New scientific paper: 'AGW is erroneous'; 'No climate catastrophe in the making'

An invited paper submitted to the International Journal of Energy and the Environment written by two university professors in Portugal states the man-made global warming hypothesis ("AGW") is erroneous, that the current trend of low solar activity will lead to a new "Little Ice Age" by mid-century, and that wasteful, expensive, and unnecessary green fuels/green energy/carbon credits be abandoned in favor of "productive, economically viable and morally acceptable solutions."

Title of the Paper: "Climate Change Policies for the XXIst Century: Mechanisms, Predictions and Recommendations"

Authors: Igor Khmelinskii and Peter Stallinga

Abstract:

Recent experimental works demonstrated that the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) hypothesis, embodied in a series of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) global climate models, is erroneous. These works prove that atmospheric carbon dioxide contributes only very moderately to the observed warming, and that there is no climatic catastrophe in the making, independent on whether or not carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced. In view of these developments, we discuss climate predictions for the XXIst century. Based on the solar activity tendencies, a new Little Ice Age is predicted by the middle of this century, with significantly lower global temperatures.

We also show that IPCC climate models can't produce any information regarding future climate, due to essential physical phenomena lacking in those, and that the current budget deficit in many EU countries is mainly caused by the policies promoting renewable energies and other AGW-motivated measures.

In absence of any predictable adverse climate consequences of carbon dioxide emissions, and with no predictable shortage of fossil fuels, we argue for recalling of all policies aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions and usage of expensive renewable energy sources. The concepts of carbon credits, green energy and green fuels should be abandoned in favor of productive, economically viable and morally acceptable solutions.

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Repent! The end is nigh!

Warnings of impending hell and damnation used to be the preserve of certain Christian fundamentalists but they have now been muscled out of that business by Greenies -- complete with appeals to Holy writ and the invocation of demons as justification for their warnings. The scary sermon excerpt below is by Peter H. Gleick, Co-founder/President of an obscure sect called the Pacific Institute

It's too late. The world has missed the opportunity to avoid serious, damaging human-induced climate change. For a variety of reasons ranging from ignorance to political ideology to commercial self-interest to inertia to intentional misrepresentations and misdirections on the part of a small number of committed climate deniers, the United States and the rest of the world have waited too long to act to cut the emissions of damaging greenhouse gas pollutants. We are now committed to irreversible long-term and inevitably damaging consequences ranging from rapidly rising sea levels, far greater heat stress and damages, disappearing glaciers and snowpack, more flooding and droughts, and far, far more.

For over two decades, there have only been a few people and groups that have argued against climate change, and very few of these have done so in good faith (though there is no denying that they've been effective). Sometimes they have tried to hide behind scientific "uncertainty" to mask their anti-climate-change arguments. But the fundamental science has long been irrefutable, and so recently, we've seen all pretense of caring about science thrown out the door by elected officials such as Congressman John Shimkus simply (vice chairman of the Republican Party's Congressional campaign committee and vying to become chair of the influential House Energy and Commerce Committee), who rejects climate change by turning to the Bible to refute the science or as justification to ignore it....

No scientific body of national or international standing rejects the findings that humans are changing the climate. Indeed, every single legitimate scientific organization and society that works on atmospheric, climatological, meteorological, geological, hydrological, ecological, physical, chemical, and biological sciences supports the scientific findings of human-induced climate change. All of them. Here are a few examples.

For reasons well described by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway in their book Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, the media has also failed to distinguish between correct and incorrect, because it is far easier simply to describe this as a debate between equals. Like the argument about the health consequences of tobacco, it is inevitable that reality will ultimately win over fantasy and that the truth about the seriousness of climate change will become widely accepted. But as I argue above, that inevitability will come too late, leading to another inevitability: unavoidable, severe climate impacts to all of us (or to coming generations).

As a result, in twenty more years, the Earth will be even hotter, sea levels will be higher and rising faster, water and food resources will be increasingly stressed, extinction rates will accelerate, and our forced expenditures for climate adaptation will be far, far greater than they would otherwise have been.

For example, at the request of three separate California state agencies, the Pacific Institute recently completed a comprehensive assessment of the vulnerabilities of the California coast to accelerating sea-level rise (using scenarios of sea-level rise that may turn out to be far too low). There is already over $100 billion in infrastructure (housing, airports, wastewater treatment plants, schools, hospitals, roads, power plants) and a population of nearly 500,000 people at risk of increased coastal flooding, and we estimated that adaptation costs just to protect existing infrastructure will run around $15 billion, plus high annual costs to maintain these protections. Other major areas and populations simply cannot be realistically protected and will have to be abandoned, with people forced to move over time. And this is just one small piece of the coming threats for one small part of the country. How bad it ultimately gets depends on how much longer we fail to act and how much longer Congress and others hide behind ignorance, political ideology, and religion to deny the reality of climate change.

More HERE




Canadian Senate kills climate change bill

(The Canadian Senate is similar to the British House of Lords, in that members are appointed rather than elected)

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has defended Tory senators who voted down a climate change bill ahead of an upcoming United Nations meeting on the issue in Mexico. Harper, in responding to a query from NDP Leader Jack Layton in question period Wednesday in Ottawa, said Conservatives have been consistent and clear in their opposition to Bill C-311, which the prime minister called "a completely irresponsible bill."

"It sets irresponsible targets, doesn't lay out any measure of achieving them other than ... by shutting down sections of the Canadian economy and throwing hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of people out of work," Harper said. "Of course, we will never support such legislation."

Layton argued Harper had no right to use his "unelected senator friends" to kill the bill, which he called the will of the House. "He's lost his moral centre," Layton said. "He's fundamentally undemocratic, Mr. Speaker. Let's be clear about it, that's the truth. He broke his promise to bring our troops home, which this House asked for. He broke his promise to have votes on the use of our troops in foreign wars.

"He broke his promise never to appoint unelected senators, and now, he's using them to subvert the will of this House. It's never happened before. It should not be permitted, and where is his democratic impulse?" said Layton.

Earlier in the day, another NDP MP called it "another ambush move" by the Harper government. "I'm still reeling from the shock, but after no debate, no consideration at all, all of a sudden in another ambush move by Stephen Harper, the Senate voted yesterday to kill the climate change [bill] without debate," said Bruce Hyer, MP for Thunder Bay-Superior North.

Bill C-311, which was voted down 43-32 late Tuesday, would have called on the government to establish five-year plans to meet greenhouse gas emission targets by 2050, according to Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell, the author of the bill in the Senate. The bill was passed in May by the House and went to the Senate for final approval. There is debate about who actually initiated the Senate vote, with each side saying the other was responsible.

"Killing Bill C-311 shows a fundamental lack of respect for the many Canadians who care deeply about climate change. They had a right to have this bill debated properly," Mitchell said in a news release. Mitchell later told reporters in Ottawa that it was an unprecedented move to defeat a bill that had been passed by Parliament.

"They would defeat a bill in the Senate that was passed in the House of Commons by a majority of elected members of Parliament," he said. "Not only did they defeat it but defeated [it] before it even got to a committee stage, where it could have more airing."

The bill - the Climate Change Accountability Act - has spent the last year or so bouncing between the full House of Commons and its environment committee. The legislation called for greenhouse gases to be cut 25 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. That level is more stringent than the Harper government's goal of a 17 per cent emissions cut from 2005 levels by 2020, which is in line with the U.S. administration's targets.

"We worked on this bill for five years. The vast majority of our elected representatives voted for it. It was killed in the night by trickery," said John Bennett, executive director of Sierra Club Canada. "We aren't giving up. We will continue to work with mothers and fathers who want a brighter future for their children. We will find the solutions," said Bennett.

The Sierra Club said the bill was developed with the participation of scientists and environmentalists and "was passed by a significant majority of members of Parliament and was supported by a petition signed by more than 150,000 Canadians."

The government can prevent any bill from coming on to the Senate floor for debate, said the NDP's Hyer, and "they've done that for 193 days, and the first opportunity they got after not enough Liberals were around, they moved quickly to kill the bill."

"A number of our Conservative senators - who darn it, won't go on the record - have told me that the [Prime Minister's Office] has ordered them not to speak about the climate change bill, not to allow it to come up for a vote and to kill it when they could," Hyer said.

Canada has one of the worst records in the world on climate change and the Tories are using the Senate "as a strictly political tool," he said. "Everyone is in shock about this."

SOURCE




Feedlot cattle are better (than free-range) for the environment

There will be kneejerk disagreement with this from the Greenies. They are as much atavists as anything else

John Stossel

It's not what we don't know that causes us trouble. It's what we know that isn't so. Whichever famous writer said that (it's been attributed to many), what he said carries truth.

What are some of the things we know that aren't so? Here's one: Grass-fed "free-range" beef cattle are better for the environment -- and for you -- than factory-farmed corn-fed cattle. It does seem to make sense that the steer raised in the more "natural" environment would be better for the world.

Michael Pollan, the prolific food author and activist, wrote in The New York Times that "what was once a solar-powered ruminant (grass-fed steer) (has been turned) into the very last thing we need: another fossil-fuel machine" (http://tinyurl.com/2fnr6xx). How so? Farmers burn fossil fuels to ship corn to feed cows instead of letting them eat what's naturally under their feet.

Restaurants serving burgers supposedly made from grass-fed beef self-servingly claim their foods are healthier for the planet. The American Grassfed Association -- surprise, surprise -- says its cattle are better for the environment because harmony is created between the land and the animals.

People believe. Nobody likes the idea of cattle jammed into feedlots. When we asked people, in preparing this week's Fox Business show, which kind of cattle were better, we got the expected answers:

"Free roaming."

"Cows should be outside."

"Free-roaming grass-fed cows, because you've got happy cows. They've lived a happy life out in sunshine."

It's logical to think that grass-fed steers might be better for the environment, but so often what sounds logical is just wrong.

Don't believe me? Dr. Jude Capper, an assistant professor of dairy sciences at Washington State University, has studied the data (http://tinyurl.com/36492d8). Capper said: "There's a perception out there that grass-fed animals are frolicking in the sunshine, kicking their heels up full of joy and pleasure. What we actually found was from the land-use basis, from the energy, from water and, particularly, based on the carbon footprints, grass-fed is far worse than corn-fed."

How can that be? "Simply because they have a far lower efficiency, far lower productivity. The animals take 23 months to grow. (Corn-fed cattle need only 15.) That's eight extra months of feed, of water, land use, obviously, and also an awful lot of waste. If we have a grass-fed animal, compared to a corn-fed animal, that's like adding almost one car to the road for every single animal. That's a huge increase in carbon footprints."

Once again, modern technology saves money and is better for the earth. By stuffing the feedlot animals with corn, farmers get them to grow faster. Therefore they can slaughter them sooner, which is better for the earth than letting them live longer and do all the environmentally damaging things natural cows do while they are alive. "Absolutely right," Capper said. "Every single day, they need feed, they need water, and they give off methane nitrous oxide -- very potent greenhouse gases that do damage."

But what about damage to people? Some advocates of grass-fed beef claim that the more naturally raised animals are healthier to eat. "There is absolutely no scientific evidence based on that. Absolutely none," she replied. "There is some very slight difference in fatty acids, for example, but they are so minor that they don't make any significant human health impact."

But what about those hormones the cows are given? Surely that cannot be good for us. "What we have to remember is every food we eat -- whether it's tofu, whether it's beef, whether it's apples -- they all contain hormones. There's nothing, apart from salts, that doesn't have some kind of hormone in them."

So the next time you reach for that package of beef in the grocery store tagged with all the latest grass-fed, free-range lingo, remember: Not only does it often cost twice as much, but there's no evidence it's better for the environment or better for you. It's just another food myth.

SOURCE





Australia: Fruit-Loop Mayor of Sydney wants to swap harmless CO2 for dangerous nitrogen oxides

Clover Moore has heard of co-generation (widely used in Russia) and wants to build a plant in Sydney city. That it would have to be shut down most of the time (whenever atmospheric NOx levels in the CBD exceed permissible limits) she is turning a blind eye to.

THE network of gas-fired engines that are planned to power the Sydney CBD could emit up to 660kg of harmful nitrogen dioxide every hour. That is more than the combined emissions from the Shell and Caltex oil refineries in the region.

Estimates of the pollution produced by these new-generation power plants are contained in an interim policy paper by the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change.

The City of Sydney has pledged to install more than 100 trigeneration turbines - which burn gas to generate electricity and then capture the exhaust to heat and cool buildings as necessary - in a bid to reduce carbon emissions and ease the strain on the existing electricity grid.

They also potentially pose a risk to air quality - and in turn the health of all those who live and work in Australia's largest city.

The network, championed by Lord Mayor Clover Moore, is expected to generate 330 megawatts of electricity, meeting about 70 per cent of Sydney's energy needs.

But, according to the DECC interim paper, the Sydney CBD could accommodate uncontrolled emissions from just 10MW of "co-generation" (a similar engine that heats but doesn't cool buildings) before "health-based nitrogen dioxide goals" are possibly exceeded. Furthermore, emissions from about 200MW of power would result in those nitrogen levels being breached "across the CBD".

High levels of nitrogen dioxide (NOx) and other nitrogen compounds in the atmosphere are linked with a raft of serious health issues, such as respiratory illness and asthma. Children are considered particularly vulnerable.

The City of Sydney defended its plans, saying in a statement last night that the figures cited in the interim report were based on untreated emissions which "are not relevant" to the energy proposal. "Our master plan . . . will comply fully with . . . NOx guidelines," the statement said.

However, that report specifically cites the council's trigeneration strategy by name and was cited in the council's own briefing paper, entitled Removal of the Barriers to Trigeneration. "On an hourly basis 330MW of gas-fired co-generation (the amount envisioned in the City of Sydney strategic plan) could emit up to 660kg per hour of NOx; this is more NOx than the combined emissions from the Shell and Caltex oil refineries in Sydney," the department's report reads.

It also highlights that the proposal is centred on the CBD, where pollution levels are already the highest. "As a result there is little 'headroom' available to accommodate uncontrolled emissions from cogeneration without causing local health impacts," it says.

The National Environment Protection Council has developed air quality standards that govern the allowable levels of nitrogen dioxide that can be released. The benchmark is 0.03 parts per million, averaged over a year.

The City of Sydney would not comment on the implications of meeting the NEPC standards. However, the council said it would find reductions in NOx emissions from cars through its integrated transport plan. "The vast majority of NOx come from motor vehicles. The city's cycling, walking, car-share and public transport strategies will also see real reductions in local NOx," the statement said.

SOURCE




Australia: Billions of dollars likely to be wasted on Qld. water projects

All this has been caused by a Leftist State government believing the Warmist crap about ever-worsening drought -- ignoring the traditional observation that Australia is a land "of drought and flooding rains". The Queensland State government failed to anticipate the "flooding rains" that we have now just had -- and are continuing to have. Only someone blinded by ideology would be unaware that droughts and floods alternate in Australia -- which is why Australia has so many dams and weirs

BILLIONS of dollars worth of newly built Bligh Government water projects responsible for driving up household water bills could be shut down and become white elephants.

A leaked Queensland Water Commission report, submitted to State Cabinet last week, proposes "mothballing" a raft of major water-treatment plants, all but closing the $1.2 billion Tugun Desalination Plant, and deferring building another water plant for 18 years.

Described as "Cabinet-in-confidence", the report gives three options to cut bulk-water prices after an update last month showed the price should be $133/ML less than the 2008 forecast after the aborted Traveston Dam.

The revelations come as the Government scrambles to stem the fallout over soaring water bills, with households hit with rises between $100 and $300 a year to pay for building the water grid.

The report's first option says do nothing, pay off water grid debt two years early and do not risk the "high probability" of reversing cuts if conditions change.

The second option outlines household savings of $4.62 in 2011-12 and $9.23 in 2012-13 - but only if the Tugun plant is run at 33 per cent for 10 years and then 67 per cent thereafter.

An extreme alternative - allowing a $11.53 household saving in 2011-12 - involves a "hot standby" by stopping the plant from feeding into the grid but being available on 24 hours' notice.

Set for mothballing are the Bundamba water treatment plant, either the Gibson Island or Luggage Point plants, and the Brisbane Aquifer Project. The first stage of the Cedar Grove plant at Wyaralong Dam near Beaudesert would be delayed until 2014-15 instead of 2012, with other stages to follow in 2028-29. But the extreme plan defers the whole plant until 2028-2029.

A third option for Cabinet is to announce an "intention" to reduce the destination bulk-water price by $37/ML in 2013-14.

SOURCE

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