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"If you allow me four
free parameters, I can build a mathematical model that describes an elephant.
If you allow me a fifth free parameter, I can make his trunk wiggle" –
John von Neumann - mathematical physicist. [It also applies to climate models]
********************************
THIS
WEEK
As anticipated (see “Fearless Forecast” in TWTW of Dec 27,
2008), the Obama White House is not rushing into precipitous climate
policies. Obama aides said he still
planned to pursue the full agenda that undergirded his presidential campaign
later this year or perhaps later in his term.
"Our intent is to follow through on all of our commitments,"
said his senior adviser, David Axelrod, "but obviously we have to
prioritize."
For now, though, said Rahm Emanuel, the incoming White House chief of staff, on
domestic policy, only one thing matters. "Our No. 1 goal: jobs," Mr.
Emanuel said. "Our No. 2 goal: jobs. Our No. 3 goal: jobs."
The strategy has unsettled some constituency groups and advocacy lobbies on the
left that have been agitating for quick action on their top goals after eight
years of a Republican administration.
Advocates and lawmakers said they understood that Mr. Obama needed to
concentrate on the economy at first and have tempered their grievances so far.
But many expressed concern that priorities deferred might become priorities
abandoned....
On issues like immigration and climate change, Mr. Obama may focus on narrow
moves first. He wants money in the
economic package to double alternative fuels in the next three years, but his
promise to enact a market-based limit on carbon called cap-and-trade does not
appear on a fast track. "I'm not sure this year because I don't know if
we'll be ready," the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of
Source: NY Times, 10 Jan 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/us/politics/11obama.html?hp
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite a well-funded ad campaign by environmentalists
attacking the industry, and a huge coal-ash spill in Tennessee that has led to
calls for more regulation, the [coal] industry has received positive assurances
this week from President-elect Barack Obama's nominees that the new
administration is committed to keeping coal a big part of the nation's energy
source.
On Wednesday, Mr. Obama's choice to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, Lisa Jackson, described coal to a Senate panel as "a vital
resource" for the country. A day earlier, Mr. Obama's nominee to run the
Energy Department, physicist Steven Chu, referred to coal as a "great
natural resource." Two years ago, he called the expansion of coal-fired
power plants his "worst nightmare."
The comments indicated the new administration is trying to steer toward the
center in the debate over the costs associated with curbing fossil fuels and
the greenhouse gases they produce.
Source: WSJ, 15 Jan 2009 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123198153797183981.html
Henry Waxman (D-CA) said he expected coal to "play an
important role in our overall sources of energy" in the future. Is the economic downturn causing more
realism? Are the adults taking
over? Stay tuned …
***********************
SEPP Science Editorial #3-09 (1/17/09)
The adequacy of fissionable material may become a serious problem in the decades ahead. In principle, the world’s supplies of uranium are inexhaustible. After commercially useful ores become depleted, however, one has to rely on granites and ultimately on sea water, where the recovery costs may become prohibitive.
At the same time we will have available huge amounts of spent fuel containing fissionable U-235 and plutonium isotopes that could be recycled into new fuel elements. In addition, the greatest resource could come from the non-fissionable U-238 in spent fuel, from depleted uranium, and from vast natural resources of thorium ores. To turn these into useful fissionable material that can be burned in conventional reactors requires not only recycling and reprocessing of spent fuel but also the construction of breeder reactors or the use of fusion processes and other means that create neutrons -- which can in turn transform non-fissionable materials into fissionable ones.
By 2015 there will be enough spent thermal-reactor fuel on hand (globally) to start up 200-300 GWe of breeder reactors, with some 10 GWe's worth more coming in every year. Clearly, with proper planning NOW we won't be hurting for fissile material for decades. Once established, breeders can propagate themselves at a rate of 5-10% per year, depending on reactor parameters.
One useful byproduct of reprocessing and recycling, if done properly, is the elimination of long-lived radio-isotopes which removes one of the chief concerns about the handling of spent nuclear fuel. One such concept is the Integrated Fast Reactor (IFR), which can burn up these trans-uranic isotopes.
The technical problems are vast but the
political problems may be even greater.
There have been long-standing objections in the
****************************************************************
1. GW czar Carol Browner’s many strange
connections -- WashTimes
2.
3. Carbon tax: the lesser of two evils –IBD
editorial
4. Hype about global warming and disease -- WSJ
5. Senate Republicans need to demand
re-examination on global warming – Amer. Thinker
6. Shivering at the Auto Show: Thoughts at large
– Henry Payne
7. Green Wacko Tobacco: Meet
the real "deniers" and "tobacco scientists" – Chris Horner
8. Protecting the IPCC turf
-- 'no independent climate assessments!' – Roger Pielke, Sr
***************************************
NEWS YOU CAN USE
Bush's Achievements: From “Ten things the president got right.” by Fred
Barnes
Excerpt: Bush had ten great achievements (and maybe more) in his eight
years in the White House, starting with his decision in 2001 to jettison the
Kyoto global warming treaty so beloved by Al Gore, the environmental lobby,
elite opinion, and Europeans. The treaty
was a disaster, with
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/986rockt.asp
**********************************
We need a ‘second opinion’ on GW science to overcome the
UN-IPCC monopoly. See this thoughtful
essay (pp. 6-7) at http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200901/upload/january09.pdf
***********************
Japanese Report Disputes Human Cause for Global Warming: 1/14/2009 | Michael Asher
http://www.dailytech.com/Japanese+Report+Disputes+Human+Cause+for+Global+Warming/article13934.htm
The Japanese Society of Energy and Resources (JSER) published a new study on the causes of Global Warming. Entitled, "Global warming: What is the scientific truth?”, the report highlights the differing views of five prominent Japanese scientists. All but one of the scientists disagreed that global warming is the result of human activity.
Contributing to the report were Syunichi Akasofu, professor emeritus at the University of Alaska, and former director of the Fairbanks Geophysical Institute and the International Arctic Research Center, Shigenori Maruyama, professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Kiminori Itoh, professor of Physical Chemistry at Yokohama National University, Seita Emori, head of the National Institute for Environmental Sciences, and Kanya Kusano, director of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC).
********************
Report from
And surprise ! - sea ice in the polar regions is back to its 1979 level. Will polar bears freeze to death?: http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=13834
*******************************************
Harlan Watson, Senior Climate Negotiator and Special
Representative,
******************************************
UNDER THE BOTTOM
LINE
Editorial, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY, Jan 15 http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=316828833910825
Incoming Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tells the Senate
that global warming "threatens our very existence" and she'll shape a
foreign policy to fight it. [Pardon us, but what about
"Science must be the backbone of what EPA does…EPA's addressing of
scientific decisions should reflect the expert judgment of the agency's career
scientists and independent advisers." Testimony at confirmation hearing of
EPA Administrator-designate Lisa Jackson.
SEPP
Comment: We’ll wait and see who EPA’s
independent advisers might be
**********************************************
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2009/01/climate-change-biggest-scam-of-all-by.html
More idiocy: WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - To avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change, world
carbon emissions will have to drop to near zero by 2050 and "go
negative" after that, the Worldwatch Institute reported on Tuesday.
This year could be pivotal in the movement against climate change, said co-author Robert Engelman, with "scientists more certain and concerned, the public more engaged than ever before, an incoming U.S. president bringing to the White House for the first time a solid commitment to cap and then shrink this country's massive injections of greenhouse gases ... into the atmosphere."
"However this
turns out, we still have some precious time and a clear shot at safely managing
human-induced climate change," Engelman said. "What's at stake is not
just nature as we've always known it, but quite possibly the survival of our
civilization.” WOW!
**********************************
Foreign Policy magazine publishes “Think Again: Climate Change” --- the usual tripe by Bill
McKibben. So far no reaction to SEPP’s
offer to respond. Oh well…why bother?
Let Bill McK freeze in
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4585
###################################**
1. GW CZAR CAROL BROWNER’S MANY STRANGE CONNECTIONS
Until last week, Carol M. Browner, President-elect Barack
Obama's pick as global warming czar, was listed as one of 14 leaders of a
socialist group's Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which calls for
"global governance" and says rich countries must shrink their
economies to address climate change.
By Thursday, Mrs. Browner's name and biography had been
removed from Socialist International's Web page, though a photo of her speaking
June 30 to the group's congress in
Socialist International, an umbrella group for many of the
world's social democratic political parties such as
Mr. Obama, who has said action on climate change would be a
priority in his administration, tapped Mrs. Browner last month to fill a new
position as White House coordinator of climate and energy policies. The
appointment does not need Senate confirmation.
Mr. Obama's transition team said Mrs. Browner's membership
in the organization is not a problem and that it brings experience in
"Carol Browner was chosen to help the president-elect
coordinate energy and climate policy because she understands that our efforts
to create jobs, achieve energy security and combat climate change demand
integration among different agencies; cooperation between federal, state and local
governments; and partnership with the private sector," Mr. Shapiro said in
an e-mail.
Mrs. Browner ran the Environmental Protection Agency under
President Clinton. Until she was tapped for the Obama administration, she was
on the board of directors for the National Audubon Society, the League of
Conservation Voters, the Center for American Progress and former Vice President
Al Gore's
Her name has been removed from the Gore organization's Web site list of directors, and the Audubon Society issued a press release about her departure from that organization.
*********************************************
2.
PROFESSOR DENIES GLOBAL WARMING THEORY:
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2009/01/12/22506
Physics professor
William Happer GS ’64 has some tough words for scientists who believe that
carbon dioxide is causing global warming. “This is George Orwell. This is the
‘Germans are the master race. The Jews are the scum of the earth.’ It’s that
kind of propaganda,” Happer, the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics, said
in an interview. “Carbon dioxide is not
a pollutant. Every time you exhale, you exhale air that has 4 percent carbon
dioxide. To say that that’s a pollutant just boggles my mind. What used to be
science has turned into a cult.”
Happer served as
director of the Office of Energy Research in the U.S. Department of Energy
under President George H.W. Bush and was subsequently fired by Vice President
Al Gore, reportedly for his refusal to support Gore’s views on climate change.
He asked last month to be added to a list of global warming dissenters in a
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee report. The list includes more
than 650 experts who challenge the belief that human activity is contributing
to global warming
Though Happer has
promulgated his skepticism in the past, he requested to be named a skeptic in
light of the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, whose administration
has, as Happer notes, “stated that carbon dioxide is a pollutant” and that
humans are “poisoning the atmosphere.”
Happer maintains
that he doubts there is any strong anthropogenic influence on global
temperature. “All the evidence I see is that the current warming of the climate
is just like past warmings. In fact, it’s not as much as past warmings yet, and
it probably has little to do with carbon dioxide, just like past warmings had
little to do with carbon dioxide,” Happer explained.
Happer is chair of
the board of directors at the George C. Marshall Institute, a nonprofit
conservative think tank known for its attempts to highlight uncertainties about
causes of global warming. The institute was founded by former National Academy
of Sciences president and prominent physicist Frederick Seitz GS ’34, who
publicly expressed his skepticism of the claim that global warming is caused by
human activity.
Happer explained his
reasoning for challenging the climate change movement, citing his research and
scientific knowledge. “I have spent a long research career studying physics
that is closely related to the greenhouse effect, for example, absorption and
emission of visible and infrared radiation, and fluid flow,” he said in the
statement. “Based on my experience, I am convinced that the current alarm over
carbon dioxide is mistaken.”
Geosciences professor
Michael Oppenheimer, a lead author of the fourth report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) whose members, along with
Gore, received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize said in an interview that Happer’s
claims are “simply not true.” Oppenheimer, director of the Wilson School’s
Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy, stressed that the
preponderance of evidence and majority of expert opinion points to a strong
anthropogenic influence on rising global temperatures, noting that he advises
Happer to read the IPCC’s report and publish a scientific report detailing his
objections to its findings.
The University is
home to a number of renowned climate change scientists. Ecology and
evolutionary biology professor Stephen Pacala and mechanical and aerospace
engineering professor Robert Socolow, who are co-chairs of the Carbon
Mitigation Initiative (CMI) and the Princeton Environmental Institute,
developed a set of 15 “stabilization wedges.” These are existing technologies
that would, by the year 2054, each prevent 1 billion tons of carbon emissions.
They argue that the implementation of seven of these wedges would be needed to
reach a target level of carbon in the atmosphere. Neither Pacala nor Socolow
could be reached for comment.
Happer said that he
is alarmed by the funding that climate change scientists, such as Pacala and
Socolow, receive from the private sector. “Their whole career depends on
pushing. They have no other reason to exist. I could care less. I don’t get a dime
one way or another from the global warming issue,” Happer noted. “I’m not on
the payroll of oil companies as they are. They are funded by BP.” The CMI has
had a research partnership with BP since 2000 and receives $2 million each year
from the company. In October, BP announced that it would extend the partnership
which had been scheduled to expire in 2010 by five years.
Happer explained
that his beliefs about climate change come from his experience at the
Department of Energy, at which Happer said he supervised all non-weapons energy
research, including climate change research. Managing a budget of more than $3
billion, Happer said he felt compelled to make sure it was being spent
properly. “I would have [researchers] come in, and they would brief me on their
topics,” Happer explained. “They would show up. Shiny faces, presentation ready
to go. I would ask them questions, and they would be just delighted when you
asked. That was true of almost every group that came in.” The exceptions were
climate change scientists, he said. “They would give me a briefing. It was a
completely different experience. I remember one speaker who asked why I wanted
to know, why I asked that question. So I said, you know I always ask questions
at these briefings … I often get a much better view of [things] in the
interchange with the speaker,” Happer said. “This guy looked at me and said,
‘What answer would you like?’ I knew I was in trouble then. This was a
community even in the early 1990s that was being turned political. [The
attitude was] ‘Give me all this money, and I’ll get the answer you like.’ ”
Happer said he is
dismayed by the politicization of the issue and believes the community of
climate change scientists has become a veritable “religious cult,” noting that
nobody understands or questions any of the science. He noted in an interview
that in the past decade, despite what he called “alarmist” claims, there has
not only been no warming, there has in fact been global cooling. He added that
climate change scientists are unable to use models to either predict the future
or accurately model past events. “There was a baseball sage who said prediction
is hard, especially of the future, but the implication was that you could look
at the past and at least second-guess the past,” Happer explained. “They can’t
even do that.”
A [GW] problem does
not in fact exist, he said, and society should not sacrifice for nothing.
“[Climate change theory has] been extremely bad for science. It’s going to give
science a really bad name in the future,” he said. “I think science is one of
the great triumphs of humankind, and I hate to see it dragged through the mud
in an episode like this.”
**********************
3. CARBON TAX: THE LESSER
OF TWO EVILS
It's a sad
commentary when CEOs have to support things that aren't in their interest,
solely to survive, says Investor's Business Daily (IBD). That's certainly the case with Exxon Mobil
CEO Rex Tillerson, who in a speech last Thursday, said a carbon tax would be a
"more direct, a more transparent and a more effective approach" than
many of the current plans for curbing greenhouse gases, including the
cap-and-trade approach favored by President-elect Barack Obama.
"My greatest
concern is that policymakers will attempt to mandate or ordain solutions that
are doomed to fail," Tillerson said.
Like cap-and-trade. Or new
Environmental Protection Agency rules that essentially seek to regulate
everything in our economy that uses carbon-based fuel. Since 85 percent of our energy comes from
carbon-based fuel, that means the entire economy, says IBD.
Unfortunately, many
of the proposals now being considered to cut CO2 and other greenhouse gas
emissions would entail enormous costs with very little benefit, says IBD. Take last fall's Advanced Notice of Proposed
Rulemaking (ANPR) by the EPA, which the new president has vowed to
implement. ANPR sounds innocent, but
cutting C02 output by 70 percent, as Congress has mandated, won't be easy. The
costs will be enormous and could wreck our economy, says IBD:
o According to Global Insight, ANPR could cost
the
o Meanwhile, 800,000
For the record, as
the world shivers through a second frigid winter in a row, the
o According to Energy Department data, from
2000 to 2006, per capita output of C02 in the
o Meanwhile, it increased by 3 percent in
Europe, yet, Europe's energy taxes are five to 10 times what they are in the
United States.
--------------------------------------------------
Source:
Editorial, "Carbon Tax: The Lesser Of Two Evils," Investor's Business
Daily, January 12, 2009. http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=316397035225132 H/t NCPA
*********************************
4. GLOBAL WARMING
AND DISEASE
Anyone truly worried
about malaria in impoverished countries would do well to focus on improving
human living conditions, not the weather, say Paul Reiter, director of the
Insects and Infectious Diseases Unit of the Institute Pasteur, Paris, and Roger
Bate, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
The globalization of
vectors and pathogens is a serious problem, but it is not new, say Reiter and
Bate:
o The Yellow Fever mosquito and virus were
imported into North America from
o The dengue virus is distributed throughout
the tropics and regularly jumps continents inside air passengers.
o West Nile virus likely arrived in the
The concept of
malaria as a "tropical" infection is nonsense, says Reiter and Bate,
it is a disease of the poor. Meanwhile,
malaria has been increasing at an alarming rate in parts of
o Scientists ascribe this increase to many
factors, including population growth, deforestation, rice cultivation in
previously uncultivated upland marshes, clustering of populations around these
marshes, and large numbers of people who have fled their homes because of civil
strife.
o The evolution of drug-resistant parasites
and insecticide-resistant mosquitoes, and the cessation of mosquito-control
operations are also factors.
Of course,
temperature is a factor in the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases, and
future incidence may be affected if the world's climate continues to warm. But throughout history the most critical
factors in the spread or eradication of disease has been human behavior and
living standards. Poverty has been and
remains the world's greatest killer, say Reiter and Bate.
------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Paul
Reiter and Roger Bate, "More Global Warming Nonsense," Wall Street
Journal, 4/10, 2008.
*******************************************************
5. SENATE REPUBLICANS
NEED TO DEMAND RE-EXAMINATION ON GLOBAL WARMING
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/01/senate_republicans_need_to_dem.html
By Harvey M. Sheldon, American Thinker, Jan 13, 2008
On the question of global warming control, the confirmation hearings for
President-Elect Obama's choices for environmental leadership posts present a
critical juncture for the future of
According to Reuters, President-Elect Barack Obama has asked Congress "to act
without delay" to pass legislation that includes doubling alternative
energy production in the next three years and building a new electricity
"smart grid." He said he also planned to modernize 75 percent of
federal buildings and improve energy efficiency in 2 million homes to save
consumers billions of dollars on energy bills.
It is important to understand that these pronouncements promoting energy
efficiency and alternative energy are not propositions that have anything
directly to do with the controversy over regulations of carbon dioxide or about
the "global warming" that CO2 allegedly causes. The promoted
activities address two separate and, I think, very worthwhile policy
imperatives: 1) the nation's energy security, and 2) the need for efficient
alternative and conventional energy sources and delivery systems. The global
warming question is separate, and, if mishandled, it can lead to costly and
ill-conceived interference with the two mentioned imperatives, and waste
trillions of dollars.
On global warming, and man's role in it, my friends who were devoted to the
election of Senator Obama as President, some very close to him, have assured me
in terms like: "Obama's administration will be evidence-driven" and,
"Anti-intellectualism in presidential politics is on its way out."
Supporters like these are "confident that the new administration will be
very thoughtful about using scientific evidence in making policy decisions,
including [carbon control]".
While we will all be well-served if these voter expectations on executive
process are met in President Obama's administration, there are reasons to be
skeptical and very worried that the perception is not going to be the reality.
One obvious reason is the President-elect's own pronouncements that the planet
is in peril sound like his mind is fully made up. That's the rub..
As a lawyer concentrating in environmental issues for clients, I initially
thought the advent of regulation addressing global warming issues would be
something of a societal boon in the name of a good cause, despite the added
regulatory burden and cost. It would be good for my livelihood too, because
when new regulations come along, people need their lawyers, and over the course
of a career as a lawyer, you get up on the next wave and ride it to the beach
as far as you can. With clean water and clean air at stake, it was a process
with a good purpose and result. Many national law and consulting firms are
grabbing their surfboards for climate change. They are busily forming practice groups,
holding seminars and doing whatever it takes to get this anticipated new wave
of business. Investors and the SEC are pressuring industries to disclose their
carbon-related "risk". States are already regulating the issue, and
the Supreme Court bought into the alarmist science, even though EPA demurred.
My problem with jumping on this eager bandwagon of CO2-control merchants is
that the more I look at the subject, it appears that the science supposedly
determining the earth is in peril due to human CO2 emissions is increasingly
questionable. CO2 gas, which is a very tiny component of the atmosphere, is
necessary food for plants and is breathed out by all living creatures. It is
asserted to be a danger to the earth's climate, even though it now constitutes
a bit less than 4 one-hundredths of one percent of the atmosphere by volume.
Even another one hundredth of a percent rise is asserted by some to get us in
the serious peril range. For comparison sake, it needs to be said that in the
Carboniferous Period and the Ordovician Period (geologic periods some 300 and
500 million years ago), which were the only geological periods during the
Paleozoic Era when global temperatures were as low as they are today, there was
an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were apparently
nearly 12 times higher than today-- 4400 ppm.
===================================================
When the Republican minority on the Senate Environment committee gets to voice
a few questions of Obama's nominees (even if not in prime time), I hope they
will stress two things: 1) the issue is critical, not just to the environment,
but to the future of worthwhile energy efficiency and energy security policies
for the United States, and 2) to live up to the President's promise of honesty,
transparency and good science, the Administration needs to take a fresh look at
whether human activity is really endangering the climate.
Republicans cannot expect the Obama nominees to recant the Inconvenient Truth
mantra from the witness stand. Their best hope is to get a promise of
good-faith, honest and serious review of the recent science, and a promise to
demonstrate that the need is genuine. This is hopefully possible, since, for
example, Lisa Jackson, Mr. Obama's EPA pick, is reputed to be capable of a
measured approach to volatile issues. She has serious smarts and good science
credentials, too.
Anyone serious about the policy issues here needs to start with the acceptance
of the idea that some estimable amount of the observed rise in atmospheric
concentrations of CO2 over the last century or two is due to human activity.
The real issue is whether and how much that matters to the future of the
planet. The environmentalist/alarmist theory (I stress the word theory) is that
this human addition can throw our climate out of whack.
The theory is suspect because it depends on assertions about earth's climate
history that omit or misstate important facts, and its predictions of doom are
based on global climate models that have been shown by highly competent
scientists to be incapable of the very predictions they purport to make. What
led me ultimately to believe the theory is unsound is the publication of data
and evidence that are not consistent with the theory itself being valid. When I
went to school, facts contradicting a theory meant you better re-examine your
theory. I would hope that the Obama appointees will have the intellectual and
moral integrity to examine these questions
=========================================================
In March 2008, a group of scientists led by S. Fred Singer,
Professor Emeritus the
The minority needs to press the nominees with serious determination. In March
2009 a second non-governmental forum will be held in
Senator Inhofe should challenge Lisa Jackson and the other nominees to attend
or send official representatives to the Second Non-Governmental conference, as
well as to the UN. He should ask Ms. Jackson to commit to engage with the
minority on the committee. In the context of lowered temperatures and actual
predictions of renewed short term cooling, surely they can defer for a year. If
not, they will be handing the Republicans a winning issue in 2010, because they
will have begun to disrupt American industry in the cause of suspect science
that is quite likely to prove deficient.
---------------------------------------
Harvey M. Sheldon is a partner in a
*********************************
6. SHIVERING AT
THE AUTO SHOW: THOUGHTS AT LARGE
The talk is of global warming-fighting cars, but the bone-chilling weather outside is evidence that the Detroit Three isn't the only industry that's suffered of late. Global Warming Inc. is also reeling after a year in which climate science took big hits. Even as global carbon dioxide emissions exploded, satellite readings found the globe has been cooling for over a decade. New studies have emerged finding solar cycles a much better predictor of global climate. A panel of six Nobel laureate economists rated global warming dead last in a list of ten global priorities (AIDS research was tops). The world's most-renowned scientific advocate of warming theory was widely denounced after he endorsed industrial vandalizes, arctic ice grew, polar bear populations are at historical highs, and so on.
Michigan itself is shivering from another harsh winter with snow blanketing Southeast Michigan as early as October. Now the 2009 Auto Show has been welcomed by three snowstorms in four days and temperatures forecast to plummet below zero. Both GM Vice President Bob Lutz and Johan de Nysschen, Audi's U.S. president, called this week for increasing gas taxes to encourage the auto show's bevy of fuel-sipping, pro-planet cars. But polls have consistently found the American public shy to any taxation to combat the alleged climate crisis. This winter's weather isn't likely to convince them otherwise.
******************************
7. GREEN WACKO
TOBACCO: MEET THE REAL "DENIERS" AND "TOBACCO SCIENTISTS"
by Christopher C. Horner, Human Events, 01/13/2009
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30255
2008 was a bad year for global warming alarmists. Their credibility has been entirely destroyed by none other than Mother Nature. As George W. Bush leaves office, the world is actually cooler than it was when he came in.
Lacking facts, the Gorian Gaggle is trying to tie anyone who disagrees with their propaganda to the most evil of all industries (in their eyes): the tobacco producers. Before, anyone who disputed their prophesying of a future calamity was merely a Holocaust denier. That didn’t work, so now, we’re all labeled tobacco scientists. Why is it that everything these people say sounds as if it’s echoing up from the playground or lifted from a note passed in study hall?
When I have appeared on television jointly with the president of Greenpeace USA, he has more than once struggled to yelp a last-word variant of this tobacco theme. Ironically, however, JunkScience.com’s Steven Milloy has documented how it is the Greens themselves who have adopted the tobacco industry's tactics.
These include a strategy of information laundering through ignoring or misrepresenting peer-reviewed scientific findings and cherry-picking facts, and attempting to shift the focus away to something other than research based on observation. Finally, of course, is their trademark effort to stifle legitimate debate and silence those who won’t accept their dogma.
**************************
8.
PROTECTING THE IPCC TURF -- 'NO INDEPENDENT CLIMATE ASSESSMENTS'
By Roger
Pielke, Sr. http://climatesci.org/2009/01/13/protecting-the-ipcc-turf
Excerpt: Thus, the intensity of the
dismissive and negative comments by a number of the [NRC – National Research
Council, of the National Academy of Sciences] committee members, and from even
several of the federal agency representatives, with respect to any view that
differed from the IPCC orthodoxy, made it abundantly clear [to me], that there
was no interest in vesting an assessment of climate to anyone but the IPCC.
The IPCC is
actually a relatively small group of individuals who are using the IPCC process
to control what policymakers and the public learn about climate on
multi-decadal time scales. This NRC planning process further demonstrates the
intent of the IPCC members to manipulate the science, so that their viewpoints
are the only ones that reach the policymakers. If the NSF, NASA and the NRC are
going to appoint and accept recommendations by groups with a clear conflict of
interest to protect their turf [in this case the IPCC], they will be complicit
in denying all of us a balanced presentation of the physical science basis of
climate change, including the role that humans have.
The obvious bias in
the 2007 IPCC WG1 report is illustrated in the weblogs. As it stands now, there
are no independent climate assessments of the IPCC WG1 report funded and
sanctioned by the NSF, NASA or the NRC. The agency representatives at the
NRC planning meeting on December 8 2008, either are inadvertently neglecting the
need for independent oversight, or they are deliberately ignoring this lack of
an independent assessment because the IPCC findings fit their agenda on the
climate issue.
In either case, the
policymakers and the public are being misled on the degree of understanding of
the climate system, including the human role within in it.
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SEPP Comment: And they are
evidently ignoring – or trying to -- the NIPCC report “Nature – Not Human Activity – Rules the
Climate” http://www.sepp.org/publications/NIPCC_final.pdf