Now dams cause global warming!

Between cow farts and dams, how will we ever survive? Greenies have always hated dams, of course. In the circumstances, it would seem in harmony with their beliefs to cut off the town-water supply to all Greenies. They might actually discover where town water comes from then: DAMS

THE world's dams are contributing millions of tonnes of harmful greenhouse gases and spurring on global warming, according to a US environmental agency. International Rivers Network executive director Patrick McCully today told Brisbane's Riversymposium that rotting vegetation and fish found in dams produced surprising amounts of methane - 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide.

"Often it's accepted that hydropower is a climate friendly technology but in fact probably all reservoirs around the world emit greenhouse gases and some of them, especially some of the ones in the tropics, emit very high quantities of greenhouse gases even comparable to, in some cases even much worse than, fossil fuels like coal and gas," Mr McCully said.

He said when water flow was stopped, vegetation and soil in the flooded area and from upstream was left to rot, as well as fish and other animals which died in the dam. They then released carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide into the air. "Basically they're factories for converting carbon into methane and methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas - it's less known than carbon dioxide but it's actually about 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide in terms of trapping heat in the atmosphere."

Mr McCully said global estimates blamed dams for about a third of all methane emissions worldwide. The Brazilian National Space Agency estimated that was about 104 million tonnes of methane each year, or 4 per cent of the human impact on global warming, he said.

Mr McCully said that was a lot for such a small sector. But he said it was an area that was under-researched so a clearer picture of how dams were contributing to global warming was not known. The only Australian research that had been done was on Tasmanian dams, which found emissions were around 30 per cent of a natural gas plant - a much higher reading than US dam emissions, Mr McCully said. Those readings would be higher in hotter parts of Australia, especially northern Queensland, he said. Mr McCully said greater energy efficiency needed to be researched to overcome the problem, including technology that could produce energy from the methane from dams.

The 10th annual Riversymposium, Australia's largest river management conference, brings around 500 delegates from 40 countries to Brisbane this week to discuss river health, damming practices, drought and climate change.

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EUROPE ISOLATED: INDUSTRIAL NATIONS REJECT EU'S CLIMATE POLICY

Industrial nations were shying away from fixing stiff 2020 guidelines for greenhouse gases cuts at U.N. talks on Friday in what environmentalists said would be a vote for "dangerous" climate change. A draft text at the U.N. talks dropped mention of steep cuts in greenhouse gases of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 as a non-binding "guide" for rich nations' work on a pact to fight global warming beyond 2012, delegates said. "We're still working on the text," said Leon Charles, the chair of the session from Grenada after overnight talks on the final day of August 27-31 meeting in Vienna of 1,000 delegates.

The European Union and many developing nations such as China and India wanted industrial states to use the stringent 25-40 percent range to guide future talks to force a shift away from fossil fuels, blamed by U.N. reports for stoking global warming. But Russia, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland objected to setting the stringent range in negotiations about extending the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, the main plan for fighting global warming that runs to 2012, delegates said. "The lower the stabilization level (of greenhouse gases) achieved, the lower the consequent damages," the draft said.

It mentions the option of 25-40 percent cuts but drops a previous reference to them as an initial indicative range to guide future work. "This is voting for the apocalypse," said Stephanie Tunmore of environmental group Greenpeace. "The 25-40 percent range is needed to help avert dangerous climate change" such as more powerful storms, rising seas and melting glaciers, she said. "Japan is willing to let the typhoons roll in and the water flow onto its coastal land. Switzerland is committed to melt all its remaining glaciers," environmentalists said in a newsletter.

Kyoto binds 36 industrial nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 in a first step to contain warming that could bring more floods, desertification, disease and raise sea levels. The talks are the first chance for Kyoto backers to see if they can agree a range for industrial nations' talks on a new climate pact that many governments want to agree in 2009. The United States has not ratified Kyoto and thus is not involved.

President George W. Bush has separately called a meeting of major emitters in Washington on September 27-28. Cuts of 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 are the stiffest scenario by the U.N.'s climate panel in a May 2007 report seen as limiting global warming to 2.0 to 2.4 Celsius (3.6 to 4.3 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. The EU, which has said it will unilaterally cut emissions by 20 percent by 2020 and by 30 percent if other nations follow suit, and environmentalists say that any gain in temperatures above 2 Celsius will bring dangerous changes.

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IPCC, POLICY NEUTRALITY AND POLITICAL ADVOCACY

We have commented in the past here about how the leadership of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has flouted its own guidance to be "policy neutral" by engaging in overt political advocacy on climate change. The comments by its Director Rajendra Pachauri reported today again highlight this issue: "I hope this [forthcoming IPCC] report will shock people, governments into taking more serious action as you really can't get a more authentic and a more credible piece of scientific work."

Imagine, by contrast, if the Director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, another organization with an agenda to be "policy neutral," were reported in the media to say of the agency's latest assessment on Iran, "I hope that the report will shock people, governments into taking more serious action." He would be looking for a new job in no time, I am sure. Why should climate change be treated differently?

The past reaction to my comments on political advocacy by IPCC leadership has been mixed. Some who share the IPCC's advocated agenda see no problem in the IPCC leadership engaging in such advocacy. Who wouldn't want such a group perceived as authoritative and legitimate on their side? (Similarly, I am sure neo-cons would welcome a CIA Director advocating action on Iran!)

By contrast some opposed to the advocated agenda have seized upon the obvious inconsistency in the IPCC's views on "neutrality" to try to impinge the credibility of the organization. From my perspective, while both of these perspectives are to be expected (and I am sure will make their views known in response), there is a third view that matters most -- and that is the question of the appropriate role of organized expertise in decision making, whether it is the CIA or IPCC. This last view is quite independent of (or it should be) what one thinks about the issues of climate policy.

It seems obvious that if the IPCC leadership is inconsistent in its statements on "policy neutrality" then it does risk becoming perceived as an organized interest, not unlike an NGO, which will eat away at its own authority and independence, which derives in no small part from its claims to "neutrality." The IPCC could correct this perception (or reality) of inconsistent behavior by removing its goal of being "policy neutral" and openly admit a political agenda that it is advocating. Alternatively, the IPCC's leaders could eschew public discussions of what they prefer for political outcomes.

Neither of these options seems particularly realistic. A formal departure from stated "neutrality" would harm the IPCC's credibility, so it won't do that. And the temptation to use scientific authority as a tool of politics is very strong, and won't stop unless scientific leaders in the IPCC suggest that it should stop. The best option of all, and which I recognize is fanciful dreaming on my part, would be for the IPCC to present decision makers with a wide range of policy options and their consequences, recognizing that the IPCC is an advisory body, not an advocacy group.

There should be room in public discourse on climate change for an authoritative group to comprehensively assess options and their consequences, recognizing that advisors advise and decision makers decide. The tension between the IPCC's stated objective of "policy neutrality" and behavior by its leaders that is decided "non-neutral" is unlikely be sustainable. The IPCC should come to grips with what it means by "policy neutral."

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NASA VS MCINTYRE: THE GUARDIAN STILL DOESN'T GET IT

No, the Guardian still managed to miss the importance of this: "An amateur meteorologist in Canada has embarrassed Nasa scientists into admitting that some of the data they used to show significant recent increases in global warming is flawed. As a result of Stephen McIntyre's calculations, climatologists at the Goddard Institute of Space Science in New York now accept that 1934 was historically the United States' hottest year since records began, not 1998 as they had claimed. It also turns out that five of the 10 warmest years on record in the US occurred before 1939, and only one is from the 21st century, raising questions over the statistics used in Al Gore's environmental film An Inconvenient Truth to highlight the faster pace of climate change."

It isn't that he's an amateur meteorologist, it's that he's a professional statistician. That the temperatures are moved around by a few hundreds of a degree, agreed, that they cover only the US, not the globe, agreed. But that there are statistical errors in this whole towering pyramid is a serious problem. As regular readers will know, I'm not a climate change "denialist", nor even sceptic. It's happening and we're causing at least part if not most of it (that being my personal opinion and it's worth exactly what you're paying for it). I do have problems with three things.

1) The SRES. The economic models which are used to provide the emissions numbers which are then fed into the computer models. I don't think they cover all of the likely, let alone possible, future paths. I think it's absurd that between TAR and AR4 that these were not updated: we're still working on pathways a decade old, when we know a great deal more now than we did then on which way the global economy seems to be going (for example, the A1 family, actually showing greater emissions, now seems more likely than A2 which is what Stern used).

2) What we should do about it, something which is again an economic argument, not a climate science one.

3) The details of the statistics in such things as temperature records and the adjustments made to them: exactly the area that McIntyre is working on. No, I don't think that there's been some mass conspiracy, nor lying. But we are trying to make decisions about trillions upon trillions of dollars here. You can even insert "the future of the human race" or "the future of the planet" rhetoric here if you wish.

For all the talk coming out of things like the Stern Review about insurance....well, OK, let's talk about insurance, shall we? Before we conclude that we do need to spend $13 trillion, or $25 trillion, or whatever today's number is, can we please go and spend a few million, perhaps a few tens of millions, checking our workings? That is a reasonable insurance policy, isn't it? Get everyone's workings out into the open and go over them again? Given that it is exam season, what's the advice given to everyone doing anything mathematical? Check your workings before you hand in the paper?

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CLIMATE HYSTERIA TEARING BRITISH TORIES APART

A ROW has broken out between leading Conservatives over plans to impose taxes on air travel, gas-guzzling cars and other environmentally damaging forms of transport. The proposals are contained in the party's long-awaited Quality of Life report, which will inform the Conservatives' policies on the environment, transport, food, energy and waste. It is expected to recommend the imposition of VAT [sales tax] on fuel for domestic flights and incentives to persuade air passengers to switch to trains for trips around Britain and northern Europe. It will also promote a big increase in cycling by making local authorities provide more cycle lanes and offering free bikes in cities.

The report, drawn up by Zac Goldsmith and John Gummer, is not due for publication until next week but John Redwood, a leading rightwinger, will launch an opening salvo today against some of its expected proposals, warning Gummer and Goldsmith "they need to steer a very careful course".

In an interview with GMTV, he will warn against a freeze on airport expansion, saying: "Airports are particularly important to Britain's economic growth." He will also attack plans to tax air travel, arguing that such taxes would cause "an economic loss" without "a green gain" since travellers could choose to fly from foreign airports. "You need to accept that there is going to be some airport and air travel growth and if it doesn't happen here, it'll happen elsewhere."

Goldsmith's supporters make it clear that the real differences between them and Redwood go much further than aviation. They are about the party's core beliefs in an era when climate change and quality of life rival the economy in importance. "We need to strike a new balance on these issues," said shadow environment secretary Peter Ainsworth. "We need a grown-up debate to work out how to reconcile competition with protecting the environment."

FULL STORY here

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The Lockwood paper was designed to rebut Durkin's "Great Global Warming Swindle" film. It is a rather confused paper -- acknowledging yet failing to account fully for the damping effect of the oceans, for instance -- but it is nonetheless valuable to climate atheists. The concession from a Greenie source that fluctuations in the output of the sun have driven climate change for all but the last 20 years (See the first sentence of the paper) really is invaluable. And the basic fact presented in the paper -- that solar output has in general been on the downturn in recent years -- is also amusing to see. Surely even a crazed Greenie mind must see that the sun's influence has not stopped and that reduced solar output will soon start COOLING the earth! Unprecedented July 2007 cold weather throughout the Southern hemisphere might even be the first sign that the cooling is happening. And the fact that warming plateaued in 1998 is also a good sign that we are moving into a cooling phase. As is so often the case, the Greenies have got the danger exactly backwards. See my post of 7.14.07 and a very detailed critique here for more on the Lockwood paper

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

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