February 17 , 2007
Quote of the Week:
A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.
-George Bernard Shaw-
*********************
BOMBSHELL: Czech President Vaclav Klaus: Global warming is a myth. Is Al Gore sane? (ITEM #1).
Robert Samuelson (in the WashPost): Nothing can be done to affect climate change. It’s all political theater (ITEM #2).
Tom Sowell cites scientific dissent from IPCC “consensus” (ITEM #3).
Folly of emission trading: Why European Carbon market collapsed (ITEM #4).
The Antarctic is cooling – not warming, as it should (ITEM #5).
Thoughts for St. Valentine’s Day: Do flowers cause global warming? (ITEM #6).
Letter to Nature: IPCC conclusions not supported by evidence (ITEM #7).
Climate skeptics vindicated (ITEM #8)
The Cosmic-Ray effect on climate strengthened, but ignored by IPCC (ITEM #9)
The IPCC fudges sea level figures (ITEM #10).
Canadian group calls on Senate to block passage of Kyoto Implementation Bill (ITEM #11)
#############################################################################
MISCELL:
I think we should all praise the IPCC for solving the global warming problem. Before their report we were in the middle of one of the mildest winters ever. Since the report, we have not seen temperatures above freezing and are due for another large snowfall. Thank you, IPCC, for fixing the 'problem'!
***************
British friend Peter Glover has established a new website globalwarminghysteria.com. The name pretty much says it all. Peter writes that he intends it to be "a one-stop site for all the anti-global warming hysteria articles people might need."
********************
Do you know there was serious traffic congestion at Kloten Airport during the Davos summit meeting about climate change? They could not find parking space for more than 350 private jets, for the climate-concerned people attending. The organizers had to fly people all the way from Munich to Davos in choppers.
**********
This weekend, Feb. 10-11, the following (Canadian) Sun papers published informed articles on the IPCC report.
Toronto Sun, Peter Worthington, Global warming is a theory not a fact.
Edmonton Sun Licia Corbella, Cooking the books. Why aren’t the media exposing this?
Winnipeg Sun. Tom Brodbeck, Give global warming skeptics their say.
Vancouver Sun, Peter McKnight, Crucial summary lacks any scientific evidence.
********************
The Independent (UK) was forced to retract its slanderous report:
9 February, 2007: In Editorial and Opinion on Saturday (3 February) we wrote that ExxonMobil is attempting to bribe scientists to pick holes in the IPCC’s assessment (on climate change). We now recognize that this statement is incorrect and we withdraw it.
******************
It doesn't get much better than this...
HOUSE HEARING ON 'WARMING OF THE PLANET' CANCELED AFTER ICE STORM
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash8.htm
The Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality hearing scheduled for Wednesday, February 14, 2007 has been postponed due to inclement weather. The hearing is entitled “Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a Warming of the Planet?”
******************
http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=2485
(2007-02-11) Wal-Mart and Home Depot stores in upstate New York report brisk sales of the new Global Warming Shovel, which hit store shelves just in time for this week’s 9.5-foot snowfall. The shovels, made of a rigid form of lightweight GORE-TEX®, are specifically designed to remove the kind of snow spawned by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, “no matter how deep it gets,” according to the manufacturer.
Later this week, the company will also roll out its new Kyoto Mittens, “guaranteed to protect the wearer from the inconvenient truth of global warming-induced frostbite.”
****************************
China could be the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases by 2009, overtaking the United States, according to the International Energy Agency. Last year, China's economy grew by 10.7 percent; consumption of coal increased by nearly 230 million tons, resulting in the release of 2.8 million tons of sulphur dioxide from coal burning, State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) figures show.
*********************************
Czech President Vaclav Klaus's spokesman Petr Hajek has hit out at an event on Thursday evening in which lights in several European capitals were turned out for five minutes as a protest against global warming, the iDnes website reported. Mr Hajek told reporters the event was ridiculous, saying that people who believed the warnings of scientists about global warming were naive. President Klaus has himself questioned whether human civilisation is responsible for global warming.
http://www.radio.cz/en/news/87955 (excerpt above about halfway down page)
*************************************
"Environmental activists led by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore announced plans for a worldwide string of pop concerts in July featuring Sheryl Crow, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and scores of others to mobilize action to stop global warming," Reuters reports from Los Angeles:
The 24-hour event on July 7 is part of a kickoff campaign, “Save Our Selves--The Campaign for a Climate in Crisis” that promoters hope will trigger a broad movement to address a "planetary emergency."
Isn't this the kind of energetic activity that supposedly causes global warming? But we're sure the acts will be all-acoustic and the performers will get to the concert venues by bicycle.
------------------------
The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, a former advisor to Margaret Thatcher during her years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, has announced a worldwide series of non-events July 7 to celebrate the non-threat posed by climate change. His Lordship's Clerk, James Rowlatt, is pleased to announce that not a single celebrity or pop group has agreed to participate in the non-events, which are scheduled not to take place in every nation on the planet to mark July 7 as "Global Hot Air Day".
In the spirit of these important non-events, six billion people worldwide have not joined Lord Monckton's non-pressure-group, Save The Planet From The Gorons. Lord Monckton said: "This is a tremendous non-result. Not a single person worldwide will be participating in our exciting program of non-events to mark Global Hot Air Day. This unanimous support from every person on the planet shows that the dwindling band of increasingly shrill climate alarmists, and their mouthpieces in the News York Times, the Boston Globe and the BBC, are near-unanimously outnumbered."
****************************************
An Ohio State University press release, meanwhile, says that temperatures in Antarctica during the late 20th century "did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models": David Bromwich, a professor of atmospheric sciences at OSU, "said the disagreement between climate model predictions and the snowfall and temperature records doesn't necessarily mean that the models are wrong." The important thing is that they work in theory, not in practice.
**************
UNEP Agrees on Self-Regulation for Mercury: The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) governing council meeting (Nairobi, February 5-9) agreed to strengthen global partnerships to reduce the use and release of mercury, but failed to agree on a binding treaty. UNEP Chemicals plans a two-year study on ways to restrict mercury use, to be followed by further negotiations. The U.S. and G77 group of developing countries argued in favor of flexible voluntary partnerships, while the European Union, led by the Nordic countries, supported a treaty.
###########################################################################
############################################################################
1. PRESIDENT OF CZECH REPUBLIC CALLS MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING A 'MYTH' - QUESTIONS GORE'S SANITY
Vaclav Klaus has criticized the UN panel on global warming, claiming that it was a political authority without any scientific basis. In an interview (Feb. 8. 2007) with "Hospodrsk noviny", a Czech economics daily, Klaus answered a few questions (translation courtesy of Lubos Motl, Harvard)
-------------------------------------
* Q: IPCC has released its report and you say that global warming is a false myth. How did you get this idea, Mr President?
* A: It's not my idea. Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the UN panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It's neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment. Also, it's an undignified slapstick that people must wait for the full report till May 2007 but instead respond, in such a serious way, to the Summary for Policymakers where all the "but's" are scratched, removed, and replaced by oversimplified theses.
* This is clearly an incredible failure of many people, from journalists to politicians. If the European Commission is instantly going to buy such a trick, we have another very good reason to think that the countries themselves, not the Commission, should be deciding about similar issues.
* Q: How do you explain that there is no other comparably senior statesman in Europe who would advocate this viewpoint? No one else has such strong opinions...
* A: My opinions about this issue simply are strong. Other top-level politicians do not express their global-warming doubts because a whip of political correctness strangles their voice.
* Q: But you're not a climate scientist. Do you have sufficient knowledge and enough information?
* A: Environmentalism as a metaphysical ideology and as a worldview has absolutely nothing to do with natural sciences or with the climate. Sadly, it has nothing to do with social sciences either. Still, it is becoming fashionable, and this fact scares me. The second part of the sentence should be: we also have lots of reports, studies, and books of climatologists whose conclusions are diametrically opposite.
* Indeed, I never measured the thickness of ice in Antarctica. I really don't know how to do it and don't plan to learn. However, as a scientifically oriented person, I know how to read science reports about these questions, for example about ice in Antarctica. I don't have to be a climate scientist myself to read them. And inside the papers I have read, the conclusions we see in the media simply don't appear. But let me promise you something: this topic troubles me -- which is why I started to write an article about it last Christmas. The article expanded and became a book. In a couple of months, it will be published. One chapter out of seven will organize my opinions about climate change.
* Environmentalism and green ideology are something very different from climate science. Various findings of scientists are abused by this ideology.
* Q: How do you explain that conservative media are skeptical while the left-wing media view global warming as a done deal?
* A: It is not quite exactly divided into left-wingers and right-wingers. Nevertheless, it's obvious that environmentalism is a new incarnation of modern leftism.
* Q: If you look at all these things, even if you were right ...
* A: ...I am right...
* Q: Isn't there enough empirical evidence and facts we can see with our eyes that imply that Man is demolishing the planet and himself?
* A: It's such nonsense that I have probably not heard a bigger nonsense yet.
* Q: Don't you believe that we're ruining our planet?
* A: I will pretend that I haven't heard you. Perhaps only Mr Al Gore may be saying something along these lines: a sane person can't. I don't see any ruining of the planet, I have never seen it, and I don't think that a reasonable and serious person could say such a thing. Look: you represent the economic media, so I expect a certain economical erudition from you. My book will answer these questions. For example, we know that there exists a huge correlation between the care we give to the environment on one hand and the wealth and technological prowess on the other. It's clear that the poorer society is, the more brutally it behaves with respect to Nature, and vice versa.
* It's also true that there exist social systems that are damaging Nature - by eliminating private ownership and similar things - much more than the freer societies. These tendencies become important in the long run. They unambiguously imply that today, on February 8th, 2007, Nature is protected incomparably more than on February 8th ten years ago -- or fifty years ago or one hundred years ago.
* That's why I ask: how can you pronounce the sentence you said? Perhaps if you're unconscious? Or did you mean it as a provocation only? And maybe I am just too naive and I allowed you to provoke me to give you all these answers. It is more likely that you actually believe what you say.
********************
2. GLOBAL WARMING AND HOT AIR
By Robert J. Samuelson
The Washington Post, 7 February 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/06/AR2007020601526.html
You could be excused for thinking that we'll soon do something serious about global warming. Last Friday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- an international group of scientists -- concluded that, to a 90 percent probability, human activity is warming the Earth. Earlier, Democratic congressional leaders made global warming legislation a top priority; and 10 big U.S. companies (including General Electric and DuPont) endorsed federal regulation. Strong action seems at hand.
Don't be fooled. The dirty secret about global warming is this: We have no solution. About 80 percent of the world's energy comes from fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas), the main sources of man-made greenhouse gases. Energy use sustains economic growth, which -- in all modern societies -- buttresses political and social stability. Until we can replace fossil fuels or find practical ways to capture their emissions, governments will not sanction the deep energy cuts that would truly affect global warming.
Considering this reality, you should treat the pious exhortations to "do something" with skepticism, disbelief or contempt. These pronouncements are (take your pick) naive, self-interested, misinformed, stupid or dishonest. Politicians mainly want to be seen as reducing global warming. Companies want to polish their images and exploit markets created by new environmental regulations. As for editorialists and pundits, there's no explanation except superficiality or herd behavior.
Anyone who honestly examines global energy trends must reach these harsh conclusions. In 2004, world emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2, the main greenhouse gas) totaled 26 billion metric tons. Under plausible economic and population assumptions, CO2 emissions will grow to 40 billion tons by 2030, projects the International Energy Agency. About three-quarters of the increase is forecast to come from developing countries, two-fifths from China alone. The IEA expects China to pass the United States as the largest source of carbon dioxide by 2009.
Poor countries won't sacrifice economic growth -- lowering poverty, fostering political stability -- to placate the rich world's global warming fears. Why should they? On a per-person basis, their carbon dioxide emissions are only about one-fifth the level of rich countries. In Africa, less than 40 percent of the population even has electricity.
Nor will existing technologies, aggressively deployed, rescue us. The IEA studied an "alternative scenario" that simulated the effect of 1,400 policies to reduce fossil fuel use. Fuel economy for new U.S. vehicles was assumed to increase 30 percent by 2030; the global share of energy from "renewables" (solar, wind, hydropower, biomass) would quadruple, to 8 percent. The result: by 2030, annual carbon dioxide emissions would rise 31 percent instead of 55 percent. The concentration levels of emissions in the atmosphere (which presumably cause warming) would rise.
Since 1850, global temperatures have increased almost 1 degree Celsius. Sea level has risen about seven inches, though the connection is unclear. So far, global warming has been a change, not a calamity. The IPCC projects wide ranges for the next century: temperature increases from 1.1 degrees Celsius to 6.4 degrees; sea level rises from seven inches to almost two feet. People might easily adapt; or there might be costly disruptions (say, frequent flooding of coastal cities resulting from melting polar ice caps).
I do not say we should do nothing, but we should not delude ourselves. In the United States, the favored remedy is "cap and trade." It's environmental grandstanding -- politicians pretending they're doing something. Companies would receive or buy quotas ("caps") to emit carbon dioxide. To exceed the limits, they'd acquire some other company's unused quotas ("trade"). How simple. Just order companies to cut emissions. Businesses absorb all the costs.
But in practice, no plausible "cap and trade" program would significantly curb global warming. To do that, quotas would have to be set so low as to shut down the economy. Or the cost of scarce quotas would skyrocket and be passed along to consumers through much higher energy prices. Neither outcome seems likely. Quotas would be lax. The program would be a regulatory burden with little benefit. It would also be a bonanza for lobbyists, lawyers and consultants, as industries and localities besieged Washington for exceptions and special treatment. Hello, influence-peddling and sleaze.
What we really need is a more urgent program of research and development, focusing on nuclear power, electric batteries, alternative fuels and the capture of carbon dioxide. Naturally, there's no guarantee that socially acceptable and cost-competitive technologies will result. But without them, global warming is more or less on automatic pilot. Only new technologies would enable countries -- rich and poor -- to reconcile the immediate imperative of economic growth with the potential hazards of climate change.
Meanwhile, we could temper our energy appetite. I've argued before for a high oil tax to prod Americans to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles. The main aim would be to limit insecure oil imports, but it would also check CO2emissions. Similarly, we might be better off shifting some of the tax burden from wages and profits to a broader tax on energy or carbon. That would favor more fuel-efficient light bulbs, appliances and industrial processes.
It's a debate we ought to have -- but probably won't. Any realistic response would be costly, uncertain and no doubt unpopular. That's one truth too inconvenient for almost anyone to admit.
*************************************
3. GLOBAL HOT AIR: PART III
By Thomas Sowell, February 15, 2007
If you take the mainstream media seriously, you might think that every important scientist believes that "global warming" poses a great threat, and that we need to make drastic changes in the way we live, in order to avoid catastrophes to the environment, to various species, and to ourselves.
The media play a key role in perpetuating such beliefs. Often they seize upon every heat wave to hype global warming, but see no implications in record-setting cold weather, such as many places have been experiencing lately.
Remember how the unusually large number of hurricanes a couple of years ago was hyped in the media as being a result of global warming, with more such hurricanes being predicted to return the following year and the years thereafter? But, when not one hurricane struck the United States all last year, the media had little or nothing to say about the false predictions they had hyped. It's heads I win and tails you lose.
Are there serious scientists who specialize in weather and climate that have serious doubts about the doomsday scenarios being pushed by global warming advocates? Yes, there are.
There is Dr. S. Fred Singer, who set up the American weather satellite system, and who published some years ago a book titled "Hot Talk, Cold Science." More recently, he has co-authored another book on the subject, "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years."
There have been periods of global warming that lasted for centuries -- and periods of global cooling that also lasted for centuries. So the issue is not whether the world is warmer now than at some time in the past but how much of that warming is due to human beings and how much can we reduce future warming, even if we drastically reduce our standard of living in the attempt.
Other serious scientists who are not on the global warming bandwagon include a professor of meteorology at MIT, Richard S. Lindzen. His name was big enough for the National Academy of Sciences to list it among the names of other experts on its 2001 report that was supposed to end the debate by declaring the dangers of global warming proven scientifically.
Professor Lindzen then objected and pointed out that neither he nor any of the other scientists listed ever saw that report before it was published. It was in fact written by government bureaucrats -- as was the more recently published summary report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that is also touted as the final proof and the end of the discussion.
You want more experts who think otherwise? Try a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, Patrick J. Michaels, who refers to the much ballyhooed 2001 IPCC summary as having "misstatements and errors" that he calls "egregious."
A professor of climatology at the University of Delaware, David R. Legates, likewise referred to the 2001 IPCC summary as being "often in direct contrast with the scientific report that accompanies it." It is the summaries that the media hype. The full 2007 report has not even been published yet.
Skeptical experts in other countries around the world include Duncan Wingham, a professor of climate physics at the University College, London, and Nigel Weiss of Cambridge University.
The very attempt to silence all who disagree about global warming ought to raise red flags.
Anyone who remembers the 1970s should remember the Club of Rome report that was supposed to be the last word on economic growth grinding to a halt, "overpopulation" and a rapidly approaching era of mass starvation in the 1980s. In reality, the 1980s saw increased economic growth around the world and, far from mass starvation, an increase in obesity and agricultural surpluses in many countries. But much of the media went for the Club of Rome report and hyped the hysteria.
Many in the media resent any suggestion that they are either shilling for an ideological agenda or hyping whatever will sell newspapers or get higher ratings on TV. Here is their chance to check out some heavyweight scientists specializing in weather and climate, instead of taking Al Gore's movie or the pronouncements of government bureaucrats and politicians as the last word.
--------
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com
******************************************
4. NO CHEERS IN CARBON MARKET AS KYOTO PROTOCOL HEADS FOR SECOND BIRTHDAY
by Emmanuel Angleys Paris (AFP) Feb 14, 2007
Energy Daily
Two years ago on Friday, the Kyoto Protocol for cutting greenhouse gases was born after an agonising gestation, but there will be few birthday celebrations in the carbon market created by the UN pact. As US states mull setting up their own market to trade in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, they are casting a worried eye on the almighty crash in the European Union's Emissions Trading System (ETS), the first and so far only significant market in carbon.
A year ago, CO2 was changing hands in the ETS at 30 euros (33 dollars) a tonne, triple that at the market's launch in January 2005. Today, a tonne of CO2 can be bought for little more than one euro. In 2005 and half of 2006, the price of CO2 went from strength to strength, as electricity producers -- the big emitters -- provided the demand while industrial firms sat on their hands, reluctant to sell. Then, in mid-2006, came a big whammy. In monitoring this initial phase of the ETS, the EU's executive commission discovered that the quotas issued to the firms by national governments and based on preliminary estimates were generally far higher than the pollution actually emitted. As a result, the market became flooded with CO2.
*********************
5. ANTARCTIC TEMPERATURES DISAGREE WITH CLIMATE MODEL PREDICTIONS
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/527313/
A new report on climate over the world's southernmost continent shows that temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by global climate models. This comes soon after the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that strongly supports the conclusion that the Earth's climate as a whole is warming, largely due to human activity.
It also follows a similar finding from last summer by the same research group that showed no increase in precipitation over Antarctica in the last 50 years. Most models predict that both precipitation and temperature will increase over Antarctica with a warming of the planet.
David Bromwich, professor of geography and researcher with the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University, reported on this work at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at San Francisco.
"It's hard to see a global warming signal from the mainland of Antarctica right now," he said. "Part of the reason is that there is a lot of variability there. It's very hard in these polar latitudes to demonstrate a global warming signal. This is in marked contrast to the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula that is one of the most rapidly warming parts of the Earth."
Bromwich says that the problem rises from several complications. The continent is vast, as large as the United States and Mexico combined. Only a small amount of detailed data is available - there are perhaps only 100 weather stations on that continent compared to the thousands spread across the U.S. and Europe. And the records that we have only date back a half-century.
"The best we can say right now is that the climate models are somewhat inconsistent with the evidence that we have for the last 50 years from continental Antarctica. "We're looking for a small signal that represents the impact of human activity and it is hard to find it at the moment," he said.
Last year, Bromwich's research group reported in the journal Science that Antarctic snowfall hadn't increased in the last 50 years. "What we see now is that the temperature regime is broadly similar to what we saw before with snowfall. In the last decade or so, both have gone down," he said.
In addition to the new temperature records and earlier precipitation records, Bromwich's team also looked at the behavior of the circumpolar westerlies, the broad system of winds that surround the Antarctic continent.
"The westerlies have intensified over the last four decades of so, increasing in strength by as much as perhaps 10 to 20 percent," he said. "This is a huge amount of ocean north of Antarctica and we're only now understanding just how important the winds are for things like mixing in the Southern Ocean." The ocean mixing both dissipates heat and absorbs carbon dioxide, one of the key greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
******************************
6. ALARMISTS: VALENTINE'S DAY FLOWERS THREATEN PLANET
By Gretchen Randall, February 14, 2007
Issue: The London Telegraph reports that the flowers in the average Valentine's Day bouquet in England have flown over 33,000 miles to reach London.. Environmental groups are claiming that "flower miles" are contributing to global warming because of the CO2 emitted by the airplanes on which they are transported.
Andrew Sims, the policy director of the New Economics Foundation, told the Telegraph, "Air freighting flowers half way round the world contributes to global warming. You can argue the planes would be flying anyway but the amount of greenhouse gases pumped out depends on the weight of the cargo."
Comment 1: Of course, these wacky enviros don't consider that the flower industry is providing thousands of jobs in countries such as Mexico, Ecuador and Columbia where jobs are scarce.
Comment 2: This is particularly intriguing since the earth is approximately 24,000 miles in circumference making halfway around about 12,000 miles. Energy could, apparently, have been saved if the shipper had dropped the flowers of the first time around. More absurdity from the global warming crowd..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/10/nbouquet10.xml
*************************
7. IPCC CONCLUSION IS UNTENABLE
By S Fred Singer
Letter to Nature (sent Feb. 9, but not accepted for publication)
Printed Feb. 13 on http://blogs.nature.com/news/blog/2007/02/climate_report.html
Michael Hopkin (in Nature, 6 Feb 2007 http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070205/full/445582a.html) writes about an illusionary “consensus” on the IPCC report (Nature Feb. 6, 2007). But a comparison of model-predicted with observed patterns of warming contradicts the major IPCC conclusion that the cause of current warming is “very likely” human.
Hopkin implies that the “apparent discrepancy between warming at Earth's surface and temperatures in Earth's lower atmosphere” has been resolved. Not true. The key document is the recent report of the US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), which is based on best current information. It can be found at www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/default.htm
In spite of a poorly worded Executive Summary, the disparity between tropospheric and surface temperature trends is quite apparent in the report itself. Greenhouse models (see Figure 1.3F) indicate that the tropics provide the most sensitive location for their validation; trends there increase strongly with altitude, peaking at around 10 kilometers. Actual observations, however, show the opposite: flat or even decreasing tropospheric trend values (see Fig. 3.7 and also Fig. 5.7E). This disparity is demonstrated most strikingly in Figure 5.4G, which shows the difference between surface and troposphere trends for a collection of models (displayed as a histogram) and for balloon and satellite data.
Allowing for uncertainties in the data and for imperfect models, there is only one valid conclusion from this failure of greenhouse models to explain the observations: The human contribution to global warming is still quite small, so that natural climate factors are dominant.
**************************************
8. CLIMATE SKEPTICS VINDICATED AS GROWING NUMBER OF SCIENTISTS & POLITICIANS OPPOSE ALARMISM
Washington, D.C. --Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment & Public Works Committee, congratulated Czech President Vaclav Klaus for speaking out against the fears of man-made global warming. Klaus told a Czech newspaper on February 8, 2007 that fears of catastrophic man-made global warming were a "myth" and critiqued the UN IPCC process, calling it a "political body." Klaus also said other government leaders would speak out, but "political correctness strangles their voice."
"President Klaus is to be commended for his courage in speaking not only the truth about the science behind global warming fears, but the reality of the politicization of the UN," Inhofe said. "President Klaus’ reported comments questioning the fears of catastrophic man-made global warming are inline with a growing chorus of scientists, peer reviewed literature and government leaders who are finally realizing the true motivations behind climate scares. The scientific and political momentum is clearly shifting away from climate alarmists to climate realists," Inhofe said.
"The chorus of voices speaking out against the alarmist claims of man-made global warming comes as Europe and the rest of the world acknowledge the failure of the cap-and-trade approach of Kyoto. Perhaps now the alarmists will finally take note of the accomplishments of the Bush Administration in reducing U.S. emissions," Inhofe said. [Note: International Energy Agency records show that from 2000 to 2004, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion grew by 1.7 percent, while in the European Union such emissions grew by 5 percent. (Link )
Momentum Shifting
*Claude Allegre: The recent conversion in 2006 of Allegre, a geophysicist and French Socialist, from alarmist to skeptic, is just one example of a growing list of scientists leaving the alarmist climate camp. Allegre now says the cause of climate change is "unknown" and he also accused proponents of manmade catastrophic global warming of being motivated by money, noting that "the ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!"
*Astrophysicist Nir Shaviv, one of Israel's top young scientists recanted his belief in manmade emissions driving climate change. "Like many others, I was personally sure that CO2 is the bad culprit in the story of global warming," Shaviv said in January 2007. But Shaviv now points to growing peer-reviewed evidence that the sun has been driving the temperature changes. "Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming," Shaviv said. "I am quite sure Kyoto is not the right way to go," Shaviv added.
*Climate scientist Henrik Svensmark, released a report last week from his team of researchers at the Danish National Space Centre, which shows that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere. "We have the highest solar activity we have had in at least 1,000 years," Svensmark said.
*Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, also expressed his view last week that the UN rejects science it sees as "politically incorrect" and the UN denies that "climate history and related archeology give solid support to the solar hypothesis."
*Canadian climatologist Timothy Ball recently called fears of man-made global warming "the greatest deception in the history of science."
*Meteorologist James Spann said in January that he does "not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype" and he noted that "Billions of dollars of grant money is flowing into the pockets of those on the man-made global warming bandwagon."
Meteorologist Reid Bryson, who was pivotal in promoting the coming ice age scare of the 1970s ( See Time Magazines 1974 article "Another Ice Age") has now converted into a leading global warming skeptic. Bryson now dismisses what he terms "sky is falling" man-made global warming fears in an article last week.
*MIT Scientist Richard Lindzen and former UN IPCC reviewer, called fears of man-made global warming silly in January 2007 and equated concerns to little kids attempting to "scare each other"
*Climate Scientist Fred Singer & Environmental Economist Dennis Avery’s 2007 book: "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years" details the solar-climate link using studies from peer reviewed literature.
*David Bellamy: Famed UK environmental campaigner recently converted into a skeptic after reviewing the new science and now calls global warming fears "poppycock."
*60 prominent scientists wrote the Canadian Prime Minister in 2006 saying that "If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary." 2006 was seen by many as year of vindication for climate skeptics.
Political Leaders Facing Reality
*Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has referred to the Kyoto Protocol as a "socialist scheme" designed to suck money out of rich countries.
*Canadian Environmental Minister John Baird said for Canada "to achieve that kind of [Kyoto emission reduction] target through domestic reductions would require a rate of emissions decline unmatched by any modern nation in the history of the world except those that have suffered economic collapse, such as Russia. Canadians do not want empty promises on a plan that we cannot achieve and they do not want our country to face economic collapse."
This recent scientific and political momentum shift to climate realism can explain why the proponents of manmade climate change are growing increasingly desperate to silence scientific debate. A few examples of desperation include:
*Heidi Cullen of The Weather Channel recently called for decertifying broadcast meteorologists who do not toe the line on global warming alarmism. Cullen is also the star of a new politically charged global-warming documentary that, according to the film's website, accuses the U.S. government of "criminal neglect" and blames "right-wing think tanks" for helping to "defeat climate-friendly legislation."
*Calls by some climate alarmists in 2006 for Nuremberg-Style trials for skeptics
*Demonizing climate skeptics as "Holocaust deniers"
*Alarmists threatening the job titles of State Climatologists in Oregon and Delaware who hold skeptical views on climate change
*****************************
9. AN EXPERIMENT THAT HINTS WE ARE WRONG ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, says the orthodoxy must be challenged
The Sunday Times, 11 February 2007
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1363818.ece
When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works. We were treated to another dose of it recently when the experts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued the Summary for Policymakers that puts the political spin on an unfinished scientific dossier on climate change due for publication in a few months' time. They declared that most of the rise in temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to man-made greenhouse gases.
The small print explains "very likely" as meaning that the experts who made the judgment felt 90% sure about it. Older readers may recall a press conference at Harwell in 1958 when Sir John Cockcroft, Britain's top nuclear physicist, said he was 90% certain that his lads had achieved controlled nuclear fusion. It turned out that he was wrong. More positively, a 10% uncertainty in any theory is a wide open breach for any latter-day Galileo or Einstein to storm through with a better idea. That is how science really works.
Twenty years ago, climate research became politicised in favour of one particular hypothesis, which redefined the subject as the study of the effect of greenhouse gases. As a result, the rebellious spirits essential for innovative and trustworthy science are greeted with impediments to their research careers. And while the media usually find mavericks at least entertaining, in this case they often imagine that anyone who doubts the hypothesis of man-made global warming must be in the pay of the oil companies. As a result, some key discoveries in climate research go almost unreported.
Enthusiasm for the global-warming scare also ensures that heat waves make headlines, while contrary symptoms, such as this winter's billion-dollar loss of Californian crops to unusual frost, are relegated to the business pages. The early arrival of migrant birds in spring provides colourful evidence for a recent warming of the northern lands. But did anyone tell you that in east Antarctica the Adlie penguins and Cape petrels are turning up at their spring nesting sites around nine days later than they did 50 years ago? While sea-ice has diminished in the Arctic since 1978, it has grown by 8% in the Southern Ocean.
So one awkward question you can ask, when you're forking out those extra taxes for climate change, is "Why is east Antarctica getting colder?" It makes no sense at all if carbon dioxide is driving global warming. While you're at it, you might inquire whether Gordon Brown will give you a refund if it's confirmed that global warming has stopped. The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999.
That levelling off is just what is expected by the chief rival hypothesis, which says that the sun drives climate changes more emphatically than greenhouse gases do. After becoming much more active during the 20th century, the sun now stands at a high but roughly level state of activity. Solar physicists warn of possible global cooling, should the sun revert to the lazier mood it was in during the Little Ice Age 300 years ago.
Climate history and related archeology give solid support to the solar hypothesis. The 20th-century episode, or Modern Warming, was just the latest in a long string of similar events produced by a hyperactive sun, of which the last was the Medieval Warming.
The Chinese population doubled then, while in Europe the Vikings and cathedral-builders prospered. Fascinating relics of earlier episodes come from the Swiss Alps, with the rediscovery in 2003 of a long-forgotten pass used intermittently whenever the world was warm.
What does the Intergovernmental Panel do with such emphatic evidence for an alternation of warm and cold periods, linked to solar activity and going on long before human industry was a possible factor? Less than nothing. The 2007 Summary for Policymakers boasts of cutting in half a very small contribution by the sun to climate change conceded in a 2001 report.
Disdain for the sun goes with a failure by the self-appointed greenhouse experts to keep up with inconvenient discoveries about how the solar variations control the climate. The sun's brightness may change too little to account for the big swings in the climate. But more than 10 years have passed since Henrik Svensmark in Copenhagen first pointed out a much more powerful mechanism.
He saw from compilations of weather satellite data that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars. More cosmic rays, more clouds. The sun's magnetic field bats away many of the cosmic rays, and its intensification during the 20th century meant fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds, and a warmer world. On the other hand the Little Ice Age was chilly because the lazy sun let in more cosmic rays, leaving the world cloudier and gloomier.
The only trouble with Svensmark's idea - apart from its being politically incorrect - was that meteorologists denied that cosmic rays could be involved in cloud formation. After long delays in scraping together the funds for an experiment, Svensmark and his small team at the Danish National Space Center hit the jackpot in the summer of 2005.
In a box of air in the basement, they were able to show that electrons set free by cosmic rays coming through the ceiling stitched together droplets of sulphuric acid and water. These are the building blocks for cloud condensation. But journal after journal declined to publish their report; the discovery finally appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society late last year.
Thanks to having written The Manic Sun, a book about Svensmark's initial discovery published in 1997, I have been privileged to be on the inside track for reporting his struggles and successes since then. The outcome is a second book, The Chilling Stars, co-authored by the two of us and published next week by Icon books. We are not exaggerating, we believe, when we subtitle it "A new theory of climate change".
Where does all that leave the impact of greenhouse gases? Their effects are likely to be a good deal less than advertised, but nobody can really say until the implications of the new theory of climate change are more fully worked out.
The reappraisal starts with Antarctica, where those contradictory temperature trends are directly predicted by Svensmark's scenario, because the snow there is whiter than the cloud-tops. Meanwhile humility in face of Nature's marvels seems more appropriate than arrogant assertions that we can forecast and even control a climate ruled by the sun and the stars.
Copyright 2007, The Sunday Times
=============
THE CHILLING STARS: A NEW THEORY OF CLIMATE CHANGE
By Henrik Svensmark & Nigel Calder
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chilling-Stars-Theory-Climate-Change/dp/1840468157/sr=1-2/qid=1171271375/ref=sr_1_2/203-5639826-3232766?ie=UTF8&s=books
Book Description
On a clear, starry night you can catch a cold, and our ancestors were sometimes tempted to think that the Moon and the stars sucked heat from the Earth and made people ill. It was good observation but dodgy theorizing. Astronomers will now tell you that most of the bright stars are far hotter than the Sun. Yet when the biggest of them expire in mighty supernova explosions they spray the Galaxy with atomic bullets, the cosmic rays. As a result, those exploded stars do indeed chill the world, by making it cloudier.
Like other big discoveries, it seemed crazy at first. Who would think that the ordinary clouds that decorate the sky take their orders from exploded stars far off in space? Or that the climate obeys the swarms of atomic particles that rain down on us from the Milky Way? Many experts scoffed when the Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark linked those cosmic rays to clouds and temperatures, but investigations around the world confirm his theory, altering much of what scientists believed they knew about the weather, the climate, and the long history of life on the Earth.
To unwrap some of Nature's best kept secrets, this book visits unlikely places, from the Atlantic seafloor to fossil-rich hills in China, and from the stormy Sun to the spiral arms of the Milky Way.
About the Authors
Henrik Svensmark is Director of Sun-Climate Research at the Danish National Space Centre.
Nigel Calder has spent a lifetime spotting and explaining the big discoveries in all branches of science. He served his apprenticeship as a science writer on the original staff of the magazine New Scientist, and became its editor, 1962-66. Since then he has worked as an independent author and TV scriptwriter. He won the UNESCO Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science for his work for the BBC in a long succession of `science specials', with accompanying books. His most recent book is Magic Universe (OUP, 2003), a comprehensive guide to modern science, which was shortlisted for the Aventis Prize for Science Books.
*************************************
10. IPCC’S PHONY ARITHMETIC
Because the IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers (SPM) is like Holy Scripture, and the researchers now have 3 months to make the full report consistent, it is clear that they will have to change some rules of mathematics. Open the SPM, go to the page 5 of 21 and you will find Table SPM-0 there. The fifth line claims to be the sum of the previous four contributions to the sea level rise. However, for example in the 1993-2003 column, it would require 0.16+0.077+0.21+0.21 to be equal to 0.28 instead of 0.657. Note that with the value 0.657, the predicted value would differ from the observed value by more than five observed sigmas.
Also, the sum of four terms seems to be 5-10 times more accurate than the error of the Antarctic contribution. What a miraculous way of adding things. An average climate scientist would fix these problems simply by adding some random zeros to the Greenland or Antarctic contribution (see below) to obtain agreement. However, you can't mess up with the summary, a Holy Scripture. So what must happen according to their rules is that the full report will prove that 0.16+0.077+0.21+0.21 = 0.28. I am sure that they will find some climate scientists if not mathematicians who will defend the consensus that this sum is different than your calculator would expect. I hope that many people will be looking forward to this new breakthrough in mathematics proving that the climate change is more catastrophic and the underlying science is more solid than anyone has ever anticipated.
Error first documented by Sean Davis (sum) and Stuart Staniford (error margin), readers of RealClimate, but detected independently also by others. These erroneous sums cannot be passed off as a transcribing error. The same numbers were in the draft distributed to governments in 2006. The error is a failure of the 2500 IPCC reviewers to notice that four numbers do not add up correctly.
Correct answer? Simply divide both Greenland and Antarctic numbers by 10 and the sums come out as shown in the Table. Of course, this is not the whole story. One suspects that these numbers – all of them estimates – have been “cooked” to get agreement with observed values. For example, in past IPCC reports the Antarctic values were negative, leading to a lowering of sea level. The error bars are so large that anything is still possible.
****************************
11. ANNOUNCEMENT:
NRSP Calls on Senate to block Passage of Kyoto Implementation Bill
Ottawa, Canada, February 14, 2007 The Natural Resources Stewardship Project (NRSP) calls on the Senate of Canada to block passage of Bill C-288, An Act to ensure Canada meets its global climate change obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.
Despite having passed third reading in the House of Commons today, neither the Commons, nor its Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development have properly evaluated the foundation of the bill the underlying science of global climate change. The Senate must now do what the Commons have steadfastly refused to do, namely hold open, unbiased and comprehensive hearings into the state of modern climate science before considering passage of a bill that, if implemented, would result in serious economic dislocation for Canada for little or no environmental benefit.
The recent call from environmental lobbyists for media to censor coverage of the intense debate in the climate science community about the causes of the past century’s modest warming should alert Senators to the need to examine this issue in greater detail. Senators must ask: if the publicly-funded scientific research countering Kyoto is (supposedly) so weak, then why are lobbyists so anxious to hide it?
Sir John A. Macdonald described the primary purpose of the Senate as calmly considering the legislation initiated by the popular branch, and preventing any hasty or ill-considered legislation that may come from that body. Never has the need for sober second thought on ill-considered legislation from The Commons been more crucial than is the case on Bill C-288.
For more information or to set up interviews with NRSP participants, visit www.nrsp.com or contact:
Timothy F. Ball, PhD or Tom Harris, B. Eng., M. Eng. Chairman, NRSP Executive Director, NRSP Phone: 250-380-7784 P.O. Box 23013 Fax: 250-380-7776 Ottawa, Ontario K2A 4E2 e-mail: timothyball@shaw.ca Phone: 613-234-4487 http://www.nrsp.com/people-timothy-ball.html e-mail: tom.harris@nrsp.com http://www.nrsp.com/people-tom-harris.html