SENATOR INHOFE'S "FOURTH PILLAR" SPEECH ON CLIMATE ALARMISM:

Full speech (delivered 25 May 2005) here

Over the last few weeks, I have debunked the notion of a scientific "consensus" about global warming. The claim there is consensus rests on four fundamental pillars. My previous speeches made clear that the first three pillars are made of sand. It's not true, for example, that the National Academy of Sciences believes the science of climate change is settled. In fact, the report is replete with caveats warning the reader of the many uncertainties associated with claims of global warming. Yet advocates continue to recite small excerpts while ignoring the caution about uncertainties contained within the same paragraph or even the same sentence.

It is also not true that the second pillar - the UN science report known as the IPCC report - proves a consensus. The flagship study on which the IPCC report relies, known as the hockey stick and which shows an unprecedented rise in 20th century temperatures, has been thoroughly discredited by scientists on both sides of the debate. Moreover, the UN report relies on explosive increases in greenhouse emissions by poor countries over the next century based on the political decision by the report's authors that countries such as Algeria will be as wealthy, or wealthier, than the United States.

The third pillar supposedly proving that the science is settled - that the Arctic is melting - is not so much based on hard science as on political science. Arctic temperatures are no warmer than they were in the 1930s. Similarly, the thickness of Arctic glaciers and sea ice appears to vary naturally by as much as 16 percent annually. These and other facts which alarmists find inconvenient would seem to indicate that projections of an Arctic climate catastrophe are speculative at best.

Today I would like to conclude my series on the Four Pillars of Climate Alarmism by discussing the problems associated with global climate models. Let me begin by briefly explaining what climate models are and how they function. Climate models help scientists describe changes in the climate system. They are not models in the conventional sense; that is, they are not physical replicas. Rather, they are mathematical representations of the physical laws and processes that govern earth's climate. According to Dr. David Legates of the University of Delaware, climate models "are designed to be descriptions of the full three-dimensional structure of the earth's climate." Dr. Legates explained that models are used "in a variety of applications, including the investigation of the possible role of various climate forcing mechanisms and the simulation of past and future climates." Thousands of climate change studies rely on computer models.

The Arctic Council, whose work I addressed last week, stated that Arctic warming and the impacts stemming from that warming are firmly established by computer models. "While the models differ in their projections of some of the features of climate change," the Arctic Council wrote, "they are all in agreement that the world will warm significantly as a result of human activities and that the Arctic is likely to experience noticeable warming particularly early and intensely." Similarly, the IPCC, which I also discussed in an earlier speech, relied on such models to project a long-term temperature increase ranging from 2.5 to 10.4 degrees Celsius and assorted and potentially dangerous climate changes over the next century.

According to Dr. Kenneth Green, Dr. Tim Ball and Dr. Steven Schroeder, "politicians clearly do not realize that the major conclusions of the IPCC's reports are not based on hard evidence and observation but rather largely upon the output of assumption-driven climate models."

Alarmists cite the results of climate models as proof of the catastrophic warming hypothesis. Consider one alarmist scribe, who wrote recently, "Drawing on highly sophisticated computer models, climate scientists can project - not predict - how much temperatures may rise by, say, 2100 if we carry on with business as usual." He continued: "Although scenarios vary, some get pretty severe. So do the projected impacts of climate change: rising sea levels, species extinctions, glacial melting, and so forth."

Sounds pretty scary, but the statement is completely vacuous: It sheds no light on the likelihood or reliability of such projections. If, for example, a model shows a significant temperature increase over the next 50 years, how much confidence do we have in that projection? .....

Unfortunately, rarely does any scrutiny accompany model simulations. But based on what we know about the physics of climate models, as well as the questionable assumptions built into the models themselves, we should be very skeptical of their results. This is exactly the view of the National Academy of Sciences. According to NAS, "Climate models are imperfect. Their simulation skill is limited by uncertainties in their formulation, the limited size of their calculations, and the difficulty of interpreting their answers that exhibit as much complexity as in nature." At this point, climate modeling is still a very rudimentary science. As Richard Kerr wrote in Science magazine, "Climate forecasting, after all, is still in its infancy." Models, while helpful for scientists in understanding the climate system, are far from perfect. According to climatologist Gerald North of Texas A&M University, "It's extremely hard to tell whether the models have improved; the uncertainties are large." Or as climate modeler Peter Stone of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology put it, "The major [climate prediction] uncertainties have not been reduced at all." Based on these uncertainties, cloud physicist Robert Charlson, professor emeritus at the University of Washington, Seattle, has concluded: "To make it sound like we understand climate is not right."....







IGNORING THE ECOTERRORIST THREAT

This month, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works met to quiz and harass John Lewis, the FBI's counterterrorism deputy assistant director. This committee has them all. Chairman James Inhofe of Oklahoma has to contend with the Vermont party-switcher Jim Jeffords, self-proclaimed tree hugger Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, probable Republican Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Barbara Boxer of California, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Hillary Clinton of New York.

Little wonder that Lewis and his colleagues encountered problems in having the committee believe that environmental and animal-welfare militants are now the biggest terrorist threat in the United States. These militants increasingly use explosive and incendiary devices on targets ranging from housing developments and research laboratories to car dealerships. The committee members, obsessed with al-Qaida, were reluctant to believe that the FBI had 150 ongoing investigations and that 1,200 crimes by tree-and-bunny huggers were reported during the past decade. Their cost to us -- $110 million. The cost to them -- minimal.

What is most disturbing is that the criminals involved are mostly members of groups like the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), which hold open and well-publicized meetings. They are well- if not over-educated, mostly middle-class people from conventional homes who grew up with everything needed to be happy, and have a hatred for the American system.

If senators, the FBI, our readers and reporters wanted to attend their general meetings, all would be welcome. Track their money? It comes from our relatives and from clever mergers and acquisitions among environmental, animal and related rights groups.

Over the April 1 weekend there was a gathering of about 400 activists in New York City from 26 states and Canada. It was called the Grassroots Animal Rights Conference (GARC) at the Holyrood Episcopal Church in the Bronx. Those attending were lured by statements such as "Some of the most experienced activists and teachers in activist movements will converge at GARC with the goal of strengthening the grass roots." The GARC had experienced organizers for the conference. One of the speakers was Ramona Africa, from the Philadelphia group MOVE, who now "peacefully" protests at zoos and at circus performances. Ramona, the only surviving adult from the original MOVE, also has served seven years in jail for conspiracy and rioting.

One pamphlet distributed by Win Animal Rights (WAR) promised actions in May against "pharmaceutical and vivisection industries, their customers, suppliers and employees." Relying on the use of members' cell phones and the Internet, WAR's instruction -- "Be prepared to travel from one location to another taking the fight to both the business and home address of those that allow animal exploitation to continue!" -- creates a new level of fear.

Those attending the conference and the Senate hearing became aware that the direct-action phase of the animal and Earth liberation movements is, in 2005, about to enter a new and much more violent phase. "Our kids," totally oblivious of the new laws to suppress violence and terrorism and led by seasoned criminals, are preparing to vandalize and maim.

The Senate Committee does not seem to agree. Sen. Lautenberg said the Department of Homeland Security spent $40 billion a year to protect the home front but that groups based in Europe successfully had their American members attacking the homes, boats and cars of pharmaceutical executives in New Jersey and New York. Sen. Jeffords said "nothing much could be done about individual extremists committing crimes." He continued: "ALF and ELF may threaten dozens of people, but an incident at a chemical, nuclear or wastewater facility would threaten tens of thousands."

For a senator that was quite smart. However, did the senator consider that it could be an ALF or ELF crazy bombing a chemical or a nuclear plant? These are zealots with money, education and training. And, as of now, there is no federal agency that can guarantee protection against our homegrown idealist terrorists.

Source




GLOBAL MADNESS TO DEMOLISH THREE MILLION HOMES IN BRITAIN

Some 3.2 million homes must be demolished over the next 45 years to fulfil the Government's aspirations for tackling global warming, academics have warned. The report, by researchers at Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute and Heriot Watt University, is bound to re-ignite the controversy caused by the proposed demolition of 400,000 homes in the Midlands and the North.

Households account for around 30 per cent of Britain's total energy use and the researchers conclude there is a "desperate need" for a clear strategy for housing stock to bring about the 60 per cent reduction in the country's fossil fuel emissions that Tony Blair has said he wants to see by 2050. The academics say that Britain's 25 million homes are among the oldest and least efficient in Europe and recommend that 14 per cent of the current stock - 3.2 million homes - should be pulled down by 2050.

Listed buildings would be spared, but the plan would quadruple the present demolition rate to 80,000 homes a year by 2016. "Care must be taken not to invest money in upgrading those homes that will ultimately be demolished," say the authors.

Even so, two thirds of the housing stock of 2050 has already been built and this will have to be made more efficient. The immediate priority is for walls and lofts, then solid walls, to be insulated. By 2050 all windows will be double or even triple glazed. The report, the "40 Per Cent House", emphasises the need to construct the 10 million new homes that will be built by 2050 to far greener standards than in current building regulations.

John Prescott's department has said that from April 2006 all publicly-funded new homes - including 120,000 planned for Thames Gateway - will comply with a new code for sustainable buildings, due to be released this year.

Quinlan Terry, the leading classical architect, criticised the researchers' recommendations last week at a conference in London about designing sustainable buildings. He said the proposed demolition missed a "bigger picture", which included the fossil fuels already expended in putting up existing buildings and how long the new buildings would last. He said that the embodied energy in each Victorian terrace house scheduled for demolition as part of the Government's urban renewal plans in the North was equivalent to 15,000 litres of petrol, according to the Buildings Research Establishment. The carbon from the fossil fuels burnt to build our existing housing stock was already in the atmosphere, warming the Earth. "So why repeat the process?" asked Mr Terry.

Source

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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