DOES THE 2007 IPCC SPM ACCURATELY PRESENT THE OBSERVATIONS OF RECENT GLOBAL TEMPERATURE TRENDS?

The 2007 IPCC Statement for Policymakers (SPM) makes the following finding, "Eleven of the last twelve years (1995 -2006) rank among the 12 warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature (since 1850)" [based on "The average of near surface air temperature over land, and sea surface temperature."]. and "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures..."

This claim, which is repeated throughout the media reports on the IPCC report, however, is disingenuous. Other analyses of global heat system changes do not support the claim of continued warming of the climate system. Climate Science has discussed ocean heat content changes and has reported on the recent correction which concluded that the upper ocean did not cool during this time period, although the upper ocean has not warmed either which is at variance to what is expected from the IPCC Statement of Policymakers.

In this weblog, we report on data that was conveniently ignored in the 2007 IPCC SPM in their report on whether or not the climate system is continuing to warm. The data are the global average temperatures for different layers in the atmosphere from satellite measurements of the Earth's microwave emissions by Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) This data can be used to assess whether the warming trends reported in the 2007 IPCC SPM have continued in recent years.

As shown clearly in Figure 7 on the RSS website, the following conclusions can be made: 1. Since about 2002 there has been NO statistically significant global average warming in the lower and middle troposphere, and 2. Since about 1995 there has been NO statistically significant cooling in the stratosphere.

The IPCC SPM conclusion that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal" is wrong as it ignores the lack of such warming in recent years by these other metrics of climate system heat changes. Their focus on the global average near surface temperature trends neglects to report that there are major issues with the robustness of this climate metric of global warming as reported in the papers cited in:

Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: "Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends". J. Geophys. Res. in press,

many of which were available to the writers of the IPCC SPM but conveniently ignored. At the very least, the lack of recent tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling in the RSS data and the warming claimed for the near surface air temperatures conflicts with the multi-decadal global climate models in terms of how these temperatures are predicted to change.

Perhaps global warming will begin again. However, the neglect to include the recent lack of tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling (both of which are predicted to continue quasi-linearly for the coming decades by the multi-decadal global climate models, except for major volcanic eruptions) results in a seriously biased report by the IPCC. It has been disappointing that the media so far has chosen to parrot the statements in the IPCC SPMs rather than do investigative reporting on these issues.

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THE GREEN CHURCH OF EUTHANASIA

The Optimum Population Trust's claim that having a large family is an eco-crime exposes the anti-human streak in green politics

Having large families is an eco-crime according to the Optimum Population Trust (OPT). 'The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet is have one less child', the Trust says. It is actually modest compared to the more extreme versions of environmentalist hostility to humankind. 'Wildlife has more right to live on the earth than humans do', according to one group, which goes on to say: 'Humans are too great a threat to life on earth: they should be phased out.' At least that is the view of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, which hopes our will be the last generation of humans

Then there is the Church of Euthanasia, with its snappy slogan: Save the Planet, Kill Yourself. Moderate environmentalists might object that the deep ecologists are on the fringes, and not typical of the movement. But if the Church of Euthanasia is off in the sidelines, egging on lonely teenagers to top themselves while it trolls suicide websites, the OPT's message that we are the problem is mainstream. The OPT's trustees include the Green Party veterans Jonathan Porritt and Sara Parkin, the climate change diplomacy veteran Sir Crispin Tickell as well as the actress Susan Hampshire.

As the chattering classes' preoccupation with climate change reaches fever pitch, the extremists feel more confident to draw conclusions that others baulk from. That is because the extremists are only drawing out the underlying philosophy of environmentalism to make it more explicit. Indeed, the deep ecologists pre-date the more contemporary environmentalists. The current philosophy of 'sustainable development' was framed precisely because it was thought that the original aim of zero growth was too much for people to get their heads around. The underlying philosophy is that mankind is the pathological species, the scourge of the planet. Since James Lovelock coined the deeply mystical concept of Gaia - of a natural balance - mankind has been cast in the role of the disturber of the balance. At its most extreme, the misanthropism of a John Gray or a Jared Diamond looks forward to 'nature's revenge', the point where the laws of nature reassert themselves in the mass extinction of the human race.

Lots of lazily left-wing people think that they can reconcile their ambition to improve the lot of the poor with the goal of carbon reduction. South African academic and activist Patrick Bond thinks of himself as an environmentalist - though in his commitment to social redress he imagines that we can reduce world greenhouse gas emissions and get electricity supply to two billion people who currently do not get it (apparently there are some savings to be made in aluminium smelting which will help). Even American leftists imagine that they can rally to the cause of the working class and still cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Most environmentalists do not agree, thinking that any answer must involve 'horrendous costs to American industry and lifestyle'. There is a default to extremism that is written into environmentalism. And that is not surprising. If you hold that human life is worth less than the natural order, then you will have less respect for its sanctity.

The ecological outlook is an expression of middle-class rage at the masses, which from time to time becomes explicit. One example is Jon Ablewhite, currently serving time at Her Majesty's Prison Lowdham Grange for disinterring the corpse of Gladys Hammond, whose son-in-law owned Darley Oaks Farm where guinea pigs were bred. Ablewhite and his friends' six-year long hate campaign knew few restraints because the animal rights activists started with the assumption that people's interests were inferior. 'Jon is driven by the desire to right a wrong', said his mother, widow to a vicar and missionary.

Unabomber Ted Kaczynski campaigned for years against the technocratic society, posting bombs to electronics companies, while hiding out in a shack in the woods until he was arrested in the late 1990s. Environmentalism, like all political discourses that take shortage as their starting point, will tend towards misanthropic solutions. Any movement that begins with the view that mankind must be curtailed to reduce the pressure on the environment will have to start thinking how it will select those who must make sacrifices.

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DEMOCRAT DECEIT OVER GASOLINE PRICES

They blame their own destructiveness on others

Charles Schumer wants to investigate gas prices. Look in the mirror, Chuck. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. That's the Democrats' energy policy. Considering that nothing much has changed on the supply side while demand continues to increase worldwide, it would be a mystery if gas prices did not reach record heights - especially in the face of continued boutique fuel mandates, NIMBY refinery bans, greenie restrictions on domestic energy development, etc.

On Monday, gas prices surged to a nationwide record average of $3.07 per gallon, according to the Lundberg Survey, breaking the previous record of $3.03. Sen. Schumer, like most Democrats, thinks it's the oil companies' fault. "The looming question is, are they putting money into maintenance and keeping up refineries as they should?" Schumer asked.

Our refineries are doing more than ever, but their numbers are dwindling and no new ones are being built. The reason is not greed, but cost and regulations. From 1994 to 2003, the refining industry spent $47.4 billion, not to build new refineries, but to bring existing ones into compliance with ever new and stringent environmental rules. That's where those allegedly excessive profits go. In 2006, the blending of ethanol into gasoline reached a new high of more than five billion gallons and production if new clean-burning ultra low-sulfur diesel fuel topped a record 2.6 million barrels a day at the end of last year. The fact is that U.S. refining capacity has been growing at about 1% a year for the past decade - the equivalent of adding a mid-size refinery every year. Since 1996, U.S. refiners have expanded capacity by more than 2 million barrels a day This is a remarkable achievement in the face of environmental mandates setting new ethanol usage and low-sulfur requirements.

But the last major refinery built in the U.S. was in Garyville, La., in 1976 and the ones we have are getting older, no matter how well they're maintained. Fifty out of 194 refineries were shut down from 1990 to 2004. There is no slack in the system. Like the cars they fuel, periodic maintenance us required. At least we build new cars.

Earlier this year, AAA of Northern California reported a 45-cent-a-gallon jump in price at the pump in one month. But gasoline production in California was off 6% for the week ended March 2 as refineries shut down for the very maintenance Schumer demands. Lundberg cites at least a dozen additional partial shutdowns in the U.S. and internationally that have cut refining capacity. One of the nation's largest refineries, a BP plant in Indiana that processes more than 400,000 barrels of oil daily, will not be operating at full capacity for several months for unexpected repairs.

Schumer has asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate if rising gas prices are the result of oil company malfeasance or even a conspiracy. Last year, he wrote a letter to ask the Federal Trade Commission to investigate. In its response, the FTC said two previous investigations into unfair business practices by the oil industry found no evidence of wrongdoing. But there's plenty of wrongdoing in the Senate, which has done nothing to increase domestic energy supplies or refining capacity. In 2005, Sen. James Inhofe introduced the Gas PRICE Act, which would have streamlined permitting procedures, reduced boutique fuel mandates and offered closed U.S. military bases as sites for new refineries. Where was Sen. Schumer's support?

The only thing we we'd like to hear from Sen. Schumer is just where in New York state he'd like a new refinery to be built and what incentives he is prepared to offer.

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Schwarzenegger can't win: Still not green enough

He should have known that there is no pleasing the Greenies. But his critics are probably right in saying that his Greenie act is only for the purpose of photo opportunities

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has boosted his environmental profile by signing global warming agreements with states and foreign governments, most recently one this month with the Australian state of Victoria. Schwarzenegger officials say the agreements are intended to force the federal government to take a more stringent approach to tackling global warming. But some critics note the signings have given Schwarzenegger opportunities for photo-ops with foreign leaders, and Democrats have raised concerns that the Republican governor is using the deals to predispose California to a market-based system in which companies can buy their way out of emissions reductions. Each of the agreements Schwarzenegger has signed calls for research into how California companies can trade emissions credits with firms in other regions.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, said he fears Schwarzenegger is advancing a global trading system well before California regulators agree to use that approach. Nunez co-wrote last year's landmark Assembly Bill 32 requiring a 25 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. "I would be much more confident if the governor put the brakes on carbon-trading agreements with other entities and stepped on the gas on the implementation of AB 32, which requires real reductions in emissions levels," Nunez said. "I wish there would be more focus on emissions reductions and less on carbon credit markets."

In negotiating last year's law, Democrats wanted to focus heavily on strict emissions caps in California, while Schwarzenegger sought to allow businesses to purchase credits if they could not reduce their greenhouse gas pollution in time. The final law said California may use emissions credits as an option but never committed the state to doing so. The California Air Resources Board is responsible for examining a market-based solution and determining its necessity.

The five deals signed by Schwarzenegger range from a pact with 10 Northeast states to coordinate a trading system to this month's deal with Victoria, an agreement to share environmental research and align carbon-trading programs. The governor also has penned deals with Manitoba, the United Kingdom and four other Western states along similar lines. Linda Adams, Schwarzenegger's Environmental Protection Agency secretary, said state regulators are pursuing a variety of global warming solutions that include emissions caps, incentives and trading systems. "We're not pushing the market approach on anyone, but in our design we want to make sure the door is open when and if California and others move toward a market system," Adams said. "The European Union is very anxious for California to enter into their trading system because they feel -- and I agree -- that an international carbon market is one of the tools that we need to address this problem."

Nunez and some environmentalists believe the deals are promotional for the governor. Schwarzenegger's agreement with the United Kingdom last year led to two major photo opportunities with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. His office sent out photos of his Victoria signing with Australian, American and California flags in the backdrop. Deep within the Victoria agreement was the disclaimer that it "is not intended to create any legally binding rights or obligations."

But Adams said the agreements have significant value in pressuring the Bush administration and foreign governments to take a stronger stance on greenhouse gases. "We send a strong message not only to the U.S. government but other federal governments that states and provinces are not waiting to join this international fight," Adams said. "We're going to move forward with or without them."

Businesses support the governor's efforts to broaden a potential network of emissions credit trading partners because it increases the number of compliance options. "If there's a choice between making a huge investment for some needed emissions reduction (in California) vs. purchasing an offset from somebody making a reduction somewhere else at a lower cost, we'd like the opportunity to do that lower-cost option," said Dorothy Rothrock of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association. Emissions credits allow some companies to phase in cleaner equipment rather than having to purchase new machinery all at once, said Terry Tamminen, the former Schwarzenegger EPA director who still advises the governor. He said criticism of the governor's exploration into market solutions is "just politics." "Certainly, it's not a preconceived outcome," Tamminen said of a market-based approach to AB 32. "But the whole world is moving in that direction. We'd be idiots not to examine this and consider how it might work and how it might be a tool that might help us."

Bill Magavern, senior legislative advocate for the Sierra Club, said the governor has raised consciousness about global warming by signing deals with other states and nations. But he said emissions trading is unproven. "I think the governor's rhetoric on global warming solutions has been unbalanced because he talks so much about emissions trading," Magavern said. "The Air Resources Board is also working on standards, so in some ways it's more a presentation problem. But clearly the governor is enamored with emissions trading."

Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, rebuked Schwarzenegger in October when the governor issued an executive order directing the ARB to develop a market-based program. Schwarzenegger also drew criticism from the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office in February for requesting 24 permanent positions at the ARB be used to implement a market-based greenhouse gas system. Nunez said the governor has helped bring attention to AB 32 through his agreements. But he warned that Schwarzenegger may be "putting the cart before the horse." "The law talks about emissions reductions, not about avoiding compliance by buying offsets," Nunez said. "It's ultimately the administration that needs to focus on the law."

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"Science" magazine comes a cropper once again

How could they publish such an absurdity? Fusion on a table top -- with the vastly high temperatures that would require??? Their greenie religion has completely shut down their brains. Temperature isn't heat but even so a very melted tabletop would tend to be expected. One would have thought that they would have learnt caution from the unreplicable Fleischmann-Pons "cold fusion" claims of the '80s. I suppose we should be thankful that "Science" has at last followed the matter up

The plot continues to thicken around the bizarre case of a Purdue University professor who claims to have created nuclear fusion using a revolutionary and unproven process based on sound waves

Purdue released a statement confirming a New York Times story that the university has reopened the investigation of possible misconduct by professor Rusi P. Taleyarkhan. The new inquiry, launched at the urging of a congressional subcommittee, is the latest effort to resolve allegations that Taleyarkhan used questionable methods in attempting to substantiate his claims relating to bubble fusion, also known as sonofusion.

Taleyarkhan has been at the center of a storm of controversy since 2001, when he set out to publish his findings on sonofusion while working as a researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Taleyarkhan claimed that he had succeeded in producing an energy-releasing nuclear fusion reaction by bombarding a beaker of acetone with ultrasonic pulses.

The theory behind sonofusion is that ultrasound affects liquid by producing then crushing microscopic bubbles at such a rapid rate that the resulting heat causes surrounding atoms to fuse together. Taleyarkhan's experiments involved first bombarding the acetone with neutrons, to enhance the effect of the sonic waves.

Fellow researchers at Oakridge were unable to replicate the experiment, however, and several scientists who had been invited to review Taleyarkhan's research were publicly critical of his work. However, the scientist succeeded in having his paper published by the academic journal "Science" in 2002. He continued his research after accepting a post on the nuclear engineering faculty of Purdue University in Indiana.

Taleyarkhan again came under fire following the publication of papers in 2005 that appeared to substantiate his claims to achieving a successful nuclear sonofusion reaction. While Taleyarkhan hailed the publications as independent confirmation of his findings, allegations were made that the subsequent experiments were conducted by researchers connected to Taleyarkhan , using Taleyarkhan's own apparatus, and that Taleyarkhan had deliberately omitted his name as a coauthor of the reports. Purdue launched an investigation, later exonerating Taleyarkhan of any wrongdoing.

Now a congressional subcommittee has intervened, calling for Purdue to reopen the investigation. The House Committee on Science and Technology's investigations and oversight subcommittee , chaired by North Carolina Democratic Congressman Brad Miller, conducted a review of Purdue's investigation and released a report that is highly critical of the university's handling of the matter.

Miller's subcommittee has cited concerns over the public funds used to support Taleyarkhan's research as the basis of its interest in the case. However, Taleyarkhan and his supporters have questioned those motives, suggesting that politics may be taking precedence over science. If Taleyarkhan's desktop experiments were verified, the existence of a low-cost method for generating vast quantities of clean energy could potentially make conventional nuclear reactors obsolete

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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

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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