ClimateGate news

Monday, April 30, 2007

Free carbon offsets

Get 'em here.

IPCC AR4

The final IPCC WG-1 AR4 report is now available on-line.

Steve McIntyre has analysis. Luboš Motl has comments:

Officially, we have had the summary for policymakers (SPM) only - until now. You may see that the long document contains a lot of serious albeit boring science and data. Concerned members of the IPCC have however (mis)interpreted the results in catchy ways in their summary. Journalists are even more concerned and their presentation is much closer to nutcases like Al Gore than the boring content of the IPCC report. This multi-level hysterization and cherry-picking is a primary mechanism fuelling this whole global idiocy.
Update: bump and note that there's a surprising lack of news reporting on the release of the final AR4 report. Nothing near the attention that the media gave to the Summary for Policymakers.

Canada's Clean Air Act

May it rest in peace.

Gray: we're not to blame

THE United States' leading hurricane forecaster says global ocean currents, not human-produced carbon dioxide, are responsible for global warming.

William Gray, a Colorado State University researcher, also said the Earth may begin to cool on its own in five to 10 years.

Speaking to a group of Republican MPs, Dr Gray had harsh words for researchers and politicians who said man-made greenhouse gases were responsible for global warming.

"They are blaming it all on humans, which is crazy," he said.

"We're not the cause of it."
Source.

Climate change... on Mars


More evidence that Mars is warming at rate similar to Earth:

Mars is being hit by rapid climate change and it is happening so fast that the red planet could lose its southern ice cap, writes Jonathan Leake.

Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.

Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.

The mechanism at work on Mars appears, however, to be different from that on Earth. One of the researchers, Lori Fenton, believes variations in radiation and temperature across the surface of the Red Planet are generating strong winds.
Now, for the really technical answer to what is causing these variations in radiation and temperature click here or here.
In a paper published in the journal Nature, she suggests that such winds can stir up giant dust storms, trapping heat and raising the planet’s temperature.

Fenton’s team unearthed heat maps of the Martian surface from Nasa’s Viking mission in the 1970s and compared them with maps gathered more than two decades later by Mars Global Surveyor. They found there had been widespread changes, with some areas becoming darker.

When a surface darkens it absorbs more heat, eventually radiating that heat back to warm the thin Martian atmosphere: lighter surfaces have the opposite effect. The temperature differences between the two are thought to be stirring up more winds, and dust, creating a cycle that is warming the planet.

Do you agree with Al Gore?

The majority of listeners of AM900 CHML radio in Hamilton, Ontario do not.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

The real costs of green

Hang onto your wallets, the IPCC is about to take the global warming swindle to the next level...

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- The costs of cutting greenhouse gases and who will pay for doing it are likely to be the key issues at a major U.N.-backed climate change meeting of scientists and diplomats in the Thai capital this week, participants said Sunday.
Note the reference to scientists above although the topic of determining "who will pay" is purely political. The CNN article quoted above contains all the usual fear-mongering about the dire consequences of not taking action to stop global warming. We've heard it all before.

But then there's this one little paragraph which gives away the IPCC's real agenda:
Developing countries are likely to demand that richer countries help them adapt to warming global temperatures, which are expected to cause widespread flooding, droughts and rising sea levels.
They're not asking, they're demanding! Those scientists from developing countries! How can we here in the evil, greenhouse gas spewing rich countries ever have the nerve to say no? It's not enough that reducing greenhouse gas emissions will have disastrous effects on our own economies; in the noble crusade against climate change we soon will be expected to foot the bill for adaptation by "developing countries".

I wonder exactly how the dictatorial governments of all those 3rd world developing countries really intend to spend the billions of $$$ in aid money they will soon be extorting demanding from us? Will it be used to help their citizens? Or will it all go to support dictators and government elites like the billions of dollars of previous foreign aid money?

Now that the Goracle, Kooky Suzuki, Citizen Dion & company have managed to convince most people that they need to feel deeply, deeply guilty for causing global warming, the IPCC is about to swoop, to cash in on that guilt and begin the process of extorting $ billions more from us.

This is just more proof that Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations. Unfortunately, none of our political leaders any longer has the guts to say so.

Kyoto is a complete and total fraud

The Goracle blessed Toronto with an appearance yesterday - and offered some criticism of the Canadian government's policy on climate change, saying it was a...

"complete and total fraud. It is designed to mislead the Canadian people"
Environment Minister John Baird responded to that remark:
"It is difficult to accept criticism from someone who preaches about climate change, but who never submitted the Kyoto Protocol to a vote in the United States Senate, who never did as much as Canada is now doing to fight climate change during eight years in office, and who has campaigned exclusively for hundreds of Democratic candidates who have weaker plans to fight greenhouse gases than Canada's New Government."

"I wish Al Gore had asked to be briefed on the plan," Baird said in an interview that aired Sunday on CTV's Question Period.

"You know, it's easy when you've had the big job and then you're on the side lines -- it's easy to complain," Baird added. "My responsibility, our government's responsibility, is to act. If we came forward with our environmental plan in the United States, they'd call it revolutionary because it's so tough."
It is growing tiresome watching these politicians stumbling over each other to see who can out-green who, while nobody has the guts to speak the truth about Kyoto and climate change.

To paraphrase the words of the Goracle, Kyoto is a complete and total fraud. It is designed to mislead the Canadian people.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Crunching the IPCC's numbers

The following analysis was sent to me by an astute reader, who is also a geophysicist, who says that he prepared this:

"only using data that the IPCC agrees with; in particular the long term global temperature and CO2 concentrations back to 1856 which have been published by them in support of their AGW premise. (The IPCC has never disagreed with the lower troposphere temperatures from satellites they only have commented on the differences between the satellite data and the land based data.)

"The kicker is that when their own data is held up to physical reality it shows their entire premise to be wrong."
The emphasis and tables have been added by me. Here are the results of number crunching of the IPCC accepted data:
THREE YEARS AND THREE DATA POINTS

The year 1990 was selected as the reference year for the Kyoto Accord.
In 1990 human emissions of CO2 from fossil fuels was 21,230 megatonnes.
In 1990 atmospheric concentration of CO2 was 354.16ppmv (year average from Mauna Loa observatory). In 1990 the global temperature was 14.075 degrees C (year average from MSU satellite data for the lower troposphere referenced to 14 degrees C for a relative absolute temperature)

In 2003 the global temperature from this satellite data dropped from 14.317 degrees C of the previous year to 14.272 degrees C. The temperature dropped again in 2004, went up in 2005, and dropped again in 2006 representing a net cooling of 0.044 degrees C over the last four years indicating that global warming is likely over.

In 2003 human emissions of CO2 from fossil fuels was 25,030 megatonnes.
In 2003 atmospheric concentration of CO2 was 375.79ppmv.
In 2003 the global temperature was 14.272 degrees C.

The year 2006 is the last complete year for these data.
In 2006 human emissions of CO2 from fossil fuels was 29,330 megatonnes.
In 2006 atmospheric concentration of CO2 was 381.89ppmv.
In 2006 the global temperature was 14.272 degrees C.
I've added this table to place the numbers side by side for comparison:

YEARCO2 emissions
CO2 concentration
Global Temp
1990
21,230 Mtonnes
354.16 ppmv
14.075 C
2003
25,030 Mtonnes
375.79 ppmv
14.272 C
2006
29,330 Mtonnes
381.89 ppmv
14.272 C
Kyoto is based on the direct relationship between CO2 emissions and CO2 concentration.
From 1990 to 2003 emissions increased from 21,230 to 25,030 megatonnes or 292 megatonnes per year.
From 2003 to 2006 emissions increased from 25,030 to 29,330megatonnes or 1435 megatonnes per year.
This represents an increase in the rate of emissions of 491% (this alarming rate of increase was duly noted at the conference in Nairobi last year using 2001as the pivotal date and “over a four fold increase” stated.)

If there is a direct linear relationship between CO2 emissions and concentration then this same 491% increase should have taken place in the rate of atmospheric CO2 concentration increase.

From 1990 to 2003 the concentration of atmospheric CO2 increased from 254.16ppmv to 375.79ppmv or 1.66ppmv per year.
From 2003 to 2006 the concentration of atmospheric CO2 increased from 375.79ppmv to 381.89ppmv or 2.03ppmv per year.
This represents an increase in the rate of atmospheric CO2 concentration of only 22% yet the emissions rate increased by 491%.
Another table added:

PERIODCO2 Emissions
rate increase

CO2 concentration
rate increase

1990-2003
292 Mtonnes

1.66 ppmv

2003-2006
1,435 Mtonnes
+491%
2.03 ppmv
+22%
If emissions are increasing at a rate over 20 times greater than the increase in concentration then it is clear that human emissions are not primarily responsible for the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration and consequentially not primarily responsible for global warming for those who subscribe to the Greenhouse Gas hypothesis of global warming.

Since human emissions can be calculated in actual tonnage, simple algebra can show the relative contributions of CO2 to the atmospheric concentration from human and other sources.

In 2006 this equates to humans contributing 1435 megatonnes to the concentration increase and other sources presumably natural (such as out gassing of the oceans and volcanoes) contributing 4836 megatonnes.
This is a clear statement that human emissions are only contributing 29.7% of the atmospheric CO2 increase and therefore any statement that human emissions are the major cause of global warming is clearly false.

Another table added:

YEARCO2 Emissions
from Humans
CO2 Emissions
from other
2006
1,435 Mtonnes4836 Mtonnes

The sharp increase in human emissions took place in 2001 as was pointed out by the IPCC. If the same calculation is done using the 5 years before and after 2001 the human emissions contribution to the atmospheric concentration is reduced to 27%, and if the natural emissions are increasing as would be suggested by out gassing theory this number would be reduced even further.

All of the predictions for a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere by 2050 or 2100 are based on emissions not actual measured atmospheric CO2 concentration.
The 2006 concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is 381.89ppmv and the increase from 2005 was 2.15ppmv with the rate increasing at 0.15ppmv/year each year.
In 2050, 44 years from now, the concentration will have increased by 101.2ppmv to 483.1ppmv which is far from a doubling of 760ppmv, and even in 2100 the concentration will only be 598.1ppmv.

Quite simply, the actual physical data indicates that even if we increase our emissions at our current alarming rates we will have met the concentration objectives of the Kyoto Accord by staying well under a doubling of atmospheric CO2 by 2100.

The global temperature change as a function of human emissions is a further indication that the premise for Kyoto is wrong.
The global temperature increased from 1990 to 2003 from 14.075 to 14.272 degrees C or about 0.015 degrees C per year.
The global temperature was exactly the same in 2003 and 2006 indicating zero increase between those years.

Remarkably the zero increase in global temperature took place when the emissions were increasing at over 20 times the rate for the period that the temperature was increasing at 0.015 degrees C per year. By any scientific standard this would negate any possible correlation of human CO2 emissions with global temperature change.

In fact the temperature data over the last 150 years compared to the CO2 concentration data as presented by the IPCC prove that CO2 concentration itself cannot be correlated with global temperature changes.

A close inspection of the temperature graph will show that instead of a continuous temperature rise since the turn of the century there are two almost linear trends of global temperature increase separated by the well documented minor cooling that took place from about 1943 to 1975. The trend from 1975 to 2006 has a slope of about 0.02 degrees C per year. The earlier trend from about 1911 to 1943 also has the near identical slope of 0.02 degrees C per year.

The change in atmospheric CO2 concentration as presented by the IPCC shows an increase of less than 0.3ppmv per year from 1911 to 1943 but that rate increases by over 6 times to just under 2ppmv per year from 1975 to 2006.

PERIODChange in CO2
concentration per year
Change in
Temperature per year

1911-1943
0.3ppmv
0.02 C
1975-2006
~2.0ppmv
0.02 C

If two concentration rate increases, one six times the other, produce the same rate of temperature increase there are only two possible conclusions; either there is no relationship between CO2 concentration and global temperature; or there is such a rapidly decreasing exponential relationship that it would take several doublings of CO2 concentration to achieve the same amount of temperature increase that occurred from 1975 to 2006.

(While the first conclusion that there is no relationship between CO2 changes and global temperatures is more likely, the second possible conclusion points to the likelihood that the parts of the 4.2micron band and the 13.5micron band that are unique CO2 infrared radiation capture are nearly saturated and additional CO2 concentration has progressively less an less effect in a decreasing exponential fashion.)

In Summary the actual physical data used by the IPCC clearly demonstrates that:
  1. Human emissions are not the primary source for increased concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and in fact represent less than 30% of the contribution.
  2. Human emissions cannot be responsible for global temperature changes.
  3. Changes in concentration of atmospheric CO2 have virtually no effect on global temperature.
This simple demonstration of basic science using IPCC data begs the question why was this not done by the IPCC scientists who are all top scientists more than capable of recognizing these simple shortcomings of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis?
The short answer is that the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is not a scientific entity, but a political body. And it's politicians like Mr. Dion, Ms. May, Mr. Layton, Mr. Duceppe and now, sadly Mr. Baird who don't want to recognize these simple shortcomings of the global warming crusade.

Friday, April 27, 2007

The Bear Facts

Excerpt from an article at the Western Standard:

And so it is that environmental groups such as the World Wildlife Fund have begun using images of the polar bear to draw the world's attention to global warming. Their argument goes something like this: humans should cut back on their emissions of greenhouse gases, because those gases are warming the atmosphere at an alarming rate, causing temperatures in the Arctic to rise. As a result, sea ice forms less frequently, and polar bears are losing the icy platforms from which they hunt for seals. The bears, therefore, might die off because of global warming, which leads directly to the grand finale--a plea to save the polar bear by giving money to the fight against global warming.

(...)

However, all that's known for sure about the world's polar bear population is that it is in flux. It is stable in many areas, decreasing in a few and increasing in a few others, according to a new status table compiled by the Polar Bear Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union. Lily Peacock, the government of Nunavut's polar bear biologist, reveals there are large gaps in the research, and that experts can't truthfully say whether the overall population is rising or falling. "That's why, when we talk about the entire world's population, we say between 20,000 and 25,000," Peacock says. But if this figure is accurate, then polar bear numbers have actually more than doubled in the past half-century. More than half of the world's polar bears can be found in Canada, and about 90 per cent of these make their homes in Nunavut.
Read the full article here (free registration required)

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Carbon offset swindle

Oh, what a surprise...

A Financial Times investigation has uncovered widespread failings in the new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organisations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place. (...)

The FT investigation found:

■ Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.

■ Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.

■ Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.

■ A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.

■ Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.

One square

Story.

The dangers of daylight savings time...

The dangers of extended daylight savings time... this letter to the editor explains it all.

Canada to be a green light zone

The Government of Canada, following the lead of jurisdictions like Australia and Ontario has decided to ban incandescent light bulbs by 2012.

Inefficient incandescent lighting will be phased out over the next five years, the government said, but the ban will make some allowances when incandescent bulbs are “the only practical alternative,” such as in some medical lighting or in oven lights.
It's all part of the government's plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions 20 per cent by 2020 (the government also plans to force industry to slash air pollution in half by 2015).

Compact fluorescent lights are the obvious alternative as they are decidedly more energy efficient. But they do have their drawbacks like higher cost, poorer quality of light (lower spectrum than incandescents) and of course, they contain mercury. Another alternative is the lesser known LED lamp.

Global warming is obscene

Ontario's Minister of Environment drew criticism over a new program designed get people to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin companies, and Ontario Environment Minister Laurel Broten officially launched the site, Flick Off, in Toronto.
The program is called "Flick Off", presumably a reference to flicking off your lights in order to save energy and greenhouse gases. But it's the program's name and logo that some, like Ontario NDP MPP Peter Kormos find offensive.
“The minister of the environment is telling people to 'flick off,' ” Mr. Kormos said. “Parents are going to be flicking embarrassed. They have enough to deal with without a minister of the environment and a government who doesn't give a flick about their children's language.”

“I think it's a flicking embarrassment.”
For once, I agree with Peter Kormos. The way the logo is designed, it appears at first glance to be an obscenity. The double entendre is intentional and is obviously used for impact. But there's enough of that type of language in our society already without our government using it as a promotional tool.

Branson claims a reward for the community that has the greatest decrease in greenhouse gases:
The winner "will be rewarded with a Flick-Fest, their very own carbon-neutral music festival featuring some of Canada's best-known bands," the release said.
Looks like they be purchasing a lot of carbon offsets from the Goracle for that concert.

And it also looks like one of the prime targets of this obscenity-based campaign is youth - and that's what I, like Peter Kormos, find objectionable. The Ontario government should not be a partner in this. Minister Broten has demonstrated her severe lack of good judgement on this one.

Update: more at the Western Standard.

'Earth-like" planet discovered


Via Fox News:

WASHINGTON — For the first time, astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for "life in the universe."

The planet is just the right size, might have water in liquid form and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles away.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

New Global Warming Podcast

Global Warming Podcast News is a regular 3-minute podcast briefing on the 'global warming' news they don't want you to hear. Your host: Professor Philip Stott, who describes himself and his podcast:

I am Emeritus Professor of Biogeography in the University of London. For some 30 years, I have studied the way environmental ideas are constructed and promoted, especially those relating to ‘global warming’ and climate change.


My podcast aims to bring you “inconvenient news” about ‘global warming’ that is not always covered in the world’s mainstream print and broadcast media.
Click here for the Global Warming Podcast News

Turkey rejects Kyoto

‘We reject Kyoto because it’s against our interests’

Energy and Natural Resources Minister Hilmi Güler has announced that Turkey has declined to sign the Kyoto Protocol for the sake of the country's national interests, in particular because certain parts of the protocol would hinder Turkey's infrastructure development.
The Turkish Daily News reports that Turkey's State Planning Agency says, "Kyoto will be disaster for Turkey":
The economic costs of signing the Kyoto Protocol in its current form could result in as much as a 37 percent drop in Turkey's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which was $148 billion in 2006, reported a paper prepared by the state agency responsible for charting the progress and possible repercussions of projects.

According to the report presented by the State Planning Organization (DPT) to the Parliament commission investigating the matter, by signing the protocol Turkey would be willingly accepting responsibility to undertake certain measures and the repercussions of these measures could cost between 10 to 37 percent of the GDP.
Sounds a lot like what Canada's Environment Minister said last week on the economic costs of Kyoto.

Elsewhere, Danish CO2 emissions in 2006 were up 16% from 2005, largely due to a 6.2% increase in energy production and Germany plans to build 26 new coal plants.

Suicide is painless

Lorrie Goldstein asks a few pointed questions of the current leadertm of the Liberal Party:

If implementing Kyoto is painless, why didn't they [the Liberals] do it?

C'mon Mr. Dion, Your party signed Kyoto in 1998, ratified it in 2002 and promised in 1993 to cut emissions by far more than Kyoto requires. Don't tell us the Liberals never did any costing studies. Where are they?

We know the Liberals earmarked $10 billion over seven years to fight climate change in 2005, but was that the full price of implementing Kyoto, or a down payment?

Yesterday, the National Post said the Liberals had studies in 2000 estimating that complying with Kyoto would result in a loss of $4,400 of disposable income for a typical family, close to Baird's numbers. Is that true?

What about post-Kyoto, since the science Dion cites to make the case for combating global warming also tells us that to be effective, future emission cuts will need to be 12 times those called for in Kyoto?

Many politicians (and journalists) don't understand Kyoto takes effect next year, not 2012.

Kyoto requires Canada to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to an average of 6% below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. We don't have until 2012, we have to hit that average starting in 2008.

Say we miraculously reduced our emissions next year to 4% below 1990 levels for 2008, 2009 and half of 2010 -- impossible without wrecking our economy because we're 35% above our Kyoto target now.

Under Kyoto, even if we achieved that target -- and we can't -- we'd still have to cut deeper -- down to 8% below 1990 levels for the last half of 2010 and all of 2011 and 2012. That's just to hit our target of an average 6% cut below 1990 levels from 2008 to 2012.

If we miss -- and we will, big-time -- Kyoto requires us to make up the difference, plus a 30% penalty, while achieving deeper cuts post-2012 that have yet to be negotiated, going on for decades.

Policy makers are faced with a dilemma because Canadians are saying two contradictory things.

First, we tell pollsters, by about two-to-one, that we favour Kyoto. Then we say we're two-to-one against paying significantly more for fossil fuels (Suzuki fans notwithstanding). But you can't have the first, without the second.

Dion, and others, have been getting away with asserting Kyoto will be all but painless. Dion has claimed we'll make "megatonnes" of money by cutting "megatonnes" of emissions without being challenged.

Last week, Baird called his bluff. About time.
The Liberals didn't get it done because they knew Kyoto is suicide. And it won't be painless.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Liberals have not found their moral compass yet

The party of Kyoto procrastinators is no different than their predecessors. Or as Ezra Levant puts it, "You would think that the party of Adscam would have found a new moral compass by now." Well, not just yet:

via The Western Standard blog.

Can we really trust these guys on something as important as regulating greenhouse gas emissions?

Clean Air Act gasping for breath

The opposition parties have introduced so many amendments to the Clean Air Act that it's no longer recognizable or acceptable to the Conservative government. Looks like this political battle is coming down to crunch time:

Environment Minister John Baird denies telling environmentalists that the proposed clean air act is dead but all indications are that the legislation would be difficult to revive in the current Parliament.

A clean air act was a major Conservative election promise. It aimed to cut smog and greenhouse gas emissions, but contained no reference to the targets of the Kyoto Protocol.

The three opposition parties united to force those targets into the bill, renamed the Clean Air and Climate Change Act. (...)

"Certainly we are not happy with some of the changes the Liberal party made to the legislation, but we have not yet made real decision," said Baird. "We'll make our announcement about the regulation of industry, and then we'll see."
Mr. Baird could very well withdraw the bill and still bring in many of the changes he wants via existing regulations. And he could blame the opposition for thwarting the Clean Air Act.

The opposition parties, particularly the Liberals, have no qualms about using this key piece of environmental legislation for their own political purposes. Their goal is obvious - to try to force the minority Conservative government into implementing Kyoto, knowing full well that the costs will be devastating to the economy. That's why the Liberals and their current leaderTM did absolutely nothing to reduce greenhouse gases while they were in power for the nine years after they signed onto Kyoto.

And that's why the Conservatives want to follow a different path on climate change. A fully implemented Kyoto would be completely ineffective in combatting global warming, but highly effective at killing jobs and economic activity while raising energy prices to levels never before seen.

The Clean Air Act isn't dead yet, but it is gasping for breath. It's just politics as usual for the opposition. But should this little game reach a stalemate, who could blame PM Harper for seeking a majority?

That's the risky gamble the opposition is taking. They may just hand Stephen Harper the reason he needs to go to the electorate.

Scare tactics

There's no hypocrite like a Liberal hypocrite:

No one has been more guilty of employing scare tactics than those-- the federal Liberals chief among them-- who believe manmade carbon emissions are about to trigger a global-warming catastrophe. Floods, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, famine, disease, crime and widespread death have all been predicted if our Kyoto targets aren't met.
The above is from today's National Post editorial, Kyoto Hypocrisy, as is this:
There is no wonder why the Liberals themselves did absolutely nothing to reduce Canada's greenhouse emissions during the nine years they were in charge after the signing of the Kyoto treaty: They had in their hands forecasts similar to Mr. Baird's and were deathly afraid of the political fallout that would accompany that much economic pain. Now that they are out of office, though, the Liberals suddenly are all in favour of a speedy Kyoto implementation.
Previous.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Neptune warming

via The Reference Frame where we learn...

that Mars, Jupiter, Triton, Pluto, and Earth recently experienced warming. You should add Neptune - another planet that is blue not green - to the list. Moreover, Hammel and Lockwood argue in Geophysical Research Letters vol. 34 that the trends on Neptune and Earth were pretty well correlated, indicating their solar origin.

Baird on C-288

Environment Minister John Baird's testimony to the Senate on April 19, courtesy Canuck Politics. There's a short opening statement by Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez who introduced C-288, the private member's bill which requires the government to meet greenhouse gas emissions targets under the Kyoto Accord for 2008 through 2012.



Previous

Newfoundland ice crisis

Via CTV News:

The Andy Rover is ice-bound off Newfoundland's northeast coast as seen in this image made available by the Coast Guard.

A handful of sealing ships trapped in icy waters off the coast of Newfoundland were rescued on Saturday, but many more vessels remain in the north Atlantic as families anxiously await the return of their loved ones.

So far, 52 non-essential crew have been evacuated and at least five longliners have been completely abandoned amid concerns over dwindling food and fuel supplies.

Experienced sealers say it's not uncommon for ships to be stuck in the ice flows as they hunt for young seals, but this year's ice conditions are the worst they've seen in two decades.

Also from the Toronto Star:

Between 300 and 400 other seal hunters on more than 100 "longliner" boats were not so lucky. Most of them remain stuck in a freak build-up of pack ice – the worst anyone here can remember – that trapped them a week ago as they headed home.

There was a little light at the end of the frigid tunnel as a persistent northeasterly gale veered slowly to the southwesterly wind that will move the ice floes away. The temperature rose a few degrees, too, which will help.

Two of the Coast Guard's three icebreakers also got stuck earlier this week trying to carve a path for some of the stricken longliners to follow them to open water.

Emphasis added. I can hardly wait for someone to blame this on global warming.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Let's all take a breath...

...and a rational look at Energy, Oxygen and CO2 says Michael R. Fox in today's Hawaii Reporter.

First consider the global prevalence of CO2 and its significance. CO2 is essential for all plant life on the planet, including the entire agricultural industry. It is not a pollutant, regardless of the recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the well-known process of photosynthesis performed by most plants, CO2 is combined with water to produce oxygen and cellulose. The process is actually much more complicated but certainly CO2 is an essential ingredient for this life giving process. That the process globally also generates billions of tons of oxygen (O2) for the atmosphere, and for us to breathe, the importance of photosynthesis to life on earth and the requisite CO2 cannot be overstated.

The media have convinced many that CO2 is a pollutant, which it is not. Their line of reasoning is that man-made CO2 is causing global warming. This effect is relatively small and is based upon questionable CO2 measurements from ancient ice cores. There are a number of other natural climate forcing functions, such as the sun, clouds, and aerosols, all of which have unknown and unquantified potentials for warming.

Then there are several key gases which combine to be called greenhouse gases (GHG). About 97% of the greenhouse gas inventory is water vapor. Given that 70% of the Earth’s surface is water, we shouldn’t be surprised. The next most prevalent GHG is CO2 which is about 1.9% of the total. There are lesser amounts of methane, and others making up the rest. The CO2 fraction is only 1.9% of the total. However, the man-made fraction of the total CO2 is even smaller, less than 3% of that 1.9%, or 0.06%.

Thus, another problem arises for the “global warmers”. They are left to explain why the tiny manmade fraction of CO2 is a warming problem but the much larger fraction of CO2 from natural sources is not, since the CO2 from both natural and manmade sources are chemically identical.
The above is just a bit of a fairly lengthy article. The author Michael R. Fox, Ph.D. is a science and energy reporter for Hawaii Reporter and a analysist for the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. Now retired, he has nearly 40 years experience in the energy field and has taught chemistry and energy at the University level.

Read his whole article, Energy, Oxygen and CO2.

Heat waves in Southern Quebec 1941-2000

What was done
In a study designed to look for the predicted increases in heat waves in Southern Quebec (Canada) over the last six decades of the 20th century, when climate alarmists claim the planet warmed at a rate and to a level unprecedented over the last couple of millennia - with some claiming an even longer such time period (Hansen et al., 2006) - Khaliq et al. assessed temporal changes in the frequency of occurrence and durations of heat waves based on data acquired at seven weather stations located in southern Quebec (La Tuque, Quebec, Maniwaki, Drummondville, Montreal, Les Cedres, Sherbrooke) for the 60-year period 1941-2000.

What was learned
For heat spells defined in terms of daily maximum air temperature, the majority of extreme events showed "a negative time-trend with statistically significant decreases (at 10% level)," while almost all of the heat spells defined in terms of daily minimum air temperature showed "a positive time-trend with many strong increases (i.e., statistically significant at 5% level) at all of the stations."

What it means
As for what their findings imply, Khaliq et al. say "a possible interpretation of the observed trends is that the maximum temperature values are getting less hot and minimum temperature values are getting less cold with time."
full report at CO2 Science

Horner Interview, part 1

Chris Horner, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming talks about Kyoto's undetectable impact on climate and how Kyoto is just an attempt to implement longstanding political objectives that the left has been unable to achieve by other methods in this interview with Katie Fehlinger at Headline Earth:

Canada may join AP6

This week's announcement by the Canadian government -- that it may join a U.S.-led coalition focused on voluntary emissions cuts -- could be part of a global shift away from Kyoto's binding targets.

In a somewhat surprising development, Canada, a long-time supporter of the Kyoto Protocol, announced that it may want to join the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (AP6), a six-nation coalition focusing on voluntary emission-reduction steps and technology transfers. Many environmentalists oppose AP6 out of a fear that it may undermine political support for the legally binding Kyoto treaty.

The partnership, launched in mid-2005, is an agreement among six countries -- Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the United States -- to develop and share greenhouse-gas reduction technology to combat climate change. According to the AP6 Web site, the six partner countries "represent about half of the world's economy, population and energy use, and they produce about 65% of the world's coal, 48% of the world's steel, 37% of world's aluminum, and 61% of the world's cement." The countries also account for half the world's greenhouse-gas emissions.

Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, the Asia-Pacific Partnership is voluntary and technology-based, and lets each country set its own goals for greenhouse gas emission reductions, rather than legally binding them to a greenhouse gas reduction target.
via the Financial Post and American.com

h/t: Jack's Newswatch

Update: Captain Ed opines, "If Canada joins the AP6, Kyoto will collapse."

Friday, April 20, 2007

Gallup: environmental update

Despite all the hoopla about the environment and global warming, A Gallup poll finds that the average American is no more involved in, nor sympathetic towards, the environmental movement than was the case at the beginning of this decade.

Holding governments accountable for environmental policies

A voice of reason from The Natural Resources Stewardship Project:

"Governments must be held more publicly accountable for their environmental policy decisions," said Dr. Ball. "Their plans must be subject to unbiased, transparent and scientifically rigorous hearing processes in which experts from all sides of environmental issues are invited to testify along with the affected parties."

(...)

"Tax dollars must not be squandered on feel-good 'green' plans that have little basis in real science," said Dr. Ball. "This approach only hurts the economy by diverting tax dollars away from important environmental issues where attention is needed."

The recent committee hearings into the federal government's Clean Air Act and the Kyoto Implementation Bill are prime examples of politicized processes that entirely excluded experts on one side of the issue. These hearings were symptomatic of an overarching problem in society - the yielding of government and industry to the frequently unreasonable and groundless demands of environmental activists.
Source.

Dr. Ball is right on the money. Misguided "green" policies like Kyoto only serve to divert huge amounts of money that will have zero effect on our changing climate. It is money that would be far, far better spent on cleaning up pollution or on adaptation to climate change.

David Suzuki, environmental economist

David Suzuki was to present a petition on climate change to Environment Minister John Baird today. Suzuki claims that 30,000 Canadians supported his online petition in which they said they are ready to "pay the price" required to deal with climate change.

However, as anyone who participated in Suzuki's on-line petition knows, no matter what opinion was expressed, pro or con, the survey recorded all submissions in it's favour. This petition is utterly biased and worthless. I wonder if Suzuki included the results of the on-line poll which was mysteriously removed from his website when the results went terribly wrong.

Just to up the rhetoric, Suzuki said that governments who ignore his warnings on climate change will be committing a "crime against future generations". What would be a crime against future generations would be to ruin the economies of the great western nations chasing a dogmatic belief that we humans can alter our planet's climate. In response to this report by Minister Baird on the crippling economic impacts of implementing Kyoto, Suzuki said:

"First of all, let's stop listening to the goddamn economists," he said.
Right. That's the attitude. Let's just listen to zoologists turned enviro-terrorists like Suzuki when they rant about the economic impacts of not following their advice:
"Twenty per cent of the economy will disappear. It will cost more than World War I and World War II put together. We'll go into a kind of depression we've never, ever had in all of history."
After labelling the government's economic report as "fear mongering", it's interesting to see how easily Kooky Suzuki can resort to that very tactic without batting an eye.

Let's just add another feather to the cap of David Suzuki, environmental economist.

Baird: Kyoto would lead to economic collapse

Canada's Environment Minister, John Baird to the Senate environmental committee:

Baird told the committee that analysis from economists shows implementing the Kyoto Protocol would mean the following:

* Gasoline will cost more than $1.60 a litre over the 2008-to-2012 period
* 275,000 Canadians working today will lose their jobs by 2009
* Job loss will cause unemployment rates to rise 25 per cent by 2009
* The decline of economic activity in the range of $51 billion
Baird also had this to say:
"Rather than go to reckless extremes just to make up for lost time, we want a more realistic plan, which we will introduce soon," Baird said.

During his presentation to the committee, he said that meeting the Kyoto carbon emissions targets would "manufacture a recession" for Canada.

He said the government needs to strike a balance between acting boldly on behalf of the environment, and protecting Canada's economy "so Canadians can keep their jobs and build a promising future," Baird said in French.
I looks more and more like the government is preparing to take a stand against the unrealistic and economically crippling Kyoto Protocol - even if if means having to fight an election on the issue.

With all the opposition parties taking a hard stand in favour of Kyoto, Stephen Harper's Conservatives are the only party offering a practical alternative. With Bill C-288 on the books making it mandatory for the government to meet Kyoto targets, this is going to get very interesting.

As Prime Minister Stephen Harper said:
"The real issue here is whether any of the opposition parties have the guts to face reality," Harper said.

"The reality is this Mr. Speaker; you cannot reduce greenhouse gas emission by one-third in less than four years and have a positive effect for the Canadian economy."
Canadians have shown that they support Kyoto - as long as it doesn't hurt them in the pocket books. The next election may depend upon the parties' ability to convince Canadians just how costly Kyoto really will be.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Greenhouse conspiracy

An 18 year old video that's worth watching...


via Google Video.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Moral idiocy

Jack Lacton at the blog Ker-Plunk (named appropriately for the sound made by an acorn landing on the head of Chicken Little) has created a list called 10 signs that you're a Moral Idiot. Here's Jack's rationale:

We live in an age of cognitive dissonance, of inverted values and of true Orwellian doublethink. The Left believes in, amongst other things, gay rights, women's rights and rehabilitation for thieves while also offering moral support to radical Islam, which hangs gays, stones errant women to death and chops the hands off thieves. On the Right, we stand in bewilderment wondering why nobody has learned the lessons of the evil of socialism throughout the last century or understands the threat of totalitarianism in this one.

Given all of this topsy turvey-ness it seems to me that we need some sort of test, a guide, in order to establish whether your moral compass is tuned correctly. Therefore, I have prepared the following 10 signs that you're a Moral Idiot and hope that it helps guide you towards good, solid values in life.
OK, I'll skip the first seven signs (they are worth reading though) and go right to the #8 sign that makes you a moral idiot. It's on the subject of Kyoto:
8. You believe we should sign the Kyoto Protocol. Hmmm, you say, why is there a moral aspect to this? If you disagree with me then aren't I just an idiot and not a moral idiot? Good question, I'm glad you asked. A fully implemented Kyoto Protocol (the US and Australia sign, China and India etc are exempt) would cost the world $20 trillion and save 0.1C by 2050 and, if you're wondering, there's not much argument on those figures from either side of the political spectrum. The moral aspect comes into play in that it is completely immoral to spend such a massive sum of money on a completely symbolic project when millions of people in the world currently don't have access to clean drinking water, don't get enough to eat, suffer from diseases that were eradicated in the West decades ago (malaria, polio, cholera etc), live in totalitarian African regimes and have an average life expectancy of about 35. When the environmentalist Bjorn Lomberg gathered representatives from countries affected by these issues and created the Copenhagen Consensus Centre they came out with a report ranking the priority that aid money should be spent (in their case they assigned a hypothetical $50 billion). The first of the climate change issues, the Kyoto Protocol, ranked 27th on their list of 40. If you want to hamstring the US economy (the greatest provider of humanitarian aid on the planet) and transfer money to China and Russia through carbon trading schemes (which is their net effect) while we have a here and now crisis in Africa then your values are inverted and you're a Moral Idiot.
Emphasis added. Well said Jack. Read more.

Heresy

Subtitled Global Warming, Global Stifling, this article in the May 2007 issue of Liberty by Gary Jason is worth a read:

The debate about global warming has reached a crescendo, and has acquired a deeply unsettling tone. We are witnessing a veritable rush to judgment — a rush that has now been accelerated by a United Nations report that accepts and supports the global warming theory. If there was ever a time for skepticism, it is now. The time has come for people who have reasonable doubts to speak up and offer the reasons for their doubts.

In this article I will try to clarify what parts of global warming science give cause for doubt. I will also state the features of the global warming debate that are troublesome to me — and should be troublesome to you.

I'll start by making some distinctions. The first distinction is between the narrow theory of anthropic global warming (hereafter, the "Narrow Theory") and the grand metanarrative of global warming (hereafter, the "Grand Theory").

The Narrow Theory lies exclusively in the domain of climate science, and holds simply that:

1. The earth's climate is warming significantly.
2. This warming is exacerbated by the generation of CO2 and other anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
3. This warming threatens to induce widescale ecological changes.

The Grand Theory — as presented on television and in several recent movies — is vastly more than a theory of climate science. It is a multiple-domain metanarrative or integrated worldview, including both moral assumptions and policy prescriptions. In essence, it posits twelve theses:

1. The world is warming dramatically.
2. This warming is unlike any other warming or cooling in the history of the planet.
3. The warming is caused primarily by humans' burning of fossil fuels.
4. If we keep burning fossil fuels at the present rate, warming will accelerate and increase without end.
5. The result of warming will be a huge increase in the number of ecological and meteorological disasters, which will be of biblical proportions.
6. These disasters will not be counterbalanced by any favorable effects of warming.
7. Both warming and disaster will occur with such rapidity that mankind will be unable to adjust.
8. The process can be reversed or controlled by drastically curtailing the use of fossil fuels.
9. The only way to do this is by drastically curtailing the use of fossil fuels.
10. The best plan is to slash the use of fossil fuels in the United States and other countries of the developed world, while leaving the less-developed world (including Brazil, China, and India) alone.
11. Use of fossil fuel can best be curtailed by the exploitation of wind and solar power, and by massive "conservation."
12. Whatever this will cost, directly and indirectly (and estimates range from trillions of dollars to nothing at all), will be less that the costs of the damage wrought by continued warming.

This Grand Theory is a wide ranging worldview, of which the Narrow Theory is but a minor part. It includes theses that are well beyond the domain of climate science, including theses derived, at least ostensibly, from history, geology, economics, agricultural science, power-plant engineering, and geopolitics, then given a moral cast, i.e., imbued with moral judgments.

For example, Theses 6, 10, 11, and 12 are all either completely or in great part economic claims, having little if anything to do with climate science. To cite a specific example, Thesis 10 is a claim that can only be proven by looking at detailed, empirically based projections of emissions figures from industries in developed countries compared to those in the third world, and factoring in projections of efficiency and productivity. Another example: Thesis 11 is a sweeping claim about the economics of power generation, and can only be proven by looking at the economics of all known methods of generating power, including every feasible alteration in those technologies.

Most of the theses in the Grand Theory are packed with morally charged concepts. If an epidemiologist says, "The chance of bird flu becoming epidemic is growing significantly," she is making a narrowly scientific statement. If she says, "Bird flu is about to explode catastrophically! We have to stop it now!", she is going beyond science to make a moral and a policy judgment. That isn't a problem if the economics and morality are obvious — if, say, the cost of inoculation is trivial compared to the costs associated with a disease that has a mortality rate of nearly 50%. But when the economics is complex (with costs and benefits hard to measure, the range of options large, and the chances and scale of an anticipated event hard to estimate), or when the moral case is unclear (say, when the moral values being balanced are incommensurable with one another), such value-laden language is dangerous.

Mike Hulme, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, an eminent specialist who is favorable to the Narrow Theory, made this point well in a recent interview with the BBC. He said, "Why is it not just campaigners, but politicians and scientists, too, who are openly confusing the language of fear, terror, and disaster with the careful hedging which surrounds science's predictions? . . . To state that climate change will be 'catastrophic' hides a cascade of value-laden assumptions which do not emerge from empirical or theoretical science."
Click here to continue reading Heresy: Global Warming, Global Stifling.

h/t.

Global Warming Jihad

Article by Butler Shaffer at LewRockwell.com:

In my college days, I was introduced to a book, written in 1841 by Charles Mackay. Titled Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, it remains a worthwhile chronicle – at least through the mid-nineteenth century – of some of the consequences of mankind’s periodic collapses into mass-mindedness. If Mackay was around today, he would be able to devote a chapter to the emergence of the latest secular religion: environmentalism.

It is a common mistake for people to assume that religious faith and fervor are qualities to be found only within institutionally-structured churches with formal doctrines and rituals. They are to be found, in varying degrees, within all belief systems, be they secular or theistic in nature. The polar opposite philosophies of Marxism and Ayn Rand’s Objectivism – both of which openly condemned traditional religion – are, themselves, grounded in a faith in various central propositions. True-believers of these doctrines who voiced doubt as to any of the underlying premises, have been subjected to purges as enthusiastically conducted as medieval trials for heresy.

I am a strong defender of the processes of scientific inquiry. And yet, I am aware that most scientists cling to a faith in conclusions that have been widely accepted within their respective communities, and angrily react against any heresies – however well-documented and reasoned – that arise from skeptical minds.
Click to read the rest of Global Warming Jihad.

The Global Warming Test

The Global Warming Test consists of 10 multiple choice questions designed to test your knowledge of the science related to global warming and carries this disclaimer:

This section contains sound science, not media hype, and may therefore contain material not suitable for young people trying to get a good grade in political correctness.
Take the Global Warming Test.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Goreculator

from The People's Cube where they do a pretty good job of spoofing the Goracle as well as all things on the left.
Be sure to check out their version of Pascal's Global Warming Wager.

h/t.

Soak up the sun

Laurie David, producer of "An Inconvenient Truth" and actress Sheryl Crow were interviewed Tuesday by CNBC's Joe Kernen , who asked David to respond to the scientific findings documented in the U.K. documentary, "The Great Global Warming Swindle". David's responses were interesting because of their lack of substance and her repetition of the talking points we've heard often from the Goracle himself.


via YouTube.

The scary part is that these two are currently on a "Stop Global Warming College Tour" to take their propaganda message to the kids on college campuses, because as Miss Crow says "that's where most of the great social movements have begun."

And here I thought it was about the science.

Watch the Great Global Warming Swindle.

Friday, April 13, 2007

Insanity of this environmental movement

He helped Paul Martin's Liberals lose the last election now CAW leader Buzz Hargrove comments on "the insanity of this environmental movement".

Welcome to the real world Buzz.

So not a leader, episode III

The current leader of the Liberal Party of Canada served up more evidence today of why he isn't fit to lead a toga party, let alone a major federal political party.

Dion announced earlier on Friday in a joint news conference with [Elizabeth] May that he won't be running a candidate against the Green Party leader in the Central Nova riding, which is currently held by Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay.
Jean Chretien must be cringing at the news of Dion's deal with May, which in effect gives up a seat without a fight. Even with no Liberal candidate in the riding, Elizabeth May still doesn't stand a snowball's chance in globally warmed Nova Scotia of winning.

For her part of the "deal", May has agreed not to run a Green Party candidate against Dion in his own Montreal riding. Environment Minister John Baird hinted that Dion's deal might be related his slipping popularity in his own riding:
"To have to make a deal with the leader of a fifth party to try to save his own seat and prop her up just leaves you scratching your head," Baird said.
Human Resources Minister Monty Solberg:
"I'm surprised to see ... (Dion's) first major electoral decision is to concede defeat,'' Solberg said on Friday.

"I sat in the House of Commons for a long time and battled every day with people like Jean Chretien -- someone who never backed away from a fight."
It's not just the Conservatives who are bewildered at this move. CTV's Robert Fife refers to Dion's deal with the Greens as "bizarre", while Paul Wells pokes some fun at Citizen Dion at McLeans.

Meanwhile, at Dust My Broom, Darcy takes a look at Federal Green Party candidate Kevin Potvin.
“When I saw the first tower cascade down into that enormous plume of dust and paper, there was a little voice inside me that said, ‘Yeah!’ When the second tower came down the same way, that little voice said, ‘Beautiful!’ When the visage of the Pentagon appeared on the TV with a gaping and smoking hole in its side, that little voice had nearly taken me over, and I felt an urge to pump my fist in the air,” Mr. Potvin wrote in the editorial.
Does Dion really understand who he's getting to bed with? Colby Cosh says "the deal seems likely to be remembered as the point of no return on the road to disaster."

Trying to find some sense in this move, Andrew Coyne says the real target is the NDP.

But you know Dion is in trouble when the normally Lib-friendly Globe and Mail prints a comment like this:
'Not running a candidate in MacKay's riding is truly the stupidest thing that a group of people who wrote the book on stupid things have done yet. Dion still thinks he's at the convention brokering deals. He better realize elections are one ballot.' One long-time Liberal, on reports that the Liberal and Green Party leaders had struck a deal that would see the Liberals stay out of Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay's Central Nova riding. In exchange, the Green Party won't field a candidate in Dion's Montreal riding.
Ouch.

Update: Nova Scotia Liberals warned yesterday that they thought Dion was "off his rocker" for considering a deal with May.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Dems to campaign on climate change in '08?

In Crazy Like a Fox, Samuel Thernstrom explains why Al Gore’s extreme proposals on climate change are smart politics—and bad policy.

The most important—and entirely unreported—aspect of Gore’s congressional testimony was his clear signal that he was aligning himself with the do-nothing-now hardliners. For the moment, Gore’s agenda essentially boils down to one thing: Elect Democrats.
Would the Democrats really withhold legislation on climate change so they can campaign on the issue in 2008? Considering all the alarmism about how dire the situation is and how urgent it is that something be done now - before it's too late - one would expect the Democrats use their majority to take action immediately.

Or is it just politics as usual?

Perhaps they should ask the current leader of the Liberal Party of Canada how this strategy is working out for him.

More Science vs. Gore

The case against Al Gore's apocalyptic view of polar ice breakup and catastrophic sea-level rise grows stronger by the week, as important new findings continue to accumulate at CO2 Science.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

So not a leader

How disappointing for Citizen Dion. It appears that wearing a green scarf and naming your dog 'Kyoto' doesn't make you a leader in the polls either.

Additional analysis by Greg Weston.

Global warming? Do the math

In yesterday's National Post, Lorne Gunter effectively puts the math of man made CO2 and global warming into layman's terms :

Think of the atmosphere as 100 cases of 24 one-litre bottles of water -- 2,400 litres in all.

According to the global warming theory, rising levels of human-produced carbon dioxide are trapping more of the sun's reflected heat in the atmosphere and dangerously warming the planet.

But 99 of our cases would be nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%), neither of which are greenhouse gases. Only one case -- just 24 bottles out of 2,400 -- would contain greenhouse gases.

Of the bottles in the greenhouse gas case, 23 would be water vapour.

Water vapour is the most abundant greenhouse gas, yet scientists will admit they understand very little about its impact on global warming. (It may actually help cool the planet: As the earth heats up, water vapour may form into more clouds and reflect solar radiation before it reaches the surface. Maybe. We don't know.)

The very last bottle in that very last case would be carbon dioxide, one bottle out of 2,400.

Carbon dioxide makes up just 0.04% of the entire atmosphere, and most of that -- at least 95% -- is naturally occurring (decaying plants, forest fires, volcanoes, releases from the oceans).

At most, 5% of the carbon dioxide in the air comes from human sources such as power plants, cars, oilsands, etc.

So in our single bottle of carbon dioxide, just 50 ml is man-made carbon dioxide. Out of our model atmosphere of 2,400 litres of water, just about a shot glassful is carbon dioxide put their by humans. And of that miniscule amount, Canada's contribution is just 2% --about 1 ml.

An Inconvenient Truth ... Or Convenient Fiction?

The Pacific Research Institute's new film, “An Inconvenient Truth ... Or Convenient Fiction?” will have three premieres across America, in San Francisco (12 April), Washington, DC (18 April), and New York City (24 April). All are invited.

Steven Hayward, editor of the "Index of Leading Environmental Indicators," began filming "An Inconvenient Truth ... Or Convenient Fiction?" with presentations at the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Hayward, who is a fellow at the Pacific Research Institute and the American Enterprise Institute, said he hopes to counter some of the "alarmist" claims that supporters of global warming catastrophe theories make.
I guess I'll have to wait for the video to be released.

h/t: Newsbeat1

Monday, April 9, 2007

A History of CO2 Shenanigans

Via John Ray at Greenie Watch comes an extensive quote from a very interesting paper, A History of CO2 Shenanigans. It's a bit dated (1997) but still applicable in it's discussion of the development of Global Warming dogma:

IPCC's "Greenhouse Effect Global Warming" dogma rests on invalid presumptions and a rejectable non-realistic carbon cycle modelling which simply refutes reality, like the existence of carbonated beer or soda "pop" as we know it.

(...)

In order to construct a "CO2 Greenhouse Effect Doom" dogma, it will be necessary to
justify that (1) pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 was lower than today, (2) atmospheric CO2 has steadily risen from its pre-industrial level to today's level, (3) Man's burning of fossil fuel is causing an increase in atmospheric CO2 level, (4) hence atmospheric CO2 must have a long residence time (lifetime), and (5) atmospheric temperatures are increasing due to Man's burning of fossil fuel.

Global warming has evolved into a pseudo-religion, as discussed elsewhere in this blog, but as this article explains, it was no accident. Well worth a look.

Here's a link to the original paper, Carbon cycle modelling and the residence time of natural and anthropogenic atmospheric CO2: on the construction of the "Greenhouse Effect Global Warming" dogma by Tom V. Segalstad

Polar Bear uncertainty

In the U.S., the Fish & Wildlife Service wants to declare the Polar Bear population as threatened with extinction. Just one small problem. They're having trouble finding the definitive, clear science they need to back up that claim.

via: Cheat Seeking Missiles.