CARS HAVE "SAVED THE PLANET"

The motto of all environmentalists should be "Thank goodness for the internal combustion engine." The abuse heaped on the internal combustion engine by environmentalists was never justified. But a recent story on cow flatulence in the British newspaper, The Independent, makes the environmental benefits from gasoline-powered engines even more obvious. Based on a recent study by the Food and Agricultural Organization, The Independent reports that "livestock are responsible for 18 percent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together."

Long before global warming became an environmental concern, however, the move from the power provided by animals to that provided by gasoline had greatly improved the environment. The emissions that came out of the tailpipes of horses were much more lethal pollutants that those now coming out of the tailpipes of cars. Horse emissions did more than make our town and cities stink; they spread fly-borne diseases and polluted water supplies that killed people at a far greater rate than the pollution from cars and trucks ever have. Photochemical smog is clearly a health risk, but not nearly the health risk of cholera, diphtheria and tetanus that have been largely eliminated with the help of gasoline powered transportation.

Before the internal combustion engine it wasn't just cows, sheep and pigs emitting pollution down on the farm. Tractors and other types of gas-powered farm machinery eliminated the horses, mules and oxen that had provided most of the power necessary to grow and harvest our food and fiber. This not only reduced the problem that still exists from animal waste that environmentalists, with justification, still complain about. The internal combustion engine also eliminated the need to produce food to fuel millions upon millions of agricultural beasts of burden. It has been estimated that in 1900 it took about 93 million acres of land to grow the food for the farm animals that were replaced by current farm machinery. Most of that land has now gone back to woodlands, greatly increasing the number of trees that are reducing the problem of global warming by absorbing carbon dioxide.

The above consideration should have been enough to warrant an environmental shrine to the internal combustion engine. And now we find that by eliminating all those farm-yard animals, the internal combustion engine also eliminated vast amounts of methane-producing flatulence, which is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than the carbon dioxide produce by burning gasoline.

Even though the internal combustion engine is less polluting than what it replaced, it is obviously not pollution-free. Efforts should, and will be made to make it even less polluting than it is, and some day internal combustion will be replaced by an even less polluting technology. But history will look kindly on the internal combustion engine as a major contributor to the steady progress toward a healthier environment that has been made over the centuries.

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WARMING A COLD FACT?

By Richard W. Rahn



Do you think those who have reservations about whether man is creating global warming should lose their jobs and be denied the right to present their views? Over the last few months, there has been a concerted effort to silence those who have doubts about global warming and man's effect on the climate. The Oregon State climatologist was fired for disagreeing with the "conventional wisdom." A meteorologist with the weather channel demanded that dissenting views not be broadcast. CNN, in particular, has treated skeptics with great disdain.

As an economist, I do not claim to know for certain who is right and who is wrong in this debate, but I do know that attempts to shut down debate are both wrong and dangerous. When I was a student, Keynesian economics was the "consensus," and those few who disagreed, like Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek, were ridiculed by the economic establishment, and students in many universities were not even exposed to their views.

By the late 1970s, it was apparent to those who cared to look at the data and the world around them that Keynesian economics had all been wrong and Friedman and Hayek had been right. Once Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and other government leaders adopted the Friedman/Hayek model, their economies and also the world economy, entered the longest and highest rate of growth ever.

History is filled with those who dissented against the conventional wisdom but were proved correct, such as Copernicus, Galileo, Albert Einstein and many others. The doomsayers in the media and political classes were all atwitter last month when the most recent U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report was released, saying humans were partly to blame for global warming -- so I decided to read the report.

Let's do a mind game. The authors of the report predict average temperature will increase between 3.2 and 7.8 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century, and that sea levels will rise between 7 and 23 inches. Assume, for the moment, that mankind can do nothing about this projected climate change. Given that information, how would you change your behavior? If you are like most people, you would do nothing but enjoy the few extra days of summer and swimming. If you were going to build a house on the sea, you might build it a couple of feet higher than the existing codes require -- no big deal. Unless you enjoy shoveling the snow, having a little less of if to contend with each winter probably would bring more pleasure than pain.

Now, let us assume mankind might be able to slowly reduce global warming by drastically reducing carbon emissions. This can be done by increasing the cost of power and fuel. How much would you be willing to pay to make these changes for something you would barely notice over your lifetime? Would you be willing to take on these extra costs, knowing they would accomplish very little if the citizens of the rest of planet did not do the same?

What do this and other reports about climate change tell us? A majority agrees the most notable temperature increases will be in upper Canada and Siberia, and the moisture these areas receive will increase -- which means much better and longer growing seasons in these areas. These favorable developments will be partially offset by longer droughts in some localities. But given that both these positive and negative changes will occur slowly over a century, humankind will have plenty of time to adapt, and on balance it will be easier and less costly to produce food. If you are a skier, your season will be shortened, but if you play baseball, football, golf or swim, your season will be longer.

However, if the politicians on the left operate true to course, they will propose even more costly regulations and higher taxes, without any offsetting tax reduction. This will unnecessarily make the poor poorer and reduce job creation. The brains of many on the left (and some on the right) seem unable to understand second-order effects of policies and actions, which tends to make them overstate problems and come up with solutions that do more harm than good.

Vaclav Klaus, who is both a distinguished economist and president of the Czech Republic, criticized the new U.N. report on global warming, saying it was a political document, "without scientific basis." He also said, "a sane person can't conclude that we are ruining the planet" as Al Gore has said, given that the planet is now far more user friendly for humans than it has ever been in the past.

It is worth remembering that, as recently as the 1970s, a consensus held we were in a period of global cooling and might face a new ice age. Those who seek to shut down the debate are only revealing their ignorance of history and disdain for liberty.

Source





DEVELOPING NATIONS REJECT POST-KYOTO EMISSION TARGETS

Developing countries, including emerging economic giants China and India, are not prepared to take the blame for climate change, the head of the G77 group of developing nations said on Tuesday. Some countries in Europe and North America want developing countries to accept limits on their emissions of greenhouse gases when the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol runs out in 2012, but the G77 looks likely to oppose that.

"Most environmental degradation that's happened has been historically caused by the industrial world," said Munir Akram, Pakistan's permanent representative to the United Nations and chairman of the G77 group in New York. "China, India and others are at the stage where they are now taking off and it's quite natural that their emissions of carbon are increasing," he told a news conference after a two-day meeting of G77 diplomats in Rome. "There's a sort of propaganda effort to try to shift the blame for environmental degradation on to these fast-growing economies, and the motives are not very well disguised."

One of the main reasons U.S. President George W. Bush pulled his country out of Kyoto was that the 1997 U.N. treaty only imposed emissions limits on developed countries. The European Union remained in the pact but wants developing countries included in a second phase treaty which will be discussed at a U.N. climate change meeting in Bali, Indonesia in December.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) latest report, released earlier this month, predicted global temperatures would rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 Celsius (3.2 and 7.8 Fahrenheit) this century due to the greenhouse effect. Emissions from industry and transport, especially carbon dioxide (CO2), a by-product of burning fossil fuels like oil and coal, are blamed for trapping heat in the atmosphere in a process set to increase disasters like floods and droughts.

"The developing countries contribute the least to environmental degradation but are affected the most," read a statement issued by the G77 after the Rome meeting, which covered everything from aid to U.N. reform. With China's economy growing at 10 percent a year its appetite for fuel is increasing rapidly and the country is believed to be building a coal-fired power station every five days -- a major source of CO2. But Akram said any efforts to limit developing country emissions in the coming years would be viewed with suspicion, especially as most developed nations had made little progress in cutting theirs.

"Unless the North comes to grips with its responsibility it will be difficult to come to an international consensus by which all of us can contribute to halting the degradation of the environment, and certainly stopping the development of developing countries is not the answer."

Source. The full G77 Statement can be accessed here.





Global Hurricane Intensity NOT Increasing

Global hurricane intensity NOT increasing -- so concludes a just-published paper by University of Wisconsin atmospheric scientist Jim Kossin and colleagues. In order that we can't be accused of misrepresenting the authors' meaning, here is the complete conclusion section of their Geophysical Research Letters paper.

"The time-dependent differences between the UW/NCDC and JTWC best track records underscores the potential for data inconsistencies to introduce spurious (or spuriously large) upward trends in longer-term measures of hurricane activity. Using a homogeneous record, we were not able to corroborate the presence of upward trends in hurricane intensity over the past two decades in any basin other than the Atlantic. Since the Atlantic basin accounts for less than 15% of global hurricane activity, this result poses a challenge to hypotheses that directly relate globally increasing tropical SST to increases in long-term mean global hurricane intensity.

Efforts are presently underway to maximize the length of our new homogeneous data record but at most we can add another 6-7 years, and whether meaningful trends can be measured or inferred in a 30-year data record remains very much an open question. Given these limitations of the data, the question of whether hurricane intensity is globally trending upwards in a warming climate will likely remain a point of debate in the foreseeable future. Still, the very real and dangerous increases in recent Atlantic hurricane activity will no doubt continue to provide a heightened sense of purpose to research addressing how hurricane behavior might change in our changing climate, and further efforts toward improvement of archival data quality are expected to continue in parallel with efforts to better reconcile the physical processes involved. If our 23-year record is in fact representative of the longer record, then we need to better understand why hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin is varying in a fundamentally different way than the rest of the world despite similar upward trends of SST in each basin.

All we can say is "oh my." Can it be possible that the small band of global warming alarmists who is going around pushing the concept that global warming has led to measurably more dangerous hurricanes is wrong? Horrors. Let's see what the IPCC has to say about this. Here is the section on hurricanes from their recent Summary for Policymakers (SPM):

There is observational evidence for an increase of intense tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic since about 1970, correlated with increases of tropical sea surface temperatures. There are also suggestions of increased intense tropical cyclone activity in some other regions where concerns over data quality are greater. Multi-decadal variability and the quality of the tropical cyclone records prior to routine satellite observations in about 1970 complicate the detection of long-term trends in tropical cyclone activity. There is no clear trend in the annual numbers of tropical cyclones.

Well, it looks like the SPM authors decided to play it a bit cautious. Only reporting "suggestions" of increases in oceans basins other than the Atlantic. Wise move. These suggestions now seem to be wrong.

Certainly it is true that tropical cyclones have increased in frequency and intensity in the Atlantic Ocean over the past 30 years. And certainly sea surface temperatures have risen there as well. But as we have been harping on over and over and over again, this does not mean that anthropogenic alterations to the earth's atmospheric composition are the primary reason why (see any of the articles listed here). Many other factors besides sea surface temperatures impact the tendency for weak tropical disturbances to grow into fierce hurricanes. And many of these other factors have been trending in a way that is towards favoring stronger storms, but that is away from the direction that global warming should be taking them. Yes, you read it correctly, aside from increasing sea surface temperatures, anthropogenic climate changes from increasing greenhouse gas concentrations are generally projected to make the tropical environment less favorable for tropical cyclone intensification. Nobody told you that one before, did they (besides us, of course)?

What about the high profile results from papers in Nature (Emanuel, 2005) and Science (Webster et al, 2005) that made a lot of noise that intense hurricanes were increasing the world over and that anthropogenic global warming was to blame? Well, according to the new results by Kossin et al., and as has been suggested by Landsea (2006) and others, it looks like they were the result of a reliance on poor quality data.

More here

The abstract of the paper referred to above:

Recently documented trends in the existing records of hurricane intensity and their relationship to increasing sea surface temperatures suggest that hurricane intensity may be increasing due to global warming. However, it is presently being argued that the existing global hurricane records are too inconsistent to accurately measure trends. As a first step in addressing this debate, we constructed a more homogeneous global record of hurricane intensity and found that previously documented trends in some ocean basins are well supported, but in others the existing records contain trends that may be inflated or spurious.





Environmentalism: More facts, less evangelism needed

Comment by columnist Janet Albrechtsen

The timing is perfect. Al Gore wins an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth. If Rolling Stone is right, Gore will soon be running for president with his “save the world” message. Then, next month, Nicholas Stern, author of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, will be in Australia preaching the same message. His visit will be the 21st-century version of a Billy Graham crusade, complete with demands that we come to Jesus. Sinners - those sceptics of the Stern gospel on global warming - will be urged to repent. Many of them, overcome by emotion and group hysteria, will do so. And if the eco-evangelists could arrange it, there would be television cameras to capture images of new believers swooning into their saviour’s arms.

Even for those of us who realise the human psyche is drawn to emotional claims of doom and gloom, it’s easy to fall for the hype. Catch a few glimpses of the Christmas bush fires, the drought, Gore looking like an ageing Superman impersonator predicting cities being swamped and headlines that Bondi beach is under threat. Add more headlines about the ostensible consensus among experts that humans are causing catastrophic global warming. Employees soon start to question the big companies they work for because, these days, big is synonymous with bad. The big bosses start embracing global warming so they look lean and clean in a competitive marketplace for goods, services and employees. People start calling on governments to do something. Governments then get drawn into the whirlwind of global warming, overreacting on the basis of emotion, not fact.

Before Stern arrives, it’s time to visit the other camps on climate change. Those who are sceptical of the degree and dangers of warming predicted by Stern and co. Those who point out there are benefits to global warming. And those who warn against regulatory overreach. Relegated to economic and scientific journals, the serious rebuttals of Stern rarely get a mention.

Instead, the sceptics of the global warming orthodoxy are the deniers. But when The Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman recently wrote: “Let’s just say that global-warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers”, it unveiled the emotion and zealotry driving this debate. In fact, it’s not a debate at all. If it were, we might see a headline along the lines of “Experts sink Stern” because that is precisely what a group of eminent scientists and economists did late last year.

The Stern Review: A Dual Critique in the December edition of World Economics debunked Stern’s claim that “much of the debate over the attribution of climate change has now been settled”. It warned that Stern’s exaggerated predictions depend on a selective and biased treatment of scientific sources and evidence. Stern’s review is classic come-to-Jesus stuff for those searching for a utopian, post-carbon world. No cost-benefit analysis of global warming. No careful prodding of uncertain studies. Just end-of-the-world scenarios. And the saviour is Stern’s prescription of hiked-up carbon taxes.

Stern points to emissions driving global temperatures to dangerous levels. The critique of Stern points out that the rate of warming during the late 20th century was similar to an earlier natural warming period between 1905 and 1940, a period preceding industrial-driven greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the recent warming, according to these scientists, was of less magnitude than earlier millennial warmings during the medieval, Roman and Minoan warm periods. And a rapid rise in CO2 emissions for the two decades after 1940 was accompanied by a fall in temperature. That’s right: cooler temperatures.

In fact, scientists such as Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, and Bob Carter from James Cook University point to the real possibility of global cooling should the sun revert to the lazier position associated with the Little Ice Age. The Russian Academy of Science has issued similar warnings.

Stern predicts a global population of 15 billion by 2100. More people means more suffering. Yet, according to the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, there is only a 2.5 per cent probability that world population will exceed 14.4billion by 2100.

Fewer people means less suffering, but that doesn’t suit Stern’s exaggerated claims. Stern’s executive summary points to anywhere from 15 per cent to 50 per cent of species facing risks of extinction if temperatures rise by even 2C. The critique points out that higher CO2 emissions will boost plant growth, promoting biodiversity that may assist ecosystems, something Stern ignores. The scientists conclude that Stern’s assessment, based on studies that are “fraught with uncertainties”, presents a “worse-than-worst scenario, based on a naive and one-sided appeal to literature”.

Stern’s most glaring omission is the human ability to adapt to changes. Apparently climates change but humans do not. Stern’s black predictions of declining agricultural yields and global hunger - “250 million to 550 million additional people may be at risk” - are based on studies that ignore human ingenuity: people developing new technologies, planting new crops, choosing different animal breeds and so on. As the critique points out, estimating “the impacts of climate change decades from now is tantamount to estimating today’s level of hunger (and agricultural production) based on technology of 50 years ago”.

Technology has transformed the world because people adapt. Ignoring such a basic feature of human history and progress tells you much about the lack of rigour behind the evangelists who preach the global warming message.

But wait, there’s more. The critique reveals that Stern relies on information from groups that have an “explicit policy of refusing to allow external examination” of their data. They point to the Climatic Research Unit, whose data feeds into global temperature predictions used by Stern. Phil Jones from the CRU has said: “Why should I make the data available to you when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”

The so-called consensus on global warming is a manufactured one built by those whose careers depend on acceptance of climate change fundamentalism. And the peer-review process means drawing peers from the same global warming orthodoxy milieu as the authors. But brace yourself for more preaching. Stern’s visit will be followed by Earth Hour, supported by the City of Sydney, the NSW Government and an array of businesses, when Sydneysiders will be asked to turn off their lights for one hour. Then a surge of electricity will be needed when the Save Our Selves from climate change 24-hour concert hits Sydney later this year. When we get more facts and less gimmicks, there will be a real debate on global warming. Until then, governments should tread carefully.

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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 generally 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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