In Ecuador they’ve approved a new constitution giving “nature” the same rights as human beings. In Switzerland they have a constitutional amendment that led to a mandate not to “disturb the vital functions or lifestyle” of plants. Ecuador and Switzerland are a tad unusual, but not entirely so.

“Spain will be granting human rights to all 350 apes in its territory,” writes Thomas Szyszkiewicz. “Switzerland is telling farmers not to lop flowers off as they return from mowing their fields since those flowers have a right to exist as they are. The European Court of Human Rights will be hearing a case that could grant a chimpanzee the status of a person in Austria. And in an editorial watching amusedly as Ecuador begins its grand experiment, the Los Angeles Times reported that Australia, Italy, South Africa, and Nepal (which is also in the midst of writing a constitution) have all started looking at similar juridic person provisions.”

This misplaced reverance that bestows on animals and plants rights our constitution reserves for humans has its own perverse logic. “In June, about 35 members of a group opposed to the genetic modification of crops, invaded the test field where scientists were trying to make wheat resistant to disease, writes Gautam Naik. “Clad in white overalls and masks, they scythed and trampled the plants, causing plenty of damage.” “They just cut them,” says molecular biologist Dr. Beat Keller, gesturing to wheat stumps left in the field. “Where’s the dignity in that?” See post here.

Climatologist Dr. John Christy in a satirical response concluded that then “plants have a ‘right’ to CO2 five times the present level.” Christy wrote: “Follow the logic. If flowers, trees, etc. have rights, then they should have the right to their original food supply (CO2) in quantities as it was when they evolved (about five times today’s value).

See larger image here

The Western Business Roundtable today lauded the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service for proposing reforms to the highly troubled Endangered Species Act (ESA). 

“Reforming the Endangered Species Act has long been a priority of many Westerners who care about the successful recovery of species that are in trouble,” the Roundtable said in comments to government. “We applaud the Services for undertaking the challenge of modernizing this key element of ESA.  It is important to, among other things, align regulations with recent court decisions and clarify terminology to provide more consistent practices in the field, less confusion for agencies and project proponents, and less of the language ambiguity that so often breeds court battles.”
See the roundtables filed comments here.

“We particularly hope that the Services’ language concerning ESA and climate change can be useful in constraining the misuse of ESA as a tool to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs).  The Services certainly need to clear up the confusion and uncertainty that has resulted from the USFWS’s recent polar bear listing decision,” said Weygandt.

The proposed rule specifically seeks to reinforce the USFWS’s current position relative to ESA and climate change by asserting that it is not possible to draw a direct causal link between GHG emissions and distant observations of impacts affecting species. As a result, consultations on a remote agency action involving the contribution of emissions to global warming would be considered inappropriate under the proposed rule, because it is not possible to link the emissions to impacts on specific listed species. “We support such an analytical approach.  It is consistent with traditional ESA impacts analysis.  Read more here.

Environmentalists, journalists and politicians say the United States should follow Europe’s lead to prevent climate chaos. But European opinion and policies are all over the map - and getting more confused as the financial and economic downturn continues. So which European lead should America follow? And how is it morally responsible to enact climate legislation that kills jobs and punishes families and businesses, to reduce global temperatures by perhaps 0.2 degrees (assuming CO2 actually does affect global temperatures)?

My column this week explores these questions - and underscores the fact that American politicians are embracing climate Armageddon claims, even as Europe is rapidly walking (running?) away from its climate change “commitments” - as the economic, employment and household implications of punitive energy and environmental policies become increasingly obvious. 

In short, the United States is increasingly isolated on the global stage - as almost the only country that is still prepared to embrace job- and economy-killing climate change policies. Hydrocarbons provide 85% of all US energy. They are the foundation of an economy that has been shaken to its core and may be entering a recession. Wind and solar represent less than 0.5% – and provide only intermittent auxiliary power. The new “Lights out in 2009?” study warns that the United States “faces potentially crippling brownouts and blackouts,” beginning in 2009, especially in regions that experience prolonged hot spells during summer months, due to insufficient generating capacity.

A bank that wanted to install solar panels found it would cost $850,000 - but would cut only 12% off its electricity bill. That meant it would take 90 years to pay off panels would last only 30 years. Fiscal and technological realities must remain the foundation of “social responsibility.” House Democrats are nevertheless promoting new cap-and-trade legislation that could be even more punitive than Warner-Lieberman, which even sponsors admitted would cost nearly $7 trillion. They oppose oil and gas drilling, and new coal, nuclear and hydroelectric plants. Many want to “transform” our energy and economic system - from one that works to one based on heavily subsidized technologies that aren’t ready for prime time, and may not exist for decades. Which lead should we follow? Even if it takes us off an economic cliff? To what end? Read the full commentary here.

In economic theory the winner’s curse refers to the idea that someone who places the winning bid in an auction may have paid too much. Consider, for example, bids to develop an oil field. Most of the offers are likely to cluster around the true value of the resource, so the highest bidder probably paid too much. The same thing may be happening in scientific publishing, according to a new analysis. With so many scientific papers chasing so few pages in the most prestigious journals, the winners could be the ones most likely to oversell themselves - to trumpet dramatic or important results that later turn out to be false. This would produce a distorted picture of scientific knowledge, with less dramatic (but more accurate) results either relegated to obscure journals or left unpublished.

In Public Library of Science (PloS) Medicine, an online journal, John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Ioannina School of Medicine, Greece, and his colleagues, suggest that a variety of economic conditions, such as oligopolies, artificial scarcities and the winner’s curse, may have analogies in scientific publishing. Dr Ioannidis made a splash three years ago by arguing, quite convincingly, that most published scientific research is wrong. Now, along with Neal Young of the National Institutes of Health in Maryland and Omar Al-Ubaydli, an economist at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, he suggests why. It starts with the nuts and bolts of scientific publishing.

Hundreds of thousands of scientific researchers are hired, promoted and funded according not only to how much work they produce, but also to where it gets published. For many, the ultimate accolade is to appear in a journal like Nature or Science. Such publications boast that they are very selective, turning down the vast majority of papers that are submitted to them. Dr Ioannidis based his earlier argument about incorrect research partly on a study of 49 papers in leading journals that had been cited by more than 1,000 other scientists. They were, in other words, well-regarded research. But he found that, within only a few years, almost a third of the papers had been refuted by other studies.

The group’s more general argument is that scientific research is so difficult - the sample sizes must be big and the analysis rigorous - that most research may end up being wrong. And the “hotter” the field, the greater the competition is and the more likely it is that published research in top journals could be wrong. Read more here.

Move over Al Gore. Swankier carbon charlatanism has come to town in the form of the World Wildlife Fund’s luxury getaway called “Around the World: A Private Jet Expedition.” “Join us on a remarkable 25-day journey by luxury private jet,” invites the WWF in a brochure for its voyage to “some of the most astonishing places on the planet to see top wildlife, including gorillas, orangutans, rhinos, lemurs and toucans.”

For a price tag that starts at $64,950 per person, travelers will meet at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando, Fla. on April 6, 2009 and then fly to “remote corners” of the world on a “specially outfitted jet that carries just 88 passengers in business-class comfort.” “World class experts - including WWF’s director of species conservation - will provide lectures en route, and a professional staff will be devoted to making your global adventure seamless and memorable.” Travelers will visit the Amazon Rain Forest in Brazil, Easter Island, Samoa, Borneo, Laos, Nepal, Madagascar, Namibia, Uganda or Rwanda, and finish up at the luxury Dorchester Hotel in London.

This is the very same WWF that says “the current growth in [carbon dioxide] emissions must be stopped as soon as possible” and that blames Americans for emitting 21 percent of global CO2 emissions even though the U.S. accounts for only 5 percent of the global population. In December 2007, the WWF launched its “Earth Hour” campaign, a global initiative in which cities and communities simultaneously turn out their lights for one hour “to symbolize their leadership and commitment to finding solutions for climate change.”

So how does this fantasy trip square with the WWF’s alarmist rhetoric? Using the carbon footprint calculator on the WWF’s own web site, the 36,800-mile trip in a Boeing 757 jet will burn about 100,000 gallons of jet fuel to produce roughly 1,231 tons of CO2 in 25 days - that’s the equivalent of putting about 1,560 SUVs on the road during those three-plus weeks and that doesn’t even include emissions related to local air, ground and water transport and other amenities.

If you can’t make the WWF’s private jet expedition, the group offers a wide variety of other pricey, carbon-spewing tours. You might be interested in the WWF trip to the Galapagos or Fiji Islands, where you’re less likely to run into pesky downscale local tourists. The WWF has called for limitations on local tourism in the Galapagos and Fiji Islands saying that it causes greater environmental damage than “larger tourist operations” - like the WWF’s.

I’ve been thinking that WWF’s bandit-like panda bear was an appropriate logo given the group’s promotion of “rip-offsets.” But now, I think that a new logo may be in order - perhaps a hippo-crite? Read more here.

Earth welcomes economic meltdown to stop global warming? - ‘May give the planet a breather from the excessively high CO2’. A slowdown in the world economy may give the planet a breather from the excessively high carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions responsible for climate change, a Nobel Prize winning scientist said on Tuesday.  Atmospheric scientist Paul J Crutzen, who has in the past floated the possibility of blitzing the stratosphere with sulfur particles to cool the earth, said clouds gathering over the world economy could ease the earth’s environmental burden.

Slower economic growth worldwide could help slow growth of carbon dioxide emissions and trigger more careful use of energy resources, though the global economic turmoil may also divert focus from efforts to counter climate change, said Crutzen, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the depletion of the ozone layer. “It’s a cruel thing to say but if we are looking at a slowdown in the economy, there will be less fossil fuels burning, so for the climate it could be an advantage,” Crutzen told Reuters in an interview.

“We could have a much slower increase of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere people will start saving (on energy use) but things may get worse if there is less money available for research and that would be serious.” Read more here.

Obviously, Al Gore’s personal “carbon footprint” is massive. As I dug deeper into Gore’s own energy use, even I was surprised at the extent of the absolutely cartoonish gap between his words and his actions.

Remember, Al doesn’t think that you should have the right to make your own hallway light bulb choice.

Some recent stops on Gore’s travel schedule (which some are calling his “con-trail"): October 24, 2008--Seattle, October 7, 2008--Nashville,
October 4, 2008--Des Moines, Iowa, October 4, 2008--Minneapolis, September 27, 2008--Napa, September 27, 2008--San Jose, September 25, 2008--London, September 24, 2008--New York, August 23, 2008--Boulder, Colorado, May 19, 2008--Israel, May 18, 2008--Pittsburgh, May 4, 2008--Ohio, May 3, 2008--Philadelphia, May 2, 2008--New York, April 18, 2008--Nashville, April 15, 2008--Geneva, April 11, 2008--San Francisco, April 8, 2008--Iceland,
April 7, 2008--Faroe Islands, April 5, 2008--Montreal, March 18, 2008--New York, March 15, 2008--India, March 12, 2008--Poland, March 11, 2008--Geneva, March 1, 2008--Monterey, California, February 14, 2008--New York City, January 31, 2008--Atlanta, January 24, 2008--Switzerland, January 22, 2008--Sweden, January 19, 2008--Park City, Utah, Dec 13, 2007--Bali, Dec 12, 2007--Frankfurt, Dec 12, 2007--Stockholm, Dec 7, 2007--Norway, November 30, 2007--London, November 20, 2007--The Turks and Caicos Islands, November 19, 2007--New York, November 6, 2007--New York, October 26, 2007--Spain, October 25, 2007--France, October 12, 2007--Palo Alto, California, October 5, 2007--Pacific Palisades, California, Sept. 25, 2007--New York, Sept. 19, 2007--Australia, Sept. 16, 2007--Los Angeles, August 26, 2007 San Francisco, August 26, 2007 Los Angeles, August 26, 2007 Nashville, August 9, 2007--Hong Kong, July 9, 2007--New Jersey, July 9, 2007--Washington, DC, July 3, 2007--London, June 20, 2007--South Africa, June 12, 2007--Istanbul, June 3, 2007--Denver, May 29, 2007--Washington, DC, May 24, 2007--New York City, May 23, 2007--San Francisco, May 22, 2007--Beverly Hills, May 11, 2007--Argentina, April 17, 2007--Nashville, April 13, 2007--New York, April 3, 2007--San Jose, April 2, 2007--Arizona, March 29, 2007--Oslo, March 22, 2007--Montreal, March 12, 2007--London, March 7, 2007--Brussels, February 25, 2007--Hollywood, February 6, 2007--Madrid, January 28, 2007--New York City, January 20, 2007--Century City, California, January 18, 2007--London, January 15, 2007--Tokyo.

Note that this is only a partial list. For example: Gore is a businessman these days sitting on the boards of Apple Computer Inc. and Current TV, the cable and satellite channel he started with investor Joel Hyatt “and those take him (to the Bay Area) pretty regularly for board meetings and the like,” said his spokeswoman, Kalee Kreider. When he’s not in a fossil fuel-powered jet, maybe Gore is relaxing in one of these three homes: [Al and Tipper] have a new multimillion-dollar home in a tony section of Nashville and a family home in Virginia, and have recently bought a multimillion-dollar condo at the St. Regis condo/hotel in San Francisco. A video of Gore taking a private jet is here. A related article is here, entitled “Gore home’s energy use: 20 times average”. 

PSD researcher Marty Hoerling gave an invited presentation entitled, “Climate Change in the Grain Belt,” on September 10 at the 2008 Corn and Climate Conference in Ames, IA. His presentation focused on the fact that since 1895 there has not been a warming of temperatures in the Corn Belt during the growing season. It is important for researchers to sort out the reason why, since historical data does not show the warming that would be anticipated from green house gas increases. Increased precipitation has kept this region cool, which is favorable to corn yields. It is unknown why it has been wetter during this period, but is most likely attributable to natural variations in climate.

There appears to be a tendency for corn yield to be compromised when temperatures are elevated. It is possible that temperature values in the growing season could increase in the Corn Belt as much as 6-7°F or more by the end of the century. If this comes to pass, there are indications that corn yield would suffer - but by how much is uncertain. Since there has not yet been any warming in this region, it is unclear what, if any, action should be taken. There could be proponents that might discount any action being taken now for warming that could come later. ESRL’s Director, Sandy MacDonald, also gave a presentation at this Workshop entitled, “Probability of Extreme Climates.” NOAA co-sponsored this special extension of the Growing the Bioeconomy Conference to assess recent climate trends in the Midwest, as well as seasonal and long-term climate assessments.  Read more here.