Testimony of
The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
California State Assembly
21 March 2012
IN the 6 decades since 1950 the world has warmed at a rate equivalent to 2 F°/century. The IPCC’s central estimate is that in the 9 decades to 2100 the rate will be 6 F°/century, three times the observed rate.
Two-thirds of the warming predicted by the IPCC’s (non-peer-reviewed) models is supposed to arise from temperature feedbacks. None of these feedbacks can be measured. There is no consensus about how big they are. There are powerful scientific reasons to suspect the IPCC has very greatly overstated them.
The principal conclusions of each of the four IPCC Assessment Reports are questionable:
- 2007: The IPCC twice concludes that the rate of warming is speeding up and we are to blame. But it uses a false statistical technique to reach its conclusion.
- 2001: The IPCC concludes that today’s temperatures are warmer than in 1300 years. How it reached this conclusion is under criminal investigation.
- 1995: The scientists had concluded that no discernible human effect on climate could be found. Just one man rewrote the report to say the opposite.
- 1990: The IPCC predicted rapid warming. A generation has passed and the predicted warming has not happened. This and many other predictions are overblown:
- Global temperature is rising more slowly than IPCC’s least estimate;
- Sea level has been rising for eight years at just 1.3 inches/century;
- Ocean heat content has barely risen in 6 years;
- Hurricanes and tropical cyclones are quieter than for 30 years;
- Global sea-ice extent has changed little in 30 years;
- Methane concentration is up just 20 parts per billion since 2000;
- The tropical hot-spot the IPCC predicts as our footprint is absent;
- Outgoing radiation is escaping to space much as usual.
California’s carbon tax, with other statewide measures to curb CO2 emissions, will cost $450 billion by 2020. Even if 25% of California’s emissions are abated by 2020, just 0.4% of global emissions will have been abated; CO2 concentration by 2020, instead of the business-as-usual 413 parts per million by volume the IPCC predicts, will be 412.9 ppmv; just one-thousandth of a Fahrenheit degree of warming will be abated; the cost of abating the 0.3 F° warming the IPCC predicts to 2020 by measures as cost-(in)effective as California’s policies would be $180 trillion, or $25,500 per head of global population, or a third of global GDP over the period; and the cost of preventing the 6 F° warming the IPCC predicts by 2100 would be $2700 trillion, or more than 10 times the maximum 3%-of-GDP cost of climate-related damage arising from not mitigating this predicted 21st-century warming at all.
Environmental over-regulation, cap-and-tax, “renewable”-energy mandates, and a 40-year ban on most offshore drilling are crippling California. The Monterey Shale holds 15 billion barrels of oil, yet over-regulation has cut production by more than a third to just 200 million barrels a year. Now 11% are jobless in California, second only to Nevada in the US (50% are jobless in construction); the 2012/13 State deficit is $6 billion; unfunded pension liabilities are $250 billion; 50,000 rich Californians (one-third of them) fled in 2007-2009, taking their businesses and jobs with them: twice as many firms fled the once-Golden State in 2011 as in 2010; Intel says it will never build another plant here; Globalstar, Trizetto, and eEye fled in just one month; Boeing, Toyota, Apple, Facebook, and DirecTV have all fled. The waggons are heading East.
The bottom line: No policy to abate global warming by taxing, trading, regulating, reducing, or replacing greenhouse-gas emissions will prove cost-effective solely on grounds of the welfare benefit from climate mitigation. CO2 mitigation strategies that are inexpensive enough to be affordable will be ineffective; strategies costly enough to be effective will be unaffordable. Focused adaptation to any adverse consequences of any warming that may occur is many times more cost-effective. Since the premium greatly exceeds the cost of the risk, don’t insure. Every red cent spent now on trying to stop global warming is a red cent wasted. Don’t mitigate: sit back, enjoy the sunshine, and adapt only if and when and to the extent necessary. That, however unfashionable, is the economically prudent and scientifically sensible course.
================================
Details: http://coalitionofenergyusers.org/monckton-event/
Nice! It’s a shame that Bjorn Lomborg has stepped away from thinking like this, which he expressed so ably in Cool It.
OT, I have a letter in today’s <Wall Street Journal.
Oops
“…twice as many firms fled the once-Golden State in 2011 as in 2011;…
Oops again
“…twice as many firms fled the once-Golden State in 2011 as in 2011;…”
Lord Mockton is a very intelligent man who knows of what he speaks. However, I think he needs to hire a proof reader.
[Fixed, thanks. ~dbs, mod.]
Monckton’s Legislature audience undoubtedly had their Dem ears firmly plugged shut so that they could maintain their customary deafness to reality.
Sorry bad link, multitasking again. This should work:
http://wp.me/pnsGM-fd
Can’t argue with the bottom line.
twice as many firms fled the once-Golden State in 2011 as in 2011;
fix this one too
[Done. ~dbs]
The future of our grandchildren is at stack. Why destroy it?
The brainwashing- lets face it ,Its being taught in most schools, has condemned humanity.
It’s just crazy!!!
Ps. Buy the way stock up on food well before the AUSTRALIAN Carbon dioxide tax starts. That means NOW.
Best of luck HUMANITY.
“The Monterey Shale holds 15 billion barrels of oil, yet over-regulation has cut production by more than a third to just 200 billion barrels a year.” That’s strange?
Monckton makes many great points. I would like to see him add the point that a slightly warmer planet, with a higher atmospheric concentration of CO2 would, more than likely, be a net positive. Not negative.
Supreme Court brings some unanimous pain to the EPA today, maybe Sacramento would be willing to listen.
I really like Monckton and his message, but it falls on deaf ears when the policymakers already know that their policy decisions are based on an agenda with no relation to climate change. Agenda 21 rules. They do not care about the climate, but they can force people to do what they want more easily if they have what appears to be a tangible excuse.
Crippling the world’s economies and creating a permanent recession with attendant zero growth is their goal.
“Sustainability” is their goal which means no progress, no growth, and active conservation of everything, regardless of its abundance. After all, their goal is to save the world for the next generation, with the assumption, baseless as it is, that there will be nothing for the next generation if they do not interfere in a Draconian fashion now.
This is a very status quo view of the world and does not apply to the real world. Everything changes, including what we do. Their worries are largely based on assuming that we will keep do the same things we are doing today forever. We have never do that before, so why would be do it now? Because they want it that way in order to create a crisis.
All of the positions taken in Agenda 21 and sustainability (which really does not exist as nothing is sustainable) are assumptions based on opinions, unbiased environmentalist panic, and the Precautionary Principle, which assumes that everything is bad until proven otherwise. How can you prove that something is not bad if you are never allowed to use it? You cannot prove a negative anyhow.
If the last one to leave turns the light out, they will finally achieve their desired state of perfection.
Another oops: “The Monterey Shale holds 15 billion barrels of oil, yet over-regulation has cut production by more than a third to just 5 billion barrels a year”.
Five billion barrels a year is 13.7 million barrels a day. Which is more than the entire daily U.S. production. He must have meant 5 million bbl.
[Fixed. ~dbs, mod.]
I wonder when the Politicians and Academia will realize the Golden Goose is in its death throes or are they hoping China will welcome them.
Coolology is the only science that can save us from ourselves. Coolologists have discovered the perils of global cooling. Protective measures against possible dire effects of cooling must be taken now.
As long as policies will get certain people votes, and certain people (often the same people) unearned monies, it will be difficult to thwart political “remedies” to a made-up problem. Lord Monckton is a lone voice in the wilderness. I enjoy hearing him.
If the effects of CO2 are logarithmic then the chances that in the next 9 decades the rate of warming will 3 times that observed over the course of the preceding 6 decades seems even more bizarre.
There is strong reason to suspect that the sensitivity to CO2 has been over assumed and that in the real world it is considerably less than IPCC predictions.
5 billion barrels per year is more than twice the oil production of the entire US per year
[Fixed. ~dbs, mod.]
Jean Parisot says:
March 21, 2012 at 11:34 am
Supreme Court brings some unanimous pain to the EPA today, maybe Sacramento would be willing to listen.
______________________
The link is http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/21/supreme-court-epa-unanimous-decision-clean-water-act_n_1369831.html
It is a slight step away from the heavy foot of the bureaucrats in DC.
I would like to thank the Marxist/Communist/lemmings for advertising their support for the EPA’s economic suicide efforts. I suspect their efforts will be largely wasted here. Fantastic!
Thanks to Lord Monckton for his valiant efforts to curb the onslaught of the tyrants with reason and real science. I am with you sir.
Nice punchy, easy-to-understand stuff from Lord Monkton. Short, sweet and to the point. I’ve seen and read him go on at length about things, with quite a bit of maths, but this is put over in terms the average person can understand readily* – really accessible stuff that’s pretty impossible for anyone to logically argue against (without invoking the precautionary principle, comparing it to cancer diagnosis and all that tired old BS).
The costs of mitigation, such as “carbon capture and storage”, are absolutely mental – absolutely off the flaming scale of irrational, delusional and self destructive behaviour. But that’s what we’re getting, apparently:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/9155255/National-Grid-and-Petrofac-plan-1bn-Scottish-carbon-capture-and-storage-plant.html
And people just flaming well shrug?
Forgive me if I sound exasperated, but I am. Hopefully I’ll feel better tomorrow.
* Of course, the average person doesn’t actually give a sh!t, even when you explain things in the clearest possible terms, they just roll their glazed-over eyes and say something like “well it doesn’t really effect me”. Therein lies the problem, in my opinion.
Lord Monckton makes very good points, yet they are the same points that skeptics tire of making over and over. Each time the alarmists trot out the usual objections. I’m guessing the same (non) objections will be raised today. So let me raise them so as to save the trolls the bother.
Point 1: “Global temperature is rising more slowly than IPCC’s least estimate;”
Alarmist objection 1: But when you measure the slope from 1976 to 2007 you clearly see a warming trend.
This is true, but there has been no significant warming in 12 years, which means that the RATE of warming has not increased as forecast, but has slowed.
Alarmist objection 2: But 12 years is too short, you have to take 30 years?
But why 30 years? This is completely arbitrary. Why not 900 years? Oh wait – that pesky MWP. Drat!
Point 2: Ocean heat content has barely risen in 6 years;
Alarmist objection(s): The heat has bypassed the Argo buoys and is hiding in the deep ocean.
or: Argo buoys have a systemic bias.
or (and this might be used for point 1): Aerosols from China is masking the warming.
It’s California, will they listen? Probably not.
But I do have to say that my great-great uncle was the one who made the beautiful furniture in both houses of the California legislature, and I’ve been there too, many times, so that puts me what? Two degrees of separation from Monckton?
Yeah, the Monck and I are just tight like that.
Excellent!
Here’s what Europe is doing to hasten its economic collapse in the name of Global Warming:
China blocks Airbus orders over EU emissions scheme
China is blocking orders for at least US$12 billion ($14.5 billion) worth of Airbus jets to protest against the European Union’s emissions trading fees, in a new challenge to the programme aimed at fighting global warming, the planemaker said yesterday.
.
.
.
EU officials defended the emissions system. Asked about the Airbus complaint, EU spokesman Isaac Valero Ladron said: “I’m not in a position to make any comments about possible trade decisions. I think it’s in everybody’s interest to reduce greenhouse gases, which affects climate change, and airplanes affect that, as well.”
—
Goodbye Airbus…Hello Boeing!
Have you ever wondered why global minimum anomaly temperatures are never shown alongside the global temperature anomaly. Could it be they are actually showing a decrease.
While on the subject of corrections, 0.5% of 400 is 2, so the difference should be e.g. 402 vs 400 or 411 vs 413 — or the computation needs to be further explained because I don’t know what the “0.5%” means. None of this affects the conclusions, but presentations like this need to be very coherent and consistent or else the critics who disagree will pounce on these trees as they seek to denounce the forest.
Otherwise, the economics of Cap and Trade are very straightforward. They are insane, end of story. First, if things are as bad as they are claimed to be they won’t work. Second, if they aren’t that bad they still won’t work but are then probably not necessary. Third, if we do nothing the natural progression of technologies will very likely ameliorate much of the projected CO_2 increase anyway, and do so in a strictly net-profitable way, by replacing increasingly expensive fuel resources with less expensive alternatives, not cheaper fuel alternatives with more expensive (subsidized or not) alternatives.
Finally, Monckton (sorry, I don’t do “titles”:-) if anything underemphasizes the cost of the misdirected monies. It isn’t just $420 billion, it is $420 billion plus all appreciation that the money, otherwise invested, would have realized. This is serious business. Take that much money and invest it, leveraged, in almost anything versus making it disappear with smoke and mirrors into boondoggles with no actual payoff and over decades you are talking trillions of dollars in differential wealth, not just from the world, but from CA alone. In other words, the net economic impact is easily double the actual loss, more reasonably quadruple, and even on a national scale half a trillion dollars isn’t chickenfeed.
If one took just ten lousy percent of the $420 billion, $42 billion, and invested it directly into research and development, new (more efficient) power plants, nuclear energy — all of these things would yield a return and they would ultimately help ameliorate any emergent problem with CO_2, should we get out there to where there is one. In the meantime, we have the other 90% to spend in equally productive ways, or to leave in the hands of the actual earners of all of that money, the people.
rgb
I think the good Viscount missed an easy one. IPCC’s first assessment report temperature history clearly showed the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA). But their third report (AR3) eliminated them to make it look like recent warming is unprecedented. Clearly, there is rewriting of history going on. Lord Turnbull’s report shows this quite clearly if you get a copy with the illustrations (most on-line copies only show the text)
Why is everyone missing the fact that the goal of the warmist – the end state as has been stated by them many times – is to De-civilize and De-populate the planet? All the rest of it is tactics – including the facts. Words ain’t gonna matter. Reality is out the door, folks. Get your battle-rattle on. You’ve got about 8 months. Here’s a clue: http://militarytimes.com/blogs/battle-rattle/2012/03/19/behind-the-cover-anti-obama-marines/ .
I wonder if the numbers are right with regards to California. If 25% is .4% of global emissions, that would make California responsible for 1.6% of global emissions, a little under 10% of the US total. That is believable, but the problem is the 25% is presumably for 2020 emissions below a certain baseline of emissions, so the cumulative cut is not 25%. Also, the .4% is perhaps the share of the current global emissions, but the share of the cumulative would be much less as China and India are growing.
rgb says:
“…sorry, I don’t do ‘titles’…”
Isn’t “Professor” a title? 🙂
Other than that, spot on.
Reblogged this on Iain Hall's SANDPIT and commented:
Love this piece because it demonstrates the basic cost ineffectiveness of so many well meaning measure to save the planet
Cheers Comrades
Forget it, M’lud. It’s California.
MR. Brown:
i don’t believe that plowing a lot of money into conventional generation techniques would be of advantage. the lads have gotten the standard steam plants about as efficient as is practically possible. they are waaaaay up into the upper limits of economics of scale as it is.
one of the sad facts of technology is that progress comes in little dribs and drabs. true advances in the mechanical arts yield in the ranges of 1-3% and tend to be little gadgets (some of them weighing 50-60 tons and take a half dozen flatbed trucks to bring the pieces to the site) that while although small make themselves felt by their numbers. some advances in efficiency simply cannot be added to a functioning plant without MAJOR RECONSTRUCTION.
this brings another set of problems. if you have only one whatchamacallit pump (that adds .5% to the efficiency of the plant ) do you install two of them for redundancy or shut down the plant when that one takes a dump [it makes for so much fun watching the maintainence crews running around with their hair on fire trying to get back on line again]. keep in mind that that plant produces 92.9 gigundawatts of power and when it goes down everything west of the mississississippi, south of the artic circle and north of the panama canal will grind to a screeching halt (do we hear the words bottleneck bandy’d about).
this brings us to the point of my rant. the nitwits that speak glibly to the politicians in the committee meetings [those politicians belonging to the technical group that cannot screw a right handed nut on a left handed bolt] that their earthshaking process will yield a 200% advance in the art through harnassing the energy of sunlight or (some other version of unicorn horns ground into pixie dust) that is just laying about waiting for a smart lad to use them and they have that lad under contract and just waiting, but he needs a trillion dollars worth of loan gaurantees……….. they don’t seem to realize that the lads whose shoulders we stand on might have tried that a couple of decades ago and found that it just doesn’t scale up.
the latest of the big examples was that Italian fellow who was trying to pass off a medium sized air handler out of a central air conditioning plant as the latest great leap in power resource and supply.
what i would really like to hear is some really informed discussion about the thorium reactors. and not from the shills who are anti because it will dump all of the rice bowls in the middle east or the other ones who are pro, looking for a big project to skim.
C
Robert Brown says:
March 21, 2012 at 1:19 pm
Finally, Monckton (sorry, I don’t do “titles”:-) if anything underemphasizes the cost of the misdirected monies. It isn’t just $420 billion, it is $420 billion plus all appreciation that the money, otherwise invested, would have realized. This is serious business. Take that much money and invest it, leveraged, in almost anything versus making it disappear with smoke and mirrors into boondoggles with no actual payoff and over decades you are talking trillions of dollars in differential wealth
————————————–
‘scuse me Robert, but do you think being able to make all that “leveraged” money out of a little bit of money is a good thing? I think that is insanity at its most explicit, on a global scale.
As regards titles, chill out man.
Lord Monckton is speaking in San Diego this Saturday if anyone is interested:
http://lordmonckton.eventbrite.com/
One might logically suppose that when California starts to tank, the electorate will throw Jerry “Fruitfly” Brown and his minions out on their keysters. But no. In the Left Coast mind, the solution to failed Socialism is always more Socialism.
Re jorgekafkazar’s comment on Socialism….remember Churchill’s comment (and probably others’): “Socialism works well until you run out of everyone else’s money.”
@Dan in California
IPCC’s first assessment report temperature history clearly showed the
Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA). But their third
report (AR3) eliminated them to make it look like recent warming is
unprecedented. Clearly, there is rewriting of history going on. Lord
Turnbull’s report shows this quite clearly if you get a copy with the
illustrations (most on-line copies only show the text)
**************
See http://thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/lord-turnbull.pdf
[page 5]
IanM
“”””” Robert Brown says:
March 21, 2012 at 1:19 pm
……………………….
Finally, Monckton (sorry, I don’t do “titles”:-)
So I take it that your students simply call you Bob ??
I guess it’s ok to address the occupant of the oval office, as simply “Obama”.
Good points Mr. Monckton. Your economic alarmism based on what you see as certainty for the future sure does show us how pessimistic some can be.
Frank K. says:
March 21, 2012 at 12:58 pm
Excellent!
Here’s what Europe is doing to hasten its economic collapse in the name of Global Warming:
China blocks Airbus orders over EU emissions scheme
China is blocking orders for at least US$12 billion ($14.5 billion) worth of Airbus jets to protest against the European Union’s emissions trading fees, in a new challenge to the programme aimed at fighting global warming, the planemaker said yesterday.
.
.
.
EU officials defended the emissions system. Asked about the Airbus complaint, EU spokesman Isaac Valero Ladron said: “I’m not in a position to make any comments about possible trade decisions. I think it’s in everybody’s interest to reduce greenhouse gases, which affects climate change, and airplanes affect that, as well.”
China is not alone – India is doing so too
“If the European Commission retaliated by suspending Indian airlines from flying to Europe, India would make similar moves and consider charging an “unreasonable” amount for flying over India, the official said on Monday.
“We have lots of measures to take if the EU does not go back on its demands. We have the power of the economy; we are not bleeding as they are,” the government official said, adding that Europe’s position would harm its own economy and airlines.
see:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/20/us-india-eu-emission-idUSBRE82J0D320120320
The end game of California’s misspent wealth is there will be no money left for the inevitable adaption that will be required should any of the alarmist nightmares come true. Not a penny of the trillions that will flow into this program will prevent what they say is inevitable – they haven’t the capacity to slow it let alone stop it. Why to into that dark time with empty pockets, then?
@ Ian W says:
March 21, 2012 at 5:50 pm
Frank K. says:
March 21, 2012 at 12:58 pm
Excellent!
Here’s what Europe is doing to hasten its economic collapse in the name of Global Warming:
China blocks Airbus orders over EU emissions scheme
China is blocking orders for at least US$12 billion ($14.5……………………………………
**********************************************************************************
The entire AGW business may become totally irrelevant soon:
” U.S Intelligence agencies monitoring China’s Internet say that from March 14 to Wednesday bloggers circulated alarming reports of tanks entering Beijing and shots being fired in the city as part of what is said to have been a high-level political battle among party leaders – and even a possible military coup.
The Internet discussions included photos posted online of tanks and other military vehicles moving around Beijing.
The reports followed the ouster last week of senior Politburo member and Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai, who was linked to corruption, but who is said to remain close to China’s increasingly nationalistic military.
Chinese microblogging sites Sina Weibo, QQ Weibo, and the bulletin board of the search engine Baidu all reported “abnormalities” in Beijing on the night of March 19.
The comments included rumors of the downfall of the Shanghai leadership faction and a possible “military coup,” along with reports of gunfire on Beijing’s Changan Street. The reports were quickly removed by Chinese censors shortly after postings and could no longer be accessed by Wednesday.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/21/inside-the-ring-436080940/ “
Robert Brown says:
March 21, 2012 at 1:19 pm
…..It isn’t just $420 billion, it is $420 billion plus all appreciation that the money, otherwise invested…
If one took just ten lousy percent of the $420 billion, $42 billion, and invested it directly into research and development, new (more efficient) power plants, nuclear energy — all of these things would yield a return and they would ultimately help ameliorate any emergent problem with CO_2, should we get out there to where there is one. In the meantime, we have the other 90% to spend in equally productive ways, or to leave in the hands of the actual earners of all of that money, the people.
_________________________________
It is incredible to me that more people have not woken up to how massive this scam is. Eons ago using the US Census, I calculated over 25% of the people in America owed their jobs/income directly or indirectly to the government. I can not see how that can be “sustainable” in a country with less than 9% of the work force in manufacturing jobs that is creating real wealth.
@ Gail Combs says:
March 21, 2012 at 7:03 pm
I can not see how that can be “sustainable” in a country with less than 9% of the work force in manufacturing jobs that is creating real wealth.
=====================================================
It’s not sustainable. We entered Never-Never land 3 1/2 years ago.
Bob Brown says: While on the subject of corrections, 0.5% of 400 is 2, so the difference should be e.g. 402 vs 400 or 411 vs 413 — or the computation needs to be further explained because I don’t know what the “0.5%” means.
I’ve listened to a few presentations and read many Lord Monckton essays and I’m pretty sure his math is accurate. My understanding is that the CO2 conc is increasing about 3ppm / year (probably based on that measurement on an active volcano in the Hawaiian Islands.) That means there will be a 24ppm increase over 8 years (2012-2020). Mitigation at 0.4% is 0.096ppm or so.
Frank K. says:
March 21, 2012 at 12:58 pm
” U.S Intelligence agencies monitoring China’s Internet say that from March 14 to Wednesday bloggers circulated alarming reports of tanks entering Beijing and shots being fired….
________________________________
Curiousgeorge says:
March 21, 2012 at 1:24 pm
…..Here’s a clue: http://militarytimes.com/blogs/battle-rattle/2012/03/19/behind-the-cover-anti-obama-marines/ . {muttering among US Marines)
_______________________________
What these bureaucrats jetting around to their various champagne conferences seem to forget, is that there are people involved LOTS of people and more and more of these people have taken their blind folds off.
Whether the “Window of Opportunity” to install a world government has passed or not we have yet to find out. However with the EU disintegrating and the reality of economic hard times making itself felt in several countries, I think the rose colored glasses are off. More importantly people have been shaken out of their comfort zone and are now willing to look around and try to figure out what happen.
Up till a couple of years ago ears were closed. I have found more and more people are not only interested but have a heck of a lot of knowledge.
IPCC folks spinning off new committe to study ‘How Many Angels Can Dance On The Head Of A Pin’. According to Dr. Mann’s newest paper, women and minorities most affected.
In fifty years or so this will take the prize from Piltdown Man, Teapot Dome, and all the other really great scams. This will become the one to beat.
Jakehig says:
March 21, 2012 at 3:30 pm
Re jorgekafkazar’s comment on Socialism….remember Churchill’s comment (and probably others’): “Socialism works well until you run out of everyone else’s money.”
It’s equally true for banking.
“The heavy cost of a non-problem”
Although a compatriot of mine, I think Lord Moncton is a very dangerous man.
In ten years time when the IPCC’s heavily overblown estimate of the effects of climate change due to CO2 have finally been thoroughly debunked, these same people will be complaining that we cannot afford even a one degree centigrade rise in temperature per doubling of CO2, as per Lord Moncton’s estimate, on top of natural temperature cycles. Lord Moncton accepts far too many statements as facts and fails to highlight the gross errors, malfeasance and corruption in the industry and as a minimum, fails to capitalise on these points, presumably in his efforts to demonstrate what a terribly intelligent, reasonable and pleasant English gentleman he is.
The only definitive statement that can be made remains that CO2 has absorption bands in the infra red spectrum and it is a long way to translating this to three degrees or even one degree celsius of warming per doubling.
Lord Monckton is still a slave to the GHG theory. Since 1998 temperatures have plateaued to a slight fall but atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise. Global radiated heat has, since measurements started in 1979, remained constant not fallen as the GHG theory predicts. Two observations not to fall within GHG speculation. Both observations should be mentioned by his noble Lordship.
John Marshall says:
March 22, 2012 at 4:02 am
//////////////////////////////////////////////////
John
It would not surprise me if Lord Monckton was sceptic of the entire GHG theory. However, to come out and state that to be his position would, from a PR perspctive and a political perspective, make matters more difficult for him. He no doubt thinks that to openly hold such stance will tend to make many people label him as a ‘denier’ and to take his comments less seriously.
He may consider that the main goal is to halt political/economic madness and that this battle is won on the middle ground. It will be a slow war but slowly persuading people who are agnostic in the middle to become sceptical of the wildest claims and to think hard on the economic consequences of the fervant ‘warmist’ will bit by bit chip away at the political consensus. Politicains will cease to push the agenda when they realise that it costs votes, even if it is a good revenue earner. Thus changing public opinion is vital and this is a slow process best done from what appears a reasonable base.
As regards your two claims, Lord Monckton has frequently stated that the temperature rise has halted/plateaued these past 15 or so years. This is one of his arguments.
You are right to raise the measurement of outgoing radiation. This is an important point which is often overlooked. I rarely see commentators (myself included) on this site mention this. I have not seen Lord Monckton raise the point and I see no reason why it should not be mentioned alongside the ‘hotspot’ claim.
Gail Combs says:
March 21, 2012 at 7:03 pm
//////////////////////////////////////////////
In the UK in the 1970s we had about 8 million employed in manufacturing and 3 million civil servants. Now that figure has all but reversed! Our civil service has grown exponentially. Most of them are performing non jobs and are parasites living off the earnings of those employed in wealth generating jobs. It just cannot go on. There comes a limit when those in employed in wealth generating jobs cannot afford to support those in the service related sector, those employed in essential services such as teachers, doctors/nurses, firemen, police etc, the unemployed, those on other forms of benefit, the prison community and the bottom of the bottom those employed in the civil service and NGOs. I put the last two as bottom because many (admittedly not all) are purveyors of misinformation, misery, theft and not infrequently death and destruction and as such they are not that dis-similar to those locked up behind bars.
The rediculous thing is that when the UK had an empire spanning the globe (with all the logistics that that entailed), the civil service was only about 1/8th the size it is today! Tells you something about Victorian efficiency and jobsworth,
It does appear that the window of opportunity of installing a world government has probably been lost. Conspiracy theorists may moot that that is the reason begind the present financial crisis, Technocrats have been installed in two European Governments (Greece and Italy),others (Ireland and Portugal) have to have their budgest vetted by unelected technocrats in Brussles before being allowed to implement them and trillions of dollars, euros and pounds have been (and are being) taken from the ordinary people to enrich the elite, or at any rate bail the elite out so that the elite do not lose a fortune which they otherwise would have done when the Sh** hit the fan. Personally, I am not one for conspiracy theories but it does appear that as a consequence of the financial crisis there has been a lot power and wealth taken from the ordinary person and redistibuted. Not much of it has been re-distributed to the needy in developing countries and it is probable that there is insufficient left in the pockest of the ordinary person to take a second grab. That and the stalling temperatures and the fact that increasingly the blindfolds are coming off, renders it unlikely that a world government will be installed on the back of the CO2 scam..
Kelvin Vaughan says:
March 22, 2012 at 1:56 am
Jakehig says:March 21, 2012 at 3:30 pm
“…It’s equally true for banking….”
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Yes but!!
The response to the financial crisis was a socialist response not a free market capatist response. In the free market, the banks would have been allowed to fail and loss would have lain where it fell.
Whether that approach would have been better or not is difficult to know. Short term, it no doubt would have been horrendous, but long term who knows.
The crisis is now bound to drag on for decades especially in overly socialistic countries like much of Europe where there will be painlfully slow growth and ever increasing public debt due to the sheer size of the welfare budgets and protected employment rights etc. This will be a lingering pain for decades to come. The future for Greeks looks very very bleak and one can expect to see more violence on the streets.
With the capitalistic response, there would have been huge hurt but it would probably have been over in a few years and a correction followed by growth would have followed. In Iceland, they allowed their banks to fail, and this is now one of the best performing western economies. A few years on, things are looking up for Iceland. May be that was a better approach.
dp says:
March 21, 2012 at 6:24 pm
The end game of California’s misspent wealth is there will be no money left for the inevitable adaption that will be required should any of the alarmist nightmares come true. Not a penny of the trillions that will flow into this program will prevent what they say is inevitable – they haven’t the capacity to slow it let alone stop it. Why to into that dark time with empty pockets, then?
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I have repeatedly made this point.
The precautionary principle has been misapplied by the ‘warmists’/’grenies’.
The precautionary principle is as long as yopur imagination is fertile.
The true disaster scenario which the precautionary principle needs to address is that we spend trillions of dollars mitigating CO2 emissions all to no effect because CO2 is not the temperature driver that it is thought to be AND temperatures continue to climb unabatted (since this is due to natural variation) AND warmer temperatures truly are the disaster that warmists claim, and we are now bankrupt having wasted trillions of dollars on mitigation (which was ineffective) such that we now have no money left to spend on adaption that is required. NOt being able to adapt millions die due to rising sea levels displacing homelands, droughts, famine, disease and other severe weather/climate events.
This disaster scenario is made worse since it raises not only a financial problem but also a practical problem; in our efforts to mitigate emissions the western/developed world will have de-industrialised and therefore will not have the industrial infrastructure to perform the required adaption. The developing world will also lack that infra structure. This will compound the difficulties of carrying out the required adaption.
The politicians should wake up and consider the real disaster scenario and correctly apply the precautionary principle to that. Adaption if and only if necessary carried out when and only when necessary. That is the correct policy.
That policy carries considerable upside since it may that no or little money needs to be spent on adaption. Further, it may be that a warmer climate is on balance a good thing (not a bad thing) and not seeking to restrict the warming allows the world to benefit from a warmer climate.
If only politicians were not so dumb.
Gail Combs says:
March 21, 2012 at 7:03 pm
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In the UK in the 1970s we had about 8 million employed in manufacturing and 3 million civil servants. Now that figure has all but reversed! Our civil service has grown exponentially. Most of them are performing non jobs and are parasites living off the earnings of those employed in wealth generating jobs. It just cannot go on. There comes a limit when those in employed in wealth generating jobs cannot afford to support those in the service related sector, those employed in essential services such as teachers, doctors/nurses, firemen, police etc, the unemployed, those on other forms of benefit, the prison community and the bottom of the bottom those employed in the civil service and NGOs. I put the last two as bottom because many (admittedly not all) are purveyors of misinformation, misery, theft and not infrequently death and destruction and as such they are not that dis-similar to those locked up behind bars.
The ridiculous thing is that when the UK had an empire spanning the globe (with all the logistics that that entailed), the civil service was only about 1/8th the size it is today! Tells you something about Victorian efficiency and jobsworth,
It does appear that the window of opportunity of installing a world government has probably been lost. Conspiracy theorists may moot that that is the reason behind the present financial crisis, Technocrats have been installed in two European Governments (Greece and Italy),others (Ireland and Portugal) have to have their budgets vetted by unelected technocrats in Brussels before being allowed to implement them and trillions of dollars, euros and pounds have been (and are being) taken from the ordinary people to enrich the elite, or at any rate bail the elite out so that the elite do not lose a fortune which they otherwise would have done when the Sh** hit the fan. Personally, I am not one for conspiracy theories but it does appear that as a consequence of the financial crisis there has been a lot power and wealth taken from the ordinary person and redistributed. Not much of it has been re-distributed to the needy in developing countries and it is probable that there is insufficient left in the pockets of the ordinary person to take a second grab. That and the stalling temperatures and the fact that increasingly the blindfolds are coming off, renders it unlikely that a world government will be installed on the back of the CO2 scam.
The good Lord did it again!
Clear and simple statement of facts.
(Believe it should be Benchley in the headline.)
richard verney says:
March 22, 2012 at 5:56 am
The response to the financial crisis was a socialist response not a free market capatist response….
The crisis is now bound to drag on for decades especially in overly socialistic countries like much of Europe….
With the capitalistic response, there would have been huge hurt but it would probably have been over in a few years and a correction followed by growth would have followed. In Iceland, they allowed their banks to fail, and this is now one of the best performing western economies. A few years on, things are looking up for Iceland. May be that was a better approach.
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When treating a “poor doer” I always worm to rid them of internal parasites. That is what Iceland has done, rid herself of the parasites. Congressman McFadden tried to do the same for the USA but failed. He was driven from office, shot at twice and poisoned. http://www.rense.com/general27/gad.htm
A Judge who defied the Banking Cartel also died
As he says: Every red cent spent now on trying to stop global warming is a red cent wasted. Don’t mitigate: sit back, enjoy the sunshine, and adapt only if and when and to the extent necessary.
So we need to focus on what we sceptics propose be done. It is too hard to just be opposed to any action. For example, would it not be prudent to PLANT MORE TREES? If they help mitigate some warming great … and if the sun is actually going into a minimal cycle we can burn the trees to fight the cooling.
Is there a blog devoted to such actions?
richard verney says: @ March 22, 2012 at 6:10 am
The precautionary principle has been misapplied by the ‘warmists’/’greenies’…
The true disaster scenario which the precautionary principle needs to address is that we spend trillions of dollars mitigating CO2 emissions all to no effect because CO2 is not the temperature driver …. and we are now bankrupt having wasted trillions of dollars on mitigation (which was ineffective) such that we now have no money left to spend on adaption that is required…
The politicians should wake up and consider the real disaster scenario and correctly apply the precautionary principle to that. Adaption if and only if necessary carried out when and only when necessary. That is the correct policy….
If only politicians were not so dumb.
________________________________
The politicians are not dumb they are GREEDY.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/280715/busted-doe-altered-loan-program-bulletins-andrew-stiles
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2043282/Nancy-Pelosis-brother-law-given-loan-bigger-Solyndra-solar-plant.html
If they actually followed the precautionary principle we would have technology funded that would allow us to survive an Ice Age as well as warming. However stripping the “Great Unwashed” of their wealth, their technology, the ability to migrate easily or defend themselves certainly takes care of the “Over Population” problem and makes sure the survivors can be carefully chosen by the very wealthy.
Makes you wonder about all the genetic data bases on babies these days.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-186118/DNA-test-baby.html
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-02-04/health/baby.dna.government_1_genetic-testing-dna-samples-genetic-diseases?_s=PM:HEALTH
http://www.cchfreedom.org/pr/NBS&Parents_Brief2.pdf
You can’t have 5% growth per annum – ad infinitum. Surely the the earth’s resources will run out out at some point? Maybe it’s some kind of multi-gerarational ponzi (read fiat money) ponzi scheme. Just sayin’.
It’s a start.
“On Dennis Miller’s radio show Thursday Lord Christopher Monckton, a former policy adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and an activist against global warming “alarmism,” went all-in on questioning President Barack Obama’s citizenship.
“… the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley hinted about his position on the issue in April 2010 at a tea party rally on the National Mall near the White House.
But on Miller’s show, he said the birth certificate issue was far more important that combatting so-called anthropogenic global warming.
“I mean, hey you got a president who has a false birth certificate on the Internet, on the White House website,” Monckton said. “It’s not even clear where he was born…
“… Miller protested by saying he disagreed with the suggestion that Obama has a fraudulent birth certificate. But Monckton dug in his heels.
“I don’t know whether he is Kenyan or not,” Monckton said.
“The point is that if I were you, I would want to make absolutely sure that he was born here before allowing him to be elected. And the birth certificate that he put up on that website, I don’t know where he was born. But I do know that birth certificate isn’t genuine.”
Monckton firmly asserted that the birth certificate on the White House website wasn’t real, and claimed it could be dismantled with software.
“It appears in layers on the screen in such a way you can remove quite separately each of the individual dates,”
Monckton said.
“You use Adobe Illustrator and each of the individual dates is in its own separate layer. This thing has been fabricated. Sheriff [Joe] Arpaio of Arizona has had a team on this for six months. And he has now gone public and said there’s something very desperately wrong with this and of course nobody is saying anything because the entire electorate has been fooled.”
“… I haven’t a clue where Obama was born and I wouldn’t want to entreat into the private grief behind investigating. But the point is, is what he has done on the White House website is he has put up a document which he is plainly a forgery and I would regard that as a very serious matter.”
http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/22/lord-monckton-im-no-birther-but-obama-birth-certificate-plainly-a-forgery/