The Global Warming Heretic

Sabbatical

2010-03-23T09:59:00.001-05:00

I've decided that it's time to stop feeling guilty about my lack of recent posting activity on this blog. I hereby declare a formal sabbatical of indeterminate length.

There are plenty of outstanding "skeptic" blogs out there operated by those who have much more time and energy than I have, and who are much more on top of the scientific aspects of the debate than I am. Check out my "Fellow Heretics" blog list in the sidebar—in particular, some of the "A-List" blogs like Climate Audit, Watt's Up With That, JoNova, and others.

I will continue to devote effort to my politics and culture blog. In fact, AGW-related posts are likely to show up there from time to time, since in recent times the boundary between science and politics has grown quite fuzzy vis-à-vis the climate debate. I believe that many of the same folks on the other side of the climate debate are also behind the current drive to remake America in their image. So, in a sense, I’m not abandoning the battlefield—I’m doing a strategic redeployment.

I’ve kept the existing comments, but they’re no longer displayed. Sorry about that.

I will continue to keep up with the debate, but, alas, you’ll need to read about the latest developments elsewhere.

The science is settled!

2010-02-10T12:11:00.001-06:00

For those who insist that a scientific viewpoint has little credibility unless it has been published in a respected peer-reviewed journal, I’d like to ask: How did the following study survive peer review?

Daily Mail (UK), February 7:

Boredom could be shaving years off your life, scientists have found.

Researchers say that people who complain of boredom are more likely to die young, and that those who experienced 'high levels' of tedium are more than two-and-a-half times as likely to die from heart disease or stroke than those satisfied with their lot.

More than 7,000 civil servants were studied over 25 years - and those who said they were bored were nearly 40 per cent more likely to have died by the end of study than those who did not.

The scientists said this could be a result of those unhappy with their lives turning to such unhealthy habits as smoking or drinking, which would cut their life expectancy.

Specialists from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London, looked at data from 7,524 civil servants aged between 35 and 55 who were interviewed between 1985 and 1988 about their levels of boredom. They then found out whether they had died by April last year.

Researcher Martin Shipley, who co-wrote the report to be published in the International Journal of Epidemiology this week, said: 'The findings on heart disease show there was sufficient evidence to say there is a link with boredom.

So, they polled 7,000 government employees 25 years ago to find out if they were experiencing boredom at the time, and then checked back last year to see if they had died yet.

Does this methodology strike anyone else as ridiculously absurd? Nevertheless, what appears to be a manifestly unscientific study has been published in a prestigious peer-reviewed medical journal.

Of course, nothing like this would ever happen in climate research, but pardon me if I don’t automatically genuflect when AGW advocates play the peer-review card.

What was that they were saying about the science being settled?

2010-01-17T14:19:00.001-06:00

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which didn’t seem to mind being seen as the final word on all things climate change, appears to have based some of their conclusions on information taken from the back of a cereal box.

Well, maybe not, but we now know of at least one instance where a major IPCC doomsday prediction was based on information taken not from the vaunted peer-reviewed literature, but rather from an organization whose stock in trade is exaggerating perceived environmental threats.

The Sunday Times (UK) reports today:

Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC's 2007 report.

It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was "speculation" and was not supported by any formal research. If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research. The IPCC was set up precisely to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change.

[…]

The New Scientist report was apparently forgotten until 2005 when WWF cited it in a report called An Overview of Glaciers, Glacier Retreat, and Subsequent Impacts in Nepal, India and China. The report credited Hasnain's 1999 interview with the New Scientist. But it was a campaigning report rather than an academic paper so it was not subjected to any formal scientific review. Despite this it rapidly became a key source for the IPCC when Lal and his colleagues came to write the section on the Himalayas.

When finally published, the IPCC report did give its source as the WWF study but went further, suggesting the likelihood of the glaciers melting was "very high". The IPCC defines this as having a probability of greater than 90%.

The report read: "Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate."

So the WWF report didn’t even pretend to be an academic paper, but instead was a “campaign” report from start to finish. Instead of following the trail to the source of the assertion, they swallowed WWF’s interpretation whole, and even went further by assigning a “very high” likelihood that the glacial disappearance would occur in the specified timeframe. All ultimately based on a speculative remark in a phone conversation.

Given the fact that the IPCC’s conclusions have been used by organizations and governments to pursue a fundamental reordering of civilization, this is negligence and arrogance of the first order. We skeptics can be forgiven for wondering how much of the IPCC’s assessments are fueled by incompetence or personal biases.

Global warming update

2010-01-04T15:52:00.002-06:00

Times Online (UK), January 4:

Arctic air and record snow falls gripped the northern hemisphere today, inflicting hardship and havoc from China, across Russia to Western Europe and over the US plains.

There were few precedents for the global sweep of extreme cold and ice that killed dozens in India, paralysed life in Beijing and threatened the Florida orange crop. Chicagoans sheltered from a potentially killer freeze, Paris endured sunny Siberian cold, Italy dug itself out of snowdrifts and Poland counted at least 13 deaths in record low temperatures of about minus 25C (-13F).

The article goes on with example after example demonstrating that we’re currently experiencing the worst winter in many decades.

The reason? Global warming, of course:

Guo Hu, the head of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, linked this week’s conditions to unusual atmospheric patterns caused by global warming.

Folks, it doesn’t matter what kind of weather we have — it’s all because of global warming. No evidence required, because the meme is firmly entrenched.

Obama administration intends to rule by fiat if Congress doesn’t submit?

2009-12-09T16:19:00.001-06:00

According to a Fox News story today, administration officials acknowledge privately that the EPA’s newly-claimed powers allow the executive branch to function as a dictatorship if it so chooses.

The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn't move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a "command-and-control" role over the process in a way that could hurt business.

The warning, from a top White House economic official who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity, came on the eve of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's address to the international conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Jackson, however, tried to strike a tone of cooperation in her address Wednesday, explaining that the EPA's new powers to regulate greenhouse gases will be used to complement legislation pending in Congress, not replace it.

"This is not an 'either-or' moment. It's a 'both-and' moment," she said.

But while administration officials have long said they prefer Congress take action on climate change, the economic official who spoke with reporters Tuesday night made clear that the EPA will not wait and is prepared to act on its own.

And it won't be pretty.

"If you don't pass this legislation, then ... the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area," the official said. "And it is not going to be able to regulate on a market-based way, so it's going to have to regulate in a command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more uncertainty."

So. Obama would prefer that Congress take the actions that the administration demands of it. But if Congress fails to get its act together, the administration will publicly hold Congress responsible for the economic chaos that will follow.

And that economic chaos is a virtual certainty if the administration resorts to fiat rule through the EPA. Who would want to invest in an economy where regulations are changing suddenly and radically (and almost always to the detriment of businesses)?

Attack of the cannibal polar bears!

2009-12-09T14:05:00.001-06:00

Did somebody mention polar bear cannibalism in Copenhagen this week? I ask because so many people have arrived at this blog in recent days via a search on that topic. Next to the acronym “AGW”, this is by far the most popular search that results in a visit here. If you’re one of the folks that arrived in this manner… Well, HOWDY!

For the record, I blogged on the topic more than a year ago. If any new information has arisen that enhances the then-dubious case for the [novelty of the] phenomenon, please let me know.

UPDATE: Inserted three words in final sentence (between the brackets). I argued in the linked blog entry that there wasn’t necessarily anything new about polar bear cannibalism.

EPA declares plant food to be a public health threat

2009-12-09T11:23:00.001-06:00

A bit late in reporting on this, but hey, this is a blog, not a news service. But just for the record, here’s what happened on Monday, as reported by the Associated Press:

The Obama administration took a major step Monday toward imposing the first federal limits on climate-changing pollution from cars, power plants and factories, declaring there was compelling scientific evidence that global warming from manmade greenhouse gases endangers Americans' health.

Does anyone else see a logical disconnect here? Not the Environmental Protection Agency, because they’ve consciously named carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant. A gas that occurs naturally, the existence of which is essential for plant life – is a dangerous pollutant.

And notice – only “manmade” carbon dioxide seems to be capable of causing global warming. Oh, and how is it a danger to public health? They don’t say here, but it’s obvious that they’re playing the Six Degrees game.

So, what kind of powers has the EPA amassed for itself by this “finding”? The article gives us a taste:

The price could be steep for both industry and consumers. The EPA finding clears the way for rules that eventually could force the sale of more fuel-efficient vehicles and require plants to install costly new equipment — at a cost of billions or even many tens of billions of dollars — or shift to other forms of energy.

It almost certainly goes beyond this. If human generated carbon dioxide emissions are as dangerous as the EPA says they are, there is no logical or moral reason why the EPA shouldn’t extend its regulatory tentacles into every aspect of our lives.

In other words, this finding will serve as the greatest mechanism ever devised for state control of American people and resources, all in complete, deliberate mockery of the constitutional limits on the powers of the federal government.

It’s almost as if that was the plan.

Do I REALLY think that the environmental left is on a QUEST to destroy the world’s economy?

2009-12-08T08:46:00.002-06:00

Someone asked me this question in the comments section of a recent post, and I thought it deserved a high-profile answer.

In the banner of this blog I refer to the “quest by the environmental left to destroy the world’s economy” through various means. I was asked: Why would they want to do that? What’s their motivation?

For me to call this the "quest" of the entire environmental left is a bit of hyperbole -- but IMO the characterization is justified because, whether consciously or unconsciously, the environmental left is aggressively pursuing an agenda that can have no logical end other than the destruction of the world economy.

On one hand, I accept at face value their claim to be motivated by concern for the environment. So much of modern civilization is based on customs, technology, etc. that the environmental left feels are harmful to the environment. AGW, real or not, is to them the golden opportunity to remake civilization into a form more to their liking.

On the other hand, many now marching under the banner of environmentalism would in a previous generation have been classified as good old-fashioned Marxists. Their true motivations are economic, not environmental. But overt Marxism is a bit out of fashion in the west, and environmentalism is quite fashionable, so what better cover can one find for one’s war against capitalism? Just think about how many people out there are saying that the only way to lick the climate crisis is to shift more and more of the economy to state control.

So, agree or not, that is why I used these pointed words in the blog banner.

UPDATE: I almost forgot the following point about how AGW is a good cover for Marxists... Think also about how many out there are preaching that the greatest moral imperative of "rich" countries is to transfer increasing amounts of their wealth to poor countries -- with no strings attached.

There was a time when erosion was just erosion

2009-12-07T08:40:00.001-06:00

The media are quite deft at taki ng some phenomenon that has been occurring since time immemorial and suddenly attributing it to some alleged climate change consequence that hasn’t even happened yet.

AFP tells the sad story of Thai fishing villages that are slowly falling into the sea. This much is real. But what could be causing this?

She is one of 25 million people under threat in Thailand's vast Chao Phraya river delta, which is sinking because of river damming and the clearing of mangrove forests, as climate change pushes up sea levels.

Which of these things doesn’t go with the others? River damming, forest clearing, rising sea levels: which of these isn’t actually happening today?

The article doesn’t bother to present evidence that the sea levels are actually rising. Every reference to this afterwards is speculation about future sea level increases.

In other words, there was no legitimate reason to mention climate change at all – except as part of a drip-drip-drip campaign of public scaremongering, most likely coordinated with the ongoing Copenhagen Chicken Little Confab.

Memo to the AGW boosters in the scientific community: you’d get a lot more respect from the skeptics if you would lift a finger now and then to denounce such fraudulent reporting on this issue that is so dear to you.

Then again, as we dig deeper and deeper into the muck of CRU correspondence, we get the impression that the AGW boosters in the scientific community might be too ideologically (or financially) invested in the world they’ve created. There’s too much at stake – they can’t let the truth get in the way.

They’re really thinking about a different kind of green

2009-07-14T16:53:00.001-05:00

These days, countless businesses spare no effort reminding us how much they care about planet earth.

Have these companies really become true believers in global warming, or is something else at play here?

I suspect that in most cases, what we see in this July 14 Dilbert comic is a little closer to the truth.

(Click for full size)

They were okay with the statue, but they drew the line at including an altar and incense

2009-06-16T16:26:00.005-05:00

The Tennessee State Senate has, thankfully, rejected a Democrat lawmaker's attempt to have a statue erected in honor of Al Gore's Nobel "Peace" Prize. The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports:

A resolution urging that the state Capitol Commission erect a statue on the Capitol grounds in honor of former Democratic Vice President Al Gore for winning the Nobel Peace Prize failed on the Senate floor today.

The resolution, which also urged a statue be erected for Nobel Peace Prize winner Cordell Hull, failed on a 15-14 vote with most Republicans voting no. It needed 17 votes to pass.

Earlier, the sponsor, Sen. Andy Berke, D-Chattanooga, said the measure had “broad bipartisan support in the House.”

I say "thankfully", because we wouldn't want Gore to start thinking that his Nobel Prize actually meant something.

I am generally opposed to permanent public honors (statues, building/street/park names, etc.) of people who are still living. People -- especially politicians -- have a knack of doing things later that make us want to withdraw the honor.

Just as I believe that people will some day regret naming their kid after Barack Obama, so also I believe that some day -- as the alleged global warming "consensus" collapses like the West Antarctic Ice Shelf is predicted to do -- people will regret holding Al Gore in such high esteem.

(Photo credit: National Post)

Soy burgers: Ban them! (#3)

2009-05-29T16:58:00.002-05:00

Where were the soybeans grown?

Food miles, people. Food miles!

(Explanation of the "Ban Them" series here)

Reusable grocery bags: Ban them! (#2)

2009-05-29T16:41:00.005-05:00

Reusable grocery bags are an indispensable accessory for the eco-conscious shopper. But perhaps the true believers should reconsider the virtue of using them.

Not only do they increase your risk of food poisoning, I'd be willing to bet that your bag was not manufactured locally.

Vendors such as ECOBAGS like to trumpet the fact that their products are manufactured in the USA, but how many miles did the bag travel before it reached the store where you got it?

This very argument is used to discourage the consumption of food that is not locally grown, so aren't you being hypocritical when you use a shopping bag made who knows where?

There ought to be a law.

(Explanation of the "Ban Them" series here)

Water fountains: Ban them!

2009-05-28T17:45:00.005-05:00

Yesterday I was taking a walk near my office to shake off my traditional midafternoon drowsiness. My route took me past this fountain, which is part of a retail development.

Somehow, I began to wonder how the global warming true believers would view this fountain. It occurred to me that if they were consistent with their stated beliefs, their reaction might be something like this:

This fountain is an outrage! What a waste of water, just to provide a little selfish enjoyment for people.

And the electricity! Every minute the pumps are running brings us another step closer to the destruction of the polar bear's habitat. I will find out who owns this shopping center and DEMAND that they shut the fountain down IMMEDIATELY.

Come to think of it... the problem is much bigger than this. There are fountains in towns and cities all over the country. If banning incandescent bulbs makes a difference, think about what we'll gain if we can ban water fountains!

I'll call my city council. No, wait. Local governments are a little too sensitive to the voters, and might be reluctant to take an action that is unpopular. Heck, they own a lot of the fountains. Going after this at the local level will yield spotty results.

We need a federal law. The environmental organization I'm a member of has a lot of pull in Washington. I'll give a call to the president of our local chapter and see if he can send my idea up the chain.

But what would we do with the old fountains once they're shut off? We can't let the space go to waste. Oh, wait -- we can let it go to waste! We should dedicate the fountain sites to community composting!

And so on. Absurd, perhaps, but my point is that if the true believers are going to follow their ideology to its logical conclusion, many things we take for granted in our society will have to go.

They might actually agree with the suggestion that water fountains are a wasteful extravagance, but we can go a lot further with this idea, and it's a matter of time before we come across something that even the true believers will be unwilling to surrender.

From time to time I will post candidates for things that should be banned. Look for the BAN THEM label.

Let's take the CoGW at its word and show its adherents what they need to do to avoid being called hypocrites.

Hoaxing the media: A parable

2009-05-13T12:22:00.002-05:00

If you are inclined to believe whatever the mass media tells you about global warming, it might be worth your while to ponder this May 11 AP story:

When Dublin university student Shane Fitzgerald posted a poetic but phony quote on Wikipedia, he was testing how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news.

His report card: Wikipedia passed. Journalism flunked.

The sociology major's obituary-friendly quote-which he added to the Wikipedia page of Maurice Jarre hours after the French composer's death March 28-flew straight on to dozens of U.S. blogs and newspaper Web sites in Britain, Australia and India. They used the fabricated material, Fitzgerald said, even though administrators at the free online encyclopedia twice caught the quote's lack of attribution and removed it.

A full month went by and nobody noticed the editorial fraud. So Fitzgerald told several media outlets they'd swallowed his baloney whole.

"I was really shocked at the results from the experiment," Fitzgerald, 22, said Monday in an interview a week after one newspaper at fault, The Guardian of Britain, became the first to admit its obituarist lifted material straight from Wikipedia.

"I am 100 percent convinced that if I hadn't come forward, that quote would have gone down in history as something Maurice Jarre said, instead of something I made up," he said. "It would have become another example where, once anything is printed enough times in the media without challenge, it becomes fact."

Why so many socialists love AGW alarmism

2009-05-13T11:14:00.003-05:00

As many of you know, I also run a politics and culture blog. I usually post on the various toxic-but-popular "isms" (socialism, Marxism, communism, statism, fascism) over there, but every once in a while something comes along that blurs the boundaries between these blogs.

I've noted before that the manufactured AGW crisis is tailor-made for those who favor state control of people and resources. Today we see this principle in action in the form of a proposal by Mexico, as reported by Reuters (with a dash of TEOTWAWKI alarmism):

Global talks on combating climate change this year might progress best by focusing on Mexico's proposal for a world climate change fund, one of the European Union's top negotiators said.
The talks in Copenhagen to find a successor to the U.N.'s Kyoto protocol from 2012 are seen as the world's last chance to avert catastrophic climate change and the drought, famine and huge migrations of people it is expected to cause.

Jos Delbeke, number two in the European Commission's environment directorate, told Reuters the Mexican approach might offer the flexibility needed to unlock a deal.

"It's not a question of what we like, but of what may work, and the Mexican proposal gives flexibility that may be appreciated by the United States, Japan and by other donors," he told Reuters on the sidelines of a climate conference.

The proposal sees every country in the world contributing to a central pot, with the size of contributions based on a formula that takes account of each country's population, gross domestic product and level of greenhouse gas emissions.

That central pot would then be divided among all countries according to their needs for cutting emissions, building green technologies and adapting to the impacts of climate change -- with investments such as flood barriers or drought resistant crops.

Note in particular the last two paragraphs (highlighted). They can be summarized as follows:

From each according to his abilities
To each according to his needs

Now, where have I heard that before?

To no one's surprise, countries that have already traveled a considerable distance down the socialist road are warming up to the idea....

....especially since the United States, not they, will foot the bulk of the bill.

Deliver us from experts

2009-05-04T09:51:00.002-05:00

We have not overthrown the divine right of kings
to fall down for the divine right of experts.

-- Harold MacMillan, British Prime Minister (1957-1963)

Congressional Democrats press their AGW propaganda offensive with expert testimony from... Ashley Judd

2009-04-24T10:41:00.004-05:00

Democrats in Congress love to gin up popular support for their causes by bringing in demonstrably nonexpert celebrities to give high-profile, impassioned testimonies.

In this week's episode, we learn that if we don't Do Something Now, we face The End Of The World As We Know It (TEOTWAWKI). Let's meet the climate scholars who testified.

Actress Ashley Judd and TV personality Jeff Corwin are urging Congress to spend $7 billion a year to help safeguard America's wildlife from the impact of global warming.

An argument could be made for hearing from Corwin, whose college education is actually related to wildlife. Judd, however, has only a bachelor's degree in French to back her up. Oh, and she owns a farm in Tennessee, and she's certain that "evidence of global warming is already being felt" there.

She was there because of her celebrity status (which adds to the propaganda value of her testimony), nothing more. Kind of like when environmentalists used Meryl Streep as their front person in the effort to bully Congress into banning Alar back in the late 1980s. The Alar scare turned out to be unfounded as well, but the damage was done.

Corwin, for his part, did not disappoint. He warned that we risk the extinction of a third of all animal species on the planet if we don't Do Something Now. Nothing like some good, reckless alarmist predictions to provoke our legislators into reckless policymaking.

Why environmentalists may be to BLAME for recent warming

2009-04-09T15:41:00.004-05:00

The Register reports on a study by NASA scientist Dr. Drew Shindell suggesting a strong correlation between the fight against acid rain in the 1970s and the abrupt reversal in northern hemisphere temperature trends.

Dr Drew Shindell of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies has led a new study which indicates that much of the general upward trend in temperatures since the 1970s - particularly in the Arctic - may have resulted from changes in levels of solid "aerosol" particles in the atmosphere, rather than elevated CO2. Arctic temperatures are of particular concern to those worried about the effects of global warming, as a melting of the ice cap could lead to disastrous rises in sea level - of a sort which might burst the Thames Barrier and flood London, for instance.

Shindell's research indicates that, ironically, much of the rise in polar temperature seen over the last few decades may have resulted from US and European restrictions on sulphur emissions. According to NASA:
Sulfates, which come primarily from the burning of coal and oil, scatter incoming solar radiation and have a net cooling effect on climate. Over the past three decades, the United States and European countries have passed a series of laws that have reduced sulfate emissions by 50 percent. While improving air quality and aiding public health, the result has been less atmospheric cooling from sulfates.

So, the reduction in sulfate pollution meant the elimination of a significant counterbalance to increasing soot pollution.

Am I advocating the wholesale repeal of sulfate emission restrictions? Not really -- in fact, I'm not ready to concede any human influence in the climate cycle (hence the blog name). I do note, though, that those who believe in consequential human influence on climate must acknowledge that attempts to "fix" what is allegedly broken can often have unforeseen effects.

Al Gore didn't get the memo

2009-03-30T11:46:00.002-05:00

Well, what do you know? Al Gore and I share at least one thing in common: We both left our lights on during Earth Hour on Saturday. World Net Daily reports:

Drew Johnson, the president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, decided to drive by Gore's mansion in Nashville at 8:48 p.m. and records that floodlights were on illuminating the driveway leading up to the main quarter.

"I pulled up to Al's house, located in the posh Belle Meade section of Nashville, at 8:48 p.m. – right in the middle of Earth Hour," he wrote on his blog. "I found that the main spotlights that usually illuminate his 9,000 square foot mansion were dark, but several of the lights inside the house were on."

He added: "The kicker, though, were the dozen or so floodlights grandly highlighting several trees and illuminating the driveway entrance of Gore’s mansion. I [kid] you not, my friends, the savior of the environment couldn’t be bothered to turn off the gaudy lights that show off his goofy trees."

100+ scientists call Obama out on his AGW alarmism

2009-03-30T11:15:00.003-05:00

The Cato Institute has published a full-page ad in many newspapers politely accusing President Obama of being factually inaccurate in his climate change alarmism.

Over 100 scientists agreed to lend their names to the following statement (View complete statement in HTML | PDF):

"Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change.The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear."

— PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA, NOVEMBER 19 , 2008

With all due respect
Mr. President, that is not true.

We, the undersigned scientists, maintain that the case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated. Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now. After controlling for population growth and property values, there has been no increase in damages from severe weather-related events. The computer models forecasting rapid temperature change abjectly fail to explain recent climate behavior. Mr. President, your characterization of the scientific facts regarding climate change and the degree of certainty informing the scientific debate is simply incorrect.

Bravo to Cato and to the scientists who put their professional reputations on the line to challenge the "consensus".

How we observed Earth Hour

2009-03-28T22:33:00.002-05:00

As many of you know, Saturday, March 28, from 8:30-9:30pm local time was designated as "Earth Hour". This event was devised by the World Wildlife Fund as a way for people around the world to show how much they care about the climate change crisis.

Its organizers acknowledge that an event directing people to turn out their lights for an hour is purely symbolic, but they believe that with widespread participation, an important message will be sent to the world's leaders:

This is not so much about saving energy. It is more a massive, global and overwhelming signal to our nations' leaders to say that climate change is important. That it matters a great deal. That we care. Now do something about it!

Climate change is important. It matters. We care. Now, leaders: get out there and send the global economy further into the abyss, all for the sake of unproven, questionable speculations about the role of carbon dioxide in the earth's climate! Yeah!

Not wanting to be left out, our family took care to show how much we care about the climate alarmism that is sweeping the planet. This picture shows how our house looked between 8:30 and 9:30 local time this evening.

Just kidding; I don't even know whose house that is. It's certainly not in our part of Texas.

But we did leave our lights on.

We didn't go out of our way to turn on additional lights, even though theoretically there was a lot of unused electricity out there at the time. We just went about our normal business of living our lives, not being deliberately wasteful, but also not feeling guilty for what we do use.

By now, the west coast of the U.S. is in the 8:30-9:30 zone, nearly completing the event's trek around the world. Interestingly, as early as 6:00pm U.S. Eastern time, Reuters was reporting that a billion people were participating in the event, a number which, as NewsBusters points out, could not possibly have been true at the time the article was posted.

So how does Reuters report that a billion people took part? According to the International Energy Agency, "Some 1.6 billion people, about one quarter of the world’s population, have no access to electricity today." The CIA estimates the world's population at 6.7 billion, so that would mean about 5 billion people in the world could shut off their lights in the global feel-good exercise. For Reuters to be correct in its one billion people claim, one out of five people would have had to participate. Since Earth Hour hadn't even arrived for much of the world at the time Reuters released its report, how can the agency already state as fact that there were a billion participants?

The obvious answer is it couldn't. Reuters made up a nice, round number to buttress its contention of massive worldwide support for Earth Hour. And no doubt it'll be picked up by mainstream media outlets across the country.

WWF did set a goal for 1 billion people to participate, so perhaps Reuters was engaging in a bit of hopeful speculation. Journalistic malpractice, sure, but all in service of a good cause.

Propaganda technique #21744: The misleading appeal to authority

2009-02-17T17:07:00.003-06:00

Pet peeve time.

The article I cited in the previous post opens like this:

When it comes to global warming, hamburgers are the Hummers of food, scientists say.

"Scientists say". Perhaps you just breezed by that part of the sentence, but in my opinion it should immediately raise a red flag.

"Scientists say"? How many? Of what field? What are their qualifications? The article only mentions two (technically qualifying for the plural form of the word "scientist"), but the lede is written as if this is the -- wait for it -- consensus opinion.

This doesn't happen only with AGW stories. We also see this phenomenon in reporting on scientific research in many areas -- especially in the areas of food-that-is-currently-bad-for-you and things-that-currently-cause-cancer. The funny thing is that when Research Conclusion B totally contradicts Research Conclusion A just a few months later, the news will will present the story as if simply every scientist who matters now says Research Conclusion B is true.

By attaching "scientists say" to whatever the conclusion of the moment happens to be, the journalist seems intent on leading us to believe that there is no meaningful disagreement with said conclusion in the scientific community.

I could write an article entitled, "Scientists say Al Gore is full of it" -- but I would immediately come under withering fire by acolytes of the CoGW, even though there are certainly scientists out there who believe this.

This may seem like a nitpick, but I think that the continual use of this misleading appeal to authority is part of the reason that such a high percentage of news consumers have bought into the AGW hypothesis.

Al Gore is a poor substitute for Placido Domingo, bloggers say

Planet-hating beef eaters, cont'd.

2009-02-17T16:34:00.004-06:00

Sigh. Another day, another article informing us that our meat consumption -- especially western beef consumption -- is killing the planet. This February 16 AFP article even manages to drag in a comparison with the Hitler of the automotive world:

When it comes to global warming, hamburgers are the Hummers of food, scientists say.

Simply switching from steak to salad could cut as much carbon as leaving the car at home a couple days a week.

That's because beef is such an incredibly inefficient food to produce and cows release so much harmful methane into the atmosphere, said Nathan Pelletier of Dalhousie University in Canada.

Pelletier is one of a growing number of scientists studying the environmental costs of food from field to plate.

By looking at everything from how much grain a cow eats before it is ready for slaughter to the emissions released by manure, they are getting a clearer idea of the true costs of food.

The livestock sector is estimated to account for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and beef is the biggest culprit.

Even though beef only accounts for 30 percent of meat consumption in the developed world it's responsible for 78 percent of the emissions, Pelletier said Sunday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

That's because a single kilogram of beef produces 16 kilograms carbon dioxide equivalent emissions: four times higher than pork and more than ten times as much as a kilogram of poultry, Pelletier said.

By the way, that 1:16 ratio of beef to CO₂ emissions cited in the last paragraph seriously undermines the 1:36 ratio claimed by Japanese alarmists in another AFP article we highlighted back in July of 2007.

Kind of makes me wonder if they're just making stuff up.

Go ahead and have another child, you planet-hater

2009-02-09T16:40:00.006-06:00

In 2007 we heard about Toni Vernelli, who saw getting an abortion as a moral duty in light of the AGW crisis. We also heard from an Australian researcher who proposed that any family having more than two children should buy what amounts to an excess-child carbon offset to atone for these kids' share in the destruction of the planet.

It's been more than a year, and you just haven't been paying attention, have you? Some of you have even gone ahead and made more babies, haven't you? And let's not even get started on Nadya Suleman, who just birthed octuplets.

Scott Kotler at Psychology Today's blog has a message for you: You're unbelievably selfish, you're a resource thief, and you're a murderer.

Kotler believes that a global population of 2 billion people is the utter limit of sustainability, and that we need to get right on to the task of reducing the human headcount to that level.

His solution: STOP HAVING KIDS FOR FIVE YEARS. Everybody, everwhere. This isn't quite as far-reaching as the solution of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, to wit, that we stop having kids forever, but it is extreme nonetheless.

We have spent the past 4000 years trying to shrug off the nightmare that is Biblical advice. We no longer sanction slavery or believe it okay to stone a woman to death for wearing sexy clothing or any of that other nonsense—but go forth and multiply?

Got to be the worst advice in the history of the world.

And sure, a five year ban won’t fix all of this and it raises some questions as well—like how do we insure that year six won’t produce an influx of offspring?

So here’s my answer: Personal responsibility. A grassroots movement means we mean it. It means people having children in year six would feel shame and embarrassment at their unbelievable selfishness.

And yeah, if you are having children right now you are being selfish. You’re stealing. Stealing from the future. Stealing from the rest of humanity. Stealing from every living thing on the earth right now.
[...]
We are soon going to be killing each other over resources, just like we’ve always killed each other over resources—only this next time it won’t be over something to put in our gas tanks. It’ll be over something to put in our belly.

And it won't be an isolated incident, it'll be a global catastrophe.

That’s our future. That’s what happens if we don’t stop having children. In fact, if we don’t stop having children then we’re going to get to meet another bad Biblical idea head on: the four horseman of the apocalypse.

Pestilence, War, Famine, Death.

How can he be any more clear? If you don't get with the program, the death of our planet from climate change will be on your conscience.

(Message cross-posted on C-Pol)

Hey, Hollywood! Time to walk the talk!

2009-02-02T11:24:00.004-06:00

Writing for Big Hollywood, blogger Iowahawk pokes fun at movie stars whose lifestyles belie their claims to be concerned about the environment:

A Go-Green Guide for the Hollywood Community

More than ten years after the Kyoto accords, our planet continues to careen helplessly toward certain environmental destruction. The skies are choked with pollutants. Adorable helpless polar bears plunge through thinning ice caps. Ben Affleck still can’t find a decent comeback project.

The signs are ominous, but it’s not too late to do something. As a member of the entertainment community, you are uniquely qualified to save our planet from coming climate disaster. But it will take more than raising awareness — it will take action. Have your personal assistant add these 10 to-dos to your Blackberry, and let’s get the Earth on the road to recovery!

1. Reduce Water Consumption. One single dripping faucet or flushed bidet may not seem to be much of an environmental threat, but those numbers really add up when you’re hosting an NRDC fundraiser for Laurie David and all 10 of your bathrooms are in use. When possible, encourage guests to pee in the pool, and remind them that “if it’s yellow, let it mellow.” Unless you’re serving asparagus canapes.

2. “Green Begins At Home.” Whether you live in East Hampton or Topanga Canyon, there are dozens of little things you can do around your compound to reduce your carbon footprint. For instance, tell your groundskeeping crew to plant a tree. Save your leftover foie gras to grow your own homemade organic Botox. Turn off your energy wasting security cameras between 1 AM and 7 AM. If you own a vanity cattle ranch in Montana, email the trail boss and tell him/her to add Beano to your herd’s feed to reduce ozone-depleting methane emissions.

3. Upgrade To a New Gulfstream G550. Next time you take off for Cannes or Sundance or that big Environmental Defense Fund gala, stop and think how much fuel that clunky old G450 is using. Not only does the new G550 have real burled walnut and 10.8% better fuel efficiency, it has smoother ride — meaning 20% fewer annoying turbulence-related Cristal and cocaine spills. And with a maximum cruising speed of Mach 0.885 you’ll never be late for the red carpet at the Palm d’Or!

4. Crush a Third World Economic Development Movement. One of the most pressing threats facing our environment is rising income in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. A generation ago these proud little dark people were happily frolicking in the rain forest, foraging for organic foods amid the wonders of nature. Today, corrupted by wealth, they are demanding environmentally hazardous consumer goods like cars and air conditioning and malaria medicine. You can do your part to stop this dangerous consumerism trend by supporting environmentally progressive leaders like Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe, and their programs for sustainable low-impact ecolabor camps.

The remaining suggestions are well worth the read.

(Cross-posted at C-Pol)

Is mandatory recycling destroying the planet?

2009-01-29T09:55:00.003-06:00

One adviser to the British government has some heretical opinions about one of the sacraments of environmentalism, curbside recycling, as reported January 28 by The Telegraph:

Peter Jones suggested that an "urgent" review of Labour's policy on recycling was needed to make sure the collection, transportation and processing of recyclable material was not causing a net increase in greenhouse gases.
Mr Jones, a former director of the waste firm Biffa and now an adviser to environment ministers and the London Mayor, Boris Johnson, also dismissed kerbside recycling collections in many areas as "stupid" because they mixed together different materials, rendering them useless for recycling.

He suggested that much of the country's waste should simply be burnt to generate electricity.

"It might be that the global warming impact of putting material through an incinerator five miles down the road is actually less than recycling it 3,000 miles away," he said.

"We've got to urgently get a grip on how this material is flowing through the system; whether we're actually adding to or reducing the overall impact in terms of global warming potential in this process."

(Image credit: Chilliwack, BC)

Vegas: We're concerned about climate change! Really!

2009-01-29T08:55:00.001-06:00

Las Vegas' infamous casino district, The Strip, with perhaps one of one of the largest carbon footprints per unit area to be found anywhere, will join others in pretending to be concerned about climate change on March 28. Las Vegas Review-Journal, January 29:

Planned marquee outages on the Strip come along about as often as Megabucks jackpots.

And like many of those slot-machine fortunes, lights-out events on Las Vegas Boulevard typically don't last long.

But on March 28, signs and message boards along the Strip -- the brightest spot on Earth when viewed from space, the lore goes -- will power down for 60 minutes as part of a global event intended to raise awareness of climate change.

Las Vegas is a flagship city for Earth Hour 2009, a World Wildlife Fund movement encouraging individuals, governments and businesses to dim or turn out lights. Casino executives and several local officials, including Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson, gathered Wednesday at a news conference on the south Strip to talk about Southern Nevada's role in Earth Hour.

Getting the Strip in on Earth Hour is a significant move, said David G. Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

"When it means something, turning down lights on the Strip is a very touching tribute, and it can be very effective," Schwartz said. "For the Strip to stop anything is a really big deal. The Strip doesn't like to do that."

It will be one of the few times Strip lights have been darkened for specific occasions, such as the deaths of presidents and entertainers.

This time, the lights will fade to honor Mother Earth. And it's not just resort owners on the Strip who'll participate: Nearly two dozen properties off the boulevard are scheduled to take part, including the Palms and properties belonging to Station Casinos and Boyd Gaming Corp.

Once the hour is done (with gamblers inside the casinos perhaps unaware of the spectacle outside), the warm glow of having Done Something To Save The Earth will be replaced by the warm glow of countless neon lights and incandescent bulbs, and The Strip will move on as if nothing had happened.

O Christmas Guilt, O Christmas Guilt...

2008-11-28T14:30:00.003-06:00

Scientific American's blog reminds us today (November 28) that most of the items on your kids' Christmas lists are just more nails in the coffin of planet Earth:

Black Friday warning: video games waste energy and contribute to global warming

If you're planning this holiday season (perhaps even today) to become one of the tens of millions of people in the U.S. to buy a video game system, you may want to consider how the purchase of a Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation or Microsoft Xbox will impact your carbon footprint (or, at very least, your electric bill).

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a New York-based environmental organization, in a new report says that video game systems are huge energy wasters, mostly because people (read: kids) tend to leave them on even when they're not using them.

A couple of observations.

First, the real issue is that game consoles needlessly consume energy when they are on-but-idle. Power-saving features are a very sensible solution to this, and I agree that the console manufacturers would do well to make them standard:

Ecos and the NRDC offer some solutions, calling for video game console makers to develop more energy-efficient devices that use many of the same power-saving features found on PCs (such as the automatic powering down of a system if it is left idle for a certain period of time). After a period of one to three hours of inactivity, for example, the video game console could automatically save the status of the game to memory and initiate auto power-down. Or, the consoles could come with a "sleep" button that could be used to save power when the players are away from their games.

Second, the lifestyle scolds know that the average person is not motivated by simple appeals to energy conservation, but the average person has been conditioned to respond emotionally (not necessarily rationally) when the specter of global warming is invoked.

It's always a bonus when [insert cause here] can be linked (however tenuously) to AGW. I expect to see a lot more of this in the next presidential administration. Incoming chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has acknowledged the appeal of exploiting public alarm to advance one's agenda, and AGW is at or near the very top of Obama's agenda.

The sunny side of a global economic collapse

2008-10-09T10:31:00.003-05:00

It seems that some on the environmental left would like nothing less than a rollback of the Industrial Revolution, with a vastly reduced human population living sustainably: consuming only locally-produced durable goods and food (grown organically, of course), etc. Living in this manner would cut back on CO2 emissions in countless ways.

From this point of view, the worldwide collapse of financial markets is good news, because the resulting economic slowdown means a reduction in activities (manufacturing, transportation) that result in CO2 emissions. An October 7 Reuters article reports it this way:

A slowdown in the world economy may give the planet a breather from the excessively high carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions responsible for climate change, a Nobel Prize winning scientist said on Tuesday.
Atmospheric scientist Paul J Crutzen, who has in the past floated the possibility of blitzing the stratosphere with sulfur particles to cool the earth, said clouds gathering over the world economy could ease the earth's environmental burden.

Slower economic growth worldwide could help slow growth of carbon dioxide emissions and trigger more careful use of energy resources, though the global economic turmoil may also divert focus from efforts to counter climate change, said Crutzen, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the depletion of the ozone layer.

"It's a cruel thing to say ... but if we are looking at a slowdown in the economy, there will be less fossil fuels burning, so for the climate it could be an advantage," Crutzen told Reuters in an interview.

"We could have a much slower increase of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere ... people will start saving (on energy use) ... but things may get worse if there is less money available for research and that would be serious."

Solar wind theory may get its day in court

2008-09-25T11:14:00.005-05:00

Advocates of the idea that solar influences on climate outweigh human influences may finally get their chance to test their theory.

New measurements from the NASA/ESA spacecraft Ulysses show that the sun's current period of low activity goes beyond an extended dearth of sunspots. As AFP reports in a September 24 article:

The intensity of the sun's million-mile-per-hour solar wind has dropped to its lowest levels since accurate records began half a century ago, scientists say.
Measurements of the cosmic blasts of radiation, ejected from the sun's upper atmosphere, were made with the Ulysses spacecraft, a joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).

The solar wind "inflates a protective bubble, or heliosphere, around the solar system," which protects the inner planets against the radiation from other stars, said Dave McComas, Ulysses' solar wind principal investigator and senior executive director at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.

"With the solar wind at an all-time low, there is an excellent chance the heliosphere will diminish in size and strength," said Ed Smith, NASA's Ulysses project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"If that occurs, more galactic cosmic rays will make it into the inner part of our solar system," added Smith.

As we have noted before, some scientists (such as Svensmark) draw a link between variations in solar wind and variations in cloud formation on our planet. Svensmark argues that increased cosmic radiation acts as a catalyst for cloud formation in earth's atmosphere -- in turn leading to a general cooling of the world's climate if the pattern persists.

If the current lapse in the solar wind continues, Svensmark may soon get all of the data he needs to support or refute his theory.

Are polar bears going cannibal?

2008-09-23T14:11:00.005-05:00

CNN, in the midst of a boilerplate September 23 article about the allegedly impending disappearance of Arctic ice, brings us an alarming development in the saga of the officially-threatened-but-not-actually-declining-yet polar bear:

"The Arctic sea ice melt is a disaster for the polar bears," according to Kassie Siegel, staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. "They are dependent on the Arctic sea ice for all of their essential behaviors, and as the ice melts and global warming transforms the Arctic, polar bears are starving, drowning, even resorting to cannibalism because they don't have access to their usual food sources."

Scientists have noticed increasing reports of starving Arctic polar bears attacking and feeding on one another in recent years.

Cannibalism! Yikes! Given the extent of the summer melt in the past two seasons, researchers must have a lot of anecdotal evidence of this. Let's read on to learn the gory details:

In one documented 2004 incident in northern Alaska, a male bear broke into a female's den and killed her.

2004? Four years ago? Did the male bear eat the female after killing her? What was the frequency of such behavior in the polar bear population before any significant melting occurred?

Does article author Marsha Walton realize that this one sentence (which, by the way, is the only example given) undermines her alarmist conclusion? Apparently not. Even though the main purpose of the article is to report on the just-ended ice-melt season, her article is entitled:

Polar bears resort to cannibalism as Arctic ice shrinks

Present tense: "resort". If there's evidence of it happening this season, Walton doesn't see fit to present it.

Perhaps because the true story gives no cause for alarm?

Perhaps because researchers have long known about cannibalism among the polar bears.

[P.S. Hello to everyone visiting here from the CNN article page!]

Sunspot milestone

2008-09-01T10:03:00.003-05:00

August has the notable distinction of having passed without a single post by me to this blog (where did the time go?). Even more notable, however, is the fact that Mr. Sun was quiet the entire month as well, as Michael Asher reports:

The sun has reached a milestone not seen for nearly 100 years: an entire month has passed without a single visible sunspot being noted.

The event is significant as many climatologists now believe solar magnetic activity – which determines the number of sunspots -- is an influencing factor for climate on earth.

According to data from the NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center, the last time such an event occurred was June of 1913. Sunspot data has been collected since 1749.

The alarmists will almost certainly yawn at the news, if they notice it at all. Sunspots, many argue, have no effect on the radiation output of the Sun.

This is correct, but misleading. The solar magnetic activity represented by sunspots affects our climate indirectly by influencing cloud formation on our planet, which in turn does affect our climate.

Sure, he may go to jail, but he may also have earned a carbon credit or two

2008-07-25T23:48:00.003-05:00

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, July 25:

A 57-year-old south side man, who might have been struggling with a hangover, is charged today with shooting his lawn mower with a sawed-off shotgun.

"I'll tell you the truth," a criminal complaint quotes an apparently inebriated Keith Walendowski. "I got pissed because my lawn mower wouldn't start, so I got my shotgun and shot it.

"I can do that. It's my lawn mower and my yard, so I can shoot it if I want," Walendowski told police.

That beast'll never belch carbon again. Sure, it's only one lawn mower, but if each of us would commit to shooting our own lawn mowers, we might just end up saving the planet.

The War on Global Warming is the health of the state

2008-07-21T16:40:00.002-05:00

Small-"l" libertarians are known for their opposition to policies that expand the power* of the state at the expense of individual liberty. That makes it all the more fascinating that the big-"L" Libertarian Party has nominated a man who has endorsed a plan that -- if implemented -- would amount to one of the biggest-ever expansions of government power*.

As CNSNews reports:

Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr praised Al Gore, who challenged the United States Thursday to run on 100 percent zero-carbon electricity within 10 years.

Barr, a former Republican congressman from Georgia who attended the former vice president’s Washington, D.C., speech Thursday, said Gore’s plan “makes sense.”

“America responds well to challenges, if it is laid out, if it’s in terms that people can understand and relate to, if it makes sense – and what he’s laid out makes sense,” Barr said in an interview with Cybercast News Service after Gore spoke.

In a speech at the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Constitution Hall, Gore said the United States should move towards producing all of its electricity from renewable energy and clean carbon-free sources, a strategy Gore said would “re-power America."

[...]

Barr, who attended Thursday’s speech, said he was “deeply” indebted to Gore for “laying the challenge out there.”

As any true libertarian will testify (I don't consider myself to be one, but I lean in that direction), the government almost never surrenders power* that is usurped in times of crisis.

So what do you think, LP members?

Of course, the candidate I'm most likely to vote for, although he represents the party that had a better-than-even chance of articulating a sane point of view on the AGW issue, has also completely embraced Gore's presuppositions (if not all of Gore's policy prescriptions). Sigh.

* (Given the subject matter of Gore's speech, I apologize for the repeated but unavoidable pun)

Gore's plan to bankrupt America

2008-07-21T10:29:00.004-05:00

In a remarkable feat of understatement, The New York Times entitled its account of Al Gore's July 17 speech: Gore Urges Change to Dodge an Energy Crisis.

The word "change" has been bandied about so much in the current presidential campaign that people don't expect any specifics to be attached to the word. But Gore cannot be accused of empty rhetoric in this case. He believes that trillions of dollars should be shifted away from keeping our country's economic engine running and toward a complete replacement of our country's energy infrastructure. In ten years.

Gore was in fine TEOTWAWKI form in his Washington speech, as the NYT reports:

Former Vice President Al Gore on Thursday urged the United States to wean the nation from its entire electricity grid to carbon-free energy within 10 years, warning that drastic steps were needed to avoid a global economic and ecological cataclysm.

Like a modern Jeremiah, Mr. Gore called down thunder to justify the spending of trillions of dollars to remake the American power system, a plan fraught with technological and political challenges that goes far beyond the changes recently debated in Congress and by world leaders.

“The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,” he said in a midday speech to a friendly crowd of mostly young supporters in Washington. “And even more — if more should be required — the future of human civilization is at stake.”

As this excerpt shows, no cost is too great for you and me to bear, because the future of human civilization is at stake.

“To those who say 10 years is not enough time, I respectfully ask them to consider seriously what the world’s scientists are telling us about the risks we face if we don’t act in less than 10 years,” he said.

No, no, no... don't evaluate -- there's no time! The time for thinking is over -- it's time to act! So the complete reengineering of our power infrastructure would completely bankrupt our economy, likely taking the rest of the world with it -- what's your point?

Obama and McCain, while they may not have endorsed Gore's plan yet, seem all too happy to go the first step, which appears in the form of the EPA's Proposed Plan To Control Every Aspect Of Your Life. The Bush administration won't let that monstrosity move forward for now, but January 2009 is not far away.

US dodges economy-crushing bullet: EPA declines to regulate CO2 (for now)

2008-07-11T16:09:00.000-05:00

Environmentalists rejoiced when scientists* sitting on the US Supreme Court ruled that the government had every right to regulate CO₂ -- a gas essential for life on earth -- as a pollutant. Although it would seem a bit of a challenge to distinguish anthropogenic CO₂ molecules from naturally-occurring ones (perhaps we could tag ours), or to prevent foreign-generated CO₂ from mixing with domestic CO₂, it appeared certain that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under mounting pressure from the greens, was ready to assert jurisdiction over nearly every aspect of human activity in America.

Stunningly, the Bush administration's EPA declined an opportunity that would in effect have given the environmentalists everything they wanted.

In its voluminous document [588 pages!], the EPA laid out a buffet of options on how to reduce greenhouse gases from cars, ships, trains, power plants, factories and refineries.

"One point is clear: The potential regulation of greenhouse gases under any portion of the Clean Air Act could result in unprecedented expansion of EPA authority that would have a profound effect on virtually every sector of the economy and touch every household in the land," the EPA's Johnson said in a preface to the federal notice.

EPA said that it encountered resistance from the Agriculture, Commerce, Energy and Transportation departments, as well as the White House, that made it "impossible" to respond in a timely fashion to the Supreme Court decision.

"Our agencies have serious concerns with this suggestion because it does not fairly recognize the enormous — and, we believe, insurmountable — burdens, difficulties, and costs, and likely limited benefits, of using the Clean Air Act" to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, the secretaries of the four agencies wrote to the White House on July 9.

So, we've dodged a bullet, at least until the next administration takes office. It seems that John McCain, although he has embraced much of the propaganda, is far less inclined than Barack Obama is to use a heavy-handed, bureaucratic end-run technique like this to advance the AGW agenda.

* (Tim wrote with a straight face)

Funny numbers in TCPR 'Gore mansion' press release

2008-06-24T13:48:00.001-05:00

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research made a splash last week with their press release claiming that energy usage in Al Gore's Nashville-area compound had actually increased ten percent since 'green' renovations had been completed. TCPR was made news last year when they first brought Gore's conspicuous consumption to light. Although Team Gore denies any connection between TCPR's 2007 report and the subsequent renovations, the timing is, as they say, suspicious.

Your humble Heretic, of course, couldn't pass up an opportunity to highlight the latest release, joining countless others in the blogosphere. I guess it is basic human nature that we are not as rigorous about fact-checking data that support our point of view. It is also basic human nature that we try hard to find holes in data that appear to disagree with our point of view. Sometimes such opposition research can yield results that further the cause of integrity in the AGW debate.

Blogger Tim Lambert is no friend of the skeptic community, which no doubt made it easy for him to notice discrepancies between TCPR's 2007 release and last week's release. At the risk of causing my readers to lapse into an eye-glazed stupor, let's look at the claims made in the two reports:

February 2007 press release

Gore's 2006 energy consumption: 221,000kwh/year [i.e. 18,417kwh/month]

Average American household consumption: 10,656kwh/year [i.e. 888kwh/month]

Gore's consumption 20 times the average American household

June 2008 press release

Gore's 2007 energy consumption: 213,210kwh/year [i.e. 17,768kwh/month]

2006 monthly consumption: 16,130kwh

2007 consumption 10% increase over 2006

2007 consumption would power 232 normal homes for a month

The 2008 report's numbers are internally consistent, but they do not mesh with what was claimed in the 2007 report. Comparing the annual numbers, Lambert noted that a 2006 total of 221,000kwh and a 2007 total of 213,210kwh yields a 4% decrease, not a 10% increase. On the basis of this observation, Lambert declared TCPR to be an unreliable source and summarily dismissed the larger point raised in the newest press release (namely, that Gore consumes energy like a drunken sailor).

Looking only at this month's release, however, the numbers do work out: the monthly consumption increased from 16,130kwh to 17,768kwh, which is indeed a 10% increase. This raises problems with last year's press release, though. That report gave Gore's 2006 annual consumption as 221,000kwh, but 16,130 x 12 is actually 193,560kwh.

Sorry for the blizzard of calculations; let me get to my point. The biggest discrepancy appears to be an incorrect annual total in the 2007 press release. To my knowledge, TCPR has never corrected or clarified this number, and as of this moment TCPR has not yet responded to my request for a clarification.

As long as TCPR allows this discrepancy to stand, its credibility in the AGW debate will be open to legitimate question. I'm hoping that integrity will win out over the simple desire to score political points over Al Gore.

eBay foils a good deed

2008-06-19T09:30:00.000-05:00

Tom at Radio Free New Jersey has a tall, beautiful oak tree in his yard. He found that the tree was casting a shadow on the solar heater for his pool, so he planned to cut the tree down.

Then he had in inspiration: Why not leave the tree alone, and sell its carbon sequestration services to someone out there who was feeling guilty about their lifestyle? He would do a good deed, and for that he would be willing to put up with a slightly cooler swimming pool.

So, he put an ad on eBay, hoping to get a bid of $420 based on his calculation of how much carbon the tree would end up sequestering.

Alas, eBay yanked the auction after a few days without really explaining why. Tom speculates that eBay secretly knows that carbon credits are a scam, and thus is not willing for them to be sold on its site.

In my opinion, it is equally likely that the eBay folks accept the concept of carbon credits, and saw Tom's auction as mockery of the concept. Which it was, of course.

Bravo, Tom, for giving it a try. Perhaps you could find a way to contact the Gore estate; it seems that they could use a little feel-good P.R. right now.

When I think of all of the trees I've cut down on my property for one reason or another, and think about people who are more than willing to part with their money in the belief that the act frees them to maintain their wasteful lifestyles...... sigh...... what could have been.

If only we commoners could afford Al Gore's carbon footprint...

2008-06-19T09:15:00.007-05:00

A year ago we saw that Al Gore was investing a lot of money in his Tennessee mansion to help it comply with U.S. Green Building Council standards.

You would think that after all of those improvements, we would see the efficiency improvements reflected in an overall decrease in the amount of energy consumed in Gore's home. You would be wrong.

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research has been watching Gore's energy usage for a long time. It was their first press release about his wasteful lifestyle that appears to have prompted last year's renovations.

TCPR issued another report this week letting us know how things are going at the Gore estate:

In the year since Al Gore took steps to make his home more energy-efficient, the former Vice President’s home energy use surged more than 10%, according to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.

[...]In the past year, Gore’s home burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month.

In addition to efficiency improvements, Gore relies on the purchase of carbon offsets to somehow make his off-the-charts consumption (both at home and in his extensive travel by private jet) okay.

What he has really done is prove that reliance on carbon offsets tends to lead to an increase in wasteful consumption. This makes sense, because carbon offsets amount to doing penance for your bad behavior without actually making an effort to modify the bad behavior.

June 20 UPDATE: Although the numbers in TCPR's June 17th press release are internally consistent, it is true that, as detractor Tim Lambert observes, the numbers are not consistent with TCPR's 2007 press release about Gore's 2006 consumption (linked above). It appears to boil down to a misstated number in the 2007 press release -- which to my knowledge TCPR has never corrected. I have asked them for an official clarification, and will post an update if and when I hear back from them.

Tree-ring-based climate models further undermined by leaf-temperature study

2008-06-13T15:39:00.003-05:00

Will this break the hockey stick for good?

We've known for a while about studies demonstrating significant shortcomings in the use of tree-ring data to infer historical climate information. Now University of Pennsylvania researchers Brent Helliker and Suzanna Richter have published a study in the British journal Nature that seems to drive another nail into the coffin of the methodology that was supposedly the basis of Michael Mann's discredited "hockey stick" graph (which can be seen in the post linked above).

From a June 11 AFP article (emphasis added):

The internal temperature of leaves, whether in the tropics or a cold-clime forest, tends toward a nearly constant 21.4 degrees Celsius (71 degree Fahrenheit), reports a study released Wednesday.

It had long been assumed that actively photosynthesising leaves -- using energy from sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar -- are nearly as cold or hot as the air around them.

The new findings not only challenge long-held precepts in plant biology, but could upend climate models that use tree rings to infer or predict past and present temperature changes.

For decades, scientists studying the impact of global warming have measured the oxygen isotope ratio in tree-rings to determine the air temperature and relative humidity of historical climates.

Oxygen atoms within water molecules evaporate more or less quickly depending on the number of neutrons they carry, and the ratio between these differently weighted atoms in tree trunk rings has been used as a measure of year-to-year fluctuations in temperatures and rainfall.

"The assumption in all of these studies was that tree leaf temperatures were equal to ambient temperatures," lead researcher Brent Helliker told AFP. "It turns out that they are not."

Oopsie.

------
Study Reference:
Helliker, Brent and Suzanna L. Richter. 2008. Subtropical to boreal convergence of tree-leaf temperatures. Nature. In press. doi:10.1038/nature07031

Another update on the remarkable winter of 2007-8

2008-06-12T10:05:00.005-05:00

Last summer our part of Texas enjoyed one of its coolest summers in living memory, but this year we're roasting at more typical temperatures (mid to upper 90s). A rotten time for our 20-year-old home air conditioning system to give up the ghost, but we finally got that replaced a couple of weeks ago, so we're comfortable again.

Too bad we can't have a summer like they're having up in the Pacific northwest. As reported June 10 in the Seattle Times:

Seattle just experienced the coldest first week of June, according to climate records dating to 1891, said Cliff Mass, University of Washington metrologist. Both 1999 and 2008 share the record, with 1917 falling in second place, he said. "Just wait until tomorrow," he said, when temperatures are going to be even colder.

A heavy snow warning has been issued for the Washington Cascades and Olympics as a storm from the Gulf of Alaska plows into the state tonight.

And on June 11:

It doesn't seem fair, but it's the cold, hard truth — accent on cold: While Seattle hasn't seen a 70-degree day in more than two weeks, Fairbanks, Alaska, has had six of them in the past 10 days.

Just about everyone, it seems, is toastier than we are. You've heard of International Falls, Minn., the self-proclaimed "Icebox of the Nation?"? It's had four days this month in the 70s, topped off with a pleasant 75 on Sunday.

Across the Atlantic, the northern destination of Oslo, Norway, has been passing the 70-degree mark nearly every day recently, while even the Siberian city of Tomsk, Russia, hit the 70s last weekend.

Not that I'm suggesting anything. Highlighting local weather patterns for AGW propaganda purposes is a tricky business, because you have to choose your data points carefully. Chilly in Seattle (global cooling!), but sweltering in New York (global warming!).

This is the purpose of the "proof by anecdote" label for certain posts on this blog. You can prove just about anything anecdotally, if you choose the right anecdote. I try never to commit this fallacy on purpose here (the "proof by anecdote" label is your hint that I'm being facetious), but feel free to call me on it if you think I've let one slip by without admitting it.

(via ICECAP)

Youth indoctrination Down Under: Planet Slayer

2008-06-10T15:26:00.004-05:00

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's website is hosting an online game called Planet Slayer.

The villains are hypocritical meat-eating bourgeois materialist greenhouse pigs. The heroes are those who, in the words of Ludwig von Mises Institute essayist Ben O'Neill, "[oppose] logging, nuclear waste, war, consumerism, and other evils, and [support] such good things as composting, clean transport, solar power, and protesting."

The site has all sorts of fun activities for the kids, including a calculator apparently intended to show them that they've already contributed more than their share of CO2, and that they would do well to go some place quiet and kill themselves.

I wish I was kidding. Here's the screenshot for the opening page of the when-you-should-die calculator (click to view full-sized image):

This site is supported in part by the tax dollars of the citizens of Australia (via Film Victoria). Hope you feel like you're getting your money's worth, my Australian friends.

The Sun: Now with a spot-free shine!

2008-06-10T10:27:00.003-05:00

Science Daily reports from a Montana State University press release that an increasing number of solar scientists are puzzling over the fact that Solar Cycle 24 is still refusing to make an appearance, two years after Cycle 23 showed clear indications of leaving the stage:

The sun has been laying low for the past couple of years, producing no sunspots and giving a break to satellites.
That's good news for people who scramble when space weather interferes with their technology, but it became a point of discussion for the scientists who attended an international solar conference at Montana State University. Approximately 100 scientists from Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and North America gathered June 1-6 to talk about "Solar Variability, Earth's Climate and the Space Environment."

The scientists said periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, but this period has gone on longer than usual.

"It continues to be dead," said Saku Tsuneta with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, program manager for the Hinode solar mission. "That's a small concern, a very small concern."

History shows a strong correlation between long intercycle calm periods and global cooling. The press release notes that a 50-year sunspot-free period occurred in the 17th century, during what is now known as the Little Ice Age.

If this spot-free period persists, I suppose we'll know before too long whether or not the earth's climate truly responds to such changes in solar activity.

Seriously, who didn't see this coming?

2008-06-09T23:47:00.003-05:00

It sure didn't take long.

The ink had hardly dried on Interior Secretary Kempthorne's directive designating the polar bear as "threatened" (based purely on hypotheticals and what-ifs, not on reality) when the environmental left showed why they pressed so hard for the designation. From a June 9 Associated Press story:

Two conservation groups plan to sue to protect polar bears from petroleum exploration and drilling off Alaska's coast.
The Center for Biological Diversity and Pacific Environment gave the federal government formal notice Monday that they will sue under the Endangered Species Act to protect the bears, which were listed as threatened last month by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.

Do I need to say it again? The AGW scare is merely a tool used by certain parties to advance portions of their agenda that might not otherwise be enacted.

In this case, many in the environmental left are flat-out opposed to developing oil resources anywhere, and they have shown themselves to be masters at using regulation and litigation to head off new drilling in the United States. Arctic Alaska is by far the easiest target, because... well, polar bears are just so doggone cute!

In the current political climate (pardon the pun), what are the odds that this lawsuit will succeed? Never mind the fact that (as the article mentions) arctic exploration has led to zero deaths of polar bears and walruses in the fifteen years that "incidental harm" to these animals has been decriminalized within this context.

In case you haven't noticed...

2008-05-28T13:06:00.004-05:00

Where's Tim?

As you can read in the sidebar, Real Life often takes me away from posting here. Recently, the aforementioned Real Life has forced me into a hiatus that is now in its sixth week. I'll be back soon, hopefully no later than the week after next.

Thanks for your patience!

AGW will make hurricanes worse! No it won't! Yes it will! Maybe.

2008-04-17T16:57:00.002-05:00

Al Gore used the Katrina disaster to popularize the notion that global warming would make such monsters a routine occurrence. That notion had no scientific merit, but no matter: Gore had successfully injected it into the public discourse, and it took on a life of its own (for example, it was cited by one insurance company as justification for a rate increase request in Florida).

Today Science Daily brings us another exercise in speculative alarmism related to hurricanes (emphasis added):

The Earth's jet streams, the high-altitude bands of fast winds that strongly influence the paths of storms and other weather systems, are shifting--possibly in response to global warming. Scientists at the Carnegie Institution determined that over a 23-year span from 1979 to 2001 the jet streams in both hemispheres have risen in altitude and shifted toward the poles. The jet stream in the northern hemisphere has also weakened. These changes fit the predictions of global warming models and have implications for the frequency and intensity of future storms, including hurricanes.

Cristina Archer and Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology tracked changes in the average position and strength of jet streams using records compiled by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, the National Centers for Environmental Protection, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The data included outputs from weather prediction models, conventional observations from weather balloons and surface instruments, and remote observations from satellites.

So, how far has the average position of the jet stream shifted over that 23 year span? About 25 miles. That's nothing -- we're talking about the distance from one side of a large metropolitan area to the other -- but the researchers (and/or whoever wrote the press release) do their best to make it sound frightening.

Storm paths in North America are likely to shift northward as a result of the jet stream changes. Hurricanes, whose development tends to be inhibited by jet streams, may become more powerful and more frequent as the jet streams move away from the sub-tropical zones where hurricanes are born.

Here's the equation: Small shift poleward in the average position of the jet stream = more powerful and more frequent hurricanes. Al Gore, call your movie agent.

So, you're still not impressed with the 25-mile shift? Well, the author of the press release doesn't want us to rest easy:

The poleward shift in their average location discovered by the researchers is small, about 19 kilometers (12 miles) per decade in the northern hemisphere, but if the trend continues the impact could be significant. "The jet streams are the driving factor for weather in half of the globe," says Archer. "So, as you can imagine, changes in the jets have the potential to affect large populations and major climate systems."

Some questions for our researchers:

Will the trend continue? How do you know?
What was the trend before 1979?
How long is the current trend likely to continue?
How far poleward is the jet likely to go?
Are there any natural mechanisms that will limit or halt the poleward march?

Oh, and is this tiny shift the result of global warming?

"At this point we can't say for sure that this is the result of global warming, but I think it is," says Caldeira. "I would bet that the trend in the jet streams' positions will continue. It is something I'd put my money on."

Whatever you may think about this speculation, let's be clear: it's speculation, not science. The study was about the shift in the jet stream, not about the mechanisms of hurricane development. Of course, that doesn't matter. Some scientists said it, and it fits the AGW template, so it will be reported.

Updates on the remarkable winter of 2007-8

2008-04-11T11:27:00.003-05:00

Yes, yes, I know. Climate is long-term, and one cold winter does not a trend make. Still, even CoGW adherents ought to take note of the mounting evidence that this winter season is unlike any we've seen since.... since when?

Since this winter has been undeniably extraordinary, those who have much invested in the AGW paradigm have been forced into "Yeah, but" mode: "Yeah, you've never seen this kind of winter in your lifetime, but it's all because of La Niña. Even though we attributed the extraordinarily warm temperatures of El Niño year 1998 to AGW, the extraordinarily cold temperatures of La Niña year 2008 are a routine fluctuation. We expect the doomsday countdown to resume shortly."

Even as Solar Cycle 24 stubbornly refuses to establish itself (despite months of numerous premature announcements that it had started), our planet's northern hemisphere winter has thus far declined to respect the calendar, as is evidenced by the unusually heavy April snowstorm currently working its way across the northern plains of the U.S. and Canada.

How unusual is this winter in the U.S.? Here are just a couple of examples from the past week:

Minneapolis Star-Tribune, April 11:

The latest-ever start to the Mississippi River navigation season in Minnesota is unfolding today.
[...] The average opening date of the navigation season for the past 30 years has been March 20. In 2007, the first tow to make it to St. Paul arrived on March 29.

This year's late start, due to unusually cold spring weather, breaks the previous late record of April 7, set in 1978.

Boston Globe, April 8:

Some Maine syrup producers say the season is off to a late start with delays caused by cold weather and taps and tubing hidden by snow in northern Maine.
Bob Moore of Bob's Sugar House is busy boiling sap this week, but he'd be a lot busier if he could tap all of his trees. He said at least 75 percent of his 5,000 trees are unreachable.

"I have trees that still have 3 feet of snow around them," he said. "It's not looking good right now."

Maine's maple syrup production can start anytime between mid-February and late March. But like most agriculture ventures, the season is subject to the whims of the weather.

"As usual, for some folks, especially in the far south of the state, sugaring season is over," said Kathy Hopkins, a maple expert with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension in Skowhegan.

"But I doubt they'll be done tapping in The County until June," she said in joking reference to the state's northernmost county, Aroostook. "In some places, they just can't get to their trees and all their tubing is buried under snow."

On the other side of the world, southern China got its worst winter in 50 years. At the bottom of the world, the media shrieks whenever a piece of ice breaks off of an ice shelf, but we get nothing about the fact that overall, Antarctica has been cooling in recent decades. In fact, the just-completed antarctic summer has yielded still more extraordinary news: Surface snowmelt there is running about 40% below the average of the previous 20 years.

But never mind all that. Once La Niña subsides, we can get back to TEOTWAWKI.

The Ferengi Factor (Pretend AGW is real, and retire rich!)

2008-03-22T13:09:00.004-05:00

"Who cares if nobody has proven
a human influence on our climate?

This is an opportunity for profits!"

JunkScience.com chief Steven Milloy had a chance to speak last week at a conference sponsored by the Wall Street Journal. The conference was, in Milloy's words, a gathering of industries "that seek to make a financial killing from climate alarmism".

Milloy noted that attendees were remarkably uninterested in the question of whether or not climate change was truly -- for the first time in history -- caused by human activity. Thus, Milloy's attempt to bring the audience's attention to contrary evidence like the graph below went down like a lead balloon.

Rather, the focus remained on the various ways for businesses to maximize profits, assuming no change in the current political...um...climate.

If enough corporations begin to recognize a financial interest in keeping public and political opinions where they are right now, it may not matter if science slowly comes around to recognizing the dearth of evidence supporting the AGW hypothesis:

Virtually every speaker at the conference professed that they were either in favor of free markets or that they supported a free-market solution to global warming. But invariably in their next breath, they would plead for government regulation of greenhouse gases and government subsidies for alternative energy.

It’s hard to conceive of any good coming from a public policy in which facts play no substantial role in its development and words have no meaning in its public debate.

Winter 2007-8: It's all in how you look at it

2008-03-16T02:05:00.003-05:00

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration presents a straightforward acknowledgment that this winter has bucked the trend of recent years:

NOAA: Coolest Winter Since 2001 for U.S., Globe
The average temperature across both the contiguous U.S. and the globe during climatological winter (December 2007-February 2008) was the coolest since 2001, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. In terms of winter precipitation, Pacific storms, bringing heavy precipitation to large parts of the West, produced high snowpack that will provide welcome runoff this spring.

The Associated Press, looking at the same press release, ignored NOAA's summary and zeroed in on the one thing that matters most to the CoGW:

Winter Has Been Warmer Than Average

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Winter storms and snow notwithstanding, this winter was still warmer than average worldwide, the government reported Thursday.

The greatest tragedy of L'Affair Spitzer

2008-03-11T20:47:00.003-05:00

All moral and legal issues aside, the scandal enveloping New York governor Eliot Spitzer may have caused some collateral damage to the AGW political agenda in the U.S., to the dismay of true believers. As opined by SolveClimate:

Spitzer's rendez-vous, the night before Valentine's day s'il vous plaît, will unfortunately strike a blow at progress on global warming, whether through his resignation, unavoidable distraction if he stays in office, and/or his diminished effectiveness. He has been a Governor who has shown -- in the absence of federal action -- leadership on global warming, which began during his tenure as New York State attorney General, and whose good effect endures.

(Credit: Minnesota Monitor, Free Republic)

Whoever added this blog to StumbleUpon...

2008-03-08T23:17:00.004-06:00

Thanks! And, welcome to all who came for a visit as a result.

The planet will be better off if you stay in bed

2008-03-07T15:52:00.004-06:00

Reader Kevin J. pointed me to the story of Dutch student Yde Van Deutekom, who is inviting webcam viewers to pay him to stay in bed all day. The wonderfully-named environmentalist site TreeHugger notes the similarity of Yde's quest with this classic Joy of Tech cartoon (click link to see the whole thing), which shows how laziness can be repackaged as an ecological virtue.

Shield your eyes if you're writing a college research paper

2008-03-03T14:55:00.007-06:00

Of all the global warming blogs
in all the domains
in all the world...
she comes across mine.

One of the nice things about using a data service like Statcounter is that I usually find out pretty quickly when somebody has linked to this site. Today I found out that I had the distinct honor of being a case-in-point in a college freshman's lab exercise on reliable and unreliable sources of information on the internet.

In case you were wondering, I was singled out as an example of an unreliable source of information on global warming. As soon as I got over the shock and shame at being thus labeled, I read on.

Before I relate why Ms. Cooper determined my site to be unreliable, I thought it might be good to note the qualities that she thinks makes a site reliable and/or credible. To sum up, a reliable/credible source is:

Associated with a commercial publication of some kind; or
Associated with some known organization; or
Associated with a government, military or academic internet domain.

That's about it. It's safe to cite anything that comes from such sources.

How did I fail Ms. Cooper? My sins are threefold:

I use "sarcasm" in the "About the Heretic" section on the sidebar when comparing my credentials to those of Al Gore. I thought of it more as dryly humorous hyperbole, but okay. I guess her complaint here is that by the use of such humor, I have surrendered any claim to objectivity. However, objectivity is not my aim, as I explain in the next item.
In that same blurb I mention that I use this site to present my opinions on the various issues surrounding the global warming debate. I have never pretended that this site was to be seen as a source of original news reporting or original research. There are other excellent sites out there (many linked in the sidebar) which accomplish this quite well. My goal is to analyze what others are reporting as news or publishing as science, and to look at possible cultural and ideological trends therein. So, if I was dinged for not being an original source for news and research results... guilty.

I'm shocked -- shocked! --
to learn that opinions
are expressed on this blog!

I publish on Blogspot. To the same extent that anything published on a site ending in .edu, .mil or .gov is deemed automatically reliable, so anything published on whatever.blogspot.com is automatically unreliable. In both extremes, the judgment is made without regard to actual content. Although I do work for a university, this site is a personal project of mine and is unrelated to my current work. Too bad. If I was a college professor I could move my analyses to my departmental web page, and by virtue of the .edu domain it seems that my essays would be citeable. Nice racket, if you can get into it.

Please note that I am not accusing Ms. Cooper of attacking my point of view. In fact, she presents fellow heretic GlobalWarming.org as an example of a reliable site.

Ms. Cooper's assignment appears to have been about which kinds of sources should be citeable when writing a college research paper. Fair enough, but I think that the broad generalizations given by Cooper discourage critical thinking.

Better to have the following standard regarding internet sources: Cite whatever you want, but be prepared to defend your choices.

(P.S. Here's a philosophical poser: Was it okay for Ms. Cooper to cite this site in support of her thesis that this site should not be cited?)

Update on the indoctrination of our youth

2008-03-03T13:44:00.003-06:00

WJBF-TV in Atlanta brings us this February 28 story of a boy who appears to have a fine future in politics:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger helped a student who fainted at a speech in Sacramento.

[...]

The boy and the Governor got a chance to talk later in the nurse's office. The student told the Governor he blames global warming for the incident.

A modest request to those who believe in anthropogenic "climate change"

2008-02-26T13:58:00.007-06:00

Despite the name of this blog, some time ago many in the CoGW abandoned the exclusive use of the term "global warming" to describe current climate trends. "Climate change" is the preferred term now, since many weather events in recent years do not appear to fit the perception of what we would see on an unnaturally warming planet.

I will continue to use "Anthropogenic Global Warming" (AGW) to describe this ideology. Although atmospheric CO₂ concentrations continue to increase, global temperatures have more or less plateaued in the past decade. Since the plateau occurred at a warm average temperature, we've been treated to innumerable accounts of the fact that recent years have been among the warmest in recent history. So, despite the use of the term "climate change", it's clear that proponents are invested in creating the public perception that the earth is continuing to warm (and that such warming will soon accelerate out of control).

Climate change really is a term of art, because it allows CoGW adherents to insist that all weather -- wet or dry, hot or cold -- validates the AGW orthodoxy.

Floods in China: check. Drought in China: check. More hurricanes: check. Fewer hurricanes: check. Summer ice melt in the Arctic: check. Winter refreezing of Arctic ice that exceeds that which originally melted: check. Collapse of the West Antarctica Ice Shelf: check. Net increase in Antarctic ice: check. Record warm winter in 2006-2007: check. Record cold winter in 2007-2008: check.

And so on.

This leads me to ask a question of those of you who believe that human activity is negatively and catastrophically impacting the earth's climate:

Is the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis falsifiable?

I am asking this within the context of the scientific method. Integrity demands that a scientist, when proposing a hypothesis, list the conditions whereby the hypothesis would fall apart:

We believe that this hypothesis sufficiently describes the reality we are studying, but if anybody can demonstrate any of conditions a, b, c, d or e, our hypothesis is fatally compromised and it's back to the drawing board.

So, AGW folks: can you name any condition (series of weather events, temperature trends, etc.) that would make you doubt the current orthodoxy, or are we witnessing the most bulletproof hypothesis ever?

UPDATE: After a quick Google search, I was pleased to discover that this question has already occurred to minds much greater than mine. As I composed this post earlier today, I had the folks at RealClimate in mind (among others). It turns out that Roger Pielke, Jr. tossed the following rhetorical grenade into the midst of a RealClimate discussion about how awfully cold Antarctica is right now:

There are a vast number of behaviors of the climate system that are consistent with climate model predictions, along the lines of your conclusion: “A cold Antarctica and Southern Ocean do not contradict our models of global warming.”

I have asked many times and never received an answer here: What behavior of the climate system would contradict models of global warming? Specifically what behavior of what variables over what time scales? This should be a simple question to answer.

Thanks!

The ensuing debate is pretty interesting.

Pielke followed up on the question in his own blog. The debate is pretty lively in the comment section over there as well.

(Found via: Seeker Blog)

NOAA, in a fit of common sense, points out the blindingly obvious

2008-02-22T21:00:00.005-06:00

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, often found in the AGW camp, made a surprising admission today:

A team of scientists have found that the economic damages from hurricanes have increased in the U.S. over time due to greater population, infrastructure, and wealth on the U.S. coastlines, and not to any spike in the number or intensity of hurricanes.

More people and more stuff on the coast? Wow, more damage!

“We found that although some decades were quieter and less damaging in the U.S. and others had more land-falling hurricanes and more damage, the economic costs of land-falling hurricanes have steadily increased over time,” said Chris Landsea, one of the researchers as well as the science and operations officer at NOAA’s National Hurricane Center in Miami. “There is nothing in the U.S. hurricane damage record that indicates global warming has caused a significant increase in destruction along our coasts.”

In a newly published paper in Natural Hazards Review, the researchers also found that economic hurricane damage in the U.S. has been doubling every 10 to 15 years. If more people continue to move to the hurricane-prone coastline, future economic hurricane losses may be far greater than previously thought.

Al Gore, call your office.

Flex Fuel(ishness): Eco-hostile Ethanol

2008-02-13T14:53:00.003-06:00

If you own a vehicle that depends to any extent on ethanol to run, you may want to set your latte down before reading the following from a February 7 AP article:

The widespread use of ethanol from corn could result in nearly twice the greenhouse gas emissions as the gasoline it would replace because of expected land-use changes, researchers concluded Thursday. The study challenges the rush to biofuels as a response to global warming.

The researchers said that past studies showing the benefits of ethanol in combating climate change have not taken into account almost certain changes in land use worldwide if ethanol from corn — and in the future from other feedstocks such as switchgrass — become a prized commodity.

"Using good cropland to expand biofuels will probably exacerbate global warming," concludes the study published in Science magazine.

The researchers said that farmers under economic pressure to produce biofuels will increasingly "plow up more forest or grasslands," releasing much of the carbon formerly stored in plants and soils through decomposition or fires. Globally, more grasslands and forests will be converted to growing the crops to replace the loss of grains when U.S. farmers convert land to biofuels, the study said.

The rebuttal is pretty weak:

The Renewable Fuels Association, which represents ethanol producers, called the researchers' view of land-use changes "simplistic" and said the study "fails to put the issue in context."

"Assigning the blame for rainforest deforestation and grassland conversion to agriculture solely on the renewable fuels industry ignores key factors that play a greater role," said Bob Dinneen, the association's president.

Gotta love that ethanol. Touted as an earth-friendly alternative to petroleum, instead it brings us deforestation, rising food prices, food shortages (especially in third-world countries), and lots and lots of CO₂.

William Tucker writes in a February 13 American Spectator report that our country's current mentality regarding biofuels has roots going back more than 30 years:

From the beginning, the entire biofuels effort has been built on flimsy projections and dubious accounting that were seized upon by politicians eager to demonstrate they were "doing something" about energy. The whole fiasco can probably be traced to a single paragraph in Amory Lovins Soft Energy Paths, the 1976 book that inspired President Carter's embrace of "alternate energy" and convinced California Governor Jerry Brown that his state didn't need to build any more power plants. (Google "California Electrical Shortage" to see what happened there.) In one hasty brushstroke, Lovins outlined what a national biofuels industry might look like:
[E]xciting developments in the conversion of agricultural, forestry, and urban wastes to methanol and other liquid and gaseous fuels now offer practical, economically interesting technologies sufficient to run an efficient U.S. transport sector. The required scale of organic conversion can be estimated. Each year the U.S. beer and wine industry, for example, microbiologically produces 5 percent as many gallons (not all alcohol, of course) as the U.S. oil industry produces gasoline. Gasoline has 1.5 to 2 times the fuel value of alcohol per gallon. Thus a conversion industry roughly ten to fourteen times the physical scale (in gallons of fluid output per year) of U.S. cellars and breweries, albeit using different processes, would produce roughly one-third of the present gasohol requirements of the United States....The scale of effort required does not seem unreasonable.
In other words, since beer and wine were already one-twentieth the volume of our gasoline, a reasonable expansion of distilleries could supply us with one-third of our transportation needs. Unfortunately, this analysis contained a single oversight that has bedeviled biofuels ever since.

Notice that while Lovins estimated the size of the distilling industry, he never mentions the amount of land required to produce the crops. Hops and vineyards currently occupy 40 million acres of farmland. Using Lovins' figure of "roughly ten to fourteen times the scale," that gives us 480 million acres -- more than all of U.S. cropland put together.

Lovins also made a mistake. Although he mentioned that beer and wine are "not all alcohol," he forgot to factor this into the final equation. Wine is 12 percent alcohol and beer is about 5 percent, so let's take 7 percent as an average. This means we must again multiply those 480 million acres by a factor of fourteen. That leaves us with 6.5 billion acres - three times the area of the United States, including Alaska -- in order to produce one-third of our transportation fuel needs in 1977. On this fatal error was the entire U.S. ethanol industry built.

Regardless of how we got here, the news that ethanol is likely doing more harm than good is not likely to lead any time soon to a rethinking of our energy policy.

Punxsutawney Phil could be out of a job soon

2008-02-07T09:31:00.004-06:00

Rick Kollinger:

(For those of you who don't know who Punxsutawney Phil is, you can read more here)

Groundhog Day 2009 update: A big HOWDY to all of you who arrived at this blog post via Google Image Search!

Groundhog Day 2010 update: See Groundhog Day 2009 update.

Allstate's prophets seek more profits in Florida

2008-02-05T18:08:00.000-06:00

Allstate recently tried to push through a 42% premium rate increase on its Florida customers, using as its justification unscientific wild guess about future weather conditions, as this article reports:

Now we know why Allstate wanted a 42-percent increase in home insurance rates. The company is using an unapproved model that factors the growing threat of global warming.
Last month, company executives objected to a Senate subpoena. The state tried to suspend their license, and Governor Crist threatened to sue them.

Now Allstate executives said they aren't price gouging. They say they're just very concerned about climate change, and trying to make sure they keep rates in tune with the growing threat. The ocean is a hurricane's fuel tank. Warmer waters could mean more and stronger storms (though this is currently a subject of scientific debate).

"It's my professional opinion and others at Allstate, it appears that the increase in sea surface temperatures and the near term effect of hurricanes is something that is real and is a need that we need to consider for the protection of our insurers," said Allstate Floridian's Ryan Michel.

Kudos to the article writer for noting that the link between warmer waters and hurricane frequency and intensity has not been established.

Allstate's Florida customers really ought to ponder whether they really are "in good hands".

The polar bear: poster child of the environmental left

2008-02-04T14:17:00.001-06:00

Sen. Inhofe's EPW staff has gathered a variety of scientific sources indicating that polar bears, the majestic icon of the CoGW, are not declining -- in fact, they are now near record high levels (at least double their population of half a century ago). Many of these extinction scenarios are floated using a raft of scientifically unsound assumptions.

And yet, yesterday we read this in the Los Angeles Times:

The Bush administration is nearing a decision that would officially acknowledge the environmental damage of global warming, and name its first potential victim: the polar bear.

The Interior Department may act as soon as this week on its year-old proposal to make the polar bear the first species to be listed as threatened with extinction because of melting ice due to a warming planet.

The environmental left candidly admits the importance of the polar bear as a cute, cuddly symbol of their cause:

Both sides agree that conservationists finally have the poster species they have sought to use the Endangered Species Act as a lever to force federal limits on the greenhouse gases linked to global warming, and possibly to battle smokestack industry projects far from the Arctic.

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others," said Kassie Siegel, an attorney with the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity. "And then there is the polar bear."

Keep in mind that the decline isn't actually occurring right now. The movement to get the polar bear listed as threatened is based on what-if computer scenarios.

But what if the assumptions are wrong, and the projected warming does not occur? No matter. Once the polar bear is listed, environmental law can more easily be used as a bludgeon for The Cause. Just about any human activity can -- with appropriate logical gymnastics -- be tied to climate change, so pretty much no human activity in America would remain beyond the reach of the environmental regulators.

The Times article lists a more obvious example:

Heavy industry has reason to fear. At least one part of the environmental community believes the bear's listing would provide the leverage to stop a coal-fired power plant thousands of miles away from the Arctic.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who is known for his skepticism about global-warming measures, asked U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall last week whether listing the polar bear could be used to halt the construction of a new power plant in Oklahoma City.

"The Endangered Species Act is not the vehicle to reach out and demand all of the things that need to happen to address climate change," Hall said, to Inhofe's apparent satisfaction.

Andrew E. Wetzler, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's endangered species project, said Hall misunderstands the legal principles underlying the act, which was fortified by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that carbon dioxide can be regulated as a pollutant.

If the builders of a coal-fired plant needed a federal permit, they would probably have to show how its emissions would not erode the polar bear's habitat or jeopardize its survival, Wetzler said.

If the drive to get the polar bear listed succeeds, the opportunity for environmentalist mischief will be boundless.

Rewriting history, enshrining fallacy

2008-01-29T16:19:00.000-06:00

Given that 2000 years of non-tree-ring proxy data show nothing extraordinary about the warming of the past two centuries, this proposal by British scientists seems to be a bit over the top:

A HEATED scientific row is brewing as British geoscientists lead a push to establish a new chapter in the history of Earth - one based on human activity.

Led by geologist Jan Zalasiewicz, of the University of Leicester, the rabble-rousers argue that changes wrought since the Industrial Revolution 200 years ago are so profound they are now visible in the physical and living fabric of the planet.

As a result, they have called for the creation of a new Epoch in the official geological time scale, one they have named the Anthropocene.

Along with Eons, Eras, Periods and Ages, Epochs are classifications of Earth history based on characteristic changes in the layers, or strata, of rocks.

Writing in the latest issue of GSA Today, a publication of the Geological Society of America, Dr Zalasiewicz and 20 like-minded experts claim there is "sufficient evidence" of human-induced changes to plants, animals, oceans and lands to warrant recognition of the Anthropocene by the official geological time lords, the International Commission on Stratigraphy. Their proposal came at the same time as the American Geophysical Union at the weekend released its updated position on climate change.

Yes, clean energy is good, but at what cost? And who pays?

2008-01-29T14:24:00.000-06:00

President Bush demonstrated in his State of the Union address that congressional Democrats are not the only ones capable of throwing lots of good money at a bad idea. As Reuters reports in a pre-speech article:

THE US will commit $US2 billion ($2.27 billion) over the next three years for a new international fund to promote clean energy technologies and fight climate change, President George W. Bush will tell Congress today in his annual State of the Union speech.

"Along with contributions from other countries, this fund will increase and accelerate the deployment of all forms of cleaner, more efficient technologies in developing nations like India and China, and help leverage substantial private-sector capital by making clean energy projects more financially attractive," the White House said in a fact sheet on Mr Bush's speech.

Is it wrong to "promote clean energy technologies" in developing nations? Of course not. The problem is that misguided climate alarmism produces the urgency that makes it politically acceptable to commit American taxpayer money to such endeavors.

I don't wish to dive too deeply into the American presidential race in this post, but I've got to say that the remaining candidates leave much to be desired on this issue.

Study: Tree ring data has significant shortcomings as climate proxy

2008-01-29T13:53:00.000-06:00

Abstract from Loehle, C. 2007. A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-treering proxies. Energy & Environment 18(7-8): 1049-1058; and Loehle, C., and J.H. McCulloch. 2008: Correction to: A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-treering proxies. Energy & Environment 19(1): 93-100 (emphasis added):

Historical data provide a baseline for judging how anomalous recent temperature changes are and for assessing the degree to which organisms are likely to be adversely affected by current or future warming. Climate histories are commonly reconstructed from a variety of sources, including ice cores, tree rings, and sediment. Tree-ring data, being the most abundant for recent centuries, tend to dominate reconstructions. There are reasons to believe that tree ring data may not properly capture long-term climate changes. In this study, eighteen 2000-year-long series were obtained that were not based on tree ring data. Data in each series were smoothed with a 30-year running mean. All data were then converted to anomalies by subtracting the mean of each series from that series. The overall mean series was then computed by simple averaging. The mean time series shows quite coherent structure. The mean series shows the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and Little Ice Age (LIA) quite clearly, with the MWP being approximately 0.3°C warmer than 20th century values at these eighteen sites.

The study can be downloaded here.

The first graph below (found here), adapted from the Loehle paper, deviates significantly from the tree-ring-based "hockey stick" graph (second below, found here) of Mann, et al., and thus is likely to be declared heterodox and anathema by the CoGW.

Shocker: Congress throws taxpayer money into black hole, gets nothing in return

2008-01-28T15:37:00.000-06:00

I guess I missed this when it first happened, but in November the Democrat-led House of Representatives voted to set aside nearly $90,000 to offset carbon emissions associated with our esteemed legislators' activities.

[Insert your own joke here regarding Congress and emissions]

Today the WaPo (via MSNBC) reports that our congressfolks have been taught a lesson about the nature of the carbon offset industry:

The House of Representatives has presumably learned that money cannot buy love or happiness. Now, it turns out it's not a sure solution to climate guilt, either.

In November, the Democratic-led House spent about $89,000 on so-called carbon offsets. This purchase was supposed to cancel out greenhouse-gas emissions from House buildings -- including half of the U.S. Capitol -- by triggering an equal reduction in emissions elsewhere.

Some of the money went to farmers in North Dakota, for tilling practices that keep carbon buried in the soil. But some farmers were already doing this, for other reasons, before the House paid a cent.

Other funds went to Iowa, where a power plant had been temporarily rejiggered to burn more cleanly. But that test project had ended more than a year before the money arrived.

The House's purchase provides a view into the confusing world of carbon offsets, a newly popular commodity with few rules. Analysts say some offsets really do cause new reductions in pollution. But others seem to change very little.

To environmentalists, the House's experience is a powerful lesson about a market where pure intentions can produce murky results.

"It didn't change much behavior that wasn't going to happen anyway," said Joseph Romm, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who writes a blog calling for more aggressive action on climate change. "It just, I think, demonstrated why offsets are controversial and possibly pointless. . . . This is a waste of taxpayer money."

The House bought its offsets through the Chicago Climate Exchange, a five-year-old commodities market where greenhouse-gas credits are traded like pork bellies.

Yes, they've been taught a lesson, but to paraphrase our current president, Is our congressfolks learning? Not likely, if they justify their behavior using the logic offered by the Chicago Climate Exchange:

This month, officials at the exchange vigorously defended the sale, saying the House's money had done a great deal of good by funneling money to those who were helping to combat climate change.

"It basically rewards people for having done things that had environmental good in the past and incentivizes people to do things that have environmental good in the future," said Richard Sandor, the exchange's chairman and chief executive.

Read Sandor's comment carefully. Carbon offsets, ostensibly meant by their purchasers to offset current emissions, do not necessarily go to people or organizations currently engaged in offsetting activities. Rather, offset money can be used to reward people that had "done things that had environmental good in the past". Even better, the money can be used to "incentivize" these good folks to do environmental good in the future. No obligation, it appears.

It's much worse than anybody thought!

2008-01-28T09:43:00.000-06:00

People with internet access back in the 1990s are probably quite familiar with the multitude of computer virus hoaxes that circulated back then (you do know that they were hoaxes, don't you?). I was greatly amused when someone wrote a way-over-the-top parody of such hoaxes, warning us of the evils of the "Good Times" virus.

Free Republic member Grizzled Bear has updated the parody to warn a new generation that Global Warming will ruin your life. And your hard drive. And your credit rating. And..... here it is (a couple of typos corrected, but -- apologies -- certain indelicate references kept in for the sake of completeness):

LISTEN UP!
Global warming will erase your hard drive. Not the data, but your actual hard drive! Not only that, but it will scramble any disks that are even close to your computer. It will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness setting so all your ice cream goes melty. It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards, screw up the tracking on your television and use subspace field harmonics to scratch any CD's you try to play.
It will give your ex-girlfriend your new phone number. It will mix Kool-aid into your fishtank. It will drink all your beer and leave its socks out on the coffee table when there's company coming over. It will put a dead kitten in the back pocket of your good suit pants and hide your car keys when you are late for work.
Global warming will make you fall in love with a penguin. It will give you nightmares about circus midgets. It will pour sugar in your gas tank and shave off both your eyebrows while dating your girlfriend behind your back and billing the dinner and hotel room to your Discover card.
It will seduce your grandmother. It does not matter if she is dead, such is the power of Global warming, it reaches out beyond the grave to sully those things we hold most dear.
It moves your car randomly around parking lots so you can't find it. It will kick your dog. It will leave libidinous messages on your boss's voice mail in your voice! It is insidious and subtle. It is dangerous and terrifying to behold. It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve.
Global warming will give you Dutch Elm disease. It will leave the toilet seat up. It will make a batch of methamphetamines in your bathtub and then leave bacon cooking on the stove while it goes out to chase gradeschoolers with your new snowblower.

Listen to me. Global warming does not exist.
It cannot do anything to you. But I can. I am sending this message to everyone in the world. Tell your friends, tell your family. If anyone else bothers me with fearmongering concerning Global warming, I will turn hating them into a religion. I will do things to them that would make a horsehead in your bed look like Easter Sunday brunch.

I have one point of disagreement with the author. I do believe in the existence of global warming (although it seems to have plateaued in the past decade), but I remain unconvinced of its alleged anthropogenic nature. I agreed with just about everything else he said, though. AGW hasn't done anything to my hard drive yet, but it did fry my computer's motherboard last summer.

What a bizarre way to promote a news network

2008-01-25T16:14:00.000-06:00

Fox News reports on a promotional advertisement being run on Dubai's Al Arabiya network:

In the ad, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, Al Arabiya tries to attract viewers by suggesting that they can learn the effect of local actions on global issues, and vice versa, if they watch Al-Arabiya's news.

They illustrate this by showing a chain of events connecting a man eating chicken in a restaurant, a Brazilian chicken farm, soybeans used to feed the chicken, global warming resulting from energy expended in the production of the soybeans and the raising of the chicken, rising sea levels forcing the poor in tropical islands into refugee camps, embittered refugees becoming radical terrorists, a terrorist blowing himself up on a busy city street, war resulting from the terror attack, global trade disrupted by the war, no soybeans for the chicken farms, no chicken for the restaurants.

Fade to motto: Al Arabiya: To know more.

Hard to know where to start with this one. You're welcome to give it a go.

Mixed news from Greenland

2008-01-25T15:50:00.000-06:00

From the London Times via Fox News, January 17:

Greenland Ice Sheet Rapidly Melting, Scientists Find

Greenland's ice sheet shrank more rapidly last summer than at any other time in the past 50 years, measurements have shown.

Researchers said the extent of the melt was evidence that the ice sheet was in "inexorable decline" because of global warming.

The researchers found a shift in meteorological patterns over the past 15 years, with a direct correlation being found between Greenland's weather and the generally warmer weather across both the northern and southern hemispheres.

From Icecap.us, January 17:

Ice Returns as Greenland Temps Plummet

On Disko Bay in western Greenland, where a number of prominent world leaders have visited in recent years to get a first-hand impression of climate change, temperatures have dropped so drastically that the water has frozen over for the first time in a decade. “The ice is up to 50cm thick,” said Henrik Matthiesen, an employee at Denmark’s Meteorological Institute who has also sailed the Greenlandic coastline for the Royal Arctic Line. ‘We’ve had loads of northerly winds since Christmas which has made the area miserably cold.’ Matthiesen suggested the cold weather marked a return to the frigid temperatures common a decade ago.

Surrendering our freedom for the common good

2008-01-24T15:40:00.000-06:00

I opined yesterday that those who are driving the AGW agenda see no need to sit in the seats of power themselves, as long as they can persuade those who are in power to implement their agenda.

In times past I have remarked that the AGW agenda's implementation coincides quite nicely with long-held goals of both the world socialist movement and various leftist environmental organizations.

Duane Lester at All American Blogger has written a thought-provoking essay summarizing some of the fronts in which this agenda's implementation has met with considerable success (mostly through molding of public opinion, which is the politically necessary prerequisite to getting the legislation passed):

Population control -- Every new child is guaranteed to make the carbon dioxide levels worse over the course of his or her life, so it's better not to bring any children into the world at all. Toni Vernelli symbolizes to me the practical realization of this point of view (so does the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, but that group predates the AGW scare). Some in the west openly express admiration of China's coercive one-child policy. If the public can be alarmed sufficiently about AGW, opposition to mandatory sterilization according to rules set by [someone other than you] may crumble.

The Terror of Cow Farts -- This is Duane's indelicate way of referring to the human consumption of livestock. The animal-rights wing of the environmental left has long championed the elimination of beef and other meats from our diet, but no amount of cajoling has been able to
shake our love for cooked animal flesh. But wait! Cow flatulence is a significant source of atmospheric methane! How dare you contribute to the death of our planet by ordering that T-bone!

How You Get Around -- Duane notes how regulations are making both automobile and air travel more expensive. Many environmentalists have long wished for the day when gasoline-powered vehicles are nothing but a bad memory. Increasingly-stringent emissions standards for automobiles will likely end up increasing their cost to the point that many will be completely priced out of the market -- thus bringing the dream a little closer. Many also cheer the skyrocketing oil prices for the same reason.

In Your Home -- California floated the idea of mandating government-controlled thermostats in all new homes. They jumped the gun a little, because negative public reaction to the proposal forced a retreat. Better to back off a while so the public can be softened up a little more. Nationwide, it's a matter of time before incandescent light bulbs are legislated out of existence, either directly or by mandating efficiency standards that incandescents can't meet.

What's Left -- Duane relates how Britain is considering a government-issued "carbon credit card" which citizens must use when engaging in a wide variety of activities: buying gasoline, buying groceries, traveling, paying utility bills, etc. People who consume beyond some government-imposed limit would have to pay. To me, such a program would be the foundation stone of eventual totalitarian control of the lives of Britain's citizens.

America is thus far still politically hostile to such far-reaching measures as are being proposed in Britain...but for how long?

AGW alarmism will suck more money out of the economy in 2008

2008-01-24T10:20:00.000-06:00

Amid growing fears of an economic slowdown, Yahoo! HotJobs reports that there's still plenty of money to be made trying to influence the natural variability of the earth's climate:

Environmental sector. There is a huge and growing industry geared to combat global warming. "Not only will professionals with skills in sustainability issues be in demand through the end of the decade, we are likely to shortages of professionals with 'green' skills," said Rona Fried, president of sustainablebusiness.com, a networking service for sustainable businesses.

Dating outside the faith

2008-01-24T09:30:00.000-06:00

Mallard Fillmore, January 18:

I suppose I should repeat my disclaimer at least one more time: I don't consider the adherents to the AGW point of view to be ideologically monolithic. Not all of them favor a suppression of the debate so that people can decide for themselves.... but far too many of them do.

UPDATE: Tom Nelson came across an article in The Daily Tar Heel describing an event at the University of North Carolina that might help prevent the parents' heartbreak of seeing their child marry outside the AGW faith:

Freshman Sarah Mazza walked into the Campus Y building Wednesday night with a bit of hesitation.

Mazza was about to go on almost 20 dates in one evening.

"It is going to be awkward," she said, as she waited for the "It's Getting Hot In Here" speed-dating event, hosted by Focus the Nation UNC, to start.

But Mazza braved the possible awkwardness in hopes of meeting people who have similar interests in global warming and the environment.

Answering a critic

2008-01-23T16:33:00.001-06:00

On Monday I received an e-mail from a gentleman in California (I'll call him "Mr. S") with some comments about this blog and its author. I'd like to remark on his remarks.

As a preliminary, I believe that there is is a preponderance of evidence that the earth's temperature is increasing, less convincing evidence that humans are causing much of it, and even if we are, little that we can do anything to change it.

For the most part, I agree with what Mr. S wrote in his opening paragraph. However, I would note that evidence is mounting that the recent temperature increase has plateaued over the last nine years, with no clear indication that it's ready to resume its upward trend.

My problem with the the anti-global warming crowd, you included, is that I just don't get why those who accept it (a group which, I admit, includes alarmists, bandwagon joiners who don't care about logic, and some just plain loonies) would want to "destroy the world's economy".

Mr. S is referring to the subtitle of this blog: News and commentary on recent advances in the quest by the environmental left to destroy the world's economy through the politicization of global warming (climate change) and the suppression of those who dissent from the "consensus". I'd like to note a couple of things about this subtitle.

First, I don't apply this description to everyone who believes mankind is substantially to blame for recent temperature increases. The key words here are "environmental left". In various posts I have expressed the opinion that the policy prescriptions of those driving the AGW agenda coincide quite nicely with the long-held goals of various leftist environmental organizations. They appear to have the most to gain from public acceptance of so much of the misinformation out there masquerading as science. Other websites have done a much better job than I have exposing this misinformation and giving the lie to the assertion of scientific consensus.

I believe that the vast majority of "those who accept it" do so not because they've carefully considered the scientific evidence, but simply because they've been told over and over that it is so, and because for the most part the media have denied them access to dissenting opinions. Granted, the Internet is out there, and anybody who wishes to do so can bypass the media blockade this way, but Joe Citizen isn't going to do that until he suspects that he's not getting the whole story.

Second, the subtitle suggests the environmental left is engaged in a quest "to destroy the world's economy". This both is and is not hyperbole. On the one hand, I suspect that few environmental leftists wake up on a typical morning thinking, "What can I do today to destroy the world's economy?" On the other hand, when presented with evidence that many of the policy prescriptions will do significant economic harm in exchange for minuscule environmental benefits, a lot of these environmentalists will shrug and say, "Whatever it takes."

In other words, the policy agenda being pushed by many environmental organizations seems indistinguishable from the strategy of an organization whose intent was to destroy the world's economy. IMO, of course.

You have a quote from Mencken that indicates they have a desire to rule the world, but I doubt most of those in the "they" group believe that they will ever rule the world - including Al Gore.

I suppose that none of them - including Al Gore - actually wants to be King of the World. They don't need to, as long as they can persuade the majority of the world's governments to enact their agenda and criminalize opposition to it. Same result. All for your good and for the good of the planet, so why would anyone object?

By the way, it is interesting that you choose a Mencken quote. Here's another:

"The Christian church, in its attitude toward science, shows the mind of a more or less enlightened man of the Thirteenth Century. It no longer believes that the earth is flat, but it is still convinced that prayer can cure after medicine fails."

He might not have liked do-gooders, but he wasn't big on religious believers, either.

Ouch! True, Mencken was an equal-opportunity cynic, but this is quite tangential to the topic at hand. I hope you're not saying that I should agree with everything Mencken said in order to quote (well, sort of quote) one thing he said.

Thanks, Mr. S, for expressing your objections in a civil manner. While I doubt that I've brought you around to my point of view, I hope I've been able to do a better job of expressing my point of view.

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Carbon Dioxide is a Pollutant.

2008-01-22T10:19:00.000-06:00

I don't know how long it's been going around, but I recently started noticing a new term being used to describe carbon dioxide emissions. Here's an example from a Baltimore Sun blog entry from today (emphasis added):

This may come as a surprise to some. An overwhelming number of Republicans in the recent South Carolina primary wanted action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, according to a report by the radio program Living on Earth.

Scientifically speaking, it's nonsense to describe carbon dioxide as a pollutant. As the news media and various public figures keep using the term so casually, though, many people with little science background will come to make the association without realizing it. Of course, pollution is bad -- we must do all we can to minimize it. And presto, public support for the AGW agenda.

UPDATE: More thoughts on the notion of CO₂ as a pollutant: With any other pollutant, you could take an air sample and distinguish pollutant particles from the remainder of the air sample. How do you do that with carbon dioxide? Further, if CO₂ is a pollutant, the earth's atmosphere has been polluted since before man first rubbed two sticks together.

UPDATE 2: I left a comment on the Baltimore Sun blog objecting to the use of the "greenhouse gas pollution" term. I was reminded in an e-mail reply that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that carbon dioxide is in fact a pollutant. The courts have spoken. If I had any sense, I would just shut up now. Being a "denier", though, I'll probably just come back and say (with raised eyebrow): If all you have to go on is a court ruling, I daresay the science behind such a claim is a bit shaky.

UPDATE 3: Reader Tigger23505 pointed me to this wonderful quote from Justice Scalia's dissent in Massachusetts v. EPA, the aforementioned USSC case. Responding to the logical gymnastics employed by the majority to allow the designation of carbon dioxide as an air pollutant, Scalia remarked:

It follows that everything airborne, from Frisbees to flatulence, qualifies as an 'air pollutant'. This reading of the statute defies common sense.

Quite.

Everything's connected, even when it isn't

2008-01-07T14:55:00.000-06:00

Here's the scenario that is laid out in a January 6th article:

China's largest freshwater lake, Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province, appears to be drying up.
The lake, which is fed by the Yangtze River, has an enormous seasonal variability in its surface area, with a minimum occurring every winter.
This winter's minimum is about 10% of last winter's minimum.

Okay, this is pretty straightforward and statistical, but (apart from the devastating human impact) not that interesting. So what title did Forbes columnist Chris O'Brien choose to draw the reader's interest? Global Warming Hits China.

Is there anything in the essay that might support this notion? We learn that the cause of Poyang's predicament is threefold:

The Yangtze River basin is suffering a crippling drought. Worst ever? No, its worst in the last 50 years. In other words, this is a drought which, while severe, is neither unprecedented nor rare.
Upriver hydroelectric projects (including the infamous Three Gorges Dam) have significantly affected the Yangtze's flow downriver.
The government has embarked on a monumental effort to divert some of the Yangtze's water to the Yellow River.

In light of the above facts, Jiang Tong, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an expert on Poyang Lake, summarized:

Both the stream flows into the river and the Yangtze River water to replenish the lake will be insufficient in dry seasons in the future, because of climate change and the exploitation of water resources.

As I remarked above, there doesn't seem to be any particular scientific reason to tie China's drought to "climate change" (a term of art that is increasingly used in place of "global warming", although Mr. O'Brien apparently hasn't yet received the memo), but there are plenty of political reasons to do so.

Given his position, Jiang Tong can be forgiven for minimizing the significance of the government's "exploitation of water resources", but Forbes has no such excuse.

An easy prediction for 2008: More AGW hysteria

2008-01-02T01:20:00.000-06:00

Well, this was a nice New Year gift from the New York Times. Science writer John Tierney turned his guns on Al Gore and co. in his January 1 column. While he doesn't actually dispute the notion that global warming is occurring, he does challenge the selective reporting of weather and climate events that make it look like AGW is already having catastrophic effects on our planet.

A year ago, British meteorologists made headlines predicting that the buildup of greenhouse gases would help make 2007 the hottest year on record. At year’s end, even though the British scientists reported the global temperature average was not a new record — it was actually lower than any year since 2001 — the BBC confidently proclaimed, “2007 Data Confirms Warming Trend.”

When the Arctic sea ice last year hit the lowest level ever recorded by satellites, it was big news and heralded as a sign that the whole planet was warming. When the Antarctic sea ice last year reached the highest level ever recorded by satellites, it was pretty much ignored. A large part of Antarctica has been cooling recently, but most coverage of that continent has focused on one small part that has warmed.

When Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans in 2005, it was supposed to be a harbinger of the stormier world predicted by some climate modelers. When the next two hurricane seasons were fairly calm — by some measures, last season in the Northern Hemisphere was the calmest in three decades — the availability entrepreneurs changed the subject. Droughts in California and Australia became the new harbingers of climate change (never mind that a warmer planet is projected to have more, not less, precipitation over all).

Tierney attributes this cherrypicking of data to a species of animal called the availability entrepreneur: "the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels."

One person who has made a handsome living from cherrypicking the data is, of course, Al Gore. Tierney ends his essay with this parting shot:

“In the last few months,” Mr. Gore said [in his Nobel prize acceptance speech], “it has been harder and harder to misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter.” But he was being too modest. Thanks to availability entrepreneurs like him, misinterpreting the weather is getting easier and easier.

Senate report: "Who's Who?" and "Who's That?" among AGW skeptics

2007-12-21T10:40:00.000-06:00

If it wasn't for the yeoman's work of Oklahoma senator James Inhofe and his staff -- especially communications chief Marc Morano -- we might never know that there is a vast worldwide community of people who not only challenge the orthodoxy of the Church of Global Warming (CoGW), but are willing to stand up and be counted. These people may have varying levels of training in the sciences that are relevant to the climate debate: sometimes degreed but not practicing in that profession (like your humble Heretic), sometimes internationally recognized as experts in their areas of specialization. Others, despite having no specific training in climate-related sciences, are gifted at identifying and shredding logical fallacies. Still others cannot help but notice that the policy prescriptions of the CoGW line up quite nicely with the goals of various elements of the (pick one or more of the following) environmental, anti-US, anticapitalist, global-governance Left.

AGW orthodoxy -- the notion that ~~global warming~~ climate change is anthropogenic (that is, human-induced) -- currently rules the land. Many who dare challenge the orthodoxy are dealt with harshly, suffering harm to reputations and funding. And yet, many "heretics" are willing to stand in harm's way and give the lie to the so-called consensus.

Inhofe's staff has done an incredible job roaming the world (via the Internet, or even in person), locating the skeptics and helping to amplify their voices. This week his staff posted a document entitled U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007. Are people like Al Gore telling the truth when they insist that the skeptics are either ideologically or financially motivated to oppose what is "settled science"? Or, are Gore and company using this claim as a convenient way to avoid engaging the skeptics on the substance of their objections?

If you rely on the mainstream media for your climate news, there's a good chance that you're not even aware of the substance of the skeptics' arguments. I dare you to spend some time reading the works of the scientists listed in the report. I dare you. Then come back and try to tell me why they are wrong.

Postscript: Early this past summer Mr. Morano contacted me and asked if he could include me in a list of skeptical scientists that he was helping to compile. I have degrees in meteorology and computer science, but chose the latter as my career. I gave a vague answer to Mr. Morano, not sure whether I was in the same class as the many skeptical scientists who have actually devoted themselves to their climate-relevant professions. Morano took that as a Yes, and so my name and website are listed in the report (hence the "Who's That?" in this blog post's title). Although my training and experience do not rise to the level of most of those listed in the report, I am happy and proud to stand with them.

Just think how bad it would have been without global warming

2007-12-18T16:01:00.000-06:00

I haven't played the proof-by-anecdote game in a while, so today seemed like a good opportunity to present a single weather event as proof that Al Gore & co. are full of hot air. From Today's edition of The Ottawa (Canada) Citizen:

Ottawa will continue to crawl out from a record-breaking snowfall Tuesday as crews tackle one of the biggest snow removal operations in the city's history.

"It's no Academy Award, but it was the snowiest December day ever in the capital," said Environment Canada meteorologist David Phillips.

In total, 37 centimetres fell in Sunday's storm, setting a record for the most snow in a single December day since Environment Canada started keeping records in 1938. The previous record was 30.4 centimetres, which fell Dec. 21, 1977.

The earth itself plays a role in its (perceived) climate

2007-12-12T12:54:00.001-06:00

Just after poking some fun at The Daily Green for ignoring the sun as a culprit in climate change, I came across an Ohio State University press release that puts an interesting spin on the changes in the Greenland ice sheet.

CoGW orthodoxy, of course, insists that the Greenland ice sheet is melting (reality: it is melting in some places, but thickening in others), and that the melting is due to global warming, and that global warming is due to George W. Bush's foreign policy. Just kidding on that last part (sort of).

OSU researchers, however, have found that the earth itself joins the sun in contributing to many of the observed phenomena that are so casually attributed to AGW:

Scientists have discovered what they think may be another reason why Greenland 's ice is melting: a thin spot in Earth's crust is enabling underground magma to heat the ice.

They have found at least one “hotspot” in the northeast corner of Greenland -- just below a site where an ice stream was recently discovered.

The researchers don't yet know how warm the hotspot is. But if it is warm enough to melt the ice above it even a little, it could be lubricating the base of the ice sheet and enabling the ice to slide more rapidly out to sea.

“The behavior of the great ice sheets is an important barometer of global climate change,” said Ralph von Frese, leader of the project and a professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University. “However, to effectively separate and quantify human impacts on climate change, we must understand the natural impacts, too.

[...]
The ice sheet in northeast Greenland is especially worrisome to scientists. It had no known ice streams until 1991, when satellites spied one for the first time. Dubbed the Northeastern Greenland Ice Stream, it carries ice nearly 400 miles, from the deepest interior of the island out to the Greenland Sea.

“Ice streams have to have some reason for being there. And it's pretty surprising to suddenly see one in the middle of an ice sheet,” von Frese said.

The newly discovered hotspot is just below the ice stream, and could have caused it to form, the researchers concluded. But what caused the hotspot to form?

“It could be that there's a volcano down there,” he said. “But we think it's probably just the way the heat is being distributed by the rock topography at the base of the ice.”

Dr. von Frese said it well: "[T]o effectively separate and quantify human impacts on climate change, we must understand the natural impacts, too."

Hear, hear.

The sun gets dissed again

2007-12-12T12:27:00.000-06:00

Despite credible evidence that solar influences on earth's climate trump anthropogenic influences, The Daily Green decided the sun wasn't worth mentioning as a possible culprit in their online poll:

Given that the environmental left has invested everything in persuading us that climate change is -- for the first time ever -- human induced, I don't blame the editors of The Daily Green for the oversight.

The unspeakable arrogance of bearing children

2007-12-10T14:31:00.000-06:00

Recently we saw the story of Toni Vernelli, the British woman who killed her unborn baby and had herself sterilized because of her desire to "save the planet" from the ecological destruction her offspring would surely cause.

I noted at the time that the logic of the CoGW -- that all necessary means should be taken to reduce humanity's carbon emissions -- leads inescapably to conclusions like this (though most adherents haven't thought it through completely).

Now I have come across news of an Australian researcher who likewise recognizes that the bearing of children runs counter to the AGW Moral Imperative (to coin a new term -- I hope you're taking notes). As CNSNews.com reports in a December 10 article:

Having babies is bad for the planet, and parents of more than two children should be charged a birth levy and annual tax to offset the "greenhouse gases" their child will be responsible for over his or her lifetime.

At the same time, those who use and prescribe contraceptives and sterilization procedures should earn tax relief for such greenhouse friendly services" that help to keep the population size down.

[...] In 2004, former Prime Minister John Howard's government announced a drive to counter the declining birthrate, urging parents to aim for three children, and offering families a financial incentive that currently stands at around $3,670.

But to Barry Walters, clinical associate professor of obstetric medicine at the University of Western Australia, that undermines the campaign to fight global warming.

"Every newborn baby in Australia represents a potent source of greenhouse gas emissions for an average of 80 years, not simply by breathing, but by the profligate consumption of resources typical of our society," he wrote in an article published in the Medical Journal of Australia Monday.

"Far from showering financial booty on new mothers and thereby rewarding greenhouse-unfriendly behavior, a 'Baby Levy' in the form of a carbon tax should apply, in line with the 'polluter pays' principle," he argued.

Walters said Australian parents who have more than an agreed number of children -- he cited a population-limitation advocacy group as suggesting a ceiling of two -- should pay the cost of planting trees to offset the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) the additional children will produce. (Trees absorb CO2, which along with other greenhouse gases is often blamed for climate change.)

If you think this sounds suspiciously like part of China's population-control model, you're right. It's a comparison that Walters seems to embrace (minus the occasional coercive abortion, perhaps):

Walters implied that the controversial population-control policies in place in China and India should be emulated.

"As citizens of this world, I believe we deserve no more population concessions than those in India and China."

One hundred million reasons why Al Gore loves his current job

2007-12-10T10:38:00.000-06:00

I usually prefer to stay focused on the substance of this debate rather than on the personalities involved, but there's so much about the AGW ringleader, Al Gore, that shouts out "snake oil salesman" to me.

Put simply, Gore has profited handsomely from this TEOTWAWKI Tour. Steven Swinford of the UK's Sunday Times reports the following about Mr. Gore:

Al Gore, the former US vice-president turned environmental campaigner, has made more than £50m in just seven years from his books, speeches and shrewd investments in technology and green ventures.

[...] Today Gore commands between £50,000 and £85,000 a speech, holds stock options in Google worth £15m and has made as much as £4m from advances on his book deals. He is also advising a US venture capital company on how to invest a $600m green technology fund.

He has come a long way since losing the 2000 presidential election to George W Bush when, according to official documents, Gore was worth just £1m. His biggest assets were his two homes in Nashville, Tennessee, and Arlington, Virginia, valued at £375,000, and £500,000 invested in oil company shares.

Read on to see the many other ways that AGW has been very good for Gore. For our American readers, UK£50 million translates to over US$100 million. That'll get you quite a heap of offsets. Or, perhaps, the presidential nomination of a major American political party, just as the campaign of that party's presumptive front-runner is "faltering".

But wait a minute -- I just noticed in the excerpt above that he has $US1 million invested in oil company shares. Does that mean that every time his alarmism and the government policies derived therefrom drive up the cost of oil, Gore earns profits?

Nice racket if you can get into it.

NY Times repeats the Kilimanjaro lie

2007-12-10T09:21:00.000-06:00

If you watched An Inconvenient Truth (my condolences if you have), or if you have read any one of countless media reports on AGW, you might have gotten the impression that the snowcap on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is melting.

It's not melting.

It is in fact shrinking, but that's due to sublimation, the process by which something changes from its solid state directly into its gaseous state in below-freezing temperatures without first melting. The temperature atop Kilimanjaro is nowhere near what is needed for melting. Low humidity in the region -- not warming -- is driving the sublimation. And guess what? It's been happening for more than a century.

I suppose I shouldn't expect the New York Times' travel writers to know that, but it still irks me to see such easily-refuted assertions repeated ad nauseam in the media. Here is what the NYT had to say about Kilimanjaro in its feature, The 53 Places to Go in 2008:

42. KILIMANJARO

Time may be running out to see the most famous snows of American literature. The ice-capped peak of Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, is melting at an alarming rate. Within several decades, scientists predict, the glaciers will have completely disappeared.

But wait! They didn't actually say it was because of global warming. What gives, Mr. Heretic?

True, they didn't mention AGW directly, but they did substitute a code phrase -- "melting at an alarming rate" -- that leave little room for any other interpretation. Why should anyone be "alarmed" about this if they considered it to be a natural process with no human influence?

Kangaroo Jack enlists in the fight against AGW

2007-12-07T13:52:00.000-06:00

Not all of the AGW news coming across the wires is bad. Agence France-Press reports that kangaroos can teach cattle and sheep a thing or two about how to pass gas in an eco-friendly way:

AUSTRALIAN scientists are trying to give kangaroo-style stomachs to cattle and sheep in a bid to cut the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, researchers say.

Thanks to special bacteria in their stomachs, kangaroo flatulence contains no methane and scientists want to transfer that bacteria to cattle and sheep who emit large quantities of the harmful gas.

While the usual image of greenhouse gas pollution is a billowing smokestack pushing out carbon dioxide, livestock passing wind contribute a surprisingly high percentage of total emissions in some countries.

"Fourteen per cent of emissions from all sources in Australia is from enteric methane from cattle and sheep," said Athol Klieve, a senior research scientist with the Queensland Government.

"And if you look at another country such as New Zealand, which has got a much higher agricultural base, they're actually up around 50 per cent," he said.

Researchers say the bacteria also makes the digestive process much more efficient and could potentially save millions of dollars in feed costs for farmers.

"Not only would they not produce the methane, they would actually get something like 10 to 15 per cent more energy out of the feed they are eating," said Mr Klieve.

According to the article, some Australian scientists go even further and suggest that people modify their diets by replacing beef and lamb with kangaroo meat.

The idea is controversial, but about 20 per cent of health-conscious Australians are believed to eat the national symbol already.

"It's low in fat, it's got high protein levels it's very clean in the sense that basically it's the ultimate free range animal,'' said Peter Ampt of the University of New South Wales's institute of environmental studies.

"It doesn't get drenched, it doesn't get vaccinated, it utilises food right across the landscape, it moves around to where the food is good, so yes, it's a good food.''

Why Coca-Cola is promoting "The Golden Compass"

2007-12-07T10:52:00.000-06:00

The movie The Golden Compass (released today) has raised a considerable amount of controversy because of the associated book trilogy's head-on challenge to the Christian worldview in general (not to mention the in-your-face symbolism of the movie's villains, The Magisterium). Although I have pretty strong opinions on this controversy (I'm basically in agreement with Al Mohler here), within the confines of this blog something else has come to my attention that fascinates me to no end.

Catholic blogger Rick Kephart, noting the Coca-Cola company's promotion of the movie, wrote to them asking why they would promote a movie with such strong anti-Christian themes. In their reply, they denied that the movie was anti-religion in any way. That's not the interesting part. The interesting part is their explanation of why they decided to promote the movie:

The Golden Compass movie is a story about friendship, love, loyalty, tolerance, courage and responsibility. This movie also provides an opportunity for Coca-Cola to help raise awareness about climate change and the perilous state of the polar bear.

Okay, it's about friendship, love, yada-yada.... AND POLAR BEARS! We at Coca-Cola like polar bears! We use them in our Christmas advertising every year! Climate change is killing the polar bears! Watch the movie and save the polar bears!

Bob and Doug McKenzie, eco-criminals

2007-11-29T15:16:00.000-06:00

Perhaps the human race should follow Toni Vernelli's example and just stop reproducing. For some time now, researchers apparently have been scrambling to prove that every human activity and technology -- especially the ones that make life easier or more enjoyable -- is dooming the planet.

Fox News reports that the CoGW's crosshairs have recently come to rest on one of Canada's beloved institutions [emphasis added]:

Scientists have found a new threat to the planet: Canadian beer drinkers.

The government-commissioned study says the old, inefficient "beer fridges" that one in three Canadian households use to store their Molson and Labatt's contribute significantly to global warming by guzzling gas- and coal-fired electricity.

"People need to understand the impact of their lifestyles," British environmental consultant Joanna Yarrow tells New Scientist magazine. "Clearly the environmental implications of having a frivolous luxury like a beer fridge are not hitting home. This research helps inform people — let's hope it has an effect."

Denise Young, who led the study, is not content to allow time for her research to sink into Bob and Doug's beer-addled brains. Instead, she thinks the government should institute a beer-fridge buyback program (or simply confiscate the things), drawing moral equivalence between a kitchen appliance and the Saturday Night Special.

Come to think of it, for many people a beer fridge is a Saturday Night Special.

"Weekly Reader" on thin ice regarding polar bears

2007-11-29T14:26:00.000-06:00

The "polar bears are going extinct" meme is still being peddled wholesale to our children, even though the claim is demonstrably false. Bob Parks writes that GeoTrek, published by the folks who publish the venerable grade-school magazine The Weekly Reader (I remember reading it in the 1960s), recently had a feature article on the subject.

Parks asked Dr. Tim Ball for his comments on the article, and he includes Dr. Ball's response. Here's an excerpt:

Dear Bob,

The exploitation of children is despicable and this is a perfect example. First let me quote Mitch Taylor probably the world expert on polar bears. Here is a comment he made last year. It still holds true today.

"Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present." – May 2006

Mitch has lived in Nunavut for over 30 years and agreed with the Inuit who were saying the counts by "fly over" scientists were wrong. He said, "The Inuit were right. There aren't just a few more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears."

Check the first link above for more of Dr. Ball's response.

Abortion and sterilization as a moral imperative

2007-11-29T10:59:00.000-06:00

In the view of a growing number of people, killing your baby in the womb is now considered not only praiseworthy, but the moral duty of anyone who cares about the future of our planet.

Granted, most adherents of the CoGW haven't taken their logic this far, but if you accept the premises of the AGW alarmists, it's hard to escape this conclusion. Read this excerpt from a November 21 Daily Mail (UK) article [emphasis added]:

Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love, to feel a little hand slipping into hers - and a voice calling her Mummy.

But the very thought makes her shudder with horror.

Because when Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet.

Incredibly, so determined was she that the terrible "mistake" of pregnancy should never happen again, that she begged the doctor who performed the abortion to sterilise her at the same time.

He refused, but Toni - who works for an environmental charity - "relentlessly hunted down a doctor who would perform the irreversible surgery.

Finally, eight years ago, Toni got her way.

At the age of 27 this young woman at the height of her reproductive years was sterilised to "protect the planet".

Incredibly, instead of mourning the loss of a family that never was, her boyfriend (now husband) presented her with a congratulations card.

While some might think it strange to celebrate the reversal of nature and denial of motherhood, Toni relishes her decision with an almost religious zeal.

"Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet," says Toni, 35.

"Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population."

(Of course, Mrs. Vernelli is happy to maintain her own carbon footprint for the rest of her natural life. Somehow, that's not selfish.)

Al Gore, the uninvited guest at your Thanksgiving dinner

2007-11-16T10:38:00.000-06:00

Thanks to unrelenting pressure from Mr. Gore and many others in the CoGW, all Americans will be paying more for just about everything they put on the Thanksgiving dinner table next week. As the MetroWest Daily News (Framingham, MA) reports in a November 13 article:

If you're planning a major feast this Thanksgiving, it might be a good idea to budget a few extra dollars to make sure you can get the guest of honor to the table.

The rising cost of oil and other utilities, combined with an explosion in the cost of corn feed, has increased the cost of raising a turkey by as much 35 percent and costing the industry more than a half-billion dollars.
[...] Nationally, increases in feed costs are expected to cost farmers more than $576 million, said Sherrie Rosenblatt, a spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based National Turkey Federation.

"From the consumer standpoint you probably won't see that so much at retail," she said. "(But) there is definitely an increase in production costs because of the increased cost of corn."

As an increasing number of farms devote their corn crops to the production of ethanol rather than animal feed, Rosenblatt said, feed costs have exploded, from less than a dollar per bushel last year to more than $4 today.

"Turkey feed is about one-third of the cost of raising a turkey," she said. "We feed turkeys a combination of corn and soybean."

With many growers switching to the more profitable corn for ethanol, turkey farmers are trying to cope with a one-two punch of increasing corn prices and decreased soybean production.

According to some estimates, the higher prices translate to about an 8 cent increase per pound, per turkey, or about a 35 percent increase in the cost of raising just one bird.

"No matter which way you spin it, all the feed costs are increasing," she said.

Couple that with unneccessarily* high fuel costs making it more expensive to get the food to market, and we end up with a lot to thank Al Gore for this year.

* The same folks pushing so hard for ethanol production are dead-set determined to prevent us from (1) developing proven oil resources, and (2) increasing our refining capacity.

(Found at: Carpe Diem)

UPDATE: I realize that many grocery stores still offer turkeys at fantastic prices. That's because they're using the turkey price to get you into the store, where you'll end up paying more for the other components of the Thanksgiving meal. The rising turkey prices mean that the stores will be sucking up an even greater loss as they vie for your business.

IPCC expert reviewer: Panel is 'fundamentally corrupt'

2007-11-13T17:45:00.000-06:00

Dr. Vincent Gray, long-time expert reviewer for the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has little good to say about the work of the panel [excerpt]:

I have been an "Expert Reviewer" for the IPCC right from the start and I have submitted a very large number of comments on their drafts. It has recently been revealed that I submitted 1,898 comments on the Final Draft of the current Report. Over the period I have made an intensive study of the data and procedures used by IPCC contributors throughout their whole study range. I have a large library of reprints, books and comments and have published many comments of my own in published papers, a book, and in my occasional newsletter, the current number being 157.

I began with a belief in scientific ethics, that scientists would answer queries honestly, that scientific argument would take place purely on the basis of facts, logic and established scientific and mathematical principles.

Right from the beginning I have had difficulty with this procedure. Penetrating questions often ended without any answer. Comments on the IPCC drafts were rejected without explanation, and attempts to pursue the matter were frustrated indefinitely.

Over the years, as I have learned more about the data and procedures of the IPCC I have found increasing opposition by them to providing explanations, until I have been forced to the conclusion that for significant parts of the work of the IPCC, the data collection and scientific methods employed are unsound. Resistance to all efforts to try and discuss or rectify these problems has convinced me that normal scientific procedures are not only rejected by the IPCC, but that this practice is endemic, and was part of the organisation from the very beginning. I therefore consider that the IPCC is fundamentally corrupt. The only "reform" I could envisage, would be its abolition.

Clever research hoax -- Gulling the AGW skeptics?

2007-11-07T16:43:00.000-06:00

Somebody went through an awful lot of trouble to gin up a "study" that purported to fatally undermine the AGW theory. They even went so far as to invent a scientific journal, complete with a website for the journal, to enhance the credibility of the stunt.

You can see the exceptionally well-crafted hoax here.

The paper got a brief flurry of attention today when Senator Inhofe's staff sent out an e-mail alert calling attention to the paper. To their credit, they issued a retraction only 15 minutes later when they found out it was a hoax.

Iain Murray has the goods on the originator of the hoax site.

Opportunity or opportunism?

2007-11-06T17:07:00.000-06:00

An AP article about Hillary Clinton has a title that can be taken in at least two ways:

Clinton sees opportunity in climate woes

I think I can be forgiven for initially assuming that they were referring to the political opportunities that AGW alarmism provides, but as it turns out, Hillary was talking about the economy.

The battle against global warming means big economic opportunities as well as challenges for the U.S., Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday, touting her energy proposals as she campaigned in Iowa.

"For this generation, climate change is our space race," said Clinton, speaking in a cavernous factory with giant wind turbines in the background.

Clinton, who is pursuing the Democratic presidential nomination, is calling for creation of a $50 billion strategic energy fund, coupled with tougher fuel efficiency standards financed in part by $20 billion in "green vehicle bonds." It's part of a package she calls the most comprehensive offered to tackle global warming.

"The climate crisis is also one of the greatest economic opportunities in the history of our country," she said. "It will unleash a wave of innovation, create millions of new jobs, enhance our security and lead the world to a revolution in how we produce and use energy."

Instead of billions of dollars and millions of jobs being pumped into the economy, it seems to me that a "space race" style boom in the climate change arena will largely involve the shifting of money and jobs away from other industries. Why? Because such a boom will be heavily subsidized by the government (as evidenced by HRC's own proposals quoted above), and such financial incentives will be too great a temptation for most companies to resist.

We've already seen this phenomenon with the government's push for biofuels -- so far, the US and many other countries are seeing a net decrease in the amount of land under cultivation for food production.

The article continues with a masterpiece of illogic:

Global warming hits particularly hard at the poor, she said.

"One in four low-income families have already missed a mortgage or rent payment because of rising energy costs," Clinton said.

Best of the Web's James Taranto could barely contain his sniggering at this:

This is a complete non sequitur. Rising energy costs are supposed to be a solution to global warming, not a problem caused by it. What's more, if temperatures rise in winter, that ought to reduce the amount of money low-income families would have to spend heating their homes. Mrs. Clinton seems to be invoking "global warming" here just as a politically correct slogan, devoid of meaning.

Clean your plate, or the planet gets it

2007-11-04T22:29:00.000-06:00

I hope I'm not beginning to push the boundaries of redundancy, but I must say that the world's bureaucratic busybodies have shown great imagination in the things they've managed to tie to climate change.

This week we were informed by the British Environment Minister that she has uncovered another menace. Here's how UPI reported it:

LONDON, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- British Environment Minister Joan Ruddock has warned citizens that by not eating leftover food, they are effectively causing climate change.

Ruddock said that through food waste and excessive shopping, British citizens were paying a significant cost in both environmental and financial terms, The Independent reported Friday.

"At this rate we will not have a place to live which is habitable if we don't address climate change globally and the U.K. has to make its contribution," she said of such social problems.

The minister for climate change said that by eating leftovers and shopping more efficiently, British citizens could begin to help in the global fight against climate change.

No matter the agenda, it can be tied to AGW in some way.

It's all connected, you know

2007-10-31T11:45:00.000-05:00

The call of the wild(fire)

2007-10-26T14:12:00.000-05:00

Some in the media (perhaps taking a cue from Senate majority leader Harry Reid or the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming) seem to have an irresistible urge to tie the southern California wildfires to AGW. See if you can follow the logic in this op-ed by Tom Teepen. He starts by wondering if TEOTWAWKI is near:

Are we leaving our children and grandchildren a failing Earth or a failed one? Is it, in other words, already too late?

That dire question occurs with more chilling plausibility with each new consequence, the subtle to the dramatic equally, from the accelerating biospheric implosion wrought of global warming.

What could possibly turned his mind to such depressing thoughts? The wildfires, of course. Realizing the nonsequitur, he immediately launches into a preemptive "Yeah, yeah, I know":

And, yes, I am going to bring up the wildfires in Southern California and, yes again, I am perfectly aware that weather is not climate. For now, the California fires are the work of weather, an awful convergence of drought and wind and temperature.

But his disclaimer is merely a minor speed bump as he lunges forward with his jeremiad:

But the fires, historic in number, scope and fury, are as well consistent with the catastrophes that computer modeling has long predicted from the warming. We would have to be fools to ignore that.

So. These fires are similar to what some computer models have predicted as an effect of AGW (actually, they're made more likely by drought conditions, which can happen with or without AGW, but never mind that).

Okay. Connection established. Now Mr. Teepen can tear into the "contrarian fringe" that fails to toe the line with the supposed international consensus.

Of course, we are informed, the contrarians are composed almost entirely of political cultists and scientists who have sold their souls to the energy industry.

That reminds me. From the day I started this blog, I have openly solicited cash from the energy industry in exchange for my advocacy (see "About the Heretic" in the sidebar). Alas, nary a penny so far. Where did I go wrong?

Could it be that some of the "contrarian" scientists are offering their views for free as well?

Dr. William Gray, world-renowned hurricane forecaster and perennial burr in Al Gore's saddle, says that there are many more heretics out there than are willing to publicly admit it. If you want to talk about financial incentives, consider that scientists who become vocal in their skepticism tend to lose grant money, so the advocates end up with both the money and the megaphone.

Thus, Mr. Teepen never gets to hear a serious presentation of what the heretics have to say. All he has to go on are Democratic Party and (WhenWillTheyEver)MoveOn.org press releases, so who can blame him?

Consensus is a political concept, not a scientific one

2007-10-22T10:27:00.000-05:00

In an October 9 essay, Financial Times columnist John Kay wrote about why it can be foolish to allow scientific "consensus" to drive policymaking. Here are some excerpts:

Consensus finds a way through conflicting opinions and interests. Consensus is achieved when the outcome of discussion leaves everyone feeling they have been given enough of what they want. The processes of proper science could hardly be more different. The accomplished politician is a negotiator, a conciliator, finding agreement where none seemed to exist. The accomplished scientist is an original, an extremist, disrupting established patterns of thought. Good science involves perpetual, open debate, in which every objection is aired and dissents are sharpened and clarified, not smoothed over.

Often the argument will continue for ever, and should, because the objective of science is not agreement on a course of action, but the pursuit of truth. Occasionally that pursuit seems to have been successful and the matter is resolved, not by consensus, but by the exhaustion of opposition. We do not say that there is a consensus over the second law of thermodynamics, a consensus that Paris is south of London or that two and two are four. We say that these are the way things are.

[...]Science is a matter of evidence, not what a majority of scientists think.

[...] [T]o use the achievements of science to assert the authority of scientists undermines that very process of science. When consumers believe that genetically modified foods are unsafe, mothers intuit that their children’s autism is caused by the MMR vaccine and politicians assert that HIV/Aids is a first world conspiracy, the answer that the scientific consensus is otherwise does not convince – nor should it. Such claims are mistaken because there is no evidence for them, not because scientists take a different view: scientists should influence policy by explaining facts and arguments, not by parading their doctorates.

Hear, hear.

(Via: Junkfood Science)

How Al Gore spoiled my breakfast

2007-10-17T11:19:00.000-05:00

Each Wednesday I go to the office a couple of hours late so I can enjoy an old-fashioned, sit-down breakfast with my family. For today's breakfast I had to run to the nearby supermarket to pick up some milk and eggs. An unpleasant surprise awaited me.

For the first time ever, I was required to pay more than $2 for a dozen eggs ($2.19, to be precise).

J'accuse, Al Gore.

Because of the unrelenting push to reorder our lives and our economy to accommodate the fantasies of the CoGW, the price of goods, both durable and nondurable, is climbing.

The push for biofuels has led to more cropland being diverted to that purpose, decreasing the supply of food being grown for human consumption, thus driving up prices. Less grain is available for feedlot animals, thus driving up meat and dairy prices. Environmentalist demand for increasingly exotic fuel blends is making it more expensive to get products of any kind to market, thus driving up prices.

Those who are on the lower end of the personal wealth scale, as they ponder whether they can afford to put food on the table, should reflect on how Mr. Gore managed to get the Nobel "Peace" Prize for his efforts.

It depends on what you mean by 'peace'

2007-10-12T09:01:00.000-05:00

Soviet ideology defined 'peace' as submission to the Soviet Union.

Islamist ideology defines 'peace' as submission to Islam.

So, in that sense, I guess it makes sense that Al Gore won the Nobel 'Peace' Prize. As chief ideologue of the radical environmental left, Gore has told us in many ways that 'peace' is submission to the views and prescriptions of the CoGW.

Discerning folks (defined as those with more than a smidgen of common sense) know that the Nobel Peace Prize has long been a vehicle for the promotion of leftist ideology. The awarding of the prize to unrepentant terror leader Yasser Arafat back in the 90s should have removed all doubt about that.

The October 12 AP article linked above shows that the Nobel committee does not even pretend to honor Alfred Nobel's intention for the peace prize:

In recent years, the Norwegian committee has broadened its interpretation of peacemaking and disarmament efforts outlined by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel in creating the prize with his 1895 will. The prize now often also recognizes human rights, democracy, elimination of poverty, sharing resources and the environment.

Satirist Scott Ott added his own spin to the news:

Mr. Gore could not be reached for comment as he was returning from Oslo, Norway, in a private jet. However, his spokesman said that his efforts to bring peace on earth speak for themselves.

“Thanks to Al Gore’s movies, speeches and books,” said the unnamed spokesman, “Terrorists and tyrants around the world will soon lay aside the weapons of war and give peace a chance by working together to develop a hybrid car that runs on cheap, clean-burning gunpowder.”

With this gargantuan boost to Gore's ego, we can be sure that we won't be getting any peace from him any time soon.

First we're Holocaust deniers, now this

2007-10-03T15:41:00.000-05:00

Newsweek editor and objective climate expert Sharon Begley on why the magazine has no obligation to cover arguments against the notion that climate change is caused by humans:

When you cover the history of the space program, you don't quote the percentage of Americans who think the moon landings took place on a stage in Arizona.

For the record, the stage was in Nevada, not Arizona. You'd think she'd do a little fact-checking before spouting off like that.

A wonderful illustration of the absurdity of carbon offsets

2007-09-21T16:24:00.000-05:00

The website CheatNeutral will allow you to pay someone to remain faithful to his or her partner in order to allow you to continue your cheating ways.

Of course it's satire, but it makes the point beautifully.

Global warming causes upsurge in antisemitism

2007-09-18T13:51:00.000-05:00

I showed in the preceding post how AGW alarmism is a potential lifesaver for any cause that is suffering a dearth of popular support. In that case, fear of global warming was being used to gin up opposition to hydroelectric dams.

Now we see a prominent British Member of Parliament using the AGW crisis in an attempt to increase international opposition to..... Israel. It seems that Israel's very existence is hindering the fight against climate change. As reported in the September 13 Daily Telegraph:

Former Blair Government minister Clare Short made the absurd claim last month that no progress was possible on climate change treaties because Israel "undermines the international community's reaction to global warming".

Ms Short, who resigned from the Blair Government over the war in Iraq, explained that man-made climate change continues because Israel's conflict with the Palestinians and its Arab neighbours is distracting world leaders from devising a response to global warming.

Glad to see that the Telegraph is having none of that.

Maybe we should have a contest to come up with the most ridiculous connection between climate change and something else. Why bother, though? We already have a winner!