http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5525933/Crops-under-stress-as-temperatures-fall.html

Crops under stress as temperatures fall

Our politicians haven’t noticed that the problem may be that the world is not warming but cooling, observes Christopher Booker.

By Christopher Booker
Published: 6:04PM BST 13 Jun 2009

For the second time in little over a year, it looks as though the world may be heading for a serious food crisis, thanks to our old friend “climate change”. In many parts of the world recently the weather has not been too brilliant for farmers. After a fearsomely cold winter, June brought heavy snowfall across large parts of western Canada and the northern states of the American Midwest. In Manitoba last week, it was -4ºC. North Dakota had its first June snow for 60 years.

There was midsummer snow not just in Norway and the Cairngorms, but even in Saudi Arabia. At least in the southern hemisphere it is winter, but snowfalls in New Zealand and Australia have been abnormal. There have been frosts in Brazil, elsewhere in South America they have had prolonged droughts, while in China they have had to cope with abnormal rain and freak hailstorms, which in one province killed 20 people.

None of this has given much cheer to farmers. In Canada and northern America summer planting of corn and soybeans has been way behind schedule, with the prospect of reduced yields and lower quality. Grain stocks are predicted to be down 15 per cent next year. US reserves of soya – used in animal feed and in many processed foods – are expected to fall to a 32-year low.

In China, the world’s largest wheat grower, they have been battling against the atrocious weather to bring in the harvest. (In one province they even fired chemical shells into the clouds to turn freezing hailstones into rain.) In north-west China drought has devastated crops with a plague of pests and blight. In countries such as Argentina and Brazil droughts have caused such havoc that a veteran US grain expert said last week: “In 43 years I’ve never seen anything like the decline we’re looking at in South America.”

In Europe, the weather has been a factor in well-below average predicted crop yields in eastern Europe and Ukraine. In Britain this year’s oilseed rape crop is likely to be 30 per cent below its 2008 level. And although it may be too early to predict a repeat of last year’s food shortage, which provoked riots from west Africa to Egypt and Yemen, it seems possible that world food stocks may next year again be under severe strain, threatening to repeat the steep rises which, in 2008, saw prices double what they had been two years before.

There are obviously various reasons for this concern as to whether the world can continue to feed itself, but one of them is undoubtedly the downturn in world temperatures, which has brought more cold and snow since 2007 than we have known for decades.

Three factors are vital to crops: the light and warmth of the sun, adequate rainfall and the carbon dioxide they need for photosynthesis. As we are constantly reminded, we still have plenty of that nasty, polluting CO2, which the politicians are so keen to get rid of. But there is not much they can do about the sunshine or the rainfall.

It is now more than 200 years since the great astronomer William Herschel observed a correlation between wheat prices and sunspots. When the latter were few in number, he noted, the climate turned colder and drier, crop yields fell and wheat prices rose. In the past two years, sunspot activity has dropped to its lowest point for a century. One of our biggest worries is that our politicians are so fixated on the idea that CO2 is causing global warming that most of them haven’t noticed that the problem may be that the world is not warming but cooling, with all the implications that has for whether we get enough to eat.

It is appropriate that another contributory factor to the world’s food shortage should be the millions of acres of farmland now being switched from food crops to biofuels, to stop the world warming, Last year even the experts of the European Commission admitted that, to meet the EU’s biofuel targets, we will eventually need almost all the food-growing land in Europe. But that didn’t persuade them to change their policy. They would rather we starved than did that. And the EU, we must always remember, is now our government – the one most of us didn’t vote for last week.

********************************

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/todays-paper/Crop+concern+grows/1687952/story.html

Ron,

The super volcano article sounds like an alarmist article. Most of the real data indicates that magma is NOT a likely situation (more likely water) and then the article goes to state that IF the situation is magma then it could be a catastrophe. Must have taken this from the AGW playbook.

Richard,
You are probably right.
http://www.newscientist.com is in AW alarmism for years on a role now.

The super volcano article sounds like an alarmist article. Most of the real data indicates that magma is NOT a likely situation (more likely water) and then the article goes to state that IF the situation is magma then it could be a catastrophe. Must have taken this from the AGW playbook.

Climate laws add to police workload
EXCLUSIVE: FRONTLINE police will be forced to become “carbon cops” under the Government’s blueprint to cut greenhouse emissions.

The Herald Sun can reveal Australian Federal Police agents will have to prosecute a new range of climate offences.

But they are yet to be offered extra resources, stretching the thin blue line to breaking point.

“The Government is effectively saying to us, ‘Ignore other crime types’,” Australian Federal Police Association chief Jim Torr said.

The group had been trying for months, without success, to discuss the issue with Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, he said.

Interpol has warned the carbon market will be irresistible to criminal gangs because of the vast amounts of cash to be made. Possible rorts include under-reporting of carbon emissions by firms and bogus carbon offset schemes.

“If someone is rorting it by even 1 per cent a year, we’re talking about many, many millions of dollars,” Mr Torr said.

Ms Wong’s office said AFP agents would be expected to enter premises and request paperwork to monitor firms’ emissions reductions. They would act on the 30-strong Australian Climate Change Regulatory Authority’s orders.

It said the authority could appoint staff members or police as inspectors.

She said the Department of Climate Change had spoken to the AFPA and the parties would talk again. Carbon trading involves carbon emissions rights buying and selling. Businesses can offset emissions by investing in climate-friendly projects, or carbon credits.

Ms Wong’s office said provisions had been made to ensure compliance. “Inspectors may enter premises and exercise other monitoring powers,” she said. “The inspectors may ask questions and seek the production of documents. There is provision for the issue of monitoring warrants by magistrates.”

The AFP’s 2855 sworn agents are involved in law enforcement in Australia and overseas, investigating terrorist threats, drug syndicates, people trafficking, fraud and threats against children.

Mr Torr said breaking carbon trading laws would be like breaking other laws. “These offences will constitute another federal crime type, along with narcotics importing, people smuggling and all the rest of it, that the AFP will be expected to police,” he said. “I can see very complex, covert investigations . . . a lot of scientific expertise required.”

The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is facing Senate defeat unless it can secure the support of key cross-benchers or the Opposition.

Opposition climate change spokesman Andrew Robb said the scheme was problematic.

Having several whole industries move in response to a weather forecast is far different from having a single stock ticker move from a ‘stock pick’.

When Bastardi makes a weather call, and things move, it does not involve the same dynamics …

Never said I trusted CNBC (and I find MSNBC, well, highly snippable…).

I do trust individual people on CNBC and find Bloomberg generally accurate.

FWIW, it isn’t really the networks fault that their “picks” drop in the next couple of days. This hits all networks and all public stock pickers with a following the same way.

As soon as someone has a “name” (and the major networks are “name” by definition) they join the “news flow”. Someone at Goldman is assigned to watch every single CNBC show. When a ticker is given a “buy”, the staff tell their floor brokers to push the price up (even if they missed that call, the sudden volume inflow on the buy side would cause any smart market maker to juice the price up). Often the demand far exceeds the natural sellers, so the market maker has to “sell short”. The exchange rules require the market maker to make a market but they do not say at what price.

So prices go up to the point where the market maker or floor broker is pretty darned sure they can “buy in” the position later at a lower price. Thus the drop the next day. So it is essential when taking a “tip” from a mass audience show to allow for that. Don’t let the “day trade” pop and drop nick you for 10%… wait a couple of days for a better entry into the (often quite good) stock pick.

Saying don’t buy into something rising can be as simple as excess risk or liking an alternative better.

I hold about 30 positions at any one time, and in a bull market (going up) about 3000 tickers are rising. If I say “don’t buy XOM, buy PBR” that does not mean Exxon will fail to rise. We have rising oil, XOM is going up. BUT you will find that Petrobras has left XOM in the dirt. (PCZ PetroCanada is on a rocket ride too…) I own both PBR and PCZ. I would tell a friend “Don’t buy XOM”. (Partly due to the congress being in session and looking for another industry to destroy right after they get done nuking healthcare…) So for risk and performance reasons, XOM is a “Don’t buy” relative to the alternatives. It can (and most likely will) still go up.

A lot of stuff to keep track of? Yup. Keeps it interesting…

As an example: PBR went up 4% today. It will double over the next few years, to a decade, (pretty much guaranteed due to them finding Billions of bbl of oil offshore). Yet, Joe Terranova on “Fast Money” just gave a recommendation that ~”minerals and oils are over bought” and it’s time to step away from that trade. So what to do?

Well, I can pretty much say PBR will be down tomorrow. 4% pop over, Joe saying get out while it’s good, it’s Friday (oils drop Friday – Tues more than they rise due to the oil inventory report on Wed morning). That’s the easy part. What to do with that information depends on you…

Day trader? Look for a short then cover. (If it opens “gap down” buy, then sell at 2 pm ET).

Trend Trader? Look for a buy next Tuesday / early Wednesday, selling Friday.

Long Term Investor? “Buy The Dips” and hold them.

Already hold PBR (me) as a mid term investment? Probably nothing. I’ve got a good gain in it and will most likely just let it ride through the ripple. I might use some options as insurance, or I might “double on the dip” and sell half at the rebound to “sterilize” the news impact. Basically do a day trade around the core to iron out the ripple. Depends on how bored I am.

Absolute wrong thing to do? Buy at the top of the 4% pop today on the news and sell out at the 4% down mid morning tomorrow… because you heard this guy on the TV…

So back to Joe Bastardi: The networks do a very good job of picking “talent” and that all of them are fighting over Joe Bastardi tells you a great deal. That his reports are generally “spot on” is all you really need to know…

Gradually global warming myths fall away
June 10th, 2009, 1:02 pm posted by Mark Landsbaum

It’s hard to keep a worldwide hoax going. Sooner or later there are leaks in the balloon and the hot air seeps out, sort of global-warming style.

Even mainline press accounts increasingly are puncturing the global warming balloon. The Washington Post recently pointed out that Al Gore’s dire predictions of devastating 20-foot rising seas caused by global warming are, well, all wet.

It turns out, says the Post’s David A. Fahrenthold (a reporter, not a commentator), that the latest predicted increase in sea level by 2100 (that’s 91 years from now) might be enough to “submerge a beach chair.” Not exactly civilization ruining, huh?

The story doesn’t stop there. Even the chair’s fate is only a “might” not a certainty, the story notes. Why? Well, for the very reason we’ve been pointing out for about three years: “Scientists say the information comes from computer models which could be wrong.”

Go figure. The question is whether Congress and the White House will shove down our throats hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars in penalties in order to solve this non-devastating problem before enough people recognize the truth and put a stop to their nonsense.

The cooling of global warming
By Phil Brennan

My sainted father described common sense as having the good judgment to come in out of the rain. A lot of our self-anointed guardians of all that is good and appropriate are getting drenched these days in a hailstrom of facts they lack the good sense to recognize.

In the face of the simple reality that any warming of the planet that may have been occurring stopped dead a decade ago, to be replaced by a pronounced cooling, these naifs continue to shout from the rooftops that unless we allow them to take drastic action, our godlike planet is about to be barbecued.

Panic is abroad among the global warming fanatics who see their decades-long campaign to convince the world that the planet is warming and only draconian government action can prevent a looming catastrophe from destroying fading away.

Every horrendous occurrence is deplored as somehow the result of AGW (anthroprogenic [human caused] global warming) even the downing of the Air France jetliner for which a Russian scientist found it to be possibly responsible.

All but frothing at the mouth in frustration over the growing disbelief in AGW, Joe Romm of the Climate Progress blog posted a warning from one “Creative Greenius” that those who dissent from the fear of human caused global warming will be severely punished when “an entire generation … will soon be ready to strangle you and your kind while you sleep in your beds.”

Romm removed the quote from his bloc but according to Marc Morano’s Climate Depot he continues to defend the strangling skeptics in their beds comment as being “clearly not a threat but a prediction which he disagrees with ” that people had “somehow misread.”

Despite the increasingly inflamed rhetoric, the fact remains that the planet has entered a cooling phase that to scientists say could last at least 30 years or even usher in a new little, or even big, ice age.

Yet House Democrats are rushing the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill through the House. The legislation amounts to a $9 trillion tax that will reduce personal consumption by up to $2 trillion by mid-century, according to an analysis by the liberal Brookings Institution. It aims at reducing atmosphereic levels of CO2 in the absurd belief that this benign gas necessary for plant health somehow causes global warming.

Across the pond, reality has set in. According to Benny Peyser ‘All over Europe, the centre-left has been haemorrhaging core voters. The fact that UKIP, an openly climate skeptical party, has beaten Labour to second place is a clear signal. It suggests that any party promoting unpopular climate policies and green taxes that will further increase the cost of energy, transport and travel for ordinary families risks being punished in future elections. As far as Britain is concerned, the Labour government and its green agenda is finished. Let that be a warning to President Obama and other would-be salvationists.”

They aren’t heeding that warning. As far as they are concerned the planet may be demonstrably cooling but global warming remains a deadly threat to the planet they must at our peril act to forestall.

In the meantime, in the balmy month of June, on the 5th it snowed in North Dakota. On June 6 northern England got enough snow to allow kids to build a snow man.

Wrote the Daily Mail “Parts of Britain resembled Siberia today as freakish snow flurries fell in the middle of the summer” … “a phenomenon considered to be ‘remarkable’ so late in the season.”

In the U.S. climate expert Joe Bastardi warns that areas from the northern Plains into the Northeast will have a “year without a summer.”
Under the title “ALASKA’S ICE THICKENS OVER UNUSUAL SUMMER” Climatologist Cliff Harris wrote that “Unusually large amounts of winter snow were followed by abnormally chilly temperatures in June, July and August.

He cited a story by Craig Medred of McClatchy Newspapers who quoted U.S. Geological Survey glaciologist Bruce Molnia as saying “In mid-June, I was surprised to see snow still at sea level in Prince William Sound. On the Juneau Icefield, there was still 20 feet of new snow on the surface of the Taku Glacier in late July. At Bering Glacier, a landslide I am studying, located at about 1,500 feet elevation, did not become snow free until early August. In general, the weather this summer was the worst I have seen in at least 20 years. Never before in the history of a research project dating back to 1946 had the Juneau Icefield witnessed the kind of snow buildup that came this year. It was similar on a lot of other glaciers too.”

Some warming!

Phil Brennan writes for Newsmax.com. He is editor and publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist (Cato) for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He is a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association For Intelligence Officers.

He can be reached at pvb@pvbr.com.

Supervolcano may be brewing beneath Mount St Helens

* 10 June 2009 by David Shiga
* Magazine issue 2712. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.

IS A supervolcano brewing beneath Mount St Helens? Peering under the volcano has revealed what may be an extraordinarily large zone of semi-molten rock, which would be capable of feeding a giant eruption.

Magma can be detected with a technique called magnetotellurics, which builds up a picture of what lies underground by measuring fluctuations in electric and magnetic fields at the surface. The fields fluctuate in response to electric currents travelling below the surface, induced by lightning storms and other phenomena. The currents are stronger when magma is present, since it is a better conductor than solid rock.

Graham Hill of GNS Science, an earth and nuclear science institute in Wellington, New Zealand, led a team that set up magnetotelluric sensors around Mount St Helens in Washington state, which erupted with force in 1980. The measurements revealed a column of conductive material that extends downward from the volcano. About 15 kilometres below the surface, the relatively narrow column appears to connect to a much bigger zone of conductive material.
The column below Mount St Helens appears to connect to a huge zone of conductive material

This larger zone was first identified in the 1980s by another magnetotelluric survey, and was found to extend all the way to beneath Mount Rainier 70 kilometres to the north-east, and Mount Adams 50 kilometres to the east. It was thought to be a zone of wet sediment, water being a good electrical conductor.

However, since the new measurements show an apparent conduit connecting this conductive zone to Mount St Helens – which was undergoing a minor eruption of semi-molten material at the time the measurements were made – Hill and his colleagues now think the conductive material is more likely to be a semi-molten mixture. Its conductivity is not high enough for it to be pure magma, Hill says, so it is more likely to be a mixture of solid and molten rock.

Gary Egbert of Oregon State University in Corvallis, who is a magnetotellurics specialist but not a member of Hill’s team, is cautious about the idea of a nascent supervolcano where Mount St Helens sits. “It seems likely that there’s some partial melt down there,” given that it is a volcanic area, he says. “But part of the conductivity is probably just water.”

If the structure beneath the three volcanoes is indeed a vast bubble of partially molten rock, it would be comparable in size to the biggest magma chambers ever discovered, such as the one below Yellowstone National Park.

Every few hundred thousand years, such chambers can erupt as so-called supervolcanoes – the Yellowstone one did so about 640,000 years ago. These enormous eruptions can spew enough sunlight-blocking ash into the atmosphere to cool the climate by several degrees Celsius.

Could Mount St Helens erupt like this? “A really big, big eruption is possible if it is one of those big systems like Yellowstone,” Hill says. “I don’t think it will be tomorrow, but I couldn’t try to predict when it would happen.”

Further measurements probing the structure of the crust beneath the other volcanoes in the area could help determine if the zone connects to them all, Hill says. He presented his team’s results on 27 May at the Joint Assembly geophysics meeting in Toronto, Canada.

The cool phase of Pacific decadal oscillation is exerting its most vivid effect on California. I suppose we should not be surprised. In a “normal” warm phase year, upper level high pressure builds over California in May, turning off any remnant rains. By June the high pressure ridge is typically very strong. Any polar lows trying to drop southeast from Alaska are forced to stay offshore, where they slowly decay over open ocean.

In a “normal” year, June weather is hot and dry for much of the Golden State. Along the coast a “marine layer” is sucked ashore by the interior heat. Fog and strong winds keep things chilly. California coastal weather is topographically determined, as the marine layer fingers inland along lower ground, filling the whole of San Fransisco Bay, which is what makes the place famously pleasant.

But this is not a normal year, though it may be the new norm of cold phase PDO. Deep polar troughing has dug repeatedly over California. Unseasonal rains and thunderstorms have occurred. Snow has fallen in the mountains. Clouds have kept the interior cool. All the rhythms of plant and animal life are surely disturbed. The effects on agriculture will increase if the pattern holds.

California has more than its share of “global warming” freaks. How long will they be able to continue telling themselves that warming causes cooling? Liberals tend to be a humorless bunch, and they don’t like being laughed at.

From: Fresh Bilge: http://www.seablogger.com/?p=15039&cpage=1#comment-153506

United States House of Representatives

Statement on Global Warming Petition Signed by 31,478 Scientists

June 4, 2009

* Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, before voting on the “cap-and-trade” legislation, my colleagues should consider the views expressed in the following petition that has been signed by 31,478 American scientists:

* “We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

* There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”

* Circulated through the mail by a distinguished group of American physical scientists and supported by a definitive review of the peer-reviewed scientific literature, this may be the strongest and most widely supported statement on this subject that has been made by the scientific community. A state-by-state listing of the signers, which include 9,029 men and women with PhD degrees, a listing of their academic specialties, and a peer-reviewed summary of the science on this subject are available at http://www.petitionproiect.org.

* The peer-reviewed summary, “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” by A. B. Robinson, N. E. Robinson, and W. Soon includes 132 references to the scientific literature and was circulated with the petition.

* Signers of this petition include 3,803 with specific training in atmospheric, earth, and environmental sciences. All 31,478 of the signers have the necessary training in physics, chemistry, and mathematics to understand and evaluate the scientific data relevant to the human-caused global warming hypothesis and to the effects of human activities upon environmental quality.

* In a letter circulated with this petition, Frederick Seitz–past President of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, President Emeritus of Rockefeller University, and recipient of honorary doctorate degrees from 32 universities throughout the world–wrote:

* “The United States is very close to adopting an international agreement that would ration the use of energy and of technologies that depend upon coal, oil, and natural gas and some other organic compounds.

* This treaty is, in our opinion, based upon flawed ideas. Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful.

* The proposed agreement we have very negative effects upon the technology of nations throughout the world; especially those that are currently attempting to lift from poverty and provide opportunities to the over 4 billion people in technologically underdeveloped countries.

* It is especially important for America to hear from its citizens who have the training necessary to evaluate the relevant data and offer sound advice.”

* We urge you to sign and return the enclosed petition card. If you would like more cards for use by your colleagues, these will be sent.”

* Madam Speaker, at a time when our nation is faced with a severe shortage of domestically produced energy and a serious economic contraction; we should be reducing the taxation and regulation that plagues our energy-producing industries.

* Yet, we will soon be considering so-called “cap and trade” legislation that would increase the taxation and regulation of our energy industries. “Cap and-trade” will do at least as much, if not more, damage to the economy as the treaty referred by Professor Seitz! This legislation is being supported by the claims of “global warming” and “climate change” advocates–claims that, as demonstrated by the 31,477 signatures to Professor Seitz’ petition, many American scientists believe is disproved by extensive experimental and observational work.

* It is time that we look beyond those few who seek increased taxation and increased

[Page: E1325] GPO’s PDF

regulation and control of the American people. Our energy policies must be based upon scientific truth–not fictional movies or self-interested international agendas. They should be based upon the accomplishments of technological free enterprise that have provided our modern civilization, including our energy industries. That free enterprise must not be hindered by bogus claims about imaginary disasters.

* Above all, we must never forget our contract with the American people–the Constitution that provides the sole source of legitimacy of our government. That Constitution requires that we preserve the basic human rights of our people–including the right to freely manufacture, use, and sell energy produced by any means they devise–including nuclear, hydrocarbon, solar, wind, or even bicycle generators.

* While it is evident that the human right to produce and use energy does not extend to activities that actually endanger the climate of the Earth upon which we all depend, bogus claims about climate dangers should not be used as a justification to further limit the American people’s freedom.

In conclusion, I once again urge my colleagues to carefully consider the arguments made by the 31,478 American scientists who have signed this petition before voting on any legislation imposing new regulations or taxes on the American people in the name of halting climate change. http://www.house.gov/apps/list/speech/tx14_paul/GlobalWarmingJune4.shtml

Thanks for the interesting but lengthy comment — it was roughly the size of Manhattan.