbon doesn’t appear to make much difference to the climate, whether the schemes work or not is a moot point. Arguably, if The Point is assuaging
western guilt for our successes, then an imaginary credit is just as good as a real one. It’s one of those rare occasions where the placebo effect is 90% effective. Ultimately this is a market that depends on unknowable, unprovable motivations: I wouldn’t have cleaned up or closed down my dirty factory without all that money.
Really. And by the way, I’m thinking of building another one just like it… (Oi! want to pay me not to build it?) Mass marketing meets the Emperors new clothes — with undertones of extortion. This is how we save the world? Recent legislation has tried to close some of the loopholes, and like everything, there are honest operators out there among the crooks. But seriously. It’s like
knitting a battleship and hoping to make it waterproof with bureaucrats. It’s not a question of closing loopholes — it IS a loophole. There is almost nothing we can
actually pin down — it’s an open invitation for scammers and con-artists. The mat at the door says: “All Rorters Welcome. If we catch you cheating we’ll change the
rules. Next time you’ll have to cheat differently.” “It’s not as if we’re printing money in a garage,” Yvo de Boer, U.N. climate chief, said of the credits. Which is true, there are no garages involved. Just large
multinational corporations. Mass marketing meets the Emperors new clothes — with undertones of extortion. This is how we save the world? And it’s not as if the funds transfer from the West to the Third world is helping the poor people in the street. The billions of dollars in payments often end up with
the financial brokers in London, and with potentially corrupt bureaucrats in China. Interviews with locals near the Xiaoxi
dam project suggest people were evicted from their homes, and were not paid enough compensation to buy new homes. The money for the credits associated with the dam
was supposed to reduce carbon emissions, yet construction for the Dam started a full two years before the application for CDM funding was even entered. What looks like a Dam,
acts like a Dam, but isn’t…? Bureaucrat-ite may work like a glue plugging holes, but it repels free-markets. Too many bureaucrats and too many rules makes a free market “fixed” in every
sense of the word. But the carbon-that-might-have-been-released market can’t be a bureaucrat-free, free-market. It has to be a bureaucrat-rich. The only thing “free”
about this market is the price people would pay for carbon-which-might-have-been-released-but-wasn’t. DNV
gets pinged Dec 2008 SGS
busted Sept 2009 (Yvo
de Boer’s quote about printing money.) (JoNova) There have been a series of research papers which document major unresolved problems with the use of multi-decadal trends in surface temperature to diagnose global warming
and cooling (e.g. see and see and
references therein). There is an early paper of mine which documents another effect in mountainous terrain, and, more generally, wherever there are significant elevation changes over
relatively short distances. Our paper that documents a variation of mean monthly temperatures as a function of terrain height is Pielke, R.A. and P. Mehring, 1977: Use of mesoscale climatology in mountainous terrain to improve the spatial
representation of mean monthly temperatures. Mon. Wea. Rev., 105, 108-112. As shown in Table 1 of this paper, the variation within the year is estimated as ranging from -5.23C per kilometer in January to -6.61C per kilometer in July; a difference
of 1.38C per kilometer of elevation change. If a station were moved an elevation change of just 100m, , for example, a monthly mean temperature change of 0.138C between
January and July would be found even if there were no other effects. This effect has nothing to do with long term climate change but is due the existence of an
elevation dependence on anomalies due the change of location of the observation site. In terms of constructing multi-decadal assessments of temperature trends, even relatively small elevation changes in station locations will introduce a change
in temperature trends and anomalies which is just due to the variation of the elevation of the site. The
Global Historical Climate Network (and see
for a post on the new USHCN Version 2 analyses) may be able to correct to some extent for this effect in their homogenization methodology if the change in the data sharply
defined, however, it is a quite complicated issue since the effect varies within the year (due to the variation of the average change of temperature with elevation during the
year) and due to the variability of individual months of this change of temperature with height (see Table 1 in Pielke
and Mehring, 1977 for the statistics). This will mask the magnitude of this effect. There is a second issue. The construction of an annual average of temperature trends and anomalies includes this seasonal variability. Thus for a temperature measurement
of trends and anomalies at a single height to be representative of a deeper layer of the troposphere, it must be assumed that the trends and anomalies at all elevations
in complex terrain must just be shifted by an equal amount (i.e. it does not matter what elevation the measurements are made at). That is there needs to be an
elevation invariance to the trends. This requires that the monthly mean change of temperature with elevation that is presented in Figure 1 does not change over
time under larger scale climate variability and change. This stringent assumption needs to be tested but it does not seem likely. As the issues with the use of the surface temperature to diagnose global warming and cooling continue to mount, it is imperative that policymakers who are using
the global average surface temperature anomaly (e. g. the “+2C threshold; e.g. see) recognize the
data has serious issues with its quantitative robustness. (Climate Science) From CO2 Science Volume 12 Number 37: 16 September 2009
The Scientists Speak Editorial Medieval
Warm Period Record of the Week Subject Index Summary Plant Growth Data Journal Reviews Coral Response to Thermal Stress: Symbiont Shuffling Plus: Symbiont shuffling has a partner that helps
corals survive bleaching episodes; and that partner is the coral host itself. Soil Organic Carbon Response to Late 20th-Century Warming in the United Kingdom: Did soil organic carbon
content gradually decline as temperatures rose? The Impact of Elevated CO2 on Salinity Stress in Barley: How helpful is it? ... and how
significant might the results be for world agriculture? Crop Growth Response to Elevated CO2 in a Closed Ecological System: How strong is it? ...
and what are the implications for deep space exploration, as well as for folks on the home planet? You couldn’t make it up even if you try. One day the UK Energy Secretary Ed Milliband sets out his proposed expansion of the UK’s wind power-led alternative energy
revolution, the next, Vestas, the UK’s largest wind turbine manufacturer,
closes for business citing “low demand” and public opposition to onshore windfarms.
Just bad luck or bad PR? Not quite. Simply another blatant example of the on-going ‘disconnect’ over energy between those suffering from WTS (Wishful Thinker Syndrome)
and the hydrocarbon-fuelled present and future energy realities.
Driven by panic-inducing IPCC theory on the man-made CO2 threat – after a decade where the scientific data shows a downward trend in global mean temperatures – and
supplemented with irrational fears over early peak oil theories, Western politicians and others remain consistently obdurate to the energy (and economic) facts of life.
A compendium of prophetic failure
In 2006 Germany’s Angela Merkel was hailed as the ‘Green Chancellor’ for promising to rid her country of coal and nuclear power in its bid to give a clean energy and
climate change “world lead”. Three years on and Merkel’s government actively supports the construction of a new generation of 26 coal-fired power plants as well as
keeping Germany’s nuclear power stations open. In addition she wants special protection for German heavy industry via free cap and trade permits. A powerful German
industry, the need to remain competitive and a desire to work with the lights on, all combined to help Ms Merkel ‘re-connect’.
In 2008, Italy, to everyone’s surprise, reversed its decades long ‘no nuclear power stations’ policy in the interest of their power needs. And Italy’s PM Silvio
Berlusconi, along with leaders from Austria, Poland and a rolling bandwagon of other countries, also now demands protection for its heavy industry when it comes time to
handing out free cap and trade permits. Across in the UK, the government has been wriggling out of its Kyoto ‘clean energy’ commitments for years as the country inches
towards building an urgently needed new generation of coal-fired power plants. To help critics swallow the bitter pill of yet more coal usage, the UK Government is
subsidizing ‘clean coal’ technology strategies via CCS (Carbon Capture Sequestration). But adding $1 billion to the cost of each plant for a hugely speculative unproven
technology that may, as one recent study reveals, prove downright dangerous, has already created a politically paralysing impasse in the UK energy strategy. The spectre of
the UK facing “South African-style power cuts” and being plunged into
“third world darkness” now looms. Hence the UK’s grand wind power plan. Unfortunately, last December, the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) was forced
to scale down its calculation of harmful CO2 emissions “displaced”, from 860 to 430 grams for every kilowatt hour of electricity produced. With more coal use in
prospect and less help from wind sources the UK has no chance of getting near its Kyoto CO2 commitments. In fact, with less than 2400 wind turbines in operation across
Britain currently, the UK would still require a further 100,000 to meet its targets. Plenty of scope for massive wind turbine growth we might think. So why the Vestas
pull-out?
Not that Eurocrats are easily deflated by wind power facts on the ground. Speaking at a key European wind power conference in March 2009, EU Energy Commissioner Andris
Piebalgs, claimed, “Wind energy can replace a large proportion of the polluting and finite fuels we currently rely on. It makes good sense to invest in indigenous sources
of power which hedge against unpredictable fossil fuel prices and in which Europe has a real competitive advantage.” Windbag Piebalgs adds pompously, “Wind energy is
Europe’s contribution to peace, progress and prosperity.”
Mr Piebalgs’ claims entirely epitomise the energy disconnect. As Michael J. Trebilcock has shown, wind power is a complete
disaster with the much-vaunted ‘Danish
green energy miracle’ turning out to be a well-worn myth in an industry that would blow out tomorrow without on-going and massive public subsidy. And all for an energy
source that can, in the next few decades, provide only a tiny amount of the world’s power. For all the political bluster, the best energy estimates suggest that by the year
2030 energy demand will rise by a further 50 percent and that oil, gas and coal will still fulfil 87 percent of the world’s energy needs. Shell has dumped
its alternative energy program (except for biofuels) in part of a broader trend of European alternative energy companies already heading
their ‘wagons’ West, drawn by the far richer cash pickings in prospect on the new frontier of President Obama’s stimulus billions. Germany’s REpower US subsidiary
has just relocated its US HQ to Denver, Colorado to take full advantage of
the “supportive business climate” – read government cash – along with (surprise, surprise) Vestas, late of the UK.
Today, the Obama White House is recycling all the same European political energy rhetoric so familiar to Europeans. Yet the US has its own instructive case study. One day
billionaire T. Boone Pickens has a Grand Wind Plan for Texas, with further plans to forest the nation with turbines “from Canada to Mexico”. The next, T. Boone drops
his wind plan in favour of ... a hydrocarbon (natural gas) solution instead.
Meanwhile the political energy disconnect has fuelled an almost ethereal, religious vision among those who seek to appease the earth and climate gods. In 2003 Al Gore
predicted we had just 96 months (ten years) before fossil-fuel assisted climate Armageddon kicked in. We have just four years left. In 2006, Greenpeace’s Steven Guilbeault
said, “Time is running out to deal with climate change. Ten years ago, we thought we had a lot of time.” Yet back in 1997, Greenpeace’s Chris Rose was claiming, “Time
is running out for the climate.”
The UK’s Prince of Wales ruminates that, “Capitalism and consumerism have brought the world to the brink of economic and environmental collapse”. The Prince adds,
“The age of convenience is over”. As international columnist Mark Steyn comments, “The Prince then got in his limo and was driven to his other palace.”
Meanwhile, NASA’s James Hansen, continues to lead the war against the green’s bête-noir of fossil fuels: coal, at the very time Europe and the UK, indeed much of the
world, is again turning to the black stuff as the fuel for a new generation and to nuclear power stations. For millions in India and elsewhere cheap coal is the answer to
ending their poverty. Yet, last year, Hansen was not at all concerned for what this key energy resource is doing to pull millions out of poverty, obsessing instead with his
private vision that burning coal could “accelerate floods, droughts and heat waves” and “lock us into future climate disasters”.
For men like Hansen, the reality that coal power is a key energy resource in the war on global poverty means little if it clashes with his climate-appeasing, prophetic
insights. And given the eco-alarmist capacity for failed prophecy thus far, we might offer the sage advice of one Lao Tzu, a 6th century BC Chinese poet that “Those who
have knowledge don’t predict. Those who predict don’t have knowledge”.
Old fossils and Copenhagen
In August 2009, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon ramped up the politico-energy disconnect further, claiming, “We have just four months. Four months to secure the future
of our planet. If we fail to act, climate change will intensify droughts, floods and other natural disasters. Water shortages will affect hundreds of millions of people.
Malnutrition will engulf large parts of the developing world. Tensions will worsen. Social unrest even violence could follow.”
Moon’s ‘four months’ is a reference to December’s Copenhagen conference when alarmists want binding international CO2 targets to trigger a global switch to
alternative sources of energy. As we have seen, however, national leaders will ultimately refuse to impoverish their industries even to save the planet. Neither will
Copenhagen provide impetus for a speedier move to alternative energies. The still ‘disconnected’ flower power generation and its idealistic offspring would do well to
grasp that the energy future is not green it is hydrocarbon, and will
continue to be for another century, at least. Perhaps it’s just that we have yet to learn a language they’ll understand? Maybe we should run the energy stats past
them one more time, make a peace V-sign and (gently) ask: “Re-connected yet, man?” (Peter C Glover and Michael J. Economides, Energy Tribune) Protesters Target Oil Sands Before Harper Meets Obama WASHINGTON/CALGARY - Environmentalists shut down a Canadian oil sands mine on Tuesday in a series of protests on the eve of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's visit with
President Barack Obama, aimed at pressing their case that the projects undermine the fight against climate change. Your bending author is a fairly placid sort of fellow, usually taking the whips and scorns of time and all that as they come. There are, however, certain phenomena of the
modern world that stir him into intemperate rage. One of these is the use of spin to cover up Governmental insouciance in the face of inevitable disastrous consequences of
its own perverse (or even absent) policies. There are two areas of policy that Number Watch has been banging on about since its birth. One is
debt (of which we have just begun to experience the consequences) and the other is energy. Over the same period it has also been repeatedly warning about the coming
energy crisis and the inevitability of power cuts. With a few honourable exceptions (including, of course, the
sainted Christopher Booker) journalists have largely ignored the subject, while politicians make only pious
asides and do nothing. You can bet your sweet bippy that they will all be wise after the event. The basic requirements of a sound energy policy are so self evident that it would seem unnecessary to state them. Yet Government continues brazenly to ignore them (see,
for example, Power mad). This is an age of political obscurantism. The EU deliberately rewrites its
unacceptable constitution in a way that it now cannot be understood. Members of Congress vote for gross increases in taxation via lengthy bills that none of them has read.
The Blair Government, however, was unique in that it had deception woven into its structure from the outset. The two abstract nouns we have most associated over the years
with Tony Blair are insouciance and chutzpa. These characteristics have been most in evidence over energy policy. Look at this as an example of chutzpa.
Even more startling than that came this quotation a year later in May 2008: Britain faced the prospect of being largely reliant on foreign gas imports for its future energy needs and it would be a "dereliction of duty" if he failed to
take long-term decisions. The "dereliction" had, of course, occurred five years previously. Meanwhile, the appalling and disruptive plague of giant windmills spreads
across the once beautiful landscape, now forced on us as one of the many dire consequences of the treachery
of the political class in sacrificing our hard-won democracy to the new soviet in Brussels, breaking a firm promise to conduct a referendum before such action. Wind power is a delusion. Take the example of Texas. It is no coincidence that this state is the first to
experience power cuts because of a drop in the wind. The only thing you can guarantee about wind power
is that is will not be available during in extremes of temperature, which are almost invariably associated with a windless stationary high. Denmark, littered with giant
windmills, claims to get 20% of its power from that source. The reality is considerably less
than half that amount, while the consequent taxes and charges make it the most costly energy in Europe. A yield of less than 20% of installed capacity would mean
that to meet the EU target of 20% of energy from renewable resources (which for most, in effect, means wind) the installed wind capacity would absurdly have to be larger than
the total energy requirement. The reality is that absence of wind, as occurs at the extremes of temperature associated with stationary high pressure zones, coincides with the
highest demand. Most countries are not as fortunate as Denmark in having near neighbours with more controllable hydro-power. Furthermore wind is subject to short term random
fluctuations, making control distribution grid a herculean task. The real result of this is major and spreading power cuts. In the modern world, extensive power cuts
mean suffering and death. So the western population is threatened with the Green Death and there is little they can do about it.
(Number Watch) German Elections Reigniting Nuclear Debate Germany’s general elections later this month have reignited a debate over the future of nuclear energy in the country. The frontrunner, Chancellor Angela Merkel, wants
to review a law that requires shutting down all nuclear power plants by around 2021, but the plan has been undermined by political opposition, recent nuclear accidents, and
allegations that during the 1980s, her party improperly maneuvered to have a nuclear waste storage facility approved. Ed. Note: A shorter version of this story appeared in the Wall Street Journal on September 8. Solar Mirror Power Firms Cling To Spanish Subsidy MADRID - Spain slashed subsidies for power from solar panels in 2008, after causing a bubble, and is almost bound to reduce support for bigger solar farms that use mirrors
-- but this sector may have the clout to limit cuts. Volvo CEO Says Greed, Not Green, Drives Car Sales FRANKFURT - Greed -- not green -- drives sales of small, environmentally friendly cars, a top industry executive said on Tuesday. Ed. note: This item originally ran in Robert Rapier's R-Squared Energy Blog. It is the third installment
of his series on biofuels. This is the final installment of a three-part series that examines some of the renewable energy options that are presenting themselves as possible contenders to step up as
petroleum steps down the depletion curve. The previous installments were: Today I want to talk about Biofuel Niches. Here is how I would define a Biofuel Niche: A technology that is capable of supplying, long-term, up to 10% of our present
liquid fossil fuel consumption, often by utilizing specific, localized synergies. This definition covers a great number of possibilities, and I don't pretend that I will even cover a large fraction of them. But I want to cover some specific niches for
fuels - like cellulosic ethanol - that I believe can work in a niche. If readers can think of others, let's discuss them. I want to lead off with some of the options I
categorized as "Pretenders", and then discuss corn ethanol which I did not discuss in the previous installments. To reiterate, my views are based on the following expectations: 1). That the average oil price over the next 10 years will exceed $100/bbl; 2). That biomass prices will
rise in response to demand, putting a premium on efficient conversion technologies; 3). That these biofuel technologies will eventually have to compete on the basis of oil
price and not government handouts. This latter point is key, because it favors those technologies that can decouple from fossil fuel inputs. (Robert Rapier, Energy Tribune) September 15, 2009
Outside of bad reviews, there
is no "curse of The Conqueror" Go to virtually any film history website, search for "The Conqueror," released in 1956, and the odds are that there will be several paragraphs on how a
disproportionate number of the cast and crew died from cancer. Most citations will then explain that this cancer was caused by their exposure to radioactive fallout on
location near St. George, Utah—derived from atomic tests earlier in that decade. An incredibly biased article from the November 10, 1980 issue of People magazine can probably be credited for re-igniting this baseless conspiracy theory. Here
are a few indisputable facts that were strangely left out of the People piece: 1. All the stars mentioned were heavy smokers, including John Wayne at five packs a day. 2. 91 of the 220 cast and crew members were said to have contracted cancer, but given the 40% lifetime rate for all individuals, this is
hardly disproportionate. The People article quotes the late Robert Pendleton from the University of Utah saying that "30-some" cancers would be expected in
a cohort that size, contrary to all data from the National Cancer Institute. The Pendleton quote appears in almost identical form on dozens of websites. 3. The cancer mortality rate for Utah was then and continues to be one of the lowest in the country, with Washington County (containing St.
George) among the lowest in the state. While there is no science to support a cancer cluster here, politics eventually won out, and a program was set up to pay off anyone (usually $50,000) who got certain
cancers and happened to live in the appropriate counties at the right time. Even if you believe that the fallout was a factor, radiogenic cancers typically do not take 40-50
years to manifest themselves. Yet, such "victims" were paid off just the same. Given that well over $1 billion has been paid out by this program since 1990, this whole business may qualify as the most successful environmental fraud of all time. Check out more details in my Health News Digest article. (Shaw's Eco-Logic) How some food can make us sick Do you have friends who say that they feel physically sick and develop headaches, heart palpitations, nausea and dizziness when they eat sugar or anything with high
fructose corn syrup? Do you know others who report feeling tired, bloated and nauseous when they eat meat or saturated fats, especially fatty meats processed with nitrates?
Do you know people who say that they feel less energetic or alert when they eat processed foods or who feel nervous, shaky and irritable when they drink something with an
artificial sweetener in it? Do you know people who develop rashes and congestion when they eat or drink various foods or who feel depressed and fatigued when they eat refined
white flour or carbohydrates? H1N1 vaccine seen selling out despite single dose LONDON - Drugmakers look set to sell all the swine flu vaccine they can make in 2009, despite growing evidence just one shot, not two, is needed to protect most people
against the virus. Is swimming pool chlorine fueling the allergy epidemic? NEW YORK - Swimming in a chlorinated pool may boost the odds that a child susceptible to asthma and allergies will develop these problems, a study released today
indicates. Not a huge deal: Showerheads harbor potentially dangerous
bacteria NEW YORK - That morning shower you rely on to get clean may be dousing you in a daily dose of potentially sickening bacteria, according to a study published Monday. And for idiotic [ab]use of numbers, today's winner is... Study: More Americans at
Higher Risk of Heart Disease Epidemiologists love to crunch numbers — and Americans, on the whole, love to ignore them. Even the most health-conscious among us soon grow numb to the storm of
statistics warning us about rising levels of obesity or falling levels of exercise or all the other numerical indicators that tell us how unwell we're getting. But on Sept.
14, a team of researchers released a new finding that should cause even the most data-weary folks alarm. The Crone can't help itself: The Eeuww! Ads New York City health experts wanted to discourage people from drinking sugary sodas and sports drinks, so they devised a stomach-churning solution. Their new “Don’t
drink yourself fat” commercials show drinks being poured into a glass. There is no ice, no delicate frostiness or smiling polar bears. Instead, fat globules ooze over the
rim of the glass like some alien life form. If the response is “Yuck,” then the ad is doing its job, city officials have decided. Focus on obesity obscures other eating disorders The current health care debate, when it focuses on food at all, focuses on obesity. Two-thirds of Americans are either overweight or obese. That is shocking, but in the
national panic about obesity, we run the risk of making things worse. Obama
to Impose Tariff on Chinese Tires From the quiet shadows of the White House, at around 10 pm on Friday night, came word that President
Obama will impose prohibitive duties of 35% on imports of Chinese tires. Well, we at Cato and elsewhere have warned repeatedly of the dangerous consequences of this outcome (June
18, July 24, August
13, September 9, September
11). Former Cato colleague and coauthor Scott Lincicome has an excellent analysis on the ramifications right here. The good news is that we now have clarity about where the president stands on trade. The bad news is that his stance reflects his isolationist primary election campaign
rhetoric and not the post-election messages of avoiding protectionism and repairing the damage done to America’s international credibility by unilateralist Bush
administration policies. Short of armed hostilities or political subversion, no state action is more provocative than banning another’s products from entering your
market. I guess this paper was too audaciously hopeful. We’re chastened. Technically, the Chinese are not legally entitled to retaliate because the United States has legal recourse to restrictions under this so-called “China safeguard” law
until 2013. But plenty of American exporting interests have been worried enough to write numerous letters to Obama urging restraint–but to no avail. Restrictions have never been imposed under this law because in all previous cases — all during the previous administration — President Bush exercised his discretion to
reject the recommended duties because of the likely cost of those restrictions on the broader economy. Thus, the Chinese know the decision is a matter of presidential
discretion, unlike the antidumping and countervailing duty laws, which are on statutory autopilot and don’t require the president’s attention. Accordingly, the tire
restrictions are the edict of the American president, and thus carries more profound meaning for the Chinese. One of the more thrilling spectacles in all of this, if politicians were capable of humility, would be watching President Obama explain his decision to impose tire duties
on China at the G-20 meeting he is hosting in Pittsburgh in 12 days. Recall the president’s pledge (along with the other G-20 leaders) at the last G-20 meeting in London to
avoid new protectionist measures. American credibility on trade is spent. And maybe Obama will find comfort in that fact because he won’t be burdened with that historic responsibility, as he signs off on
the slew of new requests for trade restrictions (which are undoubtedly coming soon) under this law from other U.S. industries seeking handouts. Strap on your armor; the die has been cast. (Daniel Ikenson, Cato at liberty) Obama’s
Tire Tariff Could Raise Prices by 20 to 30 Percent President Obama’s decision to impose a 35 percent tariff on imported tires from China was not an act of statesmanship. The White House admitted as much by announcing its
decision at 10 p.m. on Friday evening in order to minimize news coverage. A few union leaders are cheering, but in just about every other way our country is worse off. Among the biggest losers will be low-income American families. The tariffs
apply to lower-end tires that sell for $50 or $60 each, compared to $200 for higher-end tires. As The Wall Street Journal reported
this morning: The low end of the market will feel the impact of the tariff most, as U.S. manufacturers, who joined the Chinese in opposing the tariffs, have said it isn’t profitable
to produce inexpensive tires in domestic plants. “I think within the next 60 days you’ll see some pretty significant price increases,” said Jim Mayfield, president of Del-Nat Tire Corp. of Memphis, Tenn., a large
importer and distributor of Chinese tires. He estimates prices for “entry-level” tires could increase 20% to 30%. The anti-poor bias of U.S. tariffs is one of the themes of my new Cato book, Mad
about Trade: Why Main Street America Should Embrace Globalization. With his decision Friday, President Obama has revealed himself to be a friend of the status
quo. (Daniel Griswold, Cato at liberty) President
Obama Subsidizes President Obama with Tire Tariff Who
benefits from 35 percent duties on Chinese-produced tires? U.S. producers? No, they are the ones who, pursuing profit-maximizing strategies, have consciously shifted production of low-end tires from their U.S. plants to
their Chinese plants over the past few years. They will now have to incur the costs of shifting production from China to production facilities in Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia
and other developing countries, where it makes economic sense to produce low-end tires. U.S. workers, then? Nah. Low-end U.S. tire production workers won’t see an increase in U.S. capacity, capacity utilization, hours worked, or wages because, as
implied above, production isn’t coming back to the United States. Meanwhile, U.S. workers in tire wholesaling, distribution, and other segment of the supply chain are
likely to see a decline in business in the short-run, as higher prices reduce demand for tires. Things may improve once adjustments are made to the new production locations,
but that will involve certain adjustment costs and lower profit margins because presumably China is the profit-maximizing production location. Right? Why else would
producers have chosen China? Does the tariff benefit consumers, then? Come on. Not only will it lead to higher prices for consumers, but it will hit cost-conscious consumers the hardest. And you
thought President Obama opposed regressive taxation? No, the only beneficiary of the tariff is President Obama, who presumably gets some political mileage for his Chicago-style payback of Big Labor. But make
no mistake that any benefits to the president will be fleeting, as the direct costs of the tire tariff and the costs of copycat protectionism start to squeeze economic
recovery. As the president is flooded with similar requests for protection from other unions and producers, he will have to choose between disappointing those favor-seekers
or strangling economic prospects entirely. The tire decision was selfish and shortsighted. (Daniel Ikenson, Cato at liberty) China Moves to Retaliate Against
U.S. Tire Tariff HONG KONG — China unexpectedly increased pressure Sunday on the United States in a widening trade dispute, taking the first steps toward imposing tariffs on American
exports of automotive products and chicken meat in retaliation for President Obama’s decision late Friday to levy tariffs on tires from China. (NYT) "Unexpectedly"? Unexpected by whom? Sheesh... That’s my favorite placard from the Washington tea party protests on Saturday. No Child Left a Dime underlines perhaps the central concern of the protesters
— the ongoing massive fiscal irresponsibility in Washington by both parties. We’ve got deficits of more more than $1 trillion for years to come. Federal debt will approach World War Two levels within a decade. Even so, the Democrats are trying to
ram through a $1 trillion health care expansion, and the head of the Republican National Committee, Michael
Steele, is defending against any cuts to Medicare, the program that is the single biggest threat to taxpayers. People are marching not just because Obama
and the Democrats are scaring their pants off, but because most Republicans in positions of power are spendthrifts as well. The chart illustrates that no child will be left a dime because the government will have it all. This is the CBO’s
“alternative fiscal scenario,” which essentially means the business-as-usual scenario if Congress doesn’t cut anything in coming years. Note that the most rapidly growing box, the white box, is the program that Michael Steele doesn’t want to touch. The program is expected to grow by 6.3 percent of
GDP by 2050. In today’s money, 6.3 percent of GDP is about $900 billion a year in added spending. So it’s like Steele doesn’t see anything wrong with tomorrow’s young
families forking over an additional $900 billion a year in taxes on this one program, or about $7,700 a year for every American household. It’s worse than that. The biggest box on the chart by 2050 is interest on the government debt, and by far the biggest contributor to the growth in interest is Medicare.
So including interest, Michael Steele’s (ridiculous) Medicare position is sort of like supporting a more than $10,000 tax hike on every young
family for this one program. Come on Republicans, you can do better than that. How about starting simply by proposing some of CBO’s
modest and commonsense Medicare reforms like raising deductibles? (By the way, interest costs rise in coming years because of an excess of spending, not a shortage of revenues. Under this CBO scenario, all current tax cuts are
extended, and yet federal revenues still rise as a share of GDP over time above the historical norm of recent decades). (Chris Edwards, Cato at liberty) Eyes Turn to Mexico as Drought Drags On YUMA, Ariz. — The Southwest drought has reached the point where even drain water is coveted. Norman Borlaug, the
father of the Green Revolution, has died at 95. Ron Bailey calls him “the man who saved more human
lives than anyone else in history.” In an as-yet-unpublished letter to the New York Times, Don Boudreaux reflects: By saving millions of people from starvation, green-revolution father Norman Borlaug arguably has done more for humanity than has any other human being of the past
century (”Norman Borlaug, 95, Dies; Led Green Revolution,” Sept. 13). Yet unlike Sen. Kennedy’s, his death will go relatively unnoticed. He’ll certainly not be
canonized in the popular mind. Alas, in our world, melodramatic loud-mouths thunder to and fro in the foreground, doing little of any value while stealing most of the credit for civilization.
Meanwhile, in the background, millions upon millions of decent, creative people work diligently at their specialties – welding, waiting tables, performing orthopedic
surgery, designing shopping malls, researching plant genetics – each contributing to the prosperity of the rest. Some contributions are larger than others (as Dr.
Borlaug’s certainly was), but even a contribution as colossal as his is quickly taken for granted, any notice of it submerged beneath the self-congratulation, swagger,
and bellicosity of the politicians who pretend to be prosperity’s source. How wrong. In 1992 the late Senator Kennedy said, “The ballot box is the place where all change begins in America.” I wrote
a few years later that he was “conveniently forgetting the market process that has brought us such changes as the train, the skyscraper, the automobile, the personal
computer, and charitable or self-help endeavors from settlement houses to Alcoholics Anonymous to Comic Relief.” Some day a history book will describe Bill Clinton as “a scandal-ridden president in the age of Bill Gates.” Or maybe “in the age of the Green Revolution.” Either
way, the biggest changes in our lives — certainly the biggest improvements — will have come from scientists, inventors, and businesses, not from politicians. But that’s not the way journalists and historians see it. Just think of the
people who have gone down in history as “the Great“: Alexander the Great, Catherine the Great, Charles the Great (Charlemagne), Frederick the Great, Peter the Great
— despots and warmongers. Just once it would be nice to see the actual benefactors of humanity designated as “the Great”: Galileo the Great, Gutenberg the Great, Samuel
Morse the Great, Alan Turing the Great. So just for tonight, drink a toast to one of the great benefactors of the poorest people in the world, Borlaug the Great. (David Boaz, Cato at liberty) From sp!ked | debate: The Organic Food Nutrition Wars A few weeks ago, the world of organic food proponents was rocked by new research that organic food was not any more nutritious than conventionally-grown food. Consumers
have long been interested in knowing if the extra money they have been shelling out for organic food is justified and the subject, therefore, is of much interest. (Joseph D.
Rosen, Health Facts and Fears) The Global Food Crisis Revisted Sixteen months ago Costco and Sam’s Club stores in the U.S. limited how much rice customers could buy at one time, while ‘food riots’ erupted in a number of
countries as food prices spiraled upward. Concerns about food supply and distribution spread worldwide. (Joseph Dancy, Market Oracle) OHIO
OFFERS NEW APPROACH TO ANIMAL RIGHTS, BY: DENNIS T. AVERY CHURCHVILLE, VA—Meat production has always been somewhat awkward, both for the farmer and the consumer as it always involves the death of the
meat animals. Milk and eggs have meant “protective custody” for the dairy cows and laying hens. As a farm kid, I learned early that the cute little piglets of the spring would become our pork chops in the fall. I learned that when mother
told me to “get her a chicken,” it was to be delivered deceased and de-feathered. That didn’t weaken my parents’ concern that our animals all be treated well while
they were in our care. . Today’s big confinement livestock industries have a major problem in convincing distant consumers that they treat their animals with full
consideration. On the other hand, the activists who make “gotcha” videotapes may not be the best people to oversee livestock production The anti-meat activists tell us their goal is to end animal “exploitation.” That apparently would mean no meat production, no household
pets, no circuses, no dog shows, no rodeos nor any hunting. There’s a strong temptation for activists to misrepresent the farmers and their standards of animal care, in
order to get restrictive legislation. One of President Obama’s “Czars”—a Harvard lawyer named Cass Sunstein—says livestock and poultry should have the right to sue their
owners in the courts. A wondrous boon to lawyers that would quickly force us all into vegan diets—and poorer health, especially for kids.. California voters in a recent election banned cages for laying hens as of 2015. But banning layer cages results in more cannibalism among the
birds, and far more bacterial contamination of the eggs. Equally awkward, California egg producers will probably be forced out of business because the cost of keeping laying hens without cages has
proven about 20 percent higher. It seems certain that California will thus be forced to import cage-produced eggs from adjoining states. They cannot be barred because of the
Interstate Commerce clause in the Constitution. California will simply lose thousands of egg-production jobs, huge amounts of fuel will be used to transport the eggs,
and they will be less fresh. What to do? Ohio is exploring a middle option. They want the public to have confidence that the farmers are treating their livestock humanely, but they
don’t want to put farm supervision in the hands of extremists. Their solution is a proposed amendment to Ohio’s constitution creating an Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board. The 13 members would include: The board is directed to maintain food safety, encourage locally-grown food, and protect Ohio farms and families—with best-management
practices for animal care and well-being, disease prevention, food safety and affordability. This board would not, of course, end the activist complaints. But it would also
not end meat production, dairying, pet ownership or hunting. The Humane Society of the U.S. (not the organization that runs local animal shelters) doesn’t like the idea. It says the
“industry-dominated board” is poor public policy. Political compromises, however, always leave most of us with less than we’d like—but perhaps with more than we deserve. DENNIS T. AVERY is an environmental economist, and a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. He was formerly a
senior analyst for the Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years, Readers may write him at PO
Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421 or email to cgfi@hughes.net The Duning-Kruger effect evidently exists. This post is not an attempt to debunk it:
rather, it’s a plea for DK not to be abused. Anybody and everybody can use a variant of the following: “Since you are not an expert in the field, your skepticism about it is derived from you overestimating your
own knowledge about it“. Such an argument “provides poor reasoning in support of its conclusion” and therefore can be classified as a (material)
fallacy (in particular, as an example of “Affirming the Consequent“). To understand the above, imagine that any “expert” in homeopathy, in UFOs, in chemtrails will of course be able to repeat the same argument against any skeptic, for
the simple reason that few if any skeptic will have devoted their lives to the study of homeopathy, UFOs or chemtrails. Why, if the DK argument were valid, we would all be forced to believe in all sorts of religions, since it would be impossible to know more about the Bible, the Qu’ran,
the Mahabharata more than respective (believer) scholars! ———— There could be many reasons not to believe in something. The abuse of the DK effect as a DK argument is just a naive case of “pop
psychology“. (OmniClimate) No need to worry about gorebull warming then? UFO Prophet Warns of
Devastating Events in 2012 Swiss man says that scientists and corporations deny the actual extent and magnitude of coming environmental destruction; has documented, decades long record of impeccable
prophetic accuracy; goes far beyond any information associated with Mayan Calendar for 2012 (Press Release) Actually this guy is no further off the planet than your average gorebull warming prophet, he's just a little closer to his inevitable exposure deadline. Northeast
Passage’s “First Known Commercial Shipment”? Almost Andy Revkin at DotEarth’s “Welcome to Earth’s
‘New’ Ocean: The Arctic” (about the navigation of the “Northeast Passage” by two German ships) has not yet found time to reply to my
question as outlined below: In Tom Nelson’s blog there is a link at Answer.com where
several sources (including Wikipedia) repeat information about the Northeast Passage (Northern Sea Route) progressively becoming more and more easy to navigate during the
last few centuries, of several expeditions going all the way decades ago, of commercial exploitation from 1877. Would Mr Revkin be so kind as to comment, and perhaps
clarify what he and/or Lawson W Brigham exactly meant with “this is, indeed, a first“. – thank you in advance Revkin’s actual words include “first known commercial shipment” and “Lawson W. Brigham, a longtime source for anything related to Arctic shipping,
confirmed that this is, indeed, a first“. Yes but…a first of what? If “commercial exploitation began in 1877” then the latest “first” needs
some good qualifier. Here’s what the Company managing those German ships actually claims in their
website (sep 9): We are all very proud and delighted to be the first western shipping company which has successfully transited the legendary Northeast-Passage Trade magazine Break-bulk appears to confirm: The two vessels will then be the first non-Russian commercial vessels to make it through the Northeast Passage from Asia to Europe Was this all too difficult to read and understand? Would the explanation of the “non-Russian” bit have removed too much from the news for it to get any space
in the newspaper? =============================== I am not sure if I will ever get an answer from Revkin. What I am sure of though is that a little less ambiguity and a little more explanation on his part would have been quite welcome. Otherwise readers might get the
impression that either the Northeast Passage is ready for leisure yachts, or that it has been forever closed by giant chunks of ice for millennia… (OmniClimate) 'Quiet' sun could mean cooler days THE number of sunspots has declined dramatically in the past two years - but scientists say it is too early to tell if it is the start of a solar depression that could
lead to cooler weather on Earth. Kind of like Idéfix, aren't they? Scientists Find CO2 Link
To Antarctic Ice Cap Origin SINGAPORE - A team of scientists studying rock samples in Africa has shown a strong link between falling carbon dioxide levels and the formation of Antarctic ice sheets 34
million years ago. These guys just can't get the idea that cooling the planet and its oceans causes the absorption of more atmospheric carbon dioxide, thus reducing
ambient levels and that warming results in outgassing and increasing levels. Temperature controls carbon dioxide, not the other way round and yet they go to extreme lengths
to misinterpret the data... Texas A&M researcher shows possible link between 1918 El Niño and flu
pandemic Research conducted at Texas A&M University casts doubts on the notion that El Niño has been getting stronger because of global warming and raises interesting
questions about the relationship between El Niño and a severe flu pandemic 91 years ago. The findings are based on analysis of the 1918 El Niño, which the new research
shows to be one of the strongest of the 20th century. There is a pioneering study of the role of landscape processes in weather and climate that should be read by anyone working on this topic. It is directly relevant to the
issue of how changes in the landscape alter surface heat and moisture fluxes, and 2m and other near surface temperatures. This paper is Dabberdt, W.F. and P.A. Davis, 1978: Determination Of Energetic Characteristics Of
Urban-Rural Surfaces In The Greater St. Louis Area. Boundary-Layer Meteorology. 14. pages 105-121. The abstract of this paper reads The landscape they evaluated ranged from farmland, mostly woods to commercial-industrial. Among their results was a greater than 10C difference in daytime maximum
surface temperature between urban and rural sites. This paper documents that major alteration in surface fluxes and of near ground temperatures are substantially altered by urbanization and other
landscape changes. It also provides a baseline to compare with the 2009 landscape and to map the HCN sites in this region to these changes. It provides
another reason that the papers Parker, D. E., 2004: Large scale warming is not urban, Nature, 432, 290. Parker, D. E., 2006: A demonstration that large-scale warming is not urban, J. Clim., 19, 2882–2895. Peterson, T. C., 2003: Assessment of urban versus rural in situ surface temperatures in the contiguous United States: No difference found. J. Climate, 16,
2941–2959. are very suspect in their findings, as they are inconsistent with such observational results as given in Dabberdt and Davis (1978). (Climate Science) There's a reason birds fly? Sierra Nevada Birds Move In Response To Warmer, Wetter
Climate If the climate is not quite right, birds will up and move rather than stick around and sweat it out, according to a new study led by biologists at the University of
California, Berkeley. (ScienceDaily) Only in Climate Science Can You Play With a Broken Hockey Stick An anonymous adage advises, “There is nothing wrong with making mistakes. Just don’t respond with encores.” Break your stick in ice hockey and drop it immediately or
a penalty is assessed because continued use can cause serious damage (Rule 10.3). Apparently this rule doesn’t apply in climate science where a few scientists continue to
use a broken “hockey stick” and cause serious damage. President
Of British Science Association Casually Strolls Towards Fascism I am pretty sure Lord May has absolutely no idea of the most obvious consequence of his religion-without-faith
approach towards solving the “climate change” issue. And that consequence is…fascism. In fact, in the past, over and over again, well-meaning atheists have proposed to use religion for social engineering purposes. Invariably, all those doctrines have
converged towards authoritarian nightmares. Worse: the whole catalogue of XX century horrors can be traced back to idealists-atheists thinking hard on how to improve
societies by using religion. For a reference, see Mark
Lilla’s review of Michael Burleigh’s “Earthly Powers”, published in the New York Times on April 2, 2006: [...] the Jacobins (in revolutionary France) [...] were convinced that a strong republic would need some sort of civil religion to establish a spirit of
self-sacrifice and belonging, and so they tried to create one, organizing public festivals modeled on pagan cults and remaking the calendar. Burleigh, like so many
historians today, sees in these Promethean efforts a premonition of the theatrical mass meetings of the 20th-century Bolsheviks, Fascists and Nazis. [...] liberal Protestant theologian [...] Friedrich Schleiermacher [had the dream of a ] rationally purified biblical faith [that] would jettison old beliefs in
miracles and the Bible’s literal truth, allowing it to become the civil faith of the bourgeois German state. This proved to be a powerful myth that turned many a
Protestant minister into a blinkered German nationalist, contributing in no small measure to the catastrophe of World War I. [Joseph de Maistre's] fundamental insights — that political life rests on a religious foundation, that human relations are shaped by ritual, that individualism is
a disease — first found their echo among leftist French utopians like Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier and then Auguste Comte. The utopians did not believe in God but they
very much believed in religion [...] or a surrogate one, a system of symbols and ceremonies bringing individuals together without reference to a revealing, transcendent God [...] their daydreams about using religion instrumentally to foster social identification took a nightmarish turn at the end of the century when they fell into the
hands of rabid nationalists like the French writer Charles Maurras and the German scholar Paul de Lagarde [...] Now let’s see what happened to them. All of that, because otherwise intelligent thinkers had the stupid idea of using religion without taking care of its Faith component. Please Lord May would you stop inviting us to repeat that mistake. (OmniClimate) Emergency! Emergency! Climate change depresses
beer drinkers IF THE sinking Maldives aren't enough to galvanise action on climate change, could losing a classic beer do it? Climatologist Martin Mozny of the Czech Hydrometeorological
Institute and colleagues say that the quality of Saaz hops - the delicate variety used to make pilsner lager - has been decreasing in recent years. They say the culprit is
climate change in the form of increased air temperature. Quick! The hops is at risk! Everyone leave their refrigerator doors open to cool the air. We must save the beer! Oh... Interior Launches Climate Strategy - New Council's
Aim Is to Help Curb Warming Interior Secretary Ken Salazar launched the Obama administration's first coordinated response to the impacts of climate change Monday, which he said would both monitor how
global warming is altering the nation's landscape and help the country cope with those changes. Evidence abounds that global warming isn't our fault ... As one with many years of experience modeling complex systems, I can assure you that when model assumptions or results contradict reality, one is always better off
choosing reality. Students of climate change with the backgrounds necessary to understand how the models work also understand the stunning significance of these results.
These are but two examples of the work of hundreds of scientists with impeccable credentials and sterling reputations who remain skeptical of the global-warming hypothesis.
(Richard W. Flygare, Salt Lake Tribune) Ravin' Raven: Tomorrow
will be too late to stop drastic effects of global warming No, we can't wait. And he uses Worrywarts Inc. for his authority :-) Ike:
Debate And Accuracy, Against Dictatorship Or…Easy is the life of the Climate Change True Believer… This is yet another answer to whomever claims that the “climate
change debate” is “over”. From a recent op-ed by Max Blumenthal on the International Herald Tribune (”Ike’s
other warning“, Sep 2, 2009): [Eisenhower's 1959 letter] offers an [...] important — and relevant — warning: to beware the danger posed by those seeking freedom from the “mental stress and
burden” of democracy “I doubt that citizens [...] could ever, under our democratic system, be provided with the universal degree of certainty, the confidence in their understanding of our
problems, and the clear guidance from higher authority that [some] believe needed. Such unity is not only logical but indeed indispensable in a successful military
organization, but in a democracy debate is the breath of life.” Eisenhower also recommended a short book — “The True Believer” by Eric Hoffer [...] Hoffer “points out that dictatorial systems make one contribution to their
people which leads them to tend to support such systems — freedom from the necessity of informing themselves and making up their own minds concerning these tremendous
complex and difficult questions.” The authoritarian follower, Eisenhower suggested, desired nothing more than insulation from the pressures of a free society. “It is difficult indeed to maintain a reasoned and accurately informed understanding of our defense situation on the part of our citizenry when many prominent
officials, possessing no standing or expertness as they themselves claim it, attempt to further their own ideas or interests by resorting to statements more distinguished
by stridency than by accuracy.” Every call to silence climate skeptics comes from a desire to be insulated “from the pressures of a free society“. (OmniClimate) Ludicrous claim of the moment: Many Climate Change Costs Seen Avoidable LONDON - Climate change could cost some countries up to 19 percent of their gross domestic product by 2030, a panel including major insurance, banking and consulting
companies as well as the European Commission said on Monday. (Reuters) Virtual world costs don't actually count in the real world -- simple solution is not to run the idiotic 'puter models and the "disasters" all
go away... Oh, so they need a basic political understanding... 'Comprehensive' climate
treaty ruled out for Copenhagen The Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Yvo De Boer ruled out the possibility that a "comprehensive"
international climate treaty will be ratified at Copenhagen in December. On Climate, Partners on Hill Drift Apart - McCain
Largely Remains on Sidelines of Debate as Kerry Goes Full Throttle As climate change reemerges as an issue in the national policy debate, it may help define the legislative legacies of two men who once vied for the White House: Sens. John
F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.). Uh-huh... our hope is that common sense and the facts will prevail, too but that would mean something rather different to us -- as in walking away from
this farce altogether. Oh boy... Rockefeller
Finds It's Better to Negotiate on Climate Bill Than Sit on Sidelines As one of the nation's largest producers of coal, West Virginia has more to lose than many other states when it comes to the debate over comprehensive global warming and
energy legislation. The correct answer is to fight the stupid legislation, kill it completely, embalm it, cremate and bury it (take no chances). It can not
"help" but is guaranteed to hurt -- don't do it. Sweden to put pressure on the US Sweden's environment minister urges the US Senate on Monday to pass legislation to control greenhouse gases, saying a delay in the vote is impeding negotiations on a new
international climate treaty. (CoP15) India may agree to "non-binding targets" If climate talks in Copenhagen fail, the world will not come to a halt, Indian environment minister says. (CoP15) Scammers scammed? Carbon-trading market hit
as UN suspends clean-energy auditor The legitimacy of the $100 billion (£60 billion) carbon-trading market has been called into question after the world’s largest auditor of clean-energy projects was
suspended by United Nations inspectors. New Zealand To Revise Emissions Scheme WELLINGTON - New Zealand will revise its emissions trading scheme to lower the costs to businesses and households, although the scheme will still cover all sectors and
greenhouse gases, the government said on Monday. (Reuters) Repsol makes huge natural gas discovery offshore
Venezuela Spain’s biggest oil company Repsol-YPF announced on Friday the discovery of a Venezuelan gas field containing as much as 8 trillion cubic feet of fuel, equivalent to 1.2
to 1.4 billion barrels, one of the world’s largest finds. (MercoPress) Uh-huh... Clean Energy To Create More Jobs Than Coal OSLO - A strong shift toward renewable energies could create 2.7 million more jobs in power generation worldwide by 2030 than staying with dependence on fossil fuels
would, a report suggested Monday. ... and just think how many "jobs" could be created if people had to walk in front of automobiles carrying a red flag to signify, oh, I don't
know, climate danger or something. "Renewable energy jobs" are similarly ridiculous. More windy claims: Europe Wind Power Body Sees Big Offshore Potential COPENHAGEN - Offshore wind turbines could meet 13-17 percent of Europe's electricity need in 2030 if wind power projects get sufficient support, an industry lobby
organization said on Monday. Sounds more like "available" rather than "green" tools... Hawaii
Tries Green Tools in Remaking Power Grids NAALEHU, Hawaii — Two miles or so from this tiny town in the southernmost corner of the United States, across ranches where cattle herds graze beneath the distant Mauna
Loa volcano, the giant turbines of a new wind farm cut through the air. EU Delays Van Emissions Clampdown BRUSSELS - The auto industry will have to cut carbon dioxide emissions from new vans sold in the European Union by 14 percent by July 2013 or face fines, a draft EU
document shows. Another eye-roller: Commercial
shipping industry can harm environment, report reveals A NEW three-part report has exposed the harmful impact of the commercial shipping industry on public and environment. September 14, 2009
You can't build a peaceful world on empty stomachs and human misery. — Dr. Norman Ernest Borlaug (1914-2009) (Junkfood Science) As described by Penn and Teller Norman Borlaug - The man who fed the world. On the day Norman Borlaug was awarded its Peace Prize for 1970, the Nobel Committee observed of the Iowa-born plant scientist that "more than any other single person
of this age, he has helped provide bread for a hungry world." The committee might have added that more than any other single person Borlaug showed that nature is no
match for human ingenuity in setting the real limits to growth. Norman Borlaug, India's 'annadaata', dies at 95 NEW DELHI: Long before Mr Bush and Dr Rice came by to leapfrog US-India ties to a new level, it was Prof. Wheat who jump-started and nourished the relationship. Norman
Borlaug, the genial scientist-pacifist who died of cancer in Dallas on Saturday, was as much India's 'annadaata' as he was the Father of the Green Revolution. Borlaug, father of Green Revolution, dies at 95 WASHINGTON — Norman Borlaug, a Nobel Prize winning scientist whose work on disease-resistant wheat is credited with saving hundreds of millions of lives, has died at the
age of 95. A look at honors bestowed on Norman Borlaug Agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug, the father of the "green revolution," died Saturday at his home in Dallas at age 95. Here is a look at some of the honors
he received: (Associated Press) Norman Borlaug, 95, Dies; Led Green
Revolution Norman E. Borlaug, the plant scientist who did more than anyone else in the 20th century to teach the world to feed itself and whose work was credited with saving hundreds
of millions of lives, died Saturday night. He was 95 and lived in Dallas. People-haters have a different take, this is one of the least offensive: The
Green Revolution wasn’t green enough Norman Borlaug saved a billion lives from starvation. But decades on, his farming methods threaten the health of the planet (Graham Harvey, The Times) 912 — A day that will go down in American history According to the Examiner in Baltimore, mainstream media won’t report the story, accurately. In a history making event reminiscent of other marches, the American people
— fat and thin, old and young, black and white, from all walks of life and every corner of the country — made their voices heard about government health care reform. The
world press covered today’s events in Washington and across the United States more than our own. But, youtube videos are flooding the internet: (Junkfood Science) Kind of a dopey way of going about things... Folate in flour to
counter spina bifida OUR daily bread will get a health booster from tomorrow -- the start date for a national program to cut spina bifida rates by adding folic acid to wheat flour. This won't necessarily harm anyone but it is an unnecessary expense for the vast majority who will not benefit from it. British smoking ban slashes heart attacks THE ban on public smoking in Britain has caused a fall in heart attack rates of about 10per cent, researchers have found. I'd be far more impressed by such results if they were sustained (has anywhere ever shown such result?). While we do seem to get a one-time delay in
adverse coronary events (presumably due to people prone to these events exhibiting symptoms a few months later) the effect is transient (everyone still dies, although they
might linger a little longer without tobacco). Oh boy... Passive
smoking linked to liver disease People can develop liver disease even when they are exposed to second-hand tobacco smoke, according to a study. A year is generally beyond the lifespan of wild mice and isn't a bad effort for mice in care, so this is long and intensive exposure and all they could
find was an increase in liver fat? At that rate over several lifetime exposures to environmental tobacco smoke these mice might have developed liver dysfunction (wow!). If
this is directly applicable to people then just 250-300 years second hand tobacco smoke could increase your risk of NAFLD... Debate over funding for Lomborg - Politicians
argue over state funding for the controversial political scientist Bjørn Lomborg Climate sceptic Bjørn Lomborg is hitting back at politicians who have questioned the financing his Copenhagen Consensus think tank receives from the state. RSPB accused of damaging British environment in bid to
save birds Charity accused of damaging the environment as it takes the axe to hundreds of acres of conifer woodland to restore traditional open heaths. Opponents say the scheme
threatens UK's fight against global warming (David Adam, The Observer) Plans to reintroduce cheetahs prompts conservation debate in India India is planning to reintroduce cheetahs into the wild, more than six decades after they were thought to have been hunted into extinction in the sub-continent. German organic gardening guru Alwin Seifert took tips
from Dachau experiments Harvest time is here again on Germany’s 1.2 million allotments: potatoes have to be hoisted out of the soil and the last of the peas must be plucked. UPDATED: This opinion piece from Professor Henrik Svensmark was published
September 9th in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Originally the translation was from Google translation with
some post translation cleanup of jumbled words or phrases by myself. Now as of Sept 12, the translation is by Nigel Calder. Hat tip to Carsten Arnholm of Norway for
bringing this to my attention and especially for translation facilitation by Ágúst H Bjarnason –
Anthony While the sun sleeps Translation approved by Henrik Svensmark While the Sun sleeps “In fact global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning. No climate model has predicted a cooling of the Earth – quite the
contrary. And this means that the projections of future climate are unreliable,” writes Henrik Svensmark. The star that keeps us alive has, over the last few years, been almost free of sunspots, which are the usual signs of the Sun’s magnetic
activity. Last week [4 September 2009] the scientific team behind the satellite SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) reported, “It is likely that the current year’s
number of blank days will be the longest in about 100 years.” Everything indicates that the Sun is going into some kind of hibernation, and the obvious question is what
significance that has for us on Earth. If you ask the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which represents the current consensus on climate change, the answer is a
reassuring “nothing”. But history and recent research suggest that is probably completely wrong. Why? Let’s take a closer look. Solar activity has always varied. Around the year 1000, we had a period of very high solar activity, which coincided with the Medieval Warm Period.
It was a time when frosts in May were almost unknown – a matter of great importance for a good harvest. Vikings settled in Greenland and explored the coast of North
America. On the whole it was a good time. For example, China’s population doubled in this period. But after about 1300 solar activity declined and the world began to get colder. It was the beginning of the episode we now call the Little Ice Age.
In this cold time, all the Viking settlements in Greenland disappeared. Sweden surprised Denmark by marching across the ice, and in London the Thames froze repeatedly. But
more serious were the long periods of crop failures, which resulted in poorly nourished populations, reduced in Europe by about 30 per cent because of disease and hunger. It’s important to realise that the Little Ice Age was a global event. It ended in the late 19th Century and was followed by increasing solar
activity. Over the past 50 years solar activity has been at its highest since the medieval warmth of 1000 years ago. But now it appears that the Sun has changed again, and is
returning towards what solar scientists call a “grand minimum” such as we saw in the Little Ice Age. The match between solar activity and climate through the ages is sometimes explained away as coincidence. Yet it turns out that, almost no matter
when you look and not just in the last 1000 years, there is a link. Solar activity has repeatedly fluctuated between high and low during the past 10,000 years. In fact the
Sun spent about 17 per cent of those 10,000 years in a sleeping mode, with a cooling Earth the result. You may wonder why the international climate panel IPCC does not believe that the Sun’s changing activity affects the climate. The reason is that
it considers only changes in solar radiation. That would be the simplest way for the Sun to change the climate – a bit like turning up and down the brightness of a light
bulb. Satellite measurements have shown that the variations of solar radiation are too small to explain climate change. But the panel has closed its eyes
to another, much more powerful way for the Sun to affect Earth’s climate. In 1996 we discovered a surprising influence of the Sun – its impact on Earth’s cloud cover.
High-energy accelerated particles coming from exploded stars, the cosmic rays, help to form clouds. When the Sun is active, its magnetic field is better at shielding us against the cosmic rays coming from outer space, before they reach our planet.
By regulating the Earth’s cloud cover, the Sun can turn the temperature up and down. High solar activity means fewer clouds and and a warmer world. Low solar activity and
poorer shielding against cosmic rays result in increased cloud cover and hence a cooling. As the Sun’s magnetism doubled in
strength during the 20th century, this natural mechanism may be responsible for a large part of global warming seen then. That also explains why most climate scientists try to ignore this possibility. It does not favour their idea that the 20th century temperature rise
was mainly due to human emissions of CO2. If the Sun provoked a significant part of warming in the 20th Century, then the contribution by CO2 must necessarily be smaller. Ever since we put forward our theory in 1996, it has been subjected to very sharp criticism, which is normal in science. First it was said that a link between clouds and solar activity could not be correct, because no physical mechanism was known. But in 2006, after
many years of work, we completed experiments at DTU Space that demonstrated the existence of a physical mechanism. The cosmic rays help to form aerosols, which are the seeds
for cloud formation. Then came the criticism that the mechanism we found in the laboratory could not work in the real atmosphere, and therefore had no practical
significance. We have just rejected that criticism emphatically. It turns out that the Sun itself performs what might be called natural experiments. Giant solar eruptions can cause the cosmic ray intensity on
earth to dive suddenly over a few days. In the days following an eruption, cloud cover can fall by about 4 per cent. And the amount of liquid water in cloud droplets is
reduced by almost 7 per cent. Here is a very large effect – indeed so great that in popular terms the Earth’s clouds originate in space. So we have watched the Sun’s magnetic activity with increasing concern, since it began to wane in the mid-1990s. That the Sun might now fall asleep in a deep minimum was suggested by solar scientists at a meeting in Kiruna in Sweden two years ago. So when
Nigel Calder and I updated our book The Chilling Stars, we wrote a little provocatively that “we are advising our
friends to enjoy global warming while it lasts.” In fact global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning. Mojib Latif from the University of Kiel argued at the recent UN World Climate
Conference in Geneva that the cooling may continue through the next 10 to 20 years. His explanation was a natural change in the North Atlantic circulation, not in solar
activity. But no matter how you interpret them, natural variations in climate are making a comeback. The outcome may be that the Sun itself will demonstrate its importance for climate and so challenge the theories of global warming. No climate
model has predicted a cooling of the Earth – quite the contrary. And this means that the projections of future climate are unreliable. A forecast saying it may be either
warmer or colder for 50 years is not very useful, and science is not yet able to predict solar activity. So in many ways we stand at a crossroads. The near future will be extremely interesting. I think it is important to accept that Nature pays no heed
to what we humans think about it. Will the greenhouse theory survive a significant cooling of the Earth? Not in its current dominant form. Unfortunately, tomorrow’s climate
challenges will be quite different from the greenhouse theory’s predictions. Perhaps it will become fashionable again to investigate the Sun’s impact on our climate. -Professor Henrik Svensmark is director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at DTU Space. His book The
Chilling Stars has also been published in Danish as Klima og Kosmos Gads Forlag, DK ISBN 9788712043508) (WUWT) Right... More Arid-Prone - Reduced plant cover could make some deserts
expand faster As global warming dries out parts of the Earth, the loss of vegetation could hasten expansion of the world’s subtropical deserts, according to a study in Geophysical
Research Letters. So, it gets warmer & drier, increasing deserts and planetary albedo, which makes the planet warmer [!] and drier? Try a
simple energy balance model -- increasing albedo 1% reduces mean temperature by approximately 1 °C. Reducing greenhouse effect (GHE) by 1% (entirely plausible
with a drying planet given that water vapor and droplets account for the vast majority of GHE) further reduces the mean temperature by more than 1 °C. Dropping
planetary mean temperature by a couple of degrees would more than circumvent their hypothetical enhanced greenhouse heating, wouldn't it? CO2 makes Earth greenest in decades In June 2009, Anthony Watts reposted an article by Lawrence Solomon that pointed out that the Earth is greener than it has been in decades if not centuries. Stern: Rich nations will have to forget about growth to stop
climate change Economic expansion cannot be achieved forever if greenhouse gases are to be curbed, warns the leading economist and author of the UK's government's report on climate
change (The Guardian) Idiot! We don't want to stop or curb emissions of carbon dioxide because it's the best thing humans ever did for life on Earth and we don't want to curb
economic growth because it's the best thing humans ever did for humans. Security fears used to sell climate bill -
Supporters of President Obama's energy and climate plan are launching a campaign to tout its benefits for national security. Polls show that message resonates with voters Reporting from Washington - After months of promoting President Obama's climate plan as a vehicle for creating millions of clean-energy jobs, supporters of the legislation
are increasingly pushing another strategy -- touting its benefits for national security. Quite falsely, too. If people can feed their families and improve their economic status they are much less driven to emigration or aggression for
survival. The security risks of suppressing the energy supply and global economy far outweigh all other considerations. If anything security fears should quell so-called
climate change legislation. Tipping
Point for the Climate Porn Industry Headlines don’t get much more alarmist than this… As Tory Outcast points out, the story that the Independent Newspaper thinks a
catastrophe is in fact far more mundane: The article by Tony Patterson tells the story of two commercial vessels which have managed to navigate the North East passage and uses their success as irrefutable
proof that we are all going to die. Such high-pitched tabloidism from the ‘Independent’ is nothing new of course. It epitomises what a think-tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), called,
in 2006, ‘Climate Porn’. A BBC article at the time, picked up the story, and quoted IPPR’s head of climate
change, Simon Retallack: “It is appropriate to call [what some of these groups publish] ‘climate porn’, because on some level it is like a disaster movie,” Mr Retallack told the BBC
News website. “The public become disempowered because it’s too big for them; and when it sounds like science fiction, there is an element of the unreal there.” Later that year, the then Director of the Tyndall Centre, Professor Mike Hulme warned that the language being
used - not just by the media, but also by politicians, campaigners, and scientists - in the discussion around climate change was increasingly removed from anything
scientific, and was likely to encourage people to switch off: But over the last few years a new environmental phenomenon has been constructed in this country - the phenomenon of “catastrophic” climate change. It seems that mere “climate change” was not going to be bad enough, and so now it must be “catastrophic” to be worthy of attention. The increasing use of this pejorative term - and its bedfellow qualifiers “chaotic”, “irreversible”, “rapid” - has altered the public discourse around
climate change. [...] The language of catastrophe is not the language of science. It will not be visible in next year’s global assessment from the world authority of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). To state that climate change will be “catastrophic” hides a cascade of value-laden assumptions which do not emerge from empirical or theoretical science. Three years later, the BBC reports this week from the British Science Festival: The British public has become more sceptical about climate change over the last five years, according to a survey. Twice as many people now agree that “claims that human activities are changing the climate are exaggerated”. Four in 10 believe that many leading experts still question the evidence. One in five are “hard-line sceptics”. The survey, by Cardiff University, shows there is still some way to go before the public’s perception matches that of their elected leaders. Psychologist Lorraine Whitmarsh, who conducted the research while at the Tyndall Centre,
doesn’t seem to have paid much attention to the words of her former boss. As with much social science dealing with matters of climate change, the survey seems to have less
to do with shedding light on public attitudes and behaviour and more to do with trying to change them: “Unfortunately, some people latch on to this uncertainty and say ‘let’s carry on as we are’.” She feels that many people are not “playing their part” in reducing humanity’s impact on the environment. [...] “In general people are showing little willingness to change their lifestyles. “They will recycle, unplug the TV and change their light bulbs; but they won’t change how they travel or how they eat. “These are the things that are going to make the biggest difference” It’s interesting that Whitmarsh’s case seems to be reliant on the same outmoded notion of science communication that social scientists have been instrumental in
dispelling. The ‘deficit model’ holds that public opposition to certain scientific developments and technologies is simply the result of scientific illiteracy. Get the
public up to speed, it says, and they will surely make the ‘right’ decisions. We’ve mentioned before that, while the deficit model and the push for ‘public understanding
of science’ have generally been supplanted by strategies of ‘public engagement’ and ‘upstream engagement’, and science academies and governments seek dialogues with
the public on everything from nanotech to genomics, climate change is the subject of decidedly one-way conversations. Which is hardly surprising, given that climate change
mitigation is central to all parties’ manifestos while at the same time being the source of significant distrust on the part of the electorate. Whitmarsh does attempt to distance herself from the deficit model: we argue that there is a need to avoid a ‘deficit model’ in relation to carbon literacy, and to explore situated meanings of carbon and energy in everyday life
and decisions, within the broader context of structural opportunities for and barriers to low‐carbon lifestyles. But that all goes out of the window when it comes to how to get people to do the ‘right’ thing: Together this evidence indicates that individuals would benefit from education to promote understanding and skills to manage their carbon emissions, as well as
structural measures to enable and encourage carbon capability. Our survey showed that misperceptions exist which may be addressed through informational approaches (e.g.,
highlighting the contribution of meat production to climate change). However, the low uptake of alternatives to driving and flying, and of political actions, likely
reflects broader structural and cultural impediments to behaviour change noted elsewhere. She says as much, too, in her comments to the BBC: But I think what we have to get across is that residual uncertainty in science is normal. ‘Residual uncertainty’ has nothing to do with it. The problem for Whitmarsh, and other academics who fail to identify the difference between activism and research, is
that the over-statement of ‘the science’ is not normal, and the public are actually rather more clued up - even if only instinctively - than she gives them credit for.
And in fact the public seem rather better informed than her. As we saw, the IPPR and the Director of the UK’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research - none of them sceptics - were warning back in 2006 that the climate change
pudding had been over-egged, and was likely to damage the possibility of reaching the public. Mike Hulme, as director of the Tyndall Centre, would have been Whitmarsh’s
boss. It’s not as if Whitmarsh could possibly be unaware of the criticisms of the over-statement of climate change. Yet she searches for ways in which the public might be force-fed ‘carbon literacy’ programmes. There exist several non-climate-sceptic explanations for the public’s reluctance to absorb the climate change agenda that didn’t appeal to clumsy hypotheses about
disparity between official scientific truth and public opinion. These explanations credit the public with sufficient intelligence to have identified the tendency of many
politicians, scientists, campaigners and journalists to exaggerate climate change with stories of ‘tipping points’, ‘N-year windows to save the planet’, and
‘inevitable catastrophe’. But Whitmarsh seems to ignore these far more simple accounts, and takes the view that a new way of conveying the same imperatives to the public
is needed, rather than reflecting on the possibility that the public have, in fact, well understood the message and found it wanting. That is to say that it is possible to
believe that climate change is a problem, while believing that the politics, posturing and glib copy that is produced seemingly in order to address the problem in
fact plainly demonstrate a self-serving and cynical view of the public. Indeed, the ‘man in the street’ seems able to see in the environmental psychologist what the
environmental psychologist can’t even see in herself. This inability to self-reflect is the defining characteristic - the symptom - of the entire climate change
movement and those who uncritically engage in climate politics. With just a few, largely ignored exceptions, they will criticise anyone but themselves in reflecting on their
own failure. Back in 2006, in the BBC article featuring the IPPR’s criticism of climate porn, the Independent’s deputy editor, Ian Birrell defended his paper thus: If our readers thought we put climate change on our front pages for the same reason that porn mags put naked women on their front pages, they would stop reading us No sooner than his words were spoken, the readers of the Independent decided to express their own independence: In fact, our models suggest that the Indy will go into negative circulation in Summer 2018: But scientists predict the tipping point may have already passed sooner than will would have was been previously thought. (Climate Resistance) New 'hockey
stick' graph on climate change under fire - US Congressional inquiries on 'hockey stick' graph claim it is fundamentally flawed, writes Christopher Booker. A number of readers wrote in to express surprise at the recent letter from the US scientist Dr Michael Mann claiming that his famous "hockey stick" graph,
showing temperatures having suddenly soared at the end of the 20th century to unprecedented levels, had been endorsed by the US National Academy of Sciences. Neither of the
two Congressional inquiries involving the NAS did anything of the kind. Both found that the computer model used to create Dr Mann's "hockey stick", completely
rewriting climate history, was fundamentally flawed. BRITS 'LOSING FAITH' IN CLIMATE CHANGE
SCIENTISTS BRITONS are becoming less trusting of scientists who say climate change is caused by humans, according to new research. Ah, the scammers-in-chief: Carbon Credit Scheme Could Propel Action On Climate Change – UN New York, Sep 10 2009 10:10AM A United Nations-backed gathering on how to scale up a carbon credit system wrapped up today, with participants agreeing that the mechanism
can help contribute to a successful outcome at this December’s climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, which aims to conclude an ambitious new pact to curb
greenhouse gas emissions. (Press Release: United Nations) TOWARD COPENHAGEN: Developing Nations Reject ‘Climate
Protectionism’ BERLIN (IDN) – In run-up to a critical global conference coming December in Denmark, the developing countries are not inclined to “suffer the slings and arrows” of a
new and dangerous form of trade and technology protectionism fast emerging in the name of Climate Change. On way to Copenhagen, they are determined to “take arms against a
sea of troubles, and by opposing end them”. Europe proposal aims to unclog
global climate change talks The EU offered up to $15 billion to aid developing countries cutting emissions and urged rich nations to contribute more. (CSM) La-la land economics: Mexico, Argentina top G20 low-carbon shift -study LONDON, Sept 13 - Mexico and Argentina are leading a shift to make the global economy more climate friendly, according to an index of "carbon competitiveness",
the London-based thinktank E3G said on Sunday. Carbon is extremely useful to us and extremely life-friendly -- it will be a part of our energy future for at least the next century. Get used to it. Um... no: Australia coming last on climate AUSTRALIA ranks last among wealthy countries in being ready to compete in a clean energy future or play its part in a strong climate treaty, an international report has
found. In fact Australia is not throwing its economy over a cliff, making it a leader in resisting carbon idiocy. Oh... Push for clean coal THERE is no solution to climate change without rapid escalation of carbon capture and storage technology, Britain's climate ambassador has warned. Coal is already exactly what we want it to be, mined carbon. No amount of CCS can
significantly affect the global mean temperature. So there's no advantage in wasting that much energy and an environmental resource too, is there? ETS will kill Tourism, Transport and Trade” The Carbon Sense Coalition today claimed that the emissions trading schemes proposed for the western world will guarantee another global financial crisis for tourism,
transport and world trade. “You will know that the UK government is committed to an 80 % reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. Well, this week they have now recognised that greater growth in
air travel than anticipated is likely to occur and so they have proclaimed that emissions from other sectors will have to be cut by 90% by 2050. One hopes that their
projections for air travel are not on the low side or else we could find ourselves in the UK having to cut carbon emissions by 110%. See also why another lady will no longer be having holidays in Britain: http://carbon-sense.com/2009/09/12/green-britain/ Green jobs dopey, says CFMEU leader, Tony Maher ONE of Australia's most powerful union leaders has lashed out at the push for green jobs, labelling it a "dopey term", and has dismissed environmental campaigns
against some of the nation's major export industries as "judgmental nonsense". Yes, "green jobs" is a dopey and meaningless term. No, CCS is not a viable or useful strategy for any reason but particularly since carbon is
an atmospheric resource, not a pollutant at all. Um... wow! Staff in carbon footprint trial face £100 fines for high
emissions People who emit more than their fair share of carbon emissions are having their pay docked in a trial that could lead to rationing being reintroduced via the workplace
after an absence of half a century. And their employees are sitting for this? Do they have to buy their own tools or stationary, their own toilet paper, maybe? Government in talks over tax on cyclists A ROAD tax on cyclists is being considered by Scottish Government civil servants. And fair enough, if users should pay then all users should pay. We have a post on licensing of road lice here.
Feel free to post your opinions over on the forum (self-register
for your free account if you haven't already done so). Lawrence Solomon: Endless oil -
Russian research has shown that the Earth doesn’t need dinosaurs to produce oil Do dead dinosaurs fuel our cars? The assumption that they do, along with other dead matter thought to have formed what are known as fossil fuels, has been an article of
faith for centuries. Our geologists are taught fossil fuel theory in our schools; our energy companies search for fossil fuels by divining where the dinosaurs lay down and
died. Sooner or later, we will run out of liquefied dinosaurs and be forced to turn to either nuclear or renewable fuels, virtually everyone believes. Greenhouse gas emissions from Alberta oilsands higher
than some countries: report Alberta's oilsands produce more greenhouse gas emissions than some European countries right now and will produce more than all of the world's volcanoes in just 11 years if
the pace of development continues, says a new report. Excellent! Life on Earth loves greenhouse gases, so go for it! The bit about CCS being an expensive nonsense is true but only because it is a
purposeless waste of energy. Shell urges oilsands support - Government, industry
haven't done enough: CEO Canada's oilsands are poised to fill a growing need for energy in Asia and the world, but both industry and governments have failed to promote the fuel source, and its
detractors have trashed it, said the head of Royal Dutch Shell. Norwegian vote may kill oilsands stake -
Statoil's Alberta role an issue in election he fate of Statoil- Hydro's oilsands investments in Canada could hinge on the outcome of Norway's general election Monday. Green fury at plans to sell brown coal
to India THE State Government is considering exporting millions of tonnes of high-polluting brown coal to developing nations under a plan championed by Energy Minister Peter
Batchelor in a recent cabinet meeting. Schwarzenegger to veto renewable energy bills - Democratic legislation would set up too many
regulatory hurdles in California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and some energy producers said Saturday. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office said Saturday that he would veto legislation requiring a third of California's energy to come from renewable sources by 2020, choosing
instead to mandate the change through an executive order. Couldn't resist: World first as British
scientists harness drizzle power The
rest of the world may be moving towards greater use of solar power or wind power, but renewable energy generation that taps into specific local atmospheric conditions in the
UK has leapt forward with a Manchester project that uses drizzle to power street lights. Technical advances in British solutions to the global energy crisis
will be driven by the UK’s unique micro-climates, says Professor Tom Choularton of University of Manchester’s School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences. He explained: ‘Drizzle, which occurs nowhere else in such natural
abundance, gives us three ways to generate power. First, it is a relentless source of downwardly vertical hydro energy to drive small turbines. ‘At the same time, the spent drizzle provides a penetrating chill
for heat-exchange units. Finally, the small amount of electricity that remains in drizzle droplets from the positively-charged source clouds is farmed and channelled into AA
batteries that are then sold at car boot sales. ‘In Manchester, we are fitting lamp-posts and dozens of other
outdoor freestanding structures with the tiny but complex drizzle power units that will keep our streets illuminated, day and night. ‘We will soon have enough gloom power for all the city’s street
lights, with enough to spare to sell to other European cities that have no natural gloom, like Barcelona and Rome.’ In a parallel project based in the city centre, sonic capture is
being used to see if sound waves from traffic noise and the population’s constant whining and bragging can be converted into another source of energy. A trial of the sound abstraction system at a derby match between
City and United at Old Trafford had to be abandoned after an announcement that both Liverpool and Arsenal were winning away caused a sonic power surge that blew all the
floodlights. (NewsBuscuit) h/t Benny Peiser, CCNet Really funny and sadly, no more ludicrous than trying to use CCS to control the imaginary planetary thermostat. September 12, 2009
Little physical harm to non-residents from WTC dust NEW YORK - The plume of dust and smoke sent up by the World Trade Center collapse may not have been a substantial cause of respiratory symptoms among people living outside
of lower Manhattan, a new study suggests. Study: Traffic doesn't affect adults' lung health NEW YORK - People who live close to a busy road are no more likely than those living further away from heavy traffic to experience declines in lung function over time, new
research from the UK shows. Uh-huh... Britain "close to winning" H1N1 flu
fight-official LONDON - Britain is "tantalisingly close" to fending off the H1N1 influenza pandemic, medical officials said on Thursday, as figures show infections continue on
a downward trend. (Reuters) ... but were they ever at risk of "losing"? Was their panicked distribution of antivirals a good idea? U.S. campers developed drug-resistant flu: report WASHINGTON - Two girls given antiviral drugs in an effort to protect children at a summer camp from the new pandemic swine flu developed resistant virus, U.S. health
officials reported on Thursday. Australia reports first Tamiflu-resistant H1N1 case SYDNEY - The first Australian case of swine flu resistant to Roche Holding AG's antiviral drug Tamiflu was confirmed by the Western Australia state government on Friday. Drug-resistant influenza becoming a trickier target NEW YORK - Viruses resistant to antiviral medications are a growing problem, according to a study in The Netherlands. Gerson Therapy: Cancer Hope Or Cancer Hype? That's the title of my latest HND piece. Based on the indie movie the Beautiful Truth (2008),
this long ago discredited "therapy" got a new lease on life. Obama plays down importance of public option WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama addressed the elephant in the room -- a government-run health insurance option -- by playing down its importance in a big speech to
Congress on Wednesday, but not everyone was buying it. Obama’s
Health Care Speech in Plain English Hell
of a speech last night, eh? Here are a few of my favorite gems. Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. Translation: I, Barack Obama, ignoring thousands of years of failed price-control schemes, will impose price controls on health insurance. I will force insurers
to sell a $50k policies for $10k. What could go wrong? We were losing an average of 700,000 jobs per month. True. And your employer mandate would kill hundreds of thousands of low-wage jobs that would never come back. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how
much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses…. And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care. Translation: Boy! Are we going to force you to buy a lot of coverage! I will make sure that no government bureaucrat or insurance company bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need. …except for the bureaucrats I proposed
to put between you and your doctor. Some… supported a budget that would have essentially turned Medicare into a privatized voucher program. That will never happen on my watch. I will protect
Medicare. Translation: I will never let seniors control their own health care dollars. I will never give up Washington’s control over your health care decisions.
Mmmmuuuuhahahahahaha! …there are too many Americans counting on us to succeed. Translation: There are too many lobbyists counting on me to succeed: drug-industry lobbyists, health-insurance lobbyists, physician-cartel lobbyists,
large-employer lobbyists, hospital lobbyists…. It’s a plan that asks everyone to take responsibility for meeting this challenge – not just government and insurance companies, but employers and individuals. Translation: I’m going to tax the hell out of you, but I don’t want you to notice how much I’m going to tax you. So I’m going to tax employers and insurance
companies, and they’re going to pass the taxes on to you. Most of the taxes won’t even show up in the government’s budget. It’s all very clever. No, seriously –
just ask my economic advisor Larry Summers. It’s a plan that incorporates ideas from Senators and Congressmen; from Democrats and Republicans – and yes, from some of my opponents in both the primary and
general election. Translation: I may have savaged your
ideas in the past, called them irresponsible…risky…dangerous…whatever.
But that wasn’t about principle; I just wanted to become president. Now that I’m president, I need a win. So you’ll help me, won’t you? Hey, where’s Hillary?
(Michael F. Cannon, Cato at liberty) Reason Foundation’s Shikha Dalmia offers a colorful visual in her
take on President Obama’s health care speech: (Michael F. Cannon, Cato at liberty) Summing
Up Obama’s Health Care Address Cato health care experts dissected President Obama’s address
Wednesday night, providing live commentary throughout the speech. Overall impressions: Michael D. Tanner: Can’t see this as a game-changer. I would give him an ‘A’ on delivery, but at best a ‘C’ on
substance. There were surprisingly few details and very little new. Patrick Basham: Strikingly political/partisan rather than statesmanlike speech. Obama chose to pressure Republicans to
support his plan rather than attempt to persuade them to do so. He risks a another wave of (effective) opposition from conservative talk radio & cable TV. Michael F. Cannon: Translation: My health plan cannot work if you are free to make your own decisions. (Chris Moody, Cato at liberty) A
Consumer’s Look at Health Care Michael Tanner and Michael Cannon have been doing an excellent job exposing the fallacies and misconceptions of Obama’s proposal to further expand government
intervention in the health-care sector. One of their challenges is explaining to people that many of the problems that currently exist are the fault of government.
(Daniel J. Mitchell, Cato at liberty) U.S. needs own supply of medical isotopes: Experts CHICAGO - The U.S. is under the gun to find sufficient supplies of medical isotopes used in the diagnosis and follow-up of patients with potentially lethal medical
conditions. That's because a global shortage of medical isotopes used in scores of medical imaging tests has forced some doctors to delay patient care or shift to more costly
medical tests, experts told U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday. The chemical loons are out: My Toxic Baby – Min
Sook Lee Interview (2009 Toronto International Film Festival) My Toxic Baby - Song JiMy Toxic Baby is a new documentary film by Min Sook Lee. One mother’s search for safe, sane and affordable ways to raise her child (Song Ji) in a
toxic world. The film is having its world premiere at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival on Sept 11th. (kempton) It may be an effective technique, suggesting to the gullible that there is something unusual about product ingredients having chemical names but it
doesn't tell them anything useful. Where are these compounds found: Not just useless but dangerous too? Job injuries worse after
Daylight Saving shift NEW YORK - When the clock "springs forward" an hour for Daylight Saving Time, on-the-job injuries may follow, according to a new study in the Journal of Applied
Psychology. "Long sleepers" show higher dementia risk NEW YORK - How could something that feels so good - a long night's sleep - have negative consequences? Unfortunately, that is one possibility that results of a new study
suggest: Older adults who sleep nine or more hours each day may have a higher risk of developing dementia than those who spend fewer hours in bed. (Reuters Health) Middle age meat eating may protect later abilities NEW YORK - Meat eaters might happily chew on the findings of a new study out of Japan hinting that eating meat at least every two days during middle age may help maintain
independent daily activities when older. (Reuters Health) Curbing Obesity Epidemic Key to
Health Care Reform: Experts - Overweight is major contributing factor for chronic disease, U.S. health groups say FRIDAY, Sept. 11 -- A diverse alliance of payer, provider and consumer organizations, girded by two former U.S. Surgeons General, on Wednesday urged policymakers to
address the nation's obesity epidemic as part of federal health care reform legislation. The Crone trots out Pollan, again: Big Food
vs. Big Insurance TO listen to President Obama’s speech on Wednesday night, or to just about anyone else in the health care debate, you would think that the biggest problem with health
care in America is the system itself — perverse incentives, inefficiencies, unnecessary tests and procedures, lack of competition, and greed. Simple answer fella, stop medicalizing people's weight and the "problem" disappears immediately. Court: Employer must pay for weight-loss surgery INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana court has ruled that a pizza shop must pay for a 340-pound employee's weight-loss surgery to ensure the success of another operation for a back
injury he suffered at work — raising concern among businesses bracing for more such claims. Low self-esteem leads to obesity Children with self-esteem problems are more likely to be obese as adults, a research team has found. Food Habits Are More Important Than Most Important Obesity Risk Gene The risk of becoming obese is 2.5 times higher for those who have double copies of the best known risk gene for overweight and obesity. However, this is only true if the
fat consumption is high. A low fat diet neutralizes the harmful effects of the gene. The Real Cause of Obesity - It's not gluttony. It's genetics. Why our moralizing misses the
point. Despite receiving a MacArthur genius award for her work in Alabama "forging an inspiring model of compassionate and effective medical care in one of the most
underserved regions of the United States," Regina Benjamin's qualifications to be surgeon general have been questioned. Why? She is overweight. "It tends to
undermine her credibility," Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, said in an interview with ABC News. "I do think at a time when
a lot of public-health concern is about the national epidemic of obesity, having a surgeon general who is noticeably overweight raises questions in people's minds." Using forensics to reveal medical ghostwriting NEW YORK - Medical editors are growing increasingly frustrated with top researchers who sign their names to manuscripts but fail to disclose the contributions of
ghostwriters paid for by pharmaceutical companies. In an effort to crack down on the practice -- widely viewed as unethical -- one tech-savvy editor has been turning to data
forensics worthy of a crime investigation drama. More than 40,000 Japanese aged 100 or over: survey TOKYO - More than 40,000 Japanese people are aged 100 or over, up 10 percent over last year, a government survey showed on Friday. The report is the latest reminder of the
economic problems facing the world's most rapidly aging country. (Reuters) Child deaths fall, but "grossly insufficient": U.N. LONDON - Childhood deaths have declined across the world, according to data released on Thursday, but mortality is increasingly concentrated in poor countries. Vaccines could halve sickle-cell deaths in Africa LONDON - In Africa, children with sickle cell anemia develop bacteremia -bacterial infection of the blood - at rates up to 30 times higher than in children without sickle
cell anemia. From Deep Pacific, Ugly and Tasty, With a
Catch The answer to the eternal mystery of what makes up a Filet-O-Fish sandwich turns out to involve an ugly creature from the sunless depths of the Pacific, whose bounty, it
seems, is not limitless. With CoP15 looming there is currently a huge push to "do something". Not just a little something either but something really drastic about whatever is the
current scary nom du jour for enhanced greenhouse warming. Let's just stop and think for a moment... There seems to be fairly general agreement that the world has warmed about 0.7 °C over the last 250 years or so (since the Industrial Revolution and the end of the
Little Ice Age). That hasn't been a smooth warming but occurred in a series of about 30 year phases with similar "rest periods" of no warming or slight cooling in
between. More controversially there are suppositions this is indicative of looming catastrophic warming. In the past there have been claims Earth had been consistently cooling for
a couple of thousand years prior to this small warming (the briefly popular "hockey stick" hypothesis) but investigation has shown this to be nonsense. In the two decades since the U.S. held its theatrically staged Senate Hearings in the hottest part of the year and with the air conditioning sabotaged there has been one
decade of warming temperatures and then one without any warming. Solar scientists and other sun watchers suggest we are in for a period of low solar activity and another decade or two without warming, if not cooling. There hasn't been any warming for a decade. We aren't expecting any for at least another decade. Why should we allow ourselves to be stampeded into panicked decisions while the world stubbornly refuses to heat catastrophically? Global
Temperature Report: August 2009 From The University Of Alabama At Huntsville The figures below are courtesy of Phillip Gentry of the University of Alabama at Huntsville. Note that in August, the ENSO effect on lower tropospheric temperatures is
still weak. There are large cool anomaly regions in the southern hemisphere which are quite prominent, as is the warm regional anomaly in northern North America and
adjacent Arctic Ocean. The regional character of the warm and cold regions are quite evident also. Such regional variations is one of the reasons that seeking to define the
climate system and its variability and change over time using a global average surface temperature is so flawed (e.g. see
also). For Additional Information: Dr. John Christy, UAH, (256) 961-7763 [john.christy@nsstc.uah.edu] and Dr. Roy Spencer, UAH, (256) 961-7960 Color maps of local temperature anomalies may soon be available on-line at: The processed temperature data is available on-line at: vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
(Climate Science) The claims of unprecedented (but which is not consistent with other sources of climate data) Arctic warming which I reported on last Friday (see) has
prompted today’s post. We have published several papers on the areal extent of the coldest temperatures at 5oo hPa within each year over a multi-decadal time period.
We also proposed a physical mechanism (i.e. the transit of air masses over open ocean in which cumulus convection resulted in a constraint onthe coldest temperatures to
not much colder than -40C). These papers include Chase, T.N., B. Herman, R.A. Pielke Sr., X. Zeng, and M. Leuthold, 2002: A proposed mechanism for the
regulation of minimum midtropospheric temperatures in the Arctic. J. Geophys. Res., 107(D14), 10.10291/2001JD001425 Tsukernik, M., T.N. Chase, M.C. Serreze, R.G. Barry, R. Pielke Sr., B. Herman, and X. Zeng, 2004: On the
regulation of minimum mid-tropospheric temperatures in the Arctic. Geophys. Res. Letts., 31, L06112, doi:10.1029/2003GL018831. Herman, B., M. Barlage, T.N. Chase, and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2008: Update on a proposed mechanism for the
regulation of minimum mid-tropospheric and surface temperatures in the Arctic and Antarctic. J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 113, D24101,
doi:10.1029/2008JD009799. Ben Herman at The University of Arizona (UA) has introduced a routine update for this climate metric (the temperatures at 500 h Pa with the coldest values
highlighted) on the website of the UA Department of Atmospheric Sciences. The Northern and
Southern Hemisphere information is accessible from The use of this climate metric permits the real time tracking of the rate at which the higher latitudes cool off each Fall, warm up in the Spring, as well as the
maximum areal extent achieved each year. (Climate Science) There is further support for our paper Klotzbach, P.J., R.A. Pielke Sr., R.A. Pielke Jr., J.R. Christy, and R.T. McNider, 2009: An alternative
explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere. J. Geophys. Res., accepted. The support is from an unlikely source, a 1997 paper David R. Easterling, Briony Horton, Philip D. Jones, Thomas C. Peterson, Thomas R. Karl, David E. Parker, M. James Salinger, Vyacheslav Razuvayev, Neil Plummer, Paul
Jamason, Christopher K. Folland, 1997: Maximum
and Minimum Temperature Trends for the Globe. Science Volume 277 18 July1997. The abstract of their paper reads “Analysis of the global mean surface air temperature has shown that its increase is due, at least in part, to differential changes in daily maximum and minimum
temperatures, resulting in a narrowing of the diurnal temperature range (DTR). The analysis, using station metadata and improved areal coverage for much of the Southern
Hemisphere landmass, indicates that the DTR is continuing to decrease in most parts of the world, that urban effects on globally and hemispherically averaged time series are
negligible, and that circulation variations in parts of the Northern Hemisphere appear to be related to the DTR. Atmospheric aerosol loading in the Southern Hemisphere is
much less than that in the Northern Hemisphere, suggesting that there are likely a number of factors, such as increases in cloudiness, contributing to the decreases in
DTR.” In their paper, they present a figure (their Figure 1) of long term trends over land for maximum and minimum temperatures. The figure caption for the figure reads “Time series of annual average maximum temperature, minimum temperature, and DTR for (A) the globe, using all available stations, (B) the globe, using only nonurban
stations, (C) Chile and Argentina, using only nonurban stations, and (D) Southeast Asia, using only nonurban stations. The heavy line is the result of smoothing with a
nine-point binomial filter with reflected ends. Trends (slopes) for the maximum temperatures in (C) and (D) are not statistically significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed t
test).” For the time period 1949 to 1993 for the global using all available stations, they show a slope of 0.88C per hundred years for the maximum temperature, but over
double that of 1.86C per hundred years for the minimum temperatures. This warming is seen in each of their plots in their Figure 1. In fact, for (D), Southeast Asia, while
they report a cooling of -0.43C per hundred years for the maximum temperatures (although not statistically significant), they still report a statistically significant linear
slope of +2.16C per hundred years for the minimum temperatures. The presence of a warm bias in the surface temperature record associated with the minimum temperatures (a bias when
used to diagnose temperature trends through the lower troposphere) that we reported on in our paper Klotzbach et al 2009 is provided further evidence on its
robustness from the Easterling et al 1997 paper. (Climate Science) Atmospheric Solar Heat Amplifier Discovered For
decades, the supporters of CO2 driven global warming have discounted changes in solar irradiance as far too small to cause significant climate
change. Though the Sun's output varies by less than a tenth of a percent in magnitude during its 11-year sunspot cycle, that small variation produces changes in sea surface
temperatures two or three times as large as it should. A new study in Science demonstrates how two previously known mechanisms acting together amplify the Sun's impact
in an unsuspected way. Not surprisingly, the new discovery is getting a cool reception from the CO2 climate change clique. Scientists have long suspected that changes in solar output may have triggered the Little Ice Age that gripped Europe several centuries ago, as well as
droughts that brought down Chinese dynasties. Now, in a report in the August 28 issue of the journal Science entitled “Amplifying
the Pacific Climate System Response to a Small 11-Year Solar Cycle Forcing,” Gerald A. Meehl et al. have demonstrated a possible mechanism that could explain how
seemingly small changes in solar output can have a big impact on Earth's climate. The researchers claim that two different parts of the atmosphere act in concert to amplify
the effects of even minuscule solar fluctuations. Global sea surface temperature (SST) has been observed to vary by about 0.1°C over the course of the 11-year solar cycle. This should require a change in
solar irradiance by more than 0.5 W m–2, but the globally averaged amplitude change from solar maximum to solar minimum is only about 0.2 W m–2.
There has long been a question regarding how this small solar signal could be amplified to produce a measurable response. In fact, the lack of a plausible mechanism has been
used to discount the Sun's effect on climate by those who support carbon dioxide as the primary driver of global warming. That line of argument may no longer be persuasive.
As the report's authors state in the paper's abstract: Two mechanisms, the top-down stratospheric response of ozone to fluctuations of shortwave solar forcing and the bottom-up coupled ocean-atmosphere
surface response, are included in versions of three global climate models, with either mechanism acting alone or both acting together. We show that the two mechanisms act
together to enhance the climatological off-equatorial tropical precipitation maxima in the Pacific, lower the eastern equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures during
peaks in the 11-year solar cycle, and reduce low-latitude clouds to amplify the solar forcing at the surface. The two mechanisms mentioned have been modeled individually in the past, and neither alone proved sufficient. Prior to this new report both mechanisms had
not been included in the same model. Some models operate from the top down, beginning with the small changes in the sun's ultraviolet radiation that occur during the solar
cycle. The enhanced UV radiation, which promotes stratospheric ozone production and UV absorption, warm that layer of the atmosphere differently at different latitudes. The
temperature gradients this creates provide a positive feedback amplifying the original solar forcing while affecting the climate in the lower atmosphere. Other models work from the bottom up, using a mechanism that centers around the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Solar energy added during the peak of a solar
cycle causes more water to evaporate from the ocean's surface. Through a long chain of changes in atmospheric and oceanic circulation, this results in fewer clouds forming in
the subtropics. Fewer clouds mean more solar energy reaches the ocean, resulting in a positive feedback loop that amplifies the Sun's climate impact. The problem to date has been that neither mechanism had a large enough impact to account for observed temperature changes. Suspecting that the two might
reinforce each other if modeled together, Meehl et al. decided to modify some existing climate models: “Here we use several related climate model versions wherein we
can include both mechanisms separately (an atmospheric model with no stratospheric dynamics or chemistry coupled to ocean, land, and sea ice; an atmospheric model with
stratospheric dynamics and ozone chemistry driven by specified SSTs and sea ice) and then combine them (the atmospheric model with stratospheric dynamics and ozone chemistry
coupled to the ocean, land, and sea ice) to test if they can, indeed, amplify the climate system response to solar forcing to produce responses of the magnitude seen in the
observations.” Two existing models were chosen, one each for the two distinct mechanisms identified above. These were a global coupled climate model,the Community Climate
System Model version 3 (CCSM3), and a version of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM). The first model, CCSM3, has coupled components of atmosphere, ocean,
land, and sea ice. It does not have a resolved stratosphere and no interactive ozone chemistry, so the CCSM3 includes only the bottom-up coupled air-sea mechanism. The second
model, WACCM, is a global atmospheric model run with climatological SSTs and changes in solar variability with other external forcings are held constant. It has no
dynamically coupled air-sea interaction, but does include a resolved stratosphere and fully interactive ozone chemistry that can respond to the UV part of the solar forcing.
Given this configuration it should include the top-down UV stratospheric ozone mechanism. After confirming that neither model on its own faithfully reproduced the observed changes in temperature over a solar cycle—both predicted changes about
a third the size of those observed—a new model was constructed using the atmospheric component from WACCM coupled to the dynamical ocean, land, and sea ice modules in
CCSM3. This hybrid model produced negative SST anomalies in the equatorial eastern Pacific of greater than –0.6°C, much closer to the observed values of –0.8°C. In the
researchers' words: “Thus, these models indicate that each mechanism acting alone can produce a weak signature of the observed enhancement of the tropical precipitation
maxima, but when both act in concert, the two mechanisms work together to produce climate anomalies much closer to the observed values, thus amplifying the relatively small
solar forcing to produce significant SST and precipitation anomalies in the tropical Indo-Pacific region.” Results for both SST and precipitation can be seen in the figure
above, taken from the report. Instead of being off by a factor of three as the conventional models were, their new model was within 25% of the actual observed SST variation, a huge
improvement indicating that the combination of mechanisms is much more than the sum of their individual effects (see the plot below). This combination of effects enhances
precipitation maxima, reduces low-latitude cloud cover, and lowers the temperature of surface waters in the tropical Pacific Ocean, resulting in the larger warm-to-cold
variation. “This highlights the importance of stratospheric processes working in conjunction with coupled processes at the surface,” they concluded. While this result is from modeling, not empirical evidence, it is an important one. As I have often said on this blog, modeling is what you do when your
intuition fails you and you need new insights. This combination of mechanisms, building a new hybrid model that simulates conditions not captured by previous models, is a
great example of how models should be used. Note that this new model still did not reproduce the observed data, but it did get much closer to reality—an indication that the
coupled atmospheric mechanism approach could be on the right track. “The atmosphere and oceans are a big coupled system,” says Joanna Haigh of Imperial College London,
who developed the top-down mechanism, “but it's incredibly complicated.” Of course more physical observations will be necessary to lend credence to this hypothesis, but
finding evidence is much easier once the cause is know (or at least suspected). Why then, should this report be getting the cold shoulder from the climate change community? Writing in the same issue of Science, Richard A. Kerr reported,
“like much work in the long-controversial field of sun-climate relations, the new modeling is getting a cool reception.” This is because of what the existence of a
coupled atmospheric solar amplifier could mean to climate change theory overall. Though Meehl et al. include the obligatory “this response also cannot be used to
explain recent global warming” statement at the end of their report, what remains unsaid is that if this effect is present for decadal solar variations it would also be
present for longer term changes in the Sun's output. As I have previously reported, scientific evidence from NASA points to changes in the type of solar radiation arriving at the top of Earth's atmosphere as
a possible trigger for other powerful climate regulating mechanisms. Scientists have discovered, that while total solar irradiance changes by only 0.1 percent, the change in
the intensity of ultraviolet light varies by much larger amounts. According to Judith Lean, a solar physicist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., its
possible that long-term patterns—operating over hundreds or thousands of years—could cause even more pronounced swings in solar irradiance (see “Scientists
Discover The Sun Does Affect Earth's Climate”). The discovery of the solar heat amplifying effect provides the causal link between historical changes in solar activity
and climate change. Previously, the direct impact of increased irradiance on global avarage temperature has been estimated at around 0.25°C last century—a three fold
amplifying effect would raise that to 0.75°C. This leaves practically no warming effect for CO2 to account for and renders the whole anthropogenic
global warming argument moot. In other words, if the atmospheric solar amplifier theory is correct anthropogenic global warming is wrong, a useless theory describing a
nonexistent phenomenon. It seems like poetic justice that a modeling experiment may point the way to discrediting global warming once and for all. Be safe, enjoy the interglacial and stay skeptical. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth) Just a couple of interesting articles that I think deserve wider readership. Henrik Svensmark on the coming global cooling: “enjoy global warming while it lasts” (this is a Google translation from Danish, so the English is a little crazy) While the sun sleeps HENRIK SVENSMARK, Professor, DTU, Copenhagen Indeed, global warming stopped and a cooling is beginning. No climate model has predicted a cooling of the Earth, on the contrary. This means that projections of future
climate is unpredictable, writes Henrik Svensmark. The star which keeps us alive, has over the last few years almost no sunspots, which are the usual signs of the sun’s magnetic activity. Last week, reported the scientific team behind Sohosatellitten (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) that the number of sunspot-free days suggest that solar activity is
heading towards its lowest level in about 100 years’. Everything indicates that the Sun is moving into a hibernation-like state, and the obvious question is whether it
has any significance for us on Earth. If you ask the International Panel on Climate Change IPCC, representing the current consensus on climate change, so the answer is a reassuring ‘nothing’. But history
and recent research suggests that it is probably completely wrong. Let us take a closer look at why. Solar activity has always varied. Around the year 1000, we had a period of very high solar activity, which coincided with the medieval warmth. It was a period when
frosts in May was an almost unknown phenomenon and of great importance for a good harvest. Vikings settled in Greenland and explored the coast of North America. For
example, China’s population doubled over this period. But after about 1300, the earth began to get colder and it was the beginning of the period we now call the Little
Ice Age. In this cold period all the Viking settlements in Greenland disappeared. Swedes [were surprised to see Denmark to freeze over in ice], and the Thames in London
froze repeatedly. But more serious was the long periods of crop failure, which resulted in a poorly nourished population, because of disease and hunger [population was
reduced] by about 30 per cent in Europe. New linkage between solar cycle and Earth’s atmosphere discovered Scientists discover surprise in Earth’s upper atmosphere UCLA atmospheric scientists have discovered a previously unknown basic mode of energy transfer from the solar wind to the Earth’s magnetosphere. The research,
federally funded by the National Science Foundation, could improve the safety and reliability of spacecraft that operate in the upper atmosphere. “It’s like something else is heating the atmosphere besides the sun. This discovery is like finding it got hotter when the sun went down,” said Larry Lyons, UCLA
professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and a co-author of the research, which is in press in two companion papers in the Journal of Geophysical Research. The sun, in addition to emitting radiation, emits a stream of ionized particles called the solar wind that affects the Earth and other planets in the solar system. The
solar wind, which carries the particles from the sun’s magnetic field, known as the interplanetary magnetic field, takes about three or four days to reach the Earth. When
the charged electrical particles approach the Earth, they carve out a highly magnetized region — the magnetosphere — which surrounds and protects the Earth. Charged particles carry currents, which cause significant modifications in the Earth’s magnetosphere. This region is where communications spacecraft operate and where
the energy releases in space known as substorms wreak havoc on satellites, power grids and communications systems. The rate at which the solar wind transfers energy to the magnetosphere can vary widely, but what determines the rate of energy transfer is unclear. “We thought it was known, but we came up with a major surprise,” said Lyons, who conducted the research with Heejeong Kim, an assistant researcher in the UCLA
Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, and other colleagues. Read on here (Solar Science) Still clinging to the carbon-controls-climate model... More oxygen --
colder climate Everybody talks about CO2 and other greenhouse gases as causes of global warming and the large climate changes we are currently experiencing. But what about the
atmospheric and oceanic oxygen content? Which role does oxygen content play in global warming? This question has become extremely relevant now that Professor Robert Frei from
the Department of Geography and Geology at the University of Copenhagen, in collaboration with colleagues from Uruguay, England and the University of Southern Denmark, has
established that there is a historical correlation between oxygen and temperature fluctuations towards global cooling. CFC Destruction of Ozone - Major Cause of Recent Global Warming! Abstract: There has been a lot of discussion about global warming. Some say anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions caused the earth to warm. Others say there is no
abnormality at all, that it is just natural warming. As you will see from the data presented and analyzed, a greater than normal warming did occur in recent times but no
measurements confirm an increase in CO2 emissions, whether anthropogenic or natural, had any effect on global temperatures. There is however, strong evidence that
anthropogenic emissions of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were the major cause of the near recent abnormal warming. (Bob Ashworth, Energy Pulse) Nifty hypothesis, it's just a pity there was no physical ozone depletion to support it... There were obvious steps in lower stratospheric mean
temperature following major explosive volcanic eruptions (immediate warming followed by greater cooling) but no trend in between or subsequently. Not at all what should be
expected from any significant CFC-induced ozone destruction. A Skeptical Take on Global Warming This Capital Weather Gang blog entry is written with considerable trepidation given the politically-charged atmosphere surrounding human-induced global warming. SPPI Monthly CO2 Report: August No heat buildup in the oceans = no global warming: Last week a UK tribunal ruled that belief in manmade global warming had the same status as a religious conviction, such as transubstantiation. True believers in the
hypothesis will need mountains of faith in the years ahead. Storm events magnified by
increased public awareness, not necessarily by global warming There isn't so much a shift in severe storm weather activity in Ontario due to global warming, but rather a greater public awareness about the storm activity, an
Environment Canada meteorologist told a group attending a presentation on Ontario's Aug. 20, 2009 tornadoes. Eye-roller: Polar bear, arctic fox, caribou hurt by climate
change CHICAGO — Polar bear cubs, the arctic fox and caribou herds are among the victims of dramatic changes in the Arctic due to climate change, a study published Thursday
found. Actually we don't think the world is +1 °C since about 1750 yet and there's no guarantee it will be in the next century. And no one who has any
actual knowledge about climate is "predicting" anything, much less +6 °C in 100 years. Eric Post in his most fevered imagination mode... I like it :) Real modellers are model citizens Young repeat offenders can evade the twin perils of alcopops and chlamydia by building accurate scale models of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Study rebuts UN livestock study - Researchers measure animals' true
effect on greenhouse gases Researchers at the University of California-Davis are set to rebut a 2006 United Nations study that asserted that livestock operations are responsible for 18 percent of
the world's greenhouse gases. Go Aussie! Australians produce the most CO2 Australia has overtaken the US as the world’s biggest greenhouse gas polluter per capita, a study shows. China leads as the world’s biggest overall polluter. Given that CO2 emissions are a proxy for economic activity that makes Australia's the most vibrant economy on the planet ;-) UN summit in New York key to climate deal World leaders need to revive bogged-down climate talks at a one-day summit on September 22, unless they want to risk failure in Copenhagen, UNEP chief Achim Steiner warns.
(CoP15) Oh boy... Reuters Summit-Obama has world's confidence on climate WASHINGTON, Sept 11 - Despite a host of other urgent problems to tackle, President Barack Obama still inspires confidence from environmental and corporate leaders that he
is committed to the fight against climate change. But he's apparently not delivering rhetoric to the faithful: Climate
Activists Wait for an Obama Speech to Call Their Own As President Obama delivered a possible make-or-break speech on health care last night, climate change activists said they were waiting patiently for a similar rhetorical
moment. Cap-and-Trade: Recipe for Disaster,
Economist Says If you liked what Enron, AIG, and the Federal Reserve did to the economy, you’ll love cap and trade. US Veterans call for climate action US Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars urge the US Senate to agree on climate legislation to protect the nation’s safety and security. I thank these veterans for their service and respectfully point out they've been misinformed. Carbon dioxide emissions green the planet, feed green
plants and consequently people via their crops and livestock, all while increasing the water efficiency of plants and making more water available for purposes other than
irrigation and reducing competition between people and between people and wildlife. Carbon dioxide emissions are an aid to peace, not a threat to it. UK scepticism on climate change increases Public scepticism about climate change has increased over the past five years, as people have learned more about the issues, according to a survey released on Thursday at
the British Science Festival in Guildford. Hmm... wonder how they meant "scepticism declines with education level"? Is that meant to be on par or inverse? I assume it means in inverse
proportion since my experience is that highly educated people are conditioned to simply believe (scientists said, therefore it must be true). The strange situation we face
today is that highly educated people are highly climate superstitious and somewhat misanthropic. Europe wants to speed up climate negotiations It is now or never. The world has to come together in order to reach global agreement on a climate deal. That was the message from five European foreign ministers meeting
today in Copenhagen. (CoP15) Europe Tamps Down Expectations on Climate Funds BRUSSELS — The European Union’s commissioner for the environment sought Thursday to tamp down expectations that wealthy nations would immediately hand over vast sums
of money demanded by developing countries to manage global warming. <chuckle> Greenpeace: EU is trying to get away with leaving a tip Greenpeace and Oxfam International criticize the EU Commission for not being ready to pay Europe’s share of the climate bill. Still No Money for
Developing Nations, New G-20 Documents Show Newly revised Treasury Department documents obtained by E&E show that the United States still has not determined how much money wealthy nations should raise to help
developing countries cope with global warming, even as Europe has pledged to give up to $15 billion annually. Oh... EU Environment Chief Sees 100% Chance Of Deal In Copenhagen BRUSSELS--There is no alternative to a global agreement on fighting climate change, so the chances of securing a deal at a meeting in Copenhagen later this year are 100%,
European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said Thursday. Climate Deal Should Not Drive Jobs Offshore: U.N. DALIAN - The world must devise a climate change treaty that will allow all countries to contribute to cutting emissions and not drive companies and jobs to other nations,
the U.N.'s top climate official said on Thursday. There's one certain way of achieving that aim -- don't sign onto anything so stupid as a carbon constraint scheme. France's Sarkozy to detail plan for carbon tax French President Nicolas Sarkozy is determined to go ahead with a controversial plan to tax carbon emissions by individuals and businesses in his bid to claim a leading
role in global efforts to stem climate change. (CoP15) China could be 1 trillion dollar green tech market China potentially could be a 500 billion to 1 trillion US dollar a year market for "green technologies," a group of businesses and experts says and urges
governments to ease the way for such initiatives. (CoP15) Nope. The Chinese are quite happy to use gorebull warming as a pretext to lighten Western pockets but there is no way on this greening Earth they are
going to foot any of the bill for this nonsense. South Africa won't sign emission cut targets if they hurt growth CAPE TOWN - South Africa, a major polluter due to its dependence on coal-fired electricity, will not agree to any emission-cutting targets if doing so hurts the country's
economy, a cabinet spokesman said on Thursday. Scientists and engineers will soon be able to receive advanced training and certification in burying and permanently storing underground the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide
as part of a recent stimulus award from the Department of Energy. The DOE awarded nearly $1 million to the Seattle-based Environmental Outreach and Stewardship Alliance (EOS)
to develop a carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) curriculum that will be used to build a skilled workforce through regional training. (PhysOrg) And we are spending money training people to do things which specifically harm the biosphere and have absolutely no upside because... ? Waratah Coal's Galilee Power station wins Queensland
approval PLANS for a billion-dollar clean-coal power station in central Queensland have been given the green light. Power good... CCS, just plain stupid. Lead utility Otter Tail Power pulls out of plans for $1.6
billion coal-fired power plant in SD MINNEAPOLIS — The utility leading an effort to build a $1.6 billion coal-fired power plant in South Dakota pulled out of the project Friday, citing the economic downturn
and uncertainty about climate change legislation to regulate carbon emissions. (AP) How Wishful Thinkers Are Forced To Reconnect With Energy Reality You couldn't make it up even if you tried: Once well-respected CSIRO, reduced to this... Fight
global warming 'by eating lamb' If you want to reduce global warming, get woolly - by eating lamb and installing ceiling batts, Australia's top scientists say. On average Australians are lucky to get 1,200kWh/yr from a 1kw system (6 hours/day, 200 days/yr), which, at some of the most exorbitant rates in the
country might replace $120.00 worth of electricity from a 1kW system (although you'd be foolish in this country to be paying so much for baseload power, which has a retail
value of a little under $70.00). Assuming your cleaning and maintenance were absolutely valueless (or free, depending on your point of view), over the 20 years of possible
(but unlikely) functional lifespan of your system you could "save" 20x$120=$2,400, leaving you out of pocket a mere $14,000-$2,400=$11,600 (not including loss of
use of capital...). If you could get 12 hours/day, 365 days/year and paid $0.10 kWh for your electricity you could still only get back about half the price of the system
over 20 years. Worse, even if you displaced the absurdly high guesstimate of $0.20 kWh power cost you still need to generate an impossible 3,500kWh from your 1kW system
every year for 20 years -- just to "break even" (on upfront cost, at least). What idiot would recommend such a loser as that? Carbon trading ‘may spell
early end to oil fields’ As many as 900 million barrels of UK oil reserves could end up abandoned unless ageing fields are exempted from carbon trading, according to one of the industry’s most
senior figures. Wind could cut a third of China's emissions China could cut its emissions by 30 percent in the next two decades if it switches to wind power to meet about half of its electricity demands, US study says. (CoP15) By going without half their electricity? I don't see that as very likely, somehow. Of course, they could have enough coal-fired thermal plants idling on
standby to meet the inevitable wind shortages but that won't drop their emissions by the advertised amount, will it... US car dealers appeal ruling on emissions Auto dealers and business leaders appeal a decision by the EPA that allows California to establish the first greenhouse gas standards for cars and trucks in the US. The
appeal sets the stage for a potential attempt to block the global warming rules. They don't say... Reuters Summit-California struggles with renewable energy goal SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 11 - California's switch to renewable energy is not going according to plan. BG's Brazilian oil find will 'dwarf' BP's strike in the US Gulf
Coast BG's Guara oil field in the Santos Basin is estimated to contain up to two billion barrels of recoverable reserves (The Guardian) Israel Moves Toward
Energy Independence The huge natural gas reserves off the country's Mediterranean coast are 16% bigger than estimated just one month ago (Business Week) German Geothermal Project Leads to
Second Thoughts After the Earth Rumbles LANDAU IN DER PFALZ, Germany — Government officials here are reviewing the safety of a geothermal energy project that scientists say set off an earthquake in mid-August,
shaking buildings and frightening many residents of this small city. September 10, 2009
Reality check — How have scary predictions about swine flu held
up to reality? The flu season is winding down in Australia, where their winter is nearing end. How did the expert claims, speculations and predictions of the deadly pandemic hold up to
the facts? Salt mania, again: Cutting salt could save U.S. billions of
dollars NEW YORK - Don't pass the salt: If Americans were to cut their salt intake to recommended levels, they'd have far fewer cases of high blood pressure, and save billions of
dollars in health care costs, a new study estimates. (Reuters Health) Hmm... it'll be interesting to see what Nude Socialist considers a "better world": BLUEPRINT
FOR A BETTER WORLD We live in an imperfect world. Poverty, disease, lack of education, environmental destruction - the problems are all too obvious. Many people don't have clean water, let
alone enough food, and the unsustainable lifestyle of the wealthy few is storing up catastrophic climate change. Forecasting the Earth’s Temperature The recent spate of scientific papers that are attempting to predict what the earth’s temperature might be in the coming decades, and also explain the current global
temperature standstill, are very interesting because of the methods used to analyse temperature variations, and because they illustrate the limitations of our knowledge. People haters taking another run at it: Birth Control Could Head Off Climate Crunch LONDON - Birth control and new technologies -- not lifestyle change alone -- may be needed to head off a combined climate, food and energy crunch later this century, said
the head of Britain's science academy Martin Rees. Also: 'Contraception cheapest way to
combat climate change' Contraception is almost five times cheaper as a means of preventing climate change than conventional green technologies, according to research by the London School of
Economics. (Daily Telegraph) Seed variety loss seen hampering climate response LONDON - Farmers in developing countries are losing traditional varieties because of growing corporate control of the seeds they plant, hampering their ability to cope
with climate change, a London-based think tank said on Monday. Emissions from cattle and sheep are significant contributors to planetary warming. But how close are we to creating low-emitting livestock? Kevin Morrison reports. (Nature
Reports Climate Change) Massive
Extinctions: An Update The online magazine CO2 Science has published a review and update on the massive extinction
theory, featuring a large section on my guest editorial they graciously hosted back in 2004. This is where I lost my virginity, so to speak, so the treatment is a little more
exuberant than I would use now, but not too much. I remember I was so disgusted that anyone could seriously propose an analysis that would show a high number of species
extinctions from global warming even if the rate of species extinction decreased. I have seen a lot more now and such bias no longer surprises me. I developed an error model for quantifying the various systematic biases in ’shift’ analyses, and incorporated it into a chapter
in my book, though I don’t think it has ever been used in earnest. Now I tend to avoid working on issues of bias, as they are too hard to describe and prove, and focus
instead on provable errors in global warming science, such as Rahmstorf’s ‘worse
than we thought’ idea. So it is with some sense of vindication over my repudiation of the uncritical use of ecological niche models that I read the conclusion of the CO2 Science report on the
Dormann paper: … that shortcomings associated with climate-alarmist analyses of the present distributions of species “are so numerous and fundamental that common ecological sense
should caution us against putting much faith in relying on their findings for further extrapolations,” in contrast to what is routinely done in studies such as that of
Thomas et al., the latter of whose methods and findings, according to Dormann, “have been challenged for conceptual and statistical reasons” by many other researchers. Dormann thus concluded that climate-alarmist “projections of species distributions are not merely generating hypotheses to be tested by later data,” they are being
presented as “predictions of tomorrow’s diversity, and policy makers and the public will interpret them as forecasts, similar to forecasts about tomorrow’s
weather,” which he clearly feels is both unwarranted and unwise … . Two points: 1. High uncertainty in the models does not necessary produce a large bias in estimates of extinction. Just as standard deviations are independent of mean values, the high
uncertainty is not necessarily a basis for ‘model bashing’. If the uncertainty ‘cancels out’ then some progress can be made providing the uncertainty is carried
through the calculations. 2. The estimates of extinction rely in large part on the quality of the underlying GCM’s, the magnitude of the shift predicted in temperature and precipitation, and the
maintainence of the correct relationship between these variables also. If the models are bad, then the extinction prediction will be also. So to a large extent it it pointless to work on shift models of the form used unless there is enough confidence in the underlying climate model prediction at a scale and
resolution and internal coherence (between temperature and precipitation) where such confidence is justified. I see the widespread uncritical use of climate models to project the effects of global warming as more of a problem that the effects modelling itself. Most effects studies
don’t bother to check the validity of the climate models — they just download them from KNMI. It’s a house built on sand. Just out of interest, I applied a few days ago for a registration account on the CMIP database of climate models stating I was
interested in auditing their simulation data. As of today, no response. I also contacted the Australian Bureau of Meteorology for Australian monthly temperature data
recently. As of today, no response. (Niche Modeling) Global science or global panic? Global Warming - The
Case for an Independent Inquiry In June Climate Change Minister Penny Wong effectively acknowledged the existence of a scientific view rejecting the thesis that a dangerous increase in temperatures will
occur unless government action is taken to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly CO2. This is the first time a government minister with environmental
responsibilities has done so formally (as distinct from dismissing such views out of hand). Minister Wong did this by agreeing to respond to three questions posed by Senator
Fielding on the interpretations of temperature movements since 1998 and of temperature levels in the past, and on the reliability of models used to project temperature
levels. (Des Moore, Quadrant) Shouldn't laugh at hysterics... but what else can you do with them? Climate
change talks ‘in danger’, warns David Miliband Hopes of a global deal to tackle climate change have receded after David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said there was a “real danger” that a UN summit in Copenhagen
in December would fail to produce an effective treaty on cutting greenhouse gases. Lawrence Solomon: Where's the
skepticism? Bjorn Lomborg, the skeptical environmentalist, has yet to apply his thinking to premises of climate change. (Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post) Exclusive: Global Warming Campaign Not Evil, Just
Wrong
The Chilling Effect conducts interviews with those making news, analyzing news, or just being plain interesting when it comes to the ongoing debate over climate change.
Our latest installation elicits information from Phelim McAleer, one of the producers of, Not Evil, Just Wrong. (Chilling Effect) UN to add YouTube to live TV for climate momentum The UN is turning to YouTube to jolt the world's plodding climate diplomacy into higher gear. (CoP15) Great, they can put it with the UFO and black helicopter footage :-) The Garnaut Cult - Waiting for who knows what? As the Government continues to pursue the imminent introduction of an Emissions Trading Scheme more and more questions are being asked about its scientific foundations by
highly qualified scientists and others. Yet these doubts are simply being disregarded. This is a high risk path with no apparent ability to back-down if the entire edifice is
built on sand. (Tom Quirk, Quadrant) Smug NYT, At It Again On Global Warming Legislation You can hardly see through the smarminess of today’s New York Times editorial on global warming town hall efforts. The paper, eschewing any notion that people are
legitimately disturbed with what has been described as the largest tax increase in the history of the world, chimes in with: What the oil companies are probably worried about is that people and industries will use less of their product as alternatives appear and consumers become more
energy-efficient. But isn’t that the point of the exercise? Exercise? Maybe it’s an “exercise” for the editorial board members, but it’s something more serious for the millions of Americans who will see their
electricity and gas bills go up dramatically and yet even more serious for the millions of people who will see their jobs disappear. (Chilling Effect) Senate Democrats Skeptical About Climate Bill WASHINGTON - Several U.S. Senate Democrats, including a top leader, on Wednesday questioned whether it would be possible to vote on a climate change bill this year,
especially with healthcare reform eating up so much of the lawmakers' time. EVERYONE should be skeptical of the foolish thing. Is Government Action Worse than Global Warming? Why policy nihilism may be the only rational
response to climate change Will government solutions to global warming be worse than global warming itself? Remember that man-made global warming is a negative externality that occurs when burning
fossil fuels release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Economists define negative externality as a spillover from an economic transaction that harms parties not directly
involved in the transaction. In this case, the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is thought to be boosting temperatures, raising sea levels, and having other
effects on the climate that people must involuntarily pay to adapt to (more air conditioning, switching crops, and so forth). Thus, goes the argument, the price of fossil
fuels does not reflect the full cost of consuming them. (Ronald Bailey, Reason) Although it has very much taken a back-seat to health care, and a press
report [$] today say it could be bumped down yet another notch on the administration’s hierarchy of goals, climate change is shaping up to be a major battle if the
others don’t prove to be prohibitively exhausting. So today I am weighing in on the debate by releasing my
new paper on the dangers of using trade measures as a tool of climate policy. The Democrats were keen to pass a climate change bill in advance of the December meeting in Copenhagen designed to agree on a successor regime to the Kyoto protocol, which
expires in 2012. However, opposition from a number of quarters and the fear of health-care-town-halls-mark-II has cooled their heels. Senate leaders have pushed back
the deadline for passing bills out of committees a number of times. The reason why climate change legislation has become so controversial is that businesses and consumers are, quite understandably, fearful about any policies that
threaten to increase their costs. I’ll leave it to others to blog about the effect of emissions-reductions policies on jobs and profits, but even the fear of losses
has led to calls for special deals for “vulnerable industries”, in the form of free emission permits and/or protection from imports that are sourced from countries that
purportedly take insufficient steps to limit emissions. H.R. 2454, the so called Waxman-Markey bill passed by the House in June, contains both free permits and provisions for carbon tariffs. I’ve blogged
before about the efforts of trade-skeptic senators to introduce the same kinds of protections in the senate bill. To that end, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D, OH) is reportedly
meeting with Sen. Barbara Boxer, Chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee next week about trade protections for manufacturing industries. As my
paper makes clear, I think these efforts are misguidedly ineffective at best, and harmful at worst. I’m looking forward to discussing these issues in more detail tomorrow at a Hill briefing in
Washington DC. Registration for the event was closed very early because of overwhelming demand, but you can watch the event when the video becomes available on the Cato
website. (Sallie James, Cato at large) Hello! Where were they? WHEAT
GROWERS CHANGE COURSE: AFTER SUPPORTING WAXMAN-MARKEY, NOW OPPOSES CAP-AND-TRADE BILL THAT ‘HARMS PRODUCTION AGRICULTURE', ALSO FIRMLY STATES OPPOSITION TO EPA CO2
REGULATION AND MASS V. EPA
Washington, D.C.-Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-Okla.) applauded the board of the National Wheat Growers Association, which,
on September 4, by a vote of 26 to 2, approved a new resolution on climate legislation and regulation. The new resolution puts the group on record as "opposed to
greenhouse gas legislation or regulation that has a negative impact on production agriculture." Do you suppose they actually believe any of this stuff? Waxman-Markey
Cap and Trade Will Pay For Itself, CBO Finds The Waxman-Markey Climate Bill uses Cap and Trade to get our current 6 billion tons of CO2 a year down to just over 5 billion tons a year by 2020 (20% by 2020) and
continuing down further by 2050. Market
Confidence Low: Carbon Credits now worth 25 cents, were at $7 in 2008 From Tom Nelson: Plunging prices at the Chicago Climate Exchange ABOVE: CCX CFI End of Day Summary: Offsets now selling for 25 cents each Back on September 2nd, 2006/2007 instruments were selling as low as 20 cents and held that way until Sept 8th. So this is a boost. See the table below. Zimbabwe money
notes are doing pretty well on Ebay.
Right now they are actually more valuable than carbon credit notes. [2008: Offsets were selling for over $7 each] [Spin from Sept 9, 2009]: “Carbon market evolving” “The U.S. appetite for carbon trading is strong CCX is now trading 3,000 to 5,000 contracts per day, with 20 percent of the largest carbon dioxide-emitting utilities
in the U.S. participating; 11 percent of the Fortune 500 companies; and 17 percent of the Dow Jones Industrials companies.” A recent Congressional Budget Office study projected that carbon offsets could be a $60 billion market in 2012, on a par with U.S. corn and wheat markets,
and “as it grows beyond that, it will make forestry mitigation opportunities more important,” says Jeffrey O’Hara, senior economist, Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX).
(WUWT) Carbon trading scandal linked to Government THE Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade assisted an Australian company caught up in Papua New Guinea's carbon trading scandal as it closed deals in Bangladesh and
Jordan this year, even giving it funding. (SMH) Climate treaty hinges on China and India: Denmark ABERDEEN, Britain - A new global treaty on climate change hinges on China and India agreeing to limit their CO2 emissions but it is unclear whether they will do so,
Denmark's climate and energy minister said. "Dramatic" Rise In Renewables Needed For 2 Celsius Goal OSLO - The share of renewable energy will have to rise "dramatically" if the world is to have a chance of limiting global warming to a maximum 2 Celsius (3.6
Fahrenheit) temperature rise, a leading expert said Wednesday. Even total cessation of all U.S. coal-fired electricity generation has an upper (and unreachable) bound of 0.15 °C "saving" over 90 years
and there is absolutely no chance of replacing 48.5% of the U.S. electricity supply from so-called "green" or "renewable" sources. The IPCC's own
numbers show carbon dioxide emissions simply cannot deliver the "catastrophic warming" that politicians and activists so love to promote. And the rhetoric rolls on: We can't just pass the carbon issue on to our children Government targets to make an 80 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 may be challenging but they are inadequate, delegates to a recent conference heard. Alison
Thomas was among them They take a couple of greenie dipsticks seriously? Japan’s high ambitions might spread Australia is more likely to push its target on emissions reductions closer to the top end of its 5-25 range as Japan becomes more ambitious, says The Climate Group in
Australia. (CoP15) I'm not even sure there are enough members to qualify as a "group" ;-) Hey lookit, flimflam man felt the need to get his name in the press again: Global Climate Deal Only 50:50 Chance:
Flannery SYDNEY - The chances of a global agreement to fight climate change at U.N. talks in Copenhagen in December are only 50:50, said Australia's leading environmentalist, who
warned of "full climactic destabilization" without a pact. Cost of air travel 'must rise to deter people from flying' Government advisory body on climate change says ticket prices should rise to ensure emissions fall to 2005 levels (The Guardian) Passengers face new tax to halt rise in air travel The committee believes that airlines should be forced to share the burden of meeting Britain's commitment to an 80 per cent cut in emissions by 2050 Have a look at who is behind the Climate Change Committee: http://www.theccc.org.uk/about-the-ccc/the-committee UK Public Won't Give Up Flights: Env Min LONDON - The British public do not want to give up their holiday flights, said deputy energy and climate minister Joan Ruddock on Wednesday, responding to a letter from
the government's adviser on the emissions impacts of aviation. South Korean Industry Wants Weaker Emissions Target SEOUL - South Korea's top businesses want the government to select the least restrictive option available for greenhouse gas emission cuts when it decides on a target
later this year, according to a survey released on Wednesday. (Reuters) "None" would be the appropriate target since no amount of carbon constraint can possibly make a measurable difference to global mean
temperature. Argh! Australian Miners See Clean Coal Carbon Answer SYDNEY - The Australian government should scrap its proposed carbon trading scheme and concentrate on clean coal technology to cut greenhouse gas emissions, according to
the country's mining sector. Where do they find these suicidal nutters? Carbon is not the enemy and it can not do as claimed. Get away from carbon constraint because there is no safe
level of disruption to the global energy supply. Rebadged aid: EU sets out €15bn climate aid plan The European Union is to offer a modest €15bn a year to help poor countries cope with the effects of climate change, setting the stage for a fight before an
international conference in Copenhagen in December. Used to be development aid, now it's "climate aid" but there's no extra. At least he could have the courage of his conviction: Bogus bidder:
I did it for good of the planet - Monkey-wrencher asks federal court to allow his climate-change defense. In the court of public opinion, Tim DeChristopher always has argued that he monkey-wrenched an oil and gas lease auction to combat the global climate crisis. His actions denied society funding and resources. Would we allow contrailers to shoot down aircraft for their warped concept of "good"? Did the
crime, do the time. Next case! Arctic
Temperatures – What Hockey Stick? What sudden recent warming? What Hockey Stick? I don’t see any. By Lucy Skywalker Green World Trust with thanks to the late John Daly and his timeless, brilliant website page “What the Stations
Say” (click on Arctic map above). Click on each thumbnail graph to access Daly’s full size graph with time and temperature scales and other details.
The thicker dark horizontal line across some of these thumbnails indicated 0ºC (a few of the graphs are ALL under that line). The Arctic is shown in the condition of summer
sea ice (see thumbnail below) and the pale circle is the Arctic Circle. All data comes from NASA GISS or CRU originally. Paul Vaughan notes at WUWT that he “spent a fair amount of time updating these graphs (& others of Daly’s for other regions)” using http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/
and adds a cautionary note: The time-frame and aspect-ratio of the timeplots can be manipulated to create the illusion of a steep trend in recent years. The highly variable temperatures and amounts of sea ice in both polar regions is well-known to locals, but cherrypicked extremes have become a media weapon to
scare ignorant folk with. Greenlanders today are aware of recent warming; but history, archaeology, and the Norse sagas show that Greenland was warmer than today in the
Middle Ages, when crops and trees were grown there. For recent sea ice changes (since 1979) see Cryosphere
Today and note that while Northern Hemisphere sea ice (at the top of the CT page) has gone down recently (but is currently going up again), Southern Hemisphere sea ice
(at the bottom of the CT page) is going up, so that the overall
total is pretty constant although fluctuating between summer and winter. This represents typical current summer and winter sea ice and snow cover in the Arctic and Antarctic. Permanent icefields are pure white. The difference between summer and
winter sea ice is vast, and greatly exceeds the variations between different years.The faint circles are the Arctic and Antarctic Circles. Note how they delineate the Arctic
Ocean and the Antarctica continent. Finally, Jeff Id’s superb animation of recent Arctic sea ice>>
(WUWT) Temporal
Trends In Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Maximum and Minimum Areal Extents With the interest in the minimum areal coverage of Arctic sea ice this month, I am posting data provided by Bill Chapman of the University of Illinois (host of The
Cryosphere Today) on the timing within the year of the maximum and minimum of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice coverage [thanks to Bill for doing providing this!]. The dates within each year of the maximum and minimum sea ice coverage are presented in the first set of two figures below for the Arctic and Antarctic regions,
respectively. The Arctic is the subject of considerable scrutiny as the effect of human intervention into the climate system is hypothesized to be largest there [Holland and
Bitz, 2003, Serreze and Francis, 2006; Graversen et al., 2008; Serreze et al., 2007]. For the Arctic, the time of year of both the maximum and minimum ice coverage is
occurring slightly earlier (i.e., negative slopes) but neither trend is significant at the 2 sigma level although the slope for the time of occurrence of the ice maximum is
almost significant at the 1 sigma level (p-value=0.66). For the Antarctic, the time of occurrence of the sea ice maximum shows a slight trend towards later dates, while the minimum coverage shows a slight trend towards earlier
dates, but neither trend is significant. Figure: Date (fraction of year beginning in January) of maximum (red) and minimum (blue) sea ice areal coverage for (a) the Arctic region and (b) the Antarctic region.
None of these regressions are significant at the 1-sigma level. Data to complete this figure courtesy of Bill Chapman. Courtesy of Ben Herman and Mike Berlage, the two figures below show the average annual cycle of daily temperatures for the 60° to 82.5° latitude belts for both
hemispheres in two 10-year periods: 1980 to 1989 in blue and 1998 to 2007 in red. The strange “humps” apparent in both hemispheres in early winter in the Northern
Hemisphere and late fall in the Southern Hemisphere are likely due to the averaged effect of the sea surface emissivity. The MSU LT channel has about 10% of its signal coming
from the surface, so the type of surface is important, particularly if it changes during the course of a year. Sea ice has a higher emissivity in the measured microwave band,
so as water turns to ice in the fall (April in the Southern Hemisphere), the brightness temperature, which is what the MSU measures, increases until the area is totally
frozen over, after which time the atmospheric temperature is the main driver. Since we are dealing with anomalies in MSU temperatures, this background freezing and thawing is
fairly regular. The net impact of an actual loss in sea ice over time would be a small decrease in the measured brightness temperature which would result in an apparent small
net cooling in the translational seasons. Figure: The average of the daily temperature values for two 10-year periods over the latitudes from 60° poleward to 82.5° in (a) the Northern Hemisphere and (b) the
Southern Hemisphere. The blue curve is the daily average for the 1980-1989 period, while the red curve is for the 1998-2007 period for each hemisphere. Figure courtesy of Ben
Herman and Mike Berlage. In the Northern Hemisphere (left figure above) it can be seen that the red curve is slightly above the blue curve for every month representing a warming of the later
period compared to the earlier one. There appears to be a slightly slower warming rate from March to May of the later period and a slightly higher and later peak temperature
also for the later period. For the Southern Hemisphere (right figure above) indicates smaller changes between the two time periods but with slightly colder winter
and summer temperatures during the summer maximum and winter minimum periods. Any changes in warming and cooling rates during spring and fall are too small to be detected. The time of occurrence of the maximum and minimum sea ice coverage in the Arctic showed slight trends towards occurring earlier in the year, although not
significant. In the Southern Hemisphere, the trends were smaller and also not significant, but the time of ice maximum was becoming later, contrary to the other three trends.
(Climate Science) Lack Of Balance On Tamino
With Respect To His Post “Arctic Sunlight” Tamino’s website “Open Mind” published a post “Arctic
Sunlight” on September 8 2009 which criticizes a observational finding which I presented in my post . The text on his website reads “Roger Pielke Sr. has joined Anthony Watts in la-la-land with a post which was also posted on WUWT, Pielke
Senior: Arctic Temperature Reporting In The News Needs A Reality Check; it’s Pielke’s attempt to throw dirt at the recent Kaufman
et al. research. Pielke refers to modern arctic temperatures thus: ”The documentation of their biased reporting is easy to show. For example, they do not
report on observational data which does not show this rapid recent warming; e.g. see that the current high latitude temperatures are close to the longer term average since
1958. The Danish Meteorological Institute Daily Mean Temperatures in the Arctic 1958 – 2008 [and thanks to the excellent weblog Watts Up With That for making this easily
available to us!]“ As for current high-latitude temperatures being close to the longer term average since 1958, no
they’re not. Pielke and Watts need a sanity check.” Well, despite the title of Tamino’s weblog as Open Mind, it is anything but that. He conveniently left off the rest of the text in my post on September 4
2009. I will repeat it here for readers who believe in balanced scientific debate: From Arctic
Temperature Reporting In The News Needs A Reality Check, the text left off by Tamino reads There are also peer reviewed papers which show that the Schmid and Revkin articles are biased; e. g. see i) the areal coverage of the coldest middle tropospheric temperatures (below -40C) have not changed radically
as shown in the Revkin figure; see Herman, B., M. Barlage, T.N. Chase, and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2008: Update
on a proposed mechanism for the regulation of minimum mid-tropospheric and surface temperatures in the Arctic and Antarctic.
J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 113, D24101, doi:10.1029/2008JD009799. and ii) there is a warm bias in the Arctic surface temperature measurements when they are used to characterize deeper atmospheric
warming; see Klotzbach, P.J., R.A. Pielke Sr., R.A. Pielke Jr., J.R. Christy, and R.T. McNider, 2009: An
alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere. J. Geophys.
Res., accepted.” Tamino’s weblog is clearly not an Open Minded source of information on climate science. Tamino’s post just reaffirms that there needs to be a reality
check in media reporting. (Climate Science) Peter Foster: Oil and the minds
of men The great petroleum geologist Wallace Pratt famously said that “Oil is found in the minds of men.” Discoveries depend on visionary theory, technical innovation and
commitment to risky drilling. Plus luck. Peak Oil theory, by contrast – which asserts that global oil production has, or soon will, peak, and that this has powerful policy
implications — is found in the limitations of the minds of men. It is less geological theory than unevolved intellectual shortcoming, although it certainly has its
political uses. Ed. Note: This article first appeared on Geoffrey Styles' blog, Energy Outlook. Brazil oil find is even
bigger than we thought, says BG Successful well test at Guara shows 2 billion barrels of recoverable oil and gas BG Group's Guara discovery off the Brazilian coast contains up to 2 billion barrels of recoverable oil and gas, dwarfing last week's "giant" find by rival BP. Oil is NOT a
Fossil Fuel, and CO2 is an Innocent Victim of Green Hysteria by Peter J Morgan We all grew up believing that oil is a fossil fuel, and just about every day this ‘fact’ is mentioned in newspapers and on TV, often when quoting supposedly learned
scientists who should know better. However, let us not forget what Lenin said — “A lie told often enough becomes truth.” Soon after the end of World War II, the Soviet
dictator, Stalin, realised that the then Soviet Union needed its own substantial oil reserves and production system if it was ever again called upon to defend itself against
an attacker such as Hitler’s Germany. Meh... Deutsche Bank Sees Natgas As Good Climate Bet NEW YORK - Investments in natural gas will play a bigger role in the short-term fight against climate change, the head of Deutsche Bank's global asset management said. Carbon schmarbon... just not worth worrying about and there are better uses for gas. Seize Nuclear Or Miss Targets, Investment: IAEA VIENNA - Some countries that fail to invest in nuclear power for political or financial reasons will be unlikely to meet emissions targets and could miss out on investment
as companies build abroad, an IAEA expert said. Doesn't matter what it is, they're agin it: Poorly
Sited Solar Project Edges Closer to Approval - Mega-project in Endangered Species Habitat Sets Bad Precedent for Renewable Energy LOS ANGELES— Today the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, a controversial industrial-scale solar energy facility planned for the California desert, moved one step
closer to development. The project’s proponent, BrightSource Energy, announced an agreement with Bechtel to build the facility, which is opposed by many conservation groups
and scientists due to its proposed location in endangered species habitat. The California Energy Commission and the federal Bureau of Land Management are expected to release
their environmental review documents for the project later this month. Palm oil producers 'misled' over
green claims The palm oil industry misled the public by claiming production of the vegetable fat was sustainable and socially useful, according to an official investigation. September 9, 2009
EDITORIAL: Occupational hazard President Obama has made a mantra, even a fetish, of his determination to "restore science to its rightful place." It appears that he means junk science rather
than the real thing. The president's nominee to head the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), a virulently anti-business epidemiologist named David Michaels,
is one the nation's foremost proponents of allowing junk science to be used in jackpot-justice lawsuits. Study questions dioxin's link to cancer NEW YORK - Findings from a study of Dow Chemical workers suggest that exposure to dioxin may not increase the risk for certain cancers, as is widely believed. Chloracne remains the only known human ill-effect from even quite large dioxin exposures -- so much for the anti-industry greenies' much-maligned
"most deadly poison". Early daycare may not lower asthma risk NEW YORK - Contrary to what some previous studies have suggested, children who enter daycare at an early age may not have a reduced risk of allergies and asthma later on,
researchers reported Tuesday. The
Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease In 1976, a small group of soldiers at Fort Dix were infected with a swine flu virus that was deemed similar to the virus responsible for the great 1918-19 world-wide flu
pandemic. The U.S. government initiated an unprecedented effort to immunize every American against the disease. While a qualified success in terms of numbers reached-more
than 40 million Americans received the vaccine-the disease never reappeared. The program was marked by controversy, delay, administrative troubles, legal complications,
unforeseen side effects and a progressive loss of credibility for public health authorities. In the waning days of the flu season, the incoming Secretary of what was then the
Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Joseph Califano, asked Richard Neustadt and Harvey Fineberg to examine what happened and to extract lessons to help cope with
similar situations in the future. The result was their report, The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease (NAP) In the event that the H1N1 virus creates a surge of patients during the upcoming flu season, it will be critical to protect health care workers from infection, given their
central role in treating sick people and lessening the pandemic's overall impact. Clinical guidelines are used to measure the quality of care provided by physicians and are purportedly evidence-based. National childhood overweight and obesity policies
in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia call for primary care physicians and pediatricians to monitor children’s BMIs and to counsel youngsters with BMIs
≥85th percentile and their families on diet, physical activity, sedentary behaviors and adopting healthy lifestyles. Mr.
President, Here Is Our Answer President Obama continues to portray the debate over health care reform as a choice between his plan for a massive government-takeover of the US healthcare system and
“doing nothing.” Those who oppose his plan are said to be “obstructionist” or in favor of the status-quo. Yesterday, the President again said,
“I’ve got a question for all those folks [who oppose his plan]: What are you going to do? What’s your answer? What’s your solution?” Well, I can’t speak for all his critics, but the Cato Institute has a long record of supporting health care reform based on free-markets and competition. If the
President wanted to know more he might have read my recent op-ed in the Los Angeles
Times or Michael Cannon’s piece in Investors Business Daily. He could
have read our book, Healthy Competition.
Or he might have just gone to healthcare.cato.org and read our plan: Mr. President, the ball is back in your court. (Michael D. Tanner, Cato @ liberty) Living on thinner budget leads some to fatty foods The recession may be thinning our wallets but not our waists. Dietitians say healthy eating could be a casualty of an economy that's making price tags more persuasive than
nutrition labels. Obama Says New Tax on Sugary Drinks Worth ‘Exploring’ President Barack Obama said he is willing to consider taxing soda and other sugary drinks as Congress debates overhauling the U.S. health-care system. Obesity,
alcohol and smoking increase second breast cancer risk: research Obesity, alcohol and smoking increase the chances that breast cancer will return in women who have already fought it off once, research has shown. (Daily Telegraph) Doctors call for total alcohol advertising ban LONDON - A complete ban on alcohol advertising should be imposed and a minimum drinks price set to help deter excessive drinking in Britain, medics said on Tuesday. President Obama has noted that Spain provides a reference for the establishment of government aid to renewable energy since Spain has given such broad support to the
construction and production of electricity through renewable sources. Toward
a Sustainable and Secure Water Future: A Leadership Role for the U.S. Geological Survey Water is our most fundamental natural resource, a resource that is limited. Challenges to our nation's water resources continue to grow, driven by population growth,
ecological needs, climate change, and other pressures. The nation needs more and improved water science and information to meet these challenges. We've had Mad Cow, now UK unleashes Mad Miliband disease! David
Miliband sets out to shock on global warming tour The spectre of a 4C warmer world, with alligators basking off the coast of Sweden, a vast desert surrounding the Mediterranean and a largely uninhabitable mainland Europe,
is to be presented to European Union countries by the foreign secretary, David Miliband. (John Vidal, The Guardian) Ever more idiotic: Climate Cash Could Create "Copenhagen Stimulus" LONDON - Climate talks could draw on global recovery spending to smooth a deal in Copenhagen in December to replace the Kyoto Protocol, said Nick Robins, head of HSBC's
climate change research center. (Reuters) We must prevent the US Chamber of Commerce
from putting climate change 'on trial' - The world's largest not-for-profit business federation is trying every trick in the lobbyist's handbook to scupper the
legislative progress of the US cap and trade bill It would be wise for anyone concerned about climate change to keep an eye on the movements and pronouncements of the US Chamber of Commerce over the next few months as
Barack Obama's cap-and-trade bill finally reaches the Senate. On the contrary, Mr Hickman, it is long past due for a reasoned analysis of gorebull warming hysterics. Salazar Says U.S. Climate Bill High On Agenda WASHINGTON - Despite Washington's nearly single-minded focus on healthcare reform, the Obama administration still expects the U.S. Senate to pass climate change
legislation, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said on Tuesday. De Mented? Prospects for U.N. Climate Deal Brighter: De Boer OSLO - Prospects for a new U.N. climate pact in Copenhagen have brightened but negotiations must speed up to meet a December deadline, the head of the U.N. Climate Change
Secretariat said on Tuesday. but: UK: Global deal on climate change at risk LONDON — Two British Cabinet ministers said Tuesday that attempts to broker a new global pact on climate change by the end of the year are at risk of failing. Meanwhile: EU Cuts Funding For Post-Kyoto Climate Deal BRUSSELS - The European Union has scaled back plans to give billions of euros to poor countries to persuade them to help battle climate change, a draft document shows. Well that's stupid of them: Carbon
Sequestration Is One Way to Stop Climate Change, Scientists Say REYKJAVIK, ICELAND -- 09/08/09 -- Scientists gathered in Iceland are urging government leaders to pursue carbon capture and sequestration as a way of addressing global
warming. The IPCC's own inflated numbers demonstrate no amount of carbon constraint can meaningfully cool the climate. Don't take our word for it -- check
their numbers! CCS is a farcical waste of money and energy. Another one? Climate expert urges EU to speed carbon
capture MUNICH, Sept 7 - Carbon capture pilot projects must be made a political priority in Europe to ascertain whether the technology works and can be applied in emerging
markets, an official of the United Nations climate panel said on Monday. It's quite remarkable how many economists are "climate experts". Maybe it stems from an
irrational belief in the veracity of computer models... Oh... Call to switch oil for carbon in North Sea Britain could earn billions of pounds a year and sustain tens of thousands of jobs by selling space deep under the North Sea for storing carbon dioxide captured from
European power station emissions, geologists told the British Science Festival in Guildford on Tuesday. If this is economic for enhanced oil recovery then great, go for it. Just don't be sucked into thinking there will be a sustained hot air market. CCS is not
worth doing. Speaking of really bad investments: Oil
and Gas Industry Investing in Emissions Reductions The U.S. oil and gas industry has contributed nearly half of all dollars invested by the nation’s public and private sectors this decade in low-emissions energy
technologies. These guys should remember they are in the business of mining carbon, not burying it! Greenland dialogue moves to New York In order to give further impetus to international climate change negotiations, Denmark’s climate and energy minister Connie Hedegaard has invited a number of influential
climate politicians to New York. (CoP15) Exactly the way to inhibit innovation and investment: UN: Ease patent protection of climate
friendly technologies Developing nations should get free licenses to clean-energy technology and technologies to genetically modify crops resistant to droughts. (CoP15) A new growth industry? Biochar could enrich soils and cut
greenhouse gases as well CHARCOAL has rather gone out of fashion. Before the industrial revolution, whole forests disappeared into the charcoal-burners’ maw to provide the carbon that ironmakers
need to reduce their ore to metal. Then, an English ironmaker called Abraham Darby discovered how to do the job with coke. From that point onward, the charcoal-burners’
days were numbered. The rise of coal, from which coke is produced, began, and so did the modern rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. That's lovely kids, except for the part about reducing availability of essential trace gases and the gorebull warming nonsense... U.N. Panel To Rule On $144 million China wind projects LONDON - Lobbyist pressure will not weigh on a U.N. panel's decision whether to award carbon finance worth about 100 million euros ($144 million) to Chinese wind power
projects, said the chair of the panel on Tuesday. EPA
Scientist Carlin Explains His Dissent on Endangerment Finding Environmental Protection Agency scientist and economist Alan Carlin, Ph.D. made national news this past spring after telling how EPA buried his lengthy assessment that the
agency had no scientific justification for its ruling that carbon dioxide endangers human health, and agency officials told him not to discuss his concerns with others. From CO2 Science Volume 12 Number 36: 9 September 2009 The Scientists Speak: Editorial: Medieval
Warm Period Record of the Week: Subject Index Summary: Plant Growth Data: Journal Reviews: The MWP and LIA in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago: A new proxy for Arctic sea ice provides evidence for the
Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age high above the Arctic Circle. Primary Production in Future CO2-Enriched Ocean Water: How might it differ from that of
today? Aboveground Biomass Response of a Fast-Growing C3 Plant to Super-Elevated CO2
Concentrations: How high can the air's CO2 content go and C3 plants still be stimulated? Fine-Root Survivorship of Ponderosa Pine Trees: CO2 vs. O3: Which
trace gas wins the struggle for control of the trees' fine roots?
Living With Coal - Climate policy’s most inconvenient truth Governments around the world are now struggling with the question of how to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. The task is bigger than any
other environmental challenge humanity has faced. Carbon dioxide, the leading human cause of global warming, is an intrinsic byproduct of burning the fossil fuels that power
the world economy and thus difficult to regulate. (David G. Victor and Richard K. Morse, Boston Review) Governments are only so struggling because they've been seriously mislead. There is absolutely no reason to limit an essential trace gas, nor even a safe
level of carbon constraint, only not doing so is acceptable. Coal is essential as a major component in the global energy supply. Yes, but should it? Gas gains favor for producing electricity HOUSTON — Declining industrial electricity demand and an abundance of cheap natural gas will threaten coal's status as the dominant fuel to generate electric power, even
after the economic recession ends. I'm not convinced burning natural gas for electricity generation is the best use for it. After all it is critical feedstock for the fertilizer and
chemical industries and it's clean and convenient for domestic heating. Coal is better suited to baseload electricity generation and probably shouldn't be displaced by a
fuel with alternate value. Windmills Are Killing Our Birds - One standard for oil
companies, another for green energy sources. On Aug. 13, ExxonMobil pleaded guilty in federal court to killing 85 birds that had come into contact with crude oil or other pollutants in uncovered tanks or waste-water
facilities on its properties. The birds were protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which dates back to 1918. The company agreed to pay $600,000 in fines and fees. Another reason to repeal all critter laws: Pacific walrus closer to gaining federal
protections - IN DANGER? Group cites warming and offshore oil development A second Arctic marine mammal moved closer to an Endangered Species listing due to global warming Tuesday as a petition to grant the Pacific walrus protection passed its
first review. Nobel Prize winner: Don’t rely on wind technology Bank on solar power, since wind power is inefficient and impossible to store, German-American physicist Jack Steinberger argues. Danish architects have a solution. (CoP15) Energy Futures - A quick guide to alternative energy. By now, you’ve heard it in a thousand political speeches—the shopping-list-style recitation of newfangled-sounding alternative energy sources and technologies. Clean
coal! Solar and wind! Switch grass! Japan Steel predicts nuclear boom in China Stimulus spending and environmental pressures have made the Japanese producer of atomic reactor parts more than double its forecast for the number of Chinese nuclear
plants being built the coming years. (CoP15) Scientist Lord May attacks BBC’s rejection of Planet Relief day The BBC gave in to a “ludicrous” concern about impartiality when it dropped a day of programmes intended to raise awareness about energy efficiency and climate change,
one of Britain’s most senior scientists says. Letter of the moment: Monetary relief - BBC and Planet Relief Sir, Lord May of Oxford is misguided (report, Sept 7) when he castigates the BBC for
abandoning Planet Relief and for thus not participating in Energy Saving Day (E-Day). For once, Aunty displayed wisdom in grasping that, whatever one’s view of
climate-change science, the choices to be made are essentially political and economic, and that these are highly contested, involving adaptation or pseudo-control, punitively
high costs, retrogressive and retrospective taxes and near-impossible international agreements. We haven’t mentioned Bob May for a while. Here he is, talking to BBC R4’s World at One presenter Martha Kearney today about… oh, you know, everything. [Listen
again - UK Only] MK: The issue of climate change is being addressed tonight by the president of the British Science Association, Lord May. He’s the former
president of Britain’s leading science academy, the Royal Society and the former government Chief Scientific Advisor. He’s making his speech at the British Science
Festival tonight and takes as his starting point the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth. And Lord May, you’re going to outline what you see as a set of interlocking
set of problems which in fact threaten our existence on the planet. BM: Yes. I’m going to begin with the very different world of Darwin’s time, which is exactly coincident with the foundations of the
British Association for the Advancement of science. And I’m going to point out that in Darwin’s own time there were lots of problems like for example in the physics of
that day, Earth couldn’t have been nearly long enough for the, err, what the geological record tries to tell us. Nearly all those problems have been swept away by
advances in science in the subsequent 150 years or so, except for how evolution managed to create and sustain cooperative behaviour in large aggregates of unrelated people.
Small when we were hunter-gatherers, small groups we were all, the people in the group were all related. But today we still don’t really properly understand the origins
of the stability of the ties that bind us in big societies. MK: And those ties are vital, you believe, people do need to cooperate when it comes to the problems of tackling climate change, population
growth, food and water supplies? BM: And indeed the two things you’ve just had: those two programmes are beautiful small examples, the one before, immediately preceding a
sketch of climate change and before that, legalistic tensions between the interests of the individual and the interests of society. More generally we’ve got a
concatenation of problems that we seem to have difficulty focusing on other than one at a time. But they’re all interlinked. MK: And you… BM: Half as many again by the middle of the century. Need to feed them. Water supplies. Demand crossing supplies. And climate change. MK: And you believe that in the past, religion, mythology, the idea of a deity as a punisher was what actually helped bind people together. BM: Well, there’s a huge academic growth industry in trying, playing artificial little games as metaphors for cooperation, always with
the temptation for a seeming advantage of cheating. And what they’re tending to tell us is that carrots are much more effective than sticks. But if you’ve only got
carrots, there… there… the benefit of cheating is not suppressed. And what helps most is carrots with a few sticks. A mechanism for punishing the people who don’t pay
their dues for the cooperative benefit which they get. And that poses the question… the punisher is often penalised for punishing. How much better to invent a
supernatural entity that is all-knowing-all-seeing-all-powerful and arguably there’s quite a lot of speculation that the origins of religion lie as a mechanism with the
wish of the deity or pantheon interpreted by a hierarchy… it’s a mechanism for bringing people together to cooperate in the norms of the society under the non… not
the… fear, if you like… ummm… of punishment, if not here then in the hereafter. MK: Well, interesting, but undoubtedly controversial ideas. I’m sure many people of faith will disagree with you. Lord May, thanks very
much indeed for joining us. Wow. So here’s what we understand from the interview. In the beginning, there were little groups of hunter-gathering people who didn’t know people from other little groups of hunter gatherers. And we don’t know how these
people co-operated, except for being scared by a god. But then a man called Darwin came along and said that the Earth was older than the hunter-gathering god-fearing people
said it was. So people stopped being terrified of the god, and therefore stopped co-operating with each other. But now, using special games based on Darwin’s ideas,
scientists have worked out that people need to have carrots and sticks to make them co-operate. In short: No sooner has science proved that religion is nonsense than it proves that we need it after all to save the planet and our own souls. For May, religion is not
true, but it is a convenient untruth. He seems to think that religion, the tenets and authority of which science challenged centuries ago, was a good idea because it brought
people together so that they obeyed norms. He wants us to believe in a god that he knows doesn’t exist to save us from armageddon, which he knows exists. We need this new
religion, because we’re too stupid to behave properly, except through being steered by ‘carrots and sticks’. We’re just a bunch of feckless donkeys. Is evolutionary theory - the science which played no small part in toppling the illegitimate rule of the church - being used to construct a false religion that coerces us
with reward and punishment? Maybe it’s too soon to say. We’re just a bunch of donkeys, after all. Meanwhile, perhaps a more simple question to answer concerns Bob May and his ilk. Does he need a religion to create the possibility of a cooperative effort to solve a
crisis, or does he need a crisis to create the basis for authority? As we argue often here on Climate Resistance, climate politics is prior to the science. Or perhaps that
sort of chicken and egg problem is another one for the evolutionary biologists? (Climate Resistance) September 8, 2009
The health story for this Labor Day is the health of our labor force. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest employment figures on
Friday. The unemployment rate jumped to 9.7% in August — a 26-year high — as payrolls fell by another 216,000 jobs. A total of 14.9 million Americans are now listed as
unemployed, with an additional 9.1 million working at part-time jobs rather than the full-time work they want. What does this have to do with health? Let’s look. (Junkfood
Science) Report helps quell fear of "superbug" epidemic NEW YORK - In doctors' offices in the US, skin infections have not become more common since the "superbug" MRSA began showing up in communities. French gov't to tackle surging health care deficit PARIS - The French government is looking at ways to plug a gaping hole in its health care budget and may charge patients more for hospital stays, Budget Minister Eric
Woerth said on Monday. An essay that appeared in Science magazine back in the 1960's explains clearly and concisely the self-destructive path we're on in our country today. Hmm... Big Tobacco Strikes Back It didn’t take long for tobacco companies to try to evade tough new restrictions on their ability to market to young people. Less than three months after a landmark
federal law granted the Food and Drug Administration power to regulate tobacco products, several of the industry’s biggest companies filed suit in tobacco-friendly
Kentucky. They contend that the law’s marketing provisions infringe their commercial free-speech rights. (NYT) The tobacco companies could be right. It's one thing if tobacco was made illegal -- then it would have no marketing rights, etc. but as things stand it
is still a legal product. Cars are lethal but they can be freely advertised. Skydiving is dangerous but that has no advertising restrictions. Cosmetic and bariatric surgery
can have fatal consequences but they can be advertised, too... Granted, State and Federal Governments make a fortune out of taxes and duties on tobacco and a lot of
people's employment depends on it, so it is not likely to be made illegal. This makes its advertising restrictions somewhat incongruous, no? Van Jones’ Toxic Dump on
Obama and Environmentalism Van Jones, the President’s designated “Green Jobs Czar,” resigned his post after his ties to a 9/11 “truther” group and use of a vulgarity to describe
Republicans began attracting unwelcome scrutiny. Fair enough. Barack Obama cannot condemn any lack of civility among his political opponents while he harbors a rhetorical
bomb-thrower like Jones. That's the trouble with largely illusory problems, they tend to be impossible to "fix": Try
nature, not tech, to fix economic woes: UNEP GENEVA - The world is waking up to huge economic benefits of investing in nature, from forests to coral reefs, after one of the "great oversights" of the 20th
century, the head of the U.N. Environment Program said on Friday. EU Proposes U.N. War Chest For Climate Funds BRUSSELS - The United Nations should set up a war chest to help process the billions of dollars poor countries will be paid to slash their greenhouse gas emissions, the
European Union has proposed. Who said it was about the science? The true meaning of climate change Climate change is everywhere. Not only is the physical climate changing, but the idea of climate change is now active across the full range of human endeavours. Climate
change has moved from being a predominantly physical phenomenon to being a social one, in the process reshaping the way we think about ourselves, our societies and
humanity’s place on Earth. Company fights climate change ruling by employment
tribunal A controversial tribunal decision that some company practices can discriminate against employees with strongly held views on climate change will be challenged in the
courts. Well... gorebull warming is strictly a matter of faith so... Leading scientist calls on religious leaders to tackle climate change President of the British Science Association, Lord May, says faith groups could lead policing of social behaviour. (Ian Sample, The Guardian) Maybe Bob would also like to see atmospheric physics books chained to the altar of the Church of Latter-day Gorebull Warming, restricted only for access
by initiates? Perhaps he'd like all science to be a cloistered matter for a select priesthood? Remember we told you about the idiotic scare stories looming before CoP15? Robin's doing his best: Climate
change: melting ice will trigger wave of natural disasters Scientists at a London conference next week will warn of earthquakes, avalanches and volcanic eruptions as the atmosphere heats up and geology is altered. Even Britain
could face being struck by tsunamis (Robin McKie, The Observer) Yet more hysterical imaginings: Super typhoons in store as seas warm A super typhoon stronger than the deadly Hurricane Katrina that devastated the southern United States in 2005 could hit Japan in the latter half of this century if global
warming continues, according to a study by a Japanese research team made available Monday. Wow! Alter geology huh? Powerful stuff, this warmening :-) Global warming is a wake-up call Climate change is not only about rising temperatures. It may alter the geology of the Earth dramatically, scientists say. (CoP15) Funnier by the day: Climate change boosts ultraviolet risk for
high latitudes PARIS — Climate change will disrupt Earth's precious ozone layer, boosting ultraviolet (UV) radiation in the deep southern hemisphere and reducing UV in far northern
latitudes, a study warned on Sunday. People don't sunbathe under the the end-of-winter Antarctic Ozone Anomaly, which has never been a real problem and solar radiation creates Earth's
stratospheric ozone in a dynamic and volatile process. More human harm has been done by people's lack of UV exposure as a result of idiotic "ozone depletion"
scares than can possibly occur as a result of "climate change-driven ozone repletion" in the northern hemisphere. See also our ozone
page. Killing the golden goose: Maldives To Introduce Green Tax On Tourists The Maldives archipelago, threatened by rising sea levels blamed on climate change, said on Monday it would introduce a new environment tax on all tourists who use its
resorts and provide its economic lifeline. (Reuters) Uh-huh... Tougher global warming caps seen still possible GENEVA - The world can still cap global warming at far lower levels than widely expected if nations "bite the bullet" and slash greenhouse gas emissions, the
chairman of the U.N. climate panel says. ... funny thing is we don't have to do thing one to achieve them since there's no realistic reason to believe any such warming will occur. The Age of Catastrophic Thinking “Probably,” Norman Mailer wrote in 1957, “we will never be able to determine the psychic havoc of the concentration camps and the atom bomb upon the unconscious mind
of almost everyone alive in these years.” Today, however, we have something like an answer: We are living in an age of catastrophic thinking. Our social and cultural
discourse on any number of subjects—the environment, the economy, public health, technology—is defined by a vocabulary and a worldview that can only be described as
apocalyptic. The world, we are constantly told, is in a state of mortal crisis, and unless we act fast enough to stop it, we are all facing disaster and oblivion. Everything,
it seems, is swiftly accelerating toward a terrible end. HOLLYWOOD loves a movie full of dire predictions about the end of the Earth. Of course global warming has been all the rage with Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth winning
an Oscar. Although I did prefer The Day After Tomorrow in which a climatologist, played by Dennis Quad, tried to save his son in New York from an ice age. The science and politics of
climate change From the beginning, the premise of man-made or anthropogenic global warming was part of a political movement designed to increase government regulation and to push tax
dollars toward special interest groups. As Rush Limbaugh pointed out many years ago, the environmental movement is the new home of socialism, although we’re seeing that
philosophy being practiced by many outside the movement in the U.S. government… Fight against global warming should focus on more than CO2 Curbing a string of pollutants other than carbon dioxide, such as methane, would enhance the prospects of a global climate deal and benefit health and other factors as
well, UNEP said on Friday. (CoP15) Right... except for the parts about concern over atmospheric carbon dioxide and the need to "fight against global warming", that is. Shame he's such a believer... Focus on the means OUR present approach to solving global warming will not work. It is flawed economically, because carbon taxes will cost a fortune and do little, and it is flawed
politically, because negotiations to reduce CO2 emissions will become ever more fraught and divisive. And even if you disagree on both counts, the present approach is also
flawed technologically. So much effort and appeal wasted on a completely pointless exercise. Murkowski: Not ready on climate change Congress is returning to work after its August recess with two blockbuster issues on its plate, health care reform and climate change, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told
the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce Aug. 31. It has one redeeming feature then: U.S. climate change bill to
compete with healthcare WASHINGTON - Environmentalists hope the push in Congress for climate change legislation is not overwhelmed by the debate dominating Capitol Hill over changing the U.S.
healthcare system. But it might be. FOR an organisation that claims to be committed to tackling climate change, Greenpeace seems strangely suspicious of new technologies designed to do just that. He doesn't understand. This crusade has nothing to do with fixing any imaginary ill such as planetary mean temperature -- it never did -- it is all about
control of the energy supply. For the greens this is a means of hampering human activity while for profiteers it is simply greed but it has never had anything to do with
the actual temperature of the planet. Indonesia Needs To Refine Forest-CO2 Rules: Lawyers JAKARTA - Confusing and conflicting regulations are scaring away investors from Indonesia's fledgling forest carbon credit scheme aimed at curbing deforestation, lawyers
said on Monday. If you have a minute & 41 seconds to spare: Futurama: Global Warming, None Like it Hot The cause of and the solution to global warming explained by Futurama in this short film. In the style of filmstrips created for classroom presentation. (MilkAndCookies) In post on June 4 2009 on my weblog titled Short Circuiting The
Scientific Process – A Serious Problem In The Climate Science Community I wrote There has been a development over the last 10-15 years or so in the scientific peer reviewed literature that is short circuiting the scientific method What the current publication process has evolved into, at the detriment of proper scientific investigation, are the publication of untested (and often untestable)
hypotheses. The fourth step in the scientific method “Test
Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment” is bypassed. This is a main reason that the policy community is being significantly misinformed about the actual status of our understanding of the climate system and the role
of humans within it. There is new paper (made available today) which is Auroop R. Ganguly, Karsten Steinhaeuser, David J. Erickson, III, Marcia Branstetter, Esther S. Parish, Nagendra Singh, John B. Drake, and Lawrence Bujad, 2009: Higher
trends but larger uncertainty and geographic variability in 21st century temperature and heat waves. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. www.pnas.org cgidoi
10.1073 pnas.0904495106 that fits into this type of article. The abstract of this paper reads “Generating credible climate change and extremes projections remains a high-priority challenge, especially since recent observed emissions are above the worst-case
scenario. Bias and uncertainty analyses of ensemble simulations from a global earth systems model show increased warming and more intense heat waves combined with greater
uncertainty and large regional variability in the 21st century. Global warming trends are statistically validated across ensembles and investigated at regional scales.
Observed heat wave intensities in the current decade are larger than worst-case projections. Model projections are relatively insensitive to initial conditions, while
uncertainty bounds obtained by comparison with recent observations are wider than ensemble ranges. Increased trends in temperature and heat waves, concurrent with larger
uncertainty and variability, suggest greater urgency and complexity of adaptation or mitigation decisions.” The text includes the statements “Statistically Higher Warming Trends. First, we show that the global average temperatures from the middle to end of the 21st century “Here we compare A1FI-driven CCSM 3.0 … model projections and NCEP Reanalysis … observations for 2000–2007, when both are available, and develop
grid-based estimates for model bias and standard deviation. We use the results to generate bias-corrected ‘‘most likely’’ projections and corresponding confidence
bounds based on three standard deviations at each grid cell. Grid-based decadal averages are calculated for three time periods: The current ‘‘2000’’ decade, the
mid-century ‘‘2050’’ decade, and the end-century ‘‘2100.’’ “The globally averaged intensity of heat waves at decadal scales shows that the observed intensities are higher than the worst-case model projections in the
current decade, which implies further exacerbation of heat waves compared to what has been already suggested by previous researchers.” [Note: The use of the term
"observed" in this sentence is clearly an error as these later decades have not even occurred yet!]. While such studies provide useful exercises on the sensitivity of the model results to different climate forcings, their use to provide definitive forecasts (even
as an ensemble of best and worst case scenarios) is misleading policymakers and others on the actual lack of skill in such multi-decadal global climate predictions. The Gangulya et al 2009 paper, no matter how well intentioned, is yet another case of short circuiting the science.
(Climate Science) Massey Energy CEO blasts climate bill at WVa rally HOLDEN, W.Va. — The chief executive of coal mining giant Massey Energy blasted supporters of climate-change legislation and other environmental issues affecting the coal
industry at a free Labor Day concert and rally in southern West Virginia. For an idiot he's at least partly right: Cut carbon,
protect customers It’s time for the United States to establish a national climate change policy that ensures substantial reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
gases, while taking every step possible to contain consumer costs. Yes, the money should be left in consumers' pockets. No, under no circumstance should politicians attempt to control carbon -- ever. Building the gallows on which they'll be hanged... Arguing From
the Inside - As new energy policies are hammered out, business leaders are scrambling to make sure they are part of the discussion Here's a thing you don't see very often: the head of one of the world's dirtiest industries making common cause with climate-change campaigners. Natural Gas Hits a Roadblock in New Energy
Bill HOUSTON — The natural gas industry has enjoyed something of a winning streak in recent years. It found gigantic new reserves, low prices are encouraging utilities to
substitute gas for coal, and cities are switching to buses fueled by natural gas. Natural gas should be part of the energy mix, as should coal. The one thing that should not be part of the energy mix is carbon panic. There is no
climate advantage in tweak so trivial a parameter as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels -- the numbers just
don't work. Let me guess... Delta Flies Empty Planes Across Atlantic - Environmental campaigners attack Delta
Air Lines over 'ghost' flights to meet Australian quarantine regulations A major US airline has been attacked by environmental campaigners for flying empty planes across the Atlantic to be disinfected. ... U.S. greenie regulations are the reason these treatments must be done offshore, right? Bottom line is Delta is just doing what is required to meet
regulations. Ah, some tipsiness worth worrying about: Britain
heading back to the dark ages The UK is facing a tipping point over the next few years in its ability to generate enough power to satisfy an ever-increasing demand. (Daily Telegraph) The next generation of nuclear reactors is on its way, and supporters say they will be safer, cheaper and more efficient than current plants. Here's a look at what's
coming -- and when. (WSJ) Report: Lights out next year for many in solar industry Massive inventory buildup and Chinese competition could put half of all solar manufacturers out of business next year, according to a market research firm. Has the Time Finally Come For Diesel Hybrids? The combination of electric motors and diesel engines has worked well in locomotives and heavy trucks for years, but carmakers haven't been successful in getting beyond
the concept car stage for light duty vehicles. Five years after I started writing about the potential for diesel hybrids, the passenger vehicle market is still relatively
quiet -- but that at last may change. (John Gartner, Reuters) Why not straight diesels? September 7, 2009
The flu season has barely begun and yet the panic is already in full swing with 186,933 media stories about H1N1 and 47,159 news stories about the swine flu currently at
Google News.* Do you know what is missing among the widespread pandemic alarm in the media and coming from government agencies, pharmaceutical and other stakeholders? On August 14th, mainstream media was reporting that osteoporosis-linked fractures have dramatically increased over the past decade. Among 723 news stories, not one
questioned the study behind the news. The public not only lost an opportunity to learn the facts, but a valuable take-home lesson. Tick-Borne Illnesses Have Nantucket Considering Some
Deer-Based Solutions NANTUCKET, Mass. — In the annals of animals linked to human disease, there is surely a place for Old Buck of Nantucket. California encourages buildings that are
sure to burn Arnie might want to rethink this one. In a classic case of a perverse incentive, California state law actually encourages homeowners to build in brushy canyons prone to
massive wildfires like the "Station fire", which burned over 350,000 hectares and destroyed dozens of homes near Los Angeles this month. More
rubbish from 60 Minutes tonight. “The Age of Megafires” Right on cue, CBS news 60 minutes is expected link the recent California fires to “global warming”. Never mind that the fire was caused
by arson, or that the area hadn’t burned in 40-60 years,
leading up to a collection of dry dead underbrush which is part of the natural fire cycle. Never
mind that La Nina made for a dry couple of years
exacerbating the problem. Never mind that we get fires in California about this time every year. No, its the “Age of Megafires”: THE AGE OF MEGAFIRES – Global warming is increasing the intensity and number of forest fires across the American West. Scott Pelley goes to the fire line to report.
David Gelber and Joel Bach are the producers. Watch a preview http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5285410n UPDATE: WUWT reader Jason writes to tell us that this story is a rerun, and originally aired in 2007. See it
here. I’ll bet the intro will mention the California fires though. They may have even “freshened up” the report a bit for the current situation. I wonder if CBS borrowed the title from the Christian Science Monitor 2007 report? Here is a top 20 report from CDF, note that they poo-poo 1932. Note
also that there were quite a number of 100,00+ acre fires more than 10 years ago, directly contradicting the interview in the CBS trailer. (WUWT) Circling turbines spell doom for vultures COULD wind farms hasten the local extinction of an endangered vulture in southern Spain? Pain-free animals could take
suffering out of farming WITH "hormone-free", "cage-free" and "antibiotic-free" becoming common labels on our supermarket shelves, might "pain-free" be the
next sticker slapped onto a rump roast? Scientists have genetically engineered several biofortified food plants to tackle a scourge of developing countries—micronutrient malnutrition. The crops have yet to be
planted on a wide scale, but that may be about to change. (The Scientist) And guess who's supposed to do all the paying? TOWARD COPENHAGEN:
Rich Nations Owe Two-Fold 'Climate Debt' BRUSSELS (IDN) - Rich industrialised countries owe a ‘climate debt’ for causing global warming that is mostly impacting the poor and vulnerable of the world. This view
is gaining ground as the international community heads for the United Nations climate change conference Dec. 7-18 in Copenhagen. Schellnhuber again: 'Industrialized Nations Are Facing CO2 Insolvency' In a SPIEGEL ONLINE interview, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, the German government's climate protection adviser, argues that drastic measures must be taken in order to
prevent a catastrophe. He is proposing the creation of a CO2 budget for every person on the planet, regardless whether they live in Berlin or Beijing. (Der Spiegel) Schellnhuber: West has exceeded quotas In his previous life, Hans
Joachim Schellnhuber used to be a fairly good theoretical physicist. For
example, he would solve the Schrödinger equation with an almost periodic potential in 1983. He
has spent a year or so as a postdoc at KITP in Santa Barbara (1981-82). Wow! They're even reporting it: World's climate
could cool first, warm later Forecasts of climate change are about to go seriously out of kilter. One of the world's top climate modellers said Thursday we could be about to enter "one or even
two decades during which temperatures cool. Eric Berger having a crisis of faith? Climate
scientists should talk about what "may" happen, rather than what "will" happen ... For a long time now, science reporters have been confidently told the science is settled. That the planet is warming and humans are unquestionably the primary cause.
We've been told to trust the computer models -- the models which show a markedly upward trend in temperatures as carbon dioxide concentrations increase. And I've trusted the
scientists telling me this. Below you'll find the computer model forecasts for the 21st century temperatures from the most recent IPCC summary
for policymakers, which call for a 1.8°C to 3.8°C rise in global temperatures by 2100: It seems pretty clear that the models forecast a steady upward trend in global temperatures as long as carbon dioxide levels rise. (Which
they have). Yet according to satellite and surface temperature measurements the global
average temperature has essentially remained flat for the last 12 years. This strikes me as somewhat curious. When An Inconvenient Truth came out I believed the movie to be scientifically accurate. Carbon dioxide levels were rising and
so were temperatures. And hurricane activity, especially after the disastrous 2005 season, was out
of control. But a funny thing happened on the way to the end of the world: hurricane activity on the global scale is near
historical lows. And the Earth seems to have, at least temporarily, stopped warming. This, despite the fact that some of the country's leading climate scientists say there is
unequivocally a link between major hurricanes and climate change. And despite the fact that other leading
climate scientists predicted 2009 or 2010 will go down as the warmest year in recorded history. Either prediction, if true, would be alarming. Yet both of these predictions seem, at the present moment, to be off. ... If we can't have confidence in the short-term prognosis for climate change, how can we have full confidence in the long-term prognosis? ... But I am confused. Four years ago this all seemed like a fait accompli. Humans were unquestionably warming the climate and changing the planet forever through
their emissions of carbon dioxide. ... Uncertainties like: maybe there isn't a linear relationship between carbon dioxide and temperature, and maybe the planet will cool for a couple of decades even as carbon
dioxide emissions accelerate. For the last few years some scientists and environmentalists have been telling us a lot about what "will" happen in the future if carbon dioxide emissions
continue unabated. It perhaps would have been a lot better if they talked about what "may" happen. (SciGuy, Houston Chronicle) Welcome to the real world, Eric. Hopefully you'll stick around -- it's an interesting place ;-) White House Adviser on ‘Green Jobs’
Resigns In a victory for Republicans and the Obama administration’s conservative critics, Van Jones resigned as the White House’s environmental jobs “czar” on Saturday. Dodged a bullet there: Dick
Morris: Van Jones in charge of “Cap and Trade” bonanza "MORRIS: Well, I hope — I hope he does step up and say that, but let’s realize the responsibility he gave this guy. This guy basically was in charge of
running the cap-and-trade legislation. He would be in charge of basically deciding how American manufacturing could cope with the need to reduce carbon output, which firms
lived and died. And Obama trusted a guy like this with those kinds of decisions? He’s the czar, the green jobs czar. Incredible." “Politicians are Creating an Un-Natural Disaster” The Carbon Sense Coalition based in Australia today accused western politicians of creating a man-made disaster by destroying the ability of the world to cope with real
natural disasters. Debunking the global warming prophets Ralph Alexander’s new book is a timely reminder that in spite of all the shrieking, man-made carbon dioxide might not be the showstopper it is portrayed to be. <chuckle> Another Astroturf Campaign It was probably only a matter of time, but the oil lobby has taken a page from the anti-health-care-reform manual in an effort to drum up opposition to climate change
legislation in Congress. Behind the overall effort — billed, naturally, as a grass-roots citizen movement — lie the string-pullers at the American Petroleum Institute,
the industry’s main trade organization and a wily, well-funded veteran of the legislative wars. (NYT) Another as in the succession of green frauds? Probably not what the Crone meant but it is kind of funny to see greenies howl about
"astroturf" campaigns when they specialize in them. Whassa matter fellas? Don't like anyone else using your techniques? Expect a lot more stupid gorebull warming stories as CoP15 approaches: Coastal home owners face huge losses from
rising sea SYDNEY - Australians Lesley and Doug McGrath have for decades battled ocean swells that have eaten away at the backyard of their multi-million dollar Sydney home. Eye-roller: Warmer climate could make
succulent meat a memory If you like a tasty slab of meat, make sure you place your orders soon. Pork chops will become soggier and paler as the world warms, say veterinary scientists, and steaks
could become blander, leaner, darker and more prone to spoilage. More overcooked rhetoric: UN urges
nations to tackle air pollution Countries could speed up their action against climate change if they tackled air pollution as well as carbon dioxide emissions, the UN Environment Program says. Maybe religion is the
answer claims atheist scientist - The world may have to turn to God to save itself from climate change, claims one of Britain’s most eminent scientists. Lord May, the president of the British Science Association, said religion may have helped protect human society from itself in the past and it may be needed again. In a way Bob may be right but not in the way he means. It is possible that people of faith are less susceptible to climate superstition -- but don't
count on it, even some religious groups have fallen to the siren call of "green" deceivers and their Gaia worship. Well duh! Warm winter cuts greenhouse emissions Greenhouse gas emissions reportedly fell about 4 per cent across Australia's eastern states over the winter. If a traveler on Continental Airlines pays an optional $5 surcharge to plant a tree as a “carbon offset” how much difference will it make to the planet? Traveling
Americans are paying millions of dollars to plant hundreds of thousands of additional trees. Many of these new trees are being planted in the tropics; where tree-planting
does the most good in cooling the earth. “Few challenges facing America – and the world – are more urgent than combating climate change,” President Obama has asserted. “We will make it clear that
America is ready to lead.” New Japanese PM pledges deep greenhouse
gas cuts Japan's incoming prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has pledged that his government is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020,
despite growing opposition from the business community. (Daily Telegraph) Complete with a politically safe way of running away: Japan emissions target hinges on international deal TOKYO - The greenhouse gas emissions target for 2020 set by Japan's incoming Democratic Party government is based on the premise that there will be an international
agreement including China and India, a party executive said on Friday. Finance ministers' report puts pressure on major developing countries According to The Times of India, a draft paper by ministers from the world's largest economies (G-20) meeting today aims at committing major developing countries to impose
carbon taxation. (CoP15) Climate change funding talks stall at G20 LONDON - Differences between rich and developing countries prevented G20 finance ministers from agreeing measures on Saturday to curb global warming, casting more doubt on
U.N. efforts to agree a new climate treaty. G-20 talks on climate "not satisfactory” Finance ministers from the Group of Twenty were unable to reach a common stance on climate change funding ahead of US summit on September 24-25. (CoP15) Bizarre claim of the moment: Copenhagen failure would damage world trade Should the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change fail to agree this December, it could have severe harmful effects on international trade, warns the
World Trade Organisation chief. (CoP15) Sen. Cantwell: Obama to Sign Climate Treaty With China BEIJING -- The United States and China are likely to sign a new bilateral agreement to combat climate change during President Barack Obama's visit to Beijing in November,
Washington senator Maria Cantwell said on Friday. Engineering gaining popularity, at least on a local scale: Moscow mayor
wants snowless winter IT defeated Napoleon and Hitler, but the legendary Russian winter is facing a formidable new challenge from the Mayor of Moscow, who wants to stop it from snowing. The
Ap Solar Magnetic Index remains low, going on 4 years It has been awhile since I’ve looked at the Ap Index. The last time was April of 2009. From the data provided by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) you can
see just how little Ap magnetic activity there has been since. Here’s my graph from September 2009 SWPC Ap data: For a longer perspective, David Archibald, has a graph of the Ap Index back to 1932. The solar average geomagnetic planetary index, in Dec 2008, Ap was at its lowest
level in 75 years: Click for a larger image – I’ve added some annotation to the graph provided by Archibald to point out areas of interest and to clarify some aspects of it for the
novice reader. The last time the Ap index was this low was 1933. The December 2008 Ap value of 2,, has never been this low. (Note: Leif Svalgaard contends
this value is erroneous, and that 4.2 is the correct value – either way, it is still lower than 1933) Further, the trend from October 2005 continues to remain low,
though some signs of a slight rebound are showing. This Ap index is a proxy that tells us that the sun is now quite inactive, and the
other indices of sunspot index and 10.7 radio flux also confirm this. The sun is in a full blown funk, and your guess is as good as mine as to when it might pull out of
it. So far, predictions by NOAA’s SWPC and NASA’s Hathaway have not been near the reality that is being measured. As Leif Svalgaard points out, Ap is just one of several indices that describe geomagnetic activity. There are several others [aa, am, IHV, ...] that go much further
back in time [to the 1840s]. You can get more info from: http://www.leif.org/research/IAGA2008LS.pdf and For those that follow the sunspot number (SSN) I’ve graphed the Ap and SSN together. As you can see, we’ve been in a reduced state of solar activity now for quite some
time. It has been almost 4 years since the prominent drop in Ap in October 2005. SSN mirrors the decline of the Ap index since then. As many regular readers know, I’ve pointed out several times the incident of the abrupt and sustained lowering of the Ap
Index which occurred in October 2005. The abrupt step change seemed (to me) to be out of place with the data, and since then the data seems less “active”, with
reduced amplitudes. And then we have the fact that the sun seems to have reestablished at a lower plateau of the Ap index after that October 2005 step change and has not
recovered now in almost 4 years. It seems to me to be a noteworthy event. UPDATE: Thanks to Leif Svalgaard, we have a more extensive and “official” Ap dataset (NOAA’s SWPC has issues, see comments) that
I’ve plotted below. The step change in October 2005 is still visible and the value of 3.9 that occurred in April of this year is the lowest for the entire dataset. And I’ve also plotted the 1991 to present data from BGS/Svalgaard to compare against the NOAA SWPC data: Arctic is warmest in 2 millennia The Arctic is experiencing its warmest temperatures in 2,000 years, even though it should be cooling because of changes in the Earth's orbit that cause the region to get
less direct sunlight. (CoP15) Arctic Temperature Reporting In
The News Needs A Reality Check There new articles that claim the Arctic is rapidly warming. These articles are an excellent examples of the cherrypicking of particular published papers to
promote the very narrow perspective of the journalists. These include An Associated Press news article by Randolph E. Schmid titled “Arctic
reverses long-term trend”. A New York Times article by Andrew C. Revkin titled “Humans May Have
Ended Long Arctic Chill”. The Schmid article has the text “The most recent 10-year interval, 1999-2008, was the warmest of the last 2,000 years in the Arctic, according to the researchers led by Darrell S. Kaufman, a
professor of geology and environmental science at Northern Arizona University. Summer temperatures in the Arctic averaged 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.4 degrees Celsius) warmer than would have been expected if the cooling had continued, the
researchers said. The finding adds fuel to the debate over a House-passed climate bill now pending in the Senate. The administration-backed measure would impose the first limits on
greenhouse gases and eventually would lead to an 80 percent reduction by putting a price on each ton of climate-altering pollution.” Revkin reinforces this extreme view in his September 3 2009 article with his figure of 2000 years of Arctic surface temperatures, with each decade having
the same temporal resolution as the last 10 years. The publication of these news articles are clearly meant to influence the political process, as evident in the last paragraph, where Schmid writes “The
finding adds fuel to the debate over a House-passed climate bill now pending in the Senate.” The documentation of their biased reporting is easy to show. For example, they do not report on observational data which does not show this rapid recent
warming; e.g. see that the current high latitude temperatures are close to the longer term average since 1958 The Danish Meteorological Institute Daily Mean Temperatures in the Arctic 1958 – 2008 [and thanks to the
excellent weblog Watts Up With That for making this easily available to us!] There are also peer reviewed papers which show that the Schmid and Revkin articles are biased; e. g. see i) the areal coverage of the coldest middle tropospheric temperatures (below -40C) have not changed radically as shown in the Revkin figure; see Herman, B., M. Barlage, T.N. Chase, and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2008: Update on a proposed mechanism for the
regulation of minimum mid-tropospheric and surface temperatures in the Arctic and Antarctic. J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 113, D24101,
doi:10.1029/2008JD009799. and ii) there is a warm bias in the Arctic surface temperature measurements when they are used to characterize deeper atmospheric warming; see Klotzbach, P.J., R.A. Pielke Sr., R.A. Pielke Jr., J.R. Christy, and R.T. McNider, 2009: An alternative
explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere. J. Geophys. Res., accepted. At least the news Editors of the newspapers are starting to recognize that these journalists are presenting slanted news. The Schmid article appeared only on
page 12 of my local newspaper. (Climate Science) ENSO
Dominates NODC Ocean Heat Content Data ENSO Dominates NODC Ocean Heat Content Data Guest post by Bob Tisdale, BTW here is the current SST map. – Anthony The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) recently added the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) Ocean Heat Content (OHC) dataset to their Climate
Explorer website, allowing users to download data based on user-defined global coordinates. There are differences in the presentation of the data. The NODC illustrates their OHC data in 10^22 Joules, but KNMI presents the data on an area-averaged basis, in units
of Gigajoules (10^9 Joules) per square meter. The data is the same; the units in which the data is presented are different. Also, the NODC provides the data on a quarterly
basis; that is, the data is grouped in three-month averages. KNMI presents the NODC OHC data on a monthly basis by listing the quarterly data for each of the three months.
This is why the OHC data appears to be squared off in the graphs of monthly raw data. This can be seen in Figure 1. Figure 1 is a comparison graph of the Global OHC anomaly data (NODC), scaled NINO3.4 SST Anomalies (HADISST), and scaled Sato Index (GISS) data. This is the same format
used in the graphs of the subsets illustrated in this post. The NINO3.4 SST anomalies are used to illustrate the timing of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. The
Sato Index of Mean Optical Thickness at 500nm are provided to illustrate the timing of explosive volcanic eruptions. I’ve also smoothed the data for each OHC anomaly subset
with a 13-month running-average filter, Figure 2. As you will see later, some of the subsets are noisy in their raw form. In the following, I’ve provided links to the graphs of the raw data, for those who are interested in seeing it in that form, but I have only posted the graphs of the
data smoothed with a 13-month running-average filter. It’s much easier to see the step changes when the data is in that form. TROPICS The Tropical Pacific OHC anomaly data is illustrated in Figure 3. A number of things to note: The tropical Pacific OHC anomalies fall during El Nino events, but then
recharge during the La Nina. For the most part, when the El Nino events occur at the same time as volcanic eruptions, the recharge does not return the OHC anomalies to the
value they were at before the El Nino, but if the El Nino occurs without the influence of a volcanic eruption, the La Nina recharges the Tropical Pacific OHC anomalies to the
pre-El Nino level. And it does it quickly. Note also how the 1972/73 El Nino event causes an upward step in the OHC anomalies of the Tropical Pacific. The OHC anomalies then
decrease gradually, being influenced by the eruptions of El Chichon in 1982 and Mount Pinatubo in 1991, until they rise suddenly in 1995. In an earlier post, I illustrated
how a shift in Tropical Pacific Total Cloud Amount may have caused the 1995 rise in Tropical Pacific OHC, providing fuel for the 1997/98 El Nino. Refer to my post Did
A Decrease In Total Cloud Amount Fuel The 1997/98 El Nino? http://i31.tinypic.com/2s96hd1.png However, the Tropical Indian Ocean OHC anomaly data reveals a sudden decline in 1995. Did a shift of warm water from the Tropical Indian Ocean to the Tropical Pacific also
fuel the 1997/98 El Nino? I’ll investigate this in a future post. Note how the Tropical Indian Ocean OHC anomalies correlate with NINO3.4 SST anomalies over a large portion
of the term of the data, but after 1995, the amplitude of the variations changes drastically. http://i30.tinypic.com/xfnk14.png In Figure 5, I’ve combined the OHC anomaly data for the Tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans. The OHC anomaly data for this subset follows the base of the NINO3.4 SST
anomalies remarkably well. The OHC anomalies of the Tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans follow the rise in NINO3.4 SST anomalies after the 1972/73 and 1997/98 El Nino events.
In other words, like the Tropical Pacific, there also appears to be a 25-year decay after the upward step from the 1972/73 El Nino (also influenced by the 1982 and 1991
volcanic eruptions), until the 1997/98 El Nino causes another upward step. http://i28.tinypic.com/2a3y2a.png The step changes in the Tropical Atlantic OHC anomalies are obvious. The first occurred three years after the peak of 1972/73 El Nino, as the NINO3.4 SST anomalies rose
from the secondary minimum of the two-year La Nina event. The same thing occurred with the next significant El Nino that was strong enough to generate a La Nina that lasted
through two ENSO seasons, and that was the 1997/98 El Nino. Note also how the OHC anomalies of the Tropical Atlantic have been dropping quickly since 2005. Click on the link
to the raw data (Figure 6 Raw) to see just how precipitous that drop has been in recent years. http://i28.tinypic.com/2a3y2a.jpg MID-TO-HIGH LATITUDES The North Pacific OHC anomalies are like no other OHC subset. In 1967, there was a sudden drop in the North Pacific OHC anomalies. Twenty plus years later North Pacific
OHC anomalies rebounded. I’ll have to investigate this dataset further in a later post, to try to isolate where the majority of that variability takes place. http://i29.tinypic.com/rwp8ut.png As illustrated in Figure 8, the South Pacific OHC anomalies show a sharp upward step change following the 1997/98 El Nino. Between 1971 and 1996, the OHC anomalies
oscillate at or near 0 GJ/sq meter. The cause of the small rise between the 1960s and 1970 is elusive, but it’s not a significant rise compared to the upward step after the
1997/98 El Nino. http://i27.tinypic.com/25s5ta1.png The South Indian Ocean OHC anomaly data, Figure 9, shows a decrease from 1955 until the late 1960s. Then the 1968/69/70 El Nino caused a minor rise in OHC anomalies. This
was followed by a major upward step from the 1972/73 El Nino. OHC anomalies in the South Indian Ocean remained relatively flat until the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, when the
OHC anomalies dipped. The upward step change after the 1997/98 El Nino is hard to miss. The decay until 2006 almost returned the South Indian Ocean OHC anomalies to the
pre-1997/98 values, but the El Nino of 2006/07 bumped it back up again. http://i31.tinypic.com/2dqvpfl.png The North Atlantic OHC anomaly data, Figure 10, with its gradual climb, is clearly dominated by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. The impacts of ENSO events are
visible, however. In a future post, I may detrend the North Atlantic OHC anomaly data to emphasize the ENSO impacts on this dataset. http://i32.tinypic.com/swa4xf.png There is a clear step change in the South Atlantic OHC anomaly data, Figure 11, following the 1972/73 El Nino. In this case, however, the response appears to be lagged an
extra couple of years. The response is so long, it appears to result from the lesser El Nino of 1976/77. The South Atlantic OHC anomalies remain relatively flat until they
appear to respond to the 1997/98 El Nino with an upward step that starts again many years after the peak of the El Nino. Why so long? http://i25.tinypic.com/2qdcx7l.png Could the variations in the South Atlantic OHC anomalies simply be lagged responses to the Tropical Atlantic OHC anomalies, with surface and subsurface currents
transporting the waters from the tropics to the mid-to-high latitudes of the South Atlantic? Refer to Figure 12. ARCTIC AND SOUTHERN OCEANS I’ve provided the Arctic and Southern Ocean OHC anomaly data in Figures 13 and 14, without commentary, for those who are interested in seeing what those curves look
like. http://i28.tinypic.com/wa0tu0.png http://i28.tinypic.com/2niwilg.png CLOSING It is clear that significant El Nino events can and do cause upward step changes in Ocean Heat Content. This indicates that ENSO events do more than simply release heat
from the tropical Pacific into the atmosphere. Apparently, El Nino events also cause changes in atmospheric circulation in ways that impact Ocean Heat Content. If and when
GCMs are able to recreate the variations in atmospheric circulation that cause these changes in Ocean Heat Content, GCMs may have value in predicting future climate
variability. At present, they do not. SOURCES The NINO3.4 SST anomaly data is based on HADISST data available through the KNMI Climate Explorer: Sato Index data is available through GISS: August 2009 Global Temperature Update: +0.23 deg. C YR MON GLOBE NH SH TROPICS August 2009 saw a modest fall in the global average tropospheric temperature anomaly, from +0.41 deg. C in July to +0.23 deg. C in August. The tropical
and Northern Hemispheric troposphere remain quite warm, but the Southern Hemisphere cooled by over 0.4 deg. C in the last month. (Roy W. Spencer) There is a remarkable lack of understanding with respect to the sensitivity of the minimum temperature overnight to relatively slight changes in surface conditions. This post
illustrates one example of this sensitivity. The implication of such influences is that the use of the minimum temperature as part of the construction of the
global average surface temperature trend is seriously flawed, as we discussed in our paper Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S.
Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land
surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S08, doi:10.1029/2006JD008229. An example of this sensitivity is the strong effect on minimum temperature from the dry bulb temperature, T, and dew point temperature, TD, at
sunset on clear nights with light winds and little horizontal temperature advection: see http://fawn.ifas.ufl.edu/tools/minimum_temperature/.
This method uses the Brunt Equation as reported by Tom Oswalt, Larry Parsons and John Jackson
of the University of Florida. e.g. Putting a value of T = 80F and TD = 74F yields Tmim = 71.4 Putting a value of T = 80F and TD= 75F yields Tmin = 71.9F which is a 0.5 difference. Such a change in dew point can occur just due to the growth of vegetation around an historical climate reference
network site, as we have seen in quite a few of the photographs compiled at Watts Up With That.
The presence of more vegetation can elevate the dew point temperature at sunset as a result of the transpiration of water vapor into the atmosphere. This effect on
dew point is one of a number of surface and atmospheric influences on the surface air temperatures. I will be weblogging on more of these effects in upcoming posts. (Climate
Science) Judging Global Warming As A Scientific Theory The supporters of
anthropogenic global warming (AGW) claim that they have science on their side. Time and again we are told that the debate is over, the science is settled and consensus among
the world's scientists reached. If that is true, why are so many scientists coming forward to oppose and denounce the climate alarmist's theory? To understand the true nature
of the climate change debate it is necessary to understand what a scientific theory is and how to judge a theory's validity. The debate over global warming and its possible human causes has become the defining scientific controversy of our time. Opinions vary regarding the
severity of the problem among both scientists and lay people, though there are some who claim the threat is so immense and so immediate that all doubters should be silenced.
The arguments presented to the public are mostly simplistic and cursory, usually accompanied by images of calving glaciers, melting icebergs and smokestacks belching clouds
of pollution. The public debate has become vicious and nasty, filled with personal attacks and insults. As disturbing as this shift from reasoned scientific discourse to acrimony is, it is not the most troubling aspect of the global warming debate. The most
troubling aspect of the global warming controversy is what it reveals about the level of scientific understanding among the general populace. There is a growing disconnect
between the scientific community and the general population. This is a consequence of the ever-widening knowledge gap between scientists and non-scientists. Science and the
technology it has made possible are the foundations of our modern civilization. Unfortunately, what science is, how it works and what scientists do is not well understood by
the general public. The
public's perception of scientists has never been accurate and it certainly hasn't been helped by the popular media. Scientists are portrayed as intelligent bumblers, like the
“Doc” in Back To The Future; cold, emotionless automatons like “Mr. Spock” on Star Trek; or crazed, power-mad villains like “Doctor Octopus” of Spider
Man fame. In truth, scientists are just regular people with the same feelings, foibles and failings as everyone else on the planet—they just happen to have a lot of
specialized knowledge about some facet of science. So what is science? Science is based on the scientific method and scientists are practitioners of that method. According to the Miriam-Webster
dictionary, the scientific method consists of “principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the
collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.” Or, as more succinctly put by Meg Urry, “Scientists observe nature,
then develop theories that describe their observations.” Science is both a body of knowledge and an approach to understanding nature by gaining more knowledge. It is based on gathering empirical evidence.
Empirical means simply what belongs to or is the product of experience or observation. If you can touch it, smell it, feel it, see it or measure it, it's empirical. An
important point is that, in order to be testable, a theory must make predictions about how nature behaves. A theory that makes no predictions can not be tested and is
therefore useless to science. So what is a scientific theory? Most simply put a theory is an explanation of how nature works. Often, people will dismiss a scientific idea by saying “it's just a theory,” as though a theory is just someone's opinion or something made up on a
whim. This could not be more wrong. To be accepted as a scientific theory means that the ideas expressed have been examined and tested by many scientists, not just the one
who first proposed it. Theories that have endured the test of time come as close to “fact” or “truth” as anything known to science. Scientists tend to shy away from
absolute terms like fact and truth, because they would give the impression that a particular theory is absolute and never subject to change. In science, nothing is above
challenge or immune to modification. When a theory has survived for several hundred years, and its author has departed this life, it may be elevated to being a law—but
in science, even a law is subject to change. In this way, the accumulated body of knowledge that is science continues to grow. New, better theories replace or supplement older ones. But always new
theories must be in agreement with others that are accepted as valid. A new idea cannot contradict a large volume of accepted theory. Not because the weight of the old
theories makes them inviolate, but because the new theory would have to offer satisfactory explanations of all the things the old theories had explained. As Marcello Truzzi
put it, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.” In
1988, the IPCC was established by two UN organizations, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), to evaluate the risk
of climate change brought on by humans. Over the past 20+ years the IPCC has issued four major reports and dozens of lesser papers all promoting the theory of anthropogenic
global warming. As written in the IPCC charter: The IPCC does not conduct any research nor does it monitor climate related data or parameters. Its role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open
and transparent basis the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate
change, its observed and projected impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. Not surprisingly, the IPCC has found that global warming is out of control and being caused primarily by human activity. Supposedly, all manner of disaster
lurks just ahead because of humanity's nasty habit of burning fossil fuels. First we will examine the AGW theory itself before testing the theory by examining a number of its
major predictions. As we shall see, the claims made by the IPCC and other global warming alarmists are indeed extraordinary, while the evidence is often lacking. Global Warming As A Theory What is anthropogenic global warming? It is a scientific theory that claims human activity is responsible for increasing Earth’s average
temperature over time. It is based on our limited understanding of Earth’s climate, imprecise measurements of historical temperatures using proxies, and derives its future
temperature predictions from computer models. The statement we gave in our book, The
Resilient Earth, is as follows: The average temperature of the Earth has been rising in recent decades and will keep rising in the future. Most of the observed increase in globally
averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. Anticipated effects include
rising sea levels, repercussions to agriculture, slowing of ocean circulation, reductions in the ozone layer, increased intensity and frequency of hurricanes and extreme
weather events, lowering of ocean pH, and the spread of diseases such as malaria and dengue fever. The statement above summarizes the main points being made by those backing human-caused global warming. Some of the terms used sound technical and
scientific, particularly the phrase “anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.” Since science speak tends to put off the public and confuse the news media a simpler
version was created that goes like this: This statement glosses over an imposing amount of detail but is much more effective than an accurate description given our sound bite oriented society.
Since this framing of the problem is missing the essential evidence actually supporting the AGW theory a simple argument was needed to quell any objections from
non-supporters. That argument was the claim of “scientific consensus.” I will touch on the consensus argument at the end of this article. The natural processes that create and regulate Earth's climate form a gigantic, extraordinarily complex heat engine powered by energy from the Sun. Earth's
climate is perhaps the most complicated natural system science has ever tried to understand. The fundamental sciences—chemistry, physics and biology—are all intimately
involved, along with a host of more specialized scientific disciplines. To gain an understanding of climate change requires knowledge of geology, archeology, anthropology,
oceanography, meteorology, astrophysics, paleontology, glaciology and computer science. Practically every natural science has a role to play. As stated previously, the cornerstone of modern science is the testability of theories. This means that a theory must make predictions about the way the
physical universe behaves, so that it may be tested by investigators other than the theory's originators. When a prediction made by a theory is confirmed it helps to
strengthen the theory’s claim to correctness. When a prediction made by a theory is shown not to be true it weakens the theory, possibly invalidating the theory all
together. A number of claims have been made by the proponents of human caused global warming. We will now examine five of the major outcomes predicted by the global warming
alarmists. Melting Greenland Glaciers In the late 1990s, streams of ice flowing into the sea from the great Greenland ice sheet had begun speeding up. As the glacial ice faces receded global
warming proponents pointed to the shrinking ice cap as proof that catastrophe lay just around the corner. But the evidence does not support that claim. In 2009 glaciologist Tavi Murray and ten of her colleagues from Swansea University reported “Its come to an end… they’re not in runaway
acceleration.” Glacial modeler Faezeh Nick of Durham University in the UK and her colleagues found similar behvior when they modeled the flow of Helheim Glacier. They
reported: “Our results imply that the recent rates of mass loss in Greenland's outlet glaciers are transient and should not be extrapolated into the future.” The same seems to hold for the melting of Antarctica's glacial cap and claims of disappearing Arctic ice. Many experts were calling for a new record low
for the Arctic ice pack this summer but that has not happened. “During the first half of August, Arctic ice extent declined more slowly than during the same period in 2007
and 2008,” states the August 18, 2009, ice report from the National Snow and Ice Data
Center. “It is now unlikely that 2009 will see a record low extent.” Much to the dissapointment of several scientific expeditions and commercial concerns so far this
year, neither the Northwest Passage nor the Northern Sea Route has opened. For more details see “Greenland's Ice
Armageddon Comes To An End,” “Disappearing
Arctic Ice Is Latest Climate Falsehood” and “Melting
Antarctic Ice Part of Natural Cycle.” Rising Ocean Levels Sea levels could rise, they have changed significantly in the past. According to the IPCC AR4, it is estimated that sea level rise will be 7 to 15 inches
(18-38 cm) in a low scenario and 10 to 23 inches (26-59 cm) in a high scenario. This is based on multiple models, which all exclude ice sheet flow due to a lack of reliable
published data. With high confidence, the report predicts that coastlines will be exposed to increasing risks such as erosion and that “Many millions more people are
projected to be flooded every year due to sea-level rise by the 2080s.” But sea levels are always changing and scientists have had little success predicting change in the past. Mr. Gore has asserted that sea levels will rise up
to 20 feet due to melting ice sheets “in the near future,” but then Gore is not a scientists and it is a mystery that anyone would listen to him in the first place. According to the EPA, an estimated 50 to 60 years of data are required to obtain linear mean sea level trends having a 1 mm/yr precision with a 95 percent
statistical confidence interval. Satellite data are not available for a multi-decadal time series needed to separate out medium-term variability from long-term change. In
other words, all the predictions of rapidly rising sea-levels are based on insufficient data. The measurements are within the margins of error or not of sufficient duration
to detect long term trends. According to the University of Colorado at Boulder Sea Level Change Analysis, sea level has actually flattened since 2006. Hydrographic
observations demonstrate an apparent cooling of the ocean since 2002, which would imply up to a 2 mm drop in sea level (E. W. Leuliette & R. S. Nerem). Nils-Axel
Mörner, former head of paleo-geophysics at Stockholm University, has been studying the subject of sea-level rise for 35 years. He has been observing changes in ocean
levels in the Maldives, one of the first places expected to disappear under the waves, and found no evidence that they are in peril. Satellite altimetry data collected over
the past two decades tells the same story. His best estimate is for a rise of a couple of inches by the end of this century. Dr. Mörner says: “the sea level is not
rising.” The reason why Dr Mörner is so certain that these claims about sea level rise are wrong is that they are all based on computer model predictions, whereas
his findings are based on “going into the field to observe what is actually happening in the real world.” Another scientist who has done just that is Cliff Oillier from
the University of Western Australia's School of Earth and Environment. According to a 2009 paper
by Dr Oillier: “ Graphs of sea level for twelve locations in the southwest Pacific show stable sea level for about ten years over the region. The data are compared with
results from elsewhere, all of which suggest that any rise of global sea level is negligible.” For more information see “Melting glaciers, shrinking polar ice and rising
oceans?,” “High Sea Level Along U.S. Atlantic Coast Due To Ocean
Current And Wind Changes,” “Article concedes sea level computer model
'predictions could be flawed or flat wrong',” and “Sea
Level Rise: An Update Shows a Slowdown.” Extinction of the Polar Bear Global warming alarmists have predicted that there will be mass extinctions around the world because of the ravages of temperature rise. One of the species
that has been used as a poster child for this hypothesis is the polar bear. An example of charismatic mega-fauna—attractive big animals—the polar bear is a popular
creature from the remote and exotic Arctic. Though bears in their modern form have been around for at least 5 million years, the white bear of the Arctic is an even newer
resident of planet Earth. Our knowledge of the development of polar bears is well-documented by fossil transitions. Scientists theorize that between 100,000 to 250,000 years ago,
during the mid-Pleistocene, a number of brown bears became isolated by glaciers. While many probably perished on the ice, they did not all die out. The survivors' offspring
underwent a rapid series of evolutionary changes in order to adapt. Some think this was possible because of the small population, and extreme selection pressure. The end
result was a new species of bear adapted to harsh Arctic conditions—the polar bear. Now there are claims that polar bear numbers have been plummeting because of melting polar sea ice and that the polar bear will soon go extinct because of
global warming. The US EPA was even cajoled into declaring the species as “threatened” by the eco-activist lobby. No TV special on global warming is complete without a
few pictures of the “endangered” polar bear precariously balanced on a melting ice-flow. In the 1950s the polar bear population up north was estimated at 5,000. Today it's 20- to 25,000, a number that has either held steady over the last 20
years or has risen slightly. In Canada, the manager of wildlife resources for the Nunavut territory of Canada has found that the population there has increased by 25%. Mitchell Taylor, a polar bear biologist with the Canadian government, confirms what Inuit hunters have said for a long time: polar bears who live along the
southeast coast of Baffin Island, in northern Quebec, and the northern coast of Labrador are healthy, and growing in numbers. “The Inuit were right. There aren't just a few
more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears,” Taylor said, in an interview. Writing in the Toronto Star, in 2006, he stated: “Of the thirteen populations of polar
bears in Canada, eleven are stable or are increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present.” Global warming might actually be helping polar bears in that area. A reduction in ice cover creates better habitat for seals, which are the bears' main
food, while on land blueberries, which the bears adore, become more plentiful. Taylor says he's seen bears so full of blueberries they waddle. “Life may be good,” said
Taylor, “but good news about polar bear populations does not seem to be welcomed by the Center for Biological Diversity. It is just silly to predict the demise of polar
bears in 25 years based on media-assisted hysteria.” It should also be noted that recently Dr. Taylor was dis-invited
from attending a meeting of environmental scientists in Copenhagen. The reason given was that Taylor's views were “extremely unhelpful.” So much for scientific
objectivity and open-mindedness. For more information see “Polar Bears on Thin Ice, Not Really!” and
“U.S. Senate
Report Debunks Polar Bear Extinction Fears.” More Frequent Hurricanes Weather is caused by the exchange of heat among land, sea and air. The IPCC thinks it very likely that there will be an increased frequency of warm spells,
heat waves and events of heavy rainfall due to global warming. They also call for an increase in areas affected by droughts, intensity of tropical cyclones, which include
hurricanes and typhoons. These predictions have led to breathless news anchors attributing any storm activity to global warming, even though there has been no detectable
trend in storm activity for over a hundred years. Hurricane expert Dr. Bill Gray stated that historical records “indicate that Atlantic and global tropical cyclone activity over the last century and
particularly over the last 30 years has not increased.” Gray, now retired, has publicly denounced attempts to link hurricane activity to global warming. According to him,
“this is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people.” NOAA's official paper on recent tropical storm activity states: “NOAA research shows that the tropical multi-decadal signal is causing the increased
Atlantic hurricane activity since 1995, and is not related to greenhouse warming.” Even so, global warming experts continue to confidently predict increasing tropical storm
activity. Historical records do not indicate a rising trend for either hurricane frequency or strength, as shown in the Illustration above. Moreover, a recent study
of ships' logs and other records from the Caribbean have extended that lack of increase back over 318 years. It seems that the worst decade for hurricanes on record was the
1690s, during the depths of the cold period known as the Little Ice Age. For more information see “Hurricanes and Hot Air”
and “A document-based 318-year record of tropical cyclones in the Lesser
Antilles, 1690–2007.” Extreme Temperatures All of these natural catastrophes identified above are supposed to be due to rapidly rising temperatures. According to the IPCC 1998 was the hottest year
of the past century and the 1990s the hottest decade. Recently NASA had to adjust its readings for the past century. After the “restatement” 1934 took over from 1998 as
the hottest year on record in the US, and 1921 moved into third place above 2006. The 1930s became the hottest decade. Significantly this is not an isolated case. There have recently been adjustments to NASA IR satellite data and NOAA sea surface temperature readings. It seems the only thing less trustworthy than a
politician's promise is official climate data. None the less, for decades this wonky data has been fed into massively complex climate models to produce “evidence” for
future climate warming. In 1988, NASA’s in house climate alarmist James Hansen presented a prediction of steadily rising temperatures to Congress. How does that prediction
match up with reality? As you can see Dr. Hansen was just a bit off in his predicting. Indeed, none of the climate models used by the IPCC, NASA's GISS or any other
climatologists managed to predict the current downturn in global temperature. Despite this well documented history of failure we are still told we must take immediate action
to avoid the ravages of anthropogenic global warming. Add to these embarrassing failures newly documented evidence that many of the temperature reporting stations used by NASA are missing. According to Steve
McIntyre, writing on the Climate Audit website, a surprising number (97) of NASA stations included in their inventory appear to contain no information whatever in the actual
NASA data set. It seems that NASA and NOAA continue to have data quality problems from both their satellites and from ground stations. How is all this uncertainty reported it the popular press? As with recent new articles that claim the Arctic is rapidly warming, the media contains only
selected reports that support the alarmist view. According to Dr Roger Pielke Sr. “These articles are an excellent examples of the cherrypicking of particular published
papers to promote the very narrow perspective of the journalists.” The story in the media is that temperatures are rising, the world's glaciers are melting and polar bears
are drowning. In reality the temperatures aren't going up outside of normal variation patterns, the same is true for glacial melting and the polar bear is doing just fine,
thank you. For more information see “Global
Warming Numbers Wrong,” “No Data For Some NASA Stations” and “Arctic
Temperature Reporting In The News Needs A Reality Check.” Global Warming Summarized The predictions examined here are not the only ones made by the IPCC and their followers: plague, pestilence and famine, among other calamities, have also
been prophesied by the global warming doomsayers. For an overview of some of the more ludicrous predicted maladies see “Shrinking
Sheep, Kidney Stones and Bear Attacks.” The absurdity of the dire predictions made in the name of global warming seems to know no bounds. And what about that scientific
consensus we have been told about over and over? To quote my favorite passage from Michael Crichton: “The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of
politics… In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the
consensus.” Or as my co-author Allen Simmons puts it “you don't get a bunch of scientists together and take a vote on the speed of light.” Science is not about
opinions, not about polls, and certainly not about what is currently considered politically correct. In short, consensus science is bunk. Recapping, five out of five predictions made by global warming alarmists, based on the theory of anthropogenic global warming, have been shown to be
inaccurate or out right false. Greenland's glaciers are not about to disappear, sea-levels are not rapidly rising, polar bears are not going extinct, hurricanes have not
become more frequent or more violent, and temperatures are currently going down, not up. The predicted outcomes of AGW simply are not coming to pass. As we stated in The
Resilient Earth: After examining the science, the IPCC's claims and predictions, and the possible impact realistic levels of global warming could have on our world, we
conclude that there is no imminent threat—not to nature, people or human civilization. What do these failures portend for the science of the theory itself? As UK Scientist Dr.
David Bellamy, a former global warming advocate, has said: “The science has, quite simply, gone awry. In fact, it's not even science any more, it's anti-science. There
is absolutely no proof that carbon dioxide is anything to do with any impending catastrophe.” There is only one conclusion that can be drawn from looking at the evidence
for AGW—Anthropogenic Global Warming, as stated by the IPCC and in the media, is a failed theory. Be safe, enjoy the interglacial and stay skeptical. [ The information in this post was taken primarily from our book The
Resilient Earth and represents the second half of my presentation to the Scientists for Truth conference
held during August 2009, in Springfield, Mo. For information from the first half of the presentation please see “The
Grand View: 4 Billion Years Of Climate Change.” ] (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth) China Oil Deal Is New Source of Strife
Among Iraqis WASIT PROVINCE, Iraq — When China’s biggest oil company signed the first post-invasion oil field development contract in Iraq last year, the deal was seen as a test of
Iraq’s willingness to open an industry that had previously prohibited foreign investment. Study says coal vital to state’s economy WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS — Two prominent academics gave members of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce a sneak peek at a recently completed study of the state’s coal
industry on the last day of the organization’s annual meeting. The misanthropes' useful idiots: Anti-nuclear rally enlivens German campaign BERLIN - A convey of 350 farm tractors rumbled through Berlin on Saturday to launch a mass anti-nuclear rally, designed to influence Germany's general election in three
weeks' time. Not so sunny: trade war looms in solar space HONG KONG/FRANKFURT - Fair competition or Save the Planet? Windfarms? We might as
well use hamsters on treadmills A weird and irrational cult has us in its grip. If the Mormons or the Moonies started taking over the BBC and the Government, which then harangued and persecuted us into
wearing funny underwear or getting married in mass ceremonies, we would – I hope – rise in revolt. September 4, 2009
Obama to spend another $2.7 bln to fight H1N1 WASHINGTON - The Obama administration will spend an additional $2.7 billion to buy swine flu drugs and vaccines, just days after White House science advisers called the
pandemic "a serious threat to our nation." Swine flu has killed 36 US children so far: CDC WASHINGTON - The new H1N1 swine flu virus has killed 36 U.S. children, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday. Masks key flu protection for health workers: report WASHINGTON - Doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers taking care of people infected with the new swine flu should wear special masks known as respirators, but need to
protect themselves in other ways, too, according to a report released on Thursday. The Nocebo Effect- Think Sick and You’ll Be Sick Sweden is one of the countries at the forefront of restricting chemical use in Europe. It has a policy of making its environment ‘toxic-free’ by 2010 and the country
led in the preparation of the European Commission White Paper “Strategy For a Future Chemicals Policy.” Yet as Bill Durodie notes, “Sweden has one of the highest levels
of self-reported sensitivities to chemicals in the developed world. It would appear, then, that too much risk awareness can quite literally make you sick.” The junk science behind the war on junk food - Rob Lyons is not convinced by
Cancer Research UK’s justification for why it effectively outlawed fast-food outlets in a new building in London. About a mile up the road from spiked‘s offices in central London, an office block formerly owned by BT, the telecoms giant, is getting a major facelift. Developers
Derwent London are creating nearly 25,000 square metres of prime office and retail space in the bustling area around Angel underground station. But you won’t find fast-food
outlets or tobacconists there, because the major tenant of the new building, Cancer Research UK (CRUK), seems to have put a block on them. Late Night Eating Linked to Weight Gain A new study in mice suggests that it’s not just how much you eat, but when you eat it, that influences weight gain. Right... Wonder drug
in development to let dieters eat whatever they want - without gaining a single pound A pill that allows dieters to gorge on junk food without putting on a pound is being developed by scientists. Mice can eat 'junk' and not get fat (Cell Press) Still obsessed with BMI: Extreme obesity
reduces lifespan In clinical terms, extreme or severe obesity is defined as a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it has adverse affects on health
and physical functioning. It is measured by Body Mass Index, or BMI, with Class 3 (morbid obesity) beginning at 40 kg/m2. In generalized terms, it is about 100 pounds over
ideal body weight. Obesity
study: BMI not be the best way to measure obesity in the elderly BMI may not be the best way to determine whether an elderly person is obese. According to a new UCLA study it may be more accurate to measure an elderly person's
waist-to-hip ratio, not their BMI. Guess what? There's no evidence BMI is of any clinical value at all. At a time when two thirds of Americans are either overweight or obese, health officials are correctly warning that most of us need to lose weight. But we may be setting
ourselves up for a surge in eating disorders. Now that's an explosive failure rate despite its tiny number: Alert
over new wave of exploding fridges caused by 'environmentally-friendly coolant' A series of violent fridge explosions is believed to have been caused by leaks of 'environmentally-friendly' coolant. Subsidized
Green Jobs Destroy Jobs Elsewhere Government expenditures are not free. Economists know this and most others recognize it when they take the time to think about it. Unfortunately, it seems not everybody
takes that time. In a story fit for satire in The Onion, a renewable energy research group, bankrolled by a $1.1 billion subsidy from the Department of Energy, concludes that huge
government subsidies for renewable energy don’t reduce employment after all. However, their reasoning works only so long as the subsidies don’t come out of anybody’s
pocket—a practical and theoretical impossibility. Two environmentalists at the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC (see ASE brag about the billion it gets from Uncle Sam, here
) on contract to the National Renewable Energy Labs authored a research paper that tries to undermine the widely circulated research from a Spanish think tank. The Spanish research, directed by economist Gabriel Calzada, at King Juan Carlos University, analyzed the subsidized expenditure necessary to create the green jobs in
Spain. It compared those funds to the private expenditure needed to support the average conventional job. Supported by other data as well, they conclude that each subsidized
green job in Spain eliminated over two conventional jobs. While there are multiple problems with the ASE critique of Calzada’s work, the flawed foundation of their critique is best illustrated by the following
statement: Furthermore, there is no justification given for the assumption that government spending (e.g., tax credits or subsidies) would force out private investment.” That is, the environmentalists do not see government expenditure as having a cost. They employ the same free-lunch fallacy that underpins essentially all the analysis
showing green-energy subsidies increase employment. The first week of every principles of economics class goes over the problem with free-lunch assumptions. The labor and material used to make windmills or solar panels or
to install insulation cannot simultaneously be used to make refrigerators and automobiles. When government spends more money, it necessarily diverts labor, capital and
materials from the private sector. Dr. Calzada simply calculated how many jobs, on average, would have been supported with these resources had they been left to the private market. The ASE critique
doesn’t even recognize that the costs exist. Therefore, the ASE critique can hardly be used to undermine the credibility of the Spanish conclusion—subsidies for green
technologies reduce overall employment. (The Foundry) ‘Tax
Cuts’ and Welfare Spending A story in the Washington Post today is
headlined: “Obama Would Keep $85 Billion in Tax Breaks for Working Poor.” The “tax breaks” in question are expansions in the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit. The Post story repeatedly calls the expansions “tax
breaks” and “tax cuts.” The budget expert quoted in the story calls them “tax cuts,” and so does a House staffer and a spokesperson for the president. But these are not tax cuts. They are expansions in the refundability of provisions in the tax code. That means that households that pay no federal income tax
will receive larger welfare checks from the government under these Obama proposals. Obama has proposed a slew of “tax cuts” that are partly welfare payments. The chart below shows the share of the 2010-2019 dollar values of these proposals that
are actually increased federal spending, and not reductions in taxes. (Calculated from OMB’s May summary tables). The Post reporter and the budget analyst quoted in the story are both fiscal experts, and they know that these “tax cuts” are not really tax cuts. But there
is a growing problem in fiscal discussions that words are getting flipped upside down to mean the opposite of what a layman would understand them to mean. A classic example
is how the dollar value of true tax cuts is nearly always referred to in news articles as a “cost” rather than a “saving.” Steny Hoyer’s use of the phrase “paid for” in the health debate is another example of how
Washington-speak is confusing the heck out of people. (Chris Edwards, Cato at liberty) Plant genomics pave the way to drought adaptation - Researchers explore the mechanisms plants use to
survive climate change Compared with the time and money being spent on health and medical advances, research focused on adapting to global climate change has lagged. With climate change issues
becoming more pressing, researchers are now making up for lost time. There's been a lot of talk and media recently about feedbacks and climate amplifiers, what's it all about? On the one hand you'll hear people saying it is of little relevance in the great climate shouting match while others say it highlights the diminishing role available for
carbon dioxide emissions. so, who's right? Surprisingly, this time just about everyone. Let's begin by looking at a couple of announcements for one of the modeling studies: Small Fluctuations In Solar Activity, Large Influence On Climate Sun's Cycle Alters Earth's Climate Weather patterns across the globe are partly affected by connections between the 11-year solar cycle of activity, Earth's stratosphere and the tropical Pacific Ocean, a
new study finds. So that's it, right, even
NCAR's PlayStation® Climatologists have now demonstrated that solar influences are much greater than the slight changes in simple solar irradience? Actually, you need your beer goggles on to come to such a conclusion -- here's the precipitation observation versus model output that has caused such excitement: Granted, this is an improvement on the previous models (which get, oh, about nothing right) since it does have some overlap with reality, albeit not much. To us this
generated output demonstrates woefully inadequate solar sensitivity and the Pacific Basin shows enormous contrast in reality (roughly 4 feet/year annualized rainfall
difference between the Coral Sea and Central Pacific during these events) while there's limited sensitivity demonstrated in the model output. Bottom line: it's good to see modelers actually recognize that bright shining thing we orbit has something to do with local temperatures but they have one heck of a long
way to go before process models even vaguely resemble prognosticators. Not a big advance but definitely an advance. Meanwhile, the empiricists (sometimes known as climate realists) are correct in pointing out this sheds a little more light on the interaction of sun and climate, further
opening useful lines of investigation into the complicated relationship of this planet with its nearest star. Furthermore, as more mechanisms are exposed and examined there is less and less room for enhanced greenhouse to play a significant role in the estimated change in global
mean temperature over the last 250 years. With ever increasing confidence [intervals] the IPCC claim anthropogenic climate forcing potential up to +2.4W/m2 but
with error bars for negative forcing from direct and indirect aerosol and land use change of minus 3.3W/m2 (-3.3), for a potential net change of minus
0.9W/m2 (-0.9). Consequently, given the Low Levels of Scientific Understanding (LLOSU) of a number of very important effects we still do not know whether humans
have a net positive or negative forcing effect on global mean temperatures. Are our emissions warming the planet? Maybe, a little, or not... One thing is certain, there's absolutely no value in spending a dime on carbon dioxide emission reductions when we have no clear idea on whether we are warming or cooling
the planet and absolutely everyone who bothers to calculate the potential difference we can make to global mean temperature over the next century by constraining carbon
emissions concludes we couldn't actually measure such a trivial difference. Carbon constraint is an example of target fixation and views just one side of Earth's energy balance equation. It is a losing strategy no matter how you view it and should
be scrapped forthwith. The US freezes on climate change - The
stalled US climate change debate has killed the hope of reaching a final agreement at the Copenhagen summit The prospects for an international agreement to tackle the causes of climate change are looking slim. They got even slimmer earlier this week, after the leading US
senators crafting a climate bill announced that they're pushing back the release of their legislation indefinitely. While Barbara Boxer and John Kerry say the bill "is
moving along well" and promise it will be ready for release "later in September", the delay makes the chances of passing it before the looming international
negotiations in Copenhagen even less likely. Utah gov, senator decry federal
cap-and-trade bill SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah Gov. Gary Herbert and U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch are criticizing proposed federal legislation that calls for the nation's first limits on pollution
linked to global warming. Backers of climate bill spend more on ads WASHINGTON — Environmentalists and others supporting climate-change legislation are outspending the measure's opponents in the television advertising skirmish underway
in advance of Senate action this month, new data show. U.N.'s Ban Seeks Strong Climate Pact, Fears Sea Rise GENEVA - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Thursday for swifter work on a climate treaty, saying inaction could spell economic disaster and a rise in sea levels
of up to 2 meters (6.5 ft) by 2100. Franklin D. Roosevelt was not quite correct when he said "that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified
terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance" (Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933). What we really need to fear is the hysterical response
of people acting on irrational fears, gorebull warming hysteria being a classic example -- it is not gorebull warming which can get us but people's response to fear of
it. China Still Wary About Industry CO2 Cuts: Officials BEIJING - China might be warming to EU proposals aimed at imposing CO2 targets on its industries as part of a new climate change deal, but the two sides remain a long way
from agreement, officials said at a meeting in Beijing. Clean Coal in China Said to Face ‘Staggering’ Costs Sept. 4 -- Western governments pushing China to use clean-coal technology may need to lower their expectations for the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases. China Changes The Climate Debate The factory to the world says consumers, not poor countries, should pay to clean up the skies. India Still Resists Cap on Gases NEW DELHI -- India is digging in against legally binding caps on carbon emissions ahead of December's climate-change talks with the U.S. and Europe in Copenhagen. (WSJ) Japanese industry lobbies for softer climate policy First statements from Prime Minister-elect Yukio Hatoyama suggest his government will stick to its campaign promises and reduce Japan’s carbon emissions by 25 percent.
(CoP15) Japan Business Lobby To Oppose Climate Target: Report TOKYO - Japan's biggest business group is set to lobby against greenhouse gas emissions targets pledged by the new ruling party ahead of an international climate
conference, a Japanese newspaper said on Thursday. (Reuters) Africa Threatens to Walk Out of Climate Talks If Views Ignored Africa's climate negotiators led by Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, threatened to walk out of talks if the December climate summit in Copenhagen failed to consider
Africa's position. Our advice is not to wait but run now... Africa May Veto Climate Change Deal: Ethiopian PM ADDIS ABABA - Africa will veto any climate change deal that does not meet its demand for money from rich nations to cut the impact of global warming on the continent,
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Thursday. (Reuters) I like to see that: Miliband's new mayor poo-poos global warming
'scam' - Mayor Peter Davies has urged local residents to halt plans for wind farms 'blocking out sunlight' and encourages driving as we are 'in the age of the car' The newly elected mayor of Doncaster has described global warming as a "scam", posing a direct challenge to the town's MP, climate change cabinet minister Ed
Miliband. Global Warming Hoax Weekly Round-Up, Sept. 4th 2009 Carny futures are down, the European Endarkenment has begun and the EPA introduced the world to the concept of extinction neutrality. If you have no idea what any of this
means, then you need the weekly round-up. Coincidentally, here it is: (Daily Bayonet) Just another carbon scam: Australian
firm linked to PNG's $100m carbon trading scandal AN AUSTRALIAN company has been swept up in a $100 million carbon trading scandal in Papua New Guinea after claims fake carbon certificates were given to landowners to help
persuade them to sign over the rights to their forests. Fanciful economics of the moment: Wetlands To Fight Climate Change: Study BERLIN - Governments can help combat climate change by investing more in natural areas, including forests and mangroves, a European study said on Wednesday. Time is running out (Ain't it always?) While the U.S. Senate's sense of urgency on the climate change front wanes, a new campaign originating on the other side of rapidly warming pond is urging us all to get
with the program by cutting our emissions sooner rather than later. This is obviously a good idea from a scientific point of view, but what are its chances of success? Except they have that dead flat wrong. It is not that the planet can cope with a limited amount of carbon dioxide (and it did fine when there was plenty
more of it) but that carbon dioxide's effect on global mean temperature is limited. Each subsequently added molecule has less effect than the one before and, although the
effect of addition will never be absolutely zero it will be so small that it might as well be. Try the IPCC's own overblown formula and see that even by their fevered
guesstimates each subsequent doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide still produces 3.7 Wm2 additional forcing (i.e., the increase from 300 to 600
parts is the same as the increase from 600-1200; 1200-2400...). It turns out we’ve missed a trick in our articles about the fashion for what we have called ‘pastiche
politics‘, the phenomenon by which environmentalists attempt to muster non-existent public support by comparing themselves to world-changing political movements of the
past - the Suffragettes, JFK, the New Deal, anti-apartheid, that sort of thing. Because, writing
at Comment Is Free about Franny ‘The Age of Stupid’ Armstrong’s 10:10 Campaign, which seeks to get us all to reduce our emissions
by 10% over 2010, Brendan O’Neill has provided a handy quote from Suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst: Socialism means plenty for all. We do not preach a gospel of want and scarcity, but of abundance … We do not call for limitation of births, for penurious thrift,
and self-denial. We call for a great production that will supply all, and more than all the people can consume. (Which is also a rather nice counter to the watermelon theory, which holds that environmentalism is the reincarnation of socialism - red on the inside. But that’s another
story.) O’Neill’s piece is a ripple of dissent in a sea of sycophantic Guardian coverage of 10:10. Which is not
entirely surprising, given that the Guardian is backing the campaign. It presents so much material from the green great and good on the subject that it’s hard to know where
to start. Happily, many of its flaws are encapsulated in this wee video of Franny
Armstrong confessing all to Guardian journalists: The good news is that the first 10% cut is actually very easy. It’s the low-hanging fruit, it’s the changing your light bulbs, turning down your heating, driving
a bit less, flying a bit less, changing your eating habits a little bit - it’s that kind of thing. Unless you’re one of those people who have already started, in which
case it’s a lot harder. But it only gets really hard around 30 or 40%. But we don’t have to worry our pretty heads about that, because the good people at 10:10 will make sure the government will make us do it. And we already
know that the government would like us to make them make us do it. As UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband said
about the Heathrow protests: When you think about all the big historic movements, from the suffragettes, to anti-apartheid, to sexual equality in the 1960s, all the big political movements had
popular mobilization. Maybe it’s an odd thing for someone in government to say, but I just think there’s a real opportunity and a need here. Unfortunately for Franny, governments are far easier to persuade than the electorate. I’m of that generation that grew up being told that the point of our existence was to watch TV and go shopping and play computer games and then die. And I’m
actually extremely excited and happy to realise that actually that’s not true. Actually, we have this immense responsibility - our generation has this immense
responsibility. Because everybody who came before us didn’t know, and everyone who follows us, it’ll be too late for them to do anything. So it is down to us. And I
actually find that extremely exciting and extremely inspiring, that we have got something important to do and that we’re not just passive consumers [...] I find it much
more scary the idea that our lives are just not worth anything, and if we just bought more Nike trainers, for example, then we would all be happier [...] And I find that
whole individualistic get in your little car and sit in a traffic jam for two hours and then go to a pointless job, that’s what I find really terrifying. Don’t we all, dear. The difference is that Franny is happy to escape the treadmill by insisting that everybody else keeps on pedaling - literally. Meanwhile, Franny gets
to go in big shiny helicopters: At the end [of The Age of Stupid], there’s this great shot of this old guy mountain-climbing that was clearly shot from a helicopter. It was shot from a
helicopter, because I shot it. And that kind of decision we had to make, like, you know, if we increase the production values of the film, we make it that much more
mainstream by doing things like helicopter shots. What was that she was just saying about passive consumerism? It is de rigeur for environmentalists demanding that the rest of us change our greedy, consumerist ways to ritually, and with faux embarrassment, confess the size
of their own carbon footprint. But it is only so big, they say, shifting uncomfortably yet sincerely in their seats, because they have a planet to save. Over to Franny again: The thing about my carbon footprint is that it was really, really good. Because I’ve been vegetarian since I was eleven, I’ve never had a car, I live in a very
cold house, I’ve got solar panels, I’ve got amazing insulation, I hate shopping, so I never buy anything. So I was doing really, really well until I made this climate
blockbuster movie, and I’m now flying quite a lot to promote it. Like we’ve just been in Australia last week and we’re going to America next week. So my carbon
footprint has dramatically gone up since I’ve become such a successful climate campaigner, paradoxically. Not paradoxically at all. What Armstrong has succeeded in demonstrating is that, if you want to actually get anything done around here, you have to make an impact. Her argument will no doubt cut ice with the converted, however - the converted being those with nothing better to do than read the Guardian and work out how to reduce
their emissions. For everyone else, which is almost everybody, there is stuff to do. As we’ve said before,
saving the planet is just a way to pass the time. Anyway, good luck to ‘em. They’ll need it. And congratulations in advance should their campaign actually manage to turn the heads of anything approaching a sizable
chunk of the population. But we don’t believe for one minute that the public will go for this, like the public haven’t voted for green parties in the polls, like
electoral turn-out has declined as all the mainstream parties have adopted mainstream environmental policies, like opinion polls repeatedly show that most people have little
time for environmentalism, like ‘popular’ protests at energy plants and airports are anything but popular. At the risk of indulging in a bit of pastiche politics ourselves, we would suggest that the real popular movement, the one that really is running counter to the mainstream
and trying to change the world for the better, is the one that staunchly resists the political elites’ undemocratic push for a more sustainable, less aspirational world in
which our only goal is to keep everything just how it used to be - forever. Because most of us, as (ahem) Martin Luther King once said, have a dream. (Climate Resistance)
What's the best way for humanity to reduce suffering from man-made global warming? No individual has been a stronger voice for rational cost-benefit analysis on this issue
than Bjorn Lomborg, the head of Copenhagen
Consensus Center, and author of The
Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool
It! On Thursday, September 3, 2009, Lomborg stopped by Reason's DC HQ to discuss the latest iteration of his ongoing project with Reason magazine science
correspondent Ronald Bailey. The Copenhagen Consensus Center's expert panel of five top economists, including three Nobel laureates, has concluded that greater resources should be spent on
research into climate engineering and green energy. They also concluded that the least cost-effective way to deal with climate change is carbon taxes. Such carbon taxes
are the economic equivalent of cap-and-trade carbon rationing schemes like the Waxman-Markey bill being considered by Congress and which are being negotiated by the U.N. The expert panel consisted of Nobel laureate economists Thomas Schelling, Vernon
Smith, and Finn Kydland. They were joined by University of Chicago
economist Nancy Stokey and Columbia University economist Jagdish Bhagwati. The
panel considered and ranked 21 ground-breaking research proposals by top climate economists on the basis their benefits and costs in
dealing with global warming. Ultimately they ranked only the 15 proposals below. Approximately four minutes. Shot by Dan Hayes and Meredith Bragg; edited by Dan Hayes. Next week, Reason.tv will run a longer version of Bailey's interview with Lomborg. (Reason) A Skeptic Finds Faith in Geoengineering Bjorn Lomborg, the Danish political scientist who found fame as the author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” has completed a study of the best ways to address the
warming of the planet. Never mind that Lomborg is not a very skeptical "skeptic" where gorebull warming is concerned, he has a point about geoengineering -- it is a
potentially viable solution should warming ever actually become a problem and deserves to be examined closely. It has the distinct advantage over carbon constraint in that
it could actually work as advertized. Boffins: Give up on CO2 cuts, only geoengineering can work -
Ordinary eco-efforts a foolish distraction Top British climate boffins have said that the only practical hope for arresting global warming is the use of "geoengineering" - techniques intended to reduce
the effects of CO2 emissions, as opposed to reducing the CO2 emissions themselves. Geoengineering has so far been something of a taboo topic for climate scientists. Peter Cox and Hazel Jeffery explain why it is now time to take it seriously More idiotic climate scare stories: People of Somalia, Haiti and Afghanistan will suffer most New survey ranks how 166 nations will be affected by climate change. Of 28 nations at “extreme risk”, 22 are in Africa. (CoP15) Put this one in the "World doomed -- women and minorities to suffer most" category. Enviro. groups sue to list ribbon seals as endangered due to global warming, shrinking sea ice ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Ribbon seals should be listed as threatened or endangered because global warming is quickly melting sea ice, which the seals depend on for several
months each year, two environmental groups said in a lawsuit filed against the federal government in San Francisco Thursday. Fall colors fade in U.S. west as aspen trees die SALMON, Idaho - The American West is losing its autumn colors as global warming begins to bite and there is far more at stake than iconic scenery. The hokey hockey stick returns: Emissions Linked to End
of 2,000-Year Arctic Trend Human-generated greenhouse gas emissions have helped reverse a 2,000-year trend of cooling in the Arctic, prompting warmer average temperatures in the past decade that now
rank higher than at any time since 1 B.C., according to a new study published Thursday in the online version of the journal Science. (Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post) Not Again! Media Promoting
Arctic 'Hockey Stick' - Claim Temps Warmest in 2000 Years - But Scientists Already Rebuking Latest Study Temperature claims 'contradict numerous previous Arctic studies' NASA on the disappearing sunspots September 3, 2009: The sun is in the pits of the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century. Weeks and sometimes whole months go by without even a single
tiny sunspot. The quiet has dragged out for more than two years, prompting some observers to wonder, are sunspots disappearing? “Personally, I’m betting that sunspots are coming back,” says researcher Matt Penn of the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson, Arizona. But, he allows,
“there is some evidence that they won’t.” Penn’s colleague Bill Livingston of the NSO has been measuring the magnetic fields of sunspots for the past 17 years, and he has found a remarkable trend. Sunspot
magnetism is on the decline: Above: Sunspot magnetic fields measured by Livingston and Penn from 1992 – Feb. 2009 using an infrared Zeeman
splitting technique. “Sunspot magnetic fields are dropping by about 50 gauss per year,” says Penn. “If we extrapolate this trend into the future, sunspots could completely vanish
around the year 2015.” Hmmm, yes they could. But the solar magnetic field could simply be in a cyclical downturn of which this is a part. We need an expert! “This work has caused a sensation in the field of solar physics,” comments NASA sunspot expert David Hathaway, who is not directly involved in the research.
“It’s controversial stuff.” The controversy is not about the data. “We know Livingston and Penn are excellent observers,” says Hathaway. “The trend that they have discovered appears to be
real.” The part colleagues have trouble believing is the extrapolation. Hathaway notes that most of their data were taken after the maximum of Solar Cycle 23 (2000-2002)
when sunspot activity naturally began to decline. “The drop in magnetic fields could be a normal aspect of the solar cycle and not a sign that sunspots are permanently
vanishing.” Yes, what he said. Penn himself wonders about these points. “Our technique is relatively new and the data stretches back in time only 17 years. We could be observing a temporary downturn
that will reverse itself.” The technique they’re using was pioneered by Livingston at the NASA-supported McMath-Pierce solar telescope near Tucson. He looks at a spectral line emitted by iron
atoms in the sun’s atmosphere. Sunspot magnetic fields cause the line to split in two—an effect called “Zeeman splitting” after Dutch physicist Pieter Zeeman who
discovered the phenomenon in the 19th century. The size of the split reveals the intensity of the magnetism If the solar magnetism continues to decline what could this mean for the Earth? If sunspots do go away, it wouldn’t be the first time. In the 17th century, the sun plunged into a 70-year period of spotlessness known as the Maunder
Minimum that still baffles scientists. The sunspot drought began in 1645 and lasted until 1715; during that time, some of the best astronomers in history (e.g.,
Cassini) monitored the sun and failed to count more than a few dozen sunspots per year, compared to the usual thousands. Note that of course, they don’t mention that this coincided with the coldest part of the Little Ice Age. But that would be politically incorrect, wouldn’t it? “Whether [the current downturn] is an omen of long-term sunspot decline, analogous to the Maunder Minimum, remains to be seen,” Livingston and Penn caution in a
recent issue of EOS. “Other indications of solar activity suggest that sunspots must return in earnest within the next year.” I’d love to know what those other indications are, because the prognostications of future solar activity have been startlingly poor from practically everybody. I leave the last words to David Hathaway, who dares to speak the truth to solar science: Whatever happens, notes Hathaway, “the sun is behaving in an interesting way and I believe we’re about to learn something new.” Finally,
a sea level rise NOT blamed on global warming From NOAA News: NOAA Report Explains Sea Level Anomaly this Summer along the U.S.
Atlantic Coast August 31, 2009 Persistent winds and a weakened current in the Mid-Atlantic contributed to higher than normal sea levels along the Eastern Seaboard in June and July, according to a new
NOAA technical report. After observing water levels six inches to two feet higher than originally predicted, NOAA scientists began analyzing data from select tide stations and buoys from Maine
to Florida and found that a weakening of the Florida Current Transport—an oceanic current that feeds into the Gulf Stream—in addition to steady and persistent Northeast
winds, contributed to this anomaly. “The ocean is dynamic and it’s not uncommon to have anomalies,” said Mike Szabados, director of NOAA’s Center for
Operational Oceanographic Products and Services. “What made this event unique was its breadth, intensity and duration.” The highest atypical sea levels occurred closer to where the anomaly formed in the Mid-Atlantic, where cities like Baltimore, Md., at times experienced extreme high tides
as much as two feet higher than normal. Data from NOAA’s National Water Level Observation Network tide stations, Atlantic
Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, and National Data Buoy Center, are published in the report. Impacts of the event were amplified by the occurrence of a perigean-spring tide, the natural timing of the season and month when the moon is closest to the Earth and its
gravitational pull heightens the elevation of the water. The combined effects of this tide with the sea level anomaly produced minor flooding on the coast. “The report is a good first assessment,” said NOAA Oceanographer William Sweet, Ph.D. “However, NOAA, with our academic partners, should continue to investigate the
broader causes behind the event. Further analysis is needed to fully understand what is driving the patterns we observed.” The full report, Elevated East Coast Sea Level Anomaly: June-July 2009, is available online. NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and
marine resources. (WUWT) California
Wildfires caused by cooler Pacific, La Niña California’s Fires Result of a Cooling Pacific, Two Years of La Niña and Environmental Mismanagement Guest Post By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, ICECAP While environmentalists and clueless politicans like CA Representative Linda
Sanchez and not surprisingly Climate Progress’ Joe Romm sought to place
the blame for the California wildfires on ‘global warming’. the massive California wildfires can be attributed to a cooling Pacific, two years of La Nina and
environmental mismanagement. La Ninas and/or a cold PDO Usually Means Drier California You can see clearly from the following correlation chart of La Ninas (using the Southern Oscillation Index) with precipitation from CDC, that La Ninas favor dryness in the
southwest. The basin wide Pacific multidecadal warming and cooling affects
the frequency and strength of La Ninas and El Ninos. The cold PDO favoring more, stronger and longer lasting La Ninas and the warm PDO more, stronger and longer lasting El
Ninos and fewer briefer, mostly weak La Ninas. The PDO turned cold in 1998 bounced some until 2006 when it began a significant decline. See the blue La Nina frequency
increasing like it did when the PDO was last cold from 1947 to 1977. The rapid cooling in the Pacific in 2006 caused the El Nino winter of 2006/07
rains to fail in California. The La Nina that ensued became strong in the late winter and early spring of 2007/08
and came back again for a reprise in 2008/09 winter continued to produce sub normal
rainfall. A few years back McCabe, Palecki and Betancourt published a paper that looked at drought frequency across the United States related to both the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
and the Atlantic Mulitdecadal Oscillation. Droughts in the United States were more frequent when
the Atlantic was in its warm mode. When the Atlantic was warm, and the Pacific was also in its warm mode, the dryness was more across the northwest and southeast and when the
Pacific was cold more across the southwest. Red areas have enhanced drought probabilities. We are currently still have a warm Atlantic mode and cold Pacific mode (D) and thus should expect the increased risk of dryness in the southwest. See these maps and read
more here. Environmental Mismanagement This natural cyclical lack of rainfall combined with unwise policy that Dr.
Scott Campbell reported concerning the prohibition against clearing up accumulated brush from the areas surrounding housing developments that were instituted at the
insistence of the Sierra Club and other environmental groups has left more fuel for the fires fanned by the Santa Ana winds. The JPL’s Dr Patzert indicated, in a
release, were also more common in La Ninas. The risk is also greater because more people built homes in the cooler hills among the trees, putting more than trees at risk. In addition, environmentalists have reduced the amount of water that can be used for agriculture. Farmers in the Central Valley are asking for a new canal to get water
from the Sacramento River, as well as a relaxation of environmental restrictions resulting from a 2007 court ruling limiting the amount of water pumped south from the delta
– a giant sponge that absorbs runoff from the wetter north. The ruling was in response to a suit by environmental groups that held that the water pumping through the delta
endangered several species of fish, including smelt, green sturgeon, and winter and spring salmon. More here. What Lies Ahead Given the current El Nino is in the cold PDO mode, it should be weak and tend to be brief. It may peak this fall and weaken this winter. The increased tropical activity in
the eastern Pacific is favored in El Nino years (in some El Ninos they reach California in the early fall in a weakened state – e.g. Kathleen in 1976). The similar El Ninos
in the cold PDO tended to produce normal to below normal wet season precipitation and another active fire season next year. It is likely a La Nina will return next year. Expect another fire season. See more here. (WWUT) Australia records hottest winter on record, summer tipped to be hotter UPDATE 5.11pm: BELIEVE it or not, the nation has just sweated through its hottest August on record ... but don't blame climate change. Woods
Hole embraces the Medieval Warm Period – contradict Mann’s proxy data “The more interesting and potentially controversial result is that our data indicate surface water temperatures during a part of the Medieval Warm Period that are
similar to today’s…” “Although there are significant uncertainties with our own reconstruction, our work raises the idea that perhaps even the Northern Hemisphere temperature
reconstructions need to be looked at more closely.” Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: News Release : New Temperature Reconstruction from Indo-Pacific Warm Pool The First Word in an Unfolding Story A new 2,000 year long reconstruction of sea surface temperatures (SST) from the Indo-Pacific warm pool (IPWP) suggests that temperatures in the region may have been as
warm during the Medieval Warm Period as they are today. The IPWP is the largest body of warm water in the world, and, as a result, it is the largest source of heat and moisture to the global atmosphere, and an important
component of the planet’s climate. Climate models suggest that global mean temperatures are particularly sensitive to sea surface temperatures in the IPWP. Understanding
the past history of the region is of great importance for placing current warming trends in a global context. The study is published in the journal Nature. In a joint project with the Indonesian Ministry of Science and Technology (BPPT), the study’s authors, Delia Oppo, a paleo–oceanographer with the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution, and her colleagues Yair Rosenthal of Rutgers State University and Braddock K. Linsley of the University at Albany-State University of New York,
collected sediment cores along the continental margin of the Indonesian Seas and used chemical analyses to estimate water past temperatures and date the sediment. The cruise
included 13 US and 14 Indonesian scientists. “This is the first record from the region that has really modern sediments and a record of the last two millennia, allowing us to place recent trends in a larger
framework,” notes Oppo. Global temperature records are predominantly reconstructed from tree rings and ice cores. Very little ocean data are used to generate temperature reconstructions,
and very little data from the tropics. “As palaeoclimatologists, we work to generate information from multiple sources to improve confidence in the global temperature
reconstructions, and our study contributes to scientists’ efforts towards that goal,” adds Oppo. Temperature reconstructions suggest that the Northern Hemisphere may have been slightly cooler (by about 0.5 degrees Celsius) during the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ (~AD
800-1300) than during the late-20th century. However, these temperature reconstructions are based on, in large part, data compiled from high latitude or high altitude
terrestrial proxy records, such as tree rings and ice cores, from the Northern Hemisphere (NH). Little pre-historical temperature data from tropical regions like the IPWP has
been incorporated into these analyses, and the global extent of warm temperatures during this interval is unclear. As a result, conclusions regarding past global temperatures
still have some uncertainties. Oppo comments, “Although there are significant uncertainties with our own reconstruction, our work raises the idea that perhaps even the Northern Hemisphere temperature
reconstructions need to be looked at more closely.” Comparisons The marine-based IPWP temperature reconstruction is in many ways similar to land temperature reconstructions from the Northern Hemisphere (NH). Major trends observed in NH
temperature reconstructions, including the cooling during the Little Ice Age (~1500-1850 AD) and the marked warming during the late twentieth century, are also observed in
the IPWP. “The more interesting and potentially controversial result is that our data indicate surface water temperatures during a part of the Medieval Warm Period that are
similar to today’s,” says Oppo. NH temperature reconstructions also suggest that temperatures warmed during this time period between A.D. 1000 and A.D. 1250, but they
were not as warm as modern temperatures. Oppo emphasizes, “Our results for this time period are really in stark contrast to the Northern Hemisphere reconstructions.” Reconstructing Historical Temperatures Records of water temperature from instruments like thermometers are only available back to the 1850s. In order to reconstruct temperatures over the last 2,000 years, Oppo
and her colleagues used a proxy for temperature collected from the skeletons of marine plankton in sediments in the Indo-Pacific Ocean. The ratio of magnesium to calcium in
the hard outer shells of the planktonic foraminifera Globigerinoides ruber varies depending on the surface temperature of the water in which it grows. When the
phytoplankton dies, it falls to the bottom of the ocean and accumulates in sediments, recording the sea surface temperature in which it lived. “Marine sediments accumulate slowly in general — approximately 3 cm/yr — which makes it hard to overlap sediment record with instrumental record and compare that
record to modern temperature records,” says Oppo. “That’s what is different about this study. The sediment accumulates fast enough in this region to give us enough
material to sample and date to modern times.” The team generated a composite 2000-year record by combining published data from a piston core in the area with the data they collected using a gravity corer and a
multi-corer. Tubes on the bottom of the multi-corer collected the most recently deposited sediment, therefore enabling the comparison of sea surface temperature
information recorded in the plankton shells to direct measurements from thermometers. Oppo cautions that the reconstruction contains some uncertainties. Information from three different cores was compiled in order to reconstruct a 2,000-year-long record. In
addition sediment data have an inherent uncertainty associated with accurately dating samples. The SST variations they have reconstructed are very small, near the limit of
the Mg/Ca dating method. Even in light of these issues, the results from the reconstruction are of fundamental importance to the scientific community. More Questions to Answer The overall similarity in trend between the Northern Hemisphere and the IPWP reconstructions suggests that that Indonesian SST is well correlated to global SST and air
temperature. On the other hand, the finding that IPWP SSTs seem to have been approximately the same as today in the past, at a time when average Northern Hemisphere
temperature appear to have been cooler than today, suggests changes in the coupling between IPWP and Northern Hemisphere or global temperatures have occurred in the past, for
reasons that are not yet understood. “This work points in the direction of questions that we have to ask,” Oppo says. “This is only the first word, not the last
word.” The US National Science Foundation and the WHOI Ocean and Climate Change Institute provided funding for this work. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, independent organization in Falmouth, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education.
Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the oceans and their interaction with the Earth as a
whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the oceans’ role in the changing global environment. (WUWT) Forget 'Peak Oil' — Drill, BP, Drill Ignoring peak-oil Cassandras, BP has made another giant oil find in the Gulf of Mexico. We're not running out of oil. Our government just doesn't want us to look for it. Of course they do: Environmental groups challenge oil pipeline permit MINNEAPOLIS - A coalition of environmental groups has filed a lawsuit challenging a U.S. State Department permit that allows an oil pipeline to be built in three
Midwestern states. China working on measures to boost coal bed methane extraction China is working on ways to encourage large-scale coal bed methane extraction in efforts to improve coal mine safety, a Chinese official said Thursday. Renewable Energy, Meet the New Nimbys - Solar and Wind-Power Proposals Draw
Opposition From Residents Fearing Visual Blight; a Dilemma for Some Environmentalists Technology changes, but human nature doesn't. Environmentally friendly energy projects are running into the same cries of "not in my backyard" that stymied a
previous generation of alternative-power efforts. Actually the biggest problem with "renewables" is that they have nothing really to offer -- they are all downside. If you didn't need thermal
baseload stations to back them up because of their intermittence and unreliability it might be a different matter but as it is they are merely supplemental and hugely
expensive "decorations" blighting the countryside. Horizons of Change - The Danes have been world leaders in wind
energy, but it has not always been plain sailing IT IS now nearly 30 years since the late George Colley, then minister for energy, stood on the west coast of Jutland looking at Denmark’s first two experimental wind
turbines. Although he and his officials were impressed, they came home and did nothing – while the Danes went on to become world leaders in wind power technology. Solar energy 'ignored for 40 years' is back in the spotlight Alternative energy sources have long been little more than an alternative to fossil fuel staples. With legislative models based on carbon offsets, solar energy may offer
an intriguing option. China’s Photovoltaic Industry: Exporting On the Cheap Nothing is more indicative of the disconnect between the rhetoric and the reality of solar energy applications than the Chinese photovoltaic (PV) industry. Audi of America President Johan de Nysschen dismissed GM’s upcoming plug-in hybrid, the Chevrolet Volt as “a car for idiots.” More specifically, he said that few
consumers will be willing to pay $40,000 base price for a car that competes with $25,000 hybrids. September 3, 2009
A Washington Post reporter describes the rigmarole
Washington D.C. residents must endure to purchase a gun and keep it in one’s home for purposes of self-defense. Snippet:
It took $833.69, a total of 15 hours 50 minutes, four trips to the Metropolitan Police Department, two background checks, a set of fingerprints, a five-hour class and a
20-question multiple-choice exam. It’s a fair-minded article–not only about the government regulations, but also the factors that play into the decision to keep a gun–risk of crime, risk of accident,
the personal willingness to use deadly force (not to mention getting approval from the spouse!) Cato Chairman Bob Levy, the prime mover of the landmark Heller ruling, discusses the next
legal fight: Whether one can carry a firearm outside of the home for purposes of self-defense. Tom Palmer
is suing the DC government on this. For more on the Second Amendment and gun control, check out the new Cato book, Gun
Control on Trial, by Brian Doherty. (Tim Lynch, Cato at liberty) Cato Adjunct Scholar and Pacific Legal Foundation Senior Staff Attorney Tim Sandefur published an
excellent op-ed in the National Law Journal this week on the upcoming Supreme Court case Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental
Protection: The case involves a Florida statute determining the boundaries of oceanfront property. Under a 1961 law, the state drew a brand-new line separating public and private
land on certain beaches, meaning that some land that would have been privately owned would belong instead to the state. A group of property owners filed suit, arguing that
the law deprived them of property without just compensation, violating the state and federal constitutions. Last December, Florida’s highest court rejected their arguments. It held that, while the new boundary gave the state ownership of the beach land, the former owners
actually had no such right to begin with. Despite more than a century of Florida law to the contrary, the court announced that the owners actually only had a right to
“access” the ocean, and because the state promised to allow them to keep crossing the land to reach the water, it actually hadn’t taken anything away when it seized
the land itself. Thus, by simply reinterpreting state property law, the court allowed the state to take property without compensation with a mere stroke of a pen. Yet the U.S.
Constitution forbids states from confiscating property – even through legal legerdemain – without payment. [.] [T]he U.S. Constitution also guarantees every American’s right to due process of law and to protection of private property. If state judges can arbitrarily rewrite a
state’s property laws, those guarantees would be meaningless. More than four decades ago, Justice Potter Stewart warned that, without a constitutional limit on the
states’ power to determine the nature of property, states could “defeat the constitutional prohibition against taking property without due process of law by the simple
device of asserting retroactively that the property it has taken never existed at all.” It is well-worth a full read here. Despite the dreadful decision in the Kelo case several years ago, the fight to maintain the fundamental right to private property continues in our courts and
legislatures. Tim and PLF have been doing yeoman’s work in the fight for property rights, and I am proud to team Cato up with them and the NFIB Legal Center in filing an
amicus brief on behalf of the rightful property owners in this case. You can download the PDF of the brief here.
(Ilya Shapiro, Cato at liberty) Swine flu gets more active as schools open: CDC WASHINGTON - Swine flu is spreading more quickly in the U.S. Southeast, where schools started back earlier than in other areas after the summer break, a U.S. health
official said on Wednesday. WHO expert says no doubt H1N1 vaccines will work GENEVA - H1N1 vaccines should offer broad protection even if the pandemic flu virus mutates as it spreads, a top World Health Organisation expert said on Wednesday. Ongoing push to medicalize people's weight: Weight Gain In Adulthood Associated
With Prostate Cancer Risk; Patterns Differ By Ethnicity Body mass in younger and older adulthood, and weight gain between these periods of life, may influence a man's risk for prostate cancer. This risk varies among different
ethnic populations, according to results of a study in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
(ScienceDaily) Oh... about as smart as saying "good electrons and bad electrons"... Bad
food 'causing child obesity' A combination of bad food, lax advertising rules and nowhere to play is why more children are becoming obese, according to a campaigner. Rise in weight-loss drugs prescribed to combat childhood obesity Thousands of children and adolescents are using anti-obesity drugs that in the UK are only licensed for use by adults. The number of young people receiving prescriptions
for these drugs has increased 15-fold since 1999, but most stop using them before they could expect to see any benefit, according to a new study. (Wiley-Blackwell) Weight-loss Surgery Can Break A Family's Cycle Of Obesity Adolescent and young children of obese mothers who underwent weight-loss surgery prior to pregnancy have been found to have a lower prevalence of obesity and significantly
improved cardio-metabolic markers when compared to siblings born before the same obese mothers had weight-loss surgery. This new study has been accepted for publication in
The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). (ScienceDaily) I wonder if this is just another way of saying bariatric surgery can devastate families? Battle lines drawn over soda, junk food taxes LOS ANGELES - Increasingly vocal calls for taxes on sugary drinks and junk food are fueling a behind- the-scenes battle that public health officials say is reminiscent of
America's war on cigarettes. The idiot blurt: FDA Study: Lead Levels in Lipstick Much Higher
Than Previously Reported FDA won't disclose brands; still has no standard for lead in lipstick What really happened: FDA STUDY REAFFIRMS THE SAFETY OF LIPSTICK; AGENCY SAYS TRACE LEAD LEVELS IN LIPSTICK NOT A SAFETY CONCERN WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 25, 2009) — In an article published in the July/August edition of the peer-reviewed Journal of Cosmetic Science, U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) scientists report that they have developed, validated and employed a highly sensitive and rigorous testing method to analyze the total lead content in a
broad selection of lipsticks sold in the U.S. and found the lead levels present to be safe and well below limits recommended by international regulatory and public health
authorities. THE FATAL ERROR IN ORGANIC: FERTILIZER CHURCHVILLE, VA—Rudolph Steiner, a founder of organic farming in the 1920s, started the “great organic nitrogen swindle” that threatens the world with hunger to this
day. Steiner didn’t believe in nutrients, he believed in “vital forces.” He said a cow has horns to send into itself “astral-ethereal formative powers.” He claimed
you could fertilize a whole farm by burying a handful of manure inside a cow’s horn for a year—so that the manure is “inwardly quickened.” DENNIS T. AVERY is an environmental economist, and a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of
State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years, Readers may write him at PO Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421 or email to
cgfi@hughes.net As if we know what next year's temperatures will be, let alone in 60 years: Changes
In California's Bird Communities Due To Climate Change, Study Finds As much as half of California could be occupied by new bird communities by 2070 according to a new study by PRBO Conservation Science (PRBO) and partners. The publication
entitled "Reshuffling of species with climate disruption: A no-analog future for California birds?" is to be released in the open access peer reviewed journal PLoS
ONE on September 2nd. (ScienceDaily) What a whopper! US wants to fill need for climate
forecasts GENEVA — The global need to cope with climate change is fueling a desire to make climate forecasts as common as weather forecasts, U.S. officials attending a U.N.
conference said Wednesday. I wonder if Lubchenco actually believes she can forecast climate? If she does then that in itself is a serious worry. Global warming legislation would fail a proper regulatory impact assessment There are no scientific forecasts to support the belief that emissions trading will benefit New Zealanders, says Wellington-based Monash University forecasting researcher,
Dr Kesten Green. From the rubber room: Icecap photo shows
'mother nature in tears' A photograph of a shrinking icecap that looks like 'mother nature in tears' is set to become a stark image of the dangers of global warming. A crying face is revealed in an ice cap located on Nordaustlandet in the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Photo: BARCROFT MEDIA Marine photographer and environmental lecturer Michael Nolan captured the pictures while on an annual voyage to observe the largest icecap in Norway Austfonna on July 16. They actually printed that fanciful pap... Thinning Arctic sea ice a warning to politicians Standing on the vulnerable ice sheet, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he expected the 100 or so world leaders who will take part in climate talks in New York this
month to "demonstrate their leadership". (CoP15) Recycling the methane fantasy: Arctic climate change
may be forcing faster warming on entire globe: report A new report says Arctic climate change is happening faster than anyone anticipated and may soon be forcing more rapid warming on the rest of the planet. Really? So how's temperature change going where it's actually recorded, say in Alaska? It says here that: "The period 1949 to 1975 was substantially colder
than the period from 1977 to 2008, however since 1977 little additional warming has occurred in Alaska with the exception of Barrow and a few other locations. The stepwise
shift appearing in the temperature data in 1976 corresponds to a phase shift of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation from a negative phase to a positive phase." Past its Time is impressed anyway: In Geneva, Designing a Global
Climate-Alert System It would be easy to assume that when the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declared in early 2007 that it was "very likely" that global
warming was caused by man-made greenhouse-gas emissions, the scientific case on climate change was effectively closed. The evidence showed that when we add carbon dioxide and
other gases into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels or cutting down trees, those gases enhance the greenhouse effect and warm the planet. What else is there to figure
out? Another idiotic disaster piece in the run up to CoP15: Great
Barrier Reef faces catastrophe The Great Barrier Reef's chances of survival from even moderate climate change are poor and ''catastrophic damage'' may not be avoided, a report has found. Getting dearer with every bid: UN: Poor nations need $600 billion a year to adapt to climate
change A spending of around 1 percent of the world's GDP would allow developing nations to switch to economies with low carbon emissions while maintaining growth, the World
Economic and Social Survey says. (CoP15) And why not when dealing with so gullible and self-destructive dills as Westerners? China's
high price for cuts in emissions The cost of reducing China's total greenhouse gas emissions is likely to reach $438bn a year within 20 years, and developed economies will have to bear much of that cost,
according to a group of Beijing's leading climate economists. How much will a deal in Copenhagen cost? Less than 100 days away from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, details concerning individual nations' needs are surfacing that are creating alarm.
The dollar figures would be digestible if they were a one-time lump sum payment, but the figures being reported to be paid on an annual basis to 'developing nations' makes a
deal in Copenhagen later this year highly unlikely. (John Guerrerio, Examiner) Trillions to be wasted for CO2 madness a year The most experienced
readers of The Reference Frame remember a Kyoto counter that used to be embedded
in the sidebar. It was created by Steve Milloy of JunkScience.com and it was counting the dollars wasted for the Kyoto protocol, assuming that the annual cost of
the carbon regulation was USD 150 billion. What a pity its all completely pointless... 'A Global Budget Will
Ensure Success in Copenhagen' BERLIN (IDN) - An independent scientific group claims to have found a new approach to cutting the Gordian knot -- that the sluggish climate negotiations have come to
symbolise -- and achieving a global climate treaty at the UN conference this December in Copenhagen. Oh boy... A history of CO2 emissions - How are
'emissions debts' influencing the Copenhagen negotiations? Scanning through the amount of carbon dioxide that countries put into the atmosphere over the past century might seem even irrelevant to modern climate change debates. Why not a history of feeding people or developing medicines or sanitation or... Some sad news for you Johnny: Prescott:
cutting emissions by 80% will not be enough - Warning by former minister who helped broker Kyoto Protocol Europe's climate targets of cutting carbon emissions by 30 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050 may not be tough enough to get developing countries into a worldwide
global warming deal, John Prescott has warned. We don't want any climate deal at any price, period. Get a life. Ed Miliband warns of 'climate change poverty' Millions will be condemned to poverty and homelessness if world leaders fail to reach an ambitious deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the climate change summit in
Copenhagen later this year, Britain's Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, warned yesterday. (Daily Telegraph) Yeah? and what about the billions who will so suffer if we do try to implement such a stupid deal? People won't change lifestyle for planet: straw poll LONDON - People want to save the planet but are unwilling to make radical lifestyle changes like giving up air travel or red meat to reduce the effects of climate change,
a straw poll by Reuters showed. With Clouds Over Health Care, Can Climate
Change Fly? The health care fight is the center of attention as Congress and the president return to the fray. One casualty appears likely to be the climate change legislation that
narrowly passed the House of Representatives this spring. Terms of 'Endangerment' - The EPA's anti-carbon rule is an
admission that CO2 limits hurt the economy. Cap and trade may be flopping around like a dying fish in Congress, but the Obama Administration isn't about to let the annoyance of democratic consent interfere with its
climate ambitions. Almost as bad is the new evidence that it understands how damaging its carbon regulations and taxes will be and is pressing ahead anyway. The White House is currently reviewing the Environmental Protection Agency's April "endangerment finding" that as a matter of law CO2 is a pollutant that
threatens the public's health and must therefore be subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act. Such a rulemaking would let the EPA impose the ossified command-and-control
regulatory approach of the 1970s across the entire economy, even if Democrats never get around to passing a cap-and-tax bill. Yet a curious twist is buried in the EPA's draft rule. The trade press is reporting that the agency thinks it enjoys the discretion to target the new rules only to major
industrial sources of carbon emissions, such as power plants, refineries, factories and the like. This so-called "tailoring rule" essentially rewrites clear
statutory language of the Clean Air Act by bureaucratic decree. Because the act was never written to apply to today's climate neuroses, clean-air regulation is based on an extremely low threshold for CO2 emissions that will
automatically transfer hundreds of thousands of businesses into the EPA's ambit. The agency is required to regulate sources that emit more than 250 tons of a given air
pollutant annually, which may be reasonable for conventional pollutants like NOX or SOX. But this is a very low limit for ubiquitous CO2, and so would capture schools, hospitals, farms, malls, restaurants, large office buildings and many others. To exempt
these sources, the tailoring rule unilaterally boosts the rule for greenhouse gases from 250 tons to 25,000 tons, an increase of two orders of magnitude. Well, well. In a speech in February, Obama EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson ridiculed those of us who warned about these consequences, saying that it was "a myth"
that "EPA will regulate cows, Dunkin' Donuts, Pizza Hut, your lawnmower and baby bottles. . . . Somebody said to me today, 'kittens,' I like that one." Her routine
got a big laugh from the like-minded Georgetown audience, but the new draft rule is a flat-out admission that the critics are right. The endangerment finding was prompted by the 5-4 2006 Supreme Court Mass. v. EPA decision, which relied on an extremely literal interpretation of the Clean Air
Act to crowbar CO2 into the law. That decision has been a political windfall for cap-and-tax advocates because it has driven utilities and other businesses to the bargaining
table as they've concluded that some carbon limits are inevitable. Yet the Supreme Court said nothing that would let the EPA simply decide on its own to apply the law to some unfavored business while giving others a pass. And the Clean
Air Act is explicit about the 250-ton threshold. Team Obama's real motive in "tailoring" this rule is to limit the immediate economic impact of carbon limits to
head off a political backlash. But even businesses that do get a pass shouldn't rest too easily. The green lobby will quickly sue to force the EPA to enforce fully its own rules and go after all carbon
sources. And why not? The Obama Administration is deliberately flouting its own legal claims for political reasons. Its cynical political hope is that if Congress won't
impose cap and tax, the courts will do it anyway. President Obama claims that his "new energy economy" will jump start growth and jobs. The EPA endangerment rule repudiates that claim once and for all. If the
green future is going to be so bright, why does the White House want to exempt so many businesses from its glories? (WSJ) UN Development Chief: Copenhagen might not be final step It is not a failure if the UN climate conference in December does not sign a final deal, says UN Development Chief Helen Clark. Danes don’t believe Copenhagen will deliver a global climate deal More than half of the host country’s citizens have little or no confidence that an ambitious and global climate agreement will be reached at the UN climate conference in
December. (CoP15) France Sees Initial Carbon Tax At 14 Euros Per Tonne PARIS - France plans to set a proposed carbon tax at 14 euros ($19.9) per tonne of carbon dioxide starting from next year, Prime Minister Francois Fillon said in an
interview to be published by Figaro magazine. China Goes ‘Green’ – Collecting the Pot at the Climate Policy Poker Table In two previous posts, “Green” China and CO2 Cap-and-Trade Meets the (China) Dragon, I described China’s rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as a “one-country
negation” to the Waxman-Markey climate bill (HR 2454). “The expected growth of coal-fired generation in China over the next 20 years will result in a net increase in CO2
emissions from their power sector of more than ten times that of reduced U.S. emissions due to coal constraints,” I concluded. (Donald Hertzmark, Master Resource) India Says Greenhouse Gas Pollution To Jump NEW DELHI - India said it expects its greenhouse gas emissions to jump to between 4 billion tons and 7.3 billion tons in 2031, a report said on Wednesday. (Reuters) Good thing they're actually talking about carbon dioxide and not pollution. Hoping to con the newbies: Swedish EU Presidency welcomes Japanese power shift The outcome of the election in Japan is “good news for the climate” and could “create momentum in the climate-change negotiations”, Swedish Environment Minister
says. (CoP15) Well, yes, but... Report: Geoengineering an option to limit climate change Geoengineering is not a last resort, but the next necessary step to recalibrate the Earth's climate unless carbon emissions are significantly reduced in the near future,
the Royal Society, the U.K.'s national academy of sciences, announced Tuesday. "It is an unpalatable truth that unless we can succeed in greatly reducing CO2
emissions we are headed for a very uncomfortable and challenging climate future, and geoengineering will be the only option left to limit further temperature
increases," John Shepherd, chair of the Royal Society's geoengineering study and a professor of Earth system science at the University of Southampton, said on behalf of
the group. The report "Geoengineering the climate: Science, governance and uncertainty" (PDF) urged carbon
emissions reduction as the primary means of halting climate change. But it looked at geoengineering--engineering the environment on a large scale to purposely manipulate the
world's climate--very seriously. In past years, geoengineering
has been thought of an as option of last resort, but the Royal Society asserted that some of the safer geoengineering techniques, like aggressively planting forests,
could be implemented currently in conjunction with carbon reduction efforts. Since geoengineering has the potential to affect people on a global scale, the group further recommended that an international organization like the U.N. Commission for
Sustainable Development begin developing policies and a means for resolving anticipated geoengineering political conflicts. "Assuming that acceptable standards for effectiveness, safety, public acceptance and cost were established, why should appropriate geoengineering options not be added
to the portfolio of options that society will need and may wish to use to combat the challenges posed by climate change?" said the report. With that in mind the group evaluated the safety, expense, effectiveness, and quickness of deployment for projects falling under two main classes of geoengineering: carbon
dioxide removal (CDR) and solar-radiation management (SRM). CDR, efforts to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, included things like afforestation, encouraging
plankton growth, and carbon capture and storage in the form of burying carbon-rich biomass or using biochar
for fuel. The SRM suggestions for manipulating the Earth so that it absorbs less solar radiation included more seemingly far-out options like painting all roofs white to reflect
sunlight, placing thousands of space
mirrors in near-Earth orbits to reflect sunlight, and spraying
aerosols into the stratosphere. The group said it generally favored CDR projects over SRM because they involved processes closer to natural occurrences, while the side effects of SRM projects are unknown
and therefore more dangerous. (CNET) Geoenginieering is an option if and when we decide we need to take action and it is good that they are taking a bit of a look at the other side of
Earth's energy balance. Still, the focus on carbon dioxide is a major disappointment since carbon constraint can not do what they seek (any more than lack of constraint can
actually do what hysterics claim). Partly right... Royal Society warns climate engineering 'could cause
disaster' Giant engineering schemes to reflect sunlight or suck carbon dioxide from the air could be the only way to save the Earth from runaway global warming, according to a group
of leading scientists. But they say that these schemes could have their own catastrophic consequences, such as disrupting rainfall patterns, and should be deployed only as a
last resort if attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions fail. (The Times) ... but that should read: "as a last resort if temperatures actually rise catastrophically", something vastly different from and
not related to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions at all. World’s first CO2 transmission guideline
ready DNV, authorities and major industry partners have developed the world’s first guideline for the transmission of CO2. From the new parody of DeSmog, DeSoggy Bog, some cutting truths are exposed about the active attack site that thinks it helps the planet by launching ad hominem
attacks on scientists. There will come a time when Jim Hoggan will regret the back-lash that comes against his PR firm Hoggan
and Associates. So will David
Suzuki, who gives his active approval of the illogical rude rants by appointing Jim Hoggan as Chair
of his board of directors and linking to DeSmog (here
and here)
from his Foundation website. (Jo Nova) David MacKay to be climate change adviser On the other hand, there is some welcome news in the UK. Professor David MacKay of the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge is to be appointed as chief scientific adviser to
Ed Miliband at the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Professor MacKay has attracted considerable attention for publishing the book "Sustainable Energy: without
the hot air". Potential seen for climate insurance in
tourism GENEVA - Insurance is an under-used way for the tourism industry to manage the risks of climate change, with existing offers ranging from a "perfect weather
guarantee" by Barbados to ski resorts promising deep snow, experts say. Still trying to figure out the carbon cycle: Scientists Argue
that Climate Change Mitigation Strategies Fall Short, Ignoring Significant Carbon Cycling Processes of Inland Waters AVONDALE, Pa., Sept. 2 -- In the paper, The Boundless Carbon Cycle, published in the September issue of Nature Geoscience, scientists from the University of Vienna,
Uppsala University in Sweden, University of Antwerp, and the U.S.-based Stroud(TM) Water Research Center argue that current international strategies to mitigate manmade
carbon emissions and address climate change have overlooked a critical player - inland waters. Streams, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, and wetlands play an important role in the
carbon cycle that is unaccounted for in conventional carbon cycling models. The commentary comes just months before COP15, the December 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in
Copenhagen where representatives from 192 countries will gather to decide upon a 2012 climate agreement that will succeed the "Kyoto protocol."
(PRNewswire-USNewswire) My Early View (1980s) On The
Role Of Humans In The Climate System In the early 1980s, I presented my viewpoint on climate in an annual publication of Encyclopedia Britannica. I have decided to post on my early views to document how they
have stood up over time. They are in Pielke, R.A., 1984: Earth sciences: Atmospheric sciences – 1983, Encyclopedia Britannica
Yearbook of Science and the Future, 279-281 where I wrote “Concern regarding the impact of the steady increases of carbon dioxide on the Earth’s atmosphere continued in 1983. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
released reports in the fall which suggested that by 2100 the average global temperature could increase by 5°C (9°F) with an associated rise in global sea level of between
144 cm (4.8 ft) and 217 cm (7 ft) as a result of the increased levels of carbon dioxide and other trace gases put into the atmosphere primarily through the burning of fossil
fuels. These gases act to reduce the emission of long-wave radiation out into space yet still permit solar radiation to teach the Earth’s surface. This mechanism of
heat increase is referred to as the “greenhouse effect.” At about the same time the U.S. National Research Council (NRC) issued a somewhat more conservative report on the
same subject, which emphasized the remaining uncertainties in estimating the effect of carbon dioxide and other trace gases on climate. The report concluded, for instance,
that if deforestation has contributed significantly to the increase in carbon dioxide during recent decades, then existing models that project future atmospheric
concentrations based on man-made sources may overpredict the fraction of carbon dioxide remaining airborne. The NRC report concluded that existing evidence does not support a
change away from fossil fuels but did suggest that some priority be given to the enhancement of long-term energy options that do not involve the combustion of such fuels. Increased levels of aerosols in the upper atmosphere and lower stratosphere that are associated with high levels of industrial activity could counter the greenhouse
effect of high levels of carbon dioxide. This possibility was not adequately examined in either of the studies. These aerosols appear to be ejected into the upper atmosphere
and stratosphere via deep cumulus clouds, a process that is referred to as cloud venting.” and in Pielke, R.A., 1985: Earth sciences: Atmospheric science – 1984. Encyclopedia
Britannica Yearbook of Science and the Future, 284-287, where I wrote “Concern continued with respect to the potential impact on climate of the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Additions of carbon dioxide to
the atmosphere as a result of the combustion of fossil fuel can retard radiational cooling to space, thereby causing a net warming at the Earth’s surface. Unless
mitigated by other results of human activities, such as reduced sunlight at the ground due to additions of aerosols to the upper atmosphere, this warming could result in
major changes in climate patterns. In 1984, as part of the continued study of this phenomenon, NOAA used aircraft to estimate how much carbon dioxide is transferred
from the atmosphere into the North Atlantic during winter storms when the cold ocean waters are most efficient in absorbing carbon dioxide. “ What we know in 2009 is that the role of humans within the climate system includes the issues reported above. However, the effect of humans is even more
diverse and significant than I reported in the 1980s. Aerosols are now recognized to have a large range of effects (e.g. see),
while land use/land cover change has been demonstrated to be a first order climate forcing (e.g. see). National Research Council, 2005: Radiative forcing of climate change: Expanding the concept and addressing
uncertainties. Committee on Radiative Forcing Effects on Climate Change, Climate Research Committee, Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Division on Earth and Life
Studies, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 208 pp remains the best overview of the diversity of human climate forcings. (Climate
Science) Recent posts from SPPI Addressing the Real Problem: Climate of Poverty What does the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation think about carbon dioxide (CO2)-induced global warming? “We don’t think about it,”Bill Gates said during last year’s Engineers Without Borders International Conference.On another occasion, he told Newsweek magazine:
“The angle I’ll look at most is … What about the 4 billion poorest people? What about energy and environmental issues for them?” The question, however, is not simply a matter of reprioritising limited resources. More fundamentally, the scientific case for catastrophic global climate change from
increased atmospheric CO2 is substantially flawed. Spurious Warming in New NOAA Ocean Temperature Product: The Smoking Gun After crunching data this week from two of our satellite-based microwave sensors, and from NOAA’s official sea surface temperature (SST) product ERSST v3b, I think the
evidence is pretty clear: The ERSST v3b product has a spurious warming since 1998 of about 0.2 deg. C, most of which occurred as a jump in 2001. 12 Facts about Global Climate Change That You Won’t Read in the Popular Press Series of Inconvenient Developments for Promoters of Man-made Global Warming
Fears Continue Unabated DeSmogBlog describes itself as "the world’s number one source for accurate, fact based information regarding Global Warming misinformation campaigns." It takes
the position that "An overwhelming majority of the world’s climate scientists agree that the globe is warming...and that the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels is
to blame." (Einstein didn't think majority opinion decided scientific disputes, but that's another discussion.) DeSmogBlog alleges that those who doubt global warming theory are part of a "a well-funded and highly organized public relations campaign" that is "trying
to confuse the public, to forestall individual and political actions that might cut into exorbitant coal, oil and gas industry profits." In this comic-book view of the world, environmental issues aren't complex matters involving imperfect tradeoffs, limited resources, and inadequate technologies. Nor is it
necessary to consider ideas from multiple perspectives in order to understand them thoroughly. In the DeSmogBlog universe, good guys and bad guys are readily identifiable and the way forward is clear. Although DeSmogBlog implies that its concern is with industry
lobbying efforts, in reality anyone who disagrees with its perspective gets slimed. Satirist Rex Murphy, for example, is called "resolutely stupid" because his
bracing commentaries on global warming contrast with the DeSmogBlog point-of-view. Astronomers: Sun’s Output may Decline Sea Level in the Southwest Pacific is Stable Graphs of sea level for twelve locations in the southwest Pacific show stable sea level for about ten years over the region. The data are compared with results from
elsewhere, all of which suggest that any rise of global sea level is negligible. The Darwin theory of coral formation, and subsidence ideas for guyots would suggest
that we should see more land subsidence, and apparent sea level rise, than is actually occurring. Sea level studies have not been carried out for very long, but they can
indicate major tectonic components such as isostatic rebound in Scandinavia. Attempts to manipulate the data by modelling to show alarming rates of sea level rise (associated
with alleged global warming) are not supported by primary regional or global data. Even those places frequently said to be in grave danger of drowning, such as the Maldives,
Tuvalu and Holland, appear to be safe. The EPA Silences a Climate Skeptic Wherever Jim Hansen is right now -- whatever speech the "censored" NASA scientist is giving -- perhaps he'll find time to mention the plight of Alan Carlin.
Though don't count on it. Significant Error in the Global Surface Temperature Trend Analyses
of NCDC Warmest
winter on record for Victoria ? or BoM mistake ? (that’s Australian Bureau of Meteorology) TV news and weather presenters are gloating lately as they report Australia’s “hottest winter ever”. I was traveling by car on the 27th August and Dr David Jones of
the Bureau of Meteorology National Climate Centre was being interviewed by the ABC 666 just after 9am. I suppose “interview” is not quite correct, a mutual gush session
might be more accurate. Dr Jones was talking up the notion of our “hottest winter” despite there being a few more days yet to run. Light bulb ban is no bright idea
- The EU kibosh on incandescent bulbs imposes substantial hidden costs on the economy. The European Union's new ban on incandescent light bulbs violates simple economic principles and imposes substantial hidden costs on the economy. Fluorescent bulbs don't
work as claimed and have considerable disposal problems. If the new bulbs were better, consumers would choose them naturally, and could be nudged to do so by a carbon tax. Phasing our incandescent lightbulbs This week saw the next step in the phasing out of traditional tungsten filament lightbulbs; manufacturers and importers are no longer supplying 100 watt or any pearl bulbs
in EU Member States. By 2012, manufacture or import of all such bulbs will be banned, and consumers will instead need to rely on the low-energy compact fluorescent lamp
(CFL). And this is not just another example of Europe leading the pack on environmental issues. A number of other countries, including the USA, are set on the same course. Digging
deep for major oil find: drill sinks into Earth as high as a jumbo flies British energy major BP has made a "giant" oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico after drilling one of the industry's deepest wells. My, haven't things looked up at BP since they got rid of Lord Browne... Trading Jobs For Bugs In Coal Country Mayflies are, by scientific classification, not long for this world. They belong to the order Ephemeroptera which means, roughly, "short lived, winged
creatures." In their adult form they live for a day. During that day, the Appalachian mayfly's primary function seems to be: Annoy hikers. Dam It! China’s Hydro Sector Takes Advantage of Weak Environmental Protection In 2008, China’s Environmental Protection Ministry made an unprecedented move: it halted two giant hydroelectric projects. Google-Backed Geothermal Company Suspends Test Project LOS ANGELES - Geothermal startup AltaRock Energy Inc on Wednesday said it has suspended its demonstration project in California due to geologic anomalies. The economic illiterates in Washington are so impressed with the "success" of Cash for Clunkers that they're readying Cash for Clunker Appliances. The ludicrous
"stimulus" bill gave $300 million to the Department of Energy to provide rebates for 10 types of appliances that have been rated energy efficient. September 2, 2009
H1N1 flu unlikely to mutate into 'superbug' CHICAGO - The new H1N1 virus appears to outcompete seasonal flu, making it less likely to mix with other circulating flu viruses into a "superbug" as some had
feared, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday. Dad's age not a big player in child's autism risk NEW YORK - Studies that have suggested that older men are more likely to father autistic children have seriously overstated the risk, conclude the authors of a large new
analysis of parental age and autism risk. Texas doctors bust myths about insulin NEW YORK - People newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes often resist taking insulin because they fear gaining weight, developing low blood sugar, and seeing their quality
of life decline. Doctors also may be reluctant to start insulin right off the bat. Tax junk food, drinks to fight child obesity: report WASHINGTON - A strongly worded report on child obesity released on Tuesday recommends that state and local governments tax junk food and soft drinks, give tax breaks to
grocery stores that open in blighted neighborhoods and build bike trails. Wine may curb toxic skin effects of radiation NEW YORK - Cancer patients undergoing radiation treatment may want to sip some red wine before treatment. Hmm... NAP are very proud of this (available to read online without charge) Science
and Decisions: Advancing Risk Assessment Risk assessment has become a dominant public policy tool for making choices, based on limited resources, to protect public health and the environment. It has been
instrumental to the mission of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well as other federal agencies in evaluating public health concerns, informing regulatory and
technological decisions, prioritizing research needs and funding, and in developing approaches for cost-benefit analysis. I haven't reviewed it, largely because risk analysis has been preempted by adoption of the truly horrible "precautionary principle" and its
misapplication. Genuine risk assessment includes serious cost-benefit analysis against which potential risk may be framed but who ever hears of that anymore? It’s
summer again, which means it is the time of year for the obligatory
photos of wildfires in Southern California. This particular fire, known as the Station Fire, nearly doubled in size in the last 24 hours from 98 to 164 square miles. So
far, it has burned at least 18 buildings and cost the lives of
at least two firefighters. The fire began in the Angeles National Forest, and Congress will no doubt respond by giving the Forest Service even more money to suppress such fires in the future. In
fact, as I show in my Cato Policy Analysis, The Perfect Firestorm, the Forest Service has, in effect, a
blank check to put out fires. It freely uses that blank check. It has so far spent about $14 million fighting the Station Fire, which supposedly threatens
12,000 homes. But it has also spent $2.5 million on Oregon’s Canal Creek Fire, which is less than half a square mile in size and does not threaten any homes or other
structures. Better safe than sorry — as long as you have a blank check. Southern California forests are extremely fire prone — their natural fire regime is to completely burn over every 50 to 100 years. Building homes in such an area
might seem foolish, so naturally there have been calls for “fire plain zoning,” similar to flood plain zoning, that would restrict such construction. In
fact, properly designed homes and landscaping can easily withstand such fires. Most homes destroyed by wildfires are ignited either by burning embers landing on flammable
roofs or by the radiant heat from trees or grasses burning nearby. Building homes with nonflammable roofs and eves, and landscaping with well-tended lawns
and a minimum of flammable trees essentially makes homes fireproof. Most civilian deaths from wildfire take place during evacuations, not from the fire itself. Homes that are designed to withstand wildfires are known as
“shelter-in-place” homes because the residents will be safer in the homes than trying to evacuate. In 2007, CBS News reported that a fire swept through two San Diego suburbs built to
shelter-in-place standards, and “not one home was even touched by flames.” Perversely, the reporter concluded that people should not be allowed to build to those
standards because it would just encourage them to live in fire-prone areas. In reality, the lesson is that it would be a lot less expensive to promote shelter-in-place construction standards and retrofitting and then simply let the fires burn at
their normal frequencies. The homes would be safe, the forests would be “natural,” and fewer firefighters would be at risk. Why doesn’t this happen? Simple: money. The Forest Service gets a blank check for putting out fires, but almost no money for helping people fireproof their properties. So it continues to spend
billions on fire suppression, mainly to protect people’s homes, when a lower-cost strategy is readily available. Photo credit: MB Trama and DisneyKrazie on Flickr. (Randal O'Toole, Cato at large) Czar: 'Spread the wealth! Change the whole system' - Using White House position
to push communist policies? Just days before his White House appointment, Van Jones, President Obama's environmental adviser, used a forum at a major youth convention to push for what can easily be
interpreted as a communist or socialist agenda. Toyota last week quietly announced it will shutter its famed NUMMI plant in Fremont, Calif. This should be taken as a warning: The facility had all the features of the
green economy the White House wants. 83 Percent of All Statistics are Made Up on the Spot Saki (H.H Munro) said, “A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.” Today we have tons of inaccuracy and very little explanation. Most inaccuracies come
from claims based on non-existent or inadequate historical data, extremely crude estimates, computer model projections, or are simply incorrect. It’s prevalent in
environmental issues but particularly bad with climate and animal extinctions. The reason is because they’re the most politicized, which automatically takes them further
from the truth. As Henry Adams said, “Practical politics consists of ignoring the truth.” (Tim Ball, CFP) A bitter dispute is raging over whether the fallout zone is a wasteland or wonderland. Now, a team of scientists is heading back into the contaminated area to find out the
truth. (Daily Telegraph) Flashback: CHERNOBYL:THE FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN? This column was written by Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski (Professor Emeritus of the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Warsaw Poland). It was commissioned by a
group that received the draft in February and then took so long to review it that they missed the deadlines imposed by traditional media outlets for publication during the
"attention period" surrounding the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident. Though it may no longer qualify as "news" because it was a bit late, the
information contained in the article is important, useful and interesting. Hope you enjoy it. (Atomic Insights) Hopefully this is merely a mistranslation or misunderstanding... Earth
may be ice-free by 2030, says UN UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was "alarmed" by the rate at which the Arctic's glaciers were retreating as he visited the region ahead of key climate
talks in December. ... otherwise, if these clowns really are that stupid, we're in a lot worse trouble than we thought. Something we can agree on, kind of: Is
geoengineering humanity's last hope to avoid catastrophic global warming? Do you really want to start messing with the atmosphere? If not, then stop emitting so much CO2. Or so argues the U.K.-based Royal Society, the same people who brought you
Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Stephen Hawking. A new report by the Society analyzes so-called geoengineering—"the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the
planetary environment," or consciously tweaking Earth's climate in an attempt to stave off global warming—and finds that it is feasible and worth studying carefully,
but probably not something we want to get involved in. (David Biello, 60-Second Science Blog) Is geoengineering humanity's last hope? Of course not. should it be rushed into deployment? Nope. But it should be carefully studied in case we
decide we want to use some form of such engineering in the future. Contrail Web over the Central Rhône Valley, Eastern France Moreover, even if we decide eventually that we need to lower Earth's temperature there is not a long lead time involved -- it may have taken 250 years of
increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide to increase global mean temperature 0.75 °C (or some fraction of that) but it wouldn't take long to reduce the temperature. How
do we know? Because the Earth shows us every year. Simply the difference in land versus ocean absorption of solar energy between the two hemispheres drives an increase and
subsequent decrease in global mean temperature of 3.8 °C in global mean temperature with a mere 6 months between peak and trough: Consequently we know Earth can be induced to shed almost 4 °C in just 6 months and we don't want to do anything like that much. We've got plenty of
time to study such measures at leisure before we might want to actually deploy any. Moonbat's propaganda promptly spanked: Not Even Wrong - We need a
radical new approach to cutting greenhouse gases, and it might have arrived. by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom See the comment by Harbinger under the original post, moonbat just can't get anything right. For release 1 Sept. 2009 Assuming there are no sunspots today, a 96-year record will have been broken: 53 days without any solar blemishes, giant magnetic disruptions on the sun's surface that
cause solar flares. That would be the fourth-longest stretch of stellar solar complexion since 1849. Wait, it gets even more exciting. Sun Run ends at 51 Days Without a Spot?
Among the Top 5 Longest
By Joseph D’Aleo Update: a very small sunspot group of two specks formed on the sun in the final hours of the month Monday according to NOAA SWPC, their monthly sunspot number will be
positive (though very small - likely 0.2 or 0.3, the lowest of this solar minimum but not a zero month). SIDC in Belgium, the official source said 28 observatories did not
see a countable spot and had a preliminary 0 number for the month (here). Sunday, August 30th marked the 51st straight day without a sunspot, one of the longest stretches in a century. One more day and we would have had a spotless month but like
last August some observatories saw a spot on the sun for a few hours one day. It would have been either the first or second spotless month since 1913 depending on whether you
count last August as spotless. It is unclear whether such small specks would have been seen in 1913. In fact it rises into 4th place among all spotless periods since 1849 (first table here).
Note: It is 5th place if you accept a spotless August 2008 which would have led to a stretch of 52 days. The total number of spotless days this transition from cycle 23 to 24
is now 704, exceeding the number for cycle 15 in the early 1900s (below, enlarged here). We have had 193 spotless days this year (79% of the days). We are in the top 20 years in 16th place. We will very likely rapidly rise up the list in upcoming weeks and
rival 2008’s 266 days and likely end in the top 5 years. 2007, 2008, 2009 will only have 1911, 1912, 1913 in the top 20 as string of 3 per transition (below, enlarged here). The cycle minimum probably was December, 2008. January 2009’s 13 month average came up a bit due to slight bump in activity in June and July but if August should end up
sunspotless and September low, we could have a double bottom. Still, the 12.7 years assuming December 2008 was longest in two centuries (below, enlarged here).
Only cycles 4 (peaking in 1788) and 6 (peaking in 1816) were longer than cycle 23 (which peaked in 2000). You can see on this chart, by 13 years after the solar minimum year, most of the last 5 cycles already had recovered, in one case already to the solar max of the subseuent
cycle (below, enlarged here). This cycle has continued to decline in the solar irradiance, solar flux, sunspot number and geomagnetic activity after 10 years. On the following chart produced by Anthony
Watts, you can see the Total Solar Irradiance declining whereas the prior cycle was rebounding (below, enlarged here). Also see the daily TSI which goes through short term cycles at the lowest point of the last
few months as of the last plotted measurement. Clilverd et al 2006 suggests using a statistical analysis of the various
cycles (11, 22, 53, 88, 105, 213, and 426 years) shows the next two cycles will likely be very quiet much like those of 200 years ago in the early 1800s, the so called Dalton
Minimum, the time of Dickens (with snows and cold in London like last winter) (below, enlarged here). See what David Archibald shows what the result might be if Clilverd is correct here.
Some have not ruled out an even stronger Maunder
like Minimum. Read more in this pdf here. (Icecap) Global Oceanic Climate Update for August 2009 This is the first of what might turn into a series of monthly updates of some maritime climate parameters monitored by the AMSR-E instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite.
All monthly statistics have been computed by me from daily global gridpoint data produced and archived by Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) under the direction of Frank Wentz, a
member of our U.S. AMSR-E Science Team. Since Aqua was launched in 2002, the data are available only since June, 2002. A description of how these products were derived, and
where they reside, is provided here. There are 5 “ocean products”: sea surface temperature [SST]; near-surface wind speed; vertically-integrated water vapor; vertically integrated cloud water; and rain
rate. I will present time series of monthly anomalies averaged over the global, ice-free oceans (56 deg. N to 56 deg. S latitude), and separately for the deep tropics (20
deg. N to 20 deg. S latitude). ‘Anomalies’ are departures from the average seasonal cycles in those parameters, which will be recomputed as each new month of data is
added. GLOBAL OCEANS In the first figure below are plotted the 5 ocean products for the global ice free-oceans (56N to 56S). As can be seen in the top panel, SSTs in August cooled slightly
from the unusually warm conditions experienced in July. I have added linear trend lines to each time series, which you are free to misinterpret as you wish.
Since the AMSR-E period of record is only 7.25 years long, a calculated trend won’t have much meaning…although it will be interesting to see how long it takes before the
climate system obeys the UN’s command to warm, and the SST trend line begins to go uphill again. How these different variables change relative to each other is illustrated in the following lag-correlation plot of SST versus the other variables. “PDO” is the
Pacific Decadal Oscillation Index, while “SOI” is the Southern Oscillation Index (negative for El Nino, positive for La Nina). A discussion of these curves is provided
later, below. TROPICAL OCEANS The next figure shows the ocean product anomalies for just the deep tropics, 20N to 20S latitude…. …and the lag correlation plot for the deep tropics is next: DISCUSSION Using the 20N-20S lag correlation plot as an example, you can see that total integrated water vapor is highly correlated with SST, which in turn is highly correlated with
El Nino conditions (negative SOI values). Also note that sea surface temperature tends to peak after months of anomalously low wind conditions, then falls as wind speeds increase. Cloud water and rain rates increase as SST increases, reaching a maximum 1 to 3 months after the SST peaked. (Roy W. Spencer) The
Paper “Heat Balance In The Nocturnal Boundary Layer During CASES-99″ By Sun Et Al 2003 The conclusion of our Pielke and Matsui (2005), Lin et al (2007), Klotzbach et al (2009) and
Mahmood et al (2009) papers that the use of minimum temperatures over
land to diagnose climate system heat changes (i.e. global warming) introduces a bias is further substantiated by the paper Sun, J-L et al, 2003: Heat
balance in the nocturnal boundary layer during CASES-99 J. Appl. Meterologogy. 42, 1649-1666. The abstract reads “A unique set of nocturnal longwave radiative and sensible heat flux divergences was obtained during the 1999 Cooperative Atmosphere–Surface Exchange Study
(CASES-99). These divergences are based on upward and downward longwave radiation measurements at two levels and turbulent eddy correlation measurements at eight levels. In
contrast to previous radiation divergence measurements obtained within 10 m above the ground, radiative flux divergence was measured within a deeper layer—between 2 and 48
m. Within the layer, the radiative flux divergence is, on average, comparable to or smaller than the sensible heat flux divergence. The horizontal and vertical temperature
advection, derived as the residual in the heat balance using observed sensible heat and radiative fluxes, are found to be significant terms in the heat balance at night. The
observations also indicate that the radiative flux divergence between 2 and 48 m was typically largest in the early evening. Its magnitude depends on how fast the ground
cools and on how large the vertical temperature gradient is within the layer. A radiative flux difference of more than 10 W per meter squared over 46 m of height
was observed under weak wind and clear-sky conditions after hot days. Wind speed variation can change not only the sensible heat transfer but also the surface longwave
radiation because of variations of the area exposure of the warmer grass stems and soil surfaces versus the cooler grass blade tips, leading to fluctuations of the radiative
flux divergence throughout the night.” This excellent paper includes the following findings: 1. In Figure 3, the CASES-99 field campaign (October 1999) average nightime radiative flux difference between 48m and 2m differs by up to 20 Watts
per meter squared depending on the location including an effect from landscape type as given in Table 1: 2. As seen in Figure 5 for the night of October 21, the net radiative flux difference (the flux divergence over the layer 2m to 48 m) within the nocturnal
boundary layer, is on the order of 5 Watts per meter squared. 3. As evident in Figure 6, the temperature difference between 2m and 48 m becomes larger through the night as the stable stratification increases; a
typical occurrence of the light wind nocturnal boundary layer as discussed in Pielke and Matsui (2005). The
increased nonlinear shape to the temperature profile illustrates that the radiative flux divergence with light winds is a function of height in the layer from
2m to 48m. From Figure 7, the sensible turbulent heat flux divergence is also a function of height within this layer. 4. As seen in Figure 9, when the winds are light at night, there are significant differences in 2m temperatures depending on the landscape and terrain. The
authors wrote “ The elevation-dependent 2-m air temperature is clearly demonstrated in the air temperature difference between the lowest station (station 3) and the other
stations (Fig. 9). The dependence of the air temperature on the surface elevation occurred only at night and was inversely related to the wind speed. When the wind speed
is stronger than 5 meters per second, strong turbulent mixing and advection eliminate temperature differences at various elevations and lead to a homogeneous
temperature field. Similar results were also found by Harrison (1971), Geiger et al. (1995), LeMone and Grossman (2000), and Acevedo and Fitzjarrald (2001). This implies
that to capture spatial variations of synoptic or ambient temperature, the temperature measurement height needs to be above the influence of surface drainage flows.” The differences were on the order of 2-3 degrees Celsius. In the conclusion, the authors state “Our study indicates that the radiative flux divergence between 2 and 48 m is close to zero except in the early evening. However, it can be significant close to
the ground based on the radiative flux divergence below 10 m in the earlier studies. On average, the radiative flux divergence increases with stability. The vertical
variation of the sensible heat flux is found to be more than 10% of its mean below 20 m. Therefore, the conditions for application of M–O similarity theory are often
violated in the surface layer in the early evening and below 10 m above the ground at night because of the large radiative and sensible heat flux divergences.” This paper further documents the large variation of 2m temperatures at night under light winds due to landscape and terrain influences. As the abstract states “A radiative flux difference of more than 10 W per meter squared over 46 m of height was observed under weak wind and clear-sky conditions after hot days.
Wind speed variation can change not only the sensible heat transfer but also the surface longwave radiation because of variations of the area exposure of the warmer grass
stems and soil surfaces versus the cooler grass blade tips, leading to fluctuations of the radiative flux divergence throughout the night.” Those who claim that the minimum 2m temperatures are appropriate values to include in a diagnosis of global warming are in error. As we summarize in Mahmood et
al (2009) in the post
on August 24 2009 “The stable nocturnal boundary layer does not measure the heat content in a large part of the atmosphere where the greenhouse signal should be the largest (Lin
et al. 2007; Pielke et al. 2007a). Because of nonlinearities in some parameters of the stable boundary layer (McNider et al. 1995), minimum temperature is highly
sensitive to slight changes in cloud cover, greenhouse gases, and other radiative forcings. However, this sensitivity is reflective of a change in the turbulent state of
the atmosphere and a redistribution of heat not a change in the heat content of the atmosphere (Walters et al. 2007). Using the Lin et al. (2007) observational results, a
conservative estimate of the warm bias resulting from measuring the temperature from a single level near the ground is around 0.21°C per decade (with the nighttime
minimum temperature contributing a large part of this bias). Since land covers about 29% of the Earth.s surface, extrapolating this warm bias could explain about 30% of
the IPCC estimate of global warming. In other words, consideration of the bias in temperature could reduce the IPCC trend to about 0.14°C per decade; still a warming,
but not as large as indicated by the IPCC.” (Climate Science) From CO2 Science Volume 12 Number 35: 2 September 2009
The Scientists Speak: Editorial: Medieval
Warm Period Record of the Week: Subject Index Summary: Plant Growth Data: Journal Reviews: The Swimming Performance of Atlantic Cod: How is it likely to be affected by rising atmospheric CO2
concentrations? Larch Budmoth Outbreaks in the European Alps: How have they varied over the past three centuries? Or make that twelve
centuries. Effects of Global Warming, Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment and Technological Innovations on Bean
and Maize Yields in Brazil: What are they? Within-Species Genetic Differences in Quaking Aspen and Their Responses to Elevated CO2:
What are they? ... and what are their implications? (co2science.org) The Socialism Implicit in
the Social Cost of Carbon Burning fossil fuels creates so-called “external costs” because it contributes to ongoing climate change. This is a fancy way of saying that when I burn such fuels,
other people become worse off than they would be otherwise, because I have increased the odds that they will suffer damages from anthropogenic global warming (AGW). This both
seems unfair, and means that we will burn more fossil fuels than would seem to be socially optimal. It seems obvious to many people that we should therefore tax fossil fuels
in order to prevent this. This is termed a Pigovian tax, and is sometimes referred to as “internalizing the externality”, or taxing fossil fuels to reflect the “social
cost of carbon”. Obama Needs to Give a Climate Speech - ASAP At this point in their presidency, which president -- George W. Bush or Barack Obama -- had made three climate science speeches or statements, including one lengthy
speech, while the other had barely addressed it at all? Um, Andrew? He can't "address the science" mate, because then the whole non-issue collapses. Will climate change well run dry? The raucous debate over health care could thwart the Senate’s enactment of sweeping energy and climate legislation this year, say Democratic aides, energy lobbyists and
environmentalists. Climate change -- what's in it for me? Regular readers of The Washington Times are all too familiar with the back-and-forth debate between those who favor federal legislation to curb greenhouse-gas emissions
and those who view the measure as one thing and one thing only: a monstrous job killer. Senate Urged To Let States Keep Climate Plans NEW YORK - Five states have asked U.S. Senate leaders to let them impose stricter limits on greenhouse gas emissions than what would be permitted under the climate
legislation working its way though Congress, saying both levels of regulation are necessary to fight global warming. (Reuters) After all the propaganda... Climate
Change Bill Gets Mixed Reviews Since the flurry of activity surrounding its passage by the House in late June, little has been heard about the historic climate change bill aimed at curbing global
warming. But the Senate will be tackling the controversial measure when it returns to Washington next week. Why is the Party in Power So Fearful of Copenhagen? (Is a ‘death spiral’ for climate alarmism ahead?) For weeks now, we’ve been hearing an odd refrain from the Democrats who are pushing hardest for the Waxman-Markey climate bill. They are determined, it seems, not only
to have such a bill drawn up before Copenhagen, but to have it signed into law. At the same time, the EPA is widely expected to issue its endangerment finding for greenhouse
gases, triggering what will undoubtedly be a hotly disputed regulatory process. EU presses US on climate change The European parliament's environment committee is sending a delegation to Washington later this month to explain the EU's decision to cut emissions by 20 percent from
1990 levels by 2020. (CoP15) EU Chair lowers expectations to COP15 As an agreement that will keep global warming below two degrees C can probably not be found in Copenhagen, instead the EU should see December’s UN conference as a
starting point, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt says. (CoP15) EU Chair criticized for lack of ambition The Swedish EU Chairman Fredrik Reinfeldt is criticized for lowering expectations for the outcome of the UN climate conference. (CoP15) EU Carbon Market Still Open To Tax Fraud LONDON - A patchwork of unilateral actions by a few European Union nations to prevent suspected tax fraud in carbon permit trading could serve only to push the activity
into neighboring states. Hey, everyone trading hot air is engaging in fraud. Why should anyone worry about them getting burned? EU Wants More On Climate From China, Lauds Japan BRUSSELS - Emerging economies such as China should cut their greenhouse gas emissions to nearly one third below current forecasts, a top European Union climate negotiator
said on Tuesday. Q+A: How Will Japan's Next Government Tackle Climate Change? TOKYO - Japan's Democratic Party, set to take power after a landslide election win on Sunday, has promised deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and more renewable energy
use. No Delay For Car Makers On EU Chemicals Ban BRUSSELS - Car makers will not be granted a delay to an agreed 2011 European ban on climate-damaging chemicals in the air conditioners of new car models, European
Parliament officials said on Tuesday. Oh boy... U.S. Ethanol Group Wants Origin Labeling For Oil NEW YORK - A U.S. ethanol industry group is pushing lawmakers to craft legislation requiring fuel companies to inform customers what country their fuel came from in hopes
of increasing awareness about money spent on oil imported from overseas. (Reuters) Possibly these guys don't know how much blending goes on to get the most economic refining mix and minimize refining waste or they do and that's part of
their plan to increase consumer cost of real fuels. Drill, Comrade Drill? - Why are Cuba and Canada exercising more
common sense on drilling than the United States? And how come they're doing it right in our own backyard? If we won't drill into the vast energy reserves just off our shores, others will. The Futility Of A New Oil-Industry Tax The debate over medical care has commanded most of the public's attention this summer, but another important domestic policy issue is quietly taking shape — new energy
taxes. The UK could be rationing
electricity within 8 years because demand for power is forecast to outstrip supply. The British government committed the nation to its Low
Carbon Transition Plan in July, an idea that hopes wind and solar can produce enough electricity to power the entire country. Renewable energy is a green
dream that will turn into a nightmare for families facing sudden power cuts or scheduled brown-outs. In the 21st century, the idea that a nation cannot provide enough power for its people and industries should be unthinkable. There is no coal shortage, no oil
shortage and no Uranium shortage. The only shortage is plants that convert these fuels into power. But why? Greens have played a key role in dePowering
the UK, Greenpeace
scofflaws at Kingsnorth illustrate the radical scaremongering that made the idea of building new generating capacity a political nightmare. Eco-radicals are proud
of their drive to deprive people of affordable energy, witness the Sierra Club in the USA and how
they brag about the 100 power stations they ‘prevented‘. The perfect storm of a spineless political class and a somnolent public faced with aggressive green lobby groups has brought the UK to a point where it is a country
without an energy future. No one listens to voices
of reason, preferring to pretend that renewable energy can fill the gap and ignoring that ‘green’ alternatives require the industrialization of the open countryside: … the land area occupied by wind farms would be nearly 10 percent of the country, or roughly the size of Wales. The area occupied by desert solar power stations — in
the case of Britain, they would have to be connected by long-distance power lines — would be five times the size of London. The 50 nuclear power stations required would
occupy a more modest 50 square kilometers. What will happen in 8 years when the lights start to go out across Britain? Here’s two predictions that will drive greens nuts, because the unintended consequences
of their blinkered knee-jerk activism will result in bad outcomes for the environment: British people are waking up to a major problem that threatens to negatively impact their everyday lives. Politicians will pay a heavy price for their part in the
fiasco, the only question is whether there will be a backlash against the idiot greens that pushed the country to the brink and perhaps over it. Whatever happens, the situation in Britain is a canary in the coal mine for other countries blindly following the green path. If you live in the USA, Canada,
Australia or any other country where carbon has been demonized by eco-hysterics, this could happen to you. Get involved and stop the rot, before your lights go out.
(Daily Bayonet) Note also the comment from John A: Kingsnorth should be, but alas is not, a major call for building “conventional” (er, including nuclear) power plants. Why does E_On want to expand/rebuild the coal
plant there? To increase output? Not exactly… To be “backup” for the [massively-subsidised] wind-power plant there! So why have the wind farm if a conventional plant
capable of the same or greater output is needed as well? For reasons that make sense to profligate politicians… We balk at importing "dirty" oil from Canada, but others aren't so reluctant. Exempt as a "developing" nation from Kyoto-like agreements, China has
decided to help Canada develop its energy-rich oil sands. The environmental movement’s “climate change” campaign is mainly an effort to phase out coal-fired electrical generation. This social movement also conducts a much
publicized decades-old campaign against nuclear power. Almost forgotten is environmentalism’s first victim – hydro-electricity. When the social movement now called
“environmentalism” surged forth in the 1960s it did so just in time to cripple North America’s remarkable and ambitious hydro engineering industry. What follows are
seven articles discussing the promise of river development and its nemesis. (William Walter Kay, Environmentalism is Fascism) Water Quality Worries Could Slow Shale Drilling NEW YORK - The boom in shale gas drilling has raised hopes the United States will be able to rely on the cleaner-burning fuel to meet future energy needs, but concerns
about its impact on water quality could slow industry's ability to tap this relatively new resource. Gas is another fuel, it is not a "bridge fuel" and can't drive transition to alternatives like 'wind and solar" as these are not
fuels at all, they are not even good sources of stationary energy. Moreover, these green pretenders are threatened by China's monopoly moves on rare minerals: China Tightens Grip on Rare
Minerals HONG KONG — China is set to tighten its hammerlock on the market for some of the world’s most obscure but valuable minerals. Green merits of car-scrapping plans
questioned As European countries start to wind down their car-scrapping schemes, hopes of slashing transport emissions while stimulating the economy are being dashed by reports of
illegal exports of old European cars to the third world. (EurActiv) Solar panels in space to power 294,000 homes - With a budget of 21 billion dollars the
Japanese research project aims at beaming solar energy to Earth by microwaves. A huge solar panel placed 36,000 kilometers away in space beaming power supply to 294,000 average Tokyo homes. The tinfoil underwear brigade are gonna freak about all that EMF ;) September 1, 2009
Lushful thinking? Aging: Moderate Drinking May Help the
Brain People over 60 who consume moderate amounts of alcohol have a reduced risk for Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, according to a large review of studies. Regular drinkers get more exercise: study NEW YORK - Drinking and exercise go hand in hand, a new study hints. GE--From corporate titan to welfare
recipient Steve Milloy's Green Hell Blog makes for very interesting reading—and not only for the direct postings. The comments can be
pretty cogent, as well. Take this one from dublds... In nearly any business or industry, when political lobbying is used as a shortcut to fair competition, innovation and sensible business practices, it is a sure sign of
failure. The government has increasingly been asked to intervene with labor disputes at the airlines and auto industries, and as we know both of these industries and their
corresponding unions are hanging by a thread. The film, and more so record industries have lobbied heavily for stricter anti-piracy laws. Nonetheless, anyone who has ever
made a mix tape knows that piracy is nothing new or suddenly rampant. Fact is these industries have failed to remain relevant, and the Internet has offered new and better
alternatives. As for GE, I've said before and I'll say again, GE is an embarrassment. This news all but proves their new "save the world" mission statement is a front for
"save our company". And their shamelessness about their inability rescue their company through any means of their own should be a HUGE warning sign for investors.
For a company with a history and name like GE has built, their current position should be a disgrace to them. But instead they are talking up their new government-welfare
business plan with all the adjectives usually reserved for celebrations and grand openings. It's absolutely pitiful, and I like many investors have run like hell from any
long positions in GE. If nothing else, I would feel too guilty making money off a stock whose price was supported by poorly directed taxpayer funds. The only shame is that GE was once the poster boy for American manufacturing and quality. Now that they are taking a proud place in the welfare line, what does this say
about America itself. GE is one of those rich corporations who we were going to tax to pay for our social programs. Now that they look to become recipients themselves, what
is the plan? Obama? (Shaw's Eco-Logic) No value in BS green labels? Go figure... Some
Buildings Not Living Up to Green Label The Federal Building in downtown Youngstown, Ohio, features an extensive use of natural light to illuminate offices and a white roof to reflect heat. Greenies kill another successful market? Bottled-Water Price War Heats Up as Demand
Falls Bottled-water makers have stepped up a months-long price war this summer to win back customers who have turned on the tap to save money and reduce environmental waste. If there's any doubt Ecuador's $26 billion lawsuit against Chevron is nothing but a scam to shake down Big Oil, check out a new video of Ecuadorean operatives who prove
how justice works in that country. Gentoos top the penguin charts as
seabirds return in record numbers Gentoo penguins are returning to the Falklands in record numbers, after their best breeding season in more than ten years. Kings, too, continue to thrive, making this
season’s Seabird Monitoring Programme one of the healthiest undertaken. Falklands Conservation officer Pierre Pistorius has produced this special report for the Penguin
News… (Merco Press) Which
is First: Chicken Little or the ‘Perfect Storm’? John Beddington is the UK’s Chief Scientific advisor and Professor of Applied Population Biology at Imperial College, London. On Monday, the soothsayer’s foresight was
the subject of a BBC feature. As the world’s population grows, competition for food, water and energy will increase. Food prices will rise, more people will go hungry, and migrants will
flee the worst-affected regions. Specifically, he points to research indicating that by 2030 “a whole series of events come together”: The ‘coming together’ of all these trends, amounts to a ‘perfect storm’, set to arrive in 2031. On an interview on BBC TV (also featured on the linked page) Beddington warns: So these are all coming together. Indeed I was at a scientific meeting at the Royal Society only yesterday in which a prediction was that the Arctic might be free of
ice in the summer of 2030. The professor links climate change, resource abundance, agricultural productivity, and water management with a cataclysmic event situated 20 years in the future. It doesn’t take a scientist to tell you that more people will create more demand for water, energy, food, and planning. It doesn’t take a scientist to tell you that if
you fail to make plans for the future, you will likely face some sort of problem. So far, so not rocket science, and not applied population biology. But what sort of planning is needed to cope with life in 2030? Why, at this point in humanity’s history is the provision of water, energy, and food so difficult and
dangerous? We’re better at creating all of these things than at any point in the past. Just a few generations ago, mechanised water, and instant light in homes were an
impossibility, never mind an inconceivable luxury. It wasn’t much before that that people were just getting used to the idea of using steam to propel machines, never mind
splitting the atom to power computers, satellite links, and heart and lung machines. In our advanced economies, subsistence is not a day-to-day concern for the vast majority of people, and this is rapidly becoming true for an increasing number of the
world’s population living in developing economies. Western standards of living are on the horizon for people in all continents, who had been deprived of it. Just as in the
West, there is no reason why, in just a few generations, water, electricity and cheap, good quality food can all be taken for granted. Except, that is, for the opinion of the scientist John Beddington and his ilk. For them, human progress of this kind is ‘unsustainable’. He is concerned that 8 billion
people will be unable to produce the water, energy and food they need. But might it not be possible that 8 billion people are better at meeting their needs than 6 billion?
After all, the industrial revolution was not a response to the needs of a growing population, but was made possible by it. Have you ever tried building your own iPod, powered
by your own handmade generator, in a house you built yourself, whilst growing your own food, fed with water from a well that you sunk yourself? There is an attempt being made to ground politics in the ethics not merely of ’sustainability’, but the harsh reality of mere subsistence. Accordingly, this diminishes
the potential of politics, and our expectations of it. We are being asked to be thankful for every moment of heat, light, food, and warmth, rather than demanding of more,
better, faster, higher. This is because politicians cannot conceive of any other notion of progress than mere survival. Their horizons are so low, and imaginations so
limited, that they cannot conceive of attempting to organise public life around the possibility of a better future. It is this pessimistic outlook within the political establishment that has misconceived human progress and how it is achieved. Paradoxically, it is scientists such as
Beddington who are engaged to give their politics the appearance of legitimacy. But this is because Beddington’s science is expedient to their political aims, not because
Beddington’s science can produce a robust analysis of the future, such that he can tell you what the year 2030 will look like if you haven’t listened to him. ‘Applied
population biology’ is the science of the day because it is the most convenient to the politics of the day, just as Kennedy’s lunar project made heroes out of rocket
scientists. But at least rocket scientists looked upwards, and their project broke boundaries. Beddington’s science is expedient because it allows politicians to set
boundaries. What this says to us is that politics is prior to the science. Beddington’s appointment is political. Beddington’s science has developed in an era which demands it. It
is predicated on an understanding of humanity’s relationship with the natural world as being ultimately limited by what nature provides, rather than what humanity develops
(or is capable of developing) in order to overcome such limits. That makes an ethic out of limiting progress and development to that which nature provides. But this ethic is,
again, prior to the science. The Chicken Little comes well before the perfect storm. And here’s another flapping misanthrope… Big stores counting the cost
of ban on GM food - Supermarkets in talks on how to educate public about benefits of science An anti-GM protester is arrested in Dorset. Britain's biggest supermarkets are considering reversing their ban on GM food as the price of non-GM ingredients soars I love these pieces ;) Our best guess
about global warming may be wrong - Scientists wonder whether rising CO2 may trigger something else that further warms the climate Fifty-five million years ago, the world was a much warmer place. The poles were ice-free year-round. Palm trees grew in Alaska. Forests stretched right into the Arctic
Circle. So, parameterized carbon dioxide doesn't drive models to emulate physical conditions believed to have existed so carbon dioxide must be even worse
than we thought! It never occurs to them that carbon dioxide is not some climatic villain despite the fact the evidence never indicts it. The records show that
atmospheric carbon dioxide responds to changes in climate, not that it causes said changes. Now, unless you want to believe Gaia has some sort of psychic powers and
responds to events yet to occur you have to admit cause and effect is a fairly strict sequence, with the cause part coming first, no? And since temperature change
occurs first it definitely has a better chance of being a cause than does atmospheric carbon dioxide, which has invariably followed. Everyone wants to get in on the scam: German Scientists Call for 'World
Climate Bank' German climatologists are pushing for the creation of a "world climate bank" which would allow industrialized countries to purchase emission rights from
less-developed nations. The revenues would enable poor countries to finance environmentally friendly economic development. Peter Foster: The man who
doubted Al Gore To dissent on the man-made global warming ‘consensus’ is seen as evidence of mental deficiency U.N. Chief Calls For Urgent Action On Climate Change LONGYEARBYEN, Svalbard - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on world leaders on Monday to take urgent action to combat climate change for the sake of
"the future of humanity." Are there any right answers to the questions posed by climate change? Are there any right answers to the questions posed by climate change? This is not an exam question, but a thought which must enter most people's minds from time to time.
The official line from the IPCC and most governments is that the only answer, and the one which must be put into effect rapidly, is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to
limit the peak atmospheric concentration of what is considered to be the major driver of global warming. There are, of course, plenty of credible scientists and others who
doubt that the situation is as clear-cut as this, but for the sake of argument, let us take the received wisdom as a given and look at the policy solutions being proposed.
(Scientific Alliance) Keep tariffs out of climate bill Democrats including U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin are risking a trade war over climate change. Partly right -- in fact climate should be kept out of all legislation, period. EPA to declare CO2 a dangerous pollutant Carbon dioxide will soon be declared a dangerous pollutant - a move that could help propel slow-moving climate-change legislation on Capitol Hill, the head of the
Environmental Protection Agency said today. Chamber on Climate Change: Show Us the Evidence On August 25, the United States Chamber of Commerce, which claims to represent some three million large and small businesses in the United States, filed a 21-page request
with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to hold a public debate on climate-change science or face litigation in federal court. Should EPA Bow To Chamber's Demand? Should the Environmental Protection Agency be required to publicly defend its finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare? Senate Democrats Push Back Climate Measure Schedule The chief Senate sponsors of a bill aimed at curbing global warming have pushed back its introduction from next week until later in September. Climate change bill encounters new Senate delay WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate Democrats announced on Monday a new delay on climate change legislation, which could make it more difficult for President Barack Obama to win
progress on that front before a global environmental summit in December. See You Lookee here, the Senate has put off introduction of their “global warming”
legislation again, after having just thumped their breasts about procrastinating no longer and announcing a September 8 introduction. Democrats
Delay Global Warming Bill - Again - Obama Agenda In "Disarray" Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment & Public Works Committee, today said that he was not surprised to learn that
Senate Democrats were forced once again to delay introduction of their global warming cap-and-trade bill. Throughout hearing after hearing in the EPW Committee this summer,
it became apparent that Democrats were a long way off from reaching the votes necessary in the Senate to pass the largest tax increase in American history. (EPW blog) Ad Warns of True Cost of Cap and Trade
Energy Tax Check out the great new TV ad from the National Association of Manufacturers on the true cost of the cap and trade legislation passed by the House and being pushed in the
Senate.
Update: And, this one:
(Chilling Effect) True: Experts Say Better Information Will Help Nations Adapt to Climate Change About 2,500 decision makers and scientists from 150 nations are attending the third World Climate Conference, which aims to help nations cope with the worst effects of
climate change. The five-day meeting, organized by the World Meteorological Organization, will draft a plan to provide nations with the accurate and timely information they
need to adapt to the extreme weather conditions that are expected to occur with global warming. (VoA News) The sooner they get real information the sooner they'll stop wasting time, effort and resources "addressing" the phantom menace. Great cause? Sheesh... Climate change: The way we must live
now All great causes involve a tension between collective belief and individual action. A shared agreement that something must be done is not enough to win the battle if
people do nothing. This is especially true of the fight against climate change, which must involve all of humanity over many decades, working together to achieve something
that none can see or touch and that can only be measured by scientists: an end to the rapid increase of climate change gases in the atmosphere. Faced with this, even the most
generous-spirited of people could be forgiven for feeling daunted – surrendering, perhaps, to the hope that someone else will solve the problem. (The Guardian) Just for a moment, suspend any semblance of critical thought and accept the cataclysmic version of anthropogenic climate change advanced by the likes of Penny Wong, Tim
Flannery and Al Gore. Spurious SST Warming Revisited My previous post described what I called
“smoking gun” evidence of a spurious drift in the NOAA sea surface temperature (SST) product when compared to SSTs from the TRMM satellite Microwave Imager (TMI). The
drift seemed to be mostly confined to 2001, almost a ’step’ jump. The moored buoy validation statistics of the TMI sea surface temperatures from Frank Wentz’s web site
(SSMI.com) suggested that the TMI SSTs had good long-term stability. But 2001 was also the year that the TRMM satellite was boosted into a higher orbit, which concerned me. I asked Frank about the effect of this event on the TMI SSTs (which
also come from his web site). Frank couldn’t remember the details, but said he spent quite a bit of time correcting for the altitude change on the retrieved SSTs since the
microwave emission of the sea surface depends upon the TMI instrument’s view angle with respect to the local vertical. I know from our many years of work together on the AMSR-E Science Team that Frank is indeed a careful researcher, yet it seemed like more than a coincidence that the TMI
and NOAA sea surface temperatures diverged during the same year as the orbit boost. So, I went back to see what might have caused the problem. I went back and thought about
the different ways in which one can compute area averages from satellite data. To make a long story short, because the orbit boost caused the TMI to be able to “see” to slightly higher latitudes, the way in which individual latitude bands are
handled has a significant impact on the resulting temperature anomalies that are computed over time. The previous results I presented were for the 40N to 40S latitude band,
which is nominally what the TMI instrument sees today. But before 2001, the latitudinal extent was slightly smaller than it was after 2001. As shown in the following figure, if I restrict the latitude range to 38N to 38S, which was always covered during the entire TRMM mission, I find that the divergence
between the TMI and NOAA average SST measurements essentially disappears. Even though I was processing the NOAA and TMI datasets in the same manner, I should NOT have been. This is because there were not as many gridpoints over cooler SST
regions going into the ‘global’ averages before the satellite altitude boost as after the boost. So, for example, one must be very careful in computing a latitude band
average, say from 39N to 40N, to make sure that there has been no long-term change in the sampling of that band. Based upon the above comparisons, I would now say there is no statistically significant difference in the SST trends since 1998 between TMI, the NOAA ERSSTv3b product, and
the HadSST2 product. And it does look like July 2009 might well have experienced a warmer SST anomaly than July 1998, as was originally claimed by NOAA. (Remember, TMI can
not see all of the global oceans, just equatorward of about 40 deg. N and S latitude.) In the bottom panel of the above figure, I also have a comparison between the TMI and AMSR-E sea surface temperatures, which are available only since June of 2002 from the
Aqua satellite. As can be seen, there is no evidence of a calibration (or sampling) drift in that comparison either. So, what’s the moral of this story? Always question your results…even after finding the obvious errors. And maybe I should eliminate the term ’smoking gun
evidence’ from any results I describe in the future. Oh…and don’t believe everything you read on the internet. (Roy W. Spencer) Having now submitted a review of the empirical support for weakening of the Walker circulation
to the Journal of Geophysical Research, I can get back to the “Is the sea level rise accelerating?” article. The abstract is below: No Significant Basis for Acceleration in Sea level Rise Last Century It was interesting to find a reservation in the post at RealClimate today about projections for the future — something you won’t find in the published articles. How do we know that the relationship between temperature rise and sea level rate is linear, also for the several degrees to be expected, when the 20th century has
only given us a foretaste of 0.7 degrees? The short answer is: we don’t. In other words, this is an admission that the models are based on speculative assumptions. When we stick to the facts, it will become clear, there is no basis for belief
in non-linearity (aka acceleration) either over temperature or time. (Niche Modeling) Dr. Syun Akasofu has provided us with a guest weblog based on a translation from
Japanese of an article he wrote. I pleased to use my weblog to communicate viewpoints on climate science issues from credentialed climate scientists. GUEST WEBLOG By Syun Akasofu Recommendation to postpone the 2009 Copenhagen Conference: The so-called “global warming” issue viewed in the context of politics and the economy of the world. Syun Akasofu 1. The US must have decided to drop the making of cars as their primary manufacturing activity and gave it to Japan. The Obama administration and the US public believe
that enough has been done for the ailing car makers, and hope that they will be able to survive by making good electric (not fossil fuel powered) cars. Global
dimming and brightening in the context of solar radiation From the abstract of the lead paper by Martin Wild: Recent evidence suggests that solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface has not been constant over time but has
undergone substantial variations on decadal timescales. The available observations suggest a widespread decrease in surface solar radiation between the 1950s and 1980s
(popularly referred to as “global dimming”), with some more recent evidence for a partial recovery (”brightening”). From ETH Zurich News “Global dimming and brightening” – The role of solar radiation in climate change A special volume of the “Journal of Geophysical Research” reviews the growing research field of “global dimming” and “global brightening” in over 20 articles.
These phenomena, supposedly human-induced, control solar radiation incident at the Earth’s surface and thus influence climate. Clouds and aerosols influence the solar radiation on the earth’s surface and therefore the climate. (Photo: flickr/Schrottie)
Special instruments have been recording the solar radiation that reaches the Earth’s surface since 1923. However, it wasn’t until the International Geophysical Year in
1957/58 that a global measurement network began to take shape. The data thus obtained reveal that the energy provided by the sun at the Earth’s surface has undergone
considerable variations over the past decades, with associated impacts on climate. Research focus at ETH Zurich Investigating which factors reduce or intensify solar radiation and thus cause “global dimming” or “global brightening” is still very much a nascent field of
research in which especially scientists from ETH Zurich became renowned. The American Geophysical Union (AGU) has now published a special volume on the subject which presents
the current state of knowledge in detail and makes a considerable contribution to climate science. “Only now, especially with the help of this volume, is research in this
field really taking off”, stresses Martin Wild, senior scientist at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science of ETH Zurich, who is a specialist on the subject. Decrease in solar radiation discovered The initial findings, which revealed that solar radiation at the Earth’s surface is not constant over time but rather varies considerably over decades, were published in
the late 1980s and early 1990s for specific regions of the Earth. Atsumu Ohmura, emeritus professor at ETH Zurich, for example, discovered at the time that the amount of
solar radiation over Europe decreased considerably between the 1950s and the 1980s. It wasn’t until 1998 that the first global study was conducted for larger areas, like
the continents Africa, Asia, North America and Europe for instance. The results showed that on average the surface solar radiation decreased by two percent per decade between
the 1950s and 1990. In analyzing more recently compiled data, however, Wild and his team discovered that solar radiation has gradually been increasing again since 1985. In a paper published
in “Science” in 2005, they coined the phrase “global brightening” to describe this new trend and to oppose to the term “global dimming” used since 2001 for the
previously established decrease in solar radiation. Only recently, an article in the journal “Nature”, which Wild was also involved in, brought additional attention to the topic of global dimming/brightening. Air pollution favors photosynthesis In this study, for the first time, the scientists examined the connection between global dimming/brightening and the carbon cycle. They demonstrated that more scattered
light is present during periods of global dimming due to the increased aerosol- and cloud-amounts, enabling plants to absorb CO2 more efficiently than when the air
is cleaner and thus clearer. According to the scientists, this is because scattered light penetrates deeper into the vegetation canopy than direct sunlight, which means the
plants can use the light more effectively for photosynthesis. Consequently, there was around 10 percent more carbon stored in the terrestrial biosphere between 1960 and 1999. The special volume, which appears in the AGU’s renowned “Journal of Geophysical Research”, provides an overview of the current state of knowledge. Almost half of the
publications in the volume were either completely or partially written by ETH Zurich scientists. Wild is the guest editor, and author or co-author of ten of these articles. The articles provide the first indication of the magnitude of these effects, how they vary in terms of time and space and what the possible consequences might be for
climate change. They also discuss in detail the underlying causes and mechanisms, which are still under debate. Many questions left open It is particularly unclear as to whether it is the clouds or the aerosols that trigger global dimming/brightening, or even interactions between clouds and aerosols, as
aerosols can influence the “brightness” and lifetime of the clouds. The investigation of these relations is complicated by the fact that insufficient – if any –
observational data are available on how clouds and aerosol loadings have been changing over the past decades. The recently launched satellite measurement programs should help
to close this gap for the future from space, however. “There is still an enormous amount of research to be done as many questions are still open”, explains Wild. This includes the magnitude of the dimming and brightening
effects on a global level and how greatly the effects differ between urban and rural areas, where fewer aerosols are released into the atmosphere. Another unresolved question
is what happens over the oceans, as barely any measurement data are available from these areas. A further challenge for the researchers is to incorporate the effects of global dimming/brightening more effectively in climate models, to understand their impact on
climate change better. After all, studies indicate that global dimming masked the actual temperature rise – and therefore climate change – until well into the 1980s.
Moreover, the studies published also show that the models used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) fourth Assessment Report do not reproduce global
dimming/brightening adequately: neither the dimming nor the subsequent brightening is simulated realistically by the models. According to the scientists, this is probably due
to the fact that the processes causing global dimming/brightening were not taken into account adequately and that the historical anthropogenic emissions used as model input
are afflicted with considerable uncertainties. “This is why at ETH Zurich we are working with a research version of a global climate model, which contains much more detailed aerosol and cloud microphysics and can
reproduce global dimming/brightening more effectively”, says Wild. For him, the studies so far constitute “initial” estimates that need to be followed up with further
research. Link to these papers in JGR here
(WUWT) Lighting for People, not Politics Unfortunately, there are many good (and sad) examples of Uncle Sam’s insatiable desire to regulate the smallest aspects of our lives. Legislators can’t even let us
decide which light bulbs to buy. Government believes that it knows best, and is banning the venerable incandescent bulb. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 will effectively phase out incandescent light bulbs by 2012-2014 in favor of compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs. Other
countries around the world have passed similar legislation to ban most incandescents. He hopes for a congressional reversal of the ill-considered prohibition. If that doesn’t work, people do have one more option: stock-piling bulbs for future use. Of
course, that probably would lead to the creation of a federal light bulb police, tasked with wiping out the black market in incandescent bulbs. “Use a bulb, go to jail”
may become the newest law enforcement slogan! (, Cato at liberty) Groucho: "That's in every contract, that's what you call a sanity clause." 100 is the wattage of incandescent lamps the importation of which is, from now, illegal throughout the EU. Even by EU standards this is monumentally insane piece of
legislation. It owes its existence solely to the principle of religious sacrifice. They are to be replaced by
fluorescent mercury vapour lamps that are inadequate and a health hazard. That it is a gesture of token enforcement is illustrated by the fact that both forms of illumination
are soon to become obsolete, to be replaced by technologies such light-diodes and electroluminescent panels. People who have failed to put by a hoard of real lamps will be
stuck with illumination that flickers (precipitating migraines) is slow to start (possibly causing the elderly to fall down the stairs when they have to get up in the night)
and produces UV radiation (which is a potential hazard to some, such as those on drugs that promote photosensitivity). Patients' anger over eco-bulbs The Government is putting its green credentials ahead of the health of Britons as old-fashioned and 100W lightbulbs are phased out under EU rules which come into force
this week, campaigners have said. Hoarding Energy-Guzzling Bulbs Ahead Of EU Ban BERLIN - Germans, who sometimes see themselves as guardians of the environment, are hoarding energy-guzzling incandescent light bulbs ahead of a looming European
Union-wide ban, the GfK market research agency said. Klaus: buy lots of light bulbs on Monday The light bulb wars are back.
In 2005, Fidel Castro easily switched his Freedom Island from incandescent light bulbs to the postmodern fluorescent ones. Castro was 4 years ahead of the camp of peace.
In 2009, his European comrades followed the example of their great role model. Well, they're not quite the second ones in the world: the second pioneer after Fidel Castro was
Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. ;-)
Czech President Václav Klaus introduced his new book, "A Blue Planet In Danger" ("Modrá
planeta v ohrožení"), today: Czech
Press Agency, picture. It is an expanded version of his "Blue
Planet in Green Shackles": much of the stuff will be new. Klaus means the book summarizing his opinions that have become "mainstream" as a small
contribution to the Copenhagen conference. I was also invited but a lot of work with a garden, a cat, staircase cleaning, shoppings, and many other things had a higher
priority today. ;-) Action alert: Do Not Let the Obama Administration Threaten US
Energy Security As the agency that will ultimately decide whether or not the US moves forward with more oil and natural gas exploration in the OCS, we need to show the Mineral Management
Service (MMS) that there is true grassroots support for this sound energy policy. Britain facing blackouts
for first time since 1970s Britain is facing the prospect of widespread power cuts for the first time since the 1970s, government projections show. Brazil announces sweeping reforms for oil and gas
industry The Brazilian government is set to unveil on Monday a sweeping reform of regulations covering the oil and natural gas industries Monday. The regulatory framework will
delineate how recently discovered offshore sub-salt oil deposits should be developed, who will develop them and who will reap the rewards. (Merco Press) Energy sprawl, the next greenie battleground? Energy Sprawl or Energy
Efficiency: Climate Policy Impacts on Natural Habitat for the United States of America Abstract: Lawrence Solomon: Coal is still
king Carbon capture and storage technologies pushed by Western governments may or may not work, but ... Actually no, there is no way CCS can work as advertised, primarily because atmospheric carbon dioxide does not control global mean temperature, something
which the IPCC's own formulae demonstrate, if only people would try using them with actual numbers. Ed. Note: This article first appeared on Geoffrey Styles' blog, Energy Outlook. The Crone gets it -- kind of: Clunkers Don’t
Come Cheap The $3 billion cash-for-clunkers program that ended last week worked well as a jolt of economic stimulus. Nearly 700,000 people used the rebate to buy new cars in July and
August — adding about 0.3 to 0.4 percentage points to economic growth in the third quarter, at an annual rate. More cash for clunkers: Wind Farms Set Wall Street Aflutter A new program offering cash rebates on renewable energy investments is sparking interest in wind farms. A worker atop a windmill in Maine. As Hybrid Cars Gobble Rare Metals, Shortage Looms LOS ANGELES - The Prius hybrid automobile is popular for its fuel efficiency, but its electric motor and battery guzzle rare earth metals, a little-known class of elements
found in a wide range of gadgets and consumer goods. Ed. note: This item originally ran in Robert Rapier's R-Squared Energy Blog. The biofuels revolution that promised to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil is fizzling out. This all boils down to something I have said on many occasions: You can't mandate technology. Just because you mandate that 36 billion gallons of biofuel are to be
produced by 2022 doesn't mean that it has a remote chance of happening. This is not a hard concept to understand, but it seems to have eluded our government for many years.
The government would probably understand that they couldn't create colonies on the moon in 10 years via mandate. They know they can't cure cancer via mandate. But in the area
of biofuels, they seem to feel like they can just conjure up vast amounts of hydrogen, cellulosic ethanol, or algal biodiesel. (Robert Rapier, Energy Tribune) Solar Power from Space: Moving Beyond Science Fiction For more than 40 years, scientists have dreamed of collecting the sun’s energy in space and beaming it back to Earth. Now, a host of technological advances, coupled with
interest from the U.S. military, may be bringing that vision close to reality (Michael D. Lemonick, Yale E360) Define "close". Never mind. If people are easily spooked by EMFs just from local power distribution just imagine what they'll be like beaming
microwave power from space. |