In 1968, just a couple of years before the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, Paul R. Ehrlich, in his book “The Population Bomb,” predicted that if the world continued to increase its population at a high rate, there soon would be a collapse of economic and social systems. James Hansen, in his new book “Storms of My Grandchildren,” warns that if the world continues to burn fossil fuels at a high rate, “there may be a threat of collapse of economic and social systems.”

Mr. Ehrlich’s prophecy was a total bust; Mr. Hansen’s is most likely doomed to a similar fate. Both scientists seem to suffer from the same narrow focus and internal certainty that excludes too many real-world conditions and rebuffs all reasonable challenges.

Mr. Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is perhaps the leading scientific personality behind the claim that humans are about to destroy Earth’s future via fossil-fuel combustion. He is the veteran climate scientist behind many, if not most, of Al Gore’s outlandish claims. In “Storms of My Grandchildren,” Mr. Hansen explains that his thesis is founded not upon models; rather, it is based on empirical evidence. The evidence is derived primarily from ice-core data that document greenhouse gas concentrations and corresponding temperatures going back hundreds of thousands of years. Ice-sheet coverage is also factored into his vision of past climate changes and their primary causes.

Apparently, because changes in these two climate “forcing” mechanisms - greenhouse gases and surface cover - seem to correlate well with changing global temperatures over past eons and appear crucial to continued warming in the future, there is no need to seriously consider any other causes. In fact, reasonable contenders for possible major climate-forcing candidates, such as clouds and cosmic rays, are minimized or ridiculed by the author. Regarding the offering of a cosmic-ray effect on climate (by Henrik Svensmark of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at the Danish Space Research Institute), Mr. Hansen simply dismisses the carefully documented, straightforward proposal as “an almost Rube Goldberg concoction.”

Furthermore, it’s apparent that only those who agree with Mr. Hansen are “relevant scientists” or even “scientists.” He is kind enough to refer to those in disagreement as simply “contrarians.” Additional support for the concept that greenhouse gases (especially carbon dioxide) are driving current and future climate changes comes from models. A model is a representation (typically computer-generated) of current or future real-world conditions based on an interpretation of current and past conditions.

Note, though, that the proper interpretation of what the real-world data set is indicating is paramount. Plus, for an exceptionally complicated system like climate, many and varied climate-observation points across the entire globe over a long duration are essential. Even Mr. Hansen agrees that the present amount and variety of climate measurements might be inadequate to get a thorough picture of the atmosphere. Regardless of the lack of good climate information, the dire call to action in “Storms of My Grandchildren,” coupled with Mr. Hansen’s sincerity and persuasion, perhaps will all too soon move the United States to drastically curtail fossil-fuel energy supplies. Because Mr. Hansen apparently is absolutely sure of his own abilities to see “tragic certainty,” he would be happy to see fossil fuels, especially coal, eliminated as fast as possible. So would many, many folks who have placed their faith in his interpretive and predictive powers.

However, confidence in his thinking process falters somewhat with statements such as: “The present situation is analogous to that faced by Lincoln with slavery and Churchill with Nazism - the time for compromises and appeasement is over.” Tell that to Third World children and grandchildren who can be liberated from much disease and hardship with the help of inexpensive power supplied through abundant and inexpensive fossil fuels.

Conservatives can find much in “Storms of My Grandchildren” with which to agree, such as exposing the false impression that cap-and-trade is a good idea and encouraging energy efficiency and more advanced third- and fourth-generation nuclear power plants. But the heartiest agreement with Mr. Hansen will come from this: When discovering that anti-nuke activists were being deceptive with dissemination of information that slammed nuclear power, Mr. Hansen exclaims, “That’s what began to make me a bit angry. Do these people have the right to, in effect, make a decision that may determine the fate of my grandchildren?”

Right. At least Mr. Hansen knows how the rest of us feel.

Anthony J. Sadar is a certified consulting meteorologist and co-author of “Environmental Risk Communication: Principles and Practices for Industry” (CRC Press/Lewis Publishers, 2000).

Predicting the behavior of a sunspot cycle is fairly reliable once the cycle is well underway (about 3 years after the minimum in sunspot number occurs [see Hathaway, Wilson, and Reichmann Solar Physics; 151, 177 (1994)]). Prior to that time the predictions are less reliable but nonetheless equally as important. Planning for satellite orbits and space missions often require knowledge of solar activity levels years in advance (below forecast range,enlarged here.)

A number of techniques are used to predict the amplitude of a cycle during the time near and before sunspot minimum. Relationships have been found between the size of the next cycle maximum and the length of the previous cycle, the level of activity at sunspot minimum, and the size of the previous cycle.

Among the most reliable techniques are those that use the measurements of changes in the Earth’s magnetic field at, and before, sunspot minimum. These changes in the Earth’s magnetic field are known to be caused by solar storms but the precise connections between them and future solar activity levels is still uncertain.

Of these “geomagnetic precursor” techniques three stand out. The earliest is from Ohl and Ohl [Solar-Terrestrial Predictions Proceedings, Vol. II. 258 (1979)] They found that the value of the geomagnetic aa index at its minimum was related to the sunspot number during the ensuing maximum. The primary disadvantage of this technique is that the minimum in the geomagnetic aa index often occurs slightly after sunspot minimum so the prediction isn’t available until the sunspot cycle has started.

An alternative method is due to a process suggested by Joan Feynman. She separates the geomagnetic aa index into two components: one in phase with and proportional to the sunspot number, the other component is then the remaining signal. This remaining signal has, in the past, given good estimates of the sunspot numbers several years in advance. The maximum in this signal occurs near sunspot minimum and is proportional to the sunspot number during the following maximum. This method does allow for a prediction of the next sunspot maximum at the time of sunspot minimum.

A third method is due to Richard Thompson [Solar Physics 148, 383 (1993)]. He found a relationship between the number of days during a sunspot cycle in which the geomagnetic field was “disturbed” and the amplitude of the next sunspot maximum. His method has the advantage of giving a prediction for the size of the next sunspot maximum well before sunspot minimum.

We have suggested using the average of the predictions given by the Feynman-based method and by Thompson’s method. [See Hathaway, Wilson, and Reichmann J. Geophys. Res. 104, 22,375 (1999)] However, both of these methods were impacted by the “Halloween Events” of October/November 2003 which were not reflected in the sunspot numbers. Both methods give larger than average amplitude to Cycle 24 while its delayed start and low minimum strongly suggest a much smaller cycle. Ohl’s method currently indicates an amplitude of about 70 for Cycle 24 but the smoothed aa index has not reached its minimum yet (it is at a record low). Using Ohl’s method indicates a maximum sunspot number of about 70 ± 18 or less for cycle 24. We then use the shape of the sunspot cycle as described by Hathaway, Wilson, and Reichmann [Solar Physics 151, 177 (1994)] and determine a starting time for the cycle by fitting the data to produce a prediction of the monthly sunspot numbers through the next cycle. We find a starting time of October 2008 with minimum occurring in November or December 2008 and maximum in June 2013. The predicted numbers are available in a text file, as a GIF image, and as a pdf-file. As the cycle progresses, the prediction process switches over to giving more weight to the fitting of the monthly values to the cycle shape function. At this phase of cycle 24 we now give little weight to the curve-fitting technique of Hathaway, Wilson, and Reichmann Solar Physics 151, 177 (1994). That technique currently gives highly uncertain (but small) values.

Note: These predictions are for “smoothed” International Sunspot Numbers. The smoothing is usually over time periods of about a year or more so both the daily and the monthly values for the International Sunspot Number should fluctuate about our predicted numbers. The dotted lines on the prediction plots indicate the expected range of the monthly sunspot numbers. Also note that the “Boulder” numbers reported daily at www.spaceweather.com are typically about 35% higher than the International sunspot number.

Another indicator of the level of solar activity is the flux of radio emission from the Sun at a wavelength of 10.7 cm (2.8 GHz frequency). This flux has been measured daily since 1947. It is an important indicator of solar activity because it tends to follow the changes in the solar ultraviolet that influence the Earth’s upper atmosphere and ionosphere. Many models of the upper atmosphere use the 10.7 cm flux (F10.7) as input to determine atmospheric densities and satellite drag. F10.7 has been shown to follow the sunspot number quite closely and similar prediction techniques can be used. Our predictions for F10.7 are available in a text file, as a GIF image, and as a pdf-file. Current values for F10.7 can be found here.

See in this November 2009 interview how Hathaway changed his mind when his original forecast of a quick and strong 24 rampup failed. David Hathaway, Ph.D., Heliospheric Team Leader, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama: “In the 50 years or so we’ve been making the (cosmic ray) measurements - yeah! this is by far the highest level of galactic cosmic rays that we’re seeing at Earth and we know exactly what is causing it.

It’s the sun’s weakened magnetic fields and weakened solar winds that are all related to this Solar Cycle 24 minimum.” He goes on to talk about a possible Dalton or even Maunder like minimum. Hathaway behaves like a true scientist should but few do by being willing to change his ideas as data proves his original thinking wrong.

See this excellent post by Nicola Scafetta of Duke on the solar influences on climate changes here. be sure to see in the appendix L, the letters to Scafetta from Richard Willson and Doug Hoyt on how the solar data was manipulated by Frohlich to fit the model of Judith Lean. See an earlier response to Lockwood and Frohlich here. See also a recent post on solar factors here.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Murderer, liar, fraud, traitor.

Climate scientists, used to dealing with sceptics, are under siege like never before, targeted by hate emails brimming with abuse and accusations of fabricating global warming data. Some emails contain thinly veiled death threats. Across the Internet, climate blogs are no less venomous, underscoring the surge in abuse over the past six months triggered by purported evidence that global warming is either a hoax or the threat from a warmer world is grossly overstated.

A major source of the anger is from companies with a vested interest in fighting green legislation that might curtail their activities or make their operations more costly. “The attacks against climate science represent the most highly coordinated, heavily financed, attack against science that we have ever witnessed,” said climate scientist Michael Mann, from Pennsylvania State University in the United States. “The evidence for the reality of human-caused climate change gets stronger with each additional year,” Mann told Reuters in emailed responses to questions.

Greenpeace and other groups say that some energy companies are giving millions to groups that oppose climate change science because of concerns about the multi-billion dollar costs associated with carbon trading schemes and clean energy policies. For example, rich nations including the United States, Japan and Australia, are looking to introduce emissions caps and a regulated market for trading those emissions.

More broadly, the United Nations is trying to seal a tougher climate accord to curb emissions from burning fossil fuels and deforestation blamed for heating up the planet. Other opponents are drawn into the debate by deep concerns that governments will trample on freedoms or expand their powers as they try to tackle greenhouse gas emissions and minimise the impacts of higher temperatures.

“There are two kinds of opponents—one is the fossil fuel lobby. So you have a trillion-dollar industry that’s protecting market share,” said Stephen Schneider of Stanford University in California, referring to the oil industry’s long history of funding climate sceptic groups and think tanks. “And then you have the ideologues who have a deep hatred of government involvement,” said Schneider, a veteran climate scientist and author of the book “Science as a contact sport”. The result is a potent mix that has given the debate a quasi-religious tone with some climate critics coming from the right-wing fringe and making arguments as emotive as those raised in the abortion and creationism debates in the United States.

The debate has largely become drawn along political lines, at least in the U.S., where opponents in the Republican Party question climate science and raise doubts over the need to implement greener policies such as those espoused by climate change campaigner and former Vice President, Al Gore. In a party conference in April, Republican firebrand Sarah Palin, a potential 2012 presidential nominee, mocked what she called the “snake-oil-based, global warming, Gore-gate” crowd.

The green lobby is also to blame. Exaggerations by some green interest groups, which have at times over-played the immediacy of the problem to bring about a groundswell of support for a new U.N. climate treaty and green policies, have given sceptics plenty of ammunition. Sceptics also point to admissions in a 2007 report by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change that there is a 10 percent chance global warming is part of a natural cycle. The same report says there’s a 90 percent probability that climate change is due to human activities led by burning fossil fuels. Nevertheless, the sceptics demand 100 percent certainty, something that researchers say is impossible.

“THIS TIME IT’S DIFFERENT”

Scientists and conservationists say some anti-climate change lobbyists are funded by energy giants such as ExxonMobil, which has a long history of donating money to interest groups that challenge climate science. According to a Greenpeace report released last month, ExxonMobil gave nearly $9 million to entities linked to the climate denialist camp between 2005 and 2008. The report, using mandatory SEC reporting on charitable contributions, also shows that foundations linked to Kansas-based Koch Industries, a privately owned petrochemical and chemicals giant, gave nearly $25 million.

Koch said the Greenpeace report mischaracterised the company’s efforts. “We’ve strived to encourage an intellectually honest debate on the scientific basis for claims of harm from greenhouse gases,” the company said in a note on its website. ExxonMobil makes no secret of funding a range of groups, but says it has also discontinued contributions to several public policy research groups. “We contribute to an array of public policy organisations that research and promote discussion on climate change and other domestic and international issues,” the company says on its website.

Stanford’s Schneider has dealt with sceptics for years. But this time, he says, it’s different. “I don’t see it stopping,” said Schneider by telephone. “I see it intensifying. The ugliness is what’s new.” One of the thinly veiled death threats that Schneider has received says: “You communistic dupe of the U.N. who wants to impose world government on us and take away American freedom of religion and economy—you are a traitor to the U.S., belong in jail and should be executed.”

HACKED EMAILS

Scientists say there is a wealth of data showing the planet is warming, that it’s being triggered by rising levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and that man is to blame. Sceptics counter this by saying that rising CO2 levels is natural and harmless and that it’s impossible for mankind to influence the way the planet functions. Others play up doubts or errors in some scientific studies to undermine it all. Many also say warming has stalled, pointing to the recent burst of cold weather in the Northern Hemisphere as evidence of global cooling, even though satellite data show that, overall, Nov. 2009 to Jan. 2010 was the warmest Jan-Nov the world has seen since satellite temperature data began in 1979.

Then came the release of emails hacked late last year from a British climate research unit. The “climategate” emails, totalling more than 1,000, were stolen from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU), and involve correspondence between director Phil Jones and other leading climate scientists, including Schneider and Mann. The emails led to allegations the scientists fudged data to bolster the case for mankind causing global warming, setting off a surge of criticism across the Internet accusing climate scientists of a massive hoax.

“This whole thing has gone viral on the Internet,” said Cindy Baxter of Greenpeace, author of a recent report “Dealing in Doubt: The Climate Denial Industry and Climate Science.” “You’ve got all those voices out there on the blogosphere who are then picked up and echoed,” she told Reuters. The University of East Anglia has been a particular target. “There have been an awful lot of abusive emails since ‘climategate’ broke,” said university spokesman Simon Dunford. Sceptics were accused of very selectively choosing only a small number of the hacked emails and taking comments out of context to misrepresent the scientists’ meaning.

A British government inquiry cleared Jones of any wrongdoing, but said CRU was wrong to withhold information from sceptics. ann, who was accused of falsifying data, was cleared of any wrongdoing by an internal investigation by Penn State University.

TRUTH AND TRUST

Sceptics also accused the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of supporting flawed science after several errors in a major 2007 report surfaced. The errors, including a reference to a non-peer reviewed study that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, represent a fraction of the conclusions in the report, the main climate policy guide for governments, which is based on the work of thousands of scientists. The IPCC has defended its work and has ordered a review. Many governments, including the United States, Britain and Australia have also reiterated their faith in the IPCC.

For climate scientists, truth and trust are at stake. “In general, the battle for public opinion is being lost,” said Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. His emails were also hacked in the CRU incident. “There is so much mis-information and so many polarised attitudes that one can not even hold a rational discussion or debate. The facts are certainly lost or glossed over in many cases. The media have been a bust.”

Schneider said the mainstream media had failed to do “its job of sorting out credible from non-credible and not giving all claimants of truth equal status at the bargaining table”. Across the Internet, the climate science debate is being played out in a myriad of climate sceptic sites and blogs as well as sites defending the science of human-induced climate change. One high-profile site is climatedepot.com, run by Marc Morano, a former aide to U.S. Republican Senator James Inhofe, who is an outspoken critic of climate change policies. Morano, who told Reuters he had also been the target of abusive emails, has been quoted as saying that climate scientists should be publicly flogged.

“The global warming scientists need to feel and hear the public’s outrage at their shenanigans like “climategate” ... There is no advocacy of violence or hint that people should threaten them,” Morano said, adding: “Public outrage is healthy.”

“THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES”

Another prominent climate change denialist, Christopher Monckton, who’s associated with the U.S.-based Science and Public Policy Institute, told Reuters he doesn’t condone the coordinated attack on climate scientists, saying that he, too, was a victim.`He said his main aim was to expose what he calls the “non-problem of global warming” and in an email interview with Reuters accused climate change scientists of being “increasingly desperate to discredit anyone who dares to point out that the Emperor has no clothes”.`

Media commentators have added their voices, polarising public opinion further. In the United States, conservative radio talkshow host Rush Limbaugh said on the air last November that climate change was a massive hoax and that all climate scientists involved should be “named and fired, drawn and quartered, or whatever it is”.`In Australia, just as in the United States, the level of abuse also coincides with media appearances or the release of peer-reviewed scientific work on climate change.

“Each time I have a media profile in terms of media reports on scientific papers, major presentations, there is a flurry. So if I am on TV, or radio there ends up being a substantial increase,” said David Karoly of the University of Melbourne.`"One of the purposes for the attacks is either an intention to waste my time or to distract my attention essentially from communication about climate change science or even undertaking research, and it’s also perhaps intended to make me concerned about my visibility."`

ABSOLUTE PROOF

“We get emails to say we’re destroying the Australian economy, we get emails to say it will be our fault when no one in Australia can get a job. We get emails just basically accusing us of direct fraud and lying on the science,” said Andy Pitman, co-director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.`"My personal reaction to them is personal recognition that this means we are a threat to the sorts of people who would be trying to prevent the finding of solutions to global warming."`Pitman said a major problem was trying to satisfy demands for absolute proof of human-induced global warming.

“There is no proof in the context that they want it, that the earth goes around the sun. They are demanding a level of proof that doesn’t exist in science.`"And then they say when you can’t prove it to the extent that they want, then clearly that means there isn’t any evidence, which of course is a logical fallacy.”

Better communication about the science is key, scientists say, even if they complain that many sceptics are reluctant to debate the science on a level playing field.`"One of the ways I describe it (the debate) is it’s very asymmetric,” said Roger Wakimoto, director of NCAR in Colorado.`"It’s very difficult to counter someone who just says ‘you’re wrong. I think this is a scam’. How do you respond to that? ... They haven’t done any research, they haven’t spent years looking into the problem. This is why it’s asymmetric,” he said.`"We like to go into a scientific debate, show us you’re evidence and we’ll tell why we agree or disagree with you. But that’s not what the naysayers are doing,” Wakimoto added.

“We’ve never experienced this sort of thing before,” he said of the intense challenges to climate science and the level of email and Internet traffic.`All the climate change scientists with whom Reuters spoke said they were determined to continue their research despite the barrage of nasty emails and threats. Some expressed concern the argument could turn violent.`"My wife has made it very clear, if the threats become personalised, I cease to interact with the media. We have kids,” said one scientist who did not want to be identified.`

21 of 44 chapters in the United Nations’ Nobel-winning climate bible earned an F on a report card released today. Forty citizen auditors from 12 countries examined 18,500 sources cited in the report - finding 5,600 to be not peer-reviewed.

Contrary to statements by the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the celebrated 2007 report does not rely solely on research published in reputable scientific journals. It also cites press releases, newspaper and magazine clippings, student theses, newsletters, discussion papers, and literature published by green advocacy groups. Such material is often called “grey literature.”

“We’ve been told this report is the gold standard,” says Canadian blogger Donna Laframboise, who organized the online crowdsourcing effort to examine the references. “We’ve been told it’s 100 percent peer-reviewed science. But thousands of sources cited by this report have been nowhere near a scientific journal.”

Based on the grading system used in US schools, 21 chapters in the IPCC report receive an F (they cite peer-reviewed sources less than 60% of the time), 4 chapters get a D, and 6 get a C. There are also 5 Bs and 8 As.

In November, IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri disparaged non-peer-reviewed research in an interview with the Times of India: “IPCC studies only peer-review science. Let someone publish the
data in a decent credible publication. I am sure IPCC would then accept it, otherwise we can just throw it into the dustbin.”

* All 18,531 references cited in the 2007 IPCC report were examined
* 5,587 are not peer-reviewed
* IPCC chairman’s claim that the report relies solely on peer-reviewed sources is not supported
* Each chapter was audited three times; the result most favorable to the IPCC was used
* 21 out of 44 chapters contain so few peer-reviewed references, they get an F
* 43 citizen auditors in 12 countries participated in this project

The citizen audit report is here. Contact: Donna Laframboise - NOconsensus.org AT gmail.com

With all the frenzied speculation on the now-postponed climate change bill from Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), many in Congress have been overlooking the chance to pass landmark legislation that could reduce pollution and provide meaningful health and environmental benefits. That’s right. We can pass bipartisan multipollutant legislation to guarantee significant reductions in mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from power plants - while providing the regulatory certainty needed to advance cleaner, more efficient technologies.

I have worked with Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) on multipollutant legislation for years. In fact, we worked on a bill introduced by former Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.) when he chaired the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works in 2002. In 2005, when I served as the committee chairman and Voinovich served as chairman of the Clean Air and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee, we tried to pass bipartisan legislation. But it died in committee.

Recognizing the need to reduce power plant emissions, the Bush administration had pressed ahead without Congress and issued the Clean Air Interstate Rule and the Clean Air Mercury Rule. Voinovich and I supported those. But we also warned that they would face legal challenge and an uncertain regulatory future. Sadly, we were proven right, when the D.C. court vacated both rules. One effect of these decisions has been a severely depressed emissions trading market. Some companies postponed plant upgrades. Progress has stalled.

The Environmental Protection Agency is now busy crafting replacement rules. But just how it will address key questions - for example, how to integrate allowances from the Acid Rain Trading Program into a new trading regime and whether this includes interstate emissions trading - remains unclear. Only Congress can provide the needed clarity and certainty.

But the global warming debate has been a distraction. The Senate is wasting time on legislation that, even if passed, would fail to achieve its stated goal of reducing global temperatures. There’s an opportunity right now to make significant environmental progress - while ensuring cleaner, more affordable and more reliable electricity for consumers.

Fortunately, a group of influential senators is trying to seize that opportunity. That group includes two senior members from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who, along with several Democratic and Republican senators, recently introduced Clean Air Act amendments to reduce sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury from power plants. While the bill can be improved in several important respects, it is a good start. The compromise that eluded us in 2005 is possible in 2010.

One critical point of the multipollutant debate is addressing the long list of overlapping and conflicting air-pollution mandates set to unfold under the Clean Air Act in the next decade. Some environmental activists may view this as a sure-fire means of reducing pollution. But, in reality, this regulatory morass could lead to a wave of litigation that won’t be resolved for years. Some of those very activists may file lawsuits. This is not meant to cast aspersions - only to make clear that without a multipollutant framework passed by Congress, the timing and extent of emissions reductions could be mired in legal uncertainty. Yet this future is not carved in stone.

If Congress tackles these issues now, we can lock in emissions reductions for decades. We can also draw a clear legal road map to ease the transition to cleaner technologies and provide consumers with affordable, reliable power to meet their daily demands. Discussions on multipollutant legislation have already begun. My hope is that they will continue even amid the debate on climate change. Instead of imposing massive taxes on consumers with no discernible climate benefits - as was talked about in the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman proposal - we can provide real health and environmental benefits and encourage installation of new technologies, while keeping utility costs affordable. This is the pathway to real environmental progress - one Congress should follow. See Politico story here. See Lindsey Graham Is Taking His Climate Bill and Going Home here.

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Earth Day 2010—Celebrating 40 Years of Being Wrong
Laura E. Huggins

For the millions of people gearing up for the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, there’s a lot to celebrate. Forty years after experts in ecology, sociology, demographics and economics predicted the Earth would be uninhabitable in 40 years, we can happily point out that we are still here and we are doing better all the time. It’s worth reflecting on why those experts were so wrong as we look forward to the next 40 years on Planet Earth.

To help “celebrate” the first Earth Day in 1970, biologist Barry Commoner wrote, “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.” Ecologist Kenneth Watt said in a speech at Swarthmore College, “If present trends continue, the world will be about 4 degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but 11 degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” And a New York Times editorial claimed, “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”

Another View on Earth Day:

We now face the environmental challenge of a generation in global warming, and it’s time to demand less pollution, more jobs and greater security, says Michael Brune of the Sierra Club. After four decades, most measures of human welfare show that the world’s population is better off today than at any other time in human history. Life expectancy is increasing, per capita income is rising, the air we breathe and water we drink are cleaner. And, of course, concerns over climate change have shifted to catastrophic warming.

Paul Ehrlich, the author of “The Population Bomb,” published in 1968, was the prophet of population disaster. He predicted that hundreds of millions of people would die of starvation during the 1970s because the Earth’s inhabitants would multiply at a faster rate than the world’s ability to supply food. By 2000, there were 6 billion people, not the 7 billion Ehrlich had predicted, as average fertility rates dropped from six children per woman in the 1960s to 2.8 today. At the same time, the “green revolution” helped avoid massive famines, and daily calorie consumption in poor countries increased from 1,932 to 2,650. Although many people still don’t have enough to eat, mass death by starvation did not occur.

These kinds of miscalculations can be traced to faulty reasoning starting with the writings of Thomas Malthus, who argued some 200 years ago that human population growth would run into constraints imposed by fixed natural resources, especially land for food production.

But as Stanford economist Paul Romer notes: “Every generation has perceived the limits to growth that finite resources and undesirable side effects would pose if no new recipes or ideas were discovered. And every generation has underestimated the potential for finding new recipes and ideas. We consistently fail to grasp how many ideas remain to be discovered. Possibilities do not add up. They multiply.”

While regulation has played a role in cleaning up the environment and making our lives healthier, the main driver of this progress is a free and open economy. When individuals are free to pursue their own interests and operate with a minimum of institutional constraints, new ideas and new “recipes” grow at a much faster rate than population. Predictions of catastrophe such as those that were so prevalent in 1970 can suffocate the very process that leads to improved environmental quality. And bureaucracies wielding new government regulations—created to save us from ourselves – can often undermine progress.

The truth is there’s much to celebrate on this Earth Day. Indeed, one reason to rejoice is that the doomsayers have been wrong over the past 40 years and will likely be wrong again.

Laura E. Huggins is a research fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. She is the co-author with Terry Anderson of “Greener Than Thou: Are You Really an Environmentalist?” and the editor of “Population Puzzle: Boom or Bust.”

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Environmental crime
Scientific Alliance Newsletter
A British campaigner, Polly Higgins, is suggesting that a new crime - ecocide - should fall under the remit of the International Criminal Court, where it would sit alongside genocide and crimes against humanity.

According to a report in the Guardian (British campaigner urges UN to accept ‘ecocide’ as international crime) “Supporters of a new ecocide law also believe it could be used to prosecute ‘climate deniers’ who distort science and facts to discourage voters and politicians from taking action to tackle global warming and climate change.” Come back, Stalin, all is forgiven.

Ms Higgins has already found support from Bolivia for adoption of a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights; their government will propose a full UN members’ vote.  If the ecocide proposals were also to be accepted then, in what must be the ultimate fundamentalist view of the position of our species in the natural world, all animals would be accorded equal rights to humans, and human damage to ecosystems would be put on a par with genocide and other war crimes. Is this the logical endpoint of the development of the rights culture over the past half century? Worryingly but not surprisingly, she claims support in the UN and European Commission.

But rights need to be balanced by responsibilities. Planet Earth and non-human species bear no responsibility towards us, so arguably they should not enjoy rights. Recent history shows that responsible modern societies care deeply about the environment and conservation. It is difficult to believe that granting them additional ‘rights’ would improve matters. It seems far more likely that the concepts of planetary rights and ecocide form part of a broad ideological attack on modern society, science and industry. See story here.

It is no accident that April 22, Earth Day, is also the birth date of Vladimir Lenin, an acolyte of Karl Marx, the lunatic who invented communism as an alternative to capitalism. Earth Day is naked communism. To begin, it substitutes a worship of the Earth, Gaia, for the worship of God, creator of the universe and the instructor of moral behavior for mankind. The Earth does not demand a moral code of personal behavior. Indeed, the lesson it teaches is “the survival of the fittest” and an indifference to suffering. The “natural events” mankind fears most all involve the potential for significant loss of life and for injury.

The Earth is a beautiful place, but it is utterly merciless. Man has learned to adapt to it and, by adapt, I mean to use its resources to build shelter and protection from it, to plant and harvest crops from it, and to domesticate some of its species while hunting and fishing for others for food. Earth Day postulates that man is the cause of harm to Earth by virtue of his cities, his highways, his use of its sources of energy, and even the garbage that results from the normal course of maintaining life. For centuries mankind routinely burned and buried garbage. Now we are told we must separate and recycle it. We are told that everything plastic is bad even though it is one of the great inventions of modern times.

Communism reached its zenith in the last century. Its imposition in the former Soviet Union, in China, and elsewhere is a litany of murder and oppression. In the 20th century, a minimum 110 million people died as a result. It enslaves mankind wherever it can.

Environmentalism has been built on the foundation laid by communism because both exist to control everyone’s life. They are opposite sides of the same coin, both are opposed to the ownership of private property and both regard man as state property to be drained of his earnings through taxation. Environmentalism’s preferred method is coercion and the mechanism for this is government. While America was established to ensure “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, environmentalism exists to exert more and more control over our lives by limiting our choices, our liberty. Environmentalism redefines happiness as doing without the advances of science and commerce that protects and prolongs our lives.

There is nothing voluntary about environmentalism. There is nothing voluntary about having to recycle. There is nothing voluntary about having to fill your tank with a mixture of gasoline and ethanol. There is nothing voluntary about the imposition of mileage standards for cars. There is nothing voluntary about losing access to beneficial chemicals that control countless insect and rodent pests that spread disease and destroy property.

While the vast majority of Americans clamor for the government to permit access to our nation’s vast natural resources of coal, oil, and natural gas it stands in the way, claiming always that drilling and mining pose a threat to the environment. At the same time it acquires more and more of the nation’s landmass to deter access and economic growth.

In the name of the environment, the U.S. government is set to impose a Cap-and-Trade law on Americans that has no basis whatever in science and is, in fact, based on the greatest hoax of the modern era, “global warming.” Cap-and-Trade will tax energy use and directly control how much energy individual Americans can use to heat or cool their homes through “smart grid” technology controlled by the utilities, not the consumer. Environmentalism is the reason the U.S. has not had a single new refinery or nuclear plant built since the 1970s. Think about that every time you drive your car or turn on the lights.

The spread of endless environmental propaganda has been taken up by the nation’s mainstream media and has infiltrated the nation’s schools through its textbooks and other means of instruction. Earth Day will be the occasion for an orgy of media coverage. Just as communism failed the former Soviet Union and just as Red China abandoned communism as the model for its economy, environmentalism continues its relentless quest to deter economic growth and security in America. It is the infrastructure of a New World Order.

Do not celebrate Earth Day. Denounce it.

Smoke from a subglacial volcanic eruption rises above the Vatnajokull ice cap (photo by Oddur Sigurdsson) Image via Ben Orlove, UC Davis, click for his page. Scientific American has reported that global warming may cause an increase in volcanic eruptions, due to increased magma formation at lower pressures as glaciers melt.

This caught my attention because I used to work as a volcano researcher and igneous petrologist. That report said that about 10 percent of Iceland’s biggest ice cap, Vatnajokull, has melted since 1890 and the land nearby was rising about 25 millimetres (0.98 inch) a year, bringing shifts in geological stresses. They estimated that the thaw had led to the formation of 1.4 cubic km (0.3 cubic mile) of magma deep below ground over the past century.
 

At high pressures such as under an ice cap, they reckon that rocks cannot expand to turn into liquid magma even if they are hot enough. “As the ice melts the rock can melt because the pressure decreases,” she said. Sigmundsson said that monitoring of the Vatnajokull volcano since 2008 suggested that the 2008 estimate for magma generation was “probably a minimum estimate. It can be somewhat larger.”

Interesting theory, but does it work quantitatively?  Magmas, as with most solids, do show a direct relationship between the melting point and pressure. As the pressure increases, so does the melting point.  (Ice is a noticeable exception to this, and shows an inverse relationship.  The reason that people can ice skate is because the pressure under the blade creates a thin later of melted ice which lubricates the surface.

Below is a phase diagram of a basaltic magma similar to that found in Iceland, showing the relationship between temperature and pressure.  The melting temperature does decrease at lower pressures.  From 100 km depth to 0 km the melting point drops about 300C.  That is about 3C/km.  Ice is about one third as dense as basaltic magma, so the loss of 1 km of ice lowers the melting point by about 1C, or less than 0.1%.

From this PDF.

More precisely, this study from the Carnegie Geophysical Institute did an empirical measurement of the relationship for one basaltic mineral - diposide. They found the relationship to be

Tm = 1391.5 + 0.01297 * P

Where Tm is the melting point in degrees C and P is the pressure in atmospheres.  One atmosphere pressure is equal to about 10 metres of ice, so one additional metre of ice increases the melting point by about 0.0013C.  The loss of 100 metres of ice would therefore lower the melting point by about one tenth of a degree.  The thickest ice in Iceland is only 500 meters thick, so complete loss of all ice would only alter the melting point by about 0.5C, or less than 0.05%.

The geothermal gradient of the earth is typically about 40°C per km, so a 0.5C change in temperature is equivalent to a depth change of about 20 metres.  Near mid-ocean ridges this gradient is steeper, so the equivalent depth change in Iceland would be less than 20 metres.  Is it credible that a 0.5C decrease in the melting point could stimulate excess volcanic activity?  Short answer - no. Volcanic activity is caused by magma rising to the surface, not glaciers melting.  However, the loss of the glaciers would reduce the amount of steam and ash generated.  Ash is formed when magma is cooled and fractured by steam.  So the loss of the glaciers would reduce the size of the steam/ash cloud and make the Iceland volcanoes behave more like Hawaii volcanoes.

In short, the loss of all ice in Iceland would make the volcanoes less destructive.

BTW - On Al Gore’s planet, the geothermal gradient is much higher, with core temperatures averaging millions of degrees.

See full post and comments here. See this earlier analysis of high latitude volcanoes with Alaska, Iceland, and Kamchatka examples. Vatnajokull is the biggest glacier in Europe. It covers about 8% of the country and the average thickness is 400m. Under the ice-cap are still active volcanoes including Grimsvotn vulcano, Iceland’s most active since the Middle Ages erupted in 1996, 1998 and 2004. Seven central volcanoes are situated underneth the Vatnajokull ice-cap.

See NASA view of the ash cloud over Europe (brown):

See more here.

A new mantra is beginning to occupy pride of place in debates on all environmental issues, whether they be to do with food safety, genetic engineering or global warming - the precautionary principle. Originating in 1960s Germany as Vorsorgeprinzip (literally foresight planning) it has been increasingly seized upon by green activists and other romantics since the 1970s as an unanswerable credo - when considering technological innovation, exercise caution with regard to its potential consequences.

In itself the precautionary principle sounds harmless enough. We all have the right to be protected against unscrupulous applications of late twentieth century scientific advances - especially those which threaten our environment and our lives. But the principle goes much further than seeking to protect us from known or suspected risks. It argues that we should also refrain from developments which have no demonstrable risks, or which have risks that are so small that they are outweighed, empirically, by the potential benefits that would result. In the most recent application of the doctrine it is proposed that innovation should be prevented even when there is just a perception of a risk among some unspecified people.

We have seen the impact of this thinking in recent debates on genetically modified crops, ‘novel’ foods, ‘greenhouse’ gasses and even the mythical ability of cellular phones to fry the brains of those who use them. At every stage the opponents of technological progress argue that just because there is no evidence of harm, that does not mean that something is not harmful. We have to ‘prove’ that it is not harmful before we embrace it.

This form of pre-scientific thinking presents a serious obstacle to rational discussion. The absence of an effect can never be proved , in the way that I cannot prove that there are no fairies at the bottom of my garden. All I can say are two things: firstly, sustained observation over the past 20 years has revealed no evidence of their presence, and secondly the existence of fairies, in my garden or elsewhere, is very unlikely on a priori grounds. This is how science works - precisely in accord with the principles of Karl Popper that hypotheses cannot be proved, only refuted.

The precautionary principle is, however, a very useful one for consumer activists precisely because it prevents scientific debate. The burden of evidence and proof is taken away from those who make unjustified and often whimsical claims and placed on the scientific community which, because it proceeds logically and rationally, is often powerless to respond. This is what makes the principle so dangerous. It generates a quasi-religious bigotry which history should have has taught us to fear. Its inherent irrationality renders it unsustainable.

Everything in life involves a risk of some kind. Throughout our evolution and development we have sought to minimise and manage risk, but not to eliminate it. Even if this were possible, it would undoubtedly be undesirable. A culture in which people do not take chances, where any form of progress or development is abandoned ‘just to be on the safe side’, is one with a very limited future. The very nature and structure of all human societies are what they are because individuals, in co-operation with each other, have taken their chances - seeking the rewards of well-judged risk-taking to the enervating constraints of safe options. Had the precautionary principle been applied the Pilgrim Fathers would never have set sail for America in their fragile ships. Life-saving advances in medicine would have been halted when the first patient died on the operating table.

The champions of the precautionary principle, of course, will argue that what we choose to regard as modern progress is nothing more than the manifestation of greed and exploitation. But in their vehement critique of the interests and power of ‘big business’ - forces which they see as inexorably apocalyptic - they cling to a naive and romantic vision of agrarian idylls which have never existed and can never exist. In doing so, they offer no sustainable solutions to the potential problems which are recognised by us all. Their rhetoric, however, is sufficiently seductive to win over those whose anxieties about food, health and the environment have been generated and nurtured by those very same people who now purport to offer a solution. Create an unfounded scare, provoke fears, sell them the precautionary principle - a style of marketing of which ‘big business’ would be proud.

In reality, the precautionary principle presents a serious hazard to our health which extends way beyond the generation of unnecessary neuroses. The biggest correlate of our health and well being is our standard of living, as measured in conventional economic and physical terms. People in technologically advanced societies suffer fewer diseases and live longer than those in less developed nations. The biggest killer in the world is not genetically modified soya, pesticide residues or even tobacco. It is something which is given the code Z59.5 in the International Classification of Disease Handbook and accounts for more deaths world-wide than any other single factor. It is defined as ‘Extreme Poverty’.

The narrow philosophy which surrounds the precautionary principle is fundamentally conservative in both political and literal senses. It offers little prospect for those who are disadvantaged in our societies - those who have far more real concerns in their daily lives than to be worried about whether the beef that they cannot afford has a remote chance of being contaminated with BSE. By seeking to dismantle the industrialised-based processes which generate wealth and health, the eco-activists can only make their plight much more profound.

In one sense, though, the precautionary principle might have some utility. If we apply the precautionary principle to itself - ask what are the possible dangers of using this principle - we would be forced to abandon it very quickly. See post here.