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Newsletter (September 4, 2009)
Above the FoldBishop Harry Jackson, Jr. and Governor George Allen sat down recently with members of Bishop Jackson’s church to talk about the impact that rising energy prices have on families. (We highlighted one working mother’s experience in a video last week.)
Keep watching this space for all of the videos, including several poignant highlights, are being made available on a rolling basis at the Cornwall Alliance blog.In this issue
Featured- Technology Can Fight Global Warming
- Al Gore: Climate Change Robber Baron
- Book: The Climate Caper
Debate- Mr. Freedman, Heal Thyself!
Science- Why the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets Are Not Collapsing
- 'Doom and Boom' on Australia's Great Barrier Reef
- Twelve Facts You Won't Read in the Popular Press
Economics- Addressing the Real Problem: Climate of Poverty
- Impact of the Waxman-Markey Climate Change Legislation on the States
- Book: Money, Greed, and God
Meet the Critics: Vincent R. Gray & Howard C. Hayden
Briefly Noted & Correction
Featuredby Bjorn Lomborg
Director, Copenhagen Consensus; Associate Professor, University of Aarhus, Denmark; Author, Lomborg.com; Author, Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming
We have precious little to show for nearly 20 years of efforts to prevent global warming. Promises in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 to cut carbon emissions went unfulfilled. Stronger pledges in Kyoto five years later failed to keep emissions in check. The only possible lesson is that agreements to reduce carbon emissions are costly, politically arduous and ultimately ineffective. . . .
. . . Global warming does not just require action; it requires effective action. Otherwise we are just squandering time. . . .
. . . Taking a variety of natural, so-called market adaptations into account, the Carraro research shows we will acclimatize to the negative impacts of global warming and exploit the positive changes, actually creating 0.1% increase in GDP in 2100 among the member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In poor countries, market adaptation will reduce climate change-related losses to 2.9% of GDP. This remains a significant, negative effect. The real challenge of global warming lies in tackling its impact on the Third World. Yet adaptation has other positive benefits. If we prepare societies for more ferocious hurricanes in the future, we also help them to cope better with today's extreme weather. . . .
. . . A technology-led effort would have a much greater chance of actually tackling climate change. It would also have a much greater chance of political success, since countries that fear signing on to costly emission targets are more likely to embrace the cheaper, smarter path of innovation. . . .
Read the rest.Back to top GreenWatchAmerica, August 28, 2009
Lawrence Solomon, in the National Post, makes a point the national media refuses to make - and one that absolutely needs to be made:
. . . Nobody doubts Gore's financial acumen now. Within eight years of leaving politics, Gore had reportedly become worth well in excess of US$100-million. Many expect him to become a billionaire through his stakes in a global warming hedge fund, a carbon-offset business, a renewable energy investment business and other global warming related ventures. He is now money manager to institutional investors and the super rich through Generation Investment Management, a firm that he co-founded in 2004. But how will Al Gore become a billionaire, exactly? What could push him over the edge? Mr. Solomon?
To date, Gore has done well for himself. As for the others, they know not to expect quick profits: Gore is clear in explaining that his focus is on long-term sustainable investments.
And as for Gore's prospects of becoming a billionaire, they rest entirely on one big bet: That government legislation will create the mandates that his businesses need to boom. Without those mandates, his businesses -- few of which are viable in a traditional free market economy -- will go bust. As will the funds entrusted to him by the charities, endowments and pension funds seeking sustainable investments. We've heard over and over again how the oil companies and the like have a heavy financial interest in turning public opinion against climate change. But rarely do we hear that many of the people who dedicate their lives to promoting the Radical Green Agenda have a huge amount of money riding on successfully indoctrinating America and the world. . . .
Read the rest.Back to top Review by Andrew Bolt of The Climate Caper by Garth W. Paltridge
Blogger, Herald Sun (Bolt); Professor Emeritus, University of Tasmania; Fellow, Academy of Science (Paltridge)
July 16, 2009
Climatologist Dr. Garth Paltridge has finally had enough of the hysteria, hype and witchhunting that’s fed the great global warming scare. Out today is his new book, The Climate Caper:
(Paltridge) discusses how and why climate scientists have vastly overstated the case for disastrous global warming.
Among other things he explains why forecasts of a much dryer Australia in the future – forecasts which were the basis of the Garnaut economic recommendations which led in turn to the Emissions Trading Scheme now before parliament – are probably nonsense....
He says of climate change research: “The whole business has hardened over the last couple of decades into a semi-religious crusade in which climate scientists have developed an arrogance about their aims and activity which brooks no argument either with their interpretation of the science or with the way the science is used." ...
Much of the book is devoted to examples and discussion of how ‘the system’ keeps scientific scepticism about forecasts of climatic doom from public view. As for the rest of us, the attitude of a climate scientist can be coloured by politically correct ideas, by a need to be associated with a ‘cause’, by loyalty to colleagues and by the rise of excessive research competition. These are all powerful forces which amplify a real fear within the research community that an expression of scepticism about the current wisdom on global warming can be disastrous to one’s career. Paltridge is a critic not easily dismissed by our leading promoters of apocalyptic warming, such as mammal expert Tim Flannery, singer Peter Garrett, general practitioner Bob Brown, economist Ross Garnaut, ex diplomat Kevin Rudd and former politician Al Gore, none of whom have any of his expertise in climate science:
Dr. Paltridge was a Chief Research Scientist with CSIRO and is a Fellow of the Academy of Science. He is a specialist in atmospheric physics and climatology. He took part in the establishment of the World Climate Program in the mid-1970’s, and was with the US National Climate Office during 1989 at the time of the emergence of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. For ten years he was CEO of the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre studying the role of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in climate. He is currently an Emeritus Professor at the University of Tasmania. But what would he know, right?
Buy the book.Back to top Debateby E. Calvin Beisner
National Spokesman, Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation
September 2, 2009
In a blog post at the Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang September 1 headlined "Obama Needs to Give a Climate Speech--ASAP," Andrew Freedman wrote,
. . . The need for leadership on climate change science further solidifies when one considers current public attitudes on the issue. Recent polling has shown public concern about climate change may be dropping, just when lawmakers are weighing new climate policies.
If the polls accurately reflect public opinion, which is questionable, then the increasing climate change skepticism among the public is troubling. . . .
Like the public, some fence-sitters in the Senate are unsure what to believe about climate change as well. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), for example, was quoted by Grist Magazine as saying, in response to a question on his view of the link between human activities and climate change, "I'd be foolish if I didn't give it some consideration because there's a massive amount of scientists that feel that it does. But there's also an increasing number of scientists that have doubt about it." . . . .
Grassley's statement regarding the number of scientists that have doubts about manmade climate change is telling, since that is the message being disseminated via blast emails and confabs sponsored by the pro-industry Heartland Institute, as well as the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), a market-oriented group that sponsors the Climate Depot Web site. That site, and others like it, consistently assert that there is a growing defection of experts from the scientific consensus view, seemingly based on the theory that if one repeats a message often enough, it will gradually become the truth. It's not groups like Heartland and CFACT and Climate Depot that operate on the theory that if one repeats a message often enough, it will gradually become the truth. They can point to
- over 31,000 American scientists who have signed the Global Warming Petition stating, "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of Earth's atmosphere and disruption of Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."
- over 700 international scientists who have publicly spoken out against various elements of the manmade catastrophic warming hypothesis.
- over 130 German scientists who wrote an open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel saying "humans have had no measurable effect on global warming through CO2 emissions. Instead the temperature fluctuations have been within normal ranges and are due to natural cycles."
- over 100 international scientists who signed an open letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon saying that research published after May 2005 (cut-off date for consideration by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] for its 2007 Assessment Report) casts doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming and that "it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions."
- the report by the Japan Society of Energy and Resources that includes the judgment of three of its five authors that "recent climate change is driven by natural cycles, not human industrial activity."
- a recent survey of the web of science database of refereed publications showing that the percentage of articles rejecting the so-called "consensus" on manmade warming grew between the 1993-2003 period and the post-2003 period.
- hundreds of refereed publications that reject the whole or important parts of manmade warming theory.
- Lawrence Solomon's and Christopher Monckton's refutations of the claim that the IPCC's work represents a consensus of 2500 scientists.
It's people like Freedman who think interminable repetition of the mantra "overwhelming scientific consensus" will make it true. It isn't. It never has been.
In addition to calling for "leadership" on climate "science" (what, precisely, is scientific leadership?--perhaps it's following the crowd, which seems to be Freedman's notion), Freedman's appeal to the "consensus view" belies his political, rather than scientific, leanings. How, pray tell, did a master's candidate in climate change policy wind up on WaPo's Capital Weather Gang?
Related item:
Climate Depot Responds to Washington Post Attack
by Marc Morano
Director, Climate Depot
September 2, 2009Back to top Scienceby Cliff Ollier & Colin Pain
Professor Emeritus and Honorary Research Fellow, School of Earth and Geographical Sciences, University of Western Australia (Ollier); Adjunct Professor, University of Canberra; Member, International Society of Soil Science; Editorial Board Member, Australian Journal of Earth Sciences (Pain)
Australian Institute of Geoscientists, August, 2009
Global warming alarmists have suggested that the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica may collapse, causing disastrous sea level rise. This idea is based on the concept of an ice sheet sliding down an inclined plane on a base lubricated by meltwater, which is itself increasing because of global warming.
In reality the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets occupy deep basins, and cannot slide down a plane. Furthermore glacial flow depends on stress (including the important yield stress) as well as temperature, and much of the ice sheets are well below melting point.
The accumulation of kilometres of undisturbed ice in cores in Greenland and Antarctica (the same ones that are sometimes used to fuel ideas of global warming) show hundreds of thousands of years of accumulation with no melting or flow. Except around the edges, ice sheets flow at the base, and depend on geothermal heat, not the climate at the surface. It is impossible for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to 'collapse'. . . .
Read the rest (PDF).Back to top by Sherwood B. Idso, Keith E. Idso, & Craig D. Idso
President, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change; Author, Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (Sherwood); Vice President, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (Keith); Chairman, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change; Co-author, NIPCC's Climate Change Reconsidered (Craig)
August 19, 2009
Historically, "most degraded reefs," in the words of Diaz-Pulido et al. (2009), "have either failed to recover from events such as coral bleaching and other human induced disturbances, or [they] have taken several years to decades to return to pre-disturbance conditions." Thanks to the ten scientists' astute observations, however, we now know that some very dramatic exceptions can--and do--occur.
In early 2006, mass bleaching of corals on inshore reefs of the Keppel Islands in the southern Great Barrier Reef (GBR) caused high coral mortality, with severe bleaching affecting 77-95% of coral colonies. . . but the spectacular sequel to the devastating events proved even better than the original tragedy.
Following the natural seasonal decline in L. variegata, which in some places had increased its cover by 200-300% by August 2006, "the cover of branching Acropora corals at most sites showed an extremely rapid recovery," according to the Australian researchers, "reaching pre-bleaching levels by December 2006-April 2007 ca 12-14 months after the onset of bleaching."
"Unexpectedly," as they describe it, "this rapid reversal did not involve reestablishment of corals by recruitment of coral larvae, as often assumed, but depended on several ecological mechanisms previously underestimated." . . . The planet's oh-so-sensitive corals appear to have a few tricks up their sleeves that we are only now beginning to appreciate, not the least of which is rapid recovery from apparent death.
Read the rest.Back to top by Joseph D'Aleo
Founder and Director, International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project
Science & Public Policy Institute, September 1, 2009
1. Temperatures have been cooling since 2002, even as carbon dioxide has continued to rise.
2. Carbon dioxide is a trace gas and by itself will produce little warming. Also, as CO2 increases, the incremental warming is less, as the effect is logarithmic so the more CO2, the less warming it produces.
3. CO2 has been totally uncorrelated with temperature over the last decade, and significantly negative since 2002. . . .
Read the rest (PDF).Back to top Economicsby Willie Soon & David R. Legates
Physicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Chief Science Adviser, Science & Public Policy Institute; Science Director, Tech Central Station; Senior Scientist, Marshall Institute; Co-Author, Global Warming and Maunder Minimum (Soon); Delaware State Climatologist and Director of Delaware Environmental Observing System, University of Delaware; Senior Scientist, Marshall Institute; Fellow, Independent Institute; Scholar, Competitive Enterprise Institute (Legates)
Science & Public Policy Institute, September 3, 2009
What does the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation think about carbon dioxide (CO2)-induced global warming?
“We don’t think about it,” Bill Gates said during last year’s Engineers Without Borders International Conference. On another occasion, he told Newsweek magazine: “The angle I’ll look at most is ... What about the 4 billion poorest people? What about energy and environmental issues for them?”
The question, however, is not simply a matter of reprioritising limited resources. More fundamentally, the scientific case for catastrophic global climate change from increased atmospheric CO2 is substantially flawed.
The Indian government also recognises the need to put real, immediate, life-and-death problems ahead of speculative risks 50-100 years from now--and base the country’s health and prosperity on energy, economic and infrastructure development, full employment, and diseases and poverty eradication.
“It is obvious that India needs to substantially increase its per-capita energy consumption to provide a minimally acceptable level of well-being to its people,” the Indian government’s National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAP) declared. Moreover, a stronger economy and increased living standards will reduce the vulnerability of poor families to extreme weather events and climate change, natural or man-made. . . .
Read the rest (PDF).Back to top by David Kreutzer, Karen Campbell, William W. Beach, Ben Lieberman, & Nicolas Loris
The Heritage Foundation, August 19, 2009
. . . If passed by the Senate, the bill would burden families with thousands of dollars per year in direct and indirect energy costs. According to a new study produced by Heritage's Center for Data Analysis (CDA), forecasts severe consequences—including crushing energy costs, millions of jobs lost and falling household income—if Congress enacts the so-called Waxman-Markey bill.
Inevitably the bill will affect each state differently. Some states are more energy-intensive than others and some rely a great deal on manufacturing to fuel its economy. Regardless, the costs in every state are significant. Increases in electricity and gasoline are a dreadful site for any American. Moreover, the projected losses in jobs and Gross State Product (GSP) illustrate how each state's economy will be operating well under its potential directly because of the Waxman-Markey bill. What follows are 50 state-by-state breakouts of the impact the bill would have on jobs and the economy. . . .
Read the rest and view the state-by-state reports of the bill's projected consequences.Back to top Review by Doug Bandow of Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem by Jay W. Richards
Senior Fellow, Cato Institute (Bandow); Research Fellow and Director of Acton Media, Acton Institute; Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute (Richards)
Washington Times, July 31, 2009
Can a Christian be a capitalist? . . . Jay W. Richards answers . . . with a resounding yes.
"Money, Greed, and God" is both thoughtful and important. Mr. Richards builds his argument around eight common myths regarding economics. For instance, the Nirvana Myth contrasts "capitalism with an unrealizable ideal rather than with its live alternatives." The Piety Myth emphasizes good intentions. The Zero-Sum Game Myth presumes that some must lose if others gain. And so on. . . .
. . . He also defends the competitive nature of markets. Far from being unfair, competition is the driving force behind economic gain. "A free exchange is a win-win game," writes Mr. Richards: "Free trade makes it possible for people to play win-win games of exchange. We're so used to this that we take it for granted." . . .
Read the restand buy the book.Back to top Meet the CriticsHave 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:
Vincent R. Gray, Ph.D.
Vincent Gray, an expert IPCC reviewer and research scientist with experience in numerous countries, is a founder of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition and has produced its NZClimate & EnviroTruth newsletter. In his book The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of "Climate Change 2001", Gray concludes that "no convincing evidence has been presented by the IPCC, or anyone else, that a surface temperature increase has resulted from increases of greenhouse gases." Among his many other publications are The Global Warming Scam, Problems with Surface Temperature Data, Unsound Science by the IPCC, The IPCC: Spinning the Climate, The Triumph of Doublespeak, and The Environmentalist Creed.
Howard C. Hayden, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics Emeritus at the University of Connecticut, Howard Hayden edits The Energy Advocate and is the author of, among other publications, The Solar Fraud: Why Solar Energy Won't Run the World and A Primer on CO2 and Climate, demonstrating in the latter that "the causal link between human activities and global warming is feeble at best, amounting to nothing more than some weak correlations and some very incomplete computer models." "There is no doubt whatsoever," he shows, "that temperature and CO2 concentration are correlated. But there is an even better correlation between temperature at a given time and CO2 concentration later (by several hundred years)." A few notable pieces by Hayden are Global Warming: More Hot Air and (delivered at the 2008 and 2009 ICCC's) The Overstated Role of Carbon Dioxide on Climate Change and Debunking Global Warming Propaganda.Back to top Briefly NotedInconvenient Developments for Promoters of Man-Made Global Warming Fears (PDF)
The Real Climate Agenda (PDF)
Global Warming and the Sun
Critique of DeSmogBlog.com (PDF)
Texas Wind Power: Reality vs. Hype
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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