ENVIRONMENTAL LEGAL BLOGS

GREENLAND-NOT MELTING AFTERALL!

     Note the following article by Andrew C. Revkin in (of all places!) The New York Times  (is Hell about to freeze over, too?):

One of the most vivid symbols of global warming used by scientists and campaigners to spur society to curb climate-warming emissions is photography of gushing rivers of meltwater plunging from the surface of Greenland’s ice sheet into the depths.

Recent studies have shown these natural drainpipes, called moulins, can speed up the slow seaward march of the grinding ice by lubricating the interface with bedrock below. The faster that ice flows, the faster seas rise. Now, though, a new Dutch study of 17 years of satellite measurements of ice movement in western Greenland concludes that the speedup of the ice is a transient summertime phenomenon, with the overall yearly movement of the grinding glaciers not changing, and actually dropping slightly in some places, when measured over longer time spans.

     The above-quoted article was apparently published both in the Times' print and on-line editions.  In the online edition, Mr. Revkin--so as not to be politically incorrect, which of course would be a no-no at the Times-- publishes, among other things, these "insigtful" comments by experts on the loss of one of their sturdiest sky-is-falling arguments:

Richard B. Alley, an expert on Greenland’s ice sheet at Penn State, told me it’s still possible that flows of meltwater from surface lakes could start large areas of ice moving seaward, particularly if the melt zones continue to expand inland as they have been doing for years now.

Dr. van de Wal said the picture of what makes Greenland’s ice stable or unstable is still evolving. “This time we do not predict a disaster, but who knows what the next finding will [teach] us,” he said.

(emphases added).

     Shall we say, er, pathetic reasoning if these comments are designed to justify impoverishing society to fight a now-admittedly uncertain "climate change".  Insofar as "who knows what the next finding will [teach] us"--that the global-warming scare is a hoax?

SHOCK POLL FROM GREAT BRITAIN-MAJORITY DOUBT "CLIMATE CHANGE" IS CAUSED BY HUMANS

     This poll shock from Great Britain:

The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans - and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem, according to an exclusive poll for The Observer.

The results have shocked campaigners who hoped that doubts would have been silenced by a report last year by more than 2,500 scientists for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which found a 90 per cent chance that humans were the main cause of climate change and warned that drastic action was needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

     guardian.co.uk

     If the environmentalists can't sell this stuff in Great Britain, imagine how depressing this must be for them when it comes to considering their sales pitch in the even more-skeptical USA. 

     This is especially the case when you consider that he campaign of fear about "global warming", recognizing the slim evidence for that phenomenon, has now retreated to the use of the euphemism "climate change"-- which, of course, could mean warming, cooling, or really any change at all.  Since the Earth's climate has been changing for eons, resorting to "climate change" as a campaign cry may be arousing suspicions in people that the cry simply represents a stealth attempt to increase government control over our lives.

    

A CRITICAL LOOK AT THE LIEBERMAN-WARNER "CLIMATE CHANGE" BILL

     Sen. Inhofe (R.-Oka.) has an analysis that will make you think twice about this bill (S. 2191, "America's Climate Security Act of 2007"):

The issue of climate change is now at the forefront of American environmental policy.  While the science behind the causes of recent warming trends has been argued vigorously in the past, the debate over the economic costs of addressing this issue has been relatively quiet until now.  However, on this issue there is little to debate at all. Leaders from both sides of the aisle agree that curbing greenhouse gas emissions will be an expensive endeavor.

***

Lieberman-Warner, if enacted, would likely devastate national and local economies in addition to putting a severe strain on the American family.  The bill would reduce the nation’s Gross Domestic Product by 2.3% by only 2015 as modeled by CRA International.... EPA finds that in 2030, GDP would be reduced by $983 billion and lowered even further by as much as $2.8 trillion in 2050.

***

Under this legislation, America stands to lose millions of jobs.  Greenspan forecasts such a problem, announcing that “cap-and-trade systems or carbon taxes are likely to be popular only until real people lose real jobs as their consequence.”... Within only seven years of enactment, up to 1.2 million net jobs will be lost....Many of these will be going offshore, where restrictions on emissions are nonexistent, to countries such as China. 

***

Kevin Book, an energy research analyst for FBR Capital Market Corporation testified to the Envuironment and Public Works Committee that not only will consumers be hurt, but the poorest of those will be hurt the worst.  Book stated in reference to S.2191 that “any effort to trigger conservation or environmental stewardship, even if price hikes are mediated through larger enterprises before they reach consumers, will affect the poorest Americans first.... Those who are struggling now to pay their heating bills will suffer under this legislation.    The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report last year stating that American households would bear the biggest costs of a cap-and-trade bill.

Sen. Inhofe's analysis can be found at this website.  As they say in poker, "read it and weep."

"Leaders told battle to stem global warming slowing"-AP story

     AP, on Yahoo!, reports today, in a dispatch entitled "Leaders told battle to stem global warming slowing":

"KOBE, Japan - The world is losing momentum in the battle against global warming, the U.N. climate chief warned on Saturday, urging environmental ministers from wealthy nations to revive the effort by setting clear targets for reducing greenhouse gases.

***

"The officials from the Group of Eight countries, joined by representatives from other countries including China and other organizations, were to lay the foundations for the upcoming G8 summit in northern Japan in July.

U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer told the Associated Press on the sidelines that he was concerned about stalling momentum behind international talks to forge a global warming pact by December 2009 to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. Its first phase ends in 2012."

     Stalling momentum?  What a surprise.  Perhaps people don't want to plan themselves into abject poverty by diminishing their lifestyles to appease an unproven science.

     By the way, look at the title of the article and compare the title to the URL-http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080524/ap_on_re_as/climate_change.  Detect any incoherence?  The story about "global warming" appears at an URL entitled "climate change".  "Global warming", of course, means warming; "climate change" could mean either warming or cooling.  Can the eco-alarmists at least get their fear-phrases straight?

WAS THIS CAUSED BY SUV'S, TOO?

        Astronomy magazine reports (re Jupiter):

"...a third red spot has appeared next to its cousins — the Great Red Spot and Red Spot, Jr. — in the turbulent jovian atmosphere.

...

The Hubble and Keck images may support the idea that Jupiter is in the midst of global climate change, as first proposed in 2004 by Phil Marcus, a mechanical engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley. The planet's temperatures may be changing by 15 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit, getting warmer near the equator and cooler near the south pole."

Back on September 28, 2005, I posted that Mars is getting warmer (excuse me, "undergoing climate change"--the new catch-all), too.  See right-hand side of this page, "Categories", "Global Warming".  Could it be that this has to do with a cycle of the Sun?

And, if these phenomenon on Mars and Jupiter are Sun-related, is Earth somehow magically immune from the phenomenon--or is "climate change" on our planet a function of Solar climate change and not the man-made activities?

No one, of course, knows.  Nonetheless, many want dramatically to alter our lifestyles and spend trillions of dollars because of our vanity in believing that we can control what may be a naturally ever-changing climate.  Liberals usually deride this type of approach faith as the product of religious fervor.

RUH-OH: GLOBAL WARMING EVIDENCE IS EVAPORATING

     Per DailyTech.com:

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

...The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

     Maybe the news media would like to republish their multiple stories from the 1970's warning about the coming Ice Age?  See my Post of April 8, 2006 under "Categories:  Global Warming" (right-hand side of this page).

Believe it or not- from The New York Times

     From (if you can believe it) a column in today's New York Times:

...there’s bound to be some weird weather somewhere, and we will react like the sailors in the Book of Jonah. When a storm hit their ship, they didn’t ascribe it to a seasonal weather pattern. They quickly identified the cause (Jonah’s sinfulness) and agreed to an appropriate policy response (throw Jonah overboard).

Today’s interpreters of the weather are what social scientists call availability entrepreneurs: the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels.

***

When the Arctic sea ice last year hit the lowest level ever recorded by satellites, it was big news and heralded as a sign that the whole planet was warming. When the Antarctic sea ice last year reached the highest level ever recorded by satellites, it was pretty much ignored. A large part of Antarctica has been cooling recently, but most coverage of that continent has focused on one small part that has warmed.

***

Roger A. Pielke Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, recently noted the very different reception received last year by two conflicting papers on the link between hurricanes and global warming. He counted 79 news articles about a paper in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and only 3 news articles about one in a far more prestigious journal, Nature.

Guess which paper jibed with the theory — and image of Katrina — presented by Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth”?

RECORD SNOW-MUST BE GLOBAL WARMING (?)

Today's snowstorm made this month the snowiest December in New Hampshire in more than a century.

     Associated Press, 12/31/08.

     How can this be?  I thought global warming was drying us out.  Oh, wait-- this unusual phenomenon shows that global warming is producing weather not seen before.  But, wait again-- this weather was seen before, a century ago, before (relatively speaking) much industrialization had occurred.

     If it's hot, it's caused by global warming.  if it's cold, it's caused by global warming.  If it's too dry, it's caused by global warming.  If it's too wet, it's caused by global warming.  If there is a drought, it's caused by global warming.  if there's a flood, it's caused by global warming. 

     It's good to be a global warming true believer.  You can never lose a debate.

SWISS SNOW SETS 50-YEAR RECORD

     From "Fast Track Ski News" on November 15, 2007:

Swiss ski resorts are expecting a record season after promising early snowfall, it has been reported.

***

...Switzerland has not received such a strong start to its winter ski season since 1952....

     I'd appreciate comments on how this is consistent with "global warming".

SORRY TO DISAPPOINT THE GREENIES, BUT BALI CONFERENCE WAS TYPICAL POSTURING

     Yesterday, the mainstream media went wild with joy when they could announce  that the United States had softened its position at the Bali conference and thus paved the way for a compromise climate-change agreement about carbon-emissions reduction.  Did this exuberance by the usual suspects undercut my repeated point on this Blog that countries sign "feel good" agreements but are not really going to put their economies in the tank by adhering to the agreements? 

      Hardly.  As The Sunday Times (U.K.) reports today ("Bali deal leaves greens in despair"):

AS more than 180 countries agreed a deal on climate change at the UN summit in Bali, environmentalists punctured the mood of self-congratulation by pointing to the failure to agree firm targets for reducing emissions.

Although the main industrialised countries, including America, agreed to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, they refused to agree to an European Union proposal for a target of 25%-40% cuts by 2020.

Campaigners claimed the world’s biggest carbon emitters, including America, Japan and Canada, will now be free to carry on expanding such emissions for many more years to come.

“This deal is very disappointing,” said Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth. “This conference has failed to give us a clear destination.”

     The real news to come out of Bali was this brief statement in The Times:

— Tomorrow, John Hutton, the energy secretary, will give the strongest hint yet that the UK should go for a new generation of nuclear power stations.

     This, of course, will hardly make the the ROGW (Religion of Global Warming) disciples happy, either.  The ROGW and its pope, Al Gore, basically want the industrialized world to go back to the 18th century as punishment for economic success (which, of course, they believe was achieved only by oppressing the virtuous people of the Third World).  The ROGW disciples also want to produce only energy that carries 0% risk, and nuclear doesn't fit that bill (if civilization had historically adopted such a no-risk philosophy, we'd indeed still be in the 18th century technologically).

     The potential endorsement of nuclear energy by the UK, should such endorsement occur, is sensible not because of the fear of global warming but because for obvious reasons the West needs to reduce its dependence on Middle Eastern oil.  Hopefully Mr. Hutton will make, and carry through on, his expected announcement.