How sensitive is the climate to rises in CO2?

The sensitivity question is of course central. Lord Monckton answers that question at length but I like the following excerpt. Note that CO2 doubling is a fairly extreme scenario if we take into account doubts about proxy measures from the past and the levels tabulated from actual past measurements by Prof. Beck. Monckton's calculations predict a temperature rise of just over one degree from a CO2 doubling

Svante Arrhenius, the Swedish theoretical chemist and Nobel laureate, provided the first respectable quantification of climate sensitivity to a CO2 doubling in a paper of 1906, published in Vol. 1 No. 2 of the Journal of the Royal Nobel Institute, of which the relevant conclusion is reproduced in facsimile and in translation below –

"In aehnliche Weise berechne ich, dass eine Verminderung des Kohlensaeuregehalts zur Haelfte oder eine Zunahme desselben auf den doppelten Betrag Temperaturaenderungen von -1.5 C bzw. +1.6 C entsprechen wuerde"

“Likewise, I calculate that a halving or doubling of the CO2 concentration would be equivalent to changes of temperature of –1.5 K or +1.6 K respectively.”

Arrhenius, like many more recent commentators on the IPCC’s calculations, does not accord the same very high values to temperature feedbacks as does the IPCC itself. Also, the IPCC has chosen the highest value for the Planck parameter that occurs in the mainstream literature, and there are good theoretical reasons for the conclusion that its chosen value is excessive.

Making appropriate adjustments for these apparent exaggerations by the IPCC, I calculate that true climate sensitivity may well be as little as 1.1 K at CO2 doubling.

Furthermore, one must make allowance for the fact that atmospheric CO2 concentration is rising at only half the rate predicted by the IPCC, even though CO2 emissions are rising at the higher end of the IPCC’s expectations. This is because, as the IPCC’s 2001 report admits, the IPCC is unable to add up the Earth/troposphere “carbon budget” to within a factor of two of the right answer.

The hydrosphere and biosphere – perhaps through increased rates of photosynthesis – are taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and “fixing” it faster than the IPCC had expected. Figure 1 illustrates the discrepancy

CO2 concentration is rising, but well below IPCC predictions

More HERE (See the original for links, graphics etc.)






Report states there is no anthropogenic global warming

In May 2006 we were told, with the most alarming language possible, that humans were causing the planet to warm with their use of Carbon based fuels. We must follow all of the recommendations of the IPCC report coming out in 2007 or humanity's existence on earth would end. We were told that we must do something now, in order to prevent the deaths of untold millions, and the loss of humanity’s very ability to survive on earth. We must start taxing "Global warming Gasses" in order to stop their production, no matter the human cost!

It’s a complete lie. The IPCC – the International Panel on Climate Change is a committee with an agenda, and one it was pre-programmed to execute. It was designed from the outset, from its very beginnings to come up with a specific result. This is in direct contradiction to every principle of real science, the aim of which is to describe reality as it is, not reality as one wishes it to be.

To illustrate this, in 1995 the IPCC completely ignored Satellite evidence, very clear evidence, that there was no warming according to a report from the Heartland Institute Released in 2008. The full pdf. is titled Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate The institute claims, and is backed by anecdotal reports that the IPCC changed portions of the text of its report to make it appear that humans were the cause of the warming they artificially detected, or in other words, manufactured. Also attributed to the Heartland Institute’s report, the IPCC ignored further data confirming the lack of warming – if not showing a slight cooling – that became available after the May 2006 deadline.

The report the column speaks of is the NIPCC. The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change. A completely independent examination of all the evidence available in published peer-reviewed literature. They included every single piece or evidence available to them, positive and negative, they did not select research that proved their predetermined result as the IPCC did. They went through everything. Their conclusion, there is no human caused global warming.

“The 1995 IPCC report was notorious for the significant alterations made to the text after it was approved by the scientists – in order to convey the impression of a human influence. The 2001 IPCC report claimed the twentieth century showed ‘unusual warming’ based on the now-discredited hockey-stick graph. The latest IPCC report, published in 2007, completely devaluates the climate contributions from changes in solar activity, which are likely to dominate any human influence”

For anyone who has any sort of intellectual honesty at all, the report from the Heartland Institute is a MUST read. Dr. Fred S. Singer who conceived and directed the NIPCC project is an honored and decorated scientist. His Raison d'être is truth, not political machinations, or power. He is deeply concerned by the absolute mis-use of science in what has now become a multi-billion dollar business, that is based on what amounts to a hoax.

"The Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC [IPCC-AR4 200 "When new errors and outright falsehoods were observed in the initial drafts of AR4(The Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC [IPCC-AR4 2007]), SEPP [Science and Environmental Policy Project] set up a ‘Team B’ to produce an independent evaluation of the available scientific evidence. While the initial organization took place at a meeting in Milan in 2003, ‘Team B’ was activated only after the AR4 SPM appeared in February 2007. It changed its name to NIPCC and organized an international climate workshop in Vienna in April 2007."

This group of scientists, who have looked at all available evidence, from satellite to very unreliable ground temperature readings to historical records, concludes correctly; if Human governments are going to be institution policies that will drastically affect the lives of its citizens, and the Waxman-Markley Cap and trade energy bill is without a doubt just that, then it must be utterly certain of the science that backs the supporting reasons for the existence of the legislation.

This report states unequivocally that there is zero evidence of man-made global warming. We are about to kill a Nation, literally for hot air that does not exist.

But wait, there more: In an article titled Proved: there is No Climate Crisis written by Robert Ferguson July 15th 2008, he reports on mathematical proof “that there is no “climate crisis”.

“Christopher Monckton, who once advised Margaret Thatcher, demonstrates via 30 equations that computer models used by the UN’s climate panel (IPCC) were pre-programmed with overstated values for the three variables whose product is “climate sensitivity” (temperature increase in response to greenhouse-gas increase), resulting in a 500-2000% overstatement of CO2’s effect on temperature in the IPCC’s latest climate assessment report, published in 2007.”

"Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered demonstrates that later this century a doubling of the concentration of CO2 compared with pre-industrial levels will increase global mean surface temperature not by the 6 °F predicted by the IPCC but, harmlessly, by little more than 1 °F. Lord Monckton concludes – “… Perhaps real-world climate sensitivity is very much below the IPCC’s estimates. Perhaps, therefore, there is no ‘climate crisis’ at all. … The correct policy approach to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.” "

Considering the likely ramifications of Waxman-Markley Cap and trade energy bill, indeed, we must have the fortitude to re-examine honestly all of the information available to us.

For those of you who believe whole heartedly in Man-made Global warming, then these reports are a must read for you. They are peer reviewed documents based in fact. If you are supporting legislation that will wreck such economic devastation not only on your fellow Americans but also on yourself, it should be read so that you can counter those who do not believe in global warming caused by man. Because you will have some explaining to do. Be cautioned however, upon reading them, you will find yourself starting to realize that you have been had. On a Global scale.

Human caused Legislation like the Waxman-Markley Cap and trade energy bill will do more harm to more people in a year, than human caused Global Warming will in the next century. It is nothing short of a massive money stealing scheme made by our Governement to pay for the whorish excesses of the last 6 months. Now that is an inconvenient truth.

SOURCE






Climate bill 'badly flawed' -- 'It would be difficult to implement even in Sweden' -- 'It's not too late to change our minds'

Something very important has been happening this week -- more important, if you can believe it, than what Nancy Pelosi knew about waterboarding or why Kris Allen scored his upset victory on "American Idol."

I refer to the marathon committee markup on Capitol Hill of a monster piece of legislation that promises to reduce by 83 percent over the next 40 years the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere from American cars, power plants and factories.

There remains a robust argument over whether the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 represents a crucial step in preserving life as we know it. But there is no question that there are few pieces of legislation that are likely to have a more profound effect on the U.S. economy. It would bring about dramatic changes in the relative prices of energy and goods produced by energy-hungry industries. It would redistribute trillions of dollars in business sales and household income and generate hundreds of billions in government revenue. And it would represent the most dramatic extension of government's regulatory powers into the workings of the economy since the early days of the New Deal.

For all that, there are probably not more than a few hundred people who really understand what's in this legislation, how it would work and what its impact is likely to be. As it moves through the legislative process, it's worthy of closer attention.

Given the bill's scope and complexity, just getting it out of committee is a monumental achievement on the part of its principal authors, Democrats Henry Waxman of California and Ed Markey of Massachusetts. To do so, they had to make numerous compromises and concessions to powerful special interests and regional voting blocs that would be most affected by the transition to a system in which companies and consumers are forced to pay, indirectly, for the environmental damage they cause. Waxman and Markey are wily and experienced politicians, so it is a fair assumption that the bill their committee passed last night in a 33-25 vote is pretty close to what the U.S. political system is now willing to accept.

The other thing to say about it is that it is a badly flawed piece of public policy. It is so broad in its reach and complex in its details that it would be difficult to implement even in Sweden, let alone in a diverse and contentious country like the United States. It would create dozens of new government agencies with broad powers to set standards, dole out rebates and tax subsidies, and pick winning and losing technologies, even as it relies on newly created markets with newly created regulators to set prices and allocate resources. Its elaborate allocation of pollution allowances and offsets reads like a parody of industrial policy authored by the editorial page writers of the Wall Street Journal. The opportunities for waste, fraud and regulatory screwup look enormous.

To test my reaction to the House bill, I called Paul Portney, an old friend and the former president of Resources for the Future, a Washington think tank that brings economic rigor and a market sensibility to environmental issues. Portney is now dean of the University of Arizona's business school.

As Portney explained it, there are three basic approaches to reducing carbon emissions. The simplest is to impose a carbon tax that would raise prices so much that households and businesses would use less energy from coal, oil and natural gas. Proceeds from the tax could be rebated to consumers or used for other government purposes.

Another is the cap-and-trade system that would limit carbon emissions and require companies that produce or use carbon energy to buy carbon emission credits from the government or an open market.

A third approach would use a command-and-control model in which government would set carbon emission standards for power plants and factories, and energy-efficiency standards for cars, buildings and appliances, while favoring other energy sources with tax breaks and subsidies.

The problem with the House bill, Portney said, is that to satisfy the various political constituencies and exigencies, it wound up using all three approaches. The result is an unwieldy compromise with lots of belt-and-suspenders redundancy.

The Waxman-Markey bill may be the best bill that the political system can produce, and surely it is far preferable to doing nothing. But now that we know what a climate-change bill looks like when it is jury-rigged to accommodate all the special interests, maybe Americans will be willing to reconsider one of the cleaner, simpler approaches -- a carbon tax with all the revenue rebated to households, for example, or a cap-and-trade system that generates enough revenue to erase the national debt, or even a tough new regulatory regime requiring businesses to produce more fuel-efficient cars, buildings and appliances.

It's not too late to change our minds.

SOURCE






Climate change “morality”

The climate “crisis” is a “moral issue that requires serious debate,” Al Gore proclaimed in an April 27 AlGore.com blog post. His conversion to the Anglo-American tradition of robust debate came a mere three days after the ex-VP refused to participate in a congressional hearing with Lord Christopher Monckton, former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Republicans had invited Monckton to counter Gore’s testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

But Gore froze like a terrified deer in headlights, and Chairman Henry Waxman told the UK climate expert he was uninvited. Their hypocritical cowardice simply reflects a recognition that their entire energy rationing crusade would collapse if they ever allowed real debate.

Monckton would have focused on the science. But is morality that truly requires serious debate. Climate Armageddon claims are being used to justify malignant policies that have no rational basis.

Global average temperatures stabilized in 1998 and have even cooled slightly, despite steadily rising CO2 levels. Except in its Western Peninsula, Antarctica is gaining ice. Arctic ice is seasonably normal. Land-based temperature data have been corrupted by air conditioner exhausts and other heat sources.

Scientists are hard-pressed to point to long-term state or country climate trends that differ from historic experience and can reasonably be linked to anthropogenic global warming. Merely asserting that obesity causes warming or increased house cat populations are due to warming does not make it so.

Even more devastating to alarmist claims, long-held assumptions about the deep Atlantic counter-current below the Gulf Stream (the so-called “conveyor belt”) have been rendered inoperable by recent studies. Those assumptions are a fundamental component of climate models and their scary worst-case scenarios about alleged planetary crises. The models and GIGO scenarios are now even more questionable. Yet, they’re constantly portrayed as “evidence” – “proof” that immediate, drastic action is required to avert disaster. Nonsense. Climate changes and their causes are complex, our knowledge is still limited, and the inputs and assumptions are deficient.

Climate models are no more reliable than computer predictions of future Super Bowl winners and scores. Their Frankenstein scenarios are no more valid as a basis for law and policy than the special effects in Day After Tomorrow or Jurassic Park.

Worse, even the 942-page Waxman-Markey climate bill’s absurd target – a 17% reduction in US carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 and 83% by 2050 – would have no detectable benefits, even if CO2 does cause climate change. Research climatologist Paul “Chip” Knappenberger calculates that even these draconian measures would result in global temperatures rising a mere 0.1 degrees F less by 2050 than doing nothing, mostly because Chinese and Indian emissions would quickly dwarf America’s job-killing reductions.

Perhaps that’s why China and South Africa want developed nations to slash carbon emissions 40% by 2020 – and give poor countries $200 billion annually, to help them cope with global warming’s imagined disasters. Bolivia wants $700 billion a year. Our children will get the bill for that, too.

None of this apparently matters to congressional leaders, Climate Action Partnership members or other professional alarmists and rent seekers. If anything, it has spurred them into even hastier action, to transform America’s energy and economic system, regardless of the consequences. Waxman-Markey was approved by the E&C Committee May 21 on a 95% party-line vote.

Above all, they want to replace vile hydrocarbons with wind power. That would require $$$ billions in taxpayer subsidies; hundreds of thousands of turbines, across millions of acres of scenic land, habitats and sea lanes; thousands of miles of transmission lines and towers; and billions of tons of concrete, steel, copper and fiberglass – plus raw materials and natural gas for backup generators.

Spain’s experience should be cautionary, but probably won’t be. According to a study by Dr. Gabriel Calzada, Spanish taxpayers spent $800,000 for each new job in the wind turbine industry (mostly installing towering turbines) – and destroyed 2.2 regular jobs for each “green” job, primarily because pricey “renewable” electricity forced companies to lay off workers, to stay in business.

A recent Lauer Johnson Research poll found 78% of respondents saying even a $600 per year increase in utility bills would be a “hardship.” They should be so lucky.

Compared to no cap-and-tax regime, Waxman-Markey would cost the United States a cumulative $9.6 trillion in real GDP losses by 2035, according to an updated study by the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis. The bill would also cost an additional 1.1 million jobs each year, raise electricity rates 90% after adjusting for inflation, cause a 74% hike in inflation-adjusted gasoline prices, and add $1,500 to the average family’s annual energy bill, says Heritage.

The Congressional Budget Office says the poorest one-fifth of families could see annual energy costs rise $700 – while high income families could see their costs rise $2,200 a year. Harvard economist Martin Feldstein estimates that the average person could pay an extra $1,500 per year for energy. MIT says household energy costs could climb $3,000 per year. Where will families find that extra cash? “What do I tell a single mom, making $8 an hour?” asked North Carolina congressman (and Congressional Black Caucus member) G. K. Butterfield.

That was a few days before he and his Democrat colleagues voted against amendments to Waxman-Markey that would have suspended the punitive law if electricity prices go up more than 10% after inflation, unemployment reaches 15% or gasoline prices hit $5. What will he tell that single mom?

Eco-activists gleefully predict that oil, gas and coal companies, utilities, vehicles and investors are destined for extinction. No wonder lobbyists have descended on Washington – over 2,300 of them just on climate change: 4.4 per member of Congress.

Some are getting $400-$850 an hour for their skill in promoting mandates, subsidies, legal measures to hobble competitors, and cap-tax-and-trade versions of the mortgage derivatives market. Al Gore alone boasts of having received $300 million (from unnamed sources) to trumpet alarmism and draconian legislation.

Colleges, scientists, activists, unions and companies receive billions in taxpayer money, to hype climate chaos claims, intimidate skeptics and lobby Congress. African bureaucrats get millions from the UN (and thus US taxpayers) to hype climate disaster claims that keep millions of Africans impoverished and deprived of the life-enhancing benefits of reliable, affordable electricity.

President Obama says the Bush Administration “made decisions based upon fear, rather than foresight, and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions.” He and his Democrat allies in Congress should take that critique to heart on global warming.

As it stands, this Congress is rapidly shaping up to be the most unethical, immoral and dictatorial in history. When the people finally rebel, it won’t be a pretty sight.

SOURCE






Nutty radiation scare in Scotland

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency has defended the need for radiation testing at Dalgety Bay beach, following claims the contamination found there could be natural. Monitoring has been carried out on the foreshore for several years and it is widely accepted the heightened radium levels come from the remains of aircraft dials burnt and emptied out after the war.

However, pro-nuclear campaigner Neil Craig (55) believes the paint blamed for the problem is water-soluble and would have dissolved over time. He said, “SEPA are still maintaining this claim to have tested such sub-microscopic particles and proven them to be paint containing radium. “It seems like kicking an argument when it is down to mention that the original radium paint was water- soluble, so that even if a fraction of a gram had been there 64 years ago it would be long gone, Scotland not having a desert climate. “In any case, the fact is that the level of radiation is so much lower than background radiation elsewhere in Scotland. “Yet SEPA are allowed to spend probable millions on such pointless nonsense.

“This is indicative of the way false fears have been used, worldwide, for bureaucratic eco-empire building.”

Radium-based luminescent paint was typically made by mixing a radium salt, zinc sulphide and a carrier material such as varnish or lacquer. SEPA claim test results and circumstantial evidence point to the radiation being man-made and the solubility of the paint could have been altered during burning. A spokesperson said, “The radionuclide analysis of particles at Dalgety Bay showed that they contained radium and its associated daughters. “The lack of high concentrations of the higher members of the uranium-238 series is consistent with the radium being of man made origin.

“It is possible that the action of burning of luminised dials can produce a diverse range of chemical forms, each of which has a differing potential for absorption and uptake by man. “This change and resultant variability in the chemical composition caused by burning also affects the solubility, and this could be a reason why the residues of the radium are still being detected after all this time.”

Over the years many items have been recovered from the beach, including dials and a vial of active material. Small particles or flakes found there are similar to those described by a former employee who worked where the instruments were made. In March the MoD submitted its action plan to the SEPA after a survey found the radiation could provide a dose higher than safe limits. It was agreed to have additional monitoring and clearer warning signs.

Plans to cover part of the beach with a protective membrane were submitted to Fife Council by the Defence Estates department this week. The blanket will be used for a programme of identification and removal, to establish where particles are coming from.

SOURCE. (H/T Neil Craig).






Malaria, Politics and DDT

The U.N. bows to the Greenies

In 2006, after 25 years and 50 million preventable deaths, the World Health Organization reversed course and endorsed widespread use of the insecticide DDT to combat malaria. So much for that. Earlier this month, the U.N. agency quietly reverted to promoting less effective methods for attacking the disease. The result is a victory for politics over public health, and millions of the world's poor will suffer as a result.

The U.N. now plans to advocate for drastic reductions in the use of DDT, which kills or repels the mosquitoes that spread malaria. The aim "is to achieve a 30% cut in the application of DDT worldwide by 2014 and its total phase-out by the early 2020s, if not sooner," said WHO and the U.N. Environment Program in a statement on May 6.

Citing a five-year pilot program that reduced malaria cases in Mexico and South America by distributing antimalaria chloroquine pills to uninfected people, U.N. officials are ready to push for a "zero DDT world." Sounds nice, except for the facts. It's true that chloroquine has proven effective when used therapeutically, as in Brazil. But it's also true that scientists have questioned the safety of the drug as an oral prophylactic because it is toxic and has been shown to cause heart problems.

Most malarial deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, where chloroquine once worked but started failing in the 1970s as the parasite developed resistance. Even if the drugs were still effective in Africa, they're expensive and thus impractical for one of the world's poorest regions. That's not an argument against chloroquine, bed nets or other interventions. But it is an argument for continuing to make DDT spraying a key part of any effort to eradicate malaria, which kills about a million people -- mainly children -- every year. Nearly all of this spraying is done indoors, by the way, to block mosquito nesting at night. It is not sprayed willy-nilly in jungle habitat.

WHO is not saying that DDT shouldn't be used. But by revoking its stamp of approval, it sends a clear message to donors and afflicted countries that it prefers more politically correct interventions, even if they don't work as well. In recent years, countries like Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia have started or expanded DDT spraying, often with the help of outside aid groups. But these governments are also eager to remain in the U.N.'s good graces, and donors typically are less interested in funding interventions that WHO discourages.

"Sadly, WHO's about-face has nothing to do with science or health and everything to do with bending to the will of well-placed environmentalists," says Roger Bate of Africa Fighting Malaria. "Bed net manufacturers and sellers of less-effective insecticides also don't benefit when DDT is employed and therefore oppose it, often behind the scenes."

It's no coincidence that WHO officials were joined by the head of the U.N. Environment Program to announce the new policy. There's no evidence that spraying DDT in the amounts necessary to kill dangerous mosquitoes imperils crops, animals or human health. But that didn't stop green groups like the Pesticide Action Network from urging the public to celebrate World Malaria Day last month by telling "the U.S. to protect children and families from malaria without spraying pesticides like DDT inside people's homes."

"We must take a position based on the science and the data," said WHO's malaria chief, Arata Kochi, in 2006. "One of the best tools we have against malaria is indoor residual spraying. Of the dozen or so insecticides WHO has approved as safe for house spraying, the most effective is DDT." Mr. Kochi was right then, even if other WHO officials are now bowing to pressure to pretend otherwise.

SOURCE

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