By Bob Carter, David Evans, Stewart Franks, Bill Kininmonth & Des Moore

Government misadvised on global warming

On November 10 last year, the government’s Multi-party Climate Change Committee (MCCC) received a summary of the state of global warming science from its sole scientist member, ANU’s Professor Will Steffen. (see Powerpoint presentation here).

All policy discussion conducted within the committee since has been predicated upon the accuracy of Professor Steffen’s advice, which was that a high risk of human-related dangerous warming exists and that urgent steps need to be taken to curtail carbon dioxide emissions.

In a more recent speech last week, Climate Minister Combet indicated his continuing reliance upon the views of Professor Steffen, who had advised him that:

there is 100% certainty that the earth is warming, and that there is a very high level of certainty it will continue to warm unless efforts are made to reduce the levels of carbon pollution being sent into the atmosphere.

By quoting just this one statement acceptingly, the Minister encapsulates the ignorance of the government to the underlying science of climate change, which has long since moved on from the alarmist global warming simplicities of the IPCC and its Australian cheer leaders.

Politically committed to introducing a new carbon dioxide tax, the government campaign to condition public acceptance of it has moved into overdrive over the last few months. Steps taken since the election include the establishment of a parliamentary Multi-Party Climate Change Committee, a Climate Commission chaired by Professor Tim Flannery and an address at the National Press Club by Climate Minister Combet.

These and other conduits of government influence are transmitting messages based on the same unaudited, partial IPCC advice that has dominated global warming politics worldwide for the last 10 years.

Yet the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an unelected, unaccountable (to Australian citizens) United Nations body made up of government officials, and its reports on climate change are authored by persons selected by the IPCC and supported by their respective governments.

There has never been a comprehensive independent scientific review of any IPCC report by a member government or by an official audit body. Nonetheless, the following five events, drawn from a much larger group of happenings, have demonstrated to all the political nature of the IPCC and its scientific advisers, and greatly damaged the credibility of the organisation as a source of accurate policy advice on climate change:

In December, 2008, 103 scientists, including 24 Emeritus Professors, wrote to the Secretary General of the United Nations about what they saw as the unsubstantiated, alarmist projections of warming by the IPCC, concluding that the “approach of curbing CO2 emissions is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it - because attempts to drastically cut CO2 emissions will seriously slow development”.

In November, 2009, the leaking of the “Climategate” papers drew public attention to the malfeasant way in which scientists at the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, undertook their research on the IPCC’s global temperature record;

During 2010, a group of more than 40 Fellows of the Royal Society of London insisted on a revision of the Society’s (formerly alarmist) statement on global warming; the revised document acknowledged, inter alia, that “It is not possible to determine exactly how much the Earth will warm or exactly how the climate will change in the future”.

In February this year, 36 leading US scientists wrote an open-letter to Congress in which they disagreed with the IPCC’s conclusions, citing 678 peer-reviewed references in support; and

Also this year, a large group of members of the American Physics Society described the IPCC account of climate change as an “international fraud, the largest we have ever seen”.
It is clear, therefore, that large groups of highly qualified, professional persons exist who reject both the IPCC’s dangerous global warming paradigm, and also the need for government action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

In the absence of an official audit of IPCC science, in 2009 the four scientists among us were asked by Senator Steve Fielding to help him in his discussions with then Climate Minister Penny Wong over emissions trading legislation. Like her successor, Minister Wong turned to Professor Steffen for advice, which written advice we then audited for Senator Fielding (see PDF here).

Over the last few weeks, we have produced similar due diligence reports on the Geelong meeting of the Climate Commission, the Labor Party’s internal strategy document on climate change, a letter written by Minister Combet in response to a request for information as to the cost of AGW policy, Mr Combet’s policy address at the Press Club, and Professor Steffen’s November, 2010, advice to the MCCC (see powerpoint here or pdf here).

An accrued listing of these reports, with web links, is available here…

Having considered carefully all the arguments put forward by the government and its scientific advisors, we conclude:

(i) that there is no proven threat of dangerous warming of human origin,

(ii) that costly attempts to cut Australian carbon dioxide emissions will cause no change in future climate, and

(iii) that to the considerable degree that the science of climate change remains uncertain, the appropriate policy setting should be one of preparation for and adaptation to all climate events and hazards as they occur.

Despite the ready public availability of our reports, and of similar analyses by other independent scientists that also demonstrate there is no justification for continued alarm about global warming, neither the government nor its scientific advisors have offered answers to the criticisms presented. Meanwhile, the MCCC continues on its stately way, its members making major public policy decisions awhile that are based upon patently flawed and inadequate scientific advice.

Good public policy is seldom formulated on the back of determined ignorance, accompanied by an ostrich-like refusal to participate in rational public discussion.

Authors:

Bob Carter is a geologist, David Evans a mathematician and computer modeller, Stewart Franks a hydrologist and engineer, Bill Kininmonth a meteorologist and former Director of the National Climate Centre, and Des Moore a former Deputy Secretary of Treasury.

See the real Australian science community’s due diligence responses to Steffen and his band of of miscalcitrant psuedo-scietists and opportunist ideologs here.

See the legitimate Australian science community’s due diligence responses to Steffen and his band of psuedo-scientists and opportunist ideologs here.

By Joseph D’Aleo, Fosters, Sunday, April 24, 2011

The State Senate is considering a bill (HB 519) that passed the House, which pulls the state of New Hampshire out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) - the Northeast’s own version of “Cap and Trade.” Our senators should support this bill and get this state out of the program.

Participation in this plan over the past several years has cost family households in the state millions of dollars in higher electricity bills. The argument to justify this “tax” is that it funds “green energy” projects that will create jobs here in the state.

This is one of the biggest canards used to make people feel better about paying higher taxes and letting the government spend their money. Every program that big government supporters propose these days is put in the context of saving or creating jobs. This is the same language the Democrats used to get the stimulus bill passed which didn’t really impact the unemployment rate, but did result in huge deficits and debts. So what kind of job creation comes about when government enacts the type of “green energy” programs that RGGI funds? Fortunately there are numerous examples to look at.

One of the biggest green energy job creation programs in the world was enacted in Spain in the late 1990s. A study was performed in 2009 that looked at how well the program worked, as well as the economic impacts of Spain’s Renewable Energy program. The results should give every elected official pause before advocating for a similar program.

Some of the highlights of the study:

- Only one out of every ten “green jobs” was of a permanent nature that operated and maintained renewable energy resources. The rest were mostly temporary jobs for construction, installation, project engineering or marketing.

- The cost of each of these green jobs - both the temporary and the permanent ones - was over $750,000 per job.

- Worst of all, the study indicated that every green job created by the programs resulted in the destruction of 2.2 jobs in the private sector.

A similar study in Italy came up with a conclusion that 4.8 private sector jobs were destroyed to create each green job in that country. Like the Spanish program, each green job cost between $700,000 and $1.7 million.

We should not be surprised by these results. This is yet another example of government-imposed tax proceeds given to bureaucrats to pick winners and losers in an industry that is not economically viable on its own. In order to subsidize the “job creation” they have to take money out of the private sector. That is money which could have created jobs at a manufacturer, a hospital or numerous other industries. The result is insanely expensive job subsidies that provide little economic value while destroying jobs in the private sector. Why would we want to keep this type of program alive in New Hampshire?

Yes, each of us only pays a small amount to fund these programs, but this is no different from the programs that have failed in other places. What is worse is that some states have redirected the RGGI funds to help balance their budgets - which was one of the concerns opponents of RGGI raised in the first place. So in addition to keeping job-destroying subsidized industries afloat, the government can raid the fund for general operations.

What reasons are left to keep this state in RGGI? Supporters of the program can’t argue that it is to create green jobs. Numerous studies have debunked that notion. There is a tendency of the government to raid the funds as well, so that is another strike against it.

Of course, the other argument to continue RGGI is the idea that regulating CO2 will help combat global warming. This space doesn’t allow for a comprehensive discussion on the science, but let me show the readers some information in which they may not be aware.

There is no question that atmospheric CO2 levels have risen over the last century but it’s clear that temperatures in this state have not changed significantly over that time. In New Hampshire, temperatures have exhibited cyclical changes over the past 80 years, but without any significant warming (graph source NOAA NCDC).

Global Warming appears to be passing New Hampshire by, and if you look at data from other regions you will find similar trends.

I encourage our state senators to look at the studies and understand the data as they consider the bill to repeal RGGI. If similar programs like RGGI are destroying jobs to grossly subsidize the few permanent “green jobs” they create, if the environmental benefits of RGGI are speculative at best, and all we are doing is creating a pot of money for the state to raid - then there should be no doubt that the state should get out of RGGI now.

Joseph D’Aleo was the first Director of Meteorology at the Weather Channel and has over 30 years experience in professional meteorology. Mr. D’Aleo is a long time resident of Hudson.

See Ric Werme’s site on RGGI here. Here is a copy of my submitted senate testimony with links.

By Paul C. Knappenberger for SPPI

On March 8, 2011, Dr. Richard Somerville supplied written testimony to the U.S House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power. Dr. Somerville’s testimony was an eloquently packaged collection of general alarmist talking points that closely follows his 2009 Copenhagen Diagnosis. It consists of a selective presentation of post-AR4 findings on climate change - carefully groomed to forward his point of view that disaster is imminently upon us if large and drastic cuts in greenhouse gases emissions are not immediately undertaken.

However, a more restrained look at the scientific literature, the collection of observations, and model performance evaluation reveals a much less desperate situation - one which, in fact, is suggestive of net gains (environmental, social, economic) rather then losses from the burning of fossil fuels. In the comments that follow, we point out the most egregious examples of selective presentation of the science within Dr. Somerville’s testimony.

Of note, Dr. Somerville, provides these cautionary words in his testimony: “Choosing to make selective choices among competing evidence, so as to emphasize those results that support a given position, while ignoring or dismissing any findings that do not support it, is a practice known as “cherry picking” and is a hallmark of poor science or pseudo-science.” - Richard Somerville, Testimony before the U.S House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power, March 8, 2011. Yet, throughout his testimony, Dr. Somerville relies on this very tactic. We illustrate Dr. Somerville’s reliance on “cherry picking” in the following examples in which we highlight passages from his written testimony and then present evidence that shows that the situation is either more complex or, in some cases, completely opposite to that put forward by Dr. Somerville.

Dr. Somerville:

“In early 2007, at the time of the publication of WG1 of AR4, the mainstream global community of climate scientists already understood from the most recent research that the latest observations of climate change were disquieting. In the words of a research paper published at the same time as the release of AR4 WG1, a paper for which I am a co-author, ‘observational data underscore the concerns about global climate change. Previous projections, as summarized by IPCC, have not exaggerated but may in some respects even have underestimated the change’ (Rahmstorf et al. 2007).”

REALITY:

At the time of the publication of the paper that Dr. Somerville was a co-author on (Rahmstorf et al., 2007) it was already obvious that there was a slowdown occurring in the rate of global temperature rise. This slowdown has continued up to the present (including the time of Dr. Somerville’s recent testimony). Instead of global temperatures increasing at a rate that is greater than the average rate projected by the climate models incorporated in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), in fact, the rate of global warming is occurring at a much slower rate than projected. So slow in fact, for the past 15 years, the rate of rise is statistically indistinguishable from zero in some datasets. This fact, developed solely from observations, stands in stark contrast to both Dr. Somerville’s scientific paper as well as his testimony.

And the rate of sea level rise has been slowing as well. While at the time of Somerville’s 2007 paper, the current rate of decadal sea level rise was near the high end of the IPCC projections, since then, the rate of sea level rise has slowed, and at the time of his testimony, the current decadal rate of sea level rise is now very close to the middle of the IPCC projected range.

Thus, based on current global temperature trends and current trends in the rate of global sea level rise, the rate of climate change has not been underestimated as was claimed by Dr. Somerville in his testimony but instead in some cases, has been exaggerated. Thus, Somerville’s “concerns about global climate change” are no longer well-grounded in his research that he cited to substantiate them.

Dr. Somerville:

The long-term trend is clearly still a warming trend (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 2009). Its magnitude is about 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade, consistent with IPCC AR4 projections. This is equivalent to about one third of a degree Fahrenheit per decade.

REALITY:

The long-term trend over the past 30 years in the NASA Goddard record is actually 0.175C/decade, a value that lies below the IPCC projected temperature trends for that same period. There are also other compilations of the global surface temperatures in common usage including the record complied by the U.K.’s Hadley Centre. Using that record, the trend over the past 30 years (1981-2010) is 0.165C/decade, a value even further below the IPCC projections. And that rate of increase has been on the decline. Over the past 15 years, the trend is 0.10C/decade, over the last 10 years the trend disappears completely (-0.00C/decade). The consistency of these observations with climate model projections is shaky at best.

Reference:
U.K. Met Office Hadley Centre observations datasets, global average temperature

Read much more here.