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Newsletter (June 15, 2009)
In this issue
Featured- Third International Conference on Climate Change
- Waxman-Markey Energy-Rationing Bill
- Copenhagen Dead On Arrival
- The Climate-Industrial Complex
Debate- More Green Brainwashing in Schools
- The Global Hoodwink Just Goes On
- The Civil Heretic: Freeman Dyson
Science- Sea Level: Models Versus Reality
Economics- Our Energy Future--The Answer Is Not Blowing in the Wind
- Light Cars Are Dangerous Cars
Meet the Critics: David H. Douglass & Nir Shaviv
Briefly Noted
Featured
by Dan Miller
Executive Vice President & Director of Public Relations, The Heartland Institute
The Heartland Institute, June 3, 2009
Global warming skeptics, who for a decade have emphasized hard-science evidence to refute doomsday predictions from alarmists, added new ammunition to their arsenal Tuesday at the third International Conference on Climate Change.
. . . The Heartland Institute, a 25-year-old think tank that produced the three international climate conferences, also recruited seven elite economists to focus on the devastating personal and broad economic impact of legislation, sponsored by Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and headed for approval in the U.S. House, to put a cap on greenhouse gas emissions. Businesses, commercial structures, farms, and other emitters could purchase and trade the permits to emit carbon dioxide and other gases that exceed the cap. . . .
. . . Additionally, a parade of climatologists and scientists during the conference challenged the science, causes, and severity of global warming.
Dr. Richard Lindzen, MIT professor of meteorology, reiterated premises underlying global-warming alarmism, such as dangerous increases in carbon dioxide emissions since the Industrial Revolution, rising global mean temperatures, and the slackening of the sex drive in butterflies. Such questions, he said, "are meaningless except in the propaganda war" being waged by a compliant mainstream media and a scientific community that finds it easier "to accept authority than disputing questions that are at issue."
Dr. Patrick Michaels, a Cato Institute scholar and research professor of environmental studies at the University of Virginia, blamed some of the success of doomsday alarmism on the absence of fact-checking in mainstream media when alarmists go on a sortie. . . .
. . . Lord Christopher Monckton, former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who has closed each of the two previous international climate conferences, once again brought the crowd to its feet in a cheering standing ovation when he concluded his typically witty speech, "... the highly placed conspirators who seek to ride the climate scare to world domination have reckoned without one thing. You. You are here, and you will not let the truth go." . . .
Read the rest.
Proceedings from the Third International Conference on Climate Change are available here.
The conference's opening and closing keynote addresses:
Global Warming - Sensibilities and Science
by Richard S. Lindzen
Professor of Meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Fellow, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, American Meteorological Society, American Geophysical Union, & American Association for the Advancement of Science
. . . it is important to realize that the alarm has the implicit or explicit support of a vast majority of the active climate research community. To a certain extent, this is indicative of the extent to which climate science has been corrupted over a period of more than twenty years. What this means is that any active scientist who disagrees with the alarm, must, in practice, deal with scientists on the other side in order to be professionally viable. There is no comparable coterie on our side.
It pays, therefore, to understand how this situation functions. I would propose that there are three primary modes.
The first might be called triage. The scientist at issue isolates those areas of research that are of personal importance, and, within these areas, preserves a reasonable degree of integrity. Outside this protected area, the scientist offers a measure of support to the reigning paradigm ranging from perfunctory assent to enthusiastic campaigning. Frequently, such scientists, when their protected research lends itself to alarming interpretation, allow others to cite and exaggerate such interpretations, while enjoying the rewards associated with the exaggeration, and simultaneously maintaining distance from the interpretation.
The second might be called opportunism of the weak. Here, scientists whose work would normally be regarded as weak and unimpressive, gain note by molding their results to the needs of the alarmists in the environmental movement. This, normally, might be of little consequence to more productive scientists. However, with the support of the environmental movement, such weak opportunists can gain unwarranted authority. The examples are well known and include the infamous ‘hockey stick,’ as well as the iconic statements of the IPCC.
The third consists essentially of free riding. Here the emphasis is on what are euphemistically called impacts. The specialties of the scientists involved lie well outside of climate physics, but they can find funding and recognition by attempting to relate their specialty to global warming. Their ‘results’ are to be found in the newspapers every day. Cockroaches and malaria spreading, sex drive of butterflies diminishing, polar bears in potential danger, etc. From the point of view of serious science, this group is mostly a nuisance, but they play a major role in the maintenance of alarm. They also artificially swell the numbers of scientists who endorse the alarmist view. . . .
Climate Conspiracy
by Christopher Monckton
Viscount of Brenchley; Chief Policy Adviser, Science & Public Policy Institute
. . . The stated ambition of the Bill is to demonstrate what is laughably called “leadership” by pointlessly shutting down five-sixths of the economic activity of your great nation. Yet no legislation against carbon emissions, however pious its intentions, however drastic its effects, can ever be costeffective. Why? Because to prevent just 2 F° warming, we must forego 2- 20 trillion tons of CO2 emissions.
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The Bill grandly declares that CO2 emissions in the US in the year 2050 will be cut by five-sixths of today’s 6 billion tons, preventing warming of 0.0005-0.005 F°/year, at a cost estimated by the White House at $180 bn/year. At that rate, to prevent the 8 F° warming this century that is imagined by the UN would take 1600-16,000 years. Total cost? $300 trillion to 3 quadrillion dollars. And it won’t start to work till we’re well into the next Ice Age anyway. If then. . . .
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by Myron Ebell
Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Human Events, May 27, 2009
The House Energy and Commerce Committee on the evening of May 21 passed the biggest piece of the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats’ agenda to put the federal government in charge of the American economy. On a 33 to 25 vote, the Committee approved the “American Clean Energy and Security Act,” H. R. 2454 . . . better known as Waxman-Markey . . . .
. . . If enacted, [it] would be the biggest government takeover of the economy since the Second World War, which is the last time energy, food, and other basic commodities were rationed. It would also be the biggest tax increase in the history of the world and would cause a colossal transfer of wealth from consumers to big businesses. . . .
. . . Obama supports a cap-and-trade plan that would auction the ration coupons necessary to burn coal, oil, or natural gas and use the trillions of dollars of future revenues to fund his massive expansion of government programs. But Waxman found out that he couldn’t get his bill through committee without the votes of most of the moderate Democrats who represent districts that produce coal or oil or have energy-intensive manufacturing that depends on low-cost electricity from coal. They were demanding that the industries in their districts be given ration coupons for free.
So in a series of backroom deals, Waxman started trading coupons for votes. By the time he was done, 85% of the ration coupons had been given away to special interests for the first fifteen or so years of the cap-and-trade program. The big winners were electric utilities, which get 35% of each year’s allotment of coupons for free. Even here, however, some utilities do much better than others.
Waxman and Markey claimed that the purpose of giving away the coupons rather than auctioning them is to protect consumers from higher energy prices. This explanation does not pass the laugh test. Cap-and-trade can only reduce emissions if prices go up. Higher prices force consumers to use less energy and bring otherwise uncompetitive alternatives, such as wind and solar power, onto the market. . . .
. . . How far might energy prices rise under Waxman-Markey? It’s hard to tell, but it’s clear that committee Democrats think it may require more than doubling electric rates and gasoline above five dollars a gallon. President Obama agrees. When Obama was running for President, he told the San Francisco Chronicle on January 17, 2008, “Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket.”
Read the rest.
Related items:
Why Waxman/Markey Won't Work
by Christopher Monckton
Viscount of Brenchley; Chief Policy Adviser, Science & Public Policy Institute
Science & Public Policy Institute, May 18, 2009
Waxman-Markey Global Warming Proposal's Other Problematic Provisions
by Ben Lieberman
Senior Policy Analyst, The Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation, May 12, 2009
Henry Waxman Has a Plan...
The Wall Street Journal, April 10, 2009
Cap and Trade Is a License to Cheat and Steal
by William O'Keefe
CEO, George C. Marshall Institute; President, Solutions Consulting Inc.
San Francisco Examiner, May 18, 2009
Son of Waxman-Markey: More Politics Makes for a More Costly Bill
by William W. Beach, David Kreutzer, Karen Campbell, and Ben Lieberman
The Heritage Foundation, May 18, 2009
Waxman-Markey: What’s New, What’s Old?
by Marlo Lewis
Senior Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute
OpenMarket.org, May 15, 2009
To Get Votes, Waxman Offers Cap-and-Trade Breaks
by Susan Ferrechio
Chief Congressional Correspondent
Washington Examiner, April 23, 2009
Cap-and-Trade: All Cost, No Benefit
by Martin Feldstein
President Emeritus, National Bureau of Economic Research; Professor of Economics, Harvard University
Publication, Date
Congress Must Reject Energy Tax Increases
by Jim Inhofe
Senior U.S. Senator for Oklahoma; Ranking Member, U.S. Senate Committe on Environment & Public Works
NewsOK, April 1, 2009
Cap and Trade or Coach and Horses
Financial Times, May 18, 2009
Obama Hears Econ Concerns on Climate Plan
by Eamon Javers
Staff Writer, Politico
Politico, May 20, 2009
Back to top
by Mark Bergin
Reporter, WORLD Magazine
WORLD Magazine, April 17, 2009
. . . Whereas Kyoto died on the operating table, Copenhagen may prove dead on arrival.
An Indian delegate to the UN made clear earlier this week that any hopes of setting hard emissions caps in India were misguided: “If the question is whether India will take on binding emission reduction commitments, the answer is no. It is morally wrong for us to agree to reduce when 40 percent of Indians do not have access to electricity.” . . .
. . . Any shift away from the international climate accord positions of former President George W. Bush has thus far manifested only in rhetoric. True change from the Bush requirement that a binding emissions treaty include China and India might well necessitate that Obama dump billions of dollars into overseas green development—an improbable sell to a Congress and nation already in the throes of buyer’s remorse.
Read the rest.
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by Bjorn Lomborg
Director, Copenhagen Consensus; Associate Professor, University of Aarhus, Denmark; Author, Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming
The Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2009
Some business leaders are cozying up with politicians and scientists to demand swift, drastic action on global warming. This is a new twist on a very old practice: companies using public policy to line their own pockets.
The tight relationship between the groups echoes the relationship among weapons makers, researchers and the U.S. military during the Cold War. President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned about the might of the "military-industrial complex," cautioning that "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." He worried that "there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties."
This is certainly true of climate change. We are told that very expensive carbon regulations are the only way to respond to global warming, despite ample evidence that this approach does not pass a basic cost-benefit test. We must ask whether a "climate-industrial complex" is emerging, pressing taxpayers to fork over money to please those who stand to gain. . . .
Read the rest.
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Debate
by E. Calvin Beisner
National Spokesman, Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation
We Get It!, May 21, 2009
The craze over Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth has died down a bit, particularly after a British court found it so full of scientific errors that it permitted its showing in schools only when accompanied by a list of corrections. But don't look for Greens to stop targeting captive audiences of children for their propaganda.
The latest craze is for The Story of Stuff, a 20-minute video that gives children its producer's perspective on the impact of making and marketing and using all the "stuff" Americans consume.
It's not a bad idea in principle. But in this case, principle is lacking. The video presents only the down side of the "stuff." When it puts a skull-and-crossbones graphic beside factory smoke, does it also tell about all the benefits of what the factory produces? No.
And that's the rub. Just as surely as industries should take responsibility for what economists call their "externalities"--costs of production that aren't borne by the producers unless "internalized" by some regulatory mechanism--so also critics of industries, when counting the cost of the externalities, should count the benefits of the activities that produced them.
A chemical or drug factory produces pollution. It also produces, e.g., fertilizer or pesticide or herbicide that enhances crop yields and so helps make food more affordable, or medicine that heals diseases and saves lives.
If you're going to report the negative value of the pollution, it's only fair and balanced to report the value of the products made. That's what The Story of Stuff doesn't do, and that's why it's not education, it's brainwashing.
Related items:
A Cautionary Video About America's 'Stuff'
by Leslie Kaufman
Journalist, The New York Times
The New York Times, May 10, 2009
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by Peter Mullen
Rector, St. Michael's; Chaplain to the Stock Exchange
The Northern Echo, June 13, 2009
Propaganda, disinformation, nonsense and bare-faced lies continue to pour out of the mouths of the global warming fanatics. They are not even qualified to issue their propaganda.
For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) likes to advertise itself as the representative body of world experts on the subject. It is not so, being largely made up of politicians with, perhaps, as few as 25 climatologists in its ranks.
By contrast, there are many highly qualified and experienced climatologists who get together from time to time and issue reports – reports which argue convincingly against the IPCC, but which generally go unmentioned in the media where the entire global warming fraud has been swallowed whole.
Other distinguished scientists (Professor Syun-Ichi Akasofu, former Director of the Arctic Research Centre, and Dr Willie Soon, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics) have made telling criticisms of the scare stories. Among them was the fact that sea levels are not rising catastrophically . . .
Read the rest.
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by Nicholas Dawidoff
Contributing Writer, The New York Times
The New York Times, March 25, 2009
. . . It was four years ago that [the eminent physicist Freeman] Dyson began publicly stating his doubts about climate change. Speaking at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University, Dyson announced that “all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated.” Since then he has only heated up his misgivings, declaring in a 2007 interview with Salon.com that “the fact that the climate is getting warmer doesn’t scare me at all” and writing in an essay for The New York Review of Books, the left-leaning publication that is to gravitas what the Beagle was to Darwin, that climate change has become an “obsession” — the primary article of faith for “a worldwide secular religion” known as environmentalism. Among those he considers true believers, Dyson has been particularly dismissive of Al Gore, whom Dyson calls climate change’s “chief propagandist,” and James Hansen, the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and an adviser to Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Dyson accuses them of relying too heavily on computer-generated climate models that foresee a Grand Guignol of imminent world devastation as icecaps melt, oceans rise and storms and plagues sweep the earth, and he blames the pair’s “lousy science” for “distracting public attention” from “more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet.” . . .
Read the rest.
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Science
by E. Calvin Beisner
National Spokesman, Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation
Special to the Cornwall Alliance, April 23, 2009
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has created an internet tool that simulates sea level rise. The Sea Level Affecting Marshes Model (SLAMM)-View (http://www.fws.gov/chesapeakebay/slamm and http://www.slammview.org) displays map pairs of the same area, each at different sea levels.
“Sea level rise is certainly one of the most pressing issues facing many coastal communities, as well as national wildlife refuges,” said Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge Manager Lou Hinds. “SLAMM will be used by many coastal refuge managers to involve the public in discussions concerning sea level rise as part of the Comprehensive Conservation Planning process. This planning process must be undertaken every 15 years and unless something changes dramatically coastal refuges will be dealing with this issue over the next 100 years,” Hinds added.
The SLAMM predicts changes in coastal wetlands and shorelines.
What might not be clear to many users, however, is that the depictions are entirely dependent on assumptions about the severity of global warming and sea level rise. The FWS's press release specified, "Users can select different scenarios by combining time, in 25-year intervals, at different severities, e.g., 0.5 meters to 1 meter increase in sea level." What it didn't mention is that 0.5 meters, the low end, is itself above the mid-range projections of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 Assessment Report and more than double the high end of the more credible projection of 0 to 7.88 inches by the Sea Level Commission of the International Union for Quaternary Research (http://www.junkscience.com/jan04/nils-morner_1.pdf).
Assumptions matter. Reality matters a lot more.
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Economics
by Pete Geddes
Executive Vice President, Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment
Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment, May 6, 2009
. . . Energy generation must be able to meet both base-load and peak demands while providing reserve power. The output of wind turbines varies with the cube of wind speed. This means the average wind farm generates electricity at only 30 percent capacity, compared to 85-95+ percent for coal and nuclear power plants. Since grid operators must ensure against blackouts, wind power must be backed up, mostly with natural gas turbine “peaking” units—basically jet engines bolted to the ground. These are very expensive to operate. This makes wind power about 50 percent more expensive than power generated by a traditional coal plant. . . .
Read the rest.
Related items:
Is Wind the Next Ethanol?
by Ben Lieberman
Senior Policy Analyst, The Heritage Foundation
The Washington Times, May 17, 2009
Speaking Truth to 'Wind' Power
by Michael Trebilcock
Professor of Law and Economics, University of Toronto; Senior Consultant, CRA International
Science & Public Policy Institute, April 7, 2009
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by Robert E. Grady
Managing Director, Carlyle Group in San Francisco
The Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2009
If something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Such is the case with President Barack Obama's proposed national fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks and a new tailpipe standard for C02 emissions. . . .
The standards are designed to reduce C02 emissions from cars, with the twin goals of addressing climate change and reducing dependence on imported energy. . . .
The great irony of Mr. Obama's fuel efficiency proposals is that they may worsen emissions of these harmful gases. By the White House's own calculation (which many observers believe to be quite conservative), the new rules, when combined with earlier proposed increases in Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, will increase the average price of a new car by $1,300. . . .
. . . if you raise the price of new cars, people will buy fewer of them or, at a minimum, put off the purchase for a year or so while they drive the old clunker for a few thousand more miles. And fewer new cars means more pollution . . . .
The Obama fuel efficiency plan may also contribute to a significant increase in highway deaths as vehicles are required to quickly meet the new CAFE standard and will likely become lighter in weight as a result. . . . the [National Research Council] estimated that in 1993 there were between 1,300 and 2,600 motor vehicle crash deaths that would not have occurred if cars were as heavy as they were in 1976. . . .
Read the rest.
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Meet the Critics
Have you ever been at a loss for words when challenged by the alarmist's claim of scientific "consensus," or that dissenting scientists are unqualified? Not only does consensus prove nothing, but the very idea of "consensus" among scientists on catastrophic manmade climate change is simply unfounded. A 2008 Senate Environment and Public Works Minority Report documents dissension around the world:
More Than 700 International Scientists Dissent
Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims
Two notable critics are:
David H. Douglass, Ph.D.
Recipient of several Alfred P. Sloan Awards, David H. Douglass is a physics professor at the University of Rochester and a fellow of the American Physical Society. Mentioned on page 221 of the Senate report, Douglass explained that "The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming." Professor Douglass was the lead author of A Comparison of Tropical Temperature Trends with Model Predictions, a key publication in the battle against alarmism. Other pieces by Douglass include Limits on CO2 Climate Forcing from Recent Temperature Data of Earth and Altitude Dependence of Atmospheric Temperature Trends: Climate Models Versus Observation.
Nir Shaviv, Ph.D.
Award-winning astrophysicist Nir Shaviv is a member of the Racah Institute of Physics in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Mentioned on page 123 of the Senate report, Shaviv stated that "Even if we halved the CO2 output, and the CO2 increase by 2100 would be, say, a 50% increase relative to today instead of a doubled amount, the expected reduction in the rise of global temperature would be less than 0.5C. This is not significant." Just a few notable publications of Shaviv's, along with his scientific blog ScienceBits, are Carbon Dioxide or Solar Forcing?, Celestial Driver of Phanerozoic Climate?, On Climate Response to Changes in the Cosmic Ray Flux and Radiative Budget, and (at Heartland's 2009 ICCC) New Solar-Climate Link and Implications for Our Understanding of Climate Change.
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Briefly Noted
Getting Gaia's Goat
What if Global-Warming Fears Are Overblown?
Obama Keeps Options Over Offshore Drilling
Memo Exposes Global Warming Dispute
Obama Administration Won't Reverse Bush Ruling on Polar Bears
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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