British historian claims that present-day global warming is not our fault

He notes that Britain has been much warmer in the relatively recent but pre-industrial past

WE all try to recycle and cut down on our travel to help the environment. After all, experts have told us time and again that the planet is dying because of mankind's carbon-spewing behaviour. But after years of research, Derby historian Ron McKeown claims that global warming is not our fault. "I'm not expecting my ideas to be very popular," said Ron. "I am just voicing the conclusions that my research has naturally led me to."

Ron is a member of the Derby Heritage Forum and is keen to stress that he has no personal investment in the global warming debate. Nor is Ron denying the impact of the greenhouse effect on Earth and the reality of the thinning of the ozone layer – which many scientists believe man is largely responsible for. But Ron does say his studies imply that man's impact on global warming is fairly minimal in relation to other environmental influences, over which mankind has very little control. His findings can be read in his booklet, The Man-Made Global Warming Debate and Historical Contradictions.

It follows on from his publication, The Rivers of Time, in which he investigated the role played by the Derwent and Trent rivers in the development of the region.

Ron collected his evidence by examining local maps, documents and artefacts recovered from archeological digs in the area, many dating back to Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Viking times. According to his data, there have been huge changes in the local landscape with water levels rising and falling significantly over the years. Ron is particularly interested in evidence which suggests that large areas of Derby and its surrounding areas were once covered with water. Ron believes Derby was originally created on land around Markeaton Brook which was more like a river than a brook at the time. "My findings have led me to suggest that our climate has always fluctuated and that the earth has had periods when its climate was much warmer overall. "So global warming, melting ice caps and higher sea levels may not be just a modern phenomenon," he said.

Ron speculates that there could be several factors which contributed to Derby's watery past but he is convinced that, at times, the world's temperatures were much warmer than today. "In the past, Britain was described as the bread basket of Europe with two harvests a year. "This implies a much warmer climate. "It is possible that we are just emerging from a little ice age, which has misled scientists into believing that the earth should be 'naturally' cooler than it is at present.

"Temperatures will always fluctuate as a result of many environmental factors of which man is just one. "I would go as far as to suggest that man's activity throughout the 19th and 20th century, coupled with relatively frequent volcanic activity has actually been keeping the planet uncommonly cool." He goes on to explain his belief that layers of dust and pollution over many years may actually have insulated the earth from the heat of the sun's rays.

Ron's booklet on the evidence for his theories and on Derby's landscape though the ages can purchased from Darley Park Tea Rooms or by contacting Ron at www.derbyheritageforum.co.uk.: THE MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING DEBATE AND HISTORICAL CONTRADICTIONS. BY: Ron McKeown.

SOURCE





Greenshirts out in force

Phelim McAleer, co-director/producer of “Not Evil Just Wrong” and asker of difficult questions, reportedly just had his microphone turned off a little while ago as he queried Al Gore at the Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Madison, Wisc.

If you want to see what a joke the SEJ and its meeting is, just take a look at their list of panels. Awards named for Rachel Carson and sponsored by Animal Planet and Planet Green; panels with titles like "Crane Conservation on our Fractured Landscape," "Sustainable Agriculture and Environmental Justice," and "Green PR in the Blogosphere: How PR Practitioners are End-Running Professional Journalists and How We Should Respond;" and moderators from the ranks of the most activist of writers.

Phelim at work at the premiere of "The Age of Stupid:"



SOURCE (See the original for links)




Uh, Oh! More stuff that the modellers left out

Key new ingredient in climate model changes global predictions

For the first time, climate scientists from across the country have successfully incorporated the nitrogen cycle into global simulations for climate change, questioning previous assumptions regarding carbon feedback and potentially helping to refine model forecasts about global warming.

The results of the experiment at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and at the National Center for Atmospheric Research are published in the current issue of Biogeosciences. They illustrate the complexity of climate modeling by demonstrating how natural processes still have a strong effect on the carbon cycle and climate simulations. In this case, scientists found that the rate of climate change over the next century could be higher than previously anticipated when the requirement of plant nutrients are included in the climate model.

ORNL's Peter Thornton, lead author of the paper, describes the inclusion of these processes as a necessary step to improve the accuracy of climate change assessments. "We've shown that if all of the global modeling groups were to include some kind of nutrient dynamics, the range of model predictions would shrink because of the constraining effects of the carbon nutrient limitations, even though it's a more complex model."

To date, climate models ignored the nutrient requirements for new vegetation growth, assuming that all plants on earth had access to as much "plant food" as they needed. But by taking the natural demand for nutrients into account, the authors have shown that the stimulation of plant growth over the coming century may be two to three times smaller than previously predicted. Since less growth implies less CO2 absorbed by vegetation, the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are expected to increase.

However, this reduction in growth is partially offset by another effect on the nitrogen cycle: an increase in the availability of nutrients resulting from an accelerated rate of decomposition – the rotting of dead plants and other organic matter – that occurs with a rise in temperature.

Combining these two effects, the authors discovered that the increased availability of nutrients from more rapid decomposition did not counterbalance the reduced level of plant growth calculated by natural nutrient limitations; therefore less new growth and higher atmospheric CO¬2 concentrations are expected.

The study's author list, which consists of scientists from eight different institutions around the U.S. including ORNL, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Earth System Research Laboratory, and several research universities, exemplifies the broad expertise required to engage in the multidisciplinary field that is global climate modeling. "In order to do these experiments in the climate system model, expertise is needed in the nitrogen cycle, but there is also a need for climate modeling expertise, the ocean has to be involved properly, the atmospheric chemistry . . . and then there are a lot of observations that have been used to parameterize the model," said Thornton, who works in ORNL's Environmental Sciences Division. "The biggest challenge has been bridging this multidisciplinary gap and demonstrating to the very broad range of climate scientists who range everywhere from cloud dynamicists to deep ocean circulation specialists that [incorporating the nitrogen cycle] is a worthwhile and useful approach."

The ability to handle the increase in complexities of these models was facilitated by the capabilities of ORNL's Leadership Computing Facility, which currently houses the world's fastest supercomputer for civilian research. Jim Hack, director of the National Center for Computational Sciences, emphasizes that Thornton and his team were not limited by computational resources in the construction of his model. "It's one of the laboratory competencies, so we want to make sure we enable leadership science," he said.

This breakthrough is one more step toward a more realistic prediction for the future of the earth's climate. Nevertheless, potentially significant processes and dynamics are still missing from the simulations. Thornton also stresses the importance of long-term observation so scientists can better understand and model these processes.

A 15-year study of the role nitrogen plays in plant nutrition at Harvard Forest was an important observational source used to test their mathematical representation of the nitrogen cycle--a long experiment by any standards, but still an experiment that, according to Thornton, could improve the accuracy of the simulation if conducted even longer.

Other shortcomings of climate simulations include the disregard of changing vegetation patterns due to human land use and potential shifts in types of vegetation that might occur under a changing climate, although both topics are the focus of ongoing studies.

SOURCE






Saving the Earth by Hating Humanity

By Alan Caruba



As the greatest hoax of the modern era, “global warming”, bites the dust around the world, it behooves us all to contemplate why environmentalists—Greens—would attempt to hoodwink the world’s population into believing they could do anything to “control” the planet’s climate.

One singular fact stands out in all Green propaganda and permeates all the legislation and other programs they sponsor. It is a contempt and disdain for the Earth’s human population. The leaders of the movement hate humanity. Obsessed with population growth, anything that can reduce it—disease, poverty, famine, or lack of energy is pursued as part of the Green agenda.

The Green movement grew out of an earlier, more salutary one, conservation. We can surely thank Americans such as John Muir and others who sought to preserve tracts of wilderness such as Yellowstone and the nation’s forested areas from the rampant depredations of the 1800s and early 1900s. The nation owes a debt of gratitude to President Theodore Roosevelt for the initial creation of national parks and forests.

As the nation industrialized, rivers suffered pollution and the air was polluted by factories that befouled both. In 1970 President Richard M. Nixon signed into being the Environmental Protection Agency which, empowered by the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, can be credited to early success.

However, like all government agencies, the EPA has steadily sought to expand its powers and, aided by other environmentally related agencies such as the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Corps of Engineers, it has relentless pursued ever larger control over all the land and waters of the nation, and by extension over everyone’s life.

They pose a threat to the constitutionally protected right to private property, vital to the nation’s economy and a keystone of capitalism.

The growth of literally hundreds of “environmental” organizations has led to an endless barrage of scare campaigns, often without any basis in science, and used to undermine the industrial, agricultural, and transportation sectors of the nation’s economy.

On a global scale, the United Nations Environmental Program and its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have pursued an agenda devoid of scientific merit or justification.

Greens lie and they lie all the time. The lies about Alar came close to wrecking apple growers. The lies about the spotted owl species laid waste to the northwest’s timber industry. New claims about alleged dangers from plastic bottles are based on lies.

The lie that carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, has anything to do with “warming” has driven the totally deceitful “global warming” hoax and is used to create a market for worthless “carbon credits” that ultimately increase the cost of energy and everything else.

The introduction of the Endangered Species Act is one long history of near constant failure in pursuit of a foolish goal, advocating for obscure species while thwarting all manner of projects useful to the human species. It has been used to impoverish farmers in Oregon and California.

The truth is that the Earth is actually cooling, not warming. Carbon Dioxide is not a “pollutant.” The North and South Poles are not melting. Sea levels worldwide are not rising any more than they have for millennia. Polar bears are thriving. Solar and wind energy is a bust, providing barely 1% of all electricity used daily nationwide.

The truth is that pesticides protect people against insect and rodent-borne diseases and property damage. Saving “endangered species” ignores the fact that 95% of all the species that previously existed are now extinct.

The truth is that nothing humans do has any affect on the climate that is dependent on solar and ocean cycles.

The Greens are now famous for their campaigns against products from toilet paper to plastic bags, bottles, and everything else made from plastic, a petroleum derivative. Anyone who buys “environmentally” approved products is being charged a premium for their own gullibility. Every supermarket and store in America has comparable, safe products at far lower costs.

Americans are constantly harangued to adopt Green lifestyles. Generations of young Americans have suffered the child abuse of being told that the Earth is doomed despite its 4.5 billion year existence.

Corporations that advertise and promote their “Green” credentials pander to environmental hoaxes in order to avoid criticism and generate an “environmentally friendly” public image.

The real environmental message speaks to a hatred of humanity and the many technological, medical, agricultural, and other achievements that have enhanced, improved, and saved the lives of millions.

If you hate energy, join an environmental organization.

If you hate science, join an environmental organization.

If you hate jobs in America, join an environmental organization.

If you hate industrial and agricultural development and progress, join an environmental organization.

And if you hate humanity, join an environmental organization.

SOURCE






Corporations and Left-Wing Activists Join Hands to Promote Cap-and-Trade

Big business continues to undermine our liberties. On the heels of the major drug companies working a deal with President Obama on health care reform, other corporations are partnering with environmental, labor and left-wing special interest groups in a last-ditch effort to jumpstart cap-and-trade legislation in the Senate.

This high-profile corporate support of Obama’s energy policy exposes a long-simmering development in public policy: the progressive takeover of the boardroom.

For years, left-wing activists have targeted big business in order to co-opt its resources to advance the liberal agenda. Today’s aggressive corporate support of cap-and-trade legislation is the culmination of that effort.

The unification of big business with liberal activist groups on important public policy issues poses a significant threat to liberty and limited government.

This week, We Can Lead, a broad-based corporation coalition of energy, technology and other companies, including Duke Energy, Hewlett Packard and Starbucks, is mounting a high-profile campaign to promote cap-and-trade legislation. Coalition members paid for ads in newspapers, including an open letter to President Obama and Congress urging action on cap-and-trade legislation, stating, “We need you to swiftly enact comprehensive legislation to cut carbon pollution and create an economy-wide cap and trade program.”

We Can Lead is also spearheading a “Business Advocacy Day” in Washington D.C. to advance the global warming bill directly with lawmakers. According to news reports, executives from more than a hundred businesses will participate in a two-day lobbying fest that includes briefing sessions, media training and speeches by Administration officials and Hill visits targeting key Senate offices.

The fine print disclosures about We Can Lead, reveal that two left-wing advocacy groups – Apollo Alliance and CERES – are behind the corporate effort.

The Apollo Alliance is “a coalition of labor, business, environmental, and community leaders” that seeks to advance a green energy economy that will produce “a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs.” Its board members include representatives from environmental organizations and labor unions – the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

CERES is a coalition of investors, labor and environmental organizations that pressures corporations to advance environmental policies, such as legislation to fight the perceived threat of global warming. Its board members include environmental and labor union representatives, and also state pension fund officials from the California State Teachers Retirement System (CSTRS), the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) and representatives from the Connecticut State Treasurer and the New York City Comptroller’s office.

CERES played a major role in the corporate boardroom by leveraging the shareholder standing of the pension fund coalition members to sway corporate policies.

After years of environmental and labor activism targeting corporations, some CEOs have decided it’s easier to switch than fight. These executives realized that by supporting environmental initiatives they could avoid the headache of liberal activism while also reaping the reputational benefits of being perceived as “green.”

Some companies also realized they could profit by advancing environmental initiatives, such as global warming legislation.

Power companies such as Duke Energy, FPL Group and Exelon see green in being green – they were the biggest winners in the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill that narrowly passed the House in May. Utilities won the "House bill lottery," receiving 35 percent of free allowances from a generous Congress – an amount that translates into billions of dollars to the companies. General Electric also gains by a federal mandate for electricity derived from renewable energy sources which would benefit its wind turbine business.

The profit motive also explains why Exelon decided to end its membership in the U.S Chamber of Commerce. The trade group is facing criticism from some of its members because it opposed the Waxman-Markey bill and it recently called on the EPA to review the science on climate change in a public hearing.

Nike and Starbucks are very active in pushing for cap-and-trade legislation through another business environmental coalition, Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy. In this instance these companies are more concerned about generating a positive brand image than on making money on carbon credits. Whatever the reason, whether profit or image, companies lobbying for carbon dioxide emissions caps frequently ignore the economic consequences of the legislation.

Higher energy prices, slower economic growth and higher unemployment would likely harm companies that sell premium-priced consumer products such as Starbucks coffee and Nike sneakers that can sell for over $100.

Let’s face it, if Wall Street banks could not consider that housing prices don’t always rise, why should we be confident that CEOs are considering the implications of cap-and-trade legislation on their businesses? Those of us who believe in limited government must now deal with the threat posed by an emergence of a Fascist state where the powers of government, liberal activist groups and corporate interests loot us of our liberty.

But there is something we can do: Every day we have an opportunity to vote with our wallets by letting companies know there is a price to pay for colluding with those who oppose our values.

SOURCE






An Open Letter to the New Zealand Minister of Climate Change Issues



From Dr Muriel Newman [above], Director New Zealand Centre for Political Research

“I can assure you that the government has investigated the evidence on the science of climate change from a number of different sources and I can appreciate that there are many different perspectives on the matter. However, the government is convinced that climate change is a serious and legitimate issue and that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides the most reliable information on climate change science. In its most recent assessment, the IPCC states that the evidence for climate change is unequivocal, that humankind’s emissions are very likely the cause of these changes and that, unless action is taken to reduce emissions, dangerous changes in the climate system will result.”

- Hon Nick Smith, Minister for Climate Change Issues.

Dear Minister,

It is very clear that you have been able to convince the Prime Minister and your Caucus colleagues that the evidence for human induced catastrophic climate change presented by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is irrefutable. On behalf of those New Zealanders who despair at your actions - given the economic damage your emissions trading scheme (ETS) is going to cause to Kiwi families and small businesses - I would like to ask you to justify your stance by responding to the issues raised in this open letter.

First of all, why are you rushing the ETS legislation through Parliament, committing New Zealand to this course of action when you don’t even know what the rest of the world will decide at Copenhagen in December? Why not extend the two-week timeframe for submissions (which is scandalously short for a Bill of this magnitude) until Christmas and deliberate on the Bill next year, when your government will be able to make an informed decision?

Secondly, how can you reconcile implementing an ETS when it will totally undermine your government’s goal of catching and matching Australia by 2025? This is an especially important issue in light of the new Government requirement that is coming into force on November 2, which will require Ministers to sign a statement to justify that the benefits of their new legislation “not only exceed the costs but will deliver the highest level of net benefit of the practical regulatory options available”.[1] How can your ETS possibly pass such a test when it will not only cost jobs and destroy wealth, but it will make it virtually impossible for your government to achieve the three percent growth a year that will be needed to achieve its 2025 goal?

Thirdly, how can you claim that the “reliable information” provided by the IPCC is dependable enough to base the future of New Zealand on, when that body is now embroiled in a huge scandal over the fabrication of the data it has been using to claim that man-made global warming is causing catastrophic climate change? When the fraudulent data is removed from the IPCC’s climate models, modern day global temperatures are seen to exhibit natural climate variability – in other words, there is no man-made crisis demanding massive government intervention.

Minister, given that the scientific advice provided to yourself and the government appears to originate from state agencies that are heavily influenced by the IPCC - and is therefore unlikely to be independent - you may not have been briefed about this new development ... so let me explain.

You will be aware that since 2001 the IPCC has claimed that global temperatures in the late 20th century were hotter than at any other time over the last 900 years, and that this situation has been caused by man’s emissions of greenhouse gases. It is this claim that gave rise to the Kyoto Protocol and has led to world-wide attempts to restrict the production of greenhouse gases through emissions trading schemes like to one you are poised to impose on New Zealand.

Minister, the IPCC’s claim that the planet is hotter now than in the past is based on fraudulent data.[2] When the corrupted data is removed from the climate models, there is no late 20th century catastrophic warming. Below is a graph of the world’s climate that was published in the IPCC’s First Assessment Report in 1990. In this report the IPCC noted that the warming of the late 20th century - as the planet emerged from the Little Ice Age - was essentially within the bounds of natural variability. The Medieval Warm Period, when the Vikings colonized Greenland, was seen to have temperatures greater than modern times - temperatures which were clearly unrelated to emissions of man-made greenhouse gases.



However, by 2001, the IPCC had changed its tune and the above graph of historic temperatures had not only vanished, but so too had the Medieval Warm Period. Without the Medieval Warm Period as a reference point, the IPCC was able to state that the late 20th century demonstrated unprecedented global warming: “the 1990s has been the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year of the millennium”.



The IPCC’s “hocky stick” graph became an overnight celebrity, starring in Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” and creating widespread fear of an impending climate Armageddon.

The “hockey stick” graph was based on the work of US climatologist Michael Mann, an IPCC lead author, who relied heavily on temperature “proxies” from some bristlecone pine trees found on Sheep Mountain in California. As you know, tree ring widths make good proxies for climate, since tree growth is largely dependent on temperature.

However, the bristlecone pine trees were problematic in that the 20th century growth spurt that they displayed was caused by a fertiliser effect, not by temperature, since the data did not match the records of a nearby weather station. When Michael Mann knowingly used the contaminated data, he was able to create the hockey stick and a climate crisis. Once the data was removed, the hockey stick shape disappeared from his graphs and the climate of the 20th century was seen to be unexceptional.

It was Canadian policy analyst Steven McIntyre along with Dr Ross McKitrick, Professor of Economics at Guelph University, who uncovered the fraud. As a result the US Congress ordered two reviews into the matter both of which condemned the hockey stick graph, but in spite of this, while the IPCC dropped the offending graph, it refused to acknowledge the controversy and continued to deliberately misrepresent the warming of the late 20th century. To do this it used studies by a UK scientist Keith Biffra, who was using tree ring proxies from the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia to create a similar classic hockey stick shape. As with Michael Mann, the IPCC appointed Keith Biffra as a lead author – ostensibly in recognition of his work, but in reality to prevent criticism of his highly controversial findings from surfacing in their reports.

On seeing the re-emergence of these hockey stick shaped graphs, Steve MacIntyre requested the data in order to examine the anomaly. While clear data-sharing scientific protocols exist, for nine years Steve’s requests were turned down. That is until recently when a journal editor finally ordered that the data be released. When it was analysed, the reason for the hockey stick anomaly became clear.

Professor Ross McKitrick, who worked with Steve MacIntyre to analyse the data, is this week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator. He picks up the story:

“The sharp uptrend in the late 20th century came from cores of 10 living trees alive as of 1990, and five living trees alive as of 1995. Based on scientific standards, this is too small a sample on which to produce a publication-grade proxy composite. The 18th and 19th century portion of the sample, for instance, contains at least 30 trees per year. But that portion doesn’t show a warming spike. The only segment that does is the late 20th century, where the sample size collapses. Once again a dramatic hockey stick shape turns out to depend on the least reliable portion of a dataset.

“When the paleoclimate data archive was searched to see if there were other tree ring cores from at or near the Yamal site that could have been used to increase the sample size, a set of 34 up-to-date core samples, taken from living trees in Yamal were found. When these were added to the original small sample, the hockey stick spike collapsed and the temperature trend in the late 20th century was seen to be “unexceptional compared to the rest of the millennium”! To read Prof McKitrick’s article “Defects in key climate data are uncovered” click here >>>

In other words, Minister, the IPCC’s claims of catastrophic global warming – and the enormous policy consequences for countries all around the world including New Zealand - are based on a flawed analysis of tree ring data from 5 trees in Siberia. When the fraudulent data is removed from global climate reconstructions, the late twentieth century temperatures are seen to be within the norms of natural climate variability. That explains why global temperatures have been falling for the last 11 years, in spite of carbon dioxide levels rising - because the earth’s temperature is not driven by carbon dioxide.

So Minister, while you have convinced your colleagues that catastrophic climate change is such a real and dangerous threat to mankind that an ETS must be urgently imposed on New Zealand (even though at 0.2 percent we produce an almost infinitesimal proportion of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions), your argument is based on fraudulent evidence. What’s more, you have asked New Zealanders to place their utmost trust in the IPCC, yet it is an organisation that has knowingly used this flawed evidence to maintain the perception of a global climate crisis.

What this means, Minister, is that your attempts to curb man-made greenhouse gases through your ETS will be a gross misuse of public funds that will seriously impede New Zealand’s chance of a prosperous future. And if you were not aware of the data scandals surrounding the IPCC, then I suggest you put your ETS on hold while you contact Dr McKitrick yourself.

Finally, Minister, when the Labour Government tried to introduce a “fart tax” in 2003, they failed because the public rose up in opposition. New Zealanders understood that trying to tax farmers for emissions from cows and sheep was a really dumb idea. In 2005, when Labour tried to introduce a carbon tax, you, Minister took a lead in campaigning against it, warning, “A further concern of the carbon tax is its impact on inflation, interest rates and the exchange rate. It will add to the costs of fuel and power and these flow right through the economy to basics like food. This puts pressure on inflation, which in turn drives up interest rates and the kiwi dollar. The Government’s carbon tax is a classic example of the way the Government is making things tougher for the productive exporting sector.[3]

If you re-read your statement at the time – see here>>> - you could have been talking about your ETS. The same principles apply. After all an ETS is a fart tax or a carbon tax by another name. You urged the public to actively oppose the 2005 tax stating that “We need to bury this lemon”. With respect, Minister, isn’t that is exactly what should happen to your 2009 ETS?

More HERE (See the original for links)

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