THE ACIA "STUDY" OF THE ARCTIC AGAIN:

This bit of shallow scare-mongering continues to get press attention here and there. Both I (on 3rd.) and Louis Hissink have already pointed out many flaws in it but I thought I might reproduce below the contrary evidence in "The Economist's" article on the subject:

While acknowledging that disintegration this century is still an unlikely outcome, Dr Oppenheimer argues that the evidence of the past few years suggests it is more likely to happen over the next few centuries if the world does not reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. He worries that an accelerating Arctic warming trend may yet push the ice melt beyond an "irreversible on/off switch".

That is scary stuff, but some scientists remain unimpressed. Patrick Michaels, a climatologist at the University of Virginia, complains about the ACIA's data selection, which he believes may have produced evidence of "spurious warming". He also points out, in a new book*, that even if Arctic temperatures are rising, that need not lead directly to the ice melting. As he puts it, "Under global warming, Greenland's ice indeed might grow, especially if the warming occurs mostly in winter. After all, warming the air ten degrees when the temperature is dozens of degrees below freezing is likely to increase snowfall, since warmer air is generally moister and precipitates more water."

Nils-Axel Morner, a Swedish climate expert based at Stockholm University, points out that observed rises in sea levels have not matched the IPCC's forecasts. Since this week's report relies on many such IPCC assumptions, he concludes it must be wrong. Others acknowledge that there is a warming trend in the Arctic, but insist that the cause is natural variability and not the burning of fossil fuels. Such folk point to the extraordinarily volatile history of Arctic temperatures. These varied, often suddenly, long before sport-utility vehicles were invented (see chart). However, the chart also shows that the past few millennia have been a period of unusual stability in the Arctic. It is just possible that the current period of warming could tip the delicate Arctic climate system out of balance, and so drag the rest of the planet with it.





FROM LOUIS HISSINK'S WEEKLY SCIENCE ROUNDUP:

"Bailey then wonders why the authors of a Greenland Ice Cap is melting scenario did not cite a recent paper showing that average temperatures in Greenland have been falling at the rather steep rate of 2.2 degrees Celsius since 1987? Facts suggest temperatures are dropping, but fantasy asserts that the Greenland ice cap is melting....

Which brings me to an interesting remark made by a scientist in the plasma physics field in answer to a question I posed on a restricted discussion group, concerning greenhouse and temperatures. I repeat it here verbatim:

"The fallacy with this (LH - Greenhouse effect) is the confusion of the visible-light radiation surface with the infrared-light radiation surface. The first is the ground, the second is the top of the atmosphere. Reducing "radiation loss" at the ground-with-atmosphere can't be compared with the radiation loss of the ground-without-atmosphere. The proper comparison would be radiation-plus-convection loss (with atm) against radiation loss (without atm), or, equivalently, radiation-from-atmosphere-top (with atm) against radiation-from- ground (without atm). The atmosphere doesn't "trap" heat, it just adds a "convection" step in the transfer process. To get "global warming" from that, some mechanism would have to slow down convection- -a true greenhouse (glass roof) effect. The amount of atmospheric absorption (amount of "greenhouse gasses") would be irrelevant.

Of course, the primary fallacy is the assumption that total energy input is known--exclusively from insolation. The presence of plasma circuits--and the evidence of most planets radiating more than they receive from the sun--renders the entire argument frivolous."

And that, like all Green Assertions, makes human induced global warming from the burning of fossil fuels entirely frivolous. The reason a greenhouse works is because it stops circulation of the air - but the earth's atmosphere circulates and as John Christie shows with his satellite data, the earth is not warming up, so the Greenhouse effect so beloved of our fact-challenged Greens does not exist. The excess energy trapped in CO2 is simply radiated out to space by convection.

One other factor which seems not well understood is that, apart from fossil fuels not being based on fossils, it is clear that under present day climatic conditions, organic matter is continually recycled in the biosphere. There are no fossils being formed at present, so ancient fossil accumulations, whether brown coal or fossilised dinosaurs, represents carbon that has been accidentally removed from the biosphere, resulting in a significant reduction in carbon levels. So burning fossil fuels merely returns the accidentally removed carbon back to the biosphere.... "

More here


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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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TV Networks Tout Alleged Harm of Global Warming But Hide Massive Costs of Kyoto Treaty

Peddling a "Cure" Worse than the Disease

The 2004 election is over and defeated liberals are urging President Bush to pander to them, not the conservative majority that re-elected him. One issue liberal activists have pushed since Election Day is global warming, and network reporters are again ringing alarm bells about the climate catastrophe that supposedly awaits. "Severe climate change is accelerating," ABC's Bill Blakemore warned on Monday's World News Tonight as he quoted a pair of alarmist reports. "Polar bears are starving as the ice they hunt on vanishes, along with the seals they eat. Millions of birds are affected as spring comes too early and the fish they eat [have] gone to seek cooler waters."

ABC directly attributed global warming to "the increase in man-made gases since the Industrial Revolution," and passed along advice that "cutting back emissions from burning fossil fuels should eventually stop the warming, but will still take many decades." But ABC was silent on the high costs associated with such a severe cutback, and ignored the fact that many scientists doubt liberals' alarmist predictions. ABC's one-sided approach is all too typical, according to a new study by the MRC's Free Market Project. Researchers looked at coverage of global warming on ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, and the Fox News Channel on each network's evening newscast from January 20, 2001 through September 30, 2004. They found the coverage reinforced liberal theories about a dangerous man-made global warming, while all but ignoring the dangers of enacting liberals' solution:

* No Debate Over the Science. Of the 107 stories that discussed the causes of global warming, the vast majority (83 percent) failed to mention scientific doubts about the truth of environmental activists' claims of an impending global warming catastrophe. No story was biased against the liberal view, and only one out of six (17 percent) offered a glimpse of the conservative position alongside liberal theories. But doubts abound: One flaw in liberal arguments: Satellite and weather balloon data show none of the warming found by land-based thermometers.

* Hyping the Harm. TV reporters tried to link specific weather events to global climate change. On August 6, 2003, NBC's Patricia Sabga blamed a European heat wave on global warming. "Learning to live with blistering heat may prove a long-term strategy," she counseled. But that same week, the eastern United States was experiencing much cooler than normal temperatures.

* Little Coverage of Kyoto's Costs. Environmentalists got their wish in 1998 when the Clinton administration signed the Kyoto treaty, agreeing to a sharp reduction in carbon emissions. The U.S. got the worst of that deal - other countries were assigned lower reductions or completely exempted. The Senate voted 95-0 to reject those terms, but liberals still insist Kyoto is the model for "solving" the global warming problem.

But while network coverage stressed the need to reduce emissions, only ABC and Fox - just once each - gave viewers statistics summarizing the conservative point that Kyoto would cost millions of jobs and punish families to the tune of $2,700 a year. In 1998, the Clinton administration also estimated the high costs of complying with Kyoto, but those numbers never made it on the airwaves. During Bush's first term, the networks aligned themselves with activists hoping that America would punish itself by accepting something like the onerous Kyoto treaty. Coverage since November 2 indicates more of the same awaits.

Source






GLOBAL WARMING ON MARS TOO

It's all those factories and power stations they've got up there

"Mars' distinctive personality is finally emerging. After five successful Mars missions launched in the past seven years, planetary scientists no longer describe the fourth planet from the sun in terms of its better-known relatives - Mars as the moon with an atmosphere, as Earth with craters. Today, scientists know far more about the salty sea that once washed across Mars' face and the volcanoes that erupted billions of years ago, experts said Tuesday night at a free public Mars forum.

A few billion years ago, Mars sported liquid water and temperatures balmy enough that life could have been possible, the scientists concluded. "It had habitable environments," said Steven Squyres, a Cornell University planetary scientist. "Now the question becomes, 'Were they actually inhabited?"'

Michael Malin, president of Malin Space Science Systems, talked about gullies that may have been sculpted recently by liquid water; evidence of ancient seas; and the discovery that the planet's south polar cap of dry ice is losing weight. "Mars is experiencing global warming," Malin said. "And we don't know why.""

There seems to be general agreement that there has been a slight global warming on earth in recent years but it is only theory to say that the warming has been caused by human activity. One of several alternative explanations is that the output of the sun has gone up fractionally in that time. Solar variability has, of course, been known since Galileo. Since there are no people on Mars and Mars is also undergoing recent global warming, variability in solar output becomes the obvious explanation for what is happening to both planets. Were the Greenies not involved, the "anthropogenic" theory of terrestrial global warming would be universally dismissed as bunk.

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IS ENGLAND GETTING WARMER?

This past week has seen significant media coverage of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's 'global warming' fears.... We might wonder what makes him so fearful.... The most impressive warming evident occurred from the 1690s through 1730s with the running mean climbing almost 2øC! We imagine that was a significant relief in the depths of the Little Ice Age although 1740 was obviously a bummer. Abrupt warmings also occurred in the 1770s; 1810s/20s; 1890s and 1990s. Abrupt coolings are evident and a relatively sustained warming in the first half of the Twentieth Century. With our 10-year running mean showing warmer than the series mean for almost the entire Twentieth Century it is fair to say there has been a net warming over the record period. Some argue that warming is a problem and we will not dwell on our contention that warming is distinctly preferable to cooling.

Having established that there has been a warming and avoided the question of whether this constitutes a problem, the next and obvious question is: "why has this occurred?" Tony Blair appears convinced by the enhanced greenhouse hypothesis but atmospheric CO2 levels do not fit changes in the CET at all well. For example, from 1695 to 1733, the annual mean temperature rose from 7.25øC to 10.47øC at a time when there was negligible change in atmospheric CO2 - the running mean did not return to such readings until the 1990s. On the other hand, annual mean temperatures fell from 10.62øC in 1949 to 8.47øC by 1963, a period when atmospheric CO2 levels were measurably rising. Greenhouse does not appear to be exerting a strong influence on the CET.

If not greenhouse then what? Certainly there has been significant urbanization - with the English population rising from about 9 million in 1800 to almost 50 million now that is inevitable. Urbanization or at least population growth, however, has been continuously positive since the mid-17th century and that does not really suit our mean temperature track either. Or does it? Consider the effect of so many more urbanites and their fuel sources of the day - see how Roehampton University writes it up:

What is the urban effect on sunshine? This is one aspect of the region's climate that has dramatically changed over the late 19th and 20th centuries. At the height of the Industrial Revolution in the latter half of the 19th century, vast amounts of smoke and soot were emitted into the atmosphere in London. This led to the absorption or blocking of a remarkable proportion of the incoming radiation from the sunshine and hence sunshine amounts were curtailed.

It is difficult to believe today how profound this effect was and how quickly it has changed. In the 1880s, it was estimated that London was 'losing' up to 80% of its winter sunshine. In December 1890 no sunshine was recorded at Westminster. As recently as 1921-50, central London averaged only 50% of the winter sunshine as surrounding rural areas. The effect was concentrated in winter because of the increased emission of smoke and soot associated with the greater use of coal burning to heat houses and offices and also because of the low angle of the sun.

The situation is quite different today - emissions of pollutants that cause a shading effect have dropped dramatically with the switch away from coal as the prime source of energy in industry and in the home, a change well under way before the passing of the Clean Air Acts in the 1950s and 1960s. Not only has this led to a reduction in the frequency of winter smogs and fog (possibly assisted by more mobile, changeable winters in recent decades) but on occasions, central London is now sunnier than the outlying areas because of the urban heating effect evaporating low cloud or fog.

Seems plausible, a lot more people, all using what would currently be abhorred as "dirty" fuels, could conceivably generate enough smoke to interfere with solar warming, at least regionally. We are not aware that anyone seriously disputes the dramatic improvement in urban air quality over the Twentieth Century so increased solar radiation penetration to surface must at least be entertained as a probable result. Here is a mechanism by which increasing populations could influence both increase and decrease of regional temperatures and specifically where near-surface temperature readings are recorded. Importantly, it is not merely current urban heat island effect, which datasets try to address (with varying and, we think, limited success) that is affected by urbanization but, through earlier regional sunshine suppression, prior cooling (not addressed in any dataset to our knowledge) that gives the impression of current warming within the dataset. While merely an assertion rather than any form of cause and effect explanation for recorded temperature trends, the differing effect of urbanization over time highlights some of the problems with simplistic associations like enhanced greenhouse - it is not as simple as: atmospheric greenhouse gas levels have risen; recorded temperatures have risen - therefore greenhouse gases drive temperature......

Tony Blair seems to have fallen into the old post hoc, ergo propter hoc (it happened after, so it was caused by) trap. Do global temperatures react to recent increases in atmospheric greenhouse gasses? Quite possibly but temperatures obviously respond to other influences, possibly much more so than atmospheric CO2. From what we can see, GHGs are a poor fit with measured global near-surface temperatures, so, too, are simple urbanization and sunspot numbers, although length of solar cycle appears to have promise as a primary driver.

Whatever is finally discovered to be the case, simplistic notions about greenhouse gasses appear to fit the post hoc fallacy far better than they do global temperature. Some of the things so briefly discussed here might be drivers of global temperature but hardly in isolation. As the source of global warmth, the sun, and its various phases, looks a likely culprit as a primary driver of global climate, as do the Earth's orbital eccentricities.

On reflection, having the CET show the 1990s just barely eclipse annual mean temperature recorded in 1733 (a 266 year-old record following a temperature climb of ~3.25øC in under 4 decades, a rise which would cause pandemonium today), suggests negligible warming over two and one-half centuries, despite massive population increase, urbanization and clearer skies allowing greater solar radiation penetration to ground. We freely admit cherry picking some of the dates used for comparison here - and why not, the greenhouse industry is shameless in their selective use of data - our purpose is to demonstrate that there's really nothing new under the sun.

A favorite comparison is the temperature increase since 1880 (roughly the end of the Little Ice Age) and that's fine. The CET above certainly indicates an annual mean increase of ~1.6øC 1880-1999 - half that observed 1695-1733. Twice the warming occurred over one-third the time and this was before humanity could possibly have significantly influenced the greenhouse gas balance in the atmosphere, so why the current panic over possible warming and specifically over atmospheric CO2?

To return to our original point, Tony Blair has made much of enhanced greenhouse and global warming - the Central England Temperature record suggests his fears are groundless. You can either believe a 340-year temperature record or a politician - suit yourself.

More (much more) here

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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GREENIE VERSUS GREENIE: WINDFARMS VERSUS BIRDS

You may remember the early computer game called "Spy versus Spy". Truth is stranger than fiction

"The Center for Biological Diversity ("CBD") filed a lawsuit today against Florida energy producer FPL Group, Inc. (NYSE symbol: FPL) and Danish wind power company NEG Micon A/S for their part in the illegal ongoing killing of tens of thousands of protected birds by wind turbines at the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area ("APWRA") in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Through their subsidiaries and associated entities, FPL Group and NEG Micon own or operate roughly half of the approximately 5,400 wind turbines at the APWRA. Each year, wind turbines at the APWRA kill up to 60 or more golden eagles and hundreds of other hawks, owls, and other protected raptors. These bird kills have continued for 20 years in flagrant violation of the Bald Eagle and Golden Eagle Protection Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and several California Fish and Game Code provisions. The lawsuit alleges that these violations and bird kills are unlawful and unfair business practices under the California Business and Professions Code.

"Altamont Pass wind turbines are causing extremely high levels of bird mortality along a major raptor migration route and are likely depleting eagle, hawk, and owl populations not only locally but throughout the western U. S.," said Jeff Miller, spokesperson for CBD. "We absolutely support wind power, but it is past time for the primary turbine owners, FPL Energy and NEG Micon, to address this problem.... "Altamont Pass has become a death zone for eagles and other magnificent and imperiled birds of prey. Recent studies have proposed numerous recommendations for mitigating the devastating effect of Altamont Pass wind turbines on birds, yet the industry is blindly charging ahead replacing existing turbines with new and much larger turbines without any requirement of effective preventative measures or remediation for ongoing bird kills," said Richard Wiebe, attorney for the plaintiffs....

The extraordinary numbers of raptor deaths continue unabated, due in part to the complete regulatory failure by federal, state, and local officials to enforce wildlife protection laws. "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U. S. Attorney's Office, California Department of Fish and Game, and Alameda and Contra Costa Counties bear equal responsibility for the ongoing bird atrocity at Altamont for their failure to impose any meaningful mitigation requirements or protective measures on the Altamont Pass wind power industry," stated Miller.

To add insult to injury, the Altamont Pass wind power industry has been receiving massive tax credits as well as government cash grants funded by surcharges imposed on California's electricity consumers as part of the state's flawed deregulation plan, all of which serve to subsidize the killing of birds. "The wind power industry receives tens of millions of dollars in revenue from California's consumers, as well as enormous tax credits and government subsidies, based on the perception that it provides `green' energy, yet continues to kill thousands of protected birds annually," said Miller. "The Altamont companies routinely kill rare birds that are the natural heritage of all Californians, and take taxpayer subsidies home to Florida and Denmark." According to wind industry reports, the Altamont Pass fiasco has tainted public perception of wind energy and hampered wind power development, as concerns about bird impacts has delayed or discontinued other wind facilities."

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WIND FARM BLOWN AWAY

It's slowly happening

A Brisbane wind-farm company has bowed to community protest and withdrawn from a controversial $100 million project on Victoria's picturesque western coastline. The move comes as the Victorian parliament this week prepares to debate a new bill on wind energy development.

However, the Bracks Government denied the scrapping of Nirranda Wind Farm, 20km east of Warnambool, was a setback to its plans to have 1000 megawatts of wind generating capacity installed in Victoria by 2006. Energy Minister Theo Theophanous said the decision not to go ahead with Nirranda was in keeping with the Government's "appropriate and sustainable development of the Great Ocean Road" area. Mr Theophanous said the Government preferred wind farms to be located inland and Brisbane company Stanwell's decision meant there was now only one coastal farm among nine proposals before the state Government. However, of the three wind farms already operating, two are on the coast and another three have been approved for coastal areas.

The decision to abandon the Nirranda plant, at the scenic Bay of Islands, is believed to be the first time the company has withdrawn a wind farm application. Geelong Ocean Road Marketing chairman Roger Grant led the community campaign against the Nirranda development. He said the decision was "a victory for common sense and for the protection of one of the most beautiful places in the world". It is the second proposed wind farm to be axed in Victoria this year. Plans for a wind farm being built by a different company at nearby Nirranda South were scrapped in September.

Another coastal wind farm at Bald Hills, in South Gippsland, is embroiled in a wave of protest that became an election issue in the federal seat of McMillan and helped the Coalition's Russell Broadbent oust the sitting member. At the height of the campaign, British environmentalist David Bellamy visited Bald Hills and spoke out against wind farms.

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"GREEN" TREES! CAPITALISM CATERS TO A GREENIE FAD

But they're not rushing to buy. How surprising.

There are tall, thick alders and gargantuan maples on John Henrikson's land that could line his pockets handsomely if he cut them for timber, but he leaves most of them standing - cutting only the ones nearing the end of their life span. "I'm not going to touch this," he said, admiring one of the red alders on his 100 acres in this tiny town in southwestern Washington. "This is an unbelievably healthy tree." That attitude goes along with his desire to get "green certification" - sort of like an "organically grown" label on produce - for his trees.

He's thought about trying to do that through the environmentally strict Forest Stewardship Council, an independent group based in Germany that promotes environmentally appropriate and socially beneficial use of forests, but he can't afford it. It can cost thousands of dollars just to get a tract of land checked out for that organization. Soon, though, Henrikson and several other western Washington forest owners will band together in their own certification group. At most a five-year contract will cost him $1,000, and he he'll get help marketing his eco-friendly wood to mills. "This is a good opportunity for me," Henrikson said. "The alternative prior to this was doing it on my own, which would be too expensive and a difficult process trying to figure out by myself."

Green certification of forest products is an emerging market that's gaining ground in places like Washington state that encourage environmentally sound building techniques for big public projects. In addition, major retailers including Home Depot and Lowe's have buying policies that favor certified wood. Most of the flooring Starbucks buys is green certified, and Swedish furniture retailer IKEA is a big buyer, said Michael Washburn, vice president of forestry and marketing for the U.S. chapter of the Forest Stewardship Council.

Landowners aren't expecting to make a quick buck because most mills aren't yet clamoring for green-certified wood. They see green certification as more of a rewarding seal of approval for the extra care they take logging their land than any sure economic bet. "Making forestry profitable is a lot tougher than it used to be, but this program gives landowners a new opportunity to connect with consumers that value their work," said Ian Hanna, who will run the group certification program Henrikson plans to join when it launches early next year. Homeowners planning do-it-yourself projects are not likely to find a neat stack of certified 2-by-4s at the local lumber yard. In most cases, it has to be specially ordered. It's often around 10 percent more expensive, industry experts say.

Eric Fritch, a mill owner in Snohomish, has been buying and selling certified wood for about three years and sees it as a promising product - especially in a region as eco-friendly as the Pacific Northwest. He's already told the Northwest Natural Resource Group he's eager to buy more certified wood and will pay an extra $25 for every 1,000 board feet over what he pays for noncertified wood. As long as he breaks even, he said he's willing to give the market time to mature.

More here

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me or here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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CONSERVATION WASTES ENERGY

The Bush administration today unveils its energy policy, one that will rightfully put energy supply, and better ways of delivering that supply, at the center of our nation's energy efforts. The howls have already begun, with environmental groups, Democrats and a few misguided Republican "moderates" furious that conservation policies haven't been given a leading role.

For the past decade, U.S. energy policy has followed the conservationist agenda like a bible. Bill Clinton came to office promising to put policies that stifled demand for energy ahead of those that actually produced the stuff. Federal and state governments have spent hundreds of millions on tax rebates and programs that "encouraged" people to use less; consumers have shelled out as much complying with regulations that mandated greater efficiency in everything from cars to air conditioners.

Today, we see the results. Energy consumption hasn't gone down; rather, it has stubbornly risen by an average of about 1.7% a year since the early 1980s, despite the increasing weight of conservation policies. And now, after years of neglect, the supply side is a wreck. Environmental regulations have stifled exploration, as well as power-plant and refinery construction; electrical lines and gas pipes are bottlenecked. The entire West, as well as states like New York, faces energy crises and blackouts.

Clearly, demand management is not the answer. That's because it serves mainly to distort supply and demand--like all government policies that meddle in markets. In fact, economists show that government-led demand reduction often produces an effect that is the exact opposite of the one intended: to wit, that enforced conservation actually causes people to use more energy, not less. The idea is simple: Making a product more efficient makes it cheaper to use. This, in turn, causes people to use a product more. Also known as the "rebound effect," it's an idea that has been around a long time...

Conservationists are aware of these economic arguments, and of the fact that they have little or nothing to show after decades of enforced demand reduction. They also know that from a pure supply standpoint, they face a losing battle to convince people to conserve. After all, the world continues to experience an increase, rather than a decrease, in proved energy reserves. Today's proved oil reserves around the world are twice what they were in 1970. In this country alone, we have 300 years' worth of known coal reserves.

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LOUISIANA FOLLIES

"White man speak with forked tongue"

"Louisiana electricity customers could be seeing more green -- both in their wallets and in their power -- as more companies look to develop cheaper renewable energy sources. AEP-SWEPCO recently began soliciting proposals for the generation of up to 250 megawatts of wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, biomass or biomass-based waste energy like landfill gas. The New Iberia company Wind Energy Systems Technologies wants to equip abandoned oil platforms with turbines that will transform wind into power. And earlier this year, General Motors announced it is using landfill gas generated at Shreveport's Woolworth Road Landfill instead of natural gas.

"Any company that can diversify their energy sources has got to be good for Louisiana, it's good for the environment," said Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell, who introduced a resolution earlier this year that encourages companies to consider producing wind energy in the Gulf of Mexico. "This is something unique to Louisiana. We ought to do everything possible to make this a reality in our state. The greatest thing is it lessens the dependency on foreign oil and gas."

SWEPCO's parent company AEP has long used renewable energy, but it will be the first time that customers in SWEPCO's system would benefit. Coal- and lignite-fired generating plants provide a majority of power for customers in northwest Louisiana. "If you have cheaper fuel on your system, then those savings are passed on to customers," said SWEPCO spokesman Scott McCloud. The savings generated would depend on the proposals received from the companies that could place new generating facilities into service by the end of next year.

"We're only going to look for the type of energy that will be economically feasible for us and our customers," McCloud said.

[Is he serious? "Alternative" energy is always dearer. If it were cheaper it would already be in use!]

At GM, the use of landfill gas saves the plant approximately $500,000. The gas is captured and processed by Renovar Shreveport LLC, then transported to GM's facility via a seven-mile pipeline. The landfill gas represents one-third of total energy used at the plant.

AEP decided to pursue renewable energy generation for SWEPCO following the recent extension of a 10-year federal tax credit for renewable energy resources".

[Now we're talking! It's only cheaper because of a tax break -- meaning that taxes elsewhere will go up -- so the consumer still loses]

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POWERLINE PANIC: A HARDY PERENNIAL

'Pylons "double child cancer risk",' says BBC News, reporting on research from the Childhood Cancer Research Group at Oxford University. 70,000 children under 15 were studied for the report, half of whom had cancer of various types. For most types of cancer, whether children had lived near power lines had no effect. However, the rate of leukaemia for those relatively few children born or living near power lines was 1.7 times higher than for other children. The report author, Dr Gerald Draper, believes that power lines may be responsible for 20-30 cases per year that would not otherwise have occurred.

Don't panic: Even the report author believes caution is required in interpreting these figures. 'The findings have been surprising, it has made us want to figure out the reasons for these results, and whether power lines might be to blame. But I feel strongly that we have not yet found out conclusively that this is the case,' said Dr Draper.

There are around 500 cases of leukaemia per year in children in the UK, so the risk for any particular household is low. Doubling a tiny risk is still a tiny risk. Even if this new report were accurate, it would suggest an increase in the risk of leukaemia from about 1 in 1400 to around 1 in 700 for the relatively small number of families who actually live near power lines. According to John Brignell, discussing a similar finding in 2001 elsewhere on spiked, that amounts to an extra case of leukaemia every other year.

In any event, the overall risk is so small that it is very possible that this figure is just a statistical artefact and there is no real effect at all. Moreover, no-one has yet managed to put forward a convincing mechanism for how the fields created by power lines might cause cancer.

Other research has shown no link. For example, in 1999, UK Childhood Cancer Survey found no link between the strength of electromagnetic fields in the home and cancer. This would seem to be a superior study in that the strength of such fields was actually measured, rather than simply assuming that fields were higher in homes near pylons. Families may very well not want to live near pylons because they tend to spoil the view, but there is little evidence they will cause cancer.

Source

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me or here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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WHAT APPALLING B.S.!

I suppose there is a certain bitter irony in a Greenie school costing the earth!

The new T.C. Williams High School, scheduled for construction next month, is expected to cost $92 million, the most expensive in the history of the Alexandria public school system. "People are starting to worry," said Frank Putzu, president of the Seminary Hill Association, a local civic organization. "When you start talking about $90 million, that's a lot of money. Nobody really understands why this is so expensive or what they're doing that is costing so much." The high school is for students in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades. Most area ninth-graders attend the Minnie Howard School.

Mr. Putzu said renovations at Minnie Howard have been delayed to help pay for the increasing cost of the new high school, which some people call "T.C. Green."
"I don't think we have a clear idea yet just how much this is really going to cost," Mr. Putzu said. "That's what's causing the uneasiness. [The cost] started at $81 million, it creeped up to $87 million, and now it's at $92 million. These projects never come in at cost."

Moseley Architects designed the new school at a cost estimated to be about 1.5 percent more than a conventional school building. The average cost of construction per square foot is $199.57, more than $50 higher than the average construction costs for Virginia high schools built in the past seven years, according to the Virginia Department of Education. "We know of [no other schools] in that league," said Charles Pyle, the department's director of communications. Supporters of the project acknowledge an environmentally friendly school is expensive, but say the energy-efficient equipment and other features will reduce the cost of everyday operations. David Peabody, a member of Alexandrians for a Green T.C. group, said the higher price will be repaid in three years because the cost of operating the new school will be less.

The existing school is of a 1950s design, "and its life expectancy has expired," he said. The school will be built on the existing school's football field, and construction is scheduled to begin Dec. 4. Student athletes will play at other schools while the new school is built.

Recycled building materials, energy-efficient lighting and a system that converts rainwater into water for toilets and irrigation are among the environmentally friendly features.... The building is expected to look like most other new schools, but will have ceramic tile instead of paint in the hallway. Some of the building materials also will be nontoxic and nonallergenic, and the building will have an advanced air-filtration system.

More here




NATURAL CLIMATE CYCLES

New data from Patagonia:

In our many reviews of recently-published studies that reveal the existence of a widespread millennial-scale oscillation of climate, we routinely draw attention to evidence for the worldwide occurrence of the Little Ice Age, Medieval Warm Period, Dark Ages Cold Period, Roman Warm Period, etc. We here continue in this vein in reviewing a study that identifies all of the above climatic intervals -- plus others -- in the Patagonian ice fields of South America.

Glasser et al. (2004) describe a large body of evidence related to glacier fluctuations in the two major ice fields of Patagonia: the Hielo Patagonico Norte (47o00'S, 73o39'W) and the Hielo Patagonico Sur (between 48o50'S and 51o30'S). This evidence indicates that the most recent glacial advances in Patagonia occurred during the Little Ice Age, out of which serious cold spell the earth has been gradually emerging for the past two centuries, causing many glaciers to retreat. Prior to the Little Ice Age, however, there was an interval of higher temperatures known as the Medieval Warm Period, when glaciers also decreased in size and extent; and this warm interlude was in turn preceded by a still earlier era of pronounced glacial activity that is designated the Dark Ages Cold Period, which was also preceded by a period of higher temperatures and retreating glaciers that is denoted the Roman Warm Period.

Prior to the Roman Warm Period, Glasser et al.'s presentation of the pertinent evidence suggests there was another period of significant glacial advance that also lasted several hundred years, which was preceded by a several-century interval when glaciers once again lost ground, which was preceded by yet another multi-century period of glacial advance, which was preceded by yet another long interval of glacier retrenchment, which was preceded by still another full cycle of such temperature-related glacial activity, which at this point brings us all the way back to sometime between 6000 and 5000 14C years before the present (BP).

Glasser et al. additionally cite the works of a number of other scientists that reveal a similar pattern of cyclical glacial activity over the preceding millennia in several other locations. Immediately to the east of the Hielo Patagonico Sur in the Rio Guanaco region of the Precordillera, for example, they report that Wenzens (1999) detected five distinct periods of glacial advancement: "4500-4200, 3600-3300, 2300-2000, 1300-1000 14C years BP and AD 1600-1850." With respect to the glacial advancements that occurred during the cold interval that preceded the Roman Warm Period, they say they are "part of a body of evidence for global climatic change around this time (e.g., Grosjean et al., 1998; Wasson and Claussen, 2002), which coincides with an abrupt decrease in solar activity," adding that this observation "led van Geel et al. (2000) to suggest that variations in solar irradiance are more important as a driving force in variations in climate than previously believed." Finally, with respect to the most recent recession of Hielo Patogonico Norte outlet glaciers from their late historic moraine limits at the end of the 19th century, Glasser et al. say that "a similar pattern can be observed in other parts of southern Chile (e.g., Kuylenstierna et al., 1996; Koch and Kilian, 2001)." Likewise, they note that "in areas peripheral to the North Atlantic and in central Asia the available evidence shows that glaciers underwent significant recession at this time (cf. Grove, 1988; Savoskul, 1997)," which again suggests the operation of a globally-distributed forcing factor such as cyclically-variable solar activity.

In concluding their study, Glasser et al. consider a number of "possible explanations for the patterns of observed glacier fluctuations." Since so many factors come into play in this regard, however, and since a good percentage of glaciers refuse to respond as their neighbors do, it is difficult to provide a "one size fits all" explanation for their behavior. Nevertheless, in as close as one can come to framing a general conclusion on this point, Glasser et al. state that "proxy climate data indicate that many of these broad regional trends can be explained by changes in precipitation and atmospheric temperature rather than systematic changes related to the internal characteristics of the ice fields."

In light of this body of evidence, and Glasser et al.'s analysis of it, it would appear that the history of glacial activity they describe does indeed suggest the existence of a millennial-scale oscillation of climate that operates on a broad scale . perhaps, in fact, over all the earth. Viewed in this light, the current recession of many of earth's glaciers is seen to be but the most recent phase of a naturally-recurring phenomenon that has been "doing its thing," over and over, without any help from variable greenhouse gas concentrations, throughout the entire last half of the Holocene.

So what's new?

Nothing.

Source






Remote Australia becoming wetter

How awful! According to the global warmers it should be getting drier, I think. It should definitely not be getting better, anyway!

"Australia's dry heart is getting wetter. The changes do not mean we will all soon be rushing to live in a lush jungle that was once desert, but a CSIRO scientist said today the changes were significant enough to be noticeable. Climate scientist Ian Smith said research on Bureau of Meteorology records for the past 50 years showed average rainfall nationwide had risen. Dr Smith said the wetter conditions had occurred mostly in sparsely populated regions, which was unfortunate for the drought-affected parts of Australia. The wetter areas included almost all of Western Australia and parts of central Australia. "It almost goes all the way from the northern parts of the north-west tropics all the way down to the Great Australian Bight," Dr Smith said. "They have been getting wetter, and significantly wetter according to the statistics. It's in the order of about 10 per cent a decade.... Where it's normally dry, that 10 per cent a decade doesn't necessarily mean a great deal of rainfall in terms of millimetres, but in the far north that translates into a lot more rain."

Dr Smith said computer climate modelling had shown that the wetter conditions were possibly the result of complex changes to monsoon circulation which carried moist air from the ocean over the land during summer. He said the changes involved monsoon areas becoming wetter and cooler in summer while dry regions became wetter and warmer. This caused the monsoon circulation to carry moisture further inland before it fell as rain, he said. Dr Smith said he couldn't comment on the long term outcome and whether dry regions would become more productive as they got more rain. "I'd be very interested to know what the impacts are throughout that part of the country and that's the next phase of our research," Dr Smith said.

Source

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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RUSSIA'S KYOTO CHARADE

The vastly corrupt entity that is Russia will not of course make the slightest attempt to comply with the Kyoto obligations it has undertaken but it will take years for that to become clear and Russia will reap the advantages it wants from the EU in the meantime. And the EU is happy because the Russian agreement makes good window-dressing for their own folly. The report below pretends to take the matter seriously, however:

"Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed the federal law "On the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change", the presidential press service reported on Friday. The bill was passed by the State Duma on October 22, 2004, and it was approved by the Federation Council on October 27.

The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an international agreement setting targets for industrialized countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions in 2008-2012. This is a pilot project aimed at introducing new economic mechanisms - tradable quotas and joint implementation - to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within a five-year period.

To come into force, the protocol must be ratified by at least 55 countries representing 55 percent of the total emissions in 1990. After the United States and a number of other countries refused to ratify the treaty, Russia's support became crucial. As of now, 124 countries have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, but they only represent 44.2 percent of the total emissions. The treaty comes into force automatically after it is ratified by Russia, accounting for 17.4 percent of the total emissions.

At the same time, the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol will lead to additional costs for Russia. The bulk of measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions will be included in the government program "Energy effective economy" for 2002-2005 and through 2010.

Meanwhile, according to forecasts for Russia's economic performance, carbon dioxide emissions in Russia will exceed 1990 levels before the end of the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol in 2008-2012. Russia's financial losses resulting from the ratification of the treaty could total tens of billions of dollars during the first phase of the treaty, and in further periods - hundreds of billions of dollars.

Additional funds will be needed to implement preventive measures to adapt the country's economy to climate change and create a system for emission monitoring and control, including RUR 20m in one-time expenses in the first two years after ratification, RUR 20m in annual expenses, and an additional RUR 20m a year starting in 2008. Russia will pay another $150,000 to the Kyoto Protocol's budget, for administrative costs.

The Bush administration refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol in 2001. Australia did not hurry to join the treaty, either. Both countries are actively involved in the settlement of the Iraqi crisis, sidelining other international problems. However, thanks to Russia, the Kyoto Protocol came to the foreground again.

After the treaty comes into force, many national governments will find themselves in an awkward position. Countries that will fail to meet their obligations will face international sanctions in 2010. According to the protocol, the European Union countries will have to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 8 percent, which is hardly realistic, according to the Western media. However, the United States and Australia, which will find themselves in isolation once the Kyoto treaty comes into force, will face the greatest difficulties.

It is difficult to say how beneficial the treaty will be for Russia. Western analysts say the ratification of the document will bring economic benefits to Russia, and it will help Russia join the WTO. But Russian analysts expect significant financial losses and economic slowdown.

Source




AND FRED SINGER IS VERY SKEPTICAL ABOUT THE RUSSIAN MOVE TOO

S. Fred Singer is professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia -- yet another retired man, funnily enough

After much flip-flopping that even a certain presidential candidate cannot match, the Russian cabinet has decided to submit the Kyoto Protocol for ratification. At least, that's what's been reported.

We shall have to see now what further economic and political concessions the Russian Duma (parliamant) can extract from the European Community in return. It is worth noting, however, that President Putin has labelled Kyoto as "scientifically flawed" and that the Russian Academy of Sciences concluded that there is no scientific basis for the Protocol (RAS Council Statement of May 14, 2004). So, clearly, the motivation is not an altruistic desire to "save the global climate" (whatever that may mean) but a shrewd political and economic calculation, with rather short-term objectives.

Because once Russia ratifies the Protocol, it will become legally binding on industrial nations (except the US and Australia, who have opted out so far), and Russia can start selling their unused emission credits to Europe - as permitted under the Protocol's trading scheme. There are still a few gambits that Russia might spring on the much-too-eager Europeans before ratification - like claiming credit for the absorption of carbon dioxide by the vast and growing Siberian forests. Another gambit may be to insist on a guaranteed minimum purchase of emission certificates. But basically, Russia can look forward to getting something like an estimated $5 billion per year. This income transfer will be from European ratepayers - households and industries that consume electricity - all on top of rising eco-taxes and rising subsidies for "sustainable" wind energy and similar boondoggles.

The delicious irony in all this - never advertised but quite easily grasped - is that there will be no benefits whatsoever to the atmosphere or the climate. As long as Europe and Japan buy sufficient unused emission rights, their emissions can continue to grow - as if they never signed Kyoto. Not that this matters too much. It is useful to recall that even if Kyoto were to be punctiliously enforced - with no cheating and with no emission trading - and if emissions were really to be reduced to 5 per cent below the 1990 level, the calculated temperature effect would only be 0.05C by 2050 - and only 0.02C if the US does not ratify....

It is often claimed that Bush withdrew from Kyoto in 2001, but this is not true. It is worth noting that Clinton never submitted Kyoto for ratification from 1997 to 2000. Bush, of course, has announced a voluntary plan of reducing the emission of carbon dioxide as a percentage of rising GNP - essentially a program of increasing energy efficiency.

More here

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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DEPLETED URANIUM HALFLIFE

A reader has sent me a probable explanation of why halfwitted Greenies often get the halflife of DU so wrong. As my post of 7th below notes, Greenies and their media allies often give the halflife as 109 years:

"U-238 has a half-life on the order of 4.5 x 10 to the 9th power years; the mathematically illiterate seem unable to comprehend the way the number is written. 10 superscript 9 gets reduced to 109 and they lose the 4.5 x completely. Clueless, but that's where that number comes from, I'll bet.




ISRAEL: THE GREENEST STATE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Or, more precisely, the ONLY Greenie country in the Middle East

Israelis have a tradition of nature conservation and rehabilitation going back over a hundred years. Rishon-Rishon has the details. You would think that the Green/Left would be great supporters of Israel in that case, wouldn't you. No such luck! It once again shows that the real Greenie agenda is anti-people rather than pro-nature.




WINDFARM SKIT

There is not much that is funny about a windmill but the windfarm industry can be very funny indeed. There is a skit here (or here) on the subject written by someone involved in the Australian windfarm industry.




ARCTIC DISSENT

Arctic sea ice not melting: new research

By BOB WEBER-- The Canadian Press

IQALUIT, Nunavut (CP) -- A Canadian scientist is pouring cold, unfrozen water on the notion that global warming is melting arctic sea ice like a Popsicle at the beach. Greg Holloway galvanized an international meeting of arctic scientists Tuesday by saying there is little evidence of a rapid decline of the volume of ice in the northern oceans. Despite breathless media reports and speculation of an ice-free Northwest Passage, he suggests that it's far more likely that the ice has just been moved around in the cycles of Arctic winds. "It's more complicated than we thought," said Holloway, a scientist with the Institute of Ocean Science in Victoria.

The original theory was based on declassified records from the trips of U.S. submarines under the ice. Satellite pictures have clearly shown that the surface area of the ice has decreased about three per cent a year for the last 20 years. But the question was, How thick was it? The submarine data generated headlines and cover stories from the New York Times to Time Magazine when it seemed to indicate that ice volume had decreased by 43 per cent between 1958 and 1997. The evidence seemed good. There were only eight different voyages, but they had generated 29 different locations across the central Arctic where there were enough readings to make comparisons.

Holloway, however, couldn't make that conclusion jibe with any of his computer models. "We couldn't understand how the reduction could be so rapid," he said. "My first thought was, What is it we don't understand?" Holloway knew that there was a regular pattern of sea ice being blown into the North Atlantic. He decided to examine if the wind patterns across the circumpolar North could have had something to do with the missing ice. Wind patterns blow across the Arctic in a 50-year cycle. At different points in the cycle, ice tends to cluster in the centre of the Arctic. At other points, the ice is blown out to the margins along the Canadian shorelines, where the subs were not allowed to go because of sovereignty concerns.

When Holloway lined up the submarine visits with what he knew about the wind cycles, the explanation for the missing ice became clear: "The submarine sampled ice during a time of oscillation of ice toward the centre of the Arctic. They went back during a time when ice was oscillating to the Canadian side."

Holloway had found the missing ice. "I believe it is most probably explained with the shifting ice within the Arctic locations," he said to applause from scientific delegates from Norway to China. If the submarines had made their first visit one year earlier and their return one year later, Holloway says they would have found no change in the thickness of the sea ice at all.

Holloway cautions that his research doesn't force a total re-evaluation of the theory of global warming. Temperatures on average are rising around the world, he says. It does, however, deflate excitement about the possibility of an ice-free Northwest Passage. The chance of a year-round northern shipping route has thrilled commercial shippers, worried environmentalists, and concerned those worried about Canada's ability to enforce sovereignty in those waters. "At this time, we do not have the basis to predict an open Northwest Passage," said Holloway.

It also calls into question some of the findings and recommendations of the International Panel on Climate Change, which accepted the 43 per cent hypothesis in its report to various governments. More data is coming in as further reports from American and British submarines are released. But the furore over the first results contains a lesson for both scientists and the public, Holloway says. "It's a very small amount of time and a very limited number of places those submarines could go," he said. "The cautionary tale to all this is the undersimplifying of a big and complex system."

"Who knows what's going on out there?"

The above article is reproduced in full from Canoe because Canoe advise that: "information on CANOE is changed frequently. In some sections, such as our newspapers, content is removed after 24 hours."




BUT THE NONSENSE GOES ON

Below is an excerpt from the latest "news" report about the recent ludicrous Arctic study. I have already dealt with this study on 3rd and so has Louis Hissink. Briefly: The Greenland ice is NOT melting; Arctic ice is sea ice so if it all melted sea-levels would not change; Because it is sea-ice there are NO glaciers there; and if the Arctic is melting twice as fast as elsewhere and the Antarctic is not melting at all the effect is not a GLOBAL warming effect but a local effect of some kind

"Global warming is melting the Arctic ice faster than expected, and the world's oceans could rise by about a meter (3 feet) by 2100, swamping homes from Bangladesh to Florida, the head of a study said on Tuesday. Robert Corell, chairman of the eight-nation Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), also told a news conference there were some hints of greater willingness by the United States, the world's top polluter, to take firmer action to slow climate change. Speaking at the start of a four-day scientific conference in Reykjavik, Corell said global warming was melting the Greenland ice sheet and Arctic glaciers from Alaska to Norway quicker than previously thought. "Greenland will play a much bigger role in sea level rise than anticipated," said Corell, a scientist at the American Meteorological Society. He said a 2001 U.N. report forecast world ocean levels would rise by 20-90 cms by 2100. He said some U.N. forecasts assumed melting Greenland ice would cause just 4 mm of the rise.

At the other end of the globe from the Arctic, the thicker Antarctic ice is expected to stay more stable, like a deep freeze

The ACIA report was funded by Arctic nations the United States, Canada, Russia, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland and is the biggest survey to date of the Arctic climate, by 250 scientists. It says Arctic temperatures are rising by twice the global average and are set to rise by a further 4-7 Celsius (7-13 Fahrenheit) by 2100".

UN rejects population doom fears

If the UN says it, then it MUST be right!

United Nations figures just released challenge fears that the human race may drive itself to extinction through over-population. The figures suggest an eventual equilibrium as people in poorer countries come to understand the need for smaller families. If fertility levels continue to fall, global population will stabilise three centuries from now at about 9 billion - a far less alarming figure than many have predicted. The latest calculation is based on "medium-level" expectations that fertility rates will decline significantly - to about two children per woman - even in developing nations, and then rise again slightly.....

The 300-year period covered by the report is twice as long as any previously attempted by the UN. Figures are not forecasts but extrapolations of what would happen if current trends continued. Given continued progress in extending life expectancy, the report says people could expect, on average, to live more than 95 years by 2300. Japan, the global leader in life expectancy today, is projected to have a life expectancy of more than 106. Longer lives could greatly extend retirement periods, with dire implications for pension schemes....

China, India and the United States are projected to remain the world's three most populous countries for the next three centuries, although India will have overtaken China by 2050, with a population of 1.53 billion. Pakistan, now seventh, could move up to fourth place by 2050, while Russia, sixth today, may drop to 18th. Two smaller countries expected to enter the population top 20 are Uganda and Yemen which, by 2300, are shown to occupy 11th and 12th places....

The report suggests the world's population will always grow slightly over time because life expectancy will continue to rise, but by smaller and smaller margins.

More here


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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me or here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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A really dumb Greenie: "A French anti-nuclear protester was fatally injured yesterday when his leg was severed by a train carrying radioactive waste to Germany. Paramedics quickly attended to Sebastien Briat, 21, after the incident near the town of Avricourt, but he died on the way to a nearby hospital. He had been caught by surprise by the train while trying to chain himself to the tracks. At least one other demonstrator was injured. The death prompted an outpouring of grief in Germany, where an anti-nuclear group abandoned calls for similar protests. Dozens of French police had been patrolling the tracks to keep protesters off but about 10, including those in a group with Briat, had slipped by".




AN AUSTRALIAN GLOBAL-WARMING DISSENTER

Another retired guy, of course. It's too risky to dissent if you need a job. I am a retired academic myself

"William Kininmonth, Melbourne-based meteorologist and former head of the National Climate Centre, offers a warning in his new book, Climate Change: A Natural Hazard. As the title implies, Kininmonth believes that the threat posed by humans and their carbon economy has been overstated. The official overstater is the International Panel on Climate Change, an outgrowth of the UN that brings together bureaucrats and scientists. In its 1990 report the IPCC confirmed the greenhouse effect: we pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; less radiant heat is able to escape into space; the surface temperature of the Earth rises. The report did venture a forecast -- average temperature could rise three degrees by 2100 -- but caution was expressed and uncertainties were underlined.

Kininmonth has no great quarrel with the 1990 report, although he thinks climate change has more to do with natural cycles than with industrial production lines. But for him the tone of the crucial 2001 IPCC report is altogether more confident and the forecasts more dramatic: temperature could rise as much as 5.8 degrees by 2100. What changed? It's not as if the science had dramatically improved, Kininmonth says. But climate change had gained political momentum. To give the right results, the greenhouse theory had to dumb down climate in all its complexity.

The IPCC, Kininmonth says, reduces climate to a one-dimensional mock-up in which radiation is given too great a part to play. Little weight is given to oceans, vast reservoirs of heat. "The one-dimensional [hypothesis] is a prescription for flat-earth physics whose application leads to erroneous conclusions," he writes. "Those who ascribe to it have been seduced to forget elementary school geography; Earth is a globe with seasonal patterns of solar heating that generate temperature differences between the tropics and the poles."

Nor, says Kininmonth, are these shortcomings made good by the IPCC's much-vaunted computer models. True, the models show rapid improvement and the new wave of ocean research holds great promise. But as things stand, he says, the IPCC models simply cannot give a realistic picture of how atmosphere and oceans interact in our climate system. And that fatally undermines the IPCC forecasts. A flimsy basis, it would seem, for global policy that would constrain carbon industries and cause economic upheaval. Why, then, isn't there a storm of scientific protest? "My personal view is that the majority of scientists don't fully understand the complexities of the climate system, they're following the lead of the IPCC," says Kininmonth. He believes the greenhouse campaign also benefited from lucky timing; the severe El Nino drought of 1982-83 created a thirst for a simple explanation......

More here




AND A BRITISH GLOBAL-WARMING DISSENTER>

You guessed it: Another retired man. Philip Stott is Professor Emeritus of Biogeography in the University of London

"The Republican tornado has rained on Europe's ecochondriacs. Hand-wringing supporters of the battered Kyoto treaty are overcast as Myron Ebell, one of George Bush's senior climate change advisers, accused Sir David King, the Chief Scientific Adviser to the British Government, of being "alarmist". Ebell stated that there would be no change in America's environmental policy after Mr Bush's re-election, and the reasons are clear.

In both the Senate and the House of Representatives, the Republicans have been returned with strengthened majorities and any measures seen to hinder the economy will be treated with disdain. And following the letter of the Kyoto Protocol would be expensive. Clamping down on carbon emissions could drain $1 trillion from the world economy, hit production and raise energy prices punitively.

Congress will have no truck with Europe's whining over American withdrawal from the protocol. The electoral map reveals a swath of Republican red from Nevada to Virginia, from Texas to North Dakota - the heartland of the car and GM crops. The more snooty old Europe rattles on about these issues, the more it will drive a wedge between America and itself.

Tony Blair's addiction to the Kyoto Protocol is dangerous. It is an assault on different cultural values which have been honed by history and the wider horizons of geography. Moreover, we know that the Kyoto Protocol will do nothing about climate change: at the most it will delay changes by two years over the next century. To declare otherwise is to mislead.

More embarrassingly, most European countries are far from attaining their own emission targets, although they freely lecture the good folk of Ohio and Oklahoma. Moreover, future energy demand does not lie in the West, but in the East, in China, India, Indonesia and Russia, most of which are not bound to make emission cuts by the Kyoto treaty. China will happily support Kyoto in theory, knowing that it can benefit economically as Western economies make themselves uncompetitive by donning the eco-hairshirt.

Like the vice-presidency, the Kyoto Protocol isn't worth "a pitcher of warm spit" and the Republicans know it."

Source

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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Louis Hissink's weekly science roundup is mostly about Greenie issues this week. He starts out with some good laughs about the scientific illiteracy of the latest "Arctic melting" scare. I had my laughs about it on 3rd (below). He adds this interesting comment about the Arctic, though:

"It might be interesting to look at a recent world map drawn by the Chinese in the late 14th Century (or early 15th). It is the Di Virga Map recently discovered by the team at 1421 which clearly shows the northern coastline of Siberia from Norway to the Bering Straights. It is a map compiled before any of the European maritime Nations started discovering the world, so one is immediately intrigued by the fact that in order to map this northern Siberian coast, ships must have add easy access to that coast. This suggests that perhaps the Arctic ice cover was far less than what it is now."

So there was a been a big Arctic melting hundreds of years ago, long before industrialization -- suggesting that any current changes are natural too. Louis has lots more, including of course, a debunking of the egregious BBC .....

I will post no more today as Louis has enough fun information for us both. Go read....

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me or here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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THAT WICKED DEPLETED URANIUM RIDES AGAIN

Ever since the first Gulf war, various Green/Left people (such as the notorious propagandist John Pilger) have been getting their knickers in a knot over depleted uranium -- the uranium that is left after the radioactive part has been extracted. Just the name "uranium" must be thought to sound bad as the Green/Left produce much apparent hysteria about it from time to time -- even claiming that it is dangerously radioactive -- which is precisely what it is not.

The hysteria seems to have died down in recent years but a recent announcement from Italy has revived some far Left passions. The announcement is reproduced below:

According to the Italian Military Health Observatory a total of 109 Italian soldiers have died thus far due to exposure to depleted uranium. The observatory stressed the fact that 41 pct of active personnel casualties relate to disease. According to Domenico Leggiero at the Military Health Observatory, "The total of 109 casualties exceeds the total number of persons dying as a consequence of road accidents. Anyone denying the significance of such data is purely acting out of ill faith, and the truth is that our soldiers are dying out there due to a lack of adequate protection against depleted uranium". Leggiero pointed out the fact that the Senate has to date failed to establish a probe committee on this matter: "it is proof of a worrying lack of oversight on matters which are frankly dramatic". Members of the Observatory have petitioned a urgent hearing "in order to study effective prevention and safeguard measures aimed at reducing the death-toll amongst our serving soldiers".

Just in case there are some people who might wonder what is behind the announcement (one-word answer: Politics), Wayne Lusvardi has prepared a few brief notes on the subject:


Depleted Uranium or Depleted Cranium?

One of the better online sources summarizing the science dealing with this issue is "Depleted Uranium - The Science" by Michael McNeil (Impearls.blogspot.com). Depleted uranium is a heavy metal that is 40% less radioactive than natural uranium. It is used in the manufacture of armor-piercing bullets and anti-tank shells, as well as in the U.S. Abrams tank armor to protect it from such armament. Neither soldiers nor those who work in the munitions industry have shown any adverse medical affects from exposure to depleted uranium. As scientist Robert L. Park has facetiously stated: "I always figured it would be a lot better to be shot with a uranium bullet than a dum-dum -- it should make a good clean hole."

Neither is there any evidence to support that depleted uranium leads to higher incidence of cancer, larger than normal infiltration of uranium into the food chain, or other health problems for civilians or soldiers. Moreover, the infinitesimal amount of depleted uranium in bullets or armor flies in the face of all of what science knows about radiation -- low levels of radiation are beneficial to humans. Hot springs and mineral water resorts have elevated amounts of radioactivity. The city of Ramsar, Iran is on top of a natural radioactive hot spot many, many times more powerful than that of depleted uranium and the populace is no less healthy than in normal areas. A single coast-to-coast vacation airplane flight subjects its passengers to much more radiation than could ever be emitted from constant exposure to depleted uranium. The reported half-life of depleted uranium is one billion years, not 109 years as erroneously reported in many news pieces. The anti-war Left seems fixated with the number 109 when it comes to the issue of depleted uranium (109 deaths, 109 year half life). It makes you wonder if they know the difference.

Those anti-war activists on the political Left who are continually decrying the reasons for the Iraq War as propaganda should look at the their own exaggeration of the facts and junk science before they lay any claim to any moral or scientific high ground on the issue of the war. The problem may be more in a depleted cranium than with depleted uranium. As Mark Twain once wrote: "It isn't what we don't know that causes problems; it's what we think we know that just isn't so."

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me or here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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LOMBORG IN THE GUARDIAN:

The "skeptical environmentalist" gives the Guardianistas the facts

In a world where we cannot deal with all the problems at the same time, we need to ask: what should we do first? This was the question answered by the Copenhagen Consensus, a project that brought together 38 of the world's top economists to set up a list of the global priorities. They looked at the main challenges to humanity, and the many solutions that we already have, analysing both their benefits but also their price tag. By using cost-benefit analysis the expert panel of economists found that HIV/Aids, hunger, free trade and malaria were the world's top priorities. Equally, the experts rated urgent responses to climate change extremely low. In fact, the panel called these ventures "bad projects", simply because they cost more than the good they do.

Last week, a coalition of environmental and development organisations published a report stating the Kyoto protocol and even stricter policies should be our first priority. Not surprisingly, they criticised the Copenhagen Consensus as "intellectually corrupt" with "bizarre conclusions" reached through "intellectual illiteracy". Such language is often used instead of strong arguments. If you read the coalition's report, it does not show that global warming is where we can do the most good. It simply points out that climate change can have serious, negative impacts. The real question remains: where can we do the most good for our efforts?

Here the coalition goes overboard on its claims about global warming. It says climate stability holds absolute precedence over all other is sues, stating: "A stable climate is something we might now call a system condition for civilisation." Without it, "civilisation is impossible". Such a gambit is politically savvy - but also incorrect. Let us agree that human activity is changing our climate and that global warming will have serious, negative impacts. Nonetheless, all the information from the UN climate panel, the IPCC, tells us that it will not end civilisation.

The coalition tells us that the proportion of hungry people may actually go up by 2015. Yet the fact is that the UN expects the proportion to decline from 17% to less than 12% of the developing world. By 2015, only a very small portion of global warming will have taken hold, and even by 2080, the IPCC expects that the global food production will have increased by about as much as it would in an unwarmed world.

It worries that malaria will rise in a warmer world. This claim has some theoretical validity, but forgets that malaria only persists with poor infrastructure and health care. Actually, throughout the 1500-1800s, malaria was a major epidemic disease in Europe, the US and far into the Arctic Circle. It didn't end because it got colder, but because Europe and the US became richer and dealt with the problem.

The coalition tells us that sea levels will rise by some 50cm by 2100 in the highest scenarios. This will clearly cause problems in low-lying countries such as Bangladesh. Yet what it forgets to tell us is that sea levels rose in the 20th century by up to 25cm. Sea level rise in the 21st century will be worse and should not be trivialised, but the IPCC estimates that the total cost of adaptation will be around 0.1% of gross domestic product.

The end-of-civilisation argument is counterproductive to a serious public discourse on our actions. We do have a choice. We can make climate change our first priority, or choose to do other good first.

If we go ahead with Kyoto, the cost will be more than $150bn (œ80bn) each year, yet the effect will first be in 2100, and will be only marginal. This should be compared with spending the $150bn each year on the most effective measures outlined in the Copenhagen Consensus, saving millions of lives. The UN estimates that for just half the cost of Kyoto we could give all third world inhabitants access to the basics like health, education and sanitation.

Global warming is a problem. But we need to ask if we can do more for the world if we tackle other issues first. This question addresses the pressing problem of prioritisation head-on. Why did thousands die in Haiti during the recent hurricanes and not in Florida? Because Haitians are poor and cannot take preventive measures. Addressing the most pressing issues will not only do obvious good, but also make people less vulnerable to the effects of climate change. We need to do the best things first.

Source

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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A TRICKY ONE FOR THE GREENIES

They're sure to hate Coke but they hate insecticides too. So which to choose?

"Indian farmers are reportedly spraying their cotton and chilli fields with Coca-Cola to protect them from pests.They say it's much cheaper than chemical pesticides and just as effective at controlling bugs, reports the Guardian. Hundreds of farmers are reported to have switched to cola in Andhra Pradesh and Chattisgarh states. Gotu Laxmaiah, a farmer from Ramakrishnapuram, said he was delighted after spraying cola on his cotton crops."I observed that the pests began to die after the soft drink was sprayed on my cotton," he told the Deccan Herald newspaper."






FRED SINGER PUNCTURES ANOTHER HOT AIR BALLOON

The perennial Bush-bashing target has been the climate issue - with the enthusiastic participation of UK chief science adviser Sir David King ("Global Warming is a greater threat than terrorism"). Now the New York Times has arranged to interview a notorious global warmer, Dr James E. Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan. He criticizes White House climate policy, claiming the "Bush administration has ignored growing evidence that sea levels could rise significantly unless prompt action is taken."

He apparently bases this assertion on his own publication [Proc Nat'l Acad Sci 2004] that to preserve global coastlines, global warming must not exceed one degree celsius. As sole support for this unusual claim, he cites there his recent article in the popular Scientific American vol 290, pp 68-77, 2004. But all evidence shows sea levels rising steadily - by about 400 feet in the past 18,000 years, since the peak of the most recent ice age. Significantly, the measured rate of rise did not accelerate during the substantial warming of the early 20th century.

In addition, as is well known, prompt policy action (by cutting emissions of greenhouse gases in accord with the Kyoto Protocol) would lower the calculated temperature rise for 2050 by at most a tiny one-twentieth of a degree C - too small to even measure.

Further, Bush did not "withdraw" from Kyoto - as his critics claim. While he has not submitted Kyoto for ratification, neither did Clinton - probably because the US Senate in 1997 had voted unanimously against such a treaty - including also Senator Kerry.

(Dr S. Fred Singer is an atmospheric physicist, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service. The evidence on sea-level rise is summarized in his book "Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate".)

Source

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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WHY THE GLOBAL WARMING SCARE?

Prof. Derr outlines the reasons why normal scientific caution is taking a back seat. He first outlines the flaws in the scientific claims that mankind is causing global warming and then goes on to say:

"There is much more, in more detail, to the argument of those scientists who are skeptical about the threat of global warming. On the whole, their case is, I think, quite persuasive. The question, then, is why so few people believe it.

Part of the answer is that bad news is good news-for the news media. The media report arresting and frightening items, for that is what draws listeners, viewers, and readers. The purveyors of climate disaster theories have exploited this journalistic habit quite brilliantly, releasing steadily more frightening scenarios without much significant data to back them up. Consider the unguarded admission of Steven Schneider of Stanford, a leading proponent of the global warming theory. In a now notorious comment, printed in Discover in 1989 and, surely to his discomfort, often cited by his opponents, Schneider admitted:

To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.

This sort of willingness to place the cause above the truth has exasperated Richard Lindzen, Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT, who is one of the authors of the science sections of the report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body responsible for an increasing crescendo of dire warnings. In testimony before the U.S. Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, he called the IPCC's Summary for Policymakers, which loudly sounds the warming alarm, "very much a child's exercise of what might possibly happen . . . [which] conjures up some scary scenarios for which there is no evidence."

This brings us to the second part of the answer, which concerns the political and economic consequences of the policy argument. The IPCC is a UN body and reflects UN politics, which are consistently favorable to developing countries, the majority of its members. Those politics are very supportive of the Kyoto treaty, which not only exempts the developing countries from emissions standards but also requires compensatory treatment from the wealthier nations for any economic restraints that new climate management policies may impose on these developing countries. Were Kyoto to be implemented as written, the developing countries would gain lots of money and free technology. One need not be a cynic to grasp that a UN body will do obeisance to these political realities wherever possible.

The Kyoto treaty would not make a measurable difference in the climate-by 2050, a temperature reduction of maybe two-hundredths of a degree Celsius, or at most six-hundredths of a degree-but the sacrifices it would impose on the United States would be quite large. It would require us to reduce our projected 2012 energy use by 25 percent, a catastrophic economic hit. Small wonder that the Senate in 1997 passed a bipartisan resolution, the Byrd-Hagel anti-Kyoto resolution, by 95-0 (a fact rarely recalled by those who claim that America's refusal to sign on to the treaty was the result of the Bush administration's thralldom to corporate interests).

Most of the European countries that have ratified Kyoto are falling behind already on targets, despite having stagnant economies and falling populations. It is highly unlikely they will meet the goals they have signed on for, and they know it. Neither will Japan, for that matter. The European Union has committed itself to an eight percent reduction in energy use (from 1990 levels) by 2012, but the European Environment Agency admits that current trends project only a 4.7 percent reduction. When Kyoto signers lecture non-signers for not doing enough for the environment, they invite the charge of hypocrisy. There is also the obvious fact that adherence to the treaty will hurt the U.S. economy much more than the European, which suggests that old-fashioned economic competitiveness is in the mix of motives at play here. The absurdity of the treaty becomes obvious when we recognize that it does not impose emissions requirements on developing countries, including economic giants such as China, India, and Brazil. (China will become the world's biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions in just a few years.)

A third reason why global warming fears seem to be carrying the day goes beyond these political interests; it involves intellectual pride. Academics are a touchy tribe (I'm one of them); they do not take it kindly when their theories, often the result of hard work, are contradicted. And sure enough, the struggle for the truth in this matter is anything but polite. It is intellectual warfare, entangled with politics, reputations, and ideology; and most of the anger comes from the side of the alarmists. People lose their tempers and hurl insults-"junk science," "willful ignorance," "diatribe," "arrogant," "stupid," "incompetent," "bias," "bad faith," "deplorable misinformation," and more. Consider the fiercely hateful reaction to Bjorn Lomborg's 2001 book, "The Skeptical Environmentalist". He challenged the entrenched and politically powerful orthodoxy and did so with maddeningly thorough data. His critics, unable to refute his statistics, seem to have been enraged by their own weakness-a familiar phenomenon, after all. Or perhaps, with their reputations and their fund-raising ability tied to the disaster scenarios, they felt their livelihoods threatened. In any case, the shrillness of their voices has helped to drown out the skeptics.

Finally, there is a fourth cause: a somewhat murky antipathy to modern technological civilization as the destroyer of a purer, cleaner, more "natural" life, a life where virtue dwelt before the great degeneration set in. The global warming campaign is the leading edge of an environmentalism which goes far beyond mere pollution control and indicts the global economy for its machines, its agribusiness, its massive movements of goods, and above all its growing population. Picking apart this argument to show the weakness of its pieces does not go to the heart of the fear and loathing that motivate it. The revulsion shows in the prescriptions advanced by the global warming alarmists: roll back emissions to earlier levels; reduce production and consumption of goods; lower birth rates. Our material ease and the freedoms it has spawned are dangerous illusions, bargains with the devil, and now comes the reckoning. A major apocalypse looms, either to destroy or, paradoxically, to save us-if we come to our senses in the nick of time.

It is clear, then, given the deep roots of the scare, that it is likely to be pretty durable. It has the added advantage of not being readily falsifiable in our lifetimes; only future humans, who will have the perspective of centuries, will know for certain whether the current warming trend is abnormal. In the meantime, the sanest course for us would be to gain what limited perspective we can (remembering the global cooling alarm of a generation ago) and to proceed cautiously. We are going through a scare with many causes, and we need to step back from it, take a long second look at the scientific evidence, and not do anything rash. Though the alarmists claim otherwise, the science concerning global warming is certainly not settled. It is probable that the case for anthropogenic warming will not hold up, and that the earth is behaving as it has for millennia, with natural climate swings that have little to do with human activity".





MORE COMMENTS ON THE GREENIE "FOREIGN POLICY"

Despite their alleged "non-interventionist" or "pro-peace" stance, they have been fairly noisy advocates of international intervention in Sudan, based on much less intelligence and national interest than was available in the run up to Iraq. Indeed their position seems to be based on the idea that foreign policy decision making power should be outsourced to NGOs who are portrayed as completely altruistic, impeccably honest and with no special interest agenda.

At the same time they have been unwilling to acknowledge that the terrorist blowback Australia experienced in Bali and more recently in Jakarta may have more to do with Indonesian Islamists annoyance at our support for East Timorese independence than our minor role in the Afghan War, or the Iraq War, that came later. The captured Bali terrorists have publicly stated that East Timor policy was their motivation.

To the Greens, and the left in general, the idea that a policy they support as just and proper may generate blowback is something they cannot handle, as it would require them to rethink their Vietnam era assumptions about Third World insurgents as humble patriots. The paradox of their noisy support for intervention in some instances and noisy opposition elsewhere is best explained by a famous poet. Robert Frost said that "a liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in an argument". There seems to be a belief that military action in your own interests is inherently wrong, but it's okay if it doesn't benefit you."

(The above comments are from a reader who has more on the subject on his own blog here)

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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