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Newsletter (February 5, 2010)
In this issue
Featured- Climate Change Emails Between Scientists Reveal Flaws in Peer Review
- What Boxer-Kerry Will Cost the Economy
Debate- Climategate Timeline Poster Released
- Taxpayer Robbery Gate
- Discredited IPCC Also Reveals Media's Malpractice
- China Removed as Top Priority for Spies
Science- Carbon Forestry: A Cautionary Note
- Do Glacier Melt and Sea Level Rise Prove Manmade Global Warming?
Economics- The EPA's Global Warming Regulation Plans
- Obama’s Green Jobs Plan Will Do More Harm Than Good
Briefly Noted
Featuredby Fred Pearce
Environment Writer, Guardian
February 2, 2010
Scientists sometimes like to portray what they do as divorced from the everyday jealousies, rivalries and tribalism of human relationships. What makes science special is that data and results that can be replicated are what matters and the scientific truth will out in the end.
But a close reading of the emails hacked from the University of East Anglia in November exposes the real process of everyday science in lurid detail.
Many of the emails reveal strenuous efforts by the mainstream climate scientists to do what outside observers would regard as censoring their critics. And the correspondence raises awkward questions about the effectiveness of peer review – the supposed gold standard of scientific merit – and the operation of the UN's top climate body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). . . .
The head of the CRU, Professor Phil Jones, as a top expert in his field, was regularly asked to review papers and he sometimes wrote critical reviews that may have had the effect of blackballing papers criticising his work.
Here is how it worked in one case.
A key component in the story of 20th-century warming is data from sparse weather stations in Siberia. This huge area appears to have seen exceptional warming of up to 2C in the past century. But in such a remote region, actual data is sparse. So how reliable is that data, and do scientists interpret it correctly?
In March 2004, Jones wrote to Professor Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, saying that he had "recently rejected two papers [one for the Journal of Geophysical Research and one for Geophysical Research Letters] from people saying CRU has it wrong over Siberia. Went to town in both reviews, hopefully successfully. If either appears I will be very surprised". . . .
Read the rest.
Related item:
Leaked Climate Change Emails Scientist 'Hid' Data Flaws
by Fred Pearce
Environment Writer, Guardian
February 1, 2010
. . . Jones and a collaborator have been accused by a climate change sceptic and researcher of scientific fraud for attempting to suppress data that could cast doubt on a key 1990 study on the effect of cities on warming--a hotly contested issue. . . .Back to top by David Kreutzer, Karen Campbell, William W. Beach, Ben Lieberman, and Nicolas Loris
Heritage Foundation, January 26, 2010
Abstract: Barbara Boxer and John Kerry are pushing their climate-change legislation in the Senate. Like the Waxman-Markey bill, passed by the House last year, Boxer-Kerry is a cap-and-trade bill. Why is that bad? Because severely restricting greenhouse gas emission places an enormous burden on American families--higher gasoline prices, higher heating costs, higher energy taxes, higher unemployment. The Heritage Foundation's team of economic and climate-change experts details the extraordinary costs that will fall on businesses and families across the country should this legislation become law.
Should S. 1733 become law, Americans can expect the following to occur between enactment and the year 2035 (all figures are adjusted for inflation):
- Inflation-adjusted losses to gross domestic product (GDP) of $9.9 trillion;
- More than $4.6 trillion in higher energy taxes;
- Job losses exceeding 2.5 million for some years;
- Annual family-of-four energy costs rising by $1,000, including a gasoline price increase of more than $1.20 per gallon;
- Annual family-of-four energy costs plus increased cost of goods and services totaling more than $3,000;
- Average GDP loss per family of four above $4,500 per year;
- Family-of-four net worth dropping by more than $40,000; and
- The family of four's share of the national debt rising by an additional $27,000. . . .
Read the rest.Back to top Debateby Joanne Nova
Author, The Skeptics Handbook; Author, JoanneNova.com; Partner, Science Speak
January 31, 2010
You have to see this up close to believe it. Look up close and admire the detail while you despair at how long science has been going off the rails. To better appreciate the past and what was exposed by the CRU emails, the Timeline chart consolidates and chronologically organizes the information uncovered and published about the CRU emails by many researchers along with some related contextual events. That the chart exists at all is yet another example of how skilled experts are flocking in to the skeptics’ position and dedicating hours of time pro bono because they are passionately motivated to fight against those who try to deceive us.
Read the rest and view Mohib Ebrahim's poster full-sized.Back to top by Paul K. Driessen
Columnist, Townhall; Senior Fellow, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, and Congress of Racial Equality; Author, Eco-Imperialism.com
December 26, 2009
“This isn’t Climategate,” [Senator Barbara Boxer] insists. “It’s email theft gate.” The problem isn’t the fraud; it’s that a hacker or whistleblower revealed the fraud.
Wrong, Senator. It’s not theft gate. It’s Taxpayer Robbery Gate.
We, the taxpayers, We the people – paid for this “research.” We paid billions of dollars for it – and providing the data, computer codes and analytical methods is a condition of the employment and research grants for these scientists. . . .
Read the rest.Back to top by Paul Chesser
Director, Climate Strategies Watch; Scholar, John Locke Foundation; Correspondent, Heartland Institute
American Spectator, January 26, 2010
At his BBC blog Andrew Neil lays out the itemized fraud from the 2007 UN IPCC report that has been rolling out in recent days, previously reported by the BBC and other formerly mainstream media as "sound" and "consensus" science. So many "Gates," and so many discredited reporters . . .
Yep, this is the "scientific consensus" that Al Gore based his post-VP life upon; the imagined groundswell that so many politicians used to justify government growth; the nonexistent evidence that journalists cited to justify their alarmism activism. It's the two words that every global warmist (whether lying or deceived themselves) threw in the face of skeptics in an attempt to intimidate. Didn't work!
No wonder why hardly any of them wanted to debate and those who did got slaughtered. We tried to explain that the "consensus" was an illusion. . . .
Read the rest.Back to top by Bill Gertz
Writer, Washington Times
January 20, 2010
The White House National Security Council recently directed U.S. spy agencies to lower the priority placed on intelligence collection for China, amid opposition to the policy change from senior intelligence leaders who feared it would hamper efforts to obtain secrets about Beijing's military and its cyber-attacks.
The downgrading of intelligence gathering on China was challenged by Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair and CIA Director Leon E. Panetta after it was first proposed in interagency memorandums in October, current and former intelligence officials said.
The decision downgrades China from "Priority 1" status, alongside Iran and North Korea, to "Priority 2," which covers specific events such as the humanitarian crisis after the Haitian earthquake or tensions between India and Pakistan. . . .
One new area that has been given a higher intelligence priority under the Obama administration is intelligence collection on climate change, a nontraditional mission marginally linked to national security. The CIA recently announced that it had set up a center to study the impact of climate change.
Read the rest.Back to top Scienceby Roger Underwood
Fellow, Institute of Foresters of Australia
Western Institute for Study of the Environment, January 13, 2010
YouTube audio of the author presenting his article
My position regarding global warming and climate change, and their impact on forestry is simple: it is one of fairly certain uncertainty.
On the one hand I accept that the world is gradually becoming warmer, as we continue to emerge from the last ice age. This might lead to a rise in average temperature in Australia of a couple of degrees over the next 100 years, probably through an increase in minimum, rather than of maximum temperatures. And I accept that many parts of Australia at the moment are experiencing prolonged drought, or periods of below-average rainfall, but I cannot tell yet whether these are due to global warming or are just natural climatic cycles.
On the other hand I have seen no convincing evidence that global warming is caused by human emissions of CO2. And even if this hypothesis is true, the idea that Australian (or American) foresters can fix the problem by planting trees is ambitious to the point of fantasy. The extent of tree planting needed to counteract the CO2 emissions from Australia alone could never be accomplished without an enormous impact on the high rainfall land-base, which in turn would have a dramatic impact on food production. Besides, the Australian contribution to the world’s carbon emissions is tiny; surely we foresters would be kidding ourselves if we think anything we do will make a difference on a global scale (other than as a symbolic gesture). . . .
Read or listen to the rest.Back to top by E. Calvin Beisner
National Spokesman, Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation
January 29, 2010
A reader of the Cornwall Newsletter wrote,
Question-is it true that ocean levels around Bangladesh have receded for several miles? Haven’t glaciers reduced in size and in some cases dramatically? Liberals claim these are proof of global warming. Answers:
- About Bangladesh losing land to sea level rise: According to the Science and Environmental Policy Project, "New data shows that Bangladesh's landmass is increasing, contradicting forecasts that the South Asian nation will be under the waves by the end of the century, experts say. Scientists from the Dhaka-based Center for Environment and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) have studied 32 years of satellite images and say Bangladesh's landmass has increased by 20 square kilometres (eight square miles) annually. [...] The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has predicted that impoverished Bangladesh, crisscrossed by a network of more than 200 rivers, will lose 17 percent of its land by 2050 because of rising sea levels due to global warming. The Nobel Peace Prize-winning panel says 20 million Bangladeshis will become environmental refugees by 2050 and the country will lose some 30 percent of its food production. Director of the US-based NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, professor James Hansen, paints an even grimmer picture, predicting the entire country could be under water by the end of the century." (From SEPP)
- Some glaciers in some parts of the world are increasing in extent, others are diminishing. There doesn't appear to be a significant change in their trends versus what they have been for millennia, since the world emerged from the Ice Age ending about 11,000 years ago. The most extensive region of glaciers (as distinct from the large ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, which together contain about 99% of the world's ice) is the Himalayas, and item 7 and its "related items" links in this week's newsletter will take you to material showing that the glacier melt rate in the Himalayas has not accelerated in recent decades, during the period of alleged unprecedented, manmade warming. For more excellent discussion of glaciers, see the NIPCC report, chapter 4 (beginning at p. 135). For a brief discussion of the Himalayan glacier situation, see my article at Baptist Press.
- Neither rising sea level nor melting ice (whether continental sheets or mountain glaciers or sea ice) is evidence of warming, whether manmade or natural. Ice melts when surrounding temperature exceeds 0 deg C (32 deg F). What causes the surrounding temperature to exceed water's freezing point is an entirely distinct question. Further, surrounding temperature can actually be falling (e.g., from 60 to 50 deg F) and ice would still melt, though at a slower rate. The rate of melt will increase as surrounding temperatures rise, but neither the melt itself nor its changing rate is evidence of what causes the surrounding temperature to rise or fall. Consequently, anyone who appeals to shrinking glaciers or continental ice sheets or sea ice as evidence of manmade global warming is doubly mistaken. Sea levels have been rising since the end of the Ice Age, and there is no evidence that they are now rising more rapidly than over the millennia. But their rise, brought about mainly by melting land ice (not at all by melting sea ice, since when floating ice melts the level of the water in which it floats doesn't change), though partly also by land subsidence, is also no evidence of global warming, whether natural or manmade. For further on sea level, see the NIPCC report, chapter 4 (beginning at p. 184). For a brief discussion of sea level, see this blog post, or the Call to Truth (beginning at bottom of p. 4).
Back to top Economicsby Nicolas Loris
Research Assistant, Heritage Foundation
January 20, 2010
With Congress unable to pass cap-and-trade legislation as easily as some Members hoped, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving forward with its own set of global warming regulations. The EPA's endangerment finding, which took effect January 14, gives the EPA authority under section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act (CAA) to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs).
The EPA's attempt to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2), in addition to being the most expensive and expansive environmental regulation in history, would bypass the legislative process completely. Congress should amend the Clean Air Act in order to prevent unelected government bureaucrats from bankrupting the nation. . . .
The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis modeled the economic effects of the Senate cap-and-trade bill and found gross domestic product (GDP) loss per family of four of over $4,500 per year and job losses exceeding 2.5 million by 2031. Regulating CO2 emissions under the CAA would burden the economy with higher energy costs, higher administrative compliance costs for businesses, higher bureaucratic costs for enforcing the regulations, and higher legal costs from the inevitable litigation. Even without CO2 regulations in place, the EPA's actions are still causing harm by creating an unpredictable environment for investors. . . .
Read the rest.Back to top by Nicolas Loris
Research Assistant, Heritage Foundation
January 8, 2010
. . . Sure, the government can create jobs. They can use our taxpayer dollars to hire workers to dig holes and fill them back up. But if there’s no net gain in productivity and wealth, the job is a waste. For instance, we could replace all of the world’s mechanized agriculture equipment with hoe wielding farmers, and that would create jobs. But it would also significantly reduce productivity and efficiency. The economic reasoning for switching from more efficient machinery to less efficient human capital is such a baseless plan any politician suggesting it would be laughed out of office.
Yet that is the exact premise of the green jobs boondoggle. The government wants to mandate and subsidize labor intensive, inefficient, and expensive power sources. But the problem is that if it takes more labor and capital to produce renewable energy, there is a net cost to the economy. Proponents of wind and solar argue this is a good thing. Apparently they forgot the there’s-no-free-lunch-lesson you learn in Economics 101. Government spending will create some jobs to build windmills and solar panels and work at biomass plants but this diverts labor, capital and materials from the private sector that could be used more efficiently to create even more jobs. In effect, government subsidized green jobs destroy jobs elsewhere. . . .
Read the rest.Back to top Briefly NotedSheth: The Hottest Hoax in the World
Heartland: Where's the Global Warming?
Hoffman: The Dangerous Confluence of Jihadists and Eco-Terrorists
E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., National Spokesman
Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, http://www.cornwallalliance.org/
Information in this newsletter is for scholarly and educational use only and may not be copied or reproduced for any other purposes without prior permission of the copyright holders.
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