Alert The Goracle! Coldest Start To Winter In AK in 16 Years

http://patdollard.com/2008/10/alert-the-goracle-coldest-start-to-winter-in-ak-in-16-years/

Gore urges civil disobedience to stop coal plants

Wed Sep 24, 2008 3:29pm EDT

By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Nobel Peace Prize winner and environmental crusader Al Gore urged young people on Wednesday to engage in civil disobedience to stop the construction of coal plants without the ability to store carbon.

The former U.S. vice president, whose climate change documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” won an Academy Award, told a philanthropic meeting in New York City that “the world has lost ground to the climate crisis.”

“If you’re a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration,” Gore told the Clinton Global Initiative gathering to loud applause.

“I believe for a carbon company to spend money convincing the stock-buying public that the risk from the global climate crisis is not that great represents a form of stock fraud because they are misrepresenting a material fact,” he said. “I hope these state attorney generals around the country will take some action on that.”

The government says about 28 coal plants are under construction in the United States. Another 20 projects have permits or are near the start of construction.

Scientists say carbon gases from burning fossil fuel for power and transport are a key factor in global warming.

Carbon capture and storage could give coal power an extended lease on life by keeping power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere and easing climate change.

But no commercial-scale project exists anywhere to demonstrate the technology, partly because it is expected to increase up-front capital costs by an additional 50 percent.

So-called geo-sequestration of carbon sees carbon dioxide liquefied and pumped into underground rock layers for long term storage.

(Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Christine Kearney and Xavier Briand)

 

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Corrupted science revealed

Jerome J. Schmitt
Outsiders familiar with the proper workings of science have long known that modern Climate Science is dysfunctional. Now a prominent insider, MIT Meteorology Professor Richard S. Lindzen, confirms how Al Gore and his minions used Stalinist tactics to subvert, suborn and corrupt a whole branch of science, citing chapter and verse in his report entitled  “Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions?”  His answer:  A resounding “NO!”

Detailing the corruption, he names a series of names.  Until reading this I did not know that

 

“For example, the primary spokesman for the American Meteorological Society in Washington is Anthony Socci who is neither an elected official of the AMS nor a contributor to climate science. Rather, he is a former staffer for Al Gore.” Page 5

 

Although a bit lengthy, this very important report is highly readable and revealing.  While some of the paragraphs are a bit technical, I encourage AT readers to wade through them because their purpose is to provide specific examples of how a radical cabal is forcing scientists to ignore or amend measurements that undermine the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Scientists are literally forced to include sentences in their papers that indicate their support of AGW, even if these sentences are non-sequiturs, or even if they conflict with the overall thrust of the paper. In this way, Al Gore’s uneducated political commissars are able to deliver the “consensus” he so craves.

 

How is this possible you might ask?  Prof. Lindzen gives considerable background history.

 

However, having been an undergraduate and graduate student in the hard sciences, and later a research collaborator with dozens of industrial scientists and university professors, perhaps I can shed some further light. Today’s scientists get to the top of their field by extreme dedication to their specialty involving inordinate focus and concentration that cannot tolerate distractions. The best scientists are constantly “at home” at their lab bench, with their instruments, analyzing data, teaching a few promising students and preparing publications.  Most scientists interact intensively only with other specialists in allied fields (”geeks”). 

 

Many scientists are naturalized citizens from Asia and Eastern Europe, unfamiliar and intimidated by American politics and government, to which they are dependent upon for visas and grant support.  Although all stereotypes are unfair to individuals, there is some truth to the one of the shy, retiring, absent-minded professor.  His or her absent-mindedness is most likely due to intense cogitation on a difficult scientific problem.  Their dealings with one another are only possible by maintaining extreme standards of honesty, integrity and open-mindedness to scholarly debate in search of the truth. The very qualities that make them good scientists and scholars thus leave them ill-equipped to deal with the raucous, underhanded, disrespectful, politically-motivated radicals unleashed upon them by Al Gore and his fifth column for a “hostile takeover” of their scientific institutions.

 

I naively thought that the National Academy of Sciences could impose some quality-control on an errant discipline.   Prof. Lindzen notes that event this august body has been penetrated by eco-activists by exploiting loopholes in its nominating procedures. 

 

Fortunately, in science “truth will out”.  The long term faith of the American public in science, a trust built up since WWI is at stake. Next it will be important to see whether a prominent scientific journal publishes this revelation.

 

As an aside, for those who have wondered how leftist cabals were able in the 60’s and 70’s to take over our universities’ humanity departments, the National Endowment of the Arts and the National Endowment of the Humanities, Prof  Lindzen’s report lays bare the template for radicalization.

Posted at 11:58 AM | Email | Permalink

The Environment Minister Sammy Wilson has angered green campaigners by describing their view on climate change as a “hysterical psuedo-religion”.

Wilson row over green ‘alarmists’

The Environment Minister Sammy Wilson has angered green campaigners by describing their view on climate change as a “hysterical psuedo-religion”.

In an article in the News Letter, Mr Wilson said he believed it occurred naturally and was not man-made.

“Resources should be used to adapt to the consequences of climate change, rather than King Canute-style vainly trying to stop it,” said the minister.

Peter Doran of the Green Party said it was a “deeply irresponsible message.”

Mr Wilson said he refused to “blindly accept” the need to make significant changes to the economy to stop climate change.

“The tactic used by the “green gang” is to label anyone who dares disagree with their view of climate change as some kind of nutcase who denies scientific fact,” he said.

The minister said he accepted climate change can occur, but does not believe the cause has been identified.

“Reasoned debate must replace the scaremongering of the green climate alarmists.”

John Woods of Friends of the Earth said Mr Wilson was “like a cigarette salesman denying that smoking causes cancer”.

“Ironically, if we listen to him Northern Ireland will suffer economically as we are left behind by smarter regions who are embracing the low carbon economy of the future.”

It is the latest clash between Mr Wilson and green groups since his appointment as environment minister in June.

 

 

The Really Inconvenient Truths

The Really Inconvenient Truths

By Janet Levy
FrontPageMagazine.com | 8/8/2008

The Really Inconvenient Truths
By Iain Murray
Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2008
323 pp., $27.95

In The Australian July 18, scientist David Evans – a self-described, former global warming alarmist who previously developed Australia’s carbon accounting model – admitted that evidence is shaky on how carbon affects global warming. In fact, Evans wrote, the current global warming trend actually ended in 2001. He cited ice core data from six previous global warming cycles over the last 500,000 years. The data revealed that temperatures rose 800 years before any significant increases occurred in atmospheric carbon levels. A former recipient of political support, generous funding and professional satisfaction for his advocacy of global-warming intervention, Evans essentially blew the whistle on what he now believes is a fraud perpetrated on the public by many of the world’s governments.

Similarly, in The Really Inconvenient Truths, author Iain Murray, a Competitive Enterprise Institute environmental analyst and senior fellow, critically examines many of the broad, environmental notions now accepted as fact. He explores how these false notions have led to questionable regulations and policies to “save” the environment which have actually endangered more species, caused more human fatalities and squandered more energy. He reveals how environmentalism, used as an anti-capitalism tool, has employed faulty data and politically engineered studies to restrict personal freedom, increase government control and spending, reduce or limit economic growth and curtail free enterprise. The liberal, environmental movement is thus masquerading as a benevolent protector of natural resources, Murray writes, with a quasi-religious moral superiority toward environmental sacred cows and view of man as a guilty interloper who disrupts nature.

The book’s subtitle, Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don’t Want You to Know About Because They Helped Cause Them, provides a framework for a detailed examination of the effects of  sacred-cow environmental projects such as the ban on DDT and the promotion of ethanol. He also explores the cover-up of the polluting effect of contraceptives and abortion drugs, the failure of ill-advised forestry management policies and the bankruptcy of the endangered species act. 

Ethanol

According to Murray, environmentalists tout the benefits of bio-fuels, but in reality bio-fuel production pulls land out of food crop production, increases food prices, threatens wildlife and ultimately increases greenhouse gas emissions. Bio-fuels do not offer any of the purported benefits touted by environmentalists, he says, who, at bottom, have contempt for the internal combustion engine itself.

Because of substantial resources used in its manufacture and carbon dioxide produced during operation, environmentalists have unleashed their fury against the engine’s fuel source, oil. They link American bellicosity with the quest for energy resources and accuse Republicans of obscenely lining their pockets with oil revenues. Environmentalists, joining forces with anti-war activists to reduce oil consumption, now promote the reduced, carbon-emissions solution proffered by agribusiness lobbyists: corn ethanol.  

But, in his book, Murray counters that ethanol provides only two-thirds the energy content of gasoline, is expensive to produce and releases more harmful emission amounts than gasoline. Its real costs are hidden by government support, including $5 billion in subsidies, a federal excise forgiveness tax of $.51 per gallon, and an ethanol tariff protection from imports of 2.5%, plus $.54 per gallon. The government requires gasoline producers to buy four billion gallons of ethanol yearly, purchasing support that will increase to 7.5 billion gallons by 2012. Further, ethanol emissions are actually double those of gasoline when its emissions are counted and combined with emissions arising from its transportation via truck rather than pipeline systems and its intensive production requirements – planting, growing, weeding, reaping, fermentation and distribution.

Further, diverting corn production from food production increases the acreage devoted to corn; squeezes out cultivation of soybeans, cotton and barley; and causes upward price pressures on other grains, dairy products, poultry and meat. Ethanol production incentives could also prompt farmers to clear forests which could eliminate animal habitats and lessen air quality with fewer trees to absorb carbon dioxide.

The rush toward bio-fuels has also had global consequences, Murray writes. The European demand for palm oil which can be mixed with diesel to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has lead to land buys in Indonesia, threatening the habitats and survival of orangutans, Asian elephants and Sumatra tigers. 

The Gaia Movement

Environmentalists have not limited themselves to energy and food issues. Murray also links the quasi-religious Gaia Movement to environmentalist tendencies to view the Earth animistically, imbue it with the spiritual status of a higher being and conceptualize it as a singular-organism, self-regulating life support system. Called “The Gaia Hypothesis,” it’s an anti-human ideology that views human interference in nature in catastrophic proportions. Strict regulations are required to rein in mankind’s destructive tendencies lest the Earth strike back with natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, pestilence or other forms of punishment. 

The Gaia Movement has proposed alterations to the King James Bible. In Genesis, where God’s commandments for man to utilize and benefit from the Earth’s resources exist, a Gaia-syntonic meaning has been sought that revokes man’s dominion over the Earth and diminishes his importance and stature relative to the other inhabitants of the planet. This has achieved currency in some Christian circles. Some Gaia adherents have called into question the moral character of Christians who disagree with them. They deny the biblical recognition of the supreme worth of human beings in relation to all of creation, believe the Earth’s human population is double that of optimal levels and allude to corrective geo-engineering measures and government regulations that would enforce their views. 

Population Control

In 1968, The Population Bomb, by entomologist Paul Ehrlich prompted calls for population control, another environmental sacred cow explored by Murray. The population control movement promoted smaller families, simpler agrarian lifestyles, vegetarian diets, reductions in energy consumption, rationing and consumption-reducing taxation on resources, he writes. Such ideas have their current-day proponents who have called for a “baby tax” to penalize couples for adding to the deterioration of the environment, as well as an annual carbon tax per child. 

Yet, the theory of world population growth resulting in world hunger did not factor in future resource availability and new food production technology, Murray says. Because of this, the true consequences of population control would be fewer people, fewer goods and services, and fewer technological innovations, the route to a lower standard of living, he argues.  

Because of their advocacy of population control, liberal environmentalists have had to remain silent on the greatest pollutant of all:  synthetic estrogen found in the birth control pill, the morning after pill and abortion pills. Synthetic estrogen, more potent than natural estrogen, has significantly harmed fish populations, inducing feminization, alterations in DNA integrity and even deaths at levels approaching extinction. Whereas environmentalists have railed against the isolated and less widespread effects of industrial chemicals and pesticide use, they remain silent on estrogen pollution because contraceptives are viewed as a “basic human right” and a tool in population control.

National Parks

Liberal environmentalists have also wrecked havoc at the nation’s national parks with fire polices. Despite myriad examples of bureaucratic inefficiencies, waste and lack of any long-term, asset accountability, liberal environmentalists placed great faith in government control of national parks, distrusting the ability of free enterprise and private ownership to operate for the common good. Environmental opposition to man’s interference with nature led to a number of disasters, including massive fires at Yellowstone National Park and Bandalier National Monument, as detailed by Murray. Ill-advised “let it burn” policies and “controlled burns” proved to be policies initiated by environmentalists that wreaked havoc for these two national treasures, Murray says.

Prior to 1972, national park policy was to suppress all fires. This contradicted age-old Native American practices to regularly set low-intensity fires to eliminate accumulations of undergrowth, debris and dying trees. These fires had no impact on large trees needed to maintain forest health. As American pioneers used more and more wooden construction, they naturally concluded that all fire was destructive and must be stopped. Where private logging firms operated, forests remained healthy as proper clearing and maintenance procedures protected business interests, Murray says. In non-logged areas, dry brush, deadwood and undergrowth accumulated, along with the proliferation of small trees which serve as tinder next to mature trees. Thus, the fire suppression policy of the National Park Service allowed for a fuel build-up. 

When the environmental movement, which opposed man’s interference in nature, took hold in the 1970’s, only natural fires were allowed to burn. Thus, a century’s worth of fuel accumulation was burned out in forests.

This “natural burn” policy proved to be a disaster for Yellowstone National Park in 1988 when several natural fires tallied losses of over a million acres and $120 million. When the fires began, Park Service officials followed established policy and did nothing. Eventually, firefighters were called to intervene but were not allowed to use proven fire-fighting techniques. Instead, they were directed to extinguish the fire but with minimal impact on park lands. The fires spread with disastrous results. Ultimately, what was considered to be the superior “natural” way to manage the forests without contaminating human intervention, proved to be far more damaging. Ultimately, a policy of controlled burns replaced the “let it burn” policy.

But controlled burns, following years of logging restrictions, spelled disaster for another national park. By the 1990’s, the Forest Service had reduced logging in national forests by 80% thus reducing revenue for fire control and park lands maintenance. This led to a significant reduction in the amount of forest thinning and debris removal at national parks and made controlled burns a dangerous proposition. At New Mexico’s Bandalier National Monument in 2000, a controlled burn charred 48,000 acres and threatened Los Alamos National Laboratory after unanticipated wind strength and direction changes caused an unmanageable, highly destructive fire.

In the end, policies designed by environmentalists to protect the sacred, natural state of the environment proved the most injurious. Environmental dogma further prohibited rational strategies for forest health and fire safety management. 

Air Quality

Environmentalists credit the Clean Air Act of 1970 (CAA) with improved U.S. air quality. Yet, Murray cites experts and studies that debunk CAA benefits for the environment. Air pollution, in particular soot levels, have not been at dangerous levels for years, long before Environmental Protection Agency standards existed. According to MIT economist Michael Greenstone, EPA standards have not reduced pollution-caused deaths. In fact, Greenstone found that the CAA caused the loss of 500,000 jobs, failed to improve overall health and has not reduced emissions. 

Endangered Species Act (ESA)

In his section on the Endangered Species Act, Murray illustrates how questionable legislation, designed to protect species, actually led to their misrepresentation and destruction. The ESA, enacted in 1973, is administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with a mandate to protect dangerously imperiled species from extinction as a “consequence of economic growth and development untendered by adequate concern and conservation.” But the ESA has come at the expense of traditional American concepts of private property and personal liberty and has created economic loss.

That’s because, at the start, animals in no danger of extinction were placed on the list, including three species of kangaroos that exist only in Australia, certainly outside ESA jurisdiction. Animals plentiful in their native habitats were identified as endangered in locations where they habitually had sparse populations. For example, the bald eagle, with an ample population of 50,000 to 75,000 birds in Alaska and British Columbia, had small numbers in the 48 contiguous states, which placed it on the endangered list. Murray cites other examples of improper listings, such as the arbitrary creation of small subsets of species or sub-species of an abundant species. This misrepresentation took place with plentiful populations of grey wolves which were subdivided into multiple classifications because of their slight, geographic distinctions, thus giving the impression of endangerment.

The enactment and enforcement of the ESA has had other serious, unintended consequences. The existence of an endangered species on private property can lower property values and ban activities such as logging, cultivating, grazing cattle, irrigating fields, farm clearing and building. The value of the land cannot increase when it is defined as a habitat for an endangered species. Not surprisingly, far from protecting animals, these ESA rules have caused landowners to clandestinely “sterilize” their properties upon specific wildlife sightings. Thus, Murray maintains that overall the ESA has been deleterious for animals and humans and not helped species recovery.

Polar Bears

The recent campaign to save polar bears is another example of wildlife preservation run amuck by environmentalists that Murray details in his book. Saving polar bears has gained widespread attention due to Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth. But research scientist Marlo Lewis, a colleague of Murray’s, has found that polar bear endangerment is a myth created by misrepresentation and exaggeration. For example, discovery of drowned polar bears was strategically employed to support theories of global warming. Yet, scientists had attributed the deaths to “an abrupt wind storm.” In a blatant case of “fauxtography,” healthy polar bears frolicking on a floating mass of ice became photos of “polar bears stranded on a rapidly melting iceberg.”

Although little is known of the natural climatic variability of the Arctic and polar bear responses to changing conditions, serious discussions are underway to include the polar bear on the endangered species list. NASA has advanced the theory that wind pattern changes, not global warming, have caused Arctic ice melting. Murray points out that in the 1930’s with very warm temperatures in the region, no build-up of greenhouse gases occurred. Meanwhile, a 110-million-year-old polar bear bones discovered by a University of Iceland professor demonstrates that polar bears survived an interglacial period, when ice covered only a small portion of the earth.

Communism’s Environmental Record

As liberal environmentalists clamor for greater environmental regulations, central management and control of resources, characteristics of non-free, market economies, a review of the “tragedy of the commons” is particularly instructive, Murray says.

Such a review demonstrates that the condition of common ownership leads to overuse, depletion and destruction of a resource held in common because that resource is subject to the whimsy of changing governmental administrations and the exploitation of non-owners. When no personal stake exits in conserving an asset, little motivation to protect and develop it judiciously exists.

Murray details USSR efforts in the mid-1960s to divert the Aral Sea for cotton cultivation, which led to the sea’s virtual disappearance off the coast of Uzbekistan. Under central planning and the Soviet government’s decision to become a major exporter of water-thirsty cotton, traditional farms were replaced with collectives as massive irrigation of the Aral Sea began. The resulting dramatic rise in salt content in water, air and land degraded cotton quality, increased respiratory illnesses among the local population, led to significant climate changes and brought deaths of myriad fish species and vegetation. Now, with cotton as the region’s primary crop for the past 50 years, farmers subsist in a feudal state of enslavement to cotton farming, unable to obtain visas to move and change their livelihood and with their children are forced to work the crops. 

Other examples of government controls and resulting catastrophe cited by Murray include the shrinking of Lake Chad in Africa that lead to its desertification and Saddam Hussein’s revengeful draining of the land of the Marsh Arabs that resulted in massive population migration, loss of fish for consumption and animal species extinction.  

Conclusion 

Murray credits Silent Spring author Rachel Carson as the architect of environmental alarmism and the alarmist strategy in use today. Despite the loss of human life and environmental damage that arose after governments implemented Carson’s proposed DDT ban, she is still esteemed as an environmental movement founder. Her strategy for pursuing a liberal environmental agenda consisted of several key components. First, she was instrumental in initially framing the issue and, at the same time, proposed corrective legislation while blocking dissent. Secondly, she argued for immediate action, creating a doomsday scenario that would threaten children and all future generations and stressing the urgency of immediate action with an emotional hyperbole that precluded rational debate. Finally, she obtained legitimacy by claiming to represent the scientific community and attacking opponents directly, rather than debating the issues or scientific data. 

If this sounds familiar, it’s because it bears a striking resemblance to the tactics Al Gore mobilized against global warming. His movie, The Inconvenient Truth presented an apocalyptic future for the planet if immediate intervention and alteration of human consumption did not occur. This crisis scenario was followed by a series of vituperative condemnations and irrational assault on non-believers, best characterized by an op-ed by Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman who equated global warming skeptics with Holocaust deniers. 

Thus, Murray warns that the goal of the environmental movement is to use doomsday scenarios to increase government regulation of individuals and corporations whose endeavors ultimately do a superior job of preserving, developing and adding value to natural assets. The most serious threat to our environment is state action and coercive control in the name of environmental preservation, he asserts.

Common ownership is problematic because it lacks incentives for good management. It fosters short-term planning of a transitory asset that is subject to changing political whims. Contrary to the beliefs of environmentalists about preservation and inactivity, environmental quality is best achieved through prudent use of environmental resources, including economic development, Murray states.

As an alternative to counterproductive, contradictory, anti-human and anti-free enterprise policies promoted by liberal environmentalists, Murray suggests an ideology that embraces conservationism and stewardship. It’s the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation that views humans as “the most valuable resource on earth” and as “producers and stewards,” rather than “consumers and polluters.”

While liberal environmentalists resort to legislation, regulation and guilt to advance policies that have degraded environmental quality and decreased productivity, stewardship promotes private ownership as a more effective tool to preserve and protect the environment and further develop it for generations to come.

---

Janet Levy is the founder of ESG Consulting, an organization that offers project management, fundraising, promotion, event organizing and planning services for conservative political causes and issues related to terrorism and national security.

The inconvenient truth about Gore

Ethel C. Fenig

And now let’s take an inconvenient truth tour of the home Al Gore returns to after a long, hard day on the do as I say not what I do lecture/media circuit, courtesy of Peter Schweizer, writing in USA Today.

Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself.

Then there is the troubling matter of his energy use. In the Washington, D.C., area, utility companies offer wind energy as an alternative to traditional energy. In Nashville, similar programs exist. Utility customers must simply pay a few extra pennies per kilowatt hour, and they can continue living their carbon-neutral lifestyles knowing that they are supporting wind energy. Plenty of businesses and institutions have signed up. Even the Bush administration is using green energy for some federal office buildings, as are thousands of area residents.

But according to public records, there is no evidence that Gore has signed up to use green energy in either of his large residences.

Bovine emissions 23 times more damaging than CO2

Bovine emissions 23 times more damaging than

CO2

Danny Huddleston
It appears that our efforts to control C02 emissions may be misguided, as the real culprit in global warming could be cows. The UK’s Daily mail has the story.

Argentine scientists are taking a novel approach to studying global warming – strapping plastic tanks to the backs of cows to collect their burps and farts.

Researchers say the slow digestive system of cows makes them a producer of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that gets far less public attention than carbon dioxide in efforts to fight global warming.
[...]

Berra said the researchers ‘never thought’ a cow weighing 550 kg (1,210 lb) could produce 800 to 1,000 litres (28 to 35 cubic feet) of emissions each day.

At least 10 cows are being studied, Berra said, including some in a corral whose burps are collected in yellow balloons hanging from the roof.

Greenhouse gases are widely blamed for causing global warming. Methane, researchers say, is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere and can be found in animal waste, landfills, coal mines and leaking natural gas pipes.

Not to worry, the scientists are working on a new diet for the cows which should reduce emissions by 25%.

Be sure and check out the pictures in the article, the cows look very stylish with the big pink plastic tanks on their backs.

I would file this story the same place you filed the one where Sheryl Crow proposes that everyone use only one square of tissue in the bathroom.

Posted at 10:17 AM | Email | Permalink

Global Warming: The Courage To Do Nothing

Randall Hoven
Is the scientific debate over on global warming?  Not according to the American Physical Society* in this year’s July’s issue of Physics and Society .

“With this issue of Physics & Society, we kick off a debate concerning one of the main conclusions of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body which, together with Al Gore, recently won the Nobel Prize for its work concerning climate change research. There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO₂ emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution.  Since the correctness or fallacy of that conclusion has immense implications for public policy and for the future of the biosphere, we thought it appropriate to present a debate within the pages of P&S concerning that conclusion.  This editor invited several people to contribute articles that were either pro or con.  Christopher Monckton responded …”  [Emphasis added.]

 

And what did Lord Monckton say?

 

“Some reasons why the IPCC’s estimates may be excessive and unsafe are explained.  More importantly, the conclusion is that, perhaps, there is no “climate crisis”, and that currently-fashionable efforts by governments to reduce anthropogenic CO₂ emissions are pointless, may be ill-conceived, and could even be harmful.”

 

He examined specific assumptions of the IPCC cited computer models and found that, even using the same models but with more justifiable assumptions, carbon dioxide is not a critical threat to global temperatures.

 

“Theoretically, empirically, and in the literature that we have extensively cited, each of the values we have chosen as our central estimate is arguably more justifiable – and is certainly no less justifiable – than the substantially higher value selected by the IPCC. Accordingly, it is very likely that in response to a doubling of pre-industrial carbon dioxide concentration T_S will rise not by the 3.26 °K suggested by the IPCC, but by <1 °K.”

 

He concluded with

 

“If the concluding equation in this analysis is correct, the IPCC’s estimates of climate sensitivity must have been very much exaggerated.  There may, therefore, be a good reason why, contrary to the projections of the models on which the IPCC relies, temperatures have not risen for a decade and have been falling since the phase-transition in global temperature trends that occurred in late 2001.  Perhaps real-world climate sensitivity is very much below the IPCC’s estimates. Perhaps, therefore, there is no “climate crisis” at all. At present, then, in policy terms there is no case for doing anything. The correct policy approach to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.“  [Emphasis added.]

 

*According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Physical_Society, the American Physical Society was founded in 1899 and is the second largest association of physicists in the world, with over 40,000 members.

Posted at 10:37 AM | Email | Permalink

North Pole ice melting fear mongers strike out

Thomas Lifson
Kudos to John L. Daly, who has written a very interesting study of ice at the North Pole. Global Warmists are once again observing cyclical changes and declaring them “proof” of the dire effects of global warming.

Among the interesting pictures posted to this site is this one from 1987, when we were supposed to be worried about global cooling:

HMS Superb, USS Billfish, and USS Sea Devil in a North Pole rendezvous in 1987
(U.S. Navy Photo)

This was not exactly a harbinger of global warming, as this picture of unbroken ice at the North Pole three years later attests:

USS Hawkbill at the North Pole, Spring 1999. (US Navy Photo)

Daly explores the various factors influencing ice at the North Pole. It is accessible to laymen like me. His conclusions:

 

…both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice is certainly subject to variation. But it would be a mistake to assume that a brief period during which the Arctic is in a thinning cycle is anything more than that – a cycle. We know from past history that it has been subject to earlier retreats as suggested by the opening quote from 1817.

Part of the problem lay in the fact that useful data on ice extent and thickness only dates from the 1950s, yet our temperature record from Jan Mayen Island at the edge of the Arctic shows that the Arctic was warmer during the 1930s than it was during the 1990s. Unfortunately there is no comprehensive ice data from the 1930s. Instead such data begins in the late 1950s, at a time when the Arctic was entering into the grip of a known cold spell. As that cold period ended, it is hardly surprising to find thinner ice during the latter warmer period. [....]

The limits on the thickness of Arctic ice are determined by how low the air temperature can get, and on how warm and fast-moving the subsurface water is. Air temperatures measured in the Arctic region show no recent warming, thus discounting the possibility that recent thinning of ice could be caused by atmospheric warming above the ice. Rather, the  thinning of ice in the 1990s is clearly associated with a warming of the sub-surface ocean, as shown by the SCICEX data, caused in whole or in part by the strong NAO [North Atlantic Oscillation -- ocean current change] increasing the flow rate of Atlantic water into the Arctic Ocean.

There is nothing in the data to suggest anything but natural cycles at work.

 

Hat tip: Michael Geer

 

Posted at 03:55 PM | Email | Permalink

 

Your 2007 Carbon Footprint

By Steve Boler

We often hear of how we must reduce our carbon footprint.  We are told as Americans, that CO2 is a pollutant and that we release upwards of 20 tons of carbon dioxide per person per year into the atmosphere.  This sounds incredible and evokes images of black soot and dirt clogging the air.

Most of us have seen the advertisement for the environmental movie with a big muddy boot print, representing our carbon footprint, stomped into the planet.  But CO₂ is not black or dirty or muddy, it is not even visible, nor can one smell it nor taste it.  Because we exhale CO₂, a crowded university lecture hall may have 10 times more CO₂ than average atmospheric concentrations.

 

While CO₂  is not poisonous to animals, it is a necessary airborne fertilizer for plant life.  Reducing CO₂ to slightly less than half of current concentrations would kill off all green plant life.  As concentrations increase, so do plant growth rates and harvests, and many greenhouses and conservatories add CO₂ to the air to quickly grow healthy and productive plants.  Yet, we are told this trace gas is pollution.  We are told that CO₂ causes global warming that far exceeds natural variation.  We are told, as a result, that we must be concerned about, be aware of and reduce our carbon footprint.  There is much scientific data showing CO₂ has very little to do with any planetary warming let alone the catastrophic kind.

In fact, despite recent increases in CO₂, both NASA and the UN’s IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) have recently conceded that the earth has entered a natural cooling phase that will last decades.  However if you are concerned about the size of your footprint read on:

How big is your is your footprint in relation to the atmosphere?  Grab a ruler, and let’s go for a walk.  Make each step about one meter long, so walk as though you are a football referee.  As we are walking we will both count each step and do some math.  How much CO₂ is in the atmosphere?  Current estimates put it at 350 -380 parts per million. For ease of computation, we will round it up to the nearest 100, or 400 parts per million.  Now let’s use that old fashioned math and reduce that down.  400 parts per million is the same as 40 parts per 100,000 and can be reduced further to 4 parts per 10,000.  When we have finished taking 10,000 steps, stop and turn around.  You have just walked 10,000 meters or 10K, which runners know is roughly 6 miles. At average walking speed this takes about 2 hours.  (If you do not want to take the walk, get in your car, and drive 6 miles, just to see how far it is.)   Once there, look back at where you started.  Remember that all the CO2 in the atmosphere is 4 parts per 10,000.  Take 4 steps back towards your starting point.  Those four steps out of 6 miles represent the entire amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere.

Global warmists determine that the carbon dioxide caused from man as the amount we have today over what existed before the Industrial Revolution.  That is debatable, with some scientists estimating that man is only responsible for 15% of that amount, but for our demonstration purposes we will concede to the alarmists that all the additional CO₂ came from Man. 

One step out of the 6 miles represents man’s carbon footprint from the 1880s until today.    According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  (NOAA) and the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL)  the entire CO₂ increase for the earth in 2007, was 2.4 parts per million. 

Once again we will assume it is all man made and, furthermore, we will round up to 2.5.  The 2007 world wide carbon footprint of 2.5 parts per million translates in our walk to two and one half centimeters, or about 1 inch out of 6 miles. Some environmentalists suggest that the three hundred million people in the United States are responsible for as much as one fifth of all CO₂ released in a year.  

Because it is easier to find ¼ inch on our ruler, let us say that the U.S. population is responsible for one quarter of all CO₂ released in the world last year.   Look at the ¼ of an inch on your ruler that represents the carbon footprint of the entire U.S..  Now look back over the six miles you walked that represents the entire atmosphere.

 

Next,  all you need to do to find your carbon footprint is divide that ¼ inch by 300,000,000.