By UK Professor Emeritus of Biogeography Philip Stott of the University of London
I must ask a very serious and urgent question of our media. Why do you continue to talk glibly about current climate ‘warming’ when it is now widely acknowledged that there has been no ‘global warming’ for the last ten years, a cooling trend that many think may continue for at least another ten years? How can you talk of the climate ‘warming’ when, on the key measures, it isn’t? And now a leading Mexican scientist is even predicting that we may enter another ‘Little Ice Age’ - a ‘pequeña era de hielo’.
Such media behaviour exhibits a classic condition known as ‘cognitive dissonance’. This is experienced when belief in a grand narrative persists blindly even when the facts in the real world begin to contradict what the narrative is saying. Sadly, our media have come to have a vested interest in ‘global warming’, as have so many politicians and activists. They are terrified that the public may begin to question everything if climate is acknowledged, on air and in the press, not to be playing ball with their pet trope.
But that is precisely what is happening. Since 1998, according to all the main world temperature records, including the UK Met Office’s ‘HadCRUT3’ data set [a globally-gridded product of near-surface temperatures consisting of annual differences from 1961-90 normals], the world average surface temperature has exhibited no warming whatsoever. Indeed, the trend has been a combination of flat-lining and cooling, with a particularly marked plunge over the last few months. Many parts of the world, including Canada, China, and the US, have just experienced their worst winter in years (as is currently Australia), while skiing in Scotland has benefited from the trend, and the summit of Snowdon carried snow even up to the end of April.
To put it simply, since 1998, there has been no ‘global warming’, despite the fact that, during this same period, atmospheric CO2 has continued to rise, from c. 368 ppm by volume in 1998 to c. 384 ppmv in November, 2007. Moreover, another ‘greenhouse gas’, methane, has also been rising, following a period of relative stability, by about 0.5% between 2006 and 2007.
The big question is: “What has happened to Solar Cycle 24?” Solar-cycle intensity is measured by the maximum number of sunspots. These are dark blotches on the Sun that mark areas of heightened magnetic activity. The more sunspots there are, the more likely it is that major solar storms will occur, and these are related to warming on Earth; the fewer the sunspots, the more likely there is to be cooling. The next 11-year cycle of solar storms [Solar Cycle 24] was predicted to have begun in autumn, 2006, but it appears to have been delayed. It was then expected to take off in March last year, and to peak in late-2011, or mid-2012. But the Sun remains largely spotless, except for an odd fading spot. This delayed onset has somewhat confused the official Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel, leaving them evenly split as to whether a weak or a strong period of solar storms now lies ahead.
However, some other scientists are deeply concerned, including Phil Chapman, the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut, who comments: “Disconcerting as it may be to true believers in global warming, the average temperature on Earth has remained steady or slowly declined during the past decade, despite the continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, and now the global temperature is falling precipitously.”
Chapman then explains why the absence of sunspots might exacerbate this cooling trend: “The reason this matters is that there is a close correlation between variations in the sunspot cycle and Earth’s climate. The previous time a cycle was delayed like this was in the Dalton Minimum, an especially cold period that lasted several decades from 1790. Northern winters became ferocious: in particular, the rout of Napoleon’s Grand Army during the retreat from Moscow in 1812 [see picture] was at least partly due to the lack of sunspots.” Read more here.
Liberty News Central
DeSmog Blog editor Richard Littlemore concedes defeat. Lord Christopher Monckton, a global warming expert and former senior policy advisor to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, has an outstanding challenge to Al Gore and other ardent proponents of the theory that humans are causing a global warming crisis to publicly debate the issue. While Al Gore and most other prominent proponents of alarmist global warming theory refuse to publicly debate or defend their claims, Richard Littlemore, editor of the DeSmog Blog Web site, agreed to debate Lord Monckton Sunday, August 17, on Canada’s Corus radio network. Corus host Roy Green moderated the debate. A transcript of all pertinent parts of the debate appears below, followed by some post-debate analysis. Audio of the Monckton-Littlemore debate can be found here.
Lord Monckton fluidly presented his analysis and the scientific data he was citing, while Littlemore, clearly flustered, stammered painfully throughout the debate and made multiple serious gaffes (for example, claiming that melting Arctic sea ice would raise sea levels, when melting sea ice in fact has no effect on sea level). On Littlemore’s own DeSmog Blog, even his most ardent supporters conceded that Littlemore was taking it on the chin throughout the debate.
“Richard, you’ve got to show them you’ve got more than insults,” wrote one sympathetic DeSmog Blog reader. “I’d have to say that Monckton ‘won’ the debate. He came across as more prepared and had answers at his fingertips, whereas Richard appeared to verbally stumble on occasion,” wrote another. After the debate ended, Littlemore himself admitted defeat on his DeSmog Blog.
“In hindsight,” wrote Littlemore, “I played perfectly into the hands of Monckton and his happy radio host, Roy Green, who share the same goal - not to win an argument about global warming science, but merely to show that there still IS an argument. Of course there’s not. But while we danced angels around the head of a pin, I can imagine Green’s listeners thinking, ‘Oh my. This is very confusing. No wonder the government says it’s too early to take action.’
“Score one for Monckton. Thanks (and my apologies) to those of you who volunteered some much-preferable debating strategies. Maybe next time.” While Littlemore blamed Monckton and the moderator for his poor showing, the reality is that poor showings by global warming alarmists are par for the course. On March 14, 2007, an audience at New York City’s prestigious Intelligence Squared debating society declared three prominent global warming “skeptics” the winners in a debate against three prominent global warming alarmists.
The debate was taped by National Public Radio (NPR) and distributed to NPR affiliates across the nation. A pre-debate poll indicated that by a 2-to-1 margin (57 percent to 29 percent, with 14 percent undecided) the on-site audience believed global warming has become a crisis. After the debate, however, the audience indicated by 46 percent to 42 percent they do not believe global warming is a crisis, with 12 percent undecided.
Since the 2007 Intelligence Squared debate, prominent global warming alarmists such as Al Gore, James Hansen, Michael Mann, Gavin Schmidt, Susan Solomon, etc., have refused to publicly debate the science and defend their assertions.
By Eric Reguly, UK Globe and Mail
Russia’s adventure in Georgia has been described as a “warlet,” a contained firing spree that wound up and down within a week. But to Europe’s energy markets, it was the equivalent of wide-scale carpet bombing. With the North Sea oil and natural gas fields running out of puff, Europe, in particular the European Union, is more dependent than ever on imported energy. The biggest single supplier is Russia, whose pipelines snake across Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova before poking into central and western Europe.
Russia’s energy supplies are cherished. Germany, France and Italy have almost no oil and gas of their own. Russia’s Gazprom, the world’s biggest gas company, supplies 40 per cent or more of Europe’s gas imports. The company, controlled by the Russian state and led by Dmitry Medvedev before he became Russia’s President, is the equivalent of a one-country gas OPEC.
By 2020, Gazprom’s exports to the EU are expected to rise by more than 50 per cent. The company is unafraid to wield its mighty power. For four
days in 2006, it stopped supplying gas to the Ukrainian market because of a contract dispute. Since keeping the lights on is the minimum requirement to stay elected, Europe’s governments were doing two things. They were buying every molecule of Russian energy available and were working hard to ensure that Russia alone did not control the entire show.
Enter Georgia. The pro-Western country became a convenient bit of non-Russian real estate on which to plunk pipelines to funnel non-Russian (and non-OPEC) oil and gas to the outside world. No fewer than three pipelines originating in Azerbaijan cross Georgian territory. One of the trio, called BTE, was due for a massively enlarged role in the future. The BTE pipeline currently takes gas from Azerbaijan through Georgia and into central Turkey. An extension, known as the Nabucco project, would take the gas from there on to Austria, making it a hefty counterweight to Russian gas exports. Nabucco is backed by the EU and the United States and counts German power utility RWE among it biggest shareholders.
Thanks to Russia’s invasion of Georgia on Aug. 8, Georgia’s role as a secure energy transit point to Europe has been shattered. Russia has made clear it can make Georgia a puppet state if it wishes, and will almost certainly recognize the independence of the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Suddenly the risk premiums on oil and gas pipelines that pass through Georgian soil went through the roof. Some analysts are already predicting the death of the Nabucco project, whose construction was to begin in 2010. So much for Europe’s energy diversification plans. New, independent pipelines from Central Asia seem like a lost cause. With Georgia reined in, Moscow’s grip on energy supplies to Europe must be close to complete. You have to wonder whether a Kremlin filing cabinet contains a plan that had laid out this very scenario a decade ago. Read more here. See the timely book “Soviet to Putin and Back, The Dominance of Energy in Today’s Russia” here and attend suthor Michael economides talk here.