RIP Sen. Fred Thompson: Great man and global warming skeptic

I was a Fred fan when he was running for the GOP Presidential nomination. But I don't think Fred's heart was in it. He felt too old. I think it was his young and attractive wife, Jeri Kehn, who wanted him to run. More about Fred here -- JR

Here’s what Fred had to say about the dreaded global warming:




Fred & Jeri. It's not that Jeri was short. Fred was 6'6"




Remember When Climate Models Predicted U.S. East Coast Warming Oceans?

Hurricane Joaquin developed on September 27 in the Atlantic Ocean but, despite panic,  did NOT hit the USA.  It did however sink the cargo ship "El Faro".  HuffPo admitted that the hurricane defied theory:  "The Super Hurricane Joaquin defied all logic of hurricanes by wobbling aimlessly, feeding off the warm tropical waters between Crooked Island and Long Island for almost 39 hours."

The climate doomsday-cult promoters at the Huffington Post and Climate Nexus did their usual thing, trying to convince the American public that Hurricane Joaquin was the result of global warming.

Of course, when the alarmists uttered these claims, they were based on the hurricane computer models that forecast Joaquin's path would strike the East Coast of the U.S. Fortunately for the coastal residents, the climate change doomsters were wrong, spectacularly.

And speaking of spectacularly wrong, the expert climate-change computer models predicted rapidly warming waters that the hurricane's path would traverse.


A forecast nine hundredths of a degree warming over the years  1940 to 2015 was replaced by an actual one hundredth of a degree cooling

Instead, as the adjacent chart clearly documents, those ocean waters have cooled since 1940, not warmed as predicted. Another case of 'those stubborn facts'.

In summary, the empirical evidence again confirms that climate simulations and computer models are very suspect regarding their capabilities at both short and long-term predictions/forecasts. Governing elites, bureaucrats and the public should absolutely not base any expensive policy-making decisions on these research tools.

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Leadership at the Paris climate treaty?

We should lead from behind – instead of with brains in our behinds – on this new Treaty of Paris

Paul Driessen

What an unpalatable irony. The 1783 Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War and created the United States. The 2015 Treaty of Paris could end what’s left of our democratic USA – and complete the “fundamental transformation” that the Obama Administration intends to impose by executive fiat.

Meanwhile, as a prelude to Paris, October 24 marked a full ten years since a category 3-5 hurricane last hit the United States.  (Hurricane Wilma in 2005; Sandy hit as a Category 2.) That’s a record dating back at least to 1900. It’s also the first time since 1914 that no hurricanes formed anywhere in the Western Atlantic, Caribbean Sea or Gulf of Mexico through September 22 of any calendar year.

Global temperatures haven’t risen in 18 years and are more out of sync with computer model predictions with every passing year. Seas are rising at barely seven inches a century. Droughts and other “extreme weather events” are less frequent, severe and long-lasting than during the twentieth century. “Vanishing” Arctic and Greenland ice is freezing at historical rates, and growing at a record pace in Antarctica.

But President Obama still insists that dangerous climate change is happening now, and it is a “dereliction of duty” for military officers to deny that climate change “is an immediate risk to our national security.”

Meanwhile, the Washington Post intones: “Republicans’ most potent argument against acting on climate change – that other nations won’t cut emissions, so US efforts are useless – is crumbling. The European Union has had overlapping climate policies in place for years. China, the world’s largest emitter, continues to fill in details about how it will meet the landmark climate targets it announced a year ago. World negotiators are set to convene in Paris in November to bundle commitments from dozens of nations into a single agreement that should set the world on a path toward lower emissions.”

Right. A path toward less plant fertilizing carbon dioxide, to prevent “unprecedented disasters” that aren’t happening (except in SimPlanet computer models), by stabilizing a perpetually changing climate that is driven by powerful natural forces over which humans have no control – under a 2015 Paris treaty that will inflict global governance by unelected activists and bureaucrats, bring lower living standards to billions, and initiate wealth redistribution of at least $100 billion a year to ruling elites in poor countries.

For once, President Obama wants America to play a leadership role, through a war on carbon-based energy that his own EPA admits will reduce hypothetical global warming by an undetectable 0.02 degrees 85 years from now. If we slash our fossil fuel use, he insists, the rest of the world will follow. It’s delusional.

For once, we should lead from behind – instead of with brains in our behinds. A brief recap of what other nations are actually doing underscores how absurd and deceitful the White House, EPA and Post are.

European nations and the European Union have long claimed bragging rights for “leading the world” on “climate stabilization,” by replacing hydrocarbon fuels with renewable energy. Their efforts have done little to persuade poor nations to follow suit – but have sent EU energy prices skyrocketing, cost millions of Euro jobs and made the EU increasingly uncompetitive globally. Now Europe says it will make an additional 40% emissions reduction by 2030, but only if a new Paris agreement is legally binding on all countries.

However, two months ago, China, India and Russia refused to sign a nonbinding US-sponsored statement calling for greater international cooperation to combat hypothetical warming and climate change. And virtually all developing countries oppose any agreement that calls for binding emission targets or even “obligatory review mechanisms” of their voluntary efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

What they do want is a treaty that guarantees $100 billion per year for climate change “mitigation, adaptation and compensation,” plus modern energy technologies given to them at no cost. And that appears to be only the opening ante. India environment minister Prakash Javadekar recently said “the bill for climate action for the world is not just $100 billion. It is in trillions of dollars per year.” Developed nations are “historically responsible” for climate change, he argues, and must ensure “justice” for developing countries by fully funding the Green Climate Fund. India alone must receive $2.5 trillion!

So far, pledges to the fund total just $700 million – and Prime Minister David Cameron has said Britain would provide a one-time contribution of only $9 million. He has called renewable energy “green crap” and plans to end all “green” subsidies by 2025, to reduce electricity prices that have sent millions of families into energy poverty and caused the loss of thousands of jobs in the UK steelmaking sector.

Germany’s reliance on coal continues to rise; it now generates 44% of its electricity from the black rock – more than any other EU nation. In Poland, Prime Minister Eva Kopacz says nuclear energy is no longer a priority, and her country’s energy security will instead focus increasingly on coal.

But it is in Asia where coal use and CO2 emissions will soar the most – underscoring how completely detached from reality the White House, EPA and Washington Post are.

China now gets some 75% of its electricity from coal. Its coal consumption declined slightly in 2014, as the Middle Kingdom turned slightly to natural gas and solar, for PR and to reduce serious air quality problems. However, it plans to build 363 new coal-fired power plants, with many plants likely outfitted or retrofitted with scrubbers and other equipment to reduce emissions of real, health-impairing pollution.

India will focus on “energy efficiency” and reduce its CO2 “emission intensity” (per unit of growth), but not its overall emissions. It will also boost its reliance on wind and solar power, mostly for remote areas that will not be connected to the subcontinent’s growing electrical grid anytime soon. However, it plans to open a new coal mine every month and double its coal production and use by 2020.

Pakistan is taking a similar path – as are Vietnam, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations. Even Japan plans to build 41 new coal-fired units over the next decade. Overall, says the International Energy Agency, Southeast Asia’s energy demand will soar 80% by 2040, and fossil fuels will provide some 80% of the region’s total energy mix by that date.

Africa will pursue a similar route to lifting its people out of poverty. No more solar panels on huts. The continent has abundant oil, coal and natural gas – and it intends to utilize those fuels, while it demands its “fair share” of free technology, “capacity building,” and climate “reparation” money.

During the 2011 UN climate conference in Durban, all nations agreed that the next treaty would have legally binding emission targets and mandatory reviews of emission reduction progress. They also set up the Green Climate Fund wealth redistribution scheme. Now those CO2-reduction pledges are in history’s dustbin, because developing nations believe they have the upper hand in any climate negotiations.

They’re probably right. President Obama told 60 Minutes his definition of leadership is “leading on climate change,” and he desperately wants a legacy beyond his Iran, Iraq, Syria, Russia, Ukraine, Bowe Bergdahl and economic disasters. Moreover, Western nations have created a climate monster and Climate Crisis Industry, which must be appeased with perpetual sacrifices: expensive, unreliable energy, fewer jobs, lower living standards and more dead people. No wonder Asian and African countries expect to get trillions of dollars, free energy technology, and a free pass from any binding commitments.

Voters, consumers, elected officials and courts must wake up and take action. House Speaker Paul Ryan, members of Congress, governors, business leaders and presidential candidates need to learn the facts, communicate forcefully, repudiate destructive energy and climate policies – and let the world know the Senate will reject any Obama treaty that binds the USA to slashing emissions and transferring its wealth.

Above all, they must debunk, defund and demolish the mountains of anti-fossil fuel, anti-job, anti-growth, anti-family regulations that Obama & Co. have imposed – or plan to impose before they leave office – in the name of preventing a climate crisis that exists only in their minds and models.

Via email






Congressional Review Act Resolutions Signify an Important Stand Against EPA Overreach

Earlier this week, Republicans in both the House and the Senate filed resolutions under the Congressional Review Act aimed at the EPA’s greenhouse gas rules for new and existing power plants. These resolutions, if successful, would block President Obama and the EPA’s executive actions, and would only need the majority votes to do so. Although the measures would still be vulnerable to an essentially guaranteed presidential veto, they still send an important message to the President and the EPA on behalf of many states, industries, and businesses.

Both of the EPA rules in question would impose draconian changes on the U.S. energy sector. In addition to enforcing excessive regulatory cap-and-trade requirements and renewable energy mandates on existing power plants, these rules would also set unreasonable CO2 standards for new coal-fired power plants; standards which even existing plants wouldn’t be able to properly comply with. As a result, they would virtually act as a ban on the construction of new coal-fired plants, because there would be no commercial or economic viability to building them.

In fact, the economic impacts of these new EPA rules would be extremely destructive. In addition to causing massive increases in energy prices, the EPA has estimated that the rules alone will levy $8.4 billion in costs on the American economy, and the American Action Forum has found that they will result in the elimination of as many as 125,800 jobs across the nation. The economic pitfalls of these rules are simply unacceptable, considering that the rule itself is not projected to have any tangible impact on temperatures across the globe.

Although the resolutions are not likely to attract support from a veto-overriding majority in either the House or the Senate, the efforts to halt the EPA and the president from imposing such harsh regulations are certainly commendable. As Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has recently stated, “[These regulations] make it clearer than ever that the president and his administration have gone too far – and that Congress should act to stop this regulatory assault.”

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The history of climate modelling

Independent British climate researcher, Derek Alker herein provides a fresh and readily-understandable re-analysis of the identifiable five-step history of climate modelling with his new paper, The Modelling History of Climatology.

Alker guides the reader from the slide-rule and pencil era of Vilhelm Bjerknes (1904) to the computer age of Charney (1979) and Hansen (1988) and beyond. This welcome new research discredits the greenhouse gas 'theory' - the diseased heart of climate models – and refuted relentlessly by scientists at Principia Scientific International (PSI) since 2009.

But most crucially, Alker provides a most unorthodox conclusion from this study. He finds that:

“To the best of my knowledge I am the first to suggest that the atmosphere is a cold trap for liquid water at earth's surface and that THAT changes everything (most notably surface heat capacity [the oceans] currently ignored by climatology) for the basis of current, and the future basis of climate science.”

The Modelling History of Climatology shows we have been living in a misguided era of carbon dioxide (CO2) demonization that began in earnest with Charney (1979). For over a generation an over-simplified steady state climate model with constant solar input has dominated academic reasoning. Charney et al's 'greenhouse science' version of planet earth was fixed as a crude two parallel plane barren and inorganic model. Climate modelers chose this flawed mathematical solution absent key thermodynamic elements in denial of the reality of our wet, three-dimensional living and breathing organic planet.

Compounding the demonization of CO2 is the well-known history, 'The Discovery of Global Warming' provided by Spencer Weart. Alker suggests, "It is worth drawing a direct comparison to Spencer Weart's version and asking the reader to decide which is the spun version, who is doing the spinning and why?"

Was such crass incompetence also spiced with fraud? “Climategate” (2009) revealed that vast swathes of climate data and scientific calculations entrusted into the safekeeping of government scientists has been withheld, lost or destroyed preventing independent analysis. In Britain climate modelers at the world-leading Climatic Research Unit (CRU), University of East Anglia narrowly evaded criminal prosecution thanks only to a delay by prosecutors in detecting wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, in Canadian courts former PSI chairman, Dr Tim Ball, is battling former UN IPCC's lead climate modeler, Professor Andrew Weaver who withholds data key to what may be a wider academic conspiracy.

What has emerged is a stark battle between unprincipled 'post-normal' government scientists seeking to subvert the traditional scientific method of openness, verifiability and accountability enshrined since Sir Isaac Newton's time.

The Modelling History of Climatology is currently subject to open peer review here at Principia Scientific International (PSI) and feedback is  welcomed

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Debunking Gasland (Again)

A study has confirmed what many of us already knew: The movie Gasland got it wrong.

Gasland was many Americans’ first exposure to hydraulic fracturing, and the film sparked anti-fracking organizations around the country. These activist groups used the film in efforts to convince people that fracking is responsible for a whole host of environmental problems, including contaminated water supplies, overuse of water, and even earthquakes.

Despite the theatrics employed in the film — the famous flaming faucet, for example, was caused by naturally occurring methane and had nothing to do with fracking — science has proved that fracking poses no greater risk to the environment than traditional oil and natural-gas development. In some respects, fracking is actually better for the environment than conventional drilling, and people with good sense should challenge anti-fracking activists when they say otherwise.

The flaming faucet convinced many people that fracking contaminates groundwater by fracturing the rock that separates water supplies from oil and gas wells. Scientific research, however, has found it is not “physically plausible” for chemicals to migrate upward to drinking water, there being simply too much rock (thousands of feet of it) protecting the water supplies.

Confirming this, an analysis released this year — an authoritative five-year study conducted by EPA —found no evidence of widespread or systemic impacts on drinking-water resources. Impacts are in fact rare.

In terms of water consumption, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that, on average, it takes about 4 to 5 million gallons of water to fracture the rock for a well. Although this may sound like a lot, it’s less than ten minutes’ worth of water consumption for New York City, and fracking uses far less of the nation’s water than crop irrigation does. In drought-stricken California, irrigation uses approximately 80 percent of the water, whereas fracking consumes 0.00062 percent.

Earthquakes have become one of the general public’s largest concerns about fracking. Science should help allay that concern. USGS reports hydraulic fracturing has been used in more than one million wells since 1947, yet there have been only three instances in which fracking was directly responsible for tremors large enough to be felt at the surface. This has led scientists to conclude hydraulic fracturing is not a mechanism for causing perceptible earthquakes.

But what about Oklahoma’s dramatic increase in earthquakes? Those quakes are caused by the disposal of oil and gas wastewater into underground injection wells, not the process of fracking itself, an important distinction. An average fracked well does produce between 800,000 and 1 million gallons of wastewater that must be disposed of in underground injection wells. However, fracking wastewater accounts for only a small portion (5 to 10 percent) of total wastewater disposal in the state. Most of the wastewater comes from oil production, which uses no hydraulic fracturing.

This isn’t to say hydraulic fracturing has zero environmental impact; in fact, all human activity affects the environment. But the environmental risks of fracking are manageable and vastly outweighed by the economic benefits.

SOURCE

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