On Thursday, former U. S. vice-president Al Gore delivered a major address calling on his country to abandon all fossil fuels within 10 years. By 2018, U. S. electricity and fuel should come entirely from “renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources,” he said. Tickets to the event encouraged attendees to “please use public transit, bicycling or other climate-friendly means” to reach the lecture hall. So how did Mr. Gore and his retinue arrive? In two Lincoln Town Cars and a full-sized SUV that sat idling with the air conditioners blasting while the Gore party was inside. Remember, too, the Nobel prizewinning environmentalist lives in a Tennessee mansion that produces a carbon footprint 20 times that of the average American home. A sizeable chunk of his personal fortune comes from royalties on a zinc mine which had to be temporarily closed five years ago in part because the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency ruled it one of the worst-polluting mine sites in America. Illegal toxins were frequently discharged into nearby rivers.

But take heart, there is increasing evidence that man-made carbon dioxide may not be causing global warming. Indeed, there is increasing debate in the scientific community whether there is even any warming occurring at all. Mr. Gore might just be able to keep going from jet to limo to estate guilt-free (if not carbon-free) for as long as he wishes.

On Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that seven mountain glaciers in northern California were advancing. They joined glaciers in southern Norway, Sweden, the New Zealand Alps and the Hindu Kush mountains of Pakistan. Indeed, worldwide, there are nearly half as many glaciers advancing as retreating. How did the AP explain this? Well, all the shrinking glaciers it mentioned in its story were melting due to global warming, while the growing ones were “benefitting from changing weather patterns.” Glacier melt is proof of a climate crisis, while--on the same planet, under the same global conditions --glacier advance is chalked up as a mere natural phenomenon.

So I’m sure they’re entirely inconsequential, but here, anyway, are some anecdotes that cast doubt on the notion that emissions from our SUVs and power plants are dangerously harming the climate. Greenland isn’t melting. And while Arctic sea ice may have thinned in the past three decades by about 3% per decade, according to the U. S. National Snow and Ice Date Center, Antarctic ice (which is about 20 times as voluminous as the Arctic kind) has grown by 1% per decade. Also, after last summer’s record melt in the Arctic, this summer’s melt in Antarctica was the smallest on record. And NASA satellites have found that Arctic Sea ice coverage this year is more than one million square kilo-metres greater than last year’s, greater than the average of the last three years and 10-20 centmetres thicker than in 2007. According to observations by the Danish Meteorological Institute, we “have to go back 15 years to find ice expansion so far south.”

Snow coverage in North America this winter was greater than at any time in recorded history. China had its worst winter in a century, and the southern hemisphere its worst in the past 50 years. And while global temperatures increased slightly in June, through the end of May, the nine-month decline in temperatures beginning in September was greater (0.8C) than all the warming of the 20th century (0.6C). All of this may prove nothing (although if these signals pointed toward warming, you can bet they’d be billed as proof a coming climate catastrophe). But they should at least give Mr. Gore comfort that he need not sacrifice his high-carbon lifestyle just to prove he can walk the walk.

I hope that sanity will prevail and China will resist the calls by rabid environmentalists to embark into a self-defeating and hugely expensive emissions control. In the process, China, if it continues to resist, may prove to be the world’s salvation from the sanctimonious sociopolitical movement of ideological environmentalism.

It is always hard to oppose a movement, often in the guise of a religion, that claims it has most of the answers on how life should be. It is harder to deal with one that actually claims that life itself is at stake. Modern environmentalism in the developed world has taken that hue and while it has often preached how people should live their lives, what they eat and how they dress, the last few years they raised the boogeyman of global warming, the result of most sources of energy so vital to modern living. “Global climate change” has become more convenient for zealots because one can blame all temperature ups and downs and all calamities on the same source, man-made carbon dioxide, CO2.

This is often without regard to the connection between energy consumption and economic growth. While they often talk about profligacy and waste of energy by developed and developing countries they omit the even more important corollary: energy consumption generates wealth and well being.  hope that sanity will prevail and China will resist the calls by rabid environmentalists to embark into a self-defeating and hugely expensive emissions control. In the process, China, if it continues to resist, may prove to be the world’s salvation from the sanctimonious sociopolitical movement of ideological environmentalism. It is always hard to oppose a movement, often in the guise of a religion, that claims it has most of the answers on how life should be. It is harder to deal with one that actually claims that life itself is at stake. Modern environmentalism in the developed world has taken that hue and while it has often preached how people should live their lives, what they eat and how they dress, the last few years they raised the boogeyman of global warming, the result of most sources of energy so vital to modern living. “Global climate change” has become more convenient for zealots because one can blame all temperature ups and downs and all calamities on the same source, man-made carbon dioxide, CO2.

This is often without regard to the connection between energy consumption and economic growth. While they often talk about profligacy and waste of energy by developed and developing countries they omit the even more important corollary: energy consumption generates wealth and well being. We will be a hydrocarbon-dependent world for several more decades and all other claims are either wrong or disingenuous. We better figure out two far more important issues: how to find more oil and gas supply without embarking into more wars and international acrimony and how to control real pollution such as particulates and nitrogen and sulfur oxides which really harm the environment and the atmosphere. But the need for economic growth should not be negotiable and that should be made abundantly clear.

Michael Economides is editor-in-chief of Energy Tribune

"Man-made” global warming is more complicated than ever. The real problems lie in the fact that it may be 20-50 years before some believe there’s enough definitive evidence that exists. Many want to react immediately to a situation that has existed since the beginning of time itself. The following are the facts we know. Your response indicates whether you are open to facts or not.  Major known factors in global warming are 1) CO2 production[man-made], 2) Sunspot activity[natural], 3) cloud formation[natural], 3) cyclic variations in earth’s orbit around the sun[natural], 4) sun’s x-rays, cosmic rays, and magnetic fields[natural], and 5) sun variability[natural]. But a look at each clears the field. It has been scientifically determined that CO2 concentrations have been 20 times higher in the past than today. It is also known that man produces < 3% of global warming CO2. The other 97% of global warming gases (H2O) is not controlled by man. More importantly, extremely accurate overlays of all past temperature increases have shown that any temperature increase almost always precedes a CO2 increase. The question of whether a temperature increase actually causes a CO2 increase seems moot. Besides, the scientific community has long since realized that correlation is not causation.

Per Senator James Inhofe(R/ Ok), the truly scary part of global warming regulations is this Spring the government has been deciding on enacting the Climate Security Act, or the Lieberman-Warner Bill. Per the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the bill would contain mandatory provisions in the name of climate change that would impose a $1.2 trillion global warming tax ($4,000/ person). In the meantime the US would likely be relegated to third-world status because of millions of lost jobs; higher gas, power and heating bills; and more expensive consumer goods. Even the Energy Information Administration (EIA) says just this bill would result in a 9.5% drop in manufacturing output. Even Senator George Voinovich (R-Oh) warned that this bill "could result in the most massive bureaucratic intrusion into the lives of Americans since the creation of the IRS". By reducing CO2 emissions by 80%, supply will be forced down and prices will be raised. An MIT study shows the bill would raise gas prices 42% by 2020 and electricity 55% by 2015. The EPA says this meddling would cause a cumulative reduction in growth of GDP by 0.9-3.8% by 2030 (Wall Street Journal// 5/27/08). Inhofe admits the poor already face energy costs as a much higher percentage of their income than wealthier Americans. While most Americans spend ~4% of their monthly budget on heating and other energy needs, the poorest 5th of Americans spend 19%. Read more here.

One can also believe the scientific community. Back a few years ago there were at least 100 scientists who signed a document saying that global warming was likely due to natural factors—not man made. Now, according to Paul Weyrich (Free Congress Foundation), there are 2000 pro-man-made global warming scientists on the UN climate change panel who claim that the issue is settled. But there are over 31,000 scientists who have signed a document saying any global warming is due to natural causes.

The Climate will fluctuate. It always has, it always will. Get used to it. The Government Green Paper completely ignores the main question - should Canberra try to control the weather, or is it better to foster a strong Australia able to cope with whatever climate change brings us? The Government also justifies the need for action on completely worthless long term forecasts of Australia’s weather. Not even the IPCC claims an ability to forecast the weather beyond a few days, but the CSIRO has sullied its reputation by pretending they can project temperature and rainfall 30 years into the future. Why have they not revealed the calculations for these predictions? In the corporate world, anyone making such wild unsubstantiated claims would be quickly disciplined by the regulators. Public figures who repeat and embellish these scaremongering prophecies lack common sense and should also be called to account. The only credible weather forecast for such a long period is “It will Fluctuate”.

Minister Wong obviously believes that if we give her enough powers to tax and regulate, she can change the world’s weather. This belief is as silly as the CSIRO weather forecasts out to 2040. Man has never able to control the weather and there is no credible evidence that his activities have caused unusual weather. In fact, despite all the hot air about carbon emissions, the world has not warmed since 1998 and has been cooling for the last 6 years. Moreover, we have had extreme droughts, floods, ice ages and global warming long before man started using coal and oil.

Minister Wong should make sure Australia has the industrial ability and economic strength to cope with any adverse weather that occurs, be it floods, fires, droughts, snow, heat, cyclones or tsunamis. Poor people cannot cope with Climate Change and the Rudd/Garnaut/Wong carbon taxes will make every Australian poorer. This Deep Green Paper should be recycled and replaced by an enlightened White Paper outlining how to make Australia strong and prosperous. This will provide the best insurance for our children against any climate change. Read more here.

See also the poor ability to provide even 3 month forecasts here. See the real picture of rainfall in Perth region here.

This weblog lists three research findings that are in the peer reviewed literature, but have been completely ignored by the IPCC and CCSP climate assessment communities, nor have been refuted in the literature. These are just three examples of the level to which the scientific method has sunk to in climate science.

Observations of the spatial distribution of aerosols in the atmosphere in the lower latitudes, shows that the aerosol effect on atmospheric circulations, as a result of their alteration in the heating of regions of the atmosphere, is 60 times greater than due to the heating effect of the human addition of well-mixed greenhouse gases [from Matsui and Pielke, 2006].

A conservative estimate of the warm bias in the construction of a global average surface temperature trend resulting from measuring the air temperature near the ground is around 0.21C per decade (with the nighttime minimum temperature contributing a large part of this bias). Since land covers about 29% of the Earth’s surface, the warm bias due to this influence explains about 30% of the IPCC estimate of global warming. In other words, consideration of the bias in temperature would reduce the IPCC trend to about 0.14C per decade; still a warming, but not as large as indicated [based on Lin et al 2007].

The radiative temperature of the Earth is used by the IPCC and CCSP to represent the portion of the radiation emitted at the top of the atmosphere which originates at the Earth’s surface. However, the outgoing long wave radiation is proportional to the fourth power of T [T4], from Stefan-Boltzman’s Law, not temperature by itself. A 1C increase in the polar latitudes in the winter, for example, would have much less of an effect on the change of long wave emission than a 1C increase in the tropics. The spatial distribution matters, but this important distinction has been ignored.  A more appropriate measure of radiatively significant surface changes would be to evaluate the change of the global average of T4 with time. [Pielke et al 2007].

Until, and unless the climate science community returns to the proper scientific method of examining the climate system, policymakers will continue to be fed erroneous information. Only poor policy decisions can result due to this failure. See post here.

The Carbon Sense Coalition today claimed that all government efforts to stop global warming and cut carbon dioxide emissions were anti-life and against the interests of all mankind.  The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that this generation of foolish politicians are the first in history to complain about the beneficial effects that have always accompanied the periodic but short warm eras that punctuate earth’s history. The human story is intimately tied to the grand cycles of climate and the Chicken Littles should study these before squawking. Distant climate history is well recorded in rock strata, ice cores, tree rings, ancient shore lines, marine sediments, pollen distribution, fossil occurrences, coral reef growth, distribution of ancient vegetation, stalactite growth rings and carbon isotope ratios. More recent history is abundantly supplemented in clay tablets, cave paintings, rock art, ancient scrolls, inscriptions, historical events and records, monuments and epitaphs, the rise and fall of empires and direct records of temperature, sun spots, river levels, rainfall, droughts, floods, heat waves and bone chilling blizzards. 

Anyone who studies these records will see that eras warmer than today are periodic but short chapters in the earth story.  The most recent major ice age ended a mere 11,500 year ago, when the Modern Interglacial commenced. Since then, earth has experienced five warm eras. In the first warm era starting about 4300 BC, the Sahara bloomed with plants, forests spread over Northern Europe and Canada and there was sufficient water for irrigation in Arabia. This era ended when blizzards and ice returned for nearly 1,000 years. Another short warm era started about 1450 BC, but was ended by another bout of cold dry weather that caused depopulation in Greece and Turkey and hardship everywhere. In the Roman Warm era, starting about 250 BC, the world smiled again and populations grew. But the warmth was cut short by the return of the snows which forced Vikings and Norsemen out of their frozen North to pillage and then colonise warmer southern lands.  Then we had the Medieval Warm Period, starting about 800 AD, a time of great achievement and prosperity. Farmers moved back into Scotland and Norway, Greenland was colonised and corn was grown. Vineyards produced wine near Manchester, in East Prussia and Norway. Even Tasmania warmed up. Trade and industry flourished and people had surpluses for culture and education. Cambridge, Oxford and Bologna Universities were founded and cathedrals and temples were built at Westminster Abbey, Notre Dame, Canterbury, Cologne, Florence, Castile and Angkor Wat.

But Jack Frost returned with the Little Ice Age starting about 1300 AD. Famine, food riots and disease again stalked Europe. Glaciers advanced, ice caps expanded, droughts and blizzards became more common and gales wracked Europe (and destroyed the Spanish Armada). Frosts killed orchards, North Sea cod moved south, food prices soared and farms were abandoned. In Scotland and Norway the capitals moved south and villages were abandoned. The Greenland colony perished. During the frigid years of the Dalton Minimum (1790 -1820 AD) Napoleon’s Grand Army perished in a bitter Russian winter.  Then in 1860, with no help from men burning coal or oil, earth started to warm again. This continued until 1942. A cooling spell from 1942 to 1976 had the Alarmists worried that the ice was about to return, but warming resumed from 1976 to 1998. Temperatures have been cooling slightly since then, despite the boom in burning of coal and oil.

Even a casual glance at climate and human history will show that the warm eras like today are far more beneficial for all life than the cold dry eras. People prefer warm climates. They do not flock to Alaska, Archangel or Antarctica for winter - they head for Bermuda, the Black Sea or Bali. All over the world, the human race is migrating towards the sun belts - Florida, the Riviera, and Capricornia - very few volunteer to live in Siberia or Patagonia. President Putin voiced what many Russians must think - “a bit of warmth would be welcome here”. Moreover, a bit of warmth would vastly increase the land suitable for growing food and fibres. On the other hand, a slight cooling would take much of the farmlands of Canada, Northern Eurasia and New Zealand out of production, and parts of Tasmania and Victoria may have to convert from producing wheat and dairy products to farming caribou or reindeer. Even the dumbest sheep in Australia knows that being warm, watered and well fed is better than being cold, thirsty and starving. Maybe we should give sheep a vote?

Disclosure of Interest:
Viv Forbes earns income from three carbon emitting industries, coal, cattle and sheep. He hates frosts, droughts and starving stock. He also uses cement, steel and electricity, buys diesel for his tractor, petrol for his car and gas for his barby. He uses trains and occasionally boards an aeroplane. He eats carbon based foods, pays taxes and uses government services funded by taxes on the carbon industries. All of these industries and services will be harmed by carbon taxes, emissions trading or carbon sequestration. He is also a scientist, investment analyst, computer modeller and political analyst. Like the great majority of Australians, he has a big vested interest in the outcome of this historic debate.

Read full pdf here. See the coalition’s very detailed and excellent submission to the Garnaut Review here.

Four scientists, four scenarios, four more or less similar conclusions without actually saying it outright - the global warming trend is done, and a cooling trend is about to kick in. The implication: Future energy price response is likely to be significant. Late last month, some leading climatologists and meteorologists met in New York at the Energy Business Watch Climate and Hurricane Forum. The theme of the forum strongly suggested that a period of global cooling is about emerge, though possible concerns for a political backlash kept it from being spelled out. However, the message was loud and clear, a cyclical global warming trend may be coming to an end for a variety of reasons, and a new cooling cycle could impact the energy markets in a big way.

Noted presenters, such as William Gray, Harry van Loon, Rol Madden and Dave Melita, signaled in the strongest terms that huge climate changes are afoot. Each weather guru, from a different angle, suggested that global warming is part of a cycle that is nearing an end. All agreed the earth is in a warm cycle right now, and has been for a while, but that is about to change significantly.

Perhaps the best known speaker was Colorado State University’s Gray, founder of the school’s famed hurricane research team. Gray spoke about multi-decade periods of warming and cooling and how global climate flux has been the norm for as long as there have been records. Gray has taken quite a bit of political heat for insistence that global warming is not a man-made condition. Man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) is negligible, he said, compared to the amount of CO2 Mother Nature makes and disposes of each day or century. ? “We’ve reached the top of the heat cycle,” he said. “The next 10 years will be hardly any warmer than the last 10 years.”

Conference host, analyst and forecaster Andy Weissman closed the conference by addressing how natural gas prices and policy debates would be impacted by a possible climate shift that could leave the market short gas. This would be especially problematic if gas use for power generation were substantially increased at the expense of better alternatives. :If we’re about to shift into another natural climate cycle, we can’t do it without coal-fired generation. So the policy debate has to change,” he said. “Coal has to be back on the table if we’re ever going to meet our energy needs.”

As for natural gas: “Next year, may see a bit of price softening,” Weissman said. “After that, fogetaboutit!”.

Read Alan’s full account here.

Through its influence in the media and government (both bureaucracy and congress), the Greens effectively abolished nuclear power, curtailed domestic oil production, and left the American energy industry in the comatose state in which it abides to this day. Nor this was an error or overreaction - it was a deliberate effort to fulfill the Green agenda.What is the nature of this agenda? Greens were much more open about it during the early years of the movement. (As for example in the utopian novel Ecotopia.)

The end point of all Green efforts is a kind of Edenic state in which humans exist in “partnership” with nature. In which humanity is simply another species. In which the human “footprint” (a purely Green concept with no literal meaning) is reduced to a minimum. A world which has returned in large part to a pre-industrial state, where whatever small amounts of power are needed are provided by solar and wind. Where every last damn item is recycled. A kind of universal Northern California, where all living things from spirochete to grizzly exist in harmony under the cloak of Gaia.

Current energy policy—or non-policy, however you wish—lies at the very center of the Green agenda. It is the only element in which any progress has been achieved. First, we need to rid ourselves of our “addiction” to nukes and oil. Then we adapt to solar and wind, and.... Here it peters off into silence. Because no such second step has ever, or will ever be made. Solar, wind, alcohol, ethanol… all these are single-digit energy sources. (And the low single digits as well, able to replace perhaps two or three percent of power generation at best.) Replacement of oil and nuclear power is a fantasy. Therefore, the rest of the Green dream is as well.  But the gutting of the American energy sector remains the Green’s chief accomplishment, their single achieved step toward paradise. Read more here.