Global cooling warning: SUN HAS FIRST SPOTLESS CALENDAR MONTH SINCE 1913
Many have been keeping a watchful eye on solar activity recently. The most popular thing to watch has been sunspots. While not a direct indication of solar activity, they are a proxy for the sun's internal magnetic dynamo. There have been a number of indicators recently that it has been slowing down.
August 2008 has made solar history. As of 00 UTC (5PM PST) we just posted the first spotless calendar month since June 1913. Solar time is measured by Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) so it is now September 1st in UTC time. I've determined this to be the first spotless calendar month according to sunspot data from NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center, which goes back to 1749. In the 95 years since 1913, we've had quite an active sun. But that has been changing in the last few years. The sun today is a nearly featureless sphere and has been for many days:
And there are other indicators. For example, some solar forecasts have been revised recently because the forecast models haven't matched the observations. Australia's space weather agency recently revised their solar cycle 24 forecast, pushing the expected date for a ramping up of cycle 24 sunspots into the future by six months.
More here
Another dissenter speaks out
Article below by Professor Geoffrey G Duffy, DEng, PhD, BSc, ASTC Dip., FRS NZ, FIChemE, CEng. Summary excerpt: "It is so easy to grab onto the notion that the increase in fossil-fuel burning and subsequent growth in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is directly the major cause. Even from season to season we see snow and ice-covered mountains thaw, and massive areas of the Antarctic ice shelf melt, but in just 6 or so months they are restored. We are not alarmed at these annual changes! So why can’t we see that climate changes occurring all over the world now (not as big as these dramatic annual changes) are simply similar but on a larger time-scale."
Climate is always changing, and always will. There are seasons. There are day-night (diurnal) cycles. At any one location, heat energy from the sun varies during the day. Energy from the sun is affected by local conditions and clouds. Heat absorption depends on whether it impacts water or land . and even then, the type of land (desert, forest, snow covered land), or the layout of the land (continental masses, or islands surrounded by seas). In some parts of the world temperatures are climbing on average, and in some areas they are dropping. Warming is not occurring everywhere at once and hence `global warming' is a misnomer.
So what are the key players in `Climate Change'? The major driver is the sun. Warming depends on the sun. Cooling is due to the lack of sun's energy. Radiant energy enters the earth's atmosphere. Air (on a dry basis) consists mainly of nitrogen 78.08% and oxygen 20.94%. Of the 0.98% remaining, 95% of that (ie 0.934%), or almost all is the inert gas argon. Carbon dioxide CO2 is a trace. It is less than 400ppm (parts per million) or 0.04% of all the atmosphere (on a dry basis). Surprisingly, less than a fifth of that is man-made CO2 (0.008% of the total), and that is only since the beginning of the industrial era and the rapid increase in world population.
The atmosphere however is not dry! The next major constituent of air apart from oxygen and nitrogen is water, as a vapour and a condensed liquid. The atmosphere is comprised of about 1-3% water vapour [At 200C and 100% humidity there is 0.015kg water/kg air or 1.5%: at 50% Humidity, 0.008kg water/kg air or 0.8%: and in warmer climate at say 300C, 100% humidity, 0.028kg water/kg air or 2.8%]. Water vapour condenses to form clouds and it is by far the most abundant and significant of the greenhouse gases. Water accounts for about 95% of the greenhouse effect. The main atmospheric `intermediary' between the sun and earth is water, and thus it dictates the behaviour of the earth's climate. Without water vapour in particular and other greenhouse gases in the air in general, the surface air temperatures worldwide would be well below freezing. The sun clearly must be a much bigger influence on global temperatures than any of the greenhouse gases, even water and CO2. Carbon dioxide is about 1/60 of water in air!! It clearly is not the major player even though it is wise to minimise man-made emissions like particulate emissions, and CO2 and other gases where practically possible.
Variable and unstable weather conditions are caused by local as well as large-scale differences in conditions (wind, rain, evaporation, topography etc). They naturally induce either warming or cooling locally, regionally, or worldwide. We all have experienced how on a cloudy/sunny day that clouds strongly affect our sensations of both heat and light (infrared energy and visible light). Clouds do several things! The atmosphere may be heated by clouds by emitting latent heat of condensation as water vapour condenses. But clouds can both heat the atmosphere by reducing the amount of radiation transmitted, or cool the atmosphere by reflecting radiation. So of all the affects that can influence heating and cooling in the atmosphere and on earth, clearly water is the main greenhouse `gas'. Other greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide CO2, methane CH4, oxides of nitrogen etc) are 1/60 to 1/30 smaller in both quantity and effect. So with all `greenhouse gases' including water, human activity accounts for only minute amounts, just 0.28% of the total greenhouse gases. If we exclude the key one, water, then human activity would only account for about 5.53% of the total greenhouse effect. This is minute in the total picture whatever way we look at it.
Unfortunately a lot of estimates and predictions are strongly based on theoretical computer models. Many now even trust models and their `theoretical results' more than actual measurements and facts from reality. Computer analysis requires that the earth be `cut' into small, separate areas (actually volumes), each being analysed for heat input/outputs and other gas/vapour fluxes. Even so the computational analysis domain size (basic computer grid elements) is huge, 150km x 150km by 1km high, with the current computer power. It is so large that the effects of even the very large clouds are not individually included; and that includes clouds in our visual horizon. The spatial resolution is therefore very poor. Supercomputers cannot give us the accuracy we need. Modellers therefore use parameters: `one factor fits' all, for each of the domains (a kind of a `fudge factor'). This is sad, as water as vapour in clouds is 30 to 60 times more significant than other minute amounts of other greenhouse gases.
Clearly climate simulations and thus predictions can be in serious error unless the actual cloud effects are well defined in the models. It is not only the number and spacing of the clouds in that 150 square kilometre area, but also cloud height effects, and cloud structure. These factors are not accounted for at all. Typhoons are still not represented in most models. Many tropical storms and local intense rain downfalls say in a 50km radius cannot be `seen' by the models. Volcanic eruptions and large forest fires are extremely difficult to model. These emit enormous tonnages of small particulate matter that have immense shielding effects and interactions in the atmosphere. The slow diffusion of the smoke on windless days, and the more rapid turbulent dissipation on windy days are both very difficult to model or predict. We are simply `not there yet' in the simplest events.
The inter-zonal effects of such larger-scale movements like the Gulf stream, or the El Nino-El Nina patterns, are not really greatly understood, and virtually impossible to model. The `noise' (random fluctuations) in the results from the computer models is often greater than the magnitude of the computer readout results themselves! It is really surprising why model computer-forecasts are trusted for periods of say 30 - 50 or so years, yet weather forecasts are often very inaccurate even over a 2 or 3 week period. A good model should be able to `predict even the recent past'. The fact that these models cannot, clearly shows that we should shift our thinking and trust away from computer models to longer-term analysis of actual data, and to understanding the real physical mechanisms and processes (the `cause' and `effect' factors). Someone has said; "if tomorrow's weather is inaccurately modelled and predicted, how can we pretend to predict long-term climate changes?"
Linearising short-term, random fluctuations in weather changes and temperature changes is scientifically untenable (weather and climate changes should be studied over very long periods if reliable trends are to be discerned). Much credence is given to the `hockey-stick effect' of temperature data (upward swing in mean temperature over just the last decade or so) proposed and adopted by the IPPC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Nations have grabbed this and are using this to base their policies for actions on global warming effects, and the implementation of controls on carbon-based emissions by carbon taxing. The very computer programme that gave IPPC those results was recently rigorously tested by inputing random numbers, and the computer-generated readout gave the same upward data trend with this meaningless input.
This makes a mockery out the IPPC report and subsequent actions. Of course IPPC cannot admit to that now, as their report has been regarded as `gospel' by many nations. In stunning direct contrast, actual data (not idealistic models) from remote sensors in satellites have continuously measured the world's temperature and have shown that the trend in the warming period ended in 2001. Actual satellite measurements show that the temperature has dropped about 0.60C in the past year, when compared to the mean recorded 1980 temperature. Observations from the Hadley Centre show that global temperature has changed by less than 0.050C over the past decade! Also 1998 was distinctly warmer than 2006 because of the El Nino event. Why can't we believe actual accurate data?
A man-made `greenhouse' does not create new heat. A man-made `greenhouse' can only increase the residence time or hold-up time of heat just like a blanket. Likewise in the atmosphere, the `greenhouse effect' acts as a mechanism to smooth out fluctuations or rises and falls in temperature (that is advantageous). It is a dampener! It cannot be a dominant factor for global temperature change. It is the sun that gives the heat energy and drives temperature change. Simply, if the sun's energy decreases, then the `global' temperature will fall; with or without any greenhouse effect (and vice-versa).
But we must also consider the location of the effects. The surface of Earth is 70 % water. Water has a far greater heat carrying capacity than land; or even the atmosphere itself. Most of the incoming heat from the sun is absorbed by the seas and lakes (simply because they occupy 70% of the world's surface area). When we compare that with land masses, a lower proportion of heat is reflected from watery zones to participate in the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is mainly a phenomenon of the land surface and the atmosphere because land masses lose most of the heat they receive during the day by the action of overnight radiation. To multiply that effect, the atmosphere loses heat rapidly out into space by rainfall, convection and radiation, despite the greenhouse effect. So the large surface area of water over the world and the heat storage of water, are far more significant than any atmospheric greenhouse effect. The oceans really control the transport of water vapour and latent heat changes into the atmosphere (latent heat is heat needed to convert water-to-vapour, or conversely is given up when vapour goes to water), and this is far more significant than sensible heat changes alone (non changes in the state of water).
The seas take a long time to warm up or cool down when compared to land. This means the storage of total heat by the oceans is immense. As mentioned, heat energy reaching the land by day is soon radiated back out into space at night. But there are also zonal differences! The sun's energy at the equator is consistent all year round, and in this region the larger proportion of surface area happens to be the ocean water. The dominant heat loss is primarily at the poles with each pole alternating as the main loser of heat. As a result there are severe cyclical variations in temperature with the seas and ice caps having the dominant effects in energy changes and hence temperature effects.
If the erroneously-called, 'global warming' was occurring now we should see it now. Oceans would be expanding and rising; in fact over the past two years, the global sea level has decreased not increased. Satellites orbiting the planet every 10 days have measured the global sea level to an accuracy of 3-4 millimeters (2/10 inch inches) [see sealevel.colorado.edu]. Many glaciers are receding but some are increasing. Glacial shelves at the poles melt and reform every year because there are periodic seasonal changes; these alone show dramatically just what changes can occur from summer-to-winter-to-summer again and again. Dramatic changes? Yes; but they are perfectly normal and to be expected.
Much more here
THIS IS AMERICA'S ENERGY ELECTION
The number-one economic issue this election is gasoline prices at the pump. The tax-hike effect of surging oil on global markets that has translated to a huge spike at your local gas station has drained the economy of its vitality. It has damaged consumer purchasing power, made it tougher to pay mortgages on time, worsened the credit crunch, raised the inflation rate, undermined corporate profits, and thrown stocks into the first bear market in five years.
Of course, with all the political hoopla from the Denver Democrats, it's easy to forget the populist revolt against high gas prices at the pump. Sen. Obama never mentioned skyrocketing pump prices or their devastating economic impact on ordinary working-class folks. But this is the energy election. It will determine our future peace and prosperity. And Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has the energy answer: Our abundant country can produce more energy at lower cost if government gets out of the way.
Coming from the natural-resource rich state of Alaska, Palin is an experienced energy expert. She knows more about the economics of energy than senators McCain, Obama, or Biden. And in this year of the oil-shock economy, Palin's role will be absolutely crucial. "Obama is way off-base on all that. I think those politicians who don't understand that we need more domestic supply of energy flowing into our hungry markets [are] living in la-la land. And we're in a world of hurt if they're agenda continues to be to lock up these safe, secure, domestic supplies of energy."
That's what Palin told me in a CNBC interview in late June. I call it drill, drill, drill. But in fact it's a full-throated America-first energy policy that will create millions of high-paying jobs with complete government deregulation and decontrol of the full menu of energy sources: oil, natural gas, nuclear, clean coal, shale, and the alternative fuels of wind, solar, and cellulosic.
Why aren't all the candidates talking like Palin? How can this great country put its future growth and prosperity in the hands of enemies like Tsar Vladimir Putin, Ahmadinejad, and Hugo Chavez. Well, get ready for Sarah America to take on the fight against all comers.
The plain-talking governor is even tough on John McCain. The senator has said it's too pristine to drill in ANWR. But Palin told me in June that "Sen. McCain is wrong on that issue. . . . We're talking about a sliver of the coastal plain of Alaska being explored and drilled for oil. It's about a footprint of a 2,000-acre plot of land. That's smaller than the footprint of LAX."
Palin was pleased that McCain came around on the Outer Continental Shelf. But she intended to talk him into ANWR. Expect Mr. McCain to listen carefully. And she made this key point: The price of fuel will fall quickly in the expectation of more energy supplies, just as soon as Washington permits.
And when I interviewed her again in late July, she was justifiably furious that Congress was going on summer recess without a vote on rolling back its drilling moratorium. "Well," she said, "with all due respect to Congress, it's pretty pathetic." Meanwhile, she was taking action: Palin had just gotten the Alaska legislature to agree to a new natural-gas pipeline that was 30 years in the works.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that there are nearly 100 billion barrels of oil in the Arctic, with roughly one-third under sovereign U.S. territory in Alaska. There are at least 10 billion (and perhaps close to 20 billion) barrels of oil in ANWR, while old estimates suggest between 800 billion and 2 trillion barrels of oil in the Rocky Mountain shale formations.
It's also worth noting that 1.8 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf - with roughly 100 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 400 trillion feet of natural gas - are off-limits because of the congressional moratorium.
Palin grasps the strategic importance of all these domestic reserves. She's also a governor who fully understands the energy- and foreign-policy designs of Mr. Putin, who sits right across the pond from her native Alaska....
Source
LABOUR'S GREEN SUICIDE: POVERTY FEARS OVER RENEWABLE ENERGY
And this warning comes from a big-time Warmist!
Half a million people could be pushed into fuel poverty by the UK's drive for wind power, the government's former chief scientific adviser has said. Sir David King said: "If we overdo wind we are going to put up the price of electricity and that means more people will fall into the fuel poverty trap." The UK has signed up to an EU agreement for 20% of power to come from renewable sources by 2020.
Professor King told the BBC EU leaders did not understand their own targets. One of Tony Blair's last acts as Prime Minister was to sign up to an EU target to have 20% of Europe's energy from renewable sources by 2020. The UK currently generates around 2% of its electricity from wind power but to meet the EU's target the government estimates this will have to increase to around 35% by the end of the next decade. It will also lead to price rises, the government thinks around 10% for electricity and closer to 20% for gas.
Professor King who who served as chief scientific adviser from 2000 to 2007, told BBC Radio 4's The Investigation that the government is placing too much emphasis on wind power to reach the target and this would mean more people suffering from fuel poverty. "These are difficult numbers to estimate but numbers around half a million are not at all unrealistic," he said.
Professor King said he thought that Mr Blair and the other EU leaders did not understand what they were committing themselves to. "I think there was some degree of confusion at the heads of states meeting dealing with this. "If they had said 20% renewables on the electricity grids across the European Union by 2020, we would have had a realistic target but by saying 20% of all energy, I actually wonder whether that wasn't a mistake." Professor King, who was chief scientific adviser at the time of the decision, added: "I was rather surprised when I heard what the decision was."
The EU needed to renegotiate a more achievable and less expensive target, and he added: "This is an issue which needs to be revisited and I say this as somebody who feels that we really have to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions very substantially but in my view it is an expensive, and not a very clever route to go for 35 to 40% on wind turbines."
However Maria McCaffery, Chief Executive of British Wind Energy Association countered: "We don't have to pay for wind power it just comes to us naturally and is totally sustainable. "The expectation is that it will in time drive down the basic cost of energy and actually help the fuel poverty situation, that certainly is our expectation"
A government spokesman said it believes the target is ambitious but is fully committed to meeting it and that the impact on energy bills in the short term will be small.
Source
SOLAR PANELS 'TAKE 100 YEARS TO PAY BACK INSTALLATION COSTS'
SOLAR PANELS are one of the least cost-effective ways of combating climate change and will take 100 years to pay back their installation costs, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) warned yesterday.
In a new guide on energy efficiency, Rics said that roof panels for heating water and generating power are unlikely to save enough from bills to make them financially viable in a householder's lifetime. In the case of solar panels to heat water for baths and showers, the institution estimates the payback time from money saved from electricity and gas bills will take more than 100 years - and up to 166 years in the worst case.
Photovoltaic (PV) panels for power - and domestic, mast-mounted wind turbines -will take between 50 and 100 years to pay back.
Given that the devices have a maximum lifetime of 30 years, they are never likely to recoup the 3,000 to 20,000 cost of their installation, according to Rics' building cost information service. Instead, it suggested people wanting to cut fuel bills should insulate lofts and cavity walls, install efficient light bulbs and seal windows.
Joe Martin, author of Rics' Greener Homes Prices Guide, said there was an argument for installing solar panels but it was not an economic one. "We wanted to bring some reality to this because there are a lot of missionaries out there. The whole push for household renewable power is that you can do these things and make back money but that's not true on existing property," he said.
The solar power industry accused Rics of failing to take account of the rising cost of energy and other financial benefits of renewable power in its figures. Jeremy Leggett, of Solar Century, said: "They are grossly irresponsible."
Rics assessed the cost, annual savings, disruption and payback time of various energy-saving methods and gave each an overall rating of one to five stars.
More here
Australia's Warmist guru calls for only 10 percent cut in greenhouse gases
These guys just make up numbers as they go along
AUSTRALIA'S climate change guru has softened his stand on greenhouse gases, saying we are a 'special case'. In a boost to business, government climate adviser Ross Garnaut has said Australia should try to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 10 per cent by 2020, with immigration ruling out any greater reduction. And if the global community fails to act, that figure should drop back to five per cent.
In a major report released today, Professor Garnaut says high immigration growth makes Australia a special case and its emissions should be reduced by less than any other developed country. Australia's high level of immigration, he says, meant it cannot realistically cut emissions as much as other wealthy nations. And Prof Garnaut believes Australia should soften its target to a five per cent cut, based on 2000 levels, if an international climate pact is not forged.
The 10 per cent target will be a disappointment to the environmental lobby, which wants a cut of up to 40 per cent. But it will allay the concerns of business that emissions trading, due to start in 2010, would cost profits and jobs. The 2020 target will be a crucial factor in determining how much households and businesses will pay under emissions trading. The federal government has yet to set a 2020 target.
Prof Garnaut also recommended emissions trading start in 2010 with a fixed carbon price of $20 a tonne, indexed for inflation plus four per cent each year. The latest instalment of his advice to federal and state governments on what should be done about climate change doesn't make happy reading. He is pessimistic about the ability of the world to tackle climate change, and says there is "just a chance" that dangerous global warming can be avoided. The problem of climate change was "diabolical", "intractable" and "daunting", and the world was rapidly running out of time.
Other developed nations should do more than Australia to cut emissions, Prof Garnaut says. Canada should slash its emissions by a third, Japan by 27 per cent, the European Union by 14 per cent, and the US by 12 per cent. Australia had the "least stringent 2020 reductions targets of any of the developed countries/regions modelled". "Australia's population, because of the country's long-standing and large immigration program, has been and will be growing much faster than populations in other countries," Professor Garnaut said. "The allocation formula ... accommodates Australia's rapid population growth."
Prof Garnaut has recommended Australia adopt a more ambitious 80 per cent emissions reduction target by 2050. The government has committed to a 60 per cent target by then. He also thinks the world should move towards a per-capita system of emissions reductions, which would have a major impact on Australia because it has one of the world's highest rates of per-capita emissions. But the "per-capita" system would not kick in until 2050 under the Garnaut plan.
The report also includes some modelling on the costs of climate change. Prof Garnaut found not acting on climate change would cost Australia dearly, slashing eight per cent from gross national product by the end of this century. Wages would drop by 12 per cent. But taking action on climate change would have a "manageable" cost. Growth would be cut initially by 0.8 per cent, settling to 0.1 per cent in subsequent years. By 2060, taking action on climate change would have a net positive affect on the economy. Prof Garnaut's final report is due at the end of this month.
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Thursday, September 04, 2008
PALIN WILL HELP DEFEAT GREEN/LEFT OPPOSITION TO OIL FROM ALASKA
Security: The impact of prolonged high oil prices is moving well beyond economics. Russia now takes license to assault Georgia, and intends worse. John McCain's Alaska running mate has the only weapon. When Alaska governor Sarah Palin was chosen for the McCain vice presidential ticket, most attention was on her beauty-queen past and down-home North Woods family life. In reality, she's the powerful governor of Alaska, the most pivotal state in the union for energy.
John McCain understood well that it's the one state that can liberate the U.S. not just from high prices but from increasingly threatening enemies whose power derives solely from high oil prices. Alaska was purchased in 1867 explicitly to ensure America's energy future. Palin's leadership has done much to develop Alaska's energy resources, but the state is still stonewalled by Congress.
Palin's strong Alaskan presence in Washington will change that. It's got to because America is nearly helpless in the face of a resurgent Russia intent on reclaiming its czarist empire, an Iran hellbent on acquiring nuclear weapons, a China making common cause with dictators to acquire energy and a menacing Venezuela aligning with Russia and Cuba to control sea lanes in the Caribbean, where 64% of all U.S.-bound tanker traffic passes.
These are all emerging threats. That's why Alaska has never been more critical to U.S. security interests. "Alaska should be the head, not the tail, to the energy solution," Palin told IBD last month. Alaska contains some 18.5% of America's proven oil reserves, but is only our No. 2 state supplier. With 31 billion barrels in official reserves, it ought to be No. 1. Alaska alone could supply the U.S. with energy for seven years.
Palin told IBD that Alaska is the biggest reason for McCain's interest in her leadership. "I think any kind of elevation of (my) national profile is for Alaska itself. People are looking up here (and saying) we need you as leaders for energy policy," Palin said.
No one has fought to bring Alaska front and center like Palin. She's warned the U.S. that Alaska's North Slope reserves peaked in 1988 and has called on Congress to remove restrictions on new drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, where 16 billion barrels of oil sit untapped. Palin knows that Alaska's 700-mile Trans-Alaska oil pipeline now flows at just one-third capacity due to Congress' refusal to lift the moratorium on new drilling.
Palin's also given Congress something it can do now - remove restrictions on drilling for 30 billion barrels in the Chukchi Sea and all the natural gas of Beaufort Sea in Alaska's offshore. As governor, she's already gotten the environmental impact work out of the way so shipments to the Lower 48 can start in as little as a year or two. "Congress can do that for us right now," she told IBD.
Palin knows energy. She's already figured out how to deliver energy to the U.S. without Congress - by championing state legislation to create a 1,712-mile natural gas pipeline across Canada to the U.S. It was a major feat, negotiating with the Canadian government, educating lawmakers and getting the public behind her. In a decade, the $30 billion project will ship 4.5 million cubic feet of gas a day from the North Slope to Houston's air conditioners, Iowa's farm machines and Boston's winter furnaces.
There's little doubt this is the kind of leadership the U.S. needs. Not only will getting serious about Alaska help the economy, it will also help our allies in Europe and the Far East whose economies are severely battered by high energy prices and who are seeing some of the most direct threats from the petrotyrants. John McCain's pick of Palin shows he's serious about energy - and about securing America's future. Congress mustn't ignore Alaska any longer. Petrotyranny is moving beyond economics and becoming a national security issue. Alaska is a big part of the answer.
Source
IT'S THE ENERGY, STUPID: GLOBAL WARMING DECLINES AS A CONCERN
When it comes to environmental concerns, more Americans are starting to think less about global warming and more about energy, according to a recent survey. The survey on environmental attitudes shows that 58 percent of Americans believe the environment is headed in the wrong direction.
Global warming has been a top environmental issue for many since the release of Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth." However, with a lagging economy, many Americans priorities have shifted towards pushing energy issues to the forefront, the survey showed.
Scott Siff of Penn Schoen and Berland, the company that conducts the survey on Green trends each year, said that since the energy crisis has hit Americans in the wallet, it is also affecting their point of view. According to Siff, Americans are also shifting the blame for environmental woes. Siff said many used to blame private industry but more now blame the government.
The survey, which polls about 1,500 people nationwide, said more Americans have also changed their behaviors in response to the environment, with more people going green and women leading the way.
The survey found that women are drawn to certain kinds of eco-friendly products, such as organic hygiene products. The Organic Trade Association estimates that organic products will surpass $25 billion in sales this year, which is a 20 percent increase from last year. Experts said that while organic and green products cost a bit more, people are willing to spend the extra cash.
Source
A bonanza in Wales
VAST swathes of the South Wales coalfields could be at the centre of a multi-billion-pound gas industry, according to a global energy firm hoping to extract a valuable energy source. Australian-based company Eden Energy has announced that the coalfield beneath Bridgend, Pencoed, the Llynfi Valley and parts of Port Talbot is saturated with valuable methane. While methane was once the miner's deadliest enemy, causing devastating underground blasts, it could now be at the centre of a major energy supply business.
The clean coal technology firm yesterday made the first resource estimate from drilling for coal seam methane. And the results have been astonishing. Perth-based Eden says the prospective recoverable resource from just one of its drilling areas - Port Talbot - could provide heat to every home in a town the size of Maesteg for the next 670 years.
Eden has a joint arrangement with Pyle-based Coastal Oil and Gas Ltd, run by Welsh businessman and energy expert Gerwyn Williams, to drill not only in Port Talbot but also in an area stretching to the Llynfi Valley above Maesteg to the north and Pencoed to the east.
Eden says the prospective recoverable methane in its Port Talbot area alone could raise 380 to 670 petajoules of methane energy. One petajoule is equivalent to a million gigajoules and the average, well insulated home can be heated using 50 gigajoules a year. At today's inflated gas prices, the value of the methane field in South Wales could run into hundreds of billions of pounds.
Eden Energy's executive chairman Greg Solomon said yesterday: "This initial estimate confirms what we have always suspected, that we are sitting on a major resource of coal seam methane at a time when prices for this commodity have never been so high.
More here
Australia: Leftist Federal government to support GM crops?
AUSTRALIA should accept that genetically modified crops will be crucial to meet the world food crisis, federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke says. State governments have imposed bans on most GM food crops, with the exception of canola in NSW and Victoria. Scientists and environmentalists are concerned that GM crops are difficult to contain and the long-term health effects are unknown.
Mr Burke, addressing an agriculture science conference in Canberra, said GM food crops would be necessary to address global food shortages. "I don't believe we should be turning our back on any part of science, including what I believe is an inevitable situation over time, that there will be growing acceptance of genetically modified crops," Mr Burke said. "This is not a time where I believe the world will avoid the inevitable, and that is that genetically modified crops will find themselves as one piece of the jigsaw in meeting the challenges of food production."
Mr Burke said climate change and growing input costs for producers had led to the demand for food outstripping supply. He said the food crisis was global and all governments have a responsibility to come up with new ways to tackle the issue. "All these issues come together in one simple concept - around the world it is becoming harder for families to feed themselves," he said. "It comes down to families around the table, either in wealthy nations where the shopping bill is higher than it used to be, or families in poorer nations sitting around a table where there is just not enough food to feed the people sitting around it. "The nature of this being a global crisis means new policy responses."
Mr Burke said biofuels had resulted in a reduction of staple crops being harvested for food, but it alone could not be blamed for the food crisis. "The public commentary on world food shortage has disproportionately looked to focus on biofuels as though biofuels are the be-all and end-all of the problem. "It would be a mistake for anyone to think that a reversal of those biofuels policies will get us out of the challenge that we face with global food shortages, because they won't."
Mr Burke said as oil prices continue to rise, markets would be looking towards biofuels. "That means we have the responsibility to try to drive research and development in biofuels away from initial staple food crops."
Mr Burke made the comments during his address to the ATSE Crawford Fund conference in Canberra. The annual conference brings together scientists, economists, policymakers and politicians to discuss the agriculture sector in Australia and abroad.
Source
Unusual snow in New Zealand
Mt Taranaki has its thickest coating of snow in more than 25 years, says alpine guide Ian McAlpine. "There is heaps of snow up there. Bluffs that are usually visible are well under snow," Mr McAlpine said. At the weekend the summit was beautiful, with a cover of ice boulders caused by high winds. "Later in the year, when summer arrives people will need to take caution," Mr McAlpine said. "Conditions can change quickly if we get warm rain."
Things are looking good on the lower mountain, too. The Manganui skifield has exceeded last year's dismal three-day season, by clocking in 22 days on the bottom tow and more than 30 on the top. The skifield's area manager Todd Cations-Velvin says they have had a fantastic season. "Even though the weather hasn't been that good, we have still managed to get in some good days up the skifield," Mr Cations-Velvin said. "We are well ahead and people are taking advantage of the great conditions and snow coverage," he said. The season will last well into October.
Source
Warmism and basic science
Every scientist, every science teacher, and possibly every gardener in the world knows that applying the terms `greenhouse effect' and `greenhouse gases' to the atmosphere, and to climate, is the most basic bunkum. Why then do we continue to propagate these two terms which are scientifically wrong and so misleading? Or, for some, does their propaganda value make the science irrelevant? It is no wonder that a physics teacher whom I met recently at one of our top schools was in despair: "How can we teach the kids real science if such nonsense is allowed into the curriculum?"
Wot No Convection!
So, back to basics. The atmosphere does not work like a garden greenhouse. In the simplest of terms, a greenhouse functions because the in-coming solar radiation - the sun - warms the soil, the tables, the plants, and the pathways inside it, which then, in turn, warm the air trapped within the closed greenhouse environment [remember that there is very little direct solar heating of the air]. The air then continues to remain warm because it is trapped within the closed greenhouse so that the heat cannot be lost through the process of convection, unlike in the air outside the greenhouse and in the atmosphere, where free convection is uninhibited. If you want to test this, or to cool your greenhouse, you must open the door, or, preferably, a window or two in the greenhouse roof, to permit convection to occur. Greenhouses work, first and foremost, because they prevent the normal processes of convection, not because of radiative forcing, precisely the opposite of what happens in the open atmosphere.
Our Radiative-Convective Atmosphere
Thus, the down-to-earth greenhouse effect does not, and can not, apply to the atmosphere, which experiences free convection. Indeed, so true is this fact that any complex model relating to climate must take it into account, so that we are not even dealing with a purely radiative effect, but with a much more complex, and still very little understood, set of radiative-convective effects. In essence, the `opacity' of the atmosphere to outgoing infrared radiation determines the height from which most photons will be emitted into space. The more `opaque' the atmosphere, the more the escaping photons will be emitted from higher in the atmosphere, and, because the emission of infrared radiation is a function of temperature, it is the temperature of the atmosphere, at this emission level, that will be determined by the requirement for the emitted flux to balance the absorbed solar flux.
We must further take into account the standard fact that the temperature of the atmosphere decreases with height at a rate of c. 6.5 øC per kilometer (on average), until the Stratosphere is attained (between 8 - 16 km above the surface) [we can assume for this purpose that the lapse rate is fixed by non-radiative energy fluxes]. If we then determine the temperature (and height) at the emission level of the infrared flux escaping into space, the surface temperature can be computed by increasing temperature at the rate of 6.5 øC per kilometer - the above-mentioned environmental lapse rate, reversed - until one reaches the surface. Thus, the more `opaque' the atmosphere, the higher will be the emission level of the escaping infrared radiation, and, consequently, the warmer the surface, since the lapse rate will occupy a longer distance in the vertical.
But, all this is going much farther than I need. The point is ever so simple. The atmosphere - carbon dioxide, methane, whatever - does not function like a greenhouse in our gardens. I must thus return to my initial question: "Why do we continue to propagate the nonsense of the `greenhouse' analogy?" Unfortunately, I think we know the answer all too well.
But, more worryingly, if such fundamental scientific bunkum is allowed to flourish in science itself, in public reports, and in the media, surely we must begin to wonder what other rubbish is being tolerated and employed for propaganda purposes? What else is being `trapped' by the emissions of bad science? This is a Green gobbledygook too far.
Source
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For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.
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Security: The impact of prolonged high oil prices is moving well beyond economics. Russia now takes license to assault Georgia, and intends worse. John McCain's Alaska running mate has the only weapon. When Alaska governor Sarah Palin was chosen for the McCain vice presidential ticket, most attention was on her beauty-queen past and down-home North Woods family life. In reality, she's the powerful governor of Alaska, the most pivotal state in the union for energy.
John McCain understood well that it's the one state that can liberate the U.S. not just from high prices but from increasingly threatening enemies whose power derives solely from high oil prices. Alaska was purchased in 1867 explicitly to ensure America's energy future. Palin's leadership has done much to develop Alaska's energy resources, but the state is still stonewalled by Congress.
Palin's strong Alaskan presence in Washington will change that. It's got to because America is nearly helpless in the face of a resurgent Russia intent on reclaiming its czarist empire, an Iran hellbent on acquiring nuclear weapons, a China making common cause with dictators to acquire energy and a menacing Venezuela aligning with Russia and Cuba to control sea lanes in the Caribbean, where 64% of all U.S.-bound tanker traffic passes.
These are all emerging threats. That's why Alaska has never been more critical to U.S. security interests. "Alaska should be the head, not the tail, to the energy solution," Palin told IBD last month. Alaska contains some 18.5% of America's proven oil reserves, but is only our No. 2 state supplier. With 31 billion barrels in official reserves, it ought to be No. 1. Alaska alone could supply the U.S. with energy for seven years.
Palin told IBD that Alaska is the biggest reason for McCain's interest in her leadership. "I think any kind of elevation of (my) national profile is for Alaska itself. People are looking up here (and saying) we need you as leaders for energy policy," Palin said.
No one has fought to bring Alaska front and center like Palin. She's warned the U.S. that Alaska's North Slope reserves peaked in 1988 and has called on Congress to remove restrictions on new drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, where 16 billion barrels of oil sit untapped. Palin knows that Alaska's 700-mile Trans-Alaska oil pipeline now flows at just one-third capacity due to Congress' refusal to lift the moratorium on new drilling.
Palin's also given Congress something it can do now - remove restrictions on drilling for 30 billion barrels in the Chukchi Sea and all the natural gas of Beaufort Sea in Alaska's offshore. As governor, she's already gotten the environmental impact work out of the way so shipments to the Lower 48 can start in as little as a year or two. "Congress can do that for us right now," she told IBD.
Palin knows energy. She's already figured out how to deliver energy to the U.S. without Congress - by championing state legislation to create a 1,712-mile natural gas pipeline across Canada to the U.S. It was a major feat, negotiating with the Canadian government, educating lawmakers and getting the public behind her. In a decade, the $30 billion project will ship 4.5 million cubic feet of gas a day from the North Slope to Houston's air conditioners, Iowa's farm machines and Boston's winter furnaces.
There's little doubt this is the kind of leadership the U.S. needs. Not only will getting serious about Alaska help the economy, it will also help our allies in Europe and the Far East whose economies are severely battered by high energy prices and who are seeing some of the most direct threats from the petrotyrants. John McCain's pick of Palin shows he's serious about energy - and about securing America's future. Congress mustn't ignore Alaska any longer. Petrotyranny is moving beyond economics and becoming a national security issue. Alaska is a big part of the answer.
Source
IT'S THE ENERGY, STUPID: GLOBAL WARMING DECLINES AS A CONCERN
When it comes to environmental concerns, more Americans are starting to think less about global warming and more about energy, according to a recent survey. The survey on environmental attitudes shows that 58 percent of Americans believe the environment is headed in the wrong direction.
Global warming has been a top environmental issue for many since the release of Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth." However, with a lagging economy, many Americans priorities have shifted towards pushing energy issues to the forefront, the survey showed.
Scott Siff of Penn Schoen and Berland, the company that conducts the survey on Green trends each year, said that since the energy crisis has hit Americans in the wallet, it is also affecting their point of view. According to Siff, Americans are also shifting the blame for environmental woes. Siff said many used to blame private industry but more now blame the government.
The survey, which polls about 1,500 people nationwide, said more Americans have also changed their behaviors in response to the environment, with more people going green and women leading the way.
The survey found that women are drawn to certain kinds of eco-friendly products, such as organic hygiene products. The Organic Trade Association estimates that organic products will surpass $25 billion in sales this year, which is a 20 percent increase from last year. Experts said that while organic and green products cost a bit more, people are willing to spend the extra cash.
Source
A bonanza in Wales
VAST swathes of the South Wales coalfields could be at the centre of a multi-billion-pound gas industry, according to a global energy firm hoping to extract a valuable energy source. Australian-based company Eden Energy has announced that the coalfield beneath Bridgend, Pencoed, the Llynfi Valley and parts of Port Talbot is saturated with valuable methane. While methane was once the miner's deadliest enemy, causing devastating underground blasts, it could now be at the centre of a major energy supply business.
The clean coal technology firm yesterday made the first resource estimate from drilling for coal seam methane. And the results have been astonishing. Perth-based Eden says the prospective recoverable resource from just one of its drilling areas - Port Talbot - could provide heat to every home in a town the size of Maesteg for the next 670 years.
Eden has a joint arrangement with Pyle-based Coastal Oil and Gas Ltd, run by Welsh businessman and energy expert Gerwyn Williams, to drill not only in Port Talbot but also in an area stretching to the Llynfi Valley above Maesteg to the north and Pencoed to the east.
Eden says the prospective recoverable methane in its Port Talbot area alone could raise 380 to 670 petajoules of methane energy. One petajoule is equivalent to a million gigajoules and the average, well insulated home can be heated using 50 gigajoules a year. At today's inflated gas prices, the value of the methane field in South Wales could run into hundreds of billions of pounds.
Eden Energy's executive chairman Greg Solomon said yesterday: "This initial estimate confirms what we have always suspected, that we are sitting on a major resource of coal seam methane at a time when prices for this commodity have never been so high.
More here
Australia: Leftist Federal government to support GM crops?
AUSTRALIA should accept that genetically modified crops will be crucial to meet the world food crisis, federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke says. State governments have imposed bans on most GM food crops, with the exception of canola in NSW and Victoria. Scientists and environmentalists are concerned that GM crops are difficult to contain and the long-term health effects are unknown.
Mr Burke, addressing an agriculture science conference in Canberra, said GM food crops would be necessary to address global food shortages. "I don't believe we should be turning our back on any part of science, including what I believe is an inevitable situation over time, that there will be growing acceptance of genetically modified crops," Mr Burke said. "This is not a time where I believe the world will avoid the inevitable, and that is that genetically modified crops will find themselves as one piece of the jigsaw in meeting the challenges of food production."
Mr Burke said climate change and growing input costs for producers had led to the demand for food outstripping supply. He said the food crisis was global and all governments have a responsibility to come up with new ways to tackle the issue. "All these issues come together in one simple concept - around the world it is becoming harder for families to feed themselves," he said. "It comes down to families around the table, either in wealthy nations where the shopping bill is higher than it used to be, or families in poorer nations sitting around a table where there is just not enough food to feed the people sitting around it. "The nature of this being a global crisis means new policy responses."
Mr Burke said biofuels had resulted in a reduction of staple crops being harvested for food, but it alone could not be blamed for the food crisis. "The public commentary on world food shortage has disproportionately looked to focus on biofuels as though biofuels are the be-all and end-all of the problem. "It would be a mistake for anyone to think that a reversal of those biofuels policies will get us out of the challenge that we face with global food shortages, because they won't."
Mr Burke said as oil prices continue to rise, markets would be looking towards biofuels. "That means we have the responsibility to try to drive research and development in biofuels away from initial staple food crops."
Mr Burke made the comments during his address to the ATSE Crawford Fund conference in Canberra. The annual conference brings together scientists, economists, policymakers and politicians to discuss the agriculture sector in Australia and abroad.
Source
Unusual snow in New Zealand
Mt Taranaki has its thickest coating of snow in more than 25 years, says alpine guide Ian McAlpine. "There is heaps of snow up there. Bluffs that are usually visible are well under snow," Mr McAlpine said. At the weekend the summit was beautiful, with a cover of ice boulders caused by high winds. "Later in the year, when summer arrives people will need to take caution," Mr McAlpine said. "Conditions can change quickly if we get warm rain."
Things are looking good on the lower mountain, too. The Manganui skifield has exceeded last year's dismal three-day season, by clocking in 22 days on the bottom tow and more than 30 on the top. The skifield's area manager Todd Cations-Velvin says they have had a fantastic season. "Even though the weather hasn't been that good, we have still managed to get in some good days up the skifield," Mr Cations-Velvin said. "We are well ahead and people are taking advantage of the great conditions and snow coverage," he said. The season will last well into October.
Source
Warmism and basic science
Every scientist, every science teacher, and possibly every gardener in the world knows that applying the terms `greenhouse effect' and `greenhouse gases' to the atmosphere, and to climate, is the most basic bunkum. Why then do we continue to propagate these two terms which are scientifically wrong and so misleading? Or, for some, does their propaganda value make the science irrelevant? It is no wonder that a physics teacher whom I met recently at one of our top schools was in despair: "How can we teach the kids real science if such nonsense is allowed into the curriculum?"
Wot No Convection!
So, back to basics. The atmosphere does not work like a garden greenhouse. In the simplest of terms, a greenhouse functions because the in-coming solar radiation - the sun - warms the soil, the tables, the plants, and the pathways inside it, which then, in turn, warm the air trapped within the closed greenhouse environment [remember that there is very little direct solar heating of the air]. The air then continues to remain warm because it is trapped within the closed greenhouse so that the heat cannot be lost through the process of convection, unlike in the air outside the greenhouse and in the atmosphere, where free convection is uninhibited. If you want to test this, or to cool your greenhouse, you must open the door, or, preferably, a window or two in the greenhouse roof, to permit convection to occur. Greenhouses work, first and foremost, because they prevent the normal processes of convection, not because of radiative forcing, precisely the opposite of what happens in the open atmosphere.
Our Radiative-Convective Atmosphere
Thus, the down-to-earth greenhouse effect does not, and can not, apply to the atmosphere, which experiences free convection. Indeed, so true is this fact that any complex model relating to climate must take it into account, so that we are not even dealing with a purely radiative effect, but with a much more complex, and still very little understood, set of radiative-convective effects. In essence, the `opacity' of the atmosphere to outgoing infrared radiation determines the height from which most photons will be emitted into space. The more `opaque' the atmosphere, the more the escaping photons will be emitted from higher in the atmosphere, and, because the emission of infrared radiation is a function of temperature, it is the temperature of the atmosphere, at this emission level, that will be determined by the requirement for the emitted flux to balance the absorbed solar flux.
We must further take into account the standard fact that the temperature of the atmosphere decreases with height at a rate of c. 6.5 øC per kilometer (on average), until the Stratosphere is attained (between 8 - 16 km above the surface) [we can assume for this purpose that the lapse rate is fixed by non-radiative energy fluxes]. If we then determine the temperature (and height) at the emission level of the infrared flux escaping into space, the surface temperature can be computed by increasing temperature at the rate of 6.5 øC per kilometer - the above-mentioned environmental lapse rate, reversed - until one reaches the surface. Thus, the more `opaque' the atmosphere, the higher will be the emission level of the escaping infrared radiation, and, consequently, the warmer the surface, since the lapse rate will occupy a longer distance in the vertical.
But, all this is going much farther than I need. The point is ever so simple. The atmosphere - carbon dioxide, methane, whatever - does not function like a greenhouse in our gardens. I must thus return to my initial question: "Why do we continue to propagate the nonsense of the `greenhouse' analogy?" Unfortunately, I think we know the answer all too well.
But, more worryingly, if such fundamental scientific bunkum is allowed to flourish in science itself, in public reports, and in the media, surely we must begin to wonder what other rubbish is being tolerated and employed for propaganda purposes? What else is being `trapped' by the emissions of bad science? This is a Green gobbledygook too far.
Source
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For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.
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Tuesday, September 02, 2008
THE RISE AND RISE OF CLIMATE BLASPHEMY
The blasphemy laws are dead and buried in Britain. Courtesy of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, which passed into law on 8 July 2008, it is no longer a common law offence to speak or publish any contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous words relating to God, Jesus Christ or the Bible. Thank Christ (or whoever) for that.
Yet just as religious blasphemy collapses under the weight of satirical operas featuring Jesus Christ in a nappy and shelf-hogging books about why God is dead, or a bastard, or both, so a new form of scientific blasphemy is emerging to take its place.
You can say what you like about Jesus, Mary and Joseph, but say anything reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous about a climate change scientist and you will be punished. You won't receive a literal lashing, but you will get a metaphorical one. Speak ill of a climate expert and you're likely to be stuck in the stocks of the public media and branded as a fact-denying, truth-distorting threat to public morals.
Increasingly in the climate change debate, no dissent can be brooked. I mean none. That is why, from the thousands and thousands of hours of TV programming devoted to climate change issues last year - from news reports on the threat of global warming to the lifestyle makeover shows imploring us to Go Green - only one has been singled out for censure. The one that questioned whether climate change is occurring. The Great Global Warming Swindle by maverick filmmaker Martin Durkin.
Today, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) has published a lengthy document censuring Channel 4 for showing Durkin's film on 8 March 2007. Yet what is striking about Ofcom's ruling is that it slaps Channel 4's wrists, not for any inaccuracies in Durkin's film (of which, it is claimed, there are many), but for its `unfair treatment' of climate change experts.
Ofcom rejected complaints that Durkin's film was factually inaccurate on the basis that it did not `materially mislead the audience so as to cause harm or offence' (1). Yet it upheld or partly upheld complaints by Sir David King (Britain's former chief scientific adviser), Professor Carl Wunsch (of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, all of whom say they were treated unfairly by the film.
Yet, as far as I can tell, King, Wunsch and the IPCC - an extremely powerful body which, come on, is surely robust enough to deal with one TV documentary having a pop at it - were simply submitted to the rough-and-tumble of testy journalistic debate.
Part of King's complaint is that during a lively interview in The Great Global Warming Swindle one of its contributors, Professor Frederick Singer, said we had now reached the mad situation where: `[T]he chief scientist of the UK [is] telling people that by the end of the century the only habitable place on the earth will be the Antarctic. And humanity may survive thanks to some breeding couples who moved to the Antarctic.'
King says he didn't say that. Well, not in so many words. What he actually said during a testimony to a House of Commons Select Committee in 2004 was this: `Fifty-five million years ago was a time when there was no ice on the earth; the Antarctic was the most habitable place for mammals, because it was the coolest place, and the rest of the earth was rather inhabitable because it was so hot. It is estimated that it [the carbon dioxide level] was roughly 1,000 parts per million then, and the important thing is that if we carry on business as usual we will hit 1,000 parts per million around the end of the century.'
In short? If we keep on driving, flying, building and consuming then the earth in 90 years' time will resemble the earth 55 million years ago - when the Antarctic was `the most habitable place for mammals'. Okay, King didn't say the Antarctic would become the `only habitable' place for humans but he did very strongly imply it would become the `most habitable' place.
And in a speech to the Climate Group in April 2004, he reportedly went a step farther. The Independent on Sunday of 2 May 2004 reported: `Antarctica is likely to be the world's only habitable continent by the end of this century if global warming remains unchecked, the government's chief scientist Sir David King said last week.' King never complained about that report.
As for the second sentence in Frederick Singer's contested interview - where he said `And humanity may survive thanks to some breeding couples who moved to the Antarctic' - this actually refers to a statement by James Lovelock, who said in 2006: `Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.'
Channel 4 says that, given that David King is on record as saying Antarctica could be the `only habitable place on earth' and `the rest of the globe could not sustain human life', it was not unreasonable to deduce that he, like Lovelock, was of the view that humanity could only survive if it started breeding in the Antarctic. Maybe. Maybe not. That point is up for debate. But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that in Durkin's film, King was simply paraphrased - and, yes, ridiculed - as part of a provocative, polemical interview. That kind of thing happens all the time.
Professor Wunsch complained that he was not told beforehand that the film was a polemic against global warming theories. That is unfortunate, but again it is quite common in journalism. Reporters frequently do not divulge their entire motivation when setting up interviews, because they know that if they did some interviewees would tell them to get stuffed.
Part of the IPCC's complaint is that one of the film's interviewees - Professor Philip Stott - said: `The IPCC, like any UN body, is political. The final conclusions are politically driven.' I'm sorry, but that is simply legitimate political criticism, whether the IPCC likes it or not. Why is a UN body, which is staffed by hundreds of people and funded by millions of pounds and which has access to thousands of normally compliant journalists, complaining to Ofcom about a 90-minute documentary shown on Channel 4? What is it saying exactly? That no one may criticise it, ever?
Of course it is very serious when journalists wilfully or maliciously misrepresent people's views, and when they do they should be reprimanded. Yet paraphrasing, mocking, criticising and not giving the entire reason for your investigations. if all of these journalistic tactics were censured every time they occurred, there would be no TV reporting left. Certainly there would be no documentaries worth watching.
The Ofcom report sends a clear message: climate experts are off limits. You can get your facts wrong; you can even use questionable graphs - but you must not be `unfair' to The Experts. It is striking how similar the new Climate Blasphemy is to the old religious blasphemy. It, too, is based on protecting named individuals from `scurrilous' or `hurtful' words. Those who commit Climate Blasphemy are said to have been duped or had their palms greased by wicked oil companies - the contemporary equivalent of saying they are possessed by the devil. And their utterances are said to threaten the survival of mankind - by giving people a green light to continue acting in an eco-irresponsible fashion - just as the old blasphemers were accused of jeopardising the saving of mankind with their warped, wicked words.
You don't have to endorse Durkin's film, or the `alternative' climate-change theories that he and others have put forward (I, for one, do not), to be concerned about the censuring of anyone who challenges any part of the politics or science of climate change today. Rather, this is about upholding openness, scepticism and the right to question everything, in the world of journalism and in the world of science.
Given today's blasphemous atmosphere, it is not surprising that serious voices are now calling for a law of blasphemy on environmental matters. Earlier this year in Philosophy Now, Paul Keeling said it might be time to restrict the `mockery of nature', by which he means `an insincere, disrespectful or trivialising portrayal of nature'. Such mockery `implicitly excuse[s] and perpetuate[s] our abuse of the natural world', he said, and by reining it in we could get rid of car adverts and holiday adverts and presumably pesky TV documentaries, too.
We've only just been liberated, far too late, from England's archaic laws of religious blasphemy. Let us not submit so easily to the informal laws of Climate Blasphemy emerging all around us.
Source
THE CLOWNS PLAY NANNY
The world's most feckless deliberative body, the New York City Council, is poised to pass an ordinance prohibiting large retailers from running in-store air-conditioning with their doors open - ostensibly to cut down on the city's "carbon footprint."
What's up with those losers, anyway? It's no idle question. Telling New Yorkers how to run their lives is just about the only thing council members seem interested in doing these days (at least when they're not busy trading taxpayer-funded pork projects for political chits). So it'd be of great interest whether they might fulfill the same carbon-cutting agenda simply by shutting their mouths once in a while.
That's unlikely, to put it mildly. Indeed, the sad fact is that Gotham's nannies-in-chief are already miles beyond parody. Just consider a measure recently introduced by Brooklyn's Domenic Recchia taking aim at what's apparently New York's next great health menace: Grapes. And peanuts.
No joke: Recchia's bill, if passed, would slap up to a $250 fine on merchants who fail to warn customers that certain products are a choking hazard for children under the age of 5. Which is about as close to a literal infantilization of ordinary New Yorkers as one's likely to see. Not to mention, an embarrassment to the city.
Ultimately, it reflects quite poorly on Council Speaker (and all-but-announced mayoral candidate) Christine Quinn. One wonders: If this is the kind of nonsense Quinn permits from the council, what are New Yorkers to expect if she ever gets to Gracie Mansion?
Source
NORDHAUS'S LESS-THAN-OPTIMAL CLIMATE STATEGY
While Nordhaus's prescription may indeed be the most "optimal economic approach" to slow global warming, it isn't the optimal approach to addressing global warming. This is because it ignores adaptation. Some adaptations may reduce climate change damages more efficiently than mitigation... emission reductions that seem to be optimal [under Nordhaus's strategy] in the absence of adaptation may, once adaptation is thrown into the mix, no longer be optimal.
The Nordhaus analysis probably overestimates climate change damages. Nordhaus acknowledges to having "relatively little confidence in our projections beyond 2050" yet he stretches his analysis to 2200. Sometimes such long-range analyses are justified on the grounds that that's the best that can be done. But even if that's so, it misses the real issue, namely, whether even the best available analysis is good enough for making trillion-dollar decisions which, moreover, extend out centuries hence. At these temporal distances, Nostradamus may be just as credible as Nordhaus, or Nicholas Stern, for that matter. Believing such analyses demands, in Coleridge's words, "willing suspension of disbelief." Instead of suspending disbelief and succumbing to gullibility, I would recommend a somewhat different approach.
More here
Small is not beautiful
A new report on the `way forward for agriculture' has been used to justify dragging farming backwards - to the detriment of the poor.
A report published last week by the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) has been cited as evidence that industrialised food production is screwing up the planet and impoverishing much of the world. Commentators and reporters have leapt upon the report to argue that the answer to the world's food problems is to have more small-scale production in the developing world and to reject many of the trappings of modern agriculture, including genetically modified (GM) crops. Is this really true? Or is this simply a case of environmental and development campaigners looking to impose their ideas on the Third World.
According to its website, the IAASTD is an `intergovernmental process with multi-stakeholder bureau comprised of 30 representatives from government and 30 from civil society', and it is based on `multiple international agency co-sponsorship (FAO, GEF, UNDP, UNEP, UNESCO, World Bank, and WHO)'. Earlier this month, delegates met for a week in Johannesburg to put the finishing touches to the `synthesis report' of the project. And like many international reports these days, it is borderline unintelligible.
For example, consider the following extract from its `Statement from Governments', which opens the executive summary and is reminiscent of the worst verbal mangling of the People's Front of Judea in Monty Python's Life of Brian: `This Assessment is a constructive initiative and important contribution that all governments need to take forward to ensure that agricultural knowledge, science and technology fulfils its potential to meet the development and sustainability goals of the reduction of hunger and poverty, the improvement of rural livelihoods and human health, and facilitating equitable, socially, environmentally and economically sustainable development.'
A more comprehensible summation of the report was provided by IAASTD director, Bob Watson, at the launch in London last week: `We tried to assess the implications of agricultural knowledge, science and technology both past, present and future on a series of very critical issues. These issues are hunger and poverty; rural livelihoods; nutrition and human health. The key point is how do we address these issues in a way that is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable?'
Watson is right to point out that our current system of food production is failing to meet the needs of many people. `The price of food, in real terms, has gone down', he said. `Even today, many food commodities are comparable to the early 1990s; so what's the problem? Well, we still have over 800million people going to bed hungry every night. There have been some successes but if we look at it on a region-by-region basis, there have been uneven results.' He also noted the ecological downsides to current methods of food production. `We have lost some of our environmental sustainability. There have been adverse effects in some parts of the world on soils, water, biodiversity; our agricultural systems have contributed to human-induced climate change and, in turn, human-induced climate change threatens agricultural productivity.'
Greenpeace, which was heavily involved in producing the IAASTD report, was clearly cock-a-hoop at the outcome, declaring that the report `recommends small-scale farmers and agro-ecological methods are the way forward if the current food crisis is to be solved and to meet the needs of local communities, declaring indigenous and local knowledge play as important a role as formal science. A significant departure from the destructive chemical-dependent, one-size-fits-all model of industrial agriculture.'
In fact, this kind of response is at odds with reality. The expansion of agricultural productivity has been most dramatic in the developed world, where the full benefits of mechanisation, economies of scale, chemical inputs and greater agricultural education have been experienced by many people. Local knowledge may be useful in tweaking general lessons to particular circumstances, but what is required, surely, is the spread of well-established scientific understanding to the poor, not a celebration of mysticism.
If anything, farmers in the Third World need more agricultural productivity and mechanisation, not less. The productivity of agriculture in the developed world has risen far faster than in the developing world. As one writer notes: `The ratio of the productivity of the most advanced capitalist segment of the world's agriculture to the poorest, which was around 10-to-one before 1940, is now approaching 2,000-to-one! That means that productivity has progressed much more unequally in the area of agriculture and food production than in any other area. Simultaneously this evolution has led to the reduction of the relative prices of food products (in relation to other industrial and service products) to one fifth of what they were 50 years ago.'
Nor is it at all clear that Big Agriculture in the developed world, which has an interest in being able to continue to produce food into the future, is particularly destructive. For example, high agricultural productivity in the developed world has tended to mean low prices, leading to the retirement of land from production altogether - there simply hasn't been the need to continue growing on it. Big, professional agricultural organisations can afford to think about soil quality and sustainability more than poor farmers who live hand-to-mouth. It is people living on the edge that have to get by, come what may; that may mean planting crops on land with declining fertility, cutting down trees for fuel and myriad other desperate measures just to survive.
In one respect, the IAASTD report is right. A major part of the solution to the world's food problems will come from raising productivity. It's just that an emphasis on small-scale, organic agriculture that rejects GM crops is unlikely to achieve that. Notably, the USA and China both refused to support the IAASTD's summary on biotechnology, saying that they `do not believe this entire section is balanced and comprehensive'. Syngenta, a leading biotech company, walked out on the process altogether. Deborah Keith, a Syngenta worker involved in the process, noted in New Scientist that `there was blatant disregard for the benefits of existing technologies, and for technology's potential to support agriculture's efforts to meet future crop needs. I think this was in part because the differences between various participants' perceptions about these technologies, and the scientific facts, were not maintained and highlighted. Sadly, social science seems to have taken the place of scientific analysis.'
On the other hand, even the most basic inputs can make a big difference. In Malawi, after a disastrous corn harvest in 2005, the government started providing subsidies for fertiliser. Combined with better rains, the country's output increased dramatically, allowing it to become an exporter and greatly reduce its dependence on aid - and all against the advice of major Western donors who have tried to encourage the country to grow cash crops for the world market instead without subsidies. Even if there were no wider reform of agricultural production, a more complete application of the best available technology would at least allow producers to make the most of what they have.
Indeed, a recognition of the failure to invest in agriculture is central to the World Bank's World Development Report 2008. World Bank president Robert Zoellick noted at the launch of the report that investment in agriculture in the developing world has borne little relation to the importance of the sector, mainly due to the policies of Western donors.
Technical fixes alone will not be enough to really transform the situation of agriculture in the developing world; the various regimes of subsidies and trade barriers, for example, hurt farmers and consumers in the developing world by effectively denying them access to major markets while allowing subsidised crops from the West to undermine local markets. But to reject the best available technology in favour of a romanticised view of farming - one that reflects the prejudices of Western NGOs far more than the interests of poor farmers - is even worse.
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NASA Climate Alarmist Attacks NewsBusters' Sheppard
Last Saturday, one of the nation's leading climate alarmists -- a government employee with a history of attacking people that don't agree with his views on anthropogenic global warming -- wrote rather disparagingly about a somewhat satirical NewsBusters piece. Despite claiming he typically doesn't comment on things "written about climate change in the more excitable parts of [sic] web," NASA's Gavin Schmidt took time out of his busy Saturday schedule to respond to something he described as "probably the most boneheaded article that I have seen in ages."
Was this an effort by one of the founding members of RealClimate - the world's leading website specializing in climate change hysteria - to correct errors he felt existed in my article? Or, was this a predictable attack on a popular conservative blog that not only regularly exposes the one-sided nature of media reports about global warming, but also frequently brings attention to studies that go counter to RealClimate's, and maybe more importantly, Schmidt's views?
After all, to climate alarmists like Schmidt, media shouldn't be reporting the realist (nee "skeptical") side of this issue as was made perfectly clear by Nobel Laureate Al Gore during an interview with NBC's Meredith Vieira during the November 5, 2007, installment of the "Today" show:
Ironically, even though Schmidt probably thinks NewsBusters and its readers believe the earth is flat, he did indeed search me out, and wrote:
Schmidt then attacked my piece by employing a well-known albeit dishonest debate tactic of putting words in your opponent's mouth: "they confuse aerosols with photochemical smog." Did I? Well, not really. Although the word "aerosol" does appear in the NewScientist article I cited about cleaner air being responsible for rising temperatures in Europe, Reuters didn't mention "photochemical" in the piece I referenced concerning global warming increasing smog levels.and neither did I. This, of course, is why it's customary to cite, by direct quotation, when challenging a supposed mistake in another's work. I guess Schmidt is unaware of such journalistic etiquette.
It is also expected that when you suggest someone has misinterpreted articles written by others, you refer to and link to the same articles the author in question did. Schmidt didn't do this either:
No, not really, for the links inside "Ruckstuhl and colleagues" and "the impacts of climate on air quality" go to the American Geophysical Union and the National Center for Environmental Assessment respectively, the websites that published the studies in question. My piece linked to neither. Nice sleight of hand, wouldn't you agree?
Regardless of what was likely an innocent faux pas on Schmidt's part, assuming I had written about the relationship between aerosols and photochemical smog, it appears his concerns put him at odds with his beloved Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which defined the former:
Embedded inside Schmidt's "photochemical smog" was a link that included the following (readers should take note that it goes to Wikipedia! Don't you love it when "scientists" use that website as a resource? We'll have more on that later.):
It would be interesting to get Schmidt's opinion about whether or not the "various pollutants in the air" described by Wikipedia fit under the IPCC's definition of aerosols? If so, aren't aerosols, therefore, involved in photochemical smog?
Speaking of Wikipedia and its use by folks like Schmidt, Lawrence Solomon wrote on July 8 about how this website is used by climate alarmists to spread misinformation about global warming around the world:
Not surprisingly, RealClimate recommends Wikipedia as a resource "that people can use to get up to speed on the issue of climate change." Nothing like indoctrinating folks by sending them to sources that almost completely and exclusively agree with your views, don't you think?
Moving forward, Schmidt was also displeased by the following in my piece:
This represented either a lack of arithmetic acumen that is totally astounding for someone of Schmidt's stature, or another attempt to discredit NewsBusters by misrepresenting the truth: since global temperature is an average of data-points around the world, a temperature increase in Europe due to cleaner air DOES drive up the mean. Any suggestion to the contrary is totally devoid of logic.
Does that mean the average can't drop? Certainly not. But, it assures that such a declining average is still HIGHER than what it would be if that continent's numbers were not being positively skewed by cleaner air. Moving forward, along with irony and simple arithmetic calculations, it appears hypothetical questions also challenge Schmidt, for as part of my conclusion, I posed the following:
Schmidt seemed to miss the importance of the question-mark in that suggestion:
"Had any of this been true it would indeed have been fascinating." And that, indeed, was the point - wouldn't it be fascinating if true, especially since it might be? For instance, since Schmidt loves Wikipedia as a scientific source, it defines the 1990 Clean Air Act as "a piece of United States environmental policy relating to the reduction of smog and air pollution."
Smog and air pollution. Taking this a step further, isn't it interesting that the Act directly discussed the Montreal Protocol, as well as ozone protection:
In June 1989 President Bush proposed sweeping revisions to the Clean Air Act. Building on Congressional proposals advanced during the 1980s, the President proposed legislation designed to curb three major threats to the nation's environment and to the health of millions of Americans: acid rain, urban air pollution, and toxic air emissions. The proposal also called for establishing a national permits program to make the law more workable, and an improved enforcement program to help ensure better compliance with the Act.
By large votes, both the House of Representatives (401-21) and the Senate (89-11) passed Clean Air bills that contained the major components of the President's proposals. Both bills also added provisions requiring the phaseout of ozone-depleting chemicals, roughly according to the schedule outlined in international negotiations (Revised Montreal Protocol). [...]
The most widespread and persistent urban pollution problem is ozone. The causes of this and the lesser problem of carbon monoxide (CO) and particulate matter (PM-10) pollution in our urban areas are largely due to the diversity and number of urban air pollution sources. One component of urban smog - hydrocarbons - comes from automobile emissions, petroleum refineries, chemical plants, dry cleaners, gasoline stations, house painting and printing shops. Another key component - nitrogen oxides - comes from the combustion of fuel for transportation, utilities and industries.
Let's recap the history of this Act, shall we?
The Montreal Protocol went into effect January 1, 1989, with the first meeting in Helsinki, Finland, in May of that year. The following month, President George H. W. Bush proposed a new Clean Air Act, signed into law in 1990, which, along with addressing ozone depletion and meeting the requirements of this Protocol, allowed the EPA to establish limits on the quantity of any pollutant that can be present in the air anywhere in this nation.
As a result, as far as the U.S. is concerned, the program designed to comply with the Montreal Protocol did IN FACT result in cleaner air. I guess Schmidt hadn't heard about this; it makes one wonder how many other nations did the very same thing at the very same time thereby making my hypothetical question even more fascinating.
In the end, two articles were published last week -- by NewScientist and Reuters -- which provided an example of just how contradictory global warming information can be, and why the assertion "the debate is over" defies reason. Yet, folks like Schmidt want people to think there's actually a consensus concerning this matter.
It seems obvious from their behavior, and from this piece by Schmidt, that one way alarmists create the appearance of a consensus is by attacking anyone that doesn't agree with them.
Maybe it's because some of these folks demolished Schmidt and two of his fellow alarmists in a March 2007 debate in New York City. Representing the realists at that event was Richard Lindzen, who Schmidt attacked the very next month. In fact, attacking the opposition seems to be a prerequisite at RealClimate as Roger Pielke, Jr., wrote on January 14, 2005:
The site's focus has been exclusively on attacking those who invoke science as the basis for their opposition to action on climate change, folks such as George Will, Senator James Inhofe, Michael Crichton, McIntyre and McKitrick, Fox News, and Myron Ebell. Whether intended or not, the site has clearly aligned itself squarely with one political position on climate change.
I guess this puts me in good company. Yet, potentially more disturbing is the power RealClimate has within the mainstream media, as well as who appears to be funding and/or supporting this website. Press members love to cite RealClimate as the final word on global warming, and virtually always refer to it and its writers in nothing but glowing terms as this piece at Time.com demonstrates:
Yes, a straightforward presentation that gives readers only one side of this controversial issue, a fact that some believe is guided by those behind RealClimate. In a February 14, 2005, article about the debate concerning Michael Mann's "hockey stick" theory of global temperatures -- which alarmists like Gore and Schmidt base much of their hysteria on, and was thoroughly debunked by Steven McIntyre and Ross McKitrick - the Wall Street Journal reported:
The folks at RealClimate responded quickly to this accusation:
Maybe so, but ActivistCash.com wrote the following about EMS et al:
It's called "black marketing," and Environmental Media Services has become the principal reason Fenton Communications is so good at it. EMS lends an air of legitimacy to what might otherwise be dismissed (and rightly so) as fear-mongering from the lunatic fringe. In addition to pre-packaged "story ideas" for the mass media, EMS provides commentaries, briefing papers, and even a stable of experts, all carefully calculated to win points for paying clients. These "experts," though, are also part of the ruse. Over 70% of them earn their paychecks from current or past Fenton clients, all of which have a financial stake in seeing to it that the scare tactics prevail. It's a clever deception perpetrated on journalists who generally don't consider do-gooder environmentalists to be capable of such blatant and duplicitous "spin."
[W]hile Environmental Media Services was started, and is still run, by staffers of Fenton Communications, it was officially instituted as a "project" of the Tides Center in 1994. This gave Fenton some plausible deniability and initially shielded him from the suggestion that EMS was just a shill for his clients. It has also provided a ready-made funding mechanism for foundations, "progressive" companies, and other Fenton clients who don't want their contributions to EMS noted for the public record [Editor's note: despite the logistical roadblocks set up by Tides, our research still has been able to reverse-engineer several million dollars in foundation grants to EMS].
For those that have forgotten, Tides is the far-left organization Teresa Heinz-Kerry contributes millions of her former husband's fortune to. Making things more interesting, the founder of EMS, Arlie Schardt, has "moonlighted" as a project director for Tides:
Upping the ante, Schardt has ties to Al Gore and the environmental group Friends of the Earth which runs BushGreenwatch.org. This is significant, for the EMS employee that registered RealClimate's domain name, Betsy Ensley, "manages BushGreenwatch.org, a joint EMS-MoveOn.org public awareness website."
As for Fenton Communications, recent announcements at its website are sure to raise some eyebrows. For instance, "Fenton Communications Launches Green-Tech Division" from May 27:
Or how about "Ad Age: Fenton, MoveOn Form Democratic Advertising Network to Help Win 2008 Elections from May 6:
Add it all up, and although RealClimate's website is hosted and supported by an organization with ties to Al Gore, George Soros's MoveOn.org, Tides, Friends of the Earth, and Fenton Communications, I'm sure none of these entities has any involvement in its content or funding. If you believe that, you probably also think humans can control the temperature of the planet.
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For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.
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The blasphemy laws are dead and buried in Britain. Courtesy of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, which passed into law on 8 July 2008, it is no longer a common law offence to speak or publish any contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous words relating to God, Jesus Christ or the Bible. Thank Christ (or whoever) for that.
Yet just as religious blasphemy collapses under the weight of satirical operas featuring Jesus Christ in a nappy and shelf-hogging books about why God is dead, or a bastard, or both, so a new form of scientific blasphemy is emerging to take its place.
You can say what you like about Jesus, Mary and Joseph, but say anything reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous about a climate change scientist and you will be punished. You won't receive a literal lashing, but you will get a metaphorical one. Speak ill of a climate expert and you're likely to be stuck in the stocks of the public media and branded as a fact-denying, truth-distorting threat to public morals.
Increasingly in the climate change debate, no dissent can be brooked. I mean none. That is why, from the thousands and thousands of hours of TV programming devoted to climate change issues last year - from news reports on the threat of global warming to the lifestyle makeover shows imploring us to Go Green - only one has been singled out for censure. The one that questioned whether climate change is occurring. The Great Global Warming Swindle by maverick filmmaker Martin Durkin.
Today, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) has published a lengthy document censuring Channel 4 for showing Durkin's film on 8 March 2007. Yet what is striking about Ofcom's ruling is that it slaps Channel 4's wrists, not for any inaccuracies in Durkin's film (of which, it is claimed, there are many), but for its `unfair treatment' of climate change experts.
Ofcom rejected complaints that Durkin's film was factually inaccurate on the basis that it did not `materially mislead the audience so as to cause harm or offence' (1). Yet it upheld or partly upheld complaints by Sir David King (Britain's former chief scientific adviser), Professor Carl Wunsch (of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, all of whom say they were treated unfairly by the film.
Yet, as far as I can tell, King, Wunsch and the IPCC - an extremely powerful body which, come on, is surely robust enough to deal with one TV documentary having a pop at it - were simply submitted to the rough-and-tumble of testy journalistic debate.
Part of King's complaint is that during a lively interview in The Great Global Warming Swindle one of its contributors, Professor Frederick Singer, said we had now reached the mad situation where: `[T]he chief scientist of the UK [is] telling people that by the end of the century the only habitable place on the earth will be the Antarctic. And humanity may survive thanks to some breeding couples who moved to the Antarctic.'
King says he didn't say that. Well, not in so many words. What he actually said during a testimony to a House of Commons Select Committee in 2004 was this: `Fifty-five million years ago was a time when there was no ice on the earth; the Antarctic was the most habitable place for mammals, because it was the coolest place, and the rest of the earth was rather inhabitable because it was so hot. It is estimated that it [the carbon dioxide level] was roughly 1,000 parts per million then, and the important thing is that if we carry on business as usual we will hit 1,000 parts per million around the end of the century.'
In short? If we keep on driving, flying, building and consuming then the earth in 90 years' time will resemble the earth 55 million years ago - when the Antarctic was `the most habitable place for mammals'. Okay, King didn't say the Antarctic would become the `only habitable' place for humans but he did very strongly imply it would become the `most habitable' place.
And in a speech to the Climate Group in April 2004, he reportedly went a step farther. The Independent on Sunday of 2 May 2004 reported: `Antarctica is likely to be the world's only habitable continent by the end of this century if global warming remains unchecked, the government's chief scientist Sir David King said last week.' King never complained about that report.
As for the second sentence in Frederick Singer's contested interview - where he said `And humanity may survive thanks to some breeding couples who moved to the Antarctic' - this actually refers to a statement by James Lovelock, who said in 2006: `Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.'
Channel 4 says that, given that David King is on record as saying Antarctica could be the `only habitable place on earth' and `the rest of the globe could not sustain human life', it was not unreasonable to deduce that he, like Lovelock, was of the view that humanity could only survive if it started breeding in the Antarctic. Maybe. Maybe not. That point is up for debate. But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that in Durkin's film, King was simply paraphrased - and, yes, ridiculed - as part of a provocative, polemical interview. That kind of thing happens all the time.
Professor Wunsch complained that he was not told beforehand that the film was a polemic against global warming theories. That is unfortunate, but again it is quite common in journalism. Reporters frequently do not divulge their entire motivation when setting up interviews, because they know that if they did some interviewees would tell them to get stuffed.
Part of the IPCC's complaint is that one of the film's interviewees - Professor Philip Stott - said: `The IPCC, like any UN body, is political. The final conclusions are politically driven.' I'm sorry, but that is simply legitimate political criticism, whether the IPCC likes it or not. Why is a UN body, which is staffed by hundreds of people and funded by millions of pounds and which has access to thousands of normally compliant journalists, complaining to Ofcom about a 90-minute documentary shown on Channel 4? What is it saying exactly? That no one may criticise it, ever?
Of course it is very serious when journalists wilfully or maliciously misrepresent people's views, and when they do they should be reprimanded. Yet paraphrasing, mocking, criticising and not giving the entire reason for your investigations. if all of these journalistic tactics were censured every time they occurred, there would be no TV reporting left. Certainly there would be no documentaries worth watching.
The Ofcom report sends a clear message: climate experts are off limits. You can get your facts wrong; you can even use questionable graphs - but you must not be `unfair' to The Experts. It is striking how similar the new Climate Blasphemy is to the old religious blasphemy. It, too, is based on protecting named individuals from `scurrilous' or `hurtful' words. Those who commit Climate Blasphemy are said to have been duped or had their palms greased by wicked oil companies - the contemporary equivalent of saying they are possessed by the devil. And their utterances are said to threaten the survival of mankind - by giving people a green light to continue acting in an eco-irresponsible fashion - just as the old blasphemers were accused of jeopardising the saving of mankind with their warped, wicked words.
You don't have to endorse Durkin's film, or the `alternative' climate-change theories that he and others have put forward (I, for one, do not), to be concerned about the censuring of anyone who challenges any part of the politics or science of climate change today. Rather, this is about upholding openness, scepticism and the right to question everything, in the world of journalism and in the world of science.
Given today's blasphemous atmosphere, it is not surprising that serious voices are now calling for a law of blasphemy on environmental matters. Earlier this year in Philosophy Now, Paul Keeling said it might be time to restrict the `mockery of nature', by which he means `an insincere, disrespectful or trivialising portrayal of nature'. Such mockery `implicitly excuse[s] and perpetuate[s] our abuse of the natural world', he said, and by reining it in we could get rid of car adverts and holiday adverts and presumably pesky TV documentaries, too.
We've only just been liberated, far too late, from England's archaic laws of religious blasphemy. Let us not submit so easily to the informal laws of Climate Blasphemy emerging all around us.
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THE CLOWNS PLAY NANNY
The world's most feckless deliberative body, the New York City Council, is poised to pass an ordinance prohibiting large retailers from running in-store air-conditioning with their doors open - ostensibly to cut down on the city's "carbon footprint."
What's up with those losers, anyway? It's no idle question. Telling New Yorkers how to run their lives is just about the only thing council members seem interested in doing these days (at least when they're not busy trading taxpayer-funded pork projects for political chits). So it'd be of great interest whether they might fulfill the same carbon-cutting agenda simply by shutting their mouths once in a while.
That's unlikely, to put it mildly. Indeed, the sad fact is that Gotham's nannies-in-chief are already miles beyond parody. Just consider a measure recently introduced by Brooklyn's Domenic Recchia taking aim at what's apparently New York's next great health menace: Grapes. And peanuts.
No joke: Recchia's bill, if passed, would slap up to a $250 fine on merchants who fail to warn customers that certain products are a choking hazard for children under the age of 5. Which is about as close to a literal infantilization of ordinary New Yorkers as one's likely to see. Not to mention, an embarrassment to the city.
Ultimately, it reflects quite poorly on Council Speaker (and all-but-announced mayoral candidate) Christine Quinn. One wonders: If this is the kind of nonsense Quinn permits from the council, what are New Yorkers to expect if she ever gets to Gracie Mansion?
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NORDHAUS'S LESS-THAN-OPTIMAL CLIMATE STATEGY
While Nordhaus's prescription may indeed be the most "optimal economic approach" to slow global warming, it isn't the optimal approach to addressing global warming. This is because it ignores adaptation. Some adaptations may reduce climate change damages more efficiently than mitigation... emission reductions that seem to be optimal [under Nordhaus's strategy] in the absence of adaptation may, once adaptation is thrown into the mix, no longer be optimal.
The Nordhaus analysis probably overestimates climate change damages. Nordhaus acknowledges to having "relatively little confidence in our projections beyond 2050" yet he stretches his analysis to 2200. Sometimes such long-range analyses are justified on the grounds that that's the best that can be done. But even if that's so, it misses the real issue, namely, whether even the best available analysis is good enough for making trillion-dollar decisions which, moreover, extend out centuries hence. At these temporal distances, Nostradamus may be just as credible as Nordhaus, or Nicholas Stern, for that matter. Believing such analyses demands, in Coleridge's words, "willing suspension of disbelief." Instead of suspending disbelief and succumbing to gullibility, I would recommend a somewhat different approach.
More here
Small is not beautiful
A new report on the `way forward for agriculture' has been used to justify dragging farming backwards - to the detriment of the poor.
A report published last week by the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) has been cited as evidence that industrialised food production is screwing up the planet and impoverishing much of the world. Commentators and reporters have leapt upon the report to argue that the answer to the world's food problems is to have more small-scale production in the developing world and to reject many of the trappings of modern agriculture, including genetically modified (GM) crops. Is this really true? Or is this simply a case of environmental and development campaigners looking to impose their ideas on the Third World.
According to its website, the IAASTD is an `intergovernmental process with multi-stakeholder bureau comprised of 30 representatives from government and 30 from civil society', and it is based on `multiple international agency co-sponsorship (FAO, GEF, UNDP, UNEP, UNESCO, World Bank, and WHO)'. Earlier this month, delegates met for a week in Johannesburg to put the finishing touches to the `synthesis report' of the project. And like many international reports these days, it is borderline unintelligible.
For example, consider the following extract from its `Statement from Governments', which opens the executive summary and is reminiscent of the worst verbal mangling of the People's Front of Judea in Monty Python's Life of Brian: `This Assessment is a constructive initiative and important contribution that all governments need to take forward to ensure that agricultural knowledge, science and technology fulfils its potential to meet the development and sustainability goals of the reduction of hunger and poverty, the improvement of rural livelihoods and human health, and facilitating equitable, socially, environmentally and economically sustainable development.'
A more comprehensible summation of the report was provided by IAASTD director, Bob Watson, at the launch in London last week: `We tried to assess the implications of agricultural knowledge, science and technology both past, present and future on a series of very critical issues. These issues are hunger and poverty; rural livelihoods; nutrition and human health. The key point is how do we address these issues in a way that is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable?'
Watson is right to point out that our current system of food production is failing to meet the needs of many people. `The price of food, in real terms, has gone down', he said. `Even today, many food commodities are comparable to the early 1990s; so what's the problem? Well, we still have over 800million people going to bed hungry every night. There have been some successes but if we look at it on a region-by-region basis, there have been uneven results.' He also noted the ecological downsides to current methods of food production. `We have lost some of our environmental sustainability. There have been adverse effects in some parts of the world on soils, water, biodiversity; our agricultural systems have contributed to human-induced climate change and, in turn, human-induced climate change threatens agricultural productivity.'
Greenpeace, which was heavily involved in producing the IAASTD report, was clearly cock-a-hoop at the outcome, declaring that the report `recommends small-scale farmers and agro-ecological methods are the way forward if the current food crisis is to be solved and to meet the needs of local communities, declaring indigenous and local knowledge play as important a role as formal science. A significant departure from the destructive chemical-dependent, one-size-fits-all model of industrial agriculture.'
In fact, this kind of response is at odds with reality. The expansion of agricultural productivity has been most dramatic in the developed world, where the full benefits of mechanisation, economies of scale, chemical inputs and greater agricultural education have been experienced by many people. Local knowledge may be useful in tweaking general lessons to particular circumstances, but what is required, surely, is the spread of well-established scientific understanding to the poor, not a celebration of mysticism.
If anything, farmers in the Third World need more agricultural productivity and mechanisation, not less. The productivity of agriculture in the developed world has risen far faster than in the developing world. As one writer notes: `The ratio of the productivity of the most advanced capitalist segment of the world's agriculture to the poorest, which was around 10-to-one before 1940, is now approaching 2,000-to-one! That means that productivity has progressed much more unequally in the area of agriculture and food production than in any other area. Simultaneously this evolution has led to the reduction of the relative prices of food products (in relation to other industrial and service products) to one fifth of what they were 50 years ago.'
Nor is it at all clear that Big Agriculture in the developed world, which has an interest in being able to continue to produce food into the future, is particularly destructive. For example, high agricultural productivity in the developed world has tended to mean low prices, leading to the retirement of land from production altogether - there simply hasn't been the need to continue growing on it. Big, professional agricultural organisations can afford to think about soil quality and sustainability more than poor farmers who live hand-to-mouth. It is people living on the edge that have to get by, come what may; that may mean planting crops on land with declining fertility, cutting down trees for fuel and myriad other desperate measures just to survive.
In one respect, the IAASTD report is right. A major part of the solution to the world's food problems will come from raising productivity. It's just that an emphasis on small-scale, organic agriculture that rejects GM crops is unlikely to achieve that. Notably, the USA and China both refused to support the IAASTD's summary on biotechnology, saying that they `do not believe this entire section is balanced and comprehensive'. Syngenta, a leading biotech company, walked out on the process altogether. Deborah Keith, a Syngenta worker involved in the process, noted in New Scientist that `there was blatant disregard for the benefits of existing technologies, and for technology's potential to support agriculture's efforts to meet future crop needs. I think this was in part because the differences between various participants' perceptions about these technologies, and the scientific facts, were not maintained and highlighted. Sadly, social science seems to have taken the place of scientific analysis.'
On the other hand, even the most basic inputs can make a big difference. In Malawi, after a disastrous corn harvest in 2005, the government started providing subsidies for fertiliser. Combined with better rains, the country's output increased dramatically, allowing it to become an exporter and greatly reduce its dependence on aid - and all against the advice of major Western donors who have tried to encourage the country to grow cash crops for the world market instead without subsidies. Even if there were no wider reform of agricultural production, a more complete application of the best available technology would at least allow producers to make the most of what they have.
Indeed, a recognition of the failure to invest in agriculture is central to the World Bank's World Development Report 2008. World Bank president Robert Zoellick noted at the launch of the report that investment in agriculture in the developing world has borne little relation to the importance of the sector, mainly due to the policies of Western donors.
Technical fixes alone will not be enough to really transform the situation of agriculture in the developing world; the various regimes of subsidies and trade barriers, for example, hurt farmers and consumers in the developing world by effectively denying them access to major markets while allowing subsidised crops from the West to undermine local markets. But to reject the best available technology in favour of a romanticised view of farming - one that reflects the prejudices of Western NGOs far more than the interests of poor farmers - is even worse.
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NASA Climate Alarmist Attacks NewsBusters' Sheppard
Last Saturday, one of the nation's leading climate alarmists -- a government employee with a history of attacking people that don't agree with his views on anthropogenic global warming -- wrote rather disparagingly about a somewhat satirical NewsBusters piece. Despite claiming he typically doesn't comment on things "written about climate change in the more excitable parts of [sic] web," NASA's Gavin Schmidt took time out of his busy Saturday schedule to respond to something he described as "probably the most boneheaded article that I have seen in ages."
Was this an effort by one of the founding members of RealClimate - the world's leading website specializing in climate change hysteria - to correct errors he felt existed in my article? Or, was this a predictable attack on a popular conservative blog that not only regularly exposes the one-sided nature of media reports about global warming, but also frequently brings attention to studies that go counter to RealClimate's, and maybe more importantly, Schmidt's views?
After all, to climate alarmists like Schmidt, media shouldn't be reporting the realist (nee "skeptical") side of this issue as was made perfectly clear by Nobel Laureate Al Gore during an interview with NBC's Meredith Vieira during the November 5, 2007, installment of the "Today" show:
[P]art of the challenge the news media has had in covering this [global warming] story is the old habit of taking the "on the one hand, on the other hand" approach. There are still people who believe that the earth is flat. But when you're reporting on a story like the one you're covering today, where you have people all around the world, you don't take, you don't search out, for someone who still believes the earth is flat and give them equal time.
Ironically, even though Schmidt probably thinks NewsBusters and its readers believe the earth is flat, he did indeed search me out, and wrote:
I occasionally marvel at the amount of nonsense that is written about climate change in the more excitable parts of [sic] web, and most of the time, I don't bother to comment. But in relation to the issue of aerosols, chemistry and climate, I read yesterday (h/t Atmoz) probably the most boneheaded article that I have seen in ages (and that's saying a lot).
Schmidt then attacked my piece by employing a well-known albeit dishonest debate tactic of putting words in your opponent's mouth: "they confuse aerosols with photochemical smog." Did I? Well, not really. Although the word "aerosol" does appear in the NewScientist article I cited about cleaner air being responsible for rising temperatures in Europe, Reuters didn't mention "photochemical" in the piece I referenced concerning global warming increasing smog levels.and neither did I. This, of course, is why it's customary to cite, by direct quotation, when challenging a supposed mistake in another's work. I guess Schmidt is unaware of such journalistic etiquette.
It is also expected that when you suggest someone has misinterpreted articles written by others, you refer to and link to the same articles the author in question did. Schmidt didn't do this either:
The hook for this piece of foolishness were two interesting articles published this week by Ruckstuhl and colleagues and a draft EPA report on the impacts of climate on air quality.
No, not really, for the links inside "Ruckstuhl and colleagues" and "the impacts of climate on air quality" go to the American Geophysical Union and the National Center for Environmental Assessment respectively, the websites that published the studies in question. My piece linked to neither. Nice sleight of hand, wouldn't you agree?
Regardless of what was likely an innocent faux pas on Schmidt's part, assuming I had written about the relationship between aerosols and photochemical smog, it appears his concerns put him at odds with his beloved Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which defined the former:
A collection of airborne solid or liquid particles, with a typical size between 0.01 and 10 mm and residing in the atmosphere for at least several hours. Aerosols may be of either natural or anthropogenic origin. Aerosols may influence climate in two ways: directly through scattering and absorbing radiation, and indirectly through acting as condensation nuclei for cloud formation or modifying the optical properties and lifetime of clouds.
Embedded inside Schmidt's "photochemical smog" was a link that included the following (readers should take note that it goes to Wikipedia! Don't you love it when "scientists" use that website as a resource? We'll have more on that later.):
This forms when sunlight hits various pollutants in the air and forms a mix of inimical chemicals that can be very dangerous. A photochemical smog is the chemical reaction of sunlight, nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the atmosphere, which leaves airborne particles (called particulate matter) and ground-level ozone.
Nitrogen oxides are released by nitrogen and oxygen in the air reacting together under high temperature such as in the exhaust of fossil fuel-burning engines in cars, trucks, coal power plants, and industrial manufacturing factories. VOCs are released from man-made sources such as gasoline, paints, solvents, pesticides, and biogenic sources, such as pine and citrus tree emissions.
It would be interesting to get Schmidt's opinion about whether or not the "various pollutants in the air" described by Wikipedia fit under the IPCC's definition of aerosols? If so, aren't aerosols, therefore, involved in photochemical smog?
Speaking of Wikipedia and its use by folks like Schmidt, Lawrence Solomon wrote on July 8 about how this website is used by climate alarmists to spread misinformation about global warming around the world:
Ever wonder how Al Gore, the United Nations, and company continue to get away with their claim of a "scientific consensus" confirming their doomsday view of global warming? Look no farther than Wikipedia for a stunning example of how the global-warming propaganda machine works.
Not surprisingly, RealClimate recommends Wikipedia as a resource "that people can use to get up to speed on the issue of climate change." Nothing like indoctrinating folks by sending them to sources that almost completely and exclusively agree with your views, don't you think?
Moving forward, Schmidt was also displeased by the following in my piece:
The next error is to equate changes in temperatures in Europe to the globe. While it would be true that if global aerosol levels declined it would lead to increased global warming, aerosol trends in Asia are increasing strongly, even while those in the US and Europe are dropping. The net effect is possibly a slight drop, but the impact on global temperature is as yet unclear.
This represented either a lack of arithmetic acumen that is totally astounding for someone of Schmidt's stature, or another attempt to discredit NewsBusters by misrepresenting the truth: since global temperature is an average of data-points around the world, a temperature increase in Europe due to cleaner air DOES drive up the mean. Any suggestion to the contrary is totally devoid of logic.
Does that mean the average can't drop? Certainly not. But, it assures that such a declining average is still HIGHER than what it would be if that continent's numbers were not being positively skewed by cleaner air. Moving forward, along with irony and simple arithmetic calculations, it appears hypothetical questions also challenge Schmidt, for as part of my conclusion, I posed the following:
Wouldn't it be fascinating if such efforts [involved in complying with the Montreal Protocol] lead to cleaner air around the world which ended up warming the planet, and that additional warmth is now breaking down the very ozone we thought we could save?
Schmidt seemed to miss the importance of the question-mark in that suggestion:
Every part of this sentence is wrong. The Montreal Protocol had no impact on cleaning the air, it stopped the growth of CFCs which are powerful greenhouse gases (in addition to their role in depleting stratospheric ozone), therefore it slowed global warming, rather than increasing it, and we aren't trying to save ground-level ozone. Had any of this been true it would indeed have been fascinating.
"Had any of this been true it would indeed have been fascinating." And that, indeed, was the point - wouldn't it be fascinating if true, especially since it might be? For instance, since Schmidt loves Wikipedia as a scientific source, it defines the 1990 Clean Air Act as "a piece of United States environmental policy relating to the reduction of smog and air pollution."
Smog and air pollution. Taking this a step further, isn't it interesting that the Act directly discussed the Montreal Protocol, as well as ozone protection:
In June 1989 President Bush proposed sweeping revisions to the Clean Air Act. Building on Congressional proposals advanced during the 1980s, the President proposed legislation designed to curb three major threats to the nation's environment and to the health of millions of Americans: acid rain, urban air pollution, and toxic air emissions. The proposal also called for establishing a national permits program to make the law more workable, and an improved enforcement program to help ensure better compliance with the Act.
By large votes, both the House of Representatives (401-21) and the Senate (89-11) passed Clean Air bills that contained the major components of the President's proposals. Both bills also added provisions requiring the phaseout of ozone-depleting chemicals, roughly according to the schedule outlined in international negotiations (Revised Montreal Protocol). [...]
The most widespread and persistent urban pollution problem is ozone. The causes of this and the lesser problem of carbon monoxide (CO) and particulate matter (PM-10) pollution in our urban areas are largely due to the diversity and number of urban air pollution sources. One component of urban smog - hydrocarbons - comes from automobile emissions, petroleum refineries, chemical plants, dry cleaners, gasoline stations, house painting and printing shops. Another key component - nitrogen oxides - comes from the combustion of fuel for transportation, utilities and industries.
Let's recap the history of this Act, shall we?
The Montreal Protocol went into effect January 1, 1989, with the first meeting in Helsinki, Finland, in May of that year. The following month, President George H. W. Bush proposed a new Clean Air Act, signed into law in 1990, which, along with addressing ozone depletion and meeting the requirements of this Protocol, allowed the EPA to establish limits on the quantity of any pollutant that can be present in the air anywhere in this nation.
As a result, as far as the U.S. is concerned, the program designed to comply with the Montreal Protocol did IN FACT result in cleaner air. I guess Schmidt hadn't heard about this; it makes one wonder how many other nations did the very same thing at the very same time thereby making my hypothetical question even more fascinating.
In the end, two articles were published last week -- by NewScientist and Reuters -- which provided an example of just how contradictory global warming information can be, and why the assertion "the debate is over" defies reason. Yet, folks like Schmidt want people to think there's actually a consensus concerning this matter.
It seems obvious from their behavior, and from this piece by Schmidt, that one way alarmists create the appearance of a consensus is by attacking anyone that doesn't agree with them.
Maybe it's because some of these folks demolished Schmidt and two of his fellow alarmists in a March 2007 debate in New York City. Representing the realists at that event was Richard Lindzen, who Schmidt attacked the very next month. In fact, attacking the opposition seems to be a prerequisite at RealClimate as Roger Pielke, Jr., wrote on January 14, 2005:
The site's focus has been exclusively on attacking those who invoke science as the basis for their opposition to action on climate change, folks such as George Will, Senator James Inhofe, Michael Crichton, McIntyre and McKitrick, Fox News, and Myron Ebell. Whether intended or not, the site has clearly aligned itself squarely with one political position on climate change.
I guess this puts me in good company. Yet, potentially more disturbing is the power RealClimate has within the mainstream media, as well as who appears to be funding and/or supporting this website. Press members love to cite RealClimate as the final word on global warming, and virtually always refer to it and its writers in nothing but glowing terms as this piece at Time.com demonstrates:
The Internet wasn't invented for RealClimate specifically, but it's hard to imagine a site more in line with the Web's original purpose: scientific communication. An assembly of climate researchers gives readers what's lacking virtually everywhere else - straightforward presentation of the physical evidence for global warming, discussed with patience, precision and rigor.
Yes, a straightforward presentation that gives readers only one side of this controversial issue, a fact that some believe is guided by those behind RealClimate. In a February 14, 2005, article about the debate concerning Michael Mann's "hockey stick" theory of global temperatures -- which alarmists like Gore and Schmidt base much of their hysteria on, and was thoroughly debunked by Steven McIntyre and Ross McKitrick - the Wall Street Journal reported:
On a Web site launched with the help of an environmental group (www.realclimate.org), [Mann] has sought to debunk the debunking, and counter what he calls a campaign by fossil-fuel interests to discredit his work.
The folks at RealClimate responded quickly to this accusation:
Readers of the Feb. 14th, 2005 Wall Street Journal may have gotten the impression that RealClimate is in some way affiliated with an environmental organisation. We wish to stress that although our domain is being hosted by Environmental Media Services, and our initial press release was organised for us by Fenton Communications, neither organization was in any way involved in the initial planning for RealClimate, and have never had any editorial or other control over content. Neither Fenton nor EMS has ever paid any contributor to RealClimate.org any money for any purpose at any time. Neither do they pay us expenses, buy our lunch or contract us to do research.
Maybe so, but ActivistCash.com wrote the following about EMS et al:
EMS is the communications arm of leftist public relations firm Fenton Communications. Based in Washington, in the same office suite as Fenton, EMS claims to be "providing journalists with the most current information on environmental issues." A more accurate assessment might be that it spoon-feeds the news media sensationalized stories, based on questionable science, and featuring activist "experts," all designed to promote and enrich David Fenton's paying clients, and build credibility for the nonprofit ones. It's a clever racket, and EMS & Fenton have been running it since 1994.
It's called "black marketing," and Environmental Media Services has become the principal reason Fenton Communications is so good at it. EMS lends an air of legitimacy to what might otherwise be dismissed (and rightly so) as fear-mongering from the lunatic fringe. In addition to pre-packaged "story ideas" for the mass media, EMS provides commentaries, briefing papers, and even a stable of experts, all carefully calculated to win points for paying clients. These "experts," though, are also part of the ruse. Over 70% of them earn their paychecks from current or past Fenton clients, all of which have a financial stake in seeing to it that the scare tactics prevail. It's a clever deception perpetrated on journalists who generally don't consider do-gooder environmentalists to be capable of such blatant and duplicitous "spin."
[W]hile Environmental Media Services was started, and is still run, by staffers of Fenton Communications, it was officially instituted as a "project" of the Tides Center in 1994. This gave Fenton some plausible deniability and initially shielded him from the suggestion that EMS was just a shill for his clients. It has also provided a ready-made funding mechanism for foundations, "progressive" companies, and other Fenton clients who don't want their contributions to EMS noted for the public record [Editor's note: despite the logistical roadblocks set up by Tides, our research still has been able to reverse-engineer several million dollars in foundation grants to EMS].
For those that have forgotten, Tides is the far-left organization Teresa Heinz-Kerry contributes millions of her former husband's fortune to. Making things more interesting, the founder of EMS, Arlie Schardt, has "moonlighted" as a project director for Tides:
Schardt's career connections have resulted in a collaboration that has made EMS much more influential than its small size would suggest. Schardt, moonlighting as a project director at the Tides Center, saw just a hair under $1 million directed from Tides to EMS in 1999.
Upping the ante, Schardt has ties to Al Gore and the environmental group Friends of the Earth which runs BushGreenwatch.org. This is significant, for the EMS employee that registered RealClimate's domain name, Betsy Ensley, "manages BushGreenwatch.org, a joint EMS-MoveOn.org public awareness website."
As for Fenton Communications, recent announcements at its website are sure to raise some eyebrows. For instance, "Fenton Communications Launches Green-Tech Division" from May 27:
Fenton Communications has been deeply involved in environmental issues since its founding in 1982. The firm publicized the first reports of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, helped environmental NGOs at the Kyoto Global Warming Summit, and worked with Vice-President Al Gore to publicize the issues.
Or how about "Ad Age: Fenton, MoveOn Form Democratic Advertising Network to Help Win 2008 Elections from May 6:
Fenton Communications and client MoveOn.org announced today that the still unnamed "network" would use mainstream advertising executives to help produce advertising to help change the playing field this year.
At the moment, the team has no clear candidate to support. So it will go after presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain. Mr. Fenton said the first ads to come out of the group will be aimed at McCain, "telling the truth about John McCain and his policies, some about McCain's reputation and his turnabout on bunch of positions as he panders to the right."
While MoveOn isn't going to be the only group to use the team, MoveOn will get the first ads, which the team hopes to have ready within six weeks.
Add it all up, and although RealClimate's website is hosted and supported by an organization with ties to Al Gore, George Soros's MoveOn.org, Tides, Friends of the Earth, and Fenton Communications, I'm sure none of these entities has any involvement in its content or funding. If you believe that, you probably also think humans can control the temperature of the planet.
Source
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For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.
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Monday, September 01, 2008
GLOBAL COOLING CONTINUES TO SHOW UP IN AUSTRALIA
Unusually cool weather from North to South in Australia. See three current reports below. And Australia is a big slice of the earth's landmass. See map.
Up until a couple of years ago, even isolated episodes of hot weather were proclaimed as "proof" of global warming. Now, however, we have endless reports of unusually cold weather from all over the world but they are always attributed to "normal variation". Could it be clearer that we are dealing with Leftist politics rather than science?
Coldest South Australian August in 35 years
ADELAIDE has recorded its coldest August in more than 35 years. The city had an average temperature of 14.8C for the last month of winter. That compared with a usual average of 16.6C for August. Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Allan Beattie said the previous record for a cold August was in 1970 when the average temperature was 14.4C. But the coldest August was in 1951 when the average temperature was 14.1C.
Adelaide's winter this year also had a below-average temperature of 15.5C, compared with the usual average of 16C. Last month was also wetter than usual for August. Adelaide received 85mm of rain compared with an average of 66.5mm, the wettest August since 2005. However, winter as a whole received average rainfall of 222mm of rain.
Adelaide's coldest maximum temperature this winter was 11.1C on July 7, Mr Beattie said, while the coldest minimum temperature was 0.7C on July 28.
Source
Sydney August was coldest in 64 years
SYDNEY'S global warming sceptics have a new bit of ammunition - the harbour city just experienced its coldest August in 64 years. But the skies are expected to clear in September, that is once the current rainy spell clears later this week. With official monthly figures released today, meteorologists say Sydney is likely to clock an average temperature of 12.7C, the lowest since World War II.
Some suburbs experienced their chilliest August on record including Canterbury, Homebush, Penrith, and Richmond - all which started keeping records 12 years ago, along with Bankstown, Parramatta and Prospect Dam, which began keeping records 37 years ago. "They broke minimum temperature records," Weatherzone meteorologist Matt Pearce said.
He said the extreme - by NSW standards - cold was caused by a "longways trough", a large system pushing west to east, over the state. "There's no real indication that September's going to be as cold as August was."
Source
Brisbane records coldest August in eight years
THE weather experts have confirmed what Brisbane people suspected - the city has just shivered through its coldest August in at least eight years. It also was the driest since 2001, with Brisbane picking up just 16mm of rain, below the long-term norm of 35mm.
Brisbane recorded an average minimum of 9C and an average maximum of 22C, slightly down on the long-term normal temperature for the month of 23C, Weatherzone meteorologist Matt Pearce said. "This made it the coolest August in terms of daytime temperatures since records began at the site in 2000," he said. "In fact, on the 18th, the temperature struggled to just 17C - the coldest August day in three years."
August nights also were cool in Brisbane. Gladstone, Yeppoon, Emerald, Toowoomba and Rainbow Beach also set record August lows. Wetter and warmer conditions are expected for the first week of September, with rain and maximum temperatures of 19C to 21C forecast to Friday.
Source
Has Autumn come early to Britain?
With purple blooms of heather on the hills, crops of berries in the hedgerows and huge numbers of fungi fruiting around the country, the British countryside looks to have entered Autumn a month earlier than normal
Botanists and phenologists are reporting that the recent unseasonably miserable summer weather has caused widespread disruption to the normal ebb and flow of Britain's flora and fauna. On the rolling moors of Scotland and Yorkshire, dramatic blooms of heather have come out far earlier than normal while wild berries, which are normally the harbingers of autumn, have appeared on bushes nearly two weeks ahead of schedule.
Fungi has also enjoyed a bumper year and has been spotted sprouting on lawns and meadows in huge numbers for this time of the season. Mosses and liverworts in woodlands, which are normally shrivelled and dry over the summer months, have also flourished in the wet and humid August this year.
Botanists have reported unusual behaviour from flowers such as wood cranesbill and wisteria which have flowered twice within a few months. They believe the unsettled conditions have tricked the plants into believing it is spring again.
David Knot, curator of outdoor collections at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh, said: "We had an excellent spring and together with the wet and humid summer it has led to a really good growing year. "In the south east of Scotland the wet conditions seem to have caused the fungi to appear in quite large numbers and the heather on the hills is looking spectacular."
But the abnormal August weather has also caused concern for some of the country's best loved animals and birds. Moth numbers have been drastically low, with some wildlife centres reporting half the average number of the insects compared to the previous 20 years. The early berry season has also worried some wildlife experts who fear that the crops, which provide vital food for animals and birds in the lead up to the cold winter months, may disappear too early. Dave Leech, head of the nest record scheme at the British Trust for Ornithology, said: "If the berry crop is extended then it could be a very good year for birds that eat them, as it will help them survive the winter, but if is early and short then it could be tough. "This year has been a poor breeding year for many birds like robins and blackbirds."
At the Cumbria Wildlife Trust's garden in Plumgarth, staff have reported lush moss carpets beneath the trees while rowan trees in the region have produced displays of golden-orange berries due to the mild and wet summer. Peter Bullard, director of the trust, said: "The other strange thing is that quite a few early summer flowers are reflowering. Wood cranesbill usually flowers in early June in Cumbria, making the roadsides a beautiful pale purple. This August the wood cranesbills have started flowering again, as have the wisteria. It's like a second spring, without a winter."
Mushrooms and fungi have sprung up in fields and woods in huge numbers in many parts of the country. Fungi often remain dormant beneath the ground for years until they get wet enough conditions to fruit, but the wet and humid weather has been perfect. The Woodland Trust, which runs a project monitoring reports of the changing seasons, has already had five reports of the fly agaric fungus, which is normally seen in September and October. The project has also received 465 records of ripe autumn berries appearing on a range of plant species, with the first appearing in Portsmouth on 13 July. Last year the first report of a ripe autumn berry was on 19 August.
In southern England, leaves on some trees have also started to change colour, but Dr Kate Lewthwaite, manager of the Nature's Calendar Project at the Woodland Trust, said this was mainly due to poor sunlight levels through the past month. She said: "It is not yet cold enough for the leaves to start changing colour, although species like the horse chestnut have had a bad year with diseases like bleeding canker and leaf miner."
This August has been far wetter than average. The daytime temperatures have also been cooler than normal but the nights have been warmer. In England the maximum temperature this August has been more than a degree cooler than the average reading of 19.6C. But forecasters claim that far from facing an early start to autumn, Britain could expect to enjoy an Indian summer with warmer, sunnier conditions returning to the country through September.
A spokesman for the Met Office said: "It has been a very wet and humid August, but it is well within the natural variance of a British summer. The start of September is looking considerably better and more settled so we can expect it to be warmer with more sunshine."
Source
August skiing in Europe?
Warm temperatures on Europe's glaciers have led some summer ski resorts to close early, but the majority remain open and the leading snow-reporting service Skiinfo.com has snow depth details for all of them. The company tracks snow conditions several times daily, year round, at more than a thousand European ski resorts, including the dozen that are currently offering summer snow sports. Remarkably, ski areas in Austria, France, Italy and Switzerland have all reported fresh snow falling at times over the past fortnight.
The Tux glacier in Austria was amongst those recording fresh snowfall in the past week, topping up snow depths on the glacier to 105cm. Although temperatures have been variable, reaching +9C degrees at the bottom of the glacier ski area and +4C at the top, the centre currently has 13km of piste open , served by the three giant Glacier Bus lifts, one chair and five drag lifts. The ski day starts at 8.15 in the morning with the ski area winding down by 1pm daily because of the heat. The action then moves to the Treffpunkt Panoramaterrasse restaurant which also has specials on between 11am and 1pm. The lifts back down run to 4.30pm so there's no need to hurry!
You can also ski on the Dachstein Glacier, which has two kilometers of piste on a 180cm base available although the terrain park is now closed until (hopefully) September. The Molltal glacier is currently running three lifts, serving nine kilometers of slopes. A fourth choice, Kaprun, has about 70cm of snow on the Kitzsteinhorn glacier and five runs open served by six lifts. Several more glacier ski areas in Austria are due to re-open in September, including the Kaunertal, Pitztal and Stubai areas...
The Matterhorn Ski Paradise in Switzerland, above Zermatt and also accessed from Cervinia in Italy, is Europe's highest ski area, one of the largest summer snow operators, and one of the few remaining year-round operators. Following recent snowfalls glacier snow depths are around 190cm with 10km of runs available served by six lifts. The resort is currently installing a pioneering new snowmaking system from Israel that can make snow in plus temperatures which the resort hopes will bridge a piste-gap that has grown at the base of the glacier where it has melted away, so skiers no longer need to walk to the lift station but can ski there as they could 20 years ago.
Norway's three summer ski destinations remain open. Galdhoppigen has two kilometers of skiing and a snow depth of 180cm, Folgefonn four kilometers of piste and a snow depth of 120cm and Stryn five kilometres and a 150cm base.
More here
North Pole to remain frozen
Another Warmist prediction fails
Santa can rest easy. It’s looking like the ice at the North Pole won’t melt to water next month, as had been feared. It would have been the first time in thousands of years that the most northerly place on the planet would have been ice-free.“It’s quite unlikely at this point,” Walt Meier a research scientist at the University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Center, said today.
The ice in the Arctic Ocean is at near historic lows, and breaks records every couple of years due to human-caused global warming, the scientists at NSIDC say. This spring, it was looking like the ice might retreat so far that the North Pole itself would be ice-free for at least a day in September – the height of the ice-melt season. The chances were great enough that the scientists at NSIDC were laying almost even odds on it in an office pool.
But while global warming is playing an important role, seasonal variability does, too. And this summer turned out to be a little cooler than last summer, when the record for ice retreat was set, Meier said. “We only have about two or three weeks more of ice melt, and it’s not going to make it to the North Pole,” Meier said.
The Arctic Ocean has two types of ice. One type is the seasonal ice that starts forming in late September, typically reaches 10 to 15 feet thick, and may or may not survive the summer’s heat. The second type is the perennial ice that lasts year after year -- at least it has until the last couple decades when so much of it has melted.
NSIDC scientists got interested in a possibly ice-free North Pole this year when they noticed that that perennial ice had retreated south of the North Pole. That left only the seasonal ice. But the season was cooler than expected, so the seasonal ice is holding. “We’re not going to set a record every year,” Meier said.
More here
Record low for climate science
By Patrick Michaels
Ever since Soviet and Western climate scientists published the first international compendium on global warming, back in 1985, we have known that scaring people to death is very good for the environmentalist business. Such documents appear once or twice a year under the aegis of sundry governmental and international agencies, such as the United States' Climate Change Science Program (CCSP)...
Having been a climate scientist for about as long as these documents have been around, I have had the opportunity to review and comment on many documents that do this - not that my comments are listened to very much. I found two changes in the thousands of pages of the last (2007) IPCC report - after I sent in a 30,000-word point-by-point review. I'll be lucky to get even that much attention after my equally long critique of a new CCSP report, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. The sum of my analysis: This is the worst document in this genre I have ever seen. By comparison, it makes the 1962 Mets (or, for that matter, 2008's Washington Nationals) paragons of professional excellence.
Virtually every sentence can be contested or simply ignores published science that disagrees with CCSP's preconceived message. In its own words: "Aggressive near-term actions would be required to alter the future path of human-induced warming... future generations will inherit the legacy of our decisions." If "future generations" and "legacy of our decisions" sound more to you like politics rather than science, you're correct. The CCSP report isn't a science document at all. Not unless global warming science is a virtually one-sided world where almost everything is bad and getting worse, and where a moderate response dishonors our progenitors.
Of course, this can't be. Global warming lengthens growing seasons. Carbon dioxide, the cause of (part of the) warming (dormant for 11 years now) clearly improves crop yields in a world where stupid global warming policies (like burning our food supply in cars) are increasing food scarcity. If they have the money, by and large, Americans move to a warmer climate. And so on - which is why the CCSP document and the delete key should become intimate friends.
How did such a remarkable distortion see the light day? The "product lead" is Tom Karl, who heads the Commerce Department's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. He is perhaps the most political and politically savvy climate scientist in U.S. history. When Al Gore was vice president, he would issue monthly briefings on the horrors of climate change. When Mr. Gore exaggerated some local flood, or claimed Florida would burn because of global warming, Mr. Karl stood by and remained mute. But now, with the prospect of an increasingly Democratic Senate, and a president who will go along with the madness of climatically futile policies (Barack Obama or John McCain on global warming? Pick em!), Mr. Karl and CCSP have picked up the scent.
From a policy viewpoint, it's even worse. The current administration has punted to the next president the question of what rules EPA should make about global warming. All the levers of political power - the presidency, Congress and the relevant agencies - are therefore all pointed in the same direction. All will cite the CCSP as their bible, and anyone who voices a more factual opinion will in fact be marginalized as insane.
Want more evidence as to the perfidy of the CCSP process? The senior editor is no climate scientist; it's Susan J. Hassol, who wrote the HBO global warming "documentary," "Too Hot Not to Handle." Laurie David, the force behind Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," was the executive producer. This isn't science, it's science fiction. The first illustration inside the front cover gives away the spin. It's a picture of people of as many races and sexes as possible holding hands. What that has to do with climate change science is a mystery, but it certainly reflects a political view.
The draft CCSP report knowingly uses Photoshopped imagery of a flood, uncritically publishes a misleading temperature history, which splices together two completely different sets of climate data, and generally assumes people are stupid.
There's a wonderful picture on Page 55 of two senior citizens, captioned: "The elderly are especially vulnerable to extreme heat." If that's true, then there must be massive and increasing numbers of heat-related fatalities in hot cities with old populations. In fact, Tampa and Phoenix have a disproportionately elderly population and very few heat-related deaths; statistically, Tampa has the fewest of any major U.S. city. It may shock the CCSP, but when heat waves become more frequent, people change their habits and localities adapt their infrastructure to better deal with the heat.
Trash the entire report. It's neither scientific nor logical. It's a political document. Send the product lead back to Asheville and the senior editor back to Hollywood. But of course, that won't happen. Instead, the CCSP report and its production team will be lionized. It will serve as the basis for the most onerous environmental legislation and regulations in U.S. history. And when historians look back at a nation made poorer by foolish policies (which themselves will have no effect on warming), they will wonder how climate science could have gone so far into the wilderness of politics.
Source
AS ENERGY CRISIS LOOMS, EU LAWMAKERS MULL REVERSING CLIMATE POLICY
The European Union's main tool against global warming could be altered to lighten the impact on heavy industry and reduce the chances of the EU tightening its CO2 reduction goals, a document seen by Reuters shows. As part of its drive to lead the world in fighting climate change, the 27-country EU has committed to cutting carbon dioxide emissions by one fifth by 2020, compared to 1990 levels. It is also considering increasing the cut to 30 percent if big countries such as China and the United States commit to their own reductions.
But members of the European Parliament's influential industry committee are mulling an amendment that would demand a full impact assessment before cutting beyond 20 percent. Any such move to extend cuts would also be subjected to full legislative scrutiny by the EU's member states and EU lawmakers before becoming law.
Industry committee members returning to work this week are also considering amendments to alter the EU's flagship Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) so it has less impact on energy-intensive industries such as steel. The ETS seeks to put a cap on EU emissions by making polluters pay for permits to emit carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas blamed for climate change. The power sector, which now gets most of its permits for free, will have to pay for all of them from 2013, under European Commission proposals.
The power sector passes on the extra cost of carbon emissions permits to consumers, but companies which operate in globally competitive markets such as the steel sector are less able to do that. EU steelmakers say the current plans could cost the sector more than 50 billion euros ($78 billion) between 2013 and 2020 and put thousands of jobs at risk. The European Commission is considering whether to allow steel and other energy-intensive industry to continue to get free permits from 2013. The steel industry is particularly worried changes would require steelmakers to buy CO2 emissions permits for electricity that it produces by recycling waste gas from blast furnaces.
But the industry committee's proposed changes would exempt "electricity produced either in connection with industrial heat or from residues from an industrial process including waste gases", the parliamentary document of "compromise amendments" shows. Steelmakers say the Commission's plan to make power generators buy 100 percent of their emissions allowances at auction from 2013 would particularly raise costs for the most environmentally efficient electric arc furnaces that produce steel from scrap.
But the proposed amendments would allow the Commission to "allocate additional allowances to these installations to take into account the effect of pass through of the cost of allowances in the electricity price."
Source
BRITISH HOUSEHOLDS PAYING $1,600 TOO MUCH IN GREEN TAXES, SAYS REPORT
Households are paying hundreds of pounds more in "green taxes" than is justified by the environmental cost of their carbon emissions, a new study claims today. The Taxpayers' Alliance has calculated that every household in the UK is paying as much as $1600 a year more in environmental taxes than is necessary. Its analysis claims the Treasury made $40 billion in "excess" revenue from environmental taxes last year - from supposedly "green" levies on motoring, energy bills and waste disposal.
The report is the latest attack on the Government's use of green taxes and will strengthen suspicions that ministers are using the environment as a cover for revenue-raising measures. The TPA said its figures showed ministers were "wrapping revenue-raising tax hikes in a green banner." However, the Treasury rejected the group's figures as misleading.
More here
An academic's duty is to truth, not trends
By Bjorn Lomborg
Gary Yohe says I am a global warming naysayer - but just because a political movement has clarity, doesn't mean it's smart
Gary Yohe claims that I misrepresent and deliberately distort his findings. Curiously, the only example he submits is one in which I quote him correctly. While debating with Oliver Tickell in these pages, I referred to Yohe's paper. I said that "global warming will continue to be a net benefit until about 2070". Yohe finds that this is a "deliberate distortion of our conclusions". However, the paper he prepared for Copenhagen Consensus 2008 indeed shows that until about 2070, the net effect of climate change on global GDP is positive (see Figure 4.1, p25). It is - according to Yohe's own estimates - not until after 2070 that the net impact of climate change becomes negative. It is surprising that Yohe takes issue with my repetition of his own findings.
Yohe goes on to say that I distort his message because the distribution of the benefit is not equally felt. High latitude (often rich) countries will gain disproportionately, whereas low latitude (often poor) nations will gain less or lose. This is a point I have made countless times - but was not the debate in which I engaged Tickell. To claim that I am deliberately misrepresenting a statement by reproducing Yohe's own figure is simply wrong. To claim that whenever one talks about one climate change issue (net benefits) one must also talk about another (distribution of benefits) seems feebly engineered to allow complete control over any climate debate.
In the article that Yohe takes issue with, I described the goals and outcome of the Copenhagen Consensus 2008. The project clearly demonstrates that there are many ways to help the poor much better than by addressing climate change through mitigation. (Instead of avoiding a couple of thousand extra malaria deaths in a century through expensive CO2 cuts, maybe we should avoid a million malaria deaths now through low-cost health policies.)
I wrote that "the best climate solution from the top economists from the Copenhagen Consensus" shows that "we should focus on investing in finding cheaper low-carbon energy". Yohe claims that this misrepresents his findings. It does not, because in this instance I am not referring to his work. Let me explain.
Copenhagen Consensus is an effort to rank solutions between different major world problems, to identify the investments that would do the most good for the planet. Charles Krauthammer from the Washington Post has called it a "thought Olympics" because it makes academics from a lot of different fields compete to identify the best use of the world's scarce resources. We ask not only smart climate economists like Yohe to present their recommendations on climate, but also smart health economists to submit the smartest investments that could be made to tackle major world health issues. Eight of the world's best economists, including five Nobel Laureates, listened to all these recommendations and ranked the best investments for humanity. Unsurprisingly, the climate specialists would like to see their proposals ranked first, as would the health economists and everyone else. As in the real Olympics, not only is there a winner at the top of the podium, but there are also proposals that come in last. The proposals from Yohe came in at the bottom two places.
However, Professor Chris Green of McGill University showed that focusing much more on energy R&D, followed by eventual CO2 cuts, had a dramatically higher benefit for mankind - the estimate was three to four times better than Yohe's estimates for his solutions. This recommendation was ranked much more promising (at place 14 though by no means highest) by the Copenhagen Consensus panel. And this was the solution I was referring to.
Yohe claims that I say reducing CO2 emissions is a waste of resources. I have repeatedly gone on record arguing for a small reduction in emissions - it is a large reduction that I believe is a waste. And this is exactly what came out of Yohe's own analysis, showing that for each dollar spent on a simple reduction in carbon emissions, we would achieve about 90 cents worth of benefits.
After accusing me incorrectly of misquoting him, Yohe claims that I dismiss efforts to craft a global carbon cap as "constant outbidding by frantic campaigners". As Yohe should be aware, this quote refers to a debate with campaigners like Tickell who argue that a 4 degrees temperature rise would mean sea level rises of 70 metres and the extinction of the human race. Yohe, to his credit, makes no such claims, as he also follows the IPCC findings.
Yohe finally states sweepingly that there is now general agreement that we need a comprehensive solution to global warming, ostensibly involving immediate cuts in CO2. He laments that I am apparently a naysayer, who is confusing this "momentum and clarity". Of course, there have been many political movements in history with substantial momentum and clarity, and it doesn't mean they were all smart. It is an academic's duty not to be swept up in the tide but to state the evidence
Source
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For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.
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Unusually cool weather from North to South in Australia. See three current reports below. And Australia is a big slice of the earth's landmass. See map.
Up until a couple of years ago, even isolated episodes of hot weather were proclaimed as "proof" of global warming. Now, however, we have endless reports of unusually cold weather from all over the world but they are always attributed to "normal variation". Could it be clearer that we are dealing with Leftist politics rather than science?
Coldest South Australian August in 35 years
ADELAIDE has recorded its coldest August in more than 35 years. The city had an average temperature of 14.8C for the last month of winter. That compared with a usual average of 16.6C for August. Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Allan Beattie said the previous record for a cold August was in 1970 when the average temperature was 14.4C. But the coldest August was in 1951 when the average temperature was 14.1C.
Adelaide's winter this year also had a below-average temperature of 15.5C, compared with the usual average of 16C. Last month was also wetter than usual for August. Adelaide received 85mm of rain compared with an average of 66.5mm, the wettest August since 2005. However, winter as a whole received average rainfall of 222mm of rain.
Adelaide's coldest maximum temperature this winter was 11.1C on July 7, Mr Beattie said, while the coldest minimum temperature was 0.7C on July 28.
Source
Sydney August was coldest in 64 years
SYDNEY'S global warming sceptics have a new bit of ammunition - the harbour city just experienced its coldest August in 64 years. But the skies are expected to clear in September, that is once the current rainy spell clears later this week. With official monthly figures released today, meteorologists say Sydney is likely to clock an average temperature of 12.7C, the lowest since World War II.
Some suburbs experienced their chilliest August on record including Canterbury, Homebush, Penrith, and Richmond - all which started keeping records 12 years ago, along with Bankstown, Parramatta and Prospect Dam, which began keeping records 37 years ago. "They broke minimum temperature records," Weatherzone meteorologist Matt Pearce said.
He said the extreme - by NSW standards - cold was caused by a "longways trough", a large system pushing west to east, over the state. "There's no real indication that September's going to be as cold as August was."
Source
Brisbane records coldest August in eight years
THE weather experts have confirmed what Brisbane people suspected - the city has just shivered through its coldest August in at least eight years. It also was the driest since 2001, with Brisbane picking up just 16mm of rain, below the long-term norm of 35mm.
Brisbane recorded an average minimum of 9C and an average maximum of 22C, slightly down on the long-term normal temperature for the month of 23C, Weatherzone meteorologist Matt Pearce said. "This made it the coolest August in terms of daytime temperatures since records began at the site in 2000," he said. "In fact, on the 18th, the temperature struggled to just 17C - the coldest August day in three years."
August nights also were cool in Brisbane. Gladstone, Yeppoon, Emerald, Toowoomba and Rainbow Beach also set record August lows. Wetter and warmer conditions are expected for the first week of September, with rain and maximum temperatures of 19C to 21C forecast to Friday.
Source
Has Autumn come early to Britain?
With purple blooms of heather on the hills, crops of berries in the hedgerows and huge numbers of fungi fruiting around the country, the British countryside looks to have entered Autumn a month earlier than normal
Botanists and phenologists are reporting that the recent unseasonably miserable summer weather has caused widespread disruption to the normal ebb and flow of Britain's flora and fauna. On the rolling moors of Scotland and Yorkshire, dramatic blooms of heather have come out far earlier than normal while wild berries, which are normally the harbingers of autumn, have appeared on bushes nearly two weeks ahead of schedule.
Fungi has also enjoyed a bumper year and has been spotted sprouting on lawns and meadows in huge numbers for this time of the season. Mosses and liverworts in woodlands, which are normally shrivelled and dry over the summer months, have also flourished in the wet and humid August this year.
Botanists have reported unusual behaviour from flowers such as wood cranesbill and wisteria which have flowered twice within a few months. They believe the unsettled conditions have tricked the plants into believing it is spring again.
David Knot, curator of outdoor collections at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh, said: "We had an excellent spring and together with the wet and humid summer it has led to a really good growing year. "In the south east of Scotland the wet conditions seem to have caused the fungi to appear in quite large numbers and the heather on the hills is looking spectacular."
But the abnormal August weather has also caused concern for some of the country's best loved animals and birds. Moth numbers have been drastically low, with some wildlife centres reporting half the average number of the insects compared to the previous 20 years. The early berry season has also worried some wildlife experts who fear that the crops, which provide vital food for animals and birds in the lead up to the cold winter months, may disappear too early. Dave Leech, head of the nest record scheme at the British Trust for Ornithology, said: "If the berry crop is extended then it could be a very good year for birds that eat them, as it will help them survive the winter, but if is early and short then it could be tough. "This year has been a poor breeding year for many birds like robins and blackbirds."
At the Cumbria Wildlife Trust's garden in Plumgarth, staff have reported lush moss carpets beneath the trees while rowan trees in the region have produced displays of golden-orange berries due to the mild and wet summer. Peter Bullard, director of the trust, said: "The other strange thing is that quite a few early summer flowers are reflowering. Wood cranesbill usually flowers in early June in Cumbria, making the roadsides a beautiful pale purple. This August the wood cranesbills have started flowering again, as have the wisteria. It's like a second spring, without a winter."
Mushrooms and fungi have sprung up in fields and woods in huge numbers in many parts of the country. Fungi often remain dormant beneath the ground for years until they get wet enough conditions to fruit, but the wet and humid weather has been perfect. The Woodland Trust, which runs a project monitoring reports of the changing seasons, has already had five reports of the fly agaric fungus, which is normally seen in September and October. The project has also received 465 records of ripe autumn berries appearing on a range of plant species, with the first appearing in Portsmouth on 13 July. Last year the first report of a ripe autumn berry was on 19 August.
In southern England, leaves on some trees have also started to change colour, but Dr Kate Lewthwaite, manager of the Nature's Calendar Project at the Woodland Trust, said this was mainly due to poor sunlight levels through the past month. She said: "It is not yet cold enough for the leaves to start changing colour, although species like the horse chestnut have had a bad year with diseases like bleeding canker and leaf miner."
This August has been far wetter than average. The daytime temperatures have also been cooler than normal but the nights have been warmer. In England the maximum temperature this August has been more than a degree cooler than the average reading of 19.6C. But forecasters claim that far from facing an early start to autumn, Britain could expect to enjoy an Indian summer with warmer, sunnier conditions returning to the country through September.
A spokesman for the Met Office said: "It has been a very wet and humid August, but it is well within the natural variance of a British summer. The start of September is looking considerably better and more settled so we can expect it to be warmer with more sunshine."
Source
August skiing in Europe?
Warm temperatures on Europe's glaciers have led some summer ski resorts to close early, but the majority remain open and the leading snow-reporting service Skiinfo.com has snow depth details for all of them. The company tracks snow conditions several times daily, year round, at more than a thousand European ski resorts, including the dozen that are currently offering summer snow sports. Remarkably, ski areas in Austria, France, Italy and Switzerland have all reported fresh snow falling at times over the past fortnight.
The Tux glacier in Austria was amongst those recording fresh snowfall in the past week, topping up snow depths on the glacier to 105cm. Although temperatures have been variable, reaching +9C degrees at the bottom of the glacier ski area and +4C at the top, the centre currently has 13km of piste open , served by the three giant Glacier Bus lifts, one chair and five drag lifts. The ski day starts at 8.15 in the morning with the ski area winding down by 1pm daily because of the heat. The action then moves to the Treffpunkt Panoramaterrasse restaurant which also has specials on between 11am and 1pm. The lifts back down run to 4.30pm so there's no need to hurry!
You can also ski on the Dachstein Glacier, which has two kilometers of piste on a 180cm base available although the terrain park is now closed until (hopefully) September. The Molltal glacier is currently running three lifts, serving nine kilometers of slopes. A fourth choice, Kaprun, has about 70cm of snow on the Kitzsteinhorn glacier and five runs open served by six lifts. Several more glacier ski areas in Austria are due to re-open in September, including the Kaunertal, Pitztal and Stubai areas...
The Matterhorn Ski Paradise in Switzerland, above Zermatt and also accessed from Cervinia in Italy, is Europe's highest ski area, one of the largest summer snow operators, and one of the few remaining year-round operators. Following recent snowfalls glacier snow depths are around 190cm with 10km of runs available served by six lifts. The resort is currently installing a pioneering new snowmaking system from Israel that can make snow in plus temperatures which the resort hopes will bridge a piste-gap that has grown at the base of the glacier where it has melted away, so skiers no longer need to walk to the lift station but can ski there as they could 20 years ago.
Norway's three summer ski destinations remain open. Galdhoppigen has two kilometers of skiing and a snow depth of 180cm, Folgefonn four kilometers of piste and a snow depth of 120cm and Stryn five kilometres and a 150cm base.
More here
North Pole to remain frozen
Another Warmist prediction fails
Santa can rest easy. It’s looking like the ice at the North Pole won’t melt to water next month, as had been feared. It would have been the first time in thousands of years that the most northerly place on the planet would have been ice-free.“It’s quite unlikely at this point,” Walt Meier a research scientist at the University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Center, said today.
The ice in the Arctic Ocean is at near historic lows, and breaks records every couple of years due to human-caused global warming, the scientists at NSIDC say. This spring, it was looking like the ice might retreat so far that the North Pole itself would be ice-free for at least a day in September – the height of the ice-melt season. The chances were great enough that the scientists at NSIDC were laying almost even odds on it in an office pool.
But while global warming is playing an important role, seasonal variability does, too. And this summer turned out to be a little cooler than last summer, when the record for ice retreat was set, Meier said. “We only have about two or three weeks more of ice melt, and it’s not going to make it to the North Pole,” Meier said.
The Arctic Ocean has two types of ice. One type is the seasonal ice that starts forming in late September, typically reaches 10 to 15 feet thick, and may or may not survive the summer’s heat. The second type is the perennial ice that lasts year after year -- at least it has until the last couple decades when so much of it has melted.
NSIDC scientists got interested in a possibly ice-free North Pole this year when they noticed that that perennial ice had retreated south of the North Pole. That left only the seasonal ice. But the season was cooler than expected, so the seasonal ice is holding. “We’re not going to set a record every year,” Meier said.
More here
Record low for climate science
By Patrick Michaels
Ever since Soviet and Western climate scientists published the first international compendium on global warming, back in 1985, we have known that scaring people to death is very good for the environmentalist business. Such documents appear once or twice a year under the aegis of sundry governmental and international agencies, such as the United States' Climate Change Science Program (CCSP)...
Having been a climate scientist for about as long as these documents have been around, I have had the opportunity to review and comment on many documents that do this - not that my comments are listened to very much. I found two changes in the thousands of pages of the last (2007) IPCC report - after I sent in a 30,000-word point-by-point review. I'll be lucky to get even that much attention after my equally long critique of a new CCSP report, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. The sum of my analysis: This is the worst document in this genre I have ever seen. By comparison, it makes the 1962 Mets (or, for that matter, 2008's Washington Nationals) paragons of professional excellence.
Virtually every sentence can be contested or simply ignores published science that disagrees with CCSP's preconceived message. In its own words: "Aggressive near-term actions would be required to alter the future path of human-induced warming... future generations will inherit the legacy of our decisions." If "future generations" and "legacy of our decisions" sound more to you like politics rather than science, you're correct. The CCSP report isn't a science document at all. Not unless global warming science is a virtually one-sided world where almost everything is bad and getting worse, and where a moderate response dishonors our progenitors.
Of course, this can't be. Global warming lengthens growing seasons. Carbon dioxide, the cause of (part of the) warming (dormant for 11 years now) clearly improves crop yields in a world where stupid global warming policies (like burning our food supply in cars) are increasing food scarcity. If they have the money, by and large, Americans move to a warmer climate. And so on - which is why the CCSP document and the delete key should become intimate friends.
How did such a remarkable distortion see the light day? The "product lead" is Tom Karl, who heads the Commerce Department's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. He is perhaps the most political and politically savvy climate scientist in U.S. history. When Al Gore was vice president, he would issue monthly briefings on the horrors of climate change. When Mr. Gore exaggerated some local flood, or claimed Florida would burn because of global warming, Mr. Karl stood by and remained mute. But now, with the prospect of an increasingly Democratic Senate, and a president who will go along with the madness of climatically futile policies (Barack Obama or John McCain on global warming? Pick em!), Mr. Karl and CCSP have picked up the scent.
From a policy viewpoint, it's even worse. The current administration has punted to the next president the question of what rules EPA should make about global warming. All the levers of political power - the presidency, Congress and the relevant agencies - are therefore all pointed in the same direction. All will cite the CCSP as their bible, and anyone who voices a more factual opinion will in fact be marginalized as insane.
Want more evidence as to the perfidy of the CCSP process? The senior editor is no climate scientist; it's Susan J. Hassol, who wrote the HBO global warming "documentary," "Too Hot Not to Handle." Laurie David, the force behind Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," was the executive producer. This isn't science, it's science fiction. The first illustration inside the front cover gives away the spin. It's a picture of people of as many races and sexes as possible holding hands. What that has to do with climate change science is a mystery, but it certainly reflects a political view.
The draft CCSP report knowingly uses Photoshopped imagery of a flood, uncritically publishes a misleading temperature history, which splices together two completely different sets of climate data, and generally assumes people are stupid.
There's a wonderful picture on Page 55 of two senior citizens, captioned: "The elderly are especially vulnerable to extreme heat." If that's true, then there must be massive and increasing numbers of heat-related fatalities in hot cities with old populations. In fact, Tampa and Phoenix have a disproportionately elderly population and very few heat-related deaths; statistically, Tampa has the fewest of any major U.S. city. It may shock the CCSP, but when heat waves become more frequent, people change their habits and localities adapt their infrastructure to better deal with the heat.
Trash the entire report. It's neither scientific nor logical. It's a political document. Send the product lead back to Asheville and the senior editor back to Hollywood. But of course, that won't happen. Instead, the CCSP report and its production team will be lionized. It will serve as the basis for the most onerous environmental legislation and regulations in U.S. history. And when historians look back at a nation made poorer by foolish policies (which themselves will have no effect on warming), they will wonder how climate science could have gone so far into the wilderness of politics.
Source
AS ENERGY CRISIS LOOMS, EU LAWMAKERS MULL REVERSING CLIMATE POLICY
The European Union's main tool against global warming could be altered to lighten the impact on heavy industry and reduce the chances of the EU tightening its CO2 reduction goals, a document seen by Reuters shows. As part of its drive to lead the world in fighting climate change, the 27-country EU has committed to cutting carbon dioxide emissions by one fifth by 2020, compared to 1990 levels. It is also considering increasing the cut to 30 percent if big countries such as China and the United States commit to their own reductions.
But members of the European Parliament's influential industry committee are mulling an amendment that would demand a full impact assessment before cutting beyond 20 percent. Any such move to extend cuts would also be subjected to full legislative scrutiny by the EU's member states and EU lawmakers before becoming law.
Industry committee members returning to work this week are also considering amendments to alter the EU's flagship Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) so it has less impact on energy-intensive industries such as steel. The ETS seeks to put a cap on EU emissions by making polluters pay for permits to emit carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas blamed for climate change. The power sector, which now gets most of its permits for free, will have to pay for all of them from 2013, under European Commission proposals.
The power sector passes on the extra cost of carbon emissions permits to consumers, but companies which operate in globally competitive markets such as the steel sector are less able to do that. EU steelmakers say the current plans could cost the sector more than 50 billion euros ($78 billion) between 2013 and 2020 and put thousands of jobs at risk. The European Commission is considering whether to allow steel and other energy-intensive industry to continue to get free permits from 2013. The steel industry is particularly worried changes would require steelmakers to buy CO2 emissions permits for electricity that it produces by recycling waste gas from blast furnaces.
But the industry committee's proposed changes would exempt "electricity produced either in connection with industrial heat or from residues from an industrial process including waste gases", the parliamentary document of "compromise amendments" shows. Steelmakers say the Commission's plan to make power generators buy 100 percent of their emissions allowances at auction from 2013 would particularly raise costs for the most environmentally efficient electric arc furnaces that produce steel from scrap.
But the proposed amendments would allow the Commission to "allocate additional allowances to these installations to take into account the effect of pass through of the cost of allowances in the electricity price."
Source
BRITISH HOUSEHOLDS PAYING $1,600 TOO MUCH IN GREEN TAXES, SAYS REPORT
Households are paying hundreds of pounds more in "green taxes" than is justified by the environmental cost of their carbon emissions, a new study claims today. The Taxpayers' Alliance has calculated that every household in the UK is paying as much as $1600 a year more in environmental taxes than is necessary. Its analysis claims the Treasury made $40 billion in "excess" revenue from environmental taxes last year - from supposedly "green" levies on motoring, energy bills and waste disposal.
The report is the latest attack on the Government's use of green taxes and will strengthen suspicions that ministers are using the environment as a cover for revenue-raising measures. The TPA said its figures showed ministers were "wrapping revenue-raising tax hikes in a green banner." However, the Treasury rejected the group's figures as misleading.
More here
An academic's duty is to truth, not trends
By Bjorn Lomborg
Gary Yohe says I am a global warming naysayer - but just because a political movement has clarity, doesn't mean it's smart
Gary Yohe claims that I misrepresent and deliberately distort his findings. Curiously, the only example he submits is one in which I quote him correctly. While debating with Oliver Tickell in these pages, I referred to Yohe's paper. I said that "global warming will continue to be a net benefit until about 2070". Yohe finds that this is a "deliberate distortion of our conclusions". However, the paper he prepared for Copenhagen Consensus 2008 indeed shows that until about 2070, the net effect of climate change on global GDP is positive (see Figure 4.1, p25). It is - according to Yohe's own estimates - not until after 2070 that the net impact of climate change becomes negative. It is surprising that Yohe takes issue with my repetition of his own findings.
Yohe goes on to say that I distort his message because the distribution of the benefit is not equally felt. High latitude (often rich) countries will gain disproportionately, whereas low latitude (often poor) nations will gain less or lose. This is a point I have made countless times - but was not the debate in which I engaged Tickell. To claim that I am deliberately misrepresenting a statement by reproducing Yohe's own figure is simply wrong. To claim that whenever one talks about one climate change issue (net benefits) one must also talk about another (distribution of benefits) seems feebly engineered to allow complete control over any climate debate.
In the article that Yohe takes issue with, I described the goals and outcome of the Copenhagen Consensus 2008. The project clearly demonstrates that there are many ways to help the poor much better than by addressing climate change through mitigation. (Instead of avoiding a couple of thousand extra malaria deaths in a century through expensive CO2 cuts, maybe we should avoid a million malaria deaths now through low-cost health policies.)
I wrote that "the best climate solution from the top economists from the Copenhagen Consensus" shows that "we should focus on investing in finding cheaper low-carbon energy". Yohe claims that this misrepresents his findings. It does not, because in this instance I am not referring to his work. Let me explain.
Copenhagen Consensus is an effort to rank solutions between different major world problems, to identify the investments that would do the most good for the planet. Charles Krauthammer from the Washington Post has called it a "thought Olympics" because it makes academics from a lot of different fields compete to identify the best use of the world's scarce resources. We ask not only smart climate economists like Yohe to present their recommendations on climate, but also smart health economists to submit the smartest investments that could be made to tackle major world health issues. Eight of the world's best economists, including five Nobel Laureates, listened to all these recommendations and ranked the best investments for humanity. Unsurprisingly, the climate specialists would like to see their proposals ranked first, as would the health economists and everyone else. As in the real Olympics, not only is there a winner at the top of the podium, but there are also proposals that come in last. The proposals from Yohe came in at the bottom two places.
However, Professor Chris Green of McGill University showed that focusing much more on energy R&D, followed by eventual CO2 cuts, had a dramatically higher benefit for mankind - the estimate was three to four times better than Yohe's estimates for his solutions. This recommendation was ranked much more promising (at place 14 though by no means highest) by the Copenhagen Consensus panel. And this was the solution I was referring to.
Yohe claims that I say reducing CO2 emissions is a waste of resources. I have repeatedly gone on record arguing for a small reduction in emissions - it is a large reduction that I believe is a waste. And this is exactly what came out of Yohe's own analysis, showing that for each dollar spent on a simple reduction in carbon emissions, we would achieve about 90 cents worth of benefits.
After accusing me incorrectly of misquoting him, Yohe claims that I dismiss efforts to craft a global carbon cap as "constant outbidding by frantic campaigners". As Yohe should be aware, this quote refers to a debate with campaigners like Tickell who argue that a 4 degrees temperature rise would mean sea level rises of 70 metres and the extinction of the human race. Yohe, to his credit, makes no such claims, as he also follows the IPCC findings.
Yohe finally states sweepingly that there is now general agreement that we need a comprehensive solution to global warming, ostensibly involving immediate cuts in CO2. He laments that I am apparently a naysayer, who is confusing this "momentum and clarity". Of course, there have been many political movements in history with substantial momentum and clarity, and it doesn't mean they were all smart. It is an academic's duty not to be swept up in the tide but to state the evidence
Source
***************************************
For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.
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Jim Hansen and his twin
