The latest survey cookery (Verheggen, Cook, et al.) by Warmists is worthless

A new survey of climate scientists has been published. The author team is headed by Bart Verheggen and includes John Cook. Here's the abstract:

    "Results are presented from a survey held among 1868 scientists studying various aspects of climate change, including physical climate, climate impacts, and mitigation. The survey was unique in its size, broadness and level of detail. Consistent with other research, we found that, as the level of expertise in climate science grew, so too did the level of agreement on anthropogenic causation. 90% of respondents with more than 10 climate-related peer-reviewed publications (about half of all respondents), explicitly agreed with anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) being the dominant driver of recent global warming. The respondents’ quantitative estimate of the GHG contribution appeared to strongly depend on their judgment or knowledge of the cooling effect of aerosols. The phrasing of the IPCC attribution statement in its fourth assessment report (AR4) providing a lower limit for the isolated GHG contribution may have led to an underestimation of the GHG influence on recent warming. The phrasing was improved in AR5. We also report on the respondents’ views on other factors contributing to global warming; of these Land Use and Land Cover Change (LULCC) was considered the most important. Respondents who characterized human influence on climate as insignificant, reported having had the most frequent media coverage regarding their views on climate change."

Having Cook on the author team is obviously going to lead many people to write the paper off without even taking a look at it. When you are proven to have set out to write a paper to meet a predetermined conclusion, that is the way people will treat your work.

SOURCE

Further comments by JR:

Note the following statement from the full paper:

"Participation in our survey was sought from scientists having authored or coauthored peer-reviewed articles or assessment reports related to climate change"

Also note:

"1868 questionaires were returned, although not all of these were fully completed. This amounts to a response rate of 29%"

So these were NOT atmospheric scientists.  They were anybody who had mentioned global warming in some paper or other.  It is hence NOT an expert sample.

Furthermore, the response rate was so low that it is not a representative sample either.  It is entirely possible that people  who wanted to keep their heads down in a very controversial area were the core of the non-respondents -- and a major reason for wanting to keep  heads down would be the risks of acknowledging skepticism.  The way Warmists have attacked and penalized skepticism has made it impossible to get open responses in the matter and hence vitiates any survey of the field.  The conclusions of the study are therefore worthless.





Warmist reasoning at work

LAT's just put this up:

'Remarkable' warming reported in Central California coastal waters

    "The warmer ocean correlated with weaker winds, which reduced coastal upwelling, allowing warmer water to move inshore, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration"

Interestingly, back on July 3, 2014, they put this up: Coastal winds intensifying with climate change, study says. The illustration accompanying the piece notes:

    "Illustration of the coastal upwelling process, in which winds blowing along the shore cause nutrient-poor surface waters to be replaced with nutrient-rich, cold water from deep in the ocean."

One wonders if they talk amongst themselves




Prof Tim Ball's documentary‏

Professor Tim Ball’s new documentary has been released.  It’s available through here: http://www.theglobalwarmingwar.com

Or directly here: http://vimeo.com/102240303?from=outro-embed

Tim is arguably the world’s most complete climate scientist. He’s a climatologist and understands the big picture scientifically across many disciplines. He understands the details and first principles. He understands the politics globally and the influences pushing the UN to corrupt climate science. He understands history and human behaviour. He’s a true environmentalist and is highly respected worldwide for his competence, integrity and strength of character.





Dr. Patrick Moore's tour of Australia‏

    The Galileo Movement is proud to announce that Dr. Patrick Moore (Greenpeace Co-founder), has accepted an invitation to visit Australia later this year. Dr. Moore is a Canadian and a respected leader in the genuine environmental movement.
   
    Patrick has a fascinating background as an environmental activist (initially Greenpeace), Ecologist, Sustainability campaigner and most recently as a sensible, ‘science-based’ environmentalist, and importantly, a sceptic of catastrophic man-made global warming. His personal website is http://www.ecosense.me/
   
    Patrick’s lecture at the recent International Climate Change Conference in Las Vegas is on video. It outlines his journey from eco-warrior to defender of science, logic and the environment. He explains his scepticism of recent catastrophic global warming claims here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtcNjoDe5
   
    His tour will include personal meetings with journalists, politicians and business leaders. He’ll include public lectures and town hall meetings for the general public across Australia.
   
    We believe that his visit can have a substantial influence on decision makers in Australia, on both the scientific arguments against man-made global warming and promoting sensible environmental policies.
   
Via email





Declare a Ceasefire in EPA’s War on Coal

Before we become too optimistic about the prospects for using renewable energy sources to curb carbon emissions, it’s worth looking at a study commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which should give pause to even the most confident advocate of action against climate change.

The study forecasts that new EPA regulations—regulations intended to cut carbon emissions by 30% from coal-, oil- and natural gas-fired plants by 2030—will lead to higher energy costs, fewer jobs, and slower economic growth in the United States. That, in turn, will lower Americans’ standards of living. A typical household could lose up to $3,400 in disposable income annually by 2030.

With carbon emissions projected to rise 31% worldwide by 2030, the study estimates that EPA regulations would reduce emissions here at home by just 1.8%. In other words, American consumers—especially working people—and businesses will bear huge costs for trivial reductions in the U.S. contribution to “global warming.”

President Obama’s EPA is pushing to speed up the substitution of fossil fuels by “renewable” energy sources, such as the sun, the wind, the Earth’s own geothermal heat, and plant-based ethanol. But he and others who insist that those renewable energy sources can replace fossil fuels in generating electricity are engaged in economically costly wishful thinking.

Less than 4% of the nation’s electricity is produced by solar and wind power, despite tax credits and mandates in many states requiring their use. The bald truth is that, while solar and wind power can help satisfy peak demands for electricity, they simply are too undependable to provide “base-load” power and therefore can’t get us anywhere close, anytime soon to the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions significantly.

Reaching that goal and meeting a growing demand for power requires new electricity generating capacity to replace aging power plants with low-carbon energy sources, the most cost-effective of those now being natural gas, nuclear power, energy-efficiency improvements, and advanced coal combustion technologies. One such technology—ultra-supercritical pulverized coal plants—can burn coal as much as 30% more efficiently than conventional coal plants and therefore cut carbon emissions significantly. Unlike the “green” alternatives, that technology is proven on a commercially viable scale: power plants of that design already are producing electricity in the United States and Europe.

Yet EPA has proposed two regulations on new construction and upgrades of existing power plants that are designed to dramatically reduce the use of coal, which generates 40% of the nation’s electricity. The agency’s forthcoming restriction on carbon emissions actually would block the construction of coal plants using advanced, environmentally friendly coal-burning technologies.

Coal gasification, now up and running in Sasol, South Africa, transforms coal into everything from gasoline to other petrochemicals; the ashy byproduct of that process is used in farming.

The EPA is waging a ruthless war on coal, which will have untold adverse consequences for millions of Americans, especially those living in Appalachia and other economically depressed areas where coal historically has been the fuel of choice for generating electricity. Electricity prices will be forced up both there and nationwide.

At one time, the politics of coal was a contest between West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and other eastern states where coal is high in sulfur, versus the West, where the sulfur content of coal is far lower. Nowadays, the political contest pits fossil fuels against the sun and the wind, but is no less contentious. But Washington, not economics, still will determine the political winner.

China has just issued an order banning coal in Beijing by 2020. But our president is not an autocrat.

No matter how much he may want to go “green”, Mr. Obama should not ignore the market forces that will, left unimpeded, select the most cost-effective mix of energy sources and the best-available technologies for generating electricity. His job is to promote the general welfare and not the special interests of bureaucrats or other groups that lobby for government handouts to finance electricity production by demonstrably inefficient means.

Perhaps Mr. Obama should ask Secretary of State John Kerry to negotiate a truce.

SOURCE





Study: Proposed EPA Ozone Regulation Costliest in U.S. History

 A study commissioned by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) on the impact of a proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation shows that it could be the costliest federal rule by reducing the Gross National Product by $270 billion per year and $3.4 trillion from 2017 to 2040 and adds $2.2 trillion in compliance costs for the same time period.

The study, conducted by the National Economic Research Associates Economic Consulting, also predicts that reducing the parts per billion ozone standard from the current 75 to 60 could result in 2.9 million fewer job equivalents (total labor income change divided by the average annual income per job) each year on average through 2040, and increase energy costs from manufacturers and consumers.

“This regulation has the capacity to stop the manufacturing comeback in its tracks while imposing $270 billion in annual costs to our economy,” Jay Timmons, CEO and president of NAM said on its website announcing the July 31 release of the study.

“Proposed levels of reduction to 60 parts per billion would leave nearly all of the United States in a so-called ‘non-attainment’ zone, ending the manufacturing boon, restricting development of our resources and driving up the cost of nearly every manufactured product,” Timmons said.

At an event for reporters on Friday, the American Petroleum Institute introduced a map it has produced showing how the new regulation would harm the economy in states across the country.

API also claims that the nation’s air quality is improving and health benefits from the lower ozone standards are not backed by the science.

“The nation’s air quality has improved over the past several years, and ozone emissions will continue to decline without new regulations,” the API analysis of the NAM study stated. “These new standards are not justified from a health perspective, because the science is simply not showing a need to reduce ozone levels.”

“We are rapidly approaching a point where we are requiring manufacturers to do the impossible,” Ross Eisenberg, NAM vice president of energy and resources policy, said of the EPA proposal. “The EPA is considering setting ozone levels below what exists at national parks, such as Yellowstone and Denali.

“It is vital that the Obama Administration allow existing ozone standards to be implemented rather than move the goalposts with another set of requirements for manufacturers,” Eisenberg said. “Trillions of dollars are at stake.”

The EPA is expected to announce the rule in December.

SOURCE

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