Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Sea levels rising?

Crooked German professor ignores recent data

sealevel.colorado.edu recently downgraded the rate of rise from 3.3mm/year to 3.2mm/year... Not a big thing, but it has been going down now for 3 years...

It is really not that big a deal except when you google sea levels in the news. Right at the top you'll read this.
Global Warming Accelerates

As sea levels rise faster than expected, political and social catastrophes loom. Sea levels are rising much faster than expected—perhaps by three feet or more by 2100, according to climate scientists at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Chicago in February.

Scientists there also announced that global warming is increasing at a greater rate than the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted in its 2007 Fourth Assessment report.

For the last 15 years, sea levels, measured by satellite and by gauges in the ocean, rose twice as fast as in the past half century. And Stefan Rahmstorf, an oceanographer at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change, notes that between 1961 and 2003, sea level has risen 50 percent faster than computer models predicted. Given these results, he said new modeling can’t yet be done “with any confidence......”


Now I can look at the graph:



Notice Professor Rahmstorf failed to mention the fact that since 2003 it is an entirely different story. Either he has information that is not available on the above chart or he is flat out being deceitful. I suspect it is the latter, Do you see the deceit of these people? Scary.

I invite you to click on the new link I have posted called "The Greatest Lie Ever?" It is information put out by Nils-Axel Mörner. Who is an expert, retired and has nothing to gain by exposing this, except trying to maintain scientific integrity in the field he loves.

The question you should ask yourself is this; If sea level rise on the official sea level site are being down graded, how can scientist claim they are accelerating? What is their motive? certainly it cannot be science.

More HERE. (See the original for links)






Lobotomized Science

Back when consensus science was that lobotomies were a good way to treat mental disorders, they had one thing going for them that the current consensus on global warming does not, their misguided theory showed results.

After all if you cut out a portion of a person’s brain you are bound to change the persons personality, and lobotomies achieved that goal.

On the other hand the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming relies on the premise that added CO2 in the atmosphere (man made only of course, preferably from Western Countries the evil US being the main culprit) will cause a chain reaction of events, all of them predictable and all of them bad.

First the minor warming of the atmosphere by minuscule portion of man-made carbon dioxide will cause evaporation of water vapor into the atmosphere (the primary greenhouse gas). This will in turn set off a chain reaction of increased warming which will only end when most of the world’s species are extinct, survivors of the now impotent human race are racked with kidney stones partaking in cannibalism while kayaking through the streets of New York.


From the IPCC Charter

The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.


I like objectivity, how about you? It is, I would venture, a key ingredient, if not the key to good science. I must admit that I am not objective when it comes to the IPCC or much of anything they do or say, but then again I'm just a dumb old carpenter with absolutely no training in science. But in my defense, I do have a mind and I can read and reason deductively. I have also been around long enough to deduce a good snow job when I see one, wow maybe I do have meteorological training.

The question I put before you today, or until I change blog entries is this. Is the climate science community, led by the IPCC, objective? Is this even important?

I would say yes whether you believe in global warming or not. The climate science's objectivity, their pronouncements, their recommendations have had a direct impact in the shaping of political, economic and societal changes throughout the world. These changes and recommendations are growing more extreme and infecting the body politic of the world like a cancer. If in fact we are nearing a disaster of Biblical proportions, isn't objectivity more important than ever?

Here is a summary that came out of the recent all soo important meeting of the climate science community in Copenhagen, from this oh so humble headline article in the UK Guardian, Six ways to save the world: scientists compile list of climate change clinchers which in part says

...The congress was conceived as an update of the science of global warming ahead of the UN summit in December. The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report published in 2007 is now three to four years out of date.
Climatic trends


Recent observations confirm that, given high rates of observed emissions, the worst-case IPCC scenario projections (or even worse) are being realised. For many key parameters, the climate is already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived. These parameters include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, ocean and ice sheet dynamics, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events. There is a significant risk that many of the trends will accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts.


So what is the scientific basis for these pronouncements? There is no doubt that atmospheric CO2 is increasing, here is a graph from one of those doomsday web sites



Are atmospheric CO2 concentrations accelerating since the last IPCC report in 2007? Nope.

Here are The WMO (the IPCC) official temperatures going back to 2003.

2003******* 58.037
2004******* 57.999
2005******* 58.055
2006******* 57.960
2007******* 57.913
2008******* 57.740

And here is the last thirty years of Satellite Temperatures.



Larger View

Are temperatures accelerating at an alarming rate? Nope.

Here is the official Sea Level graph from CSU as taken from Jason Satellite measurements.



Are sea levels rising? Nope.

I will not even get into the Ocean Acid crapola for now.

As of this writing global sea ice is basically at the same level as the average it has been measured at since 1979.

Are extreme climatic events occurring? Who knows? Where is the proof? There are all kind of studies of the impact for future events based on increased global temperatures, but you have to have the first (global warming) before you can have the second (increased climate events) maybe. But that's the scare right?

Now we have this so called scientific community telling us that even if you have decades of cooling, it is all part of the theory. Even if the Greenland Ice sheets stop melting, it is all part of the theory. If you have record floods caused by the melting of record snow, it's all part of the theory. We are now even told, that the effects of global warming will be regional in nature. In other words one side of a continent can be colder than normal while the other half is warmer than normal and this is all global warming. How in the world can that be called global? I call that normal.

The so called science of Anthropogenic Global Warming is primarily based upon computer modeling or what I affectionately call CYBER WAG. Let me put this as bluntly as I can. A bunch of greenie nerds with computers have found themselves with power beyond their wildest dreams. The power not only to project the future on their computer simulations, but the power to shape public policy based on this semi-fantasy world they have created in order to scare the world into submission to their view of Utopia.

The irony is that the very tools they use to create their fantasy world are a product of human advancement only made possible by the very industrial and technological growth they so condemn and would tear down by their CYBER WAG theories.

We (mankind) may indeed descend into a new dark age of primal survival, but it will not be because human achievement has destroyed our planet. Rather it will be that human achievement has developed a class of elitist nincompoops who are incapable of seeing the forest for the trees.

SOURCE. (A big thanks to Weather Underground for the above post. Excellent work)







Green Jobs: Making Society Poorer (Basic math can show interesting things)

A key element of the current administration’s approach to recovery from our current economic and financial crises is a fundamental reorientation of the kinds of work performed in our economy. But a proposed shift to “green” jobs in the name of well-paying, high-impact employment that cannot be outsourced overlooks the essential nature of how human labor fosters economic well-being.

Simply put, the key to prosperity is high productivity per worker. There is simply no other way to be rich unless you sit on top of a gold mine (or oil well) and have few mouths that need to feed off that source of wealth.

Discarding the vain hope that a nation of 300 million can live well off a raw materials-based economy, we are left with productivity as the wellspring of affluence. If work is productive then it adds value to the raw materials and machinery used, whether these are oil molecules, computer keyboards, wind currents, or trainloads of corn.

The more value each worker can add to the raw materials, the more productive that worker is and the better off society will become as a result. In the energy business, productivity means that the value of converted energy products – electricity, refined oil products, natural gas – is greater than the cost of the labor, machinery and primary energy used to produce that converted product.

So the belief, or hope, of the proponents of prosperity through green jobs must rest on the determination that those working at “green” jobs add significant value to the input raw materials and machinery that is used to convert corn, wood, wind or sunlight to a usable (and salable) energy product. Suppliers of such energy can hire workers, buy machinery and generally participate in a virtuous economic cycle that permits continued employment and investment. Society will extract its claims on this productive cycle through the tax system, used to pay for public goods. Such a system is self-sustaining and can last for a long time.

On the other hand, if value added is negative (value-subtraction in economics jargon), then the value of the usable energy will require additional resources in order to induce consumers to purchase it. The system is not self-sustaining, since it can exist only with a continued injection of outside resources, gathered, presumably, from more productive sectors of the economy.

A Simple Proof

This is a testable hypothesis. We can compare the value added by a worker in energy with the cost of the labor, machinery and materials used to produce usable energy. If value added to the primary energy is positive, then the market value of output will be greater than the cost of producing the usable energy.

The average productivity of labor in electric power generation in US = 6024 MWh annually. This means that each worker in the power generation sector produces electricity worth roughly $300,000, based on a generation cost of $50/MWh ($0.05/KWh). This sum covers the cost of fuel, generating equipment and emissions control/waste disposal. The companies generating this electricity are normally profitable, meaning that all costs are covered and there is a residual profit that is returned to the owners at each stage of the process – fuel production, fuel transportation/transmission, machinery manufacturing, and operation of the equipment.

According to industry studies, the average worker in power generation earns about $68,000 per year. These workers pay taxes and contribute to pension plans and social security, so the “loaded” cost of a utility worker is probably closer to $75,000-80,000 per year. Indeed, workers in all stages of the electricity supply chain pay taxes, as do their employers, and economic value is created for the rest of the economy, permitting jobs to be created throughout the economy, including government. Since consumers purchase this electricity willingly, and government subsidies are a negligible proportion of the bill for conventional electricity supply, at just 0.5% of the average cost of supply, it is safe to conclude that conventional electricity generation is a value-adding, and therefore self-sustaining activity for the US economy.

Wind and solar, on the contrary, receive subsidies that average $24/MWh currently. If we assume that all of the excess costs of wind and solar occur in the equipment fabrication stage (probably not true) and that electric utility workers can produce the same number of MWh per employee per year, then the excess cost of renewable energy works out to $154,080 annually per employee. The money to fund these subsidies, the equivalent of two average utility jobs, has to come from somewhere. Without recourse to the tooth fairy, it must be the case that funding such green energy must come from taxes on other segments of the economy where value continues to be added to raw materials and machinery, not subtracted.

Conclusion

The arithmetic or green jobs is ineluctable and grim. For each utility worker who moves from conventional electricity generation to renewable generation, two jobs at a similar rate of pay must be foregone elsewhere in the economy, otherwise the funds to pay for the excess costs of renewable generation cannot be provided. Moreover, by raising costs throughout the economy, high cost green energy will reduce the competitiveness of US exporters, thereby destroying (presumably well-paying) jobs in such industries.

The job-destroying nature of renewable energy is not unique to the US. A recent study in Spain, where both conventional generation costs and wind subsidies are higher than in the US, found that each new job in green industries in that country cost $774,000 and led to the loss of at least 2.2 jobs elsewhere in the country’s economy.

There is another way to fund the excess costs of renewable energy, and that is to pay less to those engaged in its supply. According to a recent study at the University of Massachusetts, workers in “green” occupations earned an average of $41,114 annually, less than two thirds what a conventional utility employee earns and less than one half the average earnings of oil industry “roughnecks.”

So we can have our green energy, with fewer jobs and higher taxes, or we can have our green energy with more jobs at lower wages, but we cannot have our green energy with higher wages and lower taxes. If workers are not engaged in activities that produce true value for the economy then there is simply no way to pay for lots of them without producing problems elsewhere in our system.

Once again, the promise of a free lunch is unmasked by examining the true costs that someone has to pay to put food on the table.

SOURCE







GREENIES, CLIMATE CHANGE BIGGEST LOSERS OF G20 SUMMIT

The $1.1 trillion stimulus package agreed by G20 leaders yesterday risks locking the world into a high-carbon economy in which greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, environmental groups have warned.

Campaigners agreed that the summit's biggest loser was the fight against climate change, despite a positive response from global financial markets to the announcement of financial aid. At the summit, prime minister Gordon Brown reiterated support for low-carbon economic growth and tackling climate change.

"In mobilising the world's economies to fight back against recession we are resolved to ... promote low-carbon growth and to create the green jobs on which our future prosperity depends," he said. "We are committed to ... working together to seek agreement on a post-2012 climate change regime at the UN conference in Copenhagen in December."

"Once again world leaders have short-changed people and the planet," said Friends of the Earth's executive director Andy Atkins. "The economic system and the global environment are on a devastating collision course - but despite pledging to build an inclusive, green and sustainable recovery little has been done to change direction."

British government officials lost the battle to include a commitment to spend a substantial share of the economic stimulus on low-carbon recovery projects. The economist Lord Nicholas Stern has recommended that 20% of fiscal stimulus spending should be on projects to address climate change.

The communique's comments on the low-carbon economy and climate change negotiations were limited to two paragraphs at the end, and made no specific commitments.

More HERE







FIGHTING THERMAGEDDON JUST GOT £1 TRILLION CHEAPER

As if by magic, a trillion pounds has been shaved off the estimated cost of Global Warming regulation in the UK overnight. Parliament has yet to be informed of this numerical feat.

When MPs and Lords passed the Climate Change Act late last year - see Snow blankets London for Global Warming debate - they did so without so much as a back-of-an-envelope calculation from the departmental Sir Humphreys to go on. That didn't seem to bother them, however.

Politicians were so keen to appear virtuous, they queued up to show their support for raising the carbon reduction target from 60 per cent to 80 per cent. But how much would all this virtue cost?

It was only after the bill became law did some numbers trickle out. The government isn't really supposed to do this; BERR is obliged to provide "Impact assessments". So we learned that the potential costs of £205bn were twice the estimated maximum benefits, of £110bn. But overnight, the "benefits" have blossomed tenfold. While the cost estimate now ranges from £324bn to £404bn, the "benefits" are estimated to top £1tn.

"I congratulate on [sic] finding nearly £1 trillion of benefits which had previously escaped your notice," writes Peter Lilley in a letter to Minister for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband. Lilley was just one of just five elected members out of 653 to oppose the Climate Change Act.

"As so often in the debate on Global Warming - when the facts don't fit the theory they change the facts," he adds. Lilley says he welcomes sensible CO2 reduction, but wants the costs - around £20,000 per household - discussed in Parliament.

In a footnote to the Miliband letter, Lilley notes that the cost excludes "transitional costs" of about one per cent of GDP per annum. This alone dwarves the top range estimate, since the UK's annual GDP is over £2tn. Also missing was the cost of UK businesses moving abroad to less virtuous countries - something even the Ministry admits is likely.

But we should salute this impressive feat of statistical inventiveness. Creativity with numbers seems to be a benefit when "fighting climate change", but creativity on this scale could make our economic problems vanish at the stroke of a pen-pusher's biro

SOURCE.

See also Christopher Booker's story in the Sunday Telegraph: Yet more mind-boggling figures on global warming.






Newsweak asks: What Else Are We Wrong About?

Excerpt from the magazine issue dated Apr 13, 2009

A lot of premises have turned out to be wrong lately. I'm not talking about evanescent bits of conventional wisdom, but about overarching assumptions that were widely shared across the political spectrum. For instance, before 1989, virtually all Sovietologists agreed the U.S.S.R. was highly stable. Before 2001, few Middle East scholars worried that America was vulnerable to a major terrorist attack. Before 2003, neocon hawks and French lefties agreed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Before 2008, few economists doubted the fundamental soundness of the U.S. financial system.

So at a moment when everything we once assumed is suddenly up for discussion, it's worth asking: what other big stuff could we be wrong about? I'm looking for issues where the received wisdom may be entirely correct—but merits a stronger dose of skepticism than it usually gets.

Nuclear proliferation is bad.

It seems self-evident that countries joining the nuclear club—India, Pakistan, North Korea, maybe Iran—create a greater risk of catastrophic war or accidental launch. But in an influential paper, the political scientist Kenneth Waltz argued that nuclear rivalries help keep the peace because "they discourage states from starting any wars that might lead to the use of such weapons." In this view, nukes are inherently defensive—and the countries that want them do so for good reason. Waltz argues that possessing nukes induces restraint and caution, causing irresponsible regimes to behave more responsibly. His argument is buttressed by another: you can't stop proliferation even if you try.

Climate change will be catastrophic.

We all know civilization is doomed if we don't reduce carbon emissions, right? The physicist Freeman Dyson disagrees. Dyson doesn't dispute that human activity is causing warming. But he challenges the consensus that warming will be catastrophic. In a New York Review of Books essay, Dyson wrote that warming "is mostly making cold places warmer rather than making hot places hotter." Carbon emissions could make the earth more fertile and prevent harm from global cooling, which isn't caused by humans. And if it really turns out that there is a serious problem, genetically engineered carbon-eating trees might fix it. (Might.)

China is stable.

Twenty years after Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party apparatus shows every sign of being in control. The economy has continued to grow at 9 percent a year since 1978, fueling China's rise as a global power. There's little sign of opposition. But rising living standards tend to produce political discontent and have driven the democratic change throughout most of the rest of East Asia. Samuel Huntington, the late political scientist, argued that regimes become vulnerable at a level of per capita income that China is fast approaching.

More HERE

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

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