Tuesday, October 27, 2009

UN signals delay in climate change treaty

UNITED NATIONS — Just weeks before an international conference on climate change, the United Nations signaled it was scaling back expectations of reaching agreement on a new treaty to slow global warming.

Janos Pasztor, director of the secretary-general's Climate Change Support Team, said Monday "it's hard to say how far the conference will be able to go" because the U.S. Congress has not agreed on a climate bill, and industrialized nations have not agreed on targets to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions or funding to help developing countries limit their discharges.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has made a new climate treaty his top priority, hosting a Sept. 22 summit on climate change to spur political support and traveling extensively to build political momentum for a global agreement to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which only requires 37 industrialized nations to cut emissions.

Pasztor told a news conference "there is tremendous activity by governments in capitals and internationally to shape the outcome" of the climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in early December, which "is a good development" because political leadership is essential to make a deal.

But he indicated that Copenhagen most likely won't produce a treaty, but instead will push governments as far as they can go on the content of an agreement.

Monday, October 26, 2009

How they are turning off the lights in America

On October 31,2009, the once largest aluminum plant in the world will shut down. With it goes another American industry and more American jobs. The Columbia Falls Aluminum Company in Montana will shut down its aluminum production because it cannot purchase the necessary electrical power to continue its operations.

How did this happen in America? America was once the envy of the world in its industrial capability. America's industrial capacity built America into the most productive nation the world had ever known. Its standard of living rose to levels never before accomplished. Its currency became valuable and powerful, allowing Americans to purchase imported goods at relatively cheap prices.

America grew because of innovation and hard work by the pioneers of the industrial revolution, and because America has vast natural resources. A great economy, as America once was, is founded on the ability to produce electrical energy at low cost. This ability has been extinguished. Why?

Columbia Falls Aluminum negotiated a contract with Bonneville Power Administration in 2006 for Bonneville to supply electrical power until September 30, 2011. But, responding to lawsuits, the 9th US Circuit Court ruled the contract was invalid because it was incompatible with the Northwest Power Act. Therefore, the combination of the Northwest Power Act and a US Circuit Court were the final villains that caused the shutdown of Columbia Falls Aluminum.

But the real reasons are much more complicated. Why was it not possible for Columbia Falls Aluminum to find sources of electricity other than Bonneville?

We need to look no further than the many environmental groups like the Sierra Club and to America's elected officials who turned their backs on American citizens and in essence themselves, for they too are citizens of this country. These officials bought into the green agenda promoted by the heavily funded environmental groups. Caving to pressure, they passed laws and the environmental groups filed lawsuits that began turning off the lights in America. The dominos started to fall.

They began stopping nuclear power plants in the 1970's. They locked up much of our coal and oil resources with land laws. They passed tax credits, which forces taxpayers to foot the bill for billionaire investors to save taxes by investing in less productive wind and solar energy projects.

In 1988, the Environmental Protection Agency called a meeting of atmospheric scientists and others with environmental interests. I remember well the meeting I attended in the San Francisco Bay Area. The meeting was in a theater-like lecture room with the seating curved to face the center stage and rising rapidly toward the back of the room. Attending were many atmospheric scientists whom I knew from Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Stanford Research Institute and some local colleges.

The room became silent when a man walked up to the lectern. He told us that the next big national problem was global warming. He explained how human carbon dioxide emissions were trapping the earth's radiation like a greenhouse and causing the atmosphere to heat beyond its normal temperature. He said this will lead to environmental disasters. He finished by saying the EPA will now concentrate its research funding toward quantifying the disasters that would be caused by our carbon dioxide.

The room was silent. I was the first to raise my hand to ask a question, "How can you defend your global warming hypothesis when you have omitted the effects of clouds which affect heat balance far more than carbon dioxide, and when your hypothesis contradicts the paper by Lee * in the Journal of Applied Meteorology in 1973 that shows the atmosphere does not behave like a greenhouse?"

He answered me by saying, "You do not know what you are talking about. I know more about how the atmosphere works than you do."

Not being one to drop out of a fight, I responded, "I know many of the atmospheric scientists in this room, and many others who are not present but I do not know you. What is your background and what makes you know so much more than me?"

He answered, "I know more than you because I am a lawyer and I work for the EPA."

After the meeting, many of my atmospheric science friends who worked for public agencies thanked me for what I said, saying they would have liked to say the same thing but they feared for their jobs.

And that, my dear readers, is my recollection of that great day when a lawyer, acting as a scientist, working for the federal government, announced global warming.

Fast forward to today. The federal government is spending 1000 times more money to promote the global warming charade than is available to those scientists who are arguing against it. Never before in history has it taken a massive publicity campaign to convince the public of a scientific truth. The only reason half the public thinks global warming may be true is the massive amount of money put into global warming propaganda.

The green eco-groups have their umbilical cords in the government's tax funds. Aside from a few honest but duped scientists living on government money, the majority of the alarms about global warming - now called "climate change" because it's no longer warming - come from those who have no professional training in atmospheric science. They are the environmentalists, the ecologists, the lawyers and the politicians. They are not the reliable atmospheric scientists whom I know.

Nevertheless, our politicians have passed laws stating that carbon dioxide is bad. See California's AB32 which is based upon science fiction. (For readers who take issue with me, I will be happy to destroy your arguments in another place. In this paper, we focus on the damage to America that is being caused by those promoting the global warming fraud.)

In the year 2000, America planned 150 new coal-electric power plants. These power plants would have been "clean" by real standards but the Greens managed to have carbon dioxide defined legally as "dirty" and this new definition makes all emitters of carbon dioxide, including you, a threat to the planet. Therefore, using legal illogic, the Sierra Club stopped 82 of these planned power plants under Bush II and they expect it will be a slam dunk to stop the rest under Obama.

And now you know the real reason the Columbia Falls Aluminum Company had to shut down. America stopped building new power plants a long time ago. There is now no other source where the company can buy energy. Our energy-producing capability is in a decline and it is taking America with it.

I used to belong to the Sierra Club in the 1960's. It used to be a nice hiking club. In the late 1960's the Sierra Club began turning its attention toward stopping nuclear power. Then I quit the Sierra Club. It continues to prosper from the many subscribers who think they are supporting a good cause. What they are really supporting is the destruction of America brick by brick. The Sierra Club and similar organizations are like watermelons - green on the outside, red on the inside. They are telling us we have no right to our own natural resources, and in doing so they are sinking America.

Inherent in ecology are three assumptions: "natural" conditions are optimal, climate is fragile, and human influences are bad. Physics makes no such assumptions. By assuming climate is fragile, the global warming supporters have assumed their conclusion. In fact, the climate is not fragile. It is stable. The non-adherence to physical logic in the global warming camp is what makes many physical scientists say that global warming is a religion.

So we have a new age religion promoted by environmentalists, incorporated into our laws and brainwashed into our people that is now destroying America from the inside.

Like a vast ship, America is taking a long time to sink but each day it sinks a little further. The fearsome day awaits, when America, if not quickly recovered by its real citizens, will tilt its nose into the water to begin a rapid and final descent into oblivion ... her many resources saved for whom?

Crap and Tax - A Lobotomy for the United States of America?

By Kevin Klees

OK, I'll start right off by admitting that I am a "Climate Change" Denier, Naysayer, Skeptic, Cynic, Disbeliever, Doubter, Doubting Thomas, Flat Earther, and any other phrases that you might find in your Thesaurus. There, I admit it. Do I feel guilty about the future of the planet? No, not in the least. Why do I reach this decision? Because, as an engineer I have extensive training on the actual limits placed on human activities by the LAWS OF PHYSICS. For more than a quarter of a century I have tried to design things that violate the LAWS OF PHYSICS. I am ashamed to admit that I HAVE NOT BROKEN ANY OF THEM YET. As an engineer I am in the FRONT LINES fighting the LAWS OF PHYSICS every day. So far the LAWS OF PHYSICS are winning, 99-0. So, here is one of those NASTY little LAWS OF PHYSICS, it's called the THIRD LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS. It can make for a really drowsy read, but the simple version states: "IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO TRAP HEAT" Yep, that's it, pretty simple; it means that there is NOTHING NATURE, OR A MAN/WOMAN CAN DO TO TRAP HEAT. This LAW is demonstrated MILLIONS of times every day. When you put more insulation into the attic of your house, you are SLOWING the flow of heat from inside (umm, warm and toasty) to the outside (ugh, cold and wet). You are NOT TRAPPING HEAT. Ask yourself this simple question; if a Greenhouse can "TRAP HEAT" why is it colder inside one in January than in August? Why can't you "trap" the heat from August and use it during the whole rest of the year? Because of the THIRD LAW. So, if the THIRD LAW is enforced in manmade greenhouses on the surface of the earth, why is it not enforced in the atmosphere of the earth? Simple answer, it applies equally in all locations.So you are probably now asking, what's that whole Lobotomy thing about? Back in the 1930's and 1940's there was a "consensus" that lobotomies' were an effective treatment for mental disorders. Unfortunately, one sibling of a recently deceased US Senator from Massachusetts had this "therapy" applied to her. In fact, the doctor that "perfected" the lobotomy was awarded a Noble prize for his efforts to torture and cripple individual human beings. Of course, it was later determined that the "consensus" was "mistaken".
Whoops! The next "consensus" will certainly do better, we promise. So are we really ready to perform a Lobotomy on the Economy of the United States of America by passing the CRAP AND TAX bill because a "consensus" is really really sure that: "most" of the (poorly measured) warming is "very likely" caused by human activities ? (UN IPCC statement, paraphrased slightly). Should we commit economic suicide because a "consensus" is sure that MOST of the (poorly measured) warming is VERY LIKELY caused by humans? One definition of MOST is "more than half", and the UN's own definition of VERY LIKELY is 90%, so the UN is stating that 51% * 90% = 45% of the (poorly measured) "warming" is caused by human activities. Should we perform a self-inflicted lobotomy to "solve" a problem that has a likely occurrence of 45% ? You should of course also know that the manufacturers of this "consensus" depend entirely on the propagation of the "consensus" for their livelihood i.e.: no consensus, no jobs. ----

The science of deceit

A well-accepted aphorism about science, in the context of difference of opinion between two points of view, is “Madam, you are entitled to your own interpretation, but not to your own facts”.

The world stoker of the fires of global warming alarmism, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), cleverly suborns this dictum in two ways.

First, the IPCC accepts advice from influential groups of scientists who treat the data that underpins their published climate interpretations (collected, of course, using public research funds) as their own private property, and refuse to release it to other scientists.

Thus, confronted in 1996 with a request that he provide a U.S. peer-review referee with a copy of the data that underpinned a research paper that he had submitted, U.K. Hadley Climate Research Centre scientist Tom Wigley responded:

First, it is entirely unnecessary to have original “raw” data in order to review a scientific document. I know of no case at all in which such data were required by or provided to a referee ….. Second, while the data in question [model output from the U.K. Hadley Centre’s climate model] were generated using taxpayer money, this was U.K. taxpayer money. U.S. scientists therefore have no a priori right to such data. Furthermore, these data belong to individual scientists who produced them, not to the IPCC, and it is up to those scientists to decide who they give their data to.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

350 day: a failing struggle for an unattractive utopia

You may have not noticed but Saturday, October 24th, 2009 was an International Day of Climate Action: see 350.org & Google News.

Hundreds of people in the whole world organized events urging the world's CO2 concentration to return to 350 ppm (350 parts per million: 3.5 molecules out of 10,000 are CO2 molecules). Even in the Czech Republic, a dozen of activists gathered at the Old Town Square, emitting dozens of dirty black "CO2" latex balloons into the air.

(They also used masks of various well-known world politicians for a childish puppet show in which these politicians declare 350 ppm to be the new Copenhagen law.)
Twenty years ago when the CO2 concentration was at 350 ppm, the environmental activists would fight against things such as latex balloons in the air. They are polluting the environment and some animals may get into trouble when they swallow the balloon.

Today, they don't care. They decided that the CO2 concentration should be 350 ppm - instead of the correct current value, 388 ppm, shown by the world climate widget. (This figure, corresponding to the maximum of 2009, increases approximately by 1.8 ppm a year, and the annual difference between the maximum and minimum due to the seasons on the dominant Northern Hemisphere's lands is around 7 ppm.)

An Expensive Urban Legend

October 24th, 2009 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.


I contend that the belief in human-caused global warming as a dangerous event, either now or in the future, has most of the characteristics of an urban legend. Like other urban legends, it is based upon an element of truth. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas whose concentration in the atmosphere is increasing, and since greenhouse gases warm the lower atmosphere, more CO2 can be expected, at least theoretically, to result in some level of warming.

But skillful storytelling has elevated the danger from a theoretical one to one of near-certainty. The actual scientific basis for the plausible hypothesis that humans could be responsible for most recent warming is contained in the cautious scientific language of many scientific papers. Unfortunately, most of the uncertainties and caveats are then minimized with artfully designed prose contained in the Summary for Policymakers (SP) portion of the report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This Summary was clearly meant to instill maximum alarm from a minimum amount of direct evidence.

Next, politicians seized upon the SP, further simplifying and extrapolating its claims to the level of a “climate crisis”. Other politicians embellished the tale even more by claiming they “saw” global warming in Greenland as if it was a sighting of Sasquatch, or that they felt it when they fly in airplanes.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Good news is no news.

Scientists using a network of ground sensors emplaced in Antarctica say that NASA satellites have overestimated the amount of ice that is melting and running off into the ocean from the polar continent.
Lewis Page, The Register, 20 October 2009


With the clock running out and deep differences unresolved, it now appears that there is little chance that international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December will produce a comprehensive and binding new treaty on global warming.
John M Broder, The New York Times, 21 October 2009

Discord reigned supreme at a meeting of EU finance ministers in Luxembourg on Tuesday, with the most notable failure in the area of climate financing. Greenpeace EU climate policy director Joris den Blanken described the meeting as a "fiasco", adding that the likelihood of failing to secure a global deal in Copenhagen this December to replace the Kyoto protocol was now "very real."
Andrew Willis, EUObserver, 21 October 2009


The UN climate conference in Copenhagen will not succeed to agree on a new international treaty under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Instead, the meeting must reach agreement to set up a structure of a deal with technical details to be filled in later, says the UN top climate negotiator. "A fully fledged new international treaty under the [UN Framework] Convention [on Climate Change] – I do not think that is going to happen," Yvo de Boer says.
Marianne Bom, COP15, 20 October 2009

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Anatomy of smear

“We are the first generation of organisms on planet earth that has ever [foolishly] feared a warm climate.” Ian P.
18 October 2009
Anatomy of a Smear
Wow. This has to be read to be believed. According to Stephen Dubner on his blog at the NYT, in the dust-up over the SupreFreakonomics book (which I have not read) Joe Romm manufactures a smear of the book and its authors by making this request of Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at Stanford (emphasis added):

"I want to trash them for this insanity and ignorance. . . my blog is read by everyone in this area, including the media. I’d like a quote like ‘The authors of SuperFreakonomics have utterly misrepresented my work,’ plus whatever else you want to say."

Caldeira did not provide the requested quote, what he did say according to Dubner was:

“The only significant error,” he wrote to Romm, “is the line: ‘carbon dioxide is not the right villain in this fight.’ That is just wrong and I never would have said it. On the other hand, I f&@?ed up. They sent me the draft and I approved it without reading it carefully and I just missed it. … I think everyone operated in good faith, and this was just a mistake that got by my inadequate editing.”

Is that the story that you get from Romm? Not even close. Romm spins and lies instead. Dubner explains how Romm didn't report the full story from Caldeira, but instead twisted it into a smear by reporting an untruth: "Levitt and Dubner didn’t run this quote by Caldeira . . ." We know from Dubner and confirmed by Caldeira that

. . . Caldeira did see that line, and the rest of the chapter too, not once but twice.
But that didn’t seem to matter. While Romm’s post never actually delivered the Caldeira quotes teased in the headline – that it was “an inaccurate portrayal of me” and “misleading” – the point was clear to any reader: everything SuperFreakonomics says about global warming must be wrong because the main climate scientist they write about has refuted what he said. It’s hard to blame the bloggers who subsequently repeated this story: if you didn’t know it was false, it would have seemed pretty newsworthy. It’s also hard to misinterpret what’s going on here. Now that global warming has transcended science to become a political issue, the rules of politics apply: if you don’t like someone’s position, attack their credibility.

For his part Caldeira expresses some regret at being drawn into the dispute:

“I was drawn in by Romm and Al Gore’s assistant into critiquing other parts of the chapter. Rather than acting deliberately, I panicked and commented on things that I now wish I would have been silent on. It was obviously a mistake to let myself get drawn into this, and I learned a quick and hard lesson in public relations.”

Caldeira also said of the book and it authors:

“I believe all of the ideas attributed to me are based on fact, with the exception of the ‘carbon dioxide is not the right villain’ line,” he wrote. “That said, when I am speaking, I place these facts in a very different context and draw different policy conclusions.” He added that “I believe the authors to have worked in good faith. They draw different conclusions than I draw from the same facts, but as authors of the book, that is their prerogative.”

Dubner accepts Caldeira's critique, and even though Caldeira had two chances to correct the text before publication:

I understand why Caldeira now feels that the “villain” line overstates his position. I certainly wish we had discussed amending it earlier, and it’s probably a good idea to change that linein future editions of the book.

The story here is a climate scientist being played as a fool in the political battle over climate change. Joe Romm often engages in some pretty dirty politics in smearing the credibility of people whose views that he disagrees with, which in the past has included me. That people play dirty politics is not a surprise. That Joe Romm is taken seriously by the mainstream media and the mainstream scientific community says a lot about them as well.

Friday, October 16, 2009

The whole global warming craze is a massive Ponzi scheme

The whole global warming craze is a massive Ponzi scheme designed to separate wealthy nations from their wealth and pass it over to developing nations without them having to actually go through the process of creating and earning that wealth. It’s a gigantic global welfare scheme that if it comes to fruition, will equalize the wealth of all nations, making poor nations wealthier. It will also make wealthy nations poorer.

In fact, as the proponents of climate hysteria come to realize that developed nations’ citizenry may not be on board for a gigantic wealth transfer, they are looking at other avenues to facilitate separating wealthy nations from their money.

Monday, October 12, 2009

What happened to global warming?

This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.

But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

So what on Earth is going on?

Climate change sceptics, who passionately and consistently argue that man's influence on our climate is overstated, say they saw it coming.

They argue that there are natural cycles, over which we have no control, that dictate how warm the planet is. But what is the evidence for this?

Friday, October 9, 2009

Global blushing

Growing ice, the mob and red-faced professors: Warmists are having yet another bad week.
This week, the doomsters were embarrassed to learn, once again, that the planet was not in grave peril. Antarctica, their greatest candidate for catastrophe, was not melting at an ever-faster rate, according to a report in Geophysical Research Letters, but at the slowest rate in 30 years. To add to their frustration, they couldn’t even lash out at the lead author, Marco Tedesco of the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department of City College of New York — the doomsters had praised his previous reports showing high rates of Antarctic melt.
The latest news from the Arctic — delivered daily via satellite — is no better. Two years ago with the Arctic ice in rapid retreat, the doomsters, convinced of the coming of an ice-free Arctic, could scarcely contain themselves. Now, with the Arctic ice in rapid return, their anticipation of disaster seems more a cruel hoax of Nature. The doomsters now dread to track the satellite data beamed down to us courtesy of the International Arctic Research Center and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency — you can see why they cringe each day by going to the satellite website and following the red line:

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

An exercise in futility...Lord Monckton

Science establishes the “global warming” scare is over. The warming effect of CO2 is now measured at less than one-sixth of the IPCC’s central estimate: i.e. a “climate sensitivity” of a harmless 0.5 C° at CO2 doubling, not the 3.3 C° the IPCC thought (Flag 1).

Adaptation as and if necessary would be vastly cheaper than mitigation. Even if the IPCC’s 3.3 C° climate sensitivity (down from 3.5 C° in 2001 and 3.8 C° in 1995) were right, the world would have to forego 2 trillion tonnes of CO2 emission to prevent 1 C° of warming (Flag 2) – a robust figure that has been kept out of the debate till now. The world emits just 30 billion tonnes of CO2 a year, so even if the entire carbon economy were shut down it would take 67 years to prevent 1 C° of warming. To prevent the 3.4 C° warming the IPCC predicts for this century, make that 227 years without any transportation or fossil-fueled electricity. Carbon mitigation would accordingly be the least cost-effective use of taxpayers’ money ever. Adaptation would be orders of magnitude cheaper, but still unnecessary.

World “government” is unnecessary and would destroy democracy and markets. Even if mitigation were needed and might work, the UN secretariat’s plan (Flag 3) to establish a world “government” – the Copenhagen draft names “government” as the first of three purposes of the unelected sovereign entity the UN wants you to subject Canada’s democratic constitution to – would subordinate our democracy to a complex, costly, multi-tentacled oligarchy which the UN says will rule governments, economies, and markets worldwide and pre-empt national taxes at will. A “facilitative” (i.e. enforcement) mechanism will include technical panels with the power to order governments how to conduct their economic affairs.

Lord Monckton’s remarkable, impeccably-referenced presentation provided a wealth of economic and scientific detail on which the media are silent. Recent peer-reviewed science and climate data have made the IPCC’s assessment reports out of date by establishing that – The oceans, where all parties agree 80-90% of all heat held in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases must go, show no net accumulation of heat energy in 70 years and slight cooling for 6 years, demonstrating that “global warming” is not manmade (Douglass & Knox, 2009).

Surface temperature is near-solely determined not by CO2 concentration changes but by how much sunlight actually strikes the Earth’s surface (Soon, 2009).

If the “global warming” that ceased in the mid-1990s resumes, the resulting increase in cloud cover will offset the warming, not amplify it as the IPCC had thought (Spencer, 2008). The tropical upper air, predicted by the IPCC to warm at thrice the surface rate if we caused “global warming”, has warmed no faster than the surface, because subsidence drying is carrying water vapor to lower altitudes where it causes less warming (Douglass et al., 2008). Measured climate sensitivity is less than one-sixth of the IPCC’s central estimate. Its models all predict that as the Earth warms less radiation will escape to space, but the measured reality is that more radiation gets out, so less warming arises. Climate sensitivity of 0.5 C is thus determined (Lindzen & Choi, 2009). End of scare.

To support his contentions you might want to read on, in order to avail yourselves of more details on the science.

Flag 1

How measured outgoing radiation

determines low climate sensitivity

Reality vs. predictions: All UN models (11 of them shown in red) predict that as sea surface temperature rises the outgoing radiation escaping from the Earth to space diminishes because temperature feedbacks cause water vapor – the most significant greenhouse gas - to accumulate in the atmosphere. However, direct measurement using the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment Satellite (green) shows that as temperature rises more outgoing radiation, not less, escapes to space.

Each point on the ERBE observed-data scatter-plot represents a period during which the change in sea surface temperature was sufficient to prevent spurious results (known as “noise”). The point is placed at the intersection of the observed sea-surface temperature change (horizontal axis) and of the corresponding change in the flux of outgoing radiation measured by the ERBE satellite (vertical axis). Each point on the models’ scatter-plots represents a period identical to that which is used in the observed-data scatter-plot. The sea-surface temperature change over each relevant period is then input to the model to “force” it. The model then predicts how much outgoing radiation will escape to space in response to the input amount of temperature change.

The substantial discrepancy between what the models predict and and what is measured in reality occurs because the IPCC incorrectly assumes that the most important of the temperature feedbacks that reinforce any initial warming as the planetary surface warms – the increase in water vapor concentration – will occur at all altitudes, whereas recent results (Paltridge et al., 2009) have demonstrated that subsidence drying carries any additional water vapor to lower altitudes, where it has less warming effect because at lower altitudes the sheer quantity of pre-existing water vapor is sufficient to ensure saturation of the principal radiation-absorption wavelengths of water vapor. Hence the model-predicted tripling of the tropical surface warming rate at altitude is not observed (Douglass et al., 2008).

Simple calculation based on the observed discrepancy between the models’ predictions and measured reality establishes that the warming to be expected if CO2 concentration doubles – the “climate sensitivity” – will be just 0.5 C°, not the 3.3 C° that the IPCC takes as its current central estimate.

Flag 2

Why carbon mitigation cannot be cost-effective

2 trillion tonnes of CO2 emissions must be foregone

to prevent just 1 C° of “global warming”

An exercise in futility: The table demonstrates how many tonnes of CO2 emissions must be foregone to prevent just 1 C° of “global warming”, on the assumption that the IPCC’s climate sensitivity prediction – a warming of 3.4 C° during the 21st century – will actually occur unless efforts at mitigation are made.

The 21st-century increase in CO2 concentration that is predicted to occur under the IPCC’s A2 emissions scenario (which conforms most closely to today’s emissions) is divided by the IPCC’s prediction of 21st century “global warming” on that scenario, yielding a CO2 concentration increase of 140 ppmv per Celsius degree mitigated. This value is multiplied by the measured quantity of CO2 emissions per part per million by volume of CO2 increase over the past 30 years – i.e. 14,150 million tonnes of CO2 (excluding transient volcanic effects). Accordingly, the emissions cuts necessary for achievement of a 1 C° cooling are 2 trillion tonnes. This value is essential to evaluation of the cost-effectiveness of climate mitigation.

The relationship between changes in CO2 concentration and changes in surface temperature is not linear, as assumed in this calculation, but logarithmic. Therefore, if the calculation were extended over a longer period than a century – the current standard time-horizon for IPCC calculations – an even greater tonnage of CO2 emissions would have to be foregone to achieve each subsequent 1 C° reduction in surface temperature.

If, as Flag 1 demonstrates, climate sensitivity is less than one-sixth of the UN’s central estimate, then the quantity of carbon emissions foregone to prevent 1 C° of warming would rise from 2 to 12.5 trillion tonnes. The world only emits 30 billion tonnes a year. Therefore, even an outright ban on the use of all fossil fuels worldwide would take 67-417 years to prevent 1 C° of warming, and the same outright ban would take 227-1417 years. The cost would be nothing less than the destruction of around three-quarters of the world economy: the climatic value would be negligible, and would not occur in time to make any difference.

Therefore mitigation is inescapably cost-ineffective, even if the most drastic measures are taken. Mitigation must fail.fos

Open minded they are not

The scene was a scientific workshop set up to discuss the science of global warming. It took place in a non-Western country and was convened by the country's Academy of Sciences. Delegates came from all over the world. Yet the delegation from one major Western power behaved in a most undiplomatic fashion. The way the science was being presented was inconvenient to their political agenda, so they tried to get the scientists they disagreed with silenced. The organizers refused, so the delegation went to its government to exert political pressure. The organizers still refused, so the delegation disrupted the conference. When it became apparent they weren't going to get their way, they walked out.The chairman of the conference told the press that the leader of the disruptive delegation "had brought several scientists along with him and he insisted that the program should include among the speakers only those scientists and no other. So, he came over, selected scientists at his discretion, scientists who were to be given the floor in his opinion and scientists who were to be denied an opportunity to speak." A top official of the host government commented, "For some participants the main goal was the search for the truth, understanding of real processes. Other people had the task of disrupting the seminar, so that other people who were seeking the truth could not do so."

Yet another example of arrogant America disrupting the world's attempts to solve the climate change program? No. The delegation in question was that of the United Kingdom, and the conference was that held last week in Moscow, hosted by the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The British delegation was led by Sir David King, chief scientific adviser to Her Majesty's government. Sir David has gone on record as saying that, "Global warming is worse than terrorism." As far as Sir David and Tony Blair's government is concerned, there should be no need for any further scientific debate on global warming. They have taken the scientific consensus that global warming is happening and cheerfully conflated it with the debatable argument that it will be catastrophic for mankind unless we suppress energy use now.

The religious fervor with which Tony Blair's government is acting on this belief has many Britons unnerved. Dr. David Bellamy, one of the titans of the British environmental movement, wrote in the Daily Mail that he considers global warming alarmism "poppycock." Analysts predict a 40 percent rise in electricity prices as a result of the government's energy suppression policies. British manufacturers foresee having to put thousands out of work as they lose out in competitiveness to overseas suppliers. The Times's economics editor has written that the environmentalists pushing these policies "are like the medieval monks who favored self-flagellation as the road to virtue. For a Government to enshrine such thinking in policy is truly perverse."

In equally medieval fashion, adherents of the environmentalist religion have launched an inquisition against scientific views that they consider heretical. Hence, Sir David's outrageous behavior at the Moscow conference. On learning of the program arranged by the Russian Academy, he proposed a different program that would censor the voices of scientists who do not believe global warming is a worse threat to the world than terrorism. Such delegates included Paul Reiter of the Paris-based Pasteur Institute, who presented the predominant view of the world's malaria experts that global warming is not a major factor in the increasing incidence of vector-borne diseases.

Sir David even got British foreign secretary Jack Straw to intervene on his behalf. It did no good. The Russian Academy, used to seeing dissent crushed for political means, refused to kowtow to Sir David's demands. So, in the words of Russian economic adviser Andrei Illarionov, "Other attempts were made to disrupt the seminar. At least four times during the course of the seminar ugly scenes were staged that prevented the seminar from proceeding normally. As a result we lost at least four hours of working time in order to try to solve these problems." The disruption was serious enough that at the press conference one questioner asked why the security guards did not handle the situation.

Sir David apparently walked out with his delegation in mid-answer to one question. Commenting on this display, Illarionov said, "It is not for us to give an assessment to what happened, but in our opinion the reputation of British science, the reputation of the British government, and the reputation of the title 'Sir' has sustained heavy damage."

If Americans had behaved this way, the world would be full of stories charging America with arrogance, boorishness, and disdain for the spirit of free inquiry. Yet Sir David King continues on his way, the Torquemada of the global-warming inquisition.

Sir David King’s Queenie Fit
Shutting down dissent.

By Iain Murray

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

“Margaret Thatcher” comments on the “Idiocracy of the New Millennium”


Comments by “Margaret Thatcher” in the Economist

Well, the voting gap is closing fast. But not fast enough. I suppose the Greenpeace-bots, taking their emailed marching orders from Greenpeace Director Mr Liepold, are fizzling out. [Or perhaps it is due to the Economist’s very user-unfriendly website.]

This debate was based on a preposterous question, which could have been better framed by a moron advised by idiots. But in reality, the question was deliberately framed by intelligent people with an agenda, in order to appeal to the unthinking eco-Luddites who wouldn’t know “carbon” [by which is meant carbon dioxide, a gas] from their craniums. Idiocracy rules the new millennium.

There is no way the average person would voluntarily give up his or her electricity in the false hope of a slightly cleaner environment. Thus, the bogus question before the house, made intentionally vague in order to be palatable to do-gooders everywhere.

Further, it is ethical for each side to select their spokesperson. But that was not allowed. Ms Amy has done a fine job of appearing somewhat less left of center than Liepold, but she was selected specifically for that purpose by exactly the same people who selected Liepold and the Moderator.

And as many commentators have pointed out, the Moderator is heavily biased in favor of the question. Thus, all three are of the same general opinion, only separated by a degree.

None of the three are permitted to take the position that the use of fossil fuels has greatly increased human health and life-span, and have taken much of the drudgery out of life. Those believing that we should stop using fossil fuels should do their laundry for a few weeks using a washboard. And for the men, try baling hay by hand for even six hours. You will bow down in grateful praise of fossil fuels.

The ethical course of action would be to allow each side to select their spokesperson, and to have a black and white question such as: “This house believes that every citizen must immediately forfeit their fossil fueled transportation, and all electricity derived from fossil fuels.”

Of course that would result in a very heavy preponderance of No votes; thus, the loaded question in the current debate, which is vague enough to appeal to wishful thinkers raised on television, Hollywood, the BBC and People magazine.

It will be quite a spectacle watching the tax sucking elite jetting first class to Copenhagen from around the world, feasting on caviar, lobster and brie, clinking their champagne glasses whilst toasting their commitment to everything “green” � just so long as being green means that we working stiffs must give up much more of our earnings to these doubleplusungood scam artists, who could not care less about their “carbon footprint,” as they party the week away in gluttonous luxury that would excite even the most depraved ancient Roman senator, whilst promoting fads that will grind the poor into even more abject poverty, and reassuring each other that they are being good and saintly for doing so.

The UN’s shenanigans will be on the world’s stage for all to see, and will elevate “hypocrisy” to a new level. And now, with carbon credits selling for under ten pence - just 1/70th of their price last spring - they can buy cheap “carbon” indulgences to salve their guilty consciences as they connive to make our lives more miserable, based on the repeatedly falsified notion that CO2 is harmful. See comments here. Note: This may not be the real Margaret Thatcher but likely reflects her opinion. In her later years despite suffering from small strokes after 2002, as a scientist, she followed this issue closely and felt strongly the issue no longer represented the true scientific picture but had been politicized.

United Nations Pulls Hockey Stick from Climate Report

The discovery of a Wikipedia graphic in the UNEP Climate Change Science Compendium must have been embarrassing as it shows the sort of sloppy science that is going into “official” publications.

In this case, the United Nations simply grabbed an image from Wikipedia that supported the view they wanted to sell. The problem with the graph in the upper right of page 5 of the UNEP report is that it itself has not been peer reviewed nor has it originated from a peer reviewed publication, having its inception at Wikipedia.

So the graph used by the IPCC showing CO2 rise causing temperature rise was a fake? Who could have guest that one. Again thanks to Steve Mcintyre..a good Canadian and just in time for the Copenhagen big lie conference. Cool Aid time?

Monday, October 5, 2009

President Obama Keeps Repeating Climate Falsehoods

He ignores the fact the scientist who claimed a global temperature rise of circa 1 degree C since pre-industrial times refuses to disclose his data or method. He ignores recent global temperature decline as CO2 levels increase in contradiction of IPCC assumptions. IPCC is the sole source of his claim of warming and sea level rise, but all previous predictions have been wrong. He repeats errors already exposed and ignores newly exposed errors. If he is unaware of this information, he displays incompetence. If he is aware, he is perpetuating a massive deception.Ironically, Obama made one accurate comment, “The security and stability of each nation and all peoples—our prosperity, our health, our safety—are in jeopardy. And the time we have to reverse this tide is running out.” It’s true as long as leaders ignore the evidence and accept incorrect corrupt science to destroy economies with disastrous, unnecessary policies. Disseminating and repeating false information for political purposes is the definition of propaganda.