By John McLean on SPPI
The IPCC is a single-interest organisation, whose charter presumes a widespread human influence on climate, rather than consideration of whether such influence may be negligible or missing altogether. Though the IPCC’s principles also state that a wide range of views is to be sought when selecting lead authors and contributing authors, this rule has been honored more in the breach than in the observance. More than two-thirds of all authors of chapter 9 of the IPCC’s 2007 climate-science assessment are part of a clique whose members have co-authored papers with each other and, we can surmise, very possibly at times acted as peer-reviewers for each other’s work.
Of the 44 contributing authors, more than half have co-authored papers with the lead authors or coordinating lead authors of chapter 9.It is no surprise, therefore, that the majority of scientists who are skeptical of a human influence on climate significant enough to be damaging to the planet were unrepresented in the authorship of chapter 9. Many of the IPCC authors were climate modelers - or associated with laboratories committed to modeling - unwilling to admit that their models are neither accurate nor complete. Still less do they recognize or admit that modeling a chaotic object whose initial state and evolutionary processes are not known to a sufficient precision has a validation skill not significantly different from zero. In short, it cannot be done and has long been proven impossible. The modelers say that the “consensus” among their models is significant: but it is an artifact of ex-post-facto tuning to replicate historical temperatures, of repeated intercomparison studies, and of the authors’ shared belief in the unrealistically high estimate of climate sensitivity upon which all of the models assume.
The relationships between most of the authors of chapter 9 demonstrate a disturbingly tight network of scientists with common research interests and opinions. The contrast between this close-knit group and the IPCC’s stated claim to represent a global diversity of views is remarkable and does not augur well for the impartiality or integrity of chapter 9’s conclusions. Wegman et al identified a similar network of scientists in their notable critique of the now-discredited “hockey stick” 1000-year northern-hemisphere temperature graph by Mann et al. (1998, 1999, corrected 2004) that had featured six times, prominently, in full color and at full scale, in the IPCC’s 2001 assessment report.
The hypothesis of damaging, man-made warming is a long way from being proven - and, given the recent trend in the peer-reviewed literature, is well on the way to being disproven. Recent cooling of the planet further suggests that man-made warming is at best too weak to be detected in the “noise” of natural internal variability. Governments have naively and unwisely accepted the claims of a human influence on global temperatures made by a close-knit clique of a few dozen scientists, many of them climate modellers, as if such claims were representative of the opinion of the wider scientific community. On the evidence presented here, the IPCC’s selection of its chapter authors appears so prejudiced towards a predetermined outcome that it renders its scientific assessment of the climate suspect and its conclusions inappropriate for policy making. Read this full devastating analysis here.
Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
Renewable portfolio standards that have passed in several states (and promoted by many other state climate commissions) are nothing more than another hidden energy tax (like cap-and-trade). That is no better illustrated than in a Raleigh News & Observer article today, which explains how Progress Energy is about to go to battle with North Carolina’s Utilities Commission in order to raise rates so it can pay for its (state-required 12.5 percent minimum) renewable-sourced energy generation: Progress Energy is ready to start charging customers extra to tap solar power and other renewable resources, but the power company is facing criticism that its proposed charges favor energy hogs.
The two sides will get a hearing today before the N.C. Utilities Commission, which will decide whether the Raleigh-based utility’s request is reasonable. The hearing is the first public debate on how best to pay for the alternative energy that utilities must tap to meet a new state law. Progress wants to charge households 46 cents a month, businesses $2.33 a month and industrial customers $23.38 a month. If approved, the new charges would go into effect in December.
Meanwhile environmental extremists are doing everything they can to kill a new Duke Energy coal-fired power plant that just obtained air quality permits. Unrelenting court battles are their strategy. If renewables are such a great source of power that can replace fossil fuels, why the need to raise monthly electric rates? Why the need for massive subsidies? Oh, that’s right—it’s for all those great new “green” jobs! See more here.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, today praised President Bush for lifting the executive ban on offshore drilling. See press conference here.
“President Bush is to be commended for taking a critical step to insure an increased domestic energy supply for America,” Senator Inhofe said. “Democrats in Congress must stop blocking America;s access to the resources on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). With gas prices continuing to skyrocket, suffering Americans are demanding Congress allow more domestic energy production.
“Recent polling has shown 67 percent of the American people now support offshore drilling, with just 18 percent opposed. Congress should follow the President’s lead and lift the moratoriums on domestic energy exploration. Currently, 85 percent of the OCS --an estimated 19 billion barrels of recoverable oil—is off limits. At today’s import levels, this is the equivalent of 35 years of imports from Saudi Arabia. No country on earth has exploration technology as advanced and environmentally sound as ours. Even so, Democrats oppose offshore production based upon misleading environmental grounds. Major spills from drilling and production platforms are nearly non-existent. Both Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which were massive Category 5’s, plowed through the heart of Gulf oil production just four weeks apart, yet no major spills occurred.” See EPW release here.
This is one of the 4 steps President Bush urged congress to take to improve the energy situation here in the United States in June (see release here). The Bush Administration has repeatedly called on Congress to expand domestic oil production. Unfortunately, Congressional Democrats have rejected virtually every proposal. Now, Americans are paying the price at the pump for this obstruction.
The four recommendations included: (1) Increase access to the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Experts believe that areas under leasing prohibitions on the OCS could produce about 18 billion barrels of oil. Actual resources may be greater, but we will not know until exploration is allowed. (2) Tap into the extraordinary potential of oil shale. Oil shale is a type of rock that can produce oil when exposed to heat or other processes. In one major deposit - the Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming - there lies the equivalent of about 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil. If it can be fully recovered, it would equal more than a century’s worth of currently projected oil imports. Companies are investing in technology to make oil shale production more affordable and efficient. While the cost of extracting oil from shale is still more than the cost of traditional production, it is also less than the current market price of oil, (3) Permit exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). In 1995, Congress passed legislation allowing oil production in a small fraction of ANWR’s 19.6 million acres, yet President Clinton vetoed the bill. With a drilling footprint of less than 2,000 acres - about 0.01 percent of this distant Alaskan terrain - America could produce an estimated 10.4billion barrels of oil. This is the equivalent of roughly two decades of imported crude oil from Saudi Arabia, (4) Expand and enhance our refinery capacity.