Fred Singer speaking on March 30 noon
at Georgetown Presbyterian Church 3115 P St, Wash, DC
*************************************************************************************
When a distinguished but elderly scientist
states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states
that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. --Arthur C. Clarke
**********************
Many
obits for Arthur Clarke who died on March 18 at the age of 90: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/books/19clarke.html?_r=1&ei=5088&en=f4cfe4720ac5bd0b&ex=1363665600&oref=slogin&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/18/AR2008031802346.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2358011.stm
I
will always remember him as the man who invited me to join the British
Interplanetary Society in 1952, encouraged me to give a lecture about the
promise of instrumented satellites, and participated in naming it the MOUSE
(Minimum Orbiting Unmanned Satellite of the Earth).
Much
later, he wrote this blurb for my book on Global Warming: “Hot Talk Cold Science dares to point
out that the Emperor has no clothes” -- Arthur C. Clarke (1997)
=======================================
Sadly,
we note the passing of Dr. Frederick Seitz on March 2 at the age of 96. A most distinguished scientist, he had been
chairman of SEPP since its founding. The
obit in the Wash Post hardly does him justice:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/05/AR2008030503524.html?tid=informbox
*************************************************************
The Heartland Climate
Conference March 2-4 in NY City [ITEM #1].
Stories
about the Conference: In the Wash Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/03/AR2008030302781.html
In the Hawaii Reporter: International Conference
on Climate Change: An Intellectual Feast. By Dr. Michael R. Fox http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?bfb0f7d0-188c-47eb-939e-1dd14832892b
In Renew America: "Man-made Global
Warming," thy name is fraud. By Wes
Vernon http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/vernon/080317
***************************************
NIPCC continues to reverberate and is already
near the top of the Google list.
NIPCC media advisory -- #4 on Google http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=22833
The full report is #5: http://www.heartland.org/article.cfm?artId=22835 It can
also be found at http://sepp.org/publications/NIPCC-Feb%2020.pdf
A report on NIPCC from Holland is #6 on Google http://www.globalgoldtalk.com/investments/60422-nipcc-warming-solar-not-human-caused.html
*********************************************
Climate models have
cloud problems: Roy Spencer at Heartland Conference [ITEM #2]
Battle
Over Smog Rules Ramps Up. For questions
everyone should ask, see ITEM #3. http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/03/15/battle-over-smog-rules-ramps-up/
Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.), plans to hold a hearing on allegations that the
White House intervened to water down new smog rules
issued last week by the Environmental Protection Agency, which are weaker than
those recommended by the agency’s science advisors, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The real problem is that EPA may not
consider cost and feasibility in setting air-quality standards. EPA administrator Stephen Johnson plans to
ask Congress to amend the Clean Air Act; it's unlikely that Congress would make
such changes. But why should such a
reform be a partisan issue? http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/319/5870/1602a?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/21-March-2008/10.1126/science.319.5870.1602a )
****************************************
Who’s profiting from carbon trading? See http://thenewsroom.com/details/1962006
The high cost of cap-and-trade to households
[ITEM #4]
Lord Monckton’s letter to Scientific American [ITEM #5]
Government funding breeds scientific conformity
[ITEM #6]
Americans cool to Global Warming action, new
poll finds [ITEM #7]
Nigel Lawson on optimum climate [ITEM #8]
Energy
independence is a fantasy [ITEM #9].
Besides, the Senate just voted to raise oil imports. The US Senate voted Mar. 13 to extend
moratoria on federal oil and gas leasing on most of the Outer Continental Shelf
as well as on developing oil shale resources.
****************
News
from the NorthEast: States participating
in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), an agreement among the
Governors of ten Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states to reduce greenhouse
gases from power plants, announced today that the first ever CO2 allowance
auction in the nation for a mandatory emissions reduction program will take
place on September 10, 2008.
*********************************
Clearly, some bloggers
want to discredit the NIPCC result that GW is mostly natural, and try to 'link'
me to the tobacco lobby, Big Oil, Rev. Moon,
Lyndon LaRouche, and even to the John Birch Society. These bloggers are shameless liars, quote
each other, and get paid for smearing skeptical scientists. I hope some of you will take the trouble to
straighten them out.
Here is some ammunition:
On Second-Hand Smoke:
I am certainly no expert on lung cancer or on epidemiology. My only 'offense' was to quote an official
report by our Congressional Research Service and the extensive documentation by
a federal judge that exposed the dubious way in which EPA cooked the data to
come up with its claim of 3,000 cancer deaths from SHS.
BTW, I have never
smoked and am on the advisory board of ACSH, a well-known anti-smoking
organization. Personally, I hate SHS; but that does not affect my science --
nor should it.
------------------------
On Ozone Hole: Long ago, Igor Eberstein (NASA-Goddard) first
pointed to the possibility that the UV-photolysis of the crucial molecule Cl2O2
might not go the way suggested by the lab work of Mario Molina (who snagged a
Nobel prize in Chemistry, together with
Rowland and Crutzen). My only
contribution has been to keep reminding people of Eberstein's paper of ~20
years ago. [I also published a paper
(Eos 1988), predicting an eventual Arctic Ozone Hole, as the continuing rise of
CO2 cools the polar stratosphere.]
Finally, as reported in Nature Sept 27, 2007, Eberstein's hunch has been
vindicated by measurements at JPL. It’s
back to the drawing board
You will find more on
this on my web site, using the Search
program.
****************************************************
For the record: Singer testimony on IPCC and National
Assessment before Senator McCain http://www.nationalcenter.org/KyotoSingerTestimony2000.html
*******************************************
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?9c8600a9-6750-45cb-b7ee-c8ca6b6d3a75
Why
'Global Warming' is Not a Global Crisis
By
Christopher Monckton, Special to the Hawaii Reporter, 1/22/2008
####################################
1.
THE HEARTLAND CLIMATE CONFERENCE
By Marc Morano
The real truth is
that the theory of man-made global warming, despite being virtually canonized
in the UN and the minds of a slew of politicians and celebrities, and naturally
in the mainstream media, remains one of the most contentious issues in science.
That contention was on full display in New York City last week.
Those who depend solely on the mainstream news media to keep them informed
might have missed the headlines about the 2008
International Conference on Climate Change, sponsored by the Heartland
Institute and featuring nearly 100 speakers and 500 attendees skeptical of
man-made global warming. The highly successful three-day conference occurred in
the wake of recent reports
of global cooling and the release of a blockbuster
U.S. Senate minority report featuring over 400 prominent scientists disputing
the theory of man-made global warming.
Last week's conference testified to one towering truth in the world of science:
Debate within the scientific community over global warming is far from dead and
buried.
The high-water mark of the conference was the presentation of a report
produced by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)
claiming nature, not human activity, was the cause of climate change.
The NIPCC is comprised of international scientists and was formed as a
counterforce to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
International scientists, climate experts and policymakers at the event
listened to lectures and panel discussions exposing the fraud of the global
warming "truth," perused studies and reports showing stark
division in the scientific community over global warming, and swapped
stories about how they'd been "denied tenure, shut out of scientific
conferences and rejected by academic journals because no matter how scrupulous
their research," their conclusions contradicted the truth espoused by the
climate change pharisees (National Post, March
10). Many attendees spoke of colleagues too afraid to attend the conference
for fear of losing their jobs.
Many of the details at the conference can be found in this the
blogs from the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
[http://epw.senate.gov/]. Those who take the time to investigate the links
therein will experience an eye-opening expose of the staggering scale of the
global warming scam. Take funding
for global warming research, for example. Over the past decade, research
intended to prove the veracity of man-made global warming has been funded to
the tune of $50 billion, while global warming skeptic research has
received a comparatively measly $19 million.
***************************************
2.
CLIMATE MODELS HAVE CLOUD PROBLEMS
By Climatologist Dr.
Roy W. Spencer, formerly a senior scientist for climate studies at NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Center where he received NASA's Exceptional Scientific
Achievement Medal, and currently principal research scientist at the University
of Alabama in Huntsville.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Hey-Nobel-Prize-Winners-Answer-Me-This.pdf
Excerpt: Why are ALL of the 20+ IPCC climate models more sensitive in their total cloud feedback than published estimates of cloud feedbacks in the real climate system (Forster and Gregory, J. Climate, 2006)? If the answer is that "there are huge error bars on our observational estimates of feedback", then doesn't that mean that it is just as likely that the real climate system is very insensitive (making manmade global warming a non-problem) as it is to be as sensitive as the IPCC models claim it is? [...] The fact is, we DON'T know how much of recent warming is natural, simply because we don’t have good enough global cloud observations back to the 1970s (and earlier) to measure any long-term changes in cloudiness to the required accuracy 1% or less. [...] I fear that the sloppy science that too many climate researchers have lapsed into could, in the end, hurt our scientific discipline beyond repair. The very high level of certainty (90%) claimed by the IPCC for their manmade explanation for warming can not be justified based upon the scientific evidence, and is little more than an expression of their faith that they understand the causes of climate variability which they clearly don’t. For those scientists who value their scientific reputations, I would advise that they distance themselves from politically motivated claims of a "scientific consensus" on the causes of global warming -- before it is too late.
Don’t let five Norwegians on the Nobel Prize
committee be the arbiters of what is good science.
******************************************************
3. THE BATTLE ABOUT EPA’S
OZONE STANDARD
The
EPA has proposed tightening the ozone (smog) standard from its present 84 parts
per billion to 75 ppb under its authority granted by the Clean Air Act, which
charges the agency with setting the standard based on public health == without
regard to cost. According to newspaper
reports (WashPost, March 13), the Agency’s scientific advisors had recommended
a standard of about 65 ppb. This has
sparked a backlash from Democratic lawmakers and public-health advocates. Senate Environment and Public Works committee
chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif) called the move ‘outrageous.’ Congressman Henry Waxman (D-Calif), chairman
of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has promised to hold
hearings.
Nearly
a year ago, EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee recommended unanimously
that the agency set the standard between 60 and 70 ppb. EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory
Committee lobbied for the 60 ppb limit.
The Agency calculates the new standard of 75 ppb would prevent 1,300 to
3,500 premature deaths per year whereas a standard of 65 ppb would avoid 3,000
to 9,200 deaths annually. A number of
industries, including electric utilities and cement manufacturers, have urged
the White House to keep the current limit, effectively 84 ppb, to avoid annual
costs of the order of $8 billion.
How
should one react to this disagreement?
What sensible questions might be asked?
Here are some examples:
■
How many premature deaths would be avoided if the standard were set at 55 or
even 50 ppb?
■
How should one decide how far to go if technical feasibility and cost cannot be
taken into account?
■
Won’t there always be a few individuals sensitive to higher smog levels, who
would be at risk even if the standard is tightened indefinitely? Shouldn’t such individuals stop exposing
themselves to outdoor air during ‘ozone alerts’ and prudently forego doing
exercises like jogging? Wouldn’t
individuals at risk be spending most of their time indoors, preferably with air
conditioning and air filters?
■
How should one handle the extreme variability in time and space of ozone
pollution, its dependence on sunshine and winds, the often transient nature of
‘ozone events,’ etc
■
How relevant is outdoor air quality anyway when most urban dwellers spend something
like 80 to 90 percent exposed to indoor air pollution or inside their
automobiles?
■
What about the ambient background of smog/ozone levels from the emission of
natural pollutants by trees? There is a
good reason why the Appalachians have the Blue Mountains and the Smokies.
Finally,
while the Clean Air Act indeed does not permit consideration of cost,
inevitably the nation must make something like a cost-benefit comparison --
even if not expressed in quantitative form.
Indeed, the basic environmental law, the National Environmental and
Policy Act of 1969, suggests such a comparison in Section 2(b). NEPA may therefore override the prohibition
against the use of cost considerations in the 1970 Clean Air Act. This proposition might best be tested in a
court-of-law.
------------------------------------------
S.
Fred Singer is professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University
of Virginia. He has served as a deputy
assistant administrator (policy) of EPA.
****************************************************
4.
THE SIGNIFICANT COSTS OF CAP-AND-TRADE
By
Gretchen Randall, Winningreen
The
U.S. would lose between 1.2 and 1.8 million jobs in 2020 and between 3 and 4
million jobs in 2030 if pending climate change legislation is passed, according
to a new study conducted by Science Applications International Corporation. The
study conducted for the National Association of Manufacturers and the American
Council for Capital Formation found “America's Climate Security Act of
2007" (S. 2191), introduced by U.S. Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and
John Warner (R-VA), would lead to lower industrial output due to higher energy
prices, the high cost of complying with required emissions cuts, and greater
competition from overseas manufacturers with lower energy costs.
The
study examined the impacts of the Lieberman -Warner bill, which has the goal of
lowering greenhouse gas emissions 63 percent below their 2005 levels by the
year 2050. The legislation would require companies to cap their emissions and
would set up a mechanism for them to trade pollution credits to other companies
who pollute less. The U.S. Senate is expected to debate the bill this June.
The
study also found:
Household income would drop
$739 to $2,927 per year in 2020 and $4,022 to $6,752 per year in
2030
Electricity prices would
increase 28% to 33% by 2020 and 101% to 129% by 2030
Gasoline prices would
increase 20% to 699% per gallon by 2020 and 77% to 145% by 2030
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
would drop $151 billion to $210 billion in 2020 and $631 billion to $669
billion per year in 2030
Additionally,
the study says enacting the Lieberman-Warner climate change legislation would
mean motor vehicle manufacturing would be reduced by between 6% and 14%. The
legislation would result in the use of less coal causing electricity production
[to] fall around 12%.
Comment
1:
Democrats want to pass this legislation when the economy needs job creation not
job reduction.
Comment 2: Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) said, If Democrats have their
way, Americans will pay significantly more at the pump, in their homes, and in
many cases, with their jobs. No matter how anyone attempts to spin the economic
impacts, this bill is wrong for America.
Comment 3: Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said at a press conference last
week about those who have opposed the bill, We will hold those who weakened it
accountable in November. She continued, We will pull the bill and bring
back the legislation after we have a new Congress and a new President.
==========================================================
By Drew Thornley, in Planet Gore, 17 March 2008
http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGRjYzIwM2I5NjA4YTBkZTFkMDllZDJjMzNmZjUzYzI=
Stephen Power's "EPA Says Carbon Caps Won't Harm Economy Much," in
today's Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120554497521738693.html?mod=todays_us_page_one),
discusses Friday's EPA report that the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill will
not significantly harm the U.S. economy. I guess the truth of this depends on
your definition of "significantly."
============================
EPA
Analysis of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2008
From
Junk Science http://junkscience.com/mar08/EPA_LW.html
On
November 9, 2007 Senators Lieberman and Warner requested that EPA estimate the
economic impacts of the S. 2191, the 'Climate Security Act of 2007' (now the
'Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2008'). . The EPA analysis is available online at: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/economics/economicanalyses.html
Their
conclusions ain't pretty. EPA estimates
that LW may reduce GDP by $2.9 trillion in 2050 while reducing atmospheric CO2
by around 25 ppm by 2095.
What a
bargain - reduce GDP by an estimated 6.9 percent for no meaningful change in
atmospheric CO2!
********************************************
5. LORD MONCKTON’S LETTER TO
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
3/19/2008, Christopher Monckton wrote:
Gentlemen - Of course your vested interest is to further the financial advantage of the overwhelmingly taxpayer-funded scientists who are your audience. And of course, any pseudo-science scare, such as "global warming", will greatly increase the income of those scientists who back it, for as long as the politicians who dole out the cash can be persuaded to believe in the scare. However, powerful constraints entirely ignored in your unscientifically one-sided coverage of this issue prevent CO2 from occupying more than a bit-part in the warming that stopped in 1998. Indeed, our own Hadley Center shows that since the phase-transition in temperature trends at the end of 2001 global temperatures have been falling at a rate equivalent to 0.4 degrees C per decade. Even Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC's chairman, has accepted that the IPCC must now review its calculations. It might like to start by explaining to us why it has rounded the value of the no-feedbacks climate sensitivity parameter from 0.265 (implicit in Hansen, 1984) up to 0.3 (explicit in Colman, 2003, cited in Bony et al., 2006, cited in IPCC, 2007). In passing, why no error-bars and no Level of Scientific Understanding for this key variable? The IPCC's apparently harmless 13% rounding-up directly causes a 50% increase in the IPCC's central climate-sensitivity estimate, already inflated by an undeclared 70% increase since 1995 in the IPCC's central estimate of the feedback factor. Wentz et al. (2007) point out that the IPCC fails to allow for some two-thirds of the cooling effect of evaporation when it calculates the water-vapor feedback. Spencer (2007) says the cloud-albedo feedback must be negative, not (as the IPCC bizarrely assumes) strongly positive. As if these flagrant exaggerations on the part of the IPCC were not bad enough, Douglass et al. (2007) have established that the models on which the IPCC relies fundamentally misunderstand the interaction between radiant-energy flux, CO2, and water vapor in the tropical mid-troposphere, with the consequence that all of the IPCC's climate sensitivity estimates are at least threefold exaggerations (Lindzen, 2008). Combine all of these elements and it is difficult to make out a case for a climate sensitivity of more than 0.5 degrees C for a CO2 doubling, not the 3.2 C fancifully imagined by the IPCC. Dozens of papers such as those which are briefly cited here cast the gravest of doubt upon the central calculations of the IPCC: but your journal simply chooses to look the other way. May I offer to write you a full-length piece, properly referenced in the peer-reviewed literature, that explains these and numerous other errors on the part of the IPCC, and draws a conclusion opposite to that which you have so far printed? In the interest of scientific objectivity, would that not be a proper and responsible course? You can preface the article with a disclaimer if you like, stating that you don't agree with my conclusions but that in the interest of balance and impartiality you're allowing the other side to be heard just for once. Audiatur et altera pars. –
Monckton of Brenchley
**************************************
6.
GOVERNMENT FUNDING BREEDS SCIENTIFIC CONFORMITY
By Bruce
Ramsey Seattle Times, 29 March 2008
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2004290766_rams19.html
Here is a list of beliefs in the biomedical and climate sciences that must not
be questioned if you're applying for a government grant:
* That global warming is caused by humans;
* That AIDS is caused by a virus;
* That radiation, cigarette smoke and other toxins are dangerous in proportion
to their strength, no matter how small the dose;
* That heart disease is caused by saturated fats;
* That cancer is caused by mutations.
This is part of a list offered by a University of Washington professor of
surgery, Donald W. Miller, who is a heart surgeon at the VA Medical Center in
Seattle. Miller believes that all the above ideas may be false, and ought to be
tested. Whether they are false, I don't know. I have thought they were true,
but that is only a belief - and it is the business of science to test such
beliefs.
But much of science runs on government money. Some people find the stink of
bias only in private money, and see government as free of it, but they are
mistaken. Government likes certain beliefs. To get its money, you have to get
the approval of the scientists it selects, and you are less likely to get it if
they think your idea wrong.
What that means, Miller says, is that "If you say low doses of radiation
aren't bad for you, or that global warming is due to variations in the sun, you
can't get funded."
He says this happened to University of California scientist Peter Duesberg, who
challenged the viral theory of AIDS, and to Harvard's Willie Soon, who
challenged the pollution theory of global warming, and to others. In a paper
published in 2007 in the Journal of Information Ethics, Miller argued that
conformity is built into the system of government grants.
Another critic of the grants system is Gerald Pollack, UW professor of
bioengineering. Pollack's work in muscle contraction, cell structure and the
molecular properties of water has challenged the reigning view in his
field. In 2005, in the scientific
journal Cellular and Molecular Biology, Pollack made an argument similar to
Miller's. American science, he wrote, has become "a culture of
believers" whose rule is, "just keep it safe and get your
funding."
For science, the result has not been good.
"A half-century ago, breakthroughs were fairly common events in
science," Pollack said in an interview. But who today are the equivalents
of Linus Pauling in molecular biology, Jonas Salk in vaccines, Richard Feynman
in physics, or James Watson and Francis Crick in the study of DNA? Said Pollack,
"Where are the heroes of the past 30 years?"
In his paper, Pollack wrote, "Einstein's challenge of orthodoxy would
probably fail in today's grant system." Today's committees of scientists
demand that an individual predict what he will accomplish at the end of year
one, year two, etc., all of which amounts, Pollack says, to "an implicit
admission that no breakthroughs are to be anticipated."
If science is likened to a skeleton, the grant system sets out to pay a
multitude of scientists each to add a tiny bit of flesh. But what if the
skeleton itself is misdesigned? "I
think a lot of the skeleton is erroneous," Pollack says.
Thomas Kuhn, the philosopher of science, argued famously that science
progresses in revolutionary bursts, in which the "dominant paradigm"
is overturned. But what if the supporters of the dominant paradigm are the
people vetting your application?
The grant system needs to be changed, Pollack says. Short of that, there are
ways around it. One, he says, is "to get the money for something else, and
do your work on the side."
Miller predicts that at some point, a major belief like one of those listed
above will come tumbling down. "And when it's acknowledged," he
predicts, "a lot of other science will be called into question."
-----------------------------------
Copyright
2008, Seattle Times
Hat tip to CCNet
********************************
7.
AMERICANS COOL TO GLOBAL WARMING ACTION, NEW POLL FINDS
Nearly Half Wouldn't Be Willing to Pay Even a Penny More for Gasoline;
Opposition to Taxes Especially Strong Among Minorities
Washington, D.C. - Forty-eight percent of Americans are unwilling to
spend even a penny more in gasoline taxes to help reduce U.S. greenhouse gas
emissions, according to a new nationwide survey released today by the National
Center for Public Policy Research.
The poll found just 18% of Americans
are willing to pay 50 cents or more in additional taxes per gallon of gas to
reduce greenhouse emissions. U.S. Representative John Dingell (D-MI),
chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, has called for a 50 cent per
gallon increase in the gas tax.
According to the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, transportation accounts for 33% of the U.S.'s man-made
carbon dioxide emissions. Over 60% of these emissions - or about 20% of
all U.S. carbon dioxide emissions - result from burning gasoline in personal
automobiles.
*******************************
8.
LORD NIGEL LAWSON ON OPTIMUM CLIMATE
Excerpt:
"Is it really plausible that there is an ideal average world temperature,
which by some happy chance has recently been visited on us, from which small
departures in either direction would spell disaster? Moreover, while a sudden
change would indeed be disruptive, what is at issue here is the prospect of a
very gradual change over a hundred years and more. In any case, average world
temperature is simply a statistical artefact.
The actual experienced temperature varies enormously in different parts of the
globe; and people, whose greatest quality is their adaptability, have
successfully colonised most of it. Two countries at different ends of the
earth, both of which are generally considered to be economic success stories,
are Finland and Singapore. The average annual temperature in Helsinki is less
than 5C, that in Singapore is in excess of 27C, a difference of more than 22C.
If humans can successfully cope with that, it is not immediately apparent why
they should not be able to adapt to a change of 3C, when they are given a
hundred years in which to do so. Indeed, the more one examines the current
global warming orthodoxy, the more it resembles a Da Vinci Code of
environmentalism. It is a great story, and a phenomenal best seller. It
contains a grain of truth and a mountain of nonsense. And that nonsense could
be very damaging indeed.
We appear to have entered a new age of unreason, which threatens to be as
economically harmful as it is profoundly disquieting. It is from this, above
all, that we really do need to save the planet."
http://www.nzbr.org.nz/documents/publications/TrotterLawson2007.pdf
***************************
9. BOOK REVIEW: GUSHER OF LIES
By William Grimes, The New York Times, 7 March
2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/books/07book.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
After motherhood and apple pie, energy
independence probably qualifies as the most popular political slogan in the
land. It is, as they say, a no-brainer. Robert Bryce agrees: You have to have
no brain to think it is possible or even desirable.
In "Gusher of Lies," Mr. Bryce, a
freelance journalist specializing in energy issues, mounts a savage attack on
the concept of energy independence and the most popular technologies currently
being promoted to achieve it. Ethanol? A scam. Wind power? Sheer fantasy. Solar
power? Think again. For the foreseeable future, which is to say the next 30 to
50 years, fossil fuels will reign supreme, as they have for the last century.
Deal with it.
With all the gusto of a hunter clubbing baby
seals, Mr. Bryce goes after one cherished green belief after another, but he is
an equal-opportunity smiter. Having kicked the props from under every green
technology in sight, he goes after the political right.
The current administration and its
neoconservative allies, he argues, have made energy independence part of the
war on terror, a moral and tactical blunder. "Energy independence, at its
root, means protectionism and isolationism, both of which are in direct
opposition to America's long-term interests in the Persian Gulf and
globally," he writes.
Mr. Bryce begins coolly, then heats up and
eventually approaches core meltdown. In a perspective-setting opening chapter,
he reviews the history and current state of energy needs in the United States,
whose situation is not nearly as desperate, he argues, as one might think. Yes,
the United States depends on foreign oil and natural gas, as it has for many
decades, but only 11 percent of its oil came from the Persian Gulf in 2005. It
imports 80 percent of its semiconductors and 100 percent of strategic minerals
like bauxite and manganese.
Oil, Mr. Bryce argues, is simply a commodity. It
also costs about the same, in real terms, as it always has. Oil producers need
to sell just as badly as customers need to buy. It is undoubtedly true, as
President Bush declared, that "America is addicted to oil." To which
Mr. Bryce answers, So what? Besides, he writes, "America's appetite is
simply too large and the global market is too sophisticated and too integrated
for the U.S. to secede."
After clearing the ground, Mr. Bryce gets to
work demolishing cherished green beliefs about alternative energy sources.
Ethanol, in particular, drives him wild. Fuel derived from corn has channeled
billions in subsidies to Midwestern farmers and agribusiness, he writes,
despite glaring shortcomings. It is expensive to produce and requires enormous
amounts of water when irrigation comes into play. It produces much less energy
than gasoline while emitting more pollutants into the air.
Detroit loves ethanol because it can use it to
inflate fuel-efficiency ratings on their cars artificially. The mammoth Chevy
Suburban, produced as a flex-fuel vehicle capable of burning both ethanol and
gasoline, magically boosted its fuel efficiency to 29 miles per gallon from 15,
since under federal rules only a vehicle's gasoline consumption need be
factored into the equation. Ethanol, in other words, has allowed American car
manufacturers to produce more gas guzzlers and contribute to increased imports
of foreign oil.
The problem with corn and other alternative fuel
sources boils down to cost and output. Fuel made from switchgrass, another
potential solution to the energy problem, costs a lot to produce, delivers a
lot less energy than petroleum and would require, like corn, vast areas of
farmland to meet a meaningful percentage of current energy needs.
Wind power and solar power have the added
drawback of being intermittent and unpredictable. A town that relied entirely
on solar or wind power would suffer constant service interruptions and wild
fluctuations in output, which is why both technologies must be used in
conjunction with traditional fossil-fuel generators.
Mr. Bryce lands one telling blow after another,
but he favors a slashing, ad-hominem style of attack that can undercut his
credibility, especially when he moves away from economics and technology and
ventures into politics, an arena to which he brings no particular expertise. He
employs a peculiar, almost actuarial assessment of the risk posed by terrorism,
which he compares to random events like lightning strikes. This completely
misses the point about the threat posed by radical Islam. Using the word
"neocon" seems to be enough, for him, to discredit an argument or an
opponent.
Fortunately, the book steers back to the high
road at the end, when Mr. Bryce suggests that there is some light at the end of
the tunnel, some of it solar-powered. Within modest limits, he argues, solar
power can play a bigger role in meeting energy needs, especially with new
technology that transforms infrared light into electricity. Algae look
promising as a source of biodiesel. The major environmental groups may even,
eventually, see the point of nuclear power, "the only sector that has
enough momentum and enough capital behind it to make a significant dent in the
overall use of fossil fuels."
Mr. Bryce's pet idea, though, is something that
does not exist, a superbattery capable of storing large quantities of
electricity. As the magic wand to bring this "silver bullet" into
existence Mr. Bryce proposes a Superbattery Prize awarded either by the Energy
Department or private foundations: $1 billion, say, for a compact, affordable
system that can store multiple kilowatt-hours, and $10 billion for a system
that can store megawatt-hours. The hard-nosed Mr. Bryce reveals himself in the
end as something of a visionary and perhaps even a revolutionary. Power to the
people.