EPW Blog
In his column today, Tom Friedman of the New York Times wonders whether “we can have a serious discussion about the climate-energy issue anymore.” From our end, we believe the answer is yes. That is, one can simultaneously see the good-humored fun in kids building an igloo in honor of Al Gore and legitimately question whether the IPCC-backed consensus on global warming - that a climate catastrophe is well-nigh upon us - suffers from serious flaws (think Himalayan glaciers). And we believe one can support an energy policy that draws on all of America’s domestic resources-coal, natural gas, oil, solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear-and that such advocacy can be rooted in prudential concern for cost, jobs, energy security, and reliability, rather than rank corporate shilling.
We lament the fact that Mr. Friedman, justly regarded as he is for the eloquence of his prose and the force of his arguments, categorically dismisses those of a skeptical bent as given to “errors and wild exaggerations.” Some may be, but many are not. Such a dismissal is simply incorrect - one thinks of the University of Alabama-Huntsville’s John Christy or Australia’s Ian Plimer - and contrary to the spirit of open intellectual engagement. Nevertheless, in hope of serious debate, we take issue with several of Mr. Friedman’s assertions:
FRIEDMAN: “Avoid the term ‘global warming.’ I prefer the term ‘global weirding,’ because that is what actually happens as global temperatures rise and the climate changes. The weather gets weird. The hots are expected to get hotter, the wets wetter, the dries drier and the most violent storms more numerous.”
RESPONSE: It’s appropriate that Mr. Friedman drop “global warming,” for the simple fact that there has been “no statistically significant warming” for the last 15 years. This is not the judgment of a skeptic, but of Phil Jones, the former director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), who is at the center of the ‘Climategate’ scandal (Jones did say that in his view that the overall temperature trend is one of warming).
Moreover, at some point, the notion, suggested by Friedman, that anything and everything-blizzards, heat waves, droughts, hurricanes, floods, and otherwise ‘weird weather’-are caused by global warming becomes unfalsifiable, thereby rendering the catastrophic global warming hypothesis meaningless. We would also caution Mr. Friedman against relying too heavily on the “storms-get-stormier” hypothesis.
Recall that in 2005, Christopher Landsea, of the National Hurricane Center, and one of the nation’s foremost experts on hurricanes, resigned in protest from the IPCC. At the time, Landsea wrote, “I am withdrawing [from the IPCC] because I have come to view the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant as having become politicized. In addition, when I have raised my concerns to the IPCC leadership, their response was simply to dismiss my concerns.” He wrote further that, “The latest results from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory suggest that by around 2080, hurricanes may have winds and rainfall about 5% more intense than today...It is beyond me why my colleagues would utilize the media to push an unsupported agenda that recent hurricane activity has been due to global warming.”
FRIEDMAN: “Those who favor taking action are saying: ‘Because the warming that humans are doing is irreversible and potentially catastrophic, let’s buy some insurance - by investing in renewable energy, energy efficiency and mass transit - because this insurance will also actually make us richer and more secure.’ We will import less oil, invent and export more clean-tech products, send fewer dollars overseas to buy oil and, most importantly, diminish the dollars that are sustaining the worst petro-dictators in the world who indirectly fund terrorists and the schools that nurture them.”
RESPONSE: Taking out insurance is wise. But Mr. Friedman’s insurance policy means exorbitant premiums with no protection in the event disaster occurs. Take the Waxman-Markey bill. According to the National Black Chamber of Commerce, Waxman-Markey would cause a net reduction-yes, even taking into account “green jobs"-of up to 3.6 million jobs. It would reduce GDP by 1.5 percent compared to business-as-usual. And the climate benefit? According to Chip Knappenberger of Master Resource, by the year 2050, Waxman-Markey “would result in a global temperature ‘savings’ of about 0.05C regardless of the IPCC scenario used.” In other words: no climate benefit. Even if one chooses a carbon tax to reduce emissions, the climate impact arguably would be even less, given that reductions are not guaranteed.
There are more economical options, and they are not the work of industry robber barons. We call Mr. Friedman’s attention to a 2008 Department of Energy study titled “Combined Heat and Power: Effective Energy Solutions for a Sustainable Future.”
As the study noted, the generating capacity of the more than 3,300 US combined heat and power (CHP) sites “stands at 85 gigawatts (GW)-almost 9 percent of total US capacity.” In 2006 CHP produced 506 billion Kilowatt Hour (kWh) of electricity-more than 12 percent of total US power generation for that year.” According to DOE, if the United States adopted high-deployment policies to achieve 20 percent of generation capacity from CHP by 2030, it could:
- Save an estimated 5.3 quadrillion Btu (Quads) of fuel annually, the equivalent of nearly half the total energy currently consumed by US households;
- Generate (cumulatively through 2030) $234 billion in new investments and create nearly 1 million new highly-skilled, technical jobs4 throughout the United States.
DOE also concluded CO2 emissions could be reduced “by more than 800 million metric tons (MMT) per year, the equivalent of taking more than half of the current passenger vehicles in the US off the road. In this 20 percent scenario, over 60 percent of the projected increase in CO2 emissions between now and 2030 could be avoided.”
As an insurance policy, this is something the American people would probably be more inclined to support than taxes that impose all cost for no climate benefit.
FRIEDMAN: “Even if climate change proves less catastrophic than some fear, in a world that is forecast to grow from 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion people between now and 2050, more and more of whom will live like Americans, demand for renewable energy and clean water is going to soar. It is obviously going to be the next great global industry.
“China, of course, understands that, which is why it is investing heavily in clean-tech, efficiency and high-speed rail. It sees the future trends and is betting on them. Indeed, I suspect China is quietly laughing at us right now.”
RESPONSE: China is pursuing an all-of-the-above energy policy-exactly what Republicans have been supporting for years. Yes, China is investing in renewable energy, but it is also building advanced coal and nuclear power plants. According to the Energy Information Administration, “Coal consists of roughly three-quarters of [China’s] power generation feedstock and the EIA forecasts they will maintain this market share through 2030.”
Here in the U.S., green pressure groups and the Obama EPA-and, we suspect, Mr. Friedman-- oppose construction of new, more efficient (therefore lower emitting) coal plants. They might say they have to be equipped with “carbon capture and storage technology"-which won’t happen on a commercial scale for years (and assuming environmentalists will even allow construction of the infrastructure needed to support it).
As for nuclear, according to the “Nuclear Street” website, “there are 12 newly-approved” nuclear units under construction in China that will have a combined capacity of 34.76 million kW.” We are pleased the Administration has signaled support for new nuclear plants, but by pulling the plug on Yucca Mountain, it fails the consistency test.
FRIEDMAN: “And Iran, Russia, Venezuela and the whole OPEC gang are high-fiving each other. Nothing better serves their interests than to see Americans becoming confused about climate change, and, therefore, less inclined to move toward clean-tech and, therefore, more certain to remain addicted to oil. Yes, sir, it is morning in Saudi Arabia.”
RESPONSE: According to a recently released report from the Congressional Research Service, America’s combined recoverable natural gas, oil, and coal endowment is the largest on earth. America’s recoverable resources are far larger than those of Saudi Arabia (3rd), China (4th), and Canada (6th) combined. And that’s without including America’s absolutely immense oil shale and methane hydrates deposits. We suspect the “whole OPEC gang” would become more than a little nervous if the U.S. got serious about developing its resources-all of them. Read full blog with links.
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Inhofe Response to White House Announcement on NEPA
EPW Blog
Washington, DC-Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, issued the following statement in response to the Obama Administration’s release of draft guidance on how federal agencies should use the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to address greenhouse gas emissions that result from major federal actions, as well as establishing and applying “categorical exclusions” under NEPA.
“I commend the Obama Administration for addressing the interplay between NEPA and greenhouse gas emissions,” Sen. Inhofe said. “I look forward to working with them to ensure that NEPA is used judiciously and according to its original statutory purpose.
“Using NEPA as a backdoor tool to regulate greenhouse gases will stifle job creation and create greater uncertainty for the economy. The Administration’s proposed NEPA guidance for GHGs appears to do exactly that: it will enable federal agencies to block or delay production of America’s domestic energy resources, which are the largest in the world.
“In addition,” Sen. Inhofe continued, “if the intent of the Obama Administration’s proposal on categorical exclusions is to clarify NEPA to help advance production of America’s energy resources, then the Administration should be commended. If, however, the intent is to create jobs for environmental lawyers by adding greater burdens on an already cumbersome NEPA process, then it should be vigorously opposed.
“Again, I look forward to working with the Administration to ensure NEPA reforms help create jobs and increase American energy production.”
See post here.
By Noel Sheppard
The absolutely stunning global warming revelations this weekend by the man in the middle of the ClimateGate scandal have gone almost completely ignored by America’s press.
As NewsBusters reported Saturday, Phil Jones, the head of the British Climatic Research Unit at the heart of ClimateGate, told the BBC: the recent warming trend that began in 1975 is not at all different than two other planetary warming phases since 1850; there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995, and; it is possible the Medieval Warm Period was indeed a global phenomenon thereby making the temperatures seen in the latter part of the 20th century by no means unprecedented.
Jones also admitted that he and his fellow scientists manipulated figures to hide a decline in crucial tree-ring data thereby questioning the validity of the entire global warming theory.
Despite the seriousness of these revelations, much as what happened when the ClimateGate scandal first broke, with the exception of Fox News, America’s media have almost totally boycotted this amazing story:
No mention by the New York Times
No mention by the Washington Post
No mention by USA Today
No mention by ANY major U.S. newspaper EXCEPT the Washington Times
No mention by the Associated Press
No mention by Reuters
No mention by UPI
No mention by ABC News
No mention by CBS News
No mention by NBC News
No mention by MSNBC
For its part, CNN FINALLY got around to covering this story with a very brief mention Tuesday:
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: There’s also something else that’s out there. Phil Jones from the University of East Anglia, the climate research unit, the guy that was at the center of this recent e-mail controversy late last year, has said in an interview with the BBC that he has not seen any, quote, “statistically significant warming since 1995,” though he says he still believes that the earth’s temperature has warmed. And he also said that he might be missing some of the data that is responsible for his climate models.
Of course, skeptics are jumping all over this, saying the whole thing is a farce. Global warming doesn’t exist.
What do you think of the Professor Jones situation, the lack of statistically significant warming, and the fact that he may have misplaced some of the records?
JOHN CHRISTY, PROFESSOR, ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE, UNIV. OF ALABAMA- HUNTSVILLE: Well, I think what Phil Jones is saying is that Mother Nature is perfectly capable of making the temperature rise and fall through the past several hundred years. And in terms of the data problems, well, we do have to be careful when we’re talking about public policy, that means trillions of dollars, and we haven’t had that very hard and critical situation where you take care of data and make it publicly available to everyone. And that needs to be done now.
That’s it!
Bear in mind that the Jones BBC interview was published Saturday. NewsBusters reported the revelations at 6PM Eastern Time the same day. And yet CNN first mentioned the story possibly as much as 72 hours AFTER the BBC piece.
I guess that’s why CNN is no longer considered the most trusted name in news.
Speaking of which, much as it did when ClimateGate broke, FNC has been all over this story addressing it on “Fox News Sunday,” on Monday’s “Glenn Beck Show,” on Monday’s “Special Report,” and on Monday’s “Hannity.”
By contrast, for their part, the rest of the news media have found filmmaker Kevin Smith being thrown off a Southwest plane for being too fat MUCH more important:
The New York Times reported it
The Washington Post reported it
The Associated Press reported it
UPI reported it
ABC News reported it
CBS News reported it
CNN reported it—14 TIMES!
Well, I guess “journalists” have to have their priorities, don’t they?
Once again, much as what happened with ClimateGate, America’s press are asleep at the wheel concerning a major story involving global warming. There’s no other way of saying it: when it comes to Al Gore’s favorite money-making myth, the American media are almost criminal in their behavior. Shame on them!!! Read more.
Update: Marc Sheppard has more.
In dropping out of the U. S. Climate Action Partnership, BP America, Conoco Phillips, and Caterpillar are recognizing that cap-and-trade legislation is dead in the U. S. Congress and that global warming alarmism is collapsing rapidly. We hope that other major corporations will soon see the light and drop their support for cap-and-trade and other energy-rationing legislation.
These announcements are most welcome, but they do not mean that we can relax our efforts to defeat and roll back energy-rationing legislation and regulations. Many policies and proposals that would raise energy prices through the roof for American consumers and destroy millions of jobs in energy-intensive industries still pose a huge threat. These include the EPA’s decision to regulate greenhouse gas emissions using the Clean Air Act, environmental pressure group efforts to use the Endangered Species Act to stop energy production and new power plants, the higher fuel economy standards for new passenger vehicles enacted in 2007, presidential executive orders, and bills in Congress to require more renewable electricity, higher energy efficiency standards for buildings, and low carbon transportation fuel standards.
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The People’s Network beats the Media Monoliths and the Government Propaganda Machine
Carbon-Sense Coalition
The climate consensus promoted by Big Business, Big Government, Big Media and Big Academia has come unstuck. The shoddy work and partisan promotion by IPCC and its cronies has been exposed, the romantic idea of powering the world with sunbeams and sea breezes has collided with engineering reality, and the public has caught a whiff of the true meaning of green politics - taxes, ration cards and big brother controlling every aspect of our lives.
But it has not been mainstream media illuminating the dark corners of the global warming castle - it is the fast moving people’s media - the internet and the blogosphere. Independent thinkers, retired scientists, amateur detectives and ordinary voters are spreading information and changing public opinion.
As Matt Ridley of The Spectator notes:
“Despite 20 years of being told they were not just factually but morally wrong, of being compared to Holocaust deniers, of being told they deserved to be tried for crimes against humanity, of being avoided at parties, climate sceptics seem to be growing in number and confidence by the day. What is the difference?
“In a word, the internet. The ‘climate consensus’ may hold the establishment—the universities, the media, big business, government—but it is losing the jungles of the web. After all, getting research grants, doing pieces to camera and advising boards takes time. The very ostracism the sceptics suffered has left them free to do their digging untroubled by grant applications and invitations to Stockholm.”
See here how this people’s network had beaten the multi billion dollar scam campaign.
Like Tom-Toms in the jungle, each picking up and repeating the message with the speed of sound, so do our supporters grab every message and send it in spreading circles of communication at the speed of light.
Read also “Climate Change in Tatters” by Dr. Muriel Newman here.
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Fuelling Future Famines
This generation of pampered westerners is the first tribe in the history of the world that seems determined to destroy its ability to produce food. The history of the human race has always been a battle for protein in the face of the continual challenge of natural climate change. Nothing has changed for this generation, except the wildfire spread of a destructive new religion that requires the sacrifice of food producers on a global warming altar.
Food creation needs solar energy, land, carbon dioxide and water. All four food resources are under threat. Eons ago, long before ancient humans learned to use the magic warmth locked in coal, millions of woolly mammoths were snap frozen in the icy wastes of Siberia. They are still being dug out of the ice today.
In the last few weeks, in a mild repeat of this past climate disaster, massive snowstorms have killed millions of domestic animals in Mongolia and China. The capacity to produce and distribute food has been decimated across the top of the world from Northern Europe and Russia to North America. When orange groves in Florida are damaged and Texas gets six snowstorms in a few weeks it is obvious that nature is damaging the world food supply.
Solar energy produces all of our food. Those who follow the sun are already recording a dramatic change in sunspots, which tend to reflect solar energy. This seems to indicate that the current frigid conditions affecting the Northern Hemisphere may not be an isolated weather event but may be a harbinger of natural climate change.
Global warming has never been a problem for mankind. But global cooling is a killer. Australia can feed itself and is a major food supplier to the world – beef, mutton, cereals, sugar, dairy products, pork, chicken, eggs, seafood, nuts, legumes, fruit, vegetables, beer and wine.
However green extremists, supported by foolish politicians, are gnawing at the foundations of Australia’s food chain. And the biggest threat today is Climate Change Policies. Land is an essential ingredient to most food production. All over Australia, uncontrolled regrowth of eucalypt scrub is silently reclaiming our vast grazing lands, the source of the lowest cost beef and mutton in the world. Generations of graziers have created and maintain these grasslands against the ever present threat of capture by woody weeds. Now their hands are tied and their land is being stolen by global warming politics. The suffocating scrub will soon pass the tipping point, beyond which grasslands are destroyed and the land is no longer capable of food production.
Land sterilisation is also occurring via the stealth of Wild Rivers, World Heritage and other lock-away-land policies. Even more food producing land is lost by policies that subsidise people to grow carbon forests in the stupid belief that this will somehow improve the climate by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Trees, grasses, sub-soil critters, grazing animals and carnivores are all part of the same carbon cycle. If one life form gets to monopolise land and carbon resources, it is detrimental to other life.
Still more stupid are market destroying policies that use government mandates and subsidies to convert food producing land to growing ethanol for cars. This has already caused massive dislocations to markets for corn, sugar, soybeans and palm oils. Forcing people to convert food into motor fuel is not a sensible policy and always adds to food shortages.
Carbon dioxide is the breath of life for all food production. Imagine the stupidity of trying to capture this harmless will-o-the-wisp in order to bury it in carbon cemeteries. Luckily for our food capacity, this suicidal policy of carbon capture and burial is unlikely to succeed.
Finally, let’s look at water, the life blood of all food production. Australia probably has access to more water per head of population than most countries in the world. However, decades of government mis-management have made us more vulnerable to every drought. Many government policies have encouraged the waste of water resources. There are huge unused water resources across the north from the Fitzroy River in the West to the Flinders River in Cape York. Most of this water is untapped and unused because of government anti-development and land sterilisation policies.
In the south, other silly government policies have supplied water for “free” to the cities. Anything free is wasted. Because of urban demand, food producers are now being denied water at any price, but there is no real price rationing in the cities. When natural climate change in the Northern Hemisphere is combined with political climate change in our southern food baskets, the real crisis creeping up on the world is not global warming caused by industry, but global famine caused by politicians. As Genghis Khan said wisely “Only a foolish horse fights with his feed bag”.
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Climate Warnings from the Sun
Carbon-Sense Coalition
As of the end of January, the cumulative number of spotless days (days without sunspots) in the transition into solar cycle 24 now stands at 774. The number of spotless days is clamping down quickly. There were only 3 spotless days in January, 2010.
Solar minimums end rather abruptly. It appears very likely that the final number for this solar minimum will come close to 800. The transitions into the recent Solar Cycles (SC16-23) covering the past 7 decades averaged 362 cumulative spotless days. Therefore it is becoming obvious that the sun has undergone a state change.
The Average Magnetic Planetary Index (Ap index) is a proxy measurement for the intensity of solar magnetic activity as it alters the geomagnetic field on Earth. It has been referred to as the common yardstick for solar magnetic activity. An Ap index of “4” was the lowest recorded monthly value since measurements began in January 1932. In October and November 2009, this index record was broken with values of “3”. Then in December the index sunk even lower establishing a new record with a reading of “2”. Now in January of this year the Ap index is back up to “3”.
This solar minimum is rather unusual. If we define a period of quiet sun as those months that produced an Ap index of 6 or less and compare the total number of quiet months within each solar minimum, then the results would be:
Minimum Preceding Solar Cycle Number of Months with Ap Index of 6 or less
SC17 11 months
SC18 2 months
SC19 2 months
SC20 5 months
SC21 0 months
SC22 0 months
SC23 3 months
SC24 25 months and counting
NOAA has a different count here
Enlarged here.
If you choose the smoothed value and 9 as the threshold for low average value, we have gone 49 months at or below 9.
Isn’t it interesting that the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing some of the coldest, snowiest weather in decades at the same time the sun’s magnetic field produced 25 quiet months? But history has shown that when the sun gets extremely quiet such as during the Maunder and Sporer Minimums, the world experiences great cold periods referred to as the Little Ice Ages.
Congratulations to Washington D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia in smashing your all time seasonal snow record. Who will be next? Icecap guess: Dallas, Texas.
James Marusek
See post here.