Global Warming/Climate Change Super Thread

[YZT580]

This from the guy who uses a G3 to commute from meeting to meeting and whose personal electrical consumption is 20 times the average.  And his book was banned from use in British schools because of 12 (I think) errors in science.  And And And.  The list goes on.  In the meantime, Arctic ice was up by 20 percent over the low of 2007 and the Eastern Antarctic ice is increasing at a greater rate than the Western Ice is decreasing.  Hopefully, the Canadian group in Copenhagan will dig their heels in and not sign anything.  In the meantime, I want my 60 watt incandescent light bulb back!

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

"  the jet-hopping environmental activist,

The whole article should have been cut right there.....

 

[Kat Stevens]

I live in the epicentre of evil, hereafter known as Alberta.  I live in a 55 year old 3 bedroom house, natural gas heat.  I drive a six year old Ford F150 super crew 4X4, and have CF bulbs everywhere it's practical to have them.  I will put my carbon impact on this planet up against those of Al Gore, Bono, David Suzuki, or any of the other celebri-muppets who clog up my valuable big screen TV time to tell me how I'm destroying the planet.  The truth is, we're not destroying the planet, we're making it inhospitable for humans, the planet will get along just fine without us.

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

So the guys who essentially invented global warming, policed it against alternative opinions, and sold it to a world that was ready to sacrifice its industry are frauds.  Simply put, global warming is a proven fraud and doesn't exist until somebody with competence AND honesty can show the trends they faked.  Wanna bet it aint goona happen.  The biggest fraud since Y2K,  the major TV networks are still in denial after having bought it hook line and sinker.  Repeat after me "Global Warming is A Fraud."

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

So what does Eddie do 3 days after global warming is proven a fraud?  He spends $1/2 billion of my money to stop something that does not exist.

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/11/24/federal-support-carbon-dioxide-pipeline.html

These guys have to cool their jets until this plays out.  The global warming proponents were frauds.  There never was nor will their ever be man made global warming  - at least none proven.

 

[Flip]

Dennis, I think Stelmach has to go along to get along......

You might be overlooking the flip side here, pumping CO2 into old oil wells provides a value and a return on the 1/2 Billion.

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

Dennis, I think Stelmach has to go along to get along......

You might be overlooking the flip side here, pumping CO2 into old oil wells provides a value and a return on the 1/2 Billion.

You are right.  20-25 years ago oil companies were set to inject carbon dioxide into the Swan Hills field to repressurize it to recover more oil and it had nothing to do with the environment or government.  Continuing low oil prices made for poor economics and the plan was dropped.

 

[Haletown]

this is a fun exercise . . . from Kate's place @ SDA

So what would you cut and where do we find $9.x Billion annually ?

In order to fall in line with the Copenhagen/COP15 agreement Canada needs to cut 150,000 Mt of carbon emissions from our annual level.
The table below lists the major carbon emission sources. So your task is to choose which areas of the Canadian economy to devastate . . . but you total cuts needs to add up to 150,000 Mt.
After you have figured out what parts of the economy need to go bye-bye, then address the COP 15 para 41 requirement . . . you know the one where it says Canada needs to start paying an annual amount equal to a minimum of 0.7% of our GDP for our "Climate Debt".
0.7% is about $9 billion dollars annually . . . so what are you going to cut out of the current Federal budget to free up $9+ billion annually ?
I'd cut Equalization payments to Provinces - but you-know-who would go ballistic because although they deny they are net recipients of Canadian largesse, they would whine like stuck pigs if their entitlement to the entitlement was cut off.
Electric/heat generation 126 000
Fossil Fuel Industries 70,000
Mining & Gas 23,000
Residential 40,000
Automobile 41, 000
Light Gas trucks 45, 000
Heavy Gas Trucks 6,640
Heavy Diesel Trucks 40,100
Railways 7,000
Off Road Diesel 25,000
Off Road Gas 6,7000
Domestic Aviation 7, 804
Metal Production 13, 800

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

Canada is simply has high energy requirements.  While you can survive at +40C without cooling, our way of life will cease to function at -1C without external energy.  Our winters average much colder than that.  Add to this our distances between population centres and much of our energy consumption just sustains us.  When you start hacking CO2 targets out of non life-sustaining energy use, it's unfeasably brutal. 

 

[vonGarvin]

Metal Production 13, 800

Producing Metal (as in Metallica, Anthrax, Venom, etc) produces that much in carbon?  WTF?

 

[Haletown]

all the numbers  . . . .

http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/ghg/inventory_report/2007/tab_eng.cfm

This is real, this is what Copenhagen is all about.

But no worries, Copenhagen will be a bust.

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

Carbon credits are trading for $0.15 per tonne. 

http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/

If I spend $15.00 and buy 100 tonnes, can I eat beer and chili and idle my car all winter without feeling guilty?

Wasn't the expectation that CO2 would trade for $20.00 per tonne, not $0.15?  Obviously there aren't many believers out there.

 

[a_majoor]

Fewer believers because of this:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/11/open-and-transparent-data-needed-for.html

Open and Transparent Data Needed for Reproducibility and Verification of the Climate Models

Watts up with that explains the core of the Climategate issues

CRU’s decision to withhold data and code from public inspection is not only against the scientific method, given the impact their work has on governmental policies and taxpayer funded programs, it is, in my opinion, unethical. – Anthony Watts

(H/T J Storrs Hall at Foresight who also has two articles that explain more about how science works and Why raw data is important

George Monbiot, a climate change activist and author, says the following


But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request.

Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.


Those who are making the case about climate change need to do the extra work to address the doubts about the data and about the lack of transparency.

Some of the raw data has been dumped


Scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based. The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.

The CRU is the world’s leading centre for reconstructing past climate and temperatures. Climate change sceptics have long been keen to examine exactly how its data were compiled. That is now impossible.

There is also reports that data was deleted on purpose in 2009.


Steven McIntyre had sought release of CRU's data under the UK Freedom of Information Act. At first, Jones simply refused this and several similar requests from other parties. Then on July 27, 2009, CRU erased three key files from its public database, as Mr. McIntyre can prove easily because he has before-and-after screenshots. CRU followed up, in short order, with what McIntyre and some of his readers called an "unprecedented" "purge" of its public data directory. McIntyre's screenshots tell a breathtaking story of wholesale removal of files previously made available to the public, including, at one point, the deletion of every single listing in Phil Jones' public directory. Anthony Watts summed up the situation in one word: "panic."

CRU has posted its response that over 95% of the raw data is public


Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely independent, groups of scientists working for NASA and the National Climate Data Center in the United States, among others. Even if you were to ignore our findings, theirs show the same results. The facts speak for themselves; there is no need for anyone to manipulate them.

We have been bombarded by Freedom of Information requests to release the temperature data that are provided to us by meteorological services around the world via a large network of weather stations. This information is not ours to give without the permission of the meteorological services involved. We have responded to these Freedom of Information requests appropriately and with the knowledge and guidance of the Information Commissioner.


Accuracy and Quality of the Climate Model Code


Ronald Bailey at Reason.com summarizes some of the analysis of the CRU models.

British statistician William Briggs is not impressed by the CRU climatologists' statistical acumen:

8 out 9 things are statistical factors that boost statistical uncertainty are not covered by CRU. Just one of the factors boosts uncertainty by 2 to ten times.

Detailed analysis of the climate modelling program code has begun

Any large computer programs will have bugs. The climate modelling code should be open source and public so that everyone knows exactly what is being done to produce the climate models and bugs can be found and corrected.

Climate change models were used by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) to set policy and is being used to set international policy which effects many billions and even trillions of dollars in projects.

Absolute openness and transparency is needed for the data and computer models on which the discussions and decisions are based.

Many of the policy changes that are being made based on the climate change case can also be made based on air pollution. I think the air pollution case is more solid. Air pollution has been correlated with increased health risks and deaths. Climate change needs to have accurate science and then let the policy decisions go where they will based on accurate science.

 

[KJK]

Canada is simply has high energy requirements.  While you can survive at +40C without cooling, our way of life will cease to function at -1C without external energy.  Our winters average much colder than that.  Add to this our distances between population centres and much of our energy consumption just sustains us.  When you start hacking CO2 targets out of non life-sustaining energy use, it's unfeasibly brutal.

Absolutely correct Dennis and I might add that as a major natural gas exporting country we are penalized for helping other countries reduce their 'greenhouse gases'.

KJK 

 

[Kirkhill]

Judging by the reaction in the Guardian of James Hansen,Al Gore's pet Goddard Institute (NASA) scientist, I believe that he agrees with you 'orrible lot of deniers.

...Cap and trade is an inefficient compromise, paying off numerous special interests. It must be replaced with an honest approach, raising the price of carbon emissions and leaving the dirtiest fossil fuels in the ground.

Are we going to stand up and give global politicians a hard slap in the face, to make them face the truth? It will take a lot of us – probably in the streets.

The last resort, if not the ardent desire, of the true revolutionary "aux barricades!!!"

In the meantime the politicians have dumbed down "an existential crisis" to another combination of new trade regulations, a shift of financial assets and yet one more shot at getting the rich to pony up the 0.7%  development budget promised by Mike Pearson back in the 60s so that the UN doesn't have to beg Uncle Sam for funding.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

 

[a_majoor]

Politicians can expect to get "slapped in the face" as Climategate expands:

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/12/02/lawrence-solomon-australia-ditches-cap-and-trade-in-climategate-s-aftermath.aspx

Lawrence Solomon: Australia ditches cap and trade in Climategate's aftermath
Posted: December 02, 2009, 4:50 AM by Lawrence Solomon
Lawrence Solomon, Climate change, global warming, cap and trade, Australia, Rudd, carbon grteenhouse gas, Climategate

Emboldened following the Climategate scandal, the Liberal opposition in Australia's parliament threw out its pro-Kyoto leader yesterday and then today, under the leadership of global warming skeptic Tony Abbott, voted down the government's plan to pass cap and trade legislation. The proposed legislation, intended to be a feather in the cap of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd prior to his departure for climate change meetings in Copenhagen, failed by a vote of 41 to 33 in the Senate, Australia's upper house.

Despite speculation that Rudd would call a snap election on the issue - a threat some expected him to take up because polls show him to be a favourite over his opposition - a cautious Rudd declined to risk an election against his new adversary, a conservative who pledges to oppose any tax on carbon.

The government's proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, which faced fierce opposition from industry and agriculture, aimed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 25% from 2000 levels by 2020.

LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and Urban Renaissance Institute and author of The Deniers: The world-renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria, political persecution, and fraud.

 

[Haletown]

Losing the 20-30 year old demographic . . .

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgPUpIBWGp8

When a good little liberal like Jon Stewart turns on the Warmongers and Al Gore you know the game is at a turning point.

 

[a_majoor]

And more. Responsible governments should be preparing fraud charges against these clowns:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-obamas-science-adviser-confirms-the-scandal-%E2%80%94-unintentionally/

Climategate: Obama’s Science Adviser Confirms the Scandal — Unintentionally

Posted By Myron Ebell On December 5, 2009 @ 1:24 pm In . Feature 01, Computers, Environment, Internet, Science, Science & Technology | 26 Comments

When the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing [1] on the state of climate science on December 2, the Republicans were ready to focus it on the Climategate fraud scandal [2]. And the first witness, President Obama’s science adviser, Dr. John P. Holdren, was ready to respond.

Instead of summarizing his written testimony in his oral remarks, Holdren read a prepared statement on Climategate. He said that the controversy involved a “small group of scientists” and was primarily about one temperature dataset. He said that such controversies were not unusual in all branches of science and that they got sorted out through the peer review process and continuing scrutiny. Holdren also said that openness and sharing of data was important, which is why the Obama administration is strongly committed to openness. In the case of the disputed dataset (the “hockey stick” graph [3]), the National Academies of Science (NAS) undertook a thorough review of it and all other similar datasets and concluded that the preponderance of evidence supported the principal conclusion of the research. Holdren concluded by predicting that when the dust settles on this controversy, a very strong scientific consensus on global warming will remain.

Well, that sounds pretty plausible, but anyone who has followed Dr. Holdren’s amazing career knows that he is a master of plausible buncombe that disguises his “outlandish scientific assertions, consistently wrong predictions, and dangerous public policy choices,” as my CEI colleague William Yeatman has put it [4]. Everything that Holdren said in his opening statement is incomplete and misleading. But explaining that is a job for another day. The point is that the alarmist establishment and environmental pressure groups have settled on these talking points in order to try to contain and sanitize the scandal.

When Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) and other Republicans on the committee challenged Holdren’s analysis of Climategate, the president’s science adviser responded by repeating that it was just a small group of scientists engaged in some narrow research. Any mistakes or misdeeds on their part couldn’t possibly compromise the scientific consensus, which is as strong as it is vast.

But when asked about some of his own extreme statements and predictions, Holdren replied that scientific research had moved on from the latest UN assessment report in 2007. The most up-to-date scientific research was contained in a report written by some of the world’s leading climate scientists and released last summer. Holdren mentioned and referred to this report, Copenhagen Diagnosis [5], several times during the course of the hearing.

I remember when Copenhagen Diagnosis came out because nearly every major paper ran a story on it. Global warming is happening even faster than predicted, the impacts are even worse than feared, and that sort of thing. I also remembered that the authors of Copenhagen Diagnosis included many of the usual conmen who are at the center of the alarmist scare. So I asked my CEI colleague Julie Walsh to compare the list of authors of Copenhagen Diagnosis with the scientists involved in Climategate.

I’m sure it will come as a shock that the two groups largely overlap. The “small group of scientists” up to their necks in Climategate include 12 of the 26 esteemed scientists who wrote the Copenhagen Diagnosis. Who would have ever guessed that forty-six percent of the authors of Copenhagen Diagnosis [6] belong to the Climategate gang?  Small world, isn’t it?

Here’s the list of tippity-top scientists who both wrote the authoritative report that Holdren relied on to support his statements and belong to the “small group of scientists” who are now suspected of scientific fraud:

Nathan Bindoff, also a lead author of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (hereafter LA-IPCC FAR)

Peter Cox, also LA-IPCC FAR

David Karoly, also LA-IPCC FAR and the Third Assessment Report (TAR)

Georg Kaser, also LA-IPCC FAR

Michael E. Mann, also LA-IPCC TAR (the hockey stick scandal made him too radioactive to participate in writing FAR)

Stefan Rahmstorf, also LA-IPCC FAR

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, merely “a longstanding member of the IPCC.”

Stephen Schneider, also LA-IPCC FAR, TAR, and the First and Second Assessment Reports (SAR) plus two of the IPCC’s synthesis reports

Steven Sherwood, only a contributing author to IPCC-FAR

Richard C. J. Somerville, co-ordinating LA-PCC FAR

Eric J. Steig, no connection to IPCC listed

Andrew Weaver, also LA-IPCC FAR, TAR, and SAR

In the interests of space, I’ve left out all of their distinguished positions as professors, editors of academic journals, and heads of institutes. You can search for their Climategate emails here [7].

Then there are those Climategate figures who didn’t help write Climate Diagnosis, but who have been involved in the IPCC assessment reports. Here are three that come to mind:

Phil Jones, contributing author IPCC TAR

Kevin Trenberth, co-ordinating LA-IPCC FAR and SAR, LA-IPCC TAR, and an author of the summaries for policymakers for FAR, TAR, and SAR

Ben Santer, convening LA-IPCC First Assessment Report

Now, I wouldn’t want to jump to any conclusions here, but it kind of looks to me like the “small group of scientists” caught out by Climategate are pretty much the same people who make up the vast and strong scientific consensus on global warming and write the official reports that the U.S. and other governments rely on to inform their policy decisions. I’m sure Dr. John P. Holdren, President Obama’s science adviser, has a plausible alternative explanation. He always does.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-obamas-science-adviser-confirms-the-scandal-%e2%80%94-unintentionally/

URLs in this post:

[1] hearing: http://globalwarming.house.gov/pubs?id=0014#main_content

[2] scandal: http://republicans.globalwarming.house.gov/Press/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=2740

[3] the “hockey stick” graph: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3099

[4] put it: http://cei.org/webmemo/2009/01/13/dr-john-p-holdren

[5] Copenhagen Diagnosis: http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.org/

[6] Copenhagen Diagnosis: http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.org/authors.html

[7] here: http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=browse-events&event-type-id=10&event-id=1913&event-context-theme-id=1&c=10&s=coverage&r=true&p=1&t=overview

 

[sm1lodon]

It is strange to me how one of the two primary gases that are swapped back and forth between living things with chlorophyll and carotenes and living things that are listed as animals is suddenly regarded as this horrible, death-brining toxin that will bring about the end of humankind.

I also have no complaints about the globe getting warmer. People irrigate and inhabit hot land. You can't cultivate, and the vast majority of people, given a choice, don't inhabit frozen wasteland.

The whole C02 thing is making people rich who trade in carbon credits, like Al Gore, isn't it?

Like TV, you have to ask yourself "Who has the most (money) to gain by making us all think we need to pay more money for not toeing their line, and who has the most (money) to lose?

Before it was global warming, it was nuclear power that the enviros were shrieking about. Then I read that the EPA declared nuclear power as one of the cleanest and least environmentally-impacting forms of power generation that there is.

Did all the punk-rock-dressed protesters (I remember them on TV) of the 80s turn around, repent, and pay back the people for all the delays, damage, and deceit? Noooo, no, they just got new placards that decried the universal evil, in their sayings, of C02.

So, now they are shrieking about global warming.

Note how it is always something that can take money out of the pockets of the people in developed nations and try to make them feel ashamed somehow that they are not living on a forest floor, naked, eating tree bark that is the Latest Environmental Craze.

No one seems to be legislating in poverty-stricken nations taxes for having far more children than they can afford to feed, now are they? Why? No money in it. But overpopulation, or under-funding your family, more accurately, like the AIDS "epidemic" can be cured with a zipper that is firmly shut. But, as I said, there is no money they can make from that, though it would do much more good to quit breeding if you can't feed your offspring.

After the whole C02 thing has been milked for trilions of dollars, there will be another one after that, another one after that, etc. ad infinitum, if they have their way.

What's next? Protesting oxygen? Protesting humidity? Protesting rain? Sunshine? Farting? Breathing?

There is money, lots and lots of money, in telling bald-faced lies for the sake of manipulating the common person so he has to cough up money.

It's what happens when a society abandons any concrete standards of moral virtue, because absent any absolute standard of right and wrong such as "don't tell lies", "those in positions of influence shall use that influence for the common good and not just for their own gain" and other seemingly obsolete concepts, they invent bogeymen to make others feel guilty about and pay for.

 

[Michael OLeary]

Forget all that, recycling is going to destroy the environment first:

The recycling conundrum: How your blue bin hurts the environment