From Roger Pielke Sr. – Guest Weblog By Syun Akasofu Of International Arctic Research Center At The University of Alaska Fairbanks
Dr. Syun Akasofu has provided us with a guest weblog based on a translation from Japanese of an article he wrote. I pleased to use my weblog to communicate viewpoints on climate science issues from credentialed climate scientists.
Recommendation to postpone the 2009 Copenhagen Conference:
The so-called “global warming” issue viewed in the context of politics and the economy of the world.
Syun Akasofu International Arctic Research Center
1. The US must have decided to drop the making of cars as their primary manufacturing activity and gave it to Japan. The Obama administration and the US public believe that enough has been done for the ailing car makers, and hope that they will be able to survive by making good electric (not fossil fuel powered) cars.
2. What does this mean? In the history of manufacturing, there has been a trend in which advanced countries lose their primary manufacturing capabilities one after another to developing countries. The textile industry in the UK was taken over by the US, then by Japan, then by China and others. The iron manufacturing industry in the UK was taken over by the US, then by Japan, and then China and other ‘catching-up’ countries. The car manufacturing industry in the UK was taken over by the US (mainly by GM), then Japan (Toyota and Honda), and some day perhaps China. This historical trend cannot be stopped. (The US tried to take over the world’s financing activities from the UK, which had lost interest in manufacturing altogether, but failed miserably in the recent days and caused the current economic recession.)
3. Then, the question is what kind of primary manufacturing industry is the US going to choose to work on in the future? It is likely that the Obama administration has chosen the construction of atomic power plants as the next great US manufacturing effort.
4. The reasons for choosing atomic power plants are obvious. First of all, the US has to secure future electric power because electricity is needed for everything, including future electric cars. The US wants to get away from its reliance on oil (and the unstable oil-producing countries), which will undoubtedly either diminish or become very expensive within the next 50 years. Reducing oil imports will reduce the great deficit. It should be noted that the primary purpose of changing from carbon power to atomic power is not necessarily to reduce the release of CO2 and global warming. It is an excuse. This will become clearer as we look into the related issues.
5. How is global warming related to atomic power? In order to understand this question, it is important to learn how the global warming issue was born. In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher, then the British Prime Minister, came to the conclusion that the UK needed atomic power energy for their future, but she faced strong objections by her people. It was also about the time when the first crude computer simulation of the greenhouse effect of CO2 was made, and it predicted a great disaster and catastrophe due to the expected temperature rise, unless the release of CO2 could be greatly reduced.
Margaret Thatcher must have taken this result into account in promoting atomic power, asking her people to choose either atomic power or global disaster/catastrophe, which would require a great sacrifice in their standard of living in order to avoid it. Without her strong endorsement, the IPCC would not have been established. She also established the Hadley Climate Research Center for further study of the effects of CO2. Until that time, climatology was a rather quiet science (not something dealt with in newspaper headlines), but Thatcher put a great spotlight on it for her political purposes. Therefore, although the CO2 hypothesis is appropriate as a hypothesis in science, the IPCC was related to atomic power from its birth and its destiny was to predict a great disaster/catastrophe. This, in spite of the criticism that the IPCC is predicting the end of the world, although we are not doing very well at even predicting the next day’s weather or the severity of the next winter. Science was used for political purposes. At the same time, the world news media was looking for something exciting to report on because the Cold War was ending. Global warming and reporting on imaginary disasters/catastrophes caused by CO2 has become one of their major headline topics.
6. How is the history of global warming and the IPCC related to the Obama administration’s interest in atomic power plants, making the construction of atomic power plants as the new primary manufacturing industry of the US? This is because if they proposed atomic power plants by singling the issue out, they will face fierce opposition of the people. Since the Three Mile Island plant accident, there has been no atomic plant built on US soil. Therefore, the Obama administration, like Thatcher, will ask the people to choose between atomic power plants (maintaining or improving their present standard of living) or a great disaster/catastrophe caused by CO2 (actually, reducing drastically the present living standard, including not being able to drive (electric) cars).
7. For these reasons, from the perspective of the Obama administration, the greater the disaster/catastrophe predicted due to CO2, the better it is for the purpose of promoting atomic energy. As a first step toward the goal of switching to atomic power, the Obama administration states that atomic energy is “green” (meaning no air pollution), that atomic energy is “non-carbon”, and even that CO2 is “unhealthy”. Note also that Obama uses the words “climate change”, not “global warming.”
The physics of CO2, absorbing and re-emitting infrared radiation is clear. On the other hand, geophysicists must find how much heating CO2 will cause when a given amount of it is released into the complex earth system. Thus, in this situation it is meaningless and useless for the real science of global warming/climate to face off against the political decisions and propaganda for the planning of atomic power plants.
8. One problem in this particular discipline of science is that scientists who base their research on computer simulations have become too arrogant, saying that they can predict the temperature in 2100, although too much is still unknown about the earth system. Ignoring natural causes of climate change and even unknown aspects of cloud physics, they rely on computer work in predicting the temperature rise in 2100. However, a computer is like a robot. It can perform only what it is instructed to do by the programs produced by the human brain. If a computer program is incorrect or inaccurate, the output will also be incorrect or inaccurate. In science, incorrect programs or hypotheses (produced by one or a group of scientists) are criticized by other scientists and can thus be improved. That is the way science should progress. However, the IPCC regards those who criticize them as “skeptics”, or “deniers”, etc., and brought this newborn and immature science to the international stage. They stated in 2007 that scientists have done all they can and that the science is settled, and the rest of the task should be in the hands of policy makers. Such a statement is very irresponsible.
9. However, even if the US decides that its next primary manufacturing industry is the construction of atomic power plants, there will be fierce competition between the US group (US, Japan, Russia) and the French group, which has more experience than the US, at last in the safety of operation. (A further problem is that Toshiba owns much of the Westinghouse stock.) There will eventually be uranium wars in the future; energy securing wars will continue forever.
10. The Obama administration is promoting wind power and solar power. However, there is no way to supply more than 10% of the US power needs (Obama says that they should try for 20%, but has he estimated the cost involved?) It is only about 2.5% at present. In any case, 80-90% of future electric power has to be found.
11. The US has to rely on coal power plants (at present 40%), until a large number of atomic power plants can be built, perhaps about 15-20 years from now. Thus, there is no way for the US to agree on any international agreement on a near-future CO2 reduction at the present time. The US has been saying that unless China and India agree to a significant reduction of the release of CO2, any agreement is useless. On the other hand, the US has made China its factory, and furthermore the US owes a great debt to China. Unless China can remain healthy, politically and financially, and with sufficient energy, the US will have a serious problem. Therefore, the US cannot force China to reduce its CO2 emission. On the other hand, in spite of the fact that China is now “richer” than the US, it continues to claim that it is still one of the developing countries and that the developed countries should reduce their release of CO2 first. The US and China must surely understand each other, so that the above statements are only rhetorical. The IPCC chairman has stated recently that India will not agree to a “cap”. Further, global capitalism is such that the rest of the world relies on the US buying power (even if they are using credit cards), so that the US economy has to be healthy. EU officials have had a large number of conferences on the reduction of CO2, but they have not reached any conclusion they can agree on.
12. For the above reasons, is it useful to have any more conferences on global warming? How many international conferences with the heads of nations have been held in the past? There has been no substantive agreement on the amount of release of CO2 by individual countries, in spite of the fact that protecting the earth from the CO2-based disaster/catastrophe should be the most solemn duty of the heads of nations (although environmental destruction caused by global capitalism is conveniently forgotten). So far, all the past conferences ended with a “fight” between rich nations and poor nations. The latter trying to snatch money from the former using the so-called “cap and trade” as an excuse, and the former trying to protect themselves from such an assault, in spite of the fact that the “cap and trade” negotiations have no effect on reducing the overall release of CO2. It is suspected that the heads of nations do not really believe in the global disaster/catastrophe scenario caused by CO2. However, they stated they believe in the IPCC, so they cannot publicly say that they do not believe in the disaster scenario, because they and their countries would be called enemies of humanity, like George W. Bush.
13. It has been said that the only thing they agreed on at the past conferences is to decide on the time and place for the next meeting. Such conferences are useless, although they are better than a world war. It is suggested that they should postpone future meetings until the science of global warming will advance farther. It is not too late, as the proponents of global warming advocate, since there has been no predicted disaster/catastrophe after the release of CO2 increased rapidly in 1946. In the tropics and middle latitude, there has been no discernible disaster/catastrophe so far. This is why the world media flocks to the Arctic and reports on erroneous global warming effects. None of the phenomena and changes they reported are related even remotely to the CO2 effects. A good example is glacier calving at the terminus. Nevertheless, the world media reports that the changes are caused by the CO2 effect.
14. In Japan, they are overjoyed by the statements of President Obama, saying that he is quite serious about “global warming” (actually, he says “climate change” instead of global arming). They interpret his statements as a sign that the US has finally become serious about the release of CO2, and that Obama is different from George W. Bush.
15. It is very unfortunate that science is being used for political purposes. Global warming is an imaginary product used for promoting the atomic power industry. When the truth will eventually become apparent, the credibility of science will be seriously damaged, since so many scientists (not only climatologists, but also many scientists in general) blindly trusted the IPCC and accused their opponents as “skeptics” and “deniers”, etc.
16. Actually, judging by what has been described earlier, the IPCC is NOT a scientific research organization, although they skillfully mobilized 2500 “world experts in climatology”; they were used by the IPCC, some probably unwittingly. The IPCC skillfully created the impression of “consensus” among 2500 scientists. Their contribution, a large volume of publications, is conveniently used for the IPCC publication, “Summary for Policy Makers”, as an apparent back-up document, although the IPCC charter clearly states that they are not supposed to make recommendations to policy makers.
The IPCC has tried to emphasize that global warming began unexpectedly and abruptly after 1900 because of the enhanced release of CO2. However, global warming began as early as 1800-1850s at the same rate as the present (0.5°C/100 years), namely about 100 years earlier than the beginning of a rapid increase of CO2 release, as the earth began to recover from the Little Ice Age (1400-1800). The recovery from a cold period is warming. Actually, the warming until 2000 and the present cooling trend can reasonably be explained as natural changes. The IPCC has ignored natural changes as at least a partial cause of global warming, in order to promote their CO2 hypothesis.
17. The IPCC tried to ignore the fact that the earth experienced the Little Ice Age by using the co-called “hockey stick” figure, because it is not convenient to know that the global warming began in 1800-1850, and not as they claim in the 20th century. The recovery from the Little Ice Age (a cold period) is warming. How many of the 2500 scientists trust the hockey stick figure? Perhaps only very few. Is this then the “consensus” of 2,500 experts in climatology? Unfortunately, the IPCC and the world media have presented this hypothesis as a fact.
18. There is another reason for proposing the postponement of future global warming conferences. After 1998 or 2000, global temperature has stopped rising and shows a sign of cooling, in spite of the fact that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is still rapidly rising. This is an observed fact. Therefore, their temperature prediction for the year 2100 has already failed during the first 10 years. However, IPCC scientists have not recognized it, saying that it is just a temporal change; but 10 years of consistent change is considered climate change.
19. The world political leaders should be able to decide to postpone future conferences until scientists could find the causes for the present halting of global warming. Temporary or not, there must be unknown forces and causes to suppress the CO2 effect or even overcome it.
20. We should bring back the science of climate change to a basic science, avoiding interferences by policy makers and the world mass media. Only then can this particular science proceed in a scientifically healthy way. Only then can we discuss any global warming hypothesis as proponents and opponents (instead of as “believers” and “skeptics” or “deniers” in the religious sense), regardless of one side being in the majority or minority. In science, unlike in politics, a minority can be right.
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My only disagreement is in his prediction of energy wars for Uranium sources.
When fusion comes on line the energy sources, from the seas and oceans, will be plenty for all.
In addition have I not read someplace of extracting uranium from the oceans?
http://nextbigfuture.com/2007/11/two-proposals-for-mining-ocean-for-720.html
And it is a Japanese project, at that.
Errr… US car industry going to Japan? I didn’t know Fiat and Magna were Japanese companies…
The argument that “temperatures stopped increasing while CO2 was rising” is somewhat surprising coming from an educated guy. Especially since one simply has to take a look at the 1980-2000 period to see that such “slowing downs” appeared several times.
BTW, Lean and Rind (Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 36, L15708) made some interesting short-time predictions. Using a GCM, they can reproduce quite well the behavior of the global temperature until very recently. They predict that temperatures should increase again from 2009 to 2014 at a rate 50% higher than the IPCC predictions, before making another pause between 2015 and 2019. At least, that’s something we will be able to test rapidly!
Fantastic read! And Australia has the worlds largest reserves of uranium.
Quit reading regardless of the merits of the paper. Poor text structure: no separation between paragraphs except meaningless numbers.
REPLY: Yeah the formatting sometimes gets wonky when importing into wordpress. fixed that .- A
Ouch!
One to the kneecap, one to the groin and finally a stomp on the head (IPCC).
LOL
Flanagan (22:51:30) :
BTW, Lean and Rind (Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 36, L15708) made some interesting short-time predictions. Using a GCM, they can reproduce quite well the behavior of the global temperature until very recently. They predict that temperatures should increase again..
As the song says,”when will they ever learn? when will they learn?”
that you can fit anything given the number of parameters of GCM models( even an elephant as Von Neumann is supposed to have said) and that it means absolutely nothing for future projections of chaotic systems.
And for me, an educated gal, with a doctorate and over forty years experience in fitting models to data with computer programs, the ten year hiatus of temperature rise while CO2 rises merrily on is a good indication that CO2 has little to do with the case.
Uranium wars seem unlikely. Either fusion or thorium based fission will probably work out eventually (see recent Scientific American article regarding the latter). In the meantime, there will be enough people with common sense to enable continued use of coal (hopefully with unabated pressure from us all to continually reduce actual pollutants such as sulphur compounds, mercury, heavy metals, etc.).
http://www.ge-energy.com/prod_serv/products/nuclear_energy/en/index.htm
GE have a big stake in Nuclear Power.
One small comment:
In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher, then the British Prime Minister, came to the conclusion that the UK needed atomic power energy for their future, but she faced strong objections by her people….
I don’t know if nuclear power was a big draw, but getting rid of coal was. In 84/85 the UK endured the NUM strike, which was estimated to cost over 1.5 Bn Sterling in lost output and cost of alternate energy. Promoting gas (also plentiful, but expensive in the UK) as a replacement for coal promised to hurt the NUM, and reduce their political power and ability to disrupt the economy. In addition, the UK is relatively well endowed with gas, compared to the rest of the European Union – a policy that forced substitution of coal with gas would play to the UK’s competitive advantage. The combination would be attractive to any UK PM – particularly one who was ideologically opposed to the NUM.
From ’88 to 98 coal consumption in the UK (in Bbl of Oil Equivalents) declined from ~70MT to ~41MT, while gas increased from ~52 to ~88MT. Over the period, nuclear electric generation (the only civilian use of nuclear) stayed roughly flat. See
http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/statistics/publications/dukes/dukes.aspx (look for DUKES 60th Anniversary Edition)
Flanagan (22:51:30) :
Actually, world temperatures have gone down twice since 1958, when consistent CO2 measurements began, in spite of constantly rising CO2 levels. See the second graph found at http://www.climate4you.com/ClimateReflections.htm#20080927:%20Reflections%20on%20the%20correlation%20between%20global%20temperature%20and%20atmospheric%20CO2
The author points out:
This clearly demonstrates the lack of confirmation of the AGW hypothesis, which is what Dr. Syun Akasofu is saying.
From your own observations, we can conclude the GCM model of Lean and Rind has already joined the ranks of all the other GCM models in failing to predict world temperatures. We don’t need to wait to see if their future predictions will fail. As you stated:
Why do these GCM models fail to predict world temperatures?
Because all GCM models start off with the assumption that increases in CO2 lead to run away global warming.
The chart above, and Dr. Syun Akasofu agrees, clearly demonstrates the fallacy of the CO2 AGW hypothesis. Until GCM models take into consideration natural processes such as the sun and cloud formation, there is no hope of successfully modeling climate. This doesn’t mean that by taking these other factors into consideration the models will work, it simply means there is no hope of getting them to work until they do so. Even if an accurate GCM is developed, we will have to wait at least 30 years to confirm.
So why not follow the suggestion he makes? Let’s determine what causes these cooling off periods in the face of increasing CO2 levels.
In all events, the experiment continues. China, India and other developing countries will not halt their growing production of CO2 to satisfy the AGW crowd. Even if the US is stupid enough to do so, CO2 levels will continue to rise and we will all get to see what effect this process will have on world temperatures.
Based on what has happened over the last fifty years, I would expect world temperatures to be driven by natural processes, not CO2 produced by the industrialized world.
While it is encouraging that Dr Akasofu has taken the time to list many of the major things wrong with the Warmist creed, all he has done is cover old ground already well mapped by the likes of Chris Monckton. This article doesn’t actually add anything new to the debate.
O/T More proof that the scientists of the once revered Royal Society are bizarro bonkers when it comes to AGW:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8231387.stm
Don’t agree with his reason. The main political motivation for AGW is to get poor countries to hand over their mineral rich land to the world bank in exchange for debt relief. The principle presented to the media ( in the poor countries ) is that people aren’t responsible enough to look after the land.
George Hunt had the pattern correct back in 1987 when he realised the newly formed world consevation bank was agreeing to take land as collateral in loan agreements to poor countries.
The 1st world public and it’s middle independant thinkers (us!), are as usual, keep subdued over a debate which doesn’t involve or interfere with the main plan.
That said, AGW is now used as an excuse in such a broad range of legislations that perhaps it’s no longer plasible to pinpoint and label a particular policy as it’s main goal.
Grab and control as much of every industry in the world. Money changers.
I don’t know this might be tinfoil hat time but, if I was the leader of a first world country and I was seeing all my manufacturing going to other lands I would look at 3 things you need to manufacture: labor, energy, and raw materials. You really can’t do anything about their population so cheap labor is out, they have the raw resources in the ground so that’s out, so that just leaves energy. The problem is they have their own energy in the form of coal, so you need some way to get them to buy your “new green” energy at ridiculously high prices.
Step 1, make coal and oil evil (old technology, cheap technology, anyone can use)
Step 2, force 3rd world countries to use new technologies like wind and solar (expensive, difficult to create, inefficient, and all the new patents are “ours”)
Step 3, profit
As for the nuclear, Canada has TONS of uranium, sure its cheap, safe and simple to produce, but has a nasty tendency to be turned into weapons so I think creating another set of Indias and Pakistans throughout Africa may not be the best idea for export.
Thus the reason wind and solar and not nuclear are on the front burner, and a very logical reason why Global Warming exists at all.
thank you Mr. Akasofu!
I like your work on climate science and this response to politics and ecconmics.
Go on this way, Antony and Syun!
Flanagan (22:51:30) :
are you an IPCC denier?
forgett this useless GCM`s, which will rebild a climate, which was wrong predicted before.
we know there is warming, but there is no evidence that it will go so far as simulated and not this fast at all. the daramatic part of climate is only made for reasons you can read above. wake up!
The way of the political world is to offer two choices: a silly one and a catastrophic one.
This is because politicians are only needed to defend the indefensible, so if they proposed sensible policies, they would soon be needed rather less.
The fact that they would be happier and the world would be happier if that happened does not yet seemed to have permeated the political ether.
That’s life.
Flanagan (22:51:30) : Errr… US car industry going to Japan? I didn’t know Fiat and Magna were Japanese companies…
Flanagan you are pathetic. In 2008 Japanese vehicles had 38.5% of the US market European cars 5.8%. Toyota alone has 16% almost 3 times the European total. Their share so far in 2009 40.5%, just slightly less than all American cars sold in America.
The rest of your equally specious comments have been adequately dealt with by anna v (23:22:25)
Dr. Syun Akasofu’s blog is indeed insightful. Intellectually challenged greenies can live in tree houses and bond with polar bears, but the world needs energy. Oil, coal and Nuclear are the only feasible ones for the moment.
anna v (22:50:05) – I’m sorry fusion is a pipe dream for the foreseeable future. UK were the leaders in this and they have abandoned it.
I am laughing so hard I may hurt myself. 10/10 WattsUp, especially Thatcher and British nuclear.
Incidently here is a touching story:
http://www.newsminer.com/news/2009/jun/17/shell-gives-university-alaska-fairbanks-175000-arc/
Flanagan (22:51:30) :
BTW, Lean and Rind (Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 36, L15708) made some interesting short-time predictions. Using a GCM, they can reproduce quite well the behavior of the global temperature until very recently. They predict that temperatures should increase again from 2009 to 2014 at a rate 50% higher than the IPCC predictions, before making another pause between 2015 and 2019. At least, that’s something we will be able to test rapidly!
Have we got already at that point? Can we expect to see a CGM modeller right along an astrologer in a prime time end-of-year TV show predicting what will the wheather be like next decade and who will get a divorce next year?
Don’t you see that at some point someone has got to actually predict something that really happens if enough predictions are being published?
Unfortunately, your quoted paper is most probably not going to be it.
anna v (22:50:05) “My only disagreement is in his prediction of energy wars for Uranium sources.”
Could statements like that be designed to keep Canada & Australia in fear (& perceived need of powerful allies)?
–
Interesting read.
O/T More proof that the scientists of the once revered Royal Society are bizarro bonkers when it comes to AGW:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8231387.stm
…Yes, the British public are being softened up for Copenhagen, which is set to wrench eye-watering amounts of new so-called “green taxes” from us. The BBC, ITV and Channels 4 and 5 are all promoting the CO2 myths for all they’re worth.
If anyone needs reminding about all the lies the doom-mongers propagate, try yesterday’s Guardian [September 1]. From the “disappearing” arctic, to melting glaciers, polar bears, rotting seal carcasses, the Eskimos/Inuits, rising sea levels, millions of people dying, collapsing ecology, destroyed industries and the destruction of most of our civilisation, etc, it’s all there. If anyone actually wants to read all their lying, propagandist, junk science claptrap, it’s there on the front page.
Dt. Akasofu is correct that nuclear was the plan Mrs. T. had in mind.
It’s an indication of the shear bloody-mindedness of the U.K. populace that her plan didn’t pan out.
Since then, the majority have been cowed into submission to the green alternatives, (which according to the EU masters doesn’t include nuclear,) of wind & solar.
The green movement won’t accept the only logical power sources are coal & nuclear, so basically, we are stuffed!
DaveE.
Nice! You find the best stuff Anthony:) I agree with most of it too, not so much on uranium wars tho. It would be nice if we could recycle some of the pre existing waste we already have tho.
I don’t buy the argument that Obama is going to push nuclear energy, doesn’t fit his party’s blinkered legacy of anti-nuke hysteria.
It is ironic that conservatives set off the AGW catastrophe scare to drum up support for nuclear energy. Shameful conduct.
However, today the not-so-hidden animating ideology behind AGW is the socialist ideal of statist control of every aspect of private life. Just like HCR isn’t really about providing better medical care to Americans, AGW fear mongering isn’t really about saving the planet.
It’s all about appropriating legal control over every aspect of your life and ultimately reducing your constitutional rights to that of a medieval serf. What a better start than to seize power over every Americans’ health-related choices combined with anything you do that uses energy.
Hey, relax, have a soma pill – a centralized government technocracy can provide free universal health care and legislate fine weather for tomorrow, Obama swears it’s all true.
Hope and change? It’s time for a revolution, alright.