by Ed Berry
In a precedent-making decision, the Montana Supreme Court dismissed yesterday the Petition for Original Jurisdiction by Our Children’s Trust saying unsettled factual issues related to limiting emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) must first be addressed in a lower court.The Montana Supreme Court followed the recommendations of the Montana Attorney General, and rejected the claim made by Our Children’s Trust in its May 4, 2011, Petition, that a “scientific consensus exists that increasing emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) are affecting the Earth’s climate.” The ruling forces those filing future GHG-emissions lawsuits to first prove the scientific credibility of their global warming claims by means of legally competent evidence.
As the Montana Supreme Court stated the case:
Petitioners ask us to enter judgment in this original proceeding to declare that the State of Montana (State) holds the atmosphere in trust for the present and future citizens of the State of Montana. Petitioners further contend that this trust imposes on the State the affirmative duty to protect and preserve the atmosphere, including establishing and enforcing limitations on the levels of greenhouse gas emissions as necessary to mitigate human-caused climate change.
But, the Court wrote, it was “persuaded” by the Attorney General’s arguments that the evidence Our Children’s Trust offered for human-caused global warming is in legally substantial doubt:
This disputed record is just one example of the factual determinations this Court would need to make to rule for Petitioners. In addition, it would need to address, among other issues, the current state of climate change science; the role of Montana in the global problem of climate change; how emissions created in Montana ultimately affect Montana’s climate; whether the benefits of energy production must be balanced against the potential harm of climate change; and the concrete limits, if any, of the alleged “affirmative duty” [to restrict CO2 emissions.] (Emphasis added.)
Dr. Ed Berry, Director of Climate Physics Institute (CPI), said “The Montana Supreme Court’s decision was influenced by CPI’s Motion to Intervene which included 118 Intervenors, 13 minor children, 15 state representatives, 7 state senators, and 8 elected state officials.”
CPI used 2 key scientific exhibits in its Motion to Intervene: A 321-page “Climate Depot Special Report” compiled by Marc Morano and The Heartland Institute’s “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate’ edited by S. Fred Singer. The full legal exhibits may be viewed on climatephysics.org. (See 1000 Scientists Climate Physics Institute
an edberry.com site
Montana Supreme Court rejects the Global Warming petition by Our Children’s Trust | Climate Physics Institute 29/01/2012 18:38 Dissent and Climate Change Reconsidered.)
Met Office releases new figures which show no warming in 15 years
By David Rose, UK Daily Mail
The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.
The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.
Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.
A painting, by Thomas Wyke depicts one of many frost fairs on the River Thames during the mini ice age
Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.
Solar output goes through 11-year cycles, with high numbers of sunspots seen at their peak.
We are now at what should be the peak of what scientists call ‘Cycle 24’ - which is why last week’s solar storm resulted in sightings of the aurora borealis further south than usual. But sunspot numbers are running at less than half those seen during cycle peaks in the 20th Century.
Analysis by experts at NASA and the University of Arizona [ derived from magnetic-field measurements 120,000 miles beneath the sun’s surface [ suggest that Cycle 25, whose peak is due in 2022, will be a great deal weaker still.
According to a paper issued last week by the Met Office, there is a 92 per cent chance that both Cycle 25 and those taking place in the following decades will be as weak as, or weaker than, the ‘Dalton minimum’ of 1790 to 1830. In this period, named after the meteorologist John Dalton, average temperatures in parts of Europe fell by 2C.
However, it is also possible that the new solar energy slump could be as deep as the ‘Maunder minimum’ (after astronomer Edward Maunder), between 1645 and 1715 in the coldest part of the ‘Little Ice Age’ when, as well as the Thames frost fairs, the canals of Holland froze solid.
Yet, in its paper, the Met Office claimed that the consequences now would be negligible - because the impact of the sun on climate is far less than man-made carbon dioxide. Although the sun’s output is likely to decrease until 2100, ‘This would only cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08C.’ Peter Stott, one of the authors, said: ‘Our findings suggest a reduction of solar activity to levels not seen in hundreds of years would be insufficient to offset the dominant influence of greenhouse gases.’
These findings are fiercely disputed by other solar experts.
‘World temperatures may end up a lot cooler than now for 50 years or more,’ said Henrik Svensmark, director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at Denmark’s National Space Institute. ‘It will take a long battle to convince some climate scientists that the sun is important. It may well be that the sun is going to demonstrate this on its own, without the need for their help.’
He pointed out that, in claiming the effect of the solar minimum would be small, the Met Office was relying on the same computer models that are being undermined by the current pause in global-warming.
CO2 levels have continued to rise without interruption and, in 2007, the Met Office claimed that global warming was about to ‘come roaring back’. It said that between 2004 and 2014 there would be an overall increase of 0.3C. In 2009, it predicted that at least three of the years 2009 to 2014 would break the previous temperature record set in 1998.
So far there is no sign of any of this happening. But yesterday a Met Office spokesman insisted its models were still valid.
‘he ten-year projection remains groundbreaking science. The period for the original projection is not over yet,’ he said.
Dr Nicola Scafetta, of Duke University in North Carolina, is the author of several papers that argue the Met Office climate models show there should have been ‘steady warming from 2000 until now’.
‘If temperatures continue to stay flat or start to cool again, the divergence between the models and recorded data will eventually become so great that the whole scientific community will question the current theories,’ he said.
He believes that as the Met Office model attaches much greater significance to CO2 than to the sun, it was bound to conclude that there would not be cooling. ‘The real issue is whether the model itself is accurate,’ Dr Scafetta said. Meanwhile, one of America’s most eminent climate experts, Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said she found the Met Office’s confident prediction of a ‘negligible’ impact difficult to understand.
‘The responsible thing to do would be to accept the fact that the models may have severe shortcomings when it comes to the influence of the sun,’ said Professor Curry. As for the warming pause, she said that many scientists ‘are not surprised’.
She argued it is becoming evident that factors other than CO2 play an important role in rising or falling warmth, such as the 60-year water temperature cycles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
‘They have insufficiently been appreciated in terms of global climate,’ said Prof Curry. When both oceans were cold in the past, such as from 1940 to 1970, the climate cooled. The Pacific cycle ‘flipped’ back from warm to cold mode in 2008 and the Atlantic is also thought likely to flip in the next few years .
Pal Brekke, senior adviser at the Norwegian Space Centre, said some scientists found the importance of water cycles difficult to accept, because doing so means admitting that the oceans - not CO2 - caused much of the global warming between 1970 and 1997.
The same goes for the impact of the sun - which was highly active for much of the 20th Century.
‘Nature is about to carry out a very interesting experiment,’ he said. ‘Ten or 15 years from now, we will be able to determine much better whether the warming of the late 20th Century really was caused by man-made CO2, or by natural variability.’
Meanwhile, since the end of last year, world temperatures have fallen by more than half a degree, as the cold ‘La Nina’ effect has re-emerged in the South Pacific.
‘We’re now well into the second decade of the pause,’ said Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. ‘If we don’t see convincing evidence of global warming by 2015, it will start to become clear whether the models are bunk. And, if they are, the implications for some scientists could be very serious.’
Obama-EPA Destroying More Jobs in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland
Link to Press Release
Washington D.C. - Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said that FirstEnergy’s announcement today that it will shut down six power plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland due to EPA’s Utility MACT rule is a prime example that while President Obama is talking the talk on an ‘all-of-the-above’ energy approach, his administration is aggressively working to shut down American oil, gas, and coal development.
“Today, hundreds of Americans learned that they will be losing their good-paying jobs because of the Obama EPA’s destructive regulatory agenda,” Senator Inhofe said. “Due to EPA’s forthcoming Utility MACT rule, FirstEnergy will be closing six power plants, which will put 529 Americans out of work in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland - states that have already been hit hard by the recession.
“Meanwhile, President Obama has been taking his State of the Union campaign speech on the road in an effort to distance himself from his cap-and-trade agenda, which no longer sells. Knowing that Americans want the good-paying jobs, the increased energy security, and the stronger economy that domestic fossil fuel development brings, the President has begun peddling an ‘all-of-the-above’ energy approach - but today’s announcement tells us the real story. President Obama’s regulatory agenda is the most harmful, aggressive and expensive in history and it is aimed squarely at shutting down the development of oil, gas and coal. That’s why the EPA’s Utility MACT rule is unnecessarily burdensome and costly - it’s intended to undermine the viability of coal, one of our country’s most abundant and reliable energy sources.
“The 529 jobs lost today are just the tip of the iceberg, as economic analyses predict up to 1.4 million American jobs will be lost by EPA’s rules for power plants. Utility MACT will cost $11 billion, which contrasts sharply with the mere $6 million in direct benefits EPA projects will be gained from the rule’s implementation.
“In the weeks ahead I will be introducing a resolution under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) that will give Congress the ability to stop EPA from destroying jobs with Utility MACT. Several Democratic members of the Senate have said that they would like to rein in EPA - with my CRA, they will have the chance to do so.”