Al Gore will be in Houston this week promoting his movie and book, An Inconvenient Truth. Predictably, his message is dire. The planet must be saved - and quickly - from manmade carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions produced by coal, petroleum and natural gas usage. Self-interested consumer choices are the culprit, and a government-directed reshaping of energy production and consumption is necessary. The Gore-led campaign is clear: A grass-roots movement must arise to force politicians to give us our bitter medicine - smaller cars, more expensive appliances and higher gasoline prices and electricity rates.
Wait! Before we jump to government energy-planning, let's look at the track record of the sky-is-falling crowd. Didn't we hear in the 1960s that the "population bomb" would cause food riots in American cities and mass starvation globally? Didn't the Club of Rome in the 1970s predict the end of mineral resources by now? Wasn't global cooling the scare before global warming? Isn't it suspicious that the problem is always individual behavior, and the solution is always government action?
There should be great hesitation before swallowing the Chicken Little du jour. The good news is that the bad news about the climate is exaggerated. Leading climate scientists such as Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Houston's own Dr. Neil Frank, a hurricane expert, as well as popular writers such as Michael Crichton, John Stossel and George Will are not careless, deceivers or plain bad folks. They are reporting the flaws in the analysis behind climate alarmism.
What are some of the inconvenient truths that An Inconvenient Truth fails to consider? First, CO2 is not a pollutant but a building block of life, benefiting plant life and agriculture. The one-third increase in atmospheric concentrations of CO2, from pre-industrial levels, has produced a "greening" of planet Earth, and this will continue for decades to come. Second, the surface warming that many scientists associate with manmade greenhouse gas emissions shows a relatively benign distribution. Minimum (night, winter) temperatures have been increasing twice as much as maximum (daytime, summer) temperatures. Higher night-time temperatures and longer growing seasons reinforce the carbon-fertilization effect, aiding plant growth and agricultural productivity.
Third, the actual rate of global warming to date is well below the high levels predicted by some climate models. As climate scientists know, it is feedback effects that turn a low level of predicted warming into a potentially problematic one; yet it is the nature and impact of such feedbacks that are most in dispute. Real-world climate is far too complex to be modeled. Local weather predictions several days out are notoriously suspect; models predicting the global climate decades and even a century out are will-o'-the-wisps.
At a minimum, Al Gore should add some caveats to his stage show. Citizens and policy-makers should beware those who habitually blame free markets for problems and call on government planning to solve them. Many climate economists argue that global warming - whether man-made or natural - has significant economic benefits, not only costs. The Impact of Climate Change on the United States Economy, an anthology by 26 specialists, pointed out that the United States would be a net beneficiary from most warming scenarios in the 21st century. It concluded: "Agronomic studies suggest that carbon fertilization is likely to offset some if not all of the damages from warming."
Strangely, the environmental lobby that is at war with fossil fuels is also warring with nuclear power and hydroelectricity, the only two large-scale, low-emission substitutes for hydrocarbon energy. And they seem to forget that their beloved windpower has its own set of environmental problems. A California representative of the Sierra Club labeled wind turbines "the Cuisinarts of the air." The bird-kill problem is an important argument that environmentalists are currently using against the proposed construction of a wind farm in the Gulf of Mexico, just off the coast of Padre Island and south of Baffin Bay.
Without Texas' renewable energy mandate, and without a slew of special subsidies, this environmentally controversial project would not be on the drawing board. What utility, after all, wants to buy electricity that goes away every time the wind stops blowing?
Al Gore has been a master of exaggeration ever since then-Sen. Gore blamed the heat and drought of the summer of 1988 on manmade global warming. Eighteen years later, despite contrary evidence that the human influence on climate has significant benefits, not only costs, and that a political cure could be far worse than the alleged disease, he is creating more heat than light. It is time for cooler heads to prevail.
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DISHONEST GREENIES AGAIN
"Think Progress" offers nothing new in its latest post about my NR cover story. It says Pat Michaels is wrong in believing that Curt Davis’s study of Antarctic ice shows that the ice sheet was growing through 2002, and calls Michael’s opinion of the study “key” to my piece. In doing so, it retreats into irrelevancies. Prior to Think Progress’s latest post, I had already acknowledged that Michaels might be wrong. I had also pointed out that, if he were, it would not affect my argument, which from the beginning has conceded that the latest studies show net ice losses in both Greenland and Antarctica. The claim that this shouldn’t scare us into capping CO2 emissions does not depend on showing that Antarctica was gaining ice until the last three years; this would simply be one addition to the many other considerations that weigh against alarmism. If Michaels is wrong, all of the following nevertheless remain true: (1) estimates of the mass of the entire Antarctic ice sheet exist for only the past three years, a period too short to establish the existence of a climate trend or recommend an appropriate policy response; (2) natural phenomena can be invoked to explain a significant portion of observed ice-cap melting; (3) the evidence is as yet insufficient to prove that melting will cause sea-level rise of a dangerous level; and (4) CO2 controls along the lines of Kyoto would have a negligible impact. That's more than enough to justify both the words on NR’s cover and the substance of my argument.
Keep in mind, moreover, that Michaels’s being wrong about the Davis study doesn’t mean that Antarctica was losing ice between 1992 and 2003. It just means we don’t know. Think Progress’s position essentially amounts to this: “Part of Antarctica was gaining ice. Another part was losing it. What was happening on balance? Beats us. But, by all means, be very worried.” (If Think Progress were always so compelling, how would we on the right stay in business?)
Not only has Think Progress not addressed my central contentions, it has also failed to correct the errors and omissions I have pointed out in its replies to me. These include its assertion that I wrote that when you factor coastal ice loss into Davis’s study, it still shows that the Antarctic ice sheet is growing; its claim that my discussion of Ola Johannessen’s study of ice buildup in interior Greenland failed to acknowledge coastal loss; its claim that my discussion of Greenland’s temperature history is contradicted by average global temperature records; and its implication that I'd denied that human activity causes warming, when what I'd said was that there is disagreement about how much warming it causes. When Davis explained the mistake I'd made, I immediately corrected myself. Think Progress seems constitutionally incapable of acting likewise. This isn't just sloppy argumentation; it is intellectual dishonesty. As I see little point in further debating such an interlocutor, I'll sign off here, wishing Think Progress luck in pleading the case that we should all hyperventilate over something we don't know.
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THE LATEST CRAZE - BETTING ON THE END OF THE WORLD
The end of the world is near! What seemed to be Nostradamus and a few other Doomsday prophets' domain recently became the latest craze in the betting industry. Forecasts on natural disasters such as a comet hitting the planet on May 25 are proliferating around the world. These "warnings" are usually based on the interpretation of known prophecies or "psychic disclosures" coming from other planets, like in the case of the comet originally set to cause the worst Tsunami ever experienced by mankind on 5/25.
"I have received information psychically, which is corroborated by scientific data, according to which on May 25, 2006 a giant tsunami will occur in the Atlantic Ocean, brought about by the impact of a comet fragment which will provoke the eruption of under-sea volcanoes. Waves up to 200 m high will reach coastlines located above and below the Tropic of Cancer. However, all of the countries bordering the Atlantic will be affected to greater or lesser destructive and deadly levels. This site is dedicated to life, to civic responsibility and to information. There is still time to save lives. Thanks for participating in the world-wide alert!" said Eric Julien on his Web site Save Lives In May.
Mankind obviously cheered when this "psychically" received information didn't come true. People across the planet were still busy putting rubber boats and rafts away when a new prophecy of the Apocalypse hit the wire. "There is much debate over the interpretation of the Bible, especially over Revelation, but if we are to interpret 2000 as the end of the millennium 6-6-06 could be the end of the world" stated Matt Ross spokesperson for BetUS.com.
The final book of the New Testament is Revelation, and for centuries theologians have pondered its highly symbolic, prophetic language. Revelation describes an apocalypse that will put an end to the world at the end of the millennium. It is prophesied that it is then that a great war will be fought between good and evil. Could the sixth day of the sixth month in the year 2006 be the end of the world as we know it?
A new wake of relative optimism on Doomsday taking place at a later date recently spread around the globe with the latest interpretation of the Inca astrological observations. "Wi1laru Huayta, a Peruvian "spiritual messenger" says that 2013 is the end of the Inca calendar , and in that year- a "huge asteroid" 3 times larger than Jupiter will pass close to earth, causing cataclysms that will kill off most of humankind." says the UK Web site Beyond 2012.
While 2013 remains a viable "back up plan" for the ones who want the world to cease to exist, online sportsbook BetUS.com posted 10-1 odds that there will be an Apocalypse on 6-6-06. The real question on these wagering odds is.....who will cash out winning bets should the world really come to an end?
TheOnlineWire.com, 4 June 2006
Australian eco-dream ends with whimper
The Rocky Point power plant has been sold for one-twelfth of what it has cost the publicly-owned Stanwell Corporation to keep it running. Investment bank Babcock & Brown found $5 million in small change for the co-generation plant in the same week it forked out $317 million for the South Australian assets of US company NRG.
Once one of the poster projects for the Labor Government, Rocky Point was quietly sold off last week with only a statement on the Stanwell website. The plant initially was to supply green electricity to 10,000 households as well as steam and electricity to industrial users, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 100,000 tonnes per year. But it has been plagued by operational problems and faced environmental fines for allowing contaminated water to be dumped in the Logan River, killing fish.
The problems with water supply and fuel forced the directors to start writing down the value of the plant since it was commissioned in February 2002. In June, 2002, $18.9 million was dropped off the value, another $18.2 million in 2003 and another $10.7 million last June, making the plant worth $7.5 million. In an announcement on its website, which now does not feature any information about Rocky Point, Stanwell said the sale would let it concentrate on bigger projects.
Babcock is looking to raise $2.9 billion to invest in energy projects. It already has a sizeable amount of cash, buying the South Australian assets of US-based NRG on Friday for $317 million to add to its 3000 megawatt worth of energy assets. A spokeswoman for Babcock said the bank would put more money into Rocky Point, which it bought in a joint venture with US company National Power. "We don't tend to take passive investments. We will try to pull the business into profitability," she said.
Stanwell said in a statement it would concentrate on developing large scale energy projects. Its major project is the coal-fired 1400 megawatt Stanwell power station near Rockhampton and it runs hydro power stations and wind farms. Energy Minister John Mickel, one of the shareholding ministers, said in a statement yesterday the price paid was the market value after a tender process. Stanwell confirmed 11 potential buyers were sent an information memorandum in May 2003 with four bids received in June of which two developed into conditional binding offers.
Mr Mickel described the plant as a learning experience and Stanwell overall was operating at a profit. "At the time of its commissioning, Rocky Point was a pioneering plant," he said. "It has provided Stanwell, the Queensland Government and the wider biomass co-generation industry with valuable knowledge and experience." Stanwell also said its probity audit report confirmed chairman Elizabeth Nosworthy - who also is the deputy chairman of Babcock & Brown - did not have a conflict of interest as she did not take part in negotiations for the sale.
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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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Jim Hansen and his twin
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