It might take a while to sink in, but the global warming cause is on the skids. Two issues are taking the whole project down: it is getting cooler not warmer (and hence the change of the rhetoric to a vague concern over "climate change"), and the email scandal of a few weeks back proved that this really is an opinion cartel with preset views not driven by science.
Oh sure, people are saying that climategate is not really very serious and is only being exploited by Fox News and the like. And it's true that not all measures of global temperature show cooling and that the science can be complex.
On that basis, the New York Times urges us to ignore the outpouring. "It is also important not to let one set of purloined e-mail messages undermine the science and the clear case for action, in Washington and in Copenhagen."
Yes, a clear case. Come on. The whole political agenda of these people is now being seriously questioned. It is no longer a slam-dunk case that we are going to have world central planning in order to control the climate and protect the holy earth from the effects of industrialization. Oh, and tax us good and hard in the process.
But you know what is most tragic to me about this? This whole hysteria led to a fantastic diversion of energy on the left side of the political spectrum. Instead of working against war and the police state, issues on which the left tends to be pretty good, instincts were diverted to the preposterous cause of creating a statist system for global thermometer management.
The effort to whip everyone up into a frenzy over this began more than ten years ago. Every lefty fundraising letter harped on the issue, and demanded people commit their lives to it, explaining that if mother earth dies, then all is lost. It is a more important issue than all the rest, the litmus test to determine whether you are a friend or an enemy.
This made it very difficult for libertarians to cooperate with the left over the last years. Sure, there are some libertarian ideas for dealing with pollution, but none as compelling as central planning, and there was never any way that we would go along with that idea. The costs associated with dismantling industrial civilization outweigh even the worst-case global-warming scenario.
And methodologically, the whole thing was always nuts. If we can't determine cause and effect now with certainty, how in the heck will we be able to determine it after the world state controls our carbon emissions, and impoverishes us in the process? No one will ever be in a position to say whether the policy worked or failed. That is not a good basis for enacting legislation.
Meanwhile, the left threw everything it had into this hysteria. Protests, letters, billions in spending, frenzy, moral passion, mania, witch hunts – you name it. You would swear that climate change was the issue of the millennium for these people.
Meanwhile, the police state has made unbelievable advances in the last ten years. We all live today in fear of the state's "security" apparatus. Airports have become living chapters in a dystopian novel. The local police treat us like potential terrorists. Crossing the US border is becoming reminiscent of East Germany. You can't go anywhere without your papers.
And where has the left been while the whole world is being Nazified? Worrying about my barbecue grill out back.
Then there is the war issue. The scary George Bush started war after war and kept them going to bolster his own power and prestige, creating as many enemies as possible through provocations and making up enemies if he had to. He funded a bubble that wrecked the economy and destroyed country after country in the name of justice and peace.
And what followed Bush? A president who repudiated this ghastly legacy? No, Obama is a supporter of the same wars and continues them, even ramps them up. Does the left consider him a bad guy? Not really. With a handful of exceptions, his critics on the left are friendly critics. They are glad to put up with this because he is willing to do their bidding on the climate change front.
You think Democrat politicians don't exploit this? They surely do. In this sense, the climate issue is much like the pro-life cause on the right. If a politician pushes the correct buttons, it doesn't matter what else they say or do. They are no longer looked at with a critical eye.
The American left has long forgotten its roots. As Arthur Ekirch has explained, the left sold its soul to the state with the New Deal. Whereas it once opposed regimentation and industrial management of society, it turned to support exactly that. War was the next issue to go. The New Left in the 1960s held out the hope of capturing some of that early love of liberty on the left, even the anarchist impulse, but the New Left didn't last long. It was eventually swallowed up by machine politics.
The left today that supports world government to stop climate change bears little resemblance to the left of 100 years ago, which favored civil liberties and social liberality and was willing to do anything to end war. Now it has diverted its energies to a preposterously unworkable scheme based on pseudo-science. This is a terrible tragedy.
The left still has much to contribute to American public life. It can oppose the police state and the militarization of society. It can favor human liberty in most every area of life, even if it hasn't made its peace with the free market. Most of all, it can oppose American imperialism. But before it recaptures the spirit of its youth, it has to get rid of the preposterous idea that it should support the total state to manage what every generation has always known is unmanageable.
Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after 'Danish text' leak
John Vidal in Copenhagen
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 December 2009 14.09 GMT
Developing countries react furiously to leaked draft agreement that would hand more power to rich nations, sideline the UN's negotiating role and abandon the Kyoto protocol
The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN's role in all future climate change negotiations.
The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.
The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as "the circle of commitment" – but understood to include the UK, US and Denmark – has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalised this week.
The agreement, leaked to the Guardian, is a departure from the Kyoto protocol's principle that rich nations, which have emitted the bulk of the CO2, should take on firm and binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, while poorer nations were not compelled to act. The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol – the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions.
The document was described last night by one senior diplomat as "a very dangerous document for developing countries. It is a fundamental reworking of the UN balance of obligations. It is to be superimposed without discussion on the talks".
A confidential analysis of the text by developing countries also seen by the Guardian shows deep unease over details of the text. In particular, it is understood to:
• Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;
• Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called "the most vulnerable";
• Weaken the UN's role in handling climate finance;
• Not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, while allowing rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes.
Developing countries that have seen the text are understood to be furious that it is being promoted by rich countries without their knowledge and without discussion in the negotiations.
"It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process," said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.
Antonio Hill, climate policy adviser for Oxfam International, said: "This is only a draft but it highlights the risk that when the big countries come together, the small ones get hurting. On every count the emission cuts need to be scaled up. It allows too many loopholes and does not suggest anything like the 40% cuts that science is saying is needed."
Hill continued: "It proposes a green fund to be run by a board but the big risk is that it will run by the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility [a partnership of 10 agencies including the World Bank and the UN Environment Programme] and not the UN. That would be a step backwards, and it tries to put constraints on developing countries when none were negotiated in earlier UN climate talks."
The text was intended by Denmark and rich countries to be a working framework, which would be adapted by countries over the next week. It is particularly inflammatory because it sidelines the UN negotiating process and suggests that rich countries are desperate for world leaders to have a text to work from when they arrive next week.
Few numbers or figures are included in the text because these would be filled in later by world leaders. However, it seeks to hold temperature rises to 2C and mentions the sum of $10bn a year to help poor countries adapt to climate change from 2012-15.
Paleo-historical evidence? See also the article posted by Husq above, or any reasonable anthropological text. I don't really see any reason to disbelieve it, I can however see why CRU scientists may have been troubled by the medieval warm period, which is very well documented.
Medieval Warm Period (about 800–1300) There’s lots of different graphs showing lower and some higher. But nothing in our old history books suggesting that it was higher or lower (If you can find any from that era) But there is much in our old history books describing ice skating on the Thames for example on what they have termed the little ice age (about 1400–1850) When printing became more common place.
This shows regional warming (weather)? Not necessarily global warming or temperatures like we see today. Also I don’t trust the science or the compartmentalisation which serves secrecy and there is no mention in our history books of a MWP.
Northern hemisphere temperature reconstructions for the past 2,000 years. Wiki
I would have thought, that would have been in our recorded history in some way.
Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 431 Location: North East England
Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 2:58 pm Post subject:
Andrew. wrote:
Medieval Warm Period (about 800–1300) There’s lots of different graphs showing lower and some higher. But nothing in our old history books suggesting that it was higher or lower (If you can find any from that era) But there is much in our old history books describing ice skating on the Thames for example on what they have termed the little ice age (about 1400–1850) When printing became more common place.
I would have thought, that would have been in our recorded history in some way.
The mean temperature is believed to have declined by 1 Degree Celsius, during the 14th Century, as noted in Standards of Living in Medieval England by C.Dyer (Cambridge 1989). This temperature change in turn led to the great famine of 1315-17, when heavy and prolonged rainfall destroyed crops and flooded roads. Farm animals were to seen drowned in their fields and there was a greater than usual prevalence of parasites and crop diseases.
More pointedly, at the start of the 14th Century vineyards were commonplace, many Royal and noble houses had extensive vineyards, by the end of the 14th Century, there were none. Given the low number of vineyards to be found in the UK today, one must logically conclude that the climate was warmer than today in the period prior to 1300.
Given that the study of Medieval history relies heavily on official documentation - tax records and parish records -and that chroniclers were few and far between, its not surprising that details like climate and spontaneous events were not recorded.
Although I have not really read much on the subject, the collapse of the Classic Maya in the 8th and 9th Century may be indicative of global climate change that would support the MWP, one current theory of the cause of the collapse suggests climatic change....
Medieval Warm Period (about 800–1300) There’s lots of different graphs showing lower and some higher. But nothing in our old history books suggesting that it was higher or lower (If you can find any from that era) But there is much in our old history books describing ice skating on the Thames for example on what they have termed the little ice age (about 1400–1850) When printing became more common place.
I would have thought, that would have been in our recorded history in some way.
The mean temperature is believed to have declined by 1 Degree Celsius, during the 14th Century, as noted in Standards of Living in Medieval England by C.Dyer (Cambridge 1989). This temperature change in turn led to the great famine of 1315-17, when heavy and prolonged rainfall destroyed crops and flooded roads. Farm animals were to seen drowned in their fields and there was a greater than usual prevalence of parasites and crop diseases.
More pointedly, at the start of the 14th Century vineyards were commonplace, many Royal and noble houses had extensive vineyards, by the end of the 14th Century, there were none. Given the low number of vineyards to be found in the UK today, one must logically conclude that the climate was warmer than today in the period prior to 1300.
We have alway been able to grow vineyards here in recorded history.
We had a brief resurgence (in the little ice age) "in the 17th and 18th Centuries, only to decline to historic lows in the 19th Century when only 8 vineyards are recorded. Contemporary popular sentiment towards English (and Welsh) wine can be well judged by a comment in ‘Punch’ (a satirical magazine) that the wine would require 4 people to drink it – one victim, two to hold him down, and one other to pour the wine down his throat."
Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 431 Location: North East England
Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 3:37 pm Post subject:
Andrew. wrote:
wepmob2000 wrote:
Andrew. wrote:
Medieval Warm Period (about 800–1300) There’s lots of different graphs showing lower and some higher. But nothing in our old history books suggesting that it was higher or lower (If you can find any from that era) But there is much in our old history books describing ice skating on the Thames for example on what they have termed the little ice age (about 1400–1850) When printing became more common place.
I would have thought, that would have been in our recorded history in some way.
The mean temperature is believed to have declined by 1 Degree Celsius, during the 14th Century, as noted in Standards of Living in Medieval England by C.Dyer (Cambridge 1989). This temperature change in turn led to the great famine of 1315-17, when heavy and prolonged rainfall destroyed crops and flooded roads. Farm animals were to seen drowned in their fields and there was a greater than usual prevalence of parasites and crop diseases.
More pointedly, at the start of the 14th Century vineyards were commonplace, many Royal and noble houses had extensive vineyards, by the end of the 14th Century, there were none. Given the low number of vineyards to be found in the UK today, one must logically conclude that the climate was warmer than today in the period prior to 1300.
You have alway been able to grow vineyards here in recorded history.
We had a brief resurgence (in the little ice age) "in the 17th and 18th Centuries, only to decline to historic lows in the 19th Century when only 8 vineyards are recorded. Contemporary popular sentiment towards English (and Welsh) wine can be well judged by a comment in ‘Punch’ (a satirical magazine) that the wine would require 4 people to drink it – one victim, two to hold him down, and one other to pour the wine down his throat."
Presumably because of the low quality of the grapes....? (I'm no wine expert, but presumably those grown in hotter climes are better quality).
English Wine was commonplace prior to the 14th Century - "Most wine production in England is carried out by the nobility and clergy for their own use." (Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, Ian Mortimer, London 2008). Given that imported wines were available in England at that time, its impossible to imagine that the nobility and clergy wouldn't have bought foreign wine unless English wine was satisfactory....
Medieval Warm Period (about 800–1300) There’s lots of different graphs showing lower and some higher. But nothing in our old history books suggesting that it was higher or lower (If you can find any from that era) But there is much in our old history books describing ice skating on the Thames for example on what they have termed the little ice age (about 1400–1850) When printing became more common place.
I would have thought, that would have been in our recorded history in some way.
The mean temperature is believed to have declined by 1 Degree Celsius, during the 14th Century, as noted in Standards of Living in Medieval England by C.Dyer (Cambridge 1989). This temperature change in turn led to the great famine of 1315-17, when heavy and prolonged rainfall destroyed crops and flooded roads. Farm animals were to seen drowned in their fields and there was a greater than usual prevalence of parasites and crop diseases.
More pointedly, at the start of the 14th Century vineyards were commonplace, many Royal and noble houses had extensive vineyards, by the end of the 14th Century, there were none. Given the low number of vineyards to be found in the UK today, one must logically conclude that the climate was warmer than today in the period prior to 1300.
You have alway been able to grow vineyards here in recorded history.
We had a brief resurgence (in the little ice age) "in the 17th and 18th Centuries, only to decline to historic lows in the 19th Century when only 8 vineyards are recorded. Contemporary popular sentiment towards English (and Welsh) wine can be well judged by a comment in ‘Punch’ (a satirical magazine) that the wine would require 4 people to drink it – one victim, two to hold him down, and one other to pour the wine down his throat."
Presumably because of the low quality of the grapes....? (I'm no wine expert, but presumably those grown in hotter climes are better quality).
English Wine was commonplace prior to the 14th Century - "Most wine production in England is carried out by the nobility and clergy for their own use." (Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, Ian Mortimer, London 2008). Given that imported wines were available in England at that time, its impossible to imagine that the nobility and clergy wouldn't have bought foreign wine unless English wine was satisfactory....
Please see in ( )
Given that imported wines were available in England at that time,( I would have thought so, would't you) its impossible to imagine that the nobility and clergy wouldn't have bought foreign wine unless English wine was satisfactory (could not the nobility and clergy afford to buy that imported wine)
Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 431 Location: North East England
Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 4:12 pm Post subject:
I'm not sure I understand your point, imported wine was widely available at that time, the majority of wine available in tavern's was foreign, as English wine was largely kept by the nobility and clergy for their own use. Although this imported wine was too expensive for yeomen and villeins, it would have been well within the reach of nobility and clergy. The fact the wealthier classes chose English wine must indicate something about its quality.........
I'm not sure I understand your point, imported wine was widely available at that time, the majority of wine available in tavern's was foreign, as English wine was largely kept by the Nobility and clergy for their own use. Although this wine was too expensive for yeomen and villeins, it would have been well within the reach of nobility and clergy. The fact the wealthier classes chose English wine must indicate something about its quality.........
How do you know the wealthier Nobility and clergy classes chose that wine. Surley imported wine would have been more expensive because of the transport.
Quote:
The mean temperature is believed to have declined by 1 Degree Celsius, during the 14th Century, as noted in Standards of Living in Medieval England by C.Dyer (Cambridge 1989). This temperature change in turn led to the great famine of 1315-17, when heavy and prolonged rainfall destroyed crops and flooded roads. Farm animals were to seen drowned in their fields and there was a greater than usual prevalence of parasites and crop diseases.
Intresting.
"The Great Famine of 1315–1317 (occasionally dated 1315-1322) was the first of a series of large scale crises that struck Europe early in the fourteenth century, causing millions of deaths over an extended number of years and marking a clear end to an earlier period of growth and prosperity during the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. Starting with bad weather in spring 1315, universal crop failures lasted through 1316 until summer 1317; Europe did not fully recover until 1322. It was a period marked by extreme levels of crime, disease and mass death and infanticide. It had consequences for Church, State, European society and future calamities to follow in the fourteenth century."
Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 431 Location: North East England
Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 4:22 pm Post subject:
Is it not logical to assume that if one can afford either of two options, that if one option is markedly inferior to the other, one will choose the superior option. Lets not lose sight of the fact there was less clean water in England at the time, various alcoholic beverages were a mainstay of the typical diet.
Also do not forget the well recorded Dunwich disasters of 1286-1347, this whole period was one of fierce climatic change, similar in some respects to the 'phenomena' we experience today but which is conveniently attributed to AGW
Last edited by wepmob2000 on Wed Dec 09, 2009 4:37 pm; edited 1 time in total
Is it not logical to assume that if one can afford either of two options, that if one option is markedly inferior to the other, one will choose the superior option. Lets not lose sight of the fact there was less clean water in England at the time, various alcoholic beverages were a mainstay of the typical diet.
What do the wealthier nobility and clergy classes choose to drink now so called good or bad wine. Yes ale was mostly drank by others.
Quote:
wepmob2000 wrote:
I'm not sure I understand your point, imported wine was widely available at that time, the majority of wine available in tavern's was foreign, as English wine was largely kept by the Nobility and clergy for their own use. Although this wine was too expensive for yeomen and villeins, it would have been well within the reach of nobility and clergy. The fact the wealthier classes chose English wine must indicate something about its quality.........
How do you know the wealthier Nobility and clergy classes chose that wine. Surley imported wine would have been more expensive because of the transport.
Also do not forget the well recorded Dunwich disasters of 1286-1347, this whole period was one of fierce climatic change, similar in some respects to the 'phenomena' we experience today but which is conveniently attributed to AGW Rolling Eyes
Very conveniently, I was alway taught that it was more like the Black Death and such; not climatic change or MWP or AGW.
The medieval warm period is a known fact, where temperatures rose on a global scale. It is how Greenland came to be inhabitable and capable of being farmed. Only the climate liars at the IPCC, now exposed by Climategate as the fraudsters they are, continue to deny this established historical fact. It is proven not just by historical records but by the usual means of core sampling etc. by which other periods of Earth's climate changes are recorded. It is a sign of desperation that this period, once completely ignored by the IPCC as it clashed with their scam, is once again being questioned. It is on a par with the infamous "Hockey Stick" lie, proven to be junk but which is still touted by some as a truth.
Copenhagen and Global Warming: Ten Facts and Ten Myths on Climate Change
By Prof. Robert M. Carter
Global Research, December 9, 2009
James Cook University, Queensland, Australia
Ten facts about climate change
1. Climate has always changed, and it always will. The assumption that prior to the industrial revolution the Earth had a “stable” climate is simply wrong. The only sensible thing to do about climate change is to prepare for it.
2. Accurate temperature measurements made from weather balloons and satellites since the late 1950s show no atmospheric warming since 1958. In contrast, averaged ground-based thermometers record a warming of about 0.40 C over the same time period. Many scientists believe that the thermometer record is biased by the Urban Heat Island effect and other artefacts.
3. Despite the expenditure of more than US$50 billion dollars looking for it since 1990, no unambiguous anthropogenic (human) signal has been identified in the global temperature pattern.
4. Without the greenhouse effect, the average surface temperature on Earth would be -180 C rather than the equable +150 C that has nurtured the development of life.
Carbon dioxide is a minor greenhouse gas, responsible for ~26% (80 C) of the total greenhouse effect (330C), of which in turn at most 25% (~20C) can be attributed to carbon dioxide contributed by human activity. Water vapour, contributing at least 70% of the effect, is by far the most important atmospheric greenhouse gas.
5. On both annual (1 year) and geological (up to 100,000 year) time scales, changes in atmospheric temperature PRECEDE changes in CO2. Carbon dioxide therefore cannot be the primary forcing agent for temperature increase (though increasing CO2 does cause a diminishingly mild positive temperature feedback).
6. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has acted as the main scaremonger for the global warming lobby that led to the Kyoto Protocol. Fatally, the IPCC is a political, not scientific, body.
Hendrik Tennekes, a retired Director of Research at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, says that “the IPCC review process is fatally flawed” and that “the IPCC wilfully ignores the paradigm shift created by the foremost meteorologist of the twentieth century, Edward Lorenz“.
7. The Kyoto Protocol will cost many trillions of dollars and exercises a significant impost those countries that signed it, but will deliver no significant cooling (less than .020 C by 2050, assuming that all commitments are met).
The Russian Academy of Sciences says that Kyoto has no scientific basis; Andre Illarianov, senior advisor to Russian president Putin, calls Kyoto-ism “one of the most agressive, intrusive, destructive ideologies since the collapse of communism and fascism“. If Kyoto was a “first step” then it was in the same wrong direction as the later “Bali roadmap”.
8. Climate change is a non-linear (chaotic) process, some parts of which are only dimly or not at all understood. No deterministic computer model will ever be able to make an accurate prediction of climate 100 years into the future.
9. Not surprisingly, therefore, experts in computer modelling agree also that no current (or likely near-future) climate model is able to make accurate predictions of regional climate change.
10. The biggest untruth about human global warming is the assertion that nearly all scientists agree that it is occurring, and at a dangerous rate.
The reality is that almost every aspect of climate science is the subject of vigorous debate. Further, thousands of qualified scientists worldwide have signed declarations which (i) query the evidence for hypothetical human-caused warming and (ii) support a rational scientific (not emotional) approach to its study within the context of known natural climate change.
LAYING TEN GLOBAL WARMING MYTHS
Myth 1 Average global temperature (AGT) has increased over the last few years.
Fact 1 Within error bounds, AGT has not increased since 1995 and has declined since 2002, despite an increase in atmospheric CO2 of 8% since 1995.
Myth 2 During the late 20th Century, AGT increased at a dangerously fast rate and reached an unprecedented magnitude.
Facts 2 The late 20th Century AGT rise was at a rate of 1-20 C/century, which lies well within natural rates of climate change for the last 10,000 yr. AGT has been several degrees warmer than today many times in the recent geological past.
Myth 3 AGT was relatively unchanging in pre-industrial times, has sky-rocketed since 1900, and will increase by several degrees more over the next 100 years (the Mann, Bradley & Hughes “hockey stick” curve and its computer extrapolation).
Facts 3 The Mann et al. curve has been exposed as a statistical contrivance. There is no convincing evidence that past climate was unchanging, nor that 20th century changes in AGT were unusual, nor that dangerous human warming is underway.
Myth 4 Computer models predict that AGT will increase by up to 60 C over the next 100 years.
Myth 5 Warming of more than 20 C will have catastrophic effects on ecosystems and mankind alike.
Facts 5 A 20 C change would be well within previous natural bounds. Ecosystems have been adapting to such changes since time immemorial. The result is the process that we call evolution. Mankind can and does adapt to all climate extremes.
Myth 6 Further human addition of CO2 to the atmosphere will cause dangerous warming, and is generally harmful.
Facts 6 No human-caused warming can yet be detected that is distinct from natural system variation and noise. Any additional human-caused warming which occurs will probably amount to less than 10 C. Atmospheric CO2 is a beneficial fertilizer for plants, including especially cereal crops, and also aids efficient evapo-transpiration.
Myth 7 Changes in solar activity cannot explain recent changes in AGT.
Facts 7 The sun’s output varies in several ways on many time scales (including the 11-, 22 and 80-year solar cycles), with concomitant effects on Earth’s climate. While changes in visible radiation are small, changes in particle flux and magnetic field are known to exercise a strong climatic effect. More than 50% of the 0.80 C rise in AGT observed during the 20th century can be attributed to solar change.
Myth 8 Unprecedented melting of ice is taking place in both the north and south polar regions.
Facts 8 Both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are growing in thickness and cooling at their summit. Sea ice around Antarctica attained a record area in 2007. Temperatures in the Arctic region are just now achieving the levels of natural warmth experienced during the early 1940s, and the region was warmer still (sea-ice free) during earlier times.
Myth 9 Human-caused global warming is causing dangerous global sea-level (SL) rise.
Facts 9 SL change differs from time to time and place to place; between 1955 and 1996, for example, SL at Tuvalu fell by 105 mm (2.5 mm/yr). Global average SL is a statistical measure of no value for environmental planning purposes. A global average SL rise of 1-2 mm/yr occurred naturally over the last 150 years, and shows no sign of human-influenced increase.
Myth 10 The late 20th Century increase in AGT caused an increase in the number of severe storms (cyclones), or in storm intensity.
Facts 10 Meteorological experts are agreed that no increase in storms has occurred beyond that associated with natural variation of the climate system.
Robert M. Carter is a Research Professor at James Cook University (Queensland) and the University of Adelaide (South Australia). He is a palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist and environmental scientist with more than thirty years professional experience.
Monckton: Secretive Copenhagen Treaty Creates Larcenous Global Government Tax
Text of agreement outlines plan for tax on all transactions in addition to 2 percent GDP tax, mandates globalist power grab on an “unimaginable scale,” by a “sinister dictatorship,” warns Monckton
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Lord Christopher Monckton warns that the secretive draft version of the Copenhagen climate change treaty represents a global government power grab on an “unimaginable scale,” and mandates the creation of 700 new bureaucracies as well as a colossal raft of new taxes including 2 percent levies on both GDP and every international financial transaction.
Speaking with The Alex Jones Show, Monckton, who is in Copenhagen attending the UN climate summit, said that when he attempted to obtain a copy of the current draft of the negotiating text agreement, he was initially rebuffed before he threatened an international diplomatic incident unless the document was forthcoming.
“I insisted and it took about 10 minutes and they consulted each other with three or four of them arguing over it – none of them would produce the document….I said I know this treaty exists because this is what the conference is all about,” said Monckton.
Only after Monckton threatened repercussions was he handed the the current draft of the treaty, and the details it contained are perhaps a clue as to why the UN officials were so keen to keep it under wraps.
“Once again they are desperately trying to conceal from everybody here the magnitude of what they’re attempting to do – they really are attempting to set up a world government,” said Monckton, adding that the word “government” was no longer used but the process of further centralization of power into global hands was clearly spelled out in the treaty.
Monckton said that the new world government outlined in the treaty would be handed powers to, “Tax the American economy to the extent of 2 percent GDP, to impose a further tax of 2 percent on every financial transaction….and to close down effectively the economies of the west, transfer your jobs to third world countries – all of that is still in the treaty draft.”
As the leaked document out of Copenhagen reported on by the London Guardian revealed yesterday, this massive new system of global taxation will be paid not to the UN, but directly into the coffers of the World Bank.
“The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol – the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions,” reported the Guardian.
Monckton illustrated the size of the new taxes being proposed by noting they amounted to at least half of the entire US defense budget.
“This is how they are going to fund this vast new government they’re setting up,” said Monckton, adding that he counted around 700 new bureaucracies that would be created as a result of the treaty, which would be bankrolled by taxpayers even outside of the raft of new taxes the treaty would create.
Monckton outlined how the new taxes would be enforced, stating, “They’re going to auction allowances to emit greenhouse gases and if you don’t buy an allowance to emit greenhouse gases, you won’t be allowed to emit them,” adding that the text contained a provision for a “uniform global levy of $2 dollars per ton of CO2 for all fossil fuel emissions,” as well as an additional tax on every commercial plane journey, except ones that go in or out of poorer countries.
There would also be a “global levy on international monetary transactions – that means every transfer of money across borders will be taxed,” said Monckton, adding that this would be on top of the GDP tax.
The treaty outlines, “Penalties or fines for non-compliance,” in developed countries and the creation of an international police force to “enforce its will by imposing unlimited financial penalties on any countries whose performance under this treaty they don’t like,” added Monckton, saying that it amounted to a total global government takeover on an “unimaginable scale”.
“We’re looking at a grab for absolute power and absolute financial control worldwide by the UN and its associated bureaucracies and 700 new bureaucratic bodies,” said Monckton.
Speaking about how such draconian measures were being forced through despite the recent scandal surrounding how key IPCC-affiliated scientists conspired to “hide the decline” in global warming, Monckton emphasized how the climate change establishment were still ludicrously attempting to downplay the significance of the climategate emails by merely repeating their already discredited propaganda about global warming.
“What has happened is that the mainstream media has done themselves terrible damage by signing up to this climate nonsense and then by servilely refusing to admit that climategate was happening, admit how serious it was and simply inform their readers of what was actually in these emails,” said Monckton, “Admissions that while they’re telling us, as the Met Office did just today, that today is the warmest decade since records began 150 years ago, privately what they’re saying in the climategate emails is ‘hey look we’ve got a temperature which has been falling and we can’t explain why and it’s a travesty that we can’t explain why’ – so they’re saying one thing to us publicly to maintain the scare that’s making them rich, and that’s what’s called fraud, it’s criminal fraud, and on the other hand they’re saying privately ‘oh dear oh dear we can’t account for the fact that there’s been no warming for the last 15 years’”.
Monckton said that the Copenhagen treaty meant America was in “immediate peril” of losing its freedom to a “sinister dictatorship” being formed under the contrived pretext of global warming.
Watch the five part interview with Monckton below.
Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 431 Location: North East England
Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 3:27 am Post subject:
Andrew. wrote:
One thing that does bother me more and more for instance is when I went to a recent peace festival. Someone from the “Friends Of The Earth” stand was trying to tell me and convince me that there are to many people in the world. Which gave me an opportunity to explain that it is not the case and there are more responsible ways.
Agreed My experience echoes this, if you engage some environmentalists for long enough, you gain the impression they view humanity as a virus which attacks Earth, I also gained the impression that when sacrifices were to be made, this was for others to do..... I hardly need mention the hypocrisy of people like Emma Thompson - for example - herself a frequent flyer with BA on the LA to London route, who has the temerity to lecture us on how we should fly less....
Similarly, if you can gain access some environmental forums, much of the talk is in Malthusian terms, with the need for 'checks' or depopulation. This thread... http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=142570#142570 on this forum also supports what we've found somewhat.....
Its a shame, because whether you believe the AGW line or not, many proposals put forth by environmentalists seem to be common sense and necessary. For example, this little piece put together by Andy Cato - unfortunately only in PDF format - but with some very sensible measures which could be taken (Ignore the guff about AGW and skip straight to page 5 - 'The Solutions')
So should we trust the compartmentalised Science that supports your view, but not trust the compartmentalised Science that says otherwise ? much of which can’t be verified (by the man on the street) and used by Mr Monckton ect.
Do you not think these people will try and control both sides of the debate and are such nice people that they would rather it not be a loaded gun to force thier solution.
Mr Monckton is the new UKIP Climate Change Spokesman
Quote:
Viscount Monckton, better known as Christopher Monckton, the journalist and author has today joined the UK Independence Party.
At a press conference in Copenhagen he said: "For some years I have been concerned that the democracy into which I was born has become a bureaucratic centralist state run by commissars who we, the people, do not elect, cannot question, cannot hold to account, cannot remove and cannot replace.
"Moreover, due to our membership of the European Union, most of the laws we cannot now rescind.
"People, through their elected politicians no longer have the right to propose law or decide on legislation and its amendments. Everything is now merely subject to the agreement of the unelected bureaucrats.
"No other party except the UK Independence Party believes that Britain should remain a self governing country. I have long been a friend and admirer of Lord Pearson of Rannoch. Now that he has become the leader of UKIP, the nation will take our party very seriously indeed."
UKIP Leader Malcolm Pearson said, "I am delighted that Lord Monckton has accepted my invitation to join UKIP as our chief spokesman on Climate Change.
"He was Margaret Thatcher's Special Adviser in Downing Street on a number of areas, including science. He is now perhaps the world's leading expert on the case against Man-made Global Warming, and as such is a household name in the United States and elsewhere.
"To have another heavyweight join us at this time shows how the party is continuing to grow".
Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 431 Location: North East England
Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 2:47 am Post subject:
Andrew. wrote:
So should we trust the compartmentalised Science that supports your view, but not trust the compartmentalised Science that says otherwise ? much of which can’t be verified (by the man on the street) and used by Mr Monckton ect.
Do you not think these people will try and control both sides of the debate and are such nice people that they would rather it not be a loaded gun to force thier solution.
There's not much of the science that can be verified by anyone, especially as obtaining the raw data, even under the Freedom of Information act is impossible, thats one thing we do know. The other thing I know is there's only one 'side' in this debate thats trying to stifle debate or any form of challenge to its hypothesis (and thats all AGW is - a hypothesis). This should cause everyone a great deal of concern, that a certain grouping wants the world to act on its beliefs without any form of challenge or dissent (but that its OK because its 'peer' reviewed....). We should also be wary of the radical environmentalism that underpins this movement, and the fact that once again a lot of people are going to fill their pockets while Mr Average Joe makes all the sacrifices, not to mention the inevitable loss of individual liberties that accompany some 'Green' policies.
Kevin Fagan,Justin Berton, Chronicle Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
(12-0 14:20 PST SAN FRANCISCO --
Everyone going to work felt it, homeless people felt it more, and some birds felt it so much they died.
Tuesday inflicted the coldest morning of the year on the Bay Area - a record-setter in some parts - and any living thing breathing frosty air was either miserable or an unusually enthusiastic fan of the brisk outdoors.
"I don't know how we can take another night like last night," said 57-year-old Eddie Hensley, huddled under a blanket in an alley near Sixth Street in San Francisco in the still-chilly afternoon. "That was the coldest I can remember. Thought I would freeze solid right here on the sidewalk."
Hensley and his girlfriend shivered beneath three blankets Monday night, but someone stole them after the couple woke up and went off to find food. They managed to find one blanket as a replacement, but with evening approaching they weren't hopeful of more.
Daytime in San Francisco warmed to just 47 degrees as Hensley lay on the sidewalk, but that was at least an improvement from the 27 degrees reported at Golden Gate Park early Tuesday by private forecaster Mike Pechner.
The blast of frigid air led to record-tying lows for a Dec. 8 at Moffett Field in Sunnyvale (31 degrees, equaling a mark set in 1994) and San Rafael (28, tying the record set in 1972). The official low for San Francisco was 38, 4 degrees above the record for the date.
The icy assault isn't expected to ease up until at least tonight.
"This is a shot of arctic air that came down," said Diana Henderson, a forecaster for the weather service in Monterey. "It happens every year in varying strengths. Maybe this one was a little early in the season."
Throughout the area, birds and other creatures sought warmth anywhere they could - and at one business, that probably led to death.
Employees at Paul Thiebaud Gallery on Chestnut Street in San Francisco said they found one bird electrocuted Tuesday morning, the second in five days. Although birds are not typically electrocuted by sitting on electrical lines, gallery workers believed these were seeking warmth and wound up too close to an open current.
"It's very disturbing," said gallery director Kelly Purcell. "We've been here for 20 years and never seen anything like this."
The weather service expected Tuesday night to be at least as cold as Monday.
"You know that expression, 'Two-dog night or three-dog night?' " said the Rev. Glenda Hope, who ministers to the poor and the homeless in San Francisco. "Well, we just had a three-dog night - and it looks like we'll be having another. Not a good thing."
After this morning, the thermometer should start to rise a bit as the first of a series of expected Pacific storms approaches the coast. Rain is possible Thursday and again over the weekend, forecasters said.
Before those storms come in, pollution building up in stagnant air could lead to unhealthy conditions for people with respiratory problems, officials said. As a result, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District has declared a Spare the Air day for today.
Burning of wood and fire logs is banned indoors and out during winter season Spare the Air alerts. The ban is in place in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, southern Sonoma and southwestern Solano counties.
Lengthy article exposing yet more fakery from the Climate Liars. Visit site for graphs and detail.
Quote:
Hoax and Change: Climategate Evidence ..... not Hacked, Inside Whistleblower
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
There is not, now, much value in arguing about the science of climate change. Even if it’s wrong, enough people now believe it that it may as well be right. (Quote of the week)
Climategate, the biggest fraud in science history, has more twists and turns than a Christie novel. Check out this latest stunning post which I found over at Watts Up With That -- the leading blog on the true science of climate change. It's a very thorough and technical analysis, which proves that the release of documents came from an inside whistleblower, instead of from some Russian hacker. His identity has not been released. This is important, because the climate changers have been using the hacking as an illegal act in an effort to mitigate the impact of the released messages that show Global Warming is a scam. The moochers and looters have attempted to disqualify the evidence as it was "illegally" obtained (the NY Times, of FISA and NSA leak fame, would not run the emails as they were private ...heh). Read the post. We have much more to fear:
THE SMOKING GUN AT DARWIN ZERO
People keep saying “Yes, the Climategate scientists behaved badly. But that doesn’t mean the data is bad. That doesn’t mean the earth is not warming.”
Darwin Airport - by Dominic Perrin via Panoramio
Let me start with the second objection first. The earth has generally been warming since the Little Ice Age, around 1650. There is general agreement that the earth has warmed since then. See e.g. Akasofu. Climategate doesn’t affect that.
The second question, the integrity of the data, is different. People say “Yes, they destroyed emails, and hid from Freedom of information Acts, and messed with proxies, and fought to keep other scientists’ papers out of the journals … but that doesn’t affect the data, the data is still good.” Which sounds reasonable.
There are three main global temperature datasets. One is at the CRU, Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, where we’ve been trying to get access to the raw numbers. One is at NOAA/GHCN, the Global Historical Climate Network. The final one is at NASA/GISS, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The three groups take raw data, and they “homogenize” it to remove things like when a station was moved to a warmer location and there’s a 2C jump in the temperature. The three global temperature records are usually called CRU, GISS, and GHCN. Both GISS and CRU, however, get almost all of their raw data from GHCN. All three produce very similar global historical temperature records from the raw data.
So I’m still on my multi-year quest to understand the climate data. You never know where this data chase will lead. This time, it has ended me up in Australia. I got to thinking about Professor Wibjorn Karlen’s statement about Australia that I quoted here:
Another example is Australia. NASA [GHCN] only presents 3 stations covering the period 1897-1992. What kind of data is the IPCC Australia diagram based on?
If any trend it is a slight cooling. However, if a shorter period (1949-2005) is used, the temperature has increased substantially. The Australians have many stations and have published more detailed maps of changes and trends.
The folks at CRU told Wibjorn that he was just plain wrong. Here’s what they said is right, the record that Wibjorn was talking about, Fig. 9.12 in the UN IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, showing Northern Australia:
Figure 1. Temperature trends and model results in Northern Australia. Black line is observations (From Fig. 9.12 from the UN IPCC Fourth Annual Report). Covers the area from 110E to 155E, and from 30S to 11S. Based on the CRU land temperature.) Data from the CRU.
One of the things that was revealed in the released CRU emails is that the CRU basically uses the Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN) dataset for its raw data. So I looked at the GHCN dataset. There, I find three stations in North Australia as Wibjorn had said, and nine stations in all of Australia, that cover the period 1900-2000. Here is the average of the GHCN unadjusted data for those three Northern stations, from AIS:
Figure 2. GHCN Raw Data, All 100-yr stations in IPCC area above.
So once again Wibjorn is correct, this looks nothing like the corresponding IPCC temperature record for Australia. But it’s too soon to tell. Professor Karlen is only showing 3 stations. Three is not a lot of stations, but that’s all of the century-long Australian records we have in the IPCC specified region. OK, we’ve seen the longest stations record, so lets throw more records into the mix. Here’s every station in the UN IPCC specified region which contains temperature records that extend up to the year 2000 no matter when they started, which is 30 stations.
Figure 3. GHCN Raw Data, All stations extending to 2000 in IPCC area above.
Still no similarity with IPCC. So I looked at every station in the area. That’s 222 stations. Here’s that result:
Figure 4. GHCN Raw Data, All stations extending to 2000 in IPCC area above.
So you can see why Wibjorn was concerned. This looks nothing like the UN IPCC data, which came from the CRU, which was based on the GHCN data. Why the difference?
The answer is, these graphs all use the raw GHCN data. But the IPCC uses the “adjusted” data. GHCN adjusts the data to remove what it calls “inhomogeneities”. So on a whim I thought I’d take a look at the first station on the list, Darwin Airport, so I could see what an inhomogeneity might look like when it was at home. And I could find out how large the GHCN adjustment for Darwin inhomogeneities was.
First, what is an “inhomogeneity”? I can do no better than quote from GHCN:
Most long-term climate stations have undergone changes that make a time series of their observations inhomogeneous. There are many causes for the discontinuities, including changes in instruments, shelters, the environment around the shelter, the location of the station, the time of observation, and the method used to calculate mean temperature. Often several of these occur at the same time, as is often the case with the introduction of automatic weather stations that is occurring in many parts of the world. Before one can reliably use such climate data for analysis of longterm climate change, adjustments are needed to compensate for the nonclimatic discontinuities.
That makes sense. The raw data will have jumps from station moves and the like. We don’t want to think it’s warming just because the thermometer was moved to a warmer location. Unpleasant as it may seem, we have to adjust for those as best we can.
I always like to start with the rawest data, so I can understand the adjustments. At Darwin there are five separate individual station records that are combined to make up the final Darwin record. These are the individual records of stations in the area, which are numbered from zero to four:
Figure 5. Five individual temperature records for Darwin, plus station count (green line). This raw data is downloaded from GISS, but GISS use the GHCN raw data as the starting point for their analysis.
Darwin does have a few advantages over other stations with multiple records. There is a continuous record from 1941 to the present (Station 1). There is also a continuous record covering a century. finally, the stations are in very close agreement over the entire period of the record. In fact, where there are multiple stations in operation they are so close that you can’t see the records behind Station Zero.
This is an ideal station, because it also illustrates many of the problems with the raw temperature station data.
* There is no one record that covers the whole period.
* The shortest record is only nine years long.
* There are gaps of a month and more in almost all of the records.
* It looks like there are problems with the data at around 1941.
* Most of the datasets are missing months.
* For most of the period there are few nearby stations.
* There is no one year covered by all five records.
* The temperature dropped over a six year period, from a high in 1936 to a low in 1941. The station did move in 1941 … but what happened in the previous six years?
In resolving station records, it’s a judgment call. First off, you have to decide if what you are looking at needs any changes at all. In Darwin’s case, it’s a close call. The record seems to be screwed up around 1941, but not in the year of the move.
Also, although the 1941 temperature shift seems large, I see a similar sized shift from 1992 to 1999. Looking at the whole picture, I think I’d vote to leave it as it is, that’s always the best option when you don’t have other evidence. First do no harm.
However, there’s a case to be made for adjusting it, particularly given the 1941 station move. If I decided to adjust Darwin, I’d do it like this:
Figure 6 A possible adjustment for Darwin. Black line shows the total amount of the adjustment, on the right scale, and shows the timing of the change.
I shifted the pre-1941 data down by about 0.6C. We end up with little change end to end in my “adjusted” data (shown in red), it’s neither warming nor cooling. However, it reduces the apparent cooling in the raw data. Post-1941, where the other records overlap, they are very close, so I wouldn’t adjust them in any way. Why should we adjust those, they all show exactly the same thing.
OK, so that’s how I’d homogenize the data if I had to, but I vote against adjusting it at all. It only changes one station record (Darwin Zero), and the rest are left untouched.
Then I went to look at what happens when the GHCN removes the “in-homogeneities” to “adjust” the data. Of the five raw datasets, the GHCN discards two, likely because they are short and duplicate existing longer records. The three remaining records are first “homogenized” and then averaged to give the “GHCN Adjusted” temperature record for Darwin.
To my great surprise, here’s what I found. To explain the full effect, I am showing this with both datasets starting at the same point (rather than ending at the same point as they are often shown).
Figure 7. GHCN homogeneity adjustments to Darwin Airport combined record
YIKES! Before getting homogenized, temperatures in Darwin were falling at 0.7 Celcius per century … but after the homogenization, they were warming at 1.2 Celcius per century. And the adjustment that they made was over two degrees per century … when those guys “adjust”, they don’t mess around. And the adjustment is an odd shape, with the adjustment first going stepwise, then climbing roughly to stop at 2.4C.
Of course, that led me to look at exactly how the GHCN “adjusts” the temperature data. Here’s what they say in An Overview of the GHCN Database:
GHCN temperature data include two different datasets: the original data and a homogeneity- adjusted dataset. All homogeneity testing was done on annual time series. The homogeneity- adjustment technique used two steps.
The first step was creating a homogeneous reference series for each station (Peterson and Easterling 1994). Building a completely homogeneous reference series using data with unknown inhomogeneities may be impossible, but we used several techniques to minimize any potential inhomogeneities in the reference series.
…
In creating each year’s first difference reference series, we used the five most highly correlated neighboring stations that had enough data to accurately model the candidate station.
…
The final technique we used to minimize inhomogeneities in the reference series used the mean of the central three values (of the five neighboring station values) to create the first difference reference series.
Fair enough, that all sounds good. They pick five neighboring stations, and average them. Then they compare the average to the station in question. If it looks wonky compared to the average of the reference five, they check any historical records for changes, and if necessary, they homogenize the poor data mercilessly. I have some problems with what they do to homogenize it, but that’s how they identify the inhomogeneous stations.
OK … but given the scarcity of stations in Australia, I wondered how they would find five “neighboring stations” in 1941 …
So I looked it up. The nearest station that covers the year 1941 is 500 km away from Darwin. Not only is it 500 km away, it is the only station within 750 km of Darwin that covers the 1941 time period. (It’s also a pub, Daly Waters Pub to be exact, but hey, it’s Australia, good on ya.) So there simply aren’t five stations to make a “reference series” out of to check the 1936-1941 drop at Darwin.
Intrigued by the curious shape of the average of the homogenized Darwin records, I then went to see how they had homogenized each of the individual station records. What made up that strange average shown in Fig. 7? I started at zero with the earliest record. Here is Station Zero at Darwin, showing the raw and the homogenized versions.
Figure 8 Darwin Zero Homogeneity Adjustments. Black line shows amount and timing of adjustments.
Yikes again, double yikes! What on earth justifies that adjustment? How can they do that? We have five different records covering Darwin from 1941 on. They all agree almost exactly. Why adjust them at all? They’ve just added a huge artificial totally imaginary trend to the last half of the raw data! Now it looks like the IPCC diagram in Figure 1, all right … but a six degree per century trend? And in the shape of a regular stepped pyramid climbing to heaven? What’s up with that?
Those, dear friends, are the clumsy fingerprints of someone messing with the data Egyptian style … they are indisputable evidence that the “homogenized” data has been changed to fit someone’s preconceptions about whether the earth is warming.
One thing is clear from this. People who say that “Climategate was only about scientists behaving badly, but the data is OK” are wrong. At least one part of the data is bad, too. The Smoking Gun for that statement is at Darwin Zero.
As World Considers Treaty to Fight “Global Warming,” Much of U.S. Buried by Blizzard
It's Cold Out There!
Irony? The talks in Copenhagen begin as countries around the world negotiate a treaty designed to cap CO2 emissions. Meanwhile a blizzard made it’s way across the country this week and frigid temperatures have followed. Yes, God does have a sense of humor. While most of the public opposes taxing energy and CO2 emissions, the world’s leaders seem determined to do just that.
Despite the controversy surrounding Climategate where some scientists have been busted trying to portray recent global cooling as warming, the talks proceed as if there is some eminent danger from “global warming.”
Countries are considering a global warming treaty; Despite the fact that CO2 concentrations have been 7 to 10 times what they are now in the Earth’s past, Despite the fact that the Earth has been warmer as recently as the Medieval Period and also when Christ walked the Earth.
Countries are considering dialing back CO2 emissions despite the fact the many scientists believe that it’s the Sun that drives changes in the climate and that man’s activities have a negligible effect.
One has to question the motives of leaders who are working to redistribute the nations of the world’s wealth in the name of science that is in serious dispute at least and is a fraud at worst.
Astronomically speaking, Winter starts in 11 days. Meteorologically speaking, the Winter month’s are December, January and February. This year is already off to an early start!
Climategate reaches the British House of Lords
10/12/2009
"There is the issue of the science, which I had previously taken as given; but many people’s faith is being tested. We are often told that the science is settled. I suppose that is what the Inquisition said to Galileo. If so, why are we spending millions of pounds on research? The science is far from settled." – Lord Turnbull Dec 8th 2009
House of Lords, 8 December 2009: Lord Turnbull: My Lords, on first reading the Committee on Climate Change’s latest progress report, I found it an impressive document. It was broad in scope and very detailed. But the more I dug into it the more troubled I became. Below the surface there are serious questions about the foundations on which it has been constructed. There are questions in four areas-the framework created by the Climate Change Act 2008, the policy responses at EU and UK level, the estimate of costs and finally the scientific basis on which the whole scheme of things rests. I will consider each in turn.
Unlike many of those involved in the climate change field, I have no pecuniary interest to declare, but I am a founder trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which seeks to bring rationality, objectivity and, above all, tolerance to the debate.
I have long been in the camp of what might be called the semi-sceptics. I have taken the science on trust, while becoming increasingly critical of the policy responses being made to achieve a given CO2 or global warming constraint. First, let us look at the Climate Change Act, which has been highly praised, even today, as the most comprehensive and ambitious framework anywhere in the world-a real pioneering first for the UK. However, it has serious flaws. It starts by imposing a completely unworkable duty on the Secretary of State to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, even though many of the actions required lie outside his control. It would have been better, as the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, and I argued, for the duty to be connected to what the Secretary of State can control, such as his own actions and policies, and not the outcome, which he cannot.
In the Act’s passage through Parliament, the target was raised from 60 per cent to 80 per cent, with little discussion of its costs or feasibility. It is a simple arithmetic calculation to show that if the UK economy continues to grow at its historic trend rate, we will need, only 40 years from now, to produce each £1,000 of GDP with only 8 per cent of the carbon we use today. That is a cut of [92] per cent. Many observers think that this is implausible. A recent report by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers reported that the rate of improvement in carbon intensity/productivity would need to quadruple from the 1.3 per cent achieved in the five years up to the recession to around 5.5 per cent. It would need to be even higher at the end of the period to make up for what the noble Lord, Lord May, calls falling behind the run rate.
Professor Dieter Helm has pointed out that the measurement system used in the Kyoto framework and in the UK’s carbon accounts is a misleading guide to what is really being achieved. The carbon accounts use the territorial method-that is, the emissions from UK territory. In this way, the UK is able to claim that CO2 emissions have been reduced, but that is a misleading way of measuring a nation’s carbon footprint and its impact on the world. It should include the carbon in its imports. If this was done it would show that we are going backwards, since we would be forced to take responsibility for the manufacturing that we have outsourced to such countries as China but are still consuming. The current method is, of course, politically very convenient as it allows us to label China as the world’s largest emitter. The embedded carbon calculation is, I accept, far more complicated, but it is far more honest.
Benches in the House of Lords Chamber are coloured red. In contrast, the House of Commons is decorated in green. Image from Wikipedia.
Another flaw in the framework is that the targets are unconditional. It is a legal duty, irrespective of what other countries achieve. Some, including me, argue that there should be two targets: one of which is a commitment, and a higher one which we will argue for internationally but only undertake as part of an agreement. Ironically, this is precisely the approach that the EU is taking with its 20 per cent reduction target by 2020, which would be raised to 30 per cent as part of an international agreement. The danger is that by going it alone we could face a double whammy, paying for decarbonising our own economy, yet still having to pay for the costs of raising our sea defences if others do not follow suit.
Secondly, let us consider the specific policies that have been adopted. Current EU policy follows two inconsistent paths. On the one hand, the ETS seeks to establish a common price for CO2, against which various competing technologies can be measured. The market share of each is determined by the relative costs. This is attractive to economists, since it allows the cost per tonne of CO2 abated to be equalised at the margin, thereby ensuring that the cost of achieving any CO2 target is minimised. The problem is that, despite its theoretical attractions, the ETS is failing. It provides no clear signal on the price of carbon on which investors can base their decisions. The committee, in this report, estimates that the ETS CO2 price in 2020 will be around €22 per tonne. The committee has rightly identified the central contradiction in its own report: the carbon price will be too low and too uncertain to stimulate the low-carbon investments needed to validate the committee’s projections.
At the same time, the EU is following a different approach under its 20:20:20 plan-to achieve a 20 per cent reduction in CO2 by 2020, with 20 per cent of energy coming from renewables. In this way, it predetermines a market share for a technology-renewables-rather than letting the merit order decide. The danger is that in pressing to achieve this target, which implies that over 30 per cent of electricity generation will come from renewables, some renewables capacity will be created which will be more expensive than other responses.
There is also a lack of clarity about the true cost of wind power, once we factor in the cost of retaining a large amount of underutilised conventional capacity, and the extension of the grid. The noble Lord, Lord Reay, has said more than enough on that so I do not need to follow that line of argument.
There is illogicality in the treatment of nuclear energy in the climate change levy. It is ridiculous that nuclear power, as a low-carbon source, is still in the taxable box. For 50 years, a major experiment has been conducted just 20 miles off our coast. France has generated three-quarters of its electricity from nuclear power. The French believe that it has been a huge success, delivering electricity which is secure, cheap and stable in price. France’s carbon intensity is 0.3 of a tonne per $1,000 of GDP, compared to 0.42 in the UK, 0.51 in Germany-so much for it being a market leader-and 0.63 in the US. However, the French option has barely been considered in this country.
As part of the EU plan, 10 per cent of road fuel is mandated to come from biofuels, but by the time this was enacted the credibility of first-generation biofuels had collapsed. Finally, our policy framework lacks balance. It is almost exclusively focused on mitigation through CO2 reduction, The Institution of Mechanical Engineers has argued for what it calls a MAG approach, with effort being committed not just to mitigation but to adaptation and geo-engineering.
Thirdly, there is the issue of cost. All we had to go on at the time when the target was set more ambitiously was the estimate by the noble Lord, Lord Stern, of 1 per cent of GDP. Many people were sceptical at the time and probably even more are now, including, it seems, the noble Lord, Lord Stern, himself. It was reported in the press last week that he now thinks that it might be 2 per cent, but could rise to 5 per cent. I hope he will clarify this when he speaks to us shortly.
In the document that we have before us, the committee says that it previously estimated that costs in 2020 would be about 1 per cent of GDP. That is consistent with its view that it might get to 2 per cent by 2050. In the new report it simply reaffirms the 1 per cent figure in just one paragraph in 250 pages. That is it. I have to say to the noble Lords, Lord Krebs and Lord May, that I do not think that that is adequate. It is difficult to relate these figures to what we are observing on the ground about the difficulties and costs of bringing on stream different technologies such as offshore wind and CCS.
One of the problems bedevilling the debate is the lack of transparency over the huge cross-subsidies that are being created by the renewables obligation and the regime for feed-in tariffs. There is no assurance that their extent is commensurate with the benefits in CO2 abated. My electricity costs me 11p per kilowatt hour. If I erected a wind turbine, I could sell the power I produced to the grid for a whopping 23p. I think I would go out and buy a gizmo which linked my inward meter to my outward meter. That excess cost is averaged over the bills of consumers as a whole, but how much is it in total, or for individual consumers? Here I differ from the noble Lord, Lord May. The whole issue of cost must be given far more attention. The Government cannot ask people to make radical changes to their lifestyle without being more open about the costs that they are being asked to bear.
I accept that “do nothing” is not the right option. Some measures, such as energy efficiency, heat recovery from waste and biomass, and stopping deforestation are probably justified on their own merits. More nuclear power which, in turn, would open the way for electrification of our transport fleet would enhance security of supply. Other measures may be justified as pure insurance, given the uncertainty that we face. But what is badly needed is a consistent metric that allows us to judge whether any given objective is being achieved at minimum cost. The recent book by Professor MacKay, the newly appointed scientific adviser at DECC, provides an excellent starting point. I also very much welcome the intervention by the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, debunking the waste hierarchy and the act of faith that that embodies.
There is the issue of the science, which I had previously taken as given; but many people’s faith is being tested. We are often told that the science is settled. I suppose that is what the Inquisition said to Galileo. If so, why are we spending millions of pounds on research? The science is far from settled. There are major controversies not just about the contribution of CO2, on which most of the debate is focused, but about the influence of other factors such as water vapour, or clouds-the most powerful greenhouse gas-ocean currents and the sun, together with feedback effects which can be negative as well as positive.
Worse still, there are even controversies about the basic data on temperature. The series going back one, 10 or 100,000 years are, in the genuine sense of the word, synthetic. They are not direct observations but are melded together from proxies such as ice cores, ocean sediments and tree rings.
Given the extent to which the outcome is affected by the statistical techniques and the weightings applied by individual researchers, it is essential that the work is done as transparently as possible, with the greatest scope for challenge. That is why the disclosure of documents and e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit is so disturbing. Instead of an open debate, a picture is emerging of selective use of data, efforts to silence critics, and particularly a refusal to share data and methodologies.
It is essential that these allegations are independently and rigorously investigated. Naturally, I welcome the appointment of my old colleague, Sir Muir Russell, to lead this investigation; a civil servant with a physics degree is a rare beast indeed. He needs to establish what the documents really mean and recommend changes in governance and transparency which will restore confidence in the integrity of the data. This is not just an academic feud in the English department from a Malcolm Bradbury novel. The CRU is a major contributor to the IPCC process. The Government should not see this as a purely university matter. They are the funders of much of this research and their climate change policies are based on it.
We need to purge the debate of the unpleasant religiosity that surrounds it, of scientists acting like NGO activists, of propaganda based on fear, for example, the quite disgraceful government advertisement which tried to frighten young children-the final image being the family dog being drowned-and of claims about having “10 days to save the world”. Crude insults from the Prime Minister do not help.
The noble Lords, Lord Krebs and Lord May, and their eminent colleagues on the CCC have a choice. They can take the policy framework as given, the policy responses as given, the costs as given, and the science as given, and then proceed to churn out more and more sophisticated projections, or-as I hope-they can apply the formidable intellectual firepower they command and start to find answers to many of the unsolved questions.
So should we trust the compartmentalised Science that supports your view, but not trust the compartmentalised Science that says otherwise ? much of which can’t be verified (by the man on the street) and used by Mr Monckton ect.
Do you not think these people will try and control both sides of the debate and are such nice people that they would rather it not be a loaded gun to force thier solution.
There's not much of the science that can be verified by anyone, especially as obtaining the raw data, even under the Freedom of Information act is impossible, thats one thing we do know. The other thing I know is there's only one 'side' in this debate thats trying to stifle debate or any form of challenge to its hypothesis (and thats all AGW is - a hypothesis). This should cause everyone a great deal of concern, that a certain grouping wants the world to act on its beliefs without any form of challenge or dissent (but that its OK because its 'peer' reviewed....). We should also be wary of the radical environmentalism that underpins this movement, and the fact that once again a lot of people are going to fill their pockets while Mr Average Joe makes all the sacrifices, not to mention the inevitable loss of individual liberties that accompany some 'Green' policies.
So as you/we dont know much about this very important issue, what do think we should do?
What links the Copenhagen conference with the steelworks closing in Redcar? The carbon credits boom is already costing British jobs, says Christopher Booker.
By Christopher Booker
Published: 7:05PM GMT 12 Dec 2009
What is the connection between Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the Indian railway engineer who has been much in evidence at the Copenhagen climate conference, as chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and an Indian-owned steel company's decision to mothball its giant Teesside steel works next month, ripping the heart out of the town of Redcar by putting 1,700 people out of work?
Nothing of this complex story is likely to be heard in the dreary concrete shed outside Copenhagen where, as temperatures drop towards freezing, 17,000 prime ministers, officials and climate activists are earnestly discussing how the planet is warming up towards extinction. But it certainly sheds a little light on a colossal worldwide racket these delegates are helping to promote, because the end of the story is that we shall all be paying to export thousands of British jobs to new steel plants in India, for no gain in the reduction of worldwide CO2 emissions.
Jon Snow falls for Ed Miliband's figures Thirty years ago Britain's state-owned steel industry, over-manned and highly subsidised, was the most inefficient in Europe. By 1988, after Mrs Thatcher's privatisation and having lost two thirds of its workforce, it was as efficient as any in the world. In 1999, for reasons never fully explained, much of it was sold off to the Dutch firm Corus, which in 2007 was bought by the Indian giant, Tata Steel.
One of Corus's prizes was the Redcar steel works, once Europe's largest blast furnace. It is this which is now to be mothballed, according to Corus because of worldwide "over-production". But this is transparently not the case, since its new owner, Tata, is planning to more than double its steel production in India over the next three years. Furthermore, only last month Corus announced plans to build a 20 million euro plant in the Netherlands, with the help of 15 million euros from the EU and 5 million euros from the Dutch government. Our Government says it is unable to help over the closure of Redcar because this would not be allowed under EU state-aid rules, although Gordon Brown says he may be able to offer a little "re-training".
The real gain to Corus from stopping production at Redcar, however, is the saving it will make on its carbon allowances, allocated by the EU under its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). By ceasing to emit a potential six million tonnes of CO2 a year, Corus will benefit from carbon allowances which could soon, according to European Commission projections, be worth up to £600 million over the three years before current allocations expire.
But this is only half the story. In India, Corus's owner, Tata, plans to increase steel production from 53 million tonnes to 124 million over the same period. By replacing inefficient old plants with new ones which emit only "European levels" of CO2, Tata could claim a further £600 million under the UN's Clean Development Mechanism, which is operated by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – the organisers of the Copenhagen conference. Under this scheme, organisations in developed countries such as Britain – ranging from electricity supply companies to the NHS – can buy the right to exceed their CO2 allocations from those in developing countries, such as India. The huge but hidden cost of these "carbon permits" will be passed on to all of us, notably through our electricity bills.
Thus, at the end of the day, Redcar will lose its biggest employer and one of the largest manufacturing plants left in Britain. Tata, having gained up to £1.2 billion from "carbon credits", will get its new steel plants – while the net amount of CO2 emitted worldwide will not have been reduced a jot.
And the connection with Dr Pachauri? Directly there is no connection at all. But it just happens that Dr Pachauri's other main job, apart from being chairman of the IPCC, is as director-general of the Tata Energy Research Institute, funded by Tata, which he has run since 1981.
He may not benefit in any
way personally from Tata's exploitation of the various
carbon trading schemes set up to implement the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, but it is the IPCC which provides the recommendations which drive those schemes, Last year, on official figures, buying and selling the right to emit CO2 was worth $126 billion across the world. This market, now enriching many of our leading financial institutions (not to mention Al Gore), is growing so fast that within a few years it is predicted to be worth trillions, making carbon the most valuable traded commodity in the world.
Forget Big Oil: the new world power is Big Carbon.Truly it has been a miracle of our time that they have managed to transform carbon dioxide, a gas upon which all life on earth depends, into a "pollutant", worth more than diamonds, let alone oil. And many of those now gathered in Copenhagen are making a great deal of money out of it. (For more detail, see my colleague Richard North's blog .)
Christopher Booker's The Real Global Warming Disaster (Continuum, £16.99) is available from Telegraph Books for £14.99 plus £1.25 p&p.
I think that recent events regarding so-called, 'climate gate' and the revelations (not that they are news to many of us) about the road to war in Iraq ought to serve as a caution to those members of the 9/11 Truth community who like to ramp up the case with bogus tales of a theoretical nature.
There may well be a global warming threat. There may well have been a case for war. But lies and exaggeration are not synonymous with integrity.
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My experience echoes this, if you engage some environmentalists for long enough, you gain the impression they view humanity as a virus which attacks Earth, I also gained the impression that when sacrifices were to be made, this was for others to do..... I hardly need mention the hypocrisy of people like Emma Thompson - for example - herself a frequent flyer with BA on the LA to London route, who has the temerity to lecture 
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