GREENIE WATCH

2012-02-13T11:23:00.001+11:30

Climate and the sun

The article excerpted below is a useful summary of the discussion about solar influences on climate. Climate skeptics will know the first part of it well. It is the second part -- putting the Warmist case -- that seems of some interest. So that is the section I excerpt below and discuss here.

The article is unsigned but is written by a "moderate" skeptic (possibly Pat Michaels) who accepts that CO2 can have SOME influence on climate -- rather than CO2 levels being a RESULT of climate. The author may adopt that stance for political reasons, given the poor empirical evidence for it. How come, for instance, that CO2 levels have risen greatly over the past 15 years, while temperature has flatlined or maybe even cooled?

A notable difference between the skeptical and Warmist cases is that the skeptical case -- as articulated by Svensmark -- is a theory that has been confirmed by direct experimental observations, while the Warmist case relies on a very dubious temperature record. The "hiding the decline" (in proxies) episode was a vivid demonstration of how unreliable temperature proxies are and the thermometer record has been blatantly corrupted by Jim Hansen and others with their various "adjustments". What the thermometers originally showed in aggregate is unknown. The data has been hopelessly compromised in an attempt to show temperature rises where no rise was previously shown.

So it is no wonder that Warmist scientists find no correlation with solar fluctuations and the temperature record. The temperature record is a false representation of reality.

But some facts from the past do not rely on a hokey temperature record. Events like the Little Ice Age or the Medieval Warm Period are well known from history. So we do have SOME information about past temperatures that we can rely on. And that data is very clearly correlated with solar activity. When both sides of the correlation are firmly established, we find that the correlation is strong. The "harder" the data the more we see a solar influence

The idea that solar variability exerts little-to-no influence on the global average surface temperature is based upon several lines of reasoning.

The first is that the difference in the amount of total incoming radiation from the peak of the well-known 11-yr solar sunspot cycle to the trough of the cycle is very low, only about one-quarter of Watt per square meter at the earth's surface. Depending on the climate sensitivity to incoming radiation that you prefer, this works out to a change in the global average temperature of maybe a tenth of a degree Celsius, give or take a few hundredths of a degree. Detecting such a small "signal" amidst other forms of climate "noise" (such as El Ni¤o, volcanoes, and a myriad of circulation patterns) becomes rather challenging.

The second, is that over a period spanning several solar cycles (several decades), the direct correlation between the solar variability and global temperature variability (after accounting for volcanoes and El Ni¤o/La Ni¤a cycles) is basically zero ( it even switches signs from time to time). This means that knowing what the sun is doing gives you little information as to what the global temperatures are doing. But notice the use of the word "direct". In Case #1 the mechanism is "indirect" with the sun modulating cloud formation via cosmic rays and not timed precisely with the more common measures of solar output (e.g. sunspot counts).

However, if your analysis is confined to last two of solar cycles, then it appears as if a decline/rise in solar output over the course of the 11-yr cycle is tied to a decline/rise in global temperatures. Such a correlation leads to the conclusion that declining solar output over the past decade has been, in part, responsible for the contemporaneous slowdown in the rate of global warming-accounting for maybe 0.05 to 0.1 degree of cooling over the course of past 10 years or so. This explanation is currently en vogue with respect to the obvious lack of strong warming in almost fifteen years. It is interesting to note that a solar explanation was largely absent (and in fact was pretty much pooh-pooed) by this same group of people during earlier periods when the warming rate was more to their liking.

A string of papers in the scientific literature have reported that even over the time period of the past several centuries that the influence of solar variability on the earth's average temperature has been slight. For example, Judith Lean and David Rind found that, although they could identify a persistent solar signal in the temperature record during the past century, the signal was small and little-changed over the course of the past 100 years. In other words, solar variability could not explain the observed warming trend. And another just-published paper by Gifford Miller and colleagues even makes the case that the cold period known as the Little Ice Age, long thought to have been the result of an extended period of low solar output, was primarily caused by a concurrence of large volcanic eruptions and feedback processes resulting therefrom. Currently, that paper is an outlier in the field and time will tell whether or not it is correct.

So in very general terms, what buoys the little-to-no solar variability influence reasoning is that straightforward empirical analyses trying to relate solar changes (both directly observed and inferred from proxies such as sunspots) to changes in the global temperature (both directly observed and inferred from proxies) fail to find a large direct influence on the latter from the former.

Even within the "little-influence" community, though, the science is not settled.

More HERE

Santorum Sends The Right Message On Global Warming

A long-time source of frustration for many small-government Republicans has been politicians who buy into various subsidies, mandates, restrictions and other big-government “solutions” to speculative or nonexistent energy and environment problems. This frustration has continued throughout the Republican primary season as frontrunners Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich each have a history of supporting such big-government energy and environment policies. But the times may be a-changing. Rick Santorum has been emphasizing small-government energy and environment policies in recent weeks and the conservative base is responding.

Most visibly, Santorum is throwing down the gauntlet on global warming. While blasting Obama on global warming, he is also hitting Romney and Gingrich hard on the topic. “Both of them bought into the global warming hoax!” Santorum has taken to saying on the campaign trail and in media interviews.

Santorum’s strategy is powerful for two reasons. First, he has an unassailable record of questioning alarmist global warming claims and opposing carbon dioxide restrictions. Second, he is pressing the issue with a fervor that conveys clear and unmistakable sincerity.

True, Romney and Gingrich have been saying the right things lately on global warming and other energy/environment topics. Small-government Republicans hope they will govern in a manner that is consistent with their recent statements and pledges on these topics. But small-government conservatives have reason to be concerned.

As Governor of Massachusetts, Romney championed and signed into law the toughest carbon dioxide restrictions in the nation. He directed state officials to factor carbon dioxide emissions into land-use decisions and other regulatory mischief. He appointed to highly influential government positions John Holdren and Gina McCarthy, who graduated from their Massachusetts positions to lead the Obama administration’s war on power plants and carbon dioxide emissions. He has chosen as his campaign’s top energy advisors people who have been outspoken supporters of cap-and-trade restrictions, carbon taxes, and Obama administration environmental policies. These things stick in the minds of Republican primary voters. They may hope that Romney really has turned over a new leaf, but they are hesitant to bet their vote on it.

As for Gingrich, he filmed the atrocious global warming commercial with Nancy Pelosi. He wrote A Contract with the Earth. He supports ethanol subsidies and mandates. He wants to hand over to the renewable power industry government revenues from oil and gas production. These are positions that are not generally considered limited-government or conservative.

Santorum has none of that baggage on energy and environment topics. He has consistently voted against ethanol subsidies. He has consistently fought global warming alarmism. He has consistently opposed handing over taxpayer dollars to the renewable power industry.

For pundits who don’t believe this is a powerful issue with Republican primary voters, remember that opposition to the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill in 2009 was the first big issue that took a sizeable chunk out of Obama’s approval rating. Cap-and-trade was in 2009 what Obamacare was in 2010.

When Romney hits Gingrich for filming his global warming commercial with Pelosi, small-government Republicans think, “Sure, but who is Romney to talk?” When Gingrich points out that Romney imposed toughest-in-the-nation carbon dioxide restrictions on Massachusetts power plants, small-government Republicans think, “Sure, but who is Newt to talk?” Santorum doesn’t have these obstacles with small-government conservatives.

Of course, no candidate is perfect and Santorum has other issues that are troublesome to small-government Republicans. But the lesson to be learned here, as Santorum surges in recent primaries due in large part to his willingness and ability to throw down the gauntlet on global warming and related issues, is that politicians champion big-government energy and environment policies at their own peril. Rick Santorum has a clean record on these issues, and he is starting to turn that clean record into political momentum.

SOURCE

Energy Policies Hit Poorest Hardest; Maybe That's the Goal

Because of the unproven notion that burning fossil fuels causes global warming, saving energy has become the cultural norm with the expectation that reducing the use of coal-fueled electricity and gasoline will help everyone. More and more wind and solar generation is being installed and cars use less and less gas, with some being all-electric. This should be a good thing, but it ends up costing everyone—and disproportionately hurts the poor.

Installing an unsubsidized residential solar photovoltaic (PV) system is expensive and the payoff can be decades. As a result, they are typically purchased by only those with substantial disposable income. A few years ago, I participated in a “solar fiesta.” I live in rural New Mexico where we often have snow on the ground from late October through early March. Due to cost, I only heat my home to 58 degrees in the winter. I have a large south-facing roof surface. I figured I was a prime candidate for a solar PV system. I visited different vendors. When I asked about the payoff, one vendor looked down his nose and emphasized: “It is not about the payoff.” I could not afford to go solar. I still burn pellets in my stove and bundle up all winter.

Those, who can afford the up-front costs to take advantage of the free energy from the sun, can avoid paying their utility company anything. They may even feel smug that they have beat the system. With net metering, when they generate extra power, the meter may literally spin backward. When the sun isn’t shining, they use the power they’ve banked. The end of the month total can balance out.

However, there are still costs to the electric company. The usage is still monitored. The home, or business, is still tied to the grid. The wires and other system services require maintenance and those costs are factored into the per-kilowatt-hour price and are borne by all the rate payers. But what happens when the wealthy few, who have the luxury of installing a solar system, no longer contribute to the communal cost of service? The overall cost must be spread to a smaller pool of users, which means rate increases for everyone—except those who are getting “free” electricity from the sun.

Case in point, in Hawaii, government mandates have encouraged the installation of solar systems. In 2011, Hawaii Electric Company (HECO) customers installed nearly triple the number of solar PV panels over the previous year, enough to generate a maximum of 30 megawatts of electricity. While this free electricity is saving homeowners and businesses millions of dollars in their utility bills, the personal savings translate into a $7.4 million loss to HECO—revenue that would typically contribute to fixed maintenance costs and system upgrades. As a result, HECO needs a rate increase that will cost the average ratepayer up to an additional $10 a month or $120 a year. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports: “HECO customers who don't have solar panels will see their rates go up because of the increase in customers who do.”

Solar advocates often tout the fact that, with subsidies, a system can be almost free—which makes my point. Where do the subsidies come from? Either government funds—meaning taxpayers (you and me)—or from utility company-funded programs—meaning ratepayers (you and me). Either way, everyone pays for a few to benefit and feel good. In the HECO case, Hermina Morita, PUC chairwoman acknowledges, “It's not equitable. It's something the commission will have to look at closely.”

On a national scale, there are mandates that cause similar problems.

In 2009, President Obama proudly announced new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for vehicles: 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. Just six months ago, to great fanfare, he ceremoniously upped the ante: 54.5 mpg by 2025. The CAFE part is that a company’s overall fleet must have an average fuel economy of 54.5 mpg. Because Americans continue to purchase more trucks and SUVs with much lower mpg, a company must produce cars like the Volt or the Leaf that are measured at 93 and 99 mpg equivalent. Overall the average might come out in the mandated range. The CAFE standards also mean that manufacturers use technologically advanced lighter materials—as a light car gets better mileage. These materials are also more expensive, which increases the sticker price and makes it harder for lower-income people to purchase a new car and may lock them into buying used cars, with lower mpg and frequent expensive repairs.

Like the solar PV users in Hawaii, drivers of electric cars are using the infrastructure, but not paying for it. Drivers of high-mileage cars are using less gas and, perhaps, driving more. Because a good portion of highway construction and maintenance is paid for through gasoline taxes, many states are now looking for additional ways to collect needed funding. While Kansas has only two dozen Chevy Volts registered in the entire state, a bill has been proposed that would impose a new fee on electric- and hybrid-car owners—though it is unlikely to pass. In West Virginia, lawmakers are considering a “user fee” to make up the shortfall in the State Road Fund. Citing “less gas tax paid” due to “the fuel efficiency of new vehicles, especially hybrids and alternative-fuel vehicles,” Oregon has been testing a mileage-based charge where a point-of-sale system sends data to a central computer that calculates the mileage fee. Washington, DC, is considering a system where a “transponder would calculate the totals” “and drivers would be charged accordingly when they purchased gas.”

Until new systems are in place (despite their big brother-like implications), those who can afford the more expensive, low mpg or electric, vehicles are beating the system by using infrastructure they are not paying for and sticking the rest of the population with the tab and increased operating costs resulting from bad roads. The wealthy, who are saving energy, are increasing costs for everyone.

Like solar power, wind energy is believed to be a saving—by reducing the burning of fossil fuels. Instead, it costs all of us, as the industry is heavily subsidized. Without taxpayer funding, it will fail, which is why advocates have been lobbying for an extension of the twenty-year-old production tax credit. But this supposed energy-saving technology would also cost all ratepayers more. A recent report on wiring wind energy shows that costs are nearly double what had been estimated. The increased costs will be paid through higher rates. Building a new gas-fueled power plant near the consumers would be cheaper than bringing the wind energy from afar. But once again, the few are benefitting while the average person pays.

Free energy sounds good. Saving energy makes people feel good. But the costs of these sound-good, feel-good policies hurt those who can least afford it—trapping them in a life of government dependence. Since we do not have an energy shortage, maybe that is the goal of all of these energy-saving policies, after all.

SOURCE

EPA should stop hiding the data used in making regulations

Thousands of conservative political activists, officeholders, public relations operatives, celebrities, think tankers, and academics are assembled here this week for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Among the issues that most intensely unite the various factions within the conservative galaxy is the use by liberals of global warming programs and policies as cover for the expansion of government power. All too often the science behind those efforts is inaccessible to the public and thus not subject to genuinely independent review and verification. So a key ingredient in stopping the global warming juggernaut in agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency is making scientific data publicly available.

Consider a 1999 EPA report purporting to show that the Clean Air Act would generate $170 billion in economic benefits in 2010. That at least sounded plausible. But EPA's numbers changed dramatically when the agency released its 2011 report on the purported economic benefits of the Clean Air Act. The EPA's new number was $2 trillion, an increase exceeding 1,000 percent. How did the Obama EPA come up with this number? Government officials used an economic model that, according to the scientists who wrote the study, was filled with "significant" and "major uncertainties." The researchers even admitted that because of their model's design flaws, "there is no way to validate" their findings. The agency refused to make their data available for outside review.

Such outlandish findings are not exceptions at the EPA, but the rule. A 2004 EPA staff report found that "since EPA is a health and environmental protective agency, EPA's policy is that risk assessments should not knowingly underestimate or grossly overestimate risks." Notice the two different standards. The EPA can never "knowingly" underestimate risk, but they are allowed to overestimate it as long as they don't do so "grossly." The results are increasingly costly regulations that do little to actually protect human health and well-being.

For example, the EPA recently issued new Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology (Utility MACT) regulations for mercury that agency officials claim will produce $140 billion in annual economic benefits. But a quick review of the supporting documents shows that, at most, $6 million of the benefits will come from mercury reductions. The remaining $139,994,000,000 is attributed to benefits that will supposedly result from carbon dioxide reduction. On the flip side, EPA pegged compliance costs at $200 billion a year. That means the cost will exceed the benefits by $60 billion, as in $60,000,000,000. (A separate drafting error misstated a proposed emission standard by a factor of 1,000. Yet the rule is still scheduled to go into effect.)

One solution, suggested at a recent House Science, Space, and Technology Committee hearing, would be to require the EPA to make public all data used in formulating regulations. "When the EPA proposes a regulation based on science, it should name the papers it is depending on and it should make data sets used in those papers publicly available," Assistant Director for Bioinformatics at the National Institute of Statistical Sciences Stanley Young testified. "Claims are more likely to be valid and resulting policy sensible. Let normal science help in the vetting process. Make the data available." We agree. Since taxpayers are paying for it, they ought to be able to the price sticker.

SOURCE

German daily newspaper article On Vahrenholt: “Climate Skeptics Are Like Viruses”

The usual Leftist reliance on abuse

Leftist TAZ Daily Article On Vahrenholt: “Climate Skeptics Are Like Viruses”: With the book out 6 days, parts of the the German mainstream media and green activists are finding the the whole affair really tough to digest. Some of the reactions have been downright nasty and Medieval.

The left wing German online TAZ here has a weekend article called ”Climate Skeptics Are Like Viruses“, which looks at the controversy swirling about Vahrenholt’s and Lüning’s new skeptic book “Die kalte Sonne“.

TAZ’s message is clear: In climate science, scientific scrutiny and enquiry are mental disorders coming from viruses. We all know what needs to be done with viruses.

In the TAZ piece, IPCC lead author Petra Döll is quoted as saying that skeptics don’t need to be heard. Lüning and Vahrenholt respond at their Die kalte Sonne site:

The attitude of refusal by the IPCC with respect to open scientific discussion and debate is now conspicuous. This is demomstrated by IPCC lead author Dr. Petra Döll in the German online taz in claiming that “climate skeptics” no longer need to be heard. Indeed it is questionable just how long this weird scientific approach can be maintained. Should we not expect a professional demeanor from scientists who are paid and supported by German tax revenue? Döll’s dubious reasoning: The climate skeptics ”just keep repeating the same arguments”. Could it be that the so-called climate skeptics are forced to keep repeating because the current climate science establishment has yet to provide a satisfactory answer?

There’s a lot that indicates this is the case. An assessment of the media one week after the launch of the book “Die kalte Sonne” has clearly shown: The media are relying on a hand-full of prominent experts whose arguments are showing to be everything but scientifically convincing. The statements of many experts and activist editors are characterized by misrepresentations, intentional omissions and errors.

Politicians have become aware of this problem. SPD socialist party Chairman writes in the the Sunday edition of the TAZ sonntaz that in all cases we have to hear the climate skeptics out, ‘and even if it is sometimes very difficult to do so.’ Perhaps he’s beginning to realize that something is amiss within the IPCC.

Politicians have blindly relied on the IPCC for too long. Whatever the IPCC said, was law. When one considers how high the stakes really are in the climate debate, then one has to conclude that an independent review of the IPCC’s basic assumptions is essential, even just for the sake of transparency reasons. To avoid conflicts of interest, such a review should be conducted by neutral parties who are not involved in the climate debate. Of course this should be done by scientists, but the more they are from outside of climate science, the better.

Climate science is not rocket science. An independent review by a commission is possible with independent scientists. In the event members come from a large research facility, then it must be assured that there is no sister institute that is dependent on climate science funding. The most important tool of such a commission is natural science common sense, which has been increasingly missing in the climate sciences over the last years.”

That’s a reasonable response. A commission to conduct a review of the IPCC is long overdue, as it is well-documented that the IPCC house is a mess.

But scrutinizing science is mentally ill – the TAZ wants to tell us. There’s another part of the TAZ report, which Lüning and Vahrenolt did not respond to (probably because of its sheer absurdity). Here’s what the end-of-the-world-obsessed TAZ adds:

Also psychologist Marius Raab asks that climate skeptics be listened to. Their ‘house of thoughts’ in the end fulfill many criteria for conspiracy theories, which Raab studies at the University of Bamberg. ‘A conspiracy theory is foremost a good story,’ he wrote to the sonntaz, “in structure and argumentation it is especially compelling and holds the invitation to get involved and thus to spread the word. Argumentation is one-sided, not scientific.’”

Reminds me of the old Soviet tactic of admitting political opponents to mental institutions in order to eliminate them. With the TAZ’s “virus” remark and adding the comments from shrink Raab, it’s clear that the TAZ has no interest in arguing the science and is perfectly content to engage in gutter journalism.

SOURCE

A letter to Paul Nurse

Prof. Nurse is a poor boy made good. Not rocking the boat is probably a lesson he learned on his way to the top

I am reproducing this letter with the permission of Professor Brice Bosnich, a retired chemist and a fellow of the Royal Society. He sent it to Paul Nurse on his election as president of the society in 2010. Nurse did not reply.

Dear Professor Nurse

I am a retired professor of chemistry in The University of Chicago. I also am a Fellow of the Royal Society. First, allow me to congratulate you on becoming president of the Society. You are about to live in interesting times, I am sure.

Whereas I am reluctant to intrude on your time, I feel compelled to draw your attention to a very serious matter related to the Royal Society's position on man-made global warming (AGW).

Beginning with the presidency of Bob May and continuing during the tenure of Martin Rees the Society has put forward a scientific case for (catastrophic) AGW, has joined with other academies in urging governments to take drastic action to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and, on occasions, has behaved as if it were a propaganda arm for the alarmist cause, [1]. No one objects to individual Fellows having any view they wish on this matter, political or scientific, but I believe the Society should exercise great care in its public pronouncements. It should, I believe, resist taking overtly political or advocacy positions. Cautious, balanced and informed scientific arguments should be presented, the political implications of which should be left to the politicians.

If one goes to the Royal Society Web site one finds an especially poor, in places inaccurate, case made for catastrophic AGW, [2]. There is also a highly speculative report on ocean acidification by CO2, [3], which seems to be based on a single paper, [4], that purports to calculate the change in ocean pH from 1750 to present! A change of 0.1 pH change was calculated! On this basis the report goes on to describe all imaginable catastrophes. At about the same time the Society's web page highlighted a paper about AGW and the shrinking sheep of St Kilda [5]! Then there was Bob May presenting an AGW lecture with the comprehensively discredited, [6], “hockey stick” graph as backdrop. I could go on.

How this state of affairs came about is a matter of speculation on my part. It is probable, however, that a group of committed Fellows persuaded the Society to take a position on AGW while the less conversant majority remained uncomfortably silent. Further, I fear the Society may have decided it was advantageous to blend its position with that of the existing government. I hope this is not the case.

Although I am not a climate scientist, I am sufficiently conversant with the climate science literature to be able to assess the issues accurately. My conclusion is that the case for catastrophic warming induced by man-made CO2 emissions is extremely weak (see for example, [7]). Allow me to encapsulate the issue, and forgive me if you are already familiar with the material that follows.

* Following the (global) Medieval Warm Period where the temperatures were similar to those presently recorded, the earth entered the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the Little Ice Age (about 1850) the earth has warmed intermittently. The actual amount of warming is controversial for technical and possibly other reasons. For surface temperatures recorded by thermometer measurements, the amount of warming is probably less than reported [8]. There is, however, no dispute that some near surface atmospheric warming has occurred, [9] [12].

* Doubling the concentration of atmospheric CO2, which is projected to occur by the end of this century, will lead to an increase in temperature of about 1 degree C from the CO2 greenhouse effect. There is no dispute here. No one has suggested that a 1 degree C of "forcing" would be catastrophic.

* In order to get to the 2 to 4 or more degrees C increase by 2100 as claimed by the IPCC, one has to invoke large positive feedbacks. For the case of the feedback by water vapor, as an example, the initial(CO2 induced) warming would generate an increase in atmospheric water vapor, a greenhouse gas, which itself will increase the temperature which, in turn, would generate more water vapor and so on. There are other feedbacks, most notably clouds, which combined with water vapor represent about 90% of the greenhouse effect. Contrary to what the Society’s Web site asserts, there was no (predicted) upper atmosphere signature found for water vapor feedback during the recent warming. The feedback from clouds is poorly understood as acknowledged by the IPCC. There is, however, accumulating evidence which suggests that the total feedback from all sources is zero or possibly negative (see for example, [10]). The evidence for the negative feedback case is substantially more persuasive than the IPCC assertion that it should be large and positive.

* The only case that the IPPC makes for AGW is that they can't think of anything else that could have caused the recent warming and that models can reproduce the warming. This reproduction is achieved by introducing arbitrary amounts of aerosols. These same models did not predict the recent 12 years of constant temperatures.

* Finally, there is an excellent correlation between the US postal rates since 1900 and global temperatures, [11]. Thus the assertions that AGW is responsible for the shrinking sheep of St Kilda or the vanishing snows of Kilimanjaro or any other alarmist pronouncements do not establish that the warming is man-made. This should be obvious to Fellows of the Royal Society, many of whom have used such correlations to support the existence of catastrophic AGW.

The case for catastrophic warming rests solely on the sign and magnitude of the feedbacks. As has been often said, “Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence”. The potential of catastrophic AGW is an extraordinary claim, but is without compelling supporting evidence. Because of the way that the AGW issue has been politicized together with the behavior of certain climate scientists, the reputation of science and the institutions that support it have suffered. Further, were catastrophic AGW to join the dreary parade of alarms that have punctuated the recent history of affluent societies, the consequences to science and the Society could be severe. It may take a long time before reputations are restored. It is, therefore, imperative for the Society to stay away from politics and advocacy of AGW or any other science based issue, no matter how beguiling the prospect may seem.

Below is the opening paragraph of a joint statement (2005) by several academies including RS and NAS. This statement urges governments to take action on AGW. I have reviewed it for accuracy and balance, see round bracketed highlighted comments. This has been done in order to illustrate the unease and frustration that I am sure many Fellows feel when they read these official pronouncements.

There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the world’s climate (Correct, climate science is in its infancy). However there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring (Is about 0.7 degrees C increase in 150 years evidence?). The evidence comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures (No warming has occurred for the last 12 years and the recent rate of warming is about the same as the rate of rise for the period 1920 to 1940 when greenhouse gases were increasing more slowly, [12]), and subsurface ocean temperatures(No warming has occurred for 8 years, at least, [13], and sea temperatures have been varying up and down for at least 50 years, [14]), and from phenomena such as increases in average global sea levels(No significant change in the rate of rise of sea levels has occurred for at least 100 years, [15] ), glaciers retreating (Glaciers have been retreating and some reforming since the Little Ice Age, at least, [16], and there is no persuasive evidence to suggest that the retreat is accelerating), and changes to many physical and biological systems(Which ones, the sheep of St Kilda?). It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities [IPCC 2001] (See above for this "evidence"). This warming has already led to changes in the Earth's climate (Climate is defined as more than 30 years of weather, so what are they trying to say? That 0.7 degree C or so rise in temperature is an indication of climate change?).

Similarly, the most recent Royal Society statement, issued jointly with the Met Office and NERC, is replete with misleading and inaccurate assertions, [17].

Finally, I note that the Society has enthusiastically endorsed the central recommendations of the Stern Review, [18]. As noted by William Nordhaus, "the (Stern) Review should be read primarily as a document that is political in nature and has advocacy as its purpose". Moreover, Nordhaus makes a persuasive case that Stern has not got the economic assumptions right, especially on the crucial question of economic "discounting", [19]. The Nordhaus argument, placed in a wider context, is given in, [20], where it is noted that when “Prudential Handicapping” is abandoned for the “Precautionary Principle” there are no guiding criteria for an impossibly expensive journey in the endless pursuit of a zero risk world. A recent assessment of these issues offers a prescription for dealing with climate change, from whatever source, that drastically differs from that advocated by the IPCC, Stern and by the Royal Society, [21]. These and other social science studies indicate that it would be wise for statements from the Society to stay strictly within the bounds of (physical) science.

I end with a quotation from Atte Korhola, a Professor of Environmental Change at the University of Helsinki:

When later generations learn about climate science, they will classify the beginning of the twenty-first century as an embarrassing chapter in the history of science. They will wonder about our time and use it as a warning of how core values and criteria of science were allowed little by little to be forgotten, as the actual research topic of climate change turned into a political and social playground.

This letter is being sent to Martin Rees and to John Pethica. I should be grateful if you were to pass it on to members of Council.

Sincerely,

Brice Bosnich

SOURCE

***************************************

For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here

*****************************************

2012-02-12T13:53:00.004+11:30

Skeptic brains 'emit fear signals that can disrupt attempts at rational thought'

Another Leftist attempt to declare their opponents psychologically unfit. Such attacks go back a long way. There was a big burst of it among academic psychologists from 1950 onwards and the Soviets even locked up their critics in psychiatric hospitals. So the ghoulish intellectual ancestry of the writer below is clear.

But projection is a regular feature of Leftist thought so it is a good rule that whatever they say about others is really true of themselves -- JR

Yup. That's how a Canadian alarmist explains PM Stephen Harper's lack of interest in global warming. Charlie Smith writes at Straight.com:

. Recently, I came across a neurological and psychological explanation why seemingly intelligent people like the prime minister don't want to wrap their minds around climate change.

Keep in mind that Harper is the son of an accountant who worked for Imperial Oil. He probably grew up in a home with a high regard for the fossil-fuel industry.

Author William Marsden explains in his recent book Fools Rule: Inside the failed politics of climate change (Alfred A. Knopf Canada) that the when the brain is confronted with tiny changes to familiar patterns, it "quickly emits fear signals that can disrupt attempts at rational thought".

Quoting McGill University neurologist Lesley Fellows, Marsden notes that there are parts of the brain that enjoy learning new things, but other areas summon anxiety when familiar habits are disrupted.

"Climate change poses a complexity of stressful challenges with which few people know how to deal," Marsden writes.

Fellows explained to Marsden that "nebulous" threats, such as climate change, are not handled nearly as well by the brain as are immediate threats.

SOURCE

An Unsettling Week For Global Warming's 'Settled Science'

People who claim that "the science is settled" on global warming have to be pretty unsettled by the science news in the last week.

"Setttled science", of course, means that we are inevitably headed toward a disastrous warming of surface temperatures as forecast by some computer models, and we therefore need an international carbon tax or cap-and-trade system, pronto.

Settled science would know all of the important "forcings" and "feedbacks" in the climate system, such as the sensitivity of surface temperature to changes in carbon dioxide (a forcing) and the behavior of clouds, which could either enhance or counter warming (a feedback).

Now it appears that cloud tops are lowering, a totally unforeseen cooling feedback on carbon dioxide-induced warming. Writing in Geophysical Research Letters, University of Auckland's Roger Davies and Matthew Molloy conclude this could be a "significant measure of a negative cloud feedback to global warming".

The average global cloud height is linked to the average global temperature-generally, the higher the average cloud height, the higher the average surface temperature, and vice versa. The tie-in is related to the height in the atmosphere from which clouds radiate infrared radiation to space. The higher up they are, the cooler they are, and they dissipate less radiation, which means the surface stays warmer.

Problem is that there's only ten years of data, and there was a pretty decent La Nina (that's the cold side of El Nino) in the Pacific Ocean in 2008, which was clearly correlated with a decline in cloud top height. Davies and Molloy are therefore properly cautious with their conclusions, but nonetheless note that a comparison of the beginning and endpoints for their study, which minimizes the La Nina contribution, still showed a decline in cloud height.

Who'd a thunk this one? Based upon data from the paper, the cooling climate impact from the decrease in the average global cloud height more than offset the positive forcing from an increase in greenhouse gases from human activities in the last decade.

This is-yet another-explanation in the refereed literature to apologize for recent climate misbehavior. Others include changes in the sun, cruddy air from China, and a change in stratospheric water vapor.

The last one is especially interesting because that, too, is a previously unknown forcing on climate, i.e. another bullet shot at "settled science".

Then there's the new icing on the global warming cake. Data from 2003 through 2010 from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite show virtually zero net melting from the massive Himalayan ice cap, the world's "third pole". The UN, using an unrefereed publication from the World Wildlife Federation, erroneously forecast in its last climate compendium that it would be gone by 2035. In reality, it will last hundreds of years, and even longer if the current trends reflect how the ice cap reacts to warming.

How could prominent glaciologists like Ohio State's Lonnie Thompson, who isn't shy about predicting glacial armageddon (and, who along with his wife, advises Al Gore on matters climatic), have missed this one? Simple-who wants to climb to the top of a Himalayan glacier? That can be close to the oxygen-starved "dead zone" where humans cannot linger. So most measurements have been made from the bottom. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the top of these behemoths will expand in a warmer world, as the ocean evaporates more moisture which will surely precipitate as snow at higher elevations.

In addition, the GRACE satellite found that total ice loss outside of Greenland and Antarctica was previously estimated 30% too high, another reinforcement of the "lukewarm" synthesis of climate change. After adding in the GRACE measurements for Greenland and Antarctica and median estimates for the "thermal expansion" of water, the current rate of sea-level rise is 8 inches per century. While that surely will rise before 2100, it's only one inch more than what was observed last century.

What with the finding of yet another cooling feedback, no net melting (within the range of measurement error) in the Himalayan ice cap, and confirmation of a low rate of sea level rise, it's been a bad week for climate hotheads.

SOURCE

A skeptical "Occupier"

">

America's Green Enemies

By Alan Caruba

It was good news that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the nation's first nuclear power plants on February 9th, clearing the way for the construction of two reactors by Southern Company at its Plant Vogtle site near Atlanta, Georgia. The bad news is that these are the first new nuclear plants since 1978!

In a nation with a growing population and increasing need for electricity to power homes and businesses, it is nothing less than insane to not include nuclear energy in the mix of providers. Environmentalists immediately attacked the announcement using the usual scare campaigns.

Equally insane is the failure to provide the means to safely store the radioactive materials that result. Highly contested by environmentalists, the Nevada-based Yucca Mountain deep geological repository storage facility for spent reactor fuel was cancelled in 2009. Nevada's Senator Harry Reid, Majority Leader in the Senate, played a major role in this disgraceful decision. The Obama administration terminated funding for the development of the site in 2011, leaving the nation with no long-term storage site.

In a similar fashion, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has waged a long war on the provision of energy; most recently with the imposition of its Utility MACT rule on plant carbon dioxide (CO2) and mercury emissions, neither of which pose any threat. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, decried the rule as one "intended to undermine the viability of coal, one of our country's most abundant and reliable energy sources."

Despite having spent billions to meet the demand for upgrades of the technology to trap such emissions, coal-fired plants all over the nation are in the process of being closed as a result of the MACT rule. These "greenhouse gas" rules are baseless insofar as CO2 is not a pollutant and is vital to the growth of all vegetation on the planet. There is no proof that minor mercury emissions represent any threat to public health.

The EPA use of bogus "computer models" to support wild health claims argues for an end to this agency and the return of its responsibilities to state environmental agencies.

In January, the American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), the leading authority, warned that "environmental regulations are shown to be the number one risk to reliability over the next one to five years."

The Institute for Energy Research has stated that "Beyond the 38 gigawatts of electricity capacity that has already been announced to retire, NERC estimates that another 36 to 59 gigawatts of capacity will come off-line by 2018, depending on the `scope and timing' of EPA regulations. Together, nearly a quarter of our coal-fired capacity could be off-line by 2018, marking the first time in energy history that installed coal-fired capacity has declined."

This is a threat to the viability and security of a nation that sits atop the largest deposits of coal in the world! It is a nation in which coal provides 50% of its electricity.

In a similar fashion, environmentalists, after a long propaganda war against coal, have launched an equally massive campaign against natural gas, attacking the use of "fracking", a technology that has been safely used for the last fifty years or more to access equally vast reserves of natural gas.

Likewise the cost of automobiles has been systematically driven up by the wholly false EPA assertion that their CO2 emissions represent a threat to clean air. The imposition of a mandate to mix gasoline with ethanol has resulted in greater CO2 emissions while, at the same time, reducing the mileage of cars. In addition, the use of food crops like corn for the production of ethanol, have driven up food prices.

Anyone who has lost electricity due to a blizzard or a hurricane knows how totally dependent the nation is on reliable and affordable electricity, and knows how totally dependent they are on is provision.

The simple fact is that the present and prior administration's EPA, the Department of Transportation, and others have been lying to Congress and the American public for years regarding their claims about air pollution and energy provision. The Interior Department just put uranium-rich acres of land off-limits to mining.

Environmental organizations and special interest groups like the American lung Association are a fifth column of enemies within the nation.

The global warming hoax-now called climate change-is on its last legs. Nations around the world that have wasted billions on the claims made for "renewable" energy, solar and wind, are pulling back from further support. The "science" behind these claims has been totally and utterly refuted.

Even the United Nations, the source of the global warming hoax, is now switching its debased claims to a new hoax based on so-called endangered species.

The loss of tens of thousands of jobs in the energy and transportation sectors, as well as energy-intensive industries, is incalculable. EPA demands and mandates are deliberately undermining the nation's economy.

The lives and safety of Americans are under attack by environmental organizations and, if they are successful, the only outcome would be the deaths of millions here and around the world from hunger and the lack of power to turn on the lights, heat and cool homes, and power industries.

The planet is not running out of oil, coal, or natural gas. It can use more nuclear power, not less.

We are witnessing an environmental attack on American energy and, ultimately, on America.

SOURCE

VOA: Debate Over Global Warming Heats Up

Even the U.S. Government's propaganda outfit is rethinking global warmism. The Voice of America reports:

"Hardly a week goes by that we aren't reporting a story on concerns about global warming. But, a growing number of people in the scientific community are coming forward to express doubts about the prevailing scientific opinions concerning global warming."

No doubt the warmists will kick the crap out of the VOA for that sentence of honesty.

SOURCE

Why Geo-Engineering Is Like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

Climate Science Goes Megalomaniacal

A February 6 report in the Guardian describes budding efforts to displace decarbonizing with geo-engineering as the goal for reducing the predicted catastrophic effects of global warming. At present, these efforts are being funded by mega-wealthy private citizens like Bill Gates, but some traditional environmentalists as well as some decarbonizers are becoming worried that climate theory is setting off in a new direction. Perhaps that is why the story appeared in the Guardian of all places. Instead of its usual uncritical climate gushiness, the Guardian delves into the smarmier side of climate science - its dependence on money.

Their dependence on money is a subject proponents of anthropogenic global warming avoid like the plague, even though they are wont to accuse anyone who disagrees with them as being in the pay of the fossil fuel companies. The Guardian report is important, because it inadvertently shines a light on how the intersection of money and groupthink among insular cohesive groups sharing a common interest is discrediting climate science in particular, but also science in general. (I am not introducing groupthink as a casual buzz word but in the context the distinguished psychologist Irving Janis used in his classic book Groupthink. Anyone who believes groupthink is not a problem in the insular self-righteous climate science community, should read the Hockey Stick Illusion or wade through just a few of the infamous emails hacked from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.)

Obviously, geo-engineering the earth's climate would be a big deal, culturally as well as scientifically. It would make the pyramids, the Manhattan Project or the Apollo Program look puny and intellectually trivial in comparison. By necessity, indeed by definition, geo-engineering would be forever dependent on analyses of the outputs of computerized global climate models (GCMs), because we can not put anything as complex as the world's atmosphere on a lab bench or in a wind tunnel for testing. Computer models, like all scientific theories, are mental constructs of reality - really analogies - to represent and cope with that reality. The first point to note is that no model can be perfect or exact in its representation of reality. All models are imperfect and therefore mutable, as the historian Thomas Kuhn, among others, explained in his classic, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. All scientific models must be continually tested to ensure their predictions match up to external conditions, and as the precision of observations increases, sooner of later, all scientific models become creaky and eventually need to be replaced with a newer construction to better explain a reality that is always receding as one seems to get closer to it by making more precise observations.

The second point to note is that GCMs are complex mathematical constructs made by like-minded or group-thinking minds. They are not the products of individuals. This requires a consensus-based mentality and the intense communal effort required to build these models reinforces that mentality. The need to raise money to pay for these models further intensifies the communal outlook. Consensus building, and especially the invocation of consensual authority, shapes the mentality of contemporary climate scientists in a very different way from the conceptions of physics that shaped the individual mental outlooks during the experiments that produced the models of the atom that competed for acceptance during the first half of the twentieth century. The great physicist who invented the first model of the atom, Niels Bohr, for example, used to introduce his lectures by saying everything he was about to say was wrong. By that he meant no theory is eternal.

You will not hear Bohr's kind of humility, tolerance, or encouragement of dissent and debate from dogmatic proponents of global warming like Michael Mann or James Hansen, ironically, both physicists, even though the GCMs they are basing their sense of authority on have not been validated with empirical data (or in the case of Mann's infamous Hockey Stick, have been shown to be statistically flawed). The dogmatic sense of certainty exhibited by goupthinking climate scientists exists despite the fact that the comprehensive data needed to test the GCM models for matchups to the environment simply do not exist. Yet, this uncertainty is not at all unlike that which created the far more open-minded debate among the advocates of different atomic models, like Bohr, Schr”dinger, or Heisenberg in the early Twentieth Century. So, the authority of the GCMs needed to justify geo-engineering must be based on unvalidated assumptions about reality - really conjectures which are now stated as dogma, like, for example, the crucial quantification of the sensitivity of the warming response to changes in CO2 levels.

But there is more to the speculative analytical pathway leading climate science into the geo-engineering cul de sac, which brings me to my third point. To justify the huge public expenditures and diversion of resources needed to geo-engineer the world, it will be necessary to perform cost-effectiveness analyses of the predicted benefits in a political context to convince policy makers of the need to undertake such a drastic and costly course of action. Although the Guardian does not mention it, I have met some global warming alarmists (all card-carrying decarbonizers) who are already advocating that we combine the output of the GCMs with econometric models of the global economy to predict the global relationship between the monetary inputs to the economic benefits of global temperature reduction via solutions like carbon sequestration, etc. If you want to know how accurate econometric models are, just ask Alan Greenspan. This kind of operation, clearly, would be like piling a house of cards on top of a house of cards.

Yet, the econometric-GCM mansion of cards is probably inevitable. It is a tiny logical step for advocates of geo-engineering to link their theoretical GCMs to econometric models, and given the money needed (and the sacrifices that would be made elsewhere), cost-benefit analyses will eventually become necessary. A policy decision to launch a "Manhattan Plus" project to geo-engineer the earth's climate based on analyses of the output of such poorly understood computer models (GCMs and econometric) would go beyond madness and descend into megalomania. The Guardian report inadvertently makes the madness quite clear: some climate scientists are calling for a political consensus to geo-engineer the globe, because the world cannot reach a political agreement on the vastly simpler problem of simply reducing carbon emissions. Such an argument is at once illogical and bizarre. Perhaps this yawning disconnect is why this report appeared in the Guardian, usually the most rabid pro global-warming mainstream newspaper in the world.

But of course, the megalomania implicit in geo-engineering has nothing to do with madness; it is about a group of like-minded intelligent people trying to feather their nest by creating a cash cow to do what they think is right and good. This is something I saw every day in the Pentagon.

Indeed, creating cash cows in the name of the greater good is the essence of the Pentagon's game. My 28 years experience in the Pentagon made me quite familiar with the steps needed to create the financial equivalent of a self-licking ice cream cone: (1) Inflate a threat to scare the bejeezus out of the people and induce politicians to unleash a torrent of publicly-funded money; (2) then, front-load a solution to neutralize that threat by overstating its benefits, understating its costs, and downplaying the uncertainties surrounding what is at best a poorly understood course of action; and then, (3) politically engineer a social safety net by spreading the money (grants and contracts) around the polity to lock in the constituent dependencies needed to keep the money flowing after the inevitable problems begin to surface.

Incidentally, the geo-engineering game, if publicly funded, will be manna from heaven for the US hi-tech weapons industry, which cannot compete commercially, but is in need of diversification, because of marginal cutbacks in the rate of future growth in the Pentagon's budget. You can bet what little is left of your IRA that defense mega-giants like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrup Grumman will be attracted to the cash flow potential of geo-engineering like flies to honey, should a serious geo-engineering effort begin to materialize.

Speaking of the similarities between the advocates of geo-engineering to the inhabitants of the Pentagon and the defense industry - consider, as an example, the resemblance of using computer simulations to cope with the uncertainties of geo-engineering to the use of computer simulations in the now deeply troubled F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. Bear in mind, the Pentagon wrote the script for basing high-cost decisions with long term consequences on highly complex, poorly-understood computer driven simulations, while short-shrifting testing. It has more experience in modeling than just about any organization in the world. It began cost-effectiveness modeling on computers in the mid 1960s and has continued with increasing intensity ever since. Nevertheless, the unfolding debacle of the F-35 has taken these kinds of simulations to a new level of disaster: No less an authority that Frank Kendall, the acting Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition said recently that the F-35 program was started with the idea of putting it into production before it was fully tested under "the optimistic prediction that we were good enough at modeling and simulation that we would not find problems in flight test." . He characterized this decision as "acquisition malpractice" . that . "was wrong, and now we are paying for that." Of course, Kendall's use of "we" is a wee bit disingenuous, because it is the taxpayer not the Pentagon who is footing the malpractice bill.

It goes without saying that the uncertainties limiting our understanding of our ability to model the future consequences of a decision to design and produce the F-35 are trivial compared to those of geo-engineering the entire climate system. But humility is not in order, because geo-engineers, like milcrats and defense contractors, will be spending other people's money.

SOURCE

Good intentions but clean energy price too high

Comment from Australia

There are few things more dangerous than a bad policy built on good intentions. Communism springs to mind ("commune" is such a lovely word). The vast public housing estates built across the English speaking world in the 1960s and 1970s are another. The first famine in the Soviet Union, and the social dystopia in "the projects", should have quickly revealed that the policies were misconceived. Yet because the values behind the policies were ostensibly noble, they continued to operate on the original intention rather than the results. So it is with the government's Solar Flagships program.

"Renew" is also a gorgeous English word that carries with it a cache of that precious and elusive substance - hope. I don't want to disparage the search for diversified and sustainable energy security. I am concerned, as a taxpayer, that we get value for the $10 billion largesse we are pouring into renewables, as the price of Bob Brown's support for a minority government.

The policy was this week mugged by reality when both its Solar Flagship projects crashed. A $300 million grant to photovoltaic Moree Solar Farm must now be re-tendered because the proponents failed to attract matching private investment, in part because BP Solar, which was providing the technology, announced it was getting out of solar globally. (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the Czech Republic have all slashed solar subsidies and four of the biggest solar systems suppliers have filed for bankruptcy in the past 10 months). A solar thermal project at Chinchilla in Queensland (which has suffered a $300 million cost blowout since July 2011) has had to be granted a six-month stay of execution because it is yet to secure a customer.

The former Labor Leader Mark Latham now looks prophetic in his December 2011 statement: "The Government has put aside $10 billion for so-called 'industry development' . this is the biggest industry slush fund in the history of the nation. The technologies aren't ready, the businesses aren't established to absorb this money in any productive way."

Latham is an echo of growing unrest among the more hard-headed inside the ALP, including those committed to "urgent action on climate change". Kevin Rudd's former economics adviser, Dr Andrew Charlton, referred in his Quarterly Essay 44, to "the wide gap between rhetoric and reality when it comes to clean energy . Neither wind nor solar power can currently provide continuous base-load power . these sources deliver nothing to the grid when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining". Charlton's thesis supports public investment over time but warns: "Trying to roll out large-scale renewable energy with current technology would be a terrible waste of money. We would spend billions of dollars installing expensive and inefficient renewable power with technology that will soon be outdated".

The British Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron, this week faced a revolt of 101 MPs demanding a dramatic cut to a £400 million subsidy to the "inefficient" onshore wind turbine industry. They were not without a factual basis for their concerns after Verso Economics' March 2011 evaluation of The Economic Impact of Renewable Energy Policy found that: "Policy to promote the renewable electricity sector . is economically damaging. Government should not see this as an economic opportunity, therefore, but should focus debate instead on whether these costs, and the damage done to the environment, are worth the climate change mitigation".

That finding is supported by Bjorn Lomborg's Copenhagen Consensus Centre, which commissioned five economists to review renewables policy. Their advice? "Cutting carbon is extremely expensive, especially in the short term, because the alternatives to fossil fuels are few and costly."

The only source of large-scale, storable, renewable energy is recharge-pumping hydro-electricity. But the Greens believe climate change has permanently reduced rainfall and were founded in Tasmania on a commitment to stop the construction of dams. In a Brown/Gillard government, the taxpayer can look forward to massive, well-intentioned but poorly targeted spending on immature technologies that will deliver little enduring benefit.

SOURCE

***************************************

For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here

*****************************************

2012-02-11T18:17:00.001+11:30

1939: When Climate Science Still Involved Actual Scientists

Real scientists are not afraid to say: "We don't know"; Glacial retreat goes back a long way

The Sydney Morning Herald Friday 13 January 1939

RIDDLE OF THE GLACIERS. Ice Retreating. GEOLOGISTS STILL PUZZLED.

CANBERRA, Thursday: One of the riddles which is puzzling geologists all over the world is the continuous retreat of the ice glaciers. Does this phenomenon indicate that the sun is getting hotter as some astronomers believe or is it dependent upon comparatively unimportant changes in the earth’s atmosphere?

Consideration such as these were discussed by Professor R. Speight, formerly professor of geology at Canterbury College, Christchurch, New Zealand and now curator of the Canterbury Museum. In his presidential address to the geology section of the Science Congress today. His subject was “Some Aspects of Glaciation in New Zealand.”

The steady retreat of the glaciers in New Zealand he said had been observed during the last 70 years. Photographs taken in 1896 and 1935 showed that several glaciers had retreated distances varying from 100 yards to half a mile in 40 years

(The EPA uses 1935 as the start date for their photos, and they pretend that they don’t know that the glaciers were rapidly retreating during the 19th century)

WORLD-WIDE PHENOMENON

The phenomenon, however, was world-wide. Equally impressive records were obtainable from Switzerland, Scandinavia, Iceland and the United States. Attempts had been made to reconcile these observations with the Bruckner cycle of climate change every 16 years. Pro-fessor Speight said, but so many discrepan- cies occurred that in his opinion precise synchronisation with that period could not be accepted.

In Alaska glaciers had been retreating from 100 to 200 years, the average rate of recession being about 50 feet a year. The Antarctic ice-sheet also showed signs of recent retreat.

“In fact,” said Professor Speight, “no case is recorded of a region of the world in which there are present signs of an advance. This is quite apart from the general retreat since the pleistocene age and may be merely a pacing phase. Its precise significance can only be determined by continued observation.”

SOURCE

United Nations pushing a 'green economy'

They're a talking shop for tyrants anyway so new tyrannies of course attract them

At a closed-door retreat in a Long Island mansion late last October, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his topmost aides brainstormed about how the global organization could benefit from a "unique opportunity" to reshape the world, starting with the Rio + 20 Summit on Sustainable Development, which takes place in Brazil in June.

A copy of the confidential minutes of the meeting was obtained by Fox News. According to that document, the 29-member group, known as the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB), discussed bold ambitions that stretch for years beyond the Rio conclave to consolidate a radical new global green economy, promote a spectrum of sweeping new social policies and build an even more important role for U.N. institutions “ to manage the process of globalization better.”

At the same time, the gathering acknowledged that their ambitions were on extremely shaky ground, starting with the fact that, as Ban’s chief organizer for the Rio gathering put it, “there was still no agreement on the definition of the green economy, the main theme of the [Rio] conference.”

But according to the minutes, that did not seem to restrain the group’s ambitions.

Its members see Rio as the springboard for consolidation of an expanding U.N. agenda for years ahead, driven by still more U.N.-sponsored global summits that would, as one participant put it, “ensure that the U.N. connected with the roots of the current level of global discontent.”

Among other things, the CEB heard Ban’s top organizer, a U.N. Under Secretary General from China named Sha Zukang, declare that the wish list for the Rio + 20 meeting, already being touted as a landmark environmental conclave on the issue of “global environmental governance,” included making it:

* “the catalyst” for solidifying a global economic, social and political agenda, built around “green economy” goals

* a means to “reorient public and private decision-making” to make the world’s poorest people the new economy’s “main beneficiaries,”

* a method of also reorienting national decision-making in countries around the world to put the new agenda “at the heart of national ministries,”

* the occasion to create new bodies, like a U.N. Sustainable Development Council, similar to the U.N. Human Rights Council, to help guide the global process further in the years ahead, or give additional responsibilities to the U.N. Environmental Program (UNEP), the world body’s chief environmental agency..

Other participants chimed in with additional ideas, including the notion from one key organizer that “the U.N. in Rio should be the voice of the planet and its people.”

At the same time, conference organizer Sha noted, “2012 was not the best year” for driving new environmental bargains, due to the global financial crisis walloping the world’s rich economies, a prevalent “atmosphere of general trust deficit” between the world’s rich and developing countries and that many countries (notably including the U.S.) were holding national elections that left their future policies up in the air.

Those realities had already stymied the latest attempt to forge a multi-trillion-dollar bargain to transfer wealth from rich nations to poor ones in the name of controlling “climate change,” at a meeting last December in Durban, South Africa.

As one of the participants, Achim Steiner, head of the UNEP, put it, according to the minutes: “In framing its role and mission, the U.N. not only had the preoccupations of the financial and economic crisis, but also had to grapple with the phenomenon of a geo-economically transformed world that was not yet geopolitically articulated.”

Translation: One of the U.N.’s challenges is that the world had not been globally reorganized in political terms -- yet -- to the same extent that it had been globally reorganized in economic terms.

But in general, the members of the CEB saw that as an opportunity for the world organization, which they clearly hoped to make central to that global re-articulation.

More HERE

First you scare ‘em, then you snare ‘em – how the UEA treats 13 and 14 year olds

That epicentre of scarequakes on climate and carbon dioxide, the University of East Anglia (UEA) has been lowering its sights recently to target more than 60 early teenagers in their neighbourhood. Power Engineering carries the story, as does the print edition of the Norwich Evening News on 9th February. The impression it gives me is that they want them to be receptive to renewables as a source of energy, and at the same time get them involved in a scary scenario about a planetary emergency to get them on side.

Why would a university stoop to such a thing? Let us first look at it:

First, you get the youngsters to imagine that fossil fuels have disappeared, that this is really scary, and that they must come up with ideas to save the world. You pay an outside consultancy to do this, since it is one of their suite of activities for the young, and they no doubt have it down to a fine art. Now by itself, I can imagine really good teachers, with the right type of pupils, engaging their attention in such a way (with no need of course to pay others to do so). It is easy to imagine this could lead to lots of ideas and useful discussions. But what about the rest of it?

Second, you bring in people with a vested interest in renewable energy (in this case Aquaterra , Seajacks and a tiny start-up called Wind Elements Ltd) and/or carbon reduction schemes and devices (in this case, Lotus Cars and the University of East Anglia – the UEA, home of the Low Carbon Innovation Centre, commented on here in 2010, and of course of CRU, perhaps most widely known as the source of the Climategate materials ). You arrange for the pupils to speed-date their way amongst them.

Third, you alert the press to what you are up to, perhaps invite them to be there.

Fourth, you invite a children’s hero to attend, in this case a local footballer, perhaps in order to increase the possibility of a positive response from the press, and maybe even encourage more pupils to attend.

Now how does it look? Can you imagine this happening in the old Soviet Union (‘First, imagine the capitalists have closed down all their businesses in some yet-to-be-liberated land, and you have to save the people there from starvation. Second, let me introduce Commissar Crulcicski who wishes to tell the class about the new 5 year plan, and the glorious ideals of the Party. You will each have to talk with him. You need pay no attention to the comrade reporter from Pravda sitting at the back, but the famous footballer Stakhanovily Matthewski is here to ~~distract~~ deal with any technical questions that may arise. Let us begin.’)

There’s more. The no doubt well-intentioned facilitators of the simulation game (Camouflaged Learning) describe it as follows:
‘As the day begins, the students are informed that the Earth’s remaining reserves of fossil fuels have finally been exhausted and, as a result, the fabric of what we consider normal life has immediately started to crumble. No more light, no more heat, no more iPads. No more anything, in fact, meaning something needs to be done- and soon- before the world falls into total chaos.’

The UEA representative at the event is reported as hyping this up just a bit: ‘The students must solve the most catastrophic, significant and terrifying crisis imaginable – a world without power’, she said, ‘…It is essential that they act fast because, unless they’re successful, life as we know it could come to an end.’

If I were of a cynical disposition, I’d call this event ‘Camouflaged Selling – of renewables by the companies, and of alarmism by the university’. Perish the thought. Who would do such a thing with such young people?

Footnote:

Poor pupils of Norwich. A similar wheeze was followed by energy giant, EDF, last year at a high school in Norwich when they invited a famous athlete to attend a sustainability day of their devising. To their credit though, it seems they might have skipped the bit where you first scare the kids:

‘“Days like these are something that pupils will remember for the rest of their lives and it is great that EDF Energy can combine this with a way of getting people together to fight climate change.”

It is hoped that the school’s sustainable efforts will inspire others in the local community to follow in its footsteps and think about what they can do differently in their lives to be greener.
Clive Steed, sustainability manager for EDF Energy said: “We can only tackle climate change effectively by taking action together. As a leading energy company, EDF Energy has an ethical responsibility and the expertise to inspire people to reduce their carbon footprint, which is why we kicked off Green Britain Day.’

SOURCE

How Capitalism Makes Catastrophes Non-Catastrophic (Key data point for energy/climate debate)

One of the greatest and most unheralded successes of industrial capitalism is making our climate eminently livable.

The mass-production of sturdy, weather-proof buildings … the universal availability of heating and air conditioning … the ability to flee the most vicious storms through modern transportation … the protection from drought through modern irrigation … the protection from disease through modern sanitation–all of these have led to a 99 percent reduction in the number of climate-related deaths over the last century.

Given how obsessed America is about climate change (or some intellectuals/politicians want us to be), these facts should be well-known and incorporated into every discussion of industrial policy. Those who claim to care about a livable climate for the future should strive to understand the mechanisms by which industrial capitalism has already created the most livable climate in history.

If they did so, they would learn from such thinkers as Ayn Rand and Ludwig Von Mises how capitalism, by permitting only voluntary associations among men, unleashes the individual human mind–and that millions of such minds, free to associate and trade however they choose, will engage in stupendously intricate, collaborative planning for everything from how to make sure they can always get groceries to how to account for nearly any conceivable weather contingency.

Armed with an understanding of individual freedom and individual planning, the climate-concerned would suspect that any preventable problem in dealing with weather–such as widespread vulnerability to flooding–is caused by government interference in voluntary trade, such as taxpayer-financed flood insurance that encourages people to live in high-flooding areas.

Center for American Regress?

Unfortunately, an understanding of capitalism and climate is sorely lacking at the Center for America Progress, the hottest left-wing think-tank today. On its blog, ThinkProgress, the Center recently ran a piece by Christian Parenti entitled Climate Action Opponents Are Ensuring the Outcome They Claim to Oppose: Big Government.

A little translation is in order. From an individualistic perspective, “climate action” refers to the actions that free citizens take to make their climate as livable as possible–the kinds of actions that decreased climate vulnerability 99% in the last century.

But from the collectivist, statist perspective of CAP, “Climate Action” refers to dramatic caps on energy generated from hydrocarbons–the energy source that runs the industrial capitalist system that has increased our life expectancy from 30 to 80 years.

How will banning the vast majority of modern energy production help us oppose “Big Government”? Because otherwise we would face so many catastrophic storms, the article argues, that the government would necessarily become a disaster-recovery Leviathan.

After all, Mr. Parenti takes as given, government is the only entity that can adapt to storms: “To adapt to climate change will mean coming together on a large scale and mobilizing society’s full range of resources. In other words, Big Storms require Big Government.”

Big Storms Require Limited Government

In fact, the larger-scale a problem, the more freedom is essential. As economist George Reisman brilliantly explains in his landmark essay on global warming economics,

Even if global warming is a fact, the free citizens of an industrial civilization will have no great difficulty in coping with it—that is, of course, if their ability to use energy and to produce is not crippled by the environmental movement and by government controls otherwise inspired. The seeming difficulties of coping with global warming, or any other large-scale change, arise only when the problem is viewed from the perspective of government central planners.

It would be too great a problem for government bureaucrats to handle (as is the production even of an adequate supply of wheat or nails, as the experience of the whole socialist world has so eloquently shown). But it would certainly not be too great a problem for tens and hundreds of millions of free, thinking individuals living under capitalism to solve. It would be solved by means of each individual being free to decide how best to cope with the particular aspects of global warming that affected him.

Individuals would decide, on the basis of profit-and-loss calculations, what changes they needed to make in their businesses and in their personal lives, in order best to adjust to the situation. They would decide where it was now relatively more desirable to own land, locate farms and businesses, and live and work, and where it was relatively less desirable, and what new comparative advantages each location had for the production of which goods. Factories, stores, and houses all need replacement sooner or later. In the face of a change in the relative desirability of different locations, the pattern of replacement would be different. Perhaps some replacements would have to be made sooner than otherwise. To be sure, some land values would fall and others would rise. Whatever happened, individuals would respond in a way that minimized their losses and maximized their possible gains. The essential thing they would require is the freedom to serve their self-interests by buying land and moving their businesses to the areas rendered relatively more attractive, and the freedom to seek employment and buy or rent housing in those areas.

Given this freedom, the totality of the problem would be overcome. This is because, under capitalism, the actions of the individuals, and the thinking and planning behind those actions, are coordinated and harmonized by the price system (as many former central planners of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have come to learn). As a result, the problem would be solved in exactly the same way that tens and hundreds of millions of free individuals have solved greater problems than global warming, such as redesigning the economic system to deal with the replacement of the horse by the automobile, the settlement of the American West, and the release of the far greater part of the labor of the economic system from agriculture to industry.

Conclusion

We should be thankful that previous generations were not governed by the “ThinkProgress” philosophy of regarding government coercion as the solution to future changes, whether economic or environmental. Had they followed the near religious state-worship of Center for American Progress, we would have had the equivalent of Barack Obama or Christian Parenti dictating to millions of Americans when, how, or if they could transition to automobiles or go West or leave their farms. If we do indeed face worse weather ahead, then nothing is more important in preparing than more industry and more freedom.

SOURCE

The Galileo of Global Warming

By Robert Tracinski

I have written before about how the left loves to invoke the example of Galileo in order to present themselves as the great defenders of science against all of those knuckle-dragging religious bigots who don't believe in global warming. But these same people don't understand science very well themselves (remember amateur neurologist Janeane Garofalo lecturing us about the "limbic brain"?), so they end up using Galileo, a man who defied the "consensus" of his day, as a propaganda talking point to enforce the consensus of today.

It occurred to me a while back that there is something worse about this invocation of Galileo, because there is a modern-day equivalent to Galileo, specifically on the issue of global warming—and he's on the other side. In this more civilized age, he is thankfully not threatened with torture or any kind of persecution. But he is a pioneer of new and important scientific truths who is being ignored and vilified because his discoveries run counter to the quasi-religious dogma of our day.

That man is the Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark, who seems to have discovered the most important factor that actually regulates Earth's climate, and who is quietly in the process of proving it.

I linked last year to Svensmark's latest big breakthrough, but I didn't get a chance to discuss it much, so I want to give a little more detail now, then show one of the recent consequences of Svensmark's achievement.

Let me briefly sum up Svensmark's theory. The temperature of the Earth, he argues, is regulated by the intensity of solar radiation, but not in the obvious way. It is not that the increase is solar radiation heats the Earth directly. (It does, of course, but not to a sufficient degree to explain climate variations.) Rather, an increase in solar radiation extends the Sun's magnetic field, which shields Earth from cosmic rays (highly energetic, fast-moving charged particles that come from deep space). How does this affect the climate? Here is the crux of Svensmark's argument. When cosmic rays hit the atmosphere, he argues, their impact on air molecules creates nucleation sites for the condensation of water vapor, leading to an increase in cloud-formation. Since clouds tend to bounce solar radiation back into space, increased cloud cover cools the Earth, while decreased cloud cover makes the Earth warmer.

So if Svensmark is right, lower solar radiation means more cosmic rays, more clouds, and a cooler Earth, while higher solar radiation means fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds, and a warmer Earth.

Those who have followed the global warming controversy over the years may recall that cloud-formation is one of the major gaps in the computerized climate "models" used by the consensus scientists to predict global warming. They have never had a theory to explain how and why clouds form or to account accurately for their effect on the climate. Svensmark has smashed through this glaring gap in their theory.

Like I said, Svensmark hasn't just put this theory out there. He has been working to prove it. He has done some studies that attempted to track measurements of cosmic ray flux against surface temperature and cloud cover, with some success. But his big breakthrough last year was a long-awaited experiment at Switzerland's CERN particle accelerator that demonstrated the most controversial part of Svensmark's theory.

It is widely accepted that the Sun's magnetic field helps shield Earth from cosmic rays, and it is also widely accepted that increased cloud cover cools the Earth (though expect this to suddenly come into question as Svensmarks' theory gains ground). What Svensmark needed to demonstrate was that cosmic rays form nucleation sites that seed clouds.

Hence the aptly named CLOUD experiment performed at CERN last year, with the results published last August. The experiment was actually more than a decade in the making, but as Lawrence Solomon explains, it was help back for years by the scientific bureaucracy because of its potentially unwelcome results.

The results are indeed unwelcome, at least for the advocates of the global warming consensus. Anthony Watts explained the experiment at his blog, Watts Up With That? The CLOUD experiment used CERN's particle accelerator to send a beam of artificially generated charged particles—simulated cosmic rays—into a gas-filled chamber and then measured the formation of aerosols, the kind of compounds that can serve as cloud nucleation sites. It found a direct and very significant relationship.

This is not a total demonstration of Svensmark's theory. The Nature paper on the CLOUD experiment notes that "the fraction of these freshly nucleated particles that grow to sufficient sizes to seed cloud droplets, as well as the role of organic vapors in the nucleation and growth processes, remain open questions experimentally." But last year's result is a clear demonstration of a crucial step in Svensmark's theory. It's certainly a lot farther than the warmthers have ever gotten in demonstrating the physical basis for their theory.

("Warmther," by the way, is a coin termed—if I recall correctly—by occasional TIA Daily contributor Tom Minchin. It's intended to put advocates of the global warming hysteria in the same category as the "truthers" and the "birthers.")

What impact did the CLOUD experiment have? Well, the global warming establishment set out to make sure it would have no impact. Like I said, this is a more civilized age, so Svensmark and his colleagues will not be subject to an Inquisition. They will just be ignored, for as long as the entrenched establishment can manage to do so.

This campaign began immediately. James Delingpole's overview of the reaction to CLOUD quotes the statement given to the press by Rolf-Dieter Heuer, Director General of CERN.

I have asked the colleagues to present the results clearly, but not to interpret them. That would go immediately into the highly political arena of the climate change debate. One has to make clear that cosmic radiation is only one of many parameters.

I don't know what I find more amusing about this quote: the fact that he is directing scientists not to draw conclusions from data, or the fact that he then proceeds to assert his own interpretation of the data, that "cosmic radiation is only one of many parameters." Well, no, if Svensmark's theory is right, it is not "only one of many," it is the central factor, far more important than human emissions of carbon dioxide. But thanks for telling us all ahead of time what we're supposed to think.

Heuer's statement is an example of an old warmther practice of releasing scientific results to the media only on the condition that upper-level science bureaucrats, the ones who want to increase or preserve the funding they get from government, provide the politically appropriate "spin" to the press. In this case, the appropriate spin is, "move along, nothing to see here."

The BEST study provides an example of a different kind of spin. BEST, which stands for Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature, was a study begun in response to the Climategate scandal. Part of the Climategate scandal, you may recall, was the refusal of prominent climate scientists to share their raw data on global temperatures, as well as evidence that this data was unreliable. So Berkeley scientist Richard Muller, a believer in global warming who nonetheless publicly criticized the Climategate miscreants, started a program to examine the accuracy of global temperature measurements and make the data publicly available. As part of his team, he drafted Judith Curry, a scientist with a history of sympathy for global warming skeptics.

But Muller is still a warmther, and old habits die hard. So he released the study's first set of data shortly before an international global warming conference—then pulled the old warmther trick of summing it up in a press release promoting the politically correct conclusions, claiming that this data "proved you should not be a skeptic, at least not any longer." Curry was then forced to go the newspapers to contradict this spin, telling the Daily Mail that "There is no scientific basis for saying that warming hasn’t stopped. To say that there is detracts from the credibility of the data, which is very unfortunate."

The Daily Mail, being a London tabloid, present the controversy in very sensational terms. But here is the crucial passage that indicates what is going on.

[A]lthough Prof Curry is the second named author of all four papers, Prof Muller failed to consult her before deciding to put them on the internet earlier this month, when the peer review process had barely started, and to issue a detailed press release at the same time.

He also briefed selected journalists individually. "It is not how I would have played it," Prof. Curry said. "I was informed only when I got a group email. I think they have made errors and I distance myself from what they did."

I am afraid Professor Curry has been a bit naïve, because this is an exact repeat of the technique long used by the organizers of those United Nations global warming panels. The technique is to get a bunch of honest, legitimate scientists to contribute to your report and be listed as "co-authors," so long as their contributions are safely buried in the dense minutiae of the body of the report, which no politician or reporter is going to bother reading. Then, without their knowledge or consent, you "summarize" the work of these "co-authors" in a politically slanted press release and claim all of them as part of the "consensus" for your political conclusions.

So there you have the rules of the game, as played by the political-scientific establishment. If you have a study that you think backs up the global warming dogma, preface it with a press release drawing wildly speculative conclusions from the data. If you have a study that contradicts the global warming dogma, preface it with a press release declaring that no conclusions can be drawn.

But that's not going to work, which brings me to the recent news item that I mentioned at the beginning. James Delingpole's Daily Telegraph blog alerted me to the latest. In Germany, where the global warming dogma has been very deeply entrenched, one of the founding fathers of Germany's environmentalist movement, Professor Fritz Vahrenholt, has converted into a global warming skeptic and is promoting his views in a new book and a series of article in Bild, a major German newspaper. What caused the change? According to one account:

Vahrenholt’s skepticism started when he was asked to review an IPCC report on renewable energy. He found hundreds of errors. When he pointed them out, IPCC officials simply brushed them aside. Stunned, he asked himself, “Is this the way they approached the climate assessment reports?”

Vahrenholt decided to do some digging. His colleague Dr. Lüning also gave him a copy of Andrew Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion. He was horrified by the sloppiness and deception he found.

But longtime skeptic Benny Peiser also notes another factor: "the work of the Danish researcher Henrik Svensmark and other climate scientists convinced [Vahrenholt] that the fluctuating magnetic field of the sun is a driver of climate change."

This is the way things are going to be from now on. The discoveries of the Galileo of global warming—to appreciate the irony, call Svensmark's view the heliocentric theory—is out there, the evidence for it is building, and that fact can no longer be hidden or ignored. If more brutal methods of suppression couldn't stop the truths spoken by Galileo, today's soft suppression of science isn't going to work, either.

SOURCE

Australia: Carbon tax to hit car jobs

CAR parts and plastics manufacturers warn their industries could be the next to shed jobs because the carbon tax will hit them hard.

And the future of Alcoa's Geelong smelter and 600 workers' jobs was no clearer after high-level meetings yesterday involving the company's bosses, Premier Ted Baillieu and federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott. Regional Cities Minister Denis Napthine revealed only that discussions had been "frank" and Alcoa had made no specific demands.

Mr Abbott called for the carbon tax to be dropped to save the jobs, saying: "With the carbon tax, the aluminium industry is essentially dead in this country."

The Federal Government, which is giving the aluminium industry $3.5 billion in compensation, said the big problem for Alcoa was the soaring dollar, not the tax.

Despite previously flagging that the carbon tax would be a significant cost to the company, Alcoa said yesterday it was not a factor in its decision this week to launch a review of its loss-making smelter at Point Henry in Geelong.

But car parts manufacturers, who employ about 43,000 Victorians, took the opportunity to warn a carbon tax could be a decisive impost on a fragile industry.

Federation of Automotive Products Manufacturers chief executive Richard Reilly said continuing government help would be needed. "We are going to be impacted by a carbon tax, and our competitors (overseas) won't," he said. "If we want to have a car industry, we need continued co-investment."

Vinyl Council of Australia chief executive Sophi MacMillan warned the combination of a high Australian dollar, imported products and the impending carbon tax would "weed out" many exposed businesses. "It is difficult for the manufacturing sector in Australia at the moment across the board whether you are in plastics or other materials," she said.

SOURCE

***************************************

For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here

*****************************************

2012-02-10T17:05:00.001+11:30

It's not skeptics who are the deniers

No facts can change the minds of true believers

Damien Carrington — who is head of environment at the Guardian, which tells you almost everything you need to know about what’s going on inside his head (if at all) — writes about the discovery that Himalayan glaciers may not have been as vulnerable as previously thought… "The Himalayas and nearby peaks have lost no ice in past 10 years, study shows. Meltwater from Asia’s peaks is much less than previously estimated, but lead scientist says the loss of ice caps and glaciers around the world remains a serious concern"

Carrington quotes one of the researchers behind the study,

"People should be just as worried about the melting of the world’s ice as they were before. [...] The new data does not mean that concerns about climate change are overblown in any way. It means there is a much larger uncertainty in high mountain Asia than we thought. Taken globally all the observations of the Earth’s ice – permafrost, Arctic sea ice, snow cover and glaciers – are going in the same direction."

Hold on a minute. Environmentalists have been banging on about Himalayan Glaciers melting for years. Even when it turned out that the IPCC had take a completely wrong figure from ‘grey literature’, the claim that Himalayan glaciers are vulnerable to melting persisted. For instance, only this week, Donald R. Prothero, who claims to have been ‘Professor of Geology at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and Lecturer in Geobiology at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena’, writes in an article called ‘How We Know Global Warming is Real and Human Caused‘, that,

"Glaciers are all retreating at the highest rates ever documented. Many of those glaciers, especially in the Himalayas, Andes, Alps, and Sierras, provide most of the freshwater that the populations below the mountains depend upon—yet this fresh water supply is vanishing. Just think about the percentage of world’s population in southern Asia (especially India) that depend on Himalayan snowmelt for their fresh water. The implications are staggering."

Not only was doubt cast over the pace of Himalayan Glacial retreat by the IPCC/2035 claim, it was widely reported at the same time that the dependence on the glaciers by Asia’s population was massively over-stated too. What sceptics have tried to explain is that, when you overstate things like the speed of change and the human consequences of that change, other people naturally start to question the argument. It’s no good restating the same mythology that existed before, in defence of the idea that we ‘know’ that ‘climate change is happening’ and that ‘we caused it’.

And the same is true of the most recent discovery. Of course it means “that concerns about climate change are overblown”. What else could it possibly mean, when one of the concerns turns out — yet again, as it happens — to have been overblown? How many times were the Himalayan glaciers pointed at? How many times did sceptics reply that there wasn’t sufficient data? how many times did alarmists claim in response that the sceptics had ‘denied the science’, and even that they were being paid for by Big Oil? I have quite definitely lost count.

Donald R. Prothero, like many before him, tried to make the claim that a billion people depend on the glaciers. In just one discovery, we’ve established that Climate Change is a problem which has been reduced by that same magnitude. It’s a billion people less of a problem.

Elsewhere on the Guardian blogs, Leo Hickman asks,

"Are the world’s glaciers threatened by climate change? A Nature study has shocked researchers by finding that the Himalayas have lost no ice over the past decade. Leo Hickman, with your help, investigates. Get in touch below the line, email your views to leo.hickman@guardian.co.uk or tweet @leohickman"

It’s an interesting inversion of traditional journalism.

In the past, journalists went out to discover things. They then formulated an argument about what they had researched and wrote about it. (Assuming that they didn’t just make it up in the pub).

And then it would be read by readers, who, presumably, then made up their mind about the article given their confidence in the journalist, and the quality of the article. Now, however, it seems it is the readers who are being asked to do the research, and then the journalist makes up his mind…

"If quoting figures to support your points, please provide a link to the source. I am particularly seeking links to data and papers which show the wider, global picture regarding the impact of climate change on glaciers, and, crucially, the impact on humans and habitats if they do melt. I will also be inviting various interested parties to join the debate, too. And later on today, I will return with my own verdict."

I will return with my own verdict, he promises, from ‘pon high. All of which begs the question, what is the point of Leo Hickman? We can all go and do our own research, and read it alongside others’, and form our own analyses; Hickman adds no value to the process of journalism — journalism 2.0… perhaps?

SOURCE

CO2 Causes Contempt for Childhood - a climate well-worthy of our alarm

When children less than 6 years old are seen as 'instruments' 'for the achievement of a sustainable society' and that 'we' must make them 'understand deeply, and even shock them out of their unawareness', then something is seriously amiss; somebody somewhere is up to something we should resist. The quotes are from a UNESCO report recently reported on by Donna Laframboise.

Targeting toddlers under the smokescreen of ‘sustainable development’ has more than just a hint of the peculiar impulses which grip some campaigners convinced that CO2 is a threat to life on earth, and most especially to humans and to polar bears. Their negativity and exploitation of fear can lead to the absurd as well as to the totalitarian. Their answer is invariably more state control of what we do and what we think, and where we live, and how we live, and what we might try to do. Some kind of global rulebook, devised and enforced by an elite is what they want.

Nothing new there – countless religious and political movements have sought exactly that for thousands of years. What is new is the appeal to climate science rather than to one or more deities, or the pseudo-science of Marxism. Sometimes the outputs of computer programs are brought down as if from on high to be treated as part of the new gospel, interpreted by experts who do not care to have their authority challenged. There is also nothing new in the targeting of the young, where the big idea is presumably to get at them before they have much chance of resistance.

The report is about a UNESCO conference held in 2007. The conference-culture it represents is almost caricatured by this extract from the report:

‘This report originates from the international workshop, ‘The Role of Early Childhood Education for a Sustainable Society’, jointly organized in Göteborg, Sweden, by Göteborg University, Chalmers University of Technology and the City of Göteborg, from 2 to 4 May 2007. It was attended by thirty-five participants from sixteen different countries (see ‘List of Participants’). The workshop was a follow-up to the international conference on education for sustainable development, ‘Learning to Change Our World’, held in May 2004, in Göteborg. It was one of four preparatory workshops leading to another international conference on education for sustainable development, to be organized in 2008 or 2009, in the same city. The aim of the four workshops is to discuss promoters and barriers related to learning for sustainability, and to propose recommendations for the upcoming international conference.'

The delegates were described as not really knowing what 'sustainable development' was (and who can blame them!): ‘A common question raised in the beginning was ‘What is sustainable development?’ Most of the participants were not familiar with the concept,’

Which makes me think one motivation for this conference was to spread the gospel to them, the innocent delegates, rather than as a meeting place for like-minded people to discuss their work and ideas. This is reinforced by most of the papers presented - they really are mostly about motherhood and apple pie, about how good it would be if more children could get out in the open-air, enjoy nature, and be kind to one another. But in amongst this worthy stuff, there are contentious materials that raise the hackles of the sensitive reader, such as this gem:

‘Al Gore’s (2006), An Inconvenient Truth, the Stern (2006) review into the economics of climate change, and the report of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (2007), have heightened awareness of how humans are over-stretching the Earth’s life-support systems.’ (page 19)

Each of the three sources given has been widely discredited as reliable guides. The 'heightened awareness' of which she speaks is best decoded as 'irresponsible, ill-informed alarmism'.

Laframboise has spotted several other phrases to raise the hackles of the concerned citizen:

educating for sustainability should begin very early in life. (p. 12)

Young children can be encouraged to question over-consumption. (p. 13)

young children have capacities to be active agents of change now… (p. 20)

Through their learning and social activism, the children were able to highlight their concerns… (p. 22)

even very young children…can be proactive participants…as initiators, provocateurs, researchers and environmental activists. (p. 22)

learning begins at birth…and even before. (p. 54)

We must find some effective methods of teaching sustainable development that can make children understand deeply, and even shock them out of their unawareness. (p. 85)

More HERE

‘The environmental movement has lost its way’

An interview

Professor Ian Clark just does not see any evidence of oil sands contributing to global warming. That’s quite a stand to take in the face of a global environmental community that considers the development of the Canadian heavy oil industry tantamount to hastening the end of the world.

But Prof. Clark can claim to know a bit more about the science behind climate change than the average person. As a professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Ottawa, he focuses on paleoclimatology — the study of changes in climate taken on the scale of the entire history of earth — and isotope hydrology, which determines the age of ice or snow, which can help indicate climate conditions in the past.

Last December, the professor testified before the Senate Standing Committee on Energy, The Environment, and Natural Resources, where he explained that our planet is experiencing global warming after 400 years of a cold period which he termed “the little ice age.” [Watch the video [external] here.]

“Our efforts to limit the use of fossil carbon-based energy has solved no environmental problems, yet has created many more, including the accelerated production of ethanol and the conversion of tropical rainforest to tropical palm oil production,” Prof. Clark told the committee. “It is time to address real, tangible environmental issues.”

In an emailed interview with Financial Post, Prof. Clark explains why the environmentalists “have lost their way” and why NASA scientist James Hansen and former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore are plain wrong.

Q: Could you elaborate on the theory that Co2 emissions lag the climate by 800 years.

A: During the ice ages, there is a very clear correlation between the concentration of CO2 and temperature. This is well demonstrated by ice core research, where ice cores have been collected that provide a continuous record of the past several hundred years.

During that time, temperature fluctuates by several degrees, and CO2 fluctuates between about 280 ppm during the interglacial periods (like today, except we have higher levels due to human emissions) and 180 ppm during glacial periods.

Former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore showed this strong correlation and misrepresented it as showing CO2 warms the climate. The reverse is true. As the temperature rises for external reasons (solar and Earth orbital parameters) the deep ocean basins (Southern Ocean mainly) begin to warm and degas CO2 to the atmosphere (CO2 is less soluble in warmer water).

However, the rise in CO2 lags the rise in temperature by about 800 years. This shows that CO2 does not play a role in the warming, and even a reinforcing role must be minor considering the lag. When the climate starts to cool, CO2 remains high, again for hundreds of years, and so plays no role in sustaining the warm climate, as the climate cools despite the high CO2.

Q: Do you believe there is a lobby misrepresenting facts on global warming and exaggerating the role of Canadian oil sands in accelerating it.

A: Absolutely. The oil sands contribute very, very little to global CO2. If one believes in global warming, then one must accept that the oil sands contribute very, very little to warming. Shutting down those operations would do nothing to reducing CO2 emissions. These are driven by demand, and supply from other countries will simply increase to meet it.

Greenpeace has commended their success in killing the Keystone XL pipeline and stated that they will now kill the Northern Gateway using the mechanisms of protest that they have become so adept with and have the corporate and financial means to support. Perhaps they will. The pollution and emissions from the oil sands have been greatly exaggerated. Killing the oil sands would be to the great detriment of all Canadians, from aboriginal groups to engineers and other workers alike. It is greener energy than many other sources.

Q: So CO2 has nothing to do with global warming …

A: First we must be clear that there is, currently, no global warming. The global temperature has fluctuated over the past 15 years around a stable value, with no upward trend. The IPCC — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — models all predicted a steady increase of 0.2°C per decade, and this has not occurred. We have had global warming and cooling over geological time, and of course over the past century.

This is a good thing, as it warmed the planet from the cooler temperatures of the Little Ice Age. Agriculture, and civilisation flourishes with warmer temperatures. CO2, however, has had no apparent impact on the warming periods.

In fact, we experienced cooling during the years from 1950 to 1975 when global emissions were rising very quickly. Therefore, in the past we’ve seen no evidence for CO2 as a climate driver. Further, we can attribute the recent warming of the past century to a more active sun. The correlations are much stronger than between warming and CO2, and the science supporting a solar connection to climate warming and cooling becomes stronger each year.

Q: NASA scientist James Hansen says developing oil sands is “game over” for the climate. Do you agree with his assessment?

A: This is advocacy and has no basis in science, yet is stated by a leading scientist in the ranks of the global warming community. With or without the oil sands, humans will continue to burn fossil fuels. The oil sands are one of many sources of oil and gas.

Q: You also mentioned Al Gore in your testimony. How do you rate his work and do you think An Inconvenient Truth painted an accurate picture of the environmental issues facing the earth.

A: Mr. Al Gore is a politician, and an opportunist who gains much from the business of global warming alarmism. An Inconvenient Truth is a pack of lies and misrepresentations. It has done much to damage science. It states that CO2 is implicated in the increases in temperature in the ice ages when we know that it lags temperature by almost a millennium. His team has written and distributed a children’s book on global warming that has the audacity to switch the CO2 and temperature curves for the ice ages to show CO2 increasing first, followed by temperature. A scientist to deliberately misrepresent facts would lose his job.

Q: Are environmentalists wrong to blame oil sands for global pollution? Do you think Canada can develop its oil sands without adding to global pollution and global warming?

A: The environmental movement has lost its way. Saving whales and fighting for endangered species were worthy causes, but taking on the oil sands at any cost and any misrepresentation of the facts will accomplish nothing good for Canadians.

Yes, the oil sands have disrupted great tracts of the boreal forest, but in time these are recovered. Let’s compare that with urban sprawl and the mega-stores dominating suburban landscapes. The ecosystems that were paved over will never be recovered. Never.

The oil sands is a mega project that improves the lives of many Canadians, and will do so for many decades to come. The operations continue to improve, with less pollution and less impact. It is a focal point for innovation and technological development.

We have many serious environmental problems from overfishing of the oceans, coastal eutrophication, and habitat loss. Let’s focus on those. Perhaps we use too much energy and need more conservation. This will come through education and technologies to improve efficiencies. Let’s focus on that. Cutting off the oil sands energy supply will not reduce our addiction to fossil fuels. It will only require North Americans to import more.

Q: Scientists seem to present their findings as facts and absolutely truths. How can average people distinguish between fact and fiction and form their own opinions regarding scientific research.

A: This is not easy to answer. People must read a lot, and they must question what they read. They need to look at what the scientist has invested in the position that he is taking. Is he receiving lots of research funding? Is he advocating or presenting the results of his scientific work? Scientists are human, and consequently have personal sentiments and biases. It is easier to agree with the so-called consensus on global warming, as it aligns with the common sentiment that we live in a time of excess and over use of fossil fuels.

SOURCE

Obama’s amazing energy spin machine

The bankruptcy of Ener1, a "green energy" firm that got a $118 million stimulus grant, has brought the Obama administration's commitment to sinking billions of dollars into alternative energy boondoggles back into the spotlight. Unfortunately, President Obama remains committed to continuing down this wasteful path, as his statements about energy in his recent State of the Union Address made clear. While the president spent more time on the topic than any other policy area, he distorted the facts, misrepresented his plans, and ignored his record.

Obama announced that "tonight, I'm directing my Administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources." For those who favor energy production, this sounds great, but a close inspection reveals that this announcement was nothing new -- the sale should have been scheduled last year, and the only reason the administration is planning it now is that it is required under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. In fact, he didn't direct his administration to do anything new -- he just recycled a plan actually released in November 2011 that actually kept closed key areas for future oil and gas exploration in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic coastline.

The president claimed that, "over the last three years, we've opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration…. Right now, American oil production is the highest that it's been in eight years. That's right -- eight years." But that's no thanks to the federal government. In fact, oil production on federally owned lands has gone down during Obama's first three years. The administration didn't hold a single offshore lease sale in all of 2010 and canceled sales off the coast of Alaska and Virginia this year. It's the oil boom in North Dakota on private lands that's kept domestic oil production from falling -- not the president's policies.

Obama continued, "The easiest way to save money is to waste less energy. So here's another proposal: Help manufacturers eliminate energy waste in their factories and give businesses incentives to upgrade their buildings." But manufacturers already have huge incentives to reduce wasted energy. Airlines today, for example, use almost half as much energy per passenger mile as they did in 1979 and 24 percent less than in 2000. No one needed to tell them to do that. Energy is only "waste" if it cost less to save it than to not. Forcing taxpayers to pick up the tab for manufacturers' energy costs isn't eliminating energy waste -- it's creating government waste.

Obama has already been burned by his poor energy investments, but that hasn't stopped him from promoting them in every speech. "In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world's leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries," he said in reference to stimulus grants to an electric car battery manufacturer. That manufacturer was Ener1. Two days later, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The president insists that it's time to "double-down on a clean energy industry that's never been more promising. Pass clean energy tax credits and create these jobs." Double-down on a slew of bankrupt clean energy investments? In addition, Ener1, Evergreen Energy, and Amonix -- all of which received millions of taxpayer dollars -- have either gone bankrupt (as Enr1 and Evergreen have) or cut their workforce by two-thirds (as Amonix has). And let's not forget Solyndra.

To be clear, the president does oppose some taxpayer-funded projects: "We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That's long enough. It's time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that's rarely been more profitable." The oil industry does receive some subsidies -- which should be eliminated -- but they are orders of magnitude less than the clean energy industry. In fact, in 2010, according to the Energy Information Administration, clean energy and conservation programs received $22.4 billion in federal stimulus compared to $4.2 billion for coal, oil, and natural gas -- much of it designated for the environmentally motivated "clean coal" program.

The president made it clear that no Congress will stop his agenda. "So far, you haven't acted," he told Congress. "Well tonight, I will…. I'm proud to announce that the Department of Defense, the world's largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history -- with the Navy purchasing enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year." The role of the Defense Department isn't to promote the president's energy investments, it's to defend the United States. Forget energy independence -- our defense will now be weather dependent. If only we could get battleships that ran on spin.

SOURCE

Is 'fire ice' wonder fuel buried under the Scottish coast?

A new wonder fuel dubbed ‘fire ice’ could be buried under the Scottish coast, according to government ministers and experts.

They suspect that massive quantities of methane hydrates reserves are locked off the coast of western Shetland, and that there is possibly enough to last 300 years.

The sherbet-like substance, which consists of methane trapped in ice, has already been tipped by energy experts to be the next major energy resource. The wonder fuel was initially thought only to exist in the outer reaches of the solar system. But fire ice has been discovered under the permafrost in the Arctic Circle and on some seabeds.

UK Energy Minister Charles Hendry said the government believes it is ‘possible’ that the substance is buried in Scottish waters.

He said: ‘The presence of methane hydrates in deep waters west of Shetland is possible, but has not been established. In the absence of any commercial technology for exploiting such resources, no estimate of reserves can be made at the present time.’

Japanese experts are already carrying out test drilling off the south east coast of Japan and commercial production could start as soon as 2016. And global reserves of the substance could be more than the total for all other fossil fuels put together.

Professor Bahman Tohidi, director of the Centre for Gas Hydrate Research at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh said: ‘For methane hydrate you need water depths of more than 1,640ft. ‘The only place we have those water depths is west of Shetland. We haven’t seen any hydrates yet but there could be some there.

‘If there is a potential, it needs to be investigated. ‘I would say there are chances of it being in UK waters, but even if there is nothing in the UK we should be developing the technology.

‘It definitely will be a major industry. I always say it is far too big to be ignored - it’s like the elephant sitting outside your doorstep and we can’t ignore it. Sooner or later we will develop the technology.’

Despite fears that disrupting the seabed could release methane and accelerate climate change, scientists believe replacing the methane with oxygen could help tackle global warming.

A spokeswoman for industry body Oil and Gas UK said: ‘We’re not aware of anyone investigating it in the UK but the volume of methane trapped in hydrates is believed to be very large worldwide.’

Alex Kemp, renowned Aberdeen University professor of petroleum economics, said: ‘I haven’t heard of it being present in any significant amounts in the UK continental shelf. ‘In other countries, for example New Zealand, it is regarded as having a big potential. They think they have large amounts. There is the question of what technology to use to extract it. It’s all very futuristic.’

Methane hydrate has long been regarded by oil and gas companies as a nuisance, because it can block marine drilling rigs.

The substance is formed within marine sediments where the gas is generated by chemical reactions or by microbes breaking down organic matter. The gas then works its way up to the sea bed where sediments tend to be much cooler.

The cooling allows the methane molecules to form weak chemical bonds with the surrounding water molecules, producing solid methane hydrate. However, such bonds also require high pressure - so methane hydrate forms only in deep water.

SOURCE

The First Ever Climate Change Reporter (And Skeptic)

Who was the first one to write about climate change? For a while I thought I had found the most ancient reference in world literature: Lorenzo Magalotti in 1683 (referred to by Giacomo Leopardi in 1832)

[One and a half centuries ago Magalotti wrote] in the Family Letters: “It is certain that seasons’ natural order is worsening. Here in Italy it is common saying and lamentation that the half-seasons have disappeared; and in this confusion, it’s without doubt that the cold is advancing. I have heard my father that in his youth, in Rome, on the morning of Easter Sunday, everybody would change into summer clothes. Nowadays whoever can afford not to sell his shirt, I can tell you he’s very careful not to abandon any winter piece of clothing”. This is what Magalotti wrote in 1683.

Then Tony Brown and WUWT found something even more remote: Saint “Cyrian” (actually, Saint Cyprian) from around 250AD

The world has grown old and does not remain in its former vigour. It bears witness to its own decline. The rainfall and the suns warmth are both diminishing. The metals are nearly exhausted the husbandman is failing in his fields. Springs which once gushed forth liberally now barely give a trickle of water.’

I can happily report we can push the date a couple of centuries further back, by referring to “De re rustica” (“Agriculture“) by Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (around AD40-50). From Book 1, 1:4-5:

[...] I have found that many authorities now worthy of remembrance were convinced that with the long wasting of the ages, weather and climate undergo a change; and that among them the most learned professional astronomer, Hipparchus, has put it on record that the time will come when the poles will change position, a statement to which Saserna, no mean authority on husbandry, seems to have given credence. For in that book on agriculture which he has left behind he concludes that the position of the heavens had changed from this evidence: that regions which formerly, because of the unremitting severity of winter, could not safeguard any shoot of the vine or the olive planted in them, now that the earlier coldness has abated and the weather is becoming more clement, produce olive harvests and the vintages of Bacchus in the greatest abundance. But whether this theory be true or false, we must leave it to the writings on astronomy [...]

Note how little has changed, with Authorities convinced the climate is changing, and the unconvinced agriculture expert…

SOURCE

Australian Federal government support new brown-coal power station

As in East Germany, brown coal (lignite) has been a great resource for the State of Victoria because it is so cheap to mine -- but Greenies hate it because it does give off some real pollution. The new plant aims to reduce all pollution, real and imagined

Resources Minister Martin Ferguson will this morning throw a lifeline to a contentious coal-fired power plant project in Victoria's Latrobe Valley that is subject to a legal tussle with state environmental authorities.

Mr Ferguson will also pledge $100 million of Commonwealth funds for CarbonNet — a carbon capture and storage project in the Latrobe.

The Greens are strongly opposed to the controversial HRL power plant project at Morwell. In granting the project a six-month extension, Mr Ferguson will make it clear that this is the last lifeline for a project that began under the Howard government.

Following this morning's announcement, green groups will likely accuse Mr Ferguson of a double standard after he pulled the pin this week on a dawdling solar project, the Moree Solar Farm, which was in line for $306 million in government help.

Mr Ferguson re-opened the bidding on the solar money, allowing three other shortlisted projects to have another shot.

The six-month extension to the controversial HRL Dual Gas project near Morwell will allow the project to meet the terms of a contract first established by the Howard government.

The Resources Minister says this will be the final extension given to the project, which has been under way since 2009, and is the subject of a legal challenge by Environment Victoria.

Mr Ferguson has firmly rebuffed the green opposition, and argued the project, which aims to optimise brown coal and lower its emissions, should have the opportunity to proceed.

"Despite political pressure from the Greens and others, the Australian government has treated the HRL grant with the same measure of good faith that we've shown to other challenging clean energy technologies – including the Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund grant to Solar Systems," Mr Ferguson says.

"The government is absolutely committed to a technology neutral approach and proper administration of grant programs in accordance with due process."

In Morwell this morning, Mr Ferguson will argue the $1-billion-plus CarbonNet project will provide job opportunities in the Latrobe — and preserve the value of brown coal as Australia moves to lower carbon dioxide emissions.

"I hope today's announcement takes us one step further to not only shoring up the value of Victoria's brown coal resource, but perhaps more importantly helping to secure the economic future of the Latrobe Valley," Mr Ferguson will say this morning at a function in the regional city of Morwell.

SOURCE

***************************************

For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here

*****************************************

2012-02-09T15:32:00.000+11:30

The "Skeptics" are hiding the decline too

THE SKEPTICS SOCIETY is an old-time band of brothers who were originally devoted to exposing "magicians", the "paranormal", religion and various scientific frauds. Some time ago however, they went over to the dark side and became peddlers of scientific fraud. Far from being skeptical about global warming, they now proselytize for it in an entrely unskeptical way.

I myself gave a talk to their local chapter a few years ago and found them very poorly informed about the science involved but zealous apostles nonetheless. I asked them to put their hands up if they thought 20th century warming was greater than one degree Celsius. Nearly everyone did. As I pointed out at the time, they thus showed that they didn't even know the Warmist case, let alone the skeptical one. So they were a perfect example of credulousness founded on ignorance: Exactly what they purport to oppose!

Their latest magazine continues the crusade. The skeptical letter in the WSJ from 16 eminent scientsts seem to have disturbed them deeply and in reply they trot out all the usual Warmist boilerplate that has been refuted and mocked hundreds of times on this blog.

I did however find a lighter moment in their rave: The graph below. They are actually a bit more honest about it than "The Team" of Phil Jones. Michael Mann etc. so I suppose that is to their credit but they show no sign of understanding what they have done.

As the team did in a less obvious way, they have used proxy data for most of their graph but suddeny abandoned that for the 20th century and substituted the thermometer record instead. We REAL skeptics know why they did that -- because the proxy record shows a FALL in temperature during the 20th century -- a decline that had to be "hidden". So if the 20th century thermometer record is correct (far from given when we know who is in charge of it) then the proxy record is not.

In other words their proxies are NOT a valid measure of temperature. So their whole graph is based on faith. There is no certainty about what, if anything, it measures. Amusingly, though, if we took their alleged proxy record at face value, it would show no trend, let alone an upward trend. The skeptics can't see for looking.

SOURCE

A summary comment on the article mentioned above received by email:

It doesn't present much of a scientific argument other than dragging out the refuted Hockey Stick again and a few other abstract charts using scale to embellish the argument.

It opens with a photo of a glacier with a (OMG!) crack in it (normally referred to by non-alarmists as a crevice). That's what ice does -- it cracks; glaciers move and icebergs are born. And, of course, the projection of the dreaded calving is estimated in square miles (350) for effect, because saying 19 by 19 isn't as alarming.

The text itself opens with ad hominem to set the stage and the mindset of the reader (i.e. the old "bad guy" tobacco and holocaust denier association), then red herrings and other blatant examples of fallacious argumentation follow.

Inhofe Book On Global Warming

Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe has written a new book that will hit the stands later this month. Inhofe's book "The Greatest Hoax" covers the topic of man-made global warming and the political effort to drive home the message. Inhofe says politicians worked with the scientific community to make the data fit their message that human actions have had an adverse impact on the environment.

Inhofe says he will debut the book nationally with Sean Hannity on February 27th before it hits the news stands on February 28th.

SOURCE.

Amazon link here. From the blurb:

Americans are over-regulated and over-taxed. When regulation escalates, the result is an increase in regulators. In other words, bigger government is required to enforce the greater degree of regulation. Bigger government means bigger budgets and higher taxes. "More" simply doesn't mean "better." A perfect example is the entire global warming, climate-change issue, which is an effort to dramatically and hugely increase regulation of each of our lives and business, and to raise our cost of living and taxes. In The Greatest Hoax, Senator James Inhofe will reveal the reasons behind those perpetuating the Hoax of global warming, who is benefitting from the general acceptance of the Hoax and why the premise statements are blatantly and categorically false.
Special Offers and Product Promotions

First elected to the Senate in 1994, Senator James Inhofe is one of the leading conservative voices in America and a strong advocate of common sense values. In January 2003, Inhofe became the Chairman of the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee where his priorities include strengthening our Nation's infrastructure, continuing strong environmental protections and improving national security.

January U.S. Temperature trend/decade: – 11.8 F COOLER in 100 years

It is getting cooler and cooler. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent treat to humankind.

The official January temperature figures are out. As usual I thought it would be interesting to look at the recent January US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 112 years.

Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 41 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.

And as I always point out:

Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking” to cool the past etc.

Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.

Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.

So here are the trends:

US temperature January 1900-2012

The trend for 1900 to 2012 is 0.12 F / Decade

US temperature January 1970-2012

The trend for 1970 to 2012 is 1.16 F / Decade

US temperature January 1980-2012

The trend for 1980 to 2012 is 0.72 F / Decade

US temperature January 1990-2012

The trend for 1990 to 2012 is 0.03 F / Decade

US temperature January 2000-2012

The trend for 2000 to 2012 is - 1.18 F / Decade

And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.).

So the “warming trend” 2000-2012 for January is exactly - 1.18 F degrees a decade. That is a - 11.8 F COOLER in 100 years. That’s what I call “warming”!

Noticing the “accelerated warming” trend??

According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.

And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?

But not this ACTUAL trend?

And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.

Even worse, “our” politicians, “scientists”, journalists” and the mainstream medias attitude is: Move on, NOTHING to see here.

As I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.

More HERE (See the original for links, graphics etc.)

Little Green Morons

By Alan Caruba

Michael Brune, the Executive Director of the Sierra Club, holds degrees in economics and finance from West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He is the author of “Coming Clean—Breaking America’s Addiction to Oil and Coal”, published in 2008 by the Sierra Club.

Recently, Brune bragged that he and the board had turned “away millions of dollars”, noting that “It sounds crazy” and explaining why. In 2010 Brune learned that, “beginning in 2007 the Sierra Club had received more than $26 million from individuals or subsidiaries of Chesapeake Energy, one of the country’s largest natural gas companies.”

This may come as a surprise to many, but a lot of energy companies and manufacturers who use a lot of energy give a lot of money to the Sierra Club. If this “sounds crazy”, it is because, presumably the Sierra Club is in business to put them out of business. In fact, Chesapeake Energy’s donations were for the Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign, an energy competitor to Chesapeake.

The fact that the Club’s Executive Director could brag about turning away millions in donations suggests that he wasn’t paying attention in college while studying economics and finance---or that like so many environmentalists, he is a moron. Or just a hypocrite. Time magazine revealed the actual story in its February 2nd edition. The Sierra Club was shilling for Chesapeake Energy.

And, yes, the corporations that give millions to the Sierra Club or give in to its demands are morons, too. In his previous job at the Rainforest Action Network, for seven years Brune led assaults on Home Depot, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Kinko’s Boise and Lowe’s. To put it another way, to hell with corporate jobs, dividends to investors, and profits with which to grow. Saving the rainforest came first. Cutting down a tree does not mean another one will not grow in the same place.

And now, at the Sierra Club, apparently the new battle is against natural gas. Can it get any more stupid? Like millions of Americans, my home of more than sixty years was heated by gas and the kitchen stove used gas. It was cheaper and cleaner than coal. As this is being written vast new reserves of natural gas are being found all over the nation, but as far as the Sierra Club is concerned, drilling for it poses risks “to our air, water, climate, and people in their communities.” Short of putting your head in the oven and turning on the gas, there are no significant risks and haven’t been any in the sixty years or so that “fracking” has been used to access natural gas.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is set to become a net exporter of liquefied natural gas by 2016 according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration. It expects a cumulative increase in U.S. natural gas production through 2036.

To suggest otherwise is a form of environmental dementia reflected in their fear and hatred of every form of energy, be it oil, coal, natural gas, or nuclear. To quote Brune, if it “sounds crazy”, it probably is.

If you want to know what’s crazy, it’s the Ohio Environmental Council praising First Energy Corporation “for its plan to permanently close six coal-fired plants.” Yippee! Who needs plants that have the capacity to generate 2,700 megawatts of electricity—enough to power more than 600,000 homes? Who needs the jobs and revenue they also generate? And who needs the electricity? First Energy has read the writing on the wall that says the Environmental Protection Agency is determined to close down every coal-fired plant in America, even if they currently produce FIFTY PERCENT OF ALL THE ELECTRICITY!

Just how stupid, how moronic are environmentalists?

One way to answer is to look at the Obama administration’s track record when it comes to “green energy.”

Recently the President was seen leaving an event promoting clean energy in a motorcade of twenty-two (22) gas-guzzling vehicles. Well, do as Obama says, not as Obama does.

After three years of the most astonishingly stupid and wasteful green energy policies inflicted on Americans, it is hard keeping score of the various beneficiaries of government largess that are going bankrupt.

The most famous at this point is Solyndra that went belly up taking a half billion in loan guarantees—taxpayer funded—with it. Beacon Power, a green energy storage plant, filed for bankruptcy last fall took with it $43 million of more Department of Energy loan guarantees. Ener1, touted during a visit by Vice President Joe Biden—who inadvertently called it “Enron1”—filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The electric car battery maker had received a $118 million grant from the Obama administration.

Since then, Evergreen Energy, a manufacturer of batteries for electric cars and recipient of “stimulus” funds also filed for bankruptcy. Amonix, Inc., a manufacturer of solar panels that had received $5.9 million in “stimulus” was stimulated to cut two thirds of its workforce, some 200 employees, barely seven months after opening a factory in Nevada.

The Obama administration has been hot for electric cars and hybrids. They are costly and you would have to drive one for a decade or two get amortize the sticker price with fuel savings. They have proved to be a big money-loser for auto manufacturers. At this point, only about 3% of all the cars sold in America are electric or gas-electric hybrids.

There’s more, but I won’t bore you with the trail of bad government loan guarantees and grants, more wasted “stimulus” millions.

The lesson here is that any organization, government agency, or company claiming to be “green” is composed of morons, charlatans or a combination of both.

SOURCE

Coming soon: Individual mandate to buy Chevy Volts

President Obama spent more than $85 billion bailing out General Motors and Chrysler three years ago. Now he claims credit for saving the industry, noting GM's recent return to the top sales spot among automakers worldwide, Ford's record profits (albeit achieved without federal funds), and the recent revival of Chrysler, (though Italy's Fiat owns it). Regardless whether you supported or opposed the government bailouts, the reality is the Big Three's assembly lines are humming again. Too bad Obama's Environmental Protection Agency is preparing yet another killer hike in the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, only this time instead of merely inflicting massive costs on the industry and consumers, the coming regulation could very well demolish the Big Three for good.

Here's why: The CAFE rule is the fleet-wide average fuel economy rating manufacturers are required by Washington to achieve. The new rule -- issued in response to a 2010 Obama directive, not to specific legislation passed by Congress -- would require automakers to achieve a 40.9 mpg CAFE average by 2021 and 54.5 mpg by 2025. In case you're wondering whatever happened to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, it has been supplanted in the CAFE process by the EPA. The proposed regulation was designed, according to the EPA, "to preserve consumer choice -- that is, the proposed standards should not affect consumers' opportunity to purchase the size of vehicle with the performance, utility and safety features that meets their needs." But the reality is that consumer choice will be the first victim.

Getting from the current 35 mpg CAFE standard to 54.5 can be achieved by such expedients as making air conditioning systems work more efficiently. We have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell to anybody who thinks that's even remotely realistic. There is one primary method of increasing fuel economy -- weight reduction. That in turn means automakers will have to use much more exotic materials, including especially the petroleum-processing byproduct known as "plastic." But using more plastic will make it much more difficult to satisfy current federal safety standards. The bottom-line will be much more expensive vehicles and dramatically fewer kinds of vehicles.

The average price of a new vehicle will go up at least $3,200, according to NHTSA, but experts outside government such as the National Automobile Dealers Association say the cost will be substantially higher. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that there will be no vehicles costing $15,000 or less, the segment of the market that college students and low-income consumers depend upon. Altogether, an estimated seven million buyers will be forced out of the market for new cars.

Total costs, as calculated by the EPA, will exceed $157 billion, making this by far the most expensive CAFE rule ever. For comparison, the previous rule in 2010 cost $51 billion, according to the EPA. But the EPA doesn't include this fact in its calculation: Annual U.S. car sales are 14-16 million units, yet over time, this rule will remove the equivalent of half a year's worth of buyers. Will that be when the EPA takes a cue from Obamacare and issues an individual mandate that we all must buy Chevy Volts?

SOURCE

Australia: Opposition to coal seam gas based on worst-case scenarios

Scot MacDonald

IN THE United States, the emergence of the shale gas industry is creating thousands of jobs and breathing economic life into depressed regions.

Australia, and in particular regional Australia, has a similar opportunity with coal seam gas.

As a member of the NSW legislative council inquiry into coal seam gas, I’ve listened to hours of hearings, read countless submissions and spoken to dozens of stakeholders.

Most of the witnesses were very negative towards the nascent industry and, other than industry spokesmen or government officials, few were openly supportive.

Of those who opposed coal seam gas, I can’t recall a single piece of evidence or data to support their case. They were based on NIMBYsm, supposition, emotion and worst-case scenarios.

I’ve lived and worked in regional NSW or Queensland for more than 30 years.

In all that time, the mantra has been more regional jobs, more regional businesses, better infrastructure, reversing population decline, building export businesses, keeping our children in local jobs and so on. Now we have the prospect of an industry in coal seam gas that can deliver on those aspirations.

While no one can argue with the need for environmental caution and appropriate safeguards, the unwillingness to see the positives in the industry has been confronting.

What has disappointed me the most has been the failure of leadership and vision in our regional communities.

With the exception of the mayors of Gunnedah, Narrabri and Tamworth, local government representatives have been happy to be silent or run with the crowd.

For me this is an intergenerational issue. While those with assets are eager to “lock the gate” and maintain the status quo, the cost of turning our backs on coal seam gas will be borne mainly by future generations.

North West NSW can become the source of cheap, accessible, reliable energy.

In a world where all these features will be scarce, our region has the opportunity to transform itself from an agriculturally dependent, low-employment, low-growth, low-income demographic to a dynamic, developing, mixed-economic region with a key comparative advantage of affordable energy. Right now, international investors are looking for these features to build energy reliant industries.

For example, North West NSW is a heavy importer of nitrogen fertilisers for agricultural production. Perhaps we could follow the US trend to build fertiliser factories close to the source of its major raw material, which is gas.

Right now, these opportunities are being seized in places like the USA and Canada.

I would like to challenge the army of economic development officers, chambers of commerce, regional development boards and local governments from Tamworth to the Queensland border to take up the challenge for their communities of seizing this once-in-a-century game changer.

SOURCE

***************************************

For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here

*****************************************

2012-02-08T17:03:00.001+11:30

An Interview with Weather Underground’s Dr. Jeff Masters

Unlike Al Gore, he does not think we are all going to drown. To the contrary he says that drought is the danger. So he appears to be ignorant of even High School physics. A warmer world will mean warmer oceans which will evaporate off more water to fall as rain and snow. In other word, a warmer world would be a WETTER world, not a drier one. He is obviously a smart man so he is a good illustration of how cults can warp the minds of people. One has to wonder if he has ever seen a warming kettle give off steam

If you are interested in weather, chances are you have visited Weather Underground and read the posts of its director of meteorology, Dr. Jeff Masters. The consistently reliable Masters has been a rare voice in helping make sense of, rather than cloud (zing!), the increasingly strange weather events hitting the planet....

Jeff Masters: The natural weather rhythms I've grown used to during my 30 years as a meteorologist have become disrupted over the past few years. Many of Earth's major atmospheric circulation patterns have seen significant shifts and unprecedented behavior; new patterns that were unknown have emerged; extreme weather events were incredibly intense and numerous during 2010 - 2011. The laws of physics demand that the huge amount of heat-trapping gases humans are pumping into the atmosphere must be significantly altering the fundamental large-scale circulation pattern of the atmosphere. Unprecedented behavior like we've witnessed in the configuration of the winter jet stream over North America-with the four most extreme years since 1865 occurring since 2006-could very well be due to human-caused climate change. Something is definitely up with the weather, and it is clear to me that over the past two years, the climate has shifted to a new state capable of delivering rare and unprecedented weather events. Human emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide are the most likely cause of such a shift in the climate.

Christine Shearer: Having really looked closely at the weather for a while now, is there something that stands out to you most?

Jeff Masters: The atmosphere I grew up with no longer exists. My new motto with regards to the weather is, "expect the unprecedented."

Christine Shearer: Anything you would like to say?

Jeff Masters: Stronger hurricanes, bigger floods, more intense heat waves, and sea level rise have been getting many of the headlines with regards to potential climate change impacts, but drought should be our main concern. Drought is capable of crashing a civilization. To illustrate, drought has been implicated in the demise of the Mayan civilization in Mexico, the Anasazis of the Southwest U.S., and the Akkadians of Syria in 2200 B.C. The Russian heat wave and drought of 2010 led to a spike in global food prices that helped cause unrest in Africa and the Middle East that led to the overthrow of several governments. It's likely that global-warming intensified droughts will cause far more serious impacts in the coming decades, and drought is capable of crashing our global civilization in a worst-case scenario, particularly if we do nothing to slow down emissions of carbon dioxide.

More HERE

Pow! New paper supports Miskolczi's theory of saturated greenhouse effect (i.e. more CO2 has no effect)

A paper published today in the Journal of Climate finds that relative humidity has been decreasing 0.5% per decade across North America during the 62 year period of observations from 1948-2010.

Computer models of AGW show positive feedback from water vapor by incorrectly assuming that relative humidity remains constant with warming while specific humidity increases. The Miskolczi theory of a 'saturated greenhouse effect' instead predicts relative humidity will decrease to offset an increase in specific humidity, as has just been demonstrated by observations in this paper.

The consequence of the Miskolczi theory is that additions of 'greenhouse gases' such as CO2 to the atmosphere will not lead to an increase in the 'greenhouse effect' or increase in global temperature.

Journal of Climate 2012

Surface Water Vapor Pressure and Temperature Trends in North America during 1948-2010

By V. Isaac and W. A. van Wijngaarden

Abstract

Over 1/4 billion hourly values of temperature and relative humidity observed at 309 stations located across North America during 1948-2010 were studied. The water vapor pressure was determined and seasonal averages were computed. Data were first examined for inhomogeneities using a statistical test to determine whether the data was fit better to a straight line or a straight line plus an abrupt step which may arise from changes in instruments and/or procedure. Trends were then found for data not having discontinuities. Statistically significant warming trends affecting the Midwestern U.S., Canadian prairies and the western Arctic are evident in winter and to a lesser extent in spring while statistically significant increases in water vapor pressure occur primarily in summer for some stations in the eastern half of the U.S. The temperature (water vapor pressure) trends averaged over all stations were 0.30 (0.07), 0.24 (0.06), 0.13 (0.11), 0.11 (0.07) C/decade (hPa/decade) in the winter, spring, summer and autumn seasons, respectively. The averages of these seasonal trends are 0.20 C/decade and 0.07 hPa/decade which correspond to a specific humidity increase of 0.04 g/kg per decade and a relative humidity reduction of 0.5%/decade.

SOURCE

New paper finds 20th century warming within range of natural variability

A paper published this week in the journal Climate of the Past analyzes an "unprecedentally large network of temperature ...proxy records" [a total of 120] and concludes that warming of the 20th century was "within the range of natural variability over the last 12 centuries." Only two of the eight types of temperature proxies analyzed indicate 20th century warming exceeded that of the Medieval Warming Period.

Clim. Past Discuss.3349-3397, 2011

Northern Hemisphere temperature patterns in the last 12 centuries

By F. C. Ljungqvist et al.

Abstract

We analyze the spatio-temporal patterns of temperature variability over Northern Hemisphere land areas, on centennial time-scales, for the last 12 centuries using an unprecedentedly large network of temperature-sensitive proxy records. Geographically widespread positive temperature anomalies are observed from the 9th to 11th centuries, similar in extent and magnitude to the 20th century mean. A dominance of widespread negative anomalies is observed from the 16th to 18th centuries. Though we find the amplitude and spatial extent of the 20th century warming is within the range of natural variability over the last 12 centuries, we also find that the rate of warming from the 19th to the 20th century is unprecedented. The positive Northern Hemisphere temperature change from the 19th to the 20th century is clearly the largest between any two consecutive centuries in the past 12 centuries.

SOURCE

The Great Delusion

In 1841 a Scottish journalist named Charles Mackay published a landmark study of mass hysteria and sociopsychosis titled “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.”

Mackay painstakingly analyzed a wide variety of popular pathologies in his entertaining tome, including financial panics, medical quackery, pseudoscience like alchemy and astrology, and witch crazes. He wanted to know why so many people choose to believe so much that is not only not true, but also potentially deadly. His answer:

“We go out of our course to make ourselves uncomfortable; the cup of life is not bitter enough to our palate, and we distill superfluous poison to put into it, or conjure up hideous things to frighten ourselves at, which would never exist if we did not make them.”

Conjure up hideous things to frighten ourselves—I could not help but think of global warming as I was re-reading Mackay’s words. How he would have delighted in the strange, self-flagellating notion that is anthropogenic warming. He would have recognized it as kin to his own numerous and insidious subjects—superstition masked as science; Western guilt over having conquered the world manifesting itself as hatred for the technologies that made it possible; apocalyptic yearning in the guise of political enlightenment.

In fact, global warming is the most widespread mass hysteria in our species’ history. The fever that these legions of warmists warn of does not grip the globe, but rather their own brains and blinkered imaginations.

And like every mass delusion, there is danger – danger that Man wil be convinced by these climate cultists to turn his back on the very political, economic, and scientific institutions that made him so powerful, so wealthy, so healthy.

Will the fever break before this happens? I think so. I think the fever is breaking, as more and more scientists come forward to admit their doubts about the global warming paradigm, as more and more voters become suspicious of government-mandated schemes to control their “carbon emissions”, which is a bureaucrat’s way of controlling productivity, and therefore freedom.

In centuries hence the global warming boogey man will be seen for exactly what it is – The Great Delusion. Future generations will wonder how so many people could have believed something so suicidally ridiculous.

Unless they read Charles Mackay’s wonderful book.

SOURCE

CNN Explains How Physical Laws Changes Over Time

Shrinking polar ice caps may be to blame for frigid Europe

Europe’s deadly cold snap may have a lot to do with shrinking amounts of ice in the Arctic, a recent study suggests.

Nearly 300 deaths have been reported across the continent, with snow accumulations not seen in five decades reported in some places. Warsaw, Poland, has seen 11 days of temperatures well below average, with a coldest reading of 35 below zero Fahrenheit.

The science behind this is very simple. Excess heat creates cold. Five decades ago, heavy snow was caused by cold, but now heavy snow is caused by heat.

In order to understand this, you need to abuse drugs for several decades and occasionally bang your head with a heavy blunt object.

Thank you CNN for continuing to lower the IQ of the planet.

SOURCE (See the original for links)

Australia's Green party press case for billion-dollar "free" dental scheme

As usual, the Greens are to the Left of the mainstream Leftists

The Greens are insisting the Federal Government allocate at least $1 billion in this year's budget to meet a commitment on taxpayer-funded dental care.

The Greens have proposed introducing a Medicare-style dental scheme, which could cost about $5.5 billion, and a report on the feasibility of the plan is due from the National Advisory Council on Dental Health this week.

The Opposition thinks the Government is gearing up to scrap the dental deal with the Greens, after Prime Minister Julia Gillard said honouring the commitment needed to be weighed up in the budget process.

Greens health spokesman Richard Di Natale says he is optimistic, but wants significant start-up funds.

"There are existing schemes that can be used, but we think that unless you're talking about a scale of investment in the order of $1 billion or more that you're not going to make the necessary inroads in this year's budget that we need to make," he said.

"We do have an agreement with the Government that there needs to be significant investment.

"I'm optimistic that they will follow through with the recommendations of that report which I'm sure will recommend a significant investment in dental health over the coming years."

Greens MP Adam Bandt asked Ms Gillard whether she would honour her commitment to the Greens. In answering, the Prime Minister detailed spending commitments the Government had made to date, and then added: "But as we weigh what we can do in the budget process, we will of course make the appropriate fiscal decisions for the nation."

SOURCE

***************************************

For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here

*****************************************

2012-02-07T14:28:00.001+11:30

Die CO2-Lüge: Renommiertes Forscher-Team behauptet: Die Klima-Katastrophe ist Panik-Mache der Politik

(The CO2 lie: Renowned research team claims that alarm over looming climate-catastrophe is just panic-mongering by politicians)

By Dr Werner Weber, professor of physics at the Technische Universität Dortmund, Germany. Article published in a popular German newsmagazine

Does the human race face a self-made climate catastrophe? Or is global warming just a big CO2 lie by hysterical scientists? A team led by Hamburg's former environment minister Fritz Vahrenholt has given the all clear.

Climate alarmism is the invention of politicians and UN climate scientist. In truth, the sun is at least as responsible for the temperature fluctuations of the earth as CO2. Exclusive to BILD the authors have summarised their theses.

What the IPCC conceals

Climate horror warnings are raining down on us: heat waves, hurricanes, floods of biblical dimensions should soon plague the planet. It seems as if the apocalypse is near. Even school children are indoctrinated: it’s all our fault. By 2020, we, the developed nations will have to pay 100 billion dollars per year to developing countries to redress alleged climate damage.

One thing is certain: In the last 150 years it has warmed by an unwieldy 0.8 degree Celsius. The omniscient IPCC of the United Nations tells us that the warming has been caused almost entirely by evil CO2. And if our emissions have already caused almost a degree of global warming, then soon a few more degrees would be added by the end of the century.

But what if the UN organisation is wrong? Can we really trust these experts blindly? Are they really independent?

If you check the facts carefully, you arrive at a different result: Less than half of the current warming of 0.8 degree Celsius is probably man-made. With the other half, we have absolutely nothing to do.

Because the main culprit, when it comes to climate variability, is our sun.

The sun shines very evenly. Too evenly to produce large climate fluctuations. But the sun has sunspots. Sometimes it is very active and has many and great spots that create strong magnetic fields. Sometimes it has few and very small spots. This happens in 11-year cycles. There are other cycles, some last for centuries, while others last for millennia.

On Earth, the sun leaves behind traces of its activity. The active sun with its magnetic fields weakens significantly the cosmic radiation coming from outer space. This solar influence can be traced over many millennia by analysing soil layers. And it is proven that it has changed the Earth's climate: when the sun was less active, our planet was cool. And whenever the sun's activity increased, the earth warmed - long before humans increased the CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

1000 years ago, solar activity was much stronger for several centuries than before. During this "Medieval Warm Period", it was so warm that the Vikings could settle in Greenland and had agricultural farms there. But a few hundred years later, the sun became weaker during the "Little Ice Age". On Earth, it got icy cold. The Viking settlements in Greenland perished miserably. In Europe, there were massive crop failures. Hunger and diseases spread. The Thames was frozen over in many winters.

The question is: How much has the Sun contributed to global warming over the last centuries? It is established that its activity has increased sharply since 1700 and that in the two cycles prior to 1995 it has even reached the highest level for 400 years.

Pure chance, claim the IPCC’s climate experts. Without further ado, they ignore solar activity in their climate models. Thus they ignored the findings of the Danish physicist and climate researcher Professor Henrik Svensmark. He found strong evidence that clouds decrease according to solar activity and virtually form a radiation shield, dynamics that are remote-controlled by solar activity. In my own work, which were inspired by Svensmark’s work, I found further evidence for the climate relevance of solar activity.

And it gets even worse: leading solar physicists have found that the activity of the sun has been decreasing rapidly for about 15 years - and will continue to decline until at least 2030. So we slide into a decade-long lull sun.

And it comes in good time. For it will neutralize the CO2 warming for quite a while and bring our world probably a cooling phase. Only after 2040, it will warm again. And by 2100, temperatures may rise by a half to a full degree Celsius.

One thing is clear: we should do something about that. The shift away from oil, gas and coal to renewable energy is right. But the excessive warming forecasts by the IPCC are pure fear-mongering.

SOURCE

China Bans Airlines From Joining EU Carbon Levies System

China is extremely sensitive about any external interference in its internal affairs. But the rest of the world is not far behind. The EU is headed for a bloody nose over this.

The irony that the old Peace of Westphalia is violated by the EU in this matter might also be noted. The Peace of Westphalia is of course a European treaty (or series of treaties) and its basic principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations has long been a keystone of international law. It was designed to end confict and has been influential in avoiding it. It takes the historical ignorance of the Green/Left to flout it for such little gain

China, home to the world’s fastest growing aviation market, banned airlines from taking part in a European Union carbon-emissions system designed to curb pollution, saying the program violates international rules.

The system contravenes the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and international civil aviation regulations, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said in a statement posted on its website today. Carriers were also barred from using the EU program as a reason for raising fares, it said.

The EU hopes to resolve the issue through negotiations or it may ultimately be ruled on by the courts, Markus Ederer, its ambassador to China, said at a press briefing in Beijing today. India, the U.S., Russia and global airlines have also objected to the levy, saying it will be less effective than a global solution.

“I believe all sides will negotiate again and find a solution,” said Chai Haibo, vice president of the China Air Transport Association. “I can’t imagine that the worst case, such as the EU grounding Chinese flights, could happen.”

The airline group has called on the government to oppose the EU levy and it is working on a legal challenge in Germany. Whether the lawsuit will continue will depend on the EU reaction to the China ban, Chai said. The group’s members include China’s big three state-controlled carriers, Air China Ltd., China Southern Airlines Co. and China Eastern Airlines Corp.

The EU added aviation to a wider carbon-trading system on Jan. 1. The move could cost Chinese airlines as much as 800 million yuan ($127 million) in 2012, according to the China airline group.

Based on current carbon prices and the fact that airlines will get some emissions allowances for free, the system would boost Beijing-to-Brussels ticket prices by 17.50 yuan, Ederer said.

Global System

Other nations’ carriers can be exempted from the EU system if their own governments introduce similar programs, he said. The International Civil Aviation Organization, a UN body, has said that it plans to form a global system.

The EU Court of Justice in December upheld the legality of the bloc’s drive to extend the world’s largest carbon cap-and- trade program beyond its borders. The system covers the EU’s 27 members as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

China Southern Chairman Si Xianmin said last week that Europe’s emission trading program is not beneficial in the current economic environment or for Europe’s efforts to escape the sovereign debt crisis. He made the comments at a briefing also attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

The carrier, Asia’s biggest by passenger numbers, flies to Amsterdam and Paris. It intends to start services to London this year. Air China, the nation’s largest international carrier, generated 11 percent of revenue in Europe in the first half of last year. Its destinations in the region include London, Paris and Madrid.

Countries outside the European bloc have said that the emission trading program is illegal because carriers are charged for pollution that happens outside of Europe, for instance, on the first part of a flight from Asia to Europe. The countries say this should only be regulated by the affected nations.

India has asked carriers not to give emissions data to the EU, K.G. Vishwanath, Jet Airways (India) Ltd.’s vice president for commercial strategy & investor relations, said in a Jan. 23 conference call. The country also plans to work with other nations opposed to the program, Environment Ministry Joint Secretary M.F. Farooqui told reporters in New Delhi last week.

Shinichiro Ito, president of All Nippon Airways Co., Asia’s largest listed carrier by sale, said last month that he favored a global system over a regional one. The carrier and the Japanese government are working on ways to oppose the system, he said without elaboration.

The U.S. House of Representatives last year passed a bill prohibiting the country’s airlines from participating in the EU carbon program after the industry estimated that participation in the system would cost U.S. airlines $3.1 billion from 2012 to 2020. Bills in the U.S. also need approval from the senate and president before they become laws.

SOURCE

Climate concern is now largely a Democrat belief only

They're good at believing the impossible and improbable. They even thought President emptyhead offered hope and change

In March 1981, pollsters tucked the first question about global climate change into a national poll, asking 1,000 adults if they had "heard or read about the 'greenhouse effect.'" Fourteen percent replied either "a great deal" or "a fair amount." The majority - 62 percent - said they had never heard of it.

In the ensuing 30 years, some 300 polls have tracked the nation's opinion on this topic. Concern has waxed and waned, but it's never been much more than a blip on the nation's consciousness. Environmental concerns rarely crack the top 20 issues on national polls; among environmental issues, climate change rarely makes the top 10.

Now a group of sociologists have plumbed those polls to divine the factors driving public opinion on climate change.

A study published Monday in the journal Climatic Change finds that the economy, perhaps not surprisingly, is one of the biggest influencers, followed closely by "elite cues" – statements and actions from political leaders, celebrities, advocacy groups and the like.

Weather extremes and efforts to increase scientific literacy have minimal to no impact, the study concluded.

"When Congressional Democrats speak publically about the need for action on climate change, the public increases its perception of the seriousness of the issue," the researchers wrote in the study.

"When Congressional Republicans vote against key pieces of environment legislation, the public adjusts perceptions of the threat of climate change downward."

One surprising result of the analysis, said Robert Brulle, the study's lead author and a sociologist at Drexel University in Philadelphia, is the volatility of public opinion.

Concern about global warming is driven by current events, he said, and has almost no relation to past levels of concern. That, Brulle added, is a sign that efforts to educate the public to climate science are not sticking and should be rethought.

"That's a really key finding," he said. "If you're going to have an information campaign, it's going to have to be constant.... It's not permanent. You're not going to convince the American public once and for all."

Ed Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, called Brulle's approach "very innovative" but was not surprised to see economics play such a large role.

"Particularly in bad economic times, there's a finite 'pool of worry,'" he said. "That dramatically reduces the bandwidth to think about other potential threats, such as climate change."

Radical polarization

But Maibach noted public perception of climate change has undergone a radical polarization in the past 15 years. When the Clinton Administration was negotiating the Kyoto Protocol, two out of three Americans felt climate change was a problem worth addressing, he said.

Since then, the proportion of Democrats concerned about the issue have moved from two out of three to closer to nine out of 10. Republicans, meanwhile, have shifted almost as dramatically the other direction, from two out of three to three out of 10, he said.

"There's been this divergence, and it's been a politically defined divergence," Maibach said. "That's given rise to the cues of the political elite that are so important."

The study looked at five factors that potentially account for changes in public concern about climate change: extreme weather, media coverage, science education, elite cues and advocacy efforts. It also examined external events, such as war, unemployment, and the price of oil.

It found media coverage to be a key driver – the greater the quantity of media coverage, the greater the level of public concern, the authors concluded. But that, Brulle said, prompts the question: What drives media coverage? That answer, he added, is clear. The most important factor is the "elite partisan battle over the issue," the study concluded.

"A great deal of focus has been devoted to the analysis and development of various communication techniques to better convey an understanding of climate change to individual members of the public," the report concluded. "These efforts have a minor influence and are dwarfed by the effect of the divide on environmental issues in the political elite."

SOURCE

HadCRUT (UEA) Coverage: Worse Than It Seems

Warmist temperature reports are always given with great apparent precision. They have to do that because we live in an era of exceptional temperature stability -- so all actual average temperature changes are microscopic. But the precision is spurious. They don't have enough data to enable precision. Only a very rough estimate is possible

The map above shows typical HadCRUT land coverage in the 1860s. Land coverage is well below 10%, yet global temperatures are reported to 0.001 precision. A complete farce.

SOURCE

Britain’s Wind Lunacy

THE big freeze has not just caused major disruption across the country. It has also exposed the hollowness of fashionable green rhetoric about global warming.

For years, environmental zealots have indulged in alarmist talk about relentlessly soaring temperatures caused by mankind’s destructive irresponsibility. Typical of this scaremongering was the claim made in 2000 by Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the university of East Anglia, that “children just aren’t going to know what snow is”.

How foolish those words now look more than a decade later as Britain is gripped by Arctic weather. Indeed, contrary to the green lobby’s shrill declaration that “the science is settled” on the reality of man- made global warming, there is now a wealth of evidence that earth is not heating up at all.

One recent study by the Met office, based on readings from 30,000 measuring stations, indicates that there has been no significant increase in temperatures over the past 15 years.

But nothing will halt the environmental fanatics who are driven by dogma rather than the search for the truth. That is why they are so keen on manipulating data, bullying their opponents and spreading lurid propaganda.

Our ruling political class has swallowed the green agenda because it gives them an excuse to grab more power while posing self-righteously as the saviours of the planet. In the name of protecting future generations they can pursue their favourite activities of imposing regulations, dishing out subsidies and raising taxes.

Always keen to expand the role of the state labour enthusiastically adopted this approach, especially when Ed Miliband was Climate Change secretary in Gordon Brown’s government until 2010.

But the coalition has been just as bad. Miliband’s successor, the liberal Democrat Chris Huhne, was an aggressive evangelist for green policies no matter what the burden to the public. since his resignation on Friday, Huhne’s place has been taken by fellow liberal Democrat Ed Davey.

Though he has been hailed as a more pragmatic figure than Huhne it is likely that Davey will pursue the same line. “I am determined to follow on Chris’s priorities,” he proclaimed on taking office.

Many Conservatives, however, are rightly disturbed at the Government’s continuing infatuation with expensive environmentalism. And their concern has focused on the ministerial obsession with wind farms, the most controversial, high-profile aspect of the fashionable green agenda.

OVER the weekend no fewer than 101 Tory MPs, along with a few politicians from other parties, wrote a letter to David Cameron urging that he cut the lavish, counter-productive subsidies given to wind power.

The rebellious Tories are right to challenge the coalition. The onward march of wind farms has been a disaster for the country, imposing savage increases on household electricity bills while doing nothing to enhance our energy supplies. Wind turbines are monuments of political folly, a triumph of dogma over common sense. Chris Huhne, with the characteristic fervour of a green extremist, called these massive structures “elegant and beautiful” but the truth is that they are unsightly monstrosities.

Paradoxically, for all the cheer-leading of the green lobby, they do terrible damage to the environment. They despoil the landscape, create noise pollution and are a men- ace to wildlife. It is estimated that 400,000 birds are killed every year in America by their revolving blades.

Moreover, wind farms are both costly and inefficient, which is why they have to be so heavily subsidised. The Government pours £522million every year into support for wind power, for which we all have to pay through increased electricity charges. Green politics operates like robin Hood in reverse, taking from the hard- pressed citizens through electricity bills and giving to rich landowners through handouts.

The outlay for this madness is likely to soar in the coming years as the coalition expands the role of wind power. There are already 3,500 turbines in Britain but the Government wants another 10,000 onshore and 4,300 offshore by 2020, a programme that will ultimately cost £140billion, the equivalent of £5,600 for every household. Within eight years wind subsidies will account for about a fifth of our electricity bills.

BUT the rush to wind makes little difference to energy generation. Despite all the profligate funding, wind turbines currently supply a pitiful 2.7 per cent of our electricity. Even if 10 per cent of the entire country was covered in wind farms they could still only provide a sixth of our needs. That is because turbines are so hopelessly unre- liable. on still days they produce nothing yet if the wind gusts at more than 56mph they have to be shut down because they become unstable
.
In 2010, onshore turbines operated on average at just 21 per cent of capacity, making a mockery of the greens’ claim that wind can ever be an effective source of power.

While we cripple ourselves in an expensive display of ideological superiority, nations such as China, India and Brazil are forging ahead. It does not have to be like this. We are a uniquely energy rich country with plentiful supplies of oil, gas and coal, as well as nuclear expertise.

We should be exploiting our resources to become richer, not submitting to green lunacy to make ourselves poorer.

SOURCE

2011, and the Unlucky Country finally gets a carbon dioxide tax

by Bob Carter

Australian voters entered 2011 with the pre-election commitment of Prime Minister Julia Gillard still sounding in their ears: "There will be no carbon [dioxide] tax under a government that I lead".

Nonetheless, cognitive dissonance had already arrived on the Canberra political scene, in the shape of the Multi-Party Committee on Climate Change (MPCCC) that was established in late 2010 in order to plan for the introduction of just such a tax.

Thereafter, the political year yielded a spectacular display of chicanery, scientific malfeasance, media bias and economic and social irresponsibility, all underpinned by a confusion of both purpose and morality and accompanied by an uncertainty of outcomes: and that’s just the global warming picture.

The way that science works

Climate change is self-evidently a natural process. Warmings, coolings, cyclones, floods, droughts and bushfires have been coming and going since long before human industrial processes started adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere; and, indeed, since before there were humans at all.

The appropriate question is therefore not whether climate change is “real”, but the more specific one of whether human-related greenhouse emissions are causing dangerous global warming.

Scientists assess such speculative ideas against a norm called the null hypothesis, which, following long historical practice, is fashioned to be the simplest interpretation of any given set of material facts.

The null hypothesis for today’s observed climate changes is therefore that they are of natural causation, unless and until specific evidence accrues otherwise.

Contrary to prevailing political belief, and to the alarmist messages that come from the UN’s discredited Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), much amplified by environmental organisations and a compliant media, scientists have searched for this accrual in vain.

Instead, tens of thousands of scientific papers published in reputable journals delineate changes in climate and the environment, and ecological responses, that are entirely consistent with the null hypothesis of natural causation. In contrast, not a single paper exists that demonstrates an evidential cause-effect link between change in an environmental variable (be that more or less storms, floods, droughts, cyclones, honeyeaters or even polar bears) and warming caused by human-related carbon dioxide emissions.

Given the astonishing amounts of money that are now poured into climate change research, it is no surprise that 2011 saw the publication of several thousand more scientific papers that contain data relevant to this problem. But it may perhaps be to some readers’ surprise that these papers simply added yet more evidence in favour of the validity of the null hypothesis.

2011 in review: the two universes of climate change

The 33 selected discoveries and events discussed in the main review represent but a small part of the recent evidence that challenges the belief that dangerous global warming is being caused by human-related carbon dioxide emissions. Contradictions of nearly every shibboleth of the AGW faith are present on the list, and every argument that has been advanced in favour of the speculative dangerous warming hypothesis is now feeling the breeze of contradictory fact. Many additional articles that contradict the prevailing wisdom can be found in the more comprehensive reviews of the Non-governmental International Committee on Climate Change (NIPCC).

The 2011 climate year, then, as judged from both media coverage and new scientific literature, has confirmed the existence of two entirely parallel universes of climate thought.

In the first universe, independent scientific and public opinion are moving inexorably towards the rejection of climate alarmism and the costly measures that are perpetrated in its cause. An important manifestation of this opinion was the recent publication of a reasoned statement of disagreement with warming alarmism in the Wall Street Journal, signed by 16 independent scientists. Their conclusion is that global warming is not a serious problem, and that even if it were the solutions being offered wouldn’t fix it anyway.

In contrast, the IPCC and its supporters, who include the Australian government as one of the most faithful acolytes, continue to project unrelenting alarmism. Towards which end they encourage the implementation of expensive, unnecessary and ineffectual measures that they claim will mitigate dangerous warming, such as carbon dioxide taxation and the massive subsidisation of feel good eco-bling like solar farms and windfarms.

Yet the IPCC is a discredited organisation that remains under heavy attack, and its forthcoming 5th Assessment Report is facing a barrage of fundamental criticism even before its publication. For the distinguished Dutch chemical engineer and philosopher of science, Professor Arthur Rörsch, has issued a critique of the draft version of this report, entitled “Post-modern science and the scientific legitimacy of the IPCC’s WGI AR5 draft report”. Noting that the IPCC is a political organization that applies post-modern “logic” to the science that it summarizes, Rörsch calls for thorough independent investigations to be instituted into climate change policy in Europe, thereby mirroring conclusions drawn, and similar calls made, by independent scientists in Australia, Canada and other countries over the last five years.

The political costs of irrational climate policy

The huge social, environmental, economic and (so far limited, but increasing) political costs of pursuing irrational climate policies have to date simply been swatted aside, both in Australia and overseas.

But now that major discrepancies have emerged between genuine scientific knowledge and IPCC advice, sensible policy reappraisals are occurring in many countries. In these circumstances, the compulsive Australian self-harm of continuing to demonize carbon dioxide emissions has become politically enigmatic – not to mention the ultimate ironic twist that the emissions are actually environmentally beneficial, and additionally so at a time of likely global cooling.

When the accumulating new research knowledge, and the reassurance that it provides, are compared with the statements and actions of the Australian government during 2011, an enormous disconnect becomes apparent. And when measure is taken also of the present state of Australian public opinion, and of the rapidly shifting, worldwide political movement away from climate alarmism, and away from punitive measures against carbon dioxide, that disconnect morphs into full blown cognitive dissonance.

In which state of mind, the Labor-Independent-Green government in Australia last year passed what must be the worst legislative package ever approved by a federal parliament. “Worst” because it marks a direct attack on the cheap power prices that formerly underpinned the Australian economy, thereby being a direct attack also on the living standards of all citizens – and especially the less well-off.

Those with the most to lose include not only individual citizens, but also the very lobby groups that have so assiduously fomented the dangerous warming scare.

Including, in particular, environmentalists (because anti-carbon dioxide measures, and the destruction of wealth and landscape desecration that go with them, harm the environment), scientists (because piping a called tune is the very antithesis of science), business interests (because shareholder value is never going to be enhanced by encouraging large and irrational increases in the cost of power) and politicians (because their atavistic need to be elected will not be facilitated by sharply attacking the living standards of their constituency).

The way forward will be determined by an election

The Australian government and its climate-alarmist supporters are now trapped deep inside a blind alley with walls that are labelled “scientific consensus” and “public consensus”. These have always been political siren calls, but the first is a nonsense by definition, and, in that fickle fashion that public opinion often exhibits, the public consensus dramatically reversed its direction during 2009-2010, partly because of the Climategate affair and the attendant loss of IPCC’s virginity.

Former British PM Margaret Thatcher well understood that it is the nature of consensus policy-making to spawn legislative stupidities such as Australia’s carbon dioxide legislation. As she said so well:

"Consensus is the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot [otherwise] get agreement on the way ahead."

Well, people did object but a carbon dioxide tax has still become law, and as they pass from 2011 into 2012 Australian voters are probably less interested in pondering causes, consensual or otherwise, and more interested in action towards rectifying what they see as an economically damaging, expensive, regressive, ineffectual and unnecessary new tax.

They are therefore likely to be contemplating closely the carefully chosen words of Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott:

"We have a Prime Minister who is the great betrayer of the Australian people. She was absolutely crystal-clear before the last election – 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead'. We [the Coalition] can repeal the tax, we will repeal the tax, we must repeal the tax. I am giving you the most definite commitment any politician can give that this tax will go. This is a pledge in blood. This tax will go."

Barring unforeseen and extraordinary circumstances, and terminally bored though we all are with the debate already, the next Australian federal election will therefore be won or lost on the global warming/carbon dioxide tax issue.

By pulling out of the Kyoto protocol, and scheduling formal Senate hearings on global warming from independent scientists, as they did in December, Canada has blazed a new trail.

The question is whether Australia’s Coalition partners will now muster the courage to honour Mr Abbott’s pledge, and to administer the bureaucratic restructuring and legislative repeal that is needed to restore sanity to our national climate policy.

SOURCE

***************************************

For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here

*****************************************

2012-02-06T16:38:00.001+11:30

100 British Conservatives revolt over wind farms

David Cameron has been hit by a major protest by Conservative MPs over the Government’s backing for wind farms, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.

A total of 101 Tory MPs have written to the Prime Minister demanding that the £400 million-a-year subsidies paid to the “inefficient” onshore wind turbine industry are “dramatically cut”.

The backbenchers, joined by some MPs from other parties, have also called on Mr Cameron to tighten up planning laws so local people have a better chance of stopping new farms being developed and protecting the countryside.

The demands will be a headache for Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat Energy Secretary, who joined the Cabinet on Friday when Chris Huhne resigned after being charged with perverting the course of justice.

Mr Huhne, who denies claims that he asked his ex-wife, Vicky Pryce, to accept speeding penalty points on his behalf, was an enthusiastic proponent of wind farms. There are currently more than 3,000 onshore wind turbines in Britain.

At least 4,500 more turbines are expected to go up as the Government’s drive to meet legally binding targets for cutting carbon emissions sparks a green energy boom.

Critics say wind farms are inefficient because the wind cannot be guaranteed to blow at times of greatest energy demand. They are also said to be unsightly, blighting the landscape.

Wind farms are also accused of forcing up energy bills while swallowing disproportionate amounts of taxpayer-funded subsidies.

The Tory MPs, including several of the party’s rising stars as well as former ministers, say it is wrong that hard-pressed consumers must pay for the expansion of onshore wind power.

In the letter sent to No 10 Downing Street last week, which has been seen by The Sunday Telegraph, the MPs say they have become “more and more concerned” about government “support for onshore wind energy production”.

“In these financially straitened times, we think it is unwise to make consumers pay, through taxpayer subsidy, for inefficient and intermittent energy production that typifies onshore wind turbines,” they say. The MPs want the savings spread between other “reliable” forms of renewable energy production.

They have also called on Mr Cameron to change the proposed National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) so that it gives local people who object to proposed wind farms a better chance of victory in the planning process. The framework has finished a public consultation process and is awaiting the green light from ministers.

The letter reads: “We also are worried that the new National Planning Policy Framework, in its current form, diminishes the chances of local people defeating onshore wind farm proposals through the planning system.”

The number of Tory signatories to the letter, organised by Chris Heaton-Harris, the Conservative backbencher, means that the controversy could be the biggest protest to hit Mr Cameron since the Coalition was formed. Last October, 81 Tory MPs defied him in a Commons vote on holding a referendum over Britain’s future in the European Union.

The letter’s backers claim that while other Conservatives who are ministers and parliamentary private secretaries are unable to sign because they are part of the government “payroll”, they too privately support the move against wind farms.

It is understood that there is also support from the Treasury. Among the signatories are former Conservative ministers including David Davis and Christopher Chope, as well as party grandees such as Bernard Jenkin and Nicholas Soames. They are joined by several rising stars including Matthew Hancock, Nadhim Zahawi and Steven Barclay.

Mr Hancock, who is close to the Chancellor, George Osborne, said last night: “I support renewable energy but we need to do it in a way that gives the most value for money and that does not destroy our natural environment.”

Another Tory MP who signed the letter, Tracey Crouch, said: “It is tragic that we blight our countryside with hideous electricity pylons and now we intend not only to do the same with onshore wind farms but also to subsidise them.

“I’d much rather see better planning regulations and greater investment in other sources of renewable energy, which will protect the beauty of our countryside for future generations.”

Latest figures from Ofgem, the energy regulator, showed that £1.1 billion in taxpayer subsidies was paid to the producers of renewable energy in 2009-10.

Of this, about £522 million was for wind power, with most going to onshore wind farms. Much of this cash ended up in the hands of energy companies and investment funds which are based abroad.

The highest-profile critic of the onshore wind industry is the Duke of Edinburgh. Last year it emerged that the Duke claimed farms were a “disgrace” and they would “never work”.

Mr Huhne, by contrast, has described turbines as “elegant” and “beautiful”. His successor, Mr Davey, is thought to be bringing a more pragmatic approach to the Department for Energy and Climate Change.

Mr Davey says he is committed to promoting a “green economy” but has also stated that he is “conscious” of the impact on households of high energy bills in tough economic times.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “We need a low carbon infrastructure and onshore wind is a cost effective and valuable part of the diverse energy mix.

“The Government has commissioned a review of subsidy levels and we are proposing a cut for onshore wind subsidies to take into account the fact that costs are coming down.

“We are committed to giving local communities the power to shape the spaces in which they live and are getting rid of regional targets introduced by the last government.”

SOURCE

Wind farms can actually INCREASE climate change by raising temperatures and causing downpours, warn academics

They have long been championed as a way to combat global warming by creating clean energy. But wind farms can actually alter the climate according to a new study by a group of American scientists.

The team from the University of Illinois found that daytime temperatures around wind farms can fall by as much as 4C, while at night temperatures can increase.

The study found that currently the effect is restricted to areas near to the turbines, but the increase in larger farms could create weather changes on a regional scale.

The study was led by Somnath Roy, assistant professor of atmospheric sciences at the university, with the San Gorgonio wind farm in California the focal point of his research. He suggested that the turbines' blades scoop warm from the ground and push the cooler air downwards. This is then reversed at night.

Roy, whose findings were published in the Sunday Times, added that he believes the turbines causing turbulence and reducing winds speed are the cause. He also added that the churning of air from low to high can create vortices that could extend the phenomenon for large distances downwind.

Roy's research is supported by a study undertaken by the Iowa State University, who looked at how a 100-turbine farm would affect conditions on farmland. They found that temperatures on the ground were warmer at night, which in turn allowed plants to breathe more.

While scientists in the United States have conducted research into the effects of wind farms on climate, such research in the UK is at an early stage. Currently no measurements have been made on changes to weather around British farms despite plans to increase turbines by tenfold. The UK currently has 3,500 wind turbines, with a further 800 under construction.

The Government aim to have 10,000 onshore and 4,300 offshore by 2020, but the rapid growth has led to 101 Tory MPs writing to David Cameron about the proposal. The members are calling for a dramatic cut in subsidies to onshore wind farms and more influence for local people to stop them being built.

SOURCE

Toppling Tax Dollars for Turbines

On February 1, an urgent alert was sent to supporters of wind energy. It stated: “The PTC is the primary policy tool to promote wind energy development and manufacturing in the United States. While it is set to expire at the end of 2012 ... the credit has already effectively expired. Congress has a choice to make: extend the PTC this month and keep the wind industry on track...”

The wind energy industry has reason for concern. America's appetite for subsidies has waned. Congress is looking for any way it can to make cuts and the twenty-year old Production Tax Credit (PTC) for wind energy is in prime position for a cut—it naturally expires at the end of 2012. Without action, it will go away.

The payroll tax extension will be a hot topic over the next few weeks as it expires on February 29. Wind energy supporters are pushing to get the PTC extension included in the bill. Whether or not it is included will be largely up to public response—after all, regarding the PTC's inclusion in the payroll tax extension bill, the February 1 alert stated: “our federal legislators heard us loud and clear.” In the December payroll tax bill negotiations, the wind energy PTC was placed on a “short list of provisions to be extended through that bill.” Wind supporters are worried—hence the rallying cry.

Due to a deteriorating market, Vestas, the world's largest manufacturer of industrial wind turbines, is closing a plant and laying off workers. Everyday citizens, armed with real life information gleaned from the wind energy's decades-long history, are shocking lobbyists and killing back room deals by successfully blocking the development of industrial wind plants in their communities.

As news of actual wind energy contracts are coming in at three and four times the cost of traditionally generated electricity becomes widespread, and natural gas prices continue to drop due to abundance, states are looking to abandon the renewable energy mandates pushed through in a different economic time and a different political era. American Wind Energy Association spokesman, Peter Kelley, reports: “Industry-wide we are seeing a slowdown in towers and turbines after 2012 that is rippling down the supply chain and the big issue is lack of certainty around the production credit that gives a favorable low tax rate to renewable energy.” All of this spells trouble for the wind energy industry.

The PTC is part of a push for renewables that began in the Carter era. Enacted in 1992, the twenty-year old wind energy PTC was designed to get the fledgling industry going. However, after all this time, wind energy is still not a viable option. Even the industry’s own clarion call acknowledges that government intervention is still needed to keep it “on track.” If the training wheels are removed, it will topple.

Wind energy lobbyists have a plan: HB 3307 will extend the PTC for another four years. If the PTC extension passes, it will add an extra $6 billion to the $20 billion in taxpayer dollars the wind industry has already received over the past 20 years. These are monies we borrow (typically from China) to give to Europe—where most of the wind turbine manufacturers are located.

With advertisements featuring blue skies, green grass, and the warm and fuzzy images of families (and not one shot of a 500-foot wind turbine looming over their home), it is easy for the average person to be taken in and think we should continue to underwrite this “new technology”—after all, there is an energy shortage. “What will we do when we run out of oil?” Wind energy is electricity and electricity doesn't come from oil—even if it did, we don't have an oil shortage. Electricity comes from clean-burning natural gas and coal—both of which we have in abundance and know how to use effectively. They don't need an expensive replacement.

Wind energy supporters often tout turbines because of the misguided belief they will get us off of fossil fuels—when, in fact, they commit us to a fossil fuel future. Optimistically, a wind turbine will generate electricity 30% of the time—and we cannot predict when that time will be. Highly variable wind conditions may mean the turbine generates electricity in the morning on Monday, in the middle of the night on Tuesday, and not at all on Wednesday. A true believer might be willing to do without electricity at the times when the wind is not blowing, but the general population will not. Public utilities and electric co-ops cannot—they are required to provide electricity 24/7 and to have a cushion that allows for usage spikes.

So, during that average 30% of the time that the turbine blades are spinning, the natural gas or coal-fueled power plants continue to burn fossil fuels—though possibly slightly less in an extended period of windy weather, and full-steam-ahead the remaining 70% of the time. (Research shows that turning up the heat on power plants, and then turning it back down, and up again actually increases the CO2 emissions.) Absent a major breakthrough in expensive energy storage, wind can never save enough fossil fuel to make any significant difference. After twenty years of subsidies, wind energy has not replaced one traditional power plant.

Some argue that many new technologies got their start through government support. This might be a good viewpoint if wind energy were “new.” But after twenty years of subsidies it is little better now than it was in the late 1800s. Windmills produced electricity then, and modern industrial wind turbines generate electricity now. It is not that they do not work, they do. They just don't do so effectively, economically, or 24/7—and they still need Uncle Sam to prop them up.

Those who favor free markets need to seize upon this opportunity to push for the government to get out of the business of picking winners and losers. Clearly the “green” experiment has failed. Billions have been lost in the effort.

If we truly believe in free markets, why stop at just cutting the subsidies to wind energy? Stop the subsidies to all energy! May the strongest survive! The fact is, such a move is afoot. While HB 3307 aims to stretch out the subsidies for wind energy, HB 3308 will stop subsidies for all energy sources—wind and solar, oil and gas. The playing field will be level; billions will be saved!

A congressman I spoke to fears that, in the current political climate, his colleagues will cave on the wind energy subsidy, as they seem unwilling to take a strong stand on any issue. While wind energy supporters are calling their representatives, free-market advocates and everyone who believes the government-gone-wild spending must stop has to place a call, too.

Call, or e-mail, your Congressman, and as many others as you can take the time for, and tell them to stop subsidizing energy: “Do not include HB 3307 in the payroll tax extension bill. Support HB 3308 which will repeal the PTC and numerous other renewable energy tax incentives including the investment tax credit, the cellulosic biofuel producer credit, the tax credit for electric and fuel cell vehicles, and tax credits for alternative fuels and infrastructure. Additionally, HB 3308 will also repeal the enhanced oil recovery credit for producing oil and gas from marginal wells.”

Instead of propping up energy policy based on politics rather than sound science, we have to prop up our representatives and give them the backbone to do what is right. Tell them to end energy subsidies.

SOURCE

Govt Funding Created Too Many in Battery Space

Here’s a quick footnote to our commentary published last week about the bankruptcy announcement by Ener1, another of Obama’s failed green-energy “investments.” Ener1 manufactured lithium-ion batteries to be used in electric vehicles, EVs. Today’s Wall Street Journal provides further reasons to question Obama’s judgment and his irresponsible stewardship of the taxpayer’s dollars.

Ener1 blamed the anemic market for rechargeable battery cars and an overly competitive market place for the company’s financial woes. That is a similar refrain to the one offered by Solyndra, the California solar energy company that went bust last September even after Obama had guaranteed $535 million in loans.

But, flooding an uncertain, limited, nascent market with a plethora of manufacturers did not seem to bother the Obama Administration or cross anyone’s mind at the DOE. “The battery glut was created in substantial part by the Obama Administration, which handed out money to no fewer than 48 different battery technology and electric vehicle projects in 2009,” according to the WSJ.

Ener1 was awarded a $118 million grant by the DOE in 2009. That’s a “grant” – as in “gift” – not a loan like Solyndra or Beacon Power, a Massachusetts green company that also went bankrupt after a $43 million DOE loan guarantee. At least with a government loan there is an assumption, however weak, that the funds will eventually be paid back. Not so with a grant.

It’s far from clear why a taxpayer gift of $118 million seemed justified other than that the Obama Administration was passing out favors to just about anybody that could say “green energy” – better still if they had also contributed to the Obama campaign. It certainly wasn’t based on prior performance.

The company was founded in 2002, but was never able to post a profitable year. Even 2010, the year after the $118 million grant, Ener1 posted a $165 million loss. That was also the year that Vice-President Biden visited the plant and said the company “was leading the way…sparking whole new industries that will ensure our competitiveness for decades to come.”

Give Joe credit for being an eternal optimist, but he certainly isn’t very good at business. Only Joe would claim that a company showing loses of hundreds of millions of dollars and less than a year away from bankruptcy was “leading the way” to anything but the poor house.

SOURCE

Popular German newsmagazine features climate rebel

Here’s how DER SPIEGEL describes tomorrow’s upcoming story:

THE CLIMATE REBEL

With heretical claims, RWE manager Fritz Vahrenholt is causing a commotion: ‘The climate catastrophe is not taking place’, the environment expert claims. The sun is being underestimated as a natural climate factor. ‘The sun has been weak since 2005′, Vahrenholt said in a DER SPIEGEL interview. ‘We can only expect cooling from it for the time being.’”

Perfect timing

The timing of the DER SPIEGEL feature story couldn’t be worse for Germany’s catastrophe-obsessed warmists. This week renewable energies manager Fritz Vahrenholt’s and geologist Sebastain Lüning’s much anticipated climate-catastrophe skeptic book “Die kalte Sonne” is also hitting bookstores everywhere.

Even the weather is cooperating! When citizens pick up their copy of the flagship Spiegel magazine tomorrow morning at the newsstands, they’ll be shivering in temperatures down to -20°C, as Germany remains gripped in its coldest February freeze in 25 years. Temperature tomorrow morning in Berlin are forecast to dip to a frigid -17°C with no warming in sight.

There’s no way of knowing whether DER SPIEGEL will unload on Professor Vahrenholt and Dr. Lüning, take a more fair and balanced approach, or back them up. One thing is certain – the DER SPIEGEL story will push sales of Vahrenholt’s and Lüning’s book way up the overall best-seller list. The unwanted debate is unavoidable.

More than just the sun

One thing I have noticed: all the premature criticism from the warmists so far is focussed on the sun. I hate to tell you critics, guardians of the climate catastrophe narrative, but the book looks at a hell of a lot more than just the sun. We’re talking about over 800 cited sources (many peer-reviewed) and 80 graphics on a wide range of factors. I suggest you all hold your blabber and read the book first.

Expect lots of howling from the catastrophe-obsessed warmist zealots in the weeks ahead.

SOURCE

Jellyfish panic rebutted

THEY not only sting people and break fishing nets. In recent times jellyfish have also clogged up desalination works, blocked the cooling systems of nuclear power stations and even disabled a war ship.

These incidents, widely covered in the media, have created the perception that jellyfish numbers are rising alarmingly, and fuelled speculation these annoying gelatinous organisms will dominate the oceans in the future, as a result of overfishing and climate change.

But a new study has found claims of a jellyfish plague are scientifically unsubstantiated.
Advertisement: Story continues below

Carlos Duarte, of the University of Western Australia, said researchers had assembled a database of more than 500,000 records of jellyfish abundance dating back more than 200 years.

"We have looked critically at the evidence to support those assertions and concluded the evidence was not there," Professor Duarte, director of the university's oceans institute, said.

Rather than blooms increasing, humans were seeing their impact more often as a result of increased coastal infrastructure, tourism and fishing.

"We have desalination plants that can be blocked by jellyfish blooms, whereas 20 years ago, at least in Australia, there were none," he said.

Occasional outbreaks are a normal and ancient phenomenon, with Minoans painting images of jellyfish blooms on their pottery 4000 years ago, he said. The fossil record also contains geological evidence of huge numbers of the creatures washed ashore.

"Swarms" of jellyfish were noted in Sydney Harbour by some of the first British arrivals.

And a scientific report in 1925 mentioned the "hordes" of jellyfish that appeared annually in Monterey Bay in California, "as if it were common knowledge", the researchers point out in their paper in the journal Bioscience.

Along with historical records, the team collected 42 sets of observations of jellyfish abundance from different parts of the world, dating back to 1790.

Professor Duarte said Japan was the only place where there was "robust evidence" for an increase in jellyfish - the giant Nomura jellyfish, which break fishermen's nets. Up to two metres in diameter, and weighing "more than a Sumo wrestler", they were hard to miss.

Researchers first predicted a possible jellyfish plague in 2001, and this "rise of slime" hypothesis has been widely cited by other scientists and echoed in the media, often with "alarmist headlines, despite a lack of evidence", Professor Duarte said.

But obtaining accurate information on jellyfish abundance was important for tourism, fisheries and ocean management in a changing climate. The new jellyfish database would provide "hard scientific data rather than speculation", he said.

In 2006 in Brisbane, jellyfish were sucked into the cooling system of the massive nuclear-powered warship USS Ronald Reagan on its maiden voyage.

Last year, a desalination plant in Palm Beach, Florida, became clogged with jellyfish, disrupting the water supply to residents for several days.

SOURCE

***************************************

For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here

*****************************************

2012-02-05T13:57:00.002+11:30

More on the "exchange of views" in the WSJ

By Martin Hertzberg, Ph. D., Stanford, 1959

The recent exchange of letters entitled "No Need to Panic About Global Warming" and "Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate" are, either implicitly or explicitly, appeals to politicians based mainly on arguments from "Authority". It is tragic that what should have been an objective evaluation of the available data by independent scientists, has instead degenerated into a partisan political diatribe.

    Weather and Climate are controlled by natural laws on a scale that is enormous compared to the scale of human activity. Those natural laws engender forces and motions in the Earth's atmosphere, its oceans, and its surface that are beyond human control. Weather and Climate existed long before humans appeared on Earth, and they will continue to exist in the same way long after we are gone, either individually or collectively as the human race.

    Those forces and motions are driven by the following phenomena. First, there is the motion of the Earth relative to the Sun: the periodic changes in its elliptical orbit, the rotation of the Earth about its axis, the periodic changes in the tilt of that axis, and the periodic precession of that axis.

Second, there is the variation in Solar activity which causes changes in the amount of radiant energy that reaches the Earth and also causes variations in the Cosmic Ray input into its atmosphere, which effect the Earth's cloudiness.

Third, there is the distribution of land and water on the Earth's surface which controls the temperature distribution of the atmosphere, the availability of moisture, monsoon effects, and the paths and intensities of hurricanes, typhoons, and other storms.

Fourth, there is the topography of the Earth's land mass which causes copious precipitation on the windward side of mountains and aridity on the leeward side. Fifth, there are the motions within the Earth's oceans that determine moisture availability and its surface temperature distribution (El Nino and La Nina cycles).

    The determinant of weather is mainly water in all of its forms: as vapor in the atmosphere; in its heat transport by evaporation and condensation, as the enormous circulating mass of liquid ocean whose heat capacity and mass/energy transport dominate the motions of our atmosphere and the precipitation from it, and finally as cloud, snow, and ice cover which influence the radiative balance between the Sun, the Earth, and free Space. In comparison, the human emission of CO2 is totally insignificant for the Earth's weather and climate and there is not one iota of reliable evidence that proves otherwise.

    This was all learned by me when I served as a research and forecasting Meteorologist while on active duty in the U. S. Navy. That was long before the ersatz field now called "Climate Science" was fabricated out of thin air for the main purpose of promoting the false theory that human CO2 emission was causing "global warming/climate change/extreme weather phenomena." Note that the theory has become a moving target over the last decade, but it is still relatively easy to track and shoot down.

Letter submitted to the WSJ, received by email

Snow falls in Rome for the first time in 26 YEARS as -36c temperatures across eastern Europe send death toll to 150

Snow fell in Rome today for the first time in 26 years as freezing temperatures took the death toll across Europe to more than 150.

The Italian capital is usually blessed by a moderate climate but the snowfall prompted authorities stop visitors from entering the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill, the former home of Rome's ancient emperors.

The last substantial snowfalls in Rome were in 1985 and 1986, though there have been other cases of lighter snow since then, including in 2010. The director of the Colosseum, Rossella Rea, said the sites were closed out of fears that visitors could slip on ice..

Snow began falling in the late morning Friday, leaving a light dusting on trees and cars and forming slush on the roads. It wasn't clear if there would be any significant accumulation on the ground.

The European Union is bracing for another potential energy crisis in the dead of winter as Russian gas supplies to some of its member states suddenly have dwindled by up to 30 percent.

The European Commission put its gas coordination committee on alert today, but insisted the situation had not yet reached an emergency level since coordination between nations to help each other had improved and storage facilities had been upgraded.

Commission spokeswoman Marlene Holzner said Russia was going through an extremely cold spell and needed more gas to keep its citizens warm.

She said that Russia's gas contracts 'allow for certain flexibility in case they also need the gas. And that is the situation that Russia is facing at the moment.' The severe winter in Russia has seen temperatures drop to minus 35 C (minus 30 F).

Snow fell across large parts of the UK, with two inches covering Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk in white, while in the Pennines, fences and phone masts resembled ice sculptures.

The east of the country will again be covered in snow today and the South-East, Midlands and North will be hit tomorrow afternoon.

The Met Office said up to four inches of snow could fall over the weekend across much of England and Wales, with southern and central areas likely to see the worst of it.

A level three ‘amber’ cold weather alert - the second most serious - was issued, which warns of health risks to the elderly and vulnerable, and the likelihood of disruption to transport. Level four 4 would mean a 'major cold weather incident', in which normally healthy people are at risk from the cold.

The alerts are tied in to the Government’s Cold Weather Plan and are relayed to organisations such as Age UK, which help the elderly through winter.

The military have been put on alert should conditions deteriorate to a level four. When freezing conditions struck in 2010, members of the armed forces were called in to help clear snow from the roads and assist residents in particularly hard-hit areas and help clear special locations such as hospitals and care homes.

Parts of the Black Sea froze near the Romanian coastline and there was a rare snowfall on Croatian islands in the Adriatic Sea. In Bulgaria, 16 towns recorded their lowest temperatures since records started 100 years ago.

Police spokesman Predrag Maric said emergency crews were pressing hard to try to clear the snow and deliver badly needed supplies. He said: 'We are trying everything to unblock the roads since more snow and blizzards are expected in the coming days,' Maric said.

Newly reported deaths on Thursday because of the cold included 20 in Ukraine, nine in Poland, eight in Romania, and one more each in Serbia and the Czech Republic.

About 180 schools were closed in Romania because of the freezing cold. Three ships were blocked on the Danube River - one German, one Dutch and one Romanian - and efforts were made to unblock them from ice.

In Bulgaria, where 16 towns recorded their lowest temperatures since records started 100 years ago, 1,070 schools across the country remained closed Thursday and large sections of the Danube were frozen, hampering navigation.

Dutch authorities banned boats from some of Amsterdam's canals and waterways in the hope the big freeze gripping the city would turn the still water to ice and allow residents to go skating. They also turned off mills and pumps that regulate water levels in the low-lying, flood-prone nation to improve the chances of canals freezing over.

Speed skating is a winter obsession in the Netherlands and hopes are about the possibility of holding the Elfstedentocht - or '11 Town Tour' - skating race being staged for the first time since 1997.

The 200-kilometer (125-mile) tour route takes skaters over frozen canals and lakes linking 11 towns in the northern Netherlands. The tour, which is also a race for elite skaters, has only been staged 15 times since the first official event in 1909.

SOURCE

Greenie nut caught out in Britain

The feud between Energy Secretary Chris Huhne and his economist ex-wife Vicky Pryce culminated yesterday in sensational charges against both of perverting the course of justice.

Mr Huhne, the first Cabinet minister in history to be forced from office by a criminal prosecution, fiercely protested his innocence and pledged to fight the charge of using his former wife’s name to escape speeding penalty points.

Greek-born Miss Pryce, by contrast, made no reference to how she intends to plead, simply declaring she hoped for a rapid resolution to the case.

If she admits the charge, she could be called to give evidence against Mr Huhne, while if she decides to plead not guilty, she will almost certainly end up side by side with her husband in the dock.

The allegations, which stretch back to 2003, surfaced after the couple separated in 2010 when the Energy Secretary announced he was leaving his wife of 27 years for his aide Carina Trimingham, who had previously been in a civil partnership with a woman.

It is claimed that the millionaire MP sought to evade speeding points by putting them in Miss Pryce’s name.

The long-running criminal probe has sent shock waves through the Liberal Democrats and the Government as a whole.

Friends said Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s wife Miriam telephoned Miss Pryce minutes after she learned she was to face trial, telling her: ‘If you need somewhere to stay, if the kids need support, we’re here.’

One friend who spoke to Miss Pryce after charges were announced said: ‘She seems very cheerful and in a good mood. It’s like a Greek drama. But she was very buoyed up by Miriam’s call.’

For months, the Energy Secretary had appeared confident that charges would not be brought, declaring only last week that he believed prosecutors would drop the case.

Allies even suggested that he might stay in his job if he faced trial – a prospect apparently killed off by Mr Clegg and Cabinet

Yesterday 57-year-old Mr Huhne, who has three children and two stepchildren with his former wife, quit shortly after charges were announced, describing the decision to take the case to court as ‘deeply regrettable’.

‘I am innocent of these charges and I intend to fight this in the courts and I am confident that a jury will agree,’ he insisted. He said he was resigning as Energy Secretary ‘to avoid any distraction’ to his official duties or trial defence.

Mr Huhne and his ex-wife face the extremely serious charge of perverting the course of justice – an offence for which, along with perjury, former Tory Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken was jailed for 18 months.

A jail sentence of more than 12 months would mean Mr Huhne’s Parliamentary career coming to an end, as well as his Cabinet one. MPs who are imprisoned for more than a year automatically lose their seats.

Regardless of the merits of the case against him, his departure from the Cabinet was met with private delight by many senior Tories, who have regarded him as an abrasive and grandstanding coalition colleague.

Mr Huhne’s relationship with Mr Clegg has also long been tense. Mr Clegg only narrowly defeated Mr Huhne in a contest for the Lib Dem leadership, and Mr Huhne’s allies always insisted he would have been crowned the winner had a bunch of postal votes not been delayed.

The Deputy Prime Minister went out of his way to suggest Mr Huhne could make a swift return to Government if he was acquitted.

In a letter to his former leadership rival, Mr Clegg said: ‘I fully understand your decision to stand down from government in order to clear your name, but I hope you will be able to do so rapidly so that you can return to play a key role in Government as soon as possible.’

The Prime Minister pointedly made no mention of a possible return in his own letter accepting Mr Huhne’s resignation.

During a visit to Plymouth, Mr Cameron said: ‘I think Chris Huhne has made the right decision, given the circumstances.’ Mr Cameron’s spokesman declined to say that the Prime Minister felt any personal sympathy for Mr Huhne.

The charges relate to a speeding offence committed on March 12, 2003. It is said to have taken place while Mr Huhne was driving back from Stansted airport having returned from the European Parliament, where he was then an MEP.

Last week Essex police took possession of emails and other material from the Sunday Times, which published an interview with Miss Pryce in which she first made the allegations.

SOURCE

Britain's Solar power incentives lose their shine

The fledgling industry has been flourishing, but the halving of government subsidies has thrown it into confusion

The last year hasn’t been a happy one for the British economy: GDP fell by 0.2 per cent in the final quarter of 2011; unemployment rose to a 17-year high; and government debt recently reached a record £1 trillion.

One sector, however, has been bathing in the broad sunlit uplands of growth. In 2010 there were 450 solar businesses, employing around 3,000 people; by the end of last year, there were almost 4,000, employing more than 25,000 people. In September alone, some 16,000 households had solar panels installed – twice as many as in June – as everyone from farmers to vicars to Mick Jagger (plus thousands of other canny home owners with £12,000 to spare) scrambled to take advantage of generous government subsidies.

It was, said Lord Marland, an energy minister, in a House of Lords debate this week about halving the subsidies, “one of the most ridiculous schemes ever dreamed up”.

The Government’s case is that the taxpayer is paying through the nose to subsidise inefficient technology at the expense of other renewable technologies. The solar industry argues that the Government has acted unlawfully, putting thousands of jobs at risk and stifling a promising industry at birth.

The feed-in tariff (FIT) scheme was introduced, appropriately for its detractors, on April 1, 2010. Under the scheme, householders could install solar panels on their roofs – at around £12,000 – and receive a high rate, guaranteed for 25 years, from energy companies for the electricity generated, while simultaneously saving on their energy costs (the average installation generates just over half a home’s energy needs).

According to the Energy Saving Trust, the average household could expect to be almost £1,200 a year better off by selling electricity to the grid at a rate of 43.3p per kilowatt hour (six times more than the energy companies pay for their own electricity).

Inevitably, the generous scheme ran out of control – there were more than three times as many solar installations as predicted. The Department of Energy and Climate Change estimated that, if the subsidies continued at the same rate, £100 could be added to everyone’s electricity bills by 2020. Meanwhile, the average cost of a solar panel had fallen by a third. Last October, the Government decided that this jamboree had to stop.

They went about it in a remarkably cack-handed way, however, announcing a halving of the tariff to 21p on December 12 – 11 days before a consultation period finished. A high court judge found this legally flawed, following a challenge by Friends of the Earth and two solar firms. On January 25, the Court of Appeal upheld his decision. Chris Huhne, the former Energy Secretary, was said to be considering a further appeal, to the Supreme Court, just before he resigned to spend more of his own time in the courts.

This has left the solar industry in limbo, as customers have variously rushed to take advantage of offers before they vanish or stood back to see what happens next. Now that the Government has lost its appeal, there is a further window until March 3 before the feed-in tariff is reduced. Anyone installing a system before then can join existing solar owners in benefiting from the 41p rate.

“It went ballistic before Christmas,” says Andy Tanner, chief executive of Plug Into the Sun, a firm that’s been operating in Penzance for seven years. “Then it was as dead as a doornail. Now it’s gone ballistic again. However, we’re on tenterhooks for February 9.”

That is the date when the Government announces the results of its consultation, including a scantily reported proposal to pay feed-in tariffs only to homes with an energy performance certificate of grade C or above. “That would rule out some 80 per cent of our customers,” says Tanner.

Toby Darbyshire, chief executive of Engensa, which is based in London and made a profit of £2 million on a turnover of £15 million in its first year of trading, has a list of 400 potential customers wondering whether or not to install solar panels.

“There’s a huge amount of uncertainty in the industry at the moment,” he says. “There is real anger about the sledgehammer way this has happened.”

The industry’s beef is not so much with the tariff cut – Engensa had even been lobbying the Government to reduce it, to make the industry more viable in the long term – as with the timing. “It’s left the industry high and dry,” says Derry Newman, chief executive of Solarcentury, one of the firms that took the Government to court. Solarcentury has had to scrap 12 new jobs, each of which had attracted more than 60 applicants. Investor confidence has evaporated, leading the company to cancel a social housing project in Wales. While the hysterical predictions in December of 25,000 job losses haven’t (yet) turned out to be true, some firms have gone bust. “Lots are just hanging on,” says Newman. “The small guys with large bank loans, who don’t have the cash-flow to pay them back.”

Of course, many of us without solar power – but still subsidising it – will wonder just how sympathetic we’re supposed to be. Even with a reduced feed-in tariff, those who can afford the installations will still make more than £600 a year. We’ll still be helping them to recoup their initial investment, albeit in 18 years, instead of 10. As Lord Marland put it this week: “It is already going to cost the consumer £7 billion for £400 million of net present value. This is on a product where you need the electricity when the sun doesn’t shine. It is going to produce 1.1 per cent of our electricity supply, and it doesn’t target the needy and the consumers.”

The response of the solar industry is: bear with us a little longer. According to the Solar Future campaign, costs will come down so much over the next decade that new solar capacity will not have to be subsidised. The total subsidy, it estimates, over the next 30 years will be a maximum of £9 per household.

SOURCE

How green zealots are destroying the planet: The provocative claim from a writer vilified for denying global warming

Just imagine a world where you never had to worry about global warming, where the ice caps, the ‘drowning’ Maldives and the polar bears were all doing just fine.

Imagine a world where CO2 was our friend, fossil fuels were a miracle we should cherish, and economic growth made the planet cleaner, healthier, happier and with more open spaces.

Actually, there’s no need to imagine: it already exists. So why do so many people still believe otherwise?

How come, against so much evidence, everyone from the BBC to your kids’ teachers to the Coalition government (though that may change somewhat now Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has resigned), to the President of the Royal Society to the Prince of Wales continues to pump out the message that man-made ‘climate change’ is a major threat?

Why, when the records show that there has been no global warming since 1997, are we still squandering billions of pounds trying to avert it?

These are some of the questions I set out to answer in my new book — which I can guarantee will not make me popular with environmentalists.

Almost every day, on Twitter or by email, I get violent messages of hate directed not just at me, but even my children. Separately, I’ve been criticised by websites such as the Campaign Against Climate Change (Honorary President: the environmental activist and writer George Monbiot). I’ve had a green activist set up a false website in my name to misdirect my internet traffic. I’ve been vilified everywhere from the Guardian to a BBC Horizon documentary as a wicked ‘denier’ who knows nothing about science.

Not that I’m complaining. Margaret Thatcher once famously said: ‘I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.’ That’s just how I feel about my critics’ ad hominem assaults. They’re born not of strength but out of sheer desperation.

The turning point towards some semblance of sanity in the great climate war came in November 2009 with the leak of the notorious Climategate emails from the University of East Anglia.

What these showed is that the so-called ‘consensus’ science behind Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) — ie the theory that man-made CO2 is causing our planet to heat up in a dangerous, unprecedented fashion — simply cannot be trusted.

The experts had, for years, been twisting the evidence, abusing the scientific process, breaching Freedom of Information requests (by illegally hiding or deleting emails and taxpayer-funded research) and silencing dissent in a way which removes all credibility from the scaremongering reports they write for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

(The IPCC is the heavily politicised but supposedly neutral UN advisory body which has been described by President Obama as the ‘gold standard’ of international climate science.)

Since Climategate, the scientific case against AGW theory has hardened still further. Experiments at the CERN laboratory in Geneva have supported the theory of Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark that the sun — not man-made CO2 — is the biggest driver of climate change.

The latest data released by the Met Office, based on readings from 30,000 measuring stations, confirms there has been no global warming for 15 years.

Now, with sunspot activity (solar flares caused by magnetic activity) at its lowest since the days of the 17th-century frost fairs on the Thames, it seems increasingly likely we are about to enter a new mini Ice Age. Should we be bothered by this? Of course we should. Not only does it mean that for the rest of our lives we’re likely to be doomed to experience colder winters and duller summers, but it also makes us victims of perhaps the most expensive fraud in history.

Over the past 20 years, across the Western world, billions of pounds, dollars and euros have been squandered by governments on hare-brained schemes to ‘combat climate change’.

Taxes have been raised, regulations increased, flights made more expensive, incandescent light bulbs banned, landscapes despoiled by ugly, bird-chomping wind farms, economic growth curtailed — all to deal with what now turns out to have been a non-existent problem: man-made CO2.

But if anthropogenic warming is not the threat environmentalists would have us believe, why do so many people believe it is? And how come so many disparate groups — from the hair-shirt anti-capitalist activists of Greenpeace and Friends Of The Earth to the executives of big corporations, to politicians of every hue from Gordon Brown to David Cameron to scientists at NASA and the UEA — are working together to promote this pernicious myth?

The short answer is ‘follow the money’.

Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at the UEA which was at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ scandal, for example, was given £13.7 million in grants for his department’s research work; the environmental non-governmental organisations such as Greenpeace came on board because scaremongering helps them raise revenue.

You’re not going to give money to the charity’s Project Thin Ice if you think the polar bear is good for another 10,000 years, but you might if you’re told it’s seriously endangered.

Politicians were attracted because it was a good way of being seen to be addressing an issue of popular concern, and a handy excuse to put up taxes.

Big corporations joined in the scam as a) it enabled them to ‘greenwash’ their image through campaigns like BP’s ‘Beyond Petroleum’ and b) it meant all that extra environmental regulation would be a handy way of pricing their smaller competitors out of the market place.

But money isn’t the only reason. If you read the private emails of the Climategate scientists, what you discover is that most of them genuinely believe in the climate change peril.

That’s why they lied about the evidence and why they tried to destroy the careers of those scientists who disagreed with them: because they wanted to scare politicians into action before time ran out. This was not science, in other words, but political activism.

A similar ‘end justifies the means’ mentality seems to prevail among all those environmental lobby groups. They don’t exaggerate or misrepresent because they’re bad people. They do it, as a former head of Greenpeace once charmingly put it when accused of having overstated the decline in Arctic sea ice, to ‘emotionalise the issue’; because they want to make the rest of the world care about these issues as much as they do.

Powerful feelings, though, are hardly the most sensible basis for global policy. Especially not when, as it turns out, they are based on a misreading of the facts.

One of the grimmest ironies of the modern environmental movement is just how much damage it has done to the planet in the name of ‘saving’ it. Green biofuels (crops such as palm oil grown for fuel) have not only led to the destruction of millions of acres of rainforest in Asia, Africa and South America, but are now known to produce four times more CO2 pollution than fossil fuels.

Wind farms, besides blighting views, destroying topsoil and causing massive noise pollution, kill around 400,000 birds a year in the U.S. alone. Environmentalists, in fact, have a disastrous track record when it comes to predictions and policy recommendations. Rachel Carson’s 1962 bestseller Silent Spring — which promised a cancer epidemic from pesticides — led to a near worldwide ban on the malarial pesticide DDT, thus condemning millions in the Third World to die from malaria.

Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb, meanwhile, rehearsed another of the green movement’s favourite themes: overpopulation. By the Seventies and Eighties, he warned, hundreds of millions of us would be dying like flies because there wouldn’t be enough food.

Why did Ehrlich’s prediction never come to pass? Because, like most of the greenies’ doomsday scenarios, it overlooked one vital factor: progress.

Because the green movement has for years been ideologically wedded to the notion that mankind is an ecological curse (‘The Earth has a cancer. The cancer is man’, as a global think tank called The Club of Rome, which includes several current and former heads of state, puts it), it fails to understand the role which technology, human ingenuity and adaption play in our species’ survival.
Ehrlich’s population disaster was averted thanks to a brilliant American scientist called Norman Borlaug who devised new mutant strains of wheat which managed to treble cereal production on the starving Indian subcontinent.

Of course, there is still widespread concern over the use of genetically modified crops, but scientists argue that with proper safeguards in place they can actually be more environmentally friendly than conventional crops, using less water and fewer pesticides.

Similar technological advances in the field of energy make a nonsense of environmentalists’ claims that we are running out of fuel: long before coal ran out came the petroleum revolution; and, though we still have plenty of oil left, we now have the miracle of shale gas which lies in abundance everywhere from Blackpool to the North Sea, and is released using blasts of high-pressure liquid to open pockets of gas in rock.

When, many decades hence, that runs out we will start to harvest clathrates (solid methane deposits) buried on the ocean floor.

Economic progress is not our enemy but our friend. It is an historical fact that the richer nations are, the more money they have to spare on ensuring a cleaner environment: compare the relatively clean air in London to the choking smog that envelops Beijing and Delhi; look at where the worst ecological disasters happened in the last century — under impoverished Communist regimes, from the Aral Sea to Chernobyl.

But the greens refuse to accept this because, according to their quasi-religious doctrine, industrial civilisation is a curse and economic growth a disease which can only be cured by rationing and self-sacrifice, higher taxes and greater state control.

That’s why I call my new book Watermelons — because it’s about zealots who are green on the outside, but in political terms, red on the inside. If only their views weren’t so influential, in schools, universities, in the media, in the corridors of power, the global economy wouldn’t be nearly in the mess it’s in today.

As someone who loves long walks in unspoilt countryside and who wants a brighter future for his children, I’m sickened by the way environmental activists tar anyone who disagrees with them as a selfish, polluting, anti-science ‘denier’.

The real deniers are those ideological greens who refuse to look at hard evidence (not just pie-in-the-sky computer models which are no more accurate than the suspect data fed into them) and won’t accept that their well-intentioned schemes to make our world a better place are in fact making it uglier, poorer and less free.

SOURCE

GISS Temperature Trend Is Complete Garbage

According to Hansen, the land surface has warmed 1.2C since 1880.

This is blatant scientific fraud. As you can see below, he had almost no temperature data in the 1880s for Africa, Greenland, South America, Northern Canada, Siberia, The Arctic, the Antarctic and South Asia. His error bar (green) is much too small to be correct. The few stations in South America and Africa show little or no warming since 1880

To make matters worse, he has corrupted the US temperature data, which makes up more than a third of the available stations for comparison. Note that a number of stations in Africa and Australia have cooled, and that most of his warming is in UHI affected areas. For all we know, the 1880s may have been warmer than the present. How is it that glaciers were rapidly melting in the 1880s, and growing in the 1960s and 1970s? How can he possibly claim that 2011 is 1.2C warmer than the 1880s based on the limited data above? It is complete nonsense to make such a claim.

Before Hansen tampered with the data, the 1880s were nearly as warm in the US as they were in the 1990s. This is critically important – because the lion’s share of high quality global weather stations during the 1880s were located in the US. Hansen’s thermometers reported little warming in the US since 1880s, and the “warming” only appears after the data has been modified. Without the US temperature data tampering (adjustments) the “global” trend since 1880 gets greatly reduced.

The hottest temperature ever recorded in Europe and in Washington DC both occurred in 1881. Hansen’s data has zero legitimacy. He is missing data from at least 0.70 of the land surface during the 19th century, yet reports trends within 0.01 degrees. He would fail any undergraduate science class for reporting a precision two orders of magnitude larger than his accuracy. It is illegitimate science to publish this temperature data without an accurate error bar, and lots of disclaimers describing the severe limitations of accuracy.

It is imperative that he publishes equally available graphs made from unaltered data, even if he honestly believes his bogus adjustments are accurate. And his altered graphs need to be clearly marked. Most people believe that they are seeing temperatures reported by thermometers, and that simply isn’t true.

CIA report below from 1974, showing that snow and ice were increasing during the 1970s. Hansen reports higher temperatures in the 1970s than the 1880s, yet we know that glaciers and polar ice were disappearing in the 1880s.

It would be impossible to have disappearing ice at lower temperatures, and increasing ice at higher temperatures – yet that is exactly what Hansen’s data shows.

More HERE (See the original for links)

***************************************

For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here

*****************************************

2012-02-04T17:19:00.002+11:30

Two more replies to some Green/Left boilerplate

I myself commented on the boilerplate concerned on 2nd but I have received via email from an Australian source the following addition to the discussion:

On 1 February a group of climate scientists published an article in The Australian (it had already been published in the Wall St Journal) explaining why they believe there is no compelling argument for drastic action to reduce emissions. This produced a response by a group of climate scientists (under the name of one, Kevin Trenberth) who believe there is a need for such action and a claim that the first group does not have the required expertise. A copy of the latter article is set out below.

The fact that the self-appointed experts have felt the need to respond is a further indication of concern by the experts that their analyses are increasingly being exposed as (to say the least) highly questionable. The response, however, is largely devoid of substance and is based on the pathetic claim of superior expertise.

This has produced several letters challenging the respondents, the most important of which is the one below by Bill Kininmonth who is of course one of our expert climate scientists but whose views have to date been ignored by the government.

Climategate email reveals doubts on data (Letter published in The Australian, 4-5 Feb 2012)

Kevin Trenberth, responding to an Opinion (to which I was a co-signatory) published in the Wall Street Journal (27/1/12) and The Australian (“Climate change ‘heretics’ refute carbondangers”,1/2), claims to have been quoted out of context and misrepresented (“Expertise a prerequisite to comment on climate”, 3/2).

The quote in our Opinion is from an email sent by Trenberth to a group of colleagues that became public with the release of emails from the UK University of East Anglia (or climategate). Trenberth wrote: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t...... there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observation system is inadequate.”

The context is an exchange of emails initiated on 11 October 2009 in response to a BBC item that there has been no warming since 1998 and that Pacific oscillations will force cooling for the next 20-30 years.

Trenberth was certainly lamenting the inadequacy of the observing systems (with which I agree) but at face value he is also acknowledging that the available data do not support warming since 1998. The latter is an inconvenience to the human-caused global warming hypothesis that he and his colleagues are wedded to.

William Kininmonth, Kew, Vic

Expertise A Prerequisite To Comment? (Square bracketed section deleted by Ed)

[Kevin Trenberth writes with other climate scientists in defence of their view that the world faces dangerous warming (Commentary, 3/2). But he fails to explain why some qualified scientists present a vastly different perspective.

Take just one example from the attitude of Climate Research Unit head at East Anglia University, a principal source of advice to the IPCC. He told the BBC in 2010 that surface temperature data cannot be verified or replicated, that the mediaeval warming period may have been as warm as today, that no statistically measured global warming has occurred for the previous 15 years and that the science is not settled. There are many other examples of expert climate scientists with different views.]

Although not an economist, Trenberth claims a low-carbon economy will “drive decades of economic growth”. But analysis by Australia’s expert economist, Ross Garnaut, says action to mitigate the effect of emissions would lift growth by 2100 to only a minor extent, and then after cutting it initially.

There are experts and experts. Some are right and some are wrong. The uncertainties of climate science, acknowledged in the IPCC’s 2007 report, suggest emission reducing action by governments is not justified.

Des Moore, South Yarra Vic

Hidden dissent at a great temple of Warmism (the UEA)

Nick Brooks in Email 1558:

"I'm always wary of claims (p3) that we are entering a period of unprecedented warmth. I do not know what the mean global temperature was in the Holocene climatic optimum, but research suggests tropical sea-surface temperatures some 5-6 degrees higher than present. Even a smaller change would of course be catastrophic for many societies today, but unless there have been serious comparisons between today and the mid-Holocene and we can say with confidence that anthropogenic warming scenarios exceed such palaeoclimatic conditions such claims may come back to haunt us.

SOURCE

Century of ocean warming good for corals, research shows

Another nasty one for Hoagy and all the other Warmists. Hoagy has been very quiet in recent years

A GOVERNMENT-run research body has found that the past 110 years of ocean warming has been good for the growth of corals spanning more than 1000km of Australia's coastline.

The findings undermine predictions that global warming will devastate coral reefs, and add to a growing body of evidence showing corals are more resilient than previously thought - up to a certain point.

The study by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, peer-reviewed findings of which were published today in the leading journal Science, examined 27 samples from six locations from the West Australian coast off Geraldton to offshore from Darwin.

At each site, scientists took cores from massive porites corals - similar to a biopsy in humans - and counted back to record their age in much the same way tree rings are counted.

Although some cores extended to the 18th century, they focused on the period from 1900 to 2010.

The researchers found that, contrary to their expectations, warmer waters had not negatively affected coral growth. In fact, for their southern samples, where ocean temperatures are the coolest but have warmed the most, coral growth increased most significantly over the past 110 years. For their northern samples, where waters are the warmest and have changed the least, coral growth still increased, but not by as much.

"Those reefs have actually been able to take advantage of the warmer conditions," said Janice Lough, a senior AIMS research scientist and one of the study's authors.

The key question is how warm the water can get before the positive effects are reversed. [Why should they be reversed? That is just ideology speaking. Warmth is generally good for all life] Lab studies have typically measured the effect of short-term, rapid changes in temperature and water chemistry; these mimic, for example, coral-bleaching events that are known to be devastating.

Much harder to measure are the long-term effects of gradual warming, such as those caused by climate change.

SOURCE

Tiny sales for Chev Volt

General Motors extended-range electric Chevrolet Volt had its worst sales month since August, as negative publicity over fire risks hurt vehicles sales in January.

GM sold just 603 Volts - above its sales in January 2011, but far below GM's best-ever sales month in December, when GM sold 1,529 Volts.

Last week, GM North America President Mark Reuss said sales of the Volt have been hurt by bad publicity.

Reuss said bad publicity from the government's investigation into fire risks of post-crash Volts is "definitely a component" of the decline in sales.

GM sold about 7,700 in 2011, below GM's target of 10,000. GM abandoned its sales target of 45,000 for 2012 last month, saying it would match "supply to demand."

GM was outsold by Nissan Motor Co.'s all-electric Leaf in 2011, as the Japanese automaker sold nearly 9,700 last year. Nissan said it sold 676 Leafs in January, down from 954 in December.

Nissan hopes to double Leaf sales this year.

Reuss said that when GM restarts production in February at its Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant, it will build Volts in a "very reasonable" volume. He said there is some pent-up export demand.

Reuss says Volt awareness has gone up over the last two months in the wake of publicity over the government's investigation.

GM is focused on rehabilitating the Volt's reputation. "It's a tough road, but we've got to do it," Reuss said.

Last week, Congress held a hearing into the Obama administration's handling of disclosure of a fire in a crash-tested Volt. GM Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson testified at that hearing. He said the Volt is safe, and that the Volt has become "a political punching bag." He said the Volt has suffered "collateral damage" because of two months of rentless bad publicity.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration closed its investigation into the Volt in January after finding no unreasonable risk to safety. GM has agreed to make some voluntary upgrades to the Volt to guard against fires in post-crash Volts, but stopped short of issuing a formal recall.

SOURCE

Obama's War on Oil Crushing Small Businesses, Jobs

When the Deep Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico exploded in May of 2010, the Obama Administration was quick to climb the rostrum of political opportunity and seize full advantage from public outrage directed at BP, the energy company responsible for the well. “We will keep our boot on their neck until the job gets done,” raged Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar in reference to responsibility for stopping the leak and cleaning up the contamination.

Holding BP responsible was fair enough, and nobody was rushing to defend the company. However, Salazar and his boss, Barack Obama didn’t stop there. Salazar quickly imposed a permitting moratorium that essentially shut down the gulf. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu as well as other elected officials immediately objected saying it would devastate the gulf economy far beyond the already significant impact of the well explosion, particularly to the energy, fishing, and tourism industries.

Eventually, U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman overturned the moratorium and ordered Interior to begin permitting according to existing regulations. Salazar re-instated a second moratorium within days, which caused Feldman to find him in contempt of the previous court order noting that the Administration had shown “determined disregard” for the court. In a separate ruling, the court found that new regulations imposed unilaterally by Salazar also violated his authority and federal law and struck them down, as well.

Obama extorted $20 billion from BP to fund an escrow damage account without constitutional authority or judicial foundation. Columnist George Will was appalled. The use of "raw political power, without recourse to courts that exist for this sort of thing, under laws, with due process, essentially confiscates $20 billion from a publicly held corporation, about half of its shares held by Americans, to be dispensed, again, without judicial supervision, as the political branch sees fit" resembles the action of a tyrant ruling a "Northern Hemisphere Venezuela" rather that the United States of America Will said on the ABC News program, This Week.

Interior has effectively maintained an "informal moratorium" by stalling and delaying permitting. The results have been devastating just as Gov. Jindal warned. A study just completed by Greater New Orleans, Inc., or GNO, an economic development agency, found that the many small and medium size business that are dependent on the energy business in the gulf are shedding workers, exhausting personal savings, and leaving the gulf in an attempt to survive. It’s a tale of economic destruction that was created by excessive over-reach for perceived political gain by Salazar and the Obama White House.

In a survey of 100 business owners or company executives associated with the oil and gas industry in the gulf, GNO found that 50 percent had been forced to lay off workers as a result of Salazar’s moratorium. Thirty-nine percent reported retaining staff but being forced to reduce salaries and cut hours.

Of the 100 companies surveyed, 41percent are not making a profit, 76 percent have drained cash reserves, and 82 percent have been forced to tap into personal savings as a result of the permit slowdown – 13 percent said they had completely exhausted their personal cash.

Forty-six percent of the companies surveyed reported moving some or all of their operations away from the gulf in an attempt to survive.

"Small and mid-sized companies are the hidden victims of the permit moratorium and ensuing slowdown," said Michael Hecht, President and CEO of GNO, Inc. "While global companies can simply shift their assets, these Louisiana companies – through no fault of their own – have endured significant, and now documented, financial hardships."

Although the moratorium is technically lifted, permit issuance is slow at best. According to GNO’s most recent published Gulf Permit Index report for January, 2012 the rate of issuance of deep-water permits are 71% fewer than the historical average. Just two permits per month have been issued over the last 90 days. Barely two-per-month shallow-well permits are being issued, too, which is 84% less than historical levels.

In his recent State of the Union Address, Barack Obama tried to claim credit for increases in oil and gas production in the U.S. Production in some parts of the nation has happened in spite of his Administration, not because of it. Advanced technology and the success of fracking to open more reserves to production from Texas to North Dakota and Pennsylvania to Alaska are responsible. But, in the gulf – where 30 percent of domestic oil and 13 percent of natural gas is produced – Obama’s policies have damaged not only energy production but the economy and lives of countless Americans. That’s a tragedy Barack Obama didn’t mention in his speech and a reality he chooses to ignore.

SOURCE

Agenda-driven “science” at EPA

Newly proposed air pollution rules impose exorbitant costs for illusory health benefits

In December 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency released new Clean Air Act “National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants.” Once again, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson touted the supposedly huge benefits of controlling emissions of mercury (Hg) and other air toxics from U.S. coal- and oil-fired power plants (or electric generating units, EGUs).

The people of Idaho may welcome this new rule, since EPA’s miraculous modeling machine has promised to prevent “six premature deaths” and create “up to $54 million” in health benefits by 2016 – even though not one coal-fired EGU in Idaho fits the EPA’s final rules. Even the District of Columbia, which has only one oil-fired unit, will somehow, magically realize “up to $120 million” in health benefits, presumably from new restrictions on coal-fired units in Maryland or Virginia.

The average U.S. citizen, however, can be excused for no longer being willing to be penalized by EPA – the Extreme Punishment Authority – for such minimal, imaginary and manufactured benefits.

In fact, the final rule may be the most expensive one ever devised by EPA. And yet, even EPA admits, the alleged “hazards to public health” from mercury and non-mercury emissions from American EGUs are “anticipated to remain after imposition” of the new regulations.

As to benefits, EPA computer models claim Hg emission cuts will reduce average per person “avoided IQ loss” by an undetectable “0.00209 IQ points,” with estimated “total nationwide benefits” of $500,000 to $6.1 million by 2016. For the electric utility sector, says EPA, net job creation from the rules will be “not statistically different from zero” and could be between minus 15,000 and plus 30,000 jobs.

In fact, the new regulations will likely eliminate tens of thousands of jobs annually, especially in energy-intensive industries that rely on low-cost electricity to survive and face growing competition from foreign companies that pay far less for energy, labor and raw materials. Small businesses will also get hammered.

“EPA cannot certify that there will be no SISNOSE from this rule,” the agency admits. “SISNOSE” is EPA-speak for “significant impacts on a substantial number of small entities.” In other words, the rules are likely to inflict significant economic harm on small businesses, and thus on the health and welfare of numerous (former) small business owners, employees and families. The agency failed to explain why it has once again ignored the adverse impacts on human health and welfare caused by its rules.

EPA also confessed that U.S. power plants actually contribute a mere 3% of the total mercury deposited in computer-modeled American watersheds, and thus in fish tissue. Citizens will justifiably wonder where the other 97% comes from, and why we should spend so much money for so little benefit. (The “missing” mercury comes from foreign sources and from volcanoes, subsea vents and other natural sources.)

To see how extreme EPA’s scenarios are, consider five more egregious errors in the final regulations. First, EPA admitted it could “calculate risk” for only 3,100 (4%) of the continental USA’s 88,000 watersheds.

Second, for over 60% of the 3,100 watersheds it did model, EPA took only one or two fish mercury measurements – making it virtually impossible to adopt even valid 75th-percentile fish mercury values. There is a breaking point where extremely poor statistical sampling renders EPA’s pretentious number crunching, conclusions and rules invalid. That breaking point has clearly been reached.

Third, the agency’s estimates for mercury exposure risks are solely for “hypothetical female subsistence consumers” who daily eat almost a pound of fish that they themselves catch in U.S. streams, rivers, and lakes over a 70-year lifetime. That’s less than 1% of U.S. women. For the rest of American women (who eat mostly ocean fish, purchased at a grocery, on a far less regular basis), EPA’s rules are irrelevant.

Fourth, EPA admits that only 22 to 29% of its computer-modeled watersheds are “at risk” from EGU mercury, even when it erroneously assumed that at least 5% of total Hg deposition into the watersheds came from U.S. power plants. If the modeling criteria were tweaked only slightly – to reflect average freshwater fish consumption rates for American women, and require that at least 15% of total mercury deposition be attributable to EGUs – not one U.S. watershed would be at risk.

Finally, EPA ignores the presence of selenium in nearly all fish. Its strong attraction to mercury molecules protects fish and people against buildups of methylmercury (MeHg), mercury’s biologically active and more toxic form.

Combining any series of small probability scenarios results in a near-zero likelihood that the events will actually happen. If each of five scenarios has only a 20% chance of happening, the likelihood that all five will happen is 0.032 percent.

As the preceding analysis suggests, the probability that all the EPA’s improbable scenarios will actually happen is virtually zero; the likelihood that its new regulations will benefit human health is also zero.

However, EPA still stubbornly “disagrees that [mercury] exposure levels in the U.S. are lower than those in the Faroe Islands.” Exposure to MeHg in the U.S. is “the same” as in the Faroe Islands, EPA insists.

The agency is simply wrong.

Extensive medical and scientific studies demonstrate that average Americans are exposed to at least 5 to 10 times less MeHg than average Faroe Islanders. The islanders consume large quantities of pilot whale meat and blubber – which is high in methylmercury, high in PCBs and low in selenium. As a result, their blood mercury concentrations can be up to 350 times higher than the mean blood mercury levels measured by the Centers for Disease Control for average American women.

The Faroe Islands study is irrelevant to mercury exposure risk for average Americans. EPA’s use of that study is deceptive. American women and children are safe from any likely threats from mercury.

To top it off, EPA itself proclaims: “The emissions limits in today’s rule are technology-based … and do not need to be justified based on their ability to protect public health.”

In other words, if the technology exists to eliminate these pollutants, the agency will impose the new regulations – regardless of their cost, their effect on electricity prices and reliability, their impact on factory and other jobs, and whether the rules actually do little or nothing to improve human health.

It has become increasingly obvious that EPA’s real goal is to assert its authority over ever-increasing segments of our economy; reinterpret medical and scientific studies to fit its regulatory agenda; and replace as many coal-fired power plants as possible with costly, unreliable renewable energy systems.

American voters, elected officials and courts need to challenge these radical, unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, demand an end to EPA’s distortion of science and reality – and reverse these flawed rules.

SOURCE

***************************************

For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here

*****************************************

2012-02-03T17:25:00.003+11:30

An unintended tribute to climate skeptics

He wanted to discredit climate skeptics by comparing them to the Taliban but what's not to like about being compared to a group of outnumbered fighters who will undoubtedly defeat their foe in the end?

He is a very confused thinker, however. He seems to confuse Afghanistan with the Soviet Union. He thinks the war in Afghanistan will bring about mutually assured destruction. It will not. Both parties will survive the conflict perfectly well -- just as climate skeptics will survive perfectly well

Remember the Cold War doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)? To some, it justified the arms race between the U.S. and the old USSR. Fortunately, no nuclear-armed country has tested this doctrine by preemptively launching nuclear weapons against a nuclear-armed foe.

The warring sides in the climate debate, however, are locked in a hostile embrace that threatens to destroy them both. There is one difference to this war, though, in that it is not a conventional clash of superpowers, but more an asymmetrical conflict. Think of it like the war in Afghanistan, where climate scientists and campaigners are the U.S. military presence and Marc Morano and his like-minded band of ideologues are the Taliban.

Technically, the U.S. is waging a counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, trying to win over the populace with a hearts & minds campaign while also taking out the hostiles. For various reasons, it’s become a rather futile effort that military analysts can explain better than me. [poor grammar too]

But here are some of the parallels with the climate war. The Taliban, like Morano, are fiercely puritanical. They are not averse to cleansing their own side. Morano has shown that in the Republican Presidential race, where he’s gone after GOP candidates who once were in favor of taking action on climate change. Not coincidentally, global warming has become a litmus test for Republicans in this election year.

The Taliban, like Morano, are excellent provocateurs. They don’t have the manpower to go toe to toe, but they have successfully goaded the U.S. into committing what some experts have called ”own goals.” So it is with the climate movement, whose public spokespersons tend to fan the flames that perpetuate the fighting.

Now before I go any further, let me state outright that I am not equating Marc Morano’s tactics with those of the Taliban. The latter is comprised of a brutal, extremist culture that terrorizes its own people in horrific ways. Morano merely uses excessive rhetoric and hyperbolic language to advance his aims. He runs an operation that has a political aim: To delegitimize climate science. To do that, he and his allies engage in a propaganda war that goads his opponents and smears the reputations of individuals prominently associated with the climate change cause.

His tactics, while ugly, can in no way whatsoever be compared to the actions of the Taliban. I’m merely saying that he is an insurgent who (with like-minded allies) has successfully forced the other side into a defensive crouch. The climate concerned community is fighting a battle on on his terms.

So where does this leave the climate community? Well, like the U.S. military’s rethinking of its strategy in Afghanistan, the climate-concerned community has to reassess how it can best achieve its aims. If it wants to win hearts & minds (broaden public understanding and support for its cause), then it should probably settle in for the long haul and rethink its communication strategy. But if the climate community prefers to expend most of its energy trying to defeat its most committed enemies, then it likely will stay on the current path of Mutually Assured Destruction.

Somehow, I think that would suit Morano just fine. For he will have achieved his goal and then move on to his next battle.

SOURCE

A Green octopus

An Ezra Levant interview with Marc Morano

A wordwide tyranny by a self-selected elite slowly shaping up

They only have our own good at heart, of course -- but only they are allowed any say in what that is.

Ms Kosciusko demeans the name she bears. Tadeusz Kościuszko was a Polish patriot who fought to free both his own native land and the American colonies. She wants to reimpose external control on both those places

More than a hundred countries now support a French proposal to create a "World Environment Organisation" at the upcoming 20th anniversary conference of the Rio Summit, France's ecology minister said on Tuesday.

"More than 100 countries have now associated themselves with the proposal," Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said at a conference in Paris aimed at stimulating ideas for June 20-22 global gathering.

The idea is to beef up the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), which critics say lacks muscle for dealing with the world's worsening environmental crisis.

But rather than be just a branch of the UN, the proposed agency would help implement international environmental standards and include grassroots groups and business, according to the proposal.

Speaking afterwards to reporters, Kosciusko-Morizet said the United States "has yet to back" to the proposal, citing questions of sovereignty. "However, we have already overcome the north-south divide in terms of numbers," she said.

Kosciusko-Morizet said the new agency was a key to the success of the "Rio+20" conference, designed to assess the two decades that have elapsed since the Rio Summit which nailed the environment to the political agenda.

It should be part of a rethink of the world's economy, in which green issues and social questions should be integrated into the search for profit, she said. "The new capitalism which emerges from the crisis has to be environmental, or it won't be new," she said. "We are looking for a new kind of environmental governance, something more inclusive, in which all parties have a stake and it's not just governments which have the right to speak."

She insisted on the word "World" in the organisation's name, saying it was an important nuance compared with "international," meaning an exclusive focus on nations.

The Paris conference gathered several hundred representatives from national and local government, thinktanks and civil society with the declared aim of gingering up a programme, called "draft zero," that is being hammered out for Rio.

According to a background document issued by the ecology ministry, countries that are supporting the French idea comprise more than 30 European countries and the 54 members of the African Union, as well as Thailand, Malaysia, Nepal, Chile and Uruguay.

Based in Nairobi, UNEP was set up in 1972 as an office of the UN, but as a "programme" it does not have the scope of an agency.

Its mission, according to its website, is "to provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations."

Many environmental experts believe UNEP is too underpowered for dealing with a crisis that now ranges from climate change and ozone depletion to overfishing, pollution and deforestation.

SOURCE

Scores dead as global cooling grips Europe

A cold snap is keeping Europe in its icy grip, pushing the death toll to 163 as countries from Ukraine to Italy struggle with temperatures that plunged to record lows in some places.

Entire villages were cut off, trapping thousands; road, air and rail links were severed in several places and gas consumption shot up as people grappled with the severest winter in decades in several places.

Nine more people died in Poland overnight as temperatures hit minus 32 degrees in the south-west, taking the country's toll to 29 since the deep freeze began last week, police said.

In Ukraine, tens of thousands have headed to shelters trying to escape the freeze that the emergencies ministry said had killed 63 people.

Most of them literally froze to death on the street, with only a handful making it to hospital before succumbing to hypothermia, the ministry said.

Thousands of homeless people in the region are at risk, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies warned.

"Although we expect harsh winters in this part of the world this current freeze has come towards the end of a mild winter," said Zlatko Kovac, IFRC representative for Belarus and Ukraine.

"Homeless people have been caught unawares and unprepared. They don't follow long-range forecasts and are extremely vulnerable."

Red Cross Societies have helped with hot meals, warm clothing and blankets. The organisation said it had released €108,000 ($133,360) from its Disaster Relief Emergency Fund to boost the effort.

Shivering and hungry, tens of thousands of Ukrainians have sought help in the more than 2000 temporary shelters set up by the authorities to help the poor survive the fearsome spell of cold weather.

Temperatures fell to minus 33 degrees in the Carpathians and minus 27 in the capital Kiev.

"I am unemployed. I have somewhere to live but nothing to eat. I ate here and it was good - bread with a slice of fat and an onion as well as porridge," said Olexander Shemnikov after visiting a shelter in Kiev.

In Romania, eight people died overnight bringing the overall toll to 22, the health ministry said. Schools remained closed in some parts of the country as temperatures reached minus 31 degrees.

In Bulgaria, where the mercury dipped to lows not seen in a century, at least 10 people have died, according to media. Authorities have not released official figures.

With parts of the Danube freezing, authorities moved some vessels to ports further away to protect them from the advancing ice.

And in the capital Sofia, some residents found their money frozen as automated teller machines stopped functioning, according to local media.

In Latvia, 10 people have died around the capital Riga alone, with no figures available for the rest of the country.

In neighbouring Lithuania a 55-year-old homeless man found in the ruins of an abandoned house in Klaipeda became the ninth victim of the chill.

And in Estonia, organisers even had to postpone a trio of cross-country skiing events after temperatures plunged to minus 30.

In Italy, hundreds of people were trapped overnight on trains as freezing temperatures and heavy snowfalls in the centre and north caused widespread chaos on roads, railways and at airports.

The cold has so far killed an infant in Sicily and a 76-year-old in Parma during what forecasters say is the coldest weather in Italy in 27 years.

In France, 41 of the 101 regions were on alert for snow or "deep cold".

Authorities banned trucks on several major highways where the risk of snowfall and ice remained high. In Paris, the army set aside nearly 600 places in military buildings to shelter the homeless from the cold.

Two people died in Austria, seven perished in Serbia - where 11,500 others were trapped mostly in remote mountain villages inaccessible by road, five have died in the Czech Republic and two each in Slovakia and Greece.

SOURCE

Germany: Intellectually Insolvent U. Of Osnabrück Shuts Down Debate – Calls Skepticism “Provocative”

What do the intellectually challenged do when they’re out-matched in debate and fully exhausted of arguments?

You do what the University of Osnabrück has done: you prevent the opponent from entering the debating arena. You call it off and closed-mindedly insist you’re right.

This is what is happening today with the University of Osnabrück and Prof. Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, who had been invited by the university to give a speech on February 8.

It’s a vivid look into the cowardice of today’s German academia and its intellectual depletion.

The problem is that Vahrenholt has just written a controversial climate skeptical book (Die kalte Sonne) together with geologist Dr Sebastian Lüning - a book that is politically incorrect because it doubts the climate catastrophe fairy tale. The book is already near or at the number 1 position in Amazon.de bestseller list for environment and ecology books, and is thus causing the warmists to scurry in panic. The sense of alarm and fear that have gripped the climate establishment is so strong that the University of Osnabrück decided it would be improper to have Vahrenholt as a speaker.

Vahrenholt got his dis-invitation 2 days ago. Openly questioning the dogma of catastrophic global warming is not welcome. The University prefers to stay in the Dark Ages. Here’s the public invitation:

In the series of presentations “University Speeches” of the University of Osnabrück, Prof. Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt – RWE Innogy, Essen will hold a speech titled “The Climate Catastrophe is not Taking Place”.

The IPCC is wrong. The climate debate has to be restarted. In contradiction to prognoses, there has been no global warming in over 10 years. Even with rising CO2 emissions the warming for this century will not exceed 2°C. The warming effect of CO2 is over-estimated. The latest findings show that ocean cycles and the sun, which recently entered a longer-term period of quite activity, has played a greater role in the course of climate than previously assumed.

Here is the incredible letter of cancellation:

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

When we invited Prof. Vahrenholt in May, 2011, it was done with regards to a very good speech he had given in Greifswald (Greifswald Speeches - a Foundation of the Alfried Krupp College Greifswald) on the topic of “Options for the Future Energy Supply of Germany”. This topic and the speaker also were accepted by the Osnabrück University Professorium.

When we invited him, we suggested this topic, which he did not object. When we asked him to provide us with the exact title of his speech 3 weeks before it was scheduled to take place, he surprised us with the provocative title ‘The Climate Catastrophe Is Not taking Place’. The reactions to this announcement range from positive to critical, and to negative.

Independent of these reactions, we have become convinced that such an assertion requires ‘a counter speech’ from a climate scientist and that the subsequent discussion be led by a competent moderator. Because it is not possible to organize this before February 8, we will search another date in 2012, in agreement with Prof Vahrenholt and the 2 yet-to-be-named individuals. We will inform you on a timely basis.

Yours sincerely,
Prof. Dr. Karlheinz Altendorf
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Asholt”

So unhindered, free dissent and questioning are unwelcome. Not believing that the world is on the road to catastrophe is “provocative”. Sorry, but this is the kind of insecure behaviour ones sees from dictatorial regimes. It’s intellectual insolvency.

Things really are that bad in Germany’s academia today – at least at the University of Osnabrück.

Two questions to professors Altendorf and Asholt: What are you afraid of? Does a movement steeped in fear and insecurity have any chance of victory? Your letter is as clear an admission one could get that the answer is “definitely no”.

Your decision is as about as remote as one can get from the true spirit of academia.

SOURCE

Al Gore's wet dream

He is enjoying it too much to wake up to reality

Al Gore's trek to Antarctica with global warming activists Richard Branson, NASA's James Hansen and Climategate's Kevin Trenberth among many others, is designed to alarm the public that somehow something is amiss there. Gore is warning of a melting continent.

"The ice on land is melting at a faster rate and large ice sheets are moving toward the ocean more rapidly. As a result, sea levels are rising worldwide," Gore wrote on January 31 during his visit to Antarctica.

But beginning on page 7, Climate Depot's A-Z Climate Reality Check makes a mockery of Gore and company's claims. The vast majority of Antarctica is cooling and gaining ice, according to recent peer-reviewed studies and data.

As for sea levels, Gore is apparently clueless on the latest sea level data. See: European Space Agency global sea level reveals 'two year long decline was continuing, at a rate of 5mm per year' & 'In August 2011, NASA announced that global sea level was dropping and was 'a quarter of an inch lower than last summer'

What others say:

The Antarctic sea ice extent has been at or near record extent in past few summers and the ice has been expanding. Antarctica is failing to follow the predictions of man-made global warming activists.

Veteran Polar Scientist Heinrich Miller on Antarctica: 'If anything over last 30 years we have a slight cooling trend' -- Miller: 'Here almost nothing has changed. At least not near the surface. The average annual temperatures have remained the same. There are of course large fluctuations from year to year. If anything over last 30 years we have a slight cooling trend.

Inconvenient truth: Antarctica sea ice extent growing 1.43% per year -- 'A paper published today in Journal of Climate examines the trend of sea ice extent along the East Antarctic coast from 2000 to 2008 and finds a significant increase of 1.43% per year'

No Trend In Antarctic Temperatures: 'NASA's Hansen forecast Antarctica would be fastest warming place on Earth. Instead we have seen a slight downwards trend'

Antarctica sea ice shows accelerating increase over past 30 years: 'Journal Climate Dynamics finds 'Antarctic sea ice extent shows an increased trend during 1979–2009' – '...with a trend rate of 1.36 ± 0.43% per decade. Ensemble empirical mode decomposition analysis shows that the rate of the increased trend has been accelerating in the past decade'

Rumors Of Antarctica's Demise Were Exaggerated: 'Turns out there hasn't been any polar amplification after all...Scientist Franzisca Nehring 'feels global warming hasn't really affected the ice' -- Nehring: 'It's too easy to say that Antarctica is warmed by 1-2 degrees but, I'd infer, that is not really true'

More HERE (See the original for links)

***************************************

For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here

*****************************************

2012-02-02T14:43:00.004+11:30

More barefaced lies

A group of prominent Warmist "scientists" have got a letter published in the WSJ in reply to a skeptical article published there. See below. But the reply is just carelessly put-together Warmist boilerplate that shows no regards for the facts

An example of a careless statement: "Research shows that more than 97% of scientists actively publishing in the field agree that climate change is real and human caused."

So mankind was responsible for the ice ages too?

An example of a barefaced lie: "Observations show unequivocally that our planet is getting hotter"

Even Warmist outfits like Britain's Met Office have recently conceded that there has been no warming over the last 15 years.

And that's as near as they get to mentioning any actual science. The rest is just the usual intellectually disreputable appeal to authority. I won't bother anyone with the many occasions when the "experts" have been wrong

I could go on and point out where that 97% figure comes from etc., etc. but what's the point? These guys are obviously just crooks

Do you consult your dentist about your heart condition? In science, as in any area, reputations are based on knowledge and expertise in a field and on published, peer-reviewed work. If you need surgery, you want a highly experienced expert in the field who has done a large number of the proposed operations.

You published "No Need to Panic About Global Warming" (op-ed, Jan. 27) on climate change by the climate-science equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology. While accomplished in their own fields, most of these authors have no expertise in climate science. The few authors who have such expertise are known to have extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert. This happens in nearly every field of science. For example, there is a retrovirus expert who does not accept that HIV causes AIDS. And it is instructive to recall that a few scientists continued to state that smoking did not cause cancer, long after that was settled science.

Climate experts know that the long-term warming trend has not abated in the past decade. In fact, it was the warmest decade on record. Observations show unequivocally that our planet is getting hotter. And computer models have recently shown that during periods when there is a smaller increase of surface temperatures, warming is occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean. Such periods are a relatively common climate phenomenon, are consistent with our physical understanding of how the climate system works, and certainly do not invalidate our understanding of human-induced warming or the models used to simulate that warming.

Thus, climate experts also know what one of us, Kevin Trenberth, actually meant by the out-of-context, misrepresented quote used in the op-ed. Mr. Trenberth was lamenting the inadequacy of observing systems to fully monitor warming trends in the deep ocean and other aspects of the short-term variations that always occur, together with the long-term human-induced warming trend.

The National Academy of Sciences of the U.S. (set up by President Abraham Lincoln to advise on scientific issues), as well as major national academies of science around the world and every other authoritative body of scientists active in climate research have stated that the science is clear: The world is heating up and humans are primarily responsible. Impacts are already apparent and will increase. Reducing future impacts will require significant reductions in emissions of heat-trapping gases.

Research shows that more than 97% of scientists actively publishing in the field agree that climate change is real and human caused. It would be an act of recklessness for any political leader to disregard the weight of evidence and ignore the enormous risks that climate change clearly poses. In addition, there is very clear evidence that investing in the transition to a low-carbon economy will not only allow the world to avoid the worst risks of climate change, but could also drive decades of economic growth. Just what the doctor ordered.

SOURCE

Warmist email: Maybe CO2 doesn't cause malaria after all

Email 4418:

"Did you hear that our joint proposal (with Pim Martens) is one of 1,500 now assessed by the EU? Does not look hopeful. However, maybe we can do some PR and raise the profile of the proposal a bit. What I have in mind is a letter to the Lancet relating weather and historic malaria fluctuations in Europe. In an earlier letter (1994, I may have given you a copy), the geographical association was made between areas affected by ENSO and periodic epidemics. This letter ends with an open explanation for the 20-year periods in malaria in Europe (Italy and the Netherlands).

Last weeks publication in Science on a possible North Atlantic equivalent of the Nino with a period of 20 years may be of significance.

I dug up the malaria data (Italy and The Netherlands) between 1820-1930 which do show evidence of this 20 year cycle, with exacerbations in 1821, 1839, 1860, 1879, 1902, 1920. I have no idea whether there are any climate data (sea temperature or otherwise) to justify a hypothesis that both phenomena. Do you have any suggestions?"

SOURCE

Malaria expert Paul Reiter comments:

I wonder what sort of data he has on malaria? I hardly think it exists, at least not until well after the beginning of the 20th century.

Remember, Laverin only identified the malaria parasite somewhere in the 1880s and Ronald Ross only published his studies in 1899 (these dates from my head). So how was this data collected? I mean, how was "malaria" diagnosed?

Not by microscopy, that's for sure. Symptomatology would be impossible to define: I have had dengue, scrub typhus and malaria and, at least for the first few days they all feel the same (horrible, and I prefer malaria of the three).

On top of that, malaria in the Netherlands was probably mostly Plasmodium vivax, a parasite that persists in the liver but emerges to cause illness, particularly in people weakened for other reasons.

And I doubt that doctors did much routine diagnosis, let alone recording of "positive" cases, in the marshland areas. In fact, they were so "aguish" that most self respecting doctors kept away!

For a nice description of agueish marshes, see David Copperfield somewhere in the first few pages (when the convict forces Pip to get him some food and drink. Then figure out whether the doctors in his neighborhood were recording cases in their little notebooks.

One more thing. Pim Martens did his Masters, his PhD and his Post-doc on malaria and climate change. There is a long story to what happened when I published an article "From Shakespeare to Defoe: malaria in England in the Little Ice Age" (you can find it on the web).

Briefly, the article was censored by the Clinton government (the journal EID is a CDC publication and I was a CDC employee. They did tiny things, like eliminating the words climate change from the abstract and substituting "the weather"; despite my furious response, and support from others, the article went ahead without the poisonous words.

After that, the article was popular, so we wrote a press release. Nothing happened, and then I learned that it had not been released.

Meanwhile, Martens wrote a typical letter denouncing my sceptical stance.

I had the right to respond in the same issue of the journal but each time I submitted a letter the journal found fault in it until they were able to publish Martens' letter without mine (despite strenuous protest by top brass in CDC). My response was eventually published: two months later, when all had been forgotten.

Via email

The Coming of the New Ice Age: End of the Global Warming Era?

I just finished reading a terrifying new book about climate change. I learned this:

* Climate change is happening faster than we realize and it will have catastrophic consequences for mankind.

* There’s very little we can do to stop it at this late stage, but we might be able to save ourselves if we immediately take these necessary and drastic steps:

- Increase our reliance on alternative energy sources and stop using so much oil and other carbon-based fuels;

- Adopt energy-efficient practices in all aspects of our lives, however inconvenient;

- Impose punitive taxes on inefficient or polluting activities to discourage them;

- Funnel large sums of money from developed nations like the U.S. to Third World nations;

- In general embrace all environmental causes.

You of course recognize these as the solutions most often recommended to ameliorate the looming crisis of Global Warming. But there’s a little glitch in my narrative. Because although the book I read was indeed about climate change, it wasn’t about Global Warming at all; it was instead about “The Coming of the New Ice Age,” and it isn’t exactly “new” — it was published in 1977.

The Solution Remains the Same

As many other pundits and analysts have pointed out, in the mid-to-late 1970s we endured a massive “climate change scare” that was the exact opposite of the one we’re enduring now. Back then, the media and activists trumpeted the arrival of a new ice age, with the specter of ice sheets and glaciers covering half the northern hemisphere, and brutal winters in the remaining ice-free zones.

The fact that the media and popular culture and academia have veered from one panic-inducing disaster scenario to another one which completely contradicts the first one is funny enough in its own right. But reading The Weather Conspiracy: The Coming of the New Ice Age opened my eyes to an even more significant aspect of this serial crisis-mongering:

The “solutions” prescribed to solve both Global Warming and the looming Ice Age are exactly the same.

In both cases, proponents of the theory-du-jour say that in order to stave off disaster, we must reverse the march of civilization, stop our profligate use of carbon-based fuels, cede power and money from the First World to the Third World, and wherever possible revert to a Luddite pre-industrial lifestyle.

I realized: The solution (commit civilizational suicide) always remains the same; all that differs are the wildly divergent purported “crises” proffered up to justify the imposition of the solution.

Seen from this angle, the entire Climate Change field should be more properly reframed thus: "In order to weaken and eventually destroy the existing industrialized nations, we must devise an ecological “crisis” so severe that only voluntary economic suicide can solve it; and if this first crisis doesn’t materialize as planned, then devise another, and another, even if they flatly contradict our previous claims."

I had long suspected that this is the most accurate characterization of Climate Changeology; but reading The New Ice Age clinched it for me. The true purpose of climate change disaster-mongering is to permanently cripple the First World, and to elevate the Third World, in order to create a planet with no economic inequality. The goal remains constant; the supposed imminent catastrophes justifying it come and go as needed.

Ice Ages Are Making a Comeback

Turns out my choice of reading material (discovered recently at a rummage sale for 25¢, in case you’re curious) was fortuitous, as climate change — and ice ages — are suddenly back in the headlines this past week. And the news is not good for the crisis-mongers.

First we learned that the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is actually helping us stave off the next inevitable ice age by a few years. Yes, you read that right: the “runaway global warming” scenario is now off the table; a new ice age is coming for sure, and whatever human warming effects there may be will only make our descent into the deep freeze a little more comfy.

Then, in a different breakthrough, leading scientists announced the discovery of a heretofore undetected type of molecule in the atmosphere which spurs cloud formation and negates global warming effects. Thanks to something called “Criegee biradicals,” the more we pollute, the more clouds form, and the cooler the planet becomes. Thus, the cumulative effect on the climate due to mankind’s activity: zilch. So for the second time in a week, the entire Anthropogenic Global Warming theory was fatally undermined.

But wait! We’re not done. Next up: A study out of Harvard proving that warming and cooling cycles are caused by orbital wobble and precession of the poles; and that the only reason the next ice age hasn’t arrived quite on schedule yet is due to our beneficial increase in carbon dioxide. Yes, that’s right: more data showing that another ice age is inevitable sooner or later.

A third nail in AGW’s coffin in less than a week? Why wasn’t this front page news?

But brace yourself — because those nails in the coffin were just the opening act. The next bit of news was the real blockbuster, a stake through AGW’s heart:

Now we learn that the world has not warmed at all for the last 15 years, and that the entire recent “global warming” hubbub was totally imaginary. Furthermore, the recent cooling is so significant that we may be headed for — you guessed it — a “mini ice age.”

Still not enough for you? The coup de grace came from our own USDA, which released a new “Plant Hardiness Zone Map” indicating that the mild global warming spike of a few years ago was actually good for plant growth and biodiversity. In other words: Even if we do experience warming, it makes the world a nicer place.

And that was just one week’s news. I wonder what next week will bring?

Now, you’d think that this devastating barrage of body blows would basically bring an end to the whole Global Warming “controversy.”

But no. Because, you see, true believers are nearly impervious to facts. In the midst of all this, the AGW activists and bullies continued their relentless quest to reshape the world’s economic landscape, as if they still had the upper hand. They even launched a witch hunt against “denier” weathermen, threatening to get any TV meteorologists fired unless they present global warming propaganda during their forecasts. Meanwhile, Al Gore continued on his decade-long tirade, declaring that “civilization is at risk” if the presidential candidates don’t cave into his demands immediately. And if you check the Web sites of any number of climate change nonprofits and organizations, they’re all still in hysterical crisis mode about the coming calamity. To them, you see, news stories like the ones we saw this week may come and go, but Global Warming is forever!

More HERE (See the original for links)

Why should my granny pay £40 a year for your solar energy?

The debacle over payments for solar energy in Britain is dragging on

We currently have an excessively generous system that pays people with solar panels 43p per kWh to generate energy - £1,000 a year, on average, according to the Energy Saving Trust.

This system, known as the feed in tariff, was designed to incentivise people to ‘go green’ and is paid for by all consumers, in the form of higher energy bills.

But if these lavish payments continue, it will add £40 a year to every household’s electricity bill by 2020. The Government had budgeted for each household to pay just £23 – an already iniquitous sum.

These green subsidies need to be curbed now to avoid spiralling bills. The Government is going to cut it to 21p per kwh from March – but will this reduction be enough?

The feed in tariff, launched in April 2010, is already proving to be a costly disaster for the Government. It desperately needs to rein in the cost or we will all end up paying the price.

At a time when there are already 5.5 million people in fuel poverty – where one tenth or more of a household’s income goes on fuel bills – it is madness to add to the burden of rising fuel bills with green initiatives.

Solar panels can cost around £10,000 to install, meaning they are usually the preserve of the well-off. Indeed, only 80,000 households have had them installed, out of 28 million households in total. Yet those with solar panels have already cost us £24 million in just three months from July to September 2011.

It seems particularly perverse, and totally contrary to the Government’s own aims to eradicate fuel poverty, that pensioners huddled under a duvet because they cannot afford to turn their heating on should be footing the bill. It is these pensioners who are paying to slash the energy bills of already-wealthy households.

In fact, the only people that have benefited from the feed in tariff are solar panel salesmen and the savvy investors looking for a good return on their cash. And sadly, research from Which? – as well as Money Mail’s postbag – reveals that many households who have bought solar panels have been mis-sold by unscrupulous salesmen who exaggerated the benefits.

The Government has mishandled the situation by failing to foresee that the cost of panels would fall as more people had them installed, thereby making the returns from feed in tariffs too generous. It has therefore been forced to cut the subsidy very quickly, leaving thousands of installers in doubt about their future.

Of course it would be great if we could secure thousands of jobs and lower our carbon emissions by incentivising people to adopt green energy. But the current feed in tariff is not the way to do it. It is expensive, regressive and unsustainable.

SOURCE

Global cooling strikes again

Britain to shiver in temperatures 'colder than the South Pole' as health chiefs say more than 1,500 people a week could die from killer freeze

A cold snap that has left dozens dead across Eastern Europe will reach Britain by the weekend. Temperatures are set to plunge far below freezing point making the country even colder than the South Pole. Forecasters are expecting overnight temperatures of between -8c (18f) and -10c (14f) on Friday.

The McMurdo research facility in Antarctica is currently recording -6c (21f) at night. The bitter cold has forced some countries to deploy their armed forces and set up emergency accommodation.

Health chiefs have also started warning that as a result of the freezing conditions, more than 1,500 people a week could be killed by the weather.

The Department of Health's Chief Medical Officer said that around 1,560 people, many elderly, would die due to cold weather each week between now and March in normal winter weather. That figure will rise 'substantially', however, due to extreme cold like that we are currently experiencing.

During last year's big freeze, the death rate in England and Wales shot up by 21 per cent from 9,220 a week to 11,193. Dame Sally Davies said: 'Mortality rises by 19 per cent in winter months in England, amounting to 27,000 excess deaths or 1,560 more people per week compared with the rest of the year. And very severe weather can substantially add to this death toll.

'The majority of UK deaths are among older people, especially women, and those with underlying health problems - but they are not people who would have died anyhow at that time.'

To help deal with the extreme cold, the Army has been put on standby. Around four inches of snow and ice could cover part of the country after a high pressure system hanging over Scandinavia which is pushing raw winds towards the UK.

Cold Weather Watch has now upgraded its severe weather warning to a level three, after stating that there was a 100 per cent probability of 'severe' conditions across most of England this week. With severe weather warnings already in place and chaos on the roads, the military have been put on standby should there be a level four 'major cold weather incident'.

When freezing conditions struck in 2010, members of the armed forces were called in to help clear snow from the roads and assist residents in particularly hard-hit areas. Mobilised soldiers will also help clear special locations such as doctors’ surgeries, care homes and hospitals.

According to the Met Office temperatures will drop to as low as -6C (21.2F) tomorrow and on Thursday, when daytime maximums will be no more than 3C (37.4F). Severe weather warnings for ice were also issued for last night and this morning across eastern parts of England and Scotland, and Northern Ireland, south-west England and south Wales.

Police in Devon and Cornwall have warned motorists in some parts of the region not to travel unless it is essential after snowfall over the higher areas of Exmoor and Dartmoor.

The Department of Health issued a 'Level 2' cold-weather alert running for the next two to three days, which is triggered when low temperatures give rise to significant health risks. It warned that low temperatures can especially be dangerous for the young and the elderly or those with chronic disease.

SOURCE

Nobel Peace Prize Jury Under Investigation

The bleeding obvious is getting some recognition at last. Could Obama and the IPCC have their awards rescinded?

Nobel Peace Prize officials were facing a formal inquiry over accusations they have drifted away from the prize's original selection criteria by choosing such winners as President Barack Obama, as the nomination deadline for the 2012 awards closed Wednesday.

The investigation comes after persistent complaints by a Norwegian peace researcher that the original purpose of the prize was to diminish the role of military power in international relations.

If the Stockholm County Administrative Board, which supervises foundations in Sweden's capital, finds that prize founder Alfred Nobel's will is not being honored, it has the authority to suspend award decisions going back three years — though that would be unlikely and unprecedented, said Mikael Wiman, a legal expert working for the county.

Obama won in 2009, Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won in 2010, and last year the award was split between Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen.

For this year's award, Russian human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina, jailed former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Cuban rights activists Oswaldo Paya and Yoani Sanchez are among the candidates who have been publicly announced by those who nominated them.

The secretive prize committee doesn't discuss nominations — which have to be postmarked by Feb. 1 to be valid — but stresses that being nominated doesn't say anything about a candidate's chances.

Fredrik Heffermehl, a prominent researcher and critic of the selection process, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that "Nobel called it a prize for the champions of peace."

"And it's indisputable that he had in mind the peace movement, i.e. the active development of international law and institutions, a new global order where nations safely can drop national armaments," he said

Especially after World War II, the prize committee, which is appointed by the Norwegian Parliament, has widened the scope of the prize to include environmental, humanitarian and other efforts, he said.

For example, in 2007 the prize went to climate activist Al Gore and the U.N.'s panel on climate change, and in 2009 the committee cited Obama for "extraordinary efforts" to boost international diplomacy.

"Do you see Obama as a promoter of abolishing the military as a tool of international affairs?" Heffermehl asked rhetorically.

Nobel, a Swedish industrialist and inventor, gave only vague guidelines for the peace prize in his 1895 will, saying it should honor "work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

Nobel said the peace prize should be awarded by a Norwegian committee, and the other Nobel Prizes by committees in Sweden. The two Scandinavian nations were in a union at the time.

Geir Lundestad, the nonvoting secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, dismissed Heffermehl's claims.

"Fighting climate change is definitely closely related to fraternity between nations. It even concerns the survival of some states," he told AP.

Still, the County Administrative Board decided to sent a letter to the Stockholm-based Nobel Foundation, which manages the prize assets, requesting a formal response to the allegations. "We have no basis to suggest that they haven't managed it properly. But we want to investigate it," Wiman said.

"The prize committee must always adjust its rules to today's society," he said. "But peace work has to be at the core — it can't deviate too much from that," Wiman said.

The peace prize and the Nobel awards in chemistry, physics, medicine, literature and economics are always handed out Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.

SOURCE

***************************************

For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here

*****************************************

2012-02-01T15:25:00.001+11:30

What NOAA believes

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is a heavily politicized body and because of that they are keen to expunge any "incorrectness" from their ranks. If they were really a scientific body they would welcome diversity of views in their ranks and reject any notion of correctness.

But they are getting nervous. They obviously think that some of their employees may not know the true gospel or (horrors) not agree with it. So they have circulated a catechism to all their employees in the form of a questionnaire with the "correct" answers marked. The correct answers are also accompanied by scriptural (IPCC) references to support each answer. The catechism has been "leaked" to Climate Depot and thence to other skeptics so I reproduce it below, minus the scriptural references. The "correct" answer is starred

1. Which of the following statements about global climate change is true?
* Most climate scientists agree that global climate change is happening

2. Most scientific studies that have looked into the cause behind the increase in global temperature over the last 50 years indicate that it is.
* Caused mostly by human activities

3. Which of the following best describes the relationship between climate and weather?
* Weather describes short-term conditions; climate describes long-term conditions

4. Studies of natural records such as tree rings and layers of ice in glaciers:
* Provide a relatively consistent picture of how global temperature has changed over time

5. Over the last 10,000 years, during the time humans developed the ability to raise crops, Earth's climate has been:
* more stable than previous periods

6. Which of the following processes have been identified as the most significant causes of increasing global temperatures over the last century? Check the top three
* Burning of coal, oil, and natural gas to produce electricity and heat buildings

7. Indicate if the following statements are True, False, or you Don't Know.

A. If the amount of energy put out by the Sun decreased, Earth would get cooler
* True

B. Global climate change will eventually eliminate the differences between summer and winter.
* False

C. Climate scientists have a solid understanding of the basic physical processes that control Earth's climate system.
* True

D. Today's computer-based climate models have successfully projected the trend and magnitude of observed global temperature for the last century.
* True

E. As the ocean warms, its waters expand, raising the elevation of the sea's surface.
* True

F. Melting of glaciers and ice sheets on land is expected to have little effect on global sea level.
* False

G. Temperature measurements of Earth made from satellites are generally consistent with temperatures measured by ground based instruments.
* True

8. Climate scientists' concern about rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere relates to carbon dioxide's
* ability to absorb and release heat energy

9. Since 1750, when the Industrial Revolution began, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased
* significantly - a change of about 40% (from 280 to 392 ppm)

10. Which country below currently emits the most carbon dioxide per person? Note: This question is about per person emissions rather than total emissions.
* United States

11. Which of the following are among the expected impacts of global climate change? Check all that apply

* Heavier downpours when it rains
* Changes in the ranges of wildlife and plants
* Increase in coastal flooding due to sea level rise

12. Indicate if the following statements are True, False, or you Don't know

A. As a result of global climate change, the warmest places on Earth are likely to see the greatest increases in temperature.
* False

B. Over the last decade, the U.S. has experienced about twice as many record-breaking hot days as record-breaking cold days.
* True

C. Most of the heat added to Earth's climate system over the last five decades has been absorbed by the ocean.
* True

D. Federal agencies are already working with communities to help them prepare for extreme weather and climate impacts
* True

E. Corals in warm, tropical seas around the world are thriving as the ocean waters around them get warmer.
* False

13. Recent research shows that the acidity of ocean waters is increasing. This phenomenon, called ocean acidification, is
* a result of carbon dioxide being absorbed by the ocean

14. By monitoring conditions within and above the Pacific Ocean, climate scientists have identified a pattern called the El-Ni¤o Southern Oscillation. This phenomenon:
* can influence global weather patterns for several seasons

Pesky new academic journal article reports that the present period is only the third warmest in the last 2000 years

The Roman and Medieval warm periods were warmer -- without a single SUV or power station in sight!

Variability and extremes of northern Scandinavian summer temperatures over the past two millennia

By Jan Espera et al.

Abstract

Palaeoclimatic evidence revealed synchronous temperature variations among Northern Hemisphere regions over the past millennium. The range of these variations (in degrees Celsius) is, however, largely unknown. We here present a 2000-year summer temperature reconstruction from northern Scandinavia and compare this timeseries with existing proxy records to assess the range of reconstructed temperatures at a regional scale. The new reconstruction is based on 578 maximum latewood density profiles from living and sub-fossil Pinus sylvestris samples from northern Sweden and Finland. The record provides evidence for substantial warmth during Roman and Medieval times, larger in extent and longer in duration than 20th century warmth. The first century AD was the warmest 100-year period (+ 0.60 °C on average relative to the 1951–1980 mean) of the Common Era, more than 1 °C warmer than the coldest 14th century AD (− 0.51 °C). The warmest and coldest reconstructed 30-year periods (AD 21–50 = + 1.05 °C, and AD 1451–80 = − 1.19 °C) differ by more than 2 °C, and the range between the five warmest and coldest reconstructed summers in the context of the past 2000 years is estimated to exceed 5 °C. Comparison of the new timeseries with five existing tree-ring based reconstructions from northern Scandinavia revealed synchronized climate fluctuations but substantially different absolute temperatures. Level offset among the various reconstructions in extremely cold and warm years (up to 3 °C) and cold and warm 30-year periods (up to 1.5 °C) are in the order of the total temperature variance of each individual reconstruction over the past 1500 to 2000 years. These findings demonstrate our poor understanding of the absolute temperature variance in a region where high-resolution proxy coverage is denser than in any other area of the world.

SOURCE

Three in one week! Another green energy stimulus recipient goes bankrupt

Last week (I know this will be hard to believe) three green energy stimulus recipients either filed for bankruptcy or had to significantly reduce their labor force! Three! Talk about green energy job creation. Talk about the sector that according to Obama and Biden is the future of the country!

From last Friday:

"Earlier this week, Stimulus beneficiary Evergreen Energy bit the dust. Then, Ener1, a manufacturer of batteries for electric vehicles and recipient of Stimulus largesse, filed for bankruptcy. And today, the Las Vegas Sun reports that Amonix, Inc., a manufacturer of solar panels that received $5.9 million from the Porkulus, will cut two-thirds of its workforce, about 200 employees, only seven months after opening a factory in Nevada."

SOURCE

When Global Warming Freezes Over

Global warming alarmists won't give up their campaign to spread fear and backward thinking until an ice bridge stretches from New York to Paris. Science, though, says they should.

Al Gore, who invented global warming hysteria, has most recently been found planning a trip to Antarctica where he will surely find evidence that man is overheating the planet.

This clearly insecure man who so desperately needs an audience that approves of his world-saving efforts says he will be taking with him "a large number of civic and business leaders, activists and concerned citizens from many countries." He expects them "to see firsthand and in real time how the climate crisis is unfolding in Antarctica."

For Gore's reading material on this trip, we suggest he look at some data released by Great Britain's Met Office. He would find himself meeting head-on a terribly inconvenient truth.

According to the data, there's been no warming for more than a decade. The global temperature that Gore and the rest of the alarmist tribe are so concerned about was about one full degree cooler (as measured in Celsius) last year than it was when temperatures peaked in 1997.

Of course 2012 could be warmer than 2011 just as 2010 was warmer than 2008 and 2009. Or it could be cooler. Who knows?

Our space program thinks it does. NASA physicist David Hathaway believes the next solar period, called Cycle 25, "could be one of the weakest in centuries."

The Daily Mail, which, unlike America's mainstream media, isn't afraid to report news that goes against the global warming narrative, says the British government agrees with that assessment.

The Mail says a Met Office research paper notes that "there is a 92% chance that both Cycle 25 and those taking place in the following decades will be as weak as, or weaker than, the 'Dalton minimum' of 1790 to 1830."

But "it is also possible," continues the Mail, "that the new solar energy slump could be as deep as the 'Maunder minimum,'" which occurred "between 1645 and 1715 in the coldest part of the 'Little Ice Age' when, as well as the Thames frost fairs, the canals of Holland froze solid."

OK, so frozen Dutch waterways are not the same as an ice bridge linking Fifth Avenue to Avenue des Champs-Elysees. But predictions that a man-made global warming catastrophe is imminent look foolish in light of the data and the solar cycle forecasts.

In fact, they've looked foolish for quite some time. The warmer temperatures the alarmists were predicting decades ago have never arrived. Nearly five years back, Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist who believes in global warming, had to admit that "none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate."

We have no models, but even without one we think we can safely predict that the alarmist community and its sphere of influence will continue to shrink.

SOURCE

There's no such thing as a happy Greenie

New Scientist whines about CLEAN power

“As energy demand grows, even alternative energy sources such as wind, solar and nuclear fusion could begin to affect the climate” Meh. They even whinge about our previous discovery and use of dense energy sources, calling them ‘a mistake’

Some people must still peruse the Nude Socialist because people still send us some of their items. In this one NS again fails to realize waste heat is rapidly transported away from earth’s surface by convective activity and heated packets of air are lofted until such time as they reach an altitude/temperature where radiative energy is lost to space. Oddly enough NS has in the past run items on cities creating their own weather due to UHIE and heat plumes extending both downwind and vertically. Wonder why they think this effect will cease to function and earth’s surface warm appreciably from waste heat?

Here’s the item in case you are interested:

Power paradox: Clean might not be green forever

As energy demand grows, even alternative energy sources such as wind, solar and nuclear fusion could begin to affect the climate

“A better, richer and happier life for all our citizens.” That’s the American dream. In practice, it means living in a spacious, air-conditioned house, owning a car or three and maybe a boat or a holiday home, not to mention flying off to exotic destinations.

The trouble with this lifestyle is that it consumes a lot of power. If everyone in the world started living like wealthy Americans, we’d need to generate more than 10 times as much energy each year. And if, in a century or three, we all expect to be looked after by an army of robots and zoom up into space on holidays, we are going to need a vast amount more. Where are we going to get so much power from?

It is clear that continuing to rely on fossil fuels will have catastrophic results, because of the dramatic warming effect of carbon dioxide. But alternative power sources will affect the climate too. For now, the climatic effects of “clean energy” sources are trivial compared with those that spew out greenhouse gases, but if we keep on using ever more power over the coming centuries, they will become ever more significant.

While this kind of work is still at an early stage, some startling conclusions are already beginning to emerge. Nuclear power – including fusion – is not the long-term answer to our energy problems. Even renewable energies such as wind power will have to be used with caution, because large-scale extraction could have both local and global effects. These effects are not necessarily a bad thing, though. We might be able to exploit them to geoengineer the climate and combat global warming.

There is a fundamental problem facing any planet-bound civilisation, as Eric Chaisson of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, points out. Whatever you use energy for, it almost all ends up as waste heat.

Much of the electrical energy that powers your mobile phone or computer ends up heating the circuitry, for instance. The rest gets turned into radio waves or light, which turn into heat when they are absorbed by other surfaces. The same is true when you use a mixer in the kitchen, or a drill, or turn on a fan – unless you’re trying to beam radio signals to aliens, pretty much all of the energy you use will end up heating the Earth.

We humans use a little over 16 terawatts (TW) of power at any one moment, which is nothing compared with the 120,000 TW of solar power absorbed by the Earth at the same time. What matters, though, is the balance between how much heat arrives and how much leaves (see “Earth’s energy budget”). If as much heat leaves the top of the atmosphere as enters, a planet’s temperature remains the same. If more heat arrives, or less is lost, the planet will warm. As it does so, it will begin to emit more and more heat until equilibrium is re-established at a higher temperature.

SOURCE

Ethanol subsidies: Down but not out

At the end of last year’s legislative session, Congress let two of corn ethanol’s market-rigging policy gimmicks—the 45-cents-per-gallon tax credit (VEETC) and the 54-cents-per-gallon ethanol import tariff—tumble into history’s dustbin.

This was good news for taxpayers and consumers. The VEETC added $5-6 billion annually to the federal deficit and the tariff propped up domestic ethanol prices by blocking competition from Brazilian sugarcane ethanol.

The demise of the VEETC and tariff is the ethanol lobby’s first loss of corporate welfare benefits in more than 30 years. As the Wall Street Journal noted, “Congress created ethanol subsidies in 1978, expanded them in a 1980 bill, and then rinsed and repeated in 1982, 1984, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1998, 2004, 2005 and 2007.”

But not in 2011: Congress declined to renew the subsidies just two weeks before the caucuses in Iowa, where pandering to Iowa corn farmers had been a staple of American politics for decades.

Several factors converged to kill those once sacrosanct policies: the federal debt crisis, the Tea Party movement (an Iowa Republican poll found that caucus goers were more likely to support candidates who opposed ethanol subsidies), and research by Bruce Babcock of Iowa State University refuting ethanol lobbyists’ hysterical claims that terminating VEETC would destroy 112,000 or even 160,000 rural jobs. Only about 1,000 ethanol-related jobs would disappear over the next five years, Babcock estimated. Renewing VEETC would add $30 million to the national debt for each ethanol job “saved.”

Perhaps the key factor turning the tide against the ethanol lobby was the formation in 2010 of “No2VEETC,” a coalition of business associations, hunger and development organizations, agricultural groups, environmental groups, budget hawks and free marketers.

Green groups like Friends of the Earth, Environmental Working Group, and ActionAid USA, limited-government groups like Taxpayers for Common Sense, National Taxpayers Union and Competitive Enterprise Institute, and business groups like Grocery Manufacturers Association, National Turkey Federation and National Restaurant Association worked together to expose VEETC as a costly, polluting, food-price-inflating special-interest giveaway.

The coalition was also vigilant in opposing schemes to replace VEETC with Solyndra-like loan guarantees for construction of ethanol pipelines and tax credits for installation of pumps to sell E-85 (motor fuel made with 85% ethanol) at service stations.

The final critical ingredient was the emergence of legislative champions, such as Representatives Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Joseph Crowley (D-NY), Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Wally Herger (R-CA), and Pete Stark (D-CA), and Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who worked across party lines to end VEETC and oppose pipeline and blender pump subsidies.

The really good news is that the most coercive ethanol policy—a Soviet-style production quota called the “renewable fuel standard” (RFS), a.k.a. the ethanol mandate—is now vulnerable to political challenge.

Created by the 2005 Energy Policy Act (EPA) and expanded by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), the RFS establishes a guaranteed market for ethanol producers, forcing refiners to blend and consumers to buy ethanol whether they want to or not.

Under EISA, sales of renewable fuels are to increase from 9 billion gallons in 2008 to 36 billion in 2022, of which 16 billion gallons are to be “cellulosic”–ethanol made from wood chips, prairie grasses and other fibrous plant matter. Ethanol from corn maxes out at 15 billion gallons in 2015. But cellulosic is proving to be a spectacular flop, and the ethanol lobby is pushing to have corn ethanol qualify as “advanced” biofuel to take up the slack.

Many of the reasons persuading Congress to drop the VEETC and tariff apply in spades to the mandate. The mandate diverts massive quantities of corn from food to fuel production, making food more costly for the world’s poorest and hungriest people. It inflates U.S. corn prices, undercutting the competitiveness of U.S. cattle, hog and poultry producers. It ramps up production of water-and-fertilizer-intensive corn, expanding aquatic “dead zones” in the Gulf of Mexico and the Chesapeake Bay. It induces land-use conversions that can increase net greenhouse gas emissions.

By expanding supply relative to demand, the mandate has pushed the per-gallon price of ethanol below that of regular gasoline.

Nonetheless, gasoline is still a better buy, because ethanol contains one-third less energy by volume. According to the American Automobile Association’s Daily Fuel Gauge, for example, on Jan. 16, 2012, the mpg-adjusted price of E-85 was $4.014/g—higher than regular gasoline ($3.387), premium ($3.663), and diesel ($3.871).

Even more telling, according to www.fueleconomy.gov, a Web site jointly administered by the Department of Energy and EPA, flex-fuel vehicle owners will spend up to $750 a year more for fuel if they fill up with E-85 rather than regular gasoline.

Reporters, debate moderators and citizens who want to have some fun in the silly season should ask presidential and congressional candidates: If ethanol is such a great bargain, why do we need a law to make us buy it?

SOURCE

***************************************

For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here

*****************************************

2012-01-31T15:49:00.001+11:30

Epidemiologists are known for their poor grip on logic but this guy beats the band

The Warmist epidemiologist below is perfectly correct that past natural climate changes have been disastrous but the disastrous ones were episodes of COOLING. Periods of warming -- as in the Roman warm period -- were periods of prosperity and civilizational advance. Yet he is trying to make the case that history shows warming to be bad. He must know that history indicates the opposite so I say without hesitation that he is a lying crook of zero credibility on anything. I could go on to dispute more of his patently false claims but what's the point?

A LEADING Australian disease expert says prompt action on climate change is paramount to our survival on Earth. Australian National University Epidemiologist Tony McMichael has conducted an historical study that suggests natural climate change over thousands of years has destabilised civilisations via food shortages, disease and unrest.

"We haven't really grasped the fact that a change in climate presents a quite fundamental threat to the foundations of population health," Prof McMichael said. "These things have happened before in response to fairly modest changes to climate.

"Let's be aware that we really must take early action if we are going to maintain this planet as a liveable habitat for humans."

In a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Prof McMichael argues the world faces extreme climate change "without precedent" over the past 10,000 years.

"With the exception of a few downward spikes of acute cooling due to massive volcanic eruptions, most of the changes have been within a band of about plus or minus three-quarters of a degree centigrade," he said today.

"Yet we are talking about the likelihood this century of going beyond two degrees centigrade and quite probably, on current trajectory, reaching a global average increase of three to four degrees."

Prof McMichael's paper states that the greatest recurring health risk over past millennia has been from food shortages mostly caused by drying and drought.

Warming also leads to an increase in infectious diseases as a result of better growth conditions for bacteria and the proliferation of mosquitoes.

Drought can also result in greater contact with rodents searching for scarce food supplies.

The ANU academic says while societies today are better equipped to defend themselves physically and technologically, they lack the flexibility smaller groups had in the past. That's partly because the world is now "over populated", according to Prof McMichael, so there are fewer areas available to retreat too.

Populations are also increasingly packed into large cities on coastlines which are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events.

Prof McMichael has been examining the impact of climate change on population health for 20 years and says it's not easy to raise awareness of the risk.

"Most of the attention has been of a more limited shorter-term kind relating to things around us like the economy, our property, infrastructure and risks to iconic ecosystems and species."

SOURCE

Electricity blackouts can be fatal

And with their innumerable attacks on reliable forms of electricity generation, Greenies are pushing us towards ever more blackouts

A vast electricity blackout in the United States and Canada in 2003 led to the deaths of nearly 100 people, a study found, linking the deaths — higher than official estimates — to not only accidents caused by lack of power, but also underlying diseases.

Researchers said the study published in the journal Epidemiology was the first to show that the death toll of such a power outage comes not only from accidents, such as carbon monoxide poisoning from using generators, but also from chronic health issues such as cardiovascular and respiratory problems.

“Our results from this study indicate that power outages can immediately and severely harm human health,” said lead author Brooke Anderson, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University.

Little is known about the health impact of power outages, Anderson and a colleague wrote.

To get a sense of the mortality from a blackout, they collected data on New York City’s weather conditions, air pollution levels and causes of deaths reported during the blackout in August 2003.

Though most of New York City was dark for only about a day, August 14 to 15, the blackout affected a wide swath of the northeastern United States and Canada, lasting as long as four days in some cases — including some pockets within the city.

Afterwards, the New York City health department attributed only six deaths to the blackout, most of them from carbon monoxide poisoning.

But Anderson found there was an overall 28 percent spike in deaths during the outage. Twelve of those additional deaths were caused by accidents, 38 by cardiovascular conditions, three from respiratory problems and 37 by various other health conditions.

Conditions during a blackout may explain why health problems can worsen. Many residents in high-rise apartments had no water for the duration, for example, and firefighters had to rescue hundreds of people from elevators.

“People were trapped in the subway in the dark and didn’t know what happened. Especially after September 11, people are more scared, and stress can trigger a heart attack or exacerbate asthma,” said Shao Lin, an epidemiologist with the New York State Department of Health, who was not involved in the study.

Increased air pollution from idling buses or other sources could also aggravate respiratory conditions, Lin said. In a previous study, she and her colleagues found that hospital admissions for respiratory conditions increased during the blackout.

Though pollution monitors didn’t work through the outage, shortly afterward there was an uptick in certain air pollutants, the researchers said.

Anderson said that people with chronic health issues could also have problems managing them.

“Most food sources and pharmacies were closed, which could be a serious problem for someone with diabetes or someone who is low on prescription medicines,” she said in an email.

Ambulances were slower, home medical equipment that used electricity couldn’t operate and cell phones didn’t work during part of the blackout.

Anderson said that while energy companies are working to stop power outages from taking place in the future, such as during heat waves when power grids struggle, increased stress on the grids could make blackouts more common in the future.

“The most direct way to reduce excess deaths from a blackout is to try to prevent blackouts,” she said.

SOURCE

A Really Inconvenient Truth Is Earth Is Not Melting After All

Earth is not warming. According to Big Green enviros, only Luddites and lunatics would believe such a ludicrous statement.

Well, now government scientists must be added to the long list of the so addled. Here it is, straight from the (high tech) horse's mouth, a new report from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies titled "Global Temperature in 2011, Trends, and Prospects:"

"Global temperature in 2011 was lower than in 1998."

But don't worry. Even as climate scientists -- and an ever-gullible media -- are forced by new data to admit that the Earth is not warming, they take pains to assure us that the Earth is still warming.

The Associated Press was typical in its contortions, as in this Jan. 20 statement: "The world last year wasn't quite as warm as it has been for most of the past decade, government scientists said Thursday, but it continues a general trend of rising temperatures."

Not as warm, but still a "general trend" of rising temperatures. Got that? No? Well, don't worry. The high priests of warming have apparently assumed a plane far above our mere mortal logic.

Besides, it all depends on how you define "trend," doesn't it? If you go far enough back, you can prove any trend you like about global temperatures. If you start at about 650 million years ago, when the Earth was covered pole to pole in ice, you can say current data show we are in a "general trend" of rising temperatures. If you go back to 1998, not so much.

It is cute, in a pathetic kind of way, to watch the global warming cult try and fudge and spin this fact like nobody's business. Here's another hilarious example, from the same AP story:

"'It would be premature to make any conclusion that we would see any hiatus of the longer-term warming trend,' said Tom Karl, director of NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. 'Global temperatures are continuing to increase.'"

Yes, it would be premature to draw a conclusion (that global warming is not happening) based on current data (that global temps are lower today than in 1998). That's what we foolish mortals do.

Government scientists, and the functionaries and bureaucrats they serve, however, know better. Aren't we lucky?

In another sickening example, NASA scientists admit that while the new data is "suggestive of a slowdown in global warming, this apparent slowdown may largely disappear as a few more years of data are added."

An apparent slowdown that may disappear. Talk about covering your bases. Nothing to see here, folks, move along.

One can understand this disappointment. Lucrative climate-scaremongering careers are at stake. So it is no surprise that many cling to the hope that maybe we will burn up after all, that maybe this new data is just a fluke, a blip, a natural respite from man's descent into an unnatural global conflagration.

The truth is this: There is no such thing as an "average" global temperature. The history of our planet is a history of wildly fluctuating temperatures, locally and globally, from season to season, century to century, epoch to epoch.

Only a generation as narcissistic as the baby boomers would assume that the temperature they were accustomed to as they came of age in the mid-20th century is the "correct" or "average" global temperature, which must be maintained in perpetuity no matter the costs.

Again, from NASA: "Global temperature in 2011 was lower than in 1998." Now there's an inconvenient truth for you.

SOURCE

The Massive NASA & IPCC Embarrassment: Hansen's Abysmal Global Warming Model Predictions

James Hansen has provided proof over the last few decades that climate models are worthless as climate prediction tools - will NASA & the IPCC admit failure?

Using the December-end temperature anomalies (topmost chart), it is readily apparent that NASA's James Hansen is entirely incapable of producing accurate global temperature predictions over the long-term. His predictions have been so bad that even the mainstream press is finally coming around to the realization that the alarmist global warming scenarios are truly without merit.

The second chart exhibits the non-predicted deceleration of global temperatures over the last 15 years using the IPCC's gold-standard HadCRUT dataset.

Whether it is long or short-term, Hansen/NASA models are no better than a Ouija board as a tool to predict global temperatures. This massive failure by Hansen et al can also be seen in his model's prediction of ocean heat content and sea level rise.

SOURCE (See the original for links)

Little Ice Age recognized in top journal

Michael Mann's "hockeystick" says that the LIA did not happen. And in 2007 Phil Jones said "it's important "not to cling to outdated concepts of the past such as the MWP and LIA"

That the "modelling" of the authors below excludes a solar influence as the cause of the LIA need not detain us of course. You can get anything you like out of a model.

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 39, L02708, 5 PP., 2012

Abrupt onset of the Little Ice Age triggered by volcanism and sustained by sea-ice/ocean feedbacks

by Gifford H. Miller et al.

Abstract

Northern Hemisphere summer temperatures over the past 8000 years have been paced by the slow decrease in summer insolation resulting from the precession of the equinoxes. However, the causes of superposed century-scale cold summer anomalies, of which the Little Ice Age (LIA) is the most extreme, remain debated, largely because the natural forcings are either weak or, in the case of volcanism, short lived. Here we present precisely dated records of ice-cap growth from Arctic Canada and Iceland showing that LIA summer cold and ice growth began abruptly between 1275 and 1300 AD, followed by a substantial intensification 1430–1455 AD. Intervals of sudden ice growth coincide with two of the most volcanically perturbed half centuries of the past millennium. A transient climate model simulation shows that explosive volcanism produces abrupt summer cooling at these times, and that cold summers can be maintained by sea-ice/ocean feedbacks long after volcanic aerosols are removed. Our results suggest that the onset of the LIA can be linked to an unusual 50-year-long episode with four large sulfur-rich explosive eruptions, each with global sulfate loading >60 Tg. The persistence of cold summers is best explained by consequent sea-ice/ocean feedbacks during a hemispheric summer insolation minimum; large changes in solar irradiance are not required.

SOURCE

Phil Jones in June 2003 admits to changing his treatment of the data so as to confirm a warming trend

Email 2530

"Also, note that I've changed the way we smooth the series to preserve the late 20th century trend, like we did in the Eos piece. I've always estimated the uncertainties a bit more conservatively as described in text--so they're a bit expanded now. None of the conclusions change, although the globe is actually a bit more anomalous in the late 20th century when you spreserve the late 20th century trend in the smoothing, so I've tweaked the wording there just a bit..."

SOURCE

***************************************

For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here

*****************************************

2012-01-30T16:30:00.000+11:30

Britain's Met Office releases new figures which show no warming in 15 years

The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years. The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.

Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.

Solar output goes through 11-year cycles, with high numbers of sunspots seen at their peak.

We are now at what should be the peak of what scientists call ‘Cycle 24’ – which is why last week’s solar storm resulted in sightings of the aurora borealis further south than usual. But sunspot numbers are running at less than half those seen during cycle peaks in the 20th Century.

Analysis by experts at NASA and the University of Arizona – derived from magnetic-field measurements 120,000 miles beneath the sun’s surface – suggest that Cycle 25, whose peak is due in 2022, will be a great deal weaker still.

According to a paper issued last week by the Met Office, there is a 92 per cent chance that both Cycle 25 and those taking place in the following decades will be as weak as, or weaker than, the ‘Dalton minimum’ of 1790 to 1830. In this period, named after the meteorologist John Dalton, average temperatures in parts of Europe fell by 2C.

However, it is also possible that the new solar energy slump could be as deep as the ‘Maunder minimum’ (after astronomer Edward Maunder), between 1645 and 1715 in the coldest part of the ‘Little Ice Age’ when, as well as the Thames frost fairs, the canals of Holland froze solid.

Yet, in its paper, the Met Office claimed that the consequences now would be negligible – because the impact of the sun on climate is far less than man-made carbon dioxide. Although the sun’s output is likely to decrease until 2100, ‘This would only cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08C.’ Peter Stott, one of the authors, said: ‘Our findings suggest a reduction of solar activity to levels not seen in hundreds of years would be insufficient to offset the dominant influence of greenhouse gases.’

These findings are fiercely disputed by other solar experts.

‘World temperatures may end up a lot cooler than now for 50 years or more,’ said Henrik Svensmark, director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at Denmark’s National Space Institute. ‘It will take a long battle to convince some climate scientists that the sun is important. It may well be that the sun is going to demonstrate this on its own, without the need for their help.’

He pointed out that, in claiming the effect of the solar minimum would be small, the Met Office was relying on the same computer models that are being undermined by the current pause in global-warming.

CO2 levels have continued to rise without interruption and, in 2007, the Met Office claimed that global warming was about to ‘come roaring back’. It said that between 2004 and 2014 there would be an overall increase of 0.3C. In 2009, it predicted that at least three of the years 2009 to 2014 would break the previous temperature record set in 1998.

So far there is no sign of any of this happening. But yesterday a Met Office spokesman insisted its models were still valid. ‘The ten-year projection remains groundbreaking science. The period for the original projection is not over yet,’ he said.

Dr Nicola Scafetta, of Duke University in North Carolina, is the author of several papers that argue the Met Office climate models show there should have been ‘steady warming from 2000 until now’.

‘If temperatures continue to stay flat or start to cool again, the divergence between the models and recorded data will eventually become so great that the whole scientific community will question the current theories,’ he said.

He believes that as the Met Office model attaches much greater significance to CO2 than to the sun, it was bound to conclude that there would not be cooling. ‘The real issue is whether the model itself is accurate,’ Dr Scafetta said. Meanwhile, one of America’s most eminent climate experts, Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said she found the Met Office’s confident prediction of a ‘negligible’ impact difficult to understand.

‘The responsible thing to do would be to accept the fact that the models may have severe shortcomings when it comes to the influence of the sun,’ said Professor Curry. As for the warming pause, she said that many scientists ‘are not surprised’.

She argued it is becoming evident that factors other than CO2 play an important role in rising or falling warmth, such as the 60-year water temperature cycles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

‘They have insufficiently been appreciated in terms of global climate,’ said Prof Curry. When both oceans were cold in the past, such as from 1940 to 1970, the climate cooled. The Pacific cycle ‘flipped’ back from warm to cold mode in 2008 and the Atlantic is also thought likely to flip in the next few years .

Pal Brekke, senior adviser at the Norwegian Space Centre, said some scientists found the importance of water cycles difficult to accept, because doing so means admitting that the oceans – not CO2 – caused much of the global warming between 1970 and 1997. The same goes for the impact of the sun – which was highly active for much of the 20th Century.

‘Nature is about to carry out a very interesting experiment,’ he said. ‘Ten or 15 years from now, we will be able to determine much better whether the warming of the late 20th Century really was caused by man-made CO2, or by natural variability.’

Meanwhile, since the end of last year, world temperatures have fallen by more than half a degree, as the cold ‘La Nina’ effect has re-emerged in the South Pacific.

‘We’re now well into the second decade of the pause,’ said Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. ‘If we don’t see convincing evidence of global warming by 2015, it will start to become clear whether the models are bunk. And, if they are, the implications for some scientists could be very serious.’

SOURCE

The Cost of Obama's Green Appeasement

This weekend’s Boston Globe Magazine will feature a gargantuan, 3600 word homage to rabid environmentalism in the form of a profile on 350.org founder Bill McKibben. The piece and President Obama’s disastrously short-sighted decision Wednesday to reject permitting for Transcanada’s Keystone XL pipeline are both symptomatic of a much larger ailment plaguing liberal politicking in general and the Obama administration in particular: a continual willingness to sacrifice the well-being of the majority for an elite, hypocritical minority.

The Keystone project, a 1,700-mile pipeline that would bring crude from Alberta’s oil sands to U.S. refineries on the Gulf Coast, has the potential to create hundreds of thousands of direct and indirect decent-paying American jobs and reduce our dependency on the oil of despotic, anti-western nations with questionably sane leaders. But radical environmentalists like McKibben – a second generation jailed protestor and disciple of John Kerry – seem either not to know or else don’t care what real poverty looks like. And he is among the leaders of the voting contingent to which our president is pandering – purely for political reasons.

The Harvard-educated McKibben, who was among the 1,252 people arrested during protests against the pipeline outside the White House last year, is on a mission to “end the tyranny of oil” and coal. Along with his worship of the false god of climate change, McGibben like many leftist elitists is committed to “social justice” according to the Globe. What McGibben and his ilk overlook is that real social justice begins with a job, the dignity of work, and the ability to care for and feed one’s own family. McGibben & Company’s quest is anti-jobs and therefore anti true social justice.

According to analysis released just this week by the Brookings Institution, child poverty has risen 4% in the past five years – an addition of 3 million impoverished kids, most of them added in the time Obama has been in office. The state with the highest rate? Mississippi, in the Gulf Coast – the very region in which many of the Keystone XL’s quarter-million jobs would have been created, and where the Obama administration’s six-month deepwater drilling moratorium cost Americans tens of thousands of jobs. T.V. talk show host – and Obama supporter – Tavis Smiley said recently, “Many of the ‘new poor’ are the former middle class.”

Obama claims to be “all in” for domestic energy production and job creation, but when handed a no-brainer like Keystone, he choose to side with a radical minority of his base. Why? As Michael Brune, the head of the Sierra Club said, “it shores up the base, definitely.”

On Capitol Hill there has been almost universal silence from Congressional Democrats who apparently are listening to that same “base.” So, what does that say about what agenda really drives the Democratic Party? Politico.com says that according to a “top Democratic fundraiser” the issues driving the party donors are “Keystone and gay marriage.”

Obama and the Democrats may soon grow to regret the Keystone decision. There are about 25 million Americans unemployed, under employed, or that have given up even trying to find a job. If you’re out of work or struggling to get by, a politician focused on killing jobs and promoting gay marriage probably doesn’t sound like one that has your best interests at heart.

Besides all jobs we now stand to lose out on, we also face a considerable new security challenge in the form of a bolstered China. As Rep. Steve King of Iowa said this week: “If we block [the pipeline] that oil will certainly go to China. It will enrich their economy.” Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper has no intention of waiting for the United States to reverse this wrongheaded move; his goal is to see Canada at the forefront of the energy game. Harper will travel to Beijing next month, where he will likely take part in talks on selling his country’s vast oil supplies to the Chinese government. And China is serious about quenching its thirst for oil.

“Chinese firms aren’t just buying stakes, they’re buying whole operations,” reads a piece this month in Canada’s daily Globe and Mail. “It’s a new phase of China’s step-by-step Canada strategy. It will change not just the oil patch but Canada’s foreign policy. And a game of international energy politics is afoot in Canada’s West.”

When Obama finally turns around for a gander at his fellow Washington backers on this latest political choice, he will see he has precious few.

SOURCE

America's worst regulatory agency outdoes itself

California continues its leading role as the national laughingstock of regulatory absurdity. This week, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), forged another link in its unbroken chain of disastrous environmental policies. New CARB regulations reflect a decision process heavily influenced by three primary sources: Joseph Stalin, Al Gore and Pee-Wee Herman.

Let's look at the latest batch of lunacy from those swell 'crats in Sacramento. As an added bonus, we read from SFGATE, the reliable Left Coast mouthpiece that happily shills for the hard left Democratic mouth breathers.

".... the California Air Resources Board unanimously approved strict vehicle emissions regulations that will mandate production of more than a million zero-emission vehicles."

Unanimously? And you only thought I was kidding about the reference to Stalin.

"... the Advanced Clean Car program, will cut in half current greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. It means automakers will have to cut exhaust by two-thirds and begin mass-producing cars that do not run on gasoline."

"Although there may be some bumps in the road for individual vehicles, the steady drumbeat that is driving us to get off of petroleum continues." [Said Mary Nichols, the resources board chairwoman]

The new standards require 15 percent of new cars and small trucks sold each year in California to run on batteries, hydrogen fuel cells or plug-in hybrid technology within the next 13 years.

The new requirements will get increasingly stricter. By 2018, more than 70,000 cars and light trucks sold in California will have to run without spewing fossil fuel exhaust. An estimated 1.4 million zero-emission vehicles will be buzzing around the state by 2025.

By 2025, consumers will save an average of $4,000 over the life of a car compared with today - even though new vehicles will cost more, according to the Air Resources Board.

"Some bumps in the road for individual vehicles," "the new requirements will get increasingly stricter" and "new vehicles will cost more?" And you only thought I was kidding about the reference to Stalin.

Here is the money paragraph. Inhale the pungent aroma of liberal steer droppings lobotomizing the logic pathways of your frontal lobes.

"Scientists say the reductions in greenhouse gases that will result from the new rules are necessary for the world to avoid the most catastrophic effects of human-caused climate change. Regulators say the rules will also drive innovation and, therefore, job growth, reduce U.S. dependence on oil from hostile countries, and save people money on the cost of gasoline and medical care."

What mythical scientists are we talking about? Dr. Gore or Dr. Pee-Wee Herman? What mythical regulators? Perhaps a famous CARB bureaucrat with a fake degree who saddled taxpayers with millions of dollars of regulations? And how about that reduction of U.S. dependence on oil from hostile countries? Do you think they are referring to Canada and Keystone? And what in blue blazes is that last bit about medical costs, kinda creepy huh?

So what is driving all this idiocy? Last year it was called global warming, now neatly repackaged as global climate change. Let's look at today's article from the Daily Mail.

"Met Office releases new figures which show no warming in 15 years.

The supposed 'consensus' on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years."

Somehow the MSM overlooked this story; it must have been a busy news day. I'm just speculating here, but we won't see or hear about this on the major news networks any time soon.

Was global warming used as a wedge issue for the hard left to enact repressive and onerous governmental regulations to debase our freedoms and property rights?

Do you think that all this hooey from Al Gore and the global warming crowd what just a well orchestrated con game to scare taxpayers into funding billions of dollars of new bureaucracies? Was global warming just another consumer product, advertised and sold like mouthwash by the MSM to an indifferent and scientifically uneducated population?

Damn straight, that is exactly what happened.

SOURCE

Corruption Of The US Temperature Record

Prior to the year 2000, the USHCN and GISS temperature database showed US temperatures as having peaked in the 1930s, with 1934 (by far) the hottest year – and 1998 the fifth hottest.

Dr. James Hansen from NASA wrote at the time :

Empirical evidence does not lend much support to the notion that climate is headed precipitately toward more extreme heat and drought. The drought of 1999 covered a smaller area than the 1988 drought, when the Mississippi almost dried up. And 1988 was a temporary inconvenience as compared with repeated droughts during the 1930s “Dust Bowl” that caused an exodus from the prairies, as chronicled in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/

Around the year 2000, USHCN and GISS decided to “adjust” the temperature record, in a way which caused the 1930s to get much cooler, and recent temperatures to get much warmer.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.D.gif

The animated image below shows how the data was adjusted. The year 1934 was cooled several tenths of a degree, while the year 1998 was warmed by half a degree. How is that two years prior to the adjustment, over 365,000 US temperature readings were measured improperly by half a degree?

The adjustments that were made can be seen on the USHCN map below.

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/menne-etal2009.pdf

The map below uses the same images, but with regions of no temperature change removed. Note how the area of warming temperatures was nearly doubled, while the area of cooling temperatures was reduced by about 90%.

Where is the data that was used before the Y2K corruption? Why is it not made available by the scientist who wrote the text below in 1999?

Empirical evidence does not lend much support to the notion that climate is headed precipitately toward more extreme heat and drought.

It is deeply disturbing that a group of climate activists (Hansen and Karl) have made adjustments which turned a cooling trend into a warming trend.

SOURCE

Biodiesels pollute more than crude oil, leaked data show

Greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels such as palm oil, soybean and rapeseed are higher than those for fossil fuels when the effects of Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC) are counted, according to leaked EU data seen by EurActiv.

The default values assigned to the biofuels compare to those from Canada’s oil sands – also known as tar sands – according to the figures, which should be released along with long-awaited legislative proposals on biofuels in the spring.

A spokesperson for the European Commission said she could “not comment on leaked documents, such as impact assessments which have not been published.”

But industry and civil society sources described the data as credible and in line with other studies. One said it would sound a death knell for the biodiesel industry, if published.

“I think the science has proved clearly that because of the link to deforestation in places such as South East Asia, a lot of the biodiesels have significantly negative impacts on the climate,” Robbie Blake, a spokesman for Friends of the Earth, told EurActiv.

Indirect land-use change

ILUC happens when forests and wetlands are cleared to compensate for lands taken to grow biofuels elsewhere.

One recent report predicted that all of Malaysia’s tropical peatswamp forests would be destroyed by the end of the decade because of ILUC - with alarming consequences for greenhouse gas emissions - unless the expansion of palm oil production was halted.

To measure the climate impact of fuels, Brussels favours assigning default values based on a calculation of their full lifecycle emissions, hence the debate over ILUC factors and biofuels.

In its recent review of the Fuel Quality Directive, the EU proposed a default value of 107g CO2 equivalent per megajoule of fuel (CO2/mj) for oil from tar sands, as compared to 87.5g CO2/mj for crude oil, reflecting the greater environmental harm that its production causes.

Yet while advanced ‘second generation’ biofuels comfortably outperform fossil fuels in the EU’s new data, palm oil is ascribed a value of 105g, soybean 103g, rapeseed 95g, and sunflower 86g, once ILUC is factored in.

The data propose ILUC-incorporating CO2/mj values for biofuels as follows:

Palm Oil - 105g
Soybean – 103g
Rapeseed – 95g
Sunflower – 86g
Palm Oil with methane capture – 83g
Wheat (process fuel not specified) – 64g
Wheat (as process fuel natural gas used in CHP) – 47g
Corn (Maize) – 43g
Sugar Cane – 36g
Sugar Beet – 34g
Wheat (straw as process fuel in CHP plants) – 35g
2G Ethanol (land-using) – 32g
2G Biodiesel (land-using) – 21g
2G Ethanol (non-land using) – 9g
2G Biodiesel (non-land using) – 9g

Biodiesel

Isabelle Maurizi, a spokesperson for the European Biodiesel Board, told EurActiv that data such as the leaked biofuels values, and recent reports by the EU’s Joint Research Centre, the European Environmental Agency, and the International Food Policy Research Institute, were not consistent with research in the US.

“We do not recognise the validity of the science due to discrepancies in the results. The science is not grounded yet and is still immature so we would favour incentives in policy-making rather than punitive proposals,” she said.

Any application of the leaked values could severely hamper the ability of biodiesel manufacturers to enter into the EU’s new biofuels certification plan, announced last August.

This stipulates that certification only be awarded to biofuels which emit 35% less greenhouse gas than petrol, with the figure rising to 60% from 2018.

Advanced biofuels producers believe they would meet this standard and Rob Vierhout, the secretary-general of ePURE, a renewable ethanol association, said that the EU needed “a different shade of ILUC factor.”

“If indeed the effects on land use change depend on the feedstock that they’re using, then this has to be recognised in the policy,” he told EurActiv.

In April 2009, the EU legislated that renewable energy sources such as biofuels should make up 10% of Europe’s transportation fuels mix by 2020, and this has legal as well as financial consequences.

More HERE

Heresy at the BBC

There's an extremely interesting snippet (about 3 minutes long) on the website of BBC Radio 4's "Today" program, which is their flagship program for serious news and current affairs. Peter Helm, professor of energy policy at Oxford, says that contrary to environmental orthodoxy that fossil fuels will shortly run out, "the facts are very, very different. We're awash with the stuff".

The snippet then goes on, incredibly for the BBC, to talk about how the "challenge" for environmentalists is to come up with an argument against this abundant source of energy, expecially clean burning shale gas. Amazing stuff for the BBC.

See here

***************************************

For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here

*****************************************

2012-01-29T15:55:00.003+11:30

A record of failed predictions

The acid test of any scientific theory is its ability to generate accurate predictions. David Evans shows below that Warmism has a comprehensive record of failed predictions. The Warmist predictions for the future must also therefore be expected to be wrong. Excerpt only below

There are literally thousands of feedbacks, each of which either reinforces or opposes the direct warming effect of the extra CO2. Almost every long-lived system is governed by net feedback that dampens its response to a perturbation. If a system instead reacts to a perturbation by amplifying it, the system is likely to reach a tipping point and become unstable (like the electronic squeal that erupts when a microphone gets too close to its speakers). The earth’s climate is long-lived and stable— it has never gone into runaway greenhouse, unlike Venus — which strongly suggests that the feedbacks dampen temperature perturbations such as that from extra CO2.

What the Data Says

The climate models have been essentially the same for 30 years now, maintaining roughly the same sensitivity to extra CO2 even while they got more detailed with more computer power.

How well have the climate models predicted the temperature? Does the data better support the climate models or the skeptic’s view?

Air Temperatures

One of the earliest and most important predictions was presented to the US Congress in 1988 by Dr James Hansen, the “father of global warming”:

Figure 3: Hansen’s predictions [6] to the US Congress in 1988, compared to the subsequent temperatures as measured by NASA satellites [7]

Hansen’s climate model clearly exaggerated future temperature rises. In particular, his climate model predicted that if human CO2 emissions were cut back drastically starting in 1988, such that by year 2000 the CO2 level was not rising at all, we would get his scenario C. But in reality the temperature did not even rise this much, even though our CO2 emissions strongly increased – which suggests that the climate models greatly overestimate the effect of CO2 emissions.

A more considered prediction by the climate models was made in 1990 in the IPCC’s First Assessment Report:[8]

Figure 4: Predictions of the IPCC’s First Assessment Report in 1990, compared to the subsequent temperatures as measured by NASA satellites

It’s 20 years now, and the average rate of increase in reality is below the lowest trend in the range predicted by the IPCC.

Ocean Temperatures

The oceans hold the vast bulk of the heat in the climate system. We’ve only been measuring ocean temperature properly since mid-2003, when the Argo system became operational.[9][10] In Argo, a buoy duck dives down to a depth of 2,000 meters, measures temperatures as it very slowly ascends, then radios the results back to headquarters via satellite. Over three thousand Argo buoys constantly patrol all the oceans of the world.

Figure 5: Climate model predictions [11] of ocean temperature, versus the measurements by Argo [12]. The unit of the vertical axis is 1022 Joules (about 0.01°C).

The ocean temperature has been basically flat since we started measuring it properly, and not warming as quickly as the climate models predict.

Atmospheric Hotspot

The climate models predict a particular pattern of atmospheric warming during periods of global warming; the most prominent change they predict is a warming in the tropics about 10 km up, the “hotspot”.

The hotspot is the sign of the amplification in their theory (see Figure 1). The theory says the hotspot is caused by extra evaporation, and by extra water vapor pushing the warmer wetter lower troposphere up into volume previously occupied by cool dry air. The presence of a hotspot would indicate amplification is occurring, and vice versa.

We have been measuring atmospheric temperatures with weather balloons since the 1960s. Millions of weather balloons have built up a good picture of atmospheric temperatures over the last few decades, including the warming period from the late 70’s to the late 90s. This important and pivotal data was not released publicly by the climate establishment until 2006, and then in an obscure place. [13] Here it is:

Figure 6: On the left is the data collected by millions of weather balloons. [14] On the right is what the climate models say was happening.[15] The theory (as per the climate models) is incompatible with the observations. In both diagrams the horizontal axis shows latitude, and the right vertical axis shows height in kilometers.

In reality there was no hotspot, not even a small one. So in reality there is no amplification – the amplification shown in Figure 1 does not exist.[16]

Outgoing Radiation

The climate models predict that when the surface of the earth warms, less heat is radiated from the earth into space (on a weekly or monthly time scale). This is because, according to the theory, the warmer surface causes more evaporation and thus there is more heat-trapping water vapor. This is the heat-trapping mechanism that is responsible for the assumed amplification in Figure 1.

Satellites have been measuring the radiation emitted from the earth for the last two decades. A major study has linked the changes in temperature on the earth’s surface with the changes in the outgoing radiation. Here are the results:

Figure 7: Outgoing radiation from earth (vertical axis) against sea surface temperature (horizontal), as measured by the ERBE satellites (upper left graph) and as “predicted” by 11 climate models (the other graphs).[17] Notice that the slope of the graphs for the climate models are opposite to the slope of the graph for the observed data

This shows that in reality the earth gives off more heat when its surface is warmer. This is the opposite of what the climate models predict. This shows that the climate models trap heat too aggressively, and that their assumed amplification shown in Figure 1 does not exist.

More HERE

Plimer challenges the climate scaremongers with answers to 101 questions

The second print run of Ian Plimer’s How to Get Expelled From School is now shipping, the publisher, Connor Court, told Australian Conservative. The first print run sold out before Christmas.

Professor Plimer penned the best-selling Heaven and Earth in 2009. His new book continues to examine the issues surrounding the massive climate change scare-up and brings historical perspective to the issue. Plimer is Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at The University of Melbourne and arguably Australia’s best-known geologist.

Professor Plimer says that past natural climate changes have been larger and more rapid than the worst case predictions, yet humans adapted. Is human-induced global warming the biggest financial and scientific scam in history? If it is, we will pay dearly, he says:

Life [today] is far better than 100 years ago. We eat better, live longer, have better housing and have a richer life. Environmental ideologies are attractive and form part of personal growth. But, an ideology embraced without analysis of practical aspects is vacuous. Global warming is a fad. Once there are consequences that affect a comfortable life, then another issue will be found. And embraced again with passion. What is the next scare campaign? Ocean acidification? Biodiversity?

Climate change has been with us for the 4,500 million year history of planet Earth. This is what climate does. It always changes. Changes in our lifetime may be natural.

If you have wondered if pupils, parents and the public being fed political propaganda on climate change, this book provides an opportunity to find out.

In one section of the book, Professor Plimer lists 101 simple questions to ask teachers, activists, journalists and politicians – and provides you with answers. Here’s just one of them:

If we have dangerous warming and the global temperature has increased by 0.8°C since the Little Ice Age, does this mean that the ideal temperature for life on Earth is that of the Little Ice Age?

During the Little Ice Age, people died like flies and it was really not a good time to be on Earth. Besides the cold, there were crop failures, famine, cannibalism and disease. As a child, you might have been on the menu. It was certainly not an ideal temperature then. However, a clever teacher would put you in your place and may suggest that the ideal temperature for an Eskimo is not the ideal temperature for someone living in the jungles of Borneo. You could then come back and suggest that this shows that humans can adapt to a great range of temperature so why worry about a warmer world.

The Galileo Movement is promoting the book to schoolteachers and school librarians, with an offer of a free copy. Full details of the offer are available at Connor Court.

SOURCE

"Smart" meter cock-up in Britain

Millions of green energy meters may have to be replaced because the technology is not working properly. Homes and businesses which have already installed the digital devices have had problems switching to cheap deals and are even being hit with extra fees. Many meters could have to be stripped out altogether and reinstalled with a Government-approved model.

A Daily Mail investigation has revealed how some small businesses are being charged 20p a day simply to have a smart meter while many homeowners are being asked to give readings to energy firms because the technology is not transmitting their data properly.

The latest green energy fiasco is the result of suppliers pressing ahead with installing their own smart meters before the Government has decided on a standard model.

Every home and small business is due by 2019 to get a smart device, which is designed to show people how much energy they are using by the minute, so encouraging them to cut back to save money and energy.

However, even though installing the meters does not officially begin until 2014, many energy companies, including E.ON and Npower, are already doing so. This is because they will need to replace around 30million old electricity meters and 23million gas meters by the 2019 deadline.

Energy regulator Ofgem estimates four million smart meters are likely to be installed before 2014, while British Gas confirmed it has put in 400,000 so far.

However, because details of how the smart meters will work are not expected to be announced by the Government until March, many of the current devices may not be compatible and could have to be replaced in the future.

The scheme is due to cost energy companies £11.7billion, which they plan to pass on to consumers by hiking prices. Smart meters are expected to add £6 to the average annual bill by 2015.

In a letter to suppliers, energy watchdog Ofgem said it was also concerned that suppliers may not be able to read meters installed by a rival company. This renders the new technology useless if customers want to switch deals – in effect, the smart meter would work like the old types of ‘dumb’ meters currently in homes.

A spokesman said: ‘The meters being installed at present are not built to a common technical specification. As such, when a customer changes supplier, the new supplier may not be able to utilise the advanced functionality. ‘Furthermore, if the meter is not a compliant smart meter then it will have to be replaced by the end of the rollout.’

Consumer groups have also warned the green scheme is fast becoming a costly disaster. Zoe McLeod, of Consumer Focus, said: ‘We have repeatedly raised concerns about the cost and installation of smart meters. Customers – who will ultimately foot the bill – need to be confident that they will see tangible benefits.’

Last year, Money Mail revealed concerns that energy companies would try to sell expensive products to homeowners when installing smart meters.

Consumer groups have also warned that the devices will allow suppliers to cut off energy at the ‘flick of a switch’ without even having to enter people’s homes.

SOURCE

How the Friends of the Earth lost their focus

Their critics complain that the environmental activists came to represent 'Interminable meetings, not action'.

"Good gracious” exclaimed the newly retired ambassador, surveying my bald pate. “It’s Geoff Lean, isn’t it? We last saw each other when we exposed the illegal selling of a tiger skin in 1979.”

Thursday evening was that kind of an occasion. Friends of the Earth – which I have been covering since its formation in 1970 – was, rather belatedly, celebrating its 40th anniversary in a fashionable but forbidding London nightclub, and hundreds of its former campaigners were staging noisy mini-reunions with each other and with a few long-standing outsiders, like me.

And for once the pressure group, long past its youthful best, had something to celebrate besides longevity. The day before, it had scored its first significant victory for many moons when the Appeal Court ruled illegal a Government attempt to cut the feed-in tariff for solar power before the end of a consultation on the move. And there are signs that it may be beginning to revive itself after years of decline.

But the conversations – over hairily organic canapes made from food due to go to waste – were about the past, not the future. John Denham, the former Labour cabinet minister, even bumped into the man who had given him his first job, as an energy efficiency advisor for the organisation in 1977.

He, and many others from that time, reminisced about the cramped, cluttered, two-room offices in Soho’s Poland Street, where most of FoE’s – to give it its deliberately aggressive acronym – best campaigns were born. The group burst to national attention in 1971 when Schweppes stopped making its bottles returnable: on a sunny Saturday a procession of friends took 1,500 non-returnable ones back to the company’s headquarters, under the slogan: “Don’t let them Schh... on Britain.”

The demonstration’s lightheartedness – contrasting with the often ugly confrontations of the time – caught the public imagination, and over the next weeks local groups sprang up across the country. FoE went on, within three years, to win famous victories in stopping Rio Tinto Zinc from digging a vast copper mine in the Snowdonia National Park, preventing the Scottish hamlet of Drumbuie being turned into a site for building oil rigs, and persuading the government to ban the import of whale products and leopard and tiger skins.

More important, it kick-started still-continuing debates on whaling, nuclear power, renewables, transport policy, food wastage, and energy efficiency. It introduced then-revolutionary, but now commonplace, concepts, such as that building roads rarely solves congestion because it increases traffic, or that human error is the main cause of nuclear accidents and is hard to eliminate.

At the time, it seemed that FoE’s feisty group of young campaigners would rise to the top of British public life, but none, apart from Denham, did so. My ambassador, Tim Clarke (who represented the EU in Tanzania), and its most effective executive director, Tom Burke (who became a key advisor to three consecutive Conservative environment ministers before ending up at his former adversary Rio Tinto), achieved some prominence, while another early campaigner, Amory Lovins, became an alternative energy guru in America. Most, impressively, continued to pursue their concerns in academia or other pressure groups.

David Green, who gave Denham his job, spent many years in the unglamorous business of promoting combined heat and power generation. Early wildlife campaigners Sue Clifford and Angela King set up Common Ground, which has fought to save Britain’s orchards. And Fiona Weir, perhaps its best air pollution campaigner, now runs the single parent charity Gingerbead.

Meanwhile FoE grew in size, and shrank in effectiveness. Campaigners increasingly became over-specialised and over-concerned with trying to affect government policy behind the scenes, confusing access with influence, activity with achievement. Like many other green pressure groups it became increasingly seduced by the establishment it once challenged. And despite a few big successes – such as securing the 2008 Climate Change Act – it had relatively little impact.

Last year, a former executive director, Charles Secrett, accurately accused it and other green groups of being “out of touch, ineffective and bureaucratic”, adding: “Interminable meetings, not action, are the order of most days.”

FoE’s present leadership, however, does recognise the problem, and is finally trying to tackle it, starting with a long-overdue restructuring. The campaign team is being shaken up and new issues, which concern a broader public than just environmentalists, are being taken on. One such project on energy bill increases – mainly caused by the rising cost of fossil fuels – has already started, another on saving collapsing bee populations starts in April.

“There are finally some good signs, even if they are so far more organisational than operational”, says Tom Burke. The pressure group must hope that, for it, life can begin again at 40.

SOURCE

Australia: Ethanol critics push to overturn NSW fuel rule

OPPONENTS of a state government plan to ban regular unleaded petrol from July 1 are expecting to force a debate in Parliament and increase pressure on the Premier, Barry O'Farrell, to abandon the move.

Under a convention introduced by Mr O'Farrell, a petition of 10,000 signatures will trigger a debate if it is sponsored by an MP.

The Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association wrote to 1200 petrol station owners last month asking them to display a petition opposing the plan under which petrol stations will be forced to replace regular unleaded with an ethanol blend, E10.

About 6000 people have signed the petition since January 5, the association's general manager, Nic Moulis, said. Mr Moulis said he had already been discussing sponsorship of the debate with MPs, whom he declined to name, and was optimistic that one of them would agree.

The petition calls for an indefinite suspension of the switch to E10 and a "full independent review" of the Biofuels Act, under which the change is scheduled to occur.

The association argues the switch will be costly for service station owners due to the need to modify their petrol supply infrastructure. It says it will particularly hit those retailers who do not sell E10, many of which are in regional areas.

On Monday, leaked cabinet documents revealed the government had pushed ahead with the ban despite advice from several agencies that it would increase petrol prices and may be unconstitutional.

The same day the Herald revealed research that suggested up to 750,000 motorists would pay more than $150 a year extra as they would be forced to use premium unleaded because their cars were not compatible with E10.

As part of its campaign the petroleum marketers association is encouraging station owners to display a flyer saying: "Want to pay over 10 cents per litre more for your fuel?"

SOURCE

Wind power very disruptive in poor countries

Wind's biggest impact may be in the developing world – indeed, according to the Global Wind Energy Consortium, 2011 was the first year the developing world installed more wind power facilities than the developed world. India is now fifth in wind power production. China, the global wind leader, installed more wind power in 2009 than existed on the planet prior to 2003. Morocco recently finished its first wind farm (200 megawatts) and, with plans to grow its capacity 10-fold by 2020, expects to export electricity to Europe.

For all the hope that wind energy offers a world eager to move away from costlier, more environmentally disruptive forms of electric power production, the industry is barreling into some of the same controversies and conflicts that its predecessors in natural resource exploitation faced, particularly in the developing world.

On one hand, says Paul Veers, chief engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory: "The wind business is doing something no new electricity source has done in almost half a century – it's beginning to make an impact."

On the other hand, says Dan Kammen, a University of California, Berkeley, renewable energy scholar working on leave at the World Bank: "The conflicts that come up [with wind] are exactly the same ones that come up in basically every other land-based activity. We have done this in the past over Manifest Destiny and national security. The issue of the moment happens to be green energy, but there has been a history of this."

Towering turbines, often with blades as long as 30 yards, are installed in huge groups – wind farms – and require large tracts of land. Acquisition of that land has been a sometimes violent flash point in the new "wind rush.

The growth of wind power is driven partly by demand: China's electric power demand has doubled in just a decade, and India's peak demand is 12 percent higher than its available supply.

But also, national and international subsidies and incentives – such as carbon offsets that allow companies to invest in clean energy to "offset" carbon emissions in their dirtier businesses – have driven wind industry growth. Critics of the incentives say that every new turbine represents a blank check to pollute elsewhere. Supporters say it's a market-based solution meant to ease business into clean energy.

For Kyoto signatory nations it has meant a global rush to acquire land for wind turbines. Wind projects have been successful – notably, in Tamil Nadu, India, which experts like Ms. Shukla and Mr. Kammen cite as a model of responsiveness to local need and manageable scale.

Indeed, wind energy projects do generally inject economic benefits wherever they're built, but the development process often sparks anger, especially among poor landowners.

"What we see in many places, if not most places around the world, is very much what I would describe as the colonial model, where Europeans would go to Africa and other places and they say 'OK, we are going to develop this,' " says James Anaya, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. "And the deal that is being offered, in the end, is not a good one."

In 2001, Mr. Anaya won a landmark case in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that involved logging rights in Nicaragua and established that indigenous people have exclusive right to their lands. He says that too often a government or business acquires land through unequal negotiations, in which indigenous people aren't given all the information or options.

Negotiating any wind contract is complex. Often in the developing world, communities are poorly educated or largely illiterate and don't understand the implications of a contract. They may simply have no access to legal and technical advice and they may be powerless to negotiate. And because parcels are small, they can be destroyed by turbine construction.

Kammen, a strong supporter of wind power, says that by comparison, biofuels have a far worse record than wind development for land grabs. Rampant abuses in Tanzania, he says, recently led to a ban there on all new biofuel investment. He says that most conflicts involving wind energy deal with land occupied – but not owned – by indigenous groups, such as in the Kutch District of India, where a case pitting local herders against Indian wind giant Suzlon Energy Ltd. went to the high court there. He worries about such conflicts arising with Morocco's nomadic herders.

In 2010, the Monitor documented a case in Dhule, India, where 2,000 adivasi – or tribesmen – were forced to accept hundreds of wind turbines on their traditional lands. They'd lived on the land for generations but had dubious title. The government gave the land to Suzlon, which, in some cases, bought out owners.

However, ownership doesn't guarantee fair treatment. In Honduras a wind energy company recently forced indigenous Lenca people who did have land title to take on a wind farm, paying each farmer as little as $80 per year to lease the land. In many cases, the owners were barred from their land.

Cases like this, in which landowners are either coerced into a contract or don't understand what they are signing, are beginning to worry indigenous rights activists.

"You are talking about land that is the basis for the existence and survival of cultures – of entire social-culture dynamics that define a people," says Anaya. "You are talking about the cultural survival of these people."

Elsewhere, it's not clear what effect the wind boom is having on civil rights. China has doubled production capacity in each of the past five years. It has a history of driving people from land for hydropower, but wind experts say China's grip on information makes it hard to know if the same goes for wind projects.

Asked about the conflicts cited here, Shukla says her industry organization is unaware of any wind development projects that have caused poor landowners any strife.

In the Great Plains of the United States, many native American communities have joined a movement to direct all development on their lands. "The tribes were no longer satisfied with business as usual ... other people coming in, building some economic development project, owning it, taking the profits out, and leaving the tribe with it at the end of its life," says Robert Gough, a consultant with the Intertribal Council on Utility Policy, which represents 10 Great Plains tribes.

Many tribal communities there say they pay high electricity costs or have no electricity at all. So the council decided no wind farms will be built on tribal land unless the tribe has controlling interest.

Mr. Gough says the tribes have struggled to find partners because of these demands and because federal investment incentives are designed for businesses, not municipalities or reservations.

But communal bargaining is catching on. In southern Wyoming, 2,000 owners have pooled 2 million acres in "wind associations."

Many countries are trying to start domestic wind industries. For example, 15 years ago, foreigners built China's turbines; now Chinese corporations do it.

"At the end of the day, developing countries are energy deficient. And they do need power," says Shukla. "You want to be able to give them energy that is cleaner than what we have been providing across the world."

SOURCE

***************************************

For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here

*****************************************