Tag: "global warming"

New IPCC Report: Death and Destruction!

The IPCC’s latest report (Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability) and it’s full of observations and predictions of calamity is now available.

Just a scan of the news headlines reveals the catastrophe once again forecast by the IPCC: Climate change to leave no one on planet ‘untouched,’ IPCC chief, New Climate Change Report Warns of Dire Consequences, New U.N. Report: Climate Change Risks Destabilizing Human Society, Climate change a threat to security, food and humankind – IPCC report, Panel’s Warning on Climate Risk: Worst Is Yet to Come.

Ahh!

The IPCC may be full of gloom and doom, but not everyone is on board. Joseph Bast over at Forbes looked at the 8 main risks in the report that the IPCC listed as “reasons for concern.” He puts them alongside conclusions from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). Founded by atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, the NIPCC’s scientists assess global warming science and conduct independent reviews of the IPCC reports.

Just a few examples of the differences between the IPCC and NIPCC reports:

  • Food insecurity? Yes, says the IPCC. Little or no risk, says the NIPCC.
  • Severe harm for urban populations due to flooding? Yes, says the IPCC. No, says the NIPCC.
  • Systemic risks due to extreme weather events? Yes, says the IPCC. There is no support that precipitation in a warmer world becomes more variable and intense, says the NIPCC.
  • Risk of mortality, morbidity, and other harms? Yes, says the IPCC. No, says the NIPCC: Modest warming will actually result in a net reduction of human mortality.

The NIPCC reports are peer-reviewed, produced by scientists from 20 countries around the world, and cite thousands of peer-reviewed studies. The latest report is over 1,000 pages, and anyone can go online and view them.

Bast asks,

So is man-made global warming a crisis? Don’t just wonder about it, understand it yourself. Read one or a few chapters of one of the NIPCC reports, and ask if what you read is logical, factual, and relevant to the debate. See if the UN or its many apologists take into account the science and evidence NIPCC summarizes, and then decides whether its predictions ‘of death, injury, and disrupted livelihoods’ is science or fiction.

Matt Ridley over at the Wall Street Journal notes that the IPCC report predicts 70 percent more warming by the end of this century than the best science actually suggests. He then asks — what distinguishes the global warming “crisis” from the other crises we’ve been warned about in the past?

There remains a risk that the latest science is wrong and rapid warming will occur with disastrous consequences. And if renewable energy had proved by now to be cheap, clean and thrifty in its use of land, then we would be right to address that small risk of a large catastrophe by rushing to replace fossil fuels with first-generation wind, solar and bioenergy. But since these forms of energy have proved expensive, environmentally damaging and land-hungry, it appears that in our efforts to combat warming we may have been taking the economic equivalent of chemotherapy for a cold.

Almost every global environmental scare of the past half century proved exaggerated including the population “bomb,” pesticides, acid rain, the ozone hole, falling sperm counts, genetically engineered crops and killer bees. In every case, institutional scientists gained a lot of funding from the scare and then quietly converged on the view that the problem was much more moderate than the extreme voices had argued. Global warming is no different.

Are we really willing to transform our economies based on reports derived from faulty, ill-constructed models? Unless more people delve into these IPCC reports and look at the evidence presented by the NIPCC and others, we’re likely to do just that.

Apr 02, 2014 | 1 comment | by

The Growing Benefits of a Warmer World

Global warming has stalled for the last 16 years, but the warming that has occurred over the last 150 years — despite what is commonly believed — has actually been beneficial. In fact, the earth should continue to see benefits from warming for the foreseeable future, says H. Sterling Burnett, a former senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis.

A study by economist Richard Tol found that until 2080, and potentially beyond that, a warming trend would have a positive impact on the world’s economy. Over the last 150 years, the globe has warmed an average 0.8 degrees Celsius. An additional 2.2 degree rise in temperature would continue to yield substantial benefits.

Climate change over the last century has added 1.4 percent to global economic output, Tol found. By 2025, that figure should reach 1.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Increases in carbon dioxide (CO2) have added 0.8 percent to GDP because of the boost to agriculture. Similarly, the temperature increase has reduced the demand for heating, adding 0.4 percent to GDP.

With higher CO2 levels, plants thrive and become more efficient in their use of water. And because most of the warming has reduced low nighttime temperatures, the globe has seen fewer growth-stunting frost events, as well as longer growing seasons.

  • Agronomist Craig Idso determined that a 300 parts per million rise in CO2 increases plant biomass 25 percent to 55 percent.
  • From 1961 to 2011, the annual value of improved plant growth grew from $18.5 billion to more than $140 billion, amounting to a total of $3.2 trillion.
  • From today to 2050, Idso determined that increases in CO2 will result in $9.8 trillion in additional crop production.
  • Notably, it is Africa that is benefiting largely from improved agricultural production.

Growing faster than all other continents, one-third of African countries are growing at 6 percent per year. And from 2005 to today, the amount of people living below the poverty line has fallen from 51 percent to 39 percent.

African farmers are replacing crops introduced by colonial governments with traditional crops that grow best in warm, dry conditions. In sub-Saharan Africa, the growth of agricultural GDP increased from 2.3 percent per year in the 1980s to 3.8 percent each year from 2000 to 2005.

Food production is actually outpacing population growth in Uganda and the 15 countries of West Africa.The poverty rate in Ghana has fallen in half, while farm output has increased 5 percent every year for the last two decades. Even Ethiopia and Malawi are growing record amounts of crops and exporting surpluses.

Source: H. Sterling Burnett, “The Growing Benefits of a Warmer World,” National Center for Policy Analysis, March 18, 2014.

Mar 19, 2014 | 5 comments | by

Climate Change Talkathon

While you were snoozing last week, a group of Democratic senators were at work on the Senate floor. Senator Brian Schatz said:

We have a simple message for all Americans: We’re not going to rest until Congress acts on the most pressing issue of our time.

A lack of jobs? Americans losing their health insurance? The deficit? Which of these issues did Schatz and his 30 cohorts stay up all night to debate and demand action on?

Climate change. That is right, with Americans dropping out of the workforce in record numbers and cancer patients unable to see their doctors, our leaders are taking turns talking on the floor about global warming. And according to a spokesman from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s office, this is not the last time that we will hear from the Senate Climate Action Task Force.

This is just a desperate attempt to appeal to their donor base and bring a non-issue to the forefront to distract from Obamacare, a weak president, and an ailing economy. The war on women was last election season’s non-sequitur (and no doubt it will be in full-swing again come this November), and we’ve already heard from the President and other members of Congress this year that we need to make addressing climate change a major priority.

But while the Democrats may want to hang their 2014 hat on global warming, climate change is, to voters, a relative non-issue. See this Pew poll from January: of a whopping 20 issues tested as policy priorities, the American public put global warming in 19th place, above only global trade issues. This is not some sort of statistical abnormality — global warming is routinely found at the bottom of the list.

Fun fact: Anthony Watts pointed out that the Senators conducted their talkathon from the warm and cozy Senate floor, courtesy of the Capitol’s coal-fired power plant.

Mar 19, 2014 | 6 comments | by

Is the Science Really Settled?

The last 17 years without warming have been disappointments to climate activists insistent that the globe is getting hotter thanks to human activity. So what happens when the climate acts in ways that that do not fit the human-caused global warming narrative? How do warming proponents respond to them?

The IPCC released its latest climate change report in September, stating with 95 percent probability that “human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.” But Benjamin Zycher at the American Enterprise Institute dove into the document and detailed exactly why the IPCC report “is a political document first and a (partial) summary of the scientific literature only secondarily.” (And if you are wondering where that 95 percent probability comes from, see Kenneth Green’s piece.)

Mar 12, 2014 | 1 comment | by

Greenpeace Founder: Humans Not Responsible for Global Warming

There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years. If there were such a proof it would be written down for all to see. No actual proof, as it is understood in science, exists.

Which science-denying flat earther uttered such blasphemy? None other than Patrick Moore, cofounder of the activist environmental group Greenpeace.

Mar 05, 2014 | 5 comments | by

The Global Warming Fiasco

Leadership to focus debate on the critical questions has never been more important.  Devastating consequences lurk for those asking the wrong questions. A lot of research money and newsprint has been allocated to whether the planet is warming or cooling (the concern in the 1970s), and whether humans are responsible. But those questions are relatively trivial, and border on irrelevant.

Once we have probable cause to believe that climate change, from what it would otherwise be (regardless of the reason), would be worthwhile, the key issue becomes which, if any, human actions are capable of cost effectively producing desirable climate changes. If the answer is there are no such policies, it doesn’t matter if the planet is warming or cooling, or whether humans have had a significant hand in it or not. Living with the risk would then be less costly than attempts to address it. If the answer is there are some potentially cost effective policies, we should consider only such policies, and consider them whether humans are responsible for warming or cooling, and whether we can prove change one way or the other. For example, there may be no evidence of climate change, but if we are capable of cost-effectively improving the climate, then we should pursue such policies, which would include researching the distribution of costs and benefits, and other potential efficiency trade-offs. If we can figure out a way to cost effectively reduce hurricane frequency or intensity, it doesn’t matter if humans have done something in the past that has increased hurricane damage, or if hurricanes are more intense or numerous now than at some other time.

Given that the likely necessary conditions (for example, an enforceable international agreement that includes all major emitters; Kyoto doesn’t) for a cost effective climate change policy may be improbable, the only sane unilateral actions against potential adverse climate change are policies that would help there, but make sense without climate change benefits. There are many such policies; for example congestion pricing to reduce traffic jams and revenue-neutral tax burden shifts to fossil fuels.

Mar 03, 2014 | 6 comments | by

Global Warming When Hot, Climate Change When Cold

Have you noticed that anytime America sees a hot weather-related event — be it a drought, a major heat wave, a hurricane, etc. — such an incident is, quite obviously, evidence of global warming? A cold weather event, on the other hand (snow or a freeze or anything much like the winter storms that the U.S. has seen over the last several weeks), brings a flurry of reminders from climate change advocates that “weather” is distinct from “climate” and that cold weather events are in no way evidence that global warming has subsided — quite the opposite.

Apparently, a heat wave is obvious evidence of global warming (catastrophic, man-made warming, to boot), but a cold snap cannot possibly be evidence of global cooling, or even a lack of warming. Any event that appears to boost the global warming theory is trumpeted while facts that contradict the notion that the world will soon burn itself to a crisp are quietly ignored. Surely this must be the world’s largest case of selective hearing.

Feb 19, 2014 | Leave a Comment | by

Confusion Over How to Criticize Greenhouse Gas Emissions

When environmentalists get all concerned about the negative influence of human activity over climate patterns around the globe, they typically point an accusatory finger at those nations with the highest levels of aggregate greenhouse gas production. Because greenhouse gasses are a direct side effect of economic activity, the guilty countries are always those with the largest economies. For example, a recent Global Post news article by Sarah Wolfe notes that the four biggest aggregate emitters of greenhouse gasses per year are China (6 trillion tons), the U.S. (5.9), Russia (1.7) and India (1.3).

Feb 12, 2014 | 1 comment | by

Another Year of Global Cooling

An article by David Deming, professor of arts and sciences at the University of Oklahoma, in the Washington Times:

Global warming is nowhere to be found. The mean global temperature has not risen in 17 years and has been slowly falling for approximately the past 10 years. In 2013, there were more record-low temperatures than record-high temperatures in the United States.

Feb 10, 2014 | 2 comments | by

U.S. Press AWOL on Climate Skepticism

I’ve noticed something curious, not a new revelation, because I’ve thought about it for a while, but phenomena which I haven’t heard anyone really talking about – and that’s part of the curiosity. 

Recently, various public opinion polls show that climate skepticism is growing among the general public.  By climate skepticism I mean to varying degrees people reject or question the truth of one or more of four different but related ideas that make up climate orthodoxy: that the earth is unequivocally warming, that this warming is due primarily or wholly due to human activities, and that such warming will cause apocalypse type disasters, and that we should take drastic action to prevent warming from continuing (even if it hurts the economy). 

Skepticism has regularly been higher among the U.S. public than in Europe but even in Europe skepticism about one or more of the above tenets or climate change faith has grown in the past two years. 

This is not the curious part.  Indeed, it would be curious if the general public hadn’t grown more jaded with the climate dogma in the aftermath of the various climate imbroglios that have been exposed in the last year.  From “Climategate,” to the IPCC disaster claims that were exposed as lacking any evidence whatsoever for their accuracy, one domino after another has fallen exposing the climate emperors as having no clothes (or at least going around threadbare). 

The curious part is this, in the U.S., while the general public has remained much more skeptical of climate alarmism than their European brethren, the American press has drunk the whole plastic jug of climate kool-aid.  By contrast, while Europeans have by and large bought into the climate disaster hype, the European press has maintained its valued, traditional role of skeptic and public scold, challenging orthodoxy coming from on high. 

This was brought home to me once again last week when noted physicist, Harold Lewis, very publicly resigned from the American Physical Society, a group of which he had been a member of and served in various capacities for 67 years. He resigned over the APS’s official statements concerning climate change and the fact that it refused to take the significant proportion of its members who are climate skeptics concerns more seriously, especially in the light of the numerous problems that have come to light with “mainstream” climate science over the past year.  Lewis’s letter merits quoting at length since I can’t state his concerns better myself:

“. . . For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate

2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.

3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.<

5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.

6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.
Hal”

Professor Lewis is not the first noted scientist who felt he had to take such dramatic action to make his point concerning the “global warming scam.”  Indeed, in recent years noted scientists including Claude Allegre, Freeman Dyson and Christopher Landsea have all made public their disputes with what is passing as mainstream climate science; with Landsea offering a public letter resigning from the IPCC over its unsubstantiated claims concerning the threat of more and more powerful hurricanes – a field in which he has particular expertise. 

In the U.S. Lewis’s resignation didn’t even merit a mention in most of the mainstream media, rather it was relegated to the blogsphere to highlight and publicize this important schism within the scientific community.  By contrast, Europe’s papers picked up on this story almost immediately, set in the proper context and gave it the importance it deserved. 

When and if a prominent skeptic had switched sides or at least appeared to (see Bjorn Lomborg), the mainstream media is all over it with newspapers across the U.S. trumpeting the decision.  So much for the press’s objectivity.  Whence its commitment to informing and educating the public, to providing fair, balanced, accurate coverage of the important affairs of the day and it role in a free  society is to hold the powers-that-be accountable.

The public’s waning faith in the truthfulness of the media and the trust it places in journalists may be a reflection of the decline in journalists adherence to the ideal espoused by Dragnet’s Joe Friday: “Just the facts, only the facts.”  And one might add, “all the facts no matter how inconvenient they may be.”

Oct 19, 2010 | 4 comments | by
« Previous Page — Next Page »