By Dr. Vincent Gray
"Forecasting is difficult: particularly about the future” This piece of wisdom is attributed to Yogi Berra. But it does not apply to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, since they do not make “forecasts” at all, only “projections”. As they make clear, “projections” are dependent on the correctness of the assumptions made by the computer models and the futures scenarios from which they are made.
This has not always been so. In the first IPCC Report (1990). on the first page of the “Executive Summary” there was nearly a whole page headed “ Based on current model results, we predict” with no less than ten actual “predictions”.They used the phrase “models predict” several times throughout, but they did, at least admit that there were “uncertainties”.
Chapter 4 was entitled “Validation of Climate Models”. Paragraph 4,12 “Methods and Problems of Model Validation” showed that such validation is quite a problem, and it seemed to show that, so far, no model has been truly validated. Chapter 8 “Detection of the Greenhouse Effect in the Observations” had the answer when it said (paragraph 8.4) “the fact that we have not yet detected the enhanced greenhouse effect leads to the question: when is this likely to occur”
The next Report (1995) had, in its first draft, another Chapter 4 “Validation of Climate Models”. I commented (with, perhaps, others), that since no model had ever been validated, according to their own opinions, the title was inappropriate. So in the next draft they changed the word “validation” to “evaluation” no less that fifty times, and that report and all subsequent ones have not used the terms “predict”, “forecast”, or “validate”. Also there has been no further discussion on how validation might be made. This is true of all of the four parts of the Fourth Report.
I frequently quote this example from their “Frequently Asked Question 1.2”: “A common confusion between weather and climate arises when scientists are asked how they can predict climate 50 years from now when they cannot predict the weather a few weeks from now. The chaotic nature of weather makes it unpredictable beyond a few days. Projecting changes in climate (i.e., long-term average weather) due to changes in atmospheric composition or other factors is a very different and much more manageable issue”.
Note that they insist that all they do is “project”. They are admitting that “scientists cannot “predict climate 50 years from now”. No wonder there is “A common confusion”, The claim that their “projections” are “very different” and “much more manageable” does not include a claim that they can provide successful predictions.
And yet, the politicians, activists and many ordinary people seem to be under the delusion that the IPCC “projections” actually can be regarded as “forecasts” to the extent of promoting all manner of economically damaging measures in the belief of countering them. The above statement seems also to agree that the only scientists capable of actually predicting are the weather forecasters and it might be worth while to examine how this has been achieved, however imperfect it may seem.
Despite all this, the public, the media and the politicians seem to think that the IPCC “projections” are “forecasts” even when the IPCC denies it. It is therefore useful to see whether these projections show any success as forecasts.
The following (enlarged here) table shows a comparison between the “projections” of the IPCC and the observed figures, extrapolated to 2010 from the latest available information. It shows that the IPCC are within range of prediction for population, coal production, CO2 emissions and CO2 concentrations, but they are completely wrong on methane concentrations, global temperature change and sea level change. It might be mentioned that the “projections” for global GDP are also all wrong, but I have been unable to find figures that make adequate allowance for the changes in the US dollar.
See full newsletter PDF here.
See also the post “Global Warming Predictions Invalidated” by Doug L. Hoffman on The Resilient Earth reporting on the new study in the journal Science has just shown that all of the climate modeling results of the past are erroneous here.
And in this UK Times Online story, experts say that climate change forecasts and scenarios are overblown and too much time is being spent at the expense of changes in human use of land which has a greater impact on the survival of species.
By Peter C. Glover and Michael Economides on SPPI
Over the last two decades, US taxpayers have subsidized the American climate change industry to the tune of $79 billion. That’s the headline from Climate Money, a report published last month by the Science and Public Policy Institute.
The report’s author, Joanne Nova, points to a “well funded, highly organized climate monopoly” that she says is spending billions of dollars without any proper scientific audits. Those audits, she maintains, are instead being conducted by “unpaid volunteers"who have exposed the climate industry’s “major errors time and again.’ Nova also says these government expenditures have “created a powerful alliance of self-serving vested interests” drawn by the prospect of lucrative profits soon to be garnered from carbon trading. The result: the establishment of a near-monopsony that is distorting climate science in favor of climate alarmism.
Climate Money claims that the US Government has “poured in $32 billion for climate research - and another $36 billion for development of climate-related technologies” over the last 20 years. Yet, “after spending $30 billion on pure science research no one is able to point to a single piece of empirical evidence that man-made carbon dioxide has a significant effect on the global climate.” The report makes the telling point that a burgeoning industry employing thousands and receiving billions in free government handouts simply has no “real incentive to ‘announce’ the discovery of the insignificance of carbon’s role.”
Nova also perceives a “ratchet effect”, whereby pro-AGW (anthropogenic global warming) theory is “reported, repeated, trumpeted and asserted” while anti-AGW findings, often the work of unfunded, retired scientists, “lie unstudied, ignored and delayed.” The SPPI report shows how it is largely left to unfunded bloggers and scientists to expose errors like that perpetrated by Michael Mann’s now infamous and discredited Hockey Stick Graph. The report also cites how, once again, it was left to “unfunded volunteers” to expose how 89 percent of the NOAA’s (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) temperature sensors, showed that the national statistics were being collated from sites located too near to heating and air conditioning outlets, car parks and other artificial sources of heat.
Climate Money also highlights the vilification of “Big Oil” and, in particular, the “Exxon Blame-Game.” Nova’s report reveals that while Exxon Mobil gave a mere $23 million, spread over ten years, to climate sceptics, climate alarmism was funded to the tune of $2 billion by the US Government. Yet as stark as the funding difference is, it is Exxon that has, and still is, been attacked mercilessly for allegedly “distorting the debate.”
Nova, however, draws the ironic conclusion that those who attack Exxon “are inadvertently drawing attention away from the real power play and acting as unpaid agents for giant trading houses and large banks.” Something she notes “could sit a little uncomfortably with greenies and environmentalists.” As Nova says, “The side show of blaming Big Oil hides the truth: that the real issue is whether there is any evidence, and that the sceptics are a grassroots movement that consists of well respected scientists and a growing group of unpaid volunteers.”
Describing the culture of ad hominem attacks as a “form of censorship”, the SPPI report identifies that: “Not many fields of science have dedicated smear sites for scientists. Money talks.” So it seems. And the point is underlined when we learn that scientist-smearing Desmog is a funded wing of the PR group Hoggan and associates, which acts on behalf of groups with a vested climate interest. ExxonSecrets turns out to be funded by Greenpeace, an organization that “lives off donations to ‘save the planet’.”
Citing the World Bank, the report notes that turnover of carbon trading has doubled from $63 billion in 2007 to $126 billion in 2008. “Not surprisingly,” comments the report’s author, “banks are doing what banks should do: they’re following the promise of profits, and hence urging government to adopt carbon trading.” Bart Chilton of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is quoted as predicting carbon trading will become a $2 trillion market and the “largest commodity market in the world.” Richard Sandor, chairman and CEO of Climate Exchange plc, predicts the market will eventually “total $10 trillion a year.”
Nova believes that climate science itself has become critically important to the new “self-sanctioning circle of vested interests.” She continues, “The stealthy mass entry of bankers and traders into the background of the scientific ‘debate’ poses grave threats to the scientific process” which increasingly “hinges on finding that human emissions of carbon dioxide have a significant role in the climate.” Unwittingly, green planet-saving eco-warriors will find themselves in an unholy alliance making the case that will boost the coffers of global bankers and financiers who, on another day, they would likely “throw rocks at.”
The SPPI report concludes with a plea to recognize that “the process of science can be distorted (like any human endeavour) by a massive one-sided input of money.” It’s a plea for science to be released from the “vice like grip of politics and finance” allowing “more attention to be paid to empirical evidence”. It demands we “get serious about auditing science” and deplores our failure to grasp that “monopolistic funding tests the fabric of the way we do science”. While report author Nova believes, “the truth will come out in the end” she begs one final and crucial question: “How much damage will accrue while we wait for volunteers to audit the claims of the financially well-fed?”
Above all, the report highlights a growing national scandal. It does so by revealing how an industry backed by $79 billion in public funds has failed to make out even a baseline case for the carbon-climate link - the industry’s whole raison d’etre. And it does so by revealing how government is backing a biased scientific “horse” thereby promoting the very antithesis of how scientific enquiry should work. See post PDF here.
By Janet Albrechtsen, the Australian
Increasingly, the road to Copenhagen resembles a suburban street on Halloween with the number of climate change freak shows and stunts reaching a nadir in recent weeks. Nicholas Stern says we should turn vegetarian in order to combat climate change. If you must eat meat, eat kangaroos, says Ross Garnaut, because marsupials emit negligible amounts of methane. And that champagne you drank on Melbourne Cup day? Scientists scolded us with a report that a 750ml bottle of bubbly could produce 100 million bubbles, releasing five litres of carbon dioxide.
Yet far from rallying people to the cause of immediate action on climate change, every new cri de coeur may be turning people away. Could it be that those derided as the great unwashed are beginning to ask more questions than their smart political leaders or the bastions of intellectual curiosity in the media?
Late last month, activists gathered at Sydney Opera House to listen to Sydney mayor Clover Moore announce that “the time for talk is past”. “Already we know that this building, our Opera House, for decades a symbol of optimism and the human spirit, is under threat from global warming,” she says.
The Opera House under threat? That would be from rising sea levels, right? Just like the small island nation of Maldives where, last month, the president conducted a cabinet meeting underwater to remind the world that his country would be rendered uninhabitable by rising sea levels. Kitted out in full scuba-diving outfits, Mohamed Nasheed and his ministers sat at a table underwater off the coast of the capital of Male.
As planned, the president’s stunt made headlines across the globe. Send us money - and lots of it - is his message. The media love stunts. They are so easy to report. Sadly, the media is not inquisitive enough to report those who question the circus acts of climate change. A week after the Maldives underwater show, Nils-Axel Morner - a leading world authority on sea levels - wrote an open letter to the president telling him that his stunt was “not founded in observational facts and true scientific judgments”.
Morner is a former professor who headed the department of paleogeophysics and geodynamics at Stockholm University and past president (1999-2003) of the International Union for Quaternary Research commission on sea level changes and coastal evolution. INQUA was founded in 1928 by scientists who aimed to improve the understanding of environmental change during the glacial ages through interdisciplinary research. In other words, the Swedish professor has gravitas when it comes to sea levels.
Alas his letter did not make headlines. That is a shame. Morner says there is “no rational basis” for the hysterical claims that the people of Maldives - or the rest of the world - are threatened by rising sea levels. And he sets out some facts.
Fact number 1: During the past 2000 years, sea levels have fluctuated with 5 peaks reaching 0.6m to 1.2m above present sea level. Fact number 2: From 1790 to 1970 sea levels were about 20cm higher than today. Fact number 3: In the 1970s, the sea level fell by about 20cm to its present level. Fact number 4: Sea levels have remained constant for the past 30 years “implying that there are no traces of any alarming ongoing sea level rise”. Fact number 5 (and I am paraphrasing here): The notion presented by the President of the Maldives that his country will be flooded is bunkum.
Yet, last week a federal parliamentary report told Australians to make plans to evacuate if we live on the coast. Warning that the “time to act is now”, the bipartisan report said the 711,000 addresses within 3km of the Australian coast - and less than 6m above sea level - face threats from rising sea levels. The report called for an inquiry by the Productivity Commission to examine the need for bans on homes within these areas.
Viewers of the 7pm News on ABC1 were told by a Richard Branson lookalike - complete with longish wavy grey hair, beard and crisp white shirt - that the township of Byron Bay would be completely flooded by rising sea levels. His expertise? He is a resident of Byron Bay.
Despite the headline grabbing rhetoric about climate change calamity, recent polls reveal that more and more people appear to be challenging the orthodoxy. The most recent Lowy Institute poll found that while 48 per cent of Australian believe that global warming is a serious and pressing problem, the numbers are down 12 points since 2008 and 20 points down since 2006. “This is also the first year that it has not had majority support,” said the Lowy Institute.
A poll by Ipso Reid in Canada in September found that global warming has dropped down the list of people’s concerns. Indeed, a full 41 per cent now say the threat has been overblown. In the US, Associated Press reported on a poll last month that found 57 per cent of people believe there is clear evidence that the world is heating up, down 20 points from three years ago. These are some trend lines worth watching.
Perhaps we are wising up to modern day millenarianism where end-of-the-world cults - those who have the most to gain from their fear mongering - preach calamity. Remember Y2K? The cult back then comprised computer experts. They predicted disaster. Planes would fall from the skies. People would be caught in halting elevators. Chaos would descend on anything that relied on a computer, from financial markets to utilities. Governments duly prepared for disaster with the BBC reporting that global preparations for the millennium bug were estimated to have cost more than $US300 billion. All for nought. Nothing happened. It was, as James Taranto wrote in The Wall Street Journal, the hoax of the century.
Maurice Newman, who was chairman of the federal government’s Y2K committee told The Australian last week that “in pressing the urgency for compliance, the committee members relied heavily on confirmatory bias. Most of this came from so-called experts who had much to gain from creating a sense of alarm. The consequence of widespread inaction was claimed to result in chaos and systemic failure. As there was no alternative authoritative voice, this became perceived wisdom and was certainly believed by the committee. As such the Y2K phenomenon took on a life of its own.”
Deja vu? Preparing for the deluge of rising sea levels, we were treated to footage last week from parliamentary question time starring Julia Gillard and her gumboots. Appropriately she was followed on ABC1 by Bananas in Pyjamas. Could man-made climate change turn out to be the greatest hoax of the present century? Certainly, ordinary people are beginning to ask questions.
By Karl J. Hansen, klimabedrag.dk
Let me start by saying, I have invented no ideas of my own, I borrow here and there and get a full draft picture emerging in the end. The various media have made it almost impossible to get even the simplest of physics and maths put together, it looks like many of natures elements exist here on Earth in order to satisfy IPCC and the rest of climate confusers.
IPCC has tangled the whole climate issue into a Gordian Knot to a degree where dictionary get screwed-up, like for the word “greenhouse-gasses”. Everywhere I looked-up that word, I was told: “greenhouse-gasses cause global warming and the main greenhouse-gas is CO2.” - Not bothering to mention H2O despite this stuff dictates 95% of the greenhouse-effect. They also forget to tell that greenhouse-gasses like H2O can have both a cooling and a warming effect.
I love Lord C. Monckton for his lordships way of simplifying the climate confusion and he does it in an entertaining way. I will pull a segment from one of his many speeches, the segment that inspired the title: “Unite Nations In Poor Cold Caves”.
The UN’s idea of where much of the civilization will have to live to “save the planet”.
In order to reduce an IPCC expected rise of 6F or 3.3C over the next 90 years with 1F or 0.6C, we need all human activity on the whole planet to come to an absolut halt for 33 years without the right to light a fire, only to drive Flintstone-mobiles and without Internet and electric light. - Not even nuclear electricity, it would have to be a genuine zero-CO2-emitting world society.
It is a very simple calculation based on IPCC figures, you don’t even need your solar powered calculator:
1 * 1012 ton less CO2 emission reduces global warming by 1F (from 6F to 5F increase).
30 * 109 ton CO2 is emitted by worldwide human activity every year.
1 * 1012 / 30 * 109 = 33 years of zero-emission.
If we want to get rid of all 6F the IPCC predict before year 2100, then we can’t even do it by inhibiting all human activity on Earth, because removing all 6F warming will take 200 years where no one, not even Al Gore, is allowed to cook a meal in his cave. It is therefore hilarious how the COP15 Treaty (FCCC/AWGLCA/2009/INF.2) is to decide various quota of CO2 to pay tax for, depending on your country’s level of westernization. As illustrated above, there is no possible way, even with IPCC’s grossly improved performance attributed to CO2, we realistically can influence the global temperature by means of reducing our CO2 contribution to the plants.
If the UN intend to help the poor, develop the under-developed countries and so on, they do a very illogic deal at the moment; they should explain themselves in far better/honest ways than playing games with science. The question is if UN’s punishing way of distributing wealth wouldn’t in fact lower the global middle class wealth. Could it be, that simply just helping countries in need, instead of transferring CO2 penalty money from “rich” to “poor”, would better the Western economy and at the same time get the wheels spinning in the less developed countries?
Read more here.
By Joseph D’Aleo
In a blogpost Why is Climate Change Education Failing, and At a Time When it CANNOT Fail? here, Dr Jeff Goldstein bemoans the public not buying into the hoax.
“It’s all about the nature of education. Those loud voices espousing that Global Warming is not real, or that it is certainly not from human activity, are swaying those that are willing to listen. The shift in public perception is stunning and scary. We’re doing a bad job of informing and educating with regard to climate change. The aim should be conceptual understanding, not just the streaming of disconnected scientific conclusions as memorizable nuggets. Education is about ownership in understanding - not reporting in the conventional sense, and not political spin. Just like the researcher who is trained to frame ideas about observed natural phenomena and put those ideas to the test, true education is about the learner being presented with information that he or she can process, question, and internalize as their own conclusions.”
In the comments he finds an opportunity to provide a teachable moment using Venus as an example of what a runaway greenhouse would do if we don’t act now.
DrJeff Says: A TEACHABLE MOMENT ALERT
Gosh Tom, not sure what you are saying. Let’s keep this simple. Do this calculation - figure out what temperature say Venus ought to be at its distance of 0.7 AU from the Sun. (Earth is at by definition 1.0 AU.) I guarantee it is not supposed to be anywhere close to 900 degrees F, which is its surface temperature. Hot enough to melt lead. It has NO water or ice. It has a thick CO2 ATMOSPHERE with a little water vapor. It is hotter than Mercury (which has no atmosphere), which is far closer to the Sun. Does that tell you something? Readers, just process these very simple facts. Something on Venus must be dramatically elevating the temperature there. It is called the GREENHOUSE EFFECT. IT’S VERY REAL. IT’S HUGE ON VENUS. IT ELEVATES SURFACE TEMPERATURE. THIS IS ASTROPHYSICS 101. See this is exactly what I mean. Someone reading Tom’s reply says, “hey he sounds believable.” But he is soooo not. He does not understand the physics. You see how easy it is to wage a science smear campaign?”
I logged in and commented back to him that Mercury has no atmosphere - or very little, oxygen, sodium, hydrogen (surface temp 800C). Venus has an heavy thick atmosphere with 96.5% CO2, 3.5% nitrogen and small amounts of other gases including sulfur dioxide and water which forms thick sulfuric acid clouds. The pressure at the surface is 92 times the earth. Boyle’s Law tells us high pressure = higher temp which would explain most of the warmth at the surface (750C). At the same level in the Venusian atmosphere with earth’s surface pressure, the temperature is about the same as the earth (300K or 27C) even though the planet is closer to the sun.
Mars also has 95% CO2 atmosphere but a pressure of 1% of the earth and an average temperature of -55C. It has weather like earth, Mars landers showed thin clouds and even light snow. Little evidence of greenhouse warming though of course a thin atmosphere.
All the good doctor proved is that Boyle’s law works on the planets. The comment was blocked because, although registered - I was “outside the proxies” whatever that means. Maybe only tree rings and bristlecone pine need apply. Too bad, I think it would be a teachable moment for the good doctor.
Update: a few others have emailed me and noted their inability to comment on this site, a typical tactic of the alarmist sites like RC, Climate Progress, and Desmogblog. One commenter though, a Tom Rowan, has managed to penetrate the wall and tried to make the pressure temperature connection. But Dr. Jeff proves to be just as dense as the Venusian atmosphere and doesn’t hear what Tom is trying to tell him, continuing to try and explain how CO2 produces the warming.
By Robin Pagnamenta, Energy Editor
People will need to turn vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming. In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”
Direct emissions of methane from cows and pigs is a significant source of greenhouse gases. Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas.
Lord Stern, the author of the influential 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, said that a successful deal at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases.
He predicted that people’s attitudes would evolve until meat eating became unacceptable. “I think it’s important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating,” he said. “I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food.”
Lord Stern, a former chief economist of the World Bank and now I. G. Patel Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, warned that British taxpayers would need to contribute about 3 billion pounds a year by 2015 to help poor countries to cope with the inevitable impact of climate change. He also issued a clear message to President Obama that he must attend the meeting in Copenhagen in person in order for an effective deal to be reached. US leadership, he said, was “desperately needed” to secure a deal.
He said that he was deeply concerned that popular opinion had so far failed to grasp the scale of the changes needed to address climate change, or of the importance of the UN meeting in Copenhagen from December 7 to December 18. “I am not sure that people fully understand what we are talking about or the kind of changes that will be necessary” he added.
Up to 20,000 delegates from 192 countries are due to attend the UN conference in the Danish capital. Its aim is to forge a deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to prevent an increase in global temperatures of more than 2 degrees centigrade. Any increase above this level is expected to trigger runaway climate change, threatening the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
Lord Stern said that Copenhagen presented a unique opportunity for the world to break free from its catastrophic current trajectory. He said that the world needed to agree to halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 to 25 gigatonnes a year from the current level of 50 gigatonnes. UN figures suggest that meat production is responsible for about 18 per cent of global carbon emissions, including the destruction of forest land for cattle ranching and the production of animal feeds such as soy.
Lord Stern, who said that he was not a strict vegetarian himself, was speaking on the eve of an all-parliamentary debate on climate change. His remarks provoked anger from the meat industry. Jonathan Scurlock, of the National Farmers Union, said: “Going vegetarian is not a worldwide solution. It’s not a view shared by the NFU. Farmers in this country are interested in evidence-based policymaking. We don’t have a methane-free cow or pig available to us.”
On average, a British person eats 50g of protein derived from meat each day - the equivalent of a chicken breast or a lamb chop. This is a relatively low level for a wealthy country but between 25 per cent and 50 per cent higher than the amount recommended by the World Health Organisation. Su Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Vegetarian Society, welcomed Lord Stern’s remarks. “What we choose to eat is one of the biggest factors in our personal impact on the environment,” she said. “Meat uses up a lot of resources and a vegetarian diet consumes a lot less land and water. One of the best things you can do about climate change is reduce the amount of meat in your diet.” The UN has warned that meat consumption is on course to double by the middle of the century.
Note: The main protein substitute for meat in the vegan diet is beans which produces gas. Stern is not new to controversy nor to stupidity with respect to climate change. The economist Stern’s Review on the Economics of Climate Change was a 700-page report released on October 30, 2006 for the British government, greatly exaggerrated the effect of global warming on the world economy. The Stern Review received widespread critical responses. Mainstream economists argued that the Review overestimated the present value of the costs of climate change, and underestimated the costs of emission reduction. Other critics have argued that the economic cost of the proposals put forward by Stern would be severe, or that the scientific consensus view on global warming, on which Stern relied, was incorrect, which it clearly was.
See also this story in the Telegraph calling Stern’s proclamations the Silliest Ever on Climate Change.
See the Scientific Alliance story on Stern and agriculture “Can Vegetarians Save the World? here.
By Rex Murphy
An article on The Globe’s front page carrying the headline “Canada can meet its climate goals, but the West will write the cheques” raises, among many others, two very interesting points. The article is about a study, conducted by two ardent environmental advocacy groups - the Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki Foundation - and was sponsored by the Toronto Dominion Bank.
The headline has the virtue of capturing the first point I want to underline. In our new green-genuflecting age any substantial, purely Canadian effort to curb greenhouse gases - any policy, economic or otherwise - will have a massive and negative impact on Alberta and Saskatchewan.
If there are taxes on oil development, if we introduce carbon penalties on industry, if there is a deliberate brake put on the oil sands, or an effort to shut them down altogether - this latter not an unthinkable proposition in certain quarters - whatever is done will, sooner or later, take revenues and jobs, take enterprise, out of Alberta in particular. For purely projected and speculative benefits to the world’s climate a century hence - and, despite the unctuous insistence of many to the contrary, speculative they remain - people are seriously considering policies that will penalize the West for its success as an energy producer now.
This is reckless. The oil industry of some Western provinces has been Canada’s dynamo these past few years. It has been our major shield during this recession. It has given the dignity of jobs to tens of thousands of Canadians. It is all that. But if “Central” Canada, as the political and economic axis of Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal is still known in some quarters out West, now - under the impetus of the green craze - is seen to be setting limits, placing penalties, or bleeding disproportionate taxes, particularly in Alberta’s case, it will churn a backlash that will make regional hostilities set loose by the national energy program a few decades ago seem like warm-ups for a yoga class.
It will shape a whirlwind of political discontent, set the West against East, and far from incidentally have deep repercussions in the many other provinces that have their citizens working in one capacity or another in the oil patch. The fury over the national energy program may be spent, but its memory - pardon the word - is green. That fury, I reiterate, will be as nothing compared with the political fury of a second attempt to “stall the West.” Should some global warming action plan attempt to put the oil sands and Western energy development at significant disadvantage, or draw taxes out of the economies of the Western provinces to pay for adventures in global warming policy, we will be playing with Confederation.
That is a prediction it takes no computer modelling to make. If Alberta in particular, and the Western provinces more generally, come to be portrayed as villains in the global warming morality play, more than the climate a century hence is at stake. Secondly, I would urge a caution to all people working in the oil sands in particular. The TD study - farmed out to the economic specialists of the David Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute - should be seen as a loud, low shot across the bow. The oil sands project, already castigated by every green-blooded organization on the planet, featured in a full-blown National Geographic hit-job some months back, is going to be the great emblem of a world “toxifying” itself, and paving the way for global warming Armageddon. It is now boilerplate in news stories as the “dirtiest project on the planet.” It photographs vividly - as National Geographic’s glossy toss-off demonstrates - because of its scale and makes for wonderful anti-energy posters. The oil sands are a target.
Environmentalists are very good at what they do. They play the news media better than Glenn Gould doing a Bach prelude. They know how to sell their point of view, how to build a villain, how to shortcut an argument. Big Green - and there is a Big Green as much as there is a Big Oil - knows the game. Find a symbol. Find one project that, superficially, can stand for all others. The oil sands, despite the hundreds or thousands of less scrupulous and governed energy projects all over the world, despite China’s spectacular use of coal, or the accelerated developments all over the Third World, will be the emblem of choice for the eco-warriors. The media-smart apostles of Al Gore, the Sierra Club and hundreds of other NGOs and eco-lobbies will turn the oil sands into the blight of our time.
It’s only a number of weeks ago, remember, that the great crisis in the auto industry called forth billions to rescue the great manufacturing base of Central Canada. The West will note the contradiction. Spend billions to save an industry that runs on petroleum - it’s here in Ontario - hit the source industry to “save the planet” - that’s in the West. Pursue this course and things will get warm. And I’m not talking about the climate. Read more here.
Rex Murphy is a commentator with The National and host of CBC Radio’s Cross-Country Checkup.
By David Barrett, UK Telegraph
A poll by the Science Museum designed to convince the nation of the perils posed by climate change has backfired after being hijacked by sceptics.
The museum’s Prove It! website, which is designed to influence politicians at the Copenhagen climate summit in December, allows members of the public to pledge their support, or lack of it, to the environmentalist cause.
But so far those backing the campaign are out-numbered nearly six-to-one by opponents. By Saturday, 2,385 people who took the poll said “count me out” compared to just 415 who said “count me in”, after being asked whether they agreed with the statement: “I’ve seen the evidence. And I want the government to prove they’re serious about climate change by negotiating a strong, effective, fair deal at Copenhagen.”
The website, which accompanies a major new exhibition at the venerable South Kensington museum, claims to offer “all the evidence you need to believe in climate change”.
Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, and David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, helped to launch the project by unveiling a map devised by the Met Office which depicts how Britain will be affected by rising sea levels, flood and drought if global temperatures rise more than seven degrees F (four degrees C).
At the launch, a statement from the Science Museum said: “We’re convinced climate change is caused by humans and requires urgent action.”
The Prove It! project is designed to win public support for a global deal on climate change, and will also be used by the Foreign Office to persuade other countries to agree a cut in greenhouse gas emissions.
A Science Museum spokesman said: “Three thousand responses in just three days shows how important this subject is in the run up to the Copenhagen summit.
“Prove It! has mobilised both sides of the debate and this was one of the aims of the project. The Science Museum stands by its position that climate change is real and urgent.”
Results of the poll, are due to be published in December. YOU CAN VOTE HERE. See story here. H/T Benny Peiser, CCNet.
UPDATE: Note as of October 30th, 880 counted in (see global warming evidence) 5846 counted out (don’t see the evidence). To the museum’s credit, they are conducting a fair poll. They found evidence that there was an attempt to stuff the ballot box by those favoring the in position. Those duplicates were removed.