Agenda 21

Carbon Tax….Nothing But a Huge Rip-off!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

The Carbon TAX Scam

Written by Alan Caruba, Warning Signs on 30 July 2014.

scamIn a recent appearance before a congressional committee, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told them that the agency’s proposed sweeping carbon-regulation plan was “really an investment opportunity. This is not about pollution control.”

If the plan isn’t about pollution, the primary reason for the EPA’s existence, why bother with yet more regulation of something that is not a pollutant—carbon dioxide—despite the Supreme Court’s idiotic decision that it is. Yes, even the Court gets things wrong.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is vital to all life on Earth, but most particularly to every piece of vegetation that grows on it. Top climatologists tell me that it plays a very small role, if any, in the Earth’s climate or weather. Why would anyone expect a gas that represents 400 parts per million of all atmospheric gases, barely 0.04% of all atmospheric gases to have the capacity to affect something as huge and dynamic as the weather or climate?

When something as absurd as the notion the U.S. must drastically reduce its CO2 emissions is told often enough by a wide range of people that include teachers, the media, scientists, politicians, and the President, people can be forgiven for believing this makes sense.

What Gina McCarthy was demonstrating is her belief that not only the members of Congress are idiots, but all the rest of us are as well.

Faking Climate Data

“The science is clear. The risks are clear. We must act…” Sorry, Gina, a recent issue of Natural News, citing the Real Sciencewebsite, reported “(in) what might be the largest scientific fraud ever uncovered, NASA and the NOAA have been caught red-handed altering historical temperature data to produce a ‘climate change narrative’ that defies reality.”  As reported in The Telegraph, a London daily, “NOAA’s U.S. Historical Climatology Network has been ‘adjusting’ its record by replacing real temperatures with data ‘fabricated’ by computer models.”

The EPA has been on the front lines of destroying coal-fired plants that produce the bulk of the nation’s electricity, claiming, like the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth that coal is “dirty” and must be eliminated from any use.

On July 29, CNSnews reported that “For the first time ever, the average price for a kilowatthour of electricity in the United States has broken through the 14-cent mark, climbing to a record 14.3 cents in June, according to data released last week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

A Carbon Tax

What the Greens want most of all is a carbon tax; that is to say, a tax on CO2 emissions. It is one of the most baseless, destructive taxes that could be imposed on Americans and we should take a lesson from the recent experience that Australians had when, after being told by a former prime minister, Julia Gillard, that she would not impose the tax, she did.They get rid of her andthen got rid of the tax!

As Daniel Simmons, the vice president of policy at the American Energy Alliance, wrote in Roll Call “Australia is now the first country to eliminate its carbon tax. In doing so, it struck a blow in favor of sound public policy.”  Initiated in 2012, the tax had imposed a $21.50 charge (in U.S. dollars), increasing annually, on each ton of carbon dioxide emitted by the country’s power plants.” At the time President Obama called it “good for the world”, but Australians quickly found it was not good for them or their economy.

Favored by several Democratic Senators that include New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen, Alaska’s Mark Begich, and North Carolina’s Kay Hagan, the Heritage Foundation, based on data provided by the Energy Information Administration, took a look at the impact that a proposed U.S. carbon tax would have and calculated that it “would cut a family of four’s income by nearly $2,000 a year while increasing its electricity bills by more than $500 per year. It would increase gas prices by 50 cents per gallon. It could eliminate more than a million jobs in the first few years.”

Simmons noted that “It only took (Australians) two years of higher prices, fewer jobs, and no environmental benefits before they abandoned their carbon tax.”

We don’t need, as Gina McCarthy told the congressional committee, “investments in renewables and clean energy” because billions were wasted by Obama’s “stimulus” and by the grants and other credits extended to wind and solar energy in America. They are the most expensive, least productive, and most unpredictable forms of energy imaginable, given that neither the wind nor the sun is available full-time in the way fossil fuel generated energy is. Both require backup from coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy plants.

In addition to all the other White House efforts to saddle Americans with higher costs, it has now launched a major effort to push its “climate change” agenda with a carbon tax high on its list. A July 29 article in The Hill reported that “Obama is poised to sidestep Congress with a new set of executive actions on climate change.”

If we don’t jump-start our economy by tapping into the jobs and revenue our vast energy reserves represent, secure our southern border, and elect a Congress that will rein in the President, the U.S. risks becoming a lawless banana republic. Carbon taxes are one more nail in the national coffin.

Bjorn Lomborg Testifies at Senate Hearing, Regarding Climate Change!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Lomborg’s Senate testimony

Posted on July 30, 2014 

by Judith Curry

Because   there   is   no   good, cheap   green   energy,   the   almost   universal  political  choices   have   been   expensive   policies   that   do   very   little. There   is   much   greater   scope   for   climate   policies to   make   the   total   climate   cost   greater   through  the   21st   century. – Bjorn Lomborg

Yesterday the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety convened a Hearing on Examining the Threats Posed by Climate Change.  The Hearing website is [here].

There is no majority or minority statements or opening remarks on the web page.  Six individuals presented testimony, five of whom I am unfamiliar with.  I’ve read all the testimonies.  They’re all interesting, but I think Lomborg’s testimony is important.  I had the priviledge of testifying with Lomborg previously this year at this Hearing.

Lomborg’s testimony can be found [here].  From the Summary:

Global warming is real, but a problem, not the end of the world. Claims of “catastrophic” costs are ill founded. Inaction has costs, but so does action. It is likely that climate action will lead   to higher total costs in this century.   Climate action through increased energy costs will likely harm the poor the   most, both in rich and poor countries.

  • The cumulative cost of inaction towards the end of the century is about 1.8% of GDP
  • While this is not trivial, it by no means supports the often apocalyptic conversation on climate change.
  • The cost of inaction by the end of the century is equivalent to losing one year’s growth, or a moderate, one year recession.
  • The cost of inaction by the end of the century is equivalent to an annual loss of GDP growth on the order of 0.02%.
  • However, policy action as opposed to inaction, also has costs, and will still incur a significant part of the climate damage. Thus, with extremely unrealistically optimistic assumptions, it is possible that the total cost of climate action will be reduced slightly to 1.5% of GDP by the end of the century.
  • It is more likely that the cost of climate action will end up costing upwards of twice as much as climate inaction in this century – a reasonable estimate could be 2.8% of GDP towards the end of the century.
  • Climate action will harm mostly the poor. Examples from Germany and the UK are given.
  • To   tackle   global   warming,   it   is   much   more   important   to   dramatically  increase   funding   for   R&D   of   green   energy   to   make   future   green   energy  much   cheaper.   This   will   make   everyone   switch   when   green   is   cheap  enough,   instead   of   focusing   on   inefficient   subsidies   and   second best  policies   that   easily   end   up   costing   much   more.  

The part of Lomborg’s testimony that I found particularly compelling was the text related to energy poverty.  Excerpts:

The   first   realization   needs   to   be   that   the   current,   old fashioned   approach   to     tackling   global   warming   has   failed.   The   current   approach,   which   has   been   attempted   for   almost   20   years   since   the   1992   Earth   Summit   in   Rio,   is   to   agree   on     large   carbon   cuts   in   the   immediate   future.   Only   one   real   agreement,   the   Kyoto   Protocol,   has   resulted   from   20   years   of   attempts,   with   the   2009   Copenhagen   meeting   turning   into   a   spectacular   failure.  

The   Kyoto     approach     is     not     working   for   three   reasons.   First, cutting   CO2   is   costly.     Second, the   approach   won’t     solve     the     problem.   Even   if   everyone   had   implemented   Kyoto, temperatures   would   have   dropped   by   the   end   of   the   century   by   a   miniscule  0.004C     or     0.007F.     Third, green     energy     is     not     ready   to   take   over   from   fossil   fuels.

Current   global   warming   policies make   energy   much   more   costly.   This   negative   impact   is   often   much   larger, harms   the   world’s   poor   much   more,   and   is   much   more   immediate.  

Solar   and   wind   power   was   subsidized   by   $60   billion   in   2012,   despite   their     paltry   climate   benefit   of   $1.4   billion.   Essentially,   $58.6   billion   were   wasted.   Depending   on   political   viewpoint,   that   money   could   have   been   used   to   get   better   health   care,   more   teachers,   better   roads,   or   lower   taxes.   Moreover, forcing   everyone   to   buy   more   expensive,   less   reliable   energy   pushes   higher   costs   throughout   the   economy,   leaving   less   for   welfare.

The   burdens   from   these   climate   policies   fall   overwhelmingly   on   the   world’s   poor.   This   is   because   rich   people   can   easily   afford   to   pay   more   for   their   energy,   whereas   the   poor   will   be   struggling.   It   is   surprising   to   hear   that   well meaning   and   economically   comfortable   greens   often   suggest   that   gasoline   prices   should   be   doubled   or   electricity   exclusively   sourced    from   high cost   green   sources.  

Take   Pakistan   and   South   Africa.   With   too   little   generating   power   both   nations   experience   recurrent   blackouts   that   cost   jobs   and   wreck   the   economy.   Muhammad   Ashraf, who   worked   30   years   at   a   textile   plant   in   central   Pakistan,   was   laid   off   last   year   because   of   these   energy   shortages.   Being   too   old   to   get   another   job,   he   has   returned   to   his   village   to   eke   out   a   living   growing   wheat   on   a   tiny   plot   of   land.   Instead   of   $120   a   month,   he   now    makes   just   $25. Yet, the   funding   of   new   coal   fired   power   plants   in   both   Pakistan   and   South   Africa   has   been   widely   opposed   by   well meaning   Westerners   and   climate concerned   Western   governments.   They   instead   urge   these   countries   to   get   more   energy   from   renewables.  

But   this   is   cruelly   hypocritical.   The   rich   world   generates   just   0.76%   of   its   energy   from   solar   and   wind,   far   from   meeting  even   minimal   demand.   In   fact, Germany   will   build   ten   new    coal fired   power   plants   over   the   next   two   years   to   keep   its   own   lights   on.   

A   recent   analysis   from   the   Center   for   Global   Development   shows   that   $10   billion   invested   in   renewables   will   help   lift   20   million   people   in   Africa   out   of   poverty.   But   the   same   $10   billion   spent   on   gas  electrification   will   lift   90   million   people   out   of   poverty.    $10   billion   can   help   just   20   million   people.   Using   renewables,   we   deliberately   end   up   choosing   to   leave   more   than   70   million   people   –   more   than   3  out   of   4   –   in   darkness   and   poverty.  

The other thing that struck me in particular was the following text:

The   only   way   to    move   towards   a   long term   reduction   in   emissions   is   if   green   energy   becomes    much   cheaper.   If   green   energy   was   cheaper   than   fossil   fuels,   everyone   would   switch. This   requires   breakthroughs   in   the   current   green   technologies,   which   means   focusing   much   more   on   innovating   smarter,   cheaper,   more   effective   green   energy.  

The   metaphor   here   is   the   computer   in   the   1950s.   We   did   not   obtain   better   computers   by   mass producing   them   to   get   cheaper   vacuum   tubes.   We   did   not   provide   heavy   subsidies   so   that   every   Westerner   could   have   one   in   their   home   in   1960.   Nor   did   we   tax   alternatives   like   typewriters.   The   breakthroughs   were   achieved   by   a   dramatic   ramping   up   of   R&D,   leading   to   multiple   innovations,   which   enabled   companies   like   IBM   and   Apple   to   eventually   produce   computers   that   consumers   wanted   to   buy.  

This   is   what   the   US   has   done   with   fracking.   The   US   has   spent   about   $10bn   in   subsidies   over   the   past   three   decades   to   get   fracking   innovation,    which   has   opened   up   large   new   resources   of   previously   inaccessible   shale   gas.   Despite some   legitimate   concerns   about   safety, it   is   hard   to   overstate   the   overwhelming   benefits.   Fracking   has   caused   gas   prices   to   drop   dramatically   and   changed   the   US   electricity   generation   from   50%   coal   and   20%   gas   to   about   40%   coal   and   30%   gas.  

This   means   that   the   US   has   reduced   its   annual   CO₂ emissions   by   about   300Mt   CO₂   in   2012.   This   is   about   twice   the   total reduction   over   the   past   twenty   years   of   the   Kyoto   Protocol   from   the   rest   of   the   world,   including   the   European   Union.   At   the   same   time,   the   EU   climate   policy   will   cost   about   $280   billion   per   year,   whereas   the   US   fracking   is   estimated   to   increase US   GDP   by   $283   billion   per   year.    

 JC reflections

Read the entire testimony, well worth reading and pondering.

I take such economic projections with a grain of salt (where are the uncertainty estimates?),  but Lomborg’s point that the cure is likely worse than the disease is compelling.

Of particular concern is the impact of these energy policies on the poor. Lomborg makes this argument extremely effectively, and I can’t believe that more people don’t get this.  Last April I gave a climate change presentation to a group of Georgia Tech alumni.  Someone in the audience asked:  “What did you do for Earth day?”  I said Nothing.  I think turning out the lights sends the wrong message.  I want to see the lights go on in Africa.

We clearly need clean green energy, if not now then in the future.  Lomborg argues that our current strategies may be be slowing down the development of these technologies.

I have to say, after reading Lomborg’s testimony, current climate/energy policies have never made less sense.

7-cool-it

 

 

 

Health Departments Should Have Turbine Distress Hotlines!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

LOCAL HEALTH DEPARTMENTS SHOULD HAVE TURBINE DISTRESS HOTLINES‏

July 30, 2014 · by  ·

Carthage anti-wind power advocate appeals Canton wind project approval

Terry Karkos

A Carthage woman has filed an administrative appeal with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection of the eight-turbine wind project on Canton Mountain.

Alice McKay Barnett, an anti-wind power advocate, submitted seven documents of supplemental evidence on July 17 that mostly concerns turbine noise adversely affecting health.
 
The DEP approved the nearly $50 million, eight-turbine Canton Mountain wind project in May. Canton Mountain Wind LLC is owned by Patriots Renewables LLC of Quincy, Mass.
 
The Canton project is part of a larger plan to include similar wind projects in the adjacent towns of Dixfield and Carthage. Construction has already started on the Carthage project — Saddleback Ridge. It is a 34.2 megawatt, 12-turbine wind project that’s expected to be completed in 2015.
 
The Dixfield project, Timberwinds, is still in the early stage of development, according to Patriots Renewables’ website. The proposed project would consist of six to 12 turbines sited on Colonel Holman Ridge in Dixfield.
 
In her petition for review of final agency action against the DEP and Canton Mountain Wind LLC, Barnett writes that she objects to a ruling that the wind developer establish a toll-free complaint hotline designated to allow concerned citizens to call in noise-related complaints 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Barnett said she believes a complaint hotline like that should be in the hands of health officials instead of a wind developer. She cited Spruce Mountain Wind, Patriots Renewables’ 20 megawatt, 10-turbine wind project located in Woodstock.
 
She said that developer “is not responsible to collect data of complaints.” Barnett then cites and includes several examples of that, such as complaints by residents adversely impacted by SMW turbine noise and the developer’s control of noise by purchasing noise easements or making sound agreements with property owners.
 
“I request local health officials maintain a hotline (at the expense of the developer) as they know the local area and the citizens who reside in the impacted zone of industrial wind turbines,” Barnett stated in her petition.”Local health officials could respond directly to complaints on hotline, and then ask county and state for help. Public health nurses continually work to improve the health of individuals, populations, cultures and communities. A public health nurse can enforce laws and regulation,” she stated.
 
Barnett also said the Maine Department of Environmental Health and the Center for Disease Control offered no help. She said wind turbine noise is a health issue and that the DEP and Patriots Renewables are not health experts.
She also asked to strike the word “expert” from a page in the Canton Mountain Wind permit, stating the firms listed are paid consultants not experts per the order of the Bower’s Mountain uphold of denial of the Champlain Wind permit on June 5.
 
Additionally, she named five people living in East Dixfield, Jay and Canton and within two miles of the Canton Mountain Wind turbines who have asked that no harm be done to their property.
 
She defined “harm” to include light pollution from turbine blade flicker and red flashing lights, audible wind turbulence noise levels, air turbulence, sound wave emissions (included but not limited to infrasound) disturbance or emanations of any kind of nature that are created in the ordinary course of operations of the Canton wind facility.
 
“They do not want diminished property value,” Barnett said.
 
Cynthia S. Bertocci, executive analyst with the Board of Environmental Protection, replied to Barnett’s appeal in a letter dated July 22.
Bertocci told Barnett that her timely appeal contains proposed supplemental evidence that will require a ruling from the board chairman, Robert A. Foley of Wells.
 
Following Foley’s ruling on the proposed supplemental evidence,  the board will set a deadline for the filing of comments on the merits of the appeal and notify Barnet of the deadline.
Bertocci said information in Barnett’s appeal doesn’t appear in the DEP’s licensing record.
Per department rule, a respondent — defined as the licensee or anyone who submitted written comment on the application — can submit written comment on the admissibility of Barnett’s proposed supplemental evidence.
They can also offer proposed supplemental evidence in response to Barnett’s evidence and issues raised on appeal, Bertocci said. The respondent’s submission is due within 30 days of the date of the board’s written determination as to which of the appellant’s exhibits constitute proposed supplemental evidence.
Bertocci said the board may allow the record to be supplemented on appeal when it finds that the evidence offered is relevant and material and that:
* The person seeking to supplement the record has shown due diligence in bringing the evidence to the department at the earliest possible time.
* The evidence is newly discovered and by due diligence, could not have been discovered in time to be presented earlier in the licensing process.
Bertocci said the deadline for the licensee and anyone who submitted written comment on the application to comment on the admissibility of Barnett’s proposed supplemental evidence, is by 5 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 21.
 
After Foley rules on the admissibility of Barnett’s evidence, the board will set the deadline to respond to the merits of her appeal.

More Proof, that “Climate Scam” was Never Intended to Improve Our Environment.

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Over the Transom: Climate Scientologists destroy nature in order to save the environment.

 

I recall reading a piece some time ago by an avid environmentalist who made a point lost on his fellow environmentalists: So-called “alternative” energy can have an effect on the environment even worse than conventional energy.

This article about a plan to destroy a forest in Germany makes that point better than he ever could. It seems that a developer plans to erect 60 giant wind turbines in an untouched forest that is the pride of the region of Palitinate.

That’s too much for the locals:

“According to Die Welt, hungry wind park developers with deep pockets plan to install 60 wind turbines, each 209 meters (700 feet) tall in the area. Unsurprisingly this looming large-scale green industrialization of this particularly idyllic landscape has become too much to take, even for the most avid climate activist groups. Die Welt writes that for the first time all ten local environmental groups have closed ranks against the project, says Bernd Wallner of the Pfälzerwald-Verein (Palantinate Association).”

mercer solar.JPGAn unsightly solar array occupies what had been acres and acres of farm and forest on the Mercer County College campusPhoto by Paul Mulshine 

These people are learning the less so many New Jerseyans have already learned: Wind and solar projects can be much more irritating and ugly than any other source of power.

I wrote here about how some beautiful farm fields and tree stands at Mercer County College were bulldozed for an unsightly solar array that stretches for acres.

And then there was that horribly misguided idea of putting a wind turbine right in the middle of the small town of Ocean Gate. The houses in that Shore community are on small lots, which means many are withing hearing range. It sounds like a dryer with some loose change rattling around within.

Meanwhile the power produced by these plants can cost up to 400 times as much as conventional power according to this article. That’s because conventional gas and coal plants have to be online to make up for the unpredictable surges in wind and solar power.

I have long argued that belief in the alarmist view of anthropogenic global warming is more of a religion than a science. The true believers are essentially puritans who feel guilty about having ample electricity at their disposal. So they dream up ways of making it more expensive and less accessible.

Good for them, but if they really believed global warming was such a threat then they would be pushing the only technology that is capable of generating huge amounts of power with no CO-2 emissions. That’s nuclear power. The Germans plan to phase it out.

But somehow I suspect they won’t follow through on those plans. At a certain point, an industrial country needs power. And Germans already pay twice as much for it as we do. I don’t think they’re going to let their economy destroyed because of the work of a bunch of climate “scientists.”

I put the word in quotes because the real experts in this field are not the climatologists. By the very nature of their studies, climatologist have a vested interest in further alarmism about global warming. The more alarmism, the more money gets spent on their studies.

But the true experts are the physicists. Not surprisingly, the most prominent among them like to point out that this is a field that requires much more study before any definitive conclusions can be arrived at. The most prominent such physicist is Freeman Dyson
of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Dyson, who may be the smartest man on the planet, has told me in some detail why he is a climate-change skeptic.

Despite the complicated nature of the problem, Dyson can talk to regular people about it. That’s because he is a writer of many books that explain scientific concepts to laymen.

So was Richard P. Feynman. Feynman, who worked on the atom bomb back in World War II, was the author of a number of books including “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman.”

The book is a compendium of anecdotes by Feynman about his various adventures working on the bomb, learning how to crack safes, and deducing the science of picking up women in bars.

 

No one with a sense of humor could be offended in the least by any of it. But the world of science has becomes so politically correct these days that a writer was canned from a leading science publication for being insufficiently offended by the book.

This Washington Post piece explains how blogger Ashutosh Jogalekar got the boot:

Commenting on recent biographies of Feynman, Jogalekar noted the physicist’s “casual sexism,” including his affairs with two married women, his humiliation of a female student and his delight in documenting his strategies for picking up women in bars. But while expressing disappointment in Feynman’s behavior, Jogalekar essentially dismissed it as a byproduct of the “male-dominated American society in the giddy postwar years.”

Within a day of the column’s appearance, Scientific American pulled it from its site, with another note from Brainard: “The text of this post has been removed because it did not meet Scientific American’s quality standards.”

It turns out that the Scientific American people are also trying to bowdlerize writers for expressing frank opinions on the connection between genetics and intelligence. That should tell you all you need to know about why global-warming alarmism remains ascendant in the media: To these p.c. types, propaganda trumps science every time.

And by the way, no one is actually questioning the science behind Feynman’s theories on how he could best pick up women. Note this one outraged writer’s piece on the controversy.

“Basically, Feynman was convinced that buying women things and expecting sex as payment was respecting them. In order to do anything different, he had to disrespect them and think of them as horrible demons.”

No, what Feynman was doing was running an experiment in how to pick up women. He decided they don’t fall for guys who chase them too much.

In the book, he describes how a bartender in New Mexico taught him that lesson and how it worked out in practice. He then concludes that “I never really used it after that. I didn’t enjoy doing it that way. But it was interesting to know that things worked much differently from how I was brought up.”

Now that, boys and girls, is the scientific mind at work. It would have been fascinating to see how Feynman treated all the hype over global warming. Unfortunately he died in 1988.

Solar Activity More Likely to Cause Global Warming, than CO2

/ 1957chev / 1 Comment

SOLAR ACTIVITY – NOT CO2 – COULD CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING, NEW PAPER SAYS

 
by 29 Jul 2014 550POST A COMMENT
 

The impact of carbon dioxide on climate change may have been overstated, with solar activity giving a better explanation of changes in the Earth’s temperature, according to Chinese scientists.

A new paper published in the Chinese Science Bulletin has found a “high correlation between solar activity and the Earth’s averaged surface temperature over centuries,” suggesting that climate change is intimately linked with solar cycles rather than human activity.

The paper, written in Chinese, says that there is also a “significant correlation” between solar activity over the past century and an increase in Earth’s surface temperatures over the same period. The correlation between solar activity and water temperature is even higher than the correlation between solar activity and land temperature.

The paper, by Dr Zhao Xinhua and Dr Feng Xueshang, adds that a peer-reviewer said the results “provide a possible explanation for the global warming”.

In a press release, posted on the Hockey Schtick blog, The researchers say:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claimed that the release of the anthropogenic greenhouse gases contributed to 90 percent or even higher of the observed increase in the global average temperature in the past 50 years.

However, the new paper casts doubt on the IPCC’s assertion:

Research shows that the current warming does not exceed the natural fluctuations of climate. The climate models of IPCC seem to underestimate the impact of natural factors on the climate change, while overstate that of human activities. Solar activity is an important ingredient of natural driving forces of climate. Therefore, it is valuable to investigate the influence of solar variability on the Earth’s climate change on long time scales.

Indeed, the study says that the “modern maximum” – a peak in solar activity that lasted much of the last century – corresponds very well with an increase in global temperatures.

There has been increasing evidence in recent years that global warming is linked with solar activity. In 2009, Professor Henrik Svensmark from the Danish National Space Centre,said that the last time the Earth experienced unusually high temperatures, in the later Medieval period, there had also been an increase in solar activity. When this activity dropped, it led to the “little ice age” of the seventeenth century.

In 2011, three further papers suggested the Earth could be heading for a new “little ice age” as solar activity drops once again. Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory in New Mexico said: “The fact that there are three separate lines of evidence all pointing in the same direction is very compelling.”

Honest, Unbiased Scientists Reject Global Warming Hysteria!

/ 1957chev / 9 Comments
December 4, 2013

Dr. Don Easterbrook Exposes Global Warming Hoax 

Global Cooling is Here

Evidence for Predicting Global Cooling for the Next Three Decades

Department of Geology, Western Washington University
Article originally published, 11/2/2008
Re-Published 10/29/2013
Addendum Video:  3/26/2013 Presentation to WA Senate committee added 12/4/2013 by HSaive
.

Global Research Editor’s note

The following article represents an alternative view and analysis of global climate change, which challenges the dominant Global Warming Consensus.

Global Research does not necessarily endorse the proposition of “Global Cooling”, nor does it accept at face value the Consensus on Global Warming. Our purpose is to encourage a more balanced debate on the topic of global climate change.

INTRODUCTION

Dr Don Easterbrook mugDespite no global warming in 10 years and recording setting cold in 2007-2008, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change (IPCC) and computer modelers who believe that CO2 is the cause of global warming still predict the Earth is in store for catastrophic warming in this century. IPCC computer models have predicted global warming of 1° F per decade and 5-6° C (10-11° F) by 2100 (Fig. 1), which would cause global catastrophe with ramifications for human life, natural habitat, energy and water resources, and food production. All of this is predicated on the assumption that global warming is caused by increasing atmospheric CO2 and that CO2 will continue to rise rapidly.

3/26/2013 Presentation to Washington State Senate Committee on Climate Change – In addition to evidence contrary to IPCC, Dr. Easterbrook alleges media bias and manipulation of data by East Anglia, NASA, NOAA and NSF. (TVW Original Broadcast)

Easterbrrok Video at TVW
Archive Backup Video

Easterbrook-1-glcool1

Easterbrook-2-glcool1

Figure 1. A. IPCC prediction of global warming early in the 21st century. B. IPCC prediction of global warming to 2100. (Sources: IPCC website)

However, records of past climate changes suggest an altogether different scenario for the 21st century. Rather than drastic global warming at a rate of 0.5 ° C (1° F) per decade, historic records of past natural cycles suggest global cooling for the first several decades of the 21st century to about 2030, followed by global warming from about 2030 to about 2060, and renewed global cooling from 2060 to 2090 (Easterbrook, D.J., 2005, 2006a, b, 2007, 2008a, b); Easterbrook and Kovanen, 2000, 2001). Climatic fluctuations over the past several hundred years suggest ~30 year climatic cycles of global warming and cooling, on a general rising trend from the Little Ice Age.

PREDICTIONS BASED ON PAST CLIMATE PATTERNS

Global climate changes have been far more intense (12 to 20 times as intense in some cases) than the global warming of the past century, and they took place in as little as 20–100 years. Global warming of the past century (0.8° C) is virtually insignificant when compared to the magnitude of at least 10 global climate changes in the past 15,000 years. None of these sudden global climate changes could possibly have been caused by human CO2 input to the atmosphere because they all took place long before anthropogenic CO2 emissions began. The cause of the ten earlier ‘natural’ climate changes was most likely the same as the cause of global warming from 1977 to 1998.

Easterbrook-3-glcool1

Figure 2. Climate changes in the past 17,000 years from the GISP2 Greenland ice core. Red = warming, blue = cooling. (Modified from Cuffy and Clow, 1997)

Climatic fluctuations over the past several hundred years suggest ~30 year climatic cycles of global warming and cooling (Figure 3) on a generally rising trend from the Little Ice Age about 500 years ago.

Easterbrook-4-glcool1

Figure 3. Alternating warm and cool cycles since 1470 AD. Blue = cool, red = warm. Based on oxygen isotope ratios from the GISP2 Greenland ice core.

Relationships between glacial fluctuations, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and global climate change.

After several decades of studying alpine glacier fluctuations in the North Cascade Range, my research showed a distinct pattern of glacial advances and retreats (the Glacial Decadal Oscillation, GDO) that correlated well with climate records. In 1992, Mantua published the Pacific Decadal Oscillation curve showing warming and cooling of the Pacific Ocean that correlated remarkably well with glacial fluctuations. Both the GDA and the PDO matched global temperature records and were obviously related (Fig. 4). All but the latest 30 years of changes occurred prior to significant CO2 emissions so they were clearly unrelated to atmospheric CO2.

Easterbrook-5-glcool1

Figure 4. Correspondence of the GDO, PDO, and global temperature variations.

The significance of the correlation between the GDO, PDO, and global temperature is that once this connection has been made, climatic changes during the past century can be understood, and the pattern of glacial and climatic fluctuations over the past millennia can be reconstructed. These patterns can then be used to project climatic changes in the future. Using the pattern established for the past several hundred years, in 1998 I projected the temperature curve for the past century into the next century and came up with curve ‘A’ in Figure 5 as an approximation of what might be in store for the world if the pattern of past climate changes continued. Ironically, that prediction was made in the warmest year of the past three decades and at the acme of the 1977-1998 warm period. At that time, the projected curved indicated global cooling beginning about 2005 ± 3-5 years until about 2030, then renewed warming from about 2030 to about 2060 (unrelated to CO2—just continuation of the natural cycle), then another cool period from about 2060 to about 2090. This was admittedly an approximation, but it was radically different from the 1° F per decade warming called for by the IPCC. Because the prediction was so different from the IPCC prediction, time would obviously show which projection was ultimately correct.

Now a decade later, the global climate has not warmed 1° F as forecast by the IPCC but has cooled slightly until 2007-08 when global temperatures turned sharply downward. In 2008, NASA satellite imagery (Figure 6) confirmed that the Pacific Ocean had switched from the warm mode it had been in since 1977 to its cool mode, similar to that of the 1945-1977 global cooling period. The shift strongly suggests that the next several decades will be cooler, not warmer as predicted by the IPCC. 

Easterbrook-6-glcool1

Figure 5.Global temperature projection for the coming century, based on warming/cooling cycles of the past several centuries. ‘A’ projection based on assuming next cool phase will be similar to the 1945-1977 cool phase. ‘B’ projection based on assuming next cool phase will be similar to the 1880-1915 cool phase. The predicted warm cycle from 2030 to 2060 is based on projection of the 1977 to 1998 warm phase and the cooling phase from 2060 to 2090 is based on projection of the 1945 to 1977 cool cycle.

Implications of PDO, NAO, GDO, and sun spot cycles for global climate in coming decades

The IPCC prediction of global temperatures, 1° F warmer by 2011 and 2° F by 2038 (Fig. 1), stand little chance of being correct. NASA’s imagery showing that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) has shifted to its cool phase is right on schedule as predicted by past climate and PDO changes (Easterbrook, 2001, 2006, 2007). The PDO typically lasts 25-30 years and assures North America of cool, wetter climates during its cool phases and warmer, drier climates during its warm phases. The establishment of the cool PDO, together with similar cooling of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), virtually assures several decades of global cooling and the end of the past 30-year warm phase. It also means that the IPCC predictions of catastrophic global warming this century were highly inaccurate.

The switch of PDO cool mode to warm mode in 1977 initiated several decades of global warming. The PDO has now switched from its warm mode (where it had been since 1977) into its cool mode. As shown on the graph above, each time this had happened in the past century, global temperature has followed. The upper map shows cool ocean temperatures in blue (note the North American west coast). The lower diagram shows how the PDO has switched back and forth from warm to cool modes in the past century, each time causing global temperature to follow. Comparisons of historic global climate warming and cooling over the past century with PDO and NAO oscillations, glacial fluctuations, and sun spot activity show strong correlations and provide a solid data base for future climate change projections.

The Pacific Ocean has a warm temperature mode and a cool temperature mode, and in the past century, has switched back forth between these two modes every 25-30 years (known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation or PDO). In 1977 the Pacific abruptly shifted from its cool mode (where it had been since about 1945) into its warm mode, and this initiated global warming from 1977 to 1998. The correlation between the PDO and global climate is well established. The announcement by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) had shifted to its cool phase is right on schedule as predicted by past climate and PDO changes (Easterbrook, 2001, 2006, 2007). The PDO typically lasts 25-30 years and assures North America of cool, wetter climates during its cool phases and warmer, drier climates during its warm phases. The establishment of the cool PDO, together with similar cooling of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), virtually assures several decades of global cooling and the end of the past 30-year warm phase.

Eaterbrrok-7-globalcool7

Figure 6. Switch of PDO cool mode to warm mode in 1977 initiated several decades of global warming. The PDO has now switched from its warm mode (where it had been since 1977) into its cool mode. As shown on the graph above, each time this has happened in the past century, global temperature has followed. The upper map shows cool ocean temperatures in blue (note the North American west coast). The lower diagram shows how the PDO has switched back and forth from warm to cool modes in the past century, each time causing global temperature to follow. Projection of the past pattern (right end of graph) assures 30 yrs of global cooling

Comparisons of historic global climate warming and cooling over the past century with PDO and NAO oscillations, glacial fluctuations, and sun spot activity show strong correlations and provide a solid data base for future climate change projections. As shown by the historic pattern of GDOs and PDOs over the past century and by corresponding global warming and cooling, the pattern is part of ongoing warm/cool cycles that last 25-30 years. The global cooling phase from 1880 to 1910, characterized by advance of glaciers worldwide, was followed by a shift to the warm-phase PDO for 30 years, global warming and rapid glacier recession. The cool-phase PDO returned in ~1945 accompanied by global cooling and glacial advance for 30 years. Shift to the warm-phase PDO in 1977 initiated global warming and recession of glaciers that persisted until 1998. Recent establishment of the PDO cool phase appeared right on target and assuming that its effect will be similar to past history, global climates can be expected to cool over the next 25-30 years. The global warming of this century is exactly in phase with the normal climatic pattern of cyclic warming and cooling and we have now switched from a warm phase to a cool phase right at the predicted time (Fig. 5)

The ramifications of the global cooling cycle for the next 30 years are far reaching―e.g., failure of crops in critical agricultural areas (it’s already happening this year), increasing energy demands, transportation difficulties, and habitat change. All this during which global population will increase from six billion to about nine billion. The real danger in spending trillions of dollars trying to reduce atmospheric CO2 is that little will be left to deal with the very real problems engendered by global cooling.

CONCLUSIONS

Global warming (i.e, the warming since 1977) is over. The minute increase of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere (0.008%) was not the cause of the warming—it was a continuation of natural cycles that occurred over the past 500 years.

The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling, perhaps much deeper than the global cooling from about 1945 to 1977. Just how much cooler the global climate will be during this cool cycle is uncertain. Recent solar changes suggest that it could be fairly severe, perhaps more like the 1880 to 1915 cool cycle than the more moderate 1945-1977 cool cycle. A more drastic cooling, similar to that during the Dalton and Maunder minimums, could plunge the Earth into another Little Ice Age, but only time will tell if that is likely.

Don J. Easterbrook is Professor Emeritus of Geology at Western Washington University. Bellingham, WA. He has published extensively on issues pertaining to global climate change. For further details see his list of publications

Climate Scam Exposed as a HUGE Money-Grab!!!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

BREAKING: Senate report exposes the climate-environmental movement as being a cash machine controlling the EPA

Posted on July 30, 2014 by

How a Club of Billionaires and Their Foundations Control the Environmental Movement and Obama’s EPA

A new report was released today by the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, and it is damning. All this time that climate skeptics are accused of being in the employ of “big oil” is nothing more than a projection of their own greed.

Some excerpts:

Over 7.9 BILLION in funding between these groups. 

EPW_report_greenfunding

Bill McKibben caught in a lie, he might be “scruffy” be he isn’t nearly broke as he once claimed:

McKibben_money

The “epicenter” of funding disclosed:

Green_epicenter

The NRDC “mafia”

NRDC_mafia

Josh wasn’t far off the mark:

rc_mafia

Read the entire report here, then demand action from your legislators.

http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=8af3d005-1337-4bc3-bcd6-be947c523439

About these ads

The Lefties Have Gone Too Far. We Need a Return to Sanity!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Hate Speech: U.K. Political Leader Arrested for Quoting Winston Churchill

Written by 

 
Hate Speech: U.K. Political Leader Arrested for Quoting Winston Churchill

 

A 2009 poll found that more than a third of British teenagers couldn’t identify some of Winston Churchill’s most famous words. Now it turns out that this deficit just might save them from jail.

In a shocking application of hate-speech law, Paul Weston (shown), co-founder and leader of the Liberty GB party and candidate for member of the European Parliament, was arrested on Saturday and now faces a possible two years in prison. His crime?

He quoted one of the 20th century’s most famous Englishmen, that WWII hero Churchill.

 

As Liberty GB reported at its website:

Mr Weston, a candidate in the 22 May European Elections in the South East, was arrested on 26 April in front of Winchester Guildhall for quoting in public a passage critical of Islam written by Winston Churchill, using a megaphone.

He spent several hours in a cell at Winchester Police Station, after which the original charge of breaching a Section 27 Dispersal Notice was dropped and Mr Weston was “re-arrested” for a Racially Aggravated Crime, under Section 4 of the Public Order Act, which carries a potential prison sentence of 2 years.

He was then fingerprinted and obliged to submit to DNA sampling, following which he was bailed with a return date to Winchester Police on May 24th.

Had the woman who complained to the police made an official statement, Mr Weston would not have been released last night, but fortunately for him she did not.

The case is now being presented to the Crown Prosecution Service. If the CPS decides to prosecute, then Mr Weston will be arrested, awaiting trial, when he presents himself to the police on May 24th.

The “offending” words were taken from Churchill’s book The River War, penned in 1899 while he served as a British army officer in Sudan. It is a passage oft-quoted on the Internet:

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property — either as a child, a wife, or a concubine — must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith.

Yet publicly voicing such sentiments in Britain is now often viewed as “racial or religious harassment.” What this means is that were Churchill alive today he could, conceivably, be arrested by the U.K. government simply for espousing his beliefs.

Some may assume Churchill’s fame would save him, but it was no shield for Paul Weston. Nor has it helped talk-show host Michael Savage, the most well-known American victim of British hate-speech law. In 2009, Dr. Savage was placed on a list of people banned from entering the U.K. along with hardened criminals and terrorists. The British government extended this ban in 2011, saying the commentator had not “provided any acceptable evidence to show his repudiation of those unacceptable behaviours.” Note that these “behaviours” amounted to simply voicing opinion.

As for opinion, Liberty GB finds itself an outlier in U.K. politics, describing its ideology as overriding “the conventional dichotomy (and terminology) of Left and Right,” as it rejects “the notion of Britain as a global no-man’s land upon which any of the world’s teeming millions may lay claim” and espouses “Christian ethics and Western civilization” but also is progressive “in areas such as women’s equality and animal welfare.”

But it’s questioning how wide-scale Muslim immigration affects English welfare that can really get you in trouble in today’s U.K. As to this, columnist Mark Steyn recently wrote, recalling how, a decade earlier, he began a piece “with a reader’s recollection of the first weeks of the Salman Rushdie fatwa” (hat tip: American Thinker’s Thomas Lifson):

A couple of years back, I mentioned the fatwa against Salman Rushdie and received a flurry of lively e-mails. It was Valentine’s Day 1989, you’ll recall, when the Ayatollah Khomeini issued his extraterritorial summary judgment on a British subject, and shortly thereafter large numbers of British Muslims were marching through English cities openly calling for Rushdie to be killed.

A reader in Bradford recalled asking a West Yorkshire officer on the street that day why the various “Muslim community leaders” weren’t being arrested for incitement to murder. The officer said they’d been told to “play it cool”. The calls for blood got more raucous. My correspondent asked his question again. The policeman told him to “F— off, or I’ll arrest you.”

In his recent piece, Steyn added:

And so it has gone, ever more openly, across the ensuing quarter-century. Point out problematic aspects of Islam, and the British state’s response is “F— off, or I’ll arrest you.” Her Majesty’s Constabulary do not yet police their charges quite as strictly as the Saudi mutaween, but they’re getting there: The day after Drummer Lee Rigby was hacked to death in broad daylight on the streets of London, a march in support of the “Help for Heroes” military charity led to a five-hour standoff between marchers and police, ending with the arrest of Lee Cousins for “mocking the Islamic prayer ritual” by getting down on his hands and knees outside the pub. He was fined 600 pounds.

When was the last time someone was fined 600 quid for mocking any bit of Christian ritual?

And British citizens are noticing this double standard, though not many dare voice opposition too publicly. As a poster going by the name “John” wrote under the Liberty GB article about Weston’s arrest:

How many times did the racist who butchered Lee Rigby violate these [hate-speech] laws without fear of arrest? He was even involved in a scuffle with the police. People who pretend these “efforts” [at enforcement] are neutral are racist liars. These are in fact classic laws of racist colonialism, where the natives are forbidden to criticize the occupying power.

Even the supposed anonymity of the Internet may not offer protection for long, however. Swedes who criticized immigration on the Web were recently tracked down via their IP addresses and persecuted, while the Swedish government has just enacted a new law making it easier to prosecute “net haters.” And now two Democrat legislators in the United States have proposed the “Hate Crime Reporting Act of 2014,” which would empower the federal government to scour the Internet for “hate speech.”

Ridiculous Environmental Policies All Part of United Nation’s Agenda 21.

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Sniffing Out Bad Environmental Policies Is Much Like Culling Rotten Produce

By  

When buying produce, we’ve found ways to discern which pieces are worthy to place in our basket. Each piece of fruit or stalk of vegetable must be of good quality to justify spending our hard-earned income on it. So we look, we sniff and we gently squeeze them in order to cull the unripe or rotten pieces and glean the good ones.

Perhaps we should use a similar approach when evaluating the competing environmental proposals proffered by various organizations. We should carefully sniff out the rotten assumptions and gently squeeze the reasoning of their justifications in order to glean which proposals might be worthy of our real sacrifice in national treasure and personal freedoms.

For example, consider the World Bank’s proposals for reducing man-made influences over global climate change. Like most other organizations, they stress the urgency for all nations to take immediate, coordinated actions to reduce carbon emissions. However, they stress that the needed sacrifices should not be shared equally among the nations.

Upon closer inspection, the World Bank’s policy recommendations reveal intellectually unripe assumptions that employ ethically rotten reasoning to justify them. For example, in the World Development Report 2010, the President of the World Bank stresses that,

Developed countries have produced most of the emissions of the past and have higher per-capita emissions. These countries should lead the way by significantly reducing their carbon footprints and stimulating research into green alternatives.

First, consider the intellectually unripe assumption that per-capita carbon emissions are an appropriate basis for determining relative global warming culpability across the nations, and to identify which nations should bear the brunt of costly remediation efforts.

Let’s remember that carbon emissions result from economic activity. All else equal, greater economic activity in a nation’s economy creates greater carbon emissions per capita, but also greater prosperity (output per capita) for its citizens enjoy.

Humanitarians should want the citizens of all nations to become prosperous, but to achieve their prosperity with the smallest environmental footprint possible. Therefore, would not an intellectually ripe indicator of culpability be carbon emissions per-dollar of economic output?

Using this perspective, we could identify the various institutional characteristics among the nations that tend to create a “greener” prosperity, which would then better inform the efforts of environmental policy makers. For example, I point out in an earlier blog post that countries pursuing prosperity through free markets rather than through centralized planning consistently produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions, per dollar of GDP.

Second, consider the ethically rotten policy implications that this intellectually unripe measure would likely create: In order for a nation with heavy carbon emissions per capita to reduce its culpability in global warming crimes against humanity, it must make relatively greater sacrifices. It must decrease its economic activity using current technologies and divert significant portions of its national treasure towards developing “green” technologies. Nations with lower per-capita emissions would not be called upon to sacrifice as much.

This means a country like China, which has an economy similar in size to the U.S. but generates 43% more total carbon emissions, would be expected to sacrifice less than the U.S. Why? With its 2 billion citizens (6 times the 325 million U.S. citizens), Chinese carbon emissions per capita are still far lower than the U.S.

This ethically rotten perspective ignores the fact that China has produced far more carbon emissions per dollar GDP than the U.S. As a result, Chinese citizens bear a much lower level of prosperity (output per person) than U.S. citizens, despite having imposed a far larger total environmental footprint than the U.S.

Using per-capita carbon emissions as an indicator of climate change culpability?  Hmm… I think I smell something rotten in Denmark.

– See more at: http://environmentblog.ncpa.org/sniffing-out-bad-environmental-policies-is-much-like-culling-rotten-produce/#sthash.iZ5AGrRf.dpuf

Discussion on Why Energy Costs in America, Are So High!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS

President Obama Keeps Energy Costs High

By Filed under Energy on July 28, 2014 

While Obama has not yet been able to stop the fracking technology that is producing an American oil and natural gas boom on private and state owned lands, he has sharply constricted exploration and development on the extensive federally-owned lands and offshore. That is why gasoline prices have doubled since he became President.

The Heritage Foundation explains that under Obama’s policies, the EPA’s:

Proposed limits for carbon dioxide emissions essentially would prohibit the construction of new coal-fired power plants, and force existing ones into early retirement, driving up the cost of energy on American families and businesses.

Then there is Obama’s indefinite hold up of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would simply transport, at no cost to taxpayers, abundant, low cost Canadian oil and natural gas to American Gulf Coast refineries, assuring American access to low cost, reliable oil and gas supplies. But if Canada cannot sell to America through the Keystone pipeline, then they will sell the oil and gas to our emerging rival in China, through pipelines on the Canadian west coast. These policies would deprive America of 50,000 high paying jobs not only for construction of the extensive pipeline networks, but also for the budding boom and rebirth of American manufacturing and associated higher paying blue collar jobs, which the revival of low cost, reliable American energy supplies is producing.

The Heritage Foundation further explains that “higher energy prices shrink production and consumption, resulting in less income for families, more people in the unemployment line and less economic growth.” All of this means that Obama is on track for increasing electricity and other energy costs that are the inevitable result of a constricted supply of low cost, reliable, American energy.

– See more at: http://environmentblog.ncpa.org/president-obama-keeps-energy-costs-high/#sthash.iy1mLXmu.dpuf