Articles On Environment

[♦ nivek ♦]

July 26, 2008

 

A Step Back From Enviro Lunacy

 

By Michael Barone

 

Sometimes public opinion doesn't flow smoothly; it shifts sharply when a tipping point is reached. Case in point: gas prices. $3 a gallon gas didn't change anybody's mind about energy issues. $4 a gallon gas did. Evidently, the experience of paying more than $50 for a tankful gets people thinking we should stop worrying so much about global warming and the environmental dangers of oil wells on the outer continental shelf and in Alaska. Drill now! Nuke the caribou!

 

Our system of divided government and litigation-friendly regulation makes it hard for our society to do things and easy for adroit lobbyists and lawyers to stop them. Nations with more centralized power and less democratic accountability find it easier: France and Japan generate most of their electricity by nuclear power and Chicago, where authority is more centralized and accountability less robust than in most of the country, depends more on nuclear power than almost all the rest of the nation.

 

In contrast, lobbyists and litigators for environmental restriction groups have produced energy policies that I suspect future generations will regard as lunatic. We haven't built a new nuclear plant for some 30 years, since a Jane Fonda movie exaggerated their dangers. We have allowed states to ban oil drilling on the outer continental shelf, prompted by the failure of 40- or 50-year-old technology in Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1969, though current technology is much better, as shown by the lack of oil spills in the waters off Louisiana and Mississippi during Hurricane Katrina.

 

We have banned oil drilling on a very small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that is godforsaken tundra (I have been to the North Slope oil fields, similar terrain -- I know) for fear of disturbing a herd of caribou -- a species of hoofed animals that is in no way endangered or scarce.

 

The ANWR ban is the work of environmental restriction groups that depend on direct-mail fundraising to pay their bills and keep their jobs. That means they must always claim the sky is falling. They can't get people to send a check or mouse-click a donation because they did a good job, the restrictions they imposed on the Alaska pipeline in the 1970s have done a good job in preserving the environment or because clean air acts of the past have vastly reduced air pollution.

 

ANWR is a precious cause for them because it can be portrayed (dishonestly) as a national treasure and because the pressure for drilling there has been unrelenting. Democrats have enlisted solidly in their army, and they have also been able to recruit Republicans who wanted to get good environmental scorecards to impress enviro-conscious voters in states like Florida, New Jersey and Minnesota.

 

Now all that is in danger, because the pain of paying $60 for a tank of gas has convinced most Americans to worry less about the caribou or the recurrence of an oil spill that happened 39 years ago. Democratic leaders are preventing Congress from voting on continental shelf and ANWR drilling or oil shale development because they fear their side would lose and are making the transparently absurd claim that drilling won't lower the price of oil. They're scampering to say that they would allow drilling somewhere -- mostly in places where the oil companies haven't found any oil.

 

In a country with less in the way of checks and balances, which can be gamed by adroit lobbyists and litigators, we would be building more nuclear plants, and would be drilling offshore and in ANWR. We would be phasing out the corn ethanol subsidies that are enriching Iowa farmers and impoverishing Mexican tortilla eaters, and we would be repealing the 54-cent tariff on Brazilian sugar ethanol (the sugar for which would be produced not in defoliated Amazon rainforests but in the desolate and currently unused certao).

 

On balance, of course, I prefer our system over the more centralized, less accountable systems of France and Japan (and Barack Obama's Chicago). But it sure does have its costs.

 

But it also has its benefits: Public opinion, when it has changed as it has with $4 gas, has an effect. Environmental restrictionists like Al Gore have been selling a form of secular religion: We have sinned against Mother Earth, we must atone and suffer, there can be no argument, but we must have faith.

 

That was an appealing argument to many, perhaps most, Americans when gas was selling for $1.40. It has a much more limited appeal now that gas is selling for $4.10. The time may be coming when our lunatic environmental policies are swept away by a rising tide of common sense.

 

Copyright 2008, Creators Syndicate Inc.

 

Page Printed from: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/...iro_lunacy.html at July 26, 2008 - 12:15:53 PM PDT

[♦ nivek ♦]

The Carbon Curtain

 

Peter Huber 08.11.08, 12:00 AM ET

 

What we really need from the climate modelers is an accurate 50-year projection of global politics. Will people believe the computer's dire prophecy enough to change their lifestyles? While we wait for 50 million lines of code to reveal the supposed future, consider how things look to one very knowledgeable energy analyst, Vinod K. Dar, who runs Dar & Company, a consultant to the energy industry, in Bethesda, Md. What follows is my own gloss on Dar's analysis. Everything he says, however, squares with all that I've seen and learned in the 30 years I've watched energy markets here and abroad.

 

A number of influential people in Russia, China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam say the planet is now entering a 30-year cooling period, the second half of a normal cycle driven by cyclical changes in the sun's output and currents in the Pacific Ocean. Their theory leaves true believers in carbon catastrophe livid.

 

To judge by actions, not words, the carbon-warming view hasn't come close to persuading a political majority even in nations considered far more environmentally enlightened than China and India. Europe's coal consumption is rising, not falling, and the Continent won't come close to meeting the Kyoto targets for carbon reduction. Australia is selling coal to all comers.

 

On the far side of the environmental curtain China already mines and burns more coal than any other country. Together, China and India control more than one-fifth of the planet's vast coal reserves. Dar predicts--very plausibly, in my view--that the two countries may fire up a new coal plant as often as once a week for the next 25 years, adding about twice as much coal-fired generating capacity as the U.S. has today. Persian Gulf states are planning significant coal imports, because coal generates much cheaper electricity than oil or gas.

 

In developing countries the political survival of the people at the top depends on providing affordable fuel for kitchens, farms, fertilizer plants, steel mills, highways and power plants. Oil and coal are the only practical fuels at hand.

 

Not by coincidence, the carbon curtain tracks a schism between stagnation and growth. The lethargy side includes the American Northeast and upper Midwest, the European Union, Japan and eastern Canada. The high-growth states, provinces and nations are the ones embracing the development of domestic fuels, the construction of power plants and transmission lines, the import of fuels and technologies needed for enterprise and economic growth and the export of fuels and technologies to like-minded partners. They have nothing against energy efficiency and renewables; they just don't focus on them much.

 

Uranium is the only carbon-free fuel liked by fast-growing nations. Some 439 nuclear power plants are currently operating in 31 countries. China plans to build another 100 for itself in the next 20 years. By 2020 or so a new reactor will be starting up somewhere in the world every five to six days, compared with one every 17 days in the 1980s. China is building coal and nuclear plants in Pakistan, and Russia in Iran, Bulgaria and India.

 

No serious student of global politics can accept the notion that the world will soon join ranks behind Brussels, Washington and the gloomy computer and its minders. Dar is surely right when he says, "The U.S. and Japan will not tell Asia and Africa to choose poverty, disease, hunger and illiteracy over electricity." Europe might, but nobody will listen. It won't have moral authority until its own citizens are emitting less carbon than Bangladeshis. That won't happen soon.

 

If the growth sphere doesn't get energy financing from our side, it will get it from Russia, China, South Korea, Brazil, the Middle East and Japan. It will get fuel-burning technology from Russia, South Korea, China and France. And it will get coal and uranium from Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia. Australia has huge reserves of both; China, India, Japan and South Korea are all vying to be its best friend. The U.S. has plentiful supplies of both, too--but not nearly enough to exert any control over global markets. Western Europe and Japan hardly show up on the charts.

 

So does the climate computer have a real audience, or is it really just another bag lady muttering away to herself in a lonely corner of the intellectual park? That the computer is heard in Hollywood, Stockholm, Brussels and even some parts of Washington is quite beside the point--they have far less global power and influence than they vainly imagine. Vinod Dar is right: "Contingency planning should entail strategic responses to a warming globe, a cooling globe and a globe whose climate reverberates with laughter at human hubris."

 

http://www.forbes.com/opinions/forbes/2008/0811/094.html

[♦ nivek ♦]

http://facethestate.com/articles/dnc-boondoggle-carbon-credits-fund-broken-turbine

 

DNC Boondoggle: Carbon Credits Fund Broken Turbine

 

July 26, 2008

 

WRAY - The eastern Colorado wind turbine tapped for the Democratic National Convention's carbon-offset program has one problem: It doesn't generate any electricity. Convention organizers are now being questioned for their eagerness to market those credits to delegates.

 

The DNC has contracted with Vermont-based NativeEnergy to offer delegates "Green challenge" carbon offsets to soften the environmental impact of convention travel. That money is then invested in carbon-free "green" energy sources around the country, including a wind turbine installed this year by the Wray School District RD-2. But a Face The State investigation reveals the district's turbine has never produced marketable energy due to massive equipment malfunctions.

 

The school district held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the wind turbine February 15th. Officials soon discovered, however, that the turbine was incapable of producing its intended output. "We flipped it back off and on about 10 times since then," said Superintendent Ron Howard. "It has run, it will run, but it won't ramp itself up to full capacity."

 

In the meantime, the project has been touted by Gov. Bill Ritter's administration as an example of government innovation in clean energy, with district officials still attempting to reassure residents of the technology's long-term potential. Area residents tell Face The State the blades do turn some days, even though the turbine is not producing electricity. The district Web site reads, "As you note the blades turning evenly in the wind...this 'dream turned into reality' is providing an environmentally safe source of power to our community."

 

In a feature story in Saturday's Rocky Mountain News, reporter Jerd Smith claimed that 20 percent of Wray's power is generated by what it calls "a windmill that toils day and night producing clean electricity." Smith's report professed that the Wray project is "at the heart" of the DNC's carbon-credit program.

 

The Rocky report also described the school wind turbine as "a project that generates thousands of dollars for the region's cash-strapped schools," but provided no financial data regarding any energy sales to date.

 

Howard says the turbine requires replacement equipment, which is scheduled to be installed this month. "It's a new technology, so they don't have the bugs out of it," he said. "Since there's so many people watching [the turbine], they might be better served to go to a more reliable model."

 

State Sen. Greg Brophy, a Wray Republican, says residents feel let down by town leaders. "Most of the people out here were very excited about it," he said. "But nobody likes to be misled. The 'green' DNC convention is an absolute sham."

 

Despite the fact the wind turbine does not produce energy, that hasn't stopped the district from cashing in on the project. In addition to the carbon credits sold to the DNC and others through NativeEnergy, Howard says the district receives downtime compensation from Americas Wind Energy, Inc., the firm that built the apparatus. "The money that we're making isn't necessarily coming from production," he said.

 

When asked to quantify those payments, Howard would only describe them as "substantial." While the details of school district contracts and finances are public information, Howard refused to disclose that information. "I'm not going to tell you how much money we are receiving from AWE while we're waiting for this thing to run," he said. Face The State has since requested documents from the district under the Colorado Open Records Act.

 

Howard is similarly tight lipped on the district's income from carbon offsets. "I'm also not going to tell you how much we got from the sale of the green tax for green energy," he said. "That's all there is to it."

[Outback Jack]

Go green at the expense of safety. (Good for some laughs!)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtg2gGdmmzI

[♦ nivek ♦]

LewRockwell.com

 

Fraud of Global Warming by Floy Lilley

 

 

The former U.S. vice president, Al Gore, is now urging civil disobedience to stop coal plants. He told a New York audience recently, "If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration."

 

Global Warming and Reinventing Government have been Gore’s two lifelong causes. He is using the one to accomplish the other. His fundamental assumptions and views of global warming were well documented in his film, An Inconvenient Truth. Thousands of schoolchildren have viewed it.Gore was even awarded a Nobel Peace prize for the documentary in 2007 which he shared with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It is telling that the very first Chairman of that IPCC group, John Houghton, had pronounced, "Unless we announce disasters, no one will listen." True to script, Gore announced disasters and many listened.

 

As Gore urges civil disobedience to stop coal plants for the sake of carbon dioxide emissions, it is time to revisit several of those assumptions and implications he made in An Inconvenient Truth. Each of the fourteen highlighted here is a snapshot of the Global Warming doomsayers’ views. The added perspective shows the fraud of the catastrophic manmade Global Warming thesis:

 

Carbon dioxide drives the temperature of the planet. Gore assumes that carbon dioxide (CO2) is the causal factor of warming temperatures. But, for at least 240,000 years carbon dioxide has been a lagging indicator of any warming. That means that the earth warms and, later, there is an increase in the gas carbon dioxide. Roy Spencer, Climate Research Scientist in Huntsville, Alabama, notes that "the cooling effects of weather have a stronger influence on surface temperatures than the warming influence of greenhouse gases." The major greenhouse gases are water vapor (which accounts for 70–90 percent of the effect), carbon dioxide and methane. Many scientists work on the theory that the sun is the prime driver of Earth’s climate. Earth temperature and sun activity do correlate closely. Additionally, many scientists examine the larger cosmos. Their theories reveal an interplay between the sun and cosmic rays – sub-atomic particles from exploded stars. Further, they discern long-term temperature patterns as our solar system moves through the arms of our Milky Way galaxy. Again, those events correlate more closely to Earth’s temperatures than do manmade carbon dioxide levels.

 

Temperatures will rise 1.5–4.5 degrees Celsius when CO2 levels double from a pre-industrial level of 280ppm to 560ppm. Because Earth’s sensitivity to carbon dioxide changes has been overstated, the scientifically likely temperature result of such a doubling is 1.5–2.0 degrees Celsius. Earth’s current CO2 level is 380ppm.

 

Catastrophic Global Warming will cause sea levels to rise 20 feet. The work of scientists supports a sea level rise of about one inch per decade. In one hundred years it should rise 10–12 inches.

 

Catastrophic Global Warming is forcing island nations to evacuate their populations to New Zealand because of rising sea levels. Tuvalu was the poster child for this alarm, but neither Tuvalu nor any other islanders have evacuated to New Zealand.

 

Catastrophic Global Warming is melting Antarctic sea ice. But, Antarctic sea ice is thickening over the gigantic continent. This thickening reduces sea level. There is ice loss on a tiny sliver of the continent stretching out far northward. That is what Gore’s movie image relies upon. The ice shelf collapse there was more likely to have been driven by ocean current fluctuations.

 

Catastrophic Global Warming is resulting in extreme weather. Tornadoes? The US is home to one-third of all the world’s tornadoes. But, tornadoes have not increased. Drought? There is not greater incidence of drought. Record typhoons and cyclones? No. Hurricanes? There are about ninety-five hurricanes annually and globally. But, hurricanes are neither more frequent nor more intense. In 2004 the IPCC hyped hurricane-fears without any scientific soundness. Gore’s film footage implies that hurricane Katrina was an inescapable consequence of manmade globally averaged warming. Facts do not support that alarm.

 

Catastrophic Global Warming has caused global temperatures to be warmer now than they have been in 1,000 years. Gore’s graph displays a long level period ending in an upward sweep like a hockey stick, displaying the appearance of runaway temperatures. A young IPCC scientist named Mann created this hockey stick graph for a 2001 report, making the real Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age disappear. It was an enormously effective prop. Alarmists used it for their the-science-is-settled position. It made the 20th-century temperature increase look unique. But, Mann’s methodology would have conjured any random set of numbers into a hockey stick. And, the temperature increase was not unique. In 2006 the National Academy of Sciences issued a report stating that this graph used flawed data. The IPCC has dropped the use of the Mann hockey stick from its 2007 Report. But, this piece of deliberate disinformation caused great damage to truth and science.

 

Catastrophic Global Warming has dried up Lake Chad. Lake Chad has been totally dry several times before humans were adding any CO2. That situation is due to over-extraction by communities.

 

Catastrophic Global Warming has been shrinking the snows of Kilimanjaro. By the time Ernest Hemingway wrote The Snows of Kilimanjaro in 1936, half of the snow was already gone. This is before man began releasing CO2 into the atmosphere to any extent by burning fuels for energy. No temperature on the mountain is above freezing. There has been no temperature change in fifty-five years. Shrinking is likely to be a circulation issue and lower precipitation, not a rising temperature issue.

 

Catastrophic Global Warming increases mosquito-borne malaria. Malaria was endemic to most of the developed world just fifty to one hundred years ago. We eliminated malaria in Europe and the United States while the world warmed. 600,000 people died of malaria in Siberia. Malaria sickens 300 to 500 million poor people annually, killing as many as 2.7 million each year. In sub-Saharan Africa, one in 20 children dies of malaria. The approximately forty million humans killed by malaria since 1972 have died because a politician, William Ruckelshaus, as the Environmental Protection Agency’s first head, banned the beneficial pesticide DDT.

 

Catastrophic Global Warming is quickly melting Arctic sea ice. Arctic sea ice decreases during the summer melt season, and Arctic temperatures have risen faster than anywhere else. But, the Arctic region was warmer in the 1930’s. That could not have been caused by mankind. And, Artic sea ice has recovered from 3 million square kilometers to 14 million square kilometers. Ice-cover around the Bering Strait and Alaska has more recently been at its highest level ever recorded.

 

Catastrophic Global Warming is killing polar bears. Factually, that claim was based on a single sighting of four dead bears the day after an "abrupt windstorm" in an area housing one of the increasing bear populations. Global polar-bear population has increased dramatically over the past decades.

 

Catastrophic Global Warming is melting Greenland’s ice. Greenland has been warmer. Its ice did not melt – except around its edges. There has been no net warming – and perhaps a slight cooling – since 1937. Vikings colonized and farmed Greenland during the Medieval Warm Period. The return of colder climate drove them away.

 

And, lastly, for An Inconvenient Truth,

 

Catastrophic Global Warming has caused mass extinctions. Warming extends ranges for plant and animal species. Biodiversity is enhanced. That’s why the greatest concentration of biodiversity is in the tropics. Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide are shown to increase plant production, while lowering water requirements and reducing stress. Animals thrive on more abundant plant-life. Enriched CO2 has yielded an additional one-sixth production which would not have happened in its absence.

 

Each of these fourteen scenarios would have been an environmental bad had it happened and had it been empirically proven to have been caused by humans. The alarming events did not happen. The scary scenarios all came from computer climate models. There has been no empirical proof substantiating Gore’s claims and implications.

 

The hypothesis of catastrophic globally averaged warming resulting from human-caused carbon dioxide increases has failed. Failed hypotheses should be rejected.

 

The catastrophic Global Warming hypothesis fails to show that changes in carbon dioxide drive changes in temperature. Changes in carbon dioxide do not account well for the highly variable climate we know the Earth has had, including the Roman Warming (200 B.C. to A.D. 600), the cold Dark Ages (A.D. 440 to A.D. 900), the Medieval Warming (A.D. 900–1300 when CO2 levels were much lower than today), and the Little Ice Age (1300–1550 when there were few sunspots). The catastrophic Global Warming hypothesis is a feeble theory made seemingly true by pure repetition.

 

The catastrophic Global Warming hypothesis fails to explain the reality of the last one hundred years. Half of our modern warming occurred from 1905–1940, when carbon dioxide levels were still quite low. The net warming since 1940 is a minuscule 0.2 degrees Celsius. An interlude of global cooling occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, when CO2 levels were increasing. It totally fails to explain the absence of warming in the last ten years, despite a continuing rapid increase in CO2 concentration. If greenhouse action by carbon dioxide drove warming, the upper air should have warmed faster than the surface, but observations show the opposite has been the case. Although computer models say temperatures should have risen, Alabama temperatures have fallen for 115 years. Citrus crops used to be common. What could you do about this catastrophe? Buy jackets and get out of the citrus business. In other words, adapt.

 

It is fraud to spread alarmism of catastrophic "human-caused global warming" based upon projections generated from computer climate models which have substantial uncertainties and are markedly unreliable. It is fraud upon fraud to throw scarce resources at Global Warming when such expenditures will have inconsequential results except to impoverish us, notwithstanding that Al Gore believes it will be good for our spirituality to work together on such a common cause. There are real and achievable global causes of diseases, malnutrition, sanitation and energy that are valid projects and worthy efforts – efforts that Bjørn Lomborg endorses in his book, Cool It. No global efforts toward expensive CO2 cuts are valid or worthy. Current Climate policies are health and wealth destruction policies.

 

Doomsayers are claiming that climate can be adjusted in some predictable way, but it can not. It is fraud to claim that it can. As published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Richard Lindzen of M.I.T. has conducted studies that thwart the greenhouse effect. What that means is that "just because the greenhouse effect is real, it does not follow that an increase in intensity will necessarily lead to a significant increase in mean global air temperature, as climate alarmists are wont to claim…Hence it is not inconceivable that an increase in the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration may result in no warming at all. Or even a cooling!...Much more research will be required before we can determine that the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 content even constitutes a problem, much less specify its magnitude and prescribe ameliorative measures for dealing with it."

 

The magnetic attraction of government funding for global-warming research, the political climate of fear-based policies seen in both climate issues and economic issues, and doom-sopping journalism works to push events into a downward spiral of exaggeration and hype. Al Gore rides this emotional wave. He has refused all debate with climate scientists. It is after all, for him, not about truth. For him truth is simply inconvenient.

 

COOL It and Six Other Books to Lower Your Global Warming Fever

 

Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming by Bjørn Lomborg (2008) tells us to stop the focus on carbon dioxide cuts. Stop throwing good resources at global treaties and global command and control plans. They will have inconsequential results upon climate. You will fail to do any real good, cautions Lomborg. Put global warming into perspective. There is useful common sense packed into this slender and readable work from this Danish environmentalist.

 

The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud**And those who are too fearful to do soby Lawrence Solomon (2008) checks to see if those who differ from the "consensus" claimed by Gore and the UN really are just crackpots. Surprising himself with his findings, Solomon's efforts revealed the skeptics to be more accomplished and more eminent scientists than the Gore & co. group who have gone along.

 

Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poorby Roy Spencer (2008) says that the policies being advocated by environmentalists and politicians in the frenzy over global warming are sure to fail and bound to harm people. Governmental funding for research has predictably created biased scientists, but Washington, too, has been corrupted by this hyped "problem" and the money being thrown at it. Spencer shows with a light touch that he knows people as well as he knows weather.

 

Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, Updated and Expanded Editionby S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery (2008) presents the case of how the Earth tells its own climate tale. This reasoned perspective of natural climate change driven by our own sun refutes the alarmists' baseless fears of man-made global warming caused by increases in carbon dioxide. The authors argue for humane policy consequences.

 

The Chilling Stars: A Cosmic View of Climate Changeby Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder (2008) calls the carbon dioxide theory feeble and presents a far more robust theory of galactic cosmic rays. Based upon Svensmark's research at the Danish National Space Center, The Chilling Stars offers the broadest perspective yet presented on climate change. If confirmed by further research, sub-atomic particles from exploded stars affect Earth's climate more than man-made carbon dioxide.

 

Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warmingedited by Patrick J. Michaels (2005) presents essays by climate experts which reveal what is and what is not known in climate science. Cautioning that bad policy will result from flawed scientific assumptions, each expert carefully notes what has been predicted and what has been observed. Major discrepancies raise major questions about any policy created to "fight" climate change.

 

Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Mediaby Patrick J. Michaels (2005) is a premier presentation of the cycle and culture of exaggeration. Never shy, Michaels does tell it like it is. What he reveals is not professional and is not pretty. Spencer's Climate Confusion echoes these same sad discoveries of scientific ignorance and fraud.

 

For websites on global warming, the two kings still reign:

 

* http://www.worldclimatereport.com/

* http://www.co2science.org/

 

September 27, 2008

 

Floy Lilley [send her mail] is an adjunct faculty member at the Mises Institute. She was formerly with the University of Texas at Austin's Chair of Free Enterprise, and an attorney-at-law in Texas and Florida.

 

Copyright © 2008 LewRockwell.com

 

 

Links referenced within this article

 

Floy Lilley

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/mailto:fl...y@bellsouth.net

DIGG THIS

http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=htt...amp;title=Fraud of Global Warming&topic=political_opinion

An Inconvenient Truth

http://www.amazon.com/Inconvenient-Truth-A...KG/lewrockwell/

The Snows of Kilimanjaro

http://www.amazon.com/Snows-Kilimanjaro-St...12/lewrockwell/

Cool It

http://www.amazon.com/Cool-Skeptical-Envir...2X/lewrockwell/

Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming

http://www.amazon.com/Cool-Skeptical-Envir...2X/lewrockwell/

The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud**And those who are too fearful to do so

http://www.amazon.com/Deniers-Renowned-Sci...15/lewrockwell/

Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor

http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Confusion-Pa...06/lewrockwell/

Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, Updated and Expanded Edition

http://www.amazon.com/Unstoppable-Global-W...45/lewrockwell/

The Chilling Stars: A Cosmic View of Climate Change

http://www.amazon.com/Chilling-Stars-2nd-C...61/lewrockwell/

Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming

http://www.amazon.com/Shattered-Consensus-...32/lewrockwell/

Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media

http://www.amazon.com/Meltdown-Predictable...91/lewrockwell/

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/

http://www.co2science.org/

http://www.co2science.org/

send her mail

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Copyright � 2007 LewRockwell.com

[♦ nivek ♦]

LewRockwell.com

 

Heat?

 

by Joel M. Kauffman

 

Dear FRONTLINE:

 

Your 2-hour program broadcast on 21 Oct 08 called HEAT followed the script of the self-appointed priests of global warming exactly. There was no attempt at balance. Those who might have provided it were marginalized as "Deniers" with no names and were accused by innuendo of being paid by the fuel industry. A Canadian reporter who was also an environmentalist discovered that many "Deniers" were highly qualified scientists who would better be called the less pejorative name "Climate Realists." His book is: Lawrence Solomon, The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud (and Those Who Were Too Fearful To Do So), 2008.

 

Many Climate Realists are Professors Emeriti or retirees from government service who were prevented from promoting climate realism while serving. One such is Prof. Roy Spencer, NASA scientist, whose satellite measurements of atmospheric temperature indicate 9 years of global cooling since 1998, as do rural ground temperatures. His book is:Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor, 2008.

 

Names and affiliations of over 32,000 scientists and engineers who are climate realists may be seen at petitionproject.org.

 

Examples of bad science in HEAT were use of the term "climate change" rather than global warming as though change were the exception and not the rule, and that any change would be bad. There was incessant use of the term "greenhouse gases" when carbon dioxide was the only one meant, while the only major greenhouse gas, water vapor, was ignored. Direct chemical assays of carbon dioxide from 1812–1965 showing levels as high or higher than now were suppressed; and there is no correlation of carbon dioxide levels with world temperatures.

 

HEAT stated that 2008 was the "hottest summer on record," while actual data do not support this claim.

 

HEAT promoted a common climate scare that glaciers and ice caps are melting and will disappear, and that sea levels are rising dangerously; these exaggerations which are used to terrify citizens have been debunked by Viscount Monckton of Brenchley in an open letter to John McCain.

 

HEAT presented a graph of recent carbon dioxide levels in air with levels on the Y-axis of a graph cut off at 300 ppm rather than zero, a cheap trick better left to stock promoters.

 

HEAT showed pictures of steam or fog from cooling towers or stacks. These white fogs are water droplets, but the voice over always mentioned carbon dioxide. Cooling towers were a requirement for power plants of many types, not just nuclear ones as implied.

 

HEAT implied that sequestering carbon dioxide from burning coal was viable, but a US government project in Illinois failed, and after trying it in Scotland and Australia, BP gave up.

 

HEAT was realistic about ethanol for fuel, and did not vilify nuclear power for lack of safety, but found a way to disparage it by claiming that there was no safe disposal site, ignoring the U.S. Department of Energy Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, NM, which IS accepted by local residents.

 

France’s successful use of nuclear power for electricity was disparaged by wondering which other countries would follow. Many have, including India, China and Japan.

 

Wind power came in for plenty of attention, but not a clear indication that the erratic nature of wind requires expensive backup power from fuels, or that wind power installation per watt costs 2–3 times that of nuclear.

 

Fixation on vilifying the essential plant food, carbon dioxide, diverts attention and funding from the real problem: secure sources of liquid fuels for the USA. On the electricity front, photovoltaic (solar) installations work fine for those who can afford them, and nuclear fission reactors at present work fine for large installations. Converting transportation "fuels" to mostly electric will be forced upon the USA. HEAT did not make clear that merely reducing fuel consumption by some fraction (say from 21 mpg now for cars and light trucks to 35 or more mpg) will not be enough.

 

In summary: HEAT was not based on real science. It was a blatant work of political partisanship carefully timed for the U. S. presidential election. It carried on the program of terrifying citizens as is being done to children in schools to the point where many are depressed and have nightmares about climate and hatred of their parents. So while it may be too much to call HEAT a program of climate terrorism, it was a disgrace to the idea that PBS is an unbiased source of information.

 

October 27, 2008

 

Joel M. Kauffman [send him mail] is Professor of Chemistry Emeritus at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia.

 

Copyright © 2008 LewRockwell.com

 

 

Links referenced within this article

 

Joel M. Kauffman

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/mailto:kauffman@hslc.org

DIGG THIS

http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=htt...litical_opinion

The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud (and Those Who Were Too Fearful To Do So

http://www.amazon.com/Deniers-Renowned-Sci...15/lewrockwell/

Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor

http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Confusion-Pa...06/lewrockwell/

petitionproject.org

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/www.petitionproject.org

correlation

http://suesam.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/...re-examined.pdf

data

http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/RSSglobe.html

letter

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/an_...e_viscou_2.html

Department of Energy Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

http://www.wipp.energy.gov/

Many have

http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/...tryprofiles.htm

wind power installation per watt costs 2–3 times that of nuclear

http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/publications/...Electricity.pdf

send him mail

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/mailto:kauffman@hslc.org

 

 

Find this article at:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/kauffman6.html

 

Copyright � 2007 LewRockwell.com

[♦ nivek ♦]

Global warming fantasies meet financial contraction

Cato Institute

by Patrick J. Michaels

 

"Whoever is elected president, global warming legislation is going to

be passed in Washington next year. Legislation proposed by both John

McCain and Barack Obama will require that the cost of energy to become

so high that people will avoid using it. The serious question is: why

would we do this in the current economic environment? Why would we

take away capital that people would otherwise use to invest in

companies that produce efficient things when that capital is already

being destroyed at an alarming rate? Other nations that embraced the

abject environmental failure known as the Kyoto Protocol and imposed

higher energy costs are fleeing from climate change policies as their

economies implode. Only the U.S. seems eager to commit economic

suicide over global warming." (10/28/08)

 

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9755

[Guest darkcons]

The issue with global warming is not weather or not its true, its how severe is it, and how much is caused by humans or the environment.

 

we are coming out of a small Ice age, so of course were going to be getting warming. however were no were near the temp we were at before the little ice age. and during that time crop harvest were full and bountiful, and humanity did quite nicely. hell were still living with the after effects on society the little ice age caused because it was such a drastic difference to what people were used to. Northern Europe began to brew beer instead of wine because there crops died. Potatoes were planted as well because they were safe underground and could be grown in colder climate.

 

I do not think that global warming is really a big deal. The earth is changing and we need to adapt. but honestly a lot of the things that we can do to "curb" global warming are things we should be doing for half a dozen other reasons. like increasing fuel millage. the US is doing terrible in regards to fuel economy compared to the rest of the industrialized world.

[♦ nivek ♦]

Report: Melting ice might slow global warming

The Guardian [uK]

 

"Collapsing antarctic ice sheets, which have become potent symbols of

global warming, may actually turn out to help in the battle against

climate change and soaring carbon emissions. Professor Rob Raiswell, a

geologist at the University of Leeds, says that as the sheets break

off the ice covering the continent, floating icebergs are produced

that gouge minerals from the bedrock as they make their way to the

sea. Raiswell believes that the accumulated frozen mud could breathe

life into the icy waters around Antarctica, triggering a large,

natural removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. And as rising

temperatures cause the ice sheets to break up faster, creating more

icebergs, the amount of carbon dioxide removed will also rise.

Raiswell says: 'It won't solve the problem, but it might buy us some

time.'" (12/07/08)

 

http://tinyurl.com/6zokwj

[♦ nivek ♦]

LewRockwell.com

 

Cooling Is Warming

 

by Vin Suprynowicz

 

My relatives in New England are fighting their way out from under a giant ice storm. Here in Las Vegas it's been snowing all week, several weeks earlier than our usual one-day-a-year photo op of snow and icicles sparkling one of our palm-bedecked golf courses before melting away by afternoon. The National Weather Service calls it "a rare snow event."

 

Why? It's getting colder. 2008 was the coolest year in a decade.

 

The American mainstream press seem to know "team players" don't mention such inconvenient developments, but in the U.K., the esteemed Guardian reports, "This year is set to be the coolest since 2000, according to a preliminary estimate of global average temperature that is due to be released next week by the Met Office. The global average for 2008 should come in close to 14.3C, which is 0.14C below the average temperature for 2001–07."

 

How stupid does this make politicians such as Barack Obama and the other suckers who have fallen for the "global warming" hoax as they race to say, "Never mind"?

 

Actually, they haven't missed a beat. These guys are so "scientific" that the evidence of their own eyes and overcoats has become irrelevant. They now contend global cooling is just further proof of global warming. Honest.

 

So-called "climate scientists" insist "The relatively chilly temperatures compared with recent years are not evidence that global warming is slowing," The Guardian reports.

 

Um ... Earth's cooling doesn't mean the Earth is cooling?

 

"Absolutely not," responds Dr. Peter Stott, the manager of understanding and attributing climate change at the Met Office's Hadley Center. "If we are going to understand climate change we need to look at long-term trends."

 

You might want to pause and savor that for a moment. This is the gang who keep telling us, "The Debate is over! Dissent no longer allowed! Man-made global warming is going to ruin the Earth!"

 

Yet they now say cooling "is not evidence that global warming is slowing," and that, "If we are going to understand climate change we need to look at long-term trends."

 

If we are "going" to understand climate change? Like ... in the future?

 

Sure, the mean temperature may still go up for a few more years before it plummets. So? None of the great climate cycles of the past needed us to burn coal in our power plants to make them happen, and there's neither evidence nor any intuitive reason to believe the tiny percentage of atmospheric carbon dioxide we now generate makes any substantial difference, either.

 

When will the "Let us take over and wreck your economy so we can save you from the climate boogey-man" gang admit the earth is cooling again, and when will they admit, "OK, since cooling is worse than warming, and our own theory is that mankind can impact global temperature by what we burn, it's now your duty to hold back the Big Freeze by going out there and burning all the fossil fuels you possibly can, as fast as you can"?

 

(Don't even get me started on "carbon trading," a weird scam in which the buyer acquires an invisible commodity of no earthly use to him, and both buyer and seller can benefit if they overestimate the amount being "transferred.")

 

Instead, on Monday, President-Elect Obama ("Delay is no longer an option; denial is no longer an acceptable response") appointed as Secretary of Energy (a position and an office not authorized in the Constitution) Steven Chu, the confirmed global warming lunatic from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who says coal – the stuff that powered the industrial revolution, cheap coal which will last for centuries and which can be burned more cleanly now than ever before – "is my worst nightmare."

 

This gang still intends to effectively ban both coal-fired and nuclear power generation. Do they believe they can meet our current demand with famously costly, unreliable, and toxic wind, solar and geothermal? (Look up the by-products of geothermal energy, some time. Then look up "battery farms.") Of course not. The gap can only be closed by "conservation," they'll admit when you take a pencil and start to work the numbers.

 

And what does "conservation" mean, precisely?

 

They'd like us to think they mean just turning out the lights in our empty rooms, that kind of thing. But they don't.

 

Mr. Obama has said it, straight out. He, the Chosen One, has had it Revealed to Him that we can no longer use 25 percent of the world's energy when we have only 5 percent of the world's population.

 

This is nonsense. All mankind uses less than 1 percent of the solar energy that streams past us every hour. Is it "unfair" that the Japanese eat "more than their fair per capita share" of the world's fish?

 

Are we now to be ruled by a depraved schoolchild obsessed with sharing the toys, granted the ability to carry forward that Ding-Dong School philosophy with powers reminiscent of the kid in the old "Twilight Zone" episode who could "wish people into the cornfield"?

 

We should be proud that we've learned how to capture and harness the lion's share of the available energy in this system. It's not like we refused to share with others "the secret of coal" or "the secret of oil," is it? They saw how good it was; they've been racing to catch up to us ever since; that's the main reason the world has escaped the life expectancies of the Stone Age.

 

There's a real world out there. Purposely, artificially impoverish the nation, force us to give up our competitive economic advantages, and we'll eventually go the way of the Carthaginians.

 

The Obama gang mean for us to learn to survive at 55 degrees in the winter; and to hope the tourists will still come to Vegas when our air conditioning only lowers the temperature to 87 in the summer (assuming we can afford even that). They plan to unionize and thus close down most of our remaining factories – the Chinese will make us everything we need, you see; we'll pay for it with the endless bales of green coupons printed by Ben Bernanke and the Elves in the Big Hollow Tree.

 

See Mr. Obama admit "Under my plan, electricity costs will necessarily skyrocket."

 

In a Zogby exit poll, 88.4 percent of Obama voters expressed ignorance of the fact Obama said on the campaign trail that his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket. See the sample interviews.

 

Why did voters not know this? Because the mainstream press covered Wasilla, Alaska, like a glove, trying to dig up something on Sarah Palin's overdue library books. Meantime, when it turns out Barack Obama's Senate seat is for sale for a million bucks in Chicago, the press corps slaps their foreheads and exclaim in amazement: "More corruption in Chicago than there was in Wasilla?! Who would have thought to look there?! By the way, where is Obama from, anyway?"

 

December 22, 2008

 

Vin Suprynowicz [send him mail] is assistant editorial page editor of the daily Las Vegas Review-Journal and author of The Black Arrow.

 

Copyright © 2008 Vin Suprynowicz

 

Vin Suprynowicz Archives

 

 

Links referenced within this article

 

Vin Suprynowicz

http://www.lewrockwell.com/suprynowicz/mai...viewjournal.com

DIGG THIS

http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=htt...p;title=Cooling Is Warming&topic=political_opinion

See Mr. Obama admit

http://www.climatechangefraud.com

sample interviews

http://howobamagotelected.com

send him mail

http://www.lewrockwell.com/suprynowicz/mai...viewjournal.com

The Black Arrow

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Arrow-Tale-Res...04/lewrockwell/

Vin Suprynowicz Archives

http://www.lewrockwell.com/suprynowicz/suprynowicz-arch.html

 

 

Find this article at:

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Copyright � 2007 LewRockwell.com

[♦ nivek ♦]

Sinned against the Earth? Buy an indulgence

Examiner

by Garry Reed

 

"In Mediaeval Europe, people who committed sins were required to

confess their sins against God and pay some sort of retribution. The

Mediaeval European church, having at the time a total monopoly on

religion, came up with the idea of (a) declaring virtually every

normal human activity a sin (thereby guaranteeing themselves an

unlimited supply of sinners) and ( providing the sinner an escape

from purgatory by offering him an indulgence. In the modern world,

people who drive SUVs and fly in jet aircraft are browbeaten into

confessing their sins against the climate and shamed into paying some

sort of retribution. The Climate Change industry, having at this time

an almost total monopoly on the 'science,' came up with the idea of

(a) declaring virtually every normal human activity as detrimental to

the climate (giving them their guaranteed sinner base) and (

providing the sinner an escape from purgatory by offering him a carbon

offset." (12/20/08)

 

http://tinyurl.com/9kd38b

[♦ nivek ♦]

"Greenland and the polar ice cap are melting"

Las Vegas Review-Journal

by Vin Suprynowicz

 

"Of course it would be more convenient for the Luddites if I were to

accept their underlying assumptions and limit myself to 'critiquing

policy as regards energy and conservation.' Just as, in 1500, it would

have been judged much safer to study how best to discover and destroy

witches rather than to challenge whether the old crones had any

demonic powers in the first place. As a matter of fact, challenging

the existence of the supernatural powers of witches was prima facie

proof that the challenger was himself a witch ('warlock,' whatever),

which was likely to get you burned. Amazingly, under those

circumstances, publicly expressed opinion -- holding that the demonic

powers of witches was real -- was nearly unanimous! Ain't sealed

systems grand?" (01/04/09)

 

http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/37058614.html

[♦ nivek ♦]

Ten global warming truths to keep us sane in 2009

Heartland Institute

by James M. Taylor

 

"Sound science put to rest numerous unsubstantiated global warming

scares in 2008. Sensationalist predictions that the North Pole would

melt, polar bear numbers would decline, hurricanes would run amok,

devastating droughts would occur, and Antarctic ice sheets would flood

the southern seas never materialized. Unfortunately, this will not

stop the purveyors of gloom and doom from creating similar false

global warming scares and sensationalist predictions for

2009." (01/05/09)

 

http://www.heartland.org/full.html?articleid=24445

[♦ nivek ♦]

The dangers of disputing warming orthodoxy

Ludwig von Mises Institute

by David Gordon

 

"Research grants to 'prove' global warming can readily be obtained.

Nor is the gravy train confined to scientists; journalists,

environmentalist organizations, and television and movie producers

benefit from the campaign to save the earth. Al Gore, among other

politicians, has used global-warming propaganda to enhance his fame

and fortune. As Horner shows in a chapter that makes painful reading,

'educational' materials to enlist children into the crusade provide

yet another source of profit. If the global-warming hypothesis were

overthrown, all of this money would be at risk; hence the imperative

necessity to silence the critics. But here I must face an objection.

Even if heavy funding supports global-warming research, this does not

suffice to show that the results of this work lack validity. Even if

someone is 'in it for the money,' his results may be right. Must not

motives and results be kept strictly separate? Indeed so; but I have

not argued that heavy financial backing undermines the conclusions of

this sort of research. Rather, the financial interests explain why

globalists suppress dissent." (01/08/09)

 

http://mises.org/story/3283

[♦ nivek ♦]

Newspapers worth the paper they're printed on

Acton Institute

by Jordan J. Ballor

 

"I've been meaning to do an in-depth post examining the various

troubles facing the recycling industry. One day I'll get to it. For

now, though, I'll settle for the rather snarky observation that some

newspapers are finally worth the paper they're printed on. That's

right, the value of a ton of recycled mixed paper is exactly zero

right now. There are those who argue that the economics of recycling

are still solid, even though the demand for recycled commodities has

sharply declined in recent months." (01/13/09)

 

http://tinyurl.com/766a83

[♦ nivek ♦]

Should environmentalists fear Cass Sunstein?

The New Republic

by Micheal A. Livermore

 

"On Thursday, newspapers reported that Cass Sunstein is expected to be

appointed the Administrator of the Office of Information and

Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). The post, often referred to as the

'regulatory czar,' is charged with coordinating the alphabet soup of

federal agencies, including the EPA, Energy Department, and OSHA.

Among top officials, this is the most important position that

Americans know nothing about. All major regulations -- from rules on

clean air to airline safety -- will pass Sunstein's desk. Sunstein, a

professor at Harvard School of Law (and a contributing editor at The

New Republic), is a public intellectual on topics ranging from

constitutional law to behavioral economics, and, as a prolific scholar

of the first order, he is extremely well-qualified for this position.

One area of particular specialty for Sunstein has been cost-benefit

analysis. As one of the few intellectuals that embraces both a strong

regulatory state and rigorous use of cost-benefit analysis, Sunstein

has shown that he can see the wisdom in two sides of a debate that

rarely find value in each other." (01/12/09)

 

http://tinyurl.com/7taa97

[♦ nivek ♦]

Green wacko tobacco

Human Events

by Christopher C. Horner

 

"2008 was a bad year for global warming alarmists. Their credibility

has been entirely destroyed by none other than Mother Nature. As

George W. Bush leaves office, the world is actually cooler than it was

when he came in. Lacking facts, the Gorian Gaggle is trying to tie

anyone who disagrees with their propaganda to the most evil of all

industries (in their eyes): the tobacco producers. Before, anyone who

disputed their prophesying of a future calamity was merely a

'Holocaust denier.' That didn't work, so now, we're all labeled

'tobacco scientists.' ... Ironically, however, JunkScience.com's

Steven Milloy has documented how it is the greens themselves who have

adopted the tobacco industry's tactics." (01/13/09)

 

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30255

[♦ nivek ♦]

No biofuels bailout

Reason

by Ronald Bailey

 

"If Congress decides that greenhouse gases are a big problem, it

should stop trying to pick energy technology 'winners' by subsidizing

favored sectors, and instead end all subsidies and put all energy

technologies on a level playing field. Congress should then set a

price on carbon dioxide, and let the most affordable and most

efficient energy technology win -- be it wind, solar, clean coal,

nuclear, or whatever." (01/13/09)

 

http://www.reason.com/news/show/131027.html

[♦ nivek ♦]

Anxiety grows in global warming alarmist camp

Heartland Institute

by Dan Miller

 

"Heartland Institute media monitors have noted on several occasions

that climate-change alarmists are finding it increasingly difficult to

maintain their position that human activity has warmed Earth to crisis

proportions. Polar bears keep growing in numbers, Antarctic ice keeps

expanding, deserts keep receding, temperatures keep easing, the ranks

of science skeptics keep multiplying. It's tough to scare people with

that kind of sound-science evidence. Now the folk at DeSmogblog --

created like so many alarmist sites for the sole purpose of attacking

conservatives, libertarians and global warming skeptics -- is getting

really worried." (01/16/09)

 

http://www.heartland.org/full.html?articleid=24532

[♦ nivek ♦]

Antarctic warming claims should be greeted with skepticism

Heartland Institute

by Dan Miller

 

"I would be quite wary of assigning much value to this article. Raw

temperature data and a number of studies over many years have

determined that Antarctica is cooling. Now we have a single article,

reliant on subjective data interpretation from well-known global

warming alarmists, saying the opposite. For a long time now, Antarctic

cooling has been a stone in the shoe of global warming alarmists. Now,

conveniently, those who regularly blog on an alarmist Web site claim

they have 'statistically smoothed' the data to show Antarctica is

warming, even though surface temperature stations show a significant,

long-term cool long-term cooling trend." (01/22/09)

 

http://www.heartland.org/full.html?articleid=24569

[♦ nivek ♦]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aIe9swvOqwIY

 

Arctic Sea Ice Underestimated for Weeks Due to Faulty Sensor

 

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews

By Alex Morales

 

Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said.

 

The error, due to a problem called “sensor drift,” began in early January and caused a slowly growing underestimation of sea ice extent until mid-February. That’s when “puzzled readers” alerted the NSIDC about data showing ice-covered areas as stretches of open ocean, the Boulder, Colorado-based group said on its Web site.

 

“Sensor drift, although infrequent, does occasionally occur and it is one of the things that we account for during quality- control measures prior to archiving the data,” the center said. “Although we believe that data prior to early January are reliable, we will conduct a full quality check.’’

 

The extent of Arctic sea ice is seen as a key measure of how rising temperatures are affecting the Earth. The cap retreated in 2007 to its lowest extent ever and last year posted its second- lowest annual minimum at the end of the yearly melt season. The recent error doesn’t change findings that Arctic ice is retreating, the NSIDC said.

 

The center said real-time data on sea ice is always less reliable than archived numbers because full checks haven’t yet been carried out. Historical data is checked across other sources, it said.

 

The NSIDC uses Department of Defense satellites to obtain its Arctic sea ice data rather than more accurate National Aeronautics and Space Administration equipment. That’s because the defense satellites have a longer period of historical data, enabling scientists to draw conclusions about long-term ice melt, the center said.

 

“There is a balance between being as accurate as possible at any given moment and being as consistent as possible through long time-periods,” NSIDC said. “Our main scientific focus is on the long-term changes in Arctic sea ice.”

 

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: February 20, 2009 08:15 EST

[♦ nivek ♦]

The politics of global warming

Heartland Institute

by John H. Sununu

 

"The global warming crisis is just the latest surrogate for an over-

arching agenda of anti-growth and anti-development. This agenda grew

and gathered support in the years following World War II. One of the

first issues to be celebrated as a crisis by these reformers was over-

population. That fad peaked in the '60s and early '70s. The bible of

that cult, 'The Population Bomb,' argued that '... the battle to feed

all of humanity is over' and claimed we had lost the battle, claiming

' ... in the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will

starve to death.'" (03/10/09)

 

http://tinyurl.com/aesup7

[♦ nivek ♦]

The missing sunspots: Is this the big chill?

Independent [uK]

 

“Could the Sun play a greater role in recent climate change than has been believed? Climatologists had dismissed the idea and some solar scientists have been reticent about it because of its connections with those who those who deny climate change. But now the speculation has grown louder because of what is happening to our Sun. No living scientist has seen it behave this way. There are no sunspots. … No one knows what will happen or how it will effect our understanding of climate change on Earth. If the Earth cools under a quiet Sun, then it may be an indication that the increase in the Sun’s activity since the Little Ice Age has been the dominant factor in global temperature rises. That would also mean that we have overestimated the sensitivity of the Earth’s atmosphere to an increase of carbon dioxide.” (04/27/09)

 

http://tinyurl.com/cvsb9g

[♦ nivek ♦]

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/11534

 

Cap-and-trade energy taxation

 

New Zealand may go bust over Global Warming

By Dennis Avery Monday, June 1, 2009

 

CHURCHVILLE, VA—No country in the world would risk as much for “global warming” as New Zealand if it goes ahead with the cap-and-trade energy taxation installed by Helen Clarke’s now-departed Labour Government.

 

New Zealand’s economy is almost completely dependent on its farm exports: lamb, dairy products, beef and high-end white wines. Half of New Zealand’s carbon emissions come from cattle and sheep. If New Zealand taxes its cows and sheep hundreds of dollars per animal for methane emissions and manure handling fees, Argentina would almost immediately displace New Zealand’s farm exports. Argentina has more grass, more cattle, the potential for more lambs, a surging wine industry—and no Kyoto obligations.

 

Based on U.S. and Australian “discussions,” a 500-cow dairy might have to pay $250,000 per year for cattle emissions and manure handling permits, plus a hefty increase in its costs for low-carbon electricity and diesel. An Argentine dairy would pay none of these increased costs—and every dollar of cost differential would be a further incentive for Argentine dairymen to expand their exports at the expense of New Zealand.

 

That would leave Kiwi cities like Auckland and Christchurch without visible means of support.

 

I said this recently to several New Zealand government ministers and business leaders at a private dinner in Wellington. My message was not welcomed. John Key’s new government seems to understand that New Zealand’s economy would be at terrible risk from carbon taxes—but its voters apparently don’t realize it.

 

The Clark government told New Zealand voters that the cost of “leading the world” with a carbon tax would be about $150 per year. That figure is laughably low. The British government now admits its new carbon tax law could cost as much as $27,000 per UK family.

 

The Key government has temporarily suspended the cap-and-trade, but has not dared repeal it. Meanwhile, Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is installing his own cap-and-trade, and playing footsie with President Obama on “solidarity” with a U.S. carbon tax. If Australia and the U.S. agreed on some benchmark carbon tax, most New Zealanders would expect their country to join in.

 

Never mind that the earth’s global warming stopped after 1998 because the sun has gone into a startling quiet period. That’s why New Zealand’s many glaciers have been growing recently instead of receding. Never mind that even full member compliance with Kyoto would “avoid” only about 0.05 degree C of warming over the next 50 years—by the alarmists’ own math.

 

The urbanites in New Zealand don’t really appreciate the sophisticated management that juggles pastures and feed crops that produce milk, cheese and Merino wool. They love the wine, but don’t understand the massive per-acre investments needed to turn their grapes into award-winning vintages.

 

Meanwhile, Obama’s U.S. government has just punished New Zealand with trade-distorting dairy export subsidies--because our corn ethanol program has pushed our cost of dairy feed too high. World corn prices have doubled in real terms, and may go higher as our ethanol mandates keep rising. That jacks up the U.S. cost of “alternative fuels” even further--while New Zealand will have to file a well-justified case against America under the World Trade Organization rules.

 

Ah, what a tangled web we’re weaving, rather than admit the Emperor of Global Warming has no clothes.

 

Sources:

British carbon law costs: Daily Mail, May 5, 2009

[♦ nivek ♦]

Hurricane damage and global warming

Competitive Enterprise Institute

by Daniel Sutter

 

“Climate experts and policy makers have debated the existence of a potential link between global warming and increased hurricane activity since the record-setting 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. While claims that hurricanes are already stronger due to climate change are highly controversial, research demonstrates that increases in societal vulnerability to hurricanes — the number of persons and amount of property in coastal areas — goes a long way toward explaining the increases in hurricane losses over time.” (06/03/09)

 

http://tinyurl.com/qjhoou