Actually, it's not all that fun.

You are right. Pointing out the lack of evidence that mankind has caused any other than a stastically insignificant portion of the climate warming is tedious, at best.

climateprediction@Home

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

Actually, it's not all that fun.

You are right. Pointing out the lack of evidence that mankind has caused any other than a stastically insignificant portion of the climate warming is tedious, at best.

Actually, it's not all that fun.

---

Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

China will surpass the US a number one emitter in three years, and yet a significant percentage of their population lives in poverty. What a surprise.

The world doesn't need a solution, it just needs something people can feel good about. All hail Kyoto!


From the NYT:

November 7, 2006

China to Pass U.S. in 2009 in Emissions

By KEITH BRADSHER

LONDON, Nov. 6 — China will surpass the United States in 2009, nearly a decade ahead of previous predictions, as the biggest emitter of the main gas linked to global warming, the International Energy Agency has concluded in a report to be released Tuesday.

China’s rise, fueled heavily by coal, is particularly troubling to climate scientists because as a developing country, China is exempt from the Kyoto Protocol’s requirements for reductions in emissions of global warming gases. Unregulated emissions from China, India and other developing countries are likely to account for most of the global increase in carbon dioxide emissions over the next quarter-century.

The agency’s prediction highlights the unexpected speed with which China is emerging as the biggest contributor to global warming. Still, China has resisted limits on its own emissions and those of other developing countries.

Up until now, Chinese officials have instead called repeatedly for even tighter limits on the industrialized countries’ emissions of global warming gases after the Kyoto Protocol’s limits expire at the end of 2012. China says rich countries bear responsibility for the increase in global carbon dioxide levels that has already taken place.

Moreover, the biggest current emitter of the gases, the United States, has rejected the protocol in part because most lawmakers and President Bush say its exemption for rising powers like China is unfair.

“You cannot tell people who are struggling to earn enough to eat that they need to reduce their emissions,” said Lu Xuedu, the deputy director general of Chinese Office of Global Environmental Affairs, at a conference two weeks ago.

Chinese officials did not respond to attempts by phone and fax to obtain a response to the agency’s forecast.

The energy agency also issued a sharp exhortation to all oil-consuming countries to rapidly curb their consumption or face higher prices and severe environmental damage, including changes in the global climate. But the agency acknowledged that any conservation would require a “considerable political push” from Western governments, as well as large developing economies like China and India, to reduce their use of hydrocarbons, including coal.

If nothing is done, global energy demand is projected to grow 53 percent by 2030, the energy agency said. Oil consumption is seen jumping to 116 million barrels a day, compared with 85 million barrels now, mostly because of increased oil consumption in developing countries.

Demand for coal, mostly for power generation, will rise 59 percent. As a result, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions will increase 55 percent, to 44.1 billion tons in 2030.

Environmental officials from around the world began meeting Monday in Nairobi to discuss a new agreement after the Kyoto Protocol. The talks, which are not expected to produce an agreement for at least a couple of years, are aimed partly at bringing the larger developing countries like China, India and Brazil under emission controls.

Developing countries have been wary of a deal. In addition to the United States, Australia has rejected the Kyoto Protocol, while Canada and Western European countries have found that their emissions have risen since 1990, instead of falling as the agreement required. The rise is particularly notable since 2000, according to fresh United Nations data.

Among developing countries, “there has been a loss of confidence, if I may say, since the developed countries, and particularly the largest ones, have not done more,” said Rajendra K. Pachauri, India’s best-known energy expert and the chairman of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“They’re going to shift the burden on us — that’s the popular view,” he said in a phone interview from New Delhi before flying to Nairobi.

The agency advocates improving the fuel efficiency of cars, expanding the use of nuclear power and financing biofuels research. It said those measures would more than pay for themselves by reducing oil imports.

“If we stick with business-as-usual policies, we are ending up with a world which is vulnerable, dirty and expensive,” Fatih Birol, the agency’s chief economist, said in an interview.

Investments needed to meet world growth in demand by 2030 are in the order of $20 trillion, the report estimated. But aggressive energy conservation policies could limit the increased oil demand to 103 million barrels a day by 2030. If that was done, carbon dioxide emissions would be 16 percent lower.

China has taken steps to improve energy conservation, though it has justified them mainly in terms of limiting reliance on imported oil and reducing air pollution. China has set fuel-economy requirements for new cars that are more stringent than the United States’, but less stringent than the European Union’s.

China has also begun requiring power companies to invest in larger coal-fired power plants instead of smaller power plants, which tend to require more coal per kilowatt-hour generated.

The energy agency took these steps into account in its prediction that China’s carbon dioxide emissions would overtake those of the United States some time in 2009.

Mr. Birol said consumer nations would face even greater risks to their supplies because of their growing reliance on energy imports from a smaller number of countries, mainly in the Middle East. Domestic oil production in Western countries will peak in the next five or six years and then decline.

Worldwide coal consumption has risen as much in the last three years as it had in the previous 23 years, Mr. Birol said. China accounts for 90 percent of the increase, the result of steeply rising demand for electricity that is mostly generated by coal-fired power plants.

India is responsible for about 8 percent of the increase in coal use, and the United States for most of the rest, Mr. Birol said. The agency’s forecast of China’s carbon dioxide emissions also reflects a revised prediction that China’s economy will grow 5.5 percent a year over the next quarter-century, slightly higher than previously expected, which will result in higher energy use.

“Strong policy action is needed to move the world onto a more sustainable growth path,” the agency said in a statement with the report.

Carbon dioxide accounts for 80 percent of the world’s manmade emissions of global warming gases. A variety of gases from industrial processes, plus methane from landfills and coal mines, account for the rest of these emissions; China’s emissions of those gases is growing rapidly as well.

The global warming effects of China’s rapidly increasing carbon dioxide emissions may have been masked until now by the country’s high emissions of sulfur compounds, which form particles that reflect the sun’s rays back into space. But the particles do not stay in the air nearly as long as the carbon dioxide, and China is now trying to reduce sulfur compounds because they cause acid rain and respiratory problems.

“Like the tortoise versus the hare, the carbon dioxide wins out in the long run,” said Stephen E. Schwartz, a senior atmospheric scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y.

China is not alone in relying more on coal. The United States is counting on coal to fill its growing energy needs. And while Western European nations have been the most enthusiastic advocates of measures to address global warming, they have also started moving back to coal.

Britain has reopened several coal-fired power plants and imported coal lately because generating electricity from coal is much cheaper now than using oil or natural gas. Japan and Germany have both embarked on ambitious construction programs for new coal-fired plants as well.

A British government spokesman acknowledged that British coal consumption was rising, but noted that British coal users were offsetting the increase in carbon dioxide emissions by paying energy users elsewhere in the European Union to cut emissions.

But critics of this carbon trading plan say that European countries have estimated existing carbon dioxide emissions so high that it is easy for companies to come in below those levels and then declare that they have reduced emissions and therefore have credits to sell.

Myron Ebell, the director of energy and global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a research group in Washington that is critical of limits on global warming emissions and receives financing from energy companies, said China’s rapid rise would further hurt international efforts to rein in global warming gases.

“It’s not just China that’s blowing this thing apart,” he said. “I don’t see the Europeans cutting their emissions at all.”

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

We are all saved by the start of new EV technology with performance vehicle EV technology in California. See this link to the EV car home project!

EV cars mean zero transport emissions of greenhouse gases, and the rise in global warming is really due to cows emitting methane!

Youre right! Now, all the average low income family needs to do is come up with $100,000 plus tax, title and license and they too can support the environment!

Rather than the current situation where 'the west' is better off because they exploited and plundered the resources of the 3rd world?

Or, more accurately, we could say this: Rather than the current situation where 'the west' is better off because they enjoyed economic freedom, and didn't exploit and plunder the resources of their citizens like the gov'ts of the 3rd world did.

I'll say it again, without an effective economic solution (i.e. fusion or recycling breeder reactors, et cetera) if all the doom and gloom comes to bear, the poor of the world will be utterly decimated, as usual.

Begging whoever replaces Dubya and Blair and Merkel to suddenly just Kyoto everything will fail. Nearly every single country so far (at least the ones that matter) utterly blew their Kyoto numbers.

Surprise, surprise.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

We are all saved by the start of new EV technology with performance vehicle EV technology in California. See this link to the EV car home project!

EV cars mean zero transport emissions of greenhouse gases, and the rise in global warming is really due to cows emitting methane!

---

It's good to be back amongst friends and colleagues

The supporting research is all economic in nature, dealing exclusively with the economic impact of the dire global warming predictions used as the base assumption of the report.

The report suggests that spending 1% GDP now with save paying 20% later when things have gotten worse, in 20 years time. It doesn't say that some countries will have to pay more than 1%, but will gain less for this investment than other countries who will pay far less than 1% but stand to gain much more than any. In other words, in 20 years time some countries will be much better off because 'the west' has paid for it.

Rather than the current situation where 'the west' is better off because they exploited and plundered the resources of the 3rd world?

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Reality Internet Personality

The supporting research is all economic in nature, dealing exclusively with the economic impact of the dire global warming predictions used as the base assumption of the report.

The report suggests that spending 1% GDP now with save paying 20% later when things have gotten worse, in 20 years time. It doesn't say that some countries will have to pay more than 1%, but will gain less for this investment than other countries who will pay far less than 1% but stand to gain much more than any. In other words, in 20 years time some countries will be much better off because 'the west' has paid for it.

Except that, as Dr. Reisman points out, the 1% and 20% numbers are founded on unwarranted assumptions and bear no relation to the actual cost of implementing the goals that Sir Nicholas is propounding.

The supporting research is all economic in nature, dealing exclusively with the economic impact of the dire global warming predictions used as the base assumption of the report.

The report suggests that spending 1% GDP now with save paying 20% later when things have gotten worse, in 20 years time. It doesn't say that some countries will have to pay more than 1%, but will gain less for this investment than other countries who will pay far less than 1% but stand to gain much more than any. In other words, in 20 years time some countries will be much better off because 'the west' has paid for it.

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flaming balloons

Britain's Stern Review on Global Warming: It Could Be Environmentalism's Swan Song

The Stern Review also starts with the assumption that all of the worst predictions of the Global Warming proponents will occur. The supporting research is all economic in nature, dealing exclusively with the economic impact of the dire global warming predictions used as the base assumption of the report.

Once again, we have a Global Warming pundit making pronouncements without, in this case, even a pretense of basing the conclusions of the report on Climate Reasearch. This is understandable in that actually citing the research which supports the base assumptions of the report would embroil Sir Nicholas in the need to provide the research data and methods for peer review. There is a direct correlation between the nature of the conclusions of such research and the availability of data and methods for review such that, the more catastrophic the conclusions of a Global Warming proponent's research, the more resistance to calls for making raw data and analysis methods available.

Another issue, as Dr. Reisman points out, is that there is a dangerous diconnect between the reports conclusions and the actual effect on the real world.

Britain's Stern Review on Global Warming: It Could Be Environmentalism's Swan Song

By George Reisman

Posted on 11/6/2006

To the accompaniment of much fanfare and hoopla, the British government has released Sir Nicholas Stern's Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, a report that it commissioned but that it labels "independent."

The report is a rehash of now standard environmentalist claims concerning alleged disasters that await the world if it continues with its wicked ways of fossil fuel consumption: the disappearance of islands beneath the sea, the flooding of coastal cities, more severe droughts and hurricanes, famines, disease, the displacement of tens of millions of people from their traditional homelands — it's all regurgitated in the report.

A couple of times, however, the report provides a hint of something even much worse:

"Under a BAU [business as usual] scenario, the stock of greenhouse gases could more than treble by the end of the century, giving at least a 50% risk of exceeding 5°C global average temperature change during the following decades. This would take humans into unknown territory. An illustration of the scale of such an increase is that we are now only around 5°C warmer than in the last ice age. (p. ix of the Executive Summary.)

"It remains unclear whether warming could initiate a self-perpetuating effect that would lead to a much larger temperature rise or even runaway warming…. (p. 10 of the full report, the Stern Review.)"

The frightening allusions to "unknown territory" and "runaway warming" come very close to conjuring up images of hellfire and brimstone as the fate of the world if it does not take Sir Nicholas's Report to heart and repent of its ways. But Sir Nicholas never actually does make this threat. He leaves it merely to implication.

Perhaps if it were made, it would be easier for people to identify the environmentalists' fears for the empty bugaboo that they are and dismiss them. Their response would need be only that if economic progress and the enjoyment of its fruits will consume the world in flames, and thus that living like human beings means we really will all go to hell, then so be it. Better to live as human beings now, while we can, than throw it away for the sake of descendants living as pre-industrial wretches later on. (But, of course, we will never have to make such a choice, for reasons that will become clear shortly.)

Surprisingly, the actual negative consequences Sir Nicholas alleges that will occur from global warming are extremely tame, at least in comparison with hellfire. In his "Summary of Conclusions," he writes:

"Using the results from formal economic models, the Review estimates that if we don't act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20% of GDP or more."

Sir Nicholas's use of the words "don't act" is very misleading. What he is urging when he speaks of "action" is a mass of laws and decrees — i.e., government action. This government action will forcibly prevent hundreds of millions, indeed, billions of individual human beings from engaging in their, personal and business private action — that is, from acting in ways that they judge to serve their own self-interests. Thus, what he is actually urging is not action, but government action intended to stop private action.

Furthermore, he does not explain why he believes that global warming means the end of all subsequent economic progress, though that is implied in the words "now and forever." He compares the dangers of global warming to "those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century," (ibid.) yet seems to forget the stupendous economic progress that followed them.

According to Sir Nicholas, what we must do to avoid the loss of up to 20% of annual GDP, is ultimately to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions "more than 80% below the absolute level of current annual emissions." (p. xi of the Executive Summary. My italics.) Lest one think that such drastic reduction lies only in the very remote future, Sir Nicholas also declares,

"By 2050, global emissions would need to be around 25% below current levels. These cuts will have to be made in the context of a world economy in 2050 that may be 3–4 times larger than today - so emissions per unit of GDP would need to be just one quarter of current levels by 2050. (Ibid.)"

In appraising Sir Nicholas's views, it should be kept in mind that our ability to produce, now and for many years to come, vitally depends on the use of fossil fuels. These fuels are the source of most of our electric power and thus of our ability to use machinery. They propel our trucks, trains, ships, and planes. And, of course, their use entails the emission of carbon dioxide. Thus, it would seem that Sir Nicholas's means of preventing even a 20% loss of GDP would entail a far greater loss of GDP than 20%.

It follows that if it is output that concerns us, we would be better off simply accepting global warming, if that is what is in store, than attempting to avoid it in the way Sir Nicholas prescribes. We will certainly not produce 3–4 times the output in 2050 with 25% less carbon dioxide emission. Far more likely, if such a reduction is forced upon us, we will produce substantially less output, despite the probable existence of a substantially larger population by then.

Sir Nicholas appears to be as naïve in his estimate of the cost of replacing today's technologies of fuel and power as he is in estimating the effect of their loss. Without evidence of any kind, he claims that while the cost of "inaction" is as much as 20% of annual global GDP, "the costs of action — reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change — can be limited to around 1% of global GDP each year."

Thus his program is designed to appear as really quite a bargain: the world's governments will appropriate an additional mere 1% of global GDP each year in order to prevent their citizens from wantonly destroying as much as 20% of annual global GDP by foolishly pursuing their own self-interests. And it turns out that, in Sir Nicholas's view, even this 1% is far more than is required by the governments for the actual development of new technologies.

In his chapter titled "Accelerating Technological Innovation," he writes that "Global public energy R&D funding should double, to around $20 billion, for the development of a diverse portfolio of technologies." (p. 347 of the Stern Review.) Twenty billion dollars are a mere one-twentieth of one percent of the world's current annual GDP of roughly $40 trillion. That's supposed to be all that it takes to develop the technologies that will enable the world to eventually reduce carbon emissions by 80% from today's levels.

How easy and simple it is all supposed to be, if only we will do as we are told, and get started doing so right away. All we have to do is sit back and leave the direction of our lives in the hands of the government. It will solve the problem of changing the global technology of energy production with the same success that the Soviets and the British Laborites pursued their respective varieties of socialism and with the same success that our own government has conducted its wars on poverty, drugs, and terror, and in Vietnam and Iraq. Did I say, "success"?

Sir Nicholas's Review is characterized by an apparent belief in a kind of magical power of words to create and control reality. Thus, the actual fact,as reported in The New York Times, is that "About one large coal-burning plant is being commissioned a week, mostly in China." In the same report, The Times points out that "A typical new coal-fired power plant, [is] one of the largest sources of emissions, [and] is expected to operate for many decades." Totally ignoring these facts, Sir Nicholas believes he has said something meaningful and significant when he writes,

"Developing countries are already taking significant action to decouple their economic growth from the growth in greenhouse gas emissions. For example, China has adopted very ambitious domestic goals to reduce energy used for each unit of GDP by 20% from 2006–2010 and to promote the use of renewable energy. India has created an Integrated Energy Policy for the same period that includes measures to expand access to cleaner energy for poor people and to increase energy efficiency." (p. xxiv of Executive Summary.)"

To say the least, this represents the use of a mere statements of intent concerning action in the future in an effort to override the diametrically opposite character of China's and India's actual actions in the present, and in the foreseeable future as well if these countries are to achieve further substantial economic development.

Another illustration of the attempt to employ words as though their use could control reality, occurs in Sir Nicholas's discussion of "learning and economies of scale" in connection with low-carbon technologies. He notes that "The cost of technologies tends to fall over time, because of learning and economies of scale," and appears to conclude from this that low-carbon technologies can therefore eventually be as efficient as the high-carbon technologies they are supposed to replace when the latter are forcibly curtailed. He writes, "There have been major advances in the efficiency of fossil-fuel use; similar progress can also be expected for low-carbon technologies as the state of knowledge progresses." (Stern Review, p. 225.) It apparently does not occur to him that there may be some necessary order of sequence involved and that the use of high-carbon technologies is the necessary foundation for the possible later adoption of low-carbon technologies.

Presumably, he does not believe that in the period 1750–1950, industrialization could have proceeded on the foundation of low-carbon technologies. For example, before such technology as that of atomic power could be developed, generations of industrial progress had to take place on a foundation of fossil fuels. And this was equally true for the technology of wind turbines and solar power. The ability to produce the materials, components, and equipment required by these low-carbon technologies rests on the existence of previously established highly developed carbon-based technologies. Further substantial economic development on the same foundation is required for the further development of low-carbon technologies.

Wherever the use of high-carbon technology is cheaper than that of low-carbon technology, forcibly curtailing its use implies the forcible reduction of the physical volume of production in the economic system, including its ability to produce further capital goods. Thus, forcibly curtailing the use of carbon-based technology cuts the ground from beneath the development of future low-carbon technology. It aborts the development of the necessary industrial base. (For elaboration of these points, see my Capitalism, pp. 178–179, 212, 622–642.)

Sir Nicholas's and the rest of the environmental movement's hostility to carbon technology, is ultimately contrary to purpose not only insofar as it prevents the development of the low-carbon technologies they claim to favor, but also in that it simultaneously, and more fundamentally, operates to deprive the world of the ability to counteract destructive climate change, such as global warming.

Whether or not they are aware of it, in attempting to combat alleged global warming, Sir Nicholas, and the rest of the environmentalists, are urging a policy of deliberate counteractive global climate change by the world's governments. They want the world's governments to change the world's climate from the path that they believe it is otherwise destined to take. They want the world's governments to make the earth's climate cooler than they believe it will otherwise be as the next two centuries or more unfold. But their policy of climate control is the most stupid one imaginable. It's more stupid than a modern-day equivalent of a savage's attempting to control nature by the sacrifice of his goat.

The reason it's more stupid, much more stupid, is that the goat that they want to sacrifice is most of modern industrial civilization — the part that depends on the 80% of the carbon emissions they want to eliminate, and which will not be replaced through any magical power of words to create and control reality, however much they may believe in that power. It is precisely modern industrial civilization and its further expansion and intensification that is mankind's means of coping with all aspects of nature, including, if it should ever actually be necessary, the ability to control the earth's climate, whether to cool it down or to warm it up.

If mankind ever really finds it necessary to control the earth's climate, whether to prevent global warming or, as is in fact probably more likely, a new ice age, its ability to do so will depend on the power of its economic system. An economic system with the ability to provide such things as massive lasers, fleets of rocket ships carrying cargoes of various chemicals, equipment, and materials for deployment in outer space, with the ability to create major chemical reactions here on earth too, if necessary — such an economic system will have far more ability to make possible any necessary change in the earth's climate. That is the kind of economic system we could reasonably expect to have in coming generations, if it is not prevented from coming into existence by policies hostile to economic progress, notably those urged by Sir Nicholas and the environmental movement.

What Sir Nicholas and the rest of the environmental movement offer is merely the destruction of much of our existing means of coping with nature and the aborting of the development of new and additional means. To the extent that their program is enacted, it will serve to prevent effectively dealing with global warming if that should ever actually be necessary.

A major word of caution is necessary here. The above discussion implies that the use of modern technology to control climate is infinitely more reasonable than the virtually insane policy of attempting to control climate by means of destroying modern technology. The word of caution is that in the hands of government, a policy of climate control based on the use modern technology could be almost as dangerous as the policy of government climate control by means of the destruction of modern technology.

In fact, a possible outcome of today's intellectual chaos on the subjects of environment and government is a combination of major destruction of our economic system resulting from policies based on hostility to carbon technology and climate damage caused by governmental efforts to control climate through the use of modern technology. It's not impossible that what we might end up with is an economic system largely destroyed by environmentalist policies plus the start of a new ice age resulting from government efforts to counteract global warming through the use of technologically inspired counter measures.

The only safe response to global warming, if that in fact is what is unfolding, or to global freezing, when that develops, as it inevitably will, is the maximum degree of individual freedom. (For elaboration and proof of this proposition, see Capitalism, pp. 88–90.)

Any serious consideration of the proposals made in the Stern Review for radically reducing carbon technology and the accompanying calls for immediacy in enacting them makes clear in a further way how utterly impractical the environmentalist program for controlling global warming actually is. The fundamental impracticality of the program, of course, lies in its utterly destructive character. But in addition to that, the fact that people are not prepared easily or quickly to make a massive sacrifice of their self-interests dooms the enactment of the program.

Even if, in utter contradiction of the truth, the program were sound, it would simply not be possible to enact it in time to satisfy the environmentalists that the level of carbon buildup they fear will not occur. In other words, the world is quickly moving past the window of opportunity for enacting the environmentalists' program for controlling global warming. (Concerning this point, see pp. xi-xii of the Executive Summary, especially Figure 3 on p. xii.) The implication is that either they will have to find another issue or different means for addressing the issue.

The only different means, however, are technological in character. Environmentalism thus stands a very strong chance of ultimately reverting to the more traditional socialism of massive government construction and engineering projects. It's future may well lie with what is coming to be called"geo-engineering." We shall see.



>>George Reisman is the author of Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (Ottawa, Illinois: Jameson Books, 1996) and is Pepperdine University Professor Emeritus of Economics. He is also the translator of Mises's Epistemological Problems of Economics (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1960).

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

The "rich" world had better find an economically effective answer, one, because the poor certainly won't and two, more handwringing like the below won't improve things one iota.

Rich world's climate duty to poor
By Roger Harrabin
Environment analyst, BBC News

Rich nations must do far more to help poor countries cope with the consequences of climate change, an influential report is expected to say.

The review will also say emissions need to be cut now, the BBC has learned.

The author, former World Bank chief economist Sir Nicholas Stern, will say it is cheaper to act now rather than try to deal with the problem later.

UK Chancellor Gordon Brown commissioned Sir Nicholas to examine the economics of climate change and its impacts.

Mr Brown and the UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, hope the findings will end a long-running debate between economists about the best way to deal with the problem.

Some, mainly liberal economists from the US, say there is uncertainty over how bad climate change will be. Therefore, they argue, money should not be wasted on costly measures to curb emissions. They believe the best solution is to invest the money in adapting to potential consequences.

The opposing view, supported by the UK and other EU nations, believes emissions need to be cut now.

Sir Nicholas will say that the West will also have to pay far more to help poor nations cope with the problems caused by carbon emissions.

Bangladesh is one nation that experts believe will be hardest hit by a warming world.

Climatologists say the country's rainy season will be compacted, resulting in more flooding during the monsoon season and intense droughts during longer summers.

Because Bangladesh is situated on low-lying ground, it is also expected to be hit by rising sea levels, experts warn.

Between 10-30 million people could be forced from their homes by the end of the century, say Bangladeshi government officials.

Environment Minister Jafrul Chowdhury expressed anger at the lack of international progress on tackling climate change.

"Our people will be helpless and homeless, but without any reason. We are not responsible for this," he told BBC News.

Mr Blair and Mr Brown hope the findings will work to unite international efforts to combat the impacts of climate change.

Sir Nicholas is expected to present his conclusions to the leaders of the world's wealthiest nations at a G8 climate meeting in Mexico at the beginning of October.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/5343208.stm

Published: 2006/09/13 18:26:48 GMT

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

The lighter side of the moon
Reflected earthshine reveals changing global climate and clues to seeking other Earths

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me@rescam.org

I just heard a rumor that next month in a "respected science journal" a study will be published itentifying the mechanism for the sharp drop in ocean temperature observed between this year and last year.
Anyone have any details? Or is it just rumor mill tripe?

Saying No to 'Climate Porn'?
By Maurizio Morabito : 16 Aug 2006


In the movie Goodbye Lenin, a son works hard to protect his ailing mother from the fact that Communist East Germany disappeared after 1989.

In an analogy with sinister undertones, global-warming pessimists advocating "climate-friendly behaviour" (CFB) are now being encouraged to make-believe their own reality, building for all of us an almost certainly gloomy future. Armed with propaganda rather than rational persuasion, they are advocating an orthodoxy reminiscent of some past Communist States.

The report "Warm Words: How are we telling the climate story and can we tell it better?" has just been published by the self-styled "UK's leading progressive think-tank", the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), "as part of its project on how to stimulate" CFB in the UK.

The report tries to answer the question "How could the way climate change is communicated be improved?" The authors Gill Ereaut and Nat Segnit looked at "popular [UK] media coverage of climate change" in late 2005-early 2006 (some 600 press articles, plus another 100 items from TV, radio, and web sites) to conclude that "many of the existing approaches to climate change communications clearly seem unproductive".

As experts in the commercial application of linguistic and discourse analysis they recognize that "the climate change discourse in the UK today looks confusing, contradictory and chaotic"; that "the overarching message for the lay public is that in fact, nobody really knows"; and that ultimately the "battle" (to stimulate CFB) is "not won".

Particularly scathing words are reserved for "the alarmist repertoire - as awesome, terrible, immense and beyond human control [...] secretly thrilling - effectively a form of 'climate porn'." This obvious problem has been raised before in environmentalist circles. New York Times columnist Nicholas D Kristof wrote in 2005 about the possible suicide by catastrophic, almost millenarian environmentalism. At the same time, UK sustainable development consultancy Futerra published its report "The Rules of the Game: Principles of Climate Change Communications" asking for a more positive message to be linked to messages on CFB.

Still, alarmism remains the most common form of climate change reporting: stories focus on disappearing species, uncontrollable pests, rising seas, floods, droughts, heat waves, fires, violent storms, scarce food/jobs/resources, and forecasts of millions of human deaths.

Articles and books by renowned scientists are routinely menacing with titles like The End of Nature (Bill McKibben, Bloomsbury 2003) and The Threat to the Planet (Jim Hansen, New York Review of Books, July 13, 2006). Supposedly serious British media outlets don't think twice about reporting the absurd, like the Amazon rainforest incapable of sustaining a couple of years of drought (The Independent, July 23, 2006) or coral reefs needing water temperatures not to vary more than 2 degrees Celsius (BBC News, Feb 21, 2004).

It is not clear why climate porn should be the norm. Are newspapers attracted by the "titillation" consciously or otherwise, to increase sales? Are some scientists attempting clumsy forays into policy making? Perhaps, or perhaps it's also about getting one's "pet issue" recognized in a world full of other scares.

Anyway, even the IPPR is now forced to recognize that climate porn is not the way forward. Ereaut and Segnit go as far as to implicitly recognize that possibly climate change catastrophism is "another apocalyptic construction [...] perhaps a figment of our cultural imaginations". And obviously there is simply no mass movement favoring wholesale curb of CO2 emissions: despite all predictions of doom unless they repent, abandon sinful technology and change their ways away from carbon dioxide, people still use cars, air conditioners and gas for cooking and heating:.

What are fashion-friendly governments such as the UK's to do then to entice CFB in the masses? After their promising start Ereaut and Segnit stick unfortunately to the realm of sheer propaganda, recommending "to work in a more shrewd and contemporary way, using subtle techniques of engagement".

They suggest we: "treat the argument as having been won, at least for popular communications"; convince people that "climate-friendly behaviors" are "normal, natural, right and 'ours'...the kinds of things that people like us do"; and treat "positive climate behaviours" as marketeers treat "buying and consuming".

In other words, those advocating CFB are encouraged to fabricate their own reality, to pretend having won a debate they haven't; and to fool the masses into buying more soap, ahem, into getting rid of their cars, stopping using energy and doing whatever else a "positive climate behaviour" might entail, with enthusiasm and as a matter of course.

Is this really an effective way forward? It is, only in the minds of those assuming (in yet another reminiscence of Communist ideology) that people are not clever enough to understand that an enticing propaganda is still propaganda.

Soap-like political propaganda makes for no good policy either. Do the authors of "Warm Words" realize that those recommendations seal the fate of climate change activism to the area of belief, rather than rational care of the world we live in? What kind of planet will CFB propaganda provide us? As reported by Robert L Bradley Jr. in "Al Gore's telling whoppers again", "isn't it suspicious that the problem is always individual behavior, and the solution is always government action?" And in fact, the current UK government is busy showing the way never having truly renounced its big-government ideology.

British Environment Minister David Miliband is seriously considering curbing freedom and increasing bureaucracy by distributing trendy, unworkable CO2 emission cards. At the same time, the Department for Trade and Industry is ominously working to indoctrinate "children and 'maybe' even their parents in The Right Way to Behave" (James Woudhuysen, Windmills of the mind, July 31, 2006) by building solar power systems on classroom roofs. This being the UK, expect low-quality moral tales on CO2 on TV soon.

Is the terrain being prepared for zealot eco-revolutionaries soon to remove most freedoms and a wide range of technological achievements, imposing us a future "eco-friendly" life of pain, illness, manual labour and struggle, with the belief that human ingenuity is an evil that will destroy the planet instead than improve our lives?

Is this Catastrophism too? Perhaps. But who would have thought 100 years ago of the upcoming Golden Age of Nazism and Communism, doctrines getting ready to kill millions of people: having scientifically proclaimed themselves to be "for the good of humanity"?

The author is a journalist, IT consultant and radio talk show host. His blog can be read at http://omnologos.wordpress.com (in English) and http://mauriziomorabito.wordpress.com (in Italian).

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

The summer of 1930 also marked the beginning of the longest drought of the 20th century. In 1934, dry regions stretched from New York and Pennsylvania across the Great Plains to California. A "dust bowl" covered about 50 million acres in the south-central plains during the winter of 1935-1936.

On the other hand, the American Southwest is having very high humidity and monsoon-like rains. In and around Albuquerque, New Mexico the humidity has been in the 69%-70% area, compared to the average of appx. 45% for this time of year. Also, rainfall is approximately 3/4" above average for the year. A significant amount compared to the total rainfall of less <10"/yr. Oh, and for the GW report, average daily temps are around 10°F lower than normal.

A Bit of History for Global Warmers: Look at 1930
By Randy Hall
CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor
August 04, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - People sweltering from a heat wave in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. might find cold comfort in the fact that the temperatures of the past few days are not the hottest on record. That "honor" belongs to a summer 76 years ago -- decades before the controversy over "man-made global warming" began.

"From June 1 to August 31, 1930, 21 days had high temperatures that were 100 degrees or above" in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area, Patrick Michaels, senior fellow for environmental studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, told Cybercast News Service. "That summer has never been approached, and it's not going to be approached this year."

Between July 19 and Aug. 9 of that year, heat records were set on nine days and they remain unbroken more than three-quarters of a century later. "That's hot," added Michaels, who also serves as professor of natural resources at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va.

The summer of 1930 also marked the beginning of the longest drought of the 20th century. In 1934, dry regions stretched from New York and Pennsylvania across the Great Plains to California. A "dust bowl" covered about 50 million acres in the south-central plains during the winter of 1935-1936.

However, the first six months of this year were the hottest across the nation since the federal government began keeping records in 1890, according to Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who told NBC News that about 50 all-time high-temperature records were broken during the month of July.

But Michaels noted that high temperatures are common in the middle of the summer.

"Climatologically, the last week in July is the warmest week of the year on average, and when the atmospheric flow patterns get into anomalously warm configurations during this time of the year, temperatures will skyrocket," he said.

Along with an unusual upper-air pattern, the Washington, D.C., area "was exceedingly dry" during the summer of 1930, Michaels stated.

"Generally speaking, when the ground is moist here, temperatures cap out in the high 90s," he noted. "That's because the sun's energy is divided into evaporating water and directly heating the surface. If the surface is dry, then everything goes into heating the surface, and you get exceedingly hot temperatures like you saw in 1930.

"Big cities are getting warmer -- with or without global warming -- because the bricks and the buildings and the pavement retain heat," Michaels added. For that reason, he prefers to compare temperatures in nearby rural areas. "There's been very little change" in those areas, "so we trust the record to be a reliable indicator of base climate."

Residents of the nation's capital can look forward to some relief, as weather forecasts for the weekend call for a cooling trend. "If we were going to go into the 100s -- the 103 and 104 degree range -- we would have done it, but there's just a little bit too much moisture in the surface to allow that to happen," Michaels said. He noted, however, that temperatures are expected to rise again next week.

The mid-summer temperatures have provided more opportunities for environmentalists subscribing to the theory that man is responsible for the current global warming.

Jay Gulledge, senior research fellow for science and impacts at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, told NBC News on Wednesday that "this heat wave and other extreme events we've seen in recent years are completely consistent with what we expect to become more common as a result of global warming, even though we can't be definitive on any single event."

Michaels acknowledged that "global temperatures have been warming slightly for several decades" and noted that the surface of the world "is a little bit warmer than it was in the 1930s" even though "temperatures dropped between 1940 and 1975."

"Usually, the way the jet stream breaks out is very hot in the East and relatively cool in the West or vice versa," he said. "This time around, it looks more like the summers of the 1930s," but he dismissed the idea that the extreme temperatures of that time were caused by man-made "global warming" since "it wasn't around then."

Although the recent heat wave have not convinced Michaels that "global warming" is a severe problem, it was apparently enough to make a "convert" out of conservative Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson.

"We really need to address the burning of fossil fuels," Robertson said during his "700 Club" broadcast on Thursday. The high temperatures in some regions of the U.S. East are "the most convincing evidence I've seen on global warming in a long time," he added.


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Environmental alarmists, is having Pat Robertson on your side a good thing or a bad thing???

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

Cold, hard facts about global warming

By Peter Doran; associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

July 28, 2006

In the debate on global warming, the data on the climate of Antarctica have been distorted, at different times, by both sides. As a polar researcher caught in the middle, I'd like to set the record straight.

In January 2002, a research paper on Antarctic temperatures, of which I was the lead author, appeared in the journal Nature. At the time, the Antarctic Peninsula was warming, and many people assumed that meant the climate on the entire continent was heating up, as the Arctic was. But the Antarctic Peninsula represents only about 15 percent of the continent's land mass, so it could not tell the whole story of Antarctic climate. Our paper made the continental picture more clear.

My research colleagues and I found that from 1996 to 2000, one small, ice-free area of the Antarctic mainland had actually cooled. Our report also analyzed temperatures for the mainland in such a way as to remove the influence of the peninsula warming and found that, from 1966 to 2000, more of the continent had cooled than had warmed. Our summary statement pointed out how the cooling trend posed challenges to models of Antarctic climate and ecosystem change.

Newspaper and television reports focused on this part of the paper. And many news and opinion writers linked our study with another bit of polar research published that month, in Science, showing that part of Antarctica's ice sheet had been thickening – and erroneously concluded that the Earth was not warming at all. “Scientific findings run counter to theory of global warming,” said a headline on an opinion column in The San Diego Union-Tribune. One conservative commentator wrote, “It's ironic that two studies suggesting that a new Ice Age may be under way may end the global warming debate.”

In a rebuttal in The Providence Journal, in Rhode Island, the lead author of the Science paper and I explained that our studies offered no evidence that the earth was cooling. But the misinterpretation had already become legend, and in the four-and-one-half years since, it has only grown.

Our results have been misused as “evidence” against global warming by Michael Crichton in his novel “State of Fear” and by Ann Coulter in her latest book, “Godless: The Church of Liberalism.” Search my name on the Web, and you will find pages of links to everything from climate discussion groups to Senate policy committee documents – all citing my 2002 study as reason to doubt that the Earth is warming. One recent Web column even put words in my mouth. I have never said “the unexpected colder climate in Antarctica may possibly be signaling a lessening of the current global warming cycle.” I have never thought such a thing either.

Our study did find that 58 percent of Antarctica cooled from 1966 to 2000. But during that period, the rest of the continent was warming. And climate models created since our paper was published have suggested a link between the lack of significant warming in Antarctica and the ozone hole over that continent. These models, conspicuously missing from the warming-skeptic literature, suggest that as the ozone hole heals – thanks to worldwide bans on ozone-destroying chemicals – all of Antarctica is likely to warm with the rest of the planet. An inconvenient truth?

Also missing from the skeptics' arguments is the debate over our conclusions. Another group of researchers who took a different approach found no clear cooling trend in Antarctica. We still stand by our results for the period we analyzed, but unbiased reporting would acknowledge differences of scientific opinion.

The disappointing thing is that we are even debating the direction of climate change on this globally important continent. And it may not end until we have more weather stations on Antarctica and longer-term data that demonstrate a clear trend.

In the meantime, I would like to remove my name from the list of scientists who dispute global warming. I know my coauthors would as well.

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me@rescam.org

Energy group funded research of global warming dissenter
Opponents compare pledges to lobbying

ASSOCIATED PRESS

July 28, 2006

WASHINGTON – Coal-burning utilities are passing the hat for one of the few remaining scientists skeptical of the global warming harm caused by industries that burn fossil fuels.

Pat Michaels – Virginia's state climatologist, a University of Virginia professor and senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute – told Western business leaders last year that he was running out of money for his analyses of other scientists' global warming research. So last week, a Colorado utility organized a collection campaign to help him out, raising at least $150,000 in donations and pledges.

The Intermountain Rural Electric Association of Sedalia, Colo., gave Michaels $100,000 and started the fundraising drive, said Stanley Lewandowski, IREA's general manager.

“We cannot allow the discussion to be monopolized by the alarmists,” Lewandowski wrote in a July 17 letter to 50 other utilities. He also called on other electric cooperatives to launch a counterattack on “alarmist” scientists and specifically former Vice President Al Gore's movie “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Michaels and Lewandowski are open about the money and see no problem with it. Some top scientists and environmental advocates call it a clear conflict of interest. Others view it as the type of lobbying that goes along with many divisive issues.

“These people are just spitting into the wind,” said John Holdren, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “The fact is that the drumbeat of science and people's perspectives are in line that the climate is changing.”

Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, a Washington advocacy group, said, “This is a classic case of industry buying science to back up its anti-environmental agenda.”

Donald Kennedy, an environmental scientist who is former president of Stanford University and current editor in chief of the peer-reviewed journal Science, said skeptics such as Michaels are lobbyists more than researchers.

“I don't think it's unethical any more than most lobbying is unethical,” he said. He said donations to skeptics amounts to “trying to get a political message across.”

Michaels is best known for his newspaper opinion columns and books, including “Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians and the Media.”

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me@rescam.org