"APOCAHOLISM SIMPLY RUINS WHAT OUGHT TO BE THE GREAT PARTY OF LIFE"

An email from Wendell Krossa [mailto:wkrossa@shaw.ca]

Re the comments that none of the apocalyptic doomsayers has been right and they always fail- I would ask: What exactly are they missing? Apocalyptic doom-saying evidences a serious pathology at work. In the first place, it is a distorting perception of reality that holds a dismal view of humanity as essentially evil and bent on screwing things up. This denies the essential goodness of human consciousness and the infinite creative potential of human minds.

Corollary to this is the apocalyptic misperception that human freedom is a dangerous thing that allows people to engage in destructive enterprise. This is astounding, that all the great success of the past few centuries (lengthened life-spans, reduced child mortality, reduced disease, more comforts and conveniences, less violence in the world, cleaner and protected environments) can be dismissed as peripheral byproducts of a movement that is essentially destructive to life and nature (liberated people engaging in creative enterprise).

But it shows how the pathology of apocalyptic distorts human perception of reality. If apocalyptic were some nutty but benign sideshow then we could bemusedly watch the entertainment from the sidelines. But it is unacceptably dangerous to human society and advance. Apocalyptics don't just want to entertain you; they want to control your life and tell you just how to live in onerous detail.

Peter Foster of the National Post noted the other day that all this environmental doomsterism leads to "the almost universal call for centrally directed global mobilization to 'do something'. Now" (The Madness of Eco-crowds, May 23/07). Hence, the oft heard comment that disgruntled socialists are finding rebirth in environmentalism.

No matter how nutty we may consider apocalyptic, it is a dangerous movement because apocalyptics scare people and scared people are more easily manipulated and controlled. So apocalyptic is a direct assault on human freedom.

But perhaps the most serious impact of the pathology of apocalyptic is the waste of human potential. This is evident in the redirection of significant public and private funds that could be better invested elsewhere (Lomberg and others speak to this prioritizing of world concerns in Global Crises, Global Solutions). Along with this there is the redirection of research skills and time that could be better employed attending to issues that are of genuine concern to the planet.

There is also the overall constraining of economic growth and development that makes everyone poorer in the end (fear and guilt over using abundant energy sources to continue economic growth). And there is the unnecessary fear and guilt over enjoying the bounty of life and the abundance that Earth provides for human advance (natural and healthy consumption of the goods and services of our economies).

It reminds me of the horrific waste of human potential in the past century under socialist regimes. It is hard to imagine a greater 'evil' than to waste human lives and minds. Add to this the apocalyptic pressure to return us all to some low-consumption, peasant utopia that never existed. Apocalyptic simply ruins what ought to be the great party of life.

Julian Simon expressed something of this in his excellent book Ultimate Resource. He said the actual conditions on Earth should lead humanity to throw a party to outdo all parties. "We ought to sing, dance and be merry...but instead we see gloomy faces. They (the doomsters) are spoilsports and they have had bad effects...don't let them spoil our merry day" (p.408). He added that doomsterism undermines public morale and weakens the spirit of adventurous enterprise.

I would venture further that apocalyptic always fails because it misses the most fundamental trends in reality and life. It misses the trend of reality and life toward increasing order, organization, complexity, and toward something better. In human society this is evident in the trend toward something more humane. James Payne (The History of Force) and Stephen LeBlance (Constant Battles) both captured this in their histories of the decrease in violence over the life of human civilization.

These long term trends are never realized in steady upward trajectories but suffer setbacks along the way due to residual drives that sometimes overcome the better element of humanity (natural disasters and disease are also destructive setbacks). But these setbacks do not define the overall long term trends. They are more the nature of aberrations. The entire history of the universe, life on Earth and the progress of human society are evidence of the fundamental rising trajectory toward something better.

Without getting too spiritual about it let me also venture that all these positive trends traced by researchers like Simon speak to a fundamental generosity and goodness at the core of reality and life. Apocalyptic misses this entirely. But then wasn't it Nietzsche who said that we all hold some basic orientation toward life- either denying or affirming it.




Actual South American Snow Cover Data Show No Climate Change

Within the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the authors of the chapter focusing on snow, ice, and frozen ground (Chapter 4) state that "The cryosphere integrates climate variations over a wide range of time scales, making it a natural sensor of climate variability and providing a visible expression of climate change." In their very next sentence, the authors concede that "the cryosphere has undergone large variations on many time scales associated with ice ages and with shorter-term variations." This is a conscientious caveat to their report, because it is widely accepted that Earth's cryosphere, or frozen realm, has changed significantly in the past with variability in planetary temperature. It should not be too difficult to understand the concept that periods of reduced snow and ice across Earth have historically coincided with planetary warmth. With a risk of tugging on that particular linchpin of Al Gore's scientific knowledge, here comes new research findings associated with snowpack variability in the Andes Mountains of South America.

Outside of Antarctica, snow cover in the Southern Hemisphere has not received much attention in the climate change debate. In fact, within the snow, ice, and frozen ground chapter of the AR4, approximately 800 words along with three figures and one table are dedicated to snow cover variability in the Northern Hemisphere, compared to less than 400 words and no accompanying graphics for variability in the Southern Hemisphere. We're here to help spread the word on findings from the southern half of Earth.

Very late in 2006, the Journal of Climate published the research work of Mariano Masiokas (Instituto Argentino de Nivolog­a, Glaciolog­a y Ciencias Ambientales and Department of Geography, University of Western Ontario) and colleagues entitled "Snowpack variations in the central Andes of Argentina and Chile, 1951-2005: Large-scale atmospheric influences and implications for water resources in the region" (Masiokas et al. 2006). The research team used snow course data from each side of the central Andes in Chile and Argentina to develop the "first regional snowpack series." The team employed the six longest and most complete snow course records for the 55-year period in the region, covering an area stretching from 30S to 37S latitude. Their variable for study is annual maximum snow water equivalent (MSWE).

The snowpack of the central Andes serves as much more than a monitor of climate change. The authors explain that "over 10 million people in Central Chile and central-western Argentina depend on the freshwater originating from the winter snowpack of the central Andes." Alarming is their charge that "coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation models especially targeted to investigate high-elevation sites" have indicated that "for the next 80 years the central Andes will probably experience significant temperature increases" (Bradley et al. 2004; Masiokas et al. 2006). To make matters worse, Masiokas et al. note that "independent general circulation model simulations also predict a significant decrease in precipitation over the region for the next five decades" (Cubasch et al. 2001). The combination of higher air temperature and less precipitation in the central Andes over the rest of this century is not the recipe for a problem-free regional water supply. The climate models seem to be sending a strong message to over 10 million people in Chile and Argentina. Surely this trend is already evident given the global warming of the past several decades that is supposedly unprecedented within Earth's climate record, right? Wrong.

Masiokas et al. found no such trend in MSWE, stating that the regional record "shows a non-significant positive linear trend (+3.95% per decade) over the1951-2005 interval," or an absolute increase of greater than 21% over the period (Figure 1). The group matched the MSWE record with mean monthly streamflow data for the primary rivers in the region. They found that river discharges on both sides of the central Andes "are strongly correlated with the snowpack record and show remarkably similar interannual variability and trends."



Figure 1. The regional snowpack (MSWE) series from the central Andes expressed as percentages from the 1966-2004 base period. The dashed lines indicate one standard deviation in the 1951-2005 regional snowpack record. MSWE means for the 1951-76 and 1977-2005 periods are shown as thick horizontal lines.

The work is important for two reasons. First, it once again either proves that general circulation models are not completely reliable, or it shows that little or no climate change has occurred in the central Andes, or both. Second, it introduces snow cover data from the Southern Hemisphere - a rarity in climate change circles. Within the snow, ice, and frozen ground chapter of the IPCC's AR4, South American snow cover is briefly mentioned among the few words dedicated to the Southern Hemisphere. One of the IPCC's conclusions is derived from newspaper accounts: "A long-term increasing trend in the number of snow days was found in the eastern side of the central Andes region (33S) from 1885 to 1996, derived from newspaper reports of Mendoza City." The other "conclusion" uses the altitude of the 0 Celsius line from atmospheric profile data at one location as a surrogate for the behavior of the snow line of the western Andes. But instead of the indirect evidence reported in the IPCC, Masiokas et al. provide data for the real thing-actual snow on the ground. In so doing, they shed more doubt on the reliability of global circulation models while boosting the hopes of more than 10 million people in Chile and Argentina.

Source

In support of the above, note that the research below found no change in global precipitation WORLDWIDE -- very different from what warming would have produced:

Variations in annual global precipitation (1979-2004), based on the Global Precipitation Climatology Project 2.5o analysis

By Thomas M. Smith et al.

Abstract

The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) has produced a combined satellite and in situ global precipitation estimate, beginning 1979. The annual average GPCP estimates are here analyzed over 1979-2004 to evaluate the large-scale variability over the period. Data inhomogeneities are evaluated and found to not be responsible for the major variations, including systematic changes over the period. Most variations are associated with El Nio/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) episodes. There are also tropical trend-like changes over the period, correlated with interdecadal warming of the tropical SSTs and uncorrelated with ENSO. Trends have spatial variations with both positive and negative values, with a global-average near zero.

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 33, L06705, 2006





Send your underwear to the Undersecretary

Top-loading laundry machines have long been a low-priced, dependable home appliance. But no more-the federal government has wrecked them with its energy-efficiency regulations. That's the finding of the June 2007 issue of Consumer Reports. In its words: "Not so long ago you could count on most washers to get your clothes very clean. Not anymore. .What happened? As of January, the U.S. Department of Energy has required washers to use 21 percent less energy, a goal we wholeheartedly support. But our tests have found that traditional top-loaders . are having a tough time wringing out those savings without sacrificing cleaning ability, the main reason you buy a washer." Some of the top-loaders tested had "the lowest scores we've seen in years."

In fact, out of the 21 new top-loader models that Consumer Reports tested, it couldn't pick a single one as a "Best Buy": "[F]or the first time in years we can't call any washer a Best Buy because models that did a very good job getting laundry clean cost $1,000 or more."

Government mandates for higher efficiency are almost always accompanied by claims that the higher prices they cause will be more than offset by their alleged savings from lower energy costs. But that raises a fundamental question-if these new technologies are so good, then why do we need laws to force consumers to buy them? In fact, efficiency mandates often flop, and in some cases they flop disastrously. Government fuel efficiency rules for cars, for example, already contribute to thousands of deaths each year due to vehicle downsizing. Many people dislike compact fluorescent bulbs for perfectly valid reasons, but there is now a push to mandate their use by banning incandescent bulbs.

The risks of the laundry washer rules were pointed out long ago. But despite the fact that these problems have now developed, Congress may well boost efficiency requirements once again-not just for washers (as if they haven't done enough damage already) but for cars, trucks and a huge range of appliances and machinery.

Source





G8: TARGETS "POSTPONED"

Targets and timetables for carbon emission cuts are still out but a call for a major meeting in December to agree the way forward on global warming is back in the latest draft conclusions to be put to next month's G8 summit. The draft, seen by Reuters and dated May 15, reinstates a call for the meeting in Bali in December to make progress on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol which is the only global deal on cutting carbon emissions but which lapses in 2012. "We are committed to moving forward in that forum and call on all parties to actively and constructively participate in the negotiations on a comprehensive agreement at the UN Climate Conference in Indonesia in December 2007," the draft says.

That paragraph was excised from a previous draft in April. Many other paragraphs stressing the urgency of the climate crisis remain deleted in the latest draft. Diplomats says the cuts were made by a group of countries led by the United States but including Canada and Japan. Negotiations to expand and extend Kyoto beyond 2012 are barely moving and diplomats are hoping that the G8 summit in the German resort of Heiligendamm from June 6-8 will agree on a declaration strong enough to revitalise the talks.

Source




Australia: A Greenie absurdity made real



MEET Queensland's first carbon farmer. Peter Allen, pictured, a third-generation farmer from Moura, has signed a $1 million deal for doing nothing at all. In a historic transaction, mining company Rio Tinto bought the rights to carbon dioxide stored in 3500ha of Mr Allen's heavily vegetated property, 575km northwest of Brisbane. Instead of clearing the land to run cattle, Mr Allen will preserve the trees for 120 years to ensure they soak up carbon dioxide.

When you hear talk of carbon offsets, this is where the money goes. Many of the state's farmers stand to reap multimillion-dollar incomes from selling carbon rights to large corporations or individuals wishing to become carbon neutral. "It's not like I have won the lotto or that I'm a tree-hugger. It was a purely financial decision," Mr Allen said. "We looked at the return on developing that land for grazing, compared to the return from the carbon rights. "We had to think hard before we decided to lock that land up for the next 120 years. "If it had been any less money, we wouldn't have done it."

This time last year, Mr Allen had eight bulldozers ready to knock down a swathe of trees on an investment property just outside Charleville. Under the State Government's moratorium on land clearing, farmers were given until December last year to enact one final clearing permit. Rio Tinto stepped in, offering Mr Allen and five other farmers money in exchange for their inaction. A total of 12,060ha was spared, the carbon rights secured under a legally binding contract. It is believed to be Australia's biggest carbon-trading deal.

The carbon industry is expected to boom after the Prime Minister's Task Group on Emissions Trading hands down its blueprint next Thursday. But as the carbon industry gears up, questions have been raised about the lack of regulation over the voluntary offset market - the system through which airline passengers, rock festival patrons and motorists can pay for their pollution. Green watchdogs say the voluntary market is open to exploitation, with no controls on who can sell carbon and no checks on the work carried out. Further questions have been raised about the effect of tree-planting, the popular method used by most carbon offsetters.

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 generally to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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THE THIN BLUE LINE: A QUESTION ABOUT CLIMATE STATS AND TRENDS

An email from David Whitehouse [david@davidwhitehouse.com] below -- noting statistical shenanigans at NOAA -- including that great Greenie practice of treating as "outliers" anything that does not suit them. The latter part of the summary blue line in the graph below is pure fiction -- as a look at the detailed figures reveals. That we are now in a plateau phase of a temperature oscillation is wilfully ignored. It is a perfectly legitimate statistical practice to ignore the occasional aberrant value as an outlier but it is certainly not justifiable when there are lots of such "outliers" in close succession

You know my view of global warming - first allegiance should be to the data. Looking at NOAA's data on annual global mean temperature over land and ocean here shows something interesting which I know others have referred to. NOAA says of 2006 that it was the 5th warmest year on record but adds that it is in reality statistically indistinguishable from previous years. Indeed looking at the graph it's apparent that the last six years show no warming trend and are well within each others error bars. In fact the past ten years are statistically equivalent to no increase.



Clearly the past ten years have been warmer than the previous ten years and the blue line shows a trend of about 0.015 degrees a year. But I wonder what is the statistical justification of carrying that rising trend through the past ten years. It seems predicated on passing through the exact centre of the 2001 error bars and allowing 1998 (an El Nino year) to be 2 standard deviations above the trend. Is the blue line justified in showing a 0.1 degree rise all within the (larger) error bars that themselves show no trend?




HURRICANE SCARE DEBUNKED

Hurricanes over the past 5,000 years appear to have been controlled more by El Nino and an African monsoon than warm sea surface temperatures, such as those caused by global warming, researchers said on Wednesday. The study, published in the journal Nature, adds to the debate on whether seas warmed by greenhouse gas emissions lead to more hurricanes, such as those that bashed the Gulf of Mexico in 2005.

Some researchers say warmer seas appear to have contributed to more intense hurricanes, while others disagree. The UN International Panel on Climate Change said this year it was more likely than not that humans contribute to a trend of increasingly intense hurricanes.

Frequent strong hurricanes thrived in the Western Atlantic during times of weak El Ninos, or warming of surface waters of the Eastern Pacific Ocean, and strong West African monsoons even when local seas were cooler than now, the study said. "Tropical sea surface temperatures as warm as at present are apparently not a requisite condition for increased intense hurricane activity," Jeffrey Donnelly, the lead author and researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said in the study.

Intense hurricanes made landfall during the latter half of the Little Ice Age, a period of cooling that occurred approximately from the 14th to mid-19th centuries, he said.

Donnelly took core sediment samples from coastal lagoons in Puerto Rico to determine the frequency and strength of hurricanes that hit the Caribbean island over thousands of years. The storms whipped up sand and other coarse grains that were deposited in the lagoons. He compared the deposits with historic paleoclimatology records to determine that the storms hit during periods when El Ninos were weak and when Western African monsoons were strong. Intense hurricanes hit when local sea surface temperatures were warm or cool.

In fact, "the Caribbean experienced a relatively active interval of intense hurricanes for more than a millennium when local sea surface temperatures were on average cooler than modern," the study said. Changes in intense hurricane activity should be better predicted with more study of the Eastern Pacific and West African climate patterns, it said.

Source






Appalling and unhealthy results of recycling mania in the Unhinged Kingdom

Sharon Lock, 36, has three bags of rubbish in her cluttered garage. They have accumulated there in the three days since her husband spent his Sunday morning driving to the tip seven miles away. Since February, when East Cambridgeshire District Council introduced fortnightly black-bag collections in Bottisham, he has been making the journey twice a week. "It's a real pain in the butt, to be honest with you", the mother of one said. "My son, Drew, is 2 and we can't have dirty nappies and food sitting in the garage for a fortnight. The smell is horrendous."

Lucy Baynes, who gave birth to her first child Zac only five weeks ago, tells a similar story. Two days before the fortnightly collection in leafy Bottisham, there is already a pile of black bags stacked against a post outside her garden, one of the communal collection points for the village. "Initially I thought the scheme was a good idea, but the stacks of rubbish are disgusting. That pile will be humming in the summer, and there will be more foxes and cats."

The council halved black bag collections in Bottisham only weeks ago, having already done so last summer in the village of Witchford. The pilot schemes are a response to the Government's controversial drive to push councils into cutting down on landfill and boost recycling, which Ben Bradshaw, the Environment Minister, said has resulted in 144 councils already experimenting with fortnightly collections.

Voters in many of these local authorities, including East Cambridgeshire, will be taking part in local elections next week. If sitting councillors are going to suffer as a result of their decisions to cut back on the dustmen, you would expect it to be at the hands of people such as Mrs Lock and Ms Baynes. Yet neither of these women will be voicing their frustration over refuse at the polls next week, because neither of them will be voting at all. Both cite their young children as a reason why they have not engaged with the election campaign, and both seem decidedly uninterested in whether the 17 Liberal Democrat councillors, 16 Conservatives and 6 independents will hold their seats on May 3.

Among those in the village who will vote, post office closures and council tax were both mentioned as reasons to back one party over the other, but not one person told The Times that the backlog of binbags would influence their decision. Which is perhaps why Colin McLean, the village's Conservative councillor, is relatively relaxed about the issue: "People have not been shaking hands over it on the doorstep," he said, "but nor have they been shaking fists."

Back in Bottisham, where the residents have had less time to adjust to the changes, John Humphreys expresses the mood of many people: "It is a diminution of the service which they tell us is an improvement, which gets up people's noses, and its an imposition, but compared with the big issues like the NHS it is not important. The retired teacher is less than thrilled about having to store nonrecyclable rubbish for two weeks before it is taken off his hands. But he will not be swayed by the battle of the binbag when he goes to vote. "We are the compliant people of England, and life's too short," he said. "It's not worth going to the barricades over."

Source





Ethanol mania hits China -- hurts food supply

To a growing list of grievances over the rapid pace of economic change in their country, Chinese have another to add: a surge in the price of pork, caused partly by the country's drive to curb pollution. China consumes more pork per capita than any other nation and the meat is at the heart of myriad dishes, most frequently stir-fried with vegetables or chillies. It is also served as meatballs in a popular dish known as Lion's Head or in Dongpo rou, pork belly braised for hours into sweetish unctuous melt-in-your-mouth chunks named after an 11th-century poet.

But many Chinese are having to curtail their passion for pork after prices almost doubled in some cities compared with a year ago. Some consumers are now paying a record 10 yuan (60p) per jin (about 1 lb/4.5kg) and there is official concern about possible unrest among an urban population fretting over poor housing, a volatile jobs market, severe congestion and pollution.

China's Communist leadership is particularly sensitive to any issues that are likely to stir popular anger - and the price of food is acutely important to a people who use the words "Have you eaten?" as a greeting. State media said: "The relevant management offices attach great importance to this and have organised experts to investigate the market."

China boasts the world's largest population of hogs, with about 485 million at the end of last year. Most are reared on large farms, but tens of millions are the pride and joy of smallholders who keep one or two animals that live virtually in the family home. They feed on scraps from the table and ensure a windfall when the animal goes to slaughter, often at Chinese new year.

The cause of the rise in prices is much debated. An outbreak of blue ear disease - porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome - a year ago, wiped out more than a million pigs. But the biggest factor driving up prices appears to be the cost of corn for feed. Corn is in short supply because harvests have been diverted to produce ethanol. Corn-based ethanol is used mainly for blending with petrol to reduce quantities of harmful emissions and China has been promoting wider use of biofuel to curb pollution before the Beijing Olympics next year.

An official at the New Hope Group, China's biggest private feed grain producer, in the southwestern province of Sichuan said: "Supply is tight and this is making corn more expensive. We are seeing contradictions between supply and demand."

Perhaps mindful of last year's street protests in Mexico over a shortage of corn-based tortillas, Beijing is urging consumers to be patient. The Price Bureau, which monitors consumer trends, said that it was confident the price of pork would now start to fall slowly, partly because farmers are raising more pigs to take advantage of the higher prices and in part because people eat less pork in the summer.

Source





Britain: GREEN SPIN GOES UP IN SMOKE AS BP SCRAPS CARBON STORAGE PLANS

British government is all talk

BP has abandoned plans to build a "green" power plant in a snub to Alistair Darling on the day that the Trade and Industry Secretary unveiled a new energy strategy aimed at reducing carbon emissions. Just hours after Mr Darling announced his Energy White Paper yesterday, the oil giant halted work on a 1bn-plus carbon capture and storage facility in Scotland, blaming delays in state subsidies.

BP's decision is an embarrassment for the minister, whose White Paper is designed to underline the Government's commitment to take a global lead in cutting greenhouse gases. The oil company, in a joint venture with Scottish & Southern Energy, has spent 30m during the past 18 months preparing to build a gas-fired power plant that would generate electricity and store 90pc of the emissions created in a depleted North Sea oil field. Similar projects are planned by other power companies.

But because the advanced technology makes such plants uneconomic, the Government promised to kick-start two or three facilities with subsidies. BP said yesterday that it had hoped to get a decision on state aid by the end of 2006, but this was pushed back to the end of 2007. But the White Paper indicated that a decision might not come until well into 2008 or beyond. "That's an extension too far," said a BP spokesman. "It would have been difficult to keep the project alive when there is uncertainty about funding. We have already spent a lot of money on the project."

FULL STORY 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 generally to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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GAME OVER: BRITAIN CONCEDES THAT EU TARGETS ARE NO LONGER ON G8 AGENDA

Britain's foreign minister on Tuesday said she expected no discussion of numerical targets for greenhouse gas emissions at a meeting of the leaders of the Group of Eight wealthy nations in Germany next month. British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett was asked by reporters in Tokyo whether she was concerned about a possible gap in climate change policy between the European Union and Japan, ahead of the summit at Heiligendamm in Germany.

"I don't think anyone envisages the idea that there should be some discussion about setting numerical targets at Heiligendamm," she said after a meeting with her counterpart, Foreign Minister Taro Aso. "There has been a misunderstanding of the nature of the discussions that we expect," Beckett said. "What we are both anxious to see is discussions about whether there should be a further international framework and what might be an effective framework," she said, referring to hopes that a new agreement will take the place of the Kyoto protocol, which expires in 2012.

Japan is finalising a proposal for a new global framework to cut greenhouse gas emissions from 2013, and plans to unveil it later this week, Kyodo news agency said on Monday, quoting government officials. But the United States, which did not ratify the Kyoto agreement, has been pushing for a strongly worded statement on climate change to be deleted from a final communique for the June 6-6 summit.

Source






COMMENTS ON: "WELCOME TO APOCAHOLICS ANONYMOUS"

Email from Michael Martin-Smith [lagrangia@lagrangia.karoo.co.uk]

Just a few words in support of Gary Alexander, the recovering Apocaholic; I recently watched a documentary on the mediaeval Black Death plague which is "credited" with having wiped out 25% or more of the population of Eurasia in less than 5 years. In some regions of Europe the toll was even greater, with losses of over 50 %, in a matter of months. I have always been impressed ,since my schooldays, with how little mention this awful event merits in most school history books- and yet it was by far the nearest to "Armageddon" our species has reached in all of recorded history.The reason for this is, I believe, both astonishing and heartening. For, despite all the anguish and horror the Black Death must have caused, both to people en masse and as individuals, we find within barely a generation , "normal service resumed", in the larger perspective, both for good and ill - and even major social and scientific advances, over the ensuing century or two in many respects. I suspect that, on close examination, the Black Death, horrible though it was, could probably have been a midwife to the modern world... The evidence is that whoever or whatever does give us "Armageddon" is going to have their work cut out!

Email from Tim Ball [timothyball@shaw.ca]

Great article in this time of environmental hysteria. My comment is there have been hundreds of doomsayers but not one has been right. The proof is if one was right we wouldn't be here today.






INCANDESCENT LAMP BAN?

Some excerpts below from a very comprehensive article highlighting the gross ignorance behind this proposal

My apologies for the length of this article, but this has turned into something of a horror story. Only a short while ago, I thought that the power factor issue was most important, then that a vast number of enclosed light fittings (probably hundreds of millions worldwide) cannot be used with CFLs was critical. Now, it turns out that dimmers are a far bigger issue that first imagined. What happens in houses where dimmers are fitted? These must be removed completely, not simply set to maximum and left there. Who's going to pay to have millions of dimmers worldwide removed by electricians? You, the homeowner - that's who.

Power factor is still very important ... while you only pay for the actual energy used (as shown on the packaging), power companies have to provide the full voltage and current (also shown on many packages and/or other literature). The relatively poor power factor increases distribution losses and therefore the cost of getting electricity to your house.

Now, we also have the European Union (EU) singing the same silly song. It was recently announced that the 490 million citizens of the 27 member states will be expected to switch to energy-efficient bulbs after a summit of EU leaders yesterday told the European Commission to "rapidly submit proposals" to that effect. I wonder just how much research was done before this piece of lunacy was announced? None, perhaps?

Nothing in this article is conjecture or CFL bashing (I like CFLs, and use them wherever possible in my home and workshop), merely simple facts that a great many people have overlooked. The reasons are described below (yes, it's mostly technical), and for those who want to know more about power factor, the use of CFLs in existing luminaires, or any of the other factors involved, please read on .....

The current cry to ban the humble incandescent lamp (also known as GS - general service) may not seem like such a bad idea at first glance, but there are a number of issues that have not been addressed (or even thought about, based on what has been heard so far). Incandescent lamps are inefficient, typically over 95% of all energy consumed is converted into heat - not light. By comparison, the CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) has a dramatically higher efficiency, although it falls well short of a full sized (18W or 36W) standard fluorescent tube.

Many people have tried CFLs in any number of locations, but they are not always liked because of their colour rendition (many colours look wrong under all forms of fluorescent lighting), and because they are considered by many to be rather ugly. These dislikes are not necessarily major issues of course, although there are many users who would disagree.

Lighting is actually a very complex topic, and although it seems pretty simple on the surface, there are many factors to consider that proposed legislation will utterly fail to address. Just look at the European RoHS (restriction of hazardous substances) legislation as an example of how wrong things can get when governments become involved in things they don't understand.

This article is not intended to be a complete and final discussion - because lighting is so complex, I am bound to miss things, and I can only rely on the information I can get my hands on. There is undoubtedly a great deal that I won't find. Hopefully though, this article may get a few people thinking of the long term implications of the proposed ban (which is almost completely meaningless in real terms).

As a side issue, although I have (mostly) used the term "efficiency" in this article, this is actually relatively meaningless for lights. The correct term is luminous efficacy, usually expressed in lumens / Watt. While not strictly accurate, comparing the relative efficiency of different light sources does make it easier to comprehend - few people outside of the lighting industry will really have a proper grasp of the concept of luminous efficacy, so I have elected to keep the term "efficiency" in the interests of making the article as easy to understand as possible.

Many people would have seen the story circulating the Net about a woman in Maine (US) who broke a CFL in her daughter's bedroom, and was quoted $2,000 to clean up the mercury. This is what happens when bureaucrats become involved in things they don't understand (like lighting for example). This story is scare-mongering at its lowest. While I have no doubt that the figure is correct, it would be plain stupid to involve bureaucrats in something as trivial as a broken CFL.

Yes, mercury is a potent neurotoxin, but metallic mercury is relatively safe. The real danger comes from the vapour and various salts and compounds (as may easily be created in landfill for example) ... not from 5mg of mercury buried in the carpet. Having said that, I'm not sure I'd be happy letting a small child play on the floor where any fluorescent lamp had been broken. Kids have enough things to cause them damage or injury without adding tiny glass shards and mercury to all the other concerns.

Perhaps governments and CFL manufacturers could provide the necessary cleanup procedures that should be undertaken to ensure that the area is reasonably safe after "contamination". At present, you will find a great many conflicting opinions as how best to clean up after a breakage, but almost no usable information about the possible risk from the mercury itself. For myself, I'd probably not be at all concerned, but my kids are grown up and have their own homes. With small children around, I'd want to know with reasonable certainty that a recommended cleanup process would make the area safe enough for them to play on.....

If the powers that be (wherever in the world they are) are serious, then the obvious answer to working out if there are any genuinely worthwhile benefits to a ban on incandescent lamps is fairly simple. Conduct a trial. Select a small town, and choose 50% of randomly selected dwellings to continue the way they are already, and get the other 50% to use CFLs exclusively. No modifications to light fittings, no changes to anything other than the type of lamps used.

With careful monitoring of both sets for lamp failures, total energy usage (electricity, gas, heating oil, etc.) and overall satisfaction or otherwise, a realistic set of statistics can then be developed to show exactly what the outcome of a wholesale ban would achieve. This is real science, using a controlled test environment to gather information that can be expected to be reasonably representative of the benefits to the area tested and anywhere else that has similar climate. Data may be extrapolated to determine a realistic potential outcome for other localities.

While businesses may be included, many (if not most) will be found to be using conventional tube fluorescent lamps, because of the necessity for good lighting in most areas of business (cinemas, nightclubs and many restaurants being notable exceptions).

Such a trial needs to be run for 1 year, and at the end, people will have real data from real homes in a realistic environment. This is a far cry from the situation at present, where we have a few zealots sprouting figures that either make no sense, are often obviously false, or are simply the same as the (often wrong) figures sprouted by other zealots. I'm getting rather fed up with some of the claims, as they seem to be based entirely on fantasy. One I saw claimed that "Changing one incandescent lamp for a CFL will save 9 pounds in one year, or 100 pounds over the life of the lamp." (or along those lines - I can't find the quote this time around). Based on those figures, the lamp has to last for over 11 years - a fairly unlikely scenario. In common with many such claims, the lamp power wasn't mentioned, what it replaced wasn't mentioned, and no supporting data was mentioned either. In other words, the figures claimed have no substance at all - pure horse-feathers.

One thing I have seen in countless forum sites, blogs and other areas is especially disconcerting. Some people seem to have a completely black and white approach to many things. So much so that Hempel's Paradox (look it up - it's worth it) is applied in full ... i.e. All ravens are black, therefore anything that is not black is not a raven. There are people who have used their own version of this 'logic' with the CFL debate ...

"I have used CFLs in sealed luminaires without failure, (Ravens are black)
therefore all CFLs can be used in all sealed luminaires without failure" (therefore anything not black is not a raven).

What this denies is that anyone's claim or experience that differs from that of the writer is even a possibility. It is instantly wrong, because it doesn't match the (very limited) experience of the person making the claim. Bear in mind that anyone who uses this line of argument has involved no research, no scientific principles, and no experimental data other than the claim itself. Some people using such an approach can be shown that their logic is flawed, but others will never be convinced. Ravens are indeed (usually) black, but non-black ravens probably do exist (but no, I don't actually recall seeing one

Incandescent Lamp Characteristics

Benefits ...

Low purchase price
Simple, low technology manufacturing (minimal energy usage to manufacture)
Excellent power factor (unity)
Easily dimmed with simple and cheap TRIAC dimmers
Pleasant, "human friendly" colour rendition (and colour temperature)
Colour Rendering Index (CRI) of close to 100 (100 is optimal) [6]
No hazardous materials used in manufacture
Can be used at any temperature, freezers and ovens are no problem (~-18øC and ~250øC respectively)
Relatively modest initial (inrush) current when switched on (~10 to 20 times running current)
Recycling (although it would be nice) is not really needed because of small amount of materials used
No electro-magnetic interference problems

Deficiencies ...

Low efficiency, far more heat than light (typically less than 5% efficient)
Relatively short life (typically 500-2,000 hours)
High running cost for a given light output

In may be premature to write off the poor old incandescent lamp anyway. General Electric (GE) is apparently developing an incandescent lamp that matches the efficiency of typical CFLs [4], and no doubt others will follow before too much longer. One site I looked at claimed that it takes about 1kWh to manufacture an incandescent lamp. No further details were given.

The Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL) also seems simple from the outside - you can't see what's inside, but there is quite a bit of technology involved. The tube itself contains around 5mg of mercury, mercury vapour (mercury is an extremely potent neurotoxin ), and various phosphors that emit visible light when stimulated by the intense ultraviolet radiation emitted by a mercury arc discharge. There is still some conjecture regarding the toxicity of the phosphors, with various claims and counter-claims. It is generally better to err on the side of caution with any chemical compound, so a designated recycling program is essential before the mandatory use of CFLs becomes a reality. Such a program should be in place now to deal with standard fluorescent lamps, as these also contain the phosphors and the mercury. In Europe, the WEEE Directive (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) has already addressed the issue of recycling, but it has not been mentioned so far for Australia. Interestingly, some CFL manufacturers have even stated that the expected boom in CFL sales will create problems with the mercury (it's true - look it up).

Proponents of the anti-incandescent lamp stance will point out that the reduction in energy usage by using CFLs will prevent far more mercury entering the atmosphere than will be liberated by the (inappropriate) disposal of defunct CFLs. While this may be true at present, there are serious moves afoot to reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired power stations [2], so the point may be lost to scientific advances before too long. Consider too that mercury from power stations is distributed, not concentrated in landfill.

The CFL is not as efficient as a standard full-size fluorescent lamp, but still manages to achieve quite respectable performance. An efficiency of around 6-10% seems to be indicated, but there are so many factors that influence the apparent efficiency that direct comparisons are difficult.

The technology used in modern CFLs is quite astonishing for a throw-away product. The incoming mains is rectified to obtain DC, and there is some degree of ripple reduction by a filter capacitor. A switchmode inverter is then used to obtain the necessary voltage to strike the arc within the tube, and additional circuitry is included to limit the current to the nominal value needed to produce the required power. All of this must fit into the base of the lamp itself. Dedicated lamp housings are becoming available so that only the tube itself needs to be replaced (at present they seem aimed primarily at commercial applications).

The disadvantage of all this is that the power factor is far worse than an incandescent lamp. You don't pay for the extra current drawn, but the power utility must still provide cabling, transformers and generating plants that can handle the total load current, regardless of the power factor. There is still a significant saving, but this could easily be eroded because of two significant failings of CFL technology as it exists at present.

Readily available CFLs cannot be dimmed effectively with a normal wall-plate dimmer, so must run at full power at all times (some provide a low power setting by switching off and back on quickly). Incandescent lamps are often dimmed to very low power levels for extended periods (while watching TV for example), so their power usage will be perhaps 20% of the rated power, in some cases even less.

CFLs will fail prematurely if switched on and off many times a day. Many people already know this, so may be tempted to leave lights on that would otherwise be switched off, so a household might have 4 or 5 CFLs running for hours at a time, where they may have had only 1 or 2 incandescent lamps switched on (and possibly on dimmers, thus reducing power significantly).

Another area where CFLs cannot be used is at very low or very high temperatures. Most will not start at all at temperatures below -20øC, and a lot will refuse to start (or will have very low light output) at even higher temperatures. Because of the electronics in the base of the lamp, temperatures above around 50øC will shorten their working life considerably. Electronics components have highly accelerated failure rates as temperature goes up from the standard 25øC 'reference' ambient.

Note that premature failure (* above) is very difficult to judge unless the switching is logged. Some makers quote switching cycle data, most don't. Some newer models of CFL use active inrush current limiting, so will not stress switching systems when CFLs are used in large numbers (from the same switch). A standard CFL has the potential for an inrush current of up to around 4 to 5A, since it is limited only by the equivalent series resistance (and to a lesser extent the capacitance) of the filter capacitor, along with any series resistance. Series resistance will usually be kept to a minimum, as it contributes nothing more than heat (and reduces overall efficiency).

A very common question in forum sites is along the lines of "My light fitting says that the maximum lamp power is 60W. Can I use a 20W CFL that has the same light output as a 100W lamp?"

The standard answer given in Q&A sites is an unqualified "yes", however there is one major factor that must be considered but rarely gets a mention. Some CFL packaging states that the lamps must not be used in fully enclosed light fittings, but in reality, no CFL is suitable. The reason is temperature. Because of the electronic circuitry, all CFLs can only be used where they have reasonable ventilation to prevent overheating. Excess heat doesn't bother an incandescent lamp, and temperatures well in excess of 100øC won't cause them any problems at all. Remember that the filament is already operating at around over 2,000øC, so a bit more won't hurt (although wiring insulation and even the lamp socket itself will be damaged eventually). Some sealed light fittings use high temperature wire internally, because they get too hot inside for ordinary PVC insulation - which will fail quite quickly at elevated temperatures.

Because of the electronic circuitry, the maximum ambient temperature for a CFL should remain as low as practicable, with most manufacturers warranting their products to a maximum of 50øC. This has forced a complete re-design for recessed downlights [7], and many other light fittings are completely unsuitable. If the heat from the tube and the electronics cannot escape, the temperature will potentially rise to well over 50øC, and the lamp's life and light output will be badly affected.

There are far too many factors that need to be considered to even try to answer the question here, but as a guide, if the light fitting is completely sealed (or recessed into the ceiling with no way for hot air to escape) then the answer is no. Not simply "no" to the question, but no to the use of any CFL in a completely sealed (or even just poorly ventilated) light fitting.

Many of the sites that offer advice have zero technical expertise, and a lot seem to assume that CFLs emit almost no heat at all. Anyone who has used one knows that this most certainly is not the case.



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Save energy, buy a Hummer

People who subscribe to catastrophic global-warming scenarios sometimes buy hybrid vehicles to do their part in saving the planet. As for me, I'd be more likely to buy a Hummer if I thought man-made global warming was a real problem. The reason is simple. Though hybrids have much higher fuel efficiency, their overall energy cost exceeds that of SUVs, including the Hummer. The overall energy cost of the Honda Accord hybrid, for example, is $3.29/mile; for the Hummer H3 it's $1.949/mile.

This interesting statistic comes from CNW Marketing Research Inc., which spent two years collecting data on how much energy it takes to plan, build, use, and dispose of specific vehicle makes and models. CNW's figures on energy use are impressively inclusive. They factor in such details as the distance auto-plant employees drive to work, electricity usage at car dealerships, and literally hundreds of other variables.

The 479-page study is free and well worth digging into. Readers will find, for example, that the fuel a car burns over its lifetime isn't the largest portion of its energy use, just the most visible. Also interesting is that energy consumed during manufacturing makes up only a small part of the total energy cost/mile.

And it's easy to get tripped up calculating energy use. Toyota, for example, says it reduced by 30% the energy it consumes to build vehicles in Japan. But CNW says Toyota's claims ignore the energy demands of its suppliers building full-module components. In some cases, the energy requirements of these suppliers actually exceed those of Toyota had the automaker kept the work in-house.

It also becomes clear why hybrids don't score well on lifetime energy use. The first generation of hybrids is likely to be scrapped earlier than comparable ordinary vehicles, simply because first-generation technology rapidly loses maintenance support. Repairs quickly become a losing proposition.

Hybrid components are also more expensive to make and recycle. H2 Hummers, for instance, have about $800 worth of medium-weight steel, which takes about $200 worth of energy to produce. The steel is easily recycled. The infrastructure to do so has been in place for decades. But the Prius has lightweight steel and steel composites that cost about $585 and take roughly $230 worth of energy to produce. Disposal of this metal is more energy intensive than that in the Hummer though there is less of it.

The complexity of hybrids and their relatively low volumes also works against them when repairing accident damage. A Prius, for example, needs nearly three times more time and twice as many parts costing nearly nine times more than a comparable small car in an identical accident. Complexity also takes a toll during design and development. The energy to design and develop a Prius runs $29,000/vehicle. For a Corolla, it's just $2,600.

All in all, the report points the way for those who truly want to minimize planet-wide energy use. The clear choice is a used original VW Beetle. Its overall energy cost is a mere $0.05/mile.

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Hidden costs of corn-based ethanol

Policymakers and legislators often fail to consider the law of unintended consequences. The latest example is their attempt to reduce the United States' dependence on imported oil by shifting a big share of the nation's largest crop -- corn -- to the production of ethanol for fueling automobiles. Good goal, bad policy. In fact, ethanol will do little to reduce the large percentage of our fuel that is imported (more than 60 percent), and the ethanol policy will have ripple effects on other markets.

Corn farmers and ethanol refiners are ecstatic about the ethanol boom and are enjoying the windfall of artificially enhanced demand. But it will be an expensive and dangerous experiment for the rest of us. On Capitol Hill, the Senate is debating legislation that would further expand corn ethanol production. A 2005 law already mandates production of 7.5 billion gallons by 2012, about 5 percent of the projected gasoline use at that time. These biofuel goals are propped up by a generous federal subsidy of 51 cents a gallon for blending ethanol into gasoline and a tariff of 54 cents a gallon on most imported ethanol to help keep out cheap imports from Brazil.

President Bush has set a target of replacing 15 percent of domestic gasoline use with biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel) during the next 10 years, which would require almost a fivefold increase in mandatory biofuel use, to about 35 billion gallons. With current technology, almost all of this biofuel would have to come from corn because there is no feasible alternative. However, achieving the 15 percent goal would require the entire current US corn crop, which represents a whopping 40 percent of the world's corn supply.

This would do more than create mere market distortions; the irresistible pressure to divert corn from food to fuel would create unprecedented turmoil. Thus, it is no surprise that the price of corn has doubled in the past year -- from $2 to $4 a bushel. We are already seeing upward pressure on food prices as the demand for ethanol boosts the demand for corn. Until the recent ethanol boom, more than 60 percent of the annual US corn harvest was fed domestically to cattle, hogs, and chickens or used in food or beverages. Thousands of food items contain corn or corn byproducts.

In Mexico, where corn is a staple food, the price of tortillas has skyrocketed because US corn has been diverted to ethanol production. Any sort of shock to corn yields, such as drought, unseasonably hot weather, pests, or disease could send food prices into the stratosphere. Such concerns are more than theoretical. In 1970, an outbreak of a fungus destroyed 15 percent of the US corn crop.

Politicians like to say that ethanol is environmentally friendly, but these claims must be put into perspective. Although corn is a renewable resource, it has a far lower yield relative to the energy used to produce it than either biodiesel or ethanol from other plants. Moreover, ethanol yields about 30 percent less energy per gallon than gasoline, so mileage drops off significantly. Finally, adding ethanol raises the price of blended fuel because it is more expensive to transport and handle.

Lower-cost biomass ethanol -- for example, from rice straw (a byproduct of harvesting rice) or switch grass -- would make far more economic sense, but large volumes of ethanol from biomass will not be commercially viable for many years. (And production will be delayed by government policies that subsidize corn-based ethanol.)

American legislators and policy-makers seem oblivious to the scientific and economic realities of ethanol production. Brazil and other major sugar cane-producing nations enjoy significant advantages over the US in producing ethanol, including ample agricultural land, warm climates amenable to vast plantations, and on-site distilleries that can process cane immediately after harvest.

Thus, in the absence of cost-effective, domestically available sources for producing ethanol, rather than using corn, it would make far more sense to import ethanol from Brazil and other countries [such as good old reliable Australia] that can produce it efficiently. American politicians may be thrilled with the prospect of corn-derived ethanol, but if they don't adopt policies based on science and sound economics, consumers around the world may suffer.

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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 generally to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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SUN OF A GUN

Comment from Canada

A few weeks ago in a column I wrote about David Suzuki's rudeness and hypocrisy I admitted that similar to that green guru, I too love this planet and try to have as small a negative environmental impact as possible but unlike him, I don't believe that human-made CO2 is the main driver of global warming. I received hundreds of e-mails -- most recounting often hilarious stories of run-ins people had with Suzuki, finding out for themselves that his TV persona is a lot friendlier than his off-camera one.

But it was an e-mail from a fella named Gerald in the Niagara region, that indicates just how good a job the man-made global warming believers have been at selling their message. "If humans are not the cause of global warming ... who is?" Gerald wrote. My response was: "Gee, Gerald. Can you really not think of anything? Nothing at all?" Then I suggested he find the nearest child and ask them what makes the earth warm. The next day I got a reply. "Do you mean the sun?" he queried, in all sincerity. "Yes, Gerald. That big, burning yellow ball up in the sky is, not surprisingly, the main driver of global warming."

Yesterday, world renowned paleoclimatologist and geology professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, Dr. Tim Patterson, was in Calgary to pass that basic message on. Though his message was rather technical. He brought reams of proof, scientific studies, graphs and the like to back up his claims. Indeed, one of the more interesting, if not alarming statements Patterson made before the Friends of Science luncheon is satellite data shows that by about the year 2020 the next solar cycle is going to be solar cycle 25 -- the weakest one since the Little Ice Age (that started in the 13th century and ended around 1860) a time when people living in London, England, used to walk on a frozen Thames River and food was scarcer.

"This should be a great strategic concern in Canada because nobody is farming north of us." In other words, Canada -- the great bread basket of the world -- just might not be able to grow grains in much of the prairies. After the Little Ice Age, "things warmed up precipitously with no help from carbon dioxide," pointed out Patterson, in a telephone interview.

Indeed, the world warmed up until about 1940 and then the temperatures started to fall until the late 1970s when scientists started predicting another ice age. "Post World War II, as the world started cooling, CO2 was going up like crazy. All the evidence shows that warming periods were all solar driven and that there is no correlation between CO2 and temperature."

But solar flaring on its own, says Patterson, does not account for most of the warming -- which is an increase of 0.8C since the end of the Little Ice Age. It's only when its coupled with evidence about galactic cosmic rays, do all the historic warming (and cooling) pieces fit together. Cosmic rays -- caused by the explosion of supernovas -- constantly bombard the Earth. The more cosmic rays, the more cloud cover and the cooler the earth. However, when the sun is flaring -- as it is now -- it essentially blows away the cosmic rays and the earth warms. That, however, is expected to come to an end in 2020.

As the saying goes, by then all of the billions of dollars wasted battling CO2 emissions, rather than pollutants, for instance, will be money pumped down the CO2 sink hole. In 2020 hindsight on the great global warming scare will be 20/20. It won't be a pretty picture.

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Bad Climate "Science"

The ideology goes in before the science goes on

Assume that human greenhouse-gas emissions are causing dangerous changes in the Earth's climate. What should we do about it? Public debate on climate change has focused almost solely on requiring large reductions in fossil-fuel energy consumption. Enter the journal Nature with a new feature article on another potential means of dealing with climate change.

Dubbed geoengineering, it involves purposely "engineering" the planet's climate in ways intended to offset warming from greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Although Nature's discussion of the various possibilities is fascinating on its own, the article is more interesting for its implicit insights into climate scientists' blinkered view of how to deal with greenhouse risks.

One geoengineering possibility involves injecting sunlight-reflecting sulfate particles into the stratosphere, intended to mimic what large volcanic eruptions already do every once in a while. In a more science-fiction-like vain, another proposal would place numerous small "sunshades" in orbit to prevent a small amount of sunlight from reaching the Earth's surface. For many climate scientists, however, the goal of studying geoengineering isn't to determine whether any particular proposal is practical or safe, but "to show, with authority, that all such paths are dead-end streets," and that the focus needs to be on requiring large reductions in people's fossil-fuel energy consumption.

Much of the climate community still views [geoengineering] with deep suspicion or outright hostility. Geoengineering, many say, is a way to feed society's addiction to fossil fuels. `It's like a junkie figuring out new ways of stealing from his children,' says Meinrat Andreae, an atmospheric scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany.

In fact, as Nature reports, Andreae urged Nobel Prize-winning scientist Paul Crutzen not to publish a recent article on climate geoengineering, fearing it would distract policymakers from what Andreae sees as the urgent need to cut fossil fuel use. Every scientist who expressed an opinion in the article thinks reducing fossil fuel use is the policy of choice for mitigating human-caused greenhouse warming.

What is so striking is how these scientists, who rightly highlight the need for careful scientific analysis in characterizing the climate effects of GHG emissions, unwittingly forsake science when thinking about how to mitigate climate change. Instead, they jump right from "burning fossil fuels causes dangerous climate change" to "therefore the best way to stop climate change is reducing fossil fuel use."

The question of what the world's people will have to give up if they drastically reduce their use of fossil-fuel energy remains unasked. Indeed, none of the scientists profiled in the Nature article show any awareness that the relatively inexpensive and abundant energy from fossil fuels could be anything but harmful to humankind. This myopia appears again and again:

no one thinks that, in the short term, a world cooled by engineering would be preferable to one cooled by a reduction in carbon dioxide levels. And no one thinks that, as yet, we know enough to embark on any sort of large-scale engineering. Models of geoengineering's benefits need to be a lot more accurate than models of the harm that will be done in its absence. As [climate scientist Ken] Caldeira puts it, if you can be no more precise about the chances of harm under the status quo than to give them as 50%, that's still something to worry about. But if a proposed intervention has a 50-50 chance of doing good or harm, that's something to avoid.

In other words, we should worry about the risks of climate change; we should worry about the risks of geoengineering; and we should apply our most meticulous and careful scientific thought to characterizing these risks. But we should not consider - indeed we should remain utterly unaware of - the risks of forcing wealthier people to stop using, and preventing poorer people from starting to use, the fossil-fuel energy that played a leading and essential role in the vast improvements in human health, prosperity, and life expectancy during the last hundred years.

When it comes to thinking about mitigating climate change, scientists such as Andreae, Caldeira, and many others are checking their scientific faculties at the door and unwittingly smuggling in their ideological policy preferences under the guise of dispassionate scientific analysis and authority.

To the extent that human greenhouse-gas emissions are causing dangerous changes in the Earth's climate, the best ways to mitigate those changes can only be determined by the same relentless application of science as we demand for the understanding of climate change itself. That means transparently defining measures of human welfare - the values side of the policy equation - and then carefully assessing not only the risks to human welfare of burning fossil fuels but also the benefits - as well the risks and benefits of geoengineering and of restricting people's access to fossil-fuel energy.

Even taking it as given that greenhouse-gas emissions are altering the climate in potentially dangerous ways, still, we must ask whether there are negative health and mortality effects from higher energy prices; whether restrictions on fossil-fuel energy would make us poorer; and whether a poorer-but-cooler world is better for humankind than a richer-but-warmer world. Likewise, could some geoengineering technique mitigate human-caused climate change without the need to give up the benefits of fossil-fuel energy; or buy us a few more decades to find new ways to produce abundant energy as or more cheaply, but without undesirable climate changes? Most climate scientists jump over these questions or assume the answer without any apparent awareness that they've failed to subject their preferences to scientific scrutiny.

This blind spot for the human-welfare effects of climate-mitigation policies also shows up in assessing the risks of geoengineering. Scientists rightly note that geoengineering could itself have unintended and undesirable spinoff effects. For example, the Nature article highlights work by Alan Robock of Rutgers, which concluded that sulfate from the 1783 Laki volcanic eruption in Iceland weakened the Indian monsoon and also reduced rainfall in Africa's Sahel. Nature goes on to note:

it is easily argued that betting the monsoon on the ability of [climate] models to accurately capture such subtleties [i.e., geoengineering's potential for unintended consequences] would require a foolhardy level of trust, a remarkable lack of concern for hundreds of millions of livelihoods or a startling desperation in the face of the alternative.

What is astonishing is climate scientists' obliviousness that the exact same concerns apply to policies to ration, tax or otherwise restrict access to fossil-fuel energy.

What accounts for scientists' policy blinkers? It's hard to know for sure, since we're talking about what goes on inside people's heads. I suspect part of the answer lies in an implicit assumption, even by many scientists, that alternatives to fossil-fuel energy are just as cheap and convenient, but that dark corporate and government forces have prevented them from being disseminated. Never mind the countervailing evidence such as the fact that decades of $5 and $6 per gallon gasoline in Europe has failed to create economically viable alternatives to gasoline- or diesel-powered automobiles.

Another potential contributor is a wooly-minded romantic environmentalism that seems to have infected scientists as much as anyone else. This also comes through in Nature's profile:

Hans Feichter, a climate modeller at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, speaks for the vast majority of his colleagues when he says `the role of a geoscientist is to understand nature, not to change it.' Climate scientists have proved themselves happy to advocate massive changes aimed at shifting the climate. But they are massive changes in technology, in geopolitics, in social norms...Not changes in the workings of the stratosphere. Not changes in the natural.

Where does one start in unwinding all the fallacious assumptions implicit in this confused line of thinking? Why should the goal of climate policy be to make the world more "natural"? And why should anyone think "natural" is better than "artificial"? Why is it okay to force "massive changes" in how people live their lives without even a nod to the possibility that this could cause "massive" harm of its own?

In fact, it is exactly because we have made our environment less "natural" that we have improved the lot of humankind. "Natural" means horrifying percentages of our children dying of infectious diseases and mothers dying in childbirth; lifespans of only 30 or 40 years for those who survive these earlier tribulations - years lived in backbreaking toil merely to avoid starvation; and constant nagging pain from injuries and infections.

Climate scientists' ignorance of the factors that contribute to long, safe, healthy, and prosperous lives for the world's people is what makes them so dangerous in the debate over what to do about climate change. Their scientific credentials give them great authority on the world policy stage. Yet like the boyfriend who is in fact "high maintenance" while unwittingly believing himself to be "low maintenance," climate scientists believe their policy recommendations to be based on science, rather than on unexamined prejudices that are yet to be subjected to scientific scrutiny. Only at our peril do we continue to dance to their tune.

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GREEN CREDIBILITY HIT: EU AGREES MULTI-BILLION SUBSIDIES FOR COAL



The European Commission is upholding its system of billions-worth of state subsidies for coal mining. In a report on the subsidies for the sector, the Brussels authority on Monday concluded that there is "no need for changes". The environmental protection organization Greenpeace criticized the commission for failing to wind down coal production. If Europe is serious about climate protection, tax payers money should be plugged into technologies for renewable energies instead of subsidising dirty coal, Greenpeace demanded. In 2005, the EU provided some 4.1 billion euro in state aid to eight European Union countries, corresponding to 11 million euro per day....

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ANOTHER GLOBAL WARMING SCARE BITES THE DUST

German scientists re-examining projected melting of Arctic permafrost from global warming say massive releases of methane are unlikely this century. Scientists say as the Earth's climate warms, permafrost will continue melting and methane bound in frozen sediments could escape into the atmosphere. Because methane is a greenhouse gas, that would exacerbate global warming.

One permafrost model, presented in late 2005, indicated near-surface Arctic permafrost would completely degrade during the 21st century. But Georg Delisle and colleagues at the Federal Institution for Geosciences and Natural Resources in Hanover offer an alternative model designed to have a more complete mathematical formulation of the physical processes in permafrost.

The German researchers note that ice-core analyses previously made by other scientists indicate minimal release of methane during warm periods occurring during the last 9,000 years. Based on the new model and the ice-core findings, Delisle concluded that scenarios calling for massive releases of methane in the near future from degrading permafrost are questionable. The research is detailed in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

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TWO SITES WORTH VISITING

In Ponder the Maunder we find a 15-year-old High School student speaking more sense about global warming than you will read in most newspapers.

In Apocaholics Anonymous you will find an amusing catalogue of all the prophecies of doom that have got major media attention in the last 50 years or thereabouts. There were an amazing number of such false prophecies.

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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 generally to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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DISCOUNTING LOGIC

If you're the type of person who sets aside money today for the university education of your great-great-great grandchildren, even if it means that you may not be able to afford university tuition for your own children, you may think it sensible for society to invest now in major measures to stop global warming. If you're not this type -- and who in his right mind is -- you should forget about Kyoto-like greenhouse-gas reduction targets and the crash programs that would be required to meet them. Doing so would not only be economically prudent, it would be -- by almost any measure -- the ethical thing to do.

So argues celebrated economist William Nordhaus, author of pathbreaking books and studies on global warming, and generally considered the most authoritative economist in the climate change field. His verdict on global warming alarmism, as exemplified by the UK's Stern review, which demanded drastic measures now to avert climate change calamity later: "Completely absurd."

The Stern review, released last year to banner headlines, argues that the cost of inaction greatly exceeds the cost of action. It has been much criticized for its selective use of data -- Sir Nicholas Stern piles one worst-case scenario upon another to arrive at his fantastical costs, and Dr. Nordhaus is among those who note this failing.

In fact, Sir Nicholas uses Nordhaus as a source for global-warming costs that could present themselves well after the year 2100, although Nordhaus characterized that data as particularly unreliable. But a series of unreliable, worst-case scenarios centuries off, by themselves, still would not warrant the extreme greenhouse gas prevention investments that the Stern review recommends.

To make an economic case for immediate action, Sir Nicholas adjusted his model to have us paying now for potential damage that could be happening hundreds of years from now. Sir Nicholas estimates the potential costs of climate change to be so great as to force on us a "20% cut in per-capita consumption, now and forever." Yet his data showed low damages from climate change in the next two centuries.

To overcome his data, he applied to his model what economists call a "near-zero social discount rate." Doing so brings forward future expenses -- in the Stern review's case, expenses that might occur in the 23rd and 24th centuries. The Stern review then presents us with a tab that includes these far-out costs, and the invoice is eye-popping indeed.

But the Stern review approach defies logic, as Dr. Nordhaus illustrates by demonstrating just where zero social-discount-rate thinking leads. "Suppose that scientists discover that a wrinkle in the climatic system will cause damages equal to 0.01% of output starting in 2200 and continuing at that rate thereafter," he explains. "How large a onetime investment would be justified today to remove the wrinkle starting after two centuries? The answer is that a payment of 15% of world consumption today (approximately US$7-trillion) would pass the review's costbenefit test. This seems completely absurd.

The bizarre result arises because the value of the future consumption stream is so high with near-zero discounting that we would trade off a large fraction of today's income to increase a far-future income stream by a very tiny fraction." Moreover, who should be asked to forgo that consumption? It hardly seems fair to keep back poor countries, yet, if paid by the rich countries alone, the decline would far exceed that of the Great Depression.

Some climate-change alarmists argue that we should invest in combating climate change now as an insurance policy against the risk of future damage. Sounds prudent, until you consider the premium to be paid. "Suppose that we suddenly learn that there is a 10% probability of the wrinkle in the climatic system that reduces the post- 2200 income stream by 0.01%," Dr. Nordhaus explains, again to illustrate the Stern review's logic. "What insurance premium would be justified today to reduce that probability to zero? With conventional discount rates, we would probably ignore any tiny wrinkle two or three centuries ahead. If we did a careful calculation using conventional discount rates, we would calculate a break-even 0.0002% insurance premium to remove the year 2200 contingency, and a 0.0000003% premium for the year-2400 contingency. Moreover, these dollar premiums are small whether the probability is large or small. "With the review's near-zero discount rate, offsetting the low-probability wrinkle would be worth an insurance premium today of almost 2% of current income, or $1-trillion. We would pay almost the same amount if that threshold were to be crossed in 2400 rather than in 2200."

Dr. Nordhaus's conclusion about such scares: "We are in effect forced to make current decisions about highly uncertain events in the distant future, even though these estimates are highly speculative and are almost sure to be refined over the coming decades." Dr. Nordhaus discounts climate-change alarmism, but not climate change itself. He advocates research to better understand its consequences and to develop more efficient technologies. He advocates the elimination of subsidies that artificially increase greenhouse- gas emissions, and other "no-regrets" measures that would benefit the environment without harming the economy. The costs of climate change are real, he believes, and society should act. But not overreact

Source






FEARS OVER LOOMING ENERGY CRISIS IN UK

Across Britain, cities are plunged into darkness. In London, the Underground grinds to a halt, leaving panicked commuters stranded in oppressively hot carriages. In office blocks, lifts stop operating and the air-conditioning shuts down. Employees swelter in stifling conditions. This is not the postapocalyptic vision of some film-maker, but a realistic scenario as Britain grapples with a looming energy crisis.

The statistics are frightening. In only eight years, demand for energy could outstrip supply by 23% at peak times, according to a study by the consultant Logica CMG. The loss to the economy could be 108 billion each year."The idea of the lights going out is not a fantasy. People seem to accept that security of energy supply is a right. It is not. The industry will have to work hard to maintain supply and for that we need a clear framework," said Simon Skillings, director of strategy and energy policy at Eon UK, Britain's largest integrated energy company.

This Wednesday, the government's delayed energy white paper will attempt to provide some answers. It is a crucial document that will determine whether Britain can deliver on its pledge to slash carbon emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2020. The white paper will seek to tackle a host of tough issues -- from nuclear power to energy efficiency, renewable power sources and clean-fuel projects. A planning white paper, due tomorrow, is also seen as crucial after a number of energy projects have been delayed for years or slapped down by local authorities.

The scale of the challenge is immense. By 2015, Britain's generating capacity could be cut by a third as ageing coal and nuclear power stations are closed. Britain is also moving from being self-sufficient in oil and gas as North Sea production declines. In 2005, the UK became a net importer of gas. By 2010, imports could account for 40% of British gas needs; by 2020, 80% to 90%.

The most contentious area is likely to be nuclear power. Nuclear reactors account for about 20% of Britain's electricity, but this will shrink to 6% in 20 years as ageing plants are closed down. By 2023, only Sizewell B could be in operation. Already controversial, the government's commitment to building new nuclear power stations became even more sensitive when the High Court agreed with the environmental lobby group Greenpeace that the consultation process was"seriously flawed".

The white paper is expected to give guidance on how the government would like to see new reactors built, but will have to stress that any decision will depend on a new, more detailed, consultation round. What the energy industry wants is clarity. Even so, energy companies, including RWE, Eon, Suez, EDF, General Electric and Westinghouse, have already held talks with British Energy about using the sites of its eight nuclear power stations to build new reactors.

Combining the need to secure Britain's energy supply and reduce carbon emissions will require 55 billion in investment in the next few decades, according to Logica CMG. Exactly where the money will be spent hangs in the balance. One of the big issues is how the government plans to encourage operators to build cleaner but more expensive power stations.

To make the economics work, much will depend on the price of carbon and the credits power operators need to buy if they overshoot emissions targets. This falls under the EU emissions-trading scheme. If the EU cracks down and imposes higher penalties on"dirty" power producers, the price of carbon would in theory be pushed up. Centrica believes that carbon prices would need to double from the current, 19 euros per tonne to make a1 billion clean-coal project it is considering in Teesside economically viable."If the UK is to hit tough targets on reducing CO2 emissions, it is vital that the structure of the EU emissions-trading scheme is optimised to encourage the building of really low-emitting power generation stations," said Jake Ulrich, managing director of Centrica Energy.

Another key area is carbon capture; this involves trapping carbon-dioxide emissions from coal or gas-fired stations and storing them underground, probably in old North Sea oil reservoirs. Schemes include Centrica's Teesside proposal while BP is considering building a 500m power station in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, in partnership with Scottish & Southern Electricity. However, power-industry executives claim that each project would need several hundreds of millions of pounds in government support -- far higher than the Treasury's financing plans.

Meanwhile, the government is under pressure to encourage desperately needed new gas-storage facilities. The UK has storage capacity to cover only two weeks of gas needs against two to three months for France and Germany. New objectives for renewable energy are also expected. The renewables obligation, where suppliers are bound to source a rising percentage of electricity supply from renewable sources, will be refocused to give more support to costlier offshore wind farms and biomass projects used to co-fire coal-powered stations.

Britain is already struggling to meet its ambitious target of supplying 10% of electricity needs from renewables by 2010 and 15% by 2015. Today's figure is about 2%."The goals are very ambitious and we are currently behind the curve. Investment would have to be accelerated very substantially to have any chance of meeting those targets," said Jayesh Parmar of Ernst & Young.

Those targets are likely to get even tougher. In a little-noticed detail, the EU agreed in March to make it compulsory for 20% of all energy used to come from renewable sources by 2020. As for the British consumer, the white paper will underline the need for smart meters, which measure exact energy use and cost, to be installed in people's homes. There is also support for microgeneration projects -- small-scale wind turbines, solar panels and gas devices to create electricity. However, the sums are tiny -- "12m pounds in grants is up for grabs this month from the Department of Trade and Industry, in addition to6.8m already paid out.

The big question is whether the UK can act fast enough to tackle the looming crisis. Even if the government's nuclear plans remain intact, it could be at least 10 years before the first new nuclear station is ready. A typical coal or gas-fired project could take between three and five years to construct.

Source





COAL TO HIT GREEN FAN

A load of coal is about to hit the green fan. Earlier this month we attended a conference on coal-fired electric power. A titanic collision is in progress, albeit unseen so far. An iceberg ahead in the night. The ship unable to swerve. Here's the deal. US peak power use increases pretty steadily about 20,000 MW a year. It has for 40 years, an incredible straight line in a world of economic wiggles. We handle this growth with spurts of power plant construction. The last spurt was around 2000 and we quietly built about 150,000 MW, all natural gas-fired because gas was cheap and green. That is roughly 150 large power plants.

Now gas is prohibitively expensive, we are once again running out of power, and coal is the only large scale option. So the industry is gearing up to build a huge new fleet of coal fired power plants. They will do so for there is no option. You can't make electricity out of political rhetoric, would that you could. What this cold shot of reality will do to the great green political movement presently underway remains to be seen. It will not be a pretty picture. Enjoy the show.

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A revealing analogy in the New York Times

Post lifted from American Thinker. See the original for links



re: Jerome J. Schmitt's "Mindless reporting in the NYT Magazine" of May 19, 2007. Mr. Schmitt points out that "climate modeling is a premier example of the thermodynamics of open systems", in the first paragraph of the article, bravo! But he misses an astonishing quote down in the eighth paragraph....

"...James Hansen, the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (and one of Gore's own gurus), who wrote, in The New York Review of Books, "Al Gore may have done for global warming what `Silent Spring' did for pesticides."

Man, I couldn't even tell you where to START with THAT admission. Let's see, Carson's "S/S" pretty much killed off the worldwide use of DDT bringing malaria back from the brink of extinction to once again thrive and kill people by the millions instead of by the hundreds, and it was all based on a pack of lies.

Well, I'd say that Gore's book hasn't YET done "for" humanity what Carson's book has, but it could if we aren't careful!





Biodiversity good for mental health

The findings below are entirely to be expected, given our evolutionary origins, but it is interesting that the effects can be obtained from an artificial environment like a park. Pristine wilderness is not necessary



Biodiversity, an area's richness in different species, is good for more than just the environment, researchers have found: it benefits us psychologically, at least in city parks and green spaces. For the world's burgeoning city populations, "public urban greenspaces provide one of the few avenues for direct contact with the natural environment," the researchers noted in a paper describing the study. "Such contact has measurable physical and psychological benefits."

A wide diversity of organisms is good for more than just the creatures themselves, research finds. (Image courtesy City of Vernonia, Oregon) For instance, a 1984 study by Roger Ulrich at Texas A&M University found that hospital patients recovered faster if their hospital room windows overlooked trees rather than brick walls. The new study shows that benefits of this sort "increase with the species richness of urban greenspaces," wrote the authors, Richard Fuller and colleagues at the University of Sheffield, U.K.

The findings appeared online May 15 in the research journal Biology Letters. Fuller's team studied 15 urban parks and green spaces throughout the U.K., analyzing their biodiversity levels and questioning visitors. The visitors were given questionnaires asking whether coming there helped them clear their minds, gain perspective on life, think easily about personal matters or feel connected to nature. Visitors not only felt better in more biodiverse places: they could roughly accurately gauge the level of biodiversity, at least in terms of easily visible speciesbirds, butterflies and plants, the scientists found.

The findings are important since about half of the world's people now live in cities, increasingly isolated from nature and its benefits, Fuller and colleagues wrote. The results "indicate that successful management of urban greenspaces should emphasize biological complexity to enhance human wellbeing in addition to biodiversity conservation," they concluded.

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 generally to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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