“Everyone
talks about the financial crisis, as virtual values melt away. We, however, care about real values
like
*************************
THIS WEEK George Bush vindicated?
EU FACING REVOLT OVER CLIMATE CHANGE TARGET
ENFORCEMENT
The Daily Telegraph, 16 October 2008.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/10/16/eaclimate116.xml
The European Union is facing a revolt from poorer members over tough climate change targets at a time when the global economy is heading for recession.
An EU text, agreed at a summit in
==========================
CLIMATE
REBELLION SHAKES
CCNet 148/2008 - 16 October 2008 -- Audiatur et altera pars
Eight
eastern and central European countries have challenged the EU's climate change
package, which
“I
have announced my intention to exercise my veto. Our businesses are in
absolutely no position at the moment to absorb the costs of the regulations
that have been proposed. We do not think that now is the time to be playing the
role of Don Quixote.” --Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, 15 Oct 2008
“In times of economic downturns, members [of
Congress] are extremely reluctant to add burdens to the economy, and we're
going to confront that problem.” --John Dingell, Chairman of
the
==================================
See also earlier story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7670814.stm
***********************
SEPP Science Editorial #9 (10/18/08)
Why we don’t need fusion power:
Nuclear fusion of light nuclei (not fission of Uranium) is the energy source of the Sun. Large amounts of energy are produced when hydrogen isotope (deuterium and tritium) nuclei fuse into helium. In the Sun these reactions take place because temperatures and pressures are high. The same process occurs in hydrogen bombs during the short periods when suitable high temperatures and pressures are created by a fission bomb. Fusion research tries to create these conditions in the laboratory to produce continuous amounts of energy.
There are at least three problems. It has proven extremely difficult to confine unstable hydrogen plasmas through magnetic fields or other means. Secondly, the engineering problems of turning a success in the laboratory into a commercial energy-producing reactor are daunting. And finally, we don’t really need fusion power; we have easier and probably cheaper alternatives.
The laboratory problem has engaged some of the most
brilliant experimental and theoretical physicists. I have known many of them, having worked in
plasma physics at one time. Fifty years
ago,
But do we really need fusion? Granted that fossil fuels are being depleted and are becoming more costly and will someday become impractically expensive, we have many good alternatives. Even before we go to massive installations of wind or solar energy, we have the standard nuclear fission reactor based on uranium. It is relatively cheap, it is safe, and it works. The cost of raw uranium will undoubtedly increase as high-grade deposits are depleted. But as we use up the fissionable U-235 isotope there’s more than 100 times as much non-fissionable U-238 available in convenient form, which can be turned into fissionable plutonium by neutron bombardment in a “breeder” reactor and used as a reactor fuel.
Estimates
vary but most experts agree that uranium will be a viable source of energy, and
perhaps the best one available, for thousands of years. And in addition to uranium, we also have
abundant thorium that can be used to fuel fission reactors. It becomes a matter of semantics whether an
energy source that can be relied on for, say 10,000 years or more, is
sustainable. But it is an empty
argument. The point is we can do it now
with available and constantly improving technology.
*******************
1.
4.
5. Renault bets on Electric Vehicles
6. Environmental
guilt and carbon offsets
7. The Sceptics Handbook
8. And finally, Obama, CO2 controls, and IPCC
***************************************
NEWS YOU CAN USE
”That
ideological base [of the Kyoto Protocol] can be juxtaposed and compared with
man-hating totalitarian ideology with which we had the bad fortune to deal during
the 20th century, such as National Socialism, Marxism, Eugenics, Lysenkoism and
so on. All methods of distorting information existing in the world have been
committed to prove the alleged validity of these theories. Misinformation,
falsification, fabrication, mythology, propaganda. Because what is offered
cannot be qualified in any other way than myth, nonsense and absurdity.” --
Andrei Illarionov, former economic adviser to Pres Putin, quoted by
Dutch economist Hans Labohm in http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=072004B
Illarionov's reference to Lysenkoism was particularly poignant. Explore here also the delightful blog by
Prof Philip Stott. Browse and enjoy:
***************************************
The rush towards biofuels is threatening world food
production and the lives of billions of people, the UK Government's Chief
Scientific Adviser said yesterday. Professor John Beddington put himself
at odds with ministers who have committed
--The Times, 7 March 2008
------------------------------------------------
In the pantheon of well-intentioned governmental
policies gone awry, massive ethanol biofuel production may go down as one of
the biggest blunders in history. An unholy alliance of environmentalists,
agribusiness, biofuel corporations and politicians has been touting ethanol as
the cure to all our environmental ills, when in fact it may be doing more harm
than good. An array of unintended consequences is wreaking havoc on the
economy, food production and, perhaps most ironically, the environment.
--Cinnamon Stillwell, San Francisco Chronicle, 2
April 2008
******************************************************
Book review: Just about
the most sensible statement about the whole gamut of global warming issues,
summarizing the science, economics, and even some of the psychology that's
driving the current madness. The best antidote to Al Gore's nonsense. It should
be required reading for politicians
everywhere before they ruin their national economies by hasty actions
and perversely irrational energy policies. I look forward to reading An Appeal To Reason: A Cool Look At Global
Warming by Nigel Lawson
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=557374&in_page_id=177
------------------------------------------------
And
a devastating review by Wm Tucker of Tom Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded Earth:
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=13999
***************************************
UNDER THE BOTTOM LINE
We Blame Global Warming:
Western Nebraska Starts Planning for Winter --
--------------------------------------
Climate Change Isn’t All Bad: Haggis at Risk From Global Warming --Daily Telegraph (
#############################
1.
by Henry Payne,
Oct 9, 2008]
Detroit
— Top climatologist James Hansen endorses anti-industry vandalism to fight
global warming and, as noted below, Reuters reports
that atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen sees a global financial meltdown as
environmentally beneficial. “If we are
looking at a slowdown in the economy,” says the Nobel Prize winner, “there will
be less fossil fuels burning, so for the climate it could be an
advantage.”
A round-trip ticket from Planet Gore to a little
place called
The result of all this slowing down has been a
nation-leading reduction in carbon emissions as a direct result of lost jobs
and population.
But Michigan
citizens are hardly cheering the “advantages” this has brought to Mother Earth.
Rather than vandalizing CO2-producing industries as Professor Hansen might
preach, the state (led by a green Democratic governor, in fact) has showered
over $100 million in tax breaks on carbon-producing manufacturers in a
desperate attempt to keep jobs in state.
Crutzen concedes
that sacrificing economic prosperity on the green altar might sound “cruel.”
Yes, and the idea that two leading scientists seriously discuss things like
vandalism and the benefits of financial meltdown only shows how silly the global
warming movement really is.
**********************************************
2. GIANT
SUCKING SOUND
By Chris Horner
Here's where all of that purchasing power you
are now acknowledged as about to lose under the Dingell-Boucher global warming
bill is set to go. Although it goes to
pretty extreme lengths in the form of obtuse legislative language to hide
what’s actually going on in their allocation of where the ration coupons will —
that is, how many under each of four options are reserved for purposes of
effective taxation — they do make clear that the money raised will be a
lot.
After all, how else could you fill all of these coffers:
‘‘SEC. 731.
AUCTION PROCEEDS.
‘‘(a) FUNDS ESTABLISHED.—There are established in the Treasury of the United
States the following funds:
‘‘(1) The Climate Change Management Fund.
‘‘(2) The National Energy Efficiency Fund.
‘‘(3) The Low Income Consumer Climate Change Rebate Fund.
‘‘(4) The Consumer Climate Change Rebate Fund.
‘‘(5) The Supplemental Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.
‘‘(6) The Low-Carbon Technology Fund.
‘‘(7) The Green Jobs Fund.
‘‘(8) The National Climate Change Adaptation Fund.
‘‘(9) The Natural Resource Climate Change Adaptation Fund.
‘‘(10) The
International Clean Technology and Adaptation Fund.
‘‘(11) The Strategic Reserve Fund.
http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmQ1Y2M0ODczYTAwZjdmODQzNTZkMmFmNTQ5YmQ2N2M=
************************************
3.
CONSENSUS WATCH (a satire)
October 09, 2008
http://planetmoron.typepad.com/planet_moron/2008/10/consensus-watch-10092008.html
An ongoing series dedicated to vigorously
monitoring emerging threats to The
Consensus that global warming is real,
caused by humans, and must be addressed immediately if we are to forestall
cataclysm. After all, without consensus, scientific conclusions would remain
vulnerable to new data and alternative hypotheses that better fit recorded
observations!
The
Consensus has come under assault
from a familiar foe. At
a recent presentation before the
Texas Public Policy Foundation, Roy W. Spencer, Principal Research Scientist at
The University of Alabama in Huntsville, demonstrated how testing current climate models against actual
satellite data reveals fatal flaws underlying the assumptions regarding the
feedback mechanisms related to heat capture, CO2 and cloud formation.
This
is a standard smear tactic used by global warming deniers, in which they take
observed data and apply it in a straightforward manner to reach verifiable
conclusions.
Okay,
that doesn’t sound as bad when you say it out loud. However, we’ve
already established that The Consensus is true, so the real
question is not so much how do we subject it to critical examination that may
yield superior climate models and in so doing generate information that could
be better acted upon by policy makers, it’s how do we defend it from any and
all criticism.
Fortunately,
Al Gore has two suggestions on how to better shore up the science underlying The
Consensus:
· Vandalism:
Al Gore has called for civil disobedience to stop the construction of new coal plants that do not
incorporate carbon sequestration, a process by which coal plants are made
too
expensive to build. (So it’s sort of a
win-win.) This kind of direct action skips the laborious, time-consuming
process of building political support among the citizenry, who, let’s face it,
clearly do not recognize the size and magnitude of the problem Al Gore is still
having getting
over the 2000 election.
· Suppression:
Al Gore has also called
on attorneys-general across the country to
prosecute public companies for committing stock fraud if they challenge The
Consensus. People who might object to using state law enforcement to
suppress dissenting views clearly lack an understanding of the history of
scientific inquiry:
If
someone as revered as Galileo can face
criminal prosecution for challenging the
prevailing consensus, then who are we too argue?
Of
course, Galileo lived in what we now refer to as the Golden Age of Consensus
Enforcement. It makes our attempts at intimidation look feeble in
comparison. Sure, you can threaten to strip
someone of their scientific certification.
But you know what would be better? Threatening to imprison them for life. Sometimes it’s that little extra bit that
helps to get you over the top.
Now,
yes, you could argue that Galileo happened to be, in the strictest technical
sense of the word, correct, regarding the motions of the planets, but that’s
not really the point. The point is that we need a similar enforcement
mechanism to get Richard
Lindzen to sign something like
this:
I, Richard Lindzen, having
before my eyes and touching with my hands, the Fourth Assessment Report, Climate Change 2007, swear that I have always believed,
do believe, and by Al Gore's help will in the future believe, all that is held,
preached, and taught by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change. But whereas --
after an injunction had been judicially intimated to me by the United Nations,
to the effect that I must altogether abandon the false opinion that the sun is
possibly a greater contributor to climate change than anthropogenic CO2
emissions, and that I must not hold, defend, or teach in any way whatsoever,
verbally or in writing, the said false doctrine.
Therefore, I, the said Richard Lindzen, have abjured, sworn, promised, and bound myself as above; and in witness of the truth thereof I have with my own hand subscribed the present document of my abjuration, and recited it word for word at Al Gore’s mansion, in the state of Tennessee, this ninth day of October, 2008.
Now that’s how you set
someone straight, old-school.
*****************************
4.
EUROPE FOLLOWS
FUSION TWIN TRACK
An experimental facility could be built towards the end of the next
decade. An alternative fusion project
has been kicked off in Europe that would seek abundant clean energy using a
colossal laser the size of a football stadium.
The laser would tap the energy by squeezing together atoms of hydrogen -
a process very similar to the one that powers the Sun.
Europe is already engaged in the ITER fusion venture that aims for the
same outcome but via magnetic compression.
The Hiper programme is seen as a necessary complementary route. The technical challenge of making fusion
happen, however, is huge; and a viable solution has eluded scientists for 50
years.
The Hiper (High Power Laser Energy Research) study has been instigated
by the European Commission and involves the participation of 26 institutions
from 10 countries. Keys players are the UK, the Czech Republic and France. The intention is to establish the
practicalities of building an experimental facility to demonstrate so-called
Inertially Confined Fusion Energy.
This would see a high-powered laser-pulse compress a ball-bearing-sized
pellet of "heavy" hydrogen - the atomic forms, or isotopes, known as
deuterium and tritium - to achieve a density 30 times that of lead. A second
pulse of light would then raise the temperature in the compressed pellet to
more than 100 million Celsius. In these
conditions, the hydrogen nuclei would fuse to form helium. According to theory,
a small amount of mass would be lost and a colossal amount of energy would be
released.
The "proof of principle" of laser fusion is anticipated in
the next few years based on two very large-scale lasers currently nearing
completion - at the National Ignition Facility in California, US, and at Laser
Megajoule in Bordeaux, France. It is
hoped these facilities will show in single experimental events that more energy
can be got out of the process than is required to initiate it.
Hiper's role will be to demonstrate the technical practicalities of
exploiting the principle, of turning those single events into a continuous
cycle that will make commercial power plants are reality. Last week, the legal documentation was signed
to start the current phase of Hiper. It is being funded with 13m euros of hard
cash and approximately 50m euros of what is termed in-kind assistance - the
provision of hardware and expertise from member parties.
Assuming all goes well, the feasibility study will be followed by a
period of prototyping, leading to the building of a demonstration unit towards
the end of the next decade. The
timescales involved are not dissimilar to the other type of fusion now being
pursued by the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, under
construction at Cadarache in France. It
will try to initiate fusion in a super-heated volume of gas constrained by
magnetic fields in a doughnut-shaped vessel.
==========================================
Europe
moves forward with laser-fusion plans HiPER project enters
'preparatory phase'
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/36158
"But to demonstrate that the technique can be used as an energy
source, physicists will have to prove it can cause ignition. This may be
possible with a higher-energy laser system being put in place at Osaka or
possibly on similar facilities starting up at the University of Rochester in
the US and at a French Atomic Energy Commission site near Bordeaux." http://www.lle.rochester.edu/index.php
********************************
5.
RENAULT BETS ON ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
The French carmaker doubts that hybrids can reduce emissions
sufficiently.
Might the most fuel-efficient vehicles in mass production--powerful
hybrids, such as Toyota's Prius, which can run on either gasoline or
electricity--already be destined for the science museum? That's the argument
that French carmaker Renault is making at the Mondial de l'Automobile, the
giant auto show running in Paris this week. Renault says that it is engineering
a pair of battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs), to be produced starting in
2011, that it claims will be cheaper to build, cost markedly less to power, and
produce far less carbon dioxide.
Renault's vision for electric cars is small vehicles principally
designed for commuting. At the Paris show, Renault unveiled a concept car
showing the design of a compact EV commuter car: an EV version of its Kangoo
utility van, with startling acid-green windows to minimize air conditioning and
a lithium-ion battery that carries the van 160 to 200 kilometers on an average
charge. That range "really covers the usage by our customers, who are using
their cars only for commuting and maybe short trips during the weekend,"
says Renault EV project director Serge Yoccoz. As a result, he predicts that
such EVs could capture from 10 to 15 percent of the European car market as
early as 2015. (Hybrids currently command just 2 percent of auto sales
worldwide.)
Renault won't be the first to test the commuter market with battery
EVs. Mitsubishi Motors announced in Paris last week that it will begin testing
its i-MiEV minicar in Europe next month with a view to commercial sales by
2010. Daimler, meanwhile, said that a battery version of its popular Smart
Fortwo, in testing in London since last year, will be sold starting at the end
of 2009.
Renault says that EVs are a necessity because hybrids cannot deliver
the level of gasoline use and emissions reductions that governments and
customers are demanding of automakers. The EV is the breakthrough required
because, according to Renault, driving the EV Kangoo displayed in Paris
generates zero carbon dioxide when charged with renewable energy, and no more
than 60 grams per kilometer when charged on today's coal-heavy power grids;
when charging in France, carbon-dioxide emissions would be somewhere in between
because nuclear power provides 80 percent of France's electricity. Any of those
scenarios compares well with the more than 130 grams of carbon dioxide per
kilometer coming out the tailpipe of Renault's diesel-fueled Kangoos, which are
relatively efficient vehicles for their class.
Lithium batteries for Renault's first round of products, at least, will
come from a joint venture of Japan's Nissan, with which Renault is partnering
on EV technology development, and NEC. Newer lithium technologies have eclipsed
the performance of the joint venture's manganese-based lithium-ion chemistry,
but Yoccoz says that the Nissan-NEC process is one of the cheapest.
Renault bets that ultimately, the relative simplicity of battery EVs
should make them cheaper than plug-in hybrids such as General Motors' Chevy
Volt, a vehicle that GM plans to launch in 2010 that will couple a
commuter-range battery that can be charged overnight with a gasoline
engine-generator to sustain the vehicle on longer trips. "Putting two
engines in a car is . . . more complicated, and it's more expensive," says
Yoccoz. "Even including infrastructure costs, the electric vehicle is
still a better proposition from an economical point of view."
But the downside to Renault's plan is, of course, vehicle range.
"We're not talking about holidays," acknowledges Yoccoz. Frank Weber,
GM's global vehicle line executive for the Chevy Volt--one of the few full
hybrids on display in Paris--calls that a trap: "You don't want to be in
exactly this corner where you say, 'Here's this purpose-built little
car.'"
Weber predicts that while most drivers don't go very far on a typical
day, they will still expect more from a car. He says that EV commuter cars with
limited range will remain a niche market, and therefore will never reach the
scale needed to bring down costs--especially important when it comes to
still-pricey lithium-ion batteries. "Electric vehicles are not a good
choice," says Weber.
Yoccoz says that's precisely why automakers that are talking up EVs,
such as Renault, Mitsubishi, and Mercedes, are also working to catalyze the
installation of charging stations. Renault is working with Project Better
Place, based in Palo Alto, CA, to install charging stations in Denmark and
Israel, where the company will market its first EVs, starting with the Kangoo
and an EV version of an as yet unreleased sedan called the Fluence, targeted at
the Israeli market. Daimler, meanwhile, established a partnership with German
utility RWE last month to install 500 EV charging points in Berlin, where the
carmaker will deploy more than 100 of its EV Smart Fortwos. And this week,
Paris said that it would make 4,000 EVs available on its streets in 2010
through an automobile version of Velib, its popular bike-rental program.
Helping to accelerate the development of that charging infrastructure
and pushing governments to reward development of ultra-clean vehicles is what
Yoccoz calls his second and third jobs. "With our usual products, the main
job is to find the customers, define what their needs are, and then find a
product for their needs," he says. "What we have to do on top of that
for the electric vehicle is really redefine a business model."
***********************
6.
ENVIRONMENTAL GUILT
By David A. Farendtholt, The Washington Post, 6 October 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/05/AR2008100502518_pf.html
This is strange territory. The Dow is down. Wall Street needs a bailout. But in the Washington area and across the country, there is still a bull market in environmental guilt.
Sales of carbon offsets -- whose buyers pay hard cash to make amends for their sins against the climate -- are up. Still. In some cases, the prices have actually been climbing. In other words, when nearly everything seems to be selling for less, thousands of individuals and businesses are paying more for nothing, or at least nothing tangible.
Experts say this is possible, in part, for economic reasons: The financial crisis has not yet reached those upper-middle-class consumers who are willing to pay $12 to offset a cross-country flight, $80 for a wedding or $400-plus for a year of life.
But there is also a cultural factor, the legacy of a complicated decade defined by a "green" awakening and a national splurge in consumer spending. Many people have learned to pay to lessen their climate shame -- and, at least for now, they don't think of it as a luxury purchase.
"I was feeling really guilty because I was basically traveling to three continents in the last month: 'I've spent basically six days on an airplane. I've got to fix this,' " said Michael Sheets, 27, who lives in the District's Logan Circle neighborhood. So a few days ago, Sheets paid $240 to a Silver Spring-based vendor, Carbonfund.org, choosing its offsets because they were more than $100 cheaper than a comparable package from another offset seller. He got back an e-mail saying that the 52,920 pounds of greenhouse-gas emissions attributable to him for the entire year, including his trips to Trinidad, Thailand and Argentina, had been canceled out. "I feel much better about it," said Sheets, human resources director for an online-education company in Northern Virginia. "I don't feel as guilty about flying to Vegas tomorrow for the weekend."
On the surface, offsets sound like a simple transaction. Generally, the buyer uses an online tool to calculate the carbon footprint -- the amount of harmful emissions -- of a car, a flight or a year's activities. Then the buyer pays an offset vendor to cancel out that footprint. This is done through projects that stop emissions from occurring or remove pollutants from the air.
Some offsets are sold like stocks on the Chicago Climate Exchange. Other groups sell them directly to consumers. One study last year found that offset prices ranged from $1.80 per ton of emissions to $300, with most about $6.10.
Watchdog groups say offset
vendors sometimes do not deliver what they promise. Some offset projects, such
as mass tree plantings aimed at absorbing carbon dioxide, deliver climate
benefits that are difficult to measure. In other cases, it is unclear whether
offsets funnel money to existing projects or to projects that might have been
done anyway. Despite those concerns --
and despite continuing turmoil in world financial markets -- offset sales are
strong. And offsets are selling for more.
======================================================
Carbon offsets are all the rage for some. They’re like papal dispensation for the environmentally concerned who just have to get to Vail right away in their G5.
Here’s Bloomberg’s recent
summary of a new GAO report:
http://thechillingeffect.org/2008/10/01/digging-deeper-on-gaos-carbon-offset-study/
The supply of offsets from projects that produce clean energy or remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere reached 10.2 million tons in 2007, 65 percent more than 2004, according to a report today from the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. There is no broad federal oversight of the offset market and limited protection for consumers, the report said.
Buyers of U.S. carbon offsets,
credits that represent greenhouse gas reductions, need greater assurance that
their purchase will lead to actual cuts in global warming gases
**************************
7. THE SCEPTICS
HANDBOOK
http://joannenova.com.au/globalwarming/scepticshandbook1-3.pdf
Review by E. Calvin Beisner, National Spokesman, Cornwall Alliance for the
Stewardship of Creation
Joanne Nova, a Ph.D. in meteorology, believed in manmade warming by carbon dioxide emissions from 1990-2007. But not any more. She is now convinced that the evidence is conclusive: carbon dioxide, whatever its contribution to the overall greenhouse effect, is a bit player in temperature changes and responds to rather than driving them.
That's the thrust of The Sceptics Handbook. It might be the clearest, simplest,
best-organized critique of global warming alarmism yet produced. It offers what
she calls "the strategies and tools you need to cut through the
red-herrings, and avoid the traps."
Don’t fall for the ‘complexity’ argument, or accept vague answers. The climate is complex, but the only thing that matters here is whether adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will make the world much warmer.
Everything hinges on this one question. If carbon dioxide is not a significant cause, then carbon sequestration, cap ‘n trade, emissions trading, and the Kyoto agreement are a waste of time and money. All of them divert resources away from things that matter -- like finding a cure for cancer, or feeding Somali babies. Having a real debate IS the best thing for the environment.
Nova recommends what she calls "the surgical
strike":
1. Stick to the four points that matter. There is only one question and four points worth discussing. Every time you allow the conversation to stray, you get stuck in a dead end, and miss the chance to definitively expose the lack of evidence that carbon is ‘bad’.
2. Ask questions. Non believers don’t have to prove anything. Sceptics are not asking the world for money or power. Believers need to explain their case, so let them do the talking. As long as the question you asked doesn’t get resolved, repeat it.
3. Greenhouse and global warming are different. Don’t let people confuse global warming with greenhouse gases. Mixing these two different topics has confounded the debate. Proof of global warming is not proof that greenhouse gases caused that warming.
4. Deal with the bully-boy. It’s entirely reasonable to ask for evidence. If you are met with dismissive, intimidatory, or bullying behavior, don’t ignore it. Ask them why they’re not willing to explain their case. In scientific discussions, no theory is sacrosanct. Taboos belong in religions.
What are "the only four points that matter"?
According to Nova:
1. The greenhouse signature is missing. Weather balloons have scanned the skies for years but can find no sign of the telltale ‘hot-spot’ warming pattern that greenhouse gases would leave. There’s not even a hint.... Something else caused the warming.
2. The strongest evidence was the ice cores, but newer more detailed data turned the theory inside out. Instead of carbon pushing up temperatures, for the last half a million years temperatures have gone up before carbon dioxide levels. On average 800 years before. This totally threw what we thought was cause-and-effect out the window. Something else caused the warming.
3. Temperatures are not rising. Satellites circling the planet twice a day show that the world has not warmed since 2001. How many more years of NO global warming will it take? While temperatures have been flat, CO2 has been rising, BUT something else has changed the trend. The computer models don’t know what it is.
4. Carbon dioxide is already doing almost all the warming it can do. Adding twice the CO2 doesn’t make twice the difference. The first CO2 molecules matter a lot. But extra ones have less and less effect. In fact carbon levels have been ten times as high in the past, but the world still slipped into an ice age. Carbon today is a bit-part player.
*******************************
8. OBAMA TO DECLARE CARBON DIOXIDE DANGEROUS
POLLUTANT
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a2RHIj_6hvV0&refer=home
Oct.
16 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama will classify carbon
dioxide as a dangerous pollutant that can be regulated should he win the
presidential election on Nov. 4, opening the way for new rules on greenhouse
gas emissions.
The Democratic senator
from Illinois will tell the Environmental Protection Agency that it may use the
1990 Clean Air Act to set emissions limits on power plants and manufacturers,
his energy adviser, Jason Grumet, said in an interview.
President George W. Bush declined to curb CO2
emissions under the law even after the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the
government may do so.
Comment
by Tom Randall, Winningreen, October 16, 2008
If elected, Barack Obama will move
immediately to declare carbon dioxide a pollutant that causes global warming
and order the Environmental Protection Agency to limit emissions of the gas,
according to Bloomberg News. Such a cap would crush the already
staggering U.S. economy by limiting energy use and causing prices to skyrocket.
Since
Obama's supporters tout him to be one of the smarter guys ever to run for
elective office and his campaign has a massive team of energy
"experts," they must realize that he knows carbon emissions are not
causing global warming. Even a cursory review of climate and emissions
records makes that obvious. His motive can only be control of the means of
production as his socialist views dictate.
Response 1: The report of Obama's intentions to, in effect, take
over the energy industry comes at a time when Alaska's glaciers are reported to
be growing for the first time in decades and century-old low temperature
records are being shattered along American's west coast.
Response 2: States highlighted by Bloomberg as being affected by limits
on coal-fired electricity production are Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas,
Montana, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia
and Florida.
Response 3: Lest you think sound science carries more weight than
ideology, there are plenty of scientists who know carbon dioxide emissions are
not causing climate change and that restricting emissions will cause great
economic hardship who will vote for Obama anyway.
Response 4: As they say in Chicago in addition to "Vote
early and often" "go figure."
=========================================================================
IPCC ENDORSES
OBAMA (policy-neutral, my foot!)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601130&sid=aZ_LkUY_sJUc&refer=environment
Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- The election of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama
would help clear the deadlock in United Nations talks to slow global warming,
said Rajendra Pachauri, head of a United Nations panel of climate-change
scientists.
"A critical factor in these talks is the position of the U.S.,"
Pachauri, chairman of the UN panel that shared last year's Nobel Peace Prize
with Al Gore, said today in an interview in Berlin. "If Obama is elected,
and this seems more likely, this would create positive momentum" for the
UN talks.
Obama, a Democratic senator from Illinois vying with Arizona Republican Senator
John McCain for the presidency, and his advisers have indicated policies will
be implemented that will push climate- change talks ahead, Pachauri said
without providing details. Last year's UN meeting in Bali was a "positive
step" that needs to be moved forward, helped especially by the U.S., he added.
U.S. voters go to the polls on Nov. 4.
Negotiators from almost 200 countries will meet in December at a UN conference
in Poznan, Poland, to discuss ways to limit carbon dioxide that contributes to
global warming. The talks are aimed at reaching an accord to replace the Kyoto
protocol, which the U.S. has not signed, by next year at a Copenhagen
conference.
Obama will tell the Environmental Protection Agency that it may use the 1990
Clean Air Act to set emissions limits on power plants and manufacturers should
he win the presidential election, his energy adviser, Jason Grumet, said in an
interview. President George W. Bush declined to curb CO2 emissions under the
law even after the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 the government may do so.