GREEN FEARS GROWING AS CARBON CREDITS SCHEME FALTERS

The price of carbon credits crashed by more than a half last week after European countries said their levels of pollution would be less than expected. The price of carbon dioxide fell from just over EUR30 per ton to close at EUR13.45 on Friday over market fears of a glut of unwanted carbon credits. If prices remain this low, companies will have less incentive to cut pollution levels. It would also threaten to render one of the cornerstones of the EU's policy to cut carbon dioxide emission levels almost impotent.

The rout was sparked by the announcements from France, the Netherlands, Estonia and the Czech Republic that their heavy industry had polluted less than expected last year. All 25 European Union countries participating in the emissions trading scheme must report last year's emission levels by 15 May. If other countries also announce lower than expected levels, the price of carbon will continue to plummet. The UK has yet to report. The scheme, launched last year, is designed to give companies an incentive to cut pollution and to punish those that do not. Each country must agree annually with the EU a national "allocation" of pollution levels for heavy industry. Households, transport and light industry are excluded from the scheme.

In turn, each heavy industry company is given an individual pollution target. This should be lower than its previous pollution level. If it exceeds this, it must buy in carbon credits to balance its books. Those companies that pollute less than their individual targets can sell the surplus on to the market. Companies do not have to settle their carbon dioxide accounts for several years. This means that if countries are polluting less than expected, there will be less need to buy in credits, causing the price to fall, just as it did last week.

The scheme has been beset by problems. The UK Government has taken the EU to court over the method by which its allocation was set.

The Independent, 30 April 2006







Coral Bleaching: What (or Who) Dunnit?

Thanks to a Senate hearing on global warming this week, Americans can expect a plateful of charges about dangers to our oceans and, in particular, coral reefs. They should take it all with a pinch of sea salt. It's not that the objects of alarms -- particularly the condition of reefs in the Indian Ocean region, raised by such nongovernmental organizations as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Pew Charitable Trusts -- aren't of concern. Coral reefs are appropriately compared to the world's rain forests as habitats for wide varieties of life. They deserve protection.

But against what? Before we blame global warming, yet again, for a change in a species behavior or environment, we need to look closely at what is most likely to affect the reefs, and what is not. The dying off of coral reefs is known as coral bleaching. This bleaching occurs when corals expel the symbiotic algae -- or Zooxanthellae -- that live in their tissues.

This is usually in response to environmental stress, in particular high sea-temperatures, but also high solar radiation, fluctuating salinities, extremely low tides and often a combination of these factors. Then, of course, there are the several instances of pollution associated with several island locations -- mostly those with poor local sewage treatment and/or luxury liners dumping their sewage within close vicinity.

Global warming had nothing to do, for example, with elkhorn and staghorn corals becoming the first species to show rapid die-offs in the Florida Keys in the late 1970s and early 1980s. An extremely cold winter in 1977-78 wiped out large areas of cold-sensitive corals. By 1981, diseases had killed most of the remaining elkhorn and staghorn colonies. Three more cold winters ensued.

The environmental organizations' conjecture about global warming today killing the reefs is based on the belief that surface sea temperatures will increase about 2 degrees C (3.6 F) over the next 100 years, and that rising carbon dioxide levels are making the oceans more acidic. The temperature increase, though, would fall within the range of temperatures along the reef today -- from 29-30 degrees Celsius (84-86 degrees Fahrenheit) in the north to around 23 degrees C (73 degrees F) in the south. And yet reefs exist nearly everywhere along this 6 to 7 degree C (11-13 F) gradient.

So all the corals aren't likely to die from their projected warming. But how likely is it that the sea surface temperatures will rise the 2 degrees C, 3.6 F, they claim. The answer is: Not very.

The ocean's response to extensive heating is "ejection" of the major localized surface heat loads by way of Deep Convection -- intense expulsions of heat for the upper ocean wherever the sea surface temperatures exceed about 27.5 C. These expulsions create huge cloud towers up over 60,000 feet into the sky readily observed by satellite. The upper level Hadley Circulation carries this energy away from the equator, eastward and poleward. The associated surface winds also cause upper-ocean mixing that blends the cooler deep waters with the warmer surface, rarely allowing the surface to exceed 30 degrees C for any significant length of time.

At the poles, heat is always lost, somewhat more in the dark winter months, but unceasingly. This cooling results in Polar Subsidence, with the cool air sinking, sending huge cool surface wind lenses eastward and equatorward along the surface. These lenses suck up heat as they flow along.

This circulation pattern is how the Earth maintains its relatively narrow temperature bounds, and it runs in cycles not of our choosing. It is extremely unusual for sea surface temperatures in the open ocean to exceed 30 degrees C, due to these and related processes.

Furthermore, the oceans are now heading into one of their periodic phases of cooling. Since the 1997-98 El Nino/Southern Oscillation, an enhanced pole-to-equator atmospheric motion due to enhanced Polar subsidence events has increased super-cooling events, in accordance with the typical 55 to 70 year dipolar Warm/Cool cycle. Of course, where it warms or cools depends on where you are standing within these large scale processes. The trend is ongoing and will dominate the Global Circulation by 2008-2012, in accordance with its ~55 year periodicity. The Russian Arctic Institute is monitoring this transition, with their scientists' Atmospheric Circulation Index measuring the latitudinal versus meridional transport of energy by surface winds. The effect of this cycle can be seen in this and last year's long, cold winters with extra near record low temperatures caused by extensive highly mobile polar cold fronts measured as cold high pressure regions in various places.

Now, if history and our experience can be trusted, we can expect an increase in seasonal cold outbursts along the western USA into the southeast, from Moscow south into Eastern Europe and the Middle East, as well as parts of lower South America and South Africa, and even south Australia, during their winter times. These will continue, per their usual time scales of about another 20-25 years, before we emerge from this cool phase and begin the transition into another epoch of generally warmer, remedial climate phases.

But what about the claims by Pew that CO2 produced from burning fossil fuels is "acidifying" the oceans? The alarms raised are based on a finding this month in an National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration study that the average pH sampled in the oceans had declined from 8.2 to approximately 8.175 -- 0.025 units -- over the last 15 years. Scary? Hardly. Recent studies also show that the pH difference was 12 times that miniscule change at the time of the last glaciation, at 8.5 units -- and the reefs have thrived under that falling pH.

It would take pH a drop of 47 times that sampled by the NOAA to reach the 7 pH level when neutrality would occur. And that would require that the oceans not only absorb billions more tons of CO2 than mankind is going to emit, but that its buffering agents -- such as carbonate, nitrate and other radicals that minimize ocean acidity by accepting and expelling hydrogen ions -- disappear.

Fortunately for corals, as all marine species but unlike modern man, they have been through cycles such as this before, on all time and space scales. Modest changes in temperature are not about to wipe them out. Neither will increased carbon dioxide, which is a fundamental chemical building block that allows coral reefs to exist at all. It is their and our friend, generally, not the enemy.

What coral reefs have not had to deal with before -- 6-plus billion people, all leaving their fingerprints, or worse, behind -- very likely will continue to cause problems. And that is where the Congress, environmental organizations and world community should focus their concern -- against the real pollutants and real human damage caused to these rain forests of the sea. (That is, not global warming.)

Source






NEW SCIENCE COALITION REJECTS 'UNFOUNDED GLOBAL WARMING CLAIMS

A group of leading climate scientists has announced the formation of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, aimed at refuting what it believes are unfounded claims about man-made global warming. "We believe this is a significant development in opening up the debate about the real effects of climate change and the justification for the costs and other measures prescribed in the Kyoto protocols," said the coalition's secretary, Terry Dunleavy. He said members of the coalition had had enough of "over-exaggerated" claims about the effects of man-made global warming and aimed to provide a balance to "what is being fed to the people of New Zealand". The coalition includes such well-known climate scientists as:

* Dr Vincent Gray, of Wellington, an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), most recently a visiting scholar at the Beijing Climate Centre in China.

* Dr Gerrit J van der Lingen, of Christchurch, geologist/paleoclimatologist, climate change consultant, former director GRAINZ (Geoscience Research and Investigations New Zealand).

* Prof August H. (Augie) Auer, of Auckland, past professor of atmospheric science, University of Wyoming; previously chief meteorologist, Meteorological Service (MetService) of New Zealand.

* Professor Bob Carter, a New Zealander, now at the Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Queensland, Australia.

* Warwick Hughes, a New Zealand earth scientist living in Perth, who conducts a comprehensive website: www.warwickhughes.com

* Roger Dewhurst, of Katikati, consulting environmental geologist and hydrogeologist.

* Owen McShane, of Kaiwaka, director of the Centre for Resource Management Studies, who is convenor of the establishment committee, said many scientists and economists were concerned that the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had an effective monopoly on public announcements on global warming. "Its statements go largely unchallenged -- or go largely unchallenged in a format that will carry weight with governments, the media or the general public," said Mr McShane. "Hence, a new 'sceptical consensus' has developed that, before the next IPCC report is published in February next year, there should be a panel, or panels, of experts who have established themselves as 'auditors' of the IPCC, both here in New Zealand and abroad. "Those of us involved in forming this coalition believe that now is the time for individual countries like New Zealand to assemble their own national expert panels, so that these panels can form larger groupings with like minded-panels from other countries so as to be ready to deal with the reports to be published by the IPCC next year. "Their aim should not be to repeat, or parallel, the work of the IPCC, but to audit its reports, and to let the members of the IPCC know that such auditors are waiting in the wings," said Mr McShane. He said that the coalition's three main roles would be:

* To publish and distribute papers and commentaries produced by members of the coalition;

* To audit statements by other organisations, both in New Zealand and overseas, which are published in New Zealand, or are expected to influence New Zealand public policy and public opinion;

* To audit the forthcoming United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

The coalition has registered a website domain name, www.climatescience.org.nz, which it expects to have running within a day or two.

The New Zealand Herald, 1 May 2006







CANADA: UNSCIENTIFIC SCIENTISTS

What has happened to the null hypothesis?

Judged by their Climate Manifesto, the Climate 90 signers are not scientists. That is the unavoidable conclusion of the Climate Manifesto's language. The issues in this climate debate are simple and rather clear. The disagreement is not about rising temperatures but whether the rise can be attributed to human activity. None of the Manifesto's four points claim to solidly back their conclusion. Their approach isn't scientific at all.

1. The two groups agree on the first point: "There is increasingly unambiguous evidence of changing climate in Canada and around the world."

2. The second point has nothing to do with "science": It is a forecast. Moreover, the point does not say how the forecast is linked to "human activity" or which human activity brings it about. Since all climate scientists know that the Earth's climate has gone through periods of warming and cooling that had nothing to do human activity, and since we are now within the range of that variability, this forecast must be taken with grain of salt.

3. "Advances in climate science since the 2001 IPCC Assessment have provided more evidence supporting the need for action and development of a strategy for adaptation to projected changes." What does this statement mean, if anything? It reads like bureaucratic political blah-blah. "More evidence" does not mean "convincing evidence." And even skeptical scientists have not opposed people adapting to the warming temperature.

4. Their last, very prudently articulated fourth point suggests a lack of evidence -- it only asks for more taxpayer money to finance research. This point is fine; researchers are entitled to be lobbyists, though perhaps they should register as such." Canada," it says, "needs a national climate change strategy." First, red flags should pop in one's mind when people invoke nationalism and patriotism when talking about science. If one is talking about "global climate change," what can Canadian taxpayers, with just 33 million people scattered on an immense surface, do to have any effect? Then the signers ask for "continued investment in research, [to] understand what is happening, to refine projections of changes induced by anthropogenic release of greenhouse gases."

Does this sound as if there is strong evidence of human activity causing global warming? Not really. Which is fine, that's why there is disagreement in this field of science. This isn't the major issue. But here we come to the most troubling part of the entire manifesto, and one wonders how 90 scientists could endorse it. The principle of scientific research is NOT to confirm, and analyze opportunities and threats but to try and reject a hypothesis. Scientific research is about finding deviations, because deviations disprove rules. Science is not about going with the herd and confirming what some have found but to try and reject it. After all, the saying in science is "Even if one million people believe in an idea, it can be a very dumb idea."

The government may decide to fund further climate research but it should do so with strings attached, and finance proposals that state explicitly how they will try to reject findings rather than confirm them, let alone politicize the subject or speculate about threats. (Of course, fear mongering is easy, can find political support, and bring in money for "research" that very conveniently subsidizes pleasurable conferences in -- where else? -- warm climates. This principle should hold true for researchers on either side of this or any other scientific debate.

It is about time that taxpayers stop funding activists and lobbyists who masquerade as scientists. The government would give a strong signal by applying a scientific "Accountability Act" by putting the 90 who signed this "manifesto" on the watch list.

National Post, 28 April 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

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