FRED SINGER RESPONDS TO THE "JOINT ACADEMIES" STATEMENT OF JUNE, 7, 2005

The Statement released by several national academies of sciences on June 7, 2005 is a politically motivated document and scientifically flawed. The politics is blatantly obvious: the release date coincides with Prime Minister Blair's visit to Washington and his meeting with President Bush. As the convenor of the G8 meeting in July in Scotland, Blair has already announced his two priorities: Global Warming and Africa. The Times (May 20, 2005) reports: "On climate change, Mr Blair has set three targets for Britain's [G8] presidency: to secure an agreement on the basic science; provide the foundation for further action; and to speed up measures needed to meet the threat of climate change....

We will make no further comments on the politics and strange choice of priorities except to note the memorable claim by Mr Blair's science adviser Sir David King that Global Warming presents a greater threat than terrorism. But is there really a Global Warming? The Statement simply regurgitates the contentious conclusions of the IPCC report of 2001, which have been disputed by credible scientists. The so-called "scientific consensus" is pure fiction.

The claimed warming for the 20th century occurred mainly before 1940 when greenhouse-gas levels had not increased much. Since 1940, there has been a 35-year-long cooling trend -- and not much warming in the past quarter-century, according to global data from weather satellites. To estimate temperatures for the year 2100, the Statement relies on conflicting answers -- 1.4 to 5.8 degC -- from several climate models. They differ by 400 percent; yet none of them have been validated against observations.

Meanwhile, an extrapolation of the satellite data gives at most a fraction of a degree rise for the 21st century. The IPCC claims to be able to reproduce the temperature history of the 20th century; but with the use of a number of adjustable parameters this becomes simply a curve-fitting exercise. The IPCC further claims that the 20th century was the warmest in the past 1000 years; but this myth is based on a seriously flawed publication. The IPCC also claims that sea levels will rise by up to nearly a meter by 2100; but every indication is that they will continue to rise inexorably - and much less -- as they have for nearly 20,000 years -- since the peak of the last ice age.

There is little left then of the "threat" of Global Warming. So what do the academies want? What's all the hue and cry about? While their Statement calls for G8 statesmen to "acknowledge the threat of climate change," many of their recommendations are quite innocuous and recognize the need for adaptation to inevitable future climate changes from all sources, including natural causes. After clearing away a lot of verbiage about "leadership," "mobilizing the scientific community," "assisting developing nations," etc. etc., the action recommendation boils down to "identify cost-effective steps" for energy conservation. Who can disagree with that? For once, a real consensus.

(S Fred Singer, Atmospheric physicist, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, and former director of the National Weather Satellite Service. The above statement was received via email)




ANOTHER COMMENT ON THE JOINT ACADEMIES STATEMENT

Just as British Prime Minster Tony Blair and President Bush conclude informal talks in Washington on global warming, the national scientific bodies of 11 nations have issued a statement calling for "cost-effective" measures to respond to the possible future effects of climate change. The national scientific academies of the G8 nations, along with those of Brazil, China and India, have called upon their governments to adopt mitigation policies best suited to the current technological and economic capacity of each area of the world.

Based on the academies' recommendation that new governmental initiatives be cost-effective, the joint statement clearly supports a strategy of resiliency focused on continued economic growth. "In terms of this latest statement from the world's leading scientific bodies, the global warming strategy embodied by the Kyoto Protocol is clearly a dead end," said CEI Senior Fellow Iain Murray. "Dragging down the leading economies of the world in an attempt to stop what is, at least in part, a natural and unavoidable process is an especially irresponsible and short-sighted response. In the event the planet does eventually experience dramatic climate change, only a flourishing and dynamic world economy will enable the nations around the world to successfully mitigate its impact."

"Like the Kyoto Protocol internationally, domestic proposals such as the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act can also clearly not meet the test of cost effectiveness," added CEI Director of Global Warming & International Environmental Policy Myron Ebell. "The European Union and Japan are learning the hard way that Kyoto is simply too expensive to implement, and Kyoto is only the first of thirty increasingly costly steps that would be needed."

The joint statement of the national scientific academies of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, India, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States is being issued in anticipation of debate over a coordinated international climate change policy at the Gleneagles G8 Summit next month.

Source






HONESTY FORCED ON MAINE GREENIES

In 2003, on a party-line vote, Maine passed legislation implementing the New England Governors/Eastern Canadian Premiers Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP). The CCAP, a regional version of the Kyoto Protocol, committed New England and Eastern Canada to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 1990 levels by 2010, 10% below that by 2020, and eventually by 70-80% or more. Policymakers have not been concerned that the CCAP is constitutionally suspect, expensive and ineffective. The Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) crafted the plan and decided not to discuss either the costs or the averted global warming benefits explicitly, but rather to focus on other environmental benefits (such as an alleged reduction in asthma) and to ignore or obscure the likely impact on energy bills. The plan would not be submitted for an up or down vote, but rather implemented piecemeal by executive order, litigation, statute, rule-making and public education.

Representative Henry Joy (R-Crystal) had a different idea and submitted LD 72, An Act to Promote Sound Science in Climate Change Policy. LD 72 was short (under 200 words), clear and concise: it required that "when the Department of Environmental Protection adopts rules designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the department must issue an estimate of the amount of global warming that will be prevented and the costs that will result from the rules requiring reduction in greenhouse gas emissions." In the absence of any legislation on overall climate change policy, and given the appealing simplicity of the bill itself, LD 72 seized the climate change policy agenda.

Maine's business and regulated community, in an unusual showing of both unity and backbone, testified in favor of the bill. National advocates for sound science and market capitalism, including TCS's Sallie Baliunas, American Council for Capital Formation's chief economist Margo Thorning, and the American Legislative Exchange Council gave powerful supportive testimony. The DEP and Maine's environmental groups testified against the bill. Two committee members, Reps. Tom Saviello (D-Wilton) and Robert Daigle (R-Arundel), both environmental professionals, were publicly criticized by the environmental left for crafting bi-partisan consensus as opposed to partisan gridlock and status quo. Facing unaccustomed criticism and having already lost control of the issue, the committee and DEP leadership accepted the watered down compromise, perhaps incorrectly assuming they could control and limit the actual implementation.

The result is a first for Maine environmental policy: economic factors will be considered, however faintly. Some minimal increase in honesty, transparency and accountability will be expected. Maine's climate change policy now has at least a patina of bipartisan consensus and legitimacy which it previously lacked. The "sound science" in the original title proved too odious for environmentalists to bear, and was replaced with An Act To Review Climate Change Policy Effectiveness.

The DEP and the Governor's office declined to issue even a press release upon gubernatorial signature. In the absence of any official ownership and explanation, the environmental left quickly moved to inaccurately define one of the first truly bipartisan environmental laws in more than a decade as "Money trumps environment " and a step backwards. It was left to market and sound science advocates to offer any positive analysis. The DEP has once again lost control of the agenda, and environmental policy and public opinion thereof is still a drive-by victim of the culture war.

More here




AMAZON FANTASIES

Ever since saving the Amazon became a fashionable cause in the 1980s, championed by Madonna, Sting and other celebrities, the jungle has consistently been likened to an enormous recycling plant that slurps up carbon dioxide and pumps out oxygen for us all to breathe, from Los Angeles to London to Lusaka. Think again, scientists say. Far from cleaning up the atmosphere, the Amazon is now a major source for pollution. Rampant burning and deforestation, mostly at the hands of illegal loggers and of ranchers, release hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the skies each year.

Brazil now ranks as one of the world's leading producers of greenhouse gases, thanks in large part to the Amazon, the source for up to two-thirds of the country's emissions. "It's not the lungs of the world," said Daniel Nepstad, an American ecologist who has studied the Amazon for 20 years. "It's probably burning up more oxygen now than it's producing."

Scientists such as Nepstad prefer to think of the world's largest tropical rain forest as Earth's air conditioner. The region's humidity, they say, is vital in climate regulation and cooling patterns in South America - and perhaps as far away as Europe. The Amazon's role as a source of pollution, not a remover of it, is directly linked to the galloping rate of destruction in the region over the last quarter-century.

The dense and steamy habitat straddles eight countries and is home to up to 20% of the world's fresh water and 30% of its plant and animal species. Brazil's portion accounts for more than half the entire ecosystem. Official figures show that, on average, 7,500 square miles of rain forest were chopped and burned down in Brazil every year between 1979 and 2004. Over the 25 years, it's as if a forest the size of California had disappeared from the face of the Earth. Such encroachment on virgin land is theoretically illegal or subject to tough regulation, but the government here lacks the resources - some say the will - to enforce environmental protection laws.

Loggers are typically the first to punch through, hacking crude roads and harvesting all the precious hardwoods they can find. One gang of woodcutters, in cahoots with crooked environmental-protection officials, cut down nearly $371 million worth of timber from 1990 until it was busted in the biggest sting operation of its kind in Brazil, authorities said last week.

Close on the loggers' heels are big ranchers and farmers, who torch the remaining vegetation to clear the way for cattle and crops such as soy, Brazil's new star export, which is claiming ever larger quantities of land....

However, under the international environmental treaty known as the Kyoto Protocol, Brazil and other poor countries are not required to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. Nor does the accord contain financial incentives to encourage nations such as Brazil and Indonesia to rein in the destruction of their tropical forests. "This is a very sensitive issue in Brazil and among developing countries," said Paulo Moutinho, research coordinator for the Amazon Institute of Environmental Studies. "If you want to include developing countries, especially countries with large areas of tropical forests, in some kind of mechanism to mitigate climate change, you need to compensate deforestation reduction."....

Even without the massive burning, the popular conception of the Amazon as a giant oxygen factory for the rest of the planet is misguided, scientists say. Left unmolested, the forest does generate enormous amounts of oxygen through photosynthesis, but it consumes most of it itself in the decomposition of organic matter....

"Concern about the environmental aspects of deforestation now is more over climate rather than [carbon emissions] or whether the Amazon is the 'lungs of the world,' " said Paulo Barreto, a researcher with the Amazon Institute of People and Environment. "For sure, the Amazon is not the lungs of the world," he added. "It never was."

More here

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

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

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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