Greenhouse theory smashed by biggest stone

The Tungushka object, not human emissions, caused the slight 20th century warming

A new theory to explain global warming was revealed at a meeting at the University of Leicester (UK) and is being considered for publication in the journal "Science First Hand". The controversial theory has nothing to do with burning fossil fuels and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. According to Vladimir Shaidurov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the apparent rise in average global temperature recorded by scientists over the last hundred years or so could be due to atmospheric changes that are not connected to human emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of natural gas and oil.

Shaidurov explained how changes in the amount of ice crystals at high altitude could damage the layer of thin, high altitude clouds found in the mesosphere that reduce the amount of warming solar radiation reaching the earth's surface.

Shaidurov has used a detailed analysis of the mean temperature change by year for the last 140 years and explains that there was a slight decrease in temperature until the early twentieth century. This flies in the face of current global warming theories that blame a rise in temperature on rising carbon dioxide emissions since the start of the industrial revolution. Shaidurov, however, suggests that the rise, which began between 1906 and 1909, could have had a very different cause, which he believes was the massive Tunguska Event, which rocked a remote part of Siberia, northwest of Lake Baikal on the 30th June 1908.

The Tunguska Event, sometimes known as the Tungus Meteorite is thought to have resulted from an asteroid or comet entering the earth's atmosphere and exploding. The event released as much energy as fifteen one-megaton atomic bombs. As well as blasting an enormous amount of dust into the atmosphere, felling 60 million trees over an area of more than 2000 square kilometres. Shaidurov suggests that this explosion would have caused "considerable stirring of the high layers of atmosphere and change its structure." Such meteoric disruption was the trigger for the subsequent rise in global temperatures.

Global warming is thought to be caused by the "greenhouse effect". Energy from the sun reaches the earth's surface and warms it, without the greenhouse effect most of this energy is then lost as the heat radiates back into space. However, the presence of so-called greenhouse gases at high altitude absorb much of this energy and then radiate a proportion back towards the earth's surface. Causing temperatures to rise.

Many natural gases and some of those released by conventional power stations, vehicle and aircraft exhausts act as greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide, natural gas, or methane, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are all potent greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide and methane are found naturally in the atmosphere, but it is the gradual rise in levels of these gases since the industrial revolution, and in particular the beginning of the twentieth century, that scientists have blamed for the gradual rise in recorded global temperature. Attempts to reverse global warming, such as the Kyoto Protocol, have centred on controlling and even reducing CO2 emissions.

However, the most potent greenhouse gas is water, explains Shaidurov and it is this compound on which his study focuses. According to Shaidurov, only small changes in the atmospheric levels of water, in the form of vapour and ice crystals can contribute to significant changes to the temperature of the earth's surface, which far outweighs the effects of carbon dioxide and other gases released by human activities. Just a rise of 1% of water vapour could raise the global average temperature of Earth's surface more then 4 degrees Celsius.

The role of water vapour in controlling our planet's temperature was hinted at almost 150 years ago by Irish scientist John Tyndall. Tyndall, who also provided an explanation as to why the sky is blue, explained the problem: "The strongest radiant heat absorber, is the most important gas controlling Earth's temperature. Without water vapour, he wrote, the Earth's surface would be 'held fast in the iron grip of frost'." Thin clouds at high altitude allow sunlight to reach the earth's surface, but reflect back radiated heat, acting as an insulating greenhouse layer.

Water vapour levels are even less within our control than CO levels. According to Andrew E. Dessler of the Texas A & M University writing in 'The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change', "Human activities do not control all greenhouse gases, however. The most powerful greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is water vapour, he says, "Human activities have little direct control over its atmospheric abundance, which is controlled instead by the worldwide balance between evaporation from the oceans and precipitation."

As such, Shaidurov has concluded that only an enormous natural phenomenon, such as an asteroid or comet impact or airburst, could seriously disturb atmospheric water levels, destroying persistent so-called 'silver', or noctilucent, clouds composed of ice crystals in the high altitude mesosphere (50 to 85km). The Tunguska Event was just such an event, and coincides with the period of time during which global temperatures appear to have been rising the most steadily - the twentieth century. There are many hypothetical mechanisms of how this mesosphere catastrophe might have occurred, and future research is needed to provide a definitive answer.

This story was originally here: http://www.physorg.com/news11671.html but was quickly taken down. I commented on the suppression of this story yesterday. The Abstract and a link to the original scientific paper is given below:

Atmospheric hypotheses of earth's global warming

From: arxiv, 6 March 2005

By Vladimir Shaidurov

Abstract

Two hypotheses are presented, outlining a new cause for global warming. We propose that the crucial factor in global warming is the amount and position of water vapour through the atmosphere. The purpose of this report is to open the debate and to encourage discussion among scientists.





Crackdown on animal-rights activists hasn't slowed them

New Jersey guilty verdict puts focus on extremists' tactics that Congress is trying to curb

Animal-rights activists around the country - at least the most extreme - are becoming increasingly militant. And law enforcement officials and lawmakers are stepping up efforts to combat those who break the law. These interconnected trends came to a head in New Jersey last week when an animal rights group and six of its members were convicted of inciting violence in their campaign to shut down a company that uses animals to test drugs and other consumer products. The group, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), claims its actions constitute free speech. But federal prosecutors and the jury in a Trenton, N.J., courtroom called it harassment, stalking, and conspiracy - the first such conviction under the 1992 Animal Enterprise Protection Act. The lab, Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), the largest of its kind in the world, is based in Britain and New Jersey.

Antivivisectionists and other animal-rights proponents have been organized in the US since at least the mid-19th century. But recently, their most extreme members have become more aggressive. Much of the focus for animal-rights supporters is on companies that produce animal products (mainly meat and fur). In their sights, too, are universities, hospitals, and other institutions that kill animals for medical research or product development. And they have been targeting anyone who does business with animal testers - financial institutions, contractors, and service providers, some with only a tenuous connection. Activists' tactics include vandalism, personal warnings by e-mail and phone message, and other threats directed at family members - what's called "tertiary targeting."

"There really isn't a week that goes by that I don't hear about an incident," says Jacquie Calnan, president of Americans for Medical Progress in Alexandria, Va., which represents universities, pharmaceutical and biomedical corporations, and research organizations.

Most of those engaged in medical science say animal testing is crucial to find cures for disease and new devices meant to keep people healthy. "Virtually every human being in the country has benefited from animal research," says John Young, a lab animal veterinarian and director of comparative medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. For example, recent research (including the human genome project) established that mice and humans are virtually identical in their genetic makeup. Specially bred mice are used to investigate ways to treat human diseases.

US research facilities use more than 1 million animals every year: dogs, cats, guinea pigs, hamsters, monkeys, sheep, and other farm animals. Add in mice and rats (more than 90 percent of all lab animals), and the total jumps to nearly 30 million, according to the US Department of Agriculture. While most such animals eventually are killed, supporters of such research say avoiding animal suffering is a major consideration in their work. "I don't know of a scientist or veterinarian who is not committed to the welfare of the animals," says Dr. Young.

Members of SHAC, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), strongly disagree. In some cases, they've infiltrated research labs to produce photos and videos that show otherwise. "It's clear that if you look at the science we have much better ways of testing drugs to see whether they're going to be toxic or helpful in human beings," says Jerry Vlasak, a trauma surgeon in Canoga Park, Calif. "Unfortunately ... the FDA [US Food and Drug Administration] is still requiring animal testing, but they're way behind the science on this issue," says Dr. Vlasak, who's also a spokesman for radical animal rights activists that often announce their "direct actions" anonymously. "The scientific alternatives are out there."

That's a minority view in the medical community, and it is one that many lawmakers oppose. Members of the US House and Senate are sponsoring the "Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act." It would toughen the 1992 Animal Enterprise Protection Act by imposing penalties for veiled threats to individuals and families, economic disruption or damage, and "tertiary targeting."

Along with the recent indictment of ALF activists charged with arson and other crimes in Oregon and other parts of the West, the convictions in New Jersey are a setback for extremist animal-rights activists. Still, the crackdown by the FBI and other police agencies has not slowed activists' efforts. One anonymous group just launched a website listing the home addresses of 2,000 employees from 30 companies doing business with Huntingdon Life Sciences. "From CEOs to lowly sales reps, from Alabama to Hawaii, we've sniffed them out," activists are told. "Visit them often, and make the message clear: when you contract with HLS... you get us







UNDERSTANDING COMMON CLIMATE CLAIMS

By Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, March 2006

(THIS IS A DRAFT COPY OF A PAPER THAT WILL APPEAR IN THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2005 ERICE MEETING OF THE WORLD FEDERATION OF SCIENTISTS ON GLOBAL EMERGENCIES)


ABSTRACT

The issue of man induced climate change involves not the likelihood of dangerous consequences, but rather their remote possibility. The main areas of widespread agreement (namely that global mean temperature has risen rather irregularly about 0.6C over the past century, that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have increased about 30% over the past century, and that carbon dioxide by virtue of its infrared absorption bands should contribute to warming) do not imply dangerous warming. Indeed, we know that doubling carbon dioxide should lead to a heating of about 3.7 watts per square meter, and that man made greenhouse heating is already about 2.7 watts per square meter. Thus, we have seen less warming than would be predicted by any model showing more than about 0.8 degrees C warming for a doubling of carbon dioxide. This is consistent with independent identifications of negative feedbacks.

Alarming scenarios, on the other hand, are typically produced by models predicting 4 degrees C. After the fact, such models can only be made to simulate the observed warming by including numerous unknown factors which are chosen to cancel most of the warming to the present, while assuming that such cancellation will soon disappear.

Alarm is further promoted by such things as claiming that a warmer world will be stormier even though basic theory, observations, and even model outputs point to the opposite.

With respect to Kyoto, it is generally agreed that Kyoto will do virtually nothing about climate no matter what is assumed. Given that projected increases in carbon dioxide will only add incrementally to the greenhouse warming already present, it seems foolish to speak of avoiding dangerous thresholds. If one is concerned, the approach almost certainly is to maximize adaptability.

1. INTRODUCTION

After spending years describing the physics of climate to audiences concerned with global warming, I came to the realization that I was speaking to people who were not aware of the basic premises of the issue. The listeners were typically under the impression that the case for climate alarm was self-evident and strong, and that concern for the underlying physics constituted simply nit-picking in order to see if there were any remotely possible chinks in the otherwise solid case. Given that most people (including scientists) can rarely follow 15 minute discussions of somewhat complex science, the conclusion of the listeners is that the objections are too obscure to challenge their basic prejudice.

I decided, therefore, to examine why people believed what they believed. What I found was that they had been presented mainly three claims for which widespread scientific agreement existed. While these claims may be contested, they are indeed widely accepted.

The only problem is that these claims do not suggest alarm. Rather, upon careful analysis, they make clear that catastrophic implications are grossly unlikely, but cannot be rigorously disproved. Thus, the real situation is that the supporters of alarm are the real skeptics who cling to alarm against widely accepted findings. The profound confusion pertaining to this situation is only reinforced by quibbling over the basic points of agreement. Such quibbling merely convinces the public that the basic points of agreement must be tantamount to support for alarm. We will begin by analyzing the popular consensus.

2. THE POPULAR CONSENSUS

In a recent set of articles in the New Yorker, which defend climate alarmism, Elizabeth Kolbert presented a fairly good summary of the popular consensus:

All that the theory of global warming says is that if you increase the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, you will also increase the earth's average temperature. It's indisputable that we have increased greenhouse-gas concentrations in the air as a result of human activity, and it's also indisputable that over the last few decades average global temperatures have gone up.

To be sure, this statement makes the logical error of ignoring other sources of climate change or the ubiquitously changing nature of climate. However, strictly speaking, the statement is not wrong. A briefer summary was provided by Tony Blair:

The overwhelming view of experts is that climate change, to a greater or lesser extent, is man-made, and, without action, will get worse.

Of course, this statement is too brief to actually mean much, but, given that climate change is always occurring, it is implausible to argue that all change is for the worse. Certainly, North America and northern Europe are much more pleasant without 2 km of ice cover.

How have such anodyne statements become the mantra for alarmism? Let us break up these points of agreement so as to be able to better examine this question. Let us also begin introducing all-important numbers into the claims.

1. The global mean surface temperature is always changing. Over the past 60 years, it has both decreased and increased. For the past century, it has probably increased by about 0.6 ~0.15 degrees Centigrade (C). That is to say, we have had some global mean warming.

2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas and its increase should contribute to warming. It is, in fact, increasing, and a doubling would increase the greenhouse effect (mainly due to water vapor and clouds) by about 2%.

3. There is good evidence that man has been responsible for the recent increase in CO2, though climate itself (as well as other natural phenomena) can also cause changes in CO2. Let us refer to the above as the basic agreement. Consensus generally refers to these three relatively trivial points.

[...]

10. CONCLUSION AND SUMMARY

So where does all this leave us? First, I would emphasize that the basic agreement frequently described as representing scientific unanimity concerning global warming is entirely consistent with there being virtually no problem at all. Indeed, the observations most simply suggest that the sensitivity of the real climate is much less than found in models whose sensitivity depends on processes which are clearly misrepresented (through both ignorance and computational limitations). Attempts to assess climate sensitivity by direct observation of cloud processes, and other means, which avoid dependence on models, support the conclusion that the sensitivity is low. More precisely, what is known points to the conclusion that a doubling of CO2 would lead to about 0.5C warming or less, and a quadrupling (should it ever occur) to no more than about 1C. Neither would constitute a particular societal challenge. Nor would such (or even greater) warming likely be associated with discernibly more storminess, a greater range of extremes, etc.

Second, a significant part of the scientific community appears committed to the maintenance of the notion that alarm may be warranted. Alarm is felt to be essential to the maintenance of funding. The argument is no longer over whether the models are correct (they are not), but rather whether their results are at all possible. Alas, it is impossible to prove something is impossible.

As you can see, the global warming issue parts company with normative science at a pretty early stage. A very good indicator of this disconnect is the fact that there is widespread and even rigorous scientific agreement that complete adherence to the Kyoto Agreement would have no discernible impact on climate. This clearly is of no importance to the thousands of negotiators, diplomats, regulators, general purpose bureaucrats and advocates attached to this issue.

At the heart of this issue there is one last matter: namely, the misuse of language. George Orwell wrote that language "becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." There can be little doubt that the language used to convey alarm has been sloppy at best. Unfortunately, much of the sloppiness seems to be intentional.

A question rarely asked, but nonetheless important, is whether the promotion of alarmism is really good for science? The situation may not be so remote from the impact of Lysenkoism on Soviet genetics. However, personally, I think the future will view the response of contemporary society to 'global warming' as simply another example of the appropriateness of the fable of the Emperor's New Clothes. For the sake of the science, I hope that future arrives soon.






LORD LAWSON: "CLIMATE OF SUPERSTITION"

(Article by Nigel Lawson. Lord Lawson is a member of the economic affairs committee of the House of Lords, which last year conducted an inquiry into, and published a report on, the economics of climate change. The article is a long one because Lord Lawson covers all the bases. I have reproduced it in full below because it is broken up into 6 pieces in its original form, which makes it very hard to scan)

There is no opinion, however absurd, which men will not readily embrace as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally adopted. --Schopenhauer

Next week marks the deadline that has been set for reactions to the less than satisfactory discussion paper that has emerged from the government's belated review of the important issue of the economics of climate change. It is important for David Cameron [Tory leader], too. For, while rightly giving the environment a high priority, he is in danger, over this issue, of making commitments which, in government, he would find it extremely damaging to honour.

Crucial though the economics of climate change is, the starting point clearly has to be the science. I readily admit that I am not a scientist myself; but then the vast majority of those who pronounce with far greater certainty than I shall on this aspect of the issue are not scientists either; and the vast majority of those scientists who speak with great certainty and apparent authority about climate change are not in fact climate scientists at all.

We know for certain only two things. The first is a matter of history rather more than science: namely, that since about 1860, when accurate temperature records were first collected on a comprehensive basis, northern hemisphere temperatures have risen by about 0.6 degrees Celsius ; and that this coincides with a steady growth in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a significant part of which is a consequence of industrial and other man-made emissions.

The second is that our planet is kept from being too cold for life as we know it to survive by the so-called greenhouse effect, which traps some of the heat from the sun's rays. This is overwhelmingly - somewhere between 75 and 95 per cent - caused by clouds and other forms of water vapour; and the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere accounts for most of the remainder. But so great is the uncertainty of climate science that it is impossible to say - and it is hotly disputed - how much of the modest warming that has been experienced since 1860 is due to the man-made increase in carbon dioxide.

The United Nations intergovernmental panel on climate change (usually known as the IPCC) has produced immensely complex computerised models which generate a specific temperature rise for any projected increase in carbon dioxide emissions; but of course the outcomes simply reflect the assumptions implicit in the models, and it is these assumptions that are inevitably highly speculative. The IPCC models assume that the recorded warming during the 20th century was entirely caused by man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, of which carbon dioxide is clearly the most important.

This may be true; but equally it may not be. There are, for example, climate scientists who believe that the principal cause has been land-use changes, in particular urbanisation (the so-called urban heat island effect) and to some extent forest clearance for farming. But much more important is the fact that the Earth's climate has always been subject to natural variation, nothing to do with man's activities. Again, climate scientists differ about the causes of this, although most agree that variations in solar radiation play a key part.

It is well established, for example, that a thousand years ago, well before industrialisation, there was what has become known as the mediaeval warm period, when temperatures were probably almost as high as, if not higher than, they are today. Going back even further, during the Roman empire, it was even warmer - so much so that the Romans were able to produce drinkable wine in the north of England. More recently, during the 17th and early 18th centuries, there was what has become known as the little ice age, when the Thames was regularly frozen over in winter, and substantial ice fairs held on the frozen river became a popular attraction.

Even during the period since 1860, for which we have accurate temperature records, the picture is complicated. While the amount of man-made carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has, since the industrial revolution, steadily increased, the corresponding temperature record is more cyclical, displaying four distinct phases.

Between 1860 and 1915 there was virtually no change in northern hemisphere temperatures. Between 1915 and 1945 there was a rise of about 0.4 degrees Celsius . Between 1945 and 1965 the temperature fell by about 0.2 degrees Celsius - and alarmist articles by Professor James Lovelock and others began to appear, warning about the prospect of a new ice age. Finally, between 1965 and 2000 there was a further increase of about 0.4 degrees Celsius , thus arriving at the overall increase of 0.6 degrees Celsius over the 20th century as a whole. Although, so far this century, there has been nothing to match the high temperature recorded in 1998, it would be rash to assume that this latest upward phase has ended.

At first sight, this might suggest a considerable natural variability, and thus inherent unpredictability. The official IPCC story, however, which is incorporated into its model, is that, before 1965, power stations (largely coal-fired) emitted large amounts of sulphur, producing sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere, which had a cooling effect - by dimming the sun's rays - that more than offset the warming effect of the carbon dioxide. Since 1965, it is claimed, when the industrialised West took steps to prevent this pollution, the carbon dioxide effect has reigned supreme.

Again, this may be so - or it may not be. Certainly, it makes it even harder to explain as man-made the 0.4 degrees Celsius increase in temperature between 1915 and 1945, when power station emissions were as dirty as they have ever been. So much for the science.

But the IPCC's scenarios - which incidentally it insists are not forecasts, although it must be well aware that that is how they were bound to be interpreted - showing a rise in global temperatures of between 1 degrees Celsius and 6 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, derive not only from the speculative assumption that the increase which has already degrees Celsius curred is entirely due to the rise in man-made carbon dioxide emissions. They also depend crucially on the IPCC's assumptions about how much these emissions will, on a business-as-usual basis, rise further between now and the end of this century. And this is a matter of economics rather than science.

Two economic assumptions are of particular importance. These are, first, the rate of world economic growth between now and the end of this century; and, second, the energy intensity of that growth.

The IPCC's various scenarios assume a rate of world economic growth over the whole of this century of between 2.2 per cent and 3 per cent a year. History would suggest that, while perfectly possible, this is somewhat on the optimistic side. Even more optimistic is the way in which these overall world growth rates are assumed to be composed. Essentially, they are derived from assuming a very high rate of growth in the developing world as a whole over the next 100 years, with the result that living standards in terms of GDP per head steadily converge with those of the developed world by the year 2100.


In other words, living standards throughout the developing world, in all the IPCC scenarios, are projected to be, by 2100, substantially higher than they are in Europe and the United States today. This may happen - indeed I hope it will, and it should certainly cheer up those who might otherwise be depressed by the climate alarmists - but it is clear that the IPCC's scenarios fail to capture the realistic range of possibilities.

As to the IPCC's projections of the rate of growth of carbon dioxide emissions which these rates of economic growth may be expected to generate, the position is even more perplexing. Over the past 30 years the annual growth in world carbon dioxide emissions has been roughly half the rate of growth of the economy as a whole, and within those 30 years the energy intensity of growth has been steadily declining.

This is hardly surprising. In the first place, economic progress is a story of increasing efficiency in the use of all factors of production. In the case of labour, this is customarily referred to as growth in productivity; but precisely the same applies to energy. Secondly, the pattern of world economic growth has been changing, with services, which are less energy-intensive, growing faster than manufacturing, which is more so.

What is surprising, however, is that every one of the IPCC's scenarios for the 21st century assume, without offering any evidence, that this trend will now be abruptly reversed, and that as a result the growth in carbon emissions per unit of output will be significantly greater than in the recent past. It is clear, to say the least, that the IPCC scenarios do not capture the true range of plausible futures.

Thus there is a pronounced upward bias in its emissions scenarios, which of course feeds directly into a pronounced upward bias in projected climate change. And that is assuming, as the IPCC does, that the whole of the 0.6 degrees Celsius warming that degrees Celsius curred during the 20th century was attributable to man-made emissions - which, as we have seen, is itself distinctly uncertain.

Does all this mean that we can forget about the threat of climate change altogether? I do not believe that would be wise, not least because natural climate variations are likely to continue to degrees Celsius cur, irrespective of human actions. But what it does mean is that we need to stand back and think more rationally about the most cost-effective form of insurance policy to take out against a supposed man-made threat which is both less certain and less urgent than is commonly supposed, but which, together with natural variation, cannot altogether be dismissed as a threat.

It is clear that the present approach, under which the industrialised countries of the world agree to somewhat arbitrarily assigned fixed limits to their carbon dioxide emissions by a specified date - the so-called Kyoto system - is the most expensive and least rational insurance policy, and that the sooner it is abandoned the better.

Even its strongest advocates admit that, even if fully implemented (which it is now clear it will not be), the existing Kyoto agreement, which came into force last year and expires in 2012, would do virtually nothing to reduce future rates of global warming. Its importance, in its advdegrees Celsius ates' eyes, is as the first step towards further such agreements of a considerably more restrictive nature. But this is wholly unrealistic, and fundamentally flawed for a number of reasons. In the first place, the United States, the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions, has refused to ratify the treaty and has made clear its intention of having no part in any similar future agreements. And if anyone should imagine that this is simply an eccentricity of the present Bush administration, it is worth recalling that, during the Clinton presidency, the US Senate voted by an eloquent majority of 95 to 0 against ratifying Kyoto.

In the second place, the developing countries - including such major contributors to future carbon dioxide emissions as China, India and Brazil - are effectively outside the prdegrees Celsius ess and determined to remain so. It is this that has led to the creation of the so-called `Asia-Pacific partnership on clean development and climate', a counter-Kyoto grouping of the United States, China, India, Australia, Japan and South Korea, which held its inaugural meeting earlier this year.

The developing countries' argument is a simple one. They contend that the industrialised countries of the Western world achieved their prosperity on the basis of cheap carbon-based energy; and that it is now the turn of the poor developing countries to emulate them. And they add that if there is a problem now of excessive carbon dioxide concentrations in the Earth's atmosphere, it is the responsibility of those who caused it to remedy it.

Be that as it may, the consequences are immense. China alone last year embarked on a programme of building 562 large coal-fired power stations by 2012 - that is, a new coal-fired power station every five days for seven years. Since coal-fired power stations emit roughly twice as much carbon dioxide per gigawatt of electricity as gas-fired ones, it is not surprising that it is generally accepted that within the next 20 years China will overtake the United States as the largest source of emissions. India, which like China has substantial indigenous coal reserves, is set to follow a similar path, as is Brazil.

Then there is the cost of the Kyoto approach to consider. The logic of Kyoto is to make emissions permits sufficiently scarce to raise their price to the point where carbon-based energy is so expensive that carbon-free energy sources, and other carbon-saving measures, become fully economic. This clearly involves a very much greater rise in energy prices than anything we have yet seen. There must be considerable doubt whether this is politically sustainable - particularly when the economic cost, in terms of slower economic growth, would be substantial.

In reality, if the Kyoto approach were to be pursued beyond 2012, which is - fortunately - most unlikely, the price increase would in practice be mitigated in the global economy in which we now live. For as energy prices in Europe started to rise, with the prospect of further rises to come, energy-intensive industries and processes would progressively close down in Europe and relocate in countries like China, where relatively cheap energy was still available. No doubt Europe could, at some cost, adjust to this, as it has to the migration of most of its textile industry to China and elsewhere. But it is difficult to see the point of it. For if carbon dioxide emissions in Europe are reduced only for them to be further increased in China, there is no net reduction in global emissions at all. Indeed, given the nature of Chinese power generation, there might well be an increase.

So, if not Kyoto, what is the most sensible approach? Far and away the most cost-effective policy for the world to adopt is to identify the most harmful consequences that may flow from global warming and, if they start to occur, to take action to counter them. There are three reasons that this approach is the most cost-effective.

The first is that most of the likely harmful consequences of climate change are not new problems but simply the exacerbation of existing ones, so that addressing these will bring benefits even if there is no further global warming at all. The second reason is that, unlike tackling emissions, this approach will bring benefits whatever the cause of the warming, whether natural or man-made. And the third reason that this would be the most cost-effective way to prdegrees Celsius eed is that there are benefits as well as costs from global warming. Globally, the costs may well exceed the benefits - although here in northern Europe it is quite possible that, over the next 100 years, the benefits will exceed the costs - but it is clear that a policy of addressing directly the adverse effects enables us all to pdegrees Celsius ket the benefits while diminishing the costs.

What, then, are the principal adverse consequences of global warming? First and foremost, there is the problem of coastal flooding as sea levels rise. Sea levels have in fact been rising very gradually for as long as records exist, and even the IPCC admits that there is little sign of any acceleration. But it could happen, and there is a clear case for government money to be spent on improving sea defences in low-lying coastal areas. The Dutch, after all, have been doing this very effectively for 500 years. The governments of the richer countries can do it for themselves; but in the case of the poorer countries, such as Bangladesh, there is an obvious argument for international assistance.

A second identified cost of global warming is damage to agriculture and food production as the climate changes. This is almost certainly exaggerated in the IPCC studies, which assume that farmers carry on much as before - the so-called `dumb farmer' hypothesis. In reality they would adapt by switching to strains or crops better suited to warmer climates, and indeed by cultivating areas which have hitherto been too cold to be economic; so little government action would be required.

A third alleged threat from climate change is that of water shortage. In fact, the volume of water flowing down the world's rivers has increased over the 20th century as a whole. But in any event, there is massive wastage of water at present, and clearly ample scope for water conservation measures, including in particular the pricing of water - which would also help on the farming front.

Addressing these specific consequences is not only far and away the most cost-effective approach to global warming: it also buys time. Time to learn to understand better the highly uncertain science of climate change; and time to allow technology to develop more economic sources of low-carbon energy than we have now. And on precautionary grounds it may be sensible for governments to use this time to encourage both low-carbon technological development and its diffusion.

It has to be said that this is not an easy message to get across, not least because climate change is so often discussed in terms of belief rather than reason. It is, I suspect, no accident that it is in Europe that climate change absolutism has found the most fertile soil. For it is Europe that has become the most secular society in the world, where the traditional religions have the weakest popular hold. Yet people still feel the need for the comfort and higher values that religion can provide; and it is the quasi-religion of green alarmism and what has been termed global salvationism - of which the climate change issue is the most striking example, but by no means the only one - which has filled the vacuum, with reasoned questioning of its mantras regarded as a form of blasphemy. But that can be no basis for rational policy-making.

From The Spectator, 11 March 2006

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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

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.

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