Sammy Wilson in the Belfast Telegraph
Spending billions on trying to reduce carbon emissions is one giant con that is depriving third world countries of vital funds to tackle famine, HIV and other diseases, Sammy Wilson said. The DUP minister has been heavily criticised by environmentalists for claiming that ongoing climatic shifts are down to nature and not mankind. But while acknowledging his views on global warming may not be popular, the East Antrim MP said he was not prepared to be bullied by eco fundamentalists. “I’ll not be stopped saying what I believe needs to be said about climate change,” he said. Most of the people who shout about climate change have not read one article about it. “I think in 20 years’ time we will look back at this whole climate change debate and ask ourselves how on earth were we ever conned into spending the billions of pounds which are going into this without any kind of rigorous examination of the background, the science, the implications of it all.
Because there is now a degree of hysteria about it, fairly unformed hysteria I’ve got to say as well. “I mean I get it in the Assembly all the time and most of the people who shout about climate change have not read one article about climate change, not read one book about climate change, if you asked them to explain how they believe there’s a connection between CO2 emission and the effects which they claim there’s going to be, if you ask them to explain the thought process or the modelling that is required and the assumptions behind that and how tenuous all the connections are, they wouldn’t have a clue. “They simply get letters about it from all these lobby groups, it’s popular and therefore they go along with the flow - and that would be ok if there were no implications for it, but the implications are immense.”
He said while people in the western world were facing spiralling fuel bills as a result of efforts to cut CO2, the implications in poorer countries were graver. “What are the problems that face us either locally and internationally. Are those not the things we should be concentrating on?” he asked. “HIV, lack of clean water, which kills millions of people in third world countries, lack of education. A fraction of the money we are currently spending on climate change could actually eradicate those three problems alone, a fraction of it.
“I think as a society we sometimes need to get some of these things in perspective and when I listen to some of the rubbish that is spoken by some of my colleagues in the Assembly it amuses me at times and other times it angers me.” Despite his views on CO2, Mr Wilson said he does not intend to backtrack on commitments made by his predecessor at the Department of the Environment, Arlene Foster, to make the Stormont estate carbon neutral. He said while he wasn’t worried about reducing CO2 output, he said the policy would help to cut fuels bills. “I don’t couch those actions in terms of reducing CO2 emissions,” he said.
“I don’t care about CO2 emissions to be quite truthful because I don’t think it’s all that important but what I do believe is, and perhaps this is where there can be some convergence, as far as using fuel more efficiently that is good for our economy; that makes us more competitive. If we can save in schools hundreds of thousands on fuel that’s more money being put for books or classroom assistants. “So yes there are things we can do. If you want to express it terms of carbon neutral, I just express it terms of making the place more efficient, less wasteful and hopefully that will release money to do the proper things that we should be doing.” Read more here.
By Dr. Frank Tipler, Mathematical Physicist Tulane University in William Katz’s Urgent Agenda
AGW is a scam, with no basis in science. A few comments on my own particular view of global warming:
(1) I am particularly annoyed by the claims that the “the debate is over,” because this was exactly the claim originally made against the Copernican theory of the Solar System. Copernicus’ opponents said the idea that the Earth was the third planet from the Sun was advanced by Aristrachus in 300 B.C. (true), and had been definitely refuted by 100 A.D. The debate is over! Sorry, it wasn’t: the Earth IS the third planet.
(2) It is obvious that anthropogenic global warming is not science at all, because a scientific theory makes non-obvious predictions which are then compared with observations that the average person can check for himself. As we both know from our own observations, AGW theory has spectacularly failed to do this. The theory has predicted steadily increasing global temperatures, and this has been refuted by experience. NOW the global warmers claim that the Earth will enter a cooling period. In other words, whether the ice caps melt, or expand --- whatever happens --- the AGW theorists claim it confirms their theory. A perfect example of a pseudo-science like astrology.
(3) In contrast, the alternative theory, that the increase and decrease of the Earth’s average temperature in the near term follows the sunspot number, agrees (roughly) with observation. And the observations were predicted before they occurred. This is good science.
(4) I emphasized in point (2) that the average person has to be able to check the observations. I emphasize this because I no longer trust “scientists” to report observations correctly. I think the data is adjusted to confirm, as far as possible, AGW. We’ve seen many recent cases where the data was cooked in climate studies. In one case, Hanson and company claimed that October 2008 was the warmest October on record. Watts looked at the data, and discovered that Hanson and company had used September’s temperatures for Russia rather than October’s. I’m not surprised to learn that September is hotter than October in the Northern hemisphere.
(5) Another shocking thing about the AGW theory is that it is generating a loss of true scientific knowledge. The great astronomer William Herschel, the discoverer of the planet Uranus, observed in the early 1800’s that warm weather was correlated with sunspot number. Herschel noticed that warmer weather meant better crops, and thus fewer sunspots meant higher grain prices. The AGW people are trying to do a disappearing act on these observations. Some are trying to deny the existence of the Maunder Minimum.
(6) AGW supporters are also bringing back the Inquisition, where the power of the state is used to silence one’s scientific opponents. The case of Bjorn Lomborg is illustrative. Lomborg is a tenured professor of mathematics in Denmark. Shortly after his book, “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” was published by Cambridge University Press, Lomborg was charged and convicted (later reversed) of scientific fraud for being critical of the “consensus” view on AGW and other environmental questions. Had the conviction been upheld, Lomborg would have been fired. Stillman Drake, the world’s leading Galileo scholar, demonstrates in his book “Galileo: A Very Short Introduction” (Oxford University Press, 2001) that it was not theologians, but rather his fellow physicists (then called “natural philosophers"), who manipulated the Inquisition into trying and convicting Galileo. The “out-of-the-mainsteam” Galileo had the gall to prove the consensus view, the Aristotlean theory, wrong by devising simple experiments that anyone could do. Galileo’s fellow scientists first tried to refute him by argument from authority. They failed. Then these “scientists” tried calling Galileo names, but this made no impression on the average person, who could see with his own eyes that Galileo was right. Finally, Galileo’s fellow “scientists” called in the Inquisition to silence him.
I find it very disturbing that part of the Danish Inquisition’s case against Lomborg was written by John Holdren, Obama’s new science advisor. Holdren has recently written that people like Lomborg are “dangerous.” I think it is people like Holdren who are dangerous, because they are willing to use state power to silence their scientific opponents.
Science is an economic good like everything else, and it is very bad for production of high quality goods for the government to control the means of production. Milton Friedman understood it, and advocated cutting off government funding for science. Read more of this most interesting post by the latest dissenter from the so-called consensus here.
By Simon Sturdee, AFP
Natural disasters killed over 220,000 people in 2008, making it one of the most devastating years on record and underlining the need for a global climate deal, the world’s number two reinsurer said Monday. What I find particularly funny is, the article talks mostly about non-global warming caused disasters. For instance, 70,000 of those deaths were caused by an earthquake in China: Just days later an earthquake shook China’s Sichuan province, leaving 70,000 dead, 18,000 missing and almost five million homeless, according to official figures, Munich Re said.
He then talks about how COLD weather caused 1000 deaths in Afghanistan. Ya know I looked and looked, but I just couldn’t find where in the dictionary a “cold snap” was listed as a natural disaster:Around 1,000 people died in a severe cold snap in January in Afghanistan, Kyrgystan and Tajikistan, while 635 perished in August and September in floods in India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
He also admits that there were less natural disasters this year, than in 2007:Although the number of natural disasters was lower than in 2007, the catastrophes that occurred proved to be more destructive in terms of the number of victims and the financial cost of the damage caused, Germany-based Munich Re said in its annual assessment.
Furthermore, he works under the broad assumption that every one agrees with the legitimacy of global warming, and therefore, he doesn’t once try and make any sort of scientific or even logical link between natural disasters and global warming. He simply states that they are caused by increased pollution and global warming. Yep, another article by the MSM about how we are all going to die if we don’t avert global warming, by making our own compost piles, recycling fingernail clippings, and buying Al Gore’s DVDs. There are a lot of people out there, even some close to me, that claim all of this extreme weather is the result of global warming. Problem is, the evidence doesn’t support the claim that the natural disaster death’s of ‘08 are the result of global warming, or that increased global temperature leads to extreme weather patterns and disasters. In fact, sometimes it is the opposite, and has been more historically tied to El Nino, El Nina, and other fluctuating water currents. Hurricanes ‘are not caused by global warming’
Rising temperatures may actually reduce the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic, Tom Knutson claims in a new study. Dr Knutson’s change of heart has reignited the debate in the US about how closely hurricanes can be tied to global warming......Dr Knutson’s study, which is based on computer models, predicts that hurricanes will become less common, but more destructive, by the end of this century.They are also likely to be accompanied by much heavier downpours of rain. Dr. Knutson and colleagues from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at Princeton, New Jersey, ran computer replays of each August to October hurricane season between 1980 and 2006. The simulations were then repeated to show what would happen if ocean and atmospheric conditions were altered by expected levels of global warming. The “warm climate” runs generated 27 per cent fewer tropical storms and 18 per cent fewer hurricanes. The team concluded that the recent jump in hurricane frequency was caused not by high temperatures in the Atlantic, but by differences in temperatures between oceans. Uniform warming of all ocean basins does not generate more hurricanes, they found.
Graph produced by GlobalWarmingHoax.com with data from NOAA
Well what about tornadoes you ask? The deadliest tornado decade since 1930 was the decade of the 1930’s. Tornado deaths have fallen every decade since 1930 up until the 1970’s when they increased about 5% over the previous decade. The 1970’s were also one of the cooler decades this century with below average temperatures and there isn’t any clear correlation between strong tornadoes and climate temperature. Every decade after the 1970’s have seen the number of tornado deaths fall.
Well what about lightning and floods? Actually both lightning and flood deaths are way down from their highs… Sorry. Looks like the claim that global warming is causing more natural disaster deaths is a bunch of crap. Thanks to globalwarminghoax.com for some of the graphs. Read more here.
