I told you so

"I told you so" is generally regarded as a mean thing to say but I am human and can't resist.

For years I have had in the sidebar of this blog the statement: "Against the long history of huge temperature variation in the earth's climate (ice ages etc.), the .6 of one degree average rise reported by the U.N. "experts" for the entire 20th century (a rise so small that you would not be able to detect such a difference personally without instruments) shows, if anything, that the 20th century was a time of exceptional temperature stability"

And the header to this blog also asserts effectively zero temperature change.

It now appears that I have very eminent support for that viewpoint. In his letter of resignation from the American Physical Society, Nobel-winning physicist Prof. Ivar Giaever said virtually the same. I quote: "The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable"

Note that Giaever endorsed Obama for President so he is no Right-wing fanatic





Another skeptical eye on AGW "science"

I continue to note that while real scientists love learning and improving ideas, that Al Gore and his friends refuse to discuss the major issues on Global Warming. And if anyone disagrees with him, he calls them names. How common.

Here are I think must three that would make a real scientist slow down in Global Warming belief:

1. CO2 is only a bit over 0.03% of the atmosphere, too little to block anything much less stopping heat escaping. Put a strainer with big holes under a faucet. How much water does it stop? Answer: none. Poke huge holes in a dam. Does it still stop water? Of course not ...at least in the area of the holes.

2. In history some times Heat rose before CO2 rose. Saying that CO2 causes global warming is some times therefore like saying a 6 year old girl is the mother of a 40 year old woman. Nope the mother would have to come first ... always. CO2 must always rise before heat rise -always - in order to claim that CO2 causes heat rise. Gore knows this one by the way and ignores it. Of course.

3. The concept of heat being trapped around the earth is a theory. Recent measurements by our satellites by both Richard Lindzen of MIT and also NASA say they are finding that most heat simply escapes and is not trapped. That makes not only global warming odd but also the entire greenhouse theory. This link comes from Yahoo which is usually pro-Democratic:

And if this was really about science, someone would be looking deeply into those three items and even more. And those people who we know lied and cheated would have lost their jobs. I am seeing neither, and so I say, I see no real science here.

Update by JR: Amusingly, Yahoo has pulled the story mentioned in the link but it is still available here. The reference is to Roy Spencer's work reported in Remote Sensing. The Warmists of course attacked Spencer over it -- on very specious grounds but Spencer put up a rather amused reply to that. In his latest post he is doing a bit of fault-finding himself. Pielke senior has also fisked the rubbishy attacks on Spencer from Warmists







The Jim Hansen Tragedy

by Steven Goddard

Nature conspired against him. He started thinking about CO2 around the time of the PDO shift in 1977, coincident with a long period of exceptionally high solar activity, and other warming cycles.

He expected to see warming and he did. He testified before Congress in 1988, at the start of the most positive period in ENSO history.



The coincidence thoroughly confused him, and led him to finish his largely wasted career hanging out with drugged out hippies and occasional stints in jail.

He could make amends by admitting that he was wrong, but I’m not holding my breath.

His temperature forecasts from 1988 show conclusively that he was wrong. Temperatures are below his zero emissions scenario C. See his Fig. 3.



SOURCE




Fifty IPCC Experts Expose Washington Post Global Warming Lies

John O'Sullivan:

Mainstream media mouthpiece left shamefaced as fifty international climate experts break ranks to defy global warming cult and denounce junk science



Washington Post op-ed writer Richard Cohen was last week caught lying while bad mouthing Texas governor, Rick Perry's presidential candidacy. Cohen, who would have his readers believe humans are dangerously warming the planet, jumped the shark to attack skeptic Perry over his stance on the man-made global warming issue (AGW). Cohen spouted the kooky claim that skeptic scientists “could hold their annual meeting in a phone booth, if there are any left.“

Sadly for Cohen the facts below prove he is just another mendacious mainstream propagandist of climate alarmism.

For instance, the shocking truth is that all 5 official data sets show global cooling since 2002 while a third of all stations sustain a long term cooling trend for their entire history.

Indeed, so infuriated over the blatant lies is Nobel Prize winning physicist, Dr. Ivar Giaever, that last week he resigned in disgust from the American Physics Society for their part in sustaining the now utterly debunked AGW propaganda.

The physics professor who scooped the Nobel Science Prize in 1973 sagely notes, "It is amazing how stable temperature has been over the last 150 years."

Professor Giaever and the rank and file of scientists are increasingly aware that the ‘consensus’ Cohen and his collaborators alludes to is little more than 77 of 10,000 scientists polled.

To further llustrate just how off base Cohen’s spin really is just observe the increasing number of experts who actually worked for the IPCC as contributors / editors / reviewers now turning against global warming junk science.

Below, for Cohen and those other mainstream media deniers of climate realism, is a list of just 50 former IPCC experts whose voices your prejudiced ears refuse to hear

More HERE (See the original for the list of scientists)





Another Green/Left attack on the proposed Pebble mine

Greenies loathe mines and miners from somewhere deep in their bones. It scratches the flesh of mother Gaia or something else equally irrational

In a high-stakes battle that pits gold and copper against fish, members of Congress are scrapping over a plan to build one of the world’s largest open pit mines in southwest Alaska.

Fearing that toxic wastes from the mine could hurt the wild salmon population in her home state, Washington Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell intends to enter the fray today. She plans to ask the head of the Environmental Protection Agency to consider using the Clean Water Act — if necessary — to stop the proposed Pebble Mine project in the headwaters of Bristol Bay.

Cantwell, a second-term senator and a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, will become the first senator to issue such a call. She’ll face opposition from Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young, who already has introduced a bill that would strip the EPA of its authority to halt the project.

The Pebble Mine, which is not even proposed yet, will require permits from at least 67 state and federal agencies according to the site owners, yet Sen. Cantwell wants the project spiked before any environmental review is even done.

While unemployment is still above 9% nationally, it’s much higher in Alaska. In 2010 the unemployment rate among Alaska Native Americans was 21.3%, and it has probably not got any better since. Sen. Cantwell isn’t worried about creating jobs for unemployed Alaskans in the natural resource extraction industries; she’s worried about thousands of Washingtonians who make their living extracting another of Alaska’s resources, salmon. The breeding grounds for salmon that Washington fishermen catch there and in Washington are in Bristol Bay, Alaska, over 100 miles from the Pebble Mine site.

Sen. Cantwell and her environmentalist buddies, rather than using their standard practice of using the environmental review process to try and delay a new mining project, in this case want to preempt the environmental process they so love.

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) has commented on the Pebble/Cantwell situation:

“Attempts to prejudge development in the Bristol Bay area before a permit application has even been submitted would make a mockery out of the federal environmental review process. A preemptive veto makes no more sense than a preemptive approval.”

The only logical conclusion that can be drawn is that Sen. Cantwell and her buddies know that the science and facts won’t be on their side, so they’re attempting a time-honored Democratic tradition of moving the goalposts.

SOURCE






Trying to snooker Smucker’s

It’s a common tactic among groups promoting climate alarmism and anti-hydrocarbon policies. As evidence mounts that manmade catastrophic climate change is not imminent, extreme weather events cannot be linked to human activities, and developing nations will not reduce their use of fossil fuels, radical groups have increasingly targeted companies with campaigns based on supposed ethical principles.

A recent target is the J. M. Smucker Company, maker of jams, syrups, and Dunkin’ Donuts, Folgers, Kava and Millstone coffees. Calvert Investment Management and Trillium Asset Management bought enough shares to entitle them to introduce agenda-driving resolutions at shareholder meetings.

The activists’ August 2011 resolution demanded that Smucker explain how climate change will affect temperature and rainfall patterns, the supply and price of coffee, and thus investors. Seventy percent of Smucker voters rejected the resolution, but the activists parlayed the vote into several press releases designed to harass and eventually intimidate the company into complying with their climate change mantra, as well as “sustainability,” “fair trade” and “certification” demands.

Each demand advances similar goals: coerce companies to pressure politicians to adopt the activists’ agenda; silence corporate support for opposing viewpoints; and increase the activists’ revenue stream, by “persuading” the company to pay them hefty fees for “official certifications” that corporate practices and purchases adhere to the activists’ politicized standards on various “ethical” matters.

Climate change.

Calvert and Trillium correctly observe that temperature, rainfall and other climate variability affects changes in coffee yields around the world. Ditto for all crops, one might add.

However, for them to assert that climate changes result primarily from human carbon dioxide emissions is a matter of ideological belief, not scientific fact. Climate changes; it always has and always will — on regional and sometimes global scales. Greenhouse gases exert a warming effect; but how much, especially in the context of countless planetary, solar and other forces, is a matter of intense debate.

Calvert and Trillium can certainly find support for their views among IPCC and Climate Research Unit stalwarts. However, other scientists, books and reports present a far less alarmist, far more nature-driven theory of climate change.

The absence of warming since 1998, despite steadily rising CO2 levels, calls into question the entire manmade global warming/climate change/climate disruption hypothesis — especially the assertion that any changes will be catastrophic and can be prevented by slashing the use of carbon fuels that power the vast majority of what people make, ship, eat and do. Climate models begin by assuming that carbon dioxide drives climate change, input rising atmospheric CO2 projections, and (voila) output a warming planet.

Smucker and its coffee growers should certainly prepare for any adverse impacts on coffee production, including heat waves, cold snaps, downpours, droughts, insects and diseases. Traditional breeding and biotechnology can create new strains that better survive these threats, while sound business management practices can help minimize numerous problems. Smucker is already taking steps like these.

Adopting the Calvert-Trillium agenda would undermine efforts to sustain and improve coffee production and the growers’ and company’s flexibility and profitability. The activists’ prescription would reduce energy supplies and increase energy, fertilizer, processing and shipping prices — while also killing jobs, decreasing customers’ living standards, and making them less able to afford quality coffee.

The Calvert-Trillium thesis also contradicts the recent Securities and Exchange Commission “interpretive guidance,” which says companies should disclose not only potential risks and physical impacts from climate change, but also risks and impacts on business from legislation, regulation and international accords enacted to restrict fossil fuel use, in a quest to control Earth’s ever-changing climate.

* Physical impacts of climate change: Even if carbon dioxide has a greater effect on climate than many scientists think, coffee growers and regions would actually benefit from higher atmospheric CO2 levels. More CO2 stimulates plant growth and increases survival rates under drought and other adverse conditions. Moreover, many asserted manmade climate risks are wildly speculative, generated by computers or based on questionable to fraudulent research (as IPCC and Climategate documents have revealed).

* Impacts of legislation, regulation and international accords: Rules that restrict hydrocarbon use reduce energy reliability and affordability, which hurts growers, processors, sellers and consumers alike.

* Indirect impacts on business trends: Many activist claims about damage to businesses are based on the same speculative risks noted above. Well managed companies will carefully separate fact from fiction.

Volume certified sustainable.

“Sustainability” is a politicized, malleable and ultimately meaningless concept, developed to promote activist agendas. It assumes manmade climate chaos is real. It claims hydrocarbon resource depletion is imminent, which recent shale gas and conventional discoveries show is hardly the case. It never explains how long resources must last to be “sustainable” (ten years? 50? 100? 1000?) or factors in economic and technological changes that revise depletion calculations upward.

In the case of agriculture, “sustainability” advocates often oppose biotechnology, chemical fertilizers, insecticides and mechanized farming — and favor land and labor-intensive organic and subsistence practices, animal manure and naturally occurring (but often toxic) chemicals. These standards may meet ideological tests, but they don’t necessarily meet scientific, practical or best business practice criteria.

Fair trade.

Ethical, socially responsible companies should always be fair to suppliers, customers, employees and everyone else they deal with. “Willing buyer, willing seller” relationships should be based on honesty, transparency and a mutual desire to sustain long-term, mutually beneficial relationships.

However, “fair trade” is really another politicized, malleable, agenda-driven concept. It often demands higher prices for growers, but neglects other important considerations. It can result in coffee that is overpriced in times of high unemployment and economic hardship, when many consumers are looking for affordable beverages on limited budgets — which can ultimately mean less income for growers.

Certifications.

Both sustainability and fair trade certifications mean companies pay activists to put a political stamp of approval on targeted merchandize. The process may generate activist and news media accolades for participating companies, while failing to address the issues raised here. However, it certainly enriches activist groups, enabling them to launch pressure campaigns against other companies.

Calvert, Trillium and other “corporate ethics” and “climate disaster” campaigners are closely allied with and/or support organizations that oppose: hydroelectric, coal, gas and nuclear power generation in coffee-growing and other poor countries where the vast majority of citizens have little or no access to electricity; insecticide use to control malaria and other deadly diseases; biotechnology and other modern agricultural methods to improve human nutrition and replace crops devastated by insects or plant viruses; and progress in general. They are modern-day Luddites, justifying their actions on false ecological grounds.

But still the campaigners say J. M. Smucker should buy coffee “certified” by activists as being green, sustainable and climate-sensitive. Company shareholders should ask: Just because other companies have been conned or pressured into doing so, should Smucker be snookered into following their lead?

Perhaps Smucker Company could test market a little “fair trade” or “sustainable” coffee. It certainly should promote wise use of chemicals, sound business practices, fairness and honesty with all business partners, careful attention to changing climate and rainfall patterns, responsible stewardship of lands, resources and energy, and access by poor families to electricity and other modern technologies.

That would brand the J. M. Smucker Company as a truly ethical and responsible corporation.

SOURCE





Australia: A shot across the bows for anyone who tries to gain from Gillard's carbon tax legislation

Since the Gillard government will almost certainly be turfed out at the next election (a maximum of two years away now), businesspeople would be wise to sit on their hands until then

COMPENSATION given to households and industry under the government's proposed carbon tax would be removed if the coalition wins the next election and unwinds the legislation, the Opposition says.

Debate will resume on the government's carbon price legislative package this week, with the opposition continuing to maintain it will not support it.

Not only has the opposition vowed to remove the legislation if it wins office, it says it will remove various compensation measures attached to it. "Well, we have to," shadow treasurer Joe Hockey told Sky News on Sunday. "We've committed to removing the carbon tax. I don't think it's hard to introduce legislation to abolish the carbon tax."

Further pressed on whether he thought it might be difficult to unwind the tax once it was legalised, he replied "No, I don't."

The government wants a $23-a-tonne fixed price on carbon to start on July 1, 2012, followed by a market-based emissions trading scheme in 2015 - with the aim of cutting 160 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by 2020.

The carbon price will be accompanied by compensation for households and industry, new statutory authorities and extra funding for clean-energy projects, as well as a tender process to close down some of the dirtiest coal-fired power generators.

Mr Hockey said he did not believe it would be a problem removing compensation given to households and industries.

"We have sent a very clear message to business that if you enter into an agreement with the government, do not assume that we will not come along and try to unwind it," he said.

SOURCE

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