Having A Blast

2008-09-01T20:32:00.001-07:00

Rodney Hide on the ETS in the House Today

"As an Environmental Scientist I am probably the only person in this House qualified to discuss this matter"

"This bill is about creating a market in hot air"

"This bill is about a computer model - none of it has been proved and this bill will have no effect on the climate"

Have a look at Rodney's speech when Hansard is out.

Deputy Speaker Hobbs is struggling to get the House to address the bill itself as it is in its committee stage - seems there are at least another 700 amendments since Liar Parkerintroduced the bill last week.

Data Supporting Climate Change is Often Made Up

2008-07-20T19:07:00.000-07:00

Readers of the excellent Watts Up With That will be familiar with their diligent expose of the problems with the siting of weather stations that supply meterological data. (He has a special site to track these siting/placement/measurement issues).

This daily weather data is the basis of "Proof" of warming. A typical post is here. A photograph of an actual site is at right - in Tuscon. Note -it is sited in an asphalt parking lot.

The reason Tuscon is important? It is the Number one warming site in the US. And, during the time period between 1950 and today, when Tucson saw most of this measured temperature increase, the population of Tucson increased from under 200,000 to over 1,000,000. That's a lot of extra urban heat, in addition to the local effects of this parking lot.

Another blast from the past is the material supplied by a cold war warrior remembering their weather reporting activities on the DEW line in the early sixties. These guys, who had a real job watching for the first soviet bombers en route to nuke North America, were also required to make regular temperature measurements and forward them to relevant authorities. Problem is it was a manual system and the operators saw little difference between -44F and -55F being reported - especially if (in)accuracy meant avoiding a wandering and hungry polar bear or a major arctic storm. Near enough was good enough....

The big problem all this data is now used to feed the climatologists latest models... GIGO.

Compounding this is the strategy of the NCDC to fill in missing data by interpolating data from nearby stations....is it too high a hope that only one station had data inaccuracies?

More Gloom for the Warmists

2008-07-20T17:48:00.000-07:00

Prof Don J. Easterbrook, Dept. of Geology, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA shows how Shifting of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation from its warm mode to cool mode assures global cooling for the next three decades. This is an important address and is a further stake in the heart of the alarmist cause.

Sometime (soon one hopes) they will get the message that there is nothing, nothing, that supports the anthropogenic global warming thesis.

Addressing the Washington Policymakers in Seattle, WA, Dr. Don Easterbrook said that shifting of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) from its warm mode to its cool mode virtually assures global cooling for the next 25-30 years and means that the global warming of the past 30 years is over. The announcement by NASA that the (PDO) had shifted from its warm mode to its cool mode (Fig. 1) is right on schedule as predicted by past climate and PDO changes (Easterbrook, 2001, 2006, 2007) and is not an oddity superimposed upon and masking the predicted severe warming by the IPCC. This has significant implications for the future and indicates that the IPCC climate models were wrong in their prediction of global temperatures soaring 1°F per decade for the rest of the century.

Prof Easterbrook's discussion posing whether the changes in CO2 composition of the atmosphere will over rule solar changes is here. It is also an important piece of work.

Hat Tip: Watts With That and Icecap.

The Consensus Reacts - Vituperative, Vindictive and Vicious

2008-07-20T17:21:00.000-07:00

The alamists have reacted quickly and violently to Viscount Monckton's essay in the APS letter.

In an extra-ordinary action someone/body has tried to place a disclaimer "...The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions..." on the website with Viscount Monckton's essay - stating, inter alia, it was not peer reviewed - problem is it was.

Monckton, keeping with the rigour of the scientific method has demanded his unnamed interlocutors show their authority to make the claims they do on behalf of the APS, given his essay was a response to the APS's invitation he submit such a paper. His letter is here and it is a model of courtesy, and excoriating in its questions:

Please either remove the offending red-flag text at once or let me have the name and qualifications of the member of the Council or advisor to it who considered my paper before the Council ordered the offending text to be posted above my paper; a copy of this rapporteur's findings and ratio decidendi; the date of the Council meeting at which the findings were presented; a copy of the minutes of the discussion; and a copy of the text of the Council's decision, together with the names of those present at the meeting. If the Council has not scientifically evaluated or formally considered my paper, may I ask with what credible scientific justification, and on whose authority, the offending text asserts primo, that the paper had not been scientifically reviewed when it had; secundo, that its conclusions disagree with what is said (on no evidence) to be the "overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community"; and, tertio, that "The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions"?

Which of my conclusions does the Council disagree with, and on what scientific grounds (if any)?

Having regard to the circumstances, surely the Council owes me an apology?

This precipitate anonymous action by warming alarmists is becoming boringly endemic. They cannot brook anyone having the temerity to have a view other than their own. Sadly for the anthropogenic warming community not day goes by without the evidence of AGW evaporating.

Wall Street Journal Savages Rudd's ETS

2008-07-17T17:23:00.000-07:00

With a slap the WSJ says Mr. Rudd just wants to do what every Labor pol likes: tax industry and redistribute the proceeds, at huge cost to the economy.

Rudd acknowledges that emissions trading would be costly – especially in a country where natural resources account for around half of all exports. Agriculture and mining together represent about 9% of GDP. Taxing emissions could cripple these industries and would percolate through every corner of the economy, raising energy prices. The ultimate cost in terms of jobs and growth is unknowable.
To alleviate this government-created problem Canberra would pay companies to stay in Australia rather than move to a country that doesn't impose arbitrary costs on business.

30% of the indirect carbon tax would go to "research, development and commercialization of new, low-emissions technologies." So instead of encouraging the whole of Australian industry to invent cleaner business practices through transparent tax incentives. Australia, with one of the world's biggest supplies of uranium, already has at its disposal a cleaner form of energy that it doesn't use: nuclear power.

The bulk of the proposed handouts are reserved for "households," to relieve the "regressive income distribution effects of the emissions trading system." Translation: Poor Australians will suffer most from higher energy prices as companies pass on costs. The report doesn't specify which households would receive handouts. But it's safe to say that with the Labor Party controlling every Australian state and its federal government, it would be tempting to shovel that cash pile to Labor constituencies.

We could say, similarly for New Zealand

The "Scientific Concensus on Global Warming is Blown Apart"

2008-07-17T17:01:00.000-07:00

In a dramatic volte-face the American Physical Society, representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. The full report is here:

The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming "incontrovertible."
In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,"There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution."

The APS is opening its debate with the publication of a paper by Lord Monckton of Brenchley, which concludes that climate sensitivity -- the rate of temperature change a given amount of greenhouse gas will cause -- has been grossly overstated by IPCC modeling. A low sensitivity implies additional atmospheric CO2 will have little effect on global climate.

Larry Gould, Professor of Physics at the University of Hartford and Chairman of the New England Section of the APS, called Monckton's paper an "expose of the IPCC that details numerous exaggerations and "extensive errors"

In an email to DailyTech, Monckton says, "I was dismayed to discover that the IPCC's 2001 and 2007 reports did not devote chapters to the central 'climate sensitivity' question, and did not explain in proper, systematic detail the methods by which they evaluated it. When I began to investigate, it seemed that the IPCC was deliberately concealing and obscuring its method."

According to Monckton, there is substantial support for his results, "in the peer-reviewed literature, most articles on climate sensitivity conclude, as I have done, that climate sensitivity must be harmlessly low."

With the ongoing global mean surface temperature record not supporting the warming agenda we are finally seeing the lies and deception of all those in the IPCC exposed. What we are now seeing is real scientists, gravely concerned for the corruption of the scientific method by many of the IPCC authors (as exposed here), step up and do the job properly. Sadly for the warmists the facts don't fit their reports. The sooner this debate gets into the Policy machinery the better.

Hat Tip: Watts Up With That

How Concentrated Would a Socio-web Diagram of IPCC Authors Be?

2008-07-17T04:12:00.000-07:00

A poster over at Jennifer Marohasy points out that:

More than two-thirds of all authors of chapter 9 of the IPCC’s 2007 climate-science assessment...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.
Significantly 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. None admitting modeling (is) a chaotic object whose initial state and evolutionary processes are not known to a sufficient precision and 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.

Basing Policy on such shonky grounds is immoral.

A socio-web drawing showing the interconnections of the authors and their peer-reviewed work would be most interesting.

Here is the Paper by John McLean - Prejudiced Authors, Prejudiced Findings pp 8, 9, 10 have the interconnections. the web is on pp10.

Importantly, McLean shows how the IPCC authors in a failure of adherence to the scientific method have fallen for the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc. The authors say that correlation implies causation. A most dangerous conclusion.

No models have shown the stasis in global mean surface temperature since 1998 or the reduction in global mean surface temperature since 2001.

Australian Environment Minister Explaining Government Policy

2008-07-17T02:08:00.000-07:00

Minister Peter Garrett in his usual position - explaining policy gently to a greatful tax payer.

Pity Garrett isn't complaining about the Iranian Rocket Launches

Hat Tip: Nexus.6 and Tim Blair

Reactions to Australian Green Paper on ETS

2008-07-16T19:44:00.000-07:00

The Australian's Paul Kelly discusses Chairman Rudd's Carbon Crunch and the inappropriate application of Pascal's Wager as hypothesised by Rudd's advisor Garnaut.

Pascal's wager: “If there were no God and one believed,” pondered Pascal, “what is the loss? But if there were a God and he rewards belief or denial in heaven and hell, the absence of belief is catastrophic. It is rational to act as if there were a God.”

Garnaut and his disciple Rudd (we can get all Papal on matters Australian at the moment) extend Pascal's wager to Climate Change; but with a major flaw - Pascal’s argument was that smart non-believers should live their lives as though there were a God because they had little to lose and much to gain.

Garnaut’s argument is: it is smart to act on the assumption that climate change is real because betting on its denial involves a high risk of catastrophic consequences.

In contrast to Pascal - where there is no cost in going along with a belief, there are real costs in the Rudd Wong climate change policies. Climate Change with politicians involved is not a game of no consequence. If Garnaut is wrong - and the evidence of anthropogenic warming is not good - the direct and indirect costs inappropriately applied will be in the billions.

Viv Forbes at the Carbon Sense Coalition had this to say.

The Government Green Paper completely ignores the main question – should Canberra try to control the weather, or is it better to foster a strong Australia able to cope with whatever climate change brings us?

Minister Wong obviously believes that if we give her enough powers to tax and regulate, she can change the world’s weather.

This Deep Green Paper should be recycled and replaced by an enlightened White Paper outlining how to make Australia strong and prosperous. This will provide the best insurance for our children against any climate change.

Sensible stuff.

Perhaps you prefer Galileo

Climate changes constantly but in reality it changes not at all.

Sense at Nexus

Australian ETS Green Paper more sensible and measured than New Zealand's

2008-07-15T20:12:00.001-07:00

Australian Government Minister for Climate Change and Water Senator Wong has just delivered her Government's green paper on ETS.

It appears at first glance to be a far more thoughtful scheme and proposal than the NZ Labour Government's hashed and dashed proposal.

Key elements

Petrol tax will be adjusted to compensate
Direct assistance to the low paid and beneficiaries - indexed as well
Recognises the potential for 'carbon leakage' if energy intensive industry is forced to close and re-open in a carbon happy location. Those industries that qualify will get free emission permits.
Agriculture is excluded.
Only the 1,000 biggest emitters are included - those that produce in excess of 25,000 tonnes of CO2 per annum.

Interestingly the Green Paper talks of the biggest 'polluters' - The scheme is described as the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. This is a major fallacy - CO2 is emitted and is not a pollutant. In every day a human being will breathe in and out approximately 120 litres of CO2. <1% of the air we breathe...

Of course missing from the scheme is the green house gas that comprises 95% of the green house effect - water vapour. The scheme puts all the blame on the gases that make up 5% of the green house effect.

Hat Tip: Too Right

2008-07-14T21:55:00.000-07:00

Nuclear Power Moving Closer to Normalcy

News that Great Britain is planning at least eight new nuclear power stations over the next fifteen years is good news for the environment and good sense all round. The renaissance of this much maligned technology is long overdue.

In a real poke in the eye to the misanthropic environmentalists PM Brown said: “We live in a new era, today our globalised, energy-hungry and warming world requires a shift from oil dependence to sustainable energy,” Mr Brown told the summit.

Sustainable Energy - brilliant. Stealing the words of your enemy is perfect.