Greenhouse effect on the moon?

Neither the earth nor the moon is a "black body". Both the moon and the earth are warmer than they "should be" -- even though one has no CO2 at all

Yes, that’s right, there is a “greenhouse effect” on our moon and it’s even greater than here on earth. The idea of an atmospheric “greenhouse effect” was invented to justify why earth is supposedly “warmer than it should be” if there was no atmosphere.

As we now know from NASA’s research, even our moon is “warmer than it should be”, by a whopping 40 degrees C where earth is a mere 33 degrees “warmer”.

“We’ve been told that the earth’s surface is quite a bit warmer than calculations predict. Theory has it that heat-trapping “greenhouse gases” account for a 33° Celsius disparity. But it turns out that our airless moon is also quite a bit warmer than predicted. Might something be wrong with the prediction method itself, then? It’s a natural question to ask, so let’s look into it.”

“The Earth is not “unusually” warm. It is the application of the predictive equation that is faulty. The ability of common substances to store heat makes a mockery of blackbody estimates. The belief that radiating trace gases explain why earth’s surface temperature deviates from a simple mathematical formula is based on deeply erroneous assumptions about theoretical vs. real bodies.”

The justification for calculating the temperature that earth “should be at” is shown to be incorrect. It’s based on a formula that is used to convert irradiation levels to temperature and vice versa, based on a blackbody. Earth nor any planet that we know of behaves like a blackbody. All planets literally absorb some of the solar heat during daytime and emit some of that during nighttime. Our moon is the perfect example of that: it has no atmosphere and receives as good as the same level of irradiation as earth does.

Our atmosphere is shown to act as a coolant during the day and a retarder of cooling during the nighttime; the amount of retardation depending on the relative humidity of the atmosphere, which in turn determines the total heat content of a given volume of the atmosphere.

But at all times our atmosphere acts as a conveyor of heat, never a creator of heat. This essay puts it into perspective.

It does not matter what our atmosphere is made of, it is the surface, including the oceans, that makes it “warmer than it should be”.

And yes, seeing that carbon dioxide is actually a good radiator, the only possible effect it can have on the atmosphere is to increase its cooling efficiency; it can’t possibly make the atmosphere warmer. Adding a coolant gas to a coolant atmosphere, what else could you expect?

Please spread this paper far and wide, as it clearly proves by means of direct observations that no atmosphere is needed to be “warmer than calculated”. Nothing to do with CO2 after all.

More HERE. (See associated PDF)





Hit Job: ABC News Attempts to Align Climate Change Skeptics with White Supremacists

At first, Michael Mann, a Penn State professor and a central figure in the Climategate scandal, but best known for his discredited "hockey stick graph" didn't like being mocked in a YouTube video. Now Mann is alleging he's a victim of hate groups.

On ABC's May 23 "World News Sunday," a segment from anchor Dan Harris alleged that threatening e-mails Mann received were part of a "spike" in violence aimed at the global warming alarmist community.

"The ongoing oil spill crisis in the Gulf is keeping the debate over climate and energy very much in the headlines and that debate is becoming increasingly venomous with many prominent scientists now saying that they are being severely harassed," Harris said.

Curiously Harris makes no mention of the real violence in the form of eco-terrorism that has come from the environmental left or Greenpeace repeatedly targeting the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Chris Horner, by stealing his garbage on a weekly basis, as his Web site points out. Instead, this "severe harassment" ABC warned about were e-mails from fringe Internet elements sent to Mann.

"The FBI tells ABC News it's looking into a spike in threatening e-mails to climate scientists like Penn State's Michael Mann," Harris said.

And Mann, who has a lawsuit against Minnesotans for Climate Change, a group that publicly mocked him for his discredited hockey stick graph, where he allegedly intentionally hid data to accentuate the argument of global warming alarmism, complained that the e-mailers are trying to trample his free speech rights. "It's an attempt to chill the discourse and I think that's what most disconcerting," Mann said.

But despite overwhelming evidence that Mann's science has some flaws and that there are some bad characters among the global warming alarmists, Harris attempted to link radical fringe elements on the Internet to outspoken climate change alarmism skeptic Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.

"A white supremacist Web site recently posted Mann's picture alongside several other climate scientists, with the word ‘Jew' next to each image," Harris said. "To many scientists, however, the most disturbing recent development was a report released by Republican Sen. James Inhofe, naming 17 climate scientists, some of whom Inhofe says have engaged in potentially illegal behavior."

According to Harris and NASA's Dr. Gavin Schmidt, Inhofe's efforts to highlight the evidence that scientists deliberately manipulated data to mislead the public is "McCarthy-ite."

Harris cited internal investigations at these scientists' respective institutions to assure viewers there was nothing wrong.

"Sen. Inhofe's report was referring to an incident late last year known as ClimateGate, where stolen e-mails gave the impression that climate scientists may have been trying to hide flaws in their research, although several subsequent investigations have exonerated the scientists," Harris said.

ABC News did air a few sentences from Marc Morano of ClimateDepot.com (A news aggregator site Harris called "aggressive.)

"Sen. Inhofe's former spokesman, Marc Morano, who now runs one of the most aggressive climate skeptic Web sites in the country, did agree to an interview, arguing that skeptics have been getting threats for years."

Morano explained that no one was promoting violence, but when so much on the line from a government policy perspective, the public should be engaged.

"No one is advocating violence," Morano said, "but it is refreshing to see these scientists hear from the public. When you go to a used-car salesman and you get conned ... you don't go back to the used-car dealer all happy and pleasant. You have a lot of anger, and that's what these scientists are appropriately feeling."

Nonetheless, at the end of Harris' segment, Schmidt dismissed any challenges on the theory of anthropogenic global warming and said scientists were too "hyper-competitive" to allow that to happen.

SOURCE

(See here for a record of the "McCarthyite" attacks on skeptics. If Mann had attacks like that on him, he would really have something to complain about)




U.N. downgrades global warming

UN says case for saving species 'more powerful than climate change'

The economic case for global action to stop the destruction of the natural world is even more powerful than the argument for tackling climate change, a major report for the United Nations will declare this summer.

The Stern report on climate change, which was prepared for the UK Treasury and published in 2007, famously claimed that the cost of limiting climate change would be around 1%-2% of annual global wealth, but the longer-term economic benefits would be 5-20 times that figure.

The UN's biodiversity report – dubbed the Stern for Nature – is expected to say that the value of saving "natural goods and services", such as pollination, medicines, fertile soils, clean air and water, will be even higher – between 10 and 100 times the cost of saving the habitats and species which provide them.

To mark the UN's International Day for Biological Diversity tomorrow, hundreds of British companies, charities and other organisations have backed an open letter from the Natural History Museum's director Michael Dixon warning that "the diversity of life, so crucial to our security, health, wealth and wellbeing is being eroded".

The UN report's authors go further with their warning on biodiversity, by saying if the goods and services provided by the natural world are not valued and factored into the global economic system, the environment will become more fragile and less resilient to shocks, risking human lives, livelihoods and the global economy.

"We need a sea-change in human thinking and attitudes towards nature: not as something to be vanquished, conquered, but rather something to be cherished and lived within," said the report's author, the economist Pavan Sukhdev.

The changes will involve a wholesale revolution in the way humans do business, consume, and think about their lives, Sukhdev, told The Guardian. He referred to the damage currently being inflicted on the natural world as "a landscape of market failures".

The report will advocate massive changes to the way the global economy is run so that it factors in the value of the natural world. In future, it says, communities should be paid for conserving nature rather than using it; companies given stricter limits on what they can take from the environment and fined or taxed more to limit over-exploitation; subsidies worth more than US$1tn (£696.5bn) a year for industries like agriculture, fisheries, energy and transport reformed; and businesses and national governments asked to publish accounts for their use of natural and human capital alongside their financial results.

And the potential economic benefits are huge. Setting up and running a comprehensive network of protected areas would cost $45bn a year globally, according to one estimate, but the benefits of preserving the species richness within these zones would be worth $4-5tn a year.

The report follows a series of recent studies showing that the world is in the grip of a mass extinction event as pollution, climate change, development and hunting destroys habitats of all types, from rainforests and wetlands to coastal mangroves and open heathland. However, only two of the world's 100 biggest companies believe reducing biodiversity is a strategic threat to their business, according to another report released tomorrow by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which is advising the team compiling the UN report.

"Sometimes people describe Earth's economy as a spaceship economy because we are basically isolated, we do have limits to how much we can extract, and why and where," said Sukhdev, who visited the UK WHEN as a guest of science research and education charity, the Earthwatch Institute..

The TEEB report shows that on average one third of Earth's habitats have been damaged by humans – but the problem ranges from zero percent of ice, rock and polar lands to 85% of seas and oceans and more than 70% of Mediterranean shrubland. It also warns that in spite of growing awareness of the dangers, destruction of nature will "still continue on a large scale". The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has previously estimated that species are becoming extinct at a rate 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than it would naturally be without humans.

SOURCE






Wind power does NOT reduce fossil fuel consumption

There is no convincing proof that utility-scale wind plants reduce fossil fuel consumption or CO2 emissions. Although there are are a number of reports claiming gains can be made that will combat climate change, free us from fossil fuel “addiction,” provide energy independence and needed 21st century industrial development, such reports are not substantiated by definitive and comprehensive analyses.

To determine the actual effects will require long-term time series, at intervals significantly less than one hour, of wind production and fuel consumption due to fast ramping of fossil fuel plants to compensate for wind’s volatility in an electricity system where wind represents approximately at least 1-2% of production.

As opposed to wind proponents’ claims, studies based on actual experience with wind integration are emerging that demonstrate the fossil fuel and CO2 emissions gains are not valid. The two reviewed here are examples but are limited by the lack of availability of complete information on operational performance, especially of wind plants. Fortunately, enough information can be gleaned that provides a strong indication of what those who have studied this objectively have long suspected.

Why is more complete information about wind performance and integration not available? Is it because wind proponents, including some policy makers and wind industries, do not want the realities disclosed, or, in the case of many environmentalist organizations, because they would interrupt established agendas? Or is it that these groups believe it unnecessary because they do not understand the realities of utility-scale wind power?

Two New Studies: le Pair/de Groot (Netherlands) and Bentek (Colorado, Texas)

The two studies reviewed were released this year and show increases in fossil fuel or CO2 emissions with the introduction of wind plants. The first is based on the Netherlands experience by C. le Pair and K. de Groot, and the second for Colorado and Texas by Bentek Energy. Their findings will be compared to each other, as well as to results from my fossil fuel and CO2 emissions calculator. The analytical approaches taken by le Pair and de Groot, Bentek and the calculator are different, but the results are very similar. This is therefore a very revealing and instructive exercise.

Le Pair and de Groot take a very analytical path and apply the formulas they derived to published information on the Netherlands system, for which some actual information on fossil fuel inputs for electricity production is available. Bentek uses detailed information on increases in coal-plant cycling since the introduction of wind plants, along with the impact of wind “events” on reported emissions. Because the Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCO) does not publish hourly wind production, Bentek is restricted to a few such events, from which they draw general conclusions for Colorado.

To validate the Colorado findings, Bentek uses the same analysis approach for Texas with information from the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which reports wind production at 15 minute intervals. This not only provides validation of the PSCO analysis, but also conveniently adds experience from a third jurisdiction. The calculator is a general model of the interaction between an amount of wind generation in an electricity system and the fossil fuel plants (coal and gas) involved in balancing wind’s volatility.

Summary of Results

This is the first in a four part series that analyzes and compares the findings of these studies with each other and to the calcualtor. Briefly, the results are:

The Netherlands

Le Pair and de Groot show that when the entire fossil fuel fleet efficiency is reduced by about 2% due to the presence of wind, the fossil fuel consumption saving is zero. This is the calculated efficiency reduction in the fossil fuel fleet for the Netherlands for a wind penetration of about 3% based on the published fossil fuel input and electricity production information. Their conclusions include the following:

The use of wind energy for electricity generation in combination with the requirement for fossil fuel powered stations to compensate for wind fluctuations can easily lead to loss of the expected saving in fuel use and CO2 emission. In addition, the conventional stations will be subject to accelerated wear and tear.

It is recommended to get an accurate and quantitative insight into these extra effects before society sets out to apply wind energy on a large scale. All producers must be required to publish data on the efficiency effects and fuel use when wind energy is added on.

Colorado and Texas

The study by Bentek Energy, aptly named “How Less Became More: Wind, Power and Unintended Consequences in the Colorado Energy Market,” is a ground-breaking analysis of the effects of the introduction of wind power into electricity systems. The study is based on actual results for the PSCO system in Colorado and ERCOT in Texas and their overarching conclusion is that there are unintended consequences to the implementation of Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS). One of the key findings is:

Contrary to their stated goals, implementation of RPS in Colorado and Texas appear to be adding to the air pollution problem, especially in areas where older plants are cycled more frequently.

Calculator

The fossil fuel and CO2 emissions calculator was applied to each of the jurisdictions studied and shows similar results. In each case an explanation of the calculator input parameters is provided.

Comparison of Results

The congruence of results from these three different approaches is a convincing confirmation of the questionable value of new alternative energy sources, especially wind, in an electricity system. RPS programs, and similar initiatives to encourage new renewables, should be withheld until such time as objective and comprehensive evaluations can be made in a completely transparent manner about the real benefits.

SOURCE






Misleading Greenie palm oil/Orangutan propaganda Exacts High Environmental & Economic Costs

New report shows misleading anti-Palm Oil campaigns by Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Rainforest Action Network will further endanger Orang-utan and increase poverty, the major threat to the environment

As the International Palm Oil Sustainability Conference (IPOSC) gets underway this week in Malaysia, the NGO World Growth released a new report today revealing the recent campaigns by Western environmental groups against palm oil produced in developing countries are not only bogus but also potentially devastating for the very causes they claim to defend.

The findings of "Caught Red Handed: The Myths, Exaggerations and Distortions of Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Rainforest Action Network" offer a false claim / fact analysis that sheds light on the allegations against palm oil made by Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and the Rainforest Action Network. The report concludes that activist pressure to boycott palm oil will not only fail to save the Orang-utan; it will deny millions of people the opportunity to get out of poverty and relieve the threat it represents to the environment.

"Eradicating poverty is the key to protecting forests," said World Growth Chairman Alan Oxley. "Strategies to cripple palm oil, an industry which has lifted millions out of poverty in Southeast Asia, work against the ostensible goal of environmental groups.

"The only ‘unsustainable’ feature of the palm oil debate is the falsehoods, misrepresentations, and factual errors propagated by the Greenpeace, FoE, and RAN campaigns. World Growth's new report examines the basis for each of the claim made against palm and finds that, at best, they reflect misunderstandings of facts and, at worst, intentional distortion of the them."

Key Claims and the Facts about Palm Oil:

• Claim: A single palm oil plantation can leave forest communities to face poverty, many for the first time. (Rainforest Action Network)

• Fact: RAN misrepresented independent research which found that the palm oil has rescued at least 6 million people from poverty.

• Claim: 85 percent of palm oil in Southeast Asia is grown on industrial plantations. (Rainforest Action Network)

• Fact: 40 per cent of palm oil is produced by small landholders in both Malaysia and Indonesia, not large scale plantations.

• Claim: Up to 50 Orangutans are killed every week by the palm oil industry. (Friends of the Earth)

• Fact: Studies by reputable international bodies, such as the FAO, have found repeatedly that poverty and illegal forest clearance by the poor are the main threat to forest habitat and thereby the Orang-utan, not the palm oil industry which actively supports conservation programs.

• Claim: A 2007 UNEP report identified palm oil as the leading cause of rainforest destruction in Malaysia and Indonesia. (Greenpeace)

• Fact: The report was not endorsed by UNEP, ignores production methods in Malaysia (no land is allowed to be cleared for palm oil) and Indonesia (only land designated for development can be used) and ignores FAO data that poverty drives clearance of forest.

• Claim: In Southeast Asia alone 300 football fields are deforested every hour for palm oil. (Greenpeace)

• Fact: Most forest clearance is not for palm oil. FAO reports global rates of forest clearance are falling globally (now less one percent of forest land per year), as well as in Southeast Asia and in Asia at large, forest areas are expanding not reducing. It is more relevant that nearly 40 million Indonesians live below the poverty line.

SOURCE





Prominent Princeton Scientist testfies: 'Warming and increased CO2 will be good for mankind'

Selected Highlights of Dr. Happer's May 20, 2010 Congressional Testimony:

The CO2 absorption band is nearly “saturated” at current CO2 levels. Adding more CO2 is like putting an additional ski hat on your head when you already have a nice warm one below it, but you are only wearing a windbreaker. The extra hat makes you a little bit warmer but to really get warm, you need to add a jacket. The IPCC thinks that this jacket is water vapor and clouds. [...]

The climate-change establishment has tried to eliminate any who dare question the science establishment climate scientists and by like-thinking policy-makers – you are either with us or you are a traitor.

Orwellian: I keep hearing about the “pollutant CO2,” or about “poisoning the atmosphere” with CO2, or about minimizing our “carbon footprint.” This brings to mind a comment by George Orwell: “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”

CO2 is not a pollutant and it is not a poison and we should not corrupt the English language by depriving “pollutant” and “poison” of their original meaning. Our exhaled breath contains about 4% CO2. That is 40,000 parts per million, or about 100 times the current atmospheric concentration. CO2 is absolutely essential for life on earth.

Commercial greenhouse operators often use CO2 as a fertilizer to improve the health and growth rate of their plants. Plants, and our own primate ancestors evolved when the levels of atmospheric CO2 were at least 1000 ppm, a level that we will probably not reach by burning fossil fuels, and far above our current level of about 380 ppm. We try to keep CO2 levels in our US Navy submarines no higher than 8,000 parts per million, about 20 time current atmospheric levels. Few adverse effects are observed at even higher levels. [...]

That we are (or were) living at the best of all CO2 concentrations seems to be an article of faith for the climate-change establishment. Enormous effort and imagination have gone into showing that increasing concentrations of CO2 will be catastrophic: cities will be flooded by sea-level rises that are ten or more times bigger than even IPCC predicts, there will be mass extinctions of species, billions of people will die, tipping points will render the planet a desert. Any flimsy claim of harm from global warming brings instant fame and many rewards.

Sea Level: The sea level is indeed rising, just as it has for the past 20,000 years since the end of the last ice age. Fairly accurate measurements of sea level have been available since about 1800. These measurements show no sign of any acceleration. The rising sea level can be a serious local problem for heavily-populated, low-lying areas like New Orleans, where land subsidence compounds the problem. But to think that limiting CO2 emissions will stop sea level rise is a dangerous illusion. It is also possible that the warming seas around Antarctica will cause more snowfall over the continent and will counteract the sea-level rise.

Hockey Stick: I was very surprised when I first saw the celebrated “hockey stick curve,” in the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC. Both the little ice age and the medieval warm period were gone, and the newly revised temperature of the world since the year 1000 had suddenly become absolutely flat until the last hundred years when it shot up like the blade on a hockey stick. This was far from an obscure detail, and the hockey stick was trumpeted around the world as evidence that the end was near.

We now know that the hockey stick has nothing to do with reality but was the result of incorrect handling of proxy temperature records and incorrect statistical analysis. There really was a little ice age and there really was a medieval warm period that was as warm or warmer than today. I bring up the hockey stick as a particularly clear example that the IPCC summaries for policy makers are not dispassionate statements of the facts of climate change.

Conclusion: I regret that the climate-change issue has become confused with serious problems like secure energy supplies, protecting our environment, and figuring out where future generations will get energy supplies after we have burned all the fossil fuel we can find. We should not confuse these laudable goals with hysterics about carbon footprints. For example, when weighing pluses and minuses of the continued or increased use of coal, the negative issue should not be increased atmospheric CO2, which is probably good for mankind. We should focus on real issues like damage to the land and waterways by strip mining, inadequate remediation, hazards to miners, the release of real pollutants and poisons like mercury, other heavy metals, organic carcinogens, etc.

Life is about making decisions and decisions are about trade-offs. The Congress can choose to promote investment in technology that addresses real problems and scientific research that will let us cope with real problems more efficiently.

Or they can act on unreasonable fears and suppress energy use, economic growth and the benefits that come from the creation of national wealth.

More HERE (See the original for links)

***************************************

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 are mirrors of this site here and here

*****************************************