By Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe

THE CASE for global-warming alarmism is melting faster than those mythical disappearing Himalayan glaciers, but Al Gore isn’t backing down.

In a long op-ed piece for The New York Times the other day, Gore cranked up the doomsday rhetoric. Human beings, he warned, “face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.” His 1,900-word essay made no mention of his financial interest in promoting such measures - Gore has invested heavily in carbon-offset markets, electric vehicles, and other ventures that would profit handsomely from legislation curbing the use of fossil fuels, and is reportedly poised to become the world’s first “carbon billionaire.” However, he did mention “global-warming pollution” no fewer than four times, declaring that “our grandchildren would one day look back on us as a criminal generation” if we don’t move decisively to reduce it.

By “global-warming pollution,” Gore means carbon dioxide (CO2), which is a “pollutant” in roughly the way oxygen and water are pollutants: Human existence would be impossible without them. CO2 is essential to photosynthesis, the process that sustains plant life and generates the oxygen that human beings and animals inhale. Far from polluting the world, carbon dioxide enriches it. Higher levels of CO2 are associated with larger crop yields, increased forest growth, and longer growing seasons - in short, with a greener planet.

Of course carbon dioxide also contributes to the greenhouse effect that keeps the earth warm. But the vast majority of atmospheric CO2 occurs naturally, and it is far from clear that the carbon dioxide contributed by human industry has a significant impact on the world’s climate.

On the other hand, it is quite clear that the economic and agricultural activity responsible for that anthropogenic CO2 has been enormously beneficial to myriads of men, women, and children. In just the last two decades, life expectancy in developing nations has climbed appreciably and infant mortality has fallen. Hundreds of millions of Indian and Chinese citizens have been lifted out of poverty. Whatever else might be said about carbon dioxide, it has helped make possible a dramatic increase in the quality of many human lives.

But there is no awareness of such tradeoffs in Gore’s latest screed. He brushes aside as unimportant the recently exposed blunders in the 2007 assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. These include claims that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035, that global warming could slash African crop yields by 50 percent, and that 55 percent of the Netherlands - more than twice the correct amount - is below sea level.

Gore seems equally untroubled by Climategate, the scandal involving researchers at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, who apparently schemed to manipulate temperature data to prevent their critics from being published in peer-reviewed journals, and to destroy records and calculations to keep climate skeptics from double-checking them.

Both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s errors and the Climatic Research Unit scandal have triggered major investigations, and opinion polls show a falloff in the percentage of the public that believes either global warming is cause for serious concern or that scientists see eye to eye on the issue. Yet Gore insists, against all evidence, that “the overwhelming consensus on global warming remains unchanged.”

To climate alarmists like Gore, everything proves their point. For years they argued that global warming would mean a decline in snow cover and shorter ski seasons. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” one climate scientist lamented to reporters in 2000. The IPCC itself was clear that climate change was resulting in more rain and less snow.

Undaunted, Gore now claims that the blizzards that have walloped the Northeast in recent weeks are also proof of global warming. “Climate change causes more frequent and severe snowstorms,” he posted on his blog last month.

Gore is a True Believer; his climate hyperbole is less a matter of science than of faith. In almost messianic terms, he urges Congress to sharply restrain Americans’ access to energy. “What is at stake,” he writes, “is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption.”

But while Gore prays for redemption, the pews in the Church of Climate Catastrophe are gradually emptying. The public’s skeptical common sense, it turns out, is pretty robust. Just like those Himalayan glaciers. See full post, links and comments here.

Icecap Note: See how alarmist scientists here up the ante (part of what disciples do when prophecies fail) by claiming certainty of man made global warming is up to 95%. You can be sure plenty of grant money and their reputation is at stake. Also here see how Tim Worth who stagecrafted the Hansen testimony in 1988 while a senator and who now heads up the UN Foundation tries to get governments to squelch the skeptics here. Worth once said “Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real, means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”

A check of the Canadian Coast Guard web sites confirmed that the normal winter duty of the Amundsen is icebreaking on the St. Lawrence, that it was on special duty in the west Arctic during the IPY, and that its total complement is 10 officers, 26 enlisted men, and 26 additional berths - hardly enough to hold 300 scientists as the article implied. Apparently, it takes years for the news to reach Manitoba. Mr. Pekarek also described Russian experiences in the winter Arctic ice that make the experience on the Amundsen two years ago hardly unusual.

By Andrew Orlowski, The Register

The body representing 36,000 UK physicists has called for a wider enquiry into the Climategate affair, saying it raises issues of scientific corruption. The Institute of Physics doesn’t pull any punches in the submission, one of around 50 presented to the Commons Select Committee enquiry into the Climategate archive. The committee holds its only oral hearing later today.

The IOP says the enquiry should be broadened to examine possible “departure from objective scientific practice, for example, manipulation of the publication and peer review system or allowing pre-formed conclusions to override scientific objectivity.”

It deplores the climate scientists’ “intolerance to challenge” and the “suppression of proxy results for recent decades that do not agree with contemporary instrumental temperature measurements.”

The physics institute observes that “unless the disclosed emails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research in this field and for the credibility of the scientific method as practised in this context”. More here.

The IoP’s submissions contrast with the establishment view. Quango Research Councils UK, which represents the seven Research Councils who channel much of the climate research cash, and fund East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit. The quango simply reaffirms its belief in the man-made greenhouse theory, but says it’s inappropriate to comment on the affair.

The Royal Statistical Society (est. 1834) also ducks, although it does point out the limitations of peer review and calls for putting data and models in the public domain.

The Information Commissioner from 2002 to last year Richard Thomas calls for the law to be changed and writes: “The issues arising at the University of East Anglia suggest that this should now be addressed as a heading for proactive and routine disclosure.”

The case for man-made warming
The establishment view is made in several submissions.

Occasional maverick Hans von Storch teams up with Myles Allen to emphasise that despite the appearance of malpractice, everything’s really alright:

“Unfortunately, this debate sometimes goes so far as to question a key result of climate science: that the climate system has unequivocally warmed over the past century and most of the recent warming is very likely caused by human activity,” they write, in a surprisingly equivocal statement.

The government’s chief scientific advisor John Beddington makes a similar point, reeling off a list of examples that show a warmer climate. Critics have already picked up on one of these: Beddington’s claim that “global sea level has increased by about 10 cm in the last 50 years”. The GWPF points out that seal levels rose 10cm in the previous 50 years too. (The rate of sea level rise shows no acceleration at all, and even a slowing since 1910. See here).

Benny Piesar’s submission highlights bullying emails from the leaked archive, in which US academic Michael Mann (of Hockey Stick notoriety) expressed the hope that damages arising from any libel action would close a sceptical journal, and silence two academic critics. “Maybe the resulting settlement would shut down E&E and Benny [Piesar] and Sonja [Boehmer-Christiansen] all together! We can only hope, anyway,” Mann wrote.

Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen’s own contribution highlights how the global warming has relied heavily on institutional support.

She writes: “climate science was generously funded and required to support rather than to question these policy objectives.” One paragraph might chime with academic researcher readers in a number of fields. She notes:

Some university research units have almost become wholly-owned subsidiaries of Government Departments. Their survival, and the livelihoods of their employees, depends on delivering what policy makers think they want. It becomes hazardous to speak truth to power. (It isn’t just related to environmental issues, but anything policy makers identify as a Big Campaign. Compliant research magically pops up to support the case. See the alcohol and health ‘debate’ for a good example.)

The full list can be found here.

-----------------------

Climategate: The Jones-Keenan Affair
By Dr. Benny Peiser

Memorandum submitted by Dr Benny Peiser to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee

1. I am the editor of CCNet and the co-editor of the journal Energy & Environment (E&E). Further details may be obtained from the CCNet and E&E websites: CCNet - E&E. I am prepared to give oral evidence at the Committee’s evidence session in elaboration of my written submission. I have no declarable interests.

2. The CRU e-mails under investigation suggest that climate scientists (not only at CRU but also elsewhere) have actively sought to prevent a paper on alleged research fraud from being published in violation of principles of academic integrity.

3. In the following, I will outline the chronology of the CRU-Keenan affair as documented in the published CRU e-mails and according to unpublished e-mail correspondence between me and Dr Jones.

4. It should be noted that the CRU e-mails regarding the Jones-Keenan affair are incomplete. I am in the possession of e-mail correspondence with Phil Jones about the Keenan paper that is not included in the published CRU e-mails. The point is that the ‘unauthorised publication’ referred to in the terms of reference is by no means a complete publication. There is likely to be much more other CRU email traffic bearing on the question of the CRU’s scientific integrity, over and above the emails already disclosed. In the interest of veracity and transparency all correspondence by CRU researchers regarding the fraud allegations in question should be disclosed in full so the exact nature and extent of attempts to prevent the publication of Keenan’s paper can be established.

Full memorandum here.

--------------------

Note see Phil Jones testimony in front of parliament in video tapes here and comments by Steve Mosher here.

Thanks to Symon at Australian Climate Madness (ACM) the video of yesterday’s testimony by Dr. Phil Jones of UEA/CRU is now online via YouTube, making it viewable by millions worldwide. There are five parts, each of about 9 or 10 minutes. Jones is accompanied by the Vice Chancellor of the University of East Anglia, Prof. Edward Acton. Symon sums up the questioning: “They don’t exactly give PJ a tough ride, do they? To quote the former UK Labour Chancellor Denis Healey, it was like being savaged by a dead sheep”. Fred Pearce of the Guardian commented that: “...the Commons committee tiptoed round embattled scientist and sidestepped crucial questions”.

Here’s a sampling of what British press has to say. Thanks to Dr. Benny Peiser and his CCNet Newsletter for the roundup.

MPs have quizzed the scientist at the centre of the “climategate” scandal, the first time he has been questioned in public since the row erupted. Professor Phil Jones used his appearance before the science committee to say that he had done nothing wrong. Earlier, critics told the MPs that the stolen e-mails, which appeared on the internet in November, raised questions about the integrity of climate science. 

Posted by: David Lungren Monday, March 1, 2010

In Case You Missed it . . 

E&E News

Senate talks intensify with new carbon pricing draft expected this week

Darren Samuelsohn, E&E senior reporter

The Senate trio at the center of talks on a comprehensive climate and energy bill will present a draft proposal this week to their fence-sitting colleagues and high-profile interest groups amid warnings from Democratic leadership that the window for action is closing.

“It’s time,” said a Senate aide close to the process. “Game on.” Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) have been working for months behind closed doors on a plan that promotes domestic energy production while putting a first-ever price on greenhouse gas emissions. Aides say they have settled on a relatively short but detailed list of ideas that are ready to be turned into formal bill language, but first they want to get feedback from key blocs of Democratic and GOP senators with a stake in everything from coal to natural gas, manufacturing and transportation.

Kerry this week is scheduled to have at least eight climate-related meetings with senators and other interest groups. Graham and Lieberman have talks lined up with critical voices from both parties in the debate, including Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Scott Brown (R-Mass.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.).

The overall goal, Kerry’s spokeswoman Jodi Seth said, is to jump-start talks that can help pave the way toward 60 votes. “Dozens of meetings and scores of decisions and negotiations still have to happen before anyone knows what a bill would look like, but every day we are making progress,” Seth said.

The Kerry-Graham-Lieberman draft to be circulated this week starts with an overall goal of reducing U.S. greenhouse gases by 2020 in the range of 17 percent below 2005 levels. To get there, they will propose a significant redesign of the carbon pricing mechanisms of the House-passed climate bill, H.R. 2454, and a Senate counterpart authored by Kerry and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), S. 1733. Rather than include all major industrial sources of greenhouse gases in one broad economywide cap-and-trade system, the Senate trio will propose different types of limits for different sectors of the economy, beginning with electric utilities and then turning later to manufacturers such as chemical plants and pulp and paper mills.

“The bottom line with utilities is they’ll assume a compliance obligation from day one of the program,” the Senate staffer said, adding that no decisions have been made on how to allocate valuable emission allowances to the power companies except to incorporate an industry recommendation to shuttle revenue toward consumers to help pay for higher energy bills.

Transportation fuels can expect a carbon tax that rises based on the compliance costs faced by the other major emitters. Several major oil companies, including Shell Oil Co., ConocoPhillips and BP America, floated the original idea on Capitol Hill, and the Senate trio has evolved their plan by funneling revenue toward transportation projects, reducing fuel consumption and lowering domestic reliance on foreign oil. The Highway Trust Fund is also a potential recipient of the carbon tax revenue, Senate aides said.

Manufacturers would face a series of greenhouse gas limits after power plants, but talks are still ongoing over when the phase-in begins and what specific industries fall into the suite of restrictions. The senators plan to present several other energy-related proposals to their colleagues, including ideas to promote the development of nuclear power and carbon capture and sequestration at coal-fired power plants. Agreements are also in sight on how to incorporate agriculture and forestry offsets into the mix, as well as other cost-containment mechanisms to brace industry and consumers from higher prices.

Provisions on domestic oil and gas drilling could come later depending on the status of talks with key senators, including Energy and Natural Resources Committee ranking member Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) urged Kerry last week to get a bill into the hands of senators as soon as possible if the legislation is going to have any chance of hitting the floor this year (Greenwire, Feb. 25).

‘Different from anything that’s been put on the table’

As they make their case for the legislation, the three senators plan to tout their effort to incorporate energy and climate proposals into one overall package. And they will highlight the shift on carbon pricing away from cap and trade.

“It will be different from anything that’s been put on the table in the House or Senate to date,” Kerry said last week. “It’ll be comprehensive. And I hope it’ll change the debate.”

Republican opponents have tarred the concept in the House bill as “cap and tax” and threaten to use it as a political weapon against Democrats during this November’s elections. “Cap and trade as we know it is dead, but the issue of cleaning up the air and energy independence should not die—and you will never have energy independence without pricing carbon,” Graham said in yesterday’s New York Times. “The technology doesn’t make sense until you price carbon. Nuclear power is a bet on cleaner air. Wind and solar is a bet on cleaner air. You make those bets assuming that cleaning the air will become more profitable than leaving the air dirty, and the only way it will be so is if the government puts some sticks on the table—not just carrots.”

Climate bill supporters said the shift in legislative approaches could offer a chance for success even amid in the current political climate on Capitol Hill.

“A simplified cap on just the power sector is a logical fallback,” said Jason Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center. “Combined with efficiency standards on vehicles, buildings and appliances, this hybrid approach can achieve domestic reductions similar to those under an economywide approach. Combining approaches that Congress has supported in the past seems like a good way to reset the debate.”

Dan Weiss, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, said “the most important element” of the upcoming Senate plan involved a carbon price capable of curbing emissions by at least 17 percent by 2020.

“The method in the bill to achieve that call—whether it’s cap and trade, cap and dividend, carbon tax, or a hybrid system—is much less important as long as it can meet the goal while attracting 60 senators’ votes,” Weiss said.

Jeremy Symons, vice president for policy at the National Wildlife Federation, urged caution against jumping to any conclusions about the Kerry-led effort until more details start to emerge. “This is the time when those who are determined to kill any idea that looks like it has traction will reveal themselves,” Symons said. “For those who see this purely as a political opportunity to pummel any reform plan as government excess, then they will attack more fiercely the closer a bill gets to the political middle where it may actually pass.”

John Coequyt of the Sierra Club said the idea of simplifying the emission reduction plans could work by separating the politics of each individual industry. “By separating them, it gives you an opportunity to treat those industries in a way that makes them happier,” he said. But without all the details, he questioned whether Kerry, Graham and Lieberman had done enough to ensure the bill actually accomplishes what it needs to in the way of curbing greenhouse gases.

“I don’t know if you can do that and have a system that gives you a guaranteed reduction target,” Coequyt said. “I think that’s the challenge.”

Industry attorney Scott Segal, who represents electric utilities, petroleum refiners and other major emitters, said he would be on the lookout for language that removes any regulatory overlap for his clients. For example, refiners placed under an emissions cap should not also be required to meet a low carbon fuel standard. Power companies also need guarantees on cost containment and that the emission limits do not outpace technological assumptions.

Overall, Segal said he would welcome the latest round of ideas. But he doubted whether it could break the ice when so many moderate senators have been reluctant to engage on the issue.

“New drafts are steps in the right direction,” Segal said. “They stimulate debate on the topic. However, I do not detect a significant change in appetite among U.S. senators to pick up and pass a large scale climate bill before the mid-term elections.”

-----------------------

Barrasso Releases Report Detailing Majority’s Failure to Investigate Administration Actions Undermining Transparency and Sound Science
Calls Upon Incoming EPA Inspector General to Investigate Issues

US Senator John Barrasso, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Oversight in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, released a report detailing the Subcommittee’s lack of oversight on a number of key Administration activities that undermine transparency and sound science.  Barrasso discussed the report on the floor of the U.S. Senate while speaking about Mr. Arthur Elkins’ nomination to serve as Inspector General of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 

“Mr. President, I rise today because the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will soon be meeting to discuss the nomination of Mr. Arthur Elkins to be Inspector General at the Environmental Protection Agency. “I support Mr. Elkin’s moving out of the committee.  To date he has truthfully answered the questions that I have posed to him. “Before the full Senate vote, I do have some additional questions based on a report that I am releasing today.

“Mr. President, as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Oversight in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, I care a great deal about ensuring oversight over the agencies within our jurisdiction, the most important of which is the EPA. Over the last few months, the Minority on the Subcommittee have compiled a report.

“The report is entitled ‘The Status of Oversight:  A Year of Lost Oversight.’

“This report details the severe lack of oversight by the Majority on the committee and the Administration. When the Majority created the Subcommittee on Oversight, it was stated that they planned and I quote ‘to use the subcommittee to explore ways to restore scientific integrity at the EPA and other federal agencies focused on the environment, and to strengthen environmental protections by once again making the regulatory process more transparent.’

“Well, Mr. President, I agree. “One year later, as my report details, there have only been two subcommittee hearings. As this report concludes, the result of this is that the Majority has let a year go by where they failed to pursue their stated goals. Over the last year Mr. President, my colleagues and I have requested a series of investigations and hearings into key matters related to whistleblowers being silenced, data being manipulated, and shadow czars holding meetings where nothing was put into writing to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests.

“We have asked for these hearings and investigations because we believe that the public needs to have trust in their government. At the beginning of this Administration, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson herself stated unequivocally that ‘the success of our environmental efforts depends on earning and maintaining the trust of the public we serve.’

“As this report demonstrates, this Administration and the Majority have shown little interest in pursuing these matters. Let me read to you the findings and recommendations of the report. In 2009, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Majority chose not to conduct oversight over the relevant agencies within the executive branch. 

The lack of any oversight over the activities of the federal agencies weakens the system of checks and balances, and invites the potential for larger abuses. Action must be taken to investigate oversight issues from the last year. Further coordination within the Committee regarding the oversight jurisdiction and responsibility is needed.

“Mr. President, I believe that finally having a nominee, finally receiving a nominee for Inspector General at EPA gives the public another opportunity to get to the truth about the issues raised in this report. In his answers to my questions to date, Mr. Elkins has signaled that he is absolutely willing to chart a new course from where this Administration and the Majority have taken us.

“When I asked: Do you believe it is the responsibility of the EPA Inspector General to investigate instances where whistleblowers are silenced by their superiors at the agency, he said yes. When I asked: Will you pursue those instances, he said yes. When I asked: Do you believe it is the responsibility of the EPA Inspector General to investigate and report instances where scientific procedures at EPA are circumvented, he said yes.

“When I asked: Will you investigate instances where agency employees are smeared publicly in the press by higher ups in the agency or in the Administration, simply for providing their best advice and counsel, he said yes. “All of these things are not hypotheticals, Mr. President. They all occurred over the last year. My fellow colleagues and I in the minority have asked for investigations into each of these instances by the majority and this Administration.  The response we have received each time was a resounding no.

“So Mr. President, if the Administration and the majority refuse to provide proper oversight, then someone else has to. That is why I plan to share this oversight report with Mr. Elkins, the nominee to be Inspector General at the EPA. “Before a floor vote, I will seek confirmation that he will give the matters that I raised in this report due consideration. I am confident, based on his responses so far, that he will answer in the affirmative. If so, we will have sea change at EPA that will restore the public’s confidence in that agency.” See Barasso Report here.